kosmicdream

[kosmicdream]

I haven't seen people calling FFAK vore for a while but I just want to clarify, as a certified Vore Enthusiast, that it's very much cannibalism and not vore. The themes between the two are very different!

Cannibalism is about giving yourself entirely to your partner and being part of them forever; this is also the central theme of consumption in FFAK.

Vore is a lot of different things under one tent, but a big one is that it's about Ultimate Physical Intimacy. When FFAK addresses that theme, it's via different metaphors like Simon and Knife merging their heads to kiss. Conversely, when mandragora physically inhabit someone else's body, this isn't treated as intimate but as intensely alienating.

One of the big distinctions I draw between cannibalism and hard vore is that cannibalism is about power dynamics *within a society* while hard vore is an expression of raw power in a Hobbesian state of nature. While much of FFAK is about the breakdown of society, it is still very much a story about society.

There's only a couple scenes that come particularly close to vore imo:

The scene where Antony gets eaten by the mindless worm in his secret laboratory (there's no emotional bonding there, the worm has no place in any society)

The fight between Knife and Celadon, particularly where Celadon is rearranging the interior of The Helper to attack Knife (he's literally inside her body and extremely vulnerable as a result)

Pluto going kaiju mode and blasting part of the Crosshatch Colony, causing Celadon to bleed (again literally inside her body, highlighting the vulnerability of her vital organs)

Jacket skinsuiting Agent Shell

Notably, none of these are treated as intimate, and Chain and Nail being used as actual utensils to be eaten from is treated with genuine discomfort rather than lurid protestations and descriptions. They went in a mouth, it was gross, they don't want to think about it. Nail going into Kurt's mouth is briefly alluded to once and moved on from; Nail having seen Kurt's butthole comes up repeatedly and is a big sticking point.

Meanwhile, Dylan and Crimson's whole encounter (and Crimson generally) is all about codependency and attachment issues and burdening others with unasked-for self-sacrifice. Celadon's themes are similar but inverted, her life being sacrificed while being told that she's being saved. All themes for which cannibalism is an apt metaphor and vore is not.

Anyway I love themes and symbolism, vore and cannibalism, thank you for coming to my Tedx Talk

oh!! this is a really interesting analysis and it was fun to read, ty! FFAK does get labeled as "the vore webcomic" a lot, and i cannot deny there's likely a crossover there. but I personally have always thought it probably wasn't the best representation of that niche kink - or more so my interpretation might not really align exactly with what people might expect? So i agree that Cannibalism probably fits more even if its probably a more broad/vague label in general. Id love to hear ppls thoughts on it tho, or more analysis type things in general because its fun for me to read and see what people take from my work! (also the referencing of various scenes was fun to read too lol!)

[kosmicdream]

Quest for the Perfect World: The Worldbuilder Trap

Over the years I’ve been making stories, the term “worldbuilding” comes up quite frequently when it pertains to the quality of a story and its writing to various degrees. Its something I use too, for discussion or analysis or whatever. However, the older I get the more this word has gone from a positive association to something that really bothers me. And its not so much the act of “worldbuilding” itself but like, the culture surrounding it or perhaps the.. Pressure or expectation of worldbuilding to be or describe a certain kind of thing for your story. That “thing” can be a lot of different kind of “things” you are building, as a world is a complicated place (so I’ve heard.) And if you are building that world to be your world, there’s a lot of places your mind can go when it comes to building it. Your imagination is a powerful tool, readers have questions you are eager to answer and.. I think that isn’t bad on its own but.. If you’re not careful and you pile too much, you’re going to end up with a sinking ship. Or a maze of allegory you can’t really find yourself out of, or know how you got so lost in the first place.

