pheonix_system (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pheonix_system) wrote2025-04-29 05:50 pm
pheonix_system) wrote2025-04-29 05:50 pm
Entry tags:
Endo Voices
Author: Felix
Warnings: There are brief mentions of negative portrayals of plurality, harassment, and at the end, there is a very brief description of a creepy experience I had as a factive (boundary crossing). All of this is kept very mild, but if you are sensitive to this sort of content, please take care.
---
I came across this post on Tumblr, and we really wanted to fill the questions out, but it touched a little too much on syscourse for us to be comfortable having on our blog (as we try to stay away from that. We're more comfortable posting the questions on here, so here it is!
A quick note that when referencing times prior to syscovery, all reference to ourselves will be written as "(I)" or "(me)". I'm also choosing not to use names in here just because.
1. What kind of system are you?
We're a mixed origin system with certain spiritual-like aspects. By this I mean that we consider our system to be psychological, but we do have experiences which spiritual systems have, while not really considering those same aspects spiritual in our own system. For example, we consider ourselves to be a gateway system because we have literal gates in our headspace which connect to spaces beyond our headspace. Only the two of us who come from outside our headspace in this sort of manner have gone through these gates, however, so we only know about what these places look like from what we've been told.
2. How many of you are there?
I don't know. We stopped keeping count a while ago. It was really important to us for a while, back when we were really small, but at a certain point we just kinda gave up. We have a rough idea, but we don't really share that number. (Mostly because we got people getting upset at us for not knowing our count, so we decided people just didn't need to know.)
3. How long have you known about your plurality?
That depends on what exactly is meant by "known". If it refers to knowing about the presence of other voices in the brain, then as young as 10. If it refers to understanding what was going on, then only since June 2023.
4. What kind of spaces/communities do you/did hang out in?
Prior to 2023, (I) didn't really hang out in any spaces, not even fandom spaces. In 2023, (I) started lurking in some fandom spaces, but never did anything active. After June, we began to join some plural Discord servers and r/plural. We're not very active in any of these spaces.
Today, the most spaces we're most active in are AAC spaces.
5. Had you heard of DID/OSDD/DDNOS before you became plural/discovered your plurality?
Yes, we had heard of DID. We were first introduced to it through a Hardy Boys episode (around like 9 or 10), which kinda hurt our system discovery, I think, because it portrays the other alter as being aggressive and wanting to kill the other. It made our host nervous about the presence of others, though she wasn't aware of us yet.
DID was the only one we had heard about.
6. Do you have a wonderland/innerworld? If so, what do you call it, and what are some things that you and your system members do there?
Yes we do. We just call our our innerworld/headspace. We just kinda hang out? I guess? We don't really have much memory of when we're in headspace, so anything we do in there is a big question mark.
7. What do you call your system members?
We call ourselves alters and headmates rather interchangeably, though we've found that we seem to prefer describing ourselves as system members, or at least that's what comes to us more naturally.
8. If you're plural but don't use the word "system" to describe you&, what word do you use?
Not applicable.
9. What are some of the best things about being plural?
We're never alone. We always have each other to lean on and rely on. We support each other and help each other.
10. What are some of the not-so-great things about being plural?
- No privacy. We share basically everything with each other, and have to actively repress certain things like the passwords to Lighthouse journals or whatever so that others don't accidentally "overhear" them/we don't accidentally intrude on privacy.
- Fakeclaiming. So much fakeclaiming.
- Risk of ending up on FDC or Systems Cringe.
- Harassment in general.
- People not respecting factives are their own person and being super creepy towards said factives.
11. Do you have a spiritual or psychological view of your plurality?
We actually already answered this in answering question 1, but I'll say it again here because why not: We view our system as being psychological, and while we don't consider our plurality to be spiritual, we do have experiences which align with spiritual plurality experiences.
Additionally, a while back, I don't remember who it was, but one of us was questioning about whether they thought our plurality was best described as psychological, or as physical. I don't remember the whole thought process behind it, but it was something along the lines of how some physical nonhumans are physical because they are not human and thus they do not consider their body to be a human body.
12. Do you ever experience "switching" or "possession" or any sort of change in who controls the body? If so, what do you call it, how easy/difficult is it, and what is it like? Were you always able to do this, or did you have to learn how over time?
