By the Pricking of My Thumbs...

she / her / ella | no me jodas :D BG3 Astarion trash is my current flavor. Subject to change without notice. Queer MENAtina out in these fandom streets. I write fic sometimes.

[isthisrealliiife]

On Lies I Didn't Know Were Lies

Hi everyone <3 I'm just gonna get straight to what if you're reading this, you most likely want to know about:

I did not mean to lie about posting the next chapter of an echo, a stain in July.

I have NOT abandoned an echo, a stain. 

It will be a minute before I recover my mojo.

And now, for those of you with vague interest in details, a bit more explanation:

By the time I graduated my program, finished my practicum, completed the requirements for certification, got my paperwork sorted, and was finally done, it was mid-July, and I was hardcore job hunting.

Great news! I got a job! As a school librarian! With a non-heinous commute!

So once I got that job, I ended up sleeping for more like nearly a month than a week, because apparently being sick for 10 months and then trying to accomplish every academic, professional, and personal goal you'd meant to achieve during that time while also tryna figure out how to pay rent with no income really fucks with your stamina.

Then I had a bunch of trainings to go to, and visits to fam and friends I hadn't seen in a year, and started my new job.

For those of you uninitiated in the agony and the ecstasy of being a K-12 teacher, this lands me in the DEVOLSON. (The Dark, Evil Vortex Of Late September, October, and November. Google it. It's a brilliant thing that I did not come up with but that is absolutely fucking true.)

The beginning of a new school year is fuckin' NUTS. I can't describe it. It's too much. Suffice it to say that even when you're returning to a school you've been teaching at for years in a position/at a level you've been doing for years, the beginning of the school year is always overwhelmingly busy and hectic and involves more pivots than every runway walk at New York Fashion Week combined. Starting a new job in a new position at a new school in conjunction with this is ... loooooooool. Anyway it's great, it's been great, I love my new job and my new school and my new students but when I tell you every iota of energy, creativity, mental acuity, and basic capacity to accomplish anything has been completely absorbed by my job, it's really not hyperbole lol. But, as my fellow New Jerseyan and hair band charmer Jon Bon Jovi would say, "we're halfway there." Sort of.

I'm not even going to try to predict when the next chapter of an echo, a stain will drop, and I won't make any promises.

What I will say is that with any luck, things will calm down in December and settle into far chiller rhythms. I'm gonna play me some Dragon Age: the Veilguard, sorry not sorry but I been waiting for that fucking game for ten years and for good or for ill, I need to KNOW.

Once that settles, it's probable I'm going to feel some inspo for a story I've neglected for even longer than aeas (WAY longer, in fact) and hopefully finish that fuckin thing or at least figure out where I want to go with it. After THAT (or possibly concurrent with that, tbh), I will return to aeas, whose place in my heart is precious and undiminished.

If you've read this far, thank you. I appreciate you. If you're pissed and are like "fuck your excuses!"

well... I mean, I feel bad about disappointing you, because I genuinely do appreciate people's investment in the story and understand the anguish of waiting for a chapter/ending that seems like it will never come, but also... damn, you don't gotta be mean about it looool.

Unfortunately, we live in a late-capitalist hellscape and so I have to work a lot and pretty hard to barely scrape by and I'm still recovering from being sick for a long time, so I only have so much capacity to do stuff. It's growing, but it's limited, so here we are! I am sorry for having fallen off, though. I really hadn't expected to.

But never fear, I'll be back -- and more importantly, so will aeas. Not gonna lie, I'm kinda scared by having been away so long, and worried that I won't be able to live up to the ambitions I had for the story, but that's not holding me back or anything. I'd rather try and fail than leave it hanging in the breeze unfinished.

It's just gonna take some time. Anyway, I hope y'all are doing well and that life throws some joy at you.

Also listen I am SERIOUSLY not gonna lie but if shit goes awry on that first Tuesday in November, it's gonna take me a minute to reconcile myself with all that. Just sayin'.

