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 Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2023 4:02 pm
Wolframite’s offer of condolences seemed only to make Hyde smile just a little. “I think I would prefer it if I did not remember them.” He said rather flippantly. “But I didn’t lose them either, I simply grew weary of the monotony of the everyday rut that I found myself in. Boundaries were pushed that I simply was not willing to tolerate. I wanted to begin again.”
He gestured at himself. “I suppose this is part of my new life. Even though this life is a secret one, it is more real to me than where I was before.”
He smirked, a little more interested, seeming to enjoy being able to speak frankly.
“You know.” He said. “I’ve been lying my entire life. From the moment I could speak, from the moment I could see myself as a living, thinking being, I have been lying. It’s quite novel to finally meet someone so far removed from conventional life that I can speak frankly.”
He turned and did a little flourishing bow, more playful than the stuffy way he had presented the rest of the time.
“It’s genuinely a pleasure to meet you Wolframite.”
He smiled broader, his teeth almost too perfect. “Ask me something else, and I will tell you the whole truth.”
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Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2023 6:03 pm
Leaving family. Pushed a boundary they weren't willing to relent on.
He swallowed, trying not to think of Hawa. Trying not to think of his own selfish stubbornness and going back on the life and promises he had made to his husband. Trying not to think of what he presented was a better life only to be the one to leave it to go right back to the Negaverse's doorstep. To stay he wasn't going to keep biting that same bone of that old grudge and let it - and instead turning around for old revenge.
I'm an awful, terrible, selfish person. I'll always be that b*****d who left.
"I hope your new life was worth it." He managed, voice a little small.
The bow was extravagant, even further than just a salute, and he stopped to stare for a moment. The smile said it was something to be fun, so he smiled back. He was playing around, but it didn't seem like a way to insult him.
Yet - he wasn't sure if it was a compliment. Apparently he was so far from a standard human life that he made Hyde comfortable, which felt like a good thing to have. He wanted Hyde to feel comfortable and that he could trust someone in the Negaverse, but that also meant that Wolframitewasn't doing much of a good job at being closer to humanity.
Did he do something wrong?
"Thank - you." He managed.
"I'm trying to be closer to humanity. It doesn't suit it well to not be able to connect and be closer to others I am working alongside. I wouldn't want to be alienated or make others feel uncomfortable. I am trying." He said, not wanting to put a damper on Hyde's compliment, but also wanting him to know he was trying to work another angle.
"I just don't have much to relate to when I haven't lived much as a normal person would."
As for the question, he frowned. "My question then is what wasn't the truth? Were you not telling me the truth before?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 4:52 am
“I hope it’s worth it too.” Hyde said. “We’ll see how this Negaverse thing pans out for me. It might end in success; it might end up with me simply dead somewhere.”
He inclined his head a little to Wolframite. “I think you are doing very well for someone who has lost your memories of being a civilian at all. It wasn’t meant as a slight in any way.”
His expression turned a little flatter but more serious. “I suppose I simply feel a sort of kinship with someone in your position. I might have all my memories; I might recall every facet of my life before this point in glorious technicolour. But the fact of the matter is that I do not feel human at all, and frankly never really have.”
He exhaled shallowly. “I have wrestled over the years with whether this situation is a boon or a burden. I am hardly touched by the emotions of others, by the winds of day-to-day life. I feel as distant from it all as those captives behind their crystal prisons. The lies are a shell, an act.”
“I have not actually lied to you yet. Which is frankly staggering for me.”
He smiled. “But if you took me for someone who is normal, someone who is human, then perhaps I have honed my act well. Since you have helped me so much, perhaps I can help you in turn to hone yours.”
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 6:40 am
He considered all of this. For some reason, Hyde was not one who felt connected to other people like many people were. Despite this, he seemed pleasant and didn't seem mean to other people right off the bat. If this was a mask, it was at least one that helped everyone work together with him. That's really all that mattered in the end sometimes, as being genuine could often just come off as being a d**k.
"I have met many rude officers who say they are just being honest about their feelings and opinions. I don't care what the opinions and attitudes are of someone if it makes them unwilling or unable to work alongside other officers. It becomes a death sentence to them if no one can stand being around them. If they pride themselves on being an a*****e in the name of authenticity, then maybe they could do well with being a bit of a liar from time to time. I think a lot of us have to do that."
