#From the analysis of Indigo Datum

[indigodatum]

More Evidence!

As we got Orange back into the mix a few episodes ago I had a theory, and every time they're around I get more convinced that I am absolutely right.

Orange is not in Deerland after the events of Season 1.

From Season 2 Episode 4 as they talk with Mrs. Frye she's clearly discussing Larks and Birdsong and their response is that it sounds bizarre. From the beginning of Season 1 Larks seemed to be a known quantity to all of the Department. The fact that they have no idea what any of the implications of this could be says to me they're in a much earlier point in time

Now as we see them again they mention that they're now sure that there's Department business in Deerland. Sure everything that we've seen of them suggests that they operate on instinct and intuition, but that doesn't sound like they know anything about a Jasmine Control to know she's the same as the missing girl they're pursuing.

In new episode there's a reference to the movements of the thin-head or earworm as looking odd "in the twin moons' light".

Then, after running into the earworm, they want a coffee, an espresso, but cold and nicotine and are unfamiliar with the fact that iced coffees are totally a thing and vapes are a bit of an alien concept to them and Lena, our waitress, still labors under the belief that she can use vapes to actually quit nicotine, all of which tracks with my memories of about a decade ago.

Everything about this episode really seems to confirm that idea concretely, but I bring it up because my theorizing up there is nothing but a foundation for my real speculation. Olivia had always been a part of this group going out to the State Park in Scarlet's memory.

Back in Season 1 when Scarlet first mentioned that she had some kind of history with variance she brings up that she was out with "A close friend, Darryl, and... someone else." First time I heard it I thought she was just unsure of how to describe the 4th member of the party, but the second time I think I thought that she was trying to hide their identity. But after we got into Season 2 I started a relisten, and I don't think that she properly remembered who was out there with her.

Then when Jasmine went on her first Jaunt she went into Scarlet's memory and she *knew* that she saw Scarlet despite never having met her, and then the second person she later confirmed was Violet, then she was convinced that Ivory Torment, the doppleganger, had followed her into the narrative pause of the Jaunt because someone with her face stepped out of the Jeep. We're told this is all impossible, but this is a job where everyone regularly interacts with fictional and semifictional entities. With all else occurring this slipped through the cracks of discussion. (Besides, there was flirting to be done)

When we get Scarlet's view of sitting in this memory, she says it feel like she'd always been friends with Jasmine. Now given the way nostalgia plays high in the powers and effect of Birdsong and the Larks I thought it was just how everything plays with your memory, but what if she's just accessing memories that'd been fucked with before pushing them aside.

As Jasmine got trapped and we ended Season 1 I wondered how she was going to act in the past now, but we discovered she's actually in a memory, but not like on a jaunt where she's watching from afar and not interacting. With that revelation I started racing my mind to figure out how the memory, the dream, was going to explain her introduction to this group

Later, again in Estranged from Grace, when talking with the garage band the response is not to say that she's so much older, a "decrepit twenty something" in the words of Nadia. They discuss how she was a prep and "in different social circles". This implies that she's somehow the same rough age cohort as the kids. Same as Nadia and Alex.

Almost identically, Lena has her own thoughts about her. Lena's been putting together the breadcrumbs of variance that get things grabbed out at the State Park. She notes that the "gay girl" was one who went totally missing. So did the teen from Guatemala, but I don't think we've run into them yet.

I think all of this means we'll get to the end of the season where our Trio and Orange will meet up. Jasmine/Olivia will find a way to conceal the exact nature of how much interaction Alex and Nadia had with all of it, and so that only she gets the full mind wipe, while Alexa and Nadia are just made to forget how they knew her because she works out that's how it always had happened. Orange clearly didn't report much of it, though, but Orange doesn't seem one who loves paperwork and reporting. We know this because Olivia is grabbed as an example of someone with zero exposure to Variance. Which, considering both how Scarlet mentioned that queerness is its own form of Variance and Jasmine's line, "She's bi, I'm bi, everyone is bi!", suggests that even more of her life has been concealed from Yellow's plan. The question is whether Orange intended on messing with the plan or if the universe just enjoys messing with her.