guardians_song (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
guardians_song) wrote2013-07-18 03:47 pm
guardians_song) wrote2013-07-18 03:47 pm
Entry tags:
*random thoughts*
Thinking of shipping Ninian/young!Zephiel.
...Okay, so age 20-21 is when the crack!shipping tendencies appear? Good to know.
(You don't even know. AU!Zephiels are gradually glomming up all the dragons in various AUs. The only reason I haven't shipped him with Idoun is that half-dragons would grow too slowly to become Bern's heirs. Eesh, dragon!fanboyism will get you a lot of ships.)
(Disclaimer: In such an AU, Zephiel would be running away from a murderous father about fifteen years earlier than similar events occurred in canon, so he'd bump into Ninian and Nils before Eliwood did. *grimaces* Urgh, the... joys... of competing ships when you can't resolve it all with a threesome. I'd probably have Fiora take Eliwood instead, since my default AU-TP for Lyn is Hector/Lyn/Florina.)
Have started Gates to Infinity! I was planning to take Tepig for coverage against Ice-types, but... how could I say no to a Pikachu partner? D: *pikapikapika* At any rate, I'm an Axew. Ah, the joys of resisting Fire, Ice, and Lightning. :D (And Grass. Them too.)
Unpopular opinion on mental illnesses/neuroatypicality:
TL:DR: Yes, mental issues lead to deficiencies. Some people judge you hard on those deficiencies. To some extent (which may be anywhere between "absolutely" and "semi-demi-hemi-maybe-in-an-alternate-universe"), they have a point.
***
I apologize for the prior idiocy and incoherence before I condensed the point down to the TL;DR. I have enough baggage on this point to fill an aircraft carrier. Said idiocy was filtered through and set off by said baggage, which is why it was meaningless and offensive rubbish.
I'm set off by overly-positive stuff because A) I believe overly-positive stuff presents an unrealistic and dangerous filter, it erases anyone with less than positive views, and it's often vacuously idealistic... and B) I've been conditioned to fear unconditional positivity as one side of a persona, with the flipside being blistering rage, contempt, and hatred if one dares to say anything questioning the positivity. That has to be the most pathetic fear-reflex known to humankind, but - *throws up hands*
So, in this case, I was set off by a bit too much we're-faultless/no-negativity/write-down-happy-things/you're-absolutely-great-just-as-you-are preaching. I should have thought through it MUCH longer before posting. Again, my sincere apologies. My thanks for the civil and detailed call-out.
There are reasons why there are stigmas against emotionally unstable people. And I say this as someone who is... *grimaces*... not the poster child for calmness and maturity, and was pretty much a poster child for Emotionally Dysfunctional Children And Adolescents in the past. There were perfectly valid reasons why people would have treated me uncomfortably then and why I would feel anxious and guilty for volunteering to do something where competence was absolutely crucial now.
Look. I do stupid things when I'm overconfident and/or emotionally agitated. And I know they're stupid at the time, to some extent. But my positive-negative weights on thoughts and actions tell me at the time that it's perfectly rational and righteous and of course I should say this off-color or aggressive thing or do this ill-advised or lazy thing, because-why-the-hell-not. And this comes back to bite me, which is why I've come to be more careful - but when hormones or certain chemicals that make me more aggressive are in my system, I go back to old behavior patterns. Sometimes this turns out to be a good thing - the consequences aren't bad, or I needed to say such a thing - and sometimes it's... ill-advised. Yeah. There are infinitely many ways to elaborate.
For this reason, people should have a stigma against my diplomacy skills in difficult situations. Yes, I can be very mature and well-reasonedor at least my current arrogance tells me so. On the other hand, when I get riled up, I tend to go into if-God-be-with-me-who-be-against-me mode. And I may not ever grow all the way out of this, because I have seen senior professionals* with behavior patterns implying similar thought processes. (Let's just say that said professionals tend to acquires bosses/colleagues who take up the roles of reining them in when they get carried away and protecting them from their own stupidity.) So, no, I am actually not qualified for the role of Professional Diplomat 24/7.
