The illegible #escutcheon, caked with salt and rust, belonged to the Dutch East India Company. This is all they knew from the emblem embossed in the metal. A hazy sign, lost in the fog and trembling sea foam, along with the violence and terror of its story. #vss365

Today, I finished ‘Revenge’. 36k- a novella. I feel so good about that! 🎉2 more episodes to go. ICYMI, I'll leave it up for another month. It's been quite an experience working in the serialized format w/o a completed manuscript. Just winged it! In three weeks, there will be something different.

There used to be this thing called #scrutiny. It was a painfully slow way of looking. Painful because you couldn't do anything else while scrutinizing—you couldn't break off either. This was how people investigated the world and each other. It could go on for hours or days. Awful, I know. #vss365

Part sixteen is live 🔥 If you're into noir-adjacent serialized fiction with bite. tinyurl.com/mx3zmzfp

¡ATTENTION! Body Horror Fans! 😱😱😱💀 This is so awesome!!! ✨💯✨ thepalehorse.substack.com/p/the-embroi...

The little bird shook its feathers and cocked its head. Am I a brand? it asked. Will my story be engaging? Its #sonorous voice woke the flowers. It hopped from branch to branch, thinking of the juicy worms in the wood, then sprang away from its perch, the cool air tickling its belly. #vss365

It was her only #caprice to sit by the seashore in winklepickers and eat mussels by the bucketful. Careful not to stain her cornflower silk gown, she wore a voluminous bib, lace-trimmed and embroidered with her initials, A.F. A woman often speculated about, her identity went no further. #vss365

Neon Laundry, Lisbon, Portugal Photo credit: Francisco Crocco

This would be a strange #eventuality, he mused. He was referring to a tidal wave inland, and the snows rebuking the skies. We live in the eyes of others, moving from perception to perception, like rooms without mirrors or windows. He was convinced it would rain, though knew only drought. #vss365

Wow. I just re-watched 'V for Vendetta'. 😮 It hits a little to close to home now. More than Alex Garland's 'Civil War'.

Once, a #bellwether instructed us, when people refused to be lead, and everyone knew how to say no. There was momentum once a thing was recognized, and honest reflection converted to action or stance. The indicator was understood, the response given. How far we've gone away from this. #vss365

Which would you consider a #bellwether of 2025: Overthinking – spiraling since forever Underthinking – just vibes, no logic Trend-chasing – includes limited edition water bottles Internet-lurking – present, yet silent Vibe-ruining – foul behavior Fact-bending – politicians’ favorite sport ❓ #vss365

The waves, forming and then rippling outward from chaos, the ones that reached me, those whose patterns I drew and erased, these were teachers of unpredictability. The waves bore me along in all seasons to #reinvigorate my spirit, and this is how I came to live my life in unorganized time. #vss365

If the world was not a place of human misery, if there were no wars, no chemical imbalances in the brain, no hormonal shifts, no hate or jealousy, would we be free to love, to invent, to create beauty and live in the vital abundance and generosity of Nature? All she said was, #Perhaps. #vss365

Sat in someone's backyard on Gran Via de las Corts Catalanes, and couldn't hear noise from the street. This is how portal fiction was born.

I dreamt you ate a sandwich, and it was worse than bad. You were breathless and saw blurry in the after moments that would have been your last, except you survived. Yet, #catastrophe was not entirely averted. You fell into a coma, and slept through end times. Woke up a science experiment. #vss365

Chapter 15 is here 🔥 New chapters drop every Wednesday. No prizes. No rankings. Just blood, lies, and the occasional cheap whiskey... camilahamel.substack.com/p/revenge-of...

In the street—don't look, don't listen—a man is about to #extrude his worst fears, right there on the sidewalk. It has rained, and the rank mirrors on the ground show you why. Don't look up, don't attract its attention. You left your firesuit at home. Wait for its shadow to pass, then run. #vss365

You strive to make every #stride purposeful. This is you, taking #stock of the pros and cons. You reconcile yourself to the limitations—to *your* limitations, wisely striking a balance. Still, one might ask, are you at peace? It depends. Many angels dance on the head of the pin. #vssdaily #vss365

If I covered myself in dander, you would sneeze and scratch your eyes and take three steps back or leave the room. The chemical #synthesis would overpower you. If I covered myself in essential oil, say, the roses of Bahreïn, the opposite would happen. Which shall it be, cats or roses? #vss365

How much comfort has the old woman bought with her toil and her eventual peace? Alone, content to weave tapestries of past deeds and tend her garden of ruby tears, which has outgrown every bed and trellis, she smokes her pipe and #conspires with her past lives to sing the poetry of crows. #vss365

Good morning writers, poets and vagabonds of words ~Silence #conspires with the soul until imagery becomes complete~ 16 September 2025 #vss365 prompt is #conspire

Even without rain, King Raenor gave no free #rein to his reindeer. He was too possessive to posit a time when they should range at leisure, though just to piss. The reign over his subjects followed in kind until the day his statue was toppled, and ever since, men dance and reindeer fly. #vss365

Right?

