lb_lee | Becoming Median: text-only version!

Huh. When I told you about how Steven Universe uses the concept of headspaces, I mentioned that its "fusions" don't exactly correlate to multiplicity. This sounds a lot more similar to what's portrayed in the show, people blending and separating.

Yeah, IIRC there was a sorta thing on tumblr a few years back where systems were using SU versions of fusion as ways of understanding and utilizing their own systems, and it became a sorta "this is proof that these systems are FAKE" kinda thing.

...which was weird for me, because I read Ye Olde Books where the old word used for what is currently known in online plural circles as "integration" was "fusion." And at least one book I read that was from the early 90s even referenced three system members purposely merging together temporarily to get through grad school; IIRC, they might have even CALLED it fusion!

Even we have days where we blur together to acheive a task, though usually the task is so labor-intensive we aren't really paying attention to who's doing what.

All that said, I really look forward to one day watching Steven Universe, because everything I've heard about Garnet really delights me, and it's the closest thing I've ever seen to a relationship like mine depicted at ALL in media, never mind in a positive way.

--Rogan

[Carnation]

So I'm way behind on Steven Universe, so some of this may have been proven false by now haha, but I was watching it back when that thing happened on tumblr. The thing with fusion in Steven Universe is that fusing makes the two people mashed up into one identity, temporarily. So, say, Garnet isn't two people operating with one body so much as she is, in effect, a mashup of Ruby and Sapphire's personalities into one identity that falls apart if they disagree much at all. It's not really even clear if they can communicate while like that, the implication seems to be that they're working as one and any direct speaking between each other is a sign they're about to separate.

Kids on tumblr saw this as the closest to representation of multiplicity they were getting I guess got into this as a thing where they gave two system members who could fuse together a totally new name and appearance and identity for when they were together. (Kevin and Sparklefoot fused last night! Now she's named Joanne and she says hi! Kevin was a dragon and Sparklefoot was an elf, but surprisingly their fusion looks like a bear... they may un-fuse later today!) Which a lot of people said doesn't happen, that two people working together is just temporary cooperating or integration, which wouldn't bounce back and forth, there's no reason they'd have a third complete identity and appearance and afi;jakvasis!!!!!!!!

Which, like, I got what they were saying, I guess? I think a lot of it WAS a trend of these kids emulating media? But I assumed it was a trend of actual system kids emulating media by naming their cooperative states rather than singlet kids imitating media by pretending to be multiple "inaccurately", haha. I definitely can fuse temporarily with Goldenrod, although I don't think it's held for periods longer than an hour or so.

Even the way you're describing it, though, doesn't sound like something that's totally unprecedented among multiples? The only thing that really seems new about it is the grounding in an explicitly fictional show's concepts (sort of like how tulpas were a thing before they became associated with fandom and... the new version of what soulbonding used to be, in places). We definitely knew people in the early 2000s who had system members they described as the fusion or integration of two previous people, and sometimes people noted that that the fused/integrated/whatnot people had unique characteristics that couldn't really be explained as the combination of the people who created them. Like, Alice and Bob together don't become Alicebob, or the core person with Alice and Bob's traits added on, Alice and Bob become Chris, who is a different person from either of them. So "there's no reason they'd have a third complete identity" is just flat-out not true, because we saw people describing it as far back as the 90s. (ETA: And I don't have any of her books at hand, but I think Chris Costner Sizemore described it happening in her group? Have to read those books again.)

There's just so much reinventing of the wheel in the multiple community, it seems. I know some of it was unavoidable during the 90s and early 2000s, because research was harder without the Internet, and a lot of books were out of print and difficult to find. There were some frequently cited studies and essays that we couldn't find for years, and a lot of good insights were lost in deleted messageboards, mailing lists, personal sites obscure zines, etc. We wrote an essay for an online multiple zine called Chrysantheme in 2002, but damned if I can find any record of Chrysantheme even existing today, except on a couple of personal webpages with severe linkrot.

But it seems like nowadays, when research is much easier through the Internet, a lot of the problem is people actively refusing to read older stuff, which is severely frustrating to me. They think it couldn't possibly pertain to them, that traumagenic and non-traumagenic multiplicity are so inherently different (and apparently can't co-exist within the same system) that none of it could apply to their situation, or, worse yet, they actually believe it would be "appropriation" to study what people have believed about multiples in the past because "that's about people with DID, which we don't have, so we don't want to appropriate from them." So they'll never see people describing things that, if you can hold your nose about terms that you might not care for, might be very relevant to them and describe things they've experienced or close to it, and also give them ammunition against simplistic "people with DID do/don't do this" claims. It's not appropriation, it's self-defense, and I hate the culture of outrage currency where the angriest people are assumed to be the most morally righteous and are deferred to and believed even when they're completely wrong.

-Amaranth

Edited 2019-02-02 21:54 (UTC)

[Carnation]

Yeah, if it wasn't clear, I wasn't intending to say that stuff was unprecedented or doesn't happen sometimes either, I was just parroting the reaction to it that I was seeing at the time. I think the fusion trend was just kids reinventing the wheel like you're saying and using a concept they were familiar with to describe stuff that's happened before and will happen again haha.

And yep, definitely have seen the whole idea that unless you've got DID-- professionally diagnosed even, suspected DID doesn't count-- you're harming the REAL suffering people by intruding, taking up their resources, appropriating their communities, STAY OUT. I saw that most from the DID/traumagenic/etc communities themselves rather than the other side (insomuch as there are "sides" to this at all of course); demands to keep out because you roleplayers are causing SERIOUS HARM to an oppressed mental illness rather than people autonomously deciding that DID stuff is irrelevant to them.

Yeah, I wonder how much of the idea was propagated by trolls from within the community. (Not necessarily singlet trolls; I just remember my befuddlement when I realized that Moose was claiming some of the anti-endo rhetoric, despite their knowing full well that it was false.) And then some folks jumped on the bandwagon because even us crazy people have to feel superior to SOMEBODY, I guess.

For real though, anyone who thinks DID would be respectable without "THOSE people" are either trolling or super-ignorant.

--Rogan

Somehow I missed this the first time around, but yeah, we can DEFINITELY attest to having seen "fusion" used instead of "integration" on various old websites, forums, and published books. I think for some people it was less scary, because the term/concept of "integration" carried a lot of heavy psychological weight even back then? We don't usually analyse language to this degree, but "fusion" makes it sound a little more fluid and natural, I think-- like you don't have to stick people back together one by one. It sort of gives the sense that after a point it just happens on its own, if it is the goal you're going for. Or maybe I'm just over-likening it to nuclear fusion, I don't know.

-Amaranth

I'd have to dig around in my records for the exact citation, but IIRC, fusion was "get rid of all the system members but one," while fusion was, "combine all the system members into one." So it seemed to be completely different ideas of practice, with integration being "once you absorb all the things keeping you separate, you'll merge."

Fusion seemed to be just "return to singlet, don't care how." It's been a LONG time since that distinction seemed to be a big deal, though.

--Rogan

Thank you for sharing this. We never saw the original, so we took the time to read through it tonight. We're really glad that they're okay and that things have gotten better for them.

- Mizuki

No prob! Yeah, Zyfron are good eggs, though they've left the scene. We're glad to still know them.

That sounds like a rough journey, and one they're still working through (though it sounds like it's getting better, which is awesome.) It was a very sweet comic and I wish them lots of love and luck!

I'll let them know! I'm sure they'll be glad to hear it!

Would you please thank Zyfron for uploading this for us? We appreciate it.

-Kindle

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