#headmate: rift

[interstellarchaosss]

Systember 4: Peaceful.

Rift, enjoying a coffee in-headspace, while relaxing on a wing-friendly chair.

Please do not use our art without our permission. Feel free to ask to use for icons and similar things, but we have the right to say no.

Program: Firealpaca Approx. Time: 3h Original Date: 05.09.24 Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned! Art Of: Rift [Headmate] (System Member Artist: Vince)

[entropy-sea-system]

I know your aplatonic, and I just wanted to check something. I'm decently active within the aro community myself, and I like seeing your content/commentary. when I notice we share space (ex: on reblog comments of posts), I find that I like seeing what you have to say, and I even look forward to it. I don't have any personal desire to befriend you for obvious and not so obvious reasons, but I do like seeing you around and acknowledging your perspectives. My thoughts towards you are almost comparable to how you look forward to sharing shifts with a certain coworker because you can trust them to be competent and reliable. Something akin to acquaintanceship, but more distanced given that we only ever interact within one designated community. Not super frequently, at that.

I just want to know if such a perception of you triggers your repulsion or pushes boundaries. of course if this does make you uncomfortable, I'll simply not bring it up again. I'm moreso curious.

This is a good faith ask from an allopl, and if you do not feel comfortable responding, please feel free to just delete the ask entirely.

That doesn't really trigger my repulsion, because its not really about friendship or so it seems to not be about friendship, but thanks for asking I guess. Id prefer you not call me an acquaintance though as Im repulsed by that term as I associate it w friendship, but it seems to only be a comparison/ meant to say its less close than that so thats probably not like actually calling me an acquaintance.

And also my repulsion toward ppl feeling platonic/friendship things to me is more only if someone expresses that theyre platonically attracted to me or want to be my friend tbh, bc theres no way Id know or care if someone just feels that so I just don't want ppl to express it to me.

I can't know that someone percieves me some way unless they state it, and imo boundaries, including those about repulsion, can't really be about how ppl see you bc that can't be controlled + one doesn't have to know abt it, they can only be about how they act towards you such as what they may express to you. If I know someone has friendship emotions for me Id rather avoid them, but what I don't know can't repulse me.

And Im glad that ppl appreciate my content, I tend to see it as a compliment / ego boost when ppl think that lol . I actually feel kind of similar to what you describe, about some ppl I know, but maybe not very strongly or consistently (I have a tendency to kind of feel like ppl aren't perfect and it doesn't really go to idolising ppl for me usually bc of that, but there are ppl who Id say I like seeing discuss topics and stuff) and I dont even think abt it often, and I dont label it as anything other than emotions maybe, but either way I don't see it as platonic/friendship when I experience that emotion so.

[objectcrushsuggestions]

crush on my dnd dice

Yeah!!

(Also congrats on being the first not-anon ask this blog has gotten! /lh)

[machine-eroticism]

recently followed another blog that had a lot of. .. idk what to call it, but it's got us looking at our old wii u in a new light you know 👉️👈️

That's really cool!! Tbh I didnt really expect to get any asks on this blog, but its really cool to hear abt other people feeling things about objects!!!

[interstellarsystem]

Little Plural Things

Systems can present in a lot of different ways. Sometimes, being a system can be loud and obvious if you're naturally more overt and/or out about yourselves as plural. Sometimes, it can be quiet and barely noticeable, but still there--just harder to see. Our system is fairly obvious if we're unmasked, but there are still things that escape even our own knowledge when we're masking as hard as we can. Little things that to us, remind us that our system is undeniably real. This is a post about those experiences we've had with barely-noticeable signs of a system.

Not every system will relate to these experiences, some might feel similarly about a few points, some may have others of their own entirely, some might not know or not have anything like the experiences we mention, and that's all part of being plural. No two systems are mirror images of each other. This is a post about our experiences.

1. Handwriting

Recently, we've had it brought to our attention that we have different handwriting. We don't write with a pen/pencil often, but we were asked to fill out a worksheet for our psychologist recently. She told us that whoever in our system wants to contribute to it can, and suggested that we signify who wrote what in some way--to which we chose different pencil colours for different headmates. We took the worksheet home and put things on it depending on who was in the front and if they wanted to.

It turned out, that some of our writing widely differs from each other. Out of the 6 people who wrote on the sheet, most of them were wildly different. Rift and Martin wrote the most tidily, with Rift's writing looking more "proper" and "adult". I (Vince) apparently am not the best at neat writing but I managed to be better than what our "normal" writing is like from what we remember. Merlin wrote messily like he was writing very fast. Mystery wrote with very large letters with sharp angles that overall made it look like it was written by a child new to writing. Which makes absolute sense. It's not a child, but its hands in-headspace are bigger than ours and that was the actual first time it had written anything on paper since it got here.