*MALE professionals, mind. This is not a We Women Are Just More Emotional issue unless there are a lot of closeted trans women.
So we've established that I have emotional over-reaction issues. And yes, I hate to say this, but THIS DOES IMPAIR RATIONAL JUDGMENT. Does it impair my raw ability to reason? No, but it changes the weights. And a change in weights can lead to obtaining utterly wrong results, even if the processing before and after that point was without a single error or flaw.
To take a saner such situation - under different circumstances, the weight of the negative event 'Being in close proximity to a spider' may be either 'Tolerable' or 'Intolerable - cause to flee the room'. If I had a severe phobia of spiders caused by OCD or some other condition, that might be upped to 'Cause to flee the room via the window'. Rationally, I don't need to fear the spider THAT much, particularly if it's benign. After all, if worst comes to worst, I have large, heavy objects, and it has the ability to run like hell. But the weighting my intuition assigns might be much higher.
This is regarded as a fairly sane and normal impairment of rational judgment due to emotional over-reaction. It is also regarded as fairly empathic and normal to point out that it's sheer ridiculousness to have a fear of non-severely-poisonous spiders. And I type this with the full knowledge that, if a spider crawled across my keyboard right now, I'd knock over my chair in my haste to stand up, nearly hit the doorframe on my way out, and probably spend at least five minutes in another room before I dared to come back. Many "sane" people could sympathize.
However, if my job involved typing in a spider-ridden place, this would be a crippling dysfunction. And yes, compared to my coworkers (who would wear thick clothing, keep anaphylactic medications around, and take other level-headed steps to minimize adverse occurrences), I would be irrational. And it would be an irrationality that pervaded everything I did in said spider-ridden place. I might, for instance, insist upon doing something that 'was clearly the right path' when, in reality, it would be extremely suboptimal - but it would help me avoid spiders or put off encounters with spiders, even if that meant I had to stand ankle-deep in spiders for three hours straight later on.
My fear of spiders would not make me a bad person. It would not be something I wanted, it would not be something I could help without a great deal of focused effort (and many false starts), and it would not alter my status as an otherwise fairly rational, well-intentioned, and well-behaved human being.
But it would be a mark against me in a place filled with spiders.
...Okay, so age 20-21 is when the crack!shipping tendencies appear? Good to know.
(You don't even know. AU!Zephiels are gradually glomming up all the dragons in various AUs. The only reason I haven't shipped him with Idoun is that half-dragons would grow too slowly to become Bern's heirs. Eesh, dragon!fanboyism will get you a lot of ships.)
(Disclaimer: In such an AU, Zephiel would be running away from a murderous father about fifteen years earlier than similar events occurred in canon, so he'd bump into Ninian and Nils before Eliwood did. *grimaces* Urgh, the... joys... of competing ships when you can't resolve it all with a threesome. I'd probably have Fiora take Eliwood instead, since my default AU-TP for Lyn is Hector/Lyn/Florina.)
Have started Gates to Infinity! I was planning to take Tepig for coverage against Ice-types, but... how could I say no to a Pikachu partner? D: *pikapikapika* At any rate, I'm an Axew. Ah, the joys of resisting Fire, Ice, and Lightning. :D (And Grass. Them too.)
TL:DR: Yes, mental issues lead to deficiencies. Some people judge you hard on those deficiencies. To some extent (which may be anywhere between "absolutely" and "semi-demi-hemi-maybe-in-an-alternate-universe"), they have a point.
***
I apologize for the prior idiocy and incoherence before I condensed the point down to the TL;DR. I have enough baggage on this point to fill an aircraft carrier. Said idiocy was filtered through and set off by said baggage, which is why it was meaningless and offensive rubbish.
