figured that i should pin one of these up here! i'm flora (she/they)
my main original project rn is valley's end, an interactive fiction game i'm working on as my final project for grad school. i'm also working on a novella on which the game is based, and will happily talk about either.
i've gone down a big tolkien rabbit hole lately so expect posts from that sphere of tumblr! i also sometimes post things on ao3 sometimes. but only sometimes.
my other general loves are ttrpgs and fibre crafts!
🔎 What detail(s) in the story are you particularly captivated with? Is there any behind the scenes info or backstory?
for Hold Me Fast
This is from the ask game here!
Hello hello! Thank you so much for asking about this story, because I'm so fond of it.
I don't know if it counts as a detail, but it feels like a cohesive set of details, so I'll count it: the shapeshifting themes in this story were really fun to play with once I noticed how central they were. Who are you? Can you love me when I'm wearing this persona? How about this one? If I show you different pieces of my heart, will you be able to handle them? What if there's something wrong with me? Will you love me then too?
Mairon's not the only one shapeshifting here; Finrod has forgotten many things that used to be central to who he was (like music!), has discovered in his heart a wellspring of pain that feels as if it will make him into someone else entirely, and the great conflict he's trying to resolve in this story is: is there anywhere for me to be my whole self?
Which is why it's so important, near the end, that what he asks Mairon to do is this:
Be there for me when I am hurting and when I am cruel and when I am sick with the burden of living, because it weighs on me, Mairon, and I don't know what to do. If only you would be there, if only you would keep me no matter how insufferable and useless and unreasonable I become—that would be the finest thing you could ever offer me. That would be the thing that made this world bearable again. If you don't want to let go, then keep me, and let me keep you.
Which is what Mairon yearns for too, really: to be loved and accepted even in the parts of himself that he didn't previously realize he had.
Finrod has never been angry or unreasonable, has never been in the habit of standing up for himself rather than for other people. He's not even entirely there by the end of Fear Me Not, but he can feel it coming, and he knows it's not going to be put off forever, and he's frightened of it. He doesn't say I hate you to Mairon in chapter 7, but he thinks it, and when has Finrod ever been in the habit of hate? (He uses the word hate eleven times in three paragraphs in that chapter. That's a lot!)
And Mairon, meanwhile, has never been kind, not really. They both feel very vulnerable about these unfamiliar and unaccustomed emotions, and they're both desperate for someone to understand these new selves they're wearing.
in which you return to the village your family once cared for, meet your great-uncle's ghost, mourn your losses, and try to make sense of who you are meant to be.
(excerpt below the cut!)
You have come this far with the suggestion of a map: directions pieced together from the scraps of your mother’s memory and half-forgotten stories of your childhood, supplemented with visuals from travelogues of dubious accuracy from several decades ago, works that describe the northern half of the Valley as “quaint” and “charming” when they don’t describe it as terrifying instead.
You have encountered very few people on your journey—a few scattered farmsteads, some half-abandoned villages, all of them perplexed at the sight of you—bright-eyed and young, fluent enough in the local language that you don’t sound entirely foreign and yet so distinctly not from here with your new backpack and city-stitched clothes. They share their food, offer you a bed when they can and the floor when they cannot, and very pointedly do not ask questions when you tell them you are seeking Valley’s End. It is a relief that no one offers to accompany you through the forest.
You enter the forest just after sunrise, and by the time your pocket watch marks the noon hour—the sun is unreliable through the tree cover, though the magic does not make your watch much better—you are exhausted. You are not lost, but you only know that because you know there is only one road through the forest, and though vague about many a detail, the stories of your childhood were always perfectly clear about this: it is imperative you do not stray from the path.
One of my most enduring headcanons is that Finarfin’s decision to turn back to Tirion, whilst catalysed by the Doom, was in fact precipitated by his final conversations with Eärwen, whose people were the ones slain at Alqualondë, who had to presumably watch as her husband packed his household to sail alongside the people responsible for said slaying, and who probably had Something To Say About It.
