#which i dislike on the level of principle
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Prepare for a very long wordvomits from yours truly (or just ignore)
The thing about me being so frickin obsessed with luffy and zoro's relationship is that... i just think they really are that compatible and perfect for each other in a way that they just, makes sense
Like yeah i think one or two ships involving zoro and luffy (other than zolu/luzo) are cute or at least ok, but like the amount of love i have for them is like dust compared to my love for zolu:"D And if i'm being reallyy honest, personally i can't really imagine zoro being with someone else that's not luffy IF luffy is present in his life and vice versa?, like for example i think *insert other luffy ship* is cute, but like zoro can't be present in luffy's life for that ship to actually work for me?? So it's gotta be an alternative universe where they don't meet... I can appreciate the fanarts of the other luffy and zoro ships though, as long as they are not insanely wayyy too out of character?? (i just don't actively seek out content of ships that i'm not crazy about)
Not to state the obvious but luffy is my favorite character in one piece:) and right after him, unsurprisingly it's zoro (zoro used to be my number one when i was younger but now he is number two, but i'm sure zoro is fine with me loving his captain just a little bit more, haha)
When it comes to the ships involving my favorite character(s)... i am actually suuuper picky about it? i have to think very deeply about it, like i only want what's best for them, but also the best for the other person too cuz it can't be one sided! And i literally love both luffy and zoro almost equally? (actually i always love the two characters that i ship cuz i can't ship my favorite character with someone that i dislike) With zoro and luffy i've done a lot of thinking. Like, a lot. I thought about all of their potential love interests, every single one of them, but always arrived at the same conclusion that no one completes them the way they complete each other. Proof? Plz just scroll through my tumblr #zolu or #luzo i literally only talk about their relationship😭 They really are the most perfect person for each other. It's almost like they were made for each other? Everything about them, their principles, their personalites, they just fits
Like they are so insane, because at a surface level they can be interpreted as just platonic (which is a completely fine interpretation for the non zolu people out there!), but when you try to look more into it, on a deeper level, looking at every part of their interactions while considering their characterizations, motivations et cetera, like everything just clicks. Their devotion towards each other, all the little things they say and do relating to each other. They are best friends, they are the captain and the first mate, and maybe they are also something a lil bit more? Sometimes i don't even think i can label their relationship, cause from the outside… their relationship looks so simple, yet not without depth (so much depth!) and nuance. With zolu, you either get them or don't get them at all. One thing for sure is that they work really well together!!
Also, everytime i think about zolu as just friends.. but then i compare my relationship with my best friend(s) to luffy and zoro's relationship... and i don't know, if my best friend treats me the way zoro and luffy treat each other? I fear i will have to drop the "what are we?" question. I'm so serious, like that man? zoro?? He is enamored. Completely whipped- bewitched, body and soul. While on luffy's side, his way of expressing love is more subtle, but i've talked about that before here.
They say there's a thin line between love and hate... but there's also a thin line between platonic and romantic love, and maybe that's why one of my favorite tropes in ships is the one where they start out as friends... (harurin from free, bakudeku, pegoryu, fluri, soriku, cloti, cleon, kimron, percabeth, kataang, lumity, appledash, katyana, korrasami, harlivy, etc #friendstolovers ftw!)
Like luffy and zoro... The god personified and the non believer. Oda is literally so insane for that..
One is very carefree and easy to put his trust in others. And the other is the more rigid one and needs to slowly build his trust. One is the more emotional one. The other is the stoic and more composed one. They share the same values, the same braincells, they can communicate and understand each other even without having to say much.
Their colors complement each other, their zodiac signs are compatible, their personalites can be quite contrasting but they actually blend perfectly. They are different but also the same. No one makes zoro smile as much as luffy, no one else luffy likes to lean on as much as he likes to lean and rely on zoro. No one makes zoro worry as much as luffy, even though luffy himself is very strong. No one luffy trusts with his crew as much as he trusts them with zoro, and his nakama means everything to luffy. They are the happiest when they are together.. fighting side by side, laughing with each other, talking with each other... They respect and understand each other the most. They are just so insane and i am also insane and-
They are the only two strawhats with twin numbers for their birth dates and months. The only two strawhats with CoC. The only two strawhats fighting for the greatest titles (pirate king and world's greatest swordsman respectively) they are the only two strawhats with a lot of parallels (let it be between each other like the hero talk in fishman island, or with the other captains and their first mates, which i kinda(?) have talked about before, here).
Zoro's the only member of his crew that luffy actually tries to find (he doesn’t stumble upon him like how he does with the rest of the strawhats) Zoro is the first person in canon that we see luffy enthusiastically feel it's okay to share his meal with. The first person outside of his family (i consider shanks and his crew, dadan, and makino as part of his found family!) that he cries and worries for (baratie arc). Zoro is the first person that he mentions when he splits up with his crew and the first one he calls whenever they meet again (alabasta, skypiea, punk hazard, zou, etc)
Zoro is luffy's anchor especially during difficult times (e.g. water7), he is luffy's voice of reason (e.g. pre-egghead), and luffy often listens to him (like when zoro gives luffy his assessment of a situation and how he thinks they should handle the situation and luffy immediately agrees to his plan)
And kinda random but meat is like the perfect food for beer! luffy's perfect for zoro!! Meat paired with the right beer can amplify each other's flavors. Even their favorite food (luffy) and drink (zoro) complement each other, like oda are you serious?? and the crazy thing is i'm pretty sure i haven't written down all the things that make me crazy about them
From their deal in shells town, then BOOM! zoro's sacrifice in thriller bark, all the way to luffy's blush, the iconic hug, and whatever tf that "if you're gonna invite our captain to hell, i'll come along as well" // "sorry... now you have no reason to die" bs in wano
Like how can i be normal about the two characters whose dreams have already merged into one that they can no longer achieve their dreams without each other by their side? i'm on my knees crying thinking about the bond between luffy and zoro-
#zolu#luzo#monkey d. luffy#roronoa zoro#one piece#like whoaa wordsdump go brbrrr#im like insane about them that words arent enough to express how insane i really am about them#and i didn't even think about opla zolu at all when writing this like#and opla zolu are also insane#like i luv them so much i want to combust#sksksksosohs#ok im normal now
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Chloe Bourgeois - Not a Typical Mean Girl
No, I am not going to sit here and talks about Chloe's family, or issues, or one writers seeming obsession with her. No!
I am here to discuss what I think is a very common misunderstanding about Chloe's character and the show in fandom that often crops up in discussion regarding her.
Namely that the thing Chloe needs most is to be chastised, rejected & punished for her mean behavior, that will sort her out!
As though that wasn't already a thing that happens?
Bear with me and I'll explain that claim first:
The school does not like punishing any students. The only reason Alya was punished for coordinating an effort to break into Chloe's locker is because Chloe threatened the principle.
