@literorrery And I feel weird about engaging with tulpamancy TOO because many of those I work with are very firm on being understood as having an external origin.

...And yes, I know how awkward that sounds from both tulpamancy AND plural perspectives. :\

@indi @literorrery not weird? A few of us in here have said they aren't internal in origin, but sorta stick around? I'm not quite sure on the logistics.
It is a really complicated area of things

@Oneironott That just makes things MORE complicated! XD Can I still identify as not-plural if 'external' is a valid source for plural identities? ;)

@indi yes! I think it follows along self-identification "rules", which is to say your comfort and satisfaction is the only criteria n.n you could identify either way and it would make sense to me :)

@Oneironott Though that circles back 'round to "do I read as plural anyway" ;)

@indi i havn't exactly "proven" that the external ones are or aren't headmates. It's up in the air still. They certainly both seem VERY external and not connected

@indi i havn't exactly "proven" that the external ones are or aren't headmates. It's up in the air still. They certainly both seem VERY external and not connected

@indi But we consider ourselves plural regardless, because there is definitely some who are internal n.n

@indi @Oneironott I'm kinda in this boat too; some of my selves I've constructed from scratch. But the dominant one now, the phoenix, is....sorta coming from external and sort internal? Integrated into me, but came to me out of a story and a dream.
I still consider myself plural, but yeah it's complicated.

@Oneironott Ah, see, I think that's an interesting point of compare/contrast, it never even occurred to me to want to prove that the gods, etc, are external; the 'these are manifestations of your psyche' model that comes from e.g. chaos magic didn't dit right with me from day 1.

@indi I'm honestly not too familiar with chaos magic or.. for that matter anything that isn't what I've touched at in my own experience. I have -no- base of knowledge and have never read anything about this stuff ._. which... I'm realizing maybe I should but... hmm

@indi (related to conversations with @KawaSeadrake and @Oneironott )
I think i's complicated? Basically, like I said, there's a lot of subjective experiences that have a lot of commonality -- but also important differences -- and how they're interpreted varies widely. As long as a model resonates & is respectful to everyone involved, more than one can be valid? I dunno how important delineations like "are or are not plural" are in the end, though they can be useful starting points.

@indi That does make sense, and I didn't mean to suggest that they are just in your head. More saying, if someone experienced similar subjective experiences as you but considered them purely internal because those are the narratives they expect, that could be valid (whatever that means, I'm not actually sure) also? I feel like I'm running into that weird "more than one thing can be true, even -- and sometimes especially -- contradictory things" territory.

@starkatt Oh, yeah, in full agreement there and I didn't think anyone in this conversation was suggesting anything of the sort specifically. I'm just wary of catch-all explanations, even permissive ones, since they can sometimes give short shrift to the value of more-specific beliefs (see also my comments else-thread about chaos magic)