Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
[After she finishes the hour and a half of focused digestion and starts to take it easy for a bit.] - I think it was between this option and immediately here, depending on whether or not Hazel would say to herself 'well, I'll take thirty seconds to check' and wind up taking the time to read the whole thing. There's also the possibility or Hazel going through the communications while she works, but that's not going to happen this time around when she's still so unused to the whole killing people thing.
[I'm proud of you baby. You're dealing with your new reality very well and you've done something amazing for your first deliberate hunt!] - Willow is also distinctly angry about what happened, but that's not towards Hazel, it's towards Harmony for doing something that Willow would probably know put Hazel into actual danger. She's not showing any of this in front of Hazel, though, and while she shouldn't have needed to take the risk of trying to contain five people who she physically can't release, Willow's still proud of Hazel for managing to actually pull it off with no outside assistance. However...
[Confused. She can't understand why Willow didn't respond differently or focus on a separate aspect.] - Hazel was expecting a 'so, you just killed five people.' talk which she was hoping would help her properly unpack things that she's suddenly having a lot of time to think about with not much else to do but think while proceeding with the closing phases of exactly what it is she's thinking about. Instead she got a 'yay, you just killed five people!' conversation, which, while encouraging, is somewhat uncomfortable to have when Hazel's not really approaching this from the same direction Willow is.
And now for the pondering phase!
[No matter how I feel about what I did, I'm going to have to do it again, and sooner rather than later. I don't want to prepare myself for that, but I should.] - So, a slightly less intense version of 08142024's third one. Essentially, Hazel's going to be acknowledging a pair of things that she's been trying but refusing to concretize for quite a while. She's going to be fully admitting to herself that not only is she going to need to kill people consistently, but she's going to need to do it often enough that she can't fully rely on finding enough that she actually considers to deserve to die. Which would lead to a decision that when she can't find anyone who she can actually feel proud about getting rid of, she's going to have to be willing to eat people she thinks are mostly innocent, and, even if she cries over it, she can't let herself actually regret doing it. This whole thing can definitely lead down into the same arc as 08142024's version, though.
[Jennifer still hasn't even been gone for two days, and I was the one who ate her. What am I supposed to think about that!?] - Hazel's already done some work processing what happened there, but that entire day was just a rush of events that was too overwhelming for Hazel to try to approach it with a somewhat clearer head. I think it wouldn't take very long at all, when Hazel's making an explicit effort to think about things more objectively, to realize that Jennifer shouldn't be taken to have faked her friendship just because she said something hurtful to Hazel while Hazel was in the process of digesting her. This could lead to Hazel getting emotional all over again about what happened, although she's already made a commitment not to hate herself about it. (Uh, it is possible that most of what I'm describing here has already happened, and I just forgot that it was something that was actually written out and not just something I've previously imagined the likely course of. Apologies if that's the case.)
[One way or another, I'm going to need to make preparations about how to actually get Jane safely dead.] - It might be reading Hope's messages that gets Hazel working on this part. She's already decided that she'll have to be willing to do terrible things in order to put Jane down, and that if she's willing to do that, she's also perfectly willing to use means ranging from 'seen as cheating' to 'illegal, but Jane would be the only witness'. Now's the time when she's making more concrete plans, like actually figuring out whether or not it would be possible to mortally injure Jane while Hazel's in the process of swallowing her for her free shot. It would have to be somewhere without cameras... like inside someone's house, maybe.
[I'm proud of you baby. You're dealing with your new reality very well and you've done something amazing for your first deliberate hunt!] - Willow is also distinctly angry about what happened, but that's not towards Hazel, it's towards Harmony for doing something that Willow would probably know put Hazel into actual danger. She's not showing any of this in front of Hazel, though, and while she shouldn't have needed to take the risk of trying to contain five people who she physically can't release, Willow's still proud of Hazel for managing to actually pull it off with no outside assistance. However...
[Confused. She can't understand why Willow didn't respond differently or focus on a separate aspect.] - Hazel was expecting a 'so, you just killed five people.' talk which she was hoping would help her properly unpack things that she's suddenly having a lot of time to think about with not much else to do but think while proceeding with the closing phases of exactly what it is she's thinking about. Instead she got a 'yay, you just killed five people!' conversation, which, while encouraging, is somewhat uncomfortable to have when Hazel's not really approaching this from the same direction Willow is.
And now for the pondering phase!
[No matter how I feel about what I did, I'm going to have to do it again, and sooner rather than later. I don't want to prepare myself for that, but I should.] - So, a slightly less intense version of 08142024's third one. Essentially, Hazel's going to be acknowledging a pair of things that she's been trying but refusing to concretize for quite a while. She's going to be fully admitting to herself that not only is she going to need to kill people consistently, but she's going to need to do it often enough that she can't fully rely on finding enough that she actually considers to deserve to die. Which would lead to a decision that when she can't find anyone who she can actually feel proud about getting rid of, she's going to have to be willing to eat people she thinks are mostly innocent, and, even if she cries over it, she can't let herself actually regret doing it. This whole thing can definitely lead down into the same arc as 08142024's version, though.
[Jennifer still hasn't even been gone for two days, and I was the one who ate her. What am I supposed to think about that!?] - Hazel's already done some work processing what happened there, but that entire day was just a rush of events that was too overwhelming for Hazel to try to approach it with a somewhat clearer head. I think it wouldn't take very long at all, when Hazel's making an explicit effort to think about things more objectively, to realize that Jennifer shouldn't be taken to have faked her friendship just because she said something hurtful to Hazel while Hazel was in the process of digesting her. This could lead to Hazel getting emotional all over again about what happened, although she's already made a commitment not to hate herself about it. (Uh, it is possible that most of what I'm describing here has already happened, and I just forgot that it was something that was actually written out and not just something I've previously imagined the likely course of. Apologies if that's the case.)
[One way or another, I'm going to need to make preparations about how to actually get Jane safely dead.] - It might be reading Hope's messages that gets Hazel working on this part. She's already decided that she'll have to be willing to do terrible things in order to put Jane down, and that if she's willing to do that, she's also perfectly willing to use means ranging from 'seen as cheating' to 'illegal, but Jane would be the only witness'. Now's the time when she's making more concrete plans, like actually figuring out whether or not it would be possible to mortally injure Jane while Hazel's in the process of swallowing her for her free shot. It would have to be somewhere without cameras... like inside someone's house, maybe.
- 03082024
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Alright, got a couple of write-ins figured out.
[No matter how I feel about what I did, I'm going to have to do it again, and sooner rather than later. I don't want to prepare myself for that, but I should.] - I'm happy with how this is phrased and framed, so I'll throw in with it. Hazel's got plenty to think about in regards to her newfound needs as a Pred, and now's a great time to do so. With the pressure from Jane, Hazel's going to be eating plenty more people in the near future, and at least some of them won't be targets she can justify with her current code. With the threat to her family, she can't afford to shut down or stop eating people either, so getting a bit more used to her new normal and the necessity of what she's going to have to do is an important step.
[Hope isn't who I thought she was for all these years. I don't think I can forgive her for what she's done, but there's more to her than I'd realised. What happens between us once Jane's dealt with?] - A pretty long-term idea here. Hazel has been forced to realise that she really didn't understand Hope. Not just that she's much smarter than previously thought, but also the vulnerability that's she's shown. They're stuck working together until Jane's dealt with one way or another, but Hazel would benefit from giving some thought to how she feels about Hope now, given how dramatically her perception has shifted over the last day. Friendship is pretty unlikely, given their history, but getting closer to a decision on how they would interact after the current crisis, even agreeing to not interact again, is an interesting prospect to me. It'll help Hazel as well, to have a clearer idea of how she feels about Hope now.
I can't really think of a third write-in, so I'll leave this space empty for now. I might think of something else, but I'm not terribly optimistic.
Forgot to mention this earlier, but I think this model for time-skipping worked pretty well. I was expecting it to be framed more as Hope thinking back to what happened to her earlier in the day, but I liked how it was handled. Speeding through things with a quick description of the scene as needed and hitting the highlights of interactions seems to work nicely for these situations.
I liked the back and forth with Jane and Hope, too. Really interesting to see how Hope handles it firsthand, with how she's constantly sending verbal jabs at Jane and adjusting her approach to maintain some control over the conversation. A real push and pull between them, with Jane showing that she's definitely able to push back and see through at least some parts of Hope's plans, and just throw a wrench in things by being her typical volatile self.
[No matter how I feel about what I did, I'm going to have to do it again, and sooner rather than later. I don't want to prepare myself for that, but I should.] - I'm happy with how this is phrased and framed, so I'll throw in with it. Hazel's got plenty to think about in regards to her newfound needs as a Pred, and now's a great time to do so. With the pressure from Jane, Hazel's going to be eating plenty more people in the near future, and at least some of them won't be targets she can justify with her current code. With the threat to her family, she can't afford to shut down or stop eating people either, so getting a bit more used to her new normal and the necessity of what she's going to have to do is an important step.
[Hope isn't who I thought she was for all these years. I don't think I can forgive her for what she's done, but there's more to her than I'd realised. What happens between us once Jane's dealt with?] - A pretty long-term idea here. Hazel has been forced to realise that she really didn't understand Hope. Not just that she's much smarter than previously thought, but also the vulnerability that's she's shown. They're stuck working together until Jane's dealt with one way or another, but Hazel would benefit from giving some thought to how she feels about Hope now, given how dramatically her perception has shifted over the last day. Friendship is pretty unlikely, given their history, but getting closer to a decision on how they would interact after the current crisis, even agreeing to not interact again, is an interesting prospect to me. It'll help Hazel as well, to have a clearer idea of how she feels about Hope now.
I can't really think of a third write-in, so I'll leave this space empty for now. I might think of something else, but I'm not terribly optimistic.
Forgot to mention this earlier, but I think this model for time-skipping worked pretty well. I was expecting it to be framed more as Hope thinking back to what happened to her earlier in the day, but I liked how it was handled. Speeding through things with a quick description of the scene as needed and hitting the highlights of interactions seems to work nicely for these situations.
I liked the back and forth with Jane and Hope, too. Really interesting to see how Hope handles it firsthand, with how she's constantly sending verbal jabs at Jane and adjusting her approach to maintain some control over the conversation. A real push and pull between them, with Jane showing that she's definitely able to push back and see through at least some parts of Hope's plans, and just throw a wrench in things by being her typical volatile self.
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GrayLotus - Somewhat familiar
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Alright, I had wanted the best I could to wait until I had input from multiple people before poking and verifying my understanding of what each party wanted to see. Sorry for leaving you hanging for so long 08142024. Due to a need to wait for confirmation that I've got each part right and leaving open the possible adjustments that may need to be made, I'm leaving voting open a little longer and if need must be I'll extend the writing deadline, possibly take this week as that bye week and deal with the backlog noted from adjusting Digestive Power. Let's dig into this.
[I feel... good... about having rid the world of the slut Adeline, even now in the calm of my home away from all the madness. Should... that worry me or empower me?] - Alright. So, as I understand this option, the heart and soul of this is picking over the shock and wonder that she actually doesn't feel bad about one of her prey. Poking and prodding at it, possibly with great gingerness and a bit of deep concern what might leap at her as she investigates it. Which fits Hazel's strong moral character, as her a priori stance would be to conclude out of hand that it should absolutely worry her that she feels good about devouring someone. The nuance built into it, is that this is a legitimate question which can be answered either way as the author (me) intends and Hazel, despite her a priori stance that causes her to go at the question so carefully, is honest enough to be asking the question with the integrity of changing her stance after thinking on it if she finds reason to do so. This could lead either to Hazel holding herself more tightly that every life is precious, or it could lead her to confront directly to herself that there are things she honestly believes result in a forfeit of the right to live. Possibly both, as she might decide that Adeline wasn't quite at where the line OUGHT to be despite being close enough to prove conclusively to herself that there IS that line and it doesn't take a JANE to get there. Is this a fair representation of the heart and possibilities of this option?
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[Hope... wants to do WHAT to neutralize Elizabeth!? There are way easier ways to commit suicide!] - From the surrounding comments, I come to conclude that this option is also intended to lead to Hazel agreeing to go along with Hope's frankly crazy plan. I'm not saying it can't be the good kind of crazy, but it certainly looks like an excellent mixture of a pair of tropes... Too Dumb To Live and Bullying The Dragon. Hope is a bit of a Dangerously Genre Savvy girl though, and recognizes what sort of story this is and how things work lol. And Hazel, in this option, is doing some really deep weighing of such factors against each other. Read the entire message from Hope on screen, give Hazel's interaction with a lot of it in pieces, show that Hazel rereads it in her considerations. Emphasize the fear of Elizabeth (puppy is what Hazel thought the Queen's intensity made Jane's look like in comparison, but do remember that Jane is a 'snake' who is most scary in very different ways than headlong intensity. It's as much a contrast of their deadly aspects as an elevation of the Queen.) Possibly expand on that difference and let Hazel prod at the question of who she's actually more scared of so far, regardless of actual differences in skill level. And finally, Hazel takes in and really dwells on how the plan is all risks for Hope but all rewards for Hazel and allows it to be decisive and to shift her opinion of Hope pretty strongly. Do I accurately read an intention to move towards Hope as Hazel's friend from this? Is this summary accurate?
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[I realized it last night, but... I really am going to have to become a monster to survive aren't I? I'm already half way there, but the road only grows darker from here...] - Nice arcing, let things get worse before they improve. Bonus points for being framed in a way that Hazel would say it. As I'm understanding this, the intent here isn't necessarily a full Pred devour all that moves monstrousity like some characters could be easily painted or just outright are, but rather is framed as the way that Hazel is self talking her way to forcing herself to do it and push past her mental blocks to build a solid 'hunting mentality' that she'll later learn to cut off. She accepts (possibly more like ignores and possibly more like assumes) that she's going to end up eating people that don't deserve it and, more importantly to this option, recognizes the monster that it makes her. But she'd see herself as a monster just eating one person, so what difference does eating enough more to compete with her rivals make? She's already a monster, already halfway there, and the only difference between continuing to victory and following her conscience to, well, starve... is that she allows her rivals to WIN and that would be exceedingly bad. I'm also seeing a sort of learning curve going on behind the scenes that Hazel's not conscious of where she's unwittingly gaining the experience to know the mostly innocent from the more likely... 'deserving' is a strong word but let's use it... that helps her as she reins things back in. She'll still make mistakes and go for people that haven't done much to become lunch as she progresses, but Hazel by then has come to accept her place in the food chain and she's making sufficient effort with an acceptable rate of success to target people that she can stomach having put away in the final development. In a way, as I understand this one and 03082024's similar concept it seems like he's got a solid 'ending point' while this makes a good 'worse before better' if I were to treat them as composite for the similarity. Which if both of you are up for, I'm thinking about doing. Anything you feel I need to correct from my understanding? Are you agreeable to blending the options?
