Hsien was, in her heart, a lurker.

For all her thoughts and philosophies and understandings of the world she didn't exactly [i]post [/i]them. She just read all the correct people, built up silent disagreements with them, witnessed their arguments and identified the imperfections from a place of superiority. She didn't wade into the muck and [i]debate [/i]people. She didn't want to risk getting into an argument where she hadn't done the legwork, where everything was on the line, where the translation barrier between righteous thought and righteous speech was suddenly so intensely complicated.

So she froze up. In this moment she was just that: tail seven, suddenly under the scrutiny of the only eyes qualified to judge her. She felt tiny, blinded, scared, frozen in a defensive crouch. If there was a saving grace in this, her stunned null reaction looked anything but dangerous.

[Rejecting influence: 7. Clearing Insecure  by proving them wrong]