Your opinions on some changes

Losing the immortality thing certainly makes sense to me. I think you should give humans an average lifespan of a few hundred years, and a predator one of about a thousand, maybe more for dryads, sphinxes and such. I know it's an obvious point, but if everyone could only get die violently then it means that all of my favorite characters would eventually have to meet sticky ends, which is kinda sad. And I dunno how realistic it is, but I've read quite a few non-Felaryan stories where immortal characters go insane or lose the will to live because they've basically gotten bored of it. Not to mention that it's awfully boring to have everyone look in their twenties - a few wrinkles adds a lot of character.

Not sure about the portals/connections... A lot of stories are based around poor randoms getting sucked into a strange land and gobbled up, but I understand why you'd want to steer people away from that. Still, I was thinking of using that for a story starter myself, but this threads kinda pointed out what a common trope that is, so I'll think of something else.

I like the idea of eating kids being a somewhat rare/taboo sort of thing. And it seems to make sense to me too, Felaryan preds basically view humans as food animals, generally just eating them because they taste good and it's in their nature to do so, same as it being perfectly acceptable for people to eat chickens. But people generally don't eat newly-hatched chicks because they're too small to be worth it, kinda cute and anyone sentient knows that it's cruel. Most preds would probably be revolted, or at least bothered by another pred physically torturing humans for shits and giggles before eating them, so I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to say that most preds aren't into the human equivalent of veal either.

Technically, the loss of immortality isn't much of a loss to Prey Characters. It's a very few who do make it that far, and most who do are often Wizards as well (who are furthermore notorious for long lives without Felaryan Auras, so they might well remain "immortal" anyways). It's the Predators - specifically the Giant Predators - who are most heavily hit by this. Yes, I realize that Giant Predators are put at risk... but it's rarely portrayed. With this, at least it's a given that a Giant Predator will eventually pass. I can understand a removal of Immortality, but it does seem a pretty odd change: especially considering that people can become entirely magical spending long enough times on Felarya, which means a person who dies on Fel-

... Might that be why people 'die'? I'm not much of a fan of the "People who live long enough on Felarya become magical", but, er... people who live long enough on Felarya they become too magical to continue life?

Random connections I have less problem with, because it wasn't really used that much anyways unless a person needed to introduce a character to extend a party or give a Giant Predator a surprise dinner.

Cutting out the "child eating" seems a way to tame Felarya, and I'm somewhat against it. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to read about a family of Nagas eating schools of children because they're easy prey. In return, however, I expect the Predators to have at least some dehumanizing traits. It has already come to pass that - barring Predators pretty much designed to be otherwise - most Predators are a human with animal parts added to them. I may be out of the loop in several stories, but Nekos are often portrayed as more animalistic in behavior than things like Dridders and Harpies (who, BTW, at least have a change as well in that insults take great importance to them).

Malahite wrote:

Technically, the loss of immortality isn't much of a loss to Prey Characters. It's a very few who do make it that far, and most who do are often Wizards as well (who are furthermore notorious for long lives without Felaryan Auras, so they might well remain "immortal" anyways). It's the Predators - specifically the Giant Predators - who are most heavily hit by this. Yes, I realize that Giant Predators are put at risk... but it's rarely portrayed. With this, at least it's a given that a Giant Predator will eventually pass.

Except Vivian as she's a giant pred and a magic user.

Malahite wrote:

I can understand a removal of Immortality, but it does seem a pretty odd change: especially considering that people can become entirely magical spending long enough times on Felarya, which means a person who dies on Fel-

... Might that be why people 'die'? I'm not much of a fan of the "People who live long enough on Felarya become magical", but, er... people who live long enough on Felarya they become too magical to continue life?

This sounds like a good idea, people who aren't born a magic user eventually die because their body was not born to handle magic

Actually, I preferred the relative brain degeneration better- it would explain why there are so many people doing stupid things in the jungle. It'd also give you 1000 year olds acting like 10 year olds were writing fanfics with them in it.

Also, by making the mind weaker, and subjecting it to the accumulative Felarya effect... I wonder, could we make the Felarya effect include acting all kawaii, merry and carefree aside from just want omnomnom? Eventually, everyone'd commit suicide that way.

Stabs wrote:

Actually, I preferred the relative brain degeneration better- it would explain why there are so many people doing stupid things in the jungle. It'd also give you 1000 year olds acting like 10 year olds were writing fanfics with them in it.

It's not necessary to be a degeneration because the regeneration can affect the brain and makes you loss progressively the memory of the events.

My general opinion is that retcons should be avoided unless they're really deemed necessary. Changing aspects of Felarya's nature could be confusing, and would mess with quite a few existing stories and characters.

