My stories and characters

I've finally finished the "Felaryan flashes". By which I mean I've now written the final two stories in a series of eight short stories.

Stories 7 & 8 are "Beauty of the snow" (Yshwi's story) and "Felaryan feast" (Milly's story). They can be found here:
http://aryion.com/g3/showitem.php?id=173278

I'll put them on DA as well soon.

They mark something of a temporary departure from the emotionally tense theme of some of my recent Felarya stories. These are rather more light-hearted.

Ohh damn I really adored this one about the snow dryad ! the descriptions were just wonderful

Thanks! I've actually had that idea in mind for months and months, but I never got round to writing it until now. I enjoyed doing it. It felt a bit different, since I was writing about a character who lived all alone, so indeed it was all about descriptions.

Plus, we always need more dryads.

I liked the setting for Yshwi's story, particularly the fact that it was so cold, inhospitable, and barren. Not too many Felarya stories are set in such an environment.

It gave me some ideas for some rather nasty tomthumb traps as well.

timing2 wrote:

I liked the setting for Yshwi's story, particularly the fact that it was so cold, inhospitable, and barren. Not too many Felarya stories are set in such an environment.

Thanks. There are actually quite diverse environments in Felarya. There's the desert, and the sea and rivers (with mermaids)... We tend to focus on the forest because that's where most characters are, so that's where they can interact.

Nice to see you on the forum, by the way.

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It gave me some ideas for some rather nasty tomthumb traps as well.

Oh, good. I'll be curious to see them.

Sorry, no new story yet, but out of curiosity I've added a poll to this thread, asking you all which character from the Lost in Felarya series you like best.

If you need a reminder, Andrew is the priest; Chan is the Korean lady; Fabrice is the slightly nervous Congolese/French doctor and Manon is his mute wife; Gwynn is the sensible, fortyish journalist; Laila is the rich Syrian girl in her late teens; Majed is the working-class, odd-job man in his thirties and 'on the run'; Lohai is the mysterious, bearded man who wasn't on the plane; Mabel is the middle-aged American woman; Michel is the youngish, dark-haired Frenchman who just tags along; Mohamed is the old Syrian in his eighties; Rajan is the pilot, and reluctant leader of the survivors.

Your 'Lost in Felarya' series is awesome! Andrew's my personal favorite due to the fact that I always imagine him being played by Christopher Lee when I read his dialogue or what he's thinking.

Yikes. I don't imagine him looking like Christopher Lee. But thanks!

Now who voted Chan?

Sorry I did and meant to post as well after voting, just had a quick moment to stop by and see heh. Anyways she really caught me as an interesting character and I particularly liked her encounter with the fairy a ton to see how the two characters interacted .

Heh, thanks. I'm glad you liked that scene. And that Chan comes across as likeable despite... well, what she did (not being more specific, so as to avoid spoilers).

Gwynn all the way!

Ah, I'm glad you like Gwynn. If Rajan weren't there, I think she might have taken on more of a leadership role. In fact, she might be better suited for it than he is. In a way, she's one of the more level-headed of the survivors.

The fact that she wasn't there when the survivors split between the majority going into the jungle and a minority staying in Ur-Sagol prevented her from taking a position on that.

Of course, not all the characters have had a centric chapter yet. For example, will we be getting a more detailed look into Fabrice's character at some point? If we find out more about Andrew, will he become more likeable... or more detestable? And why was Mohamed crying on the plane? (A not so subtle reminder of a brief scene from chapter one. )

I should also take this opportunity to remind you all that chapter one started with a "flash-forward", to a scene which hasn't occurred yet.

One of the problems with having so many characters is that it's difficult to give them all prominence. And some characters were killed off in the early chapters at a time when their potential had barely been hinted at. I sometimes wish I'd kept them around and developed them more... but, at the same time, my idea was to give their deaths an impact precisely by hinting at a lost potential. Still, there are living characters that I should probably put in the foreground more. Manon, for example. I keep meaning to push her forward, but she seems to slip quietly into the background. And Mabel, who hasn't really done much since the early chapters.

On a rather different note, Chan's apparent popularity gave me a silly idea... (Using spoiler tags for those who haven't read her centric chapter yet.)

