#blood moon imagery // ancient magic

[mycofaerie]

hero.

[aspoonofsugar]

Neo's Hecate = The Triple Goddess

Trivia is the Roman name of Hecate, Goddess of witchcraft, crossroads and ghosts. Neopolitan is Roman's Hecate, so her birth name is Trivia. Is that really all there is?

Obviously not. Or at least, Neo's allusion to Hecate can be read in multiple ways. Sure, it might have been an unplanned reference, but by this point (either willingly or not) Neopolitan has grown into Hecate's role. So, let's analyze ice-cream's girl allusion to better understand her story, with a focus on volume 9.

WHO IS HECATE?

Hecate is a Greek Goddes, who is later adopted by the Romans with the name of Trivia. Her origin is probably more ancient than Greek culture, though. In short, she is a foreign deity, who gets integrated into Greek religion. Similarly, Neopolitan is an unplanned character shoved into the narrative. However, she finds her place in the story and grows into herself.

Here are some of Hecate's most famous attributes.

Hecate is the Goddess of crossroads and magic. In particular, she is the master of darkness and the queen of ghosts to the point she is linked to nechromancy. She also rules over demons called Empusas, who are half woman and half beast (either a cow or a dog usually). They eat human blood and are linked to fire. Finally, Hecate is a psychopomp deity (like Hermes/Mercury), so she moves freely among Earth (human world), Olympus (world of the gods) and Hades (world of the deads).

Hecate is often depicted with three bodies and three heads:

She holds torches and keys, which are symbolic of her ability to guide people in the underworld and to travel among dimensions. Sometimes, she can appear as a dog, which is her sacred animal.

Hecate is one of the Goddesses associated to the moon. In particular, she is the falling moon to Artemis's crescent moon and Selene's full moon. According to other traditions, she is a part of Artemis/Diana. This Goddess is the Moon in the Sky, Artemis on Earth and Hecate in the Underworld. Whatever the case, both Artemis and Hecate have a triple nature to them.

This triple nature makes Hecate an example of Triple Goddess in modern Neopagan religions. The Triple Goddess is the archetype of a female deity linked to the three phases of a woman's life. Youth (Maiden), Maturity (Mother) and Old Age (Crone). Her male counterpart is the Horned God.

As you see, Hecate is hard to define. Just like Neo. Both are ambiguous and difficult to grasp. Still, let's try to understand ice-cream girl better by using this mysterious Goddess. Let's focus on three things (obviously :P):

Hecate's link to the number 3 and how it is used in Neo's story

Hecate and Artemis's bond and how it mirrors Neo and Ruby's

Hecate's imagery and attributes and what they mean for Neo

The first is an analysis of Neo's interiority (microchosm). The second explains Neo's role in the story (macrochosm). The third offers a synthesis and a conclusion (balance).

RULE OF THREE (MICROCHOSM)

Hecate is known for her three heads and three bodies. Neo is a normal human, but the number 3 still comes up in her design:

Pink, white and brown. Strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. The three flavours of the Neapolitan ice cream. The three sides of Neo's self:

We are ruled by thirds. In fashion we compare no more than three colors. Our personalities are defined by the id, the ego and the super-ego- always warring vying for control. But our goal is harmony. Balance. (Roman Holiday, chapter 13)

According to Freud, the human mind is made of three parts. The id is where fear and wishes lie. It is a primitive and instinctive force. The superego is society’s expectations. It is where morality and ideals are. The ego is what balances the other two parts. It mediates between wishes and duties.

As per Roman Holiday, Neo is a combination of Neopolitan (pink), Vanille (white) and Trivia (brown). So, Neo's color scheme is a metaphorical representation of id, superego and ego:

Pink represents the id - Neopolitan is Trivia's pink imaginary friend. She embodies everything the child is forced to repress, like her pink eye and her wish for freedom.

White represents the superego - Vanille is Trivia's surname and a shade of white. The Vanilles want their daughter to fit into society and despise her disability, which makes her "odd".

Brown represents the ego - Trivia has brown hair, wears brown clothes and a brown contact lens. She is conflicted between her parents' expectations and her own wishes.

In her childhood, Trivia is unbalanced because her family forces her to repress her id. She cancels her pink side and projects it on her imaginary friend Neopolitan. So, Trivia undergoes a transformation and claims this part of herself back:

As the old saying went, “You can’t put the moon back together”. At times you had to destroy something to make something even better in its place. When Mama had shattered Neopolitan in front of their burning house, Trivia finally understood that she had been broken all along. Losing her friend was Trivia’s first step toward putting herself back together and embracing her true, best self. (Roman Holiday, chapter 11)

She re-arranges herself and her three parts:

Pink becomes the color of Neo's ego (her truest self). She stops hiding her eye and dyes half of her hair pink. Similarly, she embraces her Neopolitan persona more.

Brown becomes the color of the superego. It is a color linked to Neo's female authority figures like her mother (Carmel) and her teacher (Beatrix Browning). It is still present in Neo's color scheme, but much reduced. Similarly, Trivia is still there, but feels more like a mask than Neo's real self.

White becomes the color of the id. It is the color of Neo's family name, which she sheds. However, Neo still loves her parents, so her semblance dyes a lock of her hair white as an unconscious response to their death.

Roman Holiday is the story of Trivia Vanille's death and Neopolitan's birth:

As far as she was concerned, Trivia Vanille was buried under that mess, too. Neopolitan was the sole survivor. (Roman Holiday, chapter 26)

Neo leaves behind her parents and their strict rules to become a living manifestation of the id:

She just wanted to do whatever she wanted. And for the moment, what she wanted was to help Roman set the world on fire. (Roman Holiday, chapter 26)

Neopolitan does whatever she wants, even if it hurts others. She embraces her deepest wishes and chaotic emotions. This is the character we meet at the beginning of RWBY.

Well, Neo's arc in the series is to discard this person and to become someone new once again. After all, Neopolitan's name is linked to renewal and transformation. "Neopolitan" comes from Naples, which means "new city" (neo + polis). Naples's fantastic origin itself is a story of death and rebirth. According to the legend, this Italian city is born from a Siren, who dies for love. Her body transforms into the city and gives new life.

Similarly, Neo is a character able to be reborn countless times (neo = new + poly= many). So is Hecate, whose name may refer to the Greek number 100, as the Goddess is said to have one-hundred forms.

Our Neo/Hecate is then a multifaceted force, who goes through destruction just to embrace creation.

Neo's change in the series starts with a loss:

She loses both Roman and her inner balance:

There was one thing To help escape the misery And now it's all disarrayed You took my whole life away You sent me back to nothing Now you'll pay

So, she needs to rebuild herself once again:

We must live with balance But balance is blind (Lost her world) Vengeance is a riptide In a fairy tale, she'll find Inside A new me, I'm ready But who will I find? Inside I've gotta let go but could I lose my mind?

Volume 9 is where this inner transformation takes place. This time the new found harmony among id, superego and ego is not described by Neo's three colors. Rather, allusions are used.

In the Ever After, Neo is associated to three different Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass characters:

The Hatter, who represents the id

The Cheshire Cat, who represents the superego

The Jabberwocky, who represents the ego

THE HATTER - THE ID

“Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse," said the Hatter, "when the Queen bawled out 'He's murdering the time! Off with his head!'" "How dreadfully savage!" exclaimed Alice. "and ever since that," the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, "he wo'n't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.”

The Hatter is a Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass character. He is famous for the Mad Tea Party, where he, the March Hare and the Dormouse chat with Alice. The original book reveals that the Hatter "killed time" while singing, so Time refuses to run normally for him and his friends. As a result, they are stuck in an eternal tea-party, as it is always tea-time for them. In the 1951 Disney movie, instead, he celebrates Alice's unbirthday.

Neopolitan has been stuck in time since Roman's death. She can't move on, so she focuses all her energies on revenge:

So close to closure The one thing you need Underneath a monument with a dedicated plea

Killing Ruby becomes Neo's One Thing to the point she organizes a special tea party of her own:

Ruby's unbirthday party, to be precise:

Cinder: And you… should have never been born…

Where she can dissolve Little Red in a cup, as if she were a sugar cube:

Kill for kill Eye for eye Blood for blood It's time to die Retribution tastes so sweet

The Hatter is a hostage in his tea party and Neo is a prisoner of her revenge. Both are consumed by their inability to go on. Both have killed time and can't face their future.

In Neo's case, the reason why she murders time is pretty clear. It is a coping mechanism to avoid grief:

In Wonderland, the Hatter can drink tea at every hour. In her fantasy world, Neo can stay with Roman forever:

Neo-Roman: Y’know once Neo realized where she was, everything changed. Always loved the idea of a place to run away from it all. Do whatever you want. I offered that to her back on Remnant.

This is also why the first thing Neo does after landing in the Ever After is to evolve Overactive Imagination and to kill the Jabberwalker:

The creature is symbolic of death, as they kill Afterans permanently. So, Neo metaphorically negates her grief (the Jabberwalker) through illusions (her semblance).

At the same time, Neo enters the Ever After and gives in to her id. She has her desires and instincts control her completely. She loses all filters:

(Then suddenly) Scratched through the surface And you've found a key Unlocking what you thought was safe inside a box But it's somehow been set free (Finally)

Overactive Imagination's evolution is a physical representation of this psychological process. Neo spirals throughout Mistral and Atlas, but in volume 9 she hits rock bottom and stops acting rationally. She becomes the incarnation of her anger, which manifests through her semblance. Her illusions are typically silent. However, in the Ever After they speak, as Neo is letting her inner voices out of the box:

Say something real Do you only speak in riddles, chatterbox? I'm waiting for your ugly mouth to spit it out

This is why she becomes a chatterbox. She tries to communicate through her creations.

In particular, she makes an imaginary Roman (the Hatter), who looks and sounds like the real deal. He becomes the dominant voice in Neo's mind and speaks to and for her. His presence highlights Neo's inability to accept Roman's death. She hides in a lie. Just like Trivia used to cower behind her imaginary friend Neopolitan. As a child, Trivia can't accept Neo is a part of her. As an adult, Neo can't accept Roman isn't with her anymore. In this way, Neo's first real human connection gets reduced to an imaginary friend. This is the tragedy of Neo's adventure in the Ever After.

All happens because Neo surrenders herself to the id (her inner world). Still, it can't last forever. The id is a powerful source of energy and drive, but it is also destructive. So, Neo self-consumes until she has nothing left:

Neo-Roman: (voice in Neo’s head) You’ve finally done it! Little Red’s gone. With your Semblance stronger than ever now, we can take over this whole absurd place! Why not? Offing Little Red can’t be all you wanted… Right?

She puts so much into destroying Ruby, that she ends up empty. A vessel for others to take advantage of.

Curious Cat: You’ve lost something most important, haven’t you? And now you have nothing left. How delightful! An empty host, perfect for me to fill.

THE CHESHIRE CAT - THE SUPEREGO

The Cheshire Cat appears twice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The first time, he guides Alice at a crossroad and points her towards the March Hare's house. The second time, he appears at the Queen of Heart's croquet game as a giant head. The Queen and King are offended by his presence and want to behead him. Still, he is a head without a body, so the execution of this death sentence is complicated. Eventually, he simply fades away and disappears.

The character is inspired by the saying "grinning like a Cheshire Cat", whose origin is unknown. Among the many hypothesis, there is one about a grinning cat-shaped cheese. The cheese was cut from the tail, so that the last part eaten was the head of the smiling cat.

In RWBY, the character who alludes to the Cheshire Cat is not Neo, but the Curious Cat. Still, Neo and the Cat's stories are intertwined, as they destroy each other. The Cat possesses Neo and Neo kills the Cat.

Both characters eat and get eaten. They eat like the two wolves of Ruby's Little Red Riding Hood. They get eaten like the cat-shaped cheese, until only a floating head remains. A head separated from the body. A mind detached from reality:

“We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Neo and the Cat are mad, so they meet in the Ever After. However, their madnesses are opposite:

Neo loses herself in fantasy (the Ever After) and runs away from the real world (Remnant). She lets her unconscious feelings (id) run wild.

The Curious Cat is trapped in fantasy (the Ever After) and wants to reach the real world (Remnant). They are consumed by an imposed purpose (superego):

Curious Cat: I’m not like the other Afterans here, I’m cursed with curiosity. I need to know everything!

Blacksmith: A terrible thing to have a broken heart… And there’s nobody to send them (the Cat) back to the Tree for repair.

So, Neo and the Cat are foils, which is why they share the song Chatterbox. Both blabber non-stop. However, Neo's illusions speak her truest self. The Curious Cat instead uses smart words to hide their real intentions. Neo shows her inner beast (the shadow), while the Cat wears a mask (persona). So, Neo is the embodyment of the id and the Cat is her estranged superego. They are an external force, who comes and takes control of Neo's life:

The possession is a metaphor of Neo's state of mind. She goes from moving many characters around to becoming a controlled puppet. From shouting to radio silence. This switch is conveyed through the Curious Cat speaking through and for her.

This is Neo's nightmare, as her life is a struggle to be heard. Among other things, Neo refuses devices that make her sound robotic. She dislikes artificial voices because they sound fake to her. And yet, the Curious Cat forces Neo to speak their words. The Cat becomes Neo's new voice.

This is the result of Neo losing her inner drive:

NeoCat: She has no attachments to your world. Nothing to return to.

She is left with no wishes nor fears. She is a living id, who transforms into a walking superego. However, both extremes are wrong. A person is made of both her id and her superego. Both parts are needed to make an individual, which is why Neo is asked to face herself once more:

The Tree has the girl confront the pain and grief she has been ignoring. And yet, these feelings are what saves her:

NeoCat: No! These cracks, these feelings! I can’t… I can’t!!!

Thanks to them Neo gets back in control of her life. Symbolically, the Jabberwalker she kills in the beginning appears to finish the Cat off:

In this way, the cycle is complete and Neo's ego can finally surface.

JABBERWOCKY - THE EGO

Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

The Jabberwocky is a nonsense poem Alice finds in Through The Looking Glass. She initially can't read it, but then she realizes the verses are written in mirror-writing. She holds a mirror to the text and the poem appears. Despite being able to read it, though, Alice can't understand it:

"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate."

The poem conveys two main ideas:

It tells about a slaughter:

He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back.

It is impossible to understand, as it is full of gibberish and invented words

This is true for RWBY's Jabberwalker, as well:

They embody death, as Afterans killed by this creature are negated ascension

They jabber as they walk, which is why they fail to communicate with others

How does this relate to Neo? She kills the Jabberwalker, but assimilates them in her illusions. This happens because the creature is Neo's mirror. They reflect our Hecate in the making.

The Jabberwalker is a monster of grief who dies unheard:

Jabberwalker: Stop… It… Cease! No! NO! NOOOOOO!

Neo is a villain whose grief stays unrecognized:

Ruby: If you’re looking for an apology, you’ve wasted your time!

Not only by others, but by Neo too. She kills a part of herself in the Jabberwalker. Her most vulnerable and real part, that wants to communicate:

Say something real Do you only speak in riddles, chatterbox? I'm waiting for your ugly mouth to Say something real Do you only speak in riddles, chatterbox? I'm waiting on your ugly mouth to spit it out

She is a chatterbox that screams, but is not listened to. She can't talk, then she gains the ability to speak through her semblance. And yet, she can only be heard. Never understood. Similarly, Alice eventually learns how to read the Jabberwocky poem, but doesn't comprehend it.

This is why the Chatterbox song is so mysterious. Is it about Neo? The Cat? Both? Who sings what? Are they singing to each other? Or is it Ruby singing to them? It is impossible to say, just like it is impossible to grasp the full meaning of the Jabberwocky.

So, this song is about Neo and the Cat, but plays while RWBYJ fight the Jabberwalker. That is because the monster represents Neo's frammented self. They are the girl's ego, which is so broken and confused she herself negates it. Her journey in the Ever After, though, helps Neo find inner clarity:

(Waiting for it Sugar-coated All you need is here Come and find what Redefines you Make it crystal clear)

By the end she sees herself crystal clear:

Neo-Roman: To have what they have. What a thing, huh?

Her true wish is the same as ever. She wants a real connection. To succeed she has to let go of an imaginary one:

As a child, Trivia lets go of Neopolitan and finds Roman. As an adult, she lets go of Roman to find someone else. Trivia dies and Neo is born. Neo dies and someone new is born:

Blacksmith: She will have the chance to return her broken heart… And becomes something new. Such is balance.

Life from death. Creation from destruction. This is what transformation is. Symbolically, Neo kills all her three parts. She murders the Jabberwalker (ego), she rips the Curious Cat to shreds (superego) and finally releases Roman's illusion (id). Now, she is ready to move on.

HECATE AND ARTEMIS = SHADOW AND LIGHT (MACROCHOSM)

Hecate/Trivia and Artemis/Diana are two intertwined Goddesses. In particular, Hecate is sometimes described as a part of Artemis's triple identity. This Goddess is:

The Moon in the Sky (The Crescent Moon to be precise)

Artemis/Diana on Earth (Goddess of hunt)

Hecate/Trivia in the Underworld

Doesn't it remind you of anyone?

Ruby is

Associated with the Crescent Moon (Crescent Rose)

The best Huntress of all

A Red Grim Reaper with a Scythe

She is the Artemis (Crescent Moon) to Neo's Hecate (Falling Moon). This is why Neo's role in volume 9 is to play Ruby's Jungian Shadow:

In analytical psychology, the shadow is an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow. In short, the shadow is the self's emotional blind spot, projected as archetypes.

The shadow is everything that is repressed or hidden. In Ruby's case that is her emotions over loss and grief. So, Neo becomes what links Ruby to these feelings of death. Just like Hecate/Trivia is the part of Artemis/Diana, who appears in the Underworld. This is why Neo and Ruby fall together in the Ever After.

During their fall, Neo transforms in three people Ruby cherishes: Oscar, Yang and Penny. What do they represent?

They are linked to future, present and past. In particular, Oscar is waiting for Ruby outside (future), Yang is in the Ever After with Ruby (present) and Penny is lost (past).

They are the three people Ruby's conflict is focused on in the Atlas Arc. In volume 7, Ruby disagrees with Oscar on telling Ironwood. In volume 8, Ruby and Yang fight over what to do. In volume 9, Ruby must overcome Penny's death.

These two meanings are linked to two roles Neo fulfills towards Ruby. That of Triple Goddess and that of Goddess of crossroads.

1- The idea of past, present and future ties into Hecate being a Triple Goddess:

The fates are a representation of this Goddess and a declination of the Three Hecate Sisters, also known as Maiden, Mother and Crone. They are archetypes linked to three different phases of life. Youth, maturity and old age. In other words, past, present and future.

As Ruby's Hecate, Neo often brings up past, present and future throughout volume 9. Here is a quick list:

Ruby and Neo's fall in the Ever After (Penny is past, Yang is present and Oscar is future)

Ruby's first meeting with the Blacksmith, which is followed by the appearance of Neo's Jabberwalkers. There Ruby sees three weapons. Penny's sword is Ruby's inner child (past). Alyx's knife is the role Ruby is currently trying to fulfill (present). Summer's axe is who Ruby wishes to become (future)

Ruby's fight with Neo's Jabberwalker, where Ruby hallucinates three people. Cinder is the foe Ruby lost to (past). Penny is her current inner demon (present). Salem is the villain Ruby must eventually face (future)

Neo's crazy tea party, where Neo destroys Ruby by using three loved ones. Penny is a dead friend (past), Oscar is a friend Ruby could kill (future) and Little is a friend that dies (present)

Past, present and future haunt Ruby, so that she can accept who she was, understand who she is and move towards who she will be:

Past Ruby: So, are you a Huntress? Like the ones you read about in books? Ruby: I… I don’t know… Past Ruby: They always saved the day, didn’t they? Always knew what to do. Always won in the end. Ruby: But… life isn’t like a fairy tale… Past Ruby: That’s right! It’s up to you to make things better, isn’t it? Everything all depends on you! Your sister needs you, your friends need you, the whole world needs you to keep fighting, forever and ever, against an invincible monster that took your mother! Past Ruby: Mom was the best… but even she failed. That doesn’t seem fair. None of this seems fair. Ruby: But… What am I supposed to do…? Past Ruby: You can do whatever you want. Be whoever you want! You don’t even have to be Ruby Rose… So, what are you gonna be?

2- Neo brings to the surface Ruby's inner conflicts. She starts with the three struggles Ruby faces in Atlas and she keeps going by using her Jabberwalkers to re-create Atlas's destruction twice:

Finally, she has Ruby fight her inner demons all at once:

Neo-Ironwood: Who were you to think you knew what was best for Atlas? Neo-Pyrrha: I was the best and brightest Beacon had to offer. But I traded my life so my friends could live! Neo-Penny: Just like you were too late to save me at the Vytal Festival… I died in Atlas too, didn’t I? (walks towards Ruby) Can you imagine what that's like? To be completely and utterly failed… time and again… (kneels down to Ruby) by someone who meant the world to you… Neo-Pyrrha: How many more people are going to die because of you?! Ruby: I’m trying to save everyone! Neo-Ironwood: And yet with all your best intentions… Have you ever stopped to wonder if you’d done more harm than good?! Ruby: It’s not my fault…! Neo-Ozpin: How many more lives do you have to ruin before you realize you’re not cut out to save anyone?! Ruby: NO!!!

This happens because Neo is a manifestation of Ruby's id. Just like Hecate is a Goddess linked with crossroads and choice, Neo forces Ruby to transform.

Ruby's hidden self and her conflictual feelings are intertwined in Neo, who is the part of herself Ruby refuses to aknowledge until it explodes.

Let's juxtapose these two scenes:

Ruby: What is this about? The White Fang? Roman Torchwick?

Ruby: Is that seriously what this is all about? You still blame me for what happened to Torchwick?!

In volume 4, Ruby asks Tyrian why he is after her and mentions Torchwick. In volume 9, Ruby is surprised Roman's partner wants to avenge him. This happens because throughout Mistral and Atlas, Ruby starts shouldering too much responsibilities by herself. Her whole ego becomes intertwined with the duty to stop Salem. By doing so, she neglects other parts of the self:

Maria: You know, you don't give yourself enough credit. Ruby: Oh… Thanks. Maria: That wasn't a compliment.

Which leads to the shadow suffering and festering. Inside Ruby, the shadow is her grief and trauma. Outside, the shadow is Neo. A secondary villain with a revenge agenda, which is nothing compared to the threath Salem represents. And yet, Neo's personal grudge grows until she becomes dangerous for Ruby's own existence:

Neo-Roman: You don’t deserve to die, Red. You deserve to be broken down… Torn apart… wiped from existence.

In this context, Ruby refusing to empathize with Neo is really Ruby refusing to empathize with herself:

Give me anything But this symphony of technicolor rage You call it righteous, meaningful It's anything but love Don't take me for a fool I know this all too well so Leave your tears to someone else cuz It's not just you who lost it all

Neo kills the Jabberwalker because she doesn't want to accept Roman's loss. Ruby doesn't see Neo because it would mean to look at her own pain.

The end result is bad for both girls. On the one hand Ruby is overwhelmed by trauma and chooses to disappear. On the other hand Neo realizes how empty she is after Ruby is gone. That is because shadow and light can't live without each other. They need to integrate, which is what Ruby and Neo do by the end.

Both see themselves more clearly, so they are finally able to empathize with each other:

Their conflict almost kills them, but once they get throught it they are ready to become better versions of themselves. They die and are reborn:

Since she had used her Semblance for the first time to create a butterfly with one pink wing, one brown, with white spots all over- then sent it out her bedroom window and watched it flutter away until she lost sight of it and let it go. (Roman Holiday, chapter 11)

Like two butterflies, who step into a brand new phase of their lives.

HECATE (BALANCE)

Neo's story is about finding balance inside and outside:

Inside- As a child, Neo is too repressed (superego), so as an adult she becomes uncontrolled (id). Her arc has her grow more balanced (ego).

Outside - In volume 9, Neo is Ruby's shadow (id) and brings out all of Ruby's negative emotions. By the end, though, Ruby is able to understand Neo and feels sympathy for her. This is because our LRRH doesn't refuse her own shadow anymore.

In other words, Neo is an id character, who has to integrate both with herself and with the world around her. This fits Hecate, who is a Goddess linked to the Underworld. The Ever After itself is a representation of this kingdom for three different reasons:

It is the world before (under) Remnant

It is the world of the deads (buried under)

It is the world of the unconscious (buried inside)

This is why Neo's semblance grows more powerful while there. Hecate is the queen of ghosts and Neo grows powerful enough to rule the Ever After with her materialized spirits (illusions). On a deeper level, our lady of the deads must face her own grief. So, like other characters, Neo goes through the stages of grief. In particular, Neo's stages are represented by her reactions to different characters:

The Jabberwalker she kills (negation)

Ruby she stalks and tortures (rage)

The Roman she materializes (bargaining)

The Curious Cat she is controlled by (depression)

All these meetings are a part of her journey to find both acceptance and herself. Maybe this is why throughout volume 9 she progressively becomes more and more Hecate-like. As a matter of fact, she aquires many attributes of the mysterious Goddess.

She gains her personal Empusas:

The Empusas are Hecate's demons, who look like girls with some odd body parts. In this case, Neo's heterocromia.

The Empusas are usually monsters linked to fire that appear as half-dogs. Here, Ruby sees the Jabberwalker with Cinder's head.

She finds her own Horned God:

The Horned God is the Triple Goddess's companion in neopagan religions. The Jabberwalker is a horned creature associated with Neo.

She commands a pack of dogs (the Jabberwalkers) and she herself plays the part of Ruby's dangerous wolf. This fits with Hecate's sacred animals being dogs.

Finally, she stands beside a wicked torch:

Torchwick-illusion is her companion in the Underworld and a symbol of her friend's lost soul. She even uses Roman's voice to lead Ruby towards death. Just like Hecate holds torches to guide mortals in the Kingdom of the Deads.

Despite all this, there is still an attribute missing: keys. They represent Hecate's ability to travel through worlds. However, Neo is stuck in the Ever After:

Jaune: So Neo can’t go through the door…

This happens because she has still to fully bloom into Hecate (herself). However, she is making progress and by the end of volume 9 she reaches acceptance. A necessary step to grow.

In particular, she dispels her illusion of Roman. She overcomes her grief by overcoming her own fantasies. This is interesting because it is the opposite of what happens in Roman Holiday:

“He caught a lock of her hair and showed it to her. It was white. “This is new. It suits you,” he said. Why would she have done that with her Semblance?” (Roman Holiday, chapter 26)

There, she represses her sadness over her parents' death, which manifests in her illusory white lock of hair. In the series, though, she lets go of an illusion to move on. Why is that so? That is because Neo herself is a combination of illusion and reality:

“Roman shook his head. “Show them who you really are.” Neo changed back into herself, but swapper her school uniform for her favourite suite. Roman handed her her parasol. (Roman Holiday, chapter 22)

Roman Holiday is the story of how she realizes illusions are a part of who she is. Volume 9 is where she learns she can't live in a world made only of illusions. So, she chooses to face herself for real:

Once she emerges from the Tree, she will gain her allusion's ability to move freely between dimensions (psychopomp) and will go through the door. She will leave her fantastical world (the Ever After) and come back to reality (Remnant).

[snackhobi]

summary: namjoon worships you, only you, and would dedicate his life and soul to show you the depths of his love and devotion.

pairing: namjoon x f!reader / word count: 2.1k / genre: smut (NSFW, 18+), warlock!namjoon/patron!reader, sort of a fantasy!au

warnings: sexually explicit content, religious imagery/talk of worship and blasphemy, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, talk of magic (does that need to be a warning)

this is part of my 1.1k milestone event!

a/n: @ whoever it was on my google survey who wanted to see a fantasy!au and also wanted to see more stuff with namjoon- this is dedicated to you! I swore I wasn’t going to even think about things for my 1.1k milestone but I saw your response and immediately got hit with inspo; I’m sure this isn’t what you were asking for when you said fantasy but! I hope you like it anyway! unbeta-ed bc I smashed this out in an afternoon and @hobi-gif​ is asleep rn and I’m impatient OOPS

“You give me too much.”

“Oh?” The sound of your voice, heavenly, shining. Dripping with amusement. Affection. “You would spurn my favour?”

“Never,” Namjoon whispers. A confession, each word a benediction. “Never, my lady.”

The sound of your laughter, smooth and light. You tilt your head, bare the unspoiled column of your neck, shimmering, glimmering, glittering. Your skin shines with the finest fragrant oils, dusted with ground gold leaf, iridescent. Your body gilded and girded, as always, in the finest cloth and metal and jewels, reclining, utterly at ease. Glowing with your divine power; divine grace.

Divine beauty.

Divine.

Namjoon is blessed, to have you as his Patron. 

For all that his words are audacious, you do not strike him down. Him, a mere mortal, sworn to your service; you’ve always allowed him space to speak, to talk. Far more than he deserves, nothing better than the dust under your feet, marring the ground that should be unblemished and clean for you.

“I wish but to reward you, dearest,” you murmur, and a shiver trickles down Namjoon’s spine.

His soul is sworn to yours in a never-ending pact, magic tied intrinsically to you, his Patron, his Goddess, the source of his power. A warlock whose oath promises his utter devotion—blessed, he truly is blessed to be able to call himself yours. Where others had given their souls to the dark beings of the nether, begging for power, strength—here Namjoon is, in your heavenly aureole, not fey nor fiend, but a deity.

His deity.

“I would never be so presumptuous, my lady,” says Namjoon.

“And I would reward you for your humility. Is that not what you want, Namjoon? Is that not why you swore yourself to me? To be rewarded with the powers that you now command?”

Namjoon is monstrously powerful, now. He’s always been intelligent and sharp and quick, but now—with you at his shoulder—he’s far, far more than that. The fabric of the universe picks itself apart at his will, with your guiding hand, and reforms itself as he sees fit. Mere mortals tremble as he passes, a behemoth draped in endless strength, so strong it shines out from him, always.

An endless reminder of his devotion to you.

He’d always chased knowledge. Found himself still ravenous for it, even after plundering the world’s greatest libraries, learning from the best and brightest, from wizards in their lofty towers to witches in haunted forests; it had set him on this path. Had led him to opening this connection, creating this pact, binding himself to your will, all in the pursuit of more, more, more. His parents had always warned him to be careful, cautious, not to ask for more than the world was willing to give—but the world hadn’t blessed him with magic, for all his intelligence.

So he’d looked for magic in an otherworldly place.

And there: he’d found you.

There, he’d sworn his being to your will, for just a drop of your power. He’d laid himself down at your mercy and you’d given him all the strength he’d never wanted and more besides. Given him more than he’d asked for, more than he deserves, frail and mortal and weak that he is.

“I would give my soul just to lay myself at your feet, my lady,” Namjoon confesses.

You smile. So pleased with him, always; it leaves him breathless, even as his knees ache from kneeling, marble cold and hard under him. Your eyes are the only ones he prostrates himself in front of, now. You are the only one he will kneel for.

