And what have ye to say after a glimpse in my mind?

[trivalent]

• What sort of profession in the wizarding world would you choose and why?
  
  This question was most painfully hard for me. Just the other day when I was ordering sig tags elsewhere, I had to avoid all the “future X” or “job: X” sigtags because I could not then make up my mind as to what to choose. Perhaps after this I shall, but it is hard to commit in this. Enough rambling prologue to the actual question though.
  
  In the end, I choose a magical painter. When I opened a shop way back when for the first time, I wrote an intro to it as if I were a magical painter. The portraits talked, etc. Through that process and thinking about how amazing it is that someone can paint and the result can talk, has personality, et cetera amazes me, in a scientific way. I know “it’s magic,” but that answer is never good enough for me. I am a scientist. I see something that wows me and I want to understand how. How is it that can happen? What is happening (here magically) to bring about this result? I do not want to simply be a painter. I want to be a scientist about it. I want to push the boundaries (assuming this were all real and possible >.> <.<, but most of this can be taken and applied to real life if tweaked), figure out what causes what, how things happen and try to go where no one else has gone. Partly to explore this specific magical question, I actually have a role play character who does so - Magenta Comstock (she gets one line in Lexicon about making her portraits’ eyes follow the viewer home, and I latched on and explored). This career is about art - yay awesome - and science - yay awesome fun! - which makes it great.
  
  
• If you could teach one class at Hogwarts, what would it be and why?
  
  Transfiguration. It just feels more like what I’m interested in. I love Potions as well, but Transfiguration also feels close to the sciences to me and closer to what I do. Although, it was extremely hard for me to choose between the two.
  
  In Transfiguration, you are changing one thing into another. I know that sounds like such a “duh” statement, but when I really think about it and what’s going on, it makes me wow. I find it so amazing to be able to do that. Further, if one tried hard enough, there could be a whole sequence of transfigurations. A pin could end up…something unexpected if one knew and researched enough spells. And that is so remarkable to me (and vaguely reminds me of the guy who began with a paperclip and traded and traded until eventually he got this huge mansion - all with no cash involved).
  
  But I think that would be so fun to teach, though the classroom seems more like a lab with all the things students do wrong and have walking or flying around in misshapen shapes. But all those spells, those skills, I would love to teach that.
  
  
• This year, The TriWizard Tournament is being held once again and you're of age. Do you put your name in the Goblet? Why or why not?
  
  Necessary condition: Harry Potter cannot be entered into this tournament. If he could, then clearly as a work of literary value, there will be death attempts at him/the champions because that is how the story goes. I do not have a deathwish.
  
  However, assuming this tournament is more like the one the Goblet of Fire was meant to be like, essentially sans the interference of Crouch Jr, then yes, I would enter. The triwizard tournament is essentially a very trying physical and mental puzzle. The first task is about solving the situation (aka puzzle) on the spot. In the second, you are given a riddle and can thus figure out what the puzzle is ahead of time and thus plan ahead how to solve it and get through successfully, if you can solve the puzzle. The third, you are shown, and thus you can plan for how to get through the puzzle. Of course, given the very physical nature of the tournament, it’s not all mental, and in a way that makes it more fun! It’s a combination, like an extreme obstacle course. Woo. I find those kinds of things fun. And this way it does not favor brains or brawn but instead a balance of the mental and physical.
  
  
• If you could choose your animagus form, what would it be and why?
  
  Risking a very Mary-Sue-ish answer here, a phoenix. First of all, if I am an animagus, I want to be one that can do something and not in a press the knot in the Whomping Willow kind of way. After discussing it with some friends, the general consensus was that I would be some sort of bird. And I agree that it is accurate that a bird could fit me well. I looked up many kinds of birds, reading about them, trying to see if any of them fit. But I admit the calls of the phoenix were strong.
  
  In Hary Potter, they can do a lot. Magical healing powers (tears), dying and being born again (burning day), phoenix song (moving), and being generally kick ass and awesome (wai hello Fawkes). They are very intelligent creatures, able to apparently apparate (Chamber of Secrets coming to Harry and Dumbledore leaving his office in OotP). Plus, I’ll admit a scientific side of me would partly like to test the rebirth idea: if an animagus is in phoenix form and dies, will they be reborn (situation 1 burning day, probably the safest test). Now, part of me really wants to know the answer. The other part doesn’t really want to risk my skin finding out. But I’ve thought about that conundrum and idea for years.
  
