Just my current hyperfixations and whatever else I can't get out of my head
✧ A practice in self-expression ✧
she/they ✧ autistic ✧ pan/demi ✧ writer ✧ twenty-something
Welcome to my blog! I created this blog as a means of reaching out, sharing my ideas and creations, and practicing self-expression. I'm autistic and demisexual, and that comes up fairly often in my posts. Right now this blog mainly features Baldur's Gate 3, Astarion specifically, my fanfiction writing journey, personal stuff, and other eclectic fandom posts. Sometimes I write analysis.
BG3 ~ Thoughts and analysis
Astarion and learned cruelty
Astarion and vanity
Astarion's hands
Astarion and blood (hc)
A little post about Astarion's celestial imagery
Astarion believing that you care
First impressions of Astarion's love test + a great reply
Thank you @elceewunjo for the tag! This one is really sweet
Picrew Link
I associate this pale purplish color with River and Astarion's relationship so I had to choose it. It reminds me of the dawn.
I think Astarion would appreciate the fancy nails.
Here's another version that may be more accurate (includes blood):
I never really used social media before last year. The main reason I joined tumblr was so my sister could send me funny posts. I had no clue what I was doing, and just started posting random stuff, including crafts, memes, and some BG3 analysis posts that I admittedly look back on and cringe a bit.
I never expected to become a part of any community on here, let alone one so special as this little corner of the BG3 fandom. I didn't expect to grow a group of mutuals who are all so talented and kind. I didn't expect to receive messages checking in on me whenever I disappeared for a few days. I didn't expect to find other writers who share my passion and are so encouraging about my own ideas and characters, to relate so much to people I met here, to learn so much about myself from all of this, from fandom discussion to interacting with new people to growing through my craft of writing. I've changed so much in this past year that I couldn't possibly name all the ways.
Being online itself can be overwhelming, and a year later, I still haven't found a balance lol. It can make you feel lonely and small, to look out and see that you're just one drop in a sea of people who love the same things you do, who think just as deeply, who are funny and smart and cool, who create wonderful art that you inevitably compare to your own. It's hard to show up in a way that doesn't involve trying to juggle too much and eventually burning yourself out. I think I'm just not wired for keeping up with everything that's going on all the time. That's okay, but I want to find ways to show up more, because this place is good for me.
Mainly, it's been good for me to make connections, even in this limited capacity. I've been… pretty isolated for a while, so even just chatting with mutuals on here has made me feel like connection isn't so hard. That I can be appreciated. That I can belong. It sounds simple, but that has maybe been the most impactful part of making this blog, for me.
This space has also given me somewhere to practice unmasking and being myself more (whatever that means). That's something I actually want to continue working on from this point, because I've found myself falling back into old habits of self-isolation, being as safe and mundane as possible in how I express myself, because that's less vulnerable. I want to be myself more, and to stop being so afraid of what others might think of me. I'm not sure I know how to do that, but this year I'm really going to try. A big part of the reason for me dropping offline for periods of time has been overthinking and not feeling good enough, so I want to counter that. I want to show up and be weird and annoying and do it on purpose, to teach myself that I deserve to exist and be seen even when I'm not this perfect version of myself I think I should be. So expect more random unpolished posts in the future I guess haha.
After years of writing sporadically, never really finishing anything, joining tumblr has given me so much motivation to not only write, but share my writing with others. Just writing my BG3 fic has taught me SO much about myself that I can't even describe. But I have a terrible habit of comparing myself to others and always feeling as though I come up short. Still, being a writer is a very important part of my identity, and that's why it can sometimes be so painful.