And oh, he kneels so willingly. Would worship you on his belly if that’s what you asked, would crawl in the dirt if that’s what you wished; would give you everything he has and more, hand over fist, if he could. Utterly beholden to you, bewitched, body and soul.

You are benevolent to him, for all that your smiles are edged with something almost irreverent, a mockery of the shining halo that’s settled atop your head. A trickster God, maybe, an ancient being long gone from the history books, your name etched into wax tablets that have long since crumbled to dust, carvings sat atop pedestals that have been long eroded to time. 

He might have cared, once. Might have sought to find you, your name, find out what exactly you are, what the price he is to pay for the power you give him. But now?

Namjoon finds he no longer cares, enthralled as he is. 

“Then come, my love,” you murmur. “Closer.”

Namjoon trembles. When he kneels at your feet, head tilted, staring at your bared skin, the arch of your feet, the jut of your ankles, the smoothness of your calves, the swell of your thighs before they’re hidden away from his roaming eyes by the drape of linen; he trembles. He is so close he can touch you, can smell you, the fragrance massaged into your body, heady and dizzying.

“Worship me, then,” you say, that ever-present smile on your lips.

“I would not dare touch you, my lady,” Namjoon says.

You throw your head back and laugh. Namjoon stares at the line of your bare throat, the slope of your breasts, curves barely hidden, blindingly white robe slipping as your gold painted shoulders shake in mirth. White and gold, gold and white, unflawed, perfect.

“Are you so afraid of me?”

“Never.” Namjoon’s heart is pounding, pulsing in his ears. “I dare not defile you with my unworthy hands.”

“And if I commanded you so?” An eyebrow, raised, a question. “Would you refuse your Goddess her dues?”

“I am not worthy,” Namjoon says, even as he aches. Even as you spread your legs, draping cloth keeping you just safe from his eyes, hungry as they are. “I would dirty you, my lady.”

“Such as it is.” Your voice is low, almost gleeful. Delighted. “Touch me, Namjoon.”

He kisses your feet first. Bows his head, lips trembling as he presses them to the top arch of your foot. Your ankles. Lets his eyes flutter shut as he trails his unworthy lips across your warm skin, pressing his devotion into your body with his mouth.

And when you beckon for him with a lazy curl of your hand, he goes, so easily. Pulls off each of your rings, lets them fall, bright rain that falls forgotten to cool marble. Casts aside the circlet on your head, spinning as it lands on cold stone. Pulls his hands across your bare collarbones, pulls your robe apart, pulls your naked body out into the open. 

There’s no shame here, in your nakedness, majestic and proud, every inch of your body swathed with heavy, divine power.

Your lips are cocked in a smile. You blink up at him, lazy and slow and content, amused at his shaking fingers and almost-slack mouth, overwhelmed.

“Am I so awe-inspiring?”

“The moon and stars and sun shine less than your beauty,” Namjoon murmurs, and you laugh.

He falls to his knees. Buckles in the face of your strength and beauty, as he always does. Always will.

When he presses his head between your legs, you moan. The smell of your arousal thrums under the jasmine rubbed into your skin, an orgy in a summer garden, and you taste so human, gasping at the first swipe of his tongue through your folds. You scrape your fingers through his hair, pressing him deeper; Namjoon feels he could die happy, here, between your thighs, so blessed and favoured, to be allowed to worship you, as perfect as you are. His cock hardens between his legs, ignored and neglected, so focused and intent on you. Forgets himself in the face of giving you everything you demand.

Beckoned into the embrace of something holy, here he is, defiling you with each curl of his tongue, each touch of his fingers. And he willingly commits these transgressions, reverent even as you come apart under his touch, venerating you as an idol, rather than a Goddess. Drinks down the way you shake in pleasure, pupils blown and swallowing your beautiful irises, your piercing gaze lust-hazed.

“You worship your Goddess well,” you praise.

And when you push him down onto your throne, astride his hips with glittering eyes and an arched back, Namjoon thinks this is profane. Thinks that he should not feel so starved or deprived, even as you sink down on him, tight and hot and wet. And yet each gasp he pulls from you is a blessing from the divine, for all that this is carnal, the slap of skin on skin, the thrust of his cock into your fluttering cunt.

Even the kisses you share are a violation of you; he is not worthy to touch you, to press his lips against yours. But you urge him to, urge him to lick at your mouth, bite at your lips, kiss-swollen and flush, parted as you pant into his open, willing mouth.

You throw your head back in ecstasy. Each lilting noise pulled from your lips goes straight to Namjoon’s throbbing cock, blood thrumming in his veins as he thrusts up into you, chasing your pleasure, pliant under the scratch of your fingernails, the grasp of your hands.

“Do you—oh—do you love your Goddess, Namjoon?” 

“To not do so would be blasphemy.” It’s graceless, the way he speaks, grunts slipping out between gritted teeth. Utterly human and base as you take him, ride him, reach inside and wrap your fingers around his heart and soul, already yours.  As if your naked skin pressed against each other isn’t blasphemy enough; your movements in the throes of passion and ecstasy isn’t sacrilegious. 

You keep your eyes trained on Namjoon’s face, bracing your fingertips on his sweat-slick chest as you arch back, imperious and regal; Namjoon might have taken you apart with his fingers and tongue, but you’re the mistress of this kingdom and you know it.

When you trail a finger over the swell of Namjoon’s reddened, plush bottom lip, it feels almost taunting. The gesture itself might be soft, tender—but Namjoon remembers that he doesn’t know what you’re a Goddess of, all over again. Remembers that he doesn’t know the source of your power, what you really are, that he doesn’t even know your true name. 

(Remembers that he doesn’t know if you’re a Goddess at all.)

(He remembers. Doesn’t care. You’re his Goddess, before you are anything else. You’re his Goddess and he is devoted to you, forever, always.)

“Mine.” You suck in a breath, air punched out of you as Namjoon slams into you again, hard and sharp and fast, sullying you. His palms are covered in gold, smeared over your body and his, the carved marble of the throne underneath you. Dirty; tarnished. “Mine, mine, you’re mine, little mortal, aren’t you?”

Namjoon is utterly yours.

“Yours,” he moans. “Yours, my lady, I’m yours.”

You laugh even as you cum again, hiccupping as you grin at him, wicked and sharp. You’re so tight around him, hot around his aching cock, and it doesn’t take long to lose himself in your heat, painting your insides; defiling even there, too. The proof of Namjoon’s impure touch dribbles down your thigh as you lift away, sated, your smile all edged with teeth.

“My most loyal follower, humblest of my servants.” You trail a cool finger around his face, through the sweat at his brow, dirtying your hands even more. And yet, in Namjoon’s eyes you still shine, untouched and perfect, his wonderful Goddess. “Oh, your soul always tastes so sweet, Namjoon. Will you always worship me with such piety? Will you always come when I call?”

To know his taste lingers on your tongue, even when he’s not there, fills him with pride. Flows in his chest, swelling in size, pressing against his ribs and lungs and heart, squeezing those delicate parts so tight, squashing them small. There’s no room for anything inside him other than devotion for you.

“Always,” Namjoon replies. “I would always be your most favoured, if you wished.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes,” Namjoon confesses. “Yes, my lady, with all that I am.”

Would spend the rest of his days on his hands and knees at the base of your shrine, lay out offerings at your feet. Would lay himself on your altar, a willing sacrifice. Would let you tear him apart and swallow his still beating heart; it’s yours, anyway. He doesn’t need it anymore.

Yes, Namjoon loves you. Most ardently. Even if it comes with a price: his soul, bound to yours, forever.

taglist: @beyoncesdragon​ 

[gentlemancrow]

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

OK so I saw @hey-there-hunter ‘s JMart Wedding Challenge and I pretty much fan ficced immediately??  Like it was an instantaneous plot bunny that stabbed me in the brain and would not let me free until I made it exist.  SO HERE YOU GO!  Read it here or head on over to AO3 below!  And enjoy some unapologetically aggressive fluff with weddings!  Also subtitled someday Crow will stop abusing excessive astral imagery and symbolism for extended metaphors, but today is not that day.

Read on AO3 instead!

Written in the Stars Will Have to Do

Jonathan Sims always thought of himself as a man with a deep appreciation for the great literature of the world.  A passionate turn of phrase, crystalline motes of clear imagery like snowflakes reflecting light in his mental scape, a devastating contemplation on the nature of good and evil in the hearts of all mankind, everything that could express the beauty and tragedy of the world in ways he never could.  Prose was a bright paintbrush on a ragged canvas of the universe he had known from an early age was swathed in shadow and pain and evil, and those words on those pages, for at least a moment, were another world he could hold in his hands, could cradle and protect, could mourn.  He liked the power of them as well, of the tinkling brightness of alliteration, the oaky sophistication of a well-aged metaphor, the evocativeness of the idiosyncrasy in a simple simile, laying bare truths in ways he never could have articulated for himself.

There was one thing he could not abide by in language, however, one cardinal sin liable to besmirch any piece of lush and sparkling verse or prose and taint it forever.  And that was idioms.

Jon loathed idioms and their dismally quirky cliches dressed in familiarity’s tacky clothing almost as much as he hated spiders.  Perhaps it was something about their reliance on common knowledge and repetition.  He couldn’t bear reading the same book twice, or even a book that felt too familiar, it only made sense that hearing a hackneyed phrase repeated in that awful singsong sardonic tone of someone who knows full well they’re saying something asinine that has been repeated ad nauseum for millennia would scrape at the back of his skull and down his spine.  They were too whimsical and blasé, crutch words for when one’s limited lexicon came up empty, or worse, for ill comedic effect.  They reinforced that staunchly English notion of skirting about the true depth and breadth of emotion for clipped niceties and unfeeling banalities.  Idioms to him were mere verbal window boxes, colorful and meaningless, dressings for untold disasters behind the shining windows they peacocked before.  

He hated them all with vaguely equal rancor, but there was one he could definitely single out as the one he hated the most, and that was the one about hanging the moon.  Such and such thinks you hung the moon, to me you hung the moon, and so on.  This particular rhetorical felony attracted his wrath only marginally because any moon symbolism never failed to feel outlandish and infantile, a mawkish image of love and care rampant in nursery rhymes and cheap commercialized slogans for t-shirts and wall art.  That was the least of it.  He hated the idea of hanging the moon mostly because once, another lifetime ago now it seemed, Tim Stoker had lobbed it in his face in a fit of smoldering rage and he had been completely, complacently, ignorant of its magnitude.  

Funny thing was, he couldn’t even remember what the actual fight had been about any longer.  Though he could remember exactly where he was standing, cornered next to the file cabinet for the year 1985, January through February, and the label had been peeling up on the upper left-hand corner.  He remembered he’d discovered a hole in the elbow of his jumper that morning and he had been obsessing over it all day, fussing with the dangling green thread and tugging at the knit as if it might magically close the wound.  He’d put his finger clean through it with his arms crossed haughtily over his chest without even realizing he’d been fiddling with it when something flippant about Martin came out of his mouth.  It hadn’t even been cruel, he couldn’t even remember how Martin had come up in the argument in the first place, he could only remember Tim’s mouth moving like he wanted to say something else, then him forcibly stopping himself before he snarled.

“Yeah well, god knows why, but he thinks you hung the moon, so you might try treating him at the very least like a human being once in a while.”

It was such a small thing.  Small words for a small feeling cloaked in a chintzy veneer of idiomatic dismissal.  A trembling little bird cupped in his scarred and battered hands and smothered.  Or so he thought.  Sometimes trembling little birds turn out to be phoenixes, and those who looked to someone else to hang the comfort of a wise, silvery moon in the sky already have the hammer and the picture wire at the ready.

As far as Jon was concerned, the moon only rose on their Somewhere Else because Martin deigned to pull the strings every night, not him.

It was Martin who brought him tea every morning, set it down on the breakfast table with that little flip of the tag and the deft, one-fingered turn of the handle toward him.  It was Martin who scolded him because whites are a separate load, Jon, were you raised in a barn?  Martin who talked him through every episode of the Doctor Who reruns that were the only thing their ancient aerial could pick up.  Martin who planted flowers in the garden and brought muffins from the sweet old lady at the grocers because they traded baking recipes.  Martin who still looked at him with diaphanous pools of ethereal moonlight in his eyes and his smile like he alone hung it in the sky over his head to wash him in its radiance.

Even after everything.

Even after it had been Martin who had to hold the knife buried in his chest as he lay gasping wetly for breath in an alleyway in Another Chelsea to keep the hemorrhaging at bay.  Martin who had cupped his face in his bloody hands with tears streaming down his and forced him to focus, furious love blazing in his sea mist eyes as they locked with his, screaming at him and him only, heedless of anything else.

“Look at me.  LOOK at me, Jon!  Stay with me!  Stay with me, DAMN YOU!”

Stay with me had not been a plea, it had been a command.  He had never once said please because it was never an option.  Shivering, breathing blood through his teeth, the streetlights a fading, star studded halo in Martin’s strawberry blond curls be damned, he was right.  Against every tangled thread of fate twisted deep into his flesh, or perhaps because they had been the only thing that held his torn innards together, he made it to the part where he awoke a few fractured times to nothingness, and then to fingers he knew every inch of inextricably bound up in his and a fierce whisper in his ear.

“I’m here, Jon.  I’m still here.  I’ve got you.  I’m going to fix this.  I’m going to get us out of here.  We’re going to be okay.”

It had been Martin who orchestrated their clandestine escape from the hospital the moment they both agreed he was well enough to survive under his rudimentary medical care and before the authorities got too invested in an urban ghost story of two men who didn’t exist.  Not to mention one of which should, by all medical and logical law, be dead.  It had been Martin who had stolen the necessary antibiotics, drugs, and wound care supplies, Martin who had picked enough pockets to buy passage on a midnight train to the only place they could think to go, and expressly told Jon not to ask where he learned how, even though he knew full well he would later.  Martin who had fought for everything and kept him hidden and safe while he lay in a dingy hotel room somewhere in Scotland, drifting in and out of consciousness between kisses, cold compresses, spoonfuls of whatever he could get him to swallow and keep down, and desperate ‘I love you’s.

Martin had been the one who hung the moon even on the nights Jon couldn’t see it, just so he knew it was there, that the light might finally guide him home.  Not him.  He could have never done something so selfless and simple and beautiful.  No not him.  Not The Archivist.  How could he have ever known that?  Stupid, myopic, pedantic, all-seeing and blind.  A blustering, sanctimonious Tiresias in a sweater vest and half-moon glasses.  And how important was the moon, anyway that he was expected to hang it too?  Would not night still come and the stars still shine?  The stupid, vapid saying should have been about the sun anyway.  Something that nourished and guided and warmed.  Not the moon.  Not the thing of night and hungry wolves and quiet loneliness.  Not a thing of the darkness they fought and still not won, not exactly, not in a way that mattered.  How could he have known the weight of such a thoughtless, frivolous, meaningless phrase and how far and how long Martin had borne it for him to protect he who hung his moon?  

He could see the weight of it so clearly now.  He could see it especially on the darkest days, which came, in grotesque mockery, the moment they found something like their safehouse and rest at last.  Jon had conned his way into a job at the village library with an ancient head librarian who didn’t care much for too many questions, or background or credit checks, and was more than happy to pay in cash.  With Martin’s help of course.  Martin himself had taken up stocking at the village grocers, and their life had teetered onto something so close to quaint and normal it suddenly laid bare the gravity of the depths of darkness they had escaped.

No longer did they have to run, no longer did they have to fight, they could finally lay down the chase and curl in upon each other to lick their wounds in quiet.  But without the driving, primal instinct to live, to survive, that ushered in the days where all the hurt came back to roost and brood and fester.  The days where he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed, or the days Martin couldn’t bear the sound of his voice, or the days they shouted themselves hoarse, stormed apart for hours then came back, silent and broken, red-eyed and exhausted to hold each other and weep into the spaces between neck and shoulder where it still smelled like love and home.

He could see so painfully clearly the toll following him to the ends of the cosmos and back had etched its marks into his goodness, his body and soul, see how often he would walk down the road from their cabin, just a little ways, to stand on the heather spotted hills and gaze out into the frigid infinity of the gray sea.  Cold terror would grip him then, incite a desperate want to run after him, to throw his arms around him and bring him home, but also the fear it would only be to have him turn to mist and slip through his fingers forever.  He always had a cup of steaming tea waiting for him when he came back, just in case.

But again, and always.  It was Martin who would pick up Jon’s hands, kiss every slender, scarred finger through his tears and be the first one to utter ‘I’m sorry.’  Martin who told him with just a single scathing flash of stern blue eyes and not a single word uttered that he was certainly coming to bed and not banishing himself to the couch like an idiot.  Martin who wrapped him in his arms and warmth and boundless love and reminded him, “One way or another.  Together.  That was the deal, right?  You don’t get to back out now.  No returns, refunds, or exchanges, I’m afraid.”

And even through the deepest sobs he would find the laugh Jon didn’t think was in him.  Martin sifted through the mire and the muck and held fast to the tiny, shining things so easy to lose in the darkness.  Things Jon was certain were lost forever, only to be reignited and hung in the brightening sky of their story.  Even if they weren’t quite the moon yet.

It had also been Martin who, on a perfectly ordinary day, on a simple walk through the local farmers market, stopped to peruse one of the usual unremarkable stalls filled with crystals and oils and trinkets.  Jon had wandered off to procure the parsnips and the strawberries, unrelated recipes Martin swore, he had been tasked with finding.  When he returned he found him, a radiant monument tall among the faceless locals, rusty curls caressing his face in the salty breeze, carved of marble and rose quartz and gazing down at a pair of hematite rings on a velvet display box.  His eyes were distant, but not in the enthralled, disembodied way they were when he looked at the sea, or the broken way when they weren’t speaking, but in the contemplative, regarding of puzzle pieces way when he would look into the fire during their talks and turn his words in his mind over and over again like a rock tumbler until they were polished just right.

“Getting into crystals now, are we?” Jon had joked, “Surely I’m not so dull to be around that that’s becoming an attractive hobby.”

Martin snorted and shook his head.

“Supposed to mean healing, or grounding, or something.  Aligning your meridians, I think the lady said?  Whatever that means,” he elaborated, reaching out to touch.

They clinked weightily together, thick and glossy and the dark astral gray of a moonless night.  Martin turned over the card that went with them and read.

“’A grounding stone that belongs to the planet Mars.  It strengthens our connections to the earth and aids the warrior on their journey.  It is a stone of invincibility, but also fragility.  It balances yin and yang energies with its magnetic properties for the perfect reflection upon one’s own soul, astral, physical, and spiritual.’”

“Hematite, is it?” Jon asked, “Also more commonly called bloodstone.  You know if you scratch it, it leaves a red mark.  Like it’s bleeding.  Watch.”

He picked up one of the rings and firmly ran it down the corner of the card Martin had been reading from.  Sure enough, the black stone had left a faint, but starkly crimson mark on the yellowed paper.

“It BLEEDS?” Martin exclaimed in horror.

“It’s just a kind of iron oxide, so, rust, basically,” Jon explained with a chuckle, “Kind of weirdly romantic if you think about it?  This intimidating shiny black stone like armor, made of iron to boot, but with a bleeding heart at its core.”

“I just thought it was pretty, I didn’t know it bleeds,” Martin had laughed in that incredulous way he always did when Jon was telling him something he didn’t actually want to know, but appreciated anyway.

“I find that the strongest, prettiest things often do,” Jon had said in reply.  He remembered saying that particularly clearly, waxing poetic, feeling a swell of affection for the hugely beautiful man he leaned against and was adorably aghast at bleeding rocks.

“Yeah, I reckon they do,” Martin murmured back.

And then his cheeks had flushed bright red under his freckles and the stone steps of his shoulders crumbled a bit under the crushing ancientness and vastness of what he had originally been pondering.

“So, I mean, before you spoiled it with the blood thing.  I was thinking… Well, I was just having a browse and I saw these and I thought they were quite fetching, and then the lady told me they meant grounding and healing and a journey, like on the card.  A-And there were two of them, all by themselves, and everything else was so colorful and flashy these were just so… Um.  Maybe the blood and rusty iron thing makes it more poetic now, actually?  I don’t know.  Sorry I-  This sounded so much better in my head.”

It wasn’t his fault, Jon remembered thinking.  Martin couldn’t find the words because there weren’t any.  Not in this universe or any other.  Not for what they’d gone through, and especially not for what they meant to each other.

“I guess I was just thinking.  If… I bought one.  And wore it.  Sort of like.  Um.  You know.  Would… Would you-?” he had asked, his voice trembling.

Jon had never said yes, yes of course he would, faster or with more conviction in his life.  And there was that look again, rising from the ashes, that flooding of golden, unbound love and light, of eyes turned sky blue, of looking at the man who hung his moon in the sky come back to him.  He could still hang Martin’s moon all over again after so many nights of black clouds and darkness, even if it was only paper.  They’d paid for the rings in rumpled bills, exchanged them right then and there, and kissed each other as the crowd of oblivious people in a world they did not belong in flowed like a river around them.  Jon forgot the bag with the parsnips and strawberries.

But it didn’t matter.  It didn’t even matter that Martin’s fit nicely on his ring finger, but Jon had to wear his on his thumb, and even then sometimes on a chain around his neck for fear of losing it.  It didn’t matter that it was the closest thing they were ever going to get to a proposal and a wedding, consigned now forever to the shadows in a borrowed reality with only each other.  Because it was theirs, and they could begin to figure out how their broken pieces fit back together again.

But like most things that don’t matter, it didn’t until it did.

It began as simple things.  Seeing a wedding on some program they weren’t actually paying much attention to and Martin making a flippant, innocuous comment as he combed his fingers lovingly through Jon’s long and silvered chestnut hair in his lap about how he would have loved to have a cake that had a different flavor on every tier at their wedding.  Just so everyone could have something they liked.  And Jon woke up from his half catlike stupor and looked up at him with such aching regret as those words settled into the pit of his heart alongside ‘he thinks you hung the moon.’  

And soon they began to gather a collection of completely innocent remarks that ran the gamut from ‘would they have worn black or white?  Or one of each?  I don’t know… does it really matter?  And were these engagement rings or wedding rings?  I don’t know.  Neither?  both?  And do we say husband instead of boyfriend now?  Fiancé?  Whatever you want, Martin…’ To the heavier, cancerous weights that sank to the bottom of his gut, even below hanging the moon, like ‘I know Tim would have thrown the most amazing bachelor party for both of us, and his mum had always talked about him getting married someday like it was a farfetched pipe dream, but she would be happy for them, he thinks.’

He could never answer those questions.  There was too much at stake, too much finality and familiarity in them, a strange weightlessness in a world that weighed far too much.  The sun and moon continued their eternal dance of time, ignorant, unbothered, but Jon kept collecting those silent debts of normal life, secreting them away in a hidden singularity in his heart that only grew heavier and metastasized farther the more times Martin walked out at night, not him, beaming starlight from his eyes and his fingertips, to hang the moon again.  So soft, so full of wooly cows and pink heather and the smell of tea and sea salt and Martin’s shampoo on the pillow next to him did it become, that it was almost inevitable that one morning Jon awoke absolutely convinced none of it could be real.  

The moment he decided that, everything made so much more sense.  He could breathe again.  There was a reason he could never sit still, never just feel at ease or talk about the future like it was a real thing that could still happen.  He knew why the silence made his brain itch and why he still glanced around corners and glowered at anyone who dared let their gaze linger on his Martin too long.  Why Martin’s ring fit and his didn’t.  There was too much debt to the universe to be paid, too many broken promises, too many corpses in his wake, he had done nothing to deserve this idyllic life of love and peace and smallness and Martin.  It had to be Her doing, It’s doing, some carefully woven torture chamber that would lure them to the apex of their joy, the center of the web, where they would just be devoured over and over to empty husks and set up like chess pieces to fill with love and light just to knock down again.  He wasn’t free after all.

Jon had been halfway into his coat and halfway out the door to do, he didn’t know, something, anything, to go to the library to use their computer and research something he didn’t know he was looking for when Martin had seized his hand and whirled him around.

“Jon.  STOP.  It’s over.”

And he’d stopped.  He’d looked into those baleful blue eyes, fallen into their depths, landed on the precipice of madness, and broken.  It wasn’t over.  Not for him.  He finally understood.  It was still there.  The Eye.  It always had been.  Though not really, he understood slowly as he wept on his knees in their doorway into Martin’s chest, it had indeed closed forever on him, but it lingered as distant static, like a phantom limb, a metaphysical itch that could never be scratched.  Martin had cradled him close and listened, listened so patiently as he ripped the jagged black fear from the deepest, ugliest part of his heart, hauled it up bloody and messy from his throat and finally laid it bare for both of them to see.  And when it was done and he couldn’t cry anymore Martin had locked eyes with him in a way that made him forget any others could have ever existed outside of crystalline blue and filled with moonlight.

“Listen to me.  I know you think you have some cosmic burden to bear.  That you’re still wearing some… some fucked up crown and sitting on a throne of skulls and death and eyeballs or whatever image you want to put there, and that you have to sit and hurt and watch over everything so it doesn’t happen again, but...  Sorry, Jon, but that’s bullshit.  It’s just a scar now.  That’s all.  Just like the rest of them.  Ugly and beautiful and proof that you —Jonathan Sims— are still alive.  And you are not The Archivist anymore.  You’re just mine.  My Jon.”

He’d held his Jon’s stunned face in his hands and peppered kisses over the pock marks in his skin, over the slash on his throat, the burnt fingers that still couldn’t bend quite right, even the one on his chest, the one almost always hidden by fabric but the one he didn’t need to see to find.  His heart and fingers would always remember exactly where it was.  And he’d kept his lips there a moment, then turned his ear to his chest and wrapped his arms around his waist to listen to his heartbeat like a trembling little bird.

“If I can hear it and feel it.  So can you,” he whispered.

Unsteady fingers curled desperately into Martin’s silky locks, hematite loop cool against his scalp, “Thank you…”

Martin stayed for the kiss on top of his head he knew was coming and smiled.

“Okay, so it’s simple to fix if you think about it,” he murmured into Jon’s chest, “We just need that thing, you know?  The thing that makes you feel like you’re still doing the thing, but you’re not.  What was the word for it again?  A placeholder?  Like when you quit smoking and you hold a pencil or a straw or something that’s not actually a cigarette so you can wean yourself off the ritual?”

Jon blinked owlishly down at him as he dried his eyes.

“A… placebo?  Are you talking about a placebo?”

“Yeah!  That’s it!  We just need to find you a placebo for Knowing things!  That’s all.  Like… reality shows, or-or zoo cams or something!  We’ll figure it out together.  Alright, love?  I promise you.  It’ll be okay.”

Jon was skeptical, so very skeptical, but if Martin was determined to find a balm to soothe his jagged, ontological scars he would happily play the part of lab rat for him.  They’d tried a myriad things to replicate the feeling of Knowing and looking something deep within him still craved.  The zoo and animal livestreams were a bust, cute and entertaining as they were, but animals weren’t ever the purview of The Eye and the camera itself was barely a scrap.  Reality shows came closer, the more salacious the better, but even that temporary fix wore off when Jon’s disgust with the overall content and participants outweighed any benefit.  Martin was just happy to have finally converted him to Bake Off, at least.  They tried people watching in the square in the village, but it made Jon far too self-conscious and guilty.  He used the binoculars exactly once, and that was to look at the cows in the fields, and the choose-your-own-adventure books Martin had been certain would strike a sagacious chord wound up in the donation bin at the library.  But that was when he was struck with a bolt of genius.

Unbeknownst to Jon, which brought him no small measure of glee, Martin ordered, received, and then set up with a literal bow in their back garden the finest telescope he could afford on his meager savings.  He’d researched for days, asked on every amateur astronomer forum he could find, and had it delivered to the grocers so he could make it a proper surprise.  He’d even gone so far as to attack and blindfold a hapless Jon the moment he made it home from work on the day it was ready, and stood behind him giddily bouncing as he tore the tea towel away from his eyes.

“A… Telescope?” he’d blurted dumbly.

“Yes!  It’s perfect, right?  I asked around to find the one that had all the best features, and this one has the best overall magnification and the most lenses, but it doesn’t have the little satellite positioning thing?  I figured you wouldn’t want that anyway, you always like figuring things out and finding things on your own better.”

Martin had been positively radiant.  Jon had just stared at the gawping black tube and chewed the inside of his cheek as he processed what to say.

“I mean… thank you, Martin, really.  It was a sweet thought, but if the binoculars didn’t-“

“Screw the binoculars!  This is different!” Martin happily insisted, “You can look at so much more!  Stars and planets and galaxies and what have you, and it can maybe be sort of like you’re looking for other worlds?  Wormholes or whatever?  Or signs of The Fears and where they’ve gone?  Or even if the stars are the same here as they were back before?  Space literally has so many things to LOOK at we can’t even count them!  This has got to be it!”

Jon tried to smile and laugh and agree to try it out, at the very least, if only because Martin was beaming so sweetly with pride and hope.  Though that first night he didn’t, ushering them back in with promises of tomorrow, Martin, I promise tomorrow.  Tomorrow had been a lie.  As had been the next night.  In fact, it took Jon a full week to even remember they even had a telescope, and that was only after getting the smuggest, Cheshire grin out of Martin after casually mentioning there would be a visible, if partial, lunar eclipse that night.  He’d relented, only because he’d entrapped himself, and they’d both bundled up, looked in the manual for the best size lens to view the moon with, poured a few glasses of wine, and turned their eyes to the stars.

Martin had gone first, gripping the eyepiece and adjusting the focus all the while gasping in awe.  It was so beautiful he’d burst into poetry with a crooked grin.

“Art thou pale for weariness?  Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, wandering companionless among the stars that have a different birth, and ever changing, like a joyless eye that finds no object worth its constancy?  Sounds a little familiar, eh?” he joked, casting a wry look over his shoulder.

Jon rolled his eyes fondly.

“Gross.  Keats again?”

“Nope, Shelley this time, and even he thinks you ought to have a look at the moon.  I think you’ll find you have a lot in common.”

Jon had sighed obligingly and shuffled to the telescope, fully expecting to look at something bright and round with a bit of a shadow on it that was distinctly unremarkable, have another glass of wine, and then go back inside to snuggle by the fire.  What he saw in that tiny pinhole of light pierced straight through the hazel brown of his eye and plunged him into another world entirely.

The sands of the moon glowed the purest white in the refracted light of the distant sun with which it waltzed.  He could see in crisp, shadowy relief the innumerable scars she bore, the depth and breadth of Ptolemaeus, the boundless lonely flatness of the maria, named for the oceans they were once thought to be, an insult to the rock plains forged a millennia ago in birth by cataclysmic fire.  Every crater remained wrought in perfect, frozen detail with no erosion or foliage to slowly heal them over, and she beamed them proudly, ostentatiously in her heavenly light.  A hulking, ancient protectorate, hung by the hands of creation at the dawn of time for a fledgling planet, hundreds of thousands of miles away, and yet so crystal clear and unafraid as he perused her millions of years of cosmic sentinel through a lens.  It was dwarfing, humbling, viscerally awe inspiring in a way he dared not voice for fear of snuffing out the fragile glow of wonder and excitement welling in his chest he had been so certain was gone forever.

