#singlet-plural relationships

[in-mutual-weirdness]

On Dating My Partners

Here is a personal essay on being in a singlet-plural relationship, originally posted on cohost (RIP) and subsequently onto dreamwidth as well. Enough people liked it both times that I'm sharing it here as well.

So, dating and plurality are topics that get covered a fair bit online, when you know the right places to look. Tumblr's got a not-insignificant corner, even if I don't go looking for it. Unfortunately, the broader public not knowing a ton about plurality also means that there's a lot of facets of my relationships that I don't really get to share or talk about. I had a handful of opportunities to write about it recently, so now I'm making a big ol' post about it here. In case it helps people learn, or understand something a little better, or maybe gives some folks an idea of what their lives could look like.

Also! If you want to hear more about dating from plural folks themselves, I'd recommend you check out the work of LB Lee (on dreamwidth and itch.io), and the many videos available on the plural events youtube channel, the archive for the Plural Positivity World Conference. There are other written accounts on people's personal blogs and youtube channels, but these are the ones I personally go back to often.

--- 2 Girlfriends, 1 Butch, and Assorted Roommates in a Trench Coat My partner(s) and I started dating when we both thought we were cisgender. We'd figured out our respective flavors of queer, more or less, but transness was something that emerged over the course of our relationship together. There's nothing quite as fun as t4t high-fiving on the escalators as you swap places in the gender binary.

Of course, even with our established baseline of queerness (and even after my partner had already spoken to me about being nonbinary), I was nervous coming out to them at the time. It's a big deal after all, to tell your partner that you're not the person who you (or they) thought you were. In a lot of ways transness is an unfurling of what was already there, and a partner who is flexible and compatible enough will be able to accept this change as who you are, and keep growing alongside you. But also. How do you know if the person you are going to become is someone who will be compatible with them, or if they will stay compatible with you?

All this to say, I think in a very real way, our existing experience with coming out and transitioning in the context of a relationship prepared us both to better handle the syscovery when it happened.

I'm not gonna like, go into it in a lot of detail. That's really not my story to tell. I will say that I owe a lot to the educational and outreach efforts of folks who were already out and plural, from the 20-teens onward. My partnersys sorted their selves-discovery out with the help of some close plural friends and many good written resources around plurality, questioning, and figuring things out. Meanwhile I'd also benefited from casual internet friendships with both that same system and other systems who I'd met among other internet communities. As many of y'all already know, few things help better than simply getting to know people from the identity/affinity group and these folks becoming part of your normal. And several of them helped me way at the beginning when all of this was new and a little confusing and scary because it was new and not yet known or predictable.

Eventually, people in the system started taking on names, and figuring themselves out as individuals. And that's when I started getting to know them as them and not just as the gestalt single person I'd known up until then. And being able to do that has been one of the best parts of my relationship.

One of the major, baseline requirements toward respecting plurality is being able to treat different system members as independent autonomous people. Yeah, they're a collective in the sense of being all in the same body, and there's gonna be a degree of memory & knowledge sharing depending on the system in question. But like, they're still separate entities from each other, which means you gotta forge a relationship with each of them as individuals. What was once a relationship with a single person now is a multifaceted web across multiple people, with different comfort levels, boundaries, and personal tastes. That was the first major piece of advice I got, when I binged through a DID youtuber's channel[1], and watched the video their partner made.

In his case, he spoke about how his partner was Jess, the system host (not all systems have one, but this one did). The other system members were all distinct people who he forged unique relationships with. Some of them were still interested in physical affection/intimacy, while others weren’t, and they were simply roommates/friends. Even though they weren't all dating, however, he saw forming a relationship with them and getting to know them as an essential part of his relationship with Jess, and part of his duty as a partner. These were important people in her life, after all, and at minimum he didn't want to be an asshole. So he spent time with all of them, talked to them about their interests, and did stuff they liked together. No matter who was out, he respected them as a person, respected their autonomy and their boundaries when they differed from his partner’s, and didn’t treat them as peripheral or disposable, or do things like ask them to bring his partner back out, please. (Fewer ways to make someone feel unwanted than to directly ask them to get someone else instead. They have a place in this body and in this world as much as anyone else in the system does.)

Some systems do date as a collective, where every member participates in the romantic relationship. My partnersys does not, however, so our relationship is much more like the one from the youtube channel. Three of the most common fronters are my partners (the aforementioned two gfs and one butch [Edit: at time of this repost, we're now married]). The rest of the system members are either close friends, or similarly are people I care about because of their connection to the system and my partners. If they don't show up externally often, I may not be very close to them, but like. They're still people in my family unit and household.

All of us are tied by our mutual connections to the members I am dating, and our lives intersect closely due to us living together and all the system members sharing a body. Not all of the system members share romantic love with me, whether due to incompatibility, personal disinterest, or stuff like "being 12 years old". To a degree, I was already used to dealing with these sorts of incompatibilities or drastic changes in boundaries - they just used to manifest as shutdowns where my partner would suddenly withdraw from affection and not want to be touched. Some of that was more typical "I feel like shit and don't want to be touched", but some of that was also people with very different boundaries sharing a body in an atmosphere where they were socially expected to be available and receptive to touch at all times, and failing to do so was a mark against them as a Good Partner. (Even if I knew to respect sudden withdrawals, none of us are immune to societal messaging.) If anything, knowing what's behind it has made it much easier to accommodate and meet everyone's differing needs. It's made me better at being a truly safe person to be around, because I know they're there and can respond accordingly.

