Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

oh yeah and there's that new coffee shop that had the creepy right-wing christian guy working behind the counter and thus i don't have to feel guilty about torrenting latex bdsm porn through their wifi connection

so that'll be nice

leaving for a week in ohio at around 5 am tomorrow

first time i've seen my parents since the pandemic started -- not even wild about going now, but at least they're resolutely vaxxed and pro-mask

i'm actually kinda looking forward to it -- apparently my shitty home town is going through a mild renaissance because the local college got full university accreditation

which basically translates to "now there's donuts and a gyro place" but i will take whatever the hell i can get

The SOLFAX stuff got a great reaction, thanks everybody! So I've been in the mood to post some more notes about the 12Fold Universe. Hope these are interesting.

This week: the nanotech system, left behind by the Terrans before their collapse and exile, but cryptographically locked up tight as a "protective" measure for their uplift races.

This and psionics are the closest things to magic in the 12Fold universe, and sometimes they come VERY close-- particularly in the hands of Mercurian mystics, who have modeled most of their nanite decryption keys after various Terran occult traditions.

The known codes and the means of deriving them are co-curated by Mercurian academics and Lunarian civic agencies. The Plutonian shiftcults are violating dozens of interplanetary treaties by using them in their "therapeutic" equinization treatments.

Martians just tend to scoff at the whole concept and there's little or no social or govermental* interest in nanotech, just the occasional eccentric hobbyist. Uranians will put damn near any substance in the universe into their veins but, surprisingly, not this one.

The Venusian ecology is already overrun with nanotech thanks to Terran pollution. They don't have a problem with nanotech, but they consider it one more force of Venusian nature and have granted it the same natural rights as all other life. It is to be negotiated with and not merely "unlocked" and "programmed."

Jovians would LOVE to have access to it but Luna and Mercury have had enough of their neo-libertarian shit and scrupulously keep codes out of their hands. The resulting espionage occasionally threatens to boil over into a cold war. The Neptunians have never met a shiny silver ball of goo they didn't like, but don't really tend to covet nanotech for any practical purpose.

And of course, the Saturnians are innately telepathic and genetically self-reprogramming and feel roughly the same way about nanotechnology that we do about 8-track cassettes and rotary phones: charming and occasionally to be worn ironically.

*all Martians are anarchomonarchists and any claims to title or authority should be regarded with the utmost skepticism except among the most remarkable and respected** of Martian citizens

**i.e., "not Rezeya Montecore-St. Hobbes"

Found this link while looking for something in ancient Gmail.

https://electrickeet.com/Solfax/

Don't share it. It belongs to my estranged adopted sister/exhousemate and I feel like a creeper just being on her server.

But yeah. It's faux-teletext titles she made from (most) my writing for a holiday movie marathon that never happened. The graphic design is all Keet's and it's SO PERFECT.

Honestly, this is some of the best writing I've ever done, especially for the "12Fold" universe which was the basis of one of the three main postfurry RP forums.

It would mean a lot to me if you'd look through it, there's some neat glimpses of what we were up to in those days and I'd hate to have it all be _totally_ lost.

...

Fuck, I miss her.

I forgot to mention the most charming thing about this whole mess:

She pronounces "meme" as "may-may." This whole thing is so twisted and so pure and I feel so much like I've walked into some kind of movie.

"Never trust an honest man." -- Harry Anderson

i think i may have just fixed our air conditioner via percussive maintenance

#aaaaaaaayyy

1) "Monongahelium"
Phish.

2) "Pretzel Wagon"
Laika and the Cosmonauts.

3) "I Wanna Be Sinatra's Bitch"
The Dead Milkmen.

4) "Fibonacci's Dairy" [sic]
Jonathan Coulton, DaVinci's Notebook, or someone similarly dreadful. (I kid! I kid! I just OD'ed on that style while dating a 2nd-gen filker. :> )

5) "Four Fried Chickens and a Coke" (but it CAN'T be the Blues Brothers)
Ween.

6) "The 1-Dimensional Man"
Broadcast. (RIP Trish Keenan)

7) "Pottylab"
Foetus.

8) "Rich Corinthian Leather"
Foetus.

9) "I Loved Your Blue Jeans, Nefertiti"
Primus.

10) "♡.14359265358979323846" [sic]
Foetus. Just kidding. Kahimi Karie or maybe Hyperkinako.

11) "Evil-Handed Dinah"
Nick Cave.

12) "Kangaroo Kazoo #2"
Gong.

What real bands recorded each of the following fake songs?