Yes, we experience switching. We call it switching or fronting. Because co-front is rare for us, when someone new fronts, they're the only one there, so we just kinda began calling it by both terms. (Additionally, we sometimes describe whoever's in front as being "forward", which is term that (I) was using long before 2023 in a fanfiction (I) began writing which was an attempt at writing a character with DID (because (I'd) been fixated on it for a while and was trying to relieve it by creating the character). When (I) learned that systems use "front" in a similar way to how (I) was using "forward", it kinda freaked (me) out.
It's somewhere in between. Not exactly difficult, but definitely not easy. It typically takes mental effort and concentration to consciously switch. If the brain decides it wants someone in front, it's hard to fight it. It'll kick anyone else out if their focus slips even a little, and that's if the switch even manages to happen if the first place. Only one of us is able to switch easily, and he's actually also able to control front. (Upon us being so shocked at how easily he could slip in and out of front, he declared himself our front gatekeeper.)
13. How do you and your system mates relate to each other? (Are you friends, family, romantically involved, caretakers, etc.)
Overall, I'd say we consider ourselves friends. There are a few "found family" type relationships and plenty of arguments and such, but overall I feel like we'd describe ourselves as friends.
14. Have you come out to anybody in real life/in a singlet space about your plurality? How did it go?
Yes, our mom and sibling. In both cases it went really well, though both do still have some misconceptions and such about how plurality works, and our mom has said a few... off things. Like, not intentionally, but she did inadvertently compare us to a demon (because of the "we are legion" stuff and all). So yeah. That was fun. (She legitimately did not intend to do so; we were talking about religion and she brought up how it was interesting that demons are shown as referring to themselves in the plural.)
15. What kinds of forms and appearances do your system members take on?
I'm not entirely sure what this means, so I'm going to assume it's referring to species.
We are almost entirely humanoid, though about half of us consider themselves as something other than human or have non-human traits.
16. What are you and your system members interested in?
We all seem to have a collective interest in K-pop, specifically with Stray Kids. There's a small group who are interested in conlanging, and another that's interested in art. Several of us are interested in writing, especially poetry, though we don't really do it often sadly.
17. What is your life like in the outerworld?
It's decent. We like it, though we are struggling to get a job.
18. What are your music tastes? Movies? Favorite colors? Animals? List any other favorites as well
I'm going to be real strict and restrict this to Movies, colors, animals, weather, seasons, and books, and only list up to three for each. Otherwise we'd be here forever.
Movies : Lord of the Rings, Narnia
Colors : gonna cheat a little and say peacock colors and natural colors (blacks, grays, whites, and browns)
Animals : felids, canids
Weather : sunshowers, rainy/drizzly
Seasons : spring, what we deem the "rainy season" (the portion of late winter and early spring which is predominated by rain where we live)
Books : Hunger Games
(I could list so much more lol. I'm really restraining myself.)
19. Does your system have a host/original? If so, what do you call them? Explain what role they play in your system
We have both hosts and an original. Our original prefers to just be referred to as our host, however. She doesn't really play any role as an original. The only thing is that she feels connected to this body, to this family, etc.
Both our hosts are just... kinda... hosts? Like, both she and our other host do similar things and just kinda try to keep things running. For us, hostship isn't really a big deal. Like, it is in the sense that's it can be really stressful having to deal with all the stuff every day, but they're not any different from the rest of us otherwise.
20. Do any system members have notable relationships outside of the system? Explain them!
Not applicable
21. If you haven't been plural for your entire life/haven't known about your plurality until later in life: what was life like before plurality compared to life now?
Before learning she was a system, our host was super stressed. She felt so much pressure and anxiety about schooling and her future. Now, though, she's a lot more relaxed. She does still feel pressure and anxiety, but now that she knows she can come to us and switch out when it starts to overwhelm her, she's been a lot happier.
It got easier on our end too, as she realized that she was not hearing psychosis-related voices and that the voices were real people, and she started treating them as such (I wasn't around at that time, which is why I'm not including myself in that).
22. If you chose to become plural: why? What has changed since then?
Not applicable
23. Is there anything you'd like to say to the plural community at large?
Stop infighting. Please. You can make your own groups separate from each other without hating and despising each other. (And yes I extend this sentiment to the pro-endo side as well. We can be just as bad.)
24. Is there anything you'd like to say to any singlets reading this post?
Don't listen to Hollywood and especially do NOT watch Split. The one is lying to you, and the other is just insulting.
Also: Don't treat introjects like their source unless they tell you to or it's a pre-established "this is okay" thing. And really, really do not interact with posts a factive writes (and only that factive, no other members using the same blog) and even reblog to your NSFW fanfic blog. Like seriously. Boundary crossing on so many levels. Whether factive or source person.
