AFTERCARE: Silly Snake Games

Apologies for not getting around to this reflection sooner. I’ve been a bit busy these last few weeks trying to read through the works submitted for The Entrancing Awards. But I’m still not done (there are so many entries!).. so I'd better do this now, or I’m probably not going to ever do it.

It may not surprise people to know that the earliest memories of me being drawn to something furry were of Kaa and Mowgli from The Jungle Book. Some aspect of five-year-old me was really drawn to the scenes of them in the original 1967 Disney film. I have vivid memories of watching that scene and thinking to myself, “I feel weird”. Ever since I've started writing, I've always wanted to try to write my own take on the sorta dynamic they had in the movie.

Silly Snake Games was me trying to fulfill that dream of capturing that fantasy. However, it’s important to stress that it wasn’t my first attempt. I have a couple of drafts with a “primal” vibe for a story involving my naga Kane and fox Fiz. Primal vibe meaning the two of them alone in the woods, set in a pre-civilization setting. It's a fun setup, certainly reminiscent of the original Disney movie, but I've discarded all of these drafts. Why? Well, they all share the same problem: I hated writing them.

It took me a while to unpack this, but all stories invoking the Kaa/Mowgli dynamic all feature some level of non-consent at play. Most contain dubious consent; a scene where the sub gets tricked into being hypnotized, or the story ending with something the sub might not have consented to verbally, such as sex or vore. These things are fun to write and read, no doubt. They are vivid fantasies that hook the imagination with a morbid thrill. But they don't quite fit my typical writing style, per se.

I’ve grown attached to developing my characters in my stories, to making them more than just stereotypes. I want to understand the drives of the characters I write. I want to understand what makes them compelled to partake in kink because it helps me, in a way, know why I want to participate in kink.

Total nonconsent with hypnosis and vore is a narrative fork for me. They are a line that can't be uncrossed, a mark that can't be erased. They change the tone of a scene permanently and, more importantly for me, restrict the characters' personalities at play. Take, for instance, Kaa. What's his character in the Jungle Book (1967) film? He wants to eat. It's simple, and for the film's purpose, that's fine, but you can't really expand off of it.

Conversely, if you introduce a dom character who, in the end, consumes their victim, all roads for their personality lead to that point. The money shot of the vore or sex at the end of that path cements the story's tone. No matter how kind or considerate you write the dom, the act of betrayal makes them a liar and colors their benevolence as a facade. Likewise, it collapses the sub of the story as mindlessly careless and foolish. Fun, yes, but again one-note and frustratingly unwieldy for me to work with.

I want to stress that these are problems I have with total non-consent in this dynamic. Consensual nonconsent is a similar yet separate space that I am very interested in exploring, but that's a story for another time.

Now, let me cap off this section here by being clear, I’m not naive. I know that there are other artists in the community out there subverting the usual Kaa/Mowgli dynamic in their own subtle ways. Some artists find what I am describing as frustrating here, as fun, and don't deviate so massively as I do. Additionally, I should stress that I'm not bashing the people who make art of this caliber or those who enjoy it. I appreciate the dubcon hypno dynamic as well! I'm just saying that I currently don't feel like I have the skills to portray that dynamic well, or at least in a manner that fits my style. Maybe I will someday, but if not, I think that's fine too.

Once I had unpacked these emotions, I found myself able to understand the discarded drafts I had made a bit more clearly. The first ones I made had Kane (he was a naga in these) capturing Fiz at the start and forcing him into slavery through repeated brainwashing. No matter how much agency I gave Fiz in these situations, they never sat right with me. So I threw out pretty much everything I had planned from these initial drafts and focused on the opposite side of the problem: me. Instead of trying to capture the dynamic of Mowgli and Kaa exactly, why not just focus on what I find fun about snake hypnosis?

To put it differently: why am I trying to write something that's already been done before as if I have something to prove? Instead, why not just write a story that I find fun instead?

Fun quickly became the core adjective I’d used to describe Silly Snake Games. I was having fun at every step of the writing process, from outlining the scenes to tweaking the formatted text. The word burrowed its way into every corner of the story. Even the name “Silly Snake Games” has a fun ring to it, indicating to the reader from the start the strange, off-kilter joy that kinky play brings with it.

The timing of my discovery of the Entrancing Awards was almost too perfect. I feel like if I didn’t have such a solid idea to build on, then the pressure of writing something for others to judge would’ve gotten to me and negatively impacted my writing quality. However, because I was already so committed to making this narrative on my own terms, I never had to worry about it. The joy of penning the story was so intoxicating that I never stopped to think about whether other people would vote for it.


