Add a Story to the list!

[lb_lee]

If you have a story you want to add to the list, leave it in the comments below! Anyone can do this; you don't need an account!

This catalog purposely takes a very broad, ambiguous view of what constitutes "plural." Make our day! Story types that have been accepted in the past include:
* Spirit possession
* Imaginary friends
* Spirit marriage
* Exploring geographies of the mind, imagination, and fiction
* Bodysharing symbiotes
* MPD/DID
* Plural stories
* Telepathic bodyhopping shenanigans

Rules for submission (changed 5/17/2024):

• Only submit stories. We're willing to play with what defines a story, especially for personal experience accounts and experimental work, but self-help, philosophy, 101 and such do not belong here.
• Don't submit your own work. Boost your fellows!
• Please do not submit more than four titles by the same creator/s. When this archive gets bigger, we'll expand how many entries one creator/s can have.
• The story must be made by an adult (or at least not easily identified as made by a minor). This is to prevent malicious submissions and harassment of kids.
• The story must be publicly available. No unrecorded LARPS, rare books, or stuff on account-locked websites.
• If incomplete, the story must at least have a decent stop point. No just-started webcomics, please! They may not endure!
• You must have taken in the whole story (or at least all that's available at the time of submission). This is for complete content warnings and stuff.
• Spirited/many-selvedness must be core to story or main character/s. If you can remove it from the work without the whole thing falling apart, then please do not recommend it. (If you're not sure, ask! Make our day!)
• You must say why it's worth plurals' time. It doesn't have to be good, exactly, but it's gotta be worth it. This is to avoid completionist spam.

Does the story qualify? Then submit it using the form below! (Feel free to use the tags page for pointers.)

[Title] by [Creator/s] ([genre] [medium], [year released])

"[insert a cool quote from the work here]"

Blurb:

Why is it worth your time?:

Plural/1+ Tags: Choose from the ones on the tag list, or add your own!

Content Warnings: please include spoilers! I have this comm set up so that individual posts have only plural tag spoilers (because that's what folks are here for!), while content warnings will be in the comments. That way, people who want to remain spoiler-free can read the post itself and be fine, and the people who want all the warnings can scroll down.

Accessibility Notes: See the tag list for examples. Also note how you can get it. Is it an easy library book? Has someone digitized it and put it elsewhere? Is it backed up anywhere? Is it available in other languages than English?

Misc. Notes (if any):

Is it long, medium, or short?: I wrote the standards here.

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody?

Comments

[quailfence]

Disco Elysium by ZA/UM (mystery video game, 2019)

Quote: There is a radio in the distance. A radio of the world. Playing sound: Good morning, Elysium. Soon you will return to the world

Blurb (from TVTropes): One miserable morning, you awaken from pain and darkness in a trashed motel room with the hangover to end all hangovers. You have no idea where, or even who, you are, but some details begin filling in as you explore: you are a police detective visiting Martinaise, harbor district of the city of Revachol, jewel of the Insulindian Isola, in the year '51 of the current century. Perhaps most importantly, you were sent here three days ago to deal with a lynched corpse, but instead went on a deranged bender of drug and alcohol abuse.

Now, you must resume the investigation with the aid of Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, a fellow detective from a rival precinct. But of course, it won't be as simple as it seems — the victim, a security contractor for a major international shipping company, stands at the center of a labor dispute involving the local dockworker's union, corrupt businessmen, communist agitators, and foreign interests, with blood on the streets looking more likely by the day. Everyone involved is eager to use you for their own ends — and of course, you're no titan of mental stability, what with the two dozen voices in your head vying for your attention...

Why is it worth your time: The aforementioned voices in your heads are your skills. As you get your skills higher, they become more talkative and interact more with you and each other. Overall the game places a lot of emphasis on crafting an identity and making your own choices. While the player character has a past and a personality that goes along with said personality, the main character's amnesia means that you can choose to follow that past or create your own identity. How you choose to shape your personality also affects your ability to connect with and learn about other characters and engage with sideplots, with certain dialogue checks being easier if you level up certain skills - though there is always a small chance (3%, to be precise) chance of success or failure.

