What If A Pred Just Straight Up Didnt Understand Peoples Objections To Being Eaten Like:Hmm? Oh! Dont

What if a pred just straight up didn’t understand people’s objections to being eaten like: “Hmm? Oh! Don’t worry about them dear. Those are mostly screams of horror. I do my best to ensure digestion isn’t actually painful. They’re just being melodramatic. Honestly. I don’t know why you humans always get like this.”

Bastion’s the sort of pred who’d absolutely pull the “presses preys ear to stomach” thing on Ida. But instead of meaning it as a scare tactic he’s really just very ghoulishly trying to say “look how much I want you.” Ida would both completely get this, even be a little rizzed by it and yet still probably call him a weird ghoul to his face.

The idea of a pred who’s used to unwilling prey feeling soothed by a willing prey that actually treats their insides gently. It’s might not even be that squirming bothers them, it’s that someone loves them enough to be gentle even with this monstrous part of them.

A big part of getting Bastion’s character right is about juggling sappiness and ghoulishness. Because in addition to being a hungry man-eating monster, Bastion is a hopeless romantic. But he expresses it in the context of a being for whom love is another kind of hunger, an especially complex form of hunger which he doesn’t fully understand and finds difficult. But a form of hunger none the less. Which is why he says predatory things in the same context that others would make heartfelt declarations or flirt. But he’s also sappy so I try to inject a level of earnest polite Victorian era noble man who would make a good male lead in a period drama type vibes. It can be difficulty to write a character who at their heart is very simple, predatory and food motivated but presents themselves as proper and civilised. In a sense despite being a monster Bastion is pretty naive, he loves wholeheartedly and unreservedly because that’s also how he is with hunger and why wouldn’t this be the same? Except he knows it isn’t precisely the same, there are things he would miss about Ida if he caught her, even if he keeps her soul within him. Even if his every instinct screams that this prey in particular should be in his belly. There are things that would change that he doesn’t want to change yet. Bastion doesn’t really know how to handle that, he’s not used to even really comprehending delayed gratification outside of the context of bidding time for the next meal. So the idea that eating someone is a trade off, that he’ll be taking from himself if he takes Ida? It definitely disturbs and confuses his poor little spider heart and brain. It’s not even that he doesn’t want to eat her or wouldn’t eat her in an instant if he caught her. He absolutely would but he’s starting to think that’s part of the problem and he can’t even truly comprehend why or how to change. Luckily for Bastion, Ida doesn’t expect mercy from anyone so him being incapable of it isn’t the obstacle you’ve think it was. Bastion has an inkling this isn’t exactly a health or normal mindset for a human. But he’s also so far from being human that he’s uncertain he should be trying to Faesplain to her or if he even can in a way that makes sense.

I like to imagine that if someone else other than him tries to endanger Ida. Bastion becomes incandescent with rage. The thing is he’s not normally an angry person, or really that sadistic either, ghoulish and predatory sure, he enjoys hunting and eating. Gets excited at the thought of sinking his fangs into something, enjoys the whole process of devouring people etc and sure people can get really distressed and hurt when he’s hunting them, but it’s not really the goal for him so much as the inevitable consequences of a creepy spider monster being hungry and trying to eat you. He’s not a deliberate tormentor unless torment will get you in his jaws and once you’re his he generally doesn’t try to drag things out unnecessarily. But if someone went after Ida? That would be a different story. He would be very pissed and honestly quite scary. I think he’d have that calm rage that isn’t actually remotely calm but appears that way on the surface. Intellectually he’d probably have some inkling that he was being cruel beyond what was usual for him and that maybe torturing someone who’s already going to be his prey is just pouring salt in the wound, but he’d have such little experience with being angry and scared on someone else’s behalf that I don’t think he’d be able to find the breaks and it would be the person who decided to threaten Ida’s problem.

The idea of prey hanging out in a preds belly peacefully as the pred goes about their day, in a society where that usually means death, but either through reformation or safe vore this prey is going to be fine. But the thing is other people don’t KNOW that. Other prey look on in horror or try to disassociate from the all too common and tragic sight. Preds make knowing sadistic comments or just ignore it because meh just someone enjoying their lunch. Meanwhile only the pred and prey are privy to the level of trust they actually hold for one another. Just like the prey is concealed inside the preda stomach that trust is also hidden but precious.