a house full of oddities

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!)

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.

The Only Way is Through

WIP INTRO | MAYBE TOMORROW I'LL KNOW

genre | lgbTq+ contemporary YA romance

pov | first person present tense, single

status | drafting

summary |

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

transgenderisms

second-and-third-and-fourth chance slow burn romance

cannot emphasize enough the transgenderisms

self-discovery

narrator is autistic and everyone else knows but them

THIS IS A TRANSGENDER LOVE STORY

what if you had to fall in love with someone who always FORGOT you (until they didn't)

narrator is a stone cold bitch

in case you missed it somehow this is the trans agenda actually

narrator is vaguely genre aware

PLAYLIST | PINTEREST

WIP INTRO | MAYBE TOMORROW I'LL KNOW

genre | lgbTq+ contemporary YA romance

pov | first person present tense, single

status | drafting

summary |

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

transgenderisms

second-and-third-and-fourth chance slow burn romance

cannot emphasize enough the transgenderisms

self-discovery

narrator is autistic and everyone else knows but them

THIS IS A TRANSGENDER LOVE STORY

what if you had to fall in love with someone who always FORGOT you (until they didn't)

narrator is a stone cold bitch

in case you missed it somehow this is the trans agenda actually

narrator is vaguely genre aware

PLAYLIST | PINTEREST

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.

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 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

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.

“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. 

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}