How would you define non fatal?

[FishnorFowl]

I’ve seen people having different takes on this, some saying it has to be endosoma to be non fatal, while others say reformation counts as non fatal

So I’m curious as to people’s thoughts

[EloquentOrc]

I would say I am in the reformation counts as non fatal camp.

To me non-fatal is the character continuing to exist after the vore. By being let out, reformed, etc..
Though it gets a bit muddled if they are reduced to a sentience in the pred's body.

I mostly see it as the opposition to my definition of fatal, which would be character ceasing to exist. So even if they are digested and "die", if they are reformed/reborn or whatever after, it doesn't fit the defintion fatal in my mind.

[IddlerItaler]

To me fatal is usually anything where prey is fatally digested - even if that is quickly undone by resurrection, reformation, sentient fat and whatever magical shenanigans. A fatality is still a fatality. Unless the prey has some power like the Kwurdāin spell which lets them clearly stay alive throughout the whole process, in which case I'd mark it as non-fatal / safe.

Though I get why some fans of fatal vore see the tag as "prey is killed off for real"; the emotional punch from the prey's demise is often a key component and to some it might cheapen things to have it undone or mitigated.

A bit of an edge case: you read a story ending in a prey's digestion. Would a sequel where the prey is revived then invalidate the previous story's fatal tag?

[Speedyblupi]

Endosoma isn't the only type of non-fatal vore. There's also full-tour and sentient transformation/absorption.

I personally consider any vore where a character dies (i.e. loses consciousness as a result of their body being damaged) as fatal, even if they are reformed afterwards. They die, so it's fatal, just not permanent.

[VincentShadowScale]

Yeah for me any time the prey has any means of coming back it stops counting as fatal unless those methods are stopped for one reason or another. So any kind of reformation, mind transfer, sentient fat, predscape, soul-form, etc kinda removes the nature of it being "Fatal" to me.

[GastricAztec]

I like it when a woman swallows a shrunken man with the intent to kill him, but she gets drunk, vomits him up, and passes out and he survives.

[Bright]

I suppose you could say it is in the intent of the narrative.
If you have a character get eaten, but the stomach is squeaky clean and the prey is not hurt, the implication could be that they will be fine, even though the future is uncertain.
If they are eaten and are immediately bombarded with the acidness of the stomach, well, soon you'll see a skull face on the belly.

[the_Wolf]

If the prey comes back as the same person they were before—whether they're spit up, full-toured, reformed—then it's Non-Fatal. Fatal should generally mean "physically gone from this plane of existence for good".

There are all kinds of edge cases, like if it's consistently a different clone a la The Prestige or you're bringing actual reincarnation into the mix somehow, but generally reformation where the prey is good as new with all their memories and personality intact should count as Non-Fatal.

[GramzonTheDragon]

I use a sliding scale

Endo: prey is released unharmed. Non-fatal digestion: Prey is reformed without any lasting damage, can be weakened and tired but not permanently scarred. Fatal Digestion: prey dies, is not brought back in any way.

You can of course find stuff in between, like accidental partial digestion where an endo scene spits up the prey when things get tingly, tame as heck non-fatal where prey peacefully passes out and is reformed painlessly and fully functional, or it could be a harrowing traumatic experience and reformation could be imperfect.

If the prey isn't digested at all I feel one should always use endo to classify it, as people who really like just endo typically are sensitive to any digestion theme, so endo should keep em safer, while non fatal is just for those more sensitive to permanent death who enjoy a less dark digestion theme and/or appreciate the continuity and scenarios it brings.

[chewchulainn]

Yeah, for me, reformation counts as non fatal. As long as the prey ultimately survives the encounter then I don't view it as fatal vore, personally.

[IddlerItaler]

Whether you're in the "fatal is digestion" or "fatal is permedeath" camp, I'd still advise to NOT use the "non-fatal" label for scenarios where the prey dies, even if they're brought back.

Mostly for the sake of people for whom death is a turn-off / trigger, but also because it feels just weird to have a "non-fatal" label under a vore art where you can clearly see the prey has been reduced to nothing but a skull before being reformed. Maybe it's not true fatal to you, but it's also not true "non-fatal", if you get what I mean.

[maraudingmarauder]

Whether you're in the "fatal is digestion" or "fatal is permedeath" camp, I'd still advise to NOT use the "non-fatal" label for scenarios where the prey dies, even if they're brought back.

Mostly for the sake of people for whom death is a turn-off / trigger, but also because it feels just weird to have a "non-fatal" label under a vore art where you can clearly see the prey has been reduced to nothing but a skull before being reformed. Maybe it's not true fatal to you, but it's also not true "non-fatal", if you get what I mean.

