note: i use the sortinghatchats system - +here’s a link to their ‘basics’ post. To briefly summarize, though, they sort everyone on two different (and equally important) aspects of their personality: the first (your “primary” house) is why you do things, where the second (your “secondary” house) is how you do things.

i just switched my forum house to gryffindor, so this seems like a good time to do my own sorting.

primary (the “why”)

I'm a gryffindor primary:

As a Intuitive House, Gryffindors decide what is right based on their intuition, their gut, and their own moral compass. While they can be as intelligent and logical as any Ravenclaw (think Hermione Granger, a fierce Gryffindor Primary), they don’t play with words and concepts, trying to find loopholes, build things, or refute their instincts. Some things are just wrong, and you can’t talk your way out of it.

As an Idealist House, Gryffindors value what is right over personal loyalty. While they can love hard, Gryffindors would feel guilty if they stuck by their friends and family at the expense of doing what they believe in. Driven and dedicated, Gryffindors are some of the best at getting things done and pushing causes forward, even at great personal sacrifice.

As an Internal House, Gryffindors get their morality from inside of themselves– from their moral compass and intuition. Caving to an outside pressure will always feel like an immoral choice, if it goes against what they feel is true.

this is me, to a t. i fundamentally don't understand the idea of not trusting my gut, and my most significant turmoil comes when my gut is wrong, because if i can't trust my gut, i literally can't trust anything. (that sounds like hyperbole, and in some ways, i guess it is, but it's hyperbole that's superimposed on a layer of actual truth. i still don't actually trust myself to accurately interpret interpersonal dynamics because i was wrong about one thing six months ago.)

i mean... i can understand logic. i overthink things. i analyze things to death. i come up with good plans (or plans that are at the very least good-adjacent). i am capable of coming up with these things, but i am often not capable of carrying them out. the reason i understand ravenclaws is because i do logic things out. the reason i am not a ravenclaw is because i go to all that trouble and then often just say "yolo" and do what my gut is telling me to do, even if there are a million very good logical reasons not to.

and i fall so far on the idealist side of the idealist/loyalist split in there system that i genuinely don't understand loyalty as a concept. i mean, i know it exists, but i don't Get it. i obviously understand caring about people, and i will absolutely go way out of my way for people, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much i care about someone if they've done something that triggers my "this is Wrong" button - the Wrong Thing is going to be a problem. i don't hold really hold grudges - i tend to forgive pretty easily - but i don't get past things just because i care about someone.

(ravenclaw is the other "idealist" house, which is another reason why i am able to successfully masquerade as a ravenclaw and why virtually all of my pov characters who aren't gryffindor primaries are ravenclaw primaries. i can write idealists doing their idealist thing. i cannot write loyalists.)

and there's this:

And when a Gryffindor does change their mind on an issue they care about, while it may seem very sudden to an outside observer, it’s very likely that there was a steady build up of doubts or contradictions that eventually tipped the scales.

yeah. this. this, this, this. most people who know me know that there are some things i decide in a very short period of time. i mentioned to @Chemical_Pixie that i'd been lowkey considering changing back to gryffindor at 1:02am, and at 1:22am i was logging into the admin panel to change my house. i'd joked about it with a couple people, but this was not something that literally anyone had any advanced warning about, because i didn't realize it was something that was imminent until i was logging into the admin panel. in rl, i have literally decided to move to a different city in the space of about twelve hours on multiple occasions - not "i wanna move someday" soon, "i need to start looking for housing immediately because in two months i'm gone" and then in two months i was gone soon. and i think that from the outside, the way i make those sorts of decisions looks bizarre, but it really is just a thing where i often don't even realize what's going on in my head until the last piece clicks into place. once it does, though, that's what i'm doing, because it just feels right.

secondary (the “how”)

i'm a gryffindor secondary, too:

Gryffindor Secondaries are more likely to change their volume than their content. They can hold their tongue. They can be polite, patient, proper people—but when the going gets rough or the rough get going you can find a Gryffindor Secondary by the way their problems are met head on rather than subverted, negotiated, or cajoled. They have an efficiency so direct it’s almost combative, except in the most subtle and controlled of them.

