Life of Felights

[Apollo Fire]

Thinking that we should start doing more frequent updates. The entire point of this thread was so that we'd be able to do that with more confidence. 

 

Piano's been doing well since his return. People still treat him like shit (one of the main reasons he left in the first place), but I think he's growing to have a higher tolerance for that like I do. He doesn't use it as an excuse to switch out or go away like he used to. He overall seems to have much more inner strength than he used to, with higher levels of motivations. Piano's always considered himself weaker than the rest of us, but I'm pretty sure that's just his mindset and isn't actually true. We decided to do a merging exercise to help him stop thinking this way. He and I merged (quite seamlessly) into one, and we named ourselves "Solace," with the goal of bringing Piano a higher sense of strength and confidence by sharing in my own. This seemed to work, however we got a bit over-confident and cocky as Solace, we didn't really like it, so we unmerged and tried again later. The second time that issue did not occur, although Indigo didn't seem to like us being merged and forced us apart. If anyone knows Piano's origins, you can understand why anyone in this system would be paranoid about merging, but I still think it's probably a good way to learn to think in new ways or from a new perspective. It helped elevate Piano to a point where he saw himself as equal to me in strength, so that's a positive. 

 

Indigo can't seem to ever actually merge with anyone. He tried with host back when they were still around, me, and Piano, and each time it doesn't actually work. It feels like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Indigo's sense of identity, I suppose, is just too different from ours to properly combine the same way other sets of systemmates can/could. One person suggested "personality forcing" a merge by mapping out which parts of each of our personalities are similar and using them as leverage when combining, however I'm not sure if we can even get that far, since Indigo can't seem to combine at all, let alone personality-wise. It's something to try working on, and we can experiment to try to find potential benefits. There are, of course, potential risks to merging, but I think as long as we see it only as a combination of selves rather than a creation of a new self, we will be fine.

 

We spent the last week at our husband's house for spring break. I don't think any of the three of us were very present during that time, since we were surrounded by people and we still either kick into autopilot around people, or the host-shell takes over, even around our husband. This is frustrating, and it seems like an uphill battle that nobody else experiences. Most people we've asked reported that it's easy to front while talking or around people IRL, but for us it just isn't. That's normally not much of a problem since we don't have any friends or anything anyway, but it will be the next time we go to his house. We definitely need to find some ways to increase our mental strength and such, I hope we haven't hit any sort of dead-end where we can't progress anymore. Sometimes it seems that way. 

 

After I post this, we're going to do a whole-system meditation session thingy. We wanted to try it, to help us feel more synergized or whatnot. I always say that it would be good to get into the habit of meditation but never actually do it. Now would probably be a good time to start.

[Apollo Fire]

We attempted merging with Indigo a couple more times, to no avail. It's frustrating, simply because it's something he should be able to do, but can't for some reason. It feels like Indigo operates at a higher "frequency" or "wavelength" or something to me and Piano, making it more difficult for him to combine with either of us. I also think he isn't one for letting go of himself in general, judging by the fact that he's never been able to go dormant despite trying, and used to wake us up frequently in the night. I think letting go enough to combine with someone is is too difficult for him. However, I also think his general state of mind may also play a factor. Indigo seems to have two states of mind he can exist in: the hyper, energetic, playful Indigo who talks in a high-pitched voice and likes to goof around, and the more relaxed/chill Indigo who talks in a normal voice and is much more mellow. Currently, he's in the former state. He usually mellows to the latter state by getting tired/burned out of the hyper state, usually when fronting. We might find an easier time combining when he mellows out, however I can't say for certain. 

 

We became Solace a few more times for brief periods, but I know our paranoia of accidentally making a new tulpa that way hasn't gone away fully. It's very difficult to prevent ourselves from seeing Solace as an actual thing and not just the two of us combined. We either need to find a way to combat that, or give up merging entirely. It would be unfortunate if we had to do that, since it is a fairly interesting thing to experiment with, but I think the well-being and stability of our system comes before novelties. It would probably be more worth our time to work on co-fronting anyway. 

