All this led to the complex set of algorithms which is Google Search to be very confused as to what was important on aLBoP.  When you Googled aLBoP or A Little Bit of Personality, suddenly it was trying to give search results of random image links and obscure posts, instead of things people really wanted to find, such as Type Specializations, the Super Simple Series or Type Heroes.

It also didn’t help that we were working on other aspects of aLBoP and life in general, so posting has been a slow game all year.  As I understand it, Google prioritizes frequent posting, as well as Google+ shares (nepotism ? lol), neither of which were in our favor anymore.

But this also meant that non-aLBoP links, especially from popular sites, suddenly came up much earlier in search results.  One in particular, with the most click-bait-y subject line ever, notably rose to the first page of search results right away: a forum thread with the subject line “A Little Bit of Personality Blog: Is it a scam or did I overreact?”

Well if the promise of a scam won’t get people to listen to you, I don’t know what will.  Talk about the most buzzwordy word possible lol.

Ha, which just now when I Googled to be sure I was quoting the name of the thread correctly, I saw something relieving which I didn’t know, but I’ll talk about that in a minute here.

So I have never clicked on this link, I’m pretty sure. As soon as we were live again on WordPress, I was trying to make sure that Google had our sitemap, working on our SEO, etc., so I believe I saw that link there as early as January 2017.  And seeing it there immediately upset me, not gonna lie.  But I wanted to listen to the immortal words of Taylor Swift and shake it off.  Plus I had way too many other things to worry about, not the least of which was continuing to be sure my links went where they said.  And I also knew that reading people lying about me would just upset me and keep me from getting things done.  So I went on with life and working on content like INTJ – The Dragon, which came out in February.

But apparently a lot of my aLBoP friends, (people who we’ve met through their long-time reading and loving of the site, but have become so very much more than just readers, as so many of you have ?) had seen this link too, and several of them were even more upset than I was about it.  They checked it out on their own and then came and told me about who had posted on the “scam” thread and what they had said.

As soon as Justin and I heard what the original poster of the thread had said, we were immediately like “Oh, him.” ?

Now before I go briefly into what this guy’s “grievances” were, let me tell you what I was relieved to see this afternoon while writing.  When I Googled “a little bit of personality” and saw this link there, not actually clicking on it (it’s gross enough to smell a pile of poop, I don’t want to put my hand in it), it says under the link:

“Oct 2, 2015 – 10 posts – 4 authors” [emphasis added]

*Whew* when my friends were describing what was on there to me, I thought it was like pages and pages of all these people saying how much I suck! ?  To know that it’s just four people, two of which I know who they are and knew that they were like that before they even had anything to complain about, is incredibly relieving.

Okay, so four people. I don’t know who two of them are because I haven’t actually read the thread, although it’s likely I would know them too.

Most of the people who get really angry about aLBoP are ones who liked us at first, often even people who vied heavily for our attention initially, until we say something that offends them, or more often their worldview, and then they hate us with the burning passion of suns and must tell anyone who will listen.  Although I don’t think there is a single one of those people who we didn’t get a red flag in our minds at their first email, “watch out, this is one of those kinds of people” no matter how positive they were toward us at first.  Observing people is our job, after all.

Person 1

So with this particular guy, the one who started the “scam” thread, *sigh* I knew from his first email “ah, one of those.”

He bought a typing + personal chat package from the store, sometime around then in 2015.  We don’t actually carry personal chat time anymore, because it was taking way too much time and we were getting behind. We actually *still* have some out that we sold but haven’t done.  We will either go ahead and do those ones at some point, or refund their money.  But I know there were several really cool people who ordered them near the end, so I would really like to fulfill those at some point here, rather than refunding them.

Anyway, we don’t carry them anymore because they had gotten really stressful and after we had a forum, which we’ll talk more about later, we thought people can get their questions answered there anyway, answer each other’s questions, etc.

We’ve never been especially timely with Typings, but we do always get to them.  I don’t remember how timely we were fulfilling this guy’s order. We do them in big batches, usually, where we sit down and type a bunch of people at once, oldest order first.  So if we took a while to get back to him it wasn’t at all because he was a less pleasant customer, because the time we take has nothing to do with that.  So if you have to wait a while for your Typing, it’s not because we don’t like you, lol <3 (If we’re ever taking too long, you *can* send us a polite email and ask if we can go ahead and get on it.  But we always do get to it and we always feel really bad making people wait.)

Oddly, I vaguely remember doing this guy’s really fast anyway, so I don’t think that was part of the problem. We may have been like “this guy is a live wire, we shouldn’t let his sit too long.”  We do occasionally do that.

Anyway, if I understand correctly, his main reasoning in calling us a “scam” is that the following happened:

1)  He ordered a typing + a video chat.

2)  We felt immediately “eh” about him, but fulfilled his typing order in a normal and polite fashion.

• I think it was his condescending attitude toward people in general in his first email that seemed like #badsign to me.

3)  He was displeased with the type we gave him.  We have a post about this.

• No matter how consistent and repeatable the results are, no matter how many people are over the moon about our typing of them, no matter how many people are repeat typing-customers because they see how it all lines up over and over again in real life; there are so many people who are set on the type or set of types they want to be a part of, and therefore who dislike the type we give them.  But the way we Facial Type is a science, with consistent data-sets that have proven universally consistent thousands of times, holding up over time and experience.  We can’t go changing the answer because somebody gets his panties in a wad.
• There are also plenty of people who are personally threatened by the idea of Facial Typing at all, or just very uncomfortable about it.  You are welcome to feel however you want on the topic.  But I don’t understand why people order from us if they feel that way.
• It’s like someone coming across town to tell you he thinks your house is ugly.  I feel like “… Okay, thanks?  Then don’t look at it and get off my lawn.”  The internet is a big place and no one is making you stay here.  Honestly there’s probably a more fitting analogy with someone who hates seafood yelling at Red Lobster or someone buying an orange and getting mad that it’s not an apple, but eh, I like the lawn one.

4)  We don’t give refunds on Typings we have fulfilled.  We never have, and say so very clearly on the Type Me page, which has all the instructions. That page didn’t exist in its current version at the time, but we have always listed that on pages describing the Typing process.

• The effort and our typing results are what is being paid for, and people who get snotty about their results take far *more* effort than people who are happy with them.  That’s not to say you are required to be happy, but that even if you are not, our time and our results have still been given to you, so we can’t just refund that.  If you don’t trust our scientific process and our definitions, then that is completely your prerogative.  But if that’s the case, then please don’t order a typing and waste our time, as well as yours.

5)  He also applied to the, at the time, brand new Phase 2, via a separate self-invite system.

• Okay, the thing to know about all our websites is that they are 100% free, always are, always have been, always will be.  We currently have—*counts*—4 websites.  They all have free admission and no subscription fees or anything of that nature.  The only things we charge money for as part of aLBoP are specific services and merchandise. That used to include video chats, which as I said we don’t offer anymore, and now includes Personalized Typings and, hopefully in the future, merchandise such as t-shirts (you can buy t-shirts here, but I really want to make more designs and figure out a better system for producing them), patches or whatever other physical or digital items you guys might want to buy.  We do not have any premium content, if the definition of “premium” is content you pay for.
• All other funds from aLBoP come to us via Patreon where people can support our content, which helps us produce more of it, or via Love for aLBoP, one-time donations in the aLBoP shop.  (Everyone has been remarkably patient as I haven’t been great at giving out everyone’s Patreon rewards, such as the monthly desktop wallpaper for $5+ people, etc. But I really am excited to do that and plan to do it sooooon.  Not one person has said anything about it yet, I just feel really bad because your support means so much to me. <3)
• HOWEVER, we do have content that is restricted to people we have given access. Like I said, we have 4 websites, of which this is the first; Phase 1 as we call it. Yes, this is a blatant reference to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Phase 2 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Why, yes, we are giant nerds.  Here, have a picture of stick figure Phil Coulson with his gun from Avengers, if you haven’t seen it on the Phase 2 Intro site.

• But while we do gate these websites–the Phase 2 Intro behind a self-invite you can use right now if you want (it’ll open up in a new tab so you don’t have to lose your spot here <3), and Phase 2 gated behind applying and us getting to know you—ALL of them are free.  Let me repeat that: none of our websites cost any money.  (The fourth site only has a few people on it so far and it’s still under construction anyway, but it’ll have a similar kind of gating.)  These websites are provided free of charge, including our time spent on the Phase 2 forum, where we give lots of personal help and advice.  We don’t even have ADS on any of the websites!!!! (Although we are considering adding them to our videos, because we find that less invasive.)

