Carnival: Profile

Sequel Problems

SL: I published The Murder After fourteen days ago. That means no one has read it. Yet, I'm afraid people will make a big deal out of The Year After being longer. I'm not finished, but I can tell it's going to be longer than 44 pages.

Imagine someone buying the book in 2025 and going, "why the hell is this longer than the first one?" It's longer because there is more to say. Plus, I'm writing this for Terrance. It's a decision I made before he became sentient. He deserves something good in his life. (The events of the first book fucked him up.)

And that good thing is a boyfriend. This leads to another problem: What are people going to think? We live in a female body, and although we're bigender, we still present as a woman. What if people think I'm trying to satisfy a headmate's fetish? I'm not.

This romance appeared naturally. The Year After wasn't supposed to be one. It started as a scene where Terrance is on a date, and he can't focus because he's dissociating. (Did I mention I thought of this before he became sentient?) Then, it turned into a scene where he had Liam (the date) over at his place. I saw it and thought, "that's a good thing in his life." It doesn't cure Terrance of his issues, but it makes his life a little better.

The Year After is for Terrance. I don't want anyone to think I'm satisfying a headmate's fetish just because we live in a female body.

SL: I added Terrance's notes to The Murder After, and now, it's 52 pages. I also changed the price to $5.95 because it sounds better. This is the last change I'll make, I promise. Now, it's ready to buy! I'm happy with myself.

Reanna: I made three posts about my anxiety, but I decided to delete them. This should be more private. Sharing in detail was probably making it worse. I thought it would help, but it didn't.

I am feeling better now. Have a good day!

SL: If anyone asks, Terrance thinks straight edge and ruler are interchangeable. I definitely did not screw up.

Update (11/10): I decided to fix the error. The beauty of having a book no one has bought yet is I can change something, and no one will ever know. (Terrance didn't want to go with my plan, anyway.)

SL: I still don't like that The Year After is going to be longer than The Murder After. If the first book were fifty two pages, I'd be fine with it.

I know there's more to say this time, but I worry readers won't see it the same way. What if they don't like that the first story is a chapbook while the second is a novella?

Or maybe, a potential reader will find The Year After on Amazon and want to know what happened first. Maybe they won't care that the first book is short.

Maybe I should worry once we gain readership.

Dead-Mates

This is an essay about headmate death.

Introduction

Sometimes, headmates leave in ways that some plurals can only describe as death. Mint Phalanx is one of these plurals. Unless your headspace has resurrection or some sort of reincarnation, these dead-mates aren’t coming back (at least not as they were before.)

Other plurals call this loss dormancy, but because we come from the tulpamancy community, we call it dissipation. We also consider fusion as some sort of death. Below are our equivalents to death.

Equivalents to natural death

Spontaneous dissipation

Equivalents to murder

Forced dissipation

Unwilling fusion

Tulpas here can’t die from lack of attention because we’re midcontinuum.

Equivalents to suicide

Self-dissipation

Egocide (giving up one’s identity to be replaced by another headmate)

Equivalents to coma (not death)

Deactivation (true dormancy because the headmate can return)

So, where do these dead-mates go?

In our phalanx, we have a monist view of where dead-mates go. They return to the originator. For instance, we believe Roxy and the other people were reabsorbed into Reanna after they completed suicide. (It may not be a complete reabsorption because they haunt once in a while.)

F.M. is an interesting case. After fusing with Nightingale (who completed egocide), he considered himself dead. He wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t reabsorbed. But he knew he died, even when the rest of the phalanx didn’t count it.

How do you remember dead-mates?

For Roxy and the other people, Brian made a poem. He wrote it before we realized they self-dissipated. (They told us they were going to deactivate and stay in the Stone Garden. The next day, they were gone.)

F.M. did a mock burial for himself and a shower meditation. We buried who he once was. Then, we used the shower to wash away Nightingale. The saddest part was washing him out of our hair. After the shower, F.M. kind of reincarnated.

Can dead-mates come back?

We guess it depends on how the plural’s system or headspace works. As a rule of thumb, don’t count on it.

For us, Roxy& and Nightingale aren’t coming back. However, F.M. did because his case was different. And he didn’t come back as the same F.M. (At least he wasn’t undead.)

It seems dead-mates who do come back don’t come back the same. F.M. came back goth. He also came back with exo-memories based on Reanna’s dreams of his source killing himself. He used to want to listen to rap like his source; now, he listens to The Birthday Massacre. (Not that we’re complaining.)

Because we got to see it happen, this change did not come as a surprise. Unfortunately, we have no advice on how to deal with the surprise of a dead-mate returning different.

Conclusion

So ends our essay on dead-mates. It’s a hard topic to talk about, especially when it seems everyone around you doesn't view these leavings as equivalents to dying. We hope sharing our experiences helps facilitate conversation about deaths inside.

SL: Does anyone else have preemptive rants for works you haven't shared yet? I keep doing that for The Murder After, which is going to be published on 8 October. From the very beginning, I would get really mad over the idea of readers wondering why the ending isn't considered a good one.

Merry Christmas from Mint Phalanx!

16 January

Testing psychologist: "Reanna doesn't have a social circle, so she uses [or goes into] fantasy."

Me (Brian): "Fantasy!? Say that to my face, you limp noodle!" (In-headspace)

Present Day

Me: "I am not a fantasy."

Reanna: "She didn't even know you exist."

Me: "I am still not a fantasy."

The next time I think I'm fake, I'm going to remember I had a negative reaction to being unintentionally called a fantasy.

SL using the British dialect in the headspace:

"Good, we still have purple napkins."

SL trying use it out loud:

(*Garbled mess*)