This is a full list of my completed and active fics published to AO3.
My Profile is Here.
Format is Title - Words/Fandom - main ship
For Fics in progress, words will be expected words, so I do not have to continuously update this post.
Completed Long and Mid Fics
A Striking Resemblance - 150k/BG3 - A!A/OC
Back on the Bus- 21k/BG3 - Astarion/Wyll
Taters - 57k/BG3 - Astarion/Shadowheart/Karlach
A Home in the Darkness - 39k/BG3 - (Tater's Sequel)
True Love's Kiss - 44k/BG3 - A!A/OC , past Astarion/Karlach
Long Fics In Progress
The Price We Pay - 100k+/BG3 - A!A/Tav, past Gale/Tav
Twelve Days of Debauchery - 70k/BG3 - A!A/Lord Byron (prequel to A Striking Resemblance)
In Memoriam - 60k/BG3 - God Gale/Durge, Astarion/Durge
Threadbare - 600k/BG3 - Astarion/Named Tav
Unbidden and Ill-Begot - 50k/BG3 - Gale/OC
One Shots
A Dark and Stormy Night - Gale/Tav, Astarion/Tav
Gale and Astarion are in love with Tav, they jerk off about it.
A Decadent Discourse - Astarion/Lord Byron
Three Months of Courtship by Letters
Felicitations and Whatnot - Gale/Astarion
Post-Canon, Gale throws his friend whom he is definitely not in love with a birthday party. Astarion attends even though he is not in love either.
Something Old, Something New - Astarion/Jaheira
A 10x100 fic, how after the brain fell, they fell despite themselves.
Reclamation and Reverence - Astarion/Named Tav
Astarion rediscovers pleasure after seeing Tav in his shirt.
Toddler Fight Club - Astarion & Lae'zel & Minthara
What if these three opened a daycare postcanon?
What? Like it's Hard? - Astarion/OC, Astarion/OC
Astarion as Elle Woods in his precanon law school days
Words, Words, Words - Gale/Astarion
The line between hate and fucking is non-existant if you cross it.
You Can't Spell Coquette Without A Coq - A!A/Lord Byron
A!A was yeeted to Earth after the brain, 200 years later, he walks into a poetry reading and falls for rakish young man. (Prequel to Twelve Days of Debauchery)
Y’all come through the gate into a crush of people. Huddles of people with a bag or two pressed up against the wall. Gaggles of them camped out or sleeping underneath stands and wagons and any scrap of overhang they can find. One shoved up underneath a dead shrub.
Scraggly gangs of kids run along, playing as kids always do, bless their hearts.
Wesa squirms. Grunts “tribe” and you set her down.
“Thanks,” you say.
The air around her small, rounded ears shimmers as her actual ones do something complicated.
Better dressed people, with straighter postures and a “job to do” sorta vibe walk around. Residents, you guess.
And everywhere, once you get to looking, fisters in their uniforms.
“Stay close,” Gale says. He don’t even need to.
Y’all move in and you immediately catch snippets.
“They’re coming back.”
“Regroup.”
“Barely staved them off, last time—”
“I know the stories were exaggerating. An army of goblins? Preposterous.”
You pause at that last one. A woman, dressed better than the refugees. They stand next to some kinda, it’s gotta be a washing well. A wide pool set in bricks, a trickle of silver water tinkling in from a tiny spigot in a stone post. A couple other woman sit on the little wall, dunking wet clothes, beating them with a wooden paddle.
“No drow would ever come to the surface to march with humans, much less the lower races,” another woman says.
You know an in when you see one. You edge in close to the line. Scoop up some water in two hands and scrub your face with it, flicking the excess into the dirt. “My husband and I saw them. A few days back. Looked like rabble out to steal chickens.”
The women glance to you. The assessment is quick: your clothes are sturdy, if worn, but the embroidery is nice and you look very well fed. Beside you fidgets a little doll of a girl without so much as a scraped shin or chipped tooth.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Preposterous says. A cautious joining into the fold. “It’s a raiding band, nothing more. This whole ‘cult’ business is just overblown country bumpkins trying to come to the city to eat our scraps.”
“Then why’d they send the Steel Watch?” Orange Skirt, next to her says.
“So the rabble rousers could see what they were trying to provoke. It’s for our own safety. Put a little fear into those wretches.”
“It sounded terrible,” a third woman says. Her hair is coiled into a cap of braids sewn into place with white, linen strips. Her dark eyes flit, her gaze unsteady on any one thing too long.
“Of course it did, my dear,” Preposterous says. “These things are always awful. But without the Watch, I dare say every filthy bandit would have gotten in here.”
There’s heads on spears out lining the road. You wonder if that woman—or any of them, really—have been out to see it. The bodies. The burning pits. You can smell it, even in here. A thin coat of gray ash covers the roofs and walls and cloth awnings.
“Has anyone even seen Ravengard, recently?”
“The Mouth says it’s illness.”
“Some illness.” The tone implying something far worse.
But that name. Wyll’s dad, right? Unless he’s got other, prominent family in here?
“You think the archduke would have let those bandits in here?” you say, stepping out on some thin ice. Hoping to fuck it don’t give way beneath you. You’re using your best northern accent. Dirt potion translates your actual one, somehow, and you don’t want to risk magic bullshit making you sound like a hick. Not on your first mission back out.
“Archduke Ravengard is a coward.” The last woman has been watching the whole thing while beating the shit outta a tunic. “He’s gotten weak. Too many kickbacks from the patriars. His flaming shits would’ve let us all burn just to sell off the land.”
Oh. Kay. There’s some hostility there. Familiar hostility. That is an opening.
But Preposterous cuts in. “That’s why we all have to thank Lord Gortash. He saw we needed help and he stepped in to protect us.”
