#if you can't be pragmatically something worth keeping than i don't see that point of you being there

[goopi-e]

If you do rankings, here's a shitpost-like idea for you.

Rank the Links by whether or not you'd believe they'd haul off and punch a child.

I will use LU nomenclature 'cause it's the easiest one, but the takes will be more about my perception of their canon personalities than anything from the comic. Also, no HW Link, I really don't think about HW that often, sowwy.

Anyways, from most to least likely:

Hyrule: Would punch anyone who touches his belongings unprompted or looks at him funny. These fists don't discriminate.

Sky: Will slap a kid (any kid, as long as he believes there's no accompanying adults) in an attempt to discipline them, wholeheartedly believing it's the right thing to do... only to spend half a day running after that kid and apologising. And he never learns.

Spirit: Growing up among Niko and Alfonzo, he's prone to expressing all his feelings rather physically, be it an affectionate slap on the back or smacking someone upside their head as a means of criticizing their behaviour. Neighborhood kids are kind of used to it, but children from outside of Aboda tend to be wary of a young engineer who can't quite keep his hands to himself.

Time: Has no solid grasp on his own age, so mostly treats himself as a kid, even when in a adult-looking body; plus, Kokiri don't really distinguish between childhood age groups. So it's less of a "will he punch someone younger than him" and more of a "will he punch a fellow child". Now, Saria did her best in hammering it into Link that hitting others is wrong, but with Mido's bullying and the overall cruel nature of Kokiri... Long story short, if some kid happens to hit upon a sensitive subject when teasing, Link will snap, shove them and run away to cry, feeling super bad about the whole ordeal, maybe to the point of avoiding that kid for ages instead of apologising. That's kind of how his pre-MM friendship with the Skull Kid went, anyway. Also, unrelated, but this Link would be very puzzled upon seeing a toddler for the first time.

Wind: His deal is similar to Time's, except less traumatic. Wind generally doesn't mind a bit of roughhousing and play-fights, and, having barely crossed the point of societal adolescence, still feels like he's on equal footing with kids loosely in his age bracket. Definitely would start a street fight with the Killer Bees for funsies, win, and tell them it was a lesson not to bully others or something. Importantly, he'll try and break up the fight once it starts escalating into the dangerous territory, buuut, being as young as he is, he's still prone to lapses in his judgement.

Minish/Four/whatever (i tend to treat those as separate Links, but they aren't that different in their personalities): Do you think you get to see the Minish by being a bully? ...Okay, well, he's not a goody-two-shoes either, he's smack-dab in the middle of childhood cruelty spectrum, since Shadow Link has to come from somewhere — but that cruelty rarely, if ever, manifests in front of a fellow kid. He'd rather, like, pluck the leaves off of a Deku Scrub or something when he's in a mean mood, and even that is a rare occurrence.

Legend: This is one of the more pragmatic Links, if having Ravio as a doppelganger is any indication. And hitting a child? Most of the time, it's just ain't worth it. However, having seen a fair share of possessions and illusions, he knows well that the looks can be deceiving: if he has the slightest suspicion that the child in front of him may not be a real person, he may get angrier than normal, even if that suspicion is baseless.

Twilight: Not in a million years would he even consider hurting someone younger than him. Maybe pinching an ear on an especially bad day with an especially annoying kid, but otherwise? No, he's just not raised like that.

Wild: He's a teacher, and a damn good teacher at that — a better one than Symin, anyways. Being a very gentle soul, he gets along with kids just as easily as he gets along with animals; plus, raising a new generation is a duty, and this is the Link that treats all his duties extremely seriously. It wouldn't even cross his mind to intentionally hurt a child, neither verbally nor physically, so a few times he had to scold Symin and even Zelda for being too impatient with children.

[high-voltage-rat]

Okay so like. Obviously Karlach's most glaringly obvious theme is that of a woman who was betrayed, sold into slavery, and managed to escape. But her secondary theme, and the one that we actually confront and grapple with most during the course of her story, is that of her infernal engine. Spoilers below for all acts, including the ending of the game.

