How do you differentiate a Badger and a Lion who values evenhandedness?
I'm assuming you're talking about Primaries :)
This can look pretty similar, especially from the outside. The main obvious difference is probably going to be how they deal with communities. Communities are important to Badgers, and they will seek them out, be unhappy without them, and to some extent structure their morality around them. It can be very hard for a Badger to go against their community's norms and rules, to disagree with what others in their community are saying, and it's most likely for them to be able to do that if the norm or rule is hurting someone. Badgers are also probably more likely to seek outside input in their general decision-making, where a Lion is going to be more comfortable working primarily off their gut.
Another point to look for is whether they exclude anyone from that evenhandedness and, if so, how. A Lion is more likely to be able to support shades of grey there, or go "if you are XYZ I don't believe you deserve this fair treatment" without going all the way to dehumanization. A Badger... is way more likely to go all the way to dehumanization. This is one of the dark sides of Badger - although all Houses can dehumanize, for Badgers it can be their only way to exclude people from their needs-based prioritization/decide that this is someone who they shouldn't help.
There's also the Idealist/Loyalist distinction - would they put ideals over people - but this can get tricky to really suss out in practice when an Idealist has Badger-flavoured ideals. There's the "could they change their minds? Could something happen to move them from those ideals?" question, but that's easier to tackle with Bird (where refining the system is part of it) than Lion. I think I'd poke to see whether there's anything else that's part of the moral system, and if so if it's a natural outgrowth of Badger ideals or constructed on top of them (as might be the case for a Badger) or whether it's more Lion internal morality that has evenhandedness as a component but involves other things as well. But probably checking how they interact with community is going to be the easiest point to find the distinction.
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Was thinking of writing a Sorting post but the canon I tried was Tamora Pierceâs Circle of Magic series (one of the mainstays of my late teens and early twenties) and my first stab at the main characters came out as
and that just seems so pat Iâm embarrassed to consider posting it.
(I could see Bird Secondary for Daja as well, and Iâm not convinced of Trisâ Sorting and quite possibly Briarâs Snake Secondary is a model? So some rereading is necessary in the hopes that I can make this a little less one-sided, lol.)
The funnier thing is that... Iâve seen talks about canons having a particular Primary before, about fiction espousing a certain worldview thatâs very (Badger/Snake/Lion/Bird). In this case? I think the canon as a whole has a Secondary. In particular, Badger Secondary. One of the key themes of the series seems to me to be: you need to work hard at things, you need to do things properly, there is no subsitute for proper effort over time, shortcuts to power will bring you to grief. Probably fitting for a series about magic based on crafts!
Probably no wonder I find it so soothing to read, lol. But it does mean I think all four of them might have Badger secondary models, too.
Do Snake Secondaries often model and / or perform Badger Secondary ?
If you're talking about the secondary in general, I think that depends on a lot of things: gender, culture, family, upbringing, your primary, your job, your values, the people around you, etc. Just like any other model or performance, really.
Example: For my own culture, I'd say there is a certain expectation for anyone who presents female to model/perform a very narrowly defined badger stereotype (hard-working, dependable, good with people, interested in the right communities, kind, open, fair, ferocious in defense of her charges). So from this alone it would seem that anyone who presents female in my culture, including any snake secondaries, are more likely to model/perform badger secondary in some way to cope with the expectations.
If you mean only the multiplayer aspects of the secondaries, I'm still in the process of figuring out similarities and differences between the two. I have a hard time describing what "fluid and circumventing" feels like in a conversation. In a recent discussion with @kaz-with-hat I made it sound like I am constantly analyzing and evaluating and choosing new approaches, and I still think that is what I'm doing. But it's not a conscious process, not at all. It's more like an instinct, a sense of what's happening and what is needed and then just trying it out and seeing if it's working or not. I can make it conscious, and I do so when I feel I need to get better at managing certain situations, but once I get the hang of it, I don't think about it anymore. It has become instinct.
Example: When I was about 12 or 13 years old, an adult acquaintance of my mum occasionally shamed me passive-aggressively for small things I did. For the longest time, I had no answer for her, I only felt vaguely unhappy after such a conversation. One day someone told me to just say yes, smile, and walk away. The next time she asked me "You really like your sweets, don't you?" in her nagging, passive aggressive tone, I recognized what she was doing, flashed back to that advice, and told her "Yes, I really do" with a smile, and took an extra piece of liquorice out of the bag. I was anxious about how she'd react, but once I saw the surprise on her face, I knew I had won. Nowadays, I don't have to think about it anymore. Whenever someone tries to shame me about inconsequential things, I just instinctively respond with a yes and a smile, or some other affirmation.
