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hd-fan-fair · 2 years

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H/D CAREER FAIR 2021 ANONYMOUS MASTERLIST

(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)

ART

A City of Shattered Souls (Digital Comic, Teen)

It's a lonely, gruelling job— digging holes for bodies night after night. But Draco will do the dirty work if that allows him to exist and get by. Then, Harry starts showing up every night to get Draco's insights for an investigation linked to recent grave robberies. He certainly makes good company, especially when odd things stir in the dark...

Amor Caminus (Digital Comic, Teen)

Local blacksmith, Harry Potter, has been tasked with forging a unique sword for the Prince's upcoming battle. Prince Draco expects to leave with a heavy heart, but his secret suitor has something else in mind.

An Issue of Touch (Digital, Teen)

Harry Potter has been enlisted by Professor Longbottom to gather some rare species of water plants for his client's potions project. Seems easy enough but there's a catch, because, isn't there always? Said plant is poisonous and potentially lethal to human touch whilst underwater. What's a herbology assistant to do? Seek the help of a pretty (annoying) merman, of course.

Bound To Meet Again (Digital, General)

Some of Harry's smaller kids fell in love with their new teacher. Harry can't wait to meet him, thanking him for making his kids feel safe and happy. He's shocked when he discovers Draco there, covered in paint from their recent art project, smiling widely at all the children around him.

It's A Whole Beautiful Mess (Digital, General)

Draco Malfoy is a healer and his life is already full when he move into a new apartment, only to discover his neighbor Harry Potter is in a complete chaos due to having adopt two newborns. After founding out his profession, Harry knocking on his door for every little thing about the twins became the normality, so much that Draco had to admit that in the end he was not upset at all. In fact, he ended up spending more and more time with the little family and eventually fell in love with Harry.

Party Invitations and Falling in Love with Your Sworn Enemy: A Tactical Guide (Digital Comic, Teen)

Chronicling the trials and tribulations of one Draco Malfoy, employee of the Godric's Hollow Postal Office, and the events unfolding around the hottest local party in the calendar year. Featuring: Owlengitis, bingo-based plots, and Julie Bumble's questionable neighbourhood erotica.

Portrait of a Saviour as described by his lover. (Digital, Teen)

Harry finds one of Draco's pieces and becomes fascinated. His fascination only grows when given the opportunity to become the model and muse.

Resistance and Princes (Traditional, Teen)

Drawn for the prompt: Harry Potter, heir of the Light Kingdom, is long feared to be dead. Draco Malfoy is a prince who grew up under the shadow of the Dark Lord, listening to tales of the brave Potters and their untimely demise.

Far away, a street urchin with a lightning scar on his forehead grows up to be a formidable fighter and joins the resistance operating to overthrow the Dark Lord’s reign, under the nom de guerre "the Firebolt".

When Draco was forced to become the Dark Lord’s consort, Draco's and the Firebolt’s paths collide, and both of their lives are changed forever.

Scrimshaw (Digital, Mature)

scrim·shaw

verb

adorn (whalebone, ivory, shells, or other materials) with carved or colored designs.

Seaside Sentiments (Digital Comic, General)

Merfolk researcher Harry Potter has been looking for signs of merfolk along the coast, and a very handsome merman has been watching him from afar. (A short, silent comic with Little Mermaid vibes.)

sinopia (an underpainting) (Digital, General)

In the sanctuary's high light he stood, with plaster-smudged fingers and brush in hand, and glazed the wall gold. And I watched him painting from between the pews, his lips parted in concentration, and his arms corded in muscle. And I wondered if he touched me, this young god before me, what would happen?

Talk Like That (Digital Comic, Mature)

Crime Lord Draco is suspicious of his bodyguard’s loyalty — what happens when an innocent confrontation turns into a heated conversation?

ART AND FIC

A Summer in Bordeaux (29k, Explicit)

Harry turns. Malfoy leans against the doorway to the back garden under the halo of a gaslamp dangling overhead. The warm glow of the flame casts him in a golden light, and he’s framed on either side by trailing grapevines cascading over the garden walls. So soft, Harry thinks, where the Malfoy in his mind once seemed so sharp.

“You look like a painting,” Harry tells him.

At the end of our world (61k, Explicit)

It took three days before the first hints were on the news, and a week before Harry spotted the first Infected on his own street. A month until there was no chance of stopping the panic, and six weeks until the government and Ministry fell. Then the TV stopped airing anything but a standby with the message ‘Stay safe’, and the world as he'd known it ended forever.

Ten weeks later he got an answer from Hermione. "It spread. There's no way back. We love you, Harry. Take care."