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[No matter how I feel about what I did, I'm going to have to do it again, and sooner rather than later. I don't want to prepare myself for that, but I should.] - Should I be properly understanding this, it would likely start with Hazel taking a good and close look at what she feels like after what she did. And then she'd take in factors both intrinsic (Cravings, Feral, Starvation) and extrinsic (Jane, Elizabeth, encouragement from various loved ones) to push herself to recognize what level of need that she has. Deliberately, and with calculation. She'll absolutely still be emotional about it, but as I understand the... distinction between this option and 08142024's variation if I assume that we jump right to here, the main difference is that in his the emotional force of the need causes a very believable overcorrection due to the lack of maturity to do exactly the kind of deliberate and calculated grounding that this version has Hazel motivated to do by those factors and then doing on the spot. It's why I suggest a blending where this is the end state, I read this as the more mature 'better' for the arc as a total. I can't easily see this version growing by leaps and bounds in terms of strength as a Pred, but her mental strength and her character would be demonstrated to be on the upper limit of what the preceeding... 200 pages of main story... has to indicate and would place demands on both to do some growing from there even. And lots of things can stem from that in a lot of ways. Is this a good understanding, or am I missing something critical? Are you agreeable to blending this with the option that you noted it being similar to?
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[Jennifer still hasn't even been gone for two days, and I was the one who ate her. What am I supposed to think about that!?] - You are describing something that she's already gone through once with Ash, but there's plenty of emotion left with regards to Jennifer to unpack. More likely at the top of Hazel's current mental list of things to unpack with regards to her digested best friend would be the jealousy that she felt towards her, having kissed her best friend's boyfriend the day that she digested her best friend, how bad of a friend she is to have sent such provocative messages and such a picture to her best friend's boyfriend the day after she died. Not one of which has even been touched in processing and link back into aspects of the actual event that led to a dead Jennifer. Any one of those would be damning enough on her conscience if Jennifer had died in a random car crash, but having been the one to eat Jennifer makes them exponentially more loaded. We could also take a look (possibly the part you were thinking about as it's where Ash got her to) that Jennifer was either being a true friend to the end and trying to give Hazel cause to not feel... AS guilty... in those last moments or insults OR Jennifer, while a true friend for years, couldn't hold to that friendship while being digested inside her friend and snapped. The later of which is the truth of the matter, but dying inside your friend tends to sour your relationship like that so I kinda think that Jennifer's outrage and 'our friendship is over' response was sensible. And perhaps that's part of what Hazel could consider... putting herself in Jennifer's shoes and imagining if Jen had been the one to Awaken how she'd have responded to being eaten. That could be an interesting thought experiment and a new way for Hazel to prod at this old aspect. I'm trying very hard not to beat any dead horses with Jennifer, but it is cyclical by nature dealing with big traumas so I'm also trying to find enough new and fresh ways to peel that thing open and to explore related aspects that haven't been processed. At any rate, have I touched on her heart of what you were after with that exposition on things left to process with Jennifer that Hazel could easily get lost thinking about for an hour or so? Or have I been too broad in shotgunning the many aspects there are to it? I welcome refining of this point as I'm inclined to do something with either this topic or Adeline but either way needs to be narrow enough to cover in 1,000 words or so and... Last section with Hope was only 4k, so reread that section, cut it in a quarter and if I don't think I can do justice in such time than I'm unlikely to try. Still, I probably could narrow it enough myself, this is extremely open ended for me to have fun with and there's aspects that Hazel could make it all the way through in that much space.
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[One way or another, I'm going to need to make preparations about how to actually get Jane safely dead.] - Hazel just got a MAD power boost (multiple automatic level 5s, probably at least 1 automatic level 6 and enough free xp to take something from level 0 to level 5) and now she's thinking how to leverage that into a win over Jane. Well, I'd figure on this looking like weighing her trust in Harmony's assessment that Hazel should get enough stronger from just 4 (Dawn upgraded Harmony's plans!) to take out Jane with confidence if the arrogant girl follows through on her word and Hazel drawing up contingencies for if Jane DOESN'T keep her word. Possibly extremely nasty contingencies, which is where I can see Hazel considering the use of cheating or illegal methods... whereas her trust in Harmony's assessment that LESS than what she did to train would secure a W if Jane keeps her word assuring Hazel that as long as that factor remains reliable she can fight straight and get Jane good and dead. Those contingencies would get complex fast too, since Jane is an exceedingly slippery villianess to pin down if she decides that she doesn't care anymore. This could look like finding the situation in which she could force Jane to make good on her bet or look weak so that her pride won't let her do what self preservation would imply should be done or it could look like finding some way to get a massive drop on her and beat her up. It might even include a reverting to Hope's suggestion... after all, nothing in what Hazel's done required abandoning that thread, and there's honestly ways that Hazel could play it off that would make Jane appreciate throwing that first 'match' of low stakes for the higher stakes 'shot of the month' instead. But the core of this that I'm seeing is that Hazel's decided that Jane will get hit before she transfers on Friday (that's 4 days in world, Hope just ran through Tuesday at school like lightening.) Have I hit the mark for what you're after with this?
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[Hope isn't who I thought she was for all these years. I don't think I can forgive her for what she's done, but there's more to her than I'd realised. What happens between us once Jane's dealt with?] - If I understand this correctly, it's an exploration of the budding respect noted during the last section with Hazel at the club as well as a conscious dive into what a future after winning would look like. Assuming that Hazel has bothered to check her phone before this part... oh, right, that's built in given the votes on that part... SINCE Hazel has checked her phone before this part it is likely that the ongoing act required by the plan to defang Elizabeth as long as possible would take a big point in Hazel's considerations of her future relationship with Hope and would be what forces her to acknowledge that she's not going to be free of her anytime soon. And I think Hazel would be surprised how many qualities of the genuine Hope she actually likes. They've got a... hell of a lot of history to try to overcome, but Hazel would see that as one piece of the entire puzzle and not obsess over it at the point she's at. End of the day, Hope is way too useful to get rid of and has proven with Elizabeth that it extends beyond Jane alone. Thus the odds are that Hazel would conclude on needing to keep some sort of relationship with Hope and wanting it to be one of mutual benefit... but seeing as Hazel isn't a bully, a boss or a sadist she likely wouldn't want to continue threatening Hope to work on her behalf for long and that would mean either colleagues or friends as the options long term. Neither of which options the current Hazel would like, but what else is there... making a mess of her mind as she tries to restructure again lol. Have I strayed from the path you had in mind, or is this the way?
[I feel... good... about having rid the world of the slut Adeline, even now in the calm of my home away from all the madness. Should... that worry me or empower me?] - Alright. So, as I understand this option, the heart and soul of this is picking over the shock and wonder that she actually doesn't feel bad about one of her prey. Poking and prodding at it, possibly with great gingerness and a bit of deep concern what might leap at her as she investigates it. Which fits Hazel's strong moral character, as her a priori stance would be to conclude out of hand that it should absolutely worry her that she feels good about devouring someone. The nuance built into it, is that this is a legitimate question which can be answered either way as the author (me) intends and Hazel, despite her a priori stance that causes her to go at the question so carefully, is honest enough to be asking the question with the integrity of changing her stance after thinking on it if she finds reason to do so. This could lead either to Hazel holding herself more tightly that every life is precious, or it could lead her to confront directly to herself that there are things she honestly believes result in a forfeit of the right to live. Possibly both, as she might decide that Adeline wasn't quite at where the line OUGHT to be despite being close enough to prove conclusively to herself that there IS that line and it doesn't take a JANE to get there. Is this a fair representation of the heart and possibilities of this option?
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[Hope... wants to do WHAT to neutralize Elizabeth!? There are way easier ways to commit suicide!] - From the surrounding comments, I come to conclude that this option is also intended to lead to Hazel agreeing to go along with Hope's frankly crazy plan. I'm not saying it can't be the good kind of crazy, but it certainly looks like an excellent mixture of a pair of tropes... Too Dumb To Live and Bullying The Dragon. Hope is a bit of a Dangerously Genre Savvy girl though, and recognizes what sort of story this is and how things work lol. And Hazel, in this option, is doing some really deep weighing of such factors against each other. Read the entire message from Hope on screen, give Hazel's interaction with a lot of it in pieces, show that Hazel rereads it in her considerations. Emphasize the fear of Elizabeth (puppy is what Hazel thought the Queen's intensity made Jane's look like in comparison, but do remember that Jane is a 'snake' who is most scary in very different ways than headlong intensity. It's as much a contrast of their deadly aspects as an elevation of the Queen.) Possibly expand on that difference and let Hazel prod at the question of who she's actually more scared of so far, regardless of actual differences in skill level. And finally, Hazel takes in and really dwells on how the plan is all risks for Hope but all rewards for Hazel and allows it to be decisive and to shift her opinion of Hope pretty strongly. Do I accurately read an intention to move towards Hope as Hazel's friend from this? Is this summary accurate?
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[I realized it last night, but... I really am going to have to become a monster to survive aren't I? I'm already half way there, but the road only grows darker from here...] - Nice arcing, let things get worse before they improve. Bonus points for being framed in a way that Hazel would say it. As I'm understanding this, the intent here isn't necessarily a full Pred devour all that moves monstrousity like some characters could be easily painted or just outright are, but rather is framed as the way that Hazel is self talking her way to forcing herself to do it and push past her mental blocks to build a solid 'hunting mentality' that she'll later learn to cut off. She accepts (possibly more like ignores and possibly more like assumes) that she's going to end up eating people that don't deserve it and, more importantly to this option, recognizes the monster that it makes her. But she'd see herself as a monster just eating one person, so what difference does eating enough more to compete with her rivals make? She's already a monster, already halfway there, and the only difference between continuing to victory and following her conscience to, well, starve... is that she allows her rivals to WIN and that would be exceedingly bad. I'm also seeing a sort of learning curve going on behind the scenes that Hazel's not conscious of where she's unwittingly gaining the experience to know the mostly innocent from the more likely... 'deserving' is a strong word but let's use it... that helps her as she reins things back in. She'll still make mistakes and go for people that haven't done much to become lunch as she progresses, but Hazel by then has come to accept her place in the food chain and she's making sufficient effort with an acceptable rate of success to target people that she can stomach having put away in the final development. In a way, as I understand this one and 03082024's similar concept it seems like he's got a solid 'ending point' while this makes a good 'worse before better' if I were to treat them as composite for the similarity. Which if both of you are up for, I'm thinking about doing. Anything you feel I need to correct from my understanding? Are you agreeable to blending the options?
*
[No matter how I feel about what I did, I'm going to have to do it again, and sooner rather than later. I don't want to prepare myself for that, but I should.] - Should I be properly understanding this, it would likely start with Hazel taking a good and close look at what she feels like after what she did. And then she'd take in factors both intrinsic (Cravings, Feral, Starvation) and extrinsic (Jane, Elizabeth, encouragement from various loved ones) to push herself to recognize what level of need that she has. Deliberately, and with calculation. She'll absolutely still be emotional about it, but as I understand the... distinction between this option and 08142024's variation if I assume that we jump right to here, the main difference is that in his the emotional force of the need causes a very believable overcorrection due to the lack of maturity to do exactly the kind of deliberate and calculated grounding that this version has Hazel motivated to do by those factors and then doing on the spot. It's why I suggest a blending where this is the end state, I read this as the more mature 'better' for the arc as a total. I can't easily see this version growing by leaps and bounds in terms of strength as a Pred, but her mental strength and her character would be demonstrated to be on the upper limit of what the preceeding... 200 pages of main story... has to indicate and would place demands on both to do some growing from there even. And lots of things can stem from that in a lot of ways. Is this a good understanding, or am I missing something critical? Are you agreeable to blending this with the option that you noted it being similar to?
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[Jennifer still hasn't even been gone for two days, and I was the one who ate her. What am I supposed to think about that!?] - You are describing something that she's already gone through once with Ash, but there's plenty of emotion left with regards to Jennifer to unpack. More likely at the top of Hazel's current mental list of things to unpack with regards to her digested best friend would be the jealousy that she felt towards her, having kissed her best friend's boyfriend the day that she digested her best friend, how bad of a friend she is to have sent such provocative messages and such a picture to her best friend's boyfriend the day after she died. Not one of which has even been touched in processing and link back into aspects of the actual event that led to a dead Jennifer. Any one of those would be damning enough on her conscience if Jennifer had died in a random car crash, but having been the one to eat Jennifer makes them exponentially more loaded. We could also take a look (possibly the part you were thinking about as it's where Ash got her to) that Jennifer was either being a true friend to the end and trying to give Hazel cause to not feel... AS guilty... in those last moments or insults OR Jennifer, while a true friend for years, couldn't hold to that friendship while being digested inside her friend and snapped. The later of which is the truth of the matter, but dying inside your friend tends to sour your relationship like that so I kinda think that Jennifer's outrage and 'our friendship is over' response was sensible. And perhaps that's part of what Hazel could consider... putting herself in Jennifer's shoes and imagining if Jen had been the one to Awaken how she'd have responded to being eaten. That could be an interesting thought experiment and a new way for Hazel to prod at this old aspect. I'm trying very hard not to beat any dead horses with Jennifer, but it is cyclical by nature dealing with big traumas so I'm also trying to find enough new and fresh ways to peel that thing open and to explore related aspects that haven't been processed. At any rate, have I touched on her heart of what you were after with that exposition on things left to process with Jennifer that Hazel could easily get lost thinking about for an hour or so? Or have I been too broad in shotgunning the many aspects there are to it? I welcome refining of this point as I'm inclined to do something with either this topic or Adeline but either way needs to be narrow enough to cover in 1,000 words or so and... Last section with Hope was only 4k, so reread that section, cut it in a quarter and if I don't think I can do justice in such time than I'm unlikely to try. Still, I probably could narrow it enough myself, this is extremely open ended for me to have fun with and there's aspects that Hazel could make it all the way through in that much space.
