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Moon Comics · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over:
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. Hi.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: There you are.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: Hello to you too.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: So here's the thing. I haven't even got to tell you yet. You're such a good sport.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: You're such a good sport. So they messaged me that they had moon night experience, that's my words, not theirs, to share on the podcast. I'm super excited about this, but then I had a panic that I don't actually know moon night enough and thought you could help with the conversation of it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Sure. I'm happy to.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to turn my screen off so that I get the better audio. You can if you want as well. And then, Douglas, what who who is here today? Do you wanna in go ahead and introduce yourselves?
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. My name is Laina Vincent. I'm one of the alders in the with Vincent system. And we were diagnosed with DID back in 2004. We we before that, we were in therapy for about nine to ten years before that and misdiagnosed for the entire time.
• 2:13
  And so after getting a proper diagnosis with DID, we we made a lot more progress than what we did in those. I bet. And and then 2016, the movie split came out, we were we were happy about the movie, and I was I was very frustrated and and felt like I wanted to get out there and start talking about our own experience with DID on the Internet and are educating people about it because, you know, things like Split and and movies like that are powerful tools of misinformation about DID and and, you know, stereotypes and and stigma that are not true and and not based on the facts. And I wanted to help start educating people, but I Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:11
  Cool. I started we, yeah, we started talking about our our experience on the online and with DID and everything, but started after a while, it started getting too overwhelming because we're just trying to, you know, talk on Twitter and on YouTube and on blogs and on on you know, it just any anywhere we could find on the Internet where people were talking about DID, we wanted to share our experiences and share people's questions. And after a while, it felt like I was spreading myself too thin, and it was just getting to be too overwhelming. And I kinda backed off over for a while. Then I the idea that maybe I need to start focusing more more on a certain aspect of ID.
• 3:57
  I don't I don't know how to phrase this. But Like, the discussion or Yeah. Basically, a certain aspect of discussion. And so I decided that since we we in our system are big iconic, like, nerds, we we wanted to I decided to start trying to educate the comic book and community about certain ID characters and stuff. And so I decided to focus on Moon Knight mainly because Moon Knight was I knew that Moon Knight was going to have a new plus series coming soon so that I knew that was gonna get up more trust.
• 4:31
  People start talking about Moon Knight and everything. And so I started reading out of Moon Knight, and and I started listening to this podcast called into the night podcast from Sunbag in Australia named Ray. And he after a while, I was I was listening to this podcast and and reading the comics. And and after a while, I, you know, emailed him, and I asked if I could it would be open to me, like, writing articles about representation of DID and moon night comics. And then he could, like, read those articles on the on the podcast.
• 5:16
  And I wasn't sure if I would get a response or anything. I I a response pretty quickly, actually. And he was very enthusiastic about it and said yes. And he's happy about that. And so so then I started writing these articles and and and then after a while, actually, I got another opportunity too through this podcast, a couple of other opportunities.
• 5:43
  One was I heard about there's a guy named Scott Weatherly who was was if you had any book about Moon Knight, he was looking for people to write essays about Moon Knight, different aspects of the character and everything. And so I contacted the Scott Weatherly and asked if I could write a a essay about the representation of Moon Knight, you know, of DID and Moon Knight comics throughout the years. And he said, sure. And and so I actually wrote that essay, and and he helped me to edit it and everything. And and I'm not sure yet when that was gonna be out, but and then other opportunity I got was at we're having a interview with Jed McKay, who is the current writer of Moon Knight comic.
• 6:28
  Oh, wow. We're asking questions. For asking for for listener questions to ask Ted McKay. And and so I got on there, and I said, would you ask him if he'd be interested in having a ID consultant, somebody who's actually that has lived lived experience with the ID and yeah, and a consultant with him for the comics to make sure he's writing it, you know, respectfully and everything. And so he actually did.
• 6:56
  Ray, the host of the podcast, did ask that question, and he told Jed a little bit about me and how I've been writing articles for the podcast and everything. And and then I didn't hear anything at first for a while, and then so I kinda got a contact with Jed through his Facebook, and I I asked I let him know that I was the person with DID that Ray had told him about in the interview. And I told him that I've been really enjoying his comics and really enjoyed that interview that he did with the end of the night podcast. And so then he mailed me back and said, you you would like to to actually use me as a consultant for DID, and I got the opportunity to do that and and emailed it back and forth. Yeah.
