the arcade's mogai corner

21 // check pinned for more info

[mogai945]

pinned post

[PT: pinned post /end PT]

hihi!! we're the arcade, a 21 y/o system who uses he/it collectively!! this is a blog for us to reblog terms we (both as a collective and as individual people) identify with, as well as speak on our experiences with our respective queer identities :-)

dividers by @enchanthings

[ID: A light brown divider line, with the previous, play, and next buttons typically used on music apps in the middle, in the same color as the line. /End ID]

tagging system:

[PT: tagging system: /end PT]

collective id: labels we identify with on a collective level

id: [name]: labels that specific alters identify with

speaker: [name]: tags to find stuff said by a specific alter. posts made by multiple alters or as a collective will be tagged with "speaker: collective" (like this post)

[ID: A light brown divider line, with the previous, play, and next buttons typically used on music apps in the middle, in the same color as the line. /End ID]

further info on us as individual alters under the cut!!

tommy: - 18 - he/it/neos - primary host, polyholder

skye: - 21 - any pronouns - autism holder, external archivist

sylvie: - 21 - she/neos - physical caretaker, socialisor

talon: - 21 - he/lyr - co-host, protector

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day seventeen]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 17: Queerness - do you consider yourself queer? what does queerness mean to you?

oh yes, and we consider people who feel like its use should be retired a hell of a red flag, at least for our personal peace of mind/engagement with those people. queer means... to us, being queer vs being lgbt+ is the difference between a black activist vs a black person, if that makes sense? in that- yes, they both face adversities, they both have to advocate for themselves, but queer carries a sort of political weight to it? that implies a sharper edge, in our mind at least.

it's also something i think we'd identify as even if we weren't lgbt+? because- we're a fucking freak dude. in a good way, we love being weird and shit, but like. we're a freak, we're an outcast, and we cast our lot with our fellow freaks & outcasts. it's not my fault that said lot happens to be against your (general you) system, ykwim?

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day sixteen]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 16: Plurality - are you plural? what ways does plurality affect your identity?

yes we are. we're a polyplex (essentially a system of systems), which makes collective identity an actual nightmare to figure out, enough so that our coll. identities, both as systems and as a polyplex, are more chosen on how we want to be perceived than they are inherently felt. besides that, though, um- i guess, much like how our neurodivergence affects basically everything, and in a way where it's hard to tell how much it does, our plurality also affects basically everything. it's especially hard to figure out an individual identity when you're basically never alone, after all.

@dragonpride17 @radiomogai

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day fifteen]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 15: Orientation - talk about your orientation/attraction! what is it? does it feel or work a certain way?

milo: um. i just showed up rip but like. lesbian ig? idk i barely go here

tommy is vaguely here and he says he's a lesgay transboy, and using the label feels like finally getting home after a long trip. i don't really get what he means, but, good for him ig

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day fourteen]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 14: Neurodivergence - are you neurodivergent? how does your neurodivergence or mental health affect your identity?

the real question is how doesn't it affect my identity, imo xD yes we are!! audhd, ocd, depression & anxiety double whammy, arfid, and some sort of pd bullshit we haven't quite managed to nail down the specifics of yet, plus some dissociative fuckery as well. um- again, it kind of affects the whole thing, but i've always lived with most of it, so it's hard to tell where the identity ends and it begins, if that makes sense? so this one is... deceptively hard to answer rip

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day thirteen]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 13: Modality - what’s your relationship to gender modality – trans, cis, iso, amodal, etc?

That is a question with an answer that varies from alter to alter; on a collective level, though, we identify as transmasculine, typically trans guy but it varies, and honestly being seen as trans- is more important than being gendered correctly? Like, we're more akin to a trans guy within the spectrum of transmasculinity, but if someone saw us as butch, or nonbinary, or transfem, or whatever, we'd take that any day of the week over being seen as cishet. Being seen as some sort of trans-, or really queer in general, is our primary goal.

