The Draconic Wizard Workshop

Subsystems, Sidesystems, and Headspaces: A look into the inner workings of the DWW

By Troile of Carthage

Originally posted here on January 19, 2024.

We were recently talking idly about our subsystems in a Discord chat, when it was brought to our attention that the way we function in regards to our subsystems is fairly interesting and that at least a couple of people would be interested in reading an essay or explanation of the subject. It had never occurred to us to write about it, since it seems so mundane for us, but now that it’s been pointed out, it makes perfect sense as a topic! As per usual, a quick disclaimer: this is how each subsystem in our system works, as well as the sidesystems—in no way are we claiming that this is how all subsystems or sidesystems work, or that all systems should work the way we do.

A couple of definitions before we begin: a subsystem is a system within the system, ie, one of the system members is themselves a system. The DWW has many members in it, but some, like Flux, have members inside of them. Meanwhile, a sidesystem is a totally separate headspace from the “main” headspace, inhabited by DWW members that typically do not show up very often. When in a sidesystem headspace, it is almost impossible to feel or reach out to these headmates while in the main headspace, which is the main way that we tell that someone belongs to one of the sidesystems.

Let’s start with the variety of subsystem that we think of as “standard four-member” subsystems, as that seems to be one of our subsystem templates. This template is followed by Flux, Orion, and Simulacrum, and works like this: a subsystem forms with four members. Each member is numbered, one through four. (You’ll notice that our subsystems have a group proxy, such as x?, ?>, and ?], and then individually, their proxies are numbered, such as x4, 2>, and 3].) The number one position is taken up by the host of the subsystem—Psius for Flux, Grimgoth for Orion, and Polonia for Simulacrum. The subsystem hosts aren’t always the most common fronters of the subsystem while the subsystem itself is fronting—that is true of Orion and Simulacrum, but not Flux. Psius almost always fronts Flux, but isn’t big on actually being in the front of the DWW. Number two is the subsystem’s protector, which is Cirros for Flux, Therimna for Orion, and Carolina for Simulacrum. These individuals often front their respective subsystems and will show up whenever something bad happens. Number three seems to be a quiet individual with very specific interests of some description—the “autism slot,” if you will. (For clarity, we’re autistic, so this is funny.) This is Uldrak for Flux, Dr. Tanji for Orion, and Moloch for Simulacrum. Finally, number four is the wildcard slot, where apparently just any old fucking individual can show up—this is Sascha Vykos for Flux, RC for Orion, and Tytalus for Simulacrum. Best we can figure is that these are people who can cause some chaos and aren’t sorry when they do it.

Typically, these subsystems form all at once, with four members right off the bat once they’re solidified enough to speak. Whether or not they’ll identify, though, is another story. In Flux, Cirros identified first, then Psius, and then after some prodding, Uldrak and Sascha stepped forward. In Orion, Grimgoth was first, then RC, then Therimna, and then a significant amount of time passed before Dr. Tanji was willing to identify. Simulacrum was a little different—their protector didn’t form at first, and I’m not sure that Moloch did, either, so Tytalus and Polonia were there first (with Tytalus identifying first), then eventually Moloch, and then much, much later, Carolina finished forming and stepped up as their protector.

Flux has also gained members since its creation—Ilias and Troile (that’s me!) as numbers 5 and 6, respectively. We don’t really have any data on if those slots are part of the template or not, yet, since Orion and Simulacrum are both still at four, so we’re keeping an eye on that. We do know that the addition of Troile to Flux expanded their headspace significantly, and has improved their ability to make Flux in the main DWW headspace appear like whoever is primary fronting the subsystem, instead of just this beacon of vaguely humanoid-dragon-shaped pink light that’s hard to look at directly. Speaking of which—Flux has a defined headspace that other DWW members can kind of peak into whenever, assuming that Flux is okay with it. Their headspace is a small, concrete room, kind of like a basement, with a desk that houses the computer or terminal that they use to front. Behind that is a nice, sturdy table, and to the side is a couple of chairs. The room extends a little further back, and is lit by a couple of bare light bulbs in the ceiling, and then there’s a door out in the back, letting Flux members exit the subsystem to exist as teeny tiny little dudes in the DWW headspace. They… basically never do this. Orion, meanwhile, I’m sure has a headspace, but the rest of the DWW can’t peek into it, and we’re not convinced that Simulacrum has one at all—they seem to be in a bit of a dark void situation.