• 7:47
  And then he actually sent me a partial script for moon night number 14, which is the first issue that he would really bet deep into the the DID aspect of it. And he he sent me the script for it, and he made a give him any feedback about anything that was accurate or not accurate or anything that was disrespectful and need to be changed. And and, actually, it wasn't really anything that I needed to to correct because he learned well from what I'd already told him, the various emails that I already exchanged with him. And he he actually did a really good job of of writing a really realistic and respectful story in that issue.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: Awesome. So have they not had a DID consultant working with the comic writers before there?
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know, really. May may have, they may not have. I don't I'm I'm not aware of that. I don't think Jed McKay had had one before that. I don't know about previous writers.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: If you've been researching the or read the comic series, I have to imagine the portrayal of DID has changed a lot since the character's introduction up to now.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah. They're some of the some of the runs are better than others. The the very first run of Moon Knight, Doug mentioned, Bill Sikkevich was not exactly very accurate or respectful to mental health in general. But, I mean, for one thing, he kept referring to it as schizophrenia, which is not this was back in the day when everybody thought that those two were the same thing, which they're not at all.
• 9:33
  And it's a Doug Munch has said in interviews, though, that he never really intended for the character to actually have a mental disorder. What he intended was for these different identities, Stephen Grant and Nick Lockley to be that he was using to infiltrate various sectors of culture. You know? Like, Stephen Grant was just getting information in high society, and Nick Lockley was just to gather more street level information. And then he kept dropping hints in there, like like, Marley his girlfriend, Marlene, would, you know, say something about worried that you're getting too into these aliases, and they're they're gonna call it mental disorder and and all that stuff.
• 10:17
  And and and, you know, that's not really how DID works. You can't really develop it from aliases. You know?
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: You play characters too long, suddenly you become the characters. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Stanislavski, the disease. Yeah.
• 10:35
  That's yeah. That's not it at
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: all. Yeah. But, actually, if you if you think about that first run from the standpoint of that actually did have DID and that he was fooling himself into thinking they were aliases, but they were actually alters. And that run was actually, ironically, actually a pretty good representation of, like, functional because he was doing a good job of working with the other alters to, you know, accomplish their their fine mission of fighting crime. You know?
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: And because the writer wasn't trying to portray a mental illness, suddenly it became a much more realistic depiction.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Ironically. Yeah. Yeah. And then a later writer is actually when they started getting into mental illness aspect.
• 11:27
  That that's when the portrayal of it actually got worse, I think, as far as, like, especially the 2006 run by probably Houston. That one was a lot of people really like that run because it was really well written and and really well drawn. David Fitch was the artist. He was a really good artist. I really I agree that it's actually well written from a plot standpoint as far as it's an interesting story and everything, but it's filled with basically, Moon Knight is as lowest point.
• 12:02
  He's lost all his friends. He's he's kinda addicted to painkillers. He's and this is the also the run where he it's the most violent he's ever gotten, which is he's doing things like the or the the face of one of his enemies, Bushman. Wow. Yeah.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: So there's a lot of violence in the context. Yeah.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: And especially this Charlie Eusteren was probably the most violent of all of them. And he it also shows him being confronted by his his girlfriend at this point, Marlene, and and his friend, Frenchie. And they're basically confronting him and telling him that he's off the deep end, and he's insane, and he needs to get help. And and and they're and shows him kind of, like, wanting to get back together with Marlene, and he's kinda stalking her and being confrontational with her. And and, basically, it's showing him in a very, very bad light in this in this run.
• 13:03
  Everything that they're doing, it's like it's like showing you how horrible mental illness can be and how how it can ruin the lives of everyone around you. And, I mean, not that I'm not saying that mental illness is like a buck in the park and and it's gonna but if you only show the bad aspects of it, that doesn't really
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: And and this is one of the I think one of the challenges of depicting DID or or any other mental illness or things like that is that neurotypical people can be monsters too. Right? So Yeah. It's it's easy to say, well, you know, this person is this character is doing this because they're a person, and people can choose good or bad or or be kind or be monsters or whatever. Yeah.