Entirely headcanoned, but it does actually fit, considering he is said to have been in turmoil over it since the First Kinslaying at the harbour, and I’m mostly joking here but tbh it also gels with Tolkien’s general theme of male rulers listening/not listening to the counsel of their wives… anyway, enjoy a brief brainrotted excerpt from a letter she sends with him, which he opens after the Doom is pronounced:
Do you truly think Fëanáro cares if you flee or fly? Beloved, sweet, hopeful husband, the perpetual youngest of sons: I tell you now the stolen ships will go to Beleriand whether you step foot on the deck or not. Flowers will bloom in the gardens of Tirion whether you sail oversea or not. Fëanáro and Nolofinwë will cross their swords nigh unto death even if you run your heart clear through with the blade. The eagle does not know that the fishermouse lines his nest with eagle-feathers each night, hoping beyond hope that its children will fly.
What is there in Beleriand for you, if not a long life as a weather vane? Listlessly spinning in the feeble breeze, your position a perfunctory mark to inform someone else’s navigation. Think of the houses of healing, my love. The only painless way is to sever what is grafting onto us before the graft takes. Why corral carrion, why tongue wounds? Do not succumb to the eternal winding. What will you do? Walk back to Tirion? Or walk forward, and let the ravening beast eat its way out from inside you?
I do not deny your grief. I only say that once sorrow crosses a certain threshold, men might turn into mules. This unfamiliar numbness occludes from you the truth. It works as blight works wheat, the stalk standing green until the harvest, when the whole shaft crumbles to spore-dust in your palm, and you understand it died weeks ago, that what looked like the future was merely the husk of the past, propped up by all the blighted stalks around it.
The Finwë to be avenged in Beleriand is not the Finwë that you mourn.
It will be Fëanáro’s Finwë, who loved him above all, whose unfailing light glitters in the symbols he was slain to steal, flying clean through the air like a bird above the battlefield. It will be Nolofinwë’s Finwë, the second-son’s Finwë, whose favour broke his heart, whose death decreed darkness in the hearts of the Noldor, who must be cleaned before he is restored.
It will not be your Finwë, not the Finwë for whom my Ingoldo wept in my arms, he who sat his smallest son on his lap, and told him stories of the lands of awakening, who rolled your honeyed cake into the smallest of swords and always took a bite off the end. He who was naught but a father, nothing more than a father. That Finwë will be lost as the ship slides across the deepest breath of the sea, he will be excess tossed overboard in the madness of the very first squall. He will sink like a failed fish, fins folded, nothing but your father and nothing but gone.
Who can you slay in Beleriand, beloved? Whose blood can temper your grief? You were born with flower-petals in your mouth, you lived your life with only nectar on your lips. Do not let your father sink into the sea. Bring him home, and tell tales of him with your sweetest of tongues. Bring him home, Ingoldo, and lay him to rest. Then go to Alqualondë. Go to Alqualondë, and ask the children to teach you how to grieve a father without becoming a mule.
When Laurie wakes up in the driver’s seat on a highway with no memories in a girl’s body, a car crash is small potatoes. Having to rely on a handsome stranger’s kindness while pretending he actually is this 17 year old girl named Valerie is a comparative nightmare.
But waking up on that same highway over and over again and watching the days tick down from one hundred? Re-meeting Gideon—that handsome stranger—every day, while navigating his new life in a body he can’t stand, with no idea where his real one is? Nightmare doesn’t cut it. If that’s not enough, learning about the girl this body belongs to raises way more questions than it answers, and when Gideon is drawn into the time loop, the story Laurie’s been telling starts to crumble.
All he has to do is find the person he swapped with, figure out how to get back in the right body, break a time loop before the clock hits zero, and not fall in love with Gideon while he does it.
Easy.
