#also learned I've been pronouncing “makemake” in my head wrong this whole time bc I'd never heard it outloud before

[the-mountain-flower]

I came up with smn cool that probably only matters to me but IDC imma share it anyway bc I think it's cool

So most, if not all, reading this will know about the "many people still upset that Pluto is categorized as a dwarf planet when it used to be labeled as a planet" thing. I've got no qualms either way, whether or not it's a planet doesn't affect me. But my ND brain started connecting the harmless "Pluto is a planet fuck you" with the harmful science-denial running rampant rn.

Obviously that's bullshit. No way in hell is the categorization of astral bodies and the emotions people have with it, on the same level as shit like "vaccines are bad" etc. So even tho it's technically a small thing, the fact that my brain started connecting them was irking me, so I thought of ways to get around that.

What I came up with is kinda similar yet opposite to the original idea: "dwarf planet" still has the word "planet" in it.

We still categorize the eight larger planets into the inner rocky ones, and the outer gas giants. This is because even though they are all in the same "large masses orbiting the sun maybe with moons", the two types are different enough to warrant being in separate categories. I figured that "dwarf planets" could be considered another one of those categories, big enough to be on the list of major orbital bodies, while significantly smaller than the ones before the Asteroid Belt or gas giants (according to NASA, specifically ones that weren't able to "clear their orbit of debris" which is where the size thing comes in bc gravity).

Pluto, Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris are in a category of their own that acknowledge their individuality from all other objects. Like coming out as queer, Pluto (and Ceres apparently) was thought to be one thing, then realized to be another. (This is NOT saying "Pluto is a planet fuck you" is equal to bigotry either, one is harmless and the other is harmful. I'm not accusing anyone in the first category of being just as bad, it's not true. It's also of a separate enough subject that my brain doesn't have a hard time keeping them separate, so it's not too counterproductive to my point.)

So both can be true, because Pluto IS a planet, just the same type of planet as Eris, Makemake, Ceres, and Haumea.

Is that completely scientifically founded? Technically no, dwarf planets don't actually meet the criteria of an official planet. But it works bc "planet" is still in the name, and there's a difference between general knowledge of smn and the official technicalities, and the official technicalities are still enough for this one.

Is it just a different way of anthropomorphizing the planets? Yeah.

Does it work? Yup. So long as I'm not accidentally associating something Not Bad with something Bad and it's not blatantly untrue, I'm good with it.

But yeah, I thought it was creative and so figured I'd share. 🤷‍♀️❤️