Astronomy had never been something that had particularly interested Jon, back when his entire reality from the moment his childish hands had touched a single book was spent peering into shadows and watching his own back.  There was no point in wondering what lay among the stars when danger and death lurked so close behind with slavering jaws ever poised at his throat on terra firma, but now.  Now, he had been living in an alternate world, dimension, reality, somewhere, he couldn’t even say for sure.  He’d been hurled potentially through the very stars that twinkled coquettishly above, flashed through their nebulous veils and curtains under their indifferent gaseous gazes, but seen nothing.  Here was a vast expanse of complete chaotic indefiniteness inviting him in to see what few had ever seen, to guess and hypothesize and gesture wildly at secrets only the stars could keep.  To Know.

Jon had jerked back so suddenly from the telescope to survey the entirety of the astral dome above them that Martin had choked on his wine.

“Jon?  Are you quite alright?”

“Yes, I…” he’d murmured, only even half hearing that Martin had said anything at all, stars reflected in his wondering dark eyes, “I’m fine, I just… How… How much more can this see?  How deep does it go?”

Jon hadn’t seen the victorious smirk on Martin’s face as he set down his wine glass and picked up the instruction manual and lens guide.  They’d watched the rest of the eclipse, of course, marveling through the lens at the inky trickle of shadow over craggy white, but then they’d changed the lens to the strongest one, according to the guide, and spent the rest of the evening triangulating their position beneath their slice of the universe and plotting out the various stars, planets, and constellations above.  Jon had even dashed inside to grab a mostly blank notebook and had filled several pages with notes and observations and things to research later, all while Martin held back tears watching him come so alive over a project he didn’t even know he needed.  Eventually though, sleepiness and cold claimed him, and he kissed his beloved goodnight and left him, more than gladly, to ride out the intellectual flare up until it burnt both him and itself out.  

Martin had no clue what time it was when he finally returned, and it didn’t even matter.  All that mattered was at some point, a practically frozen Jon had climbed into bed, snuggled up close behind and wrapped his arms around him to kiss the back of his neck so softly like the wings of a butterfly and whisper.

“Thank you.”

Another victorious smirk and a loving murmur.

“Told you so.”

Where there had been nothing but an Eye shaped hole in him, scarred around the edges and aching in its vacuum, Jon had filled it with the names of nebulas and quasars, of the myth of Andromeda, and Orion, and Castor and Pollux, or Hercules, and why they had all been hung in the stars for eternity.  The stories were much the same as he remembered, but he’d found slight eccentricities, tiny irregularities in the sky which fascinated him even more so.  Night after night he would look at a different astral body, chart it down in his notebook, then come bounding in with starlight beaming from his eyes and his fingertips with some cry of eureka.

“Martin!  Did you know here Polaris is in the south and Sirius is in the north?”

“Martin!  Did you know the Andromeda Galaxy is actually a little closer to the Milky Way here?”

“Martin, you have to come see this!  Oh, no it’s not weird this time, it’s just I finally got Saturn in the telescope and you can actually see the rings!”

His nightly herald would always be different, but Martin would always rise from the comfort of the couch, put his slippers on, and let Jon talk as long as he needed to about his latest discovery, watching him smile again while he, too, watched the matching smile it never failed to ignite illuminate Martin’s face and they lit each other up in the fused brilliance of a binary star.

Martin no longer hung the moon for Jon, he’d finally just up and quite literally given it to him, and there was no mortal way to repay him for that.  Or so he’d thought.  It came to him, as most flashes of brilliance do, on a night he hadn’t even been thinking about it at all.  All he had been doing was sitting in a lawn chair with his telescope long after Martin had gone to bed, chewing his pencil idly, vaguely missing a cigarette and pondering notes on Vega and Lyra between watching it through his lens.  He’d been stuck for days on Vega and its potentiality for another solar system and what that could imply for their new Earth and their new sun, as well as Lyra and the tragic tale of Orpheus and his doomed love.  Even in their new reality he still turned back at the end of the story, still could not contain the roiling, effusive adoration to his own downfall.

Bitterness had risen like bile in the back of Jon’s throat as he replayed the myth again in his head, unsure why it was vexing him and rewinding in his brain so torturously.  “Stupid, stupid man, if he’d only just…” he’d thought again and again, each time giving the star-crossed musician a different decision, a different choice, urging him down another path somewhere, anywhere along his journey, but in the end, he’d always looped back around to the original.  It was the point of the story, after all.  Not so much the love itself or even the loss of it, but the power of it over one man and the creation born from his mourning and eventual destruction.  Patently Greek.  But the chorus would always begin again in Jon’s head.  If he’d kept his Eurydice, if his songs had been happy, if he hadn’t spent the rest of his life mourning so intensely he was eventually destroyed for it, would he have become the paragon of healing he was, the oracle, the lynchpin of the fate of the world he had eventually become?  Which of them was the stupider man?

Jon was only mortal now, he was no longer all-seeing oracle and dark savior, he had no authority to say, but it was a trifle easier to ponder the hubris of Orpheus instead of his own.  He couldn’t help but think, achingly, sometimes the heroes just deserved to pull their beloved from the pit of Tartarus, promise to love them for eternity, and then simply get married, ride off into the sunset, and live happily ever after.  A story wasn’t a story if it didn’t write itself upon the very bones and sinews of its heroes, that was the law of the universe, but when the story was done and the cracks and fissures in their tissues had faded to myth and legend, what became of the heroes who did not die a tragic or heroic death and were not hung in the stars?  What happened to heroes left behind?  Twisting his bloodstone ring on his thumb idly as it caught the shivering fire of those stars in its dark mirrored surface, the musical arrow of the muses pierced his heart, wide-eyed in wonder.  He’d asked the universe, but he already knew the answer.  He’d always known.  He knew, and he knew it with such clarion joy as he had never known anything before.

He could no longer be the man who hung Martin’s moon, he hadn’t been for a long time.  That much was clear to him, but he could certainly do something else.  Perhaps they had grown past the need for moon hangings in the first place.  He knew how their story ended.

It took months of saving, secreting, preparation, and then finally just simply waiting for the perfect, clear night.  The moment it came, the moment he knew it was the night, Jon struck without hesitation.  Poor Martin wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the couch, into Jon, when he returned from a late shift at the grocers, but found himself instead stuffed right back into his coat with a picnic basket in hand and hauled out into the frigid night in a flurry of Jon with little time to protest.  He bounded up the hill behind their little cottage beneath a perfect blanket of stars flaming coldly overhead, trailing Martin’s hand in his behind with his breath coming in silvery puffs of clouds, and paying no heed to the whining.

“Jon, whatever it is, does it have to be NOW?” Martin panted, “I am absolutely knackered and it’s beyond freezing and wouldn’t it be nicer just to curl up with a cuppa and fall asleep in front of Star Wars or something?  Doesn’t that have enough stars and space in it?”

Dauntless, Jon only tugged harder.

“There’s tea in the basket, and I’ve seen Star Wars.  And yes, it has to be tonight, it’s really important, I promise.”

“Look.  I love you.  So much.  You know this, and please know it is with the utmost love and deepest affection in my heart that I point out that you say that every time, and you’ve still shown me Pluto like, a hundred separate times.  While I quite like it, and I still feel sorry for it being bumped out of the solar system and all, it’s just a dot?  How many times can you look at a dot?” Martin sighed.

His words finally threw a caltrop into Jon’s warpath, and he paused, turning over his shoulder woundedly.

“What?  No, it’s not Pluto, I swear just- Please, Martin?  I’ll never ask again if you don’t want to, but just for tonight, please?” he pleaded.

Martin winced, and immediately folded under the onslaught of doleful honeyed brown eyes under a nimbus of stars.

“Oh, lord there you go with the puppy dog eyes.  Okay, okay fine, but there better be a nip of whiskey in this,” he chided lovingly with a gesture at the thermos in the basket.

The smile flared back to life brightly on Jon’s face as he turned back up the craggy little footpath to the top of the hill.

“Of course, hot toddy with tea.”

“Ooh, lovely, you do know me.”

The rest of the way was trivially short to the small, flat hilltop surrounded by heather where Jon had already set up a blanket and the telescope over a pristine vista of the dark line where the stars sank into the sea.  He ushered Martin to sit down first, then perched on his hip beside him and poured him a generous helping of tea and whiskey from the thermos before pouring his own.

“Thanks, much.  Right then, what exactly are we up here to look at that we couldn’t see from our garden?” Martin asked, accepting his cup of potent hot toddy and sipping it gratefully around the lemony steam that billowed up.

Taken aback by the sudden logic lobbed into the center of his romantic posturing, Jon looked momentarily stunned, as if someone had slapped him upside the head.

“Oh!  Oh, um, well-!  Ahah, that is to say- Uh.  There is a reason for all this.  It’s not that we couldn’t see it from our garden, we very much could have.  B-But it’s so beautiful up here, and you can kind of hear the sea?  And it’s nice and peaceful, and the heather is still blooming a bit and um…” he trailed off, cheeks burning.

“Okay…?” Martin probed, frowning a little.

“Er, actually...  It’s less about the stars than it is- W-Well it is about the stars.  Let’s get that clear.  But to be completely honest I mostly just… I-I well.  There’s something I need to tell you?”

Jon was ill-prepared for the look of abject horror on Martin’s face as he went paler than the moon overhead.

“Shit, what is it?  Did you find something?  You saw something?  There’s been a sign of The Fears?  Oh god it’s not HER is it?” he asked frantically, nearly slopping hot toddy all over his lap.

“What?  No!  No, none of that!” Jon spluttered, aghast.

Martin regained a modicum of color in his face and breathed in measuredly.

“Okay, so then what is it?  Oh god, you’re not… Jon you’re not ill, or something, are you?  Please, you can just tell me if-“

“No, I am not ill either, damn it, Martin!  If you would just listen to me!  I-!” Jon moaned exasperatedly, “I just wanted to do something… nice.  Something nice for you.  And nicer than I normally would because I am apparently much worse at crafting romantic moments than I thought and-“

“Wait…” Martin cut in, eyes gleaming with realization, “Jonathan Sims… Are you grand gesturing?”

“Well I am certainly trying but you are making it exceedingly difficult!” he retorted, red in the face and breathless.

“Oh my god, you are!  I’m so sorry!” Martin laughed brightly, “Oh god Jon you poor thing I’m so sorry, I’m awful, I’m the absolute worst!  No please!  Don’t let me spoil it.  Please go on.”

Grinding the heel of his palm into his forehead, Jon tried to summon the words again, only for Martin’s strong, warm hands to take it from him and tip his chin up to gaze into his eyes.

“Hey.  Hey, Jon.  Look at me,” he breathed, looking into his eyes idolatrously, “I’m sorry.  I love you.  You can tell me.”

Taking the steadiness from those clear blue depths he needed, Jon focused on them, on the strawberry blond curls tossing in the icy breeze, of the kiss of chilled pink under his freckles, and that eternal, sunshine smile.

“Okay,” he finally answered, smiling softly.

With a deep, shuddering breath, and a long swig of whiskey laced tea for good measure, Jon drew himself up and fished deep in his soul for the words he had waited a millennium to say.

“Okay… So here it is.  Um… I’ve um, I’ve had a lot of time alone lately with my new hobby, as it were.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.  A lot of it is overly complicated and ridiculous and doesn’t deserve to live outside of my head but… a lot of it has been about you, about us.  And I know we don’t need to-to put a label on us or put us into a… a box or anything like that.  But every time I look at this ring on my finger, I can’t help but remember we never actually talked about what they meant,” he began, holding out his left hand and fidgeting with the loose band around his thumb.

“Oh Jon, don’t worry about that.  It was just me being a big sappy, sentimental dork.  And if I recall correctly, we’d had a pretty awful row a night or two before, and I just wanted to feel close to you again, I guess?  We both know what they mean to us.  It doesn’t matter,” Martin assured him sweetly.

“Except that it does!” Jon insisted passionately, “That’s the point!  You are a big sappy, sentimental dork, Martin.  I bet you were the kid that had a dream wedding all planned in a notebook with pictures cut out of magazines and everything.  I adore that about you, but big sappy sentimental dorks should have big sappy, sentimental moments like huge, expensive seaside weddings with three-flavor cakes and all your friends and family and rose petals and dove releases and whatever else your heart could dream up.”

Martin snickered and shook his head, charmed at least by the mental image of kissing Jon on a seaside cliff at sunset while doves flew in glorious formation around them and everyone they had ever known and loved cheered.

“Pfft, I don’t need a grand wedding and all that, I just need-”

“Me.  I know,” Jon finished for him with a smirk, “I knew you’d say that.  Maybe not.  But you deserve one.  And I know I don’t use that word lightly, but it’s necessary in this case.  You deserve it.  All of it.  Me on one knee with a ring in a box, you deserve us picking out flowers and tuxedos and arguing over the font on the invitations.  You deserve Tim’s awful bachelor party and laughing at me at the altar because I had to read my vows off a card and they’re still so stiff and awkward and they pale in comparison to the beautiful poem you wrote about me.  You deserve smiling so hard your cheeks hurt and crying as we exchange rings.  All of it.”

Martin weighed his words carefully on his tongue with a sip of his boozy tea to chase away ghosts of things that never even were.

“I mean, sure, not going to say I never wanted that.  And I did have that stupid wedding notebook, by the way.  But all that became a pipe dream the minute we wound up here, right?  No use being upset about something that can never be.”

“That may be so, but the crux of it is… you also contented yourself with the idea of it never coming true not because we’re here, but because you didn’t think I wanted it,” Jon answered, his unspoken truth hanging heavy in the chill night air between them, “Every time you tried to tell me you wanted to be with me forever, I brushed it off and painted it gray and tucked it away and carried on the way we always were like nothing happened and it didn’t matter.  Because it was alright, really, you were just so happy to have what we have, that I didn’t die in your arms that night, that we were still together after everything.  That I at least kept that promise after I’d broken so many.  You were so grateful just for what you were gifted after we thought we would end with nothing you didn’t dare think to ask the universe for more and I am so, so sorry it took me so long to see that, Martin.  I’m so sorry.”

His voice broke.  The breath caught in Martin’s chest as he reached out to touch his wrist comfortingly.

“Jon, I-“

“No, please.  Please let me finish I… I can’t give you any of those things.  I can’t give you our friends back, I can’t give you cake and doves and the sunset and crying through vows in front of the vicar.  I can’t even give you an elopement at the register office because we still don’t legally exist.  And I guess for a long time I resented myself for that.  For all of it.  For stealing that from you, for dragging you through literal hell only to give you a shadow of a life stuck here with me because I betrayed you.  But- no stop, don’t say anything yet I’m not done.  B-But now I finally realize.  You’re right, Martin.  You were always right.  It doesn’t matter.  Those things are all just… things.  I said to you once, a long time ago, and I’m still not even sure if you really heard me, that I didn’t want to just survive.  It was true then, and maybe it wasn’t true for a while, but it’s certainly true again.  We did not fight tooth and nail to just survive.  We fought to live, and live together.  So what I’m saying is… I know now I don’t have to give you tuxedos and white roses as long as I give you something… Something to prove to you that you are my everything, my entire world, something to show you that I love you more than I have loved anything in my entire life.  That I want forever with you.  S-So I…” he trailed off, sucking in his breath to give his gesture of undying love the ardor and grandeur it deserved, “I bought us a star.”

The proclamation rang out like the toll of a bell, its gravity sonorous and quaking.  Martin blinked.

“You… I’m sorry?” he squeaked.

Jon set his empty thermos cup aside, flailed his hands in the air and shook his head frantically

“I-I know, I know it sounds mental just hear me out!” he protested, “Technically I didn’t buy the star, if we want to get picky about it.  I mean obviously no one can own a star.  Just the rights to name it?  It’s a thing you can do online.  I was a bit gobsmacked it was real to be honest.  I just had this silly idea when I was out looking at the stars.  I was looking at Lyra and thinking about you and Orpheus, and I… W-Well I just typed it in, ‘can you name a star?’ and it came right up.  Right then and there.  It um… comes with… hold on.”

Remembrance placed a gentle bookmark down on Jon’s fluttering thoughts, and he rummaged in the picnic basket for a moment before pulling out a navy-blue manila folder covered in stars and full of the paperwork and certificates that had come with registering theirs.  He handed it to Martin, who took it in place of his own empty cup, numb, muscles quivering under his jaw, and opened it to the glittering gold typeface that proclaimed ‘Congratulations!’.

“It comes with paperwork, too!  See?  So, it’s official, at least?  The Jon-Martin star.  Not a marriage license I know, but at least our names are together on something legal?  Our real names?  I figured even if we manage the fake identity thing we’d have to get married as not us.  Not really.  So…  I-It could be like our marriage certificate?” Jon explained, chewing his lower lip.

Martin said nothing as his hand turned the pages of the documentation, his eyes distant in a way Jon had never seen before.  Not disembodied and enthralled, not broken, not even regarding puzzle pieces.

“Oh!  Um, also I-I got us a binary star.  I forgot to mention that bit,” he went on, filling the sudden void, “It’s, ah- What a binary star is- It’s technically two?  But they’re caught up in each other’s gravity and they orbit each other so tightly they look like one star together, one that just shines a little brighter.  They’re bound together forever by the most powerful cosmic force in the universe.  Just like us.”

Only silence answered, punctuated by one last crisp whisper of paper, and then the folder closing with Martin’s spread fingers atop it, bloodstone gleaming in the vivid pale light of the night.  Jon’s heart pitched frantically in his chest, and desperate, stranded tears pricked at his eyes.

“I uh… I would have rather gotten us a whole constellation.  Heh, you know?  But they don’t do that, obviously,” he tried softly, his fingers barely brushing Martin’s knuckles, “They record heroes in constellations, after all.  Great deeds, doomed romances, lovers who can be together no other way… That would have been a better way to honor us, I think.  Our story.  A-And who knows?  Maybe back on our world there are a few new stars to remember what we did, to mark the place we left it, so that everyone we left behind can look up and remember us.  They don’t know how the story really ended, and they probably never will, but we do.  We do, and I want to end it right here, right now.  With our star shining above us ‘and they lived happily ever after.’”

Martin still said nothing, but his head bowed, casting a slice of shadow over his eyes, and his shoulders quivered as a thin, bright line of wet silver trickled down his cheek.  Jon felt the very sky shatter above and begin to crumble around him.

“Please… M-Make no mistake, Martin.  P-Perhaps the gesture is silly and meaningless, but it was all I could think to do to go with everything I’ve said tonight.  Martin… Martin, don’t you see?  These are my wedding vows to you.  This is me saying ‘I do’ and also ‘Martin K. Blackwood would you do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the universe?’  All at once.  This is me saying I swear to you I will be yours, through everything, until the end of time.  M-Maybe I wasn’t before.  Maybe I was still punishing myself, but I’m telling you, I’m ready now to have my happily ever after.  With you, Martin.  If you’ll have me.  If I haven’t-“

He would never finish.  In a dizzying blur of blue folder, flashing hematite, and a wreath of golden curls, Martin kissed the words off his lips.  He kissed him so hard and so fierce, through wracking sobs with his hands woven so raptly into his long, wavy locks he thought his lips would bruise and his fragile soul would finally shatter to pieces in Martin’s arms.  Undone, all Jon could do was surrender and kiss him back with equal passion, thumbing away the hot tears as they spilled freely down his cheeks and anointed them both with their cleansing, hoary heat.  Their lips parted and they panted softly against each other in the space between, each afraid to break the sacred, pulsing silence.

“You’re crying,” Jon whispered at length, “I’ve said something wrong. Martin, darling I’m so sorry.  I never meant to-”

Martin laughed, raspy with tears, but ethereal, sparkling, like stardust floating on the breeze.

“People are allowed to cry when they’re happy you stupid, silly man,” he murmured in between kissing him again, and again.

“Oh.  Oh.”

He kissed him one last time, that idiot man who always burnt the toast and always knew the facts but never knew what to say, who finally figured it out and bought him a star, and threw his arms around him, enveloping his slight, fragile form protectively in his embrace.

“I love you.  I love you so much.”

Jon sank into that warm, familiar comfort and buried his face in his shoulder.

“I love you, too, Martin.  I want to be yours for the rest of my life.  I want to be me, I want to be us.”

“I know.  I’ve always known.  Oh god, you do know that right?  I know that you love me, it’s written in everything you do and say.  I have never, ever once doubted you love me with everything you are.  Even in the moments I was afraid that… that maybe we just weren’t meant to be together, I still knew it wouldn’t be because you didn’t love me.  Never because you didn’t love me.  Just maybe that we didn’t fit together anymore,” Martin replied in a small voice through his tears as they spilled down his cheeks.

As much as he wanted to vehemently deny there was ever a chance they might have not fit back together again after they had both been so shattered, to kiss him and tell him not in a million years would there ever have been a future where they weren’t Jon and Martin against the world, Jon knew it to be inescapably true.

“I’m so sorry you ever had to be afraid of that,” he swore, digging his fingers into Martin’s back pointedly, “After everything.  After we fought so hard to escape fear itself.  That I almost let it truly win in the end.  That I couldn’t just let go… Because… Because this was never about The Eye, was it?”

A heave of breath and its shuddering exhale shook Martin’s body free of lifetimes of grief, and fear, of ugliness carried far beyond the borders of their souls.  His fingers curled tighter in unspoken reply.

“No Jon, no it wasn’t, but I’m so very glad you finally figured that out.”

“Me, too…” he whispered.

They held each other in the quiet wake of being a moment and let the astral plane wheel calmly overhead.  An impatient star twinkled.

“Wait… you never answered me,” Jon finally said as he pulled back, sliding his elegant fingers down Martin’s strong arms.

“Huh?” Martin blurted, scrubbing under his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

“About marrying me tonight.  You never actually said yes, so…”

A twinkle in his eye and a slight mischief to his grin, Jon dove back into the picnic basket and emerged with a velvet ring box.  Martin’s hands flew to his mouth.

“You didn���t.”

“Of course I did!  Nothing fancy, but I thought it was high time to retire the blood rings,” he explained rising from his former perch on his hip to kneel properly.

The box cracked neatly open, and inside lay a simple, white gold band with a tiny circle of milky moonstone embedded in it on a midnight-blue satin cushion, blindingly bright against the dark.  Martin sobbed joyfully all over again.

“So, uh… I suppose if it had just been us, if we’d just been together, without everything, and we’d arrived at this moment.  I would have done much the same.  I would have brought you somewhere beautiful, somewhere I could teach you some inane fact you didn’t actually care about, but liked because it came from me.  Emulsifiers in ice cream and rum raisin…” they both snickered, “And I would have tried my best to make it into some sort of romantic metaphor but completely bunged it up and you would be laughing as I got down on one knee, just like this.  And it would have just been simple.  To the point.  Just… Will you marry me?  So…”

Jon assumed the traditional position, on one knee, arms outstretched, his every slender point a star in a perfect constellation of love.

“Will you marry me?”

Their eyes met, across a thousand different realities, across a thousand different worlds, carried on celestial winds to fall hopelessly, inexorably, into each other’s orbit.

“Yes, yes I do believe I will.”

With one last farewell kiss upon it for what it had meant for them both, Jon slipped the bloodstone ring from Martin’s finger and replaced it with the delicate band made of starlight.  It took its place radiantly, and shone as Martin drew his hand back to admire it with an equally radiant grin before it dimmed with concern.

“But what about you?” he asked worriedly as he watched the old ring entombed lovingly in the box.

Jon only smirked and produced a second box from the basket, which he offered on his open palm out to Martin.

“Naturally, I got one for myself.  Couldn’t pass up a chance to get a wedding ring that actually fits, could I?  It’s just… Don’t you think you deserve to give it to me the way you would want?” he urged.

Martin took the box eagerly, biting his lower lip in thought.

“Not sure you want to give me that freedom.  I had about five different ways of asking you in my head and all of them you would have hated so, so much.  But I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t kind of the point,” he answered wryly.

Jon chortled.

“Sorry I, the unromantic one, sprung this on you, the romantic one.  But I did want to surprise you.  I-I mean you can still write me a vows poem later?  If you want to, of course.  I’d love to have it, even if I don’t actually get to hear it at our wedding.”

Martin’s face flushed immediate crimson and his eyes darted coyly away as he toyed with the wedding band box in his lap.

“Oh that?  A-Actually I… I have it memorized, i-if you really wanted to hear it.”

“You- WHAT?” gasped Jon, his cheeks flushing in tandem.

“Oh yeah, I wrote my vows poem for you ages ago and I’ve gone over it so many times I know it by heart.  It was comforting, okay?  I-I’d read it again when times were good and I thought maybe you’d actually- um… a-and when times were not so good, when you were gone, in your own head, when I was afraid we were broken for good, whenever I needed it.  I’ve read it over a thousand times and never changed a thing from the first time I penned it.  Never needed to.  I’m surprised I haven’t recited it in my sleep at this point,” Martin admitted sheepishly.

Jon’s entire body flushed with a solar heat that melted his joints and his heart into a swirling flare of adulation.

“I can think of no better way, then, to receive my ring,” he breathed, reaching out to cup Martin’s cheek in his hand, “I’ve had my turn, now it’s yours.”

In mirror ballets of love exchanges, Martin cradled Jon’s hand against his cheek as he spoke the first lines of the vows etched ever on his being softly into his palm.

“Let he who, shadow dwelling, must In paper, pen, and book be bound Shake off the chains of dark and rust And chart his own bright fate unfound.

Let he with lifelong burdens borne Cut paper wings with thread of gold And hand in hand, the sky forsworn Flit clouds and sun in laughter bold.

Let he whose blood and soldier’s ken The world did shield from dark and fear Heal fast those wounds, be whole again And sleep at last, held close and dear.

Bring him to me with spirit free With stars in eyes and music sung From lips a joyful promise be One soul conjoined, one fate’s thread strung.

Two hearts rejoice in love renowned. We lift our heads, alive, uncrowned.”

He waited until the last couplet to pull the ring from the box and slide it onto Jon’s finger where it too, fit perfectly, like it had always been there, and shone defiantly bright in the moonlight.  Jon wept.  He had been weeping since the first words of verse left his beloved’s lips, but seeing that ring like a piece of his missing soul returned to him undammed the tears effusively.

“God that was… Martin, I don’t have words.  I-It was… so beautiful.  You’re so beautiful.  Thank you,” he cried fervently, “I wish I could tell you properly how much that meant, but I just-“

“Hey… That’s alright.  I’m the words guy.  You’re the emulsifiers guy.  Making you cry is all I need to see to know how you feel,” Martin assured him warmly, reaching out to brush his tears away as he chuckled.

“Yeah… add this one to the running tally.”

“Oh, I have,” Martin snickered, “Speaking of!  Now we’ve done the crying through vows bit.  Shouldn’t we say the ‘I do’ bit, as well?”

Jon pursed his lips with a shrug as he reached out with his left hand to take Martin’s left as well, twining their fingers together

“Yes, I suppose we should.  I don’t see why not.  Well then, Martin, do you?”

“I do.  And Jon, do you?”

“I do.”

“You may now soundly snog the groom.”

“Martin…”

The emphatic drawl of his name the way Jon only called it when he was frustratingly enamored of him perished gently against Martin’s velvet lips as they caressed his.  They kissed slowly and reverently, sealing a pact ordained by the heavens long before either of them had seen the stars in the other’s eyes, lighting with white flame the torch to guide them for the first time, forward.  They broke it only to punctuate it with two more featherlight kisses and a breathless laugh, bowing their foreheads together in deference to the forces of fate and the universe.

“I know this isn’t the wedding either of us ever dreamed of, but as far as I’m concerned, it was perfect,” Jon murmured, nuzzling closer into his husband, swaddling the new, fledgling and beautiful word in his heart.

“Well, hey, what is a wedding really other than just a formal declaration that this is it?  This is us, we’re forever, no matter what.  We did it.  And you did it for me, in the STARS, Jon… Can we just remember that again?  You put us in the actual stars.  I am so writing a ballad for our constellation later, you do know this.”

“Oh lord.  Of course you are.  But really, it was the least I could do, after you’ve done so much for me, sacrificed everything for me.  Waited for me for so long.”

“And you came back to me,” Martin reminded him passionately, “And I don’t just mean back to life, here, in this world.  I mean you came back, Jon, MY Jon, the Jon I was in love with the moment I laid eyes on him.  The fidgety and obstinate Jon who can’t make a decent cup of tea to save his life, who puts on two different socks in the morning because his nose is already in the paper or a book, who teaches me about bleeding rocks and binary stars and still reacts to the simplest acts of kindness like a warm cranberry orange scone without asking for one like they’re divine miracles he is undeserving of, who looks at me like I hung the moon or something every time.  Even when I thought I was a complete and total waste of a human being, you, Jonathan Sims, the most beautiful, amazing, brilliant man to ever walk the Earth, looked at me like I hung the moon.  And that was… Still is… everything to me.”

The heavens shifted, the stars wheeled, the last piece clicked smartly, smugly into place.

“W-What did you say…?” Jon asked with such urgency, grabbing his hands so fiercely, Martin startled.

“Wh-I-I don’t-?  Which part?  The moon hanging part?” he stuttered, rolling his eyes fondly as he realized mid-sentence, “Oh, right.  Ugh, Jon are you seriously going to get after me about your weird vendetta against idioms at our wedding?  Because if you are that would be annoyingly adorable and so intensely you and kind of perfect, but also can you not on THIS particular occasion?”

The laugh that tore from Jon’s throat was half mad, half euphoric as the weight of the moon lifted from his shoulders and became naught but an indifferent sentinel disc in the sky once more.

“No no no, it’s just… It’s funny, I had more than a few things very, very wrong for a very, very long time.  That’s all.  Don’t worry about it,” he explained, leaning in and pressing a delicate kiss to Martin’s forehead, “If you’re the one who hung the moon after all, then I suppose ‘written in the stars’ will have to do for me.”

Martin lit up with literary glee.

“Oh ho!  Two space related idioms in one go?  What a rare treat!  Maybe this is your gateway drug into puns…” he teased impishly.

“Absolutely no chance in hell.”

They both laughed, laughed with the billowing icy breath that reached with victorious fingers up to the heavens.  They laughed, messily sniffing back the pesky drip of tears and cold.  They laughed with lightness of the encumbrance of hematite armor shed, its bloody protections no longer needed to cage wounded hearts and keep them safe and close.  They laughed in breath and also in the dancing points of light in their eyes as they fell into one another free from gravity.

“So uh… Do I get to see my star tonight, or don’t I?” Martin finally remembered, relishing the utterly horrified yelp from Jon.

