Welcome to the Plural Café!

Grab a hot cocoa or coffee from the bar, kick back and relax. This is a Mastodon instance that is focused around fostering a friendly and welcoming community for plural systems and plural-friendly singlets alike. Multiple accounts for each systemmate is also allowed, if you choose!

For our Privacy Policy, Instance Rules, and server information, see our Terms of Service page. All donations for server costs are accepted via our Patreon or Liberapay. We're also listed on Plural Hub! Follow this link to see more plural communities and resources.

This instance uses Mutant Standard emoji made by Dzuk, which are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The Plural Café administrators can be reached via email at admin [AT] plural [DOT] cafe, or alternatively by direct messaging the administrators listed in the @Barkeep description.

What is Mastodon?

From joyeusenoelle's An Increasingly Less-Brief Guide to Mastodon:

Mastodon is Twitter-style social networking combined with email-style instanced servers. It's named after the metal band, but themed after the extinct megafauna.

Each Mastodon instance is independent but networked, like email servers. If you sign up for an email account on gmail.com, you don't automatically have an account on hotmail.com or aol.com, but you can send and receive messages to and from users on hotmail.com and aol.com.

Likewise, if you sign up for an account on mastodon.social, that doesn't make an account for you on every other instance, but you can talk to users from other instances and they can talk to you.

Read on for more or see Mastodon's official FAQ.

What is Plurality?

From Plurality Resource:

The most simplified definition of the term plural that includes all people who take the label is “someone who shares the same physical body with other individuals.” Such a group is sometimes referred to as a system, though many plural groups use different terminology. Because plurality can take many vastly different forms, it is difficult to expand this definition without excluding someone who might otherwise share characteristics or concerns with most other members of the community. It does seem this basic trait is the only thing groups of people who refer to themselves as plural universally share. In other words, there are many, many ways to be plural, and no two systems are the same even as far as basic characteristics. There are a lot of trends in the community, however, and various types within the umbrella term of plural that seem to be subsets.

There is a prevailing theory in the community that sees plurality as a spectrum going from singlet (one person in one physical body) to median (a term describing groups that have one main member plus others who are somewhat separate) to multiple (a group of distinct individuals in which more than one person can take control of the physical body). Groups who deviate from these subsets are seen as occupying an in-between ground along the spectrum.

More information can be found on Healthy Multiplicity, Tulpa.io, or the Blackbirds' Layman's Guide to Multiplicity.

Short version of Instance Rules

1. You must be thirteen years old (in body age) to join this instance. If you are found to be younger than this age, your account will be suspended and you will be asked to return when you are older.
2. Any triggering content or NSFW material should be hidden behind a CW button.
3. If the user has the hashtag #nobot in their profile bio, bots from this instance and other instances are not allowed interaction, including following.
4. No spam or blatant advertising.
5. Do not promote illegal activities.
6. Invalidating others is never allowed. Respect the identities, experiences, and personhood of others. We do not allow users to demean or talk down to others, regardless of whether the other is a daemon, a tulpa, or a multiple systemmate.
7. Bigotry, hate and prejudice, be it racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, or homophobia, is not tolerated. Same goes with insulting and flaming.
8. Respect the spiritual beliefs of others.
9. While you are welcome to debate, please remain respectful. Remember you're talking to an actual person.
10. Do not impersonate others, as this will result in an immediate suspension.
11. Leaking personal information, including for the purpose of mocking or "spreading dirt", doxxing, brigading, dogpiling, stalking, harassing, will also result in an immediate suspension.

With the exception of offenses specifying immediate suspensions and obvious spamming/trolling, violations will result first in warning, then in temporary suspensions, then in indefinite suspensions. Particularly blatant offenses will result in immediate indefinite suspensions, including and especially threatening to harm another member. Users on other instances running afoul of these rules are not immune and will be silenced ("temporary suspension") or suspended ("indefinite suspension"). Violations by instance administrators may result in the entire instance being silenced or suspended.

An expanded version of these Instance Rules are found here.