Playing Baldur's Gate 3 really reignited my love for writing, and pushed me into writing fanfiction for the first time, despite my shame and reservations. It felt simultaneously like re-learning a part of myself, and stepping into something entirely new. Over this last year, I've written more than I had in the past five combined...but I'm not exactly consistent. I don't have an established schedule for writing, or daily habits; I write when I feel inspired. And given that I'm still "getting back into" writing, I'm still discovering my process, so I feel very clumsy compared to people who can put out incredible fic chapters regularly. That—combined with the way that depression sucks creativity and motivation straight out of my soul—has made it hard to finish anything. Or to feel good about what I have created. I haven't been in a great place this past year, admittedly, and I feel like it's negatively affected my art. That's an awful feeling, because writing is so important to me. I just feel uncreative and dull a lot of the time, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't also a big part of the reason I've been offline so much.
I don't want this to seem like fishing for encouragement or affirmation; you all have given me so much support on every other post I've ever made. And I don't want to seem negative. I just think there's value in being honest, at least for me. Being on this website has been pushing me to grow and learn since I joined, and I believe that will continue to be true. It forces me to be visible instead of hiding. It forces me to interact with others when my worst impulses tell me to isolate. It gives me a space to express passion and joy instead of masking it like usual. It gives me a place to grow and experiment as a writer and be inspired by others' writing. I think showing up, being seen, is a way for me to hold myself accountable and take the steps to becoming the person I want to be. I know this all sounds a little dramatic for talking about tumblr.com, but this has genuinely been new territory for me.
And I just want to say thank you, for the millionth time, to all my mutuals who have made this a place worth staying. Our interactions have meant the world to me, and I want you to know how appreciated you are. I'm constantly inspired by all your creativity, and more importantly, by your kindness. I hope I can be as good an online friend to you as you've been to me 🩵
Thank you @lucretiouswept and @archduchessgortash for the tag!
Gentle tag: @rivereverie @missfortunetherogue @elceewunjo @burnt-by-marigolds @carnivaley @gortashsrighthand @ranger-jahen @izumiphoenix @alliskit @davenswitcher
CW: Sex-work, murder.
The Emperor chose to use the appearance of the only person Ellith ever truly trusted: Tariska.
Long story short: Tariska was a Tiefling girl, a couple of years older than Ellith, who was an orphan too. They met in the streets of the Gate when they were around 10 years old and they quickly decided to help one another. After many years of friendship, they became lovers.
They both worked at the same brothel for a while until Ellith was kicked out, but they kept on seeing each other whenever they could.
But Tariska was brutally murdered by one of the brothel-goers. Besides their grief, Ellith felt deeply guilty; they thought they could have protected her if they had managed to keep their job in the establishment.
They were barely 17yo, and this tragic event made their Urge even more… active, somehow. I wrote about it here.
Anyway, after the crash, Ellith has no recollection of Tariska, but when they first see the dream guardian, the face feels somehow familiar.
Obviously, she looks very young (she was 18/19 when she died), and innocent – exactly how pre-tadpole Ellith remembered her.
What makes it even sadder is that Ellith will remember about Tariska several years after the game-events. They'll finally be able to connect the dots and understand even better what the Emperor was trying to do.
Thank you for the tags, @litsenn and @missfortunetherogue, both your entries were interesting (and heart-rending 🥲). Gently passing the tag to @wild-surge, @elceewunjo, @izumiphoenix, @rivereverie, @spillingteanotpermitted, @darkanachronism, @ranger-jahen, @the-red-drow, @michanvalentine, @wasteful-sam.
A micro fic and some additional explanation below the cut
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Category: Gen
Relationship: The Emperor & Tav, Xan of Evereska & Tav
Additional tags: Named Tav, Autistic Tav, Yae of Evereska (OC), Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Childhood Memories, Nightmares, Loneliness, Fear, Character Study, Relationship Study, Family Bonds, Yae's POV, Early Act 1
Words: 685
This story has been buried in my wips for way too long, so thanks again for giving me the additional push to stop overthinking and finally post it.
Read on AO3
The Guardian of Dreams
There’s this time during the night when all the fears pour out of a sleeper’s soul and sit heavy atop their chest, constricting the lungs.
Wake now. You’ll feel better. I promise.
