Scott McCall is a Hufflepuff primary: his morality (why he does things) is based in fairness, in people and the idea that every single one deserves consideration, in community and in loyalty. He’s a Puff secondary, too: his best methods (aka his secondary) (aka how he does things) are compassion, team building, and helping others. (Hello Mr. Every Time Someone is in Pain I Take it on Myself).
But Scott thinks the way he is supposed to act is brave, direct, and forceful. So he tries. He models Gryffindor, and he has nightmares about that particular bravery’s violent extremes.
Once upon a time on a little show called Teen Wolf, Stiles Stilinski told Scott McCall he didn’t have to save everyone, and Scott gave him the blankest, most incomprehending look imaginable.
Stiles is a Slytherclaw— the precise, ruthless loyalties of a Slytherin Primary acted out by a Ravenclaw secondary’s planning, strategy, research, and learning. The kid reeks Slytherin. Refusing to tell his father about the supernatural, to keep him safe, even at the expense of other people’s lives— Stiles only backed down then at the terrible might of Scott’s puppy dog eyes, which: understandable.
Let’s kill Jackson, says Stiles, because he doesn’t care. In Allison’s voice that would have the ruthlessness of idealism, not “he’s not one of mine.” I guess a good distinction would be this: Allison would consider killing Scott, if he was murdering people, and Stiles never would. (This is not indicative of a greater connection between brother and brother or lover and lover; this is just pointing out that Allison would do, first, what was right (she would certainly fight her hardest to save Scott, but if there were truly no other options she would sacrifice him).
Stiles’s morality doesn’t work like that. He would keep his father in the dark even if it meant letting people die, because his father’s life is more important to him than theirs. Stiles is a Slytherin with a very short list of people.
I think in the S1 Stiles might have modeled Slytherin Secondary on top of his Ravenclaw secondary. He’s into manuevering and deception a lot more then than he is in the later seasons— especially after the nogitsune.
“I’m 147 pounds of skin and bones; sarcasm is my only defense.” I think that says a lot of it— Stlies has been becoming more and more powerful in his own Ravenclaw skills, enough that he can rely on them instead of hiding behind Slytherin modeling. I’m not sure he feels safer (the world keeps getting more dangerous) but he’s been up against enough now to know that he can survive, and that what keeps him safe tends to be his steady mind and anxious preparations.
Lydia is a Ravenclaw/Ravenclaw who models Slytherin Secondary (eight million times better than Stiles does) and performs Puff (about as badly as Stiles models Slytherin—you can tell she’s putting it on for politeness, when she smiles and doesn’t mean it).
In this way, her and Stiles’s journeys parallel each other, which makes their friendship one of my favorites. They’re both slowly coming to accept and value their Ravenclaw— to recognize that this is a kind of strength and perhaps even beauty; and that it is theirs.
Until Lydia starts breaking, she almost looks like a Slytherpuff—or, well, a Slytherin/Slytherin with a Puff performance. Her Puff is really unconvincing. But her outward facade of Slytherin Primary is magnificent. Even in the first season, though, her Claw peeks its head out now and then.
(Also: it looks like Lydia’s mom is a Ravenpuff? Which makes me wonder where Lydia learned that she should be a Slytherin. Because she’s so ashamed of her Ravenclaw, early on, both the primary’s idealism and the secondary’s intelligence and curiosity. She has this idea that beauty and power are the things required of her and that she must fulfill them. Only her world shattering around her made her vulnerable enough to reassess and embrace her Ravenclaw. It makes me want to meet her father, or other formative influences in her life, and perhaps see what her mother acted like in that marriage).
Alison Argent takes up her family’s moral legacy and rewrites it in her own words. She does what she thinks is right in defiance of foes, friends, and family. When she decides what right is, when she has watched and learned the world around her and slowly, deliberately built her own code out of the truths she’s found there—then Allison goes after her goals with a single minded intensity and a direct, sometimes violent efficiency. This, my friends, is a Ravenclaw/Gryffindor and she is beautiful.
(ALLISON I HOPE YOU ARE ENJOYING BACKPACKING FRANCE WHILE YOU RECONNECT WITH YOUR COUSINS AND FIGHT FOR TOLERANCE IN THE HUNTER COMMUNITY. I LOVE HOW YOU CALL LYDIA ONCE A WEEK ON SKYPE.)
Malia and Stiles boned over their shared Slytherin primary, which delights me. Malia looks like a Slytherdor, but I wonder if she might be a Slytherin/Slytherin who’s living in her “neutral state” because she doesn’t give a toot. I think if Malia needed to, she’d be happy to lie, coerce, adapt, transform to get what she wanted. She just so far doesn’t think highly enough of anyone to manuever in any way but straightforwardly.
Kira is a Gryffinpuff, I think. She’s certain and forward and brave, and she goes after her goals with kindness and determination.
Derek is a Hufflepuff with a Claw secondary. “We’re brothers now,” he tells this young kid just because the kid got chewed on by his uncle. He is desperate for community (see: the terrible choices of the Worst Alpha Ever aka S2). Even when he’s creepy (often), even when he’s a failwolf (…more often), he’s doing things to help people simply because they are people.
But he was going to kill Lydia, right? When we thought she was the kanima. Yes, he was— to save other people. Scott, wasn’t, but they’re both still Puffs, because Derek is what happens when a kid like Scott loses hope—or gets a truer idea of the real world, depending on who you ask.
Scott doesn’t believe in victories that come with comprimises attached. He doesn’t believe in heroism with trade-offs and consequences. Scott was going to save Lydia. But Derek? One girl’s life to stop a monster? He was going to save everyone else.
(Which— he was wrong, it was Jackson, you failwolf. But I’m more interested in both of their why’s than I am in the realities of the fictional situation).
Derek, like Scott, also models Gryffindor and probably… shouldn’t. He’s worse at it than Scott is. Which, like, wow. Calm down kiddos, please. Neither of you wants to be alpha dog, not really. Embrace your inner pack mom. Take pain from people and take Kira leather jacket shopping and brush the hair out of Cora’s face and hold Lydia’s hand when she’s making hard decisions about what kind of person she wants to grow up to be. Here are your strengths, boys. Here is your heroism.
THE PARENTS
Melissa McCall, Mama McCall, the beacon of Beacon Hills, is a Slytherdor. Her son’s in danger? She will forcibly waken one of her own patients when she herself has warned against it. She will sit with Ms. Yukimura and wonder why their children have to fight this war. (Ms. Yukimura, who’s some sort of idealist House, will respond that otherwise they would be running and hiding, but Melissa will remain unconvinced because this is her boy).
Melissa’s a Gryff secondary because she is direct, no-nonsense, and doesn’t care if she steps on people’s toes on the way to her goals. She’s amenable up until someone gets between her and something she wants, or something she wants to protect.Melissa models Hufflepuff occasionally, sometimes at her job, but most often around her ex, which makes me wonder if Melissa used to be a Slytherpuff, or a Huffledor, but went “no, screw this!” at the same time she threw her husband out of the house.
PapaArgent, I think, House shares with Derek Hale: Hufflepuff (his morality is informed strongly by the people he loves: his father and sister, and then his daughter; the best argument to get to him in S1 is “Scott hasn’t hurt anyone yet”) with a Ravenclaw primary (plans, preparation, and knowledge), and a Gryffindor modeling because it’s what his family expects of him.
Scott doesn’t have that many Hufflepuff role-models, does he? His mom, who is extraordinary and wonderful, is a Slytherdor. You can get farther from Puff/Puff but it’s hard. He doesn’t particularly bond with Papa Argent.
The best role model is probably Sheriff, who might be a Puff primary, but who Gryffindor secondaries so competently. Gryffindor secondaries just aren’t where Scott’s skills lie. Or maybe he could find a role model in Deaton, who models Puff but I think Deaton’s really just a Ravenclaw/Ravenclaw. The Puff all goes away when things get serious.
No wonder the kid isn’t comfortable with his Puff. All of his heroes win their wars in other ways.
THE VILLAINS
Peter is a burned Hufflepuff. Literally. People who aren’t his family have ceased being people to him. He presents effectively as a rather nasty Slytherin, but I do think it’s ultimately coming from a Hufflepuff place. But maybe I’m wrong and he really is as simply and shallowly selfish as he seems. … yeah that’s quite possible.
Peter’s got a slimy Slytherin secondary, and he models Ravenclaw, which is the Chessmaster set up, the mold for the manipulative schemer who (would like to think he) is two steps ahead of everyone.
(This is opposed to just a Slytherin, where you get adaptable and interpersonally effective tactics, but no long term “mwuahaha” strategy, and just Ravenclaw (think Sokka. think later seasons Stiles) where you just have the strategist).
Gerard, the manipulative douchebag, is a Slytherin/Slytherin who performs Gryffindor to cajole people like Kate and Allison into following him.
Kate is a Gryffindor/Slytherin who models and performs Gryffindor. I’m so sorry Gryffindors.
Note: in the way we like to play this sorting game, “primaries” are WHY you do things and “secondaries” are HOW. If you want to learn more about our system’s definitions, check out our other tumblr posts, our blog at sortinghatchats.wordpress.com, or our quiz at https://ejadelomax.itch.io/sortinghatchats.
Lizzie Bennet values her sisters more than anything. She is not just confused but sometimes horrified when others don’t intuitively perform or understand that. The way Darcy eventually wins her over is by doing kindnesses and reparations for her sisters (without any clear aim to gain praise or recognition), and by letting Lizzie see him interact fondly with his own sister.
Lizzie’s drive is based around her own aspirations and the people she loves; she’s a Slytherin Primary, with a loud Gryffindor Secondary. Most adaptions of Elizabeth Bennet seem to make her this Slytherin/Gryffindor – she is one in the original source material, and those themes of healthy selfishness, close personal dedication to her loved ones, and forthright manner have carried over.
As a Gryffindor secondary, Lizzie can’t keep thoughts to herself, and she can’t be anything but herself. Where Darcy stumbles into social interactions overburdened with scripts and plans, Lizzie barrels through them and often gets herself in trouble with the way she instinctively, honestly, and thoughtlessly reacts to what she encounters. She drives herself almost completely on intuition and assumption. It screws her up sometimes, but that same burning Gryffindor Secondary is what draws people in her wake like eager moths.
Darcy is a Hufflepuff Primary, burnt by George Wickham and others. He’s defensive and suspicious of charisma, and he circles anxiously and sternly around the few people he holds in his good graces– Gigi, Bing Li, Fitz, sometimes Caroline, and eventually Lizzie.
The boy can’t improvise worth anything– neither the reactive Gryffindor or the adaptable Slytherin Secondary is for him. Darcy is practical rather than emotional (or would like to be). He builds thriving systems and approaches social situations with a stiff set of social scripts and rules. It’s a Ravenclaw Secondary’s system-building and prep where he excels. It’s his Hufflepuff Primary’s essential generosity and goodness which causes big hearts like Fitz and Bing to flock close, support him, and sing the taciturn kid’s praises.
