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"As I read about the adventures of Kirk Allen in these books the conviction began to grow on me that the stories were not only true to the very last detail but that they were not only true to the very last detail but that they were about me. In some weird and inexplicable way I knew that what I was reading was my biography. Nothing in these books was unfamiliar to me: I recognized everything--the scenes, the people, the furnishings of rooms, the events, even the words that were spoken--recognized all this with a sense of familiarity that one has when he sees a house in which he has lived or a friend from years gone by."

Blurb: Psychoanalyst Robert Lindner's account of a government worker who in childhood became convinced he was a popular sci-fi character and built a life in that story world, only to finally get thrown into his office.

Why is it worth your time?: Despite its age, this story will be immensely familiar (and interesting) to anyone who's felt they lived a life from media. Despite the nature of the story, we recommend it for anyone looking for older stuff!

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus (MIND THE CONTENT WARNINGS IN COMMENTS), otherworld, fictioneers, medical

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Came out in a few paper books, the most recent of which came out over fifty years ago. Mercifully, one of them has been put on archive.org. There's also a paywalled version in two installments on Harper's Magazine (part 1 and part 2)

Misc Notes: Nobody seems to know who "Kirk Allen" was in reality. It also got a TV version apparently, in 1957, though it doesn't sound like it was very good.

"Slip into the thoughts of the best person who ever lived, even Saint Thomas Aquinas, for instance, just to pick an absolutely terrific person you'd think had a mind so clean you could eat off it (to paraphrase my mother), and when you come out--take my word for it--you'd want to take a long, intense shower in Lysol."

Blurb: An assistant DA asks her telepathic friend to look into the mind of a serial killer she swears is innocent. He's not sure he believes her, but the case takes a turn he truly doesn't expect.

Why is it worth your time?: This is a story where telling too much would ruin the experience. Suffice to say, it has breathtaking twists and a trickster hero who's not necessarily always pleasant, but magnificent to watch. We started this story not sure if we would like it, and by the time we finished, we felt humbled by how satisfying we found the climax.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse intermediate focus, bodyhopping, closeting, setting-specific type, switching

Content Warnings: contain SPOILERS; see comments. It is not spoilers, though, to say that HEINOUS crimes are a major plot point in this book, and they are touched upon just enough to be evocative and unclean to hear about.

Accessibility Notes: Harlan Ellison is EXTREMELY famous and this novella got nominated for a bunch of awards, so this is a comparatively easy work to find. Available in... well, all of these collections, in hardback, paperback, ebook, audiobook, German, Serbian, and French.

Submitted by

paxislandsystem! Thank you,

paxislandsystem!

"You haven’t clicked on this song, you haven’t brought me along.
You just thought that you could clone yourself till nobody was wrong."

Blurb: Eclectic album written by various members of a plural system about relationship troubles, headmates fighting, and isolation.

Why is it worth your time?:
A number of songs get quite explicit about the nature of plurality and feeling incomplete, trapped, trying to stay in control, and longing for connection, as well as references to plural love in some form or another.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, plural creator, creator speaks from experience, fusion/integration or identityblending, fictioneers (many many many of them, but namely Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus and Glad0s from Portal come to mind, as well as presumably the other TADC and homestuck characters seen on the album cover), enmity, friendship

Content Warnings: headmate conflict, isolation, identity troubles

Accessibility Notes: Available (with screenreadable lyrics) on bandcamp in English for five dollars and a limited amount of free streaming, as well as in the form of a lyric video on YouTube published by the artist.

Submitted by

ghost_ship! Thank you,

ghost_ship!

i've been here 'fore you knew me
a name without a body
we both know what we've been through
my darling, my companion
don't think, just let me shine through
more than your comprehension
i hope you know i love you

Blurb: Constant Companions is an energetic and unabashedly sincere album exploring connection and love. Along with Jamie Paige's own vocals. it features the vocal synths ANRI, Kasane Teto, Megpoid Gumi, Solaria, and Adachi Rei. And there's leitmotifs. And trans themes. And yuri.

