This is a basic introduction to our1 plurality, heavily inspired by this questionnaire! More information will likely be added later :]
0. What's some very basic information about you?
We’re a plural system of around 20-30 people, sharing a single body. While we share a life together, we view ourselves as individuals with our own names, pronouns, and identities, who are working as a team to get through life together! For more basic information on plurality as a whole, please see https://morethanone.info!2
1. What do you go by collectively?
Collectively, we go by Ceefax! If we’re feeling fancy, sometimes we’ll use The Ceefax Mainframe or Pages From Ceefax, but 98% of the time we just say Ceefax. For pronouns, we’ll usually say it/its or they/them but admittedly if you’re referring to us collectively/while we’re blurry we really don’t give that much of a fuck nowadays. Most of us just don’t like she/her.
2. How should people refer to you?
The golden rule is simple: If you know who’s fronting3, who you’re talking to, or if you’re replying to someone, you should absolutely use their individual name(s) and pronouns. Our collective identity exists for instances such as where one doesn’t know who’s fronting/who they’re talking to, or for online accounts and sites we share (like this one!)
You should absolutely refer to us individually whenever possible, and, honestly, if you actively refer to one of us with our collective identity instead when you’re actively in the middle of a conversation with just them, we may get rather annoyed. Nothing personal, it’s just happened far too often over the years.4
3. What terminology do you use / not use?
Any preferences of terminology depends on the member, although system/collective and member are good neutrals to use. Some of us use headmate, some of us use part, some of us use alter. We don’t really expect you to keep track of those preferences, so feel free to just use the neutral terms above instead.
As for other terminology, we admittedly don’t use a lot of the common terms in the community. We actively avoid and reject origins5, roles6 (with a few individual exceptions) and a lot of other term categories people use. Don’t expect us to disclose origins especially, we don’t like the communities focus on it, and we really just believe it’s no-one’s business.
4. Who in your system are people most likely to interact with?
…we’ll get back to you on that?
5. How should one interact with younger members?
There’s always the possibility of running into syskids and agesliders/regressors7, as they front3 like any other members. We don’t really put any specific guidelines on them, other than don’t go into spaces that do not permit syskids. This is because they all have their own boundaries, and we believe it’s important to treat them as equal to the older members of the collective, listening to their personal boundaries and desires instead of forcing a set onto them.
Some of them will not front3 without older members, some of them usually front by themselves. Some of them feel like they have mentalities or other traits closer to “real” children, others feel like they’re closer to adults in someways. You should never assume how they want to be treated. If they have specific boundaries or requests, they or another member of our system will communicate them.
6. What should people do if they don't know who's at front 1?
Usually? Ask. Please ask. If you have our Simply Plural, we encourage you to look once in a while to see who’s up front! As for our blog/website: If someone wanted to share they wrote something, they’ll sign off in someway, either in tags or the post text itself. If a post online isn’t signed off, it’s usually either written while blurry, “collectively”, or by someone who wished to stay anonymous.
7. Is it okay for people to ask if they can talk to someone who isn't at front at the moment?
This is a tricky subject. If we know you well, we’ll likely be okay with it, but we also can have very little control over front and cannot guarantee anything. Basically, please don’t expect it to be possible.
8. If someone talks to one of you, will other system members be aware of the conversation?
Our memory share is very inconsistent. We technically have a shared “memory” for things that occurred in front3, but it often only remembers important details or the keynotes of something. However, this doesn’t guarantee anything. Others might be able to remember the conversation perfectly. We have remotely no control over this.
We also often have members in and out of front/co-con, who may see the conversation. If you need it to be one-on-one please ask, although we can’t guarantee how much of a conversation will be absorbed into our collective memory to be recalled later.
9. If multiple members will be aware of a conversation, will they want to chime in?
Occasionally, other members can chime in if they personally have something to add. Again, if you desire for a conversation to be one-on-one you should ask this beforehand, and we’ll make sure that’s the case!
10. How out are you? What should people do when talking to people who don't know you're plural?
Online, we’re very out. Please follow everything we’ve said above when talking about us with others (use individual names/pronouns whenever possible, but feel free to clarify they’re part of Ceefax if/when that feels needed)
IRL however? We’re essentially in the closet still. If you somehow do know us IRL, please refer to us purely with our IRL name + pronouns when talking about us with others who have a possibility to know, bump into, or get to meet us IRL. Thanks!
11. Do you have any internal communication difficulties, memory issues, etc that others should be mindful of?
We have a collective “memory”, which only applies to things that occur in front or externally, although very inconsistent and often not the best. Not all of us can communicate smoothly with other members, although we try our best to ensure boundaries/triggers/ect are passed on whenever possible. Also, our fronting3 is inconsistent and can be very much outside of our control. Some of us front far more than others, and half the time that’s not something we have a say on.
12. Your stance on being asked questions?
We love questions, and always welcome them! Please just keep in mind our boundaries here, especially the one about our origins5. We’re not sharing any information on why we’re plural.
13. Is there anything else others should know?
Footnotes
-
We usually use we/us pronouns whenever talking about us collectively, while I/me are often used to refer to the current fronter(s), or the writer(s) of the page you’re writing ↩
-
We would like to write up our own primer about plurality at some point, as we don’t feel like any of the current resource out there completely fit what we’d like out of one. But until then, I think morethanone works well enough! ↩
-
Front / Fronting is the term used to describe the act of being in control of the body. Essentially, the person(s) who is fronting is who is currently around, speaking, and doing things. Co-con(cious) is a similar term used to describe those who are not currently in control of the body, but are in the “conscious” and aware of what is currently going on ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
-
Obviously, for places like this where it’s a webpage in a blog/thought dump format, we’re far more lenient and honestly this barely applies. This more so goes for places like Discord, where people are having active real time conservations with us individually ↩
-
Terms that describe / explain how one is plural / became plural ↩ ↩2
-
Terms that describe a member’s “job” or “purpose” in a collective ↩
-
Syskids (or littles) are members of a system who are minors, usually under 13 (systeens or middles is a term sometimes used for those between 13-18, to differentiate from the youngest of members). Agesliders, or age regressors, are those who sometimes or are often adults, but sometimes feel like they slide to a younger age ↩
-
Nonhumanity is where one does not identify as (fully) human. There can be many reasons for this, but for most of us personally, it’s due to us appearing in forms that are not human in our head ↩
-
A introject is a system member that has traits from and/or looks similar to a character, person, object, ect. ↩