Interesting Take on Predation

I was like most of you until literally five minutes ago. Predators have their own unique diet and treat humans how we would treat cows, pigs, deer, ect. But, that is not so, it is a false comparison. Predators are still, quite literally, budding serial killers. Because while yes, eating is a fun activity we all enjoy doing, they seem to take more than just the normal amount of pleasure in eating. It is not something they passively so, they taunt, play, toy with their prey.

Humans on the other hand, do not do that. My Grandfather is an avid deer hunter. His worst fear, the thing he never wants to happen, is for the deer not to be killed on the first shot. He shot a deer once and it fell over, squealing and crying in pain. He had to kill it with his knife and he had never felt more guilty about something in his entire life. Even avid meat-eaters in our world look on in horror at the activities that go on in factory farms.

Now, we can always make the case that is is different that mass-produced foods because this takes place in the wild, and even a human hunter is still living in a nice suburban home typically, and not starving for food. Well, lets go back to hunter-gatherers then, some of which prayed to and worshiped the animals in which they killed, did not condone harsh treatment of them, and gave the creatures the up most respect for the gift of their flesh. Felaryan predators, at least how they are currently portrayed, are unlikable for the reasons that they relish in the fear and pain of their prey, they do not show their prey respect, they do not value their lives like humans value the lives of their non-sapient prey. *drops mic*

Okay, that's all well and good, but tell us how you really feel!



EDIT: We already knew predators were dicks, man! That's kind of the point!

I know how you feel, and do feel pity for prey...and then fully agree with the preds. Even though my cats toy with prey, and ants wage war, that is not why I would gleefully play with my prey. I would do it because it's sapient, because if I sympathized with them I would become suicidally depressed, and be constantly reminded of my own mortality. If I become a pred in Felarya, then I will make sure to raise my confidence by savouring these small moments of victory between having to constantly evade other predators. I would look at them, these creatures who are so damn arrogant to assume that they can survive in this jungle unprepared where I face death every day, and then I would feel like they deserve it and that at least I acknowledge the danger and thus I am safe. As long as I am superior to those who die, then I am not going to end like them.

Chihiro Fujisaki wrote:

I was like most of you until literally five minutes ago. Predators have their own unique diet and treat humans how we would treat cows, pigs, deer, ect.

Actually some of us RPers have tried to make characters who attempt such ventures as human farming but it tends to unnerve a few who aren't into that specefic form of pet play. Partially cause the pred's don't "play". It's quite a different game to be put in a pen and kept as a pet than put there to be fattened, breed and eaten latter. It makes you almost start envy vegetarians. =/ In fact vore will if you think about it as a realistic, cause it AIN'T! =P Even with Hollo Deck type tech and the possiblity of alternate dimensions we couldn't hope to recreate it and if the Square Cube "Law" holds true? We'll never have to worry about giantess aliens coming here and delighting in hunting us down and devouring us, eh? XD Don't take Felarya seriously. I've seen so many fall out of love with it by taking it too seriously. T_T Sooo many.

Chihiro Fujisaki wrote:

I was like most of you until literally five minutes ago. Predators have their own unique diet and treat humans how we would treat cows, pigs, deer, ect. But, that is not so, it is a false comparison. Predators are still, quite literally, budding serial killers. Because while yes, eating is a fun activity we all enjoy doing, they seem to take more than just the normal amount of pleasure in eating. It is not something they passively so, they taunt, play, toy with their prey.

Humans on the other hand, do not do that. My Grandfather is an avid deer hunter. His worst fear, the thing he never wants to happen, is for the deer not to be killed on the first shot. He shot a deer once and it fell over, squealing and crying in pain. He had to kill it with his knife and he had never felt more guilty about something in his entire life. Even avid meat-eaters in our world look on in horror at the activities that go on in factory farms.

Now, we can always make the case that is is different that mass-produced foods because this takes place in the wild, and even a human hunter is still living in a nice suburban home typically, and not starving for food. Well, lets go back to hunter-gatherers then, some of which prayed to and worshiped the animals in which they killed, did not condone harsh treatment of them, and gave the creatures the up most respect for the gift of their flesh. Felaryan predators, at least how they are currently portrayed, are unlikable for the reasons that they relish in the fear and pain of their prey, they do not show their prey respect, they do not value their lives like humans value the lives of their non-sapient prey. *drops mic*

I find this view close, yet a little off.

