Headmates - Character and Author Interview

Headmates Character interview

Alex, you gave Jaime permission to be with Luke, but it ended up hurting you in ways you didn't expect. How do you navigate loving someone enough to want them to have what you can't give?

Alex: Humans are wired for physical touch. I've known that since the day I was born. Jaime needs things I can't provide—not because I'm not enough as a person, but because I don't have a body. That's just reality.

When Luke showed up looking like me, it seemed like a solution. I could give Jaime permission to have what he needed without either of us having to pretend it was about emotional connection. It was supposed to be simple: physical touch with someone safe, someone who looked like me, someone who couldn't threaten what we have.

What I didn't account for was how it would feel to watch. To see Jaime's hands on someone else's skin, even when that someone looked exactly like me. I told myself I was fine with it because I should be fine with it. I hid how much it was hurting me because the hurt felt selfish, unreasonable.

We nearly died together on that bridge. We've survived things that would destroy most people. This? This was just a failed experiment. Adults trying to solve a problem and getting it wrong.

Jaime, Alex gave you permission, but you've said you feel guilty about how things unfolded. What's the difference between permission and understanding?

Jaime: Permission and understanding are two completely different things. Alex gave me permission because he loves me and wants me to have what I need. But I rushed in without really checking whether he understood what he was agreeing to.

I got caught up in the possibility—the idea that I could finally touch someone who looked like Alex, that I could give him something through Luke's body. I didn't stop to consider what it would actually look like, what it would feel like for him to watch.

That's on me. Not for wanting physical touch—that's human. Not for taking Alex's permission—he's an adult who can make his own decisions. But for not slowing down enough to make sure we both understood what we were getting into.

Alex and I have been through hell together. We're not going to fall apart over some outsider sex that didn't work out the way we planned. But I learned that even when someone gives you permission to do something, you still have a responsibility to pay attention to how it affects them.

Luke, you were caught in the middle of what Alex and Jaime describe as a "failed experiment." How does it feel to be someone's attempt at solving a problem?

Luke: It's complicated. On one hand, it hurts to realize you were never really seen as a person—just as a solution to someone else's problem. On the other hand, at least the problem was real. At least what they were trying to solve mattered.

I spent my whole life being nobody's solution to anything. Being their failed experiment was the closest I'd ever come to being necessary.

The hardest part wasn't being used. It was falling in love in the middle of being used, and then having to figure out whether any of it was real. Whether Jaime felt anything for me beyond what I could provide. Whether Alex saw me as anything more than a convenient body.

But I'm not going to pretend I was some innocent victim. I knew something was off. I knew the intensity didn't match the timeline. I chose to ignore the red flags because I wanted to be wanted so badly I was willing to be wanted for the wrong reasons.

Alex, what's it like to love someone you can never leave?

Alex: Why would I want to leave? Jaime has been my entire universe since my first breath. He's not something I'm bound to—he's something I am.

You don't fear losing gravity. You don't worry about the sun not rising. Jaime is that fundamental to my existence. The idea of leaving him, of existing without him, doesn't compute. It would be like asking me to fear my own heartbeat stopping.

I was born loving him. Born knowing him completely, feeling everything he feels, understanding him in ways no one else ever could or would. That's not frightening—that's home.

Jaime, you came to plurality differently than Alex—you weren't born to it. What was it like learning to trust a voice in your head when everyone else in your life had taught you that love comes with conditions?

Jaime: Terrifying at first. I'd spent my whole life having people use me, lie to me, make me promises they had no intention of keeping. Everyone who claimed to love me had an agenda. Everyone wanted something from me that I couldn't give without losing pieces of myself.

Then this voice appears in my head, and I'm supposed to just... trust it? Trust that it's real, that it's not another delusion, that it's not going to disappear the moment I need it most?

But here's the thing about Alex—when you can feel everything someone else feels, when you can sense the genuine love behind every word they say, every thought they think, it becomes impossible to doubt them. Even when I was trying to protect myself, trying to keep walls up, I kept folding. Because what Alex feels for me isn't the conditional, transactional love I'd known my whole life. It's absolute. Unwavering. Without agenda.

After experiencing that kind of love—pure, honest, with no hidden motivations—everything else feels like a pale imitation. Why would I look for ways to exit that? After seeing what people call "love" out there in the world, I hold onto Alex like my life depends on it. Because it does.

