S N A I L S.

Hi, my name is Snail. This is my Food Fantasy art/content blog. It's a sideblog of @mizushingen. Thanks for putting up with me and my art-- feel free to message me about food (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

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INKTOBER DAY #1: Favorite Magic Food Soul

This result isn’t surprising at all, huh? Also, me being late to draw the daily food soul is gonna be a common theme lmao... But I’ll get all them done eventually!

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Decided to do a Food Fantasy themed Inktober with my friends! You’re allowed to join as well~ Can’t wait to see all the Food Fantasy themed posts!

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That moment when Peking prays in despair. That moment when Peking begs his Master Attendant to let Peking save him. That moment when Peking Duck realises that the only angels out there are fallen.

DID YOU MEAN: GOOD SHIT?????

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九龍レトロ

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【Food Fantasy】 九龍レトロ (Kowloon Retro)

Song: トーマ (Tohma) Original: sm18821036 Lyrics Translation

Warning: This fanmade video contains blood, death, flashing lights, nooses/hanging, and is a MAJOR SPOILER for Peking Duck’s backstory.

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Tierra has alchemy so... maybe MA's have access to materials and educational material on how to make stuff? ANd I guess, at this point humanity isn't immediately dying out so no emergency. Like. There is information on how to make a lot of usefull things one might need to live in out world and yet most people don't research how, to say, make basic medicines (and you need skill to do so safely and some special knowledge anyway). And Tierra doesn't seem to have internet so.

That makes a lot of sense, though there’s still a giant war going on, you know? I understand the populace not caring that much about it but the single largest research institute should really care… and they could totally commercialize a lot of stuff?? There are merchants who should be providing their products to people, especially because airships exist. idk maybe I’m just expecting too much LMAO

Alchemy would make sense for stuff like the dark cuisine and seasonings though I agree. It would also have crafting higher tier materials make sense as well. Though like I said… wouldn’t stuff like potions which damage fallen angels and things equivalent to health pots be quite popular? I don’t know… technology in this game is really confusing lmao

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A current question is... magic! What is your opinion on magic in Tierra? The only things canon are that elves can magic, spirits can magic, gods might can magic and humans can't magic until it's magical tool. So, there are also those cooking talent things and MAs apparently directly participate in combat (if I understand T Jelly's bs right). Where do you thing they get their Dark Cuisine? What about blades (it is said that normal weapons can't do much against FA) and etc? Your thoughts, please!

(Lotsa FF spoilers) I believe magic is (perhaps obviously) the active/in-use form of spirit energy. Naturally, whenever Food Souls use their powers and attack, they consume spirit energy, and I assume you could call their powers “magic” as well. It would fit into the common “elves are in tune with nature and are better at magic than humans” trope and of course spirits would be able to use spiritual energy better than humans as well. You could perhaps consider spirit energy as equivalent to mana in other media… tl;dr: spirit energy is the raw material and magic is the result after some sort of conversion, via magic tool, spell, Food Soul ability, or what have you.

Spirit energy for humans... is confusing. Is it like Food Souls, where spirit energy = life force? Raindrop Cake ended up killing his MA by using his MA’s “life force” to power his attacks, so either spirit energy is not the same as life force and Food Souls are able to access both through the contract link, or they are the same thing and they just aren’t able to use magic, aka convert that internal spirit energy/life force into magic... ??? ...Well, anyway...

 From what I got out of Tortoise Jelly’s backstory, I think the “magic” referred in there was talking about the ability to summon Food Souls? Humans of course have varying levels of inherent magic within them, since some are able to summon and some are not. Also, Torto mentioned about the child he was looking after having “an abundance of magic within her body” so I assume Food Souls are able to sense “magic”/spirit energy levels within individuals (Yuxiang was able to tell Peking Duck had an immense amount of spirit energy I believe). The main issue in his backstory that the child was facing was her inability to summon a Food Soul of her own despite possessing a large amount of “magic”; it doesn’t really mention any other kind of magic which a human can wield. His MA was “on the front lines” but that doesn’t mean she was fighting directly; I imagine she was simply accompanying her Food Souls and was staying on the front lines with them (maybe as a strategist/directing the combat?). But who knows? It’s not like they were specific about it.

You know, you’d think if humans were able to make amazing magic tools and have magic which is able to fight against Fallen Angels, they’d research how to do that instead of making food-based super soldiers right? C’mon Nevras Academy!! Please be more useful against the war threatening all of Tierra!! LMAO... 

