Saguru's Mind for Psychics (Maison)
Feb. 2nd, 2013 03:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stalking_horseSaguru's surface mind, at least at first glance, tends to be ...kind of chaotic seeming! Basically he's incredibly detail-minded and has been working since he was pretty young to actually be PAYING ATTENTION to a lot of random background things people normally tune out or gloss over, which is part of the "surface clutter". His typical "train of thought" and logic pattern is pretty much a thought-map/flowchart where he's taking all of the new surface clutter, sorting it, matching it and drawing connections to past information, and building on that map, which means that whatever his attention is focused on, there's a mess of other things connected to it, maybe tangentially, that he's ALSO keeping lines to, along with whatever else might occur to him.
Oh, and he's probably sitting there cataloging details about whoever he's talking to, quietly constructing a mental profile and working out how their mind works, and generally figuring out enough to make a lot of people uncomfortable if he were to say it out loud. He will use and act on this information, but he does know that people tend to get hostile fast if he blurts it out carelessly.
If you're seriously paying attention or trying to poke around, while he does have a great deal of self-control and willpower, he is stone normal and short on ways to seriously stop someone; there's a few things that aren't hard to notice.
*The one addendum? He does seem resistant to attempts to actually influence/alter his mental state! Powers that rely on illusions, nudging, messing with perceptions, etc. will have a harder time working on him.
1) Depending on the situation, this one might not be hard to pick out from just body language, but he's less "fly the raised by wolves" flag if he's not around someone he's treating as at least a potential threat/predator; if someone's just unfamiliar, he's less open about it, although depending on how tense he is the "-ACTUALLY Saguru himself is pretty much a predator, even if a tame one-" vibe contributes a lot to how occasionally quietly unsettling he can be. That thing where he seems to be a little too intent and has just enough vaguely dominant-predator body language and behavior to where, in the DC group arcs, he acts nine kinds of suspicious without even trying?
No, he probably isn't actually up to malice, but yes, he actually IS going predator-mode. It's partially a defense mechanism that he does have some conscious control over, and partly a reflex that's the way he's grown up; he HAS spent most of his time around cops, criminals, and the proverbial city jungle. Even completely at rest there's still that predatory undertone.
The upside is that yes, it IS basically "tame/ethical".
2) However much predatory posturing he might pull, he IS... well, he's ethically pragmatic and morally altruistic. Depending on circumstances, he doesn't always do so well with set codes and laws; he'll respect laws where they're beneficial, sidestep them where they're harmful, and follow the spirit rather than the letter. He will, generally, be a Good Person, although he can be very pointy and vicious if he feels there's a reason. So that "Predator/Creeper" thing that skeeves people out occasionally? It's leashed and focused and he takes his morals INCREDIBLY seriously.
3) HE'S KINDA PARANOID. Less so here since he's isolated from worrying about the Black organization, but even someone where his first impression is "ally/harmless" isn't safe from him continually cataloguing information, and anything that seems out of place or "wait wait that's not right" will get mentally flagged and he will be more cautious until he figures out why or what's up. If someone flags any of his "Might be dangerous" things, he'll be even worse about "must figure out everything I can about them". And yes, he does work via an unholy hybrid of Sherlock-style methods and behavioral analysis. He's also cynical and pragmatic-pessimistic, in the sense that if one prepares for and assumes all of the worst possibilities, they can continue on and be confident they're ready for the worst and can only be pleasantly surprised.
4) As mature as he is, he is a teenage boy, has moments of emotional stupidity/flounder, and while he's got a very good control on his hormones and pretty specific senses of what's attractive to him, he's more frustrated than repressed. ...Also a little confused/some of it's not entirely translating right in his head.
With a bit more poking:
1) He sits on a lot of people's secrets. Most of it he keeps pretty well buried, although some of it may come up if he's actually thinking about someone in that messy thoughtmap.
2) He knows he's on the trail of something massive and dangerous that's taken out entire police precincts, and has some clues that his father might've sold out to them, although it's a suspicion; he's really unsure of his current odds of living past 20.
4) On a more "issues he sits on" level, there is a good bit of resentment of being basically the one solving other people's problems that is, by now, pretty much taken for granted, and being "The Detective" and almost never "Hakuba Saguru, Human Being"; he does appreciate the gratitude he gets and that some of the would-be victims he's saved remember him, other than that, he's pretty much on his own and it does bother him. He doesn't get along with his family really, he doesn't get along with his peers etc. He's too attached to his morals and what he's decided he wants to be, other people be damned, to snap and go the other way, but there are times he's tempted to at least say "screw it" to the parts where he's TRYING to play by the rules and just drop off legal radar and go predator. Doesn't help that some form of that is the only thing he can think of right now that might give him a life expectancy. He COULD, if pushed, be a much bigger and pointier predator in mentality.
