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Kendra Saunders, the hero known as Hawkgirl, explained her past lives to Taylor Barzelay, a transgender alien who tried to be a superhero called Galaxy. How she had reactions to things based on other people's memories and how she couldn't live up to their memories, and how it felt like everyone was judging her or controlling her sometimes, how she couldn't just be her. Kendra expected this to be weird or a shock to Taylor, whom she just crashed through the skylight of. Only, it wasn't odd.
"You are describing a dissociative state! And I am intimately familiar with that. Like half my friends are plural"
"Really?" replied Kendra "I've never met someone who got it before. What's this plural thing anyway?"
"Well, some people aren't an I or a me. They're an us. Multiple beings in the one body, kind of like how your friend on the League, Firestorm, talks to "the professor" sometimes. He's not just him, there's more. You're more too. Plural is just a community term, plenty of people here have other people in them for lots of reasons, though the term started in DID communities. Heaps of trans women have DID, and I'm friends with heaps of trans women. One of my friends is a little girl half the time, you should meet Margie, she's so cute.
"A little girl? How does that work?"
"Eh, combiner ray, these things happen in Metropolis. They let Margie go to elementary school despite her adult body, it's kind of like this old anime I love Nanaka 6/17. I pick her up after school, do you want to come with?
"How have I never heard of this? I've been mentored by Batman and he just never mentions this stuff. Knowing about other people in the one body would help with a lot of my detective work"
"It's Batman, half the people he beats up are some kind of plural. Maybe he doesn't want you crashing his turf." Taylor let out a chuckle, before replacing it with a very serious look. "These girls I know, Rose and Thorn, do not have nice things to say about him. Almost put them in Arkham after trying to stop a mugging."
"Yikes"
"You know what they say: All Cops are Batman"
"So how can I find more about this stuff, are there movies I can watch?"
"Yes but don't. None of them are good except somehow Psycho Beach Party but you don't want to watch that. I like video games because they make plural people cool and powerful. Clocktower 2 on the PS1 has the main girl become a guy who can shoot people and it's awesome, even if he's a demon possessing her, FF7 is a classic, actually, maybe look into Kingdom Hearts. Whole series is about a guy with like 6 people in his body, and another guy who puts his soul in at least 17 bodies. One of the Trails of Cold Steel games also has a DID based version though whoo boy it does not stray from the reality of how a lot of people get other people in their body. If rape is a trigger warning, stay away from that one"
It was in fact a trigger for Kendra, so she made a note to stay away from that.
"Still, it's cool that there are people like me out there. Can I meet some sometime?" Kendra was really keen to not feel so alone on this
"Sure, I have a discord server if you want, or I could introduce you to Margie in a few hours. Whatever is less stressful"
"Both?"
"Sure, both! You can even meet Clayface's daughter if you want she's really cool. She and her girlfriend are going to this club tonight, we were going to have a double date but you can be our 5th wheel"
"Clayface has a ... you know what I'd like that"
Things were going to be alright. Kendra cried, but only briefly. She didn't have to be alone any more