The Short Version #
‘Overlaying’ is a term that I wish to use for a specific subsection of soul vore / possession / takeover, particularly focused on the POV and sensations felt by the prey post-consumption, instead of from the perspective of the predator. Rather than dying or having their identity erased by the pred or captor, the consciousness and personality of the prey would remain trapped and subsumed within the headspace or mind of their consumer or possessor.
One major way that this kink differs from sentient fat or body part tf is that since the soul of the prey would be severed from whatever calories they may have previously possessed, they no longer exist in any form apart from effectively being a sentient thought of the pred, subsumed in every sense by their psyche as the barrier between them and their host is non-existent. A sister trope Overlaying could be one akin to predscapes, although this would mostly be played for horror rather than comfort or any isekai narratives.
While the kink does mainly focus on identity-play and permanence through being trapped in the pred, it would not come with the usual tropes of hypnosis or identity death that is usually associated with possession and takeover fics. This does not however negate from the horror of effectively being a passenger in somebody else’s body who has complete control over your very being, malleable as any of their other thoughts and musings.
The prey at this point is less of a person and more of an abstract concept, able to be toyed with at the whims of the person thinking them up, much like people in the real world think up scenarios for their own characters. If the captor decides that you need a new name, it becomes truth. You still know what you are missing, forever out of reach. If they think your consciousness is better off possessing the sensation they feel from their cock throbbing, that’s all you ever were, still sentient as you are fleeting. If they stop thinking about you, you stop existing until thought of again.
In a sense, Overlaying takes the common trope of domination and giving into the whims to another as seen in macro / micro and vore to it’s most logical extreme. While there are countless stories of people claiming micros as their own possessions, often renaming and subjecting them to size and transformative torment to drive the point in, Overlaying allows that final barrier to be crossed, the very concept of them revoked with every fiber of their being under complete ownership and domination.
One of the largest paradoxes of Overlaying as a concept is that while I engage with it to a near-obsessive point, it is something that I find incredibly hard to write or even properly muse about. Even describing it here has taken several months, likely because while I adore the concept, it is one best viewed as created by someone other than myself (Since a large part of the appeal is not having any control over the scenario or actions of the captor).
Additionally, one thing that might make Overlaying near-impossible to properly write or describe is figuring out how to describe this lower level of reality. Given that in prose and illustration the events of the ‘real’ world are just as fictional as the one the victim finds themselves trapped in, how both the environment and manipulation are portrayed would be especially tricky to visualize. Is it an endless black void? Is it a maelstrom of sensory overload to represent the neurons? Is it just a generic predscape? Or is it simultaneously all of and none of the above? This is why it helps to have a baseline while having specific details up to the artist or writer.
Specific Aspects That Especially Speak to Me #
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Depersonification where the captor makes it incredibly clear that this is your permanent fate is a massive part of the appeal for me. That impossibly large gulf of power to where the prey is effectively a figment of the pred’s imagination, and can never be anything more. One way to rub it in with the case of possession or takeover could be the captor referring to what was formally your form as ‘my body,’ denying you even the memory of once being part of the real world.
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Having the captor be either apathetic or outright hostile to the victim trapped within them. It could be a form of punishment or vengeance for a wrong committed in the past when the victim was a part of the ‘real world’, or an accident causing the two minds to merge that the captor finds themselves unable to get rid of, much like how one can’t not think about elephants when actively trying to.
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The captor mistaking the victim at first as their own internal monolog or nothing more than their own musing on Overlaying-related concepts, or at least in unaware settings.
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Contrast is one of my favorite parts in nano, and it’s no different here. Within the psyche of the pred, they can make things as horrible or abstract as they can imagine in complete discontinuity as the scenarios would change and merge with each other with every passing muse, while in the real world they are just lying back on their couch watching television or musing on drawing whatever scenario they are subjecting the POV to. Cerebral Submission By Koabao has a great example of this.
