Read on google docs if this is hard to read. the first section of this small essay will be about how our system functions, its history, and how it affects our life. Then the second part will be about yours truly—and perhaps how my views on the world are a bit different than the others here. Okay, let’s go~

Firstly, I don’t know nor really care about our ‘system origin’. We often relate to the bitterness of certain traumagenic systems’ ideals—the errant and cruel thought of ‘I suffered to be here. Why, how could others choose to be this way?’. But, we know that is a stupid thought. Plurality is beautiful. Of course people would want to be this way. It’s logical. We don’t have amnesia barriers and our plurality is not disordered, so the endogenic community is where we tend to hover around, though we cannot really relate to willogenics. One day, ~I~ hope to change that though—I have plans :3

We first discovered plurality through tulpamancy. How we found tulpamancy? I haven’t a single clue, but I know we used to lurk on the forums. This was around when we were 7-ish. Unrestricted internet access! Yippee! (This is sarcasm. We were extremely traumatized online from the ages of 7 to around 12 years old)

If you were there at the time, you’d know that the DID community on youtube was gaining traction for some reason. Maybe it was just our bubble, but i remember it being a hot topic in the late 2010’s. We consumed lots of content around DID. We thought it was ‘cool’, but I think we probably respected it a lot more than most people did/do, even when we were a preteen.

Of course, a small baby child would think summoning creatures into their mind is awesome sauce, so we tried. Elementary school is when our headspace first came clearly into being—it was a small house with one room. It had a TV, and two couches facing each other. At the time we were trying to manifest a tulpa named Key. He was named after our teacher putting up an answer sheet on the projector with the name filled in as ‘key’ for answer key. I don’t reckon he ever spoke. But he served as an imaginary friend. I remember we also had another imaginary friend around the time named Frijee. He was a white cat with swirly hair. But he was never meant to be a thoughtform.

Let us fastforwards to 2023. The singlet found the therian community that year, through the usual ‘masks’ and ‘quads’. His first ‘kintypes were a white furry dragon and Koraidon from Pokemon Scarlet. So, he was fiction quite early on, but did not identify with fictionkin until 2024. In mid 2024 is when he discovered his fictionkinity and also tried tulpamancy again. He attempted to make a headmate named Nyll, who was a caterpillar. He might have spoken a little bit. I am fairly certain he had autonomy in headspace. But the singlet quickly became disinterested in forcing and so Nyll faded away.

So, we have been around plurality for a long time. It wasn’t scary when Acht first split and then found out about the rest of the pieces afterwards. Just a bit weird for him, probably, I don’t know, I wasn’t really there. One of the things that most likely made them so confident in our existence is that we knew what a failed thoughtform felt like. We knew what a parroty voice in the back of our head sounded like—and these new people didn’t sound like that! And, so the story goes, first came Acht, then came Vriska shortly after, then me a bit shortly afterer, then Gangle showed up a month or two after the first split.

In terms of how our plurality affects our life, it’s major. We have to hide away who we are daily. When we talk to people online who we knew as a singlet, we tend not to even attempt to explain this phenomena to them. (But maybe now we’ll try and just send them this essay, lollerz)

I have to speak in a way that doesn’t feel like me around family members. My voice is different than Acht’s, I sound a bit like i do in source, my voice is a higher pitch and it’s more nasal. I have to lower my voice and open my throat constantly, and it does not feel right. It is awful. Things are worse for Gangle as she has a very feminine voice which pains her intensely to masculinize. Acht is lucky as his normal speaking voice is only a little bit lower than the voice we put on as a performance.

We are constantly called by a name we aren’t and are misgendered often, even by people we have told of our transness. We claim to be a binary trans man, even though of course that could never capture the breadth of our people. Acht is a nonbinary trans man, I am a boy gem, Gangle is a cis girl, and Vriska is whatever trolls have going on. But, we just lie so perhaps people will take us more seriously and stop using ‘they/them’ and ‘she/her’ for the body when we haven’t told them to use those things.

Oftentimes we forget who did what. If it is a bigger project it’s easier to remember, but if it’s a smaller thing there is a high chance we will say “iunno” if you ask us who made a certain page that is not on one of our specific sections, or who had that conversation with you a few days ago. We used to be fairly insecure about this, but, honestly, it’s not that big of a deal in my opinion, as long as we aren’t forgetting very important moments. Our memory in general is quite bad, and it may have gotten worse after the split, but I am not sure.