Lovely, giving, beautiful Jane is a Hufflepuff/Hufflepuff in a nest of Slytherins (Lydia, Lizzie, Caroline, and likely Ms. Bennet as well, though she’s so much a caricature in this, by design). Jane’s kindness is not so much a choice as a willingly held obligation; by right of their being a person, every other individual deserves her time and the benefit of her doubts. And Jane fulfills her Puff Primary obligations to all people with kindness, patience, tolerance, tea making and cookie baking– common skills of the traditional Puff secondary.
Luckily, kind Bing, who looks at her like she’s made of sunshine, is also a Puff/Puff. Even his great failure, in listening to Caroline’s ploys and Darcy’s honest worries, originates there – he’s much to apt to take people at face value and not question their judgements or their accuracy. But once he gets his head out of his, well, um (with Darcy’s repenting help) Bing and Jane are very well matched. They’re likely to give too much to other people, but at least Jane, who gives too much, and Bing, who trusts too much, have a romantic partner who will repay them in kind and never take willing advantage.
Lydia is a Slytherin/Slytherin, and a reactive one. Her actions are driven not by ideals but by who she thinks is currently the most loyal to her. The tumble down into her consuming and abusive relationship is fueled by her feeling spurned and betrayed by her family, all of whom she holds close. This is also why she shatters so hard when she’s betrayed at the end of the series– once again, she has been burned (this time so much more severely) by the people she chose to give her Slytherin loyalty to. Only the rekindled (or rediscovered) love from her family stops her from what may have been the beginning of a spiral toward petrification.
She uses performances almost constantly, and it’s a testament to her actress that we can tell that sometimes she believes her own performances, and other times she doesn’t. But in both cases, Lydia puts them on and carries them not because they are a buffer between her and the world but because they’re how she best likes to interact with it. This adaptability as a solid nature is her Slytherin Secondary, and it’s there for Lydia when she starts to spiral as much as it is when her world is filled with joy.
Caroline Li is also a Slytherin/Slytherin – ambitious, possessive, and manipulative, she’s a classic example of the maligned Slytherin/Slytherin as a villain.
Charlotte, who “leaves” Lizzie for Collins&Collins, who loves quietly and practically and well, who eyes Lizzie’s fiercely possessive Slytherin with a kind of wry, fond confusion, is an Idealist Primary– Ravenclaw or Gryffindor.
From the way Charlotte deliberates over her choices and the way she makes choices she *thinks* are right, rather than *feels* are right, she’s likely a Ravenclaw Primary. Her instincts don’t tell her to take Mr. Collins offer, her practicality and her well-thought-out ambitions do (and it’s the right choice, go Charlotte).
For secondary – the way Charlotte shows affection, or one of the ways, is to do service for her friends and family (this suggests Hufflepuff secondary). She edits Lizzie’s videos. She gives her little sister the internship opportunity and tries to make it effective and educational. She excels at Collins&Collins by being clever and prompt but I think her greatest successes come from a dedication to hard work, a willingness to ladder-climb and put in her time, and an ability to honestly and genuinely decide to like and value people like Mr. Collins.
Charlotte’s deliberation and organization suggest Ravenclaw, but I think that’s just something she models, a tool set she’s found useful and developed. I think her actual secondary is Hufflepuff– hard work, service, tolerance, and an ability for decisive fondness that’s as useful as it is nice.
tl;dr
Lydia, Lizzie, and Caroline are all Slytherin Primaries, with their greatest priorities laid on their personal worlds and the people they love. Lydia and Caroline rock the adaptive (and sometimes manipulative) Slytherin Secondary, while Lizzie charges in and bowls the world over with her Gryffindor Secondary.
Darcy and Charlotte, Lizzie’s most important non-family people, are switched, which is interesting: Darcy has the Hufflepuff Primary’s dutiful generosity with a side of its optional stuffiness, where Charlotte has the steady service and adaptable warmth of the Puff secondary. Charlotte, then, has the constructed and thought-out decision making of the Ravenclaw Primary where Darcy has its deliberate and effective system building as his secondary.
Bing Li and Jane are a matched pair of Hufflepuff/Hufflepuffs, possibly too nice for this world and the nest of beautiful snakes that inhabit it.
Note: in the way we like to play this sorting game, “primaries” are WHY you do things and “secondaries” are HOW. If you want to learn more about our system’s definitions, check out our other tumblr posts, our blog at sortinghatchats.wordpress.com, or our quiz at https://ejadelomax.itch.io/sortinghatchats.
Malcolm Reynolds is our go-to example for the Burned Hufflepuff Primary. An Unburned Hufflepuff Primary values community, fairness, and empathy. A Burned Hufflepuff still has those inner values, but thinks it’s impractical, naive, unsafe, or foolish to prioritize them. They tend to think of themselves as bad people – practical, sensible, maybe, but not very good.
It can be tempting to consider Mal perhaps a burned Gryffindor instead, but look at him in the war, before he burns. His faith isn’t in the righteousness or the cause, but their people—”hear that? That’s our angels coming.” Mal has a big heart and he wants both to help and to believe in other people. (This is one of the reasons River is so vital to him—but we’ll talk about that later).
Mal after the war is no different in what he wants — he’s just had to settle, injured, for a smaller world. “You’re on my crew,” he tells a bewildered Simon. (Simon’s Slytherin Primary is absolutely flabbergasted by Mal’s stubborn loyalties to him and River, which is based in their need and their being part of the family, where Simon’s loyalties are razor-edged and individualistic).
Mal can’t love the whole world anymore, or even just the Browncoats, because he knows that would destroy him— it already almost did. But he can love his crew. He can make Serenity a home.
Mal’s Puff Primary shows up in other places, too, sneaking past the Slytherin Primary model he’s used to keep himself alive and sane after the breaking of his too-big heart, like when he gives the medicines back in Train Job, risking Niska’s wrath.
Zoe, who first fell into step behind a Hufflepuff years ago, questions him about it in the movie—an unburned Mal, the one from the war, would never have left a man behind. This Mal shot the bystander begging for rescue (a mercy) to save his crew. That prioritizing (or, rather, the instantaneous decision of it) points to his Slytherin model—but it eats Mal up the way it would never eat up Simon, an actual Slytherin Primary (“remember, River, it’s okay to leave them to die”).
Mal wishes, deeply, quietly, that he could save everyone. But war and loss burned his young, faithful Hufflepuff into a man who thinks one of the basic truths of the universe is that you can’t save everyone and that it will destroy you to try. So he’s sunk his stake into these eight Serenity-boarded souls and decided it’s enough.
This is one of the things that makes his relationship with River so interesting. The Burned Puff knows he should not be trusting and investing in this broken bird and her verse-wide bounty, her untrustworthy triggers and destructive lethality. But in letting them stay in the pilot, in pulling her back to the ship in Objects in Space, in joining her crusade in Serenity, he defies all these hard lessons he’s learned and he trusts her, he fights for her, he believes. By ignoring his “better judgement” and investing in this one unlikely young woman, he’s starting to heal his Hufflepuff and have faith in the good fight once again. The last moment of the Firefly-filmed universe is Mal Reynolds teaching River how to fly.
(For a definition of teach, anyway.)
For secondary (the “how”) — Mal’s a Gryff. “If I shoot you,” he told Simon, “You’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed.” Badger mocks him for it in the pilot— Mal wants the world to be honorable. He wants to be fighting the good fight, and he wants to do it in the good ways.
Gryffindor secondaries are an interesting mix of stand-up integrity and mischievous (even deceitful) rule-breaking and chaos (think Fred and George). These potentially conflicting traits come from this— Gryffindor Secondaries are self-defined.
Their integrity and their honesty is a deal with themselves, not others. They stand firm to their own rules, but find other peoples’ or organizations’ insignificant, or even downright offensive. The other secondaries all can and do break rules—a Slytherin Secondary might play the system, a Hufflepuff Secondary might invest in it, a Ravenclaw might find its loopholes—but a good rule of thumb for identifying a Gryffindor Secondary is this: is rule-breaking a tool? or is it a personality trait?
Simon, who destroyed his whole life to get to River, and was willing to let Kaylee (the epitome of the innocent bystander) bleed out in order to keep his sister safe, is a Slytherin Primary. He looks slightly Puff occassionally—this is because he’s tied part of his worth to the Puff-like doctrine of a surgeon: service and do no harm. You see it when he saves the patient on Ariel and then chews the attending physicisian out, offended to his core. These are beliefs he holds close to himself, that help define him—but at Simon’s core, no matter how Ravenclaw clever or kindly even bumblingly Hufflepuff he can seem, he puts his people first and he loses no sleep over that.
He’s got a Ravenclaw Secondary—asked to describe his usefulness, Simon would first and foremost claim his intelligence and his skills. He’s best when he’s in his “element,” drawing on skills, knowledge, and tolls he’s already learned and comfortable with.
Simon’s got a Slytherin Secondary model on top of his Slytherclaw heart, which I suspect he learned from his dad. The Ravenclaw/Slytherin combo in the secondary/model space (in either order) often looks a little bit like a criminal mastermind (or someone who wants to be one, anyway). When Simon is uncomfortable, falling back on his model, his starts to look a bit like a plotting villain—in the pilot, on Ariel, and at the beginning of Serenity the movie.
Zoe is a Gyffindor Primary who really likes Hufflepuffs (see: Mal, Wash). Like Mal, she’s been burned by the war. Puff Primary Mal has become disillusioned by a cruel ‘verse that requires you to abandon some people to save others. He has lost faith in both the fairness of the universe and his own ability to make it more fair. But Zoe, a burned Gryff, has lost faith in her own ability to tell right from wrong.
She’s not deeply burned—more a light char—but instead of trusting her own gut these days, she trusts Mal’s. Her internal moral compass feels like it’s gone awry or silent. She feels lost. This is a burned Gryffindor, and it’s not uncommon for a burned Gryffindor to try to find their morality somewhere outside themself. Zoe finds hers in Mal.
Part of it is that she knew him in the war when he was fearless, his Puff effortless, and because it’s easy for her to fall into the structured hierarchy of their roles– sergeant or captain. She has given him not just practical but also moral authority. She questions him, but she trusts him in the end, almost always. And, though it’s framed within the “sir” and the war, the reason for it lies on the quality of Mal himself. Zoe would never give her allegiance to anyone who did not deserve it. But she feels she cannot trust her own internal compass, so instead she trusts Mal’s heart.
For secondary: Zoe does not charge, comfort, or connive. She’s straightforward because it’s useful, not because it’s a moral imperative. Ravenclaw Secondary I think—look at the comparison with Mal’s Gryff Secondary in the “tin of beans” flashback in The Message. Where Mal shouts and hollers and charges, a different school of thought, Zoe is organized, efficient, deliberate (and deadly).
The way Inara freaks out and skiddaddles when she realizes how important the Serenity crew (and esp. Mal) have become to her — that is a Slytherin Primary trying so hard to Petrify. She’s mourning Nandi and she’s mourning herself, and she just wants everything to stop hurting.
