Safety in Alterhuman Spaces
By The Dragonheart Collective with input from the OtherConnect discord
The original home of this document is at https://dragonsroost.neocities.org/projects.html.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.
Foreword And Explanation of This Document
Abuse, toxicity, and controlling behaviors are important to watch out for in all
communities- however a lot of guides for this kind of thing break down in the face of fringe
subcultures like the various alterhuman ones.
A ‘cult checklist’ that says ‘if a person claims they are a god or has a special relationship
to a god this is a red flag’ doesn't help when you are in a chat for godshards or angelkin, for
example, and it makes it hard to take the rest of the checklist seriously when one point has
already been proven ineffective for checking for danger.
This article’s purpose is to serve as a non-comprehensive safety guide that is tailored to
the unique experiences and red flags that alterhuman spaces have. Do not use solely this guide
to avoid harm. This guide’s writers are not responsible for the reader’s safety, the reader is.
This guide simply is giving the reader some tools they may find helpful. No guide will be a 100%
foolproof way to avoid harm, but large swaths of such harm can be prevented through
practicing safety guidelines and keeping an eye out for problem behavior. Obvious blanket
warning across this document for discussion and description of possibly triggering topics.
General External Models for Determining the Danger Level of a Specific Group
There are two general checklists that this guide recommends. The BITE model, and The
Advanced Bonewits Cult Evaluation Frame or ‘ABCDEF’. Both will be summarized in this
document and the originals linked to.
The BITE Model:
Link: https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/
By far the best general checklist the writers of this document have found, the BITE
model is a list of things that high-control groups do. A group that does these things is often very
toxic or abusive. This checklist works with any type of group rather than just religious ones like
many ‘cult checklists’. This is a gently summarized list of the examples under the BITE model.
Behavior Control: The group dictates what behavior is acceptable and has punishments for not
falling in line.
Examples:
• Regulates diet, friends, dress, sexual behavior, finance, hobbies, etc.
• Requires permission by the ‘big names’ for large decisions and encourages emotional or
physical dependence on thereof.
• Punishments may involve targeted harassment, neglect, abuse, and physical
punishment or threats thereof to the individual or their loved ones and may be
accompanied by rewards for falling in line.
Information Control: The group dictates what you are allowed to know with punishments for
seeking unapproved information.
Examples:
• Withholding information or lying about information.
• Discouraging seeking or viewing information that wasn’t volunteered within the group.
• Encourage spying, stalking, and reporting on other members so that the members of the
group monitor each other.
• Using propaganda that was produced by the group, often with misquotes or out of
context things from outsiders in ways that paint them in a negative light.
• Use of confession as a tool of control.
Thought Control: The group dictates what you are allowed to think or believe and has
punishments for not falling in line.
Examples:
• Demand one views every doctrine of the group as true and good and all not of the group
as false and bad. (Black and white thinking)
• Teaching or programming techniques to shut down doubts so members may self-
regulate such as denial, praying, or reciting doctrines when presented with something
against their worldview.
• Forbid criticism or questions regarding leaders or the doctrine.
• Use of oversimplification and buzz words and phrases instead of nuanced takes in most
material.
• Encouraging only ‘good thoughts’ and shaming those who have ‘bad thoughts’.
Emotional Control: The group dictates what you are allowed to feel and manipulates your
emotions to keep you in the group with punishments for not falling in line.
Examples:
• The group considers certain emotions or feelings as evil or wrong and that a person is
evil or wrong for having them.
• Promotes feelings of guilt, unworthiness, and fear.
• Extremes of emotional highs and lows are expressed or encouraged such as ‘love
bombing’ one moment and then public shaming the next.
• Teaching that there are massive consequences for leaving the group such as ‘eternal
damnation’ and shunning those who leave.
• Teaching that there are no legit reasons to leave the group and that those who leave
were secretly evil, brainwashed, manipulated, or weak.
• Threats to the self or loved ones of consequences if one is considering leaving
The Advanced Bonewits Cult Evaluation Frame (ABCDEF):
Link: http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html
This checklist from a quite dated website is intended for use on more metaphysical
groups. Created in 1979 and revamped several times since, this checklist has been notably used
in a professional capacity by the FBI and the government of the Union of South Africa to
investigate and report on groups.
The next best checklist besides BITE, it is fairly flexible and is scored on a scale of 1-10,
with higher scores indicating the groups are more dangerous.
Checklist ripped directly from the site:
• Internal Control: Amount of internal political and social power exercised by leader(s)
over members; lack of clearly defined organizational rights for members.
• External Control: Amount of external political and social influence desired or
obtained; emphasis on directing members’ external political and social behavior.
• Wisdom/Knowledge Claimed by leader(s): Amount of infallibility declared or
implied about decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations; number and degree
of unverified and/or unverifiable credentials claimed.