On specifics:

Karbo wrote:

The first thing : The immortality.
I'm pondering about replacing it by living for very very long. The soil would still heal and regenerate things and prevent diseases, but it wouldn't be something absolute any more, expect in some cases. Why that ? I feel absolute immortality is a bit.. how to put it .. "convenient". Plus it can poses some problems in its own regards.

I don't really see what those problems would be. Immortality, to me, makes sense: it means constant regeneration, keeping the body eternally young.

The one problem I can see with immortality, potentially, is overpopulation. But if you think about it, it's not necessarily an issue:
* Giant predators certainly don't reproduce very often. Crisis is 60, and has never had children.
* Giant predators do die occasionally. (Cf. Marya.) It's sensible to assume that their death rate roughly compensates for their birth rate. Few are born, and few die. Among smaller species, a high death rate from predation is matched by a high birth rate.
* Felarya is constantly expanding. So if there are more births than deaths among giant predators, the expansion of Felaryan territory matches their needs, and Felarya doesn't become overcrowded.

All else being equal, I don't really mind whether it's "immortality" or "permanently young, long-lived mortals". But I would tend to favour retaining the existing canon.

Quote :

The other thing : the random connections
This one is a bit tricky and I'm not totally sure how to proceed at this point. I don't want to put in question the unstable nature and working of Felarya, but the point is the more it goes, the more I'm bothered by having totally innocent and unaware people stepping into Felarya in drove and getting eaten for their troubles ^^;
As I see it, the random connection could still happens but maybe more rarely. And there could be some sort of barrier to that aspect. Maybe by either having it happens mostly in certain zones, or by making the transition more obvious ( not just walking into this " jungle that wasn' there yesterday" as currently described in the wiki and not stepping in without realizing it ). I'm still in the thinking phase about that and merely sharing my thoughts about it. Of course, aware people who choose to come to Felarya by themselves are fair game.

If you really are uncomfortable with it, then yes, change it. It's your world. But I rather hope you don't, for two reasons. The first is that it will mess at least a little with existing stories. The second is that (as I see it) it removes one of the complexities of Felarya.

The change you're proposing would seem to me to imply that humans who choose to go to Felarya somehow deserve to get eaten. Of course, some visitors are aware of the danger, choose to gamble on it, and lose. Their death is then the result of their conscious choice. But there are bound to be more complex cases. People who come without being aware of the dangers. People who are tricked into coming. And people who come for noble reasons. For example, a father coming to find Felarya's "healing soil" to heal his sick children. He comes knowing the risks, but surely he doesn't "deserve" to be eaten.

On the "moral" front, Felarya predators have different morals to our own. It's well established that they don't see eating humans as wrong. That can lead to some interesting discussions and quandaries, and differences between characters. Characters such as Jade, Katrika, Jora or Crisis all have different sets of morals when it comes to food. If you remove the fact that humans often end up in Felarya against their will, I feel you'd be losing part of what makes Felarya interesting. It would seem like an attempt to justify characters' predation from the perspective of human morals, and I think that would be a shame.

It would also seem like a way of removing all sympathy for prey. I'd personally be uncomfortable with that. Humans who are eaten are unique individuals. The fact that they're often unwilling visitors in Felarya enhances the sympathy we feel for that. I'd be rather unhappy with taking the basis for that sympathy away.

Quote :

I wonder also if there isn't a way to cut once and for all the recuring "eating children" argument, by saying that most sentient preds act like some real predators on earth who spare the youngs of their prey species, so they can breed and grow in numbers.

Again, this seems to me like a way of implying that it's "ok" for predators to eat humans - of resolving the moral issue, and of weakening sympathy for prey. It may not be deliberate on your part, but I feel it's the effect it would have.

From a human perspective, Felaryan predators are monsters. Please let's not sugarcoat that. Let's, rather, leave matters open for human characters to grapple with the morality of predators' actions, intentions, thoughts and feelings. (As MukatKiKaarn did so very well in his Ibrahim story.)

I would tend to agree with those who have said that children are not the most appealing of prey, for various reasons (they're small, cute, and they may remind preds of their own vulnerability when they were children), which means that predators will often ignore children and avoid eating them. But when a predator is hungry, I assume she would, in many cases, eat a child if it were the most available prey.

It seems somewhat unnatural, or "forced", to say that no predator will ever eat a child. (After all, humans eat young animals with no qualms whatsoever. And Felaryan preds see humans primarily as food.) I would think that it's a matter of personality. Some predators will eat anything; others will feel sympathy for children, and will let them go.

