Plural Stories

"In 1424, three saints
appeared to Jeanne in a vision.
Saint Michael, Saint Catherine,
and Saint Margaret came to her
as she walked alone in a field."

Blurb: In an alternate universe, Joan of Arc is called by the saints to fight for the English.

Why is it worth your time?: It's steampunk poetry about Joan of Arc learning alchemy and going to war. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, visions, voices, spiritual, nonswitching, nonhumans (the angel Saint Michael), the dead (other saints)

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Free to read online, screenreadable.

Misc Notes: Two installments:
Listening to God (Listening to God back-up link)
The Voyage to Vaucouleurs (Voyage to Vaucouleurs back-up link)

"RAGE AGAINST THE DISTANCE!
KILL THE GHOST!
BURN THE DIVIDE!"

Blurb: "a poem/maybe future lyrics about dissociation--specifically, the moody sort of dissociation where you can't ground and are only able to feel the frustration/irritation around that."

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short powerful poem about breaking dissociation and feeling.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, dissociation

Content Warnings: ...it's a poem about dissociation.

Access Notes: Screenreadable, free to read here on Dreamwidth! (back-up link here)

"Look at me! I am a person! I DESERVE A NUMBER!"

Blurb: Characters find themselves on a surreal, forever-extending train with ever-changing numbers printed on their hands. Each one has to deal with that in a different way.

Why is it worth your time?: All four seasons of this show are good, but each one is self-contained and have different themes; your mileage may vary on which of seasons 1-3 are "plural enough." In Season One, there's the multi robot One-One. Season Two deals with MT, a runaway mirror reflection determined to find her own personhood separate from the person she reflects. Season Three deals with Grace, who's spent years treating the train (and its denizens) as her own personal playground devoid of moral weight, and the way that eventually comes back to haunt her. (Season 4 involves two ex-best friends who get thrown on the train together and has no pluralish content.)

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, cofronting, otherworld, copies, nonhumans (robots, mirror reflections), setting-specific

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: On account of being canceled by streaming services, this show can only be pirated. We encourage you to do so; it's very good! Subtitles should be available; I was able to watch with them.

This is part of a series on Moon Knight submitted by erinptah! Thank you, erinptah! :D See her whole post with clips here!

“We’re not crazy, Marc. Well, maybe Grant is. You seen how much he pays for a suit? No, ‘crazy’ is what stupid people call things they don’t take the time to understand. You, me, Grant…we’re a team. Or we should be.”

Blurb: After dying and being resurrected (for the first time, but not the last) by the Egyptian god of the moon, mercenary Marc Spector sets out to atone for the harm he caused…by becoming a moon-themed superhero. That’s on top of being Steven Grant, rich CEO/investor in unspecified businesses. And being Jake Lockley, who ranges from “friendly, easygoing, regular guy” to “comedically murderous sociopath” depending on who’s writing this run. (The current series is striking a middle ground of “avuncular scoundrel with a heart of gold”.)

VOLUME 9 BLURB:

So, after the Bemis run ended, the main Avengers comic did this arc in which Khonshu orders Marc to attack a bunch of the Avengers. Which he does. (Everyone he’s managed to reconnect with decides this is a good reason to cut him off again.) The Avengers ultimately put Khonshu in super-god-prison, but let Marc go free…as long as he follows certain conditions.

This is the run that combines “Marc has a new set of Moon Knight adventures” with “Marc goes to court-ordered super-therapy.”

Steven and Jake don’t appear until the end of the end of the first story arc — but when they do, it’s to reveal they were giving Marc space on purpose, and to call out how much he’s struggling without them. After that, while they don’t get to be in every issue, they get regular appearances that showcase how Jake and Steven both have personal skills that Marc doesn’t, and how much better they work as a team.

Why is it worth your time?: Marvel Comics’ longest-running and most-successful attempt to portray a superhero with DID. (Some writers don’t actually attempt it — but we’re limiting this roundup to the runs where they remembered.)

