If you've been following me at all in 2025, you've probably figured out that I was recently axed from my university posting because of the indirect ripple effect of DOGE's chaotic attacks on science / research / general funding. My department is one that was struck particularly hard and one that was never given any consideration for restoration, so I've been unemployed for the last few months and it has been HARD.

Fortunately, I can report at this time that I now have a new position. I'll still be teaching and I'll still be in a position where I can still work on some of my outside endeavors, but rather than working at a University level, I'll be in the public school system working primarily with elementary and middle school students!

This role is specific to my research specialty of Autism, ADHD, and 2E kids, and I am authorized to utilize my students case-notes for my never-ending PhD research (only upon leaving the district's employment, obviously, and with suitable identity protections in place to ensure anonymity in any potential future publications), so even though this position pays a little less than I was hoping for, I can count it as like a field-work positing and still feel like it's an entirely worthwhile endeavor for my career / research trajectory. It's more focused on how Official Curricula academic learning is absorbed and internalized, but as my own research delves into, the difference between Official Curriculum learning and memorizing Band Member Stats or a sprawling Lore timeline is literally nothing, so this posting really does fit right into my personal academic / research goals.

I should still be able to post Fanfic updates, as I know plenty of you are waiting for more in the super massive Star Wars fic I've got going, so don't worry about that! And if you were redirected here from an update to that effect from Ao3, you'll know that I've also been spending some time volunteering at an Animal Shelter! I've always been mission-driven and service-oriented, so finding a productive outlet for that has been a blessing during this period of turmoil. And it doesn't hurt that there are always heaps of cute puppies to cuddle in lieu of expensive therapy!

​I look forward to telling you all more about the research I'm doing and the journey I'm on as I live through it. I've been so grateful to you all for your support!! Thank you all so much for being such wonderful people!

If you follow me on Ao3, I recommend looking into following my Patreon! There I post a ton of cool things, like critiques on modern media and culture, deep dives into my research, and of course, original stories and fanfiction updates! With the new position, my content will likely slide more towards my research areas of Mid-Childhood Development (mainly Identity & Personality) and Cultural Development, and while I'll still definitely do a lot of Media Analysis and reviews, that will now be aimed primarily towards media targeted at audiences aged ~8 to 16.

I have the Patreon set up so that you should be able to register as a free member, which gives you early access to most things (including any fanfic updates), and if you feel able to contribute to keeping me afloat, I would deeply appreciate it. I may be employed now, but it's been ~6 months with absolutely zero income and, while I'm fortunately enough to be able to rely on the charitable warmth of close friends and family, I no longer have any kind of financial safety net. I completely understand if y'all need to keep your own safety-net intact, so don't feel bad if you can't afford to help me out. Capitalism is a vicious beast, and it's alright to protect yourself how you can from its ravages.

I hope all of your endeavors are going well, and I've love for you to tell me all about them!

Also, if there's ever anything you'd be interested in hearing from me about (a specific piece of media you'd like me to review, or a Current Event you'd like my take on, or even just a random topic you'd like to know more about), please don't hesitate to let me know!

​I love you all and want to make sure that you know how deeply appreciated you are here! ❤️

           As mentioned on Ao3 and Tumblr (or whatever platform's link re-directed you here), I'm currently facing something of a crisis on all fronts. With the current US Administration being the dumpster fire that it is, I'm surely not the only one you know who is struggling to deal with the Fallout.
               With the Federal Freeze on grants, most of the non-profits and humanitarian organizations I work with can no longer afford to pay me, and with University funding being shredded even the 1 gig I had that mostly managed to cover my bills is being entirely stripped. So, basically, I'm about to be unemployed again and have even fewer prospects than usual to get myself a new position.

          All hope is NOT lost, however. I do still have some friends and contacts in positions to help me find a new job in the short term, part-time and with lower-than-optimal compensation but still paying. Which will help tide me over until I can get a real job. And with my newly finished MA, I've got a new credential to use and also some Supervisory experience to tout, in applying for longer-term possibilities.

       Still, living in the DC area and being solely responsible for the care of a disabled parent, it would mean an awful lot to me if you guys could spare a minute to check out my newly re-written profile on my revamped Patreon Page! You can join for free to follow updates and stay on top of whatever new things I get up to, but if you do have a spare bit of change to contribute monetarily, you'll get access to a lot of extras!

       This website, too, will be getting a pretty substantial revamp, so if you run across any pages that don't look finished, they probably aren't!