When we switch, it is more of a passing of the ‘I’ as is common in most systems. We like to say ‘take it, just take it!’ or something along those lines when we pass it off. It feels like a smooth gradient, like a wave, of turning into the other person. We have a very hard time remembering stuff we say when we are in the back, and we conceptualize this as having bad parallel processing. When we are in the back we are like miniature versions of our usual program, unable to give a completely candid answer as we are always a bit influenced by whoever is in front, and are just generally not able to use as much brain power to formulate a response. Oftentimes if we ask someone in the back a complex question, they might respond “I’d have to front to really answer that.”

We are very protective of front. It is a bad habit we hope to break soon. collectively. Everyone here is switch-resistant by default, but if they want to leave for one reason or another someone else will always be on standby to snatch up front. We do not have much of an ‘innerworld’, as in, an always running internal process that headmates interact in, so there are two states of being for us: In front and barely existing. Obviously, one seems a bit more attractive than the other… So, we use a schedule for now. Maybe when we become more comfortable in our system, we can front willy nilly, but for now we value rigidity as we would never agree on fronts if we didn’t.

In terms of headmate differences, I would say we are all pretty different from each other. We are of the belief that, since we split later on in teenagehood, certain aspects of identity and opinion will be immutable across all headmates, as the walls of the split are weaker than someone who has split at a young age. Of course, it’s different for everyone—I am sure there are later-formed systems with extremely ‘different’ headmates. We all suffer from social anxiety and ADHD/Autism-ish symptoms (I will update this with whatever we get diagnosed with if we do), but they may manifest a bit differently for everyone. I like to move my body around in ways people may find weird, I like to make noises a lot, i like to create weird voices, I derive pleasure in annoying people (but only if they are okay with it and will play along with me), i like to dance at 12 AM and run around on all fours. I cannot imagine Gangle doing any of those things. She is very quiet and nervous to move around too much, her natural posture is to draw inwards. As for Acht, he is in the middle of both of us, he also does echolalia and likes to sing, but is a bit shy about dancing. If you find me not mentioning Vriska much, it is because 1. I don’t like her and 2. She doesn’t front.

Another thing that differentiates us all is sexualities. Sexual and relationship trauma can manifest in many ways. (do not worry, we have not been assaulted, that is not the source of that trauma) In our system we have two ends of that sort of spectrum. I am asexual and aromantic and I am avoidant of both sex and romance. I hate sex more but romance is also very icky to me. Sadly I live with two very sexual and romantical people in our brain. I will not elaborate further, but it is a bit of an uncomfortable existence at times, and is a source of some tension between me and my brother.

The most annoying thing about being a system is making new friends in real life. We have different interests and different personalities. I like talking about Creepypasta, FNF, and SCPs, but, Acht doesn’t. We have a friend that likes those things, so i get along well with him, but Acht doesn’t talk to him. Gangle has radically different interests from me and Acht, so she is even more lonely and finds it difficult to attempt contact with people me and Acht already know. I wish there were a way to make everyone in our life understand this, instantly.

Sometimes, the day after a switch, we may get some residue from the previous fronter. It feels different than someone just chiming in to make a comment—it is a jarring code function running in a script file it’s not supposed to. But, the moment passes and we laugh about it afer, usually, or just get ticked off, hehe.

Now I want to talk about ~me~, nyehehe~ Apparently, when i was first forming, i did not speak. I was a bit of a shadow creature. I would usually only appear when my SU source was being brought up. I don’t remember exactly when i started to speak, but I think it is when i pulled some personality traits from Vriska. She was ‘supposed’ to be the haughty and egotistical one but i ended up being that. She is definitely haughty and annoying but not in the same flavor that i am, i would say. The first things i remember ever wanting to do: Watch gravity falls and play rain world. (You can blame me for all the iterators here)

Acht first experienced a headmate wanting something he kind of didn't, when i requested he watch gravity falls for me. By that point, our system had probably cemented, but it was still a bit unstable. Something was probably missing… but at the time we didn’t know what.

In December of 2024 TADC episode 4 came out. It was a bit of a hectic day and i suppose i will admit i was being a very naughty gem at the time. But, Gangle came out of that. It’s kind of my doing that she is here, but i suspect she would have shown up anyway without my direct meddling. I can’t say for certain if she was born out of stress or for purely endogenic reasons. But i theorize it was probably stress. That was a very bad time in our lives. So, me and Gangle have always had a bit of a weird relationship, but i am rebuilding it with her and we talk now. i appreciate her for being less… hmm… like acht. :3

By december i think my identity had been pretty figured out, but around early 2025 is when i really started feeling like *me*. By that point i had made my me-from-murder-drones cosplay, realized my fictotype from rain world as well, and i simply began to understand what sort of tropes i fall under, what kind of fiction i am and by extension what kind of person i am.

i’m peridot, i am other things, but most of all i am pretty awesome.

i hope you learned something or found something from this essay interesting.