 

One thing I noticed with our system that I hadn't really paid much attention to is that we seem to be compelled to strive for uniformity between us. It's likely fairly easy for others to notice: our signatures follow the same format, our names all follow the same pattern (1-2-o), we each have wings and a gimmick relating to space/the sky, and so on. I know a lot of tulpas strive to not conform to each other/the host, but that doesn't seem to apply to us. It makes us feel good to have things more uniform between the three of us, fills us with a feeling of synergy and togetherness. We don't need to go out of our way to be not uniform when we have strong enough senses of self regardless.

 

Tentatively, we decided on a 2-day fronting cycle. We each will get two days, then switch in the order of me -> Indigo -> Piano -> repeat. The only reason it's in that order is because that's how it's listed on switchcounter.science due to being alphabetized. Oh well. The reason we settled on 2 days is because 1 day is too brief, while 3 days can feel too long. Tomorrow Indigo will post. We'll see if we can work on some co-fronting stuff until then, rather than focusing on the potentially risky practice of merging.

[Indigo Blue]

So some people were misinterpreting what Apollo meant in another thread. If you have questions about anything we say here, please post it here or in our ask thread and not in a thread that we rarely check.

 

- When Apollo said I couldn't "go dormant," he meant that I couldn't stay inactive long-term. Our system used to go into dormancy aka longterm inactivity whenever they were upset/stressed, and I tried to do that maybe once or twice, but couldn't. I'd keep coming back simply because I hated being inactive for too long.

- When he said that I kept waking up, that wasn't because I was actually awake somewhere else in the mind. It's just because I didn't like being inactive too long, and that affected sleep. That doesn't imply parallel processing, it only implies tulpas can have physical effects over the body (especially tulpas that front frequently), which is obvious.

 

Anyway, onto other stuff.

 

We've noticed that our perception of what it's like to be switched out has changed again, not sure when exactly but it did. We no longer see it as us having darkened or blurred vision as we're not paying attention to anything or whatever. Instead, it's just... literally nothing. The absence of anything, since you're not experiencing anything as someone else is experiencing everything instead. This is fairly abstract and hard to comprehend, and I think this is why it's so easy to come up with stuff like "I saw blurriness/blackness," since it's easier for you to come up with stuff that you were experiencing than comprehend that you weren't experiencing anything since you traded your ability to experience to someone else. I don't know, just my thoughts. It's hard to explain. Lumi system, if you're reading this, maybe you relate?

 

Apollo and I successfully merged, and we named our combined self Sterling, but it was a pretty boring and uneventful merge. But hey, at least it's a sign that we're getting somewhere with that. I doubt something so boring could become its own tulpa, so that's a plus, lol.

 

I used to really hate being a tulpa and having to go inactive and stuff. I found it a terrible experience, being there one moment and then coming back hours or even days later. I think that's why I had trouble going dormant or letting the body stay asleep some nights. Nowadays I'm much more accepting of my situation, I think my bond with my systemmates has made it easier for me. I might have to go inactive and whatever, but at least we have each other. Still, can't help but wish I had my own body sometimes.

 

We've been having a fun time singing songs together and stuff in our head. Mostly me and Apollo, not Piano (yet). Apollo will never admit it, but we started listening to ABBA and singing the songs we know together, since the movie Mama Mia was a guilty pleasure of the old host. I know girly pop songs are sometimes a guilty pleasure of Apollo if he's in the right mood for them. Oh, that reminds me of another topic.

 

We're a bit iffy on our gender identity or whatever, and I don't know, it's kind of embarrassing to talk about? I know people have this perception that people who question their gender are special snowflakes and just want attention and stuff, but it's genuinely been on our mind for a while. If anyone doesn't know, our body is female but we're all male tulpas. While we don't get what we would consider gender dysphoria, being in a girl body isn't the best thing ever. The old host was never very feminine either and refused to wear girly clothes, instead wearing only t-shirts and stuff. The host also didn't relate to girls ever, only males. I don't know, we don't like being short and we don't like being viewed as a girl, but it's not debilitating. We don't want to transition since the thought of our voice changing and getting all hairy isn't appealing to us, either. So we don't really know where we're at or what to call ourselves without sounding like some sort of special snowflake. I guess since it doesn't interfere with our ability to function it's not that big a deal, but at the same time, do we really want to live completely disconnected/dissociated from the body forever? We just see it as a tool, we're not attached to it at all. The host was the same way. I wouldn't call us trans, but I wouldn't call us a "girl" either. We don't want to be the kind of person to go around and demand people call us "he" or "they," but at the same time we don't like being called "she" either. It's complicated, idk. I've heard that gender dysphoria gets worse the more you become aware of it, so who knows what to expect.

