Your personal Tumblr library awaits
Nine Fingers Keene - Blog Posts
Current situation: eating a cupcake while taking a bath because I got a massage yesterday and the masseuse beat the shit out of me.
Also wondering whether Jaheira and Astele would be bath girls or shower girls?
I bet Astele would appreciate the quickness of a shower, while Jaheira would be a long, hot bath lover with bath bombs and bath teas and shit like that.
Jaheira would have one of those deep copper bathtubs so the water would stay hotter for longer.
Astele would have a stand-up shower and only soak when Jaheira invited her to bathe together.
I don’t think either would eat cupcakes.
Posting this here because it’s one of my faves and because there’s nothing you can do to stop me!
Sewer Journals
What this fic has:
Jaheira being nosy as hell
Smut (because it’s me and apparently I can’t just write a regular fic - it’s not reeeally dirty like usual tho!!)
Ultra-soft Nine-Fingers Keene (deal with it)
What this fic does not have:
Uhm. Idk. Jaheira showing restraint like she ought to since she’s the High Harper and old as hell
Summary:
“Jaheira let out an amused breath. Sewer journals. It would appear the Underduke kept detailed diaries. Coded details of all past, present, and possibly future Guild business? A clear advantage; knowledge she absolutely must learn. She picked an older red one and opened it to a random page. She had long ago learned the code in which Nine-Fingers wrote her Guild communications, but the code in these pages seemed slightly different. Certain symbols and letters replaced ones that Jaheira knew well. But she was a quick study, always had been.”
Someone desperately needs to take photo mode away from me.
Anyway, take a break from your mental illness to enjoy mine. I’ll warn you, these are poorly done and NSFW.
Jaheira x Nine-Fingers (technically my Tav, but we’re all on tumblr to use our imaginations, right??)
Jaheira: “Nine-Fingers - Astele.”
Nine-Fingers: “Anything I can do to take that wrinkle from your brow, grandmother?”
Me: screaming and scheming and getting out my red string
the most fun a girl can have is finding parallels, noticing patterns, making connections, contemplating
it's important to have a group of ppl that you can just sit and think about The Character with
My work program crashed at 10:30 and never came back up, so no records were managed today. I accomplished nothing except eating a bag of cookies that served 3 and talking to friends online to keep me company. I believe my day here is done! I’m going to go home to my lovely wife and my four favorite gals 💃🏻
Nine-Fingers Keene concept art from Forgotten Realms.
Oh? You've got some juicy little tidbit I haven't heard yet?
Pipe Smoke - Chapter 2
Dawn broke over the city's trees, casting pinks and reds and oranges over their misty green leaves. But no sunlight dare shine through to the dim sewer office where Jaheira hung tightly to Astele's skin, curled against her like a cat seeking shelter from the rain. Eventually, Jaheira exhausted herself of dreams and stirred ever so slightly. The corners of her lips turned up in a grin as she remembered the previous night's events.
It had all started when Astele stole her a yellow orchid from someone's jacket pocket at the Elfsong Tavern. She did it to make Jaheira laugh - to steal something right in front of the High Harper, then present it to her as a gift she couldn't refuse. Astele had said, "Petty theft for a pretty girl," then gently tucked the flower behind Jaheira's ear. She remembered forgetting, if only for a moment, that she was over a century and a half years old and had a house full of children waiting for her down the street. Instead, she had smiled bashfully at the Guildmaster's comment and fluttered her eyelashes like she was twenty-something all over again.
But it wasn't really the flower or even the comment that had brought on the sudden bashfulness. It was knowing that, in a room full of patrons who had flowers stuck in their suit jackets, Astele knew her well enough to steal the yellow orchid. And that was what made Jaheira's heart skip a beat.
Astele stirred underneath her, grunting lightly as she did. She squeezed Jaheira lightly to let her know she was awake, then pressed a sleepy kiss to the top of her gray braids of hair. "You talk in your sleep, Harper," Astele teased, her voice gruff and low.
Jaheira hummed then replied, "And you steal flowers to stick in women's hair so you can get them into your bed."