“Most-successful” still means plenty of flaws, drawbacks, and general comic-book nonsense! But at its best, the writing is a heartfelt, complex, insightful, funny portrayal of A Troubled System Doing Their Best, which a lot of IRL plural readers have found relatable.

Plural tags:  abuse low-focus, memory work, otherworld, realitymashing, relationships: family, relationships: teamwork, type: medical, type: switching

Content warnings: violence (not as gratuitous as the last run), a recurring theme of mind-control/violation-of-autonomy from the villains, major character death

Access Notes: Most of these are available in print collections of some sort, as well as digitally through Marvel. Nothing audio or screenreadable as far as I know.

This is part of a series on Moon Knight submitted by erinptah! Thank you, erinptah! :D See her whole post with clips here!

“I am Marc Spector. I am Steven Grant. I am Jake Lockley, and we are going to be okay. We are going to live with who we are. We are Moon Knight. And we never needed you.”

Blurb: After dying and being resurrected (for the first time, but not the last) by the Egyptian god of the moon, mercenary Marc Spector sets out to atone for the harm he caused…by becoming a moon-themed superhero. That’s on top of being Steven Grant, rich CEO/investor in unspecified businesses. And being Jake Lockley, who ranges from “friendly, easygoing, regular guy” to “comedically murderous sociopath” depending on who’s writing this run.

VOLUME 8 BLURB:

Marc wakes up in the mental hospital where he’s been living, lost in delusional fantasies of being a caped vigilante. Or has he? No, the whole thing is a setup by the goddess Ammit, to keep Khonshu’s Avatar trapped and helpless while she takes over the world. Or is it?

The trippy, twisty, reality-bending, beautifully-drawn run that redefined Moon Knight — this time, in a way readers actually liked. Marc flounders around in a world with multiple levels of reality, regularly slipping into different scenes from his past, trying to rescue a handful of people who might be his old friends or just his memories…and finally getting a substantial team-up with Jake and Steven.

Reimagined and expanded flashbacks finally establish that Steven and Jake didn’t just appear when Marc was an adult; they’ve been a system since childhood. The headmates spend a few issues split across different reality-sequences, with stunningly different art styles; but the plots keep blurring together, until they find their way into the same scene again. Sometimes we get gritty montages from Marc’s mercenary past; sometimes we get a sci-fi dream about fighting werewolves on the moon.

This isn’t a good place to start reading Moon Knight, because it’s dense with references to feelings and relationships that won’t land if you don’t have the context. And it’s confusing enough even with context! At least read some of the ’80s run first. But then, yeah, read this one.

Why is it worth your time?: Marvel Comics’ longest-running and most-successful attempt to portray a superhero with DID. (Some writers don’t actually attempt it — but we’re limiting this roundup to the runs where they remembered.)

“Most-successful” still means plenty of flaws, drawbacks, and general comic-book nonsense! But at its best, the writing is a heartfelt, complex, insightful, funny portrayal of A Troubled System Doing Their Best, which a lot of IRL plural readers have found relatable.

Plural tags: abuse low-focus, cofronting, fusion/integration, memory work, otherworld, realitymashing, relationships: family, relationships: teamwork, type: medical, type: spiritual, type: switching

Content warnings: Medical abuse and general poor treatment in the hospital scenes (which might be due to them being run by evil gods, but then again, it might not). Abuse and manipulation from Khonshu. A potentially distressing “Marc gets rid of Jake and Steven” sequence partway through; it’s a fakeout, they’ll be back.

Access Notes: Most of these are available in print collections of some sort, as well as digitally through Marvel. Nothing audio or screenreadable as far as I know.

---

This is part of a series on Moon Knight submitted by erinptah! Thank you, erinptah! :D See her whole post with clips here!

“It’s easy to do, dear Steven — excuse me, dear Jake. You’ve got so many different names, identities, and moods, even you forget who you are half the time.”

