writing-plurals

[writing-plurals]

how important do you think it is to use the "right" terminology in a modern story with no fantasy elements?

It's more important to use terminology your narrator would know to use. So maybe the correct ones if your narrator is a psych student who has to therapize themself. But if your narrator has no clue what's happening, using DSM terminology is gonna feel really wrong to the audience. If someone had to come up with all completely personal language for dissociating/switching/etc, think about how they'd talk about it.

-Mod Tick Tock

[writing-plurals]

What are the possible solutions for a system character that doesn't want to have an extra wardrobe because "in this economy???" and/or "I like this color and it's my style", but the other headmates have varying opinions of the host's fashion tastes from thinking it's drab because of how monotone it is to thinking it's too bold because it's not conventional to absoluting hating every clothing item and accessory that's available? What other clothing involved conflicts can I add aside from the headmates having disagreements on what to wear for the day?

well, for solutions, accessories are a good way to spice up a "bland" outfit that won't be "too" bold for hte others. allows for ppl to quick change expression too if they switch throughout the day!

other conflicts could include a guy having to share front bc he popped and a super feminine person's already there, so he's maybe uncomfortable, or vice versa.

thoughts from replies?

-mod tick tock

[writing-plurals]

Looking at my writing of one of my system character's headmates and being "hmmmm" because while the body they're collectively in is that cis man (well, maybe cisn't(?) since the headmate that fronts most of the time and has most of the memories says they have some distance with masculinity and manhood and while they typically dress masculine, they sometimes wear androgynous and feminine fits), one of the headmates used to be a teenage girl when the character was a child, but became a transmasculine adult when the character in question became a college student.

There's also a little who's transfem who can't read and write yet and she makes me go "hmmm" as well because of the body she's stuck in and because of the aforementioned guy that fronts the most. Same with with the two cis women headmates, but one of them hates the body she's in and the other woman is unaware that she can't get pregnant despite fearing that happening to her.

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but all of this sounds very possible to us. Gender can be especially weird for plurals, even if the system has a collective gender (we, for example, have a collective gender, but not all our headmates are that gender, and we even have one who's trans in the other direction and had that gender discovery in-system). Basically, gender is very diverse, and it gets even more complicated when you add plurality to the mix. As for the last point about the headmate not knowing she can't get pregnant, we don't personally have experience with that, but I imagine it can happen because sometimes headmates aren't aware that the body has different abilities to them, for example with non-human headmates

-Mod Mountain

[writing-plurals]

Trying to add a small thingy of a plural system character trying to leave home and they get into an argument with their headmates about if they've collectively turned the stove off before going out of their door. Can that happen? Any other stuff do I need to take in mind?

That kinda thing happens all the time! Everyone will have different levels of access to memories, after all, and might not remember having done things, or might remember having done it, but might be remembering doing it another day and mistaking it. If it can happen to a couple of ppl who live in the same place but different bodies, it can happen to a system is a good way to think about it.

For this exact situation, is one of the members gonna be more stubborn about double checking and overriding front to go back and make sure? Or can they be assuaged that everything's fine and safe?

-Mod Tick Tock

[writing-plurals]

While I, a singlet, have been researching about writing plurals and personally know at least someone who is a plural, there's still a lot of things I don't know about plurality as a whole since I'm technically an outsider.

Is it possible for a system to have a headmate that sometimes harms the collective body they're in but thinks they're helping?

Yeah, this is really common! They're usually called a persecutor (or persecutor-protector, not all persecutors think they're helping), if you wanna look that up to help in your research :]

-mod mountain

[writing-plurals]

Is it okay for an alter to identify as a mythological creature from a culture the body isn't part of? For example, a kitsune alter in a white body. I know there has been discourse about race (alters' skin colour not matching the body's) and how to talk about it, but I haven't seen anything about headmates based in folklore. Like with my example, is kitsune okay, or should it be called a fox shapeshifter?

Our skin has a notable palor to it so take this with a grain of salt, but!

This is a really common occurrence! Nonhumans happen all the time! As for the terminology they get to use is probably a case by case situation depending on the culture referenced.

-Mod Tick Tock

[writing-plurals]

Hiii we're plural but we don't have DID and we're writing a DID system. Question, how does amnesia work before you know you're plural? By that I mean, how do you explain away the gaps in your memory? The system we're writing is pre-syscovery, currently they're just sort of not thinking about the gaps in their memory because they've always had them or they're like "I must have been tired". And what is greyout amnesia like especially pre-syscovery? I assume it's more common than blackout so trying to have more of that

Hi, DID system here <3

Before syscovery, it was exactly that: we just didn’t think about it. We were wholly unconcerned about our forgetfulness. Sure, it was stupidly annoying and distressful to forget important things, but it was Always a part of our life. As in, it was thoroughly pervasive throughout our lived experience, and we didn’t even know there were more than one of us until 2015

As for greyout amnesia, it can come in all sorts of variations, but one thing is for certain, it’s annoying. Most often, we experienced emotional amnesia when thinking about traumatic events, where it would feel like we were watching a silent film from a first-person perspective. The fear of those events would be missing, but the anger the events caused would not be, which ended up making us pretty jaded lol.

