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[conspiracytheory]

P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: eppy
OOC Journal: eppy
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: yes!
Email + IM: hangingoffthings@gmail.com / n/a
Characters Played at Ataraxion: robb stark, irene adler, hikaru sulu, derek hale, and jax teller.

C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: steven hyde
Canon: that 70’s show
Original or Alternate Universe: n/a
Canon Point: 5x19, bring it on home.
Number: 024

Setting:

that 70's show is set in the town of point place, wisconsin during the 1970's, obviously. there's no supernatural or extraterrestrial elements, despite hyde's theories to the contrary. point place is a small, relatively quiet town, and wasn't exempt to the influence of the movements happening within the seventies, such as the fallout from the vietnam war, nixon and the watergate scandal, marijuana and drug use, economic recession and the broadening of sexual horizons, all touched upon and played out within the background of various plots. the show is tailored exactly to life in the mid-to-late seventies, nothing out of the ordinary to be found.

general wiki.
hyde's page.

History:

we know little to nothing about hyde's upbringing and home life, apart from what hyde and the rest of the cast tells us ( always jokingly, so it's hard to say what is and isn't an exaggeration and what parts are truthful ) and brief glimpses during the earlier season. however, it's safe to say that hyde didn't have a very good childhood. he implies on several occasions that most of the men in his family were in and out of jail, and that he expected to follow that same pattern himself. his stepfather bud was an alcoholic and abandoned hyde's mother, edna when hyde was very young, though it wasn't actually revealed that bud was his stepfather until season six.

his mother, edna, appears several times in earlier seasons. though the relationship between her and her son is strained, with edna shown shouting at him from off-screen, or the two of them arguing during his career day visit. edna dated a lot, meaning hyde's youth was peppered with his mother's boyfriends "uncle chet, uncle larry and uncle hot tub johnny" as a sampling, with even hyde's friends cracking jokes about his mother's sex life. but in spite of all this, there's obvious affection between hyde and his mother, though the moments where it shows are few and far between.

hyde calls both his parents by their first names, a sharp contrast to the societal norm of the seventies and a sign of the fact that hyde doesn't hold either of them to or expect them to perform normal parenting roles. edna takes hyde out for beers and she gave him his first fake i.d., and it's implied more than once that edna herself doesn't fill the role of mother well, if at all, while bud never manages to take on the role of father satisfactorily. bud's absence and edna's lack of attention means that hyde's often free to do as he pleases, which means he spends as much time as he wants in the foreman's basement hanging out with eric and the gang. hyde and eric met when they were nine years old and have been friends ever since, and all of the hijinks and shenanigans the boys get into over the course of the season are either sparked or encouraged by hyde. for instance, when president ford comes to point place to speak, it's hyde who puts forth the idea to go streaking and encourages the group to do so, and it's hyde who also provides them with an excuse not to streak at all when he loses his nerve.

he spends most of the first season wrapped up in typical teenage escapades with eric, such as the time they all attempt to get a job, with hyde giving a dismal interview in which he rails against "the man" and generally promises to be a terrible employee. unsurprisingly, he isn't hired, though he isn't even a little upset over that. there's also the adventure of the keg the kids find on the side of the road while skipping class. they throw a party, or attempt to throw a party, though they don't manage to pull it off, as their tap breaks, and the party is busted by their parents while eric was attempting to find another one. it's also hyde who spurs the gang's efforts to vandalize the local water tower, even though that leads to kelso falling off and injuring himself before they complete the pot leaf they'd been painting.

hyde displays a budding crush on donna pinciotti in season one, which he keeps very quiet. it's only obvious in certain moments, like the instance in which the gang plans on going to a disco and hyde asks eric's mother to give him dance lessons so he can dance with donna, or buying her expensive perfume as a christmas gift. ultimately, she turns him down and becomes eric's girlfriend, and hyde takes that news well, staying friends with both of them and redirecting his desire to be close with donna into friendship rather than romance.

late in season one, edna skips town with a trucker, abandoning hyde entirely. and the thing about it is, it's very clear that edna's done things like this before and hyde expects her to show back up, and when he realizes she isn't coming back, he's very upset about it. he stays clear of romantic entanglements apart from two notable exceptions. he agrees to take jackie to the prom and is surprisingly sincere about it, giving her flowers and calling her beautiful without his usual sarcasm or disinterest. he dances with her, and when he sees how unhappy she is at her separation from kelso, he sets the two of them back up and takes kelso's date out to the car, leaving kelso and jackie free to be together. he has a brief fling with a punk rock chick named chrissie, who invites him to leave point place and come to new york to start a punk band. hyde is sorely tempted, but in the end the collective objections of his friends and red and kitty sway him, and he opts to stay in point place and in high school, and chrissie leaves without him.