It is nice being able to date my 3 partners. In the same way that transness is an uncovering of what was there, I recognize aspects of each of the system members in ways they acted before discovering plurality. We have the many years of previous relationship history to build from, but it is a joyful thing to get to learn each of them as themselves. The things they like, the specific dynamics we build between each other, the ways they understand themselves and their relationships. All 3 of them are therian and bring those aspects of their identity into their relationships as well (i.e. ways they like to give/receive affection, ways they structure their relationships. The wolf has his pack, and one of the dragons has her hoard - each valued, unique, but never given primacy or ownership over her. I will be her husband, but she won't be my wife.) Getting to know them means each of them get to be loved as themselves, and like. Yeah, I am loved many times over because there are more of them. I love the cheerful energetic affection of Quinn, the gruff protective masculinity of Ace, the devastating femme elegance of Orchid. Each of them show up so differently even within the same body - in language, in voice, in mannerisms. I love how each of them love me in different ways, and how that feeds different facets of me. I love being shared by them, and the ways they'll tease me about each other. I love the act of caring for each other, and the ways those make our collective lives better because their needs are being met.[2] I love the ways that these have all added to my life.

--- Intersections with Polyamory: or, Sharing the Trenchcoat On top of me having this web of relationships, each of them also have their own partnerships with others. Some of these are spread across multiple bodies, and some of these are other folks within a single system. I make the distinction because sharing a body and therefore having to share consciousness and control of said body imposes some practical limitations on your daily life.

For one thing, you straight up cannot control who's at the wheel at any given time. Some systems have no control over switching, but even those who can control switching and consciously hand off front time to each other don't always have that control. Sometimes people might white-knuckle from stress and get stuck in front, to the point that even if they try to let someone else show up, they'll resurface by accident. Sometimes people run out of steam sooner than expected, or are struggling with something that makes being present too painful, and have to hand it off to someone else. Others might spontaneously show up because something has pulled them to front, or they get so excited they barge past everyone else.[3] They might be one of your partners, they might be someone else. It means that even if you're dating multiple people and hold them in equal esteem, you won't always get to spend as much time with them as you want. Or they might want to spend part of their limited slice of front time talking to other people, who they also have relationships and obligations to. Time is still a very present constraint, when the same 24 hrs and limited physical energy must be shared across multiple people.

Even if you can request people to get someone else...well, see what me and that other partner said in the previous section. That is not a request that can be made lightly, if you value everyone's autonomy. If you make someone feel unwanted, or disrespected, or less important/real than the others, you are Being A Dick. And that unequal treatment causes internal conflict for the system. Simply from a pragmatic point, you make shit worse for your partner if you cannot be nice to the people sharing their head.

In terms of how that impacts relationships and communication, for me it means having to save shit for the next time they're around. If I want to talk to Ace about a book we both read, I gotta wait til he's around. If I found some cute gay art for Quinn, I save it if she's out of town, so to speak. Yeah, if I post the link in our DMs, she'll be able to see it eventually, but I can't just keep spamming Quinn-links into the channel when someone else is there. It gets tiresome for them, especially if their interests don't overlap.

Their level of internal communication means that I can mention stuff to others and they can usually pass it on, or have a solid guess on what that person's response would be. For example, when I wrote a book review post and talked about reading it with Zanj (one of the "roommate" suite), I sent that passage to Quinn for a onceover before hitting post. Zanj eventually also showed up to comment directly (another reason to be careful with direct communication - you may unseat the current person in front if the person you've summoned crowds them out). For bigger things, like taking on a roommate or making travel plans, or anything that needs direct input from everyone, you do just gotta wait. The opinion of one person won't necessarily reflect the opinion of another, and while they can discuss stuff internally to reach a collective decision, that shit also takes time. Some folks may be difficult to reach, or they may need to resolve an impasse first.

Sharing the trenchcoat here also refers to the complications of dating multiple people in the same body. It is important that you not forget who they are. I've had moments where one person was out more consistently for a very long stretch of time, and when a different partner was out for a while, I treated them like the first person out of habit - got surprised by something the second partner did differently, or when they expressed an interest that the first partner didn't have. If you can see how that would be frustrating or hurtful to people who didn't share a body - congratulations. You now know exactly why that felt shitty for the second partner.

It is also important that you share independent time with each person. Yes, they have collective memory, so a date night I enjoyed with Ace is something that all three of them can remember (and I'm pretty sure Quinn stole his leftovers the next day for lunch). But like. This follows once again from the basic principle of "they are independent autonomous people." They will want different things. One may enjoy much more casual intimate touch, another may be asexual and disinterested in that kind of touch. The ways you banter with each other or spend your time together will be different. And like, shared memory doesn't mean they will feel the same immediacy to that memory - memories Belong to the person they happened to, even if you share the same brain. Quinn and Orchid know about the date, but they don't feel connected to the memory in the same way because it happened to someone else. If I want to date them, I have to date them. Otherwise all I'm giving them is secondhand affection and care. Not a great way to prove that you care about and value them as a person.

At the same time, this relationship arrangement is also different from previous poly arrangements I've had with people across multiple bodies. It's certainly cheaper to find shared housing with three partners if they're all in the same meatsuit. I don't have to navigate travel or scheduling in the same way - they handle the sharing of time among themselves, according to ability and circumstance. I just wake up and see who's around that day. And even if they're not in front, they can still be around. I have physical tokens and reminders around - a plushie they like, or a necklace they own. I already liked keeping orchid flowers in the house for personal and cultural reasons - now I have one more. The person who's in front may also pass on commentary or reactions, and I briefly get to glimpse them from their life inside. They all have a shared collective history, and we draw from the same 8-year accumulated bank of in-jokes and shared language. They rotate in and out of my daily life with ease, immediacy, and fluidity. It was different from the much slower work of building from scratch with someone entirely new. But it is nice to do that work as well. There is a different kind of novelty in getting to know someone with an entirely different life history, or physical body. This doesn't diminish the value of my partners, or make them less real as individuals. Just a difference in circumstances.

