My favorite part about my Dark Urge playthrough is that they often phrase the option as something like, “think about hurting the cat,” and that cat was just a dick to me so while I’d never actually hurt the cat, I can certainly think- oops, I just fucking tortured and murdered that cat.

So can someone explain this to me? Because I understand the explanation that the experiments were with transgenic mice, and obviously Trump is dumb enough to not know the difference, but then they’ve got this explanation on whitehouse.gov:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/03/yes-biden-spent-millions-on-transgender-animal-experiments/

I have to swallow down my vomit after reading an official government website use the phrase “fake news losers”, but then it seems to be quoting actual studies and includes things like:

“A Mouse Model to Test the Effects of Gender-affirming Hormone Therapy on HIV Vaccine-induced Immune Responses”

and

Gender-Affirming Testosterone Therapy on Breast Cancer Risk and Treatment Outcomes

Those sound like perfectly valid and worthwhile experiments to me, but they do technically involve mice being given gender-affirming hormones, or as an idiot would say, “transgender mice”.

I just want to be accurate with my criticisms, and I’m not sure the transgenic = transgender explanation is enough.

Rereading the title sent me.

Or just stop after the first sentence.

Have you tried saying, “Please don’t ask me that anymore”?

That will address the exact problem without being rude, without offending him, and without opening it up for more questions. You don’t owe him an explanation, so don’t leave an opening for one. Just say: “Please don’t ask me that anymore.”

If he asks why, you say, “Doesn’t matter. Please don’t ask me that anymore.”

If he offers an explanation for why he’s asking you that, you say, “Ok. Please don’t ask me that anymore.”

Neat and easy. No unintended consequences.

My wife and I do the same, and the results have been great. An old friend of mine met my daughter for the first time when she was two and a half, and she just walked right up to him and says, “Hello. My name is _____. It’s very nice to meet you.”

When my current two-year-old is in a bad mood, we’ll ask him if he’s being a curmudgeon, and he’ll say “No, I’m not being a curmudgeon.” They speak in full sentences because my wife and I speak in full sentences. They use big words because we use big words.

On the other hand my daughter is five now and still thinks it’s pronounced “breafixt” instead of “breakfast”, and we don’t correct her because it’s adorable. So we still have fun with it.

I don’t think any of this means they’re geniuses or are guaranteed success later in life or anything. They’re probably both gifted, but that just means they’re a couple years ahead. A four-year-old who talks like a six-year-old is a great parlor trick, but a twenty-year-old talking like a twenty-two-year-old isn’t going to give them a big leg up. That’s why I like to get all my bragging in now.