I personally don't like the idea of preds eating children. But it would be unrealistic to say it only rarely happens. The way I deal with it is by never mentioning the issue in my stories. That way, readers can imagine whatever they want. I have never said whether any of my characters eats children, and I don't intend to resolve the issue.

Here is what I recommend: Do nothing. Let the issue remain unspoken. Don't say children do get eaten (because that would make many people very uncomfortable), but don't say they don't, either (because that would be unrealistic and just far too "convenient").

ZionAtriedes wrote:

The only reason vore seems okay is because people make the victims less human. It's the very basis of the fetish: taking a person and dehumanizing them into a lower role, namely food. I've seen people get upset because authors wantonly killed off likable characters. But in the end, every person that's consumed is unique and feels pain.

Indeed. The predators don't view their prey as "proper people", but as writers and readers, I don't think we should be dehumanising the prey.

Appreciating Felarya, to me, requires being able to perceive it from two perspectives: A human perspective, in which every death is a tragedy; and a predator's perspective, which is essentially "innocent", and which makes it possible for us to enjoy the vore and not hate the pred characters. I don't think we should stifle either of those perspectives.

Let's see what I can say of the matter...

Replacing immortality with longer lifespan: I approve of this one. After all, immortality, when you think of it, sucks. Imagine being immortal: fine, you life forever, but there will be a point that life will be pointless for you, as, to put it in this way, nothing surprises you since everything is the usual thing for you. A longer lifespan, however, gives the feeling of a fake immortality, giving you more time to enjoy in life what you thought you'd never get to even know. So you can age and maybe you can stop at a time or just your aging slows down, but in the end no one lives forever.

Also, think of it: immortality while the soil heals you? Cheap. But if you want to keep the healing soil, you have to quit immortality... and if you want to keep immortality, get rid of the soil. But I guess the soil is so a significative characteristic of Felarya that it'd be very hard to get rid of it.


Random connections: Miragia Forest, the portal in Ur-Sagol... those sites are good for the whole realm randomness, but for the rest of Felarya, better keep it very rare. After all, unestability can grow worse and worse it if was widespread, so limiting it. I only have one character from out of Felarya - Grigor, the grumpy innkeeper - and happened to end in the place because of a very rare accident - the fact that I played a bit with the Miragia forest in one story was because of the setting... and Felaryan Madness is a parody, so it doesn't count xD - , and not even because of Felarya itself. It's better if we avoid populating Felarya with people who appeared from thin air - again, Miragia, Ur-Sagol, to name some, are exceptions to the rule, but don't abuse of them - rather than going for the locals.

Also, it helps to take away the whole "Felarya is an unestable place where time-space rifts happen so much it's an everyday event, and humans end up in here to be punished for being humans"... or how GREGOLE put it, "Felarya hates people". It will, however, help to give the "surviving the dangerous world" feeling some strength, so it won't be "a helpless human from another world has bad luck and gets eaten", but "an adventurer tries to face big perils and his/her survival will depend on many factors and on how events turn out".


Eating children: This is one big question. Myself, I admit it, I can't bare children suffering. Really, I don't. On the other hand, we have Felaryan predators, who have their diets and then their treats - humans, nekos, make-your-choice... Still, supposing they have a degree of intelligence, they might or might not make distinctions when it comes to children. There can be reasons for a predator not eating an infant prey: too cute to eat, too bony to eat, bad taste, their cries are unpleasant... I guess this is both a predator and author's choice.

What I do know is that, myself, I'm not portraying that aspect.


Finally...

GREGOLE wrote:

I know we're all vorarephiles

I'm not. xD

I'm sorry, I skimmed this page because I have a massive headache. ^^; So if I end up doing a facepalm moment because of it, forgive me. I just really wanted to say one thing:

As for changing the immortality thing, I approve. I heard it mentioned that it might remove the reason people come to Felarya. See, that depends on whether it boosts only the immune system, or other physiological functions as well. Okay, I'm not saying everyone gets Wolverine-healing, but maybe a boost to energy, stamina, even muscular strength. Of course, I don't mean Superman-level power or anything, but maybe an average man could suddenly run like an Olympic sprinter. In the context of Felarya, this doesn't matter, as the preds are boosted as well. But then again, the same could be said of immortality: it's useless in Felarya. The thing is, people are constantly trying to find a way to make it work outside of Felarya (though they've failed so far). I think that might clarify things a little.

As for the children thing, well, I think I've already said everything I've got to say on that. As for the connections, I really didn't have much to say in the first place.

Ow, ow, ow... I'm popping a few more pills. My eyes feel like they'll erupt from my head...

