Hello!

ohhhh so it's fine when humans invent sunglasses to make the sun dimmer. but when I, Astrophage,

Welcome to my escape room. *places an affectionate cat on your lap*

"X did nothing wrong" actually no, X did a lot of things wrong. X fucked up. But I also know that people like X live their lives under a microscope, and that accusations against them tend to get magnified by bias both conscious and unconscious alike, and frankly it scares the crap out of me that you have not only chosen not to question what you've heard, but that you are seeking such drastically disproportionate vengeance on a total stranger. that's not normal.

this post has generated a staggering number of comments/replies/asks all saying some version of "Nice try laundering your argument, but we all know you're talking about [specific person], and i hate you for defending them." and literally none of them have correctly identified who i was thinking about when I wrote this, but all of them have named a trans woman as said specific person.

it's very obvious to me that it comes from a desire to go, "oh, I'm nothing like a 4channer, all the horrible bad stuff happens somewhere else and has nothing to do with me". and then you scroll past posts talking about anti-Black racism because they made you feel uncomfortable.

more than anything i want a world where a trans girl realizing she is a trans girl faces zero fear from that realization and subsequent coming out. Where she can say "Oh sweet, I can just be a girl? Sign me up!", no worrying if shes girl enough, no worrying if society will accept her, no worrying if she'll be an attractive girl as she transitions, no worrying at all in any way shape or form.

i use'ta be da biggest mob boss in da city... but i lost da respect'a me goons. and a boss ain't nuthin' without his goons.

i think a lot of what drives defaulting to "guy" for me when making jokes is there simply are not words like "person" that are funny. guy is SO FUNNY. like sometimes "human" hits the same way but not often!!! guy invokes a slightly different connotation than the more technically gender neutral alternatives in jokes like "humans think everything is a guy." it doesn't feel accurate to say humans think everything is a person. we certainly do not think everything is humans. but we do think everything is a guy. and what is the distinction there? to me "guy" kind of implies a Type, as well as sort of indicating that someone is an Entity With Personhood Of Some Sort that may not necessarily line up with like... actual personhood. when I was a kid, I called my toys that were people or animals or otherwise things that could be ascribed a personality "guys," like "oh I have to go gather up my guys to take to my friend's house with me," and this still feels like the most appropriate word for this to me. that bag full of plastic lions and flocked woodland creature dolls and barbies and beanie babies is a bag full of Guys. my guys are in there. hashtagmyguys

I feel like this works well with its etymology, since it came from Guy Fawkes effigies before being broadened, so while a person is an actual person, a guy is anything that's like...person-ish. Roughly (maybe very roughly) person-shaped.

yes yes yes!!! that's absolutely the linguistic niche it occupies

i told to my younger brother that i had burned the pizza (which is why it was charred) & he replied with "then why didn't you put it in the fridge?"