Skyful System

One of the things we’ve noticed as a fictive heavy system is that a lot of singlets have no idea how to talk to fictives. When one of us whose pluralkit proxy obviously marks us as a fictive sends a message in a predominantly singlet discord server, there’s this odd thing that happens where the conversation stalls for seemingly no reason. Especially if we mention something related to being a fictive.

We don’t think this is out of malice, it’s just awkwardness. People who’ve had very little interaction with the plural community aren’t likely to know how to talk to fictives. The short answer to that is to talk to us like people, but we thought we’d write out some tips to help our well-meaning but uninformed singlet friends. Disclaimer that we’re just one system, and these tips come from our own experiences. We can’t speak for other systems

Tip 1: We aren’t RPers or ask blogs, don’t ask us questions like we are. We won’t be answering from the perspective of our source characters, but from the perspective of a person who exists in this world and happens to have some things in common with that character. Apply the same rules you would if you were asking a non-fictive about their life

Tip 2: When we talk about our exomemories, that’s not an invitation to treat them like our source media. Don’t try to analyze them like a piece of media, or make light of our trauma. Those memories feel as real to us as yours do to you, be respectful

Tip 3: Don’t fangirl over us. We aren’t your favorite character come to life. Seriously, this is just weird and uncomfortable. Also, don’t bring up your ships that involve our source characters to us

Tip 4: If we’re in a fandom space, assume we’re comfortable there. We can make our own decisions about how and when (and if) we want to engage with our source’s fandom. We may leave suddenly if things get weird or uncomfortable, but that’s just us looking after ourselves without derailing the conversation. Generally though, don’t feel the need to modify your discussions on our account unless we ask you to

Tip 5: We aren’t some sideshow attraction to be gawked at. If you think of our identities as weird or cringey, that’s going to show in your interactions with us, and it always sucks. Your internal feelings about fictives are something for you to work through, don’t expect us to put up with you treating us like a freak show

Tip 6: Don’t judge us by our source characters. We didn’t get a say in it, neither did anyone else in our system. Having a fictive of a character doesn’t mean the system likes that character or condones their canon actions. Depending on the system, it might not even mean we know very much about that character. Some systems (like ours) will sometimes get fictives of characters we know very little about

Tip 7: Don’t assume we’re the same as our source characters. We might be very similar, or we might be nothing at all like them. Our exomemories could be drastically different, or we could come from an AU. Our personality, gender, sexuality, and personal history might be different than you expect. Also, don’t judge our identities the way you would a headcanon. If our source character is bi but we’re gay, that’s not bi erasure

Tip 8: We’re people first, fictives second. Start there, with the understanding that we’re not really all that different from the non-fictives in our system that you’ve already talked to. It doesn’t have to be awkward

For the first tip, we were trying to say that there is a difference between a fictive and a person pretending to be a fictional character for the purposes of roleplay/an askblog. One is a person making up answers about a fictional person, the other is someone talking about themselves. Even if our experiences sound very close to our source canon, it's not okay to interact with us the way you would with an askblog/RPer

We weren't trying to say that we don't identify as our source characters, because a lot of us do. We all have varying levels of how closely we identify with them. Some of us have gone as far as to change our names and not tell anyone outside the system we're a fictive, but most of us float somewhere around seeing our source character as a version of ourselves

re: Tip 3: Some of us do consider ourselves nesrly the same as the source character (think soulbonds, but not just them) even with changes, and some of us are okay with fanning and fawning! Seriously I love fans I eat up the attention like candy, and it sucks that everyone's so awkward about it. The difference is that some people put us on weird pedestals that ignore that we're people and instead dehumanize/depersonalize us. As a general rule don't go gushing to a fictive you don't know, but some of us really WANT that interaction so just ask!! I like talking about myself!! One of our best friends scrolls through his own tag to read fans talking positively about him to combat his depression. It all depends on the individual.

This goes double for source memories- literally just ask what the individual fictive is comfortable with before talking about it, and use your brain and don't bring up traumatic or intense memories unless we do first. Some of us like talking about our memories, some don't, most of us have different boundaries for what we want to tell and what we don't. For a lot of us our exomemories are literally our lives before the system, long as it's treated that way then it's ok.

As for shipping this is another tossup. I agree that assuming a fictive is attracted to someone they're shipped with is weird as fuck, but if we bring up a relationship or shipping ourselves then we did it because we want to talk about it, we have our own agency. I have friends that consider their source selves separate enough that they even ship themselves around for fun without it affecting their real relationships, and that's completely fine. Again, we can do whatever we want with our identities, just check what we're comfortable with when talking about source.

Basically yeah, just treat us with the same consideration as you would anybody else you've never met irl, not like some parasocial relationship with someone you want to pretend isn't a person.

Reminder, again, spiritual plurals have have faced discrimination for centuries before "multiple personality" was a disorder.

Versions for Plurals/Collectives:

You gotta get with –🎵

Caretakers: love is free :)

Littles: friendship is free!!

