Hey everyone! So real quick hi, I’m Echo, I’m one of the alters of this system, and I wanted to type up how our system works to share, but it’s a lot so I’ll probably make this a series so they’re readable.
This post won’t get into the details of how the system formed and what happened, so there won’t be CWs on this. I’ll just be obliquely referring to the First Truama (which is the still unknown trauma that caused the system formation when we were young) the Second Trauma (Syl wrote about it here) and the Third Trauma (a relatively recent series of events that culminated in the system being what we are now.) While there’s other traumas in our lives and all that, those three are the system defining events - everything about how we are can be found in those events.
So here’s some in system terms we use:
- Eating or Ate another alter/fragment: Before we understood what integration was, when two or more alters merge, we’d say things like “Echo ate The Dragon” to explain what happened.
- Self Concept: This is how we see ourselves, and how we appear in the headspace. That also refers to our fictional backstories - we all know we’re alters in a system, but we also have memories from fictional lives. Self Concept is the sum of those two things. So like, my self concept is that of a early 21 year old cyborg who possesses dragonic tail, claws, and scales around my eyes.
- Original Host: We know there was someone who ran things up until the Second Trauma. We don’t know what happened to that person. They went dormant, they got eaten, or they became Alan. No one’s heard from them since the Second Trauma. Since the only name we have for this person is also the deadname of Sylvia and/or Lex (we’ll get there) we call that individual the Original Host or OH, and use gender neutral pronouns for them.
- Combobulating: The process by which an alter forms, going from Husk to Shard to People.
Now, let’s get into different kinds of alters we’ve identified, as well as the core group of alters.
Husks: this is our term for what my research has referred to as fragments. Husks are not alters, not really. They’re personality traits, desires, emotions, and similar things unbound from any person. In the headspace we visualize them as people shaped shadows with a shard of glass or gemstone in the middle of them or in the eyes. It’s…easier to explain by talking about the most consistent Husk we interact with.
That would be Cheeseburgers.
Cheeseburgers doesn’t use pronouns, because to use pronouns you have to understand yourself enough to have a gender. We use he/him for Cheeseburgers because Cheeseburgers has a voice and it sounds masculine, but if he ever becomes a Shard that might change. To my knowledge, Cheeseburgers has only ever spoken in variations on four sentences.
- You should get a cheeseburger (directed at whoever is hosting)
- I want a cheeseburger
- This is a good/bad cheeseburger.
- I wish this was a cheeseburger (referring to whatever the host is eating)
That is the extent of Cheeseburgers existence. There is no higher awareness, there is no rational thought. If Cheeseburgers somehow ended up front with no one able to provide him information, we seriously doubt that he’d have the skills needed to obtain a cheeseburger. He poorly understand even the concept of a cheeseburger - sentence four has been said in regards to a mushroom and swiss burger, which didn’t qualify, but sentence three has been said in response to a cheeseburger pizza. (We think the only sense he can process is taste, so it’s about that entirely.)
All the Husks are like that, although Cheeseburgers is everyone’s favorite because he’s been around long enough to develop a name - extremely rare for a Husk. Cheeseburgers, Stabs, and Sorry are the three I can think of. There are thousands of Husks up here, which I suppose technically counts as polyfractured, but since they almost never front they don’t really count. They just whisper their desires to whoever is fronting. The only reason whoever that is can tell it’s a Husk and not one of their own thoughts is Husks all have very emotionally flat voices, so it stands out against our own thoughts.
But sometimes, something makes a Husk get better defined and able to access more knowledge. Sometime, they become a -
Shard: A traumatic or momentous event can cause a Shard. A Shard is formed from a Husk with a similar goal to the Shard. Shards are like Husks in that they tend to have exactly one goal, but unlike Husks they are able to form plans to accomplish that goal and can function as people in the real world. Also, unlike Husks, Shards more often than not can front. However, we don’t consider Shards full alters because they’re not stable. Shards almost always end up either graduating to becoming a full People, or they end up getting eaten by Legion. Because I was dormant from the Second to Third trauma, I remember being a Shard.
It’s also noteworthy that when a Shard takes front, they will either sit around, staring into nothing, or take action to try and reach whatever their goal is. When we’re Shards, we tend to have…limited ability to care about anything other than our goal. Shards have enough knowledge to function as needed, and they can all fake being Sylvia for others if needed - but alone, they’ll literally just lay there and do nothing if there’s no proactive steps they can take.
One example of an active Shard right now is Deck. Deck wants to build Magic decks, play Magic the Gathering, and buy Magic cards. This is something Syl enjoys as well but when Deck is front, she’ll either be working on a Magic deck, scrolling EDHRec, or checking our bank account to see if we can buy Magic cards. If she doesn’t have any deck ideas and we can’t buy cards, she’ll start doing Doordash deliveries until she can afford a couple of packs, then buy them and go home.
