#Nki 9w1

[enneamage]

Okay, from what I see, Niki and Jack very quickly started dating other people after they broke up. And I think that maybe, the relationship was already very worn out and it wasn't the same anymore, and they wanted to be with other people to escape the monotony, or there is a lot of resentment and they are using their partners as a rebound.

I am truly guesstimating when it comes to those two, I have only the vaguest idea of what happened. It might have had some slowly building tension over time, but If they had a shared motivation (getting bored) I think it would have been a more sober mutual agreement to separate rather than whatever left us with so much scorched earth.

I’m well and truly Using The Force on this one but I’m mainly sensing a blowout. People in relationships may pretend to be fine for the camera, but these two weren’t even publicly dating and still looked like they were dating, if that makes sense. I didn’t observe them much directly so it’s very possible I missed a chapter, but them taking a turn felt like it was centered around a specific moment in their history.

While I hope that neither of them are ‘using people’ in a short-term transactional utility way, they do seem to be leaning into other people to help re-direct their energy. I don’t know either of the people that they wound up going for so I can’t say if they’re leaning into a different energy than what they had before, but I am getting “moving as far away from you as possible” vibes.

[enneamage]

could you do an enneagram about nikibur? 🙏 I know this relationship was bad and I'm glad Niki is better now, but I'd like to know about them, their problems.

I can give my Spicy Opinion based on what I’ve deliberated about their personalities, but truth be told the two of them are further from their textbook descriptions. Wilbur is less reliable than a healthy three, and Niki has a difficult history that gives her certain reflexes on top of her predisposition. There’s also things that will probably be too specific to guess that happened behind the scenes, but I’m willing to bet that Wilbur’s push-and-pull problems became a big issue between them.

(I will do a writeup in an ask later about how Wilbur collects Nines like stickers, but that’s slightly less relevant here because of the way they met.)

I think they fucked up, together.

The blame shifts to Wilbur as time goes on, but through naivety and badly calibrated strategic thinking, they introduced the stressor of being a public couple who made their content about being a public couple. They knew what their gimmick was, and they both invoked it from the get-go—they would flirt on stream, farm awws, and then play coy when people asked about the obvious. They wanted to do the will-they-won’t-they bit and were in open competition with Carson & Kate. I think people feel morally obligated to forget how blatant they were, but they were incredibly in-your-face, and they mostly did it on purpose. They were more than just a public couple: they were straight-baiting, and they held onto it for a while because it gave them content.

And then the cons outweighed the pros. People started buying exactly what they were selling, finding them cute and investing in their personal lives. The thing is, they weren’t actually prepared to be any more demonstrative than they already were, and they both have a private streak that they wanted to hide each other behind. In a way it was an innocent failure to understand what crowds are really like, and what happens when you give a mouse a cookie. They found that they couldn’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, and at that point it was too late.

As an aside, women are competitive. They’re actually as competitive as men, but we treat the spite they treat other women with as anomalous because we think they’re supposed to be collectivistic or something. (People not noticing the double standard here is something that bothers me :P.) Needless to say, we usually don’t expect a female streamer to roll up and flirt with her Chad boyfriend without chat going nuts, because we know that people can be petty and jealous with the object of their affection. The same logic applies the other way around, but people tend to expect it less because women are meant to be more civilised or something. In the end we’re more equal than we know :P.

Niki doesn’t deserve the hate she got by any stretch of the imagination, but she got it all the same. She was heavily associated with Wilbur and had a personality people offhandedly summed up as ‘wholesome’ and ‘bland.’ She was endearing to some people, projected onto by others, and the object of vicious jealousy to (what I hope was?) a vocal minority. Not much active effort was put into seeing and understanding her as an individual, which has gotta be a mindfuck to go through, especially If you’re going through it virtually alone.

