Plurality - Blog Posts

I wanted to maladaptive daydream, but instead our littlest is co-con so I guess I’m just gonna hang out as it cracks up listening to Raffi songs. It’s alright. Apples and Bananas does go pretty hard.

For me communication got easier when I stopped being so paranoid about whether I was faking or not, but if that doesn’t apply to you, disregard.

If possible, find a headmate you like who gives you permission to use positive triggers to pull to front sometimes (though discuss boundaries around when and how that’s done), and focus on communication with that one specific headmate. That’s how I became friends with Shekel - he has an incredibly vivid presence, so I can really tell when he’s nearby/co-con/fronting, and I’ve learned how to positive trigger him forward. I don’t do it often, because he’s busy on the inside and gets tired when too close to front for too long, but he told me that he’d rather me pull him to front than put the body through a panic attack, so I tend to reach out to him first. Once you learn good communication with one you can both work on communication with others.

I don’t know if you can hear your headmates on the inside, but if you can, try talking with them about things they like when they’re around - they’ll be more likely to have a genuine conversation that way in my experience, and it’ll open up communication.

I also recommend physical touch on the inside if that’s something you’re capable of and comfortable with. 90% of my interactions with the others are them coming up behind me when I’m fronting and ruffling my hair, rubbing my shoulders, slapping my ass, hugging me, etc because they know it helps comfort me and keep me calm. We find that the more we can touch in headspace the more we can communicate by… handing each other thoughts? It’s hard to explain, and it is different from communicating on the inside with words, but when Shekel and I were building the Council and debating who should be on it we were so co-conscious and overlapped on the inside it almost felt like we were having two trains of thought but we kept using our brains and each other’s to think with. I couldn’t tell if he was having a thought with my brain or if I was having a thought with his brain, but we were having ideas and discussing them without needing to say a word.

Lastly, written conversations are super helpful, but I’ve found some tricks. When co-con I like to still use discord or simply plural to write out a chat partially for posterity and partially because it’s easier to think when you’re not trying to think into someone’s brain. It really helps communication, but it can be hard to have a genuine conversation, especially if you don’t know each other well. It’s helpful to leave messages around for other headmates (ie a sticky note that says “you are safe” for any headmates that find themselves in front and are confused, or writing your shopping/to-do list on the body’s arm so everyone knows what’s supposed to be happening if they end up in front) but it’s hard to communicate through notes alone from our experience. That’s why I like to try and get them talking about themselves and their interests, it’s just a deeper bonding activity. We’re trying to pair our known headmates up into ones that specifically practice communicating with each other to better improve group cohesion, and I saw that Tamm was asking Lysander about his exomemories. They’ve never spoken directly that I know of, but they’re going to leave each other messages on simply plural until they become friends enough to communicate on the inside/more directly, and then if I want to talk to Lysander I can reach out to Tamm, who I tend to see more often.

Sorry this is so long, but good luck with communication and I hope this helps some! As always feel free to ignore any advice that doesn’t apply to or help you.

-Jay

Need to start working on getting better communication with the other's cause I'm getting anxious about not being able to have a full conversation with them and having a hard time contacting them.

I don't quite know where to start so any advice would be nice :)

Do any other hosts (especially ones that tend to be front stuck) feel like they don’t have an identity at all? Like, I know that I’m not Shekel, and I know that I’m not Monty, or Tamm, or *insert the list of headmates I know about* but I don’t know what I am.

I want to make a flowchart for when I’m blurry but I’m usually fronting on some level and I don’t know how to make an “Am I Jay?” section when I feel like the leftover scraps of everyone else. I don’t know what I look like on the inside because I figure I look like the body even though I have no connection to it (seriously, the not recognizing ourself in the mirror is bad).

I’m just the default setting. I know I’m a guy because of crippling dysphoria, and I like various things, but I have no way to figure out my identity when so much of it is other people.

I was holding the hand of a little in co-con as we were walking and it was genuinely so weird to go at my walking pace. Like yeah we’re in the same body but they’re small and can’t keep up :((

*opens Discord*

*discovers “I” was sharing my poetry last night*

…..what.

It’s so much work to front when you haven’t in a while

Like, I’m glad to be back around, but Jay built up Bureaucracy (wow I didn’t know how to spell that) and I had to navigate like four things 😭

Idk man I’m just here to miss goats and wear tank tops I don’t wanna spend all my time formally joining and running The Council

But heyyyy if having a Council keeps us communicating it’s a good thing, so I can’t really complain

I just heard someone go "Oh yeah Onyx is a cool name" after seeing the name... It didn't sound like a familiar voice... Uh oh

There's a high chance it might've just been some guy we already know but-

We'll see

I cannot stress enough how freeing it is, as a system, to become chill with not knowing who you are.

