Names & Alter-Egos

[Animal]

Aside from the name your parents gave you, do you have other names? What about alter-egos, or different personalities inside you? Feel free to go deep into detail on this. I just wrote about 6 posts about my own process, but I will try to condense the relevant parts into one post for this thread. Although, you are free to write as many posts as you want of course. I'm very curious to hear other people's process on this.

I have two alter-egos, and they have profiles on this forum. But I will reveal our secret. They might get angry.

Do you think of your other names as fictional, or alters? Do you see a difference between fictional characters and alter-egos in your life? I'd just love to know more about how others do this! Purr.

[SpiritoftheGael]

I have three alter egos. The first is Arya which is came up with when I was 14. Me, my friend Jenna, and my sister came up with this world based on places in our real life and then built a role playing site based around it. We were writing actual stories for it and did a ton of work on it. This is the link to the old site which is not running anymore if anyone wants to look.

http://nymphaterra.wikifoundry.com/

Anyways, our characters symbolized ourselves and our life trajectories and my character was Queen Trystam Aoife Aryanna. She was sort of the developed ideal of myself. Her symbol is the swan. My friend bought me a golden swan brooch and that is hers. Obviously my username on this site is her, although my profile picture represents the last alter ego Isabella or Avonmora. This is my last blog post about us splitting paths when my friend moved since we planned out her moving into our storyline: http://zombiessummer.blogspot.com/20...st-outing.html
She continues to live on. This is a song I associate with her, and I have some of the lyrics posted below in the footer:

My sister made this for me for her many years ago:

Also a photo from an old photoshoot which properly conveys Arya:



Then my next alter ego would be Leonora which I created with a guy I met on the above role playing site who I was in love with for years. Me and him had created a story universe and both had characters we were writing that symbolized us. This was her description that I wrote out for him:

Leonora
Origins:
Leonora is a vampire. Once a skinshifter, she was overtaken by the curse of vampirism before the skinshifters began to use their anti-magic (which protects them from vampirism) permanently. When she became a vampire she left her family, no longer feeling like she belonged. She is the twin sister of Yamara. Once friendly to indifferent she became lonely with vampirism. She is very intelligent cunning person, drawn by her skinshifter routes to aid the innocent. She is usually thinks a few steps ahead, and will play anyone to her advantage, provided she feels they have warranted it in some way. Although her greatest weapon is her mind, she is skilled at knife throwing. Her other weapon of choice is the long sword. Most people do not know anything about her, as she keeps to herself, rarely engaging in serious relationships, although somewhat more open to the concept of a one night stand.
Description:
Leonora mostly goes around with large billowing cloaks that hide her face. She has deep blue eyes, bright red hair, and many say her features would be vastly improved if she ever smiled. She is tall and thin, and mainly wears dark button down shirts and brown trousers, preferring to dress simply.

She symbolized the destruction and feeling like my soul was being ripped out. This is the song that goes along with her that I was playing all the time at the time:

Also this is a photo of me from a photoshoot around that time which represents Leonora



The last one would be Isabella who I'm renaming Avonmora which means of the great river. Isabella is a character that represents me in my current book that I'm working on. She was the representation of becoming human again and this is the first part of her that I wrote. She is the key holder to the gates of reality. http://zombiessummer.blogspot.com/20...hall-pass.html

One song I associate with her:

This photo I took of myself represents Avonmora



I can slip into any of the moods of these three different people when it catches me. It just depends which reflects me more in a certain time period.

[Sky]

Dear Avonmora,
The Gods of Erosia have appeared in many a vision, and I have intercepted their narrative and translated it to English. Yet there are still memories that I cannot access. Given your unique gift, I suspect you hold the key to the reality that preceded the birth of Erosia. This is where I need to be.
We shall meet again soon.

[[redacted]]

Never really had any alter egos... in a way I regret it, because it might have been useful to have as a sort of protection of myself but I don't have the mindset for it. Although I have characters who I daydream about a lot, I don't see any them as "me" even if they might have elements of me as a result of being created by me, I still think of them as separate. The closest might be this wizard I was playing in an MMORPG, but even then it didn't take much for the spell to be broken. And I don't feel a strong identification with any name, none of them mean much to me, it's just something to have so I can be referred to more effectively.