6)  Where was I?  Oh yeah, he had applied for Phase 2, but then we were busy and hadn’t gotten to adding people to the new Phase 2, back before the process was automated.

7)  He sent an annoying displeased email.  I could pull up said email now to remember the details (I never delete aLBoP emails from anyone, which is why my Gmail storage is exploding), but I really really don’t want to.

• But I recall that he was firstly, really whiny about his typing.  I don’t remember if he actually said he couldn’t be an F, like we had typed him, or if that was just the impression we got from his email, which is a very common tale, especially with people who hold onto the internet’s definition of Feeler.  Men typed as Fs and women typed as Ts have been trends in our grumpiest clientele, because people believe that Feeler means soft like mush and Thinker means Vulcan, and people equate those to feminine and masculine traits, respectively, which is frankly pretty dumb.  Although I can only blame people so much for wanting certain types, when the internet deems some types so wildly more worthwhile than others.  However, how people react when they’re disappointed says a lot about them.
• The second thing that really got our eyes rolling about his email was his attitude that because he had given us money, he owned our time.  Money seemed like his main card to play, which makes all the more sense why he made money the focus of his thread title, calling us a scam.  Anyway, it was a very “but you have to do what I say, I paid you,” attitude.
• But if you’re not sure on my character judgment of him, go ahead and look at the thread.  I haven’t read it, but if he doesn’t come off whiny and like someone who feels like money makes him entitled, then I will eat my hat. Well, I won’t, but it’s the only idiom I could think of.  But if you don’t agree then you won’t agree, and that’ll be the end of it, but at least I will have left the opinion up to you.

8)  So we saw from his email, which wasn’t a surprise from his original email, that we didn’t want to waste time and energy having a personal chat with him.  We also didn’t want him on the brand new forum, which as a private, free forum was our prerogative.

9)  So I sent him an email telling him that we would refund the chat money because we didn’t want to talk to him more and that he was the first person banned from the forum, which was true.

• I think we only actually banned… 2.5 people ever.  I say 2.5 because we officially banned 2 people from ever entering the original site, and were close to banning another, but he quit before we could fire him, so to speak.
• Was I especially nice in this email reply?  No. I wasn’t trying to be.  I wanted to really let him know why we didn’t want to deal with him anymore, and frankly he was a buttmunch.  Again, you can go look at the thread if you want to verify his buttmunch-itude.

10)  WE REFUNDED HIS VIDEO CHAT.

• Again, like I said in point 5… No… 4, we don’t give out refunds for typings. We had fulfilled that part of the deal, so we kept our $15 dollars (I know, huge quantities of money being exchanged ), but refunded him the $10 for the video chat we didn’t give him.  He was our first refund; we had to figure out how to do it on the website.

11)  I think he probably replied again, angrily, but I was super done with it.

12)  Shortly after (we launched Phase 2 on September 15 and he wasn’t in the first several batches of applications, so he probably rage posted pretty quickly), he started that thread.

• Apparently his reading comprehension was limited enough that he thought paying for a video chat was paying for Phase 2…I guess… Even though you would have to read the Phase 2 announcement page from the time to even apply… idk. I’ll give him the limited benefit of the doubt that he was more stupid than flat-out lying… Stupid isn’t a nice word, it implies mental limitations and implies that if other people missed information, I think they’re stupid too, which I don’t.  “Making the decision to be willfully idiotic” is a much more fitting term.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was being willfully idiotic, rather than flat-out lying.

13)  I thankfully haven’t heard from him since and hope he finds happiness despite his buttmunchiness. Totally a word.

Anyway, you can have any opinion you want about my choices in responding to him, but since he had no purchase that wasn’t either fulfilled or refunded, he has zero claim to a scam.  Although, you know, I’m really rolling in his fifteen bucks.  *Evil laugh*

Person 2

The other person who I know wrote on the “scam” thread, got upset in the very earliest days of the forum. It was a lot of drama in a short period of time that happened… ? two years ago today! [At time of writing, which was the middle of September.]  Holy crap, I didn’t know that when I started writing.  Happy anniversary to drama ?.

There was a lot of drama in those early days of the forum as we were attempting to establish an atmosphere different than so many forums and so much of the internet.  This other person wasn’t the only one involved at the time, but since other people didn’t feel the need to run my name through the mud, I don’t feel the need to address their personal issues with aLBoP.

This woman was INFP and I’m referring to her by her type since I have no intention to be petty enough to share her name.  That doesn’t mean I think all INFPs are that way *obviously,* it’s just easier than saying “woman” on repeat, because that’s weird.

But, as I’m sure she talked about on the thread in question, she thought we were harsh and mean on our forum in a way that she deemed “never called for.”  She was referring to one particular forum post of mine.  Here’s what happened, from my perspective:

If you are unfamiliar with cognitive typing, you will need to know that ESTPs like to poke for reactions.  It’s how they interact with the world, which is a good thing.  And because motives and character judgment is their primary Type of Information, it really really matters to them what people are really like. They hate fakeness, perhaps most of all the EPs, and attempt to cut through the crap of pretension (wow I had no idea that was spelled with an s instead of a t, interesting), or fake nicety, by catching people off guard and seeing how they react.  Reactions are an EP’s bread and butter, after all.

So since very early aLBoP, there was this ESTP.  Great way to start a story lol. And he had been all over the internet and in real life, and had seen people being crappy on repeat, so he was used to that as the norm rather than the exception. We can all relate with that.

So when he found aLBoP he immediately began his routine “poking for legitimacy” like a 19th century miner biting a gold coin lol.  But because of the crappy he had experienced, he was used to having to poke oftenly and fairly hard to see what was really inside someone.

But when he first began poking at aLBoP, I didn’t know this backstory.  I just saw that the same guy was commenting on *every* new post, and giving me pokie lip on each one lol.  He would comment things on each post, trying to get a reaction, commenting about how I said this or that, or on what he’d read elsewhere that disagreed.  And at first I was just like “>:( leave me aloooone! If you don’t like the posts, why are you here??”

But that was the thing, he kept staying around.  I didn’t get it.  I felt like his comments meant he didn’t like the posts, so why didn’t he just move on?  And the comments were getting more positive over time, usually just with something pokie at the end or something.  And he ordered a typing from us and I was like “What???  Well, I guess he does trust us some… Huh…”  That was before Facial Typing, but when I realized his type it just made all the sense.  (I have obviously since seen his face and it was spot on what we predicted, for the record.  Take that people who try and pretend this isn’t a science ?.  When it can accurately predict what people will look like before we see their faces.)  And he had really been open about himself in his typing emails (of which there were several, telling us about himself, which is so adorably ESTP lol ? <3), and I was already liking him a lot more already.  And then he posted pokie comments on the Spartan, being skeptical and I’d feel grumpy about him again, but as much as I wasn’t a fan of the way he was poking, feeling like “how many times are you going to have to poke me before you’ll believe I’m legit? :P”, I did still really like him and care about him, and was starting to appreciate his bold, frank, poking sense of humor.

But this back and forth dance of poking and a surprising growing loyalty we saw from him about aLBoP, was at an interesting place right before we launched Phase 2.  I remember he had left a really sweet comment on SS:P2 (which isn’t there anymore because we moved, remember?) and I was feeling really supported and happy about him.  And yet because of this history, and the fact that I was aware the poking was still strong with him, lol, Justin and I were nervous about him as we came up to launching Phase 2.  I remember three individuals that we were worried about with it and this ESTP was one of them. But like I said, we liked him too, so Justin and I had high hopes about the whole situation as we launched.

Now, if you haven’t read what is now the Phase 2 Intro, and don’t know about what kind of content we have over there, it’s not only more in depth than what we have here on Phase 1, it’s about understanding yourself in a very core way, even deeper inside than cognition even, which is why we didn’t want it to be drive-by internet bait.  It’s not secret, but we think it’s pretty special, and we wanted to foster an environment of reading-comprehension and self-examination, for this information that is intended to help individuals grow, for people who want to do that. Like I said, it’s pretty special to us, and we’ve had immensely special experiences seeing it work in the lives of others as well as ourselves <3.

But because of the crap he’d experienced, and because most of the time Motives aren’t treated as a valid Type of Information, even after all the times he’d poked us, this ESTP felt very wary as he came onto Phase 2 and began reading the new information.  It was all new stuff and lifted the ceiling on his own potential, making him worried he was going to be judged unfairly for things he didn’t know yet (I hope that’s a fair assessment of his feelings at the time).  And so he sort of acted out about it.  From what he said later, he skimmed the Intro, feeling grumpy about it from the very beginning of the information, and went to the fresh new forum even more wary than he had started.