Finally, as to how each of these subsystems appears in the DWW headspace—Flux, as previously stated, tends to either be pink light or will reflect the primary fronter at the time. Orion is almost always a bipedal dark red dragon with a polearm, although this is typically the case when Grimgoth and Therimna are co-fronting, which is the usual. Sometimes Orion will reflect the primary fronter, assuming that it’s Dr. Tanji or RC, but it’s almost always the dragon. Simulacrum, when they formed, were a big black box around the front, but now tend to appear as the primary fronter, or, sometimes, as all fronters, in separate bodies but forced to stay fairly close to each other. It’s kind of weird.

The most interesting thing about the dragon that Orion appears as is that… no one in that subsystem is a dragon, necessarily. Grimgoth’s a little draconic, but he denies that dragon being “him”—in fact, Orion considers the combination of themselves (however many there may be at the time) into that dragon shape to be halfway towards its own identity! Orion typically doesn’t get called a plural they/them in this instance, ie, if you’re talking to the general Orion proxy, he/she pronouns are appropriate instead. I don’t really have much of an explanation for this, and neither does Orion. Typically, this draconic Orion is made up of Grimgoth and Therimna, but the others can slip in just as easily, and her personality is a little hard to pin down. He’s like a more mellow Grimgoth, or a more aggressive everyone else, but usually just likes to watch. I don’t know. This is still an aspect of identity that we’re exploring, Orion most of all.

The rest of our subsystems don’t seem to fall into a “shared template” situation. Our remaining subsystems are Temperance, Emerald, and Skull Scholars. The closest template they have is that all three of them initially formed with two members, then Temperance gained one. I think it’s best if we just go through each of these individually.

Emerald is our only median subsystem, and consists of Talitus Verner and the Orchestrator—essentially, an emerald dragon and his half-elf alter ego that he played into so hard that he formed an entirely separate facet with different ideals and opinions. They consider themselves to be two sides of one person, so Emerald is typically counted as a single member of the DWW rather than two, but that doesn’t mean they agree on things or get along—I’ve never seen such an inharmonious subsystem, and the main writer of this essay is Flux! Emerald appears to us typically as a bipedal and human-sized emerald dragon, reflecting the two sides of him, but if specifically Talitus or the Orchestrator is fronting, Emerald will appear as them instead. Talitus is tagged as number one in this subsystem because he’s more sociable and friendlier, and is more likely to front the subsystem to talk. I have no idea if Emerald has a headspace, and if he does, it’s probably a recreation of the Orchestrator’s lair.

Skull Scholars is more of a weird case. We didn’t realize this subsystem existed for a long time—Roger de Camden showed up in the DWW, and we wondered if he was in a subsystem with Japheth since he seemed like a subsystem, but we ruled that out pretty quickly. Turns out, no, he’s in a subsystem with Lazarus, who we did not know was here for several months. Oops. Skull Scholars are such a weird subsystem that they don’t even have their own front in our tracking app or their own proxy—they can’t blur or be confused for each other, and only one of them can front the subsystem at a time. This means that de Camden and Lazarus are almost completely mutually exclusive—if Lazarus is fronting Skull Scholars, hearing from de Camden is almost impossible, and vice versa. It’s extremely, extremely weird, and they seem fine with it, although having a conversation with both of them is very difficult and takes a lot of energy, typically resulting in a headache for us. It’s like the brain forgot to install the co-fronting module on this subsystem—if it had, they’d probably have proxies that look like other subsystems’, but they don’t, instead having [] and {}. They’re visually similar, but not numbered. I don’t know if they have a headspace—if they do, they’re not talking.

Finally, we have Temperance. Temperance started out as a two-member subsystem, consisting of Saulot and Arikel. They’re interesting in that they’re the polar opposite of Skull Scholars—they can’t help but front together. They like to joke that they’re stapled together, which is basically true—when Temperance fronts, all members of it are much more present than members of other subsystems who aren’t in the front of their subsystem. All Temperance members are always fronting Temperance, if that makes sense—it’s like their whole headspace is the front. (Not that I know if they have a headspace—I’ve never gotten a glimpse in and even though they’re in the front right now, they’re not telling.) Saulot is numbered as one because he was the first one that started talking, and is still the chattiest, and Arikel is two because she was the other one. Kenaddel formed in Temperance some time later, so he’s number three because that was the next sensible number. I don’t have a lot to say about Temperance, honestly—they kind of “just work.” They can more or less “spin around” to make one of them the most in the front, but they never stop fronting the subsystem, so this is a bit of a moot point. I think they’re slowly developing the ability to back out of the front independently, but they haven’t quite managed it yet—stay tuned.

