#loss of self

[fourphoenixfeathers]

[Warning: violence, loss of self, dehumanization]

Fight. Bleed. Ignore the noise. Kill. Survive. Stay out of the fog. The fog makes it worse.

The fiend trembles with pain and rage. Bodies fall, only to flake away into purple dust that burns its eyes and eats its mind.

Don't look up. Don’t look at the void. The void looks back and sees it and is all around it and is inside it.

Its rage overflows and it burns like a blood-colored flame. It rains destruction on the simulated horde, crystalized hatred and agony pouring from the arm that doesn’t belong to it.

It might be screaming. It can't hear over the noise in its head.

The fighting stops. The red bleeds out of its vision. For a moment, it is empty and quiet and still.

Then the orb beeps and fighting starts again.

The ally is back. Freight. The fiend doesn’t have a name, but it feels right that she does. It doesn’t remember what Freight means. The jellyfish doesn’t mind. The name stuck.

She watches it fight from outside the bubble. She lingers in the fog, wrapping toxic tentacles around enemies too far for it to reach. She knows it hates to chase them out into the poisonous air. The orb accepts her kills as the fiend’s.

Pause. Follow the orb. Heal.

It goes to activate the orb again. It cannot stop it cannot stay still it must keep going. It doesn't remember why.

Freight pulls it back. Stop fighting. Rest. It squirms in her hold. Its head rings and pressure builds and its claws glow with unreleased energy.

She wraps a cool limb around its head and drapes another over its shoulders. The noise stops and the rage drains out and it can breathe. It is quiet. There is nothing alive in the simulacrum except for the fiend and Freight.

And then there is sound. Not from it. Not from the ally. Not from the orb. Somewhere else. It stands and looks out across the simulated plain. Green light cuts through the abyss, lightning arcing into the sky from a distant battle.

It stands. This is the first time it has seen anything like this. It needs to know. It brushes Freight's arms away and she follows as it throws itself into the fog.

Outside of protection, the void digs into it. It burns all the way to its heart where poison has wormed inside over days, months, years of exposure. It wrestles with the pain, forcing the corruption in reverse, healing the damage it caused. It rails against the injustice of the thing that has twisted him beyond recognition, invaded his body and mind and soul. It has become a part of him, it cannot hold him back anymore.

Freight warbles behind him as he nears his destination. A safe zone. There is another safe zone. The circle is filled with strange wriggling things that call to him. Some kind of distant familiarity. He has seen them before.

The moment of clarity is broken by the roar of a great beast. The fiend turns away from the circle and fights. It's sloppy. It can't focus on healing and battle at the same time. Freight covers his weakness, tearing apart anything that comes close with the ferocity that evades it now.

It doesn't realize when the battle is over. A voice is yelling. It has been outside for too long. Every inch of it burns. It hisses through its teeth and turns back to safety.

"Stay back."

The figure in the circle stops it dead. The source of the green light. The familiar voice. The cannons on the person's back are raised and ready to fire. It does not care. This person is not a threat.

"Maglev. Discharge."

The figure points at one of the eels drifting in lazy circles around the safe zone. The creature does not heed the order. The fiend does not move, save for its incessant trembling.

"What are you?"

It tilts its head. It was someone, once. It was someone to this man. This man is someone to it.

Who did it used to be? Who is he? He can't remember. He taps his claws on his helmet, the rhythmic sound ringing in the crack that exposed his only remaining eye to the air. For a moment, it drowns out the buzzing in his head. It is enough.

"Emmmmettt," he croaks. It's the only thing he's ever said outside of Freight's name. His voice is quiet and harsh like the death rattles of the countless creatures he has killed. The fog threatens to steal the word away from him, just as it has stolen everything else. It fails.

Emmet falters. His weapons fall back to standby and he rushes forward, dragging the fiend into the bubble. The relief is so powerful, he shudders as they cross the threshold.

"Ingo? Ingo is it really you? I can't-" Emmet babbles and holds him in his arms.

Ingo. He is not Ingo. He is Ingo. He doesn't know. Emmet decides for him.