Why it it worth your time?: Jamie Paige uses a mix of her own vocals along with vocal synths to represent relationships between her parts in a cool way! The songs most explicitly about her plurality are really sweet and heartfelt. The sense of constancy and connectedness is a major theme in the album, and the inspiration for it's name.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse low-focus (only in "Object of Affection," where the monarchs use magic to suppress the will of their "prince"), creator speaks from experience, relationships intimate, romantic, and teamwork, type median and medical, voices

Content Warnings: ROT FOR CLOUT involves the blurring line between self and commodity and the deep emotional strain stemming from that. Cadmium Colors and Clouddrop are about suicidal ideation (Though they do end on hopeful notes!). Object of Affection is an allegorical tale of parents suppressing their trans child's identity.

Accessibility Notes: The album (with full screenreadable lyrics) is on Bandcamp! Unfortunately the CD and vinyl editions are sold out. Also can be listened to for free on various streaming platforms.

Misc. Notes: Jamie Paige has talked publically about her experience with OSDD in her behind-the-scenes posts about Breeze Blows and My Darling, My Companion.

There's 17 tracks (70 minutes total): 1. Dyad 2. Not Quite There (with telebasher) 3. ROT FOR CLOUT 4. I Wish That I Could Fall 5. Cadmium Colors 6. Breeze Blows (with Marcy Nabors & Marlow Jacobs) 7. Aggrandicize 8. Liaison 9. Object of Affection 10. Clouddrop 11. My Darling, My Companion 12. Machine Love 13. BIRDBRAIN (with OK Glass) 14. Shiny Chariot 15. Strawberry 16. Manifesto 17. Dance Delightful

My phantom lover comes to me from out the lonely night
My eyes trace, through their tears his misty shape within the gloom

Blurb: A poem about yearning for one's phantom lover, banished to another plane of existence.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a neat short little poem from eighty years ago, and it's free to read! What've you got to lose?

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, romantic relationships, visions

Content Warnings: none

Access Notes: Originally (and only) printed in Mutant vol. 1 #1 in October 1946. Technically a very faded copy has been digitized thanks to FANAC, but some of the words are illegible. I've taken the liberty of reconstructing those words and posting the full poem in the comments.

Misc Notes: Tigrina, AKA Lisa Ben AKA Edythe Eyde, was a lesbian. She wrote this poem before coming out!

As for the Voice giving her new ideas, elaborating details about the Empire, she read that creators, artists and writers--usually the mediocre ones--often projected their inspirations onto some outside source like their "Muse."

Blurb: A young woman, treated as a "human waste can" by the men around her, flees to the stars in pursuit of the Voice who has been her only comfort, and discovers its true nature.

Why is it worth your time?: This story is so good, it made us cry. CP is one of the most relatable fictional depictions of a person with a story continuously running through her head that we've seen. It is a story of daring to embrace madness and the stars.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate focus, otherworld (Empire of the Pigs), nonhumans, romantic relationships, visions, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available on paperback, hardback, ebook, and audiobook forms, in English, German, and Japanese.

Misc Notes: This is a queer story. According to James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, "The story of Tiptree's that Alice considered her most romantic was 'With Delicate Mad Hands.' [...] Alli thought of this as a lesbian story, yet she also told an editor that 'the lesbianity (!! word??) isn't really important between beings so alien--so very alien" (107).

Our joint life must be revealed--that long, sweet life of make-believe, that has been so much more real than reality.

Blurb: After an idyllic childhood in the suburbs of Paris, the titular Peter Ibbetson finds a way to go back to his childhood in his dreaming life... where he also becomes #1 Wife Guy for his beloved.