From the moment we meet her in Act 1, Karlach is dying. From the very earliest part of her character quest, she is told her engine cannot sustain her forever- she is living on borrowed time. Further, she is isolated from the world because of it- she can't hug her friends, can't take a lover, can't even interact with the world like the rest of her peers. She is constantly conscious of her body and the way that it is different- she has to be. She's told that if she returns to the state she was in before, even more isolated and fighting a constant war that she will never truly win, she can at least survive. When she refuses this option, when she expresses that it isn't an option at all, that she would rather have an enjoyable short time than a miserable long one, it is in many ways framed as her "giving up".

This, to me, speaks to the story of a terminal or chronic illness, or a disability. A life spent fighting your own body, restricted by your condition, desperately wanting to be like everyone else. Being unable to have physical contact or intimacy, whether because of the risk to your health, or simply because you can't even form the connections to get to that point in a relationship with someone because your experiences are so different or your condition takes up your time and mind. And if you decide to forego treatment, if you decide the benefits of it aren't worth the consequences, you're told you're giving up, pushed to keep fighting.

Now, in Act 2, with the help of Dammon, Karlach is able to upgrade her engine enough to be able to protect others from the consequences of her engine. She can hug people, she can have physical contact. She's full of joy, even as Dammon is reminding her that she's dying- because she's finally getting the chance to live again. She's finally done letting her condition dictate her life, and she throws herself into everything that means.

In Act 3, we see her experience ups and downs within that. We see the grief over her coming death suddenly hit her, we see her mourn herself, the life she could have had. We see her get angry, at the people who put her in this position, at the people around her who are living "normal" lives, even a little bit at herself. Even though she's accepted the path that will lead to her death, she's still grieving it.

At the culmination of her arc, we see her volunteer to become a mind flayer in order to save the world. She's dying anyway, she argues, may as well do it saving the world. It's not just a heroic offer of sacrifice- to her, it's the logical conclusion. It's pragmatic. It doesn't matter what form she dies in, it'll happen regardless.

Only... it doesn't. If she transforms, her engine stabilizes. More than that, she starts to feel even more like herself. She's hideous, in a form that is reveiled by society, her body permanently altered- people don't look at her and see Karlach. They see a mind flayer. Her friends offer her pity, her allies immediately take to referring to her as an illithid regardless of who she was before. And yet, she says, she feels more of herself than she ever has. She has a future, she has hope, she's happy.

I see this culmination as an allegory for the use of aids or the receipt of radical treatment. You can be the healthiest and happiest you've been in your whole life- but if you take medications, if you use mobility aids, if you have scars from a life-improving surgery, anything that makes it visible that you're embracing and working with your condition... that's when the sympathy starts pouring in. That's when you're viewed as a tragedy, or something gross and unfit for being seen in public. That's when people recoil and ask what happened to you, even when they never reacted at all when you were at your worst. People stop looking at you and seeing you, and start seeing your condition. Despite all of that, though, finding aids that fit your needs or getting the right procedure can revolutionize your life. It can set you free, and it can empower you to find joys you never knew were possible.

For Karlach's story, I honestly feel like becoming an Illithid is the best ending- because it does that for her. It's not a fuzzy warm perfect ending- but it sets her free. It gives her agency over her life again, and regardless of what anyone else sees when they look at her, she can be proud of what she's accomplished. Of the future ahead of her, of the person she's become, of all the parts of being Karlach she now gets to explore.

She never gets to live a "normal" life. But she gets to be happy. And she saves the goddamn world.

[xiyao-feels]

You know, with how JGY has a merciful streak for people her cares for that ultimately contributes to his downfall, what if he just... didn't? Like, he waits a few seconds longer so NMJ dies to WRH, or he just abandons NHS post assassinating NMJ, he kills Sisi rather than imprisoning her, etc.