Astele chuckled, lightly shaking Jaheira as she did. "Worked, didn't it?"
Jaheira softly smacked Astele's side under the blanket, silently chiding her for trying to rile Jaheira up too early in the morning. "What other kinds of trinkets does the Guildmaster give women to lure them back to her lair?" Jaheira shot back with her own brand of teasing.
Astele opened one eye, catching the playful spark in Jaheira's hazelnut eyes. She smirked. “You really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,” Jaheira replied, her voice was softer than it was before. A part of her still hadn’t fully recovered from the tenderness from the tavern and from the entire night.
Astele exhaled, not ready, but figuring it was better now than never. She turned fully onto her side to face Jaheira, hummed thoughtfully, and began counting on her fingers - the hand with all five of them. “Cinnamon. I’d bring you freshly cured sticks to burn in the evenings, because you said once it reminds you of the groves near Athkatla in late spring.”
Jaheira raised an eyebrow. She had said that—years ago. Once. In passing on a night that she'd lost to Lady Lockjaw at cards. She hadn’t even remembered it until now.
Astele continued, her voice lazy and soft. “Honeyed figs from a stall near the Temple of Ilmater. You always buy them for the little ones, but you take one for yourself thinking no one notices."
She furrowed her brow and she thought of even more. "Lemon tea. Strong, sweet. A steaming mug with a touch of honey. The kind no one else in your house drinks except you.”
Jaheira stared, unable to process the list Astele was rattling off. All the things she loved that she didn't think anyone ever noticed.
“Green ink,” Astele went on, ticking yet another finger. “You only ever write in green ink and you hoard those little glass jars like they're made of gold.”
A laugh choked out of Jaheira before she could help it, sharp and surprised. “I do not hoard them," she exclaimed.
“Ten in your desk. Three hidden behind the books in your study. Don’t lie to a professional thief, Jaheira.” Astele laughed herself and added, "There's probably more down in your sanctuary, too. If I had to guess, I'd say… six more little bottles all hidden in crates."
It wasnt a guess at all and Jaheira knew it. The High Harper covered her face with one hand, feeling a rush of warmth washing up her throat and over her cheeks. “Gods, you are insufferable!”
“I know.” Astele caught and held her gaze, sky blue meeting earthy hazel. “You also like rainy days when you don’t have to be out in the wet mess. You fall asleep to the patter of raindrops and gentle rush of wind. Thunder scares you if it's too loud, but you love to watch lightening crackle against the black sky of night. You hate it when people eat while standing, and Rion does it just to annoy you. You keep your boots polished even if you're going out into the wilds or a grove out of respect for nature. You double-knot Fig's cloaks because you don’t trust her to do it right.” Her voice then dropped to a whisper. “You mourn in silence. And when you love something, you never say it out loud. You just… guard it. With everything you have and everything you are.”
The silence after that was long, heavy with all the things Jaheira could not admit, but felt deep in her heart. “You just happen to know all of that?” Jaheira asked, her voice hoarse.
“I watched over the years,” Astele said simply. “Listened. You don’t talk much about yourself, so I learned by paying attention.”
Jaheira propped herself up a bit to face her fully, brushing silver hair behind her ear. “But… why?
Astele hesitated, her eyes flicking away for the barest moment before coming right back. “Because I didn’t know how to tell you I loved you,” she said in a voice barely audible. “So I memorized you instead.”
couldn’t think of what to write so i drew her instead <3
Pipe Smoke
It was the pipe smoke that roused her from a deep slumber. After the rush of soft hands and velvet lips, gentle gasps and shaking hips. After words said at least five years overdue, perhaps even longer. It was after the simple rustling of leaves had turned into a tempest of sweat and flame and arching release. It was the pipe smoke that roused her.
The night had been slow and sweet; reverent even. Holy. Both of them taking turns being cleric and goddess, intent on heavenly worship of the other. It was the type of delicate lovemaking she had gotten used to once upon a time, and not something she thought she’d ever feel again. Warmth and life crept back into her tired bones, stirring them to shiver and hum, stirring her chest to rise and fall, breaths coming in rapid successive gasps twice, no, thrice, in one night.
