Questions

Q: What does "don't make me add another rule" mean?

A: The phrase "don't be the reason for a new rule" is common in the codes of conduct of Mastodon servers. It doesn't mean "if the server is inaccessible, you can't ask for rules requiring accommodations" or "if you asked a question that resulted in a new rule being added, that wasn't okay".

It means "don't cause problems that require me to add new rules to prevent behavior like yours".

It's in reference to people who do things that should normally be seen as common sense or adult maturity not to do. For example, the policy against political doomspiraling is influenced by people I've seen in servers who have done that kind of thing and caused problems because of it.

Q: Why do you discourage venting heavily yet still have vent channels?

A: Venting is something where, while I think it can cause problems if done in a certain way or to a certain extent, is still important for people to be able to do to some capacity. After having familiarized myself with what is and isn't considered reasonable in Discord servers, I think I can handle moderating some venting within what is reasonable, so long as there are disclaimers that excessive venting isn't to be encouraged.

Some environments that are very heavy on venting can become toxic due to people constantly airing their negative emotions and either never talking about positive ones, being very fragile in terms of their ability to express positive or neutral sentiments, and/or being next-to-impossible to help or calm down.

Furthermore, while it's important to have spaces where you can vent, it's also important to have spaces where you can socialize without venting, or without making venting a big part of your personality. Plural Dreams is meant to be the latter kind of place.

I also believe venting can be subjective. For example, when people ask questions like "how is everyone doing?" in general chat, my answer is sometimes something like "A little stressed from medical appointments". This is far from a traumadump or a doomspiral, and it is an honest answer to the question, but it could be considered a vent to an extent.

If I wanted to talk in more detail about the stress of my medical appointment, I believe I should be allowed to and not have to completely censor myself about my daily experiences that are less than stellar. It might be inappropriate of me if I started panicking in the vent channel about my upcoming appointments, or relayed my medical trauma in graphic detail, especially without spoilering it, but since I don't have a problem moderating others' comparatively mild or censored vents, I believe my server is a suitable space for some venting.

While not every server is required to allow this, I have found it helpful when the vent channels of a server allow for discussion of very heavy topics, such as sexual trauma. However, some users may not want to see these discussions. Therefore, there is a separate channel for heavier venting, as well as venting where the topic is NSFW in some way.

To me, the purpose of vent channels in a Discord server is to relegate heavier or less positive discussion to one place, so people who don't want to see it don't have to opt in to those channels. The purpose of vent channels is not to use them excessively or to foster an environment of negativity.

Q: What is this server's policy on non-sharing self-shippers or fictionkin who don't want to be around doubles?

A: I personally don't want to have to moderate problems that are caused by people who can't put a certain layer of distance between themselves and fiction, or who are so jealous of their partners, even their fictional ones, that the very concept that they could be with someone else causes them to dissociate, or who feel the same way about certain aspects of their identity.

Therefore, fictionkin and fictives need to be okay with the possibility of doubles in the server. While I understand that you can feel very, very strongly connected to your source as a fictionkin, you need to be able to think of doubles as AU versions of your source and be able to handle how it makes you feel if someone is a "different" version of you.

The same goes for self-shippers and doubles of their F/Os. While this server isn't specifically geared towards self-ship, there are channels for it, so this policy applies to them.

If you feel excluded by this policy, there are plenty of other servers on Discord that can be found on Disboard that will make the accommodations for you that you desire. This server, however, is not the place for you.

Q: Aren't your policies about accountability discriminatory towards people with BPD/DID/etc.?

A: Some systems or people with mental illness treat "system accountability" or "take responsibility for your mental health" as meaning "don't have amnesia or mental illness". This is not how I see it. I see it as meaning "learn to manage your amnesia or mental illness".

You are a person in this world who is either an adult or learning to be an adult, and if you're not an adult yet, you shouldn't be considering joining this server. Adults have to manage their lives, even if it's extremely difficult or even unfair (which "difficult" is not always the same as). This includes managing things caused by disability and trauma.

The results of disability and trauma are not your fault, but they are your responsibility, and I moderate my server by this principle. If you consider that harsh, then consider that life is harsh and adulthood is harsh, but yet we are adults who must rise to the occasion of this life, no matter the circumstances, and we are all the only ones responsible for ourselves in the end.

