systemexploration

[systemexploration]

Welcome to Fictive Culture!

This blog’s goal is to create a safe space for fictives of all sorts. Fictives from any source with any origins at all are welcome to send asks!

🌷 What kind of asks are welcome? 🌷

Fictive culture asks (e.g. “fictive culture is having your source as a special interest!”)

Source calls (e.g. “I’m Finn looking for other Adventure Time fictives”)

Questions, or asks looking for resources or advice (Please note we can only provide our perspective and resources we find online!)

Venting, rambling, or gushing about your system, source, or life as a fictive!

Or anything else as long as it relates to being a fictive or comes from a fictive!

🌱 Do I have to send fictive related asks? 🌱

Not at all! This is a safe space for all fictives and as long as you are a fictive you’re welcome to send in anything you’d like! Our lives as fictives encompass more than just being a fictive, and we want this blog to reflect that!

🌻 Who can interact? 🌻

Any and all fictives are welcome to interact! That being said, this is no place for bigotry or exclusionism - please help us keep this community accepting to all!

All hateful asks will be deleted without being posted. For our own comfort, we won’t post asks relating to syscourse or any other discourse regarding the lives of real people.

🌾 Meet the mods! 🌾

Ralsei 💚 (they/soft/fluff) - a fictive of Ralsei from Deltarune!

Cecil 🖋 (he/him) - a fictive of Kim Kitsuragi from Disco Elysium (also questioning Cecil Palmer kin)

MK ⚔️ (he/him, knight/knights) - a fictive of Meta Knight from the Kirby series!

Special thanks to Margo and Kip from our system! They’re not fictives but they are helping us put together and manage this blog.

We’re going to tag a few other system blogs we admire! Any chance we could get a boost?

@dear-systems @plural-egg-culture-is @pluralprompts @systemexploration @system-society @introject-culture-is

Thanks for reading! =^w^=

[systemexploration]

If your in the mood to make positivity posts, could you make one for Little Fictives? Both the kids we have in our head are Fictives and I like to find nice things for them when I can. And they have a hard time with it cause their source isn't kid friendly. I hope you're well

Sorry it's a bit late but here its posted!

[systemexploration]

Shoutout to fictive littles/middles who have a non-kid friendly source! If your headmates that are older than you tell you that you can't interact w/ your source they are just trying to keep you safe since your source may not be the best for kids to see! I hope you are able to learn a bit about your source if you want, I know it can be hard to not know about it since it can hold a lot of your memories!

[systemexploration]

hi! just wanted to give a little update so you know we are still here! (going to start using I/me for this post since I'm the one in our system who made the blog)

one reason i left this blog for a while was because i got a bit uncomfortable being asked stuff like "do you think I'm a system/plural?" & just asking for my opinion about whether their experiences would make sense being plurality. im not at all upset at those who asked me those types of questions! I just want to explain that they made me uncomfortable since we arent at all a professional (for disordered plurality) & we aren't you. I know it can be helpful to get advice on if you might be plural or not but I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable helping with that.

(/npa for all ^)

I think I'll spend a bit of time posting & not responding to asks but then I'll start answering some again! Feel free to send some asks asking for specific positivity posts, I probably will answer those before more conversational asks!

[systemexploration]

I don't support the use of the word "traumascum" (not because I think it's transphobic) but I'm still very much on the side of "sysmed" isn't transphobic.

One of my arguments always is, why does the trans community (which I am a part of btw) get to just claim the suffix -med? Why is that just a trans term now? It's not at all. It's a suffix. It's like the suffix -ism. In my eyes the argument "sysmed is a transphobic term" comes down to the fact that sysmed and transmed have the same suffix. And so if we are continuing with the "it's transphobic mindset" then the word "ageism" is a sexist term because of the word "sexism". "Ageism" is therefore implying that the discrimination towards a certian sex is relatable to the experience of discrimination towards a certain age.

Now obviously I don't agree with that mindset. I was using it as an example to show how ridiculous the argument is that sysmed is a transphobic term since it comes down to the fact that the suffixes are the same. The suffix -med is literally just a shortened version of the term medicalism or medicalist. The fact that trans is a word paired with medicalism does not at all mean that medicalism is inherently tied with the word trans. Medicalism is a word and using it for issues other than trans ones doesn't at all mean that you are relating the two. Just like how the suffix -ism is related to issues of oppression and discrimination, that doesn't mean that people are acting like race discrimination is the same as sex discrimination.

