My Short Stories and other Writings @odysseywritings - Tumblr Blog

Writeblr Re-Introduction

Always been active off and on, but I want to get to more people since the vast majority of my followers have been inactive

Name’s Nick, and whatever nickname you can come up, and I deal in flash fiction, short stories, poetry, writing prompts, and discussion prompts!

You’ll enjoy my blog if you like sci-fi, fantasy, sci-fantasy themes, a good chunk of romance (M/F mostly, but I’ve done others), action/adventure, horror, and some satire and realistic fiction

Current WIPs:

Starlight Journey: Sci fantasy epic with empowered people fighting invaders from another dimension, self discovery, and connection with unlikely people.

The Band: 5 amateur rockers get trapped in a strange new world and must escape while being transformed as monsters. Hilarity ensues.

I post lots of stories with their own universes, particularly Haven and Reina (a sci-fantasy pair going on adventures) and the Band (a comical rock band full of dysfunctional but talented folks)

You can look through anything of my own through #my writing or (more reliably) #njm

I’m not very talkative, but I’m always open for friendly and professional talks, and I’m down for asks, messages, and tag games if we have enough rapport

Enjoy your stay and prepare for weirdness!

--

And if you’re generous and want to support me and future writings, here’s my kofi!

#writeblr intro #writblr #writers on tumblr

yutzen

Roadway to Nowhere

Today I have a very particular tale, as it’s one from relative newcomers who’ve scarcely had time to have their own pre-Refuge culture drift, even as they develop a new one. Yes indeed, compiling this took me to some of the more inhospitable parts of the Great Dust Gyre, but other than the utterly abhorrent climate it was easier to gather than most. The most difficult part was getting past some unusual idiosyncrasies of the Troxi, as they don’t quite have proper historians and only developed archaeology in any meaningful form well past their arrival in the caverns. Indeed, I had to speak with record-keepers and even long lineages of scavengers to get the fragments needed to gather into a single story, though thankfully the pieces fit relatively well with one another. Curiously enough, however, even with the Republics’ shorter history they were utterly unable to tell me what the actual origin of the story could’ve been – everyone just registered it as something passed from further up the chain, even as they completely lost sight of where said chain came from. It’s an irritating and concerning common thread, especially now that I know even Nixia wasn’t spared.Death comes for everyone, we all understand that much. Everything that was alive must one day die, everything that once moved and spun must one day still, and so on, and so forth. It’s just how things work, here and everywhere, or so we understand. But assuming this is true, it only stands to reason that if there’s no life without death, then the reverse is true: There is no death without life. Whether it’s death as a simple background concept, as an unthinking force, or maybe as something with an actual face, so to speak[1], it can only exist when there’s something out there that can still die. And what happens when the last living thing dies? Then that’s it, that’s the end of Death, one way or another. In the end, the last thing it will ever process is itself. It only stands to reason, if the base of “no life without death” still holds. I say “if” because, all in all, it might not truly hold. Out there, in a corner of existence so distant from the rest that it needed a Death of its own[2], the cycles of life and death were winding down. Or so one assumes, as that corner is now gone, dead enough to be indistinguishable from all that never lived. That’s what awaits every last world, after all. This one lasted for a long time, longer than most, and it was a bigger corner than most as well. Bigger than this one for sure. But it ended nonetheless. Death came for all of it in the end. Accounting for every last land, every last place, every person and creature there was. Taking count as they passed away, and as the fragments of life they fed passed on as well, and the fragments from that, too, until everything had been processed. And just as I said, in the end, all that was left to process once the very world was dead and gone, was itself. And so, Death came to an end, just like everything else… Except for one insignificant, unremarkable little being it completely overlooked. What was it before this happened? No one knows. It had to be so unremarkable as to barely even have a mind of its own, to be missed, but no one don’t know how long-lived it was. But it wasn’t powerful, that much is certain, otherwise it wouldn’t have been overlooked. It would’ve left marks, well before the land itself passed on. No, this one was completely forgotten, neglected, and thus left to live. Not die, not even rot, just live. After all, everything that could make either of those happen was gone. Perhaps one couldn’t even call it life – after all, following the math, there is no life without death, and yet there it hung, stirring and breathing in spite of it all. One half of an equation where everything past the equals sign had been openly sliced off[3].

