#badger bird

[wisteria-lodge]

badger primary + rapid fire/actor bird secondary

Hi! I’ve passively loved this system for a couple of years now but it’s only now that I’ve discovered that you actually do real people sorts! Anyway, I am pretty sure of being a Snake primary, but I’ll have you be the judge of that.

My Dad is a double Snake, however, my Mum I think is a Badger/Lion and this obviously creates a lot of conflict between them. I really care about both of them and though me & dad understand each other better on a fundamental level, he can also be quite a harsh and manipulative person (he has the typical Snake secondary thing where he tells you whatever you want to hear until you get close to him or he’s exhausted enough  to let the masks drop, and at that point he becomes quite harsh, which my Badger/Lion mum does NOT like, and she especially doesn’t like how “fake” he is), and my Mum always reacted very negatively to my behaving like him. 

A Double Snake and and Badger Lion could easily have periods of looking very similar, and very in sync, and then just… circumstances change and they couldn’t be more different. That’s a tricky one to navigate. So you’ve got a bit of cultural negativity surrounding Snake secondary, noted. 

So I kind of spent most of my life feeling torn because the two people I cared about the most had very opposing expectations of my personality

Definitely getting inklings of a Loyalist primary (Badger or Snake.) 

my Mum’s love in particular felt very conditional even though she was always very supportive of all my intellectual endeavors.

I spent the first 18-ish years of my life with “saying whatever I need to get what I want” as my primary strategy in life 

Definitely sounds quite Snake secondary (sounds a lot like your Dad’s Snake.) 

 and constructing a “cool, popular girl” personality that would give me enough social capital to get whatever I want.

Oooh, have we got some Bird secondary going on? Because this sounds like it could be Actor Bird. The very conscious way you went about building “Cool, Popular Girl” (even using words like “constructing”) and fact that this persona has a name, probably had a costume, and is purpose-built for a specific environment, not a specific person... sounds very Bird.

What I wanted, though, wasn’t anything particularly ambitious: I’m very conflict averse so I made shit up to avoid conflict. 

I associate this with Snake and Bird, the two “I move” secondaries. They’re water, flowing around obstacles. Lions and oddly Badgers are far more likely to pick fights. 

I wanted to be have strong “ride or die” friendships with people I could protect and who could protect me in turn (I first wrote “group of friends” but I now realize that I kind of struggle with groups of people - I just never have the feeling of being part of a group, just having ties with individual people, so I guess I want to be part of a group in the sense of having ties of affection and loyalty with several people who also have them with each other).

This is such heavily Snake primary-coded language, that I’m kinda wondering if that’s on purpose, and you’re looking for a specific answer from me… :) 

However, because what I got from my mum and, quite honestly, the media I liked was basically “my personality=villain.” I tended to seek out other people perceived as “villains” as some way because I felt that they would accept me more easily. 

I wish it weren’t the case, but you’re right, that’s a common thing. Especially if you’re a Double Snake or a Snake Bird, which I think are your two most likely sortings right now. 

I also really hated people who treated their friends badly or arrogantly and tended to bully them 

I mean that’s the human thing, but it’s definitely something that would bother a Loyalist (Snake or Badger primary) a LOT. 

there was this one swotty girl who was constantly looking down at her friends and treating them badly, and I just decided to make her life living hell because I was so morally affronted by it. 

I’d love to know exactly what your strategies were, because that would tell me a lot about your secondary. But there does seem to be a suggestion that there was a Mean-Girls-stye *plan* here, which kind of makes me think Bird. 

Another friend also abandoned us and found another friend group where everyone was basically in love with him and he was using them for attention seeking purposes and I also reacted to this quite harshly.

“Abandon” is a very dramatic word to describe a friend [entering a slight fuckboy phase?] and switching friend groups. 

The thing is, I also tended to abandon some people, which doesn’t clash well a Snake primary, I guess? One of my HS friend groups were really quite asshole-ish, and I ended up ditching them, but that was because I felt like they were treating other close people (of theirs, not mine) badly? 

Okay. So here’s what I think is going on. You’re a Badger. Hear me out. 

Yes, I think that your Badger looked like a Snake for a good long while. But you’re close to your Dad, and your Dad’s a Snake, and young Badgers will do that, look like authority figures or beloved people in their community. It really hurts you that your parents are not a united unit, not a community. A Snake would have an easier time just having separate relationships with each of them, even if they didn’t get along. Same thing with your friend that switched friend groups. That’s a very Badger way of looking at the situation. The Snake thing would be, well - he’s your friend, and it doesn’t really matter what group he’s him. But a Badger would want him to stay in the better group, the group that was better for him. 

You hate it when people mistreat their group. You hate bullies (Captain America style.) That’s all Badger. You also talk about multiple, conflicting groups of friends, and that whole “Cool Popular Girl” - I mean, it’s not exclusive to Badger primaries, bit it is definitely a very common way for High School Badger primaries to present. 

I had also decided to start taking school and stuff more seriously and I just kind of felt like their affection would be conditional on my bad bitch persona, got scared and ran? It was a long time ago, I don’t really remember.

This is Bird secondary thing. Getting “suck” in a persona, and worrying that people only like you / you only have value because of it. 

The turnpoint came when I met my first serious boyfriend, who is definitely a Snake secondary but I’m honestly not sure if he’s a Snake or a Bird primary.

The so far elaborately constructed web of lies and reputation building that was my life led to the downfall of our relationship, because it combined with some external circumstances made trust difficult

You have a complicated relationship with Snake secondaries, but you yourself are a Bird. “Construction,” “reputation building,” the web metaphor… it sounds like a Bird. That’s just not how Snake secondaries think. 

what I somehow got out of it was a deep fear of betrayal and abandonment 

and possibly Burned your primary a little bit (probably another reason you’re picking Snake for yourself, Burnt Badgers look like Snakes. 

and the impression that if I wanted people to love me and stay by my side, I should be very open about who I am (so that I’m sure that it’s me that they’re loyal to and not their personal image of me), and just try to be the kind of kind, morally upstanding person that people couldn’t fault for anything.

