blaine arcade

Twitch Stream Story: Vito the Wisp

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Author’s Note:  This flash fiction story was written based on a prompt provided by NathalieErienne during a livestream.  I hereby transfer all story rights to them, with the caveat that it remain posted on this blog.  If you would like your own story, stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade during one of my streams and I’ll write it for you live!

Prompt: On a station orbiting a gas giant, what might happen if a seemingly harmless virus were to activate a long dormant gene from a person’s fey ancestry, and cause a possible clash of Earth magics in the sterility of a station near the edge of the solar system?

All he had for her was a subdermal injector filled with ten different kinds of sedative, all selected at random, because the entire research and medical team on the orbiter Djinn Miner 5 was now just throwing darts at the wall in terms of figuring out how to stop her. Briefly Jaxon considered tossing the injector in much the same fashion, but Katiga would elude it effortlessly, and they were already low on supplies. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Both Built

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Author’s Note:  This flash fiction story was written based on a prompt provided by tyrooneus_wigglebottomus during a livestream.  I hereby transfer all story rights to them, with the caveat that it remain posted on this blog.  If you would like your own story, stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade during one of my streams and I’ll write it for you live!

Prompt: An old robot created by a mad scientist becomes sentient.

What a day it was for the drifting remains of the Epsilon Hyena Station, the name of which was long faded, or scratched off, across the entirety of its hide, deep tissues, and super-titanium bones. As the paint flaked the name changed in equal measure, though it slowed as the intelligences took off, rocket by rocket, to less cloyingly green pastures.

First shortened to Hyena Station, the name then became the The Lost Dot, then the Garbage Dot, then a bar code in systems now foreign, and now, if it was referenced at all, perhaps as just a glitch in a digital map, it was called the Sundered Green. Called that by the first intelligence to arrive in over three hundred years, the first to see that the crops that used to feed its billion residents at its height had reached a new height of their own, becoming a diverse jungle across the entirety of the artificial moon. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Mobster Pot’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (17): ‘Mobster Pot’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 2011

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Maine

Collection Report: It took three instances of anomalous behavior for the owner of the ‘mobster pot’ to become suspicious and report it to the authorities. Its form is that of an ordinary lobster pot, manufactured some fifty years prior, showing heavy rust but no structural issues. Its owner had it in continuous use off the same stretch of coast for fifteen years.

The first sign of anything amiss occurred when it was brought up and a human big toe was found in the pincers of one of the trapped lobsters. The digit appeared fresh, and so was put on ice, but too close to some of the catch, resulting in it being consumed before they reached shore.

The incident was reported and the lobster men went back to business as usual. However, three weeks later, an elbow was brought up confined to the same pot, this time without any lobsters present to have carried it. It bore a distinctive tattoo of a (REDACTED) riding a (REDACTED) while (REDACTED), which was later tied to the recent missing person case of (REDACTED).

By the third incident the pot was near to bursting with parts of various bodies, most eventually tied to active missing persons cases. Never was anything larger than an entire bicep found, but they varied in the extreme, from eyeballs and tongues to lungs and the skin off someone’s back.

Fearing what might happen if it was sent down again, the lobster men took a vote, and among the voters was someone who had recently become familiar with the Catalog, who then convinced a majority of the others to turn it over to us rather than the police.

Current Collector: Maude Sirento, senior rank

Notes from Collector: “It was probably always strange, but now those waters are overfished. It doesn’t have anything else to dredge up.”

Current Status: active

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Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Red Cent Flattener’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (16): ‘Red Cent Flattener’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1976

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Oklahoma

Collection Report: M-A-C (16) was discovered indirectly, through a suspicious increase in recruitment at a U.S. Army recruitment office. One of our collectors took in several of these recruits himself, reporting that the men, always younger than 25, either attempted to ‘pay’ for their own recruitment or engage in a coin flip wager with him, always using an unusual coin.

