guarddog-of-proendos

[guarddog-of-proendos]

how some systems act when you are an actual person and don't define your systemhood by hatred of endogenics

[guarddog-of-proendos]

fictives do not have to change their name or identity or anything for your comfort actually. if my fictive buddy walter white says thats his name then thats his fucking name

[guarddog-of-proendos]

survey!!

*if you have multiple fictives in your system answer for either whoever is fronting or whoever wants to answer

*if your source doesn't neatly fit into the nonhuman and human binary pick either what's closest or pick nuance

alterhuman = anyone who identifies as/is not entirely human, whether in full or in part

feel free to share your sources & identities in the replies/tags!!

[guarddog-of-proendos]

speaking as Mr. Self Harm Addiction I'm not sure this is the best comparison I'll be honest. I feel like this comparison lends itself too well to arguing against creating a system. even with negative effects of said system it is still a world better than self harm and the damages of the two are truly not the same.

self harm "helping" is a strong word. it makes you feel better in the moment but long term it makes emotional problems worse alongside creating physical problems (ayyyy I have nerve damage ;-;) on the other hand creating a system can legitimately help, even long term. I consider it a coping mechanism that can be truly helpful even if it's not always helpful.

I realize you definitely weren't intending to imply that self harm is actually helpful or that it's the same as creating a system but this reply just bothered me a bit

I think a better comparison would be something like breathing techniques, meditation, or whatever common (but productive) coping mechanism doesn't work for you. you're definitely right in that not understanding a coping mechanism doesn't mean it doesn't help, I just don't think self harm was the coping mechanism to compare it to.

sorry this is long, I'm very wordy. I tried to condense it so it doesn't come off as an essay. I promise this isn't an attack on you

I don't understand the desire to use being a system as a purposeful coping mechanism for a trauma that did not create a system. It is not a healthy coping mechanism.

[guarddog-of-proendos]

do you often think of yourself as being younger than you really are?

[guarddog-of-proendos]

Image descriptions

- written by a visually impaired person

What is an image description?

an image description is exactly what it sounds like, a block of text describing the content of an image. this is important for many people but especially for blind and visually impaired people who cannot see the image (at least, not well enough to understand what's going on)

(people also cite that this helps people with slow internet, if you add that to this post I am hitting you on the head with a stick. our access to the internet is enough of a reason to add image descriptions, they don't have to help abled people as well.)

image descriptions serve the purpose of providing the same access to content and context in a post that you, a sighted person, have. the goal is to allow equal access for visually disabled people and other people who struggle to access images.

have you ever been stuck scrolling through Tumblr while images are refusing to load? was that frustrating? imagine how we feel every day, all the time.

How to write an image description

writing an image description is a skill. it's okay if you aren't great at it at first. not being great at it is not an excuse to not try. I'm tired of people telling me they can't be assed to try writing an image description because it might not be perfect. I would much rather read an imperfect image description than have no image description at all.

when you're describing an image the key point is to describe what's relevant, what you look at in an image. if the image is a tweet, describe what the tweet says. if the image is a picrew of an alter, describe what that alter looks like in the picrew.

You don't need to include every detail

a lot of guides will, with well intentions, tell you to describe a lot. sometimes, describing a lot is relevant. if you're describing a piece of art or photography then describing a lot is important because the point of the photo is to appreciate all of the photo. if you're taking a selfie, I truly do not care that your walls are blank and white. sometimes, more detail is less accessible. I don't want to scroll through paragraphs up on paragraphs for a photo that sighted people can just glance at and get the gist of.

take for example, this post divider I just used:

you could describe this as: a post divider with a large star in the center surrounded by a halo of the moon phase in gold. 2 horizontal lines come from it in the center with a pattern of alternating sun, moon, sun, and star symbols.

... that's really long. the point for sighted people is to break up the text with something pretty. it's not to admire all the intricacies of the image.

a more appropriate description would be: a star themed post divider

text, on the other hand, should always be transcribed in full. do not describe your DNI banner as "a DNI banner" that tells me nothing. put down all the text, all of it, because all of the text is relevant.

never use AI to write an image description! it's insulting and often inaccurate. problems with generative AI aside, throwing an image into chatGPT and then copy and pasting the sludge it spits out makes me feel like I'm not worth taking a minute to actually write an image description. AI generated image descriptions tend to be impersonal, inaccurate, and hard to follow because it just throws up all the random details it picks up on rather than describing the point of the image. with the editing required to fix a chatGPT image description you could have written your own and it would be better.