--- Why write this post? Plurality is pretty damn normalized in a fair few corners of the internet. I can track my arc of education and acclimation from stigma to familiarity. But that didn't mean I was prepared for it to enter my life in this way. It's been a net good, but a lot of it was stumbling through a significant period of uncertainty and having to figure shit out as we went. Some of that is unavoidable, because paradigm shifts are kind of just like that. My partners couldn't tell me shit they hadn't figured out yet, and they had to establish their own baselines first before we could reach a point of stability. I think about transition and relationships, and the difference between partnerships that do or don't survive a gender transition. It's no mistake that as more people become familiar with transness, there are more relationships that survive intact. Sometimes people change in a way that does make them incompatible, and that's always a possibility even with partners who do understand and support you. I would be lying if I said that all of this was easy, or that it didn't require a lot of effort and patience along the way. And sometimes that is a source of incompatibility as well.[4]

But also I don't think it takes a saint to date a plural person, anymore than it takes a saint to date a trans person, or a disabled person, or to date interracially. The partner from the youtube channel knew very little about DID when he first started dating his partner as a teen. But his reaction to hearing her say there were other people in her head was to go, "okay, so when can I meet them?" Stigma and oppression make things harder, by exerting pressure on relationships and priming people toward suspicion, scorn, and fear, instead of the curiosity and open-mindedness necessary to support you as partners. It is scarier to face down a paradigm shift in your relationship if you have no understanding, or a misinformed understanding of what that change will entail. I think about "trans widows" who see their exes' transitions as harm done to them, or see their exes as fundamentally dishonest or deceitful people. I think about common public perception of plurality, and the ableism bound up in it. I think about what I might have done with my fear and confusion, had I not found safe and reliable sources of information, had I not already been cross-trained through my immersion in transness, had I not had safe avenues to process and handle those raw feelings without dumping them onto my partner(s). I think about what would've happened to my partner(s), had their selves-actualization come at the cost of a foundational relationship they'd built their existing life around. There is a world where this went much, much worse. I know the outcome we got is not something that everyone gets, and christ but I want to make that a little more common. I want to help even one person get a better outcome. So here's my amateur roundup of things you need to know, if a partner comes out as plural.

Don't panic. It may introduce a lot of new problems or factors you don't know how to deal with yet. But you can and will learn. People have done this before, and will be able to tell you how to do it. You just have to find the people and places to ask.

Be supportive. Selves-discovery is a complicated and scary process. They're gonna be uncovering a lot and learning a lot of necessary skills on the fly. And you, as an established stabilizing presence in their lives, will be an important source of support through this process. Be ready to listen to them, no matter how strange or contradictory the things they're saying might sound. They may describe things that sound physically impossible, like phantom limbs, or having teleported into the body from somewhere else, or feeling like they're a different age, ethnicity, or species from the body. They may vacillate between believing they're plural or thinking they're a fraud and it's all fake. Believe them about what is true for them in that moment. Brain stuff is weird and symbolically driven - your perception, especially if it's persistent, is real enough to directly impact you, and flat disavowal doesn't make the impact or perception go away. You have to respond to the impact, and do what makes your life easier to live. Even in a case of clear-cut denial, when you see pretty clear evidence of plurality, you have to meet the denier where they're at. Otherwise you'll piss them off or make them feel unheard.

Be a safe person. If they ask you to keep their confidence, keep it. If someone new shows up and they're really scared/confused/sad/angry, help them de-escalate. They may not know who you are, or who/where they are, and need grounding. Find out how they're feeling, and what they need, and help them get it if possible. You may need to use the dementia toolkit (i.e. if they ask for something that isn't possible/safe, like "going home" to a place that no longer exists). Try to meet the need that's driving the request, whether that's feeling safe, or having autonomy, or wanting something familiar. I've sent scared kids off to work with a childhood stuffed animal, and while that didn't fix everything, it did help them calm down enough for an adult member to take the helm.

Give your partner space to discover things. This is the most important lesson I learned from transness in relationships. Open a trans subreddit or online community space and you will find stories aplenty of partners who tried to bargain folks out of their identity, or who imposed their desires over a trans person's exploration and self-definition. The same thing applies here. I kept my theories and thoughts to myself unless I was prompted. I let them tell me who they were, and asked questions about things I was curious about so I could learn more. And I also gave them space to be uncertain, so they could figure things out at their own pace instead of being forced to provide false reassurance or certainty. If they changed their name and pronouns, if they wanted to start presenting differently then they had before, I didn't get in their way. It will be new and will take some getting used to, but the principle is similar to transness. Here are people who have never gotten to develop an independent identity. You gotta let them do it. They will be happier this way.

Build your own support network and knowledge base. This may be difficult if you don't have many people in your life who know about plurality. My partner(s)' syscovery was also the creation of a new closet to maintain, and I needed safe outlets to handle my stress and uncertainty. For the latter, this meant turning to youtube and educational resources to learn things and dispel uncertainties. For the former, this meant hitting up online community spaces which had no connection to my partner(s) and asking folks who were knowledgeable about plurality to help me out. I could be scared, or frustrated, or messy, and return to my partner(s) after releasing that shit so it didn't drive my behavior toward them. You may also end up turning to loads of different people for their experience in completely unrelated things - an AAC user friend helped me a lot with supporting a system member who didn't talk out loud. You truly don't know what new experiences or identity axes each system member will fall along.

Respect everyone in the system. This includes angry or self-destructive folks. They may show up and try to sabotage shit, or say really angry and hateful things toward you or your partner. You don't have to lie down and take it, but you do have to remember that they're still part of the system, and they may likely be a permanent resident. They're also caught up in a situation they cannot control, with people they have to share a brain and body with, and cannot reasonably make any distance from. It would be surprising if no one flipped their lid from time to time. Try to establish trust and understanding - show them that you're willing to respect and listen to them. That is a much better basis for establishing improved relationships once they calm down, and are given the choice to cooperate with the collective.