• 13:56
  Exactly. But then when you add this extra layer of there's something else going on, it becomes really hard to know how to talk about, well, this is happening because of DID or this is happening because this is one alter within the system that is behaving this way, or or this is something anybody would do. I think Emma and I had this discussion with Moon Knight, the the TV series, about are they using DID just as a literary device to show that one alter is a superhero? Because that that's such an old, not accurate kind of offensive depiction. Right?
• 14:43
  And yet Yeah. This is a Marvel world in which lots of people are superheroes. So getting in fights and and all of that is just a normal thing that any character would be doing. So is that then an insensitive depiction of DID? Like, does every it becomes a so much thornier question of of how to approach that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: And like I said, that Charlie Hughes, they were specifically calling out that I mean, they had people his his her friends and everything calling him insane and calling him crazy and calling him a lunatic. And, you know, they were specifically putting out that all his bad behavior was due to his mental illness. And Yeah. And in fact, one of the worst parts of it was this was during the whole civil war in Marvel comics. Oh, yeah.
• 15:36
  Which basically one side of it was with the Iron Man, the other side was it's
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Captain America, I think.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And Captain America came to him, and he he started talking to
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: him
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: about the registration act and all this stuff in the civil war. And Moon Knight was like, I don't understand your in your war. I I I wanna stay out of it and just do my own thing and fight crime. And he Captain America was like, mister Anderson, I'm not here to recruit you. I'm here to tell you to stay out of our way.
• 16:05
  We don't want you on our side. He said and he said quote he said this quote that it was, like, unbelievable. He said and this is Captain America saying this. The person who was entire registration Oh my goodness. He's always been on the side of freedom.
• 16:23
  In Captain America, he he said Ethel may belong in a cage, by which he means Frank Ethel as a punisher. You belong in a straight jacket. I'm just sorry that I don't have time to tie one on you right now.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: What?
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: It's like Captain America. It's like the moonlight.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: What what year was this published? This was the run started in 2006,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: but that was probably about 2007 or so probably. Yeah.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: That's not okay.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: What do you remember around what time the the split movie came out? Was it kind of around '15. Oh, the split movie was 2016?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. About nine years after that.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: I I don't want to believe that split came out so recently. Yeah. Yeah. I want to put space there and say, no. We've grown as a culture.
• 17:16
  Yeah. Grown.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: And and another one another one of runs that I I don't really care for is the run that was written by Michael Bendis starting in 2011, I think. And the reason I don't care for that one is because he kind of changed Moon Knight's system for no apparent reason. Instead of having Stephen Grant and Jake Lockley as his elders, he suddenly had Spider Man, Captain America, and Wolverine as his elders. It's like, why? And came off as he never really explained why this happened, Moon Knight, and came off as as seeming like, and Michael Bendis just wanted to write Spider Man, Captain America.
• 18:00
  More than he wanted to write Moon Knight. And so he he used that as a way to get those characters into the into the book. You know? That's what it seemed like. And it seemed very disrespectful to DID because there was no explanation for why that happened.
• 18:13
  Wow. Sometimes referring to it as thing split personality disorder and stuff like that that don't they're not even real terms. You know? He was obviously he had not done the research about DID at all. Yeah.
• 18:26
  Wow. And then towards the end of the run, he actually had Wolverine alter trying to kill the other alters. And, yeah, it was
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: just bad all around. Wow. That is worse than I could have imagined.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: I don't even know how to process that.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Then there are I've been out of some other runs more recently that have actually been a lot better, actually. One of the better ones as far as DID representation was the Jeff Romero run starting in 2014.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: That's one that I've heard about.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: That's the one that a lot
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: of the The TV series is drawn from that one. Right? It is
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: it is kinda loosely based on kind of what drew inspiration from. Yeah. And that ride kind of started with with we had a mental institution, and they were trying to tell him that his entire because Moon Knight has been a fabrication that he's he's been in that mental institution practically his whole life. And and I wasn't really fond of that aspect of it for this for a few issues. It it kind of the whole trope of showing no institution as as kind of, like, horror, like like, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, that kind of thing.
• 19:45
  Know? I'm so sick of of conversations like that because, you know, I've actually been in a behavioral health institute, and it's not really like but they're not really like that anymore, you know, the current current days. I mean, not that it's pleasant to be in one of those, but they're not, like, horrible nightmare, like, Arkham Asylum from Batman, that kind of thing. You know? Right.
