Spooktober Day Twenty-Five

SPOOKTOBER 2024!

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group voted on.  Carrying forward from last year we’re having optional sub-themes and I’m trying to do them all like Debbie do Dallas.  Book covers made with midjourney and photopea.


SPOOKTOBER DAY #25 — SUMMER CAMP/CABIN
(× Survival Horror or Disaster or Trees)

TITLE:  Happy Campers (apologies to whichever fifty people first used this title ironically)

PREMISE:  Camp counselors (Summer Camp) are very insistent that you have a happy time, the best time of your life.  Macrame or get burned with a lighter.  Toast the marshmallow but if it catches fire you catch these hands.  What’s wrong with them?  And is it contagious?  Other kids start to get with the creepy agenda, leaving the radicals and non-joiners increasingly desperate for the freedom to slouch in their own independent ways.  And not get murdered with hand-crafted natural weapons, like god intended (Survival Horror).

HORROR ELEMENT:  It’s a natural disaster (Disaster) because some kind of exotic mold in the trees (Trees) has grown far in excess of its usual amounts, due to its natural predator the jackanory weevil being gobbled up en masse by invasive spotted balinese assassin bugs.  When the wind kicks up and the pollen rains down, humans catch something like ergotism.  All suffer erratic adrenaline spikes and altered behavior, but the most socially conformist become prone to violent rage and sadistic oppression.

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Where to Escape Politics?

It’s hard as hell to find a genuinely non-political place to chill and take in content.  One could argue that everything is political, but if I’m not liking politics and I’m still capable of liking some things in this world, then that’s disproven from go.  A good pomo BSer can give you the politics of a kitten falling asleep while playing with a ball of yarn.  I know, because I’m a good pomo BSer and could do that right now if I wanted to, but it would be bullshit.

No, to me, political content is information about government, whether true facts, opinions, or bad information.  If it’s about the government, it’s political.  To another extent, opinions about people’s bodies and relationships and metaphysical beliefs can also be political, particularly if prescriptive or proscriptive regarding speech and behavior – saying something is a good way or a bad way to be.

What does that leave?  Dad jokes, funny animals, practical information about day-to-day life like recipes or the weather report, sportball, vidya games, hobbies, science that omits portents of doom…  Doomy science is important and has its place – in steering politics, frankly.

I just want a place where I can go and reliably expect nobody is going to shit on somebody else’s entire existence, or look at me with coal black eyes and hollowly intone the specifics of the death of me and everybody I love.  I recognize it’s a privilege to even imagine it’s possible to cultivate an experience like that.  Some people are staring down the barrel of the political every day, up to and including their grisly deaths.

Very sorry to y’all, but I don’t feel like every human alive must live in torment because some humans do.  I will do what I can to face the political on wednesday and help the tormented out, but on thursday and friday I want to enjoy what life has been granted to me by the unfeeling indifferent radioactive constantly exploding and crumbling abyss of a universe we live in.  Give me a fucken minute, guys.  I’ll get back to you.

Srsly I do recognize that is an unspeakably cruel position to hold, in certain company.  I’m not gonna say that to the face of a Palestinian, right?  But we all need this sometimes.  We need to be able to feel OK, when and how we can.  If nobody is ever allowed to feel perfectly hunkydory for a minute, that’s no kind of world to live in.

Anyway, drop recs for non-political content in the comments.  If you can think of any times when said content got political, don’t bother to mention it with caveats.  Just don’t even start typing until you can think of something genuinely without politics in it.  Maybe we can make the comment section a resource for well-being, right?

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         …and for now i’m FUCKING done, thanks

Spooktober Day Twenty-Four

SPOOKTOBER 2024!

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group voted on.  Carrying forward from last year we’re having optional sub-themes and I’m trying to do them all like Debbie do Dallas.  Book covers made with midjourney and photopea.