You have to remember environmental differences between Felarya and Earth. In our world we aren't constantly struggling to survive. Though first thing I really want to address is how you see them as enjoying and tormenting their prey. Catching prey is euphoric for them because I see it as a triumph. They are happy to find a meal to eat, not happy because they are torturing innocents. Crisis doesn't see people as people, she sees them as food. You need to do something very drastic to get her to see you as a person. She generally doesn't think about such things as humans being people.

The other thing, is that succubi are the ones who feed off pain and suffering. When they eat you and you are trapped in their gut, your digestion isn't what fuels them I think, its the fact you're in their stomach, and in a horrible environment, and the resulting pain from that coupled with anything else is what causes nourishment. They are demons after all - just because they look cute doesn't mean they're innocent.

On the other hand, as I said, the environment is very different. The Psychology of rationalization, and the food chain, plus how many sapient creatures exist...its all intertwined. Its dark, its a grey moral center, and its extremely complex. There are so many variables you have to remember. Saying that "they enjoy torturing prey therefore are demons and terrible people" is very short sighted.

Do they actually enjoy the suffering, though? I don't really see predators saying that the suffering adds to the enjoyment. Struggling, yes, but that's just a tactile sensation, a rhythm inside that is enjoyed similar to flavor and texture, independent of the implications of said struggling. You could say that they should be more mindful of the implications, but should a Lion be mindful of the implications in the Antelope running away from it? Is the Lion irredeemable for enjoying the chase?

I did mention early hunter-gatherers in my post, if you saw. They fought everyday for survival, had to protect themselves from dangerous predators such as wolves, lions, smilodons ect. Yet their prey was respected, prayed to, and thanked. They did not look at their prey as inferior or weak, they took their hunts seriously and many of their Gods took on the form of the animals. Many early religions even believed people were reincarnated as animals, hence why they were respected so much. Early humans faced horrible odds as well, many died before 30, over half did not reach adulthood and died when young, it was grim, horrible, yet the people still respected the animals they killed.

Lions do not enjoy the chase either, they would much rather, like anyone, to have an easy meal. The chase, if it fails, expends valuable energy and decreases the chance of survival. It is why lions ambush their prey and try to end it as soon as possible.

Chihiro Fujisaki wrote:

Lions do not enjoy the chase either, they would much rather, like anyone, to have an easy meal. The chase, if it fails, expends valuable energy and decreases the chance of survival. It is why lions ambush their prey and try to end it as soon as possible.

Look at Discovery Channel. Cubs chase as play. And they look awfully smug when winning. Not to mention that Felarya does not really give most preds time to make a religion. You only get the chance to philosophize in safety. They are cavemen, crossing the line between animals and humans; not "people" yet.

Once more, I remind you of cats with mice.

a question if I may, a form of rhetorical question to highlight the ridiculous of this conversation.

"What is a predator?"

Or rather,

"What is a predator in the context of felarya?"

would you say the predators are like this?

https://youtu.be/bZgklu52Rus?t=33

Or would this be a felarya predator?

https://youtu.be/hxBg2lTWIFE?t=523

Or.......Perhaps......the predators are essentially this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BGYzZYU3rM

just one more question...

Which one would you surpose would be kinda stupid to take seriously without making major changes to the setting?

Of course a cannibal would not see eating people as wrong, however, we would not condone their actions and try to justify them. We would condemn them and demand they be rounded up and thrown in prison, because they are cannibals and are doing something very immoral and sick. Felarya is a very different context as well, which I have said and admitted to. Let me put this in bold letters.

EVEN IN FELARYAN CONTEXT. GIANT, HUMANOID PREDATORS EXHIBIT BEHAVIOR THAT WE DEEM TO BE DISTURBING. EVEN FOR FELARYA

Again, even in survival, life or death, everyday struggle situations throughout human history. We are known to respect our pray. As I said, Native American Gods and early African Gods often took the form of prey animals.

Now to say "what is a predator?" Everything in Felarya is, a human, lion, monster girls, whatever. Just like in our own world. A spider is both predator and prey, as is a snake, a shark, a barracuda, a human, a lion. It all depends on what end you're receiving and what animals you're interacting with. A human is a predator to duiker, a neko is a predator to neera and tomthumbs, but they are prey to other species. Either way, nothing in this paragraph has anything to do with my original point.