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[One way or another, I'm going to need to make preparations about how to actually get Jane safely dead.] - Hazel just got a MAD power boost (multiple automatic level 5s, probably at least 1 automatic level 6 and enough free xp to take something from level 0 to level 5) and now she's thinking how to leverage that into a win over Jane. Well, I'd figure on this looking like weighing her trust in Harmony's assessment that Hazel should get enough stronger from just 4 (Dawn upgraded Harmony's plans!) to take out Jane with confidence if the arrogant girl follows through on her word and Hazel drawing up contingencies for if Jane DOESN'T keep her word. Possibly extremely nasty contingencies, which is where I can see Hazel considering the use of cheating or illegal methods... whereas her trust in Harmony's assessment that LESS than what she did to train would secure a W if Jane keeps her word assuring Hazel that as long as that factor remains reliable she can fight straight and get Jane good and dead. Those contingencies would get complex fast too, since Jane is an exceedingly slippery villianess to pin down if she decides that she doesn't care anymore. This could look like finding the situation in which she could force Jane to make good on her bet or look weak so that her pride won't let her do what self preservation would imply should be done or it could look like finding some way to get a massive drop on her and beat her up. It might even include a reverting to Hope's suggestion... after all, nothing in what Hazel's done required abandoning that thread, and there's honestly ways that Hazel could play it off that would make Jane appreciate throwing that first 'match' of low stakes for the higher stakes 'shot of the month' instead. But the core of this that I'm seeing is that Hazel's decided that Jane will get hit before she transfers on Friday (that's 4 days in world, Hope just ran through Tuesday at school like lightening.) Have I hit the mark for what you're after with this?
Spoiler: show
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[Hope isn't who I thought she was for all these years. I don't think I can forgive her for what she's done, but there's more to her than I'd realised. What happens between us once Jane's dealt with?] - If I understand this correctly, it's an exploration of the budding respect noted during the last section with Hazel at the club as well as a conscious dive into what a future after winning would look like. Assuming that Hazel has bothered to check her phone before this part... oh, right, that's built in given the votes on that part... SINCE Hazel has checked her phone before this part it is likely that the ongoing act required by the plan to defang Elizabeth as long as possible would take a big point in Hazel's considerations of her future relationship with Hope and would be what forces her to acknowledge that she's not going to be free of her anytime soon. And I think Hazel would be surprised how many qualities of the genuine Hope she actually likes. They've got a... hell of a lot of history to try to overcome, but Hazel would see that as one piece of the entire puzzle and not obsess over it at the point she's at. End of the day, Hope is way too useful to get rid of and has proven with Elizabeth that it extends beyond Jane alone. Thus the odds are that Hazel would conclude on needing to keep some sort of relationship with Hope and wanting it to be one of mutual benefit... but seeing as Hazel isn't a bully, a boss or a sadist she likely wouldn't want to continue threatening Hope to work on her behalf for long and that would mean either colleagues or friends as the options long term. Neither of which options the current Hazel would like, but what else is there... making a mess of her mind as she tries to restructure again lol. Have I strayed from the path you had in mind, or is this the way?
- phoneuser1992
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
phoneuser1992 wrote:[Hope isn't who I thought she was for all these years. I don't think I can forgive her for what she's done, but there's more to her than I'd realised. What happens between us once Jane's dealt with?] - If I understand this correctly, it's an exploration of the budding respect noted during the last section with Hazel at the club as well as a conscious dive into what a future after winning would look like. Assuming that Hazel has bothered to check her phone before this part... oh, right, that's built in given the votes on that part... SINCE Hazel has checked her phone before this part it is likely that the ongoing act required by the plan to defang Elizabeth as long as possible would take a big point in Hazel's considerations of her future relationship with Hope and would be what forces her to acknowledge that she's not going to be free of her anytime soon. And I think Hazel would be surprised how many qualities of the genuine Hope she actually likes. They've got a... hell of a lot of history to try to overcome, but Hazel would see that as one piece of the entire puzzle and not obsess over it at the point she's at. End of the day, Hope is way too useful to get rid of and has proven with Elizabeth that it extends beyond Jane alone. Thus the odds are that Hazel would conclude on needing to keep some sort of relationship with Hope and wanting it to be one of mutual benefit... but seeing as Hazel isn't a bully, a boss or a sadist she likely wouldn't want to continue threatening Hope to work on her behalf for long and that would mean either colleagues or friends as the options long term. Neither of which options the current Hazel would like, but what else is there... making a mess of her mind as she tries to restructure again lol. Have I strayed from the path you had in mind, or is this the way?
Yeah, that's about what I had in mind. As you said, Hazel's about to find out that Hope's set up to be an active part of her life for the foreseeable future, assuming the plan works of course, and so there's good reason to start giving real thought to how she now feels about their relationship given the flurry of revelations that have happened over the last day. Hope makes a point of concealing her true self from almost everyone, and it's only very recently that Hazel has started to learn who she actually is instead of just who she presents herself to be to get the best results. There's a lot more depth to Hope than previously believed, although considering Hazel thought Hope was a vapid hanger-on who just did what she was told by her superiors (Lily and then Jane) that's pretty much a given. There's a good bit there that Hazel can respect. Plus, Hope's being very ambitious with the plan she came up with, and this is Hazel's first look at Hope really working to her own goals. They both benefit if this works, but it's definitely Hope taking charge here, and that's going to be a whole thing to unpack. It also raises the question of how much of their antagonistic history was a result of what Hope wanted to do, as opposed to what she felt she had to do to protect herself (especially since Jane had her Awakening).
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GrayLotus - Somewhat familiar
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
phoneuser1992 wrote:[I feel... good... about having rid the world of the slut Adeline, even now in the calm of my home away from all the madness. Should... that worry me or empower me?] - Alright. So, as I understand this option, the heart and soul of this is picking over the shock and wonder that she actually doesn't feel bad about one of her prey. Poking and prodding at it, possibly with great gingerness and a bit of deep concern what might leap at her as she investigates it. Which fits Hazel's strong moral character, as her a priori stance would be to conclude out of hand that it should absolutely worry her that she feels good about devouring someone. The nuance built into it, is that this is a legitimate question which can be answered either way as the author (me) intends and Hazel, despite her a priori stance that causes her to go at the question so carefully, is honest enough to be asking the question with the integrity of changing her stance after thinking on it if she finds reason to do so. This could lead either to Hazel holding herself more tightly that every life is precious, or it could lead her to confront directly to herself that there are things she honestly believes result in a forfeit of the right to live. Possibly both, as she might decide that Adeline wasn't quite at where the line OUGHT to be despite being close enough to prove conclusively to herself that there IS that line and it doesn't take a JANE to get there. Is this a fair representation of the heart and possibilities of this option?
Pretty good summary honestly. I don't have much to add or to offer beyond my original post for the option and to affirm that you've shown a solidly working understanding of the dilemma I'm seeing face Hazel for this. As much as it sucks to feel guilty about something the next day, it's what she expected. Finding one aspect where she absolutely doesn't? That makes her feel concern spike quite strongly and put off looking at her guilt to explore the LACK of guilt where she thinks there SHOULD have been some. Before diving in and seeing how things pan out, either for or against or the option for both that you added that I hadn't considered lol.
phoneuser1992 wrote:[Hope... wants to do WHAT to neutralize Elizabeth!? There are way easier ways to commit suicide!] - From the surrounding comments, I come to conclude that this option is also intended to lead to Hazel agreeing to go along with Hope's frankly crazy plan. I'm not saying it can't be the good kind of crazy, but it certainly looks like an excellent mixture of a pair of tropes... Too Dumb To Live and Bullying The Dragon. Hope is a bit of a Dangerously Genre Savvy girl though, and recognizes what sort of story this is and how things work lol. And Hazel, in this option, is doing some really deep weighing of such factors against each other. Read the entire message from Hope on screen, give Hazel's interaction with a lot of it in pieces, show that Hazel rereads it in her considerations. Emphasize the fear of Elizabeth (puppy is what Hazel thought the Queen's intensity made Jane's look like in comparison, but do remember that Jane is a 'snake' who is most scary in very different ways than headlong intensity. It's as much a contrast of their deadly aspects as an elevation of the Queen.) Possibly expand on that difference and let Hazel prod at the question of who she's actually more scared of so far, regardless of actual differences in skill level. And finally, Hazel takes in and really dwells on how the plan is all risks for Hope but all rewards for Hazel and allows it to be decisive and to shift her opinion of Hope pretty strongly. Do I accurately read an intention to move towards Hope as Hazel's friend from this? Is this summary accurate?
Yeah, that seems about right. Hazel's stunned by the audacity and the willingness to shoulder the risk that Hope is demonstrating. Doubtless Hazel wouldn't properly weigh that Hope's prepared to do this much precisely because of how clear to Hope her upcoming death is, which will make Hope seem far more positive a character in Hazel's eyes. Especially since Hope's phone call with Jacob leads me to think Hope knows that Hazel never intended to spare her. Which makes sense to me why she was desperate to get just one more day of safety and why she was unenthusiastic about the deal she got, and especially the way that she weighed Hazel up before agreeing. But Hazel definitely doesn't think Hope knows about her subterfuge there, and Hazel isn't the sort to realize how much pressure she can apply to someone else, so those aspects would be missing from her thoughts on Hope while shifting her opinion.
Yes, I'm intending to move Hope towards being Hazel's friend. She seems a good potential choice, post reform (she's not full reformed yet, but I'm projecting), for Hazel's new best friend. She needs to move on with her life after all, and that includes new friends. It's a shocking turn of events in story over all, though the word count being poured into the pair's changing relationship could easily keep it from feeling all that shocking, but the bottomline is that there's been much stranger things happen in real life. I mean, originally I was all for eating Hope, and I slowly started to grow a feeling that she'd make a good companion and foil for Hazel... so once the story felt out that Hope wasn't doomed right away I felt that it would be appropriate story beats to lean this way instead.
phoneuser1992 wrote:[I realized it last night, but... I really am going to have to become a monster to survive aren't I? I'm already half way there, but the road only grows darker from here...] - Nice arcing, let things get worse before they improve. Bonus points for being framed in a way that Hazel would say it. As I'm understanding this, the intent here isn't necessarily a full Pred devour all that moves monstrousity like some characters could be easily painted or just outright are, but rather is framed as the way that Hazel is self talking her way to forcing herself to do it and push past her mental blocks to build a solid 'hunting mentality' that she'll later learn to cut off. She accepts (possibly more like ignores and possibly more like assumes) that she's going to end up eating people that don't deserve it and, more importantly to this option, recognizes the monster that it makes her. But she'd see herself as a monster just eating one person, so what difference does eating enough more to compete with her rivals make? She's already a monster, already halfway there, and the only difference between continuing to victory and following her conscience to, well, starve... is that she allows her rivals to WIN and that would be exceedingly bad. I'm also seeing a sort of learning curve going on behind the scenes that Hazel's not conscious of where she's unwittingly gaining the experience to know the mostly innocent from the more likely... 'deserving' is a strong word but let's use it... that helps her as she reins things back in. She'll still make mistakes and go for people that haven't done much to become lunch as she progresses, but Hazel by then has come to accept her place in the food chain and she's making sufficient effort with an acceptable rate of success to target people that she can stomach having put away in the final development. In a way, as I understand this one and 03082024's similar concept it seems like he's got a solid 'ending point' while this makes a good 'worse before better' if I were to treat them as composite for the similarity. Which if both of you are up for, I'm thinking about doing. Anything you feel I need to correct from my understanding? Are you agreeable to blending the options?
Beautiful summary, and I'm on board with bundling the concepts into one if 03082024 doesn't mind. I felt similarly about then making a good flow like that when I read his version. Glad you liked the framing, I was trying my best to say it in character and from something close to the character's current viewpoint. She needs to build up a 'hunting mentality' as you called it that she can turn on and off at will... and I just can't see herself building it without constantly labelling herself a monster. Not the way she's shown herself only willing to go forth when she's feeling powerful Cravings, not with how she bullied herself for eating Jennifer, not with how she's responded to every anecdote for Pred's she's yet to hear. I also can't see her figuring out how to turn in off at will until after she's figured out how to have it always on and gets something that jars her hard enough to feel the need to cut it off as well. But with that mentality and the ability to cut it on and off when she likes, plus the... desensitivity she's gained during her worst time? She could rise back up to the description of [No matter how I feel about what I did, I'm going to have to do it again, and sooner rather than later. I don't want to prepare myself for that, but I should.] And by the rising up, I can see her phrasing it this way because she's grown far more resilient and less vulnerable. She'd be talking about something worse in saying it, but she'd still be enough more resilient and capable to go through it in this way.
- 08142024
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Apologies for forgetting to post this much earlier, but yeah, no problem with blending the two options. They fit well together into a more cohesive thing, and without doing that, it's close to impossible to actually go with both. Same root, similar results, different interpretations, and a slightly different tone, so combining them results in something that feels more complete. This whole thing looks like it can definitely end up being one of the most important arcs of the entire story, so it needs to be done right, which also means that I wouldn't complain even if I took issue with other people's input, and in this case, I don't, this type of arc works a lot better with the darker side to it. I don't have any real disagreements with any of the interpretations of the other bits, either. I don't think I have anything else to add here aside from everything that's already been said, though.
