The Dread Pirate Shay
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badwolfbae.bsky.social
The Dread Pirate Shay
@badwolfbae.bsky.social
22 followers 26 following 18 posts
Writer. Disaster specialist. Blah Blah Blah, did I miss anything? 🏳️‍🌈🏴‍☠️
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badwolfbae.bsky.social
Whelp, the ADHD roomba of thought reminded me that I was doing stuff here sooooooo here I am again lol. #WIPSnips #WritingCommunity
"That's nice of you, but there's nothing you can do. Ethan–" "Is a dick." "Yeah, that. And there's no way to take back what he said. Everybody knows. Now it's all about damage control, and I sit back until it blows over." "Good idea. Small towns don't live on gossip–kind of like plants without photosynthesis."
November 3, 2025 at 9:27 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
Love this one. It’s easy to feel like you suck at writing, to turn away and give up sometimes. It’s hard to look for & admit what’s working.

If you think you suck, that’s all you’re going to see. But if you seek the good instead of the bad, you’ll find your growth and be able to nurture it.
“Hey, Mar! Whoa, I’m still yelling,” Parker laughed, dropping his voice to a slightly lower shout. “I know you wanted to find your soulmate—and you did—but maybe this is a good chase to have. Like Cinderella running off and Prince Charming having nothing but her shoe! You have to go find them now, whoever they are.” He was right. I found my soulmate at homecoming, exactly as planned. And I was going to find them again. I just needed to make sure someone saw who it was while my superpower blinded me. Eli shifted the car into gear and grumbled. “It is a little ridiculous though. You’re all worked up over this soulmate thing, and how do you even know this superpower is what you think it is? Maybe what you’re actually seeing is the person you would eat in a desert island scenario. The person you’re most likely to leave outside the gate during a zombie apocalypse.” I snorted. “I’m too hungry for a snappy comeback.”
July 8, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Reposted by The Dread Pirate Shay
adwills.bsky.social
The biggest power move a writer can make is hitting “add to dictionary”
July 7, 2025 at 4:11 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
I am obsessed with this particular story and it is somehow only one of FOUR instances of the word “stripe” in literal millions of words worth of WIPS on my computer lol what is that?!

#WIPsnips #WritingCommunity
A breeze carries the smell of fish and saltwater, blowing open the changeling’s ripped shirt. Tattoos cover his tanned skin from neck to waist. No, only one tattoo, but it’s constantly shifting from stripes to scales to feathers. Something in me knows he kills as easily as a wolf taking down a deer. But I am no deer. A low, preternatural growl rumbles deep in my throat. It’s a warning, one that has cowed lost trolls in Everdark easily three times my size. But not this changeling. His expression softens, his body relaxing, and he takes a hesitant step toward me. “Tig?” Caution layers his voice as his eyes search my face. Then he says in Korean, “I’m not your enemy, Tig.” I don’t know what hits me harder, the fact that I can understand him or that I believe him entirely. Either way, my body responds by reaching for him, eyes springing to my eyes. Who the fuck is he?
July 8, 2025 at 2:04 AM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
CONTENT WARNING: deceased animal (spoiler: it doesn't stay that way).

Piece from a necromancer story I'm working on.

#WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
There’s an old saying that if you stare into the abyss, it stares back at you. What there isn’t a saying about is what to do when you are the abyss someone is staring into. That’s how it felt as I gazed into the eyes of the half-smushed cat left behind by the convertible that had flown down the street. Poor thing didn’t even see it coming. I don’t know why I reached out to touch its ebony fur, making shushing noises as I stroked its lifeless head. I don’t know why I whispered to it, apologizing for the asshole who had ended its life for the sake of impressing some screeching passenger. And I definitely don’t know why its body suddenly started filling out, inflating like a balloon and recollecting its innards to tuck away where they belonged. It took a breath, hacked like it had a hairball, and sneezed. My hand still hovered stiffly above its head. The creature stretched its front legs out in a bow? claws raking over the pavement then retracting. Its green eyes met mine, and it meowed, chirruping as it began to purr and rub against my frozen fingers.
July 4, 2025 at 10:50 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
Listen here you glimmering pearlescent land shark… Of course, I’m gonna to do it!

Drop line 8 from page 187 of your MS & tag 3 friends.

“Amara?”

Absolutely riveting, no? 😆

@racquelk.bsky.social
@artewrites.bsky.social
@amywhipple.bsky.social
audconnelly.bsky.social Aud Connelly @audconnelly.bsky.social · Jul 3
drop line 8 from page 187 of your MS & tag 3 friends

She stepped quietly out of the room, leaving the door cracked.

@marinestjean.bsky.social
@badwolfbae.bsky.social
@derlakernlins.bsky.social
July 3, 2025 at 6:04 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
Throwback Thursday to a piece that actually saw the light of day a looooooong time ago.

#WIPsnips #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts
It took Claire a week to get everything set for the arrival of the new calf. Every scrap of free time went into pouring over any livestock book she could get her hands on. The biggest thing she had “delivered” was a chick—and being honest, all she did was watch through the clear incubator top—but a calf? It was like a human baby! Hell, it was like multiple human babies. Thankfully, Barley over at the local cattle ranch had stopped by a few times to check on her cow and give Claire some much-needed in-person training. On top of her regular chores though—and with little sleep to boot—the strain of being neck deep in cow-birthing-prep took its toll. Today though, as she sat elbow deep in a cow, a small smile pressed through her lips as she helped bring the newest little life on her farm into existence.
July 3, 2025 at 5:49 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
Two of my favorite characters in a #WIPsnips moment that could end in either:

“And then he killed him”

OR

“And then they kissed.”
“I don’t HAVE a yesterday! Don’t you get it? There’s no memory of it in the mush that is my fucking brain.“ Gideon pressed his fingers to his temples, hair flying, eyes wild as a sandstorm. Marick almost recoiled. Not in fear, but disgust. He rolled his eyes instead. With a twist of his wrist, the punching dagger hidden on his forearm snicked out, and he yanked the Warper within an inch of his own face. Their breath collided, and fear poured off Gideon as his gaze snapped to Marick’s stony glare, his lips, and, finally, the blade aimed at his throat. “If you keep yelling at me, you won’t have a tomorrow either.”
July 2, 2025 at 9:11 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
There comes a time in every writers life when you just have to admit, “This makes no sense.”

