Editing Parahuman (section)

==Psychology==
Parahumans are naturally inclined toward conflict, as shards choose humans that are predisposed to using their powers. Additionally, shards subtly nudge their hosts toward conflict, playing off of their existing neuroses and mental conditions.<ref name="SB1">'''Wildbow:'''Parahumans are naturally inclined toward conflict, because that's why they have powers in the first place - the entities want to test the powers. A great many parahumans are great balls of neuroses and they've got passengers in their heads that may be nudging them a little one way or another, powers that aren't necessarily controlled or easy to manage, or unfortunate implications. - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/15025011/ Wildbow on SpaceBattles]</ref> Parahumans tend to be more emotionally volatile, their emotional peaks and valleys more exaggerated, their trigger issues causing bigger eruptions.<ref>2. Triggers tend to be (both metatextually and for the individual) something that the individual can't let go of. Even for, say, Fume Hood's trigger, which you mention, the event was in part chosen because it's something that gets to her specifically, which puts her in a loop of sorts, where she's encouraged by the powers and stressful event to constantly put herself in circumstances that mirror the trigger (hostile people, collateral damage, decay) which makes it harder to put the powers away or let go of the stressful event, which encourages her to put herself into those circumstances, and so on. If she could put the powers away (or refocus to a Rogue lifestyle), then we might go back to point 1 - she might not have been chosen (obviously exceptions for Eden shards apply). Fume Hood's trigger might seem tame to you but it was just the right thing to devastate her specifically and stick to her. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/ejo4ct/how_many_freshly_triggered_parahumans_are_like/fd3allc/ Wildbow on Reddit]</ref> This emotional volatility exacerbated conflicts and made gathering large teams of parahumans difficult.<ref name="II2.5">“And while I don’t like the way the idea is often interpreted or the conclusions it’s taken to, there’s the notion of volatility, and the exponentially increasing chance of trouble as the groups of capes grow larger.  With parahumans, things are often exaggerated, both in weak points or the hot button issues they have, or their inclination to push certain buttons.  The more you put in one place, the higher the chance of the wrong button being pushed.  That was another concern of mine.” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2017/12/23/flare-2-5/ Excerpt] from [[Flare 2.5]]</ref> Parahumans who were isolated and not regularly challenged had a mild tendency toward increased mental abnormality, becoming more paranoid and aggressive.<ref>"Capes have a way of getting weird if they’re too isolated.”<br>“Ah, you read Weiss Four,” Dr. Rowland comments<br> "Yeah.” <br>“Explain?” Harrigan asks, leaning forward.<br>“If a parahuman isn’t challenged, they tend to veer a little off course, mentally speaking,” Rowland says. “It’s not a strong pattern, but it’s a pattern. The paranoid get more paranoid, the aggressive get more aggressive.”<br>“That’s a fact with almost any criminal,” Ingram chimes in.<br>“True,” Rowland says. “That’s one of the big arguments against the idea.” - [[Department Sixty Four]],[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/15280025 thread III page 18]</ref> 

