During counseling...

During counseling a while ago I had the idea for a race of people who were commonly struck by lightning. I know, right? But I went down a random rabbit hole about lightning and saw some of the crazy, and in many cases beautiful, scars that a lot of survivors of lightning strikes carry after their ordeal. (You know, once all the bruises fade and they're released from the hospital with a strong distrust of... the sky...). You should look them up, honestly, if that's something that might interest you. The scars are lightning shaped, which is, you know, vein shaped because everything on this planet is the same as everything else because humans and animals and plants and everything all evolved at different times but efficiency is a thing and nature is amazing and ANYWAY. It's super cool. 

So this race of people would basically be extremely durable and able to withstand lightning strikes with essentially no problem except for the basic physics of being knocked around and maybe they build a religion out of it or something because some people do that but the FUN SCENE idea I had was essentially:

Protagonist (one of the lightning people) takes off toward the antagonist, murder in her eyes. She's thickly built and moving like a steam engine. You know it won't end well and the antagonist knows it, too. They take off (run away, run away, live to fight another day). The protagonist leaps up, well within range to just murder the crap out of this guy when OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE a blast of lightning comes down and knocks her ass over tea kettle. Whilst in the air, she lets out a mighty roar along the lines of, "SON OF A BITCH." Or something else as heart-wrenching. Meanwhile, the antagonist thanks their lucky stars and skedaddles the hell out of there.

I just... I love the idea of the protagonist missing out on an opportunity because of something entirely outside of anyone's control. It's not a big battlefield full of chaos, it's not a lucky shot from someone else's arrow timed just right, it's a freaking LIGHTNING BOLT. I keep chuckling at the idea. 

This would also happen near the end of the book, so it would be entirely conceivable that the antagonist is about to be taken out. And they probably would be ten pages later (after they both share a momentary glance at the sky, just in case). It has something of the flavor that Sir Terry Pratchett (Discworld) or Bill McCurry (The Death-Cursed Wizard) would write. I don't have any kind of story beyond that single scene, but I've worked with less.

Comments

  1. uncle pat's window seatJanuary 24, 2021 at 8:28 AM

    I love it; thank you for that "lightning flash." Like when the jackelopes mate)
    .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shower Flip-flopsMarch 16, 2021 at 9:05 PM

    When you're tryna pull crap but then you get zapped

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shower Flip-flopsMarch 16, 2021 at 9:07 PM

    I like the point you make about nature gearing itself toward efficiency and patterns occurring thusly. It's better than picking a commonality, seeing it everywhere, and saying "See? I'm right. Come to church!"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

C is cookie...

We judge ourselves really harshly. I'd be genuinely curious to know who doesn't believe this of themselves - I've been actively working on showing myself grace for the last few years, and it's helped me be compassionate toward others, but it makes me realize just how cruel I've been inside my own head. I already posted before about calling something 'Boris', and I try to continue ascribing to that mentality. Something is more than nothing. You can't edit a blank page. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Assume everyone you meet is doing their best, and everyon's best looks different. It's hard. I'm impressed when I meet people who exhude calm and patience and generally seem to not let things bother them. I know that sometimes, that's come from hard, hard work. It's a skill like any other - some people can do carpentry, some can fix machines, some can stay calm in traffic. I've gone through some of the older scenes I've wri...
Read more

Poetry is a magnet away

I've almost always had magnetic poetry in my home. Not in my apartment, but growing up, and now in my own house, but I rarely mess with it. I get the rare bout of inspiration when I see a word here or there, or see someone else has created something, and I want to participate. I made this one last night, and I'm proud of it enough to share: Mask glory too poison and dread for grave panic Do away with every forbidden blaze seen as torment to the smiling prisoner; Seiged in a broken crypt – free and forlorn – fearing laugh's rotten conflict Honestly, the limitation of pulling from provided words seems to help me create these. Maybe I'll find myself with more inspiration in hand and a magnetic board as my medium.
Read more

All of the previous five...

... starting letters of my posts together spell 'llama'. It's the little things. I could have gone to bed, I'll have you know. 100% an option for me, but I'd asked for my computer to be woken up, so it seemed the least I could do to write another of these micro fictions. I also wanted to share a bit of the process of creation for magic systems. I have zero plan. I generally like to have consequences for magic use, and I always consider the punishment system that would need to be in place to keep magic users contained, how effective they might be, etc. Beyond that, wherever the spark blooms, my friends. For example: speaking with a couple of friends the other day and my buddy Ken tells me he's had an idea for years of some kind of 'street magic' that would take you from one street to another with the same name. I pondered on that for a moment and he, Brittney, and I threw around some ideas. That would be super cool! Brittney took it to gravestones, I took...
Read more