The on-paper ‘healthy’ love story between Threes and Nines is that Nines give Threes a space of unconditional and unjudgmental love. In return, Threes encourage Nines to develop themselves and shine on their own. The ideal is a feedback loop of mutual safety and encouragement, a very comfy duo. I won’t lie, I’ve seen this combination in the wild, they seem to happen more frequently than some other pairings and I can see why. This is also why I can only use the enneagram roadmap for them so much, because these two (or at least Wilbur) went off the rails.

Judging from what we’ve established about Wilbur so far, he’s good at making himself seem reliable, and then the payoff is so-so. To avoid being overly cruel I will say that Wilbur’s mental health was outstandingly bad at certain points in their timeline, so the situation has layers, but it probably activated some of his worst habits and Niki seems to have gotten the brunt of it. He liked being loved by her, and probably loving her back, but he didn’t have the mind to be her safe space consistently, which is a big part of what she needs out of a relationship.

Wilbur’s love interest persona is so distinct from the rest of him that it comes into question how real it is, and what the hell that even implies. The answers can range from ‘maybe he just gets inspired by the people he loves to behave differently’ to ‘American Psycho acting ass motherfucker.’ Threes can be a type that does romance, performs charm and builds fantasies about perfect love for them and their partner to live in. I think he pulled back when he was at his worst, maybe self-consciously hiding himself because he knew he wasn’t living up to his hype, maybe abandoning her when he wasn’t capable of meeting her needs. I don’t think he was entirely synthetic with her, because truth be told he’s not that good at lying for very long, but he did seem to make explicit and implicit promises that he went on to not keep. I remember the ”men are disappointing, actually” Niki clips, and I can tell who they’re about.

Some of the on-screen magnetism between Niki and Wilbur came from her being a cheerleader when he was feeling down. This is something that she elaborates on indirectly in her Dr. K video, she likes finding the places that she can slot into other people’s lives. Tragically for her, this is implicitly tied to the hope that they won’t leave her, which ended badly this time around. Wilbur was simple, in a way, just make the sad boy smile and make him feel better. Niki was on caretaker duty, which wouldn’t have been bad if he was able to match her energy and make things more reciprocal. Whether he was capable of returning her efforts in a way that wasn’t token or performative is up in the air, but in fairness, it looked like he had his moments.

Ultimately Wilbur couldn’t match Niki’s faithful, caring energy. Wilbur gets very self-absorbed in times of stress, and I’m actually kind of worried about what that looked like between them, because abandonment might have only been the tip of the iceberg.

I’m going to do something kind of rare and give Wilbur the benefit of the doubt on a few points. Wil, having a relatively functional sense of cause and effect, could probably put together that he was a big part of the problem whether he wanted to be or not. It was interactions with him and his audience that would wind up getting her attacked, so the simplest answer on that front was to just not do that. I also think he knew that their power gap was sketchy, and he might have been concerned about what it said about him. Ironically this might have caused him to hurt her more in the process as he was wrestling with it, but chat had her call him a nonce in their first date video, and in a roundabout way they had a point.

[enneamage]

would you do a nikifold enneagram? i love these two 🙏

Jack and Niki are a good example of how you can have two people of the same type (and wing!) and still have them be very separate people. When I was looking up info about Nine pairings, I found an offhanded mention that Nines are some of the most common two-of-a-kind pairings, which I can’t back up with stats but it’s an interesting thought.

Since all roads lead back to Minecraft roleplay, I’ll start by outlining the premise that they 'met' under: the Dream SMP is kind of a trample or be trampled environment, and both Jack and Niki got the short end of this stick. Their characters bonded over a shared sense of injustice and neglect, and with their willingness to listen to each other and validate their less attention-grabbing emotions they became fast allies. Real life was less dramatic than this, but I’m willing to bet it was an enormous relief to meet someone who was living at the same pace that they were.

Jack is, literally and figuratively, louder than Niki. However, he’s very good with making sure that he never drowns her out, and it’s very clear they’ve got a strong base of mutual consideration. In fact, with Jack being as openly doting and play-simping as he is, Niki gets to indulge in something that I associate with some Nines (but not all of them)—a little bit of that playing coy, pampered sloth vibe. Laying across a grand piano, wine in hand, hard to describe what I’m getting at but if you know you know. She gets to feel safe teasing Jack and still feeling valued. In return, Niki gets to put her devotion and care towards someone who notices the hell out of it.