Right?
first line |
When the nightmare ends and I open my eyes, I know three things only: first, the backs of my hands on the steering wheel are covered in freckles; second, the radio is blowing static; and third, I’m going a hundred and twenty clicks on a highway I’ve never seen before in my life.
tropes/themes/i'm luring you in and nothing bad will happen to you psychologically i promise |
time loop AND body-swap alex doesn't that seem a little self indulgent AND WHAT ABOUT IT
When Laurie wakes up in the driver’s seat on a highway with no memories in a girl’s body, a car crash is small potatoes. Having to rely on a handsome stranger’s kindness while pretending he actually is this 17 year old girl named Valerie is a comparative nightmare.
But waking up on that same highway over and over again and watching the days tick down from one hundred? Re-meeting Gideon—that handsome stranger—every day, while navigating his new life in a body he can’t stand, with no idea where his real one is? Nightmare doesn’t cut it. If that’s not enough, learning about the girl this body belongs to raises way more questions than it answers, and when Gideon is drawn into the time loop, the story Laurie’s been telling starts to crumble.
All he has to do is find the person he swapped with, figure out how to get back in the right body, break a time loop before the clock hits zero, and not fall in love with Gideon while he does it.
Easy.
Right?
first line |
When the nightmare ends and I open my eyes, I know three things only: first, the backs of my hands on the steering wheel are covered in freckles; second, the radio is blowing static; and third, I’m going a hundred and twenty clicks on a highway I’ve never seen before in my life.
tropes/themes/i'm luring you in and nothing bad will happen to you psychologically i promise |
time loop AND body-swap alex doesn't that seem a little self indulgent AND WHAT ABOUT IT
ANNOUNCEMENT: I WISH YOU WOULDN’T IS RELEASING JULY 2024!
i’m thrilled to announce the publication of THE book of my heart! those of you who have followed my publication journey so far will know how much it means to have this story out in the world exactly as i intended it, and that's what you'll get this summer.
Hey!!! I just want you to know i read your victoriocity fic and am absolutely obsessed with the way you wrote Balmoral and Sandringham!!!! The yearning, their closeness, the years of something that has now shifted was all impeccable!!! Anyway victoriocity fans seem so few and far in between so i wanted to pop in here to tell you that i loved your work 🥺 and would happily be down to trade theories and chat about the show at any time!!
Thank you so much!! I just really love those two and the one-two punch of their delightful chemistry followed by the devastating twist in season 2. I had to cram as much of my thoughts about them into Business as Usual as I could.
It's great to chat with another Victoriocity fan! I'm eagerly looking forward to the book and season 3 and hoping there will be more of my boys. (Though even if they're not featured, I'll still hugely enjoy it - I mean, it's Victoriocity.)
I have a little bit more meta and things under the #victoriocity tag on my blog, like this post with all my Sandringham thoughts. Would love to hear any of your thoughts!
aaaa yes i am so stoked for the next season and the book!! and sincerely hoping for more sandringham and balmoral!
i read your meta post and i do def think sandringham is trans— but i had never really thought about all the other ways in which he and maud are no longer alike! I feel like they must have been close to try and stick to the plan after so long? But i wonder how much he told her like did she know who balmoral was when he grabbed her? Did she know what it cost her brother to shoot him? i am certainly assuming that he and balmoral talk about it all (gender, sister, past, their entire relationship) and settle things, and while i know we'll probably never get to see a full detailed scene centered on them, i am crossing my fingers for more content!
as for other thoughts— i know fleet's whole thing is being kinda quiet and stoic but i absolutely love the hints of rich interiority you get every time he talks to someone and i think the one thing I'd love to see from the book is his like,,, thoughts on the whole being half mechanical thing? Cuz it feels like season 2 moves so fast that other than glimpses of the fact that he's clearly still kinda unsettled and weirded out there's not a lot of slow moments for reflection (and these are moments that are inherently easier to do in a novel than an audio drama!). Fleet is one of those prime examples of why i enjoy quiet characters cuz like you can tell a lot about his personality even though he is not the chattiest and that is a really well done thing in an audio drama of all mediums
Also because I'm like that as a writer i want to watch him unravel <3 but maybe I'll just have to write that fic myself!
do you like zombies? trans people? trauma and too many cigarettes? if you're in my circle of tumblr, you probably do. check out my most recent short story, published in Kaleidotrope's winter issue.
i'm tagging for funsies some people i know have been around since this era and might remember this mf: @cannivalisms @magnus-sm-writes @nothingisliteral @sybil-writes @dahldahlbills @florraisons @unlicensedmortician @songbirdii (i think??) @mkdickson and if i could tag ari i would (if anyone knows if she's back on tumblr??? lmk?)
