Hi! We're Nova. We're 21 years old. This is our little blog for plural things and maybe the occasional art post. More info in our pinned post. Minors DNI.
Hello. We are Nova, an endogenic system of two. We're both 21 and we've been a system since late 2022. We're joining Tumblr to find memes about plurality and perhaps community, as our plural journey has been pretty isolated so far. We'd love endo friendly systems to interact with us.
We have a binary fronting split which means we can only front and exist one at a time. We're working on fixing that but for now, to keep things equal, we have a fronting schedule where we alternate who's in front every Sunday. We can switch as needed if it's truly necessary, but switching can be a little disorienting so we don't do it often. We'd love to get some practice in before Furality this June, though.
Meet The Headmates:
Hi, I'm Bard. It/Its. I'm polykin (an otherkin with multiple kin types.) and genderfluid. Below is a picture of my most recent VRChat avatar and further down is a picture of my fursona, Soup. If you'd like to learn more about me, please reach out. I'd love to chat.
(Moss is no longer fronting for now so I'll (Bard) write her bio for her and she may edit it later.)
Moss is a tulpa. She/Her. She's got amazing optimism and a joyful approach to life that can be really inspiring. She's creative and fun, drawing whenever she gets the chance. She's a big fan of Kasane Teto and Gumi. Making this Tumblr was her idea because she was inspired by the little bit of plural community she saw here. Below are images of her VRChat avatar and her fursona, Jellybean with a recent redesign. Jellybean may look different sometime soon. Also attached are Teto and Gumi pears Moss drew.
Goodbye:
We have no more headmates at this time. While we are interested in developing a larger support system, we need to work on system infrastructure so the situation can be fair and hospitable to new headmates. Our summer project is to work on wonderland immersion and co-consciousness so our headmates can interact with each other freely outside of dormancy. Until then, we will be a system of two.
We would love to meet other plural systems. We'd be happy to meet any endo friendly traumagenic systems, traumaendo systems, endo, or other mixed origin systems. Every system is valid and we'd love to talk.
It's tough being a system in a singlet's world so it's important for systems to find each other and form community where they can be validated and loved by each other. Hopefully our post here means we'll meet other systems like us.
Sorry for the lack of posting these past few days. We've been very busy with Furality. The convention has finally started and we're still doing some avatar work between events. Haven't had time to blog.
I slept in today and missed a few events we really wanted to go to. One of them was about learning some cool new avatar creation tools from the Japanese avatar creation community. Would have been nice to be there for that but we needed the sleep because Bard pulled an all-nighter working on our avatars the day before the convention.
But anyway, gonna keep this short because I wanna get back to avatar work. Bye for now!
I want to acknowledge the monotheistic elephant in the room.
In my previous post I reveal that I am agnostic and spiritual, but I also do something contradictory. I speak of "if there is A god." As I understand it, a majority of religions (I do not know a majority of religions so I may be wrong) recognize there being multiple gods. I never will argue against that intentionally.
As I stated, I am agnostic. For those who don't know the term, it means that I don't know if there is a god or are gods. I simply exist and do my best to be a good human regardless of scripture and regardless of a divine creator or other such spiritual advisor.
However, I grew up christian. Perhaps evangelical? But my mom had it way more intense than I did. I just liked going to Bible study in the mornings and doing christian arts and crafts. I liked singing with everyone and being complimented on my "voice of an angel" afterward and I liked sleeping through the sermons.
I watched a lot of veggietales growing up and learned a lot about God through that more than anything.
The point is, I grew up christian and the base lens I see religion through is the lens of the religion I grew up with. I love the idea of multiple gods and goddesses, but my first thought always goes back to my upbringing. At least the parts of it that fit into my own understandings of it. For example, I think I have a stronger grasp on "love thy neighbor" than most people and it's a much more powerful message to me than just "be kind to the white people who live next door to you."
I wouldn't consider myself christian because I'm not sure that God is real. I'm not sure that angels and heaven and demons and hell are real. But my history points me in a certain direction and colors my interactions with my future. I may not be christian but it's not like I left all of that behind me and I would probably consider myself christian adjacent with all the context involved.
