feral-in-distant-lands

[feral-in-distant-lands]

i drew the sillies as a photo me and my friends took

Also random details!! they have matching black nail polish!! Also since I was not sure what the rest of Āiko's outfit colors looked like, I made the cord on her waist have Shiryō's purple and Heike's gold :D

I'll send a slightly more clear pic on discord in some time

Enjoy!

OH

MY GOD??????

THIS IS SO PERFECT AND AWESOME AND-

ASSGHSHSHSHSHS??????

Genuinely this is sooooooooo gorgeous I am going to explode. I only have so many screens what can I doooooo (I’m gonna have to get one of those rotating picture screensavers)

I am going to spend the next 30 minutes staring at this and ascending into OC art nirvana.

[feral-in-distant-lands]

I do find your theory entertaining and you’re definitely onto something when it comes to spotting that they’re quite similar in a lot of ways, but! Asier’s not actually related to Lai-Te.

So Ether kind of has a genetic component but it’s not exactly what it sounds like. Genetics definitely can make you more apt or able to manipulate ether or even the possibility of it, but genetics don’t play a role in what *kind* of ether you can manipulate.

Still, a lot of families have very similar types of ether manipulation. Why?

First: family members see each other throughout the course of their formative years far more often than they see almost anybody else. It means that families are surrounded by the ether that their family utilizes just by way of proximity. And being closer to a certain kind of ether for a prolonged period of time especially in your formative years makes you far more likely to be able to manipulate it.

Second: cue back to the fact that ether is sentient. Certain kinds have certain preferences for people, and if a user of a certain kind of ether has a strong bond with another person that other person is much more likely to be favored by the first persons ether by way of being important to them. Basically the stronger relationship you have with someone the stronger the chance that their ether will end up liking you and you’re able to gain manipulation of that kind somewhere along the way. This most commonly occurs (between humans) with the most important people in any given ether users life, which means family can effect ether’s preference a lot in early development, and the other most common people to affect it are partners or really close friends. (Sometimes though you’ll see enemies/rivals gaining the others kind of ether usage though, which is pretty fun)

Anyway in humans this phenomenon typically happens over an extended period of time and it’s rare for the newly shared manipulation type to be very strong, especially in a quicker time frame of getting it. It also, despite being well known and acknowledged, doesn’t actually happen often. It’s more likely to happen during formative developmental years, such as during childhood, hence family being a big proponent of this.

Now how does this play into Asier and Lai-Te? Well Lai-Te is a god, and gods have *ridiculous* amounts of ether, especially ones as old as him, and the ether type that is specialized in by a god usually tends to *reaaaally* like and favor that god and all of its opinions. This can create an amplified version of the previous phenomenon that when known is referred to as ‘a god’s favor’ and basically that means the more a god specializing in a specific kind of ether likes you the more that ether will flock to you in a far more dramatic affect than between normal humans. Lai-Te ‘favors’ Asier in this sense (again concerning parasocial relationship) and therefore Lai-Te’s main types of ether LOVE him and flocks to him in leaps and bounds compared to normal. Also, it’s worth considering that Asier couldn’t use his ether until he exited the tower and Lai-Te knew about him before then.

Also! About Asier’s parents, his mother got reaaaally sick during child birth and died after giving birth to him, and his father *was* an admin. But uh, he became what’s known as a ‘heretic’ aka he went against some of the towers values and got disappeared. It’s not unusual for parents to be on separate floors or locations from their children in the tower so his case was not particularly tragic or unusual. Most of the kids he knew were raised by the admins collectively.

Also yup! That was Lai-Te trapping Callum in the water lol.

I swear I’m working on your asks I’ve just been swamped and the brain is NOT braining. The words are not happening when I try as of the moment. As an offering, in the meantime, here’s a finished piece of art for Lai-Te!

He’s a god, and he specializes in both water and light manipulation, and because he’s dramatic he most often manipulates glowing gold water! When he is known at all by the general population he tends to be known as the god of the weather. He is known more personally for his childish demeanor mixed with a lack of understanding and care for human moral values, resulting in what some see as a very disturbing personality combination. He also has a one sided parasocial relationship with Asier! That could certainly never go wrong!!

Anyway more on him later, feel free to ask any questions and enjoy!!

Hmmm.. I went through some previous lore/facts for this and honestly the funniest thought/theory I have is that Lai-Te is Asier's father or some ancestor Since like, Asier was in the tower and I don't recall if he had parents.. Maybe found by them??

They have the following in common: 1. Blond hair (Even though Asier's a brunette and has blonde hair due to some sun bleaching thing happening to his hair) 2. Both manipulate water 3. Lai-Te is known as god of weather, and I'm prettyyyy sure that Asier had weather manipulation to a certain extent (mentioned in an Ether manipulation post) 4. Lai-Te can manipulate light and Asier can do it at some point in the future

Now I'm pretty sure this may not be true, but it seems so funny to me

Now I realize that in this picture, it's Lai-Te who's pushing Callum away with the water. This whole time I thought that it was just Asier momentarily losing control of his Ether manipulation

Oh yeah based on this crack theory of mine, is the type of Ether manipulation genetic? Like can a child inherit the same or a similar type of power from their parent? (given they develop the ability to wield it in the first place)

[feral-in-distant-lands]

Sketch of the trio in my sketchbook that I made a few weeks ago:

I'll most probably finish them next month when my new markers arrive :D

Would you like to share something about them!!

