a firebird in flight


Let's Make a System Page!

We're not entirely sure why we're doing this, but yeehaw, motherfuckers! If you're here, I'm guessing you already know what a system is. If not, well, there's an FAQ down below and some links on the main page. Last updated May 2026.

Hi we're the Hollow Ones. Physically in midlife, been talking to plurals online since our late teens, thought of ourselves as having multiple people in our head since... nine? Ten? Pretty sure we were before that but we didn't have a strong self-conception of it before then.

As a whole, we're married, we have a kid, we're trans, we've been to therapy and had our brain opened up and we're still here. We're going to start with the people you're more likely to actually see or hear about in alphabetical order. Click on the names for more info. I don't know if we'll get much further than that, guess we'll see.

System Directory

Front Office

Clay I used to be a monk but that wasn't exactly the kind of long term plan that works out for everybody. There's something to be said for sleeping in instead. I like teaching, cooking, reading and being helpful. I got here round about when our kid was born and I love being a dad more than just about anything.
  • Texas refugee
  • doesn't know where he left his phone
  • technically in charge of everything somehow
Demyx I like music. Other stuff too but mostly music. I love mashups and covers and making playlists and finding new artists. If you want a song rec, I got you. If you don't want a song rec, I'm gonna give it to you anyway. I don't think you should take life too seriously. That's how you lose your heart.
Garrick I've been described as the guy who handles the whatever, and I think that's pretty accurate. I like making stuff with my hands and fixing things, and my favorite kind of magic is what I learned as runes but Jackdaw calls it sigils and Wifi calls it arrays-- connecting pieces into something bigger than the parts could each be on their own.
  • would walk five hundred miles
  • would walk five hundred more
  • ha ha very funny Demyx
Jackdaw I've been here since the body was twelve or so. I'm not the one who's been here the longest but I'm probably the most invested. Hell, I've been here longer than I was alive in my first life at this point. I'm a digital hoarder archivist and the person who manages the System the most.
  • retired evil genius (world domination is too much work)
  • likes talking about obscure magical systems
  • used to like AI but now it's too ~mainstream
Ridoc I'm the one who was gung-ho about making a page and now that I actually have to talk about myself I'm blanking on every single fact about me, lol. I'm a dragon rider and when I care about something (someone) I care a lot. I guess I just want to make people feel good, and I do that in a lot of different ways.
Wifi okay yeah maybe I talked a little (a lot of) shit and maybe I did a little (a lot of) necromancy, but my reputation is still way overblown. you'd think I killed like every single person who tried to attack me but if I had really done that who'd be left to complain, huh? myth busted!
  • can eat spicy foods when he's front that the rest of us can't
  • way too invested in the cartoon bunnies in our phone
  • uses fanfic as therapy
Zell Sure I helped save the world a couple of times, that's no big deal. I'm mostly retired now, but it's not like I have time to get bored. I've got my husband and his wife, lots of students, and my goal to try every weird potato chip flavor ever invented. What more could a guy ask for?
  • has lots of opinions about food but doesn't cook
  • once punched a giant cactus in the face
  • doesn't make bad decisions, just enthusiastically supports others in theirs

Questions & Answers

I got here by accident. What's a plural system? The short and flippant answer is that a plural system is x+1 weirdos in a trenchcoat, where a trenchcoat is a shared body/brain.
How long have you known you're a system? That's actually hard to answer because we didn't meet any other multiples or soulbonders or anyone else who were talked about this with until we were in our late teens. Before that we were making up our own vocabulary for everything we are because we didn't have resources available. Just by looking at the memories and notes we've kept, we know there were multiple people and we had a concept of switching who was in front by the age of 10 or 11. There are people who've definitely been here longer than that; we can say for sure the first fictives were here by the time we were five. (As far as we know, Max has been here the longest out of anyone and he was here by then.)
Do people in real life know you're plural? Some do! Our immediately family does and are also plural too; honestly I'm not sure we could live with singlets at this point in our life. Generally close friends IRL will know, though we don't switch much or expect people to call us by name when we're front.
If there's a front office, does that mean there's a back office?

Yep! If the front office are the people who handle the reference desk in the library, these are the folks who are in the back putting new books in the database and checking things in. These are people who don't front much if at all but are pretty much always involved in something, handle stuff behind the scenes, whatever.