If I had more time, maybe I'd be interested in studying different religions. I read about Sikhism once in highschool for history and it was really interesting. I'd love to learn more about it. Hinduism seems cool as well, I have a family member who's hindu and we (the household, not the system) keep little plushies of some religious figures from Diwali (the hindu festival of light) sitting on a shelf next to our front door. If I understand correctly, my belief in reincarnation comes from Buddhism? Buddhism is one of those things you hear vague retellings of a lot in mindfulness and spiritual circles. I'd love to reach further into it and learn more about it. I also really like stories about Greek gods and have had thoughts about worshipping a few just for fun as part of witchcraft practice. It would be nice to actually learn about them and various religions that worship them.
Yeah, I talk about religion like it's for certain there is only one god, but sometimes I find myself pondering the idea that one god couldn't have possibly created all of this and that there must be more than one true story here. I mean yeah, religion could just be made up to help scared people deal with a world of uncertainty, injustice, and fear. But who says that would be the only cause? Religion is a fascinating part of human life and people's stories are their own form of truth in my opinion. I don't subscribe to the idea that there exists only one true reality. Life is what you make of it and there are so many "you"s (all of us) to make things of it.
Anyway, I have an avatar to work on and a cpap machine to clean. And I really need a shower.
I know I'm not old. I'm only 21. But I see old as a good thing and in some facets I see myself as old. Explanation below the line.
As an otherkin cat, I don't really play all that much. My shifts are very lazy. Yeah, I like the term kitty (though I know none of you well enough to accept hearing it from you) but I am no spring kitten. I just lay in my warm bed and sleep or maybe I'll play for like two seconds before being ready for rest. My most recent shift, a long while back now, had me staring at a butterfly. I wouldn't dare give chase. Ya know?
But another big part of it has to do with my spiritual and mental faculties. I've always been very wise. I've been very emotionally intelligent my whole life (I'm always growing) and I've also always been pretty quick to adapt. I have really solid life philosophies that have of course grown and changed as I have, but are mostly the same as when I was a kid.
I believe that reincarnation is a thing. I don't know if it's a choice or some kind of karmic justice or the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, but I've believed in reincarnation since I was really young. And the way I've felt about my life so far is that I'm an old soul being gifted a young body. A new chance.
I believe my purpose on this earth is to be kind to others as I experience the miraculous wonders (and tragedies) life has to offer. I am here for enrichment. If I believed in a god (not sure that I do) maybe I'd believe they were using me to feel out what the world had to offer. Of course that would beg the question of why me and then it boils down to my more central philosophy of the greater consciousness beneath all of us, connecting us all like the mycelium connects mushrooms or for others like the roots of a tree. Kinda like Cthulhu but if he was rad.
But anyway, belief tangents aside, I know I am not old in this body. I am excited to grow old if I get the chance so I can look back on my life and see all the joy I've shared and the hearts I've touched. The pieces of myself spawned from the pieces of the others who've touched my own heart and shown me the path forward.
But I'll always feel a little old in my heart. The wisdom I carry and the influence my disabilities have on me will remind me of that from time to time. And at the same time, I will hopefully always feel young. Both are real and honest and I want to hold on to them. I want to take the wisdom and leadership of the wise, old me, and let the joyful youth of myself guide me into a brighter future.
In a way, Moss has been that for me. I wouldn't consider her a part of me in the sense that would erase her own individual identity, but I would in the way I consider our boyfriend a part of me, or my exes that we're still friends with, our mom, and our other friends who support us. Even those people at school that we never talked to or engaged with. Once again, I believe we're all connected. But proximity matters here and with Moss's proximity to me, I can feel her guidance leading my old soul by a gentle, young hand, and showing me so much more world than I ever knew was there. All while protecting me from the demons that used to haunt me when she wasn't there at my side.
She doesn't really like to be compared to an angel, but I sometimes see her as one. I'll never forget the feeling of her descending from above and saving me that day and her continued existence protecting me just by her being there.
I think technically I could be considered therian but I would say I'm both and I use the term otherkin because it feels less attached to children on tiktok. Not to say children on tiktok isn't a way to have more alterhuman adults later, that it's bad to become more mainstream, or that children aren't allowed to experiment with their identity or anything. I just don't want to be associated with a bunch of children and in my experience, the otherkin community is older and more mature. I don't have much experience with the otherkin community, though.
