iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 12h

Tonight I turned out the lights, lit a candle, and settled in to watch Sister Death. There's nothing really showy or pulse-pounding about it, but it is beautifully filmed and feels like one of the few Catholic horror movies that's actually about Catholicism.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 20h

Book 86 of 2026: The Last Day of H. P. Lovecraft As he dies, Lovecraft receives a few strange visitors and is forced to reckon with his life, his prejudices, and the possibility of his legacy. Way better than Moore's Providence, if that means anything to you.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I mean, come on, this is a face you can trust, right? RIGHT?

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I streamed Burnt Offerings for friends, and it made some of them *very* tense.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

No idea why, but print copies of my novel are currently 5% off www.amazon.com/Ornamental-W...

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Book 85 of 2026: Katsura Hoshino, D.Gray-man vol. 29 Does still reading this when a new volume comes out make me an "old head"?

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Thank you! I think it's the little details that make an adventure memorable

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Man, Vernon Lee's "Amour Dure" is an unsung Christmas horror story. It's got everything you might want: fin de siecle atmosphere, ghostly visitations, the dark and violent history of Italy, seduction from beyond the grave...

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The first October horror one-shot is in the books for 2026. We played through a Call of Cthulhu scenario I wrote inspired by Yellowjackets. talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/2026/10/hell...

talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com

Hell is empty and all the devils are here

The October series of Halloween horror one-shots has begun! We're kicking things off with one of my favorite games, Call of Cthulhu . The ch...

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Throw in a tragic backstory or two, a "doctor" operating on the fringes of mesmerism, a clearly insane hellfire priest, psychosexual menace around every corner, a mob of angry peasants, a folk horror rite and, well, you've got a heady mix going on in Demons of the Mind.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

You know you're in for something different from Hammer when the first ten minutes pass without any dialog. Something's rotten at the local nobleman's estate: between the daughter who runs away to hook up with a medical student and the weird invalid son, it's a real family affair.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Strange Voyage: Not much of a voyage, but it is plenty strange. A womanizing musician is entwined with a fading crackpot aristocratic family in Spain. This is a tragicomic Gothic with a body count. Also features some truly rockin' accordion playing and dancing the twist.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

When did people start having to wear black gloves like they're in a fuckin' giallo just to do some cooking or baking?

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Dark Night of the Scarecrow isn't the most intense or brutal horror movie you'll ever see, but it possesses a kind of native "sweatiness" that gives it a lurid, "I kinda can't believe this was on television" feel that is worth the price of admission. However: surprisingly low on scarecrow action.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Dark Night of the Scarecrow: this made-for-tv horror movie from the early 80s is a doozy. A mentally handicapped man is mistakenly blamed for the death of a child, hunted down by some bloodthirsty good 'ol boys, and killed. But things don't rest there--one by one, the hunters become the hunted.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Book 84 of 2026: Fred Noland, Our Little Wild Time Our Little Wild Time is a collection of comics from indie zines. They vary in story and characters--from Eurotrash Gone Wild to Southern Gothic tale of life on the skids--but there is a unifying grimy manic-ness that provides the throughline.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It's an interesting idea...I could take some pics from my writing notebook and also the scrap piece of paper with my map and *other* notes on heh

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I just wrote them for my group. Putting adventure stuff together in a way that other people can use is pretty hard!

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

After the game, my players were talking about their favorite Call of Cthulhu scenarios we've done over the years and the two they settled on were two that I wrote. That's very flattering, especially since I think CoC has some of the best published scenarios of any rpg ever.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

No way, man, I've always been Team Becky.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Call of Cthulhu game update: four dead characters, one permanently insane, one survivor.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Oooooh, I was gonna say...don't you have Wegmans or something? I've been to Maryland, but I guess I didn't realize where the booze was.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Wait, really? That was hard to find in your neck of the woods? Man!

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Book 83 of 2026: Be Not Afraid Be Not Afraid is a Southern Gothic nightmare that tells the tragic tale of a corrupt(ing) man born of the nephilim; this comic reminded me quite a bit--in terms of art style and theme--of the old Hellraiser comics published on the Epic imprint.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

It's October, which means a month of running horror RPGs. Tonight is Call of Cthulhu. Guess I gotta learn how to play that again.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Well, sure, there's going to be professors who don't mind entertaining those ideas, or who are centrist enough to secretly agree with them, but that's a separate issue within higher ed. And boy howdy do I have some opinions on that as well.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I don't think it backfires because: A) it gives you the opportunity to speak to what a load of idiocy that argument is and B) the rest of the class is now fully aware that they don't need to take anything the bigot says seriously going forward

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I learned early on in my teaching career that the most effective way to challenge students with regressive conservative views was to...just let them speak. Many of them then realized that they didn't know anything, a fact the rest of the class would realize much sooner.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A lot of would-be "conservative intellectuals" hold a fantasy of holding forth before a rapt audience, swaying minds to their cause, but in actuality faced with a lectern they don't have anything more than inarticulate, wet sounds and slurs in their repertoire.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Trick r treat yourself, it's October

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The Darkest Night is dead set on topping itself by making every successive sexual assault happen to younger and younger women, bottoming out at a six-year old. The protagonist isn't even really successful at defeating evil, so he just busts his precious dam and drowns everyone, fuck it

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Her solution: Marry the protagonist (I think she's said maybe ten words total to him before) so he can take her virginity FOR REAL and stop this tiger fuckin' nonsense.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The (white, virginal) governess to the maharaja's children is experiencing nightly visitations from a magic tiger who is fucking her. But it "doesn't count" because it's a tiger. She still considered herself a virgin.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

But don't worry, it has some non-white-on-white bigotry too, but oddly all the real slurs are put in the mouth of the half-white guy who doesn't pass as white so...

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Also also: the protagonist is embarrassed he got drunk and had to be carried to bed "like a common Irishman."

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Also: there is a high-octane tennis match in which the protagonist's opponent might be possessed by the spirit of his executed, Kali-worshipping grandfather.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For example: the protagonist watches a twelve year old girl do a striptease, then suddenly she falls to the ground, blood streaming from between her thighs, as if she has just been deflowered by an invisible demon.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Book 82 of 2026: Peter Saxon, The Darkest Night A British chap in India just wants to build a dam, but the spirit of a tyrannical maharaja and his ding-dang Kali cult keeps getting in the way! This book certainly has some *ideas*:

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

We're covering Vernon Lee on the next podcast episode!

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Did you know I wrote a fantasy novel that's perfect for the Long Halloween Season? It's got ghosts, demons, and witches. There's a skeleton on the cover! Pick it up now and you can have it read by the 31st. (Or just reshare this post to help get the word out plz.) mybook.to/ornamentalwo...

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Some Star Trek seems very horny, but it's specifically horny in a "band kid" way, and guys, I can't hang with that.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Book 81 of 2026: @isabelalivino.bsky.social, An Immaculate Deception An amazing roller coaster of a novel! A Gothic premise veers into occult territory, takes a detour into Norman Bates-land, then the twist turns the whole thing into a late-season soap opera, but I mean that in a positive way.

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Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Me too! I went on to teach the world of several authors I discovered in there

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