Extroverted Sensing / Se: The awareness and external observation of space and the environment. A person or an object can only be influenced in actual reality (an external perception of tangible surrounding). The goal of using force and willpower to affect people/objects in the surrounding space. Ideas are only useful if they will impact the external environment with force.
Introverted Sensing / Si: Maintaining a relaxed and stable inner state, through collecting and gathering sensory experience. Comparing past experience of sensation to the current moment. Physical external sensations that affect the internal state of an individual through a sense of comfort or routine.
Extroverted Intuition / Ne: Seeing the potential energy of a situation, and the potential of a person by identifying their strengths and attributes, thinking of various possibilities during discussion, juxtaposing the seemingly unrelated; the recombination of ideas and concepts, innovative ideas and techniques as an alternative solution, and seeing an opportunity.
Introverted Intuition / Ni: Where an event has come from and where it is going - cause and effect. Having an awareness of time and understanding the processes between external events. The focus of where events come from also leads to learning from mistakes through memory to apply to the present moment. Can sometimes have the ability to predict the consequences and outcome of a situation. This anticipation of events is disconnected from the present moment and results in an apparent inactivity.
Judgement Functions:
Extroverted Thinking / Te: Directly accesses people and events from a logical perspective. Aims to be productive and strives for efficiency and usefulness. Makes rational decisions. Direction of the most logical course of action, wants to achieve a logical result through action and production.
Introverted Thinking / Ti: Has an analytical state of mind. Recognizes nonsensical flaws or mistakes from a whole logical system. The analysis of logical processes and clarification rather than gaining a productive result.
Extroverted Feeling / Fe: Gaining an sense of external emotions and the emotional atmosphere, expressing feelings and experiences outwardly and openly, using words and gestures to impact the emotional space.Feeling values are developed from the environment, can recognize shared values and may adhere to them to reach a goal.
Introverted Feeling / Fi: Can sometimes appear analytical, personal values and sentiments, the focus on feelings of the individual and this reaction to a situation, which also involves an emotional sensitivity, prefers not to express emotion outwardly and directly. how a situation adheres or conflicts with their own values, feeling values is deprived internally.
((I see a lot of these kinds of posts, so I figure I’d take a stab at it))
Fe (extroverted feeling): Dog You’re happy? They’re happy! You’re sad? They’re sad! You’re trying to pick a fight? They’ll break it up! Am I talking about a high Fe or your dog? Either way, like your dog, high Fe users are pretty in tune to what you’re feeling and reflect it back in a way that makes you feel special and calm. Dogs are pack animals, so they tend to maintain harmony in their “pack,” even if that means breaking up a catfight [lol]. High Fe users do this as well, each in their own way. Also, have you ever compared a guilty high Fe to one of those guilty dog videos? It’s exactly the same!
Fi (introverted feeling): Cat Cats are selfish lovers. Well, more accurately, people tend to think cats are cold and heartless all around, when cats are very loyal and affectionate in ways that most don’t understand. Their feelings are all decided within themselves, and shown in very subtle ways because cats are not very expressive (at least, not conventionally). Not to mention that every cat is drastically different from one another, and they’re not aggressive animals unless a person hurt them in the past or if someone crosses a boundary with them. Sound like a high Fi yet?
Te (extroverted thinking): Bee I’m convinced the colloquialism “worker bee” exists exclusively because of high Te users. Give a high Te an objective, and they will accomplish it, you know, using the same method they’ve always used. Bees have their objectives, too: take care of the queen and her babies. How? Make food. How? Collect pollen. And bees have their set, tried-and-true ways of doing so. Bees and Te are all about focus, discipline, and the way things always work. Say what you want about Te and bees, but they get shit done.
Ti (introverted thinking): Octopus Efficiency! Arruracy! Innovation! Surprising the pants off of people! High Ti users and octopi come out of left field all the time with the way they solve their problems. Octopi are often easily able to escape their enclosures, whether it’s with a simple flip of a lid, with a tight squeeze, or with the ability to unscrew a jar from the inside. They are not at all about what has always worked, they’re about deconstructing the old ways and putting them back together in a way you never expect. High Ti users can’t be boxed in, sorry.