Why is it worth your time?: I first heard of this book because it kept coming up in later nonfictional accounts of lucid dreamers and spirit spouses... and with good reason! The first half of the book is focused on Ibbetson's ordinary childhood, but the second half almost entirely takes place in the dreamworld, and it describes a very straightforward lucid dreaming protocol that is still used and advised today. If you're willing to push through a hundred and fifty pages of Parisian childhood, this is a gentle read, and for anyone with an otherordinary spouse or a life they love elsewhere, the book is sure to tug your heart strings! I read this while very sick, and I feel it's a perfect read for that kind of circumstance.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus (only one or two incidents with the villainous uncle are mentioned, and not dwelled on), bodyhopping, identityblending, otherworld ("dreaming true," or the past), children, copies, dreamfolk, imaginary friends, the dead, romantic and family relationships, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: In the public domain! You can read the text-only version in various formats on Project Gutenberg, but if you can, I HIGHLY recommend you chase down a copy with du Maurier's illustrations, because he was a cartoonist long before he became a writer, and his art gives the book a singular charm. (We lucked into finding a fancy luxury edition secondhand with the illustrations at 100% size, and it's massive but also totally worth the $25 we paid for it.)

Misc. Notes: There was a 1935 movie made of this with Gary Cooper as Peter Ibbetson. It's on archive.org. It's nice enough, but the shared dream stuff is cut down to the last twenty minutes, so it doesn't quite make it into this catalog.

Submitted by

acorn_squash! Thank you,

acorn_squash!

[Titus] is anywhere I am. He is inside me, and my brain closes around him like hands around a warm drink. [...] And oh, I am so glad of him.

Even though no one else in the world can reach me now, he is never out of reach. Even though Time is a one-way street and it's not taking me anywhere I want to go, with Titus I can travel to and fro through Time—to the Boer War, the Indian raj, the Curragh Races, Gestingthrope in high summer, Hut Point....There was an Otes at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, you know? (I wonder if he was scared too.) From the windows of Glasstown I can see into the future as well—as far forward as my fifteenth birthday, when Titus has promised to take me to the top of the Eiffel Tower! I can't express how glad I am of him.

American Library Association blurb: Fourteen-year-old Symone's exciting vacation to Antarctica turns into a desperate struggle for survival when her uncle's obsessive quest leads them across the frozen wilderness into danger.

Why is it worth your time?: Symone, who goes by Sym, is accompanied by Titus Oates, an explorer who died in the Antarctic and now lives in her head. He and Sym are in love and he plays a critical role in her survival. Despite several close calls, he is still with Sym at the end of the story.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse: high-focus (there's no connection between the plurality and the abuse), people: imaginary friends, people: the dead, otherworld (Glasstown), relationships: romantic, type: nonswitching

Content Warnings: Life-threatening danger. Kidnapping by manipulative adults. Murder. Emotional, financial, and occasionally physical abuse. Deeply creepy matchmaking of Sym and another teenager, Siguard. Pseudoscience. Bullying (emotional, not physical). Sym's father, now deceased, was addicted to alcohol and was violent towards Sym and her mother while not in his right mind; this is discussed occasionally. One of Sym's teenage classmates says she is dating an adult man she met on the Internet, which is also discussed occasionally. Graphic description of animal death. Illness and vomit. Drugging of side characters. Imperialist attitudes. Suicidal self-sacrifice, with some associated ableism. Misogynist character. Transmisogyny, p. 254 (American first edition).

More specific content warnings that include spoilers can be found in the comments.

Accessibility Notes: Can be found at libraries. Available in hardcover, in paperback, as an ebook, and as an audiobook on CD and cassette. Translated into Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Swedish, Catalan, and Persian.

“I am not dead,” said the voice that wasn’t his own. “You did not kill me. Even like this, you cannot tame me. Raise me, and I will live again.”

Blurb: The younger son of a family that has long captured and taken power from a demon, Liam discovers that maybe he and the demon want the same thing: OUT.

Why is it worth your time?: A short haunting story about getting possessed by a very nonhuman entity who isn't malicious, just very Other.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans (forest demon), plural on purpose, switching, voices

Content Warnings: gore (non-graphic descriptions), self-harm.