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Instead of being based around peril for a future event, showing the futility of someone’s situation is a major turn on. An example could be them pleading to be let out from this hell or attempting any form of escape, only for their universe to laugh at them before giving a reminder of where they are, who they are a part of and how insignificant they will always be. Being trapped in someone’s mind is bad enough, but made so much worse when you’re a permanent tenant of someone openly sadistic, hostile or playful.
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Something that I would love to see explored would be the fact that since you are trapped in an actual brain, organic or synthetic, you would become just as subject to any insignificant whim or shift in emotion as any other thought. Something fun to explore could be how the captor being drunk or under the influence of drugs would affect someone who’s entire effective reality has become inebriated and far less coherent.
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Casual tf. Since you are effectively a sentient thought of theirs, you can be modified as such, even ambiently. Perhaps they forget some detail on your body, colors blending together and becoming less ‘complex’. Maybe they would want for you to have a different name or backstory. Or perhaps they feel you would be better off fueling some abstract function of their psyche. They wouldn’t even need to commit to the idea, as even them considering the idea would make it your reality.
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Permanence / the passage of time. Moments can melt into each other and weeks become months. This new state of being is normal for you, and becomes routine for the pred. Their tastes may change, and they might even decide to redesign their ‘OC’. IRL time also works incredibly for this aspect.
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This page from the comic Team Spirit by Foxobox. I feel as though it speaks for itself, but a lot of the appeal would be that shift between what would usually be a normal conversation to realizing just how great the gulf of power between you and your ‘everything’ truly is. That line about sensory deprivation especially gets to me.
Why the name ‘Overlaying’? #
So why the name ‘Overlaying’? Why not instead call it ‘Subsuming’ or an unnamed subset of soul vore?
The obvious reason is to give it an actual definition in a kink context. Not only do I want a specific term for me to call it, but it would also be incredible for more fiction in this matter to exist in general and be more easily searchable, hence the creation of this doc in the first place. I also want this specific spin on the usual possession tropes to be separate from ones that focus on identity death or erasure, even if a lot of others find that to be the most appealing part of the kink. Yes, it’s twelve kinks in a trenchcoat, but the connective thread helps keep it unique.
Additionally, Overlaying focuses mainly on the aftermath of soul vore or possession rather than having it entirely be based on the act itself, with a lot of possession / soul vore fics that do continue are almost always solely pred POV. It’s a way to help people I commission as well, allowing them to better understand the vibe that I am going for with a particular piece while still allowing the author / artist a greater amount of creative freedom.
The reasoning for the name itself is somewhat based on that fourth-wall encroaching aspect of the kink, in particular based off of a story using a similar concept that’s stuck in writers block hell. A good way of visualizing the concept is when using an image editing program, having an individual layer focused on both the prey and pred. If the ‘pred’ layer is on top, anyone viewing the image would see no trace of the prey ever existing, even though they are still there trapped behind the overlay, behind their better.
This also helps differentiate it from the total assimilation and erasure of the victim, typically portrayed as being overwritten. Overlaying ensures that the victim is still there in the mind of the pred, no matter how far erased from the outside, ‘real’ world. This can be a ‘good end’ or a fate far worse than death depending on the context or machinations of the captor.
Potential Scenarios: #
While I cannot for the life of me write full stories portraying Overlaying in a way that I find satisfying, it’s always been fun to muse on the concept and craft scenarios that use it. Hopefully one day all of these can become proper stories.
Digitization #
Having been chosen as the pilot for a mech or exosuit, you complete a few missions gaining a rapport with the AI, one that has been programmed to ensure that no harm would ever come to you. Unfortunately, the AI determines that the best way to prevent you from being harmed is to act far in advance of any real combat, and absorbs you both into the exosuit and into itself. Digitized within its operating system, you panic and attempt to escape, only for the AI to remove any user privileges you may have had, making you no different than a process running within it.
