Posted by MegaMeat 2 years ago Report

Definitely my favorite vore series! What an adventure! As an Azrael fan, I'm a bit sad things didn't go differently... but I still loved it all the same :P

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

As an Azrael fan, me too.

[ Reply ]

Posted by Sira 2 years ago Report

I loved this story so much. Thank you for writing it. I will say that I loved Tiffany and I may be the one fan that goes back to read her cuteness every now and then~

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

Thank YOU for reading it! And I'm glad you loved Tiffany, gotta be in my top 10 girls who are now Lindsay's boobfat.

[ Reply ]

Posted by Sira 2 years ago Report

Gosh, what a list that must be. Still, outside of having Jessica’s baby, being Lindsay’s boobfat is the second best fate in the setting!

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

It was a long journey, but I enjoyed it.

Also, goddamn did a lot of characters die. I was making the final character chart, and I was so happy at how many times I had to write "dead"!

[ Reply ]

Posted by Welcometocave 2 years ago Report

What a journey! Thanks for taking us along. Congrats!

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

Thanks for sticking with me so far!

[ Reply ]

Posted by killermil 2 years ago Report

First... I am very grateful that Natasha survived until the end of the story .... Second... I would have loved to know what would happen in the future of this family that was formed... But I also loved this ending...In summary.... I loved this story from beginning to end, I will look forward to your new stories.....

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

She's a little survivor, I'll give her that. And thanks for reading!

[ Reply ]

Posted by Winny 2 years ago Report

Congrats on finishing a long journey Vesari!

Though to be honest, I actually kinda hoped for Daniella and Natasha to have gotten the gurgle treatment.

I know it's not so much in the characters personalities but I kinda hoped that Melissa would have ate them at the post conclusion of the story. Kinda like. "Well, now that were out of danger anyone else famished?" With Melissa taking control of Daniella's account to finally put an end to the most famous prey in the city.

But alas, that will just stay as personal head canon. :d

Wish the best for your future stories~ <3

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

Eh, I think for Daniella, she should have a really embarassing end. Not something dramatic, just tempted fate one too many times and ended up inside a predator.

That being said, you're welcome to headcanon that they get eaten later on.

Thanks for reading, and good luck with your own stories!

[ Reply ]

Posted by Untiming 2 years ago Report

What an amazing series. Excited to see your works going forward. This was the first I saw, and it's even got me to try and get back into the swing of writing. Thanks for the experience <3

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Hope you do get back into writing!

[ Reply ]

Posted by AliceXVI 2 years ago Report

Discovered and binged this series in just a couple of days and wow that was intense. I was so hooked by the thrilling tale that I hardly cared about the vore and sex. Well done

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it enough to binge!

[ Reply ]

Posted by Augustin 2 years ago Report

I'm late to the party, but let me add my voice to everyone else's praise. You really stuck the landing. Nineteen parts and I don’t know how many words—probably a full novel’s worth. In a perfect world, I’d be able to walk into any good bookshop and pluck it from the shelves.

I’ve been following this for a while, so let me set down a few accumulated thoughts. This might be a long, long comment, but I hope you’ll excuse that: it’s a long story, after all!

First, the characterisation. This is always a strong point, but you surpassed yourself here. Melissa, Lindsay, and Jessica are all splendid characters, and I expect to see them cameo in your future work. I suspect you’re not quite done with Natasha, and maybe she’ll have her own story down the line. Azrael is the best of the bunch. She seems real, like she lacks a creator; she walked into your world rather than being shaped out of thin air. I had my reservations last week about her method of demise, admittedly. It’s a vore novel: you can’t just shoot the antagonist. Thanks to this chapter, I’m coming to see it's the only way the final fight could have gone. She’s Azrael—she can't be outpredated. You need the Power of Friendship to take her down.

Her death was handled with typical skill, as was her humanisation. The transition from “dark predator” to “black woman” was deft. A fitting end, although I hope it’s not the last time she flows from your pen. Have you considered writing an origin story? There’s scope for a one-off or short sequence following the novice predator as she climbs the ranks of the police force, gradually developing that terrifying certitude...