Freaky Fridays (5k, Digital, Teen)

A camera, two dorks and very nice ghosts.

FIC

A Game of Two Halves (23k, Mature)

Harry Potter owns a pub and hasn't thought about Draco Malfoy, who hasn't been seen in the magical world in the past nine years, once. Two-thirds of that sentence are true. Then the ancient television gets turned on during some football tournament, and there's Draco Malfoy, scoring a goal for France. Football? France? Malfoy?

A Little Wild, A Little Damaged (18k, Explicit)

It should have been simple. Get a hair cut, attend Ron and Hermione's wedding, go back to self-imposed exile. Of course, nothing was ever simple in Harry Potter's life.

A Tale of Tapestries (5k, Teen)

Flailing in a mid-life crisis, Harry decides he must learn the history of his family. The problem is that everyone he asks to help him sends him to Draco, a skilled wizarding genealogist with exorbitant hourly research rates. Well, at least the first appointment is free. Can't hurt, right?

An Improbable Bout of Summer Madness (17k, Explicit)

Draco had planned a quiet, peaceful summer holiday with his son. The last thing he expected was to find Potter here, in Draco's little Cornish retreat. Making fudge in a shop? The idea was too ludicrous for words.

(In which alarming amounts of sweets are consumed, Cornwall is thoroughly explored, Scorpius is a darling boy, and Harry Potter is a horrid assault on Draco's sanity.)

And Draco Makes Four (10k, Mature)

Right when Harry was about to become the youngest Head Auror in a century — just as everyone else expected of him — he made a decision that changed his life. Adopting twins wasn’t in his plans, but Harry was about to discover that unplanned things are the best ones. Including Draco Malfoy entering the equation.

and they called it puppy love (6k, Teen)

“Merlin,” Draco said. “I can’t decide who’s more crass, you or your Crup.”

Harry smiled. “Oh, it's definitely me. I’m working on teaching him rude language, but we’re having a hard time with the shape of his mouth and tongue.” He smirked. “I’ve almost got him saying ‘berk’.”

“I hate you,” Draco said. “You’re a horrible man and I cannot believe your pet is so valuable and you named him sodding Spot.”

“Oh, he goes by Spot for short.” Harry winked. “Sodding Spot was his father.”

Draco ignored him. “Mimsey,” he said. “Go meet Spot.”

Or five times Draco unsuccessfully tries to get his and Harry's Crups to mate and the one time they're successful.

At a Place Where Accountants Work (8k, Mature)

Nobody asks you questions when you say you're an accountant. But sometimes you have to put yourself out there before anything good can happen.

Baby's Eyes, Open Wide (40k, Mature)

This is a story about coming back to life, though it has nothing to do with resurrection. Instead, here lies a journey of moving on and finding home, and two broken people discovering what it truly means to be alive.

Featuring: A little dog with grey and white polka dots. Galaxies, supernovas, and the brightest of stars. Large eyes, chubby cheeks, tiny hands, and the littlest feet.

Better than Chocolate (14k, Teen)

Harry has a hankering for chocolate. He stumbles across Draco Malfoy's chocolate shop. He decides to make friends.

Call Me, Won’t You? (38k, Teen)

Draco's sentence seemed a never-ending drag of groundhog days and melancholy. Ten years of isolation as a means of punishment hadn't sounded nearly as bad as the threat of Azkaban, but he hadn't considered just what that entailed.

Phone call after phone call invariably ended with a sigh and a extended series of beeps. Until one call, one unexpected call, hauled Draco from his monotony and back to life for the first time in years.

Clearing the Atmosphere (11k, Teen)

The atmospheric charms at Malfoy Manor are failing, causing some rooms to be freezing and others to be stifling. The group of friends who come over regularly to have dinner at the Manor complain about the heat of the dining hall, the house elves are working in winter parkas, and when Draco wakes up to find his bedroom turned into an orange grove, it's time to call an expert.

Country Roads (8k, Explicit)

On his farm, Harry grows magical crops and keeps magical creatures. His Muggle-Repelling and Masking Charms are not doing well and he’s attracting unwanted attention and suspicion from his Muggle neighbours. The Ministry sends Draco to make sure that everything abides to the International Statue of Secrecy.

It's been a few years since Harry and Draco have seen each other, and they are both a little shocked by the sexual spark between them.

Develop, Stop and Fix (15k, Explicit)

In his five years in New York City, James Black has earned significant fame as a photographer. In fact, he's attracted the attention of London curator D. Black. Harry Potter uses a fake name and runs away. In a way, so does Draco Malfoy. How do these stories connect? It's quite simple: they're one and the same.