There have been multi-week periods where we don’t know who we are, unsure if we’re somebody new or just one of the established people having a Weird Time. Usually it’s the latter.

We tend to front for extended periods of time (like, normally a minimum of three days, sometimes up to several months), and the confusing Unknown times can be just as long.

Like, I have no idea who the hell I am right now. I know a couple of people I’m not, and a few I might be, but that’s it. And that’s chill. I don’t need to know my name, I’m just sippin my cranberry juice and minding my own business. This is normal for us.

I see so many systems on here worried about somehow faking or fundamentally misunderstanding their experiences, because nobody else has talked about it, so it must not be real, right?

Just a reminder to systems with their own Weird Times: it’s ok to have experiences you’ve never seen in anyone else’s journey.

Being plural isn’t something easily categorized or broken down. If anything counts as wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff, it’s the experience of being multiple entities in one brain.

Your plurality is inherently unique, and there is no mold it could possibly fit. Don’t try to make it fit.

Plural POV #32

You find that most of your headmates are excellent company for toddlers - afterall, most of you are aquainted very well with people who are only now taking their first steps in this world, and have lots and lots and lots of simple, or annoying, or difficult, or complex questions to ask, and you know how to easily explain a lot of seemingly hard to grasp concepts because of that. Moreover, your sixth sense for when the littles are plotting trouble is really useful in such situations.

I figured out how to have sex with a couple of my headmates recently and I’m still super fascinated by it. I can’t really explain how it works, especially since I tend to be frontstuck and can barely go into the inner world, but I tend to overlap a lot with the ones who cofront, and me feeling sensations while also feeling their sensations while they were feeling my sensations was kinda insane. It’s also nice that in that level of cofronting our thoughts overlap some so we didn’t have to put things into words to discuss what we wanted, we just mutually agreed on what the dynamics were/what we were doing.

system protip: if trying to keep track of your switches and fragments feels impossible and is driving you crazy, stop doing it. or at the very least dont put as much weight into making it perfect. you dont need to track every switch, you dont need every fragment logged. sometimes its easier to just exist as a system than drive yourself up the wall trying to micromanage everything about your system

I’ve been trying to figure out if two of my lads are the same person at different times in their life, so I feel this xP neither of them know for sure but either it’s the sort of thing where they come as a set, one dark one light, or one of them is the first one with another thousand years of life and a corruption arc. No clue how to actually figure it out, but so far with us we’ve just been making sure that either option is equally okay and not worrying about it. By making sure it’s okay I mean that we acknowledge both possibilities and make sure no one expresses a preference - ie “I sure hope X is someone different from me because I don’t want to be him!” or “wouldn’t it be awesome if X and Y have been the same person all along??” because that pressure could hurt one of them if it ends up being true or not.

Hey I've been literally trying to figure this out for 3+ weeks, and I've yet to get any help from where I asked before so I decided to run to Tumblr finally and I found you so !! I guess I'll ask here, do you know how to figure out if you have two of the same alters in source ('doubles') with slight differences or if one alter has two different versions of the same source? (Ex. How to tell if I have Link & Blue Link, or does Link just have memories of both) For reference i have talked to this alter, this is his question, he cannot tell himself either

I actually haven't had any experience with this,but will try my best to help anyway!

I think knowing will likely come with time, but in the meantime, maybe try engaging with source in some way to see if maybe that could help establish some distinct differences between the two. Kind of see if you can get a "Hey that's me!" Moment.

Anyone else can feel free to add to this,maybe someone has a more in depth answer than I can give.

I hope ya'll can figure it out!

- Star,Oliver

I always find it so interesting what skills which headmates have. Like, Lysander has been so good at using our phone despite being from some historical or fantasy world, but the first time Damian tried to use simply plural he almost threw our phone in rage because he had a ton of trouble typing. He also sent a threatening message to himself which I find hilarious, not sure if it was on purpose or if he was trying to send it to someone else (wish I knew who he had beef with lol).

A server I’m on asked the question of which characters from a show everyone related to the most, and I was stumped before remembering that I’m not the only one in here and me an the lads relate to different ones 😭 suddenly all my crises over kinning wildly different characters makes sense

System Pinterest board? More like “here’s where we save art of hot guys with long hair who look like the host in hopes of persuading him to stop hacking our hair off every time he gets dysphoric” Pinterest board

I can’t get over how good of a depiction of plurality Haru is in the anime abridged show 50% Off. Like, it’s unique, but especially for a joke show it feels so reasonable and grounded, and is really non offensive imo?? There are some jokes about murdering people and one headmate tries to kill another at one point, but it’s not an “evil alter” trope, and the way the inner world, internal conversations, and power structures are set up feel so reasonable (I don’t know exactly how things are organized for my crew, communication is pretty ass at least with me, but if we don’t have a Council of Nine sort of thing I hope we get one someday for decision making and communication). The fact that they’re all copies of the same guy is not something I have experience with but is very very silly and not unreasonable either.

