#I'm barely processing the fact that I have fictives

[oopsallsyscourse]

You know what? Let's talk about racial trauma today. Specifically mine. This is going to be a ridiculous long post (again), so bare with me. It's a bit of a trauma dump but not a vent. Tw for racism and internalized racism ofc.

To start, we're a black system, and we grew up in the suburbs. And if you know nothing else about the suburbs, it's primarily white. The area we were in was luckily in the Midwest, meaning that while there was still racism it wasn't as bad as the horror stories I heard in college.

Ok, so what were the effects of all this?

1) A lot of internalized racism. I'm not going to describe most of it for my own mental health, but it can be summed up pretty well with this video.

2) A huge disconnect to black culture that I still struggle with today. I feel like I don't know how to be a black person, and I don't know how to fix that. Combine that with some anxiety that you are "doing black wrong," and you got someone who's even more paralyzed to research their own culture.

3) Still suffering from the same generational abuse that is typical for black families but not having the same sort of community to help me process and deal with it.

And there's probably a ton more I'm not thinking of the moment. Now, how did this impact my system?

1) Not having a lot of alters that "look black." I'm fairly light skinned for a black person (but not mixed race). Combine that with the internalized racism mentioned above, and you have a child who fundamentally doesn't see themselves as black and is uncomfortable with reminder. We don't have a lot of concrete information on a childhood - much of it is a blur because, well, CDD - but what we were able to gather from drawings we drew when we were younger, we viewed ourselves as fair skinned, instead of the darker skin we actually have. Pretty much all of the older alters have fair skin or a straight-up completely non-human. Combined with the fact we currently split mostly fictives, there's not a lot of alters in our system who look like how our body does.

2) Similarly, almost no alters in our system resonate with black culture nor know how to act in a primarily black setting (although I will say there is no correct way to act besides being yourself). It's uncomfortable to feel that divide and have no clue how to solve it. This also manifests in a lot of animal alters, hybrid alters, and general shapeshifters.

Funnily enough, all this excludes our middle, who is enthusiastically in black culture (though he does know how to shape-shift between human and animal forms). So you have this fair skinned teenager who is very excited to be black and learn more about black culture.

3) I won't go too deep into this point as it's primarily the trauma that caused our system. But it permutations every aspect of our system. Our caretakers, persecutors, protectors, and trauma holder are all affected by this.

There's a reason I don't go into how my race affects my plurality; most of the effects are negative. I'm sure there's other poc that feel similarly. And you end up with an interesting but equally distressing post. Anyway idk how to end this post so the end. You can go home now.

Feel free to reblog it and comment on it if you like.

#syscourse #long post #alex+peter #been thinking about what a certain asshole said #so might as well talk about race and plurality

[fictionkinfessions]

Hi. I'm a fictive of John Gaius from The Locked tomb, and I'm sorry.

I'm still coming to terms with the fact that I was a piece of shit, but I don't have to *stay* a piece of shit, because people can change. So here you go. Here's me just throwing words out there to process and work through some stuff.

To be honest? I wasn't a great person to start off with. Back than I wanted to believe that everyone would do the same in my position, but looking back I don't think it was *just* that.

(And yeah, it wasn't really a position that gave me a lot of time for rational thought and considering the consequences of my actions. But still, pretty sure that's the worst anyone's ever done it.)

Even before everything went to shit? I was a manipulative, underhanded, ends-justify-the-means kind of guy. I was convinced that the way to fix anything was to do it my way, because I was going to save humanity or die trying. I was a pretentious fuck who thought I was above everyone else.

I believed the only thing wrong with people getting hurt was that the wrong people were getting hurt, and I believed that I was the supreme arbitrator of acceptable targets. I wanted to be judge, jury, and executioner, but in the end I was only ever an executioner.

I wasn't some inherently evil irredeemable monster. I was a smooth talking guy who thought that if I just did everything my way, I could make things perfect, and who cares about the cost of utopia? In other words? I was a fascist.

I hurt people. Some of it I intended from the start. Some came later. But all of it was still things I did, my actions, my choices. I was coerced sometimes, yeah, I was under duress, but I still chose those things. I still committed to things I could have backed out of, knowing they would hurt people.

And there's nothing I can say that will guarantee you won't hate me for my source actions. There shouldn't be. If you don't get to decide whether or not you forgive someone, that's not forgiveness. But I figure I should start with this: I'm sorry.

Back than, I never really apologized. An apology means admitting you were wrong, admitting you hurt people. It means baring your soul. It means going "do you forgive me," and with real forgiveness there's always the possibility of a no. That's the point. Being vulnerable. And that scared me.

I was a master of the sunk cost fallacy. I got so used to picking the lesser evil that I refused to acknowledge it was still evil, and than I started defining "lesser evil" as "evil less harmful for me specifically." I guess you can probably see where that went.

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I'll be more specific: road to Hell is paved with self-righteous conviction, and the refusal to admit you're doing the wrong thing, and the need to convince yourself of your good intentions.

