SPOOKTOBER DAY 3 – GHOSTS
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  FOREST, TIME CAPSULE, FEAR OF HEIGHTS
TAROT INFLUENCE:  KING OF WANDS, UPRIGHT, AND THE HIGH PRIESTESS, UPRIGHT

TITLE:  FRESH FRUIT FOR ROTTING VEGETABLES

Premise:  Ancient priests of eldritch gods used to cast strange blessings on their peoples, or curses on their enemies.  One tribe was always known for returning as ghosts (GHOSTS) and avenging themselves against any who would kill them, by the power of their high priest.  A rival tribe from the mountains, knowing this, took them prisoner without killing them, and threw them from a great height (FEAR OF HEIGHTS) into a crevasse – en masse.  Using a power bestowed by their high priest, they shot enchanted arrows at the bodies, which in turn grew into trees, whose roots tied their ghosts down in the soil (TIME CAPSULE).

Sellouts in the fascist-capitalist regime have given all the farmland to corporations in exchange for gold-plated cocaine, telling the girls to just farm the rocky mountainside.  When the girls find the forested (FOREST) crevasse, they figure the lagomorphs and mountain cats need to take one for the team, and clear the trees to grow potatoes.

The Villain:  Him What Hath The Gnarliest Club (KING OF WANDS) is the god of the mountain people.  They went extinct, but he woke up and found colonizers to his liking, vicariously consuming their gold-plated cocaine from the astral plane.  He’s a mile long snake with a jaguar at each end and hummingbird heads sprouting along the serpentispiece like flower buds.  Don’t worry about it.

Horror Element:  The potatoes grow spectacularly into a rotting mass, which fertilizes huge, bizarre, sweet fruits.  Ectoplasm is not recommended fertilizer.  Alima takes a test bite and doesn’t die, so they take them thangs down the mountain to sell.  They hatch like eggs into monsters which grow in size by eating rich white people.  Once they’ve reached full size, they turn into confused people from a long-lost tribe, and have to get jobs at Ualmarto.  Alima is possessed by the priest (HIGH PRIESTESS) of the lost tribe and tries to get the band back together.  Maybe she’ll have to become a shift manager.
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  This is gemini’s chance to shine, in its own goofy way, as it was more successful than openai’s biz at translating my abominable skench.
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A-spooktobring we still go…
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SPOOKTOBER DAY 2 – PSYCHIC
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  DOOMED/DEATH ROW, TULPA/IMAGINARY FRIEND, ALARMS & SIRENS
TAROT INFLUENCE:  THREE OF CUPS, UPRIGHT

TITLE:  MORE THAN A PARTY (OOH OOH)

Premise:  Life’s a party (THREE OF CUPS / SOCIAL GOOD TIMES).  Or is it?  Three people are having a good time at an endless weekend in a mansion, but they figure out they’re actually in a psychic prison of some kind, and struggle to escape.

The Villain:  The characters are two lovers and a third wheel type who is actually the gaoler of this pleasant prison.  He’s a psychic (PSYCHIC) villain who has captured a hero and intends to keep him until he dies (DOOMED / DEATH ROW).

Horror Element:  The hero’s lover is actually a psychic construct (TULPA / IMAGINARY FRIEND) of the villain meant to distract the hero and prevent his escape.  But she is real.  Should you die in a dubious love, or live for truth?  Furthermore, every time the hero thinks he’s escaping, he’s just entering another illusion, until he loses faith he can ever find reality.  Maybe he does escape but has to always live in doubt.  Then again, it’s fucken Inception innit.  I was thinkin’ of a thing where mysterious sirens (ALARMS & SIRENS) are manifestations of his hunger pangs as he’s starving to death, but now it’s just that big played out Inception note.

I don’t have a strong feeling about the genders of these characters, but changing them around could change the feeling of the situation dramatically.  To be considered, if I should ever write it.
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  My goal was to always start with sketches of my own, but on this one I just used the Rider-Waite tarot’s three of cups and a lot of prompt verbiage.  Looks a lil generic but I rather like it, especially the spooky boy.

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Hey it’s that time again…  This year I have the added personal goal of including a villain in every story.  I don’t know why, but that doesn’t come natural to lots of writers these days, including me.  Real life is full of villains, and the ones in fiction are actually fun, so why not?  Proceeding thus…

Oh, big-time content warnings today: incest, pedophilia, rape, suicide.  Hates to start on a down note but the prompt brought this immediately to mind.  You know what?  This one is horrible enough I’ll keep it under a fold – a practice I’ve largely not bothered with for a while.

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