Gortash. That name is familiar. Something hazy you don’t want to think about. Something in that fucking shithole underneath them towers, that horrible confidence that you had to shoot your friends to keep them safe from themselves. You was plotting out how to do it, how to manipulate it, and y’all saw three people out by the hell pit (that held a god of death, this fucking place). And a voice burning with rage and blue fire, the sheer hatred rolling off her tongue over that name.
Beside you, Gale is on alert. His smile is easy and warm as ever, but his eyes go sharp.
“I think I’ve heard of him,” you say.
This gets you a couple looks. Doubting your place among the fold.
“We’ve been with my husband’s family out in the country,” you say. “We just got back to visit my sister.”
“It’s important to get the little ones some fresh air now and then,” Orange skirt says. “What’s your name, sweetling?”
“Tribe,” Wesa says.
“Elsa,” you say, because you panic. Look down at Wesa who’s definitely getting bite-happy. “She’s on a phase.”
They way they blink at you. “Phase” don’t seem to be translating.
“And she’s shy.”
That one goes down better. Orange skirt gives her an only slightly puzzled smile. “Well, don’t you worry about that. She’ll get over it soon enough with the right company. A face like that, and her parents will be beating back suitors with a stick.”
“If she doesn’t beat them first, I’d imagine,” Gale says.
To which Wesa grins and clicks her teeth.
“Lord Gortash,” you say. Place your whole bet on the table. “I’ve heard fantastic things about him.”
Like the way he sold Karlach to hell and she’d like to rip his head off very, very literally.
“They should make him archduke,” Preposterous says.
To which Braids bites her lip. Looks down. Too obvious, because it’s like saying “ball” in front of a retriever dog and snags the attention of everybody.
“I,” she says. Fiddles with a long stocking halfway dangling in the water. “It’s only. Probably nothing.”
Poor thing wants to bolt. But Preposterous and Orange Skirt done scented blood, and even Grudge looks to her. Frowning, but looking.
“It’s my cousin. The one married to a cobbler. Some of the patriars have been coming to his husband’s shop since that party I told you about last year? I, probably shouldn’t be saying anything.”
“We’re talking about family,” Preposterous says. “There’s no harm in that. What of your cousin and his husband? Their health is still good?”
“Oh yes, of course. It’s…”
Behind y’all, somebody shouts. A kid streaks off, weaving into the crowd as a man at a stall hollers after them. The group of fisters nearby barely glance their way.
“They’ve been working several orders,” Braids says. “All rush jobs, came in last tenday.”
“The patriar’s shoes?” Orange Skirt says. “They always want things. Is that all?”
Braids shrugs.
But Grudge’s eyes are narrowed. She accidentally meets your gaze and startles. Drops it to focus on her washing.
“Well, the pointed toe is going out of fashion,” Preposterous says. “Have you seen Gistaen’s new pair? The square shape suits her feet much better, and she does need that.”
You and Gale detach. Stroll up the street a bit and disappear yourselves into the crowds. A tug on your left pocket, and Wesa stuffs something inside. A single, white stocking. When…?
“Tribe,” she says and smiles. Pats your pocket.
Right.
“What are you thinking?” Gale says. “Your face. You wear that expression when you’re working through a problem.”
Oh, well. Now your ears are warming.
“We got something in my country we call the Pentagon Pizza Index. Pentagon is the big, military headquarters in the capital. People note when there’s a bit uptick in the food delivery orders. Means more people there staying past when they go home to eat. Usually means something’s going down.”
The last part also don’t seem to translate right, so you explain it.
When you do, Gale nods slowly. “That level of communication in your world is extraordinary. It must make any military actions difficult.”
It’s a whole new form of warfare. Or avoiding it.
“But it’s a fair point,” he says. “Something has stirred the patriars to action. And for shoes.”
“They got a shindig coming up? Shindig is a party.” Gale really does love Earthian vocabulary. It’s still funny to hear him murmuring with your accent.
“I’ll be using that one, I believe,” he says after muttering it a couple times. Then, “But to the point, there are no festivals I can think of in this region in the next few tendays. No gods days, either.”
“Victory party?” you say. Then interrupt yourself, “The order came in last week, Tenday, I mean. Before the army got here.”
Something already planned. An answer, right there, taking shape in your mind.
If you’ve given your OC a birthdate (or even an approximation), look up their astrology and tell me how alike or different they are from their sign. If you haven’t given them a birthdate, tell me what zodiac sign you think they’d be and why! And heck, if you feel like it, throw in some fanfic, VP, or art.
No one tagged me, but this looked fun. Especially because I gave Nora an exact birthdate, time, and location.
Disclaimer: I am neither a believer in nor a practitioner of zodiac charts, and may have gotten things wrong. I did my best through the use of reddit, an old book I had still from a brief flirtation with witchy things as a teenager, and calling a friend who is super into divination.
A warning: there are a few small spoilers in here for Threadbare. You will probably forget them long before those chapters are published, but YMMV.
Nora, or Ailionora Lathanyll Feyre, her full legal name, was born as the sun crossed the horizon over Keystone, West Virginia, on February 13, 1976.
Sun Sign and Rising Sign in Aquarius
Having a Sun sign and Rising sign aligned indicates a person who is almost incapable of hiding their true personality. In addition, because she was born at sunrise, her sun sign should be the dominant force in her zodiac.
With both signs in Aquarius, she would be expected to be a highly independent, forward-thinking, and intellectually curious leader, with a bent towards humanitarian causes and a drive towards the greater good.
And we do see this in her, despite her murderous tendencies.
She joined the army, but as a medic, she repeatedly ended up working in refugee camps. Later, she becomes a middle school teacher in an underserved community. In Faerun, she shows this by showing compassion whenever she feels she can without endangering her group.
I won't spoil things, but we also will see this in a big way in the later parts of Threadbare.
Later on, Nora will be revealed to have Elven ears after a greater restoration spell regrows the "deformity" that was removed when she was a baby.
Moon Sign in Leo
The Moon was in the exact opposite sign of the zodiac. This is fascinating dynamic: a mind and outward persona (Aquarius) are detached, logical, and focused on the collective, and an emotional inner world desperate for recognition, passion, and personal spotlight.