Yes the same suffix being used means there is a similarity with a trans experience and a systemhood experience in relation to medicalism, but the similarity is simply that being transgender and systemhood is part of an identity and that neither are disorders.

trying very hard to see how and why sysmed and traumascum are transphobic and hhh

[systemexploration]

Hi! Just wanted to let everyone know that we are still here! We are taking a break from Tumblr to work on getting our life figured out for a bit! We shouldn't be gone for more than a month! (It'll most likely be shorter than that.)

Thank you for understanding!

[systemexploration]

Something About The Simply Plural Gatekeeping I Need To Get Of My Chest...

Okay, this is a vent post.

The people gatekeeping Simply Plural are doing so under the pretense that this is a "disability aid." And to an extent, that's true. Simply Plural is an app that helps systems, and some of those features are especially geared towards helping DID/OSDD systems. But there's an underlying tone to this that only DID/OSDD systems should be allowed to use this. It presents a view where anyone who uses this resource with DID/OSDD is taking away from DID/OSDD systems.

Before I go further, I just want to point out how stupid this is, again. I saw one person compare using Simply Plural to stealing a wheechair from a disabled person. Even if we agreed with the false premise that it's specifically made for DID/OSDD systems, it's still nothing like that, because unlike wheelchair, anyone can use an app without taking it away from others. Rather, Simply Plural would be more analogous to a ramp. It's built with disabled people in mind, but can be used by anyone, and you look pretty dumb if you're going to call someone ableist for walking up a ramp because walking up a ramp is "stealing resources from disabled people." 🙄

But Simply Plural is a resource made with all systems in mind. Not just DID/OSDD systems. The same is true of Pluralkit. These resource were never meant exclusively for disordered systems, so the argument of them being disability aids doesn't make sense.

Moreover, many of these systems who gatekeep Simply Plural and Pluralkit are anti-endos. They claim something that was made by the inclusive plural community, and then try to gatekeep it and act like they can decide who has a right to use it.

While they focus on singlets, the underlying implication to the "disability aid" argument is that anyone who doesn't have a disorder who uses the app is taking something away from disabled people.

All of this brings me to a point I've been thinking about for a long time... the anti-endo community doesn't make anything. They don't contribute resources. They just take things other people have made and then claim those things for themselves.

For all the claims of endogenic systems stealing resources from DID/OSDD systems, a lot of the resources in these communities were created by the inclusive plural community.

Simply Plural is heavily tied to the Plural Association, and likely wouldn't exist without the inclusive plural community supporting it. A relationship made apparent through this thread.

And let me just say how ungrateful the person comes off here. They use Simply Plural for free with no ads, and are almost definitely not supporting Apparyllis in any way. Yet they have the nerve to challenge their support of endogenic systems and one of their largest donors who pays for them to be able to have such free and convenient access to the app.

Then of the two major system bots on Discord, Pluralkit's creators are very explicit in supporting any systems using it (and allow its use for singlet RP'ers), and Tupperbox was originally made for tulpa systems.

As I've discussed before, many of the terms in circulation in the community today originated with the inclusive community. "Plural" and "headmate" came from this community. Terms like fictive and factive were taken from Soulbonders.

And those that weren't taken from the inclusive community were taken from medical terms. And I say taken, because they're often redefined in ways that weren't intended when they were coined.

For example, while medical professionals refer to alters as parts of a system, they've also used the same terms to describe subpersonalities in the IFS model. Someone who undergoes IFS therapy and feels plural afterwards has a legitimate claim to call themselves systems based on this psychiatric definition. Recently, the term has been applied by psychiatrists to intelligent voices in psychotic disorders. And current studies into endogenic systems have largely been using system terminology. And so when someone says you can't call yourself a system because it's medical terminology, they're ignoring how the term is actually used by medical professionals.

You could also apply this to "introjects" as well, where introjection is a psychological term that refers to any instance of acquiring traits from another individual. Introjection was never meant to refer exclusively to a DID/OSDD phenomenon. And terms like "host," while used to refer to the primary fronter, have just as much history in spiritual multiplicity if not more.

It's a pattern of claiming exclusive ownership over resources and language they didn't create and don't have the right to define, then gatekeep others from using those resources.

And to be clear, they're obviously welcome to use any of the terms coined by the inclusive community, as well as the resources the inclusive plural community has built. I would even encourage it.