There it laid, forgotten by death, neglected by everything that had come and gone. Adrift upon the dust and fragments of all that had once been. It had no choice but to bask in the void, staring at the insignificant pieces of existence that the end needn’t account for. They gathered around it, through all those little forces that only become significant when there is nothing else to push against them[4]. Even with a semblance of a mind, all it could do for a long time was to act as the nucleus of reality’s debris. Thoughtlessly accreting something resembling the tiniest chunk of what was there before the end… But then, after some time, it wasn’t quite as thoughtless. What triggered it? No one knows. Maybe it was scarcely meant to have any thought at all, and the passage of more time than it could fathom forced it into sentience. Maybe it had simply been asleep all along, in one way or another, and since all sleeps must eventually end, it woke up. Maybe it had a sessile, unthinking attitude from the beginning that let it pass unnoticed by all, even Death itself, and when the end had settled in it had no choice, and every chance[5], to drop it. But the shift became clear once the amalgam that had accumulated around it started taking a crude, but unmistakably intentional shape. After all, straight lines don’t come natural in the void. And indeed, a line is how it started. One speck of dust, one fleck of debris, each in front of the other as they came. And as more gathered towards it over time, they were added to the line. As the line tried to curl inwards on itself as such things do when there’s nothing to straighten them out, it was flattened out by its efforts, and stretched a little more. It quickly learned how to keep it stable, too, needing less and less work to keep it in place, making it longer and longer. Stretching further and further into the void. Thin as it could be, so it could reach as far as possible… Soon enough, the line became a bridge. A passage through the emptiness through which it could reach the next little leftover, another fragment to collect, and to lengthen the bridge. And when it ran out, it would simply take the backmost piece, and move it to the forefront in whatever direction it chose. After all, when seen against nothingness, anything can be spotted eventually, even the tiniest mote of dust. It was a slow process, it would take ages upon ages for it to reach the next little piece to add, a tiny bridge crawling across the void one plank[6] at a time. But it had time enough. Waiting long enough could bring the pieces in already – this creeping construction was much faster than that. In time, every last piece of what had once been its world and existence had been gathered and made a part of its construction. Everything that it had once been connected to, everything that remained, had been gathered in a single line, a bridge that now led nowhere… A bridge that was now long enough that even the near-insignificant pulls of other masses across the void, no matter how distance, would make it curl and warp. It was subtle, invisible to the eyes of most, but its architect had spent long enough with it to notice where these pulls would bent it, and thus, where such masses would be. And so, setting one piece in front of the other, pulling from the back to bring them forwards, it began again, the bridge crawling through the emptiness once more. Upholding such a thin line took time and effort, of course, slowing all progress down, but time and effort it had aplenty, and the longer it stretched, the easier it was to reach for further material – and the bigger it was, the more material was drawn in. And so, one day, the crawling stopped. It was not necessary anymore. It was simply easier to build it further, even if it meant building sideways from the bridge until it became a network, a spider’s web of crossings in all directions. Creeping further into the void, further towards any and all materials. Until a few of those materials weren’t quite so dead anymore.

It came upon one world, then another, and another. Worlds that were still whole, still alive. Too large and too whole to add to its construction. It could not get close, for what if the Death that yet stirred there claimed it? The thing was smart enough to know this now, after so many eons of artifice. But it could watch. It could linger, observing how it was to exist, to truly live, something it had long forgotten. And between constructions, as time passed and these worlds decayed? It could collect the motes of lifeless, deathless dust that flaked off them as entropy took them, until there was nothing left to do but add the fragments to its crossroads. One, after another, after another, the worlds died too, as they all do, leaving nothing but more material for the bridge. And so it roams, to this day. Perhaps it is watching us, too, right here and now. And perhaps, if Death forgets you too… You may get to meet it. [1]The versions I found were often divided on how a potential representation of death would look, including the ones that acknowledged the possibility of multiple such figures. However, the two most common choices were either skeletal figures, or beings with a mask of some kind or another, which is why I chose to put it this way. [2]The more story-minded scavengers here went into longer tangents that sprung from the previous principles, assuming that since true emptiness was bereft of life, it was bereft of death too, and thus would act as a barrier for a hypothetical roaming incarnation. While I can somewhat see the logic, any such emptiness would immediately cease to be one if a living being started crossing it, and the idea of living beings acting as bridges for their respective avatars of death was a point of contention that I needed to avoid if I wanted to get the actual story. [3]You may have noticed by now a heavy use of mathematical concepts as literary allegories. This was something I kept for the sake of accuracy, and is in fact common in Troxi culture and storytelling. Equations and all that compose them are common in their literature, and have always been; even in the oldest texts I could find, the oldest piece of pre-Refuge writing I could get my hands onto, there were multiple references to such, with the balance of an equation being a fundamental metaphor. This almost leads me to think that the Troxi developed standarized mathematics either before they developed the written word, or at least simultaneously. The latter appears more likely, as unwritten mathematics can only get so far, but the Troxi themselves had no answer to this particularity when directly asked about it. [4]Several of the original texts referred to this as either “a gravity of sorts” or directly as gravity. I did not include it as such thanks to other texts contradicting this with the idea that even gravity itself had been erased, leaving only weaker, insignificant forces as easy to miss as the protagonist of this tale. And while I know, technically, gravity can play such a part, and will indeed pull even the tiniest of bodies together at great distances when working “properly”, I preferred not to include this, as it’s one of the ambient laws and energies that does not necessarily work properly in the underground. It can be reached into and manipulated just like any other. [5]Adding both possibilities here was my own choosing, as no version actively pondered both. Either it was an unthinking, immobile thing by nature and it chose to do otherwise, or it was a wilier entity that simply passed itself as a thoughtless, unremarkable object so well that the end mistook it for something that could be disregarded.

