Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

@Leucrotta I can't hear you over my rage. ;)

So much of modern activism feels like you've got a 5-year-old with one of those novelty finger traps, and you're trying to explain that just trying to pull them off will only make it worse. And they look at you like you're a complete idiot and say "But I want to get get them OFF of me" and they pull until their face turns beet red, because the only tactic they have available is "identify the thing causing problems and apply blunt force until it goes away."

@Leucrotta Wait, no, wasn't that the cartoon about the brightly colored snakes living in a magical snake kingdom?

@Phorm @anthracite How cat be flat when cat am so fat?

@Thaminga This is all actually pretty comforting, and I really did kinda need someone to commiserate with who understands. yanno? *hug* But I mean, I turn 45 in a few weeks. It's hard not to feel like I've missed my chance for a lot of those better things. And that's also OK, because I can still focus on trying to make sure OTHER people get them, and I did have my fun... it was just over so fast, you know?

@JulieSqveakaroo (Oh and in case there's the faintest doubt: "weird" is ALWAYS a compliment from me of course. n.n )

@JulieSqveakaroo Oh goodness yes, I dunno what I'd do without any of you folks. But what I had in Seattle was INTIMATE. It was like losing a sister. You're more like a weird bouncy cousin that I'm always delighted to see. <3 <3 <3 Those Two were more like flesh and blood. They were part of my daily life for like eight years. That sorta thing cuts deep. But it doesn't mean I treasure having y'all around any less. ​❤️​

And I didn't get the Best Friend Squad, and I never even got a proper goodbye or chance to say I'm sorry. But I did get three cats, a lizard, a good job, all of you, and very pretty town that only sporadically tries to kill me. And that's OK. I'm going to be OK. Even if I get washed right into the sea tomorrow, it's OK.

Unless I completely fail... and boy do I think I will... Parallax is gonna be something very, very different. Nobody's gonna get their true love. The world won't stop doing what the world does. Flowers won't grow where there's supposed to be stone, plagues won't be cured by crying, and the power of friendship will be about as enduring as it is in the real world, i.e., like a hunk of prettily painted plaster.

And... I say this through tears... it's going to be OK. Everyone's still gonna be OK. The world's gonna be OK. It'll be a happy ending, if you can deal with the fact good things end for good and the bad stuff never actually goes away. But it's gonna be OK.

Yeah. I love these crazy kids and I'm very grateful to Noelle for the huge blow she just struck for queer love and hope. And a contented purr from Catra is worth five quadrillion in small unmarked bills. But I also feel like I just drank a gallon of pink sugar water that was labeled as a health potion.

I sure don't feel any different.

I finished the show.

I loved it but I feel like I've been lied to yet again.

We were the Best Friend Squad too. We used to tell each other we loved each other and our friendship was the most important thing and it would save us all.

It doesn't happen. We don't say it anymore. Not even the ones who will still talk to me. Nobody but Peggy, really. (OK. give or take a couple, especially that weird frost lizard. <3 )

But still. It doesn't work. Things decay in the real world and that's OK. Why can't we have a show that'll tell us that's OK?

@Soreth It's still a lot of fun! Just... don't expect in-depth film analysis or anything remotely approaching it. They're still fairly witty... they're just kinda clueless.

The unique agony of finding a podcast starring several of your favorite actors only to realize several episodes in that they're all ROCK STUPID.

How Did This Get Made, incidentally. It's a bad cinema podcast, and I'm actually enjoying it, snark aside. It's Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas -- who are all funny as hell on TV, and are actually pretty charming and fun on HDTGM.

But good lord, they're just... thick. Anything that's remotely abstract in any film seems to confuse the hell out of them. They have no knowledge of anything outside pop culture. One of them just tried to pronounce "cloaca" something like "colacular." I just wanna put 'em in a cage and feed 'em peanuts.

@kelseyhusky This all warms my heart. :D Glad to hear the traditions survived me...

@kelseyhusky "WORK IT, BABY! NO GRAPES, NO NUTS! WHAT'S THE DEAL?" #cwru ❤️​❤️​❤️​

(I have no idea if y'all were still doing that chant at Sackstrok... I mean Strosacker Auditorium -- I *hope* it survived!)

@Balina

Ahem. Looks like this dimension might be about to hit the Balina Threshold. Prepare accordingly.

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/04/wearable-robotic-third-arm.html

@arilin That's EERIE, I was just thinking the exact same thing.

After some rocky relationship territory... and months in separate packing boxes... reunited at last.

#LoveConquersAll
#LadyMythtiqueMarmalade (he/him)
#BEAR! (he/him)

@Leucrotta Also I would point out to your debate partner that PLENTY of *nations* don't do any of them. You don't hear about this stuff happening in, say, modern Denmark, Canada, or Costa Rica. But they usually don't apply the epithet "regime" to those places. -___-

@Leucrotta Oh, that I agree with you completely. If the subtext is "nah, you're totally off the wall to imply there's ANY reason to fear fascistic tendencies from this administration," I not only think the obvious "well, fuck 'em," I think they have a pretty weak historical argument. Like I said, Eco's 14 Points is my gold standard for authoritarian movements, and Trump does NOT have a good score on that scale.

I personally prefer to avoid comparing the GOP at large to Nazis, but only because I think it's walking into a rhetorical trap, and gives our political opponents the opportunity to point to horrible things they *don't* do and accuse us of hyperbole -- even though the comparisons are still IMHO totally valid.

I think there are definitely fascist tendencies in the modern alt-right, Trump has been perfectly happen to encourage them, and I personally think one must have their head pretty far up their ass -- and be unconcerned with how many "nice, normal" Germans just put Nazi atrocities out of their minds -- in order to not see Trump as at least proto-fascist. I prefer to compare him to Mussolini or Franco, simply because Hitler is pretty much our culture's 10/10 for violently oppressive right-wing statism. It's hyperbole... but *only* because they don't have the power or cultural will for mass lethal violence that they can't at least couch as Fake News (e.g. dismissing the treatment of detained migrants as leftist hype). "They don't generally machine gun civilians for dissent" isn't a very strong endorsement.