#general world info

[voidh0und]

Just some general info about Khalios, Psyche, Arcadia, and general world things

Cw for cults and animal death.

-Khalios was raised by a cult, as a god, and therefore can be...more than a bit of an asshole all of the time.

- The cult was consisted primarily of Ai'valii which are an elf like race, adjacent to humans but with increased innate magic, cat-like pupils and, of course, pointed ears.

- Arcadia is an Ai'valii

-Arcadia, Psyche, and Khalios all have excess amounts of magic within them, moreso than what is the norm for this world but each centered around a specific element. Arcadia is life. Psyche is love. Khalios is death.

-To go along with each element, their is a god personifying it. Both the death and love gods are deer-like.

- The mortal name of the love goddess is I'ona, but she is also referred to as: the stag Queen and the matron of the heart. He personifes all love, not just romantic.

-Gods are made of pure magic and often, in cases when they are wounded, those remnants of them will form into "God Beasts". God Beasts can also be formed purely accidentally, like in cases when a gods presence lingers too long in one place.

- Another similar situation is The God Children, where a divine being will willingly remove a piece of their magic from themselves and form it into a sentient being, often sharing traits with both them and their divine animals.

- the act of killing a god beast, regardless of which god it belongs to, is seen as one of the most damning acts possible.

- That being said, Khalios has killed a god beast before. An emperor's Hound, the beast of death. The act was one commanded to him by the people who raised him, a sorts of ritual sacrifice to the true death god at the hands of his soon to be vessel.

[felassan]

.

[inspector-fox]

I do age this month and I just keep getting sad because last birthday I held my friends captive and made them all watch star trek with me (themed dress up party + a playlist of episodes I curated and me shouting, "wait watch this, this is iconic" every 2 minutes) and nothing will ever top that.

[kreachvera]

HEAVY work in progress stuff for.. a dumb lil au…….

[destroyusall]

Permafrost

This was actually meant to be relatively small art for the rw fic I'm writing...oops? Ahhg! I love these two so, so dearly even if I know what happens.

Heaven (left, they/she) and Magnolia (right, he) on a nice stroll through The Cranium's lesser Underbelly!

[psink]

Did you know that there are actually 2 Saiki K 3ds games?

This one is called 「照橋心美のΨ難 いっぱいおっふ」 [The Disastrous Life of Teruhashi Kokomi: A lot of offu].

At first you play as Teruhashi against Nendou, Kaidou, Hairo, Toritsuka, Kuboyasu and Kusuo.

After beating all of them, you can play as them against Teruhashi and Kuriko.

You unlock Kuriko when you get S on her and Teruhashi.

Translation of characters' descriptions below. Other information in tags.

Teruhashi Kokomi: The ultimate most beloved girl. When you meet her, the first thing you'll do is say "offu". With her deadly "Angel Upwards Beam" she will destroy the walls of your heart.

Saiki Kusuo: A boy who controls various superpowers. With psychokinesis, he splits the ball and relentlessly attacks! He creates a wall, making his defense perfect.

Nendou Riki: His nickname is "mysterious idiot". The attack he unleashes charges single-mindedly forwards. It won't stop no matter what happens!

Kaidou Shun: Everyone acknowledges him as a chuunibyou. With his sealed, forbidden thunder, he can erase 10 blocks from this world.

Hairo Kineshi: A class representative with overflowing passion. With a burning hot ball, he breaks blocks with a single hit!

Toritsuka Reita: A spirit medium full of worldly desires. He summons ghosts of the ball to repeatedly attack the girl he's interested in!

Kuboyasu Aren: A former delinquent who was the leader of the gang "Espers". With his power, he can destroy even hard blocks with a single hit.

Saiki Kuriko: Saiki Kusuo transformed into a female form. With overwhelming speed and power, she attacks relentlessly!

[ohno-the-sun]

I could not get @oobbbear mad scientist au out of my head I love it so much

[cameroneatsdirt]

repost from my TikTok! Note that I will in fact be there Friday!! ^.^

[infection-zone]

“You said the mountains were safe.”

Living atop mountains free from the influence of flesh, the worverns nest and collect whatever patches of grasses they can find to build their dens.

Due to their thicker skin layers, their bodies can endure the cold with ease. Occasionally they’ll venture down from the mountains and hunt in the infection zones, consuming all that they can to build up reserves before heading back for their nests. On the way collecting scraps and whatever Cals monsters they can find to heat their eggs and future young.

Despite their wings, these heavy worms fail to properly fly or glide. Often they just throw themselves from peaks, crushing their own bodies beneath the mountains rough and rocky terrain. Due to this and despite their thicker skin, it’s often tattered and scarred. 