Access Notes: Available as a $2 ebook from the publisher, Duck Prints Press! (There are also paper zine copies, which is what I got, but you can only get those by being at a con Duck Prints Press is at.)

Misc Notes:

"Since the day they told me he was gone
Haunts me faithfully from dusk till dawn
Hear him whisper sweetly in my ear
Can’t you see we got a good thing here?"

Blurb: A love song about a widow finding her marriage revitalized after her husband dies.

Why is it worth your time?: This is a sweet song about growing as a person after your death and haunting your lover in the best kind of way.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, the dead, romantic relationships, voices

Content Warnings: Death. It's in the freakin' title. (The death is implied to have been from a duel.)

Accessibility Notes: Available on CD, vinyl, or mp3 at bandcamp! Lyrics available.

Misc. Notes (if any): Definitely made us feel gooey inside.

"It's not irretrievably lost, you know. You can have it back."
"But--but--the life I've had--the things I've done--you can't just wipe them out, like wiping a slate clean!"
"No. But they can be integrated. Right now they dominate you. They can become only memories, part of the suffering you've known, but suffering from which you've learned, from which you have been tempered--like fine steel. Emotional health doesn't mean reshuffling your memories or selective amnesia. It means integration--wholeness. It means strength. It means becoming your own person."

Blurb: Doc Phoenix, a superpsychologist dream-diver, dives into the headspace of a corrupt politician who wants to change his ways... and maybe assassinate the good doctor afterward.

Why is it worth your time?: This is self-declared pulp, and it embraces that genre. Deep art it is not, but it is entertaining. Weird Heroes was a series with the self-proclaimed central message of "Respect life and enjoy it," and the idea of a hero who works to rescue people's minds from the inside out is a pretty great premise! If you just want a fun, humble psychological adventure, this is worth a shot.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, bodyhopping, otherworld, dreamfolk, visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: This short story was in the anthology Weird Heroes, vol. 2, edited by Byron Preiss at Pyramid Books. Unlike the sequel, this book has been digitized on Anna's Archive! Uncertain whether it is screenreadable.

Misc Notes: Got a book-length sequel, called the Oz Encounter (or Weird Heroes Vol. 5: Doc Phoenix: the Oz Encounter), which is also worth reading, though apparently that one has never been digitized! Obviously I should fix that.

The two editions have different subtitles. The 1996 edition is Nearly Roadkill: An Infobahn Erotic Adventure and marketed as cyberpunk, while the 2025 edition is Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run, and marketed as romance.

Karn: Question: ... ::drumroll:: Online, what *is* your "self"?
Leilia: Oh, christ, there's the question of a lifetime.
Karn: Uh huh. Why so for you?
Leilia: I really become that person online. That's the scary thing. i really believe my fiction. Used to feel bad about it, but obviously there's truth in those fictions.

Blurb: Genderfucking netizens Scratch and Winc splatter across self and identity in this cyberpunk epistolary novel, accidentally starting a global Internet strike, getting accused of high treason, and falling in love.

Why is it worth your time?: Sullivan and Bornstein are queers who used lots of their own chatlogs for this book, which depending on your feeling will be either a good thing or a bad thing. The 1996 edition especially has a lot of pontificating on the nature of self and personality on the Internet, including an exchange where the hero/ines email with a self-declared MPD multi going by "StLouis7." (They decide that they aren't that kind of multiple, but they DO have multiple genders and are exploring interesting expansions of self!) Scratch's persona of Razorfun is ESPECIALLY separate, to the point that Razorfun outright says that "it is my most primitive persona. It is where I go when in danger" and when Winc has to ask Scratch to break out of the Razorfun persona, it's stated to be both difficult and painful. If you're interested in queer cyberspace of the '90s, check it out!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, otherworld (cyberspace), fictioneers (Lt. Yar and Jadzia Dax from Star Trek), nonhumans (Dax is a Trill, Scratch mentions multiple times wishing ze was a wolf with a tail), switching, on purpose

