I'll get over it if you let me breathe from the skin

I had just been going to mention belatedly that I will not be attending NecronomiCon Providence 2022 starting tomorrow despite planning on it for two years and designing some of the programming because there is still too much plague on, but was somewhat distracted when I checked into the internet by the news that Joanne Harris is being harassed personally and professionally over her support for trans rights, including her own child; it is being framed as a free speech issue in the way that once again seems to mean "you are legally obliged to support my bigotry, but you're breaking the law if you exercise your own right to express a difference of opinion from me." Claiming that her child disqualifies her from holding an elected position in a trade union, as if her trans son is an undisclosed conflict of interest (though it sounds as though she was accused of bias against the transphobic even when she was believed to have a cis daughter: cherry-pick that ammunition as you find it). If I'm exhausted just reading her Twitter feed, I can only imagine how ready to roll everyone up into the sun Harris is. I am glad she has no intention of resigning. Her son's cat is indeed excellent and I don't think I had known either that it is Black Cat Appreciation Day or that Harris' own pronouns are actually she/they since last I checked. As a piece of news, it flashed out at me not only because I like their books and care about trans rights, but because I have just been discussing freedom of expression in conversations both online and off. I hope everyone, cat included, stays safe.

The ocean only half as deep

In honor of Black Cat Appreciation Day, Autolycus is appreciating his catnip mouse and the Big Dill.

(Hestia declined to contribute her picture, being too busy rabbit-kicking the feathers off her own mouse under the summer kitchen table.)