However, despite the risk to themselves, the worms have adapted their jumps and falls into a hunting strategy. Often ambushing prey from above and either killing them from the sheer force of the drop or their weight.

But even if the worm misses it’s mark, it’s no stranger to giving chase. Their wings may be useless for flight and gliding, but with their strength they are more than capable of crawling and giving chase around the mountain terrain.

[vimbry]

returning to my little project of making a fake neopet out of my fursona for the Third time, because I keep changing their design before I can finish it.

on the second attempt, I decided to stop being lazy and actually make larger vectors instead of drawing directly on a 150x150 canvas - which, surprise, is a hell of a lot easier. this time around, I'm also using the flash colour palette to make everything a bit more authentic. and I made one of those pet info pages you could see by going to the species list.

I've almost completed the basic recolour/minor lineart adjustment paintbrush colours. gonna post a bigger collection of them later when they're all finished, then move on to the unique poses, but these are my favourites so far. I was actually keeping so rigid to the official styles for a few of them (proportions & anatomy, consistent colours & shading, etc.), before straying away enough from desert to realise, wait, I can just have fun w/ it lol.

[fairy-verse]

May i offer my soul to the firstborn Fairys as a gift? 😔

🫳

💚

🫴

Even as emptiness fills your living flesh in the absence of your soul, you soon find yourself growing lighter as though the troubles of the world no longer weigh down your shoulders. Ethereal music fills your ears, your eyes glaze over as either a golden or grey-blue hue envelops sights around you, and you feel a tingle spread from your fingertips and in through your hands and arms; it’s pleasant, warm. A dazed smile paints itself across your face.

Your soul may no longer be yours, but the Gift of the Firstborn leaves no room in your mind to truly miss it. You’re no longer a part of the world the Big Folk lives in, even as your body remains near and around them. You will live in a waking dream until the end eventually comes for your vacant body.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

danny talking about how resentful she became when nobody who she self-sacrificed for cared when she died and then leaving kirsch with laura and carmilla bc "if he stays with me i might lose control again and kill him" kinda confirms my thoughts abt both newly-turnedness and anger making vampires more vampiry

but also makes me think that in more usual circumstances, when the dean turned vampires like carmilla and mattie, that shes really nice at the start to temper any of that unruly anger

[joelletwo]

OH that was the end of the first book huh. 400 pages in how many days kjfg didnt expect that. the writing is............................... good? its very different. stylistically. from. danmei translations ive been reading for the past ~year lol. and also formally different in ways that mean im not having to absorb so much information with every line and can breeze thru a lot quicker. its been. soooo long since ive read sth like this. and anyways i like it and im looking forward to reading more. and im obsessed with moon (and stone. stone in every scene from now on please.)

[notasouleater]

Narrator versus the 1940s

[btsbs]

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[fullscoreshenanigans]

Norman ratri fuckery or maybe Norman in lambda scenario if im understanding this right!

For an AU with greater canon divergence, I like tinkering with the idea of Peter being more hands on in interacting with Norman to better contrast with Emma and Ray getting Lucas and Yuugo for father figures.

22194 has been a child of interest since he scored a perfect 300 on his first test at age four. Potentially even earlier than that, if, like Ray, the demons kept track of his pedigree and his mother was also a full scorer. Regardless of exactly when it started, he continues to capture the attention of researchers and the demon nobility alike, so by the time Legravalima gives approval for him to be sent to Lambda so she can avoid handing him over to the demon god, Peter was already aware of his general existence.

He's thrown for a loop when he meets him in person though. The only potential photographs he would have of Norman would be from when he was an infant at headquarters. His incredibly light/white hair on its own wouldn't have been enough to give him much pause, but now that his features have had more time to develop, Peter's a bit startled at the Ratri ones he can pick out.

(@bon-nii's comparison of James and Norman from chapters 173, 152, 126, and 154)

(Chapter 74)

There's a bit of vanity in him saying he's too young to be Norman's father (never mind he was eighteen when Norman was born), but combined with the boy's looks, the phrase sits at the back of his mind, nudging him until he can't ignore his curiosity any longer. He looks into the genealogy records at Grace Field headquarters until he can't find any recording of a sperm donor, which isn't more than a few generations back. Odd, given that Grace Field is the top premium farm, but sometimes such documentation snuck through the cracks, and it wasn't unheard of for the occasional scientist to consort with the Sister candidates prior to the refinement of artificial insemination.