Somehow, it took until our psychologist pointed it out for us to notice how different it was.

2. Vocabulary Choices

Something we are able to notice sometimes is how our vocabulary and sometimes sentence structure changes based on who is speaking. Some obvious examples are our British headmates substituting "bloody" for other words as an exclamation and the difference between what some of our headmates would call a "chip" or a "fry".

Other times though, it's more subtle. Sometimes there's certain phrases that will just have a word or two swapped out and it does tend to point toward who is fronting even if people do use multiple of these. Some examples are:

"I suppose" vs "I think" vs "I believe"

"Kinda" vs "Kind of" vs "Sort of" vs "Sorta"

"Recently" vs "A bit ago"

"Sleepy" vs "Tired"

"Lol" vs "Haha" vs "Lmao" vs a keysmash (Even though these are text-based they are quite telling.)

"Quite" vs "Very" (Speaking of the above.)

Getting more subtle with them, some other examples are:

"You know" vs "Y'know"

"Uh" vs "Um"

"Uh-Huh" vs "Mhm"

Sometimes typing is influenced too. The amount of em-dahses within the text, the consistency of proper punctuation, how mechanical the text feels, how many run-on sentences there are and even how much tends to be written in one message/post can all point toward different people being in control.

3. Accidental Accents and Inflections

While accents are usually very obvious, we're generally good at masking them. Generally.

Due to us living in Australia, our headmates with accents straight from London don't stick out too bad when they're struggling to mask, but they are still noticeable to those around us who know we're plural. Passerby on the street or people who don't see us often don't think much of it, but certain people we are close to know that a few people in our system find it harder to mask and can tell when they're fronting very easily because of it.

Even if we are masking our accents properly, some parts of the way we speak still come out. Some of us end sentences on a higher-pitch more often due to what our accent generally has us do and some end more on lower-pitch notes when speaking. Some of us put emphasis on certain syllables differently. There's lots of little things that go into language that make it hard to completely mask.

4. Food Choices

More of a noticeable one, but something we tend to brush off as "just a bad batch" when it happens. Some of us like and dislike different foods and drinks, some of us to an extreme degree.

Mystery hates the brand of juice we normally buy and thought that it might've just been past expiry (it was not) or just a bad batch of the juice, but they're consistently the only one who doesn't like it.

Rave likes spicy food much more than the rest of us because they have a harder time tasting it. I on the other hand can't handle spicy food at all and am worse with it than the others in my system.

Some of us favour different brands of food and some of us might like/dislike textures of food differently too.

5. Default Facial Expressions

Different resting facial expressions are something we hardly notice because we don't look in a mirror often due to dysphoria. What we do know though, is that some of us just rest our faces differently.

I look more stern and tired than others. I have a bit of an angrier resting expression.

Martin looks a little bit more anxious due to being an anxiety-holder, but he also looks softer and kinder.

Crowley also looks tired but has less of a stern look and more of an almost blank one.

6. Body Language

This is one we don't know too much about because we can only get knowledge on this from other people, but most of our headmates have a different "vibe" by the way they carry themselves.

I end up seeming to-the-point and business-like.

Martin reads as being very anxious even if he's not always.

Crowley reads as smug.

Mal reads as if he's planning something mischevious and silly.

We've been told that Filigree just reads as "gay".

We're not sure what actions make us seem this way, but some of us can be clocked by others around us as fronting without even talking first. I don't know how people do it, but it's something in our body language.

7. Clothing Choices

A few of us have different clothing choices--Crowley still wears sunglasses everywhere due to light sensitivity and wears dark colours, I prefer to wear button-up shirts as opposed to more casual things, Martin prefers hoodies that are lighter in colour and Merlin prefers to dress in pink and black and more fluffy textures.

We don't have too many clothes overall so to others it does just look like we're cycling through our wardrobe, and sometimes we are, but there's certain styles some of us tend to lean toward more than others.

---

Some of these might seem quite noticeable, and maybe they are if you know we're a system, but people change a lot so once again some of this is much more subtle than it sounds. People who don't know that you're a system hardly ever notice, and if they do they put it to "having an off day" and leave it at that.

We wanted to take some time to appreciate those little things we find it hard to notice, though. And maybe it'll end up helping some other system realise how unique they are as individuals and help fight off the imposter syndrome like these realisations did for us.

