caffeinatedOtter

Caffeinated Otter

@caffeinatedOtter

  • he/him

You're here for the fic; all of it is also on my personal site.

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Personal website (fic mirror):
brain-implant.tech/
itch:
llemoi.itch.io/
ko-fi:
ko-fi.com/O5O7V2V76
Fallen London:
www.fallenlondon.com/profile/Refrangeline
Dreamwidth:
llemoi.dreamwidth.org/
caffeinatedOtter
@caffeinatedOtter
estrogen-and-spite
@estrogen-and-spite
lunasorcery
@lunasorcery

Is there a word for, and if not can someone coin a word for, things whose functionality is dependent on their existence in the plural?

Some examples:

  • Telephones — Alexander Graham Bell was initially disappointed with the apparent uselessness of his first telephone, until the Ghostbusters quote “Who you gonna call?” fell through a rift in time and he realized he needed to invent the second telephone too.
  • Train stations — Congratulations! You’ve built the world’s first train station. Where do the trains go?
  • LEGO(-alike) building blocks
  • Gears

Also suggest more examples too!

Edit: a couple of folks over on Mastodon independently pitched "homodependent" as a term, and I think we're onto a winner there.

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in reply to @lunasorcery's post:

Jeran
@Jeran

Set-dependent! homodependent makes it feel like it requires identical things, but things like legos only require things with a similar set of properties.

But also homodependent is more fun to say lol.

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