“Oh god I completely-!  Y-Yes!  Yes of course, it’s already set up at the proper coordinates!” he had already sprung to his feet, “Oh, though, hang on, it took longer to get to the star viewing part than I anticipated, so I might need to adjust it a bit.  Oh!  And I have a little strawberries and champagne, if you like?”

“I do like, please and thank you!”

Jon set to readjusting the telescope to the proper ascension and declination while Martin poured them two glasses of crisply bubbling champagne.  They twined their arms to drink a toast from each other’s glass, ‘to us’ or ‘to happily ever afters’, or to several other messily rambled toast worthy sentiments.  They couldn’t decide and toasted to all of it.  They ate plump red strawberries and licked the juice from each other’s fingers as they looked at their star, which was, after everything, just a dot, just like Pluto, but Martin had to admit that he rather liked looking at dots after all.  And that one was their dot.  The warm intoxication of love and champagne begged for music, and someone fumbled in the cold for a wedding playlist on some app, somewhere, it didn’t matter, just as long as they could join hands, gaze into each other’s eyes and dance inelegantly, stepping on each other’s toes, under the umbrella of stars in a gentle rain of moonlight.

“I don’t see your problem with cliches, idioms and all that, really…” Martin mused at length, laying his head on Jon’s shoulder as they slowly spun to the rhythm of a longing ballad and the song of the sea, “Like this stupid, great song.  They’re familiar and cozy and everyone knows them.  They’re like… like old friends.  Always there to rely on when we can’t come up with the words ourselves, because sometimes we can’t.  And if something trite and silly sums up the way you feel, why not just let it be?  Sometimes things are said over and over again because some truths are universal, you know?  They’re just… human.”

Jon pressed a kiss into the mop of curls that tickled his nose and smelled faintly of toasted sugar and lavender and mused on all of the romantic cliches that had just passed through his mind unbidden.  Who was he to deny he was but one star in the sky, a single gear in the grand mortal mechanism of the universe.  If he had handed himself over to the humanity of it all instead of rusting, stopping, looking outside where there was never anything to see, perhaps he could have had this dance much sooner.  It didn’t matter though, until it did, because that night Martin took his breath away, made his world go round, he was head over heels for his match made in heaven, and better than heaven, they were written in the stars.

“You know what, Martin?” Jon laughed in reply, “Tonight, being what it is, I am willing to concede.  You are absolutely right.”

“I’m glad…” came the tender acceptance, followed by a distinctly puckish beat of silence, “Then does this mean I can I start saying love you to the moon and back?”

“Don’t push your luck...”

[doormouseetcappendix]

Afro-Futurist Reading List Vol 2.

Afro Futurism Reading List Vol 1:

Afro Futurism Reading List Vol 2:

Black Speculative Fiction Breakdown by Genre

African Fantasy (early myths and fables from the continent): Forest Of A Thousand Deamons: A Hunter's Saga by Daniel O. Fagunwa The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle by Amos Tutuola The Brave African Huntress by Amos Tutuola Feather Woman of the Jungle by Amos Tutuola Ajaiyi and his Inherited Poverty by Amos Tutuola The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town by Amos Tutuola

Utopia (alternate histories written during the jim crow & antebellum eras): Blake Or The Huts Of Africa by Martin Delany Imperium In Imperio by Sutton E Griggs Light Ahead For The Negro Edward A Johnson One One Blood by Pauline Hopkins Black No More by George Shuyler Lord Of The Sea by MP Sheil

Space Opera (far future sci fi worlds of interplanetary travel): Nova by Samuel R Delany Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand by Samuel R. Delany Binti Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor An Unkindness Of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson Rayla 2122 Series by Ytasha Womack Trouble On Triton by Samuel R. Delany Babel 17 by Samuel R Delany Empire Star by Samuel R Delany The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord The Best Of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord Ancient Ancient by Klini Iburu Salaam Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden Ascension: Tangled Axon by Jacqueline Koyanagi Teleportality by T Cisco Nadine's Bible Seris by T Lindsey-Billingsley Nigerians In Space Series by Deji Bryce Olukotun

Aliens (alien encounters): Lilith's Brood Trilogy by Octavia Butler Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor Rosewater Trilogy by Tade Thompson The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbell The Wave by Walter Mosley

Dystopia (oppressive futures and realities): Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjie Brenyah Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi War Girls Series by Tochi Onyebuchi Sunshine Patriots by Bill Campbell Gunmen's Peace by Milton J Davis Dragon Variation by T Cisco

Experimental (literary tricksters): The Ravicka Series by Renee Gladman The Freedom Artist by Ben Okri The Structure Of Dante's Hells by LeRoi Jones The House Of Hunger by Dumbudzo Marachera Black Sunlight By Dumbudzo Marachera Yellow Back Radio Broke Down by Ishmaeel Reed The Last Days Of Louisiana Red by Ishmaeel Reed The Sellout by Paul Beatty Koontown Killing Kaper by Bill Campbell The African Origin Of UFOs by Anthony Joseph Quantum Black Futurism(Theory & Practice Volume 1) by Rasheeda Philips by Rasheeda Philips Spacetime Collapse: From The Congo to Carolinas Spacetime Collapse II: Community Futurisms by Rasheeda Philips consent not to be a single being trilogy by Fred Mot

Post-Apocalyptic (worlds falling apart): The Purple Cloud by MP Shiel Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany The Parable Series by Octavia Butler Brown Girl In The Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

Dying Earth (far future post-apocalyptic worlds + magic):

The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin The Einstien Intersection by Samuel R. Delany The Jewels Of Aptor by Samuel R. Delany The Fall Of The Towers Trilogy by Samuel R. Delany Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorofor The Book Of Phoenix by Nnededi Okorofor The Prey Of Gods by Nicky Drayden

Alternate History (alternate timelines and what-ifs): Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed Everfair by Nisi Shawl The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates The Insh'Allah Series by Steven Barnes Ring Shout by P Djelia Clark A Dead Djinn In Cairo by P Djelia Clark The Black God's Drum by P Djelia Clark Washington Black by Esi Edugyan Pimp My Airship: A Naptown By Airship Story by Maurice Beaudice The Dream Of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer Pym by Matt Johnson, Dread Nation Series by Justina Ireland From Here to Timbuktu by Milton J Davis

High Fantasy (magical kindoms and high adventures): The Neveryorn Series by Samuel R. Delany Black Leapard Red Wolf by Marlon James The Deep by Rivers Solomon & Clipping Imaro Series by Charles R. Saunders The Children Of Blood & Bone by Tomi Adeyemi The Children Of Virtue & Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi The Sorcerer Of The Wildeeps by Kai Ashai Washington A Taste Of Honey by Kai Ashai Washington Beasts Made Of Night Series by Tochi Onyebuchi A Place Of Nights: War & Ressurection by Oloye Karade, Woman Of The Woods: A Sword & Soul Epic by Milton J Davis Temper by Nicky Drayden They Fly At Ciron by Samuel R. Delany Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman The House Of Discarded Dreams by Etakterina Sedia

Magic Realism (literary naturalism with surreal, dreamlike, and mythic imagery): The Echo Tree & Other Stories by Henry Dumas The Kingdom Of This World by Alejo Carpentier General Sun My Brother by Jacques Stephen Alexis The Famished Road Series by Ben Okri The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson Montaro Caine by Sydney Portier Mama Day by Gloria Naylor Redemption In Indigo by Karen Lord Mem by Bethany C Morrow

Urban Fantasy (modern citybound fantasy): The City We Became by NK Jemisin  Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead Blue Light By Walter Mosley Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright

Time Travel (stories unstuck in time): Kindred by Octavia Butler Version Control by Dexter Palmer Recurrence Plot by Rasheedah Phillips

Horror (nightmare, terrors, and hauntings): Beloved by Toni Morisson African Immortals by Tananarivue Due Fledgling by Octavia Butler The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez Lakewood by Meggan Giddings The Ballad Of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff The Changeling by Victor Lavealle Zone One by Colson Whitehead The Between by Tananarive Due The Good House by Tananarive Due Ghost Summers: Stories by Tananarive Due Unhollowed Graves by Nunzo Onho Catfish Lullaby by AC Wise

Young Adult (books for young adults): Akata Witch Series by Nnedi Okorofor Zarah The Windseeker & The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorofor Long Juju Man by Nnedi Okorofor Ikenga by Nnedi Okorofor Tristan Strong Series by Kwame Mbalia A Song Below Water by Bethany C Morrow Daughters Of Nri by Reni K. Amayo A River Of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy 47 by Walter Mosley

Comics (graphic storytelling) George Herriman Library: Krazy & Ignatz (1919-1921) by George Herriman The Boondocks Complete Collection by Aaron Mcgruder Birth Of A Nation by Aaron Mcgrudger, Reginald Hudlin, & Kyle Baker Prince Of Cats by Ronald Wimberly Concrete Park by Erika Alexander & Tony Puryear Incognegro Series by Matt Johnson Your Black Friend & Other Stories by Ben Passmore Bttm Fdrs Ezra Clayton Daniels & Ben Passmore Sports Is Hell is Ben Passmore LaGuardia by Nnedi Okorofor & Tana Ford Bread & Wine: An Erotic Tale Of New York by Samuel R Delany & Mia Wolff Empire by Samuel R Delany & Howard Chaykin Excellence by Brandon Thomas Bitteroot by David F Walker, Chuck Brown & Sanford Greene Black by Kwanza Osajyefo Niobe: She Is Life by Amandla Stenberg & Sebastian A Jones Black Panther by Christopher Priest Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates Shuri by Nnedi Okorofor World Of Wakanda by Roxane Gay Truth: Red, White, & Black by Kyle Baker House Of Whispers by Nalo Hopkinson & Neil Gaiman Naomi by David F Walker, Brian Micheal Bendis, & Jamal Campbell Far Sector by NK Jemison & Jamal Campbell

Short Stories (collections by single authors): Driftglass by Samuel R Delany, Distant Stars by Samuel R Delany Bloodchild & Other Stories by Octavia Butler Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler Falling In Love With Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson, Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorofor, How Long Til Black Future Month? by NK Jemisin Nine Bar Blues by Sheree Reneee Thomas

Anthologies (collections from multiple authors) Dark Matter edited by Sheree Renee Thomas So Long Been Dreaming edited by Nalo Hopkinson Conjure Stories edited by Nalo Hopkinso Whispers From The Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction edited by Nalo Hopkinson Afro SF: Science Fiction by African Writers edited by Wor. W. Hartmaan Stories For Chip: A Tribute To Samuel R Delany edited by Nisi Shawl Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movement edited by Adrienne Marie Brown & Walidah Imarisha Mothership: Tales of Afrofuturism and Beyond edited by Bill Campbell The City: Cyberfunk Antholoy edited by Milton J Davis Steamfunk edited by Milton J Davis Dieselfunk edited by Milton J Davis Griots: A Sword & Soul Anthology by Milton J Davis & Charles R Saunders Griots: Sisters Of The Spear by Milton J Davis & Charles R Saunders

Non-Fiction (histories, essays, and arguments) Afrofuturism And The World Of Black Sci-Fi & Fantasy Culture by Ytasha Womack Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise Of Astral Blackness edited by Reynaldo Anderson & Charles E Jones The Black Imagination: Science Fiction, The Future, and The Speculative by Sandra Jackson & Julie E Woody-Freeman Afro-Futures & Astral Black Travel by Juice Aleem The Sound Of Culture: Diaspora & Black Technopoetics by Louis Cude Soke Black Utopia: The History Of An Idea From Black Nationalism To Afrofuturism by Alex Zamalin Afrouturism Rising: The Literary Pre-History Of A Movement by Isiah Lavendar III A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra & The Birth Of Afrofuturism by Paul Youngquist Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Poryrals In Speculative Film & TV by Diana Adesola Mafe Black Kirby: In Search Of The Motherbox Connection by John Jennings & Stacey Robinson Super Black: American Pop Culture & Black Super-Heroes by Adilifu Nama Black Space: Imagining Race In Science Fiction Film by Adilifu Nama Black Super-Heroes, Milestone Comics, And Their Fans by Jeffery A Brown Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changin Worlds by Adrienne Marie Brown

*cover image from Ytasha Womack’s “Afrofuturism: The World Of Black Sci-Fi & Fantasy Culture”

(please post anything I might have left out in the comments) 

[carabas]

So I’ve just finished reading the Dragon Age Tevinter Nights anthology, and short reaction: enjoyably hit and miss right up until that final extremely thorough direct hit, thank you Patrick Weekes.

Much, much longer version:

1. I don’t know how reasonable it is to try to extrapolate about what’s going to be in the next game based on a random short story collection, but hey, the novels that came out before DAI were about the mage rebellion, the Orlesian civil war, and eluvians, so.

So things I’m now expecting to see in the next game, aside from the Tevinter-Qunari conflict and Solas of course: Nevarran necromancy, Antivan Crows, Wardens who are struggling with decimated numbers after DAO and DAI (would be the perfect time for Razikale and Lusacan to both wake up at once really), and the Lords of Fortune, a never-before-mentioned Rivaini treasure hunting organization which appeared in I think three different stories here. 

Plus a few stories were very much signalling This Specific New Character Will Be Showing Up Again, whether in the games or elsewhere; I'll be shocked if Lucanis the “Demon,” reluctant heir apparent of the Antivan Crows who just got into a cliffhanger conflict with a Tevinter magister, doesn’t have more to do.

2. THERE IS A MAP, there is a great big fantasy map surrounded by nifty little illustrative details to poke at.

There’s a label reading “White Spire,” not in Val Royeaux, but on a mountain beyond the Arlathan Forest. Is that an error or is there really a White Spire mountain? If not an error, has it always been named that or is that new, possibly a new center for the mages after the war, after the original Spire fell? At no point is either Spire mentioned in this book aside from this map.

Lots of astrological sun and moon patterns prominently featured around the edges. Is that one moon chart depicting moon phases or an eclipse? Is it too conspiracy theory of me to be counting the nine dark moons (or spheres? like in that DA4 idol illustration’s seven slots?) on the dragon’s wing? Probably. Or are those spheres a reference to the second moon that never seems to actually be visible, is that missing moon actually deliberate. 

Most of the astrological charts are fairly straightforwardly showing sun/moon phases but what is the crowned figure in the one on the lower right meant to represent? The Maker? What’s going on with the horizontal lines passing through it/behind it? The two moons beneath it - is that an illustration of the moon in two phases or being separated into two (metaphorical moon in that case, presumably), do those horizontal lines also indicate separation, do I need to move on from the astrological depictions here, definitely.

Love the big horseshoe crab sea monster.

3. Patrick Weekes’s first story in the collection: halla shapeshifting! An elf named Strife who I fully expected to be revealed as an agent of Fen’harel mimicking ancient elven names like Sorrow and Pride, though I was wrong - would it be charming or just annoyingly unsubtle if that became a thing among his agents. An ancient forest guardian with lyrium blades who hunts magic in a way that struck me an awful lot like a forest-themed equivalent of a golem, though I may be wildly off base with that one.

4. Nevarran necromancy story. An odd bit of the chant to highlight for a funeral: “And the Maker, clad in the majesty of the sky, set foot to earth, and at His touch all warring ceased.” I continue to squint suspiciously at overlaps between Maker and elven god imagery. Also, evidently mortalitasi believe that when someone dies, an inhuman spirit is pushed out from the Fade into the physical world, and that’s part of the reason behind their housing spirits in bodies - neat! The existence of Curiosity spirits, also neat!

5. Is Ghilan’nain’s horrible body horror place supposed to be spelled Hormak like in the title and previous canon references, or Hormok like throughout the text here? I know this was just a mistake but maybe I’ll use this to say that in-world there’s multiple ways of transliterating Dwarven.

6. Lukas Kristjanson story #1, the one featuring approximately a million minor Inquisition character cameos and a meditation on Solas’s regrets, introduces a character with the phrase “free mage by special commendation,” and I was briefly thrown by that little signal that we are Not In My Worldstate, that the mages aren’t all free by default - except then the story went on to destroy Solas’s fresco so I wound up quite grateful for that little heads up that this isn’t my worldstate actually.

(Unfortunately I can’t get into this guy’s writing style at all, which is a shame because it’s one of the big Solas stories in the book.)

7. There’s a little plot point in the Wigmaker Job story that demonstrates those elven artifacts Solas had us activate all over Thedas do indeed strengthen the Veil - like, he wasn’t lying to us about what those orbs do, that is how they work, here we see a Crow stab one in order to deactivate it, weaken the Veil and unleash a horde of vengeful demons. Nice confirmation.

8. Genitivi is the Randy Dowager. (Possibly. At least, Philliam wrote a scene in which Genitivi alludes to being the Randy Dowager. I do appreciate an unreliable narrator but after a certain point it does make the lore hard to keep straight.)

9. By the time we got to the story about adventurers stealing an incredibly powerful healing amulet just to donate it to a mysterious contact at a makeshift hospital trying to help people where the Qunari-Tevinter war has spilled over, I knew better than to expect any cameos from DAO/DA2 characters. And with the mention of the squire, I was pretty sure the mysterious contact was going to be Vaea, and it was. Still. Anders would approve. And for a moment I was fantasizing that it would turn out to be him, or connected to him. A new mental setting for him and Hawke post-mage-freedom - makeshift hospitals at the edge of the invasion, secretly sponsored by a certain pair of absurdly overpowered, dungeon-crawling, treasure-hunting fugitives.

Yes, my Dragon Age interpreting is still all about Anders even when he’s not remotely present.

10. You know, I really expected the leaders of the Crows to be a bit more ruthlessly competent than this. Someone is setting up a grand demonstration, recreating infamous historical assassinations carried out by the Crows but now with the leaders of the Crows themselves as the victims, incredibly flashy, incredibly clearly sending a message, and yet not one of the characters trying to figure out whodunit is speculating about the meaning behind that message??? the motive in going to all that trouble??? it’s all, hm, perhaps it’s the qunari invaders. hm, this one was posed with a pearl necklace just like the one in the historical murder it’s recreating, i bet the culprit owns a pearl-fishing business! I know they’re assassins not detectives but at least show the professional courtesy of paying attention to the message in the show your fellow assassin is putting on for you, geez.

Anyway. Interesting Crow details: they talked about neutral ground and territories divided between the Crow households here, does that just apply to Antiva or like, does Arainai have claim to all jobs in Ferelden? 

And the line “Teia's back was bare except for a tattoo marking her as a member of House Cantori” puts Zevran’s tattoos in a slightly different light for me - he’s mentioned that some symbols are sacred to the Crows, and logically it follows that having that symbol tattooed on him would indeed mark him as a Crow to other people in the know, but that his tattoos mark him as belonging to House Arainai is a thing that did not hit me from that.

11. An agent of Fen’harel muttering “Felassan” to activate a rune. In memoriam? Charming. I mean it’s a rune that’s intended to kill an entire city, so possibly the more literal slow arrow is meant, but I’m still charmed.

12. PATRICK WEEKES CLOSING OUT THE BOOK BY JUST DUMPING THE CONTINUING DREAD WOLF HUNT PLOT ON US. 

So much. 

An actual giant wolf in the Fade, I’m so happy for tumblr user corseque. 

A character again raising the possibility that Solas is not an ancient elf but rather a young elf who stumbled onto old magic, a theory I thought debunked by Trespasser but here we are considering it again. 

A minor side note that a lot of Kirkwall’s templars went rogue after the explosion - that’s not relevant to the post-DAI plot really, I’m just noting it for my generally-DA2-focused fanfic purposes. 

The possibility that somniari (presumably) can kill even dwarves who don’t dream in their sleep. Somniari in general or did Solas personally step in here?

A ritual involving the red lyrium idol resulting in the phrase “As if we were the blood and the cavern the body through which it flowed” right before the POV character enters the Fade, which is a rather Titan-esque turn of phrase. 

The Dread Wolf again asserting that all creation is in danger and he’s trying to fix that. A biased POV character recognizing that, huh, funny how those spirits around the Dread Wolf which surely must be demons actually look an awful lot like Justice and Valor. 

And Charter’s notes at the end, so direct, not only spelling out the new details on the idol for us (that the figure represents a crowned figure comforting another) but thoroughly hitting us over the head with Solas’s essential characterization in his own words, as if Weekes is still trying to clear up any possible lingering misinterpretations there. (Prideful, hotheaded, foolish. Doing what he must. Sympathetic to elves. Said that he was sorry.)

And the quiet simplicity of Solas coming to this meeting of spies in person because, pause, “...the Inquisition was involved,” written in such a way that you could read all sorts of things into that pause, whatever the Inquisition and the Inquisitor might mean to him.

The book would have been worth reading for this last story alone, what a note to end on.

[lahdolphin]

I’m missing Stars Aligned today and can’t stop thinking about this universe so I went through a lot of my notes and found a bunch of information I’ve never shared. Thought I’d dump it into the tag I have for the fic.

Inarizaki, Niiyama, and the Wastelands -- Inarizaki aesthetic and Niiyama aesthetic

On a continent to the south, there is the kingdom of Inarizaki and the Niiyama Empire. There may be smaller kingdoms and what not as well, but these are the major two. To the east is Inarizaki and to the west is Niiyama. Separating the two is a place known as the Wastelands, a stretch of desert that receives no rainfall (even the desert kingdom of Inarizaki receives some). 

The Wastelands is characterized by cracked dry earth, dead foliage and lots of tumbleweeds. They say no civilized, sane person would live there and crossing this place is a near death sentence. The Wastelands is home to the second kind of changeling, though they don’t call themselves that. They prefer the term “shifters.” Unlike the changelings of Fukurodani, who can all turn into birds, shifters in the Wastelands turn into dogs. If Kyoutani, a shifter, was ever to met up with Iwaizumi, Oikawa, and co., it would be here. (Currently, a major clan in the Wastelands is run by a woman who is married to the god that created the shifters, though most people don’t know he’s a god. They have a son, Kyoutani, who will not be reborn like the Colored Mages, but who does have special powers and otherworldly skills.)

Niiyama is a matriarchal society with architecture and aesthetic based loosely on Aztec or Mayan culture (think Road to El Dorado) paired with every stereotypical rainforest aesthetic. Niiyama is home to lush rainforests, “exotic” animals like leopards and tigers and colorful birds and poisonous frogs, and female mages that worship the moon goddess. These women are trained as priestesses though people in Inarizaki like to call them “witches.” The current Black Mage is part of the royal family (specifically, her eerily old great-grandmother is the empress and she will give the throne to the Black Mage, the first royal female by blood since her). This is Niiyama’s captain in canon and at this point she doesn’t have a name. I like to call her Jun. She has a long title like Danerys in Game of Thrones, something like “[Name], Rightful Heir to the Niiyama Empire, High Priestess of the Moon Goddess, the Black Mage reborn, Daughter of the Forest, Bringer of Storms, etc. etc.” (Gods and goddesses can be found in the forest. They take on the shapes of giant animals, or humans. It’s best not to go too deep into the forest alone.)

Inarizaki is a patriarchal society and is a mix of a ton of aesthetics--Dorne in Game of Thrones, your stereotypical Arabian Nights, ancient Egypt, Gerudo from LoZ, and a few others. It is known as a land of summer, a sandy desert kingdom with large cities at coastal ports and internal oases and along rivers. People travel by camel across the sand or by boat along the coast and rivers. It is a very wealthy kingdom, but also a very poor kingdom. Only a few are wealthy and they control the poor to the point where the poor enter contracts, essentially selling themselves as slaves, to get a large sum of money in return which they can give to their family. Of course, not everyone enters a contract and some are taken by force. Here, there are many gods, but the people mainly worship the sun god and their economy is based on their massive export industry and trade in general. (Similarly, there are gods that roam the desert. One likes to sit at your campfire at night; you should give him food. Others will guide you through the desert, others led you to death. Do not trust a stranger in the desert.)

Essentially, Inarizaki is the antithesis of Niiyama (desert vs. rainforest, sun vs. moon god/goddess, patriarchal vs. matriarchal, etc.). Despite their differences, both kingdoms share ancient ruins with similar imagery and architecture. In Inarizaki, these ruins are buried beneath the sand. In Niiyama, they’re hidden in the depths of the jungle, some even underwater. Even in the Wastelands, there are crumbling ruins inhabited by the shifters to escape the sun. Treasure hunters search for these ruins and steal their treasures, often hiring guides and curse breakers. These places are very dangerous and no one knows what civilization built the ruins.

Three Empires/Triple Islands -- aesthetic

To the west, there are three islands either known as the Triple Islands or the Three Empires. Each island is about a day’s boat ride away with favorable winds and they’re roughly placed in a triangle, equidistant apart. There is the Nohebi Empire, the Itachiyama Empire, and the Mujinazaka Empire.

Long, long ago (to the point where it is just a story and not a known fact), these three islands were one land. However, three groups fought and the gods decided to split the land to stop the fighting. To this day, those gods are alive, hidden away on the islands to stop violence from breaking out between the current empires. (Perhaps in the story it was three siblings? Or maybe just three groups. I don’t think the current empires were established at that point in history. It was a really long ago.)

Mujinazaka is loosely based on the aesthetic of Tibetan monks and whole Air Nomad thing in Avatar the Last Airbender. The major god here is a frog. A lot of monks here are warrior monks, though they are generally peaceful. Most of them actually use magic but don’t use staves, preferring beads and such to amplify their magic, allowing them to fight with their fists but produce bursts of air.

Itachiyama is loosely based on some other ancient Asian culture (tbd). This is the place I know the least about, other than the emperor has many children, including a daughter that was rumored to be Oikawa’s potential bride after he came of age. The major god that resides in Itachiyama takes the form of a salamander.

Nohebi is based loosely on feudal era Japan. The major god residing in Nohebi is a snake. Second to Nekoma, they have the most mages based on percentage of the popular than any other kingdom/empire. They are also known for their academics. The capital, which is surrounded by cherry blossoms that last year round thanks to magic, is the home of the emperor. He has a vast network of spies/ninjas and personal samurai-like guards. The Green Mage has been said to live in Nohebi and I’ve mentioned in author’s notes that this is Daishou, who likes to take on the form of a snake but is not the god I mentioned before. I don’t know if he would be an advisor to the emperor, or maybe the head of his spy network, or perhaps serves some religious role for his ability to turn into the snake they worship. His presence in Nohebi is well known, and the emperor has some bit of control over him (but how much can you control a Colored Mage, really?--something I think Daishou takes advantage of).

Like with Niiyama and Inarizaki, gods like to roam. There are the major gods on each island but also more minor gods that you can find traveling. Some are good, some are bad, some are neither and simply exist. 

[tipsycad147]

Psychic Curses and Spells that Work

Article about removing curses by Craig Hamilton-Parker.

Since earliest times, people have used ritual and magic to influence the world. The bison drawings from the prehistoric Altamira cave paintings in Spain, dating from 15,000 BC, may have been used in ritual magic to make sure a successful hunt. The principle is that similar things create similar effects–like produces like, or an effect resembles its cause. For example, in black magic, a human being could be cursed to death by spearing a skull with a metal point bearing the name of the intended victim.

This imitation of effects to influence events is called sympathetic magic. Magic also holds that things that have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. Many magic love spells, for example, require that the magician procure samples of the intended’s hair or fingernails to be used in the ritual or potion. The former principle is called the Law of Similarity, while the latter is the Law of Contagion or Contact.

Burning Effigies

I am writing this particular chapter on November 5, when we in the UK celebrate the ending of the first terrorist attack. Guy Fawkes was a co-conspirator in the “Gunpowder Plot” of 1605 in England. He and his cohorts decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London and succeeded in smuggling several barrels of gunpowder into the basement. The plot was thwarted and to this day we celebrate the occasion by setting off fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes.

This is, in fact, a form of sympathetic magic. Burning an effigy helps people to vent their hatred for their enemies in public, but the magician’s “law of similarity” also believes that burning the effigy will bring harm to the person whose image is being burnt. (A few years ago, my sister insisted that we burn an effigy of her ex-partner in place of the “Guy”)

The ritual of effigy-burning has been found in many ancient cultures including that of India, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The Ojibway of the American West would fashion little wooden images of an enemy and burn them while chanting magic spells. Called “the burning of the soul,” this ritual was believed to bring about the enemy’s death.

Then, of course, we have all heard of the voodoo doll, into which pins would be inserted to cause an enemy harm. Voodoo is still largely practised in Haiti; while in New Orleans, rooted in its large slave population mixed with Catholicism, you will find altars set up to protect against hoodoo magic (like voodoo a primarily healing-based practice based on sympathetic magic).

Sympathetic Magic

Sympathetic magic is still with us today in our superstitions and beliefs. How often do we see the American flag or effigies of Uncle Sam being burnt in protests? Burning an effigy is pure sympathetic magic: just as the image suffers, so does the man or nation.

“Holy Trinity, punish him who has done this evil and take him from us by thy great justice, that the sorcerer/sorceress may be anathema and we may be safe. Amen.” Popular Hoodoo Spell to remove a curse (To be spoken while throwing angelica in a southern direction)

Sympathetic magic is not necessarily evil in its intent. For example, voodoo (or more properly “Vodu”) is a religion that is characterised by ceremony, music, dance, and sacrifice, through which participants commune with their ancestors in trance and possession. It has a pantheon of spirits, called ‘Iwa’ that protect areas of life including love, family health, and wealth. Similarly, throughout Europe and America, there is a growing interest in the old religion of Paganism which is trying to cast off the negative witchcraft image given it by Christianity.

The truth is that many ancient magical beliefs may be used for good or ill. For example, returning to the effigy theme, puppet healing is the reverse of effigy burning. Instead of desiring to kill or injure the person whom the puppet represents, the practitioner wishes to help them. Healing given to the puppet is transmitted to the person represented.

Protective Spells

Protective healing spells are cast on the night of a full moon by voodoo sorcerers. In particular, they will make a Paket Kongo to summon the healing spirits. This is an onion-shaped, bright coloured, a cloth-bound package filled with herbs and the powdered flesh of a sacrificed rooster. It is tied around with string seven times and has large feathers sticking out of its top. Similarly, a Catholic may pray in Church with a rosary or a colour healer may “charge” water or a photograph with coloured light (Graphichromotherapy). Clearly, it is the intention of the practitioner that determines whether the results of magic are good or evil.

Voodoo and hoodoo have some interesting methods to protect the soul from harm. For example, if a person believes that they are under a psychic attack, there are a number of remedies that they can use to negate the harm. They may have a feeling that something “out there” is after them or that someone has bad intentions towards them. Similarly, they may feel that this energy has become an “entity” that is causing bad luck or illness. Wiccans generally believe that once you are aware of the curse or negative energy sent towards you, it no longer has power, where followers of voodoo and hoodoo believe that a curse, spell, or “crossing” can only be lifted using specific rituals and techniques.

The Psychology of Spell Casting

Naturally, psychology plays an important part in making a spell work. Just as we can talk ourselves into being ill, we can frighten ourselves into believing that bad luck and illness will befall us. If we believe we are unlucky, we may inevitably attract bad luck into our lives and curses may only succeed because the victim believes in their power.

