This is a random tip, but if you want a deeper voice but are having trouble with consistently keeping it low when you're speaking, check that you aren't subconsciously tensing your throat. This especially goes for those who have trouble speaking (such as semi-verbal folk) who may have learned to ignore the amount of effort they put into speaking.

This is a little complicated, so I'm going to heavily simplify things, but. The pitch of your voice depends on your vocal cords, which are located in your throat. Tensing your throat also causes those vocal cords to tense up, which means your voice comes out higher. Relaxing your throat does the opposite, which makes your voice come out deeper. You don't need to teach yourself to keep your voice low, you just need to teach yourself to keep your throat relaxed, and your body will naturally lower your voice. (And if you want a higher voice, just switch it around and tense up your throat!) It can take a while to get used to, and may even feel like you're straining your voice at first, but rest assured, it's merely due to your body being unused to the practice, just like all other vocal practices beyond what a person typically does. Just don't purposefully strain your voice/hurt your throat by trying to force anything; voice training such as this can be uncomfortable at first, as it is unfamiliar, but it shouldn't become a source of pain. Remember to drink water frequently when first making this a habit to help your throat adjust, and you should be fine.

This has been random voice tips from *checks credentials* some random plural who takes voice lessons. Hope this helps someone out there.

Me telling my friends who apologize for answering late they're allowed to text back whenever they can and not feel forced to immediately respond to me (unstoppable force) VS. AvPD, my extreme irrational fear of getting ignored by those I love, and me taking days to answer simple texts as well (unmovable object).

We recently saw a post about exomemories that interested us, but to avoid detracting from the point of that post, we're making this one ourselves.

The community often focuses on vivid exomemories, ones you can easily understand and tell others about, but it's alright if yours aren't like that. We ourselves often experience memories – whether exo- or from this life/world – as more general knowledge than, like, flashbacks or whatever. We know things without knowing how we know them. Sometimes we get flashes of "Yes, this feels right." or "This reminds me of something I can't put my finger on." We miss things that are hard to put into words, or instinctually assume the presence of something that we only realize in hindsight doesn't exist here. All these kinds of exomemories are just as important as the times we remember something big and vivid.

And of course, memories can be hazy or unclear; you don't need to scramble for details to prove to yourself your exomemories are real. This-life memories aren't perfectly clear and immutable forever and always; why would exomemories somehow be exempt from the regular ol' flaws of memory recall? You don't need every last detail to have "real" exomemories. If it matters to you, and feels real to you, then that's all that matters in the end.

Big, vivid, and clear exomemories are fun to talk about a lot of the time, but they're not the only kind of exomemory out there. Don't hurt yourself trying to force yourself to only have those kinds of exomemories, or suppressing everything that doesn't fall into that box. Exomemories are, at the end of the day, just memories like any other – and as this community should know well, memory can be complicated as hell.

One tip we learned recently is that if you're talking with your headmates (whether directly to them or alongside them) and there's something that you think you've said but that makes you uncomfortable to claim for an unknown reason... It's probably because you're not actually the one who said it. Like, if you hear/say something and assume it came from you specifically, but something about that idea just rubs you the wrong way (not because you disagree with what was said or anything, it just bristles your fur and you don't know why), that's a very strong sign you're not the one who said it, but rather, some other headmate. I'd recommend in these cases to assume that a different headmate said whatever it was until proven otherwise. Really cuts down on the amount of unnecessary discomfort.

I know for some systems, this is going to be an obvious tip, but we struggle with differentiating ourselves during conversation a lot, so this is something we needed to learn. You don't have to automatically claim everything that's been said in your head or by your system. And like, yeah, system responsibility and all that (not saying to abandon that or anything), but what I mean is that you don't have to treat yourself as the default speaker at all times, even if you're the host. Your headmates have their own voices (and I say this completely neutrally, because this is not an ego problem, just a communication problem). If something is said and it doesn't feel right to assume you're the one who said it, you don't have to ignore that discomfort and assume + act as though you did. Sometimes it's just someone else in your head.

(This is... probably one of those posts that's only going to make sense if you've experienced what we're talking about. But here it is, anyway. I hope it helps someone out there.)

Mom said it's my turn to dissociate *becomes so blurry I can no longer tell if I'm fronting*

Fictives' source updated 2 dead 29 injured

Very recently, one of our headmates who's been frontstuck for the longest time figured out how to switch out, and it's been such a relief to them that pretty much anyone around them can feel it. They say it gave them a lot of perspective on some problems they were dealing with as a main fronter (although, to be honest, they were general communication and cooperation problems we had with fronting; they just ended up taking them on since they were always in front), and honestly? I can see it. They've returned to front now, and the way they act and ask us to act has been a lot healthier for us all. It was just a simple "Hey, what if we look at things this way?", but things are so much better in the front now. The kinks are still being worked out, but I'm really grateful for this development.

I suppose the moral of the story here is to not be afraid to take a step back if working on a project or problem just seems to make it worse. You may need a fresh perspective/set of eyes or just some time away to make that breakthrough you've been looking for. Give yourself breaks where you can. Pace yourself. Rome wasn't built in a day, and you can't build your own (metaphorical) Rome if you wear yourself down to nothing.

