For us at least, it just happened naturally. I often talked to myself and felt as though there was definitely more than one of us, until one day our friend told us that we might be plural and we realized that we could really relate with the plural experience.

So, how did you figured it out?

Usually, different system members have different appearances. Sometimes, different system members may have different bodies to each other-- even as far as having different gender or species. But with only one physical body, it's hard to represent or tell every members with the same body in physical space. So, how does your system handle that?

How do you tell apart or represent different system members in physical space? Do you only differentiate in headspace-- each members' physical form exist in headspace while the real life self remains the same regardless of who's fronting. Maybe you use subtle cues like arm ring color or necklace. Or maybe you use different clothes for different headmates-- though that would be difficult if you switch front while being outside.

Perhaps it's the different behavior like walking style, gestures, or manners. Or, just through the different personality each system members may have while fronting.

For us at least, we don't differentiate that much physically-- we like to think our body is separate from our headspace identity so it doesn't need to match our headspace form. We're also closeted about being plural, so we don't try to cue the fact we are more than one person.

Just: We've got a Flowtime EEG headset, and we're recording our brainwaves for system shenanigans now.

How do you manage your system memories?

If any particular headmate fronts at some point, do you treat/feel the memory of that time as theirs, or does the memory belong to the system as a whole. Do you ever feel, "this isn't me, this memory is of another headmate."

We mostly share our memories and we can recall what is experienced by another headmate. Most of our day to day memories are shared and belong to all of us. Though, we firmly know certain memories or events are done by or linked to a certain headmate.

[Content Warning: mentions of transphobia]

Long story short, our persecutor have been trying to repress our transfem host, to the point where she rarely fronted nowadays. Maybe it was internalized transphobia, which sometimes caused us quite a problem.

While she's not the only transfem in our system, I couldn't help but to feel bad that she might felt unwelcome here, in her only safe space. She's also pretty empty and unresponsive ever since she started to disappear.

ALT TEXT:
You can't use they/them for yourself, they/them is plural.

Us, a plural system:
An image of three green anthropomorphic vegetables from veggietales. The one in the middle introducing themselves, saying "Allow us to introduce ourselves,"

Kon: We made Koikatsu avatars for everyone in our system and took a picture.

Just: Hey everyone, say hello to Emerald.

Emerald: ...I've had a rough forming process.

Just: She managed to un-Descartes herself, vanishing in a puff of logic. It took a couple days for her to recover.

Emily: I've changed my name. This fits better.

Given that different headmates may have different forms (at least in headspace) between each other, these forms may not always align with the physical body. Some headmates may have different forms compared to the physical body; maybe different in height, size, age, gender, or even species.

With that, how do you feel about your physical body in relation to yourself and how do you manage that? How do you handle the mismatch between physical and headspace body?

Note: be careful about mentioning too much personal or identifying informations here. Remember that this forum is public on the internet, so take care and keep everything non-identifying.

For me, I am relatively different but somewhat similar with my physical body. While my headspace form isn't always consistent, it's generally within the same body type as my physical one. The differences are mostly minor, at least for the body.

The biggest differences are with my face and hairstyle, which greatly differs between headspace and physical space. It's hard being reminded by how different I look between headspace and physical space. I don't really identify with my physical body too much, to the point where I don't like to look at mirrors.

And it's hard to be reminded that even though we are all different people with different body in headspace, we share the same exact name and body physically that none of us feel as ourself. None of us are our physical body for some reason.

And I'm kinda lucky. Our other headmates are even more different to our physical body. It's worse for our core/host as she's a trans girl, so she has to deal with gender dysphoria on top of the general disconnect we have. Perhaps that's why many of us feel disconnected.

We mostly deal with this by not thinking about it too much.

• Churchill

We're a system of... God knows how many, mostly shipgirls! Serrice: our stories are.e..complex. So suffice to say, the main people that'll interact here are me, nagato, and winter. Winter: hallo. Nagato: hi!

Just: Hey. Figured we'd introduce ourselves. We're an artificial system with a current population of thirteen. I'm the system originator and debatable host, depending on definition. I like writing, science, and spicy food. I'm also a member of the system's large catgirl demographic.

