#insource

Hi! We’re still sick but now that I’m feelin a little better (sleeping straight for almost a whole day because we kept waking up in the middle of the night due to feeling awful) I think I can answerjshdjdh

So there are different kinds of headmates in systems, and for this ask, we’ll focus on insources and introjects

Insourced people are like,, they’re what you probably know about the most based on this ask. They are basically- or could be described as- headmate made “from scratch”. Whether they have their own backstory or not, they could be based on or influenced by some other factors but they are not “a straight rip/based on” an already existing character or person

Examples of insourced people we have right now are all the littles, Dakota, Micah, Jaiden, Matthew (we have more but we’re like 20+ of us)

Now Introjects- they can be classified under 2 categories if you’d like:

Factives: Based on real life/historical people. For example, we have a factive of Ellen Page (except we call her a factive-ISH because she’s still a little different, plus her name is Louise)

Fictives: Based on fictional characters. For example we have our main fronting circle (Kris (Deltarune), Chara (Undertale), Crowley (Good Omens), Peter (Post Endgame MCU/Marvel), Sal (Sally Face)

Fictives and Factives may or may not be almost exactly like their source (which media/person they come from) counterparts- whether they are close to canon (the events that happen in their source) or VERY divergent is completely valid.

Another term that may be seen is canon which may be defined as “your timeline”

E.g. “my canon is different from source canon”

So far all of the Fictives in our system are very close to canon,

But it does NOT stop them from growing, learning different things, or just being different overtime or even the moment they arrive

NOW, why do systems have introjects? (I know you asked about fictional characters in my system but I’m gonna make it general to introjects)

I’m not an expert, I’m not even diagnosed, but I’ve had a theory that I’ve also read from other people in systems/talked to them; and doing research on Fictives/introjects have helped

Making an alter is a long/hard job for the brain, it’s not necessarily too extremely hard but borrowing a character from a source makes it an easier job— it’s faster when you don’t have to make your own “character” and you can just go “hey we need someone like that” and bring them in

For example, when Crowley split, it was when we were surrounded by Chara’s trigger quite a lot— so much that Chara was so affected that they couldn’t function properly, being surrounded by flashbacks and their trigger (being in a physical church and having masses 4 times everyday oh my god)

So I guess you can say our brain went “time to bring out another person to handle Not Liking God”

Peter I can theorize is just another kid in the circle of “all of us have dad issues because he’s mildly absent all the time” and is a continuation of me coping over an old friend’s death with how he’s having trouble coping with tony starks death- plus his PTSD symptoms are still kind of severe

In short, Introjects are like ANY other headmate/alter

It just so happens that they are from a source

Whether they’re from an AU or your brain wrote the heaviest fan fiction doesn’t change anything about how alters are made for a reason whether we know what that is or not, whether if it’s sad they’re here or not