Sidebar Shorter?

The “Recent Posts on FtB” part of the sidebar randomly became much shorter within the last 24 hours, not sure when.  This means people fall off of it faster, and you know my ambition is to always be in the sidebar, so…  Gotdam placeholder post.  Wassap yo?  Myself, had anniversary recently, and an effort to make up for lackluster cake first time around led to a second attempt.  Still not up to the maestro’s prefs, but quite indulgent, an you know I’m not shy about doin’ some of that too…

My Quantum Itch

When something is both outside of your education and, at least on some level, outside of your interest, it will slide off your brain.  You will forget basic shit about that subject.  I think this is a natural ability most people learn in early adulthood that allows them to spend less effort being thoughtful in life.  It’s calorie efficiency, dammit.  But it is also the extent to which the average adult is less thoughtful than the average twelve year old, the extent to which most of us are grand fools.

Physics, like semiotics, just slides right off my brain.  I recognize those are things smart people know about, I’d like to think of myself as a smart person, but as soon as I learn anything about either subject, I start forgetting it.  I don’t, on a subconscious level, believe I’ll ever need that knowledge again.  So schrodinger’s cat occasionally hops out of a bush and surprises me, and I have to remind myself (with help of course) why that’s no cause for concern.

Why does the idea of quantum indeterminacy bother me?  It’s that phrasing about the observer collapsing the wavelength – the idea that by simply looking at something, a human being can have an effect on it.  It sounds like magic, like something that is discordant with anything else I’ve ever experienced in reality or learned of it.

That’s not a problem for a lot of people, but it is for me.  Why?  Many people -juggalo and less than juggy- believe the world is full of magical mysteries, and it does not bother them.  It’s the realm where a jesus might love you and a soul can live forever, or whatever their culture beat into them as an infant.  This is the real reason behind the post.  The quantum itch isn’t caused by an abiding curiosity about the nature of the world, or reality, of advanced math I have no interest in.  The quantum itch can only be scratched by taking the woo out of this last bit of ambiguous science – of squaring it with my heartfelt philosophical materialism.

I asked, Mano and his commentariat obliged, and I am again satisfied that the counterintuitive nature of the quantum world does not impute any kind of supernatural power to the conscious mind of an observer.  (Over)simply put, it’s not an observer that collapses the wave.  It’s interaction with the macroscopic world, which does not require any conscious entity.

There are still a lot of paradoxes and mysteries created by the weirdness of quantum physics, but I don’t give a fuck about those.  I don’t need to.  It’s not my job, nor my hobby.  The only question that bothered me was the one that Deepak Chopra took to the bank.  Fuck quantum woo.

That still doesn’t really satisfy as an answer to why this bothered me in the first place.  A creationist would say awareness of any possibility of the supernatural existing would cause me to fear hell.  That is patently untrue.  I have zero fear of hell, and for any of you who still have some of that fear leftover from childhood, I would love to extend my fearlessness to you.  Rest assured that without some jerk drilling it into you at the age of three, the concept of hell is so incoherent and foolish that it should not have any hold over you.  I wish it was that easy to cure, but eh.  Life sucks.

What other reason might I be bothered by the possibility of a supernatural phenomenon?  I read an article by Greta Christina a long time ago, don’t feel like digging for it.  Forgive me if my memory is wrong.  She said that she was bothered by the idea of Santa Claus as a child, and I was as well.  Miracle on 34th Street pissed me off when I was ten.

I had a lot of emotional development ahead of me.  For a child I was childish.  Still, I had realized that lies suck.  What was the most common type of lie?  Somebody telling you something you want to be true, as a way to get something out of you.  With children this was usually just to enjoy your humiliation when you fell for the lie.  With adults, it’s the basis of much con “artistry.”  I was bothered by the potential that the liar was being amused by any belief I showed, but more than that, I was bothered that they told me something which would be nice if true – a belief that could only end in disappointment.

I had a weird week when I was seven or eight, when I’d read bits of a cheap hotel bible and bought the bullshit.  I don’t remember exactly what snapped the spell, or what I was feeling in the aftermath of that moment, but I do remember this feeling followed me throughout my youth.  When some fucko told me I could live forever and that jesus loves me, my face would flush with anger.

In this world where I have to suffer and die, how DARE you fucking tell me that isn’t the case?  Fuck your false hope, and just fuck you in general.

I don’t know how to explain this in words that a christian could truly understand.  If you genuinely believe in an immortal soul, can you even begin to imagine what it’s like to feel that life is all we get?  Can you understand how much all the strife and struggle and dogshit we have to go through feels like we’re wasting precious time that we should be spending on love and happiness?  Can you understand how desperate I am to smash theocracy and the robber barons and seize rights and well-being for all oppressed peoples?

