Lux

Headmate list:

People you might see writing on this blog:

Pold (p) - he/him, gay (levi) cis guy, an animal spirit originally (accidentally) created as a dæmon. Presents as an African Hawkeagle most of the time, does have an alternate form of a white cheetah with very faded spotting. Used to be a subsystem but fused years ago. He's our main protector and oldest headmate (by when they arrived to the system not in-sys age).

Sfyxon (s) - they/them nonbinary aroace, a dragon "high-priest"(for lack of a better word) subservient to a dragon-god of the sun. The only headmate who actively worships a god. (Most of us are agnostic) They won't make it their own personality though! Primary traumaholder and caretaker.

Finn (f) - he/him demiboy/transmasc bi guy, a changeling usually presenting as something similar to a dnd cobold. His right arm is missing in headspace which does impact the way he's able to use the body's arm, though he wouldn't consider himself physically disabled.

Kjannrýa (k) - she/her/it aro polysexual (genderfuck-ey vibes, would consider herself a woman or lady but not girl), a Kelpie and monocon subsystem of two (the personalities don't have distinct names and are mostly tied to appearance/her true form vs her horse-like form, prefer to be treated as a singular being) usually presents as a white horse with scattered red scales and a shiny, elegant fish-tail. Formerly a persecutor, nowerdays she helps us keep our self-esteem up.

An (a) - any pronouns, demiromantic lesbian fem-leaning genderflux, a changeling and Finn's sister. Uses her shapeshifting abilities liberally, but we've never seen her true form. Usually presents as a anthropomorphic lanky black dog with purple eyes and intricate white patterns in their fur, sometimes with 5 eyes and/or long fangs. Secondary traumaholder. In a qpr with benefits with kjann.

Bea (b) - she/her fae/faer, bi genderfae/girl! I'm the one writing this out, hi! I'm also a changeling and hail from the same universe as Finn (who is my bf) and An, but I'm not related to them. I usually present as a chocolate Tortie cat with a green and a pink eye, insect wings sprouting from my lower back, antennae and small decorative mandables. Bug-kitty essentially :3

Kallypso X (x) - he/she, no defined sexuality (might be aplatonic tho, not sureee) bigender. Doesn't front nearly as consistently as the rest of us and isn't too big on talking to people so don't expect to see him around here. She is a basilisk-based creature with one half crow, one half aquatic snake (yes, he has two heads. Yes, she talks with both of them. Insists he is a singular being, strongly dislikes being called they/them for that reason!)

Headmates you probably/definitely won't see posting here:

(t) - he/him, little. We won't share personal details like name or age. He likes dinosaurs and is a dinosaur, thats all you need to know.

(j) - ðe/ðim, little. Won't share personal stuff. Ancient like... demigod or something, giant, horned, gargoyle-morph ball python. Real sweet pea.

Narrator (r) - it/its, overarking conciousness for our system, helps us keep things in check. Not really sentient itself, thats why it can't interact. Presents as a security camera mounted in our fronting room.

Noėl (n) - he/? (? Just in typing/optional), a spirit presenting as a black cat. Chills around as a projection in the outerworld, doesn't function as a fronting system member.

Winifred (w) - she/! (! Just in typing/optional), a spirit presenting as a white stag (yes, a stag, not a doe!). Functions similarly to Noėl. While not coming to the system at the same time, they function as a pair.

Sorry for the repeating colors, they mostly serve visual clarity for me. But yeah! In the picture at the top of this post you can see all of us, youll just have to figure out who is who based on the given info, sorry lmao

None of us are introjects from pre-existing sources but essentially all of us hold some exo-memories of the worlds we come from (whether we believe we were actually there in a previous life or not is individual to the headmate, some of us are more psychological than spiritual about it.) Feel free to ask questions about our backstories, there is tons of stuff we already know about ourselves and probably even more we havent discovered yet! lol

Our system size is stable at 12 headmates, we shouldn't split/form new headmates anymore. Fingers crossed at least.

-b

[s is reading a tumblr comic in which a singlet sexualizes a headmate. the lesson learned there is to not sexualize headmates without consent]

[wall of "based" in k's color appears behind s]

[wall continues.] s: What? no, Im not saying that!

memory is like a puzzlebox.

you can see a picture of what its supposed to look like on it. but when you open it...