• Wisdom/Knowledge Credited to leader(s) by members: Amount of trust in
decisions or doctrinal/scriptural interpretations made by leader(s); amount of
hostility by members towards internal or external critics and/or towards verification
efforts.
• Dogma: Rigidity of reality concepts taught; amount of doctrinal inflexibility or
“fundamentalism;”
• Recruiting: Emphasis put on attracting new members; amount of proselytizing;
requirement for all members to bring in new ones.
• Front Groups: Number of subsidiary groups using different names from that of main
group, especially when connections are hidden.
• Wealth: Amount of money and/or property desired or obtained by group; emphasis
on members’ donations; economic lifestyle of leader(s) compared to ordinary
members.
• Sexual Manipulation of members by leader(s) of non-tantric groups: Amount of
control exercised over sexuality of members in terms of sexual orientation, behavior,
and/or choice of partners.
• Sexual Favoritism: Advancement or preferential treatment dependent upon sexual
activity with the leader(s) of non-tantric groups.
• Censorship: Amount of control over members’ access to outside opinions on group,
its doctrines or leader(s).
• Isolation: Amount of effort to keep members from communicating with non-
members, including family, friends and lovers.
• Dropout Control: Intensity of efforts directed at preventing or returning dropouts.
• Violence: Amount of approval when used by or for the group, its doctrines or
leader(s).
• Paranoia: Amount of fear concerning real or imagined enemies; exaggeration of
perceived power of opponents; prevalence of conspiracy theories.
• Grimness: Amount of disapproval concerning jokes about the group, its doctrines or
its leader(s).
• Surrender of Will: Amount of emphasis on members not having to be responsible
for personal decisions; degree of individual disempowerment created by the group,
its doctrines or its leader(s).
• Hypocrisy: amount of approval for actions which the group officially considers
immoral or unethical, when done by or for the group, its doctrines or leader(s);
willingness to violate the group’s declared principles for political, psychological,
social, economic, military, or other gain.
Other Abuse Checklists
Grooming:
Grooming is a type of abuse that involves manipulating someone so that they are
dependent, isolated, and vulnerable to being exploited. Adults may be groomed as well as
children, but children are at far more of a risk.
There are several steps/major components to grooming;
• Victim Selection- The victim is chosen after a period of observation based on perceived
vulnerability.
• Gaining Access- The groomer makes contact with the victim and tries to ensure future
access
• Isolation- The groomer isolates the victim through physical or emotional means from
other venues of support
• Gaining Trust- The groomer gains the trust of the victim through attention, advice, gifts,
and shares ‘secrets’ to make them feel like there is a caring relationship and train them
to keep further secrets from others regarding the groomer.
• Desensitization- The groomer then starts to desensitize the victim to touch and
conversation of sexual topics. It will start in ways that appear harmless but escalate over
time. They may show them porn or discuss sexual urges with them.
• Normalization- The groomer will make the abuse seem natural and normal to avoid
raising suspicions of others and keep the victim in their grasp.
External Links/Resources:
• https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs
• https://www.anncrafttrust.org/signs-of-grooming-in-adults-what-to-watch-out-for/
Other abuse resources:
While these resources are intended for offline relationships and parental abuse, these can be
useful to review regardless.
• https://www.healthline.com/health/relationships/cycle-of-abuse
• https://www.wadvocates.org/find-help/about-domestic-violence/warning-signs-of-
abuse/
• https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/article/60653
• https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/domestic-abuse-warning-signs/
• https://abusedkidproblems.tumblr.com/post/145187248696/is-it-abuse-if
Non-Exhaustive List of Social Media-Specific Warning Signs
NOTE- Singular behaviors are not evidence of a person/group being abusive/toxic, just that a lot
of these being demonstrated should be viewed with suspicion. It’s a pattern of these behaviors
and others that indicate people or groups that you may wish to avoid for safety.
Evasive Behaviors: Patterns of frequently trying to get away from their previous internet
presences, erasing connections to past actions or evidence of wrongdoing. NOTE- May also be
done by people trying to avoid these kinds of people and should not be taken as a red flag in
this case.
• Excessive frequent changing of URLs or accounts, especially when coincided with any
kind of serious drama or falling out.
• Deleting large portions of their old posts or radically changing their info sections often,
particularly after any sort of drama or falling out, particularly when coincided with the
point above.
General Aggressive Behaviors: Patterns of frequently behaving aggressively, including being
‘mean for clout’ and encouraging harassment.
• Claiming to ‘love the discourse/drama’ and regularly picking fights with people on the
‘other side’ who didn’t directly engage with them or their spaces/tags first.
• Treating serious intracommunity discussions like a fun game to win or an opportunity
to get clout/popularity.
• Followers frequently dogpile or harass those they argue with, and they do very little to
prevent this or outright encourage it.
• Frequently partakes in ‘vaugeing’, ‘QRT shaming’, ‘tag/server raids’, ‘block evasion’,
and ‘callouts’.