Yeah, basically this. It seems like the terms are used differently by people who are turned off by reformation and people who are turned off by the death part - so people who don't like reformation will be upset by a "fatal" story where a piece of work features someone being killed and later resurrected, while people who don't like to see death at any point during the process will be upset by such a work being tagged as nonfatal.

[FishnorFowl]

Tbh I wish there was a good tag that encompasses the “the prey is gonna be ok in the end but they may or may not die first and get reformed idk”
Non fatal isn’t specific enough in my opinion and ambiguous ending/fate is better but a bit to broad

[the_Wolf]

This is why we have multiple tags.

There are separate tags for:
* Digestion
* Reformation
* Endo
and even for more specific nuances of those.

Yes, "Non-Fatal" isn't specific as it's a broader umbrella, but when it's combined with the Digestion and Reformation tag vs. combined with the Endo or Full Tour tag, you know what's there. It's the same way Oral Vore generally needs more companion identifiers to know exactly what you're actually getting, a bit like a flowchart.

People have to watch/blacklist the actual specific tags to curate their experience rather than trying to apply extra specific meaning to to the broader tags. You can never expect one tag to give you the whole picture.

[ScarKnight]

I tend to think you have permanently dead "fatal" on one end of the scale, endosoma "non-fatal" on the other and a whole lot of grey area in-between where you just have to make your best judgment. This is especially true when you get into more niche end-results like sentient fat, where I personally just don't mark it as either fatal or non-fatal since it feels more like a weird third thing.

[Houyo]

Reformation counts as non-fatal, as otherwise you could just call all non-fatal endosoma.

[jaggedjagd]

Non-fatal = prey lives.

Fatal = prey is dead and doesn't come back to life.

Any semi-fatal scenario where the prey reforms/is survived/cloned/reincarnated/etc., i would still lean closer to non-fatal. Fatal means death. For that specific story, that character should not return. If it returns in another story that is completely unrelated, i mean, whatever, at that point the revival is far enough removed that you might as well tag it as fatal. I figure as long as the implication in that specific moment is "Hey this character is truly done for", then it's fatal.

I dunno how permadeath fits into this, i don't really get that one tbh. Guess it means retiring a character completely, even for future stories.

[IddlerItaler]

my persona clones themselves so i would be interested to know what you think counts.

if they make a copy and then one of the two dies is that fatal?
in the end the result is the same as if it never happened.

It counts as fatal vore for whoever is eaten, whereas the survivor could be an observer / feeder to that voring. A scenario like that could probably use other tags like "Clone prey" or "Cloning" to let viewers get an idea of what they're getting into.

Reformation counts as non-fatal, as otherwise you could just call all non-fatal endosoma.

Endosoma afaik is a subset of non-fatal, but has more of an overlap with safe vore, where the pred's body is harmless (and often comforting) for the prey... though some apparently believe safe vore can involve harm and digestion so long as both prey and pred are happy with that and the prey eventually gets better?

A scenario where a prey escapes attempted digestion would be non-fatal but not endosoma regardless of the definitions.

[IddlerItaler]

a very human answer.

Yes, I am indeed a human being answering this and not a cat or rodent hiding behind a keyboard. Was there any kind of answer that would have qualified as "non-human"?

It's a cool monologue, but if anything, main character syndrome would be the survivor seeing the death of their clone and shrugging because "they weren't a real person" or "they were a spare anyways".

[IvesBentonEaton]

This question has led to messing around in metaphysics and the nature (if any) of souls. If you're using “science” fiction to postulate reformation machines, do the cloned/reformed copies end up being just copies of a now-dead person? Do those copies actually contain the original “soul” of the creature or is that a copy, too? It quickly degenerates into the McCoy vs. Spock argument (from the old James Blish Star Trek novel Spock Must Die!) about whether a transporter beam kills the person being “beamed” to a new location and creates a new person (with the same personality) at the new location, with McCoy fretting about whether the transported person is being killed and a copy of that person is now impersonating him or her and Spock taking the stance of “A difference that makes no difference is no difference.”

For myself, if someone suffers and ceases life functions, that’s fatal by any useful definition regardless of whether you have magic or technology that invokes Clarke’s Third Law as an “Undo” button. (My own corollary to that law is “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”) In a fantasy setting with sufficiently powerful magic, you don’t have to deal with McCoy's transporter dilemma, as the means exists to track and “rehouse” the soul by way of magic like the D&D spells resurrection, true resurrection, wish, or miracle. The gods take care of the accounting. (They have RFID tags on everyone’s souls. “We keep them numbered…for just such emergencies.” )

With that view, other than endosoma, regurgitation or teleportation magic/technology to rescue the prey before the “point of no return”, immunity to digestion (which could still be fatal to predator or prey alike without the preceding escape routes unless the prey is small to the point of insignificance; gastrointestinal tracts don’t handle large solids well) or sneaky protective transmutation magic that “simulates” digestion, vore is going to be fatal.