Plural Stories

Submitted by acorn_squash! Thank you, acorn_squash!

“Jay wants there to have been consequences, he thinks. It nags at him: the senselessness of it. That Poor Kid, he keeps thinking; he's thought it so often it needs capitals. A proper title. Twenty-something years and a grave so shallow he imagines Barnes can feel it when the wind comes through the cherry trees in Arlington. Or around that rock in the mountains, under that frozen river—or spread thinly between one and the other, a stretched-out restless haunting five thousand miles long. He doesn't know which is worse to contemplate. That Poor Kid. And then there's Jay, turning his back when it's convenient and plumbing memories when he feels like it, pawing over the corpse and checking its pockets for spare change. They'd wrestled, somehow, and he'd won.

“He knows it wasn't like that, not really. Wilson'd implied as much, when he'd suggested that Jay had been born from the remnants of Barnes's healing brain, like the muck in a chrysalis reforming into another creature. But one time Jakob told Jay the story of Ya'akov, his namesake, wrestling the angel in the desert and coming out with a different name, a different identity; as a people—and Jay hasn't been able to stop thinking of it as a battle ever since. Jay wonders what Ya'akov's family thought, when he came limping back and said: my name is Yisrael. Whether he'd felt new. Whether he'd felt that he'd left something, back there in the sands, in the place where his hip had been twisted.”

Blurb: A series of Captain America and the Winter Soldier fanfics exploring the Soldier’s time in HYDRA, his escape, and his recovery, as he slowly decides who he is and who he wants to be. Only the second CatWS fic ever to be nominated to this comm!

Why is it worth your time?: This is really, really good fanfiction. (I think the excerpt above speaks for itself.)

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse: high-focus, cofronting (very rarely), memory work, people: the dead, type: setting-specific, type: switching (exactly once and never again)

I chose the setting-specific tag because Jay was born (as far as we know) because of brain damage that was only survivable at all because of sci-fi tech.

Content Warnings: Extremely graphic torture and murder, including of children and animals. (You can safely assume that everything in these content warnings is extremely graphic, unless noted otherwise.) Auto-amputation. Abusive medical experimentation that borders on body horror. Suicide attempts and self-harm. Vomit. Starvation. Memory erasure. Drug addiction. Forced chemical castration (off-page, but it’s a plot point; Jay isn’t especially upset about it, but he didn’t choose it either). Mentions of death in childbirth. Mentions of rape, including rape of children.

There’s also consensual sex in some of the sequels. (You can skip them if that isn’t your thing.) “I know the afterglow” has rimming and penetrative anal sex. “open your houses and let in the night” has outdoor blowjobs and anal fingering.

Accessibility Notes: Free, online, screenreadable. The main fic has been translated into Russian; the sequels are only available in English. Whole thing has been backed up on Wayback Machine.

"I cannot hold onto this body when another will need it far more. We are a single existence, split only by the tides of time, joined together in death."

Blurb: You play as a body-hopping Foundling, borrowing bodies of the dead, finding out who they were when alive, and fighting your way through a corrupted doomscape. Each "shell" has different skills and playstyle, from Eredrim the long-suffering king with all health and no stamina, to Tiel who runs up stairs for fun and chugs poison like candy.

Why is it worth your time?: It seems like a fun souls-like! It's lighter on story than other games in here, but I didn't mind watching it. The Virtuous Cycle expansion pack gives a little more story.

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, nonhumans (the Foundling), the dead, bodyhopping, possession

Content Warnings: It's a gory game with a grim atmosphere and a bunch of hyperdevoted cultists around. Comments contain warnings with spoilers.

Access Notes: Available on X-box Series and One, Playstation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, Epic Games, and GOG.

Audio is English only, but subtitles and interface are available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

Due to the nature of the bodyhopping gameplay, I haven't found a total completionist Let's Play, but Lotus Prince has a pretty thorough series with unobtrusive commentary:

• Mortal Shell proper playlist (covers base game and the start of Virtuous Cycle)
• Virtuous Cycle beating (as Eredrim)
• Discovering Foundling Obsidian Black
• Virtuous Cycle final ending (as Foundling)
• A silly alternate ending for the base game
• Bonus interactions with Brether Corvid
• A Forever Alone run (playing through the base game as the Foundling, no bodyhopping at all)

Misc Notes: A review of the game is here. And just so you know, you can pet the shopkeeper's cat.

Submitted byexpmachine !

"This is your reality. Hurry up and accept it."

