#fusion stuff

[cafedragons]

as for why i started IDing as trigender/why i feel it fits, i've gotten to really explore what gender is to me as a whole/as aven.

every alter had their own idea of it, but once they all came together to make me, i had this like... sort of collective agreement. all of the feminine aspects of myself are definitely still there! autumn, maci, lyric, meridian, so on and so forth. i am comfortable with them being a part of my identity. i like being called a girl, especially when those parts are more dominant.

at the same time, i have undeniable masculinity as well. many of my previous alters were men or boys. alex, rey, finn, jukebox, caden, so on and so on.

and for a while there, i felt fine with the label bigender. hell, i mean theo (the arguably "most dominant" part most of the time and our longest host ever) is 100% bigender. equally male and female.

even the nonbinary parts still fit more "feminine" or "masculine" boxes pretty neatly.

but then, the more i reconciled my ritual/institutional abuse layer into my sense of identity and the more time i spent with them integrated into my understanding of myself, the more and more i realized i had a sort of... secret third thing. everyone in that top layer was very much nonhuman. they still are. a large part of that is because of dehumanization, but another large part of it is because as an autistic person i've always felt "othered" or "like a human a bit to the left".

it feels like i'm disrespecting a large part of who i am to not acknowledge i still carry those feelings too. those parts are still there. i've never been a huge member of the alterhuman community before because those alters were not common fronters and never talked to people really, but there are parts of me that still are attached to nonhumanity. i'm still exploring that, but i'm not sure where to start (i'd love pointers from any alterhuman folks).

the thing is though that it's less a trauma thing now and more of a reclamation. when i say "it/its" is one of my pronoun sets, i mean "it" as in how we refer to the planets or "it" as in how we reference thunderstorms or "it" as in how we speak about flowers or "it" as in how the sun feels on our skin after being in the dark so long or "it" as in the pretty fairy lights on my wall. "it" as a pronoun is empowering to me because it puts me at the same level as so many things that i admire and that i think are beautiful.

it's a distinctly third gendered feeling that is specifically nonhuman, specifically autistic, and just as much part of me as all the male and female parts. i'm so PROUD to have been able to reclaim so much and i am such a beautiful mosaic of pieces. trigender is a label that acknowledges all of them at once.

[cafedragons]

hi, i'll explain because that's me! (it's complicated, but i exist 90% of the time as one entity and 10% of the time as seperated when the situation calls for it - i'm in that grey area between functional multiplicity and full fusion.) also, thank you for asking! i love talking about this.

no one is gone. no one stopped existing. we did it out of profound love for each other and because we are more comfortable together than apart. i am every alter i've ever been all at once. instead of my alters being seperate and feeling rushed for time when they front or feeling stuck in the trauma that made them split, they are all able to express themselves whenever they want and engage in things outside of their narrow roles.

marcus, for instance, was our primary caretaker for a long time. he only ever fronted to shower, cook, and do chores. he had a breakdown over that. he felt dehumanized. now, the part of me that was once marcus is able to like... enjoy our video games or play with our dog. it's less that he's gone and more that he's always present. he doesn't have to leave.

another alter, rey, was a previous host and an anger holder. rey knew nothing except anger. his existance was miserable because of that. when he fused with alex and theo and a few others, he didn't disappear. he shared his capacity to feel anger with alters that previously didn't really have access to that. in turn, theo (first edition) shared his kindness and alex shared his chill, goofy nature with rey. all of them became one well-rounded individual.

lyric was a scared little girl. she knew almost nothing except fear, neglect, and abandonment. when she fused with finn, she learned happiness. when they fused with jukebox, they all learned what our real life is like. they are happy now, and they get to do all the things they want to do. they're present in our safe, current, real life.

i have tons more examples of this, but for the sake of the post, i'll stop there. fusions work only because we love each other and want better for each other. like different colored lego bricks, fusions for us are less that any brick disappears and more than the bricks are stronger (happier) as one wall.

fusion feels like alters holding hands. fusion feels like love. fusion feels like a hug. fusion feels like a warm drink on a cold rainy day. no one could fuse without their full consent. and if some alter someday comes out of dormancy and doesn't want to fuse, we won't make them. but what we will do is love them and continue to love each other.

also, final fusion is... not as final as you'd think. i am able to seperate myself if i need a certain alter's perspective. the difference is that it's within my control rather than me constantly being triggered and scared.

finally, a disclaimer that just because this is my healing path and what makes me happy doesn't mean it's right for everyone. i just really wish people (in general) wouldn't demonize fusion or spread misinfo about it - none of my alters died or went away. they're much happier this way. i know this because i am them. they are me. they're comfortable and happy and we trust each other.

