short story

Regular Romp #21: Mauve Creatures One through Five

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

Mauvecreature5

“There’s absolutely no chance of me helping you until you’ve answered all my questions,” Dr. Richard J. Marco informed his surprise guest. The man paced around the doctor’s apartment impatiently, looking ready to knock over lamps and vases. The situation needed to be controlled, as the doctor had only recently finished redecorating and was in no mood to sweep any of it up. Continue reading →

Regular Romp #16: Witchy Wolfi

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Regular Romp is an interactive fiction activity over on our Twitch stream where I ask a regular a series of questions before turning their answers and a corruption of their username into a short story.  Stop by twitch.tv/blainearcade if you’d like to participate.

starring

TheWolfChkin

She hadn’t touched a coin in two years, so there was no money to purchase a mirror. She’d learned many skills in her isolation, but not how to blow glass or build the furnace she would need to do that in the first place. Wolfi Cheekin had only her tiny wooden house on the edge of the woods and the skills she brought with her the day she was cast out. Continue reading →

Chat Lib #2: Pug on the Rocks

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Chat Libs is a ‘Mad Libs’ based activity over on our Twitch live stream.  The audience suggests a scenario, I write a story template with missing words, and they fill in the holes.  Hilarity ensues.  If you wish to participate you can join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade

Scenario: Romantic Murder Mystery on a Ski Lift during Summer

“This is an odd place for a homecoming bonfire,” the inspector noted, looking over the edge at the twitchy grass below. “If I didn’t suspect you of the murder before, I certainly do now. This would be the perfect place to fling me off.” Continue reading →

Chat Lib #1: The Corset after the Great Punching

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Chat Libs is a ‘Mad Libs’ based activity over on our Twitch live stream.  The audience suggests a scenario, I write a story template with missing words, and they fill in the holes.  Hilarity ensues.  If you wish to participate you can join us at twitch.tv/blainearcade

Scenario: Post-apocalyptic Cave Sytem

The homely caves were filled with an excess of pancakes. There was no way this was natural, but could anything be called natural anymore? This was a new underground age of evisceration. She would just have to deal with it, alongside the lack of tables, clouds, and hot paintings. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: The Flame you can Hold

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: A young man wanders the Earth on an epic quest to make himself ‘normal’, but when he finds the cure he realizes that loving himself was all he ever needed.

When I was younger I thought a lot about the story with the lion who had a thorn in his paw. If you’ll recall, he needed a mouse to pull it out. At least, that’s the way I heard the story. Maybe I’ve wandered so far that it’s different now. Things like that are changing, but I’ll get to that in a bit. I was going somewhere with this story, the same way I’m always going somewhere. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: The Needle was my Last Pen

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Prompt: A sad male poet secretly does magical needlepoint

I’m actually surprised I’m allowed to tell my own story here. I thought for sure he would’ve stopped me. Can he not make it past the veil? Truly? It does make a sort of sense. If my art can’t make it, if nobody’s can, then the force that opposes it is similarly kept out. Do you keep anything else out here? Sadness? Pain? A poet can hope. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: Petrify Day

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Prompt: Write a story based on these three words: public, birthday, volcano

The crater of Maragol was the greatest gift a civilization could ask for. It was a volcano, full of danger to be sure, but the silent deity within was kind enough to keep its eruptions regular and predictable. The people living at its feet, between the ripe groves of the leaning trees, knew to get out of the way every four years or so, to spend a week at sea while its spewed liquid fire and expanded their island. Continue reading →

Hollow Knight Lore: Interpretation and Theories

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

Warning: This post will discuss the video game Hollow Knight and its story in great detail; it will be filled with spoilers.

hollow_knight_wallpaper_by_teamcherry-d8a1d0l

For those of you who don’t know, Hollow Knight is a hand-drawn metroidvania action/adventure video game developed by Team Cherry as their first large-scale game.  Its art style is a melancholy mix of insects, Tim Burton, Studio Ghibli, and a few play-sets full of Gothic architecture. Continue reading →

Singin’ in the Upper Paleolithic

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 4 Comments

(estimated reading time: 24 minutes)

Singin’ in the Upper Paleolithic

By

Blaine Arcade

Of the sixteen time machines in operation, only one played a video of someone tap-dancing. The machine itself wasn’t much to marvel at; in fact, it looked like a space heater from the 1970’s, just with a fancier coat of paint and 6,380 bundled wires snaking out of its base and entering all kinds of unusual places around the laboratory. Some went into sockets, some hugged the wall and left the room, and others rose into the air dangerously enough to get tagged with black and orange warning stickers. Continue reading →