Inara looks a lot like a Puff Secondary, because she performs Hufflepuff so damn well, but she’s not. In her introductory scene, on the job, we get snatches of her “inner” thoughts while she smiles and pours tea— she’s sighing, shifting, rolling her eyes. There’s clearly a disconnect between how she feels about this man and what she’s doing.
A Slytherin/Hufflepuff Inara (which, on the very surface, would look very similar to most of her behavior) would have to convince herself to “mean” the affection for her clients, even if only for the allotted time slot. Eyerolling, internal or external, wouldn’t happen until she was back on the ship, curled up with Kaylee, telling stories, and that’s if the eye-rolling happened at all.
Inara talks like that, though—that she chooses people she ‘connects’ with, that kind of thing. She’s got a lot of respect and wishfulness when it comes to Hufflepuff, which I think is where she bonds best with Book— he performs Puff, too, and wishes that giving warmth was closer to his core.
Inara has a Slytherin Secondary model, which she uses to excel at the “performance” of her job. The flexibility and cultivated appearance of that secondary work for her well. However, her actual secondary is Ravenclaw, a learner, a studier, and a collector of skills. Slytherin’s adaptability is just one more skill her Ravenclaw has worked to learn.
When Inara’s with the crew, she tends to live simply in her Ravenclaw secondary, giving off an impression of precision, clarity, and certainty. Her Ravenclaw and Mal’s Gryffindor secondary, both strident, solid houses, like to have sparring matches/bonding times while their Loyalist House primaries make doe-eyes at each other. Dweebs.
Jayne Cobb displays neither a Slytherin Primary’s strong loyalty drive, a Hufflepuff’s need-based service, or a Ravenclaw’s constructed, systematized morality. He appears to be a Gryffindor Primary whose felt morality is “whatever I want.”
If you read him really complexly, you could maybe imagine a Ravenclaw Primary there, who’s settled on that morality of self-serving ruthlessness. But moments like the one where he joins up with Serentiy—he shoots both his buddies on Mal’s suggestion—suggest against that. The betrayal doesn’t make Ravenclaw any more unlikely than Gryffindor, but the instantaneous decision to make a moral choice he’d never considered or run through his system before suggests that his is an intuitive “gut” morality—just a really unsavory one.
His selfishness looks temptingly like a Slytherin Primary, but he lacks any of the loyalty. He’ll betray anyone and it doesn’t seem to be because he’s Petrified—he still likes and bonds with people. He cares not just practically but emotionally about what they think of him (his plea to Mal not to tell the others about his betrayal in Ariel). But when push comes to shove, he doesn’t seem to be driven strongly by that affection, the way a Slytherin is tied to their personal loyalties. A Gryffindor, then, just an ugly one. Sorry, Gryffindors.
His secondary, though, we think is Slytherin. He looks a lot like a blunt Gryffindor Secondary, but it’s just his Slytherin Secondary neutral state, which he likes to live in and which shares the blunt or even abrasive honesty and delighted tactlessness of some Gryffindor Secondaries.
When Jayne needs to lie, deceive, connive, or betray, he does it easily and without a touch of dismay. He schemes and jockies for advantage. He’s a good example of the uglier stereotypes of a Slytherin Secondary. Sorry, Slytherins.
Kaylee Frye is a Gryffindor Primary like Jayne and Zoe, but where Jayne’s is self-serving and Zoe’s is quietly shattered, Kaylee’s shines bright through her Hufflepuff Secondary. She community-builds like nobody’s business and even her technical prowess is described in terms of intuitive empathy.
In the episode where they pick up Simon and River, she’s sitting outside Serenity asking people why she should let them onto her ship, why they want to be on her ship. And the only answer she accepts, Book’s, is a philosophy of wandering and traveling that sits close to her heart. It’s a Gryffindor recognizing someone who looks to share her view of the world. It’s a Gryffindor who’s bonding over shared ideas and ideals. And what does she do with this information? She brings Book aboard the ship. Welcome to the family, you share our philosophies, and I think we’ll get along great.
One of the (many) ways she does her part on Serenity is by community building with people who are good, who are worth getting to know, or who are interesting– who aren’t just picking their ship because it’s a ship that they happened to see, but because they’re able to pick up on that something special that Kaylee values so much about Serenity.
Book is a burned Gryffindor with a Slytherin secondary and a Hufflepuff performance. He’s devoted himself to the truth of the Word, of the Bible, of his religion– like, Zoe he doesn’t have faith in his own ability to tell right from wrong. Where Zoe places her faith in Mal, Book places his in his religion.
His secondary is a bit hard to sort, but from his laid-back, go with the flow skills and his comfort with lying or gilding the truth, he reads as a Slytherin Secondary to us.
Wash is a hard sort, because you can read or not read so many different depths to him. Is he really as utterly transparent as he seems? He looks like a Hufflepuff Primary, but maybe he’s a Ravenclaw with a loud model—because if he’s a straight up Puff, then the boy wears his heart and thoughts on his sleeve all the time.
But Zoe has a pattern—she likes Puffs—so we’re gonna go with that.
Wash really is that honest and straightforward, his emotions obvious on his face. I think someone with the sort of built layers that are easy but not necessary to read into Wash wouldn’t be the kind Zoe would fall in love with. She likes hearts that know what they’re doing, that are instinctual in their kindnesses. Wash is himself, all the time, and that self plays with dinosaurs, loves his wife, and headbutts with Mal over ethics with the thoughtless confidence of two Puffs who disagree.
Ravenclaw Secondary—he’s quirky, delights in sarcasm and wit even when what he’s trying to be is kind. His Puff center makes his secondary look a lot warmer than burned Gryffindor Zoe’s Ravenclaw secondary, but the fact that this couple shares a secondary makes sense.
We think River was originally a Ravenclaw/Ravenclaw with Slytherin Primary and Ravenclaw Secondary models — basically, as a kid she modeled Simon’s Slytherclaw. She’s not a Slytherin Primary herself, but she finds comfort in Slytherin loyalty and she often sees the world through that lens—an emphasis on interpersonal connection, a sense of “mine first,” and loyalties owed.
By the time she’s on Serenity, however, she’s been rubbed so raw she doubts her Slytherin model (“I didn’t think you’d come for me” “Dummy,” says Slytherclaw Simon, who never could have done anything else) and she has almost entirely dropped the show-off Claw performance of the little girl who had corrected her big brother’s spelling. As the show goes on, she grasps more and more of her Slytherin model: she gets to bring back one of her layers, regain her trust in Simon’s Slytherin, rebuild her model of a world in which one universal truth is that her brother will always come for her.
But River’s drives and connection to the world are understanding it. She wants to know what’s going on, both in the observant, academic sense of the Ravenclaw Secondary and the more abstract Ravenclaw primary—she’s looking for purpose, shoulds and shouldn’ts, for identity.
A Slytherin Primary in her situation might have attached themselves to Simon like a baby sloth, but River doesn’t. He’s her solid ground, but not her reason.
A young Gryffindor might be reactive, responding with their gut, or perhaps cynical and shattered after their self had been so invaded. In rebuilding, a Gryffindor would be looking for something inside themselves, a sense of solidity, a sense of purpose — River is looking outside.
A Hufflepuff Primary might have clearer eyes for the people of the ship— River views them with a detached fondness. There is genuine affection there (see: Objects in Space), but when it comes to River feeling steady in the world she’s almost more interested in the engines than the crew— not their mechanics, but the beat of them.
She’s a Romantic sort of Ravenclaw Primary, sure, but she’s got a need for systems to build and inhabit. Her sense of reality has been shattered and the first thing that gives her some peace and stability is this — not safety, certainty, or community, but a sense of knowing what is going on.
River’s trying to figure out how this all works and the heart of this show (because River more than any of them lives in the meta-text) is Serenity.
River’s trying to find a base from which she can build. Her world, her models, and her ability to perceive and believe reality have been shattered. Mal pulls her back to the ship at the end of the last episode—it’s a homecoming, yes, but perhaps more than that he’s giving her a place to stand.
That episode is easily Firefly’s most existential/meta and it’s fitting that we start it with River detached from reality—ocean wave audio, mistaking a gun for a fallen branch, pushed to untrusted outskirts—and that we end it with River landing firmly feet first on Serenity, beaming through her suit visor.
Orphan Black is one of our favorite shows. Tatiana is extraordinary.
Note: the way we play this game, “primary” is WHY you do things and “secondary” is HOW. If you want to learn more about how we define things here, check out our tumblr or sortinghatchats.wordpress.com
Allison, probably one of the more frightening of the clones, is a Hufflepuff Primary/Gryffindor Secondary. Her worldview is wrapped around her little community of proper suburbs people, and all the expectations of culture and niceties that go with that. She’s a good example of a Hufflepuff who dehumanizes to shrink her circle of care — look at how she first reacts to “lowlife” Sarah. Allison’s classism defines the scope of her Hufflepuff; it’s when she reframes her sisters and sister-brother Felix as people that she circles the wagons around them.
Allison’s Gryffindor Secondary is what drives her brusqueness, honesty, and fervor. It’s what makes her tie her husband up in the basement; but it’s also one of the driving factors of their marriage — when they finally click again in the end of Season 2 it is with Donnie getting caught up in Allison’s strident Gryffindor Secondary’s certainty and leadership.
Sarah is a beautiful, beautiful Slytherin/Slytherin heroine. You don’t get that very often. She’s selfish and coarse (she spends a lot of time in her neutral state). She is intuitively comfortable with the manipulations and adaptability of the Slytherin Secondary. The shows takes and treats her Slytherin Primary’s loyalties of “mine first” as something admirable, powerful, and warm. It’s such a nice thing to see.
Helena has a burned secondary. Years of abuse and control have stripped that from her and she uses whatever tool falls into hand. From the second season, and the ways she likes to love and care, she might be growing into a Hufflepuff Secondary as she heals and rebuilds.
For Primary: The only way Helena was able to hunt down her sisters was to declare them “sheep.” She had to dehumanize them to be able to hurt them. Even when it is framed to her as “right” and “holy” — which a Gryffindor or Ravenclaw who valued her captors’ morality system would have latched onto— Helena turns it into a “them and us.” Or, often, “them and me.” I am real. They are not. I am the original and they are sheep for the slaughter.
A Slytherin might have turned it into something about her own safety, or in the valuing of the views of her captors and psuedo-family/handlers. Idealists would have convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, even if people got hurt. That need for dehumanization suggests a Hufflepuff Primary; and the way she jumps and hopes and loves so hard at the chance to have a family and sestras of her own backs up that sorting too.
Cosima is a Hufflepuff Primary, too. She loves easy and broadly, especially with the people who most fit into her communities (her clone family, and also other scientists, which is how Delphine first gets close). She is one of the driving organizers of the Clone Club— not with a Puff secondary’s warmth and community building, but a Hufflepuff Primary’s valuing of people and groups. They are important to her and she is spending her life (literally) trying to help her people.