Maybe this is just my own observation and not exactly the truth for everyone or every creator, but I get this great sense that for many stories - or the popular consensus is this .. quest for the perfectly broken story and the most satisfying, cathartic way of solving the.. The society problem. This story will somehow be the answer to .. this emotional turmoil inside, that we crave a kind of.. Framework, even abstractly, to process our confusion and grief about our own world even a little bit. That potential relief drives a kind of desperation to describe even one facet of the human experience in a way where you can talk about it with other people or feel seen in your struggle, even if its just a pretend way to engage with it. Sometimes the pretend way is the only way you really can let those walls down of vulnerability with engaging with the subject, because the real thing is just.. Such a strong feeling you dont even know where to start with it. You’re just numb to it, or overstimulated. Whatever it is. 

The audience, the author, the story itself stops becoming a story of characters and instead a world to satisfy this feeling. This becomes the real power fantasy, the control of the whole world. The design of the whole world, the message of this world and what it says about the author making the world.. and how the author is solving this injustice or displaying this conflict. And, you know, you can’t really tell a story at all without projecting in some way - intentional or not - an allegory or direct commentary on the.. World.. In some way. I’m not saying that is bad, i love stories for this reason the same as anyone else. What makes me sick to my stomach though is this like, pervasive feeling I get in the culture of discussing stories - is this somewhat unsaid duty that the story you are engaging with in some way.. Is going to display a moral lesson. A philosophy, an observation that is being passed from the author to the readers. And maybe that’s what bothers me so much about it is the increasing expectancy of this element to the story. The agreement that it will teach or tell you something, maybe something you already know - but this is the trap you guys!! 

I dunno about you guys, but I’m not smart. I dont even think I’m particularly observant.. I’m more of a retrospective observer. After the damage is done, I can look at how things fell apart. If i were to describe my process (or whatever) of “building” a world is more like, putting lego pieces together that you found on the ground. Its not a ship or a building or anything - once it breaks under its own weight I can try to make some sense of the experience - but in the end, its more of an interpretation rather than by design. I understand this is still worldbuilding on some level, in a very chaotic and unplanned way.. I am still making something but I don’t know what it is. I may never know what it is - but most importantly I’m not trying to make it anything that can be reliably interpreted. If anything, by design, its the most contradictory. This is the winchester house of worldbuilding and I am the crazy old woman that has to keep building every day 24/7 because I hear spirits and have many intricate rituals beyond even my understanding. There is no blueprint or syllabus to be found here. Not only is it difficult to tell or describe some kind of moral lesson with a design like this, I simply do not even feel qualified to actually tell people anything.. And yet i love telling stories and sharing them, because its how I make sense of the world and make sense of myself too. In retrospect, of course. 

Y’kno, when David Lynch died early this year I was very upset - just like most were. But I feel like he is an artist that I look to when I think of a creator that does not have the worldbuilding problem that I see in so many works. When he talks about his process, his work, it is to be observed and interpreted as poetry is. Or shadows on the ground of a moving tree. He does not have this ownership or control over it, this possessiveness to make a correct statement, and yet his work says a lot. It always feels intentional too. Its somehow saying so much more without using words, a lot of the time. It makes a lot of sense to me when he talks about being a painter first and that movies/film were moving paintings to him. Because there is a communication loop between a painting and the observer that is going to be different for the individual. That’s why it can change so much even if the image remains the same. Maybe you noticed a detail you didnt see before that changes the context, or you learn about the authors story behind the painting, or when it was made.. Ect.. Maybe even just looking at a painting in a different time in your life, after a different experience, might change the feeling you have over a painting. And all of those experiences and feelings might be just completely divorced from whatever the image actually is, or the author intended it to be. 

Its very funny to me how much I dislike the trend of the “end of the world” scenario of a typical “worldbuilding heavy” story. Or just in general how many stories that feature a large cast of characters - somehow feature this end goal is also the end goal for everything. That’s the stakes and yet I’m also here writing a story that - at least on the surface, is the same thing as that. And its not even that I actually hate that trope, I dislike how many things just slide into that format. For me it was kind of.. Through the design of the accidental, random pick of the lego pieces. Even in the madness of it all I knew this thing was going to fall apart. There was a relief to know that it would, because for me it took away the expectation that I had to build a world that in any way made sense. Either in the context of the story or outside of it. Its gonna end, thank GOD. I mean, hopefully it will. It over 8000 pages of lego pieces now but y’kno. Eventually it’ll break. Something will..