Spoiler:

Anyway... After all this rambling, I'm just pleased that there's a diversity of views on who your favourite characters are.

I don't know why, but Gwynn struck me as the most "human" of all the characters. I can't really put my finger on why though. She's intelligent, thoughtful, courteous, she actually cares about others and is willing to put herself on the line for them. And considering her background, it actually makes sense. There are a lot of scenes with her that come to mind, and yes, I do remember Chapter 1. I'm just hoping that little opening scene was not what it at first appears to be. That would be disappointing.

I agree as well, she is a very solid character !

Thanks, both of you. :p I think I see what you mean by "most human".

As for what will happen when that opening scene takes place... Wait and see.

For those who may want a mild spoiler, these are the titles of the upcoming chapters:

Spoiler:

Chapters 8 to 13 will, of course, each focus on a particular character. I started writing chapter 8 a while ago, but I haven't been adding anything to it recently... I will soon, hopefully.

The continuation of Milly and Isham's story.

http://aryion.com/g3/showitem.php?id=173986

To clarify, this is the chronology of Milly and Isham's story so far:

Spoiler:

Alright, I still haven't read all of them, but I've read.... well, a lot more of them, at any rate. And I gotta say, just about every problem I brought up before is prettymuch still in effect. Hell, I think the problems are actually worse, now that I've read more.

The problem is, these are just generic vore stories. Sure, there's a LITTLE character development, but it all plays second fiddle to the vore. There's no adventure, no REAL character development, nothing but vore. Oh sure, there's some mild variety in the nature of the vore, keyword being "mild". I'm sure there's TONS of interesting ways to explore a vore-central story, but I'm seeing one of it.
I don't know if it's conscious or not, but there's definitely some predator bias here.
I'm not saying you need to write the next Rin's Adventures, but would a LITTLE variety hurt anyone?

I'm sorry, but having gone through your gallery, I've at least skimmed almost all of your stories, and so far nothing sticks out as being unusual or interesting. Yeah, there's a little plot here and there, but nothing that isn't directly intended to lead to one or more vore scenarios.

I'm sorry to say, these characters are anything but interesting. Even the ones you think have loads of development only have a mild to moderate amount of it. There is WAY too much focus on the vore and not enough on the characters around it. And this is coming from an extreme vorarephile with a hundred-plus sized folder devoted exclusively to vore images.
I may be in the minority, but I don't like sitting down and reading the exact same exchange of dialogue and excessive imagery a million and one times, especially not with Felarya.

The first story of yours I read was your elaboration on Zoekin's background character. And that one gave us a wide variety of predators, both malevolent and benevolent, that there was a story outside the vore. Then Crisis came in and basically fucked the entire thing. >>

I mean.... you have the skill, you have the eye, you have the raw talent, you SHOULD be able to produce something better!

There is literally nothing I have any interest in reading, within these stories. It's a literary medium. That means I have to go to the trouble of reading every excruciating detail, no matter how tedious it is. It might work better with a visual medium, but definitely not a literary one.

I KNOW you can do better than this! You have to branch out, tell some stories that don't center exclusively around vore. I know you think they don't, but believe me, almost all of them do. Badly.

Once again, this is only my take on the matter. Not that anyone is liable to share or even respect my opinion or anything, but still. =P

I'm way too tired and (for reasons that have nothing to do with you) tense and frustrated right now to give you a detailed reply, so I'll keep it brief.

First, thanks for taking the time to comment. It's always appreciated. Second... I'd like to think my characters have some originality and personality to them, and that the vore is more anecdotal than centric to the stories that develop them. Other readers certainly seem to think so. For brief examples, I tend to think Yshwi's story made her a somewhat different character to my other ones, even if vore featured prominently in it. (And she could only have been presented through a literary medium, not a visual one.) My "Lost in Felarya" series focuses on human characters. I'd like to think there's no "predator bias" in that series, and that the vore merely contributes to a setting for the characterisation. Being in Felarya forced Rajan or Gwyn (for example) to adapt to a new setting, or taught them or reminded them of certain aspects of themselves. In such cases, when I used vore, it was to provide a means to emphasise the humans characters, who were supposed to draw (most) of the reader's interest and sympathy (even if predators weren't supposed to be seen as "bad".) I'd like to think that Gwyn (for example) stands out as a character in her own right. Again, certain readers seem to think so.