Double-Oh Potter (6k, Explicit)

Harry knew he needed something different, something outside the Ministry. When a chance at the muggle secret service came up, he jumped immediately. He never expected the voice in his ear would be Draco Malfoy.

Draco Malfoy is not a Werewolf (4k, Teen)

Original prompt: Harry and Draco are popular twitch streamers who frequently stream together, but have never met in person.

MALFOY AND POTTER JOINT STREAM

788k views

Chat

AntSalad - Ah yes, my weekly mandated dose of pure chaos.

CityRat - Wow, I'm more of a casual fan, so I didn't even know these two did live streams together.

Smugam62 - @CityRat Oh honey, you are in for a wild ride.

aka Draco is a hot mess who can't keep his mouth shut, Harry loves his treacle tarts, and these two broken boys create nothing if not chaos.

Fighting fire with fire (12k, Explicit)

As Deputy Director of the Ministry’s Fire Brigade, Draco Malfoy is an expert firefighter. But after things get out of hand in what should have been a routine operation and Harry Potter arrives to help, Draco finds himself getting hot and bothered for totally unprofessional reasons.

Haunted By Separation (66k, Explicit)

It’s always easier to think different thoughts than work through the hard ones. It's so much easier to run and hide somewhere you think nothing will come to get you. When Narcissa dies, and his boyfriend dumps him, Draco elects to run away to the sleepy little village of Hogsmeade. Only no one was expecting for Harry Potter to take over The Hog's Head just months after.

Head in the Game (17k, Explicit)

Harry and Malfoy shagged. But it’s fine, Harry doesn’t have feelings for him or anything. Yet he isn’t too thrilled when Malfoy gets hired as a Sports Therapist for Harry’s team �� Puddlemere United. Of course, he gives massages. And of course, Harry has to bear witness to Malfoy making player after player groan in pleasure.

Hey Spaceman (13k, Teen)

Harry is one of the worlds most well-known astrophysicists. When the UK announced they were joining the space race with their own mission to Mars, Harry knew he needed to follow his dream. He just didn't expect to fall in love along the way.

i go to war for you (6k, Mature)

King Harry Potter must marry Prince Draco Malfoy to unite the four kingdoms and defeat the Dark Lord. Harry refuses to submit to any alpha, and the alpha Draco, raised to be king, his throne destroyed by Voldemort, must now beg the favour of Gryffindor's omega king. What happens when Harry goes into heat the night before their wedding?

Madness in the Manor (5k, Teen)

When Narcissa Malfoy uses a spirit board, she unleashes a negative haunting in the Manor. Fortunately, the London Paranormal Research Team, headed by Harry Potter, is here to save the day.

Measure of a Minister (3k, Teen)

Draco isn't happy about being the official Minister for Magic photographer when the Minister for Magic is Harry Potter.

~ The measure of a minister is taken not when times are easy, but when times are lean; first in opposition does a man’s true character shine through.

Near Future (21k, Mature)

Draco thinks his life is going pretty badly, until Potter gets him a job at the Department of Mysteries. It then continues to go badly, except now, Potter is around. The only thing that could make matters worse is if a prophecy was made about the two of them. Which, of course, it is.

Nobody’s Business (33k, Explicit)

Harry and Draco are working in the Love Chamber. Due to a mishap, the two of them end up bonded. Forbidden from revealing what happened due to the nature of their jobs, they are forced to pretend they are just so into one another that they can't let the other out of their sight.

Of Kneazles and Men (15k, General)

When Draco's pet Kneazle keeps luring strange men back to the house, it's obvious to Draco that he needs professional help. The problem is, the best man for the job is none other than Harry Potter. Draco reluctantly gives in and contacts Harry, but can The Boy Who Lived help? More to the point, will he want to? Silly question - of course, he does!

On Hope & Healing (15k, Explicit)

Harry and Draco haven't seen each other in seven years, since Draco left the Aurors—and Harry—behind. So Harry can't help but be surprised when he starts working as a Healer at St Mungo's and runs into Draco. Draco—still just as gorgeous and talented—is neither a fellow Healer, or a patient. He's a cleaner, and always around. Can they put aside their differences, or are they doomed to repeat the same mistakes again?

Please Contact the COCK Department (4k, Explicit)

Harry might have wanked off in the Ministry loo while fantasizing about Malfoy wearing a particular pair of pants, but no one could prove it. Least of all Malfoy.