Content Warnings: include spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: Okay, so heads up, the 1996 edition and the 2025 editions of this book differ subtly but significantly! The 2025 edition just came out, and it's available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook; it's much easier to find and removed a fair bit, including stuff that really needed removal... but also a lot of the most interesting (to us) ponderings of the nature of self! It also simplified the typefaces and style, but in our opinion to the book's detriment; with all the chats, web diaries, emails, news stories, and announcements flying around, it can be easy to get lost! So the 2025 edition is smoother and simpler.

Meanwhile, the 1996 edition is rough and crunchy in a very '90s way; while the 2025 edition focuses more on gender and romance, the '96 edition pays more attention to self in general. The older edition is expensive and difficult to find these days, though it's been scanned and bootlegged online, and the first chapter is available in clean screenreadable PDF on the Wayback Machine. Take a look, compare and contrast the formatting, and pick the edition you prefer! We are grateful for reading both simultaneously, comparing the drafts side-by-side.

(words by Martha Bonds, music by Marcia McCombe)

Do I know you?
Are you dreaming of tomorrow?
If so, it seems you're a starchild, just like me.
The night's alive,
And we travel 'cross the light years,
TV screens and books of dreams can set us free.

Blurb: A fan (filk) song about how fans find meaning, joy, and other worlds through Star Trek.

Why is it worth your time?: It's an old fandom song about finding home and new worlds in the fictional. Definitely worth a listen to, for any fiction folk around!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, otherworld, fictioneers

Content Warnings: None

Accessibility Notes: I will post the lyrics in the comments! Otherwise, it is only available in The Complete Omicron Ceti III Lyric Book (not screenreadable) and the record album Only Stars Can Last.

(words by Martha Bonds, music by Kathy Burns)

I know a place so far away, a place I long to see,
There's no way to travel there, I must reach it in a dream,
The dreams they are so special, they take me there again,
A thousand conquered dangers, heroes, lovers, friends.

Blurb: A song about "Fans' feelings about [Star] Trek."

Why is it worth your time?: It's an old fandom song about finding home and new worlds in the fictional. Definitely worth a listen to, for any fiction folk around!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, otherworld, dreamfolk, fictioneers

Content Warnings: None

Accessibility Notes: I will post the lyrics in the comments; you can also stream it here or listen to it on YouTube! Otherwise, it is only available in The Complete Omicron Ceti III Lyric Book (not screenreadable) and on the album Only Stars Can Last.

(Learned of this poem thanks to

rybbot. Thanks,

rybbot!)

For it isn't your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.

Blurb: A poem about the importance of honesty and being able to make peace with yourself.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a good poem! Probably not intended to be plural, but hey, if it's about making friends with yourself, who's to say it ain't? It's free, online, and almost a hundred years old, what more could one want out of life?

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, friendship

Content Warnings: None

Access Notes: Free, online, and screenreadable at https://www.theguyintheglass.com/gig.htm thanks to Wimbrow's children! Back-up link here: https://web.archive.org/web/19990428030413/https://www.theguyintheglass.com/gig.htm

Misc Notes: Wimbrow's kids list the context and copyright information of this poem here: https://web.archive.org/web/19991008172354/http://www.theguyintheglass.com/copyright.htm

Submitted by

quailfence! Thank you,

quailfence!

Something—not a thought, but almost—flickered across her gray matter. The Smoulder, walking; looking at the faded wallpaper; feeling the flexion in her feet. And then it was a thought:

[This again?]

(Wait, were costumes supposed to remember—)

Blurb: In the future, sex worker Evie uses a technological 'costume' to help her with her job, and in particular a client of hers known as 'the company man'. But the costume has been starting to act strange recently...

