#interstellar speaks

[interstellarchaosss]

Pertaining to the last ask, to your friends, what does a person like them notice when a system (like you) is switching alters/headmates?

Some answers from our partner:

- Voice changes, pitch, tone, way of speaking. Even when masking there are tells like pauses between words, or different words used, or pronounciation of words (like the brits pronouncing words brit-way and Mahito's "t"s).

(Mahito's "t"s referring to Mahito pronouncing his t's very harshly in most words.) Some of us speak with more energy even when masking (like Red) or much less (like Dain).

Some people (Soul, Vince) use words like "quite" much more often than others. There's other vocabulary differences like that.

- Ways of moving. Different way you sit, different ways you walk, how much you trip, some people (Merlin) act like they've never had legs before.

We've been told by others that Crowley walks with a "smug aura" and that Vena walks "like a businessman". I think a friend once said Vince has a "overly confident straight male" walk.

Shrapnel and Onslaught are known to sit as spread out as possible (subconsciously, they aren't deliberate about it)--to the point where Onslaught's girlfriend has to remind him. Onslaught and Heart tend to put their feet up where possible. Dain tends to sit making himself as small as possible.

Some people need our cane more often than others because they're worse at walking--Merlin, Mystery, Fin, Mike, etc.

What foods/drinks you go for.

Vince and Shrapnel both have different regular cafes they prefer to go to--Shrapnel having specific drink orders as well. Merlin is known to mainly go for fruits and berries if he can get his hands on them, while Shrapnel and Rave normally go for something spicy.

So.... In the end, it's a lot of small patterns people can notice that might seem like regular day-to-day differences. After all, someone pronouncing things a little weirdly and wanting to go to a specific cafe one day doesn't make them a system! But sometimes, those things happen because of a system. But because differences in routine and life are part of being a person in general, there's not really that much of a line between "singlet who wants to go to this store for a change" and "this headmate really only likes this one specific store and fronted for the first time in 6 months". That's why it's hard to identify a system unless they tell you, in a lot of cases--if you can't see what's going on internally, differences are easy to brush off!

[interstellarchaosss]

Fairly curious (yes same person who asked about who is aware of the plurality thing) as a singlet to one of the introjects within this system, when having pseudomemory flashbacks, does it look like it is in a third person perspective as the camera is positioned in your source? Or is it a unique first person perspective of the same events?

Depends on the headmate for us! Sometimes it's actually neither--exomemories (our preferred term) aren't just visual memories, sometimes they're just.. Inherent knowledge about your source life without any visual or sensory memory tied to them.

I think most of us in-system have first-person memories but some do have third, and some have a mix of both depending on the memory. We don't tend to get visual memories very often though--it's hard for us to imagine images in our head at all, and that even includes memories that come directly from this body in this life. Most of our memories are recalled by basis of simple facts as opposed to images.

As an added little bit of info though, did you know that some people remember their own memories in third person? As in, memories that people have from their own bodies from this life! Singlets (non-systems) actually have this as a thing too!

[interstellarchaosss]

hi... sorry if this isn't the kind of question y'all want, but do y'all have an alter/alters that just... don't feel certain physical things? i think i might have an alter that doesn't feel hunger when they front if that's at all possible but idk if it is or if it's something else

Yep! Actually we have people in here who just don't really feel hunger at all either. We know other systems with headmates who don't feel pain as intensely as the rest. We have guys in here with worse hearing or who need our mobility aids more often to walk, or people who struggle to speak or can't at all.

Differences in how headmates percieve the world, experience it, and how they function in the body are actually fairly common and prettymuch a known thing, even medically. Not overly weird and definitely not impossible.

As a note though, if you're experiencing something or if your headmate is experiencing something, you're having it happen to you. And therefore it's possible, by default. If it happens, it's possible. Even if you don't find people who share your experiences, your experiences are your own and they're still things that have happened, even if they end up being unique to you.

[interstellarchaosss]

How noticeable to a normal person on what alter/headmate is currently fronting? Are there any irl friends and family that are aware/you’ve told?

Once someone knows we're plural? We've definitely been told it's very obvious. We try to mask our plurality when around strangers or in unsafe places, and we almost always try to mask our voices because our accents can be very overt. But even when masking, people can tell if we've switched. We're out as plural to both of our parents, one of our siblings, our partner, around 7 - 10 friends (and ex friends) as well as some of our colleagues and several psychologists over the years.

Our friends who usually saw us once or twice a week started being able to guess who was fronting after just a month or two of us being open about our plurality, and two of them can notice a switch happened within a few minutes--even when we're actively trying to mask. Our psychologist can tell who we are the moment she walks into the waiting room to greet us, and she knows when someone she hasn't met is fronting too. Our parents aren't really involved in our plurality, they'd rather sweep it under the rug and pretend it's not a thing--but on occasion, our mother has mentioned it to us. Our sister can tell a lot of the time, especially when headmates she likes are fronting. And, of course, our partner, @sparkssystem (who is long distance but we were sharing a room for about a month recently) was very quickly able to identify switches and fronters even if we tried very hard to mask.

But!