Characters:

I debated whether to include Fiz and Kane in this story or create new characters entirely. I was initially worried that their personalities wouldn't work for this narrative style, but the more I changed things to be on the playful side of things, the more tempted I became to use them. In the end, I decided to be selfish for several reasons. Vanity was undoubtedly one of them, given that I wanted to be recognized in this competition. Secondly, I wanted this story to be fun for me to write, so choosing them felt like the safest way to ensure I kept to a familiar dynamic rather than worry about creating a new one with new personalities. Third, if I won art from this, I wanted to have ref sheets ready to make the artist's job easier. That last one is the primary reason why I have ended up using Fiz and Kane so much over the previous few years. I’m not complaining though, they are my main bois :3

However, I didn’t want to just copy and paste them and their personalities directly into this new narrative. It’s an entirely new setting after all! This gave me the opportunity to tweak their behaviors slightly in a way that hopefully sets them apart from their canon counterparts while also making them recognizable as cut from the same cloth.

Primal Fiz follows the same principle as my canon Fiz. He’s shy, socially awkward, and easily frustrated. But I’ve always wanted to tangibly connect these aspects of Fiz to the setting he is in. With my canon Fiz, I’ve envisioned that existing in a digital age has left him uncertain about dealing with social encounters. I’d say he’s the type of person who feels more comfortable texting someone than talking to them face to face. Perhaps his overreliance on technology to provide personal space in his life has caused him to lose some self-confidence about meeting people in person? I don’t quite know for sure, but I’m fine if Fiz doesn’t precisely align with these views (irl people don’t follow consistent behaviors anyway), but at least it provides a tangible reason he clicks with Kane so well and enjoys being his Pet. Canon Kane is a bit of a shut-in as well, and his hypnosis provides a relaxing way of switching off the anxieties Fiz has, thus they click on a personal level there.

I decided to take a different approach for Primal Fiz, utilizing the idea of Fiz being a member of a tribe of foxes. I imagined him as someone socially shunned for being different at home, not necessarily for being gay, but definitely for not being as smart or strong as some of his peers. This situation gives an excuse as to why he’d seek out a friend like Kane periodically, and, more importantly, a reason why he’d be more outgoing around Kane in this setting. This last point was something I rather enjoyed portraying. In my canon world, where kink is more modern and prevalent, Fiz never has the luxury of being able to disconnect from society fully, and thus his anxiety. However, in this setting, Fiz can find total security far away from his problems, so his behavior shift seemed justifiable.

On top of this, it meant I could incorporate this theme more distinctly into the actual kink play with Fiz trying to maintain his “manhood” against Kane’s advances. The roleplay with a theme this tangible just came so much easier to me. It formed itself into an almost religious or ritualistic structure that felt appropriate for this setting. It was very appealing to me to reflect Fiz’s upbringing so clearly in his kink play, and I’m very proud of the result!

Kane wasn’t as big of a shift in character, but more so in application. Primal Kane and canon Kane don’t have too many personality differences, as they are more closely defined. They live alone in a secluded area, are soft doms, treasure Fiz as both a friend and a play partner, and so on. But I still found two main ways to set them apart. The first is tone. Canon Kane is more well-researched in his methods and has access to more resources and better technology. I wanted my canon Kane to come across as a well-versed dom who had a deep understanding of kink. For primal Kane, I wanted him to come across as more interested in the actual play of kink than the understanding. The focus on him creating games to facilitate kinky situations and roleplay, I think, lends him an atmosphere of a mighty creature whose own boredom usurped their desire to feed on everything that crossed their path. It lends this version of Kane a different level of maturity that felt right for the setting.

The second major shift for Kane is that he’s a cobra instead of a naga. I’ve wanted to use this version of him ever since I got some fantastic art of a cobra alt of Kane last year (the hood he has in that pic is so massive it melts me every time I look at it :3). It was interesting having to come up with new ways of Kane interacting with the world given he has no hands. I had to try to develop variations on how Kane grabbed things or positioned himself in the environment. Otherwise, I was afraid that my descriptions of his actions would feel repetitive. The main result I came up with that ended up being the center of the story is the coil collar. By restraining Kane's tail in such a position, it forced me to devise creative ways for him to interact with the environment that wasn't just “Kane grabs an object with his tail”. Additionally, I liked how this turned into a method of control and a display of affection. The control part is obvious, and Kane uses a part of himself to constrain Fiz in a dominant gesture. Not only does this allow him to keep track of Fiz's location constantly, but it also allows him to tease Fiz remotely and whenever he pleases. But I realized that this act of collaring Fiz restricts Kane's mobility well. So, in completely dominating his prey, he's actually putting himself in a vulnerable position. While not something I intentionally added, I found its presence to be a poetic insight into Kane's character.

Narrative:

The original idea of the coil collar came from a fantasy a friend described to me recently. Said's fantasy was quite close to the scene where Kane dropped Fiz repeatedly with a tug of the collar. I originally intended to incorporate it into one scene, but I liked it so much that I decided to wrap it into the entire narrative. It was a good decision early on, as building up the story to that scene with increasing intensity of hypnosis left for a reading experience that I felt to be more digestible and rewarding.

