• What do you go by collectively?

The Salt Institute / Salts.

• How should people refer to you?

Individually when applicable, as much as possible. Collectively if addressing all of us, talking about us as a whole, or mentioning things we did together as a collective.

• What terms do you prefer for referring to yourselves as individuals, or as a group?

As individuals: sysmate, sysmember, person, guy, Salt.

As a group: system, collective, guys, family, Salts.

Please don't call any of us: "alters" (medical term we don't identify with); "parts" (of a single person), "personalities", or similar terms that imply we aren't whole individuals. None of us are "more real" than or "more of a person" than anyone else here, and we're a collective, a team of guys, not "parts of" a single individual.

(Some of us may use that language for themselves; just don't assume it's fine with everyone and don't use it if we haven't used it first.)

• Who in your system are people most likely to interact with?

See the "main" tab! You're most likely to interact with the folks listed as fronters there. We try to share time somewhat equally in theory; in practice, some of our fronters are around more than others. It's safe to assume Jonathan is around at any given time, but ze generally keeps to the background and prefers not to handle socials on hir own. With everyone else, fronting frequency generally cycles on a weekly(-ish) basis.

Don't expect to talk to insiders.

A note here: many of us are fictives. Please refer to our Fictive Etiquette Note for specific interaction etiquette. (If you're reading this from the Ongoing tab: It's on the right from this note!)

• Will people be interacting with any child members?

We have several teens in-system, including Matt (18 years old) and Tsubaki (15 years old). They front occasionally. Please remember they're teens, although with an adult's life experience, and adjust your interactions accordingly.

We also have a 5-year-old, Sunlight. Outside of our immediate circles, she won't interact without adult backup.

• Are there any system members who are nonverbal or otherwise have difficulty communicating? What should others expect when speaking with them?

We all may lose our words occasionally.

In our case, this usually means we are only able to type in very simple sentences and/or emojis, and cannot speak vocally beyond "yes / no / eh". Some of us like to communicate through memes. Sometimes someone else in-system will be able to translate on behalf of a nonverbal Salt, sometimes everyone will be affected. Please keep talking to us normally when this happens - our Make Word Machine may be broken, but we still understand what you're saying and appreciate being included in the conversation!

(Note that you shouldn't rely on how complex our vocabulary is to estimate how verbal we are. We'll usually have trouble with grammar and sentence structure before we start forgetting individual words, even "complicated" ones. Words and definitions are generally fine; the problem is more often assembling them coherently.)

We're also all affected by alexithymia to a degree. This means we may struggle with processing emotions fast enough to respond in a timely manner, or with putting emotions into words.

• What should people do if they don't know who's at front?

Ask! (Discreetly or in private, in contexts where we're not out as plural.)

Offline, we'll usually announce switches if it's relevant in conversation; you can also ask to add us on Simply Plural to be notified of switches.

• Is it okay for people to ask if they can talk to someone who isn't at front at the moment?

If you're not sure the person is at front: ask if they are (see above)!

If you know for sure the person isn't at front: you can ask to talk to them when they come back or leave a message for them, and we'll pass the information along.

Note that it's okay to express missing one specific Salt, or mentioning something you'd like to do or tell them next they're around! If they haven't been around much recently, chances are we miss them too. Just... please try to have some tact, don't phrase it as a comparison ("I wish X was here because I like them better than you, Y") or similar -- we think "if you wouldn't say this to a singlet's flatmate about Singlet, probably don't say it to a system member about their sysmate" is a good rule of thumb for that kind of thing.

• If someone talks to one of you, will other system members be aware of the conversation? Will they be actively watching, or just able to remember it later?

Anyone who's at front when a conversation happens will be aware of its contents, although they might choose to look away and ignore it if needed.

Anyone not at front when a conversation happens will probably recall the gist of it later, but may not be able to easily access details on their own.

• Adding onto the above – if multiple system members are aware of a conversation, will they want to chime in? If someone wants to speak to a system member one-on-one, what expectations can they have and how should they communicate this?

Anyone at front is allowed to chime in if they have something relevant to add to a conversation (outside of private DMs explicitly shared with only one Salt).

Given how often we cofront, being able to speak with any given Salt one-on-one is a rare occurrence. Absolute privacy from other Salts is not something any of us can (or will) offer. That said, folks will agree to politely look away and occupy their thoughts with something else if it's needed. You can always ask (politely) for this.

(Note that if you only need privacy from one Salt, e.g. for a surprise, gift, or similar, we rotate often enough that you may wait until they are not at front.)

• How out are you? What should people do when talking to people who don't know you're plural?

Online: We're out as plural on all of the online plaftorms we use that aren't connected to our offline life in some way.

You can refer to us as the Salt Institute and use our individual names with anyone who does not know us from offline. If you tell someone about us as a system, do not give them any information that may be used to identify us offline (e.g. work information, pictures of us or our surroundings, the city we live in...).

Ask us before linking anyone to our listography or any of our social media.

Offline: Absolutely DO NOT out us as plural to anyone without explicit permission from a Salt, including to other people you know are plural. (See the "singlet persona" list on this page re: how you should refer to us in contexts where we are not out.)

We will tell you who knows already, and whom we don't mind letting know; you can ask if we want to be outed to specific people, but please respect our answer. We will terminate friendships if we tell you not to out us to someone, and you do it anyway.

• Do you have any internal communication difficulties, memory issues, switch triggers... that others should be mindful of?

With internal communication and memory access:

• We get blurry relatively often. This means we are not sure who's around currently, aren't sure who we are, or aren't sure who's saying and doing what. This is a thing that happens, and not a cause for worry; we will unblur eventually.
• We generally have decent internal communication, especially while sharing a co-front. At times we may partially or totally lose internal communication; when that happens, we can use a private Discord server to talk and/or leave messages to ourselves.
• Although we have good immediate continuity between fronters, our overall recall is poor and we often forget things. We have a lot of trouble estimating how long ago something happened, especially if it's been more than a few days. (Collective continuity hasn't been as much of a problem since Jonathan's arrival, but this is still relevant to how we perceive time and remember things individually.)
• We usually have access to other Salts' in-body memories, but they can be vague or "out of sight" if the person is not around to help supply details. Don't take it personally if you have to tell us the same things a lot for them to stick; it's our brain, not how much we care.

Outworld:

• We have auditory processing difficulties. In person or voice chat, we need you to enunciate as clearly as you can. We may need time to process what you have said before we can reply. In order to understand what you said we may need you to repeat yourself, spell words out, or write things down. Closed captioning for videos that you share (or anything we may watch together) is always appreciated when available.
• We're autistic. We may miss sarcasm or misunderstand metaphors (this happens more often in person than over text), and we have trouble correctly interpreting body language and tone (as well as producing the "correct" body language and tone). We try! That said, if you feel that we are misreacting to what you said, please check in with us that we've understood you properly and/or ask us to clarify what we mean. Be as clear and direct as you can. (Don't worry about sounding rude! We need you to be as verbally direct as possible, because 80-90% of the time we will not pick up on "polite" hints and subtle cues.)

Please be patient if we don't understand you or your meaning immediately. It's frustrating to be told "nevermind" when we want to understand what you've shared with us but our brain is not cooperating!

• Your stance on being asked questions? (about personal experience, preferences, plurality in general...)

Yes! We may not answer if the topic feels too personal, but you can ask us anything as long as you are respectful and ask in good faith. We'd rather you ask even if it seems like it should be obvious, than assume and get it wrong.

• If you have a FAQ or system site, feel free to link it here.

You're reading it!

(We found the Plural Etiquette Questionnaire here. Thank you for reading the whole thing!)