pluralpunx

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not even gonna question it

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We don't talk about the feeling of "misrepresenting" our source enough, despite it being a decently common thing from what we've encountered. Especially within the factid community (and even more so within the "identifying as" part of the factid community), which is what this post is going to focus on, despite it by no means being an exclusive experience. We've just seen it tenfold there, likely due to a lot of discourse that comes from just having a factual identity.

The feeling of misrepresenting your source is something we've experienced a lot. That feeling of double guessing "am I doing this right?". Of "would my source feel this way?", "would my source say that?", "do I match up enough to count?". This goes double if part of your identity *doesn't* align. Maybe it's a different gender. Maybe it's a different partner/feelings about the partner you had in source. The guilt, the feelings of being invalid, of double guessing "is this even really an identity of mine?". They creep up out of nowhere. It's easy to get lost in it, especially when you're still new, but honestly it can come just as strong years in. And it takes over everything. It's one of those feelings that just engulfs your brain, making you double guess *everything*.

Like I said, it's something we're familiar with. Especially since we have such close interaction with so many of our sources. Hell we're friends with some of ours. It's easy to get caught up in that questioning of being similar enough. We find this is truest for our factives (not many folks with other factional types have fronted enough to confirm beyond factives) compared to our fictives, who seem to be able to handle the feeling a lot better. Something about just being a factive of another person makes us feel like we have to represent them correctly. We have to be a copy of them, and we can't have any deviations. Maybe it's because we're held to such higher standards by the alterhuman community. We either have to 100% source separate or be 100% the same. There's no room for anything else. Maybe it's because we're afraid they'll see we're different and get mad at us for, being us?

But that's the trick to all of this. You can't misrepresent someone by existing as yourself. A part of having a source (and identifying "as") is you're a version of them, not an exact copy. This doesn't make your identity any less real, but it does mean things will just naturally be different at times. And that's okay. It's okay to have a different typing style, a different gender, a different partner. Because in the end we're us. We can be our own person while still being/having our source, and that doesn't invalidate our identity at all. And of course it's easier said than done. Dealing with feelings, especially when there's so much outside influence, always is. But that bit has been a good base to fall back on when we need it honestly, so we're hoping it'll help someone else too.

[pluralpunx]

sending all the love to those formed from headmate packs, today and always

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that's very interesting! no need to apologise.

we have fairly intricate dreams, particularly compared to our waking visualisation levels. perhaps there's something for us to explore there, by framing them as inworld experiences. thats pretty much in line with how we thought of them already, we just hadnt thought to make it explicit. something to ponder.

thank you for sharing!

we know we've mentioned this a few times lately, but it really is something of a headfuck coming to terms with the reality that there's literally nobody in here who's the same age as our chassis and who's the Core Personality™

and like, it's just weird af to try to get our heads round (those of us who have heads) - that the general assumption among most people on this planet is you have a body and one person inhabits that body and is the same age as that body - and meanwhile we're all like, hm well we all live in here somewhere but it's like we've squatted an abandoned building, except instead of being a building it's a human body on the outside, while on the inside it's an entire universe but mostly experienced from the pov of a particular forest ecosystem on one of its countless planets

yes, it took us until pretty recently to realise the significance of us being all sat around a fire in our forest clearing at night and looking up and there's not just the moon but stars, and all which that implies - our inner space is space

so we're in some vague way a mecha or some pacific rim shit but driven by (at last count) 32 very diverse beings in terms of ages and species, but our actual chassis has no selfhood

and we're right slap bang in the middle of coming to terms with this, and it's absolutely fucking fascinating, and we wonder how many other people experience themselves and their body in this way?

do say, if you want to

[pluralpunx]

we know we've mentioned this a few times lately, but it really is something of a headfuck coming to terms with the reality that there's literally nobody in here who's the same age as our chassis and who's the Core Personality™

and like, it's just weird af to try to get our heads round (those of us who have heads) - that the general assumption among most people on this planet is you have a body and one person inhabits that body and is the same age as that body - and meanwhile we're all like, hm well we all live in here somewhere but it's like we've squatted an abandoned building, except instead of being a building it's a human body on the outside, while on the inside it's an entire universe but mostly experienced from the pov of a particular forest ecosystem on one of its countless planets

yes, it took us until pretty recently to realise the significance of us being all sat around a fire in our forest clearing at night and looking up and there's not just the moon but stars, and all which that implies - our inner space is space

so we're in some vague way a mecha or some pacific rim shit but driven by (at last count) 32 very diverse beings in terms of ages and species, but our actual chassis has no selfhood

and we're right slap bang in the middle of coming to terms with this, and it's absolutely fucking fascinating, and we wonder how many other people experience themselves and their body in this way?

do say, if you want to

[pluralpunx]

Hi, I'm sorry to ask but I saw a post where you said that you have friends who are supportive of you being a system. I was wondering where you found people like that in real life? I'm sorry if this is rude. I just also want friends like that. Thanks

We found them at a few different places--we've been in and out of a few friend groups over our lifetime but many have been fine with our plurality.

