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canichangemyblogname · 2 years

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I had some thoughts about Leida Mothma turning toward conservatism and fascism. I think this detail in her character is less about her spiting her mother and more about being lonely and wanting a sense of community and a sense of belonging. Ultimately, I think it is an interesting observation or commentary on traditionalism among diasporas as a means to embrace community and identity.

(Now, I think it's important to note that this is coming from someone who is, technically, a part of the Irish diaspora even though adoption largely severed that cultural or communal connection.)

There's a rather sharp observation that the Irish have made regarding the Irish diaspora in America, essentially calling out the many bootlickers in the community. "Irish Republican" in Ireland refers to someone who supports Irish sovereignty while "Irish Republican" in the United States refers to a cop. I have spoken before in my personal life about how neither the Irish or Irish-Americans are ready to hear that the Irish diaspora inherited their ideological tradition from their Irish ancestors. Much of their conservatism is based in Catholicism, but because much of their Irishness has been compromised for whiteness, this Catholic tradition is no longer being used to empower and educate Irish people, but prop-up white supremacy. As a whole, they are anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-contraception, pro- "traditional" families, and pro-caste. And there's a lot ot be said about how Christian ideologies, which obviously center a martyr in their beliefs, contribute to an identity of self-victimization.

Many of these families began coming to the Americas at a time when their expulsion from The UK played a part in English colonization. The religious caste system in Ireland that forbade Irish Catholics from voting or holding land encouraged them to leave and go uphold the racial caste system in the Americas, which forbade black people from land and voting and bodily autonomy (among many things). Most of this diaspora would go on to assimilate to the hegemonic Anglo culture in the US despite the tyranny their ancestors experienced under the Anglos, and many historians attribute this to their material success. But it is precisely this history of being mistreated and oppressed under the Penal Codes and English colonization that persists in Irish-American identity just as it persists in Irish identity. This history of living under colonial tyranny inspired the Irish (in Ireland) to fight back as the political and social conditions of their country changed and progressed. However, in America this identity became the justification for normalizing other's suffering ("The Irish were slaves too"). This identity born out of struggle reinforced a blood-and-soil sense of nationalism in the US. Because their identity is tied to this idea that they struggled (so you should too) under tyranny, many of them are also very pro-gun in a country that alone experiences mass shootings every day.

When surrounded by a hegemonic culture that seeks to be the dominant singular culture (like Anglo-Evangelical Christianity in the US), immigrating ethnic groups do two of several things: they assimilate, which is the ultimate goal of the hegemonic culture, or they cling as tightly to their traditions and practices and customs as a means of maintaining a sense of community while literally surrounded by a culture that is trying to erase your identity.

The first action, "assimilation," helps contribute to a white identity through the erasure of ethnic and cultural pluralism, as well as a unified sense of community. That erasure might be through genocide and the elimination of a people, their community, their cultural sites, or their traditions (like we see on Aldhani). Alternatively, it can be seen through the sterilization and defangment of pluralistic cultural or ethnic identities as they're folded under an umbrella of "whiteness" (this process is encouraged by the fact that these groups achieve more material success by upholding whiteness and defending the system).

The second action, embracing specific ethnic traditions, can contribute to a social lack of change within a diaspora. It's like taking a snapshot of a people in time. They're constantly at risk of losing their sense of community and ethnic identity to the pressure of assimilation, so they hold on as tightly as they can to what is left of this identity and community. Meanwhile, back in the old country where there isn't this threat of assimilation under a hegemonic culture, the social landscape changes and progresses without fear of erasure of identity. This is not me saying that there is never push-back in these communities from conservatives who believe that people are "losing their way" or that community and identity would be stronger by embracing tradition, this is me saying that this embrace of conservatism is seen as necessary to any social survival among a diaspora. A diaspora is going to, as a whole, feel under threat of "losing their way" or feel like their community or identity in their little enclave would be stronger by embracing tradition.

Yielding in acceptance. Safe in the braid of the old ways True and Steady and braided in trust The old ways hold us. Safe in the knot; in the binding The old ways teach us Bound against the wind; tied to shore Teathered in permenance

It goes without saying that this embrace of traditionalism, from traditional social dynamics to traditional social or cultural ritual, can also play a part in encouraging a blood-and-soil nationalism. Traditional rituals can also contribute to the cult of the nation seen under fascist regimes. The creation of rituals evoke belief in a higher cause, something critical to fascist "political religions." Fascist regimes choose ideology over competency every time. And it is for this reason that they rely on ideology for survival. What perpetuates these systems is simply belief in the cause because many of them cannot campaign on competency, effectiveness, or even a process (like an election process or a standardized bureaucratic process). Their legitimacy depends on ideology and that is why the evocation of faith in something higher is critical to the perpetuation and justification of these oppressive ideologies.

So, what does this have to do with Leida? Well, there is a Chandrilian diaspora (of sorts) on Coruscant. And it is experiencing a sort-of embrace of or return to tradition among it's youth.

It has been mentioned several times in the show how different things are "back home" on Chandrila, from how they've changed and how they are more progressive to how they are less sympathetic to the Empire. Traditional dress, traditional food, and especially traditional marriage customs are all mentioned as being far more popular among Chandrilans on Coruscant (and there seem to be a good few families) than Chandrilans on Chandrila. Hell, even the decor at the Mothma residence is dated.

It was Leida who sought out the elder and Mon even reports that Leida and her friends are enjoying it. It's the only things she shows up on time for. These rituals are a measure of community and identity for Leida, providing her with a sense of belonging to an in-group. Leida is profoundly isolated and ignored by both her parents. She is lonely and looking for community at an age when identity formation is at a critical stage of development and a sense of belonging is incredibly important.

Leida is surrounded on all sides by forces that make her feel small: her parents, a fascistic empire, and being a teenager. She wants a sense of importance and a sense of mattering to someone or something at a time in her life when that is incredibly important. The prospect of marriage provides her a romanticized notion of "mattering" to someone while the ritual provides her a notion of mattering to or bing a part of something higher or bigger than the self. She has run to traditionalism for a sense of identity and community. She has run to a traditional ritual for the sense that she matters and she is part of something bigger (the "old ways"). And it is a ritual that additionally teaches children the value of "yielding," too.

At a time of insecurity in her life-- first because she's 14, second because it looks like her family or parent's marriage is falling apart, and third because her parents seem to want nothing to do with her-- something that promises safety, order, community, and permanence is going to be very appealing. Those ideals are also going to go far in legitimizing the Empire's fascist ideology in Leida's mind. The Empire and traditionalism have become synonymous with security, order, community, and a sense of belonging and purpose.

#Andor (2022)#Leida Mothma #Mon Mothma #Fascism #White Supremacy #irish american #US politics

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seth-burroughs · 1 month

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When I say that I'm not normal about Rain Code I don't mean in it in a jokey haha quirky way I mean it 100% sincerely in weirdest cringest way possible. It legitimately permanently changed my mind and life. I think about it nearly all of the day, nearly non-stop, and it's always there as background noise. Anything that I ever experienced before I watched Rain Code was a blur. I simply was not there yet until Rain Code was. All my memories before that time feel like they were from some different person altogether that is no longer me or relevant to anything. The day I picked it up is forever labeled as our death date when we officially stopped being a real person. All my life has been leading up to the moment I watched Yomi kick Yakou's body and felt like I was looking at a mirror. Eventually I realized I'm literally a fucking Kodaka character which led me down into a whole metaphysical fictionkin multiverse theory rabbithole which led me down into some other, even more fucked up rabbit hole of realizing we were plural for quite some time already. And also the autosexuality rabbit hole but I think we should stay silent for that one. None of us have any attachments to the time before Rain Code was out. The people I met in the fandom have probably fixed the damage I got from all my previous fandom interactions (warrior cats. our mortal enemy.) up to that point and I consider them the closest to my equals or just love to watch them do about their thing. My heart drops whenever I hear anything about Rain Code (and especially Yomi) from anybody else and often if I don't know them, will stress me out severely and make me twitch like a motherfucker. I once or twice had a breakdown over this. I am obsessed. I am not normal about this and probably never will be. There is no me without Rain Code. What's up, how's it going, my name is Yomi and I shouldn't be alive.

Just thought I'd fire some shots to keep the rent low in case any of you got the wrong impression I'm just a really passionate fan. You are currently in the territory of a major freak with something deeply wrong with him.

#mine #yomipost #waaaaah do i main tag this. probably not.

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is-that-plural · 1 month

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For the Kano post, I think there's another plural-coded part but idk if it's in the wiki but thinking back on it it reads as plural imo (or at least similar to some experiences)

He can alter how people perceive him, but this also includes how he views himself, so while looking in the mirror he won't recognize himself. Before he learned to control his powers, he would unintentionally activate them, appearing as someone else (I.E. his recently deceased mother), causing him a lot of emotional strife. On top of that, when he's in severe emotional distress, he'll find that he can't even turn back to himself, and is stuck as someone else until he's able to calm down.

Also in his song / MV (yobanashi deceive) he views himself as nothing but a dirty liar, to the point he doesn't even know who the real him is:

「Oh my dirty, listen closely

To this coward’s beating heart

A selfish face, that’s seeped in pain

The only “me” that remains

Though I say I’m really lonely

Nothing’s ever gonna change

It’s so disgusting but my face is softly laughing all the same

Oh my dirty, I despise it

Let these feelings all be heard

This coward’s face, that played the game

Might not be one we can save

Simply shrugging off your problems

Only proves you’ll never change

“Oh my, how careless”

Time I wasted cause this liar is still off out and laughing with my face」 (excerpt of Will Stetson's English translyrics of the song)

Ok last bit, this part is actually true for all characters with the eye abilities in kagepro: they gained their abilities by going through a trauma that should have killed them (Kano and his mum being attacked in a burglary for example), accompanied with another person who got trapped in an in-between, p much. They survived by being gifted a snake from Medusa, containing an ability that manifests in their eyes, and this snake actually has a separate conscious (although this isn't touched upon hardly at all, it seems for the vast majority of the characters the snake doesn't talk at all or influence them)

Four or so of the characters were kids when this happened, like 4-7 iirc, so especially for them but for everyone too the story can really read as facing trauma, but being able to learn to live with it, rather than magically being fixed. They can never get rid of their powers, and their powers cause them to feel alone, but they find each other, learn to control their powers, and learn how to feel safe again.

(sorry for the infodumping in your ask box I just was planning on touching on his identity issues and then I kept remembering more and more that could be read as plural-coded lmao)

additional info !! this is very important actually thank you so much

[the said kano post: x ]

having all of this more context in mind; we'd like to offer a re-rating!

Rating: there's some Solid plural coding there!

#previously we had just said hints of plurality but with all of this in mind its a lot more plural than we thought !#plural rating #didosdd #did #osdd #osdd system #endos dni #anti endo #plural #plurality #plural system #did system #actually dissociative #complex dissociative disorder #dissociative identity disorder #re-rating #<- new thing !!#mod 🦉

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ninja-muse · 1 year

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So, June was a month! Felt like several, but apparently still just the one. Usually I measure the length of a month in books read—more books equals a “faster” month, fewer books equals a “slower” one—but that doesn’t work this time. I read nine books, so about my average. I think the number of “this was fine” books skewed things, as did The Hands of the Emperor which was excellent, but also very long.

And yes, I’ve finally read The Hands of the Emperor! It was everything I expected it to be and more, and just lovely and charming and cozy and all of things. I am bummed that my library doesn’t have the sequel, not that I’d be launching into it right off anyway. It’s the principle of the thing. The only reason it didn’t get my Review of the Month is because it’s hard to take photos of ebook covers….

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my TBR shelf book this month was a last-minute scramble and I opted for something short as a result. (And a classic, because I hadn’t read one of those in a while.) Tortilla Flat really hasn’t aged well, folks. Let’s all hope my next classic is better.

The other last-minute addition to this post is DIGGER IS HERE! I got the notice that it shipped late last week but didn’t think it would be coming to my door quite so soon. It has bookmarks, plural, you guys! I would be jumping into it next except that I’ve barely finished Shubeik Lubeik and I need to put space between excellent graphic novels.

Next up, though? One of the ARCs I hauled this month is The Frugal Wizard’s Guide to Surviving Medieval England. I’m going to be starting it today.

(Episode Thirteen is my other hauled book this month. I’d forgotten I’d requested a copy from a book rep.)

Other life events? I finally saw The Importance of Being Earnest performed! Another last-minute thing, that. I heard about it near the end of May and dithered about getting a ticket because the theatre was a bit of a trek, and then went, well, when else am I going to see it… Worth it, and that’s one thing off my bucket list.

Hopefully July has a lot of good books to make up for the kind of average reading month I’ve just had. Wish me luck!

And now without further ado, in order of enjoyment…

The Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard Cliopher, Secretary to His Radiancy, the Last Emperor of Astandalas, invites his lord on a beach vacation. He has no idea how this will change the world—or his life.

8.5/10

Pacific Islander-coded protagonist, cast contains a range of ethnicities and skin tones, 🇨🇦

Shubeik Lubeik - Deena Mohamed A Cairo kiosk owner tries to sell off three wishes. It doesn’t quite go as planned.

9/10

Egyptian cast, largely Muslim cast, Egyptian author, #ownvoices for Egyptian

warning: depression, suicidal ideation, death of a child

Shadowlands - Matthew Green Short histories of lost settlements from across the UK.