Also are they from The Offlands or Far Off? I think I haven't tagged where they are from

ABSOLUTELY. I LOVE THESE NERDS. (And I looveeee the little doodle.. they’re so cuteeeeee)

Ok so, officially these OCs are universe-less, and the reason for that is because they started out as Naruto OCs.. I still want to actually write the original story they were meant for in the Naruto-verse but I love them too much to confine them to such a deeply flawed piece of media that more importantly doesn’t belong to specifically me. I’ve been floating around some ideas for how to insert them into the Distant Lands-verse and if I were to insert them, technically they would be in both Far Off and The Offlands, although you would only actually ever see them in The Offlands.

The reason they would show up in both? Shiryō was canonically reincarnated! Funnily enough, their backstory of that whole piece of lore kind of aligns with Distant Lands super well?? Anyway! This means you get to hear Shiryō’s backstory as explanation!!!!!

So the first time Shiryō ever lived they were in an AFAB body and went by She/Her pronouns (but internally they acknowledged that they didn’t feel like a boy or a girl they just didn’t care how they were referred as or how other people perceived them so they didn’t say anything). Anyway in the segments before they die I’ll refer to them with She/Her.

So she grew up in a world similar to modern earth, although it was still different in some aspects. (Also, to note: in the Naruto-verse version of Shiryō, Naruto the show didn’t exist where she grew up so she goes into canon not knowing any of it). She grew up without a mom (died when she was fairly young) but she still had her dad and older sister. Her dad was a grade A abusive piece of shit, and made life really hard for her and her older sister. Her sister, as soon as she could move out, did and went to college, leaving Shiryō. This was really hard for both of them because they were very close. Shiryō loved her sister dearly and her sister was the same with her. Although there was still some mild bitterness between them, they still stayed pretty close. Shiryō still understood why she did what she did, and her older sister stayed physically close, so she would visit and have Shiryō visit all the time and was willing to buy things Shiryō needed and help out in any way she could. They also texted and called regularly and still relied on each other. Anyway life went on as you could expect from this situation until a couple years later when Shiryō was in her final year of highschool… the apocalypse started!!!! :D

It wasn’t a zombie apocalypse, and was instead these vicious unnamed monsters. Anyway, society does what society does in apocalyptic settings and fucks off and Shiryō escapes her dad and goes to go live with her sister and they fight monsters like badasses for a while. Shiryō honestly loved a lot of the apocalypse, and found extreme joy in fighting and killing the monsters, as she kind of used it as a coping mechanism to deal with a LOT of repressed rage and trauma that she couldn’t otherwise deal with. There spawned her love of the fight.

Anyway main points of her apocalyptic era: her and her sister are really badass for quite a while, a companion of theirs chooses to solidly save her own skin and abandon Shiryō’s sister to die rather than potentially save both of them in a close shave, Shiryō is held back from killing that girl by multiple of their companions and that night the girl flees, Shiryō fights a bunch more, Shiryō lets her dad get mauled by monsters, later that girl who backstabbed earlier runs into them again and Shiryō has the chance to save her from monsters and doesn’t (with the classic power move eye contact), Shiryō gets seriously wounded and escapes the monsters who attacked her but realizes she’s gonna die so she goes to this hidden place in nature that she and her sister used to hang out and lies down in the river cradled by some rocks to die. And then she dies!

Anyway, then Shiryō is reborn. This time it’s in an AMAB body and he’s like ‘wow that’s gender affirming’ and still doesn’t care to correct any pronouns so mostly He/Him except in some certain contexts. (I’ll now be telling you the version of his lore that takes place in the Naruto-verse but like. As if you know nothing about Naruto. I’m in the process of revamping this to be suitable for other universe so some of this might get tweaked later. ALSO don’t take all of this for canon Naruto because he’s not even from the village the main plot takes place in and I’ve done a TON of extra personal worldbuilding including his and his teammates whole clans) He’s born in a world that has countries who’s military power is comprised of ‘ninja’ who basically can fight and use magic bullshit powers through use of ‘chakra’. They complete ‘missions’ for money to sustain themselves and that’s everything from bounty hunting rogue criminals, to weeding someone’s garden, to diplomatic missions, to murdering someone the client doesn’t like (there are different ranks of difficulty). They are incredibly skilled fighters, and also contracted killers so the scale of morally grey is leaning far closer to black than white. Ninja typically reside in ‘hidden villages’ which are basically the military base that trains and hosts ninja and they’re set up as a militaristic dictatorship run by the strongest ninja in the village, the ‘kage’. Anyway Shiryo was born in a hidden village, but specifically one that’s in more of a tourist country. This specific village is “pacifistic” (note the giant air quotes) as in instead of taking missions that involve killing people from other villages and possibly starting wars, they mostly just take normal ‘missions’ from people (all sources of requests fulfilled to make money) which still includes killing and fighting a lot of people just basically they try to keep completely neutral in terms of a war standpoint.

