Introtive

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An introtive is a headmate with a source that exists or existed in the shared reality. This source can be fictional in nature, factual, spiritual, religious, or mythological, or anything that exists or is described in the shared reality. Introtive serves as a non-psychiatric term for a concept similar/adjacent to that of introject, and there is very significant overlap, though they may not fully contain each other.

History
Introtive was brought into circulation by the Cluster Brains system, used casually in conversation before December 2020, when the term was officially coined on Tumblr.

On the limitedness of "introject"
The term introject has long been used to refer to any sourced system members, but it has a specific psychiatric meaning. While it is not confined to this meaning, the term has a specific origin that may be uncomfortable, inaccurate, or nondescriptive for many system members. Specifically, introjection is a way of internalizing outside ideas into one's consciousness, which happens in both plural systems as well as singlets. The term introject thus implies a fully psychological worldview, though it is not restricted to this use in modern parlance, and hence introtive serves as a viable alternative for those cases that are either neither fully psychological/explained through the phenomenon of introjection, or where the psychiatric terminology may be uncomfortable.

Introtivity includes everything from introjected fictives, to non-psychological, parapsychological, or spiritual headmate origins, including soulbonds, gateway members (including homelanders), and sometimes godlets; as well as correspontives, who only are roughly equivalent to their "sources" but have no causal relation between their source and their existence, only possibly between their source's existence and their discovery. The process of gaining an introtive may be called introtization, and some systems may perceive an abstract fictive juice or Introtivium (as it is not limited to fictives), that creates people or draws them in from a real or hypothetical "beyond" the system. Introtivity arguably includes inner-jects, but as their "sources" are confined to their own body's brain, this association is not set in stone.

Related Terms
Introject is an older, more prevalent term for introtive, originally with a distinctly defined meaning, though they are often used interchangeably.

See Category:Outsourced & Introject Terms for a list of introtive types.

Introtization is a hypothetical verb form of introtive, describing the process of introtive formation or arrival, and Introtivium is a "force" in some systems responsible for this.