[Animal]

am a work of art (as we all are), and I don't want to tarnish anyone's experience of me, as an art piece, either.

I have written straight forward pieces about my alter egos and their relation to typology systems and I've released countless art pieces about my story in Erosia, such as this:
https://ericaxenne.com/2018/10/prologue/

My alters also show up in my videos, more of which will be posted soon:

I have never hidden my alter egos from the world. Prince Ruby was the first to sign up for facebook, because one of us had to in order to advertise shows, and being the showman that he is, he volunteered. However, it was Erica Xenne's band, and her hot legs were on the fliers. So Riki thought it was a better business decision for Erica to sign up herself. Riki eventually made a profile of her own where she talked about politics, which earned us all a lot of hate. In typology terms, Riki Jane is an 8w7, so she didn't mind. Their hate just gave her more power. But for Prince Ruby, a 5, this was too large for him to get involved with, and he restricted his posting only to art and PM's with his muses.

In Erosia, Prince Ruby took a vow of silence. He wanted to avoid cheapening his words and being tangled in nonentities, so he vowed as a young Prince to speak only through the arts. In Erosia, a culture where people learn to listen as children, he was able to communicate through guitar, clothes and other arts - though he also wrote a book for Erica Xenne, detailing his inner mind. He was not against words, so long as they were used for genuine expression through writing - but cheap words just for the sake of filling the space were something he decided to avoid.

When Ruby was exiled from Erosia, and sent to Dystopia, he was left with a conundrum: in a world where people are not taught to listen, he needed words to deal with ordinary life, such as getting a jobs or ordering food. He decided instead of pretending to be mute (his first idea)... he would allow the real mutes to get the attention they deserve, and speak - though he was in the habit of minimizing his moment to moment speech, so he never became a big talker. In writing, however, he has always had a lot to say; arguably more than the others. It was him, in fact, who insisted on writing books about the history and making of Erosia, uncovering what the Gods, Goddesses, and mythology is really about. Which is what lead all of us to enneagram and archetypes.

How romantic, right? Maybe. But Ruby's story has major consequences for me, as a whole person. To say the least, Ruby has experienced major dysphoria, being trapped inside my body. Not only is it 'not a male body' but also not his body at all. I am not 'the female version of Ruby' - I'm a whole other person. This is likely why I have struggled so much with the question of whether or not I am trans. I'm not trans - but I have an existence inside of me who craves a male body so that he can live in the world. It's important to him because, of all the alter egos, he is loneliest. He spent most of his life in isolation, hiding away from the world - both in Erosia and Dystopia. In Erosia he used his magic powers to make other people's dreams come true. His magic power was to sense the dreams of anyone he touched and bring them to life - but then, once their dreams came true, all they could dream of was him. There were no dreams inside them left to feed on - not to mention, they were addicted to him giving them what they wanted, even though they had never seen his dreams. Thus Ruby was all too aware that his love, his heart, his person - was a ruse. But what else was there?

Prince Ruby is the most interesting among us, I think. Fives always are! He was so aware of the impossible paradox and irony of communication that he took a vow of silence and allowed you to impose any dreams upon him that you wish. Since he first signed up for facebook or any website, this has been how he introduces himself.



The irony here is beyond the words. The man himself, Prince Ruby, is creating the illusion that he is a man when in fact his body is...... well.. something else. The positions he chooses to stand in, hiding his face, allows this illusion to continue. And let's not forget the other parts of the photoshoot.



The purpose of Prince Ruby is to expose to you that it's all an act. All of it. And yet, that act, is all there is. So it is also.... real.

