Entries tagged with 1+:abuse:high-focus

quiet americans by magdaliny (superhero fanfiction, 2017–2018)

Submitted by

acorn_squash!

“Jay wants there to have been consequences, he thinks. It nags at him: the senselessness of it. That Poor Kid, he keeps thinking; he's thought it so often it needs capitals. A proper title. Twenty-something years and a grave so shallow he imagines Barnes can feel it when the wind comes through the cherry trees in Arlington. Or around that rock in the mountains, under that frozen river—or spread thinly between one and the other, a stretched-out restless haunting five thousand miles long. He doesn't know which is worse to contemplate. That Poor Kid. And then there's Jay, turning his back when it's convenient and plumbing memories when he feels like it, pawing over the corpse and checking its pockets for spare change. They'd wrestled, somehow, and he'd won.

“He knows it wasn't like that, not really. Wilson'd implied as much, when he'd suggested that Jay had been born from the remnants of Barnes's healing brain, like the muck in a chrysalis reforming into another creature. But one time Jakob told Jay the story of Ya'akov, his namesake, wrestling the angel in the desert and coming out with a different name, a different identity; as a people—and Jay hasn't been able to stop thinking of it as a battle ever since. Jay wonders what Ya'akov's family thought, when he came limping back and said: my name is Yisrael. Whether he'd felt new. Whether he'd felt that he'd left something, back there in the sands, in the place where his hip had been twisted.”

Blurb: A series of Captain America and the Winter Soldier fanfics exploring the Soldier’s time in HYDRA, his escape, and his recovery, as he slowly decides who he is and who he wants to be. Only the second CatWS fic ever to be nominated to this comm!

Why is it worth your time?: This is really, really good fanfiction. (I think the excerpt above speaks for itself.)

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse: high-focus, cofronting (very rarely), memory work, people: the dead, type: setting-specific, type: switching (exactly once and never again)

I chose the setting-specific tag because Jay was born (as far as we know) because of brain damage that was only survivable at all because of sci-fi tech.

Content Warnings: Extremely graphic torture and murder, including of children and animals. (You can safely assume that everything in these content warnings is extremely graphic, unless noted otherwise.) Auto-amputation. Abusive medical experimentation that borders on body horror. Suicide attempts and self-harm. Vomit. Starvation. Memory erasure. Drug addiction. Forced chemical castration (off-page, but it’s a plot point; Jay isn’t especially upset about it, but he didn’t choose it either). Mentions of death in childbirth. Mentions of rape, including rape of children.

There’s also consensual sex in some of the sequels. (You can skip them if that isn’t your thing.) “I know the afterglow” has rimming and penetrative anal sex. “open your houses and let in the night” has outdoor blowjobs and anal fingering.

Accessibility Notes: Free, online, screenreadable. The main fic has been translated into Russian; the sequels are only available in English. Whole thing has been backed up on Wayback Machine.

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Her Voice Is A Backwards Record by Ozy Brennan (sff novelette, 2024)

This was submitted by

wolffyluna! Thank you,

wolffyluna! :D

"If all physically possible universes exist, so do all physically possible girlfriends… including the one you’re imagining who’s imagining you."

Blurb: Ana’s parents, who hadn’t heard that it wasn’t game-theoretically optimal to punish her for dropping LSD, packed her away to a troubled teen camp. During the day, Ana faces the harsh Utah desert, near-starvation, and torture in the name of “therapy.” At night, she seeks desperate comfort in the arms of her alternate-universe girlfriend, Yuya, one of three hundred wives in the harem of the Emperor of Every World. But as their respective prisons wear away at their very selves, both girls face a choice: to become the monsters those in authority want them to be, or to die trying to escape.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a really good exploration of the ways being in awful situations can make you a worse person, and also how you can help lift others out of it even if the other people are arguably 'only in your head.' It also contained a wrenching dialogue about multiversarial philosophy that made me cry.

Plural Tags: abuse (high focus), romantic relationships, type: on purpose.

Content Warnings: Institutional abuse including forced exercise torture, abusive therapy, moral injury, attempted child murder, consensual underage sex.

Accessibility Notes: Available as ebook on Amazon. Also available on hoopla in some libraries.

