Writers (and readers) who are also, in their own way, fineapples. All friendly here.
Howdy howdy!
Also wanted to say hello!
I'm a spec fic author who usually has one leg in the fantasy swamp and a toe and various other bits splashing around in many other subgenres. I started out in the urban fantasy world and lately have been exploring second world revolution-focused fantasy that's got a little less magic (weird for me) and a little more...je ne sais quoi. Blood on the page, maybe. In the Hemingway sense?
I'm a historian by training, an amateur linguist, and I am obsessive about why things happen the way they do in our world (and subsequently telling those exploratory stories in other ones).
I'm agender and autistic, and my pronouns are they/them. I'm very excited to meet all of the fineapples here!
Also here are pictures of my ridiculous cats.




Welcome, Emmie! Happy you're here!
Thank you, Kevin!
Welcome welcome! 😊
Yay, thank you! :D
Welcome! I want to hug your cats. Especially that orange fella/lady.
That's Tara! She was found in a dumpster as a kitten and had A Very Adventurous Rescue and has been my little snuggler ever since. Her purr's so soft you can barely hear it, but DAT TAIL.
A Very Adventurous Rescue sounds like it would be a good story. Do tell :)
So. A Very Adventurous Rescue it is!
This was back when I was married, and my ex and I had just missed out on getting a little ginger rescue cat. I was at work when he texted me that we hadn't gotten her and I shared my dismay with my fellow beer slingers. I went home feeling pretty dejected.
An hour later, I got a Facebook notification from a friend from work, who had tagged me in a picture...of a tiny orange floofsplosion.
"Found this little kitten in the dumpster behind Gilly's. I've been feeding her for a few days and finally managed to catch her in a humane trap tonight. I'm super allergic and can't keep her. Does anybody want her?"
I hit the comment button with something like "OMG ME MINE CAT MINES CAT KITTEN GIMME" or something suitably demure, and after a bit of back and forth, The Great Kitten Handoff was scheduled for that weekend.
I was at the Maryland Renn Fest with my friend (who was the mutual connection between Kitten Rescuer and me) that day, and my husband was supposed to get her. We already had Willow, so he brought her carrier and went to meet Kitten Rescuer at Gilly's where she had been found.
Kitten Rescuer had no carrier, so he brought the tiny orange floofsplosion in a cardboard box.
I present the following without value judgement.
Kitten Rescuer and Ex decided to attempt to pour the tiny orange floofsplosion into the carrier directly from the cardboard box, in the (open air) carpark of the bar.
The tiny orange floofsplosion was A: very tiny, B: very terrified, and C: very not okay with being poured into a plastic crate from a cardboard box.
She instead leaped from the cardboard box onto the carpark and ran directly under a neighbouring SUV.
And crawled up into the undercarriage.
Somewhere around there, Ex texted me to tell me this.
I am, among many other things, a rather anxious person who is easily distressed at the possibility of Very Tiny Orange Floofsplosions getting stuck under cars.
Ex and Kitten Rescuer proceeded to try and coax the tiny orange floofsplosion from under the SUV for about a half an hour. She responded by scrambling farther into the undercarriage.
The owner of the SUV returned and demanded to know why Ex and Kitten Rescuer were poking around his car. They said, "There is a kitten under there, and we need to get her out."
The owner of the SUV said, "I don't have time for this."
Presumably, Ex or Kitten Rescuer said at that point, "You cannot drive with a kitten in the undercarriage of your car! You could kill her!"
SUV Owner (henceforth referred to as Jerky McJerkface) said, "I don't care. I have errands to run. But you can follow me across the street to my next stop if you want to keep trying."
At this point, Ex texted me the summary of Jerky McJerkface's comments and that they were going to follow him over to the place. At this point, I entered full on panic mode. (It also should be noted that I was over an hour's drive away and thus powerless to alter course on any of this.)
They got to the other stripmall across the street and the tiny orange floofsplosion was still alive and apparently unharmed by the journey.
For the next hour and a half, Ex and Kitten Rescuer tried to coax her out, but as a very tiny, very terrified orange floofplosion, she was having NONE OF THAT.
After an hour and a half, Jerky McJerkface and the family returned and was like, "This is ridiculous. You can't keep poking at my car."
And I texted my ex to say he should call the police because I was pretty sure that purposely and knowingly endangering an animal is some sort of illegal. (It is.)
Ex suggested that they drive to a tyre place up the road to see if they could jack up the car to get her out. Jerky McJerkface agreed.
They drove a mile up the road to this place with the tiny terrified orange floofsplosion in the undercarriage of the SUV.
When they got there and explained, the tyre guy was like, "Uh, I know nothing about stuck kittens", but they finally induced him to get the car up on a jack.
AND FROM THE BOWELS OF THAT SUV CAME A TINY TERRIFIED ORANGE FLOOFSPLOSION.
Meanwhile, I was at the Renn Fest a slobbering mess of death, half-convinced that Jerky McJerkface was going to kill this kitten I was trying to give a forever home to.
I got home that night, and the tiny orange floofsplosion (henceforth referred to as Tara) was in the spare bathroom, covered in fleas and axle grease. Ex and I bathed her twice, watching scores of fleas abandon ship into the water, scrubbing her about as well as we could, and then I wrapped her in a towel and put her on my lap.
Little Tara looked up at me with these enormous ears dwarfing her face, and I have never been so certain that a critter knew they were being rescued. She's been my baby ever since. When she was still little, she'd crawl up on my chest while I wrote and snuggle into the crook of my neck and purrgle in my ear for hours. We moved about two weeks later, and the first real dinner we cooked in the new apartment, this little dumpster kitten teleported ONTO my mashed potatoes before I could blink. For the first year of her life, she was on the See-food Diet.
She eventually learned that she would get food twice a day, every day. Now she's the sweetest, most polite little kitty.
And that's her Very Adventurous Rescue Story. (Also, she and Willow are best friends. They are currently each sleeping atop their own throw pillows, curled up into little kitty balls.)
And because I am a doofus who can't figure out how to embed images in comments here, this was First Day Tara: https://twitter.com/EmmieMears/status/788772132062801922
Is it weird that I kind of felt like you just tucked me into bed and read me a bedtime story with a happy ending?
I was a vet tech in another life, so stories like this truly warm my heart <3
I'm all about storytime!
Also yay! Yeah, I have a big ole bleeding heart for the critters. This dude does not abide their suffering.
YOUR CATS. <3 <3 <3 We're friends now. Sorry not sorry. ;)
Buahaha. Hi friend!
Hello! A pleasure to meet you!
You too!
Awwww, kitties! Yay for rescues!
Welcome to Fineapple Writers! I love the cats and would own several, but alas I too am severely allergic. I did however love your rescue story. <3
Thank you! <3