7/10

The Golem of Brooklyn - Adam Mansbach Len creates a golem while stoned. This is only his first poor decision of the week. Road trip, anyone? Out in September

7/10

largely Jewish cast, 🏳️‍🌈 (lesbian) secondary character, Jewish author, #ownvoices for Jewishness

warning: anti-Semites, white supremacists, homophobes

The Helios Syndrome - Vivian Shaw A freelance necromancer must help determine why an airplane crashed, while being haunted by a pilot.

7.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 (gay) protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 (gay/bi) secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

The Dress Diary of Mrs. Anne Sykes - Kate Strasdin A history of Victorian fashion through the lens of a fabric scrapbook.

7/10

The Gifts - Liz Hyder In 1840s England, a woman grows wings, a storyteller comes to London, a wife grows unsatisfied, and a doctor gets ambitious.

7/10

Black British POV character, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (gay)

warning: racism, misogyny, animal death, medical content

The Road to Roswell - Connie Willis Francie travels to Roswell to save her college roommate from a misguided marriage, and promptly finds herself on an involuntary road trip with an alien.

6.5/10

Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck A group of friends ramble around old-time Monterey.

3.5/10

multiracial protagonists, largely BIPOC cast

warning: racism, misogyny, alcohol, racial slurs

The Gay Best Friend - Nicolas DiDomizio Dom’s best friends are getting married! Which is great, except he’s having to keep secrets for both of them and maybe he needs to think a bit about expectations and authenticity.

5/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (gay), 🏳️‍🌈 author, #ownvoices

Currently reading:

Nothing! I start July with a clean slate.

Stats

Monthly total: 10 Yearly total: 62/140 Queer books: 2 Authors of colour: 1 Books by women: 6 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 1 Off the TBR shelves: 1 Books hauled: 2 ARCs acquired: 5 ARCs unhauled: 4 DNFs: 0

January February March April May

#books #booklr #bookblr #adult booklr #book covers #book photography #my photos #reading wrap-ups #read in 2023 #book recommendations #rec lists #who queue?

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writing-plurals · 2 years

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Heya! Singlet here with plenty of plural friends (so feel free to use any terms, I will be familiar with them), and I’ve got a DnD campaign I need a character for. Been thinking about it and I’d really like to try playing a plural character, or a plural-coded character, but I’m not sure how the mechanics of switching would work!

Maybe I roll a dice upon my character waking up and the number corresponds to which headmate is at the front? That’s the only thing I can think of, and beyond that, what are some things that I should do or think about to make this more accurate?

I’m hoping to introduce my party to the concept of plurality through this—since it is an interest of mine that I like to talk about! Obviously no “evil alter” trope or anything like that, but what are some other things I should avoid for sure? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Hi! DnD nerd, and plural who has attempted this here!!

A) This is one hundred percent something you'll wanna finetune with your DM. Ultimately, some tables are more suited for certain kinds of narratives, and levels of complexity like this. Make sure if you're bringing something of this caliber to the table, that's something everyone is okay with, basically. And that no one is gonna feel overshadowed by it. It's one hell of a background to play with, not to mention how much work you're gonna have to be putting in to pull it off, (but done right, it can be totally worth it!!!!)

B) Once you know everyone's okay with this kinda dealio, though, I'd really start with a small system, think, like, 2-4 people. If it's two 0r three people, you can just roll a d6 (odds and evens or 1/2 3/4,5/6), and see if it lands on even or odd in the morning, if dice are how you choose the fronter that day. A d4 if you have four in the system, but I really wouldn't push it beyond that.

C) The meat of all this is how you and your DM decide to balance what it means to have several people in one adventurer. Do you have everyone under the same subclass, different stats, aka, different character sheet, functionally? Or is your DM open to some flexibility with what each person does with a class? How does any spell casting work? If one can spell cast, does that mean all of them have access to a kind of magic too, or do they all have the same spell list to use, kinda like muscle memory?

D) What is probably gonna be the most fun, though, (depending on how much you love dealing with mechanics and such), and you've ironed out what is and isn't OP for your table and your DM, have fun with it. I know that's the obvious part, but seriously, have so much fun with it. Lean as much into it as your party narrative allows, and lean into there being more than one people in this adventurer that's dealing with whatever your party is thrown into, and how those personalities interact with it.

If you can get this sort of thing going in your game, PLEASE send an update, because I've never been able to finalize a character like that, and it sounds like so much fun!!!

-Mod Tick Tock (and dnd enthusiast)

#Mod Tick Tock #writing plural characters #actuallyplural #plural gang #plural system #plural representation #plural pride

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altosys · 5 months

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rebuilding the tfbogd fandom because holy hell this fandom's been dead for 7 years

ok ok so like, go watch gd fanmades. now, to understand the chronological order and the fanon lore spanning across several creators' channels, you'd had to have been there but it's not too late. disclaimer: you do NOT have to learn spanish to understand most of the lore. i promise you it'll make sense so there are three main timelines: -the la bestia timeline -the final battle of geometry dash timeline (and then there's sub-timelines but i'll get to those later) -like, anything else. [i'll edit this later to provide playlists]

lore highlights of the la bestia timeline: -the keymaster gets possessed -i think spooky dies at one point but gets revived? -plural gatekeeper real -scratch gets kidnapped -geometry dash actually gets destroyed -it turns out octocube has a sibling (we have trans rep now. AJDBWSJBCSJBCJISBSCJKSBAIC /pos) -octo's sibling is actually vv chill -oh also the gatekeeper falls in love with the player for a sec. i think it's implied that he thought the player was either octocube or rubrub? either way WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FU- -iirc scratch and/or potbor commit war crimes, so they got that goin' for 'em

lore highlights of the tfbogd (final battle of geometry dash) timeline: -the obscurity just... existing. like, more bpd-coded than spinel herself. i love this lil guy fr fr. vv kinnable for my cluster b ass. -the entire arc of octocube actually being the darkness actually fusing with obscurity but also being obscurity- it's your choice if you want to take that as canon or them being separate characters, personally i like to think they're separate. -the darkness being a girlboss fr fr. bro woke up and chose violence and im all for it -they got the whole light and dark concept better than legend of korra did which is saying something lol -the light isn't actually a "good" person, they're amoral. -hello keymaster x player fans, we have a lil' something for you! other timelines' lore highlights: -slum is kinda just gender ngl -discount bill cipher being everywhere. -yes, oculus (the ruler of levels) counts as a character. no, they're not in any fanmade *videos*, but we all accept them as a character in the series -i forget which video it is but to all the "spooky is apothiaro" mfs out there, i'm sorry

implied thingies that i turned into headcanons and now just go with it: -bpd obscurity real -aspd darkness real -octocube is the epitome of the psychosis/schizophrenia spectrum -i ship keycube and no one can stop me (i think there's some, uh........... stuff implied in one of the fanmades, all i remember is that it wasn't made by phoenix or rmr24hd) -scratch has committed war crimes (i think everyone can agree on this ngl) -biscuit is bigender or at the very least not cis (tbf she does use he/she pronouns canonically) -triple a battery obscurity real (agender aroace)

#geomtetry dash fanmades #the final battle of geometry dash #geometry dash #gdheadcanon

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beeps-bot · 2 years

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beeps in the multiverse of multiplicity: my experience and pondering on potentially being plural

For a long time, I've thought that plurality was not something that applied to me. Did I have clearly distinct individuals sharing my brain? No, I did not. And that was the scope of my investigation.

And then, on Tuesday last week—day zero—some part of my subconscious decided to say hello.

[Long post incoming.]

The creation.

It was subtle at first. It was the middle of the work day. I was at my desk, writing code, when the sudden invasive thought that I should make a new OC came to me. A living costume, a plush suit. Not super weird, given my existing synthetic identity, but noted for later.

Over the next day or so they took greater form. A squirrel. Non-binary. I named them Ashley, a perfectly cromulent gender-neutral name, I thought at the time.

By day two, I had enough character details noted that I started to write about them. I am a very, very slow writer when it comes to fiction. By the end of the day I had only formulated that they were once human—transformed, Kafka-like, through means unexplained—awakening into the form they would live as for the rest of their days.

I hadn't made much progress. Only about 150 words on the page; three paragraphs, and yet the connection and emotions I felt for this character were incredibly intense, like I had known them for an age.

Note that this was not my first OC. I have many. All of them borrow from elements of my personality and my life, just as this one does. None had struck me in this way before.

That very night, 4am, they said hello in person.

The meeting.

First, some notes on how I usually dream.

My dreams are always in third-person. I don't know why, but that has been the case for much of my adult life. I am a witness to my dreams, not a participant. The same was true here, initially.

My dreams are rarely memorable. When I do remember them, they tend to be surreal, nonsensical nightmares.

I also do not have a history of lucid dreaming. Here, I was what I would call 'semi-lucid'. I was aware that I was in a dream, but I made no effort to consciously control it.

As for this dream:

I flashed through vignettes, looping through but never sticking with one for more than a few seconds. Mouths moved, but there was no dialogue and no sound.

First, this squirrel suit stood on a stage, myself the lone occupant of the audience pit below, them pointing to charts and seemingly explaining themself to me.

Second, us sat at a table together, opposite one another, myself with a clipboard, asking questions to them.

Third, we were in the story itself—a part not even written yet—the character standing in front of and looking into a full-height mirror, holding their own face in disbelief.

Lastly, a room in a hospital, both of us looking at x-rays of this character, only an outline of their form visible—no bones.

And then... we merged. The dream switched to first-person. We went around again.

First, stood on stage, no one in the audience.

Second, sat at a table, alone.

Third, looking in the mirror at our face, holding it in disbelief.

Lastly, a room in a hospital, alone.

[Note: The dream was a bit of a mess. I've pulled out the most relevant parts here, but in truth we probably went through several 'loops' during the course of the whole thing.]

Somehow, though no words were conveyed, I learned their name wasn't Ashley, I had gotten that part wrong. They were Olive.

It turns out I had gotten a few other details wrong too. They were non-binary, sure, but femme leaning (using they/she pronouns), and red haired rather than the originally envisioned brown.

Like the character that inspired it, I found this dream incredibly affecting in unexplainable ways.

By the clock, the dream lasted about half an hour. I spent the following 90 minutes awake, documenting every part of it that I could still remember.

It was weird that a character barely in existence had struck me so closely, and subsequently met me in a dream.

It was weird that I had a semi-lucid dream, one that involved a merging of beings, that resulted in an immediate shift from my 'standard' perspective.

It was especially weird that a character had opinions on who they were.

The meaning of dreaming.

As noted in the list, at around age 12–13, I had dreams about being a robot, dreams that were similarly affecting, so much so that for years afterwards I thought them to be true.

Now, short of 18 years later—and nearly ten years after first publicly acknowledging that I identified more as a machine than a human being—I have found peace in, for all intents and purposes, identifying as a robot.

If there was a deeper meaning to this dream, I didn't want to wait two decades to find out.

Olive, I realised, originated from the same time period. At that age, a few years before I found the furry fandom for the first time, I liked to pretend to be a squirrel.

Not 'oh just a kid playing with friends being a squirrel'. I mean laying in bed at night, shoving pillows and blankets into my pyjamas to make my body shape more like a squirrel—replete with a huge blanket tucked down the back of the pants to produce a giant squirrel tail.

Olive is a plush squirrel because I had been a plush squirrel.

Feeling it out.

In the space of a few days, I had experienced multiple rare or first-time-ever experiences that had struck me on a raw, emotional level.

All of these experiences had been rooted in my subconscious—be they fleeting thoughts, emotions, or dreams.

And, still most shockingly of all, they had communicated with me and told me that I was wrong about things.

By now I was seriously considering whether this had been some kind of plurality-related thing and lordy did my mood skyrocket at that point. I sat at the verge of tears every time I thought of Olive for the next two days, just from how overwhelmingly happy I felt.

There was no material difference in my conscious life. I couldn't attribute those feelings to anything other than Olive themself, ecstatic from being recognised.

Naturally, the analytical robot brain was still extremely conscious not to dive straight into plurality as an explanation. If there was deeper meaning, it would need to be sought out.

Trauma.

Olive, I think, is representative of myself prior to, and maybe during, two particularly traumatic times of my life.

The first was around age 12–13 (yes, the same time as robot dreams and pretending to be a plush squirrel). This was the time when my biological parents separated.

I spent some time homeless and living with friends of the family—my mother joining her family abroad to mull things over, my father refusing to do so. My father left the country, taking my brother with him. My mother and I were forced to move towns, far from anyone and anything I had known—something we would do again less than two years later.

The second was in early adulthood, age 23, nine years ago.

I was dumped by someone who I really, genuinely considered my soulmate. We had discussed our future, we had discussed children. It was, in my mind, a stronger relationship than any that had come before it, and one where I could so clearly see us growing old together.

And one day, with so little warning, it was over.

I do not blame my ex for this at all in retrospect, but I handled this situation so incredibly poorly. I spent probably the next six months being angry, aggressive, vengeful—our social circles too closely intertwined to not keep seeing one another. I still loved her so much, but it hurt to be around her and see her gradually falling in love with another.

So I did what I felt I had to do: I took those feelings and I shoved them away, telling myself it was better to 'get over it' and still be friends than to continue mourning what we could have had.