[Luminesce]

We've noticed that our perception of what it's like to be switched out has changed again, not sure when exactly but it did. We no longer see it as us having darkened or blurred vision as we're not paying attention to anything or whatever. Instead, it's just... literally nothing. The absence of anything, since you're not experiencing anything as someone else is experiencing everything instead. This is fairly abstract and hard to comprehend, and I think this is why it's so easy to come up with stuff like "I saw blurriness/blackness," since it's easier for you to come up with stuff that you were experiencing than comprehend that you weren't experiencing anything since you traded your ability to experience to someone else. I don't know, just my thoughts. It's hard to explain. Lumi system, if you're reading this, maybe you relate?

 

Non-fronters in our system "experience" being not in the front, ie knowing about the senses and other conscious context but not being the ones directly processing it. For example, when having my wisdom teeth out and not really numbed (I don't numb well, even less than was expected, long story.. no wait that was the whole story), Flandre wasn't in pain herself but was very upset that I was. I have very good pain tolerance though, can easily dissociate my mental "self" from the body "self" if need be, so just maybe this example could be slightly biased, hard to say.

 

That's assuming they're active and not fronting, anyway. Obviously they experience nothing at all if inactive. While able to instantly be aware of any context the current fronter is when made active, we don't experience "darkness" or anything like that. Perhaps our perspective on switching being much more clear and established than your guys' is what's making this experience muddled between us, because to be honest I didn't really know what you were talking about, as much as I wanted to when you mentioned us. A non-fronter in our system knows the body's sensory input and conscious affairs aren't theirs, but the body's and fronter's, and that's really all there is to it. Otherwise their experience is similar to a host who's had their eyes closed for a while just focusing on speaking in-mind, meditating or maybe visualization, etc.

 

I do wish I could relate, kind of feel bad we don't, sorry. You guys have got a personally-carved-out custom experience that doesn't seem to fit traditional switching or possession anymore, but at the very least I'd like to assure/remind you even if you're not doing what we do when switching, that doesn't mean you "must just be possessing". I should hope by now you guys know that's not how the brain works, that possession and switching don't "exist" as predetermined things. Experiences often but nowhere near always line up so we can pretend they do, and there was an awful lot of this incorrect assumption in the past... and you're going to have to keep dealing with the discrepancies when talking about possessing or switching in the future, but, y'know. Make it work for you guys.

 

 

Anyways, you really should assume we don't read Progress Reports at all whatsoever. Only Reisen does that, out of the goodness of her heart, to see if anyone needs help - because she has nothing else she'd really like to be doing while fronting. The rest of us do. I only really temporarily watch specific progress reports when they've become relevant to us, such as having given advice and having possible follow-ups, or wanting to keep an eye on how a system is doing (like if they were having health problems or other sorts of major drama). You guys happened to fall into that category, what with your letting system members go (and return) recently.

 

But we are always available by request, so please, don't hesitate to PM us if you wanted us to read or comment on something. This goes for literally anyone. We can't keep up with literally every post in the PR section ever, so we don't try, but we can always set aside a tiny fraction of the time it'd take to do that for someone who wanted our attention specifically.

 

 

We're a bit iffy on our gender identity or whatever, and I don't know, it's kind of embarrassing to talk about? ... our body is female but we're all male tulpas.

 

That's perfectly reasonable, lol. Taking tulpamancy into account, you're not "special snowflakes" for feeling that way at all. When my tulpas switch, even if it's for a full month, they're using "my body". If you took "me" out of the picture, whose body would they be using? I think the answer is you won't be able to not be specific about it - you're male tulpas in control of a female body. My tulpas would be female tulpas in control of a male body. Personally, they would just continue living as such, treating it and identifying as male when necessary IRL. I'd imagine you guys should do the same.