Purrfect Pair (10k, Teen)

Harry owns a cat/animal shelter and rescue that cares for cats, dogs, ferrets, rodents and the occasional reptile! Hoping to gain a following on Instagram in order to help get more of his animals into their furever homes, Harry starts to replicate the Instagram videos of Insta sensation and Cat Dad Draco Malfoy and his Maine Coon Leo. Draco finds out that Harry has started to copy his videos and reaches out to see if he can help the man and his rescue animals become an internet sensation.

Safe As Houses (25k, Teen)

After five years abroad, Harry’s thrilled to be home and working at the most prestigious ward-building firm in Britain. But everything gets turned upside down when he's assigned to work for Draco Malfoy—who somehow grew up to be just the sort of sexy bastard Harry goes for. As if that isn’t enough, Malfoy seems strangely on edge, his wards are a mess, and Harry keeps feeling like he’s being watched in the garden. It’s going to take all of Harry’s ward-crafting skills—and self-restraint—to help Malfoy feel safe in his own home again.

Saviour of the Seas (45k, Explicit)

For the 10th Anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic has chosen to celebrate with a cruise to Norway to view the Northern Lights aboard the Savior of the Seas. Did they actually think Harry would want a bloody cruise ship named after him?

The moment he's aboard the ship Harry runs into Draco Malfoy who can’t believe that Harry would think someone might’ve invited him there. “I’m the help, Potter.” But what work could Draco possibly be doing, and why is he refusing to tell Harry about it?

Harry fills his time onboard with friends, excursions, and plenty of late nights sitting at The Serpent’s Head to watch Christophe, his newfound friend and an exquisite bartender, work. Something simmers between them, but as Harry keeps running into Draco, he feels something building there, too - something that could be worth ending his years on the road and coming home for good. What's the Boy Who Lived to do?

A story about second (and third) chances.

Shore to Shore (19k, Explicit)

Harry loves his job as a Herbologist's assistant. He gets to travel around the world, collecting specimens for Neville, but he hasn't had a holiday in two years. Harry has one little job left to do, and then he can finally relax. In order to collect the poisonous sea-ivy Neville desperately needs, Harry just has to blow bubbles into the sea with a weird straw Luna gave him. What's the worst that can happen?

Six Wishes and a Kiss (32k, Explicit)

Draco's task this year: fulfil Harry Potter's long overdue Christmas wishes, made when he was a child. The complications: a) Potter is now 24 years old; b) Draco has a highly inconvenient and sadly unrequited crush on him; c) Draco isn't expecting his heart to hurt so much when he glimpses a memory of a seven-year-old Potter sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs.

Study in Synchronicity (38k, Mature)

After being granted an official pardon, Draco leaves behind his life to traipse around the world, living a perpetual hot girl summer. He finally makes a home for himself in the East and all is well, or so he thinks. Ten years later, he gets summoned back to Wixen London to fulfill the clauses of his mother's last will and testament. Hi-jinx ensues.

A story of redemption and coincidences, where Draco chances upon a rather-dead!Ginny, who wrenches him out of his self-imposed isolation, thus leading him to a rather-suspicious!Harry, who seems to be handling his own inner grief with much grace and gusto. They learn a thing or two about themselves and each other.

Take a Chance on Me (36k, Explicit)

There's a DJ on RareFM with a secret.

Or: the one with all the ABBA in it.

The Cat's Britches (26k, Explicit)

Harry is a leather worker. Draco sells leather clothing. A match made in heaven, right? Well, maybe. But only if personal prejudices and proclivities don’t get in the way.

The Curse Slayer (37k, Mature)

Harry Potter is the first and only Curse Breaker in the world capable of killing Curse Demons, which are condensed forms of Dark Magic that manifest as monsters. Because of this, he is called the Curse Slayer. On his first night back in England after eight months away, Harry finds himself reunited with Draco Malfoy, who is now trapped in Malfoy Manor as a result of an ancient curse placed on the last heir of the family.

The Fakes on the Walls (10k, Teen)

Getting reassigned to lead the Fakes and Forgeries task force was supposed to be an easy assignment for Harry — mostly paperwork and studying images behind a desk. Harry is especially thrilled with the added perk of working with Draco Malfoy, renowned art forger and (reluctant) Ministry of Magic consultant.

But when fakes are discovered just three weeks before the opening of Wizarding Britain’s first art museum, Harry and Draco are suddenly thrust into the spotlight…

The Keepers (4k, Teen)

In the Rare Books Department of the Ministry of Magic, Draco tends to unique texts and, on occasion, a certain Unspeakable.

the undone and the divine (42k, Mature)

Draco never expected to live without Potter. There is something there, something between them that pulls tight and brings them closer again, every time they might lose each other. Call it fate, if you want, but it always felt like a promise to him.