Anger is like a fire; it needs fuel. I was angry. I was fueled by the desire to hurt the people who'd hurt people. I saw myself as some kind of divine arbitrator of justice. I never let go of grudges, not even after generations. I just fed that fire because I couldn't live with myself if I had to stop and think.

Once I stopped justifying everything, stopped trying to feed that, than I had to stop and think. I realized I was, to put it kindly, a piece of shit. So I tried to be a better person. It was a pain, it was a hard journey, it was trying and trying and trying for something I only half believed was possible.

I had to believe everyone could change, could try, could grow. Because if that wasn't true, than what hope was there for me?

To me, the main thing that keeps people from changing for the better is they don't even try. Whether it's because they think they're doing the right thing, or change isn't possible anymore, et cetera.

Ironically, enough, whether you're capable of redemption has nothing to do with who you are or what you've done. It's whether you think you can change. And doing that might cost you everything, but if you think it's impossible and never even try, than you've already failed.

To any sourcemates reading this: I'm sorry I hurt you. I hope you're happy and safe and this universe is treating you well. I understand if you don't forgive me, or you don't trust me. If you never want to see me again, that's fair too. But one bonus of screaming into the void is that you're not really expecting it to answer, and when it does it's sort of a pleasant surprise.

So if you never want to see me again, block this anon tag and move on with your day. I'll keep on screaming. You keep on living your life. This is a new life and I'm doing my best to change.

And that's all I can do.

So. Yeah. Cheers.

-🐮⌚🌇

x

#fictionkinfessions #fictive #johngaiusfictive #lockedtombfictive #apology #prevabuse #mod party cat #manipulation cw #death cw #fascism cw

[amberfossils]

I don't think it's a vent by any means but some internal monologue/ramble that I'm trying to word out properly under the cut, + confusion

Special interests are my favorite thing and also my least favorite thing ever. Like I love talking about them and having extensive knowledge and correcting mistakes. But like fandom special interests??? Eddsworld IS my special interest if you ask what my spin is it's Eddsworld (+as a fictive my relationship with it is only so much more complex) if you ask what my #1 fandom is it's Eddsworld if you ever asked us that for YEARS it would have and will be eddsworld!!!! And it's so bittersweet because I've had so many different groups of people who I'm friends with based on the fact that at the time we liked Eddsworld!!! But now none of them do but I'm still stuck here! Like it's so nice, meeting so many new people and watching how the characters and fandom as a whole grow, but like, then what? Everyone else finds different stuff, they like different things, but I can't! It's such a huge part of me I don't know what exactly to do when it moves on. When the group ends, you know? Not to say at all that I think my current group is ending! We're going strong even if a few people come and go, and it's the first time I've truly had other sourcemates and it's wonderful! But I'm thinking about the previous ones. Of course there's a few people who stay, but what about the rest? What do I have left in common with the ones who do stay, yk? What do we talk about when all I can manage to bring up is stuff they're not interested in any more? How DO they become disinterested? I by no means want to but what even causes that? I know the answer but it's still impossible for me to process with this specific thing, because why is this specific thing not as important and prominent in people's lives than it is in mine?

It's nice having a word for it- hyperfixation or just one of my fandoms never worked, it never described it well. Coming to terms with being autistic helped give me the vocabulary for my own experiences, but how do you go about becoming better at understanding others? Is that an empathy thing? I can't even tell where I am on the empathy scale anyway, or if it can change that placement, but how do you go about that? Like i get! Why people dislike it! I get why there are reasons people WOULD leave, but why do they? How do you come to terms with that, anyway? This has been essentially our first fandom and it's been years and we're still here anyway. Like how do you learn that you're not enjoying things? How do you STOP enjoying this thing? I don't want to! But why do other people?

And with that, how do you stop letting this thing affect you so heavily? Is it a special interest also because it's impacted by us being interested in it since it's almost half of our systems source? Does that make it like a loop? Is our DID and ASD like holding hands and talking about Eddsworld or???? Like even things that don't matter! Like how do you process "oh shit, this thing about me is so heavily related to my source that people who don't even know I'm a fictive relate me back to my source"? YES I AM STILL THINKING ABOUT THE TIME I GOT LABELED A MATT KINNIE AS A MATT FICTIVE HOW DO I GET OVER THAT DUDE??? Like i get that being connected to your source isn't bad! At all! And i like my source a lot! But damn, am I THAT connected to source to the point that singlets, assuming i am a singlet, are like "haha you remind me of Matt from Eddsworld"? Like this STILL baffles me. And on top of that, do other people overanalyze their connection to their source? I know a trait of people with cptsd is overanalyzing themselves and others, but do people do that with their source too? Like why do I remember these specific things that seemingly don't matter when other people have barely any source memories? And why do I act like, well, me?

Tldr; Matt has a hard time comprehending topics that are either extremely complex or extremely simple, he can't tell yet

#rambles #long post btw