- 03082024
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Hey crew. Been a busy time of things, sorry for updating y'all late. I'm making my way through the massive document I've got all of Hazel's story backed up on and making adjustments plus cleaning up any typoes or such on my way through. It's a lot more than I thought. I've written over 160,000 words for Hazel already, and that's discounting everything for voting options and starting the OP at Hazel playing cards with Jennifer... so that figure blows my mind. That's absolutely the size of a novel. That's longer than most novels actually, though as much as twice the size can be found if it were compared to top size tomes like the books in the Wheel of Time. I'm checking everything for consistency, doing belated editting of all sorts, detailing out and fixing any problems that have come smacking around with regards to the system, paying special attention to fix the sections where addressing the updates with the system means something needs to be more specially editted (Hazel and Arya at the track, Jane on the bus, Hazel meeting Jane, whereever the heck Harmony was acting like Hazel could possibly come close to finishing digesting 4 people in 24 hours instead of plotting on that taking at least 2 days, Jane texting Elizabeth and so on. There's still more because I'm steadily finding more junk I should update as I go through and as I work on making everything do what I want it to do instead of doing whatever it feels like doing. I've definitely found myself the victim of scale creep here lol) and then I'll start copy pasting the updates in once I've made some good progress. I'm around page 20 out of 209 with my formatting (single spaced, times new roman, font size 10) and mostly got there over two sessions of sitting down and reading through while steadily fixing things as I carry forward. Once I finish the backlog, I'll work on the next section for Hazel and I'll try to cover a good hefty amount for it since it will be the Great Return Segment. I've got enough voting details to keep it running up until well after Jacob arrives if I choose to after all, and that would be Hazel awake for 3-4 hours with stuff happening for much of it.
In other news, I'm working 7 days a week until I get my vacation for the holidays, so this month is staying busy already. And nothing will get done while I'm on said vacation. All my stuff is on my personal computer (desktop) and I'll be traveling. I'm not breaking down my desktop and bringing it with me just so I can work on this for you guys, sorry. Especially over spending time with my fam lol. Basically, with the surprising scale of what I'm working on at the moment and the fact that I've gained the data to actually do a significant amount of reworking the alpha sections of the system at this junction (and... I'd like to do so before I have to redo so) I'll simply say that I'm going to put this on a hiatus type status until after the New Years. Don't be shy about reminding me you love it or can't wait to see it again because I will be on and will see the reminders and motivations, but I'm not likely to reply until I start updating every single segment with corrections, adjustments, basic editing and make my way back to the front of this thing. By which point I should have finished assimilating all the factors, odds and ends that I've already hit the point of having the data for and will have a prototype for the portions of story that I... don't even have prototypes for because I didn't realize until after page 100 I needed to solve that problem (I.E., rate of birth to combat the higher death rate from Preds, the rate of weight loss and, more importantly, the rate of experience loss in a Pred experiencing weight loss)
So, until next year, this is me signing off and hoping everyone will be patient and ready to throw down votes for Hazel when I return!
In other news, I'm working 7 days a week until I get my vacation for the holidays, so this month is staying busy already. And nothing will get done while I'm on said vacation. All my stuff is on my personal computer (desktop) and I'll be traveling. I'm not breaking down my desktop and bringing it with me just so I can work on this for you guys, sorry. Especially over spending time with my fam lol. Basically, with the surprising scale of what I'm working on at the moment and the fact that I've gained the data to actually do a significant amount of reworking the alpha sections of the system at this junction (and... I'd like to do so before I have to redo so) I'll simply say that I'm going to put this on a hiatus type status until after the New Years. Don't be shy about reminding me you love it or can't wait to see it again because I will be on and will see the reminders and motivations, but I'm not likely to reply until I start updating every single segment with corrections, adjustments, basic editing and make my way back to the front of this thing. By which point I should have finished assimilating all the factors, odds and ends that I've already hit the point of having the data for and will have a prototype for the portions of story that I... don't even have prototypes for because I didn't realize until after page 100 I needed to solve that problem (I.E., rate of birth to combat the higher death rate from Preds, the rate of weight loss and, more importantly, the rate of experience loss in a Pred experiencing weight loss)
So, until next year, this is me signing off and hoping everyone will be patient and ready to throw down votes for Hazel when I return!
- phoneuser1992
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
This quest has captivated my reading for a good 2-3 days and I am at last caught up. Its wild how much effort goes into making the vore events into these complex fights with strategies and special moves. I really dig that.
I have to admit I skipped over all the voting, that was a lot of talking about things I could just see the end result of. I might vote after next update, but it is also likely I will lurk or just comment. I am not the type to get into any major discussion of what the next course of action is going to be after all.
I have to admit I skipped over all the voting, that was a lot of talking about things I could just see the end result of. I might vote after next update, but it is also likely I will lurk or just comment. I am not the type to get into any major discussion of what the next course of action is going to be after all.
- rotta287
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Finally caught up, I have to say this is very well done and I like it a lot. I don't know how often I will be able to but I will vote when I can. I also have a lot of questions, starting with Can the level of potential for a predator change or is it solidly locked? the story has made it kind of seem like even though Hazel has less potential than Jane right now that she might be able to have more than Jane at some point. And second most burning question; is Elizabeth meant to be a boss that can eventually be beaten or is she meant to be a boss that can never be beaten?
- DGUBEAGLE17
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
From a combination of little information drops and my guesses, I would assume the following:
-Talent level doesn't change under ordinary circumstances. The strong assumption is that someone's talent level is locked in from the start.
-Elizabeth us strong enough that beating her, while technically doable depending on how things are done, is extraordinarily unlikely, and she's probably going to eat Hazel at some point if Jane doesn't get to it first.
-That thing mentioned in the first post, and not referenced in any chapter again? You know, the one that lets the story keep going when the inevitable happens? Yeah, that's probably going to be happening.
-When that happens, it will come with a talent level increase, like is vaguely described in the first post. Possible also comes with a digestion efficiency decrease as a balancing. Definitely comes with extreme lasting trauma.
-On the second, third, fourth runs, Hazel's going to be going into everything with a higher talent level, being a lot stronger. Early bosses like Jane become much easier, Elizabeth goes from an unscalable wall to something Hazel can win if she pulls off a couple delay tactics to give herself time to grow, bosses after Elizabeth that we haven't even met yet go from probably actually unwinnable to hard but possible.
-Talent level doesn't change under ordinary circumstances. The strong assumption is that someone's talent level is locked in from the start.
-Elizabeth us strong enough that beating her, while technically doable depending on how things are done, is extraordinarily unlikely, and she's probably going to eat Hazel at some point if Jane doesn't get to it first.
-That thing mentioned in the first post, and not referenced in any chapter again? You know, the one that lets the story keep going when the inevitable happens? Yeah, that's probably going to be happening.
-When that happens, it will come with a talent level increase, like is vaguely described in the first post. Possible also comes with a digestion efficiency decrease as a balancing. Definitely comes with extreme lasting trauma.
-On the second, third, fourth runs, Hazel's going to be going into everything with a higher talent level, being a lot stronger. Early bosses like Jane become much easier, Elizabeth goes from an unscalable wall to something Hazel can win if she pulls off a couple delay tactics to give herself time to grow, bosses after Elizabeth that we haven't even met yet go from probably actually unwinnable to hard but possible.
- 03082024
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Yeah that makes sense. Good explanation, thank you.
- DGUBEAGLE17
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Sup gang! Hope everyone had as awesome of holidays as I did! I see we grew at least a couple new fans while I've been busy out of my mind and then on holiday
Thanks for the encouragement! I'm glad to hear that the small assortment of moves I've made and introduced gave you such a deep impression. I feel like the strategies and complexity stems more out of the many directional possibilities and the realistic head games that can be employed rather than coming straight out of a moveset that is varied into the hundreds of possibilities. Knowing that I've been successful in showing the possible depth of a mere 11 moves introduced (only 9 of which we've seen directly and in depth - including "Rest" as a move) and also given the impression of much greater variety and complexity is gratifying. If you want, then go ahead and go do the voting for the last section. I've got enough time before I'm writing up the next section that if voting can still be considered open should you want to vote.
Feel free to vote for the last section. I've still got a considerable amount of backlog work I'm still making my way forward on and it will be another week (more likely 2... please not 3... please not 3...) before I'm actually ready to put out the next section. That's plenty of time to incorporate your votes if you choose to give some.
I've made it past page 60 out of ~200 which puts me in the section where Jacob confesses to Hazel. I ended up having to do a modest amount of reworking on Jane's intro section because Hazel's progression forward in her digestion of Jennifer is surprisingly tangled with ongoing events and I had to both untangle it and insert new locations where it entangled to a similar depth naturally. That took a couple days on its own. In theory that was the density zone where adjustments would be needed. As I went through Hope pleading (read as bargaining) for her life I ended up adding a number of details that only felt right after getting to know my favorite little schemer much better and give Hazel credit in being able to tell she's being played once she knows to look for it. I'm also appalled by the number of idiotic spelling/typo/grammar errors that litter basically every single segment. I'd kill to make it through a segment without needing to correct something at this point. There's also been a handful of occasions that I've either added a couple details to make a scene more completely match what I'm seeing in my own head or found a better way to word something after gaining experience writing (by writing the next 150 pages lol) and coming to the same troublesome bit to express with a fresh mind.
I've locked down a couple of things regarding how higher powered Preds will digest prey at the speeds required for them to have trouble getting enough calories from one prey at a time and to power through reasonable sets of prey (2-5 prey) in acceptable timeframes when they need. Elizabeth's gut will be flat come Wednesday (Day 3) morning for training with Jane. Actually, it'll be mostly flat by the time the club reopens on Tuesday (Day 2) night! That's what the Queen SHOULD be able to do lol. I also decided to go ahead and commit on scaling up how many fat units it takes for a Pred to be how thicc the more powerful they become, linking it to Digestion level. So every single Pred is going to be... substantially heavier when introduced and given a quote for their weight and the required Capacity. Jane's intro now has her break over 300 pounds! Elizabeth, who is 4'2, weighs over 600!!! And I don't even want to talk about the Dancers with more ordinary heights. Ah... I'll need to make sure that Pearl's updated weight doesn't mess up the correction to Elizabeth's digestion speed... damn it all. I HATE scale creep.
It ought to be fine. Elizabeth won't have a flat gut come the opening of the club, but she'll get the job done long before she goes to sleep still. I'd rather scale down what Pearl's eaten and how hefty Jeffery is to restrict the effect than put myself through figuring out upgrading a high level pred's digestion power AGAIN.
I've also worked out how losing weight works in a generalized sense, though I haven't figured out exactly how I'll tie it in to losing experience. I definitely will connect those two concepts - if you're being a lazy enough Pred to shed 100 pounds than you're absolutely losing a substantial amount of skill as well. But the exacts for that part are still eluding me. But with a firm framework for losing weight (and no direct instance of needing to showcase losing experience/levels yet) I have what I need to work on that in the background without continuing to hold up the story.
Overall a pretty good and complete set of answers, though I can fill in more details and in places the extra details might change the general tone implied.
- Talent level DECREASING is an extraordinary event and quite rare, but has been known to happen as a Pred ages given a number of strict conditions. No... CONFIRMED... method for INCREASING Talent is known, though rumors of mystical reformation that twisted time backwards always include fantastical stories of drastically improved Talent. The most detailed such rumors and stories claim that the increased Talent level places a dramatically higher demand for sustenance on the Pred in question, effectively (but not directly) reducing digestion efficiency.
- Odds fighting Jane given the current set up is, in my mind, 99% Hazel wins. Literally just don't F it up before swallowing her. The odds of beating Elizabeth will vary TREMENDOUSLY based on if Hope's gamble on Wednesday morning pans out or not. If it does, than I'd give a 5-10% chance Hazel can delay long enough to become threat enough to down the Queen. If it fails to pan out... I'd give a 0.01% chance Hazel beats Queen.
- A higher level of Talent is going to make... an INSANE upgrade for Hazel. However, she's going to have to reroute and rework a lot of her paths as changes in herself that she's unconscious of and changes to her talent/efficiency will wall off some options that she's taken. Example, Jennifer won't provide enough calories for Hazel to make it to the club ever again unless Harmony is prevented from shoving Willow and Olive down Hazel's throat. In fact, once talent/efficiency changes by enough, Hazel will need to eat someone she can digest before leaving school on Day 1 or go Feral on the bus! But Hazel will also grow by leaps and bounds more... Just upgrading her Talent level by 1 step will increase experience gain from Jennifer by 1,400. That's over a 60% increase easy. Now apply that to everyone she ever eats. On the second run Jane should either be a joke or should be alert enough to changes in Hazel's demeanor (inexplicable changes from Jane's point of view) that she doesn't kneecap herself and fights straight up (and is still on par with or easier than this run) while Elizabeth... probably could still be a solid challenge for a second run? There'd be a hell of a lot more variables at the absolute minimum and if I go maximum instead and assume you managed to beat Elizabeth in the first run than her second run threat level would be along the lines of 'don't underestimate her just because you got her last time and you'll be fine'. By the fourth run Elizabeth should be a JOKE given what Hazel will have learned about her by then and how much Hazel's talent should have bloomed. Run 4 should have the potential to be the final run if we've done well and I don't see it taking more than 6 runs to beat even a final Boss with abilities I've yet to define for myself.
Feel free to ask any other questions you might have. I'll periodically be popping on, if only to give update how progress is going on getting through the scale creep and backlog. Seeing the notification that someone's said something on here would be a solid motivation and reminder to check in, plus I have never minded answering questions as completely as I feel is reasonable for the point in story we are at.

rotta287 wrote:This quest has captivated my reading for a good 2-3 days and I am at last caught up. Its wild how much effort goes into making the vore events into these complex fights with strategies and special moves. I really dig that.
I have to admit I skipped over all the voting, that was a lot of talking about things I could just see the end result of. I might vote after next update, but it is also likely I will lurk or just comment. I am not the type to get into any major discussion of what the next course of action is going to be after all.
Thanks for the encouragement! I'm glad to hear that the small assortment of moves I've made and introduced gave you such a deep impression. I feel like the strategies and complexity stems more out of the many directional possibilities and the realistic head games that can be employed rather than coming straight out of a moveset that is varied into the hundreds of possibilities. Knowing that I've been successful in showing the possible depth of a mere 11 moves introduced (only 9 of which we've seen directly and in depth - including "Rest" as a move) and also given the impression of much greater variety and complexity is gratifying. If you want, then go ahead and go do the voting for the last section. I've got enough time before I'm writing up the next section that if voting can still be considered open should you want to vote.