But generally, before syscovery, DID systems don’t notice switches and don’t notice gaps in their memory until after it’s pointed out that they should remember something that they don’t. The latter can also apply after syscovery, but at least you have something to blame it on lol

Good luck on writing!

-mod birdie

[writing-plurals]

Hiii we're plural but we don't have DID and we're writing a DID system. Question, how does amnesia work before you know you're plural? By that I mean, how do you explain away the gaps in your memory? The system we're writing is pre-syscovery, currently they're just sort of not thinking about the gaps in their memory because they've always had them or they're like "I must have been tired". And what is greyout amnesia like especially pre-syscovery? I assume it's more common than blackout so trying to have more of that

Hi, DID system here <3

Before syscovery, it was exactly that: we just didn’t think about it. We were wholly unconcerned about our forgetfulness. Sure, it was stupidly annoying and distressful to forget important things, but it was Always a part of our life. As in, it was thoroughly pervasive throughout our lived experience, and we didn’t even know there were more than one of us until 2015

As for greyout amnesia, it can come in all sorts of variations, but one thing is for certain, it’s annoying. Most often, we experienced emotional amnesia when thinking about traumatic events, where it would feel like we were watching a silent film from a first-person perspective. The fear of those events would be missing, but the anger the events caused would not be, which ended up making us pretty jaded lol.

But generally, before syscovery, DID systems don’t notice switches and don’t notice gaps in their memory until after it’s pointed out that they should remember something that they don’t. The latter can also apply after syscovery, but at least you have something to blame it on lol

Good luck on writing!

-mod birdie

[writing-plurals]

Hii!!

I’m currently in the process of drafting a story where majority of the characters work in the medical field. I’m interested in making my protagonist a newly discovered system. However I’m a singlet and have a crippling fear of offending people if there are inaccuracies in my writing, which leads to my two questions:

1.) Is this plausible in the first place?

And 2.) What tips would you give for writing this characters day to day life?

Yall will be getting all the thanks in the world from me😭🫶🏻

hi!

i think we might need more specific details to better help you out with this

1.) are you asking if it's plausible to have a newly discovered system working in the medical field? yeah definitely. systems can have any job, and systems can figure themselves out at any time. even if they have knowledge on plurality say from their field of work, or even if they know other systems, sometimes it takes a while to figure out, sometimes it doesn't. there could be headmates blocking that information, it may just not seem obvious, or any other number of reasons

2.) every plural is unique, so your character's day-to-day life is going to be unique. i would recommend speaking to a bunch of plurals about their own day-today lives so you can get a general idea of what it's like and apply that to your character. but do you know what type of system your character is? that can make a lot of difference in the way they function, so affect their daily life

but for example, for us as just one example of a non-amnesiac monoconscious (explanation link) system, we don't tend to switch much in the day, so it's usually just our host fronting (who isn't our original host) and basically functioning like a singlet, and we switch when something important needs to be done by another headmate or our host wants a break. but even we have not always functioned like that, it really depends on our life circumstance

so, yeah, i'd say do more research into the general lives of plurals, see what would fit your character's type of plurality and the kind of life they have

-mod mountain

[writing-plurals]

A System of Giving 2025

It's that time of year again!

A System of Giving is a pro-endo gift exchange on AO3 where plurals (and questioning plurals!) can write plural fics for other plurals! When you sign up, you can request plural-related fics from any fandom, and then you'll get assigned someone else's request to write

Sign-ups are open now! You can find out more info here (link) and click the sign-up button to join :]

You can read all of the previous years' fics here (link)

We also have a discord server if you would like to stay more up-to-date and chat with other participants:

Sign-ups close: 5th June AEST

Assignments due: 5th July AEST

Works revealed: 12th July AEST

Let us know if you have any questions!

[writing-plurals]

So, in this thing we're writing, we made a character plural. Which is cool, but we're a bit worried.

(Warning: mention of death)

You see, at the end, a lot of people, the plural character included, end up dying. We're worried that this might fall into a trope we don't know of? We've considered making another character plural, but most of the other characters are meant to die as well, the plural character (also the main one)'s death is supposed to be what ends the story, with the fourth wall being broken and their headmates doing anything they can to not die before eventually dying in the end.

What we mean to ask is: does it fall into some sort of trope to have our main character be plural and then kill them off, ending the story? Or should we try to balance this by making a few other characters plural?

Having a plural character(s) die in a story can be tricky! There are a few things to unsticky it, though, that you can do.