1) "Monongahelium"

2) "Pretzel Wagon"

3) "I Wanna Be Sinatra's Bitch"

4) "Fibonacci's Dairy" [sic]

5) "Four Fried Chickens and a Coke" (but it CAN'T be the Blues Brothers)

6) "The 1-Dimensional Man"

7) "Pottylab"

8) "Rich Corinthian Leather"

9) "I Loved Your Blue Jeans, Nefertiti"

10) "♡.14359265358979323846" [sic]

11) "Evil-Handed Dinah"

12) "Kangaroo Kazoo #2"

if our dealer flakes out on us again there is gonna be hipster doofus spread across the pavement in midcity

j/k i love the little shit but god i'm screaming for a couple hours back in Squidspace

🎵​It is such a good day to meh
It is such a good day for meh
It is such a good day to
Scoobidoo-doobidoo
Scoobidoo-doobidoo
Scoobidoo-doobidoo
Meh🎵

(closed-captioned for the lounge-impaired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7rh7KffXyw)

Haha I was right. Everything went bughouse immediately after I posted this. :)

Had a sudden spat with a friend that I think was resolved amiably-- that was totally fine, honestly, it happens and they had a valid frustration...

...and then I sat back down and discovered someone was trying to hack my Twitter account. >____<

I think I got it all sorted. And now I am full of adrenaline, caffeine, and righteous anti-phisher rage. Time to work.

It's 10:30, all the last-minute morning chores that have popped up are resolved, no Crazy Cat Lady is calling me to specify how I should feed her buddies within a millimeter's precision, and there was only one issue in my work in-box, an easily resolved one that actually made me feel smart and competent and happy.

I am relatively calm, unstressed, and mentally uncluttered. At... 10:30 am. There is nothing really stopping me from packing up my laptop, walking out to a cafe in the NOLA sun, and having a quiet and productive work day. Our Guy is even supposed to come by tonight and drop off a 1/2 of a good PNW sativa.

I don't trust any of this. It's too good to be true. I smell conspiracy. *gets on her haunches and watches the horizon warily*

*quietly skips past Love Tractor's "We All Loved Each Other So Much" on her mp3 player and stares at a bulging emotional vault for a few minutes to make sure it stays CLOSED*

Sigh. This will surely heal some day.

I'm starting to feel like the whole theme of the last couple years was "all your favorite gods from Bast to Antler Mom have gotten together and decided they are GOING to teach you tact and patience even if it kills you."

aarrrrrghh so the hulu ad algorithm picks THIS FUCKING WEEK to decide i'm a good target for 10 consecutive ads for cat food

fuuuuuuuuck you 😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾😾

She kept her "thank you" text, in response to me letting her know her babies have been fed, down to five characters. I am so proud of her. :)

I mean, FFS, she's 79 but she also says she's got a PhD in Psych and has run three successful businesses so she'd BETTER be capable of learning. :)

But yeah, last night and this morning's feeds went pretty smoothly and she's backed off a bit on the huge ramblings lists of instructions.

And we chatted more about Peebles and her inestimable charms. Huntress/diplomat is a FASCINATING dual class but Peebs seems to have mastered it.. ^___^

listening to Herb Alpert's "Zorba the Greek" of all the damn things, feeling curiously and probably unwarrantedly optimistic about everything

i am sure that mood will pass tomorrow upon contact with the enemy :)

and yeah, the canid urges passed. brill must have fucked off for a snack or a chewtoy or something. what can i say, nothing has EVER fit me better than tiger, and i suspect nothing ever will

Dawned on me I haven't introduced myselves to a great many of the folks I've met through Masto. In case any of you are curious, here's a quick rundown.

HRATHA (female lynx): You are VERY privileged to hear her name. She hid it for years and would only let me refer to her as "LynxOps." She is my oldest intact persona. She showed up when I was 12-13 and tried to convince me this world was imaginary and hers was real. She did not entirely succeed in this thankfully, nor did she entirely fail, thankfully, and over the years she settled into a role as my prime guardian/organizer, then retired and took a role as "that crazy mystic lady in the woods who shows up to help when we need her most."

NOELLE (female unicorn): My second-oldest. Basically Fluttershy before Fluttershy, though lately she's almost more reminiscent of Molly Grue from Last Unicorn-- loving and sad and jaded and brutally honest. Used to have big, big Christian meaning for me, back when I was in my mid-teens and shifting from Naive Fundie Shithead to Compassionate Christian Mystic. That kicked off a tradition of Noelle serving as the container for whatever ideology I've most recently abandoned. She stayed Christian for years after I went agnostic. She suffered hugely during the Seattle fallout and was essentially in traction for a couple years. Now she's making a full recovery (of which y'all were a huge huge part), and her current role is "big perv" now that my libido has waned and I've gone borderline ace.