The only reason Marinette was almost expelled was because Lila framed her for cheating, theft & assault all in one day & she still needed to make a scene of the whole affair.
There's one teacher that punishes students, but she does so unfairly, cruelly and haphazardly and in season 1, Chloe was not shown getting any special treatment from her.
Special treatment from the faculty was not a thing unless we are counting later retcons.
So now that the faculty is out of the way, wat I mean is that Chloe is not a typical mean girl because she is not popular.
In stuff like Mean Girls, Heathers and so on, the usual standard is that the mean girls are mean, but they are also revered, beloved, popular in one way or another despite their horrible behavior.
This is not the case with Chloe.
Even in Season 1 where only Marinette & Nino seems to start the season disliking Chloe. (Her presence unpleasant but hardly traumatic given the Origins level bickering) Chloe was still not widely well liked by the class or school.
She had one friend in Sabrina and a second oh so briefly in Adrien, which did let her absorb some of his celebrity by proximity. But within 48 hours of having him she lost him; with Adrien becoming more distant to divorce himself from her behavior.
That's it and while one can say her haughty attitude and ego are the reason we know from season 2 she is aware everyone hates her & it upsets her.
S1-Chloe did get invited to some class events, but even then her presence was not largely welcomed with most far less prone to be patient with her than they were with others even if they exhibited similar behavior. Such as Kim bullying Ivan, or Nino expressing blatant frustration with Mylene, ETC.
By late season 2 she was pretty much entirely segregated from her peers, barring Sabrina, and her presence welcomed with shades of disinterest, disdain or outright hostility. Sometimes evoked on her part or just in general.
This is a big difference from the usual Mean Girls = Popular Girls trend but I often don't see it acknowledged in fandom discourse.
This especially feels to be the case given so often I see people arguing Chloe "needs" to be rejected, or told her behavior is bad, or that no one likes her... But she is, all the time, she is entirely aware people don't like her and unhappy about it.
The issue is not that her bad behavior is being rewarded in school. The issue is that bad behavior is what she was taught at home and what is encouraged there and what is shown to work for her parents. But it doesn't work for her and she doesn't know why, because no one really bothers to teach her why. hey just get angry and snap at her or ignore her.
& sure you can say its not her peers job to explain morality o empathy to someone who was explicitly taught by their father how to cheat at & win elections by intimidation. But the fact is no one at home is going to do so because they are modelling, encouraging & teaching the opposite up until it impacts 'them' personally.
Not sure if there's a greater point to this, but...
I often find people acting like the thing Chloe needs is for her bad behavior not to be 'rewarded' or 'indulged' by her class and to instead be 'rejected' and for her to face 'consequences'.
But she does! That's basically all she does; & When she doesn't usually an Akuma tries to murder her anyway!
So yeah, Chloe isn't a typical mean girl.
She's actually deeply unpopular among classmates and the school has a discipline issue all over, it didn't come from her.
More negativity is not going to magically make her "better".
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AITA for kicking my cousin out of our city?
Kicking out is a strong term. I didn’t exile her or anything, I just - well, here’s the story from the beginning.
My cousin-once-removed G (3263F) and I (2188M) were co-founders and co-rulers of this city. I don’t want to give undue credit to either of us - there were and are many others involved in the founding and governance of the place - but it’s fair to say that we two were the ringleaders. And we made a good team! We’re both very opinionated people, so of course there was sometimes tension, but overall I think our disagreements only made our decision-making stronger. That was until A (ageless, M) showed up.
A is one of the lesser primordial beings who helped create the world. Necessary context: not long ago there was a catastrophic war between the most powerful of these beings, who was monstrously evil, and his more benevolent brethren. This war was absolutely necessary, but it did wreak havoc on the natural world. Myself and my cousin G and many others had to flee as refugees. When we founded our city, we wanted it to be a place of recovery from all that loss, somewhere that everyone could come together and flourish. The rulers of A’s people sent him to aid us in that. And his help has been invaluable! He’s shared knowledge that has already bettered our city and its people, and now we’re working on a project together that will let us heal so many of the world’s ancient hurts… but I digress.
When A showed up, G took an immediate dislike to him. She has some history with the rulers of his folk, and I suppose that colored her opinion of him, but I’ve never seen that level of hostility from her before. She picked at everything he said, implied that he wasn’t trustworthy, even tried to tell me that we should send him away! She argued that since our people’s king had declined A’s help, we should too - which was ridiculous, our city has always made its own decisions, and anyhow our king hadn’t commanded us to do any such thing! Ordinarily G is very clear-headed and has excellent judgment, but in this case I just couldn’t get across to her that she was being unfair.
When I was firm in my support of A, G started trying to drum up public animosity against him. Of course I opposed her, and as A had already made many friends in the city and is an excellent rhetorician to boot, G only succeeded in turning public opinion against herself. At city council meetings she continued to oppose A and his projects, but I stood with A, and the majority of the council followed my lead. G was essentially frozen out of the city’s governance - and I do regret that, truly, but she put herself in that position by refusing to work with me and A!
Eventually G took the small faction that agreed with her and left the city. She told me my “doom was on my own head,” which was needlessly hostile, I think. And look, I fully believe that she believes she’s in the right. She’s a very principled person; she wouldn’t do all this for petty reasons. She’s just so wrong about A! I truly can’t think of anything else I could have done, but G’s been a blessing to this city and I’m really unhappy to have been part of the reason it lost her. Was there another way I should have handled this conflict? AITA?
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I could never, at bottom, take advertising seriously. I felt it as demeaning. It seemed to me to be really a shell game, based squarely on the sucker principle. One could scarcely respect the people who went for all this okeydoke, who were, indeed, addicted to it. The sense of life with which advertising imbued them—or vice versa—made reality, or the truth of life, unbearable, threatening, and, at last, above all, unreal: they preferred the gaudy image, which they imagined to be under their control. Thus, they entered the voting booth as blindly cheerful and incoherent as they were at the supermarket, reaching out for the “brand” name, the name, that is, which had been most ruthlessly and successfully sold to them. They did not know, and did not dare to know, what was in the package: it had been “guaranteed,” and everybody else was buying it. True, there were occasional scandals, moments which might cause one to suspect that the public confidence had been abused: but the noise of scandal was swiftly conquered by the sprightly music of the next commercial. The music of the commercial simply reiterates the incredible glories of this great land, and one learns, through advertising, that it is, therefore, absolutely forbidden to the American people to be gloomy, private, tense, possessed; to stink, even a little, at any time; to grow gray, to wrinkle, to be sexless; to have unsmiling children; to be lusterless of eye, hair, or teeth; to be flabby of breast, belly, or bottom; to be gloomy, to know despair, or to embark on any adventure whatever without the corroboration of the friendly mob. Love, here, demands no down payment, though it must have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, and, though love may be driven from Eden, it is only so that it may “mature” among friendly neighbors. This stupefying ode to purity has pornographic undertones: consider the classic hair-ad which has the portrait of a lady in the foreground and a naked infant in the background. The legend reads, hair color so natural only her hairdresser knows for sure! The legend is a dirty street-joke, and has reference to the lady’s pubic hair: but the presence of the baby washes the legend clean. The infant’s presence informs us that this is, indeed, a lady, a married one at that, and a mother, and her husband has nothing to fear from her hairdresser—who, probably, furthermore, like all hairdressers, is a faggot. Faggots, of course, never appear in this technicolored bazaar, except as clowns, or as the doomed victims of their hideous lusts, and it goes without saying that here, death shall have no dominion.