At the same time I very consciously put up my emotional defenses. I had a found family that I dissolved. I stopped being the kind of person to hand out hugs like candy at Halloween. I started treating my social life with a sense of professional detachment. I couldn't be hurt again if I never loved anyone, or let myself be loved by anyone.

Those two events, I believe, created a lot of who I am today. Cold, logical, analytical, detached. Estranged from my father, arms-length from my mother, only feeling capable of any amount of emotional honesty with my partner.

Earlier this year, a long-time friend who I had somewhat grown apart from told me they loved me, and I couldn't find it within myself to say it back. I hated this. It weighed on my mind for weeks. It still weighs on me now, even after eventually reciprocating the platitude months ago.

It's in moments like that that the voice in my head tends to grow louder and call me an idiot.

My inner dialogue.

Whether people have an inner dialogue seems to be pretty varied. Some people do, some don't. Some only have it when weighing up big decisions.

Whilst not entirely in the realm of aphantasia, I don't have much by way of visual imagination or memory recall. My thoughts are very much word-based, and (unless writing something like this) I tend to write pretty much identically to how I think.

Personally, my inner dialogue is… inconsistent. If something has my attention, like watching television or reading a book, it is quiet; but anything more proactive—such as household chores—tends to rile it some; and emotional situations make it loudest of all.

And, interestingly, the one that fights for the emotional corner consistently speaks in second-person.

Olive is my repressed emotions.

I think so, anyway. They are a manifestation of everything that I was before we were emotionally traumatised by the events of our lives.

That is why Olive is emotional, they are the emotions that I repressed. I am the one who shoved everything that they are in a box and locked it away. I traumatised us, and I actually feel incredibly guilty over that.

It is also why, I think, I never really twigged Olive was there before. Olive... does not talk much. They express themself best through emotions and impressions, rather than words. I fear that might be an effect of being repressed for so long.

Since then...

I've asked around a number of systems I was already acquainted with about these experiences. Many of them said they were not incompatible with plurality, with some even stating that they discovered their systems under similar circumstances.

I tried to establish a form of communication by typing out my inner dialogue and attributing each message to either beeps or Olive, depending on who I felt was speaking.

Another friendly system spent some time talking to and giving affection directly to Olive (or rather, my immediate impression of what Olive might do or say in response to them), managing to coax out a few words and sounds.

We had a situation where Olive potentially fronted for a while, in response to physical affection from our partner.

I'm still sceptical of whether plurality is the actual explanation for this situation, though it is by far the best one on offer.

I'm trying to get better at acknowledging Olive as existing and giving them opportunities to engage with the world because, if I am sharing this brain with someone else, it seems only fair that I give them freedom to live, rather than cramming them back into a box.

Welcome home, Olive. I'm sorry for all I did to you.

#plurality #plural system #plural stuff #trauma

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aenor-llelo · 3 years

Text

Orphan’s Path is being rewritten.

As our readers may be aware, Symphony no. 9 is the Orphan’s Path season 5 finale. After every season ends, we take a week long break to reflect on the work and plan for the future.

We have decided that for this break, we need to do a rewrite.

Specifically of our plural adjacent characters.

Earlier today I was approached by two fomer/current orp readers who are systems, who pointed out several parts of our narrative that leaned into bad implications or stereotypes of plural coded characters. After opening this discussion with my system reader base on my server, the consensus was reached that though they took our writing in the good faith that we were not being intentionally harmful, there were parts they were uncomfortable with.

In light of this, we have assembled a team of system readers who will help us improve our narrative to get across what we truly intend without being harmful to our audience.

We want to do better. We want to be better.

Orphan’s Path season 5 will finish writing on schedule and enter its break right after. But until this series is corrected to satisfaction, we will not return.

Orphan’s Path does not want to just be the “less worse” option for ND/arospec/disability narratives.

It wants to be a good one.

Please be patient and stay tuned.

#orphan's path #orp meta #aenor-llelo

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dioko · 3 years

Text

NOT JUST ANYONE.

izuku midoriya x gn! reader

Word Count -> ~ 1810

Genre -> oneshot, fluff

Content -> mildly suggestive (spice rating is 1.5/5), drunk reader, swearing, college au! characters, older reader and younger deku | please lemme know if i missed anything!

Summary -> You really did believe a certain Izuku Midoriya had his nose buried in his textbooks 24/7. Your first impression of him had led you to pin him as a downright nerd - boring and young and nowhere near your type.

a/n -> 1. idk about the cover page i jus thought deku looked cool there and the oneshot title is eh 2. this was in my drafts for a long, LONG time and today i finally got it to the point where i didn't hate it. enjoyy <333

Once, you really did believe a certain Izuku Midoriya had his nose buried in his textbooks 24/7. Your first impression of him had led you to pin him down as a nerd - boring, and young and nowhere near your type.

Boy, were you wrong.

The first time you’d met him, he’d smiled at you with such bright, green eyes, it was almost impossible not to smile back.

“Hello, l/n y/n, s’nice to finally meet you! I’m Midoriya Izuku!” He'd very obviously sunken his voice an octave lower, and whether that was on purpose or not, it was still cute. Still innocent, still pure.

Not attractive, whatsoever.

“Yeah,” you'd turned your attention back to your work,“it’s nice to meet you too.”

After that, your ever-so-impatient brother had rushed him into his room, and Midoriya had obliged - not before shooting you one last glance. In hindsight, there might’ve been something just a teeny bit darker that had resided in Midoriya's lively eyes.

Then, weeks passed.

Was it just you, or did college students grow really, really fast?

As he left your brother's work room for the millionth time that month, you found yourself noticing how different he looked compared to when you’d first met him. Now, when Izuku waved a (large, my god) hand at you, he looked taller, broader… older.

“See you," he chirped to his friend, bringing you back to the reality where he was most definitely not older than you.

Wake up, you're practically a senior citizen, you’d chided yourself, there’s no way he’s mature enough for you. Then, another side of you, presumably the devil that sat on your shoulder, tried to argue. You’re not much older, it said, he’s practically the same age as you.

“Oh wait- there was something I had to ask you, l/n-”

“S’fine, you can call me y/n, ‘Zuku.” you didn’t intend to call him something so intimate, the words just.... absent-mindedly slipped out your mouth.

Oopsies daisies!

“Oh! I - I can? Um… ah,” you watched, mildly entertained by the way he tripped up his words, all from a nickname, “we’re all going out tonight, and I was wondering if you wanted to come-”

“Who’s we?”

“Er- me, and… and your brother! And a few others!”

“Oh?” You couldn’t let yourself smile, not yet.

“It’ll be fun!” He sputtered, “a lot of um, a lot of… um, drinking?” It sounded more like a question than a persuasive statement.

You blinked. “Yeah sure, that sound’s good. I didn’t take you for someone who drank.”

“I don’t?”

“Then why are you going?”

“I thought it would be a good way to spend time with y- my friends.”

“Ah, your friends.”

“Yup,” he squeaked.

“Okay then!” You smacked him playfully on his arm - his large, extremely toned, t-shirt-stretching arm - and jolted him out of his fear, “I’ll see you then, ‘Zuku!”

Izuku Midoriya had a surprising number of friends.

He had, in a gentlemanly fashion, offered to walk with you to the bar (though your brother was there too) and when you stepped in, you were taken aback by the several people at your table.

Your guts told you to sit beside the angry one - he looked… fun.

“Who the fuck is this?” The blond talked like you weren’t there.

“Kacchan,” another blond - with a black streak in his hair - chided, “be nice to the pretty birdie!” Was he drunk already?

“Yeah, Kacchan,” you smirked, “respect your elders.”

The first blond just about exploded on the spot.

“Watch your mouth,” he seethed at you.

“Hot,” you muttered, unaware of evergreen eyes that couldn’t seem to peel themselves off your lips; your soft, pink, kissable lips.

“What the fuck?” Kacchan flinched back.

“Sorry,” you grinned, “I meant ‘little snot’.”

“Yeah? I’ll show you little sn-”

Four flirtatious advances from three of Izuku’s friends, two hours and 1 mental breakdown later, you were finally ready to go home - everyone was, really - but where was your brother?”

“Deku,” he’d hissed at the greenette, “I’m not going back to the apartment today, can you take-” he gestured towards you, slumped over a pile of food, “- that thing back to the apartment?”

Izuku opened his mouth, about to ask why he couldn’t but immediately shut up again when he realized it was more time he had to spend with you. “Yeah, no problem.”

“Don’t try anything.”

“Wasn’t gonna!” Awkwardly, Izuku scooched his way past Sero and Uraraka, trying to find a place to put his hands so he could lift you off the table. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

“Ah, ‘Zuku!” You gave him a cheeky grin, “you’re friends are so…” you watched Bakugou, “... cute. Have a drink!” It was almost laughable how quickly you changed from topic to topic. Almost. The only non-laughable part was that Bakugou seemed to be a recurring theme.

Izuku pursed his lips, “no, you’re drunk. One of us has to be clear-minded enough to take you home.”

“You’re so smart! Good boy,” you ruffled his hair with a sticky hand, and your rapid strokes fell to a halt when you realized how soft his green hair was. “Wow,” you whispered, “I love your hair. Lemme smell it-”

“NO, no. We’re going home.”

“We?” A smirk played on your lips.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” you frowned when he didn’t stutter - he didn’t even go red. Izuku’s entire demeanor had changed; there was no nervous little college guy right now trying to talk to you, there was a friend (haha) genuinely trying to get you home safely. “Now c’mon, can you walk?”

You stood up and skipped a few steps. “Yup.”

“So, Izuku,” you didn’t bother to hide the fact that you were (very greedily) squeezing his biceps, “gotta girlfriend?”

“N-no.”

“... a boyfriend?”

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’, and pulled you onto the wall-side of the sidewalk when a car drove by.

“Any significant other...ss?” You added the plural, just in case.

“No,” he smiled slyly at you, “why? Are you interested?”

You’d known him for months, but this was the first time he’d said something so forward, enough to make your cheeks flare so hot they felt cold.

“No way,” you spoke like it was obvious, and then quickly checked to make sure he didn’t look hurt. “Hey! Why do you look so amused?”

“M’not,” he turned his head, so you couldn’t see the smile.

“You are. Why?”

“Ah, I can’t say. We’re here,” he punched in the apartment code. “You should get ready for bed.”

There was a small, comfortable pause before drunk-you decided to ignore his advice and speak again. “So, do ya like anyone?”

“I like a lot of people,” Izuku smirked.

Smirked.

“N-no,” you played with the hem of your sweater, “I meant, do you like-like anyone?”

“Hm,” he thought for a second, “that’s a secret.”

“C’mon ‘Zuku! You can trust me!”

“I know that - gimme your coat,” he set it onto a nearby couch and began to flick on random lights, “I still can’t say it, though.”

“Why not?”

“Y/n,” you froze. He’d called you by your first name before, why did it feel so weird now?

“Yes?”

“I’m taking you to your bedroom.”

“You… you are?”

“You’ve got to sleep.”

Oh. Boringggg.

“I don’t wanna,” you hissed, flopping onto your bed anyways. He took a seat at the foot of it.

“Do you… do you ever remember anything once you're sober again?”

“Nope!” You knew you should’ve lied, but you didn’t, “m’friends say I don’t remember a single thing the next morning.”

He chuckled a little bit, almost in disbelief at you. “That’s not something you can just tell anyone.”

“I know, but you’re not just ‘anyone’.”

“I feel like I’m talking to a child.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Yeah,” he laughed, “it’s kinda hot.”

“What?” Did you mishear? “How do you know what hot means?”

“Y/n! I’m not that young!” He laughed, “sheesh, that hurts.”

“Hurts?”

“Yeah,” he smiled coolly. After all, you weren’t going to remember this conversation.

“”Why does it hurt?”

“... No reason, don’t worry,” he laughs again, for the third time in a row, but it feels dry to you, and empty, too.

“So who do you like?” You chirped again, completely disregarding his ‘I’m pretty sure I just got brother-zoned’ ideology.

“I told you, that’s a secret…” then, he bit his lip, “... but you won’t remember anyways, right?”

“Yep!”

“Then... I like you.”

“Who?” You smiled.

“You.”

“Oh, I like you, too.”

“I like-like you.”

“I like-like you, too.”

“You’re drunk,” he smiled sadly, “sleep.”

“I want fruit.”

“Now? You want me to go get you fruit?”

“Please?”

You inhaled the bucket of raspberries, “anyways, I really do like you. You’re so small and cute.”

“I’m small?”

“No, you’re built like a tank,” you giggled. Sober-you would have called drunk-you an airhead, “I think you’re sexy as hell.”

“Yeah?”

You leaned closer to him. You were sure he could smell alcohol and sugar on your breath, but you didn’t care. “Yeah.”

“Then can I tell you something else?”

“Sure!”

“Kacchan annoys me so much,” he wiped off the juice that dribbled down your chin with his thumb, and you made the mistake of leaning into his touch, “especially when he flirts with you.”

“When’s he ever flirted with me?”

“Tonight,” Izuku pulled back, and you (embarrassingly) fell forward. “I didn’t like it.”

“Were you jealous?”

“Yes,” he admitted, and quite shamelessly - but only because you weren’t sober.