Her Puff is also apparent in her interactions with Delphine — when Cosima continues loving Delphine it’s not with a Slytherin’s “mine” possessiveness which can bulldoze over flaws; or a Gryffindor’s ability to fully and intuitively forgive a changed soul. Cosima loves like a Hufflepuff — despite flaws. Delphine is a person, and a beautiful and brilliant one; Cosima may not trust her always, may disagree with and dislike her choices, might even leave or turn her back on her when Delphine goes too far, but Cosima will still love her. Because Delphine is a person, and people deserve that.
(Delphine is a Slytherin Primary, continuing that common tradition of squishy, driven Hufflepuffs and the flabbergasted Slytherins who fall helplessly into their orbit.)
Both Delphine and Cosima have Ravenclaw Secondaries delighted at the discoverable and quantifiable nature of the world. It can be an amazing thing to have a lover who looks at the world with the same flavor of joy as you do.
We haven’t seen enough of Tony to point out his Primary, though Slytherin isn’t unlikely. However, his Slytherin Secondary is easily identifiable and a delight.
Tony’s Slytherin was so striking and powerful it actually prompted us to change our ideas of Felix’s sorting. We had brother Felix sorted as a Puff Secondary— but when Felix got stuck in a room with Tony’s dynamic and honestly unsafe Slytherin, Felix’s own Slytherin Secondary rose to meet that threat and that… flirt.
Felix loves living in a model of a Hufflepuff Secondary, being kind and warm, teasing and friendly — but when prompted properly, apparently, that Puff is something he can just drop. (Which makes both Felix and Sarah Slytherin/Slytherins, except that Felix likes to pretend to be a Hufflepuff and Sarah doesn’t pretend to be anything.)
“It’s part of who Felix is is avoiding the deeper, murkier, messier territory and surfing the text and just surfing the surface of the character.
Tony offered me an opportunity to take the masks off, drop the theatrics, drop the defenses, the armor, and you see what real discomfort and fear looks like on this human being, this person. You saw him vibrate or exist in this fear; this uncertainty. And also, self-confront.
Tony holds a mirror up to Felix and, conversely, Felix holds up a mirror to Tony. And that was pretty spectacular” - Jordan Gavaris (Felix’s actor)
Rachel is a cold primary, certainly — either a Ravenclaw or a burned Slytherin. We think she’s the latter. Watching the home videos over and over again, stealing Kira, wanting her father so desperately— this is a woman who doesn’t have people but who wants them so badly. The beautiful scene with her and her drink in the video room, laughing and crying, is her re-burning I think, after allowing herself to hope for her father’s presence in her life.
The way Rachel achieves things is, while conniving, cold, and complicated, done in advance and from a distance. She needs control; plans and power, a particularly ruthless Ravenclaw secondary. There is nothing softening in Rachel. She uses her secondary like a scalpel and a noose. She sets traps and contracts, lays the groundwork, lets Dr. Leekie destroy his own self. It is with preparation and planning that she manages to snatch Kira, and it is Sarah’s adaptive, on-her-feet Slytherin secondary that so confounds and frustrates Rachel, who does not know how to respond to that kind of power.
tl;dr
Sarah is a Slytherin/Slytherin. Loyal and cunning, she puts her own self and people first with no qualms. So is Felix, but he likes to pretend to be a Hufflepuff when he can.
Rachel is a burned Slytherin/Ravenclaw.
Allison, Helena, and Cosima are all Hufflepuff Primaries, who love those they see as their kind of people. Allison has a forthright Gryffindor Secondary and Cosima an analytical Ravenclaw Secondary, while Helena, who has been burned bad, is growing back into a warm, community-building Hufflepuff Secondary.
Q:I was thinking about your system lately and I was wondering if it’d be accurate to say that someone’s secondary is where they’re most likely to be “mis-sorted”? And by the way, thank you for making this lovely blog ‘cause it’s really useful for character stuff. - Anonymous
First point: It depends what you mean by “mis-sorting.” It’s very important to my heart to affirm that even if you’re a Hufflepuff Primary by the way we define it, and a Gryffindor Secondary, but you say your House is Slytherin? You’re a Slytherin. Green and silver, lives under the lake, wave those colors proudly, buy that scarf. Even if you intuitively “need-base” in Hufflepuff ways and charge like a Gryffindor, if the thing you want/value most/call your own is the green and silver, you’re a snake, love, good and true. This is a story about choice.
However, in terms of Sorting inside our sortinghatchats system, which is less a claiming and more of a personality descriptor and analysis: a secondary (or even a model) can distract from the other parts of the Sorting.
I have strong opinions about the Pevensie children, for instance, that contradict with the classic sorting of Gryff Peter, Puff Lucy, Slytherin Edmund (let me rage against this), and Ravenclaw Susan.
The way we sort them in Primaries (WHY they do things):
duty-bound Peter is a Hufflepuff Primary
shining, faithful, certain Lucy is a Gryffindor Primary
methodical, deliberate Edmund, who decides to be Just and then never strays, is a Ravenclaw Primary
and Susan, dear Susan, is a Slytherin (or potentially a Gryffindor) who reclaimed her own life.
However, that classic sorting lines up perfectly with what I think their secondaries are (HOW they do things):
Brave Peter can be nothing but himself in the things he does (Gryffindor)
Lucy builds her power with kindnesses that nearly have birds flying in circles around her head (Hufflepuff)
Edmund is cunning and reactive, quick on his feet and improvisational, even if his reasons are hardcore Claw Primary (Slytherin)
Susan’s practicality, logic, and general distress at the madness that is Narnia are pretty solid Ravenclaw Secondary
I do think it’s a common phenomena, that the Houses people assign others match the thing Kat and I like to call a secondary. I think secondaries tend to be “louder” than primaries—people don’t normally sit you down and explain the rationale and prioritizing that led to their life choices and mottos. They do things in front of you, and those secondary actions are a lot more apparent than the inner motivations that determine the primary.
The people who do get Sorted into their primaries (or their models! That, too, is surprisingly common I think) tend to have LOUD primaries (or be protagonists in whose heads you live intimately).
Harry Potter himself, for instance, has a cute little Slytherin Secondary but a LOUD ALL-CAPS GRYFFINDOR Primary (and we’re conveniently privy to his innermost thoughts, which makes it more intuitive to sort him with his Primary first). Steve Roger’s stunningly effective Hufflepuff Secondary is overwhelmed by the sheer fervor of his Gryffindor primary and model. G(a)linda the Good Witch from Wicked has a Slytherin Primary so unapologetic that (to the audience, though not the citizens of Oz) it screams through even her three levels of Hufflepuff—secondary, model, and performance.
(Want to know more about what we’re talking about here? Check out our quiz and explanatory posts atsortinghatchats.wordpress.com)
New to sortinghatchats? In the way that we play this game:
Primary Houses are WHY characters act– their morals, their motivations.
Secondary Houses are HOW characters act– their methods, their means.
Want to learn more about the precise definitions we’re working off of here? Check us out at sortinghatchats.wordpress.com or read our basics page here.
Avatar the Last Airbender Conclusions:
Aang, Azula, and Toph are all Slytherin Secondaries– flexible, adaptive, and reactionary, they all apply the methods of that secondary very differently. Aang avoids, Azula manipulates, and Toph lands constantly on her feet.
Aang and Azula are also both Slytherin Primaries, though Azula is a Burned one, afraid of loss and clinging to fear rather than connection. Aang’s Slytherin loyalties peculiarly show themselves in his idealistic struggles near the end of the third season and his dedication to his pacifism – the Air Nomads’ pacifism is the last part of Gyatso and his people that are still alive and he doesn’t want to abandon that or them.
Toph is a Gryffindor Primary, who judges right and wrong by her gut and prioritizes most being true to herself and her feelings.
Katara and Zuko share a sorting – Hufflepuff Primary/Gryffindor Secondary. They both find their moralities shifting as their communities and their idea of who counts as a “person” expand. They both charge at injustices with both great effect & also sometimes great damage to themselves.
Sokka is a rare Ravenclaw Primary/Ravenclaw Secondary in this cast. He’s been told all his life he should be a Gryffindor, a brave leader, but he’s most at home as a learner, a strategist, an inventor.
Like Sokka, Katara has been told all her life she should be a Hufflepuff, care-giving and generous. While she does maintain some of those skills, she learns to embrace the fierce certainty of her Gryffindor Secondary and rock the boat.
Want to hear our full sorting for Avatar?
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podasts, or on Castos.
Your Primary House defines WHY you do things: your reasons, motivations, and drive. Your Secondary defines HOW: your methods, actions, and behaviors.
And these are my results: I’m a Slytherin Primary (Or possible Burned Hufflepuff Primary).
I care about those close to me, and I’d do almost anything for the people I consider my friends and family. I’m ambitious and I follow my own rules. I actually have a list of directions of how to react, act in and deal with certain situations. My empathy is actually rather low, so I learned my own brand of ‘empathy’ to make up for that, so I can be there for the people I care about. I can be selfish at times, or seem that way. My own desires are what drive me, a good portion of my desires though are for the people I care deeply about to be happy. I try to stick with the ones I care the most about.
I’m a Griffindor Secondary
I have my own rules that I abide by, and I meet my problems head on, I try my best to be and can be a lot of the times direct and blunt to the point of hurting peoples feelings. I hate going by the rules or being limited, I don’t like being told what to do and I adore chaos. I tend to find myself in situations where theres discord or strife and I can get carried away. I have my own brand of integrity and I absolutely will stand up for what I believe in. I know how to face my fears.
Hello, I hope you’re doing well! I’m having a lot of confusion over my secondary, so a second opinion to help me untangle things would be lovely.
I’m pretty confident I’m a Snake with a Badger model that determines what I do when my people aren’t involved. Essentially, people are always important, but my people are most important to me. When push comes to shove I will protect them first (or feel worse about myself if I fail to).
So far, so good.
I think my secondary is at least a little burnt, in part because I’ve always struggled with interacting with people and don’t tend to think of myself as someone who’s capable of making an impact in people’s lives when it matters. I can remember several situations where I didn’t reach out to someone who needed my help, especially one of mine, because I was convinced that person would never want help from me.
That’s proper burnt secondary talk. You knew what you wanted to do, you knew what would feel good to do, but you DIDN’T do it because you didn’t think it would work.
I know better than to do that now, and I’m trying to get better at believing in my own abilities (and the fact that other people can want me around). I’m hoping it’ll help to get a better idea of what those abilities even are.
You’re unBurning. Good.
I’ve thought ever since I first discovered this sorting system that I must be an improvisational secondary. I’ve never thought of myself as a fan of plans and prepwork - I get stressed out that I’ll forget important things and be left stranded. I remember back in high school when I was getting used to using public transport, my mum went with me to do a trial run of a route I needed to travel in advance.I was stressed enough about the event I was travelling to as it was, and the trail run made it so much worse, because there was so much to remember, what if I forgot something? What eventually made me feel more comfortable about it was trusting myself to figure it out on the day.