Even a progressive christian, if they well and truly believe their soul will last forever – and that my atheist soul will also somehow survive death – can they ever really understand me, or those like me?  I doubt it.

The possibility of the supernatural bothers me because it opens the door to other hopes I’ve had to shed in order to live my best life.  I do not hope for magic or immortality because I know quite firmly they are not real.  Those hopes would have me chasing ghosts, slurping down magic tinctures, praying for something more than what I’ve got, what nature’s nasty ass has meted out to me.  I don’t have time for that.  I could die at any moment.

Magic and immortality are fun dreams for fantasy -you know I love that fantasy- but don’t tell me that they’re real.  It just pisses me off.

Ware the Witches

Ever since horst wessel that tiny-faced nazi shiteater got it in the neck, and it was discovered he had been hexed by witches, the witch brand has been blowing up.  Smash-cut to my spam filter, and its newest denizens…

Dr. Excellent?  Maybe I should have blacked that out too.  It’s a good brand name.  Whatever.  If you want to put a spell on somebody you can probably find him on failbook or etsy.  He’s specialized in making people love against their will -and using people’s stolen email accounts to spam random blogs- which are both fairly evil, so surely murder spells are no biggy for him.

Spookt a Third Time

Still at it…

SPOOKTOBER DAY 12 – WESTERN
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  PARANOIA

TITLE:  THE ANGEL OF GOD

Premise:  Feuding rascals in a wild west have gone too far, shot too many innocent bystanders.  A preacher has a vision and makes peace his mission, establishing The Angel of God Revival Church.  When he speaks, even wild boys listen.  A great calm settles over the town and everything is hunkydory.

Horror Element:  Reckon that’s a mite suspicious?  Picture a little too purdy?  The outlaws who hate each other the most, want to kill each other the most, find that when they break out of the spell enough to try, they are overwhelmed by some unnatural power.  Don’t feel like the work of Heaven.  And if’n it is, Heaven needs to step aside.

An angel-like creature is behind the effect.  The preacher sacrifices cattle to gain intercession, and the spirits calm everybody by singing an almost imperceptible note that carries throughout the town and countryside.  The wild boys plug up their ears and go on a cherub-killing spree, which the preacher responds to by summoning the boss angel to walk the dusty streets, punishing the sinners.  They kill the angel and live happily ever after.

Clearly, this was devils masquerading as angels to lead impressionable preacher into sin, right?  No, it’s just the way god actually works.  Miracles don’t happen anymore because priests forgot how to sacrifice cattle right.  The more you know.

Some Nonsense:  Fameis, or Fronone, like a great marquis appears among the multitude, and makes people marvelous in rhetoric.  He gives the best familiars, understanding of languages, and the grace of one’s friends and enemies.  He has twenty-six under him, partly from the order of thrones, and partly from the order of angels.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 13 – VAMPIRES
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  MUSIC

TITLE:  BLACK BRASS

Premise:  Alexis gets bad headaches.  At peak moments, they’re accompanied by a deafening cacophony of trumpets, vision fading in and out of blackness, and an indescribable sense she is surrounded by crows.  At last a neurologist diagnoses the condition as form of epilepsy and gets her on some medicine.

It wasn’t epilepsy, exactly.  There’s an outer darkness of infinite hunger that seeks to devour all life.  Alexis has latent psychic potential that the darkness used to gain a foothold in the world of the living.  The darkness was eating at her, and the pills stop that.  She still has episodes, but she recovers from them much more quickly.  Thanks, science.

Horror Element:  During her episodes now the darkness is forced out of her mind and into the world of the living, where it manifests as a guy in black.  Sometimes he’s a shadow on the wall, a crow in the parking lot, a disembodied musical note, a face in the mirror that is not your own.  He steals people’s life force before he disappears again.  As Alexis gains more life and health, the people around her begin to suffer and die.

Some Nonsense:  Judifliges, a strong leader, appears in the likeness of a crow, and then he appears in human form.  When he proceeds before his master instructor who so commands, he makes all who look upon him hear a symphony of trumpets.  And then he brings forth all kinds of instruments and teaches how to play them.  He is the best familiar.  He has 19 legions under his dominion.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 14 – ALIENS/SPACE
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  CHAOS

TITLE:  JOSEFINA Y BLASFEMIA VS LA VENGANZO DEL PAPADO

Premise:  In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.™  After Josefina and Blasfemia defeated the church and its angels, they left the Stars of Weal in pandemonium.  This was supposed to be impossible.  What happens when your prayers can only be answered by devils?  When the templars have lost their supernatural authority?  When primal spirits walk the worlds with no one able to contest their powers?