Simply Plural, in particular, is an incredibly important resource to the mental health of many systems.

But the anti-endo community didn't build it. You don't get to decide who does and doesn't use it. You don't get to gatekeep a resource that was made by a community that you hate and don't want to exist.

If you don't like it, you can always make your own resources. But that would require anti-endos to actually build something to contribute to the community for once instead of just taking from others.

And this is what I find frustrating about this whole controversy.

Anti-endos constantly project.

The inclusive plural community built Simply Plural. They built Pluralkit and Tupperbox. They contributed a good half of the most common system terms in circulation today, with most of the rest being psychological terms or just normal words, most of which weren't even meant to be applied exclusively to multiplicity.

The anti-endos hate our community, yet they rely on the resources our community built. They go so far as to gatekeep these resources we built, because not only do they rely on them, they feel like they should own them. They feel entitled to the resources we created as if those resources are their property.

And then they claim that we're stealing their resources.

In the end, the pro-endo community is one that builds things up, creating resources for everyone to use

The anti-endo community just tears people down.

[systemexploration]

I have a small question about fictives, is it normal for fictive s to have different voices from their sources? Like okay, is it normal for fictives to have almost nothing in common with their source except for like looks and memories? Cause we have a fictive who hates their source, and he sounds nothing like his source and shares very few similarities with his source, and im wondering if that’s normal

yeah! fictives can be super connected to source all the way to being not connected at all! most of us are pretty connected to our sources but we have some system friends and we have definitely seen a range of how connected fictives can be (including some who also hate their source). so yes, its definitely normal for a fictive to be barely connected with their source!

[systemexploration]

Hi! I just wanted to sort of say this to just get it out there?

We can't tell anyone if they are plural or not. We can try to help you see the options that might explain your situation on a plural level but we can't flat out tell you if you are in a system or not. First, because we aren't in your head so we don't know. And second, because if you are disordered we obv can't diagnose you. /lh

Feel free to still send asks about those of you that are questioning but just know that we will never be able to give a clear answer. :)

[systemexploration]

Anon who sent the ask about "evil" alters/headmates again: Yeah, that's fair! To be fair, we view the word evil a bit differently, and the headmates we referred to are either indifferent to or fine with it, but that makes sense! We use a lot of terms that are "negative" in much more neutral ways - "evil" and "monster" as in they hurt us and don't regret it, not that they deserve bad things, but also that we can't always be kind to them and still sometimes have to fight back when they hurt/abuse us (we also don't see internal OR external abusers as all bad, so that's another neutral word for us).

We don't hate them for it, just like we don't hate our own abuser, we're just also not above fighting back if it's necessary. And just like with our abuser, we don't think they're undeserving of kindness, just that we can't necessarily be the one to give it to them, and sometimes fighting back does mean being "mean" to survive.

To be honest, we can't even say with 100 percent certainty that they are for sure headmates in the same way we understand the others to be. We also are not ever closing the door on redemption and reconciliation. All we know is that they're not... not like the persecutors, even the malicious ones. Idk if that makes sense. We have other nonhumans and nonpeople so we don't want to say they lack personhood/humanity as a bad thing, but they seem to lack something that makes them - like the rest in some way?

Anyway we're overexplaining now. We just wanted to thank you for being willing to listen and accepting of us even though we use a term you don't agree with. We do hope the explanation helps with just... understanding, but we by no means are trying to convince tbc! We also see your meaning and it's super valid and we definitely think two mutually exclusive things can be equally true for two different systems because - well, because both reality and perception of reality are utterly subjective. It's not "real to you" - two realities that conflict can coexist because reality is complicated like that.

Idk if that all makes sense, we'll go now. Hope you have a good day ^^

im not sure what to say to all that (not in a bad way!)/neu

but im glad you understand! and im glad we sort of agreed that we just have different views on the word :)

[systemexploration]

I just wanted to say that singlets are more than welcome to use Simply Plural. Apps are not finite resources. You aren't taking anything away by using it for your OCs. The more people who use an app, the more demand there is for it, the more developers see a need for its existence.

Not to mention that singlets are already encouraged to use Simply Plural to help keep track of their friends' systems anyway. The bottom line is that using it isn't taking it away from anyone.

Trying to gatekeep who can use an app helps no one. It's been said that the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. And I firmly believe that this is true.

That said, if you want to use Simply Plural to track your OCs and are getting use out of this app, remember that to be able to use it ad-free, it's funded largely by donations through its Patreon and from third parties.