He read the forum rules, which we had written purposely open-ended, talking about attitudes that weren’t acceptable on the aLBoP forum, and referenced content from the Intro in showing how those attitudes would be identified.  Having been treated unfairly other places for doing the “wrong” action (his last step and mine), and I think feeling grumpy about the new information being referenced again, like he was expected to know everything right away or, like I said, be judged unfairly, our ESTP’s first forum post was a criticism of the forum rules, saying they were too open ended and wouldn’t work.  I remember in one of his posts in this conversation, he said that other forums’ rules were better and said it would be better to be like every other forum, which was the opposite of what we were aiming for.

Justin replied very nicely to him, explaining that he wasn’t expected to know everything yet, and to just relax and settle in, trying to encourage him to get comfortable and let us worry about whether or not we could reasonably make it better than other forums.

(I swear, I don’t know why people consistently treat Justin like he’s going to be the intense, harsh one. 9 times out of 10 *I* play bad cop, not him.  Which people don’t expect from me because I’m adorable and smiley, lol, and the unsuspected nature of it works in my favor.)

But our ESTP (running out of ways to say that) was still feeling upset from the Intro, and didn’t want to be soothed about the topic, still arguing about it being unfair.  I think some others might have talked too at that point?  Don’t remember.  But it was a particular “won’t let this go” thing iirc.

And we were working so hard on the atmosphere of this baby forum.  Justin and I were getting about 2 hrs of sleep a night, trying to help the forum feel like a safe place where people could actually talk about things, and this was the last thing it needed.  And I was so done with this ESTP’s mood and attitude at that moment.  He was being so stubborn (which I lovingly joke ST stands for sometimes, lol <3) and obstinate, and I decided “no more!”

I sat down and wrote a reply post that was intended to smack him upside the head, hard, and say “Stop it!  I think you can be better than this!  Are you going to prove me wrong?!”  It was an intense post, not gonna lie. I actually remember very little about it besides my calculated fury and the fact that I quoted XKCD.  And I said he wasn’t allowed to say “I didn’t do any specific actions wrong, you can’t call me on my bad attitude and intentions.”  Oh and I may have said he was acting like a “dick” at some point ?… Yeah, apologies, that is a phrase I use, not actually on Phase 1 before this point.  It’s just so concise and jerk is just not strong enough sometimes!!  Is it bad that it’s a little bit funny looking back at how intense I got, since it’s been very resolved on that front since?  Like I’m kind of embarrassed that I am that intense of a person.  You know, as if someone took a picture of my battle face and I’m looking back at it now like ? “That’s what I look like angry, huh?”

Which isn’t to say that I rage posted.  I don’t rage post.  Case in point, how the thread that sparked this whole post is now over two years old, and I began writing this post over a month ago.  I am meticulous and thorough and attempt to predict the reactions my words and choices will evoke, as is my one-true-mental-love as an ENTP.

I stayed up all night writing that post, trying to imagine how he would reply to different parts and trying not to let him wiggle out of it, and yet wanting to give him the opportunity to do better if he wanted to.

I am a very passionate person, I’ll give you that for sure.  People and things mean more to me than I can ever say, often against my will.  But that means while I get really truly incensed about plenty of topics, I will never write an angry message to someone if I have no hope of getting through to them.  Like this post for example; there’s a reason it isn’t addressed to the people over on that thread.  I have hopes of actually communicating with very many of *you,* however I won’t try and communicate with them.  I don’t have any hope that that would do squat.

Ask Justin’s brother, also ETP, sometime about the intense face-slap email I sent him, ? he’s definitely never forgotten it.  But I would never have sent it if I didn’t respect him and his ability to apply things and desire to grow.  (He replied epically to it, btw.)  If I ever get truly angry with you, and let you know it, know that I respect you enough to believe it’ll make a difference to address the issue with you.

ETPs need to be poked as much as poke (saying that is going to get me into trouble with people lovingly poking me, heh), and I wanted to poke this ESTP hard enough to get a reaction of change, and I poked as hard as I felt he personally needed, based on knowing him personally and knowing his cognition.

But the INFP woman in question immediately replied informing us that you never ever ever (need a bunch more evers) speak to someone that way!  She said we were mean and rash and harsh and she would have no part in it!  And for the record, she was definitely not the only one concerned.

The post I wrote *was* in fact harsh, but it was not a knee-jerk reaction.  It was a calculated move decided upon, based on love for the person I was talking to, and the hope that snapping him out of the way he was acting would induce him to be *more*, which I hoped he could be.

And if you consider “lovingly harsh” to be an oxymoron—if you believe that there could never be a situation where harshness would be the appropriate reaction in order to get through to someone you care about—then this may not be the place for you, especially the later Phases of aLBoP.  aLBoP is a place for adults to come of age, and attitudes that say “you always deal with people this way or that way” are, frankly, childish and therefore wouldn’t fit in with the atmosphere of aLBoP’s later Phases.

We deal with people on a case by case basis, not by one-size-fits-all rules, and this was actually what I thought would be most effective.  And to be honest, it worked.  He immediately stopped in his tracks and said “I’m sorry, what can I do differently?”  Honestly, his reaction was much more epic and adult than I expected it to be, but I did anticipate that the best way to handle an ESTP acting that way, was to shock him to get his attention, and stop him in his tracks.

But this INFP woman didn’t care whether or not it worked.  She was all too pleased to be indignant.  She told the forum (if I remember correctly) that she was leaving, and also emailed to chastise us again, and to tell us she was leaving.  We emailed her a short but polite “sorry you feel that way” email, but tbh were pretty pleased to see her go.  (Now when I say “polite,” I actually mean polite.  I don’t consider my harsh post in question to be polite, for example, but it wasn’t intended to be polite.)

She was actually one that we *did* have a video chat with before we even launched Phase 2 (you guys see why I didn’t want to carry them in the store anymore?), after we had typed her.  And while we made it very pleasant and answered all the questions she had, to her stated satisfaction, Justin and I both could tell there was something about aLBoP that made her very uncomfortable.  He and I discussed afterward, “that was good… right?” “yeah, but we had to make it good.”  I could go into the ins and outs of what made her uncomfortable, things having to do with her Type Angst, blah blah blah, but that just seems petty at this point.  Interestingly, I talked about her in What if I’m not the Type I Thought I Was and referred to her as a “cool INFP.”

I was being nice.

I will say, disappointingly, that there has definitely been an FP trend among the people who have been the least cool about aLBoP.  I mean, I know soooo many cool FPs, and I suspect we get more of them, quantity-wise, since their Type Specs are all about the meaning that they can get out of Individuals and Situations <3 and I think and hope that aLBoP is right down that alley.  But when an unhealthy FP feels like we’re a threat to their own personal meaning, ? watch out!  We’ve especially had a lot of ESFP and ENFP guys (more often guys than girls, interestingly) who have approached us as “nice guys” with obvious warning signs, that when they ended up showing their true colors were anything but nice.  I won’t go into tales of the one who wouldn’t stop emailing me in all-caps not-so-nice words, or the one who spammed comments about how ENTPs didn’t have feelings.  I don’t make character judgments flippantly, especially negative ones.  And unfortunately, my spotting of warning signs has proved depressingly accurate, as individuals have demonstrated with later actions.

But in a twist of couldn’t-get-more-ironic, the reason I decided to write this post was because Justin was chatting with the very ESTP she had said I was abominably too hard on.  He’s been one of our biggest supporters ever since, both in having our backs with emotional support and sharing aLBoP, and he’s been ridiculously generous on Patreon (I hope it’s okay to share that, I never know what is couth when it comes to talking about money and donations ).

Lol, when he found out about people discussing him on that thread he was like “Hey, they’re talking about me!  That’s pretty cool.” ? ROFL, could he *be* any more ESTP?!  Idec, I love you, you are seriously amazing and I can learn a lot from how you let stuff roll off of you!! <3

But he had a friend whom he’d been telling about aLBoP, and the friend saw the “scam” link and got wary, so I felt like it was finally time to address this.  I have better things to do than tell people on the internet that they’re wrong, but when it’s deterring other people who are looking for aLBoP, then that’s something I need to try and fix.

*Whew* sorry this has been so long!

But I don’t want you guys to worry that this has delayed posting at all.  The only major posts this year have been The Dragon, like I said, and the Four Types of Love, both of which I am ridiculously proud of, although I have been worried sick about not posting more, especially since you guys have earned it with Patreon all year; don’t think I’ve forgotten it!!

But the reasons we have been gone so much are somewhat other aspects of aLBoP, working on later “Phase” stuff, especially training people who want to help us help all of you guys more, but also working on our own personal situation as well.

