DE: You're walking in a desert...

[bjornwilde]

 Yesterday's DE reminded me of the Myers-Brigg's personality test and classification. Which has me wondering, what does your character think of personality tests and/or classifications? Assuming someone took the time to explain them.

Comments

[gredya]

Well, they'd go on the very long list of Things Gredya Thinks are Pointless and Weird and Probably Wrong.

But I think the French Romanticism And Politics crowd would find them pretty intriguing. A venue for talking about your individual thoughts and feelings? Yeah, all right, let's give that a try. Lesgle isn't the type to give personality tests very much weight, but they'd be an entertaining thing to argue about on a long cold winter afternoon.

[bjornwilde]

Quin (and my Sabine headvoice) thinks it's a tool of the Empire and does not like it.

Andrea and Jessica think they are fun things to play with, and secretly might give them more weight than they deserve.

Selina rolls her eyes and says something about the silly things the rich get up to. I think she mistrusts them as I am sure Social Services makes frequent use of them.

Tybalt and Brimstone see them as more of the cute things the humans come up with.

Ethan would likely give them a suspicious eye, given the wacky science that's about in his day.

Sam sees them as possibly useful but people are more than boxes or categories. They are greater than the sum of their parts.

[lazy_but_loyal]

In S6 of True Blood, a psychiatrist actually tries to psychoanalyze Pam and gets her to talk about her feelings, so I think anything within the realm of humans attempting to classify her in any way would piss her off. (She gets to kill the psychiatrist in the end, so that's what she really thinks of that.)

[camwyn]

Three of mine have opinions on them one way or another, and the rest don't care. Stacker Pentecost does not pay attention to most personality tests; the ones the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps use are very specifically designed to make it easier to determine who, exactly, can be trusted with seventy meters of robot face punch suit.

Shephard had to take several in order for the Marine Corps to be satisfied that he was of sufficient maturity, equanimity, and mental stability to be trusted as a professional sniper. He understands this, but thinks most such tests are kinda dumb and overly complicate things.

And Ellen's only real encounter with personality tests was at age sixteen, when everyone in Vault 101 had to take the Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test. They're an unpleasant part of growing up, much like- well, I was gonna say like getting a pelvic exam but it's just occurred to me that I don't know if she's ever had to go through that. But you get the idea.

[genarti]

Not to mention the SCIENTIFIC CLASSIFICATION OF ALL THE THINGS angle. I can see both Joly and Combeferre being all over that.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Yes, exactly! I don't think all of them would be in favor of personality tests but oh man they'd be all over it to talk about.

[genarti]

Yeah! Scientific Progress AND a party game of talking about your deep inner feelings as an individual, AWESOME, LET'S RUN WITH THIS.

I don't think Enjolras would care all that much specifically, and he certainly wouldn't care or put much thought into his own classification, but he'd be interested in whatever his friends were getting out of it and/or what they saw as potential future progress to be gained from such things.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly knows about personality tests! Sort of! Standardized ways of measuring people were just starting to come into practice, medically speaking.
And so he's very conflicted. Because on the one hand-- it's Important and Good to have information! It can help in the treatment of disorders and give people information to make better choices for themselves! On the other hand-- well, on the other hand, eugenics, basically. There's already a push in his time to use these tests to decide the Right Sort of people, and the Wrong Sort are not getting treated well. Meyers-Briggs type tests are Serious (and kind of scary) Business.

...Which would stop him for -10 seconds before getting into a very heated debate about What Daemon You Have. There's a difference between Serious Business and Goofing Around.


Bahorel would loudly protest that the soul can't be parsed by systems and set out in lines, and that's exactly the kind of bourgeois thinking that results in classic tragedy, and also how dare you imply he'd be Lawful anything, that's fighting language, you take that back right now.



(Also I love Gredya's disapproval of 99 percent of everything. Hee, cranky Wyr.)

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Yeah, in terms of the 19th century, personality-type things are definitely brushing on the edges of some very nasty stuff. Combeferre and Joly would have Opinions, to be sure.