Warnings: There are brief mentions of negative portrayals of plurality, harassment, and at the end, there is a very brief description of a creepy experience I had as a factive (boundary crossing). All of this is kept very mild, but if you are sensitive to this sort of content, please take care.
---
I came across this post on Tumblr, and we really wanted to fill the questions out, but it touched a little too much on syscourse for us to be comfortable having on our blog (as we try to stay away from that. We're more comfortable posting the questions on here, so here it is!
A quick note that when referencing times prior to syscovery, all reference to ourselves will be written as "(I)" or "(me)". I'm also choosing not to use names in here just because.
1. What kind of system are you?
We're a mixed origin system with certain spiritual-like aspects. By this I mean that we consider our system to be psychological, but we do have experiences which spiritual systems have, while not really considering those same aspects spiritual in our own system. For example, we consider ourselves to be a gateway system because we have literal gates in our headspace which connect to spaces beyond our headspace. Only the two of us who come from outside our headspace in this sort of manner have gone through these gates, however, so we only know about what these places look like from what we've been told.
2. How many of you are there?
I don't know. We stopped keeping count a while ago. It was really important to us for a while, back when we were really small, but at a certain point we just kinda gave up. We have a rough idea, but we don't really share that number. (Mostly because we got people getting upset at us for not knowing our count, so we decided people just didn't need to know.)
3. How long have you known about your plurality?
That depends on what exactly is meant by "known". If it refers to knowing about the presence of other voices in the brain, then as young as 10. If it refers to understanding what was going on, then only since June 2023.
4. What kind of spaces/communities do you/did hang out in?
Prior to 2023, (I) didn't really hang out in any spaces, not even fandom spaces. In 2023, (I) started lurking in some fandom spaces, but never did anything active. After June, we began to join some plural Discord servers and r/plural. We're not very active in any of these spaces.
Today, the most spaces we're most active in are AAC spaces.
5. Had you heard of DID/OSDD/DDNOS before you became plural/discovered your plurality?
Yes, we had heard of DID. We were first introduced to it through a Hardy Boys episode (around like 9 or 10), which kinda hurt our system discovery, I think, because it portrays the other alter as being aggressive and wanting to kill the other. It made our host nervous about the presence of others, though she wasn't aware of us yet.
DID was the only one we had heard about.
6. Do you have a wonderland/innerworld? If so, what do you call it, and what are some things that you and your system members do there?
Yes we do. We just call our our innerworld/headspace. We just kinda hang out? I guess? We don't really have much memory of when we're in headspace, so anything we do in there is a big question mark.
7. What do you call your system members?
We call ourselves alters and headmates rather interchangeably, though we've found that we seem to prefer describing ourselves as system members, or at least that's what comes to us more naturally.
8. If you're plural but don't use the word "system" to describe you&, what word do you use?
Not applicable.
9. What are some of the best things about being plural?
We're never alone. We always have each other to lean on and rely on. We support each other and help each other.
10. What are some of the not-so-great things about being plural?
- No privacy. We share basically everything with each other, and have to actively repress certain things like the passwords to Lighthouse journals or whatever so that others don't accidentally "overhear" them/we don't accidentally intrude on privacy.
- Fakeclaiming. So much fakeclaiming.
- Risk of ending up on FDC or Systems Cringe.
- Harassment in general.
- People not respecting factives are their own person and being super creepy towards said factives.
11. Do you have a spiritual or psychological view of your plurality?
We actually already answered this in answering question 1, but I'll say it again here because why not: We view our system as being psychological, and while we don't consider our plurality to be spiritual, we do have experiences which align with spiritual plurality experiences.
Additionally, a while back, I don't remember who it was, but one of us was questioning about whether they thought our plurality was best described as psychological, or as physical. I don't remember the whole thought process behind it, but it was something along the lines of how some physical nonhumans are physical because they are not human and thus they do not consider their body to be a human body.
12. Do you ever experience "switching" or "possession" or any sort of change in who controls the body? If so, what do you call it, how easy/difficult is it, and what is it like? Were you always able to do this, or did you have to learn how over time?
Yes, we experience switching. We call it switching or fronting. Because co-front is rare for us, when someone new fronts, they're the only one there, so we just kinda began calling it by both terms. (Additionally, we sometimes describe whoever's in front as being "forward", which is term that (I) was using long before 2023 in a fanfiction (I) began writing which was an attempt at writing a character with DID (because (I'd) been fixated on it for a while and was trying to relieve it by creating the character). When (I) learned that systems use "front" in a similar way to how (I) was using "forward", it kinda freaked (me) out.