  
• What HP character do you identify with most and why?
  
  Sometimes in books or movies or shows or whatnot, you can really and utterly identify with a character. And I’ve had that happen before, but it hasn’t had a true clear case of that for me in Harry Potter. However, there are different degrees by which various characters are more or less like me, and in the end, I think I am most like Narcissa Malfoy.
  
  She is a character motivated by love. She loves her husband and her son dearly. The scene between her and Bella (and later Snape) in Half-Blood Prince shows me that I think she had at some point a close loving relationship with Bella, if not Andromeda also. Narcissa risks her life for them and is willing to do whatever it takes - even if they do not like it - to see that they are safe. I am the same way. The most sure fire way to truly and utterly vex me so that I might actually do something about it is to go after those I love. I do not lose control almost ever when angry - instead the cold clear level-headed type that has scared some people I know before. And any move to my person has yet to ever make me lose it truly. I may be livid inside and rant horribly away at a close friend or private journal, but the one who caused such anger doesn’t see it. To date I have only truly lost my temper two times in my life, both relating to family. In the first, someone we trained with at a dojo called my sister a whore, not in a joking way of any sort but of a disapproving that she would act like x, y, and z (including - gasp - kissing her boyfriend in public) manner. We ended up in a shouting match in the dressing room with everyone else avoiding it. It was one of the two times I was ever late for training, the other not being related to uniform malfunction. My sister and I are close. We each have callings and people that we seem closer to upon most people looking in, but there is a bond between us that cannot be broken. The other occasion was when a friend insulted a family member of mine with a rant containing critiques of character that were completely accurate. But I explained to her, they are my family. They are not perfect, and in many ways some of them are not good human beings, but they are my family. And you do not insult my family to me. I am willing to do a lot for my family, and although I in general harbor no hard feelings against people in general, when there is a threat to my family, family trumps. I have limits - naturally. I will not murder someone for my family, but the point remains.
  
  Narcissa is a private person. We only get an outside look at her in the series, generally, but we get glimpses. From early on we know that her love for Draco is great and she is very warm and loving with him. Yet when we see her, she seems cold and perhaps a bit snobby. We never see this side of her that all of Draco’s statements seem to imply, but that only goes to show that she is a very discerning person who trusts but a few and does not truly care what the rest think of her or that they know the real her. I later discuss my trust issues, but part of that comes into play here. I am warm and friendly and fun and all sorts of crazy and silly sometimes with people I know, but that isn’t necessarily the impression strangers get of me. I do care somewhat about not causing people to dislike me and whatnot, to a degree, but I don’t entirely care hugely about the opinion of those I don’t know. I am myself and act as I do, and I will not explain my every action, and I do not think I need to. Sometimes, the fact that outsiders aren’t in my head and don’t know me well enough to understand everything, they get a wrong and sometimes negative opinion of me. People do not always get along, and I am completely aware of the fact that not everyone will like me, but when people dislike me for reasons that are not really true, that can be a bit ridiculous. Depending on the consequences of the misinterpretation it’s just their loss to whatever else. I do think that is sad when it happens, but in the end my relations with those I know matter more than that with strangers.
  
  Narcissa was not truly a death eater, and while she may be racist, the situation dealing with asking Harry if Draco was alive is to me about the fact that by her morals, she did not care which side won, she cared about her family. There are times when I may care about a cause, but in those situations that I do not - like her in that situation - I will go along the path that more likely will result in good for those I love and myself. The balance between whether a cause or those I care about matters more depends on what is at stake on either side, in regards to which will win out.
  
  So in many ways, I am similar to Narcissa, but I do not identify with her entirely because parts of me are left out when comparing. And parts of me are different.
  
  
• What would you see if you looked into the Mirror of Erised?
  
  I wish I could say world peace, but I’m not certain if that will ever exist. Secondly, I know I am at least a bit more selfish than that. I think, since helping other people be happy is what makes me the happiest, that seeing everyone I love happy (doing whatever it is that would make them that way) is what I would see.
  
  
• If you won a million dollars, how would you spend it?
  
