I’m now envisioning a car wrecking its way into a house, and then trying to make cat sounds with its engine and stuff (the meows would be kinda hard, but whining would be easy enough) at the door of the restroom, and then the tires just squeal as it zooms away as the person opens the restroom door. I’m envisioning the sheer, overwhelming perplexity on their face.

I’m completely cracking up over this image. It’s amazing.

Totally makes sense. I mean, it’s surely more than that, but that’s definitely a frustration.

I’m a woman who’s into video games, science stuff, tech things, tabletop roleplaying games (like DnD), etc, among other things. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but I definitely wasn’t properly welcome.

I was rarely told that I wasn’t welcome as a woman, but if, for example, I mention that I’ve been playing DnD for 10 years, it doesn’t exactly feel welcoming to have them try to take my dice to explain them to me.

Men practically never have to put up with that kind of bullshit, as I understand.

100% this.

I consider myself a woman, but I’m pretty apathetic about gender all told. I think I’d adjust to being male pretty well? It’d be weird and uncomfortable for a while and I’m sure I’d find things I’d miss about being a woman.

But between the male privilege and biological advantages (no periods, easier strength, etc), it sounds like a deal to me.

I used to love physical books, but I just can’t do them anymore. It’s eBooks all the way - on my phone, namely.

I love to read so much and the ability to have my book on me at all times is irresistible. Going to the bathroom? Waiting at the doctor’s office? A few minutes break at work? Snuggling in bed at night and I don’t want to turn on a light and disturb my partner?

I’ve tried a few times to read physical books in the last few years, and having gotten addicted to the pleasure of reading whenever the hell I want, I just can’t anymore.

Audiobooks are great for long car drives, but I rarely do those, so they’re a very occasional treat for me.

I’ve explicitly taught this concept in my English classes, actually.

A run on sentence, for example, is a fantastic tool for expressing overly excited rambling from a character.

It only works for that purpose if the rest of the writing isn’t full of run on sentences.

You have to know the rules and follow them well in order to break them for effect. I told my kids that if they obviously broke a rule for effect in their writing, I wouldn’t hold it against them, but it’d only work if they were otherwise near perfect with that rule.

I had one take me up on it! It was cool. She also wrote a postscript explaining what she did and why, which was hilarious, because it was pretty obvious. She’d used sentence fragments to show incredulity. It was great.