"Have you been here this whole time?"

He doesn't understand, but he nods. He manages to whisper something that sounds vaguely like "always".

Emmet is crying. Ingo-Not-Ingo brings his left hand up and rests it on Emmet's helmet. He feels like there shouldn't be anything in the way. He should be able to touch him. But he is grateful for the barrier. His claws leave shallow scratches on the hard surface.

Emmet puts a hand over his. It's cool to the touch.

"I am Emmet. I found you. I am going to get you out."

He doesn’t know what “out” is, but he feels something when he hears the words, the conviction in Emmet's voice. For the first time since he can remember, he feels hope.

[Art by @raynavan] [First] [Previous] [Next]

#submas #risk of rain 2 #ror2 #ror2 void fiend #ingo #emmet #violence #dehumanization #loss of self #HOO BOY #i woke up this morning and chose violence #happy ending i promise #<- not a lie thats not my style #reunion #rae writes

[twenty-first-century-ki-laila]

Do you think we'll ever be the same?

Part I: ignorant bliss

It comes in to me when the world is twinkling with moon dust. The sirens call for the sailors, and death searches for the eroding souls. Coffins are prepared, and lovers are mourned. When the graveyard shift is over but the golden hue is still nowhere to be seen. I walk alone those nights. To find him somewhere where we won't be forgotten.

Part II: agony of the wretched

We bleach the bones in your basement. Foul stench corrupts us. Or is it just you, who is the devil? I walk through the infinite door, I think I'm lost in the macabre prison of death. Just leave it, just let me be. But you never listened to me in the first place. Do you really sob, are you really hurt? I'd never know.

Part III: Demian

Do you still think it's a loss? That I'm not me anymore? That my soul has lost its sweetness? That I'm not a wreckless fool? I wonder what you really mourn. The loss of my freshly drizzled youth or the loss of my acquiescent innocence? Do you really mourn me, or do you mourn the loss of the power you had?

-Afreen

Childhood, where ignorance flourishes and the real world is kept at bay. Transition, when you are adaptable, malleable, and looking for a change with no prior sense of consequences. Adulthood, when life really dawns at you and everyone mourns the loss of your tender submissiveness.

Preservation of youth is a fraudulent scheme imposed by the people who couldn't control us.

#desi tumblr #desiblr #desi tag #writers on tumblr #poem #poems on tumblr #poetry #poetscommunity #coming of age #max demian #hermann hesse #loss of innocence #loss of self #please read this #i really like how this turned out #spilled ink

[howifeltabouthim]

Months passed and I grew less and less human, but in a wondrous way. At least it was wondrous to me.

Lisa Taddeo, from Animal

#transformation #inhuman #losing your humanity #wondrous #identity #loss of self #change #quotes #lit #words #excerpts #quote #literature #description #characterization #lisa taddeo #animal

[whumpster-dumpster]

“I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

“...Neither do I.”

#whump #whump prompt #writing prompt #dialogue prompt #angst #loss #loss of self #identity

[silliestcreature196]

Parts 1 through 3 of a loosely-fitting mechanization sequence. First real foray into THIS extreme level of cybernetic augmentation. Part 4 may be the final piece, I don't know. Pronouns Distinction: Part 1 - She/Her Part 2 - They Them Part 3 - It/Its

#art #artists on tumblr #drawing #digital art #transformation #transformation art #tf art #cyber tf #cyber art #mechanization #cyborg oc #cyborg tf #body horror #robot transformation #dehumanization #identity loss #humanity loss #loss of self #identity death

[melancholy-in-andante]

Whittling Away

I've many flaws and facets

Filthy depths I've yet to dredge

I'll cut until you love me

Or until my blades lose edge

Why stop at things like vanity?

What else is fit to rend?