A person who projects cold, analytical leadership, fighting against a prideful passion, constantly in opposition with themselves.
I'd say Nora embodies this 110%.
She struggles with being quick to rage. Some of it is her PTSD, but she's always had a profound sensitivity to injustice that reveals itself in the urge to do violence to those she perceives as perpetrators.
In addition, she keeps herself at a distance from people, preferring casual sex to relationships, refusing to even form deep friendships with others. But when someone worms their way in? She's an absolute ride or die.
Would burn the world, would hide the body, will ride off that cliff hand in hand without blinking. Which is exactly why she's so terrified of falling for someone like Astarion.
Mercury & Saturn in Aquarius
Mercury in Aquarius creates a mind that is sharp, original, and highly communicative.
Saturn also being in Aquarius adds to that discipline, focus, and the ability to create structure.
This combination creates a dreamer who can turn dreams into reality.
And we will see that in Act 2 of Threadbare, when Nora builds a real, functional army out of the ragtag groups of refugees at Last Light Inn and takes on the title General Lathanyll.
Mars in Scorpio
Scorpio is the sign that traditionally ruled by Mars. Having it here means that the traits are going to be prominent features.
This person would be expected to have intense drive, profound emotional depth, and relentless stamina. Implacable might be a word others apply to them. Once they've decided on a course of action, neither Heaven nor Hell could stop them.
Yeah. That 100% tracks with our girl. After all, when her ex-fiance was brain-damaged by an army experiment, she turned into a serial killer, and killed every single last person who'd been involved, though it took eight years of her life.
What does all of this mean in terms of the story?
I'm actually fascinated by this because I picked her birthday, location, and time for reasons totally unrelated to astrology. I actually had to do a lot of research for this. I know, "research," but still.
The main theme of Threadbare is all about autonomy.
Nora has had hers violated time and time again. Starting with her conception. She was deliberately made, at a specific time and place, for a purpose she never agreed to. As mentioned above, at birth, her ears were surgically altered, their points viewed as a deformity.
She was trafficked by her own mother as a child. Then, in the army, she lived again with limited bodily autonomy. Later, she ended up in sex work to support her brain-damaged fiance, where her autonomy was violated again and again.
In Faerun, a tadpole was put into her brain against her will. She is "restored" to her Elven body without her knowledge, understanding, or consent.
Then, we look at her chart:
This chart reveals that autonomy is not just a preference for Nora—it is a core psychological necessity and the very foundation of her identity.
ie, everything that happened above, according to her zodiac, is a psychological wound that has fractured her understanding of herself.
And damn if we don't see it - an excerpt from the WIP of Chapter 40.
Infatuation was a hell of a drug. Still, she knew what this was. and what this wasn't.
The beads of sweat running down her back had long since dried in the breeze, a slight shiver replacing them. Damn. For the first time she could remember since Crash, she was hoping for something sweet. To talk after. Real intimacy. But the chill would cut things short.
Tomorrow? Tomorrow would bring a cure. And with it, he'd be leaving. A goodbye. She might see him again. Or not. Either way, she'd keep her word and someday kill his enslaver.
But first there would be the long slog of rebuilding her life.
She took a breath, letting the thoughts go. Instead, she considered what she wanted out of tonight. All of their encounters had been laced with violence and her submission, her usual oeuvre. Letting someone punish the feelings out of her before they could drive her to madness. And he was so, so good at it. Astarion would guide tonight much the same way if she let him.
But if this was to be the last night they were together, she wished… well, she needed more. Things he'd been clear he wasn't interested in. Things she'd sworn she had no desire for.
Jesus. This was the crux of it. Shit like love wasn't for people like her, people who'd been shattered and glued back together so many times there might not even be a person left in that mess. When he called her ruined, he had no idea that it weren't sex she was ruined for.
The Summary:
1. Autonomy as a Core Identity (Sun and Ascendant in Aquarius)
With a Double Aquarius sunrise alignment, Nora is hardwired to resist conformity.
The Sovereign Self: She has an innate need to think, act, and exist outside the box. She cannot tolerate being told how to live, what to believe, or how to behave.
Authenticity Over Approval: She would rather be misunderstood or stand completely alone than compromise her intellectual or personal freedom. For her, submitting to someone else's rigid rules feels like psychological suffocation.
2. The Mental Need for Spacing (Mars and Mercury)
Nora's mental and action-oriented planets reinforce this craving for breathing room.
Mercury in Aquarius: Her mind requires absolute intellectual autonomy. She needs the freedom to explore unconventional ideas, challenge dogmas, and come to her own logical conclusions without censorship.
Mars in Gemini: This placement creates a need for behavioral variety and flexibility. She hates feeling trapped in a rigid, unyielding routine.
3. The Paradox: The Craving for Safety (Moon-Saturn in Cancer)
While Nora's conscious mind demands absolute independence, her subconscious emotional world (Moon conjunct Saturn in Cancer) introduces a contradiction.
The Fear of Total Isolation: Complete detachment terrifies her on a primal level. While she fights fiercely for her autonomy, she deeply craves emotional safety, a stable home, and a protective inner circle.
Things that Nora hasn't had since she was 12 years old.
The Control Mechanism: To balance this, she often uses her autonomy as a protective shield. She stays intensely independent because she is terrified of becoming vulnerable or depending on someone who will only let her down. For Nora, staying autonomous is a way to ensure they never get hurt.
How it Manifests in Daily Life
In relationships and career, Nora will never thrive under micromanagement or possessive partners. She views true intimacy not as a surrender of freedom, but as a partnership between two entirely independent, self-governing equals.
Nora demands connections where she can say, "I am entirely my own person, but I choose to stand next to you."
Tagging some folks I think that might have fun with this:
@optimisticgrey @missfortunetherogue @hermetic-principles
New chapter live on AO3. Click the render for the link.