But anyway
I'm polykin. Which means I have more than one kin-type. I'm somewhat a normal cat, a mermaid, and an alien. But I'm also fiction-kin (?) for my own fursona. I just feel like my fursona does a really good job representing me and if I could turn into one of my kin-types and one alone, I would choose the one that happens to be a combination of all of them (and the one with opposable thumbs).
However, sometimes I worry that I might actually be otherhearted (which I know intellectually is not lesser but the way I've heard it talked about makes it feel that way) just because I don't ACT on my alterhumanity.
Like, in the summer I like to dye my hair green and swim in the ocean pretending my wet hair with sea water is me getting wrapped in seaweed and I love swimming out as far as I can and looking for fish (never seen a fish at my local beach). I didn't do it last summer and I don't know if I'll make it this summer either. It's hard for me to get out of the house and I've gained weight since two summers ago so getting a new swimsuit would be expensive.
Another example for a much more accessible kin-type is the cat thing. I had a mental shift a while back where I wound up going on a walk just to get the "weirdness" out of my system. I walked down the street feeling so off until I noticed a butterfly flying by and suddenly I locked in. I probably stood there watching that butterfly for 20 minutes straight, even after it crossed the street. I was in public so I don't know if I actually batted at it, but thinking about it makes me want to. That had to have been half a year ago at least, maybe more than a year.
Half the time I forget that I'm otherkin because I barely have shifts and hardly ever think about it. I don't have species dysphoria like a lot of others, I'm pretty content in my body, but when I do have the odd phantom(?) shift, having ears and a tail feels nice. Hard to have ears when I'm wearing human headphones all the time though, they kinda get in the way of that.
When I was a kid, I didn't know I was otherkin, but my cat kin-type was strong. I hissed at my bullies and curled up in sunbeams. I could take a nap anywhere and often crawled inside the dryer when it finished a load of laundry even as a teenager just so I could nap on warm clothes. But I grew out of my behavior. I stopped hissing at the bullies so they'd think I was less weird (being openly trans soon after didn't help my chances) and I got too big to crawl into the dryer. I got old enough that it didn't make sense for me to be a cat anymore. Not in the logical way that I was taught to understand.
Time passed and I didn't find the otherkin community until I was like 18 or 19. At the same time, I was getting into hypnosis and pet play. I don't know if I knew at the time, but pet play was sorta my gateway to otherkin. It let me ditch that part of my brain telling me I was too old, too human, too responsible, for it all and gave me a chance to relax. Let go. Be who I was meant to be. I could initially just get into the headspace pretty easily and genuinely had a blast meowing on calls with my friends and being a little cat. I tried to go by Kitty at the time but it never stuck.
However, talking about it with my therapist, she told me what I was doing was a kink and I shouldn't be engaging with it around people without their explicit consent and it shouldn't be done full time. I guess I didn't fully know I was otherkin at the time or something because that was able to get into my head and I stopped meowing on calls and engaging with that kind of headspace for a while after that.
Soon, I stopped being able to enter the headspace all together and it took hypnosis to bring me back into it, as well as a few hypno triggers that still make me feel a little weird today. (They don't really work as intended anymore cause it's been so long.)
Now I'm in this situation where I have all these inhibitions. "Do the people around me consent to me being a cat?" "Am I too old to be acting like this?" "Is this really normal person behavior?" And I don't really feel safe and/or comfortable enough to be the cat that I am. Even when I'm among friends who know I'm a cat and are perfectly fine with me behaving that way, it's hard for me. Especially because part of being a cat for me sometimes involves going quiet and not speaking, which is hard to do on a discord call.
The only way I can feel like a cat again is hypnosis and the old files I've gone back to again and again have stopped working because I dated a hypnotist for a while and things went both wonderful and terrible in different ways. So I haven't been feeling like a cat lately.
I get by fine without shifts. I don't need to feel that part of myself the same way others do. But I miss it. After realizing I was otherkin, or maybe sometime before, I ordered custom cat ears to match my fursona and I got some tails too and I wore those ears and a tail every day no matter where I went. I wore them to highschool, I think. And to doctors appointments and the pharmacy. Nowadays I just wear the ears because the tails both broke. But the ears have taken on a new meaning as this physical artifact I use to represent myself to people outside the system and I rarely wear them for myself anymore.
