Came Back Wrong - Tumblr Posts
the "came back wrong" trope except like... they didnt. like this mad scientists wife died, and so he studied necromancy, brought her back, and she came back and it all worked. like she came back exactly the same as she was before with literally no difference. but the scientist guy is like "oh no... what have i done.... shes Different now!!!! she came back Wrong!!!!" and shes just like. chilling. reading a book. cooking dinner. shes just so so normal but in the guys mind hes like "oh shes soooo weird" but shes just normal
I love the "came back wrong" trope but from the opposite side.
Imagine you are dead. And then you are RIPPED from the embrace of decay into the world of the living again. Your memories are hazy and you don't recognize any of these people, but they act like they're close to you? Like they love you? So you try to get your memories back, to act like you belong here, but everybody tries to forget you died. And you can't. It is omnipresent. And just trying to grapple with that fact pushes the people who "love" you away, and they're incapable of understanding, and they're so confused, what's wrong N̶̄̀O̶͛͗T̷̉́ ̷͋͝Y̴̎̌Ȍ̴̈U̸̓R NÄM̴̃͑E̵̾̇? And you just need them to understand, you aren't that person! You aren't! You don't know who that person is! You don't know why any of this is happening, but they're unwilling to bend, they keep insisting you are that person, your memories will come back, everything will be normal again, and you want to scream and cry and claw yourself open to show them you're different. Your existence as a being wholly separate from whoever you "used to be" is a sin unto itself. All you can do is scrabble for life and to them, you're killing whoever they loved to do it.
just. lots of fun in that concept, you know?
maybe i didnt come back wrong maybe i was just a weird freak when i was alive but i hid it and acted so normal and after i died i decided to stop pretending. maybe being resurrected was the perfect opportunity for me to be myself because i knew you would chalk it up to the horror of me coming back wrong. but the horror was always inside me. did u think about that
"came back wrong" you could not come back wrong even if you tried. you've changed, beyond recognition, but while my eyes may not know you, my heart still does. i love you.
When a whumpee who’s usually always laughing and joking can’t laugh or joke at THIS.
Everyone thinks whumpee can handle any pain because they always laugh or joke through it, looking on the bright side, keeping everyone else in good moods.
Whumpee who finally experiences the horrors and can’t laugh at it. Or a team who experiences a huge loss and turns to Whumpee to make them feel better and they just have… nothing. No jokes, no hope.
Hard to tell who’s more freaked out in that moment, Whumpee, or Whumpee’s friends
died and came back tired. died and came back exhausted. died and came back with manic energy. died and came back with malingering unease. died and came back twitchy. so many possibilities
"came back wrong" after revival. came back wrong, but not in the sense that they are truly, in essence, wrong. more so that your idea of them is now so tainted by the death you saw them in that you can no longer see them the same way they're back, and they're wrong, so they came back wrong, but it's not their fault. they're not inherently different but you can no longer shake the dread that you felt when you saw them dead. you cannot stop seeing the pallor that death washed over their face, the lifeless dullness in their blank eyes. you cannot forget that, and you cannot remember them without it. "came back wrong", but are they wrong? or is your view of them altered? are they truly different, or have you just forgotten?
"came back wrong", but you are revived to see your loved ones no longer look at you the same. you feel the same, act the same, look the same - save for maybe a few scars. but now they won't quite meet your eyes. every time you catch them looking, they look like they're staring at a corpse. the love in their eyes that was once so clear is now clouded by uncertainty. by fear. are they afraid of you? you've come back the same, so why are they treating you like a ghost? "came back wrong", but you only change because they force you to. in their expectation of your being different, they refused to let you continue to be yourself
"came back wrong", but they didn't come back wrong at all. they were received wrong, and when you are estranged and treated with such cruelty you have often no choice but to rewire yourself.
"came back wrong" after revival. came back wrong, but not in the sense that they are truly, in essence, wrong. more so that your idea of them is now so tainted by the death you saw them in that you can no longer see them the same way they're back, and they're wrong, so they came back wrong, but it's not their fault. they're not inherently different but you can no longer shake the dread that you felt when you saw them dead. you cannot stop seeing the pallor that death washed over their face, the lifeless dullness in their blank eyes. you cannot forget that, and you cannot remember them without it. "came back wrong", but are they wrong? or is your view of them altered? are they truly different, or have you just forgotten?
"came back wrong", but you are revived to see your loved ones no longer look at you the same. you feel the same, act the same, look the same - save for maybe a few scars. but now they won't quite meet your eyes. every time you catch them looking, they look like they're staring at a corpse. the love in their eyes that was once so clear is now clouded by uncertainty. by fear. are they afraid of you? you've come back the same, so why are they treating you like a ghost? "came back wrong", but you only change because they force you to. in their expectation of your being different, they refused to let you continue to be yourself
"came back wrong", but they didn't come back wrong at all. they were received wrong, and when you are estranged and treated with such cruelty you have often no choice but to rewire yourself.
something happens, in the bible, when you get too close to death but re-turn anyway. this 'something' has a phrase: לֹ֣א נָכַר. it translates to "can't be recognized," "was not registered," something like that, but why translate it at all? keep it semiotic. keep it leaky, risky, muddy. in the bible, when god tells you to die but then lets you live anyway, you come back and are not recognizable. job is brought to the brink of death, and his friends לֹ֣א נָכַר him. jacob, about to lose his blessings, becomes לֹ֣א נָכַר to his father. joseph, mock-killed by his brothers, is too לֹ֣א נָכַר. moses comes down from spending 40 days with god. becomes לֹ֣א נָכַר. you can't translate what these men looked like after they didn't-die. their didn't-dying is above register; it, in and of itself, cannot be recognized. sometimes god tries to kill you and you live. and you'll only know it once you see it
carrion choir. Van was supposed to die. She knows that. The dead know that. The Wilderness knows that.
Winter starts bad and gets worse. Van hallucinates.
(horror oneshot, rated M, 4.7k words, taivan. So, so much body horror.)
Written for yjoctober 2023. Prompt(s): 1. Horror element or trope from the show (hallucinations and madness) 8. came back wrong
You're dead. You're dead and you're still hungry. Your worm-riddled stomach dribbles acid from countless bite wounds, slowly eating itself. You chew on pine nettles, boot leather, your own hair. You shuffle through the cabin like one of Romero's zombies, rotting and starving all at once. You stare at your living friends with crawling envy, craving their heartbeats, their breath. Their warm, sweet, living flesh. Necrotic purple bruising spreads across your torso. You make sure it's always hidden. Your fingernails fall out, one by one. You bind your hands in more cloth. Strips of skin peel away from your arms and legs. You clumsily stitch them back together with Akilah's needle, swallowing your screams. You tell no one.