#porcelain asks

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Aside from money restraints is there anything that stops living porcelains from being working replicas of another monster instead of a human? IE if a porcelain could design a body with no concern for price could they end up with a dogs head and flamethrower to mimic a hellhound or have 4 functioning arms and some sort of acid spray mechanism to imitate a basilisk?

Technically no! A porcelain could be any form and have any ‘attachments’, so to speak, like a flame thrower a la hellhound or a re-fillable poison sac to imitate a basilisk. Porcelains are wildly flexible in what they can actually be, but are limited by the money factor.

If a porcelain was wealthy, they could be anything they wanted. But human molds are cheaper than anything else and so most porcelains appear human at first glance because they can’t afford any other mold.

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Is it possible for porcelains to have bad eyesight and need glasses? Or is wearing glasses purely an aesthetic choice for them?

You know... I don’t think so?

Because a porcelain sees literally through their soul (brings a different meaning to that whole saying ‘eyes are the window to the soul’ huh?) so there are two things that could happen.

Either their glass eyes have gotten foggy and need cleaning--easy to do, not threatening, take your head in for a clean and call it good.

OR

A serious medical problem. I think the only other way a porcelain would get bad eyesight is if their soulstuff goes foggy which is usually a symptom of a number of other maladies ranging from staleness to corruption of the soul (but aren’t necessarily 100% symptoms of any one thing)

So if a porcelain develops bad eyesight it's either a physical body thing or a serious medical issue that needs to be addressed lol--a bit more serious than when an organic develops bad eyesight hmm?

That being said, if a porcelain wants to wear glasses for the aesthetic, go for it! Just make sure to have rubber nose and ear bits or else they’ll slide right off the clay.

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I have another porcelain question (though pls don't feel like you have to answer!!!). It was mentioned that porcelains have artificial stomachs, which I'm assuming are made of clay and have only so much room as they cant really expand. I think you also mentioned or at least hinted that they have voracious appetites as that's the primary way they can sustain themselves? So is the stomache large enough to fill themselves or do they feel constantly hungry without being able to eat until digestion?

Actually, it’s not made of clay!

The porcelain’s stomach, depending on their budget, can be made from a beeswaxed burlap (cheapest option) all the way up to using actual organic animal materials (most expensive but also the porcelain’s inherent magic keeps the flesh ‘alive’ so to speak so it doesn’t decay and therefore lasts the longest).

Most porcelains either have the cheapest option or something in between, going from linen or silk or even repurposing old-fashioned water bladders if they’re really short on a budget.

Essentially the only purpose of a porcelain’s stomach is to hold onto food to be processed at a later time, allowing them to slowly consume it and gain energy throughout the day as opposed to just having energy bursts intermittently, or constantly eating in small amounts. The stomach is really just an internal food storage bin.

Because of the materials they’re made out of and the elasticity glamours, they have an ability to stretch like a normal stomach, but overstuffing is a serious problem that could lead to tears and for food to drop lower in the body than expected. In which case the porcelain would literally have to hunt down lost bits in their body so it doesn’t get jammed in a joint or something (think like dropping something while you’re driving. You don’t want something to get stuck behind the brake pedal).

They would also need to have the stomach removed for repairs before reinstallation. (stomach removal usually means either pulling it out through the mouth or removing an arm to get at it) Most porcelain stomachs are actually located in the chest region as opposed to the abdominal region, closer to the mouth, less material needed, closer to the soul, less energy needed to retrieve stored food, etc.

So a porcelain’s stomach is actually where the heart and lungs of an organic’s would be XD

They can also customize the size of the stomach, though most prefer a compact ‘normal’ sized one as an overly large stomach has the hazard of making the porcelain top-heavy and makes movement feel awkward.

Digestion is entirely an act of will for a porcelain too. It doesn’t happen automatically like it does for non-ephemerals, they choose when to start consuming any stored food products though tbf most will consume the food as they’re ‘eating’ it, the stomach allows them to truly enjoy the social benefit of shared meals and thus helps them feel more a part of the world instead of an anomaly by letting them store it and eat slowly. It takes an organic a couple moments to eat through a cookie, whereas a porcelain could take several minutes to truly ‘eat’ it, the stomach lets them store the cookie to slowly be eaten while still appearing to ‘eat’ around their friends/family/etc.

It does take time to break down food into its magical counterparts so that’s something else the stomach is good for, allowing a porcelain to store food and be ‘bitten off of’ in small amounts. So, technically, when a porcelain is ‘eating’ they’re ‘biting’ the food twice--once through the mimicry of eating with their clay mouth, and again when they actually break it down into their soulstuff ;P

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Sorry if this has been answered before (I looked but couldn't find it), but do porcelains have any other organs? I know a porcelain mc sort of has a stomach to help them get energy from food

Not really no! There are glands for tears and saliva but other than that no real ‘organs’ so to speak.

That being said, one could make a very strong argument that their glamours are their organs--they help them function, they can be damaged, and can fail over time if not taken care of.

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Hey, so you mentioned that Porcelain mc before the new body didn't have a proper stomach and so couldn't digest food. And since mc was constantly looking for stuff to sustain them back then, what exactly did they eat? Did they rip out human or animal souls? Can you rip out plant souls? I know breathing is a passive form of magic consumption, but it seemed like you couldn't get a whole lot from that?

