the-amical-committee

[the-amical-committee]

And sometimes everything is awful but when you do enough self-care and medicating about it, a delightful member shows up who hasn't fronted in a while and suddenly—everything is still what it is, but damn does it feel endurable. And there'll even be joy on the way.

Days like this, I feel like the saddest part of being a closeted plural person is actually not being able to tell people all about how many different cool folks there are inside me—whether because of ableism or simply out of a fear they wouldn't want to hear about it. I could infodump the heck out of all these wonderful dorks. The inside of my head is actually a pretty marvelous place to be, and I wish I had more chances to share that to a receptive audience.

[the-amical-committee]

That fun feeling of: did I just have a 2-day long anxiety attack, or was that a committee member who isn't self-aware yet

[the-amical-committee]

...you know, I think that (speaking subjectively, not adjudicating any others' experiences) it's something like this?

Imagine, if you will, one of those little folded-paper hats. Or perhaps an oversized T-shirt. Or even, if you want to go on the larger side, a set of car keys.

On the front (for the car: front plate) it says "I, me, my." on the back (back plate) is my legal name—and, scribbled on in sharpie with a LOT of arrows, the pronouns I've lobbied for over the past decade.

The hat does not disappear. Sometimes it gets dropped, but it's usually picked up again quite quickly. Very hard to lose a whole body, after all.

And that hat (shirt, car & keys) gets passed around. Usually, one person is wearing it. Sometimes (see: shirt), two or more folks squeeze in there together. Or sometimes it's a whole car and there's half a dozen or more chatting, squished in together instead of passing the hat around.

Because the hat is a symbol. It is an anchor. It's a reference point. It's a flag stuck into the ground for all our sakes, staking out the metaphorical and physical spaces we inhabit.

But the hat is, in itself, not a person—at least, not in the conventional sense of the word. It does not experience an uninterrupted, continuous sense of selfhood. It does not have set likes or dislikes. It has access to memories, but its connection to them is...let's say shaky; It doesn't really own them in any meaningful sense.

My individual committee members have those features of existence. "I," writ large, do not.

But the concept of my "self" still has meaning, and power, and it can still be loved.

I suppose the reason I don't hate "parts" language for myself, even though we don't tend to use it, is because I wouldn't be me without every little part that makes me up. Even the little undusted corners, or the memories I've lost track of, or the members (past, present, and/or future) I haven't met yet.

No one subset of that is "me"—not even my subjective experience from moment to moment.

The whole thing is, even if I can only directly experience a subset of that whole thing at a time.

But I'll admit that my experience means I find assertions that I have a "true" or "overarching" selfhood to be a little strange. Because no, I don't have one of those. Trying to pin one down has caused me no shortage of angst over the handful of decades of my life, and letting go of the concept has given me, overall, a massive sense of safety and peace.

It's fine if other people see me as one whole, unified person. Ultimately, I agree that "I" am—just with a few extra steps and a few liberties I've decided to take in determining what that means.

But I don't need to feel that way about myself, and so far, I am discovering that a lot of the time, I'm much happier not attempting to do so.

I feel justified in calling this a spiritual truth of a sort, rather than a psychological phenomenon to be argued over. And there absolutely established spiritual schools of thought out there that could back me up. I'm sure there are other ways of experiencing one's existence; I myself experience a small variety of the possibilities semi-regularly. But this is mine.

And, at least for the moment—because if there's one thing I've learned about my sense of self, it's that change is the only constant—it's an understanding of "self" that feels safe, and good, and right. So I intend to rest here holding onto it for the next little while.

[the-amical-committee]

For the ask game:

💤 — a sys story that happened at night!

Ooh, let's see.

Sometimes (okay at least once) when we were upset we just. Curled up under a blanket and all talked (out loud and mentally) in the dark, figuring out who said what after it was said if it was relevant. And it was incredible how quickly our conflicts got defined and we could start using supportive statements and coming to compromises. First time I'd experienced the idea of body language between members, too—hugging and clapping backs and walking around, all that.

Like. Every person in my head is secretly a weenie (/affectionate) who just wants the best for everyone else. And they are incredibly good at working in(ter)dependently to make it happen—as soon as I give them a bit of leeway to do so!