Feadraug wrote:

Also, it helps to take away the whole "Felarya is an unestable place where time-space rifts happen so much it's an everyday event, and humans end up in here to be punished for being humans"... or how GREGOLE put it, "Felarya hates people".

I really don't see humans being eaten as a show of "hatred" or "punishment". When predators hunt and eat, they don't hate their food, and they're really not thinking of "punishing" it. They just see it as tasty, nutritious food.

That's the predators' perspective. A writer's perspective may be different. The tiresome old trope that "all humans are jerks and deserve what happens to them" is one I strongly dislike. But it is possible, and indeed frequent, to write a vore scene in which the prey most emphatically is not a jerk.

Quote :

Eating children: This is one big question. Myself, I admit it, I can't bare children suffering. Really, I don't. On the other hand, we have Felaryan predators, who have their diets and then their treats - humans, nekos, make-your-choice... Still, supposing they have a degree of intelligence, they might or might not make distinctions when it comes to children. There can be reasons for a predator not eating an infant prey: too cute to eat, too bony to eat, bad taste, their cries are unpleasant... I guess this is both a predator and author's choice.

What I do know is that, myself, I'm not portraying that aspect.

Indeed. I'll never write about it myself, but it would seem unrealistic to actually state officially that it never happens.

French snack wrote:

I really don't see humans being eaten as a show of "hatred" or "punishment". When predators hunt and eat, they don't hate their food, and they're really not thinking of "punishing" it. They just see it as tasty, nutritious food.

That's the predators' perspective. A writer's perspective may be different. The tiresome old trope that "all humans are jerks and deserve what happens to them" is one I strongly dislike. But it is possible, and indeed frequent, to write a vore scene in which the prey most emphatically is not a jerk.

I was speaking of the writer's perspective. As it is seen, predators are predators, some are more intelligent, others aren't bright at all... Shit happens and someone who doesn't deserve the worst got what he didn't deserve, and that also happens in real life. What I wanted to say is what we all have seen and you've said, the fact that a writer thinks humans deserve it just for being human because being human makes you a jerk, but as sometimes happens to me, I don't explain it clearly - and it's not a matter of writing in English, this also happens to me in my mother language. xD

Alrighty, some further thoughts on this matter...

The immortality and child eating are really minor changes that won't effect much in an obvious way, so I'll knock them out first.

- The Immortality: Really, I doubt it will affect any of our writings. No one is going to write that far in the future. So really, there isn't a huge rush to decide on that one.

What it WILL affect is the futures of the predators. Currently, all of the Predators in Felarya face a fairly grim future. They will either live forever in the jungle....or get killed by a wild animal, poisonous plant, or humans. At least with very slow aging, they have the chance to bow out with some dignity. Honestly, Im not too concerned one way or the other with this one, since it doesnt really affect anything other than a sentence or two in the wiki getting changed.

- Child eating: I do have to agree that some wide-spread rule is a little overkill for this. I imagine some preds have no issues with eating human/neko/elf kids.

Personally though, I believe that most would not bother. Either because they aren't even big enough to be a snack, or because they remind the pred of when they were that big themselves (or of their own children if they are parents), struggling to survive in the harsh jungle.

I think child-eating falls into the same category as Gregole's "Twinkie theory" on predator diets. Just kind of a common sense thing that people should know...not some big overarching rule. Preds are still individuals, so there will always be some that buck the trends.

Also, to the "if they were really hungry" answers...ehh, I doubt that. According to the mangas, humans are about as long, or a little shorter than a predator's finger. Children would be tiny. It would be like one of us going "Oh God! Im starving! I NEED to eat this lone peanut to survive". I imagine a pred's personal views on the matter would matter a lot more than whether they are hungry or not...and the terrain of course. If there's plenty of fruit or prey around, I doubt they'd bother with some little kid.

...and now we get to the "big" change
*wheels out a dry erase board and dons a labcoat*

- DIMENSIONAL CONNECTIONS:

Alrighty, I have been thinking about this, and I believe just about all sides could be made happy by dividing dimensional connections into three distinct types.

-- Stable connections: These are the most common, and most traditional types of dimensional connections. Two points of space link up, with a swirling vortex-like aperture marking the entrance/exit. They appear throughout the universe in areas where the fabric of reality are strained or thin. They can last a few minutes or a few hours. Many groups of explorers around the universe peek into these portals, to try and study the worlds on the other side before the portal disappears. Enter at your own risk.

NOTE: Stable connections are also the main type of connection generated by artificial means, be it by a portal mage, or a portal generation device.

