rayssyscourse

[rayssyscourse]

bonus: this applies to everything. "I don't know why they believe their religion", "I don't understand how their mental illness works", etc are not valid reasons to not respect someone. same logic applies to systems!

"i don't understand why their system is like that though"

okay. why do you NEED to understand them? why do you have this need to fully understand, for example, why jimbob system has 50 anime introjects in order for you to respect them and what they say about themselves?

why do you need to fully understand the inner workings of someone else's brain to respect them?

[rayssyscourse]

there is something wrong with how some traumagenic/disordered system spaces, will kick you out if you’re in any way pro endo (let alone if you’re mixed origins 💔).

there are DID and OSDD systems who support endogenic systems, there’s DID and OSDD systems who also have endogenic origins. if you make a safe place for DID/OSDD, it shouldn’t be safe just for your view of the “right type” of survivor. kicking them out of a disordered system group, because of their beliefs, well that’s not a safe place for DID and OSDD systems then. that’s just a safe place for anti-endogenic systems.

[rayssyscourse]

"stop hating endos because they arent miserable like you" hey guys arguing with anti endos should NOT include mocking disordered systems or their struggles.

i say this as a pro endo. and as a person with DID. making fun of, minimizing, or spitting on disordered systems and their struggles is not okay. there are plenty of ways to engage with anti endos and debate them that dont include mocking the fact many of them have CDDs that disorder and disable them.

some systems are miserable. some systems arent miserable. and thats okay. both are okay. neither is superior to the other. period. both sides need to stop using someone's happiness or lackthereof as a debate point.

[rayssyscourse]

how & why my syscourse opinions have changed over time

i've been meaning to make a post like this for a while now, and i finally sat down to actually write it LOL. for those of you who aren't familiar with me/this blog, i used to be a very steadfast anti-endo. over the past several months i changed my label to endo critical for a while and then ditched labels as a whole. so, what changed me from being firmly anti-endo to being... something that's not that? let's talk about it!

Learning that I had kind of been arguing with a straw man

One of many anti-endos' biggest issues with endos is the idea that they are faking DID/OSDD or are claiming to have a CDD without trauma. As I found out, turns out that's just... not really the case. Most endos aren't claiming to have a CDD without trauma, they're just claiming to be plural without a CDD.

there's room for understandable confusion here. the current state of society sees plurality as almost solely a clinical thing, and equates being plural to having a CDD, as if one cannot exist without the other. this is kind of just... not true.

It IS true that CDDs are, in the vast majority of cases, formed due to trauma. However, that's not their only symptom. In order to be diagnosed w/ a CDD you also usually have to fit other criteria, including but not limited to dissociation, amnesia/memory gaps, trauma at certain ages, etc. So, it's totally possible for somebody to be plural but not have any of those other symptoms, and in that case they most likely would not be diagnosed with a CDD.

Seeing the issues with binary labels

As time went on, the binary labels of "pro" and "anti" seemed less and less helpful to me. Calling myself anti-endo seemed to give people an automatic idea that I hated all endos, and honestly I started to see why. Calling myself "anti" an arbitrary word that described a whole lot of various and involuntary experiences seemed... Not at all helpful. Plus, I didn't like being associated with the aspenfrostens of the world; I didn't want to be seen as the same as people who went around mindlessly harassing random people for no reason. Pro and anti labels didn't really give anyone any information about my actual beliefs, it just gave them a preconceived notion to judge me off of.

Literally just talking to more people

For a long time my only interaction with endogenic systems was a select group of people (well, really one main person) who were really fucking shitty to me. It gave me the incorrect notion that the endogenic community as a whole was the same. As I cut contact with that person and their friend group, and I started this blog and engaging with other people in the syscourse/sysconvo community, I realized that most people were just... regular, polite people. Some people who were especially kind and understanding towards me (even when I was making some shitty takes lmao) were @thecircularsystem, @indigochromatic, and @clover-system. (Thanks guys!)

There's a lot more to say, but thats all I'm up for typing for now. Have a lovely day everyone!!!