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Nobody Should Believe Me season 4, by Andrea Dunlop (documentary podcast, 2024)

Submitted by

erinptah! Thank you,

erinptah!

"It's like we're all on a bus. And sometimes I'm driving the bus, and so that means I have access to my body and my words and things like that, and then sometimes I'm on the back of the bus, and I have no ability to do anything -- but I can see what's happening. And I feel like it's gotten to a point, for the most part, where I feel like all the parts that need to be around are driving the bus together."

Blurb: When Andrea Dunlop's sister was investigated for medical child abuse (popularly known as "Munchausen by Proxy") more than a decade ago, it tore her family apart. This catastrophic series of events sent Andrea on a journey to understand a form of abuse that many people don't want to believe exists, speaking with experts, the occasional perpetrator, and a lot of survivors. Season 4 follows the story of Jordyn Hope, a survivor Andrea became friends with while making earlier seasons, as they unravel the secrets of their childhood.

Why is it worth your time?: The podcast is excellent in general, with the host neither sugarcoating nor sensationalizing the abuse she covers, and getting a wide range of relevant voices on-mic. Jo had guest appearances in earlier seasons to give a survivor's perspective, and this season they step into the spotlight. Their multiplicity is only discussed in Episode 5: Revelations (Youtube link), but symptoms like dissociation and amnesia come up elsewhere in the season -- and obviously they're plural the whole time. It's rare to see DID come up in a series where that isn't the focus, and refreshing that, in contrast to all the negative/damaging health effects Jo deals with as a result of their abuse, the multiplicity is presented as neutral-to-positive.

Plural Tags: abuse high-focus, cofronting, dissociation, relationships: teamwork, type: medical, type: switching

Content Warnings: Medical child abuse (from Jo's mother), emotional abuse, sexual abuse (from someone else), gaslighting, narcissism, alcoholism, racism toward Jo's biological father, eating disorder, inpatient mental health stays. Jo's mother dies in the course of the season, which they and their sister struggle with at the end.

Accessibility Notes: Audio, available on Apple Podcasts and other podcast services. The Youtube uploads have auto-generated transcripts, with all the errors you would expect.

Misc. Notes (if any): Added the "switching" tag because Jo talks about it happening in general while they made the season, though they don't call out any specific switches on-mic. They're not the main creator or editor of the podcast, but with this specific season I'd say they're involved-enough to rate the "creator: plural" tag.

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Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon (contemporary gothic sci-fi prose, 2021)

Submitted by

acorn_squash! Thank you,

acron_squash! ^_^

“Vern reached out to squeeze Lucy’s hand. Lucy squeezed back. In her mind, Vern said the words, I love you, I miss you. Lucy put down the book, turned to Vern, and said, ‘I like living inside of you.’”

Blurb: Everybody in Cainland is used to hauntings - visions and night terrors supposedly caused by withdrawal from white people's toxins. But in Cainland, everything is connected and nothing is what it seems. After fleeing the Cainland cult compound pregnant with twins, an exoskeleton develops on Vern's disabled, teenage body, a passenger that saps her energy but connects her to something greater than herself. Meanwhile, she learns to communicate with her hauntings and develops loving relationships with some of them.

Why is it worth your time?: It’s a fast-paced thriller with some of the most unique and creative science fiction elements I’ve seen in a while (did I mention the exoskeleton?). Definitely read the content warnings first, though!

Plural Tags:abuse high-focus, the dead, children, setting-specific plurality, family, friendship, and intimate relationships, visions

Content Warnings: The author includes the following content warning: “I hope that even as Sorrowland delves into the pain these colonial states have wrought, one might see the joy, triumph, and humor of those who resist, resist, resist. That said, there is no mincing words about some of the darker themes in this book. Note discussion and instances of racism, misogyny, self-harm, suicidality, and homophobia, inclusion of animal death and explicit violence, and references to sexual violence that have taken place off the page.”

In addition to this, the book also includes the death and sexual abuse of children, the forced removal of children, poverty, homelessness, cults, medical experimentation, and drugs. Pregnancy, childbirth, and consensual sex also appear.

Accessibility Notes: Available in e-book, audiobook, and print.

