#gluubilis

I’ve been working on this for a looooong time, and finally it’s complete enough to post. I’m using the Sorting Hat Chats system, basics of which are explained here by its inventors and here by @wisteria-lodge.

A lot of GMD is flexpoints and inferred stuff, but this is, at least, the way I read the main eight.

Chuubo: Snake Primary, Badger Secondary. His Snake ambition isn't immediately obvious because it's backwards to us; he's an Imperator and a god of dream and probably the Spirit of the Age, but those were just things that happened upon him. He doesn't want fame or fortune; he wants a peaceful human life, or at least a human-style one, and his drive to achieve this has literally reshaped the world itself while still being, at its core, all about him.

His Badger Secondary is hard to see because of the one big gimmick in the way; the Wish-Granting Engine, that supposedly allows instant results with no work, and the way he uses it whenever possible. But the thing is, the WGE is both dependent on his Secondary and in some senses what he uses when he can't draw on that Secondary itself.

Badger Secondaries have to mean what they do; they put in hard work when and where they are motivated to do so. For Chuubo, that's not schoolwork, which is where he as a high schooler is socially expected to, and so he gets a rep for being lazy. Where he does put the effort in, is with his friendships, and in 'learning the ways of Fortitude'. With those, he doesn't cut corners. He doesn't pull out schemes. He patiently and consistently puts in the work. His Secondary is on full display in the way he persists in trying to be friends with Leo, even in the face of Leo's hostility. Chuubo doesn't try to win Leo over with subtlety or with grand gestures; he just doggedly carries on offering support, company, and good-natured teasing.

So where does the Engine come in? Think of the Wishing Map. It's the friendships and connections he's worked at creating and maintaining that help Chuubo's wishes to succeed. Wishes based on whim are almost certain to go wrong.

The wish for a best friend is maybe the most telling part of all. Or rather, what happened after it. Because despite having acquired Seizhi through unnatural means, it never once occurs to Chuubo to continue their association by those-to lean on miraculous or mundane coercion and create a relationship that all goes one way. Having acquired someone to love him, he just proceeds to love them back, with a generosity of spirit that is entirely genuine.

Like a lot of Snake Primaries, Chuubo has a Primary model that he uses to fill in the gaps where his ambitions and his loyalties aren't relevant. His is a kindly and expansive Badger Primary. He lives in this model most of the time-until there's a threat to his inner circle or to his hard-won quiet life. Then he'll set the model aside and act from his real Primary to keep hold of what's his. (Being a snake sometimes helps.)

Seizhi Schwan: Snake Primary, Burnt Snake Secondary. Like Chuubo, their huge ambition is for something that most people just get handed on a platter; to be real, to matter, and to be loved. Their Primary and his instinctively understand each other about this-and also understand each other perfectly about the importance of treasuring and being treasured. (They're all but making big eyes at each other and swooning, in fact.)

Seizhi's Primary is somewhat wobbly in one regard; they're the sort of Snake who has kicked themself out of their own inner circle. After all, they reason, they're not real-not yet, at least-so why should they value themself? There's nothing there to value. This is linked to the burning of their Secondary; their supreme and miraculously-enhanced ability to fit into any social context is something that gives them pain, because it's just more unreality. Over and over they reach out, hoping that this time they've found a destiny; over and over, they stop sustaining an Intention, and the whole thing fades away. Even mundane uses of the Snake Secondary toolkit feel tainted-deceit and lies-and that's a problem, because this is the best and most practiced skillset they've got. They're trying to cover up this lack with a Badger Secondary model, because that's what they feel like they should have, what a Real Person would have-the slow grinding authenticity of method. (Possibly this decision is linked to Chuubo being a Badger Secondary.) But they don't like it. It feels like crap. It doesn't even work that well. And when they're in trouble, they drop the attempt to  Do Things The Real Way and start shifting and adapting and reacting like the Snake they are.

