#and has to reckon with it

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Actually, I think this does link in with a wider conversation that I have been thinking for a while Tumblr maybe needs to hear.

There's a common meme on this site now that no one here has any reading comprehension skills. The best one is, of course, the original "No offense but reading comprehension on this site is piss poor/How dare you say we piss on the poor" post, which gave rise to the nickname "pissing-on-the-poor website". There's also the "I like pancakes/How dare you say waffles are terrible" one. Both of these are great, because they're silly jokey ways to show two closely related phenomena that are probably the commonest ways to fail a reading comprehension check.

The first is someone reading certain catchphrases or buzzwords in the post, and based on their own biases or prior experiences or whatever else, their brain simply fills in what it reckons the poster is saying on the topic. Instead of reading the rest of the sentence and digesting it, the reader then just uses their assumption as the interpretation, and reacts to that.

The second is closely related, because it also uses biases and prior experiences to to interpret the post, but rather than ignoring what the OP is actually saying, it instead performs a series of gymnastic leaps to construct a whole new assertion on the OP's behalf that simply isn't there.

There's also a third, of course; that one is people being so eager to feel smug and superior over someone they perceive as Bad that they wilfully assume the OP is stupid or being serious when they're actually joking. And if the reader hadn't been so blinded by their desire to get to look down on someone, they'd have seen the very obvious tells, sometimes even including sentences like "Obviously this is a joke." (I think we have all seen examples of these. Also, in a bid to avoid as many reading comprehension fails here as possible, this does not include misunderstandings borne entirely of neurodiverse struggles to parse intentions; but, neurodiverse people are just as likely as neurotypicals to have ego play a part in their misinterpretation of others, and that is what this point is about.)

And the thing is... actually, we are all capable of any of these. I imagine a sizable chunk of people reading until this point were probably thinking "Lol, yeah, people are so stupid," but na, nage, I'm not having that. Literally everyone does these sometimes. And it becomes a particular risk when the topic under discussion is something that might brush against an issue that is a pressure point for you, like a social justice talking point that you are forever having to argue with internet strangers about, for example. Your brain holds schemas! And sometimes it likes to pattern match things before it deigns to tell you about its findings! And that can hit you right in the emotions, which if they are strong enough, really can shut down all rational thought.

But. This brings me to the real point of the post.

Because the thing is, we have all saddled up and gone to war under these conditions, or at the very least been strongly tempted to. And a vital skill that literally everyone has to learn, sooner or later, is:

Before you hit 'reply', double check the post to make sure you fucking understood it.

And that does not mean "simply re-read, confirm your bias, carry on." It means, "Is it possible to read this post from the point of view of someone who doesn't intend it the way I've taken it? If I put myself in the shoes of an innocent, could they still have written these words? Is there another interpretation for these phrases?"

And you do have to do this step. You simply do have to. Because if your desire is to 'clap back' and call someone a gargling knobskin made of garbage, fuck me sideways but you must see that it is imperative that you check if they actually deserve that kind of treatment first. You cannot spend your time claiming that we must all choose to be kind and then not bother doing your due diligence before screaming a person's various and assorted bigotries at them. If you misread it, and they were innocent - you are the raging aggressive cunt in this situation.

It does not matter that you reacted from an emotional place of normally having to defend yourself either, by the way. Sure, that makes the quality of your human soul better than that of the average Redditor who just enjoys anonymously hurting people, I guess? But it's also irrelevant. If you messaged someone and called them a misogynist because you performed several mental somersaults and landed on your own sore spot when they meant no such thing, you are the attacker. You owe them an apology. And yeah, sure, you can explain your over-reaction as the product of your normal experiences if you like, but that is only an explanation, not an excuse. You are still the asshole here. You still need to apologise and mean it.

And you could have avoided it if you'd done that due diligence, as you should have. If you're going to take a swing, make sure it's the right target. This was once described to me as donkey people - they don't think, they just kick. This is admittedly a little unkind to donkeys, who always do their due diligence, but I feel it's an apt metaphor.

TL;DR: If you feel moved to angrily reply to something, first make sure you've interpreted it right. Don't be a donkey person. And if you ask for clarification, people are innocent until proven guilty. Ask nicely. If they are a bigot, you can then smelt them for parts.

[all-that-jazz-93]

They put a knife in the hands of an assassin and had her use it to save a life instead of taking one

[dragynkeep]

Naughty Durge gets the cone.