Personally I like to imagine cooking talents as just a game design thing, but if they were actually part of the universe... Well, the blades can be explained as being magic tools themselves. If they can make humanoid, self-cognizant weapons out of food, then I would hope that they can make weapons which conduct spirit energy, right? Dark Cuisine could be stuff the Academy makes, or you know, the MA could just... do some poison mixing... lmfao... The thing is, though, none of these are “skills” or “talents”!! It has already been established that humans cannot convert spirit energy to magic naturally! So unless MAs are exceptions to this rule (which doesn’t make sense) all of these “skills” need a rational explanation attached, such as buying inventions from the Academy or using other kinds of magic tools. That makes majority of the cooking talents not make any sense, especially the healing ones, since 1. the way to obtain these in-game is through a skill tree-esque system 2. if these things exist then you’d think the priority would be making these accessible for everyone to use, and thus make all of Tierra better equipped for resisting Fallen Angels, right???

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This thingie about Empty Shells are something I remember from early game cutscenes (The system for them is stupid as you can only reliably see the part that is at accepting the mission. The "claim the reward" cutscenes tend to be nowhere to be found. And some cutscenes JUST can't be seen again.). Where Olivia infodumps MA on what nots. I remember a part of that infodump but other is lost to oblivion. I feel almost like replayign the game just to see them again.

Yeah I vaguely remember that too! But you’re right, I can’t seem to access that bit of the story anymore :/ You’d think that those are the most important cutscenes to make available right? But then again, they probably didn’t anticipate someone like you and me coming around and asking the hard questions about their in-game logic LMFAO…

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Empty shells are food souls notable by their lack of combat capability. It appears that many empty shells used to be normal food souls hovewer a severe (psyshological) trauma left them bereft of their powers. It is considered normal to dissolve contracts with empty shells. They usually flock to the Guild if they happen to lack master attendant. Your thoughts and hcs.

Is this all canon stuff????? 8O I knew about Rice but not about much else–

Speaking of Rice, MA summons her first storyline-wise… as an empty shell. They… summon an empty shell? Hmm…… Well, besides that… besides the whole combat ability thing, what’s the difference between empty shells and Food Souls that are born for the first time? My impression is that babby Food Souls are like empty AI who absorb inputs mostly from their MAs and their personalities are essentially shaped by their experiences with their first MAs (of course with individual instinctive differences) much like human babies, except you know, fully grown and able to smash Fallen. 

My point is, are empty shells closer to severe trauma victims, or to new Food Souls? Rice starts developing her own personality, if not independent thoughts, quite quickly in my opinion, so to be honest I was just sort of assuming this more similar to her losing her memory after being reborn… Though admittedly part of that may have been from me assuming the trope of “start the game as a super high level savior of the world -> today’s time you’re the reincarnation of that hero but you don’t remember” (or similar variations).

Besides that… The conditions you gave for becoming an empty shell seem a bit odd to me, because well… looking at most of the Food Soul backstories, basically everyone suffered at least some sort of psychological shock, with notable contestants being Boston Lobster, Peking Duck, Raindrop Cake, B-52, (Pizza?) and probably more that I haven’t read yet… and obviously, the most overtly affected one is Raindrop Cake, which offers many questions. 

Why aren’t these Food Souls also empty shells? What is it about them that caused them to retain both their powers and their ego? Is there an innate difference between some Food Souls to others that allows some to resist becoming empty shells easier? Does it depend on their connections or experiences with their Master Attendants? Is it possible to have empty shells recover to an extent, past regaining personality? If you pump enough spirit energy into an empty shell, will they become a regular Food Soul again?

(raindrop cake backstory spoilers) Using Raindrop Cake as an example, clearly he suffered a severe psychological trauma, and is still deeply suffering from their effects. Was he an empty shell for the long period of time he sat alone in his Master’s house? Maybe… but you’d think then that he wouldn’t be a UR soul at least, right? Rice may be an exception, but she also lost her memory as well– Raindrop Cake clearly didn’t lose his memory, and though this is up for debate, I don’t think he lost his power either. His disability seems like it’s tied more strongly to his mental trauma rather than physical trauma after all, though that’s just my opinion. Perhaps when he suffers the second mental shock at the sight of the dying cat, he was becoming an empty shell? But does that mean you can prevent Food Souls from becoming empty shells as long as you give them some sort of hope (or teach them about love I guess)? Never during his story does the concept of empty shells even comes up though, at least to my knowledge. I feel like this is a bit of a stretch… but anyway, I hope this illustrates my admittedly vague and mysterious point LMAO