Draco never expected to live without Potter, but he also never expected to be this scared of him. He never expected Potter to change, to grow fangs and snarl, not at him.

It's not surprising, he supposes: throw someone into darkness often enough and eventually, they'll carry some of it back to you.

The Virtues of Hygiene and the Binary of Labour (15k, Explicit)

Draco does what he always does every autumn; packs his bag and follows a path back home. This time, Potter just happens to travel the same roads.

It never is about the destination.

The Wonderous Adventures of Teddy Lewis (9k, Mature)

Harry Potter had never expected he would become an author. Draco Malfoy had never expected he would live like a muggle. Sometimes things change, sometimes the unexpected happens. But some things never change. And Harry should just accept that his obsession with Draco Malfoy is one of them.

The Work of Our Life (65k, Mature)

Something is wrong with Hogwarts. Harry, caretaker of the castle for the last five years, needs to find out what before it's too late. But first, he needs to deal with the new tapestry restorer hired at the start of the school year.

This Ain't the Garden of Eden (131k, Explicit)

In 2020, Hit Wizard Harry is starting to enjoy his life. He’s divorced, and no longer Head Auror. His biggest project these days is trying to remodel 12 Grimmauld Place for him and the kids.

Draco Malfoy is recovering from his wife’s death. But is happy with his Ministry position as Temporary Head of the Department of Intoxicating Substances, and with his son who he adores.

This all changes quickly when Minister Shacklebolt decides not to run for another term. The assumption is that 'all is well' in the British Magical world, and that Hermione Granger-Weasley will easily be voted in as the next Minister for Magic. However, Draco knows better. He knows she has a strong competitor who is wooing those who live in Knockturn. And if he wins, the Ministry, and all that has been accomplished the previous twenty odd years, will be destroyed.

this is not my design (8k, General)

One of the benefits of working for the Department of Forensics is that you LITERALLY cannot talk about it.

Tomorrow (39k, Explicit)

In an unfortunate twist of fate, Harry Potter is dying. Not keen to leave the world without having his story told, he commissions the successful writer, Draco Malfoy, to write his biography.

Twenty Minutes Till Free Fall (5k, Teen)

A night of rain. A bare-boned safe house. A clandestine meeting between a spy and his case officer. Being with Harry is like falling through the air—and Draco isn't sure he wants to stop.

Unrestrained (10k, General)

A story about two wizards breaking free from their shackles post-war and finding each other along the way—with a few bumps and a dead body, of course, because when is it ever so easy?

Weapon of Choice (26k, Teen)

Sir Malfoy is in need of a sword. The blacksmith isn’t supposed to ask why.

What Shall Not Be Unearthed (49k, Explicit)

At the northernmost point of Shetland, surrounded by pointed cliffs, towers the Ootsta Lighthouse on a small isle in the middle of the open sea. Little does Harry know that he's not the only new lighthouse keeper. Draco Malfoy is as obnoxious as he always was, with his posh tone of voice and his luxury yacht jumpers. Harry tries his best to avoid the git—who knows what he's up to anyway?

While working hard on keeping the remote island and his mental health in good condition, Harry tries to fight against increasingly conflicted opinions about Malfoy. He doesn't like to think about the weirdly tangible dreams that he keeps having and especially the fact that Draco keeps appearing naked in them.

The answers, a confusion of denied attractions and macabre horror, lie buried in a riptide of emotions, dormant in the deep.

Written Proof (34k, Explicit)

Draco's move home to Wiltshire after more than a decade is anything but easy. He's given up an illustrious career in journalism to pursue poetry, his mother's health is declining, and it seems that the War isn't quite as 'in the past' as Draco assumed. Luckily, he's found a supportive, if unconventional, community and a local bakery to haunt that sells the most divine macarons. Too bad Harry Bloody Potter has to storm in and shake everything up, per usual.

Harry is content with his life. Really, he is. Sure, the life of an ex-professional athlete is a bit slow, but that's what he'd wanted when he retired from Quidditch to run his own bakery. Now, he gets to spend his days doing something that he loves in the company of his family and friends. He's fine to let one day bleed placidly into the next, until Draco Malfoy turns up at his bakery, causes a scene about his pastries, and is maybe, probably, definitely up to something.

This is a story about two people boldly chasing their happiness in spite of their fears, overcoming the chokehold of a difficult past, and learning how to communicate by whatever means necessary, be it rhymes or recipes.

you bring me home (