Plural Stories

“Oh, but this was a delightful dream,” Miss Agatha hastened to assure her. "It was a dream of you and a baby. You’ve always had a Madonna look, you know, Emily, but there you were all Madonna. I can see the little thing now with its sensitive wee face—it wasn’t more than six months old—and a patrician dot of a nose and mysterious blue eyes...”

Blurb: Miss Emily and Miss Agatha are two inseparable spinsters and roommates. When they were younger, they taught children together, but now they have retired. Then Miss Agatha starts having recurring dreams that she and Emily have a baby together, named Vanderkoep (Agatha's last name), who grows and ages like any other infant. Miss Emily studiously writes down everything that occurs, but he only ever appears to Agatha...

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short, bittersweet story of romantic friendship and a non-traditional family from over a century ago. This is an odd duck, and I can safely say I've never read anything like it. It's a pretty good story, and at least to 2020s sensibility, Miss Emily and Miss Agatha's relationship feels pretty queer. Their devotion to each other and their dream baby is touching, and even though the ending is sad, I don't feel like the story judges them or their relationship.

Plural Tags: dreamfolk, inner children (for lack of a better term), abuse not mentioned, plural family

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available for free online, on account of it being in the public domain, and the text-only transcription was so poor I decided to clean it up and repost it myself.

Misc. Notes: Dunbar, the author, was active in the women's suffrage movement in the USA, and herself only married at 41. Her work had feminist themes, and I think this story is no exception.

"Of course I was okay, those Sundays, because I had Michael for company. Michael, who was my best friend in the world, maybe my only friend, when I was eight years old. My imaginary friend."

Blurb: What if your imaginary friend from childhood was your one true love? Jane Margaux is a lonely little girl with an overbearing mother and only one friend: Michael, who's imaginary. After he leaves her when she's nine years old, she never forgets him, until she runs into him again in her thirties.

Why is it worth your time?: It's... okay? It's a very straightforward sweet romance novel, with all the tropes and contrivances therein. (Though no constant escalation of conflict.) If you're not into romance novels, you won't be into this. It's cute and sappy, about a woman coming into her own with the help of her perfect man. In this book, imaginary friend is a job description, overlapping with "psychopomp" and (possibly) guardian angel. Michael's nature is intentionally left ambiguous, but though he is often invisible, he doesn't have to be, and he's clearly able to interact with the world by himself.

Plural Tags: nonswitching, imaginary friends, noncorporeal romance

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paper book, ebook, and audiobook formats.

Misc Notes: Apparently this book became a made-for-TV Lifetime movie! Haven't seen it, cannot vouch for it. Seeing as Jane is engaged in the movie, sounds like it is pretty different. That movie is available on DVD and streaming.

Jekyll: [while stumbling around dizzily and laughing, then writing in a notebook] No noticeable behavioral differences...

Blurb: David freakin' Hasslehoff plays the virtuous Dr. Jekyll and his murderous headmate Mr. Hyde. Watch him devour scenery, wear enormous fur coats, and have a full-on conniption on stage as the two headmates battle for dominance.

Why is it worth your time?: This musical is ridiculous. I cannot call it good, but I have watched it twice. You are either here to watch David Hasslehoff howling and clawing at his clothes, or you do not want to watch this. Even though Jekyll and Hyde is the millstone around many a multi neck, I can't deny, I enjoy how Hasslehoff portrays the switches and uses body posture, voice, and hair to show who's in charge at any given time.

Plural Tags: switching, abuse not mentioned

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available on DVD and VHS. The DVD, shockingly, has no subtitles.

"It watches. What does it see?"

Blurb: The new being watches. What does it see?

Why is it worth your time?: A follow-up to Insert Title Here, and all the same info applies. Itch.io seems to be a font of genrebending, mediumbending, bleeding-edge plural work, of which this is just one example. It's short and free, and embraces ambiguity and not knowing, which I think is something every plural could use now and again.

Plural Tags: realitymashing, visions

Content Warnings: contains themes around psychosis symptoms, dissociation, and general mental health

Access Notes: Available for free on itch.io. Read it here!

Misc. Notes: Cataloger's note: contacted halfbakeddozen 10/16/2024 and they have stated the work is not available for download or back-up.

"It has arrived! It does not remember how it got here..."

Blurb: A new being has arrived! It does not remember how it got here, and maybe that is okay.

Why is it worth your time?: Itch.io seems to be a font of genrebending, mediumbending, bleeding-edge plural work, of which this is just one example. It's short and free, and embraces ambiguity and not knowing, which I think is something every plural could use now and again.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned

Content Warnings: none; trauma vaguely implied

Access Notes: Available for free on itch.io. Read it here! acorn_squash  has also generously created a text-only transcript, with halfbakeddozen's permission!

Misc. Notes: Cataloger's note: contacted halfbakeddozen 10/16/2024 and they have stated the work is not available for download or back-up.

“The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think; a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.”

Blurb: In an alternate-history England where the Crimean war has been going for 150 years and pet dodo birds are all the rage, Special Operative Thursday Next has to protect Jane Eyre from the kidnapping of its protagonist.

Why is it worth your time?: It's pretty good. Though there isn't much in the way of body or mindsharing (the closest is when Edward Rochester enters Thursday's dream to warn her of upcoming events), it is alllll about the lives of fictional characters interacting with "real" ones. It's an entertaining romp. Good vacation reading. Also, if you're the kind of bibliophile who's tickled by a society where Shakespeare plays are performed like Rocky Horror, hundreds of thousands of people turn up for a funeral of a minor Charles Dickens character, and people go around evangelizing about the true authorship of Shakespeare, then boy howdy, this book is for you.

