letsgetsquiggly

[letsgetsquiggly]

A fisherman and a mermaid have lifelong, playful game: whoever catches the most fish gets to keep them. Then one day the fisherman dies and his son comes to continue the game.

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Another idea: Communities on Tumblr

For a while now folks have asked us for better ways to connect with other people who share similar interests. We’re listening, and at Labs we’ve been looking into fulfilling that need, Tumblr style.

Introducing Communities, a new place to connect with others on Tumblr:

Here in Labs, we’re working on big ideas that could transform how Tumblr is used, while keeping that Tumblr vibe alive. You can see one of those ideas above. We’re calling it “Communities”, a new dedicated space on Tumblr for people to share and discuss all the content they love. Communities can cover topics like your favorite show, artist, movie, video game, your school, your board game group, friend group, big or small, whatever you want.

Each Community has their own semi-private safer space away from the regular dashboard where you can interact with other Tumblr users who share the same interests and passions as you. There are moderators and members (you!), rules, and privacy settings. Each community has its own feed of posts from members, separate from your Following and For You feeds. Interactions within community spaces stay there and replies will work more like a traditional comment section. Folks will be able to reblog posts into a community, but not out — at least not yet.

We’re very excited for you to try it, and help define the best path forward. What we have is a prototype to help us validate the idea, but there’s still plenty of questions that need answering. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be reaching out to people across Tumblr, and the internet at large, to try our prototype. Based on the feedback we get, we’ll iterate on the idea to see what resonates best with all of you on Tumblr.

If this sounds interesting, please like, reblog, or reply to this post, and we’ll invite you to beta test this feature when we roll it out to a wider Tumblr audience, as a little perk for following the Labs blog.

Stay tuned for more!

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✨FFF 268 Masterlist

Thank you for all your wonderful entries last week! We loved reading all of them ^^ (If we missed your entry, please let us know)

Consider checking out your fellow writers’ pieces, give out those likes and reblogs. The new prompt will be up at 12pm CET <3

Fractured Form by @landofspaceandrainbows

Put It Together by @odysseywritings

No Remedy by @hd-literature

Fracturing Focus by @baubeautyandthegeek

Fractured Forms by @such-a-random-rambler

Fractured Forms by @darkhorse-javert

Here, There, Nowhere by @riemmetric

Shards by @e-lisard

Useless by @katblu42

Broken Clocks by @tom-whore-dleston

Morning a lost soul by @lisbeth-kk

The C Word by @renee-writer

Fractured Forms by @rudbeckiasunflower

To Break free by @polizwrites

Picking up the pieces by @lizardperson

Dos mitades del futuro (Two Halves of the Future) by @leighrobertsreads

Kintsugi by @fourohfourrealitynotfound

Fracturing by @chasingbluebirds

Fractured Forms by @betweenthetimeandsound

Fractured Forms by @letsgetsquiggly

To Gain A Power by @zorilleerrant

Fractured Forms by @ruvastuon

I think I broke something by @cherrybombfangirlwrites

A Time To Heal by @ngkiscool

Through The Haze by @mtnikolle

Fractures by @drowning-in-cacophony

Cutting Shards Of Live by @colection-of-chaos

pull down the mountains, drag your cities to the sea by @ineedaplacetostay

Fractured Forms by @fennfromthefen

Blood Upon The Snow by @cocoamoonmalfoy

[letsgetsquiggly]

Stories

written for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt: FFF252; spill the tea warnings: none word count: 731

The attic was old, dusty, stifling. Pale pink insulation fluffed against the walls, looking as soft as cotton candy. When she found herself reaching out a delicate finger, Luna reminded herself of her grandmother’s words: It may look poofy, but you will be wishing you never touched it once you did.

So, she steeled herself and returned to her task. 

Sometimes she hated old houses. 

Clouds of ancient dust puffed up in her face as she moved boxes. She needed black heels – the old kind – for her theater production. Her grandmother had offered her the heels. She hadn’t offered to help look for them.

“How much stuff is even in here?” Luna grumbled, as moving away what she thought was the final box only revealed more. She’d never thought of her grandmother as a hoarder, but that was exactly what she was.

