We've been seeing this go around and finally have the courage to do it so :P our answers under the cut.
1. What kind of system are you? (Describe this in any way you like. No need to use -genic or popular terms if you don't want to)
We generally refer to ourselves as traumagenic, but to be entirely honest we. Actually don't really know. Traumagenic makes the most sense, and that's what almost all of our origins are, but we don't particularly remember being a system in our youth so. h
One of our headmates seems to be of endogenic origins, or at the very least he didn't split off from a traumatic experience, one of our headmates "willed him into existence", as we say.
2. How many of you are there?
Currently there is 8 of us! :)
3. How long have you known about your plurality?
About a year now! I (host) do sort of remember having a headmate sometime in 2014, but I definitely didn't recognize it as plurality, lol.
4. What kind of spaces/communities do you/did you hang out in? (Both plural-relevant and non-plural-relevant spaces are valid answers, past and present)
We're not particularly active on any social media due to some bad experiences, but we generally stick around the alterhumanity community as well as the otherkin community. We tend to stay away from plural spaces and just hang around known endo-friendly blogs because 90% of plural spaces i've seen are just absolutely infested with sysmeds and y'know we just do not need that kind of energy fgdhjkl
5. Had you heard of DID/OSDD/DDNOS before you became plural/discovered your plurality?
I had heard of DID but not the others. I also didn't really have the best grasp on DID either, not to say I expected it to be like "lol you have evil demons in your head OoOoO" like every terrible DID movie leads you to believe, but it's not something I understood because I had believed myself to be a singlet for the longest time.
6. Do you have a wonderland/innerworld? If so, what do you call it, and what are some things that you and your system members do there?
We do have a headspace, and well. We just call it headspace. It's several locations from our sources (we're a fictive heavy system) all strung together, so we don't really have a overarching name. We go there to gather and talk, and sometimes we'll just explore, but for the most part the headspace is just a place for headmates to rest.
7. What do you call your system members?
Headmates primarily, but systemmates and alters work too. We don't use "alter" as much, but we do use it on occasion.
9. What are some of the best things about being plural?
Well it's very nice not being alone all the time. I personally suffer from BPD and tend to get very mentally unstable if left alone for too long, but always having a headmate or two around helps curb back a lot of that anxiety.
Also, everyday is very lively around here having basically a whole gang of very silly dudes hanging out together 24/7. We have a lot of fun, lol.
10. What are some of the not-so-great things about being plural? (Any answer is valid- nothing is too minor or too major to be an answer to this question.)
Eh... I guess being disordered isn't so great. Thankfully for us we're actually very close to functional multiplicity, so we don't get as blendy or dissociative nowadays, but I still remember when that was a big problem for us and it just isn't great.
Also, I don't know that I'll ever be able to tell my family, lol. I don't think we qualify for a DID/OSDD diagnosis (maybe DDNOS but idk) so without that telling my parents/siblings "hey i have like 7 other people in my head" is. Not in our foreseeable future.
11. Do you have a spiritual or psychological view of your plurality?
Not particularly, none of us have been very religious/spiritual/etc. nor do we really think our plurality comes from being ND. Not that we think that can't happen, just that it isn't what dictates our origins. I guess being ND does affect who ends up in our system ie. we are literally only fictives, but other than that, no.
12. Do you ever experience "switching" or "possession" or any sort of change in who controls the body? If so, what do you call it, how easy/difficult is it, and what is it like? Were you always able to do this, or did you have to learn how over time?
We do switch, yeah! We just call it switching. It used to be extremely hard for us to do and basically required a positive or negative trigger to pull off, but now we can do it with relative ease, as long as I'm not frontstuck. I'm pretty front-sticky and can get front stuck for months if I'm really stressed out.
I heard maybe (?) shadowfae mention that their own experience with switching is a lot like someone putting a color lens over a projector, and that's actually a lot like our experience too. I think monoconsciousness might describe the experience, but I'm not entirely sure yet. When we switch its pretty obvious to us (typically) that whoever was in front is no longer in front, but we don't black out or anything. It just kinda feels like you are not yourself anymore, like you are someone else.
