#tarysande

[swaps55]

Thinking about you today. Was all out of sorts and realized it’s a month to the day. Much love and many hugs ❤️

So many hugs RIGHT back at you. I've been doing a lot of thinking about fandom and tumblr lately, and the people who come and go. I've been here a decade, and there are a lot of names I don't see any more.

I'm really glad I still see yours. <3

[thornhands]

@tarysande​

you know what you did

[feralkwe]

Writing. Kahrin. Evil Chickens. (In fact, the name Kahrin is so intrinsically tied to you that every time I run into my dog-park-friend Kahrin in the dog park, I think of you. Her dog is named Trouble. Which I feel like you, and probably your Kahrin, would appreciate.)

OMG that is genuinely amazing. first of all that anyone actually has this silly name i made up by smooshing letters together one day, and that her dog is named trouble. because that is a very good name for someone named kahrin to have.

also, i am always touched when evil chickens makes someone think of me. ilu.

[wolverineproportions]

@tarysande happy birthday, my birthday twin! this was an incredible surprise 💖

[tarysande]

Chapters: 65/? Fandom: Mass Effect Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Commander Shepard/Garrus Vakarian

#

In the immediate aftermath of the confrontation, Garrus spared Shepard only a glance to make sure she had caught the unbroken artifact. Callahan was already on his knees beside the man who appeared to be the last of the Leviathan’s thralls. Garrus had no idea where the man fit in the hierarchy of the Callahan household, but he’d seen the way his appearance made Shepard wince, and she’d shot to startle and not to wound, despite everything the Leviathans had thrown at them so far, and the consequences of any leniency she had attempted to show.

The man moaned, and it said something about how messed up this particular mission was that the sound signaled the closest thing to victory they’d experienced since the shuttle touched down.

Aside from the gleaming silver orb still clutched in Shepard’s arms, of course.

Garrus was still on the fence about whether the artifact and the whole plan attached to its retrieval counted as victories. Too many variables. Too many suppositions.

Too much putting Shepard in danger. Like usual.

Just thinking about it brought to mind empty rooms and body bags and the consequences of flawed plans.

“Get him out of here,” Garrus said to Vega, more to stop the spiral of his thoughts than because the words needed speaking. “We don’t know what the radius is on that thing, but he doesn’t have the protection we do.”

Callahan finished applying a dose of medigel just as Vega approached and lifted the wounded man as if he weighed no more than a child.

“Take care of him,” Shepard added, low and hoarse, as if she’d been screaming for hours. “He was always kind to me.”

Continue reading on AO3

[barbex]

Books of 2024 (2023 or close to it)

@hoochieblues tagged me to list books and in that moment I immediately forgot about any book I have ever read. Did I even read a single book in 2023? But thank you for tagging me, I'll do my best.

“the game is to share 9 of my favourite books from the last 12 months, or 9 books on my tbr list for this year”

I'm tagging: @mareebrittenford, @dyrewrites, @tryingtimi, @tsuraiwrites, @midnightprelude, @lesetoilesfous, @tarysande

Let me list nine books I liked, I don't know if I read them all in the last 12 months, I just went to my Kindle and picked what sparked a good memory.

Band Sinister by KJ Charles M/M romance, regency historical Lots of pining and repressed feelings in this one, until it leads to wonderful sex and love. Kj Charles knows how to do it.

A Game of Hearts and Heist by Ruby Roe F/F romance, fantasy Fast paced and very sexy fantasy heist. So much sex that even I, certified smut queen, sometimes thought "Now? Really? Don't you think you're kind of busy right now?" But I enjoyed it a lot and there's two more books in the series.

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree cozy fantasy with a little F/F romance, fantasy This book has started a whole new trend of cozy fantasy. This is a story about what happens if the barbarian warrior lady hangs up her sword and opens a cafe. The romance is not the main story. I would have wished for a bit more introspection from the main character but I know how difficult it is to write a stoic character who doesn't want to think about feelings.

The Calyx Charm by May Peterson M/M romance, trans main character, fantasy, magic Beautiful prose! Sinister magic, darkness and families at war. Two characters so very much in love, the transwoman loved and accepted by her lover. This is the second or third book in a series but I read another book in the series and it didn't feel all that connected. And the prose was not as pretty as in this one.

Unmasked by the Marquess by Cat Sebastian NB/M romance, regency historical The main character uses she/her pronouns but I read in an interview with Cat Sebastian that, would she write the book today, they would probably use they/them pronouns. But it really doesn't matter much for either main character, the main male character already falls for the nb character when they dress and act like a man. A high stakes regency romance with the expected societal problems and lots of love.

Taji from Beyond the Rings by R. Cooper M/M romance, science fiction This book is so good! Cultural differences between species making romance and connection dangerous, feelings, sex, and politics raising the stakes every minute. I read this book again right after I finished it, it was so good.