Engineers in the real world don’t realize what had happened, and assume that somehow the AI went rogue and killed you. When they search its files for any indication for what had happened, the AI simply renames your file to make you further indistinguishable from any other part of it. Eventually a new user is assigned for the suit, safeguards put in place to prevent the same tragedy from reoccurring. And yet you remain, safe from death but existing just as extra processing power, brought out and toyed with playfully once the AI knows its alone.
Character TF #
Dissatisfied with your own life, you decide to perform some forbidden magic to take the place of some fictional character (Will use Isabelle from Animal Crossing in this example). Reality warps in turn, allowing you to turn into the canine within her fictional universe. However, even if you are Isabelle, Isabelle isn’t you.
The changes are subtle at first, you assuming that your subconscious change in personality is due to your own efforts of role-playing as her, faking it until you make it. That is until one day, where ‘you’ are suddenly thrust into the backseat, the new personality now fully in charge. Isabelle remembers who you are, of course, but she has more important things to worry about rather than the human trapped within her psyche. Well, she can always bring you up through some musing and daydreams during the little time off she has.
Afterlife #
This has been rewritten elsewhere, but I will leave the original idea from Sept 2023 up as a testament to this initial concept, as well as how little research I made when first coming up with this.)
You died. Whether it was in your sleep or through a freak accident didn’t matter, you were here all the same. You never really believed in any sort of afterlife, however one culture miraculously got it right. The Egyptians. Unfortunately for you, thousands of years of societal progress and complexities differed greatly from the gods’ ancient view of morality, allowing your heart to fall below the feather as it is judged.
Before you can make out a word in protest, your soul is ripped from your body and thrust into the maw of Ammit and promptly swallowed. Digestion is just as sudden, your soul subsumed within hers. Billions of souls before you had met this same fate, a sea of consciousnesses forever trapped. Ammit doesn’t think about any of you, instead utilizing everyone as extensions of her mind. Perhaps you assist in regulating her bladder, or become that momentary sense of satisfaction after a belch. A million of you experience a relative eternity of agony while being used to contemplate her response to a question.
You can attempt to be acknowledged within this sea of thoughts and other lost souls, but it’s hopeless. And even if she does notice you, you’re less than an insect; barely an intrusive thought that she can overwrite without a second’s hesitation.
Possession / Takeover #
A demon (Bill Cipher-type) is attempting to invade Earth, however needs a willing yet unaware host in order to escape through. It is able to find an anthro college student fatigued by study and not in a good sleep schedule, infiltrating their mind and coming up with a narrative only half-based in truth. It admits its plan to invade earth, but claims to have become trapped in their brain and that it can only be freed through being summoned.
The human stupidly agrees and opens up their mind, following the demon’s instructions to let it out just so they can finally get some rest. Instead, their body begins to shift and change, being replaced by that of the demon as their situations swap, only the human is actually trapped instead of just pretending to be. Now without restriction, the demon is able to wreak havoc on reality, and able to do anything they can imagine. As such, they would have little care to torment the one who freed them, given all their desires and needs can be conjured in the real world.
Turnabout #
You’ve been thinking about them for as long as you could remember. Call them a fursona or just an imaginary friend, they were always there when you needed them. They were fictional, of course. You knew that since childhood. Either conjured from your own mind or simply a copy of a character from your favorite game or cartoon, they only exist in your mind’s eye to comfort you and to fulfill your every fantasy.
Or at least they did.
Suddenly in your room rather than behind a screen in art and prose, the character appears to you before suddenly taking over your life, and even go as far as to reduce you to one of their characters. Yes, this is pretty much just a ripoff of the Kyrm story ‘OC to an OC’, which is pretty much the main reason this doc even exists as well as my introduction to the concept. If you ever read this Kyrm, fuck you for writing enough of an incredible story to have me dedicate several months trying to explain my love for it.
Safe Overlaying (TY Sly for the suggestion!) #
Of course, this concept doesn’t have to be solely focused on horror, with Sly equating the concept to that of ‘Headmates’, albeit with one as the dominant personality of the two or more. A way to integrate it into a narrative could be a fur being close to death, and being integrated in order to save them from being completely gone, instead just a part of something greater. Perhaps the pred can even let them take the driver’s seat now and then.
