Good thing I turned the light on because I found tweedledee and tweedledipshit positioned perfectly on the path from my bedroom to the bathroom, all the better to trip me down the stairs and break my neck and then feast on my corpse for several days before someone notices I am not alive and comes to check on me:
There are no fewer than three dog/cat beds and two beds and a recliner on the second floor, and that’s not including the purple pad that Steve knocks off my desk chair when I am not in the office so that he may lie on it. So don’t tell me they aren’t plotting to kill me.
Major Major Major Major
Oh yeah they’re definitely plotting to kill you.
Yarrow
Man, they really are strategically placed to send you tumbling down the stairs. If one of them doesn’t get you the next one will.
Sab
Very photogenic illustration of my dilemma(sic?) My Dad’s cat sleeps in the hall. Every night I trip over him. Every night he is outraged. Why is this always my fault and not his ? He has a whole house to sleep in. He has other comfortable places near my Dad, but he chooses the hall. Why does he choose the hall? Cats are weird.
Major Major Major Major
@Sab:
Because he is the cat.
EBT
Depending on how I want to look at it, I either have gotten tipped on 57% of my stories, or I have been tipped an average of $10.71 per story.
Mike J
They’re guarding the stairs, protecting the second floor from anything that might try to come up in the night.
Major Major Major Major
Here’s Samwise definitely plotting something.
sfinny
OK, this made me laugh, which is a good thing because I’ve been crying all night since I took my cat to be put down tonight. My cat, Uncle Joe, seemed to take great pleasure in running between my feet in attempts to fell me on a regular basis.
Aleta
What a gorgeous floor.
seaboogie
Presidents and other somesuch have SS details – that’s what this looks like to me.
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: nice!
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
I think it’s unlikely they want to kill you. After all, who would then be there to see to their whims? They only want to wound you a little.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, considering the account only has 201 followers and most stories get about 7 retweets I don’t exactly reach a huge audience. And my target audience is mostly pretty unable to tip anyway as well. All in all I feel pretty proud.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
@sfinny: I’m sorry to hear that. Saying goodbye to a pet is something we never fully get over.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
@EBT: Link, ¿por favor?
Sab
@EBT: Math is hard. Good luck.
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: that’s great.
Sab
@sfinny: Tell us about him. He shouldn ‘t go without a trace of recognition beyond his family.
sfinny
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): Thank you. This was the first time I had to bring a pet in to be euthanized. Which considering that I’m 51 and have pets all my life is pretty amazing.
EBT
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.): Well if you want the link to my adult stories I post to a public twitter then here is an index post. https://twitter.com/ADirtyTrans/status/990366659410935808 You are really warned on that.
Aleta
@sfinny: Sorry for your loss. It’s terribly hard.
Major Major Major Major
@sfinny: aw. So sorry. Hugs.
EBT
@sfinny: Many condolences.
sfinny
@Sab: Well he was an ornery guy. But one interesting story about him is the time the co-op superintendent accidently trapped Uncle Joe inside the wall. There was a leak that the building was trying to track down, and in doing so they made a hole in the wall of my shower. Uncle Joe discovered that he could jump into the area between the walls, and he loved this. After about a week of the hole being open, and Uncle Joe doing his exploring, I was informed that the wall would be patched. So I made sure that the cat was out of the wall, and asked that they make sure that the door to the bathroom was not open during their repair. Sure enough, I get home from work and there is no sign of Uncle Joe, there is a dry wall patch in the bathroom. Meows from within the wall.
A frantic call to the super and an opening of the wall followed. Thank god they hadn’t re-tiled yet.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
@EBT: Well, maybe I’ll give it a pass. Nothing against it; just not my thing…
I’m glad people like it though.
Mnemosyne
@EBT:
It’s probably a good opportunity for a little market research by looking at which stories are generating the most tips to see what they have in common that people are responding to.
@sfinny:
I’m so sorry. It’s never not hard to do that, even when rationally you know it’s the right thing to do.
sfinny
Thank you all. Such kind thoughts help.
lgerard
An Ohio man has been arrested after flying out to Florida with the intention of smoking a joint with President Donald Trump.
At least trump has plenty of munchies on hand
EBT
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, I have found that the stories with fantastical transformation gets the most interest and the larger tips. Close by are the more extreme kink stories. The more general interest kink ones and the vaguely furry but not really transformation get a good number of likes, and some new followers but don’t really get tips. I am also drawing off of only 14 stories and since Feb 13 though, so I don’t have too much I can solidly build on. Other than the fantastic transformation stuff is probably going to be where money is.
thalarctosMaritimus
@sfinny: I’m sorry to hear that, sfinny. Your wall story made me smile.