So what, exactly, do I mean by 'act?' When did this act begin? "But Erica, I thought you were raw and real." Yes, I am, and that's why I'm talking about this. Are you real? What do you expect me to say about myself, or you? Can we forget our names, our history, our future? No. Any experience of any given moment is merely our interpretation of the 'now,' and that interpretation is colored by memories of the past and dreams of the future. There is a whole story, a narrative. Even for the simplest person, the narrative may be: "I am Derek, and I am my father's son. I am my mother's son. And I live in Smallville." Then when you say, "So, Derek, do you want to have sex with me now?" He may say, "I want to, but I can't, because I am married to Mary from Smallville." Derek, gasp, is not living in the moment! He's living in a narrative in his head. For Mary is not here right now, is she??

The discussion of who is real and who is fake -- frankly, it bores me. It's a false dichotomy based on a subjective narrative. You are only as real as you believe you are, and someone else may still interpret that as fake. And that person's interpretation is only as real as you believe it is... and so forth.

Ruby embodies this lesson. His existence, and the fact that many of my friends have dreams about him and refer to him by name - shows what I mean. When I say "Mickey Mouse," it means something because someone created Mickey Mouse and gave him form, and now people know what that form looks like. Same with Prince Ruby. Same with Erica Xenne. Same with you.

Here's a narrative for you. My grand-parents just love to tell this story. According to them - when I was a child, I went to visit them and got into the elevator. The neighbor asked, "Who are you?" And I said, "I'm Strawberry Shortcake!" Next time I got in the elevator, a while later, the neighbor said "Hello, Strawberry Shortcake!" And I responded, "I'm not Strawberry Shortcake! I'm Yankee Doodle!"



Daeva - even in his name), because she could not stop hooking and controlling men. So, she was never quite me... she was more of a shadow of what I feared I could become. Then there was Eni, an androgynous singer, much closer to the way the world saw me day to day. The big difference was that Eni was homeless, thus free of the responsibility of school and parents and obligation - but also obligated to find ways to eat the next meal, which often got in the way of her practice schedule. She too was poor and not good enough in the eyes of the richer and more fabulous man she was obsessed with, who ended up being similar to someone I knew in real life at that time (although I met the real one AFTER writing the character).

So Eni was my dysphoric reality, where the man I wanted was in love with my music but my real situation was inadequate, but my soul was sublime, as I was absolutely dedicated to my love for him and for music itself. Xena was the super-Te seductress who could have her way with the entire world just by way of her beauty and ruthless manipulations. I could not be Xena because I was ugly and too sensitive. Could I be Eni? Not even that. My nose was too big for anyone to fall in love with my music. Guys at school would tell me "you're so talented, too bad you're too ugly to make it in music." When I asked directors where I went wrong and failed to get the lead, they would tell me things like, "You have the best voice that has ever come into this theater, but you just don't look like an ingenue."

Eni looked ALMOST like me, just without that big FUCKING SCHNOZ. I would stare into my eyes and cover my nose, and I would see Eni, even traces of Xena. But I could not look at the whole mirror without wanting to punch it and kill myself with the glass. Nonetheless, Erica Venora continued on, exploring her innocence (Eni) and her lust (Xena) in her songs and stories, and practicing constantly to pursue a music career. Erica Venora played gigs in restaurants every week and made good money, even though she could not make big roles due to her looks.

In a sense, I was Eni, and I would live my life in a mobile home, low-budget, and spend the money I make on causes I'm dedicated to. In my real life, I sang for causes for free, and also did other jobs, and used the money both to save up for my future and to help others. I lent $800 to a friend once. I really lived out the aspects of the character that I found most compelling, although I was not thinking of it as me "being Eni." I just ... was who I was... and it was very true to the innocent homeless singer that I had written into that early novel. I also had her survivalist spirit, which she shared with Eponine. I aced school, saved money, and practiced my lessons. I survived the rejections in the music industry, and trucked on through, keeping my eye on my goals. I had to make tough decisions, like sacrificing social life or softball for my career, in my early teens. And I made them.

Then my acting teacher suggested a nose job, for the sake of making big career moves - and I got one. I was 15. Jobs started pouring in. Attention. Love from boys. I could have the whole world in my hands. My songs became positive, loving and world-saving. The prostitute songs stopped coming out and instead beautiful hope wrote itself through me. I was going to make it big and I was going to use my power for good.

