All that’s holding me together today: 2 soup bowls of coffee, avocado toast, and an irrational spite to inject more whimsy into our increasingly cursed timeline
07.02.2026 02:41 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
It was inevitable that a child would find Gabriel.
Children are basically heat-seeking missiles for the most awkward adult in any vicinity.
This child was five, which meant she was small and made entirely of ambition.
Her name was Junie.
She had glitter sneakers, a clipboard covered in stickers, and the unblinking confidence of someone who had never once considered the concept of no.
She walked straight up to Gabriel, looked them up and down like an interviewer assessing a candidate, and said, “Hi! I’m Junie. Do you have a moment? I’d like to hear what you think about my idea.”
Gabriel blinked.
Michael, nearby, made a noise like he’d just watched a deer step into traffic and realized the deer was about to start a business.
Junie didn’t wait for more consent than the word moment. She flipped her clipboard around like she was presenting quarterly earnings.
“A network of lemonade stands,” she said, “across the whole United States. Then we use the money to make Party Pony Rescue.”
An extra snippet from Chapter 13 of The Trouble with Angels 📚💙🎧⚡
Read/Listen Here: open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
#SerialFiction #FoundFamily #CelestialChaos
04.02.2026 22:48 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Michael parked at the edge of a field that seemed to hum with an unusual amount of energy. Like it used to be a crossroads. Like the land had loosened its belt and sighed, Fine. Let there be magic.
Past the gate: banners, tents, a ferris wheel waiting for dusk like it was trying to look casual, and a crowd that had already formed three separate governments around three separate coolers.
The smell, Michael said, was the standard human festival cocktail:
fried dough, sunscreen, kettle corn, and hand sanitizer that wanted to be citrus so badly it was basically flirting.
The first thing he noticed wasn’t a ride.
It was a sign.
WELCOME WAYS & MEANS.
YES, YOU’RE RELATED.
NO, WE CAN’T EXPLAIN IT QUICKLY.
Michael said he stared at that sign like it was sacred scripture.
“See,” he told Gabriel, “they’re self-aware.”
A snippet from Chapter 13 of The Trouble with Angels 📚💙🎧⚡
Read/Listen Here: open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
#AudioFiction #FictionPodcast #UrbanFantasy #CozyHorror #DarkComedy
04.02.2026 22:48 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
They arrived in The El Dorado.
The El Dorado they’d “borrowed” from Jesus.
Bob used air quotes when he said borrowed, like the word itself was an ethical compromise he didn’t have time to litigate.
If you’ve never seen an ancient car used as a vehicle for cosmic beings, let me save you the trouble: it looks exactly as ridiculous as it sounds, and it somehow still carries authority. The El Dorado glided into the parking lot like a relic of style that had gotten tired of being symbolic and decided to become useful.
Gabriel was in the passenger seat, stiff with tension, vibrating like a perfection rule in a bad font environment.
Michael drove with the calm, furious focus of someone piloting a legal argument through traffic.
And the car stood out among the beige sedans and family SUVs, which was its own kind of commentary on bland corporate homogeny.
Bob told me that’s what made it feel like generals amassing their troops before anyone said a word.
Not the weapons.
The fact that The Family had started traveling together.
They headed in.
If you enjoy audio fiction, please check out the podcast version of this on your favorite podcast app. If you're unable to find The Trouble with Angels Season 2, Episode 2, please let me know which app and I'll see what I can do -Glory
A snippet from
The Trouble with Angels
Chapter 11 💙📚⚡🩸🎧🪐
Read/listen: open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
#UrbanFantasy #CozyHorror #DarkComedy
21.01.2026 21:01 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
🎧 The Trouble with Angels — Season 2, Episode 2: Chapter 11
Listen now | Business Casual Armageddon | A Holiday Inn Express is the last place you expect to witness divine crisis management. But when the universe is glitching, it turns out apocalypse paperwork ...
If you enjoy “afterlife bureaucracy” + “celestial chaos” + cozy-ominous satire:
Chapter 11 features an apocalypse memo appearing by a hotel ICE MACHINE. Three immortals lean in like it’s office gossip, but the paper feels… holy-wrong. 💙📚⚡🩸🎧🪐
#FictionPodcast #AudioDrama
21.01.2026 21:01 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Drink Up, The World's About to End
By Glory Fink
Maui should have been impossible.
Not because humans couldn’t get to Maui. Humans went to Maui all the time. Humans went to Maui on points and honeymoon desperation and credit card debt and the kind of optimism that only lasted as long as the hotel towels kept arriving fresh and fluffy.
No, Maui should have been impossible because I hadn’t earned it.
Grief has a way of turning pleasure into contraband. Like your body is a cop and your heart is a teenager and joy is a stolen car.