Specifically Shiryō is born to a very large (but not widely known to the ninja world and rather popular with an exclusive clientele) clan of Ninja, the Kurokubi clan. They own a very large and notable Hanamachi (Geisha entertainment district) that brings in an obscenely large amount of money for their clan and the village. In times of war, they’re also the bulk of the village’s defense in case they are attacked, so they are also well skilled as fighters. They are a clan steeped in politics and high appearances and such and have some very distinct traditions. Also to note: a HIGH chunk of their clan are also Geisha, and they go by pretty ancient traditions in that sense, as you’ll often see both men and women in that role. Their clan members tend to have delicate and androgynous features and they aren’t required to disclose the gender of their performers so often clients won’t actually know the gender of the Geisha that’s performing for them. Also, since a lot of their traditions are very dated people can become Maiko and Geisha much much younger. They also just have a whole different culture in this world so some of the stuff will differ from IRL.

Anyway Shiryō was born into this clan and grew up not hiding the fact that he was a child prodigy at all. Why? A) he didn’t really care much and B) after living the most recent years of his life in an apocalypse and killing creatures in life or death situations to blow of steam he was restless as fuck after being reborn. He wanted to learn as much as he possibly could to advance as quickly as possible not only because of curiosity, but also because he was constantly bored asf. He specifically was very skilled with fighting lessons, as he already had a strong basis of a specialized form of street fighting. and because he was super dedicated for it. Because of the family he was born into and such, he also was trained in the art of fighting gracefully and being able to navigate social situations with tact. (Before growing up in this family he did Not have any form of skill in navigating politics or general social graces. He was kind of a social recluse and hot headed although he liked to take it out on non-humans the most) Anyway eventually he also became an apprentice geisha (maiko) (because he could never take on enough to feel like he could get all of his energy out) so he started to get really good at social graces and such. When he was 6 years old he was capable of killing most average grown men, had learned a bunch of traditional geisha practices, was pretty well educated in politics and he officially became a Maiko (apprentice geisha) (Note this was only because he was bugging the fuck out of his family. He wouldn't start performing alone until he was much older.) Then he went out of the village and met Heike, which means I need to switch tracks and tell you about him first.

Heike lived quite far away in the youngest parts of his childhood. He lived in a solitary clan called the Tenshihai. The Tenshihai were very reclusive, and their clan grounds were hidden inside a mountain that had basically a whole village carved out inside from them. The reason why they were so reclusive is because their clan had a unique trait known as a Dōjutsu. Dōjutsu are basically hereditary magic eyes that grant you special powers. Dōjutsu are not exclusively held by their clan, but each clan's Dōjutsu is different so their specific magic eyes are different than any other magic eyes that may be had by other clans. The specific name of their Dōjutsu is the Shindōgan. The Shindōgan is especially powerful, and like many other clans that held Dōjutsu, they were hunted for their eyes, because with a successful eye transplant, other people can gain their powers through stealing said eyes. They didn't want to be hunted by multiple other villages, so they lived in their mountain and disguised themselves when they left.

Anyway for the next bit of lore I need to give some context: The Shindōgan gave them the power to manipulate chakra in a way that was unique to them. I don't wanna get into the intricacies of chakra so just imagine if it was ether, and they had the ability to manipulate gravitational fields (including ether's). One big difference I must note though: while doing that to give yourself a bunch of ether would give you access to other types of ether, in this instance its just the quantity of power to pull from that it gives you not the types of power you get to use. They still have the same powers just a lot more of it when need-be. But they using their gravitational manipulation can a) sap chakra from other people b) give themselves more and c) make stuff weigh more or less (including themselves, whom they would often have weigh more as weight training and extra force when fighting) (amongst other things.). The other important piece of context is there's this separate type of chakra called 'natural' chakra that most people can't manipulate. You can only safely do this once you've gone through rigorous training and have become a 'sage'. The reason why you can't safely do this is because if you accidentally mess up in manipulating it then you can be turned to stone (or alternatively, if you were being taught by a sage who was a sentient animal rather than a human, you can turn into the animal that was teaching you. So if a 'toad sage' was teaching you to use natural energy and you messed up you could turn into a toad. Sentient animals are usually able to manipulate chakra and can form contracts with people, so in that case they're usually called 'summons'). Anyway the Shindōgan can mess with natural energy so you have to be really careful when learning how to use it.

Anyway, resuming the lore, when Heike was 5 years old an event referred to as 'the calamity' happened within his clan.

The abbreviated version of what happened to the Tenshihai is as follows: One of the Younger/Adolescent clan users with the Shindōgan had only recently gained use of the Dōjutsu. They barely knew how to control it and were supposed to wait until they had proper supervision and time in a place that was a 'right of passage' kind of place. They were really impatient and decided to train their Dōjutsu on their own. They accidentally messed with Natural Energy when attempting to just modify normal chakra and it turned out they had an extremely naturally strong Dōjutsu, to the degree that they got WAY too much natural energy and it caused a natural energy black hole of sorts. It started pulling in natural energy from a far, as well as normal chakra, because yk, so people's chakra was getting pulled from them and they were being weakened, in addition to natural energy being unnaturally pulled through them and turning them to stone. Most of the clan became petrified inside of the mountain, and those who didn't had to stay and do as much damage control as possible to not literally mess up the balance of the world because the pool of natural energy kept getting bigger. This is with the exception of the kids, or rather, kid. Because the kiddo who started the calamity was near where the civilian and domestic districts were, and there was a big meeting that night, so the ninja kids were staying with them, those were the people who got turned to stone first. There were almost 0 civilian survivors and literally the only kid to live was Heike, who was not supposed to be up and about away from there but was breaking the rules and was. They sent Heike out with little explanation, plus a disguise (because their clans Dōjutsu was PRIZED but not that recognizable to people who weren't in with the clan, but that with matching white hair was enough to make them try to give him some sort of protection.) (their image was 'white hair and eyes like angels ashes). They couldn't send other adults out with him because they were needed to stop the calamity from spreading. The end result years later is a wandering Heike, a dispersed natural energy black hole, a bunch of statues imbued with so much natural energy that you can feel it hidden in a mountain cave that echoes the calls of the earth, a bunch of summon-like sage animals running around in and near there, and a couple terminal survivors now pack bonded with these animals, plus like one survivor out there looking for Heike.