• 20:09
  But but then shows him kind of ambiguous throughout this run because things start happening, and it and it kind of, like, start to wonder whether that institution is actually reality or if it's all in Moon Knight's head because there's starts to there'll be some strange things happening. He starts to meet Anshu and other Egyptian gods, and he escapes from the asylum. And then he's he's in this he he's thrown into this weird world of it seemed like ancient Egypt, but there's, like, people writing these giant insects and and weird things going on. And, basically, entire run becomes a sort of exploration of how Anshu is kinda messing with Mark's head and kind of trying to manipulate him, and and you come to realize that, you know, all of this weird stuff that's been happening is is Kanshu trying to to work Spector's perceptions of reality and try to manipulate him and try try to troll him as as his servant, you know, the Conshu's servant. And, basically, Mark Spector with his other alters, Stephen Grant Jake Lockley, begin to fight back against Tatshu.
• 21:37
  In the end, they they eventually working together. They defeat him and kind of drag him out of their brain. Of course, that doesn't last, but as far as the end of that whole arc story arc, Tatu was kind of driven out of their brain. And it really it really becomes a more empowering arc about how both DID can accomplish great things that they that they work together as a system. And
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: So it it brings up two questions as you were talking. One, the Disney plus series references this sort of hospital location in the second half of the show. Do you think how do you think the two depictions of that location compare? Like, how well they address it as a not just going to the old tropes of of scary, oh, is this all just imagining imaginary versus how how there can be specific locations that a system sort of exists in. Right?
• 22:47
  Which is what I was kind of thinking it was supposed to be when I saw the TV show, but I but I hadn't known about the comic. Like, how do you compare the depiction of that location in the two media?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it ended up being a lot lot better in the TV show just I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that it didn't show as much of it in the TV show as it did in the comic. Probably would do it in a lot more detail. They they had orderlies. They were they were beating the crap out of him, and they had had orderlies. It was shock therapy on him, but it was obvious that they were weren't really doing it for his benefit.
• 23:25
  They were doing it for just for their own fun. You know? We're getting a kick kick out of shocking him for an hour, and and we're they didn't really get into that much detail in the in the in the TV show. They just had him talking to the therapist. And, also, I think the t in the TV show, it became a lot more apparent a lot quicker, The fact that it was there was something weird going on and and that it wasn't really reality.
• 23:56
  It was it was, you know, something that was somebody was trying to get his head and everything. Yeah.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: The other question that that came to my mind, you talked about the his alters working together to drive Khonshu out, although it wasn't forever. Is it maybe it's just me. I saw an article once that was talking about Khonshu as if he was actually one of the alters, not not an alter that he embodies or fronts with, but sort of another presence within. Is that something that's ever been talked about, or does that hold water as a as an interpretation of what's being seen?
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: For a long time in the comics, that was kind of, like, ambiguous as to whether Kanshu was an actual actual Egyptian god or was one of the altars. And by the end of the Glamere run, it it kind of still a little bit ambiguous, but it kind of leans towards him being an actual Egyptian god. In recent years, they've they've kind of made that made it a 100% canon that he actually is a Egyptian god because they did a whole run did a whole story in the Avengers a few years ago where Kanchu convinces Moon Knight to get the Avengers and take their powers because they're trying to stop Mephisto, which is Marvel's version of the devil, from destroying the world. And so country convinces Moon Knight that he needs all these all the Avengers' powers so he can defeat Mephisto. And so in that storyline, it becomes very, very obvious that Mecca was an actual literal Egyptian god.
• 25:50
  Before that, it was kind of kind of a little bit ambiguous. But
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: In in the TV series, it seems pretty clear because they have the other gods all interacting. Yeah. But I had I had wondered about that as
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Like I kind of I of came up with my own theory, which was that it could actually be both. It could be that it actually is an Egyptian god, but also, moonlight could actually have a like an interdecked altar, you know, an alter based on. Know? How interesting. Because in the the run that came right after the Lumiere run, which was written by Max Demus, actually was somebody who was a lead singer of a of a rock band.
• 26:38
  It was Say Anything was the name of the rock band, I think. But he he actually has bipolar himself. And that that run was kind of a mixed bag. It was kind of all over the place, and and there's some parts with I really like and some parts I didn't like. He kind of wrote it as far as, like like, Kanshu was one of Mark's alters.