And yet, here I was.
Bob brought me through an ordinary doorway that pretended it was part of a normal day.
It wasn’t a portal with a choir. It wasn’t a tear in the sky. There was no dramatic wind, no swirling light, no Heaven-branded elevator music.
It was a door.
Just a door.
The kind of door you could walk through without thinking.
Which was, in retrospect, the most terrifying part.
I remember stepping forward and feeling the air change, not in a dramatic way, but in a way that made my skin prickle—like I’d walked into a room that had been recently cleaned with something expensive.
The light hit differently on the other side. Softer. More flattering.
The entire podcast series is available for free on GloryFink.SubStack.com or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're having trouble finding it, please let me know which app and I'll see what I can do to help -Glory
A snippet from The Trouble with Angels
open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
💙📚⚡🩸🎧🪐
#AfterlifeFiction
15.01.2026 00:02 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
False Spring and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves in Fillmore
By Glory Fink
(An occasional dispatch from the moist underbelly of optimism.)
Seed catalogs are hitting mailboxes, which means Fillmore has entered its most sacred season: Delulu Planning Season. People are circling tomatoes like they’re picking a soulmate. (“This one says heat tolerant. So he won’t leave me?”) We are all one glossy photo away from believing we will become the kind of person who labels herb jars.
And then—because the universe loves a joke—Fillmore gets one (1) 78-degree day.
False Spring #1
One 78-degree afternoon and suddenly every porch has folks in flip-flops and optimism. Lawn chairs dusted off and dragged onto the porch. Drinks sweating. Someone’s aunt is declaring, “Winter’s over!” like she’s giving a church testimonial.
Baby, Winter heard you. Winter took that personally. Winter will be back with a vengeance.
The Hardware Store: Temptation Altar Edition
The hardware store has placed seed-starting trays and little peat pots right at the front like a temptation altar. You walk in for duct tape and come out holding twelve packets of zinnias and the moral conviction that you are a person with a plan.
They’re not even being subtle about it. It’s merchandising. It’s psychological warfare. It’s “just one more seed packet” the way a casino is “just one more spin.”
Substack now has an auto reader available to have it read the entire article to you for free
A snippet from the latest Fillmore News 💙📚
The full article includes: seed-catalog delusion, Wilfred’s seed underworld, diner “spring specials,” and a town PSA begging folks to stop trying to mulch fake trees.
open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
#SmallTownLife
07.01.2026 21:26 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Dear Diary, 📓😵💫🐝
I am writing this with my hands still kind of vibrating, like my bones are full of bees. 🐝🐝🐝
Which is poetic, except I do not want poetry right now. 🙄 I want a normal Tuesday. I want to complain about cafeteria potatoes 🥔 and whether Lavell is ever going to Not be in the mood for pineapple pizza. 🍍🍕 I want to be annoyed about homework 📚 and then forget about it immediately like other people do.
Instead, I am learning something very important:
Whisperen Academy does not punish you like a person.
It processes you like paperwork.
And I have become a file. 📄😬
It happened in the middle of class, which was honestly rude. 😑 If you’re going to destroy my spirit, at least wait until after I finish taking notes on whatever tragic old war we’re pretending is relevant to our lives.
There was a soft knock at the door. Our teacher paused mid-sentence like she’d been waiting for it. Like she knew the knock was coming. Like the knock had its own seat in the classroom. 😶
A man I’ve never seen before stepped into the room.
A snippet from Chapter 12 ⚡📚💙
open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
31.12.2025 21:10 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Dear Diary, 📓
I don’t know how to explain the vibe at Whisperen Academy today except like this:
It’s the emotional equivalent of someone spilling grape juice on a white rug and then immediately throwing a decorative throw pillow over it and saying, “There. Fixed.” 😌🛋🍇
Except the rug is… you know… a dead body. 💀
And the pillow is called “ACCIDENTAL DEATH, CASE CLOSED.” 📎🚫
So. That’s where we’re at. 😬
This morning the school felt… lighter. 🌤
Not in a good way. Not in a “we survived something hard and now we’re healing” way.
In “the adults have decided we’re done feeling things now” way. 😶
Teachers smiled too much. 😁 Hallway conversations stopped the second students got close. 🤐 The office doors clicked shut like they were allergic to questions. 🚪🔒 Even the cafeteria oatmeal tasted like it was trying to be extra polite. 🥣🙃
A snippet from Boarding School Murder Mystery Chapter 11
open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
#MysterySerial
25.12.2025 01:27 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I didn’t hear about the fingerprints from the police.
I heard about them the Whisperen way.
In fragments. 🧩
In half-whispers between bites of toast. 🍞 In the library, where someone leaned too close and spoke like the books might be listening. 📚👀 In the hallway outside the science wing, where rumors echoed louder than footsteps.