What a gorgeous way to explain the difference between a Built (prepwork) secondary and an Improvisational secondary. Trial runs make me feel somuch better and somuch more comfortable. And I’m a built secondary (and I bet your mom is too.)
Nowadays, when I’m travelling somewhere I’m unfamiliar with I’d much rather just leave half an hour early to give myself some breathing room in case I mess up.
Perfect. Excellent improvisational secondary problem solving.
Following strict schedules just trips me up too - say I’m doing classwork for the afternoon, for example, I need the freedom to be able to say that actually I’m more in the mood for Subject B than Subject A. I like having space to improvise, and I feel really proud of myself when I pull off something on the fly!
Once for a final exam in high school, we had to write an essay for The Lord of the Flies using a set of quotes from the text we’d chosen and memorised beforehand. The essay question was only revealed in the exam, and it turned out to be asking us to write an essay about one specific character - except I didn’t have enough quotes for any one character, I’d deliberately made them very spread out. What I did instead was to argue for the symbol of the Lord of the Flies as a character, and make each paragraph about each different character’s relationship to ‘him’ and what that relationship revealed about the characters, so I could make use of my range of quotes. I’m sure my writing wouldn‘t hold up now, I’ve gotten better at writing since then, but I still think of it as one of the essays I’m proudest of.
I would have given you an A. That sounds brilliant.
So that all seems to point to an improvisational secondary, but - reading about Rapid-Fire Birds has made me question whether that’s actually what I’m doing instead, and I have no idea how to tell. What‘s the difference between an improvisational secondary using information they already have to help them improvise, and a Rapid-Fire Bird doing the same thing? To what extent can Birds dislike relying on lists and planning?
You’re an Improvisational secondary. A pretty loud improvisational secondary (and almost certainly a Snake because you value the ability to pivot quickly so highly.) Rapid-fire birds can *look* like Snakes from the outside, but it’s a totally different internal experience. A rapid-fire bird might be comfortable improvising their bus route - but only in an area that they alreadyknow super well. Rapid-fire birds look like Snakes… as long as they are operating within their area of expertise, are coming from a place of strength.
And where does looking for more information while you solve a problem, rather than beforehand, fit within the secondaries?
Feeling more comfortable and confident looking *around* you while solving a problem (versus bringing in a bag of tricks at the start) is an Improvisational secondary thing.
When I’m involved in a debate about something that relies on a piece of information - a definition of a word, a statistic, some sort of other fact - I’m known as the person who’ll pull out my phone and say ’oh! I’ll Google it!’.
This might be a Bird [model] thing, but I’m inclined to think it’s just a person thing.
(Sometimes people don’t seem to get why I do that - they’ll say it looks like I’m taking things too seriously when it’s just a silly discussion for fun? But it just makes sense to me, we need information and that information is easily in reach, why shouldn’t I go get it, silly conversation or not?)
Okay, scratch that, I actually think this is a generational thing. *Baby Boomers* get annoyed at me when I do this.
I’m the same way when I research for writing. I don‘t tend to go looking for specific resources when I don’t have a story on them planned, but I love digging into specific subjects and resources and systems to ground a story in, once I have a concept to work with and I know what could be useful.
I love digging into complex systems in general, really (hello, sorting hat chats!). But it’s not like I do it because I think it’ll be useful later - unless I know it will be, because it’s relevant to a problem I’ve already been presented with. And I know just having nerdy interests does not a true Bird make.
I think you probably have a fun Bird model.
But if I’m not a Bird - or if it’s only a model - which improvisational secondary do I even have? I’ve always figured Lion seems more likely, because I’ve never related to the ‘silver-tongued’ skill of Snakes.
I wonder if you relate at all to the idea of single-player snake - constantly pivoting, using their environment, problem solving on the fly. I think of Scotty from Star Trek - someone I would never describe him as silver-tongued, and he’s happy being solitary. But he still problem solves the way a Snake does.
I do tend to be pretty stubborn and dig my heels in when I’m challenged, in a quiet sort of way. But the difference between charging or swerving when you head for something has always seemed hard to grasp, for me. When you’ve got something to go for, you just… go, and some obstacles can be barged through and some you can’t, so you try and then go around.
I actually think that’s a very Snake way of putting things. A Lion would say that you *can* punch though everything, given enough will power and enough time. It’s what makes their energy so intoxicating, and where a lot of their power and trustworthiness comes from. They keep at something until they fail.
(oh and also ~ I have noticed that generally, Lion secondaries make no sense to Snake secondaries and vice versa.)
I do relate more to a Lion’s interacting with everyone mostly the same - with ‘varying degrees of awkwardness’, as I think another asker phrased it - rather than creating masks for everyone on the fly. But I’m not sure anymore if that’s powerful for me or if it’s just… all I can do. This goes back to being burnt socially, I think - I feel like I‘m working with nothing at all when I talk to people.
Whatever secondary I’ve got, I don’t think I’m capable of using its ‘multiplayer’ skills very well. Or at least, I haven’t learnt to yet, and I feel like I‘ve gotten worse. Although, more than a year of not being able to talk to most people in person hasn’t helped.
Yeah, you and me both. You’re a little burned about this, which makes sorting hard. You might just be a Snake who… isn’t very social.
And as for Lions valuing authenticity… I do and I don’t? I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m a private person and I don’t like exposing all of myself and my interests and opinions, it makes me feel vulnerable.
I know it sounds crazy, but if you were a Lion, that would make you feel strong.
But I won’t lie about myself if someone asks about something I’m not willing to share, I’ll usually find something that’s still true and answers their question but’s less personal. To what extend do Lions do that?
Generally, “I don’t owe strangers the real me” is just… not something Lions secondaries think. Sometimes they lower their intensity. But they are unusual because they feel best and strongest when they put themselves out there.
But I also think that any ‘mask’ you create is still, to a great extent, a part of you and a reflection of who you are. People talk about it like you have a ‘core’ that is completely you and then a performance you make on top is automatically ‘fake’. That doesn’t make sense to me.
That’s because you’re a Snake. If you were a Lion, you would relate more to this idea of an ideal presentational “core.”
Performances can be helpful to express yourself, in a sense. And everything you make is self-portrait.)
That is an incredibly Snake thing to say. Also, Snakes have a tendency to conceptualize their masks as “art.”
In any case - I hope this wasn‘t too long. Thank you for helping me sort through all of this!
You are very welcome. I thought this one was really interesting.
Rapid-fire Bird here, totally agree with Wisteria. That’s Snake.
I would 100% be trying to figure out the public transportation in advance–and I’d also have cash on me to call a cab as a backup.
This is going to sound weird, but if I suddenly moved to an area where there was a lot of public transportation and I was using it to get around, I’d actually start researching how bus systems work in general. How do you design a system to cover as much of a sprawling metropolitan area as possible? What kind of timing considerations does that entail? And then, how has my city tried to solve those problems? What lines cover which areas of the city, and how does the signage look?
Understanding that first would help me remember not just my route that day, but how to fix it if I got off on the wrong stop or something. And then, of course, it’s widely applicable; I’ll remember it when I need to take a bus somewhere else. In fact, I’m likely to remember it when solving an almost totally unrelated problem, because there’s some vaguely relevant model or design consideration in it that I can use
…most people probably wouldn’t start there, I realize! most people would probably just memorize their route and maybe download their local area maps on their phone. Some people probably wouldn’t even do that!
But for me, the first impulse trying to use something new is, “how does this work?” I might only realize later on that I’m doing way more work than I actually need to
I mean, I don’t do that for everything (some systems are exceptionally boring), but if there’s something new and intimidating or overwhelming, I’m probably going to try to understand it as a whole first. Is that much work stressful? Well, sort of; it’s the situation that’s stressful, and if the system is hard to understand then that doesn’t help. But the research itself is sort of automatic.
If I do get that understanding, though, then later–you know, the only part other people usually see?–I probably look very chill and Improvisational. It probably looks like I’m getting lucky, when I just somehow know where things are and what they’re going to do next. The pile of maps and string of 3am YouTube videos I went through beforehand tends to be less visible
While I was writing my response, I literally thought. “Hm. How would a Rapid-Fire bird figure out public transit? Maybe they would like… research public transit in general… nah, that’s crazy, no one would really do that.”
In the days before smartphones, if I needed to use public transportation I would look up the exact map I needed online, then copy it down in the little notebook I carried with me. I also asked for directions CONSTANTLY. And New Yorkers do not deserve their reputation for rudeness, everyone was was wonderful to me.
(I am aware that both of these are…. really Badger secondary problem solving methods…)
(Look, you have double Birds listed as the mad scientist Sorting for a reason…)
This delights me your intuition was right the first time lol. In fairness to you, though, I also read my post back like “…this is pretty ridiculous, do I actually do that often enough to say it’s a thing?”*
…and then I remembered my Actual experience trying to figure out how to navigate the train system in Chicago, and reading all kinds of maps and listings for lines that were nowhere near the area I was in, trying to work out how they interacted
I still managed to fall on my face there. Long story. Even the ridiculously prepared (and/or easily distracted) nerds are not infallible xD
—
*yes. yes I do. one time I started reading about how to make cold process soap and then got distracted researching how soap works on a molecular level. which sounds like the kind of thing that’d never be relevant later, but I’ve never bought the huge ripoff that is micellar cleansing water** sooo
**recipe: one squirt of castille soap, a whole bunch of water, and even more capitalism, mixed up in a bottle and sold for $7 with a label sporting the phrase “new micellar technology!” –have fun toppling Garnier!
Hello, I hope you’re doing well! I’m having a lot of confusion over my secondary, so a second opinion to help me untangle things would be lovely.
I’m pretty confident I’m a Snake with a Badger model that determines what I do when my people aren’t involved. Essentially, people are always important, but my people are most important to me. When push comes to shove I will protect them first (or feel worse about myself if I fail to).
So far, so good.
I think my secondary is at least a little burnt, in part because I’ve always struggled with interacting with people and don’t tend to think of myself as someone who’s capable of making an impact in people’s lives when it matters. I can remember several situations where I didn’t reach out to someone who needed my help, especially one of mine, because I was convinced that person would never want help from me.
That’s proper burnt secondary talk. You knew what you wanted to do, you knew what would feel good to do, but you DIDN’T do it because you didn’t think it would work.
I know better than to do that now, and I’m trying to get better at believing in my own abilities (and the fact that other people can want me around). I’m hoping it’ll help to get a better idea of what those abilities even are.
You’re unBurning. Good.
I’ve thought ever since I first discovered this sorting system that I must be an improvisational secondary. I’ve never thought of myself as a fan of plans and prepwork - I get stressed out that I’ll forget important things and be left stranded. I remember back in high school when I was getting used to using public transport, my mum went with me to do a trial run of a route I needed to travel in advance.I was stressed enough about the event I was travelling to as it was, and the trail run made it so much worse, because there was so much to remember, what if I forgot something? What eventually made me feel more comfortable about it was trusting myself to figure it out on the day.