• Frequently reacts to people asking genuine questions/clarification with dismissiveness
and rude, cruel, abusive, or inappropriate responses (‘jokingly’ or seriously).
• Participates in ‘cringe’ subreddits or other ‘lolcow’ communities that exist to make fun
of, stalk, or bully people.
General Isolating And Controlling Behaviors: Patterns of isolating or controlling behavior
towards their friends, people in their servers/chats/etc, and followers.
• They have a clique, discord server, forum, or ‘mutual circle’ that frequently makes
joint efforts in drama/wank/hate campaigns together and pressures followers to join
in or reward them for doing so.
• Breaking ‘mutuals’ with them is seen as callout worthy, and shared mutuals are
pressed into cutting contact with the person.
• Unfollowing in general being seen as callout worthy if you don't do it in a specific way
they dictate (ex- ‘soft blocking’ or sending a message on why you are unfollowing).
DNI-Related Controlling Behaviors: The use of a DNI to try to enforce control over anyone who
so much as ‘likes’ a post of theirs to an unhealthy degree, often backed up with social shaming,
harassment, and callouts. The DNI may also be used as a social ‘trap’ to create an acceptable
target for abuse.
NOTE- While reasonable boundaries are good and DNIs are not by themselves red flags, this
goes beyond reasonable boundaries and into unreasonable controlling behaviors. The use of
‘DNI’ in this criterion refers to all ‘boundary rule’-esque pages such as BYFs and other such
things, not just DNIs.
• Vagueing, harassing, making callouts, or otherwise attacking people who are using the
website as intended (i.e.- interacting with posts on their feed in any fashion without
stalking the op) and likely did not see the DNI. Especially if the DNI is hidden or
nonspecific and vague (ex- ‘no freaks’ or ‘standard DNI’), making them even easier to
violate by accident.
• Frequently interacts aggressively with people who are clearly on their DNIs and then
calls them boundary violators for responding to the harassment.
Misc. Other Concerning Behaviors: Other miscellaneous questionable behaviors.
• Strongly encourages others to call them the subculture’s ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ and to come
to them (a relative stranger) for advice or comfort, especially if they heavily interact
with underage followers in this manner.
• Poor boundaries with NSFW or kink, such as not stating nsfw/kink accounts/content as
adult only, such as commissioning minors for kink/nsfw art, and constantly bringing up
adult material/topics with people unprovoked.
• Minors holding NSFW or kink accounts, especially if they interact with other NSFW/kink
accounts or make content.
• ‘Trauma dumping’ on near-strangers, especially adults towards minors.
• Spends a lot of time talking about how pure, wholesome, or good they or the things
they like are.
Bad Online Community Red Flags
Poor Mod Behaviors: Mods that exhibit abusive, controlling, questionable, or otherwise toxic
behavior.
• Refusing reasonable easy accommodations without strong reasoning such as pluralkit,
spoiler tagging common triggers in lighthearted g-rated areas, and explaining rules that
may have tricky wording.
• Insisting others in the server show them deference and disallowing criticism.
• Allowing harassment, bullying, or bigotry to happen even when asked to step in.
• Banning people without stating why or without seemingly any provocation.
• Allows minors to be moderators of servers when there are adults who could do the job,
especially where they may see nsfw/adult material.
• Excessive grilling required to join the server (ex- being interviewed for ‘why you think
you are therian’ which has to be to the mod’s standards of what they think is valid
before you are allowed in the server).
Rule weirdness: Rules that are strange or excessive in ways that are used to control or abuse
others.
• Vague rules on an otherwise very specific list, especially rules the mods will not
elaborate on when asked.
• Rules that update without notice.
• ‘Public required blacklist’ use in servers larger than just a couple friends. Particularly if
the list is updated without notice and using it is strongly enforced.
• Favoritism regarding who can break rules and how much, having rules apply in
different ways and different situations to different people.
• Enforcing ‘hidden rules’ that are not stated but are expected to be followed anyway.
• Allows minors to be in NSFW/adult/kink areas.
Specific Dangerous Alterhuman Groups:
P-shifters:
‘P-shifters’, or physical shifters, are alterhumans that claim that it is possible to
physically become their kintype/theriotype/etc. or that they are capable of doing so. P-shifters
are not to be confused with Endels, Clinical Lycanthropes, or other Physically Identifying
Nonhumans. P-shifters very specifically have a pattern of manipulative behavior intended to
draw alterhumans in for abuse while Physically Identifying Nonhumans are not exhibiting these
behaviors or aligning themselves with those who are. The problem with P-shifters is less that
they claim things outside of consensus reality and more that their claims are used as a tool to
do harm.
Signs a person is a p-shifter:
• They use p-shifter tags, call themselves as such, or closely associate with people who
call themselves p-shifters.
• They claim that they can p-shift because they were ‘born this way’ or that they did a
special ritual, particularly if they claim they can tell you if you can also p-shift or how to
do so.
