Just a little update here - we've been essentially absent from FA for a few weeks now, and probably will be for a while longer. We were first distracted by making holiday gifts (pics to come on that, at least), but then my mate/Teo's daddy was in an accident. He was a pedestrian, it was a vehicular hit and run. He's okay, he was very lucky and it's "just" some broken bones (I say 'just'... it's a big deal but it's SO much less bad than it could have been), and he's recovering. He's out of the hospital now, but our lives have been kind of turned upside down for a while. So not that I have any avid watchers, per se, but if anyone's waiting to see art, it might be a while. There are only so many hours in a day and only so much energy at the moment. I'm afraid I haven't been drawing really, as I've been crocheting gifts, so that's probably the first art you'll see when things settle down... This has been your general FYI.

With the help of  samanthacat, we've opened a group here on FA for everybody on the plural spectrum -  furrymultiplicity. Though it's small now, we hope to see it expand and grow and become a community where friendship and discussion thrive.

Our artist profile has been updated, and we've added a new FAQ section as well. Hopefully this makes us a little easier to learn about and get in contact with!

"FAQ" may be overstating it a bit. Not that many people have contacted us yet here on FA, but from those few who have, and our interactions outside of this community, there are a few things that seem to come up a lot. Chances are I will update this as time goes on, and it will stay linked from our Bio page as well.

It's roughly organized into "very general things/things about both of us", "things about Teo" and "things about art" in that order. I've put lines between each 'section', so you can kind of scroll around if you want to... the coding for journals here doesn't seem to allow me to organize it much better at the moment.

So you've seen us, you've read a little about us, and you're curious, but maybe you've never met a plural system before, or a trans person before, or for whatever reason, you've got questions but you're nervous about approaching us. Here, then, is the first rule: try not to panic. If you're anxious, we'll be tense, it just won't be very helpful for anybody.

Rule number two, just be respectful. You don't have to understand us. Just don't be rude or mean, and if we correct you on a term because we prefer to be referred to another way, adapt.

That's it. Just stuff you should probably have figured out by interacting with other people. See, we're not that different, really!

Now on to what people seem to want to know:

Q: I have questions. Can I just message you out of the blue?

A: Yup. You can note us here or get to us through AIM and Skype (text only) if you prefer. If you catch us off of FA, when you message us, let us know you found us here so we don't have to wonder if you're another round of spam-bots, please. We'd hate to ignore a real person.

Q: You say 'we' a lot. Can I talk to just one of you? Can you act like just one person?

A: You can talk to us separately, yes. Or you can have us on a 'conference call' where both of us will respond. Yes, we can pretend to be a singular person/entity, but what that really means for the most part is that it's just me (Shifter).

Q: Why are you 'out' about everything?

A: Because 'real life', off the internet, we have to spend a lot of time pretending to be things we aren't. Unless we're with friends who know, we have to pretend that Teo doesn't exist, and it isn't fair to him that that's how life should always be, online and off. I also spend a lot of time pretending to be your average cisgendered male, but I wasn't raised as a boy, and so there are stories I can't tell and experiences I can't share. I don't know if you've ever spent your life hiding who you are, but it's stressful, and online is where we let it all hang out, so to speak. We'd rather people meet us knowing who and what we are, and know us as individuals, rather than spring it on people later.

Q: Okay, so if I talk to you, how do I know who I'm talking to?

A: That depends, how did you contact us? If it's here or on Skype, you'll probably talk to me first, but you could also reach Teo if you ask. He's just not as good with words, so he doesn't talk quite as much, and we do often worry that the way that he talks will put people off if they see it first, though hopefully that's more our insecurities than actual truth. If you contacted us through AIM, you'll get whoever you sent the message to - our accounts there are separate, we have them listed on our main artist page. If you've contacted us in a way that you could get either of us (here or Skype), assume that the 'default' is me (Shifter), I'm by default at the 'front'. If we switch back and forth between myself and Teo, we usually bracket his words with slashes /like this/, so that you'll know it's him instead. Although, our speaking styles are so different, you'd probably know anyway. If you see capital letters at all, it's not Teo, unless somehow I made a mistake typing for him.

Q: Is it like "Sybil"? Are you going to 'turn into' different people?