"I have to lie plenty. I have moments where I'd rather not deal with people, where I have to lie about where I am from and my background, or where I have to pretend that I don't immensely enjoy killing animals compared to a more acceptable hobby like hiking. I have learned a little of what to say to make sure things don't go badly."
He considered The some more as they walked and what he said. "If that shell protects you, then that seems good to me. I don't really feel all that involved in the world outside of the Negaverse now, but I do know of I want to have a team and connect with my fellow officers, that I need to know what the world offers and have answers to questions I often have to lie about. I want to be able to connect best I am able in that way, or else I'd be alienated as just one of the many youma here. As some feral animal to take orders. I can't command respect if I lack humanity. I need the other side of that coin completed."
Laven had been helping him a lot and for that he could answer things like going to the movies, grocery shopping, and restaurants.
"Are you bothered by it? Not feeling connected to humanity?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 7:22 am
Hyde laughed. “Yes. Often the most empathetic people are some of the most horrible people you will ever meet. Stamping their feet and demanding that everyone else treat their emotional fluctuations with the same gravity that they do. Those of us in the shallower end of the empathy pool are far more capable of patience and tolerance.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “For whatever reason, lack of emotional regulation is often chalked up with humanity. You would think that it should be the opposite, that those who have transcended to a place higher than illogical fluctuations should be treated as superior.” He made a face. “But no. It is treated as alien and unwelcome. Untrustworthy. So you must pretend to feel as they do.”
He looked Wolframite over. “Not to say that you have shallow emotional effect, I imagine much of your alien impression comes from simple lack of experience. That is something readily addressed. Someone can be re-learned how to do the basics of everyday life, of what to say when small talk arises.”
He looked at the way ahead of them. “It’s much harder to know when to laugh.”
Wolframite’s question was given some consideration. “I am aware of it sometimes, but mostly as a sense of confusion. I will anticipate one form of behaviour and encounter another. It is unsettling. I imagine it’s not dissimilar to how you might feel when you encounter something you must have known once. You feel the void, you feel the absence and it rankles you.”
He clenched his hand a little.
“It makes me quite angry, I will admit. I do not always react as well as one should.”
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 11:05 am
"I'm not sure if it's a void. I feel - unarmed. I think of what I should have and what other people cherish. Memories of family, of growing up, and a list of firsts in their life. I'm unsettled to think I might have done things that I will never remember and with people who will never recognize me. I must be in some way a memory held by other people, and I am not sure if they are good or bad ones. I don't have as much of a frame of reference to myself as others have. I cannot recall if I was a awful person who encountered something to change me. I do not know if I had something I made promises and abandoned."
"But then I remember that I am dead to the world. I would be a missing person to those people. When I glamour into looking like a normal person, I do not know if that's how I actually looked. Even if it was, no one would recognize me even if I looked exactly as I had once looked. So is it really any point to mourn and crave something everyone has moved on without and I keep living without ever knowing?"
"Would I be better with knowing or would it only make things less clear for me to do my duties? It isn't stopping me from meeting people and experiencing things." He had no answer to these questions.
"I guess I wonder if I am missing out. If it will make me better by learning something about who I am at the core of my being. But then I remember my life in uniform since I was a teenager. I did not handle my relationships well even with what I can assume might have been a crush who's life I jeopardized. Then further on, I left my husband on the other side because of my pursuit for revenge. I came back here to the Negaverse after making an oath to them. I broke a lot of promises to what should have been the most important person in my life. Just on those memories alone, I do not think who I don't remember is a better person. I don't think many things justify it."
"I don't think knowing will be a good thing - to remember." It was something he had thought a lot about. At night he would look at the ceiling and consider a pattern. Being with someone and rising them up only to leave. What a filthy habit to tarnish things like promises and love like that. His human memories probably had even more reasons to show what his character really was.
"I am not a great character as a person. I am just a good soldier."
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 4:03 pm
Hyde listened to Wolframite's thoughts carefully, taking in each of his troubles. It sounded as if he'd lived several lifetimes, with trials at every single step. It was a lot of internal conflict, a fear of missing out.