Chihiro Fujisaki wrote:

Again, even in survival, life or death, everyday struggle situations throughout human history. We are known to respect our pray. As I said, Native American Gods and early African Gods often took the form of prey animals.

No we arn't. Humans are well known for cruelty.
Three words for you...

"Cecil The Lion."

That is all.

Chihiro Fujisaki wrote:

Now to say "what is a predator?" Everything in Felarya is, a human, lion, monster girls, whatever. Just like in our own world. A spider is both predator and prey, as is a snake, a shark, a barracuda, a human, a lion. It all depends on what end you're receiving and what animals you're interacting with. A human is a predator to duiker, a neko is a predator to neera and tomthumbs, but they are prey to other species. Either way, nothing in this paragraph has anything to do with my original point.

I meant in terms of subtext. Or can't you honestly tell the differance from a cartoon sexual femdom fantasy and real life? I was trying to point out that the felarya predators at the end of the day are just gaint sexy woman for audiances who want to be put into an submissive role, they arn't true repersentations of a predator speices. You can't treat them seriously without changing the subtext, Why would you even want to do that? What are you hoping to achieve exactly? What is your objective?



The predators can't be treated seriously the way Karbo portrays them, they are too ludicrous so why even bother? At the end of the day, you just have a problem with the repersentation of the artwork, if that's your problem then talk about them as a fetish concept, stop trying to bring them into the real world, it just doesn't work.

I...Wow, yeah i'm with dark one and jedi here, lets try to not take this seriously guys. I can give you a basic layout of what felarya is, and it's kind of to what darkone is saying. It's a femdom fetish. I don't even think it's supposed to be taken seriously. But if you was realistic thinking from a predator POV, then think about it like a nomad did way back in the day. You raid someone to live and get respect. You eat anyone in anything (especially if you are trying to put representation in the apex character in writing or roleplaying) because in felarya there's no regimen of proper or "high civilized" society or that it's very rare in traveling this universe as a whole. You just do it. Survial, pleasure, necessities, wants. most of these guys and gals are sapient, don't dumber them down because they are and view themselves as a predator of an illusive food chain. Expect a full rationale of what you would expect any person to do right now in reality on the good/postive and bad/negative spectrum to treat a person as prey or gain advantage of. It's that simple

Dark, clearly they are trying to be taken seriously. You look at some of the discussions on here and it goes FAR beyond a fetishized world for some of the members on this site, Karbo included. It is something to flesh out, to create new ideas for, to create interesting stories for. My point being, if you want your stories, writing, ideas, to be taken seriously, you need to remove the fetish aspect of it. Now vore in general is part of the world, but it being fetishized makes any writing based in the world just as much of a joke as the portrayals themselves. Any serious and more accurate writings are often criticized by the community. My objective is to make the world something more serious, something to build on, something that can actually be taken seriously and not something that is known as a place for a bunch of weird fetishists.

Oh, so you want to join the club of those who wants this setting to tap into its untapped potential, eh?  Well, as a senior member, let me give you a piece of advice: write your own predators however you like.

Your problem is that you're trying to get all predators to adhere to one one specific depiction, the one that appeals to you.  That's just not gonna happen.  Ever.  People are gonna depict the predators' behavior however they want, regardless if said depiction appeal to you or not.  Take me, for example.  When I write a sapient predator from a human's perspective, most of the time, she doesn't taunt or play with her prey.  Hell, most of the time, she does not even talk to her prey or listen to it.  She just swallows them right away and get it done with it.  Now, why would I depict them like that when everyone else depict them like some kind of dom?  Because I like them better that way.  I think it makes them seem more like wild, monstrous creatures in my mind, something you can't reason or bargain with 90% of the time, and helps get the point across that the world is incredibly dangerous because of them.  I'm not interested in the whole femdom aspect, and I am aware that some people can take too far, which is why I ignore those kind of people entirely and just focus on my own things.  Is my depiction of predators going to appeal to everybody?  Of course not, but that's also not my goal.  Do I also criticize people who really emphasize the femdom element because I don't like it?  Sometimes, mostly if I think the writing gets in the way of the narrative, but most of the time, I don't even read those stories specifically because it doesn't appeal to me.

