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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] quailfence! Thank you, [personal profile] quailfence!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-"Who'd want to put up with ten of us?" -"Well, if a guy didn't have many friends, it would make a great package deal."

Blurb: Adrian is a chirpy tech nerd on mental-health leave for his severe OCD. Grace is a shy street artist with PTSD and multiple personalities (we also meet G, Little, and Spike). After a meet-cute at their shared therapist's office, they strike up a friendship, which turns romantic as they work through some of their fears together.

Why is it worth your time?: A plural character gets to be the love interest in a sweet, funny romcom. Integration is mentioned but not pushed, and Adrian's care about "keeping track of which specific headmate he's talking to" is presented as one of the qualities that makes him Boyfriend Material. Does a nice job of balancing the dysfunction of the main characters: Adrian and Grace-and-company both have significant struggles, they both have moments of lashing out when their triggers get stepped on...then they apologize, and put in the care and effort to get closer anyway.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse low-focus, people: children, relationships: teamwork, relationships: romance, type: medical, type: switching

Content Warnings: Reference to Grace's past CSA. Attempted assault towards the end from Grace's current boyfriend Sledge, triggering a brief non-graphic flashback. References to sex work (also non-graphic, and nothing bad happens to the sex-worker characters).

Accessibility Notes: Available on DVD, blu-ray, and streaming, including free with ads on Youtube. Closed captions included.

Misc. Notes (if any): The rare non-terrible fictional therapist! (She's mostly there so we can get exposition through the characters talking to her.)
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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] erinptah! Thank you, [personal profile] erinptah!

"Okay, everyone -- I'd like to have your attention, please. Tonight is a big night, and I want this to go well. Please remember, Jeremy is a great guy, and he loves me."

Blurb: A cute, sweet story about a system getting one of their members through her Valentine's Day date, and ultimately coming out as plural to a confused-but-supportive partner.

Why is it worth your time?: The director's mother has DID, and they co-wrote this short film to be a 101-level primer on "what that means for someone's day-to-day experience." So it's nothing too complicated -- but it's well-made! Works as a story, not just a day-in-the-life walkthrough.

Uses multiple actors and clever camera work to show different headmates switching and interacting. And it does a nice job of keeping things simple enough for an intro, without totally erasing the nuances. (I liked the way it only gives the viewer 4 headmates to keep track of, but refers to the system being much larger.)

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, creator speaks from experience, people: children, people: fictioneers, relationships: family, type: medical, type: switching

Content Warnings: From the site: "The full version contains a scene of intimacy and a flashback to childhood sexual abuse." A redacted version is available with that part cut.

Accessibility Notes: Available for free online. Includes a transcript, and subtitle options in English + multiple translations. Also backed up on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wYhN39SiWuI&pp=ygUVcGV0YWxzIG9mIGEgcm9zZSBmaWxt
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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] beepbird! Thank you, [personal profile] beepbird!

"I'm so tired of the bad blood between us. But it's hard to let it go. You've hurt me. And I've also hurt you."

Blurb: You're on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

Why is it worth your time?: Overtly median protagonist where hearing voices is a central part of the narrative, an ever-changing princess whose fluidity of self is emphasized, and it's all amidst a narrative where your choices all have meaningful consequences (despite the time loops). Hearing voices is presented as a strength, not a flaw, and you even have the chance to tell one of them that you missed him.

Plural Tags: nonhumans, the dead, realitymashing, enmity, teamwork, nonswitching (mostly), median, voices, possession

Content Warnings: a detailed list of content warnings written by the developers can be found here (it even breaks it down by route): https://blacktabbygames.com/content-warnings-stp

Accessibility Notes: Game can be purchased from Steam, Gog, itch.io, and on Switch. Dialogue is narrated and the accessibility menu includes font replacement and adjustment, text-to-speech for non-narrated dialogue, and contrast improvements. Game is a visual novel, so it's mostly text, though there are some stunning images that don't give much information that's not also stated in text.

The audio is only available, however, in English. (The text is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (both Catalan and Latin American), Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.)

If the violence is too much for you, ManlyBadassHero did a censored Let's Play here covering all routes and updates.

Misc. Notes (if any): Abuse is not related to the plurality; there's never any explanation given for the voices existing, actually. Check the content warnings for sure on this one. It's definitely a horror game.

Also, there is merch: shirts, stickers, and posters!
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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] erinptah! Thank you, [personal profile] erinptah!

"You saved me. I survived because I knew I wasn't alone. You were always there, so alive, so full of hope...You are the only real superpower I ever had."

Blurb: Steven Grant is an ordinary London retail worker, with an interest in Egyptology and a problem with sleepwalking. Marc Spector is a mercenary-turned-superhero, fighting evil as the Avatar of the god Khonshu, on one last mission to stop a divine genocide. And they were headmates (oh my god, they were headmates).