Se (extroverted sensing: Bat Sonar, man. High Se users are people who live in the moment with all five senses, so it makes sense that they would relate most to an animal that has some extreme senses and has to immediately process that information in order to navigate through the world. High Se users take in points of data using all five senses and can immediately work with that (with a little help from their judging function). Bats rely on similar immediate-processing a high Se has since they need it to fly around without incident. It also makes sense for them to relate to an animal that would be crippled without their sense since the way to depress a high Se would be to cut off one of their existing senses.
Si (introverted sensing): Elephant They say elephants never forget, and high Si very much do not either. Elephants can remember very large spaces and have the ability to recognize themselves and members of their family, which, yes, is nothing compared to a high Si being able to remember the exact taste of a meal, smell of flowers, arrangement of their room, etc. Similarly to how Si is executed in an individual, an elephant’s memory is abstract in the way it perceives because it can only recall spaces as it has experienced them. Elephants also communicate using various senses, including touch, visuals, sounds, and seismic vibrations.
Ne (extroverted intuition): Otter Playful and resourceful, a high Ne and an otter have a lot in common. Both are adaptable creatures who can survive in vastly different environments. Otters are quick on their feet, both on land and in water, and learn skills quickly, most notable being the way the break open shellfish with a rock (like a high Ne can break through social shells). Otters are playful and creative, creating water slides in mud and playing with stones. Did you know otters eat 15-25% of their body weight every day? You can equate that with the way high Ne users consume new experiences!
Ni (introverted intuition): Spider Weave a web that always connects back to the center, something both spiders and high Ni users do. A spider’s framework is sturdy and allows them to travel easily across their web, just as a high Ni can trace each point of their mental perceptions to each other and, most importantly, their center. Just like a real web, a high Ni’s inner web is complex, intricate, and extremely strong (in relation to it’s size, of course). However, most important in both webs are the connections made and their connection to the center, both in the literal and figurative. And high Ni users digesting new information in the context of their web looks a lot like the way a spider eats a fly.
There have been plenty of identity posts about Fi, Ni and Ti, but I haven’t seen one for Se yet.
As a rather outgoing ISFP, I feel really comfortable with Se. It’s my favorite function, and I relish it.
So, what are some hints you might be a high Se-user?
You get bored easily // You’re restless.
I don’t mean you get bored reading so you switch to television. No, Se wants to be interacting with its environment allthe time. I just got over a bout of strep throat, and even though I’m still a little sick I can’t wait to get moving again. It’s torture needing to sit still. I want to go running. And after I go running, I want to go rock climbing. And after that, maybe snowboarding. Maybe later, someone will want to play some pick up ice hockey. And once it warms up, I want to organize a surfing trip.
Yeah, forget sitting around the house. You want to go dothings.
You’re competitive.
Since Se is entirely in the moment, it’s easy to get caught up in things. And while you don’t mind losing–you can totally shrug it off most of the time–man, do you hate to lose.
You have a hidden depth.
Just because you actually like going out and doingthings doesn’t mean you can’t be insightful. You’re attentive. You notice things. You’re able to appraise situations and people, and make quiet connections that might slip past people that are reading in too deep.
And, in fact, since your tertiary function is either Fe or Te, you’re probably pretty articulate about things, too.
You see things objectively—and have trouble realizing that other people don’t.
My professor recently told me that everybody sees the world subjectively. “How?” I argued, “That’s the sky, right there. We all see it. Why would it be any different to anybody else?”
What she meant was that we bring meaning from our own lives, our feelings, our memories, into every aspect of this world. It makes sense. But I still have trouble wrapping my mind around it. Mountains are mountains; why would they be anything else?
{{you also probably see things aesthetically. I might wear a lot of band t-shirts, but it’s definitely my look. I was also willing to spend extra money to get a red car and deck it out with roofracks to carry surfboards and other kinds of sports gear. not exactly a wise choice, but definitely an Se-oriented one! and I love it so it’s okay.}}
The same with emotional pursuits.