Horror Element:  Chaos rules, babes.  Josefina and Blasfemia can disappear into it and live out their days in relative peace, should they so desire.  But first they have to run a gauntlet of messed up horrors.  The Astrocielo is burning once again, fallen angels squalling in terror and mutating into who knows what?  Then there’s the horror from within the team – the duendelino that became obsessed with Josefina owns their only means of travel between worlds – the Leveret.  Trapped in space with your stalker, what could be worse?  The Mandate of Heaven has broken and the Church will never be able to recover from this blow.  But that won’t stop them from getting their revenge…

Some Nonsense:  Andras, or Vandras – a great marquis – appears in angelic form, with a head considered similar to a great night raven.  He rides on a strong, powerful wolf, carrying a large and sharp sword.  From him comes bloodshed and discord; he properly understands how to sow these, as war between two brothers, or between master and servant.  And under him are 30 legions.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 15 – SUBURBAN GOTHIC
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  SITCOM

TITLE:  AUDREY AND ASHLEY

Premise:  Alternate Universe type deal. World’s first screen lesbian situation on a sitcom, but here it’s all different people.  The story would be told as episodes of the sitcom, possibly in screenplay format.  Let’s say, alternating with real world chapters.

Horror Element:  Political and personal pressures make everyone involved have intense drama, like a gothic novel.  Light-hearted TV fluff alternates with dire biz.  The characters within the story gain some sense of how rare and special their love is – they’re the only gaydies in the entire universe of TV fiction.  They want to be together even tho the show is cancelled.  But what do the actresses want?  Lines of fiction and reality blur, probably some kinda metaphor for death.

This is a repurpose / rewrite of an idea I had like a hojillion years ago, a few years after the IRL situation, and wasn’t originally going to be a sitcom – maybe a TV drama like Dawson’s Creek.  It was also not going to have the compressed timeline, and was going to be completely banal in nature.  Probably it’ll work better like this.

Some Nonsense:  Beduch or Bamone, a great marquis, appears in the likeness of a leopard with wings in the shape of a griffon’s.  When he takes a human form, he gives the best love of women or makes love subside.  He causes feverish love when he is involved.  He willingly reveals women’s secrets, and mocks them upon the revelation.  He makes them strip and frolic in luxurious nudity.  He gives eloquence, and has twenty legions in his dominion.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 16 – MAD SCIENTIST
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  PSYCHEDELIC/STONER

TITLE:  WE MUST KILL THE JAGUAR POPE

Premise:  In a remote canyon in the Southwestern USA, a mad scientist has retreated from civilization to establish a new religion.  The DEA has sent a young agent on a mission to kill him, in hopes of fighting the intense wave of drug use that he has inspired.

Horror Element:  Basically the plot of Apocalypse Now, but as the DEA guy gets closer to his target, reality unspools.  The scientist discovered the psychoactive properties of licking a certain type of frog and became a Tim Leary -style evangelist for the drug.  But the hallucinations have a life of their own.  By the time he reaches the scientist, he sees him as a jaguar in papal regalia, in a pueblo kingdom of twisted frogheads.

Some Nonsense:  Azo, or Oze, a great president, appears in the likeness of a leopard.  But when taking human form, he makes a person wise in all liberal arts, gives true responses of divinity and hidden things, and makes a person change into other forms.  And at the instruction of the exorcist, he makes a person insane, such that they believe they are not.  And because they have a crown on their head and a sceptre in hand, they believe themself to be a king.  The sceptre is given by the exorcist, who this king obeys until it has been held for the span of one hour.  Below Azo are twenty legions.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 17 – CYBERPUNK
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  VIRTUAL REALITY

TITLE:  MAD MALWAR3 GIRLZ WILL HAVE THEIR REVENGE

Premise:  Colleen Crash loved and lost when ANи1KA and M0NiK4 v 1.0 were destroyed by the NSA, but she managed to salvage enough of their code to make new versions.  This is all well and good.  She could just take that W and retire, but she can’t shake off the need to make Tha Man hurt, for all that he’s done.

Horror Element:  The world is some kind of absurd place that could never exist, where the world’s most obvious con man pedophile and fascist thug managed to get elected with a mandate to destroy democracy itself.  I know I can’t bear to imagine it.  If that kinda shit happened I’d be hiding from the real world at all costs.  Pure imagination, babey.  Anyway, Colleen must confront evil in its purest form, where virtual reality ends and this horrible totally fictional reality begins.