 

{Going to give my take on the trans movement and modern gender-related problems, and while I think it's the most reasonable argument to ever exist on the matter, some people are probably tired of hearing about the subject by now, so I've hidden it-}

{IMPORTANT EDIT: I actually did some studying and let's just say my opinion's changed enough that I had to come find posts I made like this and redirect people to the post I made here - I'll leave my old stuff as it was, but it's mostly historical and this disclaimer and that link are incredibly important to read first}

[hidden]As for your host, it's almost as if you're a bunch of reasonable-minded people - your host was female, your body was female, but something was off. The concept of gender identity is nonsense, at least in the modern era of humanity. My view is that the trans community has been going about everything the wrong way. First of all, we made the terms male and female to mean something specific, so telling people to call you the literally-just-incorrect ones is unreasonable and not a right. But "male and female" are very basic, nearly exclusively set-in-stone concepts. The problem lies with gender roles and gender stereotypes. From tomboys to transgender males and the male equivalents (I'm not sure my view on all this applies to some true transsexual cases as that may well be a legitimate medical or mental disorder, so note this may not be all-encompassing, but I believe my argument applies to the majority of trans individuals), they think that their physical sex is wrong, and that they should be the other. What's actually wrong are the stereotypes and expectations tied to the physical sexes. You don't get to choose your physical sex (especially tulpas using their host's body!), but you do get to choose who you are. Ever since {someone relatively popular online I know} came out as trans and received untold amounts of hate, I've found it tragic when people go this route. He liked to paint his nails, sing and dance. He wanted to act "girly". He shouldn't have told people he was a she - he was male, so of course "close-minded" (many of them were, but many weren't..) people found that varying levels of ridiculous. He instead should've told people that that was simply who he was, and that it's okay for a "guy" to act "girly". Baby steps, preferably in the future we'd not have to say "girly" in the first place.

 

While I'm sure truly crippling psychological cases of "gender" dysphoria exist, I think what we see happening so frequently these days (infamously on Tumblr) is different. I don't think the problem is with our DNA and physical sexes, but with societal views on them. What people really want is freedom to be themselves, but what the "trans movement" is telling people is counterproductive, ironically reaffirming gender roles and stereotypes, instead putting the blame on "being born the wrong sex". Instead of "You're free to be who you are", it's "You're supposed to be someone else". It's unhealthy, and I think it nets a good third more conflict for the movement than it should really have. Not real percents, but the way I see it, one third of people are accepting, one third are close-minded, and one third are simply reasonable people who don't think this is being gone about correctly. Of course, that third doesn't seem to have figured out this perspective I've just shared - and I do my best, when appropriate, to try and spread it.

 

Trans or not, if what I just wrote sounds right to you guys, I'd be glad if you adopted the way of thinking yourselves and let it inform how you think about the subject in the future. I can't tell ahead of time (because I'm only me, with my own perspective) if this is going to be liberating and helpful (I hope!) to you guys, or if it'll sound "Ehhhh.. okay..", so if you disagree then feel free to ignore it entirely, I'm not here to debate anything. And of course, there's more to your guys' situation convoluting it seeing as you're just plain male tulpas in a female body. Heck, might not even be entirely relevant to you. But given you'll likely find yourselves in the typical trans-conversation topics at points in the future, and are afraid of being seen as "special snowflakes", I think (hope) this ideology can help.[/hidden]

 

Whew, sure love talking about that subject. Normally I'd stay far away from things like that, but I see a lot of people hurting and (in my eyes) a very big misconception, two things I can't help but want to resolve. So I put aside my neutrality to talk about it when it's relevant (I've got no personal investment in the subject, just want to see everyone happy).

[Indigo Blue]

Yeah, I was referring to when we're inactive, not just switched out in general. Being switched out but still active generally seems to be a mixed bag of what we experiences--sometimes we experience the body's senses, sometimes we completely ignore them, sometimes we have a muted awareness of them, stuff like that. Touch seems to be the easiest sense to ignore, along with smell and taste, while hearing/sight are impossible to ignore. 