A mental health outpatient group at the local hospital.

A local queer youth group we volunteer at.

Another local queer group.

An art therapy group (though this was the instructor who was fine with our plurality, we didn't tell the other members).

School, back when we were in it.

It's about, in our experience, finding adjacent marginalised communities. A high amount of systems are queer or neurodivergent or similar things. So not only are those groups usually more accepting to things that aren't the norm for identity because they've had to do some introspection themselves, but you're more likely to find other systems there too. Groups like LGBT+ communities, disability, furries, art groups (though they can be hit or miss), therian/otherkin meets if that applies to you, maybe even some witchcraft communities can bring people together who have at least pondered their own identity a little and therefore are more likely to be open to hearing about yours.

As a general tip, if you're looking to find other plurals offline, wear some sort of symbol if you can. A pin with the plural rings, a necklace, a badge that says "ask who's fronting"--anything. It can be a conversation starter to find accepting people, you can just brush off the questions if you don't want to tell that person (easier with a symbol than a phrase), and can tell other systems on an if-you-know-you-know basis that you're one of them.

Good luck, anon. It's hard but there's people out there who will accept you--all of you.

[pluralpunx]

For everyone who needs to see this, from an introject to an introject (from fictive to fictive, if I am to be more specific):

If you're not source separated and you have identity issues due to not acting "canonically" in real life situations, I want you to know it's fine. The circumstances change, and we need to adapt. Masking for safety is fine.

You don't have to constantly act "canonically" to stay yourself. You are still yourself.

[pluralpunx]

We've joined a couple of small discord servers around writing recently, and have been openly plural in them - introducing ourselves as The Willows, referring to our headmates as "another Willow", talking briefly about how some of our headmates are natives of the innerworld that we write stories about.

In the smaller of the two, on our first day there, a member referred to us while wondering about "his story genres", and another corrected that: "*their. Willows are a bunch of people." 😊

While we're not overwhelming people with our different names and individual pronouns and such which is slightly uncomfy (at least not yet), it's an incredibly good feeling to be treated so well as a plural in a non-plural space. People are treating it very matter-of-factly. No one's batting an eye at us going back and forth between singular and plural first person pronouns.

Which is exactly how we want to be treated. Just normal. It's lovely.

This is what we want all spaces to be like.

[pluralpunx]

survey on inner worlds in plurality

the interstellar cluster presents to you...

a survey on inner worlds in plurality!

this is our first plural survey but we hope y'all have fun answering these questions.

results will be posted after submissions end in three weeks (30th of May), so give or take a few days around that date to organise the data.

it's quite long, but we put the questions in sections so hopefully it doesn't feel as long as it is.

please reblog to push this further, we're aiming for at least 25 responses! :D

[pluralpunx]

honestly. appreciation for plural artists (of all sorts) and the plural art in the world.

[pluralpunx]

being frontstuck feels like a free trial version of being a singlet except it’s cluttered with ads.

- 🥀

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It can be a bit difficult at times to explain how our weird little soupy subsystem exists and functions within our overall system, so to provide a bit of a visual aid, we made a quick... comic? Infographic? Whatever this is!

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"contained"

<3

[pluralpunx]

If you've never seen someone write about their experiences with a species or character or entity or object or concept that you identify as, or if you've never found traces of other people who have identified as the specific nonhuman or fictional thing that you identify as, consider this a sign for you to write about your experiences!

Leave tracks! Show that you were here! Share what you experience and how you feel and understand it! If not for your own future benefit, then for the benefit of those who come after and wonder if someone like you existed!

[pluralpunx]

Hot Take

Functional multiplicity and final fusion aren't really all that different in practice and experience, and you should all stop overthinking it

Worrying, fussing, and arguing is only going to stress you out, and we all know what stress does to systems

Relax and stop policing and scaring others, especially if you're not currently experiencing either

Slow down, take things one day a time, recognize and accept that your goals can change, that you collectively have more of a say in what happens than you think, and consider, maybe they're surprisingly similar experiences that are rewarding in ultimately similar ways