When I use “we” in reference to our collective, I’m strictly talking about me, Akumu, and Yajuu, the dream dragons, median Constellation that we are. I suppose we are a proper system, that functions, works together to ensure the system runs. We are definitely mind mates. Not headmate, that sounds weird. We share mental, telepathic bond, we are bonded, soulmates, reflections and all One, but also individuals.
When I refer to the other roommate and guests, they are never part of that “we”. Probably truly the part of collective. But that language isn’t right either. They are just those that happen to live within our realm, just there, visitors that turned to something else. My headspace, our realm. Our dream realm? They are completely separated from us, from me whom is tied to this side of the things (that not even Yajuu or Akumu are). If we do use host language, it is the system, the median, the Constellation that is collectively a host.
I don’t think I see many talk about collectively holding the host title/role, hmm.
People refer to this side as the outer world, which is incomprehensible to me. This is but one world beyond the many, one realms layered upon thousands. But I guess that deals with belief and world view, which perhaps isn’t fair. Either way, this side is my side of the physical world, to the others, I just disappears from my/our private mental/astral(?) plane. If they have access to their original plane of existence, those would be their outer world, but not mine.
Are they my/our headmates? Still sounds wrong. Guest and Realmmate, and then Roommate. Eh, not important. Making language seems to make people more confused at time, but other people’s language also don’t fit our need.
Lacking in language to explain. What a predicament.
i know it was posted a while ago, but thank you so much for making your post about bpd vs median systems. i’ve been thinking for the last at least six months that i might have bpd because of my intense “mood swings” that felt more like entire personality shifts, but i never related to a lot of the other aspects of bpd like the extreme anger or fear of abandonment. but now that you’ve introduced me to the concept of median systems and showed the difference between them vs bpd mood swings, i’m starting to think that may be a much better descriptor of what’s going on. i’ll have to do more looking into it of course, but you’ve set me on what may be the right track after months of confusion, and for that i am extremely grateful.
You’re welcome! BPD and medianhood tends to look similar to the untrained eye in some instances, but when we did some digging we managed to identify crucial differences between the two, and felt that information could help others who were figuring their plurality out. We’re glad it helped you!
If you're accepting asks for the fictionfolk game, I have some questions!
23.) Have you ever considered fictionlinking? If you already have, what made you decide to do it? (In this case, what made y’all collectively ‘link Aurelion Sol?)
26.) Have you ever questioned being fictionhearted? If you already are, what started your questioning into that connection?
28.) Have you ever questioned being a fictionbased archetrope? If you already are, what's your archetropal identity? (In this case, what’s it like having Mew as a pararchetrope?)
Ohhh! specific questions! I like!
Answering according to the fictionfolk ask game
23.) Have you ever considered fictionlinking? If you already have, what made you decide to do it? (In this case, what made y’all collectively ‘link Aurelion Sol?)
So in an alterhuman server, we'd met a Shyvana and a Smolder. They were talking about League of Legends. I played it before, and I still wish I could go back and play it one day. But anyway, they were talking, and because Smolder was a recent release at that time, there are more dragons now, like, an actual playable champion. Within the game setting, you usually need 5 for a team, but in the smaller map, you can have 3, so I contemplated the logistics of a three-dragon team to make up the full set. I lament the fact that I'm not another dragon from LoL, but wouldn't that be fun and funny to make a full dragon team if I were to link Aurelion Sol?
Except, you don't really joke about stuff like that. Or maybe I don't.
I'm never too interested in linking identify-as identity, which can make the linking process trickier, harder to pin down feelings, or ways to maintain the link. (I couldn't clearly articulate the why yet; it's an essay-worthy side topic for sure. Perhaps due to me already dealing more than enough with my one kintype with my shapeshifterness and varied draconity that comes with more discovery as I go, or I just prefer to explore the other sort of alterhumanity, in defiance or fascination? Perhaps a bit of both and more.) I had the linktype in the back of my head for a while, but it didn't really go anywhere. Then come April Fool, following the same jokey vibe, I (half-)jokingly set up a proxy.
A little side note before I go on, during that time, we were sorting out our plurality and general median business, but it's all extra fuzzy at that time.
Setting that proxy up was like what we were missing. After a whole day, we feel like something is settling with our identity, or multiple identities. You see, we I'd use pluralkit proxy to help anchor our my form (cause just Ryuu/I shapeshift, the others don't. Median shenanigans, I tell you, can't switch the self pronoun around easily at times), and apparently it has that same affect on helping link a identity.
