i love a good bandwagon and i love talking about myself at length, so naturally i am following in @RonsGirlFriday and @abhorsen.'s footsteps and writing out my own sortinghatchats results. i've taken the quiz a couple of times before and it's shifted somewhat, but i think the most recent results i got are probably the most accurate.

so what am i?

well, in a big ol' mouthful of words, i am a gryffindor primary with a slytherin primary model, and a gryffindor secondary with a ravenclaw secondary model. 

primary house

i'm gonna borrow descriptions from the sortinghatchats website, because they are far more eloquent than i will manage to be. and then i'll throw in my own commentary.

Gryffindor Primaries care about their gut morality. They want to do the right thing, and they think part of that answer comes from trusting yourself. They can still be thoughtful, careful, and rational, but they have a strong belief in the value of moral compasses. Some things are just wrong, no matter how many pretty words you use.

this fully checks out. no matter how many times i take this quiz, i am always always always a gryffindor primary. i am absolutely a person who operates on intuition - if my gut is telling me something is wrong, it's wrong. you can make a 'argument' for everything (trust me, i've dealt with a lot of assholes playing devil's advocate over the years), so at the end of the day, the thing that's going to guide me is what feels right. every time that i try to go against my gut intuition, i hate every second of it. it just fundamentally feels gross and wrong.

and then there's the slytherin model, which is a new-ish addition to my sorting but definitely checks out with my personality.

Slytherin House is the house of ambition and friendship. If you model Slytherin Primary, you also value these things and like to live by them-- but you wouldn't feel guilty for dropping your ambitions, friends, and loved ones in the service of other, higher priorities (whether that's helping people in need, preserving your community values, or crusading after a cause that calls to you). But you'd like to value the close-knit loyalties and self-love of a Slytherin. It's good, solid, and satisfying. But if push came to shove, it would feel selfish to stick to that simple morality of "me and mine first."

to phrase it delicately, i'm ambitious as fuck. i'm the type of person who sets goals for myself and chases after them relentlessly. i'm also incredibly protective of people i care about - if you hurt them, then honey, you've got a big storm coming. these are both things that regularly guide me and guide why i make the decisions i do, but if they're ever in conflict with that intuitive morality i get from my gryffindor primary, i'll drop the slytherin model in a heartbeat. even if that means sacrificing something i once considered an ambition of mine or it means letting a friendship go/cutting someone out of my life, my instinctual morality will always win in the end.

secondary house

i've seen myself as a ravenclaw secondary for a while, but the more i've thought about it, i only model it. ultimately, the gryffindor secondary description gets right at how i process.

Gryffindor Secondaries charge. They meet the world head-on and challenge it to do its worst. Gryffindor Secondaries are honest, brash, and bold in pursuit of things they care about. Known for their bravery, it is almost a moral matter to stay true to themselves in any situation that they’re in.

my go-to problem-solving method is literally beating something with a metaphorical hammer until it cracks. i live for challenges and see them as a test of what i'm capable of. (this is probably why i'm so fucking competitive all the time, partially with other people but mostly just with myself.) i'm also known for being brutally honest and forthcoming - sometimes to a fault - but i'd much rather approach a situation honestly than pretend to be something i'm not. 

that being said, i do often model a ravenclaw secondary, which is why i thought i was one for so long.

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.

i love having plans (uh... have you seen my bullet journal?). i love researching things and making spreadsheets of pros and cons within a situation. i literally got my personal training certification because i thought it'd be a fun thing to learn, even if i had no intention on making a career out of it. so this is definitely something i model a lot.

but the reason it's only a model, rather than my actual secondary, is because i occasionally throw all my plans out the window on a complete whim if i decide i'd rather do things differently. the biggest example of this, which fundamentally proves once and for all that i am an impulsive af gryffindor secondary at heart, comes from my law school decision last spring. so, for those of you who don't know, i applied to a shit ton of law schools in 2018. i got in to nearly all of them (shoutout to the one school that waitlisted me, thx for ruining my perfect record you assholes), including a highly-ranked one that offered me a full ride plus a living stipend and a ton of other added bonuses. now, if i were a pure ravenclaw secondary, who had, like i did, planned to go to law school in the following fall for years and had every intention of committing to the school that provided me with the best combination of prestige and scholarship offer, that would've been that, and i'd be in law school right now. instead, my impulsive ass decided a week before the commitment deadline that i didn't want to go to law school just yet, and that i'd rather wait a year. (cue my poor parents, on the other end of the phone line as i tell them this, going 'taylor, what the hell are you doing')

but i was dead set on this, so i called the dean of admissions at this particular school and asked her to let me defer my full offer. the response was that 'well, that's never been done before.' (which like, valid, who the fuck in their right minds decides to push off fully paid law school?) and instead of backing out, i kept going with my hit-it-with-a-hammer problem-solving method and asked her to petition the admissions committee on my behalf. i'd decided i wanted another year at my job, and by god, i was going to fight to get that.

luckily, this all worked out in my favour and i'm starting at that school with that same scholarship offer this fall, but it's evidence that i'm not a true ravenclaw secondary, because i'm exceptionally good at throwing all my damn plans right out the window on a split-second decision.

and as expected, i do not have even a drop of hufflepuff in me. i love all you puffs dearly, but i am most definitely not one of you.