These are two mutually exclusive goals. If you’re totally honest and open about who you are (the Lion secondary thing) - then you will absolutely ruffle some feathers and rub people the wrong way. It’s a totally different approach than being the “kind [person] that people couldn’t fault for anything.” (Which is more of a badger thing.)

Forcing myself to act like this led to a plethora of mental health issues because being very open about who I am is just… not who I am? 

You also just set yourself for failure. There is literally no way you could have achieved what you set out to achieve. And how is “forcing” yourself to act a certain way more open and genuine? It sounds like you built a Badger secondary model out of fear, and just sat in it for a while.

And it was very anxiety-inducing for me. Even now, when my mental health is much better and I’ve settled into who I am, I like showing off my playfulness and wit and keeping the rest of my personality behind a neutrally charming mask.

And that’s… good? Normal? That’s also very Bird. Just have a charming, Badger-flavored ‘customer service’ face that you wear as you go through the world. Go into Neutral when you feel comfortable. (Birds go into Neutral very much like Snakes do, but the change usually isn’t as dramatic.) 

Also, my success until that point was based on a lot of improvisation and quick thinking, and while I kept that to a point, it also always led to a bunch of moral panic because in my head, being this kind of person is what gets you abandoned.

Rapid-Fire Bird. There’s a little bit of your Bird coming through here, in that you want a foundation, you don’t want to just do the Snake thing. 

Anyway, I was a psychology major (I always liked understanding how people tick and how to get them to see or do what  you want them to without having to explicitly argue with them or convince them)

Very Bird. 

but I felt alienated with the “bleeding heart helping profession!!” people around me.

I am not at all surprised that the profession skews Badger secondary, and that it did not feel at all good being around all those Badger secondaries... when you’ve got such a messy relationship with your Badger model. 

I eventually settled for doing research on children growing up in harsh circumstances who develop externalizing symptoms, but it was just because throughout my life I met a lot of people like that and a lot of my close people are “misunderstood” because they sometimes behave harshly due to their harsh upbringings, so I wanted to vindicate them in a way, as well as vindicate myself because I cared about explaining why people sometimes act less than morally and yet can still be loyal and worthy of love and not automatically “bad people”.

I love this for you. It seems like this would just fit into your primary so nicely. You’ve got a category of people, who are your people and you’re going to vindicate them, and protect them - especially from other people seeking to dehumanize them. It’s so Badger, but in that lovely universal way. 

In the meanwhile, I kind of developed a Badger primary model, I guess, in that I do dedicate a lot of my time to helping people

… or you were a Badger all along…

 and being kind and open and inviting

yeah, that has absolutely nothing to do with being a Badger primary. I’m serious. That’s just your neutrally-charming mask. 

but whenever this is put to the test my Snake loyalties always always come first. 

I honestly haven’t seen this so far. The only individuals you’ve talked about are your parents (who bothered you by not being a group, your fuckboy friend (who left the group) and your first boyfriend, who you broke up with. 

And I also still always get morally outraged when people are disloyal to their close ones or treat them badly, 

This your primary talking. (your why, what gets you out of bed in the morning)

whereas the general kindness and the work I put in towards making sure the world is a kinder, fairer place is just something that I do, no emotional attachment to it, and I don’t expect other people to do it at all.

This is your badger secondary model talking. (how you go about doing things, how you present to the world.) Both Badger, yes. EXTREMELY different. 

I honestly don’t think a lot about morality, aside from the generic “be kind and try not to fuck people over unless you really have to”

I mean, you did just say. “I also still always get morally outraged when people are disloyal to their close ones or treat them badly.” I think you just must not consider that sort of thing… really morality, in some way. But Badgers get their morality from their group. Their highest moral good is to make sure the group is doing okay. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. 

rationally constructing a system of morality or trying to arrive at some kind of internal hunch both feel kind of empty to me? 

Because you’re not a Bird or Lion primary? Of course it does. 

Now, as for the secondary, my knee jerk reaction is to say Bird because I’m in research, and ever since childhood I’ve always been a very logical person. I’ve eventually learned to be quite systemic in my problem solving process because I need it for research, but what I like about this career is the problem solving aspect of it, like you have a goal (for example, an effective psychosocial information or the acquisition of a certain kind of information) and you have to figure out how to get to that information. Basically the most efficient way of getting from A to B.

 I make sure to be systemic and thorough and analytical because it’s the most surefire way to get things right in my line of work, but I also take pleasure in kind of categorizing and putting information in order, and connecting it along different lines. I also really care about proper methodology and not half-assing things to get the results that you want, because I think that the results that you want are the results that are accurate and useful in the real world, not the ones that make you look better.

Wait, am I a double Snake?

Okay, now you’ve got ME worried - I must have really screwed up explaining something, because how can you write something THAT bird secondary, love systems as much as you do… and arrive at the conclusion that you’re a Snake? 

What I know for sure is that I absolutely do not identify with “knowledge for knowledge’s sake”, but I do have a really broad criteria for what “useful knowledge” is because I’m capable of thinking quite abstractly, so I can see the utility of almost anything.

That is very, very, very Bird. I’m starting to see the problem though. “Knowledge for knowledge’s sake” is an older phrase that owes more to the parent system than I would like, but it does essentially mean “no knowledge is wasted, the most useful way to solve problems is to preemptively hoard knowledge.” 

