deernet | 004 // text; username: werbinich

[this, like most of the posts that anna makes, comes in the middle of a sleepless night. she's gone as anonymous as she possibly can, at least. maybe that will stop people from calling her out. maybe one day she'll learn how to talk about her emotions without sounding like a theater kid turned supervillain.]

How are we all feeling in the wake of January?
Are we feeling whole? Normal? Like ourselves?
Suppose you aren't. Suppose you walked, or flapped, or slithered away from the shedding ceremony feeling extremely different.
Could any of you pinpoint that change, do you think?
Would any of you even still be aware that you used to be someone different?

And on the other side of the coin, for people who returned to "normal".
Do you remember what happened? Do you remember who you were?
Or is it all turning into some kind of soup within your own brain?
Do you have any way to stay that gnawing feeling of dread inside you when you think of the way you're losing touch with your own identity?

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about... call it a thought experiment.

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[ huh. who could this possibly be. anyway, ]

I think the idea of a fixed self is flawed. There's no way to draw a line between who you are and who you were, not really. Or even tell where "you" end and another starts.

I know that isn't a comforting idea for everyone, but I've made peace with it. Constant agonizing over whether your actions and feelings are your own just isn't useful. You can't confirm your identity if all you do is worry about it.

I think the shedding ceremony might be the only reason I'm here.
It's

I'm aware.
I don't like thinking about it.

The more I am changed, the more I become myself.

You shouldn't be hard on yourself.

Within the "you" that exists now there are multitudes.

Edited 2023-02-07 23:46 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea what's normal anymore, besides it being a reference to an unknown control group that lets the experimental hypotheticals be seen.

I've got my own memories, but I've got Other Memories too. I guess it's becoming some kinda soup in my head. Like... A chowder. Or maybe mushy peas.

It feels like I'm trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis. Either way this goes, I'm probably screwed.

I slithered on the ground.
I flew through the sky.

Then I shed my pussy snake skin and bird feathers.
And became a man.

It was badass.

I remember it.
It was kind of weird but fun at the same time.
It- was weird feeling light and young like that again.

Definitely weird knowing my wife was babysitting me during it.

[ This response has a certain beauty to it, and a certain horror. Whoever this is, he must be a good storyteller. ]

It sounds like what I'd imagine being a butterfly is like.

Was it beautiful? Were you afraid?

[ Badass can mean anything, after all. ]

[es gibt niemand.]

It must have taken some time to make peace with it. More than a faint memory can provide.
Time truly is the celestial elixir here, is it not?
But think back to before you had made peace with it. When it had been difficult for you.
I already know that it will be all right in the end. I have seen it.

It was nothing like being a butterfly.
Butterflies are weak and die in like two weeks.

I was something different.
I was something majestic and powerful.

I wasn't afraid of anything.

[He was a fucking stuck up teenager.]

[ah, fuck.]

How are people taking to the new you?

Elaborate on that.

Edited 2023-02-08 01:10 (UTC)

That sounds wonderful.

Butterflies might lead a short life, but everyone remembers them.

I'd like to not be afraid one day. You're lucky. How long did you get to be this way?

Perhaps so.
Do you have any faith that the wreck the whirlpool swallowed will resurface one day?
Or would it belong more to Theseus than Odysseus at that point?

They gave you a ceremony? What a kindness. The next time it happens, I'll bring you an offering. Whatever you are.

I gave into the dread a long time ago. I only recall parts of who I used to be. That's probably for the best.

Instead, I remember who I love.

[anna reads this for a moment, looks up at the ceiling of her room, and sighs. bastard-sensei can still say shit that makes her smile, can't he.]

Your snake skin had a pussy?

Ah, so you traveled back in time rather than transforming entirely?
Interesting. How are the memories of your actual childhood affecting the memories you received here?
Are they?
Have you asked Ange?

i'm sorry you're feeling this way.

i remember everything as wells a person can when it's sometimes years that separate the versions of my self. maybe people who remember things perfectly have a different experience.

it memories are unreliable either way, think about what you would do and the decisions you'd make write right now. the people you care about and why you care about them.
that's who you are. that's who i am.

Neither. We're stuck on Calypso's island. Or, maybe Circe's.

Or.

We're with the Lotus Eaters.

Either way it doesn't matter whether the ship belongs to Theseus or Odysseus. They're both dead and gone, and the ship is ours either way.

All we can hope to do is recover and find our Ithaca, where ever that is.

It happens annually, if this town can survive another year. But I begin to doubt its odds.

[she thinks, then. of snow-in-summer, of kriemhild. of the universe after universe where she and kainé were in love. so many things changing over the same ten thousand years and yet they always seem to find each other. she thinks of herself, now, and the way that each love crashes into the other like a starfield.]

Was the dread preferable to assembling yourself from scraps?

Suppose you are thinking on these things and you are listening to the different parts of yourself.
And you are hearing them scream at each other.
Because they are in direct conflict.
Fear and love all collide and all at once.

How can you decide who wins?
Who will survive, and what will be left of them?

Distrust. Kindness. Regret? They feel a lot of things for someone that I'm not anymore. And it makes me regret that I can't remember those things, especially when their memories are

They're really beautiful. I don't know what else to call them. Light and warmth and being wanted. I can see someone who has my face and she sheds her skin and instead of someone different someone comes out even more like her.

It hurts a little to think about.

What if I can't remember them, but other people can?
Isn't that like I've taken multitudes away?

Everyone changes as they live. The result is that changing is simply a method in understanding the self, whether emotionally, physically, or mentally.

You become who you are all the time and you can't step back to who you were.

That is normally what I would say here, yes.
What I am is the sum of a thousand lives, and many of those are my own.
But given we're dealing with a magic god who tore open a hole into an alternate reality using snakeskin, I doubt this is the incremental change you exactly had in mind.
Consider instead an entire second person being shoved inside of your body all at once.
Without the chance to get used to it in a months-long drip feed.

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