A: It's really not like that for us, and really, Sybil is kind of a poor account to base your understanding of plurals on, in my experience. (That's without getting into the questions about the veracity of the account to begin with.) We don't get 'stuck' switching - you won't start talking to me, end up with Teo and never be able to get back. We're a very co-conscious system, what that means is that 'switching' for us is much more fluid overall. Basically, I'm stuck up here basically manning the console at all times by default, but Teo can either pipe up from 'behind' me, or share the front with me, or mostly take over (except for the things I do for him automatically like reading and typing), but I never entirely lose the thread of what's going on. Similarly, if he's at all interested, he will know what's going on all the time, too. If we're comfortable with somebody, he might just pop in with his comments in the middle of a conversation, but generally we take turns pretty calmly, and don't usually butt in on each other's conversation (at least, not without good reason). We are individual people, please understand that, but it's not the violent, uncontrolled switching that you've probably seen on TV.

Q: If you're multiple, then something happened to you to make you that way, right?

A: It's a common misconception, really, that all plurals must have been traumatized as children. Our experience has been that while all the literature on it says so, very few of the systems that we know actually have been. I think this really boils down to the fact that plurals who are not disordered - that is, the fact that there are multiple people inside one body is not a source of distress for them or impacting their daily life in a negative way - don't seek help for it. If they do go to therapy or seek psychiatric care for an unrelated issue, they tend not to report their multiplicity, because it's such a divisive issue in the medical community. So the only cases that psychiatric care givers are likely to ever 'see' are cases where the dissociation is so bad (which usually means everyone inside is not communicating well with one another) that it's a very negative thing in that person/system's life. And a lot of times yes, that was caused by something horrible, though not always in childhood. There are a lot more of us who are just sort of naturally this way. Our brains are just wired to hold more than one 'program', if you will. For us specifically, I was always a little changeable, without that stability of personality that 'singlets' take for granted, but Teo came along later. It's not a trauma thing, in our case.

Q: You're just parts of the same person then, right?

A: While I'm not able to subscribe fully to either the conventional psychiatric nor less conventional spiritual explanations for how and why we exist, the short answer is no. If you need to hold the belief that he's split off of me inside yourself to get along, fine - but don't treat us that way or refer to us that way. At the end of the day, when you're dealing with us, it doesn't really matter how we came to be - does it matter to you if your friends were born 'naturally' or via c-section? We're separate people, and should be treated that way. He's not a 'single purpose personality' like you may have read about or seen on TV - he's not just around to relive a memory, or developed to deal with certain situations, he has a continuity of self, diverse interests, independent opinions, just like any other person. Is our situation unique to that of two fully separate/separate bodied individuals? Yeah. Definitely. I guess the best way to think of it is we are two separate people who inhabit the same hardware and share a tele-empathic link... but we're still individuals.

Q: Can I ask you a really personal question about (transition/trans life/gender/sexuality/plural life)?

A: If you ask it respectfully, yes. Just be aware of two things: one, it doesn't happen that often, but I might decline to answer if it seems too personal or for some reason makes me uncomfortable. Two, I do not speak for, nor represent the majority of plurals or trans people. There are a lot of things for which I don't toe the party line, so to speak, so depending on what you're asking about, you might get an answer that's really very unrepresentative of what you'd get from asking a wide variety of people of whatever subset you're curious about. However, when I can, I will generally try to give the curious a general idea of what I've seen expressed in the wider community as well.

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Q: Can I ask Teo a personal question, even though he's young?

A: Again, if you ask respectfully, yes. However, you might want to prepare yourself for the fact that his answer might not resemble anything you were expecting. It might be vague, it might go off on a tangent, or he might misinterpret it entirely - I've noticed his thought processes aren't always recognizably linear, even to me, and I can experience how he arrived at his answers.

Q: I'm talking to Teo, and I'm having a hard time understanding something he's trying to communicate. Can't you just translate for me?

A: I could, and if he's getting so frustrated that I have to, I will, but I don't like to if I think he can work around it himself. While it is true that since he doesn't have his own body, he gets a constant chaperone/empath/translator, he's still his own person and he likes to be able to operate as independently as possible, and since I feel like that's wholly reasonable, I try to stay out of things when I can to give him that chance. However, I will respond/butt in on things if I need to alleviate his anxiety or frustration, or if I feel like he needs protection from something or someone.

Q: I'm talking to Teo, and he seems to have weird gaps in his knowledge - didn't you say that you guys share information and he watches what's going on?