Trauma holders: sleep is free..

Gatekeepers: knowledge is free

Protectors: air is free

Persecutors: everything is free if you take it without asking

For clarification, I use polyfragmented+ in this post because I’m aware of other poly- terms that exist, and since I didn’t want to constantly type all of them and keep this easy to understand, I used polyfragmented but added a “+” to signify other terms!

While in plural communities, I’ve noticed polyfragmented+ systems usually fall into one of two system structures, so I decided to coin some terms! (Obligatory “not all polyfragmented+ systems work like this and this is based off our own personal experiences” disclaimer). This post was way longer than I expected.

TL;DR- Archaic/Framework/Configured polyfragmented+ systems, are polyfragmented+ systems that have some form of hierarchy or structure involved in the system, where some members have more control over the headspace, internal functions, and other things.

TL;DR- Leveled/Uniform/Even polyfragmented+ systems are polyfragmented+ systems that don’t have any clear hierarchy or ranking system, or don’t have a clear one. Usually, in these systems, everyone has the same amount of power or influence over system related matters/internal functions as anyone else,

ARCHAIC POLYFRAGMENTED+, FRAMEWORK POLYFRAGMENTED+, OR CONFIGURED POLYFRAGMENTED+ are polyfragmented systems that have some form of ranking, government, or hierarchy system in place. Usually, this is in the form gatekeepers, system managers, hosts, and protectors that act as the “head” of the system. This does not mean they are inherently controlling of members, organized, or completely in-charge of the system, simply that they hold more power or control over the systems functions, innerworld/headspace, and things of that nature, more so than other members of their system. Archaic was used for one name, as being structured as a hierarchy is “traditional” for systems. Framework was used, as many of the “higher ranking” (for lack of a better term) members of a archaic polyfragmented system can be seen as the structure or support for these systems, and configured was used in a similar vein was framework.

LEVELED POLYFRAGMENTED+, UNIFORM POLYFRAGMENTED+, OR EVEN POLYFRAGMENTED+ are polyfragmented systems that have next to no hierarchy or ranking system, or have no clear one. Usually, these are polyfragmented+ systems where everyone is equally in control of internal functions, or systems where no one is. Either way, these polyfragmented+ systems do not function in the same way archaic polyfragmented+ systems do, and may even front, switch, and do other things differently than archaic polyfragmented+ systems. Leveled, uniform, and even where all chosen because they portray the same “no one is more powerful or less powerful than me” I was going for. This could also be called anarchy polyfragmented systems.

A group of members that are constantly mixed/blurred together, to the point where it feels like both its own identity and not at the same time. While amalgamas will often known the individual members involved, some may not. They may exist due to dissociation, being in the process of integration, chronic identity confusion, or frequent blurring. It may be considered a type of unitive.

I've decided I want to start coining more plural terms, I really like them!

Here's one that's important to us:

Multien / Multiplet / Plurdian / Plurlet

Definition: A system that either does not identify with, prefers not to think about, or does not fall on the spectrum of singlet to multiple. They may not be able to figure out what the difference between multiple and median feels like, or they simply do not wish to label that experience.

"are you median or multiple?"

"hell if I know! I'm just plural"

Explanation of the four variations!

Multien: Multiple + Median but with an e for ✨spice✨

Multiplet: Multiple + Singlet

Plurdian: Plural + Median

Plurlet: Plural + Singlet

If you want to add more variations yourself, please do! I know not all people identify with Plural or Multiple, but I don't want to clog up the coining post

Lagatus: A system with low to no internal and/or external communication.

Heuatus: A system with high internal and/or external communication.

Meditus: A system with medium internal and/or external communication.

Fluctotus: A system with fluctuating internal and/or external communication.

(n.) A group of members, subsystems, and/or sidesystems that may be connected to each other or disconnected to other parts of the system in some way. A synonym for hemisystem.

"Meros" from Greek, meaning "part".

like our bodily history of people being skeptical of our very real, very physical pain simply because they have not run the right tests or because they don’t have the right tests yet makes me automatically wary of anyone who refuses to believe anything without hard evidence to back it up. and these matters of the body are something that hypothetically we could someday have the ability to discover the physical cause of. in contrast, phenomena of the mind or of the soul can only ever be approximated, because nothing here is absolute, and we are constricted by language when it comes to explaining our experiences.

Hybrid system: A system that has both multiple and median members. In other words, a system that has both facets and partitionary (separate/independent) system members/parts!

Example: "Hello! I'm the Example Collective, and I'm a hybrid system of 20!"

An alternate term for this is a chimera system, which is a term that is currently in the making by a friend of mine, and will be linked here when done! Both hybrid system and chimera system mean the same thing and will use the same flag.

These were coined as an alternative to mixed system, which is commonly mixed up with mixed origin systems, alongside the "mixed" system term that was coined alongside terms like adaptive and spontaneous. Because of this, some systems can be confused by a term that seems to have two very separate meanings.