@reds-burrow proposed a sliding scale for (fluid) multiplayer secondaries, with unconscious badger-mirroring on one side, and conscious actor bird roles on the other, with snakes somewhere inbetween. I don't know how much water it holds for birds and badgers, but for my snake, it tracks.
Hello. How do you think a badger primary makes friends? What might be a process? Generally of course, and everyone can do this differently, but if just hypothetically.
So I sat on this one for a while because I'm not sure what one can say about how different Primaries make friends, since I suspect it's going to vary widely between different people. That said, things that might be trends:
* morality checks: I imagine that these are more important for Lion (checking to see if the prospective friend aligns with them on their strongly felt morals) and maybe Bird (checking to see if prospective friend works with existing system? demands an update to the system? Is cool with talking systems?). Badger is more likely to be live and let live for disagreements on issues they don't feel strongly about and so not vet prospective friends for things like that... and, possibly, more likely to not check for major disagreements because they figure these morals are given, and go to straight-up dehumanization if prospective friend disagrees on them.
However.
* community membership checks: I can imagine these being a thing for some Badgers, that are more tightly tied to a community or that value the actual community more strongly. This would basically be testing whether prospective friend is a member of the community or could possibly be one/checking to see if they uphold the important community norms.
* there might be a relatively fluid transition from "acquaintance/fellow community member" to "friend" to "close friend". Where a Snake might want to vet someone to before allowing them into their inner circle, Badgers don't really have an inner circle in the same way, and it could be easier for someone who's in their community in general to just slide their way into friendship via continuous exposure.
(I personally have also found it hard to continue friendships once the context they happened in is dissolved/there is no more community we're both in, but I'm not sure if that's just a general human thing - it's easier to talk to people if there's an ongoing shared experience, after all.)
That said, this is all pretty vague and likely to be very different for different people. I also suspect the Secondaries are going to come into the befriending process as well, although how exactly is again going to vary strongly.
A good way to know if youâre an Improvisational or Built Secondary : how do you cook ? A lot of people on the Internet who give recipes probably are Improvisational because the recipe is putting things together while eyeballing the quantities and guessing the cooking time. Meanwhile Iâm a Built Secondary and desperate for someone to give precise instructions and canât imagine just improvising a recipe.
The ironic thing is that you say this and I'm a really improvisational cook /o\ but it might be a matter of the Built secondaries being able to be improvisational in areas they've built something in that I've mentioned before, that I'm comfortable with my cooking skills in certain culinary directions and willing to try things out as a result. Ex, I have a no-knead bread recipe I've refined and over the years I've become confident enough with it that I'm willing to experiment with adding things like onions, olives or potatoes, never to mention different flour types and splitting it out to have a starter phrase. Or it's just that I learned how to cook in an improvisational fashion to start with, very "OK so take some of this and some of that and toss in other ingredients you like until the amounts look right".
(where my Secondary does show up is that I'm unlikely to improvise a recipe spontaneously - if I decide to try to turn my bread into olive bread I've probably been thinking about it and how one could possibly make this happen for a while before the actual attempt.)
My dad, mind you, matches this stereotype perfectly, he wants a recipe with precise amounts and instructions and really struggles to improvise. The rest of the family jokes that it's the lab training (he's a scientist).
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Another anon re: the switching off parts of your brain thing! Iâm inclined to suggest itâs a fluid secondary thing, because Iâm a Snake secondary, and I do the exact same thing. My best guess is that I access it through masking rather than mirroring, but the end result is the same. I can become the mask for a little while, and turn down things that donât fit so I just⌠donât think about them for a little while. Itâs often something really calming for me, getting to take a break from feeling stressed or upset about something by becoming a mask of something else.
It feels natural and authentic for me to. Which I think is not uncommon for Snakes talking about masking? I often donât think of my masks as inauthentic, theyâre a part of me as much as anything else. Even if a mask is sourced from âoutsideâ of me rather than âinsideâ, like a Badger might need to do with their mirroring - once Iâm using it, itâs mine now.
Thank you for this! I'm worried I accidentally describe Snake secondaries overly negatively when that's not my intention at all, ex what you say about it not feeling inauthentic and that your masks are still a part of you. This is a really interesting contribution because I was wondering whether this sort of... self-editing of one's identity... might be a Fluid thing in general, and the main difference is in how Snakes vs Badgers access it and parse it and think about it after the fact? This sounds like it might be the case. (And I hear you about how calming it can be to be someone who isn't worried about a certain thing for a while!)