Excerpt:
“What is that?” Astarion asked sharply. His eyes had wandered to a small table opposite his father’s desk – the one that used to have the brandy and other spirits. There sat one singular candle. It was not ornate, nor grand, merely a white taper candle, thicker than the ones he’d seen in the sconces along the corridors or those that had been prepared in his room. The candle was seated in a brass holder, nothing extraordinary, in fact Astarion could’ve sworn it was the very holder his father used to light the stubs in when melting wax for sealing. What sat behind it, however, stole breath his dead lungs did not possess. A portrait of a young man dressed in fine magisterial robes – a deep blue vest, the black velveteen coat, the perfectly starched jabot around his neck. He knew the one, he remembered sitting for it, remembered how smug his expression had been, how Amaris had teased him, how his mother had smiled when the limner had delivered it to the estate a tenday after his sitting. The pale elf took a step closer.
“Oh, Starshine, that is precisely what I had intended to show you.” His mother said as she rose gracefully to her full height, half a head below her son, just as he’d remembered. “Your father, my love, he set that up…the morning we found you."
“Gods below…” Astarion whispered. “Blue. Gods. My eyes – Mama – my eyes were blue.” A hand pressed to his face then to the corresponding plane on the painting.
“Yes, darling, of course. Blue as the sea.” She stood next to him and placed one graceful hand on his shoulder. “Darling, don’t tell me-”
“I’d forgotten” her dead son laughed. “I had…truly forgotten…my gods…”
Render of Magistrate Astarion by me, with help in editing it to look like an oil painting by the delightful @thesanguinesonnet. Thank u motherrrrrr.
An unedited version of the render below the cut, just so you can see the details and how Alivestarion looks in my mind.
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)
I scheduled this in 2025 to give you all a week to make Moon Day Monday preparations! I think I will order a little rocket cake or bake some moon phase cookies!
Moon Day is a fantastic holiday. Secular. Celebrates someone actually doing something. Is about coming together for a common goal. Immediate theming potential.
Downside is it being in July which is when it is much too hot for outside activity here, but on the upside, if people decide to moon others to celebrate Moon Day, they won't freeze their asses off, soooo...
All in all 9.5/10 idea.
Doing this again, now that I've completed a longfic!
Thanks for creating this awesome questionaire @njuta! Attached here is the og link for anyone who wants to check out the template: longfic author interview template
The Fic: A Striking Resemblance
It's March of 2020. With the pandemic locking down people all over the world, Astarion Ancunin has a problem. It's awfully hard to charm people into sharing a bite when you can't get within six feet of a stranger. Luckily, he's thought of a solution - hire a live-in blood donor.
Things are going swimmingly. He does a few interviews and finds a perfectly suitable candidate. And then she walks through his door.
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Pairing: Astarion/ Octavia Martin(Reincarnated Tav)
Characters: Astarion, Octavia Martin (Tav), Raphael, Haarlep, Original Characters
Completion: Complete. A sequel is coming soon.
Words: Just under 150,000
Plot Summary
400 years ago, Astarion was kidnapped and met the love of his life. For 36 glorious days, he lived and fought by her side, falling in love. And then, Shadowheart sacrificed her to Shar in the Gauntlet. The tadfools fell apart, and at the final battle, Gale unleashed the orb, destroying the brain, and somehow dropping an Ascended Astarion into a partially finished courthouse in Elizabethan London, with no way to get home.
He lived. He thrived, even, finding a way to hide his immortality, taking on fake names, "dying," and inheriting his wealth from himself every few decades.
Life continued. Boredom grew. He had loves, and losses, but he never, ever forgot his lost first love. The woman who had saved him when he had nothing at all to offer her in return.
And then another plague came, and a woman with a striking resemblance to his beloved Tavriel walked into his office.
The Vibes
This is unapologetically a dark romance with a somewhat naive heroine. At the beginning. But the story is deeper than that. There's lore. There's the fun of a modern AU. Astarion plays DnD. Astarion harasses his very posh British lawyer. But the darkness is never far. A!A here is softened by centuries of loss and weakened powers on a low-magic world, but he still craves violence and control.
And Octavia has to decide if she can accept that.
Their love isn't a given, but something that builds, a connection reformed and rechosen.
Tavriel of Rivington - Fresh from the stage to a Nautiloid to a sunny cliff.
Short Snippet
An Excerpt from Chapter 1
He was already standing this time, having just finished winding the clock he kept in here. It would have been better had he been sitting when he saw her.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Ancunin. I’m Octavia Martin.”
The first thing he saw was her eyes. That peculiar shade of blue that was all over this room, all over his life. In the shades of the rug. In the paintings of storms upon oceans. In the shirt that covered him. A blue-gray that was slightly more blue than gray, but steely nonetheless. Then the face that held those eyes appeared and blurred out his mind entirely.
He was standing in the bright light of day, befuddled that he was alive, at the top of an escarpment, desperate and distrusting. There she walked up, side by side with that bitch Shadowheart. Of course, he hadn’t hated the cleric then. She smiled at him, offering to help in that same sweet voice.
He’d pointed, “Over there. One of those brain things. Can you kill it?” He’d said. She’d smiled again, telling him he’d be safe. Ha! He didn’t even know what the word meant then. As she strutted past, he’d grabbed her, pulled a knife up to her neck.
Gods, he missed her. His chest began to ache with a longing he’d forgotten he was capable of.
“Mr. Ancunin?” That sweet voice pulled him back to the present.
“Ah, yes. My apologies, Ms. Martin. I suffer from these episodes from time to time.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Do you need to sit down? Should I go get your assistant?” Her words tumbled out of her. She was adorably flustered. His heart felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest. What was happening to him?!
What other media inspired this fic?
I've long been fascinated with the concept of Elven reincarnation within DnD and how it would work. What would stay the same, what would change, is this person really the same person?
This is the fic where I really dig in and explore those concepts.