Hmmm. I mean I feel like removing this as something he does would be a significant change to who he is as a person; he is someone who will take various risks for people he cares about/feels responsible for or to. If he doesn't have this tendency at all he's...a very different person! And particularly for the case of abandoning NHS, I can't see how this makes any sense; I think it's clear that he cares about NHS beyond pure pragmatism, but abandoning NHS doesn't make any sense from the perspectives of his relationship with the Lan or the Nie. Plus I mean—at this point he doesn't have any sense of NHS as a threat; why would he abandon him?

That said the risks JGY takes are calculated ones. It would have been safer to have Sisi and MXY killed, it's more dangerous to keep them alive—but it's not a big risk! It's actually a very small one. I think if he didn't think he could be safe with them alive he probably would have them killed; I don't think he'd like it, especially with Sisi, but I do think he'd do it.

On the other hand, the risk he takes saving NMJ is very very big; but not only does he genuinely feel like he owes NMJ, but by saving NMJ, he gets not only to save NMJ, but to kill WRH and win the war, and also become known as the person who saved NMJ, killed WRH, and won the war! It's an immense payoff, so it makes sense it's worth a bigger risk.

(As to NHS, again he doesn't have any sense of NHS as a risk at all, which is part of why I have such a hard time with this scenario; and of course if he did think of NHS as a risk, he'd have been keeping an eye on him and NHS would never have managed to do what he did in the first place. And if he knew what NHS was going to do he'd devote himself to making sure NHS couldn't threaten him anymore at all! I honestly can't see how just abandoning him would fit.)

So you could alter individual cases by giving him a clearer sense of the risks involved; if you wanted to give him magical knowledge from the future, I mean, sure. But it's not clear to me that's what you mean? If it's just that we remove the inner motivation to take these kinds of risks at all... I think honestly I'd be much less interested in a JGY who was like this; it's one thing to make calculated risks and tradeoffs which feature "I don't want to die, or lose all my political power (and then die)" as a very important result, and another to just not care at all about people who've treated him decently.

On the other hand—I've certainly thought before of just how much better off JGY would be if he didn't succeed in saving NMJ; he manages to kill WRH, of course, but NMJ dies of his wounds. (Not "dies of his wounds" because of JGY's intervention, but actually legitimately dies of his wounds.) Since NMJ is already dead, JGY doesn't kill him later on, so NHS never develops his enmity: poof, problem solved! It also of course means he never has to deal with NMJ physically attacking him and generally treating him like shit, which is also an improvement.

Funnily enough, it might even help the Wen! It's not a guarantee, of course, especially since a) NHS is clearly a believer in vengeance and WRH just killed his big brother and b) even if you don't think he enthusiastically signs on to vengeance against the Wen, he's very unlikely to be able to usefully build/exert his political influence so quickly; but at least you've removed NMJ's hatred from the scene, and you also wouldn't have the respected war hero Chifeng-zun speaking to against JC's attempt to defend WQ and WN. Which is to say, it removes one significant obstacle, even if there are many significant obstacles remaining.

[maglors-anion-gap]

9,10 and 13 for the weird writing ask :3

[from this ask game]

I'm late getting to these! when I ask for asks, never trust that I'll respond promptly (send them anyway, though, I like attention)

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know.

kinda, maybe? There's been some times where my mom was sure she was visited by something.

She was downhill ski-race training at night once when she was younger than me, and she tripped on something and fell. Her dad came running up the hill because her light went out. She was a junior olympic racer, the snow was fresh powder, and the place she fell was clear of debris - but if she hadn't fallen, she would've slammed face first into a tree at 70 mph and died. The light on the course was out; she would never have even seen it. Falling saved her life, and she fell over nothing, over thin air.

She's also been visited by her grandmother twice. On the worst night of her life, she said she felt her grandmother, who had been dead for twenty-some years, sit down next to her and this feeling of peace came over her. Almost a decade later, I was out in the forest with her, somewhere her grandmother would have liked to be. I was doing something with our gear, and I turned around and she was kind of crying. And she pointed down the path and said "I just saw my grandmother. She stopped by again to say goodbye, because I don't need her any more." And I genuinely can't remember if I saw a person on the path or if I'm imagining what my mother saw.