Then at 16 I became sick. I couldn't move and almost died. By the time I recovered my other faculties (though not completely), I was 18. I could not live in a mobile home because I was stuck on IV medications, and many other medications. I could not be a singer because my voice had been stolen from me forever.

The path of Eni was dead. My innocence was dead. Although I continued introducing myself as Erica Venora, my father's surname -- I knew that she was dead



Sky

[Animal]

At this point, Ruby was not named "Ruby" yet, but he was known to me, in the form of Sky - which is still the name he uses in Dystopia, and on this forum. The name Sky came from a character in my early books, who was a 7. The two were not similar, but Ruby may have wished he was more like Sky: outgoing, aggressive, intoxicated by passion, yet free from constraints. Ruby looks up at the birds. Even if I could fly, I would have nowhere to go.



But Erica Xenne has no reason to live without Prince Ruby. (As Ruby says: "without a muse, music is just math.") And she gave up her magic power - her voice - to follow Ruby into exile. Thus, she was broken and her voice was frail - but her love was so powerful that it brought her voice to life as songs wrote themselves through her. Ruby was ever the cynic, whose darkness inspired Erii's light, and vice versa. If he is eternity, she is now. If she is life, he is death. If he is potential, she is becoming. Like Se and Ni, the two are inextricably linked opposites, and one cannot exist without the other.

Yet these two starry eyed dreamers could not survive on pure inspiration and flow. Since childhood, there had always been this part of me that was just moving forward, without complaint, at any cost. She was from Earth, not from Erosia. With her damn feet on the ground.

Thus enter Riki Jane Wild, whose first two names are my parents' names. Her first name actually is short for Erica also. And her last name used to be Anima (Riki Jane Anima), but it sounded too surreal and made people think of Aenima, so she changed it to Wild. It gets the same point across. She was an "Anima" (or Animus) in the sense that Erii and Ruby are both fantastical in mindset and she was a hard-nosed realist. And that was a very real grounded part of me as a kid - one that I didn't need to make characters about because I was living it every day. But now that Erosia was taking over my life, Riki said, get the fuck out of the way because you make such a big mess. And one day during a photoshoot with a friend, she fucking grabbed the camera and started talking in an accent, introducing herself as Dick!

Much like with Ruby, I could not imitate this accent now. I don't know where the hell it came from!!! But it came, nonetheless, and she started bossing around my friend to stand certain ways for the shoot. And she put on fake glasses. She introduced herself as Dick, which she later revealed was short for Riki, but was a better name for her since she's a total Dick and has no patience for your shit. She even had a keychain that said "Dick." So there she was, and she made her own profile to take over 'politics,' which were making a mess on Erica Xenne & Prince Ruby's page while they were trying to sell tickets to their shows.

Animal -- the whole of what I have become -- first took form in Prince Ruby's novel, but he was not a reflection of Ruby. He was the human form of the character who eventually became the God and Creator of Erosia. In real life, this person is now me. But we are too vain to call ourself "Animal," so we are figuring out whether this even needs to be known, or if this is just something that we know in ourselves.

Regardless who you talk to on facebook, Erica Xenne is really an alter ego. This is where my trouble is coming in. The facebook profile and website Erica Xenne has been taken over by Animal. But Erica Xenne needs her own separate place where she can be herself, and hold on to her innocence, so it will not be bombarded with the rest of my life and disappear entirely. So I may need to come up with another name for my facebook profile and my website, simply for the purpose of saving her. It is not so much about revealing this to other people as it is remembering her purpose in the first place and protecting her.

The real question is: Should Erica Xenne be 16 forever, as an "alter" inside me? My temptation is to keep Erica Xenne as that 16 year old, eternally innocent. However, even in the Erosia story, she chose to leave, and to go to Dystopia - where she posed happily for Dystopian pictures. In the video series, she is planning to show herself succumbing to the color red, so that her innocence must evolve.