Plural/1+ tags: abuse low-focus, people: the dead, people: copies (you can talk to the victim's corpse if you pass a check), people: nonhumans (you can also talk to your necktie in certain circumstances), voices, visions, otherworld (in the form of dreams), type: spiritual, type: medical(?), type: setting-specific (to elaborate: it's theorized in-game that the skills/voices are a result of some combination of an in-universe phenomenon known as The Pale and the player character's pre-existing mental problems, but it's ultimately left unclear as to exactly why this is happening), teamwork

Content Warning: It's a murder mystery where the player character is a cop who struggles with addiction to/withdrawal from alcohol and other substances. Other warnings are spoilers, see below

Note: due to the nature of the game, compiling a full and accurate content warnings list is rather difficult - I had to ask on Discord for help, and even then I still probably missed some things. Some of these things are unavoidable, while others can be avoided with varying amounts of difficulty

Suicide
Substance abuse and addiction, including the ability to use alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs for stat boost in exchange for health damage
Vomit
Graphic description/depiction of a corpse
Ableism
Fantasy racism that maps very clearly on RL equivalents, including usage of in-universe racist slurs and dogwhistles
Cannibalism (very optional, you kind of have to spec for it to even see the option)
False rape accusations (the first one is a pair of hooligan kids shouting that they're being assaulted by the cops while said cops examine a body, which no one hears [or if they do, they don't care], second one is a lie by a third party and the supposed victim says it was all consensual, albeit done under the influence of drugs and alchohol)
A conversation about an actual rape which is optional and signposted as "don't ask about this"
Internalised homophobia
Regular homophobia, incuding the censored usage of real-world slurs
Kink used to self harm
Child abuse (mostly implications but while I did not pass the relevant check on my play-through I’ve heard it can become more explicit)
If you make the right choices there are heavy implications that a child was forced to kill another child
One character's backstory involves being abandoned as a baby
Police corruption and police brutality
Corruption in general
Capitalism and its failings/the bad things that come from it
The country the game is set in used to participate in colonialism and is now under the control of the in-universe equivalent of the UN or NATO
Cosmic horror and imminent apocalypse
Major character injury (avoidable but rather luck-based)
Minor character death (some avoidable, some not)
The player character can die in many ways, some rather unexpected

In addition, the game portrays fat people poorly, and "autistic" gets used as a prerogative in one conversation

Accessibility notes: All dialogue/lines appear on-screen, and all dialogue and most narration is read out loud, though menus and such aren't. There exist let's plays/streams but I haven't seen any of them and the nature of the game, involving lost of little variations and branching choices, means that a completionist playthrough is basically impossible. Translated into Japanese, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, Polish, Turkish, and Arabic, though audio is only available in English. Available on Steam, Gog, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox X|S, and Switch

Length: Medium - about 25-35 hours of gameplay

Audience: adults

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Ooh, this movie looks really enjoyable! Will have to try it!

Your submission has been added to the catalog. Thank you! ^_^

[lb_lee]

Thank you so much for this submission! We'd heard of Disco Elysium but are unable to play it and due to the branching paths lamented the lack of a completionist Lets Play! We've added this to the catalog!

[(Anonymous)]

(submitted by jsmith)

Skyfall by SangheiliosThel, AKA Thien Valdram (Doctor Who fanfiction, 2025)

'Zhonos interjected "It'll take time to adjust to the fact that you are still out there, yet also in here. And the other Time Lords… they won't treat you like they do now, we're all… an aberration to them".

"But we'll be here for you" Nistri added "And you'll be with us for whoever comes next. For number six".'

Blurb (from AO3): After sacrificing themselves to save the Doctor from an elder god, Yanistriterquyzhonosorkyquiana, a Time Lord agent with regenerative dissonance, barely manages to escape, at the cost of their fifth incarnation's life. Crashing onto Cretaceous Era Earth, they regenerate into a form best fit for survival, a Velociraptor.

Five months later, Yanis VI, aka Skyfallen, has become closely connected with a local pack of Velociraptors who have helped her to survive in her new form. However when the Doctor returns for her help, they uncover a conspiracy that could shake Gallifrey to its core.