Since they’re both Nines, I’ll pop in a rough love-style summary from an oddly good website:

When it comes to being in love, Nines are very warm and patient people. They care about being supportive of their partner and want them to always feel safe and loved. Their desire to create peace in their environment is definitely something which exists in their relationships as well. They want to make their partner happy and dislike when this person feels upset or uncomfortable. They work hard to create a safe environment for the ones they love, and want to always find a way to make them at ease. They are certainly giving people when they love someone, and care about finding ways to make their partner as happy as possible. They are warm and affectionate as well, knowing how to show support when someone is struggling. They can often sense when their significant other is troubled and needs support, and will do whatever they need to in order to help them and ease their minds. They are highly unlikely to be insensitive to their partners needs, instead they want to always be attentive and focus on ensuring they are cared for. They can be truly passionate about someone they are in love with and want to be swept up in those emotions. While they care about a sense of peace in their world, they also want to seek out things which are rewarding and fulfilling for them. When it comes to being in love they want this to be a big part of their lives, and will certainly put a lot of focus on their partner. When the type 9 individual loves someone they make them a true priority in their lives and want this to be something which goes both ways

Since this might be the longest write-up I do on the two of them, I’ll go into the ways that their personalities overlap and diverge from a Nine wing One framework.

Niki has principles and will stand up for them, but doesn’t like holding anger within herself for longer than she has to. She may find holding onto negative emotions to be corrosive and ultimately more stress than they’re worth, so she prefers to make peace with things when she can. She’s good (and always getting better) with her boundaries so she doesn’t give up her principles, but she’s likely to want to land things in a stable place with people and work issues out rather than be stuck in discomfort if it’s an ongoing situation. She still has moments where her first instinct is to bottle up and withdraw to handle her emotions, but as she gets healthier those get fewer and further between.  

Jack is more okay with confrontation and plays in the field of playful but shallow ‘offence’ a lot, getting into little playfights with chat and others. However, he’s also a skilled mediator and is more willing to ‘get into it’ because he can ground situations and stay fair while he’s going. Overall Jack is willing to take the lead while also keeping the harmony, which is a trait that shows up very well when he’s playing the role of host. He can have a toe over the line into hypocrisy when his ‘maintain inner zen’ drive outweighs his sense of justice, but for the most part he stays on the straight and narrow.

[enneamage]

I was reading up on compatibility, and it seems type threes get along with type nines (best compatibility), but Niki looked so emotionally drained at the end of the relationship. I suppose in a different case, if Wilbur had been a better person and decided to improve, this relationship would have worked?

It would also make sense that you said that Wilbur seems to be obsessed with nines and why he really seemed to be looking for that relationship with George (a nine). but it's also interesting that although techno, phil and jack seem to get along with him, tubbo, niki and george seem to keep a distance from him

however, I could be very wrong, so if you could tell us pls about the compatibility (or a reliable article about it) I would really appreciate it!

It’s generally the job of people who write type descriptions to make nearly every couple sound like a good idea under the right circumstances, and a bad idea under the wrong ones. They’ll always do a little disclaimer saying that any two types can get along with each other as long as they’re “healthy,” and that is worth believing. However, people as individuals do tend to drift towards the same kinds of people over their lifetime, and there do seem to be some skews with who winds up finding who.

Types that come up the most often in relationships tend to have compatible good sides as well as compatible bad sides. This is a bit of grey-moral observation, but it’s one I’ve noticed. It might be great for some individual Nines and Threes, but in other cases it can be “an easy pattern to fall into,” if that makes sense. Since I already gave a nugget of 3/9 best-case scenario in the Nikibur breakdown for contrast, I’ll give a more harsh one here.

