iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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the beast with five fingers ✍️ @beastliness.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

climbing over you to get from one leaf to another

Digital art. Two snails stretching across the space between two leaves, their bodies intertwined such that it’s unclear which is supporting the other. All in shades of seafoam green.

St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I just finished reading over the first four chapters of A Companion in Vice, since they're all going out in a bundle to supporters tomorrow morning - and fuck, this is crazy. Did I write this? Me?? How did I write this???

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I'm afraid to even mention the effects of estrosterone

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I’ve invented a new hormone called testostrogen, and you aren’t gonna like what it does

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

On October 9th, it comes ALIVE. The mad doctor awakens to discover that he has been made into the monster. His assistant's unnatural obsession with him leads to an agonizing betrayal. People close to them start turning up dead.

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the beast with five fingers ✍️ @beastliness.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

it isn't easy to maintain this level of elegance and poise when you're in the mad science lab all day doing unethical things with sharp implements and hazardous materials

Digital art. Incomplete sketch. Dr. Avenroyth wearing a silk dressing gown. Elegantly posed with legs crossed. Reading a book. All in shades of mint and forest green.

Digital art. Incomplete sketch. Dr. Avenroyth wearing a lab coat and pulling on a surgical glove. Sinister and seductive. All in shades of mint and jade green.

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the beast with five fingers ✍️ @beastliness.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

qualifications for the ideal mad scientist’s assistant: willingness to work on one’s knees, tendency to hiss “yes, master!" at appropriate moments, having a thing for black surgical gloves

Digital art. Incomplete sketch. Martin Rem wearing three slightly old-fashioned-looking outfits, suitable to a doctor or scientist. All in shades of olive and mint green.

Digital art. Incomplete sketch. Martin Rem kneeling and looking up adoringly. Surgical instruments in background. All in shades of olive, mint, and forest green.

Digital art. Martin Rem sitting with legs crossed. Holding a book. Looking up at you witheringly for interrupting him. Simple sketch on radioactive-green paper.

Digital art. Martin Rem's body sketched from three angles. Small, cute, and wearing glasses. Surgical instruments in background. All in shades of olive and seafoam green.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

If a post begins with something to the effect of "people these days don't" you can safely ignore every word that follows.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Kink is a way of introducing narrative tension to your sex.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

They’re calling A Companion in Vice "a strange rectangular object that is vibrating softly and emitting a faint green glow". They’re calling A Companion in Vice "an immediate threat to life and limb."

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

You can mitigate 99% of the psychological hazards of the internet by having enough emotional support in close, stable relationships. The trouble is that most people who have those tend to lose the desire to post.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is the thing that all of the worst novelists you hate hearing about have figured out - and the thing that the best novelists whose work never goes anywhere are afraid of learning.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

You can completely and utterly whiff every other element of the novel and still have people read and enjoy your story if you can do that. Stories are a form of communication. What good is a story that nobody reads?

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

There’s an angle from which the only thing that really matters when it comes to novel writing is knowing how to get your readers invested in your story and keep them invested.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Here on the blurred borders of autumn, fields sing for their due libations of ale and blood. Demand the honouring of our old contracts with them. For harvest needs a balancing and fair payment. Take not corn saints and corn maidens till the tithe is paid. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #Equinox

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

THANK YOU everyone for helping the newsletter reach the real milestone! 💜🎊🎉 It just hit 7000 subscribers. That’s INSANE.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It’s been a long time coming, but at last, we made it. Wipes away a tear.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

You’ve got to appreciate the erotic elements of things that are not explicitly or directly sexual, while also not tricking yourself into thinking this somehow makes you above sex.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

People just really don’t like it when you’re a guy some maniac pieced together out of mismatched corpse parts.

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Brain Dracula @cryptotheism.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

[guy in a labcoat showing rapidly me photos] Lives in a hell of their own creation. Hell of their own creation. Hell of their own creation. Well adjusted. Hell of their own creation. Well adjusted but is currently creating their own special hell. Hell of their own creation.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Posting is simply a matter of recreationally putting words in an order.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Unemployed e-celebrities are the wandering rōnin of the modern world.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is btw the actual power that stories have - but wielding it is profoundly unintuitive.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

A large part of what storytelling does for people is inventing ways to give readers permission to explore feelings that they think they are not allowed to have.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

No… not the serum *I start slowly and horribly transforming into an unspoiled wetland*

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the beast with five fingers ✍️ @beastliness.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

this is a very good article but I particularly appreciate that they archived Ask Jesus

In some cases, it even pulled down entire publications. Bible Scriptures, a site where BBM had published content attributed to a roster of fake Christian theologians, hosted an AI-powered Jesus, and sold a $97 e-book supposedly penned by a made-up Franciscan scholar clad in a traditional robe — a curious choice, given that Franciscans famously take vows of poverty — has been locked behind a password since May. (BBM sold several other e-books attributed to fake writers on its site Hack Spirit; those volumes are still being sold, but they’ve now been altered so that the author is listed as Lachlan.)