What I am really also passionate about is presenting things in the right way. I love writing, and I love public speaking, because I get to put myself in the other person’s shoes, imagine how they will “receive” what I’m saying and then tailor my presentation or short story or whatever to lead them to the conclusion that I want them to reach. But I dislike manipulating people with this: the conclusions that I want them to reach are the ones that I personally consider accurate, not the ones that benefit me.

First thing, you sound like an absolutely incredible person, and by pretty much any metric you want to use, a *good* person. (And no, that’s not because the way you’ve written this is manipulating me. This is my little game, I’m good at it.) 

What I can tell you that tailoring a presentation to an audience - that’s just a Rapid-Fire Bird who knows their stuff doing trick-shots, and I bet it’s beautiful to see. You are delivering information in a way that the audience can properly take in, because you know both your audience and your information well enough to do that, and that is incredible. 

My knee-jerk reaction is always to improvise, but I feel like this makes me come off as a “fake” person if I change my mind on what I said later (I change my mind A LOT), so I try not to say what sounds good in the moment because it will bite me in the ass later and lead to a reputation of a flaky, fake person, I guess?

Not 100% sure what you mean here. Changing your mind… is just a personality trait, it doesn’t really have to do with why you do things or how you do them. I think you would call tailoring your presentations improvisation, and I really wouldn’t. It’s not improvisation, it’s just looks like improvisation because you’ve come up with a hundred different ways to say this thing, and then on the day you can pick the one that works the best. If you had to do the same thing, but not in your preferred subject matter/environment, it would be basically impossible.

But I also really pride myself on my logical and thorough assessments of situations, and I tend to like thinking things through when I get the chance for it, often postponing decisions until I’ve thought about all the eventual longterm consequences of all the courses of action I might take. 

Bird. 

What trips me up is my trauma-induced fixation with being “honest” and avoiding “lies”, which are more about their eventual inefficacy and worthlessness and less about their moral rightness or wrongness (and also because manipulative=bad, as my Mum spent all of my life saying). My line of thinking is, “Things built on lies or self-delusion always crash down and burn, and it is right that they do so that more stable and honest things can take place”

What are you building on lies? If anyone’s work has a solid foundation, it’s yours. And as we’ve previously discussed, even IF you were doing your mom’s brash Lion secondary thing, wouldn’t that be in a lie in itself, because it’s not your natural presentation, it’s something you need to force yourself to do? 

but I also kind of use it to do shady shit - like I don’t feel morally wrong in hitting up a man in a relationship, because if he really cares about his woman the only person who’ll get burned is me and if he doesn’t I saved her the trouble of wasting more of her time on him?

This is actually a really interesting aside, because it’s you telling me how you handle a moral issue (that makes it a Primary thing.) 

Is it wrong to hit on a married man? Your answer is No: either you get turned down because he’s staying faithful, and that’s your own personal risk, or he cheats, in which case he’s kind of … dehumanizing himself? And therefore you are doing his partner a favor because she can now get rid of this unhealthy member of her community. There’s a logic there, and it’s a kind of ruthless Badger primary logic. 

So not sure if Snake or Badger secondary?

Bird. 

P.S. After some self-reflection, I realized that I’m probably not a Bird secondary

I’m listening. 

because I really hate following plans and situations where I have to rely on concrete skills and not abstract problem solving terrify me. OTOH I am very proud of my general ability to assess a situation and act appropriately.

Not sure how you’re distinguishing between “concrete skills” and “abstract problem solving.” From what you’ve been telling me, it sounds like you need the concrete skills before you can do the abstract problem solving, as in they work together. 

I’m also known as the person who changes PowerPoint slides in the middle of a conference based on whoever’s speaking before her and adapting her speech accordingly, which freaks the shit out of my coworkers, so I guess any “planning” type is probably out for old me 

That’s the most Rapid Fire Bird thing I ever heard. You made a plan. The PowerPoint and the speech exist. You’re just adapting them on the fly, based on previously-existing knowledge. I’m starting to think that you’re one of those Bird secondaries who is SUCH a loud Bird secondary, that it can be hard to get your head the idea that your skills are skills, and not sort of neutral abilities that everyone has. 

my latent distaste towards being a Snake secondary is my burny oppressive bullshit against anything that’s not “stalwart honesty and consistency” that I’ve been imposing on myself for years.

which I really wish you didn’t feel like you had to. 

Because I do love winging it and just saying whatever’s the most situationally appropriate thing regardless of how much it reflects me and I’ve just been treating any kind of play acting like a recovering alcoholic treats drink so I no longer even remember how it feels anymore lol.

I hope you find a way to play with your Actor Bird, at some point. One more little thing before I sign off though - thinking of actions as “situationally appropriate” is a very Actor Bird secondary thing to do. Snakes don’t go that big. Snakes think - what response do I want from this person, in this moment, and how do I get it? They also constantly reset. Snake secondaries have this “seducer” reputation because they generally are better one-on-one, or in small groups. Even Snake secondary actors will talk about the way they perceive the whole audience as one “person” … it’s all very interesting, but a very different way of approaching the world than the way you do.

[ba-wan]

I was on my third re-watch of the drama Start-Up and thought it’d be fun to sort the characters w/ Sorting Hat Chats’ system--it’s such an interesting way to build/disseminate fictional characters. There are a lot of characters in this drama, but I’ll just be sorting the main and second leads. It’s a long read, though. (Minor spoilers ahead!)

1) Main female lead, Seo Dalmi

(Side note: Dalmi is probably one of my favorite K-drama characters to date because she knows what she wants and gets after it with everything she’s got.)