[gaybian-culture-is]

Gaybian culture is thinking the sunset lesbian and ocean gay flags look pretty together !!

(gradient of these made by my headmate Rift!) (-Streak)

.

[acorpsecalledcorva]

*Maladaptive Daydreaming is the disordered form of Immersive Daydreaming/Dissociative Absorption (which I believe is the foundation of endogenic plurality experiences), therefore would only really apply to "disordered plurals" that don't have a CDD, similarly not all pwMD would identify as plural the same as most pwCDDs don't use that label

*"Plural Dissociative Disorder" is used here as the best phrase I can come up with to communicate disorders that involve systems of parts/alters/headmates as it wouldn't be a CDD. Although I recognise many do not like this term, everyone hopefully understands what I mean by it

This is the best summary I can find that I feel argues for why it should be included as such:

Arguments against: As a concept it may err ever so slightly too closely to the fantasy model of DID or give credibility to many aspects that the community has worked very hard to move away from.

Overlap: Early reports put comorbidity of MD and DID at only 12.8% but more recent reports have it at more like 40-50%. Prevalence of MD, that is the disordered utilisation of immersive daydreaming/dissociative absorption as a form of escapism, increases dramatically during periods of global unrest, the COVID 19 pandemic saw a marked increase in communities seemingly built around utilising Immersive Daydreaming/Dissociative Absorption such as the reality shifting communities which used guides very very similar to switching and imposition guides shared by the Willo/paragenic communities

Possible explanation for rift in community: many people simply do not have the ability to immersive daydream, and it would seem that the majority of DID research and literature has been written about and focuses on pwDID that don't have this innate ability. A lack of inner world and phobia of the inner experience such as no knowledge and access to parts are commonly described in literature but are at odds with the majority of online presentations of CDDs. It may be that more CDD systems are utilising an immersive daydreaming capability in a more (mostly)positive way thanks to community sharing of experiences, while those who do not have this ability are left dumbfounded by how much the online community doesn't match their experience. Similarly, those with CDDs who can and do utilise this ability would find more shared experiences with the wider plural community including identifying as mixedorigin because immersive daydreaming would be an ability that predates trauma development of a CDD or becoming disordered due to later trauma

Personal experience: I have both DID parts/alters and Immersive Daydreaming headmates. I find this a very useful framework to understand my experience as it allows me to differentiate the needs of both and ensure that one doesn't negatively impact the other. I also believe it's very important to differentiate between them in form and function, while not viewing one as more valid than the other. Treating all ID headmates as alters can quickly become overwhelming if healing is a goal while treating alters as ID headmates can be very damaging and make them feel like they're being exposed and need to retreat further or have protectors and persecutors lash out. I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge that right now there are pwCDDs who mistakenly believe they're endogenic plurals and disordered plurals that mistakenly believe they have CDDs (and potentially therapists misdiagnosing as well).

Psychs: Nijenhuis, Ross, Dell, and Somer all seem to be dancing around this issue from slightly different angles right now, Nijenhuis trying to differentiate purely trauma based pathological dissociative experiences, while Ross has explored a proneness to dissociation, Dell has explored a proneness to hypnotisability, and Somer first identified maladaptive daydreaming whilst also being one of the key researchers into trauma and dissociation over the last few decades. Outside of these there are many psychs that have noticed a marked shift in presentations of patients that supposedly have CDDs resulting in increased research into things like Imitative DID and Malingering/factitious disorder as it relates to DID. Identifying immersive daydreaming as a contributing factor to this change in presentation may help reduce the number of false negatives AND false positives.

I can also very much understand why some might find the particular language of "daydreaming" and "character" to be invalidating towards their headmates, there are cultural connotations to those words. This may largely be due to the research being done into non plural patients but that is clearly changing. There certainly seems to be acknowledgement of the autonomy that can be found when analysing MD through a plural lens though so this language may certainly change as endogenic plurality is brought into the literature more.

[hattiestgal]

I want to ask about plurality and system stuff, but I don't have a specific question in mind aside from like, how your syscovery went, and I'm not sure how personal of a question that is, so... I dunno, just infodump about something else if you're not comfortable talking about that. I'm just generally curious to hear about what things are like for other systems.

I believe you're asking about how I figured out I was a system? If so, it starts off a little intense, but I'd love to share!

So- it was a good few months back now, but I figured it out when my girlfriend was visiting... at the time, my brain was also gearing itself for a complete uprooting of the self due to me suddenly not quite clicking with Riley (my now headmate) as a sona anymore. You can actually see some posts about it from around that time where I was absolutely distressing.