Tw: fusion mention

Can someone explain why a system might want to fuse into one person again? Does anyone have experience with that? Do headmates actually want that in some cases? Is it only because they hate being a system or because they hate each other?

Because any time we see someone talking about fusion it's from anti endo DID systems who hate each other and think being a system is awful. And we kind of really hate that.

We don't understand why headmates might literally want to stop existing. It doesn't seem healthy. But we also don't want to judge people without trying to understand.

[chaobunnyarts]

Some job fusions for my oc's + Rielle.

[miracle-negative]

TA-DA!

Fresh belongs to @/loverofpiggies

Ink and fresh!ink belongs to @/comyet

[cafedragons]

to preface i have worked on this post All Day to make sure my tone reads fine but just in case, i wanna state upfront i'm only sharing my owm experiences, not trying to tell you what is/isn't happening for you

for me personally it was like that for a small handful of fusions (like when jayden and glyph fused to make marcus, they both played tug of war with each other in terms of traits for a while before the fusion settled comfortably) at the beginning of when we started actively pursuing integration, but for most of them it was not distressing in any way. going in with an idea of how both alters involved wanted it to turn out helped a lot for us later down the line.

for me personally a lot of those feelings you're describing also are like how i would describe blending/co-fronting felt when the barriers started to lessen collectively and dramatically. my alters could notice how other alters were feeling with more ease and some bleedthrough happened on occasion.

when barriers go down, parts can more easily influence the fronter and i'm just remembering a couple years back when i had similar feelings, but to me integration felt like the older bigger brother of passive influence.

fusion for me personally is more like an "adding this part's contents to my narrative" thing and it feels very nice like a hug and like profound understanding/love of/acceptance of myselves rather than anything distressing, even if figuring out the finer details of how i outwardly present (gender, pronouns, food preferences, etc) is kinda taxing just because. well. i have so many perspectives i can look through now and the autism makes being That Connected kinda overwhelming!

anyway. sometimes even well before we ALL came together as me (aven, the whole), i'd have like... meridian or someone be fronting for instance but jukebox (one of our littles) poke his head out just to make a comment. no need past that to fully switch, he'd just be like. "HI. I LIKE THAT DINOSAUR PLUSH. k bye" but meridian had never left the front. jukebox just kinda poked the controls that were in her hand for a second. that was back when we were actively trying to integrate that subsystem in like uhhh late 2023/early 2024

also also being sick or very stressed can definitely interfere with how solid my identity feels (even now!) in my experience. back in 2021 i got COVID and i was "feeling somewhere between stagnant and rapid switching" (in my own words from my journal)

regardless of what it is (i can't tell you bc i'm not in your brain and i will never ever assume i know what's going on in there exactly), i will end the post by saying some people do need to grieve integration and that is okay. any change in how someone's system operates can be like. Woah!! in a negative way because it's Always Been That Way and change is very difficult. it's okay to feel lost or even scared. your feelings, they are totally and completely valid. uncertainty is uncomfortable.

be kind and gentle towards yourselves. it'll settle, it'll work itself out, and everything's gonna be okay. your system is always going to be there to support you even if the specific way they do that changes. i am sending you so many good vibes and a virtual mug of your favorite cozy beverage 💚

(also ps if it helps i can still definitely engage with any part of myself as any other part. i have whole conversations still. it's just that communication is sooo so easy now that we can just come to snap agreements like a beehive. i still talk to/check in with my alters even as a "whole". i just have immediate access to how everyone feels rather than having to fight through a barrier and i'm kinda like a mediator of these many aspects of myself. i still feel multiple, just without switches/with a collective identity, and that is an option you can pick/aim for! you do not have to get rid of anyone and they won't go away forever. i used to be very scared of that.)

A thought occurred to me today while driving. It’s a bit fuzzy now but:

I’ve been sick and wanting to switch. I’ve been able to feel Sierra wants to switch in. I heard her laugh and felt her say, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I was the next co-con blend with you?” And we ran with that idea — a whole Rosie the Riveter vibe would be the end result, for sure. And then, the thought ended, and I shrugged and said, “Yeah, but for now, I’ll just have to settle for pulling from you.”

And that got me thinking.

What if I’m not “super blurry” lately? What if I’m still me, but now I can “pull” from others, due to our integration levels?

Like. I got home, and my cat jumped up, and I said, “Hey, baby!! Wanna watch videos with me?” And it wasn’t my voice, it was the kids. I make dinner and groan and fall quiet, which is Tavi’s thing. I light up and go on my phone to research the latest nerd shit, which is Wade’s specialty.

Those are just a few examples. But now they’re also me.

