#communication is hard work

[gofancyninjaworld]

No one is born knowing how to communicate

A: And that's okay...

Dr Kuseno made it look so easy. He just swanned into Saitama's apartment, proferred him a gift of beef and the hero's hostility melted away.

Fubuki felt positively foolish, and yet encouraged.

Since then, however, she's found that the only thing meat bribes pull in are dogs. Literal dogs:

And even dogs need more than meat to be loyal.

What gives? Well, it's obvious that Fubuki mistook Dr Kuseno's gift for a bribe: more on that later. Probably. And yeah, it's funny, but it's more interesting than that.

Learning how to communicate is complex. There are a ludicrous number of unspoken conventions and rules in every human society, so much so that we don't fully learn how to smile socially until we're in our forties. Dr Kuseno carefully judged his gift: he had a legitimate reason to offer Saitama a gift in the first place, out of gratitude for Saitama going out of his way to mentor Genos. Then he chose a gift Saitama would be sure to appreciate and presented it at a time when Saitama would be thinking about dinner. The worst that could have happened is that Saitama took the gift but insisted on the doctor going home (and taking Genos with him) -- it would still have left the desired positive impression. And things went really well. Kuseno made it look effortless.

Fubuki is only in her early twenties and her experience to date has been far from typical. She's learned that either she can intimidate people or she can flatter them into doing what she wants. With Saitama (and later Bang, Bomb, and Kuseno), she has to learn how to talk to more powerful people whom she cannot overpower, over whom she has no leverage, and who are unimpressed by her looks, simpering, or flattery.

Fortunately, Fubuki is nothing if not astute. She's worked out that she needs to develop complementary skills if she's to make herself useful to the S-Class heroes she wants to hang with. How to talk to them to get the help and cooperation she desires? Ah, that's a work in progress.

B: ...Unless it's not

Let's move onto another miscommunication.

Something that I hadn't before was that, unlike the webcomic version where Saitama only thinks to himself that Genos seems depressed, in the manga, Saitama out and out asks him if this is the case. He wants to know.

It mirrors King asking Saitama that very same question and getting Saitama to open up and be vulnerable for the first time (ever, in any version of the story). So it is very appropriate to see Saitama trying to do the same for Genos, particularly as he is openly fond of the guy.

However, it goes wrong. Saitama feels himself under pressure to say something wise to make it better. So he puts on his best 'confident' face and inadvertently makes everything much worse. Oh dear. What makes this particularly painful in the manga is that Saitama is much more invested in trying to reach Genos, and it's made Genos think that Saitama saying that he doesn't see what he's doing must mean that earlier times when he's praised him must have been just Saitama being nice. For sure, Genos could have pushed back and made Saitama clarify what he meant, but he's even worse at communicating: and Saitama's glib remark about being bright struck him square in the insecurities.

I'm going to come to something that I only realised once I started typing this up. Even though I've pointed out their abilities to communicate, neither King nor Kuseno have the perfect words to say. Kuseno started out by first committing a faux pas in bringing his great big outside boots into Saitama's flat, then nearly boring Saitama to death with a long-winded explanation. King started out by trying to guess what was bothering Saitama. Both, however, did the most important thing about effective communication: they picked up on their going wrong and changed tack.

It's not about saying the right thing: it's about responding to the person you're talking to.

The thing that King did that Saitama was trying to do for Genos was to ask Saitama open questions, and shut up in the interim, letting Saitama talk to fill in the silence. He'd only speak to ask more open questions when Saitama ran out of things to say, and through that, gently started to challenge Saitama's thinking.

But doing so means being comfortable with several seconds of silence. And that is excruciating. It is almost irresistible to jump in and say something, anything. And it would have been a longish wait, for Genos to slowly sit down and decide to start speaking, which might well have started being about something only tangentially related to his worry. King did that for Saitama: Saitama started out talking about what was bothering him on the surface -- being too strong -- before eventually coming to what was really bothering him, feeling lonely and profoundly isolated from everyone around him. Saitama does not yet know how to wait a person out.

It's a problem in this case because it's introduced a big barrier between those two, not an insurmountable one for sure, but one that could easily compound later.

Ah well, no one is born a communicator. We just have to wait and see if they work out a way to open up and be honest with each other. So it goes! There's more ways to introduce conflicts than to have a monster trample Tokyo, after all!

And so help me, the struggle to learn how to communicate is 1000% worthwhile.

[lemonwrap]

[qoldenskies]

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[confettishake2]

UGHH TPOT 14 KILLED ME i love twogaty & now theres angst... great 💔

[midnightw4tch3r]

Yandere but they are actually close to you. You're scared and panicked because there's this stranger that's stalking you. "It's like they know everything about me! What am I supposed to do?" You're venting and crying into their arms as you tell them about the countless messages and alarming threats. They've even got their hands of pictures of you! Which caused you to stop uploading on your social media's. You're confining in your best friend, the most trustworthy and reliable person you know. As if they always know what and when to say it. They're comforting you and petting your hair asking if you want them to spend the night. If not, do you want them to be on the phone with you until you fall asleep?

+ Yandere best friend who's coming home with the biggest smile on their face. They can't help it! God, the way you were crying and pleading had their heart racing and hands shaking. "You're just so adorable! I want to take care of you and be the only one to see you!" They're clutching their chest as they sigh, oh, but what's this? If you truly focused, you'd have noticed you never once came over to your supposedly best friends house. That everytime you think about going to get serious help, they're telling you not to, strongly against the idea. Know nothing about the extra phones they have and endless stalking accounts they use to stalk you. Don't know about the pictures scattered all over their home, from the halls to their bedroom. Every single one being you.