I hope that your memories of Uncle Joe, and the knowledge that you did right by him by preventing him from suffering, give you solace.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@EBT:
I’d imagine the M-F gender bender stories would get the most views out of all transformation stories.
EBT
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I write for an assumed trans femme audience, so I don’t really need to touch that specific one. So far the TFs people have requested have been either dollification or anthropomorphic furry. (I made 20% of all my tips from the cowgirl story)
CaseyL
@sfinny: Condolences. He sounds like quite a character.
John – Three words: Reflective safety vests. For them, not you. So you can see them in the dark. I’m sure they’ll like wearing fancy little vests every night. (Or you could keep a flashlight by the bed.)
Mike J
I should have suggested some Stardew Valley since the multiplayer beta is out. Balloon Juice Farms.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: ooh.
sfinny
@thalarctosMaritimus:Thank you for your comment. The vet had said that he had a cancerous tumor and offered options, but when I got home from work today, Uncle Joe was so weak and bloody from scratching himself that I couldn’t wait. But even being the right thing to do, it’s hard. And as an odd coincidence, this is a year from my being diagnosed with the same cancer as Uncle Joe.
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: and how’s your game coming?
Litlebritdifrnt
Well I wake up early this morning to discover that Donny Dollhands has pissed off the Brits again by claiming in his NRA speech that he read hospitals in London are like “warzones swimming in blood” due to knife crimes. I give you some of my favourite responses picked from UK Twitter.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@EBT:
What kind of plots do you write? For example are the transformations involuntary and cause by an antagonist? Have you ever thought about exploring the implications and consequences of these TFs?
Sab
@sfinny: He sounds like he was a handful. I love difficult cats. We have you and him in our thoughts tonight and for many days afterwards.
Jager
@Litlebritdifrnt: trump should have great time during his visit, hoping some of the people who coined the ‘shit gibbon” nickname hop the train to say hi to the spineless old dollop.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: I was on Queercation in portland for 10 days then got food poisoning last Sunday. I am planning to start doing new backgrounds tomorrow, now that my insides are kind of working again.
sfinny
@Sab: Thank you. He was an interesting adoption. After hiding for many days under the bed, which became his safe space, he began lurking on top of my kitchen cabinets. It was like the Kato attacks in the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies.
Mary G
@sfinny: I’m sorry for your loss. Uncle Joe sounds quite the character.
Sab
@Sab: Put a dog down this winter that I adored, because she was in so much pain. Everything we did to save her was actually torture.
Life (or anti-life) happens. We are all mortal. We need to deal with that fact.
But it is so sad.
NotMax
@Jager
They won’t even have to hop on a train, as Dolt 45 will be in Scotland.
jl
Cole’s pets must sense that Tunch’s noble work was tragically left unfinished and they haven up the cause. I am getting misty eyed thinking about it.
Edit: I forgot that Rosie and Tunch teamed up in their work to demolish Cole utterly. I imagine Rosie inspired Steve with tales of their great feats in those halcyon days of yore.
EBT
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Specifically I write for a submissive transfemme audience in the second person. So far the transformation plots have been voluntary actions by the submissive for their pleasure and the pleasure of the hypothetical domme who is performing bondage and kink on the reader’s proxy. The next TF story though is the sub sticking her nose in to someplace it shouldn’t be and accidentally transformed (and stuck) and the new unexpected life that brings.
sfinny
@Mary G: Thank you. He was.
Sab
@sfinny: He sounds like a very interesting cat.
NotMax
Phew. Gobbled too much Instant Pot mac & cheese at din-din. But it’s so-o-o-o good.
Sab
@sfinny: What did he look like?
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: ah jeez.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, fucking Subway of all things was the source.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Jager: Oh they are going to do better than that, you should check out the #showyourrumptotrump hashtag on the twitters. There is quite a movement of people planning to do just that.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@EBT:
That’s interesting. Not exactly my cup of tea, but interesting none the less. Hope you feel better. I’ve never had food poisoning but it doesn’t sound like fun.
ETA: Damn, I’ve never had a bad meal from Subway. It’s one of my favorite places to go.
EBT
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I fell after finishing in the bathroom Sunday morning and was so dehydrated I couldn’t even try to get back up. And I am a spry 34. Lucky my friends were around or I was going to spend twelve hours waiting for my roommate.