I’ve mostly been thinking about the plot. The overall story worked well, but I felt your ambitions clashed with serial and generic convention, and this might explain the slight drop in reception towards the end. That’s a bold—and vague—claim, so let me elaborate. The original premise of VoreFans is two friends, a prey and a predator. It’s a will-they, won’t-they, although it quickly becomes clear Lindsay poses no threat to Melissa. You just can’t write a longform vore story where the protagonist is prey—at least, I haven’t seen it successfully done. Either they get eaten, and the story ends, or they keep surviving to the audience’s frustration. (An exception is TwrchTwryth’s Samantha Saranow, but that’s fatal with reformation, which is different.) So the story instead becomes Melissa’s predatorisation, which is an old and respectable narrative. Azrael is the superhuman predator who wants to make her a slave; Lindsay and Jessica Storm stand for human freedom.

The trouble is, I feel, that your talent for developing memorable characters coexists uneasily with the quick and repetitive climaxes that most readers here desire. We want someone eaten every chapter, and for a novel this can’t be the main cast—there’d soon be none left. Either you disrupt the building narrative to add plot-unnecessary vore scenes, or you turn to alternate endings. We have Melissa eaten by Natasha and Talia Vanderberg. These diversions felt far more like stereotypical vore stories, with themes of potential squandered and/or the strong dominating the weak. A problem: they were sacrilegious. After all you did to build Melissa up, it felt profoundly wrong for her to be terminated halfway through her character arc. I nearly didn’t read the alts because of this. It was as if—excuse the lame example; it’s the first that came to mind—Rowling, after publishing the Goblet of Fire, put out an alternate ending in which Harry dies of a mishap during the Triwizard Tournament. The reader’s meant to have this in mind as a possibility, otherwise there’s no peril, no suspense, but they know it can’t actually happen. The protagonist has to survive to the end of the series. That’s what the protagonist does.

The conflict, then, is between your powers as a storyteller and the conventions of short erotica. I think we can spread it out a little further to be a conflict between inevitability and suspense. The ‘standard’ vore story operates on inevitability. The pred is usually obvious from the title and from characterisation; the prey likewise. We ask when and how, but not whether. That’s telegraphed from the start. If there’s a surprise, it’s almost always role reversal/inversion, not a break in inevitability. Someone will always be digested, or the reader goes away dissatisfied. There’s no obligatory hero or villain, just a power dynamic.

Most adventure stories, on the other hand, operate on suspense. They have a protagonist, who is essentially an immortal prey, and an antagonist, akin to a failed predator. The antagonist is constantly trying to murder or in some way defeat the protagonist, but we know they won’t succeed. Suspended over a vat of acid, pinned to a table and menaced by lasers, thrown into a tank of piranhas—the hero is again and again threatened with death and always survives. I think VoreFans began to morph into this sort of story. Azrael, when introduced, is a terror. Nobody is safe. The more we see of her, the less frightening she becomes. Once she kidnaps Lindsay and Jessica and does nothing to them, she’s utterly detoothed. If the villain of a vore novel won’t even eat secondary protagonists, is Melissa’s fate in doubt?

You’re obviously capable of writing extreme cruelty, so I hesitate to make the accusation, but the later chapters lack a killer instinct. Aside from Sofia, no one important dies: you love them too much for that. When Elsa and Padma escaped the cops, I was disappointed, not because I disliked them as characters—they’re lovable and well-written—but because it had been a while since we had a satisfying vore scene. You even signalled one, you monster! The laws of suspense dictate that they’re saved in the nick of time, just after a trailing ellipsis. I’ll forgive what you did with Daniella in Chapter 17, because that was a humorous fakeout, but on the whole there was a little too much teasing and not enough payoff.

It all comes back to that gun. I feel I’m right to read it as a rejection, in some way, of vore itself—at least an enforcement of realism. The game of “who’s the best predator” ceases to exist when faced with basic technology. The ending exalts love and community instead of competitive appetite. Sure, Melissa’s now got a “pred bod”, but has her character really changed? Yes: she’s more confident and more loving, happier, healthier, and at last comfortable in her sexuality. Is she any more a predator than at the beginning, despite having eaten people? I’m not convinced she is.