though that turns out to maybe be a blessing in disguise, because when the foremans realize hyde is essentially living on his own and failing miserably at taking care of himself ( which is to be expected because despite hyde's proclamations that he doesn't need anyone to help him, he's still a sixteen year old who had never been entirely on his own ) red and kitty intervene and bring him into their home, where hyde slept on red's old army cot in the basement and was treated as a second son.

it's a total change for hyde, who was never doted upon the way kitty foreman dotes on him and eric, or had a father figure like red to order him around or hold him to specific standards. hyde's reaction to being taken in by them isn't to cast aside his ways entirely ( he doesn't stop drinking or smoking marijuana or toss off his delinquent habits ) but he does volunteer to do chores and help out where he can as a way of paying red and kitty back. hyde's grateful, even though he never says it in so many words.

moving in with eric doesn't slow down the teenage hijinks. in a way, it just makes it easier probably, since living with eric means hyde is always on hand, whether it's to witness family blow-ups when eric's older sister comes home from thanksgiving with the professor she's dating in exchange for good grades, or red losing his job at the plant and dealing with unemployment and searching for a new job. realizing money is tight, hyde decides to get a job at the photo-developing hut and gives the money to red and kitty to help with bills. this is also the moment where leo the aging hippie is introduced, who becomes not only hyde's marijuana supplier, but a weird mix of father figure and good friend.

hyde stays notably single through the season, with brief flings and dates. in the aftermath of his crush with donna no entanglement rises up, though after jackie breaks up with kelso she develops a crush on him. hyde treats it as annoyance and brushes her off continually, which pushes jackie to take more extreme measures to get his attention. she buys a bag of marijuana from her housekeeper, though when she flashes that at hyde they argue about it, with hyde reiterating that they don't have anything in common. their argument is interrupted by a cop, he sees the bag, and instead of letting jackie get arrested, hyde takes the fall. he's handcuffed and arrested for possession, while jackie looks on.

this turns into a trainwreck pretty damn fast. red is furious, and he threatens to kick hyde out of the house, thinking that hyde was bringing marijuana into his house. it's not until donna forces jackie to explain what happened that red relents. which would have been fine, except eric blurts out that they've all smoked and therefore red can't throw hyde out. there's a short reign of terror in which red installs smoke alarms, grounds everyone, and looms over their lives to keep them from smoking, until kitty puts her foot down and restores order.

it's business as usual for a short period, until hyde's stepfather bud shows back up on the scene. the boys bump into him in a bar, where bud had been working for a year without contacting his son. hyde is predictably furious, and despite having played off his father's absence before, he rattles off the exact amount of time bud's been mia, a total of eight years and fifty-one days, about half hyde's life at that point. though initially hostile, after his step-father makes the effort to come to the foreman house and attempt to reconnect with his son, hyde relents and moves in with him. red is obviously worried about this course of action, but he doesn't stop hyde, not after hyde says that it's his father, so he has to take a chance on him. it's notably the first time hyde sincerely refers to bud as his father.

the usual misadventures follow, with the gang's foray into rollerdisco and the mystery of the strange pair of panties donna discovers in eric's room, but nothing of note happens to hyde in this interlude apart from the memorial day barbecue, where jackie shows up with a date intending to make hyde jealous. hyde is indifferent to jackie's date, until he tells hyde frankly that he doesn't like jackie and he's only with her to nail her. hyde cautions him against this, stating that jackie's young and she's only had one boyfriend, and when the dude shrugs and calls her a bitch, hyde punches him right in the mouth. jackie is thrilled, and hyde, resigned, asks her out on their first date. it's not the earth-shattering experience jackie imagined, and she and hyde part on good terms, though this is the first moment hyde realizes he actually likes spending time with her.

hyde's living situation doesn't come up again until christmas, when bud lets hyde throw a party in their apartment, which gets out of hand quickly. it's obvious from the way bud reacts that he isn't much for parenting, just like edna wasn't, and he's treating hyde as more of a roommate than a son. furious, red lectures bud and tells him to get his act together, reminding him that hyde is his son, not his buddy, and bud makes an attempt to clean up his act and be stricter, much to hyde's dismay.