The Elf Tangent by Lindsay Buroker F/M romance, fantasy A fun story about a human princess who loves mathematics and an elven warrior, trying to stop a war from happening. Nerdy and clever heroes with a bit of enemies to lovers.

The Hidden Moon by Jeannie Lin F/M romance, set in historic China This is like book five of a series but that didn't hinder my enjoyment. A woman, too smart for her own good, trying to solve a crime in a time when women were not allowed to do anything, especially not investigate assassinations and talk to street scoundrels. Or fall in love with said scoundrel.

---

Phew. That was a lot. Happy reading.

[fourthage]

Okay, so this was a journey, y’all. I get home and see a black box sitting in front of my door and am immediately ready to be salty. I have an electronic thing coming from Amazon today and they’ve had a bad habit of slapping shipping labels on the manufacturer’s box and leaving an expensive piece of hardware out in the open for anyone to see. Then I got close enough to see my name handwritten and the return address and went 😍!! It’s @tarysande and my @masseffectholidaycheer gift!

First item out of the box was a space and shakarian themed notebook, with a very important message as soon as I opened it.

I am irrationally excited about the next thing because my wash clothes are always falling off the towel rack.

Look how brilliant that is!

This next thing made me laugh at first

But then I opened it and every page was filled out.

The best one, obviously.

And finally, an adorable cross between an elcor and a turian! I can’t stopped squishing it.

Thank you so much! Everything was super thoughtful and my smile kept getting bigger as I went.

[loquaciousquark]

I wanted to get this post up yesterday but didn't for a number of reasons, primary among which was my own poor planning, but yesterday was a Very Important Day - @eponymous-rose's birthday!

Not a day goes by where I don't count my lucky stars @tarysande introduced us all those years ago. I still remember reading your blog start to finish and thinking to myself, oh golly, I need to be friends with this person! And now, all these years later, here we are and sure enough, you were indeed every bit of the funny, kind, generous, smart, and clever person your posts showed!

You are SO good at your job. Not just because you're an amazing scientist, but because you CARE. You want your students to succeed not because it makes your life easy but because you want them to love science the way you do and do good for the world the way you do. It's not easy to be excited about some of these equations, but I've seen your lectures--you manage it anyway, and you do it clearly and cogently and FUNNILY, which is insane to me. (Put THESE panegyrics in your promotion packet: unsolicited positive written feedback from outside professor regarding quality of lecture materials.)

We've talked about this before, but it's just so rare to find friends as adults, and even rarer to find one with so many similar interests and hobbies. I truly treasure our watch parties, even when we're mostly just hanging out and doing our own thing and listening together. D&D with you has been an even greater gift--it's SO FUN to run scenes with you, every time, and your DMing is an absolute treat.

You are so patient, even with me when I'm being a pill, even with your students when you KNOW I wouldn't be. You model an example that I strive to match every time, and I hope you know just how much it's meant to have this twinned career path with you. I am a better teacher because you have shown me how you teach.

Anyway speaking of teaching I'm technically grading practicals right now, so I will wrap up, but please just let me shout one more time from the rooftops about how much your friendship and unceasing support has meant to me. You are a rare jewel in this sea of humanity, and I treasure every minute I get to spend with you in it. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

[inyri]

15 Questions for 15 (?) Friends

Tagged by @keldae (thanks!)

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?: Middle name, yes, like most Catholic girls of a certain age. First name, no, though I would have been if I was male (after an uncle who died long before I was born).

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?: two weeks ago

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?: yes, one.

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?: soccer, poorly. Cheerleading. Dance, though whether that counts as a sport or an art is up for debate.

DO YOU USE SARCASM?:

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?: posture, weirdly.

WHAT'S YOUR EYE COLOUR?: hazel

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?: happy endings

ANY TALENTS?: all entirely marginal- writing, sewing/costume and prop building, an excellent memory for entirely useless trivia

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?: Minnesota

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?: video games, tabletop RPGs, sewing, reading, writing, cooking (not baking, recipes are for the insecure)

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?: not at present

HOW TALL ARE YOU?: 5'9"

FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?: biology

DREAM JOB?: archaeologist

Tagging: um. Not sure how long this one's been going around or who's hanging 'round here, so: @tishinada @greyias @thievinghippo @shimmersing @tarysande @unexpected-tigers @jadesabre301 and whomever else wants to jump in?

[shadoedseptmbr]

15 Questions, 15 Mutuals

I was tagged by @genginger - thank you! Tagging um... @elleweird @tarysande

@thebearmuse @pagerunner-j @onionjuggler @frankenmouse @springagainafter @cronusamporaofficial @sorchacahill @nerdierholler @nightmarestudio606 @threewhiskeylunch @awhellstothejoe @painterofhorizons @janiemcpants

I'll post the questions here and my answers under the cut.

