Plural Stories

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 wa 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.

Are you fiction, or nonfiction?

Blurb: A ten-year-old who is petrified of threat and danger finds himself turned into a book illustration and sucked into an animated world of fiction, where he must overcome his fears with the help of Adventure, Fantasy, and Horror.

Why is it worth your time?: This movie bombed and was considered a stinker, but we watched it recently and found it entertaining enough. The animation is pretty and the mix of animation and live-action to delineate the "real" world from the fictional one was neat!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, otherworld, fictioneers, friendship

Content Warnings: This is a movie for children. It has some minor children's movie adventure scares.

Access Notes: Available on VHS, DVD, and streaming (currently on Amazon and Apple TV). The DVD version is what I found, and it had subtitles in English and Spanish, plus dubbing in French. Someone has also put it on archive.org.

Misc Notes: Macauley Culkin got nominated for a Razzie for his performance, but honestly we didn't think it was bad!

Here is a child trapped inside the body

Blurb: A child within a young woman's body fantasizes about escaping sex.

Why is it worth your time?: Short, painful, poignant.

Plural Tags: creator speaks from experience, children,

Content Warnings: possible sexual violence? The poem is ambiguous

Access Notes: Available in the collection The River in Me: Collected Poems. Sister Dang Nghiem has a lot of poems about dealing with pain in the past, embracing her past selves, and talking to them. The book itself is worth a read! Available in paperback and ebook. This poem is also short enough that I'll just post it in the comments as well.

"He was a strange old bird. Most shrinks want you to ignore the voices. Jancowski taught me how to talk to them."

Blurb: After his father's suicide, a young man who hears voices finally returns to the family home to deal with his past once and for all... only to discover a beast within him.

Why is it worth your time?: It's an unusual one that went in a direction I didn't expect! It's pretty good; if you can find it, give it a shot!

Plural/1+ Tags: Abuse low focus (and debatable; the protagonist's father tries to get him to stop listening to the voices), memory work, nonhumans (animals, angel), enmity, voices

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: This work is printed in Grue Magazine #19 (where I found it), but far more recently in 2021 with the +Horror Library+ Volume 1. Seems to only be available on paper.

Misc. Notes: There are apparently a few people named Kevin Filan. Don't know if this is That One Guy who wrote that book on spirit possession.

"But doux-doux," Prince of Cemetery said, "your grandaughter head full of spirits already; she ain't tell you? All kind of duppy and thing. When she close she eyes, she does see death. She belong to me. She is my daughter. You should 'fraid of she."

Blurb: Toronto's wealthy citizens have fled, leaving the town barricaded and wartorn. Worse yet, young, single mother Ti-Jeanne starts dreaming of the dreadful La Diablesse. She knows she must obey the spirits in order to save her family from a deadly fate.

Why is it worth your time?: This book is good! Caribbean folklore and religion combine as the story ramps up to a faster and faster pace. We couldn't wait to see how it ended!

Plural Tags: abuse low focus, bodyhopping, cofronting, nonhumans (spirits, loa/orisha), realitymashing, possession, spiritual, switching, visions

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available on paper, as ebook and audiobook, and in French.

Misc Notes: Won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. Had a loose film prequel/adaptation, Brown Girl Begins, but I liked the book better!

"The ancestral visions persisted. One day I was flooded with grief and felt as if I was slipping from life. Frightened, I began calling out to my grandmother Lela--she was the one person who I believed could help me. The air filled with an electrical energy and a feeling of peace washed over me. My breathing calmed and I felt my grandmother's presence. My grandmother who had been deceased for eighteen years had rescued me.

"Yet, I still did not trust that my Ancestors really supported me. I believed that I had experienced a psychotic episode and feared that I would end up as one of the 'crazy' ones..."

Blurb: a group of writers "share short stories, poems, prayers, and personal accounts of Ancestor reverence--intimate glimpses of our experiences with the Ancestors, those descended from our bloodlines and some not related to us by blood, but whose lives continue to inspire us."

Why is it worth your time?: It covers a bunch of different writers of different backgrounds (though with a focus towards the Yoruba tradition of Ifá/Orisha), all interacting with their ancestors in different ways, through dreams, channeling, divination, and more! A very personal and interesting collection on the whole, but nonfictional stand-outs include "Erasing the Lines" by M'kali-Hashiki (about losing the ability to contact spirits, and struggling to regain it), "Responding to the Call of the Ancestors: Transforming Vinegar into Honey" by J. Phoenix Smith (about dealing with intense family trauma via ancestor veneration), and "License to Forgive," by Iyalorisa Ayokunle (about having to banish an ancestor from her altar). Also includes a 1990s short story by Nisi Shawl about the nuances ancestor worship when combined with the American legacy of slavery.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus (depends on the chapter), creator speaks from experience, the dead, family relationships, spiritual, voices, visions

Content Warnings: discussion of slavery's legacy, family trauma, complicated family relationships, fear of madness

Access Notes: This book looks to be out of print and a paper-only release. Though still obtainable, it's not easy to get, so I'm probably going to be feeding my copy through the library book-scanner for accessibility purposes. (This means, regrettably, that the obnoxious handwritten footnotes of the previous owner will be included.) Stay tuned!