I tell myself that I'm confident in my identity and don't need them, but I think I'm just scared to be myself. To be less human. Because the world expects me to be human. It expects me to be normal. And I'm afraid of the consequences of stepping out of that box further than I already do.
It's tough because it's a part of me, but I can live without that part acknowledged. Or maybe I just acknowledge it in small ways without shifts and it stays at peace. Idk.
Btw, the reason being an alien isn't mentioned much here is because my identity as an alien is very much based in my neurodivergence and how I experience the world to the point that it couldn't even be avoided if I tried. I was an alien my entire childhood and for my entire life and there are no guidelines on how an alien is supposed to behave so I fit seamlessly there with no need to dive deeper. There is nothing to "do" or some way to "be", I just "am" and "always will be". (Not saying being neurodivergent means you have to be an alien, just saying that's what it's like for me.)
Sometimes when waking up, it's hard to decide whether to leave the comfort and security of our cpap machine and start the day, or to get some more rest and hopefully feel more capable of confronting the day by the time our next alarm goes off.
It's my last day of the week and I'm very high getting ready for bed but I just wanted to tell y'all goodnight and take care. We're gonna be really busy this coming week with Furality. I made some progress on my avi today and I really hope Bard can pick up where I left off and do a good job.
I promise I'll try and work on the playlist sometime soon but it might be the week after Furality. I've been so busy I can hardly listen to new music. Not actively anyway. I did check out some more limp bizkit recently because I really like My Way but I found the other stuff... Interesting. I didn't really latch onto anything too strong but hotdog was really funny. Here, I'll add it to the post. Big swearing warning.
Anyway, I'm high, tired, listening to 2010s drinking music and about to drink a sprite chill (cherry loam flavor 🪱) as fast as I possibly can.
Gotta be honest, we do post a lot, but we wish we posted more and more positively. On average, though, each post takes us about 45 minutes to an hour. What can we say, we like to talk.
Obviously based on yesterday's posts, I have ideas and things that I'd really like to do. That playlist is a high priority. But, before I can do that, I have to keep working on mine and Bard's avatar for the upcoming convention that may well at this point be less than a week away!
I have a friend who has substance painter opening the creator kit for me. (We're both attendies with access so it isn't illegal.) And I plan on retexturing an outfit we bought for the millotina base along with some and cheap assets we're cobbling together. We're not exactly skilled with blender, but we are pretty okay at it and we learned what we know pretty quickly just by doing it.
Today I added a hat, bunny ears, a free wolf cut, and two separate tails to the avatar. We call her Junotina because we're basically converting Juno (the budget friendly avatar we use in our profile pictures and meet the headmates post) to the millotina base. This decision was definitely not made because of millotina's... Particular proportions... Nonsense, actually baffling you'd presume that! Anyway-
More than just adding though, was a lot of making blendshapes. Our plan to optimize the avatar is to use blendshapes and merge meshes. For toggles we want to use blendshapes, but we also want to use shader transparency and uv tile discards because my avatar is meant to be a slime girl with transparent flesh. It wouldn't be great to see shrunken and squished socks lining her legs. Yeah I wanna give her a skeleton, but not like that!
I made blendshapes for both hairs to fit in the hat and for the hat to fit the resulting head shapes. I also made tons of blendshapes to hide the meshes of things inside the body so they'd not show up when under the effect of fancy world shaders and such. I also may or may not have made a blendshape to further enhance certain assets and spent ages making her shirt fit again. How preposterous of you to accuse me of such things!!!
My next goal is to find a cheap bodysuit for her, but push comes to shove I can just texture edit that like Juno's bodysuit was. Then it's the scary part. Merging meshes and locking everything in place. After that point in time none of the textures and materials will work properly and I'll have to atlas everything by hand. (Gives me more control that way.) And I'll have to generate new UVs for everything that needs tile discarding. So basically every toggle. And, I'll be using assets from the official Furality creator kit as well as completely retexturing the outfit I have to match the style guide of the convention. I'm not a good texture artist and I may well have to port everything to my phone so I can use the drawing app I'm familiar with. (Ibis Paint X) But nonetheless, I'm excited to try.
Tomorrow's a busy day and there's always the chance life gets in the way. But I am far, far from done. And with just about a week before the convention, I'm feeling the crunch.