Those were Erica Xenne, photos she used early on. This last photo shows how I still wore white in later shoots of Animal.


Perhaps she took my first name for a reason - because she needed to embody my innocence in order to bring it with her into my 'new' adulthood.

killed her

Yet, one may ask: is it really worth it? Why have such a big inner world? Why not just be Erica Venora and live my whole life that way, and stop trying to define and express who and what I become? To that I say: are you enjoying being in quarantine? I certainly am. I am fairly confident that if you locked me up in a dark cell for a year, I would indeed go through some changes, but the most significant one would be that I would be able to do a lot of pushups by the time I came out. What about you?

Perhaps if Erica Venora had not lost her voice, and could go on to live a fruitful life on Earth, in the body she was given; then this exploration would not have been as extensive. Perhaps it would be even more extensive, considering she was already doing it as a child.

But one thing is for sure. When she said "I am Strawberry shortcake" and "I am Yankee Doodle," she meant it. What she was saying was, "I am what I want to be. I decide my identity and my identity shapes my fate. No matter what else happens, my life is my own."

It's all an act. It's up to you to decide what kind of act it will be. I realized long ago that if I want to be Strawberry Shortcake, and I wear her hat, then the next time someone sees me, they are likely to say "Hello, Strawberry Shortcake!" The entire world will play into your fantasy of who you are because there is nothing else. There is no 'reality' of who you are. There is only a name, a personality, and a wardrobe -- which could have been any name, personality or wardrobe. I do believe that type is innate, as is certain temperament - so indeed, your temperament and type to a large degree will determine the type of act you choose. But you can introduce yourself by the name your parents gave you or you can make your own - neither will be any less arbitrary than the other. And that is why I choose to describe myself in the terms that feel the most real to me at any time. How someone else interprets this is up to them, but to me, it's the closest I can be to 'authentic,' since it is an attempt to put language to the processes that I experience within. I can't control what anyone else thinks. So if I dress up as Ruby and people call me "Erica," that's fine. It has nothing to do with them. The process of embodying these alters is about exploring and expressing them, not about forcing anyone to believe in them. As I've said many times, someone can pass right by the Erosian islands and, if they don't believe Erosia exists, then they won't see it. That's fine. Meanwhile, in Erosia, there will be events that are occurring in the eyes of Erosians. I don't expect everyone to see Erosia. Those who want to, are invited.

Riki is short for Erica, as is Erii, so most people in my life have called me Erii, Erica, or Riki day to day. Functionally, I am Erica Xenne, and have been since about 2006. Before that I was, for all intents and purposes, Erica Venora. Although Erica Xenne is my functional name, and I also ascribe meaning to it, that doesn't mean deep down I 'feel' that Erica is more real than Riki and Ruby.

If I am to be precise: I fluctuate between Erica Xenne and Riki Jane Wild on any given day. Riki goes to work but introduces herself as Erica Xenne (Erii). Moment to moment I could be either one, and I might not think to differentiate between them unless I was asked, or I was doing a photoshoot. Riki is well integrated. There would be no need to even say that Riki exists, per se, but she does, so I'm using her name to describe a certain mood or "state of mind" - the Te "get it done" mentality. I could just as easily be Erii and Riki, and never name them, and never notice myself change between them, since both of them have always been there. But now that they have their own names, I can safely say that you could be talking to Erii or Riki at any given time, and the difference is just my mood and what I'm focusing on. However, their handwriting and speech patterns are slightly different. (I will point out this is true for anyone - when they get in a different mood or mode, their delivery changes.)

However, if Prince Ruby comes out, I would notice. I wonder if Daeva notices. Ruby would not come out without being very aware that he's coming out----- unless I'm alone, or with Daeva and no one else. There have been moments when Ruby showed up, and afterwards I kind of woke up from the trance I was in. A sober way to describe this would be "I'm engaging my Ni, but I can't do it for long, because my Ni is unconscious." But with Ruby comes a whole other set of memories, experiences and mentality -- so if I want to be artistic and genuine about it, I'll say "Ruby comes out." He normally is too shy to do this but we trust Daeva completely.