I hope this was helpful, and thank you for reading. When I originally posted it on cohost, I'd intended it mostly as a chance to talk about my relationships and as an educational guide for singlets. What followed was a lowkey overwhelming amount of positive reception from plural folks, and I'm kind of jazzed as hell that I could write something like this well enough that many of y'all liked it too. So thanks for your cosign, I'm glad I could make something useful and good. Also! I would love to hear from others about their relationships. A lot of this stuff is individual, and I wasn't able to articulate some of the major points from here until coming across folks who experienced it differently. And it is nice hearing people talk about their relationships, and to swap stories with each other. ----------

[1]: For those curious, it was MultiplicityandMe. Very much a textbook DID system, and while I had to move past the DID framework into other forms of plurality (which can function in very different ways), their videos helped me a lot during the early syscovery days. Coincidentally, they achieved their final fusion goal right as I started watching them. [2]: One of the fun ones is that Ace is chronically sleepy as hell, due to being really badly understimulated. He needs a lot of physical activity, so recently I've started just fucking wrestling with him whenever he shows up. It is like night and day, how much happier and energetic he gets afterward. And even though I can't actually beat him, or get tired before he does, it's still just Fun to do. At the old apartment, he'd also sometimes just fuck off for an hour long walk, to basically the same effect. [3]: A particularly affectionate member once had to be "picked up like a puppy dog and dragged 10 ft back" after they stole someone else's designated cuddle time. It was extremely endearing [4]: I knew folks who broke up with partners because their exes couldn't adequately handle their mental health challenges. If you have frequent panic attacks, and your partner tends to spiral out instead of being able to calm you down, that's a major incompatibility even if this person is otherwise perfectly lovely

[infwctednyacifier]

kinda wanna make a " system - dating - culture - is " blog about systems who are in poly , aripluric , etc romantic relationships since there ' s really a lack of romance - related plural blogs and it ' d be nice to have a blog about just romance in the plural community where that involve systems , singlets , both , etc . plus , i ' m / we ' re aripluric ( singlet - dating system ) plus in a poly relationship ( manifesting ) and it ' d just be cute to have a blog overall celebrating plural love !!!

what do y ' all think though?

After fixing an issue, the blog is ACTUALLY officially up!

[wonderhorror-sys]

being very willing to date in-sys and absolutely never outside of that is very awkward. not aro enough for the aro community but my relationships are "too weird" and "dont count" to most and i dont have "real" ones so what am i supposed to do

[sleepingdragoninn]

A System's Guide (to Plurality)

We have a new four-chapter zine out!

It's a plurality primer, but one that's intended for systems just as much as singlets - exploring a diverse definition of systemhood, the difficulties and joys of plural experiences and relationships, and the core assumptions that fuel personal insecurity and exclusion.

It's available online, or as a printable - check it!

[syscest]

Hey uh, not sure if there's anything to elaborate on wrt the "wanting to be plural is a symptom of being plural" post, but is that true? Because I've been avoiding that possibility, if only because I've been so sure that it isn't a possibility. I don't really know what I'm saying here it's just, could that post really be true?

So we thought we were the only ones selling this kind of perspective to people, but recently pluralrespect on neocities (which we already liked re: intrasys relationships) started including something similar, but with more structure.

It breaks down like this: Singlets choose to interpret their personal experiences as being one person. It gets privileged as the default because that's how we're socialised, but a (usually unconscious) choice is being made to view all their experiences - including kinda plural-coded stuff like code switching, masking, genderfluidity, weird dreams, varying vibes day-on-day, internal conflict, etc - as representing a singular identity.

There are also a lot of people who's experiences can't realistically be interpreted singletwise - folks that experience switches with totally separate memory is an extreme example. The plural explanation is the only thing that makes any sense of it at all.

This creates this big grey area that encompasses all those interpreted-singlets with kinda-plural experiences, and those interpreted-plurals who could reasonably interpret themselves as singlets (again) if they wanted to. Within this grey area, you have the wiggle room to observe your personal experiences, and conceptualise your identity one way, or the other way.

One of those ways might feel more "right" to you, more sensical, more comfortable, safer - so in that sense, yeah. wanting to be plural is a symptom of being plural. Fantasising about what it would be like to understand yourself in the other way is probably a sign that you should try it - see how thinking of yourself that way feels, just for a day or whatever. If it's too weird, go back. If not, keep going.

Now, letting yourself have an open mind may invite experiences that make a singlet interpretation less sensible - so only test the waters if both possible conclusions are safe for you to have. Outside of that, you can always change your mind - so, give it a shot.

[the-indigo-symphony]

When it comes to queerness, I think a lot of pluralphobia comes from the way that most singlets just do not accept that the plural things they do not understand and will likely never understand can have very large effects on our identities. They (mostly, often, generally – there are exceptions, but exceptions are not the majority) don't get what it's like to not remember what you were assigned at birth or what parts your body has, they don't get what it's like to view your body as nothing more than a flesh vessel you're not all that attached to, they don't get what it's like to have memories of an entirely different life, they don't get what it's like to not have any personal experience with growing up because you came into the world bodily an adult, they don't get what it's like to sense someone else's feelings or confuse them for your own; they don't get what it's like to have to navigate the confusing line(s) between polyamory and monogamy, or between different kinds of relationships, because you may not feel the same way tomorrow as you did today, and tomorrow's "you" might not be you at all, but someone else.

They can conceptualize these experiences as Plural Things but cannot comprehend that if a Plural Thing affects your gender, sexuality, relationships, etc., then it's also gonna be a Queer Thing nine times out of ten. When it's a Plural Thing, they can just shrug and say they don't get it. But when it's a Queer Thing? When it becomes something that challenges their understanding of queerness? When we take up space because our plurality and queerness cannot be separated into neat little boxes? That's when they throw a fit.

And I'm not surprised, because I saw the exact same thing happen to autigender people a few years ago when they blurred the lines between what was an Autism Thing and a Queer Thing. People love to talk about intersectionality and say, "we need weirder queers", but they can't handle it when someone dares to say, "This thing that affects the entirety of my life naturally affects my queerness, too, since gender/sexuality/the relationships I am or am not in with other people/my relationship with my body and what I choose to do with it/being queer is/are a part of my life."

Tough shit. You don't get us. I thought that didn't matter? Wasn't that exactly what you were claiming not too long ago, that you need to respect someone even if you don't "get" them? Now, I'm seeing so-called "inclusionists" backpedal on that, but tough shit, we're not going to silence ourselves so you can continue thinking of queerness as this neat, simple thing that never overlaps with other categories. We're here, we're queer, and we're more-than-one, too.