Most people find out that they are jinxed through word of mouth or when a “friend” tells them that a spell has been put upon them. Let’s face it, people love to gossip and soon the belief in the jinx is reinforced by the community at large. Inevitably, as soon as something untoward happens to the victim, the jinx is to blame. They may lose their keys or a credit card and immediately they remember what the friend told them. And so the cycle of fear begins.

Worse still, a hideous token, gris-gris, amulet, or charm may be posted to them or hung on their door to warn them that magic has been cast. A hoodoo sorcerer may nail a gruesome chicken bone amulet on your front door and cover your steps in blood-red powder. In some countries, it is traditional to spit or blow powder in the victims face while speaking the words of the curse. This shock technique reinforces the power of the curse, taking the victim, as it does, off guard and naturally causes a severe upset.

Curses and a Jinx

REMOVING A CURSE | REMOVING A HEX |

“Protection comes to me this day . This crossed condition goes away. Returning negativity To the one who has crossed me.” –Hoodoo Candle Spell

There are as many ways to remove a curse or spell as there are ways to cast them, and these vary according to the cultural tradition. Remaining with the hoodoo theme, the belief is that curses should be “sent back” to the perpetrator. A popular way of doing this is to scatter Angelica in the direction of the curse, or to the South if the sorcerer is known. Similarly, Five Finger Grass (Cinquefoil) can be stuffed into a drained egg which is then sealed with wax. It is believed in New Orléans that a home with this magical egg in it will be free of jinx and curses.

Followers of hoodoo also like to take special herbal baths made with Dragon’s Blood, Five Finger Grass, Ginger, or Pine and Hyssop to protect them from sorcery. Herbs and special powders are also used by the secret “red sects” from Haiti to induce illness and fear in their victims. One pinch of these secret recipes is said to bring bad luck or illness. Similarly, this tradition holds that herbal baths may be used to combat an evil hex and also to bring luck in love and money.

Bath-time food offerings are made to the spirits of Ezili Freda (love) or Ibo Lele (money) and may include everything from popcorn to the blood of sacrificed animals. (I would try this technique myself, but am concerned that my wife would be a little alarmed to see chicken heads among the talc and soaps.)

REMOVING CURSES

Haitian voodoo has an armoury of amulets, totems, and tools to protect the soul. Malicious spirits are countered using an ason rattle made from a gourd and containing snake vertebrae. Music and dances are used to counterspells, and many of these ceremonies involve Catholic saints in the rituals. Most Haitian altars, in particular, include a mixture of both voodoo and Catholic imagery, with icons of saints placed next to tribal gods. Altars also include magical drawings of “verve” designs, which are made during ceremonies as an aid to draw the protective spirits from their divine homeland to the mortal world.

They look very similar to western protective talismans. But perhaps some of the odd tools of voodoo priests are dolls heads that they squash into bottles to ward off evil spirits and sequined bottles decorated with a skull motif of the Gede spirits (the guardians of the dead and masters of the libido). One strange protective totem, created by Franz Barra, featured a Barbie doll squeezed into a miniature, red-sequined coffin.

The Evil Eye

Voodoo and hoodoo are, of course, not alone in giving strange surreal remedies to protect the soul from curses and spells. Many believe that the soul can be harmed by a jealous stare or envious glance. The eyes are considered “the gateway to the soul” and, in many cultures, the “evil eye” is believed to harm the soul. It is one of the oldest and most culturally prevalent magical beliefs in the world.

The evil eye is believed to cause miscarriage, illness, business failure, marriage breakdown, bad luck, and a great many misfortunes. In addition, anyone, including those who have no special powers, can give the evil eye. Since it happens involuntarily, no one can be certain who or where the evil came from, making this one of the most feared of all magical powers.

People with different colored eyes or eyes set close together or deep in their head were often suspected of having the Evil Eye and were often persecuted as witches from the sixteenth to eighteenth century. In the 1930s, a man from New York earned his living by renting his evil eye to prize-fight managers. He would sit ringside and stare at opposing fighter.

Averting the Evil Eye

There are hundreds of ways to avert the Evil Eye. One of the most immediate techniques, and not recommended for dinner parties, is to spit three times in the eye of the onlooker. Another is to step aside, if someone is staring at you, so letting the negativity pass you by. The Italians wear special amulets of hands making sexually symbolic gestures for protection from the evil eye: called the mano fico (‘fig hand) or the mano corunto (horned hand).

In most cultures, the cure involves a complex series of rituals, which vary around the world. Water, oil, and melted wax often play a part, or the ritual may center on an eye-shaped and liquid-filled natural object such as an egg. Animals that were supposedly affected by the Evil Eye were burned, whereupon the person who had made the curse would suffer the same agony. Similarly, a clay manikin, or witch puppet, made in the likeness of the suspect person with the Evil Eye would be stuck with pins to lift the spell.

Naturally, I have always believed these things to be hocus-pocus; that is, until my Israeli friend brought us a present from his homeland. He knew we had had trouble with a neighbor so gave us an ornate hand in the “stop” gesture with an eye in the palm. “This will avert the evil eye of the bad woman,” he said. “It’s good. Hang it up in the front of your house and you will have no more trouble.” Within three months, the bad neighbor had moved.

Profits of the Prophets

“Praying is like a rocking chair–it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.” — GYPSY ROSE LEE (Rose Louise Hovick, American stripper)

Many claim that sympathetic magic is “mumbo jumbo,” that results can be explained away. This is no doubt true in some instances, but there are also times when such magic appears to have worked. Yes, belief alone may be enough to cure some people or fulfill a spell’s curse. But there are cases on record that contradict that scenario–where people appear to falter even though they are unaware a curse has been placed on them. Nonetheless, common sense is the primary ingredient in spiritual ventures, particularly in relation to magic and the healing arts.

Magic Snake Stone

Some people believe that snake bite calls for treatment by “magic snake stone,” which is, in reality, no more than benzine or a gallstone, having no effect on the venomous bite. Clearly, if a snake-bitten person were to rely on such magic in this instance, consequences could be fatal.

Sadly, charlatans still exist today to take advantage of those who are gullible and superstitious. Often this is the case with those who are upset about the break-up of a relationship: they will do, or pay, anything to get their partner back! A common scam is promising to change your luck by lifting a curse or a jinx or removing “negativity from your aura.”

Through my columns and website, I have received many letters from people frightened by threats of a curse that they are told can only be removed if they pay money. These “psychics” often target people who are already fearful, having met “bad luck” in their lives. The fraud psychic have good observational skills and is able to give the sitter with enough apparent information to convince them that what they say is true. They are alert to facial reactions and bodily gestures, and incorporate feedback information likely mentioned earlier in the sitting or consultation or hinted at in a response.

Once the sitter is hooked with this “cold reading,” the charlatan may offer to change the person’s luck for a price. I know of someone who was quoted $3,000 to have bad luck lifted from their lives. For this fee, the “psychic” would burn a magic candle to clear the misfortune. However, she warned that, as the case was particularly bad, it might be necessary to burn more candles. Of course, this would cause added costs, for the magic candles and her services.

Negative Energy Curses

A real curse is a set of words or a ritual that has been imbued with the negative energy of a thought-form. A curse cannot harm us unless we allow it to, by giving the negative energy an entry point. Certainly, paying money to someone else will not remove negative energy, nor will having rituals performed on your behalf. The key to protection from real curses come from your own refusal to give in to superstition and unfounded fear. Just as money can’t buy you, love, giving money to such people cannot change your luck or make you well again. People often incur such problems when they do not generally take personal responsibility for their lives.

They tend to go to a fortune-teller because they want someone else to make the hard choices for them. It is much easier to blame things outside of ourselves for our troubles. We accuse others, instead of owning up to our own faults. We blame circumstances and people for troubles that are of our own making. And, of course, many of us blame our bad luck on fate. How much better it is to take charge of our own lives! Personal responsibility gives a person self-confidence and a realistic view of circumstances.

The role of the true psychic is to give insight and inspire, not to make decisions for you. A psychic can encourage you, and even empower you to take charge of your destiny. To do something about it! So, take my advice: If you are ever asked for money to remove a curse or a spell, to regain health, to bring back a lover, or to change your luck, leave immediately and don’t look back!

psychics.co.uk/blog/curses-and-spells-that-work/

[fluorescentpipedream]

Some places and event imagery for our fantasy world…think Game of Thrones meets DnD, Witcher and some Studio Ghibli sized monsters plus a whole lot of original stuff… First, we have the Ruins of Aelin, a prominent faerie kingdom that once stood in the land that is mostly just now known as the Land beyond the Wall*. Aelin was destroyed and all of the faerie creatures that lived there disappeared following a cataclysmic event that was caused by something simply referred to as the Darkening. This event brought out monsters of all shapes and sizes, all with the intent to destroy the world of men, fae, elf and everything in between. While the Darkness was able to be pushed back, it never completely left the land and in time it took root in the hearts of those who wished to seek out magicks that should be left alone. Aelin’s ruins are…for one reason or another, left virtually untouched by the Waste Beasts (they destroy anything in their path and infect anything and anyone they come in contact with), and is home to the Crone, a short, squat, owl-faced sorceress who has been alive since the time of the Great Conjunction, where the 4 dragons of creation formed the lands, seas, and sky. Though she was once very beautiful, over the centuries she’s shrunk and taken on a more haggard form. Still…Ornecka the Crone is viewed with great honor and respect by all races that have met her. (Ornecka is pictured as well. She’s actually called the OwlWitch and was made several years ago by Norwegian artist Remjie. Her art dolls are amazing, she doesn’t make ones like this anymore either and in Ornecka’s case, she’s one of a kind. I fell in love with her and she became part of our story) The Wall - a massively high, and long stretching creation constructed by dragons who first scorched the ground around it to prevent the Darkness from spreading beyond a certain point and then instructed giants to stack massive slabs of thick stones higher and higher until even the giant could no longer see the top of it. The stones were superheated by Dragonfire and subsequently cooled down by dragon ice until the wall was impenetrable by anything and nearly impossible to fly over. The land around it was consecrated by dryads and forest spirits to ward off evil…but….after years of neglect, the wall has fallen into disrepair and with the growing darkness threatening to shatter everything…the Wall is breaking and evil is seeping into the kingdoms, slowly but surely corrupting the waters, ground and even the peoples of those kingdoms. Some have fallen into complete chaos… Caer Morden - sometimes called Moradel or Mordane, the castle once sat in a lush land near the Wall, and was home to the Witchers* (we’re looking to change the name when my wife starts writing the book but for now…it works), a race of magically altered, mutated human-ish warriors whose one mission in their abnormally long lives is the hunt and kill monsters which stray beyond the Wall and into the lands of the humans, elves and otherwise. Witchers, by the “modern” times, have all but died out, some of them managing to remove the spells on them which kept them from reproducing, others “retired’ in a more permanent way, finding ways to kill themselves or be killed by some random monster. Morden has mostly been abandoned for a little over 200 years since no one has seen a Witcher there’s not been a lot of interest in the castle that’s basically falling apart and crumbling into the forest around it. And most people assume that forest is corrupted and haunted in some way, supposedly the bones of the Witchers which passed on hang from the trees (they’re really just sticks that have been stripped bare and hung from trees with holes drilled into them so they make a kind of whistling sound. Orin Raiz, the lost sister of Avalon and princess of the fallen kingdom of Arindel is currently hiding in the castle) The Citadel - While the Citadel resembles a massive city on the outside, it is entirely made up of the magus class which studies and perform ancient magicks in order to understand and prevent a second Darkening Or…..so they’ll have you believe. The reality is the wizards in the Citadel have long since closed themselves off, not allowing any new members entry and hardly any old ones are allowed to leave unless they’re leaving as a part of some predetermined business in the Kingdoms beyond the Citadel walls. It used to be that the Magus was made up of both men and women, though nowadays there are more men then women on the main council and they don’t tend to interact with anyone on the outside if they can get away with it. Marlowe’s first wife, Myah and Celestia’s mother, was one of the few mages to escape their grasp (despite being hunted down by them and killed for what she knew) when she refused to allow them to remove her reproductive organs. The Magistrate believes that the male and female sexual organs give rise to the Darkness and hinder the ability of the magic of the world to flow through the caster. They’re probably wrong but it hasn’t stopped them from castrating the majority of their members. The Black Moon and Eclipsed Sun, respectively - These two events mark great prophetical occurrences in this magical world. A Black Moon rises every 15 to 25 years, not necessarily on the best of schedules and when it does, necromancy and the abilities of the darker willed creatures in the land are amplified for the three days leading up to the moon’s phase. It was also under the Black Moon that Norelia, who is now known as the Black Queen, was born. She was prophecized to bring all of the 12 kingdoms back under one banner, though would do so while wading through rivers of blood. (lovely, I know). Norelia has purple eyes and raven black hair, making her the exact opposite of her sister, Silaeria, who was born under the light of the (you probably guessed) Eclipsed Sun. This secondary event happens less frequently, being something that occurs every 100 years or so, and marked the return of the dragons to this particular world. “They would be reborn in the darkness of the Eclipse, just as the Dragon Mother would greet the day which has no Light” (mostly this just means the other girls that were born during the Eclipse would also be called to the Dragon Isles and would assist the Dragon Mother in her fight to bring dragons back)

[volatilepersonality]

REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG AND DO NOT DELETE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION. 

The following quotes and phrases are taken from the stories in Thomas Ligotti’s anthology Songs of a Dead Dreamer. Some of these quotes were slightly tweaked for the sake of this meme. If you enjoy the imagery or writing in this meme, please support the author by purchasing his work. Content warnings for horror in general and brief mentions of blood, nihilism, unreality, mannequins, dolls, puppets, and some body horror.

Bold what applies to your muse.

Muse: (If you are a multimuse blog, specify what muse you are filling this out for.) Tagged by: stolen from @suisosei Tagging: @tuneback @duplikiss @crepcscolo @resolvebled @unzipswig @fatebond @stxrspin @myentropy

The Frolic

Absolute madness paired with a sharp cunning / an expression of sky-blue peacefulness / the indistinct happiness of the future / a piece of moon above the opulent leafage of spring trees / a broken-down kingdom of miracles and horrors / a Neverland where dizzy chaos is the norm / a cosmos of crooked houses and littered alleys / a slum among the stars / a jolly river of refuse / jagged heaps in shadows / a phantasmagoric mingling of heaven and hell / a moonlit corridor where mirrors scream and laugh / dreamy back-drops / ice cubes in an empty glass / shifting expressions on a lean face / vague suggestions and subtle jokes / an Aphrodite sculpture / the wind, cold and dead / a crumbled piece of paper / black-foaming gutters / the dank windowless gloom of some intergalactic cellar / starless cities of insanity / a bright freezing scream of laughter / a passing anecdote of some obscure hell

Les Fleurs

sorrowful flowers / lilting blossoms for a loved one’s memorial / a florist shop / flowers which open only at night / a hothouse warm smile / night-blooming cereuses / a sleek ocelot / well-preserved old places / plants resembling birds / white picket fences / flower-printed curtains / liqueur tasting of flowers from open fields / cool, clean offices / invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness / the sounds of black orchids growing / the flower-bedded earth / a ripple of empathetic insight / a gorgeous kingdom of glittering colors / velvety jungle-shapes / contorted rainbows and twisted auroras / hyper-radiant hues / a marvelous arcana / tongue-like floral appendages / tongues flowering

Alice’s Last Adventure

Volatile years when anything might go wrong / the embodiment of topsy-turvydom / pools of rainwater / tarnished mirrors / moonlit windows / a thousand misshapen marvels / a universe handed over to new gods / stoic tolerance of a second-rate reality / two complete strangers gawking at each other / a shiny, pearl-grey casket / black orchids / a strange combination of relief and confusion / a delayed echo with oblique origins / a chain of occurrences with links as weak as smoke rings / a sunny autumn morning / a sense of duty, vanity, and other less comprehensible motives / the seas of the moon / costumed kids / the cries of bedlamites / the clamor of rambunctious kids / a half-cocked oration / jack-o’-lanterns glowing orange and yellow / masked children / a plastic cup of cider / shadows wavering against two-story facades / a lamp with a shade of Tiffany glass / a disciple of the bizarre / an autumn moon hanging in the blackness / demonic giggling / the moon / a clock / shadows in the window

Dream of a Manikin

A mostly tacit but somehow complete biography / a marvelous trick of the mind / jeweled lamps along the walls / lights shining on an intricately patterned carpet and various pieces of old furniture / star-clustered blackness / a starry abyss / an iciness drifting in from a starscape / a horrible truth / a legend written somewhere at the bottom of a dream / echoing voices bouncing here and there around the room / a motto printed on fortune cookie-like strips of paper and hidden in bureau drawers / a broken record repeating itself on an ancient Victrola / an alighting flock of birds / a field of dynamic tension / a dry sibilant voice / people dressed as dolls / shaking with tremors of the uncanny / a manikin dresser / astral ambience / occult studies and depth analysis / delving into speculative models of reality / cosmic static / harassments of the self / the boundaries of the self / a Bigger Self terrorizing its little splinter selves / cosmic ennui / a serendipitous discovery / this dream of flesh / guilty until proven otherwise / valerian and camphor baths / cryptic impudence / softly glowing display windows / the divine bonds of unreality / a medium-intensity shower / display-window dummies / rain-spotted glasses / a car with rain-blinded windows / a moment of self-terror / the mythical conspiracy of a treacherous universe / a galaxy of constellations/ a vaporous glowing / a whitened hallway / dolls made up to look like people / eyes shining in the white darkness / a powerful psychic metaphor

The Chymist

Daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism / bubblegum and beer / a chalice in a church / a serum vial in a laboratory / the tartness of one’s smile / a very keen appreciation of diversity / decrepitude / the withering heart of the deceased / bastardized nostalgia / the putrescence of things past / arching mirrors / chrome chandeliers / second-hand fantasies and out-of-date distractions / one strange thing next to another / a genius of vulgarity / a lawless paradise /  violence without violation / a smoke-gray sky / city-soiled clumps of snow / fluxing clouds that swirl above the chimneys and trees / alchemical transmutations / the glamour and sanity of former days / a new mask of rats and rot / a hopeless stroll along the path to hypothetically higher worlds / a body whose true outline remains unknown /  the whims of chemistry / the caprices of circumstance / the enigma of personal taste / a leather vessel with a void inside / the skeleton of a dream / lights outlining the different venues and avenues below / a bottle of powdered light / pulverized diamonds / the flesh and blood kaleidoscope of one’s imagination / a prodigious insurrection of entity / a tempest of transfiguration

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

The full powers of a master hypnotist / a mesmeric wilderness / marked by fate’s stigmata / crystal twinkling under a chandelier’s kaleidoscopic blaze / power and prestige socializing / a pair of metronomes / a glossy black cabinet / two bluish gems in an alabaster setting / a tiny sequined outfit / mesmeric stunts / intact and unbloodied / routines in defiance of death and pain / a jaw-dropping finale / a blare of heavenly horns / a labyrinth of light / a gossamer veil / snow-white wings / the angelic luminary beneath the human beast / the eyes of the audience / mock-death and bogus-pain / sinking deep into a downy darkness / pillows stuffed with soft shadows / a sun at the center of a drab galaxy / vacant and full of grace / a business card with a cloud-gray pearl finish/ riotous rococo / a chair of blinding brocade / flowery fabric / a shelf of delicate figurines / tall smoky mirrors / a bottomless pool / a sky wiped clean of clouds / dispassionate elegance / postures and poses like frozen roses / pajama-clad legs dangling /a shiny chrome-plated pen / a very soft but not condescending tone / a mazy wallflower / cartwheels of agony / somersaults through fires of doom / nosedives of vulnerable flesh into the meat grinder of life / serene constellations / sweet nullities / a spell-binding, snake-eyed charmer / high society vulgarians / eyes recessed in their sockets, sunken into a rotting profundity / labyrinthine depths / dancing clothes all clotted with putrescent goo

Eye of the Lynx

Missing girls in Gothic garb / amber going on red / a reddish haze / a crazy purpurean tapestry / a fair-haired girl / denim slacks and a leather jacket / bloody moonlight / a long sip from a can of iced tea /persecutions and imperilments as glamorous as those of any Gothic heroine / violet eyes / the machinations of an evil-hearted malefactor /haunting second-hand shops / a strip of dark velvet seized by a pearl brooch / a frail chain from which dangles a heart-shaped locket / a whirlpooling lock of golden hair / gloves, long and powdery pale / the shoulders of heavy capes lined in satin that shines like a black sun / enveloping hoods / capes with deep pockets and generous inner pouches for secreting precious souvenirs / capes with silk strings that tie about the neck / capes with weighted hems that nonetheless flutter weightlessly in midnight gusts / doll-size in a dark doll’s costume / quivering bones and feverish blood / fear’s funereal plume / carriage wheels rioting in a lavender mist or a pearly fog / nacreous fires twitching beyond the margins of country roads / cliffs and stars / a blur of crimson shadows / vast regions of sublime desolation / mountains hulking in hazy twilight / a rather large animal collar at the end of a chain leash / a light the color of fresh meat / a page in a depraved story book / a single candle glowing through red glass / little zippers and big zippers / a moth-eaten cloak / enthralling cruelties / spangled eyebrows / a brow of glittering silver / glistening with tiny flecks of starlight /  the velvet embrace of one’s favorite cape / the tall candles one lights on stormy nights / chains of raindrops whipping against one’s windows / places where raging storms and brutal subjugations never end / the hardships of traveling to strange faraway places / frail little dolls / wild-wind nights and sadistic villains / corridors of scarlet darkness / a captive of one’s heart and its infinite chambers

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

Something magical / something timeless / something profound / a sooty basement / the putrid members of a man who is decomposing / a plain brown package marked Hope, Love, or Fortune Cookies and postmarked: the Edge of the Unknown / a helter-skelter universe where things are ever threatening to go abnormal and unreal / a normal, real love / impermanence and decay / evils sent out under various covers / sublime and terrifying conflict / fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman / moon-trimmed shadows / lunar landscapes of craggy peaks / skeletal wastelands of jagged ice / a brooding Gothic hero / an ethereal Gothic heroine / a castle-like skyscraper / an extra dose of obsessiveness / the Gothic tale / a militant romantic / waves of bombast / winds of ecstatic hysteria / a partially shattered window, its surface streaked with a blue film of dust / a sublime sense of desolation / the diluted glow of twilight / night’s enveloping cloak / grimy azure dimness / bluish semi-luminescence / tears of confusion / turquoise haze / blue shadows of silence / liquefying legs / an old storyteller / the voice of a tiny insect crying for help from inside a sealed coffin / a piercing, crystal shriek that lacerates the midnight blackness / a haunter of spectral marketplaces / Gothic glory / a horror writer / an ardent consumer of the abnormal and the unreal / a visitant of discount houses of unreality / subject only to the rule of demonic forces / puppet-shadows / a hell so excruciating it is bliss itself / bony wings rising out of one’s back / jaws that are a cavern of dripping silver / rivers of putrescent gold running through one’s veins

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

Diamond-paned windows / a thick December fog / a serene congregation of colors / holly, both fresh and artificial / a pale purple ribbon / a ritual forever reenacted without hope of escape / a large chair beside a fogged window / crackling logs / a foggy winter’s night / bright Christmas lights shining through the fog / always dead with darkness / always alive with lights

The Lost Art of Twilight

A streak of iodine red / a spattering of flat black / the early autumn sun / silver hair / a gray suit / a long envelope, neatly cesareaned / the charnel house creeps / a silver shield / crepuscular radiance / an offspring of the dead / the progeny of phantoms / the big green eye of an EEG monitor / De Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal / a rainbow of insects / the science of superstition / the Provencal countryside / a pantheon of gargoyles amid the splendor of a medieval church / a holy soldier of the living / a monster of the dead / the astral banquet of Art / the rotting flesh of rainbows / the sonar screech of a bat / vampiric origins / the oncoming onyx of a storm / shadows and sunshine / glare and gloom / bright clouds and black / iron-red leaves / tentative drops of rain / blue bears and yellow rabbits / neither a blood-warm human nor a blood-drawing devil / oceans of blood / the ravenous life of the undead / an authoritative impatience / eternal life in an eternal death

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

Pale gray pajamas / thick sheets of paper / a bottle of black ink / a shapely black pen with a silvery nib / strands of blond hair, almost white / a sudden salty breeze / silhouettes and shadows / unreflecting windows / metal hinges squeaking somewhere in the wind / a sleepless night /constellations beyond the window panes / star-filled hours / the pure whiteness of the page / a flung shoe leaning toe-up against a bedpost / nothingness unstained by inner conception / white snow in a white sky /dark lines and vacant spaces / vast expanses of frozen whiteness / a church in a foreign town / assorted devils and demons / ice-mad mountains / a spirit of malicious abandon / nightmarish anatomies / a sickle-shaped scar of moon / sea-licked shores / dark letters / feeding one’s troubles to the sea / brown-leafed trees / a forest of memorials / clumps of crosses / groves of gravestones / dark, cowl-shaped windows / unblemished by shadows / the sound of crashing waves / bending dawns into twilights / static from a broken radio / breaking waves / seaside air/ a gleaming crescent moon / a bone-white cicatrix / chronic insomnia / a blade of moon / white night, white noise

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

The confusions of carnival night / gyrations of squealing abandon / lines between pain and pleasure / a rainbow of rags / a startling length of blade / pale pages elegantly dappled by somber verses / a pair of strangely darkened spectacles / the toneless voice of one who is dead to all appeasement or mercy / mounds of snow that had been sown with ashes / eyes as dark and swirled with shadows as the raving night itself / a constellation of designs / mad games of flesh and steel / a forbidden madness / dense forests of tall pikes planted in the earth / shadows rolling in empty sockets / lacerated mouths / the darkness of dreams / to see the world drown in oceans of agony / visions of butchering the angels / a god of deceit or illusion / chaos at feast / black with scars of madness / darkly clouded glass / the brightest and highest of stars / shimmering halls / unnaturally colored wine / red-smeared forms / many-taloned claws / the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand / a pair of leviathan leeches / a lord of the sword made mad / the dark powers which we cannot understand but only hate / rhapsodic voices in the streets / a privileged doom / the face of the soul of the world / the cool marble of the floor / an onyx-black knight / a face flushed with crimson glory

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

A scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky / a long, brightly colored coat / noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically / life-size dolls hanging suspended by wires / wetted strands of a spider web / shiny satin legs / a beautifully pale hand / pulverized stars / dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets / the repose of ruin / an oily red glare / a well-dressed dummy / a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks / a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars / wood waking up / a sleep that should have never been broken / something too painful for tears / the false fire of the moon / two faces sharing a single head / faint, hollow screams from high above / a dummy’s silence / leftover tears of berserk laughter / bluish-green irradiance

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

Mist on a lake / fog in thick woods / a golden light shining on wet stones / a little trickle of suspicion in the bloodstream / the solar brilliance of a summer day / supernatural horror / a corner alive with cool drafts and fragrant with centuries of must / a rancid world rife with things smelling of the crypt / a sower of vice / mad winds / wan moonlight / pasty specters / the vividness of pain / the lasting effects of fear / natural-born puppets whose lips are stained with their own blood / dead bodies that walk in the night / living bodies suddenly possessed by new owners and deadly aspirations / the sepulchral pomp of wasting tissue / compassion for human hurt / a humble sense of one’s impermanence / an absolute valuation of justice / a demented innocence in the face of gruesome facts / the horrific reprisals of affirmation / the Cosmic Macabre / the shudders of a thousand graveyards

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

Gray walls pocked like sponges / nights of futile tears and screaming / an expression of almost paternal forgiveness / the supreme delirium of the planets / bright puppets dancing in the blackness / a golden speck of magic / the silent, staring universe / something as pathetic as a puppet and as exalted as the stars / something at once dead and never dying / autumn constellations in the black sky above / harshly brilliant eyes / the remote places where truth had been shut up and abandoned

The Sect of the Idiot

Extraordinary joy / extraordinary pain / the great hollow of dreams / an infinitely secluded place / a world that both menaces and surpasses this one / a holy madness / infinite stillness on foggy mornings / miracles of silence on indolent afternoons / the strangely flickering tableau of neverending nights / deceptive depths of shadow / heaps of clouds like dust balls / a fluorescent map of the cosmos / medieval autumns and mute winters / kaleidoscopic windows / a kind of cataclysm of empty space / an earthquake of the invisible / strikingly clear eyes / a dusty trunk of dreams / a maze of streets / an abyss of stars / a great reaching blackness / a stale gray dimness / an alien order of being / an icy blackness / starry blackness / a great round moon / deep aquatic blue / the voids of astronomy / a state of both paralyzed terror and spellbound curiosity / whispering figures / stagnant moonlight / withered, wilted claws / drooping tentacles / the spinning legs of spiders / the greedy rubbing of a fly’s spindly feelers / the darting tongues of snakes / the triumph of the grotesque / whispering effigies of chaos / putrid arcana / an ecstatic horror / horrific ecstasy / the demonic elements of which all creation is composed / corruption in disguise / a cache of unwonted offerings stored out of sight / currents of fear / dark tremors / splendid scenes broken with malign shadows / the lurid and the lovely forever lost in each other’s embrace / the arch of an old street / tunnel-like hallways / sickly light shining through unwashed, curtainless windows / atmospherics of infinite melancholy and unease / a decayed paradise / the everlasting residue of some cosmic misfortune / a solemn, mechanical intentness / a smooth and solid cube of black glass / a malignant puppet of madness / dazed in darkness / embarrassed throat-clearings / reproving looks / words which could only have meaning in a nightmare / a thing of strange degeneracy / a quintessence of hellish delirium / freakish, echoing laughter / the whispering of strangers / twitching tentacles / a horror which cannot be helped  

The Greater Festival of Masks

The old and new / the real and imaginary / truth and deception / shops of costumes and masks / an incautious curiosity / shredded rags that are easily disturbed by the wind / a poster stuck to a crumbling wall / strange pathways of caprice / the outsized moon / silvery windows / doors which are elaborately decorated yet will not budge in their frames / massive shutters covering blank walls behind them / faces of dreams /sardonically grinning / innocence and excuses / a reddish glow of fire / a wad of bubbling blackness / smooth and faceless faces / the speaker in the shadows / the soft creaking of new faces breaking through old flesh

The Music of the Moon

Breaking the quiet of a moonlit room / enchantments that nearly make amends for one’s stolen slumber / some unusual shape leaping across steep roofs / a bewildering agility / many nights of sleepless hell / a knife / rope / a poison vial / an exploit of uncommon decisiveness / blank nights of insomnia / a handbill / ashes mixed with grease / a door with a faint yellow aura leaking out at its edges / small, shadowlike things moving in corners and along the floor molding / a quartet of musicians / a voice which sounds both exhausted and malicious / pale, ragged clouds of hair / sonic abnormality / an empty shaft of blackness / spherical lamps caked with dust / the silence of a dark, lifeless world / black silhouettes of human heads visible only in the moonlight / slow music in the soft darkness / a single note wavering in a universe of darkness / a incalculable proliferation of slightly dissonant harmony / the light of a quiet gray dawn / completely helpless, and yet content to be so / thick layers of webs / gazing at nothing with bleeding sockets / the moon all fat and pale, glaring down from its gauzy webs of clouds

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

Unstained by any habits of the human / the ideal of everything alien to living / some molding backwater of the earth / the city of Bruges itself / a corpse of the Middle Ages / bony bridges / the black veins of old canals / a lonely evolution in shadowed streets and beside sluggish canals /the music of graveyards / a resonant chorus that fills the air and sometimes drowns out the voices of those who still live / layers of cobwebs floating about the near ceiling / a burst of resistance / the pealing of church bells / the language of whimsy / the force of stars tugging away at various points / the dark waters of a canal / shiny black hair parted straight down the middle / a low table covered by a red velvet cloth / a world that applauds trumped-up illusions while denying or demeaning those that create the very lives they are living / a spectral thing full of strange suggestion / an untenanted room filled with the echoes of nothingness / the eyes of certain crudely fashioned dolls / a greenish glow from a mirror /placid meandering canals / enwrapped in mist / close crumbling houses / odd arching bridges / innumerable church towers / narrow twisting streets / queer little courtyards / everything gone forever / an empty mist / an eternal twilight

Vastarien

Candles in a cloistered cell / shapes beneath the shadows / tall buildings whose rooftops nod groundward / wide buildings whose facades follow the curve of a street / buildings whose windows and doorways tilt like badly hung paintings / stairways that wander off-course into useless places / caged elevators that urge unwanted stops on their passengers / a sequestered civilization of echoes flourishing among groaning walls / thin ladders ascending into a maze of shafts and conduits / the dark valves and arteries of a petrified and monstrous organism / a desolate serenity / silvery cinders / the mouths of great chimneys / shadow-puppets / cluttered gardens and crooked gates / the purling waters of black canals / faded masks concealing profound schemes / a place of supernatural clarity and stillness / the crystalline glare of a lantern / moonlight through a curtained window / darkened windows / souls who believe that the only value of this world lies in its power—at certain times— to suggest another / a scattering of stars and lights / a coveted paradise / the most gauzy phantom of another place / a shadowy mimic / the anatomy of a great dream / everlasting echoes / a rectangle of smudged glass within another rectangle of scuffed wood / crowded shelves / remnants of a luxuriant autumn / an obscene reality / to dwell among the ruins of reality / shadowed volumes / scripture that would begin with the portents of apocalypse and end with the wreck of all creation / to become the wind in the dead of winter / to howl the undoing of all that would abide in warmth and light / an enticing verse in a volume of esoterica / the dream of attaining some untainted good / a disastrous enlightenment / some hypothetical state of pure glory / the revelation that nothing ever known has ended in glory / some strictly demonic enterprise / something about one’s presence that makes one think of a crow / a scavenging creature in wait / a large, two-headed shadow / the sad frustration of the uninvited, the abandoned / the brilliant rectangle of a doorway / hopes and curiosities of an indeterminable kind / free-standing bookcases / pages and bindings of uncommon texture /abstract diagrams suggesting no orthodox ritual or occult system / a chronicle of strange dreams / an invocation of a world in waiting of genesis / days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares / a deliverance by damnation / nightmare made normal / a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or a thwarted searching for the good / a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge / a utopia of exhaustion, confusion, and debris / a dialogue of mystification, and possibly one of lies / the edge of a dreamless void / a dark and devouring bird / shadows and moonlight / an unbending web of heavy wire / unjust confinement / a slender syringe crowned with a silvery needle

[ironforgedrp]

♛ BRANDEN STARK

↳ details; male, 37. (b. 469AC) ↳ status; pansexual, unmarried, bastard twins evalin & lyanna snow (b.495AC) ↳ faceclaim; viggo mortensen. ↳ hails from; winterfell, the north. ↳ loyalty; house stark, his family.

