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
Submitted by [personal profile] packbat! Thank you, [personal profile] packbat!
As they began walking away from the market plaza, Kaelyn’s conversation flowed effortlessly. Each time the warrior spoke, she responded with perfect precision—laughing at his jokes, complimenting his bravery, weaving small bits of charm into her words. And as they walked, Ryan could feel her growing confidence, her control tightening over his thoughts.
See how easy this is? Kaelyn’s voice whispered. They all want to help you. All you have to do is ask the right way.
Ryan’s hesitation, that sliver of discomfort, was shrinking. Drowned out by the sheer thrill of success, Kaelyn felt. This was power. Not in the way of brute strength or flashy magic, but in the quiet control of social finesse, in the way people bent toward her without even realising they were being pulled in.
Blurb: In a near-future world where reality often feels like an afterthought, players escape into A Realm Reforged Again—a groundbreaking VR MMORPG offering unparalleled character customization.
Follow Jason, Ryan, Emmy, and Sophie as they navigate personal struggles both in and out of the game. Within the virtual world, they take on new forms: Jason becomes Vaelith, a reluctant but powerful dracan mage; Ryan experiments with power as Kaelyn, a felinae priestess; Emmy creates Elyssia, a sylvani tank embodying who she wishes she could be; and Sophie transforms into Leoric, a towering burrovian ranger seeking freedom from familial and societal expectations.
But when the game's AI Creator-Gods, tasked with ensuring player happiness, begin to meddle with their choices, the players must confront unexpected challenges and questions about autonomy and self-acceptance.
With themes of identity, agency, and transformation, State of the Art sets the stage for an epic journey of self-discovery in a world where fantasy and reality blur.
Why is it worth your time?: Kaelyn's introduction, her relationship with her headmate, and how the two of them navigate their other relationships as they switch are interestingly messy. Part of the setting is the game's ability to implant memories in its players of their character's backstory, and that makes it ambiguous to what extent she existed before Ryan signed up for the game to make a power fantasy RP character - especially because neither headmate was even aware of plurality as a concept before.
Plural/1+ Tags: people: RP characters (should this be classed as a type of fictioneer?); type: switching; creator speaks from experience, voices
Content Warnings: Contain spoilers, see comments. (Also, the author uses AI editing software, in case that's something you care about.)
Accessibility Notes: online (Scribble Hub edition, Royal Road edition), free, screenreadable
Misc. Notes (if any): This series is an extremely slow burn - at the time of writing, two hundred and eighty thousand words in and nearing the end of Book 2, the timeline covers two days in the lives of its four five protagonists. (The series is planned to span five volumes.) Also, the chapters do not have a regular cycle between viewpoints - for example, Ryan and Kaelyn are entirely absent from the first sixteen chapters of Book 2 because they haven't woken up yet - so you can't easily skip through to just their chapters. We like all the characters, but if we didn't, we wouldn't stick it out just to see what happens to this duo.
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
"Whenever you meet people who think they are reincarnated, they were always Somebody in a past life, like Ruth--THE Ruth in the Bible--or Mary Magdalene's mother, or one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals. No one is ever a third world villager who died of malnutrition at age seven. [...] A friend of mine said I was probably Alexander the Great, because of my near-fanatic interest in him. I said no way in hell."

Blurb: An American female reincarnation of Hephaistion gets to see Alexander the Great, the love of her lives, again, and recounts the experience to the Loch Ness monster afterward.

Why is it worth your time?: Queer genderfucking reincarnation short story.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, the dead, romantic relationship, spiritual, visions

Content Warnings: death, drinking alchohol

Access Notes: This story is in an out-of-print small press anthology, Memories and Visions: Women's Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Susanna J. Sturgis. Used copies can still be scraped up; it is also available in bootleg screenreadable digital form on archive.org. The whole anthology contains many spirited, many-selved stories and is worth checking out!