Some Nonsense:  Ras, a great president, appears in the likeness of a deer.  When, however, he assumes human form, he speaks gravely.  He makes beasts languish and stagger.  He gives true responses, and the grace of friends.  He has under his dominion sixty-nine legions (nice).


Fingertips

My breathing is impaired, shallow.  I can assume there’s some amount of fluid in my lungs causing this, or maybe constriction in the bronchioles, I dunno, but my breathing is a bit impaired.  Last night, my fingertips weren’t as pink as they usually are.  Not the purple / blue of cyanosis, but I don’t love it.  They say go to the hospital, but there’s already like three thousand of debt on my health care credit card.  Last time the interest popped on it, it added $992 to the balance.  I cain’t even with that shit.

Besides, what is the hospital going to tell me?  Last time I was tested for similar shit they came back with nothing.  They ruled out covid, they found nothing on chest x-rays.  Guess I’ll wait til the fingertips go blue before I hitch a ride to the ER again.  They’re still not as pink as I’d prefer.

Hide the Evidence!

Had a dream I got away with murder.  It wasn’t fun or cool, just nerve-wracking and subsequently exhausting.

I was television’s Rahul Kohli (i wonder if i’m more apt to dream i’m a beardy actor if i’m going to scruff irl) and together with my friends I accidentally killed one of our cohort.  Even tho the whole squad plus an anonymous blackmailer knew it, even tho I was on the edge of tears and acting mad sus when anybody approached me, nobody ever quite seemed to figure what we’d done.

My fictional family randomly showed up at the murder scene while I was trying to hide evidence and wouldn’t leave.  I had a box of stuff sent by the blackmailer, that my dad kept trying to grab.  I almost yelled, “What do you want out of this?”  He said, “You know what I need.”  It was the children’s book my little sister insisted on having read to her at night.  The book had cryptic threats that the blackmailer had tucked in like bookmarks and I had to try to pull them all out before I handed it over, plus page thru to make sure nothing else was written on the pages.

Later my home boys were with me while I was trying to sort the evidence and one was looking thru my sketchbooks, which again had been annotated by the blackmailer.  I had to beg him not to look because the books contained personal art.  U know, sex stuff I was secretly into.

An FBI agent told me I was the prime suspect but by that point in the dream I was too emotionally exhausted to care.  I came back to the suboptimal place I’d stashed the blackmail box and tried to move it somewhere safer, but realized there were no guarantees.  I was doomed to live with the stress of possible discovery.

I woke up with the original version of Time Is On My Side stuck in my head – rather the opposite message of the dream itself.

Another Spooktober Batch

I am holding to my vow to only do the covers after I compose the ideas, in an effort to have less jokey or BS concepts.  You can judge.  These covers are very dashed off.

SPOOKTOBER DAY 6 – CURSED OBJECT
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  DISAPPEARANCE

TITLE:  THE GRYPHON

Premise:  Why are all the airline pilots dudes?  It’s because women must never learn the power of flight.  It awakens their inner witch.  Captain Iris Lichter came to see the truth of the sky.  It is the abyss into which all things become clear, and become lost forever.  Fools think it’s the cold hard ground, but ground turns to dust, and dust blows away.

She flies for hours and days, staring ahead into the void, knowing that is where all the chattering monkeys must ultimately go.  (ok but srsly the numbers on that profession are wildly fucked up; probably needs serious correction from regulatory bodies.)

Horror Element:  Iris fashions a magical gryphon talisman and leaves it where people can find it.  Each in turn takes the thing and experiences weird symptoms of uncontrolled levitation, of objects and pets flying out windows never to be seen again.  At last they are ripped away into the sky, where they cease to be.  But the metal of that talisman is heavy, and it returns to earth, to begin the cycle anew.  I have this mental image of a sky witch walking through something like a sculpture garden, but all the sculptures are people balanced on some narrow body part, spinning slowly in place like a top, limbs splayed like they’re underwater.  She can pick them up like balloons.  Dunno how I’d work that in, if I did.

Some Nonsense:  Torcha, a great marquis and strong duke, appears in the likeness of a griffon.  However, when he assumes human form, he speaks duplicitously with a harsh voice.  And he is able by his own power to bind all flying creatures, and all creatures that move swiftly above the earth and in the air.  If the exorcist is wise, let them have made a bird of bronze, and consecrate it with the power to bind all birds under their will.  Thus all birds taken together in this power will be found only where they are placed – and produce their sweet songs, and be tame and polite, and willingly obedient in all ways.  Note that the exorcist can capture all birds he pleases by the beak.  He truly gives dignities, and from his mouth confirms them.