As of the start of GMD they're still hoping for the magic to happen, to wake up transformed into a Real Person who bears little to no resemblance to the 'fake self' they despise-for the Badger model to smother the Snake to death. The situation's in flux. Under pressure, they might begin to find ways to accept themself for what they are, and realise they are loved already; but it's just as likely that they will crack and fall into despair. If that happens, they'll probably Burn their Primary too, cutting themself off from Chuubo and from anyone else in their inner circle. This they'll frame not as a way to protect themself, but to protect the inner circle. A fake person has nothing real to give. How can they inflict such a horrible creature on the people they love? Might as well feed them fairy food and watch them starve, as do something like that.

That unpleasant possibility aside...unlike Chuubo they haven't yet created a Primary Model when the game starts. They might do so during the course of it, though-they will, after all, need to make a lot of decisions, and they won't always be able to relate those back to 'will it help me become real' or 'will it help Chuubo'. I don't think they're likely to copy Chuubo's Badger for this; it fits him fine, as an inherently peaceful Serpent, but Seizhi is an Actual who has had to fight just to exist, and isn't prepared to lay down arms just because things are now somewhat better. What'd work better for them would be a valorous and fierce Lion Model based on that of their brother Laodemus, or a wider Snake Model with an inner circle encompassing 'everyone I know' or 'the whole of Town'.

Leonardo de Montreal: Lion Primary, Lion Secondary. This poor man.

Oh, he'd love you to believe he's a Double Bird, or a Snake/Bird mix of some kind. He'd probably pick one of those Houses out if he had the choice! But that's...actually for pretty superficial reasons. He likes science so he figures he's a shoo-in for the 'smart person house', he's snappy and standoffish so equally he thinks he's in the 'mean asshole house'. But in the SHC system neither of those really fit.

Let's look at his Primary first. He's not a Snake, right away-because he doesn't have an inner circle and he's okay with that. There's no 'my people, who are most important' and 'everyone else'-even when he's not leaning on his Friendless wound, when he's prepared to concede that he cares about Chuubo or Jasper. If he were a Snake, those two would be the most likely inner circle candidates-but they're not in there. Not because he doesn't care, but because he doesn't do the Snake style caring where his people are the centre of his world and the place he gets his morality.

Where his morality does come from is the Song of Hell, his 'love for the wicked'. It's intuitive, not constructed, and centred in himself, not reliant on others. (When he loses his heart, he doesn't draw up a systematic list of ethical principles to live by instead; he creates the Mechanism of Original Sin, which emulates the feeling of having an internal conscience as well as the function.) And the fact that he's a fallen angel means that at some point in his past he gave up Heaven on ideological grounds. The Song of Hell is just right, and therefore he follows it. Any justifications he makes for that decision come after the fact. And so he follows his Song, and becomes heroic-it's not just Jasper he saves, he's got a whole Thing about helping people. That's Lion Primary.

And though he's smart, he doesn't act Bird under pressure; he charges. He responded to Jade's death by first ripping out his own heart to save her daughter, then marching down to the BA to throw down with its Headmaster. He probably has a Bird Secondary model to help with Science, though-and he uses this model to back up his real secondary. Charge in throwing nightmare devices at the problem.

Natalia Koutolika: Bird primary, burnt secondary that's probably Bird or Lion.

Natalia's frozen heart sounds like a Petrified Snake thing, but it's not any specific person that makes her realise thawing is a possibility-it's Fortitude. And that's not because Fortitude is nice, the way a Badger might un-Burn on being accepted into a welcoming community, but because it's magical. The rules of the universe work differently here...so maybe that means things can be possible for her now that weren't possible back on Earth.

I thought at first her primary was burnt, but...freezing her heart made her lose faith in human goodness, and in her capacity for being happy, not in her ability to discern truth. She trusts her cynical System; actually, I think her looking like a Petrified Snake is down to that thing Birds do where their systems often come out looking like the other Primaries. Natalia has decided that the Petrified Snake morality is the true one...but when she arrives in Town, she reconsiders, and begins to edit.