I should do that for our digimon (also another vaguetype) linktype.
I probably could have finished the answer in that first paragraph. Yet I feel that, to truly answer the "why you link", you need to answer the "why you continue to maintain said link". Figuring that out helps the linking process in my honest opinion.
Because the anchor is only one of the steps. Did I mention it settled multiple aspects of our identities? Remember me mentioning that we were figuring out our plurality and were having trouble? Turns out, it's like a key clicks into place (HA! The amount of alterhuman pun I just used in that sentence). Having an identity together actually helps distinguish us--Akumu is more pronounced, with a stronger individualization. We are like a reverse hydra. Having Akumu helps in other aspects as well. Aurelion Sol is a purple dragon, I'm orange, but Akumu is purple. You see where I'm going with this? This linktype was never a single dragon thing; it's a teamwork effort between the two of us. Also, quoiluntariness makes everything extra funky on what's the cause or the effect.
There are other personal symbolisms we also tied in and tossed into the soup/salad that is the vaguelinktype. Opportunist linkers that we are. In the end, the identity sort of grew beyond us, brought us closer together as a Constellation (which I did not even realize until this moment how perfect the whole thing is). Truly, we started linking this as a "I want to be part of this" sun, silly thing to "I want to put all these things I realize are precious to me together, and along the way, I realize I can do these together with we."
The fun of quoiluntary linking, did you find something new, or did you find the right trigger that awakened something within you? Because these days, we are very much a starry dream dragon.
As a footnote, since I did mention it. When Nova (@nova-dracomon) was first making the Fictionfolk Webring, there was a temporary draft showcasing the digivice (featuring Hortense as her Dracomon X self) as the webring icon, I jokingly said that maybe I should link a digimon. Mind you, Digimon is a source that's dear to me prior to this, and probably with others talking about it more in servers, renewing my interest, one thing led to another, it's yet another case of "probably don't joke about linking stuff because it might just happen". It's not a stable identity yet, but I'm trying to document the process as much as I can to hopefully write something more coherent on it. Oh, this time it's going to be a linktype the whole Contellation (trio of us) will be linking together :D
26.) Have you ever questioned being fictionhearted? If you already are, what started your questioning into that connection?
So, I had to dig around my own activities and guesstimate a bit on the timeline. I really suck at this kind of pondering. I'm always quite amazed when people can pinpoint when or how their questioning process starts or the moment of awakening. I don't remember that y'all!
When I go into a fandom that sticks to me, if it has a lot of transformative potential, I will dive deeper, and if I enjoy the fanfics? Boom, hyperfixation. Down the rabbit hole of exploring the fandom proper I go.
I'm not really sure which came first. Like so many of my identitype, egg-or-chicken is a neverending question that has no answer whatsoever. Maybe the questioning spark the fandom interest, or swimming in the fandom ocean spark that curious pondering. Maybe it's because Naruto is the orange ninja, maybe it's because of Kurama and Naruto's relationship dynamic in fanfics, or maybe it's all the found family or team-as-family and the whole bunch of fix-it feel-good fic. Regardless, there's an inkling of something alterhuman going on there with Uzumaki Naruto and all that surrounds him.
Like taking a stick to a piece of unknown object, I poked at it. I don't remember if this is my second or third alterhuman identity that I questioned, since you can argue that my kardiatype only got separated from me cleanly after the term was coined, though you can also say that it's been in the back of my head since forever. And maybe all my friends being some form of fictionfolk helped push that curiosity, and learning about all types of alterhumanity beyond otherkinity may or may not have added to the wonder, further pushing me to question, "Maybe I can have this too?"
It was for a while with me questioning between synpath vs hearttype due to it being very specific single character (or potentially a whole clan), since some distinguish synpath as for a specific character, and hearttype being applied more for a whole species, or in this case, a clan. I ultimately decided that it is a hearttype.
28.) Have you ever questioned being a fictionbased archetrope? If you already are, what's your archetropal identity? (In this case, what’s it like having Mew as a pararchetrope?)
Good thing the pondering was still fresh XD
A while ago, some discussion was happening within a Pokémon alterhuman server. It led me to contemplate how I'm not a Pokémon, but I feel like I can be considered one. It's hard to tell if that was why I say Mew is a paratype-archetrope, or if my having that feeling is after I declare Mew an archetrope, and me picking Mew specifically is because of the paratype feelings. You gotta love paratype shenanigans /genuine
Why Mew?
