#in that case it makes sense for him to be portrayed in this data as someone who'd be a good fighter - useful for defending the tower perhaps

[vesselofmanythings]

Agent 4 thoughts.......

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

I don’t know if Yves would have very scratchy doctors handwriting or very elegant perfect cursive. Like I would think he would have perfect cursive handwriting but at the same time the unreadable doctors handwriting makes sense too esp since his mind be going a million miles a minute

It depends on the purpose of him writing. Is it to write a perfumed love letter to you? Then, it will be in elegant cursive that is appropriate to your reading abilities. If it's written on a post-it note to remind you to please clean your mouldy water bottle, it will be neat and similar to that of printed office memos. Is it to bend reality to his benefit? He picked up forgery as a hobby in his youth, it won him numerous court cases and sent innocents to their doom. He could have all the ketamine he wants with this special skill.

Was it to transfer billions of dollars from numerous different bank accounts into his? The way he does their signatures would leave the victims wondering if they actually did it.

Was it to stir up drama so that he could steal their methamphetamine stash from their tattered tent while they fought? Yves has a keen eye and a steady hand that can mimic anyone's handwriting in the homeless encampment, but it didn't take much to rile up his drug mates since they're already under the influence anyway.

Was it to prescribe medicine to his patients? Then:

His pharmacists and nurses know what the hell he's writing. Why bother making it legible when he could save that time and energy to do other nefarious deeds to better his lifestyle.

His writing style has a purpose. There isn't a fixed way he would scribble his letters and characters. In the notebook where he documents observations on the spot, it would be impossible for anyone to read. Chicken scratch, as one may describe. This is so that no one would know what he's up to if they ever got a hold of it.

However, his files on you are almost completely typed out. This is to maintain consistency and order in his information vault, there is almost no chance of anyone coming across his treasure trove of data. That is why, everything is printed by default unless they're samples of handwriting and signatures.

There is no default calligraphy method for Yves. It's always based on what the situation calls for, what character he wants to portray and how he is planning to achieve his goals. Because he is well versed in all things penmanship, he could easily read this without breaking a sweat:

And no, he is not bullshitting.

[shihalyfie]

I've been watching data squad, and I noticed all the bio hybrids are very deliberately made to mirror the main DATS trio in some way. Kouki's a battle hungry street brawler, the goth girl (forgot her name) is a genius who only cares about herself, and Ivan...well, i'm not sure about ivan, something to do with family. I'd assume you're better equipped to do an analysis on this contrast, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, if possible.

I noticed this as well! I think their appearances were too short for me to make a full-blown meta out of it, but to basically summarize it:

Masaru is a rough brawler, but he only ever picks fights with people who are also causing trouble or challenge him on equal terms (and in the latter case, he follows specific principles and respects the opponent). For Masaru, "fighting" is something you do as a means of self-improvement and to be strong so you can protect those who need to be protected, not to dominate over others. In contrast, Kouki loves fighting and violence, but he does it for the sake of his own superiority and to crush weak people, or in other words, he's a bully who's the picture-perfect depiction of what you imagine when you hear about someone who loves violence. It's notable that he's the only one of the three who's not portrayed as particularly redeemable.

While Tohma came from a privileged background and is quite intelligent, he also was emotionally abused by his family, so he has a strong motive to do something meaningful with his life out of something he accomplished rather than it being for the sake of his family name (while he does make use of his privilege, it's as a means to an end in terms of wanting to do things for others, including his sister, and in fact he's portrayed as somewhat disliking unwarranted attention). Nanami is a "genius" like Tohma, but she only cares about herself and has a snobbish attitude towards "normal" people who can't understand her. She indulges in her "elite" status and doesn't care about morality as long as she gets to satisfy herself.

Yoshino started off the series without much meaning in her life, punching the clock at DATS without any real investment in what she was doing because she was dealing with an inferiority complex. It's only as the series progresses when you can really get the sense she's doing things out of her own beliefs of what's right and wrong (especially when DATS gets cut off from government support but she still chooses to fight anyway). Meanwhile, Ivan is a victim of the system; in order to support his siblings (who are implied to be in very severe financial straits), he "threw away his morals and sold his body" to Kurata out of desperation, because he and his family were so pushed into a corner that he didn't have the room to think about that anymore. (Note the fact that Ivan is the only one of the three to not be Japanese, so there's a nuance of his position as a foreigner being exploited by someone powerful.) So as much as that doesn't make his actions justifiable, Yoshino is capable of empathizing with that to some extent and recognizes that Kurata had been the one to exploit Ivan's situation and vulnerabilities to pseudo-blackmail him.

[tallysgreatestfan]

Star Trek + questions 7 and 8 for the ask meme (can be any Trek series)

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

Since you are not specifying which character, I am answering this for Data:

Just how openly queer and openly autistic the fandom tends to write him, and both of that in a totally postive way. No infantalizing (as we see with Entrapta this is sadly not always the case), no "queer is wrong and autism is wrong and autism makes you queer" bullshit mainstream often tends to sprout, just portraying the lived reality of queer autistic people through the lens of an android on a spaceship. It's just so healing and fun to see.

Like, Data being nerdy and having a special interest in Sherlock Holmes, him romancing Geordi in a distinctly neurodivergent way, him trying out makeup and dresses or exploring his gender in another way...

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

By far not the only character fandom does this, but: There are other forms of queerness than just being homosexual. You can be a queer man, or masc aligned, and attracted to men, and still be attracted to women or be able to be in love with women too.

Headcanoning Data as asexual or demisexual totally is valid and makes a lot of sense with how his sexuality was portrayed. But this idea that because he is in love with Geordi his clear tenderness for Tasha can have meant nothing...

I don't even mean that as in every instance of headcanoning him as gay is biphobic. However thinking that is the only possible way to headcanon him because he is shipped with Geordi so he can't possibly be romantically and/or sexually be attracted to women is biphobic.

[whatisthisnonsense]

Digimon Are Canonically Psychic Vampires Alexa Send Tweet-- A Thread Because Reddit Still Hasn't Let This Through And You're All Going To Hell With Me Goddammit

I actually have something similar to this post already on my tumblr but it's highly associated with a AU storyline I have and I have this opinion regardless of said story so here we go, buckle up we're heading to the digital world, where all your cosmic horror fantasies come coated in the power of friendship! No read mores because in the event I am removed from Tumblr in any capacity I want this post to live past me. I will have my vindication, and my legacy will be sheer annoyance at my overly-verbose nature

I should specify this only specifically applies to PARTNERED digimon (though I am sure I can whip up an ample theory about how this is in fact every digimon and the soul bond is just dormant in most if given enough time, but I haven't made that one coherent yet). And yes, I do know Savers did outright say the partnered digimon are fueled by their humans' emotions, however each series portrays itself as separate to the whole. I'm here to state that this is one of the Constants of the multiverse (like having humans and digimon partner in the first place or how it's almost always someone under drinking age who gets a digimon) rather than a fluke. This particular post will mostly be about Adventure/02 as I am a horrible 90s child, however I will be more than happy to make follow ups about Tamers and Frontier (and possibly Xros, though I'm going to admit I checked out around Savers regarding the cartoon).

AHEM.

We know according to Deep Lore (that you have to go digging up in various and sundry books and interviews to find) that digivolution is normally a natural occurrence, and more-over takes FOREVER as the digimon in question has to collect enough data and energy to naturally evolve, meaning anything over Rookie in their natural state is generally very old (at least in digital years, depending on if the worlds are in sync or not). However, having a (active) human partner seems to accelerate this temporarily. In the World games (which are closely associated with the Adventure timeline as very local alternate timelines) the digimon have much quicker life cycles, with the trade off of therefore growing old and dying which even if this was POSSIBLE for digimon normally likely would take an insane timespan to do so. In the anime, however, these bursts are temporary jumps up their digivolution lines, brief bursts of temporary data and energy extensions to "age up" as it were before returning to normal. In both cases, the difference is very clear-- these digimon have a human while the rest do not.

Why is this an important distinction?

Well, the original Adventure made a big deal about it being because of the Crests. However, as we learn at the end of the series, the Crests are more of a magic feather than a real token of power, with the actual power coming from the children having an abundance of that particular emotion or mental state (albeit poorly worded; Knowledge for example seems to actually mean Wisdom given it's when Izzy uses his knowledge wisely when it ticks over rather than just him being technically smart but actively a git) that makes them more powerful than average. Moreover we learn from later points in the series and the movies that the main cue for becoming a digidestined is the simple act of seeing a digimon, and Willis becomes our first example of how a human chosen does not in fact need to be a Crest Bearer to have a digimon who can digivolve.

Cut to 02. I have a few comments about 02 and how it treated the Crests and how that only makes sense with some awful fridge horror, but this post has nothing to do with that so I won't make them. Instead we take a look at all the myriad digimon with partners but no crests who we find on the World Tour who can definitely digivolve. So what does that tell us? It has nothing to do with the Crests.

Where, then, are the digimon pulling the power? Well, whenever a digimon partner digivolves the first time, usually the human is having a visceral emotional reaction. Even Dark Digivolution require the human to be trying to force a specific mental state upon themselves or their digimon. If the digimon digivolves in response to the human having an emotional reaction, and the digimon needs to gain energy and data to digivolve, then it follows that the digimon must be feeding upon it's partner's emotions to gain this power.

"Why are you making a kid show creepy" first of all have you seen any of the finales of this show. Second of all, actually, this makes for a very good case as to why partners are normally young children who haven't learned to restrain their emotions and why the power of friendship, particularly a collective group's, tends to win out. If the available human currently is full of emotion All The Time and cannot muffle it, then that makes it easier for the digimon to digivolve more often, which is useful when the world is ending. Moreover if the collected group of humans have strong bonds and feel strong emotions about eachother, then that provides a constant supply of emotions that are only strengthened with eachother, and indeed implies the bond with the partner itself can satisfy at least lower digivolutions from pure platonic affection. The tropes inherent in a child show in fact make it easier to satisfy the needs required for the mechanics to work, and of course even if this was a parasitic relationship rather than symbiotic (as it's more likely to be as the kids of course get a sick digital monster bonded to their soul and possibly harder to kill out of it) then they still can't really kill their hosts without screwing themselves over.

tl;dr, partnered digimon feed off their humans emotions and mental state to digivolve, but like in a nice way, thanks for coming to my ted talk

[ackerfics]

hi, rory! <3 what majors would the sc veterans take if they were in the modern world?

hi, anon !! thank you so much for this ask, this is heaven in disguise from all my schoolwork. tbh, the whole time i was working for a lab report, my mind will go back to this ask bc i wanted to have the association as accurate as possible hhhajshw

i asked one of my friends for help and thank God for them bc my single brain cell really said 'it's time for you to rest' after staring at one backlog. without further ado, here are the veterans' majors if they're studying in university:

first off, hange zoe, because if you ask me this question in real life, they would be the only one i can answer. every damn time i would think of them in a college setting, being a biology major is really hange's forte. at this point, this is what everyone would associate them with.

hange is all about experimenting and doing brilliant breakthroughs in any field of science but knowing that they have this unparalleled fascination with the unusual and unexpected life-forms (ahem titans ahem), the biology lab would be the surest place where you could find hange. i feel like biology is too broad so i will add that microbiology or bacteriology are just some of the specializations they will be taking in their time in college.

imagine, being lab partners with hange and immediately knowing that you will have one of the highest grades in the class because they're that well-versed in a specific lab report. and if you're partners with them for the rest of the academic year, you might as well have a shot at an immaculate grade. i'm not saying that you should depend on them too much though hHHHH, hange is still a member of the majority of the student body who relies heavily on caffeine to keep them invigorated. who isn't at this point?

so far, some of the biology majors that i encountered (well, more like chatted behind a screen — online classes suck), they have this energy that could drain my social battery too quickly and hange fits that description. (note that this doesn't apply to any college bc i observed this in mine soooo 🤭) they're the type to always go on a tangent on a certain science article or coerce you into joining this org thing. i can imagine levi just looking at hange like they're the one sucking his brain cells out whenever they speak about a documentary in bbc they watched the night before.

and if you're stuck on anything biology-related, hange will be the best person to ask help from. they're the first ray of sunlight you get while waking up. they're that approachable.

okay, so erwin smith.

don't come at me but he just radiates this ceo vibes and with that, one of his probably majors is business administration. i know this is so stereotypical of me but let's face it, erwin is a smooth talker through and through and if he doesn't take up marketing, business is one way to spend his college years. knowing his personality in attack on titan of establishing deals easily with a determined resolve, he fits the broadest description of being a business administration major. (again, don't come at me because my consultant for this statement is google and nobody comes after google sometimes hhhhh)

just for the benefit of myself, i will add what google says about this major, "[they] learn the mechanics of business through classes in fundamentals, such as finance, accounting and marketing ... students find ways to solve problems using data and they develop communication and managerial skills." and i thank you.

he's also probably the most well-spoken and most professional when conversing with others among his friends (and i'm not saying this to drag the other characters but this is what i pick up on) and that is exactly the qualities his major specializes. it is expected for them to strike deals and be a people person and who better character for the job than our very own erwin smith 🤩

now i mentioned 'one of the probable majors' and yes, aside from business administration, philosophy just exudes erwin smith. ngl, when i imagined erwin in a college setting, this major will always come first. his mind is just so sexy to me??? and i hope you guys think the same, too, because i don't want to be the only one who thinks that 👀 kidding aside, erwin is one of the smartest people in attack on titan and every time he speaks in one episode, my brain will instantly go mush, and that's what i feel when i hear philosophy majors talk.