"I think that it is noble that you feel so much loss and confusion over your past, it means that it meant something to you, it resonated with you, good or bad. That's something alive, it's something real. People don't always need to stay in the moment for it to matter."
He shrugged. "I'm not a great person either, by most metrics. I have children out there somewhere. I just.. Walked away."
He fiddled with the ring on his finger with nimble hands. "I get bored, and then I leave. Sometimes the mask grates on me, or the person grates on me. The result is the same, I move on alone."
"If I was you, I'd let it all go. It sounds like it is weighing you down. I'd just drop it all like dead weight. Even if you could go back, you wouldn't be the same person, so why bother? All good things in life lie ahead."
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 8:03 pm
"I suppose you are right. I can't just conjure up something that isn't there, and I wouldn't be able to make use of it even if I did remember. It's a long since dead now. I can't see any of those people and it's been many years. It would be crueler to even try and reconnect. Not that I even know how I would do that. It's not like I have a normal life. I'd just wind up lying to more people, but then have memories tied with it to make it even worse. I suppose I should see it all as a blessing. Ignorance with a slice of bliss."
He continued to walk with Hyde up the walk towards the Hallway of Shadows.
"Do you wish to not remember it all? All that you left behind. Your children. if you had the chance."
And, with a bit more concern. "Do you think you'd get bored of being a Negaverse officer?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2023 1:12 am
Hyde considered this. “I think that I would be fine with losing it all if the reward was significant enough. As it is, it is bound up with important lessons such as understanding human trust along with thoughts on comprehension of love and bonding. I have valuable memories there, of my own experiences and learning. ” He was aware that being so focused on one’s own experiences above all else wasn’t becoming, but he had no reason to lie to Wolframite at present. “It doesn’t cause me any pain to remember. Some might feel regrets or guilt, for me it is simply experiences that I had. If I have sentiment, it is purely for my own journey.”
He shook his head at the question about tiring of the Negaverse.
“I don’t tire of my profession. It is one of the few entertaining constants in my life. In the same vein I don’t see myself becoming tired of being a Negaverse officer. I may tire of some individuals along the way, but I don’t see this becoming a rut in quite the same way. There is freedom of a sort to it, like membership of a guild rather than a house that I am forced to live in.”
He gave Wolframite a nod.
“And don’t worry about me tiring of you either, you are incredibly and boundlessly interesting to me. I could see myself becoming quite the pest to you instead.”
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Posted: Thu Aug 24, 2023 7:04 pm
He smiled at him. "I welcome pests. It means your stubborn and persistent. Those are good qualities to have in a place like this." He said, looking up ahead as his tail swayed a little bit more than before.
"We're at the hallway. Stay close again."
Entering the corridor, he looked ahead as the figures rose up to silently scream at them.
"I hope we can be assets to each other from this point onward. If you ever need help coming back here for your own interest or research, I don't mind the walk. I'll point out my house to you when we get back to the other side. Do you know the ruins of the city outside of the castle? You can find me there if you are ever in a emergency, but otherwise you can call or contact me on the negaverse tablet."
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 3:32 am
"Good." he said, pleased, his eye momentarily drawn to Wolframite's tail as he waved it. Another thing he'd like to have a look at. As instructed, he stayed close, admiring the exquisite suffering one more time. "Deal." he said. "I will help you wherever I can and you can help me out. I'm not sure how well items travel from the human world to here, but I also have the funds that I could assist you in making spaces a little more comfortable."
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 6:54 pm
"You don't need to go through all that trouble but....I appreciate." It was hard to make money when you had a limited glamour to look like a normal person. The work in the Negaverse was more expected than actually paid.
They made it down the hallway and up some stairs before he paused to point out to the ruins of the city. "There. We're one of the few houses that have been renovated to be livable and comfortable. It's much better than having to live in the barracks for all our lives. Do knock or else Laven, my partner, might murder you." He warned with a smile.
"How about we go on a patrol together sometime?" He suggested to the other. "And whenever you want me to come to help you research youma, I can show up. I only have a few hours with my human glamour which means no one would be able to read my Negaverse signature, but it would also make my limbs and everything seem normal. I'm not sure how that would work to get accurate measures and readings for your research. But there is a Medical Bay here and the Negaverse does own the hospital which could allow you some room to have me seen." He said as way of suggestion.
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