Much later, I was to realize that my discomfort was due to the fact that I was operating far, too far, beneath my level; or, in other words, I had more to give than was being demanded and I was being weighed down by the residue. I was also realizing that, though people endlessly fool themselves, they cannot really be fooled: what you really feel shines through you. So, my co-workers, and my superiors, in spite of the camaraderie, sensed my real attitude toward advertising, and, therefore, toward them, and distrusted me—soon, inevitably, they would dislike me. I could not blame them, for, if my attitude toward advertising as concerned the great, white, faceless mass was, at best, ironic, my attitude toward advertising as concerned black people was very painfully ambivalent. I felt that black people had a sense of reality far more solid and arresting than the bubble-gum context in which we operated—though I had days, God knows, when I wondered about this, too.
But who was I, anyway, after all, to have an attitude? I was doing the same thing, in the same office, and for the same reason: we had to eat. And we were expected to be aware, too, that the presence of blacks in advertising was a major sociological breakthrough. Was it? for our breakthroughs seemed to occur only on those levels where we were most speedily expendable and most easily manipulated. And a “breakthrough” to what? I was beginning to be wary of these breakthroughs, was not certain that I wanted a lifetime pass to Disneyland. On the other hand, here we were, and you can’t have your cake and eat it, too: we would simply have to find a way to use, and survive and transcend this present breakthrough the same way we had survived so many others.
Just Above My Head by James Baldwin
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every time i remember that astarion has 4 extra hours of dialogue compared to wyll, i get so sad... before i got to the end of the game, i was like "ah. wyll must not be in any fandom posts i saw because of predictable reasons, but surely he still has cool scenes and an equivalent level of care in the canon writing!" RIP. he does not. it's like a self-sustaining vortex of the fandom and the writing team both being way more excited about the pale elf than any other character.
it's a shame because astarion is otherwise a well written and acted character, but it makes me dislike him on principle if i feel he's the authors' Favourite Little Boy, hah.
God YEAH. It's so fucking frustrating!
Like he's my favorite little boy! He fully is! But I would give up HOURS of his content if it meant the effort was equal across the board! Because that's good game design, that's good writing! That's what they should have done!
And it's so so fucking frustrating to see how Larian are basically leaving the other companions in the shitter just to cater to a small and annoying minority of rabid fangirs who shit themselves silly at the mere mention of him.
Y'all know that pretty post with all the companions' eyes? Well someone added some shit about how Astarion's eyes have micromovements that are faster than anyone else's because he's always looking for threats.
And I'm just sitting here like. This is the Dragon Age fandom again. Y'all are here overanalyzing insignificant shit just because it pertains to your favorite crusty white man. It's giving "let's pretend that BioWare's shitty canned animations are worth of deep frame-by-frame analysis". I think in general it's fine to analyze animations in the case of BG3, because there's mo-cap and actual acting involved, but c'mon, y'all. Derailing a beautiful gifset of EVERYONE'S eyes with some sappy addon about only Astarion?
I honestly HATE the fact that I like Astarion as much as I do, because it means sharing a fandom with the type of people who think Cullen is a gift to all women. Which, yeah, a lot of parallels there, in that he also got a hugely inflated role because of a minority of extremely horny idiots who saw a pretty white boy (though the pretty part is debatable in Cullen's case) and all other thoughts flew out the window. I literally initially didn't like Astarion because based on what I'd seen from the fandom, he'd be another unrepentant asshole that people woobiefied like they did Cullen, and to some extent, Solas. And I was right! I just ended up liking him in the actual canon enough to make my own judgment in the end.
It's also why I am filled with glee whenever another Astarion-centric blog blocks me, because the more of those guys I keep away from me, the less I want to shoot Astarion point-blank just by association.
So yeah. He's my little guy but I also fully 100% understand disliking him because of the hype. It's 100% justified and I fault nobody for doing so. His being so well-written as a result of poor management, crunch, and fandom pressure isn't something to celebrate. The ends do not justify the means here. Either extend dev time to give everyone the same amount of love, or don't fucking bother with extra content at all. It's that fucking simple.
Also the optics of admitting all of that in a Discord server just to satisfy a bunch of dipshits looking for a pat on the head for making the Canon Choices. Just ... bleh.
#bg3 critical#bg3 fandom critical#da fandom critical#also i've already lost two followers for talking about this lmao#bye!!
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Headcanons you have of near?
Thank you for the ask!! He is my favourite little guy ever and the urge to write a 5000-word essay about him was SO strong, I had to physically restrain myself from doing so. But here are a few of my thoughts about him, divided into three categories:
1. His attitude towards L
Obata states in Volume 13 that he thinks Near disliked L, and while I don't agree to quite the same extent, I definitely don’t think he was a big L fan - certainly not to the extent that most other kids at Wammy’s House seemed to be. Near is very open about his disdain for people who blindly follow one leader/authority figure, and thus I think he’d find the general idolisation of L at Wammy’s House off-putting. He’d have some level of respect for L as someone who is very talented and accomplished, and he’d like the fact that he works for fun rather than for money/status/accolades/etc. However, I don’t think he’d agree with how extreme some of L’s methods are, and he’d hate how easy he was on Light. In my opinion, the reason he was so dead set on staying true to L in the C-Kira oneshot was partly to keep up the charade that L was still alive, and partly because he lost his sense of self when Mello died; but that is a WHOLE other can of worms.
2. His daily life & routines
During the Kira case, he wouldn't have had much of a life outside of work. I don't think that would have bothered him much, if at all - I do think he enjoyed the challenge of the case, and he was able to keep up many of his hobbies while he was working - but since it was such a big undertaking for his first ever case, he would have had to make a few adjustments to his daily life. Since moving into his own HQ at 17, I tend to think he started sleeping exclusively on the floor to make the transition between work and sleep easier. He thrives on consistency and likes having predictable routines to balance out the unpredictability of detective work. He wakes up around the same time each morning. He eats pretty much the same thing every day, and has very limited tastes. He takes long baths in the evening, and during canon, that was the only part of his day when he stopped thinking about the case. On that note, I also think he’s a very clean person and he hates the feeling of being dirty.