On a more pragmatic note, I think people feel strongly about ghosts for one of two reasons: sometimes you get a gut feeling that something's wrong, and that's usually worth listening to; and respecting the dead/the passage of time and life is part of the grieving process and being able to let go of people who have passed in a healthy way. I think science affirms, not discredits, the need for a mourning period; people might dismiss them as a thing of the past, and the economically minded certainly begrudge bereavement time, but what's profitable isn't synonymous with what's kind or what's right. You need some time and some space to get right with your love and your sadness. So traditions around mourning and paying your respects to your ancestors are very interesting to me!

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Haunting is like, when I can't stop thinking about something, and I keep turning it over in my head. This can be a good, bad, or neutral thing, depending on if I enjoy thinking about it, or if it torments me. I don't think I've ever been tormented by my own writing (except perhaps in embarrassment); I don't think I've ever managed to write anything that soulful (though I've certainly tried). Right now I'm being haunted by that Tom Stoppard quote, let me find it:

“What do I want? Nothing which you'd call indecent, though I don't see what's wrong with it myself. You want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself... to be shipwrecked together, (to) perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him - to die in his arms, like a Spartan, kissed once on the lips... or just run his errands in the meanwhile. You want him to know what cannot be spoken, and to make the perfect reply, in the same language.”

I am being haunted by this because 1) this is what it's like to be a gay man, 2) this is what it's like to be a trans man, 3) this is what it's like to love a man. And I am in a really weird place where I love my partner, I covet what he is, and as supportive as he is, I also get the sense that 0% of this makes sense to him. It's all impossible to talk about, I want him to understand it intuitively, and to know what to do. Instead he asks me if I might grow my hair out again.

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

I am having a weird-hard time writing about women who want to be women. In the sense that: I would be cool with being a woman if being a woman meant nothing and I existed in a void without anyone else around me. Introduce one person to the void and I have to get as far away from being a woman as possible, because their idea of being a woman is always different from mine. Had a big row over my hair - I actually like having long hair, but not when people tell me I ought to. So because I'm having a weird-bad time with being an (ex)woman, it's hard to think or to write about why that's actually enjoyable for many people.

It was never hard before, and once I get this worked out it will be good and easy again and I will write about lots of women. Unfortunately right now all of my women start drifting into manhood.

Otoh: it's very easy for me to write about sex.

my newest fic is about 1) women and 2) sex and that's why it's taking so long to finish. The sex is done, the women are not. Apologies to the intended recipient :'(

[sunstranded]

MBTI: Typing People

The margin of error in typing anyone is more important and interesting than typing others. By that term I meant the uncertainty and the percentage of it actually reflecting reality or not.

This is probably the most xNTx thing to say but it'd be so great to have a formula to understand people. That'd be so easy. That'd be more useful to memorize than the quadratic formula that I somehow still remember even if I haven't taken a math class or a competition in years (but I digress).

I don't want to get into the nitty gritty stuff of statistics. I am by no means a professional at that. I just want to deviate from the typing people and having a label and consider the other take of "don't put people in a box" argument.

I don't know nor am I qualified to represent their argument since they're so repulsive to being put in a category, even representing their argument in a singular way is subject to "inaccuracy" and "that's not the point."

So I'll just explore the idea that they keep arguing about, the inaccuracy of personality tests and putting people in a box or label.

First, my simple and singular qualm on the "don't put me in a box." Having a name or even an adjective associated to you is putting you in a box, like it or not. If you see a brown beverage and refuse to clarify whether it's coffee or tea, people will think of it as their favorite. Once you start calling that brown beverage one over the other, the opposition will always dislike it even if their perception of it before was their favorite beverage. I hope I worded that directly and simple enough. It is an inevitability to be put in a box. What is also inevitable is being more than the box you're put on, being more than your name, being more than brown beverage.