“Aw, don’t be jealous,” you cooed at him, and then randomly, “you remind me of bunnies!”

“That’s cute,” his voice was hoarse, “then, can you promise me something, bunny?”

You flushed hot. “That - that’s not what I meant, I meant you’re my bunny.”

“Sure,” he nodded along.

You shuffled yourself a little closer to him. This wasn’t the Midoriya Izuku you’d come to know, who was he? Why was he so different from the twitchy student who cared so much about his grades?

“What did you want me to promise?” It was a good idea to change the topic, you thought, for his sake, not your own. Definitely.

“Promise me you won’t let Kacchan get so close to you anymore,” he played with your fingers, “you can do that, right? You... can be a good bunny for me?”

“Mhm,” you couldn't refuse when he put it like that.

“Go to bed now, it’s late.”

“On one condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“Kiss me.”

Izuku paused. His eyes were on your lips, that was for sure, but he showed no sign of moving closer. “M’not gonna do that when you're drunk.”

You frowned.

“I’ll sit with you ‘till you're asleep. I’m not… touching you, though.”

“Manly,” you murmured.

“Human decency,” he corrected.

The greenette pulled your covers above your waist and moved to the desk chair in your room, “good night, y/n.”

It was a shame this would all be forgotten, and the two of you would be back to square one by morning.

a/n -> yes the nickname has everything to do with my URL and so what

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variousqueerthings · 4 years

Text

some thoughts on queerness in narrative (using cobra kai as a main point)

1. intro

It’s interesting getting to engage with pop culture right now versus even five years ago, where there was something kinda sordid and undercover about queer reads of text and even just talking about being into stuff very passionately while being queer in spaces that included creators was considered somehow icky (supernatural is always a good example, but definitely was just the most visible of these types of interactions between fans and cast/creators). Obviously that’s where a lot of modern definitions about queerbaiting and bury your gays comes from.

A lot of this kind of drama centred on queer ships rather than queer characters in their own right (dean/castiel, merlin/arthur, derek/styles and maaaan just a lot of white brunette/blond pairings, which is another post and I acknowledge that Lawrusso is also literally that... the irony)

But also this isn’t so much about “shipping.”

There’s a danger of flattening out the ways in which we create a dialogue with text when it becomes just about whether or not our ships become canon (in general the way fandom discourse revolves around ships can be incredibly unhelpful for engaging critically with text) – for context I am queer and I’m queer through my transness and aromanticness and asexuality, and I also write a fair bit of shippy fanfiction and analysis, but personally am not (always) thaaat bothered about how the connections with queer-coded people are realised in text, as long as those connections are acknowledged in a queer way. How that works varies from text to text. There is no one-size fits all proper queer representation.

An example: SE Hinton (because I just read The Outsiders/watched the movie) being really dismissive of people reading her characters as gay on twitter (why do we ever try to do this sort of deep textual analysis on twitter, why do creators – like Hinton – think that they ought to espouse opinions on twitter, why twitter folx?)

I wrote – kinda for the void, because I write a lot and I like posting some of that on tumblr, but I don’t expect people to engage necessarily – about how The Outsiders is absolutely a queer text, whether or not the creator intended for it to be. Long story short, queerness has been – and often still is – illegal and/or frowned upon in canon text, so a semiotics was created to make something queer if you knew how to read it. The fact that cis-straight creators play with and use those semiotics without knowing doesn’t negate the fact that that language is there and was deliberately created for that purpose.

That also doesn’t make it queerbaiting. Maybe cis-straight dumbassery, idk (wouldn’t be if you just went “huh, didn’t think about that, cool read”)

Intentionally playing with and acknowledging those semiotics also isn’t necessarily queerbaiting.

Definitely queercoding though.

Anyway this is all a bit murky territory, so let’s talk about Cobra Kai, my current little obsession, and about Star Trek, my always-obsession. Time-was you could get sued for your Star Trek fanfiction. Nowadays that fanfiction can get turned into a for-fun zoom play and read out loud by the two actors who played the original characters (Alexander Siddig and Andy Robinson). This is very fun, new territory for a lot of us.

Meanwhile Hayden Schlossberg and the other writers of Cobra Kai are openly aware of the fact that lots of people read their lead characters – Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence - as probably bisexual (and probably as in love) and are on good terms with several active members of fandom and fic-writing. This is… so fucking fun. And it doesn’t have that weird overtone of shit like Teen Wolf (“We’re on a ship” winky-face, followed by that about heel-turn “just think it’s weird and strange” or however tf it was described later on - that shit: definitely queerbaiting).

In Star Trek there’s a slim-to-none chance that these characters will ever become canonically queer in the main text, but the acknowledgement and the light-hearted open engagement with it makes such a massive difference (not that Siddig and Robinson weren’t talking openly about it as far back as the 90s).

In Cobra Kai there is no obligation to make Johnny or Daniel canonically bi because there’s been no promise to do so – there is, in my opinion, an obligation to create a world in which queerness exists and not just on the sidelines. In the same way as there’s an obligation to generally create a world that accurately depicts what LA looks like in multiple other ways (cough, not mainly white, cough). If a part of that were through exploring how 80s era toxic heteronormative masculinity could throw people deep into the closet for most of their lives, hey, that’d be a neat storyline (such a neat fucking storyline), but it’s not the only way to do it.

While I do like canonically queer couples in stories, I also think it’d really limit what queerness can do for a text if that were the only way it was represented - sure I ship Lawrusso, but I find the above-mentioned analysis of toxic masculinity’s effects on the characters-as-queer-coded to go much deeper than whether or not they get together.

I also would love trans and/or other-gender characters - we all know Johnny needs his “gender-what?” ignorance challenged and the potential for characters like that to fit into a narrative around trauma, loneliness, and misfit-families is kinda perfect (and when I say characters, I mean that plural, we’re not a one-size fits all).

Lastly I think there is also an obligation to do exactly what the showrunners are doing - what didn’t happen with Hinton or SPN or Teen Wolf or Star Trek of yore or so much other popular fiction: say, oh yeah, that language is absolutely there, we recognise it, we can read it and it’s not weird or sordid or something to be judged. So that’s already a massive thumbs up/promising start.

4. some final thoughts:

Idk where all this’ll go. I’m still missing a lot of canonically queer representation - and when I say representation I mean more than just shoving in a queer character into a scene and not thinking about how that affects the world that’s been established. But I’m feeling a lot better about queerness and story than I used to.

I’m hoping that whatever comes moving forwards in culture in general it’ll have some thought put into it. I’m hoping that queerness and queer allegory and coding will be recognised more and more as important reads of text and will go into informing how something is made (Hannibal, Black Sails, Sense8, Pose). I’m just hoping this’ll mean some interesting, intelligent, wildly varied narratives.

Just very excited.

#cobra kai #lawrusso #johnny lawrence #daniel larusso #my writing #garashir #ds9 #st: ds9 #julian bashir #elim garak #alexander siddig #andy robinson #i made an on purpose choice here to talk about m/m ships in my examples #to be very Precise in my comparisons #funnily enough all four shows i mention at the very end have more (and all canon) queer rep than that #i also had a tangent about the current weird discourse on what-you're-morally-allowed-to-ship but that isn't quite the point here #although in general i will reiterate that i find the focus on shipping to be very unhelpful and limiting and y'all need history lessons

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crescendo-system · 4 years

Text

Something else that has been on our mind is the intersection between our ocs and our experience being a system. There's a few different aspects that this manifested for us, and it's just something we reflect on every once in a while.

For one thing, our ocs were a major coping mechanism growing up. I think for many reasons - it was a safe format to express and explore different individuals who weren't "me", and in retrospect too I think a lot of alters I'd see in dreams would get recycled for stories and ocs because alter dreams always felt more vivid and enrapturing than my more mundane dreams. Our experiences shaping and defining our identities via fictional constructs started early, and since it was an overwhelmingly positive payoff for us at the time the approach has stuck. (Fast forward to Now with our 100+ fictives from media... orz)

Of course, another aspect of coping is projection. And man... was there a lot more of that than I realized.

Of course, some of it was direct alter to oc projection/influence? Certain alters latched onto or created ocs for themselves to express themselves so in that sense, very straightforward. I remember a friend once commenting on how easily I slid 'into character' to quote a hypothetical scenario and his response to it, voice and intonation and all... we do in fact have an alter who took on that character and have seen him around in our brain since.

Some of it was less obvious, too... gender was toyed a lot with our ocs. We had a character who could switch between "the two" genders, and when he did so it was also a difference in persona... the character was like an onstage idol who irl was ofc drastically different, especially when presenting masculinely. Reflecting on that today, it occurred to me that could easily be interpreted not just as someone nonbinary or trans, but as someone who's plural. And it may be something I end up exploring when I revamp the character.

And then of course.... your standard good/evil personality stereotypes. There were Several blatantly obvious examples of that, and others that weren't so plain about it being "multiple personalities" but still clearly a duality was seen in the character, secret lifes, inner struggles, things of that nature.

Admittedly I picked up the good/evil tropes from media. One of my favorite manga series at the time had a case like that that I think about to this day- it wasn't a great case obviously, but it was coded in the split being a direct result of childhood trauma, and that character and her story stuck with me as a result. I strove to emulate it in a few of my most beloved ocs.

I don't think I portrayed it as good/evil just because of media tropes. That was definitely the limited scope I had to work with at the time. But for me, the internal struggle between distinct voices has always been somewhat painful for me, confusing, unknown. Traits oft associated to 'evil' entities. I battled with voices in my head I didn't even know existed, thinking that I was just being difficult, contradictory, demanding. One constant conflict I would struggle with was between going out for fun with family or staying home, neither solution ever being satisfying because the losers always grumbled and growled and raged in my head. I could never satisfy myself, and felt like it was a darkness that I was battling with because I didn't have a light to illuminate the situation for what it was.

Overly dramatic of course, but in middle school when most of these good/evil ocs were established, well. Isn't every middle schooler at least a Little overly dramatic in everything they see? ;)

As for those ocs, I'm not sure they will remain as systems - not because I don't want to write it, but having these characters I care so much for and love... They deserve better, and while writing a positive system experience for them is one way to go about it, for me it'll always resonate too closely to those less ideal portrayals in their roots. It'll mean retelling those old stories of the trauma that defined them. I definitely intend to write positive system portrayals going forward, including these struggles, but I think I need a fresh template to start with. My old ocs have earned a rest from the trauma I put them through for so long, I want to give them a happy story from the start this time.

#(and if im honest i think some of those system ocs have spawned alters who want something different... I want to give them that as a gift #for everything theyve done for me even when I didnt know. even when I fought against them.)#long post #sys.txt #gonna put this in tags more bc maybe itll resonate with some other creative systems?#apologies for spamming the tags with literal books suddenly skdksjfjd #ramblingonandon #actuallytraumagenic #actuallyosdd #actuallymultiple #actuallyplural #this is something of a love letter to the mes of time past #and the stories and building blocks that have come out of it that helped me get where i am today #so it will stay long tyvm smfkdjffj

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ghosthunthq · 4 years

Text

Oliver is autistic, I will die on this hill

by @snavej

Noun

hill to die on (plural hills to die on)

(idiomatic) An issue to pursue with wholehearted conviction and/or single-minded focus, with little or no regard to the cost.

X~X~X

And so our story begins…

Okay, so if you’ve been around the fandom on Tumblr/Fanfiction.net, you will probably have seen me write “Oliver is autistic, I will die on this hill” on a post or story. If you have not, then, you have now. Congrats.

I came to this revelation maybe three years ago now. I had been in a discussion with some fandom friends and something in the conversation had made me wonder if Oliver was autistic.

We’ve all seen the cliche representations of autistic people in the media, especially those coded as such without explicit confirmation. For example, Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory. These characters are often there for comedic value, where we, the audience, laugh at them for their disability. The shows get away with it because they never explicitly state the character is autistic.

I’m getting off track already.

So after the discussion mentioned before, I went away and began my research - to Google! Now, I have to admit, part of my curiosity regarding this matter is because I have been told I write Oliver well. Personally, I feel I write him a little OOC, but I like how I write him so it doesn’t bother me. I write Oliver as a version of myself. So my thought patterns at the time were that if Oliver was autistic, could I be too?

Oh yes, you thought you were just here for an educational piece about autism? Nope, you’re getting the whole damn story as to why I will die on this hill.

So I did my research and I found lists of signs of autism. I devoured internet articles and soon it was all I was interested in. I even bought a book titled ‘Aspergirls’ by Rudy Simone (who is autistic). If any of you read this piece and start wondering if you’re autistic (and you’re female, more on gender later!), I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I literally cried reading it.

The signs!

Okay so what are all these signs, let’s start a list! Autistic people can have:

Rituals that they refuse to change,

Odd or repetitive movements,

Unusual sensory reactions,

Be clumsy or awkward,

Nervous in large social groups,

Have a hard time making friends,

Speak in unusual ways or with an odd tone of voice,

Talk only about themselves/their interests,

Have narrow, often obsessive interests,

Want to be alone, or want to interact but not know how,

Avoid eye contact,

Have a hard time understanding body language,

Have trouble understanding other people’s feelings or talking about their own feelings,

Poor/abnormal posture, often sit on chairs oddly,

Trouble with left, right and other directions,

Large or unique vocabulary,

Lack of organisation,

Intense compassion/empathy,

Intense anger or no anger at all,

Connections with animals,

Difficulty understanding pop culture, styles, trends, etc.