Brother - Bird Lion, as said. He is extremely in-your-face and cannot back down and anything you say must stand up to logical scrutiny and he'll just start debates about morality for, like, fun? He'd sometimes argue until he convinced you and then switched sides and argued the point you had before and got surprised if you got upset about this? Growing up with him was a pain because I couldn't out-argue him and he considered emotional experiences irrelevant, like, he kept trying to get me to play games with him I didn't like and I'd tell him "no, because I don't enjoy those" and he'd go "but why don't you enjoy them?" and wouldn't consider my refusal valid until I gave him a rational argument for why this game was objectively unenjoyable which he would of course tear holes in-
-so I might still have some frustration built up /o\
We've also clashed when he'd change plans or want to do things on really short notice which I don't deal well with, I need a little time to mentally prep myself and don't pivot well. Classic Improvisational vs Built right there.
Come to think of it, he might actually house-match with my aunt who lived with us for a long time - she has that same inability to tone herself down at all and need to argue things to death. They get on absolutely terribly.
(no offense to Bird Lions btw! I am sure many of you are absolutely lovely people! I suspect I'd get on a lot better with my brother if I hadn't grown up with him, honestly! tbh I think specifically the combo of immature double Badger and Bird Lion was..... not great.)
Dad - I think my dad is a Badger Secondary like me - he's really respected in his field and as far as I can tell he sort of got there by just... working really hard at everything and being kind to everyone and he's this very low-key background presence in general. He actually ended up in a real leadership role for a while and hated it a lot. Bird is also an option but I am remembering a bunch of times when he got roped into doing things that he didn't really want to just because he has such a strong sense of responsibility and people knew that and knew that he wouldn't leave them in the lurch. Classic dependable Badger stuff.
Also, his hobbies have a tendency to escalate... like, one day he's decided to try bread-baking again and is starting a sourdough starter and next thing I know he's done a baking course with a, like, biochemist who writes books about optimal bread-baking techniques and he has, like, seven different roll recipes that are all multi-stage with something like 24 hours prep time which are pulled out on a rotating basis and specialised equipment for bread rising and temperature control and... there is probably a Bird model here but the way he just gets into things and suddenly there is a Right Way to have breakfast on a weekend and it involves him getting up at 5am to start baking and no bakery-bought goods enter the house ever again looks pretty Badger to me?
For Primary, this gets really tricky but I think I'm going to say Bird, even though he doesn't do the arguing everything to death thing. I get Idealist vibes off him, and... honestly, I definitely grew up considering Bird to be the correct Primary and that has to have come from somewhere, and my brother is only two years older than me. And he definitely does the "if you can logically convince me this is right I'll go with it, emotions aren't relevant in this" thing, he's just not as... forceful about arguing with people as my brother.
Mom - I think she might also be a Badger Secondary and my family is in fact all Badgers with my brother the lone Lion in the middle /o\ Definitely not Lion, definitely not Snake, and I'm not seeing quite enough of the *collecting* of Bird. She has a career where I get the impression she's just happy working hard at what she does, also sinks effort into her hobbies if not to the WTF extent my dad does it, and I get Courtier vibes off how she navigates social situations. We also understand each other really well which could indicate similar Secondaries.
The thing that really confuses me is that I'm sure Bird Secondary was also being pushed when I was growing up and, again, surely someone around me should have been a Bird Sec for that to happen?? Maybe my dad is actually Double Bird with a Badger model? Or maybe it's a cultural thing in general, since I come from an extremely STEM-heavy and especially STEM-academia-heavy background and that lends itself to Bird.
For Primary, I'm actually going with Snake - I am not seeing Idealist in her at all, but she's very much about her friends and family. Probably Snake with some constructed Bird morality to be able to survive in this highly avian household. (Mind you, you could also make a solid case for Badger in which case we'd house-match, but I'm just not quite seeing the intrinsic concern for people outside her circles or the need for a community.)
No way I can get my extended family down, except for - oh, of course, my male cousin is a Snake Secondary! You always get the impression he's putting on a bit of a performance and you're not quite seeing genuine him. I had a friend like that in school as well and it took me a bit of time to get used to it, that this wasn't a commentary on me or an unhealthy habit or something but just how he was most comfortable interacting with the world. Possibly a Lion Snake, actually, because he definitely pulls his emotions into his decision-making in a way that my entire immediate family finds extremely puzzling.
I donât usually Sort people around me, but it recently struck me that my older brother is either a Bird Lion or pretending to be one so strongly I have no clue what could be under the model
and this explains so much of the dysfunction in our relationship and the incomprehension on both sides.