Heike wandered for a while as a jaded small child who knew basically nothing about what happened except he had to hide who he was and he was told to never go back to his home because something terrible happened. This is when he encountered Shiryō (who was 8 at this point). Heike had been asking around for places to stay and Shiryō realized that he had a Dōjutsu and also resonated with his general situation and state of mind and decided that this was not a safe way for a five year old that would be easily hunted to live, so he took him back to his village with him. Shiryō and his clan basically raise Heike from this point on (also forgot to mention, Shiryō was orphaned pretty young so he was kind of raised by the collective of the clan), and Heike is always attached to Shiryō by the hip. Shiryō becomes kind of a big brother to him, and likewise gets just as attached (he vows to himself that he would never abandon him no matter how bad things got for him).

When Shiryō is 10 he gets offered to become certified as a fully fledged ninja (aka given a headband, signifying his ninja-hood) by the village, because he is well past the requirements and skill to become a genin (lowest grade of ninja). He turns down the headband to focus on caring for and training Heike (he would have to leave Heike to go on missions without him if he accepted). A year later when Heike is eight, he receives a headband and Shiryō finally accepts his as well. Shiryō and Heike become an unconventional two man team doing various odd-job type missions for a while (accompanied by an older ninja for the outside the village missions because they are currently the lowest rank of ninja (genin)). When Shiryō is 12 he becomes a proper Geisha (which is young, even within their clan but not unheard of due to their extremely dated practices and also the fact that this world is well known for training child soldiers. Such as Shiryō himself. It made standards for things like this somewhat different. If you can kill people you can be an entertainer kind of thing).

Ok!! So they're gonna meet Āiko next which means you get backstory on her!!!

Āiko was raised by her lone mother who was a shrine maiden to an ancient abandoned shrine. Āiko has very little memories of this (her strongest ones are of the lullabies her mother sang her in a language she had never heard anywhere else (guess which one it is)) because said mother died of an illness when she was 3 years old. Remember the sentient animals I talked about? Well a group of them took in Āiko, specifically the Kawauso (Otters. Think like the otter version of Tanuki, so its both a real animal and has a magical Yokai version) who built that river shrine. (Also note, these animals can talk). They taught her how to fight and how to use Chakra and generally navigate the world. She also signed a summoning contract with them to be able to summon them at will to her so they could aid her with whatever she needed (whether it was fighting or some other thing). When Āiko is 10 she leaves her home with the Otters to go integrate with human society at their prodding. She is adept at defending herself at this point but is Not a social butterfly. (She has very little manners in a cold antisocial sort of way but its really just lack of tact). Anyway she starts wandering and then realizes she needs money to do most things, so she starts her job search.

While on the way back from an escort mission, Shiryō (13) and Heike (10) meet Āiko (10) and Āiko essentially asks if they know a good place to get employed. They take her back to their village, and she starts working in the bathhouse (The hot springs there are another giant source of money for their village). Fairly soon after another ninja attempts to assassinate an important guest at the bathhouse, and Āiko (10) kills them. Interrogation specialist ninja are called and Āiko is questioned, and Shiryō and Heikeare brought to answer questions too because they found her and brought her in the first place. After she is questioned and deemed a non-threat for now, they basically want to make her a ninja of their village and come to the decision that she can go on a few missions w/ Shiryō and Heike so they supervise her as a probationary period.

When Āiko is eleven she gets her headband, and starts working with Shiryō and Heike as part of a three man team. And basically they just travel and complete missions and navigate political and war related situations as contracted killers and very close found family! So. That's them!! That's the sillies!!

I have some other tidbits tho. First! Fun facts:

Shiryō physically fights specializing with very pretty war fans. He specializes in wind, lightning, and illusions for Chakra use.

Shiryō has a summoning contract with butterflies (they specialize in illusions.)

Shiryō may have a lot of grace but gets kind of feral during fights because he really gets a lot of thrill from fights

Shiryō looks very similar to another member from his clan who is a) an outcast from his clan (like disowned and unaffiliated but physically related), b) notoriously EXTREMELY strong, like flee on sight strong and c) A traitorous criminal and horrible person who does experiments on literally anyone he sees fit children and all as his fucked up version of science. Shiryō resembling him so closely unnerves a LOT of people, especially people from the village that the guy betrayed and defected from.

Shiryō's name was not initially Shiryō in his first life. That name is just never canonically mentioned because he fully embraces his new name as a part of who he is.

Shiryō wraps his Kimono-esc outfit right over left (the way that is usually reserved for the dead) as a reference to his past life. He refuses to change it no matter how offended other people get about it. The exception is when he's performing Geisha duties and wearing their specific outfits. He puts on a metaphorical mask then so he doesn't feel like it counts. It's a persona of sorts.