I truly cannot write an image description

ask for help. if you have no one you can directly ask, add a note to your post asking for help writing the description when you post it. when someone writes a description for you, copy and paste it into the original post. there is no such thing as image description theft, the point is accessibility. you can't steal accessibility. copy and pasting is not just okay it's encouraged!

on other people's posts (regardless of whether or not you can write an image description) you can often find image descriptions in the notes. taking a minute to check for image descriptions before reblogging an undescribed post is something fast and kind you can do for the people who need image descriptions. often you'll find a description and then hurray! that inaccessible post is now accessible!

....but I don't have any followers who need image descriptions!

yes you do.

if you truly don't it's probably because none of them can access your blog. fix that and suddenly you will have followers who need image descriptions

why is this in the pluralgang tag? none of you describe images.

Questions are encouraged

(if you have any)

[guarddog-of-proendos]

Use alt text on your dividers, on your dni banners, on every image you post. Create image IDs when you are able, or AT LEAST tag as undescribed.

Your alt text for your dni banner can literally just be the text on the banner. For a divider it could be "Row of white hearts and bows." For your images you just describe the important bits of the image.

It's really not that hard and it's a failure to members of our community who have low vision, who get overwhelmed by images, who rely on screen readers for whatever reason.

TLDR : use alt text because you are failing members of our community

[guarddog-of-proendos]

The Lotus System/ Friendly System flag.

We made this flag for a stance + tag we coined(?) #friendly dissociative.

we and our friend @murderscenemotes were talking abt how sick we are of seeing syscourse in the DID and OSDD tags , it’s like we can’t escape it , so we decided to make our own tag that is for disordered systems without all of the stupid syscourse and instead focuses on community and support.

the flags stripes meaning are:

Yellow stripe: Community and solidarity with other disorders

Light orange: OSDD systems

Dark red orange: UDD systems

Purple ish pink: P-DID systems

Dark purple: DID systems

-Canine(He/She/Hxm)

[guarddog-of-proendos]

it's 2025 and officially 7 years from when I was last an active member of this system!

do y'all ever find yourself constantly internally checking what year it is? particularly a question for alters who have spent long periods of time dormant but anyone can answer. I have to remind myself all the time that it is no longer 2018 when I mention the year. it would look so odd if I said 2018 as the year because getting things a year off is socially acceptable and getting things 7 years off is not!

making this a poll

[guarddog-of-proendos]

curious about something so i want to conduct a free-response survey. who (or what) first comes to your mind when you hear the name sebastian

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(break so that you see the post independently before any tags)

[guarddog-of-proendos]

saw a post from a Ciel fictive who likes culinary and. fuck.

I used to have plans to become a chef after highschool (before I went dormant at 14) but then we became too disabled for that. I'm in school to become an occupational therapist now, I was pre-med before having a manic episode, but none of it is cooking.

I still get very dissociated spells where I think I'm 14 again and going to culinary class in highschool that I have to pull myself out of. I still think I'm on that path sometimes. it always hurts to realize that it's gone

[guarddog-of-proendos]

Being trans and having DID are comparable experiences. DID is a pathological disorder that is clearly defined by diagnostic boundaries. Being transgender and being plural are unique experiences that are different for every person.

DID is a disorder, yes. However, systems with DID can identify as plural, and many systems see themselves as trans. There are no bounds or requirements for identifying with being plural or trans.

[guarddog-of-proendos]

what ive learned about endogenic systems, as a former anti endo

endogenic systems are systems that have mutliple, or plural, identities or headmates. their origin doesn't originate from DID or OSDD. nor do they claim to have said disorders

they can experience spiritual or metaphical experiences. such as reincarnations, soul fragments, or connections to other dimensions. this is a minority (for what ive said)

some systems theorize their plurality is a natural variation of brain function

and psychological frameworks. imaginative immersion, intentional creation, or others

they do not claim to have a cdd without trauma. that was my misconception of endogenic systems. and that i was an asshole and thought that plurality wasn't a true thing

reading sources, seeing people like me change, and asking questions really helped me. please do the same

[guarddog-of-proendos]

Using the dissociative diagnostic criteria to invalidate endogenics is like reading a book called "How to Identify Hummingbirds" and going "Aha! Pigeons aren't real birds! Only Hummingbirds are real birds!"

