dawn pack

secret system sideblog. we follow from @mym*****uir. icon made [here]

[thedawnpack]

Hi!

We're the Dawn pack, a mixed-origins proxy plural system. We're bodily over 30, chronically ill, transmasc, and British. Additionally our frontstuck host is AuDHD and openly queer.

This is a sideblog; we're not out as plural on main. Not sure yet how much we'll use this blog but we wanted somewhere we could reblog posts about plurality.

[does-it-introject]

artemis fowl (book series)? ♡

— robin / euterpe 🪽

Does It Introject: Artemis Fowl (Series)

YES

NO

RESULTS

Remaining time: 4 days 18 hours

[thedawnpack]

it's a good thing we're mostly inclined to polyamory because a fun relationship complication unique to plurality is "so that partner of yours who was one distinct member? yeah they're now two people"

[expressions-of-nature]

Sagres, Portugal by Luca Severin

[semiplural]

It's always a bit of a weird experience seeing the plural tags flooded with introject-related posts.

On the one hand, I'm glad that introjects and introject-heavy systems have found more acceptance in the community. That hasn't always been the case, and there's still a long way to go when it comes to getting people to treat introjects with basic respect- you all deserve better than the shit people put you through for existing.

On the other hand, we can't relate. At all. None of us are fictional introjects, and while we could debate about whether the brain radio is our childhood radio, that doesn't line up with the usual introject experiences that are talked about either.

The plural tags become harder and harder to feel welcome in when the experiences that are primarily talked about (and almost expected) in those spaces are ones that you don't share. It's a little isolating. I wish there was more visible diversity in plural spaces than there has been for the last decade or so: that more people felt safe talking about their experiences, even when they don't match expectations or norms.

I doubt that day is going to come while the plural community is as partisan as it is, though.

[semiplural]

I want to highlight some tags from @multiplydifficult:

there's also the assumptions that everyone that came from outside the head in some way & their exomemories are fictives from other universes & from stories

and @pluraltv:

we are octive heavy but we still don't relate to a lot of the posts either dw op. it's just. so focused on fictives from popular sources it stinks. we're not that. and tbh while we like talking source occasionally it's not anywhere near the most important thing for us, we'd much rather discuss other plural stuff, and we especially don't wanna be treated like blorbos. yuck

and @televisionsyndrome:

i feel the same way. we have introjects but none of them are currently active, and many introjects i thought i had weren't actually real. thats not an experience ive seen people talk about very much at all. it just feels like so much of the community is skewed toward a certain kind of system that is broadly appealing to a lot of different kinds of people, and im just not one of those people.

(Emphasis mine.)

I want to be very clear that there needs to be room in the community for fictives of all sorts. I've seen what happens when that's not the case, and I much prefer the community where fictives are allowed to exist as fictives.

At the same time, however, there needs to be discussion of other experiences, and there needs to be space for experiences that are unappealing, uncommon, or "weird".

We need to be able to hear from brainmade systems, from systems who don't introject from popular media but source instead from their own characters and abusers and family and friends, from systems whose introjects don't have memories or past lives.

We need to hear from systems who don't see themselves as entirely separate people. We need to hear from systems who see themselves as more separate than is considered "acceptable". I want a chance to read posts from fragments in a trenchcoat, from people who refuse to use a collective name or identity, who can't keep a headcount or don't want an aesthetic member list, who don't fit the very narrow concept of "system" normalized in the community. Show me posts from people who break the boxes.

I want to see the systems who are spiritual, but don't believe in multiple universes or reincarnation. Show me the thousands of lived realities that I haven't even thought to look for because they're so decentered that there's no space or language for them in the community.

Show me the psychotic systems who can't separate their psychosis from their plurality. Show me the traumatized systems who can't extract trauma from the way they exist today. Show me all the other nuanced interactions with trauma histories and Madness that can happen.

Show me everyone excluded from discussions for being a little too weird for the community. You deserve a place here if you want one. You deserve to have someone see you as you are instead of forcing their reality over yours.

I want to talk both trauma and spirituality with you in the same breath. I want to say "screw all that" and hold hands while we learn how to live in the present, even as the past chases at our heels. I want to care less about where we came from, and more about what affects us here and now, what eases our paths through the future. We have bigger problems to face in the world than making yardsticks for which of us look sane or insane enough to be "believable".

Systems that are nothing like us have taught me so much. Systems that have things in common with us have helped us feel seen and saved us effort learning what works. All of you have something to share, something to teach, and something to learn.

I want to hear from you. I need to hear from you. We all do.

And if you need any more reason to share your experiences?

For every system that feels welcomed by community norms, there are a dozen others who feel like outsiders to the community that was supposed to welcome them. It adds to the sense of isolation that a lot of plural folks experience when living in a culture that treats plurality as a disease or aberration. Even the people who are supposed to relate to you have very little in common with your experiences.

A lack of diversity causes problems. It impacts supports offered to all sorts of systems. Advice for getting along with your group often fails as soon as your system doesn't match the advice's underlying assumptions. Some people have no better option than figuring it all out on their own, one mistake at a time. No one should have to struggle like this. If there's nowhere else to turn for help, then the communities meant to support someone are failing them.