Shiryō (the japanese word) when using its normal Kanji means a spirit of the dead, and its generally pretty creepy/ominous, but Shiryō's name is made using odd kanji and pronunciation to make the pronunciation Shiryō but the actual meaning of the kanji used is an obscure way to say 'Samurai' and 'Reality' instead of 'Death' and 'Spirit'. His last name is a play off the Yokai Rokurokubi. (Anyway I tried really hard with the research of all this but PLEASE take the potential correctness of this with a grain of salt. It's very possible I don't make any sense to people who know things.) Anyway it means that a) when people hear his name before seeing it they're kind of freaked out and also like 'do your parents hate you or smth' and when people read it before hearing it they often pronounce it wrong.

Heike's hair is naturally white, but he dyes it black occasionally. Most often, however, you see him with white roots and black tips. It eventually becomes such an iconic look for him that he maintains it and only dyes the ends when re-dyeing.

Heike uses his Shindōgan almost constantly once he's got the hang of it to make himself way more heavy. He uses this both as training and because he fights hand to hand a lot (he actually uses kicks very often in his fighting style though) and so his extra weight puts TONS of force behind his strikes.

Heike specializes In fighting as described above, and fighting using rocks/earth. Also he can 'sense' chakra due to the Shindōgan (its kind of a passive effect), but if there's a lot of ambient chakra he can get a form of sensory overload.

Heike's pupils expand an extreme amount when he uses the Shindōgan

Heike (the name)'s direct translation approximates to ''serene home", but its more well known association is that its the name of an ancient samurai clan. This clan does not exist in this setting, but its a fun tidbit. Tenshihai means 'Angel Ash'

The Dōjutsu name Shindōgan means 'tremor eye'

Āiko specializes in fighting using water, a form of chakra usage called 'sealing' (which is using arrays of symbols you make and imbue with chakra to create all sorts of affects. Think of the 'magic circles' trope, except its different symbols than just circles.), and for physical fighting she usually is more long distance weapons, specifically senbon (war needles, often used to hit pressure points or poison). She can also heal decently.

Āiko wears a mask over her eyes almost constantly. She only takes it off around people she really trusts. (She once told her otter family that she remembered her mother saying the eyes were the key to the soul, and the otters gave her the mask when she left because she was worried about her ability to interact with other humans who could potentially figure her out when she didn't want them to.)

Āiko (the name) usually uses the kanji to mean something approximating 'child of love' but the kanji she uses for her name actually makes it mean 'child of sorrow'. So like a swapped version of Shiryō's situation.

As for the last bit: how I'm thinking of adapting this to be all mine and non-naruto related!

Shiryō: Their pre-death self would have grown up inside of the Far Off world. When she dies, a god who had liked her uses their ether to make her sentience a part of the physical world. Basically using ether to put her sentience in a baby. His clan would be fairly similar (as I created them in the first place) but the military force/fighters would not be ninja, and have a different name (with a different way they generally function). It would also only be one (pretty isolated and dated) island country that would have a military force such as this. I would tweak some other stuff but don't wanna ramble on that too much more.

Heike: I'd make his clan the only clan that has magic eyes, and the Shindōgan (also keeping it because i created them and how they work) was descended from a god who had lived quite a while ago and had made eyes that could work to utilize ether in a specific kind of way, hence their special powers. They're still hunted for their eyes, keeping all that the same. Natural energy doesn't exist in this magic system, so the turning to stone thing was a unique property of that kid's ether rather than whole different form of magic.

Āiko: This was actually kind of something that already existed in this universe (similar to some other aspects I've mentioned as well), but sentient talking animals don't just exist for no reason, they're just a different species descended from gods who didn't decide to take human form and instead took animal form. This meant that Āiko's mother's shrine was a shrine to that original god that took the form of an otter after descending. Āiko's mother spoke (or rather sung) the language which that god did (which was also spoken by a lot of the other gods), so actually Āiko could later find people who knew it to a degree if they were connected to their god ancestry.

Anyway there's some other stuff as well I'm still ironing out but. This is over 4,000 words long. Whatt the fuck I am. Such a rambler. I am not rereading this rn so there is likely mistakes! Please ask all of the many questions about this you probably have. ANyway. You're a champ for getting through all of this. Enjoy this dump lol.

[feral-in-distant-lands]

A finished Kohara drawing?? In this day and age???? More likely than you’d think.

But in all seriousness I made this Kohara art, and needed to show it to you, and you know what else that means?

Kohara dump!!!!! (You’re actually getting more than two sentences of lore? Crazy that.) Dump below:

Kohara grew up in the mountains with her younger sister Clover, her mom and her dad. Her dad worked helping to manage the quarries and construction using the stone from it, and her mom managed trade with people from outside their mountain village, and taught classes to other people in the village about how to do stuff like barter, or navigate the world outside of the village. (Her mom grew up in a more city like area, and the village they lived in was high enough up that it was fairly isolated from bigger cities)

When Clover was 10 and Kohara was 13, a collector known as Raptor (aka Callum’s dad) entered their village, and after harming and thoroughly traumatizing some of the villagers, got directed to their home. When Clover obviously resisted capture, and their dad defended her, Raptor killed their dad and took Clover by force. At this point in time they didn’t know that Kohara could manipulate ether, so she wasn’t a target.

