Static in Motion

Right, so. Antsy night here, so we're going to dump this into rambling a little on our system architecture. Beware, this will be wordy.

We all tend to have some kind of... resonance, to how we function. Everyone has certain environments they tend to excel at or places they may be able to help or support each other.

This is where the colors come in. These are VERY loose and abstract, but are mostly the fundamental emotions and outlook where people originated and how they operate now. People closer to a given emotion will be better at handling it or more liable to be present under those circumstances.

At this point in our system, everyone has had enough time and experience living to be more than the initial circumstances that spawned them, of course. We're more refined than narrow outlooks or perspectives or memories or origins. But still, anything to help resiliency and understanding, and this is where our system work leaves us for the moment.

The colors come from a lot of childhood journals and storywriting, especially dream journals we can trace back to some of the earliest experiences.

In almost all cases, people will have one color as a wellspring (the fundamental emotion of their origins and experience) and another as their filter (the lens through which they process the wellspring). Some people only have a wellspring and no filter; we call these people unfiltered or fundamentals. There's also some folx who have no wellspring and only a filter, who we're going with filter-only for until we come up with a better name.

We'll start with the colors themselves here, then we'll get to how wellsprings and filters work.

Blue
In Short	brief good
Driving Intent	"Things are truly good in a brief way"
Emotion	Joy
Dyad With	White (lasting bad/Despair)
Blue folx are absolutely best at living in the now. They tend to be a lot of big personalities. They know that happiness isn’t a forever thing, but are sure good at fostering it and enjoying it while it’s present. Overall, they tend to be bright and infectious and memorable.

White
In Short	lasting bad
Driving Intent	“Things are truly bad in a lasting way”
Emotion	Despair
Dyad With	Blue (brief good/Joy)
Appropriately contrasting with Blue, White folx have a hard time staying in reality. They tend to be at least one of fragile, prone to dissociating, or aloof. A lot of them come out of really unsubtle moments of trauma or mourning for them, and they’re not at all subtle about it.

Black
In Short	achievable good
Driving Intent	“Things will be better if I act”
Emotion	Hope
Dyad With	Green (lasting bad/Fear)
Black is the aspect of realizing things that could be. The people here are dream-chasers, what-ifs and course-correctors and supporters and cheerleaders. They’re aggressively driven to be the help we needed, or to just leave a bit of kindness in their wakes.

Green
In Short	preventable bad
Driving Intent	“Things will be worse if I don’t act”
Emotion	Fear
Dyad With	Black (achievable good/Hope)
Greens fall somewhere between anxious messes, paranoid, or cassandras. They’re incredibly good at planning, making contingencies, and reacting to threats. They’re prone to worry spirals and potential meltdowns, but nobody will get you out of danger with more clarity and effort than someone Green will. A few of them attempt to break their origins by kill-or-cure diving into fear, so some of them use their preparation to be daredevils about it.

Bronze
In Short	creation and healing
Driving Intent	“I can make things better by enkindling something”
Emotion	Courage
Dyad With	Grey (destruction and harm/Anger)
Bronze folx are overtly driven, and more than any other color are prone to extreme hyperfixation. They’re the wonder-workers, the ones who will slam through many pages of writing in a single night or finish some languishing code or otherwise just *get shit done*. They tend to be pretty infectious about it, and generally will sweep you up in it if they have a chance.

Grey
In Short	destruction and harm
Driving Intent	“I can make things better by diminishing something”
Emotion	Anger
Dyad With	Bronze (creation and healing/Courage)
Grey people are one of two things: on, or off. If they’re off, they’re very liable not to be fronting at all. Being “on” generally means one thing: undoing or changing something uncomfortable or threatening. They’re prone to tunnel-vision, and cross destructive, hurtful lines easier than anyone else. These are the people who’ve been at the helm for things that have left others fearful or resentful. Greys are the people of bared teeth, of voiced threats and don’t-you-dares.

Tan
In Short	control
Driving Intent	“I can control this”
Emotion	Calm
Dyad With	Purple (helplessness/Pain)
Tans overall tend to be chill, measured, and mature. They’re frequently support players, helping mitigate or assist the VERY LOUD PRESENCES of others. Sometimes they err into being control freaks or dispassionate or detached, but as a whole you can trust they’re going to stay the course.

Purple
In Short	helplessness
Driving Intent	“I can’t control this”
Emotion	Pain
Dyad With	Tan (control/Calm)
Purple people are almost always, in some shape, out of control. They tend to be amplifiers in the same way Tans tend to be mitigators, which means they can bring out the extremes in people. Extremity in general is where they exist, usually in either some sense of defeatism or unresisted following of some kind of drive. Notably, Purples are also the “newest ones,” as they’re more directly a reckoning with our adult experiences and situations than most everyone else.