Having said that... I have been thinking, recently, of "toning down" some of the vore, and perhaps focusing on a non-predatory character. There are various ways in which I could do that. I briefly introduced a non-carnivorous dryad in one story, and I've been pondering whether to re-use her (with the obvious problem that she, well, can't move, which limits the options of stories to some extent). Or, I could focus on the Alsumi, create more characters among them, and present aspects of their every days lives with little or no vore involved. That's something that's been floating round the back of my mind, but it remains ill-defined. So your comment comes at an interesting time, providing a little nudge in a direction I've been contemplating.

So when you say "There's no adventure, no REAL character development, nothing but vore", it gives me something to think about, but I can only agree with the first part. I don't really do "adventure" (except to a limited extent). It's just not my thing. I prefer character interaction. (Heck, my latest story is exclusively character interaction; absolutely nothing happens, except a succession of three dialogues: Milly/Teccri; Isham/Joanna; Milly/Isham.) I disagree with your assessment that there's no character development and nothing but vore. Maybe we're not looking for the same kind of character development; I don't know. If you're looking for adventure, action and plot in that sense, you'll rarely find it in what I write. That's by design. I focus more on characters interacting, talking with one another - and, yes, sometimes responding to outside events. But other readers seem to find some of my characters interesting and developed, to some extent at least, which suggests that they're seeing something there which you're not seeing. I've had comments to which I was able to reply: "Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to do with that character".

You and I clearly have different priorities. For instance, if I understand correctly, you object to likeable characters getting killed. Whereas I've killed off a number of likeable characters (for various reasons), and I tend to object more to unlikeable characters being killed (it just doesn't appeal to me, perhaps because it's unoriginal). I believe that a character death should provoke a feeling of loss, and sympathy, rather than satisfaction. (I may have a "predator bias", but in many cases I don't treat prey deaths lightly.)

Ultimately, I write what I'm interested in writing, and I'm pleased that certain readers enjoy reading the outcome. I'm interested in what you say, and your suggestions give me something to think about, but I'm not -for example- going to turn to writing action-filled adventures. I tend to find those boring and repetitive, and skim through them quickly when I come across them.

I can't write about something that I find boring and unoriginal.

Anyway... This turned out longer than I'd expected. I'm exhausted, and still just as tense (for various reasons) as when I started out, so I'm going to crash and try and get some sleep. In the end, I respect and value your comments, but I bear in mind the fact that different people have different preferences, and yours aren't the same as mine, or, apparently, as those of other people who've read my stories. And thanks for the encouragement buried beneath all the criticism. I'll also continue to think about the possibility of focusing on tomthumb community development with very limited vore, but I have few ideas to go on for the time being. Right now, to be honest, I'm not really in the mood to write about anything.

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” -Kurt Vonnegut

I'll go ahead and throw my gas onto the fire. People read and write stories for different reasons. My god what a boring world would this be if we all had exactly the same interests, likes, and dislikes.

I personally enjoy your stories immensely because of the vore and I am NOT a voraphile. I intensely dislike innocents begin devoured by predators. Strange, considering this is what underlies most of what goes on in Felarya-based stories. In my own few stories, a few humans who didn’t deserve it get gobbled up, but it’s rarely my focus.

You make interesting characters and come up with extremely poignant encounters with them. That takes considerable talent. An example of this is the scene in your “Lost in Felarya” stories where Rajan encounters Payale having just eaten a tomthumb. That scene still sticks in my mind and I read the story the day after you posted it. I still like Payale as a character even after what she did. I’m hoping she and Rajan make it through unscathed, though considering where they are headed this is entirely unlikely.

Another example would be Milly. When I read one of the earliest stories with her, my dislike was immediate. Then Isham showed up, things did not change much, and I recall making some early comments on Eka about how the two were getting along. The funny part is, I’m now rooting for Milly to pull through her latest ordeal, despite her still eating humans (and likely to eat more despite her promise). Quite a switch from when I first read about her!