Rigid in their ways,

Easily distressed,

Delayed speech and language,

Lack of imitation of others or imaginative play,

Indifferent to the feelings of others,

Sensitive to light and sound,

Self-stimulatory behaviours (stimming)

Echolalia (repeating or echoing words or phrases)

Unusual emotional responses,

Meltdowns,

Responds adversely to physical affections,

Does not initiate conversation,

Very poor diet,

Frequently walks on tiptoes,

Socially withdrawn/socially awkward,

Self-injurious behaviour,

Makes irrelevant remarks,

Difficulty with abstract language and concepts,

Need for sameness,

Severe upset when routines are disrupted,

Attachment to unusual objects,

Fascination with spinning objects,

Good memory for repeating lists or facts,

Unlikely to discriminate against someone on basis of race/gender/age etc.

Unlikely to give superior status to the wealthy or those high up in an organisation,

Have their own set of values,

Can hyperfocus,

Struggle to separate themselves from their work,

Lack the ability to filter information received,

Alexithymia - the inability to describe emotions in a verbal manner,

Likes patterns, putting things in order,

Often limits diet,

Often wears the same clothes,

Black or white thinking,

Auditory processing disorder…

Okay, I’ll stop there. I could probably go on if I wanted to, because although I’ve written a lot of things there, these are all manifestations of the clinical diagnosis criteria.

X~X~X

Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00 Autism Spectrum Disorder

Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):

Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.

Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.

Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understand relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behaviour to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends; to absence of interest in peers.

Specify current severity:

Severity is based on social communication impairments and restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour.

Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):

Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).

Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behaviour (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat same food every day).

Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).

Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g. apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).

Specify current severity:

Severity is based on social communication impairments and restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour.

Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).

Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning.

These disturbances are not better explained by intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder) or global developmental delay. Intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder frequently co-occur; to make comorbid diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability, social communication should be below that expected for general developmental level.

Note: Individuals with a well-established DSM-IV diagnosis of autistic disorder, Asperger’s disorder, or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified should be given the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Individuals who have marked deficits in social communication, but whose symptoms do not otherwise meet criteria for autism spectrum disorder, should be evaluated for social (pragmatic) communication disorder.

Taken from: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

X~X~X

Back to the story

So I went to my doctor after all of this reading. I was convinced. Nothing had ever made so much sense to me in my entire life as reading about autism.

I was, at this point, what people in the autism community call “self-diagnosed”. Now I was lucky, I could go on to get a “proper” diagnosis. Not everyone is as lucky. Many doctors do not believe that girls/women can be autistic. Many doctors do not believe that ethnic minorities can be autistic. Many doctors do not believe adults can be autistic. In some countries, people do not have free healthcare and so they cannot afford a diagnosis. There are many reasons why people can’t/won’t get diagnosed.

The point I’m trying to make is that if you see someone posting about being self-diagnosed, don’t be all “oh but a doctor hasn’t said it so you’re not”, because that person does not need your doubt and it does not help anyone. Their self-diagnosis helps them to navigate their life and it does not hurt anyone. Honestly, the amount of people that are “wrong” about their self-diagnosis is probably very small, and those that are probably have some other kind of neurodivergent condition such as ADHD.

Anyway, my doctor gave me a form to fill in, a questionnaire. A series of questions aimed very much at the male expression of autism. I felt horrible at the time, because I knew exactly how to answer these questions to fill the boxes required. I knew because I had read so much about autism that I knew what they wanted to hear.

I filled it in honestly. I scored highly enough anyway.

My doctor did not know who to refer me to. She had never had to refer an adult before. She asked around and found out what to do; I got put on a waiting list.

A while later, at work, I found out I could get tested privately and work would pay for it. Oh, how I love my job. I spoke to someone who had been the manager of another employee who had gone through the process. That helped.

I talked to the man who was supposed to be the disability advisor, he made me fill in the same questionnaire that my doctor did. I filled it in again.

I was on another waiting list.

The advisor had also recommended me a book, which I bought and read and hated. The language used very much implied that I would never be ‘great’, just ‘coping’. It was written by a neurotypical person. I told the advisor by email that this book was stupid and damaging. He did not reply.

Months later, the private assessment happened. I spent an entire day with a clinical psychologist and a speech and language therapist. My parents and manager came too. I answered questions, had to explain things to them, made up stories with random objects. My parents, mainly my mother, talked about my childhood.

At the end of it all, they decided I was autistic.

I was ecstatic.

The day before, a person at work said I was a hypochondriac. One of those people who read about conditions on the internet and convince myself that I have them. I still do not talk to that person.

Finally, everything made sense. Finally, I had a reason why people made fun of me for reasons I could not fathom. Finally, my weirdness had a name.

X~X~X

The Gender Issue

So there is a ‘gender issue’ with autism and it’s diagnosis. Everything is aimed at young (white) boys. It’s designed for the stereotype of the young boy who likes to collect trains. And that’s why there are five times as many autistic boys in comparison with girls.

People of colour, women and girls are very often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

Generalised anxiety disorder, depression, OCD, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, various eating disorders, borderline personality disorder, ADHD…

The list goes on.

Now, that’s not to say many girls don’t have these things. Often they do. But often they have those and autism.

I very much doubt there is five times as many autistic boys. I think there are just a hell of a lot of women and girls who are undiagnosed.

Why this disparity? Well, autism presents differently in girls, or perhaps, society sees it differently.

When a young boy is quiet and withdrawn, happy to play by themselves, something is wrong. When a girl is quiet and withdrawn, she’s just shy. There’s also a lot of evidence to suggest that girls are a lot better at masking their autism.

Essentially, due to the societal pressure on young girls, they hide their autism and mimic their peers. That’s why the most common time for a woman to get diagnosed with autism is when she has children of her own and they’re getting diagnosed.

Is it genetic? There’s no strict evidence of an ‘autistic’ gene, I don’t think. But its quite common. When I was getting tested, I gave the previously mentioned book to my mother and said, “Hey, can you read this, I think I have this”. My mother read the book and told me she thought she had given it to me. She got tested two months ago.

I also look at my father and see many of the traits. But he has no interest in getting tested.

If you’re intersted, google “autism in girls” or something similar, there are plenty of resources.

The result

So I have my diagnosis, my work is fully informed. I am now protected by the Disability Act. I can’t use disabled parking spaces, but some autistic people can, if they need it.

What does this mean for me? It means that my employer has to make adjustments for me to make me comfortable for work. Changing the lighting, giving me a quiet place to work, working with me on deadlines and stuff. They know now (officially) that I have issues with auditory processing, and that they should take that into account.

I’m lucky, my employer has been good about this, and it is in their interest to. Autistic people can be an asset to any company. They are often experts in their chosen field and will work solidly on stuff they enjoy.

Lots of autistic people are not as lucky. They are one of the highest unemployed groups. Workplaces are full of unwritten rules that are hard for autistic people. This brings me on to…

Autism Acceptance Month

April is Autism Acceptance Month. You may see this as Autism Awareness Month in some places. But I don’t like that. “Awareness months” and “awareness days” are often reserved for horrible diseases like cancer, for which we want a cure.

There are a lot of resources out there from damaging institutions this month, such as Autism Speaks. They are advocating for a cure and also promote ABA (a type of ‘therapy’ that is disgusting and should not be allowed). If you take anything from all this, please do not support Autism Speaks.

There is no cure for Autism. It is a developmental disorder. It’s not a disease.

If you wanna do something for Autism Acceptance Month, there are some resources here: https://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/world-autism-awareness-week.aspx

But what about the vaccines?

Of course, I cannot talk about autism without mentioning the vaccines!

In the 90s, about 1 in 150 children were diagnosed with autism, by the early 2000’s, this went up to 1 in 68. One of the big things that had changed in this time was the number of vaccines children had.

There have been many studies regarding autism and vaccines. And there was one that said there was a link between autism and vaccines. In this study, there were 12 subjects.

Now I do statistics for a day job. So I can tell you categorically, that 12 subjects for a study is not enough for decisive proof. The person who did this study was struck off and rightly so.

But the media got hold of this idea.

And so the anti-vaxxers rose up, refusing to vaccinate their children from deadly diseases because obviously, being autistic was worse than being dead.

In summary, vaccinate your children.

Side note, I, as an autistic person, am allowed to make jokes about vaccines. For example, I received some vaccinations before travelling and joked with the nurse that I was ‘topping up my autism’. This is funny because we both knew it was wrong.

‘Autistic person’ vs ‘person with autism’

This one is a tricky one. I’ve seen arguments both ways.

‘Person with autism’ puts the person first, but also makes the autism sound like an accessory.

‘Autistic person’ puts the disability first, but you can’t separate the person from the autism, it’s intrinsic to who they are.

Basically, this is up to the person. If they prefer one way or the other, use it. It’s like pronouns, you use what the person you’re talking about asks you to use.

Personally, I’m not too fussy, but I lean towards ‘autistic person’.

Asperger’s vs Autism

Asperger’s was merged into the general Autism diagnosis criteria a while back. Asperger’s is what is sometimes called ‘high functioning autism’. The autism community do not like the term ‘high functioning’ because it denies aid, in the same way that ‘low functioning’ denies agency. The criteria for ‘low functioning’ is having an IQ under 70. So it’s quite broad.

Also people who have been classified as ‘high functioning’ don’t necessarily function well in everyday life without help.

Also, Hans Asperger’s was a bit of a knobhead, so a lot of people don’t like using his name.

Headcanons

A headcanon is a fan’s personal, idiosyncratic interpretation of canon, such as habits of a character, the backstory of a character, or the nature of relationships between characters. The term comes from the fact that it is the canon that exists in a fan’s head.

So when I say ‘Oliver is autistic’, this is my personal headcanon. Do I want it to become fanon? Yes, of course, I do. In the same way, I love that Yasuhara x Gene has become popular (for which I take full responsibility).

But if you disagree with it, that’s fine. You’re allowed to do that. I will not think any less of you for it. Because at the end of the day, the author has not come out and said ‘Oliver is autistic’.

Personally, as an autistic writer, who has always written some of her characters as autistic, whether she knew it or not, I suspect the author of Ghost Hunt might be an undiagnosed autistic person. Because Oliver is not the only person I recognise traits in… But that’s for another day.

If you only take one thing away from reading all of this, then let it be this:

If you’ve met one autistic person, that’s it. You have met ONE autistic person.

We’re all different, just like everyone else.

And now for what you’ve all been waiting for…

Continued in Part TWO

#Ghost Hunt #oliver davis #GHW2020 #snavej #autism #GHHQ #submission

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eps2.2_init1.asec

Mr.Robot: Season 2 Episode 4

break-down / character analysis / head canons

(Spoilers obviously, but contains stuff up through end of season 4)

A: first scene

I love this scene a lot so I wrote a lot.

(The Memorial Day situation)

Elliot had been pen-testing, doing white-hat hacking for some wall-street gig. (Timeline= ?-May 2014)

He was on some type of project where he needed to hack until it was un-hackable. (Seemed dedicated to his job there)

Elliot is court ordered into anger management with a shrink (Krista) after being fired for destroying the servers. Hs he claims he was locked in there and fell asleep then woke up in a destroyed room. (I still suspect this retelling to be halfway unreliable even though it’s how it’s told at least twice in the show.)

This happened Memorial Day weekend. - night or around 5pm presumably - people wanted to go clubbing etc. and Elliot did not. They couldn’t leave because Elliot was working. (He didn’t care about them enough to let them go, or was just dedicated to his job you choose.)

2. (Job offering)

Elliot is offered to work at all-safe by Angela around this time (Halloween 2014) but it’s been months since he had been working so what was he doing?

A bunch of Grey-hat hacks to get shady people arrested? Seems he may have just finished one when Darlene arrived.

He sees some potential in accepting, because it a Trojan horse (both what you think it is and slang for a backdoor into a server network).

He’s been thinking about it, though we don’t know how long he’s been sitting on this offer. “the right access the right malware.” His plan is to take down Evil Corp (It’s the first time he’s voiced this, and Darlene doesn’t take him entirely serious at first.)

3. (Darlene and Elliot)

Darlene comes on halloween, she seems bothered by something that may have happened that night (if my timeline is right it could be she had a fight with Cisco because they should’ve still been together then) whatever it is Darlene feels she needs Elliots company that night.

This is the first mention of init-1 the code between her and Elliot. He tries to excuse himself when Darlene first answers, with an excuse he’s going out. Darlene picks up that this is half-assed, showing us that despite her being gone she knows her brother well. (It’s little things like these that give hints as to the hosts habits and how much they overlap with MM’s)

“Great Darlene, haven’t seen you in a long time either. I’d love to hang out.” Judging by the fact Elliot is just now telling Darlene he’s been fired we can assume the extent of there communication is pretty much zilch. Darlene has been away from the city for some time, but I’m not sure its ever mentioned how long.

Per tradition, they’re smoking weed while watching the careful massacre of the bourgeoise (1984). (Darlene is a talkative/hungry type of high and Elliot just chills... and maybe has deep philosophical conversations) This movie carries a lot of importance because it becomes symbolic of F-Society. It starts out with the masked man killing the bourgeoisie kids at a new years eve party, but I do wonder if thats the entire plot or not.

