Original writing sideblog for tousled-birdmad-girl. Organic stories and sustainably sourced daydreams. No GMO, no AI. We grow and harvest them ourselves, because we care.
Hiya! My name is Echo (@tousled-birdmad-girl is my main for those who care about such things) and I'm a writer. I've been writing in some form or another since I was about ten years old, but only recently plucked up the gumption and drive to attempt anything original, much less put it out for the world to see. Time will tell how this goes...
I love horror, tho I wouldn't consider myself a "genre" author, as I think horror, surrealism, fantasy and magic can be found everywhere if you know where to look, and the presence of fantasy elements does not necessarily mean you're writing a "fantasy" book. So, we'll call what I do "fiction" and leave it at that for now :D
Inspiration-wise, I draw from the works of Stephen King, everything Mike Flanagan ever put to Netflix and beyond, Paul Shapera and his ever-growing Shaperaverse, Guillermo Del Toro, Chuck Palahniuk, and the Cthulhu Mythos as a whole (with a particular liking for taking the worlds, entities and themes first created by Lovecraft and using them to create something that'd make him spin in his grave.)
Below the cut: a list of my current WIPs and some general housekeeping information. If you see something that sparks your interest, please come sit by my hearth and pour yourself a drink <3
Original Works:
The Lost Souls' Revival: After a series of personal crises, struggling creative Amari Walker stumbles across a flyer advertising a strange carnival, offering "a total restoration of spirit" for the cryptic asking price of "3Y". With nothing left to lose, she attends, quickly becoming enthralled by the Revival and its colourful cast of performers, in particular its eccentric, nameless ringmaster. When her night of fun and escapism is over, she finds herself wanting more, and embarks on a one-woman quest to follow the ever-moving carnival wherever it goes, a quest that will drive her to the edge of sanity, and possibly beyond the reach of reality itself.
(vibes: steampunk, dark carnival, mythology/folklore mishmash, fantasy horror, the Fair Folk, whatever the goblins were selling in Rosetti's Goblin Market)
Better To Reign In Hell: It's 1897. The world is changing too fast. Pastor Nathaniel Lawrence is dying, for all that he's trying to hide it. His daughter, Susannah, too old for rebellion and too young for spinsterhood, is content to follow in her mother's footsteps as the town's herbalist, but a bombshell marriage proposal seems set to destroy those plans. A chance encounter with a badly wounded man may offer her the escape she seeks, but at a price: Merritt Caine is not all he appears to be, and his dark past has an unbreakable grip.
(vibes: southern gothic HEAVY on the gothic, small town horror, witchcraft (fictitious and real), Satanism (fictitious and real), corruption but in a good way, religious horror, the cycle of abuse, eventual murder (of the good kind) )
The Order of The Pallid Mask: In the corpse of a city at the centre of a dying world, a benevolent cult is working to restore their world to its fabled former glory by appealing to its retreated god, The King in Yellow. Sariann, the cult's High Priestess, is willing to sacrifice whatever she must to ensure a brighter future for the city's refugees; her body, her soul, her mind. Virgil, a lower-ranking member of the Order, her confidant, attendant and trusted friend, is willing to defy the Order and his faith to keep her alive. And the Yellow King has plans and desires of his own...
(vibes: Cosmic horror, Lovecraftian but make it romantic, the beauty of the unknown, rituals, creating a religion from the ashes of an old world, post-apocalypse, ancient civilization (not of Earth), Eldritch love triangle)
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Fan Works/Other:
As far as fanfics go, I don't have any long-form WIPs on the stove, more like a series of short (well, short-ish) form drabbles, headcanons and other assorted bits, which I might as well post here when I have them as proof that I do have a creative output that extends beyond Spotify playlists and Pinterest boards.