Blurb: "Asa Mitaka is an introverted high school student attending Fourth East High School, who has trouble finding her place in society following her mother's death to the Typhoon Devil. One day, after accidentally killing her class' pet devil Bucky, she is confronted by a student who has made a contract with the Justice Devil. The student attempts to kill Asa, but Yoru the War Devil appears and makes a contract with Asa, inhabiting her body and making her a living Fiend host, under the condition that she kills Chainsaw Man. After dispatching her killer, Asa seeks to find Chainsaw Man, though she and Yoru have differing goals: Asa wants Yoru to leave her body, while Yoru wants to reclaim the Nuclear Weapons Devil which was consumed by Pochita."

Why is it worth your time?: Specifically it's the second part of Chainsaw Man when Asa and Yoru are introduced as protagonists. Yoru can read Asa's thoughts, she can only possess (or switch with) Asa when she's not feeling distressed. Asa sees Yoru as a hallucination and talks to her out loud. While the plot is ongoing, the way the possession and relationship between the human and devil is treated so far is interesting.

Plural Tags: mindsharing, enmity

Content Warnings: Contain spoilers; see comments.

Accessibility Notes: I'm unsure of any screenreader available.

“If you're going to perform inception, you need imagination. You need the simplest version of the idea-the one that will grow naturally in the subject's mind. Subtle art.”

Blurb: A washed-up old dream thief pulls together a heist crew to pull off one last perfect crime: to break into a man's subconscious and, instead of stealing something, leave an idea behind. But what heist ever goes perfectly? And the thief in charge has his own inner demons...

Why is it worth your time?: As a heist movie with stunning visuals, this movie is very good. There's a reason it won a bunch of special effects awards and spawned such a big fandom. Keep your expectations to "great brain robbery" and you'll have a blast. As a deep look or explorations of dreams, self, and the psyche, it's much less satisfying than Paprika, which inspired this movie.

Plural Tags: dreamfolk, otherworld, nonswitching, introjects, the dead

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Accessibility Notes: available with subtitles, on DVD, and streaming.

"Everything's fine.
It feels like heaven.
I see my parents.
They look happy.
They have a present for me. I wonder...
It's a cat! So sweet and pretty!
Dark as the deepest night.
It's Mr. Midnight!
My best friend...
My only friend..."

Blurb: After witnessing the brutal murder of her parents, ten-year-old Fran Bow gets shipped off to an oppressive asylum for children, where she starts having grotesque visions. After having a dream about her beloved cat, Mr. Midnight, she decides to escape. Reality starts coming apart at the seams.

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good. It is amazing that this game was made by only two people; its visual style is singular, and the horrific imagery is contrasted and intensified by beautiful moments, plus the love Fran and Mr. Midnight have for each other. As someone who also sometimes has gruesome visions, this game was ironically comforting to watch; it has a theme of choosing happiness despite intense pain. The game is intentionally surreal and unclear as to what's "real" and what isn't, but I feel it fits under a greater plural umbrella due to (SPOILERS)

Plural Tags: imaginary friends, visions, nonswitching, realitymashing, otherworld, metaphysical/supernatural, creator speaks from experience, abuse high-focus

Content Warnings: contain spoilers, in the comments below.

Accessibility Notes: Subtitled in English, Spanish, German, and Russian, not voiced. I've found a Let's Play that voices the dialogue in English. (When I link a Let's Play, it's to a completionist version with an unobtrusive, leisurely player who focuses on the game.)

Misc. Notes: Natalia Martinsson (nee Figueroa) has stated that this game is based on her own life: "The game itself is a kind of screaming out what I been experienced through my childhood and teenager years. [...] So yes, Fran Bow is a gathering of many events that have being crucial in my life and in a way, I don't want to speak only for myself, but also the others I meet on my way, because not everything is about painful situations. Beautiful things has also happened on the way, and those happy event are those who really helped to battle my mental state."

"You've gone quite mangy, cat, but your grin's a comfort..."

Blurb: After a house fire kills her family and gets her shipped to an asylum, the emotionally traumatized Alice makes a mental retreat to Wonderland, which has been disfigured by her injured psyche. She has to hack and slash her way back to reality.

Why is it worth your time? It's fun to play. If you're into the Hot Topic, Tim Burton aesthetic, and find smashing through a violent headspace cathartic, this game is for you, though the controls are a bit clunky by nowadays standards. (We admit, we have been unable to finish it.) Also the soundtrack is fantastic.

Plural Tags: non-switching, headspace galore

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers.

Accessibility Notes: game has both audio dialogue and subtitles, and a Let's Play is available. (Note: if I link a Let's Play, it's to a completionist version with an unobtrusive, leisurely player who focuses on the game.) Despite this game's age, you can still get it in a good few ways--used original copies for PC are still pretty easy to find, and the sequel comes with a copy and is available for PC, Playstation3, and... er, whichever Xbox was in use at that time. www.myabandonware.com also seems to have put the game up for free, though we cannot vouch for the quality of that, and the comments show that it has glitches and bugs.