Plural Stories

Submitted by beepbird! Thanks, beepbird!

"“The formal definition of insanity,” I said, “is actually quite fluid. Two people can have the exact same condition, with the exact same severity, but one can be considered sane by the official standards while the other is considered insane.""

Blurb (taken from the back of my copy): Stephen Leeds, AKA 'Legion,' is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the story begins, Leeds and his aspects are drawn into the search for the missing Balubal Razon, inventor of a camera whose astonishing properties could alter our understanding of human history and change the very structure of society.

Why is it worth your time?: Despite being framed as hallucinations, Leeds' aspects are treated as fully autonomous people who make their own decisions, sometimes surprising him. It's nice to see them treated as rounded characters of their own, let alone rounded characters with independent relationships with each other.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, realitymashing, friendship, romantic, enmity, teamwork, nonswitching, visions, voices

Content Warnings: character death, gun violence, terrorism mentions, kidnapping(? Debatable about whether it counts, but they do get knocked out and wake up tied to a chair at one point), debate about wanting a "cure". This is also the first book of a series, which has a content warning in the comments.

Accessibility Notes: Physical book or ebook (legitimate or otherwise); audiobooks are available on audible, Amazon, Google Play, etc. I'd assume that it can be found at libraries given that I found it at a library sale. All text, so screen reading shouldn't be an issue for ebooks. This particular book of the series has also been translated into French and Spanish!

Submitted by quailfence! Thank you, quailfence!

"There is a radio in the distance. A radio of the world. Playing sound: Good morning, Elysium. Soon you will return to the world"

Blurb (from TVTropes): One miserable morning, you awaken from pain and darkness in a trashed motel room with the hangover to end all hangovers. You have no idea where, or even who, you are, but some details begin filling in as you explore: you are a police detective visiting Martinaise, harbor district of the city of Revachol, jewel of the Insulindian Isola, in the year '51 of the current century. Perhaps most importantly, you were sent here three days ago to deal with a lynched corpse, but instead went on a deranged bender of drug and alcohol abuse.

Now, you must resume the investigation with the aid of Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, a fellow detective from a rival precinct. But of course, it won't be as simple as it seems — the victim, a security contractor for a major international shipping company, stands at the center of a labor dispute involving the local dockworker's union, corrupt businessmen, communist agitators, and foreign interests, with blood on the streets looking more likely by the day. Everyone involved is eager to use you for their own ends — and of course, you're no titan of mental stability, what with the two dozen voices in your head vying for your attention...

Why is it worth your time: The aforementioned voices in your heads are your skills. As you get your skills higher, they become more talkative and interact more with you and each other. Overall the game places a lot of emphasis on crafting an identity and making your own choices. While the player character has a past and a personality that goes along with said personality, the main character's amnesia means that you can choose to follow that past or create your own identity. How you choose to shape your personality also affects your ability to connect with and learn about other characters and engage with sideplots, with certain dialogue checks being easier if you level up certain skills - though there is always a small chance (3%, to be precise) chance of success or failure.

Plural/1+ tags: abuse low-focus, people: the dead, people: copies (you can talk to the victim's corpse if you pass a check), people: nonhumans (you can also talk to your necktie in certain circumstances), voices, visions, otherworld (in the form of dreams), type: spiritual, type: medical(?), type: setting-specific (to elaborate: it's theorized in-game that the skills/voices are a result of some combination of an in-universe phenomenon known as The Pale and the player character's pre-existing mental problems, but it's ultimately left unclear as to exactly why this is happening), teamwork

Content Warning: It's a murder mystery where the player character is a cop who struggles with addiction to/withdrawal from alcohol and other substances. Other warnings are spoilers, see comments.

Note: due to the nature of the game, compiling a full and accurate content warnings list is rather difficult - I had to ask on Discord for help, and even then I still probably missed some things. Some of these things are unavoidable, while others can be avoided with varying amounts of difficulty

Accessibility notes: All dialogue/lines appear on-screen, and all dialogue and most narration is read out loud, though menus and such aren't. There exist let's plays/streams but I haven't seen any of them and the nature of the game, involving lost of little variations and branching choices, means that a completionist playthrough is basically impossible. Translated into Japanese, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, French, German, Russian, Polish, Turkish, and Arabic, though audio is only available in English. Available on Steam, Gog, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox X|S, and Switch

Submitted by beepbird! Thank you, beepbird!

"I'm so tired of the bad blood between us. But it's hard to let it go. You've hurt me. And I've also hurt you."

Blurb: You're on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

Why is it worth your time?: Overtly median protagonist where hearing voices is a central part of the narrative, an ever-changing princess whose fluidity of self is emphasized, and it's all amidst a narrative where your choices all have meaningful consequences (despite the time loops). Hearing voices is presented as a strength, not a flaw, and you even have the chance to tell one of them that you missed him.

