NBC's Hannibal, The Wrath of the Lamb 3x13 / Poppy Z. Brite, Exquisite Corpse

"You are alone, because you are unique" "I'm as alone as you are"

JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: i want you to sssay hello to Rowling: graham lineham Lineham: [wearing foil hat] free masons run the country Rowling: he'sss got sssome great ideasss you should hear

Poe: joanne you don't need to bring him here Poe: like, you really don't Rowling: he hass thingsss to sssay and you're ALL going to hear them Poe: this is really kind of off topic for us here Rowling: EVERYONE will hear them

Rowling: ssssee, yearsss ago i disssmisssed graham lineham'ssss babble as the bad opticsss ravingsss of a lunatic Rowling: but now that the overton window hass sshifted Rowling: i'm proud to sssay thessse bad opticsss ravingsss are quite good actually!

Rowling: go ahead, graham, tell them what you told me Lineham: trans people produce no great films, no music, no art Lineham: they're incapable of doing this basic human thing because they're subhuman Lineham: untermensch, if you will Rowling: isssn't he great?

Lineham: trans books are always universally panned because of their incoherence Billy Martin: Hailey Piper: Eve Harms: Gretchen Felker-Martin: Joe Koch: M. Lopes da Silva: Arden Powell: Lor Gislason: Julya Oui: LC von Hessen: GE Woods: Michelle Belanger: Rain Corbyn: SA Chant:

FT Catulla: Viktor Athelstan: Meagan Hotz: Ziggy Schutz: Rose Sable: WN Derring-Judith: Charles Maria Tor: Devaki Devay: Dayna Ingram: Ori Jay: Ai Burton: Gabriel Valentine: Cosmin-Mihai Birsan: Jei D Marcade: Rhiannon Rasmussen: Max Turner: Taylor J Pitts: Vincent Endwell:

Bri Crozier: Theo Hendrie: Derek des Anges: Briar Ripley Page: Winter Holmes: gaast: Maya Deane: Charles-Elizabeth Boyles: Layne van Rensburg: Amanda M Blake: May Leitz: Alison Rumfitt: Rivers Solomon: Lillian Boyd: Torrey Peters: Taliesin Neith: Daniel M. Lavery: Joss Lake: Aubrey Wood: Jonah Wu:

Daphne du Maurier: Patricia Highsmith: Franz Kafka: Kafka: wait Kafka: why did the camera pan to me

Barker: oh you know why haha Poe: clive Kafka: why Kafka: [hugging blåhaj] i don't know what you mean

reblog this post if your childhood obsession with goth characters was an early sign of your bisexuality

Queer horror from my teens

I periodically wonder whether these books are still known and read by young goths and horror fans as they were all extremely important to me in my teenage years, so I thought I'd share them.

Though I'm cishet, during the mid 90s two of my favourite authors wrote primarily queer fiction: they were Anne Rice and another author from New Orleans who is now known as Billy Martin.

He came out as a trans man in 2011, however these books were published prior to that so unfortunately you have to search for them under his deadname. This is why I've used that name in the tags on this post. I don't believe the books were ever reprinted with his current name.

Though I loved Rice, I always felt a more immediate connection with Martin due to his vivid portrayal of subcultures like goth and punk, and how it felt to be a teenager who was part of them. I could see myself in many of his characters as I had the same interests, listened to the same music, and shared the same sense of social alienation. Remember in the 90s the Internet was still a reasonably new thing, and many of us didn't have a home Internet connection at all. There was certainly no social media, no YouTube, and no real way to meet and interact with like-minded teens unless you were lucky enough to have another "weird kid" at your school. If you were a weird kid, you likely had very few friends and were bullied.

That as much as anything else led me to seek solace in books written by an author who I felt understood me, and characters who became my friends.

Lost Souls is about vampires in a kind of Lost Boys/Near Dark way. Fans of the YouTuber OfHerbsAndAltars might be interested to know that this book is where the name of his channel comes from - it's a description of the taste of Chartreuse liqueur.

Drawing Blood is about ghosts, a "murder house", computer hacking, comic art and a very beautiful (if rather messed up) romance. This one is probably my favourite of the three.

Exquisite Corpse is about serial killers, set against the AIDS crisis of the 90s. If you like the Hannibal TV series you'll probably enjoy this one - imagine if Dennis Nilsen and Jeffrey Dahmer had somehow met.

Martin doesn't pull any punches when it comes to descriptions of blood and gore, violence, abusive parents or his portrayal of toxic romantic relationships (of which there are many in his books), but if you can deal with those things there is also a great deal of beauty, phenomenally good writing, and a somewhat unique perspective on the supernatural.

Maybe I'm biased, looking at these through the lens of my teenage self. Maybe they'd seem horribly dated to today's young audience. But I still wanted to make this post in case there's someone out there who will end up loving them as much as I did.

"a spasm of self-loathing so great it was almost pride."

-Exquisite Corpse, Poppy Z. Brite

Exquisite Corpse - Poppy Z. Brite (currently Billy Martin)

I was left clutching at that most poignant and useless of regrets: if my lover had to die, why couldn’t I have been the one to kill him?