Also, if you're having trouble switching, consider if you're trying to get to the wrong sidesystem or section of the innerworld. Maybe try somewhere else. You may be surprised where you belong.

I've only seen this once in a story myself, but one of my favorite plural tropes is when a characters meets 2+ other characters that happen to be part of the same system without realizing it. Like, Character One thinks these other characters are all separate beings, but surprise, they're sharing a body!! (Bonus points if they barely hide it, Character One is just unobservant or never questioned it for some other reason.)

Alice, checking up on everyone in front: Okay, how's it going?

Nargan, having a crisis over being a subsystem: *wails*

Saishu, having a sexuality crisis: *joins in*

Alice: Great. Keep up the great work.

Was scrolling through the plural tags and misread "your fave is a fictive" as "your fave is a detective" and was just like "hell yeah good for him. Good for him."

Y'know, I often see people talk about how finding out they had a condition or disorder or whatever left them shocked at the reveal, or happy that they finally have answers, or fearful of what this means for their future, or sad about how they have to accept that they're always going to be different/struggle in some way... But I haven't seen many people talk about anger.

When you find out that there were words all along for the struggles you've faced... that the world didn't provide you with what you needed to succeed like it promised it would... that people failed to properly educate you on something that turned out to be so important... or worse, failed to take you, your concerns, and your problems seriously... that you could have been receiving help/doing better this whole time, or at least known what was wrong with you... maybe even that people purposefully hid the answers from you... You can be bitter. And you have a right to that bitterness! All that sucks and it sucks you went through that!! You have a right to be angry when you discover something like that. That doesn't make you "ungrateful" or "a bad example" or whatever, that makes you a person with feelings that is responding appropriately to an injustice!! To something unfair happening to you!! You're allowed to be angry about that!!

So. Shout-out to all the people who found out they have a disorder/condition/etc and are bitter about it. May your bitterness become a balm for the injustice you've been dealt.

we get front exhausted very fast like usually front at most 100-150hours or 4-6ish days with our longest front being 15 so imaging a whole month is horrifying

Lol, yeah, I didn't realize just how long our fronts often are. Headmates end up in front and just kinda stick around until they remember they can switch out, y'know? Kinda funny, in a way

we dont wanna come off anon but just wanted to say we really relate to your fragment post. We've only ever had one fragment, and we've been paranoid about calling her that because everyone else is very full/individualized, we're not sure if we count as in a "traumatic enough" situation, and we've never heard of someone only having one or two fragments rather than polyfragmentation. But we read your& post and realized she operates almost the exact same, having this very one-track mind encompassing only her singular emotion and not much else. she's weird to talk to because she doesn't interact with the same depth as everyone else, and... idk, I'm rambling by now, but just wanted to say thank you.

It's certainly possible to have only a few fragments; polyfragmentation, as a word, is meant to denote having lots of fragments, hence the poly- prefix. If every system that had fragments was polyfragmented, there'd probably be a different word for it that focuses more on just the general presence of fragments rather than the presence of lots of fragments. So, there's no need to worry about that, regardless of trauma or lack thereof.

If your headmate is accurately described by the "fragment" label and feels comfortable being called such, then I'd say to go ahead and call her that. There's no fragment police. Do what works for y'all.

I'm glad we could help you somewhat! We hope to make a more extensive post on fragments in the future, although it's taking quite a while due to wanting to be specific and thorough in our explanations of things. Whenever that comes out, though, we recommend you check it out, since you liked our (much shorter) explanation.

A lot of how we understand ourselves comes in two flavors: poetry, or analysis. We mostly post the analyses here, but sometimes there are things that can only really be communicated in a poetic way or style, and transferring it to an analysis would lose some of its original meaning or impact. The problem is that poetry is rarely seen as an attempt to understand the world – I would posit many would mentally categorize it alongside "fantasy" or "realistic fiction" despite being a form of prose, not a genre, even if they do not consciously do so – and so there's discouragement in posting it, because it's not going to be engaged with the same way as our analyses, even though they're being used for the same purpose. Our best solution, as of now, is to write our analyses with poetry mixed in – using our education on literature and writing to drift between theory submitted to the public for review and discussion, and poetry given to the public for reflection and intercommunication.

We've done it in this very post, if you look closely. But do people notice the poetry, when it's intertwined with the analysis?

So, one of our members – Saishu – gave himself a pretty plain description when he was setting up Pluralkit. And one of the two sentences that he decided to write in it is "My main defining character trait is liking black nail polish with sparkles"

and then he proceeded to have the biggest sexuality + gender crisis any of us have had since the body was fourteen. It's technically still ongoing, even if he's mostly accepted his current identity as what best describes him

It's like

"ah yes, I am a rather plain person. Nothing much going on here" *cut to him screaming about his complicated identity*

im one out of the 8 ranboos in our system i think we all could take over the world if wanted!!! >:}

Four hours ago I did not think we would be witnessing the start of world domination via Ranboo, but I'm not completely opposed to this