St John Starling (evil now)
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stjohnstarling.bsky.social
St John Starling (evil now)
@stjohnstarling.bsky.social
550 followers 94 following 660 posts
Retired jazz musician | Author of What Manner of Man | He/him | Mostly on Tumblr

🦇 Blog: https://stjohnstarling.tumblr.com
🦇 Newsletter/read for free: https://stjohnstarling.substack.com
🦇 BUY WMOM: https://stjohnstarling.itch.io/what-manner-of-man
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stjohnstarling.bsky.social
No one talks about how difficult it can be to keep your mind on your work when you keep accidentally brushing fingers with your devastatingly attractive boss over the corpse you're reanimating.

Today on Patreon - Behind the Scenes: Guiding Hand: www.patreon.com/posts/behind...
November 5, 2025 at 5:27 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
This is Sneef.
October 31, 2025 at 6:07 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
A Companion in Vice is a gothic-noir novel about hazardously toxic queer romance and mad science. Find out more in today's newsletter! stjohnstarling.substack.com/p/its-alive-...
October 31, 2025 at 2:55 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Overcoming yet more obstacles, revisions, and sewing projects in this unavoidably detained weekly update on my progress with A Companion in Vice -> www.patreon.com/posts/come-s...
October 20, 2025 at 4:43 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Overcoming obstacles and discovering new ones (+ some fun new stuff!) in this weekly update on my progress with A Companion in Vice → www.patreon.com/posts/140871...
October 11, 2025 at 9:50 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Festive tidings! 🎃 This week on Patreon, I bring you the first weekly update on my progress with A Companion in Vice of Halloween — this week: disentangling a rat's nest of plot threads.

The Best Laid Plans of Monsters and Men -> www.patreon.com/posts/best-l...
October 3, 2025 at 4:20 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Today on Patreon: some reflections on my protagonist and the manner in which the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

Lend a Hand -> www.patreon.com/posts/lend-h...
September 26, 2025 at 4:38 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
This is slightly-later-than-usual weekly update on my progress with A Companion in Vice! It's been a productive one.

Brooding Diabolically on a Clifftop -> www.patreon.com/posts/broodi...
July 25, 2025 at 3:25 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Slime me to the goo, and let me play among the sludge.
Let me see what gunk is like on goopeter and ooze

www.popsci.com/science/ship...
July 23, 2025 at 3:17 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
We need to do this to any functioning online communities we still have and I'm not joking.
July 16, 2025 at 8:24 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
A COMPANION IN VICE is a gothic-noir novel about obsessive love, murder, and mad science - soon to be published serially, a chapter per week, in my (free!) newsletter. Coming to your inbox SUMMER/FALL 2025!

Sign up here; stjohnstarling.substack.com
July 13, 2025 at 12:55 AM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Me figuring out the real reason why it feels like art sucks now (it's the same as the reason right wing culture dominates online) and coming up with a game plan for a movement.
July 12, 2025 at 3:14 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Today on Patreon: your weekly update about my steady and ever-increasing progress on A Companion in Vice! -> www.patreon.com/posts/new-wo...
July 9, 2025 at 11:04 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Today on Patreon: More details about the shape of the first few chapters of A Companion in Vice, plus a few sketches of our new boys in a variety of compromising positions. -> www.patreon.com/c/stjohnstar...
June 4, 2025 at 8:24 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
We just hit 6000 subscribers for A Companion in Vice! Thank you all so much. I have high hopes for this coming year!
May 17, 2025 at 4:47 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
The cover on my e-reader was getting quite old and worn out, so I’ve given it a new lease on life with a few stickers. The big one at the top, the small stars, and the two on the bottom are all from @hydeangelus.bsky.social! Bottom left is last month’s Patreon exclusive. 😈
May 14, 2025 at 2:19 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
We have fun here.
April 23, 2025 at 4:07 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Meet me in the vast, widely-disputed, secret pornography section of the Vatican Library archives at midnight.
April 21, 2025 at 8:36 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Everything reminds me of her...
April 18, 2025 at 3:10 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
A film that takes place where you're from
April 17, 2025 at 2:03 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
St John Starling; bird of ill omen and author of queer novels of subversive high camp. My artist and editor is
@beastliness.bsky.social

What Manner of Man: a blasphemous gothic romance about a priest and a vampire
Follow my work: stjohnstarling.substack.com
Patreon: www.patreon.com/stjohnstarling
April 14, 2025 at 4:23 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Word of advice: do not wear your favorite cassock into any kind of bodice ripper romance novel situation — this kind of thing WILL happen.
Cropped preview of digital art. Swooning, waifish Catholic priest with breast of cassock ripped open. Marks of vampire bite on neck. Banner across face reads "PATREON".
March 31, 2025 at 4:16 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Has anyone found Mike Waltz's Furaffinity account yet?
March 26, 2025 at 9:24 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
Wild about this. Looking for a man who's submissive and papabile.
Wikipedia screenshot. A cardinal who is considered to be a prospect for the papacy is described informally as a papabile (an adjective used substantively: the plural form is papabili), a term coined by Italian-speaking Vatican watchers in the mid-20th century, literally meaning "pope-able".
March 19, 2025 at 3:52 PM
stjohnstarling.bsky.social
I think I'm on to something with this one.
A Discord screenshot of texts from Mendacious Smelm: Honestly the papal conclave would be such a fabulous setting for a murder mystery. What a perfect closed circle of suspects - no one can enter or leave, everyone has a motive, and they all have to maintain conditions of absolute secrecy. One by one, the top candidates are taken out. Suspicion settles over everything - maybe the late pope's death wasn't natural after all? Scandals start to emerge. Abuses of power. Slowly, a pattern starts to form: the perspective character - a long-shot candidate for the papacy - is being subtly advanced by each successive death. Maybe some blackmail is involved. He has nothing to do with the deaths, but how could it all be a coincidence? Friends begin to turn on each other; rivalries come to a head. Suspicions are beginning to fall on the perspective character. It seems all but inevitable that he'll be elected pope if he isn't accused of murder first. That's when his devoted, uh, whatever the assistant to a cardinal is - his sole friend and source of support throughout this whole experience - is dramatically revealed to have been harboring a strange, twisted passion for him all along. He's orchestrated the whole thing just to ensure the perspective character's success! A discord screenshot of a text exchange. Whipley Snidelash: this rules what happens next?? Mendacious Smelm: Hmm. His twisted love is reciprocated. They become lovers. Together they find a fall guy to pin the murders on, and he is elected the next bishop of Rome. Or they both die, idk
March 18, 2025 at 11:27 PM