DGUBEAGLE17 wrote:Finally caught up, I have to say this is very well done and I like it a lot. I don't know how often I will be able to but I will vote when I can. I also have a lot of questions, starting with Can the level of potential for a predator change or is it solidly locked? the story has made it kind of seem like even though Hazel has less potential than Jane right now that she might be able to have more than Jane at some point. And second most burning question; is Elizabeth meant to be a boss that can eventually be beaten or is she meant to be a boss that can never be beaten?
Feel free to vote for the last section. I've still got a considerable amount of backlog work I'm still making my way forward on and it will be another week (more likely 2... please not 3... please not 3...) before I'm actually ready to put out the next section. That's plenty of time to incorporate your votes if you choose to give some.
I've made it past page 60 out of ~200 which puts me in the section where Jacob confesses to Hazel. I ended up having to do a modest amount of reworking on Jane's intro section because Hazel's progression forward in her digestion of Jennifer is surprisingly tangled with ongoing events and I had to both untangle it and insert new locations where it entangled to a similar depth naturally. That took a couple days on its own. In theory that was the density zone where adjustments would be needed. As I went through Hope pleading (read as bargaining) for her life I ended up adding a number of details that only felt right after getting to know my favorite little schemer much better and give Hazel credit in being able to tell she's being played once she knows to look for it. I'm also appalled by the number of idiotic spelling/typo/grammar errors that litter basically every single segment. I'd kill to make it through a segment without needing to correct something at this point. There's also been a handful of occasions that I've either added a couple details to make a scene more completely match what I'm seeing in my own head or found a better way to word something after gaining experience writing (by writing the next 150 pages lol) and coming to the same troublesome bit to express with a fresh mind.
I've locked down a couple of things regarding how higher powered Preds will digest prey at the speeds required for them to have trouble getting enough calories from one prey at a time and to power through reasonable sets of prey (2-5 prey) in acceptable timeframes when they need. Elizabeth's gut will be flat come Wednesday (Day 3) morning for training with Jane. Actually, it'll be mostly flat by the time the club reopens on Tuesday (Day 2) night! That's what the Queen SHOULD be able to do lol. I also decided to go ahead and commit on scaling up how many fat units it takes for a Pred to be how thicc the more powerful they become, linking it to Digestion level. So every single Pred is going to be... substantially heavier when introduced and given a quote for their weight and the required Capacity. Jane's intro now has her break over 300 pounds! Elizabeth, who is 4'2, weighs over 600!!! And I don't even want to talk about the Dancers with more ordinary heights. Ah... I'll need to make sure that Pearl's updated weight doesn't mess up the correction to Elizabeth's digestion speed... damn it all. I HATE scale creep.

It ought to be fine. Elizabeth won't have a flat gut come the opening of the club, but she'll get the job done long before she goes to sleep still. I'd rather scale down what Pearl's eaten and how hefty Jeffery is to restrict the effect than put myself through figuring out upgrading a high level pred's digestion power AGAIN.
I've also worked out how losing weight works in a generalized sense, though I haven't figured out exactly how I'll tie it in to losing experience. I definitely will connect those two concepts - if you're being a lazy enough Pred to shed 100 pounds than you're absolutely losing a substantial amount of skill as well. But the exacts for that part are still eluding me. But with a firm framework for losing weight (and no direct instance of needing to showcase losing experience/levels yet) I have what I need to work on that in the background without continuing to hold up the story.
03082024 wrote:From a combination of little information drops and my guesses, I would assume the following:
-Talent level doesn't change under ordinary circumstances. The strong assumption is that someone's talent level is locked in from the start.
-Elizabeth us strong enough that beating her, while technically doable depending on how things are done, is extraordinarily unlikely, and she's probably going to eat Hazel at some point if Jane doesn't get to it first.
-That thing mentioned in the first post, and not referenced in any chapter again? You know, the one that lets the story keep going when the inevitable happens? Yeah, that's probably going to be happening.
-When that happens, it will come with a talent level increase, like is vaguely described in the first post. Possible also comes with a digestion efficiency decrease as a balancing. Definitely comes with extreme lasting trauma.
-On the second, third, fourth runs, Hazel's going to be going into everything with a higher talent level, being a lot stronger. Early bosses like Jane become much easier, Elizabeth goes from an unscalable wall to something Hazel can win if she pulls off a couple delay tactics to give herself time to grow, bosses after Elizabeth that we haven't even met yet go from probably actually unwinnable to hard but possible.
Overall a pretty good and complete set of answers, though I can fill in more details and in places the extra details might change the general tone implied.
- Talent level DECREASING is an extraordinary event and quite rare, but has been known to happen as a Pred ages given a number of strict conditions. No... CONFIRMED... method for INCREASING Talent is known, though rumors of mystical reformation that twisted time backwards always include fantastical stories of drastically improved Talent. The most detailed such rumors and stories claim that the increased Talent level places a dramatically higher demand for sustenance on the Pred in question, effectively (but not directly) reducing digestion efficiency.
- Odds fighting Jane given the current set up is, in my mind, 99% Hazel wins. Literally just don't F it up before swallowing her. The odds of beating Elizabeth will vary TREMENDOUSLY based on if Hope's gamble on Wednesday morning pans out or not. If it does, than I'd give a 5-10% chance Hazel can delay long enough to become threat enough to down the Queen. If it fails to pan out... I'd give a 0.01% chance Hazel beats Queen.
Spoiler: show
- A higher level of Talent is going to make... an INSANE upgrade for Hazel. However, she's going to have to reroute and rework a lot of her paths as changes in herself that she's unconscious of and changes to her talent/efficiency will wall off some options that she's taken. Example, Jennifer won't provide enough calories for Hazel to make it to the club ever again unless Harmony is prevented from shoving Willow and Olive down Hazel's throat. In fact, once talent/efficiency changes by enough, Hazel will need to eat someone she can digest before leaving school on Day 1 or go Feral on the bus! But Hazel will also grow by leaps and bounds more... Just upgrading her Talent level by 1 step will increase experience gain from Jennifer by 1,400. That's over a 60% increase easy. Now apply that to everyone she ever eats. On the second run Jane should either be a joke or should be alert enough to changes in Hazel's demeanor (inexplicable changes from Jane's point of view) that she doesn't kneecap herself and fights straight up (and is still on par with or easier than this run) while Elizabeth... probably could still be a solid challenge for a second run? There'd be a hell of a lot more variables at the absolute minimum and if I go maximum instead and assume you managed to beat Elizabeth in the first run than her second run threat level would be along the lines of 'don't underestimate her just because you got her last time and you'll be fine'. By the fourth run Elizabeth should be a JOKE given what Hazel will have learned about her by then and how much Hazel's talent should have bloomed. Run 4 should have the potential to be the final run if we've done well and I don't see it taking more than 6 runs to beat even a final Boss with abilities I've yet to define for myself.
DGUBEAGLE17 wrote:I also have a lot of questions
Feel free to ask any other questions you might have. I'll periodically be popping on, if only to give update how progress is going on getting through the scale creep and backlog. Seeing the notification that someone's said something on here would be a solid motivation and reminder to check in, plus I have never minded answering questions as completely as I feel is reasonable for the point in story we are at.
- phoneuser1992
- Somewhat familiar
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- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 1:07 pm
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Another week passed with no proper update... another week of steadily pouring over the never ending scale creep associated with the corrections, adjustments, editing and in places rewriting I'm doing. I spent right about 12 hours yesterday working on this during one of my only days fully off and chipped another couple hours off during the week. Progress - even substantial progress - has been made. Unfortunately, a solid 8-10 hours of that progress fell into the pit of a system update I hadn't been planning or considering until yesterday that makes too much sense and fixes one of my own biggest gripes with how part of my world worked. I've reinvented the wheel for crits, Dazes and STUNS from the ground up. They are no longer HARD locked to only be accessed above a given level, but they are still soft locked and in such a way that anyone with a modest understanding of statistics can tell you not to expect crits before level 5, not to expect Dazes until level 15 and to give up on getting STUNS with regularity even at level 25. Meanwhile crits become much more commonplace at level 10 and Dazes start to be somewhat reliable (somewhat) by level 20. This fits a model of crit -> Super Crit - > MEGA CRIT, and even also includes the radicalization of how common crits are by proper late game. Someone Harmony's level isn't worried about not getting a crit, she's worried about trying to get that Daze. She is PERFECTLY capable of flubbing her crit, but that's not even where her energy is going because she's full capable of going higher IF she manages to thread a needle of some 42.25%*9.25%*49%=1.91% (low balled and highly simplified - rigorous statistics give a higher chance) and getting a mere crit takes her managing 42.25%*64%=27.04% (low balled and highly simplified in the same way). It means that there's multiple rolls verifying if a crit, Daze or especially STUN occurred or not and a mechanic for getting additional rolls that further increase complexity/granularity while allowing for the soft locked options to be reached by even Preds with substantially lower levels of Charm. I've also greatly enhanced the IMPACT of a crit, Daze or STUN in terms of raw DAMAGE both by remaking the dice codes for such from the ground up and not being a pansy about letting them hit like a truck and making crits subject to modifiers independently instead of being a pure dice roll. If Elizabeth rolls a crit under the new system, she's rolling 2d10+4 for a hard and fast minimum of 6 extra damage - not a mere 1d8 that could end up only adding 1 more damage. And then I had to rework how more active Digestion modes interface with the new system for Charm. So then I had to reroll crits for Hazel, Jane AND Elizabeth's digestion of respective prey. Oh, and adjust for the fact that Pearl's OVER FIFTEEN HUNDRED DAMN POUNDS! I couldn't save that nearly as well as I was hoping. Jury is still out debating if Elizabeth's going to be finished before Jane swallows her for her training at the track field or if she's going to finish INSIDE Jane's gut or if she's going to get screwed over by the new Charm system and loss a hideous amount of damage from crits... which should be highly unlikely since her new odds of getting a Crit are better than her old odds of a Daze and her crits are more potent from a pure damage perspective than her former Dazes were. So even though her odds of both crits and especially of Dazes have tanked it should still favor Elizabeth more the new way than the old way for that aspect. Hopefully by enough that Elizabeth finishes her 30+ hours of digesting a Skilled Pred and two pretty big dudes a half hour faster... not going to hold my breath on it though. At least finishing checking that isn't hard required since it's actually still in the future for the story
Despite the insane time sink that this has caused delaying me and forcing me to go through encounters I'd already revisited once to add tidbits explaining what's going on under the hood - which was challenging because it's actually somewhat complex even if I was explaining it to someone while doing it let alone with lots of it happening in the background and only explaining the unusual instances where it mattered - and to double check that no bottom line results changed... both that the crit would remain - which involved giving the character credit for having the initial success (read as rigging the most difficult part) and making the follow up to confirm the crit (worked for Hazel and Jane, but Harmony's back to back Dazes required enormous effort to rig and were too much of an explanation opportunity brought on by original awesome luck for me to let her fail the now much longer odds of a level 15 Charm Predator getting back to back Dazes) - and that the enhanced power of the crit wouldn't drastically change the results of story events. Which in Jane's case it kinda sorta did. Everyone lost a 5th hp earlier and Taylor died to the same attack that killed Hoshi instead of being done in by acids at the start of the next turn... ending the fight enough sooner that I had to delete some bits and change what was on the clock when Hazel checked for a timestamp on Jane's victory. Not much or by much, but... it was still there.
DESPITE all of that, I've still moved forward and not backwards. I'm on page 99 out of what will be 184 pages if I take out all of the voting segments from the document and don't edit myself into gaining or losing a page or two. So we're visibly and substantially over the halfway mark. It's got comments telling you when Hazel's Cravings begin, keeps a running tab how strong it is at what point - note that she races through them so fast that her mind is, in a way, protected from the full strength of Cravings of any particular level. Cravings are a constant force, not an instant one, and the unending presence can make much 'weaker' Cravings demonstrate as twisting of a force on the mind as Hazel resists showing until dealing with rather extreme Cravings due to the uniqueness of circumstance blasting her straight to the extreme Cravings without enduring days and weeks of the 'weaker' and more subtle Cravings worming their way into her thought patterns. I'm also including right into the main story a sort of tab that updates you as she gains and loses weight. It doesn't currently specifically note when she goes up or down a size - that's handled by interaction with the world - but you can see a number noting which direction her weight is going and why so that even when she's big enough that it's not visible we'll see what's happening under the hood for that part and be able to understand how it's feeding into the strength of her Cravings over time.
In terms of where this puts me in the story, I'm working on meeting Michelle and Crystal after arriving at the club. Again, slightly but definitely over the halfway mark. I promise that I'm getting there guys.
Anyways, barring something happening to make me blink on doing so... I'll start posting updated sections to the beginning of the story next week when I've hopefully gotten almost all the way through. I'm going to update at least 1 section each day once I start doing so - possibly more if I've got enough buffer of things finished - and we'll be back up and running once I get myself back to the end of the current story.
Deadline for putting a vote in for the section of the Great Return is when I post the first update to the start of the story, so if you want to add yours to the list of votes than hurry up and do so! Also, give a shout out if you're excited that it's coming back, it would be a big encouragement at this junction after the efforts put in to do this thing RIGHT to know that the fans have been willing to wait and are still here... better yet to hear that the fandom has grown, but I'd be happy enough to know I haven't lost anyone and I don't mind one page of the forum topic just being updates and encouragement during a big update and process of gathering things together to continue before diving into another long stretch of excellent community driven story written by the one moron with too many dice and a love for weight gain and multiprey


Despite the insane time sink that this has caused delaying me and forcing me to go through encounters I'd already revisited once to add tidbits explaining what's going on under the hood - which was challenging because it's actually somewhat complex even if I was explaining it to someone while doing it let alone with lots of it happening in the background and only explaining the unusual instances where it mattered - and to double check that no bottom line results changed... both that the crit would remain - which involved giving the character credit for having the initial success (read as rigging the most difficult part) and making the follow up to confirm the crit (worked for Hazel and Jane, but Harmony's back to back Dazes required enormous effort to rig and were too much of an explanation opportunity brought on by original awesome luck for me to let her fail the now much longer odds of a level 15 Charm Predator getting back to back Dazes) - and that the enhanced power of the crit wouldn't drastically change the results of story events. Which in Jane's case it kinda sorta did. Everyone lost a 5th hp earlier and Taylor died to the same attack that killed Hoshi instead of being done in by acids at the start of the next turn... ending the fight enough sooner that I had to delete some bits and change what was on the clock when Hazel checked for a timestamp on Jane's victory. Not much or by much, but... it was still there.