-- "Whiplash" connections: These types of connections are a good deal less common than stable ones. A whiplash connection is a sudden, violent connection between two points in space/multiple dimensions. These can be thought of as the interdimensional equivalent of a rip-tide. When they appear, anything within a certain proximity (some are bigger or smaller than others) gets sucked in as that point in space violently shifts. Their near-instantaneous nature also means that the exit usually closes behind you. Basically, the ultimate case of wrong place/wrong time.

-- Vanishing lands: These are aguably the most extreme type of dimensional connection. In a vanishing land situation, an entire region of another world becomes displaced, and transported to another world. Vanishing lands come in two varieties.

> "Rebound" connections: Where the land automatically returns back to its original location (along with anyone in it) after a certain amount of time. These are the most common types. Just don't panic and stay where you are, and you should be fine. The amount of land that is transported can vary widely...from a few yards, to whole cities in some extreme cases.

>"Exchange" connections: These are the second, less common type of vanishing lands. In this situation, a piece of land from one world is completely exchanged with a piece of another. In these cases, the displaced lands do not return home, and become a permanent part of where they were transported to. These tend to be much less common, and affect smaller areas than rebound connections.

...and there we go. I think with those types of connections, we can cut down on the number of totally unfair, non-consentual connections, while still keeping a random element to it. It also preserves stories where people or places were brought in seemingly at random.

Well thank you for your imputs so far everyone

It's sure give me lot of food for thoughts. On the children question, I'm realizing now that bringing that up was not really needed, in the sense that you just can't write a rule for that. It has to be according to the characters in plays, the situation and all...

On the immortality... Very hard to decide indeed. I must say this one shouldn't be a very big deal though, as there is basically no stories playing on that aspect ^_^

On the connection. Lot of very good arguments on both sides again. A thing I will absolutely avoid to do in anyway is to make any written stories becoming untrue because of an important change. This definitely won't hapens ^_^;
I will take my time to reflect on all that. But I'm beginning to think that rather than changing, explaining things better and more precisely could work too.
In this regard, this connection classification is interesting !

rcs619 wrote:

Some stuff on DIMENSIONAL CONNECTIONS

This is all that needed doing, defining what types of connections were the most common.
We don't need to reduce the overall amount of connections, only reduce the amount of connection types that force people into Felarya

Ohh, man, interesting stuff going on. I'll see if I can give my thoughts in a reasonably concise manner here.

Immortality
I actually liked the immortality. It's very unique (powerful wizards and warlords spend their entire lives searching for immortality, while Felarya gives it away for free... except you have to survive in Felarya) and provides a strong motivation for people to not just go there, but to try and live there as well. I don't think changing it to just a massive extension on lifespan would make that much of a difference in most cases, except for maybe changing the power structure of the rulers in Negav a bit. I don't think it would be a particularly bad change, but I'm unsure if it's really necessity.

Dimensional Connections
Hmm, on the whole, I do think a little bit more consistency and logic to the dimentional effects relating to Felarya is a good idea, and I rather like rcs619's portal categories. Despite the unfair consequences, I have to admit I'd hate to see the potential for someone getting unexpectedly stranded in Felarya to disappear completely though. It is at the very least a useful plot hook, and one I've used once myself already.

Youngsters
I'm gonna agree with FrenchSnack here. This isn't really something that should even be acknowledged by the canon, in my opinion. I can think of a half-dozen mainstream franchises off the top of my head that can have some *very* unsettling implications when you think about them too hard. It's practically unavoidable whatever your doing.

Well, might as well through something in here.

I agree with PrinnyDood that I liked the immortality. I understand Felarya is filled with treasure and stuff, but immortality seemed to the big thing to attract people, even if just to research something so valuable. However, if it's just really, really, long life, I doubt that will be much of a change at all. I think it's fairly okay as is, maybe with a little tweaking. The only place this has a big impact is Negav as the people there don't need to be in a constant struggle for survival to get said immortality... unless they're poor, which is a good deal of them. Still, this is what makes Negav interesting to me - it is, in many ways, just as much a fight for survival as the jungle.

The portal stuff I suppose could do with some defining as rcs619 laid out. I still think random portals could be interesting. The thing is, even if it was not common in other places... the universe is infinite. This is the reason there are a lot of adventurers around for Crisis to eat everyday. Even if 0.001% (probably much less actually, but you get the idea) of a planet's population are willing to risk their life on Felarya and have the means to get there... that miniscule faction is multiplied by the theoretically infinite amount of human inhabited planets across the multiverses. So there will be many visitors even without random portals - a sampling of the dumbest people across all of existence. XD

As for the kids... no need to mention or not mention it. Unfortunately, kids are probably still often on the menu due to practicality - only the really successful predators would have the luxury of picking and choosing. And if a predator doesn't eat them, kids are much more likely then more experienced adults to get eaten by non-giant lady fauna.

