EDIT: I figured this problem out on my own, and have included the answer below.
I have a variable in my main timeline called characterDismissed which is a Boolean. I also have a series of nested MovieClips (MovieClips within MovieClips) which look something like: Stage > Container > List > Buttons.
In the Buttons MovieObject at the bottom of the nest I'm trying to output characterDismissed's value just to see if it can see or modify it:
trace("characterDismissed is: " + characterDismissed);
This obviously doesn't work, and I understand why it doesn't work (because characterDismissed is not a variable in the Buttons ActionScript, but rather in the main timeline's ActionScript, so it has no concept of the characterDismissed variable yet.)
How would I go about making this variable accessible to the Buttons MovieClip in AS3? I've tried root.characterDismissed, parent.characterDismissed, this.parent.characterDismissed, even parent.parent.parent.characterDismissed, etc. These always give me some flavor of this error, however:
1119: Access of possibly undefined property characterDismissed through a reference with static type flash.display:DisplayObjectContainer.
I feel like I've been reading suggestions for handling this for days, but nothing is working, and with my understanding of AS3 being limited already, I don't have a proper grasp on the vocabulary to better research it past what I've already searched, or make sense of what typically ends up being a vague response on other forums, or for similar, but not-quite-right questions/answers.