(is it possible that my old Bird Primary model, developed in my Immature days, is still around primarily so that I can talk to my brother without getting steamrollered? Yes. Yes it is.)
Badger vs Snake secondary talk is indeed interesting. I started to wonder which one I use and which one is an added bonus on my sorting. It's hard to say if I truly believe in the performance I'm doing, but I do work best when I pretend I am who I pretend to be, even if just mentally. Let's pretend to feel this, let's pretend I am not lying, let's pretend I know what I'm doing. It's like I get into different shoes, I hopp into it. I know what I'm doing, I can't really stop in my tracks, but I have to BE in those shoes, I can't just hold it in my arms. But if I would ever look back, like in some video where I performe and appeare to be so confident and fine, I'd know I was playing, and that's not me. I wonder if this is a snake secondary who's really aware of how much believing in their acting can help them, in the end, one's body language can tell alot.
Hmmm! You obviously know yourself best, but I'm not hearing Courtier Badger here. I wouldn't refer to my mirroring as "pretending", nor would I look back at something I did or said while mirroring and go "oh, that wasn't me." It was me at the time! It might not be me now, but that doesn't mean it was fake back then!
I think you might be onto something with the snake who's figured out believing in their acting can really help. TBH I wouldn't be surprised if "try to make yourself feel it" is useful advice for making yourself come across as genuine and convincing and not get a giant headache trying to keep your presentation straight for most human beings trying to show themselves in a particular way, irrespective of Sorting. It's just that Badgers are prone to doing this automatically as it comes very naturally to us, while masks and distance do not - but that doesn't mean the other Houses can't use it.
Also, I don't know what your Primary is, but if it wants some form of authenticity or frowns on "faking it" or "manipulation", then this could be a strategy for reconciling a Secondary that wants a certain toolset with a Primary that thinks these tools are bad to use. This part is obviously wild theorizing, especially because the language you use sounds more utilitarian than that.
Tentatively identifying myself as a Badger Secondary and thereâs a dichotomy for me concercing the Right Way to do things. I generally donât care much about how people get things done for themselves unless it affects the result or risks harmful hazards (ex food safety is very serious and you donât get to skip steps) but I am extremely strict with myself to do things the Right Way even if this way doesnât work for me (Iâm very reluctant to accommodate my executive dysfunction for exemple).
Yeah, I think not pushing your Right Way onto others is the healthy way to handle it. For ourselves... I hear you about the unfortunate intersection of integrity of method and executive dysfunction. :(
Something that has helped a little is asking myself why this is the Right Way, whether it's in line with your Primary, and what my overall end goal is. Our "rules" don't come from thin air! Ex, work (I'm realising I use work examples a lot, it's because that's where my Badger is healthiest): a lot of my natural tendencies didn't actually align with best practices for my career to start. So I really focused on the whole: OK, at the end of the day I want to be able to present good, quality work that I can be proud of, what has to happen to do this? And that let me absorb rules like "don't reinvent the wheel" or "don't spend too long making things perfect" into my method which were at odds with my initial Badger, because I really drummed into my head that pursuing my natural tendency to just do everything myself and polish everything until it shone would result in a bad overall outcome.
I also managed to make a dent in some executive function stuff like that, in particular cooking. I used to be very "cooking must be done Properly, from Scratch, using pre-made sauces is not Real Cooking"... very Badger. This is... not helpful when it comes to not subsisting solely off ready meals when you have executive dysfunction. In addition to really focusing on "isn't the end goal supposed to be feeding myself?" I leveraged my Primary. I got really invested in accessible cooking for people with disabilities, especially spoon problems, and tricks and shortcuts and easy recipes etc. At one point a friend and I were even tossing around the idea of writing a cookbook, which... didn't get much beyond that, lol. But doing all that helped open the back door which let me use those things as well, especially since now throwing together something quick with pre-made ingredients could now double as an investigation/test of accessible cooking methods. (That said, if you've already completely divorced "what others should do" and "what I should do" I'm not sure this one will work as well.)
Of course, sometimes the answer to "why is this the Right Way?" comes back as the tautological "because it makes me happy to do it like this and unhappy not to", which I suppose is what makes a Badger Secondary but is nevertheless unhelpful. At that point, I think the best you can try to do is to try to frame it as a matter of preference and not "if I don't do it in this particular way I have failed and should feel guilty".
All this, of course, is way easier said than done.
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Oh your conversation with sevilemar about Badger VS Snake is interesting. I do something similar. Yesterday I was very sad and preoccupied by personal matters but I had classes and didnât want to expose the squishy parts of myself so I switched my feelings. The sadness and conflict didnât disappear but they went doormant and instead I put forward my joy to see my classmates and my fondness to speak with them. It was natural for me to switch feelings and it didnât feel dishonest at all.
