How did you discover your plurality, and do you have any tips for someone looking to become an endo?
This ask is phrased in a way where it makes us think you are either misinformed or an anti-endo asking in bad faith. We're going to assume it's the first one. We're going to answer the second part first. (Edit after writing: it turned out way longer than we thought so we're putting a cut here)
First of all: you can't become an endo. You're probably thinking of willo, or willogenic. These are systems that create themselves, whether through imaginary friends or characters accidentally becoming sentient, or through tulpamancy, paromancy or willomancy, all methods of creating a willomate. Tulpamancy as a term is more controversial than the others, as the process was adapted from a Buddhist practice, but we're neither Buddhist nor a tulpamancer so we don't think we really get a say :] while we don't have much experience with that, we do know a few things:
Firstly, there is active and passive forcing. Active forcing is sitting down (or lying down) and visualising your willomate's form, working out the details and such, while passive forcing is more like talking to your willomate while doing other things, like washing the dishes and explaining the process you go through.
Find a guide! Tulpamancy's the most common form of forcing a willomate so you'll find the most guides under that, even if you personally think it's cultural appropriation.
Be consistent in your forcing. Try to do it at least once a day. If you miss a day that's fine, but try to get into the habit. You can even set timers to remind yourself
Be patient. Every willomate takes a different amount of time to develop, and for a beginner it's typically longer. Don't get frustrated when it takes weeks, months, or even years for them to develop.
Understand what it means to have a headmate. It is not like having a roommate, or a pet, or a toy. They are sentient. Your willomate can take on attributes you imagine them with, but most likely they will develop their own personality. If you are not ready to live with another sentient being in your mind 24/7, do not go through this process.
That's all the tips we have, really. So, to answer your first question:
We discovered our plurality through a few things. At the beginning, we actually thought we weren't a system, and were interested in becoming one, so we began the process of creating a willomate! That's how we know those tips :]
While we were scrolling Tumblr looking for more tips, we came across a post of a system answering an ask from someone looking to be a willogenic system. The answer was quite helpful, but then they went on to say that "if you are so interested in becoming a system, it might be you're plural already, and willomancy/tulpamancy is your system's way of subconsciously trying to recognise itself" (paraphrased).
This kind of "got the ball rolling" for us. We started looking into the past and noticing things about ourself that was explained by plurality. It was a slow process at first and we were struggling to identify headmates: at first we thought we were a proxy system, with one frontstuck host and other headmates trying to front, with "me" unconsciously blocking them everytime. As it turned out, we all just had such weak identities that we blended together and couldn't tell each other apart.
We made a post complaining about it and asking if any other systems had any tips we could use to tell ourselves apart, and a very lovely system by the name of exorsysm gave us the tip: "assign each headmate a colour, and see what colour you feel the most strongly" as that pertains to the fronter.
So, we did that, and started off with just 6: Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple, and Grey. We added more later, with first Pink, then Yellow and White, then we started adding fictives.
Eventually, after a long time of differentiating ourselves and tracking our fronts and switches (if you want to know how long, probably multiple months), we could identify ourselves well enough to start naming ourselves, doing some picrews and working out appearances, and start filling in Simply Plural's info.
Red became Alizarin, a protector and anger holder, Blue Crescent, our most common fronter (but not the host), Purple Mika, Grey Nimbus, a cassmate. Orange stayed unnamed for longer but we eventually identified Orange as Alpenglow, another protector. Green Pradera, Yellow Helios, a mood booster, and White Inziel, a caretaker.
After that we started either forming or discovering new people, most of them fictives at first, but then we went through a bit of a hard time and formed a couple trauma-holders and protectors, Whimsy and Tazbel. (Neither of them had colour names, although Tazbel started off named "Haha traumaboy" in SP)
Anyway yeah that's a bit more info than just "how did you discover your plurality" but eh. In terms of origin we started off as quoigenic (unknown), then constelgenic (originating from being constelic), then nebugenic (not quite coalescing into one whole personality as a child, sort of drifting and nebulous instead), then just endogenic bc we had no idea, then back to quoigenic, and now we're pretty much sure of adaptive! Though we are looking through origin terms under Adaptive and seeing if one fits. So far there's a couple options but we'll keep them private for now.
Anyway, hope this helps and answers your questions! We also hope you're not an anti-endo making fun of us! :D
~ Whimsy 🔮🌟 (shy/zie/it) and Indigo 🌊⛓️ (ae/he/it)
@heterochromatica said: Having overheard her question, he looks at her, blinks and then crouches down to be on her height before he starts talking. "Bastard was originally a word for a child who's parents aren't married, they used it in the middle ages as a insult because having children without being married was considered weird. It's not anymore. That's why we don't use that word anymore. It makes people feel bad usually."
Eri blinked a few times as she took in this new information. "Oh..." she said softly. "So it's a mean word that people shouldn't say?"
She gave a nod. "So Kacchan-san was being mean when he said that?" She then frowned at the thought. "That's not very nice then..."
While I do think that Splatoon Osomatsu-san analysis post is cool, I couldn't help but amuse myself at the thought that, being who they are, they would be the only people to ever get fired from Grizzco. They just, they would find a way, somehow. =P
Oh, definitely. Oso would probably get fired for trying to steal bonus capsules, Kara would get fired out of pity because poor man keeps getting killed, since Salmonids really hate his painful behaviour (and others don’t feel like reviving him every 5 seconds), Ichi would get himself killed on purpose, Jyushi was forbidden to ever show up again because ever since he suplexed a Steel Eel, Salmonids stopped coming to the shore as soon as they smelled him nearby (It’s Jyushi logic, don’t question it.)Choro and Totty would probably be the only ones to keep their jobs.
Honestly, most of our switches are probably ones we're unaware of. We can feel sudden, strong switches, but when it's just changing who's in co-con, for example, it's much more subtle, and we rarely notice those.
We do notice (usually) when the fronter switches out, but if they're switching out with, say, a starmate who was already in close co-con it's more subtle.
How is it bait? Pro endos are the sworn enemies of pro willos since we first started existing 2 years ago. They’ve hated our guts for “being ableist” and “not being possible” and “invading endo spaces and kicking actual systems out” but what do they know? I’m traumawillo anyways (my parents got me thousand dollar Lego set instead of the 2 thousand dollar Lego set that was very traumatic) so I count here.
