#2 hosts and someone who fronts when we're super stressed

[jabberwock-islanders]

Systober Day 2: Primary Protector

Our system has 2 protectors that are considered our primary protectors, so I'm gonna talk about both of them!

Vance

Vance was the very first (discovered) headmate who split (we think), and he's still around today! He's one of our very few brainmade alters, and he's stuck with us through our system's many, many eras of life.

Vance is a redhead (now that I'm adding the picrew I'm realizing that he has it dyed brown rn, lmao) with silver eyes, and decently tanned skin. His birthday is in mid-August, so he's a Leo! He really loves anything space related! (Fun fact, his name was originally Cosmo when he first came around, but he decided to change his name to Vance when one of our older hosts started calling him that as a nickname back when we first had our system discovery! He now goes by both names!)

Despite being able to handle pretty much any conflict that we may experience, Vance specializes in comforting both other headmates and people outside of our system. His presence alone is able to sooth anyone in front, and he's able to handle our negative emotion spikes better than a lot of us. He's a mom friend <3

Lance

Lance is an introject of Lance McClain from Voltron LD. He's super energetic, fun-loving, and gets along great with anyone in or outside of our system! Outside of his role as protector, he'll sometimes come to front if we're at a dance or any other event with our friends. I swear if he wasn't a primary protector he'd be a social alter for sure (hell he might be a primary protector and social alter for all we know).

Lance handles a lot of physical confrontations or any in-person arguments we might have with someone. He's naturally very defensive in high-stress situations, and tries to get us out of a corner if we're ever backed into one. He's able to (somewhat) control our fight or flight response to keep us calm long enough to safely get out of a bad situation, and will only resort to fighting if that's the only option he has.

[art creds]

[hinoko-takami]

Hello. I am coming here to just scream into a void. I dont want to burden our friends with this but the words need to get out of my head.

Things have been extremely hard on us recently. To keep things short, we lost a lot of people we thought good friends, and our stress levels have been super high ever sence. We made some new friends but they have their own dramas we are trying to stay out of.

I, Death, have been frontstuck for a few days now and its begining to take a toll on me. I understand why nobody wants to be front for long now. We were switching a lot more before I got stuck. We're worried that the stress of these events are going to cause us to have a new host, or for our host to split. We really dont want that, mostly for our non-system friends.

We can deal with it, we have before im sure, but the pain it could cause our friends, who dont fully understand, would be too intense. We risk loosing them too. Not out of being upset, but out of not having that same bond.

We try to make a bond with them whenever someone else is front, but i worry its not enough. I'm very afraid of that. What would we do if we lost them? I dont even know.

We dont want a new host. We dont want to split, we dont want people to go dormant. We just want to feel better.

Our friend, ill call them 1, was talking to me, and out of nowhere they said they missed our host. I felt dread. I didnt know how to react, knowing that theres a possibility that they could never see him again. It would hurt them too much. I dont want them to hurt.

Its simalar with our other friend, 2. She seems distant from us whenever its not our host fronting. I understand, but it hurts... we care for her too. Most of us have a good memory of our friends, so to feel like we're being distanced hurts, especially after everything that just happened.

As I mentioned prior, ive been frontstuck for a while. I think today is day 4. Imnnit holding up as well as i thought i would. Im usually a very happy person, but stress finally caught up to me last night. I had been able to distract myself from how much i missed my family in the inner world, as i found myself enamored with another person from another system. They had to switch out and i feel as though i did something wrong, despite knowing i havent. When another person fronted, he and i talked, the way he spoke about my friend hurt to hear, but i didn't fight anything. He was the one who made me feel i was doing something wrong, despite again. Doing nothing wrong. It wasn't intentional on his part and inhold no ill will against him, i would actually like to know him better, but still. My friend is curently on what is esentially time out from fronting for a little while, for what i feel to be a ridiculous reason. Regardless, its not my choice to make.

It doesn't help that i have a hard time with social interactions. We are autistic, and some people have it worse than others. I personally struggle heavily with social cues, tone indicaton, intense emotions, and i have an awful time articulating my emotions, even to myself. We also have severe social anxiety, which just makes it worse. I want to get to know people better, i want to be social, i just struggle a lot with it.

I lost rhe point of this, then again, was rhere wver really a point? The point is that im stressed and anxious and depressed. The point is i dont want to be front anymore. The point is that i want my family.

Thank you if you've read this far, for whatever reason. I wish you a good day.

-Death