And yet another example, perhaps my favorite, are Vuni & Tiasha - miniature slug-girls in love. They’re slurping down poor, hapless tomthumbs (which I have a particular fondness for) and yet that simple, elegant story is one of my favorites. What happens in it? Not much, but then not every story has to be a Silmarillion to be appreciated.

I think Karbo said this before, but your stories probably have more of Felarya “mood” to them than 95% of the Felarya fanfic out there. Many of the ideas I’ve had spring from segments of your stories. I use your stories as a touchstone for my own. I for one hope you keep writing them for a good long while.

timing2 wrote:

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” -Kurt Vonnegut

Sensible advice.

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You make interesting characters and come up with extremely poignant encounters with them. That takes considerable talent. An example of this is the scene in your “Lost in Felarya” stories where Rajan encounters Payale having just eaten a tomthumb. That scene still sticks in my mind and I read the story the day after you posted it. I still like Payale as a character even after what she did. I’m hoping she and Rajan make it through unscathed, though considering where they are headed this is entirely unlikely.

Thank you. Making that kind of scene memorable is what I've been aiming it. Felarya's particularities offer fascinating opportunities for character interactions and development - particularly for outsiders who meet Felaryans and grapple with Felaryan 'morals'.

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Another example would be Milly. When I read one of the earliest stories with her, my dislike was immediate. Then Isham showed up, things did not change much, and I recall making some early comments on Eka about how the two were getting along. The funny part is, I’m now rooting for Milly to pull through her latest ordeal, despite her still eating humans (and likely to eat more despite her promise). Quite a switch from when I first read about her!

And yet another example, perhaps my favorite, are Vuni & Tiasha - miniature slug-girls in love. They’re slurping down poor, hapless tomthumbs (which I have a particular fondness for) and yet that simple, elegant story is one of my favorites. What happens in it? Not much, but then not every story has to be a Silmarillion to be appreciated.

Heh. Thanks. That's very encouraging.

(I've been trying to think of new stories for Vuni, but I'm not happy with any of the ideas I've come up with. I discard most of my story ideas, in fact, for various reasons. I'm still hoping to write about her again some day, though.)

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I think Karbo said this before, but your stories probably have more of Felarya “mood” to them than 95% of the Felarya fanfic out there. Many of the ideas I’ve had spring from segments of your stories. I use your stories as a touchstone for my own. I for one hope you keep writing them for a good long while.

Thank you. It's mutual. Your earlier comments certainly spurred me into writing Isham and Milly's latest conversation. I'm not sure to what extent Satasha inspired my use of Calina, but I hadn't used nekos much until you made Satasha such a likeable character. I'll continue to look forward to your stories.

GREGOLE wrote:

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I think that was a terrible and very unfair critique >>

Little developped characters ? Well they are among the most developped I ever seen in Felarya stories with each time a psyche of their own. When I read about them I immediatly care about them and it makes the stories all the more intense and powerful.

And nothing interesting ? I am puzzled on this one. Really.
For me his stories are full of very memorable scenes, the kind you remind long after you finished to read the story.

Criticism is fair but this... it's something else. It's not constructive at all. Those are words that seem made to hurt and discourage , eventhough I know you enough to know it's not the case...

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I think that was a terrible and very unfair critique >>

Yes, well, at least one of us has taken the time and effort to put together a thorough and detailed critique at all. And I wasn't the least bit rude about it, so I think I'm completely justified.

If I didn't know you better, which I don't, I'd suspect you might just be upset that someone disagrees with you so strongly. You clearly have a lot of fondness for these stories.

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Little developped characters ? Well they are among the most developped I ever seen in Felarya stories with each time a psyche of their own. When I read about them I immediatly care about them and it makes the stories all the more intense and powerful.

Yes, well, I strongly disagree.

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And nothing interesting ? I am puzzled on this one. Really.
For me his stories are full of very memorable scenes, the kind you remind long after you finished to read the story.

And for me they're repetitive and anti-climactic, with very little lasting character development that doesn't involve vore.

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Criticism is fair but this... it's something else. It's not constructive at all.

Further evidence that you're just upset that I don't love them like you do. I think I was VERY constructive, seeing as how I addressed exactly what I thought the problem was and offered some encouragement where I thought it was needed.

I'd love to hear what your idea of "constructive" criticism is.

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Those are words that seem made to hurt and discourage , eventhough I know you enough to know it's not the case...