Q: What is shipcourse and "anti-anti", and why do you have problems with the whole thing?

A: Shipcourse is, in the simplest terms, a type of fandom discourse that originally was about whether or not it was acceptable to ship certain ships if they contained elements such as abuse or incest. People labeled themselves "anti-shippers" or "antis" if they opposed those ships.

It quickly turned into a politically-charged debate in which ships and shipping were seen as extensions for the entirety of fiction or even of free speech, and "proship" - the side in favor of the ships to which exception was taken - became the side of anti-censorship and anti-harassment views.

Anti-shippers are usually in favor of harassment, hostile to others and each other, given to self-policing, not okay with extreme horror themes or extreme kinks that my system enjoys, and generally unpleasant people, so I would be considered "anti-anti", which is synonymous with "proship".

However, many people who use the proship label have problems, such as not engaging with fiction outside of fandom media, actively eschewing critical thinking, and thinking literally everything in fiction is okay, including actual Nazi propaganda.

Furthermore, people on both sides have a bad habit of viewing "proship vs anti" as a binary that literally everyone fits into, with some going so far as to say "one of the only binaries that is actually true", with no hint of self-awareness. I do not align myself with this kind of thinking at all, and I therefore dislike that I find it necessary to use shipcourse labels to signal the stances by which I moderate my server.

If you identify as a proshipper, you are more than welcome to join the server, but if you're the kind of person who slots EVERYONE into proship or anti, you may clash a bit with the management's way of thinking. If you don't identify as a proshipper, you should understand that this server considers itself aligned with their beliefs, and if you don't like the "connotations" of a term like "profiction" (a common synonym for "proship"), you won't get along in this server.

While I don't personally have a problem with whatever types of fiction you consume, I restrict discussions on certain types of concent due to legal concerns, namely concerning underage characters. A lot of other types of dark fictional content, however, can be discussed in the server.

Q: What is the policy on discussions of fictional or in-system incest?

A: I don't have a problem with it, but I know not everyone will want to see it, and this isn't meant to be a "dark fiction"-centric server.

Mentions of fictional incest are okay, especially in your personal channels or the darker topics channel, but you're encouraged to also discuss other topics too.

In-system relationships that feature elements such as incest are allowed to be talked about freely in the server, as this server does not equate the type of reality that systems operate on as being the same type of reality as the real world.

Q: What do you mean, "a different type of reality"? Isn't there just fiction and reality?

A: Many people online have constructed a binary of "fiction" and "reality". They believe everything in the entire world fits neatly into one of those two categories, and that those two categories are completely separate all the time.

This is not the way I see it, and you might take issue with me if you adhere too rigidly to this binary. While I don't think writing about committing a crime is the same thing as doing it in the real world, I do think that some things are in gray areas between fiction and reality.

Plurality and alterhumanity are in that gray area to me. While members of a system are real, they are not PHYSICALLY real in the same way that external people are, and their timelines did not happen in this life. They are therefore a different KIND of reality than outerworld reality. The same goes for the reality of somebody being their kintype.

This is the position that is taken by the server, and while you are allowed to agree to disagree, you have to at least understand how I see things, and you have to be okay with the fact that that's how I see them.

Q: What is transID and why do you have problems with it?

A: The most neutral way I can describe transID is that it's an identity community based around labels for people who want to transition to something other than gender.

While some of it is fine (e.g. "transaesthetic" people who want to present with a certain aesthetic but can't), some of it is more questionable (e.g. "transrace", including people who want to physically transition from white to Black) to downright dangerous (e.g. "transabuser", people who genuinely want to abuse others and some of whom plan to "transition" to this identity in real life).

This server considers itself anti-transID, and if you use transID terminology or consider yourself transID, you should either not join the server, or you should understand that the server expects you to use different language to describe your experience, and that it won't take kindly to necessarily everything you might want to transition to. While I understand this might seem like getting hung up over arbitrary terminology, I am firm about this because the transID community tends to have problems that contribute to an atmosphere that is uncomfortable at best and bigoted at worst, and I just don't want to be anywhere near it.