It’s been so fucking distressing because I’m not me anymore. And it literally took me this long to think, “What if that just means me, but also them?”

Is this what folks who’re fused who say “it’s like I’m me with them” mean?? If so, was it distressing for you at all? I’m still trying to push past some of the distress. This realization and way of thinking about it helped some, but I still feel like I’m losing something this way.

[calypsolemon]

dance on a razor's edge

[pilot-boi]

Atlas Weiss and Jaune fusion for @johnlocsin-johnyakuza

Behold! A bisexual who finally is at peace with themself! I’m sure nothing horrible is looming on their horizon! Most proud of the vambraces, honestly, they look good mimicking Weiss’s gloves

Specific fusion you wanna see? [Buy Me A Ko-Fi]

[ahkaraii]

Steven Universe x Sonic AU!

"Robotnik" is a Red Emerald/Red Beryl/Bixbite that used to be a planet conquerer for Homeworld, and "Stone" is a Purple Zircon that was assigned to him to keep him out of trouble/justify his actions to the court. They go rogue together and start going by "he/him" pronouns :3

Over the years offworld Robotnik's form gradually changes, eschewing the stiff lines and sharp edges of his original design for a more rounded shape. Stone, for his part, adopts a more humanoid appearance and mimics a beard.

After Robotnik gets consumed and semi-shattered when he attempts to absorb the Chaos Emerald, his corrupted form looks like a mantis-crab-beetle thing that Stone goes through great pains to take care of for a while. Through the power of love fusion, they make an enormously narcissistic and wantonly destructive Heliotrope that takes great pleasure in subjugating others.

[cafedragons]

i'm a silly goose and broke my hand so i can't give well-typed convo Back at you, but that makes a lot of sense!

for me it requires a lot more sitting and negotiating and hours of effort to operate as parts rather than as aven, probably because i don't really have as much practice with it. aven is our collective self and is an identity, but aven is also much less of a consistent person than any alter. aven is like a soundboard with a bunch of adjustable dials. the base soundboard is always the same but the output is ever-changing. aven is like. a comfy room everyone can hang out in.

i never understood "self" as a concept but that's largely because i grew up as an autistic kid with lots of caregivers of many various backgrounds and then never found "permanent self" useful as a framework. it still doesn't make quite as much sense to me as it seems like it does to my peers. i built aven as a group project rather than trying to force aven to be static and strict because attempts to do that just. Didn't Vibe. (like that post "show me a permanent state of the self, mom.")

even as a whole, i can still hear background chatter and parts shift around in how much influence over the identity they exert/how loud they turn up their own volume. my alters have become more like headspaces to be in rather than solely uncontrollable entities because we all did a lot (since 2020!) of work on working together/unifying/sharing our life in the present as opposed to being at odds, so we inherently remained multiple even as a whole and likely always will. i arguably feel more multiple fused than before i fused. before, it was more like possession. after, it's like we are simply vibing and navigating as a group effort with the same motives.

your posts resonated quite a bit with me a few months back (with some differences ofc) when i had finally hit this state of full integration and i've been trying Very Hard to begin acting a bit more seperated again to navigate a Situation but it's. kinda difficult lol. thank you for the insight! sorry i rambled a lot. i guess any skill just takes a lot more practice. thank you so much for having these conversations!!!

hi hello it's @starringmycoffee (on anon bc my main is not the same)

would you be willing to share how you go about seperating again after functioning as One Entity for a long time? what is that like for you? if you don't want to share, that's totally fine! i just think you are very smart and i love your posts

Tbh its kind of a "ya know what, fuck it lets just be our individual selves" and leaning into it. A lot of DID in our experience is So much fucking Self-Fulfilled Prophecies and most of our recovery involved a lot of us playing with our head like a guinea pig with it. We've actively and regularly practiced radically just changing what we believe about ourselves and our concepts to influence how our system functions and works a lot and it's done us a fuck ton even before fusion and what not in navigating issues. The hard part is actually Genuinely changing how you think and what you believe rather than just telling yourself what you want to, and so its an art we've practiced for years and operating as separate parts at a will / whim is a very SPECIFIC version of that art that we have actually spent dedicated time playing and experimenting with.

We actually started from a functional multiplicity place where we practiced fusing for short periods at a time and back then it was easier to re-divide back into individual parts. Then we kind of weaned off of being seperate parts until our new baseline was a fused state, but like... it was super easy (and often unintentional) to unfuse so its just really about remembering how to use our brain to operate in the way I have for years and just... doing that again.