So if you don't like the unfortunate implications that some of the depictions of sapient predators convey, good for you, there are plenty of other things beside that that you can focus on.  Right now, I'm working on making Negav a more coherent setting.  But making a forum post about how predators are serial killers because of how a lot of people like to depict them is not going to solve the problem.  It's instead going to make you look close-minded and childish, and it's going to make us wonder why you're even here if you're going to focus so much on an aspect of the setting you clearly don't like.

Very logical point Shady, I liked that. Vore isn't something I am opposed to, nor is the occasional fetish piece. You're right that I cannot stop people from writing those things, nor should I. It is how they wish to portray them. Most of the big writers do a much better job than many of the small time ones. I think French Snack for instance portrays all sides of the Felaryan experience quite well. But to be fair, he is into giantess stuff, the vore isn't his main fetish. So that helps.

One thing to note is that every time you see wild humans making a big ceremony to honor the prey they hunt, or making gods out of prey animals, it's always a larger "charismatic" animal like an antelope or deer. The effort needed to down one is substantial and the meat they get from it will be all they need for 2-3 days. On the other hand, many cultures eat insects like grasshoppers and mealworms, and while they don't disrespect the bugs by any means, a dinner of locusts is given much less ceremony than venison.

Size differences between humans and predators are immense enough that a human meal is far more akin to a grasshopper than an antelope in scale. A predator typically catches a group of humans at once and has to down several to have an actually filling meal; daily yields can easily pass a dozen on a good day. There's just not enough time to devote a huge ceremony to each human they eat. I could see some having rituals meant to honor their human prey in aggregate, such as a prayer said as part of their morning or nightly routine, but to devote a ceremony to every individual kill would be impractical at the scale we're talking about here. And there's no evidence to suggest that such rituals to honor humans in general don't happen, because routine rituals that predators have is a topic that is currently fairly underexplored. It could even be commonplace for all we know.

Generally, I'd say I'm in the same boat as you about seeing a lot of untapped potential in Felarya, and I'm also not a big fan of femdom, at least not when it crosses the line from "playful" and into "abusive and disrespectful". But I'm not sure if it's just that we've been reading different stories or a difference in interpretation, but I don't really see the predators treating their human prey in any way that strikes me as abusive or disrespectful. They worst I've seen is Anko ("The best part is their struggles when they try to escape!") but that same comic pretty well established that Anko is an asshole to people her own size too, so I don't think she makes a particularly good case study for this kind of thing. Other than that, there was a scene in one of French Snack's stories where Crisis had a playful sparring match with someone she was about to eat, and in general there's a lot of "playing with your food" present in Felarya, but personally, I'd rather have that little game and be acknowledged before my end than die in an abrupt "grab n' gulp", provided the predator wasn't being actively mean about it, and nothing I've seen Crisis or any other "good" predator do has struck me as being "actively mean".

As far as Crisis, I would say pretending to allow someone to go free then eating them borders on cruel. We also need to remember that most humanoid predators do no eat primarily humans. It is established that interactions between human sized people and giants is very rare, it does not happen often. It only seems to happen often for fetish purposes. A kensha eating a human isn't sexy, for instance.

I'd say that it's more than fetish purposes, really. The prospect of predators that talk to their prey opens a lot of avenues for storytelling and exploring character philosophies that wouldn't be present when focusing on predators that never meet humans or impersonal & purely antagonistic "force of nature" predators.

And the fact that humans aren't common enough to be a staple of a predator's diet is irrelevant. Maybe predators don't need to eat humans to survive and could eat other things, but humans are still valid prey when a predator finds one, and this is going to sound really cold, but what makes you think being a "person" gives you any more right to live than anything else the predator could eat instead? Who is the arbiter that draws the line between person and not-person and declares one side to be more sacred than the other?

XionGaTaosenai wrote:

I'd say that it's more than fetish purposes, really. The prospect of predators that talk to their prey opens a lot of avenues for storytelling and exploring character philosophies that wouldn't be present when focusing on predators that never meet humans or impersonal & purely antagonistic "force of nature" predators.

Nice point and i agree. The flavor between cultures and what one regards as hedonistic is definitely something that's always pressed up or tried to, but that's probably why people do it a lot is to really see differences. But in use it is more for fetish fuel if you read enough fan-fic stories.

