#in which brain shut up. not everyone will

[gourde]

Oh a Sonic blog I really liked blocked me :( Darn it. As per my last post I must become normaler...

[mumblesplash]

man i’ve had pretty serious art block before in the past but it was always more a lack of inspiration/irl stuff draining all my energy, currently Not having art block but getting hit by my first bout EVER of feeling like i just straight up can’t make anything that’s good enough and oh my god how do people deal with this

[malikselfindulgence]

Sorry for the uptick in system stuff Im lowkey struggling and need to see system positivity posts or I'll explode

[suffercerebral]

me having gone to bed at 6 am every day for the past week and generally spiraling mentally while rotting in bed waking up this morning: a 4 mile hike in the heat is a really good idea right now, and while we're at it let's start like 3 art projects

[nbmudkip]

im CRAAAAZZZYYYY im FUCKING INSANE!!!!!! i’m a cycle path….. HHHHHHHFDRRRRRRRHHHHHGHHHH

[maiaacchiato]

thinking thoughts

[wizardrights]

.

[euclydya]

ok we're back. what the fuck

[panicbones]

im suffering some godawful ssri withdrawal rn cuz i didnt get my meds refilled on time AND my insurance is a cunt who really super fucking hates when i go ANYWHERE that isnt their weeks long processing site so now i have to wait for my doc to adjust shit. so like im trying to go online to look up ways to alleviate the symptoms and what do you know the internet is so useful. haha

[basically-fabulous]

u "don't vote" motherfuckers r stupid as shit

[olli-online]

[dbphantom]

you know if you guys voted for stretch armstrong i probably would have shut up a lot sooner tonight

[byanyan]

byan getting angry, sometimes to the point of violence, when someone tries to diagnose them in any capacity.

[milo-is-rambling]

Me vs outlining a perfect plan for my day in my head which I can be the only one allowed to change the schedule vs my mom asking me to do 2 simple tasks

[cq-studios]

KHUX Christmas Special! (I love holiday KH stories <3)

(For This)

So, this one I tried so hard to make Christmas-y but I kept falling into rabbit holes and going on tangents so it needs more edits (and stuff to be written… I aim to get back to it around Christmas time this year) but I can give you one or two sections I have done for now.

Here are two sections of the fic. I tried to make them so they were only some of the Christmas-y bits so the first part starts in the middle of that particular section and cuts off before it is finished and I don’t have the second part finished past where I left it off here.

I know it seems like a lot for a snippet but this fic is like 10 pages rn and it’s only half written so…

When Ephemer and Skuld reached the Foreteller’s Chambers the door was already open a crack. Ephemer shot his friend a questioning glance.

“Brain must’ve beaten us here,” Skuld told him, with a small shrug. 

He couldn’t say he was surprised, -- he wasn’t sure Brain ever slept -- but the other wielder normally kept the door closed.

Ephemer stepped towards the door, and with a gentle nudge it opened the rest of the way. His eyes widened.

 He and Skuld took their first few steps into the room. White garland was evenly wrapped on every fence. Lux bulbs hung off of them, collecting in the middle of each length and glowing softly in every colour under the sun. When he looked behind him he noticed a wreath on the door and when he shifted his gaze to the ground he saw red ribbon and unlit candles scattered across the floor. He stared at his surroundings in awe.

There were Christmas decorations everywhere!

Definitely not Brain then, he mused. 

Then, somewhat belatedly, he had another realization: it was Christmas time already?

Now that he thought about it, it had been snowing recently, and the days were getting shorter. With all the work and everything he must’ve lost track of time. 

It isn’t Christmas today, is it? Slightly alarmed, he double checked in his head, No, there’s still a few more days to get ready. Thank the Master, he definitely needed the time. He hadn’t even started collecting things for gifts yet.

And if he did forget he wasn’t sure Skuld would ever let him forget it. Especially considering Christmas day was also his birthday.