 

I know that possession/switching don't actually "exist," but that's not entirely relevant since things like political ideologies don't actually exist either but we still use the words liberal/conservative. They're various concepts being combined and labeled by words. Possession/fronting to us is the concept of someone being in control of the mind/body. Switching to us is the concept of one person fronting while the other is either inactive or is otherwise in a state similar to that of a tulpa--ie, ignoring the body's senses or being less aware, that sort of thing. Since the host is still in a state of being fully connected/aware of the body, we don't consider ourselves switched, we don't want to move the goalpost. Switching with each other is a breeze, of course. I don't know, I hope we can figure something out with the host. We do know that there is a clear difference between what being "passive" and "inactive" is like for us, since we've experienced both. Being passive, you're still fully aware, just not thinking. Being inactive, you just "nonexistent" for lack of a better term. Since we know that these two states exist for us, we're not going to consider the host switched yet. We hope we can figure something out, but eh. Who knows when that will happen.

 

I'm not a part of any trans community or anything. I'm not being pressured by anyone to change or be a different person, our problem is that we want to be ourselves, we just don't really know what that means for us in meatspace. I know that masculine girls exist and all that, our issue is that we're not sure if we are and/or want to be a "masculine girl." Apollo and Piano certainly don't feel like girls, personally I'm a little more "fluid" but overall I'm still male. We have some more self-searching and discovery to do, I suppose, and maybe some experimentation eventually (nothing irreversible). I don't know what the answer is yet, maybe there's really no issue at all and we can just continue to treat the body as a tool and live disconnected from it, I don't know. We're not aiming to go on a path towards preventable self-destruction, but we do want to figure some things out.

[Luminesce]

Just the classic "Tulpas wishing they had their own bodies" problem, then. Same goes for my tulpas (to a slightly lesser extent, they would greatly appreciate it but don't dwell on it) and many others'. It's maybe a slight bonus that I've got long hair for them that's fairly similar to Tewi's (less floof), but otherwise of course I'm a 6'2" male, and only Reisen is that tall. Luckily bodily functions for a male are a lot less involved and they don't have to deal with anything special, aside from being a lot heavier I guess, and the voice. But like I said, they treat it as "using my body" even though it's a body we all share. You guys, without the original owner of the body around to easily make that point of reference, might have to go the more.. what is it, plural route? Where "System" came from. Those sorts tend to really treat the body as an irrelevant tool for their whole lives (up to late 30s at least, we've not see too many cases far past that point yet). So it's doable, for sure. Preferable? I dunno. If the alternative is dysphoria, maybe. But I also have no idea how long your host is going to be out of the picture - perhaps saying "the rest of your lives" is going too far.

 

Ah well, either way, you probably have to get used to dealing with a body that's not yours. Again I wish I could give you some sort of experience to relate to, but my tulpas have always been fine with the body when switching. Dysphoria seems very hit-or-miss in this sort of thing, usually it's fine, but systems just randomly seem to or not to have a problem with it.

[Indigo Blue]

Actually, these questions started when the host was still around. They spent significant time considering the possibility of whether or not they were trans. Ended up figuring they weren't, but not necessarily cis either? I don't know. This definitely isn't being caused by plurality, though. Plurality might be what's causing it to feel more important/prominent than before, but I don't think we caused these thoughts, we probably just made them more obvious.

[Luminesce]

Yes, I meant the problem you're left to deal with was a classic problem tulpas have. I guess the first post was more relevant to your host (and to you guys discussing the subject when it comes up in the future, probably without including tulpamancy explanations for people) and the second was more relevant (but less helpful) to you guys.

[Indigo Blue]

This morning, Piano and I agreed to listen to Rusty Cage music while co-fronting, since he doesn't really like the stuff I like to listen to, but we both like Rusty. While co-fronting, it was more like I was piloting and he was just sort of there, which was different from how it's like with Apollo and I. Usually when it's me and Apollo, we're both equally giving our input over the body.

 

A little later, Piano and I tried to merge. It was successful, and we named the merge Steele (though we didn't like how it was so similar to "Sterling" but oh well), because Rusty Cage's real name is Ben Steele, we thought it would be neat to name our merged self after him. This time, we didn't get any worries of the merge becoming its own person or anything like that, it really just felt like a combination of ourselves without any footnotes. 