XionGaTaosenai wrote:

And the fact that humans aren't common enough to be a staple of a predator's diet is irrelevant. Maybe predators don't need to eat humans to survive and could eat other things, but humans are still valid prey when a predator finds one, and this is going to sound really cold, but what makes you think being a "person" gives you any more right to live than anything else the predator could eat instead? Who is the arbiter that draws the line between person and not-person and declares one side to be more sacred than the other?

maybe that's a little of an off-topic banter, but to answer it would depend on the perspective you look at. I'm going to give an example of three in my own words (which aren't eloquent so don't expect something super intelligent) but here they are. One of the predator, one of the observer and one of the prey. Since felarya's predators are the Apex predator most the time (saying they won't get eaten by fauna that's scarier then them but who knows when that happens.) They will look at people most of time as expendable. They've eaten plenty of other beings as small as they are and just because these ones show more sapience doesn't matter to the fact that they are still food and they need something to eat right then and there. Now if i were a predator personally, i think fruits are better than flesh anyday, of course if i was shown to higher civilization then i would start thinking of sapient beings as more of resources then objects.

Now to the view of the observer. Life is life, If the Predator wants to eat the prey, they shall, if the prey shows resistance and even outright dangerous defiance to being eaten. Then to Darwinism who ever lives and survives.

To the person which would be the opposing point of "human right" If i wanted to be a logical fellow. More capability and resources to mender with people of sapience vs other beings. I have more to draw from and use when i interact with people to that kind of trait vs an animal. Animals that show lower then i expect are more as resources (bit of a contrast between that and the apex/giant) not the top of the chain but they can definitely interact when they choose too more than the giant because of the mentality "well we're food like anyone else to to them".

As far as the arbiter goes, depends on your theology and points of view of how you were created and such and how you thank you came to be. In a plain view, there wouldn't be a definitive answer to that other than people own ideals and infatuations of what they want to think. I personally don't agree with this view as I find it false but that's the best answer i can give to that.

I do not value the life of a predator over a human or vice versa. I have said I understand the environment in which predators live, but I do not condone it. If I was in the wild, desert lets say, with a friend and no access to food. So I kill him, and cook him, and eat him, in order to survive. No one back home is going to look at what I did as a necessary thing. I will be arrested and send to jail within minutes of people finding out, even though I did it to survive. Now I am not trying to compare the real world to Felarya, I am trying to demonstrate how we all seem to make exceptions for giant predators and CONDONE what they are doing. I UNDERSTAND but I do not CONDONE. You need to understand the difference. For instance, in Felarya, a neko killing and chopping up and eating a human for survival, most of us (not all) would be pretty disgusted by that, because it isn't sexy.

Chihiro Fujisaki wrote:

Dark, clearly they are trying to be taken seriously. You look at some of the discussions on here and it goes FAR beyond a fetishized world for some of the members on this site, Karbo included. It is something to flesh out, to create new ideas for, to create interesting stories for. My point being, if you want your stories, writing, ideas, to be taken seriously, you need to remove the fetish aspect of it. Now vore in general is part of the world, but it being fetishized makes any writing based in the world just as much of a joke as the portrayals themselves. Any serious and more accurate writings are often criticized by the community. My objective is to make the world something more serious, something to build on, something that can actually be taken seriously and not something that is known as a place for a bunch of weird fetishists.

Well kindly refrain from that please. That kind of mission " I'm going to change Felarya" doesn't usually ends very well for anyone.  Felarya has been built from a fetish standpoint and it's always going to keep at least some aspects of it. And if you want to build stuff for Felarya you are going to have to work with it rather than trying to remove it. It's honestly not going to happens.

Last I checked I never called for the removal of the fetish itself. The fetish is part of the world, the staple of it in fact, so it cannot be removed. I was simple calling for people to take the world more seriously, to build on it and make it something far more than a fetish world. Nothing is fun about being creative and interesting if it is for a fetish. I would much rather share any works I do with people who know me outside of Felarya, to show them my talent. But I can't do that, cause currently if I did they'd think I am some kind of freak.

For instance, no one looks at AoT and thinks fetishy freaks. Now I do not want hard vore, and I rather enjoy the ladies myself compared to mindless monsters. But I think the world could make an interesting case for alternate moralities in a harsh world and the level of grey area that can exist. But we don't have that, 90% of Felaryan writers on DA focus on writing fetish stories as opposed to grand adventures.