#before any of you start arguing

[funnier-as-a-system]

sorry for the possibly dumb question

what the fuck is a system

Don't worry, anon, this isn't a dumb question at all! Systems aren't very well-known, so I'm happy to explain them to you. I'll start by explaining what a system is, then go more in-depth about systems in general.

So, you know how most people are one person? Or, rather, you know how when you meet someone, you assume they're the only person in their body? You don't really think "I wonder if this person shares their body and life with other beings." or "I wonder if this person I know is actually multiple people all sharing the same body.", but that's how it is for systems!

In simple terms, a system is any collective group of self-aware entities that share the same body (which is, I fully acknowledge, a complicated definition, but basically we have multiple selves whereas most people would have just one, and each self has their own identity). We may not specifically consider ourselves individual people (some systems see themselves as separated parts of one whole person, for instance), but it'll probably help you understand if you think of us as people that happen to share the same body. We each have our own sense of self, ideas, feelings, personalities, and on and on, just like anyone else.

Although this probably sounds very strange and surprising, it's likely that you've heard of systems before – just not with that language. Many people have heard of "multiple personalities" or "Multiple Personality Disorder", which is how systems used to be known. This sort of understanding of systems is especially common in horror movies, which tend to depict systems as serial killers or monsters. Of course, systems are no more likely to hurt others than anyone else is, but the stereotype and stigma persists, and can lead to harassment or even violence against systems.

However, you may have also come across more positive depictions. Body sharing is a common trope, for instance. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder, who often describe themselves as systems, are being more often portrayed as regular or kind people rather than serial killers, such as Uendo Toneido from Ace Attorney. I've often seen systems point to characters and series like Venom, Sense8, and Moon Knight – which depict systems or situations and characters that resonate with systems – to describe what their lives are like. We often find characters that are rather like systems that may not have been intended to be read as such and have a laugh about it; you might be able to spot the same, now that you know what you're looking for.

So, systems can be understood as when a single body is inhabited by more than one person, or being, or entity (whichever term you prefer). We may share the same body, but we each have our own selves, and often, our own names and identities, too.

That's the essence of it! I'll put more under the cut about systems in case you're curious.

For starters, if you're looking into systems, you'll probably run across the term "plurality", which is an overarching term that refers to all instances of someone sharing a body/brain; it is the state of being more-than-one, not just an individual collection of beings in a single body (the latter is what the word "system" specifically refers to). There's also the word "plural", which can be used either as a noun to mean the same thing as "system", or as an adjective to describe things that involve or exhibit plurality. For instance, I am plural. I very much enjoy talking about plurality and plural characters in fiction.

(As a comparison, you may think of video chats/group calls. Plurality, here, would be video chats in general. Meanwhile, a specific video chat – called a webinar – would be a system. And the people in a webinar would be the members of a system. Or, for another example, plurality would be education, a system would be a class, and the members of that system would be the students.)

Speaking of, beings who share a body – who are part of a system – are called many different terms. Two of the most common are "headmate" and "alter", although I also see "system member" a lot. I could say that my headmate was rather helpful today, or that my alter was fronting yesterday. Alter is more medical of a term, but it's more standard, especially in some other languages outside English.

But, wait, you might be wondering what fronting is! Well, since we all live in the same body, we've got to share control of it too, don't we? Fronting is what we call controlling the body, and switching is when we change who is in control. Some systems switch often, while others switch rarely, or only under certain circumstances, and some systems never switch at all. Switching may be involuntary, or it may be a voluntary skill a system has picked up. There's a lot of variety across systems.

Plurality is most often known in the context of DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, which often involves a lot of involuntary switches. P-DID, or Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder, meanwhile, involves very few switches, but these are likely to be involuntary, as well. There are other disorders that plurality may be a part or symptom of, but plurality can also exist as its own non-disordered state, so long as there's no attached or related issues causing problems for the system (ex. memory issues are another frequent problem in DID, and these memory issues come from the members of a system not remembering what the others did when those alters were fronting).

You may be wondering, how does this happen? How does someone become a system? There are many different ways. Sometimes, it's a part of someone's culture, religion, or spirituality. Sometimes, it's the brain's response to trauma, trying to protect itself. Sometimes, someone is simply born this way. Sometimes, someone may become a system out of the blue, or cause their own plurality somehow. Some systems have a multitude or mix of origins. Most studies on systems currently focus on systems that originate from trauma, as these systems most often have issues – including the trauma in question – that need to be looked into and addressed, but there are some budding studies into systems with other origins, such as the few current and ongoing studies on created systems (the aforementioned systems that cause their own plurality).

