pluralstories | The Heck Does That Mean?

It is impossible to make a concise tagging system using plural slang that everybody knows and agrees on, so here are some explanations of what the tags mean. I generally tried to use the demographics or descriptors used by the creator.

"Access" tags are used for matters of both disability usability and getting your hands on the story. Bootlegging or piracy is most acceptable when it makes a work more disability accessible. More detail:

access mode: a video game with tools to make it easier to play for folks with disabilities. (Also sometimes called Easy Mode or Cheat Mode.)
audio/dubbing: the story has been dubbed into English or is available in a sound-only form: audiobooks, podfic, podcasts, etc. Also includes movies with descriptive audio.
screenreadable: the text can be read by a computer screen-reader. Plain text and HTML, for example, are screenreadable; many bootleg PDFs are not. Also includes available scripts/text-only versions of a visual work (a play, a comic, etc).

Creator tags:

The "creator:plural" tag is ONLY for creators who have publicly stated they experience something under the plural umbrella, either in the story itself or easily found on the hosting website. Not using the tag doesn't mean the creator hasn't experienced this. Don't be a jerk and out people! When in doubt, don't use this tag!
The "creator:speaks from experience" tag is for creators who have publicly stated the work is partly autobiographical or inspired by their own experiences, regardless of whether they call that plural or not. For example, Julie Brady has stated that she's a lucid dreamer, but I'm not sure she'd consider that plural, and it'd be mean to tag her as that without her consent. This catalog is called "pluralstories," but it's intended to be expansive in the type of many-selved experiences!

Length tags, by necessity, are somewhat arbitrary, especially when it comes to video games. For the purposes of this catalog:

short: (1-50 pages, <3 minutes music, <60 minutes of film, <10 hours of gaming/Let's Play)
medium: (50-300 pages, 3-5 minutes music, 60-150 minutes of film, 10-50 hours of gaming/Let's Play)
long: (300+ pages, 5+ minutes music, 150+ minutes of film, 50+ hours of gaming/Let's Play)

Plural tag descriptions:

Cofronting: more than one bodymate being involved in the "real" world at the same time.
Fictioneers: people considered fictional even within the story. Jane Eyre isn't a fictioneer in Jane Eyre, but she is in the Eyre Affair. (I chose not to use the term "fictive," even though it's more dictionary accurate, because in plural culture online, it has a more restrictive definition.)
Fusion/integration: bodymates merging, or a plural returning to singlethood over the course of a story.
Copies: bodymates based upon other "real world" beings in the story, be they dead or alive. Example: Alim's imaginary friend of the professional persona of Cary Grant in Touch of Pink, Helen's imaginary friend of her deceased pet rat in Tale of One Bad Rat.
Median: someone between multiple and singlet. This can be a tricky term to define (one person's "too plural" is another person's "not plural enough") so I probably won't use it unless the creator themself does.
Setting-specific: a form of bodysharing that's specific to the story, not easily paralleled to something in this world. (Example: how daemons work in the Golden Compass.)
Spiritual: stuff involving spirits, demonic possession, or anything the creator says is metaphysical or supernatural.
On purpose: plurality chosen or deliberately induced.
Otherworld: includes headspace, dreams, elsewhere, the spirit world... anywhere that isn't cyberspace or a corporeal place by the standards of the story.
Realitymashing: any sort of reality distortion where one world starts bleeding into another or otherwise misbehaving. (Example: dreams leaking into reality in Paprika.)
Relationship tags are only for the bodysharing characters in the story:
- community is for groups of bodysharing folks together in the material world. (Example: in the Golden Compass/Northern Lights, everyone has a daemon.)
- enmity: when bodymates don't get along. (Example: Jekyll and Hyde)
- queerplatonic: committed intimate relationships which are neither romantic nor sexual in nature (Example: Bee and Moth in Bee and Moth.)
- teamwork: when bodymates band together to get a task done together.