Parahumans, especially those who trigger at a young age, can have their personality altered by their shards. The more conflict parahumans get into, the firmer a "foothold" the shard has to rewrite their consciousness and subconsciousness. In extreme cases, the shard can increase impulsiveness, cause obsession, amplify neuroses, exaggerate personality traits to the extreme, or overwrite parts of the mind. In lesser cases, the influence is subtler, with the shard tapping into the emotions and base impulses of its host in order to encourage them to use their power in a combat situation. In some such cases, parahumans become restless or depressed while out of battle, the feeling only fading when out and fighting. In other cases, the parahuman is actively rewarded by the effective use of their powers, instilling a desire to use them more often.<ref name="SB44">Depends on the shard. [[Bonesaw]] elaborates on the idea by noting 'breadth and depth' in her interlude. If the shard gets you while you're young, it can shape your personality across the board, on a deeper level. The more conflict you're involved in, the more toeholds it gets to rewrite your consciousness and your subconscious. To alter your thinking, it needs to do it as a part of the trigger event, or as part of the brain's development.<br><br>In the extreme cases, the shard can leave you with an impulse (Must fight when a fight presents itself), help set up an obsession ([[Sphere|"Wall myself in!"]]), steer a neurosis in one particular direction (specific hallucinations rather than random ones, of you hurting people, pushing someone down the stairs, etc), create a link between A and B ([[Burnscar|Being around fire makes subject lose empathy and inhibitions. With lower empathy and inhibitions, subject uses power to make more fire.]]), or steer a personality trait to an extreme ([[Damsel of Distress|Must be on top, I answer to no one!]]), or they just overwrite stuff ([[Bitch|Can't understand humans, only dogs]]).<br><br>In the lesser cases, it can be a nudge, hard to distinguish from one's own psychology. You might be on the fence about something, trying to make a call, and the passenger pushes you one way over the other, based on your own feelings of doubt or fear. It might tap into emotions, and dampen X emotion while promoting Y, just dampen them across the board, or take the joy out of day to day living while adding excitement to the cape life. A vague sort of depression that only goes away when one's out and fighting. Sometimes, as mentioned before, it's set up as a trap, a flood of emotion or a set of mental switches that get thrown when a prerequisite is met - such as a cape just steering clear of all confrontations, except the shard set it up so they can't, and they have a sort of limit break/command cutting in that mandates them to fight in one way or another. Or it plays off a limit or a berserk button that already exists - Damsel can't spend too long being anything less than top dog or she gets restless, and if she goes too long despite that, then she has to act, she's acting without thinking about it. This takes time and effort for the passenger, and a host that doesn't demand that time and effort (by circumstance or intent) is going to develop a better connection with the power. This in turn is a reward of sorts. If Damsel did kill the local capes and assume control over the area, fighting off all comers, she'd find her facility and control with her power just ramped up like crazy.<br><br>It varies from cape to cape and shard to shard, and it varies depending on the host, the host's background and the host's personality.<br><br>Beyond that, other influences include the passenger playing fast and loose with the power itself, as it controls the metadata, which may be more visible if the subject breaks from their norm in terms of consciousness (gets a concussion, tranquilized), working off base instincts and impulses like 'stay camouflaged' (be a little more creepy and unsettling), intimidate/dominate (passenger works behind the scenes to make you look a little more dangerous as you mutate/grow/surround yourself in the aura of your power), etc, etc. In more pronounced cases, the power is just plain controlled by the passenger, not the host, and the passenger makes the seemingly random or uncontrolled aspects generate more conflict... pushing a power to kill rather than leave someone alive, or a thinker power turns up a vision of something the subject didn't want to see.<br><br>On the macro level, too, don't discount the fact that some shards (particularly powerful ones that warranted attention) are just sent to specific people, with the idea that it's a combination that's going to promote more conflict just by the sheer dynamic of it (Powerful person with a destructive power, a desperate person with a power with negative implications). - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/15026557 Wildbow on SpaceBattles]</ref>

