Posted by Randomness 4 years ago Report

I am glad you uploaded it. ❣️

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

Thanks for the encouragement! This one came very close to staying unpolished in the closet forever.

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Posted by Marked 4 years ago Report

Thank you very much for deciding to share. I adore how everyone is stuck in their own heads and bumbling around as they start to understand their world.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

I'm happy you enjoyed it! Relevant fact: the term 'sophomore' is rooted in the old greek terms for "wise" and "fool". Fits these kids quite well.

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Posted by Entirely_Logical 4 years ago Report

This was a concept that I remember seeing mentioned all the way back in Hunting Paradise that I had wondered for a while if it was going to be expanded upon; the reactions from the friends was fascinating to watch, with Armen being willing to give himself up so Visi would get a chance to escape - a sacrifice, unfortunately, made in vain as both he and Lorra stood by dumbstruck by Corrune's betrayal.

If I have one criticism, everything after entering the van and leaving the house feels a little... tacked on, as it were, things that we knew were going to happen and could have been left unsaid. Otherwise, this was quite well put together and I rather enjoyed reading it.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

Armen didn't think he was sacrificing anything except ten minutes and Corunne's pride. If it had worked out that way, what a bargain! It's interesting that you read it differently.

As for your critical observation: I think that's a fair call, thanks for sharing it.

I'm pleased and somewhat astounded at the positive reception this is getting. Thanks for the comment!

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Posted by Peptidase 4 years ago Report

Holy crap. I loved this. I love Visi as the narrator character. They had a very unique perspective on everything, and their dynamic with the rest of the friend group added so much emotional and narrative tension. I had chills the whole time I was reading. The way all the characters play off of each other is incredible. This is the best read I've had on this site in quite a while. Thank you so much for deciding to share it!

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

Thank you! This story caused me a lot of grief while I was writing it, but I'm happy that it paid off.

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Posted by FirstOf71st 4 years ago Report

You know, there's something incredibly perverse about waking up one day and thinking "tonight, I'm going to devour all my childhood friends in one sitting." But I suppose it makes perfect sense from the viewpoint of Eanli-predator logic.

Loved the confrontation between Gavelle and Corunne in this, since I somewhat related to his "hard" perspective. But:

“Just because things hurt doesn’t mean that they’re true. Acting hard doesn’t make you strong, it makes you lonely and brittle. Have you considered what the long-term repercussions of this are?”

The predator seems to have a wiser answer. This really started reminding me of some of the thematic vibes I was getting from the end of "Hunting Paradise," if you want to comment.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

Gavelle did not go there with the intention of eating any of them, but she just barely hesitated when the opportunity arose. I'm not sure which of those two are worse.

Instead of rambling, I'll offer this: The Eanli predator's most powerful too isn't talons, paralyzing venom, crushing coils, sharp claws, teeth, uncanny agility, patience, or big domme energy. They won the evolutionary arms race thanks to simple compassion.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

You have no idea how badly I want to ramble but thankfully I have managed to resist.

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Posted by FirstOf71st 4 years ago Report

Whoops, and here I am continually trying to get you to ramble with my comments.

Sorry for the plot point confusion. Eanli predators don't exactly eat every day, so maybe I assumed some planning had to go into such a big meal. Let's not split hairs though. Either way, Gavelle definitely wanted to do the deed.

Anyway, it's exactly what you said: the preds' paradoxical combination of harsh "big dom" energy with real compassion for the prey they consume. Somehow, this makes too-perfect sense for a society semi-realistically built around predator-prey relations, and it's why I keep coming back.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

“You know, I’ve always hoped, for years, that I would get you some day. Same with Armen, Lorra, Conna, and definitely Sonchi. Ooh, he’s fast. You should have seen him the other night! You could learn a few things from him!” - Gavelle, to Corunne

Some easily missed subtext: Instead of hunting, she opted to join her little prey pals for fun, for old times' sake. At some point she was going to split to do that, as evidenced by the fact she had the gear ready, but that's not the way things turned out.