OK that's it I hope to be writing again sooner rather than later but thanks for even reading this if you have. <3

[something-pithy]

OMFG Veilguard

OMFG I can't find any Veilguard gifs via tumblr and this probably means I should make some but the only ways I know how to do that involve so much work AND I AM BUSY PLAYING Some notes:

I'm 48.3 hours and at least 95% of the time, I've been having a lot of fun

As an OG who first played Dragon Age: Origins in 2009/early 2010 and have played DA:O, DA2, and DA:I literally more times than I can count, this game absolutely feels like Dragon Age.

IMO, it honors the world, the lore, and tips its hat at OG fangirls like myself while also probably being fun for new players.

NOW having said all that

THIS GAME FOR REAL TRYNA GET ME TO REVISE THE LAST FEW CHAPTERS OF FROM THE LOWEST SLAVES TO THE HIGHEST KINGS AND START A NEW FUCKING FIC FEATURING MY INQUISITOR TO DEAL WITH THIS SOLAS SITUATION (the one who romanced Solas obviously) BUT 1. I'm going to give this game/story the chance to play out before I start rabidly typing into the void

2. I need to figure my life out with an echo, a stain

3. Work is still extremely busy and somewhat hectic so looool when am I doing all this? Anyway tl;dr The Veilguard is likely to have me finishing and creating Dragon Age stories in the future and then I'll have to play BG3 again to get back into the an echo, a stain groove. These two things may end up being concurrent in places. OK bye

[something-pithy]

Oooo a drabble. I've been craving your writing, I love the tone and the way you write internal dialogue for both Astarion and Zee/Tav, it's so distinctive for each character. Please gimme a (fluffy?) drabble from Astarion POV?

Looking forward to mid-Julyish!!

Ummm... soo.... first of all, I probably should have checked my tumblr messages before now if I was gonna make such an offer... >.< but better late than never? I hope? I'M SO SORRY Also I tried to do a drabble and this is what happened instead. loooooooooool Thank you so much for the ask! I swear to god I'll write them actually interacting with each other if I get another ask or request looooool ANYWAY HERE WE GO --- Obviously he couldn't tell her what a precious thing she actually was. His self-absorbed mien more than suited him; it was a trademark, a bait-and-switch, and as such, part of an intricate web of defense- and survival mechanisms that had served his aims well.

It wasn't the sex. Well, it wasn't just the sex -- which was obviously superlative, since he was involved, and she was not only creative and cheeky but quite the acrobat, really. At first, he'd tried leaving her tent after -- casual, rakish, smirking.

But the little gremlin always pulled some sort of trick -- asked him some question too ridiculous not to answer, hid his smalls or his boots or his favorite shirt, or simply draped herself over him as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and it always felt like she belonged there.

And how galling it was, at first, to have to attach himself to someone who not only committed their little band of miscreants and misfits -- and consequently and most importantly, him, to acts of kindness, generosity, and selfless heroism, but was a damned bard, and too witty and clever by half to dismiss. Yes, pretty and witty, and despite her do-gooder leanings, indisputably an agent of chaos with a penchant for mischief that... well, how could he help but appreciate it? She was worth her weight in entertainment value, that much was obvious to anyone.

But although it was a rare quality indeed for such a little altruist to be likeable, charming, and interesting enough for him to overlook -- or at least tolerate -- her benign shortcomings, that wasn't it, either.

Well, not all of it.

Part of it was that she was deceptively, appallingly observant. Keenly so. Quietly so. She saw what she oughtn't; past the misdirection, distraction, past the profundity of violence and darkness and rage that pulsed at his core to something... else. Something she had no business looking at, to be frank, but...

He actually hated that. Hated all that she saw and the strange version of it mirrored in her honestly absurdly large eyes and soft soulful melodies and the audacity of her unguarded sadness that in the briefest of moments, he saw. Hated the way it made him ache, the confusion of unsettling softness it evoked. But saw it he did, despite her performance of the clever, playful, pretty, witty mien that suited her even better his own fit him.

Because somehow it was all genuine, it was all her. Like her warmth. Like her kindness. Like her ferocity and tenderness and feral, demented glee. And though he hated those moments when something in her eyes or voice or touch suggested she saw every pathetic, stunted, debased nuance of his being, the magnitude of his deficiency, his weakness, she never exploited it. Never exposed it, never spoke of it.