Octavia (Tav) Martin / Tavriel of Rivington Inspiration
The character of Octavia was actually formed from Gortash.
Yes. Enver Gortash.
Because like Gortash, Tavriel, the little bard that ended up on the nautiloid and Astarion fell in love with, was the price of her mother's failure to deliver on a contract with Raphael.
But unlike Gortash, who was "raised" by Raphael, Tav ends up raised by Haarlep. It's at first a punishment Raphael gives the incubus, raising this irritating, tiny elfling. But Haarlep takes advantage of the situation to create a ally for themself within the House of Hope, teaching her everything they know about the Hells, about spycraft and infernal law.
Tav's Childhood in the House of Hope
First and foremost, I owe a ton of her backstory inspiration to @tavyliasin's Scent of Cinnamon series, especially Haarlep and Raphael's relationship and how things work in the House of Hope.
I am actually writing a fic about her childhood in the Hells called Verum Nomen.
A tiny snip of Verum Nomen (WIP, not on AO3)
A burst of laughter, gleeful, rippling, and genuine, tore out of the incubus. In all of their long years in the House of Hope, they'd never seen an occupant so thoroughly defy Raphael and shut him up.
Themself excepted.
Searching for words was not the wont of Raphael, and yet here he was. Wordless. Speechless. Gestureless. His rage waffled between the source of his humiliation in front of him and the Harlot who kept on laughing.
Only the laws of Dis kept him from introducing the tiny spawn to hellfire. The contract stipulated that he could not harm her. A thoughtful mother, Avariel was. Not that thoughtful, though, he smirked, his rage already simmering down.
He would not be pushed by a child into breaking the contract on the very first day. The woman had stipulated that the child could not be harmed by him. It said absolutely nothing about his slaves or agents.
"You find her so amusing, Harlot? She's your responsibility, then. Do keep her alive. I am contractually obligated to return her in excellent condition, should her mother ever get around to fulfilling her obligations."
Raphael dropped his spells, grabbing the girl by the arm and half-tossing her at the incubus, who had taken on a shocked expression.
What were they, of all people, supposed to do with such a task?
The girl's spells dispelled with the toss, putting her back in her body as she sprawled out on the floor before them. They stared at her. A plain-looking girl. Brown hair, big eyes more gray than blue. A smattering of freckles on skin much too pale for such dark hair. Too thin and gangly by far. Cute only due to how tiny she was.
Avernus was going to chew her up and spit her out unless someone did something. Haarlep contemplated something they'd never considered before.
Plenty of others had come through here. Smarter. Stronger. Prettier. But no one had ever shut Raphael up.
With training… what an asset this little fox might make. And she'd be their asset. An asset Raphael wouldn't question them spending time with. Working with. Planning with.
"And where am I to keep it, Master?" They asked, sneering at the child.
The Tropes: Reincarnation, Dark Romance, Historical
My major inspiration for the reincarnation trope and how that plays out is the (in my opinion) highly underrated film Cloud Atlas.
My inspiration for the dark romance aspect of the story is heavily inspired by Twisted Pride by Cora Reilly
And when it comes to the historical aspect of the backstory of Astarion's time on Earth? A backstory that launched it's own separate series involving his brief and wild affair with Lord Byron?
Well, that was inspired by these shows you may have heard of.
What character trait did you amplify or minimise to make your version of a character work for your story?
The most altered character in this story is Ascended Astarion.
I do not wish to rehash the spawn vs ascended debates because it's been overdone, and because I GENUINELY LOVE BOTH ENDINGS.
However, Ascended Astarion in the game isn't a character I could ever see the character of Octavia as I had developed would ever fall for.
But... my Ascended Astarion in this story went through a very different character development than the canon version. And so, I considered what those differences would have resulted in.
This Astarion is PROFOUNDLY affected by Tav's death.
1. Tav dies in Act 2 the same day as Astarion's confession. She's hurt and they argue. She avoids talking to him by heading off to help Shadowheart, and ends up dead.
2. They never discuss the ascension ritual
3. He never gets to tell her he wants something real with her.
4. He blames himself for her death.
When he decides to ascend, his primary motivation is not about revenge, or the sun, or anger. He is focused on survival. The group, consisting only of himself, Wyll, and Gale, have no realistic chance of defeating the brain. They have few allies: Tav was the one who had rallied others. The tieflings die at Moonrise. As do the Ironhands. The Harpers are decimated and Jaheira is dead.
If Tav is to have not died in vain, he has to Ascend. To take the power so he can save the city. Or, at least, he believes this.
Now, in lore, when a vampire becomes a vampire Lord, the curse takes the thing they wanted most and twists it to become their evil motivation. I don't love the idea of all vampires being inherently evil, but I do love the idea of the urges of vampires pushing them into a slow slide away from goodness.
This Astarion goes into that ritual intending to make the world right according to Tav's beliefs. For good or for ill, that becomes his obsession, the thing he's willing to great evil to accomplish.
And then he's booted to Earth.
Where he barely has any of the powers. No summons. No powers over darkness. He can make thralls and spawn, can turn into a bat and mist, can charm and compel people, but all of those things need magic. And magic on Earth is incredibly rare. Bound up in the blood of people and only people.
And he also needs that magic for the curse to keep him "alive."
Back to being essentially a slightly more powerful spawn with sunwalking, in a world he doesn't know, he's forced at the very moment of that triumph of power to work for everything he has. Learn the language. Learn to adapt and overcome.
And he does. Brilliantly. But it changes his entire trajectory.
Art by Vancuninart - find them on Instagram
How did your understanding of the characters change while writing this?
Octavia originally to me was this incredibly lonely, naive girl at the beginning. And that stayed true, but she was so much layered than I imagined. Honest to god, she opened up to me like an onion as I wrote her.
And writing the sequel now I am still discovering more of her, her inner strengths, her wicked sense of humor, the ways in which she had always been these things quietly in the background.