I'm plural and queer and those things cannot be separated. Nice to meet ya.

[ozzyfromthecafeteria]

oversharing at approximately 6:46 p.m. on a wednesday

hm! why is it thinking thoughts that upset it!

[piratesparrotdraconian]

sometimes when i go outside and look up at the trees, i realize just how small i am. and i like that. i am a complex organism, living in a complex ecosystem, living on a complex ball of rock/lava/water, living in a universe with screaming black holes and exploding stars, with billions of other species and the remains of those extinct living with me.

i'm so small. does it really affect you if i'm nonhuman? if i'm transgender? if i'm vincian? if i have a complicated relationship with being a plural or singlet? if i'm an age dreamer? if i'm asexual and arospec?? if i'm nonbinary and a trans man?

[eversionimpulse]

How We Learned to Front on Command (and maybe you can too!)

a post by Naomi (she/her) about how we use voice and body language to control who's fronting

-

When we first realized that we were plural, back in 2014, we had no control whatsoever over who was fronting. There was no way of passing the baton back and forth, not that either of the alters who existed at that time would have wanted to. We didn’t have amnesia about each others’ experiences, but we essentially lived separate lives that intersected with each other at random. One alter would front for a long time, and then a random circumstance in our life would force the other one to the front, who would front until she was forced out. Things continued like this for a while. One of the alters was much more active than the other anyways.

Around 2018, we first started trying to actively pass fronting back and forth. We would do it by thinking very hard at each other, by getting into situations the other would want to front in, or occasionally by trying what was basically a summoning ritual. The first method was unreliable, the second method was a lot of work, and the third method took too much time and too much obviously weird behavior to be used in most social situations. Things continued like this for a while, too, until life circumstances led one of those two alters to suppress the other entirely for a couple years.

In 2020, our relationship to plurality changed quite a bit. The temporary singlet we had become realized she was miserable that way, and tried to mentally reach out to where the other alter had once been. In response, I began to exist. I’m not the alter she was reaching out to (who was at that point definitively gone), but I had a lot of her traits, especially at first. It was a messy awakening, and again we mostly switched based on circumstances or with considerable mental effort. However, after a while, I noticed my mannerisms starting to become noticeably my own. This is where we had a bit of a breakthrough.

I had the thought that I liked being different, and that it would be nice to assign mannerisms more strongly to each of us: voices and body language, mainly. So I set about deciding what kind of voice I’d like to have, and she decided what kind she’d like to have. I developed a low, languid, fry-heavy style of speech with a lot of intonation to it. She spoke as fast as she could think, with lots of vocal pauses and a more casual, breezy tone. I caught myself making poised and calculated movements, hip-driven and limp-wristed. She lurched through her day a little off-balance, letting her full strength fall where it may. One day, she tried to imitate the way I moved, only to discover that after a second or two, it was no longer her imitating, but me fronting. That’s how we figured it out.

So, to stop being coy about it, here’s the idea: by deliberately attaching different vocal and physical (and typing) mannerisms to different alters, by noticing the differences between us and cultivating or exaggerating them, we’ve trained ourselves to front on command, and I think that perhaps you can too. The way I see it, we’ve managed to anchor mannerisms so firmly into our individual personalities that to perform the mannerisms of an alter is to be that alter. Except in situations where one of us is really having a hard time fronting (or isn’t willing to), imitating another alter will bring that alter to the front.

You can think about it like an actor getting into character, which brings me to the actual technical advice. My number one piece of advice is to develop ways of moving or speaking that, at least to you, make each of your alters really feel like themselves. At first this will feel like clumsy exaggeration, and probably like you're just pretending, but once you get a feel for it you’ll be able to settle into something more natural. Whichever behaviors or vocal tones you want to use as a switching trigger should be ones that are fairly distinct to each alter and not shared by others. If you don’t have those, then make them up! Try out different characteristic voices and behaviors until each of your alters finds at least one thing that makes them feel like themselves.

It can really help in this case to use specific anchor phrases, usually paired with a gesture. I’ll run through our anchors here as an example. The anchor we use to bring Cass to the front is to sigh, slouch our shoulders, and wince out “sure” in the sort of breathy growl he tends to speak in. For Jules, we perk our head up as if noticing something, take a deep breath, and let out a higher-pitched, friendly “yeah!” on the exhale as if we’ve been asked for a favor. For me, we roll our head back and forth, cracking our neck, then shake the tension out of our upper body, find a comfortable pose with our shoulders back, and go “hmmm” nice and deep. Elise is new as of writing this, but for now it seems like we can get it to front by ceasing to try to make any facial expression at all, looking directly at a (real or imagined) conversation partner, and giving a monotone “hello.” And for Marceline, we tuck our elbows in tight to our sides, press our knees together, and say “ok” in her distinctively nasal voice. We don’t always do this full routine in order to switch, but it’s the guaranteed version we rely on if we can’t do it either by thinking at each other or with just vocal tone. Yours don’t have to look exactly like this either. You could use smaller or larger gestures than we do, or you could use full sentences as anchors. Ours are one word because they’re essentially out-loud responses to having been silently asked to front. 

So, why learn to do this? I’m sure the idea of switching on demand, for readers who can’t already do it, probably sounds pretty appealing. But just to spell it out: this helps us make sure that in situations where one alter feels safer than another, or where one alter’s skills are more valuable than another, we get to decide who is there and experiencing that situation. It lets me front in situations where we need to be confident and assertive, it lets Marceline front when we’re in pain and need to avoid using up our limited energy, it lets Cass make small talk with strangers in public. It can also help to make sure than an alter who is getting distressed can switch out and cool off instead of having a meltdown. But it also has some unexpected benefits- developing distinctive voices and mannerisms on purpose can keep us from bleeding into each other or merging at times when the boundaries between us are getting porous. It also means that people we trust enough that they’ve spent time with all of us tend to eventually start recognizing who’s fronting without having to be told, which is a tremendously affirming feeling once it starts happening. Not only is it a useful tool, but it also makes us feel more like our own people. The cooperative aspect of this technique has made it easier for us to remember that we’re a team, too. It’s a nice feeling.