well, i feel like every meme on twitter ends with the conclusion that i'm intimidating, so there's that.

but no, in all seriousness: i love katniss everdeen because i feel her so much when she says that everyone else seems to know her secrets before she does. same, katniss - same. i have two modes: open book and shut the fuck down. i can't do things a little bit, and i'm absurdly extra. (absurdly. i don't even realize it until i'm like "oh good fucking god seriously, self? this is what we're going with?") i'm hypercompetitive. i'm very intense without meaning to be. changing my approach to something genuinely doesn't occur to me the vast majority of the time - i just feel like if it's not working, it's because i just need to do better.

(reading that, i no longer wonder where my rock bottom self-esteem and deeply held belief that i'm fundamentally unlovable comes from tbh) (i also hide honest vulnerabilities in jokes, which people often don't know wtf to do with) (see i'm doing it right now)

gryffindor secondaries also apparently are good at inspiring people and getting people to open up, and i'm frequently told that i do that. i have no idea how i do that, but people have been telling me i do since i was a teenager, so i guess it's probably at least somewhat accurate. idk, i think that when you're honest with people, they feel more comfortable being honest with you.

i do have a pretty strong ravenclaw secondary model, though:

Ravenclaw is the House of data collection, analysis, and study, and Ravenclaws use those values to help them live, act, and succeed. If you model Ravenclaw Secondary, you also value these things and like to live by them. You like to be prepared, skilled, and knowledgeable-- but you wouldn't feel guilty for abandoning those values in the service of other, higher priorities. It would be nice if you could prioritize acquiring skills and experiences, learning, and preparing, but sometimes other things are more important or come more easily to your hand.

If you model Ravenclaw secondary, then you use these tools primarily when you think they will help or when they will be fun, but are less likely to jump to them when another way could be just as effective—- whether that’s confronting your problem head-on, playing things by ear, toiling, or calling on your community.

that combined with my strong, strong, strong attachment to the idealist side of the primaries is why i've been able to at least pass as a ravenclaw on here for so long. i really do like analyzing things. i'll sit down and teach myself to code or to use photoshop or what the fuck ever just for the hell of it, and i do genuinely use the skills i build to problem solve. in a crisis, though, or when i'm not actively trying to control myself, that's never what i fall back on. it's fun, and i value it, but it's not me.

and i have a fairly weak but still there slytherin secondary performance, too:

A performance is a toolkit. If a model is a place you can live, then a performance is a way you can act. It doesn’t feel like it’s really you, not deep down, but it can still be important to you. For people who have consistent performances, this is the layer that often interacts most directly with the world around them. It’s the part that people see the most because it’s the part most on the surface.

A Slytherin Secondary’s defining constant is to change. They adapt to the situation, going with the flow and making use of advantages as they come. They are good at spotting unexpected opportunities and rapidly shifting their aim and approach in order to snatch up the possibilities in front of them (sometimes leading them to appear lucky where they are actually better described as opportunistic).

in some ways, it's kind of a tool in the toolkit of my ravenclaw secondary model - if i have the wherewithal to think about using tools to solve a problem, adapting my approach is one of the options. it's not a natural thing, but i'm capable of doing it in certain situations, particularly in arguments where i'm arguing for What's Right and my normal approach isn't working.

so: gryffindor primary/gryffindor secondary with a ravenclaw secondary model and a slytherin secondary performance.

(to be clear, none of this is a revelation to me - the story of my jumping between gryffindor and ravenclaw has had nothing to do with an identity crisis, there just was drama on another site ages ago and i left gryffindor to get away from it. then i got used to the ravenclaw common room and found it hard to switch back to my real house when hpft started, even though the drama is long in the past. i've always been a gryffindor, though.)

highly encourage y'all to join me and @RonsGirlFriday in our sorting blog adventures!

(italicized sorting-related quotes from sortinghatchats)