ive probably said this exact thing before but i just think that like, cannibalism is such a potent metaphor for stuff that it’s frankly wasteful of you not to include it in your writing.
this isn’t a quentin tarantino foot situation. i’m not saying this bc cannibalism turns me on. the reason my characters talk non-stop about wanting to eat each other is bc all the rest of you are not using your state-allotted cannibalism metaphors and they are going to waste.
does your character love/idolize/worship someone? cannibalism as a means of embodying them.
does your character hate someone? cannibalism as a means of desecrating their corpse.
does your character wanna fuck someone, or own them? cannibalism as a means of claiming their body.
does your character have specifically christian religious trauma? cannibalism as a very literal eucharist.
cannibalism as a means of gaining someone’s power. cannibalism as a means of embracing your inhumanity. cannibalism as a gesture of acceptance. funerary cannibalism as a symbol of returning nature. industrialized cannibalism as a symbol of the devaluation of human life. survival cannibalism as the ultimate sacrifice (you get a free jesus metaphor with this one).
literally every story you write that doesn’t have cannibalism in it is a missed opportunity
Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.
#what is the most raw form of desire if not hunger
QUETZAL GETS IT
“literally every story you write that doesn’t have cannibalism in it is a missed opportunity “
@strange-destinations takes that to heart
- parent-child cannibalism as a means of keeping/recovering your child, as a metaphor for parental possessiveness and infantilisation
- child-parent cannibalism as a means of flipping the power dynamic and its physicality, as a metaphor for reclaiming the body that gave birth to you
- abuser-abused cannibalism as a means of keeping a part of your victim in you in a way they can never undo or recover it, as a metaphor for your damaging impact on them
- abused-abuser cannibalism as a means of transcending your abuse, absorbing and drawing strength from your abuser’s body instead, as a metaphor for resilience
- cannibalism as a way to mark yourself as above mere humans
- cannibalism as a way to mark yourself as below normal humans
- cannibalism as a way to mark all humans as equal no matter social status
- cannibalism as a way to mark humans and yourselves as uncivilised and no different from savage beasts
- cannibalism as a way to mark humans as equals to animals remembering and embracing nature