He strongly suspected that it had never even occurred to her to do so, and that it never would.

Because she was good. Immutably, implausibly, irrevocably good, no matter her impish insouciance, her reckless intemperance, her convivial subversion. No matter whatever shadows or grief haunted her even as she reveled in joy and color and life.

That such a creature could look at him, see him, and see something worthy... it was almost enough to give him hope.

And the rarity of that for one such as him made her precious, indeed.

Or at the very least deranged beyond reckoning. Either way, entertaining such thoughts and... feelings (eugh) was troublesome enough. Actually speaking them could be ruinous.

No matter what she thought she saw in him or how good she might be, he could only entice if he was always just out of reach. It would hardly do for her to know that she was perilously close to having him in the palm of her dainty, lute-calloused little hand.

Besides, the little gremlin would never let him live it down.

[isthisrealliiife]

Lawdamercy

tl;dr: life has happened in mostly good ways but consequently progress on an echo a stain has been necessarily delayed.

Next chapter will be up probably in mid-July.

First of all, Dave Chapelle is a transphobe piece of shit and I won't forgive him for it. But also a thousand years ago, when I was just a little baby teenage deviant in my first year of undergrad, I imprinted on a half-baked as my stoner movie so thoroughly that I feel certain that the above moment in that movie is a reflection of my very soul when I'm in distress. Also, Killer killed Nibbles. I will never pay another dime for anything he's done and it can be argued that by posting this gif I'm contributing to him remaining in the cultural consciousness of the West or the US or tumblr or whatever, but listen, y'all, sometimes there's tension between the things we connect with and there is no way to be ethical in the current late capitalist imminently apocalyptic hellscape, so I'm just gonna keep half-baked.

I'm Gen X and tired af. I will provide seasoning when Gen Z eats the rich and the boomers and whomstever else (lol not me I'm a public servant / educator / librarian who will never own property nor submit to these PWI motherfuckers for love or money), but just let me sit here in middle age with my smoke, my edibles, and my gotdamb movie lines. I love y'all. So in case you hadn't guessed (and why would you have? It's very unlikely you've read this far -- but if you have, maybe you HAVE guessed), I'm fucking exhausted.

Despite my well-laid plans, some things have happened in the past few weeks that demanded my attention. 1. My mom injured her knee and needed me to help her, so I did for about two weeks. 2. I finished my fucking project from hell.

I FINISHED MY FUCKING PROJECT FROM HELL.

I have to give a presentation on it Friday but then I'm going to be DONE with that fucking thing and the last class of this MLIS and I cannot describe in human language what it has taken for me to reach this point looooool lord bless Google Slides I guess

3. I completed two trainings, one to be a mandated reporter (which I already am but the laws have been updated) and one to learn how to prevent school violence and they were long and tedious and annoying to do because I'd already completed both and knew pretty much all the content already from being a public school educator for 10 years but the school where I got my MSEd lost my paperwork so here we are.

4. Secured a practicum / internship, the last missing puzzle piece to unlock my Master of Library and Information Science achievement, so my fatigue-d ass as been exhausting myself daily interning for a fuckin DOPE school librarian who is queer and my age and went to pride with her wife and two daughters and I've learned so much in the past two weeks I don't even know where to begin. So all that is to say, despite my previous promises, obviously, I have not posted any updates to an echo, a stain, nor will I be until at least mid-July because I'm going to sleep for a week once all this shit is wrapped up and my status as a Mistress of Library and Information Scientists is secured.

(Mistress Library and Information Scientist? I need it to be clear that I will not only be a Mistress of Scientists, but also a Scientist myself. If you want to know if my Mistress status will be as a kept woman or as a domme, the answer is yes and I'm currently accepting applications and formal proposals via asks and dms/pms/whatever tumblr calls them. All genders and identities welcome except stupid people with no imagination. GTFO. But if you've read this far, while it's plausible you're fucking unhinged, it seems highly unlikely that you're stupid OR unimaginative. WELCOME <3

So anyway please make any propositions or promposals fun and funny, and if you gonna be nasty, use your words and please make it hot. The world doesn't need more unsolicited nudes, genital pics, or milquetoast descriptions of sexytimes.)

