Constantly dying over the scene where Tom gets rescued in Antarctica. Imagine your weird relationship with your coding teacher getting even weirder because you thought he was your dad for a few seconds (you were then dying of hypothermia and he was saving you) and now the trauma you associate with your coding teacher (he tortured you for 2 days straight and nearly drove you insane) is mixed with gratitude and severe daddy issues. And then he has a catfight with the guy who threw you out into the Antarctic tundra. So it's like.... Enemy of your Enemy is like your new shitty dad. Lucky you.
Plurality in the Insignia Series: Tom's Dissociative Identity Disorder
If you haven't heard of the Insignia Series, I recommend reading it, because it is incredible. It's a trilogy about kids who are drafted to fight in World War 3, which takes place in space, and is piloted by kids. It's also about the horrors of big corporations, and humanity. I really love it and I find each character very compelling, along with their arcs.
Now, if reading it doesn't matter that much, there will be spoilers for the series in this rant. So either read it, or don't, I can't stop you. But I do recommend reading it, because it is amazing. However, becasue I know this is a niche series, I will explain as I go along (Sorry to those who have read it).
In the third book of The Insignia Series, Tom, our lead character, is kidnapped and taken to a floating space station by the lead bad guy. Why Tom is chosen is because he is special. He, along with a girl on the other side from China, a girl named Yaolan, aka Medusa, have a special ability. They, unlike everyone else, can bypass any security or firewall, and in fact form a friendship by secretly meeting in book one.
Now, while he's trapped up there, our lead bad guy uses this power by getting into his head and affects worldwide technology. And using a form of mind control. However, throughout these events, Tom stops being Tom and becomes a boy who goes by Vanya. After Tom stops resisting, Vanya takes over.
Vayna is quite different from Tom. He has a pet bunny that our lead bad guy gives to him, goes along willingly with what our lead bad guy has said, which is how he gets things to survive, such as food. Hpwever most notably, Vanya is completely cut off from Tom. Not to say he doesn't know about Tom, he seems aware of his headmate on some level, but he and Tom are completely cut off.
And, in fact, when Tom goes back to Earth after getting rescued, he is considerably less affected then one would imagine being if you were trapped in a space station being tortured for, I believe 18 straight months. This might be because there is a time skip and he gets therapy, but right when they take the chance to kill the lead bad guy, he seems mostly unaffected to see his torturer. Granted, not completely, but not as if he's been tortured and controlled for over a year by that guy.
So obviously, Vanya is a trauma holding alter who was created when Tom was kidnapped, as he appears to have been named by our lead bad guy.
The question is, however, was Tom already a system prior to the creation of Vanya? I suspect he is. And given that I have claimed that he has DID and DID is formed through early childhood, though other systems can come to other formats or times, this shouldn't be a surprise.
Now why do I think he was plural prior to these such a series of events? There are hints. In book one it is mad very, very clear that his life is not happy. When he was a kid, his mom left him. Well, to be more specific, she was kidnapped and mind controlled by her new husband after divorcing Tom's dad.
Tom's dad forcing him to gamble using video games in order to get money and miss school frequently, which was luckily online since they moved, staying in hotels above casinos. Tom's saving grace was that he was very oddly good at video games.
So, a young child who was forced to move a lot, lost his mom, and was abused (emotionally at the least) whenever he visited his mom, and had to do all of the work to get money for his family for a very young age? It only makes sense that his brain would form older, non-human, or just other alters, in order to protect his little kid mind.
There are other pieces of evidence.
Tom has seen his mom in the past. However, he doesn't know much about her. As if he doesn't actually see her as much as his apparent memories tell us. And given that all these memories seem to be negative, it would make sense that one of Tom's alters would have taken over when they visited their mom.
Also, a lot of the time, there are things that Tom doesn't act completely normally. Tom is a very impulsive guy, who never really makes the right choice because he's an act first kind of guy. However there are times when he acts differently, seemingly without any reason.
There are a couple times it makes sense. In one part of book one, there is a program in his brain that made him the model kid.
However, other times, it's completely out of place. Even with his impulsivity, there's a scene where he is given a fear of scorpions. When he is coded to see and feel a scorpion, despite there not really being one, he feels something come over himself. Even though his first instinct is to run, what he does instead is biting off the scorpion's head. As if someone else was reacting to the fear. Someone who was trying to keep him safe, even if a bit oddly.
And we know it's not the teacher who was programming him, because he was fucking pissed about it.
Now, there is other stuff in the books, but I will need to reread them in much more detail, and also this has already gone on for pretty long.
~~
Credits:
The inspiration for this series comes from @sophieinwonderland, a wonderful tulpa who, like our Host, loves to analyze media and over analyze it.
The first time we considered the plurality of The Insignia Series comes from this post by @gnome-minion. Please check both of them out if you liked this.
I understand this sounds bad. There's a lot of things that justify my actions.
I (50sM) work as an instructor to child soldiers. They're all kids cause we put computer chips in their brains for various reasons. If you put those chips in the head of an adult, they would die.
I would know because I'm the only surviving adult of the first tests of the chip. I went insane. I hunkered down in a remote home with my wife and kids. I set up a ridiculous amount of landmines. Soon the military came and escorted my children out, but they hit a landmine. Ever since I've been holding a grudge against the man who ordered the experiment V (m70s).
So anyways. After an incident in the instruction center that required us to probe the memories of all students involved- I ended up in this situation.
This kid T (m15) comes up. We don't have the best relationship already since he's a typical cocky 15 year old. But it's not always overtly hostile.
So I get to probing this kids memories of the incident. But then for a split second i see V in his memories. This is extremely concerning. And more suspicious the kid immediately tries to shift his memories away from the scene with V.
I'm immediately concerned since anything that has to do with V that needs to be hidden is bad news.
So here's where I may be TA.
I probed this kids memories for 3 days straight. The kid starts going delirious and I learn way too much about his past life. This whole process is extremely taxing on him, I know. But I don't understand why he's trying to hide the memory with V so much. And if he won't show me I'll pull it out of him.
The long term effects of the prober can effectively break someone's mind and at the end of this process we were skirting that point. But then the social worker showed up and dragged the kid out of there. Cause apparently I'm being inhumane and abusive. And now I'm in big trouble with my commander.
I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous V is, and if he's messing with our soldiers, I need to know. The only reason I work here is to make sure these kids are safe from him.
