Uploaded: 4 years ago
Views: 1,094
File size: 282.00 KiB
MIME Type: application/msword
Comments: 11
Favorites: 5
A young human girl escapes the slaughter of her community, but the attack leaves her medically doomed. Before she succumbs to the inevitable, she discovers an impossible oasis of life hidden in the badlands, and then meets the intelligent source of it. She is offered a choice: pass away on her home planet, or live seven more days on an alien one. The catch is that at the end of the seven days, she must submit to being devoured by her benefactor. She accepts the offer and then begins her adventure on the peculiar and wondrous world of Eanli... wait, her benefactor is a bipedal coyote?
22.5K words; three chapters
This is the first story in the Admission cycle of the Eanlian Cosmos. That's right, it's the alien invasion part. If you're wondering how Earth became known as Gardenia, and how the human species were absorbed into Eanlian society, this is the introduction. If you don't know what any of that means, don't worry, this is a great place to start.
A few notes before you read:
1. This is more of a story with vore in it than a vore story. That said, if you're interested in a more realistic take on how a 'vore world' would work, this may be worth your time.
2. The protagonist is a young woman raised in a cult. She occasionally sees things in religious terms. It's a character trait, and this story isn't meant as commentary on those beliefs themselves.
3. There is no explicit sexual content, although there is some occasional nudity.
4. The story isn't a downer, but the protagonist is explicitly doomed from before the story even starts. I believe that the ending is bittersweet, however.
Fun bonus tags:
danger biker women
tea parties in which everyone is mad
A SECRET DOOR?!
If you liked the first set of chapters, don't worry! Part 2 is ready for upload. If it isn't a click on the "next" link up there, then it will be coming soon.
Posted by Marked 4 years ago Report
It is with some delight that I'm able to claim the the coveted prize of:
First!
This series seems to be off to a great start. I'm glad to have a new starting place to recommend for your stories when someone is primarily interested in the setting and lore.
I am curious where this story fits into the timeline, since it seems clear refrabrication isn't yet a thing. I do have a guess about that though, and I suspect part 3 of this will pay off that guess.
I'm quite surprised at how well Chastity has adjusted to her situation, especially given her upbringing. She has a curiosity and openmindedness that I would have expected to have been shut away under a layer of control techniques, and a general mistrust of new and strange things. Still this way does certainly make for a better travelogue.
Thank you again for sharing your wonderful fantasy.
[ Reply ]
Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
To answer your question on the timeline issue, this occurs in year 461. I know, really helpful there. The development of the refabrication technology is happening concurrently as this story, but rather than go too far into detail on that, I'm going to spontaneously observe that NaNoWriMo is just around the corner.
Rather than dwelling any further here, I'll just say that I'm going to reserve any deep discussion on this until the second half is up. I promise that it won't be a long wait.
[ Reply ]
Posted by Entirely_Logical 4 years ago Report
The after-the-fact testimonies from people who interacted with the first of her kind to visit the world is a nice touch. It gives us a lens to how each culture might perceive Chastity's behaviour, at least outwardly. Still, one gets the sense that more is happening than is being said, and while Chnembi did say predators don't lie, I doubt she was including lies of omission. It's easier to hide something when you simply don't say anything about it, after all. Looking forward to part 2!
Sidenote: I get the impression that Eliviza might not get along with this particular ancestor of hers.
[ Reply ]
Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report
Glad you've enjoyed it thus far!
[ Reply ]
Posted by TestAccountPleaseIgnore 3 years ago Report
I'm going to look at half of this separately, since each has a lot to break down.
First off, is it the case that the apocalypse occurred, or at least intensified, some time after 1982? I figured it is, since Hungry Like The Wolf exists for Kelriot to misinterpret later.
I can't determine what actually happened, though: so far, you've mentioned an "intentionally poisoned American Southwest, knock-off designer disease bio-weapons, religious warfare in public view, the compartmentalization of economic classes, the resurgence of slavery", and The Perfect Student mentions "chemical baths and giant shredders". That's too many dots for to connect, and not an extension of current trends, either, so I can't parse it. I doubt the cause of all this really matters, though; correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the point of all this is to show that even Eanli civilization is an improvement over what was on Earth previously.
This made me realize, however, that the predators aren't responsible for it. The first time I skimmed this, I thought it'd make sense for a small, covert clique of predator leadership to have deliberately wrecked Earth (say, by delivering nukes via Portcullis) so as to provide give the other predators a public rationale for conquering the Earth. However, they wouldn't attack the ecosystem (for instance, via the apparently-radioactive "retention depot"), not even as a false-flag attack they can later stop to show "benevolence". Even the worst of the predators are inhumane (yes, even relative to what they are) speciesists - they're not ecocidal.
I think Chastity's one of your best-written characters. She just "clicks" with everything else - in more ways than I can list, but here are two:
- As a victim of brainwashing and a hyper-religious cult, she, as a character, is completely fine with going to a different world; within her worldview, such things can totally happen. Maybe they're not something that occurs in everyday life, Moreover, she's seen so much horrible stuff - mass murder, people poisoned by bioweapons and radiation, and, probably, a thermonuclear war, that watching someone get eaten alive is just disappointing for her - she basically goes "oh, great, they arbitrarily kill people here too, still better than the previous situation".