Maybe you’re really sensual and intimate, maybe you’re not. We’re all human. We all have our reasons for wanting the partners that we want, or not. We don’t have to back up or defend our reasons for not doing so. But you do know how to separate the idea of love from the idea of sex.
Aside from romance, you’re probably that way about other emotional topics, too. One friend told me that I’m the Indiana Jones of feelings. Someone’s over-analyzing a situation? Wham, shoot it down. Depth and meaning are important, but thinking and theorizing too much about difficult situations often just makes things worse.
You move around a lot, or want to.
You may be sentimental, but you don’t particularly feel tied to one place. You might really love travel, adventure, and the idea of exploration. Novelty keeps things fresh.
You’re good with your hands and quick on your feet.
Do you play an instrument? A sport? Do you like to draw, or whittle, or paint? Our hands are a means for us to interact with the world. We’re called ‘artisans’ for a reason. Even if you’re not the best at these things—if you enjoy doing them and dedicate a lot of time to your hobbies, you might be an Se-user.
You’re impulsive
You take action quickly. Sometimes too quickly. You often make decisions without consulting others. They might not be big decisions, either. But if you’re walking with friends and you see a good climbing tree, and that’s your thing, you’ll be up in that tree before anybody else notices you’ve left.
You’re in-tune with your environment No one really can decide this but you. Are you?
Remember…
You have other interests! You’ve got Ni, and two entirely different functions as well! You might actually really love reading, or writing, or philosophy or whatever. But they’re separate, sort of. Your existence is in the here and the now, living it up for exactly what it is.
This Queen is one who prefers to deal in concrete facts and experiences over dreamy ideas and theory. Like Extraverted Sensation types, as an ISJ her perceptions are based on her experiences, however instead of reacting and adapting to these perceptions (Anna ESFP), Elsa internalizes them. These experiences build up her identity.
Her dominant introverted sensation perception is best exhibited in her perception of her powers throughout the two films. At first Elsa plays around with her powers with Anna. As her powers make Anna happy, Elsa is happy with her powers. However, once she hurts Anna and her parents react negatively to her powers she learns from this experience to fear her own powers the way her parents do. She internalizes this experience beyond any outside person’s intentions. She represses it and pushes it down to a point of wearing gloves and continuing to seclude herself after her parents are no longer forcing her isolation.
Once her powers start to go out of her control she doesn’t try to learn about her powers or about where they came from. She isn’t seeking a deep meaning. Instead she decides to further isolate herself even from Anna. Her experience has continually taught her that the only way to keep others safe is to stay away from them. Therefore she makes her own ice castle where she can fully use her powers but in no way can she hurt others with them. At least that is what she thinks. It takes being pulled outside of herself and seeing the bigger picture to come back. Her connections with people saves her. But clearly this was a temporary fix because she doesn’t truly address her power in Frozen.
It takes being shaken and forced out of her comfort zone to truly confront the mysteries of her powers and break her home life routine in Frozen II. This is something she wants to do, but is scared and hesitant of. She isn’t looking for some great adventure as she is comfortable and safe in the predictability of her routine. Not until she leaves her home and collects more positive experiences with her powers is she able to change and accept who she is fully. Elsa needs this experience to change her mind. She isn’t one to rely on troll prophecy or wishful thinking.
SECONDARY FUNCTION: EXTRAVERTED THINKING [Te]
When judging a situation Elsa is far more comfortable with logic rather than working with people. She works specifically with extraverted logic which is grounded in accepted and shared knowledge. This gives Elsa a sense of control, which is huge to her character. She needs to feel in control of herself and the world around her. She doesn’t like to appear out of control to anyone. It is part of what contrasts her with Anna so much. Anna is all about getting out and having new experiences. She takes risks. Elsa does not like being seen as someone who would just let something happen to her like that.