Why is it worth your time?: Possibly the most mainstream DID rep to get a ton of positive reviews from IRL systems. The headmates start out disconnected, spend some time aggressively clashing over their different values/priorities (not to mention Steven's instant crush on Marc's wife Layla). Then they need to lean on each other's skills to survive a classic superhero world-saving quest, get dragged through some magical trauma-processing, and ultimately figure out how to understand and appreciate each other. Oscar Isaac plays both of them, and (with the help of an amazing crew + diligent FX team) has amazing chemistry with himself. Avoids the usual Marvel settings to bring us to London and Cairo; it's the rare Egypt-centric series driven by IRL Egyptian creatives, and it shows.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, cofronting, memory work, otherworld, people: imaginary friends, relationship: friendship, relationship: teamwork, type: medical, type: switching

Content Warnings: Genre-typical violence. Others contain SPOILERS, see comments.

Accessibility Notes: Streaming version has multiple translations, subtitles in multiple languages, and a couple of audio tracks with voiceover descriptions included. Also available on DVD.

Misc. Notes (if any): When the show's portrayal of DID gets criticized, it's mostly over aspects that have been simplified or dramatized to keep things clear for the audience. Example: at first, when we see Marc and Steven switch, it's physically exaggerated, like they're having a seizure...because new viewers need the visual cue that something disorienting and unusual is happening. The guys have more subtle and realistic switches later, when the audience has gotten the hang of how it works.

Meanwhile, the series takes care to get a lot of important dynamics right. Like "if one headmate is doing distressing things behind another headmate's back, it doesn't mean the first one's a horror-movie villain, it means they have different ideas about how to stay safe." And "friends/loved ones don't have to be perfect experts, or to disregard their own needs, to be a good supporter for a system." And "sometimes alters are based on fictional characters, it's fine." And "trauma holders deserve to be told the trauma wasn't their fault." And "healing with DID doesn't require keeping The Original and getting rid of everyone else, it's about everyone figuring out how to work together and support each other."
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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] erinptah! Thank you, [personal profile] 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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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by a kindly anon! Thank you, anon!

Full title: Clock Tower Ghost Head AKA Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within

"Don't be afraid, Alyssa..."

Blurb: Teenager Alyssa Hale is trying to start over in a new city after a horrific incident at her previous school. She is haunted by someone named Bates who has been taking control of her body against her will. Things go from bad to worse upon reaching her uncle's house and finding a dead body shortly after. The reason why Bates exists will be revealed, but she must learn to accept him in order to find that truth and, most importantly, survive the night.

Why is it worth your time?: Alyssa and Bates switching is a game mechanic that can be used to solve puzzles! One can do or find something the other can't, and vice-versa. That itself is pretty cool, especially for a PS1 game.

That said, the game's got a lot of issues. The English version's box claims that Alyssa has an 'evil split personality and she is thirsty for blood oh nooo' without acknowledging Bates as his own person. The Japanese version at least makes it clearer that they are two separate souls in the same body. In both versions, Bates, the so-called 'evil' one, is really more Chaotic Neutral.

See comments for clarifying spoilers!

Plural Tags: spiritual, teamwork, enmity, switching, the dead, family

Content Warnings: death (child and adult), bodily mutilation, strong language, parental neglect, medical experimentation

Accessibility Notes: It is a PS1 game long out of print with two language options (Japanese and English, separate releases); the English version is prohibitively expensive to acquire secondhand, but it's available to play on archive.org. This Let's Play has unobtrusive commentary, reads all text aloud, finds all endings and extra bonuses. The game itself comes with all dialogue subtitled and audio both.

Misc. Notes (if any): Honestly...the game kind of sucks lol. But this system appreciates protector tropes, and Bates very much hits that trope. Plus, in the English version he's voiced by Roger L. Jackson who is so very fun to listen to!
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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] acorn_squash! Thank you, [personal profile] acorn_squash!

“Seeing is believing in the things you see
Loving is believing in the ones you love!”


Blurb: A sweet song about being friends with a unicorn, the northern star, and someone who lives inside of you.

Why is it worth your time?: It’s cute and it’s about love!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, imaginary friends, nonhumans [unicorn, celestial body/northern star in English, flying elephant, moon and stars in Cantonese], friendship

Content Warnings: Discussion of facing ableism and lack of understanding, which is shrugged off immediately. This is a happy song!

Accessibility Notes: The audio and lyrics are available for free on the singer’s website. The songsheet is $5. Also, in 1984, this song got covered and adapted in Cantonese by George Lam, with the title San Ren Xing/三人行! You can listen to it and see the lyrics both in Chinese and English here!
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"you can’t do anything, we getting in
put some money on a god, i bet we win
i feel the power on my skin, setting in
i feel a demon at my door, LET IT IN"


Blurb: Akwaeke Emezi's debut EP, with the declared premise of, "I'm here, I'm a god, now shake your ass ;)"

Why is it worth your time?: It rocks! It's a kicking album covering themes like spirit lovers, godhood, deviant victory, and Jean Grey! Give it a listen!