Anyhow, this eventually turned into thoughts of possibly being a system- composed of (at the time) Riley, and another person, which I had puzzled out to be Jack (Another now headmate of mine) at the time. This turned out to be kind of true, not too soon after Jack properly spoke through me, and was around to see my girlfriend off when I was feeling emotionally unstable. Not too soon after that, Riley (who didn't realize they were a separate self from me) got left to their own devices for a bit, and immediately got pumped about the whole idea (and being VERY energetic at my aufiences and friends, ehehe). Violette popped up not too soon after, and well- the rest is history so far!

To elaborate on the proper catalyst that had started the rift between Riley and I, it turns out I had simply just drawn them in some situations they felt uncomfortable being depicted in, and was finally starting to give me some pushback. We've talked things out since then, though, and we are on very happy terms now... if their regualar teasing and otherwise friendly banter is anything to go off of, ehehe

[anonbinary-culture-is]

Pinned Post

This is a blog for anonbinary people to talk about our experiences.

main @entropy-sea-system

this blog is mainly run by Firelight, I'm 25 (system is bodily 21), and use ey/em and some neopronouns. I'm genderqueer, alexigender, and genderflor, and id as some xenogenders, and anonbinary is one of my labels!!

The header and pfp are alternate anonbinary flags I and my headmate Rift made !!

This blog is sfw (mainly bc we would have no way of knowing ages of anons and are not comfortable with minors sending in nsfw asks) - which means no detailed talk of sexual acts (sexual attraction mentions that don't mention sex acts are not really nsfw, those are fine, also mentioning questioning regarding transition goals or dysphoria influencing sexual orientation or attraction is fine, we will tag it accordingly as genitalia mention or dysphoria if it applies, we also tag vent submissions as vent if anyone wants to filter these tags)

What is Anonbinary?

Anonbinary is a gender identity which means your gender is not binary or labelled as nonbinary.

One who is anonbinary may identify as genders other than binary genders and nonbinary, or may not identify with any genders at all. One may be fluid between anonbinary and genders that happen to be in the binary or nonbinary.

We will block rather than having a full dni list, sometimes we block for reasons unrelated to discourse also. That being said, this space is safe for all neurodivergent people, ppl who id w mogai labels, ppl w 'contradictory' labels (gaybian, mspec gay and lesbian, lesboy, turigirl, etc.), all system types. And if you disagree this page won't be one you want to be on anyway.

(-Firelight)

[oil-bh]

We really should post more. Also it’s funny that we’re branded as Michael and Apricot when they’ll go complete weeks without even fronting lmaoo

We’ll probably rebrand sometime to be more collective

Which regrettably also means a new intro post

Anyway have some art. I think our style is relatively consistent enough? If you’re interested in commissioning us or whatever, our Discord is oilbh and we do Nitro comms

These are all over the past like month or so and made by various headmates

Can you tell that we have no idea how to use Tumblr

Headmate artists are as follows

1, 5, and 8 : Asier/Yvett (self portraits)

2 : Phil/Vida (self portrait)

3, 4 : Rift (self portrait) (unfinished)

6 , 7 : Moxxie (fanart/self portrait, Ranboo faitive)

8 : Michael (self portrait)

10 : Me (Valentín) (self portrait)

11 : Equinox (self portrait)

12 : Mangle/Cupid (gift for one of our partner systems)

13 : Weston (self portrait)

14 : Vane (self portrait)

15, 16 : Cellbit/César (gay yearning doodles of me)

[kakusu-shipping]

Any thoughts on Sun/Moon (fnaf) orrrrr also I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on Bakugou/Izuku (bnha)!!!

Oooh I'll do both (in separate posts)!!! Thankyou very much for asking!!!

Sun/Moon - Ship It!

What made you Ship it?

I was neutral on them until Help Wanted 2, something about the way Moon talks in the game really softened me to him, and a potential dynamic showed itself to me.

Favorite things about the Ship?

Caregiver/Regressor style dynamic. I adoooore the idea of Regressor Moon sense hearing his "Merry-go-round broke down 🥺" voice line in HW2 he's SO babie to me.

I also just like, between alters romance sense learning more about plurality. It's cute, and there's not a lot of opportunities to have that sort of ship in fiction. Having a blast!!

Unpopular Opinion?

Do not separate!!! Other DA shippers wanna split them up into separate bodies to ship them together but that's missing the point (to me)!!! They should be silly headmates forever...

Bonus Headcanons!

Sun and Moon were a lot closer when they worked at the Superstar Theater, rather than the daycare. The stress of suddenly being in charge of kids caused a bit of a rift to form between them, especially when Moon stopped regressing because of it.