Is it OCD intrusive thoughts? Is it a hyperactive ADHD brain? Is it a headmate trying to communicate? Is it MaDD dialogue? Is it just a random thought?

I could hear a discussion happening nearby in the headspace when I was focusing on Tetris and I could tell it was important, or at least the two that were talking thought it was important, and I was casually listening along as they came to a decision, but then the moment my game finished it was yoinked from my brain like a dream fading the moment you wake up. It’s a bit D: to feel like there’s something I’m supposed to know, though I’m not sure if they knew I was listening or not

It's all fun and games until a system mate comes to Co-con while you're showering.

He wolf whistled at me and called me a "Tumblr sexyman"...

Goddamn it, Toya. /aff

There’s a chance our first fictive from a popular source will be Szeth son-son Vallano. Our only previous fictive is from a tiny tiny source so I need to get my feelings sorted out* before this presence I feel ends up becoming someone xP

*I just don’t know what it will be like to have a mainstream fictive, and uncertainty makes me anxious, of course I’ll treat any new headmates as well as possible

Luckily, I only know of one headmate who identifies as female (I the host am transmasc, physically transitioning the body), and unfortunately I don’t have good enough communication with her to really know how she feels about things, but the nonbinary ones I know of are chill with the body regardless of gender, though they like to present their own ways. Some of the other guys in here and I get really dysphoric, so I think transitioning was definitely the right choice, but to a point none of us will feel 100% comfortable, so it’s just something we have to live with (I feel so bad for the nonhumans, they get super dysphoric about being the wrong species, and it’s rough on our littlest one to be in a grown-up body). I don’t really have answers, but imo it’s a process and you’ll be able to figure out what works for you and your system in time <3

DID is fucking with my gender rlly bad and my friend said I should reach out so. Trans systems with complicated genders reblog so I know ur out there???

I would love to hear ur experiences bc I’m getting my ass kicked by gender

being a system is having one of your headmates say the wildest shit known to man and just going "WHAT." while turning around to look at nothing

this post is NOT for anti endos!!

[pt: this post is not for anti endos!!]

"Source trauma" and "exo trauma" is real btw.

You can have trauma from something that didn't actually happen because trauma is a reaction to a distressing event, regardless of the actual event happened. Both are comparable to real trauma, so for the love of god stop acting like introjects can't be traumatized from source.

Fictional introjects can be IN their source, they can come from their source. They are no different from other alters.

They can have real experiences as being that character because they're can be that character and if they genuinely believe they do/are, that's not a bad thing and whether source separation is needed, the alter will come to their own conclusion some day.

shoutout to introjects who are so far from their source that they’re barely recognizable. you do not owe anyone “canon-like behavior”

I do not know Who is reblogging landscape photos for the people they think they match, but I can already tell my feed is going to be nothing but pictures of forests and Japan for the next seven days :|

Y'all being friends w/ plurals is so fucking funny /pos

Bc tell me why I can be talking to the host, and then out of fucking nowhere Vanny from FNAF pops out and goes "Lmao the children emerge from the holes" and then just fucking dips

I sit down w/ my friend and then they turn into a completely DIFFERENT person right before my eyes and we just continue talking like nothing happens

For fucks sake, I get a front row seat to hosts complaining abt the other people inhabiting their brain like they're annoying roommates in a cramped air BNB

Shout-out to my plural friends. I know if no one's got me, Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa's got me. /Ref /silly

(Positive/affectionate post made by a singlet who loves its plural friends very much /p)

The sucky thing about being plural and trans is that not everyone inside has figured out my pronouns and some still unintentionally default to feminine terms and she/her pronouns for me and some of the other guys, which just really sucks. I know one or two headmates use she/her pronouns but boy do I want the one caretaker I don’t know well to stop calling me a girl when comforting me :((

Shout out to headmates who are sourced but aren't introjects!

This could mean kin identities or even just deciding that you are/look like/are sourced from a thing you like now, just because you said so!

Maybe you are an introject and decided to have another source.★

Anyone have headmates who just sit in co-con with a song playing in their head that everyone can hear? Like audibly? Because its become a running joke to play effectively elevator music while nothing is happening with the body. Other headmates will play an alarm sound when it's time to wake up. Is this just an us thing? Being able to project semi-audible sound clips to front? Its kinda fun but sometimes I just Hear Something and I go "the hell was- oh its you" and it makes me giggle. Anyone?