3. His relationship with Mello
Of course, I can't go through my headcanons for Near without talking about Mello. I am a very firm believer that Near has been in love with Mello since they lived together at Wammy’s House. I think he’s always been fascinated by Mello because of how completely different they are in their attitudes and approaches to problems, and he admires Mello’s passion and dedication to his goals. He recognises that their weaknesses are each other's strengths, which makes them far stronger as a pair. These feelings became more romantic in nature in his early teens. I think he would have been thrilled when Mello re-entered his life post-timeskip, if only because he finally had confirmation that Mello was safe and alive, and if Mello had lived after the Kira case, Near would have had his crimes pardoned as soon as he was officially handed the title of L (based on canon, it seems like L has enough legal influence to do this). I get the impression that the Wammy’s kids were raised on the “any means necessary” principle because that was L’s philosophy, so Near does not hold any of Mello’s crimes against him.
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nonnie who asked why i think shadow is a hypocrite when i also think he has strict principles I WAS DRAFTING AND TUMBLR ATE UR ASK WHEN I HIT THE WRONG BUTTON ON ACCIDENT straight up to the void im so sorry 😭. maybe its still there on desktop but im a mobile loser rn and impatient so hopefully u see this
anyway the answer is simple in my head but hard to articulate. shadow has a very specific image of himself which all of his actions and beliefs are based off of. part of this image is that he is a wholly unique individual who cannot possibly be related to, and all of his problems are in the same vein either a result of the world being uniquely cruel or shadow being uniquely flawed. but hes wrong, and thats why he has trouble recognizing when people are similar to him. i imagine he has some awareness of this, enough to feel shame for not living up to his own expectations but not enough to actually reflect on it. shadow is a character who cant really handle cognitive dissonance like that. thats why i think he would or does dislike (on some level) people who in actuality have a lot in common with him—either they embody things he is ashamed of in himself (sonic) or they challenge his belief that he and his struggles are an anomaly (knuckles)
#heliichats#i feel like ive been ribbed abt my shadow posts a bit recently#maybe the worms have eaten too much brain matter idk
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The Original Tempter or Why Crowley Fell
I keep wondering about why Crowley fell and as I turn different options over and over in my head, I think I have finally came to a conclusion, which for now is purely my hc. Let us see how far off the mark it is when we get to s3.
Crowley says he "only ever asked questions". So what if his questions is what eventually lead Lucifer to rebel? What if Crowley's ramblings, questions and ideas lead Lucifer to develop the rebellious thoughts, planted the seed, so to say?
When we meet him as an angel, Crowley is so excited to build and is devastated that they'll "be shutting it all down in about 6000 years". We also see Aziraphale tell him about people and how everything in creation is sort of backdrop to their existence.
We also know that the reason why Lucifer and the others fell is because they refused to bow to humans / admit that they are the pinnacle of creation.
So Crowley was probably so upset he went to his mates and was wondering aloud "why would they want to shut it all down?", "Can one thing in creation be sooo much greater then everything else?" And "if that one thing is so great, why shut it down so soon?", " Why shut it down at all?"
And these questions probably got Lucifer thinking... in fact, he probably was not even that worried about the eventual shut down and more disliked the principle of the humans being seen as superior. And we know the rest: Lucifer and the guys fell, and this included Crowley.
So after the fall, who better to send up to mess with human heads then Crowley? "Go up there and make some trouble" - Lucifer knew exactly what kind of trouble Crowley would be likely to get them in.
NG said that Crowley is not as good as he likes to paint himself, and not as bad as Heaven thinks he is. And I think in a way that fits in with the above version of events: there is a certain level of responsibility that comes with voicing ideas. I do not like the idea that we are responsible for the thoughts of others and for how our ideas are interpreted and built on cause it is simply impossible to control that, but I think it is important to clarify misinterpretation, not just warch it happen (which I suspect Crowley did, he was just curious where it all was gonna go)
So yes, he is the original tempter, only it is even more original then we initially thought.
The question also is, does Crowley know, does he truly realise, and does he feel regret over it? Personally, I think that he either does not know, or if he does, he does not see this as a serious transgression. And to be clear, neither do I.
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I've been slowly digesting Jaded and thought about how Valentine and Mike would interact and so I asked myself "what would they do if they met" and in that way that your brain will somehow magically backdate stuff it's making up as it goes, I thought "well obviously they already have!":
They met in the Afterlife, colliding in some minor social foul (brushing past too roughly/spilling a drink/stepping on each other's feet) and immediately despised each other on principle of recognizing they are different types of fuckboy operating in the same watering hole. Despite this dislike they possess such petty conversational chemistry that they share a drink and then a few more, discussing all the right scripts and methods, including the nuance of displaying just the right level of pathetic to be charming and not sad. An incredible show of scholarly debate for Night City which lasts most of the night and is fun for both of them and yet after they absolutely do Not become friends.
Anyway this is mostly to say that your boy has infected my brain, but I'm not even mad about it. This scene was so vivid in my head I just had to share :3
ahaghgmagm i love this. they absolutely HAVE met. probably valentine gets someone's number who mike had his eye on, and mike confronts her after the target leaves.
at some point mike goes "you remind me of my brother…. i fuckin hate my brother btw" (based solely on valentine being tall + lanky)
i also think mike shoots his shot with valentine toward the end of their convo at 3am, with predictable results (the exact nature of that prediction will be left as an exercise to the reader)
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Roddy x Megatron 🔥
Sorry if you meant this strictly in terms of shipping anon but I'm going to talk more generally about just their dynamic, oop.
Fandom often treats Rodimus' distaste for Megatron at the start as a principled, moral one. I disagree. One thing I do actually really like about their canon interactions, especially early on, is that I genuinely feel like Rodimus is not in fact primarily opposed to Megatron and his position on the ship because he simply thinks that Megatron does not deserve a second chance or anything for moral reasons; I talked about this like two years or so ago here, I think Rodimus fundamentally does not have an issue with that in principle the way a lot of the crew on the LL do. I think the thing which drives their dynamic at first is that Rodimus has a clearly personal dislike of Megatron, much more than he has any existential moral crisis about whether or not Megatron is irredeemable or whatever.
To me, this is much more interesting than questions about moral judgement. Prior to the introduction of Megatron to the cast, MTMTE isn't driven by moral conflict, IMO. Even when characters do things a moral judgement can be made on, that's not what the story is most interested in getting conflict out of. Take Rodimus' fuckup with Overlord, for example. It's very easy for an audience to frame this in moral terms, to look at why Rodimus doing All That is morally wrong, and it's not like it isn't. But the primary conflict that comes out of it for the story going forward is simply less interested in that than it is narrowing it down to one of personal failings, and what it means for the character. The fallout is around his captaincy and his insecurities and how these impact his relationship with the people around him, and what opportunities for personal growth that then presents, rather than a mediation on like, the morality of his actions. And that's not a misstep on the part of the comic! The comic is just using these heightened situations as a way to present larger-than-life canvases to blow those things up to a scale where they can be explored more broadly. The narrative engine of MTMTE at that point is one driven by heightened interpersonal conflicts, not questions of Right and Wrong, and the fallout follows that arc with buy-in from the audience. It's a matter of framing, more than anything.