Blurb: After dying and being resurrected (for the first time, but not the last) by the Egyptian god of the moon, mercenary Marc Spector sets out to atone for the harm he caused…by becoming a moon-themed superhero. That’s on top of being Steven Grant, rich CEO/investor in unspecified businesses. And being Jake Lockley, who ranges from “friendly, easygoing, regular guy” to “comedically murderous sociopath” depending on who’s writing this run.

VOLUME 1 BLURB: Steven lives in a mansion with his girlfriend/sparring partner Marlene, and tries to convince himself he’s just Marc in denial. Jake drives a cab, hangs out with his friends at a local diner, and tries to convince everyone he’s just Marc playing a role. Marc goes Moon Knighting with his friend/pilot Duchamp, and tries to convince himself that he can just disappear into his other “personas.”

Although the writers haven’t committed to any mental-health diagnosis, the headmates have a little too much depth for “one guy with different aliases.” There’s no abuse backstory for the system, but it comes up with some of the minor characters, and it’s a source of sympathy even if they’re antagonists. The supporting cast is colorful and charming, including a love interest who isn’t just there to look pretty — she does research and undercover work for Moon Knight missions, and though she doesn’t like fights, she can hold her own if she gets caught up in one.

…and, okay, it’s still the ’80s. Sometimes women get kidnapped and end up in their underwear for no reason. Other times you get sketchy racial portrayals of non-white antagonists. Some of the villain plots are just aggressively, cartoonishly stupid. But the good parts are good!

Why is it worth your time?: Marvel Comics’ longest-running and most-successful attempt to portray a superhero with DID. (Some writers don’t actually attempt it — but we’re limiting this roundup to the runs where they remembered.)

“Most-successful” still means plenty of flaws, drawbacks, and general comic-book nonsense! But at its best, the writing is a heartfelt, complex, insightful, funny portrayal of A Troubled System Doing Their Best, which a lot of IRL plural readers have found relatable.

Plural tags: abuse low-focus, relationships: friendship, romantic, teamwork, type: switching

Content warnings: ’80s-typical issues with race and gender.

 

Access Notes: Most of these are available in print collections of some sort, as well as digitally through Marvel. Nothing audio or screenreadable as far as I know.

"These stories were very old, as old as people, and they had survived because they were very powerful indeed. These were the tales that echoed in the head long after the books that contained them were cast aside. They were both an escape from reality and an alternative reality themselves. They were so old, and so strange, that they had found a kind of existence independent of the pages they occupied. The world of the old tales existed parallel to ours, as David's mother had once told him, but sometimes the wall separating the two became so thin and brittle that the two worlds started to blend into each other.

"That was when the trouble started."

Blurb: After the tragic death of his mother, his father's remarriage, and the birth of a baby brother, troubled boy David finds himself sucked into a fantasy world that seems cobbled together from the various books in his room. But those books and stories don't all belong to him, and some of them are very grim...

Why is it worth your time?: It's an enjoyable dark fantasy with truly frightening villains, tragic heroes, all overhung with a backdrop of World War II, which David is too young to fully understand the nature of. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, fictioneers, the dead, visions, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: This book is mainstream and well-liked and has gotten multiple printings, so it's easy to find in libraries. Available in ebook, audiobook, paperback, and hardback formats. Also got translated into French, where it won an award!

Submitted by my friend Chris!

"A mind in a city. A city in a mind."

Blurb: Murder mystery set in the mind of Elias Hodge, scientist.

Why is it worth your time?: The series is a fun combination of noir murder mystery and themes from Disney's Inside Out.

Plural Tags: otherworld, abuse intermediate focus, children, teamwork

Content Warnings: Specific content warnings are given in the episode blurb (such as misophonia: lip smacking). The series is set in a city in the mind going through Prohibition similar to the experience in the US (Al Capone era), so presume innuendo, violence, and alcohol.