Yae lay in his bedroll with knees drawn almost to his chin, back arched, and fought for breath. The fire the group had gathered around for the night’s rest – they hadn’t been lucky enough to scrape together anything resembling proper tents yet – was reduced to mere smouldering embers, offering no heat to chase away the shivers and the dread. He should probably stoke it up, he could use lively flames to dry the cold sweat off his body, but the said body wouldn’t budge.
It’d been just a dream. Not even a nightmare. A dream, a very vivid dream. Objectively, it couldn’t even be classified as a bad one. His fear was irrational and infantile, and the awareness filled him with disgust.
He had dreamt of his father – but that person wasn’t his father at all.
Not because the figure had worn a full dress armour, an unlikely choice for a bladesinging enchanter; the elegant craftsmanship would have at least suited the man’s taste. And not even because the space on his hip had turned out empty.
“Where’s the Moonblade?” Yae had asked, to which the not-Xan had replied in a stride:
“Safely at home.”
And then the benign dream figure had proceeded to show him blazing silhouettes and searing lights clashing in the iridescent nothingness.
A fight for the fate of Faerûn.
True, this had given Yae pause. Why would Xan have suddenly stowed the Moonblade – a powerful weapon that would serve none other – away like a fragile museum piece? It had not been forged in the famed fires of Myth Drannor to rest idle – a fact the Greycloak recognised well as he preferred to put the blade between himself and any manner of danger.
I’m overthinking this. Yae buried his tired face in his hands, scars meeting scars. It was just a dream. An absurd conjecture of a mind pushed to its limits.
But the very same mind continued to analyse, devoted to the lost cause of looking for sense in a figment born from feverish visions. And the more it looked, the more an uncanny feeling crept upon Yae, wrapping its spindly arms around the half-elf’s neck.
Xan’s choice of words hadn’t exactly matched his usual patterns. His gestures had had a slightly different flow. His smile – would he even have smiled at all, given the topic of the conversation? – had contorted the face in a foreign fashion, the lines somehow misplaced, like rivulets of water abandoning its riverbed.
If Yae had still been a little boy, he would have thought something had swallowed his father and taken his place, and the realisation would have filled him with the sort of primal terror only children were capable of experiencing.
He remembered wandering the corridors of his family home, warm and comforting during the day, yet twisted and unfamiliar in the dead of the night. Little Yae, woken from some horrible nightmare and spooked witless by the vividness of his own imagination, would eventually make it to his father’s bed, where Xan would hold him tight to his chest, always patient, almost uncharacteristically so, no matter how torrid the flow of the boy’s tears that broke his trance. And he’d choose to fall asleep along with his son instead, just so the little one wouldn’t feel alienated by the form of rest that remained inaccessible to him.
“Hush,” he’d whisper to his child. “I’ll guard your dreams tonight.”
Adult Yae buried his face in the bundle of clothes that served him as a pillow, hoping to stifle the sobs enough to not alarm others, to not wake those strangers he had gotten stuck with, but could never have a place among. He cried, refusing to admit to himself how much he wished his father had been here.
Two voices, one tired but loving, the other full of sedating warmth, assured him in his head:
Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.
As described in the fic, the Emperor took the appearance of Xan, Yae's father, but wasn't successful enough in emulating the man's behaviour – by which I mean the performance would probably be convincing to most other people, but it failed in Yae's case because of a couple of reasons.
Xan's portrait I created for the BG3 Yearbook, trying to match the vibes of his BG1 portrait
First, Yae is a very detail-oriented person. This trait alone might have not been enough to see though the ruse, but choosing the guise of someone Yae knows so well was a gamble. Or it would be a gamble if not for the third fact: Yae had already gone through a situation in which he had to decide whether the person in front of him was Xan or not.
Here's a passage from the yet unpublished fic The Ebbs and Flows for CotG2, where little Yae for the first time sees Xan after a gender shift:
Dad was now Mom. She claimed she didn’t mind being still called “Dad”, but little Yae could see “Mom” pleased her more, and made her usually melancholic eyes light up with satisfaction.
