InsaneJournal

Introduction

Some people like to say personality quizzes and "Harry Potter sorting quizzes" are a crock of shit, but in so many ways they help me understand myself and my characters better. I've taken multitudes of personality quizzes for all my characters, as a way to check and balance myself in my writing.

I don't like all of my characters feeling like I'm writing the same person with a different name, so when I take personality quizzes and they all give me a wildly different answer per character, it lets me know I'm going in the right direction.

16personalities, all those little quizzes on SimilarMinds.com, the "moral alignment" chart from DnD, I absorb all of that information like a sponge. I have two characters that are ENFPs, one that's an ENFJ-A, and a few others I can't quite remember at the moment.

Christian's Personality

In a situation where people don't know his family history, Christian is actually very charismatic, albeit introverted and private. He's a tough shell to crack, but deep down he's pretty soft.

"Despite his cynical exterior, he had a good heart, and Lissa owned most of it." - Rose, Blood Promise.

He's never been much of a nasty person, at all. It's very easy for him to make and keep friends, though he's really not a "bubbly social butterfly" by any means. Half of him cares about making a good social impression on people, but the other half of him knows that, at the end of the day, he can't please everybody and shouldn't try to, either. His naysayers, as far as he cares, can go and kick rocks.

Christian will never apologize for being who and what he is, Strigoi parents and Tasha be damned. They made their choices, and he's going to make his. He wants to make a good name for himself.

He's witty, intelligent, introspective, and (at times, brutally) honest. He's sensitive and loyal to those he cares about. He doesn't sugarcoat things to save your feelings, because sometimes, you need tough love. He isn't going to tell you what you want to hear, he's going to tell you what you need to hear.

According to the Myers-Brigg test, Christian is an INFJ-T, or a Turbulent Advocate.

According to 16Personalities.com, "Advocates indeed share a unique combination of traits. Though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in. They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain."

This could not be truer for Christian. Christian isn't a very selfish person, except in the case of one thing - and that's for his people, the Moroi, to be able to use their magic as a weapon against the Strigoi that regularly threaten their livelihood.

For a long time, there was a law preventing his people from learning how to use their magic for self-defense. Christian did not subscribe to this belief, as he's been in more than one situation where his skills in fire magic literally saved peoples lives, and his own.

Christian is passionate, determined, and altruistic. He has serious goals in his life that he knows can change the lives of others for the better. Though his desire to learn how to fight is largely selfish, his desire can help other people if he can make it come true, and he doesn't see the harm in that. He knows there's many people that object to his viewpoint and are consistent to misinterpret his ideals as "forcing Moroi to fight for themselves", which is not at all the truth.

He simply wants them to be able to defend themselves if trouble comes, but his goal was never to force them to fight for themselves.

Christian's Values

Christian has always had somewhat twisted morals, but he would never kill someone unless they were an immediate and dangerous threat to somebody he cared about. For the most part, he believes in doing the right thing, and he doesn't care if he has to break the rules to do it.

Above all, Christian values honesty, resourcefulness, loyalty, ambition and self-preservation.

Self-preservation, resourcefulness, ambition, and cunning were part of his upbringing with his aunt Natasha, as she held to many of these values when she was his legal guardian, after his parents died.

Both Christian and Tasha had to grow up a lot faster than others in their world, because for a long while, all they really had was each other. Tasha was his best friend. His sister. His mother figure. His mentor. She was his world, and they had to find a way to survive together as a young adult and child.

Money wasn't an issue, they both had trust funds in the bank that took care of whatever they needed. As for things like self-defense, Tasha spared no expense making sure she and Christian would never be caught vulnerable, again.

Christian is okay with lying in some situations. He is cunning when the situation calls for it, like when lives are at stake and everything rides on him being deceitful, and he's quite good at lying where he's not so good at compulsion. Other than that, he hates lying. He has been betrayed by his own family on numerous accounts.

Once you've betrayed him, it is possible for him to forgive you, depending on what you did and the situation, but it may take a long time for him to trust you, again.

As for most of his family, they turned their backs on him and Tasha when they needed them the most, and so he chose to close his heart off and keep to himself. The only person he cared for or trusted, for a while, was Tasha.

In the place of having friends, Christian turned to training with Tasha, learning how to cook, reading books in the church attic, and being the "fly on the wall". He is observant of his surroundings and uses his knowledge to his advantage.

"I saw him because I see everything.
Easy when no one notices you."
- Christian, Vampire Academy

Christian tends to live in his own mind, and sometimes it can get the best of him. He's self-conscious, and it tends to get in the way of what he wants. Being noticed by someone like Vasilisa Dragomir, who is almost his polar opposite, threw him for a loop. However, he learned they both have a decent amount in common and it didn't take long for him to develop feelings for her.

However, his weakness is also his strength. Christian is very insightful and because he's so observant, he sees patterns and things that nobody else might have thought of. He's highly intuitive and is quick to "put two and two together". His way of thinking rides more on logic than emotion, though his emotions have also gotten the better of him in the past.

Christian is ambitious and wants to succeed in life. He wants to be recognized for his actions, and his actions alone. He doesn't want people to see him and see only his family name and the baggage it brings.

His two biggest ambitions are:

• Abolish the law that prevents Moroi from fighting - So nobody has to ever go through what he went through.
• Become a professional chef - one of his greatest comforts when he was isolating himself was his culinary science class, where he discovered his passion for cooking.

He is loyal only to those that have proven to be loyal to him, and he is fiercely protective of those he loves, willing to kill for them if push comes to shove.

Christian is a bona-fide Slytherin.