Piranesi, by Susannah Clarke (fantasy prose, 2020)

Submitted by

packbat!

"And indeed, this is what must have happened now, because the next thing I knew was that I was waking suddenly out of sleep.

"A Full Moon stood in the centre of the Single Doorway, flooding the Hall with Light. The Statues on the Walls were all posed as if they had just turned to face the Doorway, their marble Eyes fixed on the Moon. They were different from the Statues in other Halls; they were not isolated individuals, but representations of a Crowd. Here were two with their Arms about each other; here one had his Hand on the Shoulder of one in front, the better to pull himself forward to see the Moon; here a Child held on to its Father's Hand. There was even a Dog that — having no interest in the Moon — stood on its Hind Legs, its Front Paws on its Master's Chest, pleading for attention. The Rear Wall was a mass of Statues — not neatly arranged in Tiers, but a jumbled, chaotic Crowd. Foremost among them was a Young Man, who stood bathed in the Moonlight, elation in his Face, a Banner in his Hand.

"I almost forgot to breathe. For a moment I had an inkling of what it might be like if instead of two people in the World there were thousands."

Blurb: A series of journal entries by a man living in an apparently-infinite House full of Statues, oceans, and clouds, as he comes to learn more about the nature of his world and realize certain truths which were hidden from him.

Why is it worth your time?: Mostly it's a really cool story and we loved reading it? The protagonist's memory issues mean that he is solving a mystery where we know a lot more than he does. But also, the story being structured around a journal lets us see the perspectives of multiple inhabitants of the protagonist's body over the course of the story.

Plural Tags: abuse:high-focus, memory work, visions, closeting,

Content Warnings: gaslighting, animal death (fishing, a monkey offscreen), human death, kidnapping, unsanitary (one character is implied to have soiled himself, another throws up), fatphobia (very brief but intense), violence, drowning. Also, there's a heroic cop character, and the only explicitly LGBTQ+ character out of the dozen or so named characters is a villain.

Accessibility Notes: Available in audiobook, and in MANY languages, including Spanish, Polish, German, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Turkish, French, Bulgarian, Russian and Czech.

Misc. Notes (if any): There is a lot of obvious inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges and similar otherworldly fantasty, but it also draws from the author's experience with ME/CFS in a lot of subtle ways. And it has a good ending, which for us Packbats makes it easier to deal with the heavy stuff.

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Projections, by S. E. Porter (horror prose, 2024)

"The you that killed Viola Wright was mulched a month later. I found my outlying scrap of consciousness balled up in Gus's pocket, all unbeknownst to him, along with the rest of your magically compressed matter and a great charge of vibrating magic. It was an unsettling vantage, for where I curled infinitesimally in your remains I could hear what I might call my primary self screaming above Gus's head.'"

Blurb: Gus is a sorcerer so obsessed with Catherine that he murders her, and her ghost is stuck haunting him forevermore. Unable to accept that Catherine doesn't love him, Gus then becomes obsessed with finding other girls that remind him of Catherine and making THEM love him... only to kill them when the inevitably don't'. He creates magical duplicates of himself to do that dirty work, forever recycling them into new copies, using Catherine's ghost to follow them. But over the decades, that means a piece of Catherine is embedded in those pieces of Gus. And she still wants her revenge...

Why is it worth your time?: It's pretty good! This is a book covering 150+ years of time, with three major time periods and two (or three, depending how you count) different points of view, and a decently sizable cast, all organized well enough so as not to throw us. Gus is utterly convincing as that special brand of romantic obsessive who sees himself as the most loving person, all the while being an utter horrorshow, and Catherine's revenge is delicious.

Plural Tags: abuse (mostly of a ghost) high-focus, cofronting, copies, the dead, enmity, setting-specific, possession

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in print, ebook, and audiobook

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Final Session, by Mary Morell (mystery novel, 1991)

"I don't think the therapist knew what she was doing. She kept looking for the real person. They're all real."

Blurb: When a skeezy San Antonio psychotherapist is found murdered in her office, it's up to lesbian detective Lucia Ramos to find the killer, with the help of her median love interest, Amy.