Misc Notes: Full Table of Contents (with most spirited-relevant entries in bold, but the whole thing is worth a read):

• "Introduction" by Luisah Teish and Sauda Burch
• "Reaching Back To Reclaim Genius" by Awo Fanira
• "The Breaking" by Xochipala Maes Valdez
• "Remembrance: Mary 'Pula' Lucero" by Xochipala Maes Valdez
• "Sparkle and Sheen" by Sauda Burch
• "Erasing the Line" by M'kali-Hashiki
• "Mourner's Kaddish" by D'vorah J. Grenn
• "Remembrance: Douglas Johnson, Sr." by Jessical Johnson
• "The Old Folks Say" by Luisa Teish
• "Remembrance: Ralph P. Orduna" by Sauda Burch
• "Turning to Face the Ancestors: A learning journey recovering heart and memory" by Gail Williams
• "Remembrance: Samuel Williams, Jr." by Gail Williams
• "The Cosmic Eye" by Uzuri Amini
• "Remembrance: Aunt Emmalou" by Arnia Dobbins
• "Let the Dead Bury the Dead" by Sauda Burch
• "Remembrance: Family" by Gilbert Burch, Sr.
• "Remembrance: Donald L. Williams" by Gail Williams
• "Remembrance: Louise Merrill" by Amanda Bloom
• "My African Odyssey 20 Years Later: the Ancestors of Goree Island" by Uzuri Amini
• "Remembrance: Great-Aunt Nancy Collier" by Sauda Burch
• "Remembrance: Sarangerel Odigan (1963-2006)" by Daniel Foor
• "Ancestral Legacy: Excerpts from an interview with Andrea (Courage) Johnson" by Sauda Burch
• "Remembrance: Marsha King", by Andrea Johnson
• "Full Circle" by Iyanifa Fasina
• "Remembrance: Rose Maes" by Conrad Maes
• "Responding to the Call of the Ancestors: Transforming Vinegar into Honey" by J. Phoenix Smith
• "Remembrance: My Brother Charles" by Rashidah Tutashinda
• "Acnestral Spirits" by Uzuri Amini
• "License to Forgive" by Iyalora Ayokunle
• "Remembrance: Durinda 'Winta' Anderson" by Karinda Dobbins
• "Remembrance: Great-Grandpa Pablo Valdez," by Xochipala Maes Valdez
• "The Rainses'" by Nisi Shawl
• "Remembrance: Grandpa Pete" by Rebecca Rodriguez
• "Preservation" by Luisah Teish

"ARE YOU MY MOMMY?

-I am big enough to love you like you need--needed from your mommy.

WHO ARE YOU REALLY?

-I am Judy.  Big Judy.  There are many of us.  We all will take care of you."

Blurb: A stained glass work and tiny story about being the love you needed as a child.

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

I discovered Judy Castelli on page 44 of Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians. Her photograph from 1978 (fifteen years before she finally got diagnosed) called her an "artist, singer and songwriter," quoted her as saying, "My official diagnosis is paranoid schizophrenia," and showed her image reflected in a mirror, surrounded by paintings of people with multiple faces. Naturally, I smelled multi, and I was right: once diagnosed, she went public, published a book based on these journals and a DID journaling kit (the password is "hope"), released a CD album (including her '70s single, "Crazy Lady"), sculpted in stone and stained glass, and became a lay founder of and board member of The NYSSMP&D (New York Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation.) What an amazing life, and yet I had never heard of her until that photo book!

Plural Tags: plural creator, abuse not mentioned, children, otherworld, family relationships, medical

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Free to read online. Image is not screenreadable, so here is my description right here: a vibrant stained glass piece of a large, whitish-red figure (seemingly bloodstained), gathering up small, variously colored childlike figures in her great arms. The background is a flaming hellish red, but it's increasingly surrounded by trapezoids of white, green, and blue, like steps or buildings, and the large figure's body language is gentle. The children's range from curious to playful to entreating.

Misc Notes: See it free here!

SPOCK: There is the other matter--the matter of identity.

NIMOY: Whose identity?

SPOCK: Ours.

NIMOY: I don't understand.

SPOCK: The separation of personalities. The rejection. The book.

NIMOY: You mean, I Am Not Spock? That was just a play of words, ideas. I was just trying to find a way to come to terms and explain... us. Our relationship. Did you feel rejected? I'm sorry.

SPOCK: I would not describe my experience as a "feeling."

NIMOY: I didn't mean to offend--

SPOCK: No offense taken.

Blurb: Leonard Nimoy's memoir about playing Spock on Star Trek, hearing his voice in his head and talking to it, and their relationship through Nimoy's acting, directing, and theatrical career over the decades.

