#rootingformephistopheles

[kirtlandswarbler]

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

A decade ago @rootingformephistopheles gave me their paperback copy of this book when we met, and now I've made this surprise rebind for them in return.

Assorted thoughts under the cut.

This was my first rebind of a commercial paperback! I could've been more free with the typeset and thereby the formatting and thereby the way the book is bound and covered if I'd typeset and printed it myself but I wanted to see what it was like to work with a commercial paperback. It was very different! I cut off the original glued spine, then glued the paper back together in segments which I sewed together with an overcast stitch. The paper was so thin I kept ripping it or marking it while sewing it, and as a result this is deffo not the best book in the world but it certainly is filled with my love.

Since I couldn't typeset the work myself I wanted the cover to be extravagant enough to make up for the standard interior. And I wanted to experiment a bit with thickness and depth and different materials. I got inspired by a phrase very early on in the book where Andrew describes "bright ribbons of blood coursing over the velvet of [his victims'] skin".

Really really frustratingly the very last step of the entire process majorly fucked with the cover - I decided after I'd finished everything I wanted to have the title on the cover after all instead of only on the spine, and ironing it on must've reactivated the glue or melted the wax I'd used to seal the paper or something, and as a result the paper got so much more splotchy and the ends of the ribbon show through so much more and I'm very sad about this :( It doesn't show in the photos but it's very noticeable irl :(

The... I don't know what the term for this actually is. I want to call it a flying page but that's not right. Idk the image right at the start of the book I guess was inspired in particular by the illustrations of human meat cuts by R. Jon Snider. I really hope his segmentation of cuts was correct because I don't know shit about meat lol. Wish the transparent paper was more transparent but this is the best I got :/

Having to get these images printed at a store was 😬 interesting.

I'm not usually a big fan of sprinkled edges, I know they're traditional and everything but idk I just don't like them a lot of the time - but come on. It's a book all about blood. I couldn't not do red splatters on this edge. I've never tried fore edge painting before so this is also something that didn't turn out perfect since a lot of pages ended up with minor and a handful with rather major paint bleed but the edges do look cool imo

Both the cover image and the illustration at the start of the book are by John Singer Sargent. The endpapers are a lovely Italian Carta Verese, the pattern of which reminded me of stab wounds ..........and of buttholes.

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

I need you to know that after ur poll the other day I rewatched Inu-oh (hadn't seen it since it was in theaters) and those bitches are SO gay wow good for them

completely forgot to answer this but HELL YEAH inu-oh my beloved!!! they ARE gay good for them

[ectoplasm-james]

*star* do that poor poor boy xichen

oh god poor boy, soft boy

1. NEW MOOD—LPX

i chase illusion every time / until i’m fucking petrified

2. THE END OF LOVE—FLORENCE & THE MACHINE

we were a family pulled from the flood / you tore the floorboards up / and let the river rush in

3. IF WE WERE MADE OF WATER—BANKS

when you asked me if i could forgive / when you asked me i should have said no

4. SCARED—DELTA RAE

baby can you keep your promise? / baby can i keep you honest? / ‘cause i’m scared

5. NEW CEREMONY—DRY THE RIVER

don’t think about the future now / i know it’s gotta stop love but i don’t know how

Send me a character or a ship and i’ll make a five song playlist for them!

[ionizedyeast]

🌻

Okay so like.Being back in podcast hell as reignited the fires in me to make my own audiodrama and I’ve scripted a first episode of a bunch of different concepts and I REALLY wanna do it but I have no other people to help me out or provide voices or editing or sound mixing but I KNOW I have story ideas in mind that would catch people’s eye, but I’m so sure nothing will ever come from them. They’re all horror and scifi ideas with queer characters and YEAH! But I probably won’t ever be able to do something...

[rionsanura]

oh my goddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd I was looking up my boy Joseph Timms’s career moves cause I rewatched the Francis scene from the Globe H4-1, so I was wondering what he was up to since I last saw him, and it turns out he was in like 4 episodes of a terrible show called Atlantis that I tried to watch while it was airing because the premise is right up my alley but I couldn’t get past the awfulness BUT

OH MY FREAKIN GOD my little Francis bby Joseph Timms, who when I asked him at the stage door to sign my Shrew DVD said “I’m in this one!” and spent awhile gushing about the rest of the cast when I told him I knew and had in fact asked him to sign it for that reason, who eventually bashfully introduced himself to me with “I’m Joe Timms” and a handshake,

that lovely small man was in Atlantis, all right. He played Icarus and he is CANONICALLY SLASHED WITH PYTHAGORAS THE MAIN CHARACTER’S SIDEKICK so beautifully that I asked myself, as I watched, what these gorgeously executed gay period drama scenes were doing in this trash fantasy show. It was glorious. It’s been vidded. More than once. LOOK HOW BEAUTIFULLY GAY MY LOVELY FRANCIS IS this is the best news I’ve had in weeks

[churchyardgrim]

rootingformephistopheles replied to your post: eeehhhh japan’s education system is weirding me...