[reasonsforhope]

By the way, when I say that I really do believe that we will make it, I am 100% saying that as someone who has been following good news extensively + basically daily for over two years now, and has come to that conclusion slowly and deliberately, based on extensive available evidence. It's not a platitude. I genuinely do mean it, and I could write you a whole dissertation on all the reasons why.

(you know. if I had the time and an in-progress doctorate. rip.)

[saetiate]

day to night with corae (sae x cora)

can i tell you i love you, without having to say it? / i speak your language — i hear it from you everyday. ꕤ in a world where i'm allowed to be much softer than i've ever been ꕤ you can rest your mind, here, with me. think only of me / are you tired? rest your weary soul here ꕤ loving feels easy, like breathing. gentle and fresh as the summer breeze / i didn't know it could feel this easy ꕤ i love you. not everything feels like something else ꕤ there is no world where i don't fall in love with you. in every world, i meet you and my heart recognizes your same, mirroring tune. ꕤ know me. know what i mean. know my heart / are you surprised? i know you, don’t i? ꕤ to be loved is to be seen, and i see you

(he's green and i'm purple, in case it wasn't clear :> if u really read this far here's a secret note: i love you)

[farshootergotme]

Batman 'firing' Robin will never sit well with me because having the authority to fire someone implies they applied for a job, and a job includes payment.

So, Batman firing Robin is like saying he's paying Robin for doing his job. Except, is he paying? The simple answer would be no, but then the next logical option is assuming that the payment comes with everything he does for a Robin.

Since Batman provides the equipment he has the right to take it back and that's not the part that bothers me. What bothers me is that there's another crucial thing that Batman does for Robin: provide a home.

And while, yes, Batman's intention isn't to take away the safe space of Robin or to make him believe he's making him leave his house, intentions don't matter in miscommunication.

Firing Robin means not 'paying' him anymore. It means taking away what he's giving him because he isn't doing his job correctly.

For Robin, it means losing his home.

[umbrellajam]

y'know what let's do it. have Jack Drake accused of murdering Janet for a different flavor of drama and whump

he was in a coma and then wheelchair-bound for weeks/months after the incident you say? he was FAKING, it was all arranged, a ploy to appear helpless and sympathetic, how else could he have woken up and recovered so smoothly from the same poison that killed his wife

new evidence is produced of a suspicious payment trail from before the hijacking, leading from Jack's DI funds to accounts that appear connected to the Haitian cult/cartel responsible for the Drakes' kidnapping and Janet's tragic demise

the widow of the Drakes' personal secretary, Jeremy Whatzizlastname, and other employees all come forward and wag their tongues about the alarming frequency and escalation of the fights between the deceased and her aggressive, belligerent husband in the lead-up to that final fateful trip - how they were openly arguing about divorce

mysteriously, this relentless mud-slinging media blitz only begins after Drake Industries starts to go downhill and CEO Phil Marin comes under investigation for embezzlement/insider trading...

since it's post-NML the scandal blows up even further. the press hounds young Tim Drake, the iconic NML Kid known to all as the face of re-opening Gotham after the quake. muckrakers gleefully tear apart the recent image of a desperate, loving father who was broadcast on national television putting all his resources and influence toward bringing his lost son home

...actually. doesn't Drake Industries going broke happen right in the middle of Bruce Wayne: Murderer? (checks notes) aha, Robin #100 so lmfao yes, it does.

GOOD EXCELLENT PERFECT, Tim's father figures can both be accused of murder simultaneously 😈 and then the Bats have to divide their efforts and resources between exonerating Robin's dad and attempting to clear the civilian name of an infuriatingly uncooperative Batman…

[woolying]

DRDT ANNI DAY!!!!! YIPPPEEEE!!!!! I LOVE U DESPAIR TIME

[kl0ud69]

“more daddy”

[p-s-yokubo]

I love how basically the entire ninjago community is in agreement that Arin shouldn’t get powers bc that would ruin the point of his character but the nexo knights community is just totally chill with clay getting powers even though that also ruins the point of his character

[gt-ridel]

Sharing valuable resources is one of the most important ways borrowers show that they have bonded with another individual/family/clan.

You are a human who has recently discovered the borrower living somewhere in your home.

You have been as gentle and reassuring with them as can be. They still seem skittish, preferring to run away than have a conversation. But at least they've started accepting the food you leave out for them! You were worried about their diet.

Then one morning, when you stumble into the kitchen for breakfast, in place of the food you left out, you find a perfectly butchered rat. Gutted, cleaned, skinned and presented to you on the once clean plate.

It's a valuable gift. Clearly a lot of time and energy went into this.

But you're not a borrower, you're a human. And there's a dead rat on your counter. What do you do when the (still skittish) tiny person starts bringing you cat gifts?

[blushedtrait]

The Valentine kitchen ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀི₊ ⊹

[notbecauseofvictories]

one of the genuine pleasures of working with my international colleagues is teaching them american sayings and phrases that are useless, but good at expressing specific emotions. I've mentioned that "I don't want to upset the apple cart" before, which made two teams in two different countries laugh at me---now I can add describing the head of our department as someone for whom "still waters run deep," then dismissing a colleague as "he doesn't know what he's talking about, he just plays a doctor on tv". I literally saw my colleague writing these down for future reference.