[6]Remarkably, all versions of the story used wording and comparisons that implied a more timber-made bridge than anything cast or carved. I say remarkably because the Nixian Republics are perhaps one of the nations that least rely on any kind of wood, fungal or otherwise. And from what I’ve managed to gather on their pre-Refuge existence, this has been so for some time, even back then stone and metal played a bigger part, being joined by glass once they made it to the Gyre. Both the scholars I spoke to and I remain uncertain of why this is, but it seems to be a common particularity of tales that I believe concern the Lord(s) Below. -Excerpt from “Who is the Lord Below? A Treatise on the Radiant and Cthonic”, authored by ‘the Ever-Restless Nirrhamidh’ (confirmed pseudonym; author not yet identified and under active investigation. Any information regarding his identity is to be forwarded immediately.)

#others lore

aquadestinyswriting

On Thin Ice

Summary: Selene has a conversation with Snotgrut after a successul ruse involving Elowyn getting 'kidnapped' by some Filthy Rotten Cultists™ that she knew nothing about. She has just finished chewing Elowyn out.

Words: 965

Tags: @druidx, @asher-writes , @ashirisu @philosophika , @the-down-upside-finch @flashfictionfridayofficial, @lexiklecksi

Warnings: some swearing and mild physical abuse. Also abelism

Notes: A dramatisation of one of the Destiny's New Servants campaign sessions. I have had to heavily modify the actual conversation because Snotgrut is too damn verbose. See the second half of this transcript for the actual conversation

writingamongther0ses

June Commissions Open

Hey there, I’m Charlie!

I’m taking any extra money I can make, so I’m opening 10 commission slots a month for original works.

You can either message me on Tumblr or email me at [email protected]. I find it easier to send it through Ko-Fi, which I’ll send a link to. I will send a finished first draft for the client to look over to see if anything needs to be added or removed. Please keep in mind that there might be a time difference in communication. I will ask for details. If you want a story with your OCs, it will be incredibly helpful to have a description of these OCs.

I will possibly crosspost the commission on Tumblr and AO3, unless requested not to, and you will receive a PDF version of your story. You are allowed to crosspost it yourself if credit is given back to me. I do have the right to deny anything that makes me uncomfortable.

There will be a $5 discount if the story requested is for any of my prior writings.

Prices below:

luna-azzurra

Tips for Writing Small Towns!! PART TWO

⋆˙⟡ The economy of small towns is not quaint. It is precarious and everyone knows exactly how precarious. When the plant closed, or the mill shut down, or the highway got rerouted fifteen miles east, the whole town felt it in a specific and lasting way. There are towns that have been dying for forty years and the people in them know it and don't talk about it directly but it's in everything. The storefronts with plywood where glass used to be, the school that consolidated with the next town over, the young people who leave and the question of whether they're coming back that nobody asks out loud because everybody already knows the answer. Writing a small town without writing its economic reality is writing a set, not a place.

⋆˙⟡ There is a specific kind of person who runs everything and they are not elected. Every small town has someone. Sometimes a family, sometimes just an individual, who is not officially in charge of anything but whose opinion determines outcomes. The woman who's been on every committee for thirty years. The family that's owned the land since before living memory. They don't have to make demands. Everyone already knows where the edges are. A newcomer or outsider won't see this power structure at first because it isn't written down anywhere. It lives in who gets called first, who's consulted before decisions are made, whose silence means disapproval. Writing this type of character correctly means never letting them explain themselves. They don't need to.

⋆˙⟡ Leaving is a complicated moral act and coming back is even more complicated. The person who got out, who went to college, who moved to the city, who built a life somewhere else, occupies a strange position. There's pride in them, genuine pride, and also a kind of low resentment that nobody names. They think they're better than this. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but the suspicion is there. And when they come back, for a funeral, because things fell apart, because they got sick, the town doesn't quite absorb them back in the way they expect. They're not who they were. But they're also not from away. They're in a third category that doesn't have a comfortable name and everyone, including them, is a little awkward about it.

