Most Plural Skullgirls Character

[Dr.Sanity]

Exactly what the title says, what Skullgirls character do you feel is the most plural of the cast? And by "plural", I mean that in which coinciding with the experiences of people who live with D.I.D., OSDD-1B, etc.

For a very simple rundown on plurality a little more, check out our friend's comic using Skullgirls as an example to help convey her feelings on plurality: Riiight here on twitter

We're a system ourselves so you can ask us our opinions, but we're gonna make a comment after this (mostly because we forget if this comes before or after the poll) to explain our thoughts on each of them.

 

[Dr.Sanity]

Alright bitches, Pandora here, this system's fictive of Junko, and she's here to explain every character here and how this system feels kinda plural vibes to them.

AS A VIBES CHECK, WE ALREADY KNOWN PARASITES AREN'T ONE TO ONE WITH PLURALITY NOR INTENTIONAL, THIS IS FOR FUN BITCH. We'll just say a universal downside to parasites is they can go from host to host so it isn't body specific, but a point in plurality's favor is how they can basically ONLY exist in coexistence with a host + they tend to be negatively seen in public light (and we know plural demonization lmao)

*Ahem, ahem*

1. Fukua: The character we even made this poll about. Fukua is canonically made up of two souls, acting as reference to the ye olden times where a grappler and projectile Filia was made as separate characters to show how the game handles. She even says "We're gonna get you~" for a number of her actions in game. We're PRETTY sure the situation with Shamone is additional on top of that, considering the projected Fukua energy clone... thing. She's probably our number one pick for "most plural" in the sense she's canonically a number of separate sentient characters controlling the body at once. Though, this bitch would prefer if she got the actual names of the souls that make up Fukua one day.
...Also clones in stories are just kinda plural coded, ngl.

2. Filia: The bread and butter plural pick of Skullgirls, as the host and parasite combo. They share a body from the head, so it's a pretty safe bet that they're plural adjacent. But Samson + Filia don't seem too able to control each others' bodies, making them a bit distanced from plurality.

3. Peacock: This is an interesting one. Peacock is canonically "mentally unwell", which caused her imaginary friends to spawn into reality through the use of her parasites. So something fun about plurality is called the "introject", this is an alter that forms through the imagery/personality/story/etc. of a preexisting entity, and that can be a real person or, say, a fictional one like an imaginary friend. We've actually spoken to a few systems who've gotten alters because of that sorta situation. And Avery/Lenny/etc. were spawned in *through* her synthetic parasite, so they're more Peacock than parasite. It'd sort of be like if a system accidentally gained the power to summon their alters/headmates into reality, if that makes sense. Considering she's been traumatized at such a young age, Peacock could have by far the most alters in game.

4. Eliza: Possibly the safest bet for a parasite plural pick for Skullgirls. Eliza and Sekhmet have long integrated with one another over the years, but Sekhmet is also clearly more vicious and volatile compared to Eliza. If we'd have to say anything, we'd probably compare them to an OSDD 1B system: A system who shares memories and largely shares a base "personality" but can differe when one is fronting. Hell, you can even say Eliza is the better example of a "host" alter with how she operates as the "face" of both of them. A good pick.

5. Painwheel: Hearing voices in your head that influence your actions? Pretty plural mate. Yes, technically this shindig is clearly a mix of possession/mind control... but... what the hell do you think irl possession/mind control has probably actually been nine times out of ten? Lol. If it's a ghost/demon/mind possession story, it's probably based off of mythology of misinterpreted systems over the years, haha.

6. Marie: This is mostly how every Skullgirl is fused with the Skull Heart, which is it's own sentient creature. Interestingly, the Skull Hearts influence on every host can sort of be seen as "blending". That's not an official plural term, but it's when alters sorta overlap emotionally/personality wise in their very beings. Like, this bitch might tell more jokes if her jester alter starts hovering near the front kinda deal. A lil complicated for someone unaware of how systems work, but it is worth mentioning.

7. Squigly: ...Kind of the other bread and butter parasite pick. But we'll admit that Leviathen protecting Squigly from control from the Skull Heart is another form of emotional connection that can be relatable to alters like me. Some alters are "Caretakers" or "gatekeepers" and may have control over emotions/who gets to front/memories/etc, so it's an interesting dynamic.

8. Double: Outside of systems wanting nothing more than shapeshifting, Double always struck us as this hellish amalgamation of many... *things* over the years until they evolved into this nondescript mush of an existence. Plural? ...In the sense of being many things at once, I guess so bitch!