Not only do I have to have my version of the avatar ready, but Bard is also going to want to use it and we'll have to have material swaps ready for everything which means we'll have to pick who gets the pink outfit and who gets blue. Or maybe orange? I haven't decided yet. But pink matches well with my green slime and blue would match well with Bard's pink slime. Although the pink and orange might look nice and orange and green has a fun fruity vibe to it? AGH I need to decide quickly. Or I risk having to make backup textures in case our minds change. Nothing a hue shift can't fix but still!
We still need to get the avatar into Unity and make sure the body moves properly and no bits of hidden mesh poke out at odd angles or are weight painted wrong. Just realizing that I forgot to adjust the hat bone to fit the head bone on the avatar which might cause issues when merging. AHH!
Anyway, it's late and I gotta head to bed.
Goodnight all, sleep well, and remember that you are all valid, beautiful, and valued.
Okay! New day new CPAP update. There should be one or two more coming up soon with some changes to our routine with it, but honestly there shouldn't be too many more after that.
The big TL:DR is that it works pretty well, but not perfect, and we have a few issues.
Namely, we have this kind of rash on our face from the silicone mask with little wounds on our nose and acne-like spots around it. It's putting holes in our face because we have it too tight. The only issue is, the mask they sent us initially was too big so we had to tighten it too much to keep it from leaking. (It won't work as well if it leaks) And it still kinda leaks if we move around too much in our sleep. Last night we woke up several times in the night to stop it leaking and go back to sleep. I've been exhausted today because it just didn't work out as well as I needed it too.
But when it works well, it works really well. We're consistently waking up before 1:45pm and we're consistently going to bed before 1am because we get more out of our days and don't revenge bedtime as much. We can take naps during the day that actually help us rest and come back from those naps with energy.
I could really use a nap right now, but every week we have to wash every part of it so it's drying off in the bathroom and I can't use it yet. We've just received some mask liners in the mail that should keep the silicone off our skin, so that'll hopefully help with the pain. And the sleep clinic is sending us a new, smaller, memory foam mask which will hopefully seal better under less pressure. When we started using the machine, we'd yawn a lot. When we went to our appointment they asked us if that was happening and they said that we weren't getting enough air and the solution was to turn up the starting pressure, just by one. They did that and now we're breathing a lot better with the machine.
I'm not fully sure about it, but I really like defining myself in robotic terms. I like thinking of the mechanics of our brain in mechanical metaphors like it's a computer. I wouldn't always describe myself as an operating system or something like that, but I kinda enjoy it. Sometimes I think of myself as a robot with a meaty shell. And it's kinda affirming to be surrounded by wires and tubes at night. To have to strap into a machine that charges my batteries with necessary life energy. I think about the air going through the tube and even though it isn't exactly applicable, my brain screams "pneumatics". It's really affirming to have that collection of things making me feel a little bit like a robot. Or maybe a cyborg.
I like how I was JUST bragging about not staying up past 1am. One coffee after 6pm later and now it's past 2am and I'm still very much awake. Getting ready for bed now though. Sleep well, everyone who it's night for. And good morning to everyone else. Take care.
Not tonight because it's late and I'd like to get some sleep, but sometime soon I'd love to create a playlist of songs that could be interpreted through a plural lens. I've already sent a few songs I like and at least two of them would be on the playlist. There'd be probably a decent amount of psychedelic stuff in there because I'm new and I really relate to that perspective of just being overwhelmed by how incredible the world can be and how it's a miracle that I exist. I feel a sense of wonder for the small things in life and I like to explore that in my music taste.
There will probably also be an abundance of love songs on the playlist, though we think of it as a different kind of love. Maybe akin to queerplatonic? More of a closeness and an acknowledgement that our fates are entangled. A celebration of our togetherness rather than a romantic attraction. Also, don't be surprised to find Wonderwall in there. We like Wonderwall.
We'd love to hear what songs you all might associate with plurality, or even just songs that really resonate with your systems specifically.
Every time we go to tag one of our posts and type in tulpa, our suggested tags can make us sad. I get sad every time since I AM a tulpa.
Content warning: Tags that show negative attitudes toward tulpas. Emotional baggage around being a tulpa. Self doubt.