Tommy's answer

Oookayyyy so, in terms of my identity, I'm largely amodal; it doesn't really matter to me how I'm sunsine, for example, I just am, ykwim? But as for my presentation, I'm very much trans-, specifically a transmasc boy, for the reasons mentioned in the collective section of this post. Namely, I'm a cringey transmasc boy: if I don't look right out of the post-quarantine wave of alt kids, I'm doing it wrong. Gimme all the cringey shit! I may be cringe but you're (general you) mean and that's worse!!

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day twelve]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 12: Love - do you experience love? in what ways? what’s your relationship to love as a concept?

I definitely love things, but loving people is... both rarer and trickier. I mean, I love a LOT, and often! But rarely is the target of that love a person. yk? It's likely trauma informed, but... people leave, things don't, if that makes sense. And love as an experience is very different with things than with people- I think I'd get overwhelmed if I felt the intense love I feel for, say, Pokémon, every time I talked to/thought about a loved one. Love for people is... gentler. It's comfort as opposed to excitement, if that makes sense.

@radiomogai @dragonpride17

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day eleven]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 11: Knowledge - is there something you wish was more widely known? share a fun fact about MOGAI or your identity!

Hmmmm I can't think of anything in particular? I guess, I wish nonbinary identities, including neo- & xenogenders, were more widely recognized and had more... I guess, established ways of presenting? I REALLY want to present and be recognized as sunsine, it's SUPER important to me and my identity! But it's simply not recognized, so I kinda have to settle for transmasculinity. And I don't mind being seen as transmasculine, but it still sucks to not be able to present the way I want to.

As for fun facts... I have nothing on MOGAI & whatnot, but I do have the story I love to tell about 12 year old us, who then identified as bisexual, who was nervous that people would hear her listening to the Coming Out Song (link) by Ally Hills, because she didn't want people to think she was a lesbian... and then promptly identifying as a lesbian for 4 years following. So yk, that aged lmfaooooo

tagging @dragonpride17 @radiomogai

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day ten]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 10: Joy - how do you find joy in your identity? what does it look and feel like to you?

I'm sure others in my collective have different experiences, but personally, I (Tommy) find more... comfort, than I do joy? It's just this gentle feeling of it being right, of it being home. It's this gentle feeling of "oh, there I am, I'd forgotten", if that makes sense

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day nine]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 9: Intersex - are you intersex or questioning? how has it affected your identity?

[CW mentions of genitals]

Not- to our knowledge? It's hard to be 100% sure, our brain creates a sort of. Barrier, I suppose, regarding anything that involves genitals and whatnot so actually checking if ours match up with the expected ones is... difficult. We're not actively questioning, but we're not... I guess you could say we're open to the idea? I'm not really sure how to phrase this one, I'm afraid, but this is the best I can do at the moment.

Tagging: @dragonpride17 @radiomogai

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day eight]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 8: Hoard - are you a hoarder? how does this affect your MOGAI identity? if you collect terms, how do you organize them?

Some of us are, yes. We all share labels that fit others' identities with each other as a form of pebbling & affection, but some of us actively look for more labels for ourselves. While I'm not 100% sure on exact numbers, I think Tommy has the biggest label collection, with myself (Skye) as a close second, if memory serves. It serves as a way of better identifying things that are important to us, which is difficult without some sort of prompting due to alexithymia and general lack of sense of self.

We like sharing them, so here are (some of) our collections. Most are on Google Slides, but I personally have been working on making a version on Notion so I can more easily look for a specific theme within my collection.

Icarus - Link

Lee - Link

Mira - Link

Skye - Link

Talon - Link

Tommy - Link

tagging: @radiomogai @dragonpride17

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day seven]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 7: Gender - what’s your experience with gender? how do you understand it?

That is not an easy question to answer with our level of alexithymia and identity variation due to plurality. We're going to answer as a collective first, and then as individuals (those of us in front, anyways)

As a collective

We have very little instinctual collective identity? By which I mean, our collective identity is more chosen than, say, had? We think of it like the back up textures videogames use when the specific object's texture is missing, if that makes sense.

