#subtype

Okay, I'm super excited to get into each character's personality type! Rather than stating what Enneagram and MBTI type I think they are out front, and then working to provide evidence, I want to start from scratch. What this means is that in figuring out their Enneagram, I'll list things like their childhood wound or core desire as presented in the manga/anime without worrying about making it match any of the types as laid out in my first personality types post, and for the MBTI, I'll try and figure out their orientations, processes, and type dynamics independent of each other first, and then look at whether my assessment of those elements is cohesive for them.

We'll also go slightly deeper into each character's most likely type (in both systems), looking at things like their Enneagram subtype and wings, and the description and nickname of their MBTI.

Tohru Honda's Enneagram

Wound: Tohru lost her father at a young age, and then almost lost her mother, too. She was left alone for a long period at an age where she couldn't yet take care of herself, and had to grow up much too early. She adopted her father's mannerisms (poorly) out of fear that she'd lose her mother if she didn't find some way to keep him alive. She had trouble making friends, too, so I'd say loneliness plays a big part in her wound.

Wounding message: You must take on your father's traits, or you'll lose your mother, too.

Core desire: This is tricky, since Tohru struggles to articulate her desires, but I think she truly desires to be surrounded by people she loves, and to help them as much as she can.

Core fear: Tohru's greatest fear is losing the people she loves.

Defense mechanism: Tohru's defense mechanism is to repress her authentic self- her needs, her desires, even her personality- to avoid pushing people away.

Strengths: Tohru has a wonderful gift for understanding people, and provides a non-judgmental, supportive listening ear. She's endlessly giving and a reliable friend.

Challenges: Tohru goes along with what others want and doesn't ask for help to a problematic degree. She's spacey and takes forever to make important decisions, often because she struggles to look inward.

When healthy: When Tohru is most in-tune with herself (like we see at the end of the story), she's more stubborn and outspoken, but still with all the warmth and compassion that makes her so wonderful.

When unhealthy: Tohru represses herself and fails to acknowledge her difficult emotions, becoming even more of a pushover.

Looking at all of this, here's what connects when I go back to the Enneagram post:

Wound: could be 2, 4, or 9

Wounding message: could be 2, 3, or 9

Core desire: could be 2, 3, 8, or 9

Core fear: very strongly 9, though with elements of 2 and 3

Defense mechanism: again very strongly 9, though 2 is close as well

Strengths: 2 or 9, with elements of 5

Challenges: very strongly 9

When healthy: 2, 5, or 9

When unhealthy: 3 and 9

I initially thought Tohru was a 2, because she is endlessly giving and puts other's needs before her own. However, Twos become needy, demanding, and possessive when stressed, and Tohru is much the opposite, withdrawing and becoming more complacent and indecisive when stressed. This is why I see Tohru as an Enneagram 9.

Nines will often numb out with distractions, like video games, etc... At first, I had trouble seeing this for Tohru, but then I read that Nines can also use hard work as a means of avoiding their difficult emotions, which describes Tohru perfectly.

In the header graphic of my Enneagram post, that diagram separates the types into triads centered around the head, the heart, and the body (which I refer to as the gut). Types 2-4 are heart types, and their controlling emotion is sadness or shame. Types 5-7 are head types, and their controlling emotion is fear. And types 8, 9, and 1 are gut types, and their controlling emotion is anger.

In each triad, one type will overexpress their controlling emotion, one will underexpress it, and one will repress it. Nines underexpress anger, which absolutely fits Tohru. Additionally, conflict feels more intense for Tohru than for most, which is a key part of Nines.

Wing

Nines tend to have some things in common with either Eights or Ones, called their "Wing." Eight only appeared once in my connections, and One didn't appear at all. (This is probably why I didn't understand her character very well at first! As a One with a Two wing, I really didn't connect with Nine.)

The Enneagram Institute refers to 9w8s as "The Referee," and 9w1s as "The Dreamer." Tohru seems like more of a Dreamer than a referee to me.

Truity describes the two wings like this:

9w8: The Nine wing Eight type is a Nine who shares many of the Type Eight characteristics. This type is independent, social, adaptable, and generally more assertive and direct than other Nines. 9w1: The Nine wing One type is a Nine who has many of the same features as the Type One personality. This type is hardworking, friendly, modest, and generally more serious and diligent than other Nines.

Yeah, I think 9w1 fits Tohru best!