It's one of Norman's blood samples that confirms someone from the family—either from the main one or the branch Andrew's from—fathered a daughter with a Sister, and that daughter went on to have a daughter who then bore a son.

Pulling this bit from an earlier post:

…I still have trouble wrapping my head around the idea of Peter knowingly and willingly [putting a Ratri child in the farm system] on the basis of viewing them as an extension of the clan rather than as individuals, so it’s almost like it’s a worse reflection on him not being able to restore the honor of this wayward branch of it by “salvaging” the traitor’s children and raising them “correctly.” He places such great value in being a Ratri and displays such disdain when speaking of the cattle children as food, it’s hard to see him sullying the line in any way by condemning a member to the fate of the latter as opposed to just outright killing them, even if said member was an infant. That’s still Ratri blood—his blood—that would be going into the farm system, and he would never let anyone as lowly as food have any sort of claim to such a noble and prestigious status. […] However, I’m more inclined to entertain the idea of another family member taking advantage of their position as a Ratri to have a dalliance with a Sister candidate, as @officersnickers brings up in this post. It’s not something Peter would ever approve of, but what’s done is done, and importantly there was no explicit denouncement of the clan in this act, which I feel he would take personal offense to. There’s nothing he can do to save these children—the one-drop rule thoroughly entrenched in his mind, and their blood is thoroughly tainted—but maybe their Ratri lineage will win out and they’ll be able to rise above their pitiful status, so he does keep tabs on both as he approves of them being sent on their separate ways in the system.

This is where one has to make the concession that Peter cares more about having an heir and/or believing a child's Ratri heritage trumps their fate of being born into the farm system. Shirai never confirms if he has a partner, but regardless, no mention is made of biological children of his own or if he knows of any potential ones on the way.

And maybe that's getting to him as the thirty-sixth head of the Ratri clan who's going to turn thirty next year, along with this boy looking so much like James. He knew his brother had no children, and despite his traitorous ways knew he'd never father one with a Sister for a variety of reasons. Yet here is this distant relative whose genes were still so prominent even after being diluted with multiple generations of cattle blood (him being vain enough to include Norman's intelligence as being another gift of Ratri inheritance). He decides to take it as a sign and as a duty to reclaim and "salvage" this wayward line of the clan.

Norman knows something's off when he doesn't receive all of the drugs he normally does for the day. Everything else proceeds as routine until dinner, when he's escorted not by scientists or demons, but men dressed in suits to an area of Lambda he's never been to before. They arrive in a lavishly decorated room with Peter seated at a relatively small but well-furnished dinner table. Norman's never seen so much food meant for one person, but as Peter invites him to have a seat, he realizes it's meant for two people.

There's some small talk regarding the spread, Peter's recommendations and whether Norman's favorite dish is there. By sheer coincidence there is some chickpeas and meat stew present, and while Norman is still wary of the entire situation, he doesn't refuse the bowl placed in front of him by the butler. It's the most delicious thing he's ever tasted. Peter makes sure to clarify one of his personal chefs made it.

This segues into a brief discussion about the daily tests Norman's been taking at Lambda. He confirms they're harder than the tests at Grace Field, but he enjoys the challenge, the tiniest bit of smug pride seeping in in the event Peter had any ego tied up in his being bested by one of these tests. The proud tone in the response throws him off before his brain registers the words "as to be expected of a Ratri." Peter then apologizes at the small but still noticeable change in his expression, lamenting how he probably should have started out with that to ease any of Norman's worries.

He goes on to explain how he discovered this, interpreting Norman's silence as positive before moving on to provide a brief overview of how the Ratri clan came to be the mediators between two worlds and then explaining how his life will change now that he'll be staying in the Ratri visitors' quarters for the remainder of his time at Lambda. The process to remove his tattoo and brand will begin the following day, and he'll be weened off the remaining drugs he's been given.

Norman knows it's beyond his consideration, but he still can't believe the gall of this man.

As for what [being a Ratri] would mean to Norman, he’s never indicated any sense of loss related to not knowing members of his immediate birth family or fretting over his origins, but for him to be related to the clan that’s perpetuated this system of abuse over a millennia and with how his rigid sense of morality lent itself to the idea of exterminating every single demon, if he was in a particularly negative thought spiral, it might eat at him on some bad days.

Where Peter expected rapturous or reverential awe at being a long-lost member of the clan, he felt sick. He never knew his birth mother or other forebearers, but imagining everything those women had to endure after seeing what it turned Isabella into, all being said so casually without a hint of guilt over the horrors his clan perpetuated like he's discussing the pedigree of a thoroughbred animal instead of a human being, it's nauseating.

