#azylum

Formative memory, naturally, is the worst. The experiences that shaped you, that formed the bedrock of how you interpret and understand and react to the world around you… as sharp as a knife, and as reliable as a fever dream. There are things Eugene remembers very clearly that he knows for a fact didn’t happen, because they couldn’t have happened. There was no cottonwood tree in their backyard, because they never had a backyard, they grew up in a high rise flat in DC. He never helped his mother with the dishes because his mother had never and would never have touched a dirty dish in her life.

(They had ‘people’ for that.)

The facts are that his brother Gabe is very vocal about how much he hates him, has always hated him.

But when Eugene closes his eyes—every time he closes his eyes—he’s four years old again, and the sun is warm but the air is cold and Gabby is pulling his own sweater down over Eugene’s head, after he’d lost his own jacket playing in the creek behind the park, because he didn’t want him to get sick.

“I’m always going to protect you.”

The fact is Eugene has two brothers. Dissociative Identity Disorder.

if it’s Gabby it would be more about the consciousness slip, being faced with a trigger and what it feels like to lose the drivers seat from his perspective which is interesting! but.

but narratively, the story is more about Eugene and Gabe’s relationship, because that’s where the tension is, and i feel like it seeds more plot to establish that Eugene is wrong about how much awareness/control Gabe actually has?

also i feel like Gabby not worrying about what Gabe might do to Beth is either a Plot Hole or Plot Hint? Either way I need to address it 🤔 i feel like Gabe’s brushing her off as inconsequential beyond pressing Eugene’s buttons makes more sense than Gabby simply not caring, because he does care, he cares very much! It’s just the only person he’s ever been able to stop Gabe from hurting is Eugene…