SPOOKTOBER DAY 7 – UNDEAD
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  BURIAL

TITLE:  聖人キラー サイモン aka SAINT KILLER SAIMON

Premise:  In an anime world where saints are ghoulish undead who lord over brainwashed villages, driving them toward apocalyptic self-flagellation and human sacrifice, those who long for secular prosperity hire a Yojimbo-like mercenary who has the power to put these undying clerics in the ground – Saint Killer Saimon.

Horror Element:  Standard horror anime, from which Goat Princess is a spin off.  Real life catholic saints include some dubiously historical freaks who were folded spindled and mutilated in fabulous ways, often taking a miraculously long time to die from it.  Saimon has to engage in a bit of the old ultraviolence.

Some Nonsense:  Bille, a strong duke appearing in the likeness of a dragon, has three heads – the third similar to a human – and speaks in a raucous voice.  He changes the bodies of the dead from place to place, and makes his demons appear and congregate over their sepulchres.  He brings opulence and all wealth, and makes you eloquent and wise.  He gives true responses to all inquiries, and has under him twenty-six legions.

SPOOKTOBER DAY 8 – BIG CITY
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  OFFICE

TITLE:  THE GAZELLE

Premise:  Billionaire tech mogul Orlac had enough luck with ruthless maneuvers over the years that he began to believe his own hype – that he was a genius who could do no wrong.  But unlike other men in that position, he didn’t just assume that meant he could rule with the flick of a wrist, barely moving.  He knew he had to stay in motion, keep up the work, adopting the latest corporate philosophy bullshit and implementing it in the cruelest ways possible.

One day he became taken with the works of trust fund kid cum dubious business guru Asher Skerritt, who warmed up some rehash of the old wolf pack idea.  But Orlac came up with his own rehash of that, after reading a science article about an especially sadisitic alpha who sent the pack on raids where they killed the puppies of competing packs.  He decides that to make OrlaCo great again, he has to become a murderer.

Horror Element:  Every team and section at the city-wide corporate campus operated under vicious pressure from above, from a culture of backstabbing and petty sadism.  But nobody suspected one particular office was suffering under the direct supervision of the CEO, who played with their lives like the kid killing ants with a magnifying glass.  He had them threatened with firing constantly, given arbitrary and impossible goals and punished them for failing to meet them, found the people who most needed work-life balance and robbed them of their life with overwork.

And after becoming the Alpha Wolf, he began to actually murder them.  He used “robust cooperation” with the police to get close enough to sabotage any investigation.  While the victims were all chosen for the job on the criteria of being nervous people who were afraid of failure, one random woman lied through the process enough to gain employment in victim team with her idgaf intact.  This proved an irresistible temptation, and his most elaborate torture and murder plot was set in motion…  No way I’d let him win, if I ever wrote this.  You know how she’ll do.

Some Nonsense:  Alphas, or Malapas, is a great president, appearing in the likeness of a crow, and in human form, he speaks with a raucous voice.  He builds marvelous houses and towers, and quickly convenes the most artificers.  He destroys houses and smashes towers, and gives the best familiars toward this destruction.  He eagerly receives sacrifices and burnt offerings, and deceives people into breaking their contracts with him.  He has under him twenty legions.

SPOOKTOBER DAY 9 – LIMINAL HORROR
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  WOMEN’S LIT/CHICK-FLICK

TITLE:  THE EDGE OF GONE

Premise:  Leah is pushing fifty, single, and has run out of friends.  Life is just going to work, avoiding trouble, and staying alive.  Looking forward to the eventual day she is alone and unable to care for herself, she’s pulling a lot of overtime and saving up considerable stacks of cash.  To avoid potential muggings and worse, she tries to stay as far away from other people as possible on the way home.  That does carry the risk of finding unexpected danger when too far away to cry for help, but she can’t bring herself to try the other tactic – staying close to whatever safer looking randos the night provides.  Too shy.

One night she keeps seeing sketchier and sketchier guys and groups of guys, each in turn pushing her to go into a further subway car, a further platform, to take unfamiliar routes, until she is deep into a poorly lit metro station she’s never seen before – that she can’t even locate on the map.  A group of guys appears out of nowhere, hissing like snakes and threatening her more explicitly than any of the others had before.  But a woman appears, in her 30s and built like the hardest bartender you ever saw.  She has a cobra tattooed on her chest, peeking out of a black scoop-neck tee, and scares them off, even kicking one in the ass as they go.

Leah goes from running away to running after, spending the night going the long ways into who-knows-where, hoping to run into Gomorrah again.  It works. Leah and Gomorrah get to know each other and fall in love.