• 27:03
  That showed him showing up in their internal world and and and like that. I kinda think that it's possible that it's actually both. You know? It could be in through based on the Egyptian god.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: Interesting. So did you did you read the comics first, or did you watch the TV series first?
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I definitely read, like, most of the comics by the time the TV series first started coming out, which was part of the plan that I wanted to jump on it before the series come out and read as much as I can before then so that I'm more knowledgeable going into the TV series.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: It seems like it would be an interesting experience to be so familiar with the sort of written canon of the character and then watch the show that takes some things directly from the comics, but then flips things and alters things significantly. Like, the the entire character of Stephen Grant is different than the comics. Right?
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I know there are a lot of fans who are really mad about that and changing the Stephen Grant character a lot. But to me, the most important thing to me, obviously, is someone with DID. The most important thing was that they a respectful trail of DID, which I think they did an excellent job of, actually. So to me, I actually mind the changes that they made to the comics because of the fact that it did so well at representing DID.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: I like, I'm not a person with DID, and so I have to sort of imagine what that experience is like. Right? But watching the first episode of the series, I loved it so much because it helped me to imagine what those experiences of switching might be like or of discovering things that, for lack of a better phrase, have your name on them, but you don't recognize them as something you've done or a part of you. And, like, it helped me to imagine that. So I'm hoping that that depiction was was close enough to to believable in in those sort of experiences that now what I have in my head when I'm imagining DID is is somehow more sympathetic with what the actual experience is like.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they did a pretty good job. There are certain things that I I really, really was excited about. Like, the like, one of the things was the fact that we started with Stephen Grant. He becomes the first character you get to know as as the audience.
• 29:53
  That was really exciting to me because it kind of flips the trope of, you know, usually the first one usually, the one they depict as being more rounded human being character is the one that has the The main story arc? Well, the one that has the legal name of the of the system, you know, one Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Inspector in this case. By having Stephen Grant, we're not one of the ones that you know, not the one that has the full name of the system, shows that all of the alters are real people and real human beings, and and we're not you know, the rest of the alters aren't, you know, like, imaginary people or whatever.
• 30:38
  You know? Yeah. A lot of times, that's that's a trope that the predictions of DID fall into is that show, you know, the person who has the legal name of the system as being the real person and best of them as being, like, conventional stereotypes. Like, for example, that's what I'm thinking of is United States terror. Have you seen that?
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: I saw a few episodes
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: of it. Yeah. They they had had Tara who was the quote, unquote real one, and then they had, like, this one elder who was a stereotypical teenager, and she would always dress in, like, major type clothing and and always be talking in teenager slang, and everything about her was teenager, teenager, teenager. And then they had another character that was stereotypical, like, Lily Redneck type of character. Another character that was, like, a a fifties housewife, and she was actually dressed just like these clothes and that kind of stuff.
• 31:37
  And it's like all these characters were just different stereotypes of people, and they weren't really real fleshed out human beings.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's what my problem with it was. At the time, all I could say was this this does not in any way reflect my experience of living with a person with DID. Yeah. But I couldn't pin down what it was, and I think that's actually maybe the thing is that those did not feel like real people.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's why I was so excited about the fact that that Steven was the first one you got to know it because, you know, he's not the one that has the the, you know, the system. You know? And so it kind of once you find out that and and, like, it was episode five of the series, then it kind of breaks home to people. Oh, so he's not the the you know, what most people think of as the, quote, unquote, real one, that he is still real.
• 32:31
  He's still a very real human being with his own feelings and emotions, and and, you know, he's he's just as real as Mark is.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: So I think that was a very important distinction to make, and I was I'm very I was very happy with that in this series.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: Looking at it as from a right being nerd perspective, it's interesting because for the the big picture of of the season, Mark Spector has the role of what you would call the protagonist. He has the action that's driving things. He's the one who takes them to Egypt. He's the one who's trying to get the scarab thing right. But by starting it with oh my goodness.
• 33:19
  My brain just stopped. The name of the guy Steven. From the first episode. Yeah. Steven Grant.
• 33:28
  Yeah. Steven Grant. Oh my goodness. By starting it with Steven Grant, you were allowed to see his art in a way that you wouldn't see if it was entirely just sort of Indiana Jones and Stephen Grant is the sidekick. Right?
