#ddddaikon

ye its because the original prints aren’t being made anymore! the first sbahj book is like $800 used on amazon

First off, thank you for both the ask and your patience in us answering it!

We cannot speak as to how every system works, since every system works differently. We are friends with at least two other systems and both of those systems operate wildly differently from ours, and from each other.

But for the bare bones, things are typically the same. Fronting, or having control of the body, is typically held by 1-3 people most often. Most commonly, one person has actual control of the body, while a few people cofront and spectate on what’s going on in the real world. So, for example, I, Mneme, am currently fronting to answer these asks, and Nevi is cofronting and watching. It is possible for both of us to have control of the body, and we can coordinate to do so, like how Nevi is using the left hand to type this sentence and I am keeping the right hand out of the way, though we can also work together to type this much faster if we use both hands.

Who is fronting is not always obvious though, to the person fronting or to those who are not, especially when you have more than one person fronting and working together.

As for how our system personally works, we have, gods, about 40 members? The majority of those people have no interest in fronting, thank goodness, or we would have to work out a strict schedule and reinforce it, which would be awful. But as it is, there is only about a dozen or so people who front with any amount of frequency, and depending on what situtation we’re in, the number of people you’re likely to encounter multiple times within a week is down to only a handful.

Because of how (traumagenic) systems form, system members are typically made to fulfill some particular purpose, some particular role that is or was needed to keep us alive. It can be anything from ‘oh, we needed someone who could comfort us after bad things happen’ to ‘we need someone capable of distracting us from bad things’ to ‘we need someone capable of completely shutting down emotions and getting through said bad things without ending up traumatized beyond belief’ to ‘we need someone to take these bad memories and keep them away from the rest of the system’ to ‘we need someone to make sure that no one outside of the system, in real life, can work out that we are a system’. These roles can either be fulfilled or rejected, and both are valid choices because honestly, who wants their purpose in life to be solely responding to or being affected by trauma. Some of us have fulfilled, some of us have rejected. Some of us did fulfill our role and then our situation changed and that role was no longer needed.

With our system, whoever ends up fronting is decided primarily on the situation, what, if any, roles need filled. If we need to work, it has typically been myself, or Clio, or Wright fronting, since we are all more patient people who can handle sitting down for 10+ hours and only working. If we were back in school, we switched (changed who was fronting) a good deal more often, since our situation (being in the classroom, being in meetings, working on homework, relaxing) changed often, so it could be anyone from Dave or Avis or Seyah to Amaris or Port or June fronting, depending on the specific situation we find ourselves in.

So who is fronting depends on a) who can, b) the situation we’re in, c) what needs done.