One question remains: when doesn’t this work? For us, it tends to be less effective when the alter being imitated is in a particularly unstable state, either emotionally or in terms of identity. We can also fall out of practice with it if we don’t use it openly for a while due to social isolation, even if it’s just relative isolation from people around whom we feel safe being openly plural. It comes back with practice, though. For others, we’re not sure how possible this technique is for systems who have significant amnesia between alters. I suspect it may also be less effective for systems who tend to go very long stretches of time without switching. Plurality is so varied and experiences with it so individualized (it is, after all, your life) that it’s really hard to say how well what works for us will work for others. If you try it out, though (or if you already do something like this), I’d love to hear about it! Tell me how well it works, how it feels, what your most exciting discoveries have been. This especially extends to systems whose experience of plurality differs dramatically from ours (number of alters, degree of separation, degree of amnesia). I’d love to know if systems unlike ours can use something like this, or if not, what it was like to try anyways.

[the-crown-constellation]

Happy Valentine's Day To (Plural Edition)

(PT: Happy Valentine's Day To (Plural Edition) /End PT)

Happy Valentine's Day to systems dating another or multiple other systems!

Happy Valentine's Day to systems who are dating one or multiple singlets!

Happy Valentine's Day to systems who are dating a combination of systems and singlets!

Happy Valentine's Day to system members in insystem relationships!

Happy Valentine's Day to system members in their own relationship seperate from the system!

Happy Valentine's Day to non-partnering systems and system members!

Happy Valentine's Day to systems who only partner up within their system!

Happy Valentine's Day to systems who's partner system is within their collective (via a sisasystem)!

Happy Valentine's Day to system members and systems in queerplatonic relationships!

Happy Valentine's Day to polyamorous systems and system members!

Happy Valentine's Day to systems of all origins!

Happy Valentine's Day to disordered and nondisordered systems!

Happy Valentine's Day to any and all systems who celebrate!

[sophieinwonderland]

Hiveminds and Multiplicity

When thinking about Hiveminds, I realized that hivemind connection is a spectrum, with many plural or plural-like experiences across it.

At the same time, both the beginning and end of this spectrum are singlet experiences. I decided to represent this with my own horseshoe theory.

Unconnected Individuals

This is pretty self-explanatory. These are totally separate individuals with their totally separate bodies. These are not even the slightest bit plural. Or, at least, not for any hivemind related reasons.

Mind-Linked

Now we drift into plural territory.

At this point, the individuals have some sort of mental link to each other. Mind links can range in levels of complexity.

At a low level, this may mean feeling each other's emotions or sensing when something really bad happens with no words or other communication. The most basic form of this might be "twintuition" in shows, where twins can magically sense when something happens to another no matter where they are.

At high levels, this can come with full verbal communication and other hallucinatory experiences.

Mind-linked systems often have strong barriers between them, only being able to transfer limited information, and maybe only in specific circumstances.

But the mind-linked are having plural experiences. They have someone else feeling their emotions, hearing their thoughts. It's very similar to sharing your mind with headmates. As this connection grows, they may end up becoming...

The Multiple Hivemind

At the top most point of the horseshoe, all mental barriers have been torn down.

They're still multiple people. They still have their own individual identities. But the link has become so great that they can read each other's thoughts whenever they want. They can share memories and skills freely between them, being both multiple and completely connected at the same time.

The Median Hivemind

Having achieved perfect connection, identity starts to erode. The median hivemind starts becoming its own collective identity.

Individuals in the median hivemind still retain agency and sense of self, but are also blending together more now and feel less like separate people.

The True Hivemind

At this point, there is no distinction between identity of the members. The hivemind is now one singlet spread across multiple bodies. A contrast and opposite to traditional plurality, which is multiple agents in one body.

...

We Can Get Weird With This...

Okay, that's a basic overview of how hiveminds work and evolve with singlets. But... what if some members of the hivemind aren't singlets?

Now things are going to get weird because hiveminds and mental links enable a lot of peculiar things that wouldn't be possible otherwise.

What if an old headmate goes dormant for years. In that time, the system becomes linked to a hivemind and specifically become either a median or true hivemind where they all identify as the same thing? What if that headmate comes back to find everyone else in the system is part of this hivemind with their identities melded into it, but the new headmate is still separate?

Or what if a multiple hivemind enabled headmates originating in the same body to front in multiple bodies at once, essentially allowing system hopping as a thing in those specific circumstances? What one of the members of an in-sys relationship used someone else's body (consensually) to be with their partner?

Or what if, for whatever reason, only one member of the system had the connection to the hivemind while the rest didn't?

Or... imagine that there are two systems with a strong mental link. They become a multiple hivemind with headmates able to speak freely to each other and even share an inner world. Then two headmates, one from each system, interact more and end up fusing. What does this mean? Which body is theirs? What happens if the link is severed?

Or in the same vein, what if a hivemind starts out as existing between 5 singlets? They become connected and end up being a multiple hivemind, and share an inner world. What if the hivemind created a tulpa together in this inner world, and none of the members are sure whose tulpa it actually counts as?

...

Anyway, if there's any takeaway from this, it should be that plurality is weird. Hiveminds are weird. And put them together and you get a weird sandwich. 😁

[quoigenic-anon]

"Created plurality helps some people, but some really only do it for fun or some kind of roleplay and I don't think that's okay."

That's a take I have encountered in a conversation. Let's talk about it.

(If there are misconceptions, feel free to notify me. The post is quite long and I could miss the point while speculating. The topic is very nuanced and every case can be discussed separately.)

Created plurality can be helpful. It can help you fight loneliness, created headmate can comfort you in difficult situation, created headmate can sometimes provide a new point of view. It can also be harmful, when a created headmate for some reason gets negative traits and/or their existence/behavior causes distress. Some people might use created plurality to make a headmate replace them.

