Multiple system, mostly fictives. Bodily over 30, don't follow if that bothers you please. We’re inclusionist. We don’t follow gatekeepers. Our trauma is not your business, bye.
Hello all! I made this post explaining about what this survey is, but I'll restate it again for anybody who may be new to this.
What I aimed to do was create a survey that focused on the phenomenon of in-system death and dormancy, and what that looks like in systems. I opened the survey in December 2024 and left it open for a whole year to allow as many systems as possible to contribute. This garnered 121 unique participants who shared their experiences! An amazing turnout. Below, I'm going to give a brief overview of what I learned from this study, and then I will include a link to the document with the full results, which is 26 pages long. (Link to the full document here.)
[Image Description: The title "System Death Experiences" with the subtitle "the results" over a photo with moody or gloomy composition featuring a bouquet of pale pink and light red flowers and green leaves/stems.]
Image credit.
Overview
After compiling all of the data and experiences shared within this survey, I have come away with a glimpse of what goes on in individual systems and how they function. Out of 121 participants, a quarter of those could experience in-system death, a quarter of those could not, and over half did not know whether they could or considered the idea more complicated than a yes/no dichotomy. For those who could experience death, it felt different than dormancy and was usually more “dramatic” or permanent. Concepts like fusion, shattering/fragmenting, and recycling came up when participants were asked to describe their experience with death.
However, over 75% of systems reported dormancy as a function of their system. When asked how dormancy worked in their systems, many people responded that it is akin to a deep sleep or hibernation; usually, these dormant members are expected to return, or at least have the capacity to do so. Most people did not equate death and dormancy as the same thing, but a good portion said it could be in some cases. Some systems reported that members can come back from death; each of their responses were recorded and explained in the full results.
There are a few different ways that people choose to honor headmates who are deceased. Some of them hold the same rites you would for a person who died in this world: spiritual practices, keeping a list/documentation of deceased members, or keeping them in their thoughts. More of these kinds of traditions can be read about in the full results.
Lastly, participants were asked to share anything else they felt was related in the last question. We will not provide a summary here, because that section is focused solely on the participant’s words and experiences they felt were important or necessary to share.
This is an extremely bare bones overview, I encourage you to read on for specific details and experiences shared by participants!
What We Can Learn From This
This project made a space where systems felt comfortable discussing in-system death, which is still treated as taboo or impossible. I hope that seeing these results allows readers to feel seen and/or to broaden their ideas of what is possible in a system. Every single system is unique in how it operates, but sometimes we can capture common experiences and feel a little less alone.
My main takeaway is that death, like all other system functions, is a highly unique and individualized phenomenon that can look different from system to system. This survey was not done to take away from systems who do not experience death or those who do not view losing headmates (for any reason, especially fusion/integration) to be a bad thing, but instead to highlight that in-system death is possible and systems are experiencing it whether you believe in it or not.
There needs to be more spaces that allow systems to speak on this topic without being shunned or mocked, and opportunities for systems to be allowed to grieve in-system deaths (or even dormancies! You are allowed to grieve people even if they are likely to come back.)
Thank You
Thank you. To every participant, to everyone who shared, to everyone who helped us or gave insight along the way. Thank you for reading this post or the full document! This also couldn't have been possible without proofreading and editing from our long-time friends and colleagues who we are in cahoots with @thesaltinstitute. I hope everyone enjoys reading the results and finds them as fascinating as we do!
i think we need to bring back calling people internet famous instead of calling them influencers like there needs to be something borderline derogatory injected back into it
dont know how to say this without sounding like one of those "people are too soft these days" motherfuckers but some of you are incapable of interacting with anything that does not coddle you & makes you feel Good about your own Goodness. if you know what i mean
also i said it in the tags but i feel it needs reiterating: watching tv is not activism. fighting over fictional stories is not activism. attacking people for not interacting with fictional stories in a way you deem Acceptable is not activism. you are being annoying & i personally dont want to play toys with you anymore
it is so important that you are a little bit ugly. please get comfortable with having unplucked eyebrows and nonexistent jawlines and wrinkles. let your blue hair grow out into an uneven pale green and your clothes be old and mend them and modify them until they’re unique to you. wear lipstick which doesnt compliment your skintone and mismatched outfits which went out of fashion 5 years ago. be a little bit too loud and a little bit too passionate and as weird as you can be because oh my god there is nothing more disturbing to me than perfection. beauty is manufactured and sold to us and you need to realise that you are a fucking animal to live a joyful life I am so serious. you cant obsess over aesthetics forever please just live messily and make your body your home however you please.
if you dont do it for you, do it for all the teenagers who will see u in the street and know that they are not obligated to be attractive
i hate this cause i did japanese for like a year and this explains the use of the -ne particle WAYYYY better than my teachers ever did. it took me ages to comprehend what this post makes abundantly clear.
my teachers: its like a, a little rise at the end of a sentence, to show that you are seeking a response, while not warranting the -ka particle which would make it a proper question.
fun fact: afaik, "-ne" was inherited from the Portuguese settlers/priests that stayed in Japan in the 16th century. It comes from "né?", which the contraction of "não é?", "isn't it?".
in real life you will probably not respond to harassment in a sexy, clever, scripted way where you come out with the upper hand and everyone claps. you will freeze up and your moment will pass, or your voice will shake when you tell them to stop and you’ll realize two minutes later that you’re gross and sweaty and sticky from the adrenaline. maybe you’ll be on the ball and answer in a way you actually think is pretty smart and get ignored, or they’ll get more aggressive when you mouth off to them. you almost never will walk away feeling victorious. you walk away feeling uncomfortable and relieved that it’s over. you’ll think about it later and imagine that maybe you could have said something else. maybe you’ll feel ashamed that you weren’t quicker-witted, weren’t able to cut them down to size, weren’t able to avoid that lingering sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, as though there’s some kind of magical words you could have said that would have left you feeling less powerless. there really aren’t.
Honestly this is such an important lesson to learn. If someone threatens, belittles, or verbally assaults you, you will likely feel bad, no matter how you respond. Please don’t beat yourself up for feeling emotions that are perfectly healthy and justified.
Hey students, here’s a pro tip: do not write an email to your prof while you’re seriously sick.
Signed, a person who somehow came up with “dear hello, I am sick and not sure if I’ll be alive to come tomorrow and I’m sorry, best slutantions, [name]”.
As someone who has taught college, please send those emails because 1) We WILL believe that; no one would write that on purpose and 2) we need a laugh sometimes.
On the other side of this, once after getting taken to the ER by ambulance, I got an email from the professor whose class I’d passed out in, and the message had no text, just the subject line “you good?”
Claritin makes me weird, but I have allergies so there’s about a month and a half block of time where I’m taking Claritin and am just weird most of the time.
Anyway, my last year of college, I got the flu or something in late March and was also taking Mucinex. I told my professor I couldn’t come to class one day by email except I couldnt think of what to say, so my medicated ass decided to make a Fry meme. I think it said something like “Not sure if I can go to class with a head the size of Texas, bottom text.” I didn’t think until the next day that it probably wasn’t socially-acceptable to tell your philosophy professor you weren’t coming to class via Tumblr style memes. When i got back to class, i found that she’d printed it out and taped it to the classroom bulletin board.
Once emailed a professor from my hospital bed high on painkillers after a really bad car crash which my heart actually stopped the email “Dead cant class sory”
jacobvanloon
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
andulkaphoto