Ask Jesus: Your Personal Guide to Biblical Wisdom

Explore life's most challenging questions through the lens of Christian teachings with our "Ask Jesus" tool.
Powered by Al, this tool brings the wisdom of Jesus to your fingertips, offering personalized, scripture-based guidance for your dilemmas.

Whether you're facing moral conflicts, seeking spiritual advice, or navigating personal challenges, this tool provides insights aligned with Biblical principles.
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Questions

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

A Companion in Vice is a gothic-noir hybrid novel about psychosexual obsession and mad science, sent for free, a chapter per week, directly to your inbox. Beginning October 9th. FIND OUT MORE HERE - stjohnstarling.substack.com

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I bet you would have a great time if I injected you with my experimental serum that turns you feel pain as pleasure, then opened you up and squeezed your heart.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

What good is a novel if it doesn’t scandalize you a little?

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I’ve always found this post funny because “Werner Herzog in a saw trap” is basically what happens in Chapter One of A Companion in Vice.

Tumblr user cheaphalloweencostume: “im gonna put that old man in a situation” and then the old man is 35 and the situation is heterosexual marriage. get real and put werner herzog in a saw trap or stop wasting my time

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A Companion in Vice is actually 100% free of thematic subtext. The Frankensteins are just Frankensteins and the surgery is just meant to be scary mad science stuff. Frankly it’s all a bunch of spooky Halloween nonsense. Don’t worry about it.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Boys love it when you put them in a jar with a leaf and twig to climb on.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The chores required of authors are manifold, the wretchedness of publishing is multiform, overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

What's A Companion in Vice about? Well, it's a cozy fantasy novel about, uh, mad scientists (shoves vivisection bench into a nearby closet) the nice kind. Yeah they're just, um, opening a coffee shop together (there’s a crash as one of them injects the other in the throat and he passes out.)

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

but is it something that you personally need to worry about happening to you? No. That's like worrying about being hit by a car because you went outside.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The thing that happened to Isabel Fall is about as likely as being struck by lightning. Yes, it was important, it was revealing of serious structural issues, and it is very much worth thinking and talking about -

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

You do not need to change a damn thing about what you're writing.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

in 99% of cases, as long as when you're in public (i.e. posting) if you act like you don't care, they won't be able to get a foothold and will just fall back off. Be scared in private, get your friends to reassure you, don't do it in public.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The reality is that, for the average person, the risk of that happening to you is incredibly small, and you can largely eliminate it by just performing not giving a shit. Regardless of whether you privately care about what random strangers online think,

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Having done this for several years now, it's pretty clear to me that one of the biggest problems for the arts in the age of the internet is just how scared writers are of people coming after them because of something they've written - and toning down their writing or not sharing it as a result.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Just remember: feelings are NOT real and if you don’t think about them they can’t hurt you.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

We only recently became aware of each other, after months of narrow misses while conducting opera ghost business. I have more candelabras than he does. He doesn’t even have a waterfall down here

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I’m in a PotO4PotO (Phantom of the Opera for Phantom of the Opera) relationship. We’re always competing for whose soul is more tortured and who gets to unmask his hideous visage first. We live in adjacent underground lakes beneath the same opera house.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The problem with writing about the relationship between people's anxieties and their erotic impulses is that people do actually very much have those anxieties for real, and if you acknowledge that explicitly, some subset of those people will react very badly. God I'm exhausted just thinking about it

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

and I'm just too tired and busy to deal with that.

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I've been pretty quiet about the trans aspects of A Companion in Vice, and, trying now to put some thoughts together, I'm realizing that it's because there's almost no way to talk about the feelings the book is addressing without stepping on some kind of discourse landmine

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St John Starling (evil now) @stjohnstarling.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

A Companion in Vice dares to ask important questions like: Is it possible to piss off every internet poisoned trans discourse poster at the same time? Is being trans like being a franking stein?

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