Some psychological commonalities exist when dealing with parahumans with a [[Power classifications|specific type of power]]. Masters, for example, have a systematic tendency to have interpersonal problems,<ref name="10.10IIe1">“I remember you geeking out one time,” Crystal said.  “Remember?  You were telling me all about how Masters have interpersonal problems and Shakers have issues feeling secure-”<br><br>“Ahem,” Vista said.<br><br>“-and tinkers '''dwell'''…”<br><br>“You got shakers wrong,” I pointed out. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/11/27 excerpt] from [[Polarize 10.10]]</ref> although this is true to an extent of all parahumans.<ref>I wrote a paper a while back about how Masters tend to have loneliness as part of their trigger events, and how maybe that was why Masters tend to be villains.  Because you need support and social pressure to be more of a good guy.  My professor then, the guy who I work for now, Dr. Wysocki, he tore me to pieces.  Too many other parahumans have it as part of their history.  Isolation.  It wasn’t enough to suggest a correlation. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/01/31 except] from [[Interlude 18.y]]</ref> As a general rule, [[Breaker]]s, [[Mover]]s and [[Trump]]s tend to feel distant from the rest of humanity.<ref>I knew Trump powers tended to arise, though not always, when a person triggered in relation to power-based stressors.  I knew they tended to feel disconnected from humanity, much like breakers did, just like how movers reported being chronically restless or having trouble setting down roots. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/12/08 Excerpt] from [[Polarize 10.13]]</ref> Trumps become focused on parahuman powers,{{cite}} Breakers separate themselves from others,{{cite}} and Movers avoid confrontation and have trouble feeling rooted and staying in one place.<ref>When one could fly, it was easy to feel disconnected.  Movers in general had issues when it came to feeling or being rooted in things.  Being someone who had to run, walk, drive, and navigate the city on a day to day basis meant being in the city. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/05/26 excerpt] from [[Torch 7.4]]</ref> Shakers tend to focus on context and their environment,<ref name="II10.13e1">Shaker power, yes.  Area or environment focused.  Changing the battlefield.  Shaker powers fell roughly in line with contextual or environmental threats.  They were mindful of those things, usually.  Context.  Environment. - [[ Polarize 10.13]]</ref> in a need to feel secure.<ref name="10.10IIe1"/> Changers worry about not being able to change back.<ref>There were too many stories, and recent mention of the Breaker in the hospital that hadn’t been able to leave her form wasn’t the only one of its kind.  Changers, Breakers, and tinkers who emulated those things always had the ‘what if I can’t go back’ problem in the backs of their minds.  Tristan was an all-too-recent reminder of how easy it would be to walk that line, and pick the exact wrong moment to use a power. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/03/23 Excerpt] from [[Heavens 12.9]]</ref> Tinkers, based on those seen in the [[Parahumans|storyline]] tend to have their personalities influenced by their gender.<ref>[[Beacon 8.2]]</ref> They also have to deal with seeing the world through the lens of their ability to create, i.e. everything looks like potential resources given the right tinker.<ref>I think the drawback of tinker is less the fair dose of crazy and more the "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" - you start viewing the world through a different lens, but that lens requires a huge investment in time and other resources. You can't really ~not~ use your power, and using the tinker power really gets in the way of regular life. - [https://redd.it/8bwv52 Wildbow on Reddit]</ref>

<!--add a few things about Psychology they are pushed towards conflict. And they do escalate. 

Butterfingers said: ↑
I don't follow this.

The idea that a sane and rational government wouldn't try to co-opt parahumans seems very unlikely - they represent force, which the Government wants to maintain a monopoly on.

It might not be the same as the PRT, but it would certainly exist, providing training, funding, psychiatric treatment (unlike the PRT, apparently), medical and dental cover, non-parahuman operational support, legitimacy, etc.

What would be preventing such an organisation from forming and is the Government just sticking its fingers in its ears and going "la la la, I'm not looking"?

<ref name="R1">Cauldron capes don't Conflict Libido to the same extent. They can get built-in conflict generators in the power, but not a libido per se. - [https://redd.it/3rb0y5 Comment by Wildbow on Would You Take a Drink? on Reddit]</ref>

site:parahumans.wordpress.com escalate


Eclipse x.1 yamada rattles of facts


Link with wog about aura of intimidation


<ref>
''“In a safe, controlled training environment?”'' he asked, with a tone like he was almost angry.  Incredulous.  A part of it was probably that I was reversing course on things I’d told him again and again.

“Fun fact,” I said.  “Powers don’t tend to jibe with safe and controlled environments.  For every cape that I know who picked up a trick in PRT labs or whatever, there are ten more who figured their tricks out because they ''had to''.  You want to make it work?  Field test, be confident, be creative.”

“How many tried to pull something inventive and got their asses kicked?” Precipice asked.

“''Lots.''  But our alternative is that if we don’t up our game then we get our asses kicked ''here, now''. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/01/15 Excerpt] from [[Blinding 11.8]]</ref>

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Despite the prevalent influence of shards, parahumans are independent beings and act of their own accord. Shards merely influence their cognition on an instinctual covert level, with overt control of a parahuman by their shard being very rare.<ref name="R19"> Shards only very rarely 'make' people do anything. They pick their hosts with care, those people who are going to be inclined to use powers more or throw themselves into a given type of situation, they may nudge, or encourage more subtly, reinforcing behaviors they want with more power, more focus and utility in the power, or in damping down any drawbacks. In some cases, they may ebb and flow in terms of effectiveness, and in cases like Canary's, may ebb more for a long time, getting her to let her guard down, before a 'kill all the Japanese' chance comes up. - [https://redd.it/49vqrr Wildbow on Reddit]</ref>