In June I was offered a part-time job by an INTJ friend of mine that I really respect, at his business, and I felt like it was the perfect time.  (For the record, he doesn’t know I’ve typed him shhh ?)  And while I’m really enjoying it and I think it’s benefitting aLBoP, I felt fairly overwhelmed and anxious the first few weeks, so that took a lot of my attention at first.  But really, there’s been plenty of other aspects going on with us working things out to establish ourselves for the long haul.

Which, for the record, the part-time job is in financial planning, so I had to have a background check for it, which I passed, so I guess the FBI doesn’t believe I’m a danger to people’s money if that helps with the whole “scam” thing lol… Unless that’s a ruse and they’re watching me *right now.* O_O  Considering that I’m writing this from the bathtub, that would be super pervy.

However, apparently I have very little fingerprints left, I guess from my skin condition, so I am considering a life of crime.  If anyone has any suggestions, please leave them in the comments below.

Anyway, I have two short Super Simple posts almost done, working on a new format for shorter posts and faster posting, so I hope to get those out to you guys ASAP.  I will make up for all the months I’ve missed, I swear!!  Thank you guys for your patience as always.  And for your trust of us as a source.  I can’t tell you how much it means to me those times when people are impugning our character (which thankfully seems to be happening less and less these days), to know you beloved readers are out there; knowing that you know us, love us and have our backs.  I couldn’t ask for a better audience or better friends. <3

My hope in clearing this up is to just soothe people’s worries and hopefully overcome misleading search results so that new people can find aLBoP every day, and hopefully feel like who they are and the way they think naturally is worthwhile and wanted.

Much love,
<3 Calise

The post aLBoP a Scam? Drama, Scandal, Ooh Ahh! appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

I haven’t done a comment response post in a while.  I usually just comment back to the person individually, or answer their question in a Q&A, but I when Cody asked me the following question, I started responding and this post ran away from me, in the best way ;D  There is just soooo much to talk about on this subject, and what I’ve written here is just the tip of a large and beautiful iceberg.

Cody asked:
So question for you, what is the difference in your opinion, between an entp male and entp female?

Thanks Cody!  This is an excellent question!  And actually one that I could write posts on forever  There are endless things I could say about the differences in male and female versions of *every* type!  I *love* gender; it’s actually one of my favorite topics ever… which goes along perfectly with your question!

ENTPs are one of the (possibly *the*) biggest gender explorers of all the types.  ENTP’s Type Specialization is “Individual Potential,” starting with ourselves, and *every* choice we make is toward the purpose of further understanding and utilizing what we could potentially be.  Gender and sexuality are such a huge part of that identity and self-potential, of course ENTPs would love exploring that!

Neon pink suspenders FTW!

In practice this means that ENTPs (when we’re not too ashamed of it) are often both uber sexual in our own gender, and/or not afraid to explore the aspects and benefits the other gender has to offer.

So male ENTPs often *really* enjoy masculinity, whether it’s liking goofy “boyish” stuff, reveling in their own impressive sexuality, harmless womanizing, etc., and female ENTPs are often surprisingly girly, whether being flirty and sweet or loving colorful girly clothes that show off their (our) feminine wiles.  For example, people often expect female ENTPs to be hard and stereotypically “T,” (which, can we please review the real definition of “Thinking” please?), and people who think that way are often surprised to hear that I *love* tutus, to the point of mild obsession, and fashion in general; that I had a smiley face collection growing up, and that I cry pretty easily when I’m worried about other people.

But ENTP is a study in contrasts.  We naturally *love* placing two seemingly diametrically opposed things beside one another, in order to bring out and complement aspects of both.  Angles and curves, leather and lace, technology and style, zombies and princesses; when you put two wildly different things together, they accentuate each other’s differences and showcase parts of each that might otherwise go unnoticed.  While that principle isn’t exclusive to ENTPs, when it comes to the conceptual use of individuals, we rock it hard.  (See what I did there?  If you accentuate high language, like technical or science jargon, with low language like slang or goofy idioms, the contrast between the two packs a bigger punch than either alone.  ENTPs tend to be big fans of the effect; Benjamin Franklin did it all the time! :D)

From RDJ’s Facebook page (that he runs himself)

And what creates a stronger, more powerful, playful contrast, especially in the area of self-potential, than gender?  And unbridled ENTPs *love* the interplay between masculinity and femininity — not just between people, but also within themselves.  Whether that’s by just enjoying how the genders are different in the ways usually thought of, or turning them on their heads.

If there were a graph about the types’ relationships to gender exploration, ENTP would be in the crossdressing corner.  (There isn’t, as yet, such a graph, but I would greatly enjoy making one at some point.)  That may seem odd to say, but it is an archetype *everywhere* throughout fiction and real life alike; ENTPs <3 crossdressing.  From Mulan to Mal Reynolds, Robert Downey Jr. to Zack Morris; you see it *everywhere.*

“The Boy is Big” by Calise, age 4 maybe? Yes, I knew how to read.  It was just funny as anything.

It’s actually a love I felt *insanely* guilty about growing up, though I don’t remember a time before it was an interest of mine.  Not as much “what would I be like as a boy,” although I certainly have thought a lot on that one (crossdressing became mostly an impossibility for me after puberty), but enjoying how juxtaposing men with feminine situations, clothing, etc. brought out and explored a side of masculinity that otherwise would have gone unseen.  A side which, as a straight girl (something I was unsure of over the years), who really really really likes men, I really wanted to see.

I often say that ESTPs tend to act like little boys, whatever gender they are, while ENTPs tend to *think* like teenaged boys, whatever gender they are.  Obviously, that demonstrates that the things we tend to think of as being “boy” things to do or think are stereotyped, but the principle still holds true.  While ESTP girls tend to like running, jumping and brashly goofing off in ways we tend to think of as masculine (though ESTP girls can be very girly too, when they want to be), ENTP girls, just like ENTP boys, tend to really like thinking about things like technology and sex, and love sarcasm and irony just as much as ENTP boys do.

Aaah!  Painfully awkward 16th birthday pic! Please scroll back up and look at the other pic after this one, bc this one is just sad.

Even though, growing up, it was often implied my love of girly stuff and my sweetness meant I *couldn’t* be analytical or good at being a Thinker (O_o why?!), on the flip side I so often felt *bad* at being a girl.  My tendency to say whatever came into my head, no matter how awkward it was and my ingenuousness in general, meant that other girls tended to treat me like I was “doing it wrong,” and boys paid little attention.  My lack of fashion sense with a new set of curves that I had new clue how to use certainly didn’t help, and my (albeit hidden) aforementioned gender exploration certainly didn’t help my lack of feeling feminine.  There was one aLBoP commenter that said there was no way Mulan could be ENTP because she was way too awkward; clearly they didn’t know me in highschool  I know ENTP girls, and T girls in general, often feel that way, like there’s a “right” and “wrong” way to be your own gender, and it’s really a shame.  I know often male Fs feel the same way.

Although, interestingly enough, though I don’t say it in public as often, I like to tease ENTP guys of being such girls sometimes too, and I mean that with the most love possible

My INFJ was recently practicing interacting with the world in a way that brought out his ENTP Paradoxitype, and after trying it for a while commented that one of the ways in which it was difficult was that it was like, “being half turned on, all the time, by the whole world at once.”  I immediately yelled, “Yes!!”  It’s nice, after a whole life of feeling that way, flirting with the whole world at once as a way to understand and explore it, and feeling guilty for that fact, to have someone say that that was a normal side effect of that sort of emotional vulnerability.

For all the seeming braggadocio that ENTP men can have, that really reflects an emotional vulnerability and exposure to the world that usually leaves them remarkably soft and sweet on the inside.  It’s been amazing to me the open and genuine ways in which healthy ENTP men care about other people, often to the point of getting very emotional as I do, about the people they care about and the ways they’re treated.  It’s a shame to me that that’s thought of as being less masculine or analytical in our culture, because ENTP men are just one example of how masculine that trait can be.

In that same vein, feeling bad at their fourth cognition step of Action through introverted Sensing, often makes both gender ENTPs feel like screw-ups that nobody could be proud of.  In response to this, we sometimes want others to show us that no matter what we do wrong, they will still want us and care about us anyway, even to the point of pushing people away emotionally, secretly hoping the other person will “chase” us, running just slow enough to get caught.  While stereotypically, that’s something that women do, playing “games” to get the other person to show they care, I’ve seen plenty of male ENTPs–both fictionally and irl–do that exact same thing.  (Obviously, as with all the type trends I talk about, that doesn’t mean *only* ENTPs do that, but just that it’s a common thing for ENTPs–myself included–to do, and that those are the collective *reasons* for ENTPs specifically to do it.)

