Plural Stories

"He never was alone before. He had himself to see, talk with, live with, nine other selves all his life."

Blurb: A clone of ten named John Chow come to help mine a hellish planet... but when disaster strikes, there's only one John Chow left. How does he deal?

Why is it worth your time?: The John Chows are referred to as A clone, not TEN clones, and have an interesting sort of group self. And of course, Le Guin is a legend. Give it a shot! It's good!

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, identityblending, copies, setting-specific, intimate and teamwork relationships, on purpose

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: This story has been anthologized more than anything in the catalog. Available in print, ebook, and audio, and in German, Dutch, French, Serbian, Spanish, Italian, and Lithuanian

Misc. Notes (if any): "singleton" is used in this story to refer to non-clone single selves. Is this possibly where later ('90s BBS) plural usage came from?

Submitted by erinptah! Thank you, 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).

"There are more things in the human mind and heart, a twentieth-century Hamlet might remark, than are dreamt of in our psychology."

Blurb: Brief thumbnail life stories of overwhelmingly-American multiples from 1811 to 1981, including trance states, fugue folks, Spiritualist mediums, and the start of the MPD surge.

Why is it worth your time?: If you want a crash course and quick look-over of the historical progression of how multiples were seen and categorized in mostly-America over the course of 170 years, this book is invaluable! Dig into the citations in the back to find the original records; a lot of them are surprisingly findable.

Plural Tags: abuse intermediate-focus (depends on the case), fusion/integration, otherworld, children, relationships of enmity and friendship, medical, spiritual, switching

Content Warnings: Institutionalization, medical ableism, physical and sexual violence, self-harm, and serial rape. Despite this, the thumbnail-sketch format of the book means none of this hits too hard.

Access Notes: Still in print, improbably, and though never officially digitized, we and Orion Scribner joined forces to create a screen-readable PDF of LB's copy. (Sorry for the annotations.)

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.

"It was time to return to the inner world I loved so much as a child. As I'd feared, a decade of abandonment had eroded it away..."

Blurb: A trans girl comes to talk to her headmate one last time... and it doesn't go the way she planned.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, bitter-turned-sweet, and relatable.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, fusion, identityblending, intimate relationships, otherworld, visions

Content Warnings: Dealing with self-hatred. More in the comments.

Accessibility Notes: Plain text, screenreadable, free. Read it here! (EDIT: Cohost is going down. Back-up link here.)

"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

Submitted by starfallhaven! Thanks!

"this was your shell, but it was all filled up with me. God, the double entendres were hard to resist."

Blurb: the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth follows Harrowhark Nonageismus, who has failed to become a true Lyctor--a necromancer who has absorbed the soul of her cavalier. She is being both haunted by both visions and ghosts as she attempts to survive her time aboard the Mithraeum as one of God's chosen saints.

Why is it worth your time?: this book is extraordinarily good if you know what's going on (that is, body and mind sharing). The entire premise of Lyctorhood, one of the novel's defining world building aspects, is based on the idea of a secondary soul residing in a single body. There's even possession.

Plural Tags: mindsharing, switching, visions, setting-specific, abuse not mentioned, fusion/integration, otherworld, enmity and romantic relationships, the dead

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: available in print, ebook, and audiobook.

Misc. Notes: This book is not going to make much sense if you haven't read Gideon the Ninth, and I can't recommend reading one without the other. Although I'm firmly of the opinion that knowing about the bodysharing aspect in advance will only make the reading experience more enjoyable, it is technically a spoiler to know about at least one of the bodysharing relationships in this book.

"I'm not at all sure that survivors have a choice in the way integration happens for them. While a smooth unification may be ideal, I suspect for most of us, this is a time of momentous change. Such change is rarely calm and uneventful."

Blurb: (From back cover) A collection of essays, poetry, and art shared by over fifty readers of Many Voices, an international newsletter for people healing from trauma-related dissociative disorders, mostly focused on personal experiences of the recovery progress and integration.

Why is it worth your time?: It's an interesting time capsule of a specific medical multi culture right before the switch to the DSM-IV and the DID name change. The editor, Lynn Wasnak, has since passed on, and Many Voices was shut down with her death, though the newsletter archive remains online. However you feel about the multi culture of that time, nobody can deny that Wasnak did a lot of work at creating multi community and pooling resources and stories.