[rayssyscourse]

Documentation of Early Sysconversation Tag Coining

Because I feel like down the line there may be questions on the definition and purpose of the sysconversation tag, I did want to document some of the early coiners / founders of the tag since I myself was relying on memory to know who were some of the prominent people in founding it. I know when it comes to online discourse, a lot of people like to play "well I understood it as this" and "the original purpose was this not that".

For that purpose, I took a bit to scroll to the very bottom of the sysconversation tag and document a little history of it while "scrolling to the bottom of the tag" was still a SOMEWHAT reasonable adventure to go on.

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Note Before the Post

The purpose of this post is not to say "these people are better than others" or "these people are inherently The Bosses of the tag". I personally dislike when one person claims ownership over a community; if anything, this is my attempt at making it easier in the future (as the tag hopefully grows and gains more history) to record the history behind it while it is still relatively easy so that should conflicts come up, there are a number of individuals who are hopefully still around that may have credibility in discussing their role in the founding of the tag.

If anything, I am making this post because I do my best in the tag to try to keep the Vibes Right with the original intent as I love the tag, but deeply dislike that every time I do so, it sounds like I am claiming the tag as my creation; this among anything else is me wanting to share other people who played a large role in founding it as to make it clear that I am only one of MANY founders. The Sysconversation tag is inherently not "made" by any one person and is a tag made by a Community of people; please do not use this document with the intent to claim ownership of the tag and use this as something of a timeline.

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October 23, 2023

@artisticdysfunction made a poll suggesting the tag "sysconversation" to "actually discuss stuff" ; in that thread @hiiragi7 @greens-spilled-tea us (@system-of-a-feather) @sysciety engaged in some discussion about the concept, idea, and plan to develop the original tag

Posts in this Brief creation Period were made by those five individuals in addition to @traumascumathena @indigochromatic @actuallyverynormalbtw

The tag did not particularly last long in it's original creation as it did not have many posts beyond a few interesting threads and a few one-post posts. Most activity had died in the tag by November 2023 and was dead for months after a post by @hiiragi7 on December 23, 2023

June 20, 2024

@sysciety suggests to bring back the tag for "actual discussions" because "syscourse seems beyond saving sometimes"; much of the original founders engage with the post with agreement along with @korya-elana @scapeg8ats @clover-system and @snowglobe-system

Following the revive, there were a number of individuals who had posted - more than the original creation period - so I can not list everyone; with that said, there was a semi-organized direct effort to populate the tag in hopes of making it survive; some of which were people I directly talked to about the revival of the tag as I was optimistic and hoping for the space

The original people involved in the development of the tag in October were back to support the revival as well as much of the original posters in the tag.

A few repeat faces appeared in the July era that have stuck around consistently including @wondercourse @paracosmic-gt @quoigenicfromhell @cosmoscollect @the-sour-patch-crew @rayssyscourse @thecircularsystem

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Disclaimer

I radically and heavily block people; it is not a personal thing, I simply take the curation of my internet space very intentionally and anything I'd rather not see (which can range from bigotry to poor / disrespectful rhetoric to just too many userboxes or personal squicks / triggers) so there is a chance when I was doing this documentation that someone may have been missed. If anyone commented above would like to comment any corrections / key individuals (preferably with post citation) that I missed that should be placed on this as a reference down the line, please do so as I am hoping to not bias this (and I only realized I can't see blocked posts in the tags until AFTER I finished collecting this, RIP me) but I am not perfect

[rayssyscourse]

Holy shit, I can't say I expected that lmao. Thanks for the warning though :)

Hello friends! I totally did not forget this blog existed for several months! Sorry for the inactivity, life gets in the way lmao.

How's everyone been? Any new syscourse topics I need to get my ass on? What tea have y'all been drinking lately?

Asks are open to questions, opinions, hot takes, or... random shit :)

[rayssyscourse]

Hello friends! I totally did not forget this blog existed for several months! Sorry for the inactivity, life gets in the way lmao.

How's everyone been? Any new syscourse topics I need to get my ass on? What tea have y'all been drinking lately?