Oh, and he's probably sitting there cataloging details about whoever he's talking to, quietly constructing a mental profile and working out how their mind works, and generally figuring out enough to make a lot of people uncomfortable if he were to say it out loud. He will use and act on this information, but he does know that people tend to get hostile fast if he blurts it out carelessly.
If you're seriously paying attention or trying to poke around, while he does have a great deal of self-control and willpower, he is stone normal and short on ways to seriously stop someone; there's a few things that aren't hard to notice.
*The one addendum? He does seem resistant to attempts to actually influence/alter his mental state! Powers that rely on illusions, nudging, messing with perceptions, etc. will have a harder time working on him.
1) Depending on the situation, this one might not be hard to pick out from just body language, but he's less "fly the raised by wolves" flag if he's not around someone he's treating as at least a potential threat/predator; if someone's just unfamiliar, he's less open about it, although depending on how tense he is the "-ACTUALLY Saguru himself is pretty much a predator, even if a tame one-" vibe contributes a lot to how occasionally quietly unsettling he can be. That thing where he seems to be a little too intent and has just enough vaguely dominant-predator body language and behavior to where, in the DC group arcs, he acts nine kinds of suspicious without even trying?
No, he probably isn't actually up to malice, but yes, he actually IS going predator-mode. It's partially a defense mechanism that he does have some conscious control over, and partly a reflex that's the way he's grown up; he HAS spent most of his time around cops, criminals, and the proverbial city jungle. Even completely at rest there's still that predatory undertone.
The upside is that yes, it IS basically "tame/ethical".
2) However much predatory posturing he might pull, he IS... well, he's ethically pragmatic and morally altruistic. Depending on circumstances, he doesn't always do so well with set codes and laws; he'll respect laws where they're beneficial, sidestep them where they're harmful, and follow the spirit rather than the letter. He will, generally, be a Good Person, although he can be very pointy and vicious if he feels there's a reason. So that "Predator/Creeper" thing that skeeves people out occasionally? It's leashed and focused and he takes his morals INCREDIBLY seriously.
3) HE'S KINDA PARANOID. Less so here since he's isolated from worrying about the Black organization, but even someone where his first impression is "ally/harmless" isn't safe from him continually cataloguing information, and anything that seems out of place or "wait wait that's not right" will get mentally flagged and he will be more cautious until he figures out why or what's up. If someone flags any of his "Might be dangerous" things, he'll be even worse about "must figure out everything I can about them". And yes, he does work via an unholy hybrid of Sherlock-style methods and behavioral analysis. He's also cynical and pragmatic-pessimistic, in the sense that if one prepares for and assumes all of the worst possibilities, they can continue on and be confident they're ready for the worst and can only be pleasantly surprised.
4) As mature as he is, he is a teenage boy, has moments of emotional stupidity/flounder, and while he's got a very good control on his hormones and pretty specific senses of what's attractive to him, he's more frustrated than repressed. ...Also a little confused/some of it's not entirely translating right in his head.
With a bit more poking:
1) He sits on a lot of people's secrets. Most of it he keeps pretty well buried, although some of it may come up if he's actually thinking about someone in that messy thoughtmap.
2) He knows he's on the trail of something massive and dangerous that's taken out entire police precincts, and has some clues that his father might've sold out to them, although it's a suspicion; he's really unsure of his current odds of living past 20.
4) On a more "issues he sits on" level, there is a good bit of resentment of being basically the one solving other people's problems that is, by now, pretty much taken for granted, and being "The Detective" and almost never "Hakuba Saguru, Human Being"; he does appreciate the gratitude he gets and that some of the would-be victims he's saved remember him, other than that, he's pretty much on his own and it does bother him. He doesn't get along with his family really, he doesn't get along with his peers etc. He's too attached to his morals and what he's decided he wants to be, other people be damned, to snap and go the other way, but there are times he's tempted to at least say "screw it" to the parts where he's TRYING to play by the rules and just drop off legal radar and go predator. Doesn't help that some form of that is the only thing he can think of right now that might give him a life expectancy. He COULD, if pushed, be a much bigger and pointier predator in mentality.