Plural Tags: nonhumans, the dead, realitymashing, enmity, teamwork, nonswitching (mostly), median, voices, possession

Content Warnings: a detailed list of content warnings written by the developers can be found here (it even breaks it down by route): https://blacktabbygames.com/content-warnings-stp

Accessibility Notes: Game can be purchased from Steam, Gog, itch.io, and on Switch. Dialogue is narrated and the accessibility menu includes font replacement and adjustment, text-to-speech for non-narrated dialogue, and contrast improvements. Game is a visual novel, so it's mostly text, though there are some stunning images that don't give much information that's not also stated in text.

The audio is only available, however, in English. (The text is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (both Catalan and Latin American), Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.)

If the violence is too much for you, ManlyBadassHero did a censored Let's Play here covering all routes and updates.

Misc. Notes (if any): Abuse is not related to the plurality; there's never any explanation given for the voices existing, actually. Check the content warnings for sure on this one. It's definitely a horror game.

Also, there is merch: shirts, stickers, and posters!

"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 by packbat!

"And indeed, this is what must have happened now, because the next thing I knew was that I was waking suddenly out of sleep.

"A Full Moon stood in the centre of the Single Doorway, flooding the Hall with Light. The Statues on the Walls were all posed as if they had just turned to face the Doorway, their marble Eyes fixed on the Moon. They were different from the Statues in other Halls; they were not isolated individuals, but representations of a Crowd. Here were two with their Arms about each other; here one had his Hand on the Shoulder of one in front, the better to pull himself forward to see the Moon; here a Child held on to its Father's Hand. There was even a Dog that — having no interest in the Moon — stood on its Hind Legs, its Front Paws on its Master's Chest, pleading for attention. The Rear Wall was a mass of Statues — not neatly arranged in Tiers, but a jumbled, chaotic Crowd. Foremost among them was a Young Man, who stood bathed in the Moonlight, elation in his Face, a Banner in his Hand.

"I almost forgot to breathe. For a moment I had an inkling of what it might be like if instead of two people in the World there were thousands."

Blurb: A series of journal entries by a man living in an apparently-infinite House full of Statues, oceans, and clouds, as he comes to learn more about the nature of his world and realize certain truths which were hidden from him.

Why is it worth your time?: Mostly it's a really cool story and we loved reading it? The protagonist's memory issues mean that he is solving a mystery where we know a lot more than he does. But also, the story being structured around a journal lets us see the perspectives of multiple inhabitants of the protagonist's body over the course of the story.

Plural Tags: abuse:high-focus, memory work, visions, closeting,

Content Warnings: gaslighting, animal death (fishing, a monkey offscreen), human death, kidnapping, unsanitary (one character is implied to have soiled himself, another throws up), fatphobia (very brief but intense), violence, drowning. Also, there's a heroic cop character, and the only explicitly LGBTQ+ character out of the dozen or so named characters is a villain.

Accessibility Notes: Available in audiobook, and in MANY languages, including Spanish, Polish, German, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Turkish, French, Bulgarian, Russian and Czech.

Misc. Notes (if any): There is a lot of obvious inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges and similar otherworldly fantasty, but it also draws from the author's experience with ME/CFS in a lot of subtle ways. And it has a good ending, which for us Packbats makes it easier to deal with the heavy stuff.

"The Blight may have taken them, but they are still watching over us. And... I will never leave your side."

Blurb: A young girl wakes to a land blighted by an unceasing rain that steals the sanity and mortality of everyone it touches. Unable to fight as herself, she relies on the spirits of bosses and enemies that she befriends to protect her, fight for her, and help her explore and traverse the environment, so she can lay the dead to rest and end the cycle of horror.

Why is it worth your time?: It's good! Elegiac and bittersweet about flawed people at the end of the world trying to make things better. Nobody shares a body, per se, but the spirits who make up the members of your party can only manifest in the girl's vicinity, they all rely on her survival to continue, and she relies on them to progress through the game. Also, as a multiple whose system is stuffed with upset, hostile ghosts, the mechanics of soothing the dead, befriending them, and building strength through alliance with them rang true! This is a game about generation upon generation of horror finally being laid to rest. Also, the soundtrack is really nice!

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, cofronting, teamwork, friendship, the dead

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Xbox One, Series X, and Series S. The game has no spoken dialogue, only written, and languages available are English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese. A completionist Let's Play with unobtrusive commentary and almost all text read out loud is here.

Misc Notes:

"On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
--oh, happy chance!--
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest."

Blurb: A mystical Catholic poem about meeting God in ecstatic, holy, erotic darkness. Also known under the titles "On a Dark Night" or "Dark Night of the Soul."

Why is it worth your time?: It is the source of the term "dark night of the soul," and it is also the gayest, horniest-for-Jesus poem I have ever seen, making it well-loved by queer men. St. John of the Cross was apparently buddies with St. Teresa of Avila, which explains a lot. It is a beautiful, loving poem about being guided by inner sight to a lover nobody (including the seeker) can see, and it's not at all hard to monkeywrench it for plural purposes.