It had felt like home.
And maybe that’s why she said it, mumbled it under her still ragged breath whilst halfway dreaming. “Smoke in the study, Khalid.”
The smell of an old long leaf, a tobacco antique even to her, lingered, then lazily mellowed into nothingness. Her breathing settled back into an even rhythm when no new smoke flooded her dreams. Suddenly, she was being gently pulled by a strong, yet wiry arm. She twisted her body against warm, pink flesh, her cheek finding a new place to rest atop a soft, broad shoulder. The smell and feel was so similar and so, so safe. She curled into it, smiling. A soft sigh escaped her lips in response to a whispered comment she couldn’t quite hear.
— —
That experience was… different. Not at all what she was used to. Her line of work didn’t leave room for softness, kindness, gentle touches, or fluttering kisses in the aftermath of a storm. She was used to the feeling of her dark-haired kingpin’s sharp dagger trailing down her spine after a victorious coup, or a quick nightcap with a golden-haired lady after a stressful day of negotiations - her court wasn’t there just for fucking protection, after all.
And she was used to being in control.
Every order obeyed, every enemy quaking in fear of her vicious wrath, every kingpin and guild member falling neatly in line lest they meet an undesirable fate either at her own hand or upon her command. She wasn’t used to subservience. Or giving into temptation. Or whispering sweet lover’s words in the heat of passion - she wasn’t sure she was used to passion. But she was used to being the one calling the shots.
So when her - lover? Ally? Frenemy? Mumbled about smoking in the study, she scoffed. An eyebrow raised slowly at being called the name of a dead husband. Either she’d done a good job, or the old crone was finally losing her fucking mind. She scoffed, yet she found herself sitting down her tinderbox, letting the tobacco she had just lit die out, then working her fingers to empty out the bowl even though she was in her own fucking office.
She thought about a quip. A wry comment lay on the tip of her tongue and she opened her mouth to say it. Then she shut it. Instead of flinging a well crafted and very witty insult, she rose from her chair, shed the oversized tunic she had thrown on, and slid back into her bed. Her strong arm pulled the other woman on top of her, waking her just enough so she could twist to rest her head upon her new pillow’s broad shoulder.
“You’re lucky you’re only half a Harper, grandmother,” she whispered into a mess of gray hair.
The only response she received was in the form of a soft sigh.
💚Jaheira x Astele: 19 Fingers FanFic Contest💚
Vote for your favourite fic!
So I made a drawing, and these AMAZING yet mysterious writers brought it to life! Thank you so much!
Now it's time to determine the winners!
Take a break, read some great fics, and vote for the one you love most.
The entries:
⚔️ Stay
https://bit.ly/STAYfic
⚔️ Jaheira and Astele ⚔️ 🌹
https://bit.ly/JaheiraXAstele
⚔️ Stakeout
https://bit.ly/STAKEOUT
⚔️ Sweetness captures honeybees in time
https://bit.ly/SWEETNESSfic
💚Vote here https://bit.ly/JAstele💚
🏆 Prizes:
The two top-voted writers will win an A4 print of the 19 Fingers drawing + a choice of one Jaheira A5 print.
Two runner-ups will each receive an A5 Jaheira print.
DEADLINE for voting: 4th May (7 days)
💜 Thank you so much for your support - it means the world, really!
Izz
(Vote sharing link is https://bit.ly/JAstele)
notes and thoughts on the Nine-Fingers Keene tag dive
First, the unpretty Sheets chart:
For a deeper explanation of how I break down the roles, you can see this post here; and here is a comparison of NF's tag accuracy (percentage of main + side works) vs the rest I've done:
Raphael: 75% | Nocturne: 71% | Nine-Fingers Keene: 62% | Aylin/Isobel: 56% | Minthara: 54% | Alfira: 44% | Jaheira: 36% | Araj: ~27%
Please note that at this point, Minthara's is ~9 months out of date, the rest between then and now. Take these as a general baseline versus a hard truth.