If you would consider yourself transID in terms of your experience but you're not firmly committed to the label and you want to learn about alternatives, you can join this server as long as you don't use transID terminology and are willing to learn and change.

Q: What is desirdae and why are you okay with it?

A: Desirdae is an alternative identity label that is meant to describe people who desire or want to be something that they physically are not.

However, the term, in addition to not co-opting the "trans" prefix from the transgender community, is explicitly against transitioning in ways that would be considered harmful, and the community seems to consider it that, while identities that might be considered harmful (e.g. "desirabused", wishing you had been abused) are worth examining if you are truly experiencing them, they should be discussed with a degree of care and should not be seen as the same as things you can happily transition to with no problem, which is different than large swaths of the transID community.

Q: Is there anything I can't talk about in the desirdae channel?

A: While I believe I would be able to successfully moderate almost any desirdae discussion that came up, this falls short where it comes to discussions of race, ethnicity, and religion. I am mostly white, and religion is very often cultural.

I don't harbor animosity towards people with desirdaes related to these things, but I also don't think I'd have the best judgment if I had to make decisions about moderating a conversation about those topics. Pretty much anything else goes unless I find I can't handle it.

Q: What is radqueer and why do you want nothing to do with it?

A: Radqueer is a term that has a lot of misinformation surrounding it and where aspects of the community has changed over time. However, it is a discourse-related term (which I already have issues with), and people who are radqueer believe that transIDs and paraphilias are queer and should be respected as queer identities by wider society, which I take issue with, even if I support anti-contact paraphiles.

Furthermore, the radqueer community is commonly associated with pro-contact stances for consent-related ("harmful") paraphilias - that is, believing it is okay for zoophiles to have sex with animals, or that it is okay for pedophiles to look at CSEM. While this is not an inherent part of radqueer ideology, it is/was believed by the founder of radqueer and by many early and current members of the community, and many radqueer beliefs (e.g. that pedophilia is a legitimate sexual orientation) naturally lend themselves to pro-contact beliefs, which is part of why I don't support it.

While I understand that some radqueers label themselves as anti-contact - that is, they do not support paraphiles acting on their attraction if it would hurt somebody in any way - I still disagree with them considering paraphilias and especially transIDs to be queer.

I would seriously not recommend radqueers join this server, and if I ever have to remove anybody from this server, I see radqueer-related conflicts as being a potential reason why.

Q: Do you count transspecies as part of transID?

A: No. While use of the "trans-" prefix is part of my problem with transID, there's context to that that is absent in transspecies.

Transspecies was coined in the 1990s, when the transgender rights movement was not a major talking point in society or culture. Transspecies was the original term for it, and part of it likely had to do with otherkin feeling legitimate kinship with transgender people, since both of them could often only be their real selves online at this time. Meanwhile, transID (which was coined in 2022 by the founder of radqueer) stems from a community originally called diaID, but the prefix was CHANGED to "trans" to deliberately ride off of the transgender rights movement, which had gained heavy traction, was a major talking point in politics by that time, and had progressed so much that trans people transitioning, at least in many countries, was common enough that only being able to be yourself online was no longer as universal a transgender experience was it was in 1994.

Users of the term "transspecies" also do not seem to treat transspecies as the same as transgender, whereas many people who use the term "transID", even ones who are not radqueers, insist that transID and transgender experiences are the same and call you a "transgender exceptionalist" if you treat transgender issues as different from transID issues in any way.

Q: Why are JKR media and Nazi characters the only types of fiction I can't talk positively about?

A: I usually believe that, for every rule that is treated as hard and fast, there is always at least one exception.

Where it comes to the belief I hold that fiction is not a matter of morality, I believe supporting, in any sense, the works of a very rich and politically powerful individual who is using their wealth and fame to destroy transgender rights, who is still alive, and who is famous and influential in ways that very few individual creators are, is one of those exceptions.

I also believe talking positively about Nazis is another one of those exceptions. I also believe it would contribute to an unsafe atmosphere if Nazis were openly praised in the server, even fictional ones.

While there is some media I could ban because of themes that sympathize with Nazis or that contribute to real-life bigotry, I am choosing not to, because I really really don't like long blacklists, meaning I have to limit the blacklist to the worst of the worst of the worst, and I think most media that have themes compatible with fascism are not as egregious as what JKR is doing, nor as discomfort-inducing as directly praising a Nazi character. If you talk about media that isn't blacklisted but that still makes people rightfully uncomfortable and they don't want to be your friend as a result, that's on you.