[the-amical-committee]

I keep reading stuff about, like, the importance of authenticity in human connection. vulnerability. all that. and like

I want to believe it

but the pushback you get from the ppl in your life when you're exploring yourself, the way it redoubles when you start presenting yourself as something else after the self-discovery process, because they knew you and welp. nope they didn't. or at least not as much as they thought they did

it just. doesn't feel nice for anyone?

I mean. I like it. but the reactions I've seen (and gotten) from others indicate that I'm an outlier there.

and I'm not exactly going to stop coming out with these uncomfy revelations. my most consistent trait has been that I'm a factory for them. and tbh I think many, many people are.

but the courage to keep trying to bring people along for that process? I'd like to learn more about doing that, maybe.

(also I'd like to know about helping people to feel like it's a gift and not an inconvenience when I try to do so. it's not just them I think I'm just fundamentally Don't Know how to frame it. it'd be easier if my shit wasn't always Niche but even if it was more normative shit I think I'd probably struggle.)

BUT ALSO

I'm finally starting to feel proud of myself. I'm finally starting to feel like a being that consistently inhabits an existence. I'm becoming capable of at least mentally conceptualizing myself as existing in Communities and leaving social footprints

and possibly the weirdest thing about me to date is how I'm managing to do that and. well. as it turns out. I am probably going to have to wait on sharing many of my more important personal revelations. because of Weird.

[the-amical-committee]

Some of us just come pre-labeled idk man lol

[the-amical-committee]

plural stories asks 🎀

pt: plural stories asks 🎀

self-indulgent ask game thing where you send an emoji thing and the person you send it to tells you a story about their system related to the prompt.

the idea is that its like.. a true story about your system. as such you may be asked something and not have an answer. sorry!

this is kinda self-indulgent do theyre catered towards me lol. they were also designed to be mostly light-hearted but yk

🦋 — how did you discover your plurality, or if you chose to become plural, how did you go about it?

🗯 — what's a moment that strongly resonates with you, current fronter? (if there is one)

🌻 — do you have any system stories related to flowers?

📚 — do you have any school-related system stories you wanna tell?

💝 — what's your favourite love story in your system? (if you have any) (it doesnt really have to be romantic)

☎️ — funny system stories?

👻 — do you have any system stories that heavily involve your headspace, or are about it?

❄ — system stories that take place in winter?

🍂 — system stories that take place on autumn?

💐 — system stories that take place in spring?

🌊 — system stories that tale place in summer?

🛍 — a system story about going shopping?

🕯 — a quiet, peaceful story if you have any.

🎶 — a system story related to music!

🌺 — a story about coming out as plural to someone!

💌 — your favourite system story.

💤 — a sys story that happened at night!

☕️ — a story about some sysmates first meeting!

⚔️ — a story about a difference in opinion between sysmates!

[the-amical-committee]

New power duo: S😜 and A🌹. Neither's driven in forever and I'd honestly forgotten that I knew S😜 existed, so it's been a challenge for them to remember how to do our job—but because they're doing it together, it's a fun challenge.

So sometimes (maybe even often) committee members like to tag-team when they're steering. And I figured out recently that there are at least a few different combos that feel comfortable and familiar enough that they've probably already been mainstays for a while.

So far, we've noticed:

M🌩️ steering the brain and M🌼 handling the social components. This can be funny because M🌩️ is specifically not allowed (and doesn't want to be) up front because he's got a biting and abrasive personality and believes it's vitally important to call out everything that sucks. Meanwhile M🌼 is an absolute ray of sunshine and wants to share her optimism and support with the whole world. M🌩️'s doesn't faze her, and he in turn can't actually get mad at her—so weirdly, socializing-induced emotional whiplash aside, this is actually a very constructive combo.

W🥩 handling tasks while F👗 narrates and gives instructions: W🥩 is a dear and happily performs just about any task—as long as someone else is calling the shots. He and F👗 are very close (QPP or non-sexual romance territory—they can actually merge to make W🍲, but lately they've been electing to collaborate like this more often instead) so it's easy for them to front together. Unfortunately F👗 often struggles with anxiety and low self-confidence, but realizing that she was in the best position to make decisions, and that W🥩 trusts and needs her to so he can focus on performing actions, has given her a much-needed boost of confidence to start giving directions.

Come to think of it, T🧠 and T🕊️ pair up a whole lot, too. They're both highly verbal & social, so they're not the best at getting physical tasks done, but they play off each other very well. T🧠 is T🕊️'s spine so she (and we) don't get walked all over, and T🕊️ (kindly) reins T🧠 in and helps him find diplomatic and supportive ways to share what he's thinking.