Why is it worth your time?: First — the author takes a badly-realised, stereotypical 'alien DID equivalent' from somewhere down in the depths of canon, and hollows out and rebuilds the ethics of it, 'till the story doesn't doubt for a second that being many-in-one is, in fact, fine and awesome… and that you don't trust an ableist fictional society to be just this once correct about the danger somebody must supposedly inherently pose, even if the society's what's handing out your plot hooks. It actually goes through with applying what people say the occasional best things about Doctor Who ethics are… that you trust difference, and that you listen to people's perspectives, over traditions and impersonal systems that would like them to stop existing being inconvenient.

The collective at the center of things are vibrant, distinct characters, and they have a great teamwork dynamic, it's fun to read them solve disagreements! The author's also put quite some thought into the mechanics of how this plurality-equivalent's dealt with, and how other things are, the edges of what's possible and what's 'acceptable' and how that affects people living in these contexts.

Speaking of, beautiful, beautiful nonhuman societies worldbuilding… the plot mechanics're dizzying, but I love, too, the moment when it finally clicks into place. (The ending's a happy one, I believe, and the cleverness is one bit of how.) Fair warning, you might need a lot of lore and context to get the most possible out of this fic — I think I caught less than half — but if you can roll with unintroduced elements, or you do know that lore and context, this is the worthwhilest thing…

1+ Tags: abuse:low-focus (not connected to the existence of the plurality-equivalent), nonhumans ('Time Lord', velociraptor), median (sort of, they consider themselves 'the same person' in a way), serially singlet (sort of, people can all act through the body, but their body is always of the latest arrival), setting-specific, cofronting, teamwork, audience:teens, genre:sci-fi, length:medium, medium:writing

Content warnings: Adventure-story-typical violence, predatory animal behaviour, war mentions, death; ableism/pluralphobia, a lot; some mentions of ~abuse — there's nothing that's called abuse, but you could very easily interpret it anyway.

Access notes: Read it on AO3, here! (https://archiveofourown.org/works/62280748)

[lb_lee]

Sneak: This is our first dinosaur submission, I think! ^_^ Thanks for the submission; it has been added to the catalog!

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks :) One thing — I'm pretty sure 'Thien Valdram' is a forename-and-surname shaped name, so it should probably be under 'Valdram, Thien', if I understand your sorting system correctly

[lb_lee]

Screen names that are one word, I tend to leave as is, unless I’m absolutely certain it’s the circumstance you describe and with the same naming convention. For now, am inclined to leave it.

Legion

[beepbird]

Legion by Brandon Sanderson (mystery book, 2011)

"“The formal definition of insanity,” I said, “is actually quite fluid. Two people can have the exact same condition, with the exact same severity, but one can be considered sane by the official standards while the other is considered insane.""

Blurb (taken from the back of my copy): Stephen Leeds, AKA 'Legion,' is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the story begins, Leeds and his aspects are drawn into the search for the missing Balubal Razon, inventor of a camera whose astonishing properties could alter our understanding of human history and change the very structure of society.

Why is it worth your time?: Despite being framed as hallucinations, Leeds' aspects are treated as fully autonomous people who make their own decisions, sometimes surprising him. It's nice to see them treated as rounded characters of their own, let alone rounded characters with independent relationships with each other.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, realitymashing, friendship, romantic, enmity, teamwork, nonswitching, visions, voices

Content Warnings: character death, gun violence, terrorism mentions, kidnapping(? Debatable about whether it counts, but they do get knocked out and wake up tied to a chair at one point), debate about wanting a "cure"

Accessibility Notes: Physical book or ebook (legitimate or otherwise); audiobooks are available on audible, Amazon, Google Play, etc. I'd assume that it can be found at libraries given that I found it at a library sale. All text, so screen reading shouldn't be an issue for ebooks.

Is it long, medium, or short?: Medium.

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody? Best suited to teens and up.

Re: Legion

[lb_lee]

Added to the catalog! Thanks for submitting this one; we could only find the last book of this series, and it didn't quite make the cut for us!