So instead of asking you not to use this app, we would ask instead that those who use it who have income to spare consider supporting through the Apparyllis patreon.

And for those looking at other ways to support the plural community, you could also consider donating to The Plural Association, one of the largest donors to Simply Plural.

It is incredibly important that these resources for the plural community remain well-funded so that they can remain free for everyone.

Thank you. 💖

[systemexploration]

Re: answer to another ask...

We have persecutors, that have learned to be better and to not hurt themselves or us, but we also do have "evil" headmates. They revel in hurting others in the system, find destruction funny or fun, and have no interest in changing (assuming they are capable of it, but if they aren't capable of being different I'd say that would be less evil and more just their base nature).

We get kind of triggered sometimes by "evil headmates don't exist" because... ours do. No attempt to reach out, to reconcile, to ask them what's hurting them, has worked, like it has with even the formerly most awful of persecutors. And we've had people be super condescending like "no, they're not evil, you must be misunderstanding" when... they're not in our own head. We've even had people attempt to directly gaslight us, as in, convince us that what we know is happening in our headspace isn't and that we're just "cr/zy".

It's important to acknowledge that this experience is not universal. The point most people seem to be making when they say that is likely "the headmate you're dealing with likely needs help" but when even our therapist acknowledges that the headmate that is the personified voice of sadistic depression doesn't want help nor would they benefit from it, and hearing "that isn't real" just triggers derealization and psychosis...

Like obviously it's up to us to manage our own triggers, but we're not the only system that we've met who feels this way. We wish people would just say "most 'evil' alters aren't actually evil". But if headmates are their own people/entities, and you recognize them as such, then they are capable of having morality different from other system members and even wanting to hurt other system members. The "everyone in the system works to protect the 'host'/each other" common narrative of plurality just doesn't apply to every single system, even disordered ones (as a system with OSDD).

Anyway I just wanted to share a different perspective on that, even though it's scary because we don't want to risk the whole "no you're wrong about your own experience" kind of thing. This is something we've spent a long time figuring out and longer making sure.

i can definitely understand how saying "they arent real" triggers you and i do apologize for the wording!

i should've worded it more like "i don't support calling alters evil" because that still allows others to do it for themselves but i don't agree with it. if the topic comes up again i will use that wording.

our persecutor self identifies as a malicitor but we refer to him as a persecutor-otherholder. he hurts headmates in our system and hides places in the headspace instead of facing consequences. someone in our system once searched for him for days because we were worried about him only to be attacked once he was found. personally, we would never ever call him evil. we see that as dehumanizing no matter how much he claims to have no reason for doing the things he does. we think we know one reason for some of his actions but other than that we don't know.

if you would like to call your headmates evil that is up to you and im not going to say you can't use that word for things that happen inside your own head. i do not support it and those in our system that post here will never refer to headmates as evil, we will always use other terms. we personally try to have hope for our persecutor no matter how much harm he does. (/npa) i can't blame anyone for not continuing to try though, systems run differently and we respect that! /gen

again i apologize for stating "they aren't real" i will use the wording i mentioned above in the future! /lh

[systemexploration]

hello! i could be a system, but i’m not sure. the only other “alter” i know about is xavier. he is a persecutor, he is racist homophobic transphobic racist ableist, everything horrible, and he always tries to get me to say slurs i can’t reclaim, whenever i hear a slur he starts repeating it over and over, and sometimes it weirdly makes me mouth it?? i really don’t like him, and i just want him to go away or be nice

unfortunately i cant tell you if you are a system or not. that could either be intrusive thoughts or he could be a persecutor or even a mix.

we have a persecutor that we struggle with as well and so we unfortunately don't have personal experience with being able to successfully deal with one.

somethings that could help are these links Persecutor Masterlist Persecutor Thread

also remember that "evil alters" don't exist and even persecutors that seem to do bad things "for fun" deserve respect when trying to help them change! /npa

like the thread said, i highly recommend trying to find other outlets for him to express the feelings that cause him to try and make you say slurs. whatever he is feeling is valid but trying to make you say slurs is definitely not a good way to deal with them

[systemexploration]