9. Mrs. Victoria and D. Violet: Uh. Okay so this was just a joke at first but we actually looked at her wiki page and uh. "Alex Ahad has described her as being like the Hulk, only powered by "horniness" instead of anger." Okay, so The Hulk, which with Immortal Hulk among other things has basically been cemented as a superhero with DID? "It's been implied that Mrs. Victoria is unaware of her alter-ego's existence." Oh okay so she just actually has DID. Cool. Good to know. We mean obviously since it's not really been explored they're in that "unclear canon rep" basket rn but yeah no that's uh, yeah that's plural. ...Also, shockingly, we know hypersexual alters, so that actually makes D. Violet make more sense to us. Huh. (I mean shit, this system has had issues accepting theirs, I almost kinda hope if she ever gets her day that's part of their story. Damn.) EDIT: AND THE DEMON POSSESSION MOTIF WITH D. VIOLET TOO FUUUUCK. WE FORGOT. Demon possession stories are most likely misinterpreted cases of plurality or schizophrenia! This bitch is plural plural! Shit bitch!

10. Miss Fortune/Robo Fortune: Slightly mentioned in Fukua's bit but copies of characters that have to establish their own separate sense of identity despite inherently sharing a lot with their "original" they "split off from" is, well, this bitch feels it's plural adjacent lol. See Fern from Adventure Time for more of that kinda deal. But other than that, uh, tbh they have a lot of separate head controlling related factors and it's impossible to not make a "headmate" joke out of that shit.

11. Anyone else bonus round:
11a. Scythana: She's plural in the sense her fighting style involves picking up someone's body and starts beating someone's ass with it lol
11b: Isaac: Time travel means multiple of him at the same time, close enough!
11c: The entire cast of Indivisible: Technically not Skullgirls but all of them hung out in that girl's head huh

 

[Chrono_Tata]

1. Fukua: The character we even made this poll about. Fukua is canonically made up of two souls, acting as reference to the ye olden times where a grappler and projectile Filia was made as separate characters to show how the game handles. She even says "We're gonna get you~" for a number of her actions in game. We're PRETTY sure the situation with Shamone is additional on top of that, considering the projected Fukua energy clone... thing. She's probably our number one pick for "most plural" in the sense she's canonically a number of separate sentient characters controlling the body at once. Though, this bitch would prefer if she got the actual names of the souls that make up Fukua one day.
...Also clones in stories are just kinda plural coded, ngl.

The "souls of 2 warriors" thing is a meta joke based on her creation, as you pointed out. I'm not sure how or if that could be taken as canon information. I think the "we're going to get you" line most likely is just supposed to refer to her and her Parasite (not to mention it was probably recorded originally as a Filia line that was unused).

"It's been implied that Mrs. Victoria is unaware of her alter-ego's existence."

This is fake information lol. Don't trust the Fandom wiki too much

 

[Dr.Sanity]

This is fake information lol. Don't trust the Fandom wiki too much

Oh. Joy. We were wondering where that came from. Still, considering how plural coded much of Skullgirls is, we certainly wouldn't be opposed to Mrs. Victoria getting something like that. D. Violet's demon imagery does still remind us of our own demon alter, Wraith. Not saying it has to be a DID system, of course. If the Hulk analogy is still true then it'd probably be more akin to an OSDD system like ourself. ...Or maybe this just speaks to how superheroes so often tend to border on these sorts of things, hmm. (Batman is plural. Odd to think about.)

The "souls of 2 warriors" thing is a meta joke based on her creation, as you pointed out. I'm not sure how or if that could be taken as canon information. I think the "we're going to get you" line most likely is just supposed to refer to her and her Parasite (not to mention it was probably recorded originally as a Filia line that was unused).

It is true that much of Fukua's character is intentionally hazy (now more than ever it feels with Black Dahlia), though I do think the two souls element is "practically" canon. Much of her moveset has identity around the psychic energy clone, and whilst the line is recycled, we do think it's worthy of holding it up as important if it's the line she/they say for the character select screen. "Most important line" type of deal.

Of course I do not argue it is that intentional (the souls have no names, for example), but it is close enough that we consider it along the lines of, say, a trans reading of My Life as a Teenage Robot mostly holding up.

 

[Chrono_Tata]

Oh. Joy. We were wondering where that came from. Still, considering how plural coded much of Skullgirls is, we certainly wouldn't be opposed to Mrs. Victoria getting something like that. D. Violet's demon imagery does still remind us of our own demon alter, Wraith. Not saying it has to be a DID system, of course. If the Hulk analogy is still true then it'd probably be more akin to an OSDD system like ourself. ...Or maybe this just speaks to how superheroes so often tend to border on these sorts of things, hmm. (Batman is plural. Odd to think about.)