Kohara after losing her sister and dad grew aloof compared to her younger self and dedicated herself to fighting back against the collectors. She would spend most of the hours in the day training, trying to get better, stronger. And the work payed off; she became the most adept fighter in their village for her age, and after some time in terms of pure technique she became the best fighter in general. Not only did she seek out training from everyone with any modicum of skill she could, not taking no for an answer, but she was incredibly dedicated and talented in a way that no one expected. Still though, she felt as though she could never do enough. She was never skilled enough, never fast enough, never good enough.

Collections typically happen once a year, although the tower’s records of time is synced slightly off, so occasionally it happens twice in one year and not the next, or something similar. Anyway, they send at a bunch of collectors at once and they typically end up in scattered locations. Basically it’s pretty much impossible to track where all of the collectors will be, although they’re more likely to be spotted closer to the tower. All this to say, collectors don’t end up in Kohara’s village often since it’s pretty remote.

When Kohara was about to turn 16 (she hadn’t quite reached top fighter in general but she was still very skilled especially for her age) a collector came to her village again, and Kohara was able to fight him off, but a few villagers still got hurt in the process. It was at this point that she realized that regardless of how adept she was, she can’t be in every place at once and many of the other villagers couldn’t fight. This is around the point that Kohara dedicated herself to training and orchestrating trainings for other members of the village. Essentially she dedicated herself to teaching the members of her village how to defend themselves.

(Also during that failed collection, Kohara learned she had an abundance of ether that caused a sort of passive affect of ether negation to affects on her person. Basically other people’s ether use wouldn’t work directly on her. This doesn’t mean she’s immune to all magic though. If somebody creates something, like fire, that’s an actual thing that’s out in the world now and can hurt her, but conversely if somebody tried to use some sort of power to mind control her or something it wouldn’t work, because that affect needs to work on the person to exist.)

She was a strict teacher and extremely blunt in her judgment of students, although over the years of pretty much dedicating herself only to learning how to fight and festering her rage she had become kind of blunt and somewhat cold in general with a just general loss of social niceties. This didn’t make her unkind or unempathetic though. She cared deeply for everyone in her village.

Once she learned basically everything she could and set up as good a system as she could manage to teach the villagers, she got everyone who needed it a solid grasp of the basics, but between her and the other fighters in the village it got to a point where there just wasn’t enough people to train everyone. This was the point that first got her to venture far out of the village.

She met some well trained fighters who liked to travel and recruited them to help her out. They taught her more about collections and the tower. This planted the idea that the tower could be infiltrated and potentially taken down.

She reaaally fixated on this idea and it became her new goal, although she didn’t give up on teaching the villagers. Years of plotting and running scenarios in her head and interrogating her new companions for information, and when Kohara was 19 some of the travelers/fighters finally decided to depart and Kohara decided to go with them, so she could learn more to further their goal (and also she got attached).

At some point the travelers and Kohara temporarily separated so that the travelers could have a somewhat sensitive diplomatic meeting (the main reason they left the village) and since Kohara is not known for her social niceties, she stayed the next town over. Unfortunately for most parties involved, this was when Kohara met Wynn.

Wynn, the collector, never having collected before thinks that Kohara would just love to come with him. Somehow, he picked probably the only person that was true for. Kohara wrote a letter to her mom and traveling friends and went with Wynn.

Normally, a person’s memory would be wiped after being collected. Fortunately for Kohara, her ether usage negates that.

So Kohara ends up in the tower and soon ends up as a collector herself. This is around the point she does an essential assist, helping Asier and Callum escape.

Anyway!! That’s a lot so here’s some fun facts to finish up for now:

- Her jacket used to belong to her dad. Both her and Clover used to wear it when they were younger although it was grossly oversized. Even after Kohara grew into it, it was quite big on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop wearing it, so she got it tailored to be ‘practical’.

- She likes bitter foods, and usually isn’t much for sweets but she loves peaches.

- She is on really good terms with all the village kids despite her brash demeanor, and would sometimes braid hair for the younger girls.

- She has a childhood best friend named Jasper who is quite eccentric and has mostly stayed friends with her from shared fondness and incredible persistence and bullheadedness on Jasper’s part.

- She’s aroace

Anyway that’s all for now. Enjoy >:)

I wish I brought the notebook along with me so I could enter all this in!!!

Finally getting Kohara's lore after seeing her for the first time nearly two years ago ❤️❤️❤️

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I got new acrylic markers!!! (Lowkey this was inspired by you and your art because that’s what it looks like some of it is made from to me) And I love them SOOO much.

Here’s some stuff I made with them so far!

Seraphina doodle (an old one that I colored):

Asier Doodle (also an old one colored):

And my favorite….

Jellyfish!!!!

So, fun fact about me. I LOVEEEEE jellyfish. Like in general but also visually they’re one of my favorite things ever. I just love them so much. Anyway this drawing also has gold on it you can see nice flashes of from another angle:

I’m still kind of figuring out how to use these markers so my character art with them will probably greatly improve over time but Im really happy with how the Jellyfish came out.

Anyway enjoy the art somewhat caused by your existence!!

AAAAAAA I LOVE THE JELLYFISH TENTACLES SO MUCH!!!!!!!