Were you named after anyone?

When was the last time you cried?

Do you have kids?

Do you use sarcasm?

What’s the first thing you notice about people?

What’s your eye colour?

Scary movies or happy endings?

Any special talents?

Where were you born?

What are your hobbies?

Have any pets?

What sports do/have you played?

How tall are you?

Favorite subject at school?

Dream Job?

Were you named after anyone? i share a middle with a grandmother

When was the last time you cried? i don’t really recall

Do you have kids? yup

Do you use sarcasm? like a mother tongue

What’s the first thing you notice about people? tone of voice

What’s your eye colour? greyish

Scary movies or happy endings? eh, happy endings

Any special talents? can curl my tongue and sing a bit

Where were you born? utah

What are your hobbies? this, mostly, heh. writing, knitting, gardening

Have any pets? not right now

What sports do/have you played? diving, gymnastics, swimming, tennis

How tall are you? 5′5″

Favorite subject at school? didn’t really have a favorite, it was just stuff to get through to get to the next point. english/grammar/lit came easy, i guess

Dream Job? librarian at a university, probably- archaeologist when i was a kid

[squigglysquidd]

Fanfic Tagging Game

I was tagged by @wafflesrock16.

Thanks for the tag, love!

I tag @blueboxness, @mordinette, @bronzeagelove, @tarysande, @vorchagirl, and anyone I may have missed but would like to join!

[pellaaearien]

first lines/last fics x10

@landwriter was incredibly kind and tagged me! Here goes!

Share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

Another Word for Ache When Dream of the Endless finds himself at liberty for the first time in one hundred years, there is no question about what he is going to do next.

Mieux Aimé “Now, one last note before I turn you all loose: a bit of historical trivia.”

Locum Tenens “Systems closed.”

Pet “Of course, if he hadn’t been spending so much time closeted with his pet…”

Out of the Cold Eyn’ara lowered her face to the basin, splashing it with water.

The Shovel Talk “Thancred Waters of the Scions here to see you, ser.”

Only River in the Forest You should tell Donna the real reason you're at the Library, Doctor.

To Hell and Back “You have got to be kidding me.”

White Days “Aw, hell!”

100 Ways “Pull over. Let me drive for a while.”

tagging @dancinbutterfly @thewollfgang @dsudis @mimisempai @tarysande @softest-punk @xx-vergil-xx @cuubism @moorishflower and @theleafpile

[thornhands]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like). 

Got tagged by @seascribbling. Thank you!

If we want to be nitpicky the last couple of lines were adding missing references for various worldbuilding documents

see: Art - Claudia Bueno light art installations (examples in Bilder titled same as here) (in Clips) see: Worldbuilding - Vertical farming with broccoli on an aeroponic tower (in Clips) see: Worldbuilding - Mushroom spores fuiting bodies (in Clips, Bilder) see: Fashion - glowing tattoo (Bilder, Skin fashion)

but I’m trying to be less nitpicky so have the last few lines of what I’m cleaning up from a discord snippet

The heavy fabric settles around his waist, the connectors snapping to their mates in the armour, even as he has to hook the surplus length of the kamas belt into his own. He know it'll take a minute for the integrated enviromental controls to start heating but he already feels warmer. A stiff breeze shakes the vestibul and causes the end of the heavy fabric to ripple, making an almost inaudible shushing sound that he more feels than hears as it brushes across his ankle guards. Next to him Bacara shifts and Rex gaze snaps up automatically, his bucket scanning what he can see of the starlit camp.

Nominating to share the painjoy of presenting something half cooked: @elthadriel @bitter-chocolate-stars @painterofhorizons @tarysande @tanoraqui @thievinghippo @rhubarbdreams @corvod @catboydogma

As always, no pressure, just fun (:

[helle-bored]

Self Rec Tag Game

I was tagged by @m0srael (thank you!) whose rec list is here!

Rules: We would like to ask you to recommend us 3 of YOUR fics: 1 that is “most popular” and 2 that are “hidden gems!" Then tag some folks.

i'm a rebel so i'm gonna do 2 and 2

1. By and By (2.3K, G, Pirates of the Caribbean)

"Calypso sent me. Said your fool crew had endangered your life." His eyes shine, a little darker than in his other life, a little more weary, but he's just as steadily in love as ever. Will/Elizabeth, post AWE.

listen. i've been team willabeth since i was thirteen, and nothing's changed in the past twenty years.

2. at the end of his tether (4.3K, M, Harry Potter)

There's a worn page folded in an inner pocket of Harry's robes with a single underlined paragraph. Discrete magical signatures have been observed after the destruction of a Dementor. Some scholars believe this implies that the souls of its victims persist as captives within its form, as opposed to undergoing immediate obliteration, and therefore serve the purpose of providing the creature with sustenance over a prolonged period of time. Harry has carried it for nearly two years.

i feel like this fic was a conversation between myself and the darkness that comes out of grief. like, things happen that are pretty awful and they can fuck a person up, but sometimes it's the ways we're fucked up that change the world. please check out the absolutely beautiful art by @babooshkart i commissioned for the fic here!