Encapsulated uber-sexual and gender exploration in one.
Read post here.

And so, like I said, a study in contrasts.  In any way shape or form, we like to explore both “What am I?” and “What would I be if I weren’t me?”  We like to hop back and forth between pushing the limits of our own gender (the uber sexuality I talked about), and blurring our lines with the other gender.  Simple in principle, complex in application, ENTP men and women tend to be very similar in the *why*s of choices, and yet often very different in what those individual choices are.  Gender is our fav, and yet the different ways we choose to explore it may differ wildly, especially by gender itself.

Thanks for your question, Cody!  Obviously I had fun answering it ;D

Much love,
<3 Calise

The post Comment Response: The Differences (and Similarities) Between ENTP Men and ENTP Women appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

Hi everyone!  Blog interest, emails, etc. has *jumped* up lately, and I wanted to thank you all for coming to read these things I’ve poured so much of my love into  And thanks to everyone who has sent me emails it’s been great to hear from you!!!  Apologies if I haven’t gotten back to you yet!  I swear I will reply to everyone… but I’m a little backed up and I want to give everyone the attention they deserve… plus, you know, I still have a blog to write  And laundry to catch up on…

But I really do enjoy hearing from you and replying to you, so don’t let any of that scare you away  Being correctly typed can make a world of difference in your life and I’d be happy to help… if you’re patient

Emails have also shown me areas of information I could stand to cover better.  For example, I had an awesome girl whom I typed as a Sensor ask me why I typed her that way, and how to tell the difference between Sensors and iNtuitives, especially because she didn’t feel good at the types of things Sensors are “supposed” to be good at.  Here is some of my response (made generally applicable through the use of handy-dandy brackets), because I think these are common concerns.  I said:

“Well, to start with, Sensors don’t have to be athletic and iNtuitives can be (though I’m not lol) and Sensors can really enjoy school and learning etc. and some iNtuitives don’t.  I really believe that any type can get good at any skill, they don’t have to be limited to a certain branch of interests…

“Like I said last email, Sensors think in puzzle pieces, where everything has a spot and snaps into place.  iNtuitives think more in a web or word-cloud [I meant word-net], where one thought connects to lots of others through little strands of patterns.  They’re both equal, but they look different when you know what to look for.  So when Sensors talk, they focus on a single puzzle piece, be it a situation or information of whatever kind, that’s whatever they’re dealing with at that moment, and figure out where that piece fits.  They don’t have to look at all the pieces at once because they can look at pieces in isolation, without them being attached to all the other pieces.  An S will pick up one ‘piece’ of information, and just evaluate that piece by itself to figure out where it goes.  An N can’t pick up one part of their information ‘web’ without everything attached to it coming too; they have to orient all the strands at the same time because otherwise they have no reference point and their web totally falls apart.

“Was that a really weird analogy?  So, when [a Sensor talks, they] hold up individual ‘puzzle pieces’ of topics or information, and discuss basically, ‘I have this piece.  It has this picture and is this shape.  Hmm… I think it goes here; do you agree?’ and [the Sensor puts] it in [their] mind where [they] think it fits in the puzzle  Then [they] move on to the next piece.  As long as a piece is working where [they] put it, and the picture looks like the puzzle box, [they] don’t have to worry about what all the other pieces are doing; [they] can take the puzzle one piece at a time.  [They] can focus on the puzzle piece right in front of [them] (i.e. the piece of information or whatever [they’re] doing at the moment) and as long as that piece was put in the right place, it’ll line up with later pieces.”

I focused in this email on the Sensor side of it, because that was who I was talking to so the other side wasn’t especially relevant, but I’d like to elaborate on the iNtuitive version now.  When an iNtuitive talks, they don’t stay in one place or on one thought.  Everything is connected and one string leads to a million others.  Now, this could easily be confused with the randomness of Perceivers, trying to explore a million different options.  SPs can certainly be random.  No, I’m talking about forays into the conceptual where every thought connects to every other, looking over the whole at once.  iNtuitives will constantly be looking for how one thought applies to another and how everything fits into place based on how it connects to everything else.

Now, iNtuitives’ method widely gets viewed as more superior, which ends up causing arrogant iNtuitives and recursively arrogant Sensors, and makes everyone feel defensive of the way they operate.  Like I just said, the two methods are equal, but different.  Healthy, developed Sensors bring such meaning to looking at the puzzle-piece right in front of them, and I’m always in awe at the enlightenment that Sensors can pull from the world at their fingertips.  Likewise, as iNtuitives appreciate and admire Sensors for their abilities and thought processes, they can better value their own abilities.

So when trying to type someone as N or S, or when trying to understand how an N or S thinks, remember:

Sensors will talk in ‘puzzle pieces’—one piece at a time, everything has a place where it snaps in, so there is no need to look at every piece at once.  Emphasis is centered on correct placement of each piece, rather than on how it connects to other pieces.

iNtuitives will talk in ‘webs’ or ‘word-nets’—each piece of information connects to all the others and *has* to be viewed in context or things are missed.

Both are necessary and neither N nor S can afford to roll their eyes at the other, pretending that either context or in-the-moment-ness are invalid or irrelevant.

*We need both.*

The post Email Response: The Difference Between Sensors and iNtuitives appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.

I hope you really wanted that reply you asked for, Match

Intro and Principles of Typing 

Okay, important things first: Match is a really cool name!  Can I just say that?

Also, I’m *so* happy you’re enjoying the blog!  The things you said about Hercules Syndrome and the stick figure post make me feel giddy  This is exactly why I write and it thrills me to know it’s working and that I’m touching individual people.  That’s really my purpose as an ENTP, helping people see their own individual potential and know how to reach for it; helping people be awesome in their own unique ways

You brought up really excellent points about those individual characters.  I also *loved* what you said about people making personality typing about cut-and-paste horoscopes!  I couldn’t agree more.  I think the one principle I’d like to bring up before going into specific character typings is that, while you’re obviously looking past the surface of types and I can tell you don’t type shallowly at all, it’s important to remember that personality types are a measure of the way a person *thinks* which ends up resulting in their actions, but *isn’t* their actions.  I know you know that principle, but it’s easy to forget that when other people are judging by the surface.  It’s easy to forget that two people may make the *exact same* decision for *entirely* different reasons.  Make sense?

So when I type a person, I look at the way a person talks *in conjunction* with the way they act, making sure to include the way they’re *trying* to come off.  Often the way a person talks is a better barometer of their personality type than their actions, in a way even they don’t usually realize.  One of the main ways in which people oversimplify characters and personality types is by only taking into account a person’s actions or the way they act on the surface, and not taking their reasoning behind it into account.

{Side-note: This is the way I type, as an ENTP, with my primary focus being Character Observation, but my INFJ is excellent at typing people too, he just uses his primary focus of Principles to see *in principle* what a person is.  Hard to explain, but it works.  It’s addressing the same problem from opposite angles, but it works.}

But it’s amazing as you listen to a person talk, the subtle things that come out about the way they think.  For example, a lot of people tell me they’re INFJs who I’m pretty sure are not, but with you, from your one comment (albeit a long comment ) I can tell you are.  You talk in principles leading to actions in the form of concepts (N) rather than experiences (S) according to their meaning (F) rather than their usefulness (T), though by the time you get to the details stage, you focus on use (T).  There are other indicators too, but anyway

With characters it can sometimes be easier than real people because you more often get to see them as a whole.

Captain America and Peter Burke — The Dependable Side of INFJ and What Makes Characters *POP*

Okay, let’s start with Captain America/Steve Rogers and Peter Burke of White Collar, because they’re similarly dutiful, generally rule-following and with an old-fashioned sense of right, wrong and justice.  So they look pretty ISJ, right?  We’d expect the characters in these types of roles—that of Patriotic Poster-Boy and successful FBI agent—to be very sensing oriented, focusing on the value of things already experienced rather than on the conceptual of what could be.

And yet it’s how *unexpected* these characters are, that makes us love them.  It’s the choices they make and the way they react to things in a way that other people might not that really makes them *POP*.  This is an archetype found all throughout fiction (and I think in the real world too); take a role, a position, etc. that you would usually expect to be filled by a certain type of character, and throw in just a little surprise in personality that totally makes the character stand out from what we’re used to and expect.  I mentioned this briefly in the Paradoxitype post (which I’m so glad you liked ), the idea of a person being consistent… until they surprise you and *that* is when they really shine.