But the general perception of created plurality is it being a positive experience, so let's focus on this branch and keep going.

Created plurality can be helpful, yes. When you create a headmate to help you, it means you're struggling with something.

But what if a person just makes a headmate... To look cool? For roleplay? For fun?

Firstly, why would it be cool, if we exclude "usefulness"?

In some cases it might be that a lot of one's friends are plural (note: it doesn't matter disordered or not), and plural-with-plural connection seems stronger than plural-with-singlet connection, so there appears a distance, and it's quite a logical (and, importantly, emotional) conclusion that being plural would restore the relationship. In some cases it might be a desire to have a connection with plural community due to lack of relationships with peers in real life. Common things build a connection, right? Created plurality may even seem cool with all the upsides I've already mentioned. So it can become a tool for bonding.

Secondly, why would one create headmates for roleplay?

This one is tricky. I guess it has roots in willomancy, when it became popular and it was a way to bring your favorite character (even your own OC) to life. Bringing connection with a character to a new level... Sounds like a tool for escapism for me.

Lastly... Why would one create headmates for fun?

Plurality is not something you meet every day. And I'm not talking about it being uncommon, no. Depression, for example, is discussed a lot and is known even among children (whether it's a good thing or not...) because society widely acknowledges it as an experience. There are books, films about depression. Plurality is not widely acknowledged. It's barely known. It's barely written in books or shown in films.

And when something is unknown, isn't it fun to try and explore? Also considering how many people talk about their positive experiences! It must be fun! It would also be very fun to tell friends about this unique experience!

... Sigh.

But rose-tinted glasses break when you look deeper in causes and consequences. Because creating a headmate means creating a sentient independent being. At first they highly rely on your effort and involvement. And later you will have to treat them as an equal, as a friend, not as a tool to reach the goal.

Want to look cool? It might stem from lack of self-esteem and the feeling of isolation from peers. But becoming plural in order to feel accepted in already small and unpopular community won't solve these problems.

Want to roleplay? It might stem from the need in escapism, which can also be a way to cope with stressful life situation. Created headmates rarely, very rarely become exactly like it was intended during the process. And you can't force them to change back. And if you once get bored of the play, good luck constantly dealing with a person you're not interested in because they can't go anywhere.

Want to just have fun? Creating plurality takes a lot of patience and mental work. When the decision is taken impulsively, the process can be stopped at any moment before a headmate fully forms, and I think it happens a lot with those people who expect quick results. And if someone makes it, but the experience doesn't seem fun anymore?

... Honestly, the reason for creating plurality barely matters. There's almost never one certain reason. There's a summary of different factors which lead one to making this decision.

What matters is how you treat your created headmate. A friend or a tool?

In the end, everything has upsides and downsides. For some people created plurality can be beneficial. For some people created plurality can be harmful. For some people it doesn't even work.

Created for fun?

I hope you and your headmate have fun together in this life.

[three-in-one]

You know, one thing we find annoying about therapy and such is that their first thought is that we should work on quieting the system. Like people keep asking us if our meds help quiet "the voices" and they say we need to work on not letting others control the body. I don't think this is fair. What about those who rely on their system? Those with in-sys relationships? Those who are just used to it? Those who love their system? It's not fair to assume that all plural folks want to get rid of their systems. Yes, there are those who do, but there are plenty who don't. It's not fair for them to just take us away from each other because it's what THEY (as singlets) think is best. I just wish they would teach us how to live as we are now and stop trying to get rid of us.

[funnier-as-a-system]

Hi, singlet here, I hope this is okay to ask, not sure if y'all are the right person to ask, but I stumbled across your roleplaying tag - then again my question is kind of coming from the opposite direction than what the tag is for in your blog...

Do you have any recommendations or are there any resources on portraying systems while roleplaying? Because one of my roleplaying characters turned into a system by accident*) and I don't want to be a prejudiced, stereotype-ridden asshole about it

*)by accident, because during a scene I gave that character's fear a voice, mainly for reasons of exposition and very much on the fly, but because characters never behave as you expect or meant them to, exposition-personification-of-an-emotion just decided to flat out be a person after all... so now that character is two persons in one people, which was not planned...

Hm... that's an interesting question that I don't think we've ever gotten before. I don't have any advice or resources tailored to this specifically, but I will say that it may help for you to keep some personal notes on each system member, so that you can better identify what each of their feelings/responses will be to developments in your campaign/game, as well as what their relationship is like. Such things can be tricky to keep straight when they're just in your head, so having it all written out on paper can keep things clear(er).

Something in particular you may wish to keep track of is Who Fronts When. For instance, you could have conflict or angst if one of them appears to be "hogging the body" and the other feels like they don't get to front enough. Or maybe one of them is more skilled at something so you switch to get that buff for a particular action, but too many switches (or even just one) in a short amount of time causes a debuff in some other area, like how dissociation or other side-effects from switches can affect real-life systems.

I wouldn't worry too much about falling into stereotypes. The main thing is to just not make one of your characters into a serial killer Just Because; don't be a "murder hobo" or pull the "something inside me is trying to get out and murder innocent people/I fear whatever this thing inside me is" trope and you'll probably be fine. If this were a different medium I'd recommend avoiding murder entirely, but roleplay is... well, the base of the game itself can make it difficult to avoid such situations. But to be on the safe side, you may wish to avoid one of your characters fearing the other, especially if for unspecified reasons or because they don't know what they'll do when in control. While I believe that in general, anyone can write whatever they want, I also feel that such topics are better left to those who are systems or know systemhood well (i.e. have done a lot of research and went into their writing/roleplaying with a goal in mind, and didn't just stumble into it or decided to make a character plural on a whim), as these topics can easily be handled in a clumsy matter that echoes these horror tropes.

Hope this helps, anon!

