the celestial household

system blog + bodily adult + they/them collective + all systems welcome + inclusive

[celestialhousehold]

welcome to the celestial household. we are an adaptive disordered system of ~20. we are bodily an adult, and use they/them collective pronouns.

here the current orbiting cluster of our system, minus one or two:

aster ; she/they/fae - north star - polymorph

echo ; end/it/void - black hole - extranth - nonverbal

erisa ; she/he/they - protostar [luminous] - genderfluid

willow ; qi/qir (she/her aux) - protostar fictive

terms specific to our system listed below the cut.

our system terms:

note: all system terms are collectively agreed upon by each active member. none are derogatory, they are just space themed.

basic terms

» orbiting cluster: the group of the most currently active fronters. these members can be contacted or asked to front easily.

» in orbit: refers to a member being in the orbiting cluster (aka fronting frequently). used as such: "erisa has been in orbit recently"

member roles

» north star: the current host and guide of the system. our north star takes care of most day to day life and has much of the say of what the body looks like.

» black hole: a symptom holder, holding a high density of something that would otherwise interfere with day to day life. they come out when their specific symptoms are triggered since they are tailored to manage them, but also come out when it is safe for them to do so and they want to.

» protostar: a syskid / little, or one whose primary role involves age regression. these members often have memories from our youth, although the time period the memories are from might not match up to the member's age. usually protostars identify with the age that is traditionally considered "little" rather than "middle", under 13.

member / role modifiers

» luminous: a member whose primary role is modified by their inherent positivity production. they have one primary role such as a protostar or a black hole, but they also bring positive effects to the body while in front such as calmness, joy, or extra enjoyment of activities (as we struggle with negative schizoaffective symptoms like apathy and anhedonia).

our tags:

celestial lore 🌟 - posts about our system, its functions or its history

other:

our mogai hoard blog: @celestialhoards

[pluralpolls]

[ poll ] For systems with factives, who are they?

celebrity/famous person

historical figure

influencer/content creator

family member/relative

partner/spouse (ex or current)

friend/acquaintance (ex or current)

artist/performer

politician/otherwise political figure

[ multiple options ]

[ none of these options ]

Voting ended onJan 14, 2024

[pluralpolls]

systems what kind of terminology do you prefer to use for an individual in the system?

alter/s

part/s

[other] personality

headmates

differing opinions within the system

other (clarify in tags/comments)

Voting ended onSep 24, 2023

[pluralpolls]

how small does a system have to be before you think of it as a small system? (please only vote if you're plural)

2 members

5 members

10 members

15 members

20 members

35 members

50 members

75 members

100 members

my threshold is larger than 100 members

Voting ended onMay 13, 2023

Not suggested by anyone but was inspired by this tag on our "how big is big" poll

[pluralpolls]

For systems with headspaces: if a member falls asleep in front but their mindform remains sleeping in the fronting room (or whatever spot is near front at the time), would u still consider them in front*?

yes

yes but it depends sometimes

it always depends/is situational

no but it depends sometimes

no

other (elaborate!)

Voting ended onMay 11, 2023

*ex. fronting room is a bedroom, members A and B are co-fronting & sitting in bed in headspace. Member A drifts off, but they're still sleeping there in mindform next to member B, still present in a way. would they still be "in front"?

Suggested by anon

[pluralpolls]

how does your system feel around mirrors? (this poll is for plurals only!)

fully comfortable

mostly comfortable, mildly uncomfortable

midway between comfortable and uncomfortable

mildly comfortable, mostly uncomfortable

fully uncomfortable

Voting ended onMay 4, 2023

Suggested by anon

[celestialhousehold]

term we have - binary planets. two headmates who can't exist without each other. usually one is the leader and one is the follower, the leader can front and be present without the follower, but the follower can do nothing without the leader.

usually they're not subsystems , they're usually two separate headmates. for some reason a follower, usually newly formed at the time, will become fixed onto an existing headmate forming the binary system. this doesn't change the original headmate except that now they have someone who's kind of around a lot. followers also can disappear for a while, leaders don't do that. the leader has the dominant (most expressed) personality of the two and they both may merge and present as the leader sometimes.

sometimes we have members who have a binary partner and don't know because they're either so similar or because the follower is silent, making the leader believe they are the one with both "personalities".