What a gorgeous way to explain the difference between a Built (prepwork) secondary and an Improvisational secondary. Trial runs make me feel somuch better and somuch more comfortable. And I’m a built secondary (and I bet your mom is too.)
Nowadays, when I’m travelling somewhere I’m unfamiliar with I’d much rather just leave half an hour early to give myself some breathing room in case I mess up.
Perfect. Excellent improvisational secondary problem solving.
Following strict schedules just trips me up too - say I’m doing classwork for the afternoon, for example, I need the freedom to be able to say that actually I’m more in the mood for Subject B than Subject A. I like having space to improvise, and I feel really proud of myself when I pull off something on the fly!
Once for a final exam in high school, we had to write an essay for The Lord of the Flies using a set of quotes from the text we’d chosen and memorised beforehand. The essay question was only revealed in the exam, and it turned out to be asking us to write an essay about one specific character - except I didn’t have enough quotes for any one character, I’d deliberately made them very spread out. What I did instead was to argue for the symbol of the Lord of the Flies as a character, and make each paragraph about each different character’s relationship to ‘him’ and what that relationship revealed about the characters, so I could make use of my range of quotes. I’m sure my writing wouldn‘t hold up now, I’ve gotten better at writing since then, but I still think of it as one of the essays I’m proudest of.
I would have given you an A. That sounds brilliant.
So that all seems to point to an improvisational secondary, but - reading about Rapid-Fire Birds has made me question whether that’s actually what I’m doing instead, and I have no idea how to tell. What‘s the difference between an improvisational secondary using information they already have to help them improvise, and a Rapid-Fire Bird doing the same thing? To what extent can Birds dislike relying on lists and planning?
You’re an Improvisational secondary. A pretty loud improvisational secondary (and almost certainly a Snake because you value the ability to pivot quickly so highly.) Rapid-fire birds can *look* like Snakes from the outside, but it’s a totally different internal experience. A rapid-fire bird might be comfortable improvising their bus route - but only in an area that they alreadyknow super well. Rapid-fire birds look like Snakes… as long as they are operating within their area of expertise, are coming from a place of strength.
And where does looking for more information while you solve a problem, rather than beforehand, fit within the secondaries?
Feeling more comfortable and confident looking *around* you while solving a problem (versus bringing in a bag of tricks at the start) is an Improvisational secondary thing.
When I’m involved in a debate about something that relies on a piece of information - a definition of a word, a statistic, some sort of other fact - I’m known as the person who’ll pull out my phone and say ’oh! I’ll Google it!’.
This might be a Bird [model] thing, but I’m inclined to think it’s just a person thing.
(Sometimes people don’t seem to get why I do that - they’ll say it looks like I’m taking things too seriously when it’s just a silly discussion for fun? But it just makes sense to me, we need information and that information is easily in reach, why shouldn’t I go get it, silly conversation or not?)
Okay, scratch that, I actually think this is a generational thing. *Baby Boomers* get annoyed at me when I do this.
I’m the same way when I research for writing. I don‘t tend to go looking for specific resources when I don’t have a story on them planned, but I love digging into specific subjects and resources and systems to ground a story in, once I have a concept to work with and I know what could be useful.
I love digging into complex systems in general, really (hello, sorting hat chats!). But it’s not like I do it because I think it’ll be useful later - unless I know it will be, because it’s relevant to a problem I’ve already been presented with. And I know just having nerdy interests does not a true Bird make.
I think you probably have a fun Bird model.
But if I’m not a Bird - or if it’s only a model - which improvisational secondary do I even have? I’ve always figured Lion seems more likely, because I’ve never related to the ‘silver-tongued’ skill of Snakes.
I wonder if you relate at all to the idea of single-player snake - constantly pivoting, using their environment, problem solving on the fly. I think of Scotty from Star Trek - someone I would never describe him as silver-tongued, and he’s happy being solitary. But he still problem solves the way a Snake does.
I do tend to be pretty stubborn and dig my heels in when I’m challenged, in a quiet sort of way. But the difference between charging or swerving when you head for something has always seemed hard to grasp, for me. When you’ve got something to go for, you just… go, and some obstacles can be barged through and some you can’t, so you try and then go around.
I actually think that’s a very Snake way of putting things. A Lion would say that you *can* punch though everything, given enough will power and enough time. It’s what makes their energy so intoxicating, and where a lot of their power and trustworthiness comes from. They keep at something until they fail.
(oh and also ~ I have noticed that generally, Lion secondaries make no sense to Snake secondaries and vice versa.)
I do relate more to a Lion’s interacting with everyone mostly the same - with ‘varying degrees of awkwardness’, as I think another asker phrased it - rather than creating masks for everyone on the fly. But I’m not sure anymore if that’s powerful for me or if it’s just… all I can do. This goes back to being burnt socially, I think - I feel like I‘m working with nothing at all when I talk to people.
Whatever secondary I’ve got, I don’t think I’m capable of using its ‘multiplayer’ skills very well. Or at least, I haven’t learnt to yet, and I feel like I‘ve gotten worse. Although, more than a year of not being able to talk to most people in person hasn’t helped.
Yeah, you and me both. You’re a little burned about this, which makes sorting hard. You might just be a Snake who… isn’t very social.
And as for Lions valuing authenticity… I do and I don’t? I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m a private person and I don’t like exposing all of myself and my interests and opinions, it makes me feel vulnerable.
I know it sounds crazy, but if you were a Lion, that would make you feel strong.
But I won’t lie about myself if someone asks about something I’m not willing to share, I’ll usually find something that’s still true and answers their question but’s less personal. To what extend do Lions do that?
Generally, “I don’t owe strangers the real me” is just… not something Lions secondaries think. Sometimes they lower their intensity. But they are unusual because they feel best and strongest when they put themselves out there.
But I also think that any ‘mask’ you create is still, to a great extent, a part of you and a reflection of who you are. People talk about it like you have a ‘core’ that is completely you and then a performance you make on top is automatically ‘fake’. That doesn’t make sense to me.
That’s because you’re a Snake. If you were a Lion, you would relate more to this idea of an ideal presentational “core.”
Performances can be helpful to express yourself, in a sense. And everything you make is self-portrait.)
That is an incredibly Snake thing to say. Also, Snakes have a tendency to conceptualize their masks as “art.”
In any case - I hope this wasn‘t too long. Thank you for helping me sort through all of this!
You are very welcome. I thought this one was really interesting.
Rapid-fire Bird here, totally agree with Wisteria. That’s Snake.
I would 100% be trying to figure out the public transportation in advance–and I’d also have cash on me to call a cab as a backup.
This is going to sound weird, but if I suddenly moved to an area where there was a lot of public transportation and I was using it to get around, I’d actually start researching how bus systems work in general. How do you design a system to cover as much of a sprawling metropolitan area as possible? What kind of timing considerations does that entail? And then, how has my city tried to solve those problems? What lines cover which areas of the city, and how does the signage look?
Understanding that first would help me remember not just my route that day, but how to fix it if I got off on the wrong stop or something. And then, of course, it’s widely applicable; I’ll remember it when I need to take a bus somewhere else. In fact, I’m likely to remember it when solving an almost totally unrelated problem, because there’s some vaguely relevant model or design consideration in it that I can use
…most people probably wouldn’t start there, I realize! most people would probably just memorize their route and maybe download their local area maps on their phone. Some people probably wouldn’t even do that!
But for me, the first impulse trying to use something new is, “how does this work?” I might only realize later on that I’m doing way more work than I actually need to
I mean, I don’t do that for everything (some systems are exceptionally boring), but if there’s something new and intimidating or overwhelming, I’m probably going to try to understand it as a whole first. Is that much work stressful? Well, sort of; it’s the situation that’s stressful, and if the system is hard to understand then that doesn’t help. But the research itself is sort of automatic.
If I do get that understanding, though, then later–you know, the only part other people usually see?–I probably look very chill and Improvisational. It probably looks like I’m getting lucky, when I just somehow know where things are and what they’re going to do next. The pile of maps and string of 3am YouTube videos I went through beforehand tends to be less visible
This post is an exploration, not an explanation (yet!). I’m still feeling this distinction out and trying to form theories.
A recent recurring topic on the SHC fan Discord has been our Snake secondaries with Bird models and our rapid-fire Birds trying to figure out where the line lives between us.
My current theory is “it’s a spectrum, and you have a range you can work in which probably leans one way or the other.” I often describe very Snakey looking techniques as part of RF Bird, but I’d have a really hard time trying to use full Snake. I’d really rather know what I’m doing ahead of time and have stuff to work with, especially if the project is risky or has a time limit.
Turns out there is more overlap than we thought, though.
There’s a Snake Thing that @mooglesortsand@nounsnlies have dubbed “storage bunker Snake,” which is what you get when a Snake takes to designing contingency plans and gathering resources ahead of time for specific situations. They build an “emergency toolkit” to “beef up their improv” (words courtesy of our Snakes themselves).
Their stockpiles aren’t as extensive as Birds’, and they’re very focused on utility and applicability to a specific future situation. Birds like utility too, but we’ll also pick things up just because they’re shiny/interesting.
Honestly, to me it’s more fun if you’re using your resources and skills in a way you didn’t anticipate when you picked them up: it feels like a very clever and creative hack! But for that kind of improv, Snakes more often use themselves, rather than tools or skills, to influence a situation. They have this sense that they’re an integral part of the situation, that they’re a factor they can easily change to suit their needs, rather than an outside observer trying to work on the problem and only incidentally beingthere.
Meanwhile, I have a tendency to vanish when I shift into RF Bird problem solving mode. I drop my masks and mirroring to focus, I get very quiet, and if I’m not actively engaging with people, I’m invisible. People don’t notice that I’ve wandered off for supplies until I show up again with a handful of weird stuff and start tinkering. Then they might ask questions, and I’ll absentmindedly explain that hand sanitizer is full of isopropyl alcohol, which is a solvent, and yes I just have butcher’s twine in my bag, hang on a sec…
ThisStep 1: disengage from the problem to Think seems to be a Bird thing. We kinda have to, and it seems like Snakes don’t. Once a Bird has a first attempt at a solution in place, we might iterate on it and try to hack it around and make it work better, but that’s building on something we’ve already got, so we can do that faster. We need something to work from, in the same way that a Snake needs continuous input to react to.
(Thismight actually be a single-player vs multi-player secondary difference, though. Curious what our single-player Snakes have to say about this. @reds-burrow@burnt-oranges feel free to add on!)
The RF Bird way is “hoard Useful Things and hopefully you can use some combination of them to craft the solution you need when you need it.” In contrast, Nouns (Snake secondary) actually described prep work as “exploiting a loophole” for something that’s “supposed to be done in the moment.”