Wow, this thread got long while I was away. D:

Anyhoo, after reading everyone's thoughts on this, it would seem that the immortality, portal connections, and child cannibalism aren't really things that require worldwide rules. I bet they'll all differ story to story, so there isn't much need to alter them or try to bring them under one ruling. Like eating children for example. If some people want it to be natural, have it be natural in your stories. For those who aren't open to the idea, simply have your characters reflect it, or don't involve children in your stories at all. Have it be a personality quirk or something.

Though everyone is correct with the immortality thing. Not many stories rely on that. But it can work either way. It's not absolutely important if Felarya has immortality or not.

I seem to be a bit late to get into this but what the heck, everyone else is chipping in so why not.

As for immortality- I did kind of like that allure to Felarya as it stood out strongly as a counterbalance to the whole everything is out to get you and eat you alive making it hard for one to even achieve something close to a very long lived life...which basically shortens to largely lengthened lifespan could probably work just fine as well. For all the people on Felarya know it IS immortality to their senses, it is just incredibly hard ( or pretty much nearly impossible) to have lived long enough to hit the end of their natural 'Felaryan' lifespan. So either way could work with some rewording as most of the points have been brought up in regards to this really.

The child thing I'll just say leave it as it is...definitely more of a character thing than a general rule.

The connections Cliff has struck gold on classifying them like that and possibly having different zones more affected by different connection types could definitely play into it very well. Basically unstable zones such as Miragia have more wild temporary connections to keep the place relatively the same with its theme and other long time 'anchor' areas of Felarya rarely have them...though defining anchor points for the dimension of Felarya would be a task in itself. Anchors being eon old landmarks like the Giant Tree and Mysterious Temple (I'd imagine the Guardians wouldn't be fond of old Alcazath's tomb or Demerchelle vanishing anyways...) and stuff like that. Not saying some places could be completely off limits from portal types; I think there is some bit of fun not knowing what will happen just as you never know what danger could be lurking nearby in the jungles.

Guess I'll throw my two cents in here.

First off, as a comic fan I have to say, retcons suck. They suck real, real bad. At first people think t heir a good idea, but then as time goes on, they realize that wait a second, now a bunch of the old stories don't make sense. So they retcon the retcon, but then the new stories don't make sense, so they try a third retcon, but that just compounds the problem, and all of sudden Bucky Barnes is alive, Super Boy Prime is an whiny emo bitch, and Spider-Man is getting divorce mediated by the Devil and...well I'm getting off topic here...

Anyhoo

Immortality: I actually like the concept of immortality in Felarya. It actually gives human beings a chance, as assuming they survive long enough they can become experienced and powerful enough to actually challenge the predators. With the long life spans, that's just another way they can never hope to match up are challenge the predators, as the predators will almost always have lived longer, and been more experience. Additionally Felarya is dangerous enough that their really isn't that much opportunity to live forever, and even if you do and you get tired of it, you can always leave through one of the portals to some other world to age normally. Also aging means their are going to be at least one haggard, wrinkly predator going around eating people, and I just got to say, if I'm going to be eaten, the giant woman-monster thing better at least be good looking! I know that sounds shallow, but that's how I feel about the issue.

As for the more dramatic aspects of immortality that's been something I've been thinking about exploring, too be honest. I've got a couple villains in mind.



As for the dimensional stuff, well that could be explained without a retcon, Felarya's dimensional stability could be like the climate and temperature on other worlds, sometimes the instability is high and things are appearing and disappearing constantly, other times its a lot less likely. You could simply say that right now, Felarya is starting to heading in a period of increased dimensional stability.



As for eating children, eh, I just don't think about it to be honest. Keeps me happier. You could say however that children taste disgusting compared to adults, (they're two stringy or something...) and most predators simply don't find them appetizing.


Well there's my two cents.

Yeah.

JohnDoe wrote:

First off, as a comic fan I have to say, retcons suck. They suck real, real bad. At first people think t heir a good idea, but then as time goes on, they realize that wait a second, now a bunch of the old stories don't make sense. So they retcon the retcon, but then the new stories don't make sense, so they try a third retcon, but that just compounds the problem, and all of sudden Bucky Barnes is alive, Super Boy Prime is an whiny emo bitch, and Spider-Man is getting divorce mediated by the Devil and...well I'm getting off topic here...

Another very important point.