We used to only switch through stress or through triggers, but now we can essentially switch by passing the front like a baton to another alter. It's basically asking "hey can i front / do you want to front" and then you go from there :P
13. How do you and your system mates relate to each other? (Are you friends, family, romantically involved, caretakers, etc.)
For the most part we see each other as family, though a couple of us are in relationships. :))) Hi Eteled I love you very much
It also helps that most of us share sources. A good chunk of our system is Persona fictives, and another section is primarily fictives with FNF as a sort of overarching source. So the familiarity there makes us feel more like family than just friends.
14. Have you come out to anybody in real life/in a singlet space about your plurality? How did it go?
We have come out to one (1) real life friend and they have been the most supportive person I've ever seen it actually baffles us sometimes how little they care. /pos
According to them I am also terrible at lying! So they caught on pretty much immediately and then went to go research so they could wait for me to get comfortable enough to tell them. I know that might seem kind of silly to other people, but we've been friends for a really long time so I really appreciated them giving me the time I needed to come out with it.
15. What kinds of forms and appearances do your system members take on?
Generally just their appearance from source, really. None of our fictives are particularly canon, so they all look a bit different (or wildly different in some cases) from canon, but they typically just present as their source self. I am fictionkin and have several kintypes so I switch between them in headspace :) We also draw a lot so that helps with body image and all that. We have an icon for each member, here they are for reference:
16. What are you and your system members interested in?
Well our general interests tend to range from games we all like to our specific sources, So it's a bit difficult to list them all. We also jump from hyperfixation to hyperfixation, so there's that
Currently very interested in Wii games, specifically those involving heavy usage of Miis, thanks to our two Mii fictives :P
17. What is your life like in the meatworld?
It's. boring. Really not much of note. Will probably go to college soon, or something.
18. What are your music tastes? Movies? Favorite colors? Animals? List any other favorites as well
We all generally like the same music. Uhhhh our spotify wrapped basically said we like vocaloid and """weirdcore""" so.
We will say it again for the thousandth time, watch Meet the Robinsons
Our favorite colors actually line up pretty well with the colors in our system icons, though personally I'm more partial to blues/yellows than green.
Cats and cat-adjacent animals. That's it /hj
Our main hyperfocus is plush toys!!! We love to learn about them and collect them and we just. really love plush toys ghjkfd
19. Does your system have a host/original? If so, what do you call them? Explain what role they play in your system
Yep, my name's Finn and I am the host and pretty sure I'm the original. I don't really like to call myself that so I just call myself host, but yeah we're pretty sure I am the first. I basically just hold the front 75% of the time and I'm usually the one interacting with things outside of the system, unless of course its friends who already know about us.
20. Do any system members have notable relationships outside of the system? Explain them!
Shoutouts once again to our one (1) real life friend. They are always intent on making friends with everyone in the system and because of that pretty much everyone holds them in very high regard. /lh
I think out of all of us besides myself I'd say Eteled probably has had the most time to actually build on that friendship, since mii's our frontrunner and is pretty much always co-con. Mii's also the first one to actually talk to our friend in person, I think.
21. If you haven't been plural for your entire life/haven't known about your plurality until later in life: what was life like before plurality compared to life now?
Difficult and very lonely. I really only learned about my BPD not long before I learned about my plurality, but even a decade ago I was constantly struggling with loneliness and the emotional deregulation that comes with being borderline. I don't think I'd really want to go back to believing I am a singlet, being a system has helped me so much with so many issues and I'm extremely thankful for it.
23. Is there anything you'd like to say to the plural community at large?
Endos aren't harming the plural community as much as the sysmeds like to think and I genuinely believe that sysmeds hate endos so much because sysmeds hate their own plurality. Someone being in a different mode of existence from you doesn't make them ableist or some evil wrong-doer, you guys are just mean
24. Is there anything you'd like to say to any singlets reading this post?
Hi to Cyr and only to Cyr (and maybe to Gambiy if he happens to be reading this) /lh
