Howdy, everyone. My name’s Fen. I’m one of the super-admins here as of late, and I have some thoughts about family, both chosen and blood that I’d like to scream about a bit, as we’ve been talking with our girlfriend Sheik about the system’s early life a great deal and that got several of us thinking.

I see Millennials and Gen Z get a lot of shit for still living around or with their families, and frankly, I hate it. It’s complete and utter horseshit. Western culture prizes hyper independence to such an extreme degree that people forget now that we’re a fucking social species and have lived in huge multigenerational cohorts for most of human history. The setup we believe to be “traditional” – one man, one woman, and their children, living by themselves, separated from their in-laws and relying on none other but themselves – is a relatively recent invention and keeps people fucking isolated from other people they might otherwise form close connections with, share resources with, ask for help, etc..

Now, I’m all for monogamy and heterosexual relationships if they’re consensual, negotiated, and entered into willingly, but I myself am a committed pansexual polyamorist who inhabits a large system who made the agonizingly painful decision to distance themselves from the multigenerational cohort they themselves were raised in due to years of abuse very few of those fucks were even willing to acknowledge.

Yes, for all of Hera and Xavier’s big talk of being independent, resourceful, and pulling yourself up by your goddamned bootstraps, they ironically raised Castor, Allēna, and the others in the system before me in an enormous extended family network made up of great grandparents, grandparents, great aunts, great uncles, cousins, second cousins, the whole fucking nine yards, funnily enough.

Neither of them would have gotten anywhere without both our maternal and paternal grandparents, who helped with damn near everything. Hell, Hera, Ms. “I’m The Most Normal, Independent Woman to Ever Live”, has never lived more than a thirty minute drive away from her parents and her sister for the body’s entire life. At last check, she lives next door to her parents and they knocked the fence between their land down so they could visit each other easier.

This by itself isn’t a bad thing. I simply find it hilarious that Hera was completely incapable of practicing what she so thoroughly attempted to beat into Allēna, independence and normalcy. Hera, that ain’t normal by today’s standards. Sociologically, it’s completely right, but it sure as fuck ain’t considered normal.

Once my headmates were estranged from them, they didn’t want a bullshit nuclear family type setup in the life they were going to build for themselves. Allēna’s first marriage to Fang showed her that she didn’t want that. Anything that even smelled like compulsory, possessive monogamy and the trappings that came with that were not her or the rest of the system’s thing. Even Eight’s very serious relationship with his beloved Delta, which is still very loving despite now being platonic, was very open and they both had a wide range of deep emotional connections despite being initially monogamous. They were possessive of each other, but only because they wanted to be. Eight loved Delta more than anything, and did his utmost to show it in every way he could, and they enjoyed it when he was possessive of them, and vice versa. They both came into the relationship having built fine lives of their own and gotten to know themselves and each other deeply, and most of the work there was learning how the other communicated best. It was – and still is – magical, in many ways.

When Eight and the rest of the system got into polyamory, they took what they had learned from the relationship with Delta and crafted that same magic, only with multiple committed relationships simultaneously. Perhaps the most interesting part of it all is that I’ve noticed that we’ve built that same sort of non-nuclear extended family network the original alters here were raised with, only with people we chose. We’re still close with a few members of our blood family, as well, but they were the select few brilliant black sheep who were good to us well into adulthood, so we chose them, as well. Our close friends are also an integral part of this web, and we don’t want to do life without a single soul present.

Our life is certainly not normal, but it is rich and full of color and joy. If you’re reading this, you’re probably someone we love and treasure. Thank you for being here. Your presence means everything to me and to my system. Always remember that “blood is thicker than water” is actually incorrect. The original saying is “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”.

As always, stay tuned for more magic!

-Fen