  I am going with the assumption that I have won one million untaxed or post-taxed dollars. A million dollars does not last forever/cannot buy everything, but it goes a lot farther than what I have now. Overall, I would not spend much of it. I could use some money so that my quality of life increased a bit - so I could buy better groceries, a few more winter clothes, et cetera. I would set a budget of how much of that money I could spend over what I already do. Then, as I earn more, that would decrease proportionally, and it would overall be a long-term fund, both rainy day and for important things in the future. I want to be financially secure my entire life, and one million dollars wouldn’t hurt that.
  
  
• What was your ideal job as a kid? Has that changed? What is your ideal job now?
  
  For my entire childhood, I wanted to be a lawyer. I grew up watching Law and Order, and even though the detectives were key to figuring out who to send off, the lawyers were essential to make sure it got done and constitutionally. And they helped people. I always wanted to help people. As I got a bit older, the kind of lawyer shifted to constitutional as I read more and more about the courts and law in general (nerd child here; I was until late high school relatively anti-social with more time spent in the company of books than other children). I read books like a biography of Hugo Black for fun, getting engrossed with them and losing hours without realizing it. I came to believe that helping ensure people’s rights was a better way to help people than as a DA. Further, it protected everyone, not just the specific people involved in cases. This idea continued into college, where going to a liberal arts college and taking classes in everything introduced me to other passions that eventually took over.
  
  When I went to college, I took a lab course my first term to get it out of the way as a requirement. It was a hard course, and many people hated it, but I fell in love. It was my favorite class. Both my parents tried to argue it couldn’t actually be my favorite course when I told them over the holidays. And my grandfather made me repeat it multiple times out of shock. After all, I had never been a science person. But I continued in it, and in the end when it came to choose - law or science - I chose science. I cannot imagine my life without it. I think my ideal job would be to have my own research lab with doctoral students in it but also some undergraduate. I think I would also teach a little - seeing someone truly getting interested in science for the first time is like nothing else. It’s amazing. The lab would of course get all the funding it needs, I’d be doing research no one else had seen before that was cutting edge, yada yada. And I would love my research. I’ve always found my life tends to be the happiest when I love my work. After all, it’s a large chunk of our time.
  
  
• If you were able to invent one spell, potion, or charm, what would it do, what would you use it for or how would you use it, and what would you call it?
  
  This answer depends on whether or not I am supposedly living in the world of Harry Potter and get one more spell, potion, or charm OR if I am living here and I get one spell, potion, or charm. Many of the spells and potions in Harry Potter would be useful to have, and if I were to only have access to one, it would definitely be a modified version of one perhaps. I think - if I were to have access to only one spell - it would be a combined time/location movement spell. Like with apparation, I would need to concentrate on where and when I wanted to end up, but it would make it possible for me to visit people without missing time from work, say, or traveling places without the long plane ride. It would also come in handy for day-to-day situations of avoiding being late for things. The name would be similar to apparation. I would have to research latin to find the right roots and such.
  
  However, if I were able to be within the Harry Potter world and have one additional spell or potion, I do not think I would choose that one, as I would already have access to apparation and portkeys for travel via location and a timeturner if I really wanted to reuse time and could get access. And there I think I would create a potion that fixed genetic problems, aka magically fixing the DNA. Bad eyesight, cancer genes, and all genetic diseases would be cured simply with a potion. Clearly, this potion would not be only for personal use! Again, I would want to search latin roots to find the proper name.
  
  
• If you were to face a boggart, what would it turn into? And what does it turn into when you throw the counter-spell, Riddikulus?
  
  My greatest fear is failure, not just at a test or in a career or losing someone I love but the big horrible complete failure. I leave no mark on the world, even if I stay along the career I want. I lose connections with everyone - friends, family - so that we no longer seem to know each other. And to quote Tolkien, fearing “A cage. To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recalls or desire.” It’s me and failure, all buddy buddy and nothing else. So I’m not sure what exactly that would involve in physical form - me alone and miserable looking? Well, that’s the most plausible thing I can think of. So what could that turn into? Hmm, how about this happens: me in the most ridiculous outfit ever doing something equally ridiculous. Yes defeating my boggart involves laughing at myself. Cheers.
  
  
• What do you look for in a friend?
  
