Tag Archives: plural living

so i’m a little apprehensive to say anything about this, because i feel like i’m just appropriating real trauma and real problems, but a couple of years back i had a friend group that gave me the space to like, try functioning as a system (i really can’t think of the proper term for this, apologies), and it really did something for me. it’s hard to figure out the proper words for things, but it sort of did feel like i was shifting alters and actually acknowledging that and communicating with them was really helpful for me, and it was the most mentally healthy that i’ve felt in a really long time. but i stopped doing it once i left that friend group because they then told me i was faking it (none of those friends were systems, none even had any knowledge on mental health beyond adhd tiktok and the like). i genuinely feel a lot of guilt and shame saying this though, because i have a lot of friends who are plural/systems and i feel like i’m doing things that i shouldn’t, that aren’t for me. this was mostly a ramble bc this is really hard for me to talk about but i just wanted you to know that your posts about plurality and talking to people who are new to understanding their systems and everything regarding it are extremely comforting to read even as someone who has no idea if they are plural or not. thank you for your time <3

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Anon, I am so sorry that your former friends abused your trust, isolated, exiled, and fakeclaimed you. You did not do anything to deserve that treatment.

I hope you will listen to me when I say this to you.

If living and functioning as a system is constructive and helpful for you, then you are a valid system if you believe you are. You are plural if you believe you are plural.

There is no objective metric for plurality.

Medical diagnoses do not have, or even claim to have, a monopoly on all the plurality that exists, despite some discourse that claims otherwise.

No one outside of your head can tell for sure if you are really plural or not.

Being plural is at its core an entirely internal experience, like emotions or thoughts.

No one outside of your brain can objectively evaluate whether your body contains one person or many people in it.

There is no objective metric for plurality.

If functioning as a plural is what is comfortable for you, then you are plural.

And you are welcome in the plural community. You are not appropriating anything. You belong here.

Do you have any advice/resources on how to contact a potential headmate? I feel like I might have a system but I can’t seem to reach or “talk to” any of the members or find an inner world or anything.

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Your best bet is to just keep trying to initiate contact and conversation, even if you don’t feel like you’re getting a response.

  • When you’re picking something to eat, ask for someone else’s input.
  • When you’re watching something, ask what they think.
  • Grab a pad of paper and write down questions, then write an answer ‘as’ your system member/let your system member answer. See if it feels right.
  • Do the same but via discord. Create a separate pluralkit tag for them and try to talk back and forth. See if it feels like someone else or if it just feels like you.
  • Just keep poking whenever you think of it. Ask their opinion on things that happen and choices you make during the day.
  • Be aware that not all system communication is verbal or seems verbal. Especially in the early days it can be feelings, nonverbal thoughts, internal body language, etc.

If any of our plural followers have any more advice please chime in.

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Some random Sinister System history trivia

There are either 23 or 25 sinister system members depending on how you count.

Toko (😼🔪), Hal, Trevor (🔫🍳) and Kirigiri (🔍⚔️) we’re the first members awake in the body.

Despite Toko and Hal being the main fronters for years and initially considering themselves ‘the original body owners’, Kirigiri actually has the most access to childhood memories.

We first became aware of our plurality around the age of 11.

We started having access to intentional switching around 13-14.

About half our members woke up in the system between 13 and 17.

We had a major system shakeup in our mid 20s.

Each member of sinister system has a kintype based in each of our shared past lives, but not everyone has fully awakened each kintype yet.

Toko and Hal are a sub-system, and have shared a body and identity in multiple previous lives.

Sinister system fits some of the criteria to be considered traumagenic, but we consider ourselves spiritually originating endogenic as we believe that our plurality is a result of our shared reincarnation cycle.

I’m really curious, actually. Do you guys use Tumblr’s DM feature? How do you denote who’s talking? Do you just use the emoji sign-offs you use in your posts?What do the emojis mean, anyway? Why did you pick those in particular?

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Hey there!

To be honest most of us don’t like the Tumblr DM feature very much; we prefer to talk over reblogs, asks, or in private on discord.

One reason is that those ways are easier to denote who is talking, as you guessed. Another reason being the frequency we switch making it hard to keep a conversation going outside of a single timeframe. Like, Harry will be DMing someone on Tuesday, then Toko will be around on Wednesday and not remember there was a conversation happening or it won’t be relevant to him if he does.

Discord makes it a lot easier to keep track of conversations and keep from forgetting about them, also pluralkit makes it easy for more than one of us to talk at a time on discord.

When we do use DMs (usually it’s Harry or Chris who does) we generally either say who is talking at the beginning of the conversation, or we don’t bother to say who’s talking specifically because it doesn’t matter to the conversation and we can all just mask under the name/account and speak as a system.

The emojis each represent a single, distinct member of the system without directly using the name of any of their kintypes/shifts. It’s like a symbol that represents them as a whole.

Each member of sinister system is fictionkin, and each of their kintypes is a past life that is a part of their whole, larger identity.

The emoji combinations are picked because they’re symbols that relate to that system member over multiple lives/shifts.

So for instance, I’m Nine. In my past lives I’ve been Sollux Captor, Carlos Oliveira, Mort Toyenbee, Ryuji Sakamoto, Aoi Asahina, etc. Those are all elements of myself that I might want to refer to individually for one reason or another. My emoji combo 🐸☠️ refers to my whole self, as all of me and none of my kintypes specifically.

🐸☠️ is the combo I picked because I have an association iny kintypes with frogs/toads and water, and ☠️ I picked for my association with death, piracy etc.

Toko is 😼🔪 because a lot of his kintypes are cat based or involve knives and stabbing!

Harry is 🌺😈 because the flower is beauty and grace and an association with flowers, and the imp face is for being a goblin!

Does that make sense anon? 😀 if you wanna ask more about specific members emojis you can go ahead!

–Nine