I would’ve queued this for tomorrow but it looks like FtB is riding on me & PZ today. Have another one!
SPOOKTOBER DAY 4 – RITUAL
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES: RETAIL, COMMERCIALS, HATE
TAROT INFLUENCE: PRINCE OF FIRE, INVERTED (NON-R-W DECK)
TITLE: I’M GONNA POP SOME TAGS LORD OF THE FLAMES
Premise: Thrift shop (RETAIL) in a university area of a major city, the staff all disadvantaged and colorful queer types. The neighborhood occasionally throws the usual urban menace at them – drugs, violence, chaos – but also, more disturbingly, fascism (HATE) crops up as well. A transphobic street preacher (PRINCE OF FIRE, INVERTED) is crowding the street corner where they’re expected to hand out adverts (COMMERCIALS), and clean-cut cishet white boys from frats cast a shadow of potential hate crimes over them whenever paths cross.
The Villain: The preacher is not the villain. Or is he? They keep taking donations and sales with sketchy runes in the pockets, that the store’s resident occult expert (a tiny autistic trans dude) translates as “The Lord of the Flames is coming.”
Horror Element: Fire-related incidents keep happening. Fratties throwing firecrackers, dumpsters and buildings catching fire, pyrotechnics at a club going awry, fire-eating street performers messing up their act, burned rats and pigeons showing up in the alley or on their doorstep. This escalates to a multi-building conflagration in the neighborhood.
But the occultist was performing a ritual of his own, putting embroidered magic symbols into his homies’ battle jackets and hoodies. The magic of the runes is turned back on its owner, who dies spectacularly in the street. I think it should turn out to be a surprise, like, some minor character – not one of the fratties, nor the preacher.
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers. The tech feels close but still has some maddening irritations to it. Had to recreate my font and my techniques were subpar, didn’t look well integrated. Whatever, I’m callin’ it.
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body horror is winning tha vote. i’m so over body horror. bo-ring.
I can kind of dig this one, which probably means no one else would care for it. You could almost take it from an outsiders perspective finding a sewn in tag from the occultist on one of the items they purchased from the thrift shop. The area could have been plagued with fires for years, and the unknown arsonist looked for but never caught because they were supernatural. There are a lot of entry points for the protagonist, depending on how you want to take the plot. From a college student getting a part time job at the thrift shop, to a noir detective trying to track down the non-existent arsonist and then realizing the he’s entered unknown territory. There are a number of possibilities here.
As for body horror… Am I wrong in thinking there are basically two types of body horror? First, that which is causing pain. Second, that which is causing pleasure. I’ve always disliked the first part, but frankly I don’t have a problem with the second. Maybe that shouldn’t be called ‘horror’, but I don’t know a better term for it. Cheerio!