Fandoms include:
Fallout (mainly New Vegas and the Prime series so far, but encompassing this universe as a whole)
Red Dead Redemption (particularly the second game as I haven't played the first one yet, £35 for a port of a PS2 game my *ass*)
the Flanaverse (Hill House, Bly Manor, TFOTHOU, Midnight Mass... basically everything bar The Midnight Club, which I have not watched)
the Cthulhu Mythos (if you can call that a fandom :D I was working on a queer retelling of Dreams in the Witch-House at one point, if I can *find* the notes I wrote I might bring that one out of retirement...)
plus one or two fandoms the content crucibles of which I would not subject myself to if you held me at gunpoint (iykyk)
I've also amassed a small collection of OCs from various TTRPGs I've been part of, a couple of whom still haunt my mind and may or may not be written about from time to time... (no DnD tho, I think it's safe to say we've reached saturation point with DnD-centric/derivative works) ;)
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General housekeeping + other info: I am an adult and this is an adult writing blog by default. I will be writing smut/other sexual content and dealing with mature and dark themes throughout these listed works (and anything else I may write to post here.) I will tag for "main" triggers and give general content warnings where applicable, but I cannot guarantee to cover every single trigger a person may have, therefore, you read and interact here at your own risk. If requested, I will add more trigger warnings, but again, I can't fully guarantee to get everything.
I kindly ask that you refrain from reposting anything from this blog: excerpts, character profiles, moodboards (if I make them) etc. I also ask that you do not take anything for your personal use under any circumstances.
My inbox is open, so send me an ask if you have any questions or simply want to chat! But for now, I've rambled for quite long enough, so I'm gonna wrap this post here. See you! <3
This might be unpopular but I’m not going to use simpler vocabulary in my writing if it’s out of character for the narrator. If my POV character is a botanist, he’s going to call a plant by its name. If you don’t know what it is you can either Google it or move on just knowing it’s a plant of some sort.
I don’t like this trend of readers being angry that not everything is 100% understandable for them. I want my characters to be believable as people and sometimes people use words people outside of their field will not understand. That’s not a bad thing.
You don’t have to understand every word to get the gist of what’s happening. I’m not going to slow down an action scene to describe every weapon because someone might not know them by name. They can just assume it’s a weapon because that makes sense in the context of the scene.
I just had a debate with myself over using the word mezzanine, wondering if I should describe it instead. Ultimately I decided the character would call it a mezzanine, and therefore readers could look up a new word if they didn't know.
It's how I learned words like myriad as a seven year old reading Lord of the Rings for the first time, why would I steal that experiance from someone else by simplifying language?
I can't even imagine wanting to write a book for people too uncurious to learn new words. I don't even want to be reminded people like that exist, let alone cater to them.
had the potentially not-terrible idea of reframing everything I've got for the Lost Souls' Revival (aside from Amari actually *attending* the carnival, that still feels like its own thing) as a kind of around-the-campfire story-trading session between the Lost Souls and Amari as a new arrival? a way of using the existing lore without having to sweat about what the STORY is.....
I'm not doing well atm (am I ever?) but it's an idea at least
ALSO I have a few character models I've been making in HeroForge if anyone's interested to see the gang in 3D :D
in short, this stands a chance of actually happening! no deadlines, no ETAs (I never meet them anyway), and I'm not about to jinx myself by saying I'm back on my grind, but... ;)
Across the endless, junk-strewn grey plains of The Space Between All Worlds treks a circus caravan, drawn by a team of tarnished clockwork horses. The journey, lacking a destination, is endless, and only continues because stasis invites insanity.
Anyone who finds themselves here only does so because they have been forgotten. By the world, or by themselves.
The caravan is inhabited by a ragtag group of Lost Souls: a Poet, flung out of time and sanity in the name of love; an all-seeing, eyeless Goddess from a forgotten realm; a Kelpie trapped in human form; a fire-scarred Magician, saved from certain death by a stroke of mercy; a dead Child in smiling clown's makeup; and a murdered Ballerina, bound to a clockwork shell.
Their ringleader? A melancholic, undying being who only ever wanted to create something beautiful. But to do so, he had to fight his nature; Fae are predators, and they only take.
Once again, you can be an English major. a seasoned journalist. an established author. a famed literary critic...and you will still scratch your head over the junk that makes it big. Public opinion has no worth. Just write what you want.
"But I don't want to share something that isn't perfect" why not? everyone else does.
I suspect everyone who wanted to buy my original two short stories already has but uh
I have $6.69 in royalties on D2D. Which would be "nice" except I need $10 to get anything sent to me. I'm planning to take down my stories from there in the wake of D2D's questionable new policies.
I've got two short stories on there:
Friend of the Damned, the first Runner Owen short story, a gaslamp gothic tale of mediums, ghosts, and women's wrongs
Lock the Last Door, the first PSI short story, a noir-heavy Cthulhu Mythos story about an abandoned house, the scary stuff within, and homoeroticism
Both are historical in nature (Runner Owen is Neo-Victorian, PSI is set in 1930) with trans man MCs. They're available for $3USD. If you'd like to check them out, you can follow this link:
Books by Vincent Lore
I'm hoping to close my stories by the 10th... Will update this post when I do.
can you just fuckin dump all your Thoughts on the King in Yellow, Carcosa, and Hastur on me?
there's some things i wanna Comprehend but I think I need some other ideas first
Ive dumped a lot of them into tumblr already but the general Vibe I've got is this:
Hastur is the God of the Gaps. He's what's under the King in Yellow's robes. The King in Yellow is the King of Carcosa, a city that does not and cannot exist, but wants to. Carcosa was once Ythil. Carcosa ate Ythil. This is the plot of The King In Yellow the fictional play.
Carcosa, visually, is a mashup of different art and architecture styles but it's primarily Rococo, Art Deco, and Art Nouveau, as seen through a German Expressionist film. Also clockwork.
There's always a wild party happening and sometimes it devolves into bloodshed and massacre, but at the same time everyone wakes up the next day with a hangover even if they got their guts pulled out by someone's teeth.
At his core, Hastur is the "soul" of Carcosa. The city is very much alive, and he is the intelligence behind it. The reason he can't come into our world directly is because Carcosa is, again, not real and he is tied to it, not because he's imprisoned there, but because he IS the city.
As a God, Hastur's domain is creativity, decadence, and opulence. He wants everyone to have fun, as long as it's his particular brand of fun.
Don't ask me about the secret of the hyades. I don't know that either.
The Specter of Truth is an Emissary of the King and is also Hastur.
The reason you're not supposed to say Hastur's name is that it's Rude.
There are monsters in the lake. The monsters are not Hastur. The monsters are also not not Hastur.
The lake floods. The flood is mist and fog and it fills the lower levels of the city. Wealthy Carcosans are able to flee behind the Palace's walls, but actually getting into the Palace is by invitation only, unless there's a Masquerade.
The Masquerade is a reenactment of the Play, and it ends in a massacre.
Happy Storyteller Saturday!
What have you been working on lately? And you're very welcome to share a snippet from it or a bit of information about it if you like 💜
thank you, friend! same to you, too <3
Most of my work lately has consisted of moving parts around/planning, or working on more personal, casual projects to try and keep inspiration up (motivation and inspiration currently being at an ATL... as in all time low, not Atlanta :D )
BUT I do have an active WIP: a Fallout New Vegas fic, in which my Courier has her first "encounter" with the man who tried to murder her, an attempted interrogation-turned-seduction that winds up being more interesting than either of them bargain for. Basically a botched Black Widow attempt, juiced up with hopefully enough exploration of both characters' motives to make it somewhat exciting. With any luck, I should be posting the first (less spicy...) half fairly soon!
Thank you for the ask! I've never taken part in Storyteller Saturday, so I hope this is how it works :D
e.g. they're told that this kind of creature has some kind of psychic or pheromone-based "mate bond" that cannot be broken; but it turns out that's a popular myth that has never been scientifically substantiated, and is basically used to keep people in bad relationships (basically the equivalent of "human women are biologically submissive")
"lore" is imo too often treated like information that the author is giving the reader, and it just happens to be using the medium of diagetic (that is, 'in-story') exposition.
it's so much more interesting and dynamic to treat "lore" as information that is generated and disseminated in-story. who is telling the protagonist this information? under what historical and social circumstances was this idea formed? what political motives are there for trying to get people to believe this information? which characters would disagree with it? would the protagonist believe it, or be sceptical? does the plot bear it out, or cast doubt on it?
another day, another opportunity to create. you get to shape this moment as a thousand different timelines pour off of you in a thousand different ways. so fill it with beauty. how? give today the the uniqueness that makes YOU you. you are the perfect ingredient for this moment bud. LETS TROT
