Conversation

Ooc: Human Ghostwriter here. When I joke around as Lrrr, I ask myself, "whose feelings might this joke hurt?" If the answer is people who reflexively hate all caps or loosely Futurama-inspired jokes from the perspective of a minor villain, people who think joking about killing and eating people is bad, or right-wingers, I joke even harder. But sometimes, my conscience creeps in. [EDIT for clarity: I do not aim to punch down. The joy of playing as an alien heel is that I can be readily dismissive of and openly hostile to the privileges that make life so intolerably unfair. Oh, you have laws and needs and bones? Tough. I want a laser and I will eat whoever I need to until I get my laser]. Lrrr making a mutual aid request for $2 trillion is so absurd that I couldn't conceive of it as punching down. It simultaneously makes fun of the bad people who abuse mutual aid requests and the military-industrial complex while making Lrrr look like a ridiculous idiot who doesn't understand how human things work. And, he gets to tease the joys of wild impossible science fiction nonsense. It's great.

Some people disagreed. Upon some reflection, I broke the hashtag to mutual aid. The people who care about it *really* care. If it works for them, fine. I'll get out of the sandbox. I am not here to poke fun of mutual aid itself. I don't think I did, but if we're having that debate I'm already not having any fun.

Others decided that this was textbook anti-semitism. From what textbook, I don't know. The closest I can figure is that some people have decided that Marge Greene ruined lasers forever for everyone. Respectfully, as a lover of the aesthetics of science fiction and loather of everything that the congresswoman from Georgia has ever done or been associated with, MTG does not get to take lasers away from all of us for all purposes forever. I do not credit this criticism, as I consider it unmoored from reality.

So, who does advocating for $2 trillion to build a laser capable of blowing up the moon, Mercury, and Gliese-581C hurt?

- anyone who lives within 100 miles of the laser construction site. If you live in Northeast Ohio, go ahead and get mad.
- Surfers. That's fair. Not having a moon would directly impact your deal.
- Buzz Aldrin. He's allowed to kill me over this. I can live with that.
- Werewolves, although I feel like blowing up the moon would free them from a terrible curse and ultimately inure to their benefit.
- Mooninites, pretty obviously. I will deal with Err and Ignignokt.
- people who are really into astrology. If this annoys you, I will learn to live with myself
- I understand that Mercury going into retrograde plays some role as a moose in Cree mythology. That's objectively cool, and I had forgotten about that. Don't worry, I don't think we're actually gonna get funding.
- the filthy barbarian monsters who stand for everything we hate and against everything we love on Gliese-581C. At least, Lrrr tells me that's what they're like.

Having gone through this process, I still feel pretty good about the concept. If you think I got it wrong, you may disagree with a stranger on the internet.

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