A: Yes, we do, but yes, he also can have gaps in his knowledge. While it's true that either of us can kind of root around in each other's heads, so to speak (after all, we're running on the same hardware), we can also choose not to. He tends to like to experience things firsthand, so while he could get information on just about anything, he sometimes just doesn't look, or doesn't want more than a bare-bones understanding until he can learn it by experiencing it. For example, I've seen the original Star Wars trilogy many times, but because of... things.. I haven't watched it in years. So Teo's never seen them. He knows they exist and has a limited understanding, and he's been on Star Tours at Disneyland. However, he's never actually experienced them himself, and while he could look at my own memories, his knowledge really isn't any greater than someone with their own body who's heard people talk about it and seen stills online and been on the ride. There's also the issue of how well he's paid attention when we've done things since he's been here - if a TV show is boring to him, he's not paying any more attention to it than anyone else who was just in the same room as it but not really watching, so he won't know more about it than that without looking around 'inside'. If we had to do something scary like surgery, he was probably hiding himself the best he could, and won't know details.

Yes, you could ask him to 'find out' from 'inside', but we'd prefer that you don't - if he asks you a question it seems like he should know the answer to, he's asking because he wants the answer firsthand, not secondhand. Telling him to find out himself feels a bit condescending and frustrating, especially since it's something that people used to do to him specifically to brush him off.

Q: I was trying to joke around, but Teo took it very seriously. Doesn't he have a sense of humor?

A: He does, but he's also exceedingly bad at understanding sarcasm, irony, puns, double entendres and humorous exaggeration - even though these are things that I use frequently. Language is not his strong suit, and while he may have an inkling that this is 'one of those times' when a person is saying something they don't mean, he generally takes the road of treating it literally just in case. The only time he really 'gets' the joke is if there's an image or vocal cues to illustrate it as well - it always really reminds me of a bit from Family Guy where 'the foreign guy at the office' is explaining why sarcasm is funny. That's pretty much how it works for Teo - if you say 'nice day we're having' and he can see that you're wet from the rain, he's pretty likely to understand from your tone of voice and the situation that that's a joke. If you type "it's been raining a lot - such nice weather!" and he cannot see anything nor hear your tone of voice, although he knows most people don't love rain, he's going to assume you like it.

Q: I think I might have met Teo before, but it was roleplay. I'm a little uncomfortable now that you're saying he's real.

A: Roleplay is still pretend! So take a deep breath, everything's okay. Roleplay allows Teo a couple of things - he gets to be 'seen' as what he is, a four legged cat-lion, and not what he lives in - a human body. That's very valuable for him. It also gives him the same chance it gives everybody - to play act things that he likes to think about but doesn't/wouldn't actually do, or to experiment with concepts he doesn't have another outlet for. Yeah, he's behind it/involved, but everything does get filtered through me first so I can put things in context for him and so I can polish up the ideas that come back out, so everything ends up with my spin, too. So really, you only know him about as well as you know anybody who RPs who'd tell you their fursona is pretty much them - I've done that too, and although attitudes, opinions and feelings are true to life, actions usually aren't, and reactions are tinkered to fit the fantasy! You can still approach him if you want, and expect about the usual degree of awkwardness when you first meet someone 'out of character'. You're also welcome to address your feelings with me if you need to.

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Q: Looking at your gallery, you don't really seem to stick to one thing or one style. What's up with that, is it because you're multiple?

A: I don't know! I've always just been terrible at sticking to one medium or one style forever. As you might have seen in our plurality primer, I do, myself, seem to be a bit fractured, separate from Teo. That might have something to do with it, maybe different bits of me like different things. Maybe I'm just restless! Teo doesn't stick to any one thing forever either, but he mostly just wants to try everything available. It's all play to him on some level and he likes to try out any new 'toys' that make things look 'cool'. So do I, I suppose, at the end of the day!

Q: Can I get art from you? Trades? Commissions? Gifts?

A: Maybe. It really depends. Because we switch mediums a lot, there are some things we're more comfortable and familiar with than others, and depending on what you want, it might be something we're able to tailor to spec or it might be something we don't have a great grasp of yet and don't feel comfortable tackling. I'm going to tend to be picky about trades, and I'm not technically having us open for commissions, but if you're really taken with something and want a piece like it, feel free to drop us a line. Gifts, we really just have to be moved to do it, I don't think it's something that can really be requested, per se. If you want art from Teo, first understand that I doubt he can work to spec. For him, things for other people are tailored to them, but in a much more emotional/feeling way than in a literal 'this is what they like' way. It as much expresses his feeling about the recipient as his sense of who they are. If you wanted to request something from him, you'd be best off either not expecting anything more specific than "I wanted a collage thing" or "a painted thing", or getting to know him pretty well before inquiring. Occasionally, we may just have pre-existing stuff up for straight sale or auction.