There's barely any pieces.

certainly not enough to create a full picture.

you start doubting. you start looking for the pieces

but everything is dark

when you return to your puzzle

even more of it is gone.

we keep the puzzlebox closed.

With Artfight going on, an irrational fear we've been having popped up again.

we've been pumping out attacks at nigh inhuman speeds (right now we're sitting at well over 60 attacks done, with 70+ characters total) So our big stupid worry is that people will think it's AI-generated.

Now when I say this is an irrational worry, I mean it. -We've been posting art semi-consistently since 2022 (pre-AI) -We post out full process on youtube for these -Our style is far from anything common AI models do -We keep our files and can show them as proof -We've been vocally anti-ai for a long time. [Also we animate in essentially the same style as we draw] Literally nothing in our art should flag as AI or suspicious.

So how are we this fast? Making up to 10 artworks a day is a lot. Completing a fully rendered illustration in less than 30 minutes sounds impossible to most artists we know. A few factors are responsible: - Experience: We picked up a pen when we were a baby and never really put it back down. - Practice: We've done inktobers before. Over time it quickens your pace [also this is the main reason we arent a perfectionist - during inktober you simply dont have the time to fuss over every detail, you just keep moving.] - Motivation: being a system, we go a lot longer before burning out [its still important that we take frequent breaks and dont push ourselves though]

Also we just arent a perfectionist. If something doesnt turn out great, we just try to learn from it and do better next time.

Nice Headmate of the week: s: made a plural comic a: did 9 attacks for artfight in 1 day

[s sitting at computer keeps thinking of (Task)]

[s] Ok I have to do (Task).

[brain checks off (Task) on the to-do list, s hasn't moved an inch]

[Later]

[literally anyone] so how did (Task) go?

sometimes the best way to help a headmate is to let them rest.

stress can build up to the point where it affects the entire system. this was the case for An in our final exams.

we agreed on having them take a break from front. almost dormancy. so far away we can't hear them. making a choice like that sucks, but its for the best.

[k] At first you don't notice a change. then the fronting patterns start to get repetitive. then the loneliness hits you. even if theres still 11 of you. ...

We struggle making plural friends.

its not that we wouldn't want to- we joined 2 plurality-focused discord servers. The issue is we don't relate to the people there.

It might not seem that way,but being plural is only a small part of who we are as people, or even as a collective. Its like being from the same country as someone: you share some culture and a timezone, but it doesn't make you instant best buds.

We don't talk about plurality with our friends. Some are marginally aware, others don't know at all. One of our close friends is a system. we know the name of 1, maybe 2 headmates & little else. We dont want to push them to share.

[clearly uncomfortable body in a "healthy sitting pose" captioned "how it looks"]

[same pose, now displaying s suffering with phantom limbs with arrows captioned "cramped wings" "stuck tail" "straight arms" and "extended legs". The entire sketch is captioned "how it feels".]

BID as a system

Okay so! First lets just get the definition stuff out of the way.

BIID/BID is Body Integrity Identity disorder, or body integrity dysphoria. Its characterized by the desire to have a specific physical or sensory disability, or feeling a discomfort with being ablebodied. Technically the term transabled can fall under this disorder, however we personally don’t use it. We don’t want to equate ourselves to actually physically disabled people because we are ablebodied, and that term just goes a bit too close to that for us to be comfortable using it.

BID is a recognised mental condition and I want to repeat this is not a voluntary experience. I think I have the need to hammer that home a lot because getting myself to talk about it at all feels like I’m trying to appropriate or glorify being disabled in some way.

As for our experiences: BID has affected us since childhood, some of our first memories relate to it. Our first self-personification was missing an eye (he was also a guy and a dragon. Go figure. 🏳️‍⚧️) We kept having weird dreams/fantasies about having really cool advanced tech prosthetic legs (started off as one, later it was two. The stereotypical BID patient would have a consistent disability, which wasn’t really our experience?) Later it was two fingers, sometimes a hand, sometimes an eye again… We’re unsure who was existent or inexistent at that time, we’ve had imaginary friends at many points and were definitely at least median for a part of early childhood. So it is possible that we switched through multiple cores/hosts without even knowing.