Because of this, I guess the gender label that best applies to us as a collective would be agender? With a masculine presentation as default, since we are out as a trans man to most people we know irl.

As an individual - Talon

The most important label I use for my gender is trans man. My masculinity/being a man is inherently trans, the two cannot be separated. This is important enough that the rest of my gender labels are almost entirely accessorial to my transmasculinity, or stem from it.

The only other gender label I find relevant to bring up is the fact that I'm also archtransalfosic. I find a lot of comfort in seeing queer people of the past as my ancestors, maybe not by blood but definitely in spirit and by culture. I find a lot of comfort in using older/historical queeer labels, like being a butch man, because of this. Queer history and culture is my history and culture, and it means a lot to me.

As an individual - Rumi

When I first formed, I was identifying as an agender woman. I now feel that I do have a gender, though I don't really know how to put it into words yet. I think, if/when I find a label that fits, I'll recognize it, but that has yet to happen unfortunately.

Tagging: @dragonpride17 @radiomogai

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day six]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 6: Family, Friends - what’s your relationship with the concepts of friendship and family? are you out to your family and friends, if you have them?

I'm going to break our response to this question down into three subquestions so we can answer this more accurately get through each part of this question; our opinions vary from alter to alter in the details, but we do have a fairly steady sense of how we feel about friends & family, so, here we go:

Our relationship with the concept of friendship

Answered by Tommy

While I, instinctually, would call myself alloplatonic, I think I'm better described as somewhere on the aplatonic spectrum, but friendship favourable? I don't know if I experience platonic attraction, but I experience something similar (I definitely love my friends, at least), and I really enjoy the idea of friendship, especially the implied closeness of it. I mainly hesitate to call myself alloplatonic because the way I've heard platonic & romantic attractions explained, I've always felt as though I experience a mix of the two? Which, also makes figuring out if I experience romantic attraction hell rip but yeah!! I'm unsure if I experience platonic attraction, but I LOVE friendship as a concept and having friends!! I guess, I'm alloplatonic presenting, but greyplatonic if you like LOOK at it? If that makes sense!!

Our relationship with the concept of family

Answered by Talon

This one is... tricky. I don't feel much of a connection to our birth family, very few of us do, but we do feel familial attraction a lot, maybe more than most (it's hard to tell what the usual amount of it is). We mostly feel familial attraction towards people outside of our biological family, but we feel it very strongly; our chosen family is very important to us.

Are we out to our family?

Answered by Talon

Tricky question to answer... we are out as a queer trans guy to our birth family, and as AuDHD and as having OCD to the body's parents, but that's about it. We've not mentioned our alterhumanity or our plurality to any one of them, and likely never will. Ironically, we feel like those aspects of our identity are far more important than our gender or neurodivergence, but we also feel we'd be a lot less comfortable around the body's family if we did mention/discuss them, so, here we are.

As for our chosen family, though, we're basically out as all of these things to them! Specifics on what details we shared with who will vary, but they all at least know the broad strokes.

Are we out to our friends?

Answered by Talon

Mostly yes! The majority of our friendships are online and from spaces familiar with most of these concepts, which makes it a lot easier to explain things if there's a language/vocabulary gap on either side. Some irls may not be aware of our plurality and alterhumanity though, mainly because they know our mom as well, and we don't want her finding out like that.

tagging: @radiomogai @dragonpride17

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day five]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 5: Expression - how do you express your identity? what’s your ideal expression/presentation?

We... only kind of express it? Very few of us, maybe none, identify within the binary gender spectrum, but we're also keenly aware that people, as a general rule, don't think of nonbinary as an option while looking at how people present, let alone more specific labels. Because of this, our main aim with presentation is masculinity, because, within that spectrum, it's the presentation style we prefer, with the individual(s) in front's identity becoming almost accessorial to the masculine base. Another factor for this is that a lot of the labels we use don't have any established ways of presenting, so it's harder to use them as a base for our expression.

As for how our ideal presentation, I'll attach a picrew of what I (Tommy) would like to make the body look like!! (ID in alt text)

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day three]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 4: Disconnect - are you disconnected with any particular aspect of your identity?