ANYWAY Once my plate is clear and I can do other things with my time besides grind my bones to dust to prove to the PWI powers that be that I've humbled myself sufficiently to be worthy of their blessings, I'll be getting back into aeas with a thorough reread, revision of the next chapter (which yes, is already written, but is not fit for human consumption until it's been properly revised), and I guess its third act? I honestly don't know how many acts there are. I know I should. Maybe there are four. I know this is something I should know but I'm not a fiction writer by training or trade so I don't know how y'all frame these things. Anyway some wild shit is about to go down, don't think I've forgotten or gone soft. Errybody hold on to your panties because when I get back up in that shit we got some reckoning to deal with.

But first deadass animal antics because I WANNA AND IDGAF.

loooool OK seriously I'm crazy sleep deprived and I have a job interview Thursday and I need to create a slide deck for my internship mentor so I'mma go work on that byyyeeeeeee

[something-pithy]

P.S. if you made it through this whole ass thing looool send me an ask or a dm or whatever with a request and I'll write you at least a drabble or you can write me a question and I'll answer it in the format of your choosing

[isthisrealliiife]

It Me!

tl;dr:

I'm still sick;

I'm finishing the last project of my last class for grad school;

should be back to working on aeas on a regular basis in about two weeks, give or take.

OK so I think about an echo a stain a lot, particularly because it's been over a month since I last updated. My history as a writer and a human compel me to update y'all probably as much for my own sake as anyone else's because I think most of the people who read aeas are out here on Ao3 with their notifications on loool (I wish there were a way to make like, an author post to update people there that wouldn't make me look like an asshole chapter tease loool.) ANYWAY real quick, in case you were wondering which one or two of you might be! 1. I'm still sick but I think I'm actually getting better. It's slow and it's hard. And part of why it's slow and it's hard is because 2a. I'm actually trying to finish the final project of the very last course of my MLIS*, which was delayed enormously because I was sick lol.

2b. It is the worst assignment I have ever had to complete for any program of any kind ever. I am still sick, and so every iota of my energy is going into this monstrous thing that just won't end, and until it's done I just do not have a scrap of energy to spare. I'm not even playing BG3 right now just shaking my fucking fist at the PWI gods, eating, sometimes kinda sleeping and staring at visual novels braindead af

OK and also following this wild-ass chisme with Kendrick and Aubrey because OMFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG Y'ALLLLLL A MINORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR LOOOL OK sorry. Anyway, I swear to the baby jesus once I finish this project which like -- it's not only that it's tedious it is a thing I must do that scrapes against the core of my very being, it is everything I hate about society, institutions, America, late-stage capitalism, white supremacy -- EVERYTHING.

But it's the very very very last thing and I'm so so close to being done after having had to delay for soooooo long can't stop won't stop so I will be running myself into the ground for the duration of this endeavor, then I'll probably take some time to recover, and then yes, I will finally, thankfully, be back on my aeas bullshit. in the meantime, if you want some little aeas / Astarion or ZeetheBee / my Tavvy treats, just shoot me an ask. It might take me a couple of days to get to it but I will probably spin you a whole fuckin drabble or even a short one-shot because despite my commitment to this project I do love an excuse to abandon it from time to time OK I'mma take my livejournal energy out of here to the two of you who made it to the end literally dm me with a parameter for a drabble I'll make you one you'll probably get it by July OK bye *(YES I am going to be a librarian and YES I am hype and YES it is one of my career goals to host a drag story hour)

[bananonbinary]

i just saw the tag “canon complicit” instead of “canon compliant” and im laughing its like “canon is a criminal act that i unfortunately support with this fic”

[quillingmesoftly]

The Three Grades:

Canon Compliant: “This fic goes along with canon.” (Because I like it? Because I’m too tired to disagree by writing my own fic? Who knows? The author may or may not tell us.)