A nudge from Skuld’s elbow took him out of his thoughts. Ephemer shot her a confused glance and she tilted her head towards the table in the middle of the room. Following her motion, his eyes landed on Ven. The younger wielder was fast asleep on a chair across the room. His arms rested on the table in front of him, pillowing his head.

Had Ven done all this when they were asleep?

“You think he did this last night?” Skuld echoed Ephemer’s thoughts, scanning the room around her for what couldn’t have been the first time. She seemed about as mystified as he was. The room felt so much less brooding with the little lights and bright decorations scattered around. 

He hadn’t even realized he’d found it brooding until it wasn’t.

“Looks like it,” Ephemer’s gaze fell back onto the younger wielder, asleep at the table. He seemed so comfortable. “Should we wake him up?”

Skuld looked over at Ven as well. Her face twisted as she tried to come up with an answer.

Luckily for her, she didn’t have to.

Ven shifted, slowly lifting his head and rubbing his eyes. They must’ve woken him up with their talking, Ephemer realized with a pinch of guilt. 

The younger Union Leader blinked at them groggily a few times, then his eyes lit up. Ephemer watched as all the tiredness left the boy’s body and he leaped out of his chair.

“Do you guys like it?” Ven said excitedly, “I woke up really early to surprise you! I wanted to see your reaction but I- '' he looked down at the floor, his expression turning slightly disappointed as he continued, “I guess I fell asleep”.

“You’ll have a chance to see Brain’s reaction, don’t worry,” Ephemer said, at the same time as Skuld told Ven “You did a great job! It looks incredible!”. Ven perked up again at their encouragement.

As if on cue, Brain strolled through the doorway. He didn’t even look up as he entered the room, choosing to keep staring at the open book he held in front of him.

“My reaction to what?” He asked dryly.

Right before he tripped over a candle.

With amusement, Ephemer watched Brain swiftly catch himself and lower his book to look at the ground. The wielder blinked dumbfoundedly at the candles and ribbon strewn across the floor. 

But the confusion in his face only lasted a moment before his eyes flashed with recognition, “Oh”. 

After scanning the rest of the room quickly, he finally settled his gaze on the Ephemer and the others, “Merry Christmas,” he said flatly. Brain tilted his head down and went back to reading his book. He weaved his way through the mess, eventually settling in the chair Ven had been sleeping in earlier.

_____________________________________________________________

Everything is subject to change but here’s some bits of it

“Christmas is gonna be here soon!”

“Make sure you’re ready, it's almost Christmas!”

“Only three more days ‘til Christmas!”

Brain was never really a big Christmas guy, but he had to admit that watching Ven run around cheerily announcing that it was coming to anyone who dared look at him put a smile on his face. Something about the younger wielder's excitement was almost contagious. Maybe that was why he’d agreed to let Ven help with the Spirits in the first place.

He was low on ingredients, so the first task was going to get what he could at the Marketplace and, if he had to, the Moogle Shop. Anything he couldn’t find, he supposed he’d have to wait for the Dandelions to collect, now that Skuld and Ephemer were on strike. The process would take slightly longer in the short term, but he agreed with Skuld. Since there were more Dandelions, if they were told to look for it eventually he’d have a big enough stockpile that they wouldn’t even need to assign missions for it anymore.

The spirits would be holiday themed this time around, despite his disinterest. Ven throwing decorations all over the Foretellers Room only made him more confident in his decision. The Dandelions were sure to appreciate it.

He already had an idea of what animal he was going to base the spirit off of and how he was going to do it. 

While trying to make Bunstar, he’d accidentally made a head that looked a little like a reindeer, and because of Pigstar he already knew how to make hooves. It shouldn’t take him too many more materials to figure out how to make the rest of a reindeer. 

The only hard part left would be the antlers. But if his theory was correct, all he needed to do was take the Pigstar leg recipe, isolate the ingredients that made up the hooves, then find a way to thin, extend, and style the isolated hooves into the correct shape. 