I think she has a Snake primary. A lot of her character-defining actions are driven by the desire to help her most-beloved individuals or people in the world who remind her of those individuals. She refuses to leave her father when her parents divorce, because she thinks it’d be tantamount to betrayal. Early in the show, Dalmi’s grandmother tells Han Jipyeong that Dalmi got into a good university--which is extremely difficult to do in Korea--but when Dalmi’s grandmother sold her hot dog shop to pay for Dalmi’s tuition, Dalmi promptly dropped out and worked until she could buy her grandmother a food truck. She talks about being motivated to create a seeing-eye app and self-driving cars because she wants to help vision-impaired individuals like her grandmother, and to ensure accidents like the one that killed her father wouldn’t happen to other people. Dalmi’s projects are undoubtedly selfless, but they’re inspired by her own special people. I think this is also why she’s so torn-up after finding out the letter she thought were from Nam Dosan were actually from Jipyeong--her inspiration and sense of purpose is so strongly drawn from the individuals she holds dear, finding out a major source of her inspiration was attributed to the wrong person is earth-shattering for her in a way it probably wouldn’t be for a non-Snake primary.

I went between Lion and Badger a lot for Dalmi’s secondary. She’s relentless to the point of desperation, but how much of that is because she’s so hellbent on making her start-up(s) work? She overtly dislikes having to lie, and people around her (primarily the two male leads) seem to be drawn to her for her explicit drive and belief in herself.

But ultimately, I think she’s a Badger secondary. Although Dalmi bluffs a lot without feeling uncomfortable about doing so, she’s pretty bad at it, with a lot of post-bluff panic that I feel like Lion secondaries wouldn’t have. Instead, we see her (happily) grinding a lot: picking up books on management and start-ups, putting in her best efforts at her temp job, staying up late with Dosan when the other team members take a break, asking Jipyeong a million questions all at once over the course of a night. We also see her doing a lot of that Badger-style “just show up” thing in her relationships, like bringing Jipyeong a specific trash bag and pine nut noodles after he mentions them. A pivotal point in the show--when Dalmi walks miles of country roads to find Dosan--also seems Badger-y to me.

2) Main male lead, Nam Dosan

Originally posted by seoul-leaf

Dosan is another favorite K-drama character! Actually, he’s probably my favorite K-drama first male lead of all time, mostly because the bar is so low. But anyway...

I thought Dosan was a Snake primary like Dalmi because he’s so devoted to her and inspired by her, but I noticed that pre-Dalmi, he didn’t really have such special individuals and was pretty content living that way. He cares a lot about his parents and friends, as well as the people Dalmi cares about, but he doesn’t live and die for them the way Dalmi or other Snake primary characters do. I also considered Badger and Lion because he’s shown to be very kind to strangers for no apparent reason, to the point that his parents dub him “Living Buddha.” He impulsively attends the event Dalmi invited him to, seemingly just because he feels like it’d be the nice thing to do. When Dosan visibly pulls ahead of his peers--whether figuratively in an academic way or literally on a running track--he purposely falls behind to protect their feelings. Never to the point of handicapping himself, but just enough that they feel better...again, for no apparent reason.

But when I looked at Dosan some more, I decided that he’s an ever-elusive Bird primary. To outsiders, his way of doing things might seem wonky, but he has a strong internal logic for his actions. When he gets angry, he systematically begins knitting. When he hears people talking about blood types and personality, he launches into a thorough explanation (involving the brain, bloodflow, etc.) of why the two can’t be linked, seemingly with the expectation that if he explains, they’ll see why he’s right and agree. On a more serious note, Dosan has a really clear idea of how he fell for Dalmi, tracing it back through specific scenes: the fireworks he saw on the night they met, quotes from the letter Jipyeong showed him, the trust she has in his hands. Of course, much of this might stem from cinematic convenience, but I think it lends itself to character-building as well. (We don’t get this consciously thematic reminiscence from the other leads, after all.)

His secondary was easy, because Dosan is as Badger secondary as it gets. He liked coding and got genius-level good at it, shows up for his friends when things get rough (Chulsan’s virus debacle), and conveys his affection through diligent work (fixing the bug in their hackathon product and creating an entire app for Dalmi).

Most importantly, he cares a lot about his “integrity of method.” Dosan won a major math competition as a middle schooler competing against high schoolers, but he always felt that he didn’t deserve the win because he accidentally saw the start of a fellow competitor’s solution for a problem he was stuck on and that helped him solve the problem. Others have noted that the first line of someone else’s solution isn’t enough for the average person to solve a math competition problem--you still have to be an incredible mathematician to do that. And who’s to say that Dosan wouldn’t have solved the math problem himself eventually, or that he would’ve won with the other problems he’d already solved correctly? But Dosan doesn’t care about that, because he thinks there’s a proper way to win and he didn’t do it.

(Side note, but Dosan and I have the same sorting! I almost never see Bird Badgers in media so this was fun.)

3) Second female lead, Won Injae

The heart rendering thing about Injae is that she’s a Loyalist primary like her sister Dalmi, but while Dalmi’s primary shines with happy fulfillment, Injae’s not doing great and probably hasn’t been doing great since their parents’ divorce.

Dalmi is healthy and happy because, while she evidently values herself a lot, she also has people around her to dote on--namely, her grandmother, father, and Dosan. (She even doted on Dosan when he didn’t exist as a real person to her!) We see by the show’s ending that Injae is actually just as family-oriented as Dalmi, but she hasn’t had any family to orient herself toward for a long time. Injae tells Dalmi that going with their mother when she remarried a wealthy man would’ve been the smarter move, yet Injae views their mother’s “money obsession” with contempt. She doesn’t love her patronizing stepdad or unintelligent stepbrother either, and since she doesn’t have friends (just colleagues), Injae ends up being lost for a long time.