  Generally, I have to meet the person first, which implies some kind of common interest - from hobbies to work to both having enough in common with a mutual friend already that provides a connection. So instantly, there is some way of connecting to the person on some level, which is nice to have as something to explore first and be able to spend time doing/talking about/etc.
  
  Then, there has to be trust. If I cannot trust someone, we cannot be friends. I don’t mean completely totally let-me-spill-my-heart-out trust, but some level of trust. If I am too worried about making sure the person will not break some trust we ought to have, friendship won’t develop.
  
  I suppose somehow, there has to be a matching of temperaments. They do not have to be the same, and I do not really look for this one so much as instantly notice if it is lacking. Currently with someone I’ve gotten to know/regularly do stuff with, I’ve realized we have a clash in temperament and what we see as acceptable behavior. He insults everyone, all the time, including me. I can take jokes. But getting called ‘fatty’ for eating a good solid amount of food when we go out, taking cracks at me just all the time, constantly, that’s not what I look for in a friend. He is so negative all the time, and while I can take good doses of negativity/complaining/hearing about problems, pointless negativity for the sake of putting someone down, not my thing.
  
  But overall, the friendships I form that become the strongest are the ones that happen without me realizing it, without me trying to become friends with someone or even really realizing that’s what is happening. One of my best friends and I took a mild dislike to each other the first time we met, but then somehow over time we realized, wow, we were friends. When had that happened? The other began as a mild crush. I liked him, but then we became friends and I came to want and value that over the small little crush I had. I could give more examples, but essentially most my lasting friendships are accidental, and they are stronger that way because they grew naturally, and that is what I look for in a friendship, if not a friend. I want to be able to develop that kind of relationship with a person, naturally.
  
  
• What trait most annoys you about other people?
  
  Hypocrisy. It was hard, but in the end, I think that’s the issue I have that truly utterly repulses, disgusts, and annoys me. And many times, it makes me lose respect for the person. People are hugely different, and I like to try to understand how they think, what makes them work, et cetera. I have a few people I consider ‘case studies’ in a way because their thought process is so different to mine that it seems foreign. But that someone may act in horrible ways I find disgusting is one thing. If I can understand how they think and how they get to why that fits within their ethical framework or logic et cetera, I can accept that it makes sense to them. Depending on how small or large the matter is, I may or may not do something about it. But I can still understand how it is different.
  
  And that is why hypocrisy is the worst for me. For someone to break what is their own standard of behavior/logical manner/et cetera is much worse than simply acting in one that disagrees with mine. The worst argument I ever had with my father was - on the surface - about something utterly trivial: him buying me this pair of ugly corduroy shorts. But that was not at all the point of the argument. He had given me his word he would not buy them without giving me time to find and show him better but still acceptable options. But he broke his word, and he is someone who never breaks his word. To this day it is the only instance of it that I know of. I was shocked that he would do so because it was important to him. That is the easiest example I have, and no matter how trivial or serious the instance of hypocrisy is, the horror of it to me is about the breaking of what an individual considers important, regardless of whether or not that act by itself by anyone would be bad or not.
  
  
• What do you think are your top five abilities or qualities?
  
  1. Moral. This word includes not only my set of morals but that I am an honorable person with integrity. What exactly my morals are down to the tiniest detail is not the point; rather it is that I will not break them. I cannot really, and if I were to do so, I would not be me. Part of what it means is my word. I rarely actually give my word out in the serious matter because when I promise to do something or give my word I will, I will do it unless I absolutely cannot (usually in cases of sickness or not being able to get there, et cetera). Thus, people who know me take me quite seriously when I give my word. I do not play games or say I’m leaving when I don’t mean it. If I am threatening to go and not come back (be it from a board, a friendship, or a romantic relationship, or anything else), I am one hundred percent serious and have thought about it for more than a few minutes. I respect others and do not throw them around. I always tell friends that if they have a problem with me, come talk to me about it. Too many times I’ve had friendships break over issues someone had with me that I did not know the person had since we never talked about it. Because I said that, I do not blow up and yell when someone brings up a problem. I think about it, try to analyze it separating me and see it from their perspective, even if I disagree. I do not betray, and I could not harm an innocent person for my own gain with a clean conscience, if I could do it at all. Besides being a positive trait, it is a trait that makes me who I am, and I cannot be separated from it.
  