Since spirits are constructed in pieces, he wouldn’t have to combine it with the head recipe and risk changing an aspect of the face. He should be able to easily attach the antlers onto the head the same way he attached limbs to the body.

As Brain closed in on the Marketplace, Ven returned to his side. The younger wielder scanned all the nearby stands then turned to face him.

“What are we looking for?” The boy asked.

Brain went through the list in his head before replying, “Power, Magic, and Speed gems, if we can find them here, then-”.

“Don’t they have those at the Moogle Shop?” Ven interrupted.

“Yes, but generally, when people sell them here, they’re cheaper,” Brain informed the younger wielder, slowing his pace slightly so he could check for the items more easily. Ven mimicked his movements. While his eyes searched the stands, he continued with his list, “We’ll also need starry sand, icy crystals, luminous moss, electrum ore, burnt coal, broken biscuits, herb vines, and spring water, so keep a lookout for those”.

Ven, who had been quietly repeating and putting up a finger for each item he listed, slowly lowered his hands and tilted his head upwards. The boy stared at him with somewhat hopeless eyes,  “That’s a lot of things to remember”.

“Just look for the starry sand and icy crystals then, they’re what we’ll need the most of”.

Speaking of which.

[swordmaid]

thinking about shri’iia and the part with the crèche …. in her run, I tend to wipe out the crèche for the loot so she is literally raiding and pillaging this place that is used to raise children - what drows are infamous of doing when they come up to the surface actually, then I make her drop the whole sun laser beam on top of it so everyone actually acts like you destroyed the whole place instead of just walking out of it.

and that part is soooooo significant actually, since at that moment for her character, she’s still processing the whole ordeal abt breaking your oath. she hasn’t come to terms with it yet, in fact, she’s in denial about it. like it’s not her reality yet, and she still believes she can regain lolth’s favour somehow. and then she goes into this place filled with people that’s out for her and her companion’s blood so in her head, it’s justified that they kill them. and take their stuff. and wipe the whole thing out of existence. they struck first, they made that mistake so they’ll pay the price for it (which imo lines up well with the drow society mentality where if you were punished for doing something, they think you deserve that punishment since they expect you to get yourself out of that situation before it escalated to that). and she doesn’t see what’s wrong with that. she thought they were in the right! culling the weak, punishing via death, etc. had been so normalised in her society that she literally doesn’t understand why she’s in the wrong. there’s this particular convo you can have afterwards with lae’zel that makes me so sicko yes … yes…!!!!

shri’iia being like the crèche has turned against us, why should I care about them? and lae’zel’s i care. like first of all gagged her a bit second of all I loooove that interaction between them because I always saw shri’iia and lae’zel being a bit similar to each other - they’re both essentially aliens to the surface, both following an evil aligned goddess without question then eventually gets forsaken by said goddess, they’re both relentless but lae’zel does not share the same cruel streak that shri’iia has. shri’iia could not care less about the people in there, but lae’zel does. lae’zel does not know them, and they were ordered to hunt her down but she still recognises them as people and they don’t deserve such a cruel death esp one that came from greed.

and its soo vital for shri’iia to actually be condemned by her actions since that leads her to recognise her own mistakes. and it’s not just condemnation on her own persons, it’s also condemnation on what lolth expects of them and makes them believe because in the end, destroying the crèche and killing all those people gave her nothing. she didn’t benefit from it in any way. she hasn’t regained lolth’s favour, she still broke her oath, she still has the tadpole in her head. it’s just mindless cruelty that amounts to nothing and she eventually recognises that, and it’s sooo important for her to recognise that.

I go on tangents about shri’iia and being an oathbreaker but it is SO vital for her since accepting that title meant that she’s finally (finally!!) accepting her newfound freedom, bc following lolth has never been a choice. they follow her out of fear and for self-preservation bc it’s either that or get killed. and if you do it long enough you start to mistake that fear into genuine love because that’s all you know, and now she’s unlearning all of that. but anyway I love it when characters makes mistakes actually. I think characters should make more mistakes and be condemned by it