[Mahat]

Thanatesque/Thana (Subconscious), Atelier (Progression), Mahat (Divine Immanence)...

Sarah is the hypostasis of these three aspects.

Interesting enough these identities only came about because of the internet and forums. Regardless, these identities illuminated an inner reality that occurred during the time of their appropriation. You can tell what I'm currently experiencing through the screenname I chose.

Thanatesque (Thana) was the first ever enduring user name I used. One that I used for PerC. Funny enough, it wasn't an original but rather the title of tumblr page that I found. Thanatesque has the Greek Thanatos, the Greek god of (nonviolent) death. But the inner reality came closer to the Freudian thanatos - the drive toward destruction and violence. Repressed violent impulses viciously come to the fore to lay their heavy hand. Destruction was my God and anger was the temple I worshiped in. This was a drive toward abolishing unities and tearing down foundations. While the negative manifestation of this was destruction, it can also be challenging, motivating, disciplining, and renewing. We all require periods of upheaval in order to grow stronger, and chipping away at our foundations fortifies the ground we stand on. It is pure will to power, one that could be channeled apocalyptically or one that makes way for new beginnings even if its (or especially) through fire and blood.

Atelier, compared to the other two, signifies a process rather than a fixed aspect. It's the nexus between Thana and Mahat. In order to reach her true potential, Thana must learn to temper her impulses and channel them towards more productive and meaningful goals. Aggression, lust, and even anger and inner violence are things that are not be ignored but instead must be expressed. However, it must be disciplined and streamlined. Atelier, workshop in French, is the process of chiseling myself into something more beautiful and well-defined,

I want to turn my inner violence into an art where I can translate it into something more elevated, deeper, timeless, and challenging. There's a purification process in being able to manifest it in a way that one must constantly perfect the mode of expression. In challenging myself through doing that, I can better challenge others through the confrontation of my own and their own inner violence, one that both reflects my our individual standpoints and expresses something fundamental about the human condition. I think why I'm so intent on expressing it is because it shows on the symbolic level how I see myself and how I relate to the world around me - an orientation marked by a struggle between wills and the dynamic and complex interaction between these competing wills, and a certain reactivity and inner intensity that emerges from these interactions.

Atelier is in constant motion and just because I don't appropriate the name, that doesn't mean she's irrelevant or no longer in action.

Mahat, in Vedanta philosophy, is the cosmic mind. It is the first principle that emerged from the union of purusha (consciousness) and prakriti (matter),

I also call Mahat divine immanence because we're all expressions of that cosmic mind but through our life experiences and the fortification of our defense mechanisms, we've occluded ourselves from its providence. We don't have to look without to find it because it's already within us, and through Atelier tempering and chiseling Thana, I experience an anamnesis, or a sort of remembering of its presence. Though at this point, I would say this is more of a goal than an actual current state of being. The further one seeks or encounters Mahat, the more one experiences an anagogic opening of one's world.

[Quindary]

I suppose I have some, kind of characters borne of my thought process...but definitely shades of me.

When I went to summer camp, I was gifted a name: Sam 2. This became Samtoo, and eventually Samtu. The original intent of it was that there was this person at camp that everyone thought I looked like, hence "Sam 2". But I liked Samtu as a word on its own, so I kept it. It was my secret name, the name only those who knew me from that context could call me, and that being only the group of gothy nerds I hung out with. That was the person who liked the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy so much he carried it around with him everywhere and wore bathrobes on Thursdays. And it was the person who wondered why in the world a guy would ever tell him he was feminine (therefore a woman) when he didn't see that as accurate, just because he had agreed one time that he appreciated babies.

Because you know, only women see anything in babies. Men never do.

Samtu had a group of three close friends at camp who also explored energy work and the world of the paranormal with him. The group was a crack in the world where Samtu could go to build insight and share some of his deeper in/sanity. He wouldn't have ever trusted anyone else, even in the rest of the nerdy group, with his real vision.