this doesn't stop hyde from continuing to be the bad influence in the group, or joining kelso in his hunt for ufos or the gang's attempt at pulling off a dine-and-dash. he also inherits a car from leo, who gives it to hyde because he's "family, man, he's the son i never had," much to kelso's chagrin as he'd wanted to buy the car from leo. hyde also intervenes in fez's first relationship with a girl who is way, way too into fez for anyone's good, urging fez to break up with her when he realizes the situation is close to blowing up in fez's face. the guys also take a trip up to canada to smuggle back beer, though they lose the beer when stopped by the mounties and have to submit to questioning about fez, who momentarily lost his green card.

there's a combined effort between kitty, fez and jackie to find hyde a girlfriend. it's not quite a success, because the night doesn't end with hyde landing a girl, but fez begins his sweeping romance with big rhonda, so the night isn't a total loss. there's a marked attraction to a friend of donna's from her job, and hyde makes plans to take her out, but she is literally never mentioned again, so apparently that went nowhere. or hyde failed to perform the appropriate boyfriendly duties, as we see in season five, and donna's friend decided ain't nobody got time for that.

just after this it's revealed that hyde has been living in the foreman's basement again. initially, he refuses to talk about the reason why he's moved back in with the foremans at all, claiming his father was transferred and then flatly saying he doesn't want to talk about it anymore. after spending a good amount of time dodging the question, he explains that his parents reconciled, and skipped town without telling him where they were going or when they were getting back. he brushes off eric's attempt at sympathy, smacks him in the face with a pillow, and settles back into his life in the foreman residence seamlessly.

then jill happens. it's the first girl that hyde inflicts on his friends, though he spends the entire time making out with her. it's indicative of most of hyde's relationships up until this point, as hyde has often suggested that he's had casual sex before, and he and jill are extremely physical, to the exclusion of everything else, and finds an extremely petty reason to break up with her while simultaneously swindling eric out of twenty bucks.

the gang puts on a christmas pagent and humiliates eric by tricking him into thinking he isn't related to his cousin and attends the school prom, where a tornado strikes and he smokes up coach ferguson while raiding his confiscated items bin. he also engages in a highly ill advised prank war with red, which ultimately ends with kitty tricking them all and peacing out with a wicked burn like the badass she absolutely is.

hyde turns eighteen, which is a big deal for a few reasons. he'd always assumed he was going to move out when he turned eighteen, as has been the fashion for the men in his family. while kitty and the others plan a party, hyde attempts to dissuade them repeatedly saying he doesn't want a party at all. in the end, kitty throws a party that hyde doesn't attend, not until red comes to get him. it's one of the few heart to hearts they have, in which red tells him flat out that hyde doesn't have to leave and follow in the footsteps of the rest of his family. he says that hyde is living with them so he doesn't end up that way, and at that point hyde relents, and lets red take him over to the party.

various ridiculous hijinks continue, the result of which ends in donna and kelso running away to california. when eric goes to get them, hyde grows a magnificent beard, and he and jackie get together soon after, and start what turns into an actual relationship, much to both their surprise. they're caught in the act by donna and eric when they return from california, and they demand hyde tell kelso. in the time it takes to actually tell kelso, literally everyone else figures it out. kelso doesn't take the news well, even though he and jackie had broken up already due to kelso's habit of cheating on her. he ends up shooting hyde with a bb gun, an event that hyde takes great delight in taunting him about.

hyde and jackie sort of slide into a relationship over the course of season five, which is a big deal for hyde, who has never stuck with a girl this long before. while at first he insists they are only fooling around and he's a free agent, he isn't able to bring himself to make out with co-eds while visiting the state university with eric, kelso and fez, and is irritated at the thought of jackie hooking up with someone else. he starts calling her his girlfriend, and it's a slow process, but he starts making changes for her. they argue and squabble, but hyde shaves off his beard to make her happy when her father goes to prison. she's as important a part of his life as the foremans, as she and hyde change for each other, and they both make each other better people. hyde begins opening up, and he goes out of his way to take care of her overtly, in a way he hasn't done before, since most of his attempts at affection were all stealthy as fuck.

sat time comes and goes, and though hyde repeatedly says he isn't college material, he scores a 900 hundred on the sats and lets the foremans take him along on a college visit. he shows up to the dinner party kitty threw for fex and his new girlfriend nina, which jacke is ecstatic about. it's really one step forward, two steps back with them, since shortly after hyde, kelso and fez sneak up to jackie's family ski cabin, unaware she is coming to clean it out for forclosure, and it leads to a fight between them, jackie accusing hyde of not being there for her, and hyde snapping back that he doesn't know how to do that when she won't tell him what she wants. the fight is resolved in the end when red, uncovering a hidden bag of pot due to kelso's fuckery, assumes it belongs to hyde and tells him to move out. but before the situation can escalate, jackie takes the blame for it, telling hyde that it's what people do for the people they care about. gestures like that go a long way, and it diffuses the situation.

