Today we spent some time deeply discussing the possible ramifications of Aleshe's mentally illformation to Soulbond.
This brought up two interesting points.
1. Most of my system (Joy and Gwen excluded) think of Aleshe as a character aspect of themselves and not her own person. This follows along with the Lock-Merge concept and highlights the differences between SheShe and Aleshe whereas SheShe existed before the merge as Darlene and Aleshe did not. This point was initially made by Ren in two ways, one, she considers Aleshe her own aspect, and two she may then be jealous of her if she was her own person.
Regardless if Aleshe is currently her own person or not, the mentally illition to soulbond will most certainly exclude the possibility that she's not.
I reminded her that when she is part of SheShe's Lock-Merge SheShe is acting as her own aspect to accomplish the shared experience. Ren and Joy then conversed about the similarities and perceived differences and Joy convinced Ren that it wouldn't matter if Aleshe is her own person or not.
It may seem strange that say Ashley or even SheShe don't consider Aleshe her own person but there is evidence that she is not in that Aleshe refuses to express outside the complete merge and even Joy (an advocate to Aleshe's independence) herself admits that it doesn't make sense to discuss anything with Aleshe directly while in SheShe case it does. Further discussion on this difference has occurred but is beyond the scope of this post.
2. When Aleshe officially can't be thought of as anything but her own person, how will that affect the dynamics of the system? Officially we are a system of seven and even Aleshe herself doesn't want to be counted as 8th, she only wants to be counted as 2nd when in her fully packed Lock-Merge. Even though we have played around with her expressing when one of her constituents is also expressing separately and it does work, she doesn't feel comfortable doing that. She does feel comfortable expressing alongside say Ulla.
What this means for the system structure and hierarchy in the future is unknown.
I understand the reason why Misha and Ashley never choose to be in SheShe's merge and choose dormancy over shared experience because they have always desired to be "the only one" and if they have SheShe as a shared aspect it is as if SheShe won the contest. Aleshe on the other hand is neutral ground. The nature of Lock-Merging let's headmates fulfill their wish to "be the only one", but unlike SheShe's case where the hub can be anyone in the local group, Aleshe seems to be a locked hub more similar to a true merge like Risha. And like Risha she doesn't comfortably exist outside the full merge state.
These rules and construts are known to be arbitrary and preferences rather than fundamental parts of the Lock-Merge.