Speaking of the structure, I found myself really clicking with how Silly Snake Games progressively built up with more intense scenes. I knew early on I wanted the story to feature edging as a core theme, as it was something I wanted to write about for a while. However, it didn't seem satisfying to just write one scene where Fiz got edged. I wanted the reader to really feel what it was like in Fiz's mind, to feel the added effects of being pushed over and over again. I found that the repeatedly intense scenes of teasing that ended unsatisfyingly made the structure reflect an edgy sensation. The term “narrative edging” came to me while developing the idea. A silly term for an equally silly story.

This concept allowed me to fill the gaps between the stories with narrative info and wholesome downtime. I tried to keep the reader's attention by not drowning them with setting information for five pages and tried to cut into the action as quickly as I could while still feeling organic. This meant I had to try to work in details about Fiz and Kane's relationship later on between their play scenes. For example, the description of how Fiz found Kane's games rewarding rather than punishing felt a bit heavy-handed early on, yet irrelevant later in the story. Thus, I squeezed it in after he got dropped the first time while running through the forest.

It was a fun experiment to work all of these discrete scenes into the story so that they built off each other, but I'm not sure how effective it was in practice. I tried to make each teasing of Kane feel different from the last, with how deeply Fiz was humiliated or submitted more with each scene. But I think some folks found it more exhausting than exhilarating. Perhaps this story would've worked better in a shorter form? I'm unsure, and I currently lack the feedback to be certain.

In hindsight, I could've improved on the song and dance submission scene right before the big edging scene at the end of the story. I don't feel like I built up to it well enough, and some folks have said in a few comments it felt jarring. That scene was a remnant of the original inspiration of this story, which was Kaa/Mowgli fanfic. I've wanted to write my own version of “Trust In Me” for a while now, and I couldn't get a scene of Fiz dancing for his cobra Master out of my head, so I went ahead and included it. I think perhaps it'd be more suited in a story more focused on that type of play in particular, however. Instead, I probably should've replaced it with something focused on collaring Fiz to keep it in line with the story.

Oh well, this just means I have to write another story featuring submission via a song at some point in the future :3

Finally, the writing competition did push me to break out of my comfort zone and try to convey hypnosis through text formatting once again. I did this in order to stand out in the competition, but also because I wanted to take another stab at it. I haven't tried properly conveying hypnosis in this manner since…gosh, maybe Hostile Takeover? It's been a hot minute for sure, and the reason for that is quite benign. It's a lot of work!

Hostile Takeover took a lot out of me putting it together. Text formatting is just hard enough to get working, let alone to make it look good and in line with your vision for it. However, in Silly Snake Games, I kept my head above water by just sticking to the limitations of FA's text features. I had always intended for the story to be read on FA first and foremost, as I have gotten the impression that is where most folks read my stories. However, limiting the formatting to FA meant that I had set constraints to work with rather than trying to use the entirety of Microsoft Word's features and failing due to having too many options at my disposal.

When I went into this story, I didn't go into it knowing exactly how I wanted the hypnosis scenes to look, just that I wanted them to stand out. So in the editing process, I played around with the formatting until I figured out what felt right for a given scene. My favorite text formatting use that I came across while putting this story together was the pendulum hypnosis effect that I used towards the end. By shifting the alignment back and forth, line after line, I could replicate the feeling of looking at a swinging hypnotic pendulum. In this case, however, it could be viewed as Kane's eyes alternating commands or the snake swaying back and forth like the classic Kaa imagery I wanted to evoke. I found it incredibly hot in its final form.

One thing I think I need to improve upon is the hypnosis text's readability. Some folks said the final sections were difficult to follow, and I think it stems from my lack of consistency with how I use formatting in these sections. For instance, in the first trance sequence, descriptions are confined to the center alignment, and the hypnotic suggestions from Kane are also center aligned. But towards the end, the descriptions are shorter, the sentences are center-aligned, and the hypnotic suggestions are also commands and darting all over the page. It's understandable how some folks got lost in it in a manner that was more frustrating than hypnotic.

Next time, I wanna go in with a set image I want to capture at the end of the story, and build the formatting up to that. I think that'll function the best for this style of hypnosis writing that I'm trying to capture. The exciting thing about using text formatting for hypnosis is that I don't get to do it often. That means every time I wanna try using it, I typically come at it with an idea that's so new and different, it's honestly quite exciting figuring out how to make it visually sing.

Conclusions:

Well, that’s about it for this long-overdue reflection. By the power of ADHD, I've been going back and forth writing this and reading other entries in the competition.. It's kinda upsetting that I haven't been able to really concentrate on one thing and just finish it. Apologies if this was a bit too rambling for your taste. I wish there were a bigger point for me to build here. Hopefully, you took away something from it! Feel free to ask me any additional questions or clarifications you may have in the comments, and I'll get to them as soon as I get a chance.

With love,

-Carbonated Fox