Samtu became a screenname on AIM and stayed a secret name but was never a deeper concept than that. Caithe was more the real show around that time. Caithe took on a few forms but the one that truly stuck was Caithe the Wraith. Caithe came from the world of Multi User Dungeons, where I had generally built myself into technical and personal prowess in gaming with stealth and speed. Caithe was originally a dark elf (drow) who got adopted by a human family when he was too young to remember. The human family raised him to value nature and knowledge, but when they got murdered while he was out of town, he turned to a religion that valued neutrality and justice, which equaled out to "Balance". The official version of this was to take action toward either side of evil or good that would bring the global tally between both to a medium, whether in followers or influence. His pursuit was not neutral, however. He pursued that path because he wanted to bring dark to the light and light to the dark. He joined a clan of like-minded people, found them eminently competent at their attempts to "balance" the world and learned from them what he could. The clan were all frustrated with the gods of the place, though, and so one day, one by one, most of them left him with their worldly possessions and committed suicide. They also left him in charge of the clan - "Good Luck".

Hence Caithe became the Arbitrator - in his clan's eyes, sole judge of the entire world - and almost always, alone in the clan hall.

Caithe was no good at recruiting. He was too serious about his work. Nobody wanted to join someone like that. Everyone wanted fun and lightness, or dark and demons. However, he found out one day that his parents had been murdered by a certain drow clan he had been rescued from - so he became personally vengeful against them. Any time he could, he stole from them, conquered their lands, snuck into their homes or hunted them on the streets and murdered them. This was when he became known as Caithe the Wraith - nobody saw his attacks coming unless he wanted it known. His endless resources sustained any effort he wanted to make, and the few remaining people in his clan would, once in awhile, eagerly help with the conquest.

He also started to talk to himself. The light and the dark talked to each other and brought each other insight. But half the conversation wasn't himself. Caithe found he had an alter.

He found himself in experiences in realms that didn't exist to others, meeting up with sides of himself and others who others would never know about, touching the divine and the insane in one.

Eventually, Caithe was punished by his religion for hunting down an artifact of great power and deciding to conglomerate its power and use it rather than relinquishing it to the rest of the world, as the temple would have found proper. His reasoning was that if anyone else had it, they would have done far worse with it - better it be used by someone with the correct intent and hence the chaotic influence of it stymied. But the temple found this invalid and did not care about any of his previous work, and so they excommunicated him from his clan, his temple, his life. With nothing left to live for, he committed suicide by the altar.

... more to come.

[Princess of Hearts]

I most definitely have different sides, states of mind, ideals, go through phases and have 'characters' I channel, but it all feels like me to me. I always experience myself as a whole, I can't imagine separating parts of myself and developing them independently from my 'default' self and from each other.
I feel like I should have more to say about it because if I wanted to I could easily create alter egos, I can see many things as an alter ego on some level. 'Princess of Hearts' could be one alter ego if I wanted it to be, but I don't really feel like I need it to be or to develop it beyond of what it is, it's just me.
I also don't see any name as *that* significant or have specific narratives that can exist outside of context of the rest of me, and also for me I think part of the magic is to be named by someone else.

But they sound like they would be quite practical in a way, if finding meaning in them came naturally to me. First thing that comes to mind is how beautiful my Pinterest would be if I made like five different Pinterests for my different selves
But at the same time I wonder where *me* would have to hide if I were to create alter egos (even though my alter egos would still be me, duh) so...it's just not how I function.

[Animal]

I would never recommend by any means that someone "should" make alter egos, especially if it makes them feel split apart. For me these expressions evolved organically. I guess I'm just too big to fit in one identity.

[Melancholia]

I've been thinking a lot about this. Sometimes I feel split - like different parts come out for specific reasons - but it's still all me, it's not alternates. Honestly though, having thought through it so much, I feel like this may be something I need to prevent myself from delving too far into. I need to be whole, fully me, authentically responsible for every moment of myself. *I don't think that anyone with alters/alter egos is NOT wholly and fully themselves, or inauthentic. I just mean that for ME, it's going in the wrong direction. I've taken on many different types of people in my life, and they need to come together.