• When asked to show proof they avoid doing so, often with excuses that ‘cameras don't
work when I do’. They may also give poor proof, such as photos of dog-chewed frisbees
claimed to have been chewed by them in shift, or a dim photo of a stray dog.
• They approach you and claim you can physically shift as well, you just have to try hard
enough and listen to what they say.
• They have a ‘pack’ where they selectively let people in to be initiated and learn how
to be a p-shifter. The pack often has a clear hierarchy, interacts mostly behind closed
doors, and shows warnings signs listed previously in this guide.
Zetas and ‘Zoosexuals’:
Zetas and zoosexuals are zoophiles. While a nonvoluntary attraction does not
inherently make someone abusive, people who identify as zetas or zoosexuals are infamous
for encouraging, committing, or tolerating bestiality/offending in their community. Zetas may
also use the ζ symbol to identify themselves.
List of warning behaviors of a bestialist:
• Tolerating or interacting with those who are ‘pro contact’, ‘contact neutral’, or
‘practicing’ regarding their paraphilia.
• Stating they are ‘pro contact’, ‘contact neutral’, or ‘practicing’ in regard to their
paraphilia.
• Stating that animals are able to consent in some situations, frequently playing devil’s
advocate in relation to this viewpoint, or otherwise refusing to acknowledge that ALL
offending is animal abuse, no matter how happy the animal seems.
• Consuming irl bestiality material.
• Comparing zoophilia to the LGBTQ+ community and arguing that they are oppressed
in the exact same way.
• Encouraging paraphiliac minors to join the community, especially if they encourage
coming to them to talk about it privately.
• Specific alignment with those who call themselves Zetas or zoosexuals, even if they do
not identify that way.
• Frequently making sexual jokes or comments about irl animals implying desire to
offend, especially if they also have a pet.
• Their pet is frequently ill, looks in poor condition, or behaves fearfully, aggressively, or
otherwise oddly, especially if they are not altered.
• They go through pets frequently, and never keep one for its expected lifespan.
• “Place Paw Tattoos”, or pawprint tattoos on the hips, thighs, chest, sides of the ribs,
etc. Meant to allude to where the paws would be ‘in the act’ and are used to identify
other bestialists. Not all people with pawprint tattoos are bestialists, but alongside
other evidence they may indicate such.
Alterhuman-Specific Red Flags
Trying to position themselves as a ‘Kin of Authority’: Claiming themselves to have authority
over the community and that their words are worth more than other people.
Examples:
• Asserting their personal mythos for their identity is the only ‘true’ explanation for said
label (ex- insisting only spiritual or only psychological otherkind are ‘real otherkin’).
• Implying or stating anyone with different beliefs from them regarding identity
explanations is invalidating them just by mentioning this in appropriate venues.
• Claiming they know better than you about your alterhuman identity; often due to
some spiritual power they claim to have.
• ‘Grilling’ people without being asked and only respecting their identity if the given
answers satisfy them.
• Deitykin trying to get people to worship them or pray to them in a serious manner
while promising they can actually do miracles about it. Deitykin otherwise evangelizing
for themselves.
• Claiming themselves to be a ‘greymuzzle’ (an honorific gifted to the community
through consistent positive contributions to the community over a long period of time,
usually 10+ years) in a way that it implies it’s the reason people need to listen to them.
Controlling behaviors: Miscellaneous controlling behaviors not otherwise specified previously.
Examples:
• Severe ‘doubles’ aggression to the point of calling out followers/mutuals who interact
with those who share a kintype with them or calling people ‘fakes’ to their face.
• Claiming that only certain people are ‘worthy’ of sharing a kintype with them.
• Extreme possessiveness over non-personal terms intended for wide general use, even
terms they did not coin and redefining terms with established definitions without input.
• Servers or groups that only accept one of each kintype for a particular fictional canon
and discourage or disallow interacting with ‘doubles’ of the others even privately.
Manipulative and Toxic Behaviors Around Noemata and Sourcemates: Patterns of being
manipulative in regard to their and other’s noemata (‘kin memories’), source, or ‘canonmates’.
• The pattern of someone conveniently having or gaining headmates, kintypes, or
noemata that match yours, especially if they claim to be ‘your version’. A type of ‘we
are specially connected so you can trust me’ gambit.
• Claiming to have known other people in a past life, often out of the blue and without
much evidence they seem to be basing this claim on.
• Claiming they can scry for or otherwise tell someone their kintypes or help them
recover noemata. Especially if they don’t know who they are doing this for very well or
if they request the person does something for them.
• Frequent ‘sourcemate seeking’, wherein they are looking for ‘their x’ a lot and often
have a pattern of making friends with every alterhuman with that kintype and then
later ‘dropping’ them.