As a side note, I’d just like to point out again how people within the Food Fantasy world just take it for granted the role for Food Souls in relation to themselves… “Oh no, my weapon broke. Time to throw it away and summon a new one I guess” :/ Obviously there are more sympathetic MAs but like I said before I’ve seen no indication that any of the humans actually second guesses the status quo… tbh I’m probably just not being charitable here but yanno

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I am sorry I am Late! This day was wild! Heh, so. The second question in line is... your headcanons on summoning (and magic crystals + soul embers). What do you think about nature of contracts? What do you think about the nature of restraint? (We know that Gingerbread failed to disobey direct order while Foie and Boston didn't) Have a good day!

It’s okay!! I mean… this answer is SO LATE… I’m so sorry orz… Anyway! God, summoning huh… This is also very confusing!!!! Which makes me mad!!! LMAO… (Super Food Fantasy spoilers ahead?? Maybe???)

So it seems like contracts can be made in two ways. One: through summoning, which instantly creates a contract automatically between the Master Attendant and the summoned Food Soul. Two: through (presumably) mutual agreement between a contract-less (hence referred to as “free”) Food Soul and a Master Attendant.

In the case of the first method of contracting a Food Soul, there seems to be a further subdivision between summoning a Food Soul who was a free Food Soul from elsewhere on Tierra, and summoning a Food Soul for the first time, causing it to be the first contract the Food Soul experiences and also the method of Food Souls to be created (?) in the first place. The latter type of contract (with the Food Soul’s first MA) shall henceforth be referred to as the “prime” contract.

Now, considering how humans have actually created Food Souls approximately 500 years ago, and considering the fact that you can’t actually control which specific Food Soul is summoned the prime contract “creating” the Food Soul itself is suspect; I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s just a whole warehouse/lab somewhere storing lots of babby Food Souls for the summoning. In that case, the prime contract simply summons the previously inactive Food Soul whereupon they experience for the first time.

But, let’s presume that this isn’t the case and the prime contract causes the formation of a new Food Soul. If that’s so, then the crystals (and later soul embers) have a plausible purpose: provide spirit energy for the formation of the Food Soul. Spirit energy after all is both a Food Soul’s power source and also their life force; once they run out of spiritual energy, they “die”/disappear. Since they disappear when the spirit energy runs out, then it wouldn’t be strange to think that they are formed by something similar to a concentration of spirit energy, which the crystals or soul embers provide. For summons other than prime contracts, the crystals and spirit embers either bolster the Food Soul’s energy levels similar to a sacrifice or offering, or they provide the energy for the transference of the Food Soul from one place to another.

If it’s the case that the way to summon Food Souls is by cooking a food and then using that to summon like some backstories imply, perhaps the addition of a dish to the summoning is what determines whether the contract is a transferring type or a prime contract. This would perhaps explain the difference in the explanations/implications on how some food souls are “born” vs being lab-made weapons simply transferred to a summoner… though it doesn’t explain how this works lmao I have no answers for that 

Now as for the contract itself! It’s…. very confusing how much hold contracts have over the Food Soul, but I believe it has a lot to do with the Food Soul’s mentality. Foie Gras never really respected or thought of her initial MA as a “master”-like figure, as evidenced by her just calling him “guy” and thinking he’s a weak man. And Boston is…. you know. LMAO… However, if you consider Gingerbread, at least in my impression she seemed to think of her MA as someone who “no one could defy or refuse”. She certainly has her own thoughts and ego very separate to what her MA wants, but perhaps she considered him as an existence which she couldn’t break away from or go against, and it is that mentality that chained her actions to his words. Maybe?? 

If this is the case… then perhaps contracts utilize the Food Soul’s own subconscious beliefs as a way to chain them to their MA’s command. Sort of like children, again; even if they don’t have to do as a parent says strictly speaking, they are bound to obedience (or at least grudging acquiescence) from the belief that parents are simply the kinds of existences they must follow, obey and learn from. As children learn and grow, they eventually come to the realization that they aren’t people who’s word is law anymore. I’m not sure I can explain this as clearly as I’d like to, but basically contracts are tied to the mentality of the Food Soul.

