Insomnia is keeping us up, so:
Our fractals!
As we understand them, our fractals are sub-systems. That is, they're systems within our outer system.
So kind of like how the lot of us are smashed into one brain and body, these folx are smashed into one head-person slot but are in fact more than that.
The sub-components of them kind of defy being absolutes separate from the outer level. Between that and insistence on their parts, that's Just How It Is.
There are some cases of people "ascending" or "climbing out of" a lower level of a fractal to the outer system. We'll mention those through this, too.
Anyway, here they are:
π THE BEES
If people know about The Bees, they'll inevitably come up in a joke when we mention how many people are in here.
That's because there's 256 of them. They're also the least clearly sub-system distinct of anyone here. (And yes, this makes them a literal bug byte.)
The Bees are the "closest to hardware" people in the system, in that they're sort of... abstract representations of low-level thought and body-function. They're generally always there in some capacity, just not in front.
When we're conveying a message from a specific bee, we'll convey that with the emoji. For instance, you'll probably see [π-213] instead of just π prefacing something.
Usually you'll hear things from 213, on that note. They're the one closest to speaking.
Occasionally you'll hear from 083, which pretty much only handles replying to things with "83". We don't know if we want to know why our low-level BodyOS has a dedicated shitposting portiion, but it is what it is.
Two other BodyOS-level people have climbed out of The Bees (which promptly resumed being 256):
- πΈ Octavian is a sort of dedicated logic/pattern/geometry parser
- π Doodlebug is kind of the wild creative urge and the drive to create for the joy of creating
β Fourcast
The Fourcast fractal is tangled (and originates) very directly in our Bipolar experiences. They're all VERY tied to particular sorts of emotion.
There's generally four of them you'll see:
β Calla itself is the usual state of things here, the "storm in balance." It's the big ghostly lightning-dog you may have seen cross our icon before. Calla is incredibly chill as essentially incarnate euthymia. Interestingly, when stable and just present as itself, Calla has one of the most intense therian presences in the system and just tends to Be A Large Cozy Dog Companion at people.
The other three are the weather-sheep herded to make up Calla's collective storm.
π« Arcus is tied to bipolar depression valleys, and is liable to be bleak and hopeless as a whole.
β‘ Incus is tied to bipolar mania-anxiety, and is liable to be restless and exhausted and irritable.
β Virga is tied to bipolar mania-euphoria, and is liable to be several steps dissociated from reality or generally losing time.
There is a spectrum in how the lot of them work. Only one of the sub-aspects will be present at a time, overriding Calla (the dog) depending on how severely a state has a grip on us.
So, you'll see something like:
- Calla (in balance)
- Calla-Incus (mostly in balance, skewed towards significant mania-anxiety)
- Incus-Calla (extremely off-balance, significant mania-anxiety)
- Incus (full mania-anxiety override, Not Having A Good Time)
Nobody has climbed out of this fractal yet.
πΏ TWO-TRACK MINDS
Two-Track Minds take the sub-system thing pretty directly. There are always two of them present, but there are four of them total.
As a whole they're direct responses to supporting a lot of queer/plural friends with confronting traumatic moments from the past. Too many times feeling shades of "You Deserved Better" turned into a strange little quartet of dragonfly-therapists.
The ones present are placed in two shapes, as said. These are Track One or Track Two. Track One tends to be talking/proactive/more intense and Track Two tends to be listening/reactive/calmer.
The four people who can occupy the two tracks, and their general approaches to support, are:
- π Repeat - Affirming the legitimacy of things you felt but were denied or rejected, highlighting your own feelings as true things, encouraging release about them and feeling things like you were meant to.
- βΊ Record - Encouragement and providing of care, about it being good to consider your needs, highlighting the person you are now without necessarily contrasting it against that past.
- π Shuffle - "Win it back." Celebrating your divergence, deprogramming, and recontextualizing things in your own power. Highlighting growth and progress.
- β Eject - Protection against the things that hurt you and working against them, celebrating resiliency, particularly the "you're allowed to be mad about it" one.
When they're present or up front, we convey them as Track One Emoji / Track Two Emoji. So Track One Repeat / Track Two Shuffle would just be πΏππ prefacing whatever they're communicating.
Nobody has risen from here; they're all pretty tightly bound.
π₯ SHELL ABSENT SUNSHINE
Shell is the purest avatar of helplessness in the system, and he reflects that. His presentation is almost... median? There's distinct sub-aspects enough to warrant him being here, but they're not distinct enough to have separate names or identities.
Vaguely, they're "Please help me" / "Nobody can help me" / "I want to understand what help looks like and actualize that but cannot even conceive it"
Most often, you'll be looking at the first or last of those. We've only had "nobody can help me" Shell out in front once, and that involved not having the drive to escape a bath for three hours before a front-switch pulled him out. Poor guy.
π MYRA
Myra would describe herself as a control freak in remission. There was a point in her past where sheer protector instinct/fear basically had her subsystem force everyone else into dormancy, which is a huge story in and of itself that we're not even going to begin telling here. There were 23 people in her subsystem at the time, though only 2 besides her now remain. She's a bit guarded about them and she's the only outward point of communication, so we don't think we'll be saying more than that here.
More than anyone else, a LOT of people climbed out of Myra's fractal after it stopped overriding everything else:
- π» Kay
- π€ Cass
- π Mab
- π¬ Eglantyne
- π² Blanche
- π The Bees (kind of)