Daily Entertainment: The Socially Aware Edition

[damncompass]

Good morning, Milliways! I will be handling your Daily Entertainment needs and desires for the next few days. So, do sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

For today: How socially aware is your character? Do they pick up on negative and positive social cues around them or do they just ignore them? How much do they care about what society thinks of them? Do they care about what is 'done' or 'not done' in the society around them?

Comments

[battle_butler]

Ah hem. Alfred cares a great deal about what society thinks of him. Mainly because he wants to be invisible to them, so if they're thinking about him (or talking, or noticing him in general) he's usually doing something wrong.

He's also practically made a career out of watching other people's social cues and identifying causes etc, before reporting it back to Mister Wayne. He is exceedingly good at it. He can act like he is ignorant of them, but that is very much an act, leading back to the previous paragraph.

As for what is 'done' or 'not done', he does not care, personally, in private. However, see paragraph one.

[damncompass]

Joshua is only aware of his surroundings to a point. He's a pretty good reader of everyone else, but when it comes to people interacting with him, his social radar is shit. He does care about societal convention, but only to a point. He knows he has to look/act respectable for people to take his research seriously, but when he isn't out in public, he couldn't care less.

Helena is quite aware of what people think of her, and tries to make sure that people leave with a positive impression. Much of that comes from being Victorian, as the societal conventions of the day (as much as she subverted them in any way she could, and at every turn) were quite stringent. Also, she is just a very firm believer that you catch more flies with honey. She'd much rather convince someone to give her the Artifact they're holding than beat them up to get it.

[genarti]

Most of mine are socially aware, but often in a "well, yes, but..." kind of way.

Thor is very socially aware -- he's got a lot of emotional intelligence, and he picks up on cues of body language and tone very quickly. However, this is calibrated to his own society, of course, so sometimes he's off from what people of various other societies (such as 21st century Earth societies) expect. In terms of how much he cares... well. He does care about aligning mostly with what's done and not done in his own society, but he's also very, very self-confident, both by personality and by the privilege of social position. So as long as he thinks he's okay, he doesn't really care if you agree.

Trowa is... weird. Because he's very socially aware, in terms of being attuned to social cues, but he also has always seen himself as kind of outside society -- an outsider looking in, a participant-observer of sorts. So he doesn't necessarily follow the cues he sees. And he definitely doesn't care what society thinks of him, or if a situation is awkward, or if he's coming across as weird, unless he has a specific goal in being perceived a certain way at the moment.

River is weird in an entirely different way!

Regan is my most straightforward. She's very socially aware; it's a large part of her job to be so, really, which means this is a career path she would never have gotten into without that skillset. And she cares a lot about what society thinks, and about being perceived as proper and doing what's 'done' -- to an extent that's gotten her into trouble before, although she's consequently relaxed some about that.

Clare, however, is not very socially aware at all! This is due partly to lots of childhood trauma, partly to spending formative adolescent years being turned into a part-demon warrior instead of interacting with society, and partly to thinking of herself as totally outside human society so that its rules aren't relevant to her. (She can fake participation in those rules, short-term, but it's mostly in a camouflage-and-small-talk way.) And Claymore society isn't exactly a coherent society, given that its members don't interact very regularly aside from the occasional fighting partnership, so every individual sort of has their own view of that. In general, Clare is a blank slate outwardly and a seething mass of incoherent FEELINGS inside, and she really doesn't care that she only occasionally and accidentally matches what people might socially expect of her.

And my new character won't be in for a bit due to RL busyness and plot plans, so I dunno if I want to ramble on about him in DEs yet, but he's another "welllllllll it's complicated" sort. Because I am predictable.

[hecu_marine]

Ray has never been very good at social awareness at all. I originally millicanoned him as being both very bad at reading people's expressions and social cues and not realizing that he was supposed to pay attention to that kind of thing. It seemed to explain a lot about his reactions to stuff in the movie... and then I found out that Dan Aykroyd is on the spectrum so it's entirely possible he was putting his life experience into the character.

Gordon is fairly socially aware. Before canon happened he generally tried to ignore people and get his science done and enjoy himself on downhill runs where he could. After canon happened he's been forced into a position of having to live up to the heaviest social expectations imaginable just to keep humanity's hope alive long enough to survive the war with the Combine. He does not like it, but what can you do.

Shephard is somewhat better at reading people and society in general than either of those two. He likes to think he dismisses a lot of what people think of him, but prejudices and assumptions about him (against Marines, against 'hillbillies', against metalheads, etc.) get under his skin, and have occasionally resulted in people getting punched or worse. Which does not really help much but it makes him feel better. As for what is 'done' or 'not done', what is 'done' is what Momma taught him is 'done', and what his old superiors in the Corps used to teach him is 'done', and fuck everybody else's ideas on the subject.