Furthermore: while it's often difficult for people exhausted by trying to stay afloat to participate in protest (by design), but here's one that's very easy to jump on! Different parts of the net have ones for President's Day (2.17), 2.28, and the Ides of March (3.15). Create an Economic Blackout! Consciously chose not to buy anything, go anywhere, utilize paid streaming/subs (spotify, Netflix, etc)... #BuildTheResistance

              Well, April was a month.... In April, I worked just under 210 hours... with a grand total of 11 days where I worked shifts of more than 10 hours (and only 6 where I worked the standard 9-5 and actually remained within its 8 expected hours).
              Yeah, April was a LOT.

              And so was May. Between work things still being at a pretty high demand (not nearly as high as April, but all my student employees straight up ghosted me so days that should've been cake-walks turned into nightmares). Also, as a student myself, I also had school demands as the semester wrapped up.

              And then in June all of that hard-stopped so suddenly that I kind of just went reeling. There wasn't actually enough down time for a vacation, but there was a requirement to go to work and effectively very little to do there... Which resulted in a surprising-at-the-time (but really obvious in retrospect) burnout-fueled-lethargy and depressive period.
              Things did not go well.

              BUT.

              I have viable projects to work on now. And not exactly the right kind of motivation to make confidence rational, but enough to hope that I'll be able to actually make progress on some of them.

              One of the biggest things that has come up is the idea that I'm wrapping up my was-a-PhD-then-COVID-now-a-Masters program next summer. And I have no idea what to do after it. My current role has me locked in at my present position for another 4 years of potentially free-ish part-time schooling at a graduate level. I can probably finish another Masters in that time, or I can re-start the PhD I originally wanted and then stick around an extra year or two (or 4) if needed...
              I'm not really in a headspace to set myself any significant goals right now, but I am going to make figuring that out a priority. I've already got a few feelers out to professors and advisors about it, so I hope to have at least a better idea of the possibilities by the time I start drafting the post for the July wrap up.

              We'll see if I can manage it!
​

Anyway, this past month was almost evenly divided between work emails and school emails for the Astyle Anything Misc category (ignore the 2022 I just noticed in the name, I made it a repeat goal and didn't realize that I named it by year when I first set it up, it'll be fixed for March). And the rest of it was entirely new material for the Dal Segno Star Wars Story!
I'm SO excited about where that story is going and Year 1 of it's timeline is within 3 Episodes of wrapping up! And, startlingly, I'm actually in a good enough place of attention and focus that I think I'll be able to jump right into writing Year 2!
Goals wise, February more or less met the goals I'd set.
I finished out with 37k, so not quite 40, but still way above my minimum, and I got a chapter posted to Patreon and at least 5 to Ao3, so 10 points to Slytherin there. The rest of it wasn't quite up to what I'd hoped for, but I vastly underestimated the time commitment of my class this semester, so I'm not too worried about.
We're gonna keep it just as simple for March: 

• - 40k in newly drafted material, 50k as a reach goal.
• - 2 fanfic chapters posted to Ao3.
• - 1+ chapter fic posted to Patreon.

And hopefully, we'll be in an even better place by the end of it!

GOOD LUCK to you guys in whatever you're hoping for this month!

             Also, when making my outlook for November, I conveniently forgot about the existence of Finals Week, which put a huge damper on my writing productivity due to a massive load of research projects and presentations. And those last 4 days of nothing-ness were sick-days. I even called out from work due to the absolutely killer migraine I had... I barely left my bed for 3 days.
             Regardless of those seeming tripping points, however, I managed to have my 2nd best month this year so far (the best was August, and I only missed passing that by about 3k, so one more decent day of work without a headache or a pressing research project to take precedence). I got over the 40k line with my word count this month, which, in a normal year would be a slight disappointment, but in a year like this is absolutely glorious.

Goals-wise, I also did pretty good.
             I did not post any new chapters of the original fiction story I've been working on, but that's more because I've been forced to recall that, wow my first drafts are rough, and less because I don't have the material. I want to make the stuff I post here at least kinda decent before I subject you guys to it.
             I have chapters, and I'd like to get one or two posted in December, so I'll probably give them a quick edit and post them with notes and caveats so you guys can get a peak at my process in the next few weeks!
             I successfully posted 2 new chapters of fanfic, as I'd hoped I could when setting my November goals, and I even drafted a little bit more to extend my queue so I still have some material near-ready to post for December!

             Additionally, I have done some work on the potential Podcast/YouTube thingy, but wow is that more labor intensive than really viable for Finals Period...
             I may have something solid to post in December, but that's a reach-goal.

For December, my goals are simple:
             - 30k in newly drafted material, 50k as a reach goal.
             - 2 fanfic chapters posted to Ao3.
             - 1+ chapter original fic posted with notes to Patreon.
             - Symposium Paper draft* (more info to come).
             - Master's Capstone Project Outline* (also more to come).
             - 3 media reviews.We'll see what happens, but that all seems moderately doable to me.