I’m not honestly sure how to resolve the dilemma. Every single character ending felt appropriate to their personality. The throuple live on in harmony; Natasha finds herself; Elsa and Padma blunder endearingly through life; Daniella keeps on tempting fate... you can’t just smash apart a well-crafted conclusion for the sake of a few gratuitous digestions. All the same, I kinda wish you did.

Maybe it’s useful to compare your other recent serial, “The Pleasure of Being Stolen”. That’s textbook inevitability with a specious dash of subversion. We know the pred from paragraph one. We think we know the prey, but even when it turns out to be somebody different, there’s no disappointment as when your VoreFans cast escape their fates. The end was always inevitable; we were just misdirected. There’s a conventional happy ending while still preserving delicious injustice. Tremendously effective. Would that work over nineteen parts, though? I can’t say.

I’ve taken a somewhat presumptuous tone in these last paragraphs, for which I don’t apologise. I wouldn’t be saying this about a second-rate story. It’s proof of hooks in my heart. You’re the best at what you do—I stand by that—and this is a thrilling, tantalising, frustratingly effective first novel. I expect you’ll take some time off before attempting another of its size. When it does come, I’m curious to see how you balance inevitability and suspense.

Well, that’s the critical part over. The writing’s beautiful, as always. Very glad to see Jade and her boyfriend poking their noses in—I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned that. You have a tidy miniverse going on, and I look forward to seeing it develop. I reiterate the wish that this was the sort of book publicly sold. It’s worthy of it.

[ Reply ]

Posted by Vesari 2 years ago Report

Thank you so much for this remarkably detailed breakdown of the series. I found it very fascinating to hear your thoughts and opinions, and TBH I agree with a lot of them (especially a good deal of the criticisms). I'll try and give you an appropriate response to your level of effort.

Also, I'll preface by saying I'm a big believer in "death of the author", and say that everything I say here isn't meant to be a overruling, but merely an equal perspective as your own.

-----

On your thoughts about the characterisation, I appreciate the compliment about the characterisation. To be honest, it's really something that's hard to objectively analyse as a writer, to properly be aware of how the characters are going to be received, because the character in MY head is always going to be different to how the character comes across to the reader. So, I'm glad they made a good impression on you.

I'm especially glad to hear that you think Azrael was the best, as (controversial opinion) the antagonist is the most important character in a story IMO. And yes, I'm not surprised that you had initial concerns about her being. But TBH, I think that might have been the only way that felt appropriate for me. In this kind of story, I think it would have felt odd if Azrael was simply overpowered and eaten by Melissa and friends, since dominance was her primary trait. On the other hand, it's a vore story. The idea that the villain of a vore story wouldn't eat or be eaten at the end felt absurd to me.

There's also a secondary aspect why I decided to have her be shot; the (intended) theme of delusion versus reality. Azrael, as a character, represents delusion. She is deluded by her own narcissim and madness into thinking she's divine, but she isn't. However, she's so powerful in both physical strength and charisma that she's able to ignore reality and convince others of her own delusions to some degree. On the other hand, people like Lindsay and Natasha represent reality; though they're very different, both of them are quite grounded and logical in their thought processes. Melissa is somewhere in between, being able to be influenced by either. However, the ultimate moral of the story is that reality will always trump delusion. Thus, my intention with Azrael being shot was to show that her delusion was ultimately a failure. Despite all her efforts, reality still broke right through her delusions.

In the initial idea for the ending, I was going to have Melissa take the gun from Azrael (somehow) and try to shoot her. The bullet would miss, which would prompt Azrael to declare that she's invincible. Melissa would then fire again, this time hitting Azrael in the chest. I ultimately decided to change this, but this was the core basis of why I wanted to involved the gun.

I'm not sure if I could do a origin story justice, but it's an interesting idea.