Plural Tags: fictivity and otherworld TO THE MAX

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; in comments!

Accessibility Notes: Available in paper, audio, and ebook forms. You can find this book just about anywhere; it's a library easy-get. It's also been translated into Dutch, German, French, and Polish (and presumably Spanish, since the third book was translated and who translates only the third book of a series?).

Misc. Notes (if any): First book of a series. (Seven books, at present.)

"I am a universe contained, varied and diverse
thoughts and perceptions orbit around
my consciousness; so when it seems
I am not all here,
my mind is probably somewhere
caught up in
the stratosphere"

Blurb: A meditative poetry zine about the fluid, celestial nature of the self, its ebb and flow and ambiguity.

Why is it worth your time?: It's good. I bought this short zine from someone in my neighborhood a few years back, and the mix of handmade care (the string binding, the silver that was clearly penned in by hand for each individual copy) and quiet simplicity has kept it on my shelf this whole time.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus

Content Warnings: none. The slightest implication of a past unhealthy relationship.

Accessibility Notes: This zine is, as far as I can tell, impossible to find anywhere anymore. Sara Makiya has redone a couple of the illustrations since, in full color (rather than the stripped-down black, white, and silver), but that's it. Since one of my rules for this comm is that the work has to be something you can actually get, I textually transcribed the zine here for posterity, and since emailing Makiya and Paige got no response, I finally scanned and uploaded the thing in its entirety (though the silver isn't done justice digitally). It's a beautiful little thing and I'd hate for it to be lost.

Recced by Janusz of talewisefellowship !

"Sai... I guess the one and only way to see you... is for me to play go. Sai, is it... is it all right for me to play?"

Blurb: When average 6th grader Shindō Hikaru finds an old Go board in his grandfather's warehouse, he is possessed by the spirit of Fujiwara no Sai, a master Go player who lived about a thousand years ago, and from that moment his life changed forever. Although Hikaru originally had no interest in the old board game, through spending time with Sai he gradually comes to appreciate the game and Sai becomes his guardian mentor and teaches the game to him. Thanks to Sai's actions, Hikaru manages to catch the attention of a young go prodigy his own age, Tōya Akira. The two develop a mutual interest in each other and Hikaru dedicates himself to studying the game so that he may become a player worthy of Akira.

Why is it worth your time?:
Because only Hikaru can see and hear Sai and they talk to each other in his head, the way the two live together is very similar to the experiences of many plural systems, especially the "host and soulbond" type. The story portrays their relationship and their struggles in a very human way that a lot of systems might find relatable. It was this story that first motivated me to get in touch with my system.

Also the gay subtext between Hikaru and Akira is so strong it might as well just be considered text. Since it's early 2000's Shōnen Jump there is no official confirmation of the nature of their feelings for each other, but I wouldn't consider it queerbaiting either; it is what it is.

Plural Tags: Spirit possession, the dead

Content Warnings: Contains spoilers, in comments below

Accessibility Notes: Available in English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and French, as comics and anime, digital and analog. Quoth Janusz, "Unfortunately the anime doesn't cover the entire manga and the english voice acting is not very good, so if you listen to the dub I recommend listening to the original Japanese voice acting to get a sense of how everyone actually sounds." Also, apparently it got remade into a Chinese live-action remake a while back! No clue if it's any good though.

“We have wanted to make a zine about our plurality for a long time. It seemed like it should be natural, easy, therapeutic. Fun..."

Blurb: A discussion of how the very nature of plurality can make selves-recognition and discussing that plurality is difficult.

Why is it worth your time? There can be pressure for plurals to know exactly who and what they are, right away, even though the nature of the beast makes that highly unlikely, if not impossible. This zine is about that experience. Some plurals are making really experimental work, both in genre and medium, and that has value, even if by nature it's hard to fit into the "rules" of how this comm is supposed to work. It may not have a "story," by traditional means, but I want to boost it. Also, the textual transcription is free.

Plural Tags: nonhuman [aliens, flaming eyeballs, rattlesnake], no abuse discussion

Content Warnings: None

Accessibility Notes: Available in text-only form (back-up link); to get the paper/illustrated version, you have to ask LB.

"It was hard to decide what was the worst part about not having a mouth--not being able to eat, or not being able to talk."

Blurb: Final book in a four-book series. At the end of the third book, Rod, our sixth-grade human narrator, saves the universe by becoming the headmate of a six-legged, one-eyed, no-mouth-or-hands alien named Seymour. Book 4 takes up with the two trying to share Seymour's body, and also foil the plans of the evil mastermind who made off with Rod's body. (There's also a movie version from 2020 that toned down the multi stuff. You can skip it.)

Why is it worth your time? It's a fun kiddie-sci-fi action about a multiple saving the world, with fun asides about the concept of self and mind.

Plural Tags: Plurality on purpose, sci-fi plurality, nonhuman headmates (well, both body and Seymour are alien; Rod isn't), switching

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: Available on paper and ebook, kid-friendly.

Misc Notes: Last book in a four book-children's series; it's best you read the whole series, but if you ONLY want the plural stuff, you can indeed read Aliens Stole My Body by itself; there's a "if you missed the rest of this series..." note at the start that brings you up to speed.