⋆˙⟡ People maintain relationships for decades past the point where they would have ended anywhere else. Because the pool is small and leaving is a whole thing, people stay in friendships, in dynamics, in proximity to people they would have simply stopped seeing in a city. The woman who is still friends with her ex-husband's sister because their kids go to the same school and their mothers are in the same Bible study and it would be more work to be enemies than to just keep showing up. These relationships have layers and scar tissue. They are not warm exactly, but they are not cold either. They are maintained. Writers often write relationships as chosen. In small towns, a lot of relationships are simply continued.

⋆˙⟡ Local history is oral and it is everywhere and it is not neutral. The story of what happened to the Henderson property, why the Murphys and the Dales don't speak, what exactly went on the summer of the flood; this history lives in people, not in records. And it gets told selectively, with emphasis and with meaning. The version your family tells is not the version their family tells. History in a small town is a living argument. A character who grew up there absorbed a version of local history that shaped their understanding of who deserves what and why, and that version has gaps and biases they cannot fully see. A newcomer doesn't have access to this history at all and will keep misreading things because of it.

⋆˙⟡ The relationship between small towns and their nearest city is specific and loaded. It's not simply rural versus urban. It's a relationship of dependency and resentment. People drive to the city for the hospital, for the court, for the things the town can't support anymore. And they come back with the feeling that the city doesn't know they exist, doesn't factor them in, makes decisions that affect them without consulting them. This is not paranoia. It's largely accurate. A small town character's relationship to the nearest city (whether they go often or rarely, what they feel when they're there, what they feel when they come back) says a lot about who theey are and where they stand in their own community.

#can attest to these

druidx

"Busy" is Not an Excuse

Universe: Fighting Fantasy World of Titan CW: Standard fantasy violence, non-graphic injury Additional Notes: Re: this request from @aquadestinyswriting. I realised I can just, y'know, write the most interesting bit and not worry too hard about the gumph around it 😅️

Screams and cries echo through the hewn corridors of House Myviir's palace. As the sounds of fighting get closer, the drow around Merri get more nervous. They drift backwards, away into the shadowy corners where the orange light from the brazier does not reach, and from thence to who-knows-where.

The whirling dervish at the center of the fighting explodes into the room, the man she's fighting dropping before her. Merri gets a single moment to blink in confusion before she's being grabbed from behind. "Not another step, girl, or I'll slice the Inquisitor from belly to breast," growls the drow holding her. Merri feels the dig of sharpened metal against her kidneys. "Ah... I don't believe he's lying, hen," Merri says to the woodling whose hair and skin make her just as hard to pick out as the drow around them. "I'm sure he doesn't think so," Elowyn grounds out. "He can certainly try." Merri huffs. "Excuse me?" "Not another step, girl!" the drow commands. Merri lets out an involuntary squeak as the blade is dug in a little more. Elo hefts her makeshift club. "Meredith." "Aye?" "Do you recall that airship we went on that fell outta the sky?" "Aye?" "And you recall when that plane-walker had me dead to rights?" Merri's brow crumples, confused what this has to do with anything. "Aye?" "And do you recall what it was that Auri did to get me away from him?" "Aye?" "Right, well. This ain't that. Duck!"

Merri gets barely enough time to move, the club catching wisps of hair left floating in free-fall. It's not until she hits the ground – at an awkward angle too – that she feels a sting trailing up from her waist up to her armpit. Ooh, ouch. That's going to be a problem later... Hands grasp at her; she fights by instinct. "Mer, stop. It's me. Stand, yes?" Elo says in her thickly-accented dwarvish. Merri allows herself to be hauled to standing. Elo doesn't let go, instead tugs her in the direction of another corridor. Merri bites her lip at the sting on her side.

artisimpossible

I genuinely wonder if people realize how many projects get abandoned because the readership "wasn't there", when in reality, the readership just stayed silent. It's a big thing in trad pub that book series get discontinued because readers pirate the books or wait until the series is finished to buy a copy, leading the publisher to think that nobody actually wants the book enough to continue the series, but it happens with indie creators too.