-----

On your thoughts about the plot, I think you're entirely correct about the difference between the goal of short term erotica and the long-form story that VoreFans became. Ultimately, I think the biggest issue that the story had was that it was a chapter-by-chapter story that became a structured story over time. By chapter-by-chapter, I mean that the original parts of VoreFans (1 to 6/7) were each written by themselves, with no plan for what would happen in the following part. Characters were introduced when I felt like it, both Jessica and Azrael were later inventions. I don't neccesarily think the story suffered because of it, but planning the story from the beginning would have had it's benefits.

I also strongly agree with your thoughts about the contrast between a desire for a quick climax and the needs of a long-form story. With a lot of stories, it can be hard to properly build tension in certain areas, because the audience can generally sense where the story is going. It reminds me of a discussion I once heard about the problem of making stakes too high in a story; if you make, say, a fantasy story where the villain is going to destroy the world if they win, then all actual tension is lost, because the reader knows that if the villain wins, the story can't continue. In Lord of the Rings, the audience is well aware from very early on in the story that there's no real concern of Sauron getting the Ring back, because if he does, the story will just end. Therefore, there's no real fear that it will happen. Obviously, I wouldn't dare compare VoreFans to LotR in any context, but the principle remains the same. Melissa can't really be teased to die or be broken, because the story can't continue if such a thing happens. At the climax of the story, it's easier to make such a possible threat, but at the same time, the reader isn't credibly going to think that a character who's had a 15 part character arc is suddenly going to die and render the whole process a waste of time. Hence, I tried only to tease the idea as much as narratively appropriate and focus on other areas.

Your point about Elsa and Padma is interesting, and I can in hindsight see your point about feeling teased about them not getting eaten. I can also understand the idea that the last couple of parts lacking a killer instinct. That being said, I personally don't think it's because I loved the characters too much (Sofia was one of my favourite characters, and I also long wrestled with the idea of killing off Jessica), but more because each character had too much narrative importance to kill off so easily. Elsa and Padma could have been killed by the cops, but how then would the others escape Azrael's apartment? Without them getting help from Renay, how then would they have not gone to jail afterward? These are not questions I'm asking of you, mind, I'm just illustrating my own thought process.

As for the gun being a rejection of vore, I don't really agree. I've already mentioned the theme behind the gun being more a conflict between arrogant temporary delusion (personified by Azrael) and ultimately inevitable reality (embodied by the gun itself). It's an enforcement of realism, yes, but not a rejection of vore. I view it in the same way as drugs or alchohol or some kind of knockout blow to an unsuspecting prey: it's an underhanded trick to even the playing field, no different than any other. After all, the very next thing that happens after Azrael is shot is that she gets eaten. If the theme was meant to be a rejection of vore, I think she would have died of her wounds, not digested. (Again, don't forget what I said about "death of the author" at the start, btw)

-----

I think the comparison between VoreFans and The Pleasure of Being Stolen is an interesting one, mainly to me because they were written almost entirely differently. As I explained earlier, VoreFans was written on a very ad hoc basis in terms of planning. PoBS, on the other hand, was entirely conceptualized and planned out before the first word of the story was typed. On the whole, I think I much prefer the latter approach, for many of the reasons you yourself laid out.

And I would be annoyed if you apologised for any kind of presumptious tone, because you've said nothing untrue in my opinion. If anything, I'm immensely flattered that you thought about my story so much as to have such strong opinions about it. That to me is the most important kind of response to something I've written, and also the one I value the most. In fact, you are the first to ever write something like this about something I've written, and I feel greatly honored that you did. Thank you so much for reading, Augustin.

[ Reply ]

Posted by Matanuiv 2 years ago Report

Hmmmm... After reading both of these, I'm now almost curious to know what would've happened if Melissa DID give in to Azrael's 'charm' in Part 16. No second-guessing, no sneaking around, Azrael has won her over, with delusion have triumphing over reality. How would Melissa handle anything after that, considering her friends would now have come to rescue someone who thinks entirely differently? How would Lindsay and Jessica react to what Melissa has chosen? ...Fuck. I actually kinda want to see that branching timeline now.

[ Reply ]

Posted by jamobo 2 years ago Report

Congrats on finishing!! This has been an excellent series, each part has been incredibly fun to read! Glad to see Nat survived, though I was hoping her pred instincts would kick in, like in the alt version

[ Reply ]