keepitin-the-realm-of-fantasy

[keepitin-the-realm-of-fantasy]

So basically the main plot is: the whole thing takes place in this cave system where people are lured in to be kinda transformed into these cannibal-creatures that are incentivized to attack and eat each other. There’s a hierarchy: some of the humanoids in the cave just kinda spawned there, and some originally came from outside the caves. So they’re all just clawing chunks off each other and eating them (which doesnt really hurt them the way it hurts a human— it’s a metaphorical violence so it’s more fantasy-body-horror-gaping-hole than actual bleeding injury) in order to protect themselves (in what way? To show that they can and scare others away? To make themselves more powerful? In what way?). Maybe eating other people lets you transform more, or lets you take a part of that person? Maybe it makes you more creature-like, in a monstrous way. Or gets them closer to the Singularity, in some way. Maybe the meat is sort of sacrificed to the Singularity? Idk.

WAIT maybe giving the Singularity a taste of another person’s flesh sics the Singularity or some extensions of itself on that person, as opposed to oneself? Like, it’s all to distract from oneself. and maybe it isn’t always flesh. Like, maybe people take monstrous parts that are sometimes extraneous or not fully alive on the person (like the way fingernails or hair or claw sheaths are), or are external objects that are part of someone’s person. And it depends whether it feeds the Singularity or if the person themself takes it.

Also, sometimes it’s unclear if it’s taking or not. Sometimes giving can be harmful (like attaching parts of oneself to another, or sharing with them something they dont want). And sometimes a body part or monstrous, faerie growth grows on two people at once, or two people’s parts become attached. Who gets what? How far is too far? How much space does any one person get to take up?

My Bizarre Love Triangle Couple/Trio are attached in this way, by some woody growth (like an old, dry, gnarled tree) connecting the two of them. They cant agree on how much each person gets, so they’re not cutting themselves apart.

what about regendering? How does that work? Maybe regendering looks like trying to make oneself more appealing to the Singularity. Or just having it be literal: all these characters are trans men, so maybe it looks like a fawn-reaction, or trying to find ways to make oneself more palatable to the creatures eating them, to avoid their flesh getting eaten by the singularity instead. It has to be exclusive to the men from outside the cave. Maybe it’s just denial: looking at the cannibal men and trying to distance oneself out of horror. But very crucial: not all these men choose to be cannibals, despite the incentive. We need a good combo of trans and cis men here. And what about women? What about nonbinary people? Maybe there’s women who our trans men meet with sometimes outside the cave, who dont know about the whole cave cannibalism thing, or see our men as either Safe Humans Like Them (victims of the cave, pitiable), or dangers who are just like the men in the cave, and who cannot be trusted. That could be our MC, maybe? (A trans man in denial, of course, but unaffiliated with the cave. But still capable of hurting others and violence— can be just as much an agent and a victim). Maybe…. Maybe some of the cannibals escape the cave sometimes and attack other people, often women. Or they manage to try and become a part of normal society and face shame and suspicion of being those Evil External Predators, so they try to feminize themselves to make themselves appear safer. Or they get treated like Frankenstein’s Monster: inhuman, not worthy of empathy, and subjected to very real violence (compared to how violence inside the cave hurts, but won’t kill you usually. It’s all metaphorical and fantasical, at the end of the day).