[travellingtribble]

hey, don't cry, Mission: Impossible the Final Reckoning Benji Dunn doomsday vault emergency surgery scene, okay?

[olympain]

Your team has been betrayed, Ethan. All your secrets compromised.

[noodles-and-tea]

Girls!

[tadporridge]

one of my favourite hcs is that gossan and slate are still besties (not that they dont have complications, of course, but they're there for each other) who just ABSOLUTELY play up the beef between them. extremely nonserious. worsties if you will. who love each other a lot

[rattlung]

again idk if this has been said before but i love the lucanis approval when you're going after zara and illario meets you half way. lucanis is trying to get him to fuck off but illario ignores him and addresses rook, flirts w them, tells them that they should let him give them a tour. and when they also tell him to fuck off cause their honey said so, lucanis likes it. he follows up with "this isn't your job, there's no one you can charm into dropping their guard". and idk it kind of reminds me of the comment lucanis makes during the coffee date cutscene where he says smth along the lines of "even before i was captured, most things were determined for me" and adding that w the implication of illario absolutely hating when attention isn't on him paired with his resentment toward lucanis for being their grandmother's favorite AND lucanis telling emmerich that he "doesn't have illario's gift for flirting" like idk i imagine illario poaching any person he sensed lucanis had even a passing interest in just cause he's a spiteful mf

so here "there's no one you can charm" = "this one is mine, they won't fall for it"

i just think the mutual possessiveness is neat :)

[meep-meep-richie]

Just a 60+ year old man livin’ his best life

[capydoodle]

have compassion for yourself and for others. it seems hopeless but any small amount of good you can do is just that much more love in the world

[maplemaplemaplemaplemaple]

and if you don't dance you will be still

and if you're still you will never move again

study of this piece by megumi sugizaki !! apologies that i can't find it in any higher resolution

[all-that-jazz-93]

I love how much Benji really got to come into his own as a leader in this film. Even after Ethan is reunited with the team, on the plane after the decompression chamber, he's still got Benji leading the debriefing. Ethan provides critical information, and everyone contributes something to the discussion, but Benji is still effectively team leader in that moment.

[agnesandhilda]

watched conclave last night and then read the wikipedia entry for the book and now I'm wondering about the category ten shitstorm that a publicly intersex pope would cause

[screamacrossthestars]

starbee but starscream is shorter than bumblebee via experiment gone wrong and bumblebee is just like oh, how tables have turned >:]

FINALLY GETTING TO THIS ONE SORRY

okay, so this is the set up. ill probably do some cute sketches later uwu

scream is a minicon. shockwave wanted to know if it was possible to the conscious of a fullsize mech into a minicon. it worked! but shockwave wasnt necessarily careful in digging around in screams frame.

so hes stuck. for now.

very tiny with big angries

[aweirdofangirl]

The Golden Raven gave me everything, and by everything, I mean a greater appreciation for the most tragic character to ever live Kevin Day. I was genuinely making a joke about how his real personality is insufferable to everyone but gay people in my head and he just clicked for me.

I think the fact that Riko is dead, and Jean is constantly having to be reassured that he will never come back, has really made me see the light. Because Kevin did the bravest thing he has ever done (there was so little he could do for Jean in the nest and that's a whole other can of worms I refuse to open) and was rewarded for it the next year by being called a coward left, right, and center. Mind you, he was going through at least some of the same things Jean's going through (HOW MANY CLASSES HAD HE EVER GONE TO BY HIMSELF- I need to calm down) but his monster was alive and kicking. Riko was inching closer at every chance he had. And it wasn't like Neil, where it crept up on him, it was in the light of day while everyone watched, and he could do nothing about it.

I also cried over his friendship with Jeremy. Jean was right Kevin could never be a Trojan, but he admires their tenderness from afar. Oh my god, I understand why everyone who loves Kevin acts like they are on crack now.

[ficandkaboodle]

I’m trying not to get ahead of myself.

But man.

I could easily imagine being a young and naive convent girl, lonely and confused in her efforts, praying deep into the night in the garden, hands clasped as you weep into the universe for direction, a guardian, a shepherd to guide you towards the path you are meant to walk. And one night, you look up and see this . . .

. . . And you believe your prayers have been answered by the presence of this great and terrible angel.