To singlets? No one would really suspect anything as long as we don't accidentally let our accent slip into something very different from our own--though that's also easily brushed off as just a silly thing we do. People don't normally notice changes in behaviour or voice--or if they do, they don't take note--if they don't know you're plural. Especially if they don't know plurality is even an actual thing that exists. People just assume you're having a weird off day, or you're sick, or you're dealing with something you don't want to talk about so your emotions are wack that day. Singlets don't tend to jump to the conclusion of "this is a whole new person than yesterday"--it's barely even a concept that registers in the general publics brain as an answer for "why is this person weird today".

So, I suppose we're pretty obvious, if you know what you're looking at!

[interstellarchaosss]

Hi! Hope you don't mind me asking for your advice.

As a system we've been wanting to make a Tumblr account/blog for ourselves for a while now. And while we do have a blog we have no idea how to do a sort of intro post or how to join into the community because of the online stigma we're kind of scared to be bullied about everything.

Thanks for readin! -🖼

Honestly.... Give as little info about yourselves and your system as you'd like. You don't need to be as open as us--you could use codenames on your blog, not tell people who's fronting at any given time, not share appearances or ages... You don't need to share any details, especially if doing so makes you feel vulnerable. I know that's a safer way a lot of systems start out! You don't need to even have an intro post at all--being a system online is just being a system and being online.

As for connecting with the community.... There's definitely a lot of stigma and possibly yeah, you might get nasty comments. Maybe if you think it'd help, have a system alt acount separate from anything else you do online for safety? I think it's important to weigh the pros vs cons of being open about it and what ways you can lessen the drawbacks if possible. What do you want to gain out of being open online? Are there ways this will be detrimental to your health? Are there ways to make those detriments lesser or nonexistant? Those are all things to think about.

I guess in the end remember that you have full rights to control your own privacy and what you share. You owe no one any information--medical, personal or anything else. But there is a kind and accepting community out there full of people who are plural, you just have to be safe about managing your own online life and spaces.

[interstellarchaosss]

Pinned/Intro

Redoing our pinned because the old one is old enough that it still has the old text editor!

Hey, we're Interstellar! We're a system of about 500 ish and we're all alterhuman in some way. But yeah, this is our art blog--that includes digital, traditional, and other forms of art n craft! We're an adult, and you can use it/its or they/them for us.

We draw a whole lot of stuff, mostly fandom related, and mostly of our headmates, so please ask before using our art for anything. All of our art is tagged with “#interstellar art”.

Status:

Commissions: OPEN!-- Only for FR gems/treasure and DeviantArt points currently. Ask us! Trades: OPEN! Requests: OPEN! (Only on Tumblr! We prioritise alterhuman art requests -- Read our request info post.) Collabs: FRIENDS ONLY!

Open Adopts:

Check our Ko-fi!

Some Of Our Stuff:

@whatsalterhappening -- An alterhuman comic by our system! It gets archived over on that blog as it gets uploaded here!

Tag Key:

#interstellar art -- Our art.

#interstellar speaks -- Non-art posts.

#reblogs -- What it says on the tin!

#alterhuman art -- Our tag for art by and about alterhumans.

#sys artist: [name] -- Tag to denote which member drew what.

#headmate: [name] -- Tag to show what headmate is depicted.

#oc: [name] -- Tag to show what oc we've depicted.

#character: [name] -- Tag to show what character we've depicted.

#pet: [name] -- Tag to show which of our IRL pets we've depicted.

List of our free to use images/bases/etc:

Autism Creature Birds Base: x

Cat Bases: x, x

Sonic Character Emojis: x

DNI/Stances:

We don't have a DNI and may or may not notice yours. Generally we don't look for them because they're largely inaccessible to us. If you don't want us interacting, just block us! We aren't going to dig through your blog or carrd for a list saying if we can interact or not. Set your DNI boundaries by blocking people you don't like.

For clarity on some of our common "discourse stances" though, for the purpose of others blocking us so we don't need to deal with them... We're pro endo, pro fiction/anti harrassment, supportive of "contradictory labels", againt generative AI being used in art spaces, and generally believe that if [thing] is somthing not actively aimed to hurt people, you should leave it be.

Star dividers by bunnysrph. Account icon and banner by us.

[interstellarchaosss]

We'll still be posting here for now regardless of the Tumblr update, but if anyone is moving platforms and wants to follow us elsewhere, we'll also be on Bluesky! As well as DeviantArt, but less people use that nowadays.

[interstellarchaosss]

We've never seen another with a system pet!! We have a dog :). Your ampitheres are very cute!! -Micheal (because Doll likes to know who wrote what :p)

Our system has a few pets in-headspace! I think all of them belong to specific people, but we definitely know of more systems who have in-headspace pets so you're absolutely not alone! I think it's just a thing that isn't talked about much.

Here's some of our other insys pets!

Arson, Shrapnel's sylvesqual.

Aven, Mal's wolf.

Mr. Beeps, Jade's cockatiel.

Peeper, Vince's natu.

Quicksilver (right), Crowley's eevee.

All pics drawn by us except for Aven, which was made in a dollmaker.