#topic: events

[mogai945]

[MOGAI ABCs day one]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 1: Alterhumanity - are you alterhuman? how does this affect your life and identity?

oh man, yeah!! it's actually rarer for frequent fronters (or even just people who actually show up again) in our collective to not be alterhuman :0 just off the top of my head, tal is a canine alterhuman, skye is a dog, cat, & vaporeon alterhuman, and sylvie is a cat alterhuman!!

as for myself, tommy, i'm actually in the process of organizing my label collection, or, more accurately, categorizing it; the categories will be mentioned and explained as as they come up, but, out of my alterhuman identities, the main ones are:

raccoons - primary identity (identities very important to my sense of self, without which i would be a fundamentally different person)

this is the identity that comes up the most often in my day to day, i believe? it's due to both being sourced from fanon!tommyinnit, and my general demeanour and... a sort of feeling, one i cannot name. while i don't label this part of my identity, since it comes from various factors and i am alexithymic, i tend to just call myself a raccoon alterhuman!! in the words of my currently wip categorization document, Raccoons Is Me!!

pokémon - primary identity

our special interest in the franchise is absolutely why i identify as pokémon alterhuman!! specifically, i am otherhearted and xenonatured for the entire franchise, and the pokémon world is a fictodomus and hearthome for me (namely alola, galar, and hisui). in addition, i also kin gible, riolu, scorbunny, and fuecoco (likely alongside others i cannot remember at the moment)!! since this comes from our sp/in on the franchise, it also comes up very often :-)

storybook vibes - primary identity

it's hard to describe this one... what made me realize this identity was yaelokre; namely, the way the playwright speaks about clémente in their origins video; specifically, the quote "an image of the self in armour golden, with a sword on their hip, treading gardens with the poise of a prince, and the pursuit of saving those they hold dear" is... deeply, deeply me-core. it's really hard to word this one, but hopefully this makes at least some sense!!

in addition to that, i am a canine and cat by proxy (identities by proxy are ones i identify with because those dear to me do as well), canines because of talon and my chosen family sister (#mysister) (and also because we collectively identify as a canine too), and cats because my chosen family mom identifies as them!! i'm also a pretty boy (appearance identity, one that primarily affects my appearance) and i am a loser protagonist in an accessorially behavioural way (identity that is relatively small in the grand scheme of my identity, and that primarily affects how i behave).

forgive the length of this post, and i hope this was an interesting read :-)

tagging @dragonpride17 @radiomogai

[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 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 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 nineteen]

from the MOGAI ABCs prompt list:

Day 19: Structure - how do you conceptualize your identity as a whole? how is it structured or divided, if at all?

Tagging @dragonpride17 @radiomogai

I can't speak for everyone in our polyplex, but I (Tommy) have types of labels/identities! I think of them as tags in a database, if that makes sense. Here they are!

Primary: Identities that are VERY important to my sense of self; without them, I would be a fundamentally different person. These generally have aspects of most or all the other types of Identities listed here.

Appearance Identities: Identities that primarily influence me from an appearance standpoint. It is rare for me to have identities that only, or primarily, affect my sense of self like this; generally, if a source is an appearance source, it is also some other type of source, likely a primary one.

Behavioural Identities: Identities that primarily influence me from a behaviour standpoint, without necessarily influencing my personality, emotions, etc.

Personality Identities: Identities that primarily influence me from a personality standpoint. These usually go hand in hand with emotional identities, but don’t have to.

Memory Identities: Identities that primarily influence me from a memories standpoint. These are usually plural identities, but not inherently.

Emotional Identities: Identities that primarily influence me from an emotional standpoint. These usually go hand in hand with personality identities, but do not have to.

Identities by Proxy: Identities that I primarily identify with because those dear to me do too

Mixed Identities: Identities that do not fall under any of the previous categories, but aren’t a small enough part of my identity to fall under the following category.

Accessorial Identities: Identities that influence me less than the previous categories, but which still feel significant enough to mention. These are usually at least partially voluntary.

[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 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