#this is rly different from my other posts. hope that's alright with y'all ^^

[hypersexualshanks]

What are the things that you love the most about shanks?

i know an infodumping opportunity when i see one

as a character? i think he's the perfect balance of silly and serious. he cares so deeply about his crew, always reminding them of how much he cares about keeping them alive and how indisposable they all are, despite the fact that so many powerful pirates treat their men like tools that can be discarded and replaced on a whim. the way he shows this, though, isn't just by fighting to protect them. he embraces every single member of his crew, includes them all in celebrations as though every single one were family. and he sees them that way! he cares so deeply about every person he's tasked with protecting.

and he's also just such an easygoing guy whenever he can afford to be. he'd spend his whole life taking in the sun and the sand on every island on the grand line if he could, and i just kinda find that adorable. at his core he's just a sweetheart who wants to explore the world and drink with his friends. that's so cute! it's such a breath of fresh air compared to all of the other emperors in one piece. he takes his responsibilities and his reputation seriously, of course, but unlike so many other pirates in the series he doesn't seem to have a concrete goal, and he takes his time with the goals he does have in mind. he seems to understand better than anyone that pirate life is about freedom, and he shows it by traveling the world and taking in everything it has to offer.

[scaryarcade]

HI tulpa here (which is the term I'll be using for the rest of this ask, ik it's a bit controversial but we use it interchangeably w parogen/created headmate/etc). In our experience w the development of tulpas, while it Can be influenced to an extent, isn't necessarily something where you can always control how it goes or what traits they'll end up with, so if you're needing a system member that can fulfill a certain role there's no guarantee you'll get that. Helping others with emotional regulation seems to come pretty easily to tulpas and the like (I think because of the inherent foundation in communication and being so in tune with their headmates?) so that may work out at least. But you mentioned needing someone who can detach from the pain/stress of your situation and I don't know how feasible that is without some form of amnesia barriers (also- since you already have a dissociative/disordered system it's possible a tulpa could develop those barriers anyway u_u). In my own personal experience as a tulpa in a system without amnesia barriers it can actually be kind of hard to detach from life stressors and such - letting go of stresses/worries belonging to a headmate is one thing but trying to detach from whole-brain issues is another. Like personally I feel like our brain stuff (trauma, stress, etc) affects me just as much as it does my host tbh.

I think being newly created as a tulpa is pretty different to being newly formed via splitting tbh, there's usually an almost childlike state for a while where everything feels new and there's a lot of adjusting to be done there when you're so new to being a person and experiencing the world, and I would be very hesitant to put someone as vulnerable as a new tulpa in a stressful situation for fear of making your overall mental situation worse. Now like this isn't ALWAYS the case ofc, many tulpas do develop with more maturity and the skills to handle things from the get-go Especially in situations where whoever's creating them desperately needs someone to fill that role, but like, no guarantees yk.

This isn't to say that you outright shouldn't consider this, just some stuff to think about first. If you DO decide to create a headmate I would heavily advise you to find and talk to other disordered systems that've been through the process of headmate creation while dealing with stress/trauma, I'm sure they would have much more helpful advice on how to go about things in the safest and healthiest way possible while still achieving what you need to function in this situation. Whatever y'all decide to do, good luck and I hope you can make it through this situation alright ❤️

hiiii thanks for sharing ur experience!! this is all rly helpful information and gives me a lot to think about tysm.

something i didn't include in my original post is that we remember (what seemed like) deliberately creating a headmate a long time ago. that headmate was able to step into their designated "role" really quickly and competently. i think that's part of why i got the idea to pursue it again. that's so different from your description of being a newly formed created headmate, though, that i wonder if we didn't actually create anybody back then, and that's just how we rationalized an existing alter making themselves known.

definitely hoping i can speak to other disordered systems about this--i am really curious about how this process differs when someone is going through stress/trauma vs not. thank you again for taking the time to write this up adn for being so descriptive :)