[packbat]

Listening to Jekyllase by Trismegistus Shandy (sci-fi slice-of-life short novel, originally released 2019, rereleased 2023-2024)

So out we went, and a few minutes later we were at the mall. It wasn’t a large mall by today’s standards, but it was fairly new, and though Cynthia wasn’t impressed with the selection of clothing, I was in hog heaven, since it was all new to me. I don’t know how many pieces of clothing I tried on that day. I was a little tired but still feeling enthusiastic when we stopped for lunch. I would have bought dozens of things, as much as I could possibly afford and maybe more, but Cynthia kept cautioning me not to spend so much of Scott’s money that he wouldn’t want to be me again. So I didn’t buy anything at first, until I’d tried on a bunch of stuff at several stores. Then after lunch I went back and bought my favorites: a flower-pattern peasant skirt, a solid green long-sleeved blouse, and matching shoes with a low heel. The skirt and blouse had no pockets, so I needed a purse as well. I wanted to buy a necklace or earrings too, but reluctantly decided I’d better not push my luck. Scott needed this stuff if he wanted to be me again, and the less money I spent, the more likely he was to want to be me again. Then, after he’d made a habit of it, I could buy the necklace and earrings.

Blurb: In 1970, a young college student is introduced by his roommate to jekyllase. Based on the recently rediscovered formula created and then thought lost by Dr. Henry Jekyll a century earlier, it's all the rage on campuses now: it will show you your inner, repressed self. What will that look like for Scott and his friends?

Why is it worth your time?: It's a cool story in a classic kind of speculative fiction style, and explores a lot of aspects of its specific fictional form of plurality through it - notably relationships within jekyll-hyde pairs, how the introduction of hydes changes jekylls' relationships with others, and the power dynamics and logistics of the drug-induced switching.

Plural/1+ Tags: enmity, friendship, teamwork, setting-specific, on purpose.

Content Warnings: alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; homophobia; transphobia; attempted sexual assault; period language we wouldn't use today. Also, it's possible for a jekyll (jekyllase user) to use jekyllase to the point where the hyde (the alternate identity created by the drug) becomes their body's base form instead of transformed form and jekyllase would be needed to revive the original; the idea of doing this deliberately is discussed.

Accessibility Notes: online, screenreadable, free. The author has posted it to multiple archives, but the Scribblehub edition is our recommendation.

Misc. Notes (if any): The way it explores gender is probably not a clear match to plural gender issues, but it's definitely interesting. Also, while the story takes place in the 1970s, the framing device is that this account was published later (presumably around the mid 2010s when it was written), so things like the period-appropriate theories of gender and transness that the protagonists look up are given commentary from a more modern perspective.

Is it long, medium, or short?: Medium.

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody? For adults.

Possible alternate blurb if the above is too long:

When I offered to measure him, he averted his eyes and said, “I don’t think there’s any point. Darrell’s not gonna take jekyllase again. He’d hate being me.”

“You just have to show him what’s good about being you,” I urged. “What’s something you enjoy that Darrell doesn’t — that he can’t enjoy without becoming you? Something you’re good at that he can’t do?”

[packbat]

Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control? by Bobple (fantasy serial fiction, started 2023, ongoing as of 2025)

There wasn’t much to do now, so Syrus jumped off the bed to do some simple exercises.

Syrus asked, [So what are we supposed to do besides that plan?]

[The best we can do is not cause any trouble and have the ceremony pass without any issues.] (Luna)

[Fair enough.] Replied Syrus, in the middle of her first push-up. At the peak of the second, she asked, [Want me to accidentally burn the priest?]

[...] (Luna)

[Hello, Earth to the Moon?]

Lilly sighed, [She needs to say no, but wants to say yes…]

“Hehe, I know.” Laughed Syrus.

Blurb: It began with an accident, or maybe a miracle is a better term.
Three souls dying by different strokes. One died in glory and blood; One died, betrayed but glad it was over; One died poor and alone.

Then on the child’s fifth birthday, the three sleeping souls awakened. Three souls, one body, two desires, and containing all the powers each had in their last life.

Were they destined for greatness? No. But when the past comes to haunt them, their home taken away, they have to make a decision… May it be as simple as a majority vote.

“Let’s squash them!”

“...can we just run away?

“Were you never taught to aim for the eyes?”

Why is it worth your time?: Okay, so you know the fantasy stories where someone gets reincarnated and ends up powerful because they still have the knowledge and abilities from their past life? It's one of those, except three people get reincarnated in the same body and they have the power of all three working together. It's not, like, a deep exploration of plurality, just a cool body-sharing fantasy adventure story.

And also the protagonists' new parents figure out that their kid is a plural system and are super supportive and loving. Which is really sweet and heartwarming.