Someone said the skiff had been wiped down.
Someone else said the whiskey bottle was too clean. 🥃
Someone swore there were no fingerprints at all.
At first, I assumed it was just a rumor. The kind that multiplied when everyone was scared 😟 and bored 😑 and desperate for answers. But the same detail kept coming back, unchanged no matter who told it.
No fingerprints.
Not on the skiff.
Not on the bottle.
The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. If Mr. Grunfeld had been alone out there, drinking, then why wouldn’t his fingerprints have been everywhere? Wood. Glass. Rope. Something.
A snippet from Boarding School Murder Mystery, Chapter 10 Something is Amiss at Whisperen Academy ⚡📚💙
gloryfink.substack.com/s/boarding-s...
17.12.2025 20:31 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I wondered if my mother was right that the world is filled with sadness because people think there isn’t enough love to go around ❤️. But how can there not be enough love when I never feel like I run out of love? People just don’t make any sense to me, I suppose 🤷♀️.
I think I released a deep sigh 😮💨 because Raine then burst out, “Hey! Did I ever tell you about the ghosts 👻 of the Alberta Highway?”
“There are ghosts on the highway?! How?” I asked.
Here is the story he told us:
When Raine was a young man he needed money 💵 because being a hippie didn’t pay. He heard about some seasonal work up in Alberta every spring 🌱 that would pay half a year’s wages to work 12–16 hours a day for three weeks cleaning up old abandoned cars 🚗 and litter along this highway in the Alberta province.
Two teams of six men each sleep in a camper 🚐 while they do it, and all your meals are provided 🍽️ while you do this work.
Since it was paid government work, he figured it was legit, so he signed up.
Bob was the foreman of the team Raine was assigned to. His rules were:
Always stay with the group. Never wander into the woods 🌲no matter what you think you heard or saw. No matter what.
Lights out is at 10 p.m. 🌙 When Bob says Lights Out, it’s all lights out. No talking. Go to sleep. 😴 You’ll be back up at dawn to continue working so everyone needs their sleep.
All windows and doors of all vehicles must remain locked 🔒at night. No exceptions!
When you need to piss or shit 🚽(his words) do it in the camp toilet. Never go into the woods. Ever.
🚫No drinking. 🚫No drugs. At the end of the three weeks, both teams will go to a bar to celebrate he end of the work. 🍻 The foremans will buy everyone beers all that night, if you enjoy that sort of thing. There will be NO DRINKING ALCOHOL during the work.
No guns allowed during the 3 weeks. Bob has a rifle and a shotgun 🔫 should the team encounter any aggressive wild animals🐻. Everyone must go into the camper while Bob has a gun out.
If you like quiet, character-driven horror—less jump scare, more “I will be thinking about this highway for weeks”—this episode is made to slip into your evening routine ⚡💙📚
Read It Here: open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
10.12.2025 20:40 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
By lunchtime the fog finally gave up. It didn’t blow away dramatically or anything—no cinematic sweep of mist peeling off the lake. It just… loosened. Thinned. The way a headache fades but still leaves your skull tender. One moment the courtyard is a grey bowl, and the next I can actually see the treeline again, sharp and dark against the water. 😳
Everyone noticed.
Half the cafeteria pushed toward the windows, trays abandoned. I followed, mostly because it felt like we’re all sharing the same breath for the first time in days. The air feels brighter. Lighter. Like the school finally remembered how to exist in daylight.
Then someone near the glass says, “Is that—wait. Is that a boat?”
And everything went still again.
A little wooden skiff bobbed out in the middle of the lake, faint and distant but unmistakable. Like it’s been waiting there the whole time, only now deciding it’s okay to be seen.
A murmur rolled through the other students—sharp, rising, uneasy.
“Is anyone in it?”
“Whose is that?”
“Wasn’t Mr. Grunfeld missing?”
“No way, that can’t be—”
I pressed my palm to the window. The glass was cold, and so was the sick feeling crawling up my throat. I didn’t know Mr. Grunfeld well. Hardly at all. But there’s something about seeing a boat drifting alone on a lake that shouldn’t contain any mysteries. It feels wrong. Like the fog kept a secret and only now remembered to tell us.
A snippet from Chapter 8 of Boarding School Murder Mystery 📚⚡💙
Read or Listen to It Here: open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
03.12.2025 18:04 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Y’all Ready for This?
A Newcomer’s Guide to Southern Thanksgiving Culture Shock | Visiting your Southern in-laws for Thanksgiving is not a trip — it’s an initiation ritual. Whether you’re arriving with a casserole, a smile...