Why is it worth your time?: It's enjoyable! Nimoy is playful and thoughtful, and he and Spock's regular dialogues taking the piss out of each other is a lot of fun. By the time of this book, Nimoy had all the money and prestige he needed, and he feels no shame about having Spock write the foreword trolling him, and for Nimoy himself to say first thing that he hears Spock's voice and talks back to him. Definitely give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, identityblending, nonhumans (alien, Vulcan), fictioneers, friendship, voices

Content Warnings: None of substance. Nimoy discusses his parents death affecting him, later into the book, and Hollywood conflict, but on the whole, this book is not a painful read at all.

Access Notes: This book was pretty famous; you have decent odds finding it in a library. Released in hardback and paperback, never had an official ebook release but LibraryGenesis seems to have some digital versions. (Quality not guaranteed.)

Misc Notes: Comes with photos. Nimoy's earlier 1970s memoir, I Am Not Spock, has a chapter of the same name pontificating on the nature of identity and selfhood that may also be of interest!

Submitted by a mysterious anon! Thank you, anon! :D

"As no one philosophy can fulfill all aspects of human life alone, your one self cannot go on unless you learn to work with the trio."

Blurb: A small crew of astronauts is on a mission to investigate Mars, where rumor has it a strange energy called 'Evil Mind' is stirring up delusions. One of these crew members is protagonist(s) Laika, a rookie radio engineer who is also plural. Like most instances of Mars in fiction, things quickly go south. Between solving mysteries, interacting with Mars' varied inhabitants, and hopefully putting a stop to the impending 'Judgement,' Laika and their bodymates - Ernest, Spacer, and Yolanda - confront their joint past and find who they all truly are. Also, everyone has a dog face, and yes, it is plot important.

Why is it worth your time?: The depiction of plurality is surprisingly sympathetic and dimensional for the time. If any bodymate dies in combat, it's a game over because the story considers all of them important. Most residents of Mars may be or are explicitly shown to be two-in-one; a few are three-in-one and Laika is five-in-one. Bodymates are usually treated like their own people, always called by their own name and pronouns by other characters. Though the writing at times can be questionable and other times very hard to follow, there are some legitimately interesting examinations of trauma, identity, and how the conservative Christian ideals of 'pure good' and 'sin' can be damaging. Like Xenogears, it's best to go in remembering when it was made, especially if you go looking at the original Japanese materials which...are more of their time than the English fan translation. (As an example of a strange writing choice, the bodymates are labeled as separate types of 'evil' but are not depicted as bad people in their actions.)

Plural Tags: fictioneers, fusion/integration, setting-specific, memory work, on purpose, otherworld, realitymashing, teamwork, community, enmity

Content Warnings: A TON. alcoholism, animal cruelty, assault, child abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual), death, dissociation, domestic violence, hospital surgery, integration (portrayed both negatively and positively)*, misogyny, murder, pedophiles, psychosis/delusions, religion, strong language, suicide and resulting survivor's guilt, trauma, very stereotypical depictions of Native Americans.
*Spoilers, one system of three integrates via killing a bodymate, but the one responsible turns into a boss battle so it seems more negative. In comparison, Laika& integrates by the end and the vibe seems to be positive.

Access Notes: Available for the PS1. The game is long out of print but has been uploaded on archive.org in Japanese, Spanish, and English. (No vouching for quality, caveat emptor.)

Let's Plays: For Japanese speakers, NicoNicoDouga has a couple of different playthroughs to check out, some which go into more detail than others. There's also one on YouTube with no commentary: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYnPhfZ3IEC0gVoIAvFp_S1veJosDqw1C

In 2022, an English fan translation was released. A full playthrough of that is also on YouTube with no commentary (except at the very end): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLegyQtkE9qr02L83RyYu19HzKdrHecp2B

The translation tries to be sensitive while acknowledging the game's shortcomings. E.g., it treats obviously trans characters with more respect than the original script, but the term 'personalities' is still used to refer to bodymates, and it keeps the term 'psycho' which the game uses to refer to one of the three types of evil on Mars.

"One can only be heroic with MPD if one leads a life so successful that no one could possibly know."

Blurb: A memoir about living with MPD, dealing with concerns like learning linear time, gender issues, trust, integration, and multiplicity caused by things OTHER than sexual abuse.

Why is it Worth Your Time?: It's good! I got far more out of it as an adult. There's a lot of relatable stuff in here about time management, the struggles of integration, coming out vs. staying closeted, ableism, and health insurance and financial woes. Trauma isn't nearly as painful to read here as in other multi memoirs. This book may be of especial interest to other folks with no headspace or headmate names. If you want a book about life with MPD, give this one a shot!

Plural themes: inner children, abuse intermediate focus, memory work, integration, identityblending, medical (MPD)

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments.

Access Notes: available in paperback or bootleg ebook on archive.org