Elsa does not have the best tact. We see that when she verbalizes her thoughts and opinions she isn’t always thinking of the social harmony of it all. Her instinct isn’t diplomacy or navigating the social norms of a situation. She is sharp to Anna about what is best for both of them. Always the practical one, she doesn’t have time for Anna’s flights of fancy at the beginning of Frozen. The more in emotional turmoil she is, the less comfortable she is with her own feelings. This leads are to be harsher to those around her.
Another aspect of Te we see in Elsa, is her search for finding a role. She wants to be able to use her gifts to help. She initially thinks this is as queen, but it doesn’t sit right. Through her experiences into the unknown she finds what that role truly is. Not until she feels useful in her new role as the in-between of spirits and humans is she fully realized. As an ISTJ, she finds herself calmer and more confident now that she has found a way for her gifts to be used.
TERTIARY FUNCTION: INTROVERTED FEELING [Fi]
Although Elsa can come off as logical she is a well of deep emotion as well. Because it is lower in her functional stack and is focused inward, being an introverted function, her emotions and feelings are largely unseen on the outside. It can be hard for those who don’t know her intimately to know if she is doing okay or not.
However, Elsa often gets her Fi confused. We see this the most in the first film. Her over reliance on Fi rather than Te judgement is what brings us to her self isolation. First she takes in her experiences with Si, her inferior Ne scares her, and instead of going to her Te she recedes into Fi judgment. This is tricky, because it fuels her Si perceptions that grant her comfort in isolation. She thinks it is the moral thing to do. Elsa becomes stubborn in the idea that this is the good thing to do and that she will only cause harm to others. The feeling of being morally right guided simply internally and not by anything or anyone outside herself really shows itself in how much she digs her heels in to stay away from everyone.
INFERIOR FUNCTION: EXTRAVERTED INTUITION [Ne]
Elsa has a particularly difficult time with change. Don’t get me wrong, once she internalizes the change through her other functions she is open to a new path, but she initially struggles with the chaotic world around her altering. As things initially started to change with her and her sister being able to leave the palace grounds, she sticks to isolating herself and the familiar. She finds comfort in the predictable. Which makes her repression of her powers all the worse as they start coming out.
As an ISTJ, Elsa can feel comfortable going inward when really it is outward that she should really be looking. Because of this she misses her sister trying to reach out to her. A huge part of her journey throughout both films is being more comfortable with the external world and the meanings hidden within it. We see her really engage with her inferior Ne journey in the second film. Although it was experience that pushed her to it, she learns where her powers come from and what they mean. This was crucial to her finding happiness but was not something that came innate to her.
We see her embrace an Ne perspective by the end of the second film as she accepts her role and the amount she can control within it. Although it is great she found her way to her role in the forest, a big part of that was letting go of control of the kingdom and Anna. She had to learn what she can’t control the world around her and she can’t keep overly controlling herself to find comfort. She learns to accept the external world that has meaning outside of herself.
Si: these shoes cost $12, I haven’t seen a deal like that since I went to Ross’s 3 months ago. Ni: these shoes were like, $10 or something. It was a great deal! Too bad I can’t remember where I got them…
Little reminders for when you are overindulging a function:
Se: you don’t have to react to everything that happens Ne: not everything you imagine is worth the attention Te: not everything you see as a “problem” is a problem Fe: not everything someone does has something to do with you Si: what you think you know is not all there is to know Ni: believing something is true does not make it true Ti: if it only makes sense to you then you’ve got a problem Fi: what you feel does not always tell you what is real
Feeling functions describe the way that we deal with people and social life. It is important to remember that just because a person is a Feeler, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are skilled or good at handling people, it just means that they pay more attention to people and tend to have more interest in the nuances of human life. We can say that Feelers have more opportunity to build up their people skills simply because they are more focused on that aspect of reality.
What are some questions we often ask about our OCs? I mean the real hard ones, like their motivations, fears, and desires. These are all things that we want our character to stick to for the sake of realistic and relatable character development.
So what is an easy and consistent way to make our characters as realistic as possible? Personality types!! I’m not talking the MBTI though, I’m talking the enneagram.