or it does, until the girl kelso was hooking up with in california shows up. jackie hates annette on sight, and hyde doesn't like that, suspecting she still has feelings for kelso. he's almost dismissed the notion when jackie mistakenly yells at annette to get off her boyfriend while she's sitting on kelso's lap, and hyde takes it extremely badly. he breaks up with her, telling her he's finished. jackie yells at him that it's a waste because she loves him, and though he refuses to say it back to her, hyde pulls her into his arms and they rekindle their relationship. it's not quite the end of the issues with kelso, as he continues to try to woo jackie away from hyde, giving her an expensive birthday gift that pisses hyde off and he makes jackie give it back.

it's also during this period that leo leaves town. hyde is upset by this, as he and leo were very close, though once he finds a parting note and a giant stash of weed leo left for him, the pain of his departure is soothed. leo is notably the first parental figure hyde had who has left town and told hyde exactly where he was going and said goodbye to him. in the aftermath, jackie pushes hyde into attending the job fair, where he actually comes away with a job offered to him in a hotel kitchen. gainful employment, it's a big step forward.

as jackie's mother hasn't returned, hyde offers her space in his bed in the foremans basement. and that's where he's going to be pulled from. one minute, in bed with his girlfriend. the next, waking up in blue goop. just what everyone wants in their morning, though it might be preferable to red's yelling tbfh.

Personality:

the thing about hyde is that his character was made to embody a very specific aspect of seventies culture, but that's not all that he is. hyde was meant to represent the part of american culture that held a healthy suspicion of the government and believed heartily in conspiracy theories. and maybe on another show, he would have been reduced to just that and that alone, but on this show, that's just one part of his character, and it's complimented by a wealth of other facets.

the effects of his childhood and upbringing have an overwhelming influence on him, from his introduction in season one to his current pullpoint, though it's only in season five that hyde begins actually acknowledging the fact that the way he was raised has left him lacking when it comes to specific situations, namely connecting emotionally and allowing himself to be vulnerable, admit that he does need and want things from the people around him.

there's a very, very blatant front that hyde cultivates and maintains, that of the cool, aloof tough guy, and he doesn't drop it very often. the most noticeable outward sign of this is hyde's sunglasses, which he is scarcely ever seen without. when hyde does remove those sunglasses for the sake of conversation, it's almost always when he's dropped his walls and is making a sincere attempt to overcome his own hang ups and connect with someone.

considering the fact that his mother was negligent, and it's implied that she often left hyde along for long stretches of time, it's not surprising that hyde puts a lot of emphasis on being able to handle himself, and to provide for himself without assistance. it's something he's been doing one way or another since he was quite young, and by the time he's a teenager it's ingrained habit. within their group of friends, hyde is consistently the one that people go to for advice, whether it's advice about romantic relationships or about how best to engage in various activities of dubious legality.

he has a real tendency to bottle things up, especially things that upset him. "you have a problem, hold it in man!" is his direct advice at once point, when tired of hearing eric complain. hyde isn't much for discussion of feelings, often mocking people's attempts at getting him to open up. hyde internalizes the things that bother him, or rather, he bottles up the things that upset or sadden him. anger is something he doesn't have much problem venting, thought it's always on his own terms, whether it's by punching someone or by yelling at them or simply by mocking them, hyde doesn't have a problem letting people know when he's pissed off. what he struggles with are things like comfort, both offering and accepting it, or disappointment and abandonment. hyde would rather swallow all of that rather than let people know something's gotten to him, frequently falling back on the words "i'm fine" at increasing volume when pushed.

overt displays of pity or comfort aren't really a thing with hyde. "for a guy who's been orphaned twice, you really lack compassion," eric complains at one point, and he's partially right. hyde doesn't lack compassion, but he lacks the appropriate ways to show it. as he tells jackie at one point, that's never something his family did, so he doesn't know what's expected of him in highly emotional situations, so he often falls back on sarcastic comments or jokes in hopes of breaking the tension. gestures are how hyde actually shows his concern for the people around him, like shaving off his beard to cheer up jackie or giving the money from his job to the foremans to help with the bills. hyde does care, but he struggles with actually showing that.