In the movie of Captain America, the reason Steve Rogers is chosen for the experiment is because he’s different from the other soldiers.  From the beginning, when he’s a scrawny little guy that won’t give up, Dr. Erskine, the scientist, can see that Steve is special because he has different reasons for wanting to go fight in the same war.  Steve understands what the war *means* and the principles behind it.  He thinks and serves in a very IFJ way, constantly making decisions basing his Step Two of Actions on his auxiliary, Fe, cognition.  Now, thus far, that could totally be a dedicated “Keep Calm and Be There” ISFJ, but Steve keeps taking his reasons back to concepts and is always talking in a sweeping “Keep Calm and I’ll Show You How to Fly” INFJ type way.  His unexpected jokes, everything that makes Steve the lovable unexpected character he is, comes from how much we *don’t* expect an Ni dom to be in a role like that.  Because we’re expecting a dependable, linear ISJ in a role like that, Captain America *POPS*.

Peter Burke too, we’d expect to be the stereotypical hard-lining ISTJ, and we can tell that the FBI makes him feel like he *should* be an ST, but it’s the way he reacts to Neal that really makes his NF shine.  Over and over again, when we expect him to take the tried-and-true method with Neal… he just doesn’t.  He believes in Neal and trusts him for what Neal *means*, what he sees in principle that Neal can be, if he’ll only let himself.  For an ENTP suffering from severe Megamind Complex, the one thing Neal needs most of all is for someone to believe in him, to trust that he could be a good person and to see past his cavalier facade.  The only reason Peter agrees to Neal’s release-scheme in the first place was because Neal had impressed him as a good person and because he saw potential in Neal in a very NF way.  If Peter was instead the expected, rule abiding hard-liner, with the show consisting of Neal trying something against the rules repeatedly and Peter saying “No, no, no!” over and over again, that would get old fast.  It’s the way that Peter constantly adapts with Neal that gets Peter in trouble with other, more rigid agents, and yet makes he and Neal into such a great team.  With Neal, with Elizabeth, with Mozzi and in all his own plans, it’s Peter’s NF that makes him *POP*.

Now, I’m certainly *not* saying, for anyone wondering by this point, that INFJs are the only ones that *POP*.  On the contrary, the main reason beloved characters are beloved is because they’re at least in some way unexpected.  Match, you said you loved my ISFJ examples because people stereotype them as only being good at being housewives or butlers.    In that vein, one of my *favorite* ISFJ characters *ever* is Master Chief from the Halo video game series.  He has that unexpected *POP* because they treat him like he should be such a machine, either following an ISTJ protocol or being some kind of extreme-sports ESTP having fun bashing in alien heads (maybe like quite a bit of the player-base?) but he brings such down-to-earth worldwide *meaning* to everything he does, even if even Cortana can’t see it sometimes.  Any personality type can *POP*, it’s the way that they surprise you that makes you see what they truly are.

Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins — Hercules Syndrome and What Makes a Hero

With both Harry Potter and Frodo, you brought up the question of being Fi doms, and they are very similar characters.  The young, inexperienced pupil charged with the task of saving the world against impossible odds, chosen by darkness (either the dark lord or the dark ring) to be the figurehead of the side of good… kind of against their will.  While that description could cover a lot of protagonists, of several different personality types, to me it’s Harry and Frodo’s Hercules Syndrome that makes them so perfect for the tasks.

Hercules Syndrome is a funny thing.  INFJs are one of the only types where their main weakness is also one of their main strengths… and that’s why everyone hates them!  jk… but seriously… Not thinking they’re very special and feeling guilty for their strengths is one of the main reasons INFJs are so often resented.  They’re just so obviously good naturally (though obviously that’s still a choice), and yet they’re usually the only ones that don’t realize it.  People think of it like skinny girls who say they’re so fat  And yet, that’s not the way INFJs think.  They’re not *trying* to say “Oh look at me, I’m so good, you should acknowledge it!”  They’re just being themselves and where their brains naturally go makes them constantly go, “Oh, crap!  I was shining too much again, wasn’t I?”

In fact, if you come across a person whose attitude is “I’m so great because I’m a mighty and wise INFJ,” they *aren’t*.  INFJs never function that way, even the villains.  I get very sick of the all too common stereotypes that INFJs are either wimpy philosophizing daisies or *the* best type whom everyone claims to be.  INFJs have the most zoomed-out focus which is specialized in its own sweeping way.  Each type has their special, equal place and that is INFJs’.  It would be stupid if an ESTP for example (because it’s opposite) gave up their unique specialization of individuality because they thought it was better/more widely accepted/wiser/cleverer to be an INFJ and focus on how meaning applies to the world as a whole.  Be your own type, people, because you *suck!* at the others, and it’s not *YOU!*

Ahem.  That was a soapbox and not directed at you, Match, so excuse me.  I’ve seen a lot of people lately who are all too excited to claim INFJ because they think it makes them better.  They are therefore not INFJs, end of story.

While some days we facepalm and say “Oh Harry, don’t do that!” Harry Potter’s constant desire to just be normal like everybody else is just one of the special things about him that makes him perfect for the task of taking down He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named  He shrugs off the things that make him special, not wanting the attention and as Dumbledore says (more on him later), Harry just doesn’t realize how unique he is.  Harry has a conceptual principles focus (INJ) with a major weakness in character judgment, leading to trouble separating bad actions of people like Snape and even his ESTP father, from their much better intentions.  He focuses so much on the meaning and principles at stake that he has difficulty seeing how people could cause that much damage without being badly intentioned.  My INFJ facepalms over Harry’s treatment of Draco Malfoy because a more grown-up INFJ would be able to gain Draco’s respect rather than making an instant enemy.  But all Harry sees early on is that he’s standing up against what Draco stands for, and standing up for his friends in principle.

Harry is always standing up for somebody, always feeling the need to save somebody, even when people make fun of him for it.  He exemplifies the IJ, “If I don’t do it, no one else will,” whether it’s destroying Voldemort, saving people from the bottom of a lake or teaching everyone defense against the dark arts.  I’ve seen Harry typed several places as an ISFP, but I think this may come from a misunderstanding of S/N.  Harry talks very conceptually, abstractly and pays massive attention to overarching principles at work in the world.  I’m curious why they thought of him as an S?

[source]

I love this drawing by Tealin, parodying the last scene of Fellowship of the ring with Harry, Ron and Hermione.  It brings out a similarity between Harry and Frodo that to me is just so INFJ: that of INFJs’ learned understanding that they have to complete their quests alone, lest they bring their friends down with them and submit them to the pain and anguish that Hercules Syndrome tells the INFJ is their fault.  I mentioned this in The Personalities of Marble Hornets with Jay, and you find it all throughout fiction with INFJs.  INFJs embracing being the Paladin need a strong support-structure of other types, willing to stand up, give them a gentle slap on the face and say, “Heck no, I’m not letting you go to Mordor alone!  I’m choosing to come along so let me carry the lembas already.”

As far as Frodo goes, in both the books and the films (granted, this is coming from an obsession with the extended films, only reading half of Fellowship, playing LotRO, and being married to a big Tolkien nerd INFJ who likes to go off about the meaning in LoTR ) it seems to me that what sets him apart so often from the other hobbits, including Sam, Merry and Pippin whom I love, is that the other hobbits seem so much more in the moment in an either S (Sam and Pippin) or EJ (Merry) way.  But Frodo is always thinking of the bigger picture, the bigger task; focusing near the beginning on Gandalf and what the quest means to him, and gradually getting a greater understanding of the grave mission he’s been sent on.

I’m bothered by the way many people react to the difference in Frodo and Sam’s roles in LoTR.  I’ve often read people say straight out that Sam was the “real hero” of LoTR.  There’s a statement I think Tolkien would take issue with.  To look at Frodo, the ring-bearer, carrying a burden that ripped him apart from the inside and almost destroyed everything he was, who had the vision, bravery and resolve of character to get the ring all the way to Mordor and not let the carrying of Sauron’s horcrux take him over, and not recognize him as one of the noblest of heroes shows a great lack of understanding of the power of evil and forgets that though Frodo makes it look easy, it wasn’t.  Which isn’t to say that Sam was any less heroic or essential to the quest.  There are so many times that Frodo wouldn’t have made it if not for Sam.  But I think too many people forget that Sam *wouldn’t* have gotten there without Frodo.  I don’t understand the need to make it a competition, when Frodo and Sam obviously understood their need for each other.  They have a fantastically healthy masculine relationship and one that I think is found often with INFJs and ISFJs.  INFJs are focused on the meaning of the overall quest as a whole, functioning like admirals or generals behind the scenes, and ISFJs are focused on meaning applied on the ground and function like captains dedicated to the protection and welfare of their troops.  With Frodo and Sam it’s no different; Frodo’s job is to get the ring to Mordor; Sam’s job is to get him there.  Sam doesn’t resent that, why should anyone else?

