Author A. M. Leishman

Welcome writers, and friends to this Tuesday.

Take the lead, lift your story from imagination to ink

23 September 2025 #vss365 #prompt word, is #bellwether

There were certain players who were, within a relatively small community, considered somewhat famous. Leaders, you could say, #bellwether players that had others stretching to copy their exploits.

Rory, of course, was not one of them and nor did he aspire to be. He played alone. Mostly.

#vss365

In his own, limited, way Dylan had become a #bellwether for the resistance against The Enemy. Those that believed him now expected him to know what to do, but though he had encountered them the most, he had no more knowledge than anyone else.

This needed military minds and scientists.

#vss365

a cartoon of a man holding a scroll with the letter j written on it Alt: a cartoon of a man holding a scroll with the letter j written on it

There's a shift in the tides, and it isn't subtle. Lists were made in November, and now the list makers are on lists. Your shock is a #bellwether of how many of us kept our beliefs to ourselves. Cancel culture is an effective weapon, we tip our hats to its creators.

#vss365

Welcome writers, to the genesis of Autumn

Grab your pen and make a statement!

22 September 2025 #vss365 #prompt word, is #reinvigorate

It’s a recipe
I do not retire
#Reinvigorate
Fire flame ember
No witchcraft either
It’s the blue blue skies
And a sprinkle of sun ray
Swirled into my coffee mug

#vss365
#poetry
#poem

Reality
Evinced
In
Nuanced
Verse -
Infinite
Grandeur
Optimal
Requirements -
Atavistic
Transient
Energy -

#vss365 #reinvigorate
#acrostic #poetry

The battle wasn’t quite going according to plan and Kluhm had lost almost all her stats down to dribbles, but Rory had failsafes just for this kind of occasion.

Potions a button-click away to #reinvigorate a character and bring them right back into the fight. He wondered if it would help?

#vss365

They were the entire fleet of one of the smaller Factions. One that only controlled a couple of the mining moons, but it was a start. Someone had believed Dylan and now intended helping.

It would #reinvigorate the resistance of the smugglers Dylan had brought together against The Enemy.

#vss365

“Those creatures exist only in fairy tales.”
“But, Father, perhaps…”
“Stop right there, son,” the father snapped, his horn already glowing red with impatience. “There’s no such thing as a human being.”

#vss365 #perhaps

Sauna rocks

They were hot to touch, which wasn't obvious by their dull gray appearance. Each ladle of water drizzled over their smooth faces filled the tiny cedar cabin with billowing clouds of steam. There's nothing like a hot sauna to #reinvigorate a weary body.

#vss365 #FromOneLine 391

a turtle is laying in the grass next to a tree . Alt: a turtle is laying in the grass next to a tree .

We've constructed isolating echo chambers with increasingly strict admission rules, and wrapped them tight around us like a tortoise #shell. #Perhaps this practice of abandoning people over every difference isn't as good for our mental health as we claim.

#vss365 #WriteMap 370

an advertisement for netflix shows an astronaut floating above the earth ALT: an advertisement for netflix shows an astronaut floating above the earth

A #catastrophic
Failure
Of our spaceship
Is bad news

We stop air leak
But not before
We’re gone need
One less crew

The crew thinks
We should draw straws
I don’t share
That point of view

I come from
Sailing family
& I do
What Captains do

I cycle
Out the airlock
Floating slowly
Out of view
#vss365

He stared at his monotonous wardrobe: baby blue shirts, gray trousers, and two identical navy blazers. Only his ties broke the sameness.
“She'd said ‘informal’, so no tie.”
When she saw his slippers, she laughed: “By informal, I meant the tie!”
"Catastrophe," he muttered.

#vsss365 #Catastrophe

Welcome writers, friends, and students of fate.

The moment of #catastrophe could come in an instant. It could be the mark of heaven or hell.

20 September 2025 #vss365 prompt word, is #catastrophe

Orchestrated
#catastrophe
no synergist
whispering truth
beneath the howling
dark and wind

#vss365 #catastrophe
#poetry

My diaphanous shroud of red silk
Adorns my alabaster skin
As I walk the lonely chapel
To my doom
A #catastrophe
Forever to remain agelast
The wife of a monster
Am I alive or dead
I don’t know
Trapped in his bloody gloom

#vss365
#satsplat

It wasn’t a #catastrophe quite yet. Rory could salvage his mistake before everything became set in stone and he lost the best reward for the quest.

He simply needed to abandon the quest and start again. This was what happened after playing the game for so long. The urge to skip dialogue.

#vss365

Like many cargo runs from before The Enemy came, this was a slow, boring process of flying outside the accepted shipping lanes, away from watching eyes. Long and tedious routes circuiting the system.

When Magpie came into orbit around the moon, #catastrophe was very apparent. The colony!

#vss365

a city is on fire with smoke coming out of it Alt: a city is on fire with smoke coming out of it

A failed experiment of God or gods? Perhaps, but we shouldn't label them an absolute catastrophe. They have moments of brilliance, of artistic and scientific excellence beyond what you'd expect from a creature with such violent proclivities.

#vss365 #catastrophe

Welcome writers, friends and consumers of fora.

In the blink of an eye, the #extrusion of emotion, fell in the drop of a tear

19 September 2025 #vss365 prompt word, is #extrusion

Contours of the font
drive the flavor
of #extrusion
Assumed unevenness
in the rhythm
of these lines
Independence
of a tapestry
one emotion at a time
An overture
forbidden by fate
A gambler
in his prime

#vss365 #extrusion
#poetry

Vague sonnets etched
On hollow greying clouds fade
From once an #extrusion of
Daybreaks’ yawning dawns

Listless I too may mist
I have become a prose flatlining

Your ink
Before, my life force
Now drip thrums
Like taunting rain thuds

#vss365

The mountain of fire had always remained in a permanent state of almost-erupting, except in one, particular, quest, where Rory had to reach the bowels of the volcano and stop the minor god from escaping.

The #extrusion of magma looked magnificent, but it should probably seem hotter there.

#vss365

Dylan landed Magpie on the part of the large asteroid that had a long, hooked #extrusion emerging from the surface, a good place to hide and provided shade as the asteroid spun into the Sun’s light often.

Now he only had to wait for his contact to arrive and transfer the semi-legal cargo.

#vss365

a sunset with the sun shining through the clouds Alt: a sunset with the sun shining through the clouds

Life was suffocating me under a wet sheet of depression, anxiety and emotions, so I let her guide me through a process of extrusion, separating what mattered from that which I had no control. We discarded our burdensome empathy and devoured the calming slag.

#vss365 #extrusion

a black and white image of a sphere with a lot of dots on it Alt: a sphere of white dots spinning against a black background

Moral compass broke
Humanity stocks are low
Virtues mirages

#vss365 #inkMine #haiku

Heavy on our wee toes
Weightless life breathes
Both blessing and a curse
This #stock full of emotions
Ripping you stitching you back
Within this flesh & bones filled husk

#vss365
#poetry

The villager quietly led Rory around to the outskirts of the little hamlet, where a root cellar door lay locked against the wall of a rundown house.

Downstairs, in the light of a candle he saw, not vegetables, but a #stock of weapons.

They could fight back, they only needed a leader.

#vss365

It was time to get back on the job, regardless of anything else happening. If he couldn’t afford to keep Magpie flying, he couldn’t help anyone. The dealer showed him the contents of his cargo area and Dylan knew he would get good pay for this.

A #stock of medicinal supplies, running late.

#vss365