Plural Tags: fusion/integration, memory work, children, medical multiplicity, plural creators, abuse intermediate-focus

Content Warnings: Obviously, integration, fusion, and returning to singlethood are all major themes. As is usual for medical multi stories from this time, a lot of the relationships with therapists are super-dependent and messed up. Abuse is discussed, but not in detail. Also, a specific story ("Integration," by Abigail Collins) involves a straight headmate worrying that integrating with her lesbian headmate would change her sexual orientation, and headmate friction comes up a few times.

Access Notes: Officially only in paper book, out of print, but Anna's Archive has digitized a copy, and it's screen-readable, so I now have a local copy! (Thanks for the tip-off, helpful anon!) I also textually transcribed a chapter of it here.

Submitted by monsterqueers !

"It's okay not to feel `whole'. Even if you feel only partly complete, if you repeat that enough, it'll eventually be `whole'. A part... is better than zero."

Blurb: A cult-classic extremely plotty JRPG about a amnesiac guy named Fei Fong Wong, who journeys across the world with some other folks to overthrow the fascist government, and in the process uncovers the secrets of their world and things about his past. Also there are giant robots.

Why is it worth your time?: Ok so this is a bit of a spoiler but Fei has DID canonically. Really not sure how to sell it as a plural game without saying this. Now its portrayal is deeply DEEPLY dated to 1998 Japan's understanding of it, but for its time its startlingly accurate and sympathetic. The depiction in the game matches the understanding of the time quite well, its just that time was 1998.

They really made an attempt at depicting dissociation through a visual medium, and the dynamic between Fei's alters is well developed. Its not amazing, its got SO many flaws in accuracy and unfortunate tropes, and its definitely not aged the best in many ways, but we did enjoy it quite a bit.

If you want a historical look at something that has a Very Robust plot -by that we mean lots and lots of lore-heavy cutscenes- and a plural character that has their plurality focused on, its beloved for a reason. One just has to keep in mind its from 1998 and everything about it is incredibly dated to that; from the gameplay to the portrayal of plurality and mental illness to the tackling of a variety of other subjects.

Please note this game is well known for being wildly dark and having a complicated and often confusing plot. The plot requires your full attention to make sense, and even then it can be confusing to many people. Its not for everyone but we personally enjoyed it and thought it wasnt as confusing as a lot of people find it.

Plural Tags: memory work, fusion/integration, otherworld, children, mpd/did, enmity, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: This includes spoilers. See comments.

Accessibility Notes: Physical copies for the ps1 are rare and expensive due to being out of print, but it may be bought on the ps vita/ps3 eshop, it's been uploaded to archive.org in English and a Quebecois French patch (can't vouch for quality) and there are lets plays available on youtube. Linked lets play is a no commentary run: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMHR2xnx8VCrRvNrgh10j0eq5UQFvM_WC It isnt a completionist run, but shows the full main plot.
A lets play is the recommended option as the gameplay has aged considerably and its on an old system.

Misc. Notes (if any): Its also worth noting that some of the director's later works also feature plurality, and are more accurate to the experience indicating that the portrayals flaws were more due to the times than views towards plurals.

"This book is many things. It is the story of a child who was badly hurt, but survived. It is the story of a young woman who had many personalities and became one. It is the story of how one therapist treated one patient. Most of all, however, it is the story of people who found each other at the right moment in their lives and performed magic."

Blurb: The Flock's autobio, mixed with their therapist's notes, about discovering they're multiple, cooperating, and integrating.

Why is it worth your time?: By MPD memoir standards, it is much lighter on the trauma talk, focusing more on daily life, and because there is a section where the system describes forming a government and living cooperatively... right before they integrate and the book ends. It was one of our favorites as wee baby multis, and you might be able to glean a little from it. It still has a really, SUPER-codependent reparenting relationship between the Flock, their therapist, and her husband, though.

Plural Tags: MPD/DID, switching, integration, inner children, abuse intermediate-focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in ebook and paper forms.