I'll cut until you love me

Or I meet a gruesome end

No matter what you ask of me

No matter what's at stake

I'll cut until you love me

Or until my scissors break

If you ask of me an altar, red

I needn't ponder why

I'll cut until you love me

Or until my wounds run dry

No need to chase reflections

I'll just hate the things I see

I'll cut until you love me

Or there's nothing left of me

In acts that mutilate the self

I'm beyond and far above

I'll cut until you love me

Or there's nothing left to love

#self destructive tendencies #self harm #religious themes #loss of self #poetry

[luxshine]

Chapters: 6/? Fandom: ఎవడు | Yevadu (2014), Oosaravelli, RRR (2022) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Sathya (Yevadu)/Tony (Oosaravelli), Charan (Yevadu)/Tony (Oosaravelli) Characters: Sathya (Yevadu), Tony (Oosaravelli), Charan (Yevadu) Additional Tags: Body Horror, loss of self, Reincarnation, Possession, Suicidal Thoughts, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death Summary:

Two men on the brink of death at the same time, in the same place. One wants to live, the other one wants to die.

Fate has decided that only one of them can survive, and which one will survive, but science has other ideas.

One body, two souls.

Who will be the real survivor?

#Yevadu #Oosaravelli #Crossover #RRR #RRR adjacents #Sathya/Tony #Charan/Tony #Ram/Tony #Body Horror #Loss of Self #Reincarnation #Possession #Suicidal Thoughts #Canon-Typical violence #Canonical Character Death #Sort of Fix-it

[arachnixe]

The New Me

The water churns with the thrashing bodies of countless swimming parasites. It's hard to get a good look at them like this. All I can pick out is a handful of individual details—tendrils, rows of tiny teeth, beady eyes.

I have to put my arm in there and let one choose me.

I hesitate. Who wouldn't?

"All I have to do is let one of these latch on, and I'll be able to fight like you do?"

"It is more than that," the woman to my right tells me. "It is a sacrifice. To be a host to one of our young is a lifelong commitment."

She's slight of stature, but just the other day I watched her punch through a brick wall, masonry crumbling like loose gravel. With her human arm, too. Not even the one claimed up to the shoulder by her own, fully-grown parasite.

That arm is...grotesque. Inhuman. A mass of flesh with too many rows of pointed knuckles and elbows, throbbing muscles flexing in the wrong places, with skin that glistens as if perpetually moist. It's all I can do not to vomit when I look at it for too long.

If I accept the terms, that will, eventually, be my fate. Not even fully human anymore, but partially alien. But I'm tired of being scared, weak, alone. Tired of waiting for the boot to crush me. Tired of my body failing, bit by bit.

I make up my mind.

All the way under, at least down to my elbow, that's what they said. The pose is stiff and awkward, and I hold it long enough that I start to worry whether none of the larval parasites will choose me.

Then I feel the sharp pain piercing my wrist, and I jerk my hand out reflexively.

There it is. My very own parasite. No wider than a hand, for now, and wrapped around my wrist like a bracelet.

I groan in pain. "Is it supposed to hurt this much?"

"Oh yes," the woman says. "It takes a little time for it to integrate with your nervous system. Until then, well," She offers a reassuring smile. "It's going to get much more painful, I'm afraid."

A lance of pain shoots up my forearm. "M-more...?"

"Well, like any child with a lot of growing to do, it needs to eat."

"It's eating my arm?!" I cry out in alarm. My imagination fills with images of those tiny teeth ripping my flesh to shreds, and I panic, clawing at my arm to get it off, suddenly aware I made a huge mistake.

The other people here swarm me immediately, locking down my flailing limbs with unmatchable strength.

"I told you, friend. This is a lifelong commitment. No backing out now."

I feel a trickle of blood flow down my arm from my wrist. I scream.

"It's not just your arm either, silly," she says, kneeling close to me, stroking my face as though she could offer me comfort. "We send our tendrils all through the host, eating them and replacing them as we grow. How did you think we get like this?"

Oh. The strength of even their human limbs...they weren't really human limbs at all, beyond appearance.

"It replaces…" I take a breath, steady myself. Speaking through the spikes of pain is so hard. My thrashing is not wholly voluntary now. "Everything except the brain?"