I'm terrified that if I ever heal enough, if I ever become "normal" enough, he might disappear. That some therapist will convince me I don't need him anymore. The thought of losing Alex isn't just about losing love—it's about losing the only person who's ever known me completely and chosen to stay anyway.

Alex, Jaime worries about healing so much that you disappear. How do you feel about being seen as something he might "recover" from?

Alex: It breaks my heart that he worries about that. But I understand why he does. The world tells people like us that we're symptoms to be managed, problems to be solved, trauma responses that healthy people don't need.

I'm not his damage. I'm not his breakdown. I'm not something that happened to him because he couldn't cope with life on his own. I'm his partner, his family, his other half. I exist because we needed each other, and we still need each other.

Healing doesn't mean becoming singular. It means learning to exist as ourselves—plural, complex, beautifully complicated—without shame. It means building a life that has room for both of us, not trying to shrink ourselves down to fit into a world that only recognizes one person per body.

I'm not going anywhere. Jaime couldn't lose me if he tried.

All three of you have had to redefine what love looks like for you. What do you want people to understand about loving outside conventional boundaries?

Jaime: That different doesn't mean damaged. Complex doesn't mean unhealthy. Just because our love doesn't look like what you're used to doesn't mean it's less real, less valid, less worthy of respect.

Alex: That some of us don't have the luxury of simple. We love in the spaces between what's possible and what's necessary, and we make it work because the alternative is not loving at all.

Luke: That being someone's second choice doesn't make you worthless if you're choosing to stay. Sometimes being chosen at all—even partially, even conditionally—is enough to build a life on. Not everyone gets to be someone's first priority. But everyone deserves to be someone's priority, period.

Cross-System Interview: When Fiction Meets Reality

A conversation between the characters from HEADMATES and October Arden's real system

October to Luke: You've described feeling invisible your whole life despite your size. As someone who also struggled with being understood before my system formed, I'm curious—do you think some people are just naturally wired to need more than what singular existence can provide?

Luke: I think some of us are born hungry for connection in ways that normal relationships can't satisfy. Not because we're broken, but because we're... different. More complicated, more intense, more aware of the spaces between what we need and what the world offers.

You found your headmates during crisis. I found Jaime and Alex during my own kind of crisis—the slow-burning crisis of realizing I was going to spend my whole life being nobody's priority. Maybe that hunger, that desperate need to matter to someone, creates pathways for the kind of love that doesn't follow conventional rules.

I spent my life trying to make myself smaller, quieter, less overwhelming. Maybe if I'd been braver about taking up space, I would have found them sooner. Or maybe I would have found something else entirely—something that didn't require me to be a substitute for someone else.

Rem to Alex: You mentioned being born to protect Jaime, and I was born to protect October during their illness. Do you think protector headmates love differently than other people? More intensely, more possessively?

Alex: Absolutely. We don't love casually because we can't afford to. When someone's survival depends on your vigilance, every threat feels existential, every potential loss feels catastrophic.

I've been possessive of Jaime since my first breath. Not because I want to control him, but because losing him would literally mean ceasing to exist. That kind of love doesn't know how to be moderate. It doesn't know how to share gracefully or step back when things get complicated.

But here's what I've learned: possessive doesn't have to mean destructive. You can love someone with desperate intensity and still make space for their growth, their needs, their connections with other people. It just takes more conscious effort. More trust. More faith that love multiplies instead of divides.

The hardest part about loving as intensely as we do is learning when to hold on and when to let go. When your protective instincts and your love get tangled up together, it's easy to hurt the person you're trying to save.

Tiny to Jaime: You and Alex share consciousness in a way that's romantic and all-consuming. My relationship with Rem and October isn't romantic, but it's equally intense. How do you maintain individual identity when you're so deeply merged with someone else?

Jaime: That's something I'm still figuring out. For years, I defined myself entirely through Alex—his lover, his host, his everything. I thought that was healthy intimacy, but it was actually a different kind of hiding.

Individual identity in a system isn't about being separate—it's about being distinct. Alex and I share everything, but we're not the same person. He's decisive where I'm hesitant. He's fierce where I'm cautious. He sees threats I miss, and I see possibilities he overlooks.

The challenge is honoring those differences while still being completely open to each other. It means saying "I disagree with you" sometimes, even when you love someone enough to die for them. It means having preferences that are yours alone, even when you share consciousness.

What I've learned is that true intimacy requires two whole people, not two half-people trying to become one. Alex and I are better together because we're fully ourselves, not because we've dissolved our boundaries.