Asks are open to questions, opinions, hot takes, or... random shit :)

[rayssyscourse]

I feel like syscourse has been pretty quiet lately, at least on my corner of the internet, and that's probably a good thing! but for the record, I've got a long weekend, so I'm still open to hot takes or discussion questions! If there's no hot issues that's totally chill, but feel free to send in asks for whatever, big or small; I'm in the mood to chat! :)

[rayssyscourse]

is it bad that my total apathy towards the Endo Debate extends to blocking the anti/pro endo tags (which gets frustrating when looking through neutral tags because a lot of posts are not truly neutral and set off the tag filter)

i mean i don't think it's bad, although it does sound inconvenient lol. i think it's fine to not want to be involved in syscourse, but if your goal is to engage with the plural community without interacting with anyone who has a syscourse opinion, you're probably not going to have a very good time lol. i will point out that a lot of people tag posts with their syscourse opinion even when they're not talking about syscourse, just because a lot of people don't want to interact w/ people of the other side. so if it's not the opinions you care about and you just want to interact with non-syscourse system content, you're probably fine just blocking syscourse tags and specific people you don't want to interact with.

[rayssyscourse]

"endos don't get the right to step away from the discourse that deems them either acceptable or a stain on society"

just repeating this here because it's so important not only in syscourse but just in general

whatever label you use, THIS is so important because your actions have an effect on real people

the internet is not a vacuum. saying something harmful online can and does harm people in real life

this is the same issue we see in real life where privileged people (usually white, cis, straight, neurotypical, semi wealthy men) will say they're "not into politics" as if it's a flex, not understanding that for a lot of people, there is no OPTION to ignore politics, because it's challenging their very existence or wellbeing

it's not "just the internet" because guess what, the internet is a part of real life. it's not this mysterious space where your actions have no consequences, and it is still your responsibility if you fuck something up, internet or not. there is no other part of life that allows total freedom with zero restrictions and zero consequences, so it's ignorant and objectively incorrect to assume that the internet is the exception

thank you for coming to my ted talk

syscourse hot take (more like syscourse tired take honestly) "pro/neutral/anti-endo": for anyone who's endogenic in any way, or even just previously thought they were endogenic, it's really tiring (and not conducive to constructive conversation) to have so many syscourse labels revolve around...an innate aspect of someone's lived experience. Like. We are fully aware that plenty of people who label themselves "anti-endo" don't necessarily think that endogenic systems are fake and/or evil etc, that's just purely a demonstrably true statement. We don't even think that the people using "anti-endo" that way are necessarily Terrible People for doing so. Simultaneously, though, speaking as a system who spent years thinking we were 100%-basic-vanilla-endogenic but still wanted to take part in nuanced discussions around system experiences and offer our perspectives on discourse--seeing 'anti-endo' or even 'endo-neutral' always still...stung a little? Even when someone was conversing in good faith. Like, the idea that it was acceptable for our personhood (which really is what it felt like the arguments were about! whether one of us was 'just a made-up daydream' and not a person) to be up for debate, that it was an acceptable "political football" or thing to be "neutral" about...wasn't a good feeling. And honestly, even though we technically have a DID dx on paper these days, we still get that little flicker of distrust whenever we see 'anti-endo' in someone's bio--because we're still exactly the same system that we were before, and if they wouldn't have believed us about our experiences then...why do they think so much depends on some rubber-stamp diagnosis? what do they think changed? We don't have a good answer to this problem, though. Telling people that they're automatically terrible bigots for not labeling themselves pro-endo doesn't feel like it'll actually solve anything, because crucially I don't think that most of the "doesn't actually believe endos are fake or bad"-anti-endos are calling themselves that for a reason that simply shaming them sufficiently will change. Also, the internet is a big place, and expecting everyone to be up-to-date on every possible niche discourse stance is absurd--and if someone really just wants to stay the heck away from system discourse entirely, they should be able to. But also...yeah, we wish they'd use different words. Don't use "anti-[unchangeable aspect of someone's identity]" and not expect it to feel hurtful to see. "Well, I just don't want people Like That interacting with me..." what if they just thought your art was cool? What if they agreed with your hot take about [insert fandom here]? Who else are you 'anti', not because you disagree with some opinion they hold, but purely because you're 'nothing like them'? Idk. It's frustrating, and I wish we had some kind of easy, magic solution.