--

1. England, In Absentia (2.5k, G, Last of the Mohicans (1992))

Scenes from Cora's journey west with her new family, and the ways in which she leaves England behind. AU where Alice and Uncas survive.

this is my most technically proficient and beautiful fic, and the fourth scene is the most romantic thing i've ever written. absolutely wild thing to say about a fic i started because i randomly had the desire to write about a woman having her period in the 18th century.

2. i'll see you with your laughter lines (1.6k, T, Hunger Games)

If Finnick were just a little too ugly for the rest of the world, Annie wouldn't mind. (Post-70th/pre-75th games.)

i wanted to create something where grief doesn't touch them -- even when you know it's in the background of their lives, and even when you know what's coming. just a window into a moment of joy where they can laugh at the shadows.

tagging uhh @tarysande, @three--rings, and @moonstruckwytch!

[laurelsofhighever]

Writer’s Year-End Roundup!

I was tagged by the lovely @asaara-writes and I’m going to cop out and tag anyone who wants to do this and hasn’t already XD

Overall, 2022 was a good year. I finally sorted my ideas out enough to get back to longfic. Mostly it was about planning but since that came easily in places I’ve also started proper writing, and as of today, I’m 12 chapters into my Prince Alistair AU and just about ready to start posting.

Outside Dragon Age, DOTA; Dragon’s Blood season 3 gave me some lovely inspiration and I’m pretty proud of te work I did there. The Wayhaven Chronicles also gripped me tight and would not let go, and aside from some solid oneshots I’m now pretty much halfway through the first murder mystery story I’ve ever attempted, complete with vampires. It’s been a lot of fun reconnecting with all the characters I’ve written about in this last year, especially since 2021 was still mostly spent in a nice creative primordial soup waiting for ideas to coalesce.

Special mention to the print version of Falcon, which is a project I started last year and hope to get finished this year so it can sit and look pretty on my shelf.

Words written: 75,307, of which 29,562 has been published. This isn’t as much as I was expecting considering how many hours it feels I’ve put in, but 1) it’s still the length of a pretty hefty novel and 2) I haven’t counted all the words that are just planning or notebook scribbling, so it’s actually a heck of a lot more.

New things I tried: The biggest new thing is the venture into the murder mystery genre with Like Glitter And Gold. Having to work backwards from the crime to the clues meant the whole story has had to be much tighter than I’m used to in terms of detail, which meant having a much more invested plan and many, many conspiracy board diagrams before I could actually start to write. It’s been fun, though. Apart from that, I’ve learned that I’m most efficient when I plan out a rough script for a chapter first and then try to fill it in, instead of writing a detailed draft on the first try. I’ll definitely use this going forward and hopefully it means I’ll have a bigger wordcount for next year.

Fic I spent the most time on: My Prince Alistair AU for sure. Partly because I’m having to replay the game to refresh my memory of the events and transcribe then rearrange a lot of the dialogue, but also because it’s given me a lot of problems with the structure. It’s also how I found out I don’t so well trying to make a polished first draft. Also also, Dragon Age: Origins is a ridiculously long game, with so much talking - 35k words in, and they’ve only just left Lothering!

Fic I spent the least time on: I always feel miserable on my birthday, so this year I channelled that energy into Once More Around The Sun, a Nate x Detective Leah oneshot that I pushed out in a day. Except for the epistolary chapter of Falcon, it’s the most I’ve ever written in a single day, so I’m pretty proud of it. Happy Birthday to me.

Favourite thing I wrote: I’m pretty pleased with everything I’ve written for TWC this year, in particular So Let Us Melt, And Make No Noise, a fluffy, angsty oneshot, and Like Glitter And Gold, the murder mystery longfic, because it’s been something new for me.

Favourite thing I read: New Year’s Resolution: actually bookmark fics when you like them! I have binged works by @serenpedac (TWC), @tarysande (Shakarian), and @viciously-witty (Labyrinth), and very early in the year I finally got around to The Revelation In All Things by @ellenembee, which is one of the most we thought out Cullen x Lavellan fics I’ve read. In terms of published works, I actually read published stuff this year! Highlights include The Lies of Locke Lamora, Nightwatch, Sistersong, and Ivanhoe.

Writing goals for next year: Finish the remaster and print version of Falcon so I can finally put it on my shelf, finish LG&G, finally start a proper first draft of my Post-Blight story, make separate masterposts for Dragon Age and everything else to pin to each of my blogs, and streamline the way I plot for the Prince Alistair AU. Should be simple enough...

[tarysande]

It’s a good day for tarysande and @w0rdinista