Role terms

Outside of production credits (which are roles that relate to functions like fronting), our system uses roles, as our system experiences them as a tangibly real part of our existence in the system. Roles describe things that we do and that we front for, as well as traits that we have. Headmates in our system usually have a large number of roles, and we sometimes try to get more roles on purpose.

The way we see it, there are "passive roles" and "active roles". Passive roles are roles like "trauma holder" or "identity holder", which is about having a certain trait but is not necessarily about how the headmate expresses that trait. Active roles are roles like "caretaker" or "identity manager", which is about actively doing or expressing something. Even roles that involve being taken care of are considered "active roles" in our system because they involve actively experiencing something.

We also call active roles "jobs", and the Unification involves helping headmates find jobs.

Some of the roles on this page are more particular to our system, and some of them are coined by others. Some of them are also common system roles, because this page may be viewed by those who are not very familiar with system roles. Links are given to info or coining posts whenever possible, including to roles that may not have the name we use but functionally describes the same thing. If no link is given, assume the role is idiosyncratic.

Animal caretaker: A headmate who takes care of the animals. This is with regards to the animals in our system, both therians and NPCs. The therians usually have some kind of trauma or mental illness related to their alterhumanity, and when they're fully animal mode, it helps to have a more human(oid) headmate supervising them. Some of them have an owner/pet relationship with the animals.

Artist: A headmate whose role involves drawing. This can involve drawing for fun, but also for emotional self-regulation, expression of identity, to help the system, or for kink. We post our art online, so this could also overlap with internet roles.

Aegir: A protector who specifically is protective of a headmate or group of headmates that they are close to. Aegirs in our system often protect someone from their source or their timeline, but they can choose who they protect.

Assidumate: A headmate who does chores or tasks. This is generally not a fun job, but it is always appreciated. There are more specific types of this job, like cook or errand runner.

Blogrunner: A headmate who runs our request blogs. We run a few blogs where people send us requests, including one for people who create alters on purpose, and one for people looking for new pronouns or genders. These blogs are similar but also different, and someone who works on one might not work on the other.

Caretaker: A headmate who takes care of others or the system. This can include taking care of those within the system, but also those outside it. Caretakers can be prone to burnout and not taking care of themselves, which is why most of our caretaker have webs of bonds between each other and take turns taking care of each other. This can be emotional and involve providing comfort, but also physical in the form of doing necessary tasks.

Character designer: A specific type of artist who helps headmates in the system draw themselves or does drawings to help headmates split. We see our control over our appearances as being similar to designing a character. This can also include drawing headmates who look like the "kinds of people" our system or sidesystems would get.

Charge: A headmate whose role involves being taken care of. They do not have to be a child headmate, but they may often relate to aspects of childhood or be an age regressor. This can include having childhood trauma, but it can involve trauma from any stage of life, or not even involve trauma at all. This is viewed as an active role because you are actively experiencing caretaking and thus healing.

Comforter: A caretaker who takes care of headmates through providing comfort. This can include physical comfort as well as emotional, usually both.

Consumanaut: A headmate whose role involves eating. Not every headmate who likes to eat likes to cook, and vice versa. The presence of a consumanaut who does not actively participate in the cooking also turns cooking into a social event in-system, which motivates us to do it.

Cook: A headmate who cooks. This often involves meal prep for the system. Sometimes we cook for our roommates. We see cooking as a chore but also as a hobby, and also as a part of culture.

Debaser: A headmate who enjoys, seeks out, and/or creates material about dark topics, namely violence or death. This usually involves what we describe as "ultraviolence" - violence, abuse, or dubious sexual content (usually in fictional contexts) that is particularly heavy. Someone with this role might have a morbid personality or aesthetic, but they can act and look like anything. This role is named after the Pixies song "Debaser", about watching and enjoying violence in a movie.

Delight: A headmate whose role revolves around positive emotions and having fun. In our system, this usually is someone who has some connection to our interests and who is usually in a good mood. They might improve the mood of the system when they front, but some of them might also be incapable of fronting while we're in too bad a mood.

Destressor: A headmate who helps us destress. This can include after coming home from doing something, but also when we're stressed about trauma or something similar. Destressors are usually calm and happy, and they do things like nesting, watching videos, drawing, listening to music, and collecting web graphics.

Dysregulator: A headmate who has much poorer emotional self-regulation than other members of the system. They often express this dysregulation in some ways, but other headmates often keep them from expressing it in more destructive ways.

Emotion amplifier: A headmate who has and feels particularly strong emotions. Sometimes this can cause problems, but it can also be helpful if other headmates who have been fronting frequently have difficulty accepting, acknowledging, or expressing their emotions.

Errand runner: A headmate who fronts while the system runs errands. This can include making grocery lists, handling interactions while running the errands, and budgeting. This role involves going outside but not being "social" per se.

Forportian: A substance-related protector. This can be someone who keeps us from using too much or keeps us safe when we are under the influence. Someone with this role should not have a problem with fronting under the influence, but they also shouldn't be overly fond of substances.

Libertine: A headmate whose role involves indulging in kink, sex, and sometimes substances. This role is named after the historical libertines, e.g. the Marquis de Sade. It often overlaps with the debaser role, but libertines are very specifically focused on the pleasure aspect as opposed to any other reasons, they just acquire pleasure through transgressive ends and enjoy being transgressive and excessive.

Gender wizard: A specific kind of info manager who knows a lot about gender, or other queer topics. They might specialize in something specific - e.g. xenogenders, masculinity, etc. - or they might be knowledgeable about everything. They often help new headmates figure out their identities, but they also answer questions for friends.