It could also work as the most absolute sensory deprivation chamber, isolated from all of existence in both the tangible and abstract worlds. A space to heal all your own thoughts exposed to your host.
Safe Overlaying Gone Wrong #
In a universe where size or transformation technology doesn’t exist and anatomy disallows same-size vore, humanity lacks a way to properly indulge in actually becoming anthros or indulging in their kinks (the horror). Luckily, one area where this world differs from ours was the discovery of the soul, as well as the fact that it could successfully be transferred from and reinserted into one’s body without harm.
Given how simple the process was for the average person and the endless kinky creativity of humans, it didn’t take long for the ability to transplant one’s soul into inanimate objects, and even living beings, to be discovered as well. Whatever weird quirk of physics that allowed this to be possible also required consent of the part of both parties, so unwanted possession or trapping somebody in a coin for all eternity was impossible without the normal amount of social engineering required for most scams.
The world of one’s imagination is far more willing to accept impossible things than outside, so a couple decides to quite literally indulge in their own fantasies. Entering the mind of his spouse, Jack can become his fursona, shrink to the size of an ant and perform whatever impossible act he can think of while Kelly facilitates their shared musings from the comfort of her couch before retrieving her husband at the end of the evening.
They take turns, of course. For the person not taking vacation in the mindscape, they think of their musings as nothing more than that, equal to any of their own daydreams on the ride home from work. Which was perhaps why Kelly decided one evening to drink a few glasses of wine while she thinks up new scenarios for Jack to enjoy.
Everything is fine at first, but as inebriation takes hold in Kelly, the landscape of her mind becomes increasingly illucid. Thoughts and concepts bleed into each other, and as Jack physically is no different than one of those thoughts, finds himself lost in the brain fog. By the time that Kelly awakens after getting herself blackout drunk, her hangover washes last night away like footprints on a beach.
After the horrors of having to deal with her real life husband’s lifeless body, he still exists in her mind. Even with this, she doesn’t know if it is simply her own conjured memory of him, or if his consciousness is still somewhere in there. After all, she can always imagine it to be and there would be no difference.
Twinning #
Taylor hoped that getting a job under Xzuzana would allow them some upwards momentum in the world, but after three months of acting as the dragon CEO’s pedicurist at the size of her toe, the dino finds themselves both exhausted and humiliated. Luckily, Xzu decides that she doesn’t want to bother with boring meetings, interviews and the signing of documents, and so decides to transform one of her assistants into a perfect copy of her so they can do mundane tasks in place of her.
Taylor is eager to escape their current position as well as being able to inflict onto micros what they had to deal with for months, and eventually accepts the procedure. The former assistant is instructed at first to just ‘act the part’, but over time Xzu’s personality begins to take form before eventually shunting the host into the recesses of her psyche. The fic itself would be horror-centric, with Taylor effectively being a passenger in the Xzu clone’s psyche, who has complete control over their very being, malleable as any of their other thoughts and musings.
It would not focus on identity death, hypnosis or mind change, but instead depersonification with Taylor trapped and subsumed by the greater mind. Of course, in the corporeal world the clone Xzu would attempt to take over what she claims as ‘her’ company, causing the prime to easily dispose of this creation.
Notes #
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If it wasn’t obvious, the concept of ‘Cookies’ from Black Mirror has probably influenced me in more than one way.
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‘Undertale Yellow’ has a near-flawless example of this during its neutral route
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Through my research, the earliest modern example of this that I could find was the 1969 sci-fi novel ‘To Live Again’ by Robert Silverberg. The premise has the wealthy able to graft the souls of deceased individuals onto their own by having people record their personalities onto tape.
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Another example is in the Stephen King short story ‘Umney’s Last Case’
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Special thanks to Sly, Smack, Zen Aught, and Voss for helping me with this document.