on a slightly related note, ive been trying to iron out a fantasy mage college kinda setting, maybe something i could do a series in

one thing i really like in settings is when reformation is a guaranteed part - if someone happens to pop, or get eaten, or otherwise owned a little too hard, they'll pop back after a while, usually in a specific location

it helps to take the edge off of any sort of implied lethality in settings. while i'm somewhat past the point of wondering if a character in a sequence is OK at the end, and i'm not particularly into bursting or vore anyways...

...it was nice to know that if a character was eaten or whatever, they'd pop back up offscreen, and i could enjoy the belly on screen without issue

but i'm also a Really Big Fan of when the idea of reformation gets played with. one thing i've seen i'm a really big fan on is someone reforming as a blueberry if they stay too long as one, or reforming as fat even if they lose the weight

i'm also a big fan of the concept of immortality in general as a concept and a theme in a story, so i think about these concepts a lot

what is it like when you've spent more of your time in existence as a helpless balloon than not? what does it mean to spend 10 years as a flat painting in a museum, when theoretically have infinite time afterwards to make up for it?

how much time do you have to spend as an object before you start thinking of yourself as an object? can you remove one permanent effect by replacing it with another? what does permanent mean in this context?

what kind of world would a society of fresh immortals build? that's kind of the big question, i guess, that i wanted to mess with & fuck up with a bunch of kinky nonsense

so, back to the college: usually accepts mages once they've turned 20, particularly bright students can be let in at 18 or 19 - this is mostly for OOC reasons (NO CHILDS), but it's still important

for whatever reason, it's a school that's constantly on the end of its rope - funding is low, grades are middling, employee and student turnover is high, and accidents run rampant

reformation chambers are consistently broken & backed up with demand, there are entire dorms built specifically for perma-blank students - whether that's berried, or ballooned, or TF'd, or what

there are even contests for folks with certain interests - some like to collect flattened furs as art pieces, others like to make & sell furniture, others like to see how big they can get themselves or others

it's almost a contest to see if you can get through a semester without getting owned in some way, or even just putting on a few dozen+ pounds.

but, for whatever reason, students that spend time at that college - even if for only a few years - are much better equipped and have much better futures when they're released into the 'real world,' as it were

and this is the secret that keeps the college going: all the chaos, all the accidents and the 'accidents,' is all a perfect storm with the effect of making anyone caught up in it much better at managing their own (im)mortality

as it turns out, spending a week as a seat cushion, or a month as a shrunk & fattened-up stress ball, kind of pales in comparison to years and years spent in any number of other scenarios

but if you've already had that experience, without knowing there's a safety net to turn you back, it means you're much better prepared mentally and magically to handle it the next time it happens

i'm not... Entirely sure how much i'm going to use, if i ever end up making a mage college focused fantasy setting. as much as i really like the stuff ive talked about in this thread on a storytelling level...

... on a kink level, i like consequences, & consequences become less consequential the easier they are to revert. it may be simple, but the word 'perma' really does it for me sometimes.

woof, that was a ramble. worst part is i think i have an idea for a multi-part story (or even a sequence) i could toss into whatever setting this becomes. now i might have to think about all this junk