It had happened yesterday. When Xan had emerged from the bedroom, Yae had frozen, dumbfounded. He thought there was a stranger in the house. But then he saw the way the woman sighed heavily, as if her worst premonitions had come true, and the familiar gesture of tiredly massaging the bridge of her nose. He realised the woman had a face he knew, and locks of wavy brown hair not unlike his own.
Xan was the same person as always.
See what I mean?
Interestingly, thanks to that very early realisation and disillusionment, Yae didn't feel betrayed when the Emperor finally revealed its true form – because after the initial shock, he didn't treat it like his father, but rather like a stranger that happened to look like his father. To him, the reveal felt like they reached a stage of at least some mutual trust. In the beginning of the game, Yae was wary of the Dream Visitor/the Emperor, but when it all came together, he thought the secrecy had been a rational choice. Or maybe he just related to the need to trust someone before revealing your hand to them – he considered it natural progression, moreso because he himself takes long to warm up to others. And since he had already looked past Shadowheart being a Sharran or Astarion being a vampire, why not give a chance to an illithid who seems to be playing on the same team.
(He also tried to not think too hard about the fate of Duke Stelmane. Welp. And didn't consume any tadpoles, so he wasn't manipulated to become a half-illithid. I know I say it a lot, but the fact you can have vastly different experience with NPCs based on your choices is one of this games best traits.)
And maybe I should also mention something Yae very rarely admits, even to himself: that he'd always wanted someone to be there, and that maybe for a moment the Emperor did fill that niche. Every kid realises at some point that their parents aren't almighty and can't protect them from everything. I think for Yae it hit especially hard because a) he'd been a child who needed a lot of support, b) of the rejection he'd been experiencing from his peers, and c) of the disastrous, underdeveloped spell he had tried to cast as a teenager; as much as he loved both his parents, it might have been the moment he felt truly alone and on his own in the world, which got reinforced when his warlock patron didn't interact with him in any direct way. And then the Emperor showed up, during what felt like one of the lowest points in Yae's life, doing very specific and tangible things to help him. So maybe that, on the subconscious level, softened Yae's judgement of it.
BONUS! A bunch of screenshots from my Astarion origin run (which I will surely finish one day) where I made his Dream Visitor to look like a certain charming warlock. Not that Astarion has any idea who the man might be :D
Mods used in the pictures: Otis_Inf Camera Mod, ReShade, Lighty Lights, Jun's Head Pack, Vessnelle's Hair, Kay's Hair Extensions, Faces of Faerun, Bangs, Bangs Everywhere
I'm trying to learn a bit of pixel art, so here's a little piece featuring my family's dog. We had to say goodbye to her today, and while she fortunately lived a very long, happy life, that doesn't really make it easier.
She used to love sitting in this planter pot in our backyard when it started getting sunny in the springtime, so that was the inspiration.🐾🌱🩵
i beat myself up for not knowing enough about my special interests a lot but then i remember the average person off the street has no idea what the carboniferous is and i feel better
getting fixated on something is funny because the first like week i have an insatiable need to tell everyone i know about it and spread the good word but by weeks 2 and 3 it becomes so intense and personal that even hearing it mentioned in public makes me sweat as if a dark secret was alluded to
Thanks to @wild-surge for tagging me (an eternity ago, but what's an eternity to immortal beings?). If anyone didn't see it, Valeria's entry was a delight. Gently passing the tag to @litsenn, @elceewunjo, @rivereverie, @izumiphoenix, @echoechowhiskey, @riddlerosehearts, @arlynx, @ranger-jahen, @rat-glitter, @spillingteanotpermitted, @missfortunetherogue, @theya-art.
Please don't feel obliged to turn this into a personal side project like I did (unless you want to, of course). I guess it's just dangerous to say the "v" word in my vicinity.
What if your Tav/Durge ended up as a vampire - and one to rise to lorddom?
