i have this impression that on Fedi i see a lot fewer plural systems called “the [noun phrase] system” and a lot more going by name-shaped names, if that makes sense? (To be clear, by name-shaped i also count things like like serial numbers etc.)

Compared to like, author names for resources on plurality. There it feels like every author is called “[name] of the [noun phrase] system”. Though i can absolutely think of counterexamples either direction so who knows if this is a real pattern or not.

@anya In my case it had to do with the name needing to make sense post-fusion.

@navi That makes sense yeah! In our case we decided to apply to the whole system the name i came up with back when i thought i was a singleton, to make the transition(s, both plural and trans) easier.

@navi So i suppose we kept the name for the exact dual reason of yours, to make it easier going from singleton to plural (at least socially).

@anya This might also be why; systems that do not expect or want fusion or long-term invisibility (some models of integration have it as a consequence) may be less likely to choose a name-shaped name.

@anya we haven’t really thought much about a system name and i’d say we’re a median system tbh

You know what, poll time! What kind of name does your system have?

By "the X system" i include synonyms, so "the Rainbow Collective" or "the Arson Gang" or "the Assembly of Pieces" would be included.

By "name-shaped" i mean the kind of name that a singleton in your peer group could have as their given or chosen name. This would include serial number style designations (if your friend group is beepy) or names that are not on a government-approved list but a singleton could choose them for themselves (like usernames/nicks/handles). Surnames count if you would address peers with their surname too.

If multiple options apply, please pick the option that you like the best or your closest friends use the most. If you haven't come up with a name yet, but do want to have a system name, pick the option that sounds most appealing. And in case of further doubts, don't worry too much about it and pick whatever option feels best for you.

@anya Furthermore, like, the members had names for much much longer before I got to the point of having a shared name to begin with.

@anya Some others seem to find a shared name before even finding individual names.

@anya I think that on fedi, you'll often see headmates simply having their own accounts rather than signing things collectively.

@anya And, in particular, headmates having their own accounts, but also speaking from a plural perspective on the main fronter's account

@Owlor hehe we would never do so.

@anya kinda both for us
aperture could refer to specifically the fronter or vaguely all of us and we consider the phrase “the aperture system” to be an important distinction from saying just “aperture” plus i personally have a lot more connection to the name aperture than the rest of the system, so it’s much more likely i will call just myself aperture

so, it’s complicated hvxgjnvxbnbx

• carrie

@anya to be fair we’re decently median so there’s that

• carrie

@anya I voted for name-shaped, but it's more of a place name, Hartstead (stag + settlement/town). We also have a subsystem called The Pride, and I'm also not sure where that would fit in these options.

@anya 🟧 first name + last (system) name

also think it's cute to call each other siblings

@anya Singletsona we have, I don't think anyone ever figured out a system name and I am not going to do that much name shit. — Vi

@anya I'd say ' name-shaped, but pluralized' (Minka&) but since the name is also my headmates name, I feel like we may need a new one.

@anya Our system name is "INX", which is name-shaped but isn't usually used like a name. Normally we get called Lillith, which we explicitly say is fine

@anya
We're currently testing out:

- Sunny Bunch
- Sunny Bunches
- The Anya Bunch

And variations of those.

@anya We're still figuring ourselves out (like, what we look like, or what our interests are, etc.), so we don't really need a system name yet.

@anya Our collective name is "Irides" which is the plural form of "Iris" one of our members and also defacto public identity (though singletsona is more of a mix just aliased to a shared name)

We've never much preferred the term "system" personally and "the X Y" form of system identifiers doesn't really feel right either. We did consider aligning system name and legal name but decided against it. Felt too personal to share that in that way.

Our defacto ways of disambiguating full references to members is "Irides::" for shorthand and " of Irides" for prose

@anya we were considering alternatives to our birth name for trans reasons, still only partially aware of plurality. Sometimes the birth name felt right, sometimes the new name (Maaike) felt right. People started referring to us as Maaike mostly. Then Ayke decided to keep the birth name and so far everyone seems fine with Maaike as the system name.