Q: Can I offer you artistic advice/critique?

A: I suppose, politely, although I doubt there's a harsher critic of my own work than me. Please don't for Teo, we're just letting him play, and I don't want to ruin the fun for him. What I do definitely need are some digital tips for coloring, texturing etc, so if you know some stuff about GIMP and the Wacom Bamboo tablet, let me know!

Q: Can you teach me how to do something that you do?

A: Maybe. I'm often not that great at explaining art stuff without visual aids, though. Depends on what it is, but I wouldn't say that we really have any 'trade secrets' at the moment - that is, things that we do that are so different from how everyone else does it that we want it proprietary so we are better able to sell our work. If we've adapted techniques, we're generally okay sharing how we did it.

And that's it, as of this moment. If other things seem to come up, I'll try to keep this updated for reference!

Hi everyone!

More than just having a place to post our art, we're really hoping to make some new friends here. Just please bear with us as we try to figure out the site. I'm sure it's all second nature to most everyone by now, but we're still working out what everything does, and what the general etiquette is, etc. I'm sure we'll pick it up soon enough, but in the meantime, understand that if we put something in the wrong spot or don't respond to something, it's probably just that I have to futz around with it a little bit more.

Anyway, thanks for visiting, hope to get to know some of you soon!

Somehow, it's much easier to write a bio for Teo than it is to write one for myself! Let's see...

Furry-wise, I've been hanging out at the edges of the community for years now. I haven't been particularly active anywhere, and have so far only been to two conventions, Anthrocon in '03 and Califur in '13, though I hope to go to Furcon in 2014. I actually discovered it through being a fan of CATS the musical, and while visiting people's costuming pages, I discovered furry, though honestly, I've been furry my whole life, I just didn't know there were OTHER people out there, some of whom identified as anthropomorphic animals. I've made tails and ears of various sorts throughout the years as part of my costuming passion, although by and large they've been feline. I'm still seeking the perfect tail and ears... someday I'll figure it out, or find someone who makes just what I want! I have a fairly extensive collection of Shanda the Panda and Katmandu comics, which nowadays is making me feel old, since hardly anyone seems to remember them anymore, but I still love them, and wish they came in hardbound collections like ASB. My furry self has morphed a bit over the years, from a white-and-black cat to a black-and-white cat, to a black cat. I am changeable though, and find myself in different moods where I am different things, but that's basically my default.

Plural wise, I'm the 'main fronter', as they'd say in the multiple communities, though I don't really aspire to be - it just sort of is how it is. I share with Teo and try to make sure he gets time to do the things he needs, both because I care about him and because if he's unhappy, we're BOTH unhappy, it just sort of leaks around. I help him out with using our hands, since it's so foreign to a four-pawed kitten like him, and I read and write for him, since he isn't literate. I've always loved crafting things, and I like sharing art with him.

Art wise, I do draw a bit, though I've fallen out of it in the last few years. I'm trying to be a little better about doing it more, because I'd like to get better at it. I've done a lot of costuming, which has ranged from sewing, to drafting/jury-rigging basic patterns, to fabricating items, to makeup and accessory work. I've done a lot of different kinds of beadwork over the years, and I'm comfortable with several bead stitches for seed beads as well as basic stringing. I can knit a little (is it a rectangle? I can knit it), and I'm learning crochet, which feels a bit more flexible in what I can do with it, so I'm enjoying it. I'm trying to learn to paint/color digitally, but I keep getting frustrated, despite having perfectly good tools at my disposal, it just doesn't seem to be something that I have a natural knack for. I need to find some patience and sit down and try to learn how to do it, even though it's probably not my artistic calling.

Life wise, I was born in Upstate New York and moved to California as an adult. I'm a transman, I've had some surgery and take hormones. Gender wise, however, I'd say I'm really more physically transgendered and mentally masculine intersex. If you're curious, ask me about it, I'd have a conversation about it, so long as you're not closed minded. I've worked in retail for many years, and staying afloat financially has always been a struggle since I moved out of my parent's house. Someday soon, we hope to supplement our income by selling some crafts on etsy. Honestly, although I'm part of a lot of odd little subsets of culture, I think I'm pretty boring!

If you want to contact me directly, a good way to reach me is on AIM as "Turloughdr5". I'm looking into getting us a Skype username, since everyone seems to be on there these days. You can also find me on Steam (also Turloughdr5), but it just sort of stays on all the time, I'm not always there (or on the computer that's logged in at the time). I'm better about logging off of AIM when I walk away, although sometimes I do accidentally leave us on overnight...