SPOOKTOBER DAY #24 — FOLK HORROR
(× Mountain or Odd Couple or Dark Magic)

TITLE:  The Alpine’s Bumpin’

PREMISE:  I’m gettin’ good grip from the fifty series tires; the alpine’s bumpin’ but I need the volume higher…  So quoth Sir Mixalot.  I know folk horror is usually about a summery rural cult torturing some squares to death but I don’t love the genre so I’m going with the idea this category could include faerie tales.  So.

Jakeem and Bernard are an odd couple (Odd Couple), wherein Jakeem is the low-key nerd, and Bernard is the vision-questing Jim Morrisonesque tripping man.  He must drag his personal Ray Manzarek (Jakeem) to the ends of the earth, and this time it’s up a mountain (Mountain).  They went to a ski resort with the idea they’d meet some cool people and learn how to snowboard, but the resort is all but abandoned.  The weather report said skiing too dangerous, slopes closed, but the resort itself was still technically open, which is how they ended up with tickets while everybody else was staying home.

The skeleton crew of a staff warns them to stay inside, enjoy the cocoa by the fireplace, take in the view from the grand lodge, whatever.  But Bernard ensorcels Jakeem to follow him off a cliff, in his usual way.  The dudes end up high literally and figuratively in snowy dangerous places.  The mountain paths rely on consensus reality to stay moored in the mortal realm.  Without two hundred snowbunnies thinking it’s just a ski slope, it becomes a path to the impossible.  The guys find themselves in an ice castle, subject to palace intrigue between some talking ravens, dwarven servants, and a wicked ice witch (Folk Horror).

HORROR ELEMENT:  At first it’s all fun and games.  Jakeem teaches the ravens to smoke weed, Bernard wheedles the witch about the nature of reality, maaan.  But things take a turn for the real when the witch bites back with vindictive curses and spells (Dark Magic), leading to grim shit like raven cannibalism and horrible transformations.  All psyche stripped to the bone, what’s left of our gentlemen?  Will they ever get back to college?

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Cover Song Idea

For some reason I find myself wondering if the lyrics of “Milk It” by Nirvana could be molded to fit the tune of “We Belong” by Pat Benatar.  Just writing this down for future reference.  What is a blog for, if not memos to one’s self?  Don’t answer that.

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Spooktober Day Twenty-Three

SPOOKTOBER 2024!

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group voted on.  Carrying forward from last year we’re having optional sub-themes and I’m trying to do them all like Debbie do Dallas.  Book covers made with midjourney and photopea.


SPOOKTOBER DAY #23 — MUTANTS
(× Beauty or Rococo or Vice & Sin)

TITLE:  Ecstasies

PREMISE:  Lisette Selys is the most beautiful girl in the world (Beauty), and what makes her ever more appealing is religious fervor.  She is prone to ecstasies in which all the saints in the statuary come to life and dance around her.  Or she’s a mutant (Mutants, also, not the preferred nomenclature dude) with a chromosomal abnormality, in a time (Rococo) before anyone knew what chromosomes were, trying to feel out their intersex condition.  And maybe epilepsy.  Some would say it’s a sin (Vice & Sin) to throw your expensive wig on the floor and make your mom cry, or to eschew god’s preferred use for those of your genital configuration, but that’s what god’s telling them to do.

HORROR ELEMENT:  God isn’t real of course, so the ecstasies reflect their mental state, and as pressure to become an adult woman increases, the visions take a dark turn.  The saints mutate (Mutants, i knew i could come up with a less offensive way to justify this) into shrieking devils, and carry Lisette where no one can touch them.

 

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Spooktober Day Twenty-Two

SPOOKTOBER 2024!

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group voted on.  Carrying forward from last year we’re having optional sub-themes and I’m trying to do them all like Debbie do Dallas.  Book covers made with midjourney and photopea.


SPOOKTOBER DAY #22 — CRYPTID
(× Spoopy/Pumpkincore or Slime or Metamorphosis)

TITLE:  Check Out My Drip

PREMISE:  Lilibel is into the goth version of Tiger Beat magazine (Pumpkincore), but her favorite hot boy was last seen on a desert highway where somebody picked up him up while hitchhiking and they drove him home to a haunted house (Spoopy) but then they called to ask where he was and found out he died seven years ago or something idk (Cryptid).  Well, she did a baby witch ritual to summon him from the magazine pages, and he appeared!  Not ideal, actually.