If you know I'm not meaning to hurt or discourage, and Frenchsnack knows it as well, then exactly what are you getting at?

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I'm way too tired and (for reasons that have nothing to do with you) tense and frustrated right now to give you a detailed reply, so I'll keep it brief.

You call THAT brief? Who are you? Zalzas?

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First, thanks for taking the time to comment. It's always appreciated.

Well, at least someone does.

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So when you say "There's no adventure, no REAL character development, nothing but vore", it gives me something to think about, but I can only agree with the first part. I don't really do "adventure" (except to a limited extent). It's just not my thing. I prefer character interaction. (Heck, my latest story is exclusively character interaction; absolutely nothing happens, except a succession of three dialogues: Milly/Teccri; Isham/Joanna; Milly/Isham.) I disagree with your assessment that there's no character development and nothing but vore. Maybe we're not looking for the same kind of character development; I don't know. If you're looking for adventure, action and plot in that sense, you'll rarely find it in what I write. That's by design. I focus more on characters interacting, talking with one another - and, yes, sometimes responding to outside events. But other readers seem to find some of my characters interesting and developed, to some extent at least, which suggests that they're seeing something there which you're not seeing. I've had comments to which I was able to reply: "Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to do with that character".

You mistake "adventure" for swords and sorcery.

Adventure is vital to Felarya. It's the sense that the world around is huge and untamed, and that anything could happen. It's the mystique and wonder. The manga does it. Several stories do it. These stories don't.

The problem is, they're predictable. It builds up some potential for it, such as the Felarya Express, our late Zoekin-character or the platoon that Viv and Namesta took out. But none of it is explored properly. It all becomes a vore-fest really quickly.

This "character development" is something I hear a lot about, but I see nothing of. If by "character development" you mean small humans finding out that they're considered food, or predators arguing about whether or not to eat someone, yeah there's that. And... prettymuch nothing else. There's nothing that doesn't immediately relate to vore.

Now, Jissy has SOME, though VERY little that I haven't seen at least twice before. It's all very stale and worn out, in my opinion.

I'm not saying the stories are WHOLLY without interesting character interaction. It's all just buried beneath mountains and mountains of vore that invariably steals the spotlight.

I'd just keep experimenting if I were you. You have the potential, you're just not exploring it.

Karbo wrote:

Little developped characters ? Well they are among the most developped I ever seen in Felarya stories with each time a psyche of their own. When I read about them I immediatly care about them and it makes the stories all the more intense and powerful.

And nothing interesting ? I am puzzled on this one. Really.
For me his stories are full of very memorable scenes, the kind you remind long after you finished to read the story.

Thank you. That's very encouraging, and means a lot to me. Getting readers to empathise with my characters, and care about what happens to them, really is one of my primary aims.

GREGOLE wrote:

Adventure is vital to Felarya. It's the sense that the world around is huge and untamed, and that anything could happen. It's the mystique and wonder.

True. I've often thought of writing about areas "beyond the map". I started once; I had a whole story planned out that would take characters through Deeper Felarya (developing it along the way), and beyond. I only wrote a few paragraphs, and then stopped. I'm not sure why. Sometimes, my drive to write a particular story simply stalls. I've also thought of writing about life on another continent, and people from there visiting the "main continent". I may still do so. (These stories would hold no pretension at being canon, of course.) But it's not something I intend to go into in the immediate future.

Of course, I did write about Yshwi on Frost Peak, with an aim to emphasise that Felarya isn't all jungles - there's also a harsh mountain face where life is very different. But Yshwi was a one-off, by definition, given how isolated she is.

On the "mystique and wonder", hugeness and untamed aspect of the mapped section... That's also something I've thought about. (But then, I think about many things, and lack the time to put them all in writing. I discard most of the story ideas that come to me, as being unsatisfactory for various reasons, and put a lot of others on an indefinite backburner.) I may try to give it more emphasis through my tomthumb characters. One of my few attempts as looking into something a bit different so far was my story set on the banks of the Lake of Illusions. That came, in great part, from a wish to develop an interesting setting which was rarely used.

Having said all that, the way my characters have defined themselves, they're not particularly adventurous. Milly, Tina and Joanna have a permanent home. Elaya stays on 'safe' territory for the most part. Vuni is very much sedentary.