Teo is a young lion/cat hybrid, who lives as one of a few people in the same human body. While not 'multiple personalities' in the traditionally psychiatric sense, he isn't an imaginary friend, role playing character or 'fursona', either. He is a person, just a little different.

In appearance, he looks mostly like a white lion cub, and you'd be fairly safe picturing that in your head, a white little lion with a black tufted tail. Just picture him a bit shaggier than a normal lion cub, since he has medium-long white cat fur, instead of short, coarse lion fur that lies flat, and his ears are larger, pointier house cat ears, not shorter, rounder lion ears. Since just about everyone on Furaffinity is probably at least passingly familiar with the Lion King, size-wise we'd say he's bigger than Young Simba, smaller than the briefly seen "Teen Simba". He's a full quadruped, and doesn't even have a Disney level of dexterity with his forepaws - he can do what a cat can do. We prefer the term "quadruped" over "feral", because "feral" implies that he doesn't think or reason like a person, when he absolutely does. He can use the body's hands for some things, but tends to need help to do anything that requires a lot of dexterity, because ten fingers is considerably different from two forepaws.

Sometimes described as an 'old soul', and definitely influenced by being a kitty, his age is a little difficult to pin down. While the human body is decidedly of age, Teo is just as certainly a child. People who know him have guessed his age relative to human children might be around 7 years old, though some of his insights may seem older, and his emotional development sometimes seems a little younger. If you ask him directly, you might get any of three responses: 5, 7 or 10. He never grows up, or changes ages (we know some plurals who do, but he is not an 'age slider'), but he can't seem to decide which number he likes best! We don't make him choose, since age is really just a number to give other people a reference point. His language skills shouldn't be held indicative of his age, as expressing himself in words has always been difficult for him, which may or may not have to do with being feline instead of human. He is quite capable of, and interested in handling many mature/grown-up concepts, in his own way.

A note here about his language skills: he doesn't speak in correct English grammar, and he does not like capital letters to be used in anything he writes. It's true that I (Shifter) write everything out for him, since he isn't literate without my help, and I could 'fix' it for him, but I don't. If I did, it wouldn't sound like him, and wouldn't give an accurate example of what he's like. Online, in his journal, for example, or when chatting, he pretty much has to 'use his words', but there are days when he really just feels more like an animal, and while he still has the complex feelings of a thinking being, he chooses to present himself more like an animal. In those cases, if he's talking to someone, I'm also doing a bit of interpreting more nebulous thoughts into words. He likes role-play environments, because it's an opportunity for him to pretend he actually has the kitty body that is 'him', instead of the human body he's stuck inside.

His interests are varied, but tend to revolve around creative things, cozy things, social things or animal things. He likes to do things he can do himself in the body without a lot of assistance from his headmates, but being a quadrupedal, hands-less cat inside a bipedal human body makes it a little difficult for him to do things all by himself sometimes without working closely together with one of the other people in the body. He likes to help design and work on other crafts, and his particular affinity for gemstones, crystals and natural materials makes him adept at choosing jewelry materials. He likes snuggling with stuffed animals, and seems to be trying to collect every white lion toy ever made into a cozy family. (His favorite is a white male lion he has named "Bear".) He also collects shells and interesting rocks from the beach. Three of his favorite local-ish places to go are Disneyland, the beach, and the Aquarium of the Pacific, where he likes to watch the fish, particularly the brightly colored ones. Whether he likes watching them because they spark his artistic creativity or because cats like watching fish is unclear. His favorite vacation spot is to visit "the rock store" in Arizona.

Teo is usually a very warm, giving, sensitive boy. Shy at first, he's very affectionate when he warms up to someone. He had an adoptive family of sorts a few years ago, who abandoned him, and he still feels the loss, though it has gotten easier with time. (He does find the themes of father-loss and brotherhood upsetting.) He really wants some new friends, though he often has a hard time getting along with other kids - maybe because he spends so much time sharing space and thoughts with two older people, or because of his old-soul thoughts, or conflicting child emotions. He'd like some adult, nurturing presences in his life, but is shy in trying to meet people, for fear they won't recognize him as a real, independent and capable person. He's actually the most social of all of us and really likes to be around people, but he's often very quiet, because he's gotten flak even from other plurals about how he talks.