Hamster caretaker: A headmate who takes care of the hamsters in headspace. This includes talking hamsters like Perpetua but also NPCs like Rusty's babies (in his timeline, Rusty was a male hamster who was bred with a female hamster). The talking hamsters usually have DPD, and the baby hamsters basically represent some of our innocence that was destroyed by trauma. This can therefore be an emotionally intensive job, including for the hamster.

Holder: The role of a holder is to have a certain trait, memory, behavior, etc. That is, to "hold" it for the system. Most roles we use that end in "holder" are, in our view, self-explanatory, so they are not defined on this page, but a few are if there is anything notable to say about how we experience them.

Identity holder: A headmate who has an identity that the system either has currently or has had in the past. Currently, we are a gay man, so we have gay male headmates where that fact about them was important to their lives and whose status as an identity holder is about our current identity. However, we also consider our past identity to be a part of us too, and since we used to be a lesbian, many of our lesbians fill this role, too.

Identity manager: An identity manager is like an identity holder, but they don't necessarily directly have the identity, and they more specifically do something that helps the system maintain their connection to their identity. To give a hypothetical example, a headmate might have this role with regards to bisexuality if they are a straight woman who dates a bisexual male headmate who, until that point, only had male partners and therefore did not fully feel that he was engaging with his bisexuality. Other things you can do to manage the identity depends on what the identity is, but it can include things like art, writing, gathering information, managing the physical appearance, or presenting ourselves a certain way socially.

Info manager: A headmate who knows a lot about a topic or about the system and shares that information when necessary. This can also include being particularly knowledgeable about a specific topic and sharing it at length, especially if that knowledge can help others, e.g. psychology.

Matchmaker: A headmate who helps headmates form relationships with each other due to their perceived compatibility. This is not always in a romantic sense. A headmate with this role is good at comparing and contrasting people and understanding their strengths and weaknesses. They tend to know a lot about everyone in the system or their sidesystem/layer/etc.

Memory holder: A memory holder is a headmate who is strongly associated with a memory the system has from their life, including non-traumatic ones. Trauma holders are usually considered memory holders (for something traumatic), but memory holders can hold neutral or even positive memories. While some of this has to do with the amnesia we've had in the past, it also has to do with memories we have emotional amnesia of.

Music producer: A headmate who works on our musical projects. They can specialize in any genre or type of instrument or composition. They do not necessarily have to perform the music themselves, and they can form bands with each other (headmates who work on the same kind of music together and release it under the same name).

Musicnaut: A headmate whose role involves fronting to interact with music. If they have a socializer role, this probably involves fronting at music-related events or talking about music during social situations, but if they don't, they probably do things at home like managing playlists or finding new music.

Naturalist: A headmate who goes out in nature. They go to the forest and to the marsh, and they often watch wildlife documentaries and look at other information. They also often take care of the animals and take them out to the forest.

Offline socializer: A headmate who socializes offline. This usually includes karaoke, music events, and the movies. However, given that people often hold random conversations with us in our everyday life, and since we often see people we know while we're out, this can be basically any time we're out. They should not be too given to anxiety and should be patient with people who may not communicate as clearly as we expect them to. They should also be comfortable acting as the body's collective self.

Online socializer: A headmate who socializes online. This usually includes Discord servers, but also on public websites. They should be able to engage with a variety of topics and post interesting things somewhat regularly in servers and on websites (e.g. art, pictures of our cooking).

Performer: A headmate who performs, e.g. at karaoke. We may someday become a singer who does their own live shows, too. A performer should usually be social, but it can also be someone who doesn't mind fronting at karaoke just to sing onstage. Our system sings with a variety of singing styles, and if you sounded a certain way in your timeline, you can try to replicate it when we sing.

Protector: A headmate who protects the system. This is more of a historical than current job, as we do not really experience genuine danger anymore. However, this can relate to our experiences with things like disability or triggers.

Service animal: An animal-related headmate, usually a canine, who assists a disability holder. This can include helping them manage their pain levels (e.g. sitting down when they've stood up for too long), getting us to safety before seizures, making decisions on their behalf for their safety, and preventing them from accessing substances like alcohol.

Socializer: A headmate who handles social interactions. This can be any kind of social setting at all, including online, offline, at events, at home, and in our daily life.

Split manager: A headmate who helps us manage our splits. This can include making templates for new headmates or guided splits, but also sending requests to blogs for such things. It can also include making things like art and pinterest boards for new headmates who might split.

System manager: A headmate who does internal work for the system, such as uncovering information, managing splits, and organizing front groups. A headmate with this role will probably want to be knowledgeable about the system before taking it on.

Trauma manager: A headmate who helps other headmates manage their trauma. This usually involves helping them cope and calming them down. It can also include fronting during triggering situations for them.

Web creeper: A web creeper is a headmate who knows a lot about and frequently uses the internet, particularly to seek out obscure or morbid corners of it. Currently, this normally means things like doing research on morbid topics for our writing or looking for "internet oddities", but in the past, this has included more maladaptive things. This is based on the role "web roach", but that role inherently refers to maladaptive behaviors, and the term we use can refer to neutral things as well. It is named after the aesthetic "web creep", which is emblematic of the role.

Webmaster/webmistress: A headmate who maintains our online presence, especially our personal site. This involves HTML and code, but mostly things we know from Neopets. This includes information about our system, but also our interests. This role can also include running our blogs and socializing on Discord, but mostly in the sense of maintaining our internet presence.