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Fareeha, I Cannot Hear You

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Fareeha,

I cannot hear you

My volume is too low

by

Blaine Arcade

A micro-collection of poetry crafted from intentionally mishearing the hard work of the delightful streamer and musician Fareeha.

Audio Log of Firewood

(source video: How TOTK’s Rito Village Breaks Your Heart)

This is a recording,
let’s dig in—

We hear of enrichment
as our ears clock how much
we reach survivorhood.
The town gives its all,
working to the bone
of the blessing oak
I’m tempted to recall
as their blade articulations
vary rapid. 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 #6: Recognizable Scratches

~ 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.

Recognizable Scratches

prompt provided by Chaytoncross

Six little pairs of shoes hovered a foot off the old wooden floor of the schoolhouse. The seventh pair belonged to an adult and shuddered up and down where the others were deathly still. Four button noses were pressed against the peeling paint, flakes falling faster than ever thanks to their giggling. One of the girls tapped on the wood and waited for a response.

Clop, clop, clop, the wall responded, exactly like the hoof stamps of a pony. Their giggles answered it. The girl tapped on the wall twice more. Clop clop. Continue reading →

Twitch Stream Story: You See Strange Blackbirds There

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Author’s Note:  This flash fiction story was written based on a prompt provided by certified_lover_boy_ 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 secluded mansion on the outskirts of a quaint town, the eccentric Blackwood sisters guard their family secrets with unwavering devotion. When an unexpected visitor disrupts their isolated existence, the delicate balance of their mysterious world is thrown into turmoil.

Of course, you see a lot of strange things other than blackbirds on the sisters’ grounds. Nobody knows where they got all those carriages, or who used to be inside, just that the vines had taken their place.

Oh and the weather, it seems to start over their mansion, right out of the chimney sometimes. That’s why I don’t go anywhere near there. You’re not thinking of going are you? You are!? Well then, sit down, please, let me tell you a story, my treat. Continue reading →

Peanut Gallery (Section 2)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 1 Comment

Peanut Gallery is a never-ending story written live on stream, with contributions taken from the audience.  New watchers become characters, and commentary can be integrated wholly or in part in numerous wild ways.  If you would like to participate, join us over on my Twitch channel and click follow to stay up to date.

Reconnaissance Cafe

A good deal happened, but it was all a blur to Par, up until the moment he took the first bite of his club sandwich. After his meeting, after shaking off its contents, he had hopped in the nearest taxi and returned to his apartment, on a respectable sixteenth floor, a good safe distance from the Twenty-Seventh. Continue reading →

Peanut Gallery (Section 1)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Peanut Gallery is a never-ending story written live on stream, with contributions taken from the audience.  New watchers become characters, and commentary can be integrated wholly or in part in numerous wild ways.  If you would like to participate, join us over on my Twitch channel and click follow to stay up to date.

Peanut Gallery

by

Blaine Arcade

with contributions from

the Twitch.tv marginalia

The Chatterbox

The Chatterbox

We join in media resting on a couch too tight-lipped to be comfortable, forcing him to put his long legs, awkward given that he wasn’t tall in the slightest, on the coffee table next to the spread magazines. He was definitely a person, but less of a man than his appearance and mannerisms might suggest, more of a guy, a fellow, a ranchless dude, a quenched chap, an every-man with emphasis on the ‘every’.

He was Biy Beforay, and he was getting less comfortable in his vest, rolled-up sleeves, and leather belt by the moment, attacking his collar with a hooked finger, despite having never even donned the suit jacket. Whenever that hand left the collar to recover, it returned to the small object in his lap, bearing two mother of pearl push buttons with white gold rims. Nervously, his thumb danced around the larger and higher button. Continue reading →

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 →

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 →