I thought Injae might be a Snake primary like her sister, but after thinking more I decided that she’s a Badger primary. Kind of an unexpected example of one, considering how cold she is. But I noticed that her salvation comes in the form of reconnecting with her family--Dalmi, their mother, and their grandmother--and choosing to go back to her original surname, “Seo of the Dalseong Seo clan.”  (Side note: I don’t even understand Loyalist primaries all that well but that scene made me bawl!!)

While Dalmi is loyal to her inner circle individually, Injae values it for being her small community. She is also loyal to certain ways of living--which is why she chose to go with her mother’s money, which would allow her to continue attending private school and school trips, rather than her father’s uncertain entrepreneurship (as Dalmi does). Injae is very self-focused, but it doesn’t come from a place of wanting to survive as herself. She wants to prove that she can win when she plays by the start-up community’s rules.

Like Dalmi, Injae’s secondary was difficult for me to figure out, but in reverse. Where Dalmi is an obvious hard driver, Injae moves like a silent knife. She doesn’t have issues with lying to get what she wants, as with her application to Sandbox. She also leads her start-up team with quiet authority that’s based on her previous CEO experience and socializes with strangers easily. Ultimately, I think she’s a Bird secondary. Injae relies a lot on her prior knowledge and has the detached propensity to think of everything (including people) as discrete tools. She’s also not great at thinking beyond her established framework, which alarms her mentor when she’s so blasé about being egged by laborers that her startup’s software would displace. Injae has no interest in building communities, inspiring others, or shifting her stance to new opportunities. Girl’s got no friends or improv skills! But she’s very invested in being an excellent CEO, and knows what tools she needs for that, as well as how to use them.

4) Second male lead, Han Jipyeong

Originally posted by kimkim-jipy

Ahh...Jipyeong. He reminds me of some of the kids I’ve tutored. But moving on:

His primary was also hard to discern, but for him it’s because he’s so burnt. Jipyeong doesn’t know what he wants for like two-thirds of the show and even then it takes him another few episodes to really figure things out.

But like Injae, his salvation comes in the form of being together with family. Jipyeong initially gets involved with Dalmi’s start-up because he wants to repay her grandmother, and then he continues his involvement because he develops a crush on Dalmi. That looks Snake-y, but when I look at his happiest moments, it’s when he’s held gently within a group, whether that’s when he’s playing Go-Stop with the Samsan Tech crew or making jeon with Dalmi’s family. When I look at what he longs for, it’s also community. There’s a scene where the young Jipyeong looks longingly at a TV showing a happy family. I think Dalmi’s grandmother had such a strong effect on him because her actions of kindness toward him, a literal stranger, are what he wishes he could do but can’t. Eventually, we see him finally getting to that point himself, when he agrees to invest in a start-up with little profit potential but large probable social impact for orphans like himself. Jipyeong looks his happiest when he’s with a family or helping a community--that feels like a Badger primary to me.

His secondary is really easy, though. Jipyeong is an obvious Lion secondary: happiest when doling out blunt truths, willing to run over social conventions to get what he wants, and almost pugnaciously earnest. I suspect this secondary is what his character so appealing to audiences as a love interest--it’s far flashier than Dosan’s Badger secondary, although in my opinion it’s not nearly as effective in giving Dalmi what she needs/wants. (I’m also inured by the fact that my mom has a lot of Lion secondary traits and I know their downsides firsthand.)

Summary:

Seo Dalmi: Snake/Badger Nam Dosan: Bird/Badger Won Injae: Badger/Bird Han Jipyeong: Badger/Lion

[missbrunettebarbie]

What are your top 5 badger birds?

This was harder than I expected.

1. Jane Villanueva (Jane the Virgin) - if she really is a Badger Bird. @laufire thinks so, I would need to rewatch before I agree or disagree

2. Prometheus (Greek Myths) - Can we call this the Prometheus sorting? I like it a lot more than the King Arthur sorting.

3. Michael (The Good Place) - Or The Architect sorting, actually. I feel like Michael and Prometheus can work well as the blueprint for Badger Bird characters.

4. Tara Maclay (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

5. Emma Gilbert (H2O just add water)

Honorable mentions: Celestial Goddess (Lucifer), Suki (ATLA), Harry Greenwood (Charmed), Ray Palmer (Legend of Tomorrow).

ETA: I think Kirigan/The Darkling (Netflix' Shadow and Bone) deserves a menrion as well since both me and @the-phoenix-heart agreed Badger Bird is the most likely aorting for him.

[wisteria-lodge]

burnt badger primary (lion model) + bird secondary (bird performance)

Hello Wisteria! Hope you're doing well.

I want to ask for some help with my sorting. It was pretty stable for some time, but now I have doubts again.

The major difficulty for me is my secondary house. For primary, I'm pretty sure I'm a Burned Badger with Lion model. It was not the easiest thing to admit, because I don't like the idea of confirming to community, but I'm actually very people-oriented. It's important for me to find my place in the community where I can help people with my sphere of competence. However, I have suffered too much from situation when I was the only one who understood that the established morality of the group I belonged to was actually hurting the members of this community. 

I’m definitely seeing some Burnt Badger primary. 

I'm also neurodivergent and even when I see that there's a problem, I don't know what to do with it, especially when it's something about people's psychological well-being, and it's literally pain for me. On the one hand, it lead to burning - I don't trust in my own ability to be helpful for people around me

It does sound like your secondary is a bit burnt - that’s probably why you’re having problems nailing it down. 

and even though I hate myself for such thoughts, I sometimes catch myself thinking that sometimes people really don't deserve respect and love. 

Okay. I can read that as Burnt Badger primary, definitely. You want to respect and love everyone, but that doesn’t feel doable/safe... and you feel guilty about that. 

