#293.undefined

[thepluralmaster]

For those who need it

Southeast Asian countries are:

Indonesia

Malaysia

Brunei Darussalam

Timor-Leste

Singapore

Thailand

Laos

Cambodia

Vietnam

Myanmar

Philippines

[thepluralmaster]

(Dreamwidth mirror)

We’ve been thinking, the response to being dehumanized are often divided into “no, I’m still human!” and “fine then, I’m nonhuman and I’m proud, deal with it”. We understand why nonhumans tend to be the latter, but we seem to go with the former. To us, both options are correct. To us, maybe the difference is caused by our species identity because most of us are human.

Nonhumans would challenge the norm that only humans deserve respect. Obviously we can’t say for sure if other people see it the same way too, but the “I’m still human” side, at least when we say it, challenges the norm of what counts as human in the first place. At least when we see it, these are two sides of the same “we deserve respect too” coin.

The ways we’re human can vary. Most of us are close to standard human save from a few things like being someone that most people consider a fictional character. Some are born nonhuman but has lived with/as humans for long enough to see themselves as human too. Some others are born human, but forced into nonhumanity in some fashion and it barely changes how they identify on the inside. In general, we tend to be tied to humanity in some way and it’ll feel wrong for at least the majority of us to completely divorce ourselves from it.

This is just a guess, but maybe we lean this way at least partially because we’re multiply marginalized. Other than being alterhuman, we’re also queer, neurodivergent, and part of a racial and religious minority among other things, and these groups are very often dehumanized by those in positions of power and privilege. This may have ended up planting this idea in our subconscious revolving around fighting our way to get our humanity to be recognized, and it informs how we tend to navigate through alterhuman communities. Being loud about our human alterhumanity in hopes of reaching other folks and being recognized as alterhuman too, even when we don’t fit the norms of a given space in some way.

[thepluralmaster]

All the junk we’ve seen in our recent doomscrolling phase gave us this meme idea

Text: We being a sort of “we don’t fit neatly into community-defined boxes” vibe to the online communities that exclusionists don’t really like

[thepluralmaster]

One drawback of having a bajilion fictives from your media interests: you can’t pick a collective fave to save your lives because everyone gravitates towards their sources in some way or another, or some of the members have completely different faves

[thepluralmaster]

For the human alterhumans, especially ones with complicated stuff going on with their species identity.

When making these, we had our own system members in mind. Those who are human, but not quite “standard” human in a way. Those who, for any reason, don’t consider themselves nonhuman despite experiencing shifts that would be considered normal for nonhuman kin identities

Made with this!

[thepluralmaster]

Actually we got interested in looking at it again so

The power of naming

We don't claim that every multiple system/household is a happy loving cooperative one. What we do question is the *identification* of "real multiples" with the characteristics or symptoms of a psychological disorder. We go further: we question by what right or authority doctors and therapists are given sole jurisdiction over the definition of "an individual".

This is one reason our clan encourages use of the word "plural" rather than "multiple". "Multiple", even standing by itself, brings to mind MPD/DID, "multiple personality disorder", "dissociative identity disorder", which are specific diagnoses created by the medical/therapeutic community. "Plural" is a much more neutral word, more commonly heard in the context of grammar than psychiatry. (The other reason, of course, is that plural can be construed to have a broader meaning, applying to anyone(s) anywhere on the continuum who experience themselves as plural in some way. )

The power to name is the power to define reality. I/we claim the power to define and describe our own reality. We do not cede it to external authority figures, however impressively credentialed they may be.

This is the closest thing to the coining of plurality that we can remember. We don’t remember anything similar from there

[thepluralmaster]

Do we want to be louder about our problem with sysmember race discourse and how it never considers our existence or do we want to be safe from bule sotoy. Decisions decisions

[thepluralmaster]

One problem we encountered when identifying as anime idols (and really, most anime girls in general) is navigating through internalized biases wrt body image (fatphobia, among other things possibly) and working on unlearning that, and these identities’ sources are often intertwined with women’s beauty standards and how society think women should be like. In this essay I will-