savetheearth | 07

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07 | Audio

Hey. Has anyone remembered something where you've seen yourself? I don't mean seeing your reflection or anything like that, I've done that before, but I saw myself standing there off to one side while I was doing something else. He had my face and everything.

[There's something Hajime's not saying there. He remembers being an angry and wounded and defeated bug monster, and as he got sucked into that cramped prison, he was raging at the human who was responsible…the one with his face. Filled with rage and consumed with the disbelief that he had lost to such a weak creature.]

It feels like it should be one of those weird metaphorical symbolic dreams or something, only I know it's not. The memory's too real to be a dream, it feels like the other memories I have, and everything else about it is pretty much in line with what I've been remembering except for seeing myself there like that…

[He trails off in a bit of uncertainty. Nothing about that memory makes sense.]

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Did he look right at you?

[This is important, considering Toni's ~other self~ looked right at her.]

Yeah. And he looked like the happiest guy in the world even though I was anything but.

Is it possible that it is not you, but simply someone else with your appearance?

Maybe. I was rather angry with him.

[There's a bit of a pause before he decides his bugdom is public knowledge enough to say what he's going to say next.]

I was in my insect form when it happened, so anything's possible, I suppose.

Insect form? You may have to clarify that for me.

I've recently been turning into a giant insect. I'm that way in several of the memories I have as well.

So it's likely not you at all, but rather a doppelganger.

Or a twin?

A twin would mean family. I don't think that was the case.

And I only know him as having my face now, outside that memory. The me in that memory wasn't angry with him for that reason. It's weird.

A doppelganger then is the closest I can come up with. Or someone with a far deeper connection to you than you know right now.

Perhaps you are two halves of a whole?

I'm not sure what to think, but that's the only thing that seems to describe this feeling.

If I were half of something, I'd have to wonder where the other half is. Can't say I like the idea.

[It takes her a few hours to reply because someone's just gotten a couple of echoes out of this.]

If you were not two halves of a whole, then the other person (for lack of a better term) is a Shadow, perhaps.

A Shadow? I'm guessing from the capitalization there you're not talking about regular garden variety shadows.

In psychology, particularly that of Carl Jung's analytical psychology, the term Shadow is coined as the unconscious; that is to say, the repressed, suppressed or unknown qualities of a person's psyche. Not necessarily the hidden evils, simply hidden facets of one's personality that they likely don't even know about.

It's also likely that this person with your face is a physical manifestation of your Shadow.

[There's a bit of a delay in the reply as Hajime works a few things out in his head. The memories he had of fighting other monsters, the confusion his other self had at something as simple as the concept of family, the way his other self had wanted to cling to a human form...and then everything Bakura was telling him about monsters that were manifestations of people's souls...]

Physical manifestation of the psyche?

Would it be possible for something like that to take the shape of a roach monster?

[He is sadly pretty sure he can make an accurate guess at this answer.]

A Shadow's appearance is said to be based upon the person, though Jung makes no mention of them actually capable of taking on physical manifestations outside of the individual's mind. Thus, an actual physical manifestation would likely require something a little more supernatural.

Though you would not have been the first one to encounter your Shadow in the physical realm.

You remember such physical manifestations, then?

Yes. My Shadow had looked like myself when I had been younger. There had been marked differences though, but it was undeniably mine.

[There's another delay as Hajime tries to figure out how he wants to answer this, how to address the issue he's noticing here.]

If this is what was going on in my memory, I think I may have been the one who was the Shadow.

He was human. I was not.

[Well, it's not like he's been making much of an effort of keeping "hey, I'm a giant bug" secret otherwise.]

Would that change your perception of your past self?

Not really.

It might explain why he was so poorly behaved in most of what I remember.

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07 | Audio

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