Megatron's arc is not that; Megatron's arc is about moral existential crises and such, and my opinion on how well the comic can support that in the end aside I think the conflict accidentally created there is where the interest lies for these two. I think the unfortunately kind of untapped potential of the Megatron-Rodimus dynamic mostly lies in that dissonance, and I think it's way more interesting than the more common fandom approach of framing Rodimus' eventual approval of Megatron as some kind of redemptive salve that somehow validates him. Their dynamic is best IMO when it exists in a way where those two distinct approaches are clashing in a way that's made deliberate, and where Rodimus' perspective as someone more in tune with the comic's original perspective is one which disrupts the attempt to shift the needle over to questions about morality instead of the more focused look at 'well maybe you ARE an asshole who sucks, but can you maybe make some friends anyway, without you needing to not actually be an asshole who sucks?' The best Megatron-Rodimus dynamic, for me, is the one where Rodimus is kind of interrupting that attempt to do a quote-unquote 'redemption arc' and bringing it back to the level the comic originally functions at, and I think the dynamic is so much more interesting when that's happening, instead of Rodimus as a kind of facilitator of the whole redemption arc thing, idk. I don't think the comic ever really manages to do that tbh, but I think you can play with that in a fandom space because it gives you enough to work with, and it's what I always want out of fanworks about them tbh, in any context. Just more compelling to me than the more common 'Rodimus is a vehicle for confirming Megatron as Morally OK Now TM' stuff I tend to see.
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Fuck it, OC lore.
Eri Cawl, also known as Eri-21 in various logs and databases. techpriest by technicality and most assuredly a heretek of the most loathsome kind. what she loves is pursuing risky science, the kind that gets the blood and adrenaline properly pumping.
Eri Cawl was not originally named such, nor was she made to be Belisarius Cawl's daughter. however, at some point I noticed the similarities between those two characters, and cloned the original oc to create Eri.
the greatest difference between her and Cawl's other kids is that she is also his student. the average primaris marine knows their purpose in life, and does not need to wiggle their brains much aside from figuring out how to best assault fortified positions or bring glory to their chapter. nor is Alpha Primus particularly prone to examining the world in detail, or have a passion for figuring out how things interlock to create the whole of the surrounding universe.
Eri, originally a nameless orphan unusually intelligent and self-reliant for her age, caught Bellie's attention for her cleverness and fearlessness. he took her in as a potential techpriest servant, and eventually was endeared to her by all their shared traits. Eri, at some point in her childhood, would start calling him father, and after evaluating the situation, Cawl would log her as such in his internal databanks.
Eri is by nature theatrical and showboaty: she is loud, attention-hogging, often talks over others in a longwinded manner full of odd similes and sudden asides, and she moves and gestures in ways comfortable to herself, but odd and meaningless to others. she is ceaselessly curious and is excited to learn all kinds of skills, from synthesizing anesthetics to piloting airplanes. she comes across as arrogant and highly self-assured, the star of every show. her inability to subdue her domineering demeanor leads others to dislike her and find her annoying or irritating, and there's very few people with whom she's truly close. she enjoys fucking with people on purpose too, and pulling various pranks.
she is rarely openly angry or hostile, but she will often ask uncomfortable questions and make fun of others for failing to overcome their flaws or behaving in an unwise manner. hence, she has been the subject of sabotage and humiliating punishment by her colleagues on numerous occasions, especially in her youth when her arrogance was less demeanor and more opinion. she does, however, find teaching others to be a fun experience. Eri simply cannot be bored - she finds the emotion utterly intolerable. if she had not been trained to become a scientist, she would have found her excitement in other risky endeavors. she enjoys combat too, especially surprising people from stealth and executing daring gambits.
Eri is also an empathiless sadist who cannot truly understand other people on a fundamental level. Cawl has sought to curb the worst of her sadism so that she would become a productive underling instead of a petty tyrant scheming to indulge herself at every opportunity, but as she matured, Eri turned her genius to a lifelong quest of examining other people and their views of "good" which often seem to exclude her based on an accident of birth. from that, she gained the view that senselessly hurting others was the lame and easy thing to do, and she should always strive to minimize collateral damage - an interesting challenge to herself that eventually evolved into an ironclad behavioral principle.
as she is a psyker with a very specific powerset, namely turning herself invisible and touch-based sensory powers, she cannot be given larger implants or wear armor - there is only so much mass and surface area her invisibility and touch-sense derived extra abilities can work with. therefore, she is mostly enhanced biologically, and though her implants allow her to process more information and safely use more psykic power, she remains far closer to a human mentality than most techpriest. despite her oddness that she has never seen replicated with anyone, she truly feels more similar to the average tech-thrall than her coworkers of many decades. she is much more fragile than them, too, even when taking to the field with her loyal familiar, and she lacks (or has yet to acquire) the perspective of a being to whom human lifespans are short. ironically, this makes the sadist, more than anyone else in Bellie's employ, disdain cruelty in service of a future good - is there truly no better way? why must the "sane" people act with the callousness and apathy that she has had to guard against her entire life? and, honestly, she's very cool but not that cool; why do the traits she has entail her to preferential treatment, and what does that say about the workings of the world?
Eri thinks in unpredictable ways and, like her father, forms her own opinions undaunted by any norms or peer pressures. and all those similarities to her father also make it impossible for her to coexist with him. she cannot live in someone else's shadow, and neither of them can be persuaded off the paths they choose for each other. they get along so well because they are so alike, and because they are so alike, they are doomed to come to oppose each other. there is a reason why, by the time Cadia fell, there is not a mention nor memory of Eri Cawl anywhere on the Zar-Quaesitor.
#scratching the surface of the deep pit that is this character#ask for deeper insight into elements.#40k#oc#version изобретает#version иллюстрирует#Eri Cawl; the anomaly
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The Spore Drive wasn't the first "magical" tech in Star Trek
As much as I dislike Discovery, there is one criticism that does make me laugh, well sorta. It's the criticism of the Spore Drive concept and how it is essentially a fantasy magic concept and not a science fiction concept. I happen to agree with this criticism, but the reason I find it so amusing is most of the people who say this (for example, Robert Meyer Burnett) have no problem with the Genesis Device from the early films. This is despite the fact it's basically Q levels technology that operates on magical principles and can even raise the dead! You know, just like the Spore Drive? Add in the fact the third film even has supernatural mumbo jumbo involving souls and it's clear magical nonsense is nothing new to Star Trek. There's also all the fantasy religious elements in DS9, which happens to be RMB's favorite Star Trek. I'm not saying you can't criticize when the franchise has magical fantasy nonsense elements, I do, but I do it consistently and not selectively like a lot of fans seem to do.