thank you!! this is a really well written thought, and i fully agree.

to be honest, this is one of (admittedly many) reasons i dropped pro/anti-endo labels altogether. not only can they come across as denying somebody's existence, but i feel like we just don't fit in simple boxes like that. i mean, "pro-endo" can mean any plethora of things: it could mean the person is endogenic, they support endos, they don't engage in syscourse/just don't care, they just disagree with anti-endo points, etc etc. in the same way, "anti-endo" can also mean a million things. some anti-endos think endos are all faking, some think they're misinformed, some believe they exist but think they're spreading too much misinfo, some think they're doing harm to traumagenic communities, etc. i also just don't like the black-and-white way those labels portray us. somebody being pro-endo doesn't mean they support every single endo, it doesn't mean they necessarily support radqueers (weird misconception i see a lot), and it doesn't mean they have no criticisms of the endogenic community. i know a lot of anti-endos who fully believe and don't hate endos but just have criticisms of the label and/or community, who are often assumed to hate all endos or think all endos are faking because the label is just too broad and comes across completely wrong.

sorry to ramble on for so long in one giant paragraph lol. tl;dr, you're so right, say it louder for the people in the back!!

[rayssyscourse]

syscourse hot take (more like syscourse tired take honestly) "pro/neutral/anti-endo": for anyone who's endogenic in any way, or even just previously thought they were endogenic, it's really tiring (and not conducive to constructive conversation) to have so many syscourse labels revolve around...an innate aspect of someone's lived experience. Like. We are fully aware that plenty of people who label themselves "anti-endo" don't necessarily think that endogenic systems are fake and/or evil etc, that's just purely a demonstrably true statement. We don't even think that the people using "anti-endo" that way are necessarily Terrible People for doing so. Simultaneously, though, speaking as a system who spent years thinking we were 100%-basic-vanilla-endogenic but still wanted to take part in nuanced discussions around system experiences and offer our perspectives on discourse--seeing 'anti-endo' or even 'endo-neutral' always still...stung a little? Even when someone was conversing in good faith. Like, the idea that it was acceptable for our personhood (which really is what it felt like the arguments were about! whether one of us was 'just a made-up daydream' and not a person) to be up for debate, that it was an acceptable "political football" or thing to be "neutral" about...wasn't a good feeling. And honestly, even though we technically have a DID dx on paper these days, we still get that little flicker of distrust whenever we see 'anti-endo' in someone's bio--because we're still exactly the same system that we were before, and if they wouldn't have believed us about our experiences then...why do they think so much depends on some rubber-stamp diagnosis? what do they think changed? We don't have a good answer to this problem, though. Telling people that they're automatically terrible bigots for not labeling themselves pro-endo doesn't feel like it'll actually solve anything, because crucially I don't think that most of the "doesn't actually believe endos are fake or bad"-anti-endos are calling themselves that for a reason that simply shaming them sufficiently will change. Also, the internet is a big place, and expecting everyone to be up-to-date on every possible niche discourse stance is absurd--and if someone really just wants to stay the heck away from system discourse entirely, they should be able to. But also...yeah, we wish they'd use different words. Don't use "anti-[unchangeable aspect of someone's identity]" and not expect it to feel hurtful to see. "Well, I just don't want people Like That interacting with me..." what if they just thought your art was cool? What if they agreed with your hot take about [insert fandom here]? Who else are you 'anti', not because you disagree with some opinion they hold, but purely because you're 'nothing like them'? Idk. It's frustrating, and I wish we had some kind of easy, magic solution.

thank you!! this is a really well written thought, and i fully agree.