I'm set off by overly-positive stuff because A) I believe overly-positive stuff presents an unrealistic and dangerous filter, it erases anyone with less than positive views, and it's often vacuously idealistic... and B) I've been conditioned to fear unconditional positivity as one side of a persona, with the flipside being blistering rage, contempt, and hatred if one dares to say anything questioning the positivity. That has to be the most pathetic fear-reflex known to humankind, but - *throws up hands*
So, in this case, I was set off by a bit too much we're-faultless/no-negativity/write-down-happy-things/you're-absolutely-great-just-as-you-are preaching. I should have thought through it MUCH longer before posting. Again, my sincere apologies. My thanks for the civil and detailed call-out.
There are reasons why there are stigmas against emotionally unstable people. And I say this as someone who is... *grimaces*... not the poster child for calmness and maturity, and was pretty much a poster child for Emotionally Dysfunctional Children And Adolescents in the past. There were perfectly valid reasons why people would have treated me uncomfortably then and why I would feel anxious and guilty for volunteering to do something where competence was absolutely crucial now.
Look. I do stupid things when I'm overconfident and/or emotionally agitated. And I know they're stupid at the time, to some extent. But my positive-negative weights on thoughts and actions tell me at the time that it's perfectly rational and righteous and of course I should say this off-color or aggressive thing or do this ill-advised or lazy thing, because-why-the-hell-not. And this comes back to bite me, which is why I've come to be more careful - but when hormones or certain chemicals that make me more aggressive are in my system, I go back to old behavior patterns. Sometimes this turns out to be a good thing - the consequences aren't bad, or I needed to say such a thing - and sometimes it's... ill-advised. Yeah. There are infinitely many ways to elaborate.
For this reason, people should have a stigma against my diplomacy skills in difficult situations. Yes, I can be very mature and well-reasoned
*MALE professionals, mind. This is not a We Women Are Just More Emotional issue unless there are a lot of closeted trans women.
So we've established that I have emotional over-reaction issues. And yes, I hate to say this, but THIS DOES IMPAIR RATIONAL JUDGMENT. Does it impair my raw ability to reason? No, but it changes the weights. And a change in weights can lead to obtaining utterly wrong results, even if the processing before and after that point was without a single error or flaw.
To take a saner such situation - under different circumstances, the weight of the negative event 'Being in close proximity to a spider' may be either 'Tolerable' or 'Intolerable - cause to flee the room'. If I had a severe phobia of spiders caused by OCD or some other condition, that might be upped to 'Cause to flee the room via the window'. Rationally, I don't need to fear the spider THAT much, particularly if it's benign. After all, if worst comes to worst, I have large, heavy objects, and it has the ability to run like hell. But the weighting my intuition assigns might be much higher.
This is regarded as a fairly sane and normal impairment of rational judgment due to emotional over-reaction. It is also regarded as fairly empathic and normal to point out that it's sheer ridiculousness to have a fear of non-severely-poisonous spiders. And I type this with the full knowledge that, if a spider crawled across my keyboard right now, I'd knock over my chair in my haste to stand up, nearly hit the doorframe on my way out, and probably spend at least five minutes in another room before I dared to come back. Many "sane" people could sympathize.
However, if my job involved typing in a spider-ridden place, this would be a crippling dysfunction. And yes, compared to my coworkers (who would wear thick clothing, keep anaphylactic medications around, and take other level-headed steps to minimize adverse occurrences), I would be irrational. And it would be an irrationality that pervaded everything I did in said spider-ridden place. I might, for instance, insist upon doing something that 'was clearly the right path' when, in reality, it would be extremely suboptimal - but it would help me avoid spiders or put off encounters with spiders, even if that meant I had to stand ankle-deep in spiders for three hours straight later on.
My fear of spiders would not make me a bad person. It would not be something I wanted, it would not be something I could help without a great deal of focused effort (and many false starts), and it would not alter my status as an otherwise fairly rational, well-intentioned, and well-behaved human being.
But it would be a mark against me in a place filled with spiders.