Horror Element:  Leah also comes to realize she is literally going beyond the borders of reality in order to find Gomorrah each night.  These train stations really aren’t part of the system that humans built.  What the hell does it mean?  Gomorrah has some ambiguities in her backstory that Leah is hesitant to press – like finding out something concrete about her young lover will cause her to vanish.  Worse, knowing that she’s going into liminaland, she knows there’s no guarantee she’ll ever find her way back.

Gradually it becomes clear she has to choose Fight Club style between the Ikea nesting instinct and self-destructive freedom.  She lets herself become lost, and when the story shifts perspective to the real world, nobody remembers she ever existed.

Some Nonsense:  Gomeris, or Cayim, a strong and powerful duke, appears in the likeness of a most beautiful woman, crowned with a ducal crown, riding upon a camel.  For truth he gives full responses about the present, the past and the future.  He is the prince and keeper of hidden caverns wherein serpents appear.  He gives the best love of women and has under him twenty-one legions.

SPOOKTOBER DAY 10 – DARK FANTASY
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  KILLER ANIMAL

TITLE:  CURSE OF THE WOLFSWORD

Premise:  A medieval prince was wronged by his family, and righteously sought revenge.  A wolf came out of the forest, a sword through its body but still miraculously alive. It bowed to him, offering the sword.  The prince took the sword and used it for his vengeance.  After the fact, he found out about the curse.  No miracle at all.

Horror Element:  The sword wolf grants you revenge but curses you to die from the same.  It takes the sword back to the wilderness and returns to offer it to another wronged soul – this one a victim of the prince’s rise to power.  She can use it to get revenge on him, but finding out about the curse before she fulfills it, does she have a chance to break the cycle?

Some Nonsense:  Boab, a great president, appears in the likeness of a knight, his head similar to a lion’s, riding on a great black horse.  His eyes shine like fire, he speaks with a raucous voice, and he has large teeth.  He gives the best understanding of all things natural, even the barking of dogs.  He gives full, true responses of things occult and of all questions about the present, past, and future.  He has forty legions.

SPOOKTOBER DAY 11 – MEDICAL
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  CREEPY KID

TITLE:  THE COST

Premise:  One terrible year ten infants die one night after another, in the maternity ward of a hospital.  Nurse Christine was in the depths of a terrible relationship which made it hard to give her full attention to work, so she wasn’t tracking on everything people were saying, or what happened with her coworkers.  One year later, babies start dying one per night, and she begins to remember incidents from that time before which lead her to investigate.  Turns out some of her fellow nurses had been quietly disappeared and even murdered to conceal the true causes of death.  They’d all experienced symptoms of rabies.

Horror Element:  Right above the maternity ward is a special child, kept in isolation due to immunocompromise.  Or is she?  A hospital administrator used sorcery to ensure his daughter’s success in life, the price of which was ten innocent souls per year that she lives.  Lil’ girl is beginning to show powers of her own, besides the annual event of puking up ghostly mutant bird-things that infect the babies downstairs.  I think Christine was abusing drugs during the first outbreak and enough people know that they can blackmail her into silence or other indignities, which makes her hesitant to seek allies.  Maybe some cool doctor breaks thru her distrust and there’s a romance under pressure story.

Some Nonsense:  Cambea, a great count, appears in the likeness of a faun.  He understands the strengths of herbs and precious stones.  He makes birds descend to earth and fly before the exorcist.  And likewise they will fight and play according to their nature as if, indeed, domesticated by the exorcist.  He has twenty legions under his dominion.

Cambea is also known as Decarabia in sources later than the Geomanticarum, which seems etymologically connected to “ten” and “rage” – which is also used for rabies.  Cambea could mean “change” as in metamorphosis or “exchange” as in trade.

Midnight Muse Challenge

My husband has to keep busy and I end up coming along for that ride.  Our writing group which was named after The Midnight Society from Are Afraid of the Dark? has a new art challenge for October, “Midnight Muse.”  You get like 5 art challenges a week and can do as many or few as you please from the list.  He designed the banners, collaging examples of other artist’s works that served as examples, and of course, he came up with all the challenges.  This is copypasta from discord.

WEEK ONE… DISTORTIONS.
This week, here are your five challenges to interpret how you will.  You can do one a day, do multiple versions of the same challenge, choose only one for the whole week… it’s up to you!  Do a painting, take a picture, make a sculpture, create something out of yarn… whatever inspires you!  The challenges this week are…


👽 COLOR OUT OF SPACE 👽
unnatural vibrant shade, make something a different color than it usually is, create something about a strange color


🤏 TINY MONSTERS 🤏
show something tiny made large or large shrunken down, a miniature, or something filled with tiny details


🌟 GLOWUP 🌟
depict something glowing (especially something that doesn’t normally glow), use glowing materials, or the concept of radiation (literal or figurative)


🫠 WARPED TOUR 🫠
show something distorted out of its usual proportions, create something that you stretch or warp physically, or a misshapen object


💔 SHATTERED 💔
create something broken apart, a fractured view, break apart something and glue it together, or show the pieces of something that remain

Oh You Thought I Forgot?