Kinda messy way to arrive at it, but it works for us 🤷‍♀️

Also, a name-shaped name raises far fewer questions and is just easier in practice.

@Owlor @anya 🟧 we used to do this but it was a pain to manage and gave up

also syncing followed accounts between accounts is a pain even with just a main + alt, not gonna do member-specific account splits

@anya we& are "headstuck"

@anya ours (variable) is name shaped, but because it sounds right "the variable system" is also accepted, though not really used at present (perhaps it would be for formal settings, or disambiguation, or to emphasise our system-ness?)-*

@anya @joepie91 The term "system" (and "alter") is a medicalized term that's increasingly falling out of favor as the consensus that plurality doesn't innerently constitute a disorder (and that disordered plurality may not even be the default) spreads.

So We would suspect that the main difference is that the folks likely to take the time to write up resources are going to on average be the ones who have been exploring it for a while now and also have bigger than average overlap with communities that have a disorder centric viewpoint, even if they do not themselves believe disorder to be a requirement or default, the medicalization tinted parts are going to be closer to the appeal of categorizing and listing it all out.

Also, We would suspect that at least a significant portion of plural folks don't announce they're plural, and conversely We can see the appeal of "system" as a universally understood shorthand to actively signal it, as mamy even plural folks, especially on the DID/OSDD side may not recognize the ampersand.

@cf That makes a lot of sense and does roughly match my impressions.

Though that “system” is a medicalized term is new to me, i had the impression this was already a more neutral term than the medical ones. (Unlike “alter” which we don’t like using exactly because of these connotations). Is there a better alternative for “system”?

@anya

I’m assuming our system name would count as name shaped but pluralised. Though I think it differs slightly since we treat it like a species name, generally using fnige over headmate when referring to ourselves.

@anya, so far it doesn't look like we have a consensus on a replacement, but generally "collective" seems to crop up more than others, at least in Our circles, but there's also bundle, pack, We jokingly use modpack to refer to plural folks who happen to do moderation work, less often We've seen stuff like family, hotel, band, possibly association, but We might be making that one up (granted, all words are made up).

Personally, We actually hope it stays that way, there are a lot of fitting words that can describe a plutality of things and/or creatures, a plurality of words, if you(g) will, so while we're all choosing names that, to an extent, represent the entireties of us, it's nice to have, We think we're all better off for there being a lot of play in how we present our plurality by default.

Besides, if we did have a 1:1 replacement word, We feel it would be a bit too easy to fall into just using it as a replacement without really thinking about why we're replacing "system", at which point it would be less opposition of the status quo enforced on us by the normative medical apparatus and just the same thing with a fresh coat of paint, but maybe We're overthinking this.

@anya Not that it's wrong to have agreed upon terminology, of course, We do call Ourself a collective, partly out of accessibility consideration, partly simply as a holdover from back when We did think having a 1:1 replacement is desirable, but also it's not a part of Our name, or, rather, Our plurality is represented in Our name with the ampersand, as are other things, but the We only give it a name in the same general stroke as We might also describe that We're Jewish, transgender, autistic, disabled, etc., depending on topic relevance.

It's also just the more pragmatic approach for those of us who have a knack for linguistic shenanigans who treat their display name (which can be related to the bundle name but doesn't have to be the same thing) more as a careful arrangement of building blocks than per se a name.

@anya @Fnige

we have an “X system” name but it’s based on the names the two most prominent of us have just changed our names to, though we do both tend to present just as “[individual name], who is plural” except with people who know us both. Lilly likes to do separate accounts rather than having shared accounts, she’s always wanted her own spaces with kind of a small distance between us.

@anya so our vote was that we don't have a collective name... We have a lot of issues with naming in general, individually, collectively and historically

We do have outward facing project names that kind of refer to our system (voidkvlt for example), those aren't restricted to only include parts of us (meatspace friends are also involved, but not all of the system is).

And some named we do things under sound singleton but refer to several of us

@anya

We consider our system name to be name-shaped (we want to legally change our first and middle names to J Medley) but you can easily read it as an “X system” name. We would never call ourselves “the J Medley” though

@TheSunnyOne
Sunny Bunch
@anya