Darlene says several things about it:

(A) The movie was made to disprove meritocracy. (showing the separation of class through the absurd ways in which the characters act.)

(B) it was the source of their psychological dysfunction. (Probably because it’s x-rated, I think this line should only be taken as a joke)

In the dream sequence later in the episode Tyrell and Joanna are wearing similar outfits to the brother and sister in the movie (hinting how Elliot probably sees them)

We get clarification on Darlene having Panic attacks, this is something that has come up before. Elliot shows genuine concern for her mental well-being.

“Since when did pretending everything is okay become the all mighty norm?” *proceeds to act like that at the beginning of season 2*

Unlike Elliot, Darlene has a digital social life. Has instagram, and orders off postmates probably lives a normal life of a 23 year old who happens to be really smart and good at stuff. I definitely think all that go thrown in the trash the second f-society became more than just a what-if. By the beginning of season 1 she’s just as off the grid as Elliot is. (But like I just wanna see Darlene live her life again dammit.)

Sidenote: I wonder who this one is. Part of me wants to say this is Elliot the host, but I have my suspicions MM took over after Memorial Day, (or at the least started to front more often…). Though it does leave me asking why there are sudden amnesia barriers in the time leading up to 5/9. Fragment Krista says MM found it important to start messing with Elliots memories and his past and inadvertently this meant forgetting his sister? Was it a subconscious choice? I can’t confirm, but I still do wonder how much of Elliot we really see in flashbacks and how much of it is MM.

4. (“Do you talk to mom?”)

Dialogue: “No. You?” (“Fuck no, she still shits on dad every time I talk to her… I wish I remembered him better.”)

I don’t have a note really, but this moment is fairly awkward given what we know about Ed—d. Not sure how I read Elliot’s face here, but I think he’s probably on the same page as her because-

Elliot has kept the Mr.Robot jacket.

I believe this indicates the host and MM I think are (were) both protected from knowing about what their father did otherwise that shit would be trash. I wonder Does host Elliot also have the view of his father as his only friend? Anyway I definitely see this as a trigger for Robot, like, thats his clothes for one and ed—d is sort of the trauma he holds.

A switch definitely occurs once the mask is on. There’s an awkwardness where Darlene loses her laughter: does she know exactly what his disorder is? I think at the very least she suspects and picks up on these things. She knows that Elliot is forgetful and experiences moments of derealization because she’s dealt with those moments with him. They are siblings after all, and I think this scene is pretty much in here to hone that in.

Mr.Robot starts a whole speech about a plan to take down E-Corp. Elliot (in reference to everyone because I think this is a shared understanding) knows the hard part of this hack will be he fallout (“that’s the key, the follow through.”)

More indicators he’s been really thinking about this for a while (At the very least since Memorial Day so 6 months; at most since his dad got leukemia). He (Mr.Robot) works out that E-corp will try to come back from the hack and there needs to be a way to stop the from happening.

Destroy public confidence = destroy E-Corp (And this is what Darlene’s been shown doing this season so far)

He then takes off the mask and he’s gone quiet (dissociated?) Probably a switch back. (He looks at it in a way that makes me feel like he doesn’t remember putting it on.)

End scene.

B: Darlene’s visit

“The only way to patch a vulnerability is by exposing it first. The flip side is exposing the vulnerability leaves you open for an exploit.” (I believe this line tells us this episodes logic)

(Plan discussion.)

The plan involves losing confidence in e-corp and Elliot has lost confidence in the plan. (though we are aware phase 2 isn’t necessarily just about losing public confidence, Elliot is later shown to not want this either). He sees it as too dangerous to continue on with, and he feels guilty about it given how Gideon was killed, he doesn’t want more people to die.

However, I feel as if he probably already saw into all the vulnerabilities (because he’s like that). Already figuring they could be exposed (hence danger). He sees the best option would be to quit while they can, but Darlene is refusing.

“What did you guys think was going to happen exactly?” - Darlene referring to Elliot as plural. (We love to see it)

Elliot says it wasn’t him who said everything. (Clarification that a switch did happen in scene 1.)

2. (“This is what she does”)

What does darlene do?

Likely: When she wants something but doesn’t give full honesty about it and doesn’t tell Elliot everything. In other words Darlene keeps secrets, and hides the important bothersome details. She sort of beats around the bush. (She does something like this in scene 1 she needs Elliots company but won’t talk about or say why then avoids confrontation of her mental health)

She’s doing it here not so much for her own comfort but the safety of her brother, because she knows he has vulnerabilities, and can be triggered and emotionally unstable. She doesn’t want to upset him because she needs him to help her and he can’t do that in an unstable state.

C: Chess

1. (Meeting with Ray to play chess)

Chess isn’t really the focus here; Ray picks up on a lot of conflict happening internally, and as an exploit to get Elliot to trust him gives the chess board over.

We see how guilt is burdening Elliot, and he is considering owning up to everything he did. Even mentions how it could stop Darlene from doing “crazy shit”. He doesn’t want to lose her either; or lose any more people for that matter. Losing people was not a part of saving the world he signed up for. There’s also guilt in general because of 5/9 because things are turning out bad.

I’m fairly convinced Mr.Robot is incapable of feeling guilt, or is just hiding it behind the 10 layers of clothes. (Though I guess he’s never met Gideon so why should he care?). Anyway he is consistently focused on seeing everything through no matter the costs.

I just find Mr.Robot coming in and saying he’d swan dive off a building for saying anything pretty funny (don’t ask)

He exaggerates a lot of the time but honestly sometimes he is dead serious about putting the body in pain or in life and death scenarios and so he can be fairly destructive so it’s hard to tell if he is joking, but hey MM (and to my hc host) does hard drugs, so...

2. (A game to end all games between us)

“Winner takes all.” (“Of what?”) “Us.”

(Mr.Robot really do be like “I’mma kill you or myself” Bitch I do not think..)

Robot says Elliot “will be absent from knowing. Losing time forever. A deep black void.” Basically he’s gonna throw him in a pit. And honestly it sounds confident, like he probably feels he can take full control since he’s been around the longest along with the core. (But we know he wouldn’t do it even if he could, the guy has a soft spot. Anyway this is like the IDK what number of times Robot be doing a loop around to get a point across to Elliot. He do be playing the long game and I think secretly he loves a good scheme.) (This is what Mr.Robot does.)

Elliot gets visited by Krista in prison and has told her about the game. (Judging by the fact they meet in her ‘office’ and not in the “Kitchen table” setting we can assume they’re allowed to meet in a private location.) (Edit: disregard this bit I forgot about the reveal that he’d just imagining it on like two separate layers to feel safe enough to speak)

“Krista’s wrong annihilation is always the answer” (He’s just as bad honestly, Krista teach this boy constructive ways). He sees annihilation as self improvement, getting rid of parts of yourself that are ugly or unwanted. We create our identity around desire, and that means destroying parts that are undesirable so all thats left is practically a mask of who we are. (I think the tie into Whiterose through this spill about annihilation is a bit cheap but like I understand the choice) Anyhow Elliot’s pretty much agreeing to a western showdown and has no idea it’s all a rouse so Robot can have his point.

4. The chess match

Ed—d apparently taught Elliot his first ways to code through teaching him computer chess. He talks like he really understands all the logic of chess which makes me think he was letting Ray win before.

Mr.Robot definitely feels a bit uncomfortable with being associated with him just a hint in his voice.

Ultimately they find out neither of them can either win or lose but Mr.Robot knew all along that would happen.

“Fighting for the future we want, it isn’t about playing chess is about what we do out there with them.” (peaking out of his ten layers to show he cares about the outside world, while also expressing how they need to get out of prison.)

“I want to be here Elliot, with you.” (God my heart.)

D: Darlene and Cisco’s hook up

Darlene is very paranoid while walking around, she isn’t sure if F-society really are being offed. However in front of F-society she tries to comfort their suspicions.

Cisco comes to Darlene to warn her about getting killed by DA… but he’s the one who ultimately gets offed. (Poetic cinema)

We learn Darlene’s the type to get upset and defiantly end up having sex in the bathroom of a shady dive bar with her on and off again boyfriend (also Cisco why didn’t you pull out before talking about Dark Army again, like dude lol.)

This is definitely the point they start getting back together.

There a message in gold written on the wall that reads “There's an unequal amount of good and bad in most things. The trick is to figure out the ratio and act accordingly. Stay frosty all. Peace.” - its from this tweet: x

Operation Berenstain is first mentioned. I’m in agreement the name references the popular conspiracy about alternate timelines.

E: Leon lays it down

Leon asks Elliot if he wants to even be here, tells him he “has to dream in order to find out the future he’s fighting for.” (My initial though is I’m not sure if this means here as in prison or here as in alive, sorta feels like the latter)

“If you like it” (The future you envision) “then it’s beautiful, if it’s not then you might as well fade the fuck out right now.” (Hard) (definitely means the latter)

I appreciate Leon so much. “Existence could be beautiful or it could be ugly. But thats on you.” He’s really good for Elliot, really no bs, no loop arounds, he just tells it straight. And you know what? He listens to him because he actually goes to bed dreaming about it.

“What is the future? Leon says one needs to understand that before they’re ready to fight for their existence.”

This dream sequence is so impactful, Leon’s influence. I’m not gonna go in on the shots, however we do get to see a really honest view on how Elliot truly sees the people that have been a part of his life in a variety of subtle ways. We see a lot of what he desires or seeks is happiness for everyone around him.

“Will I reconnect for those I care for. Will I reunite with old friends long gone. See the ones I love find true happiness. Maybe this future includes people I never dreamed of getting close to. Even make amends with those I have unfairly wronged. A future that’s not so lonely. A future filled with friends and family. The world I’ve always wanted. And I’d like very much to fight for it.”

I bold texted that last bit because it really hits, and I think its what becomes the foundations for what Elliot ends up saying to Whiterose at the end. Not to pull a Darlene but this show is clearly trying to say how hard it is to find connection in a world of capitalist alienation.

When Leon sort of digs into Elliot and asks if he really does want to die. Elliot’s dream confirms, no, we find out Elliot actually wants to live in order to improve the future, and he wants connections to be there. It’s what he’s always wanted. (Yet he still does the end all match right after this sequence because he’s convinced he’ll win and get that future on his own. Both these boys are very stubborn.)

F: Do you remember the first command you ever taught me?

Init 1.

What Elliot taught Darlene when her computer kept crashing. She says this in scene one, and its what makes Elliot stop making excuses. The same thing happens here, Elliot has no choice but to help. Thats what the code between them means: Drop everything and help me.

What is it? Init 1 is a run level in linux which indicates a single-user/emergency mode. Streamlining the route to only the root, while disconnecting from the network or multitasker. Used for administrative tasks.

Elliot has to stop the FBI from owning f-society and the only way to do that is by using Ray’s computer. (fuck Ray btw). Just to make sure, he asks Darlene is he is really needed by her or if she wants Robot. I think he needed the reassurance that Darlene still cares (and of course she does).

The second part of the title is .Asec - android files preventing corruption from other programs. So the whole title translates to roughly; Help prevent corruption. And a nod to the way of doing it through hacking into the FBI android phone network. (These titles are genius and have so many layers)

G. Side stuff

1. The FBI have found Fun Society LLC through Dom. I love Dom but idk how I feel about her in these early episodes. She is a fairly good detective though. I think Romero’s character being linked to stealing power from the grid is a nod to the novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Ellison touches on social and intellectual issues faced by the African Americans in the early twentieth century. Also I noticed Dom’s supervisor is there and he’s already seen trying to sway the direction away from uncovering he truth.

2. On that note so is Angela. I think we’re intentionally supposed to be annoyed with her because she’s staying at E-Corp even though she knows she’s being manipulated.

“All of my dreams are coming true right now.” - as the bastard guys are being arrested. Not to say this slapped but it did.

We find out Whiterose and Price are in bed together on this thing and this has something to do with Angela and the plant negotiations in the lawsuit. On the phone Whiterose is fussy about moving her operation to the Congo quickly. (lets not try to reason how this plan of hers all works or what the hell it even is). Things are awkward knowing that Price is Angela’s dad, I can’t tell if he’s actually getting close because he wants to know his daughter or if its purely out of getting her around he and Whiterose’s fingers. (both? both.)

In any case I think Esmail sets up the Angela as a counter vulnerability within the main plot, as she’s being open to exploitation by remaining at E-Corp. (refer to the logic set-up)

3. I don’t care for Joanna’s appearance in this episode but she’s running out of money to pay of this guy who has information that could frame Tyrell for murder and is still seeing this guy she definitely hates or likes him but doesn’t love him. Complicated. She needs the severance package to pay this guy off. Tyrell is another vulnerability but he’s undercover.

H. Head canons I thought of while watching

If Elliot hadn’t opened the door when he did Darlene would’ve picked the locks.

Darlene’s go to is always some type of asian food.

The weed is Elliots but the Bowl is Darlenes.

We see coats on the wall hooks in Elliots room, but I think the likes the cold because its grounding so he usually leaves without one on.

When Robot is high (on weed) he just talks like nonstop.

Not a head canon really but I notice Elliot never uses the backrests in chairs. However Robot becomes the chair he is the chair.

Darlene stopped going to dance classes after the hack, I think Angela has also stopped going.