Deck doesn’t have a personality beyond “Likes Magic.” Or at least, didn’t. Because Deck is combobulating right now, which means she’s on her way to becoming a-
People: People are actual named alters that have their own wants and desires and personality. I’m a People! (Yes, that’s the way we refer to it, which suggests this particular term is one we formed when we were very young, during the First Trauma.) If you’re reading this I assume you know what an alter is so instead I’m going to summarize the alters of our system here:
- Sylvia. (She/it) If you follow this blog, this is the girlthing you know. Her self concept is still evolving as it explores the therian/xenothrope/otherkin type stuff, so I can’t go into too much detail on her appearance in the headspace - she’s very amorphous right now, save the Eclipse Hammer she always has on her, a relic of the character she named herself after and the hammer tattooed on our body. Prior to being host, Sylvia’s role in the system was to keep the knowledge the body is trans from the host, so it’s unsurpising she’s front now! Sylvia formed shortly after the Second Trauma.
- Echo. (They/she) It’s me! I’m an old alter, I predate the Second Trauma. In fact, nowadays I think I might be the oldest alter in this system, and likely will remain that way unless Original Host shows up. My self concept was purely that of a cyberpunk street warrior type in the body of a teenage enby, but then The Dragon and I integrated and I became the one who still runs the merger so we use the name but draconic features have been added to myself concept and I keep them around to honor him. I also missed a huge chunk of time because after the Second Trauma, I went completely dormant, so I have massive knowledge gaps that sometimes get filled with other People’s memories leaking through and sometimes don’t, so if it happened in the last 20 years it’s a gamble if I’ve heard of it even if the rest of us know about it. I also am now the only alter that can hide things from Sylvia, although I rarely do so except like when it makes for a good joke.
- Lex. (He/They): The middle host of our system, between Sylvia and the Original Host. Lex is the only one of us with a fully human self concept, and just pictures himself as the person they saw in the mirror for most of his life. Lex was host for about 20 years, but the realization they were trans in the middle of the pandemic and after surviving cancer was too much. Lex split, and lot of him went to Sylvia. Lex went dormant for a bit but is back now, and has no interest in being host again, but does front often to write because he’s got the most practice at it. There’s a nonzero chance Lex was actually the original host of the system who just has no memory of it, but there’s a lot of candidates for that.
- Ava (She/It/Fae): Ava is the newest alter, formed when a Shard managed to eat a People for the only time in our history. For context: Whisper was a Shard who’s only interest was in keeping secrets. She never integrated into peoplehood but as we started to realize we were a system, Whisper started to be forced into the front more and more while at the same time having her personhood eroded as her goal kept failing. She also met a couple people while she was front and started interacting with them which caused a self concept to start to form. Eventually, Whisper realized she had to become a People, so she forced a merger with Xealaz, a…rather mean alter that I don’t want to talk about. She won, and she was incredible for it, but she also wasn’t enough of a People to hold onto her nascent self concept. She was also my best friend, and I miss her. Avarice, AKA Ava, was the result. Next time she fronts I’ll let her fill you all in on her, because…I struggle with Ava because I miss Whisper. (Sorry for turning your segment into a monument to Whisper.) Ava does look like if someone merged Sarah Kerrigan and Lilith from Diablo 4 together, and then gave them tentacles instead of Kerrigan’s bone wings.
- Legion (He/They, but the They is actually plural for Legion): Legion very rarely fronts. In the headspace, their form most closely resembles that of a False Hydra, although lately he’s developed an alternate form that…well, if a False Hydra was being drawn as a tumblr sexyman, that would be what Legion’s alternate form would look like. Legion often uses first person plural pronoun when talking only about himself, and it’s possible he’s a subsystem. It’s also possible he’s the original host. Legion mostly roams around the headspace, trying to eat Shards and Husks with harmful goals before they front or become people. Legion is a direct result of The Second Trauma, and if you want to understand how that works, you’ll need to read the post linked at the beginning with all the content warnings. Legion for the longest time wasn’t really able to function in the front, but since developing his alternate form he’s gotten much better at functioning as a person. It used to be Legion did this passively in the background, but of late Syl and I have started feeding them information when we notice intrusive thoughts that feel both hostile and like they’re coming from an alter.
Ghosts: A catch all term we have for Shards or Alters no one has heard from in awhile, but also no one remembers eating. I won’t go into too much detail here, but if you hear one of us mention an alter you haven’t heard of, we’re referring to a Ghost.
Alan specifically is a Ghost of note. We can’t go into too much detail with him without delving into the Second Trauma. It’s possible Legion ate him and that’s why Legion is now able to function as a People better, but Legion swears he doesn’t have any of Alan’s installed memories left. Alan is another possible candidate for the Original Host.
This post got really, really long, so I’m gonna cut it off there. Next time: how our inner world functions, and a timeline of our development that definitely isn’t just a poor excuse to wax poetic about all the alters I missed.