Here is a quote from the end of The Return of the King (novel) that demonstrates how INFJ Frodo talks, in sweeping conceptual, focusing on the meaning that is the cause of events, and demonstrates his character:

“I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them…and you will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger, and so love their beloved land all the more. And that will keep you as busy and as happy as anyone can be, as long as your part in the Story goes on.”

Even before we really began studying personality typing in-depth, my INFJ would love to talk about how Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf were all the same character at different stages of their development.  I think that’s brilliant.  Aragorn is obviously so much more developed as an INFJ than Frodo, and Gandalf so much more than he is, but they all have that same focus of world meaning.

Aragorn is much farther along in his internal development in the novels than in the movies; his internal struggle with overcoming his Hercules Syndrome and growing ready to take his place and return as the king has already taken place by the time of the books.  I understand Tolkien’s reasoning for this and I think he did it phenomenally, but I also understand and love the reasoning behind Peter Jackson (and Co)’s decision to make Aragorn a hero still in progress.  To quote my own novel with an INFJ protagonist, “’So often, as people we see princes and we see kings and we forget that there is anything in between.  We forget that princes become kings, boys become men, and that men can become even more than that…  They tell you that you could never [be great] because you’re not already there.’”  Too often we see Gandalf as this towering mentor and hero, out of the potential reach of mere mortals, and yet if we come to understand that he’s just a grown-up Aragorn, who in turn is just a grown-up Frodo, we can see that we too have the potential to become heroes, held back only by our own willingness to sacrifice and shine in our own unique ways.

Ra’s al Ghul and Palpatine, Bruce Wayne and Albus Dumbledore — INFJ Villains and INTJ Heroes…plus Luke Skywalker

You said that your Batman/Ra’s al Ghul argument for typing Bruce as an INFJ and Ra’s as an INTJ was your best, and it was a very well-written argument!  You made a lot of really great points, but I want to bring up several principles in relation to the misunderstanding most people have about how INFJs can be villains and how INTJs can be heroes.

In the Type Heroes series, I always have a section on what each type is like as a villain because I believe each person understanding what kind of villain they could be is an essential part of learning how they can be a hero.  Until you can realize how strong and scary your type can be as a villain, you *will not* realize how powerful you can be as a hero.  And even a villain still cognates the same as his non-dark type brothers and shares the same predominant focus and weaknesses of psyche.  Just like every type brings something special to the heroic table, each type of villain is just as unique and telling.

I think understanding true evil is absolutely necessary for an INFJ, both in trying to overcome their Hercules Syndrome by seeing how evil they could be if they chose to, and in order to truly understand the principles behind evil as they contrast it with the principles of why good *works*.

INFJs focus *above all* on Meaning as it is Applied to the World as a whole, with their conceptual Ni of Principles leading to Actions chosen according to Fe, which tells them the *meaning* of actions outside themselves, rather than the *use* of applied action, the way INTJs do.  Translation in practice?  INFJ villains will see that the world reflects their principles of meaning… no matter who gets in their way.  Where INTJ villains care about putting the world to *use*, desiring ultimate control the way Loki, Darth Vader or Sauron do, an INFJ villain would rather shape the world based on meaning, using the decisions and agency of others to their own gain, rather than trying to literally dominate them.

My INFJ is pretty obsessed with INFJ villains, absolutely loving how unexpected INFJs make villainy *POP* because no one anticipates a mild-mannered INFJ being able to smoothly and calmly rip apart nations… and yet with their understanding of the meaning behind all action, INFJs are perfectly situated to tug on a single thread to unravel the whole thing.  Where an INTJ villain would be happy to glass a community that refused to follow him, an INFJ villain would prefer to sew seeds of rebellion behind the scenes, letting the people and community rip themselves apart from the inside using their own discretion.  Subtle manipulation of a person’s own choices is much more satisfying to a villainous INFJ than simple mind or action control.  I think that sums up Ra’s al Ghul intentions pretty well; he’d rather rip apart either Gotham or Rome through principles like fear, economics and the worthiness or evil of what people mean than he would just take over the city or the world by brute force like, say, Loki wants to.

As a real life example, Adolf Hitler exemplified the traits and motivation of an INFJ villain.  He’s legendary for using the emotions of his people to stir them up and make them believe that his plans were necessary.  In this day and age, too many people imagine Hitler as some sort of dictatorial leader who just made Germany do what he wanted.  While he was able to be more and more obvious about his plans as the war went on, if you watch footage of him, he was incredibly well-spoken and inspirational, causing people who heard his speeches to weep at the picture of Germany and the world that he painted.  He understood how to use people’s sense of nationality and preexisting biases; he understood how to incite youth.  He wouldn’t have been the effective and moving blot on the history of our world if he hadn’t understood how to get others to rip the world apart for him.

Emperor Palpatine is the same, even in the abominable prequels and definitely in CGI The Clone Wars where he shines; he’d prefer to rise to power through the slow manipulation of the system and people’s emotions than to just begin an outright rebellion of the Republic… he has pawns to do that, ones he manipulates just as smoothly as the senate.  And in the originals, he takes a sick and twisted pleasure at using Luke’s emotion against him and triumphs when he’s pitted Luke and Vader against each other.  Just a messed-up way of enjoying the meaning and principles behind the world

On the other side of things, INFJs and INTJs (like all types) can both be heroes and choose good actions, but obviously they have different reasoning and motivations behind those decisions.  Like INFJ villains, what defines and exemplifies an INTJ hero?  Well, of course, because the cognition is the same, it’s similar to what defines an INTJ villain.  Like INFJ heroes and villains focus on the *meaning* behind people and actions and how to apply that meaning into action, INTJ heroes and villains share the trait of focusing on the *use* of people and actions and make plans based on their usefulness rather than their meaning.  This means that INTJs have a tendency to go around people rather than using them, if they aren’t willing to cooperate.  That can mean a villain killing someone in their way, rather than choosing to use that person, or it can mean a hero choosing to be a vigilante if the system isn’t working.

Which brings us to Bruce Wayne.  Yes, he relies on friends, though I don’t think there’s any type that can afford not to.  Yes he’s self-sacrificing, though I think that’s also a trait of any good human being and I make sad faces when anyone tries to imply that Ts can’t be just as willing to give of themselves for the greater good.  We all use all four functions, iNtuition, Sensing, Feeling and Thinking, just in different orders and with different emphases.

Yes, the picture has a typo. -_-

In fact INTJs’ Anakin Angst is their equivalent to Hercules Syndrome, Megamind Complex, Moriarty Fear, etc. because INTJs are *terrified* that everything that goes wrong is their fault.  Somehow, their beautiful and impressive strength of applying Ni principles to the use of Te action makes them feel like if something went wrong or something was out of their control, it was their fault.  If INTJs don’t get a hold of their Anakin Angst, by *letting go* of control, then they are sure to eventually become the very thing they’re trying to keep from hurting the world in the first place.  Though Ra’s al Ghul becomes the thing he at first fought, it’s out of a need to make the world reflect certain meaning rather than trying to make sure that no element of it is out of his control, the way an INTJ would be tempted to.  Anakin Angst is like Indiana Jones (also INTJ) having the hardest time letting the Holy Grail fall into oblivion in Last Crusade because he can *almost* reach it and he knows just what good could be done with it; he almost loses himself the way Elsa does because it’s just so hard to let go of control, knowing the cup will be gone and it’ll be his fault.

In that same way, Bruce being an INTJ puts into perspective how difficult it is for him not to misuse the cell network in Dark Knight and how hard it is for him not to let the Joker manipulate his fear that Gordon “dying” and Rachel being taken were his fault.  He gets all too close to breaking his “don’t kill” policy on Joker because he’s so desperate to have things back in control so he can fix things growing more and more wrong around him.

In some ways Bruce Wayne and Ra’s al Ghuls’ war represents the opposite of the typical INFJ hero/INTJ villain battles.  Usually stories focus on the meaning of people being more valuable than their use; Batman Begins instead focuses on a world that Ra’s wants to discard because it is no longer meaningful, trying to set it on a course toward destruction ripped apart by its own rife meaninglessness, but Bruce debates that it is still of use—though it isn’t yet meaningful, Gotham has the potential to be, if used correctly.

The Dark Knight makes a similar case from a different angle.  Nolan’s Joker, who functions slightly differently than his ENTP cartoon and comic predecessors, sets out to prove, regardless of the reactions he receives from others (which suggests introverted) to Gotham his worldview of how puny and pathetic they are, pretending to be so great and propping up their “stupid” J plans (while he’s so P adaptive) while the world is really entirely chaotic and its only meaning is in realizing how meaningless and pointless it all is.  Man, it’s like being on an internet forum or something  As an unhealthy conceptual, adaptive, self-deciding introvert who primarily focuses on the use of people and things (unhealthy N,P,I,T…INTP) his greatest weakness is the meaning of principles (principles via Fe), and he sets out to prove the area in which he feels the most angry and defensive—his worldview.