The way they layer looks so, so good. Especially the gold marker!!! I have a golden posca, but recently it started getting really watery to the point it's no longer usable. (Rest in peace, my dear golden marker)

But oughhhh I keep staring at the golden sheen on the jellyfish. I wasn't able to properly respond to this right after I saw it, but whenever I had some free time, I would come back just to see this

Ok so!! I thought that the Asier drawing was very familiar so I went through the feral art album and I found the original

Its nothing much, but I felt like I found some kind of treasure? (I'm actually not sure how to describe it. Maybe finding a piece of a puzzle? I jusr went 'Aha!' as soon I saw it)

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My links:

Main (Note: you gotta have a tumblr to see it):

Artfight Acc: https://artfight.net/~FeralIsOnline

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralIsOnline/profile

———

About the Distant Lands universe:

Distant lands is a universe I created, and it holds two separate stories which I respectively refer to as ‘The Offlands’ and ‘Far Off’. Ideally if I had infinite motivation and resources and skill, they would both be video games, but it’s likely they’re going to stay the way they are with perhaps some additional writing blurbs.

The Offlands is set in a semi-conventional fantasy universe with additional dystopian themes centered around ‘The Tower System’ which I’ll probably link a post explaining eventually. A basic explanation can be found in this post: https://www.tumblr.com/feral-in-distant-lands/790192099774595072/i-wish-to-know-more-about-thy-oc-asier-if-you?source=share

There’s a whole lot of lore on other stuff in The Offlands that I haven’t detailed yet, and it’s likely some of the lore I’ve described on the acc @probably-doesnt-exist is outdated (although what is is probably pretty minor). After I got my current account everything should be up to date.

Far Off is set in a semi-modern semi-futuristic cyberpunk-ish world that turns apocalyptic and later lingers in a post apocalyptic state. The apocalypse was not caused by something such as zombies, but rather sporadic eldritch anomalies appearing more and more often. It’s a little bit cyberpunk/lovecraftian horror. This paragraph is honestly probably the most I’ve described it in terms of worldbuilding but I have a lot floating around my head regarding it that I need to put to paper and will hopefully eventually do here.

In both of these worlds I focus a lot on character lore because my OCs are my blorbos. I want to smash them with a comically large squeaky hammer (affectionate).

(Also, notably, I do other OC/universe/writing related stuff here as well)

——–

Anyway if you care about any of this at all PLEASE send me asks; whether you have anything to say or are curious at all!! On main or here (if you can do that?) I will answer all of them and also love you for ever.

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two attacks that im decently proud of (characters of @feral-wasteland-nerd and starinatophat)

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SO I found a pen in class and wanted to doodle:

(It's supposed to be kiddo btw)

Also it's messier than usual cause the teacher was about to catch me being distracted (multiple times) + I had to hurry before class was over And I didn't have a reference pic so I got a lil creative with the details

Hope u like it!!

AOUGHHHHHHHH I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!!! E ILY YOU’RE MY FAVORITE!!!!!!!

It brings me genuinely unfathomable amounts of joy when you draw my sillies 😭

Currently I am here:

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Some Vesper art that I did a while ago!!

AHSHSHSHSHS its perfect.. Holding your art gently in my mouth.

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Finally done with it :D !!

I have so many ideas but not much time as of late. I really like this piece :D

I love Asier and birds (totally not obvious) Also the fact that Callum is scared of them

I'll post this on my blog laterrrr I hope I can take a better pic then

Hope you like it!!!

AHSHSFSHHSGSHHSGSARARARARARARRARR

E.

E.

I WILL NOT SURVIVE THIS. I AM NOT NORMAL ABOUT YOUR ART.

I am going to hit you with my beam of love and affection. Don’t worry it won’t hurt at all. (You will be vaporized. Affectionately)

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Been a while since I sent an ask here

Did a bunch of sketches today and here's Asier & Callum

There are so many chibis of them hanging around in my sketchbook

I love them so so much. They're very dear to me

My babies!!!!!!!!!!!! They’re so silly I love to see your drawings of them so much <3

I need to send you more asks because I have more stuff to say!!!! My brain is silly though and sometimes in a way that’s annoying. It should never be hard to ramble about OCs and spam you with drawings. Doing that is FUN and also AWESOME and I somehow am struggling with it?? Blasphemous.

I am holding your art gently in my mouth.

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I don't know if my previous ask sent or not, but here's the doodles:

Oh…… I love them so much I cannot even describe it…………. Sobbign..

I am obsessed with your tiny doodle interpretations. Like sooo much. Asier with his bird and Callum standing fearfully in the background trying to be a supporting husband friend but scared past his wits gets me every time. They’re perfect and I want to squeeze them until they are mush. I love them….

And the little flower! They are so cute I want to strangle them but also tuck them into bed ^-^

The economics doodle is sooo funny too—Asier is absolutely shit at anything money related so it’s soo absolutely true to his character

Never stop sending me doodles when you make them they give me fuel for a week 🙏

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AAAA THIS IS SOO GOOD I love, love, LOVE it when stories have this one system which is cruel but then the people who are involved with it usually don't know that they are just people whose crimes are glorified as "they save humanity" or in general classified as doing bad for the greater good.

