........35ish?????????????? who's really keeping track tho
we haven't put too much thought into exact terminology but it's probably safe to say at this point that this system is polyfragmented. we split relatively easily, with splits continuously happening even in the present as a result of traumatic or acutely stressful events. but, it's rare that those splits will actually end up driving the body.
we see it as a series of... circles. the circles lie between the front and the inner world, and any distance is created by infrequency of fronting. there are many denizens of the inner world who are very much there and present, but do not drive the body, or play a part in the decisionmaking of the primary cricle.
the "primary front circle" is composed of system members who regularly front. there are 8 members of primary front circle: ellen, sleepy, luz, amity, rainbow dash, spinball, sari, and adora. when you are interacting with kat/kata/katamari juniper kaplan, 95% of the time you are interacting with one of these 8 individuals.
here's where i put a read more link for your courtesy. you're welcome.
these system members end up rotating through the front on a routine basis, and can be called to the front with a degree of regularity and certainty. they have reliable triggers, including favorite foods, beverages, items of clothing, media, senses, etc. while there's a degree of randomness to it, the primary front group is tight knit, very communicative, and we've gotten a sense of how to predict and control who's going to be around at a given time.
additionally, if you need someone in primary front circle, you can just ask for them and they'll come out. decisionmaking is generally shared between this particular cohort, and most of the day-to-day tasks are being done by members of this cohort as well--including the professional bits, mind you. each member of this circle is generally out at least once a week, if not multiple times a week or even multiple days in a row.
beyond them, there is the "secondary front circle", which is composed of members who front only when the circumstances call for it. darker (the angery one), meow skulls (faded gamer), twilight sparkle (system librarian), lauren (primary little), and katie (??? girl??? sex???? she's... elusive).
these headmates are generally emotion or circumstance based. for example, twilight fronts when we are attempting to record memory--in fact, i (sleepy) can very much feel her co-fronting now to help me write this post out. darker fronts when someone cuts us off in traffic and we end up very upset about it. really down to individual circumstances, not super involved in day-to-day tasks or decisionmaking, up front maybe once every couple weeks at most as opposed to multiple times a week.
and then there's... everyone else. this is where things break up into inner world denizens. occasionally one of them will get pulled to front--eziae, for example, is triggered to front by muffins, and so shows up in front either to eat a muffin or to prompt us to buy muffins at the grocery store.
we often interact with these inner world denizens while engaging with headspace, which happens in a lot of ways. dreaming, meditation, ritual, the once every couple months cannabis use. it's not always positive--members like sym can be very aggressive, and a lot of our negative self talk can really come down to 'something someone else in headspace somewhere is saying to be shitty'. but it's how our brain world works, and we've gotten used to it.
it's weird, and fraught, and all kinds of messy, and the fact that we're so heavy on "little autonomous fictional characters operating the body" makes it more complicated, but it's how we adapted to trauma, and so we've grown to love it. eventually you just have to get used to being you, i guess, even if "you" is in reality "a village full of various creatures which takes turns operating a large fleshy robot to gather supplies and food from the outside world".
a small addendum: co-fronting or co-consciousness is very frequent for us. generally, co-con includes 2 or 3 of us, but we've had as many as 5 operators before, like some sort of brain megazord. if it interests anyone we can make another big post about how co-con works??