Not to quibble but can’t you have a job at 16 in the us? A lot of my high school friends worked fast food jobs during high school. I mean 15 feels young to me too but idk that working during hs is exclusive to japan

at least where I grew up, it was really unusual for anyone in middle/high school to be formally employed, and most places are barred from employing anyone under 18 as per child labor laws. certainly no one I went to school with was stressing about being unable to hold down a job, we were kids!

granted my image of adolescent japanese life is probably waaaaay off base from what it actually is, but.

[kmclaude]

@rootingformephistopheles replied to your post “Concept: Ashmedai being into vore and shapeshifting into a tiny form...”

I don't worry I remember every single one of those fuckers even tho kuma was the one that got Popular

they remind me of happier times

which sounds fucked up but in context it makes sense see back then you could draw whatever weird shit you wanted and no one treated you like shit or tried to ruin your reputation over it because drawings aren’t real people, helen

[ask-food]

Monte sent me! Do you have recs for 'healthy food for lazy people?' Big portions are a plus (I know everyone says 'if you want to lose weight just eat less food' but like then I'm just hungry and cranky all the time and I hate myself even MORE), microwaves are a plus, one pot/not having a lot of dishes at the end is a plus, NOT needing a blender or food processor is a plus.

The “lose weight = less food” way of dieting is kind of bullshit for the exact reason you just listed. Most people lose weight by a combination of diet AND exercise. So, dramatic cuts to caloric intake reduces energy which makes exercise more difficult, in turn resulting in no weight loss for the dieter. The best thing to do is to maintain a healthy calorie level (which can be calculated with your age, weight and activity level but I can’t recall the exact formula) & a healthy level of physical activity. So reducing portions is not a good piece of advice.

The place that people don’t often think about for “healthy & lazy” is their snacking habits! The easiest way to make a healthy change with really minimal effort is to invest in healthy snacks (ditch chips & crackers & cheez-its & etc., for things like sunflower seeds, nuts, fruit, etc.), depending on your budget. Having a healthy snack in between healthy meals is a good start and requires 0 energy or effort. Just have it on hand.

As for a few good “healthy & lazy” meals, I use a crockpot a lot so I love slow cooker recipes (but that can be substituted for a regular pot if you don’t have a slow cooker!). Soup is a great meal when you’re looking for big portions & healthy ingredients because usually it’s just a bunch of vegetables cooked together so they don’t go to waste. Poultry as your go-to meat is also a surefire way to be a little healthier, too. 

Anyway, here are my top 3 Healthy Single Pot/Minimal Dish Meals: (and also easy to reheat/have leftovers). 

slow cooker chicken tacos/fajitas – chicken breast, jalapeno, onion, chicken stock. season with salt, pepper, cumin, paprika & cayenne (depending on spiciness preferences & availability). cook the chicken and vegetables down (either in a pot on the stove or in a slowcooker on low) until it pulls apart [think NC BBQ consistency], dump it into corn tortillas. top with vegetables (or cheese, but you asked for healthy so I am omitting cheese) such as spinach, chopped onions, or avocados. a full pot will last about a week depending on how many people it’s feeding. pork can also be used, but chicken is generally regarded as healthier. completely safe to reheat in the microwave or eat cold. throw a can of blackbeans in the microwave with some onion, jalapeno & cumin and add it to the chicken (or use it by itself for a vegan friendly taco filling!)

potato soup – (I use a blender for this recipe but you honestly don’t need to) so - big chunks of potatoes (with or without skin is up to you, but with skin is a little healthier), chopped onion, celery & carrot. cover in chicken stock and cook until potatoes are cooked through. stir it up really well or hit it with a potato masher to get more consistency/fewer chunks. when it’s almost done cooking, add milk or cream and let it simmer for a few minutes until it’s the right thickness (this is a matter of preference, not an exact science). top with veggies (chives) or cheese/bacon bits. easily reheated in the microwave and one pot lasts about a week. (note: this can be basically any soup. soup is just chopped up vegetables + stock and occasionally chunks of meat).

big salad bowls. i tend to buy the plastic packages of greens from walmart (they come in a bunch of different varieties; spinach, spinach/kale blends, spinach/arugula, sweet greens, spring mix) for about $2.50 and dump the entire container into a bowl and throw in some chopped veggies (onion, peppers, cucumbers, apples, nuts if that’s what floats your boat). this itself makes a solid snack or compliment to a meal, but  you can also grill a couple of chicken breasts and make a chicken salad out of it for something more substantial. one big bowl of salad lasts like 3 days but is definitely a solid four or five meals until the veggies start to wilt. dressing tends to be unhealthy but a little bit of olive oil and lemon juice will dress it right up and still be really good for you. (also put a pinch of salt on all of your salads from now on forever and thank me later).

those are my Big Three Easy & Healthy-ish meals that don’t take a lot of prep or kitchen space (basically just a cutting board and a single pot or slow cooker to cook in). I have more elaborate ones and more straightforward ones. (like, cook a couple of chicken breasts and eat them with some vegetables of your choosing! that’s my go-to healthy meal but it’s very Boring.) These aren’t precisely recipes because I don’t so much use recipes, but they’re things that I make the way I make them (and I’ve been trying to eat healthier this year so as the months wear on I’ll probably have more of these to share), and I hope that helps.