The beautiful divider by @echoechowhiskey
To Not Crumble into Dust
Read on AO3
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Category: Gen
Additional tags: Astarion (minor appearance), Shadowheart (minor appearance), Named Tav (Baldur's Gate), Yae of Evereska (OC), Angst, Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Depression, Death Ideation (clashing with the will to survive), Many-as-One, Cranium Rats, Heralds of Dust, Sigil, Memory Loss, Vampires
Words: 1,624
* * *
Narrow alleys of the Hive were always full of two things: grime and danger. Not only in the form of thugs that prowled the streets crudely paved with jagged cobblestone; or even wild portals appearing seemingly with no rhyme or reason, raining acid upon unwary passersby and swallowing people along with chunks of buildings. The place, as it happened, also suffered a higher population of undead than elsewhere in Sigil, the City of Doors in the centre of the Multiverse.
All it took was a string of unhappy coincidences. Lack of care, perhaps. One moment, a brash young adventurer a quiet warlock in his forties was chasing after one arcane pursuit or another. The next became a flash of blinding pain as fangs tore his throat and drained him of life.
“Yae? Is everything– No! No, no, nooo–!” He heard muffled shouting from beyond the shroud of agony. “Get off him, you–!”
But it was too late.
* * *
He felt cold and rigid, and so so hungry. So so ravenous. Starving to death.
“Yae? I took care of that daughter of a termagant, let’s–”
He didn’t recognise the voice that tried to sound confident and a little cheeky, but was in fact pleading. It didn’t matter. He didn’t listen. He jumped.
And gorged himself on the thick, long dead blood of his attacker.
“Wait! Shit!”
Then, he forced away the pale stranger who wouldn’t shut up and fled where creatures like him belonged: into a dark, damp bolthole.
* * *
A vampire lord? Pfft. Rather a king of rats.
Except the rats had a mind – a hivemind – of their own.
At first, the vermin stayed away from the feral, thrashing vampire fledging, all raw power and no sanity.
Time’s a healer; with the passing of days, the freshly turned undead slowly recovered from the worst of the change and regained enough senses to notice there was something special about the squeakers whose gleaming, beady eyes watched him safely from within the cracks in the walls and from under the piles of accumulated sewer filth. He staved off the urge to grab at them and crunch into their tiny bodies. He watched back.
Finally, a swarm approached him, and he was allowed to enter the Warrens of Thought and stand in the presence of Many-as-One. The two sides recognised they can be of help to each other, so the inexperienced vampire made a deal with the collective mind – despite his current circumstances, he still proved good at negotiating conditions – and the cranium rats took him in.
The pale stranger kept stalking him even in Undersigil. By now, he had realised the elf was another predator; cunning, true, yet weaker than him. Probably wanted his territory, or his power.
Competition.
With the help of his new allies, he continued to drive the intruder away, until the other bloodsucker finally gave up and disappeared for good. A victory. But why did it taste of ash?
* * *
Oh, the relief of consuming blood was immense, but the act of feeding felt simply gross. To approach strangers, to touch them, to sink his teeth in their flesh and swallow one of their bodily fluids – it was too intimate and overwhelming and made his skin crawl. He quickly learnt instead to bleed his targets into a vessel before sustaining himself. Drinking blood still had unpleasant connotations, but he needed to remain practical.
After all, his name – the one he had recently recalled – meant “perseverance” and “survival”. Not that he could remember how he knew this.
* * *
He walked on both legs again, most of the time. He once more wore clothes, not rags. He remembered how to read and write. He still counted for a feral monster, he supposed – but now he had yearnings beyond sating the hunger.
He regained curiosity. There was much to learn from Many-as-One and its multitude of cranium rats – the crafty rodents had access to unfathomable secrets – but up there in the city proper, there was more to learn still.
So he made excursions, every time wandering a little farther, rediscovering what the hustle and bustle of life felt like, feeling lost and out of place, returning to the rats to calm down and muster new courage for another escapade.
Inevitably, he met the Heralds of Dust, members of one of the factions effectively running the city. Some even claimed to recognise him.