  2. Initiative. I take it. If something needs to get done, it will because I do it. In another community where I am in charge of a sub-comm, I tagged every single post ever to create a unified system for finding all past posts. I work to constantly find ways to make the sub-comm better. I pick up the slack that gets left behind. I do more than I have time for if it needs doing, which often means sleep gets the short straw. But I cannot sit around seeing something that really needs to be done that isn’t being done. I like to be organized and be on top of everything. I make deadlines, even if I don’t sleep. I do extra work. I try to keep people active and enjoying themselves. Part of it is that I am responsible and want things to get done, and sometimes there seems to be no other way than me doing it. I will organize and help plan so that everyone is doing his/her parts if I can, but sometimes when I see it undone, I just have this urge that practically screams, “Do it! Do it! Do it!”
  
  3. Creative. My creativity comes out in many ways. I have a very active imagination. I enjoy creating new characters in many different kinds of settings. I’ve planned out an eighteen-year war in magic America, as well as having various theories for magical Russia throughout different parts of its history, a ten-generation family tree and history for a character of mine on an RP, et cetera. I’ve done written RP, on boards mostly, for five years. I admit my writing is painful to read from the beginning when I had no clue really how to have posts longer than a few sentences, but I’ve come a long way. I’ve found I like to start at least one generation back. I also write short stories sometimes, and my poetry muse periodically goes been off the wall compared to normal. I created my own form of poetry, based off the haiku but adapted for English. And I’ve written over forty poems in that style. I also do some graphics work on the computer. I make signatures for characters, sig tags, icons, et cetera. And for a while, when I had access to a dark room, I did black and white photography with a manual camera that I developed myself. Overall, my mind constantly keeps going creatively in whatever direction has its attention.
  
  4. Passionate. Everything I do, I do with passion. I have never been good at just dabbling into things. If I get into something - whether rock climbing, RP, work, et cetera - I always throw myself completely into it. Sometimes I multi-task, but usually when I’m getting into something, whenever I am seriously doing it, it is all I do for whatever period of time I have for it. I did the same thing when learning. I took classes I was interested in and did as best I could. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I would just understand something that I hadn’t before and would begin working on it. As per people, most people I don’t know well enough to have an exact opinion on them, but when I get to know someone, it’s passionate. I do not necessarily mean in a romantic way. My friends I will passionately defend until the end. And we are friends and that is that. But my closest friend and I are so close because we get angry and fight and yell, don’t talk for a short period, and make up. We get over our issues and work them out. When I truly dislike someone, to put it mildly, the feelings are also passionately against him/her. It often leads to passionate debates and witty remarks thrown back and forth at each other. But in general passion gives me a drive. I always do what I love, so I always have that passion pushing me and with me whatever I do.
  
  5. Perfectionist. I simply cannot stand to do worse than I can. This perfectionism is more oriented around myself than doing better than others. It is about doing the best I can, about doing better than I have before. When writing anything up, I simply cannot turn in a first draft, even if it is due the next day. I must edit. I get fidgety otherwise. The thought of doing anything not as well as I can just drives me up the wall. When I write anything, even a four-line poem, I have to edit it many times over. I am also about this with cleaning. It may surprise you if you were to visit me sometime because I can get really messy when I am so busy and thus have no energy to make sure I am clean. But at some point, it just bothers me, and I have to clean until it practically sparkles. This trait keeps me going, doing my best work, et cetera. I’ve had it my whole life, and I’m not sure what would happen without it.
  
  
• What do you think are your top five weaknesses or worst qualities?
  
  1. Perfectionist. I know I put this in my top five positive, but it also makes the negative list. My perfectionism toward myself makes me want to see it in others, especially if they come for my help. I can be a brutal editor that leaves the entire page looking like a red mess. Of course, I do the same to myself, but sometimes people are not really ready to deal with that many corrections, and it makes them feel like they suck. I had a particularly bad case of that once that I still feel guilty for. I was in charge of applications for characters on a Tolkien board, and one writer was trying to get a character accepted that simply did not match the world of Tolkien. I went through and explained which parts did not work with the lore and offered to help him make a character that would fit better. What I didn’t know at the time was that he had a fragile self-confidence that had never been critiqued. He is an okay writer, but to this day I have yet to be able to convince him of that because of the critique I gave there once. But the perfectionist nature also harms me as well. It makes everything take longer when sometimes I just do not have the time, and sloppy just has to do. The trait makes it practically impossible for me to write any original works because of the “must edit” feeling, and I only wrote 50,000 words once because I did NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where one is not allowed to edit anything. I am not the best at relaxing at times because of being perfectionist. I always have something that needs doing, so often the only times I really relax are because my body and brain are so exhausted I just have to. My body doesn’t have anything else it can do.
  