Also the headcanons (but canon) you posted,, he's so adorableee 😭 and he likes plants and rocksss

And I'm literally invested in this storyline. I've begun making a storyboard or basically mapping the story out. (Something I do for stories whose lore interests me) If you want to spam canon headcanons, (like you have mentioned in one of the tags) go ahead!! I'd love to hear them!! It can be anywhere, your blog, or my ask box!

I've also noticed one thing- You've mentioned that anyone that does not live on the first floor is immortal. Callum is from the first floor/class. Asier is from the third floor/class. Now this means that Asier is immortal while Callum is mortal (is this going to end in angst or am I just over thinking-)

E

(Omg omg you have actually no idea how psyched I am that you’re interested in this oh my god)

Well you’re not wrong about angst from that concept, however it’s slight different than it sounds, so you don’t have to worry about it too much. (Wink wink)

Essentially the only reason that those people are immortal is because of the tower. Lemme explain—so essentially the ‘cursed’ people (brainwashed people with magic, including collectors at least at some point) serve a purpose other than to basically be servants and build up the top of it—that is important but it isn’t the whole story.

Essentially the curse isn’t only magic. All of the ‘cursed’ people in the haven (inside the wall outside the tower) are using their magic as fuel. They know this to some degree but not actually what it entails. A) their magic being siphoned away means they’re dying faster (which many would argue is like a curse but it doesn’t count because it could technically just be stopped if anybody but admins knew stuff like this). Their life force is basically being drained to ‘fuel’ the tower.

There’s a girl named Clover (she’s the sister of the one who helped Callum and Asier escape) who acts as essentially a magic conversion system. She is highly guarded because she is extremely important and there are few people with her kind of magic. She can convert most types of magic into basically anything else. She’s converting all the magic being siphoned away into immortality for the people in the tower.

That’s basically why it exists honestly, like a ‘utopia’ where all the founding people and their children are immortal.

She only fuels the second floor and up, by the admin’s instruction. The people on those floors are only immortal because they’re being fed magic, which for people with magic wouldn’t work as well (although it would work), hence Asier’s bad reaction and sickliness. Being, well, not innately immortal, after Asier leaves the effect will start to wear off.

The issue with this, however, is that although Callum was training to be and a collector himself for a while (which when you are a collector you don’t get your life drained because they don’t want you to die before you can collect more and they can get new recruits), he still was living in the haven at some point and had some of his life permanently siphoned away.

Asier, on the contrast, has been fed residual immortality literally since he was in the womb, and although it’s wearing off with time, it takes too long for an entire lifetime to wear off for his lifespan to be normal. He will essentially have the lifespan of a dnd elf without the interference of something else killing him.

So Asier is mortal, but likely going to live way longer than Callum anyway. (Only I know what happens, for now ;)

Also! Fun fact!

Although I am writing part of this book style the goal is actually to create a game in this world! It’s called Offlands and there’s hopefully gonna be a same universe different setting and plot parallels game called Far Off. I have so many ideas. Also yes I have help and also can code <3

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I have no recollection of whether I sent this or not, but here goes another small doodle of Asier I found on my phone!!

I think I did this while studying economics yet again

I think this was funnier in my head at that point in time, but it has taken a physical form and now you must see it

Also I saw the original on pinterest a while back, and I can't find it anymore :(

Holding him gently in my mouth..

He is such a fail-boy though. If Callum was gone for like a week or two on some trip and Asier was left to manage the expenses Asier WOULD fail to manage the money and probably cry about it.

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Nally tried out this cool dip pen I got so

I don’t know how I completely missed this, but regardless it looks so good!!

The way the line weight of the pen works just makes it look so smooth and edible..

And you did his name!!!! In the language!!!!!!!!!! That genuinely brings me unreasonable amounts of joy. I need to send you more abt it because the dopamine hits of anybody else caring about it is so real.

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Doodle page dump!!

(You probably won’t be able to decipher any of it but there’s a mini character interaction on the page with a character you haven’t been introduced to yet (I’m lacking a good drawing, but that time will come), Asier, and Callum.

Lai-Te (new character name drop???????) is basically hanging off of Asier, who’s reaching out for Callum. Callum is off to the side being smothered by water

[Asier’s dialogue: Callum… Help…])

(Also, there’s a doodle of me on this page!! You can guess which one it is lol)

(Hint: I am a Goober)

HJBSADHB I STARED AT THIS FOR SO LOMNG I LOVE THE DETAILS IN HERE

I love patterns so much and looking at this just made my brain so happy.. I love the spirals (my fav, ofc), the zigzag lines, the curved lines, the sparkle stars, stars. Just so so cool to look at!!

For all the alphabets written in the language, I kept referring to the sheet you sent me and it was so cool to see the spellings/pronunciation It was like reading a secret language :0

Based on your previous profile pic, I'd say these two are you :

ALSO!!! I need to point these parts out:

Left pic: I love the curves that look like they have :3 at the end so much. The cat!!! And below cat, what looks like a person paraglidinggg

Right pic: I love pigin.

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Finally done with Callum’s!

This one gave me trouble and I still feel like it could be better but I’m mostly satisfied lol. Enjoy :)

AAA SEEING ALL YOUR OCS LIKE THIS IS MAKING ME EVEN MORE EXCITED FOR AF THIS YEAR!!!!

He looks so adorable here ❤️❤️❤️

And I understand the pain of thinking of an appropriate description for them!! I have to finish two more ocs and I have no clue what to write.. Hopefully I'll come up with something soon 😋🙏