philosophy majors (according to any other youtuber who does lookbooks for various majors hhhhhh) challenge what is unanswerable and analyze questions with no right answer. i feel like erwin, like hange, will talk all night to explain a theory. just imagine a date with him and you just listen to him rant about a topic that they should be making a report on. just listen to this man, okay?? it's adorable when he lets his guard down to include you in his little bubble of philosophies. he would also mention random things that he learned in classes, sometimes finding joy in knowing the philosophies of other people, or even deciphering levi's dream of an apocalyptic world. (it pisses levi off but he just leave him be.)

if you want a man who can do both of these majors, erwin smith is the answer 😉

sigh, mike zacharias.

this man holds so many talents and will forever amaze me.

i assume all of us here watched the movie perfume. and no, i'm not saying that mike is going to be a murderer but just like the main character of that film, making perfumes will be his forte with that sense of smell of his. and here, i conclude that mike will definitely take up chemical engineering.

he gives me the vibes that if it covers the one thing he does best, he will love his major. (mr. zacharias, can you please spare me that quality because i really need that now 😩) being in the labs while experimenting mundane things that can be found in the environment to create different scents is also a likely situation you can find him in, again, very much like hange. he's the type of student who really puts so much effort in staying afloat the honors list, even to the point of topping midterms in his major, for the sake of his dream. there will never be a moment where you will catch him complain about his major and professors.

he's that type of friend in college who agrees to any rant you say but in reality, he's got his life easy 😭

i headcanon mike owning a perfume shop after college just like how levi always dreamed of having a tea shop.

okay, imagine this little scenario if you're dating mike where he creates this unique perfumes as random gifts for you. they're not the typical perfumes that can seep through the room and can make you gag for no reason, they're subtle scents that will stay for the duration of the day. because again, he's got a sensitive nose, so making perfumes according to what his sense of smell dictates will always result in a revolutionary experiment. if you're randomly blurting out that you want a fusion of flowers and fruits as your perfume, say no more, he's your man.

now, the veteran who i find the hardest to associate a major with — levi ackerman.

after much deliberation and a break from plant physiology, i see him taking up law or criminology.

(i asked some of this from my mom because she attended law school :>>>)

levi is so organized and detailed in the things that he do and he fits in either of these majors since they require tedious memorizations and analysis of laws and crime scenes while being assertive enough to defend someone. he's the typical person who blurts out the true situation of a crime scene when watching film adaptations. yeah, he's that person, the one who sucks the enthusiasm out of you while watching a movie because he just had to correct some of the scenes. nevertheless, he means well though, he just wanted you to understand the reality unlike how films portray gruesome murders. movie nights always end up with levi ranting about half-assed mystery clichés.

levi's binder of readings are always too bright for everyone's good. his notes are full of highlighters and scribbles that it can blind someone. for one, he's always up all night studying his readings and cases for a practice court so by choosing neon highlighters, it's a way for him to wake up. there isn't one book in his possession that he doesn't highlight like it's a fricking coloring book. hange once jokingly said that his binder now acts like his bible and for once, he agrees because he was never seen without one. hange had a field day since levi never agrees with them.

when doing practice courts though, his go-to resting bitch face always come in handy when carrying out his role as one of the lawyers. he's just so sexy with his hands in the pockets of his slacks as he tries to justify his supposed client. the way he questions the accused definitely isn't hot because he's like one of the panelists in your thesis defense, the one who just comes up with questions that have you melting on the spot. he's dangerous i tell you. it also doesn't help if you accidentally hurt one of his friends or just landed randomly in his blacklist for being annoying as hell. relax though, he doesn't mean harm other than the fact that he's ready to throw some hands from all the pent-up rage he gathered in his body.

of course, i couldn't forget how he dresses up like a typical dark academia fanatic so look out for eye-candy.

if you want someone who can recite articles from the constitution, this man is perfect for you 😌

i had so much fun doing this !! again, i'm not generalizing every major i've talked about in these little headcanons, this is all for fun and based on the people i encountered in college. if you want more of this, don't hesitate to ask !! 😚

[satorugojowidow]

Hi, I just read your answer to the anon question about Satoru and Utahime. When you talk about Satoru's ideal type, if it's based on the JujuSanpo where he is talking to Utahime about the nice girl with notable bangs (Miwa), apparently this is up to interpretation, many people think they were talking about a different topic (probably about the girl who took a picture with Satoru?) and not about Satoru's ideal type because the question was addressed to female students, also Utahime's lack of reaction. Like I said before, this is up to interpretation and it was propably Gege's intention to cause confusion not only about the context but also about Satoru's type.

Anyway I agree with the anon, Satoru and some other characters are so mistreated by the fandom, they don't even do it with the villains. Also I like your meta-answer! I just wanted to add the above data because it's something I saw trying to find out if Satoru's type is someone like Miwa (not Miwa of course) or what Gege was trying to say. I admit that for a short period of time I found gojohime a bit attractive although not anymore and I fully understand what you mean about them. I'm not totally against it either, there are much worse ships.

Now my personal opinion about satosugu: i lean more towards platonic love between them, that in this case in no way is less than romantic love. If Satoru's type is based on Suguru, his only best friend and moral compass sometimes, well ... Hahah this kind of remind me Megumi's type who is someone like Tsumiki, his sister and compass too.

I think I went a bit overboard here, sorry. I love your metas/opinions about jjk, thank you for all the effort and kindness! Stay healthy!

Thank you for your kind message ♥

That juju sanpo is not meant to imply that Gojo’s type is Miwa, is a very tricky hint actually. Hints can’t be read by itself, because they get meaning in relation with other hints, in a major context. Objectively Satoru is only asking Utahime who was the girl who asked him for a photo, probably to show off because he knew that was a Utahime's student (“I’m so cool even your students are fan of me”, something like that). But the scene is right after the “who is your type?” and we don’t get the full conversation, only the part where he refers to the “bangs”. The context where the scene is inserted and the words in which does focus aren’t just casualty, are on purpose. What Gege is trying to say without saying it is that Satoru likes bangs. That hints and the fact that in the fanbook is mentioned that the first thing Satoru noticed on Suguru was bangs and Gege insisting with bangs when asked about what he keeps in mind when drawing Suguru, bring me to the conclusion that the hint is: Satoru ideal type are people with bangs. Gege chooses carefully what information to share in those interviews, his insistence on bangs related to Suguru is probably a hint. Of course, this wouldn’t be enough to sustain satosugu, this only makes sense in the context of their whole story.

About ideal type, I had already had a discussion about how Megumi thinks in Tsumiki while answering what his ideal type is doesn’t mean he is in love with her. What people find attractive about others is less random than people think, and tends to portray aspects of themselves. In Megumi’s case, his values, in which Tsumiki has a big role in. But to assume that he is in love with her just because her words came to his mind, is a very poor interpretation in my opinion.

About romantic or platonic… the idea that romantic love is peak form of love and sex it consumation is part of the myths of romantic love in my opinion. Sex is a sensory expirience and its not tied to love necesarily. That is because the idea that you must have sex with the love one and that you can only have sex with the love one are so problematic. And I even dare to say, they are false.

Regarding satosugu, if they shared sexual desire for the other or not is not even an importat aspect to reach the conclusion if they were in love or not. I dare to say that they have one of the best representations of love in fiction.

[see-fee]

One Redditor’s interpretation of why we all love Daneel so much

https://www.reddit.com/r/asimov/comments/2wxxy0/why_does_everyone_like_r_daneel_so_much/covfdxm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

Sooo... wall of text incoming.

I'll start by saying that the answers such as "you have to read the later books" miss completely the point. R. Daneel Olivaw was well beloved before the later books - as a matter of fact, Asimov included R. Daneel in the Foundation books because the public wanted to see more of him: R. Daneel needed only two books and a short story to be remembered forever. His fame would be increased and affirmed with the later books, but what made him so famous and beloved in the first place?

Let's admit it, the popularity of a character is sometimes a mysterious thing. Why was Star Wars' Boba Fett such a fan favorite? I have no idea since I have no liking for his character. Sometimes a character resonates with the audience because he just does - and maybe Daneel just did. But let's try to see if we can find a reason for Daneel's prevalence.

I will here argue that R. Daneel Olivaw used to be a very unique character 50 years ago, when the first two Robot mysteries were written (1954 and 1957): he was nothing short of groundbreaking, despite the sketchy characterization (not Asimov's forte, as you correctly say).

Elijah Baley himself, you see, is a good character (I'd even say he's an unusually well-sketched character for Asimov), but he's nothing new. He's your usual hardened and capable detective, self-doubting and claustrophobic (in more senses than your usual one): a good character, as I said, but very much the usual fare. Literature, already back then, was packed with the same sort of no-nonsense, slightly flawed but genial police detectives. Gladia is a good character, but the accused but desirable widow or the exotic apparently-out-of-your-league damsel in distress are old tropes (she surpasses this roles only in her 1985 appearence). Han Fastolfe is a character I'm surprisingly fond of, but once again, conventional in his ways (the mix of the dedicated and genial scientist and of the consumed politician).

On the other hand Asimov himself, in one essay, recounts how very few Robots had been portrayed as "good" (most were evil, or flawed, or incompetent, or defective, or rebellious, or a combination thereof) - think of Metropolis' Maria, of Clarke's Hal2000 computer, of the silent and deadly warden of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and so on. In the most benign portrayal of robots back then, they were helpful - but somewhat stupid and possibly humorous - servants (see, much later, Star Wars' C3PO and R2D2). Of all of Asimov's robots, R. Daneel Olivaw is the one that first subverts most of these tropes. He is unmitigatedly "legal good" - a true paladin of the Three Laws. He is strong and independent and confident and clever and unyieldingly loyal. Most of the psychological tension in Caves of Steel comes from Elijah Baley actually worrying that a robot like Daneel could take his place. Obviously, Elijah always solves the case which suggests that, despite his being apparently a superhuman Daneel still lacks "the spark" (intuition? humanity? geniality?) to equal Elijah - and this, finally, makes Daneel imperfect, and thus acceptable and improvable (you can see Daneel learning from Elijah).

We, the reader who read a book written from the point of view of the human Elijah Baley, can see him going from mistrust and envy to respect and appreciation. We can see how the human Elijah Baley starts considering Daneel worthy of his affection - a friend, that is.

Daneel is not only the first robot detective (to the best of my knowledge) to be ever created, but also one of the first robots to be portrayed as an equal to a human being and deserving to be a friend: in one word, groundbreaking. Today he feels less interesting because he opened the way to lots of similar robots: but, say, Star Trek's Data or Aliens' Bishop owe everything to Daneel Olivaw (without implying any explicit causal connection between them).

To me, for what he represented, for what he is in relation to Elijah Baley, for what he shows us about the potential of robots (and, in a way, of humanity), for being the first and opening the way, R. Daneel Olivaw is one of the best, and most meaningful, characters to have ever existed in science fiction.

[stillness-in-green]

I’m just gonna make Re-Destro the same age as Mr. Compress as the descendants of big name villains of the past. Did RD really never get his own extra notes profile? This tells me that Hori didn’t plan to do anything more important with him…

My general practice with guessing ages in this series is to try to imagine the youngest I can possibly imagine a person would need to be to do and accomplish what they’re portrayed as doing and having accomplished—and then take off five more years from that. That got me to only three years off on Mr. Compress and right on the money for Overhaul (I’d guessed “35-36” and “mid-late 20s/older than Dabi but younger than Compress” respectively).

That dubious math has me putting Re-Destro at 42, but, yeah, lacking a character profile page, there’s no way of knowing for sure—though, in all honesty, if I had to choose between knowing RD’s age and getting canon confirmation that the Claustro is a literal high-tech torture device, I’d take that Claustro page any day of the week.

As to plans or lack thereof, while I understand the frustration, I wouldn’t immediately assume a lack of a profile page means much one way or the other. After all, one-and-done characters like Snatch have gotten them in the past—Slidin’ Go, of all people, has one! Conversely, plenty of heroic characters haven’t gotten them yet—not a single one of the vestiges has, for example. And, on yet another side, because of Hori’s policy of not giving villains character pages basically up to MVA (though Gentle Criminal and La Brava were technically the first to get the full treatment, and the Eight Bullets characters all at least got little blurbs), several of the returning villains have gotten those character pages where they didn’t after their first appearances, like Muscular and Overhaul.

There’s often a sense of finality to the character blurbs for me—see e.g. Kotarou getting his after the last chapter of Shigaraki’s MVA flashbacks, not the first, or Snatch’s coming after the chapter in which he’s killed. Obviously, too, it helps to get some material for them in a chapter after which they’ll get a profile page, so Curious is probably off the table for good, and if RD and the others never show back up at all, then, yeah, we’re probably not going to get character pages for them—but if that were going to be the case, maybe at least RD and Geten might have gotten some pages during the war arc? Compare Muscular and Overhaul getting pages after their reappearances while e.g. Stain had several great opportunities recently, still hasn’t gotten one, and is still a dangling plot thread.

So I haven’t entirely written them off yet, fingers crossed. Further, I will be legitimately fairly surprised if we never get one for Skeptic, what with him still being active and getting material.

What I really wish is that the next (final?) data book, whenever it rolls around, would just give us ages for every character it includes as a matter of course; height would be nice, too. Get Hori to just provide whatever info the data block is going to give, rather than being subjected to page after page of villains with data blocks full of Unknown Unknown Unknown.