Why is it worth your time?: This is not going to be a book for everyone, but if you want a mystery where lesbians, incest survivors, and therapists are both heroes and villains, and with a pretty cool median love interest, this is the book for you. (There's also a more florid client with MPD, but she doesn't play a major role.) Anyone who has had an abusive therapist may find this book cathartic.

Amy's shifts are treated in a straightforward, everyday way that's refreshingly ordinary. She is neither treated as fragile victim nor exotic curiosity. As she explains, "I've got some of the symptoms of Multiple Personality Disorder, but to a very light degree. It's a continuum, of course, like most human behavior. I have mood shifts, but not true personality shifts. There is a core that is always present, not just observing. No amnesia. Just fickle and fluid. It keeps me interesting."

Plural Tags: abuse high-focus, median, medical

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Only officially available in paperback secondhand, though cheaply. I found my copy through the library, but that seems to have been a lucky break. However, archive.org has a screenreadable copy!

Misc Notes: Winner of the 1990 Spinsters Lesbian Fiction Contest.

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Soft-Pedaled, by gray Folie (contemporary comic, 2022)

"Romeo, it's okay to feel angry, but you can't just go off on people!!"

Blurb: a short comic about two multiples trying to process being unable to stop abuse at their respective workplaces.

Why is it worth your time?: I've read a lot of comics over the years, and I've never seen work like gray Folie's. Their work is beautiful, raw, and emotionally devastating, and I have to be in a specific mindframe to read it because man can it hurt. They pull no punches when showing the ugly, snotty, painful sides of trauma and mental illness. Also, they depict both an internal and external argument with crystal clarity, despite the multiple layers of reality they're simultaneously happening on, just by using colors and panel layouts, which is masterful.

Plural Tags: abuse high-focus, otherworld, friendship, nonhumans [cat person, snake person, doll, animal people]

Content Warnings: Child abuse. Others contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Short, free to read online. Alas, this one doesn't seem to be screenreadable; other Folie works are. Back-up links:

Misc Notes: Felix, one of the main characters of this comic, has become the protagonist of a bigger (and screenreadable!) webcomic called Catharsis. It has only just started, though, so I'm going to hold off on adding it to this archive until I (or someone else) can give decent content warnings. You also might enjoy the art tags Folie has for them on tumblr; here's Felix's, and here's Izzi's.

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Various poems by Ann H. (personal poetry, 1985-1986)

"My sister and I
talk in our heads..."

Blurb: Eight short poems by a multiple, dealing with topics ranging from death, despair, and denial, to longing for connection and friendship.

Why is it worth your time?: Some of them still sing clear, even after thirty-five years, and in short lines, they precisely delineate grief, righteous anger, and fear. No clue whatever became of Ann H., or whether she made more poetry, but at least we have this little time capsule.

Plural Tags: abuse high focus, memory work, medical

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Originally published in MPD newsletter Speaking for Our Selves, Vol. 1, no. 4, from June 1986, and thus these poems are only available in bootleg form. The original scanned file of the entire issue (non-screenreadable) is here. I have also textually transcribed the poems alone for posterity.

Misc Notes: Contains the poems "I Called You," "I Have No Arms," "You Ran Away," "Preoccupied," "Why Dig Up The Past?" "Magic Grab Bag," "My Sister and I," and "My Friend, in Peace and Love."

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Xenogears, by Tatsuya Takahashi (sci-fi/fantasy video game, 1998)

Submitted by

monsterqueers !

"It's okay not to feel `whole'. Even if you feel only partly complete, if you repeat that enough, it'll eventually be `whole'. A part... is better than zero."

Blurb: A cult-classic extremely plotty JRPG about a amnesiac guy named Fei Fong Wong, who journeys across the world with some other folks to overthrow the fascist government, and in the process uncovers the secrets of their world and things about his past. Also there are giant robots.

Why is it worth your time?: Ok so this is a bit of a spoiler but Fei has DID canonically. Really not sure how to sell it as a plural game without saying this. Now its portrayal is deeply DEEPLY dated to 1998 Japan's understanding of it, but for its time its startlingly accurate and sympathetic. The depiction in the game matches the understanding of the time quite well, its just that time was 1998.

