Posting VERY old art

Inspired by Femmie on Ao3 from the Psychic Pals series

Here's the specific fic here

Tinkatink PAL 216 and Tinkatuff PAL 217 Illustration Rares, and Tinkaton ex PAL 262 Special Illustration Rare by Tika Matsuno from Scarlet & Violet—Paldea Evolved

no but essek's abnormal behaviours in the last arc and especially in episode 140 are my roman empire. which is ironic because aeor is something of a roman empire itself. but in all seriousness, it was the episode that made me realise i love essek and his development so much and it kinda summarised it even before caleb's epilogue.

and i mean the "it's not fair" scene specifically. it's like, an epitome of his whole character progression from a person who put An Objectively Important Goal above all else without hesitation to someone who can't help but care for people around even more than his goal, no matter how big and relevant it is.

the mighty nein - and he alongside them - pretty much saved the world and freed an ancient city from thousand-year-long suffering. they defeated nine extremely powerful menacing entities who managed to stay out of everyone's sight for years and were so close to achieving their goal and dooming exandria in the process. they did the impossible and became heroes and somehow, they survived, even though they had bidden farewells a couple of hours ago because they had already understood what they had been facing. and nevertheless. they made it.

and none of them was celebrating.

mighty nein are basically essek's only friends. he knew them to be very unusual people, to put it lightly, loud and stubborn and completely inescapable once they consider you to be one of their own. and they showed him so much kindness and put so much faith in him, they were here playing the most atrocious music ever and digging clay in his backyard for a spell they invented just to help one of theirs and asking him if he could bring them pastries the day after they found out he was lying to them and had started a war. they were chaotic and weird and sometimes unbearable but most importantly they were carrying so much hope with them all this time - a hope they could end the war, a hope they could stop the angel of irons cult, a hope they could get better, a hope he could get better, and now, finally, that they could save their lost friend.

and that hope shattered, just like that, the moments after they'd already made the impossible. they saved so many souls - and then could not get back just that one.

for essek "my intentions were never good they were important" thelyss it just. shouldn't have mattered. they won. it could have been worse. people die and when they die they rarely come back. they should've been happy everyone else barely made it alive.

but for some reason, mighty nein being so defeated after they saved the world exposed him to that overwhelming feeling of injustice and unfairness. and i mean, there were many things essek considered to be unfair, but when i watched his first appearance and his interactions with mighty nein later on til their reunion in aeor arc, i wouldn't dare to guess that one of the things on that list would be something that personal. and personal not even to him.

the thing is, essek didn't even know who that guy was. why mighty nein cared about him so much. he had an idea, i guess, that he was their friend once, or someone in that body was. it was also a person who wanted to unleash a terrifying horrific aberration onto the material plane. it was a person very dedicated to killing essek and his friends - and they still didn't take any pleasure in fighting him. essek didn't feel strongly about lucien or molly, because he never knew them.

i don't think he mourned his death and failed resurrection. he mourned mighty nein's hope, the one they put in him when they had no reason to, the one they offered yasha in the cathedral and the one they kept after the spell for veth failed and the one they carried til the very end because they wanted it to reach molly. they had saved people with this hope. they had saved nations. they had saved the world. but they ended up feeling like it hadn't even been worth anything.

how desperate would it feel, witnessing people who for some reason always saw good in you when they absolutely shouldn't, who made literal miracles out of nothing, who ended wars and fought gods and tricked the hags and freed cities from horrors beyond anyone's comprehension purely because they thought it was the right thing to do and also loved their friends this much, silently crying over a dead body they couldn't bring back to life? how desperate would it feel to realise that with all your knowledge about time you dedicated your life to and threw away any principles for, you can't undo this? no one can. some things are left to fate alone and this time it wasn't kind to them. no matter how much good they did, they still got slapped in the face.

and it was, i think, such a genuine moment of empathy. like, essek is the character who prefers to put up a facade and act distant and self-composed but this time he just. walked away unable to watch this. the could only say to fjord that it wasn't fair. even when he was caught off guard in nicodranas he was able to explain himself and his motives to an extent even though he was a nervous wreck whose extra important plan went to hell the second the only people he cared about appeared. this time he had nothing to elaborate on. it just wasn't fair. it wasn't fair his friends didn't get what they wanted the most. it wasn't fair he couldn't do anything to make it right.

