Always Inconsistent

a place to rant about my sprawling interconnected short stories and characters

[noneed4thisstory]

Excerpt from a play I will never write

After describing that this ultimate weapon, though small, is the sharpest thing in the world

Villain: (in waving it around, and moving their arms while gesturing grandly and dramatically, they accidentally slice their arm with it. They freeze, and stare at the blood seeping through their sleeve)

(haltingly) What is this? I bleed? No. This is wrong. I am impervious!

(they turn on the protagonist) You! What have you done? Some potion, some poison, some thing, you’ve cursed me! You and your witch companion!

(they turn back to their arm, talking mostly to themselves) This can’t be, there must be some mistake.

(they slash their arm a second time, wild eyed, and stagger from the pain) No! I cannot be harmed! I! Am! Impervious! (these three words punctuated with more slashes, they drop to one knee)

(with passion) Not rended flesh, nor broken bones,

(quieter, breathing heavily, gazing at their arm) nor hurtful words, nor painful memories,

(near shrieking, rising quickly to their feet) not battle axe nor broken heart can harm me! I am-

(they stumble)

(breathlessly) I am faint.

(they fall to their knees, drop the weapon, their hands on the floor. They gaze at their soaked sleeve)

How much blood can one mortal lose before they are to perish? Could this be the end for me?

(they fall on their side, then roll onto their back)

(calmly) This pain is too much. I never wanted to live in a world where I could be hurt like this. All my life, all my research, all so you could never cut me as deep with your words again as I have myself today with this blade. I wanted to never know suffering. What have you done to me? Back here again, after all this time, cutting through my defenses.

(they raise the injured arm to the sky) See how easily the dam breaks, see the flood bleeding through. I thought keeping it in took strength, but

(they lower their arm and lay it across their stomach) I was merely hiding behind walls, not holding them up. And now that you’ve broken them again, I am left drained. Fine, then. End this! I no longer wish to live in this world. Finish what you’ve started. I am done.

[noneed4thisstory]

Prompt: Start your story with a sentence that is genuinely happy and upbeat, no double meanings. End it with the same sentence, but this time it’s chilling, dark, horrifying etc.

 I love seeing the flowers bloom.

It takes hard work to get good flowers. To get big, healthy flowers, with all the buds blooming.

Seeing the flowers bloom is the reward I get for all the work I put in; the right amount of sunlight, the right amount of water, finding the right location, with the kind of loose soil that’s easy to dig in.

The right fertilizer.

Not just anybody can grow good flowers. They need to have good habits. No smoking, no alcohol, unless it’s fruit based. Not too much fat.

Though I’ve found that a little extra fat gives more colour.

Get rid of the clothes, fabric restricts the composting process.

Some say just scoring the flesh is enough, but I like to cut mine into pieces. Not too small, rough chunks will do, and arrange them in a circle.

I find if you leave it whole, the whole plant wilts before decomposition can even begin, but if you mince it too finely, all the nutrients will seep out before the flowers have time to sprout.

Bury it deep, give the roots room to grow, but not too deep, or the little things won’t be able to reach.

I like to mix fertilizers, see their different effects on the same type of flower.

Finding the right fertilizer is difficult; it’s hard to know if it’s good until you’ve opened it, and I’m getting too old to be dragging those heavy bags around.

But it’s worth it.

After all the hard work, long nights finding the perfect place with just the right kind of soil, breaking my back moving and planting the perfect fertilizer, and long days spent watering and weeding and shading the delicate new sprouts from too much sun, it’s worth it to see those big, healthy flowers.

I love seeing the flowers bloom

[noneed4thisstory]

Dialogue Prompt

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you didn’t have wings yesterday, did you?

 “I mean, not that you were aware of. And didn’t your mother ever teach you to knock?”

“Father, actually, and you know I grew up without doors.”

“How could I forget.”

“So... How long have you had them?”

“I suppose there’s no use trying to hide it now. They started growing in at puberty.”

“Of course. Your body’s going through changes, you start growing feathers in weird places-”

“Shut up.”

“Alright so you’re an angel then? Anything else I should know about?”

“Griffin, actually. I have a tail.”

“Right. Did that also show up during puberty?”

“No, I’ve always had that.”

“You know, I’m trying really hard to be shocked, but, turning out to be a mythological creature just sounds so much like something you would do.”

“I’m not sure if I should be flattered that you think I suit being mythical or offended that you found out my second biggest secret by accident and you’re not even surprised. What if I had built this up into a big reveal? Your reaction is a little disappointing.”

“I’m sorry, second biggest? What could possibly be a bigger secret than literally not being human?”

“You think you can just waltz in here and find out something I’ve been hiding for years and then ask for more? You think I’m just gonna stand here and out my biggest secret to someone that doesn’t even have the decency to knock?”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Would it make you feel better if I told you my second biggest secret in return?”

“…Maybe.”

“I knit.”

“That doesn’t really seem on par with-”

“I knit a lot. I found out my apartment had a secret room and I keep all my knitting stuff in there, absolutely no one else knows about it. I have dozens of sizes of knitting needles and wall to wall shelves of balls of yarn in every colour. Whenever I need to unwind I go in the yarn room and knit something. When my brother was in the hospital last year I made like two dozen scarves, just anxiously knitting every minute I wasn’t out there visiting him.”

“I… I don’t even know what to say. See this? I’m speechless, that’s a proper reaction.”

“I actually feel pretty good now. I’ve been keeping that in for so long, it’s nice to get it off my shoulders a little.”

“Isn’t it nice to intentionally share things with people? I wouldn’t know, of course. But… thanks. It’s kind of a weird thing to be secretive about, but I can see how it could build up into this huge thing that’s suddenly too much to just casually mention.”

“Yes, exactly! At first I was just worried I might get made fun of, you know, but then it went so far that I felt like I couldn’t tell anybody because of how deep into it I was, rather than the fact that I was doing it at all.”

“What do you with all the stuff you knit?”

“Sell it mostly. I got an online thing going. It’s actually a pretty significant chunk of my income now.”

“And no one you know knows about it. That’s crazy, doesn’t anyone notice you constantly sending packages?”

“My neighbour thinks I sell drugs. I had to show the cops my knitting room once.”

“Pfft ‘It’s not cocaine officer, it’s cashmere’.”

“You’re not far off. So, am I forgiven?”

“Tell you what, knit me something nice and I’ll call us even.”

“Deal. Can I touch your feathers?”

“Oh, alright.”

[noneed4thisstory]

So whenever I have a random idea I'll jot it down in a google doc, and I'm thinking I should start also writing down what caused me to think of the idea at the time, because I was looking through my random notes and I found

I don't know what could have possibly prompted this

[noneed4thisstory]

that moment when you have to pause writing to do research

tonight it's a google crash course in genetics, focusing on the presentation of traits controlled by multiple alleles

[noneed4thisstory]

So I'm looking through my Giant Box of Notebooks for an idea I had written down a while ago and I pick up this one notebook and look inside and

what could I possibly have been going with this I just

[noneed4thisstory]

I was looking over my notes for characters and I found one that just

that’s all it says

[noneed4thisstory]

Hello Internet. I'm Pepper, and I will be your storyteller for this evening

Hopefully

Basically I have a lot of stories floating around in my head and I wanted to put them down somewhere, somewhere that other people could see them and possibly fall in love with these characters as much as I have

My intention was to be a short story writer, but after getting my ideas down on paper in separate notebooks I realized that most of these stories could be happening in the same town, so I've decided to combine them all into a sprawling, somewhat interconnected, episodic mess

We will see how it goes

This blog will be probably snippets, venting, and sharing the weird things you find when doing writing research