A little video I made during the COVID quarantine...

Spain has imposed 9 sanctions on Israel for committing mass murder and starving people: "There is a difference between defending your country and bombing hospitals or starving innocent children. This is not self-defence. It is the extermination of a defenceless people."

No #flinching or blubbering ever with Kai, only a ferocious look of scorn in her eye because she didn't care what anyone thought, and her willingness to walk the thinnest line in search of real and raw emotion was #boundless. A fine artist she would grow up to be. #vss365 #vssdaily

So cool! www.everynoise.com

There was a post calling Utah “the ancestral homeland of the Mormons” with 100s of likes. The original Mormon was from Vermont & moved to New York. Utah is the ancestral homeland of the Ute, Paiute, Shoshone, Goshute and Diné people. This historical revisionism must be corrected when we see it.

His #style was the #bomb. Pure attitude. Pure defiance. The only problem was that it took no time for his imitators to pull up to where he operated, and, like a bus load of tourists, gawk and then filch his vibe. But by then, cameleon-like, he was already a few iterations ahead. Cool. #vss365

My painting of a flamethrower working the tables of the plaza for change.

High on the hill, the cereal box buildings march into the distance, stolid and gleaming white, towering over the rest of the town, challenging the sky. Yet all who live there know how thin their walls are. Garden Manors; its name belies the #potential bother brought on by the neighbors. #vss365

What's going on between Hess and Merida? 🔥 The Hollis is swinging full tilt!

#callforsubmissions: L'Esprit seeks stories, CNF, essays, translation, reviews. Consciousness-forward, language-driven, risk-adept. Send us writing beyond convention. G’Lines and open calls: lespritliteraryreview.org/submission-g...

What an interesting song 💯 youtu.be/DT0RBSpDiKo?...

When Fascination meets #Exhaustion, the two for a time will dance around the inevitable. She,moaning, shaking, laughing and sobbing, lifting herself in the air, pleading. The other answers, head bent, arms stretched wide, drawing her in and enclosing her in an embrace of forgetting. #vss365

Of course, it's him. It's Max. With his ruined good looks, and taskmaster's heart. Steel to your copper, he is as nonconductive as wood. They say he's #bearable now, a nonconformist. I remember only converntionality. I am intrigued to know where Fate caught up with him, and what she said. #vss365

"All that stuff used to be money. All that money used to be time. All that time used to be opportunity." — Tom White on overconsumption

To #further his designs, Dorian added umber and hematite to the mix. The pigment aligned diabolically with his shadowy humour, the stone, with his hardness. Together they mimicked the metallic grey-sepia of his eyes, which he would capture for posterity. #WordedArt

If I had the #power to move the #recalcitrant dial, that damnable metric, even a notch, I would smother the heat, scorching every argument brawl and debate, face-to-face, tête-à-tête, loggerhead all at once and for all. I would have the silence of woods, of dead saints. #vss365 #WordedArt

Moon half full September 6th 2025 #Photography

Happy international vulture awareness day everybody 🪶

The moon in her silent procession obscures my path and cloaks the #doorway where I stand. I am of two minds. She will lose herself in shadow, as I lose myself in contradiction. Our alignment for a time will blot out the screams of the primal star, before I climb to the calm of her orbit. #vss365

There's a good #chance I will like this film, but it's not likely you will. It mirrors our life together too closely. Beyond the awkwardness, is the notion that we are like many people. You could say we're cliché. That will bother you because you're stability hinges on feeling special. #vss365

What animates the husk before you, I cannot say. Death came for an unsuspecting generation, when we #chance d our veins to the silent rush of pixels and on the alter placed our bloody eyes in the house of Displays. The pub and park emptied, for deep is the soil where our souls lie buried. #vss365

He had his own #article of faith, just one: only reflection engenders awareness. This, the north star rising over his horizon, was his mentor. With kinder eyes, he saw what others ignored, heard the chime of songs and lived in his bones a life that brought him what can only be called joy. #vss365

Comin' up on part thirteen 🔥 George and Hess, finding their mutual father - son vibes camilahamel.substack.com/p/revenge-of...

Unconsciously, there are wants the #conscious mind knows little about. It's why your sister makes the same mistake again. It's why your friend favors that silly hat. Awareness and mindfulness—cramped quarters for them. In a locked box they wait for their time, with unicorns for company. #vss365

It was an #arbitrary decision, which is to say, no decision at all, the path of least resistance, a whistle or a prayer. What did Marwen think would happen when the years flew by, and the habit, firmly entrenched, yielded nothing? Idly looking to the sky, he could never compare to Perseus. #vss365