Your Princess is in Another Headspace

Your Princess is in Another Headspace
Series: Essay
Summary: the pitfalls of plurals seeking bookend headmates in other plurals--for example, the Princess Peach to their Mario. "Imagine book-ended twins.  Outwardly different, but joined in every way possible at all times..." Crane and Naifeh, How Loathsome, pg. 73
Word Count: 3700
Notes: This was the unequivocal winner of the Patreon story poll this month! A glossary of terms is here; cited sources are at bottom. This is part of a series on plural social anti-patterns, and it’s inspired by conversations we had with (among others) Amorpha, Veterans, Rhymers, and Plures.


If you hang in certain multi circles long enough, you may hear warnings against systems who claim to have matching headmates to yours, or who claim your headmates travel into their own system. In other words, if you have Mario as a headmate, this other plural would claim that he visits their own headspace, or that they have Princess Peach or Luigi, or both or more. (Due to the clunkiness of the terminology, for the sake of convenience, I’m going to hereafter label this phenomenon “your princess is in another headspace” and conversely, the matching or shared headmates as “bookend headmates”; see endnote)

But a blanket beware doesn’t explain much. Why is this bad? Are there times where it’s not bad, and if so, how can you tell the difference? Why and how does it happen?

Let’s talk about it.

( Originally I was going to call them headmate princesses, but that just seemed misleading. )

( Citations )

( Endnote )