DESPITE all of that, I've still moved forward and not backwards. I'm on page 99 out of what will be 184 pages if I take out all of the voting segments from the document and don't edit myself into gaining or losing a page or two. So we're visibly and substantially over the halfway mark. It's got comments telling you when Hazel's Cravings begin, keeps a running tab how strong it is at what point - note that she races through them so fast that her mind is, in a way, protected from the full strength of Cravings of any particular level. Cravings are a constant force, not an instant one, and the unending presence can make much 'weaker' Cravings demonstrate as twisting of a force on the mind as Hazel resists showing until dealing with rather extreme Cravings due to the uniqueness of circumstance blasting her straight to the extreme Cravings without enduring days and weeks of the 'weaker' and more subtle Cravings worming their way into her thought patterns. I'm also including right into the main story a sort of tab that updates you as she gains and loses weight. It doesn't currently specifically note when she goes up or down a size - that's handled by interaction with the world - but you can see a number noting which direction her weight is going and why so that even when she's big enough that it's not visible we'll see what's happening under the hood for that part and be able to understand how it's feeding into the strength of her Cravings over time.
In terms of where this puts me in the story, I'm working on meeting Michelle and Crystal after arriving at the club. Again, slightly but definitely over the halfway mark. I promise that I'm getting there guys.
Anyways, barring something happening to make me blink on doing so... I'll start posting updated sections to the beginning of the story next week when I've hopefully gotten almost all the way through. I'm going to update at least 1 section each day once I start doing so - possibly more if I've got enough buffer of things finished - and we'll be back up and running once I get myself back to the end of the current story.
Deadline for putting a vote in for the section of the Great Return is when I post the first update to the start of the story, so if you want to add yours to the list of votes than hurry up and do so! Also, give a shout out if you're excited that it's coming back, it would be a big encouragement at this junction after the efforts put in to do this thing RIGHT to know that the fans have been willing to wait and are still here... better yet to hear that the fandom has grown, but I'd be happy enough to know I haven't lost anyone and I don't mind one page of the forum topic just being updates and encouragement during a big update and process of gathering things together to continue before diving into another long stretch of excellent community driven story written by the one moron with too many dice and a love for weight gain and multiprey


- phoneuser1992
- Somewhat familiar
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- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 1:07 pm
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Can't speak for anyone else, but I'm still here and awaiting the Great ReturnTM. I'm very glad I happened to stumble across this story, and it's been a great time seeing it develop. Good to hear that you haven't been discouraged by editing the existing story to fit the newly updated mechanics. Fingers crossed that there won't be any need for another round of this, I can't imagine that would be fun for anyone. I'll be waiting with anticipation for when you're ready to start posting what you've been working on!
I was concerned for a while that having to go back and do a significant edit through everything would start killing your enthusiasm to keep going, so it's good to hear that things are progressing fairly well. That actually got me thinking about the whole Hazel restarting with her memories/higher Talent level upon her inevitable end aspect, given how going through the days and events that were already written again could be draining to write. But after some consideration, there would still be a lot to keep things interesting, wouldn't there?
Even if we voted for Hazel to try the most boring options of 'just do everything again the same as before', things can't play out the same way again since Hazel's a different person with different experiences (and from the Talent upgrade, different growth rate and, uh, nutritional requirements
). So other people will react differently, Hazel will react differently (even if she tries not to), and things will necessarily diverge. Just one example that came to me was with how Hazel and Jacob feel about Jennifer. Assuming we get far enough in this timeline for them to fully process their feelings about that, on the reset that would mean Hazel has unconsciously already accepted digesting Jennifer but Jacob hasn't and when/if he confronts Hazel about it, she's going to have a quite different reaction than she did this time. Maybe she tries to act like she did this time, but Jacob detects that she's pretending to be more upset than she actually is and things follow on from there.
There's plenty of examples like that to introduce variety and keep things interesting. Anyway, I'm rambling a bit by this point, so I'll just reiterate that I'm happy to hear things are still progressing and you're still interested in continuing. Looking forward to seeing what you've been working on!
I was concerned for a while that having to go back and do a significant edit through everything would start killing your enthusiasm to keep going, so it's good to hear that things are progressing fairly well. That actually got me thinking about the whole Hazel restarting with her memories/higher Talent level upon her inevitable end aspect, given how going through the days and events that were already written again could be draining to write. But after some consideration, there would still be a lot to keep things interesting, wouldn't there?
Even if we voted for Hazel to try the most boring options of 'just do everything again the same as before', things can't play out the same way again since Hazel's a different person with different experiences (and from the Talent upgrade, different growth rate and, uh, nutritional requirements

There's plenty of examples like that to introduce variety and keep things interesting. Anyway, I'm rambling a bit by this point, so I'll just reiterate that I'm happy to hear things are still progressing and you're still interested in continuing. Looking forward to seeing what you've been working on!
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GrayLotus - Somewhat familiar
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Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
For my votes (since I think its still open)
I am going to have to go with
[After she finishes the hour and a half of focused digestion and starts to take it easy for a bit.]
[I'm proud of you baby. You're dealing with your new reality very well and you've done something amazing for your first deliberate hunt!]
[Confused. She can't understand why Willow didn't respond differently or focus on a separate aspect.]
and for write-ins I got nothing but I like what other people have come up with so blending their write-ins like was suggested earlier seems like a good idea.
And for question:
to clarify, since Hazel is inevitably going to die in this runthrough,
Is there a set spawn point to restart at? like after or before eating Jennifer.(probably something thats already been answered and I just missed it)
On respawn does Hazel keep her levels? (also something that might have been answered that I'm missing)
Final question that I remember, it seems like a lot of times people are getting eaten with clothes on, so I can only assume that if they had a weapon on them, they could escape a pred's belly even when the pred is a high enough level that even a maxed out prey couldnt escape them? like shoot or stab their way out, or maybe kamikaze with a grenade lol (though obviously that last one would be extremely rare)
I had more questions but forgot them.
So for some comments, I love how Hazel has been corrupted enough already that she's sending nudes, from the start it seems like she was a shy girl who would never do that and by the end of day 1 y'all got her doing it. Also for the scale creep, it makes it seem like all the girls are going to end up with t&a the same size as them lol.
I am going to have to go with
[After she finishes the hour and a half of focused digestion and starts to take it easy for a bit.]
[I'm proud of you baby. You're dealing with your new reality very well and you've done something amazing for your first deliberate hunt!]
[Confused. She can't understand why Willow didn't respond differently or focus on a separate aspect.]
and for write-ins I got nothing but I like what other people have come up with so blending their write-ins like was suggested earlier seems like a good idea.
And for question:
to clarify, since Hazel is inevitably going to die in this runthrough,
Is there a set spawn point to restart at? like after or before eating Jennifer.(probably something thats already been answered and I just missed it)
On respawn does Hazel keep her levels? (also something that might have been answered that I'm missing)
Final question that I remember, it seems like a lot of times people are getting eaten with clothes on, so I can only assume that if they had a weapon on them, they could escape a pred's belly even when the pred is a high enough level that even a maxed out prey couldnt escape them? like shoot or stab their way out, or maybe kamikaze with a grenade lol (though obviously that last one would be extremely rare)
I had more questions but forgot them.
So for some comments, I love how Hazel has been corrupted enough already that she's sending nudes, from the start it seems like she was a shy girl who would never do that and by the end of day 1 y'all got her doing it. Also for the scale creep, it makes it seem like all the girls are going to end up with t&a the same size as them lol.
- DGUBEAGLE17
- New to the forum
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- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2022 4:04 am
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
Yes, voting is still open.
I have not directly answered this, though I've given very strong implication that if it happened right now it would be around there. I'm willing to be slightly more specific. It would be after Jennifer's been swallowed and before she's dead. But that's not a set in stone spawn point that we always must must must return to... and there are events that the OP gives enough frame of reference to guess at that I won't say more about what means there are to create alternative spawn points.
Yes and No. She has whatever levels she had AT THAT SPAWN POINT. So if we get a later Spawn Point and opt to take it then whatever levels Hazel had at that point are retained... though this runs the risk of losing massive potential experience from the Talent Upgrade if we'd gone further back.
This is actually multiple questions masquerading as one question, but let's dive into the variables that it introduces.
1) Would a concealable weapon easily slip by a Pred. NO. While swallowing prey, a Pred is very intensively and intimately feeling every conture of the body of said prey even if they can't taste it the way they'd prefer. A gun would stick out like a nail tacked into your thumb. Similar for a knife of any real size. Now, that's not to say that it's IMPOSSIBLE to slip one past a Pred, or at least get deeply enough eaten before they discover it that they're either VERY good and can regurgitate without fully swallowing you or have no way to strip you of the weapon anymore. It's just a tall order and the bigger the concealable weapon the taller the order gets.
2) Would a concealable weapon that could be believably slipped past a Pred, such as smaller pocket pistols, medium knives or other small potentially deadly items, be something you could use without consequence to help you escape a Pred? NO. If the Pred dies due to the bullets from your gun shot inside her you WILL be charged with murder. It might go any sort of way in the courts, from fully vindicated as self defense to pleading manslaughter to being the fall guy for a massive Pred Rights movement pressuring the entire legal system... but you WILL go to court at the minimum. And it COULD turn out ugly there. Similar for using any other such weapon.
3) If you don't care about the consequences and have such a weapon on you, would it drastically raise your odds of survival and escape? HELL YES. It would depend on the exact weapon and the exact user what exactly I would give as a bonus, but as an example... if Jennifer had had a steak knife with a blade as long as her hand from the wrist to the finger tip... She'd have dealt 4d8+14 as Struggle damage (instead of 1d4+0!) and 8d8+14 as her Thrash. That's significantly better than Willow who hits for 2d10+12 on her Struggle and 4d10+12 for her Thrash. Willow, as a follow up example, would deal 7d8+22 as her Struggle damage using the same steak knife, and up to 21d8+22 as her Frenzy damage. It absolutely skyrockets your ability to deal damage and thereby to escape alive. But... now we get to another question.
4) Are there Preds SO strong that it doesn't really matter who brought what weapon, if it's one on one the prey're toast anyways? No, but also Yes. If the person armed is another Pred... and we don't level cap the Pred-as-Prey using a weapon... then there is NOBODY that can 100% beat that, though depending on the levels involved there's Preds that could beat Hazel, Jane or possibly even Elizabeth. (I'd have to run a detailed analysis before I declared for certain that even a Global level 25 could 100% beat the Queen if she was armed when swallowed, but I'd also have to run such before declaring she'd 100% escape.) However, if we are talking about Joe off the street? Borrowing the example of Jennifer with a steak knife, Elizabeth (who is LESS THAN HALFWAY UP THE SCALING) is able to easily destroy her. 1 Pulp and than Elizabeth can watch her acids do the rest without losing more than at most 1/5 her total hp. Might actually kill her outright with the Pulp, Jennifer is THAT fragile/Elizabeth is THAT strong (take your pick of interpretation - both are accurate). Even giving Willow the steak knife... while I wouldn't bet on Elizabeth one on one anymore, or maybe even on Harmony anymore... but I would bet Ashley wins that. Preds get... insanely durable.
In other news, I'm at page 133 and dealing with Dawn. Hazel recently stole Adeline from the Queen and that was a whole thing. I couldn't figure out how I got the Capacity to work for the Voreception, and obviously I need a consistent system for it because I'm using such in other places ALREADY... so here I go reinventing the wheel and getting different answers. AGAIN. Hazel still got everyone down, but what's amusing is that she gained Capacity in fairly different ways compared to the original and she actually ends up only using 14 Capacity to hold the whole crew, which opens up a world of things because she's not strapped NEARLY as badly. As a whole, I think that the fight is going to look a good bit different while being mostly recognizable. I've hit one point where it just makes sense with 14 Capacity to make a different move than what was previously made and I'm hesitating to do that to myself. Like... ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. If I'm going to make that sort of adjustment, than wouldn't it also make sense to change XYZ as well? Hey, did you figure on how you'd make the new system's Charm interact with being Prey? Shouldn't you make sure that you show everyone how this bit and that bit work? Don't forget... I hate everything.
So. I'm going to make myself a NEW DAMN FILE and rework the thing up from the skeleton I've got already in place and freely adjust. It's going to tax me a few days, but enough variables have shifted that I can't do full credit to how characters should be acting with just a touch of doctoring here and there. Or at least, not without at least exploring things more thoroughly with the freedom to muck everything up. I'll keep the old file where it is and how it is so that if I decide I hate what I spent time recreating I can go right back without losing a bunch of edits I already made - with something to draw from in making modest adjustments even if I didn't like the radical ones that I didn't dare make without making a new file to explore the changes in.
Downside, this does indeed mean that I'm blinking on posting the updates for the beginning of the story this week. Upside, as soon as Dawn stops breathing we are in the clear(ish) and there's nothing left that could possibly require reworking on account of system adjustments. (fingers crossed) It's just basic editing! I think! HAZZAH! Wait, did I say that last part out loud?
DGUBEAGLE17 wrote:Is there a set spawn point to restart at? like after or before eating Jennifer.(probably something thats already been answered and I just missed it)
I have not directly answered this, though I've given very strong implication that if it happened right now it would be around there. I'm willing to be slightly more specific. It would be after Jennifer's been swallowed and before she's dead. But that's not a set in stone spawn point that we always must must must return to... and there are events that the OP gives enough frame of reference to guess at that I won't say more about what means there are to create alternative spawn points.