They really made an attempt at depicting dissociation through a visual medium, and the dynamic between Fei's alters is well developed. Its not amazing, its got SO many flaws in accuracy and unfortunate tropes, and its definitely not aged the best in many ways, but we did enjoy it quite a bit.

If you want a historical look at something that has a Very Robust plot -by that we mean lots and lots of lore-heavy cutscenes- and a plural character that has their plurality focused on, its beloved for a reason. One just has to keep in mind its from 1998 and everything about it is incredibly dated to that; from the gameplay to the portrayal of plurality and mental illness to the tackling of a variety of other subjects.

Please note this game is well known for being wildly dark and having a complicated and often confusing plot. The plot requires your full attention to make sense, and even then it can be confusing to many people. Its not for everyone but we personally enjoyed it and thought it wasnt as confusing as a lot of people find it.

Plural Tags: memory work, fusion/integration, otherworld, children, mpd/did, enmity, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: This includes spoilers. See comments.

Accessibility Notes: Physical copies for the ps1 are rare and expensive due to being out of print, but it may be bought on the ps vita/ps3 eshop, it's been uploaded to archive.org in English and a Quebecois French patch (can't vouch for quality) and there are lets plays available on youtube. Linked lets play is a no commentary run: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMHR2xnx8VCrRvNrgh10j0eq5UQFvM_WC It isnt a completionist run, but shows the full main plot.
A lets play is the recommended option as the gameplay has aged considerably and its on an old system.

Misc. Notes (if any): Its also worth noting that some of the director's later works also feature plurality, and are more accurate to the experience indicating that the portrayals flaws were more due to the times than views towards plurals.

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The Book of Autonomancy, by One Faraday and Ronin Ellis of the Desired Constellation (horror prose,

“It’s important to recognize that the actual cards themselves don’t matter,” she said plainly, as though trying to calmly drop a bombshell.

“How do you mean?”

“The cards are a vehicle for understanding. But any vehicle will get you from point A to point B. We could reshuffle these cards and lay out a different spread, and I could tell you the same fortune, and it would still be your fortune. The fortune is told through the conversation we have together, not through a bunch of paper and plastic and ink spread out on the table. "

Blurb: Practicing the art of autonomancy, a multiple works as a pseudo-exorcist, ousting noncorporeal entities masquerading as ghosts. The story dips back and forth between their coming to selves-awareness and magic in the past, and their present-day battle of wills with a "ghost," who is pulling out all the stops and maybe more than they bargained for...

Why is it worth your time?: It is so engrossing! I totally got sucked in and read the whole thing in one sitting. Just reading this system working together, despite lack of co-consciousness, and using their DID to fight asshole entities is so satisfying. (And how this story MAKES their DID specifically a load-bearing plot element. This is one of those rare stories where pretty much no other type of plurality would work for the purposes of the story.) The spooky moments are truly spooky, the jokes are truly funny. Also, it's free!

Plural Tags: mpd/did, inner children, community, switching, realitymashing, plural creator, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available for free reading on Reddit. Start reading it here! (EDIT: some chapters are locked behind an 18+ filter, which apparently makes some chapters inaccessible under the new www.reddit URLs. Following is the full listing of chapters under old.reddit URLs, which are less accessible on mobile but can at least all be read:

Misc Notes: There is a short story in the same world as this, The Autonomancer's Homunculus - Recipe Not Included, but it involves different characters and doesn't fulfill the plural requirement. Ian Night of the Desired Constellation was also posting about autonomancy (the use of personal symbols to find meaning and self-actualization) back on tumblr in 2017, and he influenced parts of this series. You can read his posts about it here and here.

CATALOGER NOTE 2024/10/6: emailed DC about back-up rehosting the story in one file on healthymultiplicity.com because oh god if I have to back-up all 24 chapters manually I will cry.

CATALOGER NOTE 2025/1/23: One of DC has requested no back-up be made; they got Book of Autonomancy stolen and resold by some jerk on Amazon without recourse and are removing all their fiction from the Internet. :(

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Lisa the First, by Austin Jorgensen (horror? game, 2012)

"Get back to your room..."

Blurb: An abused young woman tries to escape through her imagination and fails.

