Sapphire Lazuli

A graphic featuring the names and photos of all Living the Scream participants, along with text stating the event is occurring on December 13th and a QR code to donate.

Look. At this. Lineup!

This Saturday, join this amazing group of people for an evening of live readings while we raise money for the ACLU.

😱LIVING THE SCREAM: Fighting horror with horror😱

Where: www.youtube.com/@Pippinacious

Please consider donating through Tiltify here: tilt.fyi/Y2j2GlnGat

Fuck I think I need to write a zombie story after this

It’s very fast, but there’s a moment where Isla washes her face and specifically touches her eyes. The infected’s blood is still on her hands. Earlier in the film we’re told that’ll turn you, 28 days shows us, but here that fear is numbed by mutual humanity.

And then we get to that infected birth scene in 28 years later, and Isla holds the infected’s hands, and both woman stop fighting just a moment to endure pain together. Previous films tell us to fear the blood, here Isla wraps her hands around the umbilical cord without a second thought

Like vampirism, zombification spreads through the blood, but unlike vampirism, zombification is an uncontrollable wave. As though when we start to fight back and live freely, they take away our humanity, our sophistication, and unfortunately the consent in how the “monstrosity” is spread

But where vampirism often leaves the humanity and creates isolation, zombification comes with the added fear of monstrous, mass indoctrination. It’s that right wing rhetoric of “turning the kids gay.” Or “everything is woke these days.” It’s their lies about our behaviour, the danger of us

There’s a lot written about the connection between vampirism and queerness, evil folk who look just like any other person, but who carry a deadly disease transmitted via the blood if you let them touch you with their mouth. I think a lot of that same discussion can be had about zombies

And then as the film went on it clicked: that scene, where Isla and the infected reach out and hold each other’s hands during the birth, it reminded me of those photos of Diana shaking hands with AIDS patients

Crawling back onto here because I need to write about how viscerally I felt the infected birth scene in 28 Years Later. It moved me so much in the moment and I couldn’t understand why. There’s the quiet beauty in humanising the monstrous which my queer little heart adores, but I think there’s more

My new story "The Interior" is free to read today in print and in a phenomenal narration by @sapphicsapphire.bsky.social! @3lobedmag.com at www.3lobedmag.com/issue45/

Y'all, go read and/or listen to this! @christinogle.bsky.social is a master storyteller, and @sapphicsapphire.bsky.social's narration is killer! 🖤🖤🖤

Oh you’d fit right in down under I’m sure of it!!

UGH STUNNING!!!!!’

Can neither confirm nor deny anything 🤐🤐

No insult worse than Americans saying to me “so when you do you go back to England?”

A tease for my next video essay 👀👀

YO!!???!?

You have like six months 🫡🫡

Required reading/viewing for my next video essay:
Severance
The Memory Police
Cabaret
Arrival
Avatar The Last Airbender
The Danish Girl

And then you might want a familiarity with:
Star Wars (in particular Andor)
The Iliad and Odyssey
Inferno

Obsessed obviously

😭😭😭😭

13K into my book and coming to the gross realisation that I should probably be writing in American English and not British seeing as how it’s set in LA

I was nervous to revisit this book, afraid that I was thinking of it with rose tinted glasses and not truly in love with the book. Thus far I am only falling more in love

Rereading Hill House and so far my notes are
1. Oh this is even gayer than I originally interpreted
2. Oh this is even more my favourite book ever than I originally interpreted
3. Shirley Jackson really doesn’t miss on any of her lines

💀💀💀💀

The biggest win from the death of Our Witchless Flesh is that now I'm only going to go and make it EVEN GAYER (which is saying a lot considering the lesbian bone sex scene)

I mean they end up together, but the point is they probably shouldn’t have lol

This is not about OWF lol that book is shelved for now. But I’ll certainly look into this!!

On a bit of a hunt, anyone know of romance and/or horror focussed presses accepting submissions around 30-40 thousand words??