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Request! The lovely tea house mistress, Master Attendant @mistress-koicha! <3

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Okay, There were asks about the Nier au. And now, surprise! Your worldbuilding hcs about Tierra and stuff happening here! Would you kindly share some? What are your hcs on Chef's Guild? (i think, it won't be good to send all questions in one ask, it appears that asks with a load of questions packed inmake answering cumbersome (at least based on observations). I hope it's okay if I would send some more in several separate asks.)

Oh boy! LOL yeah feel free to send in more questions! It’ll make it more likely for at least a couple answers to come out faster for you all anyway if you split them into separate asks

Disclaimer first of all, I’m only around level 42 so I don’t know all of the story content that’s been released so far… and also this is a bit more of a rant about how the guild is really REALLY FISHY LMFAO… To be honest I’ve always kind of been suspicious of the Chef’s Guild…. I know it’s like… an anime mobile game story so it’s condensed and Anime Logic Don’t Question It™ but like… IDK… Olivia just kinda shows up!! And is like u should summon a Food Soul and join the chef’s guild!! :) …..basically drafting you into the army

I mean it’s supposed to be similar to an Adventurer’s Guild I believe? But if you think about it, then you’re basically a mercenary playing at being a chef? They’re giving you an illusion of being a chef and restaurant owner but basically you gotta summon your own workers to run the restaurant for you while you go out on subjugation commissions LMFAO… The time between story event arcs must be like at least weeks but honestly… how much do you actually cook in relation to how much u gotta put yourself and your Food Souls in mortal danger??? You just up and leave your restaurant unattended to go on a vacation to Nevras and Sakurajima! I know this is a world in which chefs have the most war potential and therefore they’re placed at a higher standard of societal responsibility but honestly!!! Why would they make the military fighting against the EXTINCTION OF HUMANITY structured like a RAGTAG MERCENARY GUILD??? Why doesn’t each country just systematically train an army of soldier chefs?! In fact, isn’t the existence of these guilds kind of a big internal threat? Wouldn’t you, as the leader of a nation, want something to counteract the power of the guild? It’s not like anyone in the guild is pledging themselves to the country or anything, even IF the guild was under the ruling government! What’s stopping the Guilds from seizing power?! Monarchs have been changed at the hands of lone wandering Food Souls before!

Also… I wouldn’t be surprised if the first Guild’s creation was related to the ones that created Food Souls (BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS… SENTIENT SOLDIERS!!! THAT ANY RANDOM CITIZEN CAN POTENTIALLY SUMMON!!!!!) in the first place. I dunno if the current administration would even know if that was the case though, since the idea of Master Attendants, Food Souls, and their contractual relationship completely permeates societies in this world. It’s taken as Common Sense™ and I highly doubt many people know the truth of how Food Souls came about? Do they even question it tbh? The player doesn’t even question it that much, just accepting Olivia’s explanation for things. Not that I think she’s hiding anything in particular or knows all of the underlying stuff behind everything, though who knows! We have so little knowledge of the NPCs in this universe!! Hell, do we even know anything about Hill except he’s a hermit living in the woods and is maybe one of the extinct elves??? It frustrates me a lot!!!

This game’s lore frustrates me!!!! Give me answers!!!!!! LMFAO

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Why are all of your OCs so awesome... I am almost envying how do you do their design. Whatever. Will you also ever write backstory for your Beverage?

Anon… you’re making me sweat LMAO you sound so passive aggressive uuu I’m a soft snail don’t squish me– Thank you for liking my designs though hehe //// To be honest the positive reception just makes me wanna make like 50 more HAHA….

French 75 was actually a little easier than my other OCs to design because I had a very clear sort of image of him before I started; I had that for Zebul as well, though since I wasn’t following a particular style (just a concept of bones and my own thirst tbh) he took a lot of revision. Don’t even get me started on Fan LMFAO… I really only had Ichi as a good reference for clothing style…

For French 57, I wanted to create a Prohibition Era drink, which meant a design inspired by the 1920′s. Masculine clothing around that time is…. boring LOL so I bedazzled him in feminine clothing instead. General themes for him was smuggling, jazz & swing, roaring 20′s, flappers, etc… I was actually originally going to do Moonshine, but… that’s more of a loose general term for disgusting homebrew (???) rather than a beverage in particular, so…. The point is, snooping around Google for inspiration and seeing what elements you can grab and put together cohesively helps a lot, if that makes sense? idk take everything I say with a grain of salt I’m,,, not a professional artist lmao

ANYWAY… look at me going off on a tangent again smh…. As of this moment, I’m not planning on writing a full backstory thing like with Fan since I’m not planning on roleplaying him (like poor Energy Drink who is sitting in the corner, backstory-less, staring as all of these shady-ass characters are filling in the Snail House), but if you’re interested I have a general outline for it? 