to be honest, this is one of (admittedly many) reasons i dropped pro/anti-endo labels altogether. not only can they come across as denying somebody's existence, but i feel like we just don't fit in simple boxes like that. i mean, "pro-endo" can mean any plethora of things: it could mean the person is endogenic, they support endos, they don't engage in syscourse/just don't care, they just disagree with anti-endo points, etc etc. in the same way, "anti-endo" can also mean a million things. some anti-endos think endos are all faking, some think they're misinformed, some believe they exist but think they're spreading too much misinfo, some think they're doing harm to traumagenic communities, etc. i also just don't like the black-and-white way those labels portray us. somebody being pro-endo doesn't mean they support every single endo, it doesn't mean they necessarily support radqueers (weird misconception i see a lot), and it doesn't mean they have no criticisms of the endogenic community. i know a lot of anti-endos who fully believe and don't hate endos but just have criticisms of the label and/or community, who are often assumed to hate all endos or think all endos are faking because the label is just too broad and comes across completely wrong.

sorry to ramble on for so long in one giant paragraph lol. tl;dr, you're so right, say it louder for the people in the back!!

[rayssyscourse]

syscourse hot take (more like syscourse tired take honestly) "pro/neutral/anti-endo": for anyone who's endogenic in any way, or even just previously thought they were endogenic, it's really tiring (and not conducive to constructive conversation) to have so many syscourse labels revolve around...an innate aspect of someone's lived experience. Like. We are fully aware that plenty of people who label themselves "anti-endo" don't necessarily think that endogenic systems are fake and/or evil etc, that's just purely a demonstrably true statement. We don't even think that the people using "anti-endo" that way are necessarily Terrible People for doing so. Simultaneously, though, speaking as a system who spent years thinking we were 100%-basic-vanilla-endogenic but still wanted to take part in nuanced discussions around system experiences and offer our perspectives on discourse--seeing 'anti-endo' or even 'endo-neutral' always still...stung a little? Even when someone was conversing in good faith. Like, the idea that it was acceptable for our personhood (which really is what it felt like the arguments were about! whether one of us was 'just a made-up daydream' and not a person) to be up for debate, that it was an acceptable "political football" or thing to be "neutral" about...wasn't a good feeling. And honestly, even though we technically have a DID dx on paper these days, we still get that little flicker of distrust whenever we see 'anti-endo' in someone's bio--because we're still exactly the same system that we were before, and if they wouldn't have believed us about our experiences then...why do they think so much depends on some rubber-stamp diagnosis? what do they think changed? We don't have a good answer to this problem, though. Telling people that they're automatically terrible bigots for not labeling themselves pro-endo doesn't feel like it'll actually solve anything, because crucially I don't think that most of the "doesn't actually believe endos are fake or bad"-anti-endos are calling themselves that for a reason that simply shaming them sufficiently will change. Also, the internet is a big place, and expecting everyone to be up-to-date on every possible niche discourse stance is absurd--and if someone really just wants to stay the heck away from system discourse entirely, they should be able to. But also...yeah, we wish they'd use different words. Don't use "anti-[unchangeable aspect of someone's identity]" and not expect it to feel hurtful to see. "Well, I just don't want people Like That interacting with me..." what if they just thought your art was cool? What if they agreed with your hot take about [insert fandom here]? Who else are you 'anti', not because you disagree with some opinion they hold, but purely because you're 'nothing like them'? Idk. It's frustrating, and I wish we had some kind of easy, magic solution.

thank you!! this is a really well written thought, and i fully agree.

to be honest, this is one of (admittedly many) reasons i dropped pro/anti-endo labels altogether. not only can they come across as denying somebody's existence, but i feel like we just don't fit in simple boxes like that. i mean, "pro-endo" can mean any plethora of things: it could mean the person is endogenic, they support endos, they don't engage in syscourse/just don't care, they just disagree with anti-endo points, etc etc. in the same way, "anti-endo" can also mean a million things. some anti-endos think endos are all faking, some think they're misinformed, some believe they exist but think they're spreading too much misinfo, some think they're doing harm to traumagenic communities, etc. i also just don't like the black-and-white way those labels portray us. somebody being pro-endo doesn't mean they support every single endo, it doesn't mean they necessarily support radqueers (weird misconception i see a lot), and it doesn't mean they have no criticisms of the endogenic community. i know a lot of anti-endos who fully believe and don't hate endos but just have criticisms of the label and/or community, who are often assumed to hate all endos or think all endos are faking because the label is just too broad and comes across completely wrong.

sorry to ramble on for so long in one giant paragraph lol. tl;dr, you're so right, say it louder for the people in the back!!