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut would consider them about as useful as phone calls to a "How's my driving?" hotline. To be honest, I don't know how helpful that is. I am not a trucker.

Fairy Fixit would like the concept at first, but then demand proof that the test is scientifically rigorous and that the results are actually useful.

[onceaviking]

Though, to be fair, he is a really creepy psychologist.

[student_of_impossibility]

Henry probably doesn't care; he doesn't have too many friends his own age and is too busy, otherwise he might be socially pressured into taking some and then not care. (Except maybe about Harry Potter Sorting Hat ones, those are cool.)

Eriond probably thinks they're silly but good fun, unless someone starts going off in crazy directions.

Lois would totally scoff at them in public and then take some of those in private, or the reverse order, and at some point know too much about it and say something that tipped someone (probably Clark) off to her having taken it. Cue lots of teasing and snarking and Lois making dire threats.

Tavi thinks this is weird and refuses to have anything to do with it.

[genarti]

Yyyeah. I was thinking vaguely about that side of things but not calling it out outright, which I should've, because yeeeaaah that is definitely a thing on the radar with all of this kind of stuff in their day. And would definitely be a thing they'd have Opinions on.

[gredya]

Yeah, it's sadly true.

BUT THEY WOULD ALSO have opinions about Which Gothic Heroine Are You and whether Jean Prouvaire is an introvert or an extrovert.

[justdyedit]

OK, that made me LOL. = ]

[genarti]

...

oh god now I'm picturing Bossuet getting a book of personality quizzes from Bar. The less scientific, more Seventeen-magazine-and-LJ-memes sort.

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

hell, he's already found out about sudoku...

[genarti]

I'm deeply enjoying my mental images, I must say.

What Kind Of Mythological Creature Are You? Your author lists six in your intro, your friends are vociferously debating the subject, LET'S SEE WHAT THIS TWO-MINUTE QUIZ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FILCHED FROM DEVIANTART HAS TO SAY ON THE SUBJECT.

[clayforthedevil]

WHICH EPIC GREEK HERO ARE YOU? WHAT'S YOUR ROMANTIC STYLE? WHAT FAMOUS AUTHOR FROM THIS ENTIRELY ENGLISH-SPEAKING NARROW SELECTION ARE YOU? (Bahorel is Very Upset that they don't at least have Byron, but he ends up with Mary Shelley, so THAT'S okay.)

[last_kallig]

Ibani would be figuring out how to skew the test to get what results she wanted. And, thanks to reading the response of Quin and Sabine above I can agree on them being a tool of the Empire. Because that seems like the kind of thing an enormous bureaucracy would do.

Rocket Racoon would tell you just where to stick the f'ing test.

Kreyu would be intrigued by them, but I don't think she'd find them very accurate.

[street_sparrow]

Rocket? Rocket!!!

[nobody_like_me]

:-D? I need to get my stuff together and app him. But I'd like to see canon a few more times before I play him. *wants DVD now please*

[aberrantangels]

December 9. If all else fails, put it on your Christmas list. I know it's going on mine.

[nobody_like_me]

Oooh, thanks for the information! *puts on mental list*

[singthesong]

You're walking in a desert.

There's no one around, and your phone is dead.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot him...
















...Shia LaBeouf

[chanter1944]

Sariel would consider personality tests useful in some ways, but she also knows that people can't be entirely measured by those sorts of things. There are realistic evaluations, and then there's reaction under genuine fire, with all the details leading up to and going along with said fire.

I, on the other hand, am in much the same camp as the French romantics upthread. Personality tests are fun! ... but don't take them too seriously.


You know, I still can't figure out just what the frak my Daemon would be? Sariel's either, for that matter. Makosa's, on the other hand, is a Labrador/golden/German shepherd mix dog. I don't know zir name or gender, however.

[chanter1944]

Oh noooo, you went there! *gigglefits*

[singthesong]