I've discontinued a lot of free, online series because it's not worth putting 3-5 hours a week into posting a project for no readers. Sometimes I finish the series for me but just never post it again, other times I don't finish it at all because it feels more worthwhile to put my time into other things. Sometimes I hear from readers who are sad or upset that I didn't finish something they were liking, but the *reason* it never got finished is because I didn't know anyone liked it. If you like something, tell the creator, tell your friends, make some noise about it. If you would be sad if a story never finished, make that interest known because one of my biggest considerations before discontinuing a series is "will people miss this? Will I be letting people down" and 9/10 times, I come to the conclusion of "no, it doesn't even seem like anyone's reading this" only to learn after I've moved on that apparently someone was.

healerqueen

I've said this before in a different way, and this post said it so well. With real examples. If you like something, tell people.

If you want more content from an artist or author, if you like their stuff, tell them. It will give them creative fuel to keep going. And often it gives them other resources as well. Recommend a work to other people. Leave a comment or a review. It doesn't have to be long, just genuine, a sentence or two. Not many people know that a book's success is judged by book reviews as well as sales. Review the book on Amazon or another site to help it pass the metric of success and be recognized by publishers and retailers.

#I write for free so if there's very little engagement then I just write for myself

aalinaaaaaa

Writeblr Introduction (a Rewrite!)

Hello everyone, my name's Alina (Twenties, female), and if I'm not studying I'm likely on here (or writing, lol). I've had this account for a while now, I use it for posting my stuff as well as the lovely writings of others.

I now have an Ao3 page too! As of writing, I'm fairly new, and I'll be gradually uploading my works onto there as well :D

And here's what can be found on my blog:

- My writing (see below)

- Other people's writing

- Writeblr things I think are neat

- Eurovision posts (lol)

Just a side note for visitors (this should be common sense, but eh), please don't send me asks/messages relating to the following things.

1. Discourse of any kind (such as political and/or humanitarian issues)

2. Asking for money

3. Anything such as hate comments, advertising, scams and other foolish things.

Should one send me an ask or message in relation to any of the aforementioned above, your message will be deleted on sight. A block and/or report may also be in order, message depending.

WIP Introductions and Masterlists

Flamebearer

A Healing for the Birds

Caointe na Mná | The Lady's Lament

Soulswapped

Flash Fiction Friday Masterlist

Flash Fiction Masterlist (Plot-Ordered)

Flash Fiction Friday 24/25 Collection

OC Masterlist

Taglists:

aquadestinyswriting

The Rescue

Summary: Selene and Edwin are on the hunt for Fai's lost apprentice. They finally locate the prison the poor fellow has been taken to.

Words: 1,520

Tags: @druidx, @asher-writes , @ashirisu , @lexiklecksi, @philosophika , @the-down-upside-finch

Warnings: none that I can think of actually

Notes: There will be more to this story, I just got inspired to write this part of it

*Haven rushes to protect a small egg shaped alien from a huge booted imperial sicko apprehending it*

"This thing does nothing productive to the realm. No working, no duty, a degenerate and a criminal in waiting. It needs to know its place."

Haven: *punches right up in his gut and teeth until he runs away*

Haven: I guess he found his place as a gold medal loser.

*Haven: gets hugged by the oval alien and gives it a piggyback ride*

#writeblr #oc writing #oc haven #mywriting #njm #just wanted to write a little thing #harnessing some Everett True here

some-oc-questions

Which oc loves to put flowers in their hair?

#oc Reina

ocpolls

Would your oc like Tumblr?

Yes

No

They already have Tumblr

Voting ended onJun 12

#roxy would #grave too

some-oc-questions

Has your oc ever seen a UFO?

#excluding sci fi characters #rob crimson saw one #and saw an alien in the sky flying a regular jet #neither bothers him

fyeahocprompts

which oc would purposely go to haunted locations?

#oc Reina #oc grave

megandaisy9

Welcome! 🌼

Hey there! Welcome to my blog! 😄👋

My name is Megan, I'm 27 years old and for starters, I’m a premature baby. I was born prematurely at 26 weeks gestation. I have special needs, bilateral hearing loss, learning disabilities and anxiety.

I also struggle with social anxiety, which can be overwhelming sometimes. And because of that, I've had moments where I felt lonely. I still do. But I’m trying my best to manage, all things considered, and I hope there might be a step in the right direction someday.

Please bear with me while I navigate things at this time and if anyone would like to reach out to chat or ask questions, you’re welcome to do so.

If anyone would like to talk OCs, please do. And I look forward to meeting you all! :)

About Me:

🌼 Megan Ridyard.

🚺 Female, she/her.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 English.

🧩 Autistic.

🎓🎭 University Student & Actress.

📝🎮 Writer & PlayStation Gamer.

🎂 April 21st, 1999.

💖 Multi-ship | OC×Canon, OC×OC.

OC Masterlist: Part I