If you have identities involving those types of media or characters, you are still allowed in the server, but you are required to follow the rules of the server and to be understanding of why your kintypes might make others uncomfortable and contribute to an unsafe atmosphere for the users of this server.

While the rule against discussion of these identities phrased in regards to positive discussion, I'd ideally like as little discussion as possible, including negative discussion, just because that kind of venting could get really uncomfortable and weird really quickly.

Q: Is Mushroom Fields only for programmed systems/RAMCOA survivors?

A: Mushroom Fields is only for those who have experienced trauma such as trauma-based mental conditioning (i.e. programming) or organized abuse, OR who have reason to suspect they have experienced such things. These things can be discussed in an educational context in the mainserver and if you spoiler especially intense aspects of it, but Mushroom Fields is specifically for people who have to cope and live with the actual experience.

However, the server's rules about who belongs in the subserver are phrased in an intentionally slightly broad way - i.e. "people with extreme trauma" - because I feel like, when people focus too hard on the word "programmed" or the RAMCOA/OEA acronyms, they lose sight of the bigger picture that a lot of different kinds of abuse have similar results and need to be coped with in similar ways. For example, not all CSEM is created as a part of human trafficking, but a CSEM victim who has not been trafficked may still have a lot of psychological complexes in common with someone who HAS been trafficked, such that they would benefit from being in this part of the server.

Q: What is programming/RAMCOA/OEA, anyway?

A: Before I answer that question, I need to explain that accurate information on these topics is difficult to find, because they are forms of abuse whose practitioners necessarily want knowledge of the abuse to be shrouded in mystery and whose victims' memories are often incomplete.

Programming is a form of abuse in which one is caused to dissociate via abusive methods - including drugging, hypnosis, and intentionally traumatizing people - and then trained to respond to commands that make them easier to abuse. In the past, the word referred to any kind of cult indoctrination, but in the plural sphere, it usually refers to a form of abuse that usually but does not always occur on an organized scale and/or result in a dissociative condition. It is usually referred to as a form of mind control.

Organized abuse is any abuse that is carried out by multiple people in an organized way. The term is comparable to "organized crime". Human trafficking is organized abuse, but so are abusive schools or cults. OEA is a more recent term that stands for "organized extreme abuse" and refers to any kind of organized abuse.

RAMCOA is an acronym that stands for Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse. Ritual abuse is any abuse that occurs in a ritualistic way, and it is not always religious. It is not be confused with the term Satanic Ritual Abuse, which it sounds similar to and that many people confuse ritual abuse with, but that is part of the Satanic Panic and that almost or literally never actually happens as reported or remembered. Mind control is usually in reference to programming. Some people say the term OEA is interchangeable with RAMCOA, but it is not, because ritual abuse and mind control can be carried out on a non-organized scale.

These things are often associated with certain conspiracies (e.g. Project Monarch), and sometimes conspiratorial information serves as guides for people to replicate these forms of abuse. However, abuse really does occur on a mass scale in real life through things like trafficking and cults, and if you have total control over a child, are abusing that child, and they develop DID, it is not difficult to take advantage of that child's amnesia and headmates to abuse them.

Q: Isn't it dangerous to have a space for programmed systems?

A: In some respects, it is, but there also ways in which it's dangerous to have a Discord server that is open to the public, and there are ways in which it's dangerous to talk about having any kind of trauma at all, or even being a system. If we were going to life our lives according to total safety, we would have to silence trauma victims, forgo public spaces, and abolish the plural community, none of which are good ideas.

Mushroom Fields has a rule against sharing information that would put you in danger. However, because all situations are different, the risks look different for different situations. The subserver also cautions that sharing trigger phrases or cues is usually dangerous, too, but even this can be subjective.

If you think you would put yourself in danger if you used Mushroom Fields, you don't have to use it, but for people whom it would help, it can help tremendously. Ultimately, everyone in this server is an adult, and they have the right to make all the decisions an adult has the right to make, including sharing or withholding their life story, and including the right to seek community with other adults.