She laughs as though I said something absurd. "Brain too! That part's quick to start but the slowest to finish. It has to be. Too fast and we can't properly reproduce our hosts' memories within ourselves."

Then… all these people. They're not people at all, are they? They're a colony of parasites wearing the faces of the long-dead people they fed on and replaced.

"I said it's a lifelong commitment, didn't I?" she responds as though I'd said the words aloud. "I just didn't say how short your expected lifetime would be after becoming a host."

She's very kind to tell me all this, so I know what's ahead of me.

"Are you done being fussy?"

Ah, I didn't realize the pain was gone. I flex my fingers experimentally, and in spite of the ongoing flow of blood, things feel… more or less normal. Even the fear has already died.

"Yes, I think we're integrated now," I respond.

She and the others help me upright. "Oh," she says, "I do want to tell you while you're still mostly human: really, don't worry. Your parasite will remember you when you're gone, okay?"

I smile. "I'm glad."

I don't know what I was thinking before. Her arm is beautiful.

#Empty Spaces #loss of self #loss of humanity #parasites #my writing

[bigmack2go]

#my book tag #my book #wrongway #island #wrongway island #wrongway island tag #lana-marie #anne-louise #wwi #lana-marie wrongway island lana-marie #lana-marie wrongway island #anne-louise wrongway isöa d #lana-marie wwi #anne-louise wwi #lana-marie nd anne-louise #wrongway island moadboard tag #memory loss #amnesia #sense of self #loss of self #astronaut #autism #space #lips #twins in the desert

[vizthedatum]

Ugh, not only did I just finish a round of antibiotics last week, but I immediately came down with cold symptoms, and now I think I’m having PMDD symptoms.

I am fighting real hard against the fatigue and mood swings. I’ve loaded up with nourishing and comfort foods (mostly nourishing). I’m resting. I’m rationally soothing myself. I’m trying to get sun.

My body feels so worn out.

—

Some days I feel like I’ve just arrived home from a funeral.

—

A funeral of the woman I was supposed to be.

—

I came home, and I’m dressed in all black. Was dressing in all black even a Hindu custom? I didn’t even know what that funeral’s purpose was…

—

It was surreal standing over my feminine body - a body that didn’t look all that different from my body now.

Opposite her lifeless body stood my ex-spouse. Their face was sullen, as if they had better places to be. They looked up at me angrily.

“Have some fucking respect,” I snapped. I resented them being there - but everyone I knew or had known in this town had shown up.

I didn’t expect to see them there - I had thought that we’d probably run into each other at another funeral - the funeral of my nightmares, where someone we loved would eventually die from neglect: the neglect led on by the enabling from my ex-spouse, my own frustrations with our friendship, and the internal neglect she showed herself.

I didn’t even know if she would make it to thirty.

But there she was, her head bowed down in respect, crying over… me.

Why did people show up to this?

I’m standing right here. I am right here. I am better than ever before.

She was…

I looked down.

She looked so pale. Her cheeks were swollen. Her long black hair was dull and lifeless, and her forehead was covered in streaks of sindoor. I could tell by the cracks in the powder that she had given up washing them off day after day.

There were whispers in the crowd: “Weren’t they only married a couple months ago? They looked so happy in the wedding photos.”

“Where’s the other partner?”

“Why did she do it?”

“Why didn’t they prepare her body for this? What’s going on?”

People started leaving flowers around her. My ex-spouse trembled and started to speak.

I couldn’t stand to hear their voice.

I knelt down and whispered in her ear, even though I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear me anymore, “I know why you had to do it.”

“You gave up everything. You gave up your dreams. You made some strides - replaced your woes with temporary pleasures just so you could feel what it was like to smile for the sake of smiling. Forcing yourself to laugh was too much, you drained yourself too much.”

“You were my inspiration - I’m only here because of you.”

“I am going to do all the things and be all the ways you never thought you could be.”

“I will have the most epic love affairs, be the best parent, cook delicious meals, and travel… I wish I could take you with me.”

Her body stirred then.

