Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

OK, got off a lot easier so far than I expected. Been woozy and tired and faint all day, but not nearly as bad as I expected. Made it out to a cafe with Peg, though it was a bit of a struggle and I do kinda want to flop over.

The side effects are largely over, I probably just need a nap. Again, that was a Moderna booster, for those of you keeping score at home.

(this is the first scene that's come naturally to me in months and months, so i figured i might as well do it the courtesy of typing it out -- now, brain, could you maybe DO THAT FOR PARALLAX sometime soon?!?)

ARCHER [impatiently strangling a security guard]: OK, buddy, just go to sleep. Go to sl... god dammit, go down, you big baby. It's just a sleeper hold, it's never killed anybody.

LANA: Uh, Sterling? Choke holds kill a lot of people. Especially young BLACK people.

ARCHER: Oh. Seriously? I feel kinda bad now. I've been doing a lot of those. Mostly white people, though.

LANA: This poor guy's probably got brain damage.

ARCHER [laughing]: THIS guy? Come on, Lana, he's like fifty and he's still working as a security guard. I don't think we lost a great mind here.

LANA: Fifty? The guy's not a day over thirty.

ARCHER: No way. Hey, buddy, you coming around? How old are you? Probably fifty?

[He's dead.]

ARCHER: Oh. Well, crap. Sorry, buddy. Lesson learned.

LANA: See?!

ARCHER: Well, I'd never really stuck around to check. I just kinda assumed they'd, you know, go to sleep. I mean, who the hell puts someone in a sleeper hold and just... hangs out with 'em?!

LANA: Dammit, Archer.

ARCHER: Oh, but mostly white people. That I've been, you know, "holding." Is that the proper terminology?

LANA: We should really get outta here.

ARCHER: Lotta Russians. Is that still racist?

LANA: Now.

ARCHER: Wait. [examining the dead guard's ID card] YOU'RE THIRTY-SIX? Buddy. I am so sorry. [sniffling] YOU HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

LANA: Jesus Christ. Could I at least get you to leave him his wallet?

ARCHER: [pause] Hard pass.

in case you were ever wondering, peggy and i finally worked out my parents' species:

mom is a bear. stepdad is a moose.

this all feels so... predictably... ohioan but i double-checked our math twice and yup, there's no doubt

haven't really worked out my late dad yet but i have a suspicion here's where i get the big stripey asshole dna from

my dad was the kinda guy you grow up thinking is a complete heartless jerkass and then years too late you figure out what "sarcasm" is and realize he loved you as best he could with the limited toolkit given him

*toasts Dad with a beer mug full of gazelle blood*

here's to you, you stripey asshole. miss you.

@Austin_Dern But your concern is genuinely touching. <3 And rest assured, I will be arriving armed for ENNUI BEARS. I'll have my 4 *terabyte* media collection with me. :)

I think "catching up on Yellowjackets and Evil" sounds more suited to my holiday mood in 2021 anyhow. :>

@Austin_Dern I'll pass. Christmas special allergy. Charlie Brown only exception. :)

@Austin_Dern I... I may be faintly embittered on this topic, sorry. *fangy grin*

@Austin_Dern This... this is gonna be an interesting one, yeah. Stepfather still ailing, stepsister still a vaxx holdout, mother furious, and tiger... has a big opportunity to play The Good Loyal Child here, which aforementioned mooch stepsister richly deserves to have rubbed in her ungrateful no-class face. -__-

Are "severely itchy balls" a known side effect of the Moderna booster?

Asking for a couple of friends.

And those friends are my balls.

Got spooked by the news about omicron-- and by a DIRE-looking reading from Dawn, with Death and two Void cards-- and decided to get my booster after all.

Looks like I'm gonna be set up for peak symptoms right around the time of my flight home to Ohio. *sigh* Definitely feeling something, aches and fatigue.

Mostly just wanted to share data for anyone keeping tabs on booster reactions. Mine is Moderna, seven months after 2nd dose, and so far symptoms are mild but definitely happening. Will keep you posted.

Oh, and I don't personally accord Dawn much (or any) precognitive power, she's just a hell of a good storytelling. But when one of your friends (let alone your stepdaughter, cardboard or not) says she had a dream about you ceasing to exist, you take measures to reassure them.

And FWIW, her last reading was more like "Let me tell you a story of a very sweet tiger with a very overactive imagination and the time they made MUCH too much out of their step-daughter/tarot deck fretting over them and she felt really bad about it..."

@Owlor Have you read Geoff Ryman's 253?

big seattle mood here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa1Au5Y0h6s

@anthracite oh shit, YOU designing a curriculum for a YA magic school? yeah, how can i help make this happen someday? (i definitely shouldn't write it)

whaddaya think, folks -- r34 betting pool on flingora here? 😼​

(as for the show itself, it just dropped on netflix -- i was kinda glad i stuck with it. the schtick isn't going to work for everybody, but there is at least a schtick and it goes to some surprisingly mature places)

@Austin_Dern @Owlor There's this tiger emotion that's kind of a "happy rage" that I suspect will be the result. :>

@Austin_Dern @Owlor Okay, my new S-Rank goal for Parallax is that it's actively Sherlock-Game-resistant by the end. XD <3

So I just had the most bizarre realization.

For decades, I had been walking around with the notion in the back of my mind that my 2nd-uncle-or-something Joey was gay.

This was not a strongly held impression. I barely even knew Joey when I lived in Ohio. I think I've thought about him literally 3-5 times in the last two decades. But if you'd asked me, "Quick, was Joey gay?" I'd have said yes.

But now that I've puzzled out the math, I realized I would have been all of four years old when I last saw him. And somewhere in my four-year-old mind, I think I got Joey confused with Jack Tripper from Three's Company.

And that's the pisser: JACK TRIPPER WASN'T EVEN GAY. THAT WAS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT OF THE SHOW.

And that's why I don't trust human brains.

"the twink > twank > twonk pipeline"

@Owlor That also looks really interesting! I'd love to look at how such an old and established and *particular* fandom has looked at issues like this!

And yeah, my basic stance is that it's a really fun and healthy intellectual exercise with zero actual ANSWERS behind it -- but looking for non-existent answers on purpose is basically one of my favorite things. :)

@Owlor Also, I have a huge soft spot for books and media with unreliable narrators so I probably couldn't afford to be a Doylist about most of them. Like, being a Doylist when reading American Psycho or watching Legion. OMG the pain. :D