• Insisting on recreating the dynamics of a relationship (positive or negative) from a
source or past life once more despite having just met them recently. Especially if it
seems to be solely based on this connection instead of current chemistry.
• Making moral judgements based on alterhuman identity or noemata (ex- claiming that
all villain fictionkind are inherently bad people).
• Inability to draw boundaries between them and their source material such as policing
or otherwise attacking fandom on what headcanons, aus, or ships are ‘allowed’ of their
kintype, or otherwise claiming malicious intent of anyone who views their fictional
source differently from them. Insisting fandom has to listen to the because they are
‘the real x’.
Metaphysical Manipulation: Patterns of using metaphysical practices and beliefs to manipulate
others.
• Active Evangelizing for ‘Kin Rapture’ or ‘The Veil Falling’ beliefs. Consistently speaking
of some sort of reckoning day where all alterhumans will assume their ‘true forms’ and
‘the veil will lift’, usually giving a nearby auspicious date or ‘signs’ of it coming (such as
heightened senses, lots of lucid dreams, witchcraft working better, etc.). Especially
when associated with calls to action of speed it up, plans to ‘be ready for the new
world order’, or rituals that need to be done to be able to p-shift when it happens.
• Recruiting for an ‘Astral War’. Often goes hand in hand with ‘The Veil Falling’. ‘The
Astral War’ is a general term with may presentations used for any conflict with a
metaphysical battleground and is not a singular event or conflict. Heavily associated
with high control abusive groups, they in particular target certain kind of kintypes that
could be considered metaphysically powerful- such as dragons, deities, demons, angels,
kitsune, fae, elves, and unicorns.
• Encouraging people to ignore the physical world in favor of the astral or other
metaphysical plane, especially to the point of dysfunction.
• Encouraging people to ‘get rid of their body’ in this world (commit suicide) so that they
can live in their desired reality/the astral forever.
• Encouraging viewing all dreams as ‘signs’ or ‘really real’ with no critical thought that it
could just be mundane dream things.
• Otherwise encouraging others to ignore consensus reality in part or in whole to the
point it negatively interferes with one’s ability to function within it.
Poor or antagonistic relationship to humanity: Patterns of promoting having a poor
relationship with humanity and/or nonhumanity to an unhealthy degree or insisting one must
have a certain attitude towards humanity/nonhumanity to be alterhuman.
• Frequent posting that humans as a whole are irredeemable, inherently evil, or
unnatural. Especially misanthropy posting that has an ecofascist angle to it or seems like
they may genuinely commit a crime due to their hatred of humanity.
• Insistence that one must hate or pity humans to be alterhuman.
• Insistence that one ‘must accept their humanity’ to a level dictated by that person,
and that there is something inherently wrong with choosing not to identify as a human
at all.
• Encouraging others to ignore consensus reality regarding the base needs and limits of
a recognized human body. (ex- Claiming that eating a fully meat diet with no
supplements won’t give you scurvy because you are a Physically Identified Nonhuman)
• Encouraging hatred of having a human body in people who otherwise tolerate it.
• Claiming that their alterhuman identity makes them inherently better than others.
Troll Behavior: Displaying behaviors common to trolls or supporting them.
• Exhibit signs of being an impersonation troll, such as claiming if someone cuts grass its
oppression to plantkin, pronouns like fuck/you and various other opinions or labels that
are ridiculous or absurd in ways that seem tailor-made to make the community look bad
or upset onlookers.
• They take likely or obvious trolls for select alterhuman groups seriously- either
interacting with them positively or using them to validate their hatred towards a
particular group that the toll is trying to slander.
• They otherwise act like anti-alterhuman/anti-kin people even though they claim to be
alterhuman themselves.
Plural Community Specific Red Flags
While not all plurals are alterhuman, this is being included here for those who are.
Lack of respect for other’s experiences, labels, and boundaries: A pattern of denying or
disrespecting others, pressuring others to disclose information or undertake certain actions.
Examples:
• Exclusionary behaviors regarding the plural community at large based on diagnosis
status, believed origin, number of headmates, presence or lack thereof of negative
symptoms, switching ability or other arbitrary criteria.
• Fakeclaiming other plural folks for any reason.
• Revisionist misinformation regarding origin or definition of terms (ex- claiming ‘fictive’
is a clinical DID word and for DID systems only when it was actually coined by
Soulbonders and is for general use).
• Refuses to respect language preferences (ex- insisting on always using ‘part’ language
on systems who don’t use it, or not using it for those who do).
• Refuses to respect autonomy regarding undergoing Final Fusion, getting professionally
diagnosed, or going to therapy.
• Refuses to respect personhood or lack thereof in headmates (ex- referring to a
headmate who identifies as a separate full person as an aspect of the host, or a alter
who explicitly identifies as not a person as a separate person).
• Pressuring others to disclose information about their system such as headcount, origin,
front triggers, roles, names, who is fronting at a given time, etc.
• Claiming that their personal theory for how plurality happens is the only true one.