Why is it worth your time?: It's free, short, and pretty good. I played it and enjoyed it, despite its depressing tone and disturbing imagery.

Plural Tags: nonswitching, otherworld, introjects, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Free to play, text dialogue. A completionist Let's Play with the dialogue read out loud is here, though it's not the best.

Misc Notes: This game is the first in a series, and I am not going to play the other two because the first is about as upsetting as I can take. It is an RPGmaker game inspired by cult hit Yume Nikki, which I'm also working on playing through.

Play it here! (Back-up link here.)

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When Rabbit Howls, by the Troops for Truddi Chase (memoir prose, 1987)

“I saw a multiple killed once. Not in the strict sense of the word, of course. Her therapist did it. [...] Her psychiatrist tried his damnedest to force her—them, her other selves, to integrate. He wanted to see one 'wellrounded, whole' person. I think in many ways the fragmented aspect of MPD scared the hell out of him, especially when he saw things he couldn’t comprehend, ideas he couldn’t have conceived himself in a million years. There was so much beauty unfolding in that woman, and she had such a long way to go—her people getting to know each other fully, exploring themselves and her, showing their wares, if you will. They never had a chance.”

Blurb: The Troops' autobio about their trauma history, their system function, and trying to get their act together and go public to help fight abuse.

Why is it worth your time?: There's a reason that this book still seems to be remembered comparatively fondly, while most other old MPD memoirs are not. The Troops originated a good number of terms and ideas that multiples online use today. They were notable for fighting integration adamantly, instead preferring to work cooperatively, and while their book is incoherent and hard to read, it's worth it. They are also one of the larger systems to have written one of these books; their system was of roughly a hundred, and they go in-depth about their system landscape, functioning, and roles, which are a bit different than the smaller systems in prior books.

Plural Tags: MPD/DID, switching, memory work, otherworld, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paper and ebook formats.

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Sacrifice, by Andrew Vachss (crime prose, 1991)

“When you hunt predators, the best camouflage is weakness.”

Blurb: Burke, a merc/PI living on the seamiest side of New York City, gets involved in a case involving an abused nine-year-old multiple who has murdered two of his baby foster brothers. Burke has to negotiate a truce between the cops and child welfare groups coming to blows over him... and also get revenge for the multiple's sake.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a pretty good grim-n-gritty crime novel. However, it's probably the only of its like that will be in this catalog, and it comes with caveats. It is very, very much a book from 1991: the memory wars, ritual abuse, and Satanic trappings of group child abuse are all plot points, and the multiple has a murderer headmate. However, and the reason this book is in the catalog, is that it's the only one I've seen that takes a murderer multiple and treats them with sympathy and compassion--it takes the tack not of "multiples don't murder people" but "even if a multiple does murder someone, they still deserve compassion and care." Chosen family and the welfare of children, even "bad" children, are core themes. This is definitely not a book for everybody, but it is a book for SOMEBODY. (Also, it's nice to see someone discuss ritual abuse with the air of, "yeah, the trappings are to scare the victims; Satanism is not itself the problem.")

Plural Tags: MPD, fusion, switching, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: include spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: Available on paper, ebook, and audiobook.

Fran Bow, by Natalia and Isak Martinsson (horror computer game, 2015)

"Everything's fine.
It feels like heaven.
I see my parents.
They look happy.
They have a present for me. I wonder...
It's a cat! So sweet and pretty!
Dark as the deepest night.
It's Mr. Midnight!
My best friend...
My only friend..."

Blurb: After witnessing the brutal murder of her parents, ten-year-old Fran Bow gets shipped off to an oppressive asylum for children, where she starts having grotesque visions. After having a dream about her beloved cat, Mr. Midnight, she decides to escape. Reality starts coming apart at the seams.

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good. It is amazing that this game was made by only two people; its visual style is singular, and the horrific imagery is contrasted and intensified by beautiful moments, plus the love Fran and Mr. Midnight have for each other. As someone who also sometimes has gruesome visions, this game was ironically comforting to watch; it has a theme of choosing happiness despite intense pain. The game is intentionally surreal and unclear as to what's "real" and what isn't, but I feel it fits under a greater plural umbrella due to (SPOILERS)

Plural Tags: imaginary friends, visions, nonswitching, realitymashing, otherworld, metaphysical/supernatural, creator speaks from experience, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers, in the comments below.