Misc: Notes: I think this author might be dead, seeing as her website has been taken over by a sketchy lawyer company for some reason. So I feel pretty okay saying that she speaks from experience; she mentions having a Navajo "spirit guide" who was deeply disappointed in her rugmaking skills.
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
"The time storm flooded around her. Violet energy chakra waves began to pulse about her head, her brain wave pattersn becoming visible to me. I cast back in the storm, searching, for 1119 B.C.E., finally locating the oracle at Delphi. The brain wave patters of its priestesses glowed and arched fantastically before me. I brought them forward with me through the still raging storm, ready to instill and replicate their complex patterns into her brain waves. [...] Neurons hissed into place, finding their structure, sparking like fireworks..."

Blurb: a Chaos witch travels through realities, has a conversation with a poet friend, and writes out some of her spells.

Why is it worth your time?: Trippy second wave feminist meta-cyberpunk story that I can safely say I have read nothing else similar.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, otherworld (uh... fractal realities?), copies, realitymashing, plural on purpose, setting-specific

Content Warnings: brief appearance of a woman tormented by medical machines

Access Notes: This story is in an out-of-print small press anthology, Memories and Visions: Women's Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Susanna J. Sturgis. Used copies can still be scraped up; it is also available in bootleg screenreadable digital form on archive.org. The whole anthology contains many spirited, many-selved stories and is worth checking out! It was also printed in the December 1988 issue of EOTU.

Misc Notes: Schein's author's note includes: "all of her science fiction is based on her real life experience [...] she still hears the first line of [The Chaos Diaries] as a voice in her head sometimes, and wonders what that means," thus the creator tag.
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
"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
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
"'Have I the honour to address Ti?'

This answer did not seem to have quite the effect I hoped it would.

'You are addressing the Sole Companion of the King, the Overseer of All the Works of the King, the Overseer of the Scribes of the King's Book, the Director of the Palace, the Superintendent of the Canal-Banks, the Overseer of the Schools, the Director of the Court-Wigmakers, Overseer of the Pyramid of King Nefer-ir-ka-Ra, Overseer of the Pyramid of King Ni-user-Ra, the Honoured One Before His Lord, Ti.'

I stood corrected!"


Blurb: A green Egyptologist, upon falling asleep in Ti's tomb, gets taken on an educational journey of ancient Egyptian life, accompanied by (the somewhat pompous) Ti, along with illustrated carvings on the tomb depicting the events described.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a lighthearted, informative journey into ancient Egyptian life, made more meaningful by it representing in broad strokes Eady's own experiences of past-life memory. The illustrations are nice additions!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, the dead, visions, voices, nonswitching

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Reprinted in its entirety in Jonathan Cott's The Search for Omm Sety, which is available in paperback, hardback, and online at archive.org
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
"The way I do things does not have to emulate your way of doing things. These are not mistakes but my own understanding and way of learning finally being seen."

Blurb: A short eight-page comic about two headmates cooking a meal together.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short, poetic moment of learning and acceptance. Also, how Neon Crypt shows reality layers through color is pleasing.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, creator speaks from experience, nonhumans (toy tree snake thing?), teamwork switching

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Free, nonscreenreadable. Read it here!
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
submitted by [personal profile] quailfence!

"he's kind of stuck around since then, mostly as an inside joke, a little bit not. I like having him around. there's something really poignant about looking at the world through the eyes of a gay person from the past"

Blurb: A piece about how ND Stevenson pretended to show Oscar Wilde around Vegas as a way of coping with overstimulation on his trip there, which then turns into a reflection on Wilde's legacy and how the world has changed for gay people since his time

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short, sweet piece about queer history and seeing things through the eyes of other people

Plural/1+ Tags: creator speaks from experience, people: copies, people: imaginary friends, people: the dead, type: nonswitching(?), type: on purpose

Content Warnings: References to historical homophobia. Passing reference to sexual harassment. A few suggestive poses/mild nudity.

Accessibility Notes: online/digital, free, not screen-readable

Read it here!
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
Thanks to [personal profile] beepbird for telling us about this!

"She and her and us and we
All of us love all of you
And that's all we know how to do"


Blurb: A plural love song by an all plural therian band.

Why is it worth your time?: It's cute, bouncy, and fun!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, romantic

Content Warnings: None

Access Notes: Available for pay what you want on bandcamp! Lyrics now available in the comments below! (Thanks, [personal profile] synecdoches!)
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
"When I was younger I used to think I was Angel... (you know... from Buffy?)"