[pluralpolls]

What’s the most common system role in the system?

holder

protector

caregiver

gatekeeper

other

Voting ended onMay 1, 2023

Suggested by anon

[celestialhousehold]

also we made a mogai term hoard blog. it's @celestialhoards

[celestialhousehold]

our brain just assembled a guy from old memories.. he's around 15ish but ageslides down to like 7-10 from what we can tell. I think his memories and likes etc come mainly from the old host uhhh before sam, chris, but also some from eri.

speaking of eri we did a trial run of a fusion of eri with aster. that went really well because they are exactly alike, except eri is younger. so then we attempted to do a more permanent fusion - the intent was to decrease our head count and combine members who seemed to be filling similar purposes in similar ways. this ended up with some unintended side effects.

after a week or so we thought everything went well and erisa was gone, and then willow popped up. we figured out willow has a lot of trauma memories from our childhood and they must have come from somewhere, so it pretty much confirmed our suspicions that erisa actually had some trauma they never mentioned. we thought this was bc erisas trauma stuff wasn't compatible with aster so it got kicked back and formed willow as a way to put it somewhere (plus we've been so stressed that the system is very unstable and I expect us to continue splitting more until it stops).

and then erisa popped back up again and has since been back and forth merged with aster and not. his demeanor is much happier though and I think that the trauma memories he had got kind of sucked out of him or at least the negative effects did. so that's.. something

[whats-a-terrarium]

not to alarm anyone but there is a fictional man loose in my brain. keep an eye out.

[corvusthecryptid]

@funnier-as-a-fictive @funnierasafictive @funnier-as-a-system

[pluralpolls]

how many hosts/cohosts do you have?

1

2

3

4

5

6-10

11-20

21+

Voting ended onApr 1, 2023

[celestialhousehold]

I think when erisa (resident little) fused into aster omg omg omg head spinning. stop.

I think when erisa fused into aster I kind of popped out in response as like the little bundle of memories and trauma erisa had that couldn't be reconciled with aster. there's basically no other explanation for why I'd have these memories since I just formed like recently. but we always suspected erisa might be a trauma holder secretly so I guess here is the answer

[celestialhousehold]

being willow ✅✅✅

fronting in general ✅

fronting right now ❌

[celestialhousehold]

but we stay silly or whatever

[celestialhousehold]

being willow ✅✅✅

fronting in general ✅

fronting right now ❌

[deafblindshorty]

DID Systems, I have more questions:

Is it possible to keep secrets from your alters (Nothing shady or sinister, just maybe like a birthday or Christmas present/surprise)?

When you hear your alters talking in your head, is it random or do you need to concentrate to hear them?

Can alters hear each other's thoughts (like if you think about something, would they hear it)

If you kiss or hug someone, would your alters be able to tell?

When you talk to your alters, do you talk out loud, or do you think it?

Can you block off the person who's fronting from hearing you in your head?

Can the person who's fronting block the rest of the system out?

Is it possible to share each other's memories? How?

Can you visit each other's inner worlds?

How do child, animal, and opposite gender alters work? Do they dress/talk like a child/opposite gender and act like the animal?

Thanks a bunch!

[the-changelings]

yes, we can keep secrets from each other. it's not always effective, granted, and we usually don't want to, but like. if a system already has dissociative barriers for trauma it does make sense to be able to utilize those occasionally for less important or painful stuff. also sometimes it happens accidentally? like we get something and someone who hasn't fronted in a while comes out a year later and didn't know, and they get so excited. it's cool to be able to "treat yourself" multiple times in a row just bc of how your brain works lol

for us, it depends on the headmate. some of us struggle to hear others when in front, and have to focus quite hard. usually these are the same people it is harder to reach when they are in headspace or further back. overall, we have pretty decent communication, and for us it seems that comes at the cost of hearing chatter when we don't necessarily want to. at least it's usually funny :)

we would describe this as overlapping heavily with intentional communication as described in question 2. that said, many of us can have private thoughts and opinions and feelings. the rest of us will usually get a vibe off of them (x might not be feeling well, x seems sad or angry lately, etc.)

we usually front in groups, with one or a few primary fronter(s) and several in co-con to varying degrees. anyone in that group would definitely know, and how close they are to front would determine how much their personal reaction affects the body or us as a whole. people in headspace wouldn't notice to my knowledge

a little bit of both! we've always talked to ourselves and didn't even realize it was system communication (as is common since singlethood is presumed). it's usually easier in our case for the fronter to talk out loud and anyone else to respond internally. now is also probably a good time to note that we rarely think in words, and most responses (and thoughts in general) are in pictures and feelings that we can translate to language if needed. so if I say a headmate responded with a sarcastic comment, it was probably more the feeling of rolling eyes plus a bunch of other pictures and feelings that instantly get the point across.