HORROR ELEMENT:  Stavros Lugosi III emerges from a giant jack-o-lantern like it was an egg, bringing ectoplasm (Slime) like a trailing yolk that can cover the world.  If Lilibel doesn’t wanna get turned into a slime (Metamorphosis) like whatever Drake was talking about in that one song, she’ll have to undo the evil that she done.

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Spooktober Day Twenty-One

SPOOKTOBER 2024!

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group voted on.  Carrying forward from last year we’re having optional sub-themes and I’m trying to do them all like Debbie do Dallas.  Book covers made with midjourney and photopea.


SPOOKTOBER DAY #21 — HAUNTED HOUSE
(× Home Invasion or Dark Secrets or Toys & Dolls)

TITLE:  Get Them Girls

PREMISE:  Some lil native girls were in a terrible catholic boarding school for abducted children (Dark Secrets), when in a strange inversion of history, all the adults died of disease, leaving the lil girls alone.  What spirits wrought this havoc?  One of them brought a corn-silk doll (Toys & Dolls) with her and accidentally invested it with real sorcery.  Kids these days.

HORROR ELEMENT:  Spirits can be vengeful whether they deserve to be or not.  The shitbird colonizers got theirs fair and square, but they still came back as angry ghosts to kill the girls (Haunted House).  It’s spirit vs. spirit, making the house unlivable, however… the girls still want to live there.  They don’t know if, or don’t believe, that they have parents to return to, and are more afraid of being taken again (Home Invasion).

When the feds come to get them girls (roll credits), it’s emotional and supernatural mayhem.

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Regarding Spooktobers

I recall last year somebody saying they couldn’t take the time to read them when I dropped them in a big bunch, which I had done because I was running late with getting them done.  This year I’ve been trickling them out slow style.

No one is obligated to give me feedback, but there’s one piece I’d like if you have the time:  if the concept became reality – if it was a book – would you read it?

Peep my Spooktober tag and let me know.

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Spooktober Day Twenty

SPOOKTOBER 2024!

Spooktober is a 31 day event of coming up with original horror ideas based on prompts my writing group voted on.  Carrying forward from last year we’re having optional sub-themes and I’m trying to do them all like Debbie do Dallas.  Book covers made with midjourney and photopea.


SPOOKTOBER DAY #20 — HISTORICAL
(× Party or Rumors & Scandal or Body Snatcher)

TITLE:  The Body of Christ

PREMISE:  So many political agendas derived from Young Jeezy, this and that interpretation of his historicity (Historical) and importance, what he said and what it meant.  It was inevitable that time travelers would try to throw shit in the game (Rumors & Scandal).  But they couldn’t go back in person.  They had to send clone avatars (Body Snatchers).  The tech works best when you send a clone that doesn’t look like anyone in particular, but if you aim for a given guy’s likeness and persona, you end up with a lot of corrupt copies.  They send the everyman clones to manipulate public opinion, to shill for their preferred beliefs, and they send the attempted jesi to attend The Last Supper (Party).

HORROR ELEMENT:  You are the son of man and about to get betrayed with a kiss from your home boy Judas, but Judas doesn’t know who to kiss, because there are about twenty of you on the scene, at least four of which are close enough to bewitch the mind.  What the hell is going on here?

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Skillet Pepperoni Sandwich

A recipe.  I hate cooking, but this is very rewarding tastewise and – while a little fiddly – it does not take amazing skillz.  There’s a place in town with awesome pepperoni grinders, but last time I went to get one, I was like, this is not as indulgent and wonderful as I remember it being.  Close, but not quite.  I thought to myself, I could recreate what I like about this at home.

The important thing is that the pepperoni gets hot enough to start leaking that red sauce on your bread, because when toasted up, it’s the thing that sets this apart from any ol’ sandwich.  It’s very nice.  I don’t have a pizza oven and I didn’t want to take the time to do this in my regular oven.  Also not keen for the experimentation involved in getting it right; I find skillet experiments easier to track than oven science.

