So I decided to make a drawing challenge for systems and plural people (aka, me explaining Systember)
Systember is a lot like other drawing challenges, except instead of taking place in October like a lot of other ones, it takes place in September, and is focused on plurality and systems. (Why September? Purely because of the name. That's literally the only reason.)
If you decide to participate, please tag your works with "systember" so I can look at them all cause I'm a curious little goober :33 And please reblog this post to get the word out!
List and questions under the cut
Prompt list:
Together
Protective
Animal
Peaceful
Love
Family
Introject
Memory
Blurry
Switch
Spectator
Nonhuman
Self
Friends
Body
Sadness
Little
Happy
Glass
Headcanon
Gaming
Art
Relax
Hobby
Nature
Colors
Anger
Parent
Shiny
Your choice!
Questions you might have (and answers you might need):
"Do I have to follow the prompts?" Absolutely not, they're just a suggestion. I tried to keep them vague enough to allow anyone to participate. The plural experience is wide and varied, and this challenge hopes to celebrate that.
"Can I participate if I'm ____?" This challenge is open to all systems/plurals/multiples, no matter their origins or beliefs. If you share a body with other people in some way, this challenge is open to you. While I can't exactly stop singlets from participating in this challenge, it's not exactly meant for them. That being said, I want no syscourse to interfere with this challenge. We're here to draw, not to argue.
"What if I don't draw everyday?" That's fine! Do what you can! You don't have to make fully fleshed out pieces, you don't have to draw every single day, you don't have to participate at all, no one's holding you at gunpoint to draw these. Just have fun to the best of your ability.
"This was posted too late! I have no time to prepare!" Yeah, uh... I forgor. Sorry.
"Are you going to be doing this?" I'm gonna fuckin try! Although most of my art will probably be posted to @somewhatdailyanthrostuck since we have a lot of Homestuck introjects and I need ideas for my "daily" drawing blog.
We tried our best to represent bluriness and identity confusion in this piece, with a hint of dysphoria here and there. Sometimes it really is hard to figure out who is who, and all we have are maybe some features--but they're blurred and hard to make sense of.
Please do not use our art without our permission. Feel free to ask to use for icons and similar things, but we have the right to say no.
Program: Firealpaca
Approx. Time: 1h
Original Date: 10.09.24
Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned!
Art Of: N/A
(System Member Artist: Jayfeather)
as a system, we’re in this weird inbetween of always and never alone. we have eachother and people never really front without someone else there, but in the same breath we often feel lonely and isolated because we don’t know anyone who understands our plurality. people we’ve tried to tell genuinely thought we were insane, so we keep it to ourselves. it’s horribly lonely
DAY 2: CO-FRONT
it is so weird to cofront and blur in it of itself, you’re literally only half yourself and it’s a little off putting, but it’s especially weird when you’re sharing discrete, separate control. that is not my hand writing, but i’m otherwise acting like myself
DAY 3: MIRROR
we didn’t draw anything for this, but i interpret this as how we mirror others as a form of masking. it’s pretty intresting to see what aspects of every headmate miss a people we know/knew
DAY 4: EXPRESSION
the various ways people style the body. left to right is: clem, [redacted, we don’t want online], me (goldie)
DAY 5: FREEDOM
we eagerly await moving out lol. don’t have much to say for this one, nothing drawn
DAY 6: ROLES
we don’t really do roles? we can place why people formed and what their best at, but that’s the extent we use roles. it is kinda fun to think of what we could be called though. left to right, 1st row: clem, goldie. 2nd row: red, blue. 3rd row: 2 [redacted] alters — we don’t want either online yet.
DAY 7: RAINBOW
we’re very lgbtq+. body is gnc (now becoming a transman), ace-spec, and just overall queer
In many Asian cultures, people (most commonly women, in our experience) wear these jade bangles — and generally, never take them off. They're said to bring good luck and protect their wearer. The jade is said to develop a deeper, richer colour after years on one's (usually non-dominant) wrist. If it breaks, it's done its job to protect you. You can attach clasps to the pieces if you'd like to wear it again.
We're... a little conflicted on this tradition.
On one hand (pun intended) it would help us connect to our heritage — though we don't always feel Asian enough to do so in the first place. The simple-yet-elegant bracelets pair well with most outfits. Jade is very hard and therefore durable. It doesn't set off metal detectors, either.
But there's these deep connotations of family and eternity that — as an abused traumagenic system — make us feel... kind of weird.
More often than not, bangles are a gift from your parents — sometimes even family heirlooms passed on for generations. Not only would wearing one be a lifelong commitment (which not everyone in our system will be able to tolerate), it would be a constant reminder of our family and how they've hurt us.
We'll come of age soon. We are plural in such a way that we've never known permanence. If or when our parents gave us one, would it feel like a gift or a shackle? Could we buy one for ourselves instead? To mark how we belong to ourselves-- to our system?
In this drawing, the clasp represents the Anglosphere side of us: the focus on individualism and development; our desire for freedom. It features our own doodles as carvings. In contrast, the jade part represents our Asian side and the cultural norms attached. Loyalty and tradition, usually associated with family, have been recontextualised to fit systemhood instead.
Something broken has now been repaired. You can clearly see how it's been fixed; the creativity of visible mending. Yes, the bracelet could've been replaced — or repaired in a way where no one could tell it was broken in the first place — but isn't it nice to know that beauty can come from the damaged? That you can emerge from the muck you grew in and bloom?
And sure, the bracelet's not permanent anymore, but... maybe that's for the better. Maybe it means we get to choose who we want to be.
The green circle is a reference to how the green circle in the plural rings represents adaptive systems. The symbol (according to Wikitionary) has not one meaning, but multiple. All reflect how we see ourselves: strange but wonderful, like a rare and precious gem.
Finally, the phrase "Are there words for what we are" refers to how few Asian systems we've seen and us wondering if there are plural terms in our second language.
Inner world headspace art based on @invisible-friend-system 's Systember prompts (both from 2024 & 2025)!
Glass: "Glass" is made from magma (mindma? :v) flowing from the center of the mind via glassblowing and metalworking process called "orange smithing". Depending on the process, it can be molded into anything from an sword hard as diamond to a vase as delicate as paper.
Rest: Another year of Dee feeling overworked lol. Maybe this year we’ll find out how to give him a break.
Hobby: Dee and Joy recently took up a new hobby of growing a Fun Flower every week. It grows every day after I take the time to relax with a fun activity like a video game or a good book instead of endlessly trying to spend all day being productive or getting stuck in endless internet algorithms. What appears to be the disk floret of the flower is actually a ball of dough stuffed with a sweet ad zesty yellow filling that bakes wonderfully into a pie.
This was a lot of fun! I wish I could’ve gotten to draw more, but September this year was pretty hectic! I do look forward to doing more next year ✨
Got a late start on Systember this year. We took a look at the prompts through now, and decided to start with the Rainbow prompt! For this, we wanted to redo the Color Wheel Challenge. We'd done a version of it last year, but we were never fully satisfied with the result. This time we're adding as many headmates as we can fit... This might take a while.
