Plural Death and Dormancy Survey

[lb_lee]

vaguelyautonomous linked us a cool survey Sprites made regarding death and dormancy among plurals: https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1wARJSMVDVYhX1v4WKAdrCbS_f6hIdXvpHNw810gSOhA/mobilebasic

Too bad we didn’t know about it while it was running; death is a large part of our inner workings and we have strong opinions on it. (I am also utterly baffled and deeply annoyed that apparently headmate death is STILL considered impossible or an “endo thing”; I guess they never read When Rabbit Howls. I’m sure I could find earlier medical references if singlet death wasn’t currently devouring my attention.)

Very interesting was to learn we’re apparently in a major minority in that we don’t really experience dormancy! (Except arguably Rawlin? But she was imprisoned in the deep bowels of headspace for years, so it’s not like she was GONE, just we lost track of her. She eventually went into hibernation because what else was there to do in solitary confinement for decades?) We lose access to people from elsewhere, but they aren’t dormant; our metaphorical rail just doesn’t go to their stop anymore and their lives just continue without us.

Comments

[sploosh543]

Oh wow, def an interesting read! Also kinda nice to see we aren't the only ones who had a headmate die and come back but Changed. Only happened after a lot of time spent away from the place that caused him to die in the first place, and he's the only one who's come back like this so maybe he's a weird case for us? m rambling

We do also have headmates that...somehow showed up in our system after dying in their source ("canon" or "non-canon" aside). All of them died in...pretty bad ways, so maybe we're a weird plural magnet for dead unable to rest or something. Who knows!

[lb_lee]

Mac: sure, I came here after I died in my world! That’s not unusual, far as I know!

[vaguelyautonomous]

Happy to have made y'all aware of it!

Too bad we didn’t know about it while it was running; death is a large part of our inner workings and we have strong opinions on it.

I'm hoping Sprites will redo the survey in a few years with the tweaks mentioned in the "Limitations" section. Hopefully they can spread it further next time. They also said in a Discord server I share with them (how I learned about this survey, albeit too late to participate) that they're "cooking up a new survey soon," and I'm eager to see what it'll be about!

As a daemian system, I honestly don't think we& can experience system death, though I guess we& do experience a type of dormancy. If I remember correctly, y'all don't know a ton about daemonism, but traditionally*, we have the concepts of separation ("finding" [or creating] one's daemon as a distinct mental presence) and unseparation (the daemon returning to the gestalt of their daemian's soul/psyche/etc.—not gone, just no longer a distinct presence in conscious dialogue with their daemian; can also refer to hypothetical "unawakened" dae/mian pairs [or sets] if one assumes everyone has a dae [or multiple daes!] waiting to be reached out to). As you can see, it and dormancy have a lot in common, with the nuances that come from different communities with unique frameworks.

Currently, we& have two unseparated daemons: Twyla and Zeke. The former, based on an old Mary Sue, wasn't very developed, and her intended role ("inner teen" to help me embrace "cringe") just didn't stick for whatever reason, so that never changed. The latter ended up being so similar in personality to one of the bonds that he felt redundant, for want of a better word. Both were fine with returning to unseparation, but because they exist as concepts now, I think they'll always have the potential to return if I ever choose to reseparate them (or if something happens to "shake them loose" again—I won't pretend to know every possibility). Interestingly, Rebel ended up being noticeably similar to Zeke in a some ways (even Val has commented on it)—not to the point that she feels like a reincarnation, but more like she's drawing from similar parts of me in ways that better fit my& needs.

And then of course there's Lily, the weird spontaneous maybe-daemon-maybe-facet who may or may not still be around and hiding from the rest of us. I really need to make a (probably locked) entry about what happened there. It very much feels like a situation of, "Oh, you're a created system? Here, have some unexpected weirdness you didn't sign up for. Hey, you're the one who signed up for plurality, kiddo; should've seen this coming," which I can respect, even if it's spooked me a bit. 😅

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*"Traditional" is a relative term here, but I'm referring to two of the three main "daenominations" that have sprung up over daemonism's two+ decades of existence as a community (all of which are alive and well, as they should be). This post provides a solid overview.

[lb_lee]

You are correct that our knowledge of daemonism is super low. It seems cool, though! (If it helps, you could see Mori and Rawlin’s relationship as having aspects of that.) It’s a cool, very different framework! Thanks for telling us about it!

[alatefeline]

As someone who loves a good survey, even if I'm not the relevant demographic, may I forward the survey link to some plural friends of mine?

[lb_lee]

Sure, I see no reason why not, it’s publicly accessible!