002. text // i say it is, then it's true

[manufactured]

This is another of those questions in which I'm not explicitly asking for details, if you don't care to share them; I've simply found that shouting into a void is useful, if not a productive use of my time. But now that the matter of our souls has been brought into question, I suppose this feels more relevant than it would normally.

As time goes on and you have more and more memories forcibly shoved into your head, do you find yourself having difficulty keeping your thoughts and reactions separate from those of the person whose memories you're recalling? Or to put it a different way, do you ever feel the lines blurring – do you understand things that you previously thought you never would, or do you find yourself relating to things that you suspect you shouldn't?

And if so, has that sort of shift in perception changed what you believe you deserve?

Comments

[thesettingsun]

Since you didn't know whether or not you had kids, was it a cheating problem?

[manufactured]

Not at all, actually. The relationship was entirely positive, up to that point.

It was more a matter of one of us wanting to keep the pregnancy, while the other did not.

[thesettingsun]

That's actually a really normal argument for a couple to have? If this is on the list of reasons your past self was weird, it probably shouldn't be.

[manufactured]

Honestly, it was almost a relief to remember it, if for no better reason than it implied that I was capable of normal relationships in the first place.

tw: suicide references and shuji's black humor

[thesettingsun]

I think I felt something like that the first time I got a memory of hanging out with an actual friend. Or I guess the women in a couple of my other memories might have been my friends, but I can't really consider those memories relieving. Or 'hanging out'.

[...Well, maybe if they'd tried a different method of dying it'd be hanging out.]

...for what it's worth that is exactly my sort of black humor, so

[manufactured]

...I've had a few memories involving friends. None of them were particularly kind memories either, for what it's worth.

[...One of those friends was Birkin.]

oh good, I wasn't sure but the joke was there

[thesettingsun]

So far 'people who clearly barely knew I existed', 'people who I was terrified of', and 'people who I obviously didn't like but sucked up to anyway' are all beating 'people who I was genuinely friends with' for number of memories.

I don't think past me was good with people.

[manufactured]

...Likewise, albeit with different recurring themes.

[thesettingsun]

We're part of a very exclusive club of people whose past lives had a couple issues.

[manufactured]

It's not the best club to be in, admittedly, though I suppose it's better than being the only one. As gauche though that is to put words to.

[thesettingsun]

I get you. It's easier when you have somebody to commiserate with than if you were the only person whose past self was a douche.

[manufactured]

Absolutely. Though it's hardly the sort of thing that one should wish on others in the first place, rendering the whole thing more than slightly awkward.

[thesettingsun]

That's the downside of wanting someone to be in solidarity with. Luckily I'm pretty sure past me has been dead since long before either of us were around, so nothing you wished or didn't wish mattered there.

cw: suicide reference

[manufactured]

...I'm fairly sure that mine did something knowing full well that it would probably kill him. Either that or he was arrogant enough to believe that he wouldn't die to it; it's difficult to say, as the memory didn't last long enough for me to get a read on the situation.

Neither would surprise me at this point.

cw: suicide reference

[thesettingsun]

Whichever one it was, I'm sorry to hear that.

Past me had an attempted double suicide that he survived, and the person he was attempting it with didn't. I think he considered surviving to be betraying her.

cw: suicide reference

[manufactured]

...I can't even begin to imagine. You have my condolences, though I'm not sure if that's the phrasing I'm looking for, exactly. Hopefully you get the idea, however.

[...]

It was a virus, in my case. Something that he deliberately infected himself with. I'm still not certain why; he knew it had an extremely high mortality rate.

[thesettingsun]

I get you. Thanks anyway.

Maybe it's one of those viruses where 99% of the time you die but 1% of the time you get cool superpowers?

[manufactured]

...I don't think that was exactly it. It was designed to do something, but I don't know if powers were involved.

[thesettingsun]

Mad science isn't my thing, so that's the best guess I've got, sorry.

[manufactured]

No, it makes about as much sense as mad science is capable of making. I just know what this particular virus was supposed to do to most people it came in contact with; if powers were involved for those that remain, I'm not aware of it, though apparently the survival rate was intended to be far lower than 1%.

[thesettingsun]

I have the strangest feeling that Past Wesker didn't like people much.

[manufactured]

It would certainly seem not, at any rate.

[thesettingsun]

Do you have any idea if any of your other memories happened after that one?

[manufactured]

They don't seem to.

That doesn't mean that none exist, but it doesn't seem particularly promising, either.

[thesettingsun]

On the bright side, if that was your past memory, we can say that Past Wesker died as he lived: doing extremely questionable things with science.