On the other hand it helped me to develop a pretty stable Lion model, which helps me to trust my intuition and my own sense of morality rather than other people's opinions when those factors contradict with each other.

I hope you find a group that suits you better. 

However, secondaries are way more... Complicated. I don't understand exactly which one is my natural instinct and which one is my learned model.

It was pretty easy for me to exclude Badger and Snake secondaries. I don't resonate with the idea of adaptability that are associated with Snake secondaries, for me it's just lying, and I heavily dislike lying. 

Hmm. This is a very heavy knee-jerk response. Which normally makes me say Lion - and usually Lion secondary - but I’m still trying to figure out how your Lion primary model fits into your system. 

Also I do not find hard work to be the best way of achieving goals, I'm a type of person who thinks that it's better to work smart than hard, and I happily use shortcuts if they a) don't hurt anyone; and 2) don't give me dishonorable advantage.

Okay, I agree. You’re probably not a Badger secondary. But there’s that Badger primary preoccupation with fairness creeping in. 

However, it's way more difficult for me to differentiate between Bird and Lion secondary. Even in my childhood I had traits of both and they become so heavily integrated with each other that any attempt to figure out who is the main one becomes a reason for headache.

I’ll help you out as much as I can here, but if it’s helpful at this point in your life to just say “I’m both” ... I don’t think I have a problem with that. 

Reasons why I might be Bird:

I am going to say I am already leaning Bird. Because you did start in with a LIST. And I *suspect* that some of your more Liony tendencies might be related to your primary. You clearly like Lion a lot... and are a little conflicted about your Badger primary. 

1) Even though I don't feel like I actively collect "useful tools", I'm definitely a knowledge hoarder. I like to read different stuff, and I just randomly and totally unintentionally gather information I find interesting and fun, like a dragon gathers random shiny thingies. I might not even remember the source, but I can remember every detail in a random fact I have seen ten years ago in a Wikipedia article. Sometimes such knowledge is useful, sometimes just fun, but it happens automatically.

Okay, there’s some Bird here definitely. And it’s not the “scaffolding” type of Bird secondary that I would *expect* from someone who’s neurodivergent and modeling bird as a support system.

2) I infodump. Like A LOT. I'd I'm interested in something, I can speak about it for hours.

That just means you’re neurodivergent. That’s not a Bird thing. 

3) If it's not an emergency situation, my first reaction is to withdraw from the reality for a few minutes

That wording makes me think of dissociation, which is again kind of its own thing. But I also don’t think English is your first language, so I’m not going to read too much into it. 

and try to figure out logically what's happening and what should I do with it.

4) I have a need to have a possibility to plan things in advance, instead of changing my plans every hour because of external circumstances.

Okay sure. I’m hearing prep-work secondary (Bird or Badger) who doesn’t like making split-second decisions. You clearly value the Bird skillset. 

Reasons for Lion:

1) I'm a pretty harsh and agressive person. Majorly I'm calm, but some things can trigger me so much that I immediately jump into my "berserker mode", and if the trigger was strong enough, I can go from total chill to desire to unalive someone during just few seconds.

That sounds like like we’ve got some anger issues going on, which is something any secondary can struggle with. 

2) I tend to be the "hard truth teller," in most situations I say exactly what I think even if it might lead to a conflict.

This sounds like a Lion primary. It’s not about solving problems, it’s about doing something because it’s right. I suspect that Lion primary feels safer to you right now than Badger primary, but if it is indeed a defense mechanism, that may be where the slightly aggressive vibe of this ask is coming from. 

3) I often end up being a leader, against my own will, because no one else have chosen to take the responsibility.

That is indeed a Lion secondary trait... but Lion secondaries tend to like being leaders, and you seem super conflicted about it. 

There's also one interesting trait that seems to be a mixture of equal Lion and Bird parts. I'm somewhat a planner, I prefer to know things that I need to do in advance, preferably at least few days, but instead of having a detailed plan with exact timetable, it's more like a puzzle with pieces that I can combine with each other to make something solid. 

Rapid-fire Bird.

I don't plan more than just hooks and anchors that allow me to remember what I need to do or to say. 

I like your metaphor. I’m not totally sure I understand it. But I have definitely compared Bird secondaries to fishing hooks before. 

I'm also pretty good in using infodumping as a way to hide from people that I lack competence in something.

I expect that you may additionally have a bit of a Bird secondary performance, that you use to buy time, or when you’re in an unfamiliar situation.

Well, I hope that it wasn't too chaotic to analyze)

No, not at all. 

Feel free to ask any questions if something seems unclear or needs more details to analyze! And thank you in advance.

I’m reading you pretty solidly as a Bird secondary. You’ve got this defense mechanism Lion primary that kicks in, and that’s where the Lion energy is coming from. I’m also not reading your secondary as particularly burnt, and in retrospect “not knowing what to do especially when it's something about people's psychological well-being,” should have clued me in to how it’s your primary burning, not your secondary. I truly don’t see a problem with modeling a really loud Lion until your Badger primary gets back on its feet, and hope everything goes well for you. 

[wisteria-lodge]

(my) Top 5 sexiest + un-sexiest sortings

A meme! I’ve been loving reading everyone’s answers, they are hilarious (even if I have been... called out a few times.) So I’m throwing mine out there too.

SEXIEST SORTING

5. Badger Bird

Y’all are sleeping on the potential sexiness of Badger primaries. They are established. They are well-connected. They are stable. Throw a little bird in there, and that’s skills and preparation. This was my prime comfort sorting for a long time - this is King Arthur, or Danny Ocean planning a heist in Ocean’s Eleven, or Michael (and Vito?) Corleone (who maybe aren’t the healthiest Badgers in the world, but still. Very sexy.) This is a sorting that’s all about quiet, soft-spoken power that doesn’t have to prove a Damn Thing, and what’s not sexy about that? 