Leons favorite subjects are philosophy and history

#mr robot #eps2.2_init1.asec #as promised I made it look nice to post #I also added a bunch of stuff because I felt like it #This is not comprehensive by any means lol #if this doesn't appear in the tags ...

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crispychrissy · 6 years

Text

Bed of Roses - Chapter 1

Summary: Y/N finds some strange abnormalities with some medical records, and when she continues to look into it after her boss tells her not to, things take a turn for the worse. Characters: Nurse!Reader, Gordon Walker, Sabrina (OFC) Word Count: 1412 Warnings: Medical situations and discussions, angst, violence A/N: Welcome to a new journey! This chapter is short, but it’s a lead up to the journey the reader is going to be taken on. I am in the medical field (I do the reader’s job, just on the side of the insurance company), so there is some calloused mentions of medical situations that I have seen before. And yes, Sabrina is a real nurse I work with and yes, she’s that annoying. Tags are open for this series so please send an ask!

Bed of Roses Masterlist — Complete Masterlist

“Never ceases to amaze me what people shove up their butts,” one of the nurses from the ER muttered as she walked into the health management and insurance review office, carelessly tossing a patient file onto the only occupied desk.

Glancing up, Y/N stopped typing, removed her hands from under the file, and placed it into the overflowing box labeled ‘New’ sitting a mere foot away from where the nurse had dropped it. “People do a lot of things, Sabrina. Good thing the human body is so resilient.”

Sabrina chuckled and snapped her gum, giving Y/N a lazy shrug. “Tell that to Mr. Isaacs,” she gestured to the folder, “who decided to shove a beer bottle up his ass and then take a shower. He fell, bottle shattered… you know the rest. Dude bled out from a perforated colon and died forty five minutes ago.”

Being a nurse herself, Y/N understood the callous nature of some people in the medical field, but it still didn’t make it easy to hear a co-worker speak without any compassion whatsoever. “That’s a tough break,” she grimaced at the unintentional pun that made Sabrina snort, “but I’ll take care of the insurance clinicals and submit it for processing.”

Sabrina blinked at her. “Yeah, I know. That’s like… your job. Duh.” With another snap of her gum, the ER nurse spun on her heel and left the room, finally leaving Y/N alone once more.

It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy being around people, she just enjoyed being alone more. Tasked with gathering clinical documents to submit to insurance companies for approval, her department only had two people in it. One was her, and the other was the department lead and her boss, Gordon Walker. What the man lacked in personality he made up for by allowing Y/N to do her work in peace. She was good, fast, and dependable.

She never let anything slip.

Which is why the patient file she was currently processing drew her attention. There was so much missing information, it was as if the file was documented carelessly or was done by someone who didn’t understand what fields need to be filled out.

The only information on the file was a name, Dean Winchester, and year of birth, 1979. There was no admit date, no diagnosis, and no insurance information. Usually, if a patient is uninsured, there’s a code that’s used to flag the file so it doesn’t land on Y/N’s desk; no insurance means there’s nothing for her to submit. But in this case, the field was left completely blank.

Thinking it was just a clerical error, she opened up the medical record search box on her computer and typed this mystery man’s information in. Her eyebrows shot up when the program notified her that there were fourteen matches based on his name and year of birth.

“What the hell?” she mumbled to herself as she scrolled through each record, realizing that each patient file is just as incomplete as the one on her desk. None of the files ever crossed her desk, so it wasn’t anything she overlooked, but it was still a huge error on the part of the hospital and needed to be corrected.

Highlighting all the files, she printed each admit form out and tucked them neatly into a folder. Gordon would need to be made aware of what Y/N discovered so they could figure out how this Dean Winchester fella had been receiving free medical care over the last decade without anyone noticing. She set his file and the folder filled with admit forms to the side and continued processing the stack of patient files that seemed to be a permanent fixture on her desk, regardless of how fast she worked.

When Gordon strolled into the office thirty minutes later, Y/N caught his attention and gathered the files before walking over to his desk right as he sat down.

“Hey, Gordon. This file came across my desk and it’s incomplete,” she passed him the patient file, “but when I tried to look up this patient’s name in the medical records database, there’s fourteen more incomplete admit forms that come up. I don’t know how nobody caught this, but I wanted to bring it to your attention.”

Gordon flipped open the patient file and his body tensed as his eyes studied the name printed on the page. Immediately, he shut the file and tossed it - along with the folder of admit forms - into the confidential information bin to be incinerated.

“Forget you ever saw those, Y/N,” Gordon warned, pointing a finger at her. “The file landed on your desk by mistake and the Winchesters are nothing you need to worry about.”

“But -”

“That’s an order,” he interrupted. “Now get back to work.”

Y/N opened her mouth to argue more, but decided against it, dejectedly making her way back over to her desk and sitting down. The more she thought about it, the more things didn’t add up. That, and the fact that Gordon said Winchesters, plural. Something else was going on, and Y/N was nothing if not diligent. If there was anything untoward going on, she’d get to the bottom of it and bring it to the attention of the administration staff if she found anything.

Once Gordon was distracted with his own work, she continued processing the patient files on her desk, but also began searching through medical records for patients with blank files that have the last name of Winchester. There were several complete files, but she found multiple files under the names John and Sam Winchester with the same incomplete status as Dean.

After a quick break for lunch, Y/N continued working and continued digging deeper and deeper into the fragmented medical history of these mysterious Winchesters. There were some consistencies in their sparse documentation, though. Almost all of their patient files had originated in the ER’s trauma unit, meaning there was some kind of life threatening injury that brought them in. Based on the amount of times each man was here, they were some of the clumsiest people in the world.

Or they lived very dangerous lives.

The afternoon passed in a blur, and Y/N waved goodbye to an oddly skittish Gordon as he grabbed his coat and left the room, leaving an hour early for the second week in a row. She never complained, though. This job allowed her the freedom to work alone without being spit on, peed on, pooped on, or otherwise abused by patients. She was still helping, but behind the scenes.

The next time she glanced at the clock, it was just past five-thirty, a half an hour after her shift was supposed to end. There was nobody waiting at home for her, so she wasn’t concerned. She locked up patient files, turned off her computer, and stored the list of medical record numbers she gathered from all of the Winchester’s incomplete cases in one of the bottom drawers of her desk.

It was tomorrow’s problem, now.

Gathering her purse and coat, she shut the light off and locked the door to the office before leaving the hospital and making the long trek across the property to the employee parking lot. It was a rather large hospital campus, but the cool fall air was nice compared to the stuffy recycled hospital air in her office.

The parking garage was quiet, and she paused when she noticed some of the lights near her car were burned out. The outages looked random, and there was still plenty of light, so she only gave a cautionary glance around before continuing to her car.

The second her key slipped into the lock on the driver’s side door, something heavy hit her over the head and her body was slammed against the side of her car. Panic set in and she began fighting, ignoring the immense pain burning in the back of her skull. Something sharp piercing her neck made her try to scream, but the second she parted her lips, a wool glove was pressed against her mouth, silencing her.

Her body felt heavy and her vision was blurry, and she stumbled once the arms wrapped around her body released her. Spinning around, she squinted at the blurry outline of someone dressed in black and the last thing she heard before everything went dark was a man’s voice.

“Got her.”

Forevers [CLOSED]: @katymacsupernatural @queen-of-deans-booty @your-modern-shakespeare @wheresthekillswitch @holyfuckloueh @just-another-busy-fangirl @growningupgeek @jensen-gal @mizzezm @there-must-be-a-lock @atc74 @pilaxia @supernatural-jackles @impala-dreamer @bambi95-blog @wonderfulworldofwinchester @batmmgray @brooke-supernatural16 @dwgrl1903 @hey-bxtch @turnttoverr @kittenofdoomage @leanbeankeane @emoryhemsworth @xalgaliareptx @mhnfatima @bi-e-ne @speakinvain @pebblesz892 @kararanae23 @kassablanca13 @mogaruke @tockettt @imagining-supernatural @wildefire @serienjunkiegirl @mrswhozeewhatsis @stars-and-seas @jaremish @ellen-reincarnated1967 @nyxveracity @andkatiethings @bamby0304 @deathtonormalcy56 @winchesterprincessbride @moonstar86 @missihart23 @mrs-meghan-winchester @miss-rebel-without-applause @dean-winchesters-bacon @curly-haired-disaster @supernatural-teamfreewillpage

Dean/Jensen: @akshi8278 @adoptdontshoppets @focusonspn @spnwoman

Bed of Roses tags: @fangirl-and-medstudent-help @somilotopia @animatenebrae @jessieray98 @docharleythegeekqueen @ellallheart @superflurry @holylulusworld @anathewierdo @flamencodiva @notyourtypicalrose @ladycynthia @maddiepants @mirandaaustin93 @the-is13 @spn--imagines @oneshoeshort @waitwhatsrealityagain @sexykitten253 @stupidtrashprincess @the-walking-daryl @thebooksiwishtoread @momma-loves-her-some-capnbucky @kbl1313 @winchasterdean @hopefulcolorcollectorsthings

#dean x reader #mobster!dean #mobster AU #bed of roses #spn fanfic #series #mobster!Dean x nurse!reader #chapter 1 #dean winchester x reader #mob AU

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snicketstrange · 6 years

Text

How could Lemony know about the dialogues and events?

This is Part 2 of Strange Interpretation by Jean Lucio From Brazil.

It is a strange fact that for me to prove that Lemony is lying on purpose in some passages of his work in ASOUE, I have to first prove that he has seriously endeavored to write truths in most of his work. But the theory is called "the Strange Interpretation of Jean Lúcio from Brazil", so strange things will appear here. Strange, but fruits of reasoned ideas.

I believe the good liar is not that person who lies all the time. People like that lose credibility and stop fooling anyone, even when that is necessary. Good liars speak the truth most of the time, gain the confidence of others, and choose the moments of using lies with surgical precision. Good liars deceive people for generations, and I believe that Lemony is a good liar.

I will demonstrate that it is possible to distinguish what is true from what is false in ASOUE.

Apparently, there are no intentional lies about Sunny, Violet and Klaus told by Lemony Snicket in the 13 books of ASOUE. Lemony claims that his work on these children is the fruit of a promise. At ATWQ we realize that Lemony is someone who gives great value to keeping his promises. In addition, in a personal note found in the UA in chapter 1, Lemony Snicket wrote:

"It makes me sad to think that my whole life, from to cradle to the grave is full of errors, but at last that will not happen to the Baudelaires."

As I explained in my previous text, the documents found in the UA were not written for the Great Public in the universe of Lemony. The passage comes from a personal note, so logically Lemony would not lie to himself.

So, you can trust that the whole main story of ASOUE is true.

This phrase matches the reports Lemony Snicket wrote about his own research on the events involving Sunny, Klaus, and Violet. Lemony seems to seek physical evidence of the smallest details about the events surrounding Beatrice's three children.

Besides that, the letters to the editor were not written for Lemony's large audience, so these letters also have credibility.

Thus, if there are intentional lies in the 13 books of ASOUE they could only be found in the following excerpts:

1 - In the dedications.

2 - In the descriptions of the events involving the own Lemony Snicket and Beatrice.

3 - In the descriptions of situations that were occurring during the writing of books that did not directly involve the Baudelaire siblings.

4 - Description of events related to other minor characters that occurred at different moments of the main events narrated in the books.

Of course, just because Lemony might be lying in these snippets, that does not mean he's actually lying. I just want to point out that Daniel Handler made a point of highlighting in the UA that the story about Sunny, Klaus and Violet are true, and the result of Lemony Snicket's research, not the result of Lemony Snicket's imagination.

But that raises another question: How could Lemony Snicket know about events involving Sunny, Klaus, and Violet with so much detail? For example, in some scenes, Sunny, Klaus and Violet talk to each other on their own. How could he know the content of these conversations? In addition, some events would be impossible to deduce only through observation or interviews. For example, in book 10 of ASOUE, Lemony narrates events inside the caravan, however Lemony states that he could never find what was left of the caravan after trying to find it for several months. How could Lemony know about the parachute built by Violet? What about the sticky mix that Klaus created to slow down the caravan?

Or how could Lemony know about what the Baudelaires talked about while they were on their own at Queequeg?

Lemony would need to have a source of reliable information on these matters, and only source of reliable information would come from the Baudelaires themselves.

The answer of my theory to this question is based on the following premise: In writing the 13 books of ASOUE, Lemony Snicket was writing about a past many earlier. When I talked to D., I realized that this is a premise questioned by many fans in the United States. D. explained to me that for many fans Lemony's references to the many years that have passed between the events and the publication of the ASOUE books are Daniel Handler's mistakes, or evidence that Daniel Handler changed his plans during writing of his books. I do not agree with this. Of course, maybe I'm wrong, and I do not want to accept that the books I love so much have such absurd mistakes.

Another theory involves a complicated plan involving notes delivered to Kit. These notes would be revised years later and then published. I must agree that this theory is very intelligent and that makes a lot of sense. But for it to work, you have to believe that Lemony in revising his work failed to remove secret messages to Kit. In addition, this theory does not explain how Lemony could know about dialogues and events experienced only by the Baudelaire siblings. The 'Strange Interpretation of Jean Lúcio From Brazil' presents an alternative theory, which some may believe to be better, (or not).