  2. Procrastinating. I absolutely hate this trait in myself. It makes me feel ashamed of myself for not doing something yet, but sometimes I have incredible difficulty forcing myself to do something I have to do. This one also ties into the previous, which allows me to get away with it in that I usually can work my butt off really hard at the end and still do a good job. I put some things off to the very last minute, but I usually don’t get screwed over by it, which over the years is bad because I’ve never yet been able to kick this habit. But I also put off other things - such as eating and sleeping. I do not always miss sleep because of work but because I just…procrastinate. I’ll be talking to a friend or reading a really good book, and sometimes I’ll wake up the next day with my reading light on and the book open next to my head. Sometimes I can fight this trait in me, usually by making an exact list of what I need to do. I basically challenge myself with a whole “bet you can’t do all that” idea in my head to give me the spark and passion (and competitive edge against myself) to get it all done. But that trick does not always work, and I still procrastinate.
  
  3. Stubborn. If I believe I am right - morally, academically, proper procedure for how to do something at work, et cetera - I stand my ground. I will not budge. While it is a good thing to be able to stand up for what I believe in, it really does get in the way. Sometimes changing a sentence or two in a paper really is fine, and there are multiple ways of doing things at work. And you can’t force other people not to be bastards. This trait leads to butting heads. Sometimes, this can mean I am very independent. This trait further makes me come off wrong at times, which can make people not have the best opinion of me. Also, if someone just sees this trait in me at the beginning, it can put him/her off, and we end up not really getting to know each other.
  
  4. Intellectual elitist. I am a very tolerant person on most accounts. I do not care if you seriously believe in the flying spaghetti monster. I will respect it and not put you down. I do not care about sexuality. Someone can be anything, and it does not bug me. In both these instances, it’s that person’s life, not mine. But, in other ways I am not tolerant. I cannot stand ignorance, stupidity, and other elements along the same level such as lack of logic in a debate. Sometimes seeing mistakes just hurts. When I see a grammatical mistake somewhere, I just have to change it. And ignorance pisses me off like it seems nothing else can. I was actually told that the reason the divorce rate is so high in America is because women “messed with a system that worked for thousands of years.” Worked? It enslaved women and especially would do so if we forced women to go back to housewives. He said that women wouldn’t be enslaved if they grew up being taught that was right. At some point, women were all brought up that way, but somewhere along the way, we disagreed, we decided we deserved more. If that had not happened, women would not have had a movement to get rights or would not work outside the home. The double dose of prejudice/ignorance combined with utterly terrible logic just kills me. And while I am not rude to people who are just…not as smart, inside it still annoys me. It drives me up the wall inside, especially when I have to fix their mistakes.
  
  5. Lack of trust. I used to be a very trusting person, but back then it ended up chewed, destroyed, and spit back out at me. I was hurt and damaged many times along the way. Later I noticed once that I did not really…trust people, at least not easily. I get along fine with people, but there are very few with whom I trust being able to talk about my deepest issues, and even among those people, which issues I trust into the care of which person is different. I am, because of this, a very private person now - with people I interact with offline. I can talk about me on a very personal level up to a certain point. But everything that I am open about, I am sure of, and I am confident of, and it does not really take trust. But I have really four people at most that I talk to about serious issues, and none of them do I talk about everything with. My heart has been broken too many times and my trust and faith in people thrown in my face to the point I cannot help but not trust people. Yet that keeps people out. I do not have many close friends simply because too many friends in the past have hurt me. I really do wish I could just trust and take the leap and perhaps get that good friendship that comes from it, but I’ve found that I am amazed with how many hoops those I trust have hopped through, walls they’ve climbed, and more. I honestly thank them for having done so because I would not be able to trust them otherwise, but it still is annoying as hell and can isolate me. Every time I’ve been broken, I’ve picked myself up without help and put myself together, but that process is quite painful, and I would rather not have to go through it needlessly many more times. I must say I have been working on this issue, for years, and I have been making small steps forward, but progress is slow, so it is still an issue.
  