DGUBEAGLE17 wrote:On respawn does Hazel keep her levels?
Yes and No. She has whatever levels she had AT THAT SPAWN POINT. So if we get a later Spawn Point and opt to take it then whatever levels Hazel had at that point are retained... though this runs the risk of losing massive potential experience from the Talent Upgrade if we'd gone further back.
DGUBEAGLE17 wrote:Final question that I remember, it seems like a lot of times people are getting eaten with clothes on, so I can only assume that if they had a weapon on them, they could escape a pred's belly even when the pred is a high enough level that even a maxed out prey couldnt escape them? like shoot or stab their way out, or maybe kamikaze with a grenade lol (though obviously that last one would be extremely rare)
This is actually multiple questions masquerading as one question, but let's dive into the variables that it introduces.
1) Would a concealable weapon easily slip by a Pred. NO. While swallowing prey, a Pred is very intensively and intimately feeling every conture of the body of said prey even if they can't taste it the way they'd prefer. A gun would stick out like a nail tacked into your thumb. Similar for a knife of any real size. Now, that's not to say that it's IMPOSSIBLE to slip one past a Pred, or at least get deeply enough eaten before they discover it that they're either VERY good and can regurgitate without fully swallowing you or have no way to strip you of the weapon anymore. It's just a tall order and the bigger the concealable weapon the taller the order gets.
2) Would a concealable weapon that could be believably slipped past a Pred, such as smaller pocket pistols, medium knives or other small potentially deadly items, be something you could use without consequence to help you escape a Pred? NO. If the Pred dies due to the bullets from your gun shot inside her you WILL be charged with murder. It might go any sort of way in the courts, from fully vindicated as self defense to pleading manslaughter to being the fall guy for a massive Pred Rights movement pressuring the entire legal system... but you WILL go to court at the minimum. And it COULD turn out ugly there. Similar for using any other such weapon.
3) If you don't care about the consequences and have such a weapon on you, would it drastically raise your odds of survival and escape? HELL YES. It would depend on the exact weapon and the exact user what exactly I would give as a bonus, but as an example... if Jennifer had had a steak knife with a blade as long as her hand from the wrist to the finger tip... She'd have dealt 4d8+14 as Struggle damage (instead of 1d4+0!) and 8d8+14 as her Thrash. That's significantly better than Willow who hits for 2d10+12 on her Struggle and 4d10+12 for her Thrash. Willow, as a follow up example, would deal 7d8+22 as her Struggle damage using the same steak knife, and up to 21d8+22 as her Frenzy damage. It absolutely skyrockets your ability to deal damage and thereby to escape alive. But... now we get to another question.
4) Are there Preds SO strong that it doesn't really matter who brought what weapon, if it's one on one the prey're toast anyways? No, but also Yes. If the person armed is another Pred... and we don't level cap the Pred-as-Prey using a weapon... then there is NOBODY that can 100% beat that, though depending on the levels involved there's Preds that could beat Hazel, Jane or possibly even Elizabeth. (I'd have to run a detailed analysis before I declared for certain that even a Global level 25 could 100% beat the Queen if she was armed when swallowed, but I'd also have to run such before declaring she'd 100% escape.) However, if we are talking about Joe off the street? Borrowing the example of Jennifer with a steak knife, Elizabeth (who is LESS THAN HALFWAY UP THE SCALING) is able to easily destroy her. 1 Pulp and than Elizabeth can watch her acids do the rest without losing more than at most 1/5 her total hp. Might actually kill her outright with the Pulp, Jennifer is THAT fragile/Elizabeth is THAT strong (take your pick of interpretation - both are accurate). Even giving Willow the steak knife... while I wouldn't bet on Elizabeth one on one anymore, or maybe even on Harmony anymore... but I would bet Ashley wins that. Preds get... insanely durable.
Spoiler: show
In other news, I'm at page 133 and dealing with Dawn. Hazel recently stole Adeline from the Queen and that was a whole thing. I couldn't figure out how I got the Capacity to work for the Voreception, and obviously I need a consistent system for it because I'm using such in other places ALREADY... so here I go reinventing the wheel and getting different answers. AGAIN. Hazel still got everyone down, but what's amusing is that she gained Capacity in fairly different ways compared to the original and she actually ends up only using 14 Capacity to hold the whole crew, which opens up a world of things because she's not strapped NEARLY as badly. As a whole, I think that the fight is going to look a good bit different while being mostly recognizable. I've hit one point where it just makes sense with 14 Capacity to make a different move than what was previously made and I'm hesitating to do that to myself. Like... ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. If I'm going to make that sort of adjustment, than wouldn't it also make sense to change XYZ as well? Hey, did you figure on how you'd make the new system's Charm interact with being Prey? Shouldn't you make sure that you show everyone how this bit and that bit work? Don't forget... I hate everything.
So. I'm going to make myself a NEW DAMN FILE and rework the thing up from the skeleton I've got already in place and freely adjust. It's going to tax me a few days, but enough variables have shifted that I can't do full credit to how characters should be acting with just a touch of doctoring here and there. Or at least, not without at least exploring things more thoroughly with the freedom to muck everything up. I'll keep the old file where it is and how it is so that if I decide I hate what I spent time recreating I can go right back without losing a bunch of edits I already made - with something to draw from in making modest adjustments even if I didn't like the radical ones that I didn't dare make without making a new file to explore the changes in.
Downside, this does indeed mean that I'm blinking on posting the updates for the beginning of the story this week. Upside, as soon as Dawn stops breathing we are in the clear(ish) and there's nothing left that could possibly require reworking on account of system adjustments. (fingers crossed) It's just basic editing! I think! HAZZAH! Wait, did I say that last part out loud?
- phoneuser1992
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- Posts: 158
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 1:07 pm
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
I'm late updating y'all on progress. My bad.
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I've got pretty little done honestly. Had some family stuff that took priority, work sucked up some time and then I devoured 3 different books instead of cracking these things open. But I feel a lot more refreshed and I have chipped away at a couple aspects. I'm using Elizabeth vs Pearl and Jeffery to help me iron out details of Charm interacting when dealing with Pred as Prey to help guide me when I do Dawn throughout the Voreception at the club, and I've made that separate document to muck about with it and freely change things. I'm going to keep working on stuff and to prove I'm not yanking chains or making excuses I'm going to go ahead and update the OP with what's changed. I doubt any of you will be able to find the change in that particular case - spelling and grammar errors if memory serves - but I've given word that once I do so I'll update all the way through at least one a day until I reach present and we have the section of the Great Return.
It's coming around guys. I know it doesn't feel like it, and I know I've had more people checking in and discovering this since it went offline for haitus than while it was active - at least if I believe the views - but it isn't dead. Just sleeping really, really, really deeply...
I've got a date in mind that I want to have things up and posted by, but it might be a touch agressive of a goal. We'll see if I make it or not. Fake it until we Make it!
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I've got pretty little done honestly. Had some family stuff that took priority, work sucked up some time and then I devoured 3 different books instead of cracking these things open. But I feel a lot more refreshed and I have chipped away at a couple aspects. I'm using Elizabeth vs Pearl and Jeffery to help me iron out details of Charm interacting when dealing with Pred as Prey to help guide me when I do Dawn throughout the Voreception at the club, and I've made that separate document to muck about with it and freely change things. I'm going to keep working on stuff and to prove I'm not yanking chains or making excuses I'm going to go ahead and update the OP with what's changed. I doubt any of you will be able to find the change in that particular case - spelling and grammar errors if memory serves - but I've given word that once I do so I'll update all the way through at least one a day until I reach present and we have the section of the Great Return.
It's coming around guys. I know it doesn't feel like it, and I know I've had more people checking in and discovering this since it went offline for haitus than while it was active - at least if I believe the views - but it isn't dead. Just sleeping really, really, really deeply...
I've got a date in mind that I want to have things up and posted by, but it might be a touch agressive of a goal. We'll see if I make it or not. Fake it until we Make it!
- phoneuser1992
- Somewhat familiar
- Posts: 158
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 1:07 pm
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
I finished the separate spreadsheet for Hazel vs Dawn vs four girls at the club given the different ways that things could go due to the simple difference in Hazel having MUCH less steep Capacity negs... including the idea of Queen actually landing the blow that I'd teased and threatened. I'd forced myself to let Harmony get there in time exactly BECAUSE I was convinced that Hazel would be unable to recover from it. But when she's got 2 more Acid to throw at Dawn passively, takes 1 less Exhaustion for her Crush, deals 1 more damage for every active attack AND DIDN'T LOSE 1/5th HER HP DUE TO ULTRAMAX OVERSTUFFING I think she can handle 1 measly blow from EVEN the Queen. And she did. But oh boy did that make some changes, starting with Caitlyn seeing an opportunity and committing to a Frenzy instead of the Thrash she'd planned that round and snowballing into a harder commitment to make Dawn maintain Pressure for a fourth time since the stakes are higher with Caitlyn hobbled by 2 Frenzies with no recovery time - she has Elisia join in as well and Elisia Thrashes with Heather while Adeline is still a useless lazy hoe - which actually does enough that it MAKES Dawn blink and maintain Pressure one more time. Which sets up the four girls in a FAR stronger joint position, though Caitlyn has to spend an inordinate amount of time Resting since she'd paid out too high a price to get the way higher damage and Exhaustion shoved down Dawn's throat. Ultimately, they have Heather act as the backbone dedicated Thrash while Elisia and Adeline take turns Struggling and Resting until they hit the breaking point - which happens far more softly in this rendition since Dawn can't hit them with the Crush that originally shattered their teamwork all in one go. Instead of 3 Frenzies at the breaking point, Caitlyn keeps them just calm enough that Elisia and Adeline both Struggle and Heather is still only Thrashing... But that subtle increase and the build up of frustration at getting "one sidedly pounded" has Dawn still use her Pulp, which lands a 9 extra damage Crit in this edition, after the 'breaking point' and it shatters them properly - Heather weakened enough that acids kill her before her next turn where her Frenzy had been planned. Elisa and Adeline both immediately go ballestic and Caitlyn gives up on the crew, her stamina back up to the point she's got her d12s again and she does her successful probe.
After that it more or less goes back to previous. Until Dawn dies off MUCH sooner given the extra hit or two and all of Hazel's less absurd restrictions that had extended her life like crazy, but it's still between Adeline and Caitlyn dying off. The change is that it's seconds AFTER Adeline croaks instead of bare seconds ahead of Caitlyn's final breath. There's a couple rounds of difference, so that's a bigger change than it might sound like... Adeline dies before Jeffery gets himself eaten by Queen and Caitlyn is alive until Hazel works herself up to using a Pulp after the Queen stops choking her and leaves her to work through the massive bomb drop that she's love rivals with the most dangerous girl her age. Amusingly, it's Caitlyn who finishes off Dawn in this version, taking the Mature Pred to the point where if she hadn't died she'd have vomited - just killing her in the exact same moment. I'd rule that being dead takes priority out of the 2 simultaneous losses, so... yeah, no attempted vomit. But Hazel is much more directly involved in finishing Caitlyn off after Dawn becomes a way less formidable barrier between the two due to death, with her final Squeeze and Pulp transferring nice and directly to 'super girl'.
I haven't actually redone all of this in the actual writing part. That's going to take... a long while to sort out. Not looking forward to that. But I've got the alternative fight done up all pretty and I've got a feast of preexisting writing from which to adulterate to fit the new battle map, so it's still going to be incomparably faster than the original writing of that monster of a battle. I just have to decide after I finish doing so if I prefer the heavy handed changes or if I want to scale back and where I like which after I finish going ham. YAY.
Here's hoping I'm done with the club again by the time I update y'all next week. Personally, I'm not holding my breath, but I do think that with what I've worked up it's entirely... possible. Scale creep has finally ?died?, and I can now ?clearly? see everything that needs doing still. I might just make that aggressive goal after all. I'll only need to finish up the club AND the rest of the editing by next week to pull it off. Why do I do these things to myself?

After that it more or less goes back to previous. Until Dawn dies off MUCH sooner given the extra hit or two and all of Hazel's less absurd restrictions that had extended her life like crazy, but it's still between Adeline and Caitlyn dying off. The change is that it's seconds AFTER Adeline croaks instead of bare seconds ahead of Caitlyn's final breath. There's a couple rounds of difference, so that's a bigger change than it might sound like... Adeline dies before Jeffery gets himself eaten by Queen and Caitlyn is alive until Hazel works herself up to using a Pulp after the Queen stops choking her and leaves her to work through the massive bomb drop that she's love rivals with the most dangerous girl her age. Amusingly, it's Caitlyn who finishes off Dawn in this version, taking the Mature Pred to the point where if she hadn't died she'd have vomited - just killing her in the exact same moment. I'd rule that being dead takes priority out of the 2 simultaneous losses, so... yeah, no attempted vomit. But Hazel is much more directly involved in finishing Caitlyn off after Dawn becomes a way less formidable barrier between the two due to death, with her final Squeeze and Pulp transferring nice and directly to 'super girl'.
I haven't actually redone all of this in the actual writing part. That's going to take... a long while to sort out. Not looking forward to that. But I've got the alternative fight done up all pretty and I've got a feast of preexisting writing from which to adulterate to fit the new battle map, so it's still going to be incomparably faster than the original writing of that monster of a battle. I just have to decide after I finish doing so if I prefer the heavy handed changes or if I want to scale back and where I like which after I finish going ham. YAY.
Here's hoping I'm done with the club again by the time I update y'all next week. Personally, I'm not holding my breath, but I do think that with what I've worked up it's entirely... possible. Scale creep has finally ?died?, and I can now ?clearly? see everything that needs doing still. I might just make that aggressive goal after all. I'll only need to finish up the club AND the rest of the editing by next week to pull it off. Why do I do these things to myself?