Arms straining with the motion, Luna lifted the actual final box. This was the heaviest. And as she tried to move it away, her arms decided to give up. The box dropped to the ground, spilling its contents all over the place.

Luna’s attention was instantly drawn to a small scrapbook. When it crashed to the floor, it had opened to a page of sage green. Pictures of what must have been Luna’s grandmother as a teenager adorned the pages, along with various others. On one side was a piece of paper - wow! - torn up and stuck to the page.

Today something terrible happened, read the scrawling writing, I’m afraid June has betrayed me. 

Luna’s mind screeched to a halt. Without really processing what she was doing, she tore the letter out of the scrapbook and raced down the attic ladder.

She skidded to a stop right in front of her grandmother’s room. It was an old-fashioned door, made of wood and not steel. Most of Grandmother’s things were old. 

Like the scrapbook.

Luna lifted her hand to knock. One of the things her grandmother had taught her from the good old days was that you had to knock before entering a room. There was no alert system to notify a room’s occupant of a visitor.

“Come in!” came Grandmother’s voice, creaky but strong.

Luna pushed open the door. Her grandmother was propped up against the headboard of her bed, pillows as a buffer between the wood – still odd – and her back. 

At the sight of Luna, Grandmother’s face broke out into a smile. “Ah, Luna.” She gestured to a seat by the bed. “It’s nice to see you.”

 “Nice to see you as well, Grandmother.” Luna took a delicate seat on the chair, a hardbacked black one made of wood. She hesitated, then passed the letter from the scrapbook over. “I was looking for your heels, and I found this. I was wondering…”

Grandmother’s expression flickered between dark and light. She stared down at the letter. “You wish to know what June did to me, yes?” At Luna’s nod, she sighed. “This will require some knowledge of the past. You see, Luna, one of the most popular phrases back then was spill the tea.”

“Spill the tea?” Luna echoed. 

“Spill the tea,” Grandmother said. “It meant gossip, essentially, and poor June was entranced by it. She spilled too much of my tea and didn’t have enough napkins to sop it up.”

The train of thought confused Luna, but she stayed silent.

“Therefore, I wrote in this journal. We liked to text a lot, but if you wanted to really express your hate, you wrote about them in your diary.”

“Journaling,” Luna breathed. She couldn’t remember the last time Grandmother brought out her old pencil to demonstrate what writing was like when she was a young girl. “So, June betrayed you by gossiping?”

“Pretty much,” Grandmother said. There was a glint in her eye. “But that wasn’t the last of my adventures with June…”

Luna leaned in. 

[letsgetsquiggly]

Time for my favorite failed reincarnation duo this flash fic friday! Thanks to @flashfictionfridayofficial and @drowsy-quill for the prompt!

[Image ID: white text reading “FFF268 Fractured Forms” on a photographic background of cracked dark gray stone.

End ID]

pull down the mountains, drag your cities to the sea

word count: 564

Content Warnings: past war and destruction associated with a war, past unsuccessful deicide, child endangerment and food insecurity, one line implications of burning to death

—

It huddles small under cheaply woven layers, bundled at a fire—in a city, it suffers still!—between its divine sibling and their mortal attendant. Underfed and ill-treated to what a childgod deserves, her reincarnation is left with its very face uncovered to the mortals that surge through the wreckage of this world like bands of fish. They ought all be struck blind for looking upon a young god, and Myrtos would marshal the divinity shared to her and Aias in holy judgement, if only her fragile next life would not face the consequences.

Ungrateful fractured things, mortals. So sure of their rebellion’s righteousness in killing her, so pleased to emerge victorious in a war against gods, only to be left scrabbling and filthy in the decaying remains of a carefully maintained peace. The most self-satisfied portions of her soul exalt, a thread of joy racing through her as the humans enjoy the taste of ash. However, none accuse mortals of great intelligence or else they would have no need for gods. She, once the Heavenly Myrtos-emrys fab Inanna who commanded armies and dragon’s fire, bore a blame at her death greater than any for the 16 worlds’ decline.