Octavia Martin vs Tavriel of Rivington - The same and yet different.
What’s one thing you put in—trope, character beat, scene—that was just extra shamelessly self-indulgent?
Astarion's Jacobean Country Manor, Arkhenmyr, is a purely self-indulgent exercise. I wanted to give him a chance to have his palace. And I was really feeling Bridgerton at that point.
That self-indulgence directly created the entire Astarion/Lord Byron backstory lol.
I will never be sad for that.
What’s the structural choice you made on purpose—POV, timeline, chaptering—that most shaped the story?
Oh. It was definitely setting it in the pandemic. That shifted all my possibilities. Where they could go, what they could do. It gave limits to a billionaire fantasy trope that otherwise wouldn't exist and made it way more fun.
Have you ever tried working face masks into a romance?
It's all the drama of the restraint required in Regency fiction, honestly.
Which theme emerged accidentally, and which one did you pursue deliberately?
Definitely the theme of choice versus destiny was deliberate.
A snippet from Chapter 22 - The Choices We Made
Hands released hers, pulling her around to face him. Lips were on hers before she could breathe or take in what was happening, a gentle yet crushing kiss. Astarion groaned into her mouth before he pulled back, looking in her eyes with a wild sort of wonder.
"Do you know what that means, then? Truly?"
She reached up and held his chin, giving him a single, gentle kiss first. "That I choose you, Astarion. That you are the only person I will allow to hold that part of me."
He gazed at her with a wide-eyed look that told her it was the answer he'd not let himself hope for. He mouthed a word she recognizes, thiramen. Soulmate. The entire thought turned her tongue sour, and she placed a finger over his lips, shaking her head.
"No!"
It came out sharper than intended with the force of her own anger and Tavriel's combined, and he looked slightly hurt. She moved her hands into his hair, holding his head between them like the precious thing it was.
"The fucking gods don't get to take credit for what we have. Not after all we've suffered at their hands. And if fate chose anything for the two of us, well, we were made to be consumed, weren't we? Both of us to be fed to the Hells for our masters' delight. And yet here we are, the arbiters of our own destiny. This is our victory, and I won't let you give it to anyone else."
Whereas the accidental theme of this work had to with power. Octavia is naturally a bit of a submissive to Astarion's dominance. This isn't a bdsm fic, and while they toy with practices it doesn't delve deep. But it's definitely a theme that wasn't planned.
It's a BIG part of the sequel, though....
What was the biggest risk you took with this fic?
I think for certain, it was choosing to make the Ascension powers a kind of possession by a spirit that Astarion refers to as The Ascendant.
It really works in the story, but I'm sure that there are people who hate it.
In a hypothetical scenario where you are forced to rewrite the whole story from scratch, what would you do differently?
My writing has improved during the last year. I would use fewer adverbs. Change up some of the sentence structure, too. But overall, I'm incredibly proud of how A Striking Resemblance came out and love it enough that the sequel is over 50% complete and currently being beta-read.
Some tags.
The lovely Art Deco-inspired dividers are from @seradika-graphics
Tagging a few lovely people who supported, read, commented on, or inspired A Striking Resemblance. If you left a comment and you aren't here, it's because I don't have your AO3 name tied to your Tumblr.
“A Nether Scroll?” Mystra’s voice is but a breath, her eyes wide. She snatches the tome from Gale’s hands and paces as she turns the pages. “Gale, you cannot give this information to the Unit. If this is indeed one of the lost Nether Scrolls it must remain buried, far from the eyes of mortals.”
“But according to Niri it is already being sought. The thief who stole this book was a Zhent. Surely this scroll is better off locked in Candlekeep than in the hands of the Zhentarim.”
Mystra shakes her head silently, her mouth set in a thin line. “It cannot be brought to light.”
Gale pauses, his mind racing. He cannot keep this information from Niri. Neither his good conscience nor his pride will allow it. There must be a way for him to both aid the Unit and do as his goddess commands.
Chapter 12: Evereska
Nightal 1487
Evereska
The railing of the marble banister is perfectly smooth and cool beneath her palm. The soothing glow of the Blue-leaf trees wanes as the morning approaches. Eliwyn breathes in deep. The air around her carries fresh mountain air and delicate floral notes.
She’s properly clean and generously fed and she even managed to sort out her thoughts in the longest trance she’s had in several years.
Well.
Mostly, her thoughts are sorted.
The fact that entire months have passed on this plane since she crossed into the Feywild still has her boggled. It felt like only a few days had passed, yet Arnadareath informed them upon their arrival that it is now almost halfway through Nightal.
Kelwin, however, is further elated to know for certain that it had not truly been years that he was trapped in the hag’s lair. He said it feels as though decades have been handed back to him. He says this gift of time is yet another blessing from Lathander.
Want to read about Gale and Eliwyn from the beginning? Check out my completed part one of the series here!
Photo banners from Magnific and Stockfresh
Divider from saradika
Tagging according to my boop list! Click here if you want to be booped!
@hollowharp @lolthwoven @glitterandmoondustofficial @emmyandthetieflings @drow-drow-drow @galacticsparkles @mysticxmoonlight @kt-catt @wyfyoyo @chaushaus @unovafarm (sorry I forgot to my tags and your like reminded me!) and @optimisticgrey
Thanks for creating this awesome questionaire @njuta!
This was an amazing exercise to put together and I really loved thinking about these questions.
attached here is the og link for anyone who wants to check out the template: longfic author interview template
The fic: Threadbare
When two souls are destined to be together, they are connected by an invisible thread. No matter the time, place, or situation, this thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break - The Red Thread of Fate
Two survivors, kindred spirits, thrown together by accident -Or was it?