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, otherworld, nonhumans [gods, demons, spirits], dreamfolk, relationships romantic and teamwork and community, spiritual, visions, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: All songs come with lyrics and notes. Parts of a couple songs are in Portuguese and Igbo. You can listen for free, but please do buy it on Bandcamp! It's only $7!

Misc Notes: Contains seven tracks, all less than three minutes:
  1. Let It In
  2. Summoning 101
  3. Diabozinho
  4. The Thing You're Looking For is Inside Me
  5. Jean Grey
  6. Banye
  7. Light Fantastic
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"I cannot hold onto this body when another will need it far more. We are a single existence, split only by the tides of time, joined together in death."

Blurb: You play as a body-hopping Foundling, borrowing bodies of the dead, finding out who they were when alive, and fighting your way through a corrupted doomscape. Each "shell" has different skills and playstyle, from Eredrim the long-suffering king with all health and no stamina, to Tiel who runs up stairs for fun and chugs poison like candy.

Why is it worth your time?: It seems like a fun souls-like! It's lighter on story than other games in here, but I didn't mind watching it. The Virtuous Cycle expansion pack gives a little more story.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans (the Foundling), the dead, bodyhopping, possession

Content Warnings: It's a gory game with a grim atmosphere and a bunch of hyperdevoted cultists around. Comments contain warnings with spoilers.

Access Notes: Available on X-box Series and One, Playstation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games, and GOG.

Audio is English only, but subtitles and interface are available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

Due to the nature of the bodyhopping gameplay, I haven't found a total completionist Let's Play, but Lotus Prince has a pretty thorough series with unobtrusive commentary:
Misc Notes: A review of the game is here. And just so you know, you can pet the shopkeeper's cat.
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"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.
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[personal profile] lb_lee
Submitted by [personal profile] yolcatzin !

「やあ、僕の名前はティーチくんだよ。今日は僕といろんな事学ぼう」 "Hey, my name's Teach. Today we're going to learn all sorts of things."

Blurb: A thriller dressed up as a very incompetent edutainment show. Your host, a cat named Teach (joined by his headmates Sam and Kobayashi), tries to give you entertaining life lessons from the white void he calls home, even as he is beset by unpleasant, horrific, and inexplicable events.

Why is it worth your time?: Don't let the crude art style fool you. The mysteries are compelling, the drama is effective, the comedic moments land, and the bodysharing protagonists have very interesting dynamics with each other.
When we watched, we were invested in the one-sided relationship Sam has with Teach. That bunny is filled with so much yearning and he is so unhealthy and obsessive about it. He's a riot!

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, enmity, family, friendship, nonhumans [bunny person, cat person], romantic, spiritual, switching, the dead, visions, voices

Content Warnings: Infrequent eyestrain-inducing graphics and harsh noises.
Depictions of abuse between headmates, blood, body horror, death, illness, gore, manipulation, murder, mutilation, obsessive/stalkerish behavior, suicide, unreality, urine, vomit.  Discussions of familial abuse, incest, sexual assault, and COVID-19. (Context: This series is full of seasonal/topical episodes, so there are a few episodes from 2020 that mention the pandemic. These can be skipped without missing out on important plot points.)

Accessibility Notes: This series is entirely in Japanese. There are no transcripts or Japanese subtitles. As of the time of this submission, the first fourty episodes have been subtitled in English by the creator, and there are fansubs going up to episode 200 of 374 (compiled in this playlist). Unfortunately, all of these subtitles are baked in (not screen-reader-friendly) and riddled with errors. If you don't speak Japanese, you won't be able to fully enjoy this series.

Episode by episode playlist

Compilation playlist

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[personal profile] lb_lee
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
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"You’re lucky
we have other bodies

to put your daughter in"


Blurb: a poem about cyborg death.

Why is it worth your time?: the Cyborg Jillian Weise has written lots of cool essays and poems on being a disabled cyborg, how money and society mold that, and that cripplepunk sensibility embues this poem. It's good, give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, copies, children, the dead, bodyhopping

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Involves the death of a child.

Misc Notes: Free, short, plain text and thus screenreadable. Read it here! (back-up link here)
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"I'm just trying to be alive..."

Blurb: A brief documentary by the Poppet Sisters about the birth and coming out of their headmate Evelyn.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short, freely available documentary about a demon headmate trying to make her way in the world.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, switching, nonhumans [demon], otherworld, friendship, plural creator

Content Warnings: Discussion of dissociative states.

Access Notes: Subtitles are auto-generated; no vouching for quality.