  
• Define in your own words the following key traits:
  
  I must admit that when asked to define/consider certain terms, I always like to turn to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) to read their definition as a starting point for helping explain mine.
  
  
  • Courage: First, a most interesting find for me in the OED for this word is its obscure meanings from long ago. Earliest, it meant one’s heart/disposition, though with no implications to what it must be. Then confidence, boldness, and pride join it. Vigor, force, and energy are next, for some reason shortly followed by lust. Only after/around the end of these does the more oft thought of definition about the “quality of mind” that faces danger without fear or shrinking, bravery. And indeed the early meanings show how I come to my understanding of the later meaning of courage. For it started off about one’s true and utter character - the heart. Courage is something tied intrinsically into who someone is. One has it, or one does not. There is no halfway to courage. Confidence and boldness show why one who has courage can face danger without fear or as the not shrinking implies, without fear mastering the person. There is a confidence and boldness - sometimes bad, for that definition includes haughtiness - but comes together to mean that the person can act in danger without the very human instinct for self-preservation making them freeze up or run. Haughtiness can help in that actually. And indeed it takes a certain level of pride in oneself to have courage. If one did not have such confidence, the doubts would be able to take over. The force and energy bring the fact that courage is directly taking on that danger - with a force to bring it to a complete halt. That is the goal of courage - to stop something. The sexual tone I think comes from/contributes to the fact such a strong active trait implies vigor, which can be sexual.
    
  • Loyalty: Loyalty is faithful adherence to one’s oath, promise, or word of honor - which may or may not include loyalty to the lawful government. And while much more can be given to loyalty, I think that is the bottom line. What or whom an individual may choose to give that loyalty will differ from person to person - as well as how freely they give that promise to a person - and I think that in most cases, that is how one can tell a person’s character. Most people have loyalty of some sort - to someone or something. It’s the details that differ. Of course, if a person has no loyalty that is a marked difference between that person and most everyone else. There is also, of course, the question of to what degree/under what pressure is the loyalty held to/will break the loyalty, but again that feels like details.
    
  • Intelligence: Intelligence is the “faculty of understanding” or more specifically, superior understanding and quickness in mental apprehension. Essentially, this idea covers a few areas. First of all, while it does include knowledge and knowing stuff, its focus is more on the ability to learn than the stasis of knowing. An analogy I have is something my sensei (teacher) once told me: even if a white belt knows a technique a black belt does not, the black belt will be able to quickly master it much faster/better than the white belt. Although that is based on the fact the black belt has more training, the idea is that one is able to learn. This skill is not about mere absorbance of facts but about understanding them. The brain ticks quickly and thinks about things, questions them, and comes to understand them. Thus the term sagacity is also connected to it.
    
  • Ambition: Ambition is the “ardent desire to rise to high position, or to attain rank, influence, distinction or other preferment” and in a more extreme definition this desire toward anything considered “advantageous, honoring, or creditable.” There is nothing inherently wrong with ambition, although originally the definition included that twist in the desire, which is perhaps why a negative tinge still often comes to mind for many people about ambition. Ambition does not have to be about conquering the world. But it involves strong desire to end up better than one currently is, which is sort of, in a way, like the idea of the American dream, that we can make our lives better. Ambition is perhaps when that desire becomes strong, passionate, and thus very likely to have a strong hold over the person. On its own, it does not have to imply actions of any sort. Potentially, a couch potato could have ambition. Yet the strength of the desire implies that one with ambition will take action. Chances are, the number of ambitious couch potatoes is low. Ambition drives a person to seek after what they want, and what they want is something good that will help them. And because it is about preferment of some sort, ambition is not the will to live on. It’s not for the basics, the bare necessities. It pushes beyond the required.
    
  
  
• Name: Silyara
  
• Age: Legal adult.
  
• Where did you find out about us? Eve, ”supremacy_born” applied recently and posted about it.
  
• Do you plan on being active in the communities once you are sorted? I will admit I am still a bit confused about how the communities work here (with knuts and clubs et cetera), but I do plan to be active in at least some of the communities.