Kill more characters so it's less targeted

Make more characters plural so it's not The One Plural who dies, and therefore isn't targeted

Put something behind the fourth wall like a narrator who is fond of this plural and wants to save them but can't, or pans the metaphorical camera to another plural that inspired the characters that died, so the first plural is still living on in the narrative in some way.

-Mod Tick Tock

[writing-plurals]

Update on the killing plurals thing:

So, we made two other characters plural, one of which also dies (like, half of the people in this one die, actually!), and another that survives. Does this work?

If half the characters altogether are dying, that's less of a targeted kill and more Scattershot. And that definitely clears any worry of that particular concern!

-Mod Tick Tock

[writing-plurals]

So, in this thing we're writing, we made a character plural. Which is cool, but we're a bit worried.

(Warning: mention of death)

You see, at the end, a lot of people, the plural character included, end up dying. We're worried that this might fall into a trope we don't know of? We've considered making another character plural, but most of the other characters are meant to die as well, the plural character (also the main one)'s death is supposed to be what ends the story, with the fourth wall being broken and their headmates doing anything they can to not die before eventually dying in the end.

What we mean to ask is: does it fall into some sort of trope to have our main character be plural and then kill them off, ending the story? Or should we try to balance this by making a few other characters plural?

Having a plural character(s) die in a story can be tricky! There are a few things to unsticky it, though, that you can do.

Kill more characters so it's less targeted

Make more characters plural so it's not The One Plural who dies, and therefore isn't targeted

Put something behind the fourth wall like a narrator who is fond of this plural and wants to save them but can't, or pans the metaphorical camera to another plural that inspired the characters that died, so the first plural is still living on in the narrative in some way.

-Mod Tick Tock

[writing-plurals]

https://discord.gg/TpR5PMVTuU

server is once again open ♡

[writing-plurals]

AO3 has been scraped, once again.

As of the time of this post, AO3 has been scraped by yet another shady individual looking to make a quick buck off the backs of hardworking hobby writers. This Reddit post here has all the details and the most current information. In short, if your fic URL ends in a number between 1 and 63,200,000 (inclusive), AND is not archive locked, your fic has been scraped and added to this database.

I have been trying to hold off on archive locking my fics for as long as possible, and I've managed to get by unscathed up to now. Unfortunately, my luck has run out and I am archive locking all of my current and future stories. I'm sorry to my lovelies who read and comment without an account; I love you all. But I have to do what is best for me and my work. Thank you for your understanding.

[writing-plurals]

I put the i back in nickleback. tooth heart anon is back again boyz /genderneutral

Could the headspace only be accessible to Breeze, and then when the others figure out they're plural they learn to access it? And how could one go about this?

And could some alters know they're plural and others not? I was thinking A doesn't know until he gets home after being transformed into B, and then he thinks she's the only other alter until he realizes he has more. Sapphire is kind of partially aware there's others there, Fire actively avoids processing his thoughts on the matter, and Breeze has known they're plural for a long time.

And could the headspace be the host's childhood bedroom by default, before transitioning into being something else by default after they escape their family?

It's actually a really common experience for some members to know they're plural, know about each other, and not others. Sometimes that's intentional, something a protector might do, so someone can have the illusion of peace. And sometimes that's what happens and they just chalk things up to a poor memory.

And Headspaces can look like whatever you want them to! Ours, for example, has changed over the years, but only when we're in a state of transition of some kind, and our approach to life is changing enough that it even changes the *inside*. Not every system can custom design it, so that's something to keep in mind. That means there might be features people can't get rid of that they might want, and that they can't add certain things sometimes.

-Mod Tick Tock

[writing-plurals]

I don’t…know if this is the right blog to ask this, as most recent asks just seem to be a variation of “is this offensive/does this make sense” lol. If this is hard to answer, feel free to just delete it!

Hello! I’m planning on writing a fanfic about a character with (headcanoned) DID and I don’t know where/how to research one specific part of it: blackouts. Most importantly how it feels to “wake up”/return to front from one. And how one could “wake up” from a blackout without…realizing they weren’t in control? I’ve been looking into DID for this story, and I’m plural myself (non-disordered) so I can fill in some parts, but this has me really stuck.

(A bit of background: I’m writing from the perspective of only one alter [the host]. I imagine they have frequent blackouts due to a reoccurring, extremely traumatic situation in which a different alter has total amnesiac barriers from the host. I’m unsure how to describe the host repeatedly “coming to” as part of like. Routine.)

I don't have this specific experience with which to draw reference, but part of this blog, while primarily here to answer "Is [x] offensive?" and hopefully give you jumping off points, is to present these questions to a wider space where people can add on with their perspectives.

So hopefully some of our followers might be able to help here! We'll reblog replies as we see them.

-Mod Tick Tock