And his neck tattoo…the Lambda brand he wouldn't give a second thought to losing, but the tattoo has this paradoxical sense of kinship attached to it that I briefly go over in this post regarding the children still keeping their tattoos years after being in the human world. Even with it being a horrible symbol of their dehumanization under this system, it's been a familiar sight to him since his earliest memories. It's one of the physical markers of his connection with Emma, Ray, and the rest of his family, and this man will be flippantly erasing that. How easy it is for him having never bore the grief that comes with it.

This is already long but a tangentially related conversation to this eventually comes up with Peter asking about Emma and Ray. On the surface it's to connect with Norman and learn more about his life at Grace Field, but the ulterior motive is to see if there's any information he can glean about these kids to find and capture them quicker. Norman will give it to him for having the tact not to slip and refer to them by their numbers like he's sure he wants to do, but he's still incensed at their names in his mouth. There's also the chance that Peter might reveal a crumb of information himself about their status (because Norman can't see why he would be asking unless he had something to gain from it, so that has to mean their escape was a success and they were all alive. The alternative would kill him), so he entertains the conversation. He tries not to give any tells, but when he talks about them his thumb might have grazed the spot where his number used to be before covering it up with a cough.

Norman's never taken in by Peter's seemingly genial demeanor, but it's odd how personal and almost…amiable the man can be with him. Still, the love he's offering is contingent on Norman's continued assistance at Lambda (Peter sees it as their shared duty to solve the conundrum of faster high quality meat production) and at least the appearance of respect toward the clan. It's not unconditional like Lucas' and Yuugo's.

The clearest hint of this might be Peter mentioning how much Norman resembles James one night at dinner, building his brother up with the same admiration he displays in chapter 173 before lamenting his fall from grace, stressing the sacrifice he had to make by murdering him but still ultimately going through with it because the clan and balance between two worlds takes precedence above all else.

Alternatively, another scenario that's easier to work into canon is the Ratri clan realizing Norman's lineage when the cattle children arrive in the human world, also prompted by the databases at Grace Field sparking further investigation with a DNA test. Once it's confirmed, they keep pestering Norman about leaning into this kinship and actively working for them, along with having his family and friends seemingly on good terms with the clan for some PR optics. Norman finds the idea insulting and revolting, but he can't ignore the benefits that would come with it.

Like some other fans, I greatly dislike Norman becoming a CEO during the final major timeskip, as well as Lambda sickness being conveniently treated with no chronic aftereffects and absolutely no issues with them integrating into human world and being welcomed with open arms by everyone. I understand Shirai wanted to wrap up the series on his own terms after years of dealing with the strain that is weekly manga publishing, and he needed an explanation for how the kids could easily fund their expeditions to search for Emma, but oof, do I hate it lol. All of these remain a concern for the cattle children here, and while the Ratri clan wouldn't outright abandon them if he refused, Norman wouldn't put it past them to drag their feet on certain matters. Their finances and prestige shield them from any misguided resentment some people may hold for them. Their connections are a boon for securing future educations and careers. And god would it expedite the search for Emma.

I like to imagine a late night benefit-cost analysis between Norman, Ray, Don, and Gilda taking place at some point after they've settled in enough. The other three reaffirm that if Norman felt it was going to kill his soul to work for the Ratris, his friends and family would stand by his refusal, but they would be remiss not to acknowledge the pragmatism in further solidifying the relationship (particularly poignant coming from Ray, though not completely analogous situations). The conversation drifts off for a bit before Norman, looking exhaustedly across the table they're seated at with his hands on his knees, states, "I want her back with us."

Working with the clan would be odd in so many ways with how they would laud his status as a cattle child and how he was taking the lead on amending relations between the Ratri and the cattle children while never wanting to fully interrogate what that meant. There's a hierarchy with Norman at the top and the mass production farm children at the bottom in many of their minds. At one point in private after a publicity event someone says offhand, "you can cover that up now, you know," referring to his ID. Even in the winter he tries to make a point not to wear scarves or turtlenecks when he knows he's going to be around them.

I hate the idea of there being one good and upstanding Ratri member that befriends him just because it's too convenient, and if we're being real Norman would never let down his walls enough and let them into his personal world after everything he's been through, but I do like the thought of him maybe getting along with a few scattered members, probably younger, who recognize the terrible fate that befell the children from another world and are genuinely amiable with him without beholding him to form a meaningful friendship with them. A small attempt at a personal level of atonement that he can recognize and appreciate while still maintaining that mental distance. I also think he'd appreciate the very youngest children of the family who could give him insight into what the adults might really think of him and his friends with their uncensored commentary lol.