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The Cardboard Box pt 1
An uninspiring title, but apparently it's controversial? All my brain is thinking (I am still le tired) is 'Big fish, little fish, cardboard box' over and over again.
If you don't get that reference, that's probably for the best. the early noughties were weird.
Anyway. I hereby do swear that this time I shall read the text more carefully and all my claims, accusations and harebrained ideas will be based in textual evidence and not mere vibes alone. One cannot thrive on vibes alone!
I'm going to try anyway. I may still dislike characters on principle, though.
He did however take a particular fancy to some of the paragraphs at the beginning of the tale and urged me adapt them for later revisions of my story ‘The Resident Patient’, which I sent to you in January.
OK, so is this going to be an AU version of The Resident Patient? Because I feel like that gives me a head start on the guessing.
I did a side by side of the two and overall it seems pretty much the same, except we're now in August and it's blazing hot. I shudder to think how Watson would have described August in the UK last year. Then we have the discussion about Holmes reading Watson's mind body language. Until we get to the first significant difference:
"Have you observed in the paper a short paragraph referring to the remarkable contents of a packet sent through the post to Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon?”
"No, I saw nothing."
Aha, the titular cardboard box, one wonders?
Watson is really falling behind in his paper reading duties. Holmes is doing all the legwork here. Honestly. You just can't get a good chronicler these days! But he's still making Watson read it aloud.
Holmes does like hearing things read aloud. He'd be all over audiobooks, but he's got Watson for that so it's all good.
I picked up the paper which he had thrown back to me and read the paragraph indicated. It was headed, “A Gruesome Packet.”
Ooooh, I think I might remember a bit of this one. I might remember what's in the box, anyway.
Sorry, that was my contractual obligation.
“Miss Susan Cushing, living at Cross Street, Croydon, has been made the victim of what must be regarded as a peculiarly revolting practical joke unless some more sinister meaning should prove to be attached to the incident."
If it's what I think it is then practical jokes were significantly more aggressive in the Victorian Era. I don't think even TikTok has graduated to this level. We're getting a pretty weird look at the 1800s English sense of humour: beating other children with sticks and... this.
"A cardboard box was inside, which was filled with coarse salt."
Everyone needs some seasoning on their... "two human ears [...] quite freshly severed".
Okay, poor taste, poor taste. I know it's there for preservation. Also weirdly I thought it was going to be fingers. Don't know why I thought that. But yes, this is quite the jape, my friend. I just cut off some human ears and sent them to you.
How is this a practical joke? These are genuine freshly cut ears. Even if they're from a cadaver, that's theft and criminal damage at the very least. Isn't it? And I thought they were particularly strict on stuff like that in the 1800s. We're a little late for the Resurrection Man and Burke and Hare, but they did not like people messing around with corpses.
Okay, research research: 'The Anatomy Act of 1832 made it legal for corpses from workhouses that remained unclaimed after forty-eight hours to be used to satisfy the demands of the anatomists.'
Welp, I guess it was okay to do anything to corpses if they were the corpses of poor people with no friends or family (or at least no friends/family who could afford to claim them).
I mean, on one hand it stopped people from being murdered and science needed bodies to learn how bodies work better (good lord did we need to learn how bodies work better) but on the other hand, this does make me uncomfortable. Workhouse in life, still put to work in death. Also, from a purely scientific viewpoint, your sample is biased. You need some rich people bodies in there, too.
"There is no indication as to the sender, and the matter is the more mysterious as Miss Cushing, who is a maiden lady of fifty, has led a most retired life, and has so few acquaintances or correspondents that it is a rare event for her to receive anything through the post."
So, either she's secretly running an underground crime ring. Or the ears were meant for someone else with the name S. Cushing.
"...she let apartments in her house to three young medical students..."
Oh, yeah, fine. All makes sense now. Medical students are fucking feral. I have met literally one in my life who I would have been comfortable to have as a doctor, and I think he was just really good at hiding it. Guy once got 'kidnapped' by an entire female hockey team and ended up in an entirely different city. Another one I know just kept a dead squirrel in the shared freezer so he could do dissection practice on it.
I'd put the Dead Dove, Do Not Eat gif, but he didn't even label the fucker.
"...their noisy and irregular habits..."
Medical students... yeah.
"In the meantime, the matter is being actively investigated, Mr. Lestrade, one of the very smartest of our detective officers, being in charge of the case.”
Oh hai, Lestrade!
At least the police are putting an actual detective on the case and not just saying 'oh it's a silly prank' and ignoring the transportation of human body parts. Was it illegal to send human remains by the royal mail at that time?
“I think that this case is very much in your line. We have every hope of clearing the matter up, but we find a little difficulty in getting anything to work upon."
'We're totally going to do this, we just don't have... any idea how. But we totally could!'
"The box is a half-pound box of honeydew tobacco and does not help us in any way."
Did somebody say... TOBACCO?
A specialist subject has entered the chat.
If Holmes doesn't use his extensive and very detailed knowledge of tobacco to help solve this case, I will be v. disappoint.
Lestrade, as wiry, as dapper, and as ferret-like as ever...
Watson is contractually obliged to remind you that Lestrade looks like a ferret every time he appears. His publisher insists on it.
I'm informed that an antimacassar is an arm cover for an armchair or sofa. My Nana used to have them. They had tassels and I'd get told off for plaiting the threads in the tassels together. Good times.
“Why in my presence, sir?”
“In case he wished to ask any questions.”
“What is the use of asking me questions when I tell you I know nothing whatever about it?”
Miss Cushing has very strong Done With This energy and I am here for it. Those are not her ears. She has perfectly good ones thank you very much, and she does not need any more. Why are you still bothering her?
“Quite so, madam,” said Holmes in his soothing way. “I have no doubt that you have been annoyed more than enough already over this business.”
Holmes once again showing that he does have emotional intelligence no matter what people might think.
“The importance lies in the fact that the knot is left intact, and that this knot is of a peculiar character.”
Oh, not the tobacco knowledge, but the knot knowledge. I see 'peculiar' and 'knot' in the same sentence and I immediately think 'sailing'.
Address printed in rather straggling characters: ‘Miss S. Cushing, Cross Street, Croydon.’ Done with a broad-pointed pen, probably a J, and with very inferior ink. The word ‘Croydon’ has been originally spelled with an ‘i’, which has been changed to ‘y’.
Our sender has poor handwriting and poor spelling, then. The 'wrong person' theory is growing stronger. The likelihood that Miss Cushing is a criminal mastermind diminshes. Shame.
He took out the two ears as he spoke, and laying a board across his knee he examined them minutely.
Is he wearing gloves? Please tell me he's wearing gloves.
“Bodies in the dissecting-rooms are injected with preservative fluid. These ears bear no signs of this. They are fresh, too. They have been cut off with a blunt instrument, which would hardly happen if a student had done it."