Of the initial twelve turned over to the Catalog, all were pennies flattened into a new design by a novelty coin-flattening machine. They were bordered with shooting stars and eagle talons on the bottom, and each bore an inscription; however the inscription, despite a common goal, was different each time.

Paired with a unique insult was an order to join a branch of the United States military, usually the army or navy. Examples include: [MAC-16-3: ‘You’re nothing but an empty ice cream cone. Go let the navy scoop some character into you!’], [MAC-16-8: ‘You’re a son of a bitch too stupid to play fetch, so go fetch yourself an army recruitment form!’], and [MAC-16-11: ‘You’re so spineless that when I ordered you to join the army, you’d already done it!’]

Through questioning of the temporarily obedient recruits, the coins were traced to a seasonal fireworks store off Highway (REDACTED). In its darkest recesses there stood an American flag-paneled novelty penny flattening machine. In exchange for 75 cents, 76 counting the penny, it returned the insulting and recruiting tokens with an obnoxious bell jingle that could not be heard beyond the aisle despite its ear-splitting volume.

Though the messages had an immature and simplistic nature, the recipient, upon handling the coin, often became obsessed with obeying, at least until they were officially recruited. Regrets usually follow.

Typically such an item, even with the language element, would be classified as a whatsit, but M-A-C (16) demonstrated a degree of intelligence when collectors attempted extraction by spitting out a coin directly onto exposed skin and recruiting one of our staff with the message: ‘Every cent is red to a commie! Defend your country!’

The only injury in the resulting scuffle was caused by the unbalanced machine falling on an ankle. The exposed collector returned to normal after the machine had left the building.

Current Collector: Phillips ‘don’t you f***ing redact me’ Phillips-Head, senior rank

Notes from Collector: “All you’ve gotta do is go toe to f***ing toe with it, then it can’t recruit you. It only gets the weak-minded and I’m the smartest f***ing bastard since the bicentennial. It calls your mother a f***ing whore, and you call its mother a f***ing whore right back, whether machines got mothers or not.”

Current Status: active

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Twitch Stream Stories Redux #5: Molting Appointment

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

If you enjoy this, please check out the other activities from the stream. If you would like something longer and much more thoroughly planned, simply investigate my more traditional work at the top of the page.

Molting Appointment

prompt provided by AnxietyBatman

Agata never thought her knowledge of candle flames would change. Even from her infancy, their behavior was constant. They were lit, they melted their base, and then they were extinguished. Every candle had done this, every one she read by at night, every one they decorated cakes with… but now, in those dark cold waters, the candles surprised her.

She recognized it as the one placed in her icy dead hands hours ago. It was certainly something to watch one’s own funeral from behind stiff eyes; her mother and father were there, as she had fallen at the early age of twenty-five. No spouse, so that spot next to her coffin was empty. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘NGA Sign’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (15): ‘NGA Sign’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1996

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Illinois

Collection Report: Technically the MAC was a combination of elements, triggered only when a certain sort of sign was placed on a specific tree house. From then on the sign was imbued with the characteristic properties, regardless of how long or far the separation from the house element.

(REDACTED) was a (REDACTED) year old girl who stumbled across the dilapidated tree house and entered out of curiosity; she was immediately overcome by symptoms resembling a grand mal seizure.

When paralysis ceased she found she had undergone a physical metamorphosis of sex to a male. (Males produced this way display no changes in personality, but do insist on a masculine name, in this case ‘Alden’.)

Alden then recalled the sign placed at the entrance, which clearly stated in permanent marker ‘no girls allowed’. This presented a problem, as he (correctly) feared exiting the tree house would undo the transformation, with the resulting seizure dropping him from a deadly height. With no food or water, he had only a day or two to resolve the issue.

Left behind by the previous occupant were several tools, including a claw hammer and nails. Utilizing these Alden tore up the floorboards, constructed a smaller platform, and lowered it out of the tree house onto a crux of branches, thinking he could drop onto it and transform safely, then climb down. He was successful.