Plural/1+ Tags: closeting, cofronting, otherworld, the dead, teamwork, spiritual, setting-specific.

Content Warnings: violence, injury, poisoning, and death; murder, kidnapping, arson, child endangerment, and animal death; grief and trauma.

Accessibility Notes: online, screenreadable, free. Scribblehub link.

Misc. Notes (if any): The way dialogue is formatted for completed sentences, with both periods inside the quote and commas outside, is unusual, if pretty clear and comprehensible. The first part of the story goes up to Chapter 63, but it's ongoing and it sounds like there's a lot of plot still to go.

Is it long, medium, or short?: Long.

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody? Teens and adults.

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Added to the catalog! Thanks so much for the submission, this is the exact kind of thing we'd have trouble taking in ourself! :D

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Added to the catalog! Thanks for the submission! :D

[packbat]

Glad to be of service!

[packbat]

State of the Art / Golden Dawn series by Cloé Anne Sophie Veilleux (sci-fi webfiction, 2024-)

As they began walking away from the market plaza, Kaelyn’s conversation flowed effortlessly. Each time the warrior spoke, she responded with perfect precision—laughing at his jokes, complimenting his bravery, weaving small bits of charm into her words. And as they walked, Ryan could feel her growing confidence, her control tightening over his thoughts.

See how easy this is? Kaelyn’s voice whispered. They all want to help you. All you have to do is ask the right way.

Ryan’s hesitation, that sliver of discomfort, was shrinking. Drowned out by the sheer thrill of success, Kaelyn felt. This was power. Not in the way of brute strength or flashy magic, but in the quiet control of social finesse, in the way people bent toward her without even realising they were being pulled in.

Blurb: In a near-future world where reality often feels like an afterthought, players escape into A Realm Reforged Again—a groundbreaking VR MMORPG offering unparalleled character customization.

Follow Jason, Ryan, Emmy, and Sophie as they navigate personal struggles both in and out of the game. Within the virtual world, they take on new forms: Jason becomes Vaelith, a reluctant but powerful dracan mage; Ryan experiments with power as Kaelyn, a felinae priestess; Emmy creates Elyssia, a sylvani tank embodying who she wishes she could be; and Sophie transforms into Leoric, a towering burrovian ranger seeking freedom from familial and societal expectations.

But when the game's AI Creator-Gods, tasked with ensuring player happiness, begin to meddle with their choices, the players must confront unexpected challenges and questions about autonomy and self-acceptance.

With themes of identity, agency, and transformation, State of the Art sets the stage for an epic journey of self-discovery in a world where fantasy and reality blur.

Why is it worth your time?: Kaelyn's introduction, her relationship with her headmate, and how the two of them navigate their other relationships as they switch are interestingly messy. Part of the setting is the game's ability to implant memories in its players of their character's backstory, and that makes it ambiguous to what extent she existed before Ryan signed up for the game to make a power fantasy RP character - especially because neither headmate was even aware of plurality as a concept before.

Plural/1+ Tags: people: RP characters (should this be classed as a type of fictioneer?); type: switching; creator speaks from experience, voices

Content Warnings: The author lists the following in the preface to the Scribble Hub edition:

• Blood and violence,
• Break-ups and divorce,
• Gender confusion, dysphoria and body discomfort,
• Casual, accidental and malicious misgendering,
• Nonconsensual bodily transformation and body horror,
• Emotional manipulation and power dynamics,
• Public and internalised humiliation,
• Teasing and bullying,
• Transphobia and microaggressions,
• Internalised transphobia and anxiety,
• Mental health challenges, including alexithymia, anhedonia, dissociation, and depression,
• Themes of identity crisis and self-discovery,
• Physical and emotional trauma,
• Experiences of heightened sensory perception, nausea, vertigo and bodily distress,
• Complex family dynamics and strained parental relationships,
• Depictions of isolation, emotional starvation and rejection,
• Scenes involving vomiting, illness and emotional distress,
• Physical discomfort and manipulation of boundaries,
• Manipulation, gaslighting,
• Dystopian themes, including economic disparity and societal collapse,
• Escapism through VR/gaming as a coping mechanism for harsh realities,
• Themes of disconnection from physical reality and the consequences of over-reliance on virtual worlds.

(In the book, this list is followed by a second one labeled "Promise of Hope".)

