#beranyth textposts

after like 3-4 years on this website it’s time for me to take a hiatus (aka a “I want to leave for good but let’s see how long my self control can hold out).  This has been a long time coming but between the time I waste here + constantly being in a state of panic over what will show up on my dash/what will show up in my inbox/what will show up in my notifs next it’s far from being anything positive and tbh the only reason I stuck around as long as I did was cause of my now-long-gone writing and an overinflated sense of usefulness.

 I’ve unfortunately got enough of a queue here to run for another year or so and am too lazy to delete it so feel free to unfollow

LMAO this was an epic thing to come back to

Okay disclaimer:  My primary experience with the EU is video games and the Zahn books, so I fully expect there to be stuff out there to contradict or disprove my theories but w/e what can you do it’s Star Wars

I thought I had written this up before but apparently it was just other ramblings about Force Premonitions, but it kind of ties into this 

I can’t explain anything without going into super boring essay mode SORRY:

Firstly, this is built on the Light vs. Dark side not being good vs. evil, and especially not the average New/Old Republic citizen’s perception of good vs. evil.  For instance, the latter might believe in righteous anger, or in the priority of free will at all costs, which contradict Jedi philosphy.  (Also for ease of writing I’m going to use Sith/Dark-side and Jedi/Light-side user interchangably even though it’s not always the case)

The preservation of life is core to many Jedi philosophies and Light-side abilities, and while in practice this often comes at the cost of things like free will, the desire to harm as little as possible seems to be needed for mind-influencing abilities.  Dark-sided Force users seem to be completely unable to use mind tricks, draw information out of resistant users, etc. (unless you count Darth Vader reading Luke’s thoughts about his sister, but....I’m not a thousand percent sure he was drawing on the Dark side to do that).  

For example, Darth Baras in SWTOR is an immensely powerful Sith, but has to go to extreme lengths to dig up some ancient artifact to extract information from a prisoner (which ruined his mind in the process)--why go through all that if he could just dive in and take that information himself, or mind trick the [non-Force-using] prisoner into telling him what he wanted to know?  (Plus the fact the Sith need interrogations to the extent they do, and have to resort to chemicals for any mind-influencing results)  My theory is that he could invade his prisoner’s mind, but would make such a wreck of it in the process that it may destroy the very knowledge he’s seeking in the process.  The Sith don’t refrain from violating the free will of their victims in this way on principle (like that text post suggested re: fallen Anakin lolol), so it has to be because they can’t.

That’s where my ideas about the Light side and empathy (described more at length in that link above) come in.  A mind trick seems to be a precision technique, slipping in and tugging at a few strings to tilt their thoughts or memories just enough to accomplish the goal: to distract, to quell suspicion, to make them not want to fact-check that last statement you made, etc.  In most cases I’ve seen it, it’s nothing too enormously out-of-character for the victim, and is most effective when it’s something they could, imaginably, do.  For a Force-user to pull this off, they seem to need some sense of empathy and/or the desire not to kill or ruin the mind of the subject.  The Jedi’s control of their own emotions probably helps the process, too, with not...idk, spilling them all into the mind they’re touching and causing more of a mess.  A Republic citizen might find it abhorrent and violating, but a Jedi (according to Jedi theory...not the way they’re actually written -_-) would find just killing the person abhorrant.

There are a few wild cards I just don’t have enough information on to contextualize, like C’baoth’s long-term mind control of Imperials or the Council’s treatment of pre-KOTOR Revan, but it seems pretty consistent overall.

why are mandatory personality tests even a thing in the work place

SERIOUSLY I hate them with such a fiery burning passion because I have two very distinct personalities--a work personality and a normal one.  My normal one loves writing and abstract approaches to everything and is really timid and loves time to myself, while my work one needs structure and detail and very precise, mathematical approaches and feeds off collaborating [with equally inspired people, not college group projects >_>] etc etc

It makes it virtually impossible to answer even the questions that are applicable, and when I feel I’m the most honest it’s my very lazy non-work self??  which has nothing to do with what I’m actually like for the company?  SIGH

is there no “N/A” field for that shit? BAD DESIGN IN ADDITION TO PRESUMPTUOUS BULLSHIT

NOPE WTF