Plural Stories

“...It’s complicated,” he said. “The thought of being someone’s girlfriend, or boyfriend, or whatever, it really creeped us out.”

“Is it because they saw you two as one person?”

“No. It’s… Like…” He sighed. “Subsa. What are we?”

The butterfly tilted his head. “You’re PJ.”

“No, like, you and us. What are we, together?”

Blurb: A butterfly, a boy, and a robot dog try to figure out what their relationship is to each other.

Why is it worth your time?: It's short, sweet, and loving. Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, nonhumans [butterfly, robot dog], queerplatonic relationships

Content Warnings: None whatsoever.

Access Notes: Free, screenreadable, available in Spanish. Read it here! (EDIT 2024/10/6: deleted and the Wayback Machine can't play it.)

(EDIT 2025/02/12: contacted author, was asked not to rehost or back it up. This is now officially lost media.)

Submitted by monsterqueers !

" “Metabang, if everyone is genetically engineered, then why are there people like us?”

I was expecting this question. It’s common for Students with major differences from their peers to ask it. I’ve had a lot of Students, and the Pembers were one of the rarest types.

I could tell that it was Myra who had asked the question because of xyr posture, expression, and vocal inflections. The differences were very subtle between xem and xyr other system members, but I’m particularly suited for tracking these things.

Myra continued as if I didn’t already know what xe was talking about, “Why are some people plural and some not? Wouldn’t the Crew make us all singlet?” "

Blurb: "A story about plurality, consciousness, the fight to overcome physical dysphoria, and self advocacy in a world without assigned gender. Also, some good old fashioned wish fulfillment."

Why is it worth your time?: Have you ever wanted to read sci-fi with a central plural and nonbinary characters? Have you wanted to read sci-fi with characters like that that that *isnt* a coming out/discovery story and is BY a transgender plural system explicitly about their system members? Do it! Theres a free version even!

Plural Tags: Temporary Fusion/integration, Introjects, Realitymashing, Otherworld, relationships: community, queerplatonic, teamwork, switching, nonhumans (note- they call themselves humans but they do not look like humans do)

Content Warnings: Quoted from the websites blanket content warning list; " eugenics, suicide, a bombing, descriptions of severe physical dysphoria, dissociation, conflicting needs, possibly messy depictions of various disabilities, cultural amnesia, personal amnesia, social engineering, carceral “justice”, transhumanism, social stratification at birth, explorations of consciousness and self, accidental death, mourning, and the monster from under our bed writ large "

Accessibility Notes: the free version on the website is screenreadable as it's html. You can get it at https://sunspot.world/ (Back-up link here.)

Misc. Notes (if any): This story is explicitly about the author system heavily fictionalized and put into a science fiction setting. Even if several characters in the book were not plural, its a plural story just because of that. Submitter has only read the first story in the sunspot chronicles in full, and is working through the rest, so only the first has been submitted at this time.