Plural Tags: nonhumans [God], creator speaks from experience, abuse not mentioned, romantic relationships, spiritual

Content Warnings: Uh. Jesus bangery?

Access Notes: Public domain; you can read it on Wikipedia both in English and the original Spanish.

Misc Notes: Apparently St. John of the Cross had to be gently nudged to explain his theology, leading to him writing two books of commentary on this poem. I tried to read one. It was a slog.

“Dear Mr Spratt, It has come to our attention that you may be attempting to give up the booze and reconcile with your wife. While we approve of this as a plot device to generate more friction and inner conflicts, we most strongly advise you not to carry it through to a happy reconciliation, as this would put you in direct contravention of Rule 11C of the Union of Sad Loner Detective’s Code, as ratified by the Union of Literary Detectives, and it will ultimately result in your expulsion from the association with subsequent loss of benefits. I trust you will do the decent thing and halt this damaging and abnormal behaviour before it leads to your downfall. ”

Blurb: Third book in a series. Thursday Next takes refuge in the Book World to lick her wounds and be pregnant in peace. Unfortunately, she's a disaster magnet, so she ends up uncovering a Jurisfiction conspiracy, helping two Generics become well-rounded characters, and fighting an introject mindworm in her psyche who's determined to destroy all her happiest memories.

Why is it worth your time?: If you liked/disliked the other Thursday Next books, you'll feel the same way about this book for much the same reasons. It's fun, sometimes a little too pleased with its own cleverness, but crammed to the brim with interesting ideas, English literature, and fictionality. Also, this is likely the only book in the catalog that merits the "memory work" tag but has nothing to do with abuse. Here, Thursday is fighting for her memories, but the source of it the loss is the villain, not herself. Much of the emotional high points come from watching her fight the rising amnesiac tides. Also, introjects of her eradicated husband, the vanquished villain of the first book, and the current villain all show up in her dreams, interacting with each other and Thursday, helping or hindering her.

Plural Tags: introjects, abuse not mentioned, fictivity, memory work, nonswitching, otherworld

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available in paper, ebook, and audiobook formats. Translated into German, French, and Spanish.

Misc Notes: The series continues but I need a break from this series. Shotgunning three 400 page books was too much!

“The barriers between reality and fiction are softer than we think; a bit like a frozen lake. Hundreds of people can walk across it, but then one evening a thin spot develops and someone falls through; the hole is frozen over by the following morning.”

Blurb: In an alternate-history England where the Crimean war has been going for 150 years and pet dodo birds are all the rage, Special Operative Thursday Next has to protect Jane Eyre from the kidnapping of its protagonist.

Why is it worth your time?: It's pretty good. Though there isn't much in the way of body or mindsharing (the closest is when Edward Rochester enters Thursday's dream to warn her of upcoming events), it is alllll about the lives of fictional characters interacting with "real" ones. It's an entertaining romp. Good vacation reading. Also, if you're the kind of bibliophile who's tickled by a society where Shakespeare plays are performed like Rocky Horror, hundreds of thousands of people turn up for a funeral of a minor Charles Dickens character, and people go around evangelizing about the true authorship of Shakespeare, then boy howdy, this book is for you.

Plural Tags: fictivity and otherworld TO THE MAX

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; in comments!

Accessibility Notes: Available in paper, audio, and ebook forms. You can find this book just about anywhere; it's a library easy-get. It's also been translated into Dutch, German, French, and Polish (and presumably Spanish, since the third book was translated and who translates only the third book of a series?).

Misc. Notes (if any): First book of a series. (Seven books, at present.)

“I tried. I'm doing my best.”

Blurb: a depressed girl decides to climb a mountain, only to discover that the place brings your mind to life. And the girl's mind really, REALLY doesn't like her. The mountain and her own mind seems to fight her every step of the way, leading her to wonder: why is she doing this?

Why is it worth your time?: It's really good. Easy to learn, hard to win, fun to play, beautiful soundtrack, striking visuals, and weds its themes to its gameplay. I loved playing this game and regret that I've been unable to play the expansion due to injury. We wrote a more personal, spoilers-included explication of why we love it here.

Plural Tags: realitymashing, fusion/integration

Content Warnings: In comments below; contains spoilers. This game is kid-friendly!

Accessibility Notes: This game is HARD. Let's Plays get through it in roughly 20 hours, but it took us 140+, and we haven't done the expansion pack. Access Mode allows you to toggle various settings (such as game speed, increased stamina, and invulnerability) to make it more playable for folks who can't manage the intense twitch reflexes required. I had to use the mode myself to complete the game, and I appreciated that the game did not insult or punish me for it. That said, the voice audio is intentionally jibberish, and the text cannot be resized. There are Let's Plays for this game, but I haven't watched any and thus cannot recommend any in particular.

This game is also available in German, English, Castilian Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Portugal), and Russian.

Buy it here!