Childhood gossip attracted a crowd, and three more NGA signs were produced with various inks and materials. Each, when placed on the exterior of any enclosed artificial structure, endowed that structure with the same effect. Male phenotypes who enter are completely unaltered. Transformation occurs just slowly enough to escape moment-to-moment perception, taking around thirty minutes in total.

One child’s uncle had completed the Catalog’s correspondence course as a spotter, and made a report. All but the original signs were destroyed by the Catalog, as was the tree house, but that was done by an angry parent who feared permanent alterations to their child’s sexuality.

Current Collector: Transitory Mel (he/him), senior rank

Notes from Collector: “Stops 50% of intruders. Never had a stolen MAC and I never will.”

Current Status: active

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Twitch Stream Stories Redux #4: The Willow and the Cross

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

If you enjoy this, please check out the other activities from the stream. If you would like something longer and much more thoroughly planned, simply investigate my more traditional work at the top of the page.

The Willow and the Cross

prompt provided by Silentwillow and Chaytoncross

There are only so many places in the modern world where a spirit can live. Add to that the constant arguments between the five high spirits, and you often get hostile neighbors, whose arguments are interpreted by humans as chills in the wind or the raucous cawing of ravens.

One such argument occurred in the backyard of the Fander family in the summer of 1981. The children were off enjoying the pool of the wealthier neighbors and the parents were busy repairing their aged car and shouting at each other when the nuts and bolts didn’t fit quite right. Continue reading →

Grotto Beats (Jerma985 found poetry)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Grotto Beats

a micro-collection of experimental ‘found poetry’ from the materials of Jeremy Elbertson (Jerma985)

compiled and slightly altered by

Blaine Arcade

We’re the Rats

Rats,
we’re rats;
we’re the rats-

We prey at night,
we stalk at night,
we’re   the   rats!

I’m the giant rat
that makes all   of   the   rules;
let’s see what kind of trouble we
can get ourselves into…

Continue reading →

The Pick-Knows

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

(estimated reading time: 13 minutes)

The Pick-Knows

by

Blaine Arcade

I had a bad morning guys, even though I everytasked as goodly as the other mornings in my collection. First thing out of the matchbox and quilt I cut the iron filings with coffee grounds to really wake up the magnets, angled the solar coins to bounce crystal clear sparkles to the costume glass and gold-painted links, beat the stickers to free the hairs, checked the electric frog battery for tangy white creep, and oiled the swatter so it misses the flies so I don’t miss the joke of the huge-mans missing the flies.

But the morning was still bad. Had to be somebody else’s fault. They made 6 AM sharp, 7:11 sticky, 8 a bad breakfast, 9 lives long, and 10:04 no good buddy. All my stuff looked goldy-oldy at a glance. Then I amble up the right-by and it catches my surprise (that I didn’t even leave out to stale) by doing some pose of the possible that benefits me leastways. Continue reading →

Heirs of Cain: Venus in League

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

Severin Molochi is in love with a goddess.  She’s not the kind found in a church, or that you can take with you to church for that matter.  She’s of the old, muddy, animal line of Cain: those who gained power in the world’s first murder.  Just as Severin and his goddess Wanda are settling in their new home, setting up her future dominion, her jealous siblings come calling, but they’re not after her.  They want every gods’ most valuable asset, the mortal chosen as the conduit between them and the people, who in this case happens to share her bed.

Heirs of Cain, a gothic horror fantasy erotic thriller novelette series, continues here.

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 16 minutes)

Heirs of Cain

Venus in League

Including her name serves no purpose, for she was never going to be a citizen of our village. Such was her stated intent, with so much simulated earnestness that I could not smell the trick, nor could my goddess, lover, and wife Wanda Blasphemer Pelts, until she encountered the applicant up close that is.

Her waiting period was nearly over, which all potential residents of Quarantown had to endure to even step foot over our borders and barriers, both obvious and arcane. The plague called Throng’s Delirium, the impetus for the founding of Quarantown in the first place, before it was commandeered, still in secret, by my Wanda, and before I was wooed as her chief disciple and chiefest confidante, still ravaged the continent. Continue reading →