She was indulgent in life, content to suffer endless shallow cuts by her honored family and mortals alike in the name of humanity’s continuation among the stars. These are the ruins over which she, too, must weep.

Her humans left to suffer, her rebirth adrift amongst mortals, fragmented between itself and the echo of her. A world where she had the courage to kill her granddaughter rather than be distracted that the soul inside had once been her sister’s…that is one where her Aias would have no need to share a mind with her. One where it would be safe, comforted and full-bellied as all children ought to be.

Oh, she would burn worlds and heretics whole for what has been done to humanity’s children.

“Grandmother?” her successor asks, lowly as not to bring suspicion of its true nature. Rage burns in her anew that it should have to bow, to hold itself to quiet.

Still she appears to it, brushing a calming hand only it will feel through its inexpertly braided curls. “Yes, sweetling?”

“There’s something coming.”

Its companion and their mortal stiffen, alerted but barely more useful. Aias is young, certainly, its body too weak to sustain her possession for long, but the others have been left untrained or devoid of magic entirely.

Each of them so very young. Myrtos would rend her kinslaying grandchild with her own teeth for the world that fool has left.

To Aias, Myrtos hums, curling at its side as if she sits at the fire with them. “Opportunists or soldiers?”

“…I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“No matter, sweetling. Would you like to remember after?”

Aias buries itself further into its clothing, a memory of charred flesh at the edges of its mind before Myrtos can submerge the thought. “…no.”

Good. No child ought see the corpses she intends to leave.

She stretches into the body of Aias fab Morrigan, small and underfed, shedding the sigil-marked layers that repel their fire. The body overheats in time with acceptance of her, their sacred, shared heart a deafening rhythm in their ears, lungs harsh and overworked.

Yet when Myrtos steps forward in borrowed flesh, the world burns in her glory.

[letsgetsquiggly]

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial 268th prompt.

Word count: 223

Audience: general

Original work.

Themes: unrequited love, doubts

Here, under the guard of the weeping mulberry, the minutes mattered.

The tick tick tick of the second hand as it counted down to the daunting moment.

He had seen the messages, though he shouldn’t have. He knew how she felt and thought he knew how he felt.

But now that he was here, in this meticulously planned and curated moment at 110 East Gorham Street, he was unsure. He felt queasy. Sweat dripped from his brow, slithering down along his evening stubble. It piddle paddled along his neck and then dribbled down to the ground around him, a pool forming at his feet.

Engulfing him. Drowning him.

The serene draping branches seem to wrap around him. They grew close, confining. No longer branches, they were bars.

This was to be a moment of bliss—a delightful delusion. While searching for happiness, he dug himself a trench and flooded it with indecision and anxiety.

He had to get out. Ripping through branches, shifting smatterings of rose petals, snuffing out candles. Hair now disheveled, eyes frantic. They darted from the glittering ring clutched in his hand to the furthest reaches of the Period Garden Park.

Then she arrived. Taking in the scene, all hope and enthusiasm evaporated from her eyes as she stumbled upon a moment meant to start an eternity, frozen in a fractured form.

[letsgetsquiggly]

Never Meet Your Heroes

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial 265th prompt.

Word count: 277

Audience: General

Themes: Love lost, disillusionment

Our connection is broken. It's the lag between the creation of light and its visualization by the common onlooker. Much like a star, I thought you were grand. Larger than life. Loving you was an opportunity but also a risk. When traveling amongst the stars, you're isolated, confined to a small craft with little room to breathe. The only thing between your life and the crushing vacuum of the void is a tiny, razor-thin barrier of sanity. Enduring all this was driven by the hope of experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a part of the creation of your light.

I took that plunge, hoping I'd be consumed by the depths of your ocean. But, baby, I think I've hit the bottom of that shallow pool.  Because even now, as I stand before you and spite fire, somehow, I am still met with your same old, tired, vacant stare. I just don't understand. How can I exist in your orbit, circling you 365 days a year, 24/7, and somehow you still haven't managed to truly see me? I don't understand how we have penned a life together with the same ink, same pages, yet somehow, our page count isn't the same. I feel like I am the only one asking, what is our purpose? What is our destiny? The search is never a partnership, just two people in general proximity, one of which has a propensity for chasing tangents. At this point, it may be my fate to drift alone in the void of space with echoes of you dazzling my periphery. Because I fear once my words reach the part of you that cares, I'll be galaxies away.