Also too, I would pay good money for any hypothetical future books to shake the stupid framing the prior two books have had in which all factoids about the villains are filtered through the knowledge the heroes have about them. In Ultra Analysis, for example, Toga and Twice don’t get to be portrayed as friends, but rather as “accomplices,” and there is some stratospherically awful stuff like framing Toga’s backstory as her parents being “worried about her future” even though MVA had already run, so we knew good and well that Toga's parents' reaction to her quirk was to beg their three-year-old to be normal and tell her her smile made her look like a deviant.

I'd forgive the lack of profile pages, in other words, if the data books could be relied upon to give us that same information minus the cute casual mode drawings. Thanks for the ask!

[silvokrent]

RWBY Character Analysis: Pietro and Penny Polendina

Up until now I’ve been keeping quiet about my opinions on the newest volume, in no small part because my personal life has been one absurd setback after another, and I haven’t had the energy to engage in fandom meta. If you do want to know what my current opinion of RWBY is, go over to @itsclydebitches blog, search through her #rwby-recaps tag, and read every single one. At this point, her metas are basically an itemized list of all my grievances with the show. I highly recommend you check ’em out.

Or, if you don’t feel like reading several hours’ worth of recaps, then go find a sheet of paper, give yourself a papercut, and then squeeze a lemon into it. That should give you an accurate impression of my feelings.

In truth, I have a lot to say about the show, particularly how I think CRWBY has mishandled the plot, characters, tone, and intended message of their series. And while I enjoy dissecting RWBY with what amounts to mad scientist levels of glee, I think plenty of other folks have already discussed V7′s and V8′s various issues in greater depth and with far more eloquence. Any contribution I could theoretically make at this point would be somewhat redundant.

That being said, I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering me for a while, which (to my knowledge) no one else in the fandom has brought up. (And feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Today’s topic of concern is Pietro Polendina, and his relationship with Penny.

And because I’m absolutely certain this post is going to be controversial and summon anonymous armchair critics to fill my inbox with sweary claptrap, I may as well just come out and say it:

Pietro Polendina, as he’s currently portrayed in the show, is an inherently abusive parental figure.

Let me take a second to clarify that I don’t think it was RWBY’s intention to portray Pietro that way. Much like other aspects of the show, a lot of nuance is often lost when discussing the difference between intention versus implementation, or telling versus showing. It’s what happens when a writer tries to characterize a person one way, but in execution portrays them in an entirely different light. Compounding this problem is what feels like a series of rather myopic writing decisions that started as early as Volume 2, concerning Penny’s sense of agency, and how the canon would bear out the implications of an autonomous being grappling with her identity. It’s infuriating that the show has spent seven seasons staunchly refusing to ask any sort of ethical questions surrounding her existence, only to then—with minimal setup—give us Pietro’s “heartfelt” emotional breakdown when he has to choose between “saving” Penny or “sacrificing” her for the greater good.

Yeah, no thanks.

If we want to talk about why this moment read as hollow and insincere, we need to first make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Spoilers for V8.E5 - “Amity.” Let’s not waste any time.

In light of the newest episode and its—shall we say—questionable implications, I figured now was the best time to bring it up while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind. (Because nothing generates momentum quite like frothing-at-the-mouth rage.)

The first time we’re told anything about Pietro, it comes from an exchange between Penny and Ruby. From V2.E2 - “A Minor Hiccup.”

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much. He just worries a lot.

Ruby: Believe me, I know the feeling. But why not let us know you were okay?

Penny: I…was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn’t my father.

The scene immediately diverts our attention to a public unveiling of the AK-200. A hologram of James Ironwood is presenting this newest model of Atlesian Knight to a crowd of enthusiastic spectators, along with the Atlesian Paladin, a piloted mech. During the demonstration, James informs his audience that Atlas’ military created them with the intent of removing people from the battlefield and mitigating casualties (presumably against Grimm).

Penny is quickly spotted by several soldiers, and flees. Ruby follows, and in the process the two are nearly hit by a truck. Penny’s display of strength draws a crowd and prompts her to retreat into an alley, where Ruby learns that Penny isn’t “a real girl.”

This scene continues in the next episode, “Painting the Town…”

Penny: Most girls are born, but I was made. I’m the world’s first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura. [Averts her gaze.] I’m not real…

After Ruby assures her that no, you don’t have to be organic in order to have personhood, Penny proceeds to hug her with slightly more force than necessary.

Ruby: [Muffled noise of pain.] I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower!

Penny: [Releases Ruby.] Oh, he’s very sweet! My father’s the one that built me! I’m sure you would love him.

Ruby: Wow. He built you all by himself?

Penny: Well, almost! He had some help from Mr. Ironwood.

Ruby: The general? Wait, is that why those soldiers were after you?

Penny: They like to protect me, too!

Ruby: They don't think you can protect yourself?

Penny: They're not sure if I'm ready yet. One day, it will be my job to save the world, but I still have a lot left to learn. That's why my father let me come to the Vytal Festival. I want to see what it's like in the rest of the world, and test myself in the Tournament.

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of the approaching soldiers from earlier. Despite Ruby’s protests, Penny proceeds to yeet her into the nearby dumpster, all while reassuring her that it’s to keep Ruby out of trouble, not her. When the soldiers arrive, they ask her if she’s okay, then proceed to lightly scold her for causing a scene. Penny’s told that her father “isn’t going to be happy about this,” and is then politely asked (not ordered; asked) to let them escort her back.

Let’s take a second to break down these events.

When these two episodes first aired, the wording and visuals (“No, it wasn’t my father,” followed by the cutaway to James unveiling the automatons) implied that James was the one forbidding her from interacting with other people. It’s supposed to make you think that James is being restrictive and harsh, while Pietro is meant as a foil—the sweet, but cautious father figure. But here’s the thing: both of these depictions are inaccurate, and frankly, Penny’s the one at fault here. Penny blew her cover within minutes of interacting with Ruby—a scenario that Penny was responsible for because she was sneaking off without permission. Penny is a classified, top-secret military project, as made clear by the fact that she begs Ruby to not say anything to anyone. Penny is in full acknowledgement that her existence, if made public, could cause massive issues for her (something that she’s clearly experienced before, if her line, “You’re taking this extraordinarily well,” is anything to go by).

But here’s the thing—keeping Penny on a short leash wasn’t a unilateral decision made by James. That was Pietro’s choice as well. “My father asked me not to venture out too far,” “Your father isn’t going to be happy about this”—as much as this scene is desperately trying to put the onus on James for Penny’s truant behavior, Pietro canonically shares that blame. And Penny (to some extent) is in recognition of the fact that she did something wrong.

Back in Volumes 1 – 3, before the series butchered James’ characterization, these moments were meant as pretty clever examples of foreshadowing and subverting the controlling-military-general trope. This scene is meant to illustrate that yes, Penny is craving social interaction outside of military personnel as a consequence of being hidden, but that hiding her is also a necessity. It’s a complicated situation with no easy answer, but it’s also something of a necessary evil (as Penny’s close call with the truck and her disclosing that intel to Ruby are anything to go by).

Let’s skip ahead to Volume 7, shortly after Watts tampered with the drone footage and framed her for several deaths. In V7.E7 - “Worst Case Scenario,” a newscaster informs us that people in Atlas and Mantle want Penny to be deactivated, despite James’ insistence that the footage was doctored and Penny didn’t go on a killing spree. The public’s unfavorable opinion of Penny—a sentiment that Jacques of all people embodies when he brings it up in V7.E8—reinforces V2’s assessment of why keeping her secret was necessary. Not only is her existence controversial because Aura research is still taboo, but people are afraid that a mechanical person with military-grade hardware could be hacked and weaponized against them. (Something which Volume 8 actually validates when James has Watts take control of her in the most recent episode.)

But I digress.

We’re taken to Pietro’s lab, where Penny is hooked up to some sort of recharge/docking station. Ruby, Weiss, and Maria look on in concern while the machine is uploading the visual data from her systems. There’s one part of their conversation I want to focus on in particular:

Pietro: When the general first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Allow me to break down their conversation so we can fully appreciate what he’s actually saying.

The Penny Project was picked as the candidate for the next breakthrough in defense technology.

Pietro wanted a protector with a SOUL.

In RWBY, Aura and souls are one of the defining characteristics of personhood. Personhood is central to Penny’s identity and internal conflict (particularly when we consider that she’s based on Pinocchio). That’s why Penny accepts Ruby’s reassurances that she’s a real person. That’s why she wants to have emotional connections with others.

What makes that revelation disturbing is when you realize that Pietro knowingly created a child soldier.

Look, there’s no getting around this. Pietro fully admits that he wanted to create a person—a human being—a fucking child—as a "defense technology” to throw at the Grimm (and by extension, Salem). Everything, from the language he uses, to the mere fact that he entered Penny in the Vytal Tournament as a proving ground where she could “test [her]self,” tells us that he either didn’t consider or didn’t care about the implications behind his proposal.

When you break it all down, this is what we end up with:

“Hey, I have an idea: Why don’t we make a person, cram as many weapons as we can fit into that person, and then inform her every day for the rest of her life that she was built for the sole purpose of fighting monsters, just so we don’t have to risk the lives of others. Let’s then take away anything remotely resembling autonomy, minimize her interactions with people, and basically indoctrinate her into thinking that this is something she wants for herself. Oh, and in case she starts to raise objections, remind her that I donated part of my soul to her. If we make her feel guilty about this generous sacrifice I made so she could have the privilege of existing, she won’t question our motives. Next, let’s give her a taste of freedom by having her fight in a gladiatorial blood sport so that we can prove our child soldier is an effective killer. And then, after she’s brutally murdered on international television, we can rebuild her and assign her to protecting an entire city that’s inherently prejudiced against her, all while I brood in my lab about how sad I am.”

Holy fuck. Watts might be a morally bankrupt asshole, but at least his proposal didn’t hinge on manufacturing state-of-the-art living weapons. They should have just gone with his idea.

(Which, hilariously enough, they did. Watts is the inventor of the Paladins—Paladins which, I’ll remind you, were invented so the army could remove people from the battlefield. You know, people. Kind of like what Penny is.)

Do you see why this entire scene might have pissed me off? Even if the show didn’t intend for any of this to be the case, when you think critically about the circumstances there’s no denying the tacit implications.

To reiterate, V8.E5 is the episode where Pietro says, and I quote:

“I don’t care about the big picture! I care about my daughter! I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.”

Oh, yeah? And what life is that? The one where she’s supposed to kill Grimm and literally nothing else? You do realize that she died specifically because you made her for the purpose of fighting, right?

No one, literally no one, was holding a gun to Pietro’s head and telling him that he had to build a living weapon. That was his idea. He chose to do that.

Remember when Cinder said, “I don’t serve anyone! And you wouldn’t either, if you weren’t built that way.” She…basically has a point. Penny has never been given the option to explore the world in a capacity where she wasn’t charged with defending it by her father. We know she doesn’t have many friends, courtesy of Ironwood dissuading her against it in V7. But I’m left with the troubling realization that the show (and the fandom), in their crusade to vilify James, are ignoring the fact that Pietro is also complicit in this behavior by virtue of being her creator. If we condemn the man that prevents Penny from having relationships, then what will we do to the man who forced her into that existence in the first place?

Being her “father” has given him a free pass to overlook the ethics of having a child who was created with a pre-planned purpose. How the hell did the show intend for Pietro to reconcile “I want you to live your life” with “I created you so you’d spend your life defending the world”? It viscerally reminds me of the sort of narcissistic parents who have kids because they want to pass on the family name, or continue their bloodline, or have live-in caregivers when they get older, only on a larger and much more horrific scale. And that’s fucked up.

Now, I’m not saying I’m against having a conflict like this in the show. In fact, I’d love to have a character who has to grapple with her own humanity while questioning the environment she grew up in. Penny is a character who is extremely fascinating because of all the potential she represents—a young woman who through a chance encounter befriends a group of strangers, and over time, is exposed to freedoms and friendships she was previously denied. Slowly, she begins to unlearn the mindset she was indoctrinated with, and starts to petition for agency and autonomy. Pietro is forced to confront the fact that what he did was traumatic and cruel, and that his love for her doesn’t erase the harm he unintentionally subjected her to, nor does it change the fact that he knowingly burdened a person with a responsibility she never consented to. There’s a wealth of character growth and narrative payoff buried here, but like most things in RWBY, it was either underdeveloped or not thought through all the way.

The wholesome father-daughter relationship the show wants Pietro and Penny to have is fundamentally contradicted by the nature of her existence, and the fact that no one (besides the villains) calls attention to it. I’d love for them to have that sort of dynamic, but the show had to do more to earn it. Instead, it’ll forever be another item on RWBY’s ever-growing list of disappointments—

Because Pietro’s remorse is more artificial than Penny could ever hope to be.

[96thdayofrage]

Early last week, newly sworn-in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent a memo to staff in which he briefly recounted his personal experiences with the inadequacies and inequities of New York City’s criminal justice system, before announcing changes to prosecutorial policy aimed at fixing them.

“Data, and my personal experiences show that reserving incarceration for matters involving significant harm will make us safer,” Manhattan’s first Black district attorney emphasized. The top prosecutor went on to instruct staff to cease charging petty, low-level crimes—subway fare evasion, marijuana misdemeanors, prostitution and resisting arrest, among them—and to seek bail and jail time only in cases involving violence, sex abuse, and major financial offenses. Prosecutors should also ask for “no more than a maximum of 20 years,” Bragg advised, directing staff overseeing the most extreme cases to consider restorative justice as an alternative to simply tacking on years to sentences.

“These policy changes not only will, in and of themselves, make us safer; they also will free up prosecutorial resources to focus on violent crime,” Bragg concluded, adding that “while my commitment to making incarceration a matter of last resort is immutable,” the policies he had identified would continue to be shaped by discussion and practice.

That’s all common sense and common decency and yet, in local and national headlines, Bragg, a former prosecutor whose memo delivered on the promises he made as a candidate, is being portrayed as the face of chaos, lawlessness and the Democrat party.

It’s a full-on moral panic. Nationally, Fox News has run story after story, from New York City can expect to see more brazen crime this year, to Gowdy obliterates Manhattan District Attorney for 'hug-a-thug' crime approach: 'Dangerously stupid.'

Locally, the Post insisted Bragg had given “a green light for anarchy.” Detectives’ Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo suggested Bragg may as well have given “drug dealers business cards telling everyone they’re open for business,” and Police Benevolent Association head Pay Lynch—in an uncharacteristically measured message, at least for him—expressed “serious concerns.” GOP Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay claimed “Bragg should not be allowed to hold his office,” as does Republican governor long shot and attention-thirsty Andrew Giuliani, who held a press conference to demand Bragg be removed.

But the most headline-grabbing critique came from newly appointed Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who sent a letter that opened by asserting concerns about Bragg’s policies in relation to some 36,000 NYPD members’ “safety as police officers, the safety of the public and justice for the victims.”

"I believe in reform (sic) that make sense when applied collaboratively,” wrote the first Black woman to serve as police commissioner. “In that same vein, I am concerned about sweeping edicts that seem to remove discretion, not just from police officers, but also from Assistant District Attorneys regarding what crimes to prosecute and how to charge them.” She cited worries over escalating subway violence due to fare evasions, fears of “more open-air drug markets and drug use in Manhattan” because of fewer marijuana prosecutions, and a prediction that the policy change for resisting arrest would leave cops open to harm and “have deleterious effects on our relationship with the communities we protect.”

The repeated suggestion that Bragg’s avoidance of carceral solutions will endanger New Yorkers—that he is doing away with the tools that “kept New York safe for the last 30 years,” as former police commissioner Bill Bratton put it—begs the question, which New York are you talking about? Surely Bratton isn’t referring to the New York of people who are poor, or Black and brown, or both, because those folks have long been policed at twice the rate of those who live in wealthier and whiter neighborhoods, a fact confirmed by studies. Bratton also can’t be talking about the Black and Latino New Yorkers who were 43 percent more likely to be hit with bail requests and 25 percent more likely to be prosecuted during the last decade, according to data released by Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance. And of course, Bratton must be totally ignoring the New York that includes Black and Latino communities, which are disproportionately subjected to broken-windows policing, a form of law enforcement that even the NYPD’s own Office of the Inspector General admitted back in 2015 was ineffective in creating a “related drop in felony crime.” The overly punitive policies of the NYPD and Manhattan district attorney have, in fact, made New York City less safe for them.

What Bragg was elected to do, and what his memo does, is try to correct the appalling and long-standing idea that the safety of some New Yorkers matters, while others, not so much. The collateral consequences of prosecutions are far-reaching and often life-altering in the most negative ways for anyone who faces charges, and it’s mostly poor people of color who in fact face them and pay the highest cost. As Bragg notes in his memo, “even three days in jail can lead to a loss of housing, employment, and strain family connections and increase the likelihood of failure to appear in court.”

In fact, less prosecution of low level crimes—again, as Bragg notes in his letter—seems to be one of the keys to public safety. Just last year, the National Bureau of Economic Research, after looking at nearly 68,000 cases in Massachusetts, found that declining to prosecute a nonviolent misdemeanor or other low-level offense reduced by 58 percent the chance of the “offender” being arrested again within two years. More specifically “non-prosecution reduces the rates at which nonviolent misdemeanor defendants are charged with subsequent violent offenses by 64 percent, with subsequent disorder/property offenses by 91 percent, and with subsequent motor vehicle offenses by 63 percent,” researchers concluded.

[fallout4reactsblog]

(If you haven't already) Is it okay to ask if you can do a companions react to Danse being a synth? I have been looking for something like that for a while...

Cait: “You know, it is a damn shame. I bet under all that power armor and testosterone, he’s pretty cute.”

Sole chuckled, but attempted to hide it by frowning. It did not work. “Cait, this is a serious issue. We’re talking about a man’s life on the line here.”

“I am being serious. Are you saying you don’t think he’s good-looking under all that?”

“Well, I’m not saying that.” They opened another bottle of beer for each of them. “I happen to have actually seen him out of power armor. The view’s not bad, I guess.”

It was Cait’s turn to laugh as she accepted the beer, and after a moment, laid her head against sole’s shoulder. Why not, right? It was late, they were both a little tipsy, and what was the harm in a little gossip between friends?

“So, are you going to kill him?”

“Hopefully, he’ll be able to leave the Commonwealth, or at least find some peace here. I think Preston will take care of him, and working with the Minutemen will help.”

She frowned against their shoulder, not content with their response, and for a moment they were both quiet. The only sound in the night air was that of a light breeze through the grass, and a few chirping bugs. It was almost peaceful.

“I don’t get why you’d vouch for him. He’s a synth. Better off dead, if you ask me.”

“It’s complicated.” They pressed a cheek to her hair. “It will be hard to kill him, if I have to.”

“Reckon he’s taken care of that for you by this point?”

They sighed and took another drink from their beer. “I wouldn’t be surprised, but honestly, I’d rather discuss something else. It’s too nice a night for talk like this.”

Cait happily agreed and turned the conversation to other things.

Curie: She wanted to understand. Really, she did, but the things sole was saying just didn’t make sense.

“I do not understand why he would be so upset. Surely to be a synth is a good thing, no? I am very happy to have this body, synthetic though it may be.”

“Danse’s case is different, Curie. He thought he was a human.”

“But he is the same man, synth or no. What difference does it make? Though he has been indoctrinated to a certain way of thinking during his time with the Brotherhood, he must accept his true nature.”

“And he will. It’s just going to take some time for him to adjust. Just like it took time for you to get used to your new body.”

She hummed, curling her fingers into the grass. “I suppose that makes sense. It is a new way of life for him.”

“You get it. He’ll get used to the idea eventually.”

“Oh, but I had you to help me.” Gently, she nudged them with her shoulder. “There must be some way in which we can help him, yes? Some exercise or task that he could do to improve his mindset? Before, we could have perhaps sought the council of a therapist, but finding one seems unlikely these days.”

They laughed softly beside her and agreed. “Maybe you could teach him how to make some of the more science-based weapons mods. Exposure to other synths could help.”

“A wonderful idea! Perhaps I could even discuss with him an automatic chems applicator for his power armor suit...”

She continued on, bouncing ideas off of sole, and hoped that at least one of them would work.

Deacon: “You’re kidding.”

“Cross my heart.” Sole rather dramatically traced an “X” over their sternum. “He’s a synth.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” 

Deacon rocked back on his heels, trying to remember if maybe Danse had been through the Railroad before. There was something awfully familiar about his face, but that could just be because Deacon had seen him around before. After all, he’d met a lot of people; he couldn’t be expected to remember all of their names.

“I was gonna ask Dez or Tom if maybe he was one of yours. It might be easier to know he escaped, rather than that he’s a replacement, you know? Might make him feel more human.”

“Sure, I can ask around.” In the back of his head, Deacon was still trying to remember is the designation M7-97 was familiar. “Someone will remember if he came through. Hell, Amari alone might be able to help.”

They nodded thoughtfully. “I was planning to stop by Goodneighbor anyway. It might not hurt to check in with her.”

“No harm in it. Just, you know, don’t get your hopes up. A lot of people get replaced in the Commonwealth. It happens every day. There’s no shame in being a replacement, either.”

“I know that, but he doesn’t.” They huffed in a way that perfectly portrayed their desire to help and their frustration with the situation. “I just want to give him what peace of mind I can.”

“And that’s very noble of you, boss.” He adjusted his sunglasses to wink at them over the top of the frame. “But be sure to tell him that, if he wants to start all over again, we’d be happy to help out.”

They chuckled, gently punching his arm. “I don’t think I’d ever convince him to do that, but I’ll make sure he knows.”

Gage: “We are killing him, right?”

Sole shot him a glare out of the corner of their eye. “That’s the third time you’ve asked. How many more times do you have to be told?”

“I just don’t want you getting any doubts in your head, that’s all.”

“Well, I’m not. And if you keep bothering me about it, I’ll go take care of it on my own. Is that clear?”

He rolled his eye. They’d been testy ever since they’d gotten the news, which was annoying. It wasn’t like the Brotherhood was good for anything, anyway. What did it matter if they were going to kill one of them. If he had his way, they’d kill the whole lot and be done with it, but sole insisted they still had a use, and they were the boss.

“It’s stupid to run,” he said, kicking at a rock in his path. “He has to know we’ll find him. He can’t hide forever.”

“He was scared. You’d run, if you heard I was after your head.”

“Fuck, of course I would. Difference is, I’d run straight the hell out of the Commonwealth and hope whatever I did wasn’t so bad you’d want to chase me.”

“To be fair, he doesn’t know that it’s me they’re sending. Maxson doesn’t even really know where he is, at least, not yet. They’re probably following us.”

“So let’s kill them.”

“Not yet.”

“It’s always, ‘not yet,’“ he huffed. 

They shot him a look that clearly said he was testing their patience. “And until I say it is time, you’re gonna keep your finger off the trigger. Otherwise, you better start running now. I promise not to chase you past the Commonwealth.”

He shuddered at the thought of the Overboss tracking him out of town, and shook his head. “I just do what you tell me. You say, ‘don’t shoot,’ and I won’t.”

“Damn straight.”

Hancock: This had to be one of the strangest days Hancock had had in a long time.

“We’re talking about the same Danse, right? Tall, wears a can around, fluffy hair? Hates my guts?”

“That’s the one.”

“Him. He’s a synth. The guy who hates all ghouls, synths, supermutants, you name it, he’s the one out of all of us that turns out to be a synth.”

“I saw the data with my own eyes.” They shook their head. “There’s no faking that kind of stuff. He’s a synth.”

“Damn.”

He leaned his head back against the couch, staring up at the slowly rotting ceiling. Slowly, he reached over to put his hand on top of theirs.

“So, what are you gonna do?”

“They told me to kill him, but-” They sighed. “I want to at least hear him out, first. He deserves that much.”

“Well, let’s get going, then.” He stood, dusting off his jacket. “I’d hate to keep crew-cut waiting.”

“You don’t have to come. I know you two haven’t ever really gotten along.”

He snorted. “That’s an understatement. But, even if he and I aren’t pals, I’m not about to leave you high and dry. If we’re gonna do something, we’re gonna do it together, right?”

“Right.” With a sigh, they stood, pulling their bag up with them. “Let’s go.”

MacCready: “You have to admit that it’s a little funny.”

“It is not,” sole chided. “He’s had his whole life ripped away from him. It’s not a laughing matter.”

“You can’t say it isn’t ironic, at least.”

They huffed. “I suppose I can see the irony. But that doesn’t make it funny.”

“Maybe not in your eyes.”

They whacked him with a rolled-up Boston Bugle, pulling the swing back at the last minute so it barely tapped him. Still, there was a hint of a smile on their face.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Mac. You’re a lost cause.”

“Probably.” He rifled through his pockets for his lighter. “But speaking of lost causes, what are you going to do about the tin can? Maxson told you to kill him, didn’t he?”

They nodded. “I suppose we’ll trek out there to Listening Post Bravo. At the very least, that’s where we’d have to go anyway. I just wondered if you had any thoughts about it.”

“No thoughts here. You point, I shoot. Just say the word.”

They folded their arms. “No thoughts? None at all? That doesn’t sound like you.”

He stuck his tongue out at them, still trying to light his cigarette. “No. The guy’s a synth. Do with that what you will.”

“Fine.” They stuck their tongue out back. “Then let’s get going.”

Nick: “Is he doing alright?”

Both he and sole glanced across the street to watch Danse fiddle with his power armor, something he’d been doing for damn near an hour. Nick didn’t think he’d done anything productive except maybe clean a rusty pin.

“He’s hanging in there.” They leaned back against the steps. “It’s not easy, but I don’t think anyone thought it would be.”

“Gotta admit, I’m not so sure I should be here. I might just be making things worse on him.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Maybe it’ll help warm him up to the idea.”

He shot them a deadpan look that he hoped read as unimpressed. “With a mug like this? Likely story.”

“I happen to like that mug of yours fine, so hush.”

They both turned back to the former Paladin in question, who was still staring  at his power armor. Nick really did feel bad for the guy. It was hard to realize the things you thought you knew weren’t yours to begin with. He ought to know.

“He’ll be alright,” he said, attempting to provide some reassurance to his partner. “If there’s anything I can do...”

That earned him a smile. “Thanks, Nick.”

“Sure, anytime. Just make sure that you remember helping him sometimes might include telling me to beat it. I doubt anyone looks at me these days and wishes they were a synth, too.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m pretty sure what you look like is the furthest thing from his mind.”

He hummed noncommittally and returned to watching.

Piper: “You’re not going to do it.”

“Piper...”

“Blue, you can’t. He should at least have a chance to live his life in peace, right? Preston could recruit him to the Minutemen or something. It doesn’t have to end in violence.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’ll need the facts, first.”

“But he’s your friend. You’re not just going to kill him because he’s a synth. Nick’s a synth, too, isn’t he?”

“Piper.”

“I’m just telling you the truth. If he’s your friend, you should give him the chance to explain himself, and let him go. Not all synths are bad, and he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. A little misguided, maybe, and he’s probably got a little too much machismo for his own good, but that’s not a reason for him to die.”

“Piper, I’m not killing him.”

“Well, good!” She pulled her cap up out of her eyes. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“It’s just not going to be easy to convince him that I shouldn’t. The Brotherhood is all he has. When Maxson makes an order, he follows it without question, without fail. We’ll have to show him that an exception can be made in this case.”

“That’s the spirit, Blue. There’s nothing wrong with going against orders every now and then, right?”

They laughed. “Piper, I don’t think you’re the type of person who’s ever followed orders.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that...”

Preston: “Danse, do you have a minute?”

Former Paladin Danse looked surprised to see him. Carefully, he set the gun he was working on cleaning to the side.

“I suppose so. Is there a problem, Garvey?”

Already defensive. It hurt Preston to see a man, who had once been so confident and proud, suddenly feeling so afraid. Though he couldn’t deny that it was nice to have Danse on the side of the Minutemen, the circumstances were unfortunate, to say the least.

“Not at all. I just wanted to thank you for the effort you’ve been putting in around here. I know that everyone else appreciates it, too.” Gently, he rested a hand on Danse’s arm. “We’re all glad that you’re here, and if there’s anything you need, or any way I can help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Though Danse avoided his gaze, he could see a touch of relief on his face. “It’s the least I can do. After all, you’re all putting yourselves in the line of fire by harboring me here.”

Preston shook his head. “We just want to make sure you have a place to call home, Danse. You’ve been dealt a rough hand, and I wanted to make sure you were doing alright.”

“I’m... as expected, I suppose. Staying busy has been good. It’s nice to work.”

“The work helps?”

He nodded. “It’s difficult to be caught up in my own thoughts when I’m completing a task that requires my full attention. I appreciate that.”

“Well, there’s plenty of work to be done around here.” He patted the metal arm of the armor. “If you ever want to do some work for the other settlements, there’s plenty to be done. County Crossing just sent word about some ghouls. I was going to let the General know when they got back, but if you want it first, just say the word.”

“Certainly. I appreciate the consideration.”

He nodded, and though they went to their separate tasks, Preston did feel a little bit better. 

X6: “So what are we supposed to do with him?”

Sole shrugged as they opened up a box of snack cakes, and extended the package to offer him one. “I’m really not sure. If nobody at the Institute knew he was a synth, then is there a point to bringing him in?”

“Of course.” X6 pulled one of the cakes out of the box. “All synths should be returned to the Institute. At the very least, we should see if we can get any information out of him. He could be a useful asset.”

They nodded, but their eyes were far away. The snack cake in their hand remained unopened.

“Ma’am/Sir, don’t let your fondness for him cloud your judgement.”

They sighed heavily. “But he’s a good man, X6. I don’t want to throw him to the wolves.”

“I know that your loyalties make it hard to be objective in this situation. But if he’s left by himself, he’ll be hunted for the rest of his life by people he once called friends. The Institute can keep him safe, perhaps give him a new purpose. He could make for a fine courser.”

“If he’d ever agree to that.”

He shrugged. “That would be his choice to make.”

“And what if I don’t bring him in?” Their eyes challenged him. “What would you do?”

He stared at them for a brief moment, contemplating his answer. They had been a good friend to him so far, and he trusted them nearly blindly. To grant them one small favor wouldn’t hurt anything, would it?

“I suppose I could turn a blind eye this once. But I wouldn’t advise crossing Father. You may not like the consequences.”

They nodded, offered him the box of snack cakes again, and turned the conversation to other things.

[thebonecarver]

Wipe that smirk prick chap 1

"Can Feyre Archeron please come to the principal's office please?"

Fuck. I was in my favourite art class, and this is the time the principal calls me. I didn't even do anything wrong! Well, I might have taken two chocolate milks instead of one, but who can blame me? Chocolate milk is sooo good. It was my last year at Velaris High School anyway, so why should I care? And now everyone was staring at me with eyes full of pity or amusement. Just great. I got up from my seat and walked out the door to the principal's office. What could I have done to get in trouble? I was starting to get nervous, but when I went into the principal's office and saw who was in there, I was more annoyed than worry.

"Why hello Feyre darling."

Rhysand fucking Night was in there. The worst prick out there. Surely I must have done something horrible to see him. I glared at him and turned to the principal to ask why I was here.

"Every semester we choose a few seniors to help wipe out all the data off the school Ipads after school, so I have chosen you, Rhysand, and a few others to help complete the task. You will start today after school for 2 hours, every Friday for the next four weeks."

I wanted to scream at him. I had no problem staying after school, I knew Nesta and Elain would have no problem with me staying late, hell once they didn't know I wasn't home on a school night and, well that's a story for another time. I was just annoyed that he would choose fucking Rhysand to help. The one person who I couldn't stand, but... the only one who made me feel alive. I kept all my thoughts to myself, though. It didn't even matter.

"Ok sir, I can do that."

"Same as me sir"

His voice was smooth and full of amusement. Prick. He knew how much I hated this. "Very good. I will see you two after school in the library." I nodded and walked out of the principal's office. As I stormed out, Rhysand trailed behind me, always matching my pace when I quickened it. Damn, he must be pretty fit to keep up with me. Get it together Feyre.  We were nearing Mr. Tarquins English class when I whirled on him. I was about to tell him about how much of an obnoxious prick he was when my eyes locked with his. They were an impossible shade of violet, and my hands itched to paint them, knowing that I would never get the right colour, and I swore they were stars in his eyes. My breath hitched, and when I looked at those sensuous lips pulled into his signature smirk I pulled myself out of my trance and scowled while I blushed a cranberry red.

"Why are you following me?"

"The bell just went before we left Feyre, and lucky for you darling we both have Mr. Tarquin." I scowled deeper and turned around to walk into Mr. Tarquin's class. I sighed and walked in, thinking about how my evening with Rhysand would be, wishing it would be with him only.

                                                                                                                                The class had been boring, I had already read the book we were talking about, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. It was probably my favourite book of all time. I loved how he portrayed life, and how he made you want to just live. Something I never managed to do. Life had thrown too many curveballs at me to ever have time to live. She wished she could be like Nora sometimes, having the choice to pick a timeline, but she was stuck with this one, so she had to make the most out of it. I sighed and looked around the classroom and instantly regretted it. Tamlin Spring, my recent ex was staring at me his eyes full of anger. I had broken up with him last week, but it hadn't ended well. I pulled my sleeves down, just in case the bruise on my arm hadn't faded as I saw in the morning. I realized Rhysand was looking at me, and the look he gave me was like he knew. Like he could see how broken and hurt I was, every bruise Tamlin had given last week, but he didn't shy away, he stayed. I shook my head as if the thoughts would scatter away. You have been watching too many rom-coms Feyre. I sat up in my sight and began looking at Mr.Tarquin, ignoring Rhysands stare, like a brand on me.

With school finally over, I went over to the school library where I was to help clean some Ipads. Of course, Rhys followed me, again matching his pace with my own. "So Feyre Darling, who do you think are gonna be our work buddies for this project?" he purred. The way his voice curled around my name made my toes curl. I blushed and responded with, "I don't know Rhys, I am just as clueless as you are." He smirked at me, "Oh but that's where you are wrong darling, I know three who are doing it, and I'll tell you if you tell me what was going on in that beautiful mind of yours during English." I scowled at him. Prick knew I hated surprises and knew I would want to know this information. I gave in.

"I was thinking about how lucky Nora was, to have the option of those other lives, and how I was stuck in this one."

"She was lucky I'll agree on that darling, but in the end, you have to go back to where you belong, or find where you belong." I gaped at him. What he was saying made a lot of sense. I smiled a bit, thinking about where I would belong.

"Now tell me the three people prick." He barked a laugh, his eyes twinkling. "Well, I don't think I need to tell you anymore darling, just look in front of you." I saw 3 people in the library through the clear doors, 1 of which I already knew.

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hope you enjoyed this next chapter coming soon :D

[holden-norgorov]

Why Katniss Everdeen is definitely an INTJ.

Due to the lack of general consensus regarding The Hunger Games main character’s personality type, I’ve decided to provide an analysis aimed at demonstrating that Katniss Everdeen is indeed an INTJ, and at narrowing down why she often gets mistyped by a huge bunch of the Internet – which is, mostly, because people who are not so familiar with the theory tend to type characters formulating their thesis on dichotomies rather than cognitive functions, and without knowledge regarding how cognitive functions work and interact with each other.

Disclaimer: I’ll preface this entire post by clarifying that I’m talking about the literary character, not the cinematic one. Katniss, as portrayed in the movies, seems to be inevitably too expressive than how she is described in the books. Overall, Jennifer Lawrence’s performance it’s still a great adaptation of the character, that’s unquestioned; but acting itself is a discipline entirely focused on conveying emotional resonance through body language, and, as opposed to what happens with literature, emotions have to be seen on screen rather than just read on paper. This means that the actress herself, in order to give the audience a glimpse about what’s happening inside the character she is portraying, sometimes has to show it through expressive reactions and behaviors – a scheme that, repeated periodically, ends up making it look like Katniss might rely on Fe as a response mechanism to the external world (which is not the case). So, keep in mind that I’m talking about the character as described in the original, literary work.

In this post, I’m going to thoroughly focus on the main response that the MBTI community provided to the character, and confute the almost-taken-for-granted idea that she is a Sensor, which always gets thrown in without any argumentative and explanatory back-up to support it. Just because Katniss is skilled at archery, it doesn’t mean that she uses sensory lens to interpret the whole world. Aside from INTJ, Katniss gets often typed as an ISTP or an ISTJ, and despite understanding where both these typing choices come from, they are both flawed perception on her for different reasons.

Why Katniss is not an ISTP:

ISTPs lead with Ti (Introverted Thinking) and consequently have Fe (Extraverted Feeling) as their bottom function. This means that their first extraverted function is a Perceiving one (Se) and that they extravert their feeling side rather than their thinking side in social circumstances. IxTPs, despite being extremely logical, tend to keep their rational side hidden to others and, in relating to them, are more able to grasp the collective harmony of the group and exude a certain ability to conform to it. Ti/Fe users are less comfortable with displaying Ti’s internal, complex logical framework when dealing with people, but mingle with them exploiting their own – usually untrained, but still accessible – Fe persona. ISTPs in particular, having Se and Fe as their extraverted functions, can be quite good in going with the flow and at the same time understanding the collective needs and adjusting to them. In the inside, ISTPs may feel lonely in the middle of a crowd – mainly because of their internal “library” of logical, organized facts rarely shared externally – but on the outside, they appear to be quite well-adjusted, in tune with the environment and striving to be accepted by or to please others, other than, to a lesser extent, being expressive of how they feel with their attitudes (faces, gestures, etc). Dominant Ti users, leading with an internalized judging function, are also prone to indulge in overthinking and self-questioning dynamics every time new external data seem to contradict one of their internally-processed conclusions. They always look for logical inconsistencies between what they grasp from the outside and what they have previously deemed as logically accurate in the inside. Ti is naturally prone to engage in constant re-evaluations of logical facts, often generating self-doubt, and to increasingly complicate the reasoning upon them: it’s a theoretical way of thinking.

ISTPs have Se (Extraverted Sensing) as their Auxiliary function. This makes them externally chaotic despite their inner organized system. Extraverted Sensing, as the first extraverted function in a person, makes Se users thrive in the unpredictable. Se users gain energy in highly-stimulated scenarios where they can react freely and spontaneously to their environment: they shine when they get to be (physically) responsive and reactive to the world, and avoid being pro-active and trying to actively shape their path with previous decision-making procedures, because to them that feels debilitating. A perfect example of an ISTP female character is Fa Mulan, from the Disney Classic “Mulan” (1997): she is constantly overthinking and questioning herself because she experiences her world trying to grasp out of it what makes sense according to her internal logical system (Ti); she is at her best whenever improvisation and reactive skills are required in the physical realm (Se) and consistent with her Ti’s conclusions; she has deep problems within herself because she is unable to please her family (low Fe), and because of this she spends her entire life up to the movie events without knowing who she actually is (Fi as the demon function). ISTPs’ Ti/Se combination can provide them with a natural and exceptional expertise in practical matters without requiring the average amount of effort, as seen when Mulan is able to succeed when other soldiers can’t despite her lack of previous training. They are theoretical thinkers and spontaneous doers at the same time, which makes them ultimately practical.

Katniss, on the other hand, is neither theoretical in her way of thinking nor particularly spontaneous in her way of doing things. It’s stated countless times in the books that she is completely oblivious and/or careless of the collective social harmony that encompasses her. She always stands out as being cold, standoffish, uncompromising and individualistic in her way of socializing. She has a tendency to keep her emotional side hidden, to engage in unexpressive attitudes – the so-called “resting bitch face” – and relate to others through blunt rationality as a protective wall, which is the exact opposite of how a Ti/Fe user behaves (especially with strangers). Katniss extraverts her thinking side with others, which makes her a Te/Fi user. She fails again and again to realize how social codes actually work and is particularly inept when it comes to decrypt social behaviors, to the point that she spends years of her life without realizing Madge Undersee considered her as a friend all along. It’s extremely clear that she filters her interactions via a Te-based way of interpreting reality. The main difference between Ti and Te stands in the location of the logical framework: Ti users develop it internally, Te users externally. Te users, having this “library” of logical facts outside themselves, project its organization on the external environment and are able to modify it without incurring in overthinking and self-questioning dynamics. Whereas Ti is prone to over-complicate reasoning to look for internalized inconsistencies, Te is prone to over-simplify it to look for a quick external conclusion – hence why, outwardly, Te users appear more confident and decisive than Ti users. Te makes up for a pragmatical way of thinking, and Katniss is as pragmatical as they come.

“Besides, if he wants kids, Gale won’t have any trouble finding a wife. He’s good-looking, he’s strong enough to handle the work in the mines, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.”

In fact, she is so pragmatical that in Catching Fire she coldly rationalizes a way to kill everyone in order to ensure Peeta’s survival and she shows no difficulty in conceptualizing human murders as anything more than common animal killings. She shows a natural ability to detach herself from the physical world and conceptualize people, things and actions in symbolic structures, dehumanizing them (Ni). Katniss is also not an extraverted perceiver. She is controlled, collected and measured in how she acts. Everything she does is deliberate, is purposeful. Her resourcefulness comes from her open-minded mental disposition and her quick intuitive ability to select possibilities, other than from her rebellious tendencies; it doesn’t come from being spontaneous or gaining energy in the here and now. In fact, Katniss is a meticulous and constant mental planner on a daily basis, as I will explain later on. She uses Se as a fairly developed inferior function, which she had to learn how to properly hone for survival purposes. But on a cognitive perspective, it’s quite clear it’s not something she naturally uses to perceive reality.

It’s so obvious that people tend to type Katniss as an ISTP purely using dichotomies – she’s Introverted, she is a Thinker, and she is skilled at archery so she has to be a perceiving Sensor, right? Labeling her as an ISTP steams from an extremely superficial reading and interpretation of the character. Katniss is not a Perceiver, nor is she a Ti/Fe user in any way.

Why Katniss is not an ISTJ:

Unlike ISTPs, ISTJs express judgments in the external world through a Te/Fi approach, which suits Katniss more accurately – so, it’s actually much easier to understand why Katniss might be mistyped for an ISTJ. The difference between ISTJs and INTJs lies in how they perceive information. ISTJs are Si users, and Si as a dominant function acts as a collector of sensory data in their concrete, practical essence. Si users have excellent memory regarding details of the physical world. Those details are internalized in the ISTJs’ world-building process according to their factual qualities, not their symbolic ones. This is why they develop an attachment to the past: because for them, experience is not something to analyze and conceptualize, but to preserve and estimate in the concrete, physical effects it had on them. Si users place the value of something in its empirical form; Ni users place it in its idealistic one. Ni users, instead, conceptualize any experience they absorb. They tend to quickly forget the concrete aspect of it and save the conceptual pattern behind it. Ni as a dominant function acts as a collector of intuitive patterns in their abstract form. Those patterns, once fully accessible and narrowed down, are gathered inside the INTJ who, from that moment on, has immediate access to it every time it is recognized in new sensory elements, even ones that superficially can seem completely unrelated (this is why Ni users are said to experience sudden “aha!” moments out of nowhere: because they witnessed the recurrence of a symbolic pattern they previously stored and are now able to access it without being conscious of the process). Si users are uncomfortable with abstract thinking and devalue the intuitive ramifications steaming from the source material (low Ne); Ni users are uncomfortable with practical details and devalue the raw source material that provided intuitive patterns (low Se).

For an ISTJ, every experience is an irreplaceable cornerstone that should be preserved and valued (eyes to the past); for an INTJ, every experience is a possible source of new patterns to be exploited from that moment on (eyes to the future). As a consequence, ISTJs develop a strong trust in established methods, rules and hierarchies, because they perceive them in their concrete efficiency and recognize their merits in letting them live their experiences; INTJs, instead, develop a complementary strong distrust in them, because they perceive them in what they conceptually represent and place value in the patterns underneath, i.e. what let them analyze their experiences.

That said, Katniss Everdeen is an INTJ mostly mistyped as an ISTx because she had to grow up in an environment and live through childhood circumstances that forced her to temporarily suffocate her Ni in order to develop her Se earlier than usual. But she is not a Sensor, and her Ni lens are still predominant in the narrative.

One of the biggest differences between ISTJs and INTJs is the relationship they have with authority and power. Si users see their own value as people in the role they play in the community they belong to; they tend to be the keepers of the established order because it’s what gives them their sense of identity and belonging. And it’s not only about the “overarching” order of things, but also the one that is ever-present even in the smallest of things. They value conformism and respect to those rules, because they made their experiences possible – and those experiences are what their worldview is based upon. Ni users, instead, don’t place their value in a community system, and see themselves as above or independent to its rules. How many times did you happen to read “INTJs are considered the most independent of all the types”? This is why. It’s about mental independence, which is also the source of subversive behaviors and rebellious attitudes, that are very common in Ni users and extremely atypical in Si ones. And Katniss is an extremely independent person under every aspect. Due to this sense of identity projected in their social role, Si user are also exceptionally prone to master social codes and conventions, while Katniss proves to be extremely deficient in this regard, showing a deep inability to grasp the basic norms of human collective interactions despite having been forced to engage in them every day at school and at work for presumably years. Her intuitive nature is particularly obvious in this case, because it shows how she is naturally able to detach herself from the sensory realm and its details, engaging in it exclusively through Te’s pragmatical lens – every interaction becomes a practical exchange, almost an economic proposition with cause-and-effect regulations. But at the same time, she constantly associates people’s actions with symbols (Ni).

“To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed. And more than once, I have turned in the school hallway and caught his eyes trained on me, only to quickly flit away. I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people.”

In order to properly grasp the difference, let’s draw a comparison with another famous ISTJ female character, who also happens to be an archer as well: Susan Pevensie, from The Chronicles of Narnia. Susan shares with Katniss her exterior stubborn, resolute attitude through which she conveys her rationalism, and her pragmatical approach in dealing with unfamiliar situations (Te); she is also emotionally introverted and very much in tone with her own personal values (Fi). Other than that, Susan is also extremely well-mannered and receptive of conventional rules, almost narrow-minded in her persistence in following “by-the-book” etiquette and always incredibly skeptical in evaluating idealistic possibilities when facing the variation of her reality. Her core worldview revolves around the sensory experiences she internalizes, and her own identity gets defined by the rules and the codes she strives to follow by herself, and that she constantly reminds others to follow as well. After the Pevensies are brought away from their mother because of the war, Susan decides to self-impose on herself the social role of “new mother” of her siblings in order to find her new purpose and maintain a pro-active control on her life. Katniss has to do a similar thing after her father’s death, but out of survival purposes because of her mother’s fall into depression. Katniss commits to the process in an INTJ fashion, using her Ni to visualize the conceptual goal (her family’s survival) and rationalizing the most efficient and optimized way to reach it through Te; Susan, on the other hand, commits to it out of no life-or-death obligation, but simply because she feels the need to in order to perceive her identity as validated (Si). She is repetitively dismissive of unconventional situations and finds comfort in a constant tendency to refuge in tried-and-true methods. Both as a Queen in Narnia (before aging back to be a teenager again) and as a growing adult in our world, Susan ends up revolving her life around the sensory experiences she collects; in Narnia she learns to grow accustomed to local rituals and becomes widely known for engaging in traditional lifestyles, whereas in our world she gains new concrete experiences that lead her to “forget” (or more likely, deem as less important) her childhood ones in Narnia. The more her social importance increases here, the more Narnia becomes an idealized fantasy in her mind, i.e. something to be devaluated (low Ne).

Another example of a female Te/Si user is Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, who is an ESTJ. Hermione’s entire knowledge system is completely dependent on a methodical text-book approach of assimilation of notions, which she rarely question or devaluate in any way; outside of what is learnt by the tried-and-true methods, she is discovered to be quite skeptical of the unfamiliar and less comfortable with (but not incapable of) exploring unknown imaginative possibilities (tertiary Ne). She is also extremely reluctant to break the rules, especially in early evolutionary stages, when her third function has yet to develop.

On the contrary, the first thing we learn about Katniss is that she inherited by her father the unconventional way of thinking and the reluctance to be subordinated by the system. She recalls how since she was a child, she had a tendency to engage in subversive language which could have been taken as rebellious if she had been heard by Peacekeepers. Her mother soon took corrective methods and Katniss learnt to keep her observations to herself. But despite that, her subversive nature still remains the core of who she is and will become during the saga. One of Katniss’s most recurrent traits is, indeed, subverting either governmental rules or societal expectations. She does that all the time, and in every way possible. She starts by hunting illegally in prohibited territory and selling the wild game to marketers, showing an independent nature which gains the admiration of her peers; then she volunteers as a tribute to replace her sister (something unprecedented in her district); she rebels against the lack of attention from the Gamemakers in her training evaluation session, intimidating them by showing her skills through insubordination, and gaining the highest score; she rebels against Seneca Crane’s last-minute-rearrangement of the Game’s rules by suggesting she and Peeta ingest the berries at the same time and commit suicide, already foreseeing the successful outcome of her strategy (Ni/Te); she shows insubordinate behavior in front of President Snow himself; she hangs Seneca Crane in front of the Gamemakers; she appears completely unable to obey basic orders that she deems as pointless and dismisses any kind of authority to the point that President Coin targets her rebellious temperament as her most-defining trait and the one she should conquer to be accepted in the Mockingjay mission; in District 13, she never follows social protocol nor she attends half of the events she should partake in. So, not only doesn’t she place her identity value in her community, but she also despises the idea of becoming part of a community at all, because there’s nothing she craves the most than independence, and relying on others is perceived by her as a weakness. This is quite the norm for INTJs.  

Katniss’s archery talent per se is also completely unrelated to how she perceives the world and to her cognitive preferences, because it was something she was forced to develop; but the way she engages in it is very telling. Many INTJs have interests in pursuing solitary physical activities, and their dominant Ni pushes them to apply their perfectionistic tendencies in everything they try to accomplish. This is why Katniss grows to master that practice, becoming an excellent archer (Gale describes her as “the best one he knows”). INTJs can be so obsessed with achieving excellence that they could be reluctant to show their interests, hobbies or activities at all before being sure to hone them completely. Katniss was basically forced to engage in hunting sessions to provide for her family, and this helped her in developing her inferior Se and learning to adjust to the environment around her. Nevertheless, her hunting style is still methodical, calculating and based on strategy tactics and mind games she plays to foresee her prey’s reactions and behaviors and win over them. She is never shown to gain energy and engage in it with the chaotic flexibility that high Se-users would show (as, for instance, Mulan constantly does in the Chinese Army): she is still precise, deliberate and focused in reaching an established goal, i.e. anticipating her opponents. It’s almost like she is playing chess with her preys. She conceptualizes her sensory activities and her body becomes a tool for her mind to use. Being a solitary activity in a solitary environment, Katniss is soon able to thrive because it gives her the opportunity to detach from the real world outside the woods and retreat safely in her mind, where she can perceive herself in control.

Another main trait associable with Ni/Te users is their strategic thinking. Ni’s ability to extract conceptual patterns from sensory elements and Te’s pragmatical approach in decompressing them give INTJs natural access to a pro-active way of interpreting reality and a strong desire to control it in a structured, foreseeable manner. INTJs naturally develop an automatic mental disposition to strategize every action they make in order to them to fit their vision and help them in reaching their desired goals. And it’s not just about the Big Strategies, or the Mastermind Plans: it’s a mental framework and it applies on a day to day basis, sometimes in the most insignificant things, often subconsciously and in extremely basic forms. We get to experience Katniss’s interaction with the outside world during the books, and she constantly strategizes. The first thing she thinks about after volunteering to save her sister (a very Fi-driven act for “the only person she is sure she loves”) is that crying as a response mechanism must be avoided because it would be caught by the Square’s cameras, and that she must not indulge in it even after the Reaping ceremony ends, because there will also be cameras in the train station after the tributes get to give their farewells. This by itself, as spontaneous as she makes it look like, is still a calculating way of thinking. She is used to foresee and evaluate strategically the long-term effects of her actions and choices. When she gets to see her family before leaving, she is distant and controlling: she doesn’t waste time in emotional matters, but straight-forwardly communicates a planning schedule of things to do in order for them to be able to survive without her.

She promises to her sister Prim that she will try to win – which now becomes her Goal – and strictly after that she already shows to be comfortable with the idea of dehumanizing other people to reach that goal. She is so calculating and detached from the sensory rules that she actually believes Peeta Mellark’s spontaneous emotional reaction to be a strategy for the Games, which indirectly underlines that it’s something she would do just for strategy purposes – just like we discover former victor Johanna Mason (ENTJ) did. When the night before the Games Peeta (ENFP) shares with her his open, individualistic unwillingness to be a slave to the Capitol (Ne/Fi), Katniss’s skeptical attitude and strategic focus on what she needs to do to accomplish her Goal makes her keep her inner perspective (Ni/Fi) hidden from him and use Te to provide pragmatical feed-back.

“Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to… to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games,” says Peeta. “But you’re not,” I say. “None of us are. That’s how the Games work.” “Okay, but within that framework, there’s still you, there’s still me,” he insists. “Don’t you see?” “A little. Only... no offense, but who cares, Peeta?” I say. “I do. I mean, what else am I allowed to care about at this point?” he asks angrily. He’s locked those blue eyes on mine now, demanding an answer. I take a step back. “Care about what Haymitch said. About staying alive.” Peeta smiles at me, sad and mocking. “Okay. Thanks for the tip, sweetheart.” It’s like a slap in the face. His use of Haymitch’s patronizing endearment. “Look, if you want to spend the last hours of your life planning some noble death in the arena, that’s your choice. I want to spend mine in District Twelve.” “Wouldn’t surprise me if you do,” says Peeta. “Give my mother my best when you make it back, will you?” “Count on it,” I say. Then I turn and leave the roof.

Inside the Arena, she avoids human interactions as far as possible, trying to maintain an independence of mind that allows her to function properly. This solitude allows her to focus on her primary Goal so much that she actually forgets she is supposed to be playing a love story with Peeta – something she thinks makes her appear weak. Once she is tracked down by the Favorites, she quickly comes up with a plan able to keep her safe and endanger them at the same time: she climbs a tree, knowing she has much more expertise of any of them in doing so and already picturing them trying to throw their weapons at her once she is out of their reach, hoping to be able to collect one – showing a futuristic and utilitarian approach to the situation.

When dealing with people, she is very selective, trusts her guts and is almost never wrong (Ni). She makes an alliance with Rue here, and shows sympathy for Mags, Beetee and Wiress in the next book, highly distrusting every other tribute. She comes up with another plan involving setting up several fires to distract the Favorites and destroying their supplies by exploiting the underground mines near the Cornucopia. When Seneca Crane announces that there can be two victors from the same district, Katniss decides to incorporate Peeta’s survival in her ultimate Goal, and from that moment she is determined to find him, protect him and carry out their romance as efficiently as she can.

The most emblematic moment where Katniss’s INTJness truly stands out in the first book is at the end, when the rules are changed back and just one victor is allowed. Peeta gets acceptive of the inevitable consequences that it entails, but Katniss can’t find satisfaction in it because she feels like she has been played. She managed to adapt to the Games’ logic and reach both her Goals – keeping her promise to Prim and allowing Peeta to survive with her. And suddenly she has to sacrifice one of them, even though she conquered both? This tyrannical twist aimed at controlling her is what definitely triggers her into attacking the whole system, finding a way to make the Capitol conform to what she wants and not the other way around. If there’s something INTJs hate, that it’s being manipulated and stripped of control. With the trick of the berries, she knows she is subverting the rules and that consequences will arise, but she first and foremost is confident that she will get what she wants out of it. And she does.

Katniss’s dominant Ni (Introverted Intuition) is also evident, through the whole saga, in the constant symbolical associations she makes between objects/people and images/concepts. In her mind, Prim is her “little duck”, Peeta is “the boy with the bread”, the soup in the Arena becomes a linguistic code to decrypt from Haymitch, Rue herself becomes a shadow of her sister, the Mockingjay pin becomes a self-projecting symbol, Snow’s white rose becomes a hidden form of communication between them. She sees items as conceptual containers.

In the second book, she gets visited by President Snow and she studies him, analyzing his behavior and persona and carefully weighting his words.

Perhaps it is the newness of the house or the shock of seeing him or the mutual understanding that he could have me killed in a second that makes me feel like the intruder. As if this is his home and I’m the uninvited party. So I don’t welcome him or offer him a chair. I don’t say anything. In fact, I treat him as if he’s a real snake, the venomous kind. I stand motionless, my eyes locked on him, considering plans of retreat. “I think we’ll make this whole situation a lot simpler by agreeing not to lie to each other,” he says. “What do you think?” I think my tongue has frozen and speech will be impossible, so I surprise myself by answering back in a steady voice, “Yes, I think that would save time.”

During the Victory Tour, despite Snow’s warning against her rebellious tendencies, Katniss shows once again her inability to stick to established procedures and etiquettes by coming up with an individualistic speech about Rue (Fi) that leads to an uprising and public execution. Back in her district, she keeps breaking the rules and attending the woods despite knowing that the President keeps his eyes on her movements.

As soon as the Quarter Quell is announced and the tributes are selected, Katniss decides that this time her long-term Goal will solely be Peeta’s survival, and from now on she takes her ultimate sacrifice for granted in her mental schemes, as a necessary step. Because of her Ni, Katniss develops a curiosity for Beetee (INTP) and Wiress’s intellectual approach to their training session and learns about force fields. Katniss’s archery training here is extremely probative of the mindset she enters into when hunting. She refuges inside her own head and lets her intuition overtake her body and dictate her movements in a harmonious and efficient continuum. She doesn’t lose herself in the environment (high Se), but in her own mind (high Ni), alienating herself from her physical surroundings to the point that she fails to realize she is being observed by everyone and doesn’t catch them applauding her until she sees them after her session is completed.

This time, in the Arena, she ends up being much more assertive – mainly because she has already made peace with the fact that she is not going to get out alive. This certainty is what ultimately suffocates her humanity and lets her approach the competition in a much more cold-blooded way – if she has come to have no problem dying to save Peeta, she surely has no problem killing everyone else as well to do it. She openly discusses with him about betrayal strategies and spends the majority of the time conjecturing ways to kill her temporary allies. She is so intensely focused (in a Ni tunnel-vision fashion) on her own scheme that she fails to notice than a much greater plan, arranged by the rebels, is being implemented by some of the other tributes which involves keeping her alive. Once she realizes that something is wrong with the way they are behaving, she comes up with another plan: she exploits the operative system of the Arena combined with her newly-acquired ability to recognize holes in force fields to throw an electrified arrow into the weak spot of the Arena’s one and provoke the explosion of the entire structure. Katniss shows to be attracted not only to the pragmatical efficiency of the gesture (Te), but to its symbolical connotations as well (Ni), which seem to convey an open declaration of war to Snow himself.

In the third book, she goes back to crave her independence from others, estranging herself from the social activities held in District 13 and developing an intuitive and instinctual distrust in President Coin as an authority figure. She decides to accept her propaganda role as the Mockingjay, symbol of the Revolution, just because it’s the only way to ensure the progression of the rebellious strikes and therefore to aim at Snow’s ultimate defeat – in a not-so-different way from INTJs’ tendency to engage in leadership roles once they conclude it to be the only possible solution to ensure the highest efficiency of a system. In exchange of embracing the role, Katniss provides a list of demands to be accepted – including the claim of President Snow’s execution. This becomes her new Goal.

Having witnessed at first-hand Katniss’s insubordinate nature and fearing for it to become a serious problem, President Coin decides to include a brainwashed Peeta in the Mockingjay mission. Katniss realizes quite instantly that Coin could profit from her death and that she wants to use Peeta as a weapon to control her and potentially get rid of her. Her distrust of Coin increases rapidly, but she keeps being focused on her primary Goal – to the point that, after Boggs’s death and her taking charge of the team, she pretends to know about the existence of a secondary, back-up plan established by Coin and only shared with Boggs and herself aimed at infiltrating the Capitol and killing the President.

Nevertheless, one of the most impactful moments in all the saga happens when the reader gets to experience Katniss’s Ultimate Plan. After District 13 gives order to detonate two groups of bombs from hovercrafts bearing the Capitol seal resulting in a massive genocide of children and rebel medics – including Prim –, Katniss is able to foresee (Ni) Coin’s real intentions of generating an internal conflict in the enemy lines and therefore manages to rationalize the danger she represents for Panem’s future liberty. She realizes that, in order for the people to be ultimately free and for Prim’s death not to be in vain, she needs to find a way to get rid of both Snow and Coin at the same time, because Coin’s thirst for power steams from similar roots of Snow’s, and must be sedated as quickly as possible. So, she meticulously and carefully crafts a strategy to gain Coin’s ultimate trust and then betray it publicly.

Was it like this then? Seventy-five years or so ago? Did a group of people sit around and cast their votes on initiating the Hunger Games? Was there dissent? Did someone make a case for mercy that was beaten down by the calls for the deaths of the districts’ children? The scent of Snow’s rose curls up into my nose, down into my throat, squeezing it tight with despair. All those people I loved, dead, and we are discussing the next Hunger Games in an attempt to avoid wasting life. Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change now. I weigh my options carefully, think everything through. Keeping my eyes on the rose, I say, “I vote yes . . . for Prim.” “Haymitch, it’s up to you,” says Coin. A furious Peeta hammers Haymitch with the atrocity he could become party to, but I can feel Haymitch watching me. This is the moment, then. When we find out exactly just how alike we are, and how much he truly understands me. “I’m with the Mockingjay,” he says. “Excellent. That carries the vote,” says Coin. “Now we really must take our places for the execution.” As she passes me, I hold up the glass with the rose. “Can you see that Snow’s wearing this? Just over his heart?” Coin smiles. “Of course. And I’ll make sure he knows about the Games.” “Thank you,” I say.

She manipulates her by pretending to agree at the establishment of new Hunger Games in Prim’s memoir while keeping her eyes fixed on Snow’s rose and mentally recalling their conversation in the previous book. Haymitch – who is probably an INTJ as well (with Se-grip problems), since Katniss spends the entire saga stating how alike they are – instantly understands Katniss’s plan and votes in her favor. By doing this, Katniss ultimately gains Coin’s trust, who has no reason now not to arm her and let her execute Snow in a public ceremony. Katniss manipulates Coin even more by making her think that giving him the white rose is an attempt to symbolize revenge, while it actually is a way for Katniss to re-awake in Snow the memory of their previous exchange. Katniss’s attachment to symbology here is extremely evident. When she finally gets to be in front of Snow, she states that he has nowhere to go, no allies left. There is no way for Snow to still be a threat ever again, regardless of her actually executing him in this instance. But on the other hand, now she is given the unique, unrepeatable possibility of erasing Coin’s threat as well. And she grabs it.

I feel the bow purring in my hand. Reach back and grasp the arrow. Position it, aim at the rose, but watch his face. He coughs and a bloody dribble runs down his chin. His tongue flicks over his puffy lips. I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But there’s only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. It’s as if he’s speaking the words again. “Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.” He’s right. We did. The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.

This execution is almost a by-the-book case of INTJ’s combination of strategic planning and the ability to foresee dangerous future outcomes and prevent them from happening. Katniss’s plan was supposed to end with her suicide, but soon after Coin’s death, Peeta is able to grasp her intentions and stop her in time. Katniss, having already calculated that she was going to be executed as well for Coin’s murder, loses her cool because the final step of her strategy has been prevented, and searches for Gale in the crowd hoping to be mercifully killed by him. But she isn’t. Eventually, she gets quarantined and the newly-established Paylor’s government decides to spare her.

Overall, I think it’s safe to say that the tendency to mistype Katniss as a Sensor steams from an approximative, superficial lecture of her character and the way she operates. People tend to place the “S” label upon her purely because she is an expert in a physical activity and think that is enough for her to be a Sensor – as if there are no Intuitives more than capable of mastering “sensory categories”, which is basically the same as implying that Sensors can not be able to develop a comfortable relationship with conceptual subjects. Typing characters basing personal assumptions on dichotomies and therefore discrediting cognitive functions is an extremely biased and inefficient procedure which leads to great misunderstandings. All it takes is to dive a little bit into the core nature of the character to get a proper picture of how said character perceives the world and engages with it. And with that in mind, Katniss Everdeen can be nothing else but an INTJ.

“To hear Delly describe it, I had next to no friends because I intimidated people by being so exceptional. Not true. I had next to no friends because I wasn’t friendly.”

[fonzy26]

Donald Trump vs. Napoleon by Tanya Tilwani

       Animal Farm is a novel written by George Orwell that expounds about equality, inequality, corruption, tyranny, and control. The story brings us back to time when Russia and the Soviet Union were under Communist Rule. This political satire uses animal characters with great resemblance to famous political figures during this period. One of the characters was a tyrannical, power-hungry pig named Napoleon, who represents Joseph Stalin, an autocrat who presided over the Soviet Union. The story centers on Napoleon’s tactics against another pig named Snowball, for supremacy in Animal Farm. Snowball is a systematic and imperative leader, portraying a role with the likeness of Leon Trotsky, a man of wisdom and integrity. George Orwell magnifies snowball as the animal most qualified for the job. With Napoleon’s manipulative ways, he sold a big lie that Snowball was the enemy that caused all the problems on the farm. With his devious acts and clever words, all the animals were convinced that snowball was a traitor, and Napoleon was believed to be the hero out to save the farm from eternal damnation.      

      Soon after Napoleon gained victory as their supreme leader, he went on betraying his fellow animals due to his inflated ego and power-hungry mind. He started conniving with humans who are viewed as the enemies of the animals on the farm. He went on breaking other rules like wearing clothes and drinking alcohol, to name a few. In the end, Napoleon became a controlling and manipulative liar who betrayed the whole farm. He changed the phrase “All animals are equal” to “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." He also twisted the slogan "Four legs good, two legs bad." to "Four legs good, two legs better." This story is so timeless that it could apply to the president of the United States of America. It is known to all how Donald Trump sowed disunity, division, and racialization during his term. America, once the land of freedom that used all its might to promote equality and democracy, suddenly lost its dignity and grace in the hands of a leader that promoted white supremacy. Trump capitalized on the line: Make America great again, it has been four years, and that remains to be seen.      

      Both Trump and Napoleon promised a lot of things they could not deliver. For instance, Napoleon promised to reward the animals for all their hard work but gradually sided with humans and forgot all his promises. During the start of the campaign Trump promised to make America great again, projecting himself as a savior or an antidote to all the problems America is facing. He claimed that America belongs to Americans, referring to white Americans as the rightful owners and residents of the country. By sowing disunity among Americans, he manipulated and undermined people of color, immigrants and minorities in favor of white Americans.  With his four-year term coming to an end, he barely kept any of his promises during his presidential campaign. The Americans have not  seen the Mexico wall, they have an unresolved financial crisis, and many families are left homeless. With all the chaos, we may have to rename it the Disunited States of America.Like Napoleon, Trump is scared to lose his leadership, so he uses all means available to scare his citizens. He says that without him, they would be in danger from the Chinese job-stealers, Muslim terrorists, Mexican drug dealers, crooked Hillary, and sleepy Biden. Napoleon did the same by telling the animals that the evil humans are still out there and orders that defenses be built. As the two tyrants remind their followers of these alternative facts, Trump fans and the animals remain in fear and continue to support the enemy. (Russo, 2017)      

      Napoleon is a brainy antagonist who uses effective propaganda to lure the animals to his side. Throughout the story, Squealer served as Napoleon's speaker every time Napoleon does something bizarre, which the animals begin to question. He convinced the animals that Napoleon was doing what was best for the farm. One common lie was to blame it all on Snowball. Trump is often caught red-handed, but he has political machinery standing by him, denouncing any wrongdoing and blaming it on his predecessor Barrack Obama. He blames him for the rise of the number of immigrant families, the financial crisis, the economic slowdown and the setbacks of the national healthcare. (Milbank, 2018)      

      With all the facts and scientific data at hand, Trump showed complete disregard for the safety of the American people by downplaying the danger that the coronavirus poses to the entire population.  He said that this is just like an ordinary flu outbreak and there is nothing to worry about. Due to this misinformation and reckless handling of the pandemic, America remains the nation with the most significant number of coronavirus cases. He went to the extent of discouraging people from wearing masks to protect themselves. With his false bravado, he makes them feel invincible and fear nothing. Napoleon, on the other hand, always instilled a culture of fear. Using dogs to scare other animals helped him stay in power for a long time. All the animals on the farm were convinced that humans were the enemies when in fact, he connived with them to gain more power and control over all the animals on the farm.        

      In conclusion, both Napoleon and Trump betrayed their supporters and manipulated them into thinking they would not survive without them. They made a string of promises but failed to deliver to their constituents. It even came to a point when Napoleon bent all the rules to fit his needs. He neglected his loyal followers like Boxer and many others, which led to health problems and over-fatigue. Just like any other animal on the farm, Boxer was not honored for his hard work. In fact, when he was falling ill, Napoleon had ordered for his slaughter. Everything Napoleon said was a lie to keep him in power. Animal Farm never became successful as he promised it to be. It is undeniable how Trump uses all his might to stay in power. Just like Napoleon, for Trump power, ego, and greed come first.  We have witnessed numerous incidents on how the justice system works when a white man is a casualty compared to African Americans and the Hispanic race. To protect the rich taxpayers, Trump scrapped the health care bill put in place by his predecessor because it guaranteed equal benefits and care to every social class be it rich or the homeless. Just recently, he was caught in a fiasco, attacking his rivals and challenging the results of the elections to stay in power. The greatest lesson to be learned is to look at all angles when choosing our leaders. Let us not be swayed; by a few good deeds done in front of us is not enough. A background check of a leader’s track record is a must before giving them our vote. After all, our present choices are entirely responsible for our future state.

Milbank. (2018, January 9). President Trump is a pig. In the best sense of the word. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/president-trump-is-a-pig-in-the-best-sense-of-the-word/2018/01/08/ N.A (2020, August 18). Animal Farm at 75 ‘still as relevant as ever’. Retrieved from: https://theday.co.uk/stories/animal-farm-at-75-still-as-relevant-as-ever Owen, L. (2016, September 21). 

Trump is Napoleon, not Hitler. Retrieved from: https://www.news-leader.com/story/opinion/contributors/2016/09/21/trump-napoleon-hitler/90816386/   

Russo, J. (2017, May 9). Animal Farm’ Perfectly Describes Life in the Era of Donald Trump. Retrieved from: https://observer.com/2017/05/donald-trump-george-orwell-animal-farm/ Spinner, S. (2020, September 5). Life on the Animal Farm. Retrieved from: https://yaledailynews.com/sjp2020/2020/09/05/life-on-the-animal-farm/

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Goonies: Facets of Film

A film isn’t ready for shooting the minute the script has been written and the parts have been cast.  

This is pretty obvious: there’s a lot of steps to go through before a project can fully become a film: cameras, lighting, music, sets, special effects, costumes, and tons more that have to go into piecing together a coherent narrative in a way that makes sense using editing and other filmmaking tricks, turning filmed sequences into scenes that tell a story.  This is a usage of the production design of the film: using the elements at the filmmaker’s disposal in order to build the ‘film world’ and make it realistic enough that the audience buys it for a while.

This is where the production team comes in.

The job of the behind-the-scenes crew, everyone from the director to the production assistants, is to create this ‘film world’, in any way they can, using cinematography, costuming, special effects, lighting, and everything else at their disposal to convince the audience for a brief period that what they’re seeing is real.  These elements, when used well, can capture the attention of an audience and turn a ‘good’ film with a solid story and characters and turn it into a cinematic classic, all through the clever use of movie magic.

And, of course, aside from looking good and being believable, these ‘facets of film’ are also used to tell the story.

These elements, cinematography, sets, etc., are used to highlight the plot and characters to the audience in the most efficient way possible.  Although it’s true that some films accomplish this better than others, the best films use these ‘facets of film’ wisely, conveying information to the viewers in ways that make sense, making a film more understandable and enjoyable.

In other words: today, we’re going to talk about what makes The Goonies a movie instead of just a story, and asking ourselves one simple question:

Does The Goonies use its ‘movie magic’ well, or not?

Let’s take a look, starting with something that can seem kind of simple: cinematography.

The Goonies isn’t exactly an ‘arthouse’ film.  By that, I mean that to the average movie-goer, there’s not much in artistic shots: the movie is focused on getting to the point.  But that doesn’t mean it can’t look good while doing it.

Cinematography is a hugely important feature of film, one that is often overlooked.  Audiences tend to underestimate the value that a camera, the ‘eyes’ into the film world, actually has: how the camera ‘looks’, and therefore allows us to look at a scene can be hugely impactful.  Such is the case for The Goonies.

There are a few shots within The Goonies that everyone just remembers.  The first time the kids lay eyes on the pirate ship, their final goal, is a hugely memorable moment, when the camera switches from the open-mouthed, awed expressions of the Goonies to the hugely impressive pirate ship, entirely built as a set for the film.  Other shots, like the reveal of the bone-organ, or the first shot of Sloth from behind, his chained hands held up against the light, stick in people’s minds: or the simple but effective shot moving to focus on Mikey leaning over his porch railing.

These shots are certainly strong and memorable, but they also convey a lot of interesting information to the audience all at once, which is very important.  In one split second, the viewers understand the magnitude of the discovery of One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship, the terror of the dead body in the freezer, the miraculous recovery of the jewels to save the Goondocks, the relief of Mr. Walsh tearing up the contract and throwing it into the air.

These shots are designed to evoke emotions in their audience, giving us a perfect viewing point into the film’s world, allowing us to ride alongside these characters and experience what they’re experiencing: the fear, the joy, the laughter and the excitement, and the camerawork more than achieves its goal.  The cinematography is effective without being showy, showing off when it needs to, and being simple and small when it fits the tone better.

A big portion of the film’s appearance is for sure in the cinematography, but honestly, there’s not much point to good camerawork if there’s nothing to shoot.  Thankfully, the production design of The Goonies doesn’t disappoint.

Every setting in this film feels solid and lived in, from Mikey’s house to the beat-up old restaurant, to the caves, and, of course, the pirate ship.  Richard Donner and Steven Spielberg (Director and producer of The Goonies, respectively) had, at this point, a bit of experience with the special effects department, and it shows in the film’s final look.  Spielberg’s iconic Indiana Jones style sets and effects are echoed here in the cave sequences, with booby traps, skeletons, and the claustrophobic, dirty caverns convincing the audience effortlessly of their authenticity.

The entire film is a visual delight, with the production design clearly putting forth a lot of effort into making the movie look good, from the pirate ship to the prosthetics on John Matuszak to bring Sloth to life.

Despite the magnificent sets, there isn’t actually much in ‘visual effects’ in the film itself (especially once the octopus scene was cut), besides the prosthetic effects used for Sloth (very impressive in their own right).  There are a few notable scenes: the floor dropping out from underneath Mouth (achieved by attaching a cable to Corey Feldman’s belt and collapsing the set floor underneath) being one of the more impressive of the various Rube Goldberg booby-trap setups throughout the entire film, and the cave collapsing prove to be a few of the most visually impressive effects in the entire film, furthering the story along and making it look believable.

There are other important visual things too: the costumes on the characters (Brand’s exercise wear, Data’s big, baggy trench coat with his inventions underneath, Mikey’s jean-jacket, Mouth’s Purple Rain t-shirt and Chunk’s Hawaiian shirt) all serve as legitimately distinct clues to tell kids apart in clumped together shots, but also works well as character building, coding in different outfits that match personalities, and even the props that kids have with them are hugely telling.  These include Mikey’s inhaler, Mouth’s comb, and, of course, Data’s inventions, all elements that immediately tell the audience something about their personality without having to come out and say it in words.  

In short, the visual storytelling of The Goonies is pretty darn competent.

But the visuals can only do so much.

The score of The Goonies (by Dave Grusin) works perfectly to form the backbone of every scene, from the merry tune that plays over Data’s inventions to the thrilling soundtrack that plays over the Fratellis’ escape at the beginning of the film.  Every scene hits its mark thanks in no small part to the music in the background: reflecting character emotions and putting the audience right in with them, emphasizing huge moments like One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship and playing up to smaller scenes, like the wishing well.  

It also serves perfectly to underline what’s really important: the performances.

There’s more to a great movie production than sets, special effects and music.  In the end, no matter how impressive, the production of a film doesn’t really amount to anything if the characters aren’t believable.  The movie really rests on the shoulders of the performers: it’s on the actors to try to sell not only their surroundings and story, but the characters themselves, making an audience buy into the fact that they are real, and going through these experiences.

In The Goonies?

The entire cast steps up to the plate.

Sean Astin’s performance as Mikey is 100% wholehearted and earnest, genuine and inspiring.  He is believable as the leader, and as a child with big dreams and big ideas, without being so wide-eyed as to be unrealistic, with a realistic way of talking that siblings around the world recognize.  Jeff Cohen as Chunk is larger than life, over-the-top for every moment of screen time, constantly energetic in both terror and excitement, convincingly portraying a kid who’s scared out of his mind, but sticks it through for the sake of his friends.  Ke Huy Quan easily persuades an audience of Data’s intelligence and charm, quirky behavior lining up with a ‘boy genius gadgeteer’ personality that is tempered with moments of irritation and frustration, as well as a gutsy streak that gets a little overshadowed by the antics of the others around him.  Corey Feldman as Mouth is similarly believable as a snarky kid with too much attitude.  Despite every character’s flaws, each actor manages to make each performance overall likeable and charming.  Thankfully, this doesn’t stop with the kids.

Josh Brolin is believably exhausted and somewhere between childish and grown-up as Mikey’s older brother, Brand, pulling off an even mix that makes him believably grounded, but still able to be swept up in the adventure.  Kerri Green as Andy isn’t given a lot to do, but she’s still entertaining and charming with the material given to her, much like Martha Plimpton as Stef, who delivers her snarky, sarcastic dialogue extremely well.

The heroes aren’t the only ones turning in great performances.  Anne Ramsey is incredibly, and memorably, threatening as Mama Fratelli, and Robert Davi and Joe Pantoliano are entertainingly intimidating as Jake and Francis Fratelli, bickering amongst each other and getting smacked around with utmost believability, despite the ridiculousness of the situation.  John Matuszak is wonderful underneath the prosthetics as Sloth, who, while never a villain, doesn’t officially become a hero until further into the film.  Aside from these, the movie is full of little performances from other players, and everyone fills their part remarkably well.  

Every character in The Goonies comes across exactly as they should: as characters in a kid’s adventure story.  Each performance is perfectly suited to each character: not at all subtle, but energetic and entertaining.  They are kids on a mission, with complete sincerity and consistency in their performances that help the audience to pretend that this is all real.  

These performances are the cincher, the final step, the part that people remember and the element that solidifies this film as a family classic, continuing to entertain people over thirty years later.  

In short?  With people like Richard Donner and Steven Spieberg working behind the scenes, it’s not much of a surprise that The Goonies was an example of efficient filmmaking and visual storytelling.  It’s a fast paced adventure story, a roller-coaster on film designed to take the audience along for the ride without asking any questions, and in that, it greatly succeeds.  

The Goonies seemed destined for greatness from the moment it first released, with all of its ‘facets of filmmaking’ falling into place to create the perfect family adventure film, but, of course, that wasn’t an accident.  Every movie is the result of a lot of hard work from a lot of different people, and The Goonies is no exception.

Thank you guys so much for reading!  Join us next time where we’re going to be discussing the behind-the-scenes story of The Goonies in ‘Facets of Filmmaking’.  I hope to see you there!