Alex!!! I haven't posted anything here in AGES but here is a snippet from one of my current (unintroduced) projects:
“Are we going to talk about any of it?”
“Which part?” They tried to keep their voice level, to pretend indifference, but their stomach was twisted in knots and some of the tension leaked into their tone. “We can talk about whatever you want as long as we don’t wake Wynn.”
“The part where we let ourselves do this again, the part where— where my brother’s hands are mangled and he almost dies while we’re having a one night stand in your family’s cellar.”
Her voice had risen to a shout by the end, but Morgan’s own was dangerously quiet. “Is that all last night was? Another one night stand?”
They should have expected that, braced for it with the first kiss they’d fallen into, but they wanted to hear her say it. They wanted to believe that it could turn out a different way this time. The floor felt unsteady beneath their feet in anticipation. Aneira held the axe, and they were waiting on the chopping block.
Yo your blog caption really called me out. I, too, put my OC through hell (actually, worse than hell, because at least hell is for sinners only).
I have been sitting on this ask for so long for literally no reason but hello hi!!!! I very much appreciate the comment and you know what you do make an Excellent point they don't deserve what they're getting
Phei had come to the surface looking for answers, but even after seeing the world for herself all she found were more questions. Why did her people pull their islands into the sky, and how did they even achieve that? Is Noh’Ak telling the truth about his role in all of it? Is there still hope for the world, even after all that transpired?
She can only think of a single being capable to getting her on the right track, a being so ancient it precedes even the settling of Morkuria. A creature said to live in the furthest reaches of the eastern sky, where the air is thin and lost souls gather. The Monarch of the Sky.
Phei soars east, the light of the setting Sun caressing her back, pushing her forwards. The first thing she had done when she found herself above the clouds was glance east. There, a faint warmth pushes against the furthest edges of her spirit, the flames of a thousand scalians whom she had left behind. She wonders if she could make it there, but even with the most favourable of winds such a journey would take multiple days, a feat even Phei wouldn’t attempt.
{Excerpt continues below the cut}
Thus, she glides westwards towards the empty sky. She grows more impatient with every dive, knowing just how much slower her progress will be at night when the currents of hot air blend with the night sky. It does not take long for the Sun to forsake her, leaving the air thin and the winds cold. But Phei could not give up, not after the sacrifices made to get her this far. With eyes closed she continues her flight through the night, draping her spirit over the nightly sky so gently that even the smallest gust of wind would leave its trace. This moonlit dance continues for a while, the wind a loyal partner. Phei isn’t sure how long she has been flying, the darkness disorienting, but something else puzzles her. Although the night should thin the wind, she is carried now with force and fervour, a single gust pulling her forwards. And when she opens her eyes, it is not the starlit sky greeting her, but one full of golden light. Dazed, she halts, realising that even a few flaps of her arms are enough to keep her airborne here. This wasn’t gliding anymore. Here, she could fly.
The golden clouds below her are transparent, overlaid on the white mist floating underneath. She cannot see what lies at the bottom of it all, but something tells her that she is no longer in the skies above Morkuria.
In the sea of white and gold an object catches her attention. A dozen rocks form a spire, connected by wooden beams. She flies over to it, finding markings in languages never seen before. At the top of the structure hangs a single white beam, held in place by two statues floating calmly. Even after circling the statues twice she is unable to tell what people they depict. Scales decorate their body, shining brightly, and from their curly hair both horns and long, pointy ears protrude.
She lands on the beam, taking a moment to rest her wings. It reminds her of the beams most scalians sleep on, something she had never quite gotten the hang off. A wave in the wind drags her away from that trail of thought. This has to be the place. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was, or how she got here, but if she were to ever meet them, it would be here.