- As a target for an alien abduction, she's perfect: nobody will notice her disappearance, she was going to die anyway, and she provides an example of a prey species that's naïve, friendly, personable, and non-aggressive. This lets the directors of the Gardenian Project justify the effort that conquering a post-apocalyptic Earth will likely turn out to be - "if you commit, you'll have an entire planet full of prey like this one!" Marketing. Not even once.
Lastly, Aphernians getting humiliated - in this case, by Shadurak proving Chastity doesn't obey them, and, on a wider scale, that the Gardenian Project isn't just about their narcissistic whims - is glorious schadenfreude. I wouldn't say it's the best part of the story, but it's just...yes. Yeessssss. Watching that get rubbed into the faces of the culturally genocidal bigots, even if it's only a small slight, is like fine wine.
I look forward to doing more than skimming the second half.
[ Reply ]
Posted by ObsidianSnake 3 years ago Report
Chastity's Earth is different from the familiar one in a few ways. I think the people of our world would start to enumerate several divergences while comparing the 1980s. Chastity's world is not apocalyptic, per se, just bad, but in ways that aren't unrecognizable from our own world. As unsettling as it is to imagine, our world could be quite worse. We could be doing worse. We could, collectively, choose for the world to be worse. I think The Good Fight is worth it.
Regarding her attitude in this first part, as she mentions, she's not entirely sure if any of these events are even real. Her frame of reference for everything is stories, picture-books, and tales from her religion. That includes things like Peter Rabbit, and she is assessing events through that lens. What happened in the grove was an indicator that she was more in The Jungle Book than, say, a therapeutic layer of heaven... maybe, she's still uncertain of that, and who could blame her?
[ Reply ]
Posted by TestAccountPleaseIgnore 3 years ago Report
not apocalyptic, per se
I'd say the state of the world in this counts as an apocalypse. Things are evidently so heavily screwed that human civilization is collapsing; I simply cannot see humanity persisting as multiple biospheres collapse.
We could, collectively, choose for the world to be worse. I think The Good Fight is worth it.
Out-of-universe, yes; it's very irritating to see people these days talking about how things have never been worse than today. It really just seems like a way to absolve themselves of responsibility, but that's not really for here, so I digress.
In-universe, also yes, but I get the feeling that, regardless of how well things are going on Earth, the Eanli predators would have invaded them anyway. They've clearly fought wars to destroy and conquer prey societies before - Ghynlina, certainly, as well as an attempt at Verria, from what I can tell.
That would be an interesting non-canon or alt-universe, actually - predators encountering a functional, prosperous prey society on Earth that has no predators of its own. Watching the beliefs of predators get challenged is one of the best things about your work, IMO - it's both unique and interesting.
As for Chastity, she does seem to have an inability to separate reality from fiction; I guess what happened in the grove was an indication to her that things weren't as different from Earth as she thought. The predators seem to have attempted to replicate that part of her in regards to the academy-produced trained prey; I can imagine some predators finding out what most other humans are like, being disappointed they're not like Chastity, and then attempting to copy that.
[ Reply ]
Posted by Vulpini18 1 year ago Report
I really like this story. Im curious about when Shadurak said "Some of the others were close, before they were destroyed," when referring to sapient species on earth. He must be referring to the fellow hominids that used to exist before they were wiped out by a combination of us and climate change. I also have a feeling that he only called those women in Veria "dangerous" because they might give Chastity some funny ideas about what plans Eanli's predators have for earth. Earth seems royally screwed in this timeline. It looks like stuff hit the fan a few decades back and humanity as well as the planet's ecosystems are on the edge of collapse.
[ Reply ]
Posted by ObsidianSnake 1 year ago Report
I'm delighted you enjoyed it, Vulpini the 18th. I've noticed that you've recently started uploading your own works this summer and I eagerly anticipate your development and ongoing works. :)
I know I haven't commented on them; I've been spending less time on the site temporarily for entirely neutral reasons.
Shadurak knows a lot more than he is feasibly able to explain. He also has some biases and his own perspective on matters. Your reading on how we felt about Chnembi and her friends is interesting! Personally, I think she's dangerous in a cool-bad-girl kinda way.
The Eanlian judgements on animal intelligence and personhood is complex. They would see many animals, parrots, ravens, dolphins, great apes, etc., as being "very close" to being full people. The Eanlian specialists understand that those animals evolved to be as intelligent as they needed to be in order to sustain the species, so they aren't judged as failures for not being like their Eanlian counterparts -- quite the contrary, the Eanlians marvel at the fact there was life to study at all in this lower part of the cosmos.
I constantly find myself astounded by it, too.
[ Reply ]
Posted by Vulpini18 1 year ago Report
Thank you, I appreciate that :)
[ Reply ]