Why the enneagram? Well lets start with what it is. The enneagram is a personality type system that explains things like: Core motivations and desires; life struggles; biggest fears; and helps us writers create consistent, relatable, and fun characters. All of this without the struggles of worrying about making sure our OC’s actions and thoughts are in line with their personality and the path we’ve chosen for them.
This also makes keeping shared NPCs in character as there is less change in their behaviors, motivations, and patterns.
My top resources for the enneagram are down below feel free to check them out!
Note: This list is a work in progress I will update with more at a later date.
If functions could talk - college edition - feat. the ESFP stacking
Se - wow, so many people walking by… is it distracting for you? oh, sorry, i’ll try to be quiet. oh my gosh, look at that guy’s hair. how could you fit that much gel on your head? oh, sorry, i’m supposed to be quiet. sorry. but your back hurts. you better fix your chair. oh, your head hurts too. sorry, i should be quiet. wait, what did the teacher say?
Fi - man, that person ignored my greeting. no, i’m okay. really, i’m fine… also, depression texted me. it’s feeling ignored since you’ve gotten busy. lemme just schedule a meeting with it tonight. what time is good? like, 10 pm? okay, it’s a date.
Te - hollllyyyy crap, we got things to do!!! there is no way i will let you sleep with all three of these assignments due for next week. we must get them done. now. i will not take no for an answer. you will not be at peace ever again. your dreams will not be the happy flowery kind. they will be your assignments. being missed.
Ni - so… guys? can i just say something…
Se - naw, we have to pay attention to the professor. aint got time for your ABsrAcT, noNSenSicle, baloney, Ni. btw, your head still hurts. please, we need advil. death is right around the corner if you don’t take some pain killers right now-
Fi - oh my gosh, i just had the best idea for a story ever! so there’s a guy who-
Te - NO no NO! we are NOT going to waste our tuition and fail our classes because Fi has another plotless story. NO!
Ni - no i wanna hear Fi’s idea. it sounds really interesting. i have a great plot idea too, if you’ll give me a few more seconds-
Se - so are we just gonna die!? is this how it ends? i see a light…
Fi - ooohhh, that would be a great sentence in the story. so many feels… can we write it down? please?
Te - uhhh, guys, the professor is still talking, are you seriously-
Ni - yeah! i’ve got the whole beginning written down! this story is gonna be so sick. we’re gonna make millions.
Se - this is it. this is really the end. so… thirsty. head’s gonna explode. you’ve really killed us. i can’t believe it.
Fi - hmmm, i didn’t think we would go like this. well, i hope the funeral will be bomb. man, what’s my family gonna think? oh, that’s weird, i forgot my story idea… dang, i hope they play thanks for the memories by fallout boy. it really wouldn't be your funeral if they didn’t.
Te - well, you should prolly write that down so you don’t forget. maybe highlight it so they can find it before the funeral.
Ni - yeah, and i would like a large bouquet of irises. they symbolize-
*takes advil*
Se - oh, are we okay? cool, i’ll let you get back to your studies ;)
Fi- man, i can’t believe i lost my story idea :(
Te - yeah, who had time for that anyways? ah! write down that important information! neater handwriting, you peasant!
Ni - what story? oh, you mean the one i just threw out of your head? huh, my bad. no, i can’t re-write it. that would be silly, haha!
If you’re an avid minecraft player, you probably know about how useful the nether dimension can be. If you have somewhere far across the overworld you need to get to, you can considerably shorten the distance by taking a trip through the nether. Some players will even have a network of portals corresponding to every important place in their world!
How does one go about planning the locations of all these portals? Let’s take a closer look at how they work, and how we can visualize them as a mathematical function relating overworld coordinates to nether coordinates, and vice-versa.
The basics
The reason nether travel is so efficient is because, in effect, distances traveled in the nether are shorter than distances in the overworld. The exact scale is a factor of 8: in other words, for every block you travel in the nether, you travel 8 blocks in the overworld.
This simple principle is what lets you jump between nearby portals in the nether to quickly cross vast distances in the overworld.