• Being a False Memory Syndrome Truther.
• Deliberately trying to trigger headmates in or out of front. Bot positive or negative
triggers count for this.
• Asserting that the way their in-system relationships present is the only way that is
acceptable for a systems relationships to present. (ex- claiming that headmates cannot
date each other because they view themselves as family)
Encouraging dangerous behavior: Patterns of encouraging dangerous or risky behaviors.
Examples:
• Touting hypnosis and/or varying kinds of drugs as miracle-working and always good
for all systems with no drawbacks. Especially hypnosis therapy done by non-licensed
individuals or ‘hard drugs’.
• Encouraging undergoing poorly prepped memory work on a whim or ‘just to see’.
Retrieving a lost memory before the person is ready can cause massive psychological
distress and upheaval.
• Encouraging those in a minor vessel who identify as older than the body to get into
relationships with bodily adults or go into adult only spaces.
• Encouraging not working on serious debilitating mental health problems or telling
someone to continue doing something that they have stated causes them psychological
harm.
• Encouraging ‘gaining headmates’ of a particular kind like they are collectable cards.
Groups that frequently gain similar headmates at the same time may be a sign of this.
• Encouraging avoiding any collective responsibility or not having any themselves.
Constantly making the excuses that ‘their alter did it’ so they don’t need to apologize,
try to make amends, or try to prevent it from occurring again in the future. Especially if
they claim its not their problem their headmate is behaving this way.
Troll Behaviors: Patterns of behaviors that support trolls or imply they are a troll.
Examples:
• Exhibit signs of being an impersonation troll such as having a large number of opinions,
headmates, or labels that look absurd and seem tailor-made to make a particular
community look bad or upset onlookers. (ex- having multiple Hitler introjects and
proudly stating so, an endogenic system calling people ‘traumascum’ while looking
exactly like every anti-endogenic stereotype, etc.)
• They take likely or obvious impersonation trolls for system types they don’t like
seriously- interacting with them positively or using them to validate their hatred
towards a particular group that the toll is trying to slander.
Manipulative, controlling, or cruel behavior towards their own system: Patterns of toxic,
abusive, or otherwise questionable behavior towards members of their own system.
Examples:
• Double standards regarding inner people vs outer people (ex- seeing no issue with
killing inner world entities for fun but claiming it is a just as real as this world).
• Their headmates all largely dislike or are afraid of the host.
• The host brags about dissipating, ‘killing’, or ‘locking away’ headmates, reports having
to do so frequently, or seems to do these things as a first reaction to conflict.
• Pursuing Final Fusion/Integration despite their headmates all visibly begging to not be
made to undergo it.
• Creating headmates specifically to be romantic or sexual partners, giving the
impression that they were never allowed to say no lest they be dissipated.
• Treating headmates who insist they are separate people as less than people or the
same person as them.
• Encouraging their headmates to commit egocide/kill themselves.
Questionable Behaviors Surrounding ‘Fictives’ or ‘Factives’: Behaviors surrounding fictives that
are manipulative, rude, or otherwise questionable.
Examples:
• ‘Bookended’ Headmates, or the pattern of someone conveniently having or gaining
headmates that match someone else’s, especially if they claim to be ‘their version’.
• Treating fictives and their experiences like fandom fuel. Includes using them in fandom
arguments and demanding descriptions of their exotrauma for fanfiction.
• Being invasively familiar towards fictives and/or assuming things about them just
because they are familiar with the headmate’s source.
• Anything in the general alterhuman sections for sourcemates or the metaphysical.
• Inability to draw clear boundaries between their factual source and them such as
claiming to be the extant real person version travelling to the headspace or having
insider knowledge about them.
Inappropriate behaviors surrounding ‘System Hopping’: Manipulative, abusive, invasive, or
otherwise inappropriate behaviors in relation to those who believe they may travel to another
system’s headspace. System hopping may be done safely, but it is often not even when both
parties mean well.
Examples:
• Claiming they can show up uninvited in someone else’s headspace or may ‘summon’
other’s headmates to theirs at any time and have done so. This a violation of consent.
• Trying to ‘steal headmates’ or claiming that a system’s headmate is ‘stuck’ in their
system until the other system does what they say. Claiming the other system has done
so when they have not and demanding to go to that system to ‘rescue’ them.
• Claiming they can ‘program’ headmates in another person’s system or have done so
while they are visiting that system or that headmate is visiting their system.
• Claiming they can alter memories of the systems they visit or have done so.
• Stating that they and another person are actually one system in two bodies present in
this plane (encouraging a lack of boundaries and the dissolution of an identity separate
from another person).
• Discouraging testing the accuracy of these experiences through means such as
passwords or detailed lists of things done or said that are exchanged at the same time.
Causing strife in other people’s systems: Patterns of encouraging problems in other systems.
Examples:
• Implying others in another person’s system are lying or malicious without due cause.