4. Badger Snake

If there’s one thing about Badger Birds, it’s that they can sometimes be a little removed, a little cool. That was actually a big draw for a while, when I was Deeply Suspicious of anyone trying to charm me. Now... I’m okay with that. Someone who can read me well enough to really figure out what I like and what makes me tick? But who has a whole established world outside of me as well? Badger Snake is Badger Bird’s flirty older brother, a bad boy with a heart of gold, and I am into it. 

3. Double Badger

Look. *Look.* Double Badgers scrape you up off the floor and put you back together again. They are too good for me. I have never met one that did not inspire insane levels of loyalty, while thinking that they were nothing especially special, and that people are just like that. 

And on the flip side - okay, fictional Double Badgers who have been cracked and broken and betrayed? And are probably modeling like sixteen protective layers. Ahgh, the fantasy of giving that person the love and comfort they deserve and watching them wake back up, strip away that armor until you can actually see the badger again? yesssss

2. Lion Bird

They’re committed. They’re driven. They’re unstoppable. But again... in a more subdued, subtle way. They really don’t care what you think about them. To me, this is the sorting of the bloodhound who will never leave the trail. But they’ve got this CONSISTANCY. They are always themselves, and that is extremely sexy. You’ve got to love when the Prime Universe and Mirror Universe versions are *exactly the same.* 

1. Double Bird

Double Birds are sexy. They just are. Even the infuriating ones (especially the infuriating ones, dammit.) Completely unhinged, sure. But they’re so interesting, and original, and unpredictable. They can also get to that place where they completely reject societal norms. Also, competent as all hell, as a rule. This one ranks so high because I have never come across a Double Bird who I did not think was sexy on some level. 

UNSEXIEST

5.  Bird Lion

An interesting sorting - but to me this is the melancholic Byronic Hero, and I’ve just never been into that as a romance trope. I don’t want to have to track you down after you’ve been wandering around the moors writing poetry in the rain or whatever. Also idk I think I’d probably have to be worried about either a god complex or a secret opium habit. 

4. Lion Badger

My own sorting, and I’m seeing it show up in the unsexy lists and yeah I *get it.* I also have trouble seeing Castiel as sexy, but I’m sure glad that SOME people seem too. The people who do seem to seem to enjoy my sorting like that I can be this rock who can just punch them in the face with emotional honesty, turn the knife a little, and then scrape them off the floor. And like... okay. 

3. Bird Snake

I have no idea why Snake Bird is the classic “villain” sorting. Those guys just want money or power which is totally understandable. Bird Snakes are fascinating but they’re so like... third option. I have no idea what you guys want, and I suspect that there’s maybe some uncanny valley going on. A Bird Snake is an Idealist/Fluid like a Lion Badger, and so it’s weird that you can look so much like me, and then just shift and be... not that

2. Double Snake

*Maybe* if I was their person, but honestly probably not even then. Double Snakes are overwhelming. They’re just so in the wind, I just want them to be resting on *some* sort of external scaffolding you know. 

1. Double Lion

I am so, so glad you guys exist. But I can really only handle you in short bursts. 

[wisteria-lodge]

slightly burnt badger primary + bird secondary

I suppose my main question would be if I really have Bird in the Primary or Secondary or I just model them because I find Ravenclaw a cool house that I'd like to be in if Hogwarts was a thing. I have taken the tests, multiple times, multiple tests, and I usually get Ravenclaw. But I would be lying if I didn't say I'm not rigging them after figuring out Ravenclaw answers if I don't get Ravenclaw. I mean naturally Ravenclaw has got to be somewhere, either in a house or a model since I like it so much but the fact that I like it so much makes me distrustful of the results.

Bird is not Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw is like, Dark Academia aesthetic and drinking tea in front of rainy windows. 

Rigging house sorting quizzes usually means you’re... not a Badger or a Lion, the two secondaries most focused on personal authenticity. 

You can like a house and not have it. Maybe you model it, maybe you just like it. Both things are fine. :D

I'm warm, generally non-judgemental, understanding, generally fair if possible.  

... that’s just people stuff. Especially with all those wiggle words!

I strive to help whoever I can, if I can, in any way I can. 

Okay, that could be Badger primary, or Paragon Lion.

I am open, honest and expressive with my feelings. 

That’s also such people stuff. Everyone can be emotional, and I’d say most of the sortings do value honesty... the difference is they value honesty in different contexts, and for different reasons.

In a loyalist people sense, it is hard for me to tell if I prefer everyone or just a select few people. Most often, I don't care much about knowing the person to help them; if I can I just do. I don't often ask myself why, it comes for me pretty easily, but if I were to answer it, I would say simply because the world is a better place when we help each other. And kindness is so beautiful. At the same time, I know I would jump in more readily for my friends than a stranger.

But my guess is that you would feel a guilty about not helping the stranger, if they needed you more. This is a Badger primary answer.

(and at the same time, I struggle with the paranoia at the back of my head that even my closest friends could turn on me and betray me in some way, but I often ignore that).

Hmm. Is this a tiny bit of Burnt Badger that I see. You want to trust the community, but don’t 100% believe you can? 

I try to find multiple philosophies to guide me through life, but I often return to people in some form of another. (People are so beautiful and ugly and so worth it and undeserving but deserving ❤️ contradiction I know. But we wouldn't have many things without people. I mean we'd still have physics, chemistry and nature.)

‘People are important because they’re people.’ Classic Badger primary.

I am sorry, I am rambling so badly. If you've gotten to this point and didn't delete this yet thank you for your patience ☺️

Apologies = burnt secondary???  Or heck, sometimes that ‘Am I being a bother’ thing is a Burnt Badger primary thing.

Considering my Secondary.....it is hard. I am torn between Bird, Badger and Snake. I definitely like the Bird Secondary ideal, and my go to when I don't understand something is to either Google it (which I suppose would be Bird) or ask someone (Badger). 

Okay, so a Built secondary. Very good. 

But often in a crisis I end up thinking on the spot. Don't all people do it? It's more like "ok this didn't work, what could work? Would this work? Do I have the tools I need at disposal for this to work, can I use them or procure them or what can I do with the tools that I've got?" (Which from my understanding it would be Snake? Please correct me if I'm wrong).

What you are describing is Bird. Birds think in terms of tools. A snake would be more likely to think... am I even in the right environment right now?

I think that would be it. I don't know if this is sufficient data to extrapolate the necessary conclusions, but if you're not bored by it, I could try to be more concise. What would be your thoughts? Thank you for your time! ❤️

Honestly, this one was quite short. And from the information I have, I would say you sound like a Badger Bird. (or a Huffleclaw, in the old terminology) 

[wisteria-lodge]

Prometheus from Greek Mythology is a Badger/Bird and that is a hill I will die on

Well, he does sacrifice everything to *help the community* by *giving them a tool.*

[wisteria-lodge]

exploded badger primary + bird secondary

Hi! I love the sorting hat system as a tool for better understanding yourself, and ive narrowed down my primary (exploded badger, but working on it) but Im lost on my secondary. I know the question it answers is "how do you do things" but when I try to write down how I do things it doesn't line up with any of the types. It might be badger or bird? But Ill explain it in more detail and I hope you can help narrow it down more.

So firstly my tactics in emergency situations is to follow the plan I have pre-prepared in my head. If I dont have a plan and dont know what to do I panic Badly (but that has only happened like. Once with a physical problem and a few times with Emotional problems). Like once before the pandemic I was in a train and this elderly man, his leg started bleeding really badly. So I know in these situations you have to 

Call 911

Tend to the wound.

Contact the train driver

 Keep others calm. 

And there was one person in the train who was a nurse so she could tend to the wound, two people stood up to check with the driver on both sides of the train, and this other dude was calling 911 but he didnt know much about trains and I Do so I could help by looking up which train we were in and where & when it would stop next so the ambulance knew where to go. 

I mean... okay. I joke about Bird secondaries always writing in with numbered lists... but come ON. Could this be any more Bird? Could this possibly be any more bird. Even solving the problem with existing knowledge of trains...

I’m a Badger. In a situation like that, I’d be keeping others calm. I’d be keeping the patient calm, and seeing if the nurse needed a second pair of hands. You didn’t even mention the emotional mood in that train car. The inside of your head looks neutral to you, of course it does. But to me it looks so Bird. 

Or this other time when I was Tiny and we had soldering lessons, and the teacher told us if we got injured we had to go to him first. So I burned my hand pretty badly, but didnt panic and went to the teacher, waited until he was done explaining things to another student and then said I burned my hand. And he thought it wasnt serious because I was calm but then he saw my hand and panicked and immediately brought me to the tap for the water. And I knew proper burn protocol.

You probably had a numbered list in your head when you were tiny too.

I could have gone to the water myself and sent someone else to fetch the teacher when my hand was cooling, but that wasnt how I was Supposed to do it so I followed protocol.

That’s probably more a function of your primary than your secondary. You’re an Exploded Badger? As a young Badger you probably followed ALL the rules. 

One time things went badly was when I was sailing with friends, and the wind was blowing pretty strong, and I know Nothing about sailing, and my only job was Sit in the boat and Move to the correct side when turning. But on a big turn water got in the boat, and I didnt understand how much water could get in the boat before it sank, and how diagonal we could go before we drowned, and then I completely shut down and only responded when people explicitly Told Me What To Do because I didnt know what was happening.

Panic responses happen. I’ve been so scared before that suddenly I’m just hiding behind a couch and at no point was conscious thought involved. Not my finest hour, I wish it hadn’t happened that way. But the whole thing is just a much older part of your brain. Nothing to do with your secondary. 

This doesnt mean I cant improvise! I can improvise pretty well, and if I start working on something without a plan it usually turns out great! I just have a lot of Base Knowledge that I can apply to those improvisation situations.

You are the definition of a Rapid-Fire Bird. 

The other question I've seen associated with secondaries is "how do you learn new stuff"? I usually learn stuff by starting to do it, failing, getting frustrated, stopping the thing and taking a break, and when I have calmed down Continuing The Thing until I am done. 

That’s just... an excellent strategy. And I think a Badger secondary would be WAY more tempted to just push though the pain. 

Which is really funny to write down because now I realize that my problem with a lot of my university work is that I started something, failed, and didnt pick it up again until just before the deadline because I was afraid for more failure or that I was too Inherently Flawed to successfully finish the thing, instead of taking a quick break and then Continuing.

That’s the language of an exploded Badger primary. 

Which all leaves me a bit confused about secondaries. The first part seems bird to me since I collect methods and apply them to situations, but the second part more badger since that's the hard work and when you fail work more bit. 

The ability to pick yourself up when you fail is probably more a primary thing, since it’s tied to motivation. 

Or maybe the first part is lion because I have a Plan and I will complete that Plan in the exact same way as I want and if I cannot do that I get unhappy.

See, I think you are so much a Bird, and so loudly a bird, that you conceptualize the other Secondaries as... Bird. Slightly different flavors of Bird maybe, but Bird. You’re comparing the battering ram nature of a Lion secondary to a Bird who wants to go down their checklist, when checklists make Lion secondaries anxious, constricted, and ineffectual. 

Thanks in advance for your time! Your blog is great and really interesting and it's a great way to figure out your own thoughts!