Snake: this feels like cheating
Bird: what? that’s just how you get things done, dw it’s not cheating
Snake: no it feels like cheating (affectionate)
…Of course, there’s also the possibility that I model Snake secondary in specific ways, which I keep coming back to and then dismissing. I need more data from other RF Birds. @magpie-of-a-birb thoughts? Which parts of this do you do?
It’s easy to simplify down Lion secondaries. You hear a lot about Lions giving inspirational speeches (which they do) being generally terrible liars (which they are) and also charging (which… yeah, they do that too).
But I’m starting to think that might be a slightly misleading way to think about them. “Charging” implies speed, fiery hot-headedness, maybe even temper. And lions aren’t *angry* so much as they’re *committed* (or you know, stubborn). A Lion will pick a direction and just go, until they smash into a wall. They won’t pick a new plan until their old plan has obviously failed, which is what makes their improvisation look so different from the constantly adapting, constantly shifting Snake way of doing things.
There is a very confident energy to the Lion secondary. Very “might as well happen,” “you know what, screw it, let’s do this.” They just go for it, and if they’re in over their head they just keep going. They’ll figure it out. The best way out is through, that’s a very Lion secondary philosophy.
That’s one thing that connects Lion primaries and Lion secondaries. They pretty much have to actually be standing in a pile of rubble before they’re able to look around and go ‘… this doesn’t look right.’
There is this thing that Badger secondaries do that *looks* like charging, but isn’t really.
If a Lion secondary is a battering ram, then a Badger secondary is a coiled spring. They’re put in this mass of prep-work, but Badger pre-work tends to be super low-key or even invisible, so it *looks* like they’ve gone zero to sixty in five seconds, but that’s not the case.
When I moved out, I spent months quietly researching apartments, talking to people in the area I wanted to live, and putting things in order. Then when the right apartment opened up, I was moved in four days later. It sure looked like a charge to my Lion secondary sister, but it absolutely was not.
I’ve probably reblogged this before, but I’ve just found it again and it’s relevant to a recent post, and also:
#maybe this is a built secondary thing #maybe bird secondaries do this as well
which is really funny because I read this post thinking: oh hey, it’s the Badger/Lion equivalent of when a rapid-fire Bird sec draws from our huge stockpile of resources and background knowledge and suddenly we look like a Snake for twenty minutes xD
Hey there. I’ve been going in circles about my sorting since I discovered the SHC system and would appreciate your help in figuring it out. Although I’m convinced I’m at least some sort of Badger and Bird combo, possibly with some Lion in there somewhere, I’ll let you decide based on the word vomit below.
Nonny, I have no idea how Tumblr is going to format an ask this long when I post it, so in the interest of letting people actually read the words you’ve put effort into (and making sure my reply is also trackable), I’m copypasting this so it’ll behave more like a submission. Yours is a recent ask I think, so hopefully you see it! I’ll briefly post the original once this is up, so you get the ping.
As a kid, my family called me a walking encyclopedia. I spent a lot of my time burying my head in books and magazines in an effort to understand the world around me rather than engaging with people. National Geographic, atlases, and the Magic Treehouse series were particular favorites of mine, but sometimes I would sprinkle in some fantasy novels here and there when I felt like reading something more creative and fun.
Nice, this is a whole lot of Birdsec up front. Wonder why you need me to confirm this for you.
Along with a genuine curiosity about history and science, I felt a sense of security in gathering knowledge and would let it guide my decisions (What a fucking nerd, am I rIGHT?)
Shoosh, you are perfectly cool.
Also, I would constantly correct everyone and anyone if I felt they didn’t understand something or were completely uninformed, even if butting into that conversation was rude (then again, it could also be that I was too young to understand that there was a time and place for speaking).
Probably. Can I take a guess here that you were an asynchronous development (aka “gifted”) kid? Maybe even twice exceptional (“gifted” and also neurodivergent)? I don’t have that info obviously, I’m just guessing.
A lot of twice exceptional kids get “missed” with diagnosis (hi!) and don’t know there’s a name and a reason for the struggles they have to deal with, especially social struggles. I can’t diagnose you, of course, but that might be something to read up on if you haven’t already.
(Good places to start are @adultingautistic and @adhd-alien on tumblr, or the YouTube channel HowToADHD. Be very wary of any source that’s targeted almost completely towards parents of autistic or ADHDer kids, or anything that feels infantilizing in general. ND folks are just different, not broken or oversensitive or immature. If a source doesn’t seem to know that, you know they have at least one huge piece of bad info. Their other stuff probably isn’t better.)
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled program.
It felt wrong to let them have an incomplete picture.
Ooh, an Idealist primary. Probably Bird. Could still be Lion?
I was very outspoken about what I thought was right and wrong, and why, which was usually some fun fact I had read in a book or heard through someone else.
Yeah, no, that’s Bird.
Even when I would play basketball, I would play better if I understood the theoretical and technicalities of the game and how to work within the rules. I had to understand the why before I could even begin to execute. In a realm where physicality was seemingly more important, I still managed to find a playing and learning style that allowed me to stay in my head.
You are a loud Birdsec, and I suspect the reason you’re piling up all this evidence for me is that you also have moreunwarranted insecurity about it than the Shaq-A-Roni (not sponsored) has cheap greasy salami.
TLDR; I was an arrogant shit as a kid, lmao.
Bullshit.
I mean, maybe you acted that way. But I don’t think you’re seeing the whole picture.
Some kids have the bad luck to grow up interacting with adults like this…
Adult: you are Smart, and therefore worthy of Positive Attention.
Kid: ok I will work very hard at being Smart, because I value your opinion and want Positive Attention.
(later)
Kid: can I have the Positive Attention? I am very Smart. look at this Smart thing I did
Adult: bad! arrogant! only We may bestow the label of Smart, and declare worthiness of Attention, when it is convenient to Us!
Kid: but I did the same thing…
Adult: yes but now it’s annoying. you should know this, you’re Smart.
Of course, there is some reasoning to adults’ wanting kids to learn social norms about modesty. But generally they don’t explain this well, and the kids who continue to act “arrogant” are at least a little bit attention starved.
Kids wanting attention isn’t a bad thing. It’s a totally normal and natural need. It’s not selfish of them to want feedback and praise; that’s just a human thing, and kids need it for development. Kids who get called arrogant are mostly just following the rules adults have set for their interactions.
You can call an adult arrogant, but an adult has the ability to choose not to interact that way. They can opt out of the entire premise that intelligence is what makes them worthy, and they have a lot more freedom to set boundaries. Kids’ choices are much more constrained, and they don’t always realize they have a choice when they do, because their freedom and autonomy is always growing and it takes time to figure out how to use that. (Also because they don’t always have the freedom and safety they should.)
So if you grew up in an environment like this, even if that interaction above was… more subtle, you shouldn’t blame yourself for the coping mechanism you picked up–even if it feels bad or shameful to look back on, or you want to act differently now. Feeling shame is also normal, it’s just not very productive. Once more I’ll point at the works of Brené Brown–you can probably find her books in the library.
Since you’re a Birdsec, I wonder if you ever had a “Trying To Impress You” Actor Bird mask. I definitely did, and it became so automatic that it took me ages to realize that it was there and I could take it off. Then I discovered how much energy that thing had been taking to maintain. Yikes.
This garbage isn’t limited to one Sorting, btw. The school system and societal expectations fling it at all of us.
Being self-deprecating, and calling yourself nerdy, arrogant, or other labels like that can stem the accusations of arrogance, but it’s not the healthiest way to talk to or about yourself. You don’t need to put yourself down. You don’t need to impress anyone. You’re worthy whether you impress people or not.
Be kind to your child-self, is what I’m saying. It’s hard, but remember they’re a kid, and they’re still part of you. Have compassion for them.
During my high school years, I developed social anxiety which also led to depression. Through a lot of therapy and some friends that I would use as a sounding board, it became apparent that the main trigger for my anxiety was concern with doing the right thing in dealing with people (as well as the usual fear of judgment and suffocating feeling of being around large crowds).
Yeah, primary anxiety. Not fun. Also, maybe,,, RSD? Again, not here to diagnose you with anything, just something to read up on.
My thinking was very big picture, too much at times, and I was so worried about considering every single variable and possibility that analysis paralysis became a common frustration for me.
Do I have some sort of bias that’s affecting how I treat this person? Why does this work for me but not for this other person? Am I being ignorant by choosing this? Am I really getting to the bottom of this issue or did I make a wrong turn somewhere and now have completely lost sight of it?
Textbook Exploded Bird. Hugs, that’s tough.
It looked a lot like caring about what other people thought of me, but really I was concerned with how my thinking and opinions could be negatively affecting those around me.
I wonder who this voice is, cutting you down. The implication that you’re obsessed with your own image, how people see you, is a common thread between this and the “arrogance” thing you’re worried about. Does that accusation really come from you? Or was it something someone else told you?
You’re not just self-conscious. Someone has taught you to be self-conscious about being self-conscious. And look, maybe they meant well or whatever, but this isn’t helping you.
(Also, this anxious self-examination? It’s a stressed-out Birdpri habit. Your Sorting is the easiest part of this ask to answer.)
Hurting someone else was the result of a flaw in my system. The way that I treated people was a direct reflection of who I was and my goodness as a person; if I made a wrong decision and hurt somebody, then I was a monster.
You and the Bird from my last ask. (Unless you’re the same person, lol.) Go read that post here.
And, being somewhat young at the time, I made wrong decisions constantly.
Well, yeah. Everyone does.
I would constantly ask friends, “Should I have done X instead?” in order to gain perspective on every single tiny detail of a social situation. It got so bad that I was extremely burnt out by the middle of my sophomore year and struggled with basic social interactions. I was paralyzed. (Is this what Burning is like? Not totally sure. Maybe just Undecided?)
It’s more Explodey, but could be charred too. Again, see that linked post.
Over the years, I had to learn how to not constantly analyze myself and my motivations because it was heavily affecting my quality of life. I have since gotten better, but still do fall into the trap of over-psychoanalyzing myself from time to time, much to my friends’ dismay.
Hey, recovery! We love to see it ❤
Even if it’s not perfect, this is still really important for you. You’re working to move past the struggles you’ve had to deal with. Congrats! ✨
One pattern that I have noticed over the course of my life is that people trust me more quickly than they trust other people, hence the mediator reputation. I think there is a part of that that was related to my social status and the fact that I wouldn’t have anyone to tell, nonetheless being able to help others helped me develop a lot of confidence and decent interpersonal/communication skills.
Did you pick up a Badgersec model/performance/Actor Bird mask as your default social mode? It’s possible, and if so, same :p
I have had people who have told me about their mental illnesses, childhood trauma, secret hate for their s/o or family member, etc within a week of knowing them. (For a while it got to the point of me being a bit of an enabler of toxic behaviors, which I’ve corrected since then) Most of them are lucky that I’m nice enough to keep their secrets, lol.
I get this too–outside the blog, I mean, and completely unprompted. It’s kind of strange when it just… happens to you!
That’s an experience connected with Badger secondaries and Badgersec models.