I don't think we should change the fundamentals of how the connections work. Instead we should just classify them like rcs did into most common, etc.
Changing the frequency of connections as a whole is a bad idea for precisely the reasons in JohnDoe's post. however, as rcs classifyied them all we need to do is change the frequency of the types of connections.
Reiterating what I said before about minor connections (major beign 'vanishing land' types), the connections that involve instantaneous, irreversible travel would be uncommon or rare. But connections that involve clearly visible 'portals' or visible changes in scenery while the connection is still active (Walking into a cave and suddenly be walking out of a cave into the Felaryan jungle, but still being able to dash back to safety) would be more common. We still need to keep the possibility of instantaneous irreversible transportation so a lot of the old stories make sense.

In short; backwards compatibility is required.

JohnDoe wrote:

Immortality: I actually like the concept of immortality in Felarya. It actually gives human beings a chance, as assuming they survive long enough they can become experienced and powerful enough to actually challenge the predators. With the long life spans, that's just another way they can never hope to match up are challenge the predators, as the predators will almost always have lived longer, and been more experience. Additionally Felarya is dangerous enough that their really isn't that much opportunity to live forever, and even if you do and you get tired of it, you can always leave through one of the portals to some other world to age normally.

We have a winnar here.
Reading this, it makes absolute sense to keep immortality.
People have brought up the "who wants to live forever" argument, but John negates that by invoking the nature of Felarya itself.
Not to mention that it does give human being more of a chance, as they can learn a predator's patterns, although one mistake and they're still dead or the predator could change their patterns, so it's not unfair.

Quote :

Recently I have seen people being chastised for coming into Felarya for the vore >>

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Joining for the vore isn't a bad thing, but judging this world as nothing but a vore universe IS.

Bael speaks the truth here. We (or at least people that I've talked to and myself) don't chastise people for coming for the vore, as in a lot of cases that would be very hypocritical. But judging Felaryan stories and art just by the vore content... That is something I don't like.

Anime-Junkie wrote:

Quote :

Recently I have seen people being chastised for coming into Felarya for the vore >>

Archmage_Bael wrote:

Joining for the vore isn't a bad thing, but judging this world as nothing but a vore universe IS.

Bael speaks the truth here. We (or at least people that I've talked to and myself) don't chastise people for coming for the vore, as in a lot of cases that would be very hypocritical. But judging Felaryan stories and art just by the vore content... That is something I don't like.

Quite. I was drawn to Felarya by the vore originally, but my stories have very little of it in them. I'd like to think you can write a story that's not a total vorefest and stay true to the Felaryan spirit. I mean, prey characters should be clever if they want to avoid nomming, and there can still be a sense of constant threat. Just because it's Felarya, doesn't mean it needs to be fap material for vore fans. I'm not dissing people who make their stuff into a form of erotica, either. There's a good-sized niche for that.

Hey,

On 'eating children', I think...

1. ...this is usually avoided in most Felarya works and stories.
2. ...its a useful tool to have. Either a character can cross the 'moral event horizon' by doing this, or be pulled back from the 'moral event horizon' by saving a child from this.
3. ...a blanket rule must anyway be handled carefully, because of odd corner cases, e.g. what about non-sentient predators, what about offspring of sentient-creatures that spawn in the thousands and expect attrition?
4. ...some guidance in the wiki that most predators don't or on specific predator pages that they never could be a useful clarification.

On 'dimensional connections', I think...

1. ...its useful to have the option for 'innocents in Felarya'. Even if you make this kind of connection rare, if that's the story people want to write they'll still write it. (i.e. Felarya stories represent what people are interested in, not the statistical likelyhood of what goes on in Felarya. I never imagined it was that deadly for the random chance unaware visitor anyway. People go for a walk in Amazon Rainforest, accidentally enter and see Jungle of Felarya, return safely and uneventfully to Amazon. Dull story, therefore never written. Case I always imagined most likely).
2. ...what may be useful is to have more detail on how and why people enter Felarya on the wiki in that top-level section. That way, if someone wants to write a story in Felarya, they aren't automatically pushed towards that 'random unlucky visitor' case.

PS1. ...why would you walk into a suddenly-appearing bit of Jungle anyway? Unless you're unlucky that it looks like what you'd expect, you're already in the case of 'choosing to go in'.
PS1b. ...therefore lots of the people who go into such must be dimensional explorers from worlds used to that kind of thing, or first-timers from those who aren't.

On 'immortality', I think...

1. ...it made a nice motivation to live in Felarya. It also balances out the dangers, explaining why anyone would chose to stay at all.
2. ...practically, it's difficult to write a far-future or far-past story of Felarya because to make that sort of thing unique you need to describe the surroundings and changes - and the future/past canon isn't detailed enough to do this without inventing lots of stuff.
3. ...I don't think living a really long time makes a difference from immortality in storytelling terms, and Felarya's so full of deadly and artefact-type exceptions you could make whatever you want happen in any story anyway.
4. ...i.e. not a big issue.