And transformation isn’t really my kink either, just what a friend suggested and boom money happened.
sfinny
Ordinary brown tabby. White bib and paws. Black tipped tail. I always thought that he looked like a different cat depending on your view.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@EBT:
Oh, I never said that. It was more the doll stuff that was weird to me as a kink. Transformation stories are interesting to me in that you can mess around with social norms and roles with them, resulting in hilarious situations, since others see a character as something they are not in reality, where certain expectations and assumptions are attached to the form the character has taken.
Sab
@sfinny: We have a brown tabby. Best cat ever.
I am even more sad for you, and him.
Jager
@NotMax: I haven’t paid any attention to his itinerary, suppose he needs to get a couple of rounds of golf, the the trump club can bill us for it, right?
EBT
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: It was life size living porcelain dollification as well. I’d never have thought that up if it hadn’t been a request.
sfinny
@Sab: Give him an extra hug for me.
WereBear
@sfinny: I’m sorry. That’s awful.
Sister Golden Bear
@EBT:
That sort of plot arc is a staple at Fictionmania (definite NSFW site).
NotMax
@Jager
The admittedly little I’ve read about it gives the impression that there’s a LOT of well organized planning underway for demonstrations and protests.
sfinny
@WereBear: Thank you. I’m just trying to get though the final cleaning up of feeding dishes and litter boxes. Wish the crying would stop.
Jager
@Sister Golden Bear: I used to work with a guy who came up with a Super Hero named King Prong. Here’s how King Prong worked, damsel in distress, hanging from a 10th floor window, a maniac is prying her fingers off the ledge, King Prong notices and comes to the rescue by dropping his pants, his incredible member stretches out, wraps around the young maiden and lowers her safely to the ground…imagine the possibilities.
NotMax
@Sister Golden Bear
Any TF story kink/fetish one can possibly name, there’s at least a half dozen internet hangouts out there for or dedicated to it. Places such as Deviantart are rife with ’em.
NotMax
@Jager
Reed Richards wasn’t called Mr. Fantastic for nuthin’.
:)
WereBear
Cats get in our way when they want to connect with us (it is a kitten technique to get Mom’s attention.)
Disruption in the house disrupts them. They often want to be a compassionate member of the family, and this is the best they can do.
J R in WV
@sfinny:
Sfinny, sorry for the loss of your uncle joe. I’m sure he planed many more years of teasing you in return for your love and affection and cat food.
I’m sure when the time is right you will find another relative cat to adopt and be amused by. And feed and pet. And open and close the doors for.
Last night our more feral cat, spike, who is a shoulder cat if the shoulder is mine, didn’t come in at 4 am as she usually does.
Nor did she show up in the morning for her am begging for food, which sometimes gets some kibble for breakfast. By late afternoon I was worried – she’s but a little 11 pounds of fierceness and slyness, and there are hungry coyotes out there.
But came dinnertime, there she was, after all that useless worry.On my part, of course.
Stay well !!
sfinny
I keep seeing a shadow of a cat out of the corner of my eye. Damn it.
sfinny
@J R in WV: Thank you. Happy to see that spike came back. And I’m happy that Uncle Joe had a good life for many years. Just very sad about the ending.
J R in WV
@sfinny:
After building a new house in the woods, we discovered that a tiny snake, probably only the size of a ball point pen filler, had entered the house. We did this by finding a 64 inch shed snake skin atop a duct in the basement.
I had been suspicious for quite a while, as I occasionally heard little stealthy noises and the cats (4 then) would look intensively at a wall, but finding the skin was proof, there was a black snake and it could enter and leave the walls thanks to loose fittings where the ducts were not well fitted.
I haven’t heard him lately, and suspect last summer when doors and windows were less tightly fastened, he departed for bigger pickings as the cats didn’t allow many rodents to enter the walls.
The two older cats came down with kidney failure one by one. It was while Mrs Wife was in the hospital in a medically induced come recovering from septic shock I had to take Rufus the white cat with a red spot on his head in on that sad last trip. Rufus had a bad habit of sleeping on top of my head after I fell asleep. I came to love it and ot be glad I could help a very old cat be warn and cozy at night.
The night after Rufus was gone, Harvey, a skinny orange alley cat took his place, and it helped the empty spot Rufus had left in me. But then Harvey, a big eater for all he was a skinny cay, quit eating, a sure sign of kidney failure. And like Rufus, he despised the diet kidney cat food.
Eventually Wife asked how Rufus and Harvey were… fortunately she was still quite medicated, and so got over it before she really had feeling back where that kind of thing hurts most.
