Plural Stories

Submitted by quailfence! Thank you, 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

"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.