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Posted by TestAccountPleaseIgnore 3 years ago Report

Probably one of your best works. You said that it came "very close to staying unpolished in the closet forever"; well, I say that there's a reason it's the most-viewed story in your gallery. People come back to it, and I can see why.

No torture, no enslavement, nobody dies permanently, just a girl...consummating her relationship with her friends, so to speak. It's love, of a sort.

It's also a good way of showing how diverse the "parental-leaning furry dom" thing is; Gavelle still technically falls under it, despite seemingly having significantly more respect for members of prey species than most of your other pred characters. It's more "we're both equally valuable as people (but I should be in charge" than "listen to me or I'll lock you in a cage and have your voicebox removed".

I do agree with Entirely_Logical in that we knew Visi was getting eaten as soon as he went home; it would arguably have been more interesting to see him actually get his point across to Gavelle (about everyone leaving him behind) and to see her go "you know what, you're good, feel free to leave" or something alone those lines.

Lastly, I get the feeling that Eanli is the way it is is because people like Corunne and his father constantly stab other prey in the back, meaning they can never really unite (except for when it's too late). He comes across as the "teenager who was radicalized by racist YouTube videos" type, which I think is completely appropriate; he's probably never done anything of note in his entire life, so he feels like the only way he can be better than other people is by assigning more value to himself based off his species - i.e. bigotry. His dad just played into that offscreen. Corunne'll change, though; his father won't.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 3 years ago Report

Few people here have explicitly called out your last point! I'm pleased that you noticed that theme of how there's antagonism between the predated-upon species. Corunne provides an interesting facet through which to explore that, on the character level.

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Posted by TestAccountPleaseIgnore 3 years ago Report

You said that the predators "won the evolutionary arms race thanks to simple compassion", which is a pretty stark contrast to Corunne's "they're not us, they can die". It's a lot more evolutionarily successful.

It's not necessarily true that having feelings for the people you're eating lets you win, evolutionarily, but not treating one another like pieces of shit does. Your predators never struck me as particularly more intelligent or skilled than their prey; it's that they fight en masse that lets them win. See, you look at BizarreBlue's stuff, and it's clear that there's no sense of predator unity, and you look at Randomness's stuff, and it seems that the predators just got lucky, but the predators in the Eanli Cosmos overcame what's arguably the biggest barrier to success as a sentient species/group of species - working together.

I would, however, postulate that it seems that that causes them to overlook/excuse things other predators do that we would find morally reprehensible. Basically "they're another predator, they can do no wrong", regardless of what that wrong is. For instance, if one of them is poaching in a free-prey habitat, it's not a problem because they care about prey rights, because they have none - it's a problem because it might result in a revolt that would be monetarily expensive to deal with.

Lastly, much of the inter-prey rivalry in the Eanli Cosmos seems to be based off of species, rather than gender, nationality, etc. "Don't worry, they'll just go after the mice." "Don't worry, they'll just go after the rabbits." "Don't worry, they'll just go after the boars." Don't worry, they'll just go after the - ohgodohfuck". As such, it seems that if the predators had had to contend with a single prey species - for instance, humans - things might not have gone so well, because there would be significantly fewer differences between the members of the prey species.

Like, do you hate someone else for having a slightly different level of melanin in their skin, or do you hate the thing that's not even shaped like you and is literally trying to eat you?

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 3 years ago Report

Lastly, much of the inter-prey rivalry in the Eanli Cosmos seems to be based off of species, rather than gender, nationality, etc.
It's complicated, and it depends on context. There's class, too, can't overlook that, but also many things are entangled. Also, in regions of Verria, size of the species is a big deal, which is something Corunne touched on, I think. Maybe I'll visit that theme more directly in some future work.

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Posted by Furryvoreonly 1 year ago Report

I have some questions about how reformation works in this universe. I know form over stories of yours that it uses machines that basically build a new version of the person that died. That version may not be 100% identical as the system "fixes" defects and other past damages.

My main question is whether the machine captures some sort of soul or life essence of the digested prey, and then builds a new body for it to inhabit, or if it simply just builds and identical copy of them on an cell by cell basis?