Subtype

Additionally, people will have a Subtype, either Self-Preservation (SP), Sexual (SE), or Social (SO). This refers to the survival instinct that the person prioritizes, whether physical needs (SP), community membership (SO), or intimate, 1:1 connection (SE - this does not always refer to actual sexual connection).

Tohru has a strong focus on her "most important person." At first, that's her mother, and then it becomes Kyo. For this reason, I think she's a SE 9w1. (And Enneagram Explained says that SE Nines can often look like Twos!)

Tritype

There's also something called a Tritype, which identifies the strongest Type in each center for a person. I think it's pretty clear that Tohru's Tritype would include both 9 and 2, but her Head type is a little harder to figure, but ultimately, I think the 2-6-9 Tritype (The Good Samaritan) is the best fit, as described on Katherine Fauvre's website:

If you are a 269, you are caring, inquisitive and accepting. You want to be helpful, supportive, and peaceful. You like people and want to find ways to engage with them. Your sense of pride comes from getting along with others and being of assistance. You are known for your kindness, easygoing, and friendly disposition. You will push for what you think is needed but may struggle with being seen as passive or quietly passive-aggressive.

Tohru Honda's MBTI

E vs. I: This is tough, because I see elements of both E and I, but I think Tohru generally prefers to focus her attention outwardly, and thus is more likely to be an E.

S vs. N: Again, I don't feel terribly confident here, but I'd lean toward N. She makes some pretty big leaps in connecting ideas throughout the series.

T vs. F: Tohru is quite clearly an F, making decisions based on her values rather than her logic, and focusing on how her decisions affect other people.

J vs. P: Tohru is also quite clearly a P, taking a lot of time to gather information before coming to a decision.

Type Dynamics: Without working out what an ENFP's type dynamics are (since that's my most likely guess for Tohru), I see Tohru's Type Dynamics as Fi Ne Si Te.

Fi: Tohru is highly empathetic and tends to keep her feelings to herself, expressing her values instead through her actions.

Ne: Tohru tends to brainstorm aloud quite often (sometimes as a way of avoiding her feelings).

Si: Tohru has a strong recall of specific details from past situations, which she uses to inform the present.

Te: this is harder for me to see in Tohru, but I think the way she went about trying to break the curse might be an example of her Extroverted Thinking Inferior Process, as she showed concern for outside rules and laws, and worked toward her goal in a relatively systematic way.

This... actually fits INFP, which would probably be my second guess for Tohru. She does have a rich inner world that she rarely shows to others. ENFP would be Ne Fi Te Si - close, but in a slightly different order of importance and development.

Now, let's check the descriptions for ENFP and INFP:

ENFP: Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency. INFP: Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want to live a life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened.

To me, INFP is a slightly better fit. INFPs are also sometimes called "The Mediator," or "The Healer," which suits Tohru quite well!

So, to summarize:

Enneagram: SE 9w1 (The Peacemaker/The Dreamer)

Tritype: 2-6-9 (The Good Samaritan)

MBTI: INFP (The Mediator/The Healer)

What do you think? Did I get it right or wrong? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Next up: Akito!

Boo!! Tomato! Tomato!

I think its an oversimplified version of the instinctual variants. Its alright if you're just getting into it and check it out because its an introduction to the instincts, but other than that its pretty bad in my opinion.

There's so many sx subtype descriptions that just describe sx-overfocus (when an sx-blind-> spso/sosp, gets unhealthy and becomes obsessed with their blindspot) instead of actual sx. Naranjo is very obviously sx-blind and his own delusion around being sx-dom led him to making descriptions that essentially mistype everyone.

In a group of people, I usually "pick" a person that I want to get close with, I want to have a very deep emotional connection with them. I am kind of guilty that when it "clicks" with the person I chose, I want them to regard me as their closest friend and favorite person. But there are no romantic or sexual undertones to it, that's pretty much it - I want close platonic connection with them, nothing more.

This suggest social dominance and/or that what you are seeking is a deep social connection, but you may want to read through this page, especially the section about social vs. sx attraction. Sx involves deep psychological nudity as part of the connection -- being raw, real, provocative, as part of attracting someone else is in the domain of sx-dom. You could be so/sp.