If you’ll be meeting Southern in-laws: this short guide helps you avoid faux pas, read the room, and escape awkward convos with grace. Full of practical tips + ridiculous true stories 💙📚
Read: open.substack.com/pub/gloryfin...
#ThanksgivingGuide #MeetingTheFamily #SouthernHospitality
26.11.2025 21:32 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A Wild Thing Called Love
By Glory Fink
When you catch a wild thing like love,
you must let it go.
If it circles back to you, it is yours;
if it flies beyond the horizon,
you never truly held it.
What no one tells you is this:
the moment wings lift away,
the sky splits open in your chest.
Even if you’ve never wept before,
you will learn the language of rain.
Because wild things may not understand love
but you will.
And loss will hollow you out,
beat against your ribs like wings
trapped in a cage of bone.
It will rise,
a bittersweet draft of air
threading through every fracture
of your heart.
How can you live without
the wild thing that bore your joy skyward—
without the feathered warmth
that made your world
bearable?
A Wild Thing Called Love
By Glory Fink
22.11.2025 18:18 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
WTF?! As if a person is not allowed to try things while also in the process of figuring themselves out ugh 🙄 this kind of all or nothing thinking definitely contributes to bi erasure. Also it smells of heteronormativity but for other sexualities. Still not cool
21.11.2025 04:17 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Ship Without a Shore
By Glory Fink
You stir up rivers of memory,
draw up the silted truth.
But the truth hurts—
it scorches your palms
as much as it lances me.
You did nothing
to deserve my pain,
yet you keep wading deeper,
turning over stones
to see what still writhes beneath.
Why do you want to know?
I can feel your silent agony,
a mirror about to crack
from its own reflection.
I don’t want to go,
but I’m already drifting—
a ship slipping its moorings.
I can’t find the shore.
Show me one person
not relieved
to watch me disappear.
Let me believe
someone would reach in,
even knowing the water burns—
that somewhere,
a single light stays lit
for the ones who vanish quietly.
21.11.2025 04:03 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
✨🦑✨
History, Media Studies, Fashion, Dance
📺 Subscribe on Patreon @esthernewyork
linktr.ee/esthernewyork
Just a yankee transplant who fell in love with Mississippi and won’t shut up about it
BookSky (est. 2023) is bluesky's home for readers and writers. 📚 We've got 15+ feeds and a brand new website 👉🏻 booksky.ink/faq
secret feeds and promo available via Patreon 👉🏻 patreon.com/BookSky
admin 💌 @clarabelle.xyz
Barry Keoghan, forever cats, community cats, crab ragoons, crawfish, cheetos puffs, GoT, Saltburn
Associate Editor at AssignedMedia.org
Voice and Editor of Assigned Media's Trans Stories at https://www.youtube.com/@AssignedMedia and https://www.tiktok.com/@assignedmedia
(They/She)
Queer entomologist. Dog rescue worker. Poet. Freelance editor. Life is strange and long. (she/her)
Reader. Obsessively so. Oh, and I have a bit of an obsession with Dutch things. But please don’t ever make me smell patchouli.
🌊 Music by living voices from around the world, performed by voices living in the Pacific Northwest.
🎶 linktr.ee/newwaveopera
Writer. Transman. Coffeeholic. Gamer.
Fat queer non-binary autistic witch of colour.
Egyptian, Born in Italy, living in Wales
Intersectionality Educator, Speaker, Artist. Anti-capitalist Pro Community
Activistwitch.co.uk
📺 YouTube.com/@ActivistWitch
#WitchesForPalestine 🇵🇸🍉
Spontaneous Eclectic Witch
I make crafts and witchcraft lessons for curious chillins! I also take suggestions. Let’s make witchcraft fun!
[FEE-liss CAT-iss] They/them, butch lesbian, exvangelical, leftist, eclectic witch, Appalachian folk magic practitioner, future mental health counselor, disabled, pro liberation. ⛓️💥🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
No alt text= no fb
Profile art by @demeterb.bsky.social
https://www.bodegacats.nyc
Official account of the Terry Pratchett Estate. The first place for Discworld, Good Omens & Terry Pratchett news.
🔥🔥Divine Feminine🔥🔥
Reader of books &
snacker of snacks
Saving Southern LGBTQ history
Learn more https://linktr.ee/InvisibleHistories
Not an official NASA account. Come for the facts, stay for the snark.🥄
Same team from Twitter but with more gray hairs. 🚀🛰️🧪🔭
climate.nasa.gov
they/them
🏳️🌈🫶🏳️⚧️
Catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements.
splcenter.org
A free, collaborative, multilingual internet encyclopedia.
donate.wikipedia25.org
Recommended readings to counter ignorant statements. Rogue Librarians cite sources and reply to posts using #recommendedreading