• Encouraging making decisions that would upset the rest of the system without input
from them.
• Telling one headmate one thing and another something else in ways that cause
problems.
• They seem to make one or a few of your headmates upset or uncomfortable for ‘no
reason’. Especially if they refuse to show you certain memories of them.
• Otherwise seeming like they are trying to play different headmates off of each other.
Being Weird About Littles: Having manipulative or toxic behavior in relation to ‘littles’ or
headmates who are otherwise younger than the body some or all of the time.
Examples:
• They are overly friendly to littles in ways that would be concerning if they were a
bodily minor of the same age. Especially if they are not nearly as friendly with the rest
of the system or the littles they are interacting with have poor memory sharing.
• Expecting littles to always have the maturity and cognitive reasoning of an adult and
blaming them for ‘acting like a child’. Especially if they encourage littles to ‘act freely’
around them in the same breath.
• Insisting littles behave like the ideal of a ‘normal’ singlet child (ex- Being mad that a
little swears, doesn’t talk in ‘babyspeak’, or knows what sex is).
Being weird about consent in systems: Patterns of saying questionable things regarding plural
folk’s ability to consent.
Examples:
• Insisting headmates who are not capable of giving informed, retractable, and free
consent can consent. This includes but is not limited to littles who are ‘cognitively a
child’, those who don’t know when or where they are, and those who are ‘stuck’ in
severe trauma responses in a manner that prevents them from consent.
• Claiming adult-bodied adult headmates cannot consent because the system has littles
in it, or that they cannot consent in general because they are a system.
• Any other claiming that a sentient, adult entity capable of giving informed,
retractable, and free consent cannot consent. (ex- nonhuman or mute headmates)
• Claiming that ‘thoughtleak’ equals consent, or otherwise ignores consent regarding
others in their system.
• Claiming if one headmate consented to something, the whole system consented to
something. Asserting that consent doesn’t ever need to be reobtained if there is a
switch.
Things you can do to protect yourself
Practice normal online safety: Protect your information and be cautious of hackers and
malware.
• Don’t publicly share identifying information such as your legal name, where you live,
your exact birthday, and where you work/go to school unless you are prepared to deal
with the risk of being doxxed or people you know IRL finding you.
• Don’t publicly share personal information that you are worried about being used
against you such as personal history in great detail, sexual preferences, triggers, and
things you feel vulnerable about- especially in conjunction with the above.
• Don’t share identifying information that can be used to connect certain accounts you
don’t want connected to each other. Giving out too much matching identifying
information on a popular account can connect it to your private accounts and vice versa.
• If you are going to privately share personal or identifying information, be sure you
trust the person you are giving it to and that they won’t use it against you.
• Check people and groups you interact with for warning signs in the above ‘red flag’
sections.
• Backup important data you rely on others to host, especially in case you need proof of
something.
• Don’t agree to meet internet people offline for the first few times outside of public
areas. Especially if you have not notified people you know where you are going and who
you are going to be with.
• Other internet safety techniques such as using secure passwords so people cannot hack
you even if they know you well enough to guess security questions, only following links
you trust, only donating to people or organizations you are sure aren’t scamming you,
using AdBlock to avoid ad-based malware, etc.
Practice Alterhuman and Plural specific safety: Protect your information and avoid situations
that could be exploited or turn sour quickly.
• Avoid giving very thorough descriptions of your system/headmates or kintypes if you
don’t want to be identified whenever you give this information elsewhere or have it
used against you. Especially information about triggers or marginalizations. This
includes ‘intro posts’ and in-depth ‘carrds’.
• Don’t seek sourcemates for ‘kindating’ based solely on shared canons or base any kind
of relationship solely on a shared source.
• Avoid closed communities with an initiation process such as grilling, hazing, or other
rituals that do not post their expectations regarding this publicly.
• Teach younger headmates internet safety and routinely check on those who cannot
judge well for themselves.
• Avoid people who exhibit red flags previously seen in this document.
What to do if you have found yourself in a toxic situation
The first step to getting out of a bad situation is identifying it. Identify that it is bad and how it
is bad.
• Figure out what red flags they hit, how many, and the severity thereof.
• Identify the perpetrators and who (if any) is also in the same boat you are. These can be
allies.
Identify how you might extract yourself before trying to do so. If you jump too early and
without enough planning, you may incur retaliation if the group or individual is particularly
dangerous. Likewise, if it is too thorough you may incur more wrath than if you just left.
• Identify how you have seen people leave before. What did they do when they left?
How big of a deal was it? How much grief did they get? What can you learn from this?
• Can just leaving with no explanation or fanfare work?
• What about plausible excuses like ‘I have to focus on irl stuff rn so im leaving sorry’ or
‘unfollowing all but x kind of accounts sorry it’s not personal’? Will they leave that be?
