"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.

"No matter how lost you may be, you will always be found, again and again and again!"

Blurb: A comic about playing hide and seek with a younger headmate across inner worlds.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, sweet, and does interesting things to artistically depict the layers of different realities atop each other. Plus it's free!

Plural Tags: median, abuse not mentioned, otherworld, children, realitymashing, friendship,

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Not transcribed. Free to read.

Misc Notes: Can be read on the web here or downloaded as a PDF here. (Back-up link here)

"SoulBonding isn't a power; it's more—I won't say mundane—more domestic than that, more peaceable, more of a friendship. I picture myself; I retreat from the world, into my own mindscape, and I picture myself sitting in a plush recliner. There's a sofa opposite me, I imagine, and if I wait and listen for their voices, if I welcome them in, Seihara or Shining Star, or several others who I didn't tell the Mentors about, will sit down on the sofa and talk to me."

Blurb: Three teenaged soulbonders get snatched by a military program, intending to use their powers for evil, but the bonders don't play along...

Why is it worth your time?: It's a time capsule into the old soulbonding culture of the time; Laura Gilkey says she originally wrote the story for a college creative writing class, probably in 1998. Its earnest, idealistic support for soulbonding is touching to read, twenty years down the line, even though it falls into the mindframe of the mindscape being intrinsically better than the "real" world.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, otherworld, fictioneers, nonhumans [tree, werewolf], romantic relationships, community, friendship, teamwork

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Free to read online. Read it here! (And in case of breakage, here's an alternate link.)

Misc Notes:

"What she is not or cannot embrace, I shall be."

Blurb: A short poem about the sacredness of the shadow self.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, free, and nice.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned,

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: screenreadable, free to read online. Read it here! (EDIT: Cohost is going down. Here is a back-up link.)

"When you aren't alone in your head
you learn to listen
to the flavored thoughts
of the people behind your eyes."

Blurb: A poem about the intersections between plurality and blindness.

Why is it worth your time?: It's an insightful look into a plural world that is often ignored by the sighted, including the complications of sighted headmates in a blind vessel.

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, fictioneers, nonhumans [Transformer/robot, doll], children, teamwork and friendship, switching

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Free, short, and screenreadable. Read it here! (Back-up link)

"When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen."

Blurb: A short poem about imaginary playmates from a century ago.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, whimsical, and fun.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, imaginary friends, children, friendship

Content Warnings: Frenchmen are losers in it?

Access Notes: Robert Louis Stevenson is famous, so finding a copy of A Children's Garden of Verses shouldn't be too tough. It's also easy to find for free online, since I'm pretty sure it's in the public domain by now. This link has both screenreadable text and an audio reading. (Back-up link; both text and audio work in it)

"What ya doin?"

"Making a comic about us making food"

"Can I be in it?"

Blurb: a comic made to describe the creators' experience of being many, depicted alongside the process of making a meal together.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short trippy comic about the ordinary process of making dinner together alone. Also it's free!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, switching, cofronting, otherworld, nonhumans [snake, animal], medical plurality (OSDD), median

Content Warnings: minor injury, blood, dissociation

Access Notes: Available for free to read online or as a PDF. (Back-up link)

Submitted by monsterqueers  !

"Sometimes i close my eyes to talk to you
when i can’t make up my mind since you make it up, too
one in the same one in the same, it always felt so real
lemme hold your hand, hold our hand, so you can feel what i feel"

Blurb: A song explicitly about being friends with your headmates.

Why is it worth your time?: Are you tired of edgy plural media? This one is warm and fuzzy for a change! The creator has OSDD and this song is explicitly about being plural.

Plural Tags: teamwork, OSDD

Content Warnings: none

Accessibility Notes: You can buy the song here for $1 on Bandcamp! (And that link also has the lyrics.)

Misc. Notes (if any): The creator has OSDD-1b and this song is about her experience with that.

"There are people who can never go to Fantastica, and others who can, but who stay there forever. And there are just a few who go to Fantastica and come back. Like you. And they make both worlds well again."

Blurb: A strange book draws a lonely boy named Bastian into the beautiful but doomed world of Fantastica. Only a human can save this enchanted place--by giving its ruler, the Childlike Empress, a new name. But the journey to her tower leads through lands of dragons, giants, monsters, and magic--and once Bastian begins his quest, he may never return. As he is drawn deeper into Fantastica, he must find the courage to face unspeakable foes and the mysteries of his own heart.

Why is it worth your time?: This book was a hit for a long time, and it's not hard to see why. It's a love letter to the power of the imagination, wishes, and story, a mythical fable of exploring the self and desire. Fantastica follows its own rules of reality and does not try to be like the "real" world. It's good, and probably the most famous thing on this catalog.

Plural Tags: fictioneers, otherworld,

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in ebook, audiobook, and dead tree forms, in many languages (including Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, French, Dutch, and Swedish), and an easy library find. The book has also been adapted into movies, radio, and animation, none of which I have seen. Ah, the benefits of an extremely popular bestselling book! Personally, I think the editions with different colored text are best, as long as you aren't colorblind; the text color helps keep you oriented.

“My armor is made of sky iron, made for me. A bear’s armor is his soul, just as your dæmon is your soul. You might as well take him away” —indicating Pantalaimon—”and replace him with a doll full of sawdust. That is the difference."

Blurb: In Lyra's world, all people have daemons: a shapeshifting animal who settles into one form as an adult. Now Lyra and her daemon, Pan, are rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal - including Lyra's friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world. Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, a champion.

Why is it worth your time?: There's a reason this book birthed a whole community, the daemonists. Lyra's Oxford is a fascinating place, and a society built around the normalcy of daemons is what people most remember from it. (Indeed, a person without a daemon is terrifying in this society, the equivalent of a walking corpse.) The daemons are explicitly stated to be people's souls; when one dies, so does the other, and to tear one's daemon away is considered an act of horrific brutality on par with soul-rape and lobotomy.

Plural Tags: friendship, community, nonhumans [daemons, animals]

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paper, ebook, and audiobook forms. Has been translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Dutch

Misc Notes: First in a three book series, and honestly, I didn't care for the other two books and have zero desire to try rereading them; you might enjoy them, though. Northern Lights has also been adapted to a movie (which apparently sucked), a TV series, and a comic book, and I cannot vouch for the quality of any of them.