contrarily to his reputation as a troublemaker and delinquent, hyde has a very strong set of convictions. he likes what he likes and he believes what he believes, and he doesn't back down from that. though some of his beliefs tend toward the more fantastic and unfounded, ie his many rants about government conspiracies and cars that run on water, he also has strong beliefs about religion and about what is and isn't the right thing to do. his moral center is sound where it matters, and he's extremely loyal to his friends, even if he doesn't hesitate to mock them when the situation arises. hyde calls himself a scumbag, but it's not totally true once your scratch the surface.

hyde is very vocal in his dislike of institutions in general and school in specific, but he's naturally intelligent. it's noted several times throughout the series that hyde has "potential" but hyde himself chooses to channel that potential into other venues. he doesn't like school, so he doesn't waste his time there. it's implied that he's done extensive research on various religions, and he has a wide knowledge of music, as well as other less legitimate activities, such as ducking the cops or how to get a hold of beer while underage. and hyde's pretty proud of everything he knows, even if he won't allow anyone to call him on his actual intelligence.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

hyde is a squishy human with no exceptional powers or abilities beyond that. he is shown at various points during the series to be exceptional at thinking on his feet, though that ability is mostly focused towards lying to eric's parents or wriggling his way out of trouble. he's proactive, preferring to take action rather than sit around waffling over plans, and he has a healthy disregard for authority, even if that manifests as being the first one to run from the cops rather than wait to be arrested. hyde also has a very strong moral code. said code might be off center and unlike the norm, but he holds very strongly to his beliefs even when they bring him into direct conflict with others.

so basically, nothing that will help him in a fight with manticores, but he might be able to fend for himself well enough when thrown a communicator and made to talk to other people.

Inventory:

- ( 12 ) t-shirts from assorted bands/concerts
- ( 2 ) pairs of jeans
- ( 2 ) pairs of corderoy pants
- ( 1 ) pair of aviator sunglasses
- ( 1 ) thick canvas barn jacket
- ( 3 ) button up long sleeve shirts in varying patterns
- ( 1 ) wallet, containing a fake id given to him by edna
- ( 3 ) vests, assorted colors and material
- ( 1 ) pair of boots
- ( 1 ) denim jacket
- ( 1 ) pair of stud earrings
- ( 1 ) twelve-pack of cheap beer
- ( 1 ) cheap suit of silver armor
- ( 1 ) handwritten goodbye note from leo
- ( 1 ) collection of vinyl records from various bands
- ( 1 ) led zeppelin t-shirt, given to jackie burkhart for her seventeenth birthday
- ( 1 ) rolled up brown paper bag containing three ounces of weed

Appearance:

hyde is portrayed by danny masterson.

Age:

as of season five, hyde is eighteen years old. canon birthdays and years, woo!

AU Clarification:

nope!

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:

so hyde's a smart guy. he's got theories. and he knew this was happening, he knew the government was running human experiments. he spends a lot of time scratching at the tattoo because it can't be real, it can't be a brand, but it doesn't come off. which is fine. it's fine, because now he so has proof when he gets home and no one believes him.

foreman's face is going to be priceless. that's what hyde tells himself when he picks himself up off the floor. he's going to be so jealous hyde's--

somewhere. hyde hasn't figured that part out yet. one step at a time, that's the plan here. figure out where he is, figure out what they're doing to him. and then he's going to figure out how to break out of here and hitchhike home.

he knows all about prison breaks. bud tried one a while back, and edna swore he'd have made it if he hadn't dropped the file out the window.

getting hold of a file might be a problem. for a split second, hyde thinks about that, about not being able to get out, but he'd figure it out. he's street smart, he's capable, they can't hold him here forever on their floating space station of death.

his hair is sticking up in a billion directions, but that's not important. he grabs the little device in the bottom of the locker, under the records and pile of t-shirts, and starts shaking it. fuck their experiments. he was going to get out of here and blow this conspiracy wide open.

yeah. that's the plan. failure isn't going to happen, not on his watch. nothing is more important than getting home and exposing government conspiracy.

or just getting home. yeah, he'd settle for that.

Comms Sample:

I knew it.

[ hyde's got his sunglasses on, but even those don't conceal the suspicious squint he's sporting. when he speaks the tone is all excitement, words tumbling out in a rush. ]

This is a government experiment, isn't it? I knew it, I knew these existed, and no one ever believed it! I knew NASA was a front, exploration my ass, they're using space just for this shit, aren't they? Did you stick a tracking device up my ass when you tattooed me, huh? Huh?

[ there's a pause, the first stirrings of uncertainty, maybe fear. ]

Hey, who's in charge here? Is this transmitting? Hello? Hey, answer me, government stooges, why even give me this thing if you're not gonna answer me?