Why is it worth your time?: It's good! I like how sex work is presented as just A Job in the story - not something uniquely awful but not exactly Great either. I also found the high-tech costumes to be an interesting piece of tech, and the story uses them very well

Plural/1+ Tags: bodyhopping, type:setting-specific, type:switching. Not really sure how to rate the abuse in this one??

Content Warnings: include spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: Online, free, screenreadable here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-girlfriend-experience/ Back-up link here: https://web.archive.org/web/20250922133223/https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-girlfriend-experience/

"As she walked through the door, twin reflections of the firmset of her back moved closer together in the corner of the restaurant window. The images converged in the mirrored panes of glass and vanished inside each other like chips of colored crystal in a kaleidoscope."

Blurb: In a near-future where same-sex relationships are legally sanctioned but surveillance culture is on full-blast, a woman uses intense full-body tattooing to merge with her lover, so as to escape and overcome together.

Why is it worth your time?: This is a very nontraditional fusion story between two singlets who embrace each other and are strong at each other's weaknesses, choosing to become one being. Gomez is a good writer and worth checking out, though mostly well-known in the lesbian and black presses!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned (though high focus is the inevitable grinding effects of surviving in their society), cofronting, fusion/integration, identityblending, memory work, romantic relationships, setting-specific

Content Warnings: dealing with a surveillance society that accepts queerness... well, some of it... and foster care referenced in the past. This is DEFINITELY a story about your job grinding you down slowly to pieces over time, though!

Accessibility Notes: Available in Gomez's collection Don't Explain and MIT Press's re:Skin anthology. Much to my annoyance (and somewhat to my incredulity), both works are out of print (and the decade-older Don't Explain seems cheaper and easier to get!) and neither were officially digitized. If you want a screen-readable copy, you have to go to Anna's Archive.

Misc. Notes: Jewelle Gomez has some neat things to say about this work, but it contains SPOILERS so will be in the comments below!

"You, too, are tainted with the Vampire strain
The same blood surges through us both, like wine.
No wonder that our thoughts and moods combine
And merge beyond the common, earthly plane."

Blurb: One vampire joins with another to walk together through ebon nights.

Why is it worth your time?: It's an old vampire poem from a prominent lesbian about embracing difference together. It's short and free; give it a shot! The lesbianism is all subtextual, due to the time period (and Tigrina herself was closeted at the time), but if you're looking for it, it's there!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, identityblending, nonhumans (vampires), intimate relationships

Content Warnings: None.

Accessibility Notes: Unless you can track down an old copy of Acolyte #10, the only place to get this poem in print is in the anthology Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction, edited by Yaszek and Sharp and published by Wesleyan University Press. Some kindly soul has digitized it on archive.org, but the OCR is so poor that I'm just posting the poem in its entirety in the comments for accessibility's sake. Back-up link (with flawed but better OCR) at fanac.com.

Misc. Notes (if any): Tigrina was one of the pseudonyms of prominent lesbian Edythe Eyde, AKA Lisa Ben, who created Vice Versa, the first queer magazine (that we know of) in the USA in the '40s. If you want the outright lesbian stuff (though nothing relevant for this catalog), check Vice Versa out here!

“What are your pronouns?” I ask, after they introduce themselves, trying to be polite.

“We/us/our,” is the response.

Blurb: A drunken date, a sloppy makeout, a merging into a happy greater hivemind.

Why is it worth your time?: A fun realitybending story of mind joining. It's short, online, and free!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, identity blending, romantic relationships

Content Warnings: identity loss and alcohol

Access Notes: free, online, screenreadable

Misc Notes: Read it here! Back-up link here.

We dream of us. Complete and secure within ourself, requiring nothing, but desiring everything.

Blurb: A dream of merging into a greater hivemind.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, beautiful, and surreal. Plus it's free!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, dreamfolk, creator speaks from experience, identityblending, intimate relationships

Content Warnings: loss of identity

Access Notes: free to read, screenreadable, online

Misc Notes: Read online here! Back-up link here.

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