I make it sound incredibly easy, but honestly during a lot of our recovery and a shit ton more after, we / I spent a shit ton of time actively exploring and observing and playing around with my ability to control my own mind. May it be actively Pavlov-training myself to control switches or radically pushing myself to see how well I could change my perspectives and core values and just how much I can take unconscious awareness of how I exist and how I relate with myself; its something that's been a very deep and primary interest of some of our parts and a thing our whole has very deeply enjoyed.

One of the reasons we are as into Buddhism as we are is because Buddhism is almost entirely about curating deeper awareness of yourself and intentionality about your relationship with your mind, and I just very much enjoy developing and having fun with that meta-relationship I have with my mind.

Changing from singular-operating to plural-operating, from no dissociation to mild dissociation, from wearing one hat to the next, etc is just a practice of a larger art form for me. I like to think I've become very very good at authentically changing myself in radically dramatic ways to suit what I want to be at the time.

Honestly, its really nothing special at all for me tho. I just decide to mentally operate in a different way, lean into it a bit, and viola, I'm operating in an entirely different way and that's cool.

For me, when it comes to how I exist internally, a lot of things if I want to do something, I'll just do it.

It's also important to really note that "I" don't really exist, at least not in any way that really fits into the Western / American standard of self, let alone the Heavily-Westerned-Influenced standard understanding of self when discussing plurality and/or DID.

"I" am just this undefined but chronically present background existence. Riku, XIV, Ray, Chunn, Tae, Dhalia, etc; they are selves, parts, people, they "exist" as concepts and forms and depictions and states of being that "I" take form in, and I gladly wear them like clothes in my closet or paint with them like colors on my palette, but like, I don't really subscribe to having a concept of self as a whole other than that "I am me / whatever I am at this very millisecond and that is always changing"

So for me, operating as individual parts is more like just choosing to wear my Blue Suit that I bought as a coordinated outfit OR my goth GF outfit rather than an amalgamation of all the 500 outfit sets I bought. It's not anything that much different than I usually do, I'm just picking a set that's familiar and that I use / used regularly because its easy, comfortable, and a very practiced and rehearsed way of being.

Sometimes I can't come up with a good amalgamation for the moment and so sometimes I just feel like being a Goth GF or maybe a Vampire Hunter or a lazy fuck in a T shirt and shorts. Sometimes I'm going to an event that has a dress code. Othertimes fuck it Ill take some from everything idk man

TLDR; there really isn't a huge "how" I do it other than that I just Do It and its easy for me because I just have that sort of a relationship with my sense of self and my relationship with my mind.

I think it would be a lot harder for me to do if I actually built Feathers / my fused whole as an actual identity / having an actual sense of self / as a thing that actually identifies as a "person", but our fused whole very explicitly doesn't really identify with those notions.

People who do actually have a collective identity that is defined, identifies as a person with a sense of self, and an individual probably would have a lot more difficulty going back and forth, but my fused state is largely me just letting go of the concept of self and identity and being greatly at peace without those concepts. My "operating as parts" state is just me kind of deciding to grasp at one of the many I have.

Like... try letting go of a ball and then picking it up. It's that simple for me honestly.

[cafedragons]

tobias was the last to fuse, but he's not gone. in fact, he was definitely the most dominant part while i was drawing this. i'm so happy he's finally found some peace after all those years.

feel free to reblog, please don't repost w/o credit.

[transzsonix]

[catmask]

because nova is going to be spending the summer with us to recover from top surgery, we've been playing animal crossing together on my switch, so every day i get to see what hes added to his home or the island... now forrest is joining us too!!!! i feel so happy, it reminds me of when i lived with my siblings and we did the same. i missed sharing

[chiropteracupola]

c. 1540 CE: a young man from Chalco, and his dragon.

[syscursed]

We saw someone telling systems to fuse.

For one, ... ??? What the fuck? That is a very personal thing for each system.

Secondly, that's not always an option, even for traumagenic systems. or like our system, they aren't parts of one person, but many entities sharing one body in some fashion.

Finally, don't expect a community to listen to you when you lie to them.

[ribbononline]

Your friendly neighborhood grampa, 2x!

[cafedragons]

any coping mechanism is inherently morally neutral.

splits are just a coping mechanism and reducing the entire point to "splitting IS bad" totally disregards that. sometimes splitting is used in adaptive and creative ways, and i believe there's even a paper on how final fused folks (like myself) often utilize "creative disintegration" after reaching that point. i can't locate the paper right now, but this post by another fully fused person has plenty of quotes from it and talks about it.

splitting is not inherently good or inherently bad.

splitting is a coping skill. it may not be the right one for some situations, but for some situations it is a necessary and useful tool to have in the box should one need to use it.

Starting to think the huge amount of hatred created systems get is in part because of the assertion that splitting is inherently bad and fusion is inherently good. Which, if you did not know, is untrue.