it is such a sad and beautiful and even cathartic scene because it is about person who started a war that destroyed so many lives - and then met this ragtag group of weirdos who saw a lonely stand-offish guy and said "hey, let's be friends!" and didn't even wait for him to answer. he saw them being serious and calculated and he saw them being ridiculous and extremely stupid, he saw their mistrust to outsiders and their loyalty to each other, he made spells with them and paid a visit to their hot tub, he ate their stale pastries and drank their hot chocolate mixed with whiskey, he was welcomed amongst them and in their wonderful home, both in xhorhas before they even found out what he had done and in the tower when they already knew - and then, he saw them mourning their loss, defeated and helpless, and he, a person who believed there were things more important than whole nations, let alone just one life, couldn't help but share the pain they felt. a pure display of compassion from someone who detached himself from it, who didn't believe he could grow into a better person capable of it again, but became one nonetheless without even realising it

the sos awl development team really looked at rock and said “even if we could fix him (we can’t) he would never agree to it, carry on king”

From Psychic to Me, Archie’s Pal Jughead #56 (1994).

i keep thinking about the kiddos in the princess luz AU growing up to be in their early-to-mid twenties, getting out of the general crab bucket, and then needing to reckon with Just How Many Mental Illnesses Alla That Gave 'Em. you'd think this would be straightforward angst but. the hunter-luz-amity triad in ANY situation is too funny to make me sad. hunter and luz discover that they both have Debilitating separation anxiety about the other (for... obvious reasons), so they start practicing spending time apart. w/ luz sleeping over with amity while hunter gets to go follow whatever weird whims compel him on any given day. some of these periods of separation are more successful than others, luz in particular is prone to "what if" panic spirals & hunter is prone to an "I HAVE TO INVOLVE MYSELF IN EVERY SITUATION EVER OR IT WILL FALL APART" brand of unhelpfulness. both of them have decided to outsource Mental Health Objectivity to amity, in that they can text "is this crazy of me" and amity will be like "uh. this is beyond crazy of you." amity herself is NOT well-adjusted at ALL but IS so fucking smug about being the Rational And Normal Friend Who's Winning At Mental Health (TM). occasionally she'll be snuggled up with luz listening to her read aloud or something & then amity will text hunter "stop staring at your blank scroll in case you miss a call and go drink some water. asshole," Just to jumpscare him.

0574. Gothita

Misplaced Lunaris

I've seen this one a lot, so... Wynaut?

(Alt/default lunaris color pallette below)

🧪 Which Necromancers would you wanna see fight 1V1? Who wound win?

☺️☺️

🧪 Which Necromancers would you wanna see fight 1V1? Who would win?

I thought about this one for a while, and I think I want to see a no holds barred beatdown between Ianthe and Harrow. It just sounds like a hell of a good time to me. I wouldn't count Ianthe out by any measure whatsoever, but I do think Harrow could overwhelm her with the scale of her construct ability.

I'm still not over poor George in your last Galex chapter! Can I ask for something sweet for Galex?

This is largely inspired by two things: that clip of George being all, "don't tell me you wouldn't be out in the garden on a day like this topless" to Alex about a shirtless pic of his and this photo:

It's easy enough to picture them in Alex's garden during summer break. George is reading through engineering meeting notes on his phone because it's hard for him to turn off being George, even here. Alex's head is on his lap, though, and George cards his fingers through Alex's hair as he scrolls through meeting minutes.

There's no fanfare or poetic sunbeams hitting them in the most opportune angle. It's just them, George and Alex, unhurriedly filling the stillness of the garden with an occasional exchange about their plans for dinner or the latest gossip about Charles.

They don't speak of anything significant. Because maybe, the significance there isn't in what they say, but it's in quiet history they're bound by, and sometimes, words aren't always necessary.

George knows Alex loves him, and Alex knows he's the most important person in George's life.

The Nespresso pod Alex uses in George's flat white changes depending on the day. But them? What they feel for each other? They're as rooted as the poplar tree in the garden that's watched them grow.

Mismagius PAL 212 Illustration Rare by aoki from Scarlet & Violet—Paldea Evolved

when I'm done crying this is going to be so funny and I'm going to make a post about the (really fascinating) biblical connotations of cam/pal's new name and the circumstances under which they took it on

...but I gotta be honest, "paul" sent me on a journey through the five stages of grief and I had not even remotely recovered when tamsyn took my kneecaps out with "sext"

sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry--

From Psychic to Me, Archie's Pal Jughead #56 (1994).

INTRODUCING: ANOTHER SECRET MAGIC SOCIETY MAGIC MAN!!!

HE HAS ACTUAL PSYCHIC POWERS⁉😲😲⁉⁉AND BECAUSE PSYCIC POWERS ARE SO POWERFUL AND MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY DRAINING HE STRUGGLES TO DO HIS MAGIC AND GETS VERY MUCH TIRED EASILY BUT HE DOES HIS BEST TO TEACH IT AND STUDY IT AND USE HIS MAGIC TO HELP OTHERS WAUUGH

i gotta say it now that the poll's done . i think cecil palmer and reigen arataka cld be friends like in the way that you'd envision teenage girls in the 90s calling each other on the landline to bitch about their lives