A lot of times, there's no path in the community to find advice that works if you don't fit the norm. The way to solve that problem is to make space for other experiences in the community: to let other voices be heard, and to share your own voice in turn. Don't change the norm to some other type of system; kill the need to have a norm at all.

There are folks in the community who will be glad to know that you exist the way you do. You might wind up surprised at how many people will say they look up to you for that. Talk to us. Show us that you're here. Let your people find you.

Be weird. It's okay. We'll be weird right beside you.

-----

For the research-lovers reading this: we recently learned about a pair of search terms relevant to this issue that you may want to read up on. "Hermeneutical injustice" (systemic lack of access to frameworks or language to understand your own experiences):

"Fricker characterizes hermeneutical injustice as involving a lack of concepts, on the part of the disadvantaged group, to capture some important aspect of their experience."

...and "hermeneutical enclosure" (being swamped by frameworks that don't work, making it all the harder to understand yourself):

"...hermeneutical enclosure, wherein one’s conduct is preempted by another’s interpretations such that behaviors are pejoratively assigned a fixed meaning in advance."

You can't use what you don't know exists, and it's hard to build your own framework when the world around you insists that you use one that isn't working for you. These two concepts are huge aspects of the problems caused by the lack of visible diversity in the plural community.

[dyke-terra]

At this point, I’m starting to wonder if ~anybody~ feels included by the broader plural community. We’re “spiritual” in a sense but feel alienated because most of the spiritual systems we’ve come across as some degree of neopagan. We have people from popular sources, but they feel alienated from how many supposedly fictive centric spaces are just fandom spaces in disguise.

“People aren’t their sources” is this near universal refrain, which is applied to you no matter how much you insist you ~are~ in fact, that asshole. People refuse to take you seriously.

Not to mention being Jewish (and presumably any other form of nonwhite) in online plural spaces is a fucking nightmare. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for people from, to use an overly simplistic term, non Western countries.

[semiplural]

Honestly, that's a good question. We're just one blog who can't get a perfect sample, but I'll chuck a poll out there because I'm curious what people's experiences are with feeling included or excluded by the community.

And yeah, there's a definite Western bias at play: specifically an English-speaking Western bias. We amplify what we can find to help resources reach folks who need them, but just finding anything accounting for other lived experiences is hard.

[does-your-system-have-an-alter]

Does your system have an alter who is the child of another alter?

does your system have an alter...

who is the child of another alter?

yeah!

no!

maybe?

nuance!

results!

Voting ended onJun 2

PT: Does your system have an alter who is the child of another alter? /End PT

[icecreamwithjackdaniels]

Carl Frederik Sørensen (Danish, 1818–1879), "Danish Ships in Rough Seas" (details), 1877

[mourningfictionalcharacters]

”potentially mature content” what the hell, sure

[mildly-inconvenient-plur-is]

mip is man i wish there was a word for a headmate that is a friend like just headmate is like a coworker. we just go to brain together. and friend implies (at least from most ppls assumption) that theyre another body as well as another person which is not the same at all at least for us. like thats a person that i share a brain and body with and we are good friends (while also, in some part, being the same person) its a lot different than any other relationship imo

sometimes we call ourselves headfriends? /lh -Planet/Exo

[thedawnpack]

I think of the term "headmates" kinda like "family". Some family members are people you just happen to be related to but don't have much to do with, you might merely tolerate them or even actively dislike them. Some family members might be your closest friends in the world. Same with headmates!

[does-your-system-have-an-alter]

dyshaa sourced from critical role?

~📜🫀

does your system have an alter...

sourced from critical role?

yeah!

nope!

unsure/maybe?

nuance!!

results!

Voting ended onMay 27

PT: Does your system have an alter sourced from critical role?

[classicalcanvas]

View of the Church at Vernon (1883) by Claude Monet

[classicalcanvas]

Banks of the Seine at Jenfosse (1884) by Claude Monet

[blessicablimpson]

Anastasia Trusova — “Through The Walls”, 2020

Acrylic on linen (70 x 70 cm)

[accessible-art]

[ID: Painting done in acrylic of a sunset or sunrise scene. The sun is mostly hidden behind clouds, which are colored with visible paint strokes in dark, blue-ish purples except where they light up white near the sun. The sky is lit up in yellows, oranges, reds, pinks and purples, depending on where the rays manage to reach. The sea below is filled with small waves, and is also colored with visible paint strokes in blues and purples. End ID]

[classicalcanvas]

The Undergrowth in the Forest of Saint-Germain (1882) by Claude Monet

[ablueper]

[thedawnpack]

@funnier-as-a-system

[does-your-system-have-an-alter]

does ur system have an alter who has been FRONTSTUCK FOR MONTHS

does your system have an alter...

who has been frontstuck for months?

yeah! (apologies if it is an inconvenience to you/your system /gen)

nope!

unsure/perchance/maybe!

nuance!

results!

Voting ended onMay 21

PT: Does your system have an alter who has been frontstuck for months? /End PT

[gondorrevealparty]

baseball interviewers will ask "how do you throw the ball so good" and Mariners players will casually drop that they have a headmate who plays the game for them

[jadeharleyinc]

all my alters become walters when i pitch the baseball of success

[the-shade-system]

@stars-says-fuck

[navelgazed]

Sometimes I really wish we had a world where people who were not perpetually online could discover and name their plurality instead of the media doing the weird little dance around it

[veryluckyclovers]