Their philosophy of the True Death had been like an embalming fluid on the rotting corpse of his soul. Abandon all passions of this false existence, break the cycle of false deaths, purge yourself of any ties with life and achieve the perfect state of non-existence.
He felt robbed – of life, of death, and of everything in-between – and indeed, oblivion sounded like liberation. He spent more and more time with the “Dusties”, listening to their teachings, perusing their vast libraries, and returned to the Warrens less and less often, until he got officially inducted into the faction and made permanent residence in the Great Mortuary.
Get rid of all passion? He could do that. Especially as a means of dulling the ever-present hunger clawing madly at his insides.
Well, perhaps except for the passion for knowledge.
* * *
The new Herald of Dust turned out to be the embodiment of the faction’s ideals: indifferent to the temptations of the world of the living, impassive, assiduous in his duties; his mentors all agreed. Oh, the fervour with which he researched whatever topic occupied his mind at any given time? That was diligence. Certainly not passion. He would achieve the True Death in no time.
Years passed and blurred into decades. Soon, it was others who turned to Brother Yae seeking knowledge regarding the matters of death – all forms and stages of it. After all, he’d been technically dead for some time already – falsely dead, but still. One shouldn’t eschew the possibility of learning even from such a flawed state.
* * *
The Mortuary’s factol Skall was the absent kind of leader. Few knew his real identity or current dwelling. Most of the time, the Heralds of Dust carried on their responsibilities as usual, hiding the fact they were, in reality, orphaned children among other influential groups in Sigil, so those very others wouldn’t use it against them in the ever-simmering Kriegstanz, the political dance of the city.
In moments of crisis, Brother Yae served with advise – both tactical or pertaining to specific areas of knowledge. His rise to prominence within the faction happened naturally, without him actively trying to achieve anything. Before he knew, he became ordained the factol’s secretary – essentially Skall’s right hand.
And Skall was not there.
* * *
Some people within Sigil’s walls seemed to recognise the vampire unofficially leading the Heralds of Dust: oh, had he not been a young, adventurous cutter once, a little less clueless than your usual prime? Had he not fallen out of a portal in the Alley of Lingering Sighs? Or was it near the Smouldering Corpse? He had been accompanied by two other berks, and they’d gotten into all sorts of trouble, a real miracle Her Serenity never decided to maze the silly sods. Look how he’d become a real blood, no pun intended.
Some deemed it uncomely for one of the Cage’s factions to be led by a bloodthirsty and powerhungry vampire (because everyone knew all vampires were bloodthirsty and powerhungry), but others retorted the city was widely populated by slaads, abishai and even stranger things, so a vampire seemed at least predictable and even boring by comparison.
Freshly initiated brothers and sisters listened to this sort of chant with mouths slightly opened, at least until their superiors sternly reminded them to focus on the futility of this false existence.
And yet, other factols had to respect the blood-drinking secretary. Some secretly sought his insight or even tried to bribe him into alliances. The old friendship with the cranium rats gave him an upper hand when his duties demanded him to pay attention to the ebbs and flows of the politics and activities of the living – things he felt more and more detached from. Petitioners from all planes came to ask for an audience, seeking Brother Yae’s guidance in the afterlife.
He didn’t know he took liking to finer fabrics after his partner from a long time ago. He didn’t know why he sometimes felt the urge to braid his hair – but he never did, as not understanding the impulse caused him sharp pain. He didn’t know why sometimes, when he spotted night orchids, he was plagued by a nagging feeling that he should bring them to someone. Or that engaging in Kriegstanz was a way to fill one of the many holes riddling whatever remained of his soul – a hole shaped like a formidable woman, imposing both in her stature and demeanour. He felt tired and inhuman, and really wished for the peace of the True Death, and yet something stalled him, and to his annoyance he had no idea what.
It wasn’t a bad unlife, he reckoned, though he wouldn’t exactly call it happy.
* * *
One day, two travellers stood at the main entrance to the Great Mortuary, demanding, as it often happened, an audience with the faction’s secretary: a half-elven priestess of no obvious denomination and a pale elf with a roguish smirk plastered to his face.
