Plurality

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N O T I C E : : m e m o r y _ s t r e a m _ l o c a t e d
I D : : P l u r a l i t y
T Y P E: : R E C O L L E C T I V E

I actually wrote another entry on plurality before this one, but it occurred to me a little bit later that some people don't actually know what plurality is. That had kind of slipped my mind as a thing that can happen, because I'm so used to being plural and having all my friends also be plural that I forgot there are people who aren't.
So, to give a really basic explanation: Plurality is, in the simplest terms, when one "person" - using that term to mean a single body, in this case; ie, one physical unit of landamaeri - experiences themselves as being not just a single individual on an internal level. From my non-singlet understanding, people who aren't plural tend to feel as if all the decisions they take, and every internal experience they have is performed by 'them', and they don't experience any kind of feeling of 'otherness' with regards to their own internal phenomena.
Somewhere that a lot of people get stuck with understanding plurality is that they start questioning whether someone's alters are, on a philosophical level, quote-unuqote 'other people' or not. This is not the point of plurality: the point of it is that, whatever is actually going on inside of a plural person's head, they don't feel like just one person. And whatever the actual underlying cause of that phenomenon is, the experience of perceiving yourself as not one, but multiple people has a material impact on how you experience your life and interact with people around you. Therefore, rather than fussing over largely inane questions like 'should people with alters be able to vote once per alter', the way singlets should be trying to interface with plural people is by understanding the ways in which being plural affects their subjective experiences.

What are alters?

With that preamble out of the way, the first step in explaining plurality is to answer the question of: What are alters? In the first place, definition is important. The term 'alter' is short for 'alternate', which can in turn be short for 'alternate identity' or 'alternate self.' Other synonyms for this with basically the same meanings include 'headmate' or 'qistu' (that one's a tiny bit more complicated but we're gonna ignore that for this entry's purposes.) The etymology of all these terms implies the idea that plural alters are other identities which share a brain with the original inhabitant of the body (commonly known as the 'original' or 'host.')
There are a lot of different subjective ways that having alters can manifest. Some peoples' alters talk to them, while others' don't. The most common experience of having an alter tends to be either the experience of having something in your head talking to you that doesn't feel like 'you', or, noticing that sometimes you behave in ways that don't feel congruent to what you consider as your 'normal self', and this is a substantive enough difference to qualify in your head as an alternate identity. At the end of the day, it really is all about how things feel: the only rule for being plural is that, if someone feels like they're more than-or not just one person, then they're plural.
With regard to the latter example about behaving differently, some systems (a system being a body that has more than one identity in it) can do a thing called switching; which is when they change which alter is currently in control of the body. Not every system is capable of this, and some systems that can do it cannot control when they do it, or find that it's only accessible under certain circumstances; whereas others just can't or don't do it at all, and some can do it at will with no restrictions.

What does this mean for you, as a singlet?

Contrary to what some annoying Fleetists would tell you, it is not actually difficult or complicated to engage with plural people. If you're talking to a system that can switch/changes who's talking sometimes, literally just treat them like you would any two separate singlets. That's it. Plural people tend to get justifiably upset if singlets start being annoying about refusing to acknowledge them as separate people when they feel that way, so the #1 rule of talking to plural people is don't start insisting that 'ackshually you're all just one person.'
Beyond that, it can take a little bit of getting used to the way that someone who looks the same on a physical level can behave very differently based on who's fronting ('fronting' being the term used for whichever alter is presently in control of the body) at any given time. Plural systems often experience quite severe compartmentalization in terms of emotional states/personality traits, so some alters might be chipper and fairly happy just about all the time; while others might be constantly serious all the time and never drop that persona. It's not uncommon for some alters to not be capable of dealing with certain types of interaction, and they might either need to switch out and let someone else take care of it, or in the event that their system doesn't work that way, you'll just have to wait until someone else is around to have that discussion with them. Ultimately, it's really no different to a singlet just not being in the right headspace for a given thing.
It's also quite common for alters to be different genders to their host/to use different pronouns to them. This is also not difficult; just switch pronouns for them the same way you would any other person. It can be possible to tell that an alter has switched in by the way that the system's body's demeanour, or commonly voice, can often change drastically. Many alters cultivate different vocal ranges while switched in, to make it easier for other people to tell who's fronting at any given time without them needing to spell it out.
Last but not least: Some systems also experience memory compartmentalisation between alters. Systems in general often have very bad memory, on account of plurality often stemming from trauma (which in turn, frequently has poor memory as a comorbidity), and this means they often struggle to remember things. In some cases, though, alters may not share memory with each-other at all, and it may be necessary to reintroduce yourself to a new alter whom you haven't yet met. Just because you've met one member of a system doesn't mean all of them know who you are, basically. For this reason, do not get upset if another headmate you haven't interacted with yet turns up at some point and has no clue who you are.

Glossary

I've explained the basics of plurality, so to cap off with, here's a simple glossary of the most commonly-appearing plural terms to help you remember what stuff means.

• System: Refers to a body inhabited by more than one identity
• Singlet:Someone who is not plural
• Plural: A person who has alters/headmates/is not a singlet
• Alter/Headmate/Qistu: Term to refer to alternate internal selves
• Switching: The act of changing which headmate has control of the body
• Fronting: Term which refers to the act of having control of the body
• Fronter: The person currently in control of the body
• Co-fronting: A situation in which two or more identities are sharing control of the body
• Blending: Commonly occurs when two people are co-fronting at once; their sense of identity may dilute/begin to merge together, and they may be uncertain who is who, or begin taking on traits from other headmates temporarily
• Bleed-over: Term referring to experiencing second-hand emotions from a headmate that do not originate with the one now feeling them
• Original: The 'original identity'; as in the one who was born into the body. Not all systems still have theirs
• Merging: Act of 'combining' two alters together into just one identity. Not necessarily the same as integration
• Dissipation: Equivalent of 'death' for a headmate; implies dissolution of their identity/cessation of their existence as a separate being
• Fictive/Introject: A headmate with an identity based on a fictional character/person
• Wonderland/Headspace/Mindspace: An internal world created within the mind's eye in which alters can interact with each-other
• Mindvoice/Thoughtvoice: A person's internal voice, the sound they hear when they think

this entry was written explicitly for Vasco because he somehow still doesn't know how us being a system works after an entire decade of hanging out with us lmfao

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N O T I C E : : m e m o r y _ s t r e a m _ t e r m i n a t e d