In a romatic context, it's not unusual for less considerate Threes to trample over Nines or use them as emotional gas-stations. They can set the agenda for their everyday lives and can become a little too used to the fact that the Nines don’t assert their desires, switching between using them as a safe haven and ignoring them in order to get work done. On the other hand, while Nines might not overtly pick fights until they’re badly worn down, they’re still capable of being very stubborn. A strange balance of deep dependence and self-regulation sets in, where they vent their anger passive-aggressively but begin to feel afraid of being abandoned. They can step into emotional disconnection in order to handle the lows of the relationship, making them check out mentally. In a way they can both freeze over, locking each other in place. Less evolved versions of this couple want to be able to take each other for granted; these two usually don’t leave each other until things get way worse than they should.

I understand where you’re coming from with the “If Wilbur had been a better person” thing, but I would tweak it to if Wilbur had been a different person. In an infinite multiverse Niki might have enjoyed the company of a Three, but in the end a Wilbur is a Wilbur and it was his individual self that lived this scenario.

Having been given a truly excessive amount of time to figure out what exactly I was looking at, I do feel like Wilbur has a foot over the line into genuine NPD territory. The thing about crossing this barrier is that a personality disorder can be managed, but never completely goes away, and it certainly can’t be ignored out of existence. That’s generally why I put a big asterisk next to him being a Three, because something is disrupting the standard patterns, on top of his already fairly unique nature. I can understand him from the perspective of him being a Three, but only so much.

While there were a whole number of factors why Niki didn’t seem well at the tail end of her relationship (mass hate mobs ect.), it’s a very common refrain for people who have had bad experiences with people with NPD to say that they felt burnt out by the end. While it's grim to take her experience as evidence of that, if he contributed to her state by the end that may be why.

[enneamage]

Out of all the type 9s who is the best at being a 9 and who is the worst. Who's getting voted off the type 9 island. Who's getting excommunicated to like their wing or their growth point or something. I want bloodsport

A bit of reality TV let's go--

Standard disclaimer this is wildly subjective nobody can be their type wrong but this is a battle of who would show up as the textbook picture of a Nine in a 101 class.

The first elimination is Karl for being spliced with type Three regardless of how ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ he is. Wildly methodical and always on the grind, if someone introduced me to Karl as a Three that only got one hour of sleep last night I would believe it for a while.

Jack Manifold is going to be exiled to his One wing, in a good way. He has very little of The Sleepyness and a lot of The Intensity, he will be shuttled off to the neighboring island but still be heard from the shore if you listen carefully enough.

Sapnap has a complex relationship to his anger and has some confrontational reflexes. He will be sent to go hang out with the Eights since that part of him is fairly pronounced.

Tubbo, having become the bossman, may graduate into his Eight wing, and together the Eights will welcome him with open arms. (This spot is temporary and might actually be rooted in him going to Six for a while under stress, but for now he’s in good company.)

As has been explored from me thinking out loud, Tina is the kind of Nine that one could easily mistake for a Two, so she gets voted off the island for her versatility.

George is pretty far up in the round because he’s relatively pleasant while also being sloth incarnate some days. While I could put him at the top, Dream is pulling up in his speedboat to pick him up now and if we don’t hand him over things are going to get violent. (Not really an elimination but he’s so merged with his friends that his actions are entwined with theirs innately, which both is and isn’t an example of a Perfectly Nineish Nine.)

Foolish is a solid Nine specimen, a hard worker who loves flow activities. Reliable and slightly spacey in nonintrusive ways, he gets an honorable mention before we get to the final round.

Our top two representing the Eight and One of the Perfectly Nineish Nines:

Hanging in there to represent the Nine wing Ones we have Niki, who has been through literally everything and still emerged a consistently kind person. Moral while still remaining interpersonally considerate, Niki is surfing the highs and lows with a uniquely Nineish flavor.

On the side of the eight wing we have Phil, also representing his emerald counterpart who would share his spot. Integrated to Three in terms of knowing how and when to take center stage but not to an overly demanding degree, a rounded individual with a love of flow activities and absurd video game skill.