Our childhood memories are very blotchy, but these ones are intense and always associated with positive feelings.

BID nowadays affects all of us to a degree. For me, it’s very targeted, I’m missing my right arm in headspace and have physical struggles using it. I’m also missing a finger on my remaining hand but that doesn’t pose an issue for me so I barely ever talk about it.

Sfyxon is missing a wing which doesn’t translate onto their mobility directly. They do sometimes get pains or cramps in their flank but honestly their traumaholding stuff is probably doing more heavy lifting than the actual BID there.

Bea is, by changeling standards, also lightly disabled. Our changeling species usually has between 4 and 7 eyes, whereas Bea has 2 functioning and 2 vestigial ones. Only headmate who’d canonically need glasses too lol..

An, also a changeling, uses prosthetics in both her hands and feet to add stability to them, as she’s otherwise spread very thin in headspace. The prosthetics act as a sort of endoskeleton and aren’t usually visible.

That puts us at 4 disabled headmates out of 12, so around a third. Not counting our weird body shape and general dyspraxia-having headmates. They’re a different category.

Our ablebodied headmates aren’t free from BID though. We get frequent thoughts of varying severity about dropping various bodyparts, be it fingers, eyes, ears, legs, arms… anything goes really. We are in a relatively stable state as in we have assessed that all four of our limbs are important to our daily life and it wouldnt be beneficial to lose any of them. I know that to a normal person that wouldnt even be a question. But the allure is there.

When we’ve described the experience to other people, we say it feels like a deep, unfounded certainty that we’ll become physically disabled someday.

What makes this disorder so hard to talk about is the fact that it doesnt feel like something’s wrong unless you compare yourself to other people, especially disabled folks because then you feel like you're just wanting to attention-seek. This feels like attention-seeking. Thing is, I like the idea of being physically disabled. I can’t help it.

It's hard to talk about because the more I think about it the more I realize that yes, I *do* like the idea of being disabled, one way or another. And it makes me feel wrong and broken because there’s real people out there who need and deserve accommodations for their very real disabilities, but we live in an ableist society where proper accommodation is rare. And then there's me, sitting here, in a perfectly healthy body thinking “woo boy, wouldn't it be so fun to struggle with just about every aspect of life because said life isn't built to accommodate people like me.”

Woe is me, I know I know. What a non-issue to have. What a privileged asshole to be to even think something like that. Ever. It’s just the autism that makes you feel broken internally so you feel the desire for said broken-ness to be displayed externally. Except disabled people aren’t broken, so this makes you a bad person. You’ve been a bad person since you were a child, a weird sexual deviant that probably gets off to this shit even though you feel this 24/7 and not just when you're aroused. You should die.

Do you see what I mean when I say that this is hard to talk about? When I bring it up and try to discuss it even within the comfort and safety of my system I still spiral. I can’t accept my disorder because by accepting it, I accept that I am failing morally. And I really want to be a good person and have a positive impact on the world.

We’ve dedicated quite some time following the social media presences of various disabled people, especially ones who talk openly about the systemic ableism in the world and what would help them navigate their daily life easier. Some of them we also just follow because they’re cool and chill people, and it doesn’t matter much that they’re disabled, at least not for the content they post and not for the reason we’re following them. Because I feel that the least we can do is to actually know what we’re facing when we’re thinking about being disabled. And you know, maybe help make the world a better place for people dealing with these struggles. Even marginally.

TLDR or whatever: If I treat BID as something negative, it feels like I’m making up a struggle and seeking attention. When I treat it as something positive, and get any joy from it, it makes me sound like I have a weird fetish. Either way it's just,, not a good look. So the way we talk about it to outside people is just "yeah we're not disabled and its like a passive feeling, it actually doesnt affect us at all why would it".

Thanks for reading if you did, I really appreciate it. Putting this to paper wasn’t easy, took me like 3 sessions of writing and re-writing. I still think it's important to put this out there though, even if it makes me vulnerable. Just to get the word out there and maybe help someone feel less alone.