Canon Compatible: “Listen, I know it ISN’T canon, but think of it as Microsoft Office for Mac, it’s COMPATIBLE with canon, and that counts.”

Canon Complicit: “I have not died a hero, so I have become an accessory to the Villainy of Canon.”

[faustandfurious]

Canon Compatible is a great term for when your fic is Probably Not What Tolkien Would Have Wanted but it doesn’t really contradict anything in canon either

[quillingmesoftly]

#you can install this fic without canon crashing and that’s what matters

[isthisrealliiife]

Status Report: What's Going On?

Hiiiiii. OK so it's been a minute since I updated. I've been back on my health struggle bullshit, as one does, and also I've been working on an absolutely monstrous project for grad school. It is the final project for the final class I need to finish to graduate. It is enormous and onerous and horrible and what little energy and capacity I have has been devoted to it entirely.

(It was meant to be done by the end of December, but I had to take an incomplete for the class because I've been so sick I haven't been able to work on it.) Basically I just need to get this shit done and graduate.

The good news is, though, I have the next chapter of an echo, a stain on deck, and two gorgeous betas/queens, @beeinahailstorm and @babblebrain-blog who have been kind enough to listen to me ramble about this story and give me feedback both about what I've written and what's coming down the pike. I don't know how gd long it's going to take me to finish this project. It is seriously horrendous.

I'm still beset on all sides by ludicrous fatigue and brain fog, but I think maybe I'm past the halfway point. I HAVE NOT ABANDONED AEAS AND I SHALL NEVAH.

Anyway updates such as these are gonna be on this blog from now on so follow it if you're interested! <3 Later, taters!

[isthisrealliiife]

O hai Mark

Well hello hai! The idea here is to have a place to throw memes, maybe the occasional rant/musing/navel-gazing. As a new friend told me recently, I'm giving livejournal vibes. This description was based on my now-fic-oriented blog, @something-pithy, and it fucking delighted me looool.

Honestly I have no idea what's going to end up here or if I ought to be creating secondary blogs for each fandom I fux with (or at least each of the ones I write for / have written for), but tbh ain't nobody got time for that. (Besides my level of commitment to any one fandom has historically been dodgy at best.) But for now I'm just gonna treat it like a livejournal and see what happens. looool

[something-pithy]

Hey hey! So I've created a "personal" blog, and stuff not directly related to fic is gonna go there, including memes, Really Deep Thoughts, writing about writing, life stuff (maybe?) idek what else. Holler!

This thing here is the first post in it.

[incure]

As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh, Susan Sontag.

[something-pithy]

how motherfucking dare this internet loooooooool

[jojo-the-bird]

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

- Chuck Palahniuk

[escuerzoresucitado]

[something-pithy]

Update and a Break

So I neglected to update y'all when I posted chapter 26 AND chapter 27, and now I'm taking a break for a bit because my health is garbage and I'm trying to make it less so lol. Ahem. Anyway, the smut may or may not have finally showed up. I hope you enjoy.

[jinxviolets]

girl help i’m having creation ideas above my skill level

[tambuli]

girl help i'm having creation ideas above my motivation level

[awriterpretendingtowrite]

girl help I’m having creation ideas above my free time level

[asta-lily-deactivated20220630]

[muppethole-deactivated20240312]

Denver Zoo and its gay lorikeets said fuck homophobes happy Pride

[agentduckorico]

Homophobes: u mean they act like brothers

Denver Zoo: they’re fucking, lorie.

[dzamie]

“Ah, you’ve isolated them.” “We have done literally the opposite.”

“This is just sibling stuff.” “Please do not do with your siblings what these birds do with each other.”

[something-pithy]

aeas Update: The Date

O hai! Please enjoy Chapter 25 of this quirky little story about this non-spawned Bard!Tav, Ascended!Astarion, and what happens when she's back in town for the first time in five years, they decide to start fake dating for reasons, and hijinks ensue! They're finally on this "fake" date! I hope you enjoy. :D

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[last-to-the-orgy]

Posted for the beauty and eloquence of this comment:

[jennifernonuts]

And, most importantly...