↳ title; lord of winterfell, warden of the north. ↳ religion; the old gods of the forest. ↳ magical ability; confident greenseer. ↳ spoken languages; the common tongue, a few insults in bastard valyrian ↳ reason in sunspear; after his fathers death he has taken the mantle as head of house stark

♛ PERSONALITY

↳ type; the architect ↳ alignment; lawful neutral ↳ star sign; capricorn. ↳ positives; strategist, loyal, protective, determined, fierce, formidable. ↳ negatives; stubborn, temperamental, narrow-sighted, proud, vengeful, often taciturn.

♛ BIOGRAPHY

↳ family lineage.

when lord rickken and lady alysandra stark announced the birth of their first child, a healthy dark-haired son, it should have been a joyous occasion for all starks and for the northen bannermen ━   but it was overshadowed by the poison of a blood feud. the then babe branden, named in honour of the legendary founder of house stark, would find out as he grew that a horrid fight of jealousy and bitterness of lineage had split his family in two, but he soon learned that his uncle edderion was an unreasonable and bitter man who was simply angry that he was born second.  branden didn’t lament the lack of his uncle, he was never there anyway.  whilst often taciturn and appearing lost in his own thoughts, the eldest stark was a sponge for all things offered to him; fighting skills, tutoring with the maesters, lessons from his mother on the spiritual aspects of her house, reed, and his fathers house, stark. he never truly understood why as a younger boy, but curious events and visions and other unexplainable things had happen to branden by the time he was ten, and it was around this time that his mother explained to branden that what he truly was, was a greenseer.

rare, but not completely unheard of, branden had been ‘gifted’, as his mother called it, with abilities of foresight. whilst the last known true greenseer had been noted in the history books as a man of house reed - his mothers house, there was also the notion of the three-eyed-raven brandon stark of more than two centuries ago. holed up in his room, the young branden poured over the stories to understand what this would mean for him and his future. when alysandra took branden to see his father, and explained what had come to pass with their eldest ━  it simply bolstered lord rickken pride and favouritism of his eldest. he became obsessed with having branden write down every dream the moment he woke and as branden often muttered and mumbled in his sleep, lord rickken would have the maester or the septa sit over him at night and make note of anything that branden would utter in his sleep. it was on one of these nights that the fates turned the wheel in a way that no one would have expected.  in a dream that he wrote about when he woke up, the vague imagery of a living statue carving down branches of an ancient weirwood tree and as each branch fell he described hearing a scream of a name. the names, however, he could not say for the memory was too hazy. he wrote of wolves, two wolves who were not quite twins - one larger, howling at the moon, and a smaller one following suit  as the thunk of branches of the godswood became louder and louder.  and then, it was a roar of a beast, a gnashing of bloodied fangs and a crown made of snow and ice resting upon each of the wolves heads. he’d woken in a cold sweat, and the journaling of the dream was taken away as the others had been. branden, a young boy who was not sure of the consequences, never took much note of that night ━  of course, he never knew of what he’d muttered while he was dreaming. his father did, though - or he thought he did, and took it as a prophecy that only he was able to fulfil. his son would rule as king in the north, and all would bow to the wolf again as long as he was able to father another child blessed with the gifts of the old gods as branden had been.

this came to pass in another son, brandens younger brother who was born when branden was ten. the sweet-faced young boy named harrion was the last trueborn stark boy that was born and it was clear from early on that he was a boy with gifts like branden. though not a greenseer, as their rarity was high, but a warg; the little stark wolf-boy branden had dubbed him, and rickken was elated. in his mind, his future was set in the lineage and gifts of two of his sons. in truth, branden had been all but blind to his fathers favouritism, but rickken was never cruel to his other children so branden perhaps never noticed. the winterfell heir always had a strong bond with his mother, who when he was older, had revealed that his maternal grandmother was gifted with foresight, not a greenseer as branden was, but a woman of house reed with greensight. they kept that secret between the two, and no one aside from the maester, his parents and the eldest septa knew of branden’s greenseer ability. keeping it hidden for years, he became a master of being able to cope with any side effects; his body would tell him if a vision was to come and he could excuse himself. branden never took much notice of his fathers obsession of any dreams or visions his eldest had, and though they were not as  frequent as his childhood, he accepted that  his father was simply fascinated by the rarity of his gifts. branden was humbled by it, and he became very spiritual about the old gods and the old ways as a way to thank them.

down the line, a marriage deal was made for harrion with a targaryen girl of a similar age who hailed from dragonstone -  the niece of the reigning king maegor targaryen. lord rickken and lady alysandra were quite happy with the match, and though branden only met the young targaryen a handful of times, his brother seemed quite smitten as youngsters often did. branden was into his twenties when all this was coming together, wedding scheduled and plans made - lord rickken elated in thinking that brandens vision from his youth would now come to pass.  it was in 494AC, tragedy struck and rattled the bones of house stark when the young lord harrion was up on the turrets of winterfell,  looking out to to the sprawling godswood when a violent wind swept from behind him, causing him to tumble to his death, having only turned fifteen years old in the recent days. the layer of grief that settled over winterfell was as thick as a blanket of torrential snow. the funeral, branden could hardly remember, he only remembered his mothers broken-hearted wailing cry and the ache of his lost brother. it was nearly a full year later when another curve ball was thrown to house stark; their perfect heir returned from winter town with two pale, yellow-haired babes... his daughters by a wildling woman, who had abandoned them with a note that simply said the babes were his, she was returning beyond the wall and had no plans to return nor did she wish branden to search for her.  he would not let his own flesh and blood starve. joining house stark were the young girls evalin & lyanna snow who grew up raised by the septas and doted on by their father.

growing up in the blood feud between his uncle and father, being a greenseer, the relentless drive of his fathers obsessive ambition and the untimely death of his brother was enough strain on branden. however, come the invitation to the capital for the celebration of the lannister prince, lord rickken’s health took a negative turn and branden attended in his stead. attending the capital for the celebration of the birth of the lannister prince proved to be horrible and the most challenging event of branden’s life as the northern heir. his uncle revealed as traitor to not only his own family but to the iron throne and all of westeros, branden felt the eyes of the entire kingdom turn to him with suspicion and distrust.  it was not something he was very fond of, but as a logical man he knew why - it wasn’t though the north had a pleasant history house lannister, but that was one of the reasons why branden approached the lannister king and volunteered as the crowns champion to have his uncle executed for his crimes; the winterfell heir was more than happy to have been the one to condemn him to death.  he was fairly certain that his father would scream at him til he was hoarse for entering a trial by combat without formally asking permission, but he had not failed in his duty.

returning home to deliver the news of what had had happened, branden found his lord father’s health had deteriorated rapidly and he was weak, pale, and his mother explained that lord rickken had been in the godswood by winterfell when he was attacked by the guards of his late brothers widow in a failed attempt to retaliate for branden’s victory over her husbands champion. though rickken had made it back to winterfell, he was barely alive. the lord of winterfell died within the week, leaving branden as the new warden of the north. bubbling with rage, he wrote to the crown and informed them of what had happened, and informed them that his lord father had been attacked by the widow of barrowton and, as the warden of the north, he formally requested the crown hold the barrowton widow responsible for her crimes. she was executed by that years end and the branch of the barrowton starks exiled; barrow hall handed to house stout of goldgrass to be castellan over.

branden spent the next months pouring over records, plans and histories applicable to the north - including correspondence with the ruling lord mormont regarding magical bloodlines, which has lead him to wonder if house mormont also holds some power from the old gods. branden is comfortable with the north still loyal to the iron throne, and until given reason otherwise he has no plans to rescind from the iron throne.

↳ personality.

he is nothing if not a proud stark, he is proud of his namesake and of his lineage. he is proud of his father and mother, and proud of himself. though always short spoken branden has a great amount of affection for his siblings and half-siblings, even if he doesn’t say so often. his pride often leads to his anger, or arguments, or even debates over jugs of ale. 

he’s a strategist, and a master of slipping by people ━  a habit born of his secrecy in his greenseeing. he wants to bring honour back to the north as his father had always aimed to but his visions for the north are somewhat different now that he has been in the middle of literal political upheaval and chaos. being a father made him softer and more serious, his pride in his house and lands has sanded the edges of branden, the rambunctious young man, into a northern heir worthy of the name.

↳ splitting of the kingdoms.

as most starks do, he held and still does hold a great and many dubious opinions on house lannister, and definitely believes that he would have made a finer ruler should the queens late father had chosen him.  however, he cannot honestly say that the north would be better rescinding from the iron throne so eagerly as the other kingdoms have… everything must have a strategy, and a second plan if the original were to fail and that is what his feelings are in regards to the summit. in time, maybe.

he is glad to be the one as the spearhead of the northern party, but he also can’t deny that the north has not suffered under the iron throne and having the crown’s belief in him and his house, despite his uncles treason.

   ♛   STATUS: TAKEN.

[moved202347]

Hekate / Hecate

(from my old amino before I got banned 😂, pretty much copy n pasted for reference)

Dogs/puppies [from https://hekatecovenant.com/resources/symbols-of-hekate/dogs/] -The dog was connected to spirits, the home (as a guard), a friend of the family, also symbolising an easy birth and fertility.  Represents the earth element. Also known as the 'black bitch'. Originated in ancient hymns, writings, ancient Greek pottery, stone carvings and statues. Its first symbolism came from the Trojan Queen Hekabe who leapt into the sea after the fall of Troy. Hecate took pity on her and turned her into a black dog which became her familiar. In some Greek towns, black female dogs were sacrificed in Hecate's honour, usually at night. Cerberus, the three-headed hound who guards the entrance of the Underworld is additionally connected to Hecate. In American + European folklore, dogs have always been seen as supernatural in the nature of what humans can't see. Black dogs are thought to roam the locations Hecate holds sacred; desolate roads, moors, cemeteries and the crossroads. Dogs attend her as she roams these desolate spaces. 

Dragons [credit to https://hekatecovenant.com/resources/symbols-of-hekate/dragon/]- There are loads of epithets of Hecate. One of her epithets comes from the name 'propylaya' meaning 'she who stands before the gate'. Her hound is believed to be the three-headed dog Cerberus who guards the gateway into the Underworld and some myths believed that dogs replaced dragons. There is imagery associated with Medea with riding her flying chariot escaping from Korinthos after the murder of the king Kreon. Her dragons were a pair of winged, serpentine dragons. 

Black lamb - A preferred sacrificial offering to Hecate. In modern times, it would be more suitable to have a representative of a black lamb such as a statue or photograph , or somehow getting a living black female sheep into your house without wrecking havoc in front of your altar (I don't recommend having a living animal on your altar!). 

Fire breathing Horse or Bull - Represents the fire element. It was symbolic of Hades fiery soul. Hecate is often seen in images crowned with bull-like crescent horns. Black bulls became heavily associated with Hecate as sacrificial animals in necromancy rituals. It is a constant reminder of her powers as creator and destroyer symbolised by the phases (waxing and waning) of the moon and seen in the crescent horns of a bull.

·🖤·

Hydra headed snake or serpent [https://archetypicalwitchcraft.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/understanding-hekate-part-5-the-meaning-of-her-ancient-symbols/]- A solar and underworld symbol. Represents the water element. It was an ambivalent symbol just like the dog, it was connected to the sun, healing and regeneration. Yet there was also a link to the spiritual side, the underworld too. There was old folklore which believed spirits would appear as a snake to bless the house. Snakes, like domestic animals was said to be able to see and feel the presence of spirits, so they were used in necromancy and magic to figure out if there was spirits around. 

·🖤·

Other associations are: frogs or toads; black bulls (draped in wreaths of yew and was then slaughtered in her honour);belladonna (poisonous herb!), cypress; dittany; mandrake; honey (anything sweet), dark chocolate (modern interpretation!); red wine (of course only if your in the age to use it, though your not going to be drinking it!);  torches;  infernal spirits; dagger; ebony; knives or daggers (obviously be safe and don't do any silly things with it!); twin torches; magickal brewing (so potions); silver; grey; bats; rope; black; mental health; hearth and home; dreams; divination; cauldrons; fate. MORE HERBS:  hazel, black poplar, cedar, willow, garlic, thyme, almonds, myrrh, mugwort, mint, dandelion, cardamom, hellbore, belladonna, hemlock, mandrake, hecateis (aconite, wolfsbane [poisonous]) opium poppy, verbena, sage, purple honeysuckle, camomile. Any hallucination herbs (be careful obviously and know your stuff and even then check it with someone who also knows their stuff). Owls, bears, ravens, cats (possibly) and donkeys. 

She is associated with yew, garlic, all poisonous herbs (use representations, so little tiny mushroom statues), oak, white, red, purple, ferrets (polecats), healing, healing herbs (more of the stronger ones and notorious ones), keys (Knowledge, unlocking wisdom, seeing the truth), mandrake, lamps, saffron, sandals in bronze or gold, whips, iron, the wolf, mullet (the blood-coloured goatfish), the new moon, twilight (best time to do rituals with her).

·🖤·

Also MORE epithets ("An epithet is an honorary and praiseful descriptive title used as part of a name."), all taken and sourced from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/matauryn/2017/07/19/many-epithets-hekate/. 

Adamantaea ‘Unconquerable’, ‘Untamable Goddess’

Admêtos ‘Indomable’, ‘Unconquered’

Aenaos ‘Eternal’

Agallomenen Elaphoisi ‘Rejoicing in Deer’

Agia ‘Sacred’, ‘Holy’

Aglaos ‘Radiant’

Agriope ‘Wild-eyed’, ‘Fierce-faced’, ‘Savage-watcher’, ‘wild-voiced’

Agrotera ‘Huntress’

Aidônaia ‘Goddess of Hades’, ‘Of the Underworld”

Aimopotis ‘Blood-drinker’, ‘Murderer’

Aiônos ‘Eternal’

Aizêiοs ‘Vigorous’

Aktinochiatis ‘Radiant haired’, ‘With Rays for Hair’

Aktiophis [Of Unknown Meaning]

Alexeatis ‘Averter of Evil’

Alkimos ‘Powerful’, ‘Strong’, ‘Stout’, ‘Brave’

Amaimaketos ‘Unconquerable’, ‘Raging’, ‘Invincible’, ‘Unapproachable’, ‘Uncontrollable’

Ambrotos ‘Immortal’

Ameibousa ‘One That Transforms’

Amphiphaes ‘Circumlucent’

Amphiprosopos ‘Double-faced’

Amphistomos ‘Double-mouthed’

Anassa ‘Queen’

Anassa Eneroi ‘Queen of the Dead’

Androphonos ‘Killer of Men’

Angelos ‘Messenger’

Antaian Theou ‘She Who Meets’

Antania ‘Enemy of Mankind’

Aôroboros ‘Devourer of the Prematurely Dead’, ‘Devourer of the Untimely Dead’

Apanchomene ‘The Hanged One’

Apotropaios ‘Averting’, ‘Averter’

Aphrattos ‘Unnamed One’

Arêgos ‘Helper’

Archikos ‘Royal’

Ariste ‘The Best’

Ariste Cthonia ‘Best of the World’, ‘Best in the World’

Arkuia / Arkyia ‘Spinner of webs’, ‘Entrapper’

Arrhetos ‘Ineffable’

Astrodia ‘Star-walker’, ‘Star-Courser’

Atala ‘Tender’, ‘Delicate’

Atasthalos ‘Pretentious’, ‘Reckless’, ‘Presumptious’

Athanatos ‘Immortal’, ‘Of Immortal Fame’

Autophyês / Autopheus ‘Self-generating’. ‘Self-begotten’

Azonos ‘Without Borders’

Azostos ‘Ungirt’, ‘Without a Belt’

Baridouchos ‘Barque-holder’, ‘Skiff-holder’

Basileia ‘Queen’, ‘Princess’

Bolos ‘Far-Thrower’,

Boôpis ‘Cow-eyed’

Booporos ‘Ox-Herder’

Borborophorba ‘Eater of Filth’

Boukolos ‘Ox-Herder’

Brimô ‘Angry-One’, ‘Terrifying’

Buthios ‘Abysmal’, ‘Of the Depths’

Charopos ‘Ferocious-aspected’, ‘Fierce’, ‘Grim’, ‘Flashing’, ‘Bright, ‘Having blue-grey eyes’, ‘of the Sea’

Chthonia ‘Chthonic’, ‘Of the Earth”

Chrysôpis ‘Golden-faced’

Chrysosandalos ‘of Golden Sandals’

Chrysosandalaimopotichthonia ‘Goddess of the Lower World Wearing Golden Sandals and Drinking Blood’

Chrysostephanos ‘Golden-Crowned’, ‘Crowned with Splendor’

Chrysostephês ‘Golden-crowned’

Dadophoros ‘Torchbearer’

Dadouchos ‘Torch-bearer’

Daeira ‘The Knowing One’

Daidalos ‘Cunning’

Damasandra ‘Dominator of Men’, ‘Subduer of Men’

Damnamene ‘Means of Constraint’

Damnodamia ‘Subduer of Subduers’

Damnomeneia ‘Dominating Force’

Dasplêtis ‘Horror’, ‘Frightful-one’

Deichteira ‘Teacher’, ‘Revealer’

Deinos ‘Terrible’

Despoina ‘Lady’, ‘Mistress’

Dione ‘Goddess’

Doloessa / Doloeis ‘Astute-one’, ‘Subtle’, ‘Wily’, ‘Cunning’

Drakaina ‘Serpent’, ‘Dragon’

Eidôlios ‘Phantasmal’, ‘Ghostly’

Eileithyia ‘Nurse of Childbirth’, ‘Goddess of Midwives’

Einalian ‘Of the Sea’

Einodia Thygater Demetros ‘Daughter of Demeter, who is of the Road’

Ekklesia ‘Of the Assembly’

Ekdotis ‘Bestower’

Elaphêbolos ‘Deer-huntress’, ‘Shooter of Deer’

Elateira ‘Driver’, ‘Charioteer’

Ellophonos ‘Fawn-slayer’

Epaine ‘Awe-Inspiring’, ‘Glorious’, ‘Sublime’

Empousa / Empusa [Of unknown meaning, related to the monster Empusa and the idea of phantoms and specters]

Empylios ‘At the Gate’

Empyrios ‘Empyrean’

Enodia ‘Of the crossroads’, ‘Of the Roads’, ‘Of the Path’

Ephodia ‘Traveling Expenses’, ‘Provisions for the Road’, ‘Traveling Supplies’, ‘Resources’

Ephoros ‘Guardian’ ‘Overseer’

Epigeioi ‘of the Earth’

Epiphanestate Thea ‘the Most Manifest Goddess’

Epipurgidia ‘on the Tower’

Episkopos ‘Guardian’, ‘One who Watches Over’, ‘Overseer’

Epiteichea ‘The Stronghold’, ‘Fort’

Epi-tymbidia ‘Sepulchral’

Eranne ‘Lovely’

Erannos ‘Lovely’

Ergatis ‘Energizer’

Êrigeneia ‘Daughter of morning’, ‘Early-born’

Erôtotokeia / Erototokos ‘Bearer of love’, ‘Producing Love’, ‘Who Bore Love’

Eukoline ‘Good Tempered’

Eupatepeia ‘Noble-born’

Eurippa ‘Horse-finder’

Geneteira ‘Mother’

Genetyllis ‘Birth-Helper’, ‘Goddess of Childbirth’, ‘Midwife’

Gigaessa ‘Giant’

Gorgo ‘The Grim’, ‘The Gorgon’

Hecatoncheires ‘Hundred-handed’

Hegemonen ‘Guide’

Hêgemoye ‘Queen’

Helike ‘Revolving’

Hersechthonia ‘Speaking From Below’

Hexacheira ‘Of Six Ways’, ‘Of Six Hands’

Hiera ‘Holy One’

Hieros Pyr ‘Holy Fire’

Hipparete ‘Horse-Speaker’

Hippokyon ‘Mare Bitch’, ‘Horse Dog’

Hippoprosopos ‘Horse-Faced’

Hypolampteira [Of Unknown Meaning – possibly related to light or brightness]

Iocheaira / Iokheaira ‘Arrow-shooter’, ‘One who Shoots Arrows’

Indalimos ‘Beautiful’

Ippokyôn ‘Mare-Dog’, half dog/ half horse

Ippoprosôpos ‘Horse-faced’

Kalkaea ‘Wearer of High Boots’

Kalligeneia ‘Bearing Beautiful Offspring’

Kalliste ‘Fairest’

Kapetoktypos ‘Tomb-disturber’, ‘Causing the Noise of Lamentation’

Kardiodaitos ‘Heart-Eater’, ‘Feasting on Men’s Hearts’

Kareia ‘of Karia’, ‘Kraus’

Karko ‘Lamia’, ‘Child-Eating’, ‘Nocturnal Spirit’

Katachthonia ‘Subterranean’

Katakampsypsaychenos ‘Bender of proud necks’

Kelkaia [Of Unknown Meaning]

Keratôpis ‘Horned-faced’, ‘Horned Looking’

Keroeis ‘Horned’

Kthonia ‘Of the Underworld’, ’Of the Earth’

Kleidouchos / Kleidoukhos ‘Key-holder’, ‘Key-keeper’

Klôthaiê ‘Spinner of fate’

Kore ‘Maiden’

Kourotrophos ‘Child’s Nurse’, ‘Nurse of Youths’

Krataios / Kratais ‘Powerful’, ‘Dominator’, ‘Of the Rocks’

Krokopeplos ‘Saffron-Cloaked’

Kunolygmatos ‘Doglike Howler’, ‘Who howls doglike’

Kydimos ‘Glorious’

Kynegetis ‘Leader of Dogs’

Kynokephalos ‘Dog-Headed’

Kynolygmate ‘Howling Like a Dog’, ‘Who Howls Dog-like’

Kyôn ‘Bitch’, ‘Dog’

Kyôn Melaina ‘Black Bitch’, ‘Black Dog’

Kyria ‘The Powerful’, ‘The Supreme’

Laginitis ‘Of Lagina’

Lampadephoros ‘Lamp-bearer’, ‘Torch-bearer’, ‘Who Warns of Nighttime Attack’

Lampadios ‘Lamp-bearer’, ‘Torch-bearer’

Leaina ‘The Lioness’

Leontoukhos ‘Holding a Lion’

Leukophryne ‘White-Browed’, ‘Of the White-Browed Hill’

Limenitis ‘Harbor Goddess’

Limenitikos ‘Of the Harbor’, ‘Harbor Goddess’

Limenoskopos ‘Of the Threshold’, ‘Watcher of Havens’, ‘On the Harbor’, ‘Watching the Harbor’

Liparokredemnos ‘Of the Bright Headband’, ‘Bright-Coiffed’

Liparoplokamos ‘Brilliant-Braided’

Lochias ‘Protector of birth’, ‘Goddess of Childbearing’

Lykaina ‘She-wolf’

Lyko ‘She-wolf’, ‘Wolf-formed’

Maera ‘Shining’

Mageus ‘One who Kneads’ [Possibly related to Magi]

Makairapos ‘Blessed-one’

Medeousa / Medusa ‘Protector’, ‘Guard’, ‘Gorgon’

Meisopomenos ‘Laborer of the Moon’

Meisoponeros ‘Vice-Hating’

Megiste ‘Greatest’

Melaine ‘Black’

Melaneimôn ‘Black-clad’, ‘Wearing Black’

Melinoe ‘Soothing One’

Mene ‘Moon’

Moira ‘A Share’, ‘Fate’

Monogenes ‘Only Child’

Monoprosopos ‘With One Face’

Mormo ‘She-Monster’

Munychia [Of Unknown Meaning]

Nekuia / Nekyia ‘Goddess of death’, ‘Mistress of corpses’

Nerteria ‘Infernal’, ‘Subterranean’, ‘Nether One’

Nerterios ‘Infernal’, ‘Subterranean’, Nether One’

Nerteron Prytanin ‘Mistress of the Dead’

Noctiluca ‘Light of the Night’, ‘Night Shiner’

Noeros ‘Intellective’

Nomaios ‘Pastoral’

Nychia / Nykhia ‘Nocturnal’ ‘Nocturnal-One’ “Goddess of Night’

Nyktairodyteira ‘Night Riser and Setter’, ‘She that Rises and Sets by Night’

Nykteria ‘Of the Night’

Nykti ‘Of the Night’

Nyktiboos ‘Night-Shouter’, ‘Night-Crier’

Nyktipolos ‘Night-Wandering’

Nyktophaneia ‘Night-shining’

Nymphen ‘Bride’

Nyssa ‘Goader’, “Goal’, ‘Beginning’, ‘Turning Post’, ‘Ambition’

Oistrophaneia ‘Manifester of Madness’

Oistroplaneia ‘Spreader of Madness’, ‘Causing the Wanderings of Madness’

Oksyboê ‘Shrill-screamer’, ‘Shrieker’

Oletis ‘Destroyer’

Opaon ‘Follower’

Opheôplokamos ‘Coiled with Snakes’, ‘With Snaky Curls’

Oriplanos ‘Mountain-roamer’, ‘Mountain-Wandering’

Oroboros ‘Tail-Eating’

Ourania ‘Celestial’, ‘Heavenly’

Ouresiphoites ‘Wanderer in the Mountains’

Oxythymia ‘Gallows’, ‘Quick to Anger’

Paggennêteira ‘Mother of All’

Paiônios ‘Healer’

Pammêtôr ‘Mother of All’

Pandamateira ‘All-tamer’, ‘All-powerful’, “All Subduer’, ‘Master of all’

Pandina [Of Unknown Meaning – Possibly related to ‘whirling’ or ‘rotating’]

Pandôteira ‘All-giver’, ‘One who gives everything’, ‘Bestower of Everything’, Bounteous’

Pangaios ‘World-wide’

Panopaia ‘All-seeing’, ‘One who sees everything’, ‘Panorama’

Panta Ephepousa [Of Unknown Meaning]

Pantos Kosmou Kleidokhos ‘Keeper of the Keys of the Cosmos’

Pantrephô / Pantrophos ‘All-nurturing’, ‘All-sustaining’, ‘who feeds all’

Parthenos ‘Virgin’

Pasikrateia ‘Universal Queen’, ‘All-powerful’, ‘who dominates all’

Pasimedeonsa ‘All-guarding’, ‘All-protecting’

Pasimedousa ‘Ruling Over All’

[antonverloc]

REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG AND DO NOT DELETE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.

The following quotes and phrases are taken from the stories in Thomas Ligotti’s anthology Songs of a Dead Dreamer. Some of these quotes were slightly tweaked for the sake of this meme. If you enjoy the imagery or writing in this meme, please support the author by purchasing his work. Content warnings for horror in general and brief mentions of blood, nihilism, unreality, mannequins, dolls, puppets, and some body horror.

Bold what applies to your muse.