• 33:43
  Stephen Grant does not really become a sidekick because we get to spend so much time with him. And we see that he has an arc about understanding himself, coming to terms with himself, and having the strength to to stand up for what he needs even in in contrast to other alters and say, no. This is this is where I draw a line. And even though you are a different self than I am, like, we're sharing this body, so we need to make these rules that we all agree on. And I think that's really powerful.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Another thing I was really excited about was I thought it was really accurate depiction of DID in that series was the fact that kind of Steven and Mark's relationship kind of goes on an arc of them not trusting other first. And then over time, they learn to trust each other and start cooperating with each other better and start respecting each other more. And that's kind of, like, arc of DID therapy pretty much. I mean Yeah.
• 34:51
  Because DID you know, a lot of people have have this idea about DID that I think DID is like having a bunch of friends in your head, and so you're never lonely. Ideally, that's what it, you know, essentially could become, you know, if you, you know, really work on things, but that's not how it is by default, you know, by a long shot. You know, DID is meant the whole purpose of DID is to find these identities and order to separate memories of trauma and and hide from each other. And and so because of that and because of the fact that it means that every alter has some sort of traumatic past, well, that means that that by default, we're not very trusting each other when they first start meeting each other. And, you know, when we first start meeting each other and seem to know each other, we're not very trusting of each other at first, and we have to learn to trust each other.
• 35:49
  And so I I was really excited that they actually showed that in the series.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: I I love how in the hospital sequence, Mark Spector finds the sarcophagus and opens it up and is able to, like, come face to face with one of his alters. But then when they see the other sarcophagus, they don't even mention it. They just walk on by. Yeah. And I was like, yes.
• 36:12
  I'm pretty sure that happens. And I think as far as creating a new arc for a second season, I love the idea that part of their next challenge is going to be meeting and learning how to cooperate or interact with another alter, but I really worry about how how Jake appeared at the that last the cutscene at the very the not the cutscene. The post credit scene suddenly like, I loved the whole series except for that last moment. And Yeah. I definitely understand what that yeah.
• 37:01
  Became the old trope of the secret alter villain, and I I worry. Like, I don't want it to just fall into the old easy literary devices and stereotypes.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping that that was I'm hoping that they're going to subvert our expectations of that because I'm hopeful that if it could still being if the the second season and if we get a second season, Hoping that it's still gonna be run by Ahmed Dayab and Jeremy what was his name? The guy that was writing a lot of it. I can't remember who his name is.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: I don't remember. I'm clearly not good at remembering.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: But hoping it's still run by them because they did a lot of talking and interviews about how they wanted to be respectful about DID and everything, and then I think they did a really good job of that. So I'm hoping that they're the same ones that are going to continue the story going forward. And if they are, then I I feel fairly confident that they're going to actually have a positive stand on on Jake Rockley eventually. You know? It may not start there at the beginning of the season, but, you know, they might probably going to, like, come on a journey and take him on a story arc and hope him to become a more positive character, you know, by the end of the season.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: I'm hoping anyway. The the sort of mental investment required to maintain that level of awareness that they did through like, was that eight episodes or nine episodes or something? Like, that's like four movies. Yeah. And to be aware of all the details and compassionate towards these characters and responsive to other survivors that have these experiences, like, that's a tremendous amount of work.
• 38:53
  And I am like, I applaud them for doing that.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. But and I know that too was talking about how he was reading books about DID, and he was he was reading up he was trying to study up on it too and that he could respectfully also.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah. One
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: one of the books he mentioned was a book that I've actually read also. It's it was called a fractured mind by Robert Oxnam. We've actually been a guest on on podcast, I know, in the past. And I thought I was excited to hear that he's actually was re actually reading one of the books that I've written before about DID, and it it was actually a very good book, you know, written by someone who actually has DID itself.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I I feel like they have really put in a legitimate effort. Thank
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: you so much for coming to share with us.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No problem.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate actually.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I I'm really looking forward to this and and really excited and also nervous about it. But
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: You did great. You all did great, and I'm so grateful. Okay?
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you very much.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Enjoy. I'll talk to
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: you I'll talk to you later. Yeah. Okay. Bye.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing.