Pages from Ceefax

(this is a crosspost from tumblr)

honestly, thinking about it. im realising the idea of a collective identity, outside of a collective name + pronouns, just. doesn't work for us

obviously there's all the aspects of the body's identity that are important and relevant when one fronts. race, age, disabilities, that sort of thing. but we don't really consider that... a collective identity, at least not remotely in the same way as a collective name or gender or anything. it's the aspects of our shared body, the body identity if you will

actually trying to pin down any sort of *collective* identity doesn't work, outside of us going by ceefax and using it/they IRL or when referring to us as a whole. and those mostly exist out of requirement

and tbh at this point i think we'd be happier without having any more of a collective identity than that. both since we enjoy being very individual and separate where possible, and also just that a lot of aspects of our identities are too different for it to really work in the first place!

— eyevee (mi/mir : zhe/zer)

(this is an expanded version of multiple posts made to our tumblr, with some additions and changes)

i feel like so many plurals could benefit from just being told that no, you do not need to use origin labels. you do not need to know how you formed, originally or otherwise, and you do not need to share this information with anyone else. this also applies to roles too, you do not need to use them whatsoever, you do not need to assign them to any member, no-one needs to know anyone's roles, and frankly you should be letting people decide if they want to use roles, and if so what role(s) they want to use for themself.

honestly i don't have anything against roles or origin terms as a concept, and i understand why they may be helpful for people. but a lot of the modern community's culture focuses heavily on both as if they're the most important parts of your plurality and existence as a system member respectively, while it's only one small part of your identity(s). take origins for an example. in a lot of cases, how you formed doesn't matter. you do not need to go on a massive quest to figure out why you're plural, especially when you've only recently figured out you're plural in the first place! 

as someone who's known about their plurality 5+ years now (although ironically i personally have only been here around 6 months :P), which isn't that long in the grand scheme of things but feels like forever when interacting with a lot of plurals especially on sites like tumblr honestly, things got far easier once we stopped worrying about both. i wish the plural community could understand this instead of pushing both onto newer systems. we especially had a really negative experience with roles, with us feeling like we had to assign each member one as soon as they formed into existence. this led to so many cases of people forced into roles where frankly they didn't want them, the role was frankly just restricting, and them like they have to stick to this and it's the central part of their existence. which is bad and horrible. 

i wish the plural community could understand this instead of pushing both onto newer systems i feel like so many plurals would benefit far more from just focusing on the present, your plurality right now, and anything you need to do to make your plurality a positive experience for you all. not categorizing or worrying about your origins or each members "purpose"

or yknow. in the words of this image my headfriend silas made while complaining about terms in general:



- dr. ████ "doc" cerebrum (it/its)