She takes the flute off her back and puts it to her lips. Hazel eyes close as she reaches deep into her mind to the lullaby Makino used to sing for her. Unsure if it would work, if they would even hear her play, she begins. But the wind carries on the notes, embracing the solemn melody as the sound grows. Phei shivers, the sound suddenly haunting when played in an open space. Or perhaps it was the way she played it. A single teardrop lingers near her eye, the song one she hadn’t heard in a long while.
A visitor?
A voice echoes through Phei’s mind, the words realised as a low, tired sound.
It has been many Suns since someone travelled this far to meet me.
Phei looks around, hazel eyes squinting in an attempt to discern the figure speaking to her.
You are a curious little thing, are you not? Perhaps I should get a closer look.
Phei’s spirit flickers, the clouds following suit as something burst from the layer of mist in front of her. A gigantic serpent rushes past, white scales blending in with the clouds. Phei barely manages to steady herself, talons clutching the pole as if her life depends on it. The moment the serpent’s body had completely pushed through it begins to encircle Phei, building walls the size of castles around her. Their spirit is overwhelming, the flame burning through Phei, blinding her most trusted sense. She covers her eyes, steadying herself against the winds the serpent has brought with it. When she opens them again, she shrieks and nearly fall off the pole.
The serpent’s head is only a few metres in front of her. Phei can see its teeth, each one larger than Phei herself. Two vibrant violet eyes stare at her, burning with a light akin to the stars. Above its eyes are two branching horns, positioned in such a way they form a cradle for the Sun behind it. The serpent growls, but its voice rings only in Phei’s mind.
Tell me then. Why did a little bird like yourself travel all this way to sing a song of such sorrow?
-x-
Phei of the Wind taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added/removed):
I'm elena, or beaumont (he/she), and I'm reintroducing myself again! When I'm not disappearing for months at a time to be a college student, I write mostly adult litfic novels and short stories, but I dabble in playwriting and poetry.
some things I like to put in my work — lesbians, horrible relationships, weird povs, unlikeable protagonists, retellings, historical fiction, femme fatales and evil women, transgenderism, fabulism, freaks.
—my PROJECTS
[if you'd like to be on the taglist for any of these, drop me a line!]
PAINTED TYRANT - when a brutal and secretive 1920's mob boss is found dead in his office, his hedonistic and fatally dependent long-time lover and his business-partner wife must solve his murder and reckon with the collapse of an empire—over the course of a single summer night.
[if you like: unreliable narrators, codependency, lavender marriages, trans characters, weird throuples, the great gatsby, murder mystery dinner parties] [adult historical literary fiction, third person present]
EIDOLON - an early-nineteenth-century russian socialite renowned for her beauty is coached for marriage from birth by her controlling father, caught in a complicated relationship with her twin brother, married to a man who hates her, and ascending to the role of queen of society—while slowly embracing an extraordinary gift for getting what she wants.
[if you like: family trauma, femme fatales, twins, war and peace, non-linear narrative, retellings, villain origin stories, bisexuality] [adult historical literary fiction with fabulist elements, first person retrospective + second person present]
KITCHEN WINTER - two women in a failing marriage compete to destroy the lives of their new neighbors—a middle-aged lesbian couple and their teenage children—while they themselves spiral further into illness, abuse, and decay.
[if you like: toxic relationships, awful lesbians, experimental POV, tallahassee by the mountain goats, unlikeable protagonists] [adult literary fiction, first person plural + singular present]
—what's NEXT?
Currently, I'm working on drafting Painted Tyrant, so expect to see that! And hopefully a proper wip intro. Can't promise it will be a ton, I'm a very slow writer, and just extraordinarily overbooked, but I'm excited about the project. As far as other miscellaneous projects, I might post about short fiction or my d&d characters, who's to say, it's my world. That's all for now—if you're interested in my projects, or you think I'd like your stuff, don't be shy! Also happy to be tagged in games or sent asks, would love to make some new mutuals.