As an INTP/INTJ throwdown, the Joker decides to show the world and Batman that principles are all well and good in childrens’ games, but in the real world, the whole thing is pointless and all Bruce’s best efforts for control will never be enough to combat the Joker’s pessimistic, self-justifying worldview that in the end everyone is just a villain (ITs focus on people on the whole being bad).  Now Bruce (also IT, so same pessimistic focus) understands just how bad people can be too and at times fears the Joker is right about Gotham, but he is able to prove the Joker wrong by showing that even when the whole is rotten and festering, it is individuals like him who will take the hit and show that people can rise above a culture of enmity and self-preservation to show what humanity, in principle, can be.  Reminded me of Picard’s constant mantra of the nobility of mankind—INTJ too ;).  Though there are casualties of this humanity war, like Dent, there are still enough good people for humanity to save itself, and Batman is just a symbol of the use humanity still has left.

All-in-all, I think Bruce Wayne’s focus on use over meaning and the pessimism being an IT gives him naturally is what gives Batman its “dark and edgy” feel and makes him *POP* among superheroes in an unique way.

Albus Dumbledore is another interesting example because on the surface he seems so typical-mentor-ish, like an INFJ or an ENFJ.  He’s patient and caring and he likes conceptual principles a lot.  He’s also quirky and goofy in a way that most people would consider F.  However, as we come to learn more about his backstory, we see over and over again that he’s struggled desperately to overcome a need to control and a tendency to go around people rather than to change the way they think.  With all the characters in the story, he focuses on how to best put them to use rather than meaning.  Starting with himself and with everyone including Cornelius Fudge, Snape and even Harry, Dumbledore focuses on their use before their meaning, even as much as it kills him inside to do so with Harry.

Dumbledore is an insanely healthy version of an INTJ, and so therefore has overcome many of its weaknesses, but as we look at the way he was when he was younger, a lot of which we don’t get to see until Deathly Hallows, we can see that his relationship with Grindelwald and Aberforth was one of trying to shape the world into his vision, believing that people would just need to get out of the way to see that accomplished.  The death of his sister woke him up to the damage his excited version of Anakin Angst had caused, making him look at just what he was damaging, trying to shape the world to be of use.

Looking at younger versions of heroes is a good way to type them since they’re more likely to display more of the weaknesses of their type that they may have overcome as they developed.  If we watch Bruce Wayne in the flashbacks in Batman Begins, he doesn’t seem like an undeveloped INFJ with Hercules Syndrome, he’s a d-bag little T (we all have our days ;)) seeking revenge and talking about how Rachel’s system is no longer of use.  This is an amusing trend to me with some young, especially male, INTJs being arrogant little things that grow up to be noble heroes and great mentors.  The quote from my writing, in the Frodo/Harry section is actually by the protagonist’s father and mentor who I used to think was an INFJ too, but then I looked at his already written background which went totally in line with the character and he was an arrogant little d-bag who grew up to be one of my favorite characters and in retrospect is obviously T.

I feel bad throwing Luke Skywalker in at the end of this section, when he probably could have gone with Harry/Frodo or Cap’n/Peter Burke, but he applies to this principle too.  Luke Skywalker is a great example of an *undeveloped* INFJ.  He does focus on the meaning of the world and he’s usually Judging action-oriented to a fault, running ahead to go stand up for somebody, even when it would be better to slow down and consider other options.  If you are looking for what untrained, inexperienced INFJs are like, look no further than Luke Skywalker who can be even more immature than Harry about “But if I don’t save my friends, no one will!”

Superman—Same Character, Different Cognition

I don’t plan on this being a long section, because we’ve covered a lot of principles about INFJs and typing characters in general.  But the tricky thing about me typing Superman is, he’s not always written as the same type.  This happens with lots of characters, especially ones that have lots of different media based on them over the years.  I gave the example of the Joker earlier.  Sherlock Holmes is another great one, with BBC’s Benedict Cumberbatch rendition being INTJ and Robert Downy Jr.’s being ENTP (pretty much everything RDJ touches is ENTP) and their Watsons are ENFP and ISFJ respectively.  Like I said earlier, different cognition patterns may come to the exact same conclusion or action via entirely different cognitive routes.

As far as Superman specifically goes, there are a ton of different versions.  When I got your comment, my INFJ and I were discussing this and he said, “No INFJ would be caught dead saying ‘Truth, justice and the American way.'”  He also added that they wouldn’t limit themselves to something as simple as “the American way” but he’s not sure if he wants me to add that or not and started Hercules Syndroming about how I should add how he does love America so no one would get the wrong impression…  Anyway, that sounds like a more ISFJ thing to say, and we love them for their straightforward nobility… even if it is still a little bit silly as a motto. 

But then why did I put him under INFJ?  Well, I was working under the premise of what Superman means to us as an icon and which versions of him *POP* the most.  What makes Superman work as a character and not as a cardboard cut-out is his humanity in spite of his alienness.  His weaknesses are of an emotional nature, otherwise he’s just a building-leaping, laser vision, strength knows no bounds, flying dude with not a lot of dimension.  Many renditions of Superman are that boring, and it’s been hard for him to gain traction in recent years without having enough conflict to contrast his strength.  A relatable Superman, to me, is the literal personification of Hercules Syndrome, riddled with pain and insecurity about how different he is than the humanity he so desires to fit in with, consumed with guilt over his strength, saving the world even when he’s hated for it.  It’s when Superman hates himself for his powers and has to overcome that anguish that he really shines.

That being said, I can’t give you an example of that kind of Superman.  I don’t know that there isn’t one… I just haven’t seen or read many actual examples of Superman, and in the ones I’ve seen he didn’t seem to be.  Ironically enough, I still haven’t seen the Man of Steel which the picture in the collage was from because after it came out I heard it sucked, but I had written and posted The Paladin and the trailers had gotten me *sooo* excited for an INFJ Superman.  The trailers for Man of Steel portrayed a conflicted Clark Kent who had to hide what he was from the world, even if it meant letting people suffer, because his father believed, probably rightly so, the world wasn’t ready for him yet, that they would despise him for his gifts and how different he was.  That Superman seemed to encapsulate so much of what INFJ means… but since I still haven’t seen the movie, I’m not sure they did that… and from what I’ve heard… they haven’t

Some versions of Superman could very well be ENFJ (though I’ll bet a lot of especially old ones are ISFJ instead), but I’m still pouting that I didn’t get the INFJ Superman that would have brought out the real hero in his super-ness.

When Actors are Different Types than Their Characters

My final thought this time is that, as you probably realize, actors don’t have to be the same type as their characters and so they may put a slightly different character spin on a character than how they’re written, which can make typing a little harder.  Most often characters are played by one-offs or Paradoxitypes, which makes them close, but not exactly of the same cognition as their character…but that’s not a rule or anything.  For example, I tentatively type Chris Evans (Captain America) as an ISFJ, Elijah Wood (Frodo) as an INFP (Robert Pattinson who plays Edward Cullen, too), Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) as ISFP (which is ironic considering), and I’m pretty sure Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) is actually INFJ  Those are based on observation as well as facial typing theorems I’m working on that aren’t even in Beta yet…

I guess my point here is that people have a complex range of emotion and being able to understand others, so just because a person isn’t of the same cognition as a character, doesn’t mean they can’t portray them excellently.  It’s also important to realize that just because we’re a different type than a character, doesn’t mean we can’t apply and relate their experience to ourselves for benefit and learning in our lives

{Update 5-29-14: Though I was absolutely right about actors playing characters who are different types from themselves, facial typing was *veeeery* young when I wrote this post.  Therefore several of these actor’s types are incorrect and should be disregarded until Facial Typing is released and the “Canon” aLBoP typings for these actors comes out  … Although they’re not all wrong.  The INFPs were correct… but Mark Hamill is definitely *not* INFJ, etc. <3 Calise}

Well, as long and insanely drawn out as this was as a response to your comment, Match, I hope it answers your questions as to why I typed these characters the way I did and gave you some insight into my typing process in general.  I’m epically glad you’re enjoying the blog and I’d love to get to know you better and I hope you stick around!!  Thanks so much for commenting; well-thought out comments make my day and make all of this worth it!

<3, Calise Sellers

The post Comment Response: Of INFJs, Principles of Typing and Characters that *POP* appeared first on A Little Bit of Personality.