- The Precocious Toddler
- The Overachieving Child
- The Underachieving Woman
- The Little Girl with the Body of a Woman
- The Lonely Girl with Many Friends
- The Girl Who Hugs Trees
- The Spiraling Teenager
- The Occultist
- The Zealot
- The Mother Who Wishes to Not Be a Mother
- The Mother Who Loves Her Children
- The Christian Wife
- The Not Christian Wife
- The Sober Woman
- The Addicted Woman
- The Christian
- The Agnostic
- The Sex Fiend
- The Abstainer
- The Dutiful Wife
- The Wife Who Just Wants to Run
- etc.

I feel like I struggle to feel whole, and it ultimately comes down to fear and shame around vulnerability. I'm very open and honest about myself - I pride myself on being authentic. But I have very deep parts of me that I share with literally no one. I don't share it because I fear being laughed at, I fear being misunderstood. I guess this is because I feel a lot of shame - like I'm wrong. This stems from childhood, and as Quin put it, I've chosen a life partner that makes me feel the same way. I'm perpetuating the pattern myself because I'm too afraid to let go. I know everyone has parts of themselves that they don't share, but I have a constant feeling like my chest needs to burst from everything in it, but I have no way to fully express it, and I've battled it for so long I don't even know what it is. In a sense, I feel like I'm my own alter-ego.

[Melancholia]

Ha, funny, I keep having Hecate/Hekate come up in my mind over and over - happening for the past week or so. Like one night I was on the porch and my mind just starting involuntarily chanting her name. But then I stumble upon things like this and I see why.

"We are the wild woman who broke free of the chains using her own cleverness and cunning. This is the spirit of Hekate, the ancient keeper of keys and breaker of chains. We are wild in that we resist and persist against those who would keep us bound. This is the remembering of what our soul has always known; that through the reclaiming of the keys of our wild, intuitive and wise selves can we find true freedom."

Fitting.

[SpiritoftheGael]

Melancholia I agree with the sentiment that all my alternates are just me. They're not a separate person, just different dynamics. For me personally portraying them as separate helps me to get the essence of everything. Otherwise I feel like I spend forever trying to explain different dynamics I have and people and myself just getting confused. I guess that's why I always put them into my stories and would send those to people because it helped boil something specific down that I wanted to express.

[Melancholia]

SpiritoftheGael totally, I think that makes a lot of sense.

[Princess of Hearts]

Animal I don't think I feel split, maybe more like making parts of me into independent alter egos would make those parts into less that they are. And I couldn't stop myself from jumping into the story uninvited, even though it's my story.

it's exposing parts of myself that might otherwise remain unnoticed, and allowing it to come to the fore. But I don't feel more split, I feel more whole with all of my artistic expression because it's catharsis which gets rid of any "splits' or shadows that I can't navigate.

I agree with the sentiment that all my alternates are just me. They're not a separate person, just different dynamics. For me personally portraying them as separate helps me to get the essence of everything. Otherwise I feel like I spend forever trying to explain different dynamics I have and people and myself just getting confused. I guess that's why I always put them into my stories and would send those to people because it helped boil something specific down that I wanted to express

This is also how I feel though, a lot of this makes sense to me, I do process myself through alter egos in a way, but it doesn't get to the point of alter egos having anything close to their own life, I just don't give them enough space. I'm always embodying 'myself', interacting with the world through 'myself', even if that self actually consists of multiple 'selves', even if I'm channeling one part more than others, etc.
There's no clear separation of what belongs to which alter ego or a detailed picture of who the alter egos are, only a sense of where things fall.

There's a kind of detachment to alter egos that I feel like I lack, like I have certain messiness mixed with immediacy that I feel doesn't go well with having proper alter egos. I feel like I would probably be less confusing to people if I had proper alter egos :P

But at the same time I can't even imagine not having these half-alter egos, or whatever you'd call them.

Might have more to say, difficult to put it into words

[inkreservoir]

[deleted ?]