It's somewhere in between. Not exactly difficult, but definitely not easy. It typically takes mental effort and concentration to consciously switch. If the brain decides it wants someone in front, it's hard to fight it. It'll kick anyone else out if their focus slips even a little, and that's if the switch even manages to happen if the first place. Only one of us is able to switch easily, and he's actually also able to control front. (Upon us being so shocked at how easily he could slip in and out of front, he declared himself our front gatekeeper.)
13. How do you and your system mates relate to each other? (Are you friends, family, romantically involved, caretakers, etc.)
Overall, I'd say we consider ourselves friends. There are a few "found family" type relationships and plenty of arguments and such, but overall I feel like we'd describe ourselves as friends.
14. Have you come out to anybody in real life/in a singlet space about your plurality? How did it go?
Yes, our mom and sibling. In both cases it went really well, though both do still have some misconceptions and such about how plurality works, and our mom has said a few... off things. Like, not intentionally, but she did inadvertently compare us to a demon (because of the "we are legion" stuff and all). So yeah. That was fun. (She legitimately did not intend to do so; we were talking about religion and she brought up how it was interesting that demons are shown as referring to themselves in the plural.)
15. What kinds of forms and appearances do your system members take on?
I'm not entirely sure what this means, so I'm going to assume it's referring to species.
We are almost entirely humanoid, though about half of us consider themselves as something other than human or have non-human traits.
16. What are you and your system members interested in?
We all seem to have a collective interest in K-pop, specifically with Stray Kids. There's a small group who are interested in conlanging, and another that's interested in art. Several of us are interested in writing, especially poetry, though we don't really do it often sadly.
17. What is your life like in the outerworld?
It's decent. We like it, though we are struggling to get a job.
18. What are your music tastes? Movies? Favorite colors? Animals? List any other favorites as well
I'm going to be real strict and restrict this to Movies, colors, animals, weather, seasons, and books, and only list up to three for each. Otherwise we'd be here forever.
Movies : Lord of the Rings, Narnia
Colors : gonna cheat a little and say peacock colors and natural colors (blacks, grays, whites, and browns)
Animals : felids, canids
Weather : sunshowers, rainy/drizzly
Seasons : spring, what we deem the "rainy season" (the portion of late winter and early spring which is predominated by rain where we live)
Books : Hunger Games
(I could list so much more lol. I'm really restraining myself.)
19. Does your system have a host/original? If so, what do you call them? Explain what role they play in your system
We have both hosts and an original. Our original prefers to just be referred to as our host, however. She doesn't really play any role as an original. The only thing is that she feels connected to this body, to this family, etc.
Both our hosts are just... kinda... hosts? Like, both she and our other host do similar things and just kinda try to keep things running. For us, hostship isn't really a big deal. Like, it is in the sense that's it can be really stressful having to deal with all the stuff every day, but they're not any different from the rest of us otherwise.
20. Do any system members have notable relationships outside of the system? Explain them!
Not applicable
21. If you haven't been plural for your entire life/haven't known about your plurality until later in life: what was life like before plurality compared to life now?
Before learning she was a system, our host was super stressed. She felt so much pressure and anxiety about schooling and her future. Now, though, she's a lot more relaxed. She does still feel pressure and anxiety, but now that she knows she can come to us and switch out when it starts to overwhelm her, she's been a lot happier.
It got easier on our end too, as she realized that she was not hearing psychosis-related voices and that the voices were real people, and she started treating them as such (I wasn't around at that time, which is why I'm not including myself in that).
22. If you chose to become plural: why? What has changed since then?
Not applicable
23. Is there anything you'd like to say to the plural community at large?
Stop infighting. Please. You can make your own groups separate from each other without hating and despising each other. (And yes I extend this sentiment to the pro-endo side as well. We can be just as bad.)
24. Is there anything you'd like to say to any singlets reading this post?
Don't listen to Hollywood and especially do NOT watch Split. The one is lying to you, and the other is just insulting.
Also: Don't treat introjects like their source unless they tell you to or it's a pre-established "this is okay" thing. And really, really do not interact with posts a factive writes (and only that factive, no other members using the same blog) and even reblog to your NSFW fanfic blog. Like seriously. Boundary crossing on so many levels. Whether factive or source person.