Similarly to Nocturne, Act 3 easy-ish-to-miss Nine-Fingers Keene steps neatly out of the broader fandom spotlight and into the hands of people who actually like her.
Actually - I believe a lot of people genuinely like the women of BG3. But I also believe people do not care about them, which becomes really obvious with the amount of reverse-thought-criming in some characters' tags (Jaheiraaaa). AO3 users writing about Astele Keene, especially in her more recent works, like her and they care about her.
The minor role tags were in large part due to: a character, usually Tav, has a connection to the seedy underbelly of the city, and they need to call in a favor from NF. They will meet with her and/or discuss her and/or think about her for a few paragraphs.
Nine-Fingers' main ship was, predictably, with Jaheira. Her second largest fic-status was no tagged ship at all. The other ship-fics were individual one-shots with various characters (no repeat ships).
Regardless of relationship status, she's a girl's girl for sure:
This is subdivided, so works tagged both 'gen' and 'f/f' for example are counted as one of each; 76% of her works are not only ff, 76% of her works include the ff category.
And if we change this to only include works that actively ship Nine-Fingers:
Something else interesting is that Nine-Finger's tag is small enough that I could screenshot the entirety of my Roles column:
(rotated so it's oldest -> newest by post date. main, side, minor, mistag)
We can see her early tags were all side, background, a few mistags; the most recent works being on the other end of the spectrum, almost entirely fics truly about Nine-Fingers; and a pretty smooth gradient in the middle.
I am not going to lie, at first I was like yay looks like people are finally learning to tag :-) but, what this more likely indicates is just the fading popularity of a two-year-old game -- especially with newer shinier fandoms pulling audience from the bg3 pool. Users posting more recent BG3 fanfic are primarily those still standing in the now-settled dust, writing about favorite characters/settings/lore, with a drop in the general kind of 'this is my Tav's epic love story from beginning to end (with every NPC mentioned tagged as well)!' written and posted on a new-fandom high. I imagine that brand of enthusiastic-cum-careless writers are probably posting the same but with Rook now? Sympathy to my Veilguard mutuals.
Like I mentioned above, it's been almost a year since I posted my first Minthara infographic. It will be interesting to go back this summer and see what's changed for her as well, and if the above holds up for an unavoidable Act 1 character like her versus a more missable, late-game char like Nine-Fingers.
The state of the Nine-Fingers Keene tag on AO3 | additional notes & thoughts
“Fingertips or fingernails, grandmother? Doesn’t matter. You’ll remember me either way.”
She would just one shot all the enemies
My wife and I were discussing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (specifically from the 1980s) and she referred to Master Splinter as “Big Rat Daddy.”
I wish to inform you all that this is now what I will be calling Nine-Fingers Keene.
Big Rat Daddy
I’m not stealing my sweet, murderous, thieving, angel baby’s things!
very fun as a rogue to just go from vault to vault taking literally everything in the counting house high security zone while glitterbeard is right behind us going "would you stop :/" very halfheartedly
"Did You Miss Me?"
It was one month since the battle of Baldur's Gate, one month since everything. Kethric Thorm lay dead at last, Orin and Gortash were defeated and the crown of karsus lay lost in the Chionthar.
Jaheira still wasn't used to it, being back in the city after so long away. Even before the battle, she'd been camping out in The Elfsong with that merry band of adventurers. She'd grown accustomed to their noise despite not being with them for long. That warm feeling of being part of an adventuring party once more. They were all gone now, back to whatever lives they'd lived before the nautiloid or carving out new ones: Gale back in Waterdeep, Shadowheart searching for a home with her parents and Lae’zel, Astarion doing some sort of vigilante work within the city (she'd met up with him a few times) and Minthara, Wyll and Karlach back in Avernus. Jaheira almost wasn't used to the silence. Maybe that's why she found herself in the Lower City sewers, checking in on an old friend far more often than she had in the past. Sure, Jaheira may have retired from the Harpers so the inner workings of the Guild were hardly any of her concern anymore. But, well, Minsc and Nine-Fingers were working together now (sort of?). She may as well be checking in every so often to make sure they hadn't killed each other.