- phoneuser1992
- Somewhat familiar
- Posts: 158
- Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2016 1:07 pm
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
phoneuser1992 wrote:it will be another week (more likely 2... please not 3... please not 3...) before I'm actually ready to put out the next section... I ended up having to do a modest amount of reworking on Jane's intro section because Hazel's progression forward in her digestion of Jennifer is surprisingly tangled with ongoing events and I had to both untangle it and insert new locations where it entangled to a similar depth naturally. That took a couple days on its own. In theory that was the density zone where adjustments would be needed... I HATE scale creep.... another week of steadily pouring over the never ending scale creep associated with the corrections, adjustments, editing and in places rewriting I'm doing...
Despite the insane time sink that this has caused delaying me and forcing me to go through encounters I'd already revisited once to add tidbits explaining what's going on under the hood - which was challenging because it's actually somewhat complex even if I was explaining it to someone while doing it let alone with lots of it happening in the background and only explaining the unusual instances where it mattered - and to double check that no bottom line results changed... both that the crit would remain - which involved giving the character credit for having the initial success (read as rigging the most difficult part) and making the follow up to confirm the crit (worked for Hazel and Jane, but Harmony's back to back Dazes required enormous effort to rig and were too much of an explanation opportunity brought on by original awesome luck for me to let her fail the now much longer odds of a level 15 Charm Predator getting back to back Dazes) - and that the enhanced power of the crit wouldn't drastically change the results of story events. Which in Jane's case it kinda sorta did. Everyone lost a 5th hp earlier and Taylor died to the same attack that killed Hoshi instead of being done in by acids at the start of the next turn... ending the fight enough sooner that I had to delete some bits and change what was on the clock when Hazel checked for a timestamp on Jane's victory. Not much or by much, but... it was still there.
DESPITE all of that, I've still moved forward and not backwards... Anyways, barring something happening to make me blink on doing so... I'll start posting updated sections to the beginning of the story next week when I've hopefully gotten almost all the way through. I'm going to update at least 1 section each day once I start doing so - possibly more if I've got enough buffer of things finished - and we'll be back up and running once I get myself back to the end of the current story... So. I'm going to make myself a NEW DAMN FILE and rework the thing up from the skeleton I've got already in place and freely adjust. It's going to tax me a few days, but enough variables have shifted that I can't do full credit to how characters should be acting with just a touch of doctoring here and there... Downside, this does indeed mean that I'm blinking on posting the updates for the beginning of the story this week. Upside, as soon as Dawn stops breathing we are in the clear(ish) and there's nothing left that could possibly require reworking on account of system adjustments. (fingers crossed) It's just basic editing! I think! HAZZAH! Wait, did I say that last part out loud?
It's coming around guys. I know it doesn't feel like it, and I know I've had more people checking in and discovering this since it went offline for haitus than while it was active - at least if I believe the views - but it isn't dead. Just sleeping really, really, really deeply... I finished the separate spreadsheet for Hazel vs Dawn vs four girls at the club given the different ways that things could go due to the simple difference in Hazel having MUCH less steep Capacity negs... I haven't actually redone all of this in the actual writing part. That's going to take... a long while to sort out... Scale creep has finally ?died?, and I can now ?clearly? see everything that needs doing still. I might just make that aggressive goal after all. I'll only need to finish up the club AND the rest of the editing by next week to pull it off. Why do I do these things to myself?![]()
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Dude. Love the updates explaining what you're doing and the look into your mindset as you do. But please, chill out. You don't need to worry so much about losing us. Sure, some of us might be missing for a handful of initial sections on the Great Return, but we're not going to forget about this story. It's too engaging to completely die out and it's got enough views and enough comments on the thread to advertise itself instantly to anyone that wonders on the interactive thread as something to look into. You've gained freaking 21k views since the last time I was on - long story, been really busy - and that's from like 15k or so. People want to see it continued, but we also aren't holding a gun to your head for a deadline and it's quite obvious that the list of projects that need doing so that you can move forward again repeatedly exceed your expectations. That's FINE, we do get it. Chill and keep working at a reasonable pace, putting life stuff first. We'll be here when you get it done. Right guys?
phoneuser1992 wrote:1) Would a concealable weapon easily slip by a Pred. NO. While swallowing prey, a Pred is very intensively and intimately feeling every conture of the body of said prey even if they can't taste it the way they'd prefer. A gun would stick out like a nail tacked into your thumb. Similar for a knife of any real size. Now, that's not to say that it's IMPOSSIBLE to slip one past a Pred, or at least get deeply enough eaten before they discover it that they're either VERY good and can regurgitate without fully swallowing you or have no way to strip you of the weapon anymore. It's just a tall order and the bigger the concealable weapon the taller the order gets.
2) Would a concealable weapon that could be believably slipped past a Pred, such as smaller pocket pistols, medium knives or other small potentially deadly items, be something you could use without consequence to help you escape a Pred? NO. If the Pred dies due to the bullets from your gun shot inside her you WILL be charged with murder. It might go any sort of way in the courts, from fully vindicated as self defense to pleading manslaughter to being the fall guy for a massive Pred Rights movement pressuring the entire legal system... but you WILL go to court at the minimum. And it COULD turn out ugly there. Similar for using any other such weapon.
3) If you don't care about the consequences and have such a weapon on you, would it drastically raise your odds of survival and escape? HELL YES. It would depend on the exact weapon and the exact user what exactly I would give as a bonus, but as an example... if Jennifer had had a steak knife with a blade as long as her hand from the wrist to the finger tip... She'd have dealt 4d8+14 as Struggle damage (instead of 1d4+0!) and 8d8+14 as her Thrash. That's significantly better than Willow who hits for 2d10+12 on her Struggle and 4d10+12 for her Thrash. Willow, as a follow up example, would deal 7d8+22 as her Struggle damage using the same steak knife, and up to 21d8+22 as her Frenzy damage. It absolutely skyrockets your ability to deal damage and thereby to escape alive. But... now we get to another question.
4) Are there Preds SO strong that it doesn't really matter who brought what weapon, if it's one on one the prey're toast anyways? No, but also Yes. If the person armed is another Pred... and we don't level cap the Pred-as-Prey using a weapon... then there is NOBODY that can 100% beat that, though depending on the levels involved there's Preds that could beat Hazel, Jane or possibly even Elizabeth. (I'd have to run a detailed analysis before I declared for certain that even a Global level 25 could 100% beat the Queen if she was armed when swallowed, but I'd also have to run such before declaring she'd 100% escape.) However, if we are talking about Joe off the street? Borrowing the example of Jennifer with a steak knife, Elizabeth (who is LESS THAN HALFWAY UP THE SCALING) is able to easily destroy her. 1 Pulp and than Elizabeth can watch her acids do the rest without losing more than at most 1/5 her total hp. Might actually kill her outright with the Pulp, Jennifer is THAT fragile/Elizabeth is THAT strong (take your pick of interpretation - both are accurate). Even giving Willow the steak knife... while I wouldn't bet on Elizabeth one on one anymore, or maybe even on Harmony anymore... but I would bet Ashley wins that. Preds get... insanely durable.Spoiler: show
Interesting... Would it be reasonable for a guy to slip a pocket knife as long as his wallet is past a Pred if wallet and pocket knife were in the same pocket? The Pred's tongue registers the bump in the pocket as she swallows him, but it would feel like a extra thick wallet and that's not something to get alarmed about. If it was a guy that had passed an Escape Class, so someone with Caitlyn's levels, about how far would he reasonably have a chance solo with a small knife like that? Enough to have a solid chance at besting Dawn? A challenge even to the Queen? Somewhere in the no man's land between the two? Or would getting out of Jane be the limit? Let's assume that he isn't worried about ending up in court over it just for this argument... seems to reason with how strong Preds are that someone reasonably trained would have an idea how far they could push things with a weapon like that to vastly increase their survival odds without being likely to commit enough overkill the Pred dies and this guy is confident he can straddle the line for that. If that means a reduction in the bonus damage to reflect his controlled and careful not to overdo things methodology, then that's what it means. I'm just intrigued by the possibilities. Especially extrapolating to having 2 or 3 such 'armed' prey and how quickly it would become unwinnable for the Pred. Willow and Jennifer both unarmed would get destroyed by Queen looking at the stats, but... if BOTH were armed with those steak knives? That resolves the UNDERCAPACITY problem and gives them an absurd combined damage output of 11d8+36 by Struggling together. No way Queen's got it, no way Harmony's got it... Ashley might have it... but that second person armed is explosive in terms of deadliness. The most important thing, it seems to me, when eaten by someone sufficiently capable is hoping and praying they send you enough backup that's capable enough that you can work things out together. Because the best weapon for any Prey to have... is the rest of their Pred's Prey on their side and working in conjunction.
Teamwork makes the dream work!




- 08142024
- Been posting for a bit
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- Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2024 7:40 am
Re: Ravenous - The Daily Life of a New Pred
08142024 wrote:Interesting... Would it be reasonable for a guy to slip a pocket knife as long as his wallet is past a Pred if wallet and pocket knife were in the same pocket? The Pred's tongue registers the bump in the pocket as she swallows him, but it would feel like a extra thick wallet and that's not something to get alarmed about. If it was a guy that had passed an Escape Class, so someone with Caitlyn's levels, about how far would he reasonably have a chance solo with a small knife like that? Enough to have a solid chance at besting Dawn? A challenge even to the Queen? Somewhere in the no man's land between the two? Or would getting out of Jane be the limit? Let's assume that he isn't worried about ending up in court over it just for this argument... seems to reason with how strong Preds are that someone reasonably trained would have an idea how far they could push things with a weapon like that to vastly increase their survival odds without being likely to commit enough overkill the Pred dies and this guy is confident he can straddle the line for that. If that means a reduction in the bonus damage to reflect his controlled and careful not to overdo things methodology, then that's what it means.
Well, you're certainly looking at someone much more durable than Jennifer. Jennifer is the weakest Prey we've seen and will tie for the spot no matter how long the story goes. She's got minimum levels in Prey and Strength. So this guy's well over twice as tough from the not dying standpoint. You're talking about a much less dangerous weapon though in terms of size and probable sharpness - though many times more likely to actually slip past the Pred. I can see occasions where that lucky happenstance of positioning could lead to the weapon being missed. I think I'd give him 3d10+15 for Dice Code between his levels, his weapon and his caution not to go *too* hard with it. With that sort of Dice Code, him soloing Dawn would be... perhaps reasonable? Ah, Dawn would still have a measure of UNDERCAPACITY on him. That's probably all it takes, he was struggling to even be in this game. Dawn's got well over twice his hp and once her acids get up to force she's got enough dice going to counterbalance some of the difference in sizes of Dice Codes. I don't think 3d10+15 is at the point of being able to smash through Dawn's 280 health before she gets her acids all the way up either, and it's not like Dawn's just sitting there waiting. She'll make use of her free Crush, of Squeezes, of Pulps, of Pressure and so on when it becomes obvious this prey is dangerous. But it's much more plausible that Dawn might have already taken too much damage by the time her acids have gotten up to full force and she's never going to outpace his damage - she's doing all she can just to match it even with a full tank of acids. If her health is ever less than his... it's a game of what shape he escapes in from that point on. So... Dawn's a good point of reference I'd say for a smaller and less sharp pocket knife like that in the hands of an Escape graduate.
08142024 wrote:Especially extrapolating to having 2 or 3 such 'armed' prey and how quickly it would become unwinnable for the Pred. Willow and Jennifer both unarmed would get destroyed by Queen looking at the stats, but... if BOTH were armed with those steak knives? That resolves the UNDERCAPACITY problem and gives them an absurd combined damage output of 11d8+36 by Struggling together. No way Queen's got it, no way Harmony's got it... Ashley might have it... but that second person armed is explosive in terms of deadliness.
Anyone worth considering for overcoming Willow and Jennifer armed is basically going to be comparing against Willow with Jennifer's body soaking half the damage. Jennifer's got less than 1/3rd of Willow's health and it would take a huge amount more power to destroy Jennifer in 2-3 turns than what Queen theoretically could do to hit a point of ignoring her despite the weapon (which assumed a STATIC +10 damage and DIDN'T reach consistent literal 1HKO). So, by the time you've got a Pred who can handle the damage output of Willow with a knife for more than double the number of rounds due to lacking UNDERCAPACITY and splitting the damage with the corpse, you've got a Pred who can kill Jennifer off in 2-3 rounds of high aggression. Ashley probably would make a good example of what would be required to consistently beat the pairing without need to unbox anything, but I wouldn't count Harmony entirely out of the fight... I'd stress strongly that Harmony's the underdog, but I wouldn't count her out at the gate. For one thing, Harmony is still reasonably UNDERCAPACITY even between them both. But much more importantly, after the adjustments for Crits I've done, Harmony's crits are 3d10+6 and her Dazes are 6d10+6... and while Harmony's not in good position for getting Dazes often, she's at the level to always be able to threaten a nice Crit. IF Harmony gets enough Crits and an occasional Daze thrown in for good measure... and plays a VERY tight game on top of it... Harmony could still win that.
08142024 wrote:The most important thing, it seems to me, when eaten by someone sufficiently capable is hoping and praying they send you enough backup that's capable enough that you can work things out together. Because the best weapon for any Prey to have... is the rest of their Pred's Prey on their side and working in conjunction.
Teamwork makes the dream work!![]()
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Yep. Pred's eating barely enough to kill her Cravings? If she's reached Mature rating you might want to work out your will. If she's Skilled than I hope you already took care of writing the thing, because you don't have enough time for that anymore.
08142024 wrote:Dude. Love the updates explaining what you're doing and the look into your mindset as you do. But please, chill out. You don't need to worry so much about losing us. Sure, some of us might be missing for a handful of initial sections on the Great Return, but we're not going to forget about this story. It's too engaging to completely die out and it's got enough views and enough comments on the thread to advertise itself instantly to anyone that wonders on the interactive thread as something to look into. You've gained freaking 21k views since the last time I was on - long story, been really busy - and that's from like 15k or so. People want to see it continued, but we also aren't holding a gun to your head for a deadline and it's quite obvious that the list of projects that need doing so that you can move forward again repeatedly exceed your expectations. That's FINE, we do get it. Chill and keep working at a reasonable pace, putting life stuff first. We'll be here when you get it done. Right guys?
Thank you for the support. It really does mean a lot to me!
- phoneuser1992
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