Accessibility Notes: online (Scribble Hub edition, Royal Road edition), free, screenreadable

Misc. Notes (if any): This series is an extremely slow burn - at the time of writing, two hundred and eighty thousand words in and nearing the end of Book 2, the timeline covers two days in the lives of its four five protagonists. (The series is planned to span five volumes.) Also, the chapters do not have a regular cycle between viewpoints - for example, Ryan and Kaelyn are entirely absent from the first sixteen chapters of Book 2 because they haven't woken up yet - so you can't easily skip through to just their chapters. We like all the characters, but if we didn't, we wouldn't stick it out just to see what happens to this duo.

Is it long, medium, or short?: Long.

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody?: I believe it's intended for adults, although I think teenagers could handle it.

[beepbird]

Zeta-Epsilon by Isabel J. Kim (science fiction short story, 2023)

"Zed didn’t say that you were the ones that called her my sister, and it’s too late, now I have always loved her and she has always loved me, and I cannot imagine thinking without her."

Blurb: A man brainshares with the spaceship he lives on... and does everything in his power to get her back.

Why is it worth your time?: This has pretty explicit parallels to multiplicity- to the point that the narrative itself asks the question of whether Epsilon is an alter and/or tulpa at one point. It's also one of those rare narratives where separation is presented as a negative, where the system wants to share brainspace- and where being plural is the happy ending.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans, family, teamwork, setting-specific, switching, cofronting, on purpose

Content Warnings: Main character fakes own death by suicide, conscious surgery without pain

Accessibility Notes: Audio and text freely available at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_03_23/ . You can also purchase a print edition or ebook of the magazine this is hosted in from a bunch of sources linked on that page if you'd like.

Is it long, medium, or short?: short

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody? Adults and teens.

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Added! Thank you for the submission!

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Added to the catalog! Thanks! :D Do you happen to have a EPUB of this one too, since it is so long?

[packbat]

Packing it as we speak - email soon! Edit: sent!

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Got it! Thank you so much, works like this are EXACTLY the kind of things we can't easily take in ourself!

[packbat]

Glad to be of service!

[thishouse]

Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Science fiction book series, 2015+)

We

Bootstrap ourselves from mere insensate clutches of jelly and molecular interaction until We

Remember

We were on an adventure.

For many long spans of time we were Lante, once we had repaired Lante. Except that Those-of-We who had learnt what Lante was had to make such repairs so that what came out was less Lante and more We. But Those-of-We had experienced what it was to be Lante and could fill in the gaps. We were We and We were Lante and Lante was Lante and did not know it was also

We.

Blurb for Book 1: Avrana Kern spearheaded an exoplanet terraforming program with the goal of populating new Earth-like worlds with monkeys uplifted to human-like intelligence by a nanovirus. Her program was sabotaged by people who rejected her scientific ideals, and the conflict blossomed into nuclear war back on Earth. Avrana escapes the sabotage, and she uploads herself to a computer system while she waits for rescue. The monkeys died, but the virus lived on. Its host becomes a species of jumping spider, beginning their ascension toward a space-faring society. Thousands of years after the nuclear war, ark ships take off from Earth and seek terraformed planets to re-establish a home for humanity. The ark ship Gilgamesh discovers Kern's World, and its crew are determined to make a new home there.

Why is it worth your time?: Besides the unique and interesting plurality portrayed in these books, they're fantastic science fiction with an emphasis on worldbuilding and speculative evolution. Their greatest strength is their empathy toward atypical experiences of sentience and intelligence.

In Book 1, Avrana Kern is the primary plural character as the distinction between her, the computer system, and her uploaded version of herself blur together. In Book 2, Children of Ruin, Tchaikovsky adds sentient octopuses, and the octopuses' selves divided between their Crown, Guise, and Reach showcases a permanent co-fronting experience. Also introduced in Book 2 but explored further in Book 3, Children of Memory, is a naturally plural species that seeks to understand what it means to live as one and as many at the same time. In Book 3, there's also a sentient headspace-like world.