Blurb: A short personal zine about fictionkin identity and having a dissociative disorder.

Why is it worth your time?: Short, simple, free! Give it a go.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, fictioneers, enmity, medical

Content Warnings: Reference to self-hate and allusions to violence.

Access Notes: Textual transcript available! Just going to post it in the comments for easy access.

Read the zine here!
lb_lee: A clay sculpture of a heart, with a black interior containing little red, brown, white, green, and blue figures. (plural)
[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
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
Submitted by [personal profile] acorn_squash! Thank you, [personal profile] acorn_squash!

"Hi! I’m James, the Bored Work Alter! I come out to promote synergy and provide best-of-breed service to put alimentary products on our table unit to provide sustenance."

Blurb: The Shattered Souls System are the latest guests on Dysfunction Junction, where Hess and Zip support struggling systems in becoming more functional by connecting them with systems who have their sh*t together. Unfortunately, Ellen Barbara, this episode’s advice-giver, has her own ideas of what “functional” means—and the business-jargon-addicted James isn’t helping much, either. It’s a workplace satire! It mocks ableism and two-dimensional views of multiplicity! In short, it’s a Plures House production.

Why is it worth your time?: It’s funny and has some great voice acting!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse: low-focus, cofronting, creator speaks from experience, relationships: teamwork, type: medical, type: switching

(Edit: Technically abuse isn't mentioned at all? Just unspecified trauma.)

Content Warnings: Mentions of alcohol, plus the topics in the blurb.

Accessibility Notes: Free online audio drama with a screenreadable transcript. Some dialogue is in all-caps. Backed up on the Wayback Machine.
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
Submitted by [personal profile] erinptah! Thank you, [personal profile] erinptah!

"As B, I felt very grateful to you for treating me as if I were a "real" person and allowing me to express my own personality. With every one else I had to pretend to be A, and my feeling of gratitude and the fact that you asked for my co-operation -- put me on my honor as it were -- was the underlying motive in telling you so much."

Blurb: An account of the various phases of dissociated personality, written by the patient, after recovery and restoration of memory for all the different phases. Such an account could only be given by a person who has had the experience, and who has the introspective and literary capacity to describe them.

Why is it worth your time?: Possibly the earliest medical-multi memoir! Clear and engaging writing, it makes for a quick, fun read. A reader from the 2020s can regularly recognize "hey, if they were around today they'd call that [term that hadn't been coined in 1909]." The first half is written by an integrated "C" who can remember the experiences of both "A" and "B", though those two struggled with severe amnesia barriers for a long time. The second half is by B, who recounts her own experiences, including co-consciousness (in that word!) with both A and C.

The first half is formatted as a series of letters to their psychiatrist, who requested that they write it all up for a scientific journal. The psychiatrist contributes some prefaces and footnotes, but he largely gets out of the way and lets the system tell their story. When he brings in his own perspective, it's usually to say "this is how my observations corroborate the experience my patient has described."

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, creator speaks from experience, fusion/integration, relationships: teamwork, type: median, type: medical

Content Warnings: none. The authors talk about difficult experiences in very general terms (e.g. a "shock" of "an intensely emotional nature"), but say plainly that they aren't interested in going into detail.

Accessibility Notes: Digitized on archive.org. Text version was auto-generated from the scanned pages, so it has some errors, but is overall readable/searchable.

Misc. Notes (if any): Fusion/integration was a therapeutic goal for this system, and they were relieved and satisfied with the results. The "median" tag seems appropriate for both their early experiences (where they describe a "B complex", which was identifiably separate, but hadn't yet "flowered" into "a distinct personality"), and their post-integration ones (where B experiences herself as still existing, just fully co-conscious with C).
lb_lee: A colored pencil drawing of Raige's freckled hand holding a hot pink paperback entitled the Princess and Her Monster (book)
[personal profile] lb_lee
This submission comes from [personal profile] erinptah!

