First, a disclaimer. These definitions are made to be as bare-bones and specific as possible. Many people have their own specific caveats, techniques and methods for executing these terms. This guide is meant to give you the barest idea what someone means when using these terms and to help people use the correct terms when discussing vore.

It’s actually pretty important that these distinctions are made, to prevent confusion and needless drama.

I’ll also assume I don’t need to clarify the terms indicating the different orifices, like oral vore, anal vore, cock vore, etc as they’re pretty self-explanatory.


Ingestion Terms
Soft Vore. The prey is ingested by the predator, whole.

Hard Vore. The prey is ingested by the predator in pieces, most often through biting and chewing. Often gory.


Mortality Terms
Endosomatophilia. Also abbreviated as endosoma or endo. The prey is kept safe or otherwise intact inside the predator.

Fatal Vore. The prey dies as a result of being ingested by the predator, usually due to digestion or hard vore. The death is not “canon.” The prey character can be reused in future RPs and art, even if they technically irreversibly died within the bounds of the RP/Art.

Temp Vore. The predator holds onto the prey for a set amount of time before releasing them. This often involves profile play(see below), and can come with terms that stretch outside the art/RP, for instance the pred might forbid the prey from being eaten by anyone else until this time limit is up.

Perma Vore. The prey is permanently ingested by the predator. Very much similar to fatal vore but after the RP/art is complete, the predator and prey mutually agree that the prey cannot appear or be used in future RP/art. They are canonically dead or otherwise trapped by the predator somehow.

Note: It’s NOT perma vore if the prey technically “died forever” within the bounds of the RP/art but the character can continue to be used in future RPs/art. That is simply fatal vore. Calling fatal or temp vore by the name perma just leads to confusion and gives people the wrong idea. Some people who make this distinction feel very strongly about it and may end up blocking or harassing you for perma but be completely fine with fatal. Hence why making this distinction is important.


Digestion Terms
Soft Digestion. The digestion is not shown or is otherwise not graphic or gory. Such as describing the predator’s stomach shrinking from an outside perspective, or goopy digestion where the prey melts like ice cream.

Hard Digestion. The digestion is shown or described in a graphic or gory manner.

Disposal. The process of expelling the leftover remains of the prey, usually following digestion. Most often as scat, but some consider the regurgitation of bones and accessories orally to be a form of disposal.

Reformation. The process of restoring the prey after digestion or death. The exact details vary, but usually restores them to a living, free state outside the predator.

Notes: Digestion is sometimes called “hard vore.” It is not. Hard vore and digestion are separate from one another and using them interchangeably just leads to confusion as most people consider them separate.


Special Terms
These terms are too complex for the previous categories, or otherwise simply don't fit anywhere above.

Absorption. The absorption community can’t seem to collectivity decide what absorption is. Everyone has their own definition of what it is so telling someone “I’m into absorption” is almost basically a useless, non-statement because you’re going to have to explain what you mean by it anyway. However, here are most of the definitions people give it:

1. Vore through osmosis, where the prey isn't eaten through an orifice, but rather sinks into the predator's body
2. Like above, but the osmosis happens after the predator ingests them through an orifice. So more or less a substitute for digestion.
3. The prey's soul is absorbed by the predator as part of the above processes or after digestion...so soul vore. Literally just soul vore(see below). Sometimes the prey's soul is conscious, sometimes not, sometimes it becomes part of the predator's mind or body, and sometimes obliterated.

These are just the common ones. There are more versions of it I'm sure.

Soul Vore. The prey’s soul is ingested, often through the mouth, often leaving the body behind. Also technically can simply involve trapping the soul inside the predator after ingestion, many times after digesting the body. The soul can be obliterated or just conscious/sleeping but trapped in some way. This can occur at many different stages of during vore. Sometimes this and absorption are basically interchangeable.

Profile Play. The prey changes their profile on their social media, chat programs, or other social platforms to show they've been ingested by a predator. Normally involves changing their display name, profile picture, and profile information to reflect that they were ingested by someone. Usually goes hand in hand with temp vore(see above).

Account Play. You might think, "Isn't this just profile play?" Yes and no. More or less, the difference is the prey gives the predator their login credentials, and the predator gets to make posts and edit the prey's profile for them. It may even involve the predator changing the password temporarily so the prey can't interfere. Usually goes hand in hand with temp vore(see above).