It’s Spooktober, which means I’m coming up with a month of horror story ideas and doing ai covers (with a few tweaks from photopea).  Have at thee…

SPOOKTOBER DAY 1 – POSSESSION
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  PUNK/GOTHIC

TITLE:  BACKMASK

Premise:  Deathrock never had what it takes to get big in society.  People just don’t want to hear those lyrics, feel that darkness.  But deathrock did have what it takes to swing wide the gates of hell.  The most important people in the story are a scene of deathrock musicians, including band members, studio, and biz people.  They are scrappy indy types, only differing from punk rockers in morbid dispositions, higher suicide and opiate abuse rates.

But in a marathon weekend of recording, a new artist enters the studio, seemingly out of nowhere.  Avedje looks human, but is barely able to pretend.  The most canny and close to the problem recognize she’s a demon in the flesh, but don’t know whose fault it is that she was summoned, and don’t know what they should do about it – if anything.  She has a way of getting on everybody’s albums, usually as background vocals.

Suddenly deathrock acts on the label are blowing up, and the new fans are harming themselves and others, changing, disappearing, making the impossible happen.  Most importantly, they are making sure everybody knows that life is a joke and death reigns supreme.

Horror Element:  The movie adaptation of Suicide Circle is an influence here, as are the comics of Junji Ito.  I’d take the basic theme and just spin out a bunch of variations that serve as stories within the story, get the funhouse vibe.

Some Nonsense:  Avedje, a great king and duke, appears crowned with a diadem, naught seen of him but his head; and before him proceed two ministers carrying trumpets.  He teaches of logic and rhetoric, and gives the skill to understand all languages.  He gives very good familiars.  He gives full, true answers about things present, past, and future, concerning the arts, or things consecrated in secret, and of the Fall, and how the rebel angels sinned.  Not an hour will he remain truthful, unless cast into a corner.  Possesses thirty legions.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 2 – ANALOG HORROR
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  PARTY

TITLE:  SNAKES AND LADDERS

Premise:  In medieval fantasy themed social game like Club Penguin for a more broish set, a group of young players gather in a private tower to RP.  Nobody wants to GM, but in the anarchy of that moment, three players are promoted to GMs.  Co-GMs?  This sets them on a path where more than one thing can be true simultaneously.  One is the only GM while the other is also the only GM and likewise the last.  Planning the games happens in the open, allowing the other players &/or GMs to all become privy to the entire plot.  Spoiler alert!

But maybe not.  They gain awareness of the past present and future simultaneously, but experience each as if it is a fresh and immediate moment.  The focal point of the adventure is a game within a game, of Snakes and Ladders.

Horror Element:  Each player and game master responds differently to the expansion of their consciousness.  Some are broken by it, some are enlightened but terrified of the inevitable total party kill ending.  Some are experiencing something else altogether, that they cannot explain to the others.  If you die in the game you die in real life.

Some Nonsense:  Ara, duke and marquis, appears in the likeness of a dragon.  When before you in human form, he marvelously controls all manner of serpents.  If the conjurer is wise, they shall gather all the knowledge they seek, and cause fierce serpents to lower themselves, by consecrating this dragon in metal.  And no kind of serpent shall be bold in their presence, and the conjurer will stand well pleased – yet not forever.  They should fear lest the image be broken, and immediately let the strength return to the snakes.  Ara gives true responses of the past present and future, and has under him twenty-five legions.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 3 – COSMIC HORROR
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  THE FORBIDDEN

TITLE:  HEAVY METAL THUNDER

Premise:  Druff was a mechanic and handyman in a desert town.  Some kind of drug perma-fried him too, so add wizard to the cv.  At first he just did odd jobs for the town, but via part-time work on motorcycles and hot rods, he got to know the rockers, and began to work on electric instruments and amps.  One night in the scrapyard behind the garage, he discovered the spark of life a new form of electricity.

Did it fall from space?  Was it a genuine act of science from a rare genius?  Whatever it is, it makes amps rock harder, makes hot rods hotter, and gets heavy metal fans high as balls – a forbidden pleasure.

Horror Element:  Basic Uzumaki method horror.  Pick a theme and run a series of escalating vignettes of scary ideas based on it.  Story one could be a lady getting a special guitar that causes supernatural problems for her, story five could be a coven of rock freaks getting so high they explode at a concert, story thirteen could be the mothership calling back all the volts and bolts, hollowing out the masses like the alien vampires in Lifeforce.