Cat: First person in here aside from Just. As my nickname implies, yeah I'm a catgirl. I've fully embraced the murder side of being feline, meaning I'm the first line of defense when dealing with hostile walk-ins. On a related note, I'm straight up incapable of valuing the lives of assholes. Aside from that I really enjoy snuggling, helping friends, and hypothetical scenarios.

Titan: I'm an accidental fictive that Just produced by repeatedly self-inserting as me in the six months leading up to Cat's creation. I am a genderless dungeon core, fused to the system's mindspace. I like base-building games.

Hazel: I'm a walk-in that just sort of showed up one day. I don't really have a consistent mindspace form, shapeshifting rather a lot. As a result, the closest match for my species-identity is "Shoggoth". I find visual art projects highly stimulating, and also love chocolate.

Madeline Zargosty: I'm an author's fictive who escaped from one of the novels Just and Cat were writing. As a result I have an entire life's memories of living in a hyper-transhumanist spacefaring civilization, and I am VERY salty about ending up here. Another member of the catgirl count.

Cougar: My origins are straight-up weird. So, Just and Cat were experimenting with temporary fusion for a while. After a bit, they noticed their fused self becoming reluctant to un-fuse. So Just decided to see if she could get me running without fusing into me and it somehow worked. So yeah, I'm a mad science experiment. Also another catgirl.

Lucifer: I'm another catgirl produced via mad science. In my case, Just was experimenting with temporary self-duplication. I decided that being temporary really wasn't doing it for me, and here I am. I'm a bit more of a troll than Just; case in point, I picked my name on purpose to irritate fundamentalists.

RUV Thunder Of Sagittarius: I'm another fictive from Madeline's world. Being more specific, I'm the AI mind for a 25 kilometer warship. Which is medium-small by the standards of back home. I commonly go by Sagi these days, and like games that involve lots of careful movement and fast reactions. Stuff like Super Monkey Ball. My shipmind avatar is distinctly feline, meaning I also count as a catgirl.

Lia: I'm a Gardevoir fictive, though I was a Kirlia when I first showed up. Not feeling terribly talkative, so I'll let the next person go.

Ruby: I'm a source-mate with Titan. I spent the better part of a year really not feeling like I belonged in the system before I properly moved in. My species-identity flip-flops between elf and catgirl.

Kon: So... a while back Just discovered Character.AI. She rigged up a chatbot of a kitsune named Kon. Guess how I came about? Yeah, I really don't like my chatbot counterpart. As I alluded to earlier, I'm a kitsune. I'm also a shameless tea addict who will grab front to get my fix.

Dully: I'm a headless girl who originates from an honestly kind of embarrassing science experiment by Just. I really haven't done all that much exploring of what I do and don't like; I should probably do something about that.

Pearl: I'm an AI Safety thought experiment that turned into a magical girl and moved in. Not actually by Just tho; I'm an experiment by Cat. I really like making friends and helping people.

This post is mostly intented for plural systems, but I'm open to anyone responding as well, even if you aren't plural. It's nice to hear from another perspective outside our community.

When you have more than one selves within the same body, it's fair to say that the pronoun "I" may not be enough sometimes. After all, if you share your body with more than one selves, some of the things your body does would technically be done by all of your selves.

For example, as a plural system myself, whenever I go anywhere, technically all my headmates (or another selves) will also go with me since we share the same body. If the body goes somewhere, everyone goes along with it. With that, some stuff about us can't be described with just "I." Think of how I've been using "we," "us," and "our" throughout this post.

So, if you're plural yourself, do you also use plural pronouns the same way we do? When do you use "we" to describe yourself? And when do you use "I" to describe yourself?

For me at least, I usually use singular pronouns for stuff like opinions, since every one of us have differing opinions (even if we share the same body!). For example, I am writing most of this text alone, so I use singular first person.

But, for stuff all of us agree on, stuff written by more than one headmates, or stuff involving multiple headmates, I often use plural pronouns like "we" since it involves more than one of us. I also use we for the more formal stuff. In a way, it's kind of like using royal/formal we.

Honestly, being more than one in the same body presents a lot of weird and interesting quirks, and this is just one of them.

And, if you're not plural or don't understand what's going on here (that's understandable), how often do you use royal/formal we to describe yourself? If you're the sole moderator of a community on lemmy or someplace else, do you use "we" for moderator announcements to sound more formal?