TAGGED BY: stolen TAGGING: u

The Frolic

Absolute madness paired with a sharp cunning / an expression of sky-blue peacefulness / the indistinct happiness of the future / a piece of moon above the opulent leafage of spring trees / a broken-down kingdom of miracles and horrors / a Neverland where dizzy chaos is the norm / a cosmos of crooked houses and littered alleys / a slum among the stars / a jolly river of refuse / jagged heaps in shadows / a phantasmagoric mingling of heaven and hell / a moonlit corridor where mirrors scream and laugh / dreamy back-drops / ice cubes in an empty glass / shifting expressions on a lean face / vague suggestions and subtle jokes / an Aphrodite sculpture / the wind, cold and dead / a crumbled piece of paper / black-foaming gutters / the dank windowless gloom of some intergalactic cellar / starless cities of insanity / a bright freezing scream of laughter / a passing anecdote of some obscure hell

Les Fleurs

sorrowful flowers / lilting blossoms for a loved one’s memorial / a florist shop / flowers which open only at night / a hothouse warm smile / night-blooming cereuses / a sleek ocelot / well-preserved old places / plants resembling birds / white picket fences / flower-printed curtains / liqueur tasting of flowers from open fields / cool, clean offices / invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness / the sounds of black orchids growing / the flower-bedded earth / a ripple of empathetic insight / a gorgeous kingdom of glittering colors / velvety jungle-shapes / contorted rainbows and twisted auroras / hyper-radiant hues / a marvelous arcana / tongue-like floral appendages / tongues flowering

Alice’s Last Adventure

Volatile years when anything might go wrong / the embodiment of topsy-turvydom / pools of rainwater / tarnished mirrors / moonlit windows / a thousand misshapen marvels / a universe handed over to new gods / stoic tolerance of a second-rate reality / two complete strangers gawking at each other / a shiny, pearl-grey casket / black orchids / a strange combination of relief and confusion / a delayed echo with oblique origins / a chain of occurrences with links as weak as smoke rings / a sunny autumn morning / a sense of duty, vanity, and other less comprehensible motives / the seas of the moon / costumed kids / the cries of bedlamites / the clamor of rambunctious kids / a half-cocked oration / jack-o’-lanterns glowing orange and yellow / masked children / a plastic cup of cider / shadows wavering against two-story facades / a lamp with a shade of Tiffany glass / a disciple of the bizarre / an autumn moon hanging in the blackness / demonic giggling / the moon / a clock / shadows in the window

Dream of a Manikin

A mostly tacit but somehow complete biography / a marvelous trick of the mind / jeweled lamps along the walls / lights shining on an intricately patterned carpet and various pieces of old furniture / star-clustered blackness / a starry abyss / an iciness drifting in from a starscape / a horrible truth / a legend written somewhere at the bottom of a dream / echoing voices bouncing here and there around the room / a motto printed on fortune cookie-like strips of paper and hidden in bureau drawers / a broken record repeating itself on an ancient Victrola / an alighting flock of birds / a field of dynamic tension / a dry sibilant voice / people dressed as dolls / shaking with tremors of the uncanny / a manikin dresser / astral ambience / occult studies and depth analysis / delving into speculative models of reality / cosmic static / harassments of the self / the boundaries of the self / a Bigger Self terrorizing its little splinter selves / cosmic ennui / a serendipitous discovery / this dream of flesh / guilty until proven otherwise / valerian and camphor baths / cryptic impudence / softly glowing display windows / the divine bonds of unreality / a medium-intensity shower / display-window dummies / rain-spotted glasses / a car with rain-blinded windows / a moment of self-terror / the mythical conspiracy of a treacherous universe / a galaxy of constellations / a vaporous glowing / a whitened hallway / dolls made up to look like people / eyes shining in the white darkness / a powerful psychic metaphor

The Chymist

Daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism / bubblegum and beer / a chalice in a church / a serum vial in a laboratory / the tartness of one’s smile / a very keen appreciation of diversity / decrepitude / the withering heart of the deceased / bastardized nostalgia / the putrescence of things past / arching mirrors / chrome chandeliers / second-hand fantasies and out-of-date distractions / one strange thing next to another / a genius of vulgarity / a lawless paradise / violence without violation / a smoke-gray sky / city-soiled clumps of snow / fluxing clouds that swirl above the chimneys and trees / alchemical transmutations / the glamour and sanity of former days / a new mask of rats and rot / a hopeless stroll along the path to hypothetically higher worlds / a body whose true outline remains unknown /  the whims of chemistry / the caprices of circumstance / the enigma of personal taste / a leather vessel with a void inside / the skeleton of a dream / lights outlining the different venues and avenues below / a bottle of powdered light / pulverized diamonds / the flesh and blood kaleidoscope of one’s imagination / a prodigious insurrection of entity / a tempest of transfiguration

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

The full powers of a master hypnotist / a mesmeric wilderness / marked by fate’s stigmata / crystal twinkling under a chandelier’s kaleidoscopic blaze / power and prestige socializing / a pair of metronomes / a glossy black cabinet / two bluish gems in an alabaster setting / a tiny sequined outfit / mesmeric stunts / intact and unbloodied / routines in defiance of death and pain / a jaw-dropping finale / a blare of heavenly horns / a labyrinth of light / a gossamer veil / snow-white wings / the angelic luminary beneath the human beast / the eyes of the audience / mock-death and bogus-pain / sinking deep into a downy darkness / pillows stuffed with soft shadows / a sun at the center of a drab galaxy / vacant and full of grace / a business card with a cloud-gray pearl finish / riotous rococo / a chair of blinding brocade / flowery fabric / a shelf of delicate figurines / tall smoky mirrors / a bottomless pool /a sky wiped clean of clouds / dispassionate elegance / postures and poses like frozen roses / pajama-clad legs dangling / a shiny chrome-plated pen / a very soft but not condescending tone / a mazy wallflower / cartwheels of agony / somersaults through fires of doom / nosedives of vulnerable flesh into the meat grinder of life / serene constellations / sweet nullities / a spell-binding, snake-eyed charmer / high society vulgarians / eyes recessed in their sockets, sunken into a rotting profundity / labyrinthine depths / dancing clothes all clotted with putrescent goo

Eye of the Lynx

Missing girls in Gothic garb / amber going on red / a reddish haze / a crazy purpurean tapestry / a fair-haired girl / denim slacks and a leather jacket / bloody moonlight / a long sip from a can of iced tea / persecutions and imperilments as glamorous as those of any Gothic heroine / violet eyes / the machinations of an evil-hearted malefactor / haunting second-hand shops / a strip of dark velvet seized by a pearl brooch / a frail chain from which dangles a heart-shaped locket / a whirlpooling lock of golden hair / gloves, long and powdery pale / the shoulders of heavy capes lined in satin that shines like a black sun / enveloping hoods / capes with deep pockets and generous inner pouches for secreting precious souvenirs / capes with silk strings that tie about the neck / capes with weighted hems that nonetheless flutter weightlessly in midnight gusts / doll-size in a dark doll’s costume / quivering bones and feverish blood / fear’s funereal plume / carriage wheels rioting in a lavender mist or a pearly fog / nacreous fires twitching beyond the margins of country roads / cliffs and stars / a blur of crimson shadows / vast regions of sublime desolation / mountains hulking in hazy twilight / a rather large animal collar at the end of a chain leash / a light the color of fresh meat / a page in a depraved story book / a single candle glowing through red glass / little zippers and big zippers / a moth-eaten cloak / enthralling cruelties / spangled eyebrows / a brow of glittering silver / glistening with tiny flecks of starlight /  the velvet embrace of one’s favorite cape / the tall candles one lights on stormy nights / chains of raindrops whipping against one’s windows / places where raging storms and brutal subjugations never end / the hardships of traveling to strange faraway places / frail little dolls / wild-wind nights and sadistic villains / corridors of scarlet darkness / a captive of one’s heart and its infinite chambers

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

Something magical / something timeless / something profound / a sooty basement / the putrid members of a man who is decomposing / a plain brown package marked Hope, Love, or Fortune Cookies and postmarked: the Edge of the Unknown / a helter-skelter universe where things are ever threatening to go abnormal and unreal / a normal, real love / impermanence and decay / evils sent out under various covers / sublime and terrifying conflict / fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman / moon-trimmed shadows / lunar landscapes of craggy peaks / skeletal wastelands of jagged ice / a brooding Gothic hero / an ethereal Gothic heroine / a castle-like skyscraper / an extra dose of obsessiveness / the Gothic tale / a militant romantic / waves of bombast / winds of ecstatic hysteria / a partially shattered window, its surface streaked with a blue film of dust / a sublime sense of desolation / the diluted glow of twilight / night’s enveloping cloak / grimy azure dimness / bluish semi-luminescence / tears of confusion / turquoise haze / blue shadows of silence / liquefying legs / an old storyteller / the voice of a tiny insect crying for help from inside a sealed coffin / a piercing, crystal shriek that lacerates the midnight blackness / a haunter of spectral marketplaces / Gothic glory / a horror writer / an ardent consumer of the abnormal and the unreal / a visitant of discount houses of unreality / subject only to the rule of demonic forces / puppet-shadows / a hell so excruciating it is bliss itself / bony wings rising out of one’s back / jaws that are a cavern of dripping silver / rivers of putrescent gold running through one’s veins

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

Diamond-paned windows / a thick December fog / a serene congregation of colors / holly, both fresh and artificial / a pale purple ribbon / a ritual forever reenacted without hope of escape / a large chair beside a fogged window / crackling logs / a foggy winter’s night / bright Christmas lights shining through the fog / always dead with darkness / always alive with lights

The Lost Art of Twilight

A streak of iodine red / a spattering of flat black / the early autumn sun / silver hair / a gray suit / a long envelope, neatly cesareaned / the charnel house creeps / a silver shield / crepuscular radiance / an offspring of the dead / the progeny of phantoms / the big green eye of an EEG monitor / De Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal / a rainbow of insects / the science of superstition / the Provencal countryside / a pantheon of gargoyles amid the splendor of a medieval church / a holy soldier of the living / a monster of the dead / the astral banquet of Art / the rotting flesh of rainbows / the sonar screech of a bat / vampiric origins / the oncoming onyx of a storm / shadows and sunshine / glare and gloom / bright clouds and black / iron-red leaves / tentative drops of rain / blue bears and yellow rabbits / neither a blood-warm human nor a blood-drawing devil / oceans of blood / the ravenous life of the undead / an authoritative impatience / eternal life in an eternal death

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

Pale gray pajamas / thick sheets of paper / a bottle of black ink / a shapely black pen with a silvery nib / strands of blond hair, almost white / a sudden salty breeze / silhouettes and shadows / unreflecting windows / metal hinges squeaking somewhere in the wind / a sleepless night / constellations beyond the window panes / star-filled hours / the pure whiteness of the page / a flung shoe leaning toe-up against a bedpost / nothingness unstained by inner conception / white snow in a white sky / dark lines and vacant spaces / vast expanses of frozen whiteness / a church in a foreign town / assorted devils and demons / ice-mad mountains / a spirit of malicious abandon / nightmarish anatomies / a sickle-shaped scar of moon / sea-licked shores / dark letters / feeding one’s troubles to the sea / brown-leafed trees / a forest of memorials / clumps of crosses / groves of gravestones / dark, cowl-shaped windows / unblemished by shadows / the sound of crashing waves /bending dawns into twilights / static from a broken radio / breaking waves / seaside air / a gleaming crescent moon / a bone-white cicatrix / chronic insomnia / a blade of moon / white night, white noise

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

The confusions of carnival night / gyrations of squealing abandon / lines between pain and pleasure / a rainbow of rags / a startling length of blade / pale pages elegantly dappled by somber verses / a pair of strangely darkened spectacles / the toneless voice of one who is dead to all appeasement or mercy / mounds of snow that had been sown with ashes / eyes as dark and swirled with shadows as the raving night itself / a constellation of designs / mad games of flesh and steel / a forbidden madness / dense forests of tall pikes planted in the earth / shadows rolling in empty sockets / lacerated mouths / the darkness of dreams / to see the world drown in oceans of agony / visions of butchering the angels / a god of deceit or illusion / chaos at feast / black with scars of madness / darkly clouded glass / the brightest and highest of stars / shimmering halls / unnaturally colored wine / red-smeared forms / many-taloned claws / the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand / a pair of leviathan leeches / a lord of the sword made mad / the dark powers which we cannot understand but only hate / rhapsodic voices in the streets / a privileged doom / the face of the soul of the world / the cool marble of the floor / an onyx-black knight / a face flushed with crimson glory

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

A scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky / a long, brightly colored coat / noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically / life-size dolls hanging suspended by wires / wetted strands of a spider web / shiny satin legs / a beautifully pale hand / pulverized stars / dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets / the repose of ruin / an oily red glare / a well-dressed dummy / a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks / a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars / wood waking up / a sleep that should have never been broken / something too painful for tears / the false fire of the moon / two faces sharing a single head / faint, hollow screams from high above / a dummy’s silence / leftover tears of berserk laughter / bluish-green irradiance

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

Mist on a lake / fog in thick woods / a golden light shining on wet stones / a little trickle of suspicion in the bloodstream / the solar brilliance of a summer day / supernatural horror / a corner alive with cool drafts and fragrant with centuries of must / a rancid world rife with things smelling of the crypt / a sower of vice / mad winds / wan moonlight / pasty specters / the vividness of pain / the lasting effects of fear / natural-born puppets whose lips are stained with their own blood / dead bodies that walk in the night / living bodies suddenly possessed by new owners and deadly aspirations / the sepulchral pomp of wasting tissue / compassion for human hurt / a humble sense of one’s impermanence / an absolute valuation of justice / a demented innocence in the face of gruesome facts / the horrific reprisals of affirmation / the Cosmic Macabre / the shudders of a thousand graveyards

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

Gray walls pocked like sponges / nights of futile tears and screaming / an expression of almost paternal forgiveness / the supreme delirium of the planets / bright puppets dancing in the blackness / a golden speck of magic / the silent, staring universe / something as pathetic as a puppet and as exalted as the stars / something at once dead and never dying / autumn constellations in the black sky above / harshly brilliant eyes / the remote places where truth had been shut up and abandoned

The Sect of the Idiot

Extraordinary joy / extraordinary pain / the great hollow of dreams / an infinitely secluded place / a world that both menaces and surpasses this one / a holy madness / infinite stillness on foggy mornings / miracles of silence on indolent afternoons / the strangely flickering tableau of neverending nights / deceptive depths of shadow / heaps of clouds like dust balls / a fluorescent map of the cosmos / medieval autumns and mute winters /kaleidoscopic windows / a kind of cataclysm of empty space / an earthquake of the invisible / strikingly clear eyes / a dusty trunk of dreams / a maze of streets / an abyss of stars / a great reaching blackness / a stale gray dimness / an alien order of being / an icy blackness /starry blackness / a great round moon / deep aquatic blue / the voids of astronomy / a state of both paralyzed terror and spellbound curiosity / whispering figures / stagnant moonlight / withered, wilted claws / drooping tentacles / the spinning legs of spiders / the greedy rubbing of a fly’s spindly feelers / the darting tongues of snakes / the triumph of the grotesque / whispering effigies of chaos / putrid arcana / an ecstatic horror / horrific ecstasy / the demonic elements of which all creation is composed / corruption in disguise / a cache of unwonted offerings stored out of sight / currents of fear / dark tremors / splendid scenes broken with malign shadows / the lurid and the lovely forever lost in each other’s embrace / the arch of an old street / tunnel-like hallways / sickly light shining through unwashed, curtainless windows / atmospherics of infinite melancholy and unease / a decayed paradise / the everlasting residue of some cosmic misfortune / a solemn, mechanical intentness / a smooth and solid cube of black glass / a malignant puppet of madness / dazed in darkness / embarrassed throat-clearings / reproving looks / words which could only have meaning in a nightmare / a thing of strange degeneracy / a quintessence of hellish delirium / freakish, echoing laughter / the whispering of strangers / twitching tentacles / a horror which cannot be helped  

The Greater Festival of Masks

The old and new / the real and imaginary / truth and deception / shops of costumes and masks / an incautious curiosity / shredded rags that are easily disturbed by the wind / a poster stuck to a crumbling wall / strange pathways of caprice / the outsized moon / silvery windows / doors which are elaborately decorated yet will not budge in their frames / massive shutters covering blank walls behind them / faces of dreams / sardonically grinning / innocence and excuses / a reddish glow of fire / a wad of bubbling blackness / smooth and faceless faces / the speaker in the shadows / the soft creaking of new faces breaking through old flesh

The Music of the Moon

Breaking the quiet of a moonlit room / enchantments that nearly make amends for one’s stolen slumber / some unusual shape leaping across steep roofs / a bewildering agility / many nights of sleepless hell / a knife / rope / a poison vial / an exploit of uncommon decisiveness / blank nights of insomnia / a handbill / ashes mixed with grease / a door with a faint yellow aura leaking out at its edges / small, shadowlike things moving in corners and along the floor molding / a quartet of musicians / a voice which sounds both exhausted and malicious / pale, ragged clouds of hair / sonic abnormality / an empty shaft of blackness / spherical lamps caked with dust / the silence of a dark, lifeless world / black silhouettes of human heads visible only in the moonlight / slow music in the soft darkness / a single note wavering in a universe of darkness / a incalculable proliferation of slightly dissonant harmony / the light of a quiet gray dawn / completely helpless, and yet content to be so / thick layers of webs / gazing at nothing with bleeding sockets / the moon all fat and pale, glaring down from its gauzy webs of clouds

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

Unstained by any habits of the human / the ideal of everything alien to living / some molding backwater of the earth / the city of Bruges itself / a corpse of the Middle Ages / bony bridges / the black veins of old canals / a lonely evolution in shadowed streets and beside sluggish canals / the music of graveyards / a resonant chorus that fills the air and sometimes drowns out the voices of those who still live / layers of cobwebs floating about the near ceiling / a burst of resistance / the pealing of church bells / the language of whimsy / the force of stars tugging away at various points / the dark waters of a canal / shiny black hair parted straight down the middle / a low table covered by a red velvet cloth / a world that applauds trumped-up illusions while denying or demeaning those that create the very lives they are living / a spectral thing full of strange suggestion / an untenanted room filled with the echoes of nothingness / the eyes of certain crudely fashioned dolls / a greenish glow from a mirror / placid meandering canals / enwrapped in mist / close crumbling houses / odd arching bridges / innumerable church towers / narrow twisting streets / queer little courtyards / everything gone forever / an empty mist / an eternal twilight

Vastarien

Candles in a cloistered cell / shapes beneath the shadows / tall buildings whose rooftops nod groundward / wide buildings whose facades follow the curve of a street / buildings whose windows and doorways tilt like badly hung paintings / stairways that wander off-course into useless places / caged elevators that urge unwanted stops on their passengers / a sequestered civilization of echoes flourishing among groaning walls / thin ladders ascending into a maze of shafts and conduits / the dark valves and arteries of a petrified and monstrous organism / a desolate serenity / silvery cinders / the mouths of great chimneys / shadow-puppets / cluttered gardens and crooked gates / the purling waters of black canals / faded masks concealing profound schemes / a place of supernatural clarity and stillness / the crystalline glare of a lantern / moonlight through a curtained window / darkened windows / souls who believe that the only value of this world lies in its power—at certain times— to suggest another / a scattering of stars and lights / a coveted paradise / the most gauzy phantom of another place / a shadowy mimic / the anatomy of a great dream / everlasting echoes / a rectangle of smudged glass within another rectangle of scuffed wood / crowded shelves / remnants of a luxuriant autumn / an obscene reality / to dwell among the ruins of reality / shadowed volumes / scripture that would begin with the portents of apocalypse and end with the wreck of all creation / to become the wind in the dead of winter / to howl the undoing of all that would abide in warmth and light / an enticing verse in a volume of esoterica / the dream of attaining some untainted good / a disastrous enlightenment / some hypothetical state of pure glory / the revelation that nothing ever known has ended in glory / some strictly demonic enterprise / something about one’s presence that makes one think of a crow / a scavenging creature in wait / a large, two-headed shadow / the sad frustration of the uninvited, the abandoned / the brilliant rectangle of a doorway / hopes and curiosities of an indeterminable kind / free-standing bookcases / pages and bindings of uncommon texture / abstract diagrams suggesting no orthodox ritual or occult system / a chronicle of strange dreams / an invocation of a world in waiting of genesis / days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares / a deliverance by damnation / nightmare made normal / a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or a thwarted searching for the good / a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge / a utopia of exhaustion, confusion, and debris / a dialogue of mystification, and possibly one of lies / the edge of a dreamless void / a dark and devouring bird / shadows and moonlight / an unbending web of heavy wire / unjust confinement / a slender syringe crowned with a silvery needle

[felassan]

The Elves in the Tirashan

This became quite lengthy, so it’s under a cut

Fires still lick at the blackened ruin of the farmstead. The mud in the yard is grey with ash and churned by footprints. Some flee westward. Others, light and slender, circle the ruin. One of your guards pulls an arrowhead from the smoking wood. "Elfshot!" He hisses.

The homesteads along the hissing fringes of the Tirashan were unprepared for the attack. You listen to the refugees' tales of a narrow moon that spread long tree-shadows, of the lithe figures that slipped between them, of arrows that sped from the night, sudden as death.

"The knife-ears drove us from our home!" one peasant cries. "We heard them, laughing from the dark!"

Your soldiers clash with elven archers at the forest’s edge. The elves are cold-eyed, with tattoos of brilliant crimson. They extract a red price from your warriors before fleeing into the deeps. For a time, the border is untroubled.

“I’ve fought the Dalish before,” mutters a scarred sergeant. “I’ve heard them call on their gods in battle. Elgar’nan for vengeance. Fen’Harel when they think all is lost. But these ones called out to no gods I’ve heard of before. They weren’t calling out for aid; they were offering us up. Like pigs on a platter.”

So these are my 2 all-time favorite text excerpts from Dragon Age: The Last Court, from the event Sylvan Raids. been fascinated with the elves that live in the Tirashan ever since. so interesting and mysterious!! so ripe for wild speculation and wondering on multiple fronts. 👏  👏

emerging in the half-light of the moon from the depths of the Tirashan to raze and reave nearby human habitations and kill.. the text is suggestive - these don’t seem akin to those isolationist Dalish clans trying to drive away humans who are encroaching or protect themselves or similar. they distinctly seem to delight in the killing. is it punishment (for the humans)? is it a sport or a game (for the elves)? is it sacrificial, like some of the text seems to suggest- are they sacrificing humans to their deities? I’m kind of reminded of the mythos (I use the word mythos here because ‘facts’ about this subject area grew arms and legs and entered pop culture spreading misinfo) surrounding human sacrifice in some ancient human cultures in our world. is there possession at work here? is there a connection to sylvans (trees possessed by demons or spirits)? are they corrupted somehow (red lyrium, plague, pestilence, Taint, madness).

are these red tattoos a version of vallaslin, or something different? why are they all red - presumably a link to blood. blood magic? red lyrium? or simply this hue to symbolize ties to the blood of the hunt and suchlike.. such tasty scraps these excerpts are. and who were they calling to? The Forgotten Ones - like Anaris, Geldauran, Daern’thal and others? the Forgotten Ones are held to have presided over the worst aspects of existence - like spite and malevolence, which are qualities right on-point for people slaughtering and sacrificing innocents. or maybe the old gods, the Forbidden Ones (remember though the possible connection between the Forbidden Ones and Forgotten Ones hinted at in the Band of Three), demons, entities yet unknown? the top contender is, of course, the Forgotten Ones, though the activities and described countenances of these wild elves remind me most of Andruil, who was really a goddess of sacrifice and who hunted mortals/other sentient beings - particularly the Andruil that was maddened and howling and plague-bearing thanks to the Void. these elves just seem in my head to be evoking the same kind of imagery.

what of the tattoos designs? are they vallaslin equivalents to the Forgotten Ones instead of the Creators?

I’m intrigued by the specific reasoning behind the supposed sacrifice. in their culture is held as a way to gain power? is it simply an act of worship to their deities - an offering or appeasement, or because such sacrifice is a way to espouse and enact qualities like spite and malevolence? are they compelled to do so?

it’s interesting that the guardsman says they don’t seem to him to be Dalish, because we do hear in the lore of some Dalish clans who live by banditry and as guerillas, and who play games with stray humans like Fen’Harel’s Teeth.. I wonder if there’s any connection between them both, or if the implication is that the Tirashan elves are even more overtly hostile-to-humans than these varieties of Dalish.

alternative theory which I think is important to note: these encounters are told through the eyes of humans and recounted by the human recipients of the actions, and so possibly biased and or unreliable, exaggerated, etc.

most importantly - who are these elves? one of the event response options seems to call them Dalish elves:

The Dalish rarely launch an attack like this without cause. Perhaps some of your folk strayed too close to one of their camps

but that sounds to me like a human’s assumptions when considering the event that unfolded. For the sake of clarity, if the humans were encroaching on their land (their forest) and wandered too close to their camps, driving them away is justified and not without cause.

 are they ancient elves? there’s a quote somewhere about it -

There is activity in the Tirashan. Strange elves, like those at the Temple of Mythal.

so are they some of these ancient elves who Solas seems to insist are around somewhere in modern Thedas, "yet lingering?" are they always awake or do they come awake every now and then a la Abelas and crew (except not bound to the will of a Creator as they were, but rather the will of the Forgotten Ones) only to reave and sacrifice before returning to slumber until next time?

All manner of things slumber in the Tirashan forest. It's best to let them be.

there are other scattered references to or hints at remaining lingering enclaves of ancient elves - ex. I sometimes wonder if the ‘distant clan of Dalish’ that send the Inky the red hart mount are an enclave of ancients.

or (and I particularly like this idea) are they modern-day, mortal elves, but have lived in complete isolation apart from the Dalish (or Dalish-we-know), deep in the Tirashan since the fall of the Dales? (I’m reminded of Geldauran,”apart until he strikes in mastery”..) at the Fall of the Dales, groups of elves could have scattered in all directions - elves with different opinions and leanings and diverging beliefs. tbh, I don’t really enjoy at all “ancient elves this, ancient elves that” in theorizing (for me) or like, in general (modern elfism!!). so this notion is way cooler to me. we’re told again and again in the lore that Dalish clans are diverse and all different from each other because they usually live in isolation and the diaspora is disconnected. you’re telling me they all worship the Creators in the exact same way and there’s no variation on such themes? multiply this factor by a much greater ordinance for elves who may have culturally diverged from the Dalish group before “The Dalish Elves” was even really a thing, and the scenarios are even more arresting and puts me in the mind of Tolkien elves, with the varied Kindreds, ‘elf cultural group phylogenetic tree’ and Sunderings etc.

in the Dales before the fall, worship of the Forgotten Ones continued in the shadows, despite the efforts of Creator-worshipping elves to stamp it out. there were priests of the Forgotten Ones as there were priests of the Creators.

The DA tabletop RPG has this to say:

Supposedly, no Dalish can remember these dread beings. All their tales are thought to have been lost in the centuries before the fall of Arlathan, even though a few powerful spirits in the Fade still whisper their names: Geldauran, Daern’thal, and Anaris, the gods of terror, malevolence, spite and disease. Some fear that these dark beings are less forgotten than most believe, and that a terrible few have strayed deeply into darkness in their quest for vengeance against the shemlen. If these fears are true and secretive cults do indeed hide among the elves, then such lost souls have torn out their hearts and forsaken all that it means to be Dalish in return for the keys to a twisted and terrible strength.

are the Tirashan elves Forgotten One cultists? it’s not a big leap. (and my bias talking: modern-day mortal diverged Forgotten One cultists is way more interesting to me than “ancient elven enclave/ancient elves in hiding”. if you twist my arm though BioWare I supppooooose I’d accept ancient elves who follow and/or are bound to the Forgotten Ones though. :P) and the title for that segment of text is The Forgotten Ones, so it would seem to be so. (it’s just interesting to think about all possibilities)

an aside: it’s not really a cult if it’s your specific culture’s religion though is it. also obligatory comment: I wonder what Felassan would make of them had he encountered them in TME rather than regular Dalish.

gaffsfdddhhh, I just want to meet the Tirashan elves so badly. thanks for coming to my barely coherent TEDramble.

[selenebellona-blog]

THE DOOR - feat. Marius 

(pt.1) 

about: flashback. Selene and Marius have a shared vision of what went down at the blood tree during the blood moon. Selene reflects on the men in her life, things her mentors have said to her, her relationship with her magic, etc.  tw: blood, murder, coven of the leaves, rey is extra and experimental. heavy handed imagery all over - Friends, you know the drill word count: 2,666

(note: italics are memories.)

@quietmagics​

Selene first learns of the Blood Moon’s power when she is 12, apprenticed to her father, the great witch Jeong-Ho. That year, Master Jeong-Ho takes her into a wheat field every full moon, and in the dead of night, by that moon’s light, he conducts these lessons.

And the Blood Moon is one of the most powerful of all.

She lays underneath the wheat, with her hands clasped on her stomach, staring up at the moon’s size and its wine-red color. 

“To witches, there can be no other moon so universally beneficial,” Jeong-Ho tells her.  “It is the moon which begins the fading of the veils between the worlds, until the veils are like smoke—to be waved away with a hand. You can smell it in the air, can you not, Selene?” His head moves into view, eclipsing half the moon. He grins with a mouth like a jack-o-lantern.

She breathes in deep. “Yes.” Her entire body tingles with her magic.

“It is the Blood Moon that is also the most dangerous most of all,” continues Jeong-Ho. “Do you know why?”

Selene flicks her eyes away from the moon and to her father. “Why?”

“Because,” he says. He leans down, hands pressing onto his knees. “The Blood Moon is a door, Selene. And doors work both ways. When we open a door, we cannot always control what will slip out. Remember that.”

The moon is a door. She looks up at the Blood Moon and imagines it cracking down the middle. And she promises herself one day, she’ll fling it wide open.

Fifteen years later, the Blood Moon climbed the sky, its light shrouding the world in umber.

And Selene sat in Marius’ basement in delirious pain. A burning ran up and down her body, sinking deep into every bone. They’d been told to stay inside here, out from under the light of the moon, and so here Selene was, standing on a bed of coals as the air swam in front of her, thick as water. She knew this would pass momentarily, this was only for now, as the moon peaked. Had she been outside, had she let that moonlight wash over her, she might have burst into flame. She could feel the threat of that now, in her skin, like something was threatening to rip through her.

No—she tried to fight it back, though she could feel it battering at the walls of her rib cage, could feel its thick, magic unfurling from her flimsy heart. No - what was this? No—I will not be a slave to you. She took a few deep breaths and tried to settle. Was Marius going through the same thing?

Hard to tell. She threw a glance at him across the room, both of them at opposite ends supposedly buried deep in their grimoires. Selene was certain that Marius was the type who could literally be dying in that moment and he would never betray it with his face. What a strange friendship (partnership? stewardship? Like hell she was going to call it an apprenticeship) their’s was, so strange that she was here with him rather than with with her sister’s back in the Commune on such a night. But Marius was a Seer and Selene did not know what was going to happen to her under the potent power of that moon. So here she was, even though he infuriated her plenty. He was withdrawn and cold, and whenever a piece of advice slipped out, it was always followed by silence. No explanation. Silence. Something that clearly meant, in Marius’ own (annoying! ridiculous!) way: you’ll figure it out.  