Her Secondary is where she's burnt. Because part of the cynicism of her Primary System is the idea that there's no point trying. Use whatever methods are available, who cares? They won't work, because you can't do anything that matters-the world doesn't work like that. Most of the time she'll use Bird or Lion methods because those come easily to her, given she's a genius and a martial artist, so it's probably one of those. But then again...she doesn't seem to get any joy from them. I think her Arcs will (hopefully) involve healing the burning-and that could look like learning to trust in her charging or her knowledge base, or like finding that what she really feels Right about is putting in the work like a Badger or thinking on her feet like a Snake. (Burnt Badger secondary would be especially poignant, as it'd be her learning to rely on community as a source of strength.)

Jasper Irinka: Bird primary, Bird secondary.

She starts out with her system based on her mom's Heaven-style Lion primary; it doesn't work, and leaves 'a hole in the world' for her. So she starts looking for ways to make it work by picking up ideas from all sorts of people-her dad, her friends, the Moon Prince and assorted other NPCs-and either adjusting it by adding these in or making a new system entirely. And her matching secondary helps her to do this very effectively. Her Primordial ability to shape herself as she likes by growing limbs that she can then use and discard as she pleases is really Bird Secondary-and the fact that those limbs manifest from other people's Hopes? 'I know a guy' Bird.

Sure, she inspires people. But it’s not a Lion inspiration-being so completely and ferociously her own glorious self that others are attracted to her radiance. Jade probably worked like that, from what we know of her, but Jasper inspires because she deliberately does things to inspire Hope in people, using a toolkit of stuff she’s picked up.

(And of course Leo is fascinated with her-not just because she's 'Jade Irinka's daughter', the shine on that would wear off fast-it's that she's a Double Bird like what he wants to be! And she in turn is loving Leo's double Lion because that's what she thinks she's supposed to be like!)

Rinley Yatskaya: Badger Primary, Lion Secondary. Of course the Storyteller Arc kid gets the 'protagonist sorting'.

Rinley's stated purpose in their playbook is to be the social glue of the party, and their powerset makes them really good at it. They first save then make friends with Prince Eduard despite their family's feud with the Rats, and when they see Iolithae in the Titov shrine, they go to rescue her, because Eduard and Iolithae are people and that matters more than Eduard being a Rat or Iolithae being a dangerous sacred horror. In other words, they're a beautiful Universal Badger. As far as Rinley's concerned, you don't just see someone who's injured or imprisoned and then not help them, even if they're meant to be an enemy on ideological grounds or even grounds of prudence. And to help people, they jump right in and Do Something. That's textbook Badger/Lion.

Principal Entropy II: Exploded Badger primary, Badger secondary.

This guy is just community-building and caretaking all over the place. He shows up, he does the work-as the Angel of Fortitude he's literally fixing potholes and curing peoples' ailments! And he's doing that by going to the people and creatures of his Gardens, calling in favours.

And he's doing it because people are important. The denizens of the Evil Island, the people of Fortitude. 'All things can earn their recompense through love'.

The problem is, though-he's doing the dehumanisation thing that Badgers are so infamous for. He's not going 'some people are Enemies Who Must Die, and therefore are not really People', though, which is the usual form of the trope in fiction. That's the mode of a Badger at war, and E2 isn't fighting a war. He's going 'some people need to be Sacrificed for the Greater Good of the Community'. And that's not an easy thing for a Badger to believe. If he was an Idealist, or Snake who is comfy prioritising an inner circle, he could just hold that belief without problems. But being a Badger, he can't. If he sacrifices people, he has to either feel horribly guilty about it...or stop thinking of them as people.

One big group he tends to dehumanise are School students. School exists to create tools to fix the world. It's okay if he makes students into cursed Hall Monitors, it's okay if he turns SEED students into prototype world-trees and weirding walls. That's what they're for.

He also dehumanises himself. He's Other Than Human, Set Apart. He refuses to acknowledge his needs, and overworks himself-he's even, at game start, nullified two Divine Health Levels to make his Code Novae binding on the Evil Island, meaning that if you can get past his Immortality power he's actually the squishiest PC of the lot. So he's an Exploded Badger, sacrificing both himself and others to his community.