Plural/1+ Tags: setting-specific sci-fi stuff, enmity in Book 1, the naturally plural species is a scary antagonistic force in Book 2 at first, teamwork in Books 2 and 3

Content Warnings: nuclear war, extreme isolation, murder, lynching

Accessibility Notes: audiobooks available; pretty easy library book; Book 1 is available in English, French, German, Romanian, Portuguese, and Dutch; Book 2 is available in English, German, French, Romanian, and Dutch; and Book 3 is available in English, German, and Dutch

Misc. Notes (if any): Even though Book 2 has a "plurality is a scary monster" situation, the resolution is peaceful and empathetic, and the species is redeemed and explored further in Book 3.

Is it long, medium, or short?: Long! Book 1 is 600 pages/16.5 hours audiobook, Book 2 is 565 pages/15.5 hours audiobook, and Book 3 is 480 pages/13.5 hours audiobook

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody? Teens and up (two fade-to-black romance scenes in Book 1, graphic depictions of violence in Book 2, graphic description of lynching in Book 3)

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Added to the catalog! Thank you for submitting it! ^_^

Damaged by Cathy Glass (nonfiction/memoir book, 2006)

[erinptah]

“OK, Cathy,” she said, not in the least perturbed. “I’ll tell her.” Then she stood up, and started a conversation with herself, in which she told Jodie she wasn’t seeing Mummy or Daddy because she had to be safe.

Blurb: When seven-year-old Jodie was taken into foster care, her behavior was so difficult that she went through five carers in four months. Experienced carer Cathy Glass almost passed on her too, until her own (teenage) children insisted they wanted to see Jodie through. Eventually Jodie began to disclose details of the abuse, overlooked by Social Services for years, while Cathy struggled to get her the professional care and long-term support she deserved.

Why is it worth your time?: The rare outside view of a small child who appears to have DID, who ends up in the care of adults that are attentive and well-informed enough to recognize it.

You wouldn't know it from the promotional copy, and DID doesn't get invoked by name until nearly the end of the book, when a couple of alters firmly identify themselves as Not Jodie. But the dissociative traits are visible from day one, when Cathy reports Jodie having intense, distracted conversations with what she assumes are "imaginary friends." Among the kid's other issues, most of them Cathy never overtly connects with the alters, but there are a few that the reader might recognize as DID-related anyway (e.g. struggles with time perception). All of which suggests that Cathy's original real-time notes about her experience with Jodie were pretty solid.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse high-focus, cofronting, people: children, type: medical, how would you tag for "real system described from the outside POV of a singlet but not in a horrible way"?

Content Warnings: Short/non-spoiler version: past child abuse (sexual and physical), past animal abuse, physical aggression and sexual acting-out.

Long/spoiler version: (There's so much of this. I may have missed some things. Anyone else who's read the book, please chime in if you notice some.)

Sexual abuse from both of Jodie's parents and a range of other people, sometimes in groups, sometimes photographed or filmed, starting before she turned 2. It's described in sparse but unambiguous detail, since Cathy is aware she'll need specifics if anything is going to get prosecuted. Physical abuse that was documented in multiple hospital visits, which left Jodie with learning difficulties due to brain damage, and which she sometimes re-experiences in physical flashbacks.

The precipitating event for Jodie being taken away from her parents was, she set fire to her father's dog. (There's no suggestion the dog itself was involved in the abuse, just that Jodie is displacing her anger at her father.) She starts the book with poor bowel control, sexual acting-out, and physical aggression, and has what seems to be a pretty severe depressive episode towards the end. At one point Cathy's personal information gets leaked to Jodie's parents, and Jodie periodically has flashbacks/hallucinations of them coming to take her, but ultimately they never appear in person.

Although nobody gets prosecuted for Jodie's abuse, 6 of them are prosecuted (and 3 convicted) for the abuse of one of her classmates, which might never have been uncovered without Jodie's disclosures. So that's something.

Accessibility Notes: Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Misc. Notes (if any): There's some awkward misinformation in the dialogue (e.g. describing the non-Jodie headmates Reg and Amy as "characters"). Thankfully, Cathy's actions stay refreshingly grounded in "managing the issues Jodie-and-company actually have," there's not much focus on her idea of what DID "should" be.

Is it long, medium, or short?: Long

It is for kids, teens, adults, or everybody?: Adults

Re: Damaged by Cathy Glass (nonfiction/memoir book, 2006)

[lb_lee]

Sneak: Added! Thank you for the submission! ^_^