I love you Plurality I love you diverse experiences I love you different headmates I love you systems/headmates who use terms and roles I love you systems/headmates with lack of terms and roles I love non-human headmates I love you human headmates I love you misunderstood headmates I love you headmates people can grasp I love you headmates/systems that could fall into stereotypes I love you headmates/systems that don't fall into sterotypes I love you different system origins I love you systems who don't know anything about their origins I love you big systems I love you small systems I love you systems who are figuring themselves out I love you systems who have a deeper understanding of themselves I just love you Plurality

[systemexploration]

Hi, how are you all? I'm currently a singlet, but we have a question about being parogenic: as we said,

I'm a singlet struggling with spacing out (not like a petit-mal, we've had those before, this is different) and occasional depersonalization. (like brief emotional numbing) independent decision-making is also really hard, and researching my special interests makes me feel like a new person, like they don't belong to my core self. It's as if I create different personas to deal with each interest. we feel creating alters would help with putting a face to my inner thoughts. like the personification of the emotions and islands in inside out and we'd like to use plural pronouns because we are different personas for each interest.,but we don't know if this is ridiculous and rude to explicitly traumagenic systems. Like, is it offensive to start identifying as plural partway through life when you have no prior explicit trauma and you view yourself as a clearly separate bunch of emotions and interests, rather than a unified sense of self, and you believe it helps with decision making.

Hi! We are pretty decent thanks for asking :)

im sorry you struggle with spacing out and depersonalization /gen the different personas for different interests as a way to handle them differently is very interesting though! i havent heard of anything like that (/not neg)

i think its perfectly valid for you to use plural pronouns and identify as plural! plurality is a spectrum and so just because you havent been a system for your whole life or you arent traumagenic doesnt mean that your identity is invalid! i think there are traumagenic systems that might be offended by your identity (anti-endos) but those systems are already offended by many other valid plurals and identities. they arent your concern at all /lh

if it helps, our system is traumagenic (we just have a lot of headmates that are non-traumagenic but our system origin is trauma) and we dont think your identity is offensive! i think it makes sense and it sounds like its comforting to you all which is great :) /gen

i think that if you feel truly that you are plural and you want to identify as plural instead of a singlet, then you should :) /nf /lh

[systemexploration]

Hey so I’m not sure if you’re the person to ask about this, so please feel free to ignore this if it’s a bother :)

So I have two points of interest I’d like to ask you about

So 1. I heard someone few months ago say that one of their biggest symptoms of being a system was being really into systems, like finding the whole concept and disorder utterly fascinating! And I’ve literally never heard that ever again and i can’t find anything backing them up, so I was wondering if you’ve heard anything like it

And 2. This one was brought back up in my mind because of question one, so I���ve always been kinda terrified of the idea of someone else taking control of my body, like ever since I was a baby (like 6 or 7 so not baby) I just kinda had a reacuring (I can’t spell) intrusive thoight(?) or something ya know, and every time it’s the thoight of someone else controlling my body and doing stuff, usually it was like normal stuff too not anything bad or scary I just didn’t like the idea, so that might have something to do with the first question

Also, I’m sorry for the novel lol, I’m not very good at describing things, and once again if this isn’t what y’all do please feel free to ignore this, either way tho I hope y’all have a good day /gen

hi! sorry it took a bit to answer this, this long posts take a lot of brain power to make sure we write it in a understandable way lol

1 ) ive heard that as a possible sign but ive never heard that as "the biggest sign". i don't think its a thing that can be tested though, and i feel like it is more of a "sign" than a symptom. im not trying to imply that the system isnt a system, i believe they are. it might be a sign for some systems, they can be super into learning about systems because they have a connection to them. but it doesn't mean that everyone that is really interested in learning about systems is a system. (i also dont have any articles for backing up plural topics on hand, though i should make a bookmark folder for them, so i cant say whether there is or isnt anything that says it is a sign or not, sorry /lh)

2 ) i can definitely understand that. mouse, our core, was scared about that as well. i feel like it is common to be scared of the idea of someone else taking over your body and taking control. one thing that really helps us with that is remembering "its not one headmates body. its all of ours." we remember that all our headmates are dealing with the same thing, having to share a body with someone. so its not like "someone is taking over my body and i need to be scared of that idea because its mine what are they gonna do with it" its "someone may take control of our body because they sometimes want to be in charge of what their body does, unfortunately with our situation its also my body and we have to figure out how to coexist." its definitely not an easy thing to keep in mind and deal with but trying to remember that headmates should work together can deflintely help.

[systemexploration]

Being a system is not a tragedy. You are allowed to enjoy being a system.