Access Notes: Audio/dubbing, with subtitles and a transcript feature that's searchable (in the streaming service).

Misc Notes: Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9riE94Kkwq4
1st episode for free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pT1OhH3F1Y
Fandom Wiki (may have spoilers): https://dimension20.fandom.com/wiki/Mentopolis

Submitted by erinptah !

A cool quote from the work: "Why does everyone call you princess anyways?" [Don't say it.] [SAYING ITTTTT.] [Don't say it.] "We sold our real name to the fae." [Oh my god, GOBBO WHY?!]

Blurb: It's about a cyborg with DID, also cool armor and magic powers from a deal with the Fae that they warn everyone else not to imitate, trying to become queen of the pirates. First step: rescue a future-Twitch celebrity who just livestreamed herself fighting cops by turning into a dragon.

Why is it worth your time?: Absolutely wild genre-blend with fast-paced action and immediately-appealing characters. The main character is a system of (at least) three, with a fun, affectionate dynamic. (We get a lot of their internal conversation in color-coded dialogue boxes, and when someone talks out loud, their armor lights up in those colors to help you track who's fronting.) No idea if they'll ever reach their Pirate Queen goal, but I'm excited to see how many adventures they get up to in the process.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, teamwork, mindsharing, setting-specific, switching

Content Warnings: Sci-fi violence? So far that's it

Accessibility Notes: images, no transcript. Some fast-moving animations

Misc. Notes (if any): The main character has a fictional cybernetics-induced condition in-universe, but the creator just calls it DID in the author's notes, and says it's influenced by their own experience: "The ways the characters navigate their personas, the difficulties they face, and their coping mechanisms, reflect aspects of how people, like myself, grapple with DID." Comic is currently ongoing.

Start reading it here! (EDITOR'S NOTE 2023/11/28 Deleted? WBM back-up here, but the images aren't in order and I have no way to know how complete it is or isn't.) (EDIT 2023/12/14: the archive is incomplete and not backed up. RIP Princess & The System. T_T)

"We all need some place to go away to... some place we can be the people we should've been instead of the people we've become. Some safe place where we can escape reality."

Blurb: In our world, the Maxx is a homeless man who sleeps in a box with a hopelessly enmeshed relationship with his social worker, Julie, but in the primordial Outback, he's a superhero fighting for his Jungle Queen! But it turns out the Maxx, Julie, and the Outback are all hopelessly psychologically intertwined, and a killer named Mr. Gone seems to know way more about all of them than he should...

Why is it worth your time?: This is a very edgy '90s story that Sam Keith says tended to strike specific teenagers in just the right way at a specific time, and indeed, that's how we got into it. It is EXTREMELY uneven in quality, but Keith mashes Outback and "real world", realism and cartoonish exaggeration, together in a way that nobody else does, and it's still beautiful to watch. In an unusual twist for us, we will recommend the MTV Liquid Television cartoon over the comic; by virtue of its brevity, it forced the story to cut some of its worst excesses, and its ending is less unsatisfying and, in our opinion, much better placed.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate focus, realitymashing, memory work, otherworld, children, nonhumans [spirit animals], visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: The cartoon has subtitles on Open Subtitles. It was released on VHS, DVD, and someone put it on archive.org. The comics version is available on paper and ebook, and someone may have textually transcribed them for readers with print disabilities on archive.org? That would be a pleasant surprise!

Misc Notes: The comics version of the Maxx came out in six trade paperbacks (and maybe one of side-stories), but vol. 4 starts with a big time-skip and loses William Messner-Loebs as writer, leaving Sam Keith pulling double duty, and it shows. The cartoon, by virtue of being made in 1995 (and thus before the comic ended) was stuck with the first three volumes, and thus it ends there. The cartoon was 13 episodes, each roughly 10 minutes long, so you can smash through the whole thing in less than three hours.