Plural Blogging: The Syscovery

Januray 9th, 2025

Our last blog post discussed how we formed in our early years. However, as stated, we never truly knew until many years later. This was because, during our last few years of schooling, we befriended a closeted system.

We spent much time becoming elbow-deep in our shared passion for minority rights and absorbing every piece of information and perspective about bettering ourselves and the world. In turn, we incorporated it into our Fanfiction. A fandom we're a part of, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2018), had a small but passionate community that believed in a Plural Raphael headcanon.

During one of season one's episodes, Raphael experiences a Split. A split is when a being in a Plural System breaks into another part. For example, you have an apple, but if you split it into two, you now have two parts of an apple. If you split it even more, you will have more apples. However, unlike an apple, someone who forms can become a whole apple too the more time passes or forever stay a Fragment. Sometimes, they even split as a full apple!

Another way to think about it is when a cell duplicates itself. But this doesn't mean it makes a perfect double; it creates a new being that can be anything or anyone. It depends on the system and how it works! There are no firm rules, just common experiences.

Either way, we adored this headcanon to the point that we wrote for it passionately and with such care that our new friend came out as a system to us. They introduced us to more aspects of the community and encouraged us to look inward because of the similarities we shared.

We became so comfortable—though dense—about our support and understanding of plurality that we shared similar experiences, which helped us understand others.

Looking back, this must have been hilarious for our friend. We were sure we weren't plural, but we often spoke about our Internal Communication, how characters and concepts would become real and alive to us and help us decide how to approach situations and how to keep ourselves safe.

Yeah. We totally weren't Plural./s

It only took until we started lying in our bed at night, quietly asking ourselves questions and looking at our reflection in curiosity, that we truly realized it could be a possibility. The years we spent talking to imaginary people and kneeling before a photograph of God could very well have been something other than we had assumed.

So we started to speak separately, finding ourselves outside the one being we all thought we were. We drew our faces on paper and looked through baby-naming sites to give ourselves more autonomy. We claimed emojis, things we liked, shared views, and unique takes. We spoke with friends, and they happily accepted, speaking as if we were all different people because we were.

It was a release. Not everyone would understand; no, not everyone would. But those who mattered would. And, through us, they'd discover that maybe they were just like us, too—a collective of different people and lives trying to coexist as a single being within a world.

And we were more than happy to help.

Now that we've covered the Very Beginning of our Plurality and when we first discovered it for ourselves, we'll continue to talk about our experiences from a past point of view and also the ones we experience currently!

Thank you for reading!!

Atreus🪶; Blurry🌫️