First, so that I do not contradict myself, I must show that in books other than the 13 books of ASOUE or in the letters to the editor, there is evidence that years have actually passed between the events recorded in the 13 books and their publication.

One important note: I believe that all UA chapters are true. I do not believe that the initial 12 chapters deal with a long, frosty introduction. That's because the "13 Shocking Secrets You'll Wish You Never Knew about Lemony Snicket" pamphlet states that UA is a safe source of research. I explained in my previous text because I believe that this pamphlet is Daniel Handler's text on ASOUE which for me has more credibility.

I am aware of what is written between chapters 12 and 13 of the UA. "There was a long pause, and I realized this curious stranger was at last done telling this confusing and unnerving story. Without another word the storyteller handed me this packet of material, which I give you now. ' However, these phrases do not make sense. First, what we find in the first 12 chapters is not a storytelling, and so there is no storyteller. There is a storyteller only in the UA introduction. In my theory, these phrases are an attempt to drive away from the interest in the book those people who read the introduction of a book, and then go on to the last pages. Such a reader, after reading the introduction of the UA, would go to the last pages, and then find the index, some photos and finally these sentences. He may have lost interest in reading the documents in the UA, believing it would be a boring read.

So in UA in Chapter 4, we find a letter from Sally Sebald to Lemony Snicket. In this letter she stated:

"What a relief it was to learn that you are alive and that Dr. Orwell is dead! For YARS I suspected the opposite, and assumed that one of yours siblings was handling your affairs, as I am handling Gustav's ... I hope that The crucial scene in Zombies in the Snow - beginning and ending, as always with the Sebald Code, with the ringing of the bell - was meant to deliver a message concerning the survivor mentioned in your letter, but my brother told me no more than this. "

You may deduce that this letter was written by Sally Sebald after the events described in TMM, that is, after the death of Georgina Orwell. For years, Sally Sebald believed that Lemony was dead, and Georgina was alive. The reference to 'years' in the plural makes me believe that really years have passed between the events described in TMM and this letter. It is interesting to note that when this letter was written, Lemony had already begun work on writing the Baudelaire case, but evidently Lemony was in the research phase on the subject. In addition, it is possible to deduce that in a previous letter, letter that we do not have access, Lemony informed that he was alive and requested information to Sally Sebald. It seems reasonable to believe that when Lemony wrote the first letter to Sally Sebald, he did not yet have the script of zombies in the snow at hand, for Sally found it necessary to describe the scene in which there was a Sebald code. In some later letter, Sally evidently sent the script of zombies in the snow to Lemony. In the letter Lemony sent to Dear Dairy in the same chapter, Lemony said:

"Remember, you are my second-to-last hope that the Baudelaire's ornaments may finally be told to the general public."

In this letter Lemony stated that he had the script of Zombies in the Snow in his hands. He wanted to return the script to Sally Sebald, however, Sally Sebald did not attend the meeting. So Lemony decided to send the script to his cheesemaking friends. For some unknown reason, these friends of Lemony could not even publish one of the ASOUE books. So Lemony had to turn to his current editor, which was the last hope for him to finally be able to publish the ASOUE books.

When Lemony sent the manuscript of TRR to his current editor, Lemony also sent the Zombie Manuscript in the Snow, according to the letter to the editor found at the end of book 1. At the time he wrote the letter, Lemony stated who was in London to find out what happened to Unty Monty's collection of reptiles. Thus, this scenario seems to indicate that between the day Lemony sent the "Zombies in the Snow" script to cheesemakers and the time Lemony sent the same script to his current editor, there was a considerable time. Lemony needed to retrieve the script, then he traveled to London and then sent the script to the current editor. Apparently Lemony did not make a copy of the script, because in his letter to the cheese makers, Lemony says it would be too dangerous to keep the scripts in hand. Why would he then make a copy of the same scripts?

A scenario where several years pass between the events and the writing of the books, it combines with some statements of Lemony during the writing of ASOUE. These observations do not seem to be lies, for there seems to be no logical reason for Lemony to lie about them:

Chapter 8, book 2 - "You will remember, of course, that EVEN YEARS LATER, Klaus would lie awake in bed, filled with regret that he did not call out to the driver of thetaxicab who had brought Stephano into their lives once more . "

Book 5 Chapter 6: "Prufrock Preparatory School is now closed. It has been closed for many years."

However, after the publication of book 2 of ASOUE, Prufrock Preparatory School was still open, the Lemony Snicket went there to seek information after the publication of book 2, according to UA chapter 9. An enemy of Lemony also went to Prufrock Pre and found in the library there a copy of the TRR book that had already been published.

This means that the school stopped working between the publication of book 2 and the publication of book 5. After Prufrock Preparatory School was closed, Lemony spent many years without publishing in his universe. (In a later text I will explain this concept in more detail, in a theory I call "The Great Hiatus.")

Another detail can be found in Book 10 Chapter 13:

"Even for an author like myself, who has devoted his entire life to investigating the mysteries that surround the Baudelaire case, there is still much I have been unable to discover."

It is implied that the investigation into the mysteries of the Baudelaire affair has lasted a lifetime from Lemony's point of view, and not just a few years.

In the book Bad beginning the rare edition, Lemony says that he already knows about the Baudelaire siblings' third visit to briny beach, and that he wished to write about it in book 13 of ASOUE that he had not yet written.

The introduction of the notes in the book The Bad Beginning of the Rare Edition indicates that it has been since the publication of the Bad Beginning until the publication of Book 13.

So this whole scenario seems to match the fact that Lemony wrote and published his books years after the events recorded in them.

After these considerations, I will now explain what is the largest source of information found in ASOUE regarding Klaus, Sunny and Violet. In my theory the source of the information is the book called "The Series Of Unfortunately Events" that was on the island. I think Lemony, in his initial research on the Baudelaires, came to this island. There he found the book. Klaus, Sunny and Violet followed the custom of previous castaways and wrote about their own lives in that book. From the content of the book, Lemony was able to continue his research. As I said, Lemony said he already knew about events that took place on the island, and even events that occurred after the Baudelaires left the island before writing Book 13 in Lemony's universe. He planned to write about these events in Book 13. Note the following excerpts:

pp.116-117 A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century ...

Tomorrow afternoon, the semi-amateur geologist has promised to put me in touch with current members of the F.F.P. so I can determine if there is any truth to the rumor that Violet Baudelaire came into contact with her on her way to Briny Beach for the third time. Interested parties might turn to Book the Thirteenth, assuming I live to write such a book.

p.153 A certain island has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit.

Please see my article 116-117.

When Lemony wrote the notes, Lemony had not even written Book 13 yet. It is significant that in the introduction of his notes, Lemony again wrote that the publication of the ASOUE books in Lemony's universe took years.

"In the years since the book's publication, many people who have read the book have besieged me with questions concerning the iotas of the story, exactly how I came to know these iotas, and if I cared to add anything to my report."

It is interesting to note that Lemony's researches as described in the ASOUE books and as described in the TBB the Rare Edition notes are fact-finding surveys and are not searches of new fact discoveries. Look at these examples from The Rare Edition:

pp.41-42 From a street vendor, they purchased olives after tasting several varieties and choosing their favorites.

My commonplace book contains following interview:

LS: On the day in question, did three children-a fourteen-year-old girl, a boy a bit older than twelve who was wearing glasses, and a young baby with somewhat peculiar teeth-purchase from you some olives, after tasting several varieties and choosing their favorites?

Vendor: Yes.

p.142 No one seemed to notice that I held a walkie-talkie the entire time.

My commonplace book contains the following interview:

LS: On the night in question, during the performance of Funcoot's play The Marvelous Marriage, did you notice that Count Olaf, the production's start, was holding a walkie-talkie the entire time?

Audience member: No.

LS: How about you?

Another audience member: No.

LS: You?

Another audience member: No.

LS: You?

Another audience member: No.

etc.

(Note the following: if no one remembers having seen walkie-talkie, as Lemony knew there was a

walkie-talkie? For me the answer is: Lemony read about the walkie-talkie in the island book).

p.146 "But Violet is only a child!" one of the actors said. "She's not old enough to marry."

My commonplace book contains the following interview:

LS: On the night in question, did you say, "But Violet is only a child!" One of the actors said. "She's not old enough to marry."

Actor: I think so.

(Note that Lemony's questions are to confirm facts that he already had in advance.)

That's why Lemony knew about what happened in the Caravan because Lemony read about it in the book. So Lemony knew about the dialogues that took place in locked rooms, or that happened inside the elevator shaft, because Lemony read about it in the book. So Lemony knew about what the Baudelaires talked about when they were alone in Queequeg on the ocean floor because Lemony read about it in that book. The part of the book that told this whole story was written by the Baudelaires during the year they spent on the island. Thus, Lemony began writing ASOUE after the events that took place on the island.

Since before writing the first book, Lemony already knew of specific facts about the Baudelaires, which indicates that he has used the information from the island's book ever since he published Book 1. Thus, Kit had been dead since Book 1 was published . But almost nobody knew this, because she died on a distant island with few people observing her death. To me that's the only explanation that makes sense. As we have seen, Lemony would never invent dialogues and events about Sunny, Klaus, and Violet.

The only things that seem to contradict these conclusions are the following: Lemony's messages to his "sister" in books 9 and 10, the contents of the letter in book 10 which states that the Denouement hotel was fully operational when this letter was written, the statement in the same letter regarding a possible sugar bowl that Lemony is looking for during the writing of TSS, claim that Lemony could save his sister Kit while he was writing TGG, the letters to the editor at the end of book 11, which were written on paper coming from the Hotel Denouement indicating that this hotel was fully operational when these letters were written.

I will give the simple and brief explanation on these subjects according to the Strange Interpretation of Jean Lúcio from Brazil to be able to close this text, and in the future I will write other texts explaining in detail all these theories.

1 - The secret messages in books 9 and 10 do not have Kit as the true recipient. In fact they are letters to Beatrice. Lemony is lying in saying in his dedications and in his main text that Beatrice is dead. The reason Lemony decided to lie about it is his desire to protect Beatrice, the woman he loves. Beatrice faked her own death, and used her training as an actress to pretend to be other people. A few years after Kit's death, Beatrice went on to pretend to be Kit. Lemony, while writing the hidden messages to his "sister", was at the same time passing on important information to Beatrice and helping to cover up Beatrice's identity. By stating that the recipient is a sister, Lemony may be using one of the definitions of "brother" or "sister" found in THH:

"Sometimes brothers and sisters are just people who are united for a common cause."

2 - In TGG, where Lemony Snicket claims he can save his sister named Kit while Lemony is writing the book, Lemony is lying on purpose. He's doing it to protect Beatrice.

3 - Just as the Lost Arms Hotel was restored after a fire at ATWQ, the Denouement Hotel was also restored after the fire a few years later, probably over the years while books 1 through 9 of ASOUE were being published in Lemony's universe.

4 - The sugar bowl that Lemony claims is looking when writing the letter to his "sister" is not the same sugar bowl that belonged to Esmé. The sugar bowl quoted in the letter contained a proof capable of clearing Lemony. It was this sugar bowl that arrived through the crows at the Denouement Hotel and probably fell on the lake in front of the hotel, and stayed there until Lemony fetched it many years later. The esmé sugar bowl contained something capable of controlling the Great Unknown (probably a kind of whistle). Lemony apparently already has access to this sugar bowl when writing the 13 books of ASOUE. It was this sugar bowl that ended up in the Gorgonian Grotto after being released by the VFD's HQ window. This sugar bowl was removed from there by a woman before the arrival of Klaus, Sunny, Violet and Fiona in GG.

Thank you for reading until now, and until the next text of the Strange Interpretation of Jean Lúcio From Brazil.

Note: 1- in Lemony's letter to the cheesemaker, Lemony states that at least one of his siblings is dead. This already puts the writing of this letter as being performed after the events described in TVV. According to Lemony's letter to the editor regarding the events described in TAA (this letter is at the end of TMM), the Baudelaire siblings spent a half-semester, before the events narrated on TVV. So at the very least, you must recognize that a few weeks or few months passed between the events recorded in the books and the sending of the script of zombies in the snow for the cheese-makers. These cheese makers were not the final editors of ASOUE.

Note 2 - I believe Gustav Sebald is Uncle Monty's helper. They have the same name and both are dead. I can not prove that they are the same person, but before my theory, I see no need to believe that they are different people.

Note 3 - About Sally Sebald. In his note to the dairy Lemony clearly states that he is there to meet Dr. Sebald, a character he uses male pronouns for, and that this person produces movies which employ Sebald Code. With respect to the use of masculine pronouns, I find it important to consider that Sally Sebald took over the business of Gustav Sebald after his death. Probably few people know about Gustav's death, so Sally Sebald must be working using only the family name in her films. Sally herself believed that Lemony's services were being performed by one of his siblings. In Sally's mind, even Kit could have taken over Lemony's services. So, in order to conceal the fact that Sally Sebald has taken over the services of Gustav Sebald, Lemony uses the English language feature available to refer to a Doctor using the male pronoun, when the doctor's gender is unknown. This same feature is used in TMM, referring to Dr. Owerl.

Note 4 - The only part in ASOUE that would be completely dependent on the interview with Kit's daughter would be Chapter 14 of Book 13 of ASOUE. So I believe this chapter was written after Lemony's meeting with Kit's daughter.

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