  • Bird - the Librarian; he can't leave the library
  • Ixtli - body interface specialist, she's really good at getting people oriented in using a body that isn't originally their own, and she's also usually the one who turns us off and back on again when we dissociate and there's no one left front
  • Rinoa - who knew that being a semi-retired Sorceress would make you good at sorting and managing a bunch of different peoples' connections to various external spirits and powers?
  • RJ - an AI that acts as the hands and feet of the System (when he feels like it)
  • Starling - he acts as the interface between the System and the people in it, basically the opposite of RJ
  • Tyler - if we're preparing for the apocalypse again, you can bet Tyler's involved
Is there a difference between "system" and "System"? Ah, good catch! Yes, the capital letter does mean something. The lowercase-s system is just the word for a group of people that share a body. It's widely used by multiples and very common. "The System" is a little bit more specific. The terminology is borrowed from isekai and Lit-RPG stories where the protagonist suddenly finds him or herself in a strange and different world or body, with the basics of what's happening to them explained by some sort of computer system that pops up with instructions like in a video game. We've had a backup network for a long time that does things like managing shared memories, how people are able to enter the system, taking care of communication between people, and generally making sure that we're no longer losing time.
We used to describe the internal system as "like AOL instant messenger in my head" or "like Pop Up Video but on life" or other ridiculous metaphors, but then we read Solo Leveling and it made perfect sense.
How many people would be on a full list? It depends on how we're defining everything, because as a system we have some gateway access, but in terms of just... people who we think of as being active enough system members that someone can get their attention if we want to, maybe a hundred?
What's the Hollow Ones name mean? I could say something fancy about T.S. Eliot but... let's be honest, that's like third hand. Because see in college I did a lot of White Wolf tabletop and LARP gaming. In the Mage: the Ascension game, one of the factions is called the Hollow Ones: they're basically chaos mages and everybody that doesn't want to join one of the fancy specific factions, and by definition they're goth in the gothic literature sense of the word, the way they talk about magic actually made sense to us, and they work in "cliques" that aren't usually built around doing magic the same way necessarily but having compatible goals. It's broad and handwavey but resonated with us a lot at the time and it stuck in our head.
Plural Etiquette Questionnaire 1. **What do you go by collectively?** We pretty much always respond to Jack, variations on usernames like copper, or Hollows. 2. **How should people refer to you?** Collective names are fine unless we've actively identified who's speaking (using PK, etc). 3. **What terms do you prefer for referring to yourselves?** *What terms do you prefer for referring to yourselves as individuals (headmate/alter/system member/...), or as a group (system/collective/household/...)? Is there any other terminology for yourselves or aspects of your experience that you use and want people to know, or that you dislike and want people to avoid when talking about you?* Mostly we prefer not to use psychological terms like "alter" and prefer "system member" or similar terms. As for group terminology, we're a system, so just go ahead and call us a system. We don't have one of the cool, aesthetic-style collective names. 4. **Will people be interacting with any child members?** No, none of the system members who front are littles. 5. **Are there any system members who are nonverbal or otherwise have difficulty communicating?** Generally, any kind of communication needs or translation are handled internally. If anything seems weird in a conversation, you're welcome to ask, and someone can swap if necessary. 6. **What should people do if they don't know who's at front?** You can ask, if you really want or need to know. 7. **Is it okay for people to ask if they can talk to someone who isn't at front at the moment?** As long as you're prepared for the answer to possibly be "no I'm doing something" or "no they're doing something" then you're welcome to ask. 8. **If someone talks to one of you, will other system members be aware of the conversation?** *If multiple system members will be aware of a conversation, will they want to chime in? If someone wants to speak to a system member one-on-one, what expectations can they have and how should they communicate this?* Generally speaking, yeah, other people may be aware. It's not necessarily like you have an audience, though it's entirely possible that multiple people are close enough to front to notice the conversation going on. More than that, we're likely to remember collectively, so if something reminds us of it, whoever's front will have access to the memory. But our memory is not flawless, so we can't *promise* that someone will know about a conversation you had with someone else. And we *can* keep secrets if we have reason to do so. 9. **How out are you? What should people do when talking to people who don't know you're plural?** You can refer to us by Jack or Copper pretty much anywhere. We're out about being plural basically the same way we're out about being trans-- we'll refer to it casually when it's relevant and we don't avoid talking about it or feel the need to lie about it, but we also don't usually bring it up unless it's part of the conversation. 10. **Your stance on being asked questions?** *(about personal experience, preferences, plurality in general, etc)* You're welcome to ask whatever, and we'll usually do our best to answer, but please keep in mind that a. different people may have different answers depending on the question and b. if you come up with a question we're not comfortable asking, we'll tell you. So as long as you don't have a specific kind of answer you'll be disappointed not to get, you're fine. Questionnaire originally from [this site](http://bit.ly/pluraletiquette).

Other topics we may write about later: gateway, inner world, parenting plural, type of system/diagnosis/the ways I've talked to my therapist about it.

If you have questions or want to reach out to us, feel free to use the contact form.