When I originally wrote the first draft on paper, I said (and I stand by this as a general statement) that it's easier to notice the presence of something than it's absence. However, I proceeded to fill up a page of my B5 notebook with my thoughts on this, so... clearly I am!! Here we go:

Culture: this one's in a weird spot for me, both collectively and for me (Tommy) specifically. As best as I can express it, on the collective level, growing up online from a very young age means we just don't know a lot about Portuguese culture, so there's a disconnect born out of lack of knowledge there. Meanwhile, on the individual level, there's a disconnect because I wasn't Portuguese in any of my sources, I was British, so there's a sort of apathy towards Portuguese culture because of that.

Body: like I said on our day 2 post, very few of us see the body as ours; the disconnect here stems from our plurality. This is also why, or at least part of why, seeing ourselves as disabled is difficult; if the body isn't youra, then you're not disabled, ykwim?

Orientations: it feels odd to say this, but we find this part of our identity... profoundly uninteresting to look into? It's likely influenced by our collective being aspec, meaning partnerships aren't particularly interesting to most of us. There's little interest in exploring the topic, which leads to less knowledge, which leads to a disconnect. Also, being alexithymic does not help

Gender: a mix of the aforementioned alexithymia and internalized exorsexism means it took us a long time to realize we aren't on the male-female binary spectrum? And a lot of that confusion stemmed from the fact that, since we live in a society that primarily sees this binary as the only valid options, it's very hard to present as a non binary gender, which makes us slot ourselves into a place on that spectrum we felt most comfortable with for our presentation, and that made us think it was our gender instead of our presentation.

@dragonpride17 @radiomogai

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day three]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 3: Culture - how does your culture influence your identity, if at all?

hmmm... i'm unsure if this will count, but i think, while most portuguese culture doesn't really influence my identity, namely because i find i'm fairly disconnected from it, our relationships with portuguese as a language tends to influence... at least how we talk about our identity?

the best way i can express this, is- collectively, right? since we're mostly not out as plural in portuguese-speaking spaces, we tend to go by our collective identity. in english, we find our identity is a lot more... flexible? broad? our preferred collective pronouns are he/it, but we're not actively opposed to any other pronouns, either? but in portuguese, it's just ele/dele (he/him).

neopronouns in portuguese don't vibe at all, maybe because portuguese as a language is also less flexible than english. it's a lot harder to get funky with it in portuguese because pronouns follow a structure that is less flexible than the english structure for pronouns. additionally, since fucking everything is gendered in portuguese, they're used in everything, so you have to be able to use them a lot more, which also opens a lot fewer possibilities.

tagging: @dragonpride17 @radiomogai

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day two]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 2: Body - what’s your relationship to your body? how does it affect how you identify?

oh man, that's... a Question for sure. not a bad one, but one we tend to avoid thinking about. nonetheless, i'll... try my best.

well, collectively, very few of us consider the body... our body? like it's the collective's body for sure, but it's not the body we as individuals have. i know sylvie has a lot of... what we call plural dysphoria, because she's way taller and has a very different fat distribution than the body, and she really struggles with feeling comfortable in the body when she's overly aware of it.

we're also afab, but very few of us are comfortable in more feminine presentations. this means that, collectively, we're transmasc, and that influences even alters who are cis men in headspace. i know zephyr (he/him) identifies as a cis man, even though the body is transmasc. it's also odd for transfemme alters, for- what i feel are fairly obvious reasons.

some of this disconnect from the body stems from gender for sure, but sylvie is a clear example that a lot of it comes from plural dysphoria, or even plural apathy ([blank] apathy is a way of describing that feeling where the body doesn't match how you feel, but it doesn't make you distressed, instead making you feel disconnected from your body. this might fall under dysphoria for some, but for us, it's a distinct feeling/experience).

the fact that we're prone to dissociation likely doesn't help either: feeling Aware of ourselves or our surroundings, both of which include the body, is deeply uncomfortable, in no small part because we're... simply not used to it.