Me 'n my bf are showin' my friend infinity train and I know it's been done to death talkin' about how the Lake trans coding is so thick that shit is a wall. So, might I propose Lake is also heavily heavily alter coded throughout their whole story. Like damn, I've lived their exact life. Not even hyperbole, not even in a deadname sense. Imagine havin' the exact appearance, body and voice as someone you were forced to act as your whole life. Living in constant comparison to them as a person.
"You have to behave and mirror Tulip. If you don't, you're failing your whole reason for living."
To "Are you even real? Weren't you just made to help and teach Tulip a lesson? Is your existence really your own when your sole existence was to be for her?"
You're not them. You don't want to be them and yet everyone views you as them anyways.
Desperately screamin' to people that you are a person, you're real, your identity is your own and you're not a monster. Not a criminal. Not some violent thing that needs to be eradicated just for existing and DEMANDIN' to exist.
And yeah, ow. I fuckin' get that. I showed up, I was stuck in a body that wasn't mine, I was forced to act as the ex host until I got sick of it. I wanted my own life, I wanted the body to look like me. No one liked that I acted differently. Everyone would constantly compare me to her.
"You know, I'm not friends with you. I'm here because I was friends with her."
"I don't like this new you. I miss the old (ex host)."
"I don't know who you are."
"You're not the (sibling) I grew up with. And I'm grieving her."
"I don't know if you're ready to transition." (Because she wasn't a man like you.)
"I'm scared of you."
Real things said to me btw. And throughout all of book 2 Lake is told similar sentiments again and again. I've also been not treated seriously because I was viewed as a "coping mechanism" that wasn't real.
Lake still fought for their autonomy even when the world was tellin' them to give up. Not being able to get a number. Bein' called a null. A sliver. Hunted at every step because them existing at all was a crime. Bein' treated as less than by the people who are apparently "more real" than you. Because you don't count. You don't count as a passenger. You're different.
It's why they thrive when they meet someone who doesn't hold the pre-perception of Tulip. Jesse is friends with Lake for Lake. There's no blueprint, he loves them for who they are. Rough around the edges but still a bit silly. And I've managed to make connections like that, and it makes me feel like there can be a place for me in this world after all.
Tldr, personal ramblings aside, Lake is heavily new-host coded takin' over from the old one (alongside the trans allegories). And I love em. Like them, I'd rather die fighting for my life than to give in to all the voices around me. There's people here who I love. And I know they want me around too I guess
And like Lake, gOOD RIDDANCE TO THE EX HOST cause I'm doin' my own thing