With that information, we can figure out exactly where to place our portals so that they link up nicely. If you know the coordinates of a portal in the overworld, you should be able to figure out where that portal ought to come out in the nether. This is where the mathematical concept of a linear map helps us visualize the situation.
What in the world is a linear map?
A map, or mapping, in mathematics is simply another word for a function. You’ve probably seen functions in school: they look something like f(x), and when you plug in a number x, you get a new value out. If your function is a parabola, then f(x) might give you the square of x, for example.
The truth is, a function doesn’t just need to use numbers. You can put anything you want into a function and get something out, as long as it makes sense. For example, you could have a function that takes a point in the overworld and converts it to a point in the nether. Isn’t that exactly what a nether portal does? You build it somewhere in the overworld, and then it automatically builds a new one at the corresponding point in the nether.
Let’s imagine our hypothetical mapping that takes a point in the overworld and converts it into a point in the nether. You can take any coordinate in the overworld, and it will correspond to some unique point in the nether, and vice versa. The “linear” part describes what kind of mapping we have. The important thing is that it’s a pretty simple conversion: you can imagine the nether like a scaled down version of the overworld.
The black square in the nether portion of this image corresponds to the layout of the overworld that has essentially been scaled down in the nether– notice that the portals are in the same relative positions, just closer together.
If you follow the Hermitcraft series, you may have seen their clever design for a nether hub that illustrates this idea pretty well. They created a giant scale map on the floor, showing how the overworld might look at each point. I assume the scale is 1/8, and the portals on the map correspond to the locations of the portals in the overworld. This way, it’s easy to imagine striding over a world that’s 1/8 its size when you take a shortcut through the nether!
This is confusing, what does our “linear mapping” actually look like?
The way to convert between overworld and nether coordinates is actually pretty simple. Here are some functions you can use to find nether coordinates using overworld coordinates:
(The subscripts NandO show which X and Z coordinates correspond to the nether and overworld, respectively.)
This means that when you place a portal at a point X, Z in the overworld, a new portal will attempt to generate near the points X/8, Z/8 in the nether. Furthermore, a little algebra can show us how to find overworld coordinates from nether coordinates:
(As a bonus, this could be called the inverse mapping of the first one.)
I read this simple relationship on the Minecraft wiki, but I was actually a little skeptical. My portals don’t always show up at exactly the position I expect: if I place a portal at the overworld’s origin, (0,0), then my portal might actually show up some ways away from (0,0) in the nether. Is the real mapping more complicated? Should I add some kind of offset to those equations?
I decided to jump into a new world and take some empirical data. I went into the nether and started building nether portals, recording their coordinates, and seeing where they come out in the overworld. Here are some charts showing how the nether coordinates of my portals compare to their generated overworld coordinates:
These points follow a line very nicely! Notice the different scales of the axes. It turns out that each of these lines has a slope of just about 8, which is confirmed by the best fit lines (their equations are shown under the title of each chart). That’s what we expect, regardless of any potential offset– every coordinate unit in the nether is worth 8 coordinate units in the overworld.
Notice the intercept of each line. That’s the part of the equation that’s added or subtracted from our x term. They’re very small– remember we’re working in units of single blocks. An intercept of 1 or 2 blocks is pretty negligible, and the pictures confirm that each best fit line seems to intersect the origin pretty closely.
This means I was wrong about the possibility of an offset when converting between overworld and nether coordinates. Those equations posted above are exactly correct. If you build your overworld portal at a location of exactly (X,Z) then it will try to come out near (X/8, Z/8) in the nether, every time. Convenient, and quite easy to calculate!
The dirty and imprecise truth of how nether portals work
When I was collecting my empirical data for the charts, I also considered trying another experiment where I do the opposite of what I did above: build portals in the overworld, and see where they come out in the nether. Trying this method really highlighted some of the quirks of nether portals, and how they don’t cleanly follow all the rules I just laid out.
For one thing, the world of Minecraft is laid out in discrete blocks. After doing the calculations to find where a nether portal should come out, you will likely end up with decimal answers, not whole numbers. But you can’t have half of a block. In practice, our mapping can’t be one-to-one– that is, every block in the overworld can’t correspond to a unique block in the nether, because if you think about it, a few nearby blocks in the overworld might all come out into one nether block. When deciding where a portal should come out, all that Minecraft can do is choose something close.