Accessibility Notes: Subtitled in English, Spanish, German, and Russian, not voiced. I've found a Let's Play that voices the dialogue in English. (When I link a Let's Play, it's to a completionist version with an unobtrusive, leisurely player who focuses on the game.)

Misc. Notes: Natalia Martinsson (nee Figueroa) has stated that this game is based on her own life: "The game itself is a kind of screaming out what I been experienced through my childhood and teenager years. [...] So yes, Fran Bow is a gathering of many events that have being crucial in my life and in a way, I don't want to speak only for myself, but also the others I meet on my way, because not everything is about painful situations. Beautiful things has also happened on the way, and those happy event are those who really helped to battle my mental state."

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The Third Person, by Emma Grove (memoir comic, 2022)

Info from

rax and

erinptah !

"There's something else from when I was a kid... something I've done since I was a little kid, and I don't know why... I've always thought of myself in the plural!"

Blurb: 900-page comics memoir about a messed-up therapy relationship and being gatekept out of transitioning due to DID.

Why is it worth your time?: Quoth Rax: "we [...] enjoyed it a lot. [...] it is definitely a trans memoir but the plural aspects are at least more personally interesting. it can be painful in places, and the therapist character is really awful in places, but it's also wickedly funny and does a good job of respecting the author's privacy when she doesn't feel like sharing something. the ending is... it feels a little too neatly wrapped up compared to our experiences or the experiences of people we know, but (a) maybe the author's experience wrapped up! that happens! and (b) maybe it didn't and she reasonably concluded the details of that aren't the world at large's business."

Quoth Erin, "I've read it, and it did turn out to be very good! The 800-page length isn't as overwhelming as it sounds -- it covers long conversations in detail with a new panel every line or two, plus beat panels for the silences, so it doesn't take much reading to whip through a bunch of pages. And the marketing copy taking the therapist's POV was a weird choice -- the book itself is so blatantly from the perspective/s of the author, who's just earnestly trying to get some support."

Plural Tags: DID, switching, abuse high-focus (by a therapist of their adult client), fusion/integration, plural creator

Content Warnings: contain spoilers! In comments below.

Accessibility Notes: This comic is VERY long, 900 pages, though it apparently goes by very quickly! Available in both paper and ebook.

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Cultiples, by LB Lee (history prose, 2017-2019)

It is very tacky to recommend one's own work, so this is the only listing we will make for it.

"I am nineteen, and I have just joined the plural communities of Livejournal. I find myself talking to a man named Neo, a metaphysical multiple—in other words, he is one of many within his body, and he sees his origins as being spiritual or mystical in nature. He is from the Matrix, and when I mention that I have heard of him, he replies, 'Heard of, eh? Slanderous rumors and cult tidings I hope...'

Blurb: Three histories of three plural cult leaders, who ran abusive, mindbreaking authoritarian groups. Cultiples #1 follows Tristan, who will be in prison until 2030 due to kidnapping, branding, and sexually assaulting two teenage sisters who he convinced were really their roleplaying characters. #2 follows Draven, who's been running fictionkin soulbonding cults since the mid-90s, the most successful of which was Neo's Matrix cult, leaving a string of poverty and domestic violence charges behind. And #3 follows the harassment campaigns Panopticon embarked on from 2015-2018, using the Gallifreyan Tradition Society (their Doctor Who religious/cultural reconstruction group) as their attack dogs

Why is it worth your time?: Other people have covered plural cults, but mostly from a voyeuristic, mock-the-freaks perspective. As far as I know, Cultiples is the only one to examine it from a plural perspective. We made this series to warn people about the dingy underbelly of plural community.

Plural Tags: plural community, metaphysical plurality, fictivity, soulbonding, fictionkin, (all in the worst possible sense, sadly). Abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; in the comments below.

Accessibility Notes: Available only as ebooks now. Please pirate this series. It is on archive.org and libgen, and that is on purpose.

You can buy my work here.

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

“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.

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

“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.

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

“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.