I, as a dream dragon, am not an animal sort of dragon. I would take on the label of monster, not because of me seeing myself as monstrous, but more the property of what I am as a creature is a spiritual sort of critter, like a RPG monster. Or, more of a Pocket Monster. Once upon a time, I tried linking Dragonite as a hearttype, because physically, it looks the closest to me, orange and chonky and deceptively speedy. Remembering me saying that you should ask the question of "why do you continue linking the thing"? I didn't have much solid reason or elements to help me maintain the Dragonite heartlink, and it ends up fading away. It's a surface-level, aesthetic sort of connection; it won't last long, and it didn't.
Tell you a secret, I kind of dislike the color pink, a lot. If it's associated with me, I will try to shake it off like it's some sort of nasty substance. Largely because of gender, you gotta love society and their idea of gender associations /sarcastic
And what a great irony. Dream is often tied to the color pink, my first and only flight in Flight Rising is Arcane (pink), and my pearlescent eyes are freaking literally rose-tinted! Also, I happened to enjoy P!nk's music quite a lot. To continue that irony, I don't feel an archetrope feeling towards shiny Mew, but the regular Mew. I can't even say why, it just is. Don't you (in general for anyone) dare assign/diagnose some sort of alterhuman thing going on between pink and me, I will bite.
I digress.
Mew, to me, is all these tropes and archetypes.
Mystical side character
Little l legendary/mythical
Divine being
Secret unlock character
Mischivious folklore entity
Powerful support side character that's not final boss level
There are probably more that I can't think of right now. But me being myself is me fulfilling the Mew archetrope. In being a dream dragon, which is an always constant state of existence, I am always embodying the Mew pararchetrope.
(neat combination by taking out one a, Solomon XD)
An Animist’s Attempt at Tulpamancy… Eleven Years Later
A Short Essay by The Liondrake(s)
Admittedly, creating a person around my DS, and every other DS I had after that, made me feel less alone at home. I needed to be distracted, especially when parents did as parents do (i.e. fight each other). She was there to distract me, to do whatever they could for a neurodiverse child who didn’t know what to do in times like that. Later in life, I stopped hearing them. I thought nothing of it. Kids create imaginary friends all the time. Mine happened to a bit unorthodox, but that’s what I chalked her up to be as a teenager.
Now, imagine my surprise when she came back in my adulthood.
I haven’t wrote anything on muir plurality in a while, so I decided to discuss a reunion I had this summer. The full essay is now available on Dreamwidth!
Self Discovery means different things as a Median - written last night [TW: Bullying]
There is a new part of the median. Actually it is an old part but I didn't really know it was there. I am less in control now than I normally am with part so the median, but she is being cooperative typing what I ask her to.
She is the part of me that remembers mostly the bullying when I was younger. It is weird because I remember those things too, but the first things she said she remembered was one of those times and most of her memories are of those times or else they are watching me/us do things, from the outside, in a way none of my other memories seem to work.
She doesn't remember her name, if she ever had one. She doesn't feel comfortable with the body's name or any of the other named parts. She says her name starts with a T and kind of sounds like Tommy or something. Maybe Tara? She says she is a girl, but sometimes people told her she wasn't enough like a girl. I think this is why she has a bit of a stronger sense of gender identity.
I asked how old she was. She says that she is 6 and a half. That is the age that feels most comfortable though the strong memories go up through fourth grade and there are even some in middle school.
I woke up/she sort of woke up in headspace but not really. It is kind of a blurry dark place where we can hear the others and talk to them. They sound like they are above us, but we are told we are lying down. I am stuck inside as far as talking goes, but I still have the control of the body, for the most part. It is weird, I guess this is what it feels like to be a headmate of someone else. I can only interact through her.
She says she likes reading Homestuck so we are going to go back and do that again and maybe she will fade more into the back again so I can go to sleep better.
Sorry if this sounds a bit off from normal, I think it is being filtered through this newly exposed part of myself and it is a bit awkward for me.
A lot of the childhood anxieties I haven't felt in a long time I can feel now. It is rather unpleasant - tiny stomach aches sending me into panics - not getting enough sleep… Going to try to push this back for now. Deal with it later….
