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

Submitted by beepbird! Thank you, 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!

"What happened to the girl whose body this was...? I wonder if she's okay..."

Blurb: Neglected by her family, Remilia is destined to become the villainess of her world, but when a young woman from our world, Emi, is suddenly reincarnated into her body, suddenly Remilia is cherished and sheltered for the first time. For 11 years, Emi builds a life for Remilia's happiness, but when the treacherous court turns on softhearted Emi, it's Remilia's turn to build a life for her... and make all those jerks sorry!

Why is it worth your time?: Iron-fisted Remilia is a glory to watch in action. Lacking morals herself, she nevertheless embarks on a campaign to revolutionize the world around her for the better, from protecting the oppressed to farm reform to murdering corrupt gods, all for the sake of Emi, whose own moral code is extremely strict and who Remilia loves above all else. All of this is to bring about the downfall of those who wronged her, BY BUILDING A WORD SO GOOD THEY CAN'T SUCCEED IN IT. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate focus, the dead, intimate relationships, setting-specific, switching

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Not officially licensed in English, but the English fan translation is pretty good! Google the title and pick the one of your choice; scanlators are working on it in Indonesian, Vietnamese, traditional Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese. Not screenreadable.

Misc Notes: In progress; 22 chapters scanlated at time of posting.

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.

Submitted by erinptah!

"Don't know how he possessed me, but I'm happy that he did
'Cause this song is feeling special, and is gonna make me rich"

Blurb: Our narrator finds herself body-sharing with Edgar Allen Poe, decides to let him write as much as he wants, while she and her friend/business partner handle the marketing.

Why is it worth your time?: Austria's entry to Eurovision 2023, which means it's catchy, unreservedly weird, a quick watch, and comes with a great performance. The narrator's relationship with Edgar is incredibly cute and positive, even though the people around her never quite get it (and even though his writing genius doesn't translate into the riches she was hoping for).

Plural Tags: abuse: not mentioned, people: introjects, people: the dead, relationships: teamwork, type: switching, possession

Content Warnings: One line about "Maybe I should call a doctor or an exorcist", but she only brings up the idea to reject it, and never goes back to it.

Access Notes: Audio, the music video has captions in English, lyrics written out and translated into multiple languages on EurovisionWorld

Misc. Notes (if any): I went with the "switching" tag even though it doesn't come up in the lyrics, because the music video gives the narrator a few masc-presenting scenes complete with fake mustache, which I'm gonna go ahead and interpret as "trying to make the body more comfortable for Edgar while he's fronting."

“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.