Like

The fuck?

There are many types of birds (systems) with their own characteristics, and using a (imperfect) baseline for one specific type doesn't mean the others don't exist - just that they aren't that one specific type

[guarddog-of-proendos]

you aren't responsible for stereotypes anti-endos create of endos. it's anti-endos who create those, not people's authentic experiences

Not even going to lie, we partially feel bad for ending up being traumagenic after all.

We've went by endogenic and mixed origins for so long it feels.. wrong to admit we're traumagenic. It seems scary. We thought for the longest time Amethyst was just a fun imaginary friend turned willogenic headmate and she was Smokey's first headmate. But she's realized she was formed due to trauma, and I think most of us have been. The earlier members were due to more severe trauma and now it's less life threatening things, but most of us did form due to trauma/stress in some way.

I think the only ones who didn't were maybe Greg and Connie, but tbh I think they are here to help Smokey with this whole reuniting with Smokey's mom and dealing with the stuff that brings. Smokey has been thinking about contacting her for a long while now, and Greg put this into motion so maybe they weren't entirely willogenic, even if we did purposefully try to make a Connie for a while.

We feel so stupid for not figuring this out earlier. Of course you're traumagenic you idiot, have you looked at literally A SINGLE FUCKIN THING FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD?! (this is more pointed at me than anyone else, not at Smokey, it is not his fault).

We feel bad due to this realization because we are now a case of an endo who didn't realize they had trauma, and have realized we are actually traumagenic. But if any anti-endos try to use us as an example, we will fight them - Jasper

[guarddog-of-proendos]

dissociation/avoidance really is like "if I felt everything I felt, I would be devastated. good thing i dont"

[guarddog-of-proendos]

btw 'syscourse' and plural infighting isn't accomplishing anything. back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the only communities and resources for plurals that were widely available were for and by non-traumagenic systems. the only people who were advocating for normalizing and accepting plurality on a large scale were non-traumagenic systems. if you did research into plurality 10 - 15 years ago, most of the results that came up would have been experiences written by spiritual and natural plurals.

many people at the time were expressing their dislike of forcing every single plural to identify as if they had trauma- many found this insulting to themselves, and rightfully so! no one should be forced to identify in a way they don't agree with just to rightfully be a part of a community they already occupy. this obsession with "you can only be plural if you have trauma" has only come about extremely recently. i found out about plurality through the otherkin community. i was actually told about DID by someone in the spiritual plurality community. people don't seem to understand that most non-traumagenic systems have respect for traumagenic systems and don't gatekeep their spaces to prevent us from entering.

older plural spaces on the web like healthymultiplicity accepted all plurals. the goal of the community was to show that you can live as plural and not have it be a tragedy or something to "fix". if anything, folks with dissociative disorders owe a LOT to non-traumagenic systems for pushing to normalize plurality without implying that we HAVE to integrate our headmates and try to stop being plural. a huge part of the early online plural community was there to push that plurals can and do live happy lives and shouldn't view their plurality as a bad thing

it's not going to make singlet society see us in a better light. it's not going to get people to understand plurality better. it's not going to get us better mental health resources. it's not going to improve the quality of care for dissociative and traumagenic systems. all you're doing is bullying someone else that you don't understand simply because you don't agree with them.

you're not going to recover from your trauma or understand your own plurality better by denying the existence of other types of plurality. you're not "making the community safer" by gatekeeping. telling other people how their brains work is policing their identities. whether or not you want to accept it, if you forcefully kick endos out of plural spaces, you are the cop you claim to hate.

fighting with people on your own team will never net you a victory. to every other dissociative and traumagenic system: endos are on your side. you are wearing the same jersey. you are made of the same flesh and blood. enough. come together to share your similarities instead of fighting over differences. celebrate the diversity that plurality offers. don't take someone else's identity personally. someone can share the space with you without having to match exactly how you identify. diversity is what makes a community thrive.