Bee and Moth, by B and Z (slice-of-life hypertext, 2022?)

[lb_lee]

"I am a bee, living with a moth. We live between two worlds—our inner world, where we interact with each other, and the outer world, where we interact with everyone else. We share a body out there. It looks human, so we have to pretend to be human. We also pretend to be a single person, just to make things easier. We have a few friends who know our secrets—that we're not human, that we're more than one. Some of them are even just like us. But for the most part… we're just a pair of insects trying to make it in a human world."

Blurb: Short vignettes about being plural and nonhuman. Bee and Moth make food, gifts, and cuddle. Moth is nervous around people, and Bee encourages him to come out of his shell.

Why is it worth your time?: It's cute, sweet, and quiet. Also, it's short and free!

Plural Tags: nonhuman [bee, moth], switching, no trauma discussion, queerplatonic

Content Warnings: None!

Accessibility Notes: Text-only, should be screen-readable, also available in Spanish. Short and free!

Read/play it here! (EDIT 2024/10/6: oh shit, it's been deleted and the Wayback Machine can't play it!)

(EDIT 2025/02/12: contacted author, was asked not to rehost or back it up. This is now officially lost media.)

War Zone, by Sam Medlock (horror comic, 2021)

[lb_lee]

"Canute, why didn't you ever tell me? We're friends. You're supposed to tell me about--about things like this..."

Blurb: A Native teenager attempts suicide and reality starts to melt. Medlock writes, "I wrote this while looking back on when I was suicidal. I felt like my thoughts weren't my own and it was really scary. I legit thought I was possessed by demons or something, but now I think it was more an influence of bad spirits. But whatever you wanna call it, it felt very supernatural to me. Anyway I got some help and am better now. I hope you got something out of this story~ "

Why is it worth your time?: Medlock uses beautiful surreal, supernatural imagery, mixes color with black and white to striking effect, and also discusses mental health from a supernatural, community integration perspective. It's a valuable perspective, and I want to boost it.

Plural Tags: supernatural, otherworld, nonswitching, nonhumans [spirits], realitymashing, creator speaks from experience

Content Warnings: This is a comic where the main character attempts suicide. There is blood. That isn't a spoiler, because it's on both the back cover and the first page of the book, but further content warnings ARE spoilers and go in the comments below.

Accessibility Notes: The paper form is now on sale at Ko-Fi! It is also available to read for free on Webtoon, though not alt-texted.

Read it here! (EDIT: Webtoon has now access-locked this to people with accounts, so with Medlock's permission, we rehosted it at healthymultiplicity.com!)

Net Dreams, by Phil Foglio (sci-fi porn comic, 1998?)

[lb_lee]

“The Info-War's been over for WEEKS now. Alva's been... dead... Why can't we get her out of our heads?!”

Blurb: After the death of their fellow Cyber Warrior in the Info Wars, Rudy and Nik can't stop dreaming about her. It turns out all their cyberpunk hardware is having an unusual side effect...

Why is it worth your time?: It's fun, kinky, and happy. I don't know if you have secretly longed for a porno where three girls bang in dreamland, but IF YOU HAVE. That said, this is a porn comic; sex is the primary focus, and if you don't want that, you won't enjoy this.

Plural Tags: otherworld (dreamland), in-head romance, nonswitching, sci-fi plurality, the dead

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers. Also, this is porn.

Accessibility Notes: Very short, and available online through the Slipshine subscription service. Mostly out of print, though you may still find secondhand paper copies; "Net Dreams" is collected in the Xxxenophile vol. 1 paperback. (Xxxenophile was a longrunning series of unrelated short stories; "Net Dreams" is the only pluralish one.)

Read it here!

The Alyxcule, by SoftAnnaLee (romance prose, 2021)

[lb_lee]

synths: why do you hesitate?

human: it’s… uh…

s: is our methods unappealing?

h: No. I want to have a synth body too…

s: perhaps it is whom in habits our bodies?

h: No! You’re all lovely, and I want to join…

s: we do not understand. what do you possibly find distasteful of joining us?

Blurb: A transformation story about being assimilated by the Borg, if the Borg was a queer otherkin polycule of cuddle.

Why is it worth your time?: SoftAnnaLee make the most joyful plural work that I have seen. Their stories are just so goshdarn sweet, adorable, and happy. Also it's short and free.

Plural Tags: sci-fi plurality, nonhumans [aliens, robots, robot shark, bull, fox], in-head romance, plurality on purpose

Content Warnings: None. Everything that could upset you is there in the blurb.

Accessibility Notes: Short and free to read online. Read it here! EDIT: SoftAnnaLee have closed down their website but the Wayback Machine has rescued it!

The Tale of One Bad Rat, by Bryan Talbot (drama comic, 1994)

[lb_lee]

“I... we... we're so fragile... so unlikely... so precious. ...eh, rat?”

Blurb: An abused teenager with a synchronistic link to Beatrix Potter, runs away from her London home, accompanied by her pet rat, who later becomes an imaginary friend who stays with her the entire book. With the help of her rat, her art, the works of Beatrix Potter, she does her best to survive and find a better life for herself.