They brought gifts: an old, rusted rapier that still bore traces of timeless eldritch energy, and a piece of rare mushroom native to deep caverns somewhere in the Material Plane.
“He’s probably a different person now,” the priestess muttered to her companion, as she leaned on his arm for support. “Half a century does that to a man.”
“I’m well aware. So are we. But he deserves a choice.”
Would he hear them out?
Mods used: Otis_Inf Camera Mod, ReShade, ReShade preset, Lighty Lights, QSAT, Move Here, Move and Rotate Anything, Summonable Structures, Adorable Decor, More Furniture, More Decor, ASE Glamping Act 1, ASE Glamping Act 2, Jun's Head Pack, Kay's Hair Extensions, Demon Eyes, Astralities' Glow Eyes, More Makeup and Tattoos, Fangs and Horns, Outlaw of Darkness, Appointments of the Dreamlord, Expeditioner's Glam, Vagabond Armour, Basket Full of Equipment, Boring Dyes/Boring NPC Dyes, Izzli's Pigments
Thanks @sorcerousscribe and @chexala for the tag! This one was fun!
Quiz link here!
I am a sucker for paladins but I didn't expect to so strongly be categorized as one myself lol. I'm also surprised by how high ranger, druid, and monk are. I guess I'm a fan of nature.
And I'm curious as to why I scored so comparatively low in sorcerer?? What are they about exactly that I'm not?
I don't know who has done this one, so I'll tag anyone who sees this and wants to try!
Thank you @litsenn @burnt-by-marigolds @elceewunjo and @ranger-jahen for the tag! Now we have a whole merfolk/pirate AU
Here's the maker for anyone who wants to join!
I associate River more with freshwater than the sea, so I thought she'd live in a river, lake, or swamp as a merfolk (although I totally would have made her part shark if that were an option in this maker). There's definitely another universe where she isolates herself and becomes a swamp hermit, so I wanted to channel that.
I've been more deeply exploring her connection with nature recently in how it relates to her character development... so I covered her in plants.
Just posting this to get the ball rolling again. I am in fact still alive lol
I've really been struggling with executive functioning lately, and I feel like I have a billion open loops in my brain of things I've started and not finished; a carousel of special interests/hyperfixations that flare up and die down on a loop. This makes progress on my (now several) fanfic projects slow, and there's a lot in my life I'm trying to figure out this year. And I don't like that I keep saying (even just to myself) that "I'll be active on here more" and then watching the days and weeks and months go by without actually following through.
I've learned that the less pressure I put on myself, the better things tend to go. And that goes for my interests and projects as well. This past year I've gotten very into several pieces of media and am working on my multi-part BG3 fic which has been a lot, both emotionally and technically. And then I have another multi-chapter fic for something else, which is just as emotionally intensive. Plus a handful of oneshots... Needless to say I've spread myself a little thin. And trying to delegate what time is spent on which writing project doesn't tend to work out well. I write what I feel inspired to write in the moment, and I can't control what my brain decides to be interested in at any given time. That's frustrating when I really want to finish things, but my heart just isn't in it at the time. I think I need to try and work with my brain and lean into whatever I have a lot of energy for in the moment, rather than fighting it for the sake of getting something else done.
More broadly, life has just been overwhelming lately. I'm having to face a lot of changes coming up and the world feels scary and I feel so behind in everything. I want to try and re-focus on things I can control, and one such thing is staying connected with people on here. I appreciate all my mutuals so much, as limited as our connections are.
Anyway, this is messy and I guess it's supposed to be. I'm working on a post reflecting on how it's been a year since I joined Tumblr and found this community, so I'll have a little more to say there about where I'm at. As always, thank you to everyone who thinks of me and tags me in things even when I'm gone. 🩵 I hope everyone else has been doing well lately, too. I'm working through some old tags and hopefully getting around to reading at least some of your posts; I'm sure you've all been making incredible things!
