Hey Girl I Mean They (Plural)

And of course, a blank if anyone out there wants to use it.

What it's like having one conversation with our parents:

(obscuring username as not to single anybody out + not negative. just in case someones shy) but this is actually what we did with our journals at first too. we used lighthouse for some time, alongside discord/simplyplural. but with simplyplural being left and not wanting to be as on our phone/computer, we switched to paper.

for people with higher system counts, there are actually really good paperback journal 'packs' you can get at most stationary stores. if buying a 10/15$ journal seems too intimidating, you can get these packs for like, 10 dollars total, and each one only has about 40ish pages.

this way if you have parts that dont front as frequently, you dont have anyone worrying about 'waste' while still providing them their own space. these are just a few examples.

something unexpected this ended up helping with was actually our individual memories too. i noticed some people asking 'how do you journal if you're blurry/have bad memory as a part?' and, well, that's actually why i started doing it. i wanted to remember more than just 'feeling bad' whenever i fronted, so i carry my journal with me and write down basically like, everything.

even just passing thoughts like 'i kind of wish we had beef strips at home for dinner' or 'im really excited for artfight this year'. when you're trying to recover as a system, especially as a part thats been heavily slotted with a lot of 'negative' emotions, its important to give yourself the space to express more than those things. if you only ever remember yourself as being 'angry/bad' then you wont develop much past that, and you start to internalize that shit and really hate yourself.

journaling has been a great outlet for me to vent and draw my own stuff, but it's also given me some dignity and the space to feel like a person outside of just being like. traumatized. i sort of use it as a vault of everything about me, good and bad, important and trivial.

note: please be safe, and don’t do anything that would endanger you 💛

plurality is a beautiful thing, but even as an openly plural person, I find it hard to express my plurality IRL outside of informing loved ones who’s fronting. so I sat down with my joyfriend, and we compiled this list of things you can do to openly or subtly express your plural identity offline.

1. make fronting bracelets! a classic, but a good one :) if you can’t make them, you can always buy custom bracelets, or even just premade bracelets that represent you & your headmates!

2. buttons! “ask me about plurality” is one that i’m working on, but more ideas i have are pronoun buttons, name buttons, plural symbol / flag buttons, one that says “ask who’s fronting”, and maybe some silly ones like “I fronted to be here!”

3. dry erase cards! since I am nonverbal, I use dry erase cards every day- but that made me realize, rhis could be nice for plural people to! you can write a small introduction of whoever’s fronting, or general system info :)

4. create individual spaces where you can. Maybe you have a bookshelf, so you can dedicate one portion of it to a specific headmate, or something of the sort!

5. openly discuss plurality with loved ones, if you are safe to do so. we’ve been openly and proudly plural since 2019, and we’re starting to make it a point to discuss our headspace, our alters, and our views on plurality with those interested.

6. system wide scrapbook, junk journal, or sketchbook! we do a collective bullet journal, and it is SO fun! it’s a way to not only creatively express individuality, but to also work in harmony as a collective at times!

7. flyers, zines, and comics- oh my!! I LOVE making zines about plurality. you can make and print things like these, and leave them in public places where it’s considered legal.

8. organize! you never know- there could be dozens of other plurals in your area in need of community. try to set up meetings for plurals- you never know what kind of community you could build!

9. other creative pursuits, like knitting and embroidery and music, could be really fun to combine with plurality. I myself am only an artist, but I’m sure there’s tons of fun things you can do in other fields!

small summarization of how everyones sonas have changed over the years. the first are not when they started to exist, just when they began actually drawing a 'sona' for themself.

Thanks for the ask!

I think the biggest and most important piece of advice I can give is to write everything down! All of our comics are pre written in our notes, usually we’ll have an internal conversation or event and be like “okay maybe this is good comic material.” It’s all diary entries, so some don’t get turned into one!

Another piece of advice!! Don’t worry if they look bad!!! Our old personal comics didn’t even have frames or paneling or scripts… it was just off the dome! Even the ones we post today, they’re very simple and easy to make. I guess to add onto this, try to keep member’s designs simple! Having to redraw complicated designs can burn you out super fast (though this heavily depends on the person.) Draw small comics first and make sure everyone is comfortable with their designs if you decide to change them

Third one is if you plan on posting them do nottttt try to write for an audience.do it for yourselves!! We draw these to help with memory processing and making sense of things, plus we looooove comics so we always enjoy writing and drawing them (our break from drawing our actual comic we post on our main is drawing our personal comics lol it’s all comics)

My last piece of advice is that if you don’t like comics and you hate drawing them.don’t draw comics.. I have seen a few systems say they want to do a comic diary but don’t like comics and it stresses me out.its okay to not draw comics!! It’s always possible to find a different medium to share your stories!