Rating: Explicit (please do mind the tags)
Pairing (Main): Astarion X Original Character (Nora)
Background pairings: Wyll/Karlach, Shadowheart/Lae'zel, Gale/Rolan
Minor/Temporary Pairings: Gale/Nora, Gale/Karlach, Petras/Lady Antilia
Characters: The entire canon cast of BG3 + appearances by Lord Neifion, Corellon Larethian, Lolth, Ellistrae, Vhaeraun, Lady Antilia, Mephistopheles, and expanded roles for Cazador, Ulder Ravengard, Devella Fountainhead, Counselor Florrick, Lady Jannath, Nine Fingers Keene, and more, along with a multitude of original characters.
Completion Status: I am actually rewriting the first version which was 2/3 complete at 437,000 words. The current version is at 191,000 words and updates every other Friday. I fully expect that this story will end up topping 600,000 words.
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Plot Summary
Nora's a 47-year-old woman most recently living in Cleveland, where she teaches math to middle schoolers. While taking the train to Chicago to go help search for her missing ex-fiancé with their army brothers and sisters, she falls asleep, only to wake up in a nightmare.
This is a VERY canon-divergent main story line fic, but based heavily in DnD lore. Loreplay is foreplay, babes.
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The Vibes
While the romance that unfolds between Nora and Astarion is certainly a focal part of the story, I'd argue that the central theme is about the ethics of autonomy, utilizing the concepts of choice versus destiny.
The story is told mainly from Nora and Astarion's POV, changing in different scenes.
Every character in the story faces situations, both large and small, where they have a destiny, or at least an expected outcome, but must ultimately choose the final outcome. The question Threadbare asks is: at what point are we responsible for the outcomes of our choices - especially when you lack full autonomy?
Can you truly love someone destined to be your soulmate? Can you be held accountable for choices you made when your other option was a fate worse than death? Are you responsible for choices you can't even remember making? Or were too young to have the understanding of? Or when the necessary information was kept from you in order to understand the consequences?
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Short snippet - from Chapter 8 - Venn Diagram
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What other media inspired this fic?
It started with the very first BG3 fic I read: Part 2: Broken Bits: A Love Story. (You can start with part 2) by the fabulous MsAditu
Nora - wishing someone would give her a reason to unleash.
But also, Nora herself is a character I designed for a real-world DnD game that was placed in a modern campaign inspired by the urban fantasty of Charles De Lint.
The main BG3 fic that has directly inspired my plot is
@Atsadiwrites fantastic series These Two Shitheads
While the plot hasn't been as much inspired, my prose has been heavily improved and inspired by stories such as @magmethius' Surround Sound, @Tavyliasin's entire body of work, @bloodinwine's Until You, @goodgirlgonebard's Dealbreaker, alcetryx's By Proxy, and probably a thousand more I no longer remember the titles of.
I also have to give an enormous shoutout to the BW3 Writer's Discord Server for being incredibly supportive, with great concrit if you ask for it, and tons of resources and ideas.
My dialogue has been greatly improved by @amischiefofmice's fantastic story Those Left Behind, as well as my understanding of Astarion's inner world in general.
My understanding of the creature part of being a vampire - of the very notion of the undead experience - has been improved by @Raayide's body of work that explores this experience gorgeously, with some of the most lush and disturbing prose I've ever read.
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Other Inspirations
On fighting and battles: The medieval swordfighting classes I've taken at Forenza Fitness in Chicago (highly highly recommend) helped me a lot with understanding the physicality of both fighting with blades as well as some of the experiences of battle.
As a middle aged, large women in middling shape, I can confirm this was a workout experience I not only enjoyed, but thrived in.
Another helpful experience were the 15 years I spent commuting by train to the city of Chicago, and fighting through Union Station during rush hour. I stand on business that it isn't far from the crush of a battle.
Seriously - this was my life twice a day for FIFTEEN years.
Some other things that have informed the story:
My maternal ancestors' stories and tales of living in Appalachia, going back to the 1600s, passed down through generations of women trying to build strong women, which informed my understanding of Nora's childhood, being raised by her elderly grandmother.
A house similar to the historic cabin that Nora grew up in. Note the outhouse in the yard. These cabins weren't well insulated, and the upstairs sleeping areas had no windows.
The town of Keystone, WV. Nora's hometown and not so different from the small towns my ancestors lived in.
My own experiences with serious hikes, hunting, butchering, and backwoods camping. My special interests in linguistics, emergency medicine, airplane crashes, and true crime. My friends' special interests in mathematics, cryptography, and their lived experiences in the military.
And, of course, I've done a ton of research trying to make this story as real as I could.
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What character trait did you amplify or minimize to make your version of a character work for your story?
For Astarion's character, I minimized his self-awareness, a little. He lies to himself so constantly, for so long, that I feel like he'd be a little less self aware than he comes off in the main story sometimes.
In addition, because I so greatly lengthened the timeline of their journey and the story - taking it almost a year from start to finish - His growth arc is both stretched and heightened. He is much further along by act 2 than in the game, but he also keeps that edge from Act 1 for far longer, often making downright cruel choices for seemingly no reason (there's a reason, there's ALWAYS a reason, but those reasons require you to really get in his head.)
I also fleshed out some of the vagueness of his time in the palace, which I think necessarily informed his character in ways that are changes to the game.
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How did your understanding of the characters change while writing this?
Well, I'm rewriting the entire story lol so many things changed.
Nora is a lot quieter and more reserved than I wrote her the first time. She still has that loud, brash soldier inside of her, but she hides it from those she doesn't have that kind of trust of life or death with. It takes her a while to get to that place in the rewrite, which necessarily altered the early story.
She's also far more sensitive. She's been hurt - A LOT - far more than anyone has treated her with care, and while she pretends she is above it, in reality there's a fragility to inner self that I didn't understand at first.
My understanding of Karlach - who while not one of the main two is probably the most prominent and important of the other tadfools in the tale - really evolved. I originally understood her in a way I think most people get at first - the happy, warm, bon vivant who enjoys a fight and a drink but mostly loves people. I've come around to understanding that that persona isn't her inner nature - it's an active choice. An active choice that doesn't always come easily to her, either. Part of her will always be that person she became to survive Zariel and the Blood Wars, even if she'd rather it wasn't true.