Now, as we move into the sidesystems, it’s probably worthwhile to note that no subsystem exists in either of the sidesystems. All subsystems live in the main DWW headspace, the one with the fronting terminal, and we’re curious to see if this ever changes.

We have two sidesystems, and we’ll address the first one we realized that we had first. We don’t really have a name for it, we just call it “the sidesystem”—this being anyone who predominately “lives” in the secondary headspace that we think of as being owned by Kyir, the headmate that we call the “system administrator” due to him having so many powers and abilities that the rest of us don’t have, as well as knowledge of the inner workings of the system that she’s in charge of keeping track of and only telling the rest of us when she considers us “ready.” I don’t really know what goes on in the other headspace, or what it looks like, but I get the impression of light wood floors and more of an open-concept design? I’m mostly getting this from Lazarus, who got it from de Camden, who got it from his husband, Mithras, who is a sidesystem member, so take that with a grain of fourth-hand salt. We don’t really have a great understanding of what makes a headmate a sidesystem member, although most of them have yellow or purple for their colors, other than Caleb and Kyir himself. Sidesystem members ar mostly defined by their ability to fuck off so hard that, as far as we can tell, they don’t exist, making them sneaky elusive bastards that we tend to find months or years after their formation. We consider Blame (our mechanic with admin powers that hid for eight whole years), Caleb, Caluna, Khouru, Kyir, Mithras, and Spades to be members of this main sidesysyem, and we’re trying to learn more about that whole thing as we go. None of them are terribly interested in explaining how it works, probably at Kyir’s direction, so we figure we’ll find out when we’re ready or when it’s relevant.

The other sidesystem was a surprise to everybody. One day, the space outside of the two headspaces, what had previously been a void became a beach, with an ocean and a little island with a palm tree in the distance and everything. This bamboozled everyone, but most of all Kyir, who is typically in charge of making sure that shit like this doesn’t happen without their permission and he was pretty pissed off about it, strutting around and mumbling and kicking at sand for days. We don’t really have an explanation on how this happened, but we found Anadox washed up on the beach and both Khadgar and Varian off on the island in the distance. As a result, we call these three the Beachgoers. Their default location is to be on the beach or the island, or to be swimming in the water, so we consider them to be a sidesystem of some description. They kind of exist outside of the two main headspaces, although they come into the main headspace to front whenever they want. They can dip so hard that we can’t feel or find them, like regular sidesystem members, but they usually don’t, and typically one of us can open up the door to the main headspace and yell out onto the beach if we want to contact someone. Interestingly, these three also all share a source, and it’s not the source that most of the system shares—they’re the only three fictives from World of Warcraft, and they all came in together as the Beachgoers. Absolutely no one knows why this happened, except for maybe Blame, but if he does, he’s not telling or suggesting it, not even to Kyir, which is kind of pissing her off. She’s not mad that the Beachgoers are here, per se, mostly just that such a drastic change happened to the system without his input. It’s kind of a whole situation, but it’s worked out in the end.

And now, finally, since I’ve discussed everyone else’s headspace, I might as well talk about the DWW’s main headspace that most of the rest of us, including all of the subsystems, live in. We have kind of a big living room situation, on one side of which is a white-tiled area with a terminal system and an indeterminable amount of seats that acts as a front. A crack in the wall in the front leads to some kind of outdoorsy well-lit plains area that feels extremely dreamlike. The living room itself contains several chairs and couches, all surrounding a table, and a specific couch that faces the fronting terminal that lies just outside the tiled area. We call this simply The Couch and is a common area for people to sit when they’re having a conversation with someone outside of the system but don’t actually feel like fronting. Past all these seats is the kitchen, to the right is the door that leads outside of the headspace onto the beach, and to the left is a hallway that goes out of line of sight of the front that leads to everyone’s individual rooms. It’s hard to get an idea of what it looks like around that corner, since we’re monoconscious and don’t remember much of what we’re up to when we’re not in the front, but we sometimes get flashes of what’s going on back there. Somewhere in the back of that area, there’s also an entrance to a room where the wood floor and the walls start to fall away into a big, black abyss. This is the Void, from whence most (if not all) new headmates come, and it’s Kyir’s responsibility to keep an eye on this and ensure that only non-harmful people form. As far as we can tell, they’re the only one that has any control over who does and does not form in the DWW, and if they miss their chance during the early formation stage in the Void, then there’s nothing that can be done, so he’s ever-vigilant, just in case.

That should be it, for now! Obviously, as time goes on, this essay will get more and more out of date, and may need addendums to clarify or add to it as we understand more about the sidesystems and subsystems and as each expand.