Another wrinkle is that when the player constructs a portal and goes through it, a new one won’t be immediately generated; first, the game checks to see if there is another valid portal near where it should come out. If so, the player will come out there instead. This is how the game makes it so portals don’t have to be exactly on the corresponding coordinates in each dimension. They just have to be close enough to be linked up.
Every time the player goes through a portal, the game will find the corresponding location in the other dimension, then search around 128 blocks in both coordinates for the closest nearby portal the player can come out. A new portal will only be generated if this check fails to find a valid portal.
Remember that distances in the nether are “compressed” compared to distances in the overworld. A distance of 128 blocks in the nether corresponds to 1024 blocks in the overworld. This means if you have two portals less than 1024 blocks apart in the overworld, they can come out of the same portal in the nether. You can easily make a lot of overworld portals take you to the same nether portal. If you think of portals as the “function” that takes the player from an overworld coordinate to a nether coordinate, then this function is definitely not one-to-one!
I got to experience this phenomenon firsthand when I was collecting empirical data. I tried constructing a few overworld portals so I could record where they generate in the nether. Embarrassingly, I took data for a couple portals before I realized they were all sending me to the same place in the nether. I wasn’t moving far enough for my portals to have to generate new ones in the nether.
There was another occasion where I built an overworld portal and something interesting happened. I moved far enough that this one would have to generate a new one in the nether, but it didn’t come out quite where I expected. My overworld coordinates were clearly not exactly 8 times the nether coordinates. Then I realized I was surrounded by a lava ocean. Rather than spit me out over lava, my portal looked for a safer location to generate, on a small island of netherrack.
It actually ended up a fair bit farther away than expected. When I tried going back through my portal to the overworld, I was greeted with unfamiliar terrain. My portal in the nether was so far away from where it was “supposed” to be, it couldn’t even link up with my original overworld portal, so it had to generate a new one!
This was kind of a complicated anecdote, so here’s an illustration that may help:
This is all to say, the behavior of nether portals in practice doesn’t exactly match up with our mathematical model. The game has some clever mechanics to make sure they generate in practical locations, but these can lead to some funny situations.
The only way to avoid these problems is to do the work yourself: make some calculations and build your portals exactly where you think they should go. Remember that your nether and overworld portals will always link up to the closest ones in their corresponding dimensions, so if you do it yourself, you can make them work exactly how you want! If you want my advice, try scrawling out a table to keep track of all your important world locations.
The Dominant Function: The “White Noise” of Your Personality
How many hours a day do you spend in your room? Considering you have a Tumblr, it’s probably plenty.
Now, how many times have you walked into your room while looking for something and not found it, only for a family member or friend to walk in right after you and find it in a second? Followed by them saying something along the lines of, “It was right in front of your face!”
If you experience something, like a place or a person, all the time, the details can become fuzzy and the things that stay consistently the same can become “white noise.” Meaning you don’t notice them anymore.
I believe this concept applies to MBTI as well.
Your dominant function is never off. It’s always chugging along under the surface. It’s how you deal with most of your day to day problems. It IS you.
But, because it’s on all the time, it’s white noise. Not only to you, but to those around you as well. We only notice things that deviate from the “norm” or the “base.”
Adding onto my theory that the secondary function is the area that requires the most growth, I believe that the tertiary function behaves like the “Rising Sun” from astrology: It is how you are perceived by others.
It’s the function you use often enough that it’s noticeable but not so often that it becomes white noise. Your dominant function goes almost completely unnoticed by those around you although it’s obvious once you know what to look for and your secondary function works mainly subconsciously, melding into your dominant function near seamlessly.
Therefore, your tertiary function is the most notable to you and those around you, because it is seen as active. There is a change when you engage it, so it registers on everyone’s radar.