The way I see it, there are only really two answers to this question, and they both have big impacts on how your world works.

One is that there is some sort of soul or life essence the machines retrieve and then imbue with new flesh. That would mean that souls or something like them exist in this universe, and possibly even some sort of afterlife.

Two is that all the machine does is make a "perfect" copy of someone with all their memories. This has a lot of implications and philosophical stuff involved about what death is. If this scenario is true, than when you die, you just stay dead permanently. You stay dead, but a copy of you with all of your memories is created to continue where your life ended. I imagine after someone dies for the first time, they see this in the fabrication machine.
https://i.imgur.com/G9g3p19.png

That's pretty horrifying in almost every way, and is almost identical to the teleportation paradox.

There would be nothing stopping some malicious hacker or government form using this tech to create clones of people, and posible entire armies

With this more depressing option, Sika and Ghost both died as kids, and were replaced by almost identical new people who think they are Sika and Ghost. What would happen if the machine glitched and thought Sika died when she didn't. Then you would have tow Sikas running around, both equally alive and "Sika" as each other.

Don't get me wrong, Im not personally religious and dont think souls exist. All Im saying is that if these machines existed in real life, Id damn hope that souls do exist. Dying is scary, but being replaced by a clone is almost more scary.

Sorry for the rambely comment, I'm just really curious about how this all works, and the ramifications it has on the nature of life in your setting.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 1 year ago Report

Your questions, which are interesting, do not have simple answers. I feel that if my stories emphasized matters of meta-physical mechanics, it would be at the detriment of the emotional center of the predator/prey dynamics.

For the Eanli stories, I prefer spiritual topics to be social and philosophical. Even Kiyi and the Pale One, the spiritual aspect is about personal connection and need. There's a lot of yearning going on in that one.

I know I'm not offering a satisfying answer. I'm glad you're curious -- it means that what I've written is at least a tiny bit interesting. Likewise, I'm curious about our world, and Eanli is a reflection of it.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 1 year ago Report

I mean, it seemed pretty clear to me that it was the latter? Yes there are implications, but I didn't think there was much ambiguity as to which ones were in play. I was more wondering about the practical concerns with making more than one version of a person. It should be possible, so how do they ensure it doesn't happen? How would they handle it if it does? Why don't they mass produce trained prey, if they're apparently popular?

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 11 months ago Report

Reading this again, I can't help but notice how Gavelle's speech to Lorra gives off some reeeeal 'corrective rape' vibes. "The problem is that you don't want to give me what you are obligated to, that I am owed by my existence, so I shall force you until you learn that resistance is futile and your role is to obey." I would not be surprised if none of them wanted to be friends with Gavelle or Corunne after this. Both of them betrayed their trust (Gavelle might technically not have promised not to eat them outside during hunting hours, but they absolutely thought she wouldn't and trusted her not to, and she deliberately manipulated them into thinking that while not warning that "yes I totally will". Paltering is not any better than lying, and it's inherent willingness to exploit the letter to violate the spirit marks you as even more untrustworthy) and demonstrated a lack of concern for their welfare (Lorra was crying and begging Gavelle to stop. She could have. She didn't.) while revealing that they have an ideology that views all of the above as completely justified. Why would any of them think that they wouldn't do that again? Why would any of them even want to hang out with them again?

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 11 months ago Report

Missed a closing tag

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 11 months ago Report

This whole gallery system is a giant phpBB hack and I'm still shocked it works as well as it does. Who knows what adding new features here would do, what it would break, and what it would encourage? Anyway, without the ability to edit our posts, we utilize markup tags down here at our peril...

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 11 months ago Report

Oh, yeah, this is a situation where a bunch of teens fail to have a good understanding of the world or each other, while boldly asserting that they do.

Growing up is hard, sure, but the real moral is: don't go out during hunting hours.

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Posted by Mourtzouphlos 11 months ago Report

Honestly, this almost feels like the start of a coming of age story, where afterwards they all have to confront what happened and how they were wrong and didn't handle that well. (So many potential threads to tug on, warping in meaning among each other and as their point of view changes, so many potential bookends to echo)

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