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@keepitsafex

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darlingdaughter
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antigonick
Understand that there is a beast within you that can drink till it is sick, but cannot drink till it is satisfied. Understand that it will use the conventions of the visible world to turn your tongue to stone. It alone knows you. It does not wish you well. 

—Frank Bidart, excerpt of "The Third Hour of the Night", in Half Light

feral-ballad
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feral-ballad

Yanyi, from Dream of the Divided Field: Poems; “Paradise, Lost”

[Text ID: “I want to be beautiful/ and a part of this earth.”]
f3mboyfucker
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disast3rtransp0rt

As someone who took etiquette lessons, politeness is an incredibly effective tool for disarming bigots. You can either force them to reconsider their words/actions by directly and calmly confronting their behavior (by using the rules of society in your favor), or you can dip entirely while they appear to be in the wrong.

Both options are great.

Because the thing is, when bigots pick fights, they are 100% counting on you to get louder than them. Or meaner. They want you to react emotionally and provide fodder for their 'You're Too Emotionally Immature To Understand' cannon.

What they aren't expecting you to do is say one of the following phrases in a polite, concerned tone:

  1. Are you okay?
  2. That's not the kind of language I was raised to use with others.
  3. Do you need a moment to think on why that wasn't acceptable?
  4. This is no way to engage in intelligent conversation. Please try that again in a kinder tone if you'd like this to continue. (I really like this one because it lets you turn their public-shame rhetoric around)

For those of you who'd are spiteful and/or dealing with Fundamentalists/Evangelicals/generally shitty Christians:

  1. What's happening in your life to cause you this much anger? I can't imagine hurting so badly that I need to hurt other people.
  2. Who taught you it was acceptable to treat other people this way? Certainly not the Jesus I remember.
  3. Whatever happened to 'judge not lest ye be judged'?
  4. If I talked like that in front of my parents or grandparents I would be ashamed.
  5. I think there's something you need to pray on before we try and have this conversation.

And my all time favorite:

"It sounds to me like there are some seriously dark and angry forces at work in your heart."

(Nothing stops a Christian bigot in their tracks faster than implying the Devil is causing their bigotry. But you MUST be calm, polite, and gentle with your tone and wording. It is absolutely fair to twist the rules and play them at their own game, but you gotta play hard.)

TLDR: It's much faster to use etiquette, politeness, and rhetoric reversal when eviscerating idiots online and in person, because they aren't expecting you to weaponize their behaviors back in their direction. Don't get angry, get spitefully polite! :)

f3mboyfucker
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kleefkruid

Kinda crazy how my first cellphone didn't have a camera or internet and 17 years later this thing knows more about me than I do and gives people brand new mental ilnesses.

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kleefkruid

my parents: "We bought you a cellphone so you can contact us if your bike gets a flat tire on your way to school!"

Cursed Artifact (common item) has been added to your inventory

daremna
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daremna
"As if anger could be a kind of vocation for some women. It is a chilly thought. The heart is dead since infancy. Unwept for let the body go."

- The Glass Essay, Anne Carson

fidelishaereticus
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fidelishaereticus

in case anyone else needs to hear this it’s ok to be more serious. i don’t just mean ‘it’s ok to be serious sometimes’ i mean in general. not everyone has to be funny. it doesn’t have to mean you’re sad or unlikeable. you can just be serious and genuine most of the time and that’s great. i personally think that we’re too focused on ‘funny’ as the primary carrier of likeability right now. i often feel starved for serious conversation, for serious spaces, for a feeling of gravity. you don’t have make good jokes to give people a good time. i say, goof only as the spirit moves you, & don’t worry about it. 

wheelie-butch
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wheelie-butch

when you download a pdf and it's called like 1328723486basdf12.pdf but then you gently rename it to what it's supposed to be. that's forming a bond with a hurt and wild mythological creature and reminding it who it is.

stuckinapril
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stuckinapril

lol i hate today’s era of absolutely zero nuance takes. a friend didn’t behave exactly as you’d wanted them to? cut them off. a guy didn’t text you back instantly bc he has his own life? he’s just giving you breadcrumbs. doing something makes you uncomfortable? don’t do it anymore. someone isn’t instantly available for you? disinterest. just absolutist statements that often don’t apply to the multilayer situations of everyday life. like. stop. literally just stop it