Yeah, exactly! I do this a lot, I think! Work can be really weird this way - I've had times when I'm really preoccupied by something in my private life and I will be thinking about it constantly on the way to work...
...and then when I sit down at my desk and turn on my computer it's gone, and I don't think about it at all for the next eight-nine hours, and then when I'm on the subway home I go straight back to worrying about it constantly. Like I just put that part of my brain into sleep mode. And yeah, it feels natural and not dishonest, it's just a matter of... OK this concern/emotion isn't suited for this particular context, let's come back to it later.
Would need more data points to be sure but this does feel like a Badger Secondary thing? The fluid-but-authentic [taking better word suggestions, I don't want to make it sound like Birds and Snakes are inauthentic] combination means that you need to sort of... turn yourself into the version of you which fits the context you're in.
on the topic of your badger vs lion secondary post, what are some differences between badger and snake secondary? the (harry potter) stereotype is that theyre completely different, but theyre more similar than people give them credit for in both being fluid secondaries. and i understand that badgers are a prepwork secondary, but ive heard badgers say that they can thrive in improv situations because their prepwork is in the people around them. thoughts?
This ask is ironic because Snake is the one Secondary I do not understand at all. Lion? Bird? They're not who I am deep down but I get them, they make sense to me, I can use them in a pinch - Bird is both fun and useful while Lion is my "break glass in case of emergency". Snake? Snake is some sort of wizardry beyond my ken.
My suspicion is that Snake and Badger might be a case of Secondaries that can look very similar to the outside observer but are coming from fundamentally different places. Like, the fluid thing - I can easily imagine that this can be hard to tell apart for someone watching. Especially if we get into Exploded Badger, where you can in fact shift pretty strongly and contradict who you were earlier to match the other person. That might look pretty Snake!
But the thing is that a Courtier Badger is not acting. In that way, Badger is more similar to Lion than Snake, IMO - you're always being authentically you. It's just that "you" is a fluid concept. Certain parts are magnified and others tucked away depending on who you're talking to and the overall vibe of the group, but to a certain point that just feels natural? And at least for me it's not really happening consciously, I don't decide "oh I think this person I'm talking to needs an extra dose of tech geek Kaz and extra emotional intensity but to go minimal on sarcastic Kaz" or whatever. You just sort of see how the person acts and automatically shift to bring out the parts of yourself (or, when Exploded, create the parts of yourself) that suit that. My understanding from what Snakes have said is that their shifting is a lot more deliberate and calculated and there's a lot more distance there.
(more on Badgers improvising on familiar territories and how "integrity of method" can actually include some Snakey elements below cut)
The improv thing is interesting, because the analogy I actually want to draw here is to Rapid-Fire Bird. Namely: I think the Built secondaries can be capable of quick shifting and dealing with things on the fly, but it needs to be in an area where they have something built already. From a Badger perspective, it's like - the stronger your foundation, the less necessary it becomes for you to build and plan every little detail of what you need in advance, the more likely a rough idea of where you're going is enough, and the more likely it is that you can react to something quickly because you're on such familiar ground. Like, when I'm at work, I know that I got this. I have the skills and background, I've built up the expertise, I know that if I don't know something right away I know where to find it out, I have the trust of my teammates... so I can roll with the punches and try out various tactics to solve a problem, and also leave stuff unplanned knowing I'll be able to figure it out when it happens. This sounds similar to what you're saying about Badgers thriving in improv because their prep work is in the people around them, and this might look Snake to the outside observer? But it's extremely situational, it's only possible because we're in my territory here. I have absolutely no clue how Snakes pull this off without that basis. My Lion model is pretty much actively terrifying to use due to that lack of something to draw on, it feels like I'm jumping in the deep end - and at least that's straightforward, you just pick a direction and start going. Snakes just, like, do the adaptability/try a bunch of different tactics/find a path around obstacles thing in completely unfamiliar situations? I... but... how.