I like the idea of the majority of his subsequent Master Attendants either being part of high society or wealthy crime lords. His first Master Attendant was probably an Educated Lady Of Respectable Origins; someone with strong personality and fierce passion for her ideals. The kind of impressive lady that is a community leader and spearheads the local women’s suffrage movement, not letting anyone (much less a pigheaded man!) tell her what to do. French 75 was understandably extremely impressed by her and really aspired to be like her. After she passed, he fell into a deep grief that he attempted to smother with hedonism. He was eventually picked up by a local Mafia boss, who ended up being the second biggest influence in his life. The boss treated him well and acted as a sort of mentor to him, teaching him about many things (most of which were how to navigate the darker side of society). His first two “partners”, funnily enough, didn’t use him for the purpose he was made for (fighting Fallen) and instead he acted as a companion, bodyguard, etc; another set of eyes, ears, and hands. That really altered his sense of purpose, and perhaps subconsciously, he thinks of himself less like a Food Soul and more like an extremely long-lived human.

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“Of course, baby, this is perfectly legal! Besides, does it really matter if it’s not?”

A classy, confident man who loves the finer things in life and isn’t afraid to show himself off. Perhaps that would be fine by itself, but he also has little care for the law and engages in shady activities quite often. He enjoys swing dancing, electro jazz and flirting with his Master Attendants.

Contrebasse (Normal Skill) French 75 blows cigarette smoke at the closest enemy target, reducing their Defense stat by 3 for 3 seconds.

Artillerie de Paris (Energy Skill) French 75 fires his French 75 mm field gun, raining shrapnel shards on his enemies and dealing 50% damage to all enemies plus silencing all enemies for 4 seconds.

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...Will you write about Nier-verse Zebul?

asgfhgfUGSDIHFGDSHFGHDG– I’m glad you like Zebul enough to want some Nier verse for him HAHA– Nier: Automata spoilers ahead!!!!

You know, Zebul is a lot like… Adam in Eve’s body LMFAO…. considering his fascination with humans and his enjoyment in absorbing knowledge about them. Making him a machine lifeform also fits well with him being a Fallen Angel, aka the antagonist species of the game. B-52 is a machine in this AU too, but… it’s kinda like comparing Adam with Pascal LOL….

Of course, Zebul is probably more suited to be an extra boss than having anything to do with the “main story” as it were. He generally doesn’t get involved in all of the chaos that’s going on? Unless of course he gets interested, but he’s more likely to watch from the sidelines with popcorn than anything.

If he were to generally be an existence similar to Adam, though, then I guess he would maintain the network… But considering his values, he would absolutely find it more compelling to let machines think on their own and develop their own egos rather than simply follow the hivemind so to speak. This probably allows for more Food Souls than B-52 to take the form of machines rather than androids in the verse, though I don’t know what criteria I’d use to categorize them as one or the other.

Actually, it’d be kind of cool if each of the enhanced Fallen Angels were like… administrators of the network? They all exert influence in their own “territories” which determines the machines’ appearances and behaviors. It would also prompt more/different “kingdoms” of machines, like the Forest Kingdom and the Amusement Park. Of course, most of the machine lifeforms are controlled by Uke Mochi, who is essentially the biggest player in the Machine War on the side of the machines. The other Fallen show variances, but are ultimately also anti-android so they basically help out, at least within their own geographic territories.

The machines under Zebul’s administration however… they’re the ones showing the super aberrant behavior, like Jean-Pierre and the machines having existential crises. Not hostile until attacked; interestingly I think B-52 and the community he belongs to might have been under Zebul’s administration too before they cut themselves off the network.

There isn’t really any particular reason to fight Zebul then, besides being an asshole LMAO… and the general machine racism thing going on. He’s probably frustrating to fight anyway– he likes to play around with EM blasts and disrupt all of your systems while dodging here and there. End of the fight he doesn’t even die he like leaves once he’s at half health like lol that was fun bye cute android!!! <3