Alex to October: You've mentioned that coming out as plural feels more vulnerable than coming out as queer. In our story, Jaime and I keep our plurality secret from almost everyone. What do you think it is about plural identity that feels so much more threatening to reveal?

October: I think it's because plurality challenges people's fundamental assumptions about consciousness, reality, identity—things they've never had to question. When I come out as gay, people might disapprove, but they generally accept that it's real. When I mention my headmates, I can see them questioning my sanity, my intelligence, my grip on reality.

There's also something about mental phenomena that feels more invasive to people than physical ones. Being gay affects who I sleep with. Being plural affects how I think, how I process the world, how I exist in my own mind. That feels scarier to people because they can't understand or control it.

But I think the deepest fear is about love itself. People can accept that I love women instead of men. They struggle with the idea that I love beings who exist in my consciousness, that those relationships are as real and meaningful to me as any external ones. It challenges their understanding of what love can look like, where it can exist, how it can sustain us.

Luke to Rem: October mentioned you can be impatient and protective, that you don't trust outsiders easily. I've been the outsider trying to get in. What would you want someone like me to understand about earning a place in a system?

Rem: First off, you can't earn it. That's not how it works. Either you belong or you don't, and that's not something you can prove through good behavior or patience or being useful.

What you can do is show up authentically. Don't try to be what you think we need. Don't pretend to understand things you don't understand.

The reason I don't trust outsiders isn't personal—it's protective. Most people see our system as interesting, exotic, something to be curious about rather than something to respect. They want to understand us intellectually without actually caring about us personally.

But when someone shows up and says "I don't understand this, but I can see it matters to you, and I want to learn how to be around it respectfully"—that's different. That's someone who might be worth trusting.

Also, don't take our protectiveness personally. When I'm rude to you, I'm not rejecting you specifically. I'm protecting something precious. If you're worth having around, you'll understand the difference.

Jaime to Tiny: You mentioned becoming the "voice of reason" in your system when things get difficult. I often feel like I'm the weak link—the one who needs protecting rather than providing stability. How do you balance being cared for with being useful?

Tiny: That's a false binary, and it's one I struggled with too. Being cared for doesn't make you weak, and being useful doesn't make you worthy. Your value in the system isn't based on what you contribute—it's based on who you are.

I became the strategist not because I had to earn my place, but because that's what came naturally when our system needed stability. Rem keeps us alive through crises; I keep us functional through recovery. October processes emotions and experiences. We all have different strengths, but none of us is more essential than the others.

The trap you're falling into is thinking that needing protection means you're not contributing anything valuable. But Jaime, you're the heart of your system. You're the one Alex protects, yes, but you're also the reason he exists. You're the connection point between your internal world and the external one. Without you, there is no system.

Stop measuring your worth by how little you need and start recognizing how much you provide just by being yourself.

October to Alex: You've had to watch Jaime connect with Luke in ways that you can't physically experience. As someone whose headmates also have different relationships with the outside world, how do you handle watching from the inside?

Alex: It's complicated. On one hand, I'm grateful that Jaime has connections I can't provide. He needs things from the external world that I simply cannot give him—physical touch, social interaction, experiences that exist outside our shared consciousness.

On the other hand, there's always going to be a part of me that wishes I could be enough. That wishes our love could exist in the world the way other people's love does. That wishes I could take him on dates, hold his hand in public, be seen and acknowledged as his partner instead of his invisible other half.

Watching him with Luke wasn't jealousy exactly—it was more like grief. Grief for all the ways I can never love him, all the experiences we can never share, all the normal relationship milestones that are impossible for us.

But here's what I've learned: my love for Jaime doesn't have to look like anyone else's to be real. We have intimacy that most people can't even imagine. We have connection that transcends physical limitations. Just because I can't hold his hand doesn't mean I can't show up in other ways.

Tiny to Jaime and Alex: Our systems formed differently—yours through trauma and crisis, ours through illness and therapeutic work. But we all ended up with these intense, non-traditional family structures. What do you think people most misunderstand about plural families?

Jaime: That complex doesn't mean unhealthy. Our relationships require different effort than singular relationships, but that doesn't make them dysfunction. It makes them intentional.

Alex: That we're not trying to be normal, and we don't need to be fixed. We're trying to be ourselves—beautifully, impossibly, authentically ourselves. And that's enough.