As examples: My boss is an ESFJ. She runs a daycare center/pre-school and WOW does she look creative. She is a neverending fountain of ideas and innovations. She was so creative she made me question my Ne-ness for approximately two seconds. But, the problem was that she was too noticeably “creative.” She never knows when to stop creating alternatives and her ideas tend to lack structure or any forethought. They can be good, but they usually need major tweaking, and she can be very touchy about trying to tweak her ideas. This is another red flag. A true Ne-dom would NEVER be touchy about changing ideas on the fly. Nor would they be as much of a busy body as her, constantly out shopping and working all day long. Ne’s prefer to work smart, not hard. They’re not just innovative sometimes, they’re innovative in every aspect of their life and can figure out how to get by while putting in the least amount of effort. On another note, she’s an entertainer. By that I mean that she does everything she does for her “audience”, not for herself. Ne’s are usually entertaining, but only by consequence. If you asked an Ne to try to entertain or explain what is entertaining, they’d fall completely flat. They just do what they want and if it entertains others (which it usually does) awesome. My boss’ tertiary Ne is her most notable feature, but it’s definitely not her dominant function.
Another example: My dad is an ISTJ, but he is renowned for his hard held morals. He is constantly described as a “good man” or a “true gentleman” or as being “inflexible in his beliefs.” But, his beliefs are not as extensive as my ISFP friend. She has opinions on EVERYTHING, and they all have fleshed out explanations and reasoning. Whether her views would be seen as logical is irrelevant to her: It’s how she feels. My dad’s beliefs are more like the ten commandments, he has a few large, expansive opinions that he uses to guide him through most of his life. But, he’d find having an individual fleshed out opinion on EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING ridiculous and a waste of time. Why spend all that time thinking about unimportant things when there’s work to be done?
Last example: My aforementioned ISFP friend. She is known amongst my friends as “the psychic.” (could there be anything more stereotypically Ni?) Of course, I don’t really see Ni as the “psychic” function, but rather as the “visionary” function. Ni’s believe that there is one true pattern to life, one cheat code to getting exactly what they want. They plan out their moves twenty turns ahead and are hard on themselves when things don’t turn out the way they planned. So, although my friend does enjoy playing psychic, she actually is also well-known for displaying true Ni traits as well. She has a notebook filled with page after page of where she sees herself in 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, going all the way back to when she was in elementary school. She had a vision of what her perfect guy would look like, what job he’d have, and how they’d meet, which took until only a year or two ago to get her to let go of. She obsesses over where she’s going in life and how she wants her life to look right now. When things change, she panics, because now she has to revise her entire future. But, she’s nowhere near as integrated as my INFJ friend. His Ni visions aren’t just visions, they’re plans. He knows how he’s going to get the things he envisions for himself, and although he still obsesses over it, he’s able to change courses more fluidly than our ISFP. He can create a new path quickly and efficiently, so you rarely notice him doing it. It’s more notable in the ISFP because she throws herself into a depression every time her vision changes, rather than just taking the changes as they come and trying to make them work in your overarching plan.
This is already really long-winded, but people do this to me, too, as an ENFP. People see me initially as an “ice queen”, I’m often compared to characters like Hermione Granger, an ESTJ (who, interestingly enough, is a character created by a lower order Te-user as a caricature of herself), and my parents always describe me as “bossy.” But, I lack any actual organization skills. My Te is surface level, notable but not as complete as Hermione’s or even my father’s.
I think I need to end this here before I ramble anymore. Lol. Let me know what you think!
TLDR; Your tertiary function is your most noticeable function while your dominant function becomes “white noise.”
![ELSA FROM FROZEN [ISTJ] “The Examiner”DOMINANT FUNCTION: INTROVERTED SENSATION [Si]This Queen is one](https://64.media.tumblr.com/9f615dd037f3a21b459add6c39102ad3/a3e725c51d7d1767-ac/s1280x1920/b35af7f64f97132b89238a79b7cbd38ce63709ab.png "ELSA FROM FROZEN [ISTJ] “The Examiner”DOMINANT FUNCTION: INTROVERTED SENSATION [Si]This Queen is one")