Some Nonsense:  Furfur, a great count, appears in the likeness of a crow, his tail like a flame.  He lies to all unless placed in a corner, but there will take an angelic form, and speak with a raucous voice.  He leads to weapons drawn between men and woman.  He renders people invisible and gives understanding of astronomy and all mechanical arts.  He gives understanding of lightning and thunder, and how they are made.  He knows the best answers in matters occult, and has under him twenty-five legions.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 4 – RETRO SLASHER
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  BAROQUE

TITLE:  THE RED KNIGHT

Premise:  Everyone is fucking done with sectarian warfare.  This ville doesn’t feel the magnificence of holiness, a precursor to modern french apathy atheism, because the Wars of Religion have made a mockery of both brands of jeezyism.  Some people might have sympathies one way or another, and they’re all nominally catholic as they’re supposed to be, but the late baroque era is all about getting by and enjoying life.

Or is it?  People are getting murked nasty by some stealthy and preternaturally skilled man at arms.  At last a suspect is seen, and his red-lacquered full plate armor still makes him too buff to kill.  Did I say stealthy and plate armor?  It has strips of leather between every point of contact.

Horror Element:  Old timey Michael Myers.  A catholic knight transformed by the most recent religious war into an utter monster, he sees huguenots where there are none.  Like the slashers that kill people who fuck first, he is more likely to judge you protestant if he sees you engaged in sin.

Imagine the sensory experience of being around such a guy.  You’d smell him before you’d see him.  Dude is living off of raw meat, never giving away his location with a campfire.  Raw rat is easier to chew than raw cow.  His armor is not completely silent.  It makes him so heavy, his footsteps are like the hoofbeats of an ox.  He has his own gravity.  Maybe that’s why you slipped while running away.  Time to get fileted for jesus.

Some Nonsense:  Now, however, we must speak of Berich.  Berich is a king yet is called a great duke by all.  The followers of Solomon call him by this name: Berich.  The grammarians call him by the name Belfayt.  He appears in the likeness of a red knight, and his horse is red, and his raiment red, and he wears two crowns.  He gives fully true responses of the past, present, and future.  Constrain him by divine virtue, and by the art of a magic ring, for when at liberty, he lies.  He teaches in full how to change all kinds of metals to gold and silver.  He gives titles and confirms them with clear understanding.  He has a raucous voice, and has under him twenty-six legions.


SPOOKTOBER DAY 5 – BODY HORROR
OPTIONAL CHALLENGE:  EROTIC THRILLER

TITLE:  INVERTED PASSIONS aka THE DEMENTED WORLD OF DOCTOR DICK

Premise:  A mad scientist driven by transphobia tries to come up with a way to medically detransition people against their will.  When he realizes the same tech could be used to help people medically transition better than ever, he tries to overdose on drugs.  Pill mixup, he became a genital elemental!

This sounds like a setup for tentacle porn.  Let’s dodge that.  Before he can tentacruel anybody, he explodes and rains monster jizz into the hospital water supply.  This hospital is full of sexy professionals having the usual hot naked affairs and adult hijinks.  Until…

Horror Element:  In a bit of unreality, nobody here rushes to the emergency room when their genitals turn inside out.  There’s secret shame, fevered scenes of self examination and dubious efforts to beat things back into shape, some people turning into monsters, some few discovering they like what happened to them and not wanting to see it reversed.  This could be taken as exploitation horror or anti-trans propaganda.  Or maybe it’s a didactic lesson showing cis people that genital dysphoria is no bueno.

Some Nonsense:  Lambes, great king and president, appears in the likeness of a woman.  He speaks sweetly, bestowing the love of men as well as women.  If the exorcist wishes to provoke all people to his love, let him fashion a grand image of himself.  Behold! when “love overcometh love” is inscribed upon its brow and the power takes hold, the exorcist’s image is consecrated, granting him such virtue that all people of whatever sex accede to his love.  And so none may cause him to fall for another, as all are marked with his sign.  And he has fifteen legions under him.

anyway, busy as fuck.  driveby drivebys is all i can muster for the bloge.

America’s Gravestones

As I posted 9-11ly, I believe bin Laden won.  I believe he killed amurrica, like a hunter convincing buffalo to stampede off a cliff.  This has a ramification I didn’t initially consider:  any and all 9-11 memorial monuments are functionally gravestones to the US.  There’s a line in that SNL sloths video “they eat cocaine off america’s gravestone,” which is objectively hilarious, but was not a thing you could do in real life… or was it?  Call up your local sloths, score some coke, and pay your respects.