Back then Sun was far more confident, and was the leading flirter in their dynamic. He loved to be dramatic, big shows of affection. Moon adored being charmed

When Moon regressed it was mostly for fun and to play an audience to Sun as he practiced the next day's shows. Little Moon is very active, likes toys like his mini merry-go-round and Sun's theater shows. Big Moon is where the sleepy persona comes from, as he's always half awake

Eclipse is a third alter formed from trauma of being in the daycare, working for Vannessa, and harming kids in their care. They're mostly unaware of Sun and Moon's past together and are mostly focused on the future well being of the daycare

[interstellarchaosss]

A polycule across our system and the Sparks system (@sparkssystem)! Sketchy because this is our first time drawing so many people in one image and this is also pose practice.

List of who is who in the readmore.

[THIS IS A GIFT, DO NOT USE]

Please do not use our art without our permission. Feel free to ask to use for icons and similar things, but we have the right to say no.

Program: IbisPaint X Approx. Time: 6h Original Date: 02.04.24 Commission/Trade/Collab status in bio/pinned! Art Of:

Back Row:

Rift [Headmate]

Merlin [Headmate]

Shintora [Headmate, @sparkssystem]

Front Row:

Martin [Headmate]

Vince (Possessed!Hunter) [Headmate]

Kishan [Headmate, @sparkssystem]

(System Member Artist: Merlin)

[entropy-sea-system]

Thinking abt..system name or system tag as replacement for given last name??? Bc Im afamilial as hell and don't need a name associated w family of origin but what the fuck do I do with the whats your werewolf name post..

[exo-meme-ories]

Whenever new headmates form we always have to give them "the system talk" (aka, "you're in a system now *explains what a system is*")

Our newest headmate went through time rifts for fun and constantly fucked with time, so they were like "oh yeah I knew this would happen. This is normal"

i mean,,,

[somepoetwannabe]

We're upset. I know we're upset. But when I try to talk about these feelings or think about them, my headmates keep trying to push me out of fucking front and go "NO NOT A GOOD IDEA!!!"

I don't want to ignore my fucking feelings! You guys might feel better ignoring them, pretending nothing's happened and it's all alright but I'm not! I'm not prepared to lose our only fucking friend and just give up on trying to make things work just because we keep failing. I'll keep failing. I'll keep hurting. But I can feel us become someone they talk to less and less, I feel how we no longer feel safe near them and I am aware how newly split headmates don't recognise them as a friend. I am aware. I can't push it back. Stop pushing me back just because I want to deal with this please. We're losing our only friend and it is out of my control - not just because I can't control them, but because I can't control parts of myself.

I hate this disorder. It's such a horrible fucking feeling to have parts of you do things you see as bad or wrong or incorrect and have no fucking control over it. I have no fucking control over my own life. I don't have My. Own. Life.

Fuck you all. Shove someone in front who doesn't care and let us lose our only friend. The only person we can rely on, or we thought we could at least. Let's just lose everything in the name of avoiding any bad fucking emotion ever. You're all stupid fucking idiots. You'd think if we were able to handle horrendous fucking abuse then we'd be able to handle a rift in a friendship but no. No. Because we're all pathetic fucking idiots with a victim complex and would rather be stubborn in our ways instead of accommodating or enduring in order to keep others in our lives. This is why everyone leaves. Fuck you all

[livseses]

A fun little system experience we feel like sharing!

So we are avid ttrpg players. We have been playing and running ttrpgs for nearly half of our body's life. And something interesting we've been able to pick up on looking back at the various characters we've played, is who played them!

Like, this isn't so much of a "headmate made themselves known through roleplaying" thing to us. Rather, over the years, and in different games, different headmates have been the ones to come up with and develop the different characters we've played. We always thought of it like any of our other thoughts: that thinking primarily is a practice of listening to the mental contents that are just flung at you from somewhere in the back, rather than actively thinking them up.

So we look back at that pyrokineticist we played in our friend's Rifts game and sure enough that was all Foxy. Or we look at our shapeshifting plural character in the DnD game we were in right before Moxie figured out the system, and sure enough, that was Moxie. Or when Moxie played that vampire character in Chronicles of Darkness, but we got tired and I was really excited about playing a Sin-Eater so we switched characters. Hell, a lot of our habit of switching characters in various campaigns probably comes more from our plurality than our ADHD.

The thing that leaves us a touch dissatisfied comes from the characters we can't pin down; the characters we played that don't feel like any of us; the ones that felt like Nyroka before she showed up. I miss those ones. I hope they're doing okay.

-Faye