who is here?

This is an attempt to have a page of its own that describes the Echo system by listing its constituent parts. This will likely be out of date; our understanding of the environment, if not the environment itself, shifts over time, and these shifts come with new ideas of who and what is around.

That said, here is the current overview:

The Echo system is comprised of “characters” of varying degrees of influence. Some are active participants in the system, others are vague patterns in the static, or lenses that come to serve some purpose. The roster is shifting, as characters come into greater awareness and visibility.

Active characters

Vera (no pronouns, accepts she/her): The current host and primary fronter. The singlet-sona of the system, created to provide a voice of stability and compassion. Driven primarily by logic. Loves to get to the bottom of a problem, or learn how a system works.

As she usually fronts for the system, she’s used to “translating” what other system members say into a form that can be communicated. This is easier to bypass when writing things out, but very difficult when saying things verbally.

Ann (she/her): Keeper of headspace and translator of distant worlds. Periodically speaks in visions or fantastical scenarios. The longest-present still-active member of the system.

Dormant/historical characters

Xander (he/him): Host prior to Vera, and possibly the “original” member for the system. Somewhat stubborn. Fostered a creative side through personal pursuits. Dissolved around body-age 25 to make way for Vera after becoming concerned for the potential results of his actions.

Minor “lens” characters

As with everything else, the understanding of the lenses is evolving. Vera is torn between calling them facets of herself, characters in their own right, or merely thought patterns that she has given names to in service of the greater metaphor of plurality. Their biographies are written here for completeness’ sake.

Rose (she/her): “Avenger” role, keeper of anger for Vera after the dissolution of Xander. Rises after she senses that the body has overstretched its limits, and is being asked to push itself farther.

Azul (they/them): Bearer of despair. Rises alongside depressive episodes, or instead of Rose as a result of feeling like the body’s limits are “too sensitive”. They’re also connected to a feeling of loneliness and/or isolation, and the sense that it is impossible to be understood or to connect with others.

Anise (she/her): Keeper of sexuality; separate from Xander due to gender dysphoria, and separate from Vera due to autism and because she didn’t match the desired outward persona. A distinctly sapphic lens, and possible root of the system’s original gender dysphoria. A sort of foil to Vera’s typical sex-repulsed asexuality.

Environmental features

The Pool of Souls: Resting place for characters or patterns who are not visible to the rest of the system or indistinct from each other. Originally labeled in a vision from Ann, in response to Vera’s worry about whether naming characters betrayed more power then she wanted: “Reach into the pool of souls and pull one out; the swirling fragments will show you its form when it breaks the surface.” (In other words, you may be creating a character out of the process, but it is still being created from existing parts.) The Pool was where Xander was believed to have gone to dissolve. His phantom can be reached from its shores.

The Echo: The system’s namesake comes from the way thoughts and memories occur to Vera. Conversations in headspace, even to one’s self, do not happen linearly; statements often loop back upon themselves and repeat in fragments, events happen out of order, words are lost to the depths and covered up by each other.

The Keeper of the Fog: Related to the Echo, another feature of headspace is the occasional non-sequitur of thought. It is believed that characters or elements that do not wish to be seen will hide themselves in the folds of memory, taking advantage of the mind’s natural features (from ADHD, etc) to escape scrutiny.

The Fragments: Rather than the commonly-used idea of “incomplete” system members, the fragments present in this system are more a commonly-used metaphor of the environment. These fragments are memories that swirl disconnected from each other, thoughts that appear seemingly at random, and character features that have not been collected under a named umbrella.