The Chimeras' Log

Submitted by paxislandsystem! Thank you, paxislandsystem!

"You haven’t clicked on this song, you haven’t brought me along.
You just thought that you could clone yourself till nobody was wrong."

Blurb: Eclectic album written by various members of a plural system about relationship troubles, headmates fighting, and isolation.

Why is it worth your time?:
A number of songs get quite explicit about the nature of plurality and feeling incomplete, trapped, trying to stay in control, and longing for connection, as well as references to plural love in some form or another.

Plural Tags: abuse low-focus, plural creator, creator speaks from experience, fusion/integration or identityblending, fictioneers (many many many of them, but namely Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus and Glad0s from Portal come to mind, as well as presumably the other TADC and homestuck characters seen on the album cover), enmity, friendship

Content Warnings: headmate conflict, isolation, identity troubles

Accessibility Notes: Available (with screenreadable lyrics) on bandcamp in English for five dollars and a limited amount of free streaming, as well as in the form of a lyric video on YouTube published by the artist.

Submitted by erinptah! Thank you, erinptah!

"Steven and Jake are part of your Hive. In whatever form, whatever body. Just like that, we understand."

Blurb: Marc Spector is used to voices in his head. He’s used to waking up disoriented, unsure what his alters, Jake and Steven, might have been up to. He’s used to having an Egyptian god command him as Moon Knight, his avatar of justice and revenge. What he’s not used to: staring into the face of a literal, out-of-body doppelganger.
Another Marc, crash-landed from an alternate reality, begging for help? Yeah, that is a new one, even for him.
But before he can really process anything beyond Khonshu’s incessant alarm bells, it becomes clear this other Marc didn’t travel solo...

Why is it worth your time?: Moon Knight has always been Marvel Comics' most-successful attempt to write a superhero with DID, and this spinoff novel (set in a universe similar to the main comics) is a worthy addition to the effort. Not only does the writer remember that Steven and Jake exist, he gives them roughly equal page time with Marc, and is clearly coming from a perspective of "all these characters are equally valid/important/interesting."
They're also dealing with Venom (a bodyjacking alien symbiote made of black goo, itself part of a Hive Mind), and Khonshu (the shouty Egyptian god who spends a lot of time in their head). The world-saving superhero plot is set up in a way that gives each of their personal strengths a chance to shine, and their shared experiences help the team-ups work, in spite of their varying levels of messiness and dysfunction. It's a fun time.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse low-focus, bodyhopping, cofronting, otherworld, relationships: family, relationships: teamwork, type: medical, type: spiritual, type: possession, type: switching. Does "Marvel-typical multiverse stuff" count as realitymashing? If yes, that too.

Content Warnings: Genre-typical fighting and violence. Non-consensual body possession (canon-typical for Venom). Reference to abusive treatment at a psychiatric hospital. Character death (canon-typical for Moon Knight). Further warnings have SPOILERS! See comments.

Accessibility Notes: Recent and mainstream book, I got the hardcover from my library. Ebook and audiobook versions are available.

Misc. Notes (if any): To keep the cast list manageable, the writer knocks out one of each headmate for most of the book, so Local Marc and Visiting Steven+Jake are the ones left to handle the plot. (Chapter POVs alternate between those three, and Venom.) It's a little hacky, but it works, and each trio gets a nice reunion before the end.
I wrote a much more detailed review/reaction of the book here.