Begging ppl to understand that they/theming someone who explicitly has told you that they do not use they/them is, in fact, just as bad as using binary pronouns that the person does not use. It’s still misgendering…..
it's not just that; "degendering" is absolutely a real phenomena that trans people deal with, and I've noticed it personally in both progressive and conservative spaces.
It's a reluctance to acknowledge trans people as the gender they say they are. It's easier for them to use they/them for me because it doesn't challenge their worldview as much, especially when I do pretty reliable pass.
The person in front of them looks like a man and says he's a man, but when he also says he's trans, their whole view of that person shifts. That's not ("just") a man, that's a trans person. Not a woman (especially if he doesn't at all look like one anymore), but also not a man; "trans" is a whole other, separate gender.
They can't, and they won't, use he/him pronouns for me. Not because they forgot, not because they're being careful. They didn't have this problem when they thought I was cis, remember? They do this because using he/him pronouns for me validates and confirms that I am a man.
It's easier to say they/them, in this situation. It's a cop-out, both for progressives who haven't actually unpacked their transphobia in the way they think they have, and for conservatives who are still just this side of actively choosing to be as hateful and incendiary as possible.
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So I wanna tell y'all about something very near and dear to my heart.
This is the Psyche asteroid, or, at least an artist's representation - we don't know what it actually looks like yet, but this is a fair enough guess. It's a roughly 200 mile wide asteroid in the asteroid belt, and it's made almost entirely out of metal. Its composition makes it unique; it’s the only large metallic body we know of in the entire solar system.
We think it might be the core of what used to be a planet.
When solar systems form, they start out as disks made of interstellar gas and dust, called protoplanetary disks. Here's a picture of HL Tauri, one of the best images of a protoplanetary disk we have.
That dust globs together into larger and larger pieces, and eventually forms hundreds of "planetesimals", which are rocky bodies about a kilometer across. Planetesimals had very erratic orbits compared to the modern planets - the dust of the protoplanetary disk caused friction and drag, which threw them off course.
They frequently collided with each other, and either broke apart or stuck together and grew even larger. Arrokoth is actually a leftover planetesimal, a time capsule from the early solar system, and we were able to visit it wayyy out in the Kuiper belt with the New Horizons probe!
Once planetesimals get to be about the size of the moon, we call them "protoplanets". Protoplanets were fundamentally different from their planetesimal siblings - we believe they were differentiated. When an object in space gets big enough, a combination of radioactive decay, impacts, and gravitational pressure causes them to heat up and melt. Denser materials like iron and nickel sink towards their centers, while the lighter materials rise to the surface. The differentiation process is why Earth's core is made of iron, while the surface is primarily rock.
While protoplanet orbits were much more stable than those of planetesimals, they still eventually collided with each other until everything settled into the planets we see today (though gas giants had a few extra steps - that's a different post!).
We think the Psyche asteroid was a protoplanet, well on its way to becoming a bona fide planet, when an impact struck it hard enough to strip away its rocky layers, leaving behind the dense, metallic core - like in this illustration.
More and more, we think the properties of a planet's core are fundamental to its long-term evolution. Venus, Earth, and Mars are all roughly the same size and roughly the same distance from the sun, cosmically speaking, yet they're so different! Venus has hell death clouds, Earth is home, and Mars is dry and dead - why?
The Psyche asteroid gives us the unique opportunity to actually observe a planetary core directly - it's much harder to dig to the center of a planet than it is to go to space, so that's exactly what we're going to do!
On Thursday October 12th at 10:16am Eastern, the Psyche spacecraft will launch and begin its journey to the asteroid belt! You can watch at https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv/!
I've been a part of this mission for over four years now, and I can't speak highly enough of the team that made it happen through all of the ups and downs. Good luck out there, buddy. We're all rooting for you :')
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As someone who's gotten verrry good at the first two PMD games I wanted to give the input that Ingo's strategy is honestly not far off the mark- scanning for items can be very useful, especially if you happen to be a hoarder like I am and pack light for the dungeon ahead. Also yeah, starving tends to happen if you're conservative with your resources, not a big deal though usually.
Sometimes Ingo prepares so much for the dungeon ahead in anticipation of all the items they’ll need to take back with them, that it loops back around to being entirely unprepared for the long haul (<- I do this more often than I should).
Haha I make Ingo a fan of thorough exploration because I’m also a fan of doing it and I’m really the one who insists on scouring every single floor. I love looking for rare items, searching out battles with a specific pokemon to recruit them, farming treasure boxes, and razing monster houses!! So yes among that, I am also a fellow hoarder lol, and I do also pack very light for dungeons to save as much room as possible for whatever I pick up.
Hunger mechanic just really gets in the way sometimes which is why I’m looking hard for the tight belt item right now, it eliminates the hunger points going down entirely (except for a few exceptions I think?) I NEED THAT ITEM!!
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I am way too invested in Stucky and probably overreacting about the whole poll thing but I find it so gross that OFMD fans (just the ones who have been overly antagonistic, I'm sure most of you guys are just happy and supporting a ship that you like) have been mocking Stucky fans for shipping something that was never made canon because I think that's genuinely what makes Stucky such a beautiful ship. In the face of homophobia, the homophobia of Steve and Bucky's universe and of ours, thousands of people have found love and beauty and have created entire works of literature and enduring quotes and defined an era of media consumption in the face of the queerbaiting epidemic of the 2010's. I PROMISE YOU, you would not have your queer pirate show without the overwhelming love that fandom spaces showed for queer relationships in the 2010's, and particularly without the love that fans have for Steve and Bucky.
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narcissists abusing children and vulnerable people: no reaction from other narcissists, perfectly normal and acceptable, nothing to get upset about, not worthy of mentioning
abused children and victims speaking out against the abuse: Hey now. Are you aware that you are evil and hurting mentally ill people everywhere? Come on now. Surely you understand that everything you're saying is causing massive amounts of harm to everyone existing. After all, who is responsible for stigma against narcissistic abuse, you who are abused by them, or the narcissists who are doing the abuse? You of course. Change your language and behaviour immediately. Hey everyone cancel this evil villain trying to hurt mentally ill people. How dare you imply people who abused you and are narcissists are doing the narcissistic abuse or that it is a real thing. How dare you act like all of the data on it and all other victims are experiencing an unique and real type of abuse that has a name. You are the problem, and you should feel ashamed and educate yourself on mental illness. Now, let narcissists abuse in peace and know your place.
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