I've been informed that it doesn't come across this way, and I come off very flirtatious and romantically interested in them, and a lot of my friendships ended because people started to developing crushes on me (with both men and women, so I don't think that the problem is in men thinking that every woman interested in being friends wants a relationship), thinking that the feelings are mutual. I am honestly quite oblivious to flirting and I can't really tell if someone likes me before they flat-out tell me about it. I know that I am very intense but I genuinely don't understand why people think I'm flirty since I am just being myself. When people confess their love to me it upsets me because it's never what I want - it takes a great force for me to open up to someone, and when they learn that I am not interested in a relationship, the friendship usually also ends, leaving me wounded with even more trust issues. I am always very straightforward about not looking for a romantic relationship but EVERYONE seems think that they must be an exception.

So... could it be the evidence that I am sx-blind?

A gender that is tied to crossplay.

A subgender of crossgender and cosplaygender.

so i recently saw an ask on @beyond-mogai-pride-flags about being kin with someone who’s tiger-kin (its reblogged on my blog if you wanna see the ask) and asking for a word for that, and as someone who also experiences this in my own way (when i was ponyo i was ocean-kin, but i myself in this timeline am not ocean-kin) i thought i would help coin a word for this.

introducing: subtype!

this describes an experience where you yourself are not kin with a being, but one of your kintypes is kin with said being. using myself as an example, i have an ocean subtype!!

This is a poor attempt at making an index. I'm going to keep a list of my series topics here and have the tags in the tag list.

Of course, if you want to search for a certain type, you can do that yourself 🤣

This took way to long to come up with.

All the types - posts listing all the types

Celebrity Mbti

Choosing a Couch - what the primary, auxillary, and second shadow functions look like.

Fun functions - posts on functions

Fun type posts - posts for fun

Function development - posts on how functions develop

Mbti Eyes - a theory on typing people by their eyes...

Mbti Memes - Memes for y'all

Mbti Shout Outs

Mean mbti - free insults soz

Musical types - functions and types summed up with music

Shadow functions

Statistics - on mbti obvs 😂

Subtype - a theory that there are type variations

T vs F - an explanation of what T and F really mean

The INFJ'S Guidebook to People - Spotting different types.

TV Character Typing

Types in pictures - an attempt at a super brief summary of types with pictures and one quote :)

Type Quotes - quotes from the types

Week of the type - each type has a week dedicated to them. Replace 'type' with the type to go directly to that type 😋 (eg, week of the ENFJ)

Akito is an incredibly fascinating and well-written character. I think one of the things that makes her hard to analyze is that we see her at her most unhealthy through most of the series. It's really only at the end, after she's accepted Tohru's friendship, that we see who she really might be under all her trauma.

Akito Sohma's Enneagram

Wound: Akito lost her father at a young age, and her mother rejected her. She was told from the very beginning that she was born to be loved, and was put in a position of great power (and thus responsibility) without understanding how to wield that power responsibly. She wasn't really parented, and was at the center of a power struggle between the part of the family that remained loyal to her father (and thus her) and the part of the family that believed her mother should be in charge. Then, she lost her bond with Kureno.

Wounding message: Being the God is what makes you special and guarantees you love, not being yourself.

Core desire: To be loved

Core fear: Abandonment, loss of bonds/love

Defense mechanism: stoke fear in others and make them dependent on her

Strengths: willingness to grow, humility (at the end), kindness (per Shiki in Another)

Challenges: domineering, manipulative, threatening, abusive, moody, needy, dependent on reassurance, possessive

When healthy: humble, kind, diligent, conscientious, accepting of responsibility, tolerant of difference

When unhealthy: cruel, intimidating, controlling, vindictive, demanding, possessive

Here's what connects when I go back to the Enneagram post:

Wound: could be 2, 4, 5, 7, or 9

Wounding message: could be 2, 3, 7, or 8

Core desire: could be 2, 3, 4, or 9

Core fear: 2, 8, or 9

Defense mechanism: 2, 5, or 8

Strengths: We don't see many of Akito's strengths, only hearing about them in Another, but I saw some connections with 2.

Challenges: 2, 4, or 8

When healthy: 2, 3, or 8

When unhealthy: 1, 2, or 4

It's surprising at first that Akito connects most strongly with 2, since we rarely see her treat others with kindness, but on closer inspection (and when letting go of common misconceptions), it actually fits her quite well.

Akito has an obsessive need to be loved and needed. As an Enneagram 2, she goes to 8 when she's unhealthy (which is most of the series), and 4 when she's healthy (which is only at the very end and in Another). It's no wonder she's so aggressive, demanding, and possessive through the series - that's very typical for unhealthy Twos!

Twos are in the Heart center, and they tend to repress their sadness and shame. According to Personality Path, Twos tend to have a narrow and explosive expression of anger when they feel undervalued or unappreciated - something we see quite often in Akito.