[letsgetsquiggly]

✨FFF 252 Masterlist

Thank you for all your wonderful entries last week! We loved reading all of them ^^ (If we missed your entry, please let us know)

Consider checking out your fellow writers’ pieces, give out those likes and reblogs. The new prompt will be up at 12pm CET <3

Spill It by @renee-writer

Spill the Tea by @vza-writings

come all sufferers by @lizardperson

Baring His Soul by @polizwrites

Stories by @starlightfireflies

Spill the tea by @hektorpaint

Chitter-chatter Tittle-tattle by @darkhorse-javert

Tea in the Snow by @nyamadermont

Hell to Pay by @writingamongther0ses

Leave No Stains by @hd-literature

Flutter by @cocoamoonmalfoy

Tea Spill by @baubeautyandthegeek

Family Dark Matters by @odysseywritings

Spill the Tea by @bad-at-names-and-faces

Time and Time Again by @zorilleerrant

Spill the tea by @landofspaceandrainbows

Whoops, I spilt the tea by @lucigoo

Spill The Tea by @betweenthetimeandsound

you clean up nice, just like a dead man by @ineedaplacetostay

Spill the Tea by @leighrobertsreads

Tea by @janetm74fics

Oasis by @edosianorchids901

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🌕

[letsgetsquiggly]

you can do it

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Time to catch up on last week's flash fiction entries

✨FFF 243 Masterlist

Thank you for all your wonderful entries last week! We loved reading all of them ^^ (If we missed your entry, please let us know)

Consider checking out your fellow writers’ pieces, give out those likes and reblogs. The new prompt will be up at 12pm CET <3

Glitter And Blues by @zorilleerrant

Long Days, Short Years by @renee-writer

Heartbreaking Lure by @lisbeth-kk

The world was on fire and no-one could save me but you//It's strange what desire will make foolish people do by @baubeautyandthegeek

Wrong Spot by @writingamongther0ses

A Sad Superstition by @hd-literature

Rest Easy by @whogavemeapen

Brilliant in the Sunlight by @mtnikolle

A Shining Example by @polizwrites

Hypnotic by @cocoamoonmalfoy

Glitter And Blues by @mundanemoongirl

Glitter and Blues by @tamiveldura

One For My Baby by @jack-of-crowns

The Dress for the Dance by @starlightswitch

the mug by @fourohfourrealitynotfound

Glitter And Blues by @landofspaceandrainbows

Dandy Boy by @letsgetsquiggly

Glitter And Blues by @betweenthetimeandsound

Full of Broken Thoughts by @edosianorchids901

The Wyvern by @queenfisher1

Glitter by @janetm74fics

"Bring Your Older Gays To Play" at Club Erebor by @lucigoo

[letsgetsquiggly]

Hello Hello!

It's time for a bio update—something a little more me for 2024. A lot has changed for me. I've transplanted across a country, started a new career, and pursued more education. I've grown a little less idealist, maybe a little more bureaucratic. I am much more influenced by logic, probably more than I have ever been. I've aged, calmed, and gained confidence in myself. I hope to take this time and confidence and find a space to see what this new version of myself can create.

I don't have a lot of time to write. I post infrequently and often go through lulls where no writing ideas pop into my head. However, I always come back to Tumblr because this site provides a sense of expression and freedom I can't find anywhere else on the internet. I'm here to write, share ideas, have fun with self-expression, and experience the art words that others have to share.

I love to read all kinds of writing content. Poetry, prose, stories, novels, fanfic—you name it—I consume it.

I'm comfortable writing poetry and flash fiction, but I'm trying to branch out into longer works, like short stories or maybe even novels.

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate it.

[letsgetsquiggly]

Dandy Boy

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial 243rd prompt.

