scifi

Twitch Stream Stories Redux #9: 1, 55, 102

~ 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.

1, 55, 102

Prompt provided by givemeallthecoffee

The secondary valve of the unit stuck out against the ocean floor like a sore pectoral fin. Its metal had rusted completely over the cycles, but it failed to blend in with the ivory Shotan corals or azure water-fans. The surrounding area was dense with invertebrates, all instinctively knowing to steer clear of metal. It had been bred into their pencil point brains by generations of deadly encounters.

Metal belonged to the Gurgeon, smartest creatures of this ocean, of this planet, and of this system. Their civilization was unchallenged in all directions by a third of a galaxy arm. Unchallenged by rivals at least. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Job Unfair

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Author’s Note:  This flash fiction story was written based on a prompt provided by a_d3ad_rat 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: In a world where you can be anything, be a cyborg.

What a waste, thought every single child in the world once they learned what all the words meant, usually around eleven years old. ‘You can be anything’ all the books, posters, instructors, parents, and facilitators said. Eleven is when you figured out there was a second silent sentence after the first. ‘You can be anything; as long as it’s from the approved list.’

Wilt, now six years past this revelation, entered the job fair complex alongside his nervous mother. Domed white ceilings crisscrossing with beams draped a hundred banners, each playing a highlight reel of a different profession. The knowledge and experience of all these smiling professionals had come from the same exact place: the gates that Wilt and the other recently-adult prospects would stroll through in the next few hours. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Stories Redux #7: From Now on, I Mind your Business

~ 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.

From Now on, I Mind your Business

Prompt provided by WolfChkin

The backdoor of a sporting goods store was not the ideal place to skulk about. It was in plain view of the street, and not obscured by the dumpsters and pallets one might expect in a rainy alley. Still, it was where Dixon had to skulk. He was supposed to meet Ray by that door in exactly five minutes. Ray would step out, take his payment, and then disappear back inside. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Stories Redux #3: Bitter is Lighter than Sweet

~ 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.

Bitter is Lighter than Sweet

prompt provided by TheBludes

It was such a wonderful thing that it wasn’t raining that evening. The sun was gone, off to bed, but the streetlights did its work tirelessly, and then some. Things had been crazy in Baros City since the new A.I. had taken over. He was excitable, and always turned the lights up too bright; they flared aggressively against the blue spires of the skyline. He was good at managing the denizens’ hangups though, much better than his predecessor.

Since he’d saddled up suicides were down, homicides were down, rape and theft were down. Everything was down. People moved about the streets mutely, staring at the grain of the sidewalk and forgetting the hats on their heads. They didn’t shout. They didn’t push. They didn’t complain. Continue reading →

Taxa Disaster (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Back to the Beginning

(reading time: 1 hour, 11 minutes)

Dinosaur

The tip had come to Lindwurm from a trilophosaur, and so was taken with the utmost seriousness. No family was more devoted to the cause than the trilophosaurs, even across their many species. Most of them were forever cut off from man, unable to experience their appreciation across the gulf of time, because few of their fossils would ever be found, and when they were they were not representative. Continue reading →

Taxa Disaster (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 4 Comments

Only finding fossils, we never suspected the flesh of the dinosaurs could’ve been so strange, could’ve climbed off whenever it felt like it and even borrowed our shape.  That is the forgotten clade thanazoa, but they know of us, thanks to communing with their fungus-like oracle Atropos.

A defeated villain resurfaces to abuse those predictions, her predatory eyes set on the future she thinks she is denied.  Discover a brand new world on familiar bones in this wildly speculative novella of the Triassic period.

(reading time: 1 hour, 13 minutes) (reading time for entire novella: 2 hours, 24 minutes)

Taxa Disaster

by

Blaine Arcade

‘Even if, one day, we had access to perfectly preserved fossils, a vital aspect of animal life would still elude our grasp. Behavior is almost entirely lost in the fossil record. Imagine the richness and strange wonder of animal life today. The eerie, ululating songs of whales, the elaborate middens of bowerbirds and the surreal spectacle of a peacock’s display could never be deduced from inanimate remains.

Likewise, some of the most spectacular sights of the past will never be seen, or even guessed.’

– All Yesterdays

Centipede

The insects were reluctant to touch it, and that reluctance continued on down to everything that could be called life. The fungi refused to take the first bite. The bacteria self-destructed rather than continue touching it for more than a moment. It was as if they knew what kind of will had inhabited it just one day prior. Continue reading →

Juicy Stardrop (Finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Back to the Beginning

(reading time: 1 hour, 13 minutes)

juicytitles

Münstereifel was the forest where one couldn’t help but feel watched. Despite the stodgy old growth being stuffed into a pocket of Germany, the sensation was not like being a grim fairy tale child wandering between dark trees with glowing beastly eyes all about. No, the eyes were far more ethereal, and for Kanga more frightening. Continue reading →

Juicy Stardrop (Part Three)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Back to the Beginning

(reading time: 1 hour, 26 minutes)

juicytitles

A dark cloud would be just one more uncomfortable bump on any transoceanic flight, but the pilot and copilot couldn’t see it or detect it with their instruments. Even the normal filters of first class team recycling travel, which kept out the riff and for a minor additional fee the raff as well, could do nothing against this particular phenomenon. Continue reading →

Juicy Stardrop (Part One)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 6 Comments

Y2K threatened to destroy the world, all computers to go mad when the year ticked over to 2000, but a solution was found! Now the nineties play over and over again, and things just keep getting better! The guns are off the streets, the ozone hole is patched, the cops are tough on drugs, and competitive recycling is the number one sport in the world.

Life should’ve been perfect for one of its star players, Joey ‘Kanga’ Reuben, but after his best friend was taken from him in the middle of a match he could think of nothing else. It was all the work of those superhuman terrorists, the dastardly Millennials…

(reading time: 1 hour, 6 minutes) (reading time for entire novel: 5 hours, 16 minutes)

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A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Competitive Recycling in the Fifth 1990s

by

Blaine Arcade

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With a robotically chauffeured limousine and enough free soda to raise the Titanic from the depths, nobody could call it a young man’s average Friday night. It was to be the fantastic Friday night characteristic of the reborn Rockford Rendezvous, and this trial run would culminate with the latest tour stop of the sexiest and most fashionable hologram to ever grace the stage and the drifting dust in the beams of the spotlight. Continue reading →