hii i know your doing requests. right now but i have like. a system question since we're still pretty new to it hope it's okay to ask
howw do fictives appear? do they. just appear like other alters? i know it's mainly based on what you're fixated on,,, and i have seen previous alters turn into a/another fictive based on fixations in another system,, just wanted to ask you guys with your experience with it
don't answer if you don't feel comfortable, thank you
-🔻
It's totally okay to ask! Regardless of what else we're doing we're always open for system questions too :]
Fictives show up pretty much the same way as any other alter would, at least for us. It might be different for other systems but that's true for virtually everything lol. Fictives can form through any type of association, positive or negative. They can also be fixagenic in nature (formed from a hyperfixation) for neurodivergent systems. You don't even have to interact much at all with a source to get a fictive from it too. For example our partner system has a fictive from a source they'd never previously interacted with.
Also yes, alters can change or become some kind of mix with other ones, though that's nothing we've had happen yet. The closest is maybe us burner fictives being partially blurred together but I think that's different.
In our experience, almost all of our fictives are fixagenic. And getting them is typically more gradual than abrupt. Sometimes when we engage with a source we can kinda "feel" our brain start to latch on to a specific character. It gets impossible to not think about them, and forcing ourselves to stop feels super uncomfortable. We find ourselves passively wondering how they might act or respond to whatever we're doing. Very very slowly, the line between our thought patterns and that character's (hypothetical) ones get blurred. Around then is when we catch ourselves acting more like them, and that usually involves some back-and-forth with denial until "Oh wait, yep I see them in my head I guess we have a new headmate".
Other times it has been a little more abrupt, on multiple occasions we've just woken up feeling like that new character and can't shake the idea that whoever's fronting is actually them. With this it does still have that same buildup of being intensely focused on them, though.
I've already said, but what I put here is only what we've experienced. I can't speak for any other system but our own and I'm sure each one has it's own process by which new members come about. We're autistic as well, and that definitely has an influence on how fictives show up for us compared to an allistic system. Just wanted to make it extra clear that our way isn't the only way.
Sorry if I got too long-winded ^^; thanks for asking us btw!! It was interesting to think about bc it's something we haven't put into words before.