Jaheira glances over at Astele. They're sat across from each other, Astele behind her desk wading through important looking paperwork and Jaheira on a little stool in front of it. They'd been sitting together like this in silence for what felt like an hour. Comfortable silence. Jaheira had bought a book with her to read (some novel she'd started before leaving for the shadow cursed lands, she hadn't gotten the chance to go back to it until now) just listening to the scratching of pen on paper and Astele's gentle humming.
“Did you miss me?”
Nine-Fingers barks with laughter, not even bothering to look up, “You seriously think I've had the time?”
Jaheira just hums in response. It made sense; between dealing with the Steel Watch, Bhaal's assassins, the Stonelord and a failed coup by the Zhents it was unlikely Nine-Fingers had even had time to think of herself. Let alone her enemy? Ally? Sort-of-friend-maybe-more? Jaheira still wasn't exactly sure what their relationship was at this point.
“Besides,” Astele finally looks up, meeting her gaze, “I knew you'd come back.”
“Ah, your offering to Kelemvor would imply otherwise. “
“Somehow I'm sure not even death could keep you away.”
My Girlfriend and Her 27 Daggers (aka 19 Fingers)
I am not a fan of 'do gardening to relax' cause of reasons, but I thought rendering every single element would be a nice meditative experience.
The rest of the daggers are there somewhere.
37 hours, Procreate, lots of questioning my sanity over background details
If you see a lineart mistake, no you don’t.
My thanks go to @ octavia_tav on X for Jahehe reference and the @ misshighharper (Jake?) for the inspiring meme about knives and also @ graciescribbles for the gentle push
Help I spent 3 hours on this 😭💀
AH-mazing!
She is quiet. Sharp tongue stilled. The noises she makes are soft and contented, never mind how Jaheira’s teeth scrape, how the bruises bloom. When Jaheira’s mouth moves lower, her breath hitches, her fingers tangling in Jaheira’s braids, and still she does not speak. “What?” Jaheira raises her head. “None of the Guildmaster’s trademark quick wit?” “A good commander knows when to shut the fuck up and do what needs doing,” Astele breathes, “and I am a good. Fucking. Commander.”
have had this sequel planned since i wrote the first fic :") very happy to finally finish it!
“Don’t get mad if I fall asleep on you” for Jaheira/NF
Jaheira’s curled up on Astele’s bed—not wildshaped, not surreptitious, just Jaheira. She smiles like this isn’t something novel and also fucking insane. This isn’t what they do. She shows up late at night sometimes, sure, but not late at night when she’s got adventurers to herd, tucked up at the Elfsong doing whatever other insane charity work needs their attention. She doesn’t have time for things like this.
She’s not wearing her fuck-me lingerie, and it is psychologically damaging for Astele to realize that they’ve been doing this for enough time that she can tell how Jaheira’s feeling based on what she’s worn to bed. Fuck-me lingerie—pretty self-explanatory. Green adventuring leathers—business only, and she’s usually paired them with a grim expression that’s nothing like the drowsy smile Astele sees now.
She’s wearing a smile. A smile, and a soft, summer-green blouse with gauzy sleeves, clearly designed for relaxation, possibly at least fifty years out of style. On anyone else, it would look absurd. Jaheira can’t look absurd to Astele.
“Don’t get mad if I fall asleep on you,” Astele says, shoulders up. “Been a hell of a day even with the Stone Lord gone. And there’s worse coming.”
“I know,” says Jaheira. She stretches out her legs on the bed and pats the spot next to her.
Astele sits down.
Jaheira touches her face. “You do look tired,” she observes, but not in the usual tone of voice. A different one.
“Is this because we’re all going to fucking die?”
“Perhaps.” Jaheira’s fingers brush her cheek. No one else in the world is allowed to touch Astele like that, she decides, and then realizes there’s an else in that sentence. “Perhaps I just missed you.”