[delphientropy]

BLOCK LIST

BIG LIST OF A BUNCH O PEEPS I BLOCKED

as well as why! i'll add on as i go!:)

we do NOT condone harassment, please just block.

includes: pro/endos, radqueer, transID, anti good faith, and more!! XP

first off, so were on the same page, what are these and why are they bad?

pro/endos: try to demedicalize a dissociative disorder, claim you can be a system without trauma, more info here 👉 [X] [X] (both are carrds that link multiple sources) (sorry they didnt save ill put it in later)

radqueer: these are people who transIDs (transage, transrace, etc. these people claim to identify as a different race or even pretend to "transition" into being disabled like transautistic) or ARE them.

anti good faith: good faith identities are basically identities made in good faith. this tends to encompass "contradictory" identities such as lesboys and other mspec identities. anti good faith people police gender and sexuality identities and invalidate these peoples experiences and try to exclude them from spaces or tell them what THEIR sexuality is. dont be misguided into thinking you're doing good if you exclude these people, its splitting up the lgbtq+ community, and thats what they (TERFs, anti-lgbtq+) want us to do.

now onto the blocklist!:)

radfems, TERFs, and transmeds

pach1-pach1 (deleted his dni but befor it was deleted it said that they support vivzie, are anti xenogenders and neoprns iirc, and anti good faith. a reply on my post abt telling ppl to block them also said theyre a transmed, so did another account. theyve also been seen harassing anti endos despite claiming to be it himself) (they own syspunk-is-anti-endo-losers as well)

radfem-vex

mint-fem

PRO/ENDO

boosystem

domni99

pluralpolls

youokaybro

plural-blocklist

eunoiasys

circulars-reasoning

citadelofmarks

inclusysboxes

thestarpletsystem

bunfart90

alterhuman-culture-is

interstellarsystem

bokuwaamdalla

brainmade-culture-is

fictive-culture-hub

navelgazed

pluralprompts

astrophale-and-fischl

syscourse101

aura-dragonfly

parsnipkit

phantomhunt

funnier-as-a-system

funnier-as-a-fictive

multiplicity-positivity

analog-transid (also transID, as implied in the name) (they run the blog alters-in-a-box which is one of those alter pack things)

freezingnarc

whore-hangout (its 18+ as implied keep yourself safe)

notteserver

cardsoffools (harassed me and told me to kms 🫶)

fools-temps (run by cardsoffools)

the-bride-and-the-ugly-ass-groom

RADQUEERS

stashys-radqueer-userboxes

1nklingsanitized

bisexualsafespace

radqueer-empire

maskaphiliax (also transID, also they have alfreds playhouse in their banner so please be safe)

ANTI GOOD FAITH

kowalapantheon (also a.. "plural aligned singlet?") (headmate blogs are nonexistent-loli, trans-obsessive-love-disorder, ex-harmful-transpeaceful)

forced-silence (18+, lots of violence, please beware on their page)

zomb-bunny (also think they harassed someone??? i cant remember or find the post)

starry-city-sys

endopropoganda

parxgender (also ace exclusive, anti pan/omni, and anti mogai)

yourfavehatesmspeclesbians (because god forbid someone have a complex relationship with gender and sexuality.)

mspobjects

the-party-city

pollingsystems (also doesnt believe in transandrophobia. wtf.)

OTHER

anti-lies (spreads misinformation that can be paranoia-inducing)

theinfernalcollective (claims that bullying isnt valid enough to be a system) (TRAUMA IS TRAUMA.)

disys (same as above)

permababy (transID, doesnt label themself as radqueer but does reblog it)

problema-non-grata (pro transID discourse blog)

thefakersystem (demonizes systems and those with personality disorders, anti good faith, fakeclaimer (literally, fakeclaims EVERYONE.) harasses people minding their own business, overall the worst asshole i think ive ever blocked. dear fucking lord.)

cringey-systems (dumbbb dumb baby fakeclaimer doesnt think systems are real dumb idiot baby man who reblogs systems and calls them fake because they have no life ♡)

ALTER PACKS

(people who make ID packs for people to "create" their own headmates, all are pro endo, radqueer, and transID)

build-a-headmate

alterpacks

headmatestickerbook

naris-alter-shop

brainpal-gachapon

[syscest]

Hope you don't mind more "but am I plural" asks, but....

I feel like, I *do* want to be plural, but. Idk, I don't feel anything? Like, I think it sounds so neat to have other people in here with me, but.... I look inward, and I really don't feel anyone else here

I sometimes wish I could just, make myself plural? But it feels, disingenuous somehow. Disrespectful. And I wouldn't really know how to go about it anyway....

Look we're not gonna sit here and be like "go do tulpamancy" or do pop therapy on what's got you feeling that way or something something - but we can talk about a personal experience.

Half a decade ago, we were both a singlet and also desperate to jam ourselves into some kind of romantic polyamorous queer commune (hilarious as a loud aro I know). The experience was pretty suffocating, we didn't always really understand why we felt that way, and we made a lot of dumb decisions as a result.

Soon after we realised we were a system, we also realised that that desperation had gone away? And the funny thing about that is, years prior to this, we'd kind of internally ruled out being plural? Plurality was something we'd seen in other people - dramatic switches and isolated memory. People we liked, but experiences we knew we did not have. Because we knew we weren't plural, we couldn't want it either.

So we always wonder if the unhinged sense of romance we had for purely a brief period of our life - that presented itself almost exclusively as a desire to be permanently surrounded by people we were close with and felt safe around - was in some ways, along with general (less ravenous) desire for good relationships, a desire for our own eventual systemhood?

We can't know, obviously - but I think that adage that strong desires have to come from somewhere rings true. Is it possible to want to be plural when you do not, on some level, have plural experiences waiting to be embraced somehow? At first I want to say no, because it's just no fun to deny someone a desire to conceptualise themselves in a certain way. But then I think - wasn't it possible for us to want to be surrounded in romantic relationships so so badly when we did not, in retrospect, possess a genuine desire for romance as we now understand it?

Wanting to be plural is definitely a symptom of being plural, but also god sometimes we as people are completely wrong in ways that we do not at all understand. Just do your best for yourself.