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The problem is, they're predictable.

That's not a universally shared opinion, since other readers have told me they experienced suspense reading some of my stories.

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This "character development" is something I hear a lot about, but I see nothing of. If by "character development" you mean small humans finding out that they're considered food, or predators arguing about whether or not to eat someone, yeah there's that. And... prettymuch nothing else. There's nothing that doesn't immediately relate to vore.

Now, Jissy has SOME, though VERY little that I haven't seen at least twice before. It's all very stale and worn out, in my opinion.

I'm not saying the stories are WHOLLY without interesting character interaction. It's all just buried beneath mountains and mountains of vore that invariably steals the spotlight.

I'm sorry you feel the vore "steals the spotlight". I do find it interesting that it seems that way to you, but I must also bear in mind that, to other people, it clearly doesn't.

I deliberately didn't give my characters much of a background because I was more interested in exploring the lives of ordinary people who, through interaction with their setting and one another, would reveal touches of their own personality and mindframe. The only exception is Jissy, with her specific history. Milly had an ordinary and overall happy childhood (which, admittedly, I've not gone into yet). On the whole, I simply don't like seeing masses of characters with traumatic pasts, nursing a deep sense of grief and thirsting for revenge or that sort of stuff. For many years, I was in a (non-vore) rolepalying / writing community, and I was dismayed at the number of new writers who tried to join with a character whose parents had died in tragic circumstances in their youth. It left me with a distaste for "out of the ordinary" (yet distessingly monotonous) character histories. I prefer to take a character who grew up with no trauma whatsoever, and see what I can make of her. (All right, Elaya's mother was eaten when she was a baby, but that was little more than a minor plot device.)

So to sum up... I may look into using more aspects of the Felaryan setting, and emphasising its wonder, diversity and so on. I'm thrilled that Karbo is doing so with his artwork, and I'm hoping it will help the community as a whole branch out into new parts of the map (so to speak), as well as bear in mind the overall "mystique" and "feel" of Felarya. As I mentioned, I've tried to do so with the Lake of Illusions and Frosty Peak, and maybe I'll do so again.

But to a large extent character interaction, within the specific Felaryan setting, remains my "thing". And I've been told my writing does convey a "Felaryan feel", so clearly what I'm doing isn't disastrously wrong. Maybe we have different views on what constitutes a "Felaryan feel". Despite the impression you may have, mine doesn't revolve solely around vore, far from it - and a number of people who've read my stories do seem to realise that. I'm genuinely sorry that my stories don't fit your preferences, but (and I'm sorry if this sounds immodest in any way) there is clearly something in them that others are seeing and that you're not. It comes down to different expectations and preferences, I suppose.

For now, I'm probably going to continue my "Lost in Felarya" series, with its emphasis on exploring the stories and personalities of human characters. There will continue to be vore in the series, but the focus will remain to a large extent on the characters - as it has done so far, in my view. Rajan's confrontation with Palaye, for example, contained vore, but I don't think anyone would say the vore "stole the spotlight" in that scene. It was very much about Rajan and Palaye as characters. Likewise, chapter 6 contained virtually no vore. For the main, it was about Michel and Chan as characters, as well as continuing Majed, Laila and Mohamed's interaction within their own setting - which contains no vore whatsoever. (To that extent, it's simply not true that there's "nothing that doesn't immediately relate to vore".)

I'll bear your comments in mind, as I will those of other readers. They've given me things to think about, particularly when they touched on themes I'd already been mulling over. I appreciate you having taken the time to comment... although I'd have appreciated it even more if you'd been able to acknowledge that, if other people see something positive in my stories, there might actually be something to them. Ultimately, while considering everyone's comments and suggestions, I'll be writing about what I enjoy writing about. I dare presume nobody would want it any other way.

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I'd just keep experimenting if I were you. You have the potential, you're just not exploring it.

Thank you... I think.

Yes well, since obviously I'm not allowed to have an opinion, I'll just leave it at that. I'll still check up on your stories now and then. Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe I'm missing some vital entries or something.

Lost in Felarya, chapter 8:
http://aryion.com/g3/showitem.php?id=174332