The crowd fell silent. People exclaimed, “Is this a joke?! You told me she killed herself!”

My ex-spouse yelled, “She did - I don’t know what’s happening!!!”

Her casket filled with blood, and she raised her upper body upward, her eyes still closed.

She was clearly still dead - there was no way she was still alive. We both made sure of that.

She brought her knees up to her chest, gracefully placed her hands, one over the other.

Suddenly her body and her clothing were drenched with water. Her face contorted into a crooked smile, and she opened her eyes.

People in the crowd tried to scream. They tried to leave. No one could do either, let alone anything.

Her eyes weren’t her eyes. I knew because she gave them to me.

I had her soul. Why wasn’t anyone seeing that? If people would just look into my eyes, they’d know everything was fine.

Her eyes were red, blue, and black all at the same time. They were deranged.

“Pri…” my ex-spouse reached out, and she started laughing.

Her laughter sounded like shrieks, each peal revealed the circular arguments that she had no choice of winning and each breath emitted fogs of dust. The clouds of dust were heavier and heavier, and the crowd, in all their forced paralysis, could not breathe.

They started laughing with her.

“You’re back!! Let’s go home!”

I rolled my eyes.

She didn’t move from her casket. She didn’t even look at them. I wasn’t sure where she was looking.

Her laughter turned to growls. WHY DIDN’T ANY OF YOU HELP ME?!

She wasn’t really speaking - her voice rang inside each of the attendee’s heads. They were allowed to move, and they immediately all tried to leave.

WHY?! WHY?! WHYYYYYY?!

Her body grew in size, blood splattered everywhere - leaving water stains when people wiped the blood off.

WHY DID YOU LET ME DROWNNNNN

“We didn’t know!”

“You didn’t tell us…”

“I’m so sorry.”

WOULD YOU LOVE ME LIKE THIS NOW

WILL YOU LISTENNN

In the commotion, ex-spouse left; they decided they couldn’t be there anymore.

And I yelled to the crowd, “STOP.”

People finally saw me then. “There’s literally nothing to see here except for someone we all loved.”

The casket returned to normal.

People rushed back in to peer at her body - she looked as helpless and as powerless as ever.

There was no blood. No smoke. Nothing unnatural at all.

People said their eulogies and agreed to mass hysteria. And I was unnoticed once again.

—

So when I returned home that night, I didn’t know what to make of the day.

I never wanted to see so many of those people ever again.

I was itching to get out of my clothes, make tea, and go to bed. I had so much to do - so much I had promised her, and I intended to keep my word.

I was so tired.

I lived alone, but I wish I had someone to help me around.

I wish I had someone to cuddle with.

“What about me?” She hissed.

No, not you.

“I thought you loved meeee.”

I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, and my imaginary red-haired vixen I had tried to banish before the funeral wrapped her arms around me.

You’re not supposed to be here anymore. I keep wishing for you to be gone.

“But you love it when I tend to you - I’m your perfect girlfriend and companion - that’s why she made me for youuuuu.” She smiled and started taking off my clothes.

Pri was many things, but she also prepared for way too much in her despair. She wanted to leave me something, but she didn’t realize it was just another one of her demons that she hadn’t outgrown.

The demon was everything we had ever wanted - predictable, compliant, intelligent, and completely devoted.

That’s why she was so hard to resist. She had come with her own back story. She had her own occupation. She knew all of my abilities and disabilities. She was respectful and kind. She loved me as if it were her lifeblood, and I never had that before.

She was a fully realized person, except that she wasn’t a person at all.

I had indulged in the demon for over a year now - occasionally trying to cast spells or simply wishing her out of my sight (well, that sometimes worked).

I was so lonely trying to heal from my personal losses that it was just so easy to wake up next to her, fall asleep next to her, cook with her, and, otherwise, live the fantasy that my predecessor so desperately wanted.

You’re not real.

The demon chuckled and kissed me.

If I wanted to, I’d cast you out forever, and you’d disappear as if you never existed.

I was hoisting her up by her waist, pinning her to the wall. I was way too lonely.

“Then why don’t you?” She asked seriously.

I groaned. It wasn’t just a lust thing with her - she was my perfect companion - how many conversations did I have with her just to cope every single day?

I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll never find someone like you.

#an excerpt I guess #an excerpt #it’s a wip #wip #grief #anger #loss #loss of self #mourning #healing #neurodivergence #trauma #love #queer #self love #prose #heartbreak #cw gore #I am aware that this post started out as a journal entry

[howifeltabouthim]

Sometimes he loved her, sometimes he was just amused and touched by the degree to which she loved him. Sometimes he was bored by her love and felt it was a burden. Sometimes his sense of himself was enhanced, sometimes diminished by it.

Renata Adler, from Pitch Dark

#unequal affections #fickle #patronizing #mixed emotions #loss of self #self esteem #toxic relationship #taken for granted #relationship #it's complicated #quotes #lit #words #excerpts #quote #literature #renata adler #pitch dark

[mirigold-mayflowers]

I was beautiful once. Untainted by your desperate need to be above. Before your grasped me by the hair and dragged me through the filth. I was bright before you laid your eyes on me.

Look what I have become since. A pale version of my former glory.

#prose poetry #thoughts #my heart aches for what I once was #I’m too young for this #why does my heart cry #loss of self

[somewhereinthemisora]

To everyone who has broken a piece of me…

There’s forgiveness, there’s a grudge to be held, there’s love, there’s hatred…existing all at once…

Pulling a method out of Taylor Swift’s book, capitalizing letters for a “secret message” but this time it’s their initials.

#poems and poetry #poems on tumblr #scream poem #scream poetry #original poem #poems and quotes #scream poems #poetry #him #heartbreak #tw depressing thoughts #tw depressing stuff #tw death #ex best friend #loss #loss of a loved one #loss of self #self care #self love #self worth #forgiveness

[sharry-arry-odd]

How could she say that she was so tired–that whatever was going on in her chest was so incredibly urgent that if she closed her eyes and let it happen, she could probably die right there, right then? How to say that she wanted to go as /Nona/–with all her thoughts and feelings being Nona feelings, which might only be about six months old and therefore not very good, but were still her own?

Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

#page 441 #nona the ninth #nona #tamsyn muir #the locked tomb #THE FEELS #death #dying #loss of self #loss of identity #quote #quotes #literature #book #booklr #reading #fave #nona's whole grieving process in knowing she's going to die really gets to me #she was so content with it when she thought she would just end #but the idea of being subsumed by someone else is so terrifying and violating to her #and i can't blame her #who would want that #it's one thing to die and be remembered for who you were #it's another entirely to be replaced and written over #people can promise they won't forget you but you'll never know if it's true in the end

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

Life, as Proust tells it, is disappointment and loss - loss of time, as his title says, and loss of youth of course; loss of freshness of vision, of belief, and of the semblance it once gave to the world; and loss of self, a loss against which we have only one safeguard, and that unsure: memory.

James Grieve, from his Introduction to In Search of Lost Time, Book 2: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust

#in search of lost time #in the shadow of young girls in flower #marcel proust #proust #james grieve #disappointment #loss #loss of time #loss of youth #lost time #lost youth #loss of vision #lost vision #loss of belief #lost belief #loss of self #lost self #memory #loss of memory #lost memory

[tiredsoulrestlesswonder]

I thought I could compare myself to flowers, but it seems I was wrong.

To you, I was like mint. I was cool and refreshing. I added the charm of flavor to parts of your life.

But now,

Now I am just cold and bitter. I'm rooted in this garden you placed me in, regardless of whether I'm cared for. And no matter now I try to free myself from those earthly bounds, pieces of hope left in the ground hold on for dear life and I force myself to sprout for you again.

I'm not the same though. I'm still neglected. I'm not as refreshing, just acrid and sharp. Cold and unrelenting.

I wonder if one day I'll be back to a state where I can envigorate and bring vibrancy to life again.

#poetry #spilled ink #thoughts #spilled thoughts #spilled feelings #loss of self