Word count: 538

Audience: General

Themes: musical performances, emotional responses, slice of life

Descending the stairs, I approach the disco pop hell hole that has imprisoned my attention this last week. Such posh places were usually beneath me. I am much too old for curated vibrancy that only attracts young, flighty patrons with fleeting attention. This particular pocket of technicolor hell held an anomaly, however. A vast soul caged in a vapid gig.

I breathe in a deep puff of cotton candy cloud and snort the exhale at the no vaping sign that nobody follows at the bottom of the stairwell. I place my hand on the gaudiest velvet-clad door and push into the offensively neon venue. As an old woman, I trail an aura of grey through the pastel energies of today's youth gathered in this snug club. I don't belong, and I don't care. All I care about is that, in this unexpected place, is where the music happens. Not this spliced and sliced chords and bars pieced together by software and black boxes that I had grown accustomed to in the slog of shows I must sit through daily, but actual, grassroots composition born from tube amps, strings, and profound sadness. Pushing against the collection of confused stares, I make my presence known at the 10-seat wood top tucked in the back of this flashing sign and velvet box. I order what I've ordered the last four days I've been here; a Manhattan is burning, which, while cleverly named, was all flare and no flavor. I found myself at my corner booth, where I just sipped and waited.

It was mere moments before the object of my obsessions stumbles onto the cramped corner stage. A shy swallow who chirps an enchanting melancholic melody. He was a dandy dime, all glitter and blues. He has big, slick black hair and dark skin, a beautiful contrast to his foil-textured white fitted suit top sporting a deep v and a thoughtful gaze that never leaves his lifted-heeled boots. His Epiphone 8 string, a shimmering baby blue, plugged into a burnt orange tube amplifier. He drips with a brilliant shyness and sorrow, dressed in an awkward guise of confident colors and attire. I hold my breath while waiting for his set reveal, ready to be infected with his unexpected sparkle.

And then, he sings. He strums. The warm reverb of the transistor tubes worms through the pastel plain and hits my grey. He fills the room and turns it bold. Turns it blue. His performance erases the neon, coats the velvet, and masks the humanity of the room. All is him, and he is all. A deep baritone voice, crass and uneven, solid and vibrant, blends with the strings' vibration. His music is home, love, heartbreak, and loss. His music holds life and tells of change. This utter stranger has given me things I never knew I needed and showed me there is life I am missing to live.

At the end of the set, I release myself from my viewing station and approach the stage, money in my hand to show proper appreciation for the once again visceral performance. Throwing the cash into the open guitar case, I address the only thing in the room with soul.

"Excellent work, Dandy Boy."

[letsgetsquiggly]

It's time to read some sweet, sweet flash fiction

✨FFF 235 Masterlist

Thank you for all your wonderful entries last week! We loved reading all of them ^^ (If we missed your entry, please let us know)

Consider checking out your fellow writers’ pieces, give out those likes and reblogs. The new prompt will be up at 12pm CET <3

Fathers and Daughters by @renee-writer

Not My Colour by @lisbeth-kk

Old Husbands' Tales by @cocoamoonmalfoy

at dusk by @sparrow-orion-writes

Another Use for Beetroot by @darkhorse-javert

Village Sweater by @writingamongther0ses

So Many Little Pink Houses by @lucigoo

A Pink Sunrise by @etddivine

I Come Undone at the Things He Said by @borealwrites

Careless Childhood & Candy by @hd-literature

Those Old Crazy Dreams (Just Kind of Came and Went) by @polizwrites

Pink House by @letsgetsquiggly

Like Wax From a Candle by @aziz-reads

The Snowball Fight by @a-forbidden-detective

Bright and Beauteous by @edosianorchids901

En la Casa Rosada by @odysseywritings

A New Destination by @gregorovitchworld

Future Home by @fourohfourrealitynotfound

Little Pink Houses by @landofspaceandrainbows

Beyond the Pink Houses by @endlesstwanted

Barubido Barbie War by @thetypewritersbitch

Little Pink Houses by @betweenthetimeandsound

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WTW PRESENTS OUR 37TH EVENT!