I don’t often have pepperoni in the house; I’m minimizing meat preservatives in my diet, due to colon cancer history.  But my brother visited to officiate my wedding and left some behind, which is why I had occasion to do this recently.

Ingredients:

  • Some bullshit-ass store pepperoni.  Gotta be the cheap non-turkey stuff for a proper amount of fat.
  • Sliced bread.  I used franz “classic french” flavor; slightly less worse than the cheapest white bread.
  • A wee bit of sliced black olives, enough to cover the bread lightly, shouldn’t be piled overlapping.
  • A wee bit of salted butter.  I just take a stick and melt directly onto the pan what I need.
  • Enough sliced provolone or mozzarella to cover your sandwiches one deep.
  • A wee bit of mayo.
  • Optional:  A leaf or two of lettuce.

Tools:

  • Stove.
  • Non-stick frying pan in very good condition.  Ones with flaking nonstick material are probably giving you cancer, chuck that shit.  I don’t know where my roommate got this new one, but it’s primo.
  • Spatula:  Don’t use metal spatulas on non-stick pans.

Steps:

Lay out your bread, as many sandwiches as will fit in your skillet.  I used three bisected slices to make three half-sandwiches, which is as much as reasonably fits in my little pan.

Start the pan heating on low-medium.  Those knobs that go 1-10, I’d say 3.5-4.  Lay out your pepperoni inside the pan, about two deep and roughly in the shapes of your sandwiches.

Open your sandwiches and lay down enough olives to sparsely cover one side.  Over the top of those olives, lay down your cheese, one layer deep.  Feel free to adjust anything.  I don’t care, but sometimes a minimal amount of what you need produces a classier taste, and a less sloppy bite than a big pile of ingredients.

Once the pepperoni has released its red stuff and looks sweaty, flip it to cook the other side.  If the pieces are sticking together, great, makes flipping while maintaining your sandwich shapes easier.  If not, you can just scoop ’em on the sandwiches sloppy style later.

You’re not cooking to get the pepperoni crisp, just to release a modest amount of the fat in it.  Takes a very short time.  Then put it on the sandwiches, on top of the cheese side.

Melt a little butter in the pan, just enough to lightly soak the outer surface of a bread slice.  If it mixes with residual pepperoni fat, great, that tastes awesome.

Take the top slices of your sandwiches and invert them into the pan to get a little butter on them – they should only be in the pan close to an instant – then take them back out and put them butter-side up on the sandwiches again.  You now have sandwiches with no butter on the bottom, just on the top.

Melt a little more butter in the pan, with the same kind of aim – not to drench the bread, just oil it so it doesn’t scorch and so it tastes nice.

Put your sandwiches in the pan, non-buttered side down.  Now you have sandwiches with butter on both sides.

Cover the pan so the cheese will melt better, and put a timer on for 3-4 minutes.  Times surely vary with how big of a pan you’re using, etc.

Uncover and flip the sandwiches.  Hopefully the cheese will be melted enough to keep them from flying to pieces.

Cook uncovered another 3-4 minutes or until cheese looks reasonably melted, mindful not to burn the sandwich.

Take the nearly complete sandwiches off the pan, onto the plate you will use to serve them.  Open up the pepperoni side.  Remember our layers are olives-cheese-pepperoni.  Ideally the olive side will be hard to open because glued down with cheese; the pepperoni side will open right up.  You will see orange-red staining your bread.  Good!

Put a thin layer of mayo on that stained bread.  If you’re using lettuce, put it on the pepperoni side, and when you’re done, close it up and serve immediately.

This is very fatty food, which is why it’s good to not go gonzo with any of the ingredients.  Beware if you have gall trouble.  When you eat it warm, crisp on the outside, warm on the inside, that shit is bomb.  If you eat it quick enough that the lettuce and mayo are still cold while everything else is still hot, it’s kinda like having hot fudge on ice cream – a narrow window of time in which the food is dee-luxe.

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