I did have one incident recently that involved one person in my friend group crossing of boundaries so blatantly and harmfully and constant gaslighting that I confided in a few friends about how I’d been mistreated and what this person had told me about themselves as reasons that I thought they were a terrible person, and within a few days that person was out of the group.
I didn’t need to lie, I didn’t need to exaggerate the truth, and I didn’t even need to do much else other than tell these few friends about the red flags, and they still took my side. It felt horrible at the time, and still does as I retell it, and I constantly ask myself how I let this person lie to and confuse me for so long without realizing it.
Well done, asking for support when you needed it! Aside from protecting yourself (a worthy and important cause), you protected your friends from this person potentially doing the same thing to them.
Also, you have good friends. And probably a Badgersec model.
Don’t blame yourself for not defending yourself earlier, either. It takes time and experience to learn how to set boundaries and figure out when someone is acting in bad faith.
In the least rude way possible, I have to ask: do you have access to therapy? You need some self-compassion, you’re way too hard on yourself. That’s not a judgment on you; a lot of the advice I’m offering, I gathered from personal experience.
(Hopefully I’m not just projecting. I have to make a lot of guesses in these posts.)
I’m sorry for the lengthy ask, but hopefully there was some helpful information somewhere within that whole shpeel.
I think you already knew you were a double Bird, underneath all the self-doubt. You just needed someone to tell you that you’re a good enough double Bird.
Not to long ago, while I was Googling random Harry Potter questions, I found the Sortinghatchats blog here on Tumblr and was fascinated by their comprehensive breakdown of the houses, the way there were primaries and secondaries and models. For a very long time, I’d considered myself a Slytherin/Ravenclaw hatstall. I did this because I took the Pottermore test three times, each time getting Slytherin. Then, when I found a test that had all of the Pottermore questions that broke the answers down by percentages, with each answer increasing or decreasing the percentage of a particular house, I found that I was sorted into Ravenclaw by a single answer. But still, even though I used the term “hatstall”, it didn’t feel quite right.
I read up on all of the primaries, secondaries, models, performances, and burning, read about various character sortings, and then dove into the quiz. I got Snake Primary, Bird Secondary, with a tentative Lion primary model. My sorting was validated, even if there was the very surprising Lion in there. And the best thing about all of it is that the blog made the sorting make more sense.
I’m not a Snake primary just because I’m ambitious or cunning, as those aren’t my most defining traits. I’m a Snake primary because my morals come from within and I’m loyal to the people I choose to be loyal to. I’m a Snake primary because those morals go out the window when someone hurts me and mine, and the only reason I don’t act on my more vicious impulses is my multifaceted fear of prison. I’m a Snake primary, and possibly a lion model, because my family has explicitly told me to stay away from people who have hurt me and mine because they know my wrath will get me in trouble if I’m not careful, because it’s gotten me in trouble before. I’m a Snake primary because I have empathy for the suffering in the world, but I know there’s not much I can do about it, and while I feel bad for not being able to do more, I don’t feel too bad about not overextending myself when I need to save my energy to keep my own head above water.
I’m a Bird secondary because I research eeeeeeverything, get stuck on certain topics for long periods of time, and love a plan. Why do I know the origin of the F-word or that Stalin had a cannibal island? Because I can. Why do spreadsheets make me happy? Because they’re orderly. I can improvise if a plan goes south, but I don’t like to, and I’ll stumble over myself while my brain cobbles together a new track to take.
It was really cool to have this sorting quiz validate my “hatstall” idea about myself with way better terminology. Now to find more Snake/Birds in media that I actually like more than the Lion/Badgers (such a difficult process).
Lions often get accused of being the ones to repeat the same act over and over again, expecting a different result. But I think that Birds can be guilty of this too. Except, they’re repetition is more repeating formulas and wondering why something that works for other doesn’t work for them. Aubrey from Pitch Perfect makes me think of this. She follows the tried and true methods, even when they’re no longer working. I think she might be a Badger/Bird, following traditions that don’t work.
If Lions are the ones trying to put the key into the same lock, then Birds are the ones trying to follow some else’s path through a maze.
Just finished watching Fear Street Pt 2 and it has an excellent example of Bird v Lion conflict. The elder sister is a total Double Bird who needs to find an explanation for everything and the younger sister’s a Burned Double Lion who scorns her sister’s need to understand and what she views as phoney behaviour.
what an incredibly sharp illustration style. That would be on the facing page next to the character sortings if SHC was a really glossy coffee table book.
SNAKE ~ Loyal to yourself and your Important People.
LION ~ Subconscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to feelings and instincts.
BIRD ~ Conscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to built systems and external facts.
SECONDARY (ie METHOD)
BADGER ~ Connect with the group. Make allies, work steadily and well. Be whatever the situation calls for. If you find a locked door, knock.
SNAKE ~ Connect with the environment. Notice things. Tell people what they want to hear. If you find a locked door, get in through the window.
BIRD ~ Collect skills, tools, knowledge, personas, useful friends. If you find a locked door, track down the key or learn to pick the lock.
LION ~ Be honest, be direct, speak your truth. Either the obstacle is going down or you are. If you find a locked door, kick it in.
And as for the novel, it’s sweet, it’s funny (there will be spoilers) but basically, it’s light pastiche/satire of a specific type of historical Gothic fantasy. Gave me Our Flag Means Death vibes actually. And really, I am loving characters in historical fiction being purposefully written as LGBT, ace, and neurodivergent. (I especially enjoyed how side character Tom was clearly on the autism spectrum, and everybody was just kind of cool with it and thought he was great anyway.) Keep that coming.
The premise is that there’s an island where you’re periodically supposed to sacrifice a virgin to the Eldritch Island God, except (since all the islanders know about this) they make sure that they’renot “qualified,” and try in a very haphazard way to attract Virgins to the island. They seem to have actually nabbed one in Reverand Norman Plotwhistle, and so barmaid Dora decides it’s up to her to seduce him to save his life. Of course, he’s gay, and she is very heavily implied to be ace, so this is not really the greatest situation.
DORA MAKEPEACEis an interesting protagonist. When we first meet her, she seems very Badger primary (to the degree that she slightly dehumanizes Mainland people.) This makes total sense: the culture of the Island itself is very Badger, and the handful of Islanders originally from the Mainland are put in a slightly different category, despite being on the Island for years and years.
But, clearly that’s not all that’s going on with Dora, who is absolutely a Bird, but a Bird who has difficulty getting her hands on outside information. We see her cling to the books her mainland mother left behind, even though those books are (comedically) weird and leave her an expert on a not-especially-useful combination of subjects. Still, we see her go back to them again and again when she isn’t sure what to do. She likes to cite things that the Poet, and the Island’s other occasional visitors, have told her. She’s the only one interested in the archaeological evidence, and (while not romantically interested in Norman) she iscurious about him and finds him worthwhile. After all, he’s got a different perspective, and information that she doesn’t have.
Her speech at the end is just about as Bird primary as it’s possible to be - anger with systems that don’t make sense, and anger at changing rules on the fly.
“There’s no rule written anywhere that says [that]: you’re just making it up. In fact there’s nothing written down about any of this: we just do it this way because that’s what our great-grandparents did, or so they say, and they did it because their grandparents did, and so on and so on and ruddy so on, and at no point did any of them stop and bother to ask themselves whether any of it worked… because of course it doesn’t work!.. And you know it won’t work. You do, really. You aren’t utter idiots. Not all of you. You know the ground here’s no good for farming and the weather’s too miserable and the fish won’t come no matter what you do. You just don’t want to face it.”
It’s also very unflattering to the Badger perspective, bringing attention to the clannishness and small-mindedness that shows up when protecting your own narrowly defined community is the only thing that’s important. (Also, in this world where virgins are sacrificed, the moralizing “no sex before marriage” character becomes a lot more sinister in a way I like.)
I also enjoyed that the Islanders aren’t particularly villainized. This isn’t a story of benighted Islanders and civilized Mainlanders, it’s a story about two different communities who both get stuff wrong. Norman is all bent out of shape about the fact that he’s gay, something that the Islanders… do not care about, even a little bit. This book says that the correct solution is to expand your perspective and your worldview, which is just a good lesson in general… but an especially Bird primary lesson.
In terms of Dora’s secondary… She’s a Lion. She’s a Burnt Lion, who thinks that being a Lion doesn’t especially… work. I wonder if this is because she’s sort of mythologized her best friend Molly? Who makes her own Lion secondary look so effortless that Dora gets intimidated. Of course Molly can be herself, Molly is graceful and fun and easy. But Dora is a little intense, a little awkward, a little nerdy, and therefore Dorathinks that being herself is a bad idea.
We see how much she models Actor Bird, trying to to put together a Gothic Heroine persona to seduce Norman - using her books as reference, and getting annoyed in a very Bird primary sort of way when the books contradict each other, invent things, leave out important pieces of information, and just in general do not coalesce into a system that makes sense. Dora uses specific costumes, specific poses, researches what a “romantic picnic” is and then takes massive pains re-creating that. Her plans are extremely rigid, and the secondthings go wrong she’s got nothing.
It’s only when Dora finally starts following Molly’s advice (to just be herself) that things start getting back on track. She seems a lot more comfortable, and a lot more capable when she just does the Lion thing: go in a straight line, speak your truth, be incredibly direct. MOLLYherself is definitely a Loyalist, and I would say Snake primary with a lot of people before I would say Badger. She is attached to her boss, her coworkers, her lovers, she falls in love easily and constantly… and that’s why she’s attached to the island. She doesn’t seem to care (or even think about) the island traditions, island culture, or the island community as a whole.
REVEREND NORMAN PLOTWHISTLE is a little mysterious. He is clearly written as kind of incomprehensible - that’s the point. He’s a very new type of person that Dora has no idea how to deal with. Even from a reader’s perspective, it’s unclear when he’s being oblivious, when he’s being genre savvy, and when he’s got his own thing going on.
He’s definitely a Badger secondary. He comes to the island and starts doing the Badger secondary thing hard: restoring the old church, building up a community, putting together church services. His solution at the end involves playing the community - managing the mentality and expectations of his new parish so he can be with Cecil. If he’s in a (lavender) affair with Dora, then that’s the scandal right there, and no one will look at his relationship with his valet!
For his primary, I’m tempted to say Bird… because when he eventually does bond with Dora, it’s because of their shared annoyance at systems that don’t make sense. But I suspect that underneath everything,really it’s about Cecil, who he is just googly-eyes in love with. I think he would do anythingfor Cecil but… Cecil is hilariously capable, so I expect realistically Cecil will always be fine. And since Cecil is always fine, Norman will always be allowed to indulge in his fun Bird model.
tl;dr
DORA - Bird Primary with a Badger System that she sheds / Burnt Lion secondary, Bird model
MOLLY - Very expansive Snake primary / Lion secondary
NORMAN - Very safe Snake who mostly models a fun Bird (or possibly just a straight-up Bird / Badger secondary