I'm simplifying some things here; identity such as this gets increasingly nuanced and personal as you learn more and more (for example, as said before, not all system members identify as individual persons, even if it can help understand them to think of them like individual persons that just happen to share a body). But I hope this helped you learn at least the basics about systems!

[lonelyslutavatar]

I don't know which is funnier... the concept of the receptionist and the perv being the Martin and Jon we know, who got shoved into this world, and they found their counterparts missing, so they assumed their identities and started doing literal role-play therapy... this world's Martin and Jon got sucked into the computers. OR, the receptionist and the perv are the Martin and Jon who are naturally in this world, they have no concept of spooky things, and are instead struggling with a meet-cute that also has problems of professionalism/dating somebody who is seeing the therapist you work for, meanwhile the Martin and Jon we know really did get shoved into the Windows 95 Cyberspace Matrix

this is actually my understanding of the whole thing (assuming that the cameo in ep 17 is indeed a cameo. Personally, I think this IS a jmart cameo but not a plot relevant one)

It's established that Darrien came from another dimension, meaning the jmart that he encountered are not from the tmp verse. He also doesn't come from the tma verse because the Jon and Martin from his dimension are presumably living in Oxford and have different jobs. What really bugs me is that Darrien gave a statement sometime before 1999 (before the Institute burned down) so he must have also traveled a few years backwards since jmart would still have been in their tweens/early teens at this time.

[tenwhiteandalusians]

so no one was going to tell me if i got literally one episode further tenax drops that he’s the one who saved scorpus from his mom’s pimp AND that he’s intimately familiar with scorpus’ dick when he was younger. guys. guys.

[tsunderrated]

In think it’s kind of funny that, yeah at the end of the day I’m into anime and learning Japanese like any other weeb, but my path through this was actually backwards. Took karate when I was a kid bc I thought it would be fun, they taught us some Japanese, I started listening to jpop like ayumi hamasaki, then I can across Naruto via an ayumi hamasaki amv but even then I only watched it in English and didn’t dabble in subbed anime (or anything other than 4kids) until like. Senior year of high school

[nervousmonolith]

thinking about the whole twt scam situation ™ again ough

[nullians]

It’s actually insane how fandom in general has become so scared of making weird and dark and ugly works. Like I look at myself and see how I have also subconsciously adapted this instinct to self censor and make things “marketable” and it’s making me want to crawl out of my skin. I need to get weirder and worse and more off-putting hello

[mc-260627]

World building update and all it changes is that dragons have regional accents and water flight canonically pronounces its element as "woe-dur"

[tanicus-caesareth]

guarana drama, damage control

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

people will really be so weird when canon contradicts the character they made up in their head istg

[amtrak12]

The idea that a god-like character with (supposedly) unlimited powers should snap their fingers at the end of a TV series and remove all pain and terrible things in the world so humans no longer had any suffering is the most BAFFLING thing I have ever heard. WHY DID THE SHOW EVER EXIST IF FIXING THINGS WAS THAT EASY??????

[falinscloaca]

pisses me off so much much that i’m not immune to people arguing about steven universe

[non-un-topo]

It's strangely gender-affirming when my mom gets defensive and accuses me of mansplaining

[mars-ipan]

i do love my family very dearly but the internalized ableism the men in here struggle with is. so much

[vulpinesaint]

"how do you handle conflict with people you love" well that's very simple. i just very specifically pick people that i know i will never have any conflicts with ever and then if i do i either avoid it as if it didn't exist or end the relationship in my head entirely. no conflict to handle. very simple

[sonknuxadow]

oh 100% full agree in regards to the silver and blaze thing. didnt the 06 manual even describe blaze and silver to be sibling-like? that was my first connection when sonic described them to be like him and tails

i dont think it was the manual i think it was a set of online character profiles that were specifically made for sonic 06? but yeah theyve definitely been said to have a sibling relationship at least once

[starswallowingsea]

im going to bed in a minute bc i'm sleepy tired but i am trying 2 figure out books i want to read for the next little bit. i'm reading kingdom of sweets right now and taking a break from the ojibwa dance drum bc kingdom of sweets is a very seasonal book and i want to get it read before christmas, and then i'll try and get back to the ojibwa dance drum after that. i want to do ink blood sister scribe i think as one of my first books in january and then at some point in february/march i want to read belleweather but other than that... we'll see what botm does for its boty selections and go from there in terms of doing polls for what to read next