#essence of magic

[egophiliac]

LEON

LEON YOUR EYEBALLS

[fisheito]

follow the vice captain! grow flowing locks for maximum chivalry and knighthood!

[somepinkthing]

Crowfish AU where sylus first meets rafayel when he breaks into the art studio and forcefully takes his lemurian blood in order to save MC's life. He also takes rafayel to his place in case more is needed. Rafayel eventually does forgive MC for this (easily done as she was passed out and dying at the time) but sylus could not have possibly made a worse first impression.

Turns out, the blood taken was a bit much and sylus has to house a weakened rafayel for a bit. Neither of them are happy about it but sylus agrees for MC's sake. Rafayel doesn't. To his credit, sylus tries to get the injured lemurian to warm up to him since MC clearly holds him in high regard and is furious over the whole ordeal, threatening to cut off their deal if rafayel isn't returned safe and healed. And he miiiight feel a little bad about how this went down after doing some digging into lemurian history. Maybe. His efforts are... poorly received to say the least. But all the same, sylus grows a begrudging respect for the little fish. Not only does he fight like and animal (he slashed sylus's throat just about daily during his stay and no one could ever find out how he kept getting a hold of sharps), but he's incredibly cunning too. In the end, sylus himself had to play nurse after rafayel sent multiple people to the hospital and ducked every guard sylus put him under. He reminded sylus a little of a certain sorceress.

Rafayel is eventually sent home more or less recovered, with their relationship no better than how it started. Out of her own indignation at not even being consulted about sylus's plan and respect to rafayel's upset, MC decides to stay away from sylus for the time being until Rafayel is feeling less hurt. Sylus, realizing that this has set him back leagues in his get-MC-to-trust-me plan, decides he has to MAKE this guy forgive him. And preferably not make him afraid in the process, that would be counter-productive.

So anyways AU where sylus falls first and fast for his (ex?)lover's kinda-boyfriend who wants him dead in a ditch

[hollypies]

Accidently stayed up till three drawing these. I'm so tired... I'm in crackship hell . Get me outta here

[lazylittledragon]

discussion: would gale accept only getting a few decades with his partner because he’s a squishy human OR would he go the lich route a la barry bluejeans

[googlyeyesonmagiccards]

Uhhhhhhhh...who approved this art?

[jiubilant]

compiled headcanons about the staff of magnus (these figure into my rendition of the winterhold questline)

substantiated by canon:

like other aedric and daedric artifacts, the staff is an ada who's taken an inert shape. the psijics count it among the magne-ge and revere it as such

also like other aedric and daedric artifacts, the staff is conscious (in an alien sense, rather than in the same way that a person is conscious) and able to enact its will in the world by choosing who wields it. it can also act volitionally to protect its wielder—or, depending on how it feels about them, harm them—or itself, or anything else that interests it

unsubstantiated, just for fun:

of the ada who helped the god of magic draft the mortal world, the ada who would later manifest as the staff of magnus was most eager about the project and, as a result, rose high in magnus's esteem. taking the form of a staff, a wizard's most valued tool and symbol, is possibly what makes the most sense to it as magnus's former second

whether it never fled the mortal world at all or returned to the mortal world at some point after the terrified flight of magnus and the magne-ge is unclear

its sphere, as a very inconsequential ada who doesn't rival the aedra and daedra in power, seems to be a mixture of "creativity" and "audacious action"

the staff has been sealed underground with morokei by powerful magic ever since he was entombed with it in the merethic era. rumors of the staff being discovered and wielded by various others throughout history are only rumors; whoever retrieves it from bromjunaar in the fourth era is the first to wield it in thousands of years

the staff didn't want to be trapped for eternity as a moldering king's grave-goods and has been seething with rage and frustration all this time. much of morokei's power when he fights the rare interloper who's come to steal his stuff is diverted to bending his own weapon's will so that it won't immediately fly to his opponent

it's distinguishable from staves of mortal make by the fact that it doesn't need to be replenished with soul gems; it's a weak god, but an extremely powerful staff

it changes its shape to better suit or accommodate its wielder and often subtly morphs to reflect its wielder's mood (or its own)

though it seems to be able to understand mortal speech (when it wants to), it's incapable of mortal speech itself, no matter what form it chooses to take. it can make itself understood to other ada, such as dragons and dragonborn, but not to mortals

the number of people—even scholars—who actually know all this information is very small. most wizards regard the staff of magnus as a valuable and dangerous relic, but also just a stick

[sparrownnax]

anyways. thinking about essence users who, after ranking up, lose that scar on their ribs they looked at fondly because it's a remnant of the time spent playing with their younger siblings. that facial quirk their spouse fell in love with disappearing to make them 'perfect'. not recognising themselves in the mirror because their skin hasn't been this smooth since they were a child. essence users who think that getting powers will help their chronic pain, only for it to be replaced by the mana pain. just. like. magic robbing the users of themselves.

[lady-quen]

At least, you hope so.

[fisheito]

portable friend (magic)

[tothepointofinsanity]

Forecast.

[carouselunique]

Yeah, sure why not! Here's a snippet of them I did a few days ago!

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Essence Pulse

"There is nothing so invigorating and stubbornly belligerent as the pure energy of life." —Valentin, Witherbloom dean

Artist: Kieran Yanner TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[pwurrz]

so rei wasn’t an original clan member like quincy or kuya. in fact he explicitly says he didn’t sign a contract but i think we all just forgot? about that?? i know i sure as hell did.

perhaps the person who originally signed huey’s contract was his mother. this would have made sense, considering she was the queen at the time, and she probably entered the contract to protect her kingdom. but she died during childbirth, so rei had to take over for her as the contract honour-er.

rei, ultimately running away from the kingdom, changing his name and starting a new life in a different territory, was very much not honouring his mother’s contract. you could argue he was even going against it in some cases, like when he was working with those scientists that turned out to be extremely fucked up people. thus, his gemstone starting acting up.

i can imagine this only added to his chronic pain, on top of his curse. his hearing probably wasn’t all that great either, if we remember what yakumo said early on about how the part of their body the gem is attached to will start to fail if they refuse to honour their contract. if rei wasn’t already used to constantly being in pain, i’m sure he would have gone back to the kingdom and continued honouring his mother’s contract.

because that’s kind of the point of signing the contract. you get a gemstone in your body that represents huey’s power in exchange for occasionally fixing the altars and doing whatever you/your ancestor said you were going to do, the reason you/your ancestor wanted this power in the first place. if you don’t, and you don’t have someone around to regulate your essence, you’re kinda shit outta luck.

[googlyeyesonmagiccards]

Oh no! My essence!

[buwheal]

I see, so the screwdriver is just for fun?