So yeah! Before a proper ‘stomach’, a porcelain can sustain themselves by absorbing latent magic around them, consuming souls, and take a little sustenance from pulling at plant life energy though it's just not going to be the same as a soul (unless they go for an ancient plant form, like an ancient redwood that’s been saturated in the magic of the earth, but this is taboo in many cultures)

They can also gain sustenance consensually from friends--porcelains aren’t far off from vampires, to be honest, feeding on the force of another being. Ghosts can easily offer bits of their soul without too many repercussions to a hungry porcelain and other species can too but organics will feel worse for it than ephemerals.

Porcelains in smaller bodies don’t need much to sustain themselves but do burn quicker so they don’t need to eat much but they do need to eat often.

Flip side for larger porcelains, they don’t need to eat very often, but when they do they need to find a magical source that is large enough to sustain them.

This is why you’d find smaller porcelains hanging around places of large population--carnivals, festivals, taverns during the night, because they can feed passively from the latent magic given off by organics. On the opposite side, they can do this too from places like graveyards--wherever there are a lot of souls they can manage. Breathing can work fine as magic consumption for smaller porcelains in these kinds of populated areas, but for larger porcelains, it’d be more the equivalent of a snack.

Porcelains in the country have a harder time of things and would have to rely on the more difficult and unfulfilling process of pulling magic from plant life or stealing soulstuff from unsuspecting organics. It’s generally considered fine to consume latent magic left behind but much less so taking directly from the source :’D

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what do the ros actually like. think of a stained glass porcelain? if that makes sense?? like it must be such a unique and eye catching thing and all so I'm guessing they'd have done thoughts? idk if this makes sense it's just that my stained glass porcelain mc lives in my head rent free 24/7 so. yeah

(this is the worded odd one, if I’m understanding correctly you’re just wondering what the ros think of a stained glass porcelain right?)

I think when it comes to meeting someone of a species/aesthetic they’re not familiar with, the general politeness is to not mention it XD

I can see Nico being secretly fascinated (lbr they’re probably intimately curious about all the species that’s just how their brain is, they’re always wondering how things work, from machines to people) but they’re also WORRIED as soon as they find out that it’s actually a huge weakness to your system, all that stained glass is a) fragile and b) leaks magic easily so they’re just!!! Why!! Yes you’re very pretty (no I didn’t say that out loud idk what you’re talking about) but its also incredibly risky and they’re in no position to say whether they approve or not bc they’re not that kind of person but they are going to just be Worried and packs snacks for the road.

The rest aren’t going to be as, well, medical about it XD

Fatima is fascinated and would love to watch your soulstuff light up the glass if you’d be comfortable with it. She’d coo that you’re beautiful and make a mental checklist of making sure you never get thrown into the thick of things in combat like you had with that rougarou.

Isla thinks the glass is nice to look at but is also used to people looking at them for the aesthetics and so doesn’t make a habit of it after the first observation. Lowkey interested in the mechanics because porcelains are just??? So different?? Like at least with basis and hellhounds everyone else has a similar base to go off of but porcelains are just a wild card.

Danny is highkey fascinated and will probably immediately compliment a stained glass porcelain (lbr though, they’re probably complementing every species and sub-species for different reasons) but also will highkey Worry soon as they figure out that it was a choice that risked your structural integrity and will pack you snacks >:(

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I know you've talked abt porcelains and alcohol before, but I was curious about porcelains and drugs, if drugs work similarly to alcohol or not, or if theres certain paraphernalia that affects their soulstuff differently

Hmmmm I feel like drugs have the potential to be more reactive than alcohol? The premise is the same but I feel like certain drugs, especially those already mixed with magic or those designed specifically for porcelains, tend to cause a chain reaction in the soulstuff of just frenetic distraction, allowing the drug to do it’s thing while the soul focuses on breaking down the magic substance/dealing with what it considers an intrusion (think more like the immune response, the soul immediately reacts to something in the drug it sees as an imposter and so ‘attacks’ it while the actual drug substance slips on by to wreck the place)

funsies drugs have been designed for porcelains using this know how, medical drugs have actually developed using this technique as well bc before someone in the funsies drug industry cracked it medical drugs didn’t work as well on porcelains. Not that they need much in terms of medical drugs but there have been needs, sedation, and aids for certain ephemeral illnesses.

And I just laughed at the idea of a ghost being taken in for some kind of medical treatment because you wouldn’t need to find a vein to introduce the drug into their system just throw it at them XDDD

So, in short, I think drugs are a trickier and more volatile substance for ephemerals than alcohol is, depending on the composite of that particular drug.

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So, my older brother collects "unique"/(odd as balls) porcelain dolls and I told him about S&V and Porcelains. Long story short, he got so excited it triggered his asma and gave the poor workers at Five Guys a panic attack. Anyway, I'm not sure if it's been asked before but he had a question; does the type of magic/soulstuff absorbed by a Porcelain affect it's personality? Or do they naturally/gradually gain individuality like any other person as time goes on?

LOL Oh no!! I hope he’s okay!! So, yes and no, bc porcelains can wake up with some memories from the souls they’ve absorbed but they’re never very clear but can influence how a porcelain develops, especially if there’s a dominant soul that has made them like if a doll was owned by one child for years and years and years they’d have most of that child’s soulstuff to account for their creation.

so porcelains who have much more different souls interacting with them will be less likely to hold onto any memories at all let alone flavor.

For the most part though, porcelains are born as blank slates though personality ofc develops very quickly based on their experiences in the world.

A porcelain with a dominant soul influence is no more likely to be influenced by it than a porcelain with no dominant soul influence unless they choose to listen to its influence and allow it to shape who they are.