Imagine sitting down as a Nonbinary person to watch a comedy where a character identifies as Nonbinary out loud, uses they/them pronouns on screen, and is in a happy and loving relationship, where the only jokes about it are a series of gender neutral puns.

Now stop imagining. Watch One Day at a Time on Netflix

Being in Pain. Expends. Energy.

{ID: tweet by @/bhalbers.

“me, nonstop: where are the disabled people? why aren’t disabled people represented? did you know that disabled people make up 20% of the population? don’t you think it’s odd that we are consistently erased from the narrative? where are the disabled people? where are the di”}

What should you put in your bath?

How Do You Take Your Medication?

The white male style of debate is to antagonize you until you snap. Then they win by default, because they make up their own rules in which being upset automatically invalidates your argument. The key is also to argue about things that they have no stake and experience in, so they dont snap first. Of course in the event that they do snap first, its of course passion, not anger…

White people are like little kids who make up new rules and obnoxious powers to keep themselves from losing….

At the end of it all, they are happy that you are so civil and can debate things rationally and clearly without getting upset. Everyone shakes hands and thanks everyone for being able to discuss “conflicting” viewpoints. Because after all everyone needs to hear the opposing side to truly be sophisticated. Even if you’ve heard that side all your life and it completely devalues you as a human being.

What i hear is that the mark of civilization to white people is being dehumanized and taking it like a champ. 

They also have little to no concept of power dynamics in these ‘sophisticated” discussions.

Why I stopped indulging people who followed this argumentative “format”

This is so real and applicable to every dinner party I’ve ever been to

This is a particularly aggressive form of Sealioning.

Sealioning is the name given to a specific, pervasive form of aggressive and willfully intentional cluelessness, that masquerades as a sincere desire to understand.

 A Sealion is someone who, when confronted with a fact that they don’t care to acknowledge, say, the persistence of systemic racism in America, will ask endlessly for “proof” and insist that it is the other person’s job to stop everything they are doing and address the issue to their satisfaction.

The purpose of Sealioning is never to actually learn or become more informed. The purpose is to interrogate. Much like actual interrogators, Sealions bombard their target with question after question, digging and digging until the target either says something stupid or is so pissed off that they react in the extreme. The other major reason why people hate Sealioning is because responding to it is a complete waste of time.

It’s an insidious trap. Responding to questions asked reasonably is, of course, a natural thing for people to do. I like to do it myself; educating others is generally pretty entertaining, especially if they are receptive to learning. Dismissing those questions can appear condescending or rude, especially if you actually are condescending or rude.

Of course, these questions are not asked because the person asking them genuinely wants to know the answer. If they did, they would do their own digging based on your statements, and only ask for obscure or difficult-to-discover information. This is the “debate principle”. It is best explained thusly: When you go to a debate, you educate yourself on the topics at hand, and only request evidence when a claim is either quite outlandish or unflinchingly obscure.

No, these questions are asked to make a responder waste their time. It works, too; I’ve responded to Sealions before, answering all their questions and claims for evidence, only to be greeted by even more willful ignorance. It’s a way to force people into responding to questions phrased neutrally but asked in bad faith.

The name “Sealioning” comes from a most splendid webcomic, “Wondermark”, by David Malki.  

It can be found here: http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/873260-sea-lioning

Sealions are just “asking nicely” but they are asking questions that have been asked and answered fully many times, and are unwilling to so much as open a new tab to look up the answer, nor will they recognize the validity of your sources, your experience or expertise no matter what you do. It is impossible to satisfy a Sealion.

Make no mistake.

Sealioning is a specific form of harassment. You may not explain their inquiry has already been address. You may not cite a source. You may not refer to a previous answer. You definitely may not ever point them to a link. You must spend all your time and energy responding as much as you can to every little details of every innocent, polite little question they ask. Sealioning isn’t a sincere attempt at anything. It’s a calculated technique to grind an opponent down.

If any of my followers feel like you’re being sealioned, I can play elephant seal and help destroy them.

Not only is this a thing, it’s actually something various hard right groups are teaching their members to do. It’s essentially just never backing down no matter what, never admitting someone else is correct, and always try to force the argument onto the path you want to go down. So I’ve found the best way to combat it is:

A) Call them out on their inability to admit they were wrong. This sounds pretty simple, but it’s very easy to get dragged into whatever they say next instead of just pointing out that you’ve proven their first point is bullshit yet they’re still yakking on.

B) They try to box you into a corner? Box them back. If they won’t accept a link, laugh at them for failing to understand it/read it. Call them out for trying to veer the conversation in another direction without yielding the point. Specifically state that you see their cheap tactics and find them weak and a sign of a poor debater.

C) Never let them move onto the next question. Demand they answer yours instead. Why should they get to set the terms of the debate? Why is it always them who deserves explanations?

D) Suggest that they’re arguing in bad faith. That they don’t really want an answer. And if they say no way? Then point out that someone arguing in good faith would do all the things they refuse to. They’d read links and evidence. They’d agree on at least *something*. And failing that, they’d walk away. Good faith arguers will reach a certain point and then just say agree to disagree. But these guys? Won’t. They will not leave it alone no matter what. That’s the hallmark of a sealion trained to demoralise us.

And when they indirectly admit that, you call them out on it.

Then you don’t leave it alone. Hound that fucking sealion until he honks for mercy.

Still important.

This seems very like the way certain guys will harass you for a date and then attack your reasoning for saying no, demanding that you keep justifying/explaining why you don’t want to date them and responding with some variant of “that’s not enough” until you run out of “excuses.”

What they are doing here is framing your inability to convince them as proof that you are wrong. That if you were right, your arguments would have convinced them, since they are so willing to listen.

They are positioning themselves as the judge of your arguments/explanations/reasoning, rather than the opposition in a debate. And, having occupied the judge’s position, are of course dismissing it because—surprise!—they’re not impartial, they’re opposed.

bitch me too

Hermit crab using a skull for a shell

Reblog if you support goth crab

Character Concept

There are 4 things I learned when I was 25:

You do not have to be affectionate all the time to care for someone, in fact, caring can also mean a couple of texts or silence for a few days while you both live your lives happily and separately.

People do not care for you less when they’re busy with their own lives. It’s your reaction to them being their own person - and your ability to make yourself happy - that determines how they feel about you.

Not everyone reciprocates to your actions the same way. If you want someone to acknowledge, be interested in, or treat you a certain way for your efforts, all you have to do is let them know. They will try their personal best to accommodate that within their personal spectrum of feelings.

No one owes you 100% of them, not even after 30 years, because someone having a percentage of themselves is what keeps them sane at the end of the day and that’s okay.

These things are so important to learn.

The thing that I hate about atheism as a movement is that it doesn’t just want to critique the hegemony of Western Christianity, it wants to kill spirituality. There is no joy, there is nothing about it that isn’t founded in a pessimism that sees itself as so self-important that it cannot exist outside of destruction. The face of atheism is a white male disgruntled ex-Christian who decided that if he can’t find joy in religion, then nobody else can. There’s a leftover missionary sensibility to “enlighten” people to atheism that exposes itself as racist, antisemitic, and islamophobic, that’s ultimately not unlike the dominance exerted through colonial Christianity

Atheism ™ is just western Christianity with the spirituality removed.

It is still as proselytizing, self-important and violent as it ever was. It retains the obedience-culture and ‘morality’ of western Christianity dismissing all other thought as primitive and barbaric.

a powerful cleansing bath because THIS FUCKING COUNTRY--

This bath removes any negativity –especially mental/ emotional– and protects you from further negativity.

Feel free to stew in your anger while bathing. The ingredients soak it all up and then send it down the drain.