#alterhuman information

[archiealterhuman]

“Alterhuman” Includes Non-Disordered Plurals.

Syscourse TW.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a little bit, it’s been in my drafts for a while but I figured I’d post it now.

I keep seeing discord servers and blogs and whatnot advertised as “alterhuman friendly” or “alterhuman”, and yet... they’re DID/OSDD system exclusive and anti-endo. Alterhumanity includes non-disordered plurals (if they want to be included under the label, of course) and always has. You can’t take a term that’s meant to be inclusive to everyone and then take one part out of it. If you want to make an alterhuman friendly space, it should be inclusive of all alterhumans.

This isn’t a callout post, I’m not attacking anyone specific and I’m not asking anyone to go attack these spaces either. As someone who is in a non-disordered system, finding spaces labelled with a label that includes us and then finding out that we’re excluded is a terrible feeling.

Yes, DID/OSDD systems deserve their own separate spaces, but the alterhuman label is one that is meant to include everyone with a nonhuman identity, or an identity that is not “normally” human. That includes us.

Here is the coining post for the term “alterhuman” (as far as I’m aware anyway) if anyone is interested.

I don’t normally get salty on my blog, but being told that I don’t exist in a space I should be safe in is terrible and not something that should ever happen.

[archiealterhuman]

Would it still be considered a form of plurality if an individual speaks with autonomous fictional characters living in thier head that consider themselves walk-ins, but they do not really front at all and don't affect the body's life in ways beyond occasional psychosomatic pain and her writing fix-it fic at thier request? This is an individual that is both a published author and prolific fanfic writer, and autonomous characters are more common than anyone really wants to talk about

Most would consider that a form of plurality, yes. From what I can tell, it’s actually a pretty common experience for writers to end up with headmates of their characters, as you mentioned.

As a system of 100+ people, we have a lot of people who have never fronted or interacted with the outside beyond giving us information about themselves for pluralkit and such--they still count as headmates. They don’t affect the body’s life in the slightest, but they still count, because they’re still people. That’s all it takes. I don’t think it matters where your headmates come from or what they do, it just matters that you have them.

I think writers ending up with headmates from writing is a very interesting topic that really isn’t spoken about as much as it should be, though--just like you said. I don’t remember if we’ve ever experienced getting headmates from writing, but I know some people who have, and I remember seeing some information on it when I first tried entering the plural community--though those articles would be hard to find by now. 

Edit: As another anon just mentioned, this phenomenon was mentioned quite a bit by the soulbonding community for a while, so looking into that might be beneficial?

(This answer is a little bit disjointed and I apologise for that, putting words together properly is a bit of a pain right now.)

[archiealterhuman]

That makes sense, and definitely doesn't describe any of us here. If I may ask another question, I've also heard the term sidesystem used before, does that describe something similar?

A sidesystem is pretty similar, it's basically two (or more) systems beside each other as opposed to in each other, in one body. It's confusing for me personally to wrap my head around how that works, but that's the best way it's been explained to me. It's pretty similar to the layers, as far as I'm aware.

[archiealterhuman]

Could a group be considered a subsystem if they've banded together voluntarily due to commonalities (in this case a shared canon) while still having the ability to communicate with system members outside them, or would it have to be more structural than that?

Sorry this took a bit to get to.

It sounds like you mean they’re friends within the system, which wouldn’t be a subsystem.

A subsystem is basically just a system within a system. It’s exactly like how a system works out here, except it’s inside of your system. It’s usually just multiple people in one headspace body. If by “banded together” you mean they now act as a system within your system (sharing the same body/maybe switching/etc), then that’d be a subsystem.

Not quite sure how to explain it better than that, but if anyone would like to add on, feel free.