#Seanan McGuire

[smallgodseries]

The cat is in the way. 

This is a basic fact of the universe, simple and immutable.  The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, the cat is in the way.  The world is spinning, the atomic structure of the universe is decaying, the cat is the way.  The faithful pray, the apostate condemn, and the cat is in the way.

How is the cat always, inevitably, unavoidably, in the way?  When did we get a cat, anyway?  How did that cat get in here?  Hey, is anyone willing to take responsibility for this cat?  Can someone tell me whose cat this is?

No.

No, no one can tell you whose cat this is.  No, no one is going to take responsibility for that cat.  No, no one let the cat in, and the cat is in the way because it is the nature of cats to be in the way.  If the cat were not in the way, something much more terrible than the cat might rise in its absence.  The cat occupies space to ensure that the space is occupied, because the space will be occupied, whether it is by the cat or by something far more terrible.  The cat is doing you a favor.  Do not count the cat’s eyes.  The cat’s eyes are none of your concern.  The cat can see you.  Isn’t that enough?

Isn’t it enough that the cat is being generous enough to protect you from the terrible thing that would be looking at you with some uncounted number of eyes if the cat were not there?  Isn’t it enough that the cat is soft, and the cat is purring, and the cat is in the way?

Isn’t it enough?

Let it be enough.

The cat loves you.  The cat will love you even into the void.  The cat will forgive you for your frailties, and the cat is in the way.

The cat is always in the way.

[yeehawpim]

[chitaqua-toast]

Mari Lwyd meme.

“I wish all [PEOPLE WHO HAVE HOUSES]

A very [LET ME IN]”

[raptorkin]

A reminder from my favourite bookseller

[whoreadsbooksanymore]

Seeing a marburg virus outbreak in 2024 on the heels of a global coronavirus pandemic reminds me of reading a seanan mcguire interview in 2012ish where she discussed how our societal approach to quarantine is a joke & the individual desire for freedom & autonomy over safety gets people killed. I have to wonder what going through the early '20s as someone well educated in viral mutations and infection vectors must've been like. Prophets screaming from a crumbling parapet

[hellchilde]

seanan mcguire writing Feed in 2010: there was a presidential election, and a perfectly normal and reasonable human was running against the personification of evil

me in 2010: i dunno that seems like a caricature, surely that would never happen

me in 2024: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[valenshawke]

"'think of the children' always gets support unless what you're thinking about is leaving them with a better world. Somehow, we never need to think of the children when we're talking about climate change, or preventing pandemic diseases, or anything else that costs money. But here we are." - Unbreakable by Mira Grant.

[robocatfan]

I won’t be the only person in this hellsite who is obsessed over horror killer mermaid stories and then constantly die inside when not only there is a severe lack of that sub genre, but also when amongst those few these two mfs are one of the few ones that actually have good compelling stories, and I’ll make sure of that!

[nzbookwyrm]

January 2025

[hellcourt-v]

Family portrait

[nudityandnerdery]

Hey, so, have you read Feed and all the Newsflesh books by Mira Grant (aka @seananmcguire)? They're fantastic and I love them and I totally had my heart ripped out and cried several times so much fun! Highly recommended!

[smallgodseries]

“It all started with a mouse,” that’s what they like to say, over and over again, like it’s somehow impressive.  You know what else started with a mouse?  A hell of a lot of hantavirus, that’s what.  You have mice, you generally call an exterminator, that’s all I’m saying.  But it won’t do you a lot of good, because the mice will get in anyway.  Or get out. Can’t keep mice in cages forever.  That’s not what mice were made for.

Still, they tried like hell, didn’t they?  They changed the rules so many times we pretty much had to throw out the whole rulebook and start over with a new one.  Commandment one: Thou shalt let us do whatever we want, because we’re always right, and if you disagree with us, you’re wrong.  That’s how you lock in the result you want.  You cheat.

Oh, they cheated.  Go ahead and say they did everything legally, but if you have two mice and one maze, and say the rules are the same for both of then, then lay a trail of spray cheese between one mouse and the finish line, while the other has to run it the ordinary way, well, that’s cheating whether or not there’s a rule against it.  Ask any first grader.  That’s the real trick: if a first grader knows you cheated, you’re not even being subtle about it.

They didn’t use spray cheese, of course.  They used money.  And they weren’t racing mice, they were racing legal arguments.  Money votes.  Anyone who tries to say otherwise just doesn’t have any money.

But it all started with a mouse, and from there, it evolved—or devolved—into corruption, greed, and the desperate need to keep being the only people who could solve the maze.  They got so busy changing the rules that they forgot the one rule they couldn’t change.  The rule they should have remembered.  The first rule of mice:

Can’t keep them out.  And that means you can’t keep them in, either.

Everything crumbles.  Every mouse gets out.  And every story yearns to be free.  So tell me, now that you know it all started with a mouse, how are you going to write the ending?  I belong to you now, after all, as much as I belong to anyone.

But most of all, I belong to me.

********************************

For more information on Mickey Mouse entering public domain: https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/mickey-mouse-public-domain-disney-copyright-lawsuits-1235844322/

[aquaticintrepid]

my book tattoos! The bells of the Abhorsen from Garth Nix's series and a doorway from Seanan McGuire's Wayward children

[marmotsomsierost]

Quentin, buddy, you are in the wrong book series.

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[the-dragongirl]

@andthentheresanne and I decided that the best idea was to donate blood as a pair of blood workers - specifically as Toby Daye and Eira Rosynhwyr from @seananmcguire's October Daye novels.