RUBIN/KIRSCHBAER (male/femme-neuter raccoon): Third-oldest, showed up during one of my very first self-hypnosis/meditation experiments, just... kinda hangin' out at the top of the mountain stream I was visualizing. Didn't make any effort to imagine them at all, they were just kinda there. Rubin was a screaming hippie and represented my flower-child radical side. Kirsch fulfills a totally different role, a mad scientist who provides my otherwise very weak capacity for emotional detachment. Kinda evil in a fun way. She's probably responsible for most of my trolling shenanigans. =(^).(^);=

SALAHUDDIN/REZEYA (male/female tiger): You already know that second motherfucker. She's my front-end, the big mean snuggly moody Martian kitty! Empress* of Mars! Sala is canonically her great-uncle, a heretical Marxist-Muslim mystic and adventurer, a proto-Martian culture hero. Sala came from a glorious moment when I was in the Cleveland Flats late at night, clubbing with some friends from college. There were some very macho and aggressive fratboy types out on the streets, and I dealt with the intimidation by imagining myself EIGHT FEET TALL, fuckin' untouchable, and towering with indifferent calm and poise. The tigers are my attempt to deal with the fact I can be a twitchy, loud, bitey mess with terrible impulse control no matter how kind my intentions are. They are a gentle warning: we are basically Hobbes. You might get cuddled but we can't absolutely guarantee you won't get mauled if you start hassling us. THE WARM FUZZY BELLY IS A TRAP.

Oh, and Martian Tigers came 100% out of an attempt to annoy @acetone_kitten's pseudo-Canadian anarchosocialist mooncat character. It succeeded. It was awesome. =^_~=

Those are my Main Four, the core. Others come and go, but all have voting rights on The Council.

ALBA (female cat): Transfeline, born as a rabbit. Was a Tapestries character I used to explore some of my trans leanings metaphorically. She was based on Eduardo Kac's "GFP bunny" art/genetics project. (Look it up, should still be out there. Crazy story.) Ended up one of the aforementioned mooncats. Still love her anyway. :) Very organized and focus-minded and helpful, exceptional administrator, basically my Barbara Gordon.

ENMERKAR (genderqueer dragon): Big pedantic jerk who lives in the Library of Babel (from Jorge Luis Borges's story). Loves the shit outta Peganthyrus, who is the ONLY creature they will allow to have a permanent portal into their library basement lair. Spends a lot of time flipping through grimoires muttering real curses at people he doesn't like. Don't believe a word he says-- not because he's a liar, but because he lives in a RANDOMIZED library with history books from all over the multiverse and gets more than a little confused about what's real here sometimes.

LAIKA (female dog-revenant): Feh, you nyet know Laika? She go to space, she die, she come back. Is fine, you get used to smell. Mind own business, capitalist imperial gangster human. Laika once wery evil, spend week in Glorious People's Revolutionary Stereolab Dungeon, come back, how you say, the chaos good. Laika still nyet say where she bury bodies.

POIUYT (gender-indeterminate jackalope): Little fae kid, one of the Great Jackalope Mother Oaraeu's infinite unreal children. Don't see much of 'em, but they're in here! Wish I knew 'em better. Cute, precocious, friendly trouble.

PNOIKELUR (as-yet-unknown lammergeier): I... don't really know who this dude is yet. I don't even know where their name came from. They show up now and then during psychedelic experiences. They seem friendly and benevolent enough but they have a dark aspect that I don't know what to make of. Might be a death god. That's fine, been ready since I was 12. *shrug* But if you're my psychopomp, could you get me another 20-30 years? I really need to keep an eye on this dragon.

ASTON (neuter marten): Yes, it's an Aston-Martin. I do not apologize. This is my Head Lawyer. Good critter, short and pudgy green Jovian weaselthing from the 12Fold universe. (Jovians are basically "how I would fix libertarians into decent people if I had infinite worldbuilding credits." Stupidly ethical and cooperative laissez-faire society.) Thick Brooklyn accent. Utterly fair and impartial. Tact of a runaway Peterbilt truck.

LAUDANUM (genderless cosmic yuck): Dead. I'm glad. They were an echthros. (See the Wrinkle In Time series.) Infested with the damn things for years. Nasty thing, slimy grey-green and covered in eternally hungry, sad mouths. Unable to feel anything but numb despair or cruel ironic pleasure and the need to spread them. Don't even know when we finally killed it. I only just realized today, "Wait... Laudanum's gone." I think dragons are innately toxic to echthroi. Noelle probably gave it a good hoofing when I wasn't looking too. <3

BRILL (female human/canine amalgam): The new girl. Evil-thing-hunter from a Hellmouth-like horror town. (I refuse to say "monster-hunter," like being a monster somehow makes you fair game.) Merged with her childhood Aussie Shepherd buddy. Ruthless caregiver, heart of iron. Punky and butch, probably has at least one side of her head shaved. Got me through raising two rambunctious kittens in a very small apartment. A drooly-tongued saint.

There have been others, but they are rare sightings and elude me at the moment. Sorry, guys! Present yourselves and I'll make sure you're counted!