• Can you get away with missing a ‘moved to x blog’ announcement and unfollowing
after a certain period of time?
• Can it be escaped by a slow tapering off of interactions to be forgotten before
unfollowing/leaving?
• What about if you block every party who may come after you- both those directly
involved and those who may come for you on their behalf?
• What if you change your usernames and profile pics and unlink your accounts or you
move accounts entirely?
• How many ‘mutuals’ do you think are going to be a problem? Are shared friends going
to support you or will you need to cut them off to avoid harassment?
• Are these groups or people reportable? Would reporting tie them up and keep them
from coming after you or would it be worse?
Begin Preparations: Being your preparations for leaving, avoiding letting people onto what you
are doing.
• Create your plan for leaving. Plan what you will do and when you will do it for best
results. You may need to wait awhile to have the best shot at it.
• Decide if you need to gather information or data before leaving, such as sources for
callout posts/bewares or just things you would like to keep but would lose access to if
you left. Gather these things and download them or save them to the internet archive if
so.
How to make a beware or ‘callout’ post regarding the group or individuals in question: If it is
necessary, start formulating your testimony regarding the individual or individuals.
Ensure the beware/callout that you make or support is all of the following:
• Necessary- The callout must be something that could not be solved in DMs and be
about directly harmful behavior, not fandom wank or something else petty.
• A warning and not punishment or ridicule- The callout is to warn people of someone
dangerous, not a punishment/invitation to harass the person, or a ‘lolcow’-esque post.
• On topic- The callout only has information that is evidence for the dangerous behavior
and not filled with things that the person making it finds personally distasteful or rude.
This can make people ignore the callout because it just seems to be petty wank.
• Believable- The callout has evidence for its claims. Testimonies by themselves are
alright, but direct in-context logs of conversations, video and audio evidence, and links
back to ‘living’ sources have more weight.
Remember: A callout post is not necessary for every group or person that rubs you the wrong
way. Many callouts are over petty fandom drama and normal arguments/asshole behavior
and cause alarm fatigue as a result. Many callouts are filled with padding and fluff that
obscures the actual wrongdoing present. Don’t make callouts like these.
Gathering callout evidence: How to gather evidence of wrongdoing.
Ensure the evidence is the following:
• In context- The evidence needs to have the context attached to it- ideally the whole
related conversation, not just the specific quote.
• Not broken- The evidence should be actually viewable. To ensure links do not die, place
it on the internet archive or use any other method to preserve things past when they
are deleted by the person.
• Relevant- The evidence needs to display what is intended to prove and relevant to the
harmful behavior the callout is meant to warn for.
• From a reasonable source- Content farm ‘cringe’ or ‘lolcow’ sites or communities are
not very good or reasonable sources. A random anon pinkie swearing they saw the
person tweeting about xyz thing and deleting it is not a reasonable source.
• As close to a ‘live’ primary source as possible- Evidence needs to be as close to a still
existing and checkable primary source of proof as possible. A link to a still up tweet the
person made is superior to a wayback machine of the tweet is superior to a screencap of
said tweet is superior to a person just stating they saw a tweet about someone saying
something.
Ensure for every receipt you state:
• Who is the person in the evidence and how likely is it that it’s an impersonator?
• Who obtained the evidence?
• When did this take place? The closer to a specific date the better.
• When was the source retrieved/taken/accessed?
• What kind of evidence is it? Is it a video? A wayback machine copy? A screenshot? A
recording of a discord call?
• Where was this information found (originally or otherwise)? Did you get it from
someone else?
Make your escape: Remove yourself from the dangerous situation.
• Enact your plan for leaving the situation. You may have to do several things all at once.
• If you have a beware to put out, do so.
• Once you leave, you may feel guilty, exhausted, or worse than you did before. This is
normal and not a sign you did something wrong.
• Do not go back. It will often get worse before it gets better.
• People may try to reach back out to you. Be appropriately wary about this.
• You may lose a lot of friends and feel bad about this. You will gain new friends over
time. You did not make a mistake, even if they want to make you feel like you did-
that’s how abusers work.
“Help I am the subject of internet hate campaign!”
• Turn off all your inboxes/DMs/IMs and private all of your accounts as much as
possible.
• Remove personal information so that people do not try to doxx you.
• Report who is reportable and block everyone else being rude ‘twitter chain block’ apps
may be useful.
• Consider making new accounts if you feel the need to.
• Put out your story of the situation with your evidence regarding it to clarify
misconceptions.
• DO apologize for wrongdoing, do NOT apologize for things that didn’t cause harm or
things that are not your fault(ie- you wrote a story that someone was groomed with,
this is not your fault, it’s the abusers- Don’t apologize).
• If applicable, take legal action. For particularly egregious offenses of hate, contact law
enforcement, lawyers, etc. Yes ACAB, but safety first.
• Take a vacation from social media if possible and see if it simmers down.
Good luck and stay safe, hope this document helped!
