I appreciate this community and am grateful for the work you do to organize it and support its growth!

Disclaimer: I am not at all a part of the polyamory scene, I just enjoy playing with words and this came up on my doomscroll.

Obviously you can call them whatever you want, whether that's "Twigs" or "Divinities", no one has a right to tell you what words you may and may not use.

But that's obvious. The question you asked is what options are there, and that's a funner question.

Thinking only a few moments I like "Connections" but expect anyone other than me would interpret that with a degree of sterility.

There's "Friends with Benefits" or just "Hookups" but given the context, I think the word you're looking for must be one that implies more intimacy and meaning.

"Companions" just sounds like a Firefly reference but maybe it could work for others who don't make that association.

Fuck, I kind of like "Allies" but people will probably think you're talking about a role playing game.

Hmmm if you expand it to two words you open options like "Heart Friends" or "Deep Friends" or "Full Friends", I think that might strike people as really childishly poetic though.

A euphemistic and tongue-in-cheek name could be "Bed Friends", that probably still carries the casual tone of "Fuck Buddy" though.

Something less explicit but perhaps with too much unintended meaning would be "Supports". (Similar, "Pillars")

Oooh ooh I like this one, "Muse" carries a pretty intimate tone, though "Muses" maybe carries a tone of superiority... hmm

The rabbit hole my thoughts have gone down now is suggesting a single word for the category of people-you-sleep-with-and-also-have-relationships-with may be the problem. If instead you determine a word for each of these people describing what you love/like them for / value them specially for. This is the edge of my understanding of the polyamorous experience though, I'm not sure if the experience is so defined as to be described as a love this person because they are such an Imp of a person but you love this person because they feel like a God/Goddess and this other person is better described as a Rascal. Hmmm I don't like this avenue, this is basically the partners pet name but suggesting you use that word to describe your relationship to others in public is probably rarely appropriate.

My grandparents once asked me if I had any new "Squeezes", I think that carries a sufficiently intimate tone?

What the fuck? The Supreme Court made a decision that protects American citizens? Did they misunderstand the question?

If you have apples lying around, tearing one in half with your bare hands is actually pretty easy. There are quick guides on YouTube but basically, if I'm remembering right, you put the heels of your palms together at the bottom of the apple and finger tips at the stem and kind of squeeze the apple and try open the apple like a book. It makes a big difference having freshly washed hands.

What you describe is eerily similar to my story. In summary, being so good at masking all the various symptoms of depression/anxiety/autism that I never considered it possible I was autistic. My entire life I've never belonged to the group I was participating with, I was always a step removed because the "language" of the group wasn't native and took a degree of effort/concentration to use. That's a tangent...

The question was raised by a new friend a few years ago and I finally got professionally evaluated a few months ago. Yeah, I'm obviously autistic.

Having that label, in my experience, has been intensely validating. No longer was my status as a social failure an implication of my lack of effort or disrespect for others or oversensitivity. Now I knew that I didn't fit for a reason, a reason outside my control and not just laziness or selfishness.

That separation--being other, not belonging--absolutely still exists and it still is painful but now the difference I guess is that I know I'm not imagining it.

To your case; maybe getting evaluated could be a good idea. It opens up access to workplace ~~accomplishments~~ [EDIT: accomodations] that can, so easily, make a living less painful to earn. Or it can just bring a sort of peace-of-mind like mine did.

The label itself isn't terribly important. So long as you understand yourself and are comfortable with who you are, maybe you don't need a doctor to certify that you are exactly this-kind-of-weird. I went into my evaluation expecting I wouldn't qualify for an autism diagnosis but rather satisfied already with my own conviction that I was not neurotypical.

More than a century ago in fact;

I'd never heard of CAFE fees before;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy?wprov=sfla1

I think this is the specific bit that you are referencing;

CAFE has separate standards for "passenger cars" and "light trucks" even if the majority of "light trucks" are being used as passenger vehicles. The market share of "light trucks" grew steadily from 9.7% in 1979 to 47% in 2001, remained in 50% numbers up to 2011.

Interesting also;

In addition, a Gas Guzzler Tax is levied on individual passenger car models (but not trucks, vans, minivans, or SUVs) that get less than 22.5 miles per US gallon (10.5 L/100 km).

Wait, really?

These were the words I used when discussing an upcoming potential termination,

"But the person I'll be on the other side of [this crisis of maybe termination] will be no more absolutely or permanently diminished than the one I became after any other of the subjectively substantial life-changing crises."

I've lived through some pretty painful shit. I feel quite angry about the misery I consider my life to currently be, but I still choose to live. With these words I was explaining that this "disaster" couldn't be any more miserable than the sundry other miseries I've learned to live with. The consequences of this "crisis" may absolutely be something I will hate deeply and bitterly, but I doubt it's going to be the straw that gets me to break this camel's back.

Last night my dad was talking about this "liberal propaganda" about the "supposed climate crisis" talking about the movie Don't Look Up. Fuck it pissed me off, I don't know how to respond to that. Conservatives aren't in reality, every fact that disagrees with their backwards fantasy is just some kind of liberal conspiracy that "wise" men would never bother considering.

Right. I fight not because I believe I'll win, or even because I believe victory is "possible", but because it's more comfortable for me so to speak to be fighting than to quietly and passively support the ideology I disagree with. It is more "restful" to me to be fighting a fight I believe in than to be resting in a world I hate.

Holy fucking goddamn christ your description of how you parent your child is so incredibly heartwarming! God, if every parent could care like you the world would be a paradise within two generations!