"I thought I had this down, you know. I would always be the aloof and inaccessible conjoined twin, the shadowy passenger to your outer life. But now I’m triggered. The revolution is on. More people are coming out and singing their songs. I want to belt out my part before we eddy into eternity."

Blurb (from Goodreads): Two identities struggle to coexist in Ronnie Gladden's body, brain, and soul. On the outside, they are Black and male. Inside, a repressed White female identity begs for release and is ready to break the status quo. Grappling with double-binary thinking, an abusive father, and childhood trauma, they imprison their inner self to stay safe from the world.

Why is it worth your time?: A plural memoir unlike any other I've ever read. A series of letters between Ronnie and his headmate (only identified as White Girl, or WG); although both of them identify Ronnie as the core/original, WG's perspective gets significantly more page time. They don't struggle with amnesia or time loss; it seems they've both been aware of each other since WG's appearance at age 4, the struggle is about validating each other and learning to coexist. Possibly the most in-depth reflection on "our physical body has one race, but this system member has a different one" in existence to date.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse intermediate-focus, creator speaks from experience, people: imaginary friends, relationships: teamwork

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; see comments!

Accessibility Notes: Print and digital/ebook versions available. Published in 2023, so new copies are easy to get (or have your library get).

Misc. Notes (if any): I didn't tag "type: medical" because Ronnie/WG don't use any psychiatric/DID-related terms in the memoir. (Not clear whether they've actively rejected the diagnosis, or whether they've never come across it in the first place, so they haven't had a chance to consider it.) But the experiences they describe are a typical DID origin story, of a child in an abusive household whose brain instinctively generates headmate(s) for coping and protection.

I'm not sure whether to tag dreamfolk/fictioneers, because none of those are described as full-fledged headmates the way WG is. But they write about internalizing fictional/TV characters pretty intensely ("you—we—brought these characters along in the same way most go and buy clothes"), and transcribe some "dream scene" conversations between them. Wouldn't be surprising if a future memoir said "we now realize those were from a roundtable of fictives having a chat."
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
"We're a system of creatures just trying to get by in this messy modern world!"

Blurb: An autobiographical comic about alterhumanity, trauma, and memes.

Why is it worth your time?: It's fun and short, give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, closeting, cofronting, creator speaks from experience, nonhumans (robots, wolves, dogs, horses, shapeshifters all at varying levels of anthropomorphism), friendship

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: This comic is fully alt-texted and screenreadable, yay! Free to read online at https://gze.neocities.org/comics

Misc Notes: Archive.org is in hell right now, so backing it up there may have to wait. LB has made local copies of the 17 strips at time of post though.
lb_lee: a kludge of the wheelchair disability sign and the transgender symbol, adorned with the words Trans Gender Cyborg (cyborg)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"So at some point I need a way to distinguish btw 'old leg' and 'new leg' and how does Aimee Mullins do it with 13 legs? Ahhh, they all look different. But these two legs look exactly identical and it is effing UNCANNY to me and I never thought I would say that b/c I do not find my own legs, even prosthetic, uncanny. But when there are two of me-legs [why not pirate voice, sure] then yes, I am uncannied. What should I call them? Am I going to need to become a we pronoun? Plz dear god no."

Blurb: During the COVID-19 pandemic, a disabled cyborg reflects on her cyborg mind and how her concept of self changes and multiplies when she gets a new leg that DOES NOT LIKE HER.

Why is it worth your time?: Jillian Weise writes a lot of cool stuff about cyborg identity, disability, and sense of self, and this essay takes a very different tack to a form of many-selvedness I've never seen discussed elsewhere. It's short and free to read online; give it a shot!

Plural Tags: creator speaks from experience, abuse low-focus, enmity, bodyhopping

Content Warnings: Difficulties with a new prosthetic, and the capitalism thereof.

Access Notes: Screenreadable, free to read online. Read it here! (Back-up link here.)
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
"We are Many - More than an Army. We count on it - Strength in Numbers."

Blurb: A stained glass work of the inner people of an MPD/DID multiple reaching towards the sun.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a beautiful, powerful piece, free to view.