Watch it here! The Poppet Sisters have also backed up the video at Archive.org; thank you, guys! You can also buy the Art Pack here!
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"The two of us ain't gonna follow your rules
Come at me without any of your fancy tools
Let's go just me and you
Let's go just one on two!"


Blurb: Steven Universe, a half-human, half-alien Crystal Gem boy, lives with three Crystal Gems on a tropical island, protecting the earth from evil and learning about his origins, Gem culture, and the relationship his now-deceased mother had with his father, Greg.

Why is it worth your time?: Okay, this one goes on here because its "fusion" concept became such a useful concept for a specific subculture of plurals. In Steven Universe, Crystal Gems can fuse with others, mostly via dancing together, becoming one larger, more powerful individual who shares some traits and characteristics of both people while still maintaining their own identity. Over the course of the show, more and more fusions come to light; Garnet, a major character, is a fusion built by two Gems who later marry at the end of the original series. The show also goes into abusive forms of fusion. Rogan still gets all choked up watching "the Answer." The ending is kinda frustrating to adult audiences, and it takes a season or so for the show to reach its footing, but it's worth a watch! Also the music is great.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, cofronting, fusion/integration, identityblending, children, nonhumans [aliens, gems, solar-powered robots], community (later on in the series), romantic relationships, friendship, enmity, setting-specific

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: At least somewhat watchable streaming on cartoonnetwork.com? Also seems to be entirely available on DVD, though it's like $60. Subtitled!

Misc Notes: 5 seasons, 160 episodes. Also had a movie, and a 20-episode follow-up series, Steven Universe Future, which cranks the emotional implications of the series up to the max. We watched the whole thing and found all of it worth watching, though if you're going to watch Steven Universe Future, watching the movie is advised.
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"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.
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[personal profile] lb_lee
"Let's face reality together, no matter how harsh it is."

Blurb: When despair overwhelms certain people in Tokyo, they find themselves whacked upside the head by a middle-school boy with a golden bat and rollerblades. Cops start investigating the case, only to discover that "Lil Slugger" isn't what he seems...

Why is it worth your time?: It's a good show with themes of dealing (or not dealing) with reality, and how things in our mind can grow bigger and bigger until they take on lives of their own (and possibly eat Tokyo.) If you enjoyed Paprika, you will likely enjoy this, especially since you can see Satoshi Kon growing as a filmmaker from Perfect Blue, to Paranoia Agent, to Paprika.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate focus, otherworld, realitymashing, enmity, visions, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments (VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED)

Access Notes: Available on DVD, with subtitles and dubbing both. There's also a more-literal bootleg fan translation floating around archive.org, which despite its clunkiness I found myself preferring. (What can I say, I like having all the weird puns and references explained to me.)

Misc Notes: The beginning credits and the third-to-last episode of this show will live forever in my memory. I sometimes watch that one episode, all on its own, to inspire myself.
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"OPEN TO ME!"

Blurb: (from DVD cover) Ti-Jeanne, a reluctant priestess, must resurrect Caribbean spirits and survive the possession ritual that killed her mother or her people will die. Inspired by Nalo Hopkinson's novel, Brown Girl In The Ring.

Why is it worth your time?: It's okay. If you're looking for post-apocalyptic Afro-futurism about being badgered by pushy spirits, this will scratch your itch!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, memory work (minor), nonhumans [spirits, gods], realitymashing, enmity, spiritual, visions, possession

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: DVD has subtitles.

Misc Notes: Haven't read the book this movie is based on.
lb_lee: A happy little brain with a bandage on it, enclosed within a circle with the words LB Lee. (Default)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"I'm part of your imagination too. I'm you too, Joel."

Blurb: After a painful breakup, Clementine undergoes a procedure to erase memories of her former boyfriend. When he finds out, he undergoes the same procedure and slowly begins to forget the woman that he loved, only to discover that this may not be a good idea. A flight through mindscape ensues, trying to dodge the memory-erasure.

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good! Nowhere else have I seen a story (asides from those about dementia) that is so about the preciousness and pricelessness of memories, even painful ones. The special effects are used subtly to show the differences between memory and reality, with surreal geography, blurred environments representing them not being fully committed to memory, and some looming psychological horror as memories warp before erasure. This is definitely hard on the ish part of pluralish, but seeing as Joel's introject of Clementine comes up with ideas that he himself seems unable to think of, one could argue that his memory of Clementine is somewhat freestanding and has taken on her own life within him. It's also the most relatable movie about amnesia we've ever seen.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, memory work, otherworld, realitymashing, introjects, nonswitching, romantic relationships

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Has subtitles in English, Spanish, and French, dubbing in French--my DVD version, anyway.

Misc Notes: Do not believe the box; this is NOT a romantic comedy, and if you go in expecting that, you will not have a good time.

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pluralstories: James of William Denn leafing through the DSM-III-R (Default)
Many-Selved Stories and Multi Media

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