This feels like something the police should already have noticed. If the questions are 'Where did these ears come from? Has a crime been committed?' you would think someone would have considered whether they were from a preserved corpse or someone fresh. I know that policing has changed a lot since then and forensic medicine wasn't really a thing, but clearly they suspected foul play was a possibility, because Lestrade called for Holmes.
"We know that this woman has led a most quiet and respectable life at Penge and here for the last twenty years. She has hardly been away from her home for a day during that time."
Oh, Lestrade. The things you can do without leaving your home. She might have anyone buried under the floorboards. She might have been sending blackmail letters to her neighbours. She might have been doing any number of things. I still think the wrong person got the parcel, but saying that she's just too respectable for this is very optimistic of you.
I do agree that if she knew what the ears were about, she probably wouldn't have told anyone about them. Unless she's in such a secure position that she doesn't think anyone would ever trace anything back to her. In most situations, it wouldn't be the best move.
"One of these ears is a woman's, small, finely formed, and pierced for an earring."
Did no men wear earrings in Victorian times? Admittedly, probably not 'respectable' men, but the knot's already pointing me at sailor (as is the tarring on the string, tbh) and it used to be a thing that tattoos were mostly a sailor thing over here, and piercing is a similar kind of body art. So a woman or a sailor with small ears.
omg. pirates.
"The other is a man's, sun-burned, discoloured, and also pierced for an earring."
Oh, okay, so the earring wasn't the thing. Doesn't prevent the first ear from belonging to a small pirate, though. Sunburned also makes me think sailors. They have to be outside a lot with no shade. Sunburn on your ears is the worst. They have my sincere sympathy.
Also, y'know, cause they got their ear cut off - with a blunt blade, which... eesh.
"These two people are presumably dead, or we should have heard their story before now."
I mean, they could have been kidnapped and this could be proof of life. These days if you get an unsolicited body part in the real life mail the mind does go to kidnapping. Maybe that originates here - but they have no way of knowing whether the ear was detached ante or post mortem at this point, do they? So it's more proof of having, rather than proof of life. And I don't think I'd recognise my friends or family by their ears, so it's not even really that. If the earrings had been attached then I might recognise them.
Yeah... s'weird. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're dead. Although... Victorian hygiene and understanding of germ theory.
...
Yeah, they've got sepsis. They're dead.
Question spiral! Holmes just asking himself question after question is very relatable. And bringing up all relevant points about how if Miss Cushing knows what's going on, taking the ears to the police but telling them nothing is the weirdest possible response.
I'm assuming that the subject of this email is wrong, because if this is part 1 of 1, there is no conclusion to this story and so without further evidence, I am forced to believe that one large pirate and one small pirate, genders unknown, are currently dead/dying of sepsis and the true recipient of these ears, M. S Cushing (any or all letters interchangeable) has heard nothing of their fate. Although, given it was in the newspaper, they probably have heard about it by now. So maybe they don't need the ears.
No idea why the ears were sent though. Proof of a hit? Proof of life? Just a creepy serial killer who likes to send the ears of their past victim to their next victim? Probably not that one, seems a bit Criminal Minds for a Sherlock Holmes story, but you never know.
#Letters from Watson#Sherlock Holmes#The Cardboard Box#Modern Sherlock this is a live unboxing video gone wrong#long post
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Ignoring the sex aspect, could you expand on what makes a preference neurotic or immature? You say “I disagree. I think it’s in fact pretty easy to separate neurotic/immature preferences from other kinds of preference. Like if you dislike the color red, that’s a normal preference. If you refuse to enter a room with any red objects in it, that’s probably something closer to a neurosis.”, which is just an example. What’s the actual principled distinction?
"Neurotic" and "immature" were possibly ill-advised words--maybe it would be better to describe them as preferences that seem to me to be fundamentally reasonable vs ones that, if I detected them in myself, I would feel motivated to ruminate on and dissolve if possible, or which seem in some way self-defeating or self-limiting.
I am not sure it is possible to give a set of criteria specific enough to distinguish, in every case, a preference of type 1 and a preference of type 2--and some of what we consider preferences of type 1 vs of type 2 is culturally contingent, to the point it may differ in different contexts. These are instrumental categories with a fair amount of overlap in the middle, so I don't know that I can adequately define this particular kind of preference with the specificity you seem to be seeking. It's a judgement call!
They may be easier to distinguish in the context of sex. In the specific case of sex, it seems to me that a lot of people have what we might think of as a ground-level sexual orientation, a pattern of desire/attraction that is basically unalterable, and on top of that we have a still-pretty-unconscious-but-much-more-contingent set of attitudes/credences/reflexes that may alter or limit the expression of the basic pattern of attraction/desire, but which is alterable. And the best example of this might be someone who is gay, but repressed because they were taught all their life it's disgusting to have gay sex. There definitely seems to be a large class of people who are, for instance, attracted to trans people, but who have a specific cultural attitude towards trans people (that they are disgusting or wrong) such that that attraction is also bound up with intense feelings of disgust. And that disgust can become quite paranoid, like with the people on twitter who secretly suspect every female celebrity of note of being trans.
But such attitudes can (and often are) confronted and even dissolved over time. Disgust can be unlearned! Which indicates to me that though these attitudes can seem quite deep-seated, they are fundamentally different in nature from people's deeper structures of desire, which do seem relatively fixed. Conversion therapy doesn't work; there doesn't seem to be a way to deliberately unlearn a paraphilia. You can't change someone else's or your own core sexuality very much.
This is not to say "genital preference is necessarily transphobia." It's also certainly not to say that even people who are transphobic don't have a right to select their partners. You do not have to have a good reason, or any reason at all, not to sleep with someone. So I want to head off that possible misunderstanding now. But it does seem to me that, insofar as complex preference sets like those that govern sexual attraction are composed of different kinds of preferences interacting, narrowly focused bodily preferences which operate more or less in a vacuum (e.g., "I find every single thing about this man attractive, except that he doesn't have a penis") are much more likely to be of the contingent, malleable sort rather than the ground, inflexible sort, unless they are the object of a kind of narrow sexual fixation that's so intense it's of the "I cannot have an orgasm unless I am licking a size 6 women's high-heeled shoe" variety, i.e., a really specific paraphilia.
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On Kudos, Comments, & Community
(also featuring resources!)