Yours,

Ambrose,

ambrose-euanthe wrote:

On 'immortality', I think...

4. ...i.e. not a big issue.

I'd have to disagree there. See, I remember someone (I can't remember who, sorry, and I don't feel like backtracking to find out) mentioning the "Wise Old Man" character archetype, and how it wouldn't really be doable in Felarya with the immortality thing going on. Plus, it's actually pretty impossible for immortality to ever truly exist. No matter how powerful you are, something is going to kill you eventually. That's the way the Universe works. I do concede that it would make Felarya kind of ironic, but I think that purpose can be served with the long-life model and my "energizing properties" model.

It's also true that eliminating the "irreversible entry into Felarya" would invalidate a lot of stories, including mine. However, there were a lot of stories where people did come to Felarya willingly or semi-willingly (in my own story, they were investigating a dimensional rift that they knew could be dangerous, and the safety protocols failed), and I don't know of any stories where people were walking around nonchalantly and BAM! found themselves in the Miragia Forest. Of course, I haven't read many Felarya fics (something I need to rectify), so there very well could be a few.

ZionAtriedes wrote:

ambrose-euanthe wrote:

On 'immortality', I think...

4. ...i.e. not a big issue.

I'd have to disagree there.

And I agree with your disagreement, the immortality is a BIG issue.

ZionAtriedes wrote:

See, I remember someone (I can't remember who, sorry, and I don't feel like backtracking to find out) mentioning the "Wise Old Man" character archetype, and how it wouldn't really be doable in Felarya with the immortality thing going on. Plus, it's actually pretty impossible for immortality to ever truly exist. No matter how powerful you are, something is going to kill you eventually.

Exactly, it's not invulnerability; it's just immunity to aging. I think that we should leave it as is. It works, doesn't need fixing.

ZionAtriedes wrote:

That's the way the Universe works. I do concede that it would make Felarya kind of ironic, but I think that purpose can be served with the long-life model and my "energizing properties" model

Not quite. With long life model some people are going to want it shorter, some longer. With immorality there's no dispute. At the moment, like Fish, I see no problem with it.

Most of my reasons for keeping Immortality have been summed up here:

^ That's a spoiler, for those you who don't know that you can change the text fro just saying "Spoiler."

ZionAtriedes wrote:

It's also true that eliminating the "irreversible entry into Felarya" would invalidate a lot of stories, including mine. However, there were a lot of stories where people did come to Felarya willingly or semi-willingly (in my own story, they were investigating a dimensional rift that they knew could be dangerous, and the safety protocols failed), and I don't know of any stories where people were walking around nonchalantly and BAM! found themselves in the Miragia Forest. Of course, I haven't read many Felarya fics (something I need to rectify), so there very well could be a few.

As I said before, we need to keep reverse compatibility in that. See my earlier post.

rcs619 wrote:

1: The Immortality: I think this is a good idea. Immortality, while cool in concept really only creates more problems than it fixes. By giving set age limits, you open up a lot more options. Now there can be people and preds of many different ages, instead of hot, perfectly fit people in the prime of their youth

I don't think so. one of the reasons we have old people is because we take care of them (some better than others but still). We basically stop them dying my brining them food and looking after them, etc.
In Felarya, Is that really going to happen? Predators are lone creatures. Sure, they have friends but for the most part they are loners. They have to be. Too many preds in an area means the prey gets eaten to extinction.
So, what happens when a predator gets older, slower and, in general less able to catch food? The answer is simple: They die. So, we won't see wise old predators around, (Except possibly dryads, but I think they would stay younger longer because trees live for ages) because they would have become unable to catch their prey and no one would bring them food, as their friends would be similar age. The distance they had to travel to see their friends would seem a lot longer when they are older.

Lastly, reinforcement through repetition:

JohnDoe wrote:

Retcons suck. They suck real, real bad.

Except for what Cliff (rcs619) suggested about classifying portals & connections. That's not a retcon, it's something that needed to be done anyway.

Just to say, I do like immortality the way it is here. While yeah, it may come off as convenient, but honestly, I doubt any of us will seriously write so far into the future that it'll be a factor on the character. There's so much danger that there's really no danger of overpopulation by humans, since they die en masse to predators. Not to say that no one pulls it off, but a character who lives forever in Felarya is probably boring and doesn't deserve to be written about anyway.

Overall, I don't think it's worth such a major change, no one would abuse it, I would hope...