#olive coded

Olive being intersex was a fundamental aspect of her character creation back in *july*!

here’s a onenote page with an early version of emma’s puberty talk in chapter 49 (you’ll also see snippets from chapter 32, when we first hear about olive, as well as cut lines). (sorry it’s blurry there’s a lot on the page)

i’ve highlighted the date (18th july) and a lil section at the bottom:

here’s that section up close

you can literally see the stream of consciousness happening

i knew olive was going to be a big character, so i made a lil character card thingy with some of the things i wanted to remember to include (mind that, in july, i was still writing titch’s back surgery scenes in hgmtt at this point).

obvs some things haven’t come across as much or have changed a bit, but some things to note here:

olive was originally going to be olive roberts, but i changed it so it wasn’t another name for a surname (thomson, dickson, davidson) — so instead, olive’s granny got that name.

[the redacted part is a person irl]

the line about going from zero to two dads went into chapter 33; the aries/firecracker line went into chapter 40 vertbatim!

So why am i saying all this?

basically, i have been sitting on this plot point for lit-er-ally EIGHT MONTHS and i’m very excited to finally share it.

BUT ALSO

i rly want to emphasise that olive being intersex wasn’t just thrown in randomly as an idea i had last week. her intersex identity has always been integral to her as a character. there are many groups who are not represented nearly enough in media, and intersex folks are one of them.

over the course of hgmtt and gtlwm, several people have commented on the way i approach tricky topics, such as mental health and abuse. i try to cover these things deliberately rather than for the shock value for a reader or ‘brownie points’ as a writer. i am not intersex myself, nor do i know any (openly) intersex people irl, but their stories (and existence) are still important and need to be heard.