Ellen is more than a little nervous about social cues a lot of the time, because spending nineteen years growing up in a closed society where virtually everybody either actively dislikes you or has been given tacit approval to just generally disapprove of you will mess you up that way.

Varric has a reputation to maintain- well, two, his own and his family's- and very carefully cultivates a deliberate image of both. Whether this is related to the truth or not is hard to say.

[not_my_sandbox]

Amascut is very manipulative, is trying to steer society into a certain direction, and spends a lot of time and energy pretending to be someone else. Multiple someone elses at a time, in fact. So yes, she is very socially aware because mind controlling spells will only get you so far before you get noticed by the higher ups.

... which is sometimes a problem for me because I am as socially aware are a heap of potatoes sometimes.

Fairy Fixit is much less socially aware. She has a tendency to think out loud. She has a customer service-ish job, though, so politeness and professionalism are important, but she slips up sometimes.

[ceitfianna]

Will is very good at social cues because his society is very status based. Though how he uses them depends on where he is. When he's in the forest as an outlaw, he plays with them but when he's in Nottingham, he knows how to be the polite peasant.

Charles, oh Charles spends his life worrying about fitting in and uses his telepathy and his knowledge to pick up cues and uses them. He wants to fit in yet he also wants to be himself, its complicated and such a part of how he works.

Moist is more like Will in terms of how he uses social cues in that he manipulates them to trick people. In canon, he's wonderful at picking up what someone will like best if he does. When he can, he enjoys manipulating them to see what happens.

William tries to pay attention to social cues but he knows he messes up since he's aware that he's not of the best society. Its one of his many inferiority issues. He does try and act politely, he was good with it around Mary Bennett, but it slips.

Jane is I think the most aware next to Charles and Moist because her society is so keyed to behavior and acting the right way at the right time. She happens to find it fascinating and as a writer and an observer looks into what can be bent safely.

Demeter stopped caring about social cues sometime around I think the Romans, she's used to mortals and knows how to act in a way that reassure them, but she doesn't focus on it a lot.

Sameth isn't good at social cues, he's not awful but he's not good at them. He'll forget to pay attention to them if he's working on a project and then realize he messed up but can't figure out how. In canon, he knew he was coming off as a bad prince but he had the reasons off. Its something that he does try and work on, but its not a huge priority for him unless he's getting yelled at by Ellimere about it.

Tumnus is comfortable with social cues, because he lives and works in a palace. I think because he's a faun, he has slightly different interpretations of some of them but he knows the right things to do.

The Pirate King in canon creates his own social ideas and enjoys ignoring what society tells him he should do.

[herr_bookman]

Barring romance, Autor is fairly socially aware, and can be very well-mannered if he so chooses. Unfortunately, his thought process works like this:

1. Am I emotionally in tune enough with this person to recognize that bringing up the fact that their parents are dead is a bad idea right now?
2. Will it benefit/turn them against me?
3. How much do I care about:
a. point #2
b. this person and their opinions

[bjornwilde]

Ben has always been social aware but what he is aware has been different. In his youth he was aware of the disapproval of his elders as he lead the Yancy street gang or potential ambushes from rival gangs. In college he was aware of when people would look down on the jock from the wrong side of the tracks. After the accident, it's when he's scaring normal folks.

Hank is very aware of social landmines but only tries to avoid them as he has no social skills at diffusing them.

Val was raised to be a leader on the global stage, being socially aware is a large part of that and part of her always wonders how she can gain politic or social power from any given situation. She rarely acts on it but she thinks it.

Anton looks at the social buzz in relation to what under laying causes are there. Is a Dark Other influencing things? Aside from that, he spends too much time in his head and tends to miss clues from his friends or sees them but is too busy thinking things through to act in a proper or timely fashion. He does get better eventually.

Jess looks at social things from a unique POV. Her first instincts look for vulnerabilities and ways she can influence or push the situation to her advantage. Girl can't help a decade or so of HYDRA programming. Her perceptions of normal interactions is colored by John Hughes movies and Carol's friendship as well as Ben Grimm and Logan. She is concerned by what is done only so far as so she can blend in.

[bjornwilde]

Adding in Andrea since she's been on my mind. She is very aware and does what she can to blend in. She is concerned about what is done as far as seeming fully human and let's it effect her private life as well. This is entirely her decision and if she changes her mind, would have no trouble dropping the human persona. In other words, she cares about blending in but not about judgment.

She does very much want to be liked, valued, and loved.

[12goingon113]

Aang is fairly empathetic and has a very strong sense of what is, or isn't, in balance for a given situation. Having said that...he's still a 12 year old kid and can be kind of naive at certain times, and shamelessly obvious at others.

Bumi is socially savvy enough to know what is, and isn't, appropriate behavior. What this means is that when's socially inappropriate he's doing it on purpose.

Splinter is still sussing out how humans interact. It's not easy to teach an old rat new tricks. Having said that, he's quite adept at reading body language, especially when it comes to aggressive displays. Just...pardon him for learning most of his social cues from Soap Operas.

Mike plays nice.

Raph doesn't care much about playing nice as he does playing fair. And when that isn't an option he cheats.

The Loompas are outside of your culture, and usually your line of sight.

[lady_mary]

Lady Mary Crawley, eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham, is defined by social conventions and her future rides on her ability to navigate social situations well. Mary is more modern than her father—in that she realizes that the conventions of society must change gradually, she's certainly not out to overthrow them—but following tradition is still very important. Mary can, if she wants, adeptly smooth over a situation in which someone else does not recognize social conventions, but she's more likely to ridicule their ignorance.

Carol Danvers is I'd say about as socially aware as most neurotypical adults. She's long since passed the point of caring what people think of her, though. Particularly if elements of society want to "put her in her place." Because that just means her place will be punching society in the face.

[bjornwilde]

To quote, "Don't you 'Lady' me, son. I'm an Avenger."

[mighty_avenger]

Damn straight.

[cameoflage]

Thurlow doesn't much care what society at large thinks of them, so they don't make much effort to hide their dysfunction or to follow social mores that they don't like. Then eventually they stir up too much scandal to go about their business, and have to go hide in the tomb-colonies until it blows over. (Their fondness for indulging in almost every form of hedonism the Neath offers does not help.) On the smaller scale of interpersonal interaction, though, they're quite good at reading people and gauging the effect they're having on their audience. They're not likely to be insensitive by accident, unless they're too out of it to recognise the problem.

Aradia, as I've mentioned on previous occasions, just sort of does her own thing. She doesn't give a toss what society thinks of her, but she's not too oblivious to social cues. Except when it concerns death, which she has an odd (some might say warped...) perspective on because of how much time she spent being dead. That, and I'm not convinced her emotional landscape is quite back to normal, after the time she spent having no emotional landscape to speak of as a ghost and then a robot.

[inlovewithwords]

Henry's a ten year old boy.

Lois is reasonably socially aware. Sometimes she's kind of oblivious, deliberately or not. She claims not to care what people think, and on a personal level that's kind of true. On the other hand, she very much wants to be seen as a successful, professional, better-than-the-rest reporter, but that's a slightly different issue. As a rule she doesn't exactly care what is done or not done, but she's not militant about it.

Tavi is also fairly aware. He's been taught and trained to notice nuances for the sake of politics and spying and the like. That said, on an interpersonal level he can miss fairly big cues. He never ignores cues, though: tells are there to be manipulated. Like Lois, he doesn't care about 'done' or 'not done' on a personal level--he breaks many of the rules himself. But he has to care to some degree, being a commander. He just doesn't exactly care about conforming to their expectations of him.

[iambetadraconis]

This, actually, is something I've thought about in terms of Rabastan.

I'd like to think that he was, as a child, reasonably able to pick up on the social cues of others, even if much of it was filtered through the lens of his social class.

But spending fourteen years in what amounted to the wizarding equivalent of solitary confinement [who, other than the guards, both human and creature, would he have to socialise with in Azkaban?] has left him rather stunted on many psychological/emotional levels, and at a loss much of the time when it comes to reading people.

Just because it comes naturally doesn't mean it can't atrophy. Social awareness needs to be exercised like any other skill, or you end up losing parts/all of it, and that's what happened to Rabastan.

The fact that he's able to communicate with others and pick up on cues at all [even if imperfectly] is incredibly remarkable, and a sign of how much he's recovered from all this, given the above.

As for whether he cares about what is thought about him and expected from him? He cares about it. He cares about it a lot. To the point where he worries and angsts over whether or not he'd be judged by others for his past sins.

[misslucyjane]

Someone without power is always going to be very aware of those with power. So Merlin, for example, being a peasant, a magician, and a servant, will be very aware of the behavior of the people above him such as Arthur and Uther.

The Ice King scorns your social conventions. Less flippantly, he's at a place mentally that's beyond social niceties, thanks to the crown.

Lydia is a teenager. I think that sums it up.

Bilbo is upper-class, which means he doesn't have to care.

Steve is very sensitive, especially for a man of his time, and I think he is very aware of how people are feeling and reacting around him. As far as what's done and not done, though, he's more interested in what's right. Although there are some areas, more in the personal realm, where he's slightly more conventional--mostly this is because it sounds like a good idea to him.

[boomsticking]

Juliet is UBER sensitive to this. UBER. There's a reason she's the sensitive one and Lassie is very..not.

Clem just barrels right through them. She'll shove it in your face how much she doesn't give a damn about what people think of her..

Pinkie wilts if people don't like her. WILTS.

Dix is a social politician, so she too is quite aware.