[rayssyscourse]

hey whoever was talking to me under my last post, either you blocked me or Tumblr removed your reply because I got a reply notif but all it showed was that "some replies may have been hidden blocked or removed" message, so if it was the former I can't read what you said lol, feel free to message or reply to this or wtv if you had more to say. sorry! Tumblr filter do be weird sometimes

[rayssyscourse]

yeah no, this puts it really well. like I told them, I really think the solution is just to block content you dont want to see. I don't think anon is trying to say we should get rid of endos in alterhuman spaces though, at least interpreting this in good faith, but I do think you're right that this feels like a personal issue that I genuinely hope they can address.

we are strictly anti-endo for comfort reasons and it sucks to see so much of the therian/alterhuman/etc community so full of pro-endo/endo systems. like ya you may be cool n all but i dont wanna interact with people who are something that makes us feel uncomfortable

sorry i was so late to this ask, anon! Yeah i get that, it can be tough to have different opinions than the majority of a group that’s important to you. Best thing you can do is block pro-endo tags if you don’t want to see them, and honestly most alterhuman-related posts won’t have anything to do with syscourse anyways. Best of luck!

[rayssyscourse]

we are strictly anti-endo for comfort reasons and it sucks to see so much of the therian/alterhuman/etc community so full of pro-endo/endo systems. like ya you may be cool n all but i dont wanna interact with people who are something that makes us feel uncomfortable

sorry i was so late to this ask, anon! Yeah i get that, it can be tough to have different opinions than the majority of a group that’s important to you. Best thing you can do is block pro-endo tags if you don’t want to see them, and honestly most alterhuman-related posts won’t have anything to do with syscourse anyways. Best of luck!

[rayssyscourse]

LMAO I accidentally hit post instead of save draft, sorry!!! What I was trying to say is that if your safe space is more focused on keeping people out than helping the people in it, it feels more like an unsafe-for-everyone-else space than a safe-for-x-group space. Hope that makes sense, I don't fully remember where I was going lol

discussion prompt :)

thanks @snezhnayan-nights and @indigochromatic for giving me this discussion idea!! (hope y'all are okay with being tagged, lemme know if you want me to take you off)

So, we talk about safe spaces a whole lot in syscourse, so I thought it would be nice to hear what everyone actually wants in a safe space. This can be for any safe space (traumagenics, endogenics, endo supporters, anti endos, whatever); but what makes a safe space actually feel safe and helpful to you? And what is some of the best things you've gotten from safe spaces that you'd like to see more of?

[rayssyscourse]

I love this! sidetracking off the second to last point, I think spaces that are exclusive to some groups (e.g. traumagenic only, dissociative only, etc etc) need to be more focused on the people in the space as opposed to being focused on who is not in the space, if that makes sense? I see a lot of people on both sides whose groups are more focused around "endos are bad, we hate endos" or "anti endos are bad, we hate anti endos" while still claiming to be a safe space for x group is counterproductive. for one thing, if you say you're a safe space for x group, but everything in the space is about hating everyone outside the space, that's not actually helping anybody

discussion prompt :)

thanks @snezhnayan-nights and @indigochromatic for giving me this discussion idea!! (hope y'all are okay with being tagged, lemme know if you want me to take you off)

So, we talk about safe spaces a whole lot in syscourse, so I thought it would be nice to hear what everyone actually wants in a safe space. This can be for any safe space (traumagenics, endogenics, endo supporters, anti endos, whatever); but what makes a safe space actually feel safe and helpful to you? And what is some of the best things you've gotten from safe spaces that you'd like to see more of?