that is a really good question. I think I would have to say yes, since there are headmates we know are active but we don't know what they are up to or thinking about. kind of like knocking on a sibling's door and you hear movement but they don't answer.

yes, but the ease and effectiveness of that action very much depends on the person fronting. to make it easier, we built a section of headspace that looks like our therapist's office, and a fronter visualizing themselves there can easily block heavy conversations from reaching ears that shouldn't hear it.

it is. many that we do not share were not by choice, as is common in complex dissociative disorders. some have chosen to share their uncomfortable memories with each other as a solidarity thing, especially those who have similar compartmentalized experiences. over time we have been able to share our joy and natural behaviors with each other (having previously had any Autistic traits blocked off in specific alters) and that has been good. we also make new memories together and keep important daily knowledge accessible, like who is ok to reach out to and how to do our job.

our inner world is largely shared, but some portions are private. each headmate is allowed to bar entrance to others into their private space if they want to, or to share it if they feel comfortable. there is plenty of shared space like a cozy meeting room, play spaces, and nature areas that people can socialize in if they choose without compromising their private space and time. everyone gets to build and decorate and change their space however they like, for shared spaces we use a casual voting system.

we try to make sure every headmate feels welcome and safe at home. this means we have a wide variety of clothing types and toys and stuff that everyone likes. everyone has a chance to be themselves as fully as our physical form allows. not everyone takes advantage of that, and there are rules (don't make a big body change without general agreement, cause as little harm as you can, etc.). but overall yeah we can be ourselves and we are finally not ashamed of that. helps that we have a wonderful partner living with us who encourages everyone to take their time in front and be themselves. all that to say hell yeah shapeshifting is fun

[wellthatschaotic]

hi i wanted to answer these because why not & every system is different :)

1. to a certain extent, although it always depends on who is trying to keep stuff from who- we all have different levels of dissociative amnesia and barriers. usually we don't have a reason to try though

2. another thing that sorta depends on the headmate, but usually theyre just There

3. 99% of the time yes,,

4. if they are near front yes they will be able to tell but they will not be able to feel it happening (like watching someone play a video game- you can see it happening but can't feel anything)

5. mostly think/internal communication, but very occasionally out loud. usually the out loud happens when we're alone or when we're incredibly blurry/rapid-switchy/confused

6. no not really. no wait some of us can but only to a small degree

7. yes, we call it "locking the door" since our headspace is a cafe and it's essentially locking everyone out of it. some can do it on purpose but sometimes it gets stuck on accident and people get frontstuck which is not fun lmao

8. yes and usually in the same way as how we "talk" to each other in the headspace. thoughts and vibes. some memories that are bigger/personal/harder to hold we can't share/receive though (for example if i were to try to remember a Spicy Memory i don't have access too, if i go farther than a faint glimpse then i may get kicked out of front or redirected)

9. if you're talking about system to system, we've never tried. if you're talking about different sections of our innerworld, everyone has access to most of it except for like. 2 places i think

10. yeah for the most part! we're all separate people and dress/act accordingly :)

[celestialhousehold]

we can keep secrets yeah. sometimes they accidentally get spoiled though. we dont typically have a reason but if its for a long period of time its likely theyll find out

its usually random and i dont need to concentrate. its like if you hear someone talking in the same room as you. we dont usually hear each other talking at random times though

sort of? if youre thinking too loud and someones right there yeah theyll hear but otherwise no

yeah the alters know what whoevers fronting is doing with varying degrees of awareness.. like someone close to front knows exactly whats going on with the senses the fronter has, while someone further back knows whats going on vaguely but cant see it, and someone else further back might not even know or care at all

we think to each other usually but if we have extended conversations it might go out loud. usually if walking somewhere or alone in our room

uhh usually we wouldnt really need to do this but i guess some of us cant be contacted while we're not fronting. like sleeping sort of

yeah the fronter can block out others. depends on role too. the host or a regular member has more control than a fragment

sometimes we share memories - feels like watching something on a show, no emotions attached or thoughts that were happening at the time. but usually we have amnesia between fronting so if we share memories its deliberate.

other systems? no, never tried. our own headspace? we each have our own "rooms" in the hotel so yeah we can come into each others rooms.

in headspace all alters appear as their forms are. we dont rly have animal alters necessarily but for example we have an enderman who is nonverbal. when fronting think of it how an otherkin would act with regard to their kintype. people present as their genders when they front if they want to, since they can just pick what they wear and stuff

[celestialhousehold]

weird little willow in brain... shh dont tell anyone