Now on the matter of accuracy in personality tests. I have three things we should all consider prior to judging accuracy:

Personal Bias - Especially if we have come to a liking and also been associated with rarity when it comes to our types (Ni-doms looking at you), we would be more reluctant to believe other people that easily say they're just like us when we don't see how they see themselves. Our personal bias can take different forms as well, if a person seeks belongingness or camaraderie, they might start thinking someone who appears like them is just like them.

Masks - We all have our masks the same way we have clothes. We wear them to either represent ourselves or to match the appropriate setting. Either way, the choice speaks more than the action but we can't always prime ourselves to think this way. Hence, we might judge unfairly.

Evolution - In regards to social media in the digital world, I doubt our brains had enough time to evolve by natural selection to adapt to the aforementioned medium (that changes too fast by the way). This also means we develop skepticism or that gut feeling of "too good to be true" in cases that may just be true. INFJs statistically are rare (though ENFJs or ENTJs are rarer now I believe) but a lot of people online identify as such and we don't always believe them. It might be unjust and it might be just; point is, that probability is worth noting.

With those three and the rebuttal prior to it out in the way, we can be in the most same page we could be in this discussion (i notice this type of context noting is what Si doms need to get me but also what they hate hearing first because "i could have said it shorter." Yes I could have but you'll just ask for the context anyway and that wastes more time).

SO KNOWING THAT THE UNCERTAINTY IS CERTAINLY CONSTANT IN EVERY TYPING WE DO (for ourselves and for others) THEN WHATS THE POINT?

It's the most obvious next question to be asking and my answer to that is get rid of the vanity called correctness and focus on something more pragmatic. You cannot convince someone is wrong unless they know how beneficial it is to be right. It's the most constant rule in reality that I have noticed.

If someone is so adamant they are this type, there's no point in forcing them to believe other wise. The point of MBTI and personality typology is to give a name to a personality of a person.

You can only introduce yourself when you have a name, right? Even then, with your name people can mistake you for someone else or just misunderstand you. But the best thing about your name is you can be more than those who had the same name or have the same name as you. That's the same way for personality types.

At the end of the day, you're a name to someone because no one will fully figure you out. They can make you feel understood but unless you let them, they can know you more than your name too. You can take your name and be the standard or you can take that name and follow a standard. Same rules in personality typing.

If you notice, there is no need for correctness, only comprehensibility. Who gives a shit if you're right but no one understands you? Not even robots would care. I've been in that situation enough to realize its a truly lonely and painful place to be.

It's better to be a person people can understand than be a person that is right. It's better to be seen as a person that can be taught something new than a person that knows it all. The rule in knowing is: the more you know is the less you actually understand.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Hello I really loved your big long response to someone asking about your thoughts on Viren and I hope you don't mind me throwing some thoughts your way that it stirred up in me. All your talk about how he doesn't love himself, is constantly seeking to be validated, be useful, and can't see anything past if something is useful or not got me thinking... Is this why he seemed to trust Aaravos so easily once Aaravos was actually able to start Talking to him? Seriously, Aaravos starts talking to (1/2

him and his first words are "how may I serve you", that has GOT to be an ego boost to him with his fragile values towards himself. I haven't rewatched the season in a bit so forgive me if I get details wrong, but Aaravos is a force that seems to really grab onto Viren’s weakest points (his lack of self love and desire to be useful/powerful) and just use them to Aara's full advantage. Sorry I want to say so much more but the dang word limit on asks is annoying as heck. Just food for thought! (2/2)

Hi yes you want to talk more about Viren and Aaravos? Well, my good anon, I am very here for that conversation. 

I think you’re touching on the critical nugget of Viren and Aaravos’s relationship right here: 

he seemed to trust Aaravos so easily once Aaravos was actually able to start Talking to him

“Seemed” to trust him. Viren is a genius pragmatist. He craves what Aaravos says he’s offering--and what Aaravos himself represents--so badly he can taste it. But he reins himself in and take precautions. He literally walks away from the sparkliest elf on the planet because he wants to do things his own way if he can, and he only comes back when he’s failed to be useful by uniting the Pentarchy. Viren gets really thirsty for power, but only if he’s the one controlling it.