Another strike of pain rolled through her, another lick of flame. Selene clutched the end of the table she’d planted herself at and her knuckles turned white. Fire grew in her and and something shifted within her and Selene was overcome with a vision. The last thing she saw before she was taken under was the sound of Marius’ inhaling and she knew he’d felt it too.

“Miss Bellona, what have you done?”

She stands in the corridor of Master Arlen, but she does not look at the wizened fool, too old and too unimaginative to do her any good. She looks instead, with a slight smile pulling at the corner of her lip, at the two leaves upon the witch desk. One withers, curls, and dies, while the other grows green and full of life, before the process reverses. Back and forth this goes: an endless loop of becoming, and unbecoming.

“This is dark magic.”

“No it isn’t.”

“It’s playing with the rules of life!” Master Arlen slaps his hand on the desk.

Selene doesn’t flinch. “It’s operating within the laws of conservation,” she says and her eyes snap up to look at him. Must she really explain the basics of transmutation to a 60 year old witch? She thought he was the best. He’s supposed to be the best. That’s why he’s been assigned to be her tutor.

“This is unnatural—“  

“I built a channel with my magic—a loop—and the energy is transmuted through the loop, nothing is lost and nothing is gained—“ she begins to explain.

“Something is always lost,” snips her Master. “You arrogant fool. Destroy these at once.”

When Selene woke next, she found herself on the floor, feet tangled in the roots of the forest. Cheek pressed to ground, she pushed herself up. This wasn’t a dream. It was real and yet, it wasn’t. It was what had happened, or maybe it was happening, or maybe it had yet to pass. Selene was still herself, though, and that was what mattered— gone was the pain of fire, all that was left was blurriness of a focusing vision. She could see through the haze her hands, her fingernails, the bits of rosemary she’d used for a potion still stuck underneath them. 

This was strange, this was odd. This was the sharpest vision she had ever had before. But her magic had never failed her before. Even in the darkest of her hours, even when her magic had turned a foul green, it had only ever been to protect her. Her magic was her friend when no one else was.

As he was positioned across the room, across the forest there was Marius, already on his feet, peering at everything inquisitively. Had it not been for the slight movements of his head, he would have looked like one of those statues you found in mausoleums. Dipped in the light of the Blood moon. That was in the sky here too - so maybe this vision was happening tonight. Selene stood up. Dusted herself off out of instinct, even though she was merely a spectre here. 

Beyond that curve of forest, she knew - her magic told her - sat the Blood Tree. She spoke up, was relieved to find her voice still worked. 

“Are you seeing this too?” She asked Marius. 

Nothing.

Oh, of course. Figure it out.

“So you’re a witch, huh?”

“Ding-ding-ding. You figured it out.”

The boy is dark-haired and hazel-eyed and works at the bowling alley. He sits with her under the oak tree as she toys with the leaves, smiling wide as one of the leaves curls and dies, smiling wider when Selene curses because she can not restore it again.

He’s a witch too, but from a dying line. Knight. “So?”  he says when she points this out.

“It’s not your world.”

“Maybe it could be,” he says and inches closer to her. “Just have to find the right door.”

The boy calls her brilliant. He won’t leave her alone. He believes in her—entices her forward—while all her teachers all tell her no, stop, no more, it’s forbidden.

“I could take you to the Blood Moon Dance,” he tells her.

“That’s not a dance for you, it’s for the Bellona witches. And I don’t dance anyway.”

“Maybe it could be—and maybe you could,” he says. “I have no doubt, Selene Bellona, that you could do whatever you want.”

“I know that.”

“Then dance with me.”

The trees danced as winds blew through them. The Blood Moon’s ancient glow shed light onto the path she and Marius walked down, enough for Selene to see the pale pallor of her hand, gripping her cardigan, as she watched the world around her.

She stumbled and the vision wavered, Marius turned as he noticed this. He reached out and flicked her in the forehead. A wave of his own magic rippling through her. The vision shuttered back into focus. Like she was a fucking TV screen that just needed to be shaken a little to get it to work. She scowled at him, but he was already striding ahead. Selene followed. 

She crunched her way through the forest and then entered the clearing where she could see the full, blood moon, hanging low. It was watching her; she felt it. It’s bloody light poured over her form with every step she and Marius took. At first, Selene stepped into the light slowly. She eased her boots into the cool ground, mist snaking around her ankles.

This vision - it was already a ghost all of its own, haunting her.

In the distance, the tall figures of trees moved and it was then that Selene realized that these were not the pillars of trees but pillars of men. Cloaked figures, tall and thin like wicks of a burnt candle. Even under this moon, with all its deep light, they looked like black ink.

Marius saw them too, picked up the pace. They moved faster, steadier, until they fleeing towards to moon.

Who heard the screams first? Marius or Selene?

“You are going to be a very, very good witch,” says Master Jeong-Ho. He lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. Behind her the train whistles its last high-pitched call. 

Selene hesitates—wanting so badly to hug her father, but in the end, she resists. She’s 16 now. She’s not a child. She’s on her own.

“I’d never met anyone like you,” says the boy as he gently touches her face. “I think you’re the scariest, most brilliant woman I’ve ever known.”

“Don’t forget that,” she whispers, before she kisses him.

“We’re suspending these lessons.”

“You’re just scared of what I can do.”

“And you should be too, Miss Bellona.”

She’s a little girl with blue sparks in her hair, pulling her father’s laughs from the air and hiding them away in her little jar. She tickles him to get more, and he laughs and laughs for her.

He takes her on his knee. “Promise me something,” he says to her. “No matter how brilliant you become, you will always keep a jar of laughs on your kitchen shelf. Joy is an essential ingredient to becoming who we are meant to be.”

They stood amongst the cloaked crowd, mere ghosts in this version of the story.

“My dear faithful friends,” Ursual’s Gabaroche’s voice filtered through the standing bodies, loud, commanding. “For centuries our coven has been the protector of the blood tree. We’ve made the necessary sacrifices in order to keep the darkness from spreading.”

Oh - “No, no” Selene whispered. She knew what was coming. Instinctively, her hands jumped to her stomach. Perhaps they did this because it felt like she was reaching down into herself for her magic. “Help me,” she whispered, trying to let it burst forth from her like a firework, do something - anything to keep this from happening. 

A hand fell on her shoulder. Marius gave her a look. Shook his head. A frown pressed into her face but it caused her hand to still. Selene let her gaze turn back to the scene in front of her. There was prickling in the corner of her eye too. She hated that part of being a seer. They were meant to observe and know, but not actually meant to act on any of it. She wanted to cry out at the futility of it...  

The girl was pulled up by her hair, so that the crowd, and these two invaders, could see her face. Selene recognized it and dread for the girl, dread for her life, rushed through the witch’s veins, suddenly, like a damn had been broken. She held back a sob - do something - anything. D’Heurs. She was just a Seer...

“Tonight we make our offering.”

The murmur rippled through the Coven of Leaves. 

This witch doesn’t speak. She meets him by the lake as she waits to collect the first sunlight on the water’s surface. She is who she was always meant to be when she meets him: half-woman, half-seer, and curious. 

“I’m Marius” he signs. “I’m a Seer.”

In his hands he’s holding two leaves like an after-thought; the way some people play absentmindedly with rubik's cubes. One leaf curls and dies, as the other unfurls with life. A loop. Nothing lost and nothing gained. Back and forth with ease in the palms of his hands, like the spell she’d once struggled to cast. 

‘Something is always lost,’ She hears Master Arlen say in her head and ignores it, even if later, for a second, she will wonder what will be lost between her and this stranger. 

But ,in that moment, Selene just smirks at him, and cannot hide her keenness to learn, to understand. “My name is Selene Bellona,” she replies. “I’m a Seer too.”

The water laps at the shore. This is where a friendship between two people doomed to see the world as it is starts.

They’ve drifted from the crowd, Selene now knelt on the grass next to the fallen girls. She wished with all her might that she could roll back up their stockings, breath life back into their lungs, and send them back into town. The town of Ashbourne looked so small from here. Little lights blinking. The macabre scene in front of her still hadn’t ended. The woman, at the hands of the leader, was pleading. Have you ever heard something plead for its life? It chipped away at the young witch.

Selene knew what was going to happen to that woman. Couldn’t stand to watch, but couldn’t bring herself to tear her eyes away.  “No please,” the young woman said and Selene watched Marius, who, stood near the leader now and clocked the way she hesitated for a millisecond when her victim said. “Don’t do this.” 

Selene would always remember that she didn’t scream. And somehow, that was worse. She died a quiet death, like a smothered cry, and join her sisters.

Blood dripped and as if, on cue, a ripple, a seismic wave of incredible proportions, burst through her. It shook the vision from Selene. The world melted around them like watercolor. The colors swirled, faster and faster, blurred into one another. Everything turned muddy as the ground shook -  

And then they were back in the living room. It felt like a forest fire has burned through her, had left the inside of her clean, new and ashen. When she inhaled, Selene genuinely was surprised she didn’t inhale smoke. Sometime during the vision she had slumped over and now the witch struggled to sit up. That thing had lasted maybe six seconds. Time was strange. She glanced around for Marius -

He was still at the other end of the room, as he had been before, still withdrawn, looking no older for what he had just seen. Unlike her. But what had they just seen?

Coven of the Leaves. D’Heurs

She knew. Deep down Selene knew that’s what this vision was about. She caught his eye. He knew too. Her breath shaky.

“What was that?” She asked.

Marius paused in his movements, before repeating an old witch adage he’d heard long ago.

‘The moon is a door.’ Marius signed.

And Selene understood. The moon was a door. You never knew what was going to slip out. You never knew what you were going to see.

(tbc.)

[felldragxn]

Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme

REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG AND DO NOT DELETE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.

The following quotes and phrases are taken from the stories in Thomas Ligotti’s anthology Songs of a Dead Dreamer. Some of these quotes were slightly tweaked for the sake of this meme. If you enjoy the imagery or writing in this meme, please support the author by purchasing his work. Content warnings for horror in general and brief mentions of blood, nihilism, unreality, mannequins, dolls, puppets, and some body horror.

Bold what applies to your muse.

Muse: Grima (Impossible Odds Verse) Tagged by: nobody i just found it on a meme blog Tagging: NOBODY BECAUSE I WOULD NOT WISH THIS FATE UPON ANYBODY

The Frolic

Absolute madness paired with a sharp cunning / an expression of sky-blue peacefulness / the indistinct happiness of the future / a piece of moon above the opulent leafage of spring trees / a broken-down kingdom of miracles and horrors / a Neverland where dizzy chaos is the norm / a cosmos of crooked houses and littered alleys / a slum among the stars / a jolly river of refuse / jagged heaps in shadows / a phantasmagoric mingling of heaven and hell / a moonlit corridor where mirrors scream and laugh / dreamy back-drops / ice cubes in an empty glass / shifting expressions on a lean face / vague suggestions and subtle jokes / an Aphrodite sculpture / the wind, cold and dead / a crumbled piece of paper / black-foaming gutters / the dank windowless gloom of some intergalactic cellar / starless cities of insanity / a bright freezing scream of laughter / a passing anecdote of some obscure hell

Les Fleurs

sorrowful flowers / lilting blossoms for a loved one’s memorial / a florist shop / flowers which open only at night / a hothouse warm smile / night-blooming cereuses / a sleek ocelot / well-preserved old places / plants resembling birds / white picket fences / flower-printed curtains / liqueur tasting of flowers from open fields / cool, clean offices / invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness / the sounds of black orchids growing / the flower-bedded earth / a ripple of empathetic insight / a gorgeous kingdom of glittering colors / velvety jungle-shapes / contorted rainbows and twisted auroras / hyper-radiant hues / a marvelous arcana / tongue-like floral appendages / tongues flowering

Alice’s Last Adventure

Volatile years when anything might go wrong / the embodiment of topsy-turvydom / pools of rainwater / tarnished mirrors / moonlit windows / a thousand misshapen marvels / a universe handed over to new gods / stoic tolerance of a second-rate reality / two complete strangers gawking at each other / a shiny, pearl-grey casket / black orchids / a strange combination of relief and confusion / a delayed echo with oblique origins / a chain of occurrences with links as weak as smoke rings / a sunny autumn morning / a sense of duty, vanity, and other less comprehensible motives / the seas of the moon / costumed kids / the cries of bedlamites / the clamor of rambunctious kids / a half-cocked oration / jack-o’-lanterns glowing orange and yellow / masked children / a plastic cup of cider / shadows wavering against two-story facades / a lamp with a shade of Tiffany glass / a disciple of the bizarre / an autumn moon hanging in the blackness / demonic giggling / the moon / a clock / shadows in the window

Dream of a Manikin

A mostly tacit but somehow complete biography / a marvelous trick of the mind / jeweled lamps along the walls / lights shining on an intricately patterned carpet and various pieces of old furniture / star-clustered blackness / a starry abyss / an iciness drifting in from a starscape / a horrible truth / a legend written somewhere at the bottom of a dream / echoing voices bouncing here and there around the room / a motto printed on fortune cookie-like strips of paper and hidden in bureau drawers / a broken record repeating itself on an ancient Victrola / an alighting flock of birds / a field of dynamic tension / a dry sibilant voice / people dressed as dolls / shaking with tremors of the uncanny / a manikin dresser / astral ambience / occult studies and depth analysis / delving into speculative models of reality / cosmic static / harassments of the self / the boundaries of the self / a Bigger Self terrorizing its little splinter selves / cosmic ennui / a serendipitous discovery / this dream of flesh / guilty until proven otherwise / valerian and camphor baths / cryptic impudence / softly glowing display windows / the divine bonds of unreality / a medium-intensity shower / display-window dummies / rain-spotted glasses / a car with rain-blinded windows / a moment of self-terror / the mythical conspiracy of a treacherous universe / a galaxy of constellations / a vaporous glowing / a whitened hallway / dolls made up to look like people / eyes shining in the white darkness / a powerful psychic metaphor

The Chymist

Daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism / bubblegum and beer / a chalice in a church / a serum vial in a laboratory / the tartness of one’s smile / a very keen appreciation of diversity / decrepitude / the withering heart of the deceased / bastardized nostalgia / the putrescence of things past / arching mirrors / chrome chandeliers / second-hand fantasies and out-of-date distractions / one strange thing next to another / a genius of vulgarity / a lawless paradise /  violence without violation / a smoke-gray sky / city-soiled clumps of snow / fluxing clouds that swirl above the chimneys and trees / alchemical transmutations / the glamour and sanity of former days / a new mask of rats and rot / a hopeless stroll along the path to hypothetically higher worlds / a body whose true outline remains unknown /  the whims of chemistry / the caprices of circumstance / the enigma of personal taste / a leather vessel with a void inside / the skeleton of a dream / lights outlining the different venues and avenues below / a bottle of powdered light / pulverized diamonds / the flesh and blood kaleidoscope of one’s imagination / a prodigious insurrection of entity / a tempest of transfiguration

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

The full powers of a master hypnotist / a mesmeric wilderness / marked by fate’s stigmata / crystal twinkling under a chandelier’s kaleidoscopic blaze / power and prestige socializing / a pair of metronomes / a glossy black cabinet / two bluish gems in an alabaster setting / a tiny sequined outfit / mesmeric stunts / intact and unbloodied / routines in defiance of death and pain / a jaw-dropping finale / a blare of heavenly horns / a labyrinth of light / a gossamer veil / snow-white wings / the angelic luminary beneath the human beast / the eyes of the audience / mock-death and bogus-pain / sinking deep into a downy darkness / pillows stuffed with soft shadows / a sun at the center of a drab galaxy / vacant and full of grace / a business card with a cloud-gray pearl finish / riotous rococo / a chair of blinding brocade / flowery fabric / a shelf of delicate figurines / tall smoky mirrors / a bottomless pool / a sky wiped clean of clouds / dispassionate elegance / postures and poses like frozen roses / pajama-clad legs dangling /a shiny chrome-plated pen / a very soft but not condescending tone / a mazy wallflower / cartwheels of agony / somersaults through fires of doom / nosedives of vulnerable flesh into the meat grinder of life / serene constellations / sweet nullities / a spell-binding, snake-eyed charmer / high society vulgarians / eyes recessed in their sockets, sunken into a rotting profundity / labyrinthine depths / dancing clothes all clotted with putrescent goo

Eye of the Lynx

Missing girls in Gothic garb / amber going on red / a reddish haze / a crazy purpurean tapestry / a fair-haired girl / denim slacks and a leather jacket / bloody moonlight / a long sip from a can of iced tea / persecutions and imperilments as glamorous as those of any Gothic heroine / violet eyes / the machinations of an evil-hearted malefactor / haunting second-hand shops / a strip of dark velvet seized by a pearl brooch / a frail chain from which dangles a heart-shaped locket / a whirlpooling lock of golden hair / gloves, long and powdery pale / the shoulders of heavy capes lined in satin that shines like a black sun / enveloping hoods / capes with deep pockets and generous inner pouches for secreting precious souvenirs / capes with silk strings that tie about the neck / capes with weighted hems that nonetheless flutter weightlessly in midnight gusts / doll-size in a dark doll’s costume / quivering bones and feverish blood / fear’s funereal plume / carriage wheels rioting in a lavender mist or a pearly fog / nacreous fires twitching beyond the margins of country roads / cliffs and stars / a blur of crimson shadows / vast regions of sublime desolation / mountains hulking in hazy twilight / a rather large animal collar at the end of a chain leash / a light the color of fresh meat / a page in a depraved story book / a single candle glowing through red glass / little zippers and big zippers / a moth-eaten cloak / enthralling cruelties / spangled eyebrows / a brow of glittering silver / glistening with tiny flecks of starlight /  the velvet embrace of one’s favorite cape / the tall candles one lights on stormy nights / chains of raindrops whipping against one’s windows / places where raging storms and brutal subjugations never end / the hardships of traveling to strange faraway places / frail little dolls / wild-wind nights and sadistic villains / corridors of scarlet darkness / a captive of one’s heart and its infinite chambers

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

Something magical / something timeless / something profound / a sooty basement / the putrid members of a man who is decomposing / a plain brown package marked Hope, Love, or Fortune Cookies and postmarked: the Edge of the Unknown / a helter-skelter universe where things are ever threatening to go abnormal and unreal / a normal, real love / impermanence and decay / evils sent out under various covers / sublime and terrifying conflict / fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman / moon-trimmed shadows / lunar landscapes of craggy peaks / skeletal wastelands of jagged ice / a brooding Gothic hero / an ethereal Gothic heroine / a castle-like skyscraper / an extra dose of obsessiveness / the Gothic tale / a militant romantic / waves of bombast / winds of ecstatic hysteria / a partially shattered window, its surface streaked with a blue film of dust / a sublime sense of desolation / the diluted glow of twilight / night’s enveloping cloak / grimy azure dimness / bluish semi-luminescence / tears of confusion / turquoise haze / blue shadows of silence / liquefying legs / an old storyteller / the voice of a tiny insect crying for help from inside a sealed coffin / a piercing, crystal shriek that lacerates the midnight blackness / a haunter of spectral marketplaces / Gothic glory / a horror writer / an ardent consumer of the abnormal and the unreal / a visitant of discount houses of unreality / subject only to the rule of demonic forces / puppet-shadows / a hell so excruciating it is bliss itself / bony wings rising out of one’s back / jaws that are a cavern of dripping silver / rivers of putrescent gold running through one’s veins

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

Diamond-paned windows / a thick December fog / a serene congregation of colors / holly, both fresh and artificial / a pale purple ribbon / a ritual forever reenacted without hope of escape / a large chair beside a fogged window / crackling logs / a foggy winter’s night / bright Christmas lights shining through the fog / always dead with darkness / always alive with lights

The Lost Art of Twilight

A streak of iodine red / a spattering of flat black / the early autumn sun / silver hair / a gray suit / a long envelope, neatly cesareaned / the charnel house creeps / a silver shield / crepuscular radiance / an offspring of the dead / the progeny of phantoms / the big green eye of an EEG monitor / De Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal / a rainbow of insects / the science of superstition / the Provencal countryside / a pantheon of gargoyles amid the splendor of a medieval church / a holy soldier of the living / a monster of the dead / the astral banquet of Art / the rotting flesh of rainbows / the sonar screech of a bat / vampiric origins / the oncoming onyx of a storm / shadows and sunshine / glare and gloom / bright clouds and black / iron-red leaves / tentative drops of rain / blue bears and yellow rabbits / neither a blood-warm human nor a blood-drawing devil / oceans of blood / the ravenous life of the undead / an authoritative impatience / eternal life in an eternal death

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

Pale gray pajamas / thick sheets of paper / a bottle of black ink / a shapely black pen with a silvery nib / strands of blond hair, almost white / a sudden salty breeze / silhouettes and shadows / unreflecting windows / metal hinges squeaking somewhere in the wind / a sleepless night / constellations beyond the window panes / star-filled hours / the pure whiteness of the page / a flung shoe leaning toe-up against a bedpost / nothingness unstained by inner conception / white snow in a white sky / dark lines and vacant spaces / vast expanses of frozen whiteness / a church in a foreign town / assorted devils and demons / ice-mad mountains / a spirit of malicious abandon / nightmarish anatomies / a sickle-shaped scar of moon / sea-licked shores / dark letters / feeding one’s troubles to the sea / brown-leafed trees / a forest of memorials / clumps of crosses / groves of gravestones / dark, cowl-shaped windows / unblemished by shadows / the sound of crashing waves / bending dawns into twilights / static from a broken radio / breaking waves / seaside air / a gleaming crescent moon / a bone-white cicatrix / chronic insomnia / a blade of moon / white night, white noise

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

The confusions of carnival night / gyrations of squealing abandon / lines between pain and pleasure / a rainbow of rags / a startling length of blade / pale pages elegantly dappled by somber verses / a pair of strangely darkened spectacles / the toneless voice of one who is dead to all appeasement or mercy / mounds of snow that had been sown with ashes / eyes as dark and swirled with shadows as the raving night itself / a constellation of designs / mad games of flesh and steel / a forbidden madness / dense forests of tall pikes planted in the earth / shadows rolling in empty sockets / lacerated mouths / the darkness of dreams / to see the world drown in oceans of agony / visions of butchering the angels / a god of deceit or illusion / chaos at feast / black with scars of madness / darkly clouded glass / the brightest and highest of stars / shimmering halls / unnaturally colored wine / red-smeared forms / many-taloned claws / the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand / a pair of leviathan leeches / a lord of the sword made mad / the dark powers which we cannot understand but only hate / rhapsodic voices in the streets / a privileged doom / the face of the soul of the world / the cool marble of the floor / an onyx-black knight / a face flushed with crimson glory

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

A scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky / a long, brightly colored coat / noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically / life-size dolls hanging suspended by wires / wetted strands of a spider web / shiny satin legs / a beautifully pale hand / pulverized stars / dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets / the repose of ruin / an oily red glare / a well-dressed dummy / a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks / a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars / wood waking up / a sleep that should have never been broken / something too painful for tears / the false fire of the moon / two faces sharing a single head / faint, hollow screams from high above / a dummy’s silence / leftover tears of berserk laughter / bluish-green irradiance

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

Mist on a lake / fog in thick woods / a golden light shining on wet stones / a little trickle of suspicion in the bloodstream / the solar brilliance of a summer day / supernatural horror / a corner alive with cool drafts and fragrant with centuries of must / a rancid world rife with things smelling of the crypt / a sower of vice / mad winds / wan moonlight / pasty specters / the vividness of pain / the lasting effects of fear / natural-born puppets whose lips are stained with their own blood / dead bodies that walk in the night / living bodies suddenly possessed by new owners and deadly aspirations / the sepulchral pomp of wasting tissue / compassion for human hurt / a humble sense of one’s impermanence / an absolute valuation of justice / a demented innocence in the face of gruesome facts / the horrific reprisals of affirmation / the Cosmic Macabre / the shudders of a thousand graveyards

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

Gray walls pocked like sponges / nights of futile tears and screaming / an expression of almost paternal forgiveness / the supreme delirium of the planets / bright puppets dancing in the blackness / a golden speck of magic / the silent, staring universe / something as pathetic as a puppet and as exalted as the stars / something at once dead and never dying / autumn constellations in the black sky above / harshly brilliant eyes / the remote places where truth had been shut up and abandoned

The Sect of the Idiot

Extraordinary joy / extraordinary pain / the great hollow of dreams / an infinitely secluded place / a world that both menaces and surpasses this one / a holy madness / infinite stillness on foggy mornings / miracles of silence on indolent afternoons / the strangely flickering tableau of neverending nights / deceptive depths of shadow / heaps of clouds like dust balls / a fluorescent map of the cosmos / medieval autumns and mute winters / kaleidoscopic windows / a kind of cataclysm of empty space / an earthquake of the invisible / strikingly clear eyes / a dusty trunk of dreams / a maze of streets / an abyss of stars / a great reaching blackness / a stale gray dimness / an alien order of being / an icy blackness / starry blackness / a great round moon / deep aquatic blue / the voids of astronomy / a state of both paralyzed terror and spellbound curiosity / whispering figures / stagnant moonlight / withered, wilted claws / drooping tentacles / the spinning legs of spiders / the greedy rubbing of a fly’s spindly feelers / the darting tongues of snakes / the triumph of the grotesque / whispering effigies of chaos / putrid arcana / an ecstatic horror / horrific ecstasy / the demonic elements of which all creation is composed / corruption in disguise / a cache of unwonted offerings stored out of sight / currents of fear / dark tremors / splendid scenes broken with malign shadows / the lurid and the lovely forever lost in each other’s embrace / the arch of an old street / tunnel-like hallways / sickly light shining through unwashed, curtainless windows / atmospherics of infinite melancholy and unease / a decayed paradise / the everlasting residue of some cosmic misfortune / a solemn, mechanical intentness / a smooth and solid cube of black glass / a malignant puppet of madness / dazed in darkness / embarrassed throat-clearings / reproving looks / words which could only have meaning in a nightmare / a thing of strange degeneracy / a quintessence of hellish delirium / freakish, echoing laughter / the whispering of strangers / twitching tentacles / a horror which cannot be helped  

The Greater Festival of Masks

The old and new / the real and imaginary / truth and deception / shops of costumes and masks / an incautious curiosity / shredded rags that are easily disturbed by the wind / a poster stuck to a crumbling wall / strange pathways of caprice / the outsized moon / silvery windows / doors which are elaborately decorated yet will not budge in their frames / massive shutters covering blank walls behind them / faces of dreams / sardonically grinning / innocence and excuses / a reddish glow of fire / a wad of bubbling blackness / smooth and faceless faces / the speaker in the shadows / the soft creaking of new faces breaking through old flesh

The Music of the Moon

Breaking the quiet of a moonlit room / enchantments that nearly make amends for one’s stolen slumber / some unusual shape leaping across steep roofs / a bewildering agility / many nights of sleepless hell / a knife / rope / a poison vial / an exploit of uncommon decisiveness / blank nights of insomnia / a handbill / ashes mixed with grease / a door with a faint yellow aura leaking out at its edges / small, shadowlike things moving in corners and along the floor molding / a quartet of musicians / a voice which sounds both exhausted and malicious / pale, ragged clouds of hair / sonic abnormality / an empty shaft of blackness / spherical lamps caked with dust / the silence of a dark, lifeless world / black silhouettes of human heads visible only in the moonlight / slow music in the soft darkness / a single note wavering in a universe of darkness / a incalculable proliferation of slightly dissonant harmony / the light of a quiet gray dawn / completely helpless, and yet content to be so / thick layers of webs / gazing at nothing with bleeding sockets / the moon all fat and pale, glaring down from its gauzy webs of clouds

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

Unstained by any habits of the human / the ideal of everything alien to living / some molding backwater of the earth / the city of Bruges itself / a corpse of the Middle Ages / bony bridges / the black veins of old canals / a lonely evolution in shadowed streets and beside sluggish canals / the music of graveyards / a resonant chorus that fills the air and sometimes drowns out the voices of those who still live / layers of cobwebs floating about the near ceiling / a burst of resistance / the pealing of church bells / the language of whimsy / the force of stars tugging away at various points / the dark waters of a canal / shiny black hair parted straight down the middle / a low table covered by a red velvet cloth / a world that applauds trumped-up illusions while denying or demeaning those that create the very lives they are living / a spectral thing full of strange suggestion / an untenanted room filled with the echoes of nothingness / the eyes of certain crudely fashioned dolls / a greenish glow from a mirror / placid meandering canals / enwrapped in mist / close crumbling houses / odd arching bridges / innumerable church towers / narrow twisting streets / queer little courtyards / everything gone forever / an empty mist / an eternal twilight

Vastarien

Candles in a cloistered cell / shapes beneath the shadows / tall buildings whose rooftops nod groundward / wide buildings whose facades follow the curve of a street / buildings whose windows and doorways tilt like badly hung paintings / stairways that wander off-course into useless places / caged elevators that urge unwanted stops on their passengers / a sequestered civilization of echoes flourishing among groaning walls / thin ladders ascending into a maze of shafts and conduits / the dark valves and arteries of a petrified and monstrous organism / a desolate serenity / silvery cinders / the mouths of great chimneys / shadow-puppets / cluttered gardens and crooked gates / the purling waters of black canals / faded masks concealing profound schemes / a place of supernatural clarity and stillness / the crystalline glare of a lantern / moonlight through a curtained window / darkened windows / souls who believe that the only value of this world lies in its power—at certain times— to suggest another / a scattering of stars and lights / a coveted paradise / the most gauzy phantom of another place / a shadowy mimic / the anatomy of a great dream / everlasting echoes / a rectangle of smudged glass within another rectangle of scuffed wood / crowded shelves / remnants of a luxuriant autumn / an obscene reality / to dwell among the ruins of reality / shadowed volumes / scripture that would begin with the portents of apocalypse and end with the wreck of all creation / to become the wind in the dead of winter / to howl the undoing of all that would abide in warmth and light / an enticing verse in a volume of esoterica / the dream of attaining some untainted good / a disastrous enlightenment / some hypothetical state of pure glory / the revelation that nothing ever known has ended in glory / some strictly demonic enterprise / something about one’s presence that makes one think of a crow / a scavenging creature in wait / a large, two-headed shadow / the sad frustration of the uninvited, the abandoned / the brilliant rectangle of a doorway / hopes and curiosities of an indeterminable kind / free-standing bookcases / pages and bindings of uncommon texture / abstract diagrams suggesting no orthodox ritual or occult system / a chronicle of strange dreams / an invocation of a world in waiting of genesis / days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares / a deliverance by damnation / nightmare made normal / a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or a thwarted searching for the good / a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge / a utopia of exhaustion, confusion, and debris / a dialogue of mystification, and possibly one of lies / the edge of a dreamless void / a dark and devouring bird / shadows and moonlight / an unbending web of heavy wire / unjust confinement / a slender syringe crowned with a silvery needle