Miramie Mesmer: Bird Primary, Badger Secondary. She shares this sorting with her former self, Melanie Malakh.

Melanie's Bird Primary used the Bleak Methodology as her truth system. Coupled with her persistent, hard-working Secondary, this combination made her a star student at the Bleak Academy-a 'prodigy of hatred and despair'. However, when she left the Academy, things fell apart for her.

At the Bleak Academy she'd been sheltered from experiences or ideas that could provide any real challenge to the Bleak worldview. Because of that, her system wasn't as robust as she thought-and she didn't know how to shore it up or how to cope if it shattered. Which-along with the glass dragon-it did; her time in Town, the things she had seen and done, had led her to doubt the truth of ultimate futility. The last straw was the dragon itself. Melanie, through the work of her hands and mind, had created something that was not futile; a master-weapon that could destroy Town, just as she had intended. The very fact that she was able to do that gave the lie to the Bleak Methodology. Unable to deny this truth but just as unable to live with it, Melanie Fell so hard that-as Strategists sometimes do-she lost her identity and became a new person.

Unable and unwilling to use Melanie's system, Miramie has begun to construct her own, drawing on various sources-the communal and peaceful mores of Fortitude, Hideo Hayashi's belief that even unlikeable misfits do not deserve to be left alone without support systems, the other Archive kids' idea that outcasts should stick together, and Chuubo's Snake prioritising of personal ambitions and loves. Since she's not had much time to do this, it's nowhere near finished-but it looks likely to be robust. It also seems to me that she's likely to be able to edit it as she needs rather than Falling-or, if worst comes to worst, to Fall but get back up as herself, rather than shattering again or reverting into Melanie Malakh.

Her Badger Secondary is a contrast to Chuubo's, as where his is socially based and linked to personal relationships (Courtier Badger), hers is more focused on the more usual definition of 'work', and on community in the sense of history and tradition (Bookkeeper Badger). It's her Secondary she brings to bear on the tasks of setting up a cafe from scratch and helping maintain the Archives. It's also what she uses to keep herself going under the weight of the world's wrongness, to keep making art even though it's doing so that activates her Curse. She just keeps slogging away.

I can also see the Badger Secondary in Melanie's construction of the glass dragon. She sat herself down with Hideo Hayashi and learnt glasswork from scratch, putting in the time and effort to both master this new skill and to bring Hideo himself fully under her control. Simple, honest work, even though used for deeply destructive ends.

IN CONCLUSION:

Preface

(This is such an oblique reference but,) you know how the base arcs that Jasper Irinka has are Child of the Ash and Primordial - and that corresponds to what the True Divinity are assigned in (the appendix in the Glitch book that I’ve only ever heard about)?

I’m doing that, but for my OCs of a fan-session - or rather, I’ve already assigned them classpects and attributes, and now I’m just drawing connections back to the text, as it were.

Credit to Karma / @kaaramel for making this arc & attribute chart.

costs accrued by reaching past a character’s comfort zone (such as a PC with Flore 2 calling over one of their Treasures with a Greater Trust, or a PC with Lore 1 instantly nabbing a Sphere-like void creature with a Greater Hunt) represent a sort of degradation on the character.

From the limited information of the five costs Strategists accrue, here’s my guess as to how costs would work with other type splats, like Nobles or Deceivers:

Immortal Costs, as in the Costs of Immortal arcs, represent the distance between the Immortal’s worldview, as seen through the relevant Attribute, and the stuff that they’re working with.

Sickly Costs, as in the Costs of Sickly arcs, represent a decay or erosion, a succumbing to the theme of whatever Attribute is relevant. Burn, the cost of Wyrd, is the unraveling of mind and soul, happening because the character and their Curse cling too hard on each other, blending into one - but because it’s Sickly, it is the Curse making the Strategist fade away. Collecting Persona’s Cost, as Dr. Jenna Moran has eluded to in her post Everybody Loves Acidic Gnomes (Part 4) and as I’ve interpolated, might be about being able to see more clearly your Estate / Mythos at the price of discarding other viewpoints of the world.