He can be contacted directly through AIM as TeoKitten, and generally prefers to communicate there, in real time. He is not especially diligent about responding to comments on his journal, though he does read them - the time between posting and commenting, combined with the system's time management, sometimes causes him to lose track of the conversation in comments - it is very rarely for any lack of interest or affection. If contacting him through AIM for the first time, please indicate that you saw his journal, found him here on Furaffinity, or otherwise introduce yourself, as there are spam-bots that contact the IM accounts of all system members from time to time, and it is now assumed that an unrecognized name that sends only "Hi" or "Hello" at first is spam, and we block those without replying. If he doesn't seem to warm up to posed 'actions' on AIM, it's because that's not usually the venue he uses to 'be a kitty', and the line between reality and fantasy there is a little blurry for him. It used to seem very real when he would snuggle with his family over AIM, but since they left, it's been uncomfortable for him.

If you've happened to have met him in a roleplay environment, please be aware that you've met him through a bit of a 'filter', as I interpret his desired actions into text and often DO clean up his speech a little bit for clarity. Also be aware that roleplay is not real to him, it's extra-engaged fantasy. If he's friendly with you in that environment, chances are he does feel that way about you - what he knows of you, anyway. We're as confident as we can be that he understands that other people may be more or less engaged in how 'real' it is than he is. Like any fantasy, he does experiment with actions and attitudes that aren't true to himself or things he'd actually want to do 'for real'. Bearing that in mind, please don't feel strange on our account, feel free to contact him through his journal or AIM whether you know him or not!

An introductory post about how our plurality works for us, so that you can understand a little better what's going on.

For us, there are a couple of levels of multiplicity going on. Myself, I'm a bit changeable, and don't have an entirely cohesive sense of self. Think of it like a slightly more extreme version of the sort of thing everybody does: you have a "work self", a "home self", probably different "selves" for different friends, and likely a "furry self" too, even if you don't feel like your fursona is you. For me, the divide between each of these things is a little bigger, so it can affect the way I remember things (some things, even if they happen the same day, I may feel happened to someone 'else', since I'm no longer 'that person), and certainly affects the general continuity of 'selfhood' for me. It's part of why I identify strongly as a shapeshifter, I can't quite seem to stay consistent all the time. Meanwhile, Teo lives in the same body, the same "headspace" as I do, but I can tell from what I get from him that he's much more centered and confident of who he is, and both of us agree that he is a separate person from me.

So what's it like for us in here? Well, we don't have a richly developed inner world like some systems do. There are plurals who have whole houses, communities, even worlds inside where they all live. For us, it's just sort of a formless space we share. We can look at each other if we focus inward. Otherwise, most of the time I sort of experience it as someone 'riding along' with me in our body/head. Hearing him talk, it's not like hearing voices, there's no confusion whether it's a sound coming from outside, or something coming from inside. Sometimes I do "hear" him talking, other times it's a sort of foreign thought running by, something that I can 'hear' as though it's a regular thought, but the feeling of it is not as though I'm thinking it myself. Other times, it's a sort of sent or shared feeling or impression, rather than anything fully formed. While things Teo writes online are written out as fully formed (if unconventional) sentences, sometimes that's me translating a bit from a less formed idea, to get it out.

Some systems completely change 'fronters' - that's who's in control - but we don't exactly do that. I'm pretty much stuck up here at all times. Teo has the freedom to sit back a bit further and not interact with the world so much, or to sit up closer, as it were, paying more attention, or to basically share front with me, to actually actively interact with the world. We don't consciously control it - I can exert some will to keep him from acting out in public inappropriately (if, for example, he wants to sit down and draw in the middle of work), but I can't really, and no longer attempt to, shut him out from watching and listening to what's going on. Therefore, it's safe to say no matter which of us you're talking to, both of us will know what you said. I can't keep a secret from him - if you told me what his birthday present was, he would know. The very act of bringing him up in conversation tends to make him pay more attention to begin with. Conversely, he can't be at front without sharing with me, so anything you tell him, I'll definitely be there. While I can back off a little when in some situations, while online, we're definitely fully co-fronting, as he does not read, write or type by himself.

It means that while we hope everyone will be civil, of course, and kind to Teo especially, being mindful in their comments about his artwork that he is both young and sensitive, we do not ask you to censor anything for 'maturity'. Teo himself may be young, but he lives in an adult human body, sharing with a (relative) adult. He's seen all things sexual and heard just about every bit of foul language imaginable. He's really good about knowing what are things he wants to be involved with and what aren't. We police ourselves and decide for ourselves what's okay and what isn't - there isn't a general rule and there are no laws about this way of being, so we feel it's up to us.

Hopefully that's answered a few questions. If you have more, by all means, feel free to contact us!