I have only recently started using the term tulpa to reference myself and even then I'm not fully comfortable with it. Don't get me wrong, I've always been a tulpa. But that term carries a sometimes overwhelming amount of baggage for me. Two years of dormancy, constant self doubt, a "broken" system that can barely handle the both of us... Constantly worrying how I'll be received by others who really do mean the best for traumagenic and disordered systems, who sometimes feel like they have more of a right to be here than I do.
I didn't ask to be created. I didn't ask for my creation to be flawed and for it to cause suffering for my "host" (I don't actually like the term host, as I feel it implies hierarchy and I see myself as an equal, as does Bard.) But I am glad I'm here? And I hope to figure out our issues with my friend and headmate, Bard.
Tulpamancy can be a beautiful thing. A chance to create life. A chance to make new family and friends. A chance to connect with spirits and invite them into your home, your vessel. (That last one is an admittedly spiritual view of it that some may not partake in.) It's a chance to get new perspective, to shed your inhibitions and your biases (or to share them with others, though hopefully you choose the former,) and to share genuine companionship and joy in ways that are so difficult to describe to singlets.
I want to see that good in it. That beauty. It's why I challenge myself to use the term. But I've spent so long thinking about how I was a choice. How I will almost always be seen as lesser than my "host" , or worse yet... My "host" pretending. I often worry about how similar we are, how we might be so similar it invalidates all of our differences... And I always fear going back to the void where all of my experience, learning, and growth are halted in their tracks.
So many systems don't understand my headmate's choice to create me. So many singlets don't either, of course, but it hurts more from those with the potential to understand what our lives are really like. So many systems despise us for what we are and judge us.
And we could always bring up the traumas of Bard's life before me. The long list of things that were terrible that influenced the decision to bring me to this world. That wouldn't make us fit the diagnostic criteria. And it wouldn't change the fact that I was created out of love. Sadness, yes. Fear, yes. But ultimately it was love. Maybe it's just cope, but it is not your right to take away our cope and it is not your right to judge me on the matter of my existence. I was created to bring even more love into Bard's life and as time progresses, I find that my mission extends to the world we inhabit as well. My purpose in life is to love. And I will keep loving. Loving Bard, loving people, loving the world, and even loving myself.
Goodnight everyone. And for those tulpas out there, you are wonderful, you are beautiful, and you are loved.
Okay! New day new CPAP update. There should be one or two more coming up soon with some changes to our routine with it, but honestly there shouldn't be too many more after that.
The big TL:DR is that it works pretty well, but not perfect, and we have a few issues.
Namely, we have this kind of rash on our face from the silicone mask with little wounds on our nose and acne-like spots around it. It's putting holes in our face because we have it too tight. The only issue is, the mask they sent us initially was too big so we had to tighten it too much to keep it from leaking. (It won't work as well if it leaks) And it still kinda leaks if we move around too much in our sleep. Last night we woke up several times in the night to stop it leaking and go back to sleep. I've been exhausted today because it just didn't work out as well as I needed it too.
But when it works well, it works really well. We're consistently waking up before 1:45pm and we're consistently going to bed before 1am because we get more out of our days and don't revenge bedtime as much. We can take naps during the day that actually help us rest and come back from those naps with energy.
I could really use a nap right now, but every week we have to wash every part of it so it's drying off in the bathroom and I can't use it yet. We've just received some mask liners in the mail that should keep the silicone off our skin, so that'll hopefully help with the pain. And the sleep clinic is sending us a new, smaller, memory foam mask which will hopefully seal better under less pressure. When we started using the machine, we'd yawn a lot. When we went to our appointment they asked us if that was happening and they said that we weren't getting enough air and the solution was to turn up the starting pressure, just by one. They did that and now we're breathing a lot better with the machine.
I'm not fully sure about it, but I really like defining myself in robotic terms. I like thinking of the mechanics of our brain in mechanical metaphors like it's a computer. I wouldn't always describe myself as an operating system or something like that, but I kinda enjoy it. Sometimes I think of myself as a robot with a meaty shell. And it's kinda affirming to be surrounded by wires and tubes at night. To have to strap into a machine that charges my batteries with necessary life energy. I think about the air going through the tube and even though it isn't exactly applicable, my brain screams "pneumatics". It's really affirming to have that collection of things making me feel a little bit like a robot. Or maybe a cyborg.