It does get better, slower for some and faster for others. and keep an eye peeled for the new cat lurking where he might find you.
Take care, and best wishes!
Major Major Major Major
@J R in WV: amazing story, thanks.
Litlebritdifrnt
Oh, btw according to UK Twitter today is #WorldNakedGardeningDay. Whoever came up with that idea deserves a medal, or a straight jacket.
rikyrah
Steve is huge ?
But, you are right. They are plotting against you ?
rikyrah
@sfinny:
So sorry for your loss ??
mai naem mobile
I was getting off the freeway sitting at the red light at the exit ramp last evening and saw a white bunny on a green patch of grass right near the exit ramp. Like an Easter bunny not a jack rabbit. This is a suburban area not some rural area. It was odd.
mai naem mobile
@Litlebritdifrnt: nekkid gardening sounds dangerous. Thorns,hedge trimmers,snippers,garden animals, worms and bugs. Really, a stupid idea.
Amir Khalid
@sfinny:
So sorry for your loss. Be comforted by your memories of Uncle Joe. Find your next cat sooner rather than later; it’s what Uncle Joe would want for you.
satby
@sfinny: so sorry about Uncle Joe, sfinny! Condolences on the loss of your dear boy.
Suburban Mom
@mai naem mobile: Poison ivy is common here and is a definite naked gardening day drawback.
ET
Huh. With that opener I thought it was going to be Rosie and Thurston. I thought Steve was more subtle.
zhena gogolia
@sfinny:
that’s a classic cat story! “The Cask of Amontillado,” meow meow
I’m very sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is.
bemused
A plugin night light or two would be prudent. Advice from a couple of old folks who usually have to pee sometime during the night and don’t want to trip over pets or step into the occasional pet puke either.
bemused
@mai naem mobile:
Truly dumb. The only upside I can think of is that nekked gardener would all ready be stripped down for tick inspection.
singing truth to power
@sfinny: I am older than you, and have had to have six dearly loved critters put down. A vet once told me it was better to be a week early than a day late. Even when I knew it was time, I was almost always too late, and I grieve for that and the suffering they must have felt, as well as just plain missing them. As for the shadows at the edge of vision, they persist, and sometimes in the night I still hear the click-click of Grover’s too-long toenails on the hardwood floors.
As for critter names, my Uncle Bob had a brown tabby named Bobby Junior.
Manyakitty
@sfinny: I’m so sorry about Uncle Joe. Peace and love to you. My Schrodinger is a brown tabby and he is my sweetest, most ornery lovebug.
Depending on how spiritual you are– maybe he’s already watching over you. I hear plenty of stories about people feeling their dearly departed pets jump on the bed or flash past in their peripheral vision.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: The Thinker.
Another Scott
@Sab: Our dog Sophie would never get up for fear of being stepped on. She would behave like a log when my MIL would try to get by her in her walker. Sophie just figured people would go around.
Early one morning I was walking in the dark hallway and suddenly fell over and landed on my right knee. Yeah, I tripped over Sophie. :-( It was months before my knee was back to kinda normal (and it never really healed up perfectly). :-/
(sigh)
We still miss her.
Cheers,
Scott.
randy khan
@sfinny:
That’s a great story. A touch of Cask of Amontillado, but with a happier ending for Uncle Joe.
Contractors sometimes don’t understand about keeping cats out (or in). We’ve occasionally had to tell people that we’ll fire them if they don’t close the front door as they’re coming in and out to get the point across.
JustRuss
Honestly Cole, I’m still gobsmacked that with your track record you bought a house with stairs in it.
D58826
took you this long to figure THAT out:-)
Wolvesvalley
@sfinny: I am so sorry for your loss of Uncle Joe. The decision is never easy to make, but the first time is the hardest. I got my first cat (that was my responsibility and not my parents’) in the fall of 1967; it was not until the spring of 2016 that I had to make this decision for one of her successors. Then in the summer and fall of 2017 I had to do this twice more. Even though the pain and sorrow were the same, the necessity of actually facing the decision was eased somewhat by my previous experience of my vet’s compassion and the true peacefulness of the end.
I hope you will be able to open your heart to another cat soon. I know that you will never be able to find a “replacement” for Uncle Joe (nor would you want to), but “successors” can be very helpful in healing.
gammyjill
@sfinny: sfinney, I know you know you did the right thing in putting Uncle Joe down peacefully and gently. We do owe that to our beloved cats and dogs. It doesn’t make it any easier, though.
Jane2
@sfinny: Condolences on the loss of your kitty.