Viren saw this mirror in the Dragon King’s lair, and he recognized it as a magical artifact. He absolutely looted that place for everything magical he could carry, because, as I mentioned before, Viren just wants to be useful, and power lets people be useful, so he collects useful things. He’s been said to collect Primal Stones. His creepy dungeon lab is nothing but useful magical items that he may one day need. 

Aaravos’s mirror began as nothing more than another stolen relic from a fallen king--but that made it very important. Did the King of the Dragons use this mirror to hold onto his power? To gain more power? To punish? To extend his reach? Viren doesn’t care what the mirror can do. It’s enough for him that Thunder seemed to have found it useful. To Viren, the mirror is a talisman of Thunder’s power. But he still needs to figure out how to use the thing to feel better about himself.

After Thunder killed three human queens in the span of five minutes, Viren is Very Motivated Indeed to making sure he and his allies are never handed such a crushing blow ever again. One way to do that is to kill Thunder--directly eliminating the threat. Another is to take all of Thunder’s magical stuff and figure out how to use it--indirectly preventing future threats. (Another is to grab his egg while no one’s looking, hatch it, and train it to fight on your side, all of which Viren was absolutely trying to do, because pragmatism)

Viren may or may not have anticipated that there was a person on the other side of the mirror before he turned it on. However, Viren gets people to do what he wants (almost) all the time. It’s one thing to find a way through the mirror and spend ages studying all those books in the library. It’s another entirely to find someone familiar with their contents, actively engaged in research, and claiming to be interested in a service role. He absolutely does not trust Aaravos, but he wants what Aaravos is offering so badly that he keeps ooching closer to him (metaphorically) until he’s perched on Aaravos’s finger like a tired bird, exhausted and needy but ready to fly if he must.

Viren needs Aaravos (or so he believes). But he does not trust Aaravos. Not yet, anyway. They’re both using each other for their own ends, but only one of them is foolish enough to say so out loud (Viren I mean Viren). Every step of their relationship is unbalanced, but it shifts in circles as a kind of drunken dance. Well, VIren shifts around Aaravos. Aaravos is standing perfectly poised in the middle, highly entertained at Viren’s antics as he reels around him. Run away, come back, beg, demand, threaten, comply, growl, smirk. Slowly, slowly, Aaravos is drawing him closer to the center, to his point of balance, instead of allowing Viren to step back and find his own balance. Aaravos wants Viren in his arms as a willing dance partner, but he’s got to teach Viren the steps first. Luckily, Aaravos is endlessly patient and Viren is a motivated learner. 

It’s an entertaining dance, but it’s still a toxic one. There is no trust in their relationship at all. But that could change--Viren is only human, after all. I think S3 may very well give us a moment where Viren finally breaks. Where we may get a glimpse of his backstory, his hurts, his deepest motivations, and where Aaravos will get to choose whether to crush him or protect him. I think Aaravos will choose to protect Viren, and Viren will finally, truly trust Aaravos, as he’s never trusted anyone in his life. Not even Harrow--Viren’s first powerful friend can’t hold a candle to the sparkly power that Aaravos wields.

But Aaravos will have to step up beyond being the most impressive person Viren have ever met. He’ll have to truly show compassion for Viren in a weak moment, or Viren won’t understand the lesson. Aaravos can probably level entire armies, sure. But make him soft, make him whisper words of worth in a broken mage’s ear, make him truly believe them, without smirks or teases, and Viren will fall utterly in love. Mostly with Aaravos, but also with himself.

TDP, managing this “two negatives make a positive” story arc would blow my mind. In my other ask answer, I mentioned not being sure if Viren would choose to be redeemed in his character arc. I think the only person who could convince him to do it would be Aaravos. And only once he trusts the Star Touch with his life and soul.

Just look at this totally trustworthy face, Viren. You know you want to.