SPOOKTOBER DAY 25 – CYBERPUNK
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  CLUB/GROUP, TERRORISM, MANNEQUINS
TAROT INFLUENCE:  TEN OF WANDS, INVERTED

TITLE:  MANNEQUINS, COME OUT AND PLAY

Premise:  During the events of Winner Take All, a gang (CLUB/GROUP) called the Mannequins (MANNEQUINS) fall victim to the maneuvers of the Dynex shot caller, getting rebuilt into cyborg prison labor.  It’s just one grimy horror scenario after another, until the gang is all more machine than human.

The Villain:  The Dynex shot caller is just a stooge.  The real villain is Dynex itself, under CEO Lathrop Machrie.  Under him, the corporations practices have grown massively more evil, because he is the flavor of sadist that isn’t satisfied until his victims are ripped to pieces as he watches.  Live feed gore is a better perk than any golden parachute.

Horror Element:  That’s obvious enough.  People watch their bodies destroyed, are dehumanized and enslaved.  Let’s say one of the victims is a l33t h4XX0r, who converts a gaoler AI to go rogue and help them out.  The crew get enough of a jailbreak to allow them to go on a suicide (TEN OF WANDS, INVERTED) mission (TERRORISM) – to get Machrie.
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  I only needed photopea to enlarge text on this one, otherwise the raw AI was god enuf.  As usual I started in gemini then moved to openai, to lose the cartoony aspect of gem’s biz.  I wanna say tho, I was real impressed by how horrifyin’ the gory cyborg prisoners were in the background of this gem version.  I also note that openai was more shy about showing hands.  Weak sauce, pal.
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SPOOKTOBER DAY 26 – ALIEN / SPACE
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  SOUNDS & HEARING, SECRET PASSAGES, MOVING DAY
TAROT INFLUENCE:  THE HIGH PRIESTESS, INVERTED

TITLE:  THE TUBES

Premise:  Thinkin’ about aliens, was thinkin’ about how in Centennial Hills I wrote like three different characters wanting to fuck them, and about how if an alien was the only one of their kind on earth, in a less dire circumstance than my Dr. Snar, they might still end up coerced into the sex industry.  Thinkin’ about how that would be a great metaphor for how trans women so often end up on that path, to fund transition, or because other jobs won’t hire them, or just for survival.  But hey.  Let me steer clear of my perennial sad trans people shit on this one.  I already hit my quota.

A cool alien spaceship (ALIEN / SPACE) crash lands on Earth, so intact that it’s easily made operable again.  Where did the aliens on board go?  Must have ejected or evacuated.  A brave group of colonists is trained up and a few years later, sent to visit some exoplanets (MOVING DAY).  After they leave the safety of Earth, they begin to hear (SOUND & HEARING) noise in the walls.  Turns out the aliens were in stasis within the walls of the ship (SECRET PASSAGES), waiting for some chump organisms to feel safe before they come out to feed on them.

The Villain:  The leader of the colonists was a corporate bullshitter (HIGH PRIESTESS, INVERTED) who oversold the idea of herself as a cool hero, and so lets people down, lethally.

Horror Element:  There are no cool heroes available, just regular people who have to do their best.  No help, they must save themselves or just die grisly.
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  It’s a lot easier with no people to contend with.  Funny but openai has this absurd kick of always making the ground shiny, like it’s wet or glassy.  It is a cheap artistic move to add interest, but it uses it as often as claude says a concept or phrase is “load-bearing.”

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