One last point where I think the two might look similar but get there in completely different ways: what exactly the Badger's "integrity of method" is can vary a lot. I think a lot of people who hear this might think that it's always about throwing more and more effort at the problem to solve it. But the Right Way to solve something can include "don't reinvent the wheel, make sure there isn't an existing solution you can use for this before you start solving it yourself". Or "try a few different approaches to make sure you've found the best/most efficient/most elegant one." Or "don't sink too much effort into trying to find the absolute perfect solution right off. It's more important to get something that works in place now and then come back to improve on it over time." To an outside observer, this could look Snakey - you're stopping and trying different things before you settle on the best way to solve something, you're borrowing things other people have done to save yourself effort, you're showing up with rough solutions that handle the problem but could really be refined. But it's coming from a very different place, with Badger doing these things because it's the right way (and, therefore, likely to do things like try different approaches even if the first one worked OK, or go to a lot of effort to make sure there's no solution already available even when making their own wouldn't be that hard), while the Snake is more goal-oriented and doing these things because they're trying to find the path that gets them to their destination quickest.
(...rereading the above paragraph I'm like: how obvious is it that I'm a software developer...)
Conclusion: even if in certain contexts the end result looks the same, Snakes remain magic beyond my comprehension. Sorry anon!
Maybe I can help you out here, since you have given me such a great post to work with đ
I am completely with you. Especially in a conversation, multiplayer snakes and courtier badgers can look very similar. But, like you said, we come from very different places. I feel strongly that someone I just met does not deserve to see any of my squishy parts, or any of my parts even if they are not especially squishy. So I instinctively use a neutral face, something polite and kind and fit for meeting new people in my free time. Or something neutral and professional at work.
If I get good vibes from them or I need to work with them, I will develop that face and make it into something they would like. Basically, I dive into my toolbox and choose which tools will work best to get my point across to you specifically. The larger my toolbox (e.g. the more multiplayer strategies I know and can use successfully), the better I will vibe with you, and the more it will look like magic from the outside. But my toolbox is not me, I don't need to be my tools, I just need to know how they work.
That's why there is always a part of me that is present in the situation and analysing your reactions, especially if I have an agenda besides having a good time. That's how I know where to tweak and where to course-correct, what to keep and what to discard, and that's how I see opportunities to influence a vibe instead of just vanishing into it. Although I do that, too. And because I am always present in the situation, I can do this anywhere, with anyone. It's more stressful because I get more input, but it's also more fun.
That's also the secret to my improv: Get in there, look around and see what you've got. Then do the best you can with what you find. It doesn't need to work the way it's supposed to, it just needs to work. For me, there is no Right Way of doing things, just the one that works best in this situation, or the one that feels most creative and fun. I get annoyed when people tell me to do things their way, because I analyse everything all the time, and that means I will notice connections you haven't seen yet, opportunities you didn't notice. It's the combination of improv and circumventing, it's my superpower đ.
Thanks for the Snake-ly insight! Yeah, itâs like... all that makes sense, and I can see how it can work and be fun for people, itâs just a really alien mindset to me. I do try to show a version of myself that isnât exposing, like, my squishiest parts, but Iâm fine with people seeing my non-squishy parts (and even squishy parts may end up accidentally exposed if thatâs the way the mirroring goes). Trying to keep up a distance would feel very strange and I wouldnât be good at it.
And I really have to be what Iâm showing. Almost all my strategies for changing how I act are, like... emotional self-surgery. I donât want to accidentally show certain aspects of myself at work so work-me just... almost never thinks about them. I massively improved my public speaking skills by telling myself being afraid of public speaking was overdone and I was from now on going to be a person who liked it. And I just did? Whenever I got too nervous I went âwe decided we werenât going to do that sort of thing anymoreâ and stopped? That sort of thing.
(I would like to say that a healthy, mature Badger Secondary should be able to accept that other people do things differently and their Right Way isnât everyoneâs, unless not doing things a certain way will legitimately affect the end result. Buuut I can easily imagine a lot of Badgers struggling with this concept. /o\)
what would a snake primary with a bird model + burned snake secondary with a bird model look like? iâm trying to figure myself out and i think thatâs it but i want to be sure. tell me about myself? ty :]
You're got it in the wrong order, Double Snake :) *You* do the really hard work of figuring yourself out well enough to describe yourself. Then *I* give you a few words to categorize aspects of yourself, because humans like patterns and they like words. Then you use that knowledge going forward, to find other people or characters who think likr you. And you figure yourself out even *more.*
And then you talk about it here on tumblr, and people start to ask you questions, and that helps you figuring out yourself even more. And soon enough, people ask you to sort characters on a show (I am working on the ask about TVD, no worries), and you flounder around because you have a bias for your own sorting a mile wide and feel like you're totally in the dark about everyone else, and how can you sort without re-watching everything and make copious notes because people depend on it. So you go through the shc tags and annoy people with stupid questions they are kind enough to answer, and people begin to like and reblog your posts, and you even got some referral asks and feel like you're having an impact, and someday you will wake up and find shc has eaten your brain.