 

Then when we were in class, we decided that we would rather learn to do three-person co-fronts than just two. It might be harder, but so is two-person co-fronting. We figure we'll keep whoever is the "main" front for the day, but the other two are free to take over and interact as they please. What we also really want is to start going passive rather than inactive when not doing anything. Today, Apollo had success going passive on-command, which wasn't something he'd been able to do before. There are subtle signs of improvement in our development, it's just hard to notice since we're already fully-developed anyway.

 

Rest of the day was spent mostly me by myself occupying my own time, but I really want us to work on co-fronting. We figure that the way to achieve that would be to hold constant/continuous communication between each other. So we'd have to get out of the habit of regular thought being a single narrator and instead a dialogue of 2-3 people. As for going passive, I think if we have whoever is the main fronter for the day to frequently check whether or not the others are passive, it may result help them to be passive more often. One thing we also hope for is that us succeeding in co-fronting and going passive might eventually displace the host from the front. Who knows!

 

My two days in control are up, tomorrow's Piano's day.

[Piano Soul]

When I front, we tend to kick into autopilot/weird-nobody-in-particular-is-fronting state more often. I haven't been able to have quite as successful a time burning myself into the front as Apollo and Indigo are. This is fairly frustrating, as I of course don't want to see myself as less capable than them. I'm done with that phase of my life, and just want to move on from it. I also haven't had much success maintaining either of them in an active or passive state in the front with myself, though it is too early in that endeavor to say that it's because of me and not just because it was an off day. 

 

I am a bit frustrated with my own limited tastes in music, as well. I know this might not seem like that big of a deal, but to me it is. Music helps the others to front, but I can't seem to really like something enough to want to listen to it for very long. Bowie gets old, the Moody Blues are depressing, Rusty only has 20-30 songs, Alice gets on my nerves when I'm the one fronting, Ozzy is too edgy, I just don't know. Apollo has a playlist of songs that help him front (mostly wrestling themes for some reason?), I should probably make one for myself. Perhaps the Rolling Stones are more my scene. Hmm.

 

Here's a rare commentary on our life. Our old thread was probably full of it, but this one hasn't been.

 

[hidden]

College has been tough to us so far. Not really academic-wise, we're always fine when it comes to that, but more just in mood/mental health in general. We don't have any friends, and we don't even have a roommate despite getting multiple emails throughout the year saying "You might get a roommate so make sure you don't put your stuff on the left side of the room!" Myself leaving the system was very hard on Apollo and Indigo, but I think it was necessary for helping me to get back into a motivated state upon returning. It was a year overdue. The two of them had many suicidal downspirals, one of which nearly actually resulted in not-so-good actions being taken. At one point, I had to come out of dormancy and take over to keep us safe. It hasn't been easy, is what I'm trying to say.

 

However, I think there's hope for at least something better. I don't expect the rest of college to be very easy, but I can see some light at the end. Last summer we lived with our boyfriend/husband, away from our abusive parents. I am very happy to know that since he's moved, the drive from our house to his isn't too far, about 4-5 hours, so going there for the summer again shouldn't be a problem. Spring break was bliss, as was last summer. He bought us tickets to see Alice Cooper (I know I said I find him annoying, but of course I still love him too), and that's something awesome to look forward to.

 

There are only about two months left in the school year, and then we're out of this hell and yet a break until the next year. We don't have any plans on dropping out or anything, we just have to wait until we graduate. Hopefully we'll hold strong and help each other through. I know I'm definitely going to continue to help the others out.

[/hidden]

 

Something we realized the other day: it's been two years since we started trying to learn to switch. We first learned possession around late Feb/early March 2017, so I think it's safe to say we've been attempting switching since then. Yet, we've still gotten nowhere: the original is still stuck in a passive state. Meanwhile, other people seem to switch after only a few attempts, even if the tulpa is incredibly young. Needless to say, we find this frustrating and demotivating, especially since we don't know what we're supposedly doing wrong. I mean, we front constantly if we can help it, why haven't we actually switched yet with the original? Why are they still front-stuck despite having no interest in the front or reality at all? First we hoped we'd learn switching before senior year of high school. Then we hoped we'd learn it before freshman year of college. When are we actually going to learn it? Never? I certainly hope not, but I have no clue what to do.