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, teamwork, otherworld, medical

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: Archived online. Image is not screenreadable, so here is my description right here: a striving stained glass piece of many figures, big and small, in pink, gold, and green, joining together and carrying each other to form a single greater silhouette reaching joyously towards the sun, a vibrant magenta sky behind them.

Misc Notes: See it free here!
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
"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!
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
"We are our own mother.

We hold you and rock you, Children.  We speak softly~ words of love and comfort.

What you did not get, we will  try to give you now.

We will be for you what was never yours.  
If we do not have it,  we will find for you.
You will have what you need.~ 
needed then~need now.

We are willing.  You will not be deprived this time."

Blurb: Art and text taken from the journals of a multiple, right as she got diagnosed and decided that she would get to know herselves and love herselves unconditionally.

Why is it worth your time?: 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!

But anyway, her journals are clear and simple, her art simple and clear, and it's free to read. What have you got to lose?

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate focus, memory work, children, nonhumans (the angel Gabriel), family and teamwork relationships, medical, voices

Content Warnings: Non-graphic discussion of child abuse, depression, self-harm and suicidal urges, all with content warning on "Born of Despair and Loneliness." I didn't find it a hard read. Also, this is from a medical MPD/DID perspective, so the terms "alters," "parts," and so on are used. There is also some Christianity.

Access Notes: Roughly twenty short installments, which far as I can tell can be read in any order. Not useable alt text, unfortunately, but miraculously, the whole thing with the sole exception of the image of Gabriel and Mashed Potato Mountain, has been saved by the Wayback Machine, which is the only way to view it online now. It also apparently inspired a book, Looking Inside: Life Lessons from a Multiple Personality in Pictures and Words, which is still available in ebook and print forms.

Start reading it here!

Misc Notes: Though all the installments were archived (even the images, except for the one on Gabriel's page and the one on Mashed Potato Mountain), there's just enough link rot to make going through a little tricky, so here are all the entries (in order of click-through):
1. I Am Lost
16. It is All There Is.
2. The Leap
3. In My Heart
14. Born of Despair and Loneliness
8. Spring
9. Long Way to Go
11. It Is a Sad Time
12. Silence No More
17. This child can never be held enough.
18. I am Gabriel
19. The Bigness of Knowing
20. A Simple Thing
21. Mashed Potato Mountain
22. End

There are also some installments that seem to not be on the click-through, which nonetheless exist, so here are those:
4. Out of Chaos
5. Family
6. From Hardship to the Stars
7. And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
10. Where am I going?
13. The Rhythm of My Life
15. I Will Not Survive the Night (a conversation inside)

See also: her art gallery (mostly stained glass), which is also very multi!

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 him, too, but then I do what he would,
And when he touches his chest, I know I’m not him."


Blurb: A poem about the subjective sensation of soulbonding.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short and sweet, a time capsule to the soulbonding subculture of twenty years ago. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, fictioneers, identityblending, intimate relationships, plural creator

Content Warnings: None

Access Notes: Read for free online here!

Misc Notes: Laura Gilkey identified herself as not multiple, but on the plural spectrum in her May 2002 blog entry ~Ramblings on Soulbonding~, thus the tag. Uncertain about the exact date; it could have been written in the late 90s, like the Trinity?

Laura Gilkey also made five comic strips about soulbonding, entitled 7 Wonders of My World, but it is sadly lost media.
lb_lee: Rogan drawing/writing in a spiral. (art)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"If William is a character worthy of being written about, then he exists. He exists, inside my head to be sure, but in his own right, with his own vitality. All I have to do is look at him. I don't plan him, compose him of bits and pieces, inventory him. I find him."

Blurb: An essay by the late, great speculative fiction writer about her discovering of Earthsea over the course of a decade and its independent autonomy.

Why is it worth your time?: Le Guin has passed on, but her legacy is immortal. The essay is a beautiful explication of creative discovery and the realm of the imagination. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, otherworld, fictioneers

Content Warnings: None.

Access Notes: This essay has been reprinted many times, including in ALGOL #21, Dreams Must Explain Themselves, The Language of the Night, Fantasists on Fantasy, and a similarly-titled by very different 2018 collection called Dreams Must Explain Themselves: The Selected Non-Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin. Available in print and ebook forms.

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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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