Oh yeah! I actually got into SHC first off as a character analysis tool, especially as I started writing during fandomâs Mary-Sue-hunting days and so almost all my tools for creating and refining OCs were about âare they too special?â which, it turns out, is not actually a particularly helpful way to approach this. I fell in love with the system when I realised it let me make sense of a character whoâd puzzled me for ages. (Lion Badger, who was willing to sacrifice a lot for her ideals but hated making waves or arguing with people.) Itâs super fun to Sort characters, and I like going through the casts of my stories to see if I have a reasonable balance of Sortings among protagonists/supporting cast/antagonists or, if not, if thatâs due to some bias on my part.
And then you realise that hey, this is also a useful tool for figuring out yourself...
on the topic of your badger vs lion secondary post, what are some differences between badger and snake secondary? the (harry potter) stereotype is that theyre completely different, but theyre more similar than people give them credit for in both being fluid secondaries. and i understand that badgers are a prepwork secondary, but ive heard badgers say that they can thrive in improv situations because their prepwork is in the people around them. thoughts?
This ask is ironic because Snake is the one Secondary I do not understand at all. Lion? Bird? They're not who I am deep down but I get them, they make sense to me, I can use them in a pinch - Bird is both fun and useful while Lion is my "break glass in case of emergency". Snake? Snake is some sort of wizardry beyond my ken.
My suspicion is that Snake and Badger might be a case of Secondaries that can look very similar to the outside observer but are coming from fundamentally different places. Like, the fluid thing - I can easily imagine that this can be hard to tell apart for someone watching. Especially if we get into Exploded Badger, where you can in fact shift pretty strongly and contradict who you were earlier to match the other person. That might look pretty Snake!
But the thing is that a Courtier Badger is not acting. In that way, Badger is more similar to Lion than Snake, IMO - you're always being authentically you. It's just that "you" is a fluid concept. Certain parts are magnified and others tucked away depending on who you're talking to and the overall vibe of the group, but to a certain point that just feels natural? And at least for me it's not really happening consciously, I don't decide "oh I think this person I'm talking to needs an extra dose of tech geek Kaz and extra emotional intensity but to go minimal on sarcastic Kaz" or whatever. You just sort of see how the person acts and automatically shift to bring out the parts of yourself (or, when Exploded, create the parts of yourself) that suit that. My understanding from what Snakes have said is that their shifting is a lot more deliberate and calculated and there's a lot more distance there.
(more on Badgers improvising on familiar territories and how "integrity of method" can actually include some Snakey elements below cut)
The improv thing is interesting, because the analogy I actually want to draw here is to Rapid-Fire Bird. Namely: I think the Built secondaries can be capable of quick shifting and dealing with things on the fly, but it needs to be in an area where they have something built already. From a Badger perspective, it's like - the stronger your foundation, the less necessary it becomes for you to build and plan every little detail of what you need in advance, the more likely a rough idea of where you're going is enough, and the more likely it is that you can react to something quickly because you're on such familiar ground. Like, when I'm at work, I know that I got this. I have the skills and background, I've built up the expertise, I know that if I don't know something right away I know where to find it out, I have the trust of my teammates... so I can roll with the punches and try out various tactics to solve a problem, and also leave stuff unplanned knowing I'll be able to figure it out when it happens. This sounds similar to what you're saying about Badgers thriving in improv because their prep work is in the people around them, and this might look Snake to the outside observer? But it's extremely situational, it's only possible because we're in my territory here. I have absolutely no clue how Snakes pull this off without that basis. My Lion model is pretty much actively terrifying to use due to that lack of something to draw on, it feels like I'm jumping in the deep end - and at least that's straightforward, you just pick a direction and start going. Snakes just, like, do the adaptability/try a bunch of different tactics/find a path around obstacles thing in completely unfamiliar situations? I... but... how.
One last point where I think the two might look similar but get there in completely different ways: what exactly the Badger's "integrity of method" is can vary a lot. I think a lot of people who hear this might think that it's always about throwing more and more effort at the problem to solve it. But the Right Way to solve something can include "don't reinvent the wheel, make sure there isn't an existing solution you can use for this before you start solving it yourself". Or "try a few different approaches to make sure you've found the best/most efficient/most elegant one." Or "don't sink too much effort into trying to find the absolute perfect solution right off. It's more important to get something that works in place now and then come back to improve on it over time." To an outside observer, this could look Snakey - you're stopping and trying different things before you settle on the best way to solve something, you're borrowing things other people have done to save yourself effort, you're showing up with rough solutions that handle the problem but could really be refined. But it's coming from a very different place, with Badger doing these things because it's the right way (and, therefore, likely to do things like try different approaches even if the first one worked OK, or go to a lot of effort to make sure there's no solution already available even when making their own wouldn't be that hard), while the Snake is more goal-oriented and doing these things because they're trying to find the path that gets them to their destination quickest.