Andrew Compton on Jay Byrne in Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

so these are my copies of lost souls and drawing blood by poppy z. brite. bought in the mid 90s by my mother, she gave these books to me when i was 14 and in the twelve years since ive read them maybe 20 times each? honestly, i lost count. i know some people will find what ive done over the years to be sacrilegious as ive had to completely tape the outside and spine bc of how fragile the books had become, added stickers and drawings and song lyrics, and left lipstick kisses at all the moments that broke my heart, but i disagree. these are my favorite books of all time and theyve become so special to me that they feel like a part of me. personalizing the book in this way feels right to me. i fully intend to add even more the next time i reread them.

A line spoken by Lucas Ransom from the novel Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite. Made by me in PhotoPea.

[This post has no DNI other than not to involve it in discourse or mockery.]

Midnight Pals: Advice from a Dog

Dean Koontz: hey guys i got a story for you! Poe: oh wow, good job dean! Poe: i'm sure we're all excited to hear a new scary story from you Koontz: oh this one's not scary Poe: Poe: oh? Koontz: it's about dogs

Koontz: actually i didn't write this Koontz: it's by trixie! Poe: your dog? Koontz: [struggling to contain laughter] yes! trixie wrote it! Koontz: [struggling to contain laughter] she wrote it all by herself!

Koontz: it's about advice from a dog Koontz: i think you can learn everything you need to know from a dog Koontz: i think dogs are the wisest people i know!

Koontz: ask trixie what she thinks about cats Poe: Poe: what does trixie think about cats Koontz: trixie says we should treat them with sympathy because its not their fault they're not dogs Poe: Koontz: eh? Poe: Koontz: eh?

Koontz: trixie says we should treat them with sympathy because its not their fault they're not dogs Lovecraft: [sweats] i'm gonna kill you!!! Lovecraft: h-how dare you Lovecraft: how dare you mallign cats like that! King: whoa whoa whoa calm down there howard! King: edgar help me out here Poe: no no howard's right here

Koontz: [crying] steve i didn't mean it King: i'm sorry dean, you really shouldn't have pissed off these cat lovers Koontz: [crying] i-i didn't mean it King: i know dean, it's ok Koontz: [crying] t-trixie didn't really say that King: i know dean Koontz: [crying] i just made it up Koontz: [crying] i-i wanted to seem cool

King: its ok dean King: you just can't say that sort of thing around cat people King: you know how they are King: they just don't understand things the way us dog people do Koontz: [sniffling] r-right

Koontz: [sniffling] i-its just that i thinks dogs are the best Poppy Z Brite: better than ferrets? Koontz: i-i-i King: don't answer that, dean Koontz: i think King: DO NOT answer that, dean

from my short story, such a small love

can't sleep so I'm thinking of all the analysis I want to write. anyway, nearly a month after reading it, I'm still thinking about Exquisite Corpse. I wanna write a little essay on Andrew and Jay as metaphors for the physical (AIDS) and societal (homophobia, the Reagan/Thatcher admins, racism) issues that murdered young gay men. like. Obviously they are based on serial killers (Dahmer and Nielsen respectively) but I think it's also very interesting to examine them as the Powers That Be made manifest. I know AIDS is a prominent part of the novel already -- but Andrew and Jay are like the disease: infecting, maiming, and ultimately killing young queer men. Eating those young men alive literally and metaphorically.

anyway now that I've written this down I'm gonna try and sleep again. gn 💤

just finished poppy z. brite's "exquisite corpse" and it absolutely wrecked me. was especially really, eerily compelled by the abusive and tense relationship between luke and tran.

they are both such fascinating and honest characters. i've met them, i've known them, i've loved them, i've been them. so i had to sketch them out.

i really loved the book but it is incredibly graphic and is probably the most objectively vile thing i've ever read. it's a book about two gay serial killers, the runaway who gets caught up with them, and his abusive ex-bf-turned-abrassive-niche-radio-host.

but, it is also such an honest and compelling exploration of queer relationships, of desire, of mortality, and of the social impact of HIV/AIDs. also the prose is bone-chilling, beautiful, and gruesome while still feeling very down-to-earth and real.

THE WAY EXQUISITE CORPSE NEEDS A MOVIE ADAPTATION

The knife parted skin and muscle, skated over breastbone. When it reached the hollow of the ribs it sank deep into the body. There was no resistance, no indication of agony; Birdy lay motionless in his restraints and let me open him up like a Christmas parcel. As my hand brushed his erection aside, I felt the blade grate against his pubic bone. For a long moment his torso remained intact, bisected from throat to crotch by a narrow red ribbon. Then his wound blossomed open and his contents spilled forth, a cornucopia of rare fluids and stinking scarlet treasures … A sepulchre of disease.

Andrew Compton and Birdy in Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

“To everyone else he was Tran. In English, the short sharp syllable suggested movement (transmission, transpose) and the crossing of boundaries (transcontinental, tranquilize, transvestite), both of which he liked.”