I think there are some basic principles most fannish folk will agree on:
fen share their fanworks for community and interaction
comments are a better way of building community than simply leaving kudos
kudos are a useful low-spoon way to indicate appreciation and positively affect the number of potential future readers
longer, more personalized comments are a better way of building community than very short and generalized comments such as 'thanks for sharing!'
longer, more personalized comments take more time and energy than shorter comments
shorter comments take more time and energy than simply leaving kudos, albeit not by much [n.b. whether this difference is significant is going to depend very much on how many spoons you have to start with!]
more advanced principles that different fannish folk disagree on:
very short and generalized comments such as 'thanks for sharing!' are a better way of building community than simply leaving kudos
very short and generalized comments such as 'thanks for sharing!' feel impersonal and are not helpful for building community
comments consisting entirely of emojis are a cute/fun way of indicating a more personalized level of enjoyment
comments consisting entirely of emojis are disappointing and demoralizing [yes I've seen at least one author beg readers to not do this as they find it so upsetting; no this is not a widespread take]
comments consisting entirely of 'kudos' 'kudos+' 'additional kudos' or similar are a cute/fun way of indicating a reader is re-reading or still reading and enjoying a work
[probably some people also feel weird about additional kudos comments but I haven't actually seen complaints so I'm mentioning it but not listing it as such]
some commonly noted barriers to commenting:
lack of spoons/energy
anxiety over getting a good grade in comment
anxiety over possibly getting a response back
anxiety over possibly not getting a response back
difficulty verbalizing thoughts
difficulty translating thoughts
multi-step process of getting back to the fic url, as the reader downloaded the fic for offline reading
just don't think about it/not in the habit
The best way to get more community interaction between writers and readers, imo, is always going to be minimizing those barriers. Framing it as a requirement of reciprocation has some elements of truth to it, for sure! but I've found that once you start talking about it like an expectation, you get pushback from people who have a knee-jerk reaction to any sort of command, and induce guilt and anxiety paralysis in people who would like to comment but aren't capable of doing so on a regular basis.
So! What can we as readers, writers, and fans in general, do to lower these barriers and improve the quantity and quality of community interaction?
@longlivefeedback is a blog dedicated to discussing just that! Their LLF Comment Project is a really cool initiative for authors that lets them make very clear what kinds of comments/feedback they like and (if applicable) what they dislike. It also as a template suggests authors may want to include a statement about their general policies about responding to comments.
They also have an interactive tool for readers meant to help users learn to comment and lower barriers such as anxiety, mobility, fluency, etc. - the LLF Comment Builder.
There are also a bunch of userscripts various fans have created that make it easier to leave comments! Check out the full set of userscripts I've collected on GreasyFork here:Fandom-Relevant [Archive of Our Own]: For Readers.
A userscript I personally highly recommend is the AO3 automatic rekudos converter - if you've previously left kudos on a fic, and hit kudos again, it converts the button to a question Rekudos? which (when clicked) will randomly generate a comment from a pre-approved list of comments. The script author already included a basic list such as 'kudos+' 'additional kudos'; I personally added some fun ones such as 'but what about SECOND kudos?' and 'a fic so nice, i kudosed it twice!'.
The reason I so highly recommend this one is because I a) read a lot of WIPs and b) re-read fics so often - this lets me very quickly let people know I've re-read their fic yet again or am continuing to read their ongoing saga!
I've found over time as I have more and more strictly followed a policy of rekudosing any fic I've already kudosed, I've actually found it easier to leave free-form ad hoc comments as well! YMMV there, of course.
Other notable userscripts:
AO3 Random Nice Comments
ao3 Comment Assist
AO3: Add gifs to comments
AO3 Floating Comment Box
AO3: Comment Formatting Options
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It says that Te dom are afraid to be weak. But I've noticed a lot of xxFJ also express that fear. Especially ExFJs, they want to be capable and strong. One of my friend (ENFJ, male) say that they dislike feeling weak and feel shame if they didn't push themselves enough to solve a problem. What could explain that mindset that if FJs don't have Te-Fi? More importantly, is it possible ExFJ mistype themselves as ExTJ for that reason? Bc they see themselves as strong and confrontational?
As far as I can tell, the main problem is that you are oversimplifying. There are two aspects to this problem that often interfere with the type assessment process:
1) The tendency to stereotype and overemphasize superficial characteristics: This is usually a result of not understanding the distinction between cognition and behavior, which is the first major principle covered in the Function Theory Guide.
Two different types can exhibit the same behavior but for different underlying cognitive reasons. For example, there is a common stereotype that portrays ExTJs as leaders/managers due to dominant Te. Yet, in reality, ExFJs are equally likely to gravitate to leadership roles. How are you going to explain this in the absence of Te? Is Te equal to leadership or does Te have a monopoly on leadership? No and no.
"Leadership" is a behavior. A behavior can arise for many possible reasons. Te doms might gravitate to leadership due to a desire for order or control, whereas Fe doms might gravitate to leadership due to a desire to influence and improve group cohesion. The "leadership" behavior may look similar on the surface, but the cognitive reasons/motivations underneath it are vastly different, because Te and Fe are very different functions.
If you don't properly distinguish cognition from behavior, you won't have a deep enough understanding of WHY the behavior exists, and then it's very easy to be led astray by superficial stereotypes during type assessment.
2) Overlooking context and circumstance: This is usually a result of not understanding that human beings are motivated by a multitude of factors, and personality type is only one of them. Most human behavior is multifactorial. Before you try to attribute a behavior to a particular type/function, have you made sure that other external factors/causes have been properly accounted for?
Why is it that, compared to other types, ExTJs are more likely to have this quality of being "afraid to be weak"? It is directly attributable to inferior Fi. However, this doesn't mean there aren't other factors/causes behind it. Another factor that could be at play is general fear of vulnerability, which can afflict anyone of any type. Fear of vulnerability isn't mainly a matter of personality but of negative experiences that hampered ego development, though it might also negatively influence function expression. Most people operate at lower levels of ego development, so fear of vulnerability is a widespread issue, to varying degrees.
In the case of ExFJs, Fe not only encourages one to harmonize with prevailing social norms and customs, it also encourages one to actively maintain and enforce them whenever one observes behaviors that go against the norm. This is one reason why Fe doms can come across as strong-willed, confrontational, even meddling.
However, there can be many other reasons why they come across that way. For instance, ExFJs who have grown up in very harsh or hostile environments might constantly be faulted or shamed for "oversharing", "oversensitivity", or being "overemotional". When healthy dominant function development gets inhibited by powerful environmental factors, it can have a negative impact on how a person expresses all of their functions. People don't only use one function, so Fe isn't the only function to consider.
For example, since environmentally oppressed ExFJs can't really use Fe in a positive way to influence and improve the social environment, they have little choice but to use it in a negative way to conform with the very norms and customs that denigrate their natural Fe strengths. Instead of using Ti in a positive way to encourage healthy boundary setting and reasonable decision making, they have little choice but to use it in a negative way to obsess about "strength", "competence", "independence", or "intelligence", because that is the only means they know of avoiding shame and obtaining validation.
In short, can you tell the difference between natural function expression (positive) and compensatory function behavior (negative)? You won't be able to tell the difference until you understand the complex relationship between personality and environment.
As I wrote in the Function Theory Guide: "To really understand someone, you must contextualize their behavior, by examining all the different forces that might be motivating them." Human psychology is complicated, which means there's always more going on beneath the surface than you realize. If you think type assessment should be a simple process, you're likely to suffer a high error rate.
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