Not the writing, just the general nyahahdhaosnxbdh of the life you’re trying to imitate 😆.
July 2, 2025 at 4:07 AM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
👀🫢 I didn’t realize #WIPsnips was also on the weekend. Or Mondays 😅. But here we gooooooooo!
Ethan's night ended the way it began: with a heavy heart and overflowing questions. He lay in bed, the ribbon stretched between his fingers as he examined it. It made him sick to his stomach. He had tried to sneak it back into its hiding spot, but Hope had given him no opportunity. He pulled it through his fingers now, hating what it represented. Clarity. The biggest question surrounding Hope, finally answered. “What hid behind her eyes? Tragedy. Trauma. She was healing. The accident left minimal marks, but the damage remained. He would have been lucky if she gave him a chance before he accidentally invaded her privacy and put the pieces together. Every mannerism, every quirk, made sense now; the way she squinted when reading, or the way her wrist never fully bent right. Despite being so kind and warm, she avoided all physical contact. He would be the perfect partner now he knew the dance. He couldn't stop. The music played in his head now, too. His attention would be trained on her, questioning every move she made as she floated through his world, a ghost of who she had once been. Ethan sighed and tucked the ribbon into the drawer of his nightstand with his glasses. As his eyes adjusted, blurring his darkened room, he made a promise to Hope’s broken face in his mind, a promise to help her heal, to make something beautiful out of tragedy. A promise he hoped wouldn't turn to ash in his mouth.
July 1, 2025 at 10:12 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
It truly is a necessity.
autumnwolff.bsky.social Autumn Wolff | Lesbian Romance Author @autumnwolff.bsky.social · Jun 30
My readers STILL aren’t fearing me enough.
July 1, 2025 at 9:45 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
Feeling pretty decent about this one, honestly. It’s technically a “big” reveal moment but whoopsie

#WIPsnips #changelings
I press my hand against the cold glass. The changeling beyond doesn’t stir, curled up under a mound of beaming red hair on the stone altar left to her for a bed. Ash flutters across the floor, sifting out under a grate beneath the altar. One arm hangs off the side, peach skin burned with Aurora’s mark. Of course, my master would send a Darkling after the day queen’s changelings. I smirk, roll my eyes, and softly knock against the glass. A head shoots up among the flow of crimson, and my heart plummets. It’s her. She looks back at me with wide, sea foam green eyes set over a spray of freckles, like stars that could guide me home. The same panic paints her beautiful features the way they did when staring out at me from the depths of the Oubliette, begging me not to leave her alone and terrified in the void. Not to haunt her in the dark. Not to torture my own sister.
June 27, 2025 at 6:53 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
Guess it’s time to finally jump in, eyeballs first! Not my first share but definitely my first foray into the community on Bluesky. Hopefully it’s a good experience 🫣😬 #WIPsnips
Sow the darkness. Reap the fear. The creed lives in the shadow of my heart even this far from Everdark. Ybor City is a far cry from that shadow land in Arcadia, but it offers something I would never find in the home of the Fae: freedom. Still, the words haunt every step I take toward the obscure brown doors before me, wreathed by evergreen bushes infested with pixies seeking access to the glamour inside. Humans no doubt only see mosquitoes, but those pixies know what lies beyond. Changelings; Returnees; the Lost coming home. And the ones there tonight have the power to end my life. Bast rushes past me to open the door, swatting a pixie as it makes a dash for the sparkle of light. He beckons me with a ridiculous challenge of a smirk. He would. Ever since I replaced him as the Reaper Queen’s favorite, his life’s goal has been to undermine my position in the Gloam Court at every turn. As a werewolf, he has no standing past “guard dog,” but that doesn’t stop his enthusiasm. Or his disdain. “It’s truly amazing you thought Bahati wouldn’t know, Tig,” he mocks, holding the door with a smug look. “She’s Queen for a reason. And she only elevated your status because of your pathetic background.” “My abilities elevated my status, mutt. What do you bring to the table? The newspaper? You still can’t eat at it.”
June 26, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Reposted by The Dread Pirate Shay
audconnelly.bsky.social
Here it is!! I'm finally ready to share my fantasy coming out NEXT MONTH!
🧌Creature MCs
🐲"How the 🦆 do we get rid of these dragons?"
💖Polyamory
🐣Baby fever
🦿Amputee/prosthetic user in high fantasy setting
👣Road trip! Or die!
🧑‍🌾AGRICULTURE?!

And a beautiful cover made by Arden Powell!
Wings in the Valley by Aud Connelly Cover art and design by Arden Powell
January 29, 2025 at 5:39 PM
badwolfbae.bsky.social
I summon the me to Bluesky.

pspspsps *Pat Pat Pat on chest*

I have arrived.

Bringing the energy of a magpie queen or maybe a brumating dragon. Anyway, first impressions are fun and I’m usually this awkward/interesting with every interaction. Ta!
February 7, 2024 at 10:49 PM