And what will the lesson be? I don’t really know. I can’t pretend I have that part there for you at whatever end I arrive at. Its broken already. GRRM talks about the types of writers, gardeners and architects.. I have never had a single houseplant that survived. I killed my only house cactus. And I am definitely not an architect. I have also read the term “discovery writer” which fits me somewhat more than “gardener” - so I KINDA use that as a label to describe myself. I think sometimes, when someones painting their world they want it to be something they’re proud of. And through the unfortunate pitfalls of allegory and morals they end up making something quite ugly to look at. They might even start to see that halfway through, and start to paint.. Corrections all over the place in a way to redirect or mend.. Some of the parts that they weren’t intending to create or say. I don’t have an answer to this either and I cannot state how much i think this will always happen anyway. And you cannot let that fear push you to build things you dont really want to have. Or need. It should not be a moral failing to create a fake world that reflects something ugly. Ugliness does in fact exist, and I personally think what is disgusting is to deal with the justification of it being there - and that the ugliness presented must be met with some kind of pointed acknowledgement or solution. Otherwise “why would it be there.” 

I dont know if you’ve walked through The Winchester House in san jose, california - but if you ask that question - especially as an outside observer.. You’re probably not always going to get a satisfying answer. But that’s okay. Sometimes there is though! I vaguely remember being told about modifications to accommodate for steps/disability or like, a watering system in one of the rooms that was quite interesting.. the details are blurry as its been over a decade since I last toured and its not really important to this anyway.. But the point is I think about that house a lot, as this strange display of a very elaborate art project. A life’s work, similar to the madness of making a long-term comic. You are isolated in your own nightmare that you created, a world that exists because you made it and yet it doesn’t actually exist at all. It is a framework of ideas and pictures and words. At least that house actually exists.. And obviously comics can very much exist in a physical sense TOO.. but a story’s worldbuilding is not a physical “house” you can explore the rooms of. MAYBE that would help a little bit if you could though with like, the structure or whatever. 

..Mine would continue to be quite fucked up. That’s how I like it, and that’s just also.. The only way i know how to build things that don’t really exist.  Its not there. and if i dont think of it, if I dont say something - what is going to fill up that space?

Anyway, hope you enjoy reading this if you managed to make some sense of it. I’ve just been having a lot of thoughts about the purpose and power of stories and the increasing ways that they are.. Being limited and controlled. Its nothing new. It sucks. I get very tired of even reading any discourse about NSFW work that ends up feeling like masturbation shonen power levels. What this post up above HERE was not actually about that part anyway LMAO it was actually a little due to this overwhelming need audiences have for an ending to epic fantasies like ASOIAF of Berserk for example. Not to say I’m a peer of those authors but even on my small scale i try to see where I fit when it comes to writing and working on my own epic scifi fantasy stories that take WAY way longer than I ever expected them to or really needed them to be, but I’m doing it anyway. That’s all for now.. byebye…!!

[kosmicdream]

my boy!!! THANK U..

[smacks his bald head]

[kosmicdream]

tfw you give your meat broccoli sister an abortion in your kitchen

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seeking praise

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gaueko.. more gaueko

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corrupted by lust

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spirit of the night

[kosmicdream]

Does Pluto sound like Knife would if he could physically speak or are there voices entirely distinct?

Pluto sounds like how Knife would sound, except when he's transformed into his full like.. minotaur.. dog.. form, then his voice changes!

[kosmicdream]

a little special sneak peak for what's to come in the future of Nasty Red Dogs.. Teddy and his teenage dog-daughter!!! (although daisy's design is probably still subject to change, as it has before lol) They likely wont be in the immediate next chapter tho. but still soon.

[kosmicdream]

pluto is back in FFAK! so heres a little sketch i did of him a while ago.

[kosmicdream]

[kosmicdream]

omg toad got to see gaga again :)