Systemhood Expanded

System Configuration

Medianity and the Plural Umbrella

“Plural collectives vary greatly in how separate their members are. A collective might see themselves as one being made of many facets, or many people coinhabiting one head, or even somewhere in-between.” - More Than One

Not all systems are composed of a body and several individuals - sometimes, a single individual is divisible into several self-aware entities, aspects, or parts, that work together to form a singular identity - this is often referred to as a “Median System”. Sometimes a median system exists within a body, other times, a median system is a system member - with other non-divisible members existing around them. Median systems often don't have a “front”, and frequently share resources (thoughts and memory etc) much more closely. Median systems almost always have a name, and while the entities that compose them may be able to speak or act on their own, this isn’t as common as in other plural systems.

Medianity is only a secondary typical case to “Body and several individuals” - plurality is a wide umbrella that encompasses many experiences. It’s important to be open to diversity and adapt to what others need, even if it doesn’t reflect the system configurations that you know already.

Headspaces and Mindscapes

Many systems have internal spaces that they share between members. These may follow the overall structure of an apartment - with “rooms” for each member and a space connecting each. Often, rooms are either manually decorated with or vaguely reflect the styles and interests of those who reside there.

These spaces can also be metaphorical representations for the mind and its functions overall - for example, containing a literal library that houses memory, or a bridge or control station of “the front”.

Despite usually following the same overall structure, the actual landscape of a headspace can vary wildly - houses, spaceships, regular ships, caves, forests, and so on. In addition, mindscapes are not always “visualised” (with imagined vision) - they are often navigated through other pseudo-senses such as sounds, touch, smells, or even a kind of spatial sense.

Countability, Temporality, and Inner Worlds

Some systems don’t contain an easily countable number of members. Certain kinds of median systems may have an “in between” number of members, or feel like new members are constantly shuffled in and old members are recycled into new ones (in what could be called a “Temporal” median system). Some may instead have a count of theoretical members far beyond what could be realistically listed, with those who front stepping forth from an incredibly large mindscape (or “inner world”) to be one of the few who are able to represent the others. Some system configurations seem daunting, but in similar ways to explaining gender, there’s always a level of explanatory depth that even an unfamiliar party can understand and respect.

Journey

Repression

The period before a system or system member is made self aware is often referred to as when they were “repressed”, or simply “repression”. Sometimes, this means that the system member appeared to be not present at all and had no influence on the system, but often a repressed system member does influence the system (or supposed singlet) - either by being muddled and falsely intertwined with another member (or many), or by making subconscious impacts to the way a system feels, often in line with their feelings of being unable to express themselves, or insecurities / other issues that may need to be resolved down the line.

Sometimes, a repressed headmate acts almost entirely like a self-aware headmate - fronting, speaking, thinking, and interacting with others - but nobody in the system (often supposed singlet) has the knowledge to understand that they are a headmate, or that such a thing is possible at all. Once the concept is introduced, the process of communicating and cooperating may be very quick.

Discovery and Communication

The process and period of discovery varies from system to system. For some systems, discovery is a dramatic process where a member suddenly fronts or speaks for the first time ever and communication is frantically established (if the support structures are there to do so). For others, it can be a long introspective process where the workings and oddities of the system, or even a specific member (or presumed singlet), are carefully considered for what they might mean (and who they might imply).

Often, discovery starts with a hunch, or suspicion, that some kind of plurality (whether in the long term or a short plural experience) may exist within a presumed singlet - Maybe a presence that feels separate in the distance, or some kind of inconsistency that doesn’t feel like it’s easily explained by other forms of fluidity (gender, mood, etc), and so on. For presumed singlets that don’t experience any kind of switching or internal conversation, they may need to make legitimate attempts to make “first contact” where they might leave notes for potential system members, or be helped to temporarily “loosen their grip” on the front in a safe environment.

Even after learning to switch, many systems still lack effective communication, and need to make use of an external mediator until they can establish a system for note-taking or internal communication. For systems with headspaces, the latter sometimes coincides with learning to navigate them.

Stereotypicality, Archetypes, and Fight-Or-Flight

The process of discovery for a headmate (or whole system) is often messy. A big reason for this is that headmates that have been repressed often need to be given space in order to come to understand themselves and their environment, and before this point can act in very two-dimensional ways, or lash out at others and reject communication (not unlike a wounded animal).

When a member is first made self-aware, it’s common that they might appear “stereotypical” or “two dimensional” - appearing in only very specific situations to do very specific things (e.g. ). This is a common after-effect of repression, and over time the member may have the space to explore themselves in more depth and realise other things about themselves.

Living as a System

Fronting

The front has been already defined as a metaphorical “position” for a system member who is controlling the body/voice of a system. However, there’s more to explain in order to properly understand the front.

Co-Fronting is the phenomenon where multiple system members work together to control the body and voice simultaneously. This either means that they either collectively act and move, control different parts of the body, or simply “multitask” and are able to switch control of the body (or a specific part of it) in fractions of a second. This split body or multitasking can potentially allow for completing tasks that would normally be quite difficult - writing with both hands at once, for example - or, more practically, holding a conversation over a text chat while also holding a verbal conversation, with minimal pauses and few opportunities to lose the thread of either.

Co-fronting is usually the word used for confident, skilled simultaneous fronting. However it’s not uncommon for pluralfolk to be unsure about who is fronting, or feel like several headmates are floating “around” the front without any confident front. This experience (often “Marbling”) could be fairly mundane and just another part of a system’s experience, but is frequently a source of distress and insecurity - many preferring to have a clear front or fronts.

Switching

Switching has already been described as moving members from back to front and vice versa. While some systems switch quite often, others switch very infrequently or not at all - with either just one member (e.g. a median system) or with one member remaining at the front, and all other members remaining in the back (the fronter may choose to help them communicate if they want and are able to).

Some systems are able to switch using an internal will - either through a collective will of the system to swap one member for another, or by any headmate forcing their way out of the front (creating a vacuum that switches in an idle headmate), or forcing their way into the front, replacing the current fronter.

For most systems, this is not the primary way in which they switch. Common causes for switching include fronting members getting tired or uncomfortable and drifting backwards, certain stimuli (conversation topics, preferred music, hearing their name, etc) bringing a member to the front, or seemingly at complete random.

For systems without willful control of switching already, they can still make deliberate switches by utilising how their system already operates. Listening to a member’s favourite music, asking for someone else to call their name, or speak about something they are passionate about, changing signifiers (like swapping out a nametag or clothes), or just briefly meditating on the thoughts of a headmate, are all reasonable ways to attempt to invite a switch.

Fatigue

After fronting for long periods, or fronting in attempts to mask the system around others, system members can experience fatigue. This fatigue could be thought of as “fronter’s fatigue”, however it’s quite likely that singlets experience the exact same fatigue in some cases - they just can’t resolve it any other way than resting their whole body. By contrast, system members may be able to swap out of the front in order to catch an equivalent break, allowing for a less fatigued system member to handle things.

Beyond switching out, members may find that they are able to “sleep” while in the back, which is more restful than just not fronting. This usually makes the member unlikely to swap in randomly and slightly harder to call upon - however, this can be beneficial by helping members that front less often be more accessible (by “clearing the way.”)