There's no big point here or anything, it's just feels really neat when this sort of thing happens—in more than one way. Fascinating to experience and very satisfying in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

[the-amical-committee]

So sometimes (maybe even often) committee members like to tag-team when they're steering. And I figured out recently that there are at least a few different combos that feel comfortable and familiar enough that they've probably already been mainstays for a while.

So far, we've noticed:

M🌩️ steering the brain and M🌼 handling the social components. This can be funny because M🌩️ is specifically not allowed (and doesn't want to be) up front because he's got a biting and abrasive personality and believes it's vitally important to call out everything that sucks. Meanwhile M🌼 is an absolute ray of sunshine and wants to share her optimism and support with the whole world. M🌩️'s doesn't faze her, and he in turn can't actually get mad at her—so weirdly, socializing-induced emotional whiplash aside, this is actually a very constructive combo.

W🥩 handling tasks while F👗 narrates and gives instructions: W🥩 is a dear and happily performs just about any task—as long as someone else is calling the shots. He and F👗 are very close (QPP or non-sexual romance territory—they can actually merge to make W🍲, but lately they've been electing to collaborate like this more often instead) so it's easy for them to front together. Unfortunately F👗 often struggles with anxiety and low self-confidence, but realizing that she was in the best position to make decisions, and that W🥩 trusts and needs her to so he can focus on performing actions, has given her a much-needed boost of confidence to start giving directions.

Come to think of it, T🧠 and T🕊️ pair up a whole lot, too. They're both highly verbal & social, so they're not the best at getting physical tasks done, but they play off each other very well. T🧠 is T🕊️'s spine so she (and we) don't get walked all over, and T🕊️ (kindly) reins T🧠 in and helps him find diplomatic and supportive ways to share what he's thinking.

There's no big point here or anything, it's just feels really neat when this sort of thing happens—in more than one way. Fascinating to experience and very satisfying in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

[the-amical-committee]

seeing personality disorder discussion on the dashboard. the impulse to share all the self-therapy books and tools we have has never been stronger

[the-amical-committee]

do any other systems feel weirdly guilty about preferring to mask and have a collective identity but also feel weirdly guilty about trying to be more open about being a system or am i just being paranoid again

[the-amical-committee]

i think a lot of younger systems would be better off if they took a minute to stop stressing about roles or consciousness labels or headspaces or origins and just treat members of their system like random guys. that one headmate you can't tell the role of? they like hot chocolate with marshmallows and listening to the rain. you too. you need to be a random guy. being a random guy is good for everyone.

[the-amical-committee]

question 7: do you have any characters you think are plural? if you write, have you made any plural characters?

[the-amical-committee]

we want to encourage you yet again: if you're plural or a system or whatever your preferred language is for being many in one, the single most valuable thing you can do for yourselves is to introduce consent culture into your collective - to ensure and encourage kindness and the confidence that everyone will be listened to, but also not pressured to speak about stuff until/unless they're ready to

the amount of unnecessary suffering this can undo/avoid is vast, the amount of misplaced energy this can undo/avoid is vast

you all deserve kindness from each other, so give it and receive it with relief ☀️🌿

[the-amical-committee]

* ideal meaning everyone is accepting and understanding, managing multiple accounts is easy, there are no barriers to personal accessories or items, etc

[the-amical-committee]

Day of firsts—figured out one of our members is genderfluid and can age-shift and crossdress to front for another member. Didn't think we had anyone who could do either of those things

... also met our first committee member whose physical appearance would come with a content warning. so like that's fun

(no name, no gender, little kid, very shy, very earnest, permanent wound in the chest. possibly ragged remnants of angel wings on the back but those might be them expressing some aesthetic agency rather than being literal. wound's real and extremely vulnerable but not an emergency—we got a little baby w/ stigmata on our hands. they're very scared but extremely sweet)

[the-amical-committee]

Seconding yuzu! Also grapefruit, but unfortunately we now have to avoid that for meds interactions reasons

Syscourse Break!

Evening all! I'm getting ready for bed at the moment, or at least shortly, but I want to send off the day properly with a proper syscourse break post!

Here's today's lovely question for you all:

What is the best type of citrus flavor? Lemons? Limes? Oranges? Something else entirely? Which is the best?

Please no syscourse on this post! Let's all try to take a break today.