Wing

Twos will tend to lean more towards some aspects of Ones or Threes.

The Enneagram Institute refers to 2w1s as "The Servant," and 2w3s as "The Hostess." That doesn't provide a ton of clarity on Akito for me, so let's look at another source.

Truity describes the two wings like this:

2w1: Enneagram Two wing One types are Twos who share many of the same traits as the Type One Perfectionist. These Twos may appear more quiet, studious and reserved. This type strives to serve others and can struggle with criticism. 2w3: The 2w3 type is a Two who shares several of the same characteristics as the Type Three. They tend to be more sociable and ambitious than other Type Twos. They tend to be strong communicators and focus on building deep relationships. They can also be competitive and self-critical like a Type Three.

I'm still not feeling very certain about this, but I think Akito sounds slightly more like a 2w1 than a 2w3.

Subtype

Again, this is challenging to determine for Akito. Here's how Enneagram Explained describes the three subtypes of Two:

SP 2s are the Countertype of type 2 as they react in an opposite way with their vice (pride). They are more timid in connecting with others; less prone to being helpers/givers. They tend to appear childish or childlike in order to be taken care of. SX 2s focus on charming and attracting strong intimate relationships. They are a bit more passionate and emotional than the other type 2s and often try to be physically appealing to others. SO 2s focus on charming groups and communities and being influential within these groups. They tend to be generous and offer support, advice, and help in order to be seen as needed by the group.

I see aspects of Akito in all three of these, but maybe most strongly in SP.

Tritype

I think it's pretty clear that Akito's Tritype would include both 2 and 8, but her Head type is a little harder to figure (much like Tohru). I think the 2-5-8 Tritype (The Strategist) is the best fit, as described on Katherine Fauvre's website:

If you are a 258, you are caring, knowledgeable and protective. You want to be helpful, wise, and straightforward. You can take charge, be direct, and to the point but prefer to be relational. You are naturally empathetic and focused on people but need time on your own to follow your own pursuits undisturbed. You are both introverted and extroverted. Sometimes, you can be direct, move towards others, and ‘over' give or pull away to be alone and recharge. This can be confusing to others.

I'm not very certain about this, though, so I encourage you to look through the different tritypes!

Akito Sohma's MBTI

E vs. I: I see Akito as strongly I.

S vs. N: I feel least confident about this, but am leaning toward S.

T vs. F: I suspect Akito is F.

J vs. P: Akito strikes me as strongly J.

Type Dynamics: Without working out what an ISFJ's type dynamics are (since that's my most likely guess for Akito), I see Akito's Type Dynamics as Si Fe Ti Ne.

Si: Akito craves predictability and uses sensory data about the past to inform her actions in the present. I think this is why she struggles so much with change (and why it's so powerful when she embraces it!).

Fe: Akito externalizes her feelings. She wants the outside world to align with her values and struggles when it doesn't.

Ti: Akito can be a bit black-and-white, and seems to have an internal logic that is consistent, even if it's hard to explain or doesn't make sense to most people.

Ne: Akito can sometimes catastrophize the future (like at the second New Year, when she saw a similarity in Yuki's eyes that reminded her of Kureno when his curse broke, and she immediately hit him over the head with the vase). She externalizes these connections, which may not make sense to others.

This is actually the Type Dynamic of ISFJ! Woohoo!

Now, let's check the description for ISFJ:

ISFJ: Quiet, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. Committed and steady in meeting their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, and accurate. Loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to them, concerned with how others feel. Strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home.

It's hard, because we don't get to see a lot of Akito at her best, but this is more or less how I imagine her to be once the curse breaks. Also, "remember specifics about people who are important to them" is something we see Akito do quite often. ISFJs are also sometimes called "The Protector," or "The Defender." I'm not quite sure this is fitting for Akito, but maybe it aligns with her strong expression of Enneagram 8 ("The Challenger") through the series.

So, to summarize:

Enneagram: SP 2w1 (The Giver/The Servant)

Tritype: 2-5-8 (The Strategist)

MBTI: ISFJ (The Protector/The Defender)

To me, this summary describes someone who is capable of being kind and giving, but has a fighting side that can come out when they (or people they love...or ancient bonds) are threatened. They are diligent and hardworking, and their tendency to both withdraw and cling/dominate can be confusing. This description seems possible for Akito, though she's a very complex character and there's probably a lot more to dig into for her!

What do you think? Did I get it right or wrong? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Next up: Kyo!