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good. Both art and story are intricate and well-crafted; we have reread this book countless times and still find little visual details and motifs that we hadn't noticed before. It rewards rereads. This book has apparently been used with abused teens in the decades since it's been out, with good effect. There's a reason it won multiple awards.

Plural Tags: imaginary friends, nonswitching, introjects, abuse high-focus, nonhumans [rat]

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: Available on paper, ebook, and in many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, and Polish I think.

Celeste, directed by Maddy Thorson (platformer video game, 2018)

[lb_lee]

“I tried. I'm doing my best.”

Blurb: a depressed girl decides to climb a mountain, only to discover that the place brings your mind to life. And the girl's mind really, REALLY doesn't like her. The mountain and her own mind seems to fight her every step of the way, leading her to wonder: why is she doing this?

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good. Easy to learn, hard to win, fun to play, beautiful soundtrack, striking visuals, and weds its themes to its gameplay. I loved playing this game and regret that I've been unable to play the expansion due to injury. We wrote a more personal, spoilers-included explication of why we love it here.

Plural Tags: realitymashing, fusion/integration

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers. This game is kid-friendly!

Accessibility Notes: This game is HARD. Let's Plays get through it in roughly 20 hours, but it took us 140+, and we haven't done the expansion pack. Access Mode allows you to toggle various settings (such as game speed, increased stamina, and invulnerability) to make it more playable for folks who can't manage the intense twitch reflexes required. I had to use the mode myself to complete the game, and I appreciated that the game did not insult or punish me for it. That said, the voice audio is intentionally jibberish, and the text cannot be resized. There are Let's Plays for this game, but I haven't watched any and thus cannot recommend any in particular.

This game is also available in German, English, Castilian Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Portugal), and Russian.

Buy it here!

Something Terrible, by Mayday Trippe (memoir comic, 2013)

[lb_lee]

“I'm Batman. I'm here to save you from something terrible. You know, I'm not really supposed to let people from your earth know we're all real. But then I figured, Dean Trippe already knows I'm real.”

Blurb: An autobiographical account of being rescued from childhood trauma with Batman... and then coming to return the favor.

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good. Trippe's clear, polished art, combined with skilled use of color, makes this comic short but strong. Their depiction of reality opening up and fiction influencing reality is beautiful in its elegance.

Plural Tags: fictivity, nonswitching, otherworld (mythic), creator speaks from experience, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: It is short. Available on paper; formerly available on ebook, but that is sadly no longer true. However, there is still an archived version of the abridged ebook (before the final epilogue) up for free.

The Sum of my Parts, by Olga Trujillo (autobio prose, 2011)

[lb_lee]

“The creation of these "happy" parts felt different from the splitting that began at my fingertips when I was under attack. Entering these "good" parts felt less noticeable. There was some dizziness and light-headedness, but it was mainly just a gentle shifting in my mind. I was unsure of where my body started and ended for just a few seconds.”

Blurb: (from online) The incredible true story of Olga Trujillo, whose childhood was devastated by sexual abuse and violence. This memoir follows Olga as she splits herself into "parts" and develops dissociative identity disorder to cope with the abuse, and then struggles to merge these parts and overcome the disorder in adulthood.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a solid DID autobiography, and Trujillo speaks from the perspective of someone with "less florid" DID, whose memories are fragmented in many pieces among very many different parts, who tend to be numbered rather than named. Not as well known as other DID memoirs. Trujillo focuses a lot of attention on the positive people in her life who helped her survive, something a lot of multi books are sadly lacking, and she does a good job of describing partial flashbacks and the way abuse affected her thinking and behavior that made her more prone to abuse later on in her life; that's something I haven't seen described as well before. If you want a DID memoir, this one is pretty darn good.

Plural Tags: DID, memory work, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: Available in ebook and paper both, in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. Trujillo also gives content warnings and states that the abuse scenes are over after Chapter 7, so that you can skip them if you want.

Gemini and Becoming Median, by Zyfron (slice-of-life comic, 2010-2013, 2018)

[lb_lee]

Z: Ooooooh! A dramatic intro!
Bernie: Get down from there! You're ruining the dramatic tension!

Blurb: "The life of the Zyfron System: Cartoonified!" Slice-of-life strips about being multiple. Went on hiatus for many years, then culminated with "Becoming Median," a zine about integration, becoming median, and dealing with trauma.

Why is it worth your time?: Zyfron discuss the complications of life after integration, which is often depicted as a simple, "hooray, you're cured!" You get to see the arc of their lives from multiple, to singlet, to median, and how that is a complicated, confusing process. Gemini may not have a story, per se, but it describes an experience that is lacking in plural stories, so I am choosing to boost it. Plus I am utterly biased because Zyfron are my friend and they let me squat on healthymultiplicity.com. :p

Plural Tags: switching, integration, median

Content Warnings: Very little. Mention of trauma in "Becoming Median."

Accessibility Notes: Free, textually transcribed. Alas, a good chunk of the archive is missing, due to file deletion without back-ups.

Read Gemini here! And here is Becoming Median. (Back-up link for Becoming Median-- Gemini needs doing)