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What’s one thing you put in—trope, character beat, scene—that was just extra shamelessly self-indulgent?
At some point, Nora's gonna fold Astarion like a lawn chair and peg the Elf. Does it need to be in this story? No. It could work fine without it. But something about how it shows the level of trust she's been able to build with Astarion over the story just... chef's kiss, for me.
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What’s the structural choice you made on purpose—POV, timeline, chaptering—that most shaped the story?
The timeline. Because of the massive canon divergence I've added - mainly Nora's story and the greater story of the upper city (ie what are Ulder, Cazador, Gortash, etc doing during Act 1 and 2) - I had to extend the timeline to make room for all the activities, challenges, and events.
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Which theme emerged accidentally, and which one did you pursue deliberately?
I deliberately always wanted this story to be about informed consent and autonomy, I've accidentally also made it about the struggles of healing (i,e nonlinearly and not how you expect it to look.)
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What was the biggest risk you took with this fic?
Uh, rewriting it when I was already on Chapter 83 and in Act 3? I think that might count? Yeah??? I had 134 subscribers and almost 100 bookmarks and went ... what if I just noped out and started over from scratch, after the popularity of the fandom has fallen, and there is so much more wonderful fic to compete with for attention?
But honestly, it was the best decision. I really feel like this time I'm telling exactly the story I had wanted to write the first time. It was my very first piece of fiction writing in my life, and I simply didn't have the skills or knowledge to do it right the first time.
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In a hypothetical scenario where you are forced to rewrite the whole story from scratch, what would you do differently?
Well, it's not hypothetical. I'm doing it right now. Here are just some of the biggest changes.
1. The POV is now Astarion or Nora (except there will be a few rare scenes otherwise)
2. I changed Nora's character early on, which shifted the plot because she didn't reveal much about herself early on, which also meant the others were quieter with their secrets as well.
3. Nora ends up hooking up with Gale. Nora is a person who, in her life, very much uses casual sex like many people use alcohol or drugs - to forget, to feel better, or just to burn off anger. She knows Astarion is a giant red flag from the moment they meet, so she'd avoid him like the plague. The hot nerd, though? Right up her alley for a no-strings-attached fling.
4. The on-again-off-again thing with Astarion is going to be a bit less drama-filled and a bit more character-informed.
5. The visit to the feywild goes VERY differently. I was always deeply unhappy with that plot thread, and it never really worked later on for the payoff it was supposed to deliver. Now it really hooks into to that act 3 / Upper City plot line tightly.
6. I made Astarion a lot more, well, Astarion. Meaner, crueller, harder. That softness doesn't start to seep out for a long, long time, and he fights it at every single drop until he just cannot anymore. It's there the whole time, but the reader cannot see it much - because he hides it from the others, and lies to himself about it so much.
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This was a super amazing exercise. I'm so glad I saw it @goodgirlgonebard, and I would really love other longfic authors to participate. Tagging a few below:
@shandoratheexplorer @alwaysmauria @pixel7777 @amoremagnificentbastard @dbglow @missfortunetherogue
I've updated some of the numbers to be accurate. I think this really holds up well and continues to be accurate even six months later.
Tagging a few people I didn't the first time because I'd love to see other people do this.
@optimisticgrey @thecosyblue @ginateeth @castimirr @glitzgremlin @scrapsovereign
Hell is empty and all the Devils are here Book One: Dawn
Chapter 9
I followed her willingly—into the warmth of the bath she had prepared, into her embrace, and later into her bed—and the details themselves matter less now than what I discovered there, which was not desire, since I had known desire for years, and not pleasure, since that too was familiar, but love. Affection, and the realization that intimacy could exist without urgency and without conquest and without either person attempting to prove anything at all. Two people could simply be present with one another and find it fulfilling.
Threadbare is back to posting!
Chapter 36 - Extenuating Circumstances
or start here with Chapter 1 - Walkabout
Just a little update before posting a snip below. I've decided to move to updating every other week. It's a far more doable schedule both for myself and my poor beta readers lol.
TW: for non-graphic mentions of torture
There was something not sitting right in Nora's mind, and it itched at her thoughts. Like a mosquito bite, it was ill-advised to scratch. But if she didn't ask questions, she'd be at too much of a disadvantage in this world.
"Why would a Sharran cleric get such training when others don't? Your Goddess don't seem the type to inspire Her worshipers to be inclined towards healing." She kept her tone as neutral as she could.
Still, it was a rather pointed question. Shadowheart flashed hard eyes, but didn't look angry. "You're right, we're not. It wasn't for the purpose of healing that I studied the workings of the body."
Nora could read the subtext. The fact that her ally was part of a religion that glorified torture should have made her feel, well, something. But as always, there was nothing inside her when she reached for that feeling. A void where giving a shit about people used to live.
"Ain't that God's green truth." Nora smiled, answering the half-elf's questioning gaze. "I'm a little too familiar with wetwork myself to start throwing stones."
"Wet— Oh. Right. From being a soldier." The greenish-yellow syrup that swirled in the glass bottle Shadowheart held did not look appetizing, but Nora didn't object as a teaspoon or so was poured into a mug of broth that was handed to her. "Drink this."
The broth went down easier than she'd thought it would, her body overriding normal tastes to get what it direly needed to replenish.
She didn't correct Shadowheart's assumptions. Most people could stomach torturing under orders in a way they wouldn't when it's done for revenge. Let alone for money, or worse, pleasure. Well, the facsimile of.
when I get to experience someone else experiencing something I love for the first time.
There is nothing like it. Nothing in the world.
Which is why I both love and loathe youtube reactions. The real ones? Priceless. The ten thousand wow face faked bullshitted ones? I would like to put a pox on all their houses.
Author/illustrator Trung Le Nguyen has been live posting reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time on bluesky and just hit the first proposal. The replies are basically the sickos meme