I hope you guys all have some fun things planned out for the Holiday season and that all your goals get met!

GOOD LUCK!

January was a month full to bursting of time-heavy demands on me and my meager reserves of energy and attention. I am in the process of transitioning to a new role at one of my jobs and also of shifting course within my COVID de-railed academic career, so I've been hella busy (in a GOOD way, something way better than any other sort of busy, over-worked-ness that I've been subjected to in the last few years.)
That said, I still managed to get within a negligible distance of my word-count goal for this month. With respect to the fact that I am still recovering my creative groove after the past summer's burnout, I aimed for simply not backsliding. I've been slowly getting back to the 50k a month I usually produce, but in small spurts (ie, 5k in October, 15k in November, and 24k in December). So my goal this month was 25k

Not great, certainly, but also not too bad.

I have plenty of room to improve, but I'm trying not to beat myself up about anything here because I'm still doing better than last month and since progress is not a destination but a trajectory, and as my current trajectory is still pointing in the right direction, this month is a success. It's important for me to keep focused on that part of it.

And to start looking forward towards a brighter future, because next month is full of particularly amazing promise.
It's more exciting for me in the immediate future than it can be for you, but I am embarking on the production of a short-vlog sort of new content! It's part of a semester project and will be posted on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, but only after I post it here, of course. It's hopefully going to be part opinionated media-review and part informative cultural/historical analysis, and I'm very excited about its potential!

I probably won't finish scripting / filming / editing any of it until at least March... but I'll likely start up with posting in-production pics and teasers almost immediately after I get the pitch approved by my professor!

Aside from that, I'll almost certainly be able to finish up with posting the Multiverse Mishap story (both the BatFam version and the SPN one). And I should even be able to gear up for posting a brand new story, but that's a secondary goal and won't be at all plausible until at least three weeks yet...

So, LOTS of stuff in the pipeline and it's all really exciting!
But, as always, we'll just have to see how things play out.
In sincerely hope it goes well, so me, and for whatever you guys have on all your plates at the moment!

GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE!!

                It's not an excessive amount of work, at least not in terms of accomplishing the main, normal goals, but (as evidenced by the tacked on extra goal) I am also quite sure that I'll be posting a lot of new words as being part of the [Star Wars] Not a Kid semi-story, so hopefully I'll get at least one piece of that sorted out well enough to being posting it as a current project on Ao3... We'll just have to see what happens.
                ​So, hopefully, we'll see something happen that shifts things towards a brighter future. But if not, I've at least got a handle on myself enough to know I tried... (It's really difficult not to feel like a lazy piece of shit when like 80% of my day often involves sitting on a couch, and then just a short bit of shift work... but I absolutely cannot focus on anything like a job app after a shift at one of my jobs... ADHD brain says when the shift is over the day is over... even if I get out of work at like 11am, which means to compensate and actually get shit done with my days I've been waking up at like 2am on the regular...).

              We'll have to see how it all works out.
              I hope you guys have a great July, a FANTASTIC 4th of July Weekend, and as always, if you think of anything you'd like me to write about, just drop me a line and I'll work it into the schedule post haste!

GOOD LUCK, Y'ALL!

          It was an odd month, not least because of how my A/C died on me... We honestly think it was sabotage... We had a couple of people come out to give estimates on getting it replaced soon-ish (because it was old and would need replacing soon so we wanted a ballpark on its cost), but it was working fine after 2/4 people checked it out and then the 3rd guy left and immediately it crapped out... And dude #3's company called us 26 times in the next 30 hours...). ​

            I'm actually really excited it because I like at lot of the formatting possibilities better than what Patreon offers and I can link certain posts through Patreon to ensure that they remain Early Access or Patron Only. No real changes will be seen in my posting schedule here, but I do think the website will be able to help me get more exposure. ^_^
        Anywho, I wasn't really able to meet... well any of my May goals writing goals outside of word count, but technically I did send my query letters, make my job apps, and post my chapters / reviews on time (thank goodness for prewriting and substantial queues!)
            But all that aside, I've got high hopes for June:

           Unfortunately, the Sun & Stars story has caught up to me in terms of being a little too difficult to research / write on any kind of schedule and since the BatFamily story is both easier to write and receives more audience enthusiasm... I'm transferring my focus to Multiverse Mishap. It'll likely be a best-choice option even if it currently feels like giving up. (I always hate leaving WIPs as WIPs, but sometimes it's inevitable).
           We'll see what happens, but I've got a very good outlook for it!
           I hope you guys have a wonderful June!

GOOD LUCK!