To ring in the new year, WelcomeToWriteblr invites you to take part in another of our prompt events—this time shining the spotlight on the relationships between our dearly beloved supporting characters! 

From JANUARY 25TH TO JANUARY 31ST create something in response to that day’s prompt and post it. You’re welcome to do absolutely anything for the prompt of the day, whether it be a drawing, an excerpt, a playlist, or a moodboard. This event is aimed to get everyone involved and we will accept all submissions!

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Tag your posts as #WTWEVENT and #WTWCOMMUNITY

Format your posts like this: WTW RELATIONSHIPS WEEK - CHOSEN PROMPT

Wait for your post to be added to the queue.

NSFW content will not be posted to the blog.

OPTIONAL: Join our discord server if you would like to ensure your post makes it onto the blog! Tumblr’s tagging system can be unreliable and we want to make sure everyone’s creations are shared! Please note, you must be 15 OR OLDER to enter our server!

PROMPT LIST

Day 1 - Protagonist & Antagonist 

Day 2 - Side Characters 

Day 3 - Foils 

Day 4 - Love Interest 

Day 5 - Friends 

Day 6 - Family 

Day 7 - Wildcard 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, JOIN OUR SERVER HERE!  (discord.gg/earlgrey)

[letsgetsquiggly]

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt number 235

Length: 600 words

Audience: General

Themes: Grief, loss, lonliness

A sanctuary can become a cage in time. A plethora of binding memories and belongings that tether to now meaningless brick and mortar. The amalgamation of our empire, a little pink house, nestled in a row of perfectly paired pastel structures of its likeness. It was never I who belonged. It was we. A symbiotic entity whose existence was acknowledged in unison. Now, there is no we, despite everywhere in my vision demanding it is so. It pains me to leave this place. To look upon all that is and be plagued with what once was. The vibrancy of life around me is now astonishing and nauseating, though my sensibilities tell me this is comfort. Was comfort.

Standing on the threshold of the familiar abode causes me to double over, to be ill. Because it was once we and it is now I. Pink doesn't suit me, it suited us. And now I am left draped in a hue that contorts my reality and contradicts my truth. My home is not bright and gentle like a sky alight with the first rays of the rising sun. The world around me isn't the powder blue of a clear sky nor welcoming like springtime's first sprigs of grass. It was never me who hoped for the future and rejected the past. It was you. Now that I am a solitary entity, lacking my comforting parasite who swallowed my grief and shielded those around me from my inner truth. I lack color. I lack the desire to produce and create things in vibrant hues, and living in a picturesque rainbow reality only reminds me that I never truly belonged. This existence is much too beautiful for me without you. Sunken to my knees, gripping my curse of a midsection, I make the decision to paint my world in my likeness. I stumble, clumsily placing one determined barefoot in front of the other. Gripping a metal handle hot from the day's blaring and painful bright sun, I thrust open the metal hanger, which was an obstacle to the object of my hungry desire. Hunched over, stumbling, still clutching the ever-throbbing emptiness just below my ribcage, I blunder my way to the large handled metal can. A grey liquid oozed from the single ridge that lined its lid.

You had said it's much too drab for the new room. That something to house youth was meant to ring with the colors of potential, colors that excite and entice. There was no room for apathy in your vision of the future. Only excitement and endless possibilities. But you aren't here, and there is no we, only I, and I think it's perfect. I lug the oozing can from its forgotten place behind the now needlessly large car on a shelf in the darkened garage. I breathe a small breath of relief in the reprieve from the endless brightness of the midday, then continue my trek. It's heavy and slaps unforgivingly at my thigh as I attempt to carry the heavy can of forgotten gray paint to the front of our little pink house. I can't take it anymore. The fruits of our labor have become the receipt of my suffering. I know what will happen if I do the task before me, but I can't bear the thought of not. With a belabored sigh, or maybe a shriek, I heaved the can, lid open, and watched in relief as a brilliant ark of grey splattered across the face of my nostalgic prison. I don't care what they say. I'll paint the whole damn thing grey.

[letsgetsquiggly]