(...rereading the above paragraph I'm like: how obvious is it that I'm a software developer...)
Conclusion: even if in certain contexts the end result looks the same, Snakes remain magic beyond my comprehension. Sorry anon!
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Badger sec question anon here. Idk, the question kindbof comes from a place that questions why would you ever unburn when it hurts, or you still need to come with your surroundings more than start to find your own strength. Trying to unburn hurts and it doesn't help with surviving, so you build a model for what others actually would want to see, what they wanted to see from the get go, and what you would like to be. It's not based on who you are, you take that prefered way to do things off and you know it's not yours. Butbthe way you were and even what you know could be is not enough, so what's the point in investing in that. Honestly it's all just burned talk and speculation. Just trying to explain. It's like blue, butbthere's different shades of it. You were sky blue, but that didn't fit, others prefere indigo and you push out your blue, don't know how to work with it, butbyou have a poorly mixed indigo.
OK, that makes a lot of sense - it sounds like my "your model doesn't quite work the way your natural Secondary would" idea was about right!
And I'm sorry you're dealing with this and hope that one day you have the time and space and support to find your shade of blue again.
Is it possible to live in a place that values badger secondary, but as one was young and immature, it got burned and devalued, and now overtime they built a model of thr same exact secondary?
This is a tricky one. So, before I go into this-
I generally take a very utilitarian view of identity labels and classification systems. The SHC community often phrases things in pretty essentialist ways and I do too, just because it's a lot easier when you're not constantly footnoting things, but at the end of the day I'd say the question is less whether you are an X but whether X is a useful tool to describe your experiences. The reason I love the SHC system so much is that I've found it incredibly helpful for understanding myself and some interactions I have with others. I think it gets at some stuff that other classification systems don't, hence why it's caught on so much (and I personally haven't found the other personality systems particularly useful; ask me about the introvert-extrovert distinction sometime). But at the end of the day, it's a tool. So: if "I have a burned Badger Secondary with a Badger Secondary model" is a useful lens for you, if it helps you understand yourself and live your best life, then don't let anyone take that away from you! Same for anything in the SHC community.
Digression aside, let's take this from the top:
I definitely think it's possible for someone with a Badger Secondary to end up with that burned, especially if their surroundings devalue Badger Secondary or encourage an unhealthy version of it, or if they struggle to access it - all sorts of reasons! And I also think it's possible, especially if their surroundings push unhealthy Badger Secondary, to end up with a Badger Secondary performance on top. One where they're doing what they think they're supposed to do or people want them to do but it's surface-level, it doesn't resonate.
The thing I'm stuck on is burned Badger Secondary with a Badger Secondary model. Because model goes deeper than performance. Model, to my understanding, means that to some extent you adopt the House's philosophy, the value set, the worldview, as (situationally) your own. That makes sense when it's a different House from your own. If I model Lion, I'm saying that although the improvisational directness of Lion isn't my natural state I can see where it's coming from, I can understand why people do this and how it works and why it's a good problem-solving method, and I can tap into that to use Lion tools. But if it's your own House, though Burnt...?
I guess the question to me is: what's the difference between a Burnt Badger with an unhealthy Badger model on top and just a Badger that's exploded? Or a Burnt Badger with a healthy Badger model and just a... Badger?
This isn't rhetorical, by the way! I'd love to say "oh yeah, there's a distinction here" (possibly involving the details of the modelled House not quite matching your natural one??) but I can't actually figure out what it would look like in practice. That's where I'd really love to know what experience you're trying to get at that burned House + modelled same House seems like a useful framing. Or, of course, if anyone else in the community can think of one.
I missed the fact that you mentioned specifically that your surroundings value Badger Secondary. It doesnât change the substance of my answer, but I wanted to emphasize that I think you can still burn in that sort of situation - as Iâve mentioned before, just because you have a Badger Secondary doesnât mean youâre always good at using it or can always access it, and I suspect the version of Badger Secondary that gets pushed by these environments can often be alienating or demand more than youâre willing to give.
In fact, I suspect if Iâd grown up in an environment that pushes Badger Secondary my own would be in a lot worse shape than it is and it might have ended up full-on burnt due to me trying to put more weight on it than it could handle. Luckily for me, in my family Bird was king (Primary and Secondary both).