Yeah, while it does say that using the Pazuzu Whip to don her alter ego makes her have less inhibitions, it's never stated that Mrs. Victoria isn't the same "person" as D. Violet or vice versa. Either it's just her being able to act with less inhibitions when in her disguise (since she doesn't need to maintain the appearance of being a teacher) or the whip does have some effects on her mentally, but there's no reason to believe that D. Violet is a different personality.

The idea of them being different personalities and one of them not being aware of the other could be cool, although it's not exactly a novel concept for superheroes. Moon Knight is a good recent example.

It is true that much of Fukua's character is intentionally hazy (now more than ever it feels with Black Dahlia), though I do think the two souls element is "practically" canon. Much of her moveset has identity around the psychic energy clone, and whilst the line is recycled, we do think it's worthy of holding it up as important if it's the line she/they say for the character select screen. "Most important line" type of deal.

Of course I do not argue it is that intentional (the souls have no names, for example), but it is close enough that we consider it along the lines of, say, a trans reading of My Life as a Teenage Robot mostly holding up.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Fukua actually having multiple souls either but yeah I think it's worth to have some caution about putting too much stock in the bio description, which was written basically as a joke for her April's Fool trailer. They seem to be taking an interesting direction with Fukua in Dahlia's story so we might get more details about her canon nature or origin at some point.

 

[Dr.Sanity]

Yeah, while it does say that using the Pazuzu Whip to don her alter ego makes her have less inhibitions, it's never stated that Mrs. Victoria isn't the same "person" as D. Violet or vice versa. Either it's just her being able to act with less inhibitions when in her disguise (since she doesn't need to maintain the appearance of being a teacher) or the whip does have some effects on her mentally, but there's no reason to believe that D. Violet is a different personality.

(Does the emoji for a Ribbon show up?) Mhm, mhm! We can see either or! We don't mind however Mrs. Victoria ends up, I guess if you want we have a teeny explanation why we attached:

How our plurality works is we sorta "transform" into one another, there's not that "watching someone else control your body with you in back" feeling some other systems get. Even though we said we had a demon alter and hypersexual alter, they still *mostly* share the same core/base/memories with everyone else. So that's why we sorta liked the idea of Mrs. Victoria having that, cause it'd be like us! o((>ω< ))o (Oh! And just to let you know, "personality" is considered an outdated term, the modern terminology is "alters" and "headmates", like 'alter-ego'! Eheh. (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧)

The idea of them being different personalities and one of them not being aware of the other could be cool, although it's not exactly a novel concept for superheroes. Moon Knight is a good recent example.

Yeahhh true! Plurality actually often crops up in superhero media, a lot more than you think! (っ °Д °;)っIt's probably just cause of the inherent dichotomy of one's public and superhero personas being contrasting states of being, so writers tend to do that! Like with Batman's Zur-En-Arrh, or The Hulk, or Moon Knight, etc etc.

Though one thing we DO think would be a novel concept (and this doesn't have to be Mrs. Victoria it could genuinely be anyone else) is the idea of "the normal system stuck with the wacko fantasy systems". In other words, when systems are portrayed in media, more often than not they're usually the ONLY plural character on the block. And that's well and good, but sometimes it can make it feel a bit, hmm, like a spectacle I suppose? "Look! It's soooo rare and different!", not realizing that studies show systems are more common than redheads (no, really! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧)

Unlike a number of series though, Skullgirls already did the heavy lifting to make everything quite plural! ╰(*°▽°*)╯So playing from the perspective of a normal system that's observing the environment would actually be quite interesting and cool!

It's the compare and contrast for us, mostly. We ourselves have written, say, a regular system discussing things with a person who consensually gets possessed by a ghost. It's fun, it's freeing, and... kinda normalizing! We like being seen like that. (●'◡'●) - Ribbon

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Fukua actually having multiple souls either but yeah I think it's worth to have some caution about putting too much stock in the bio description, which was written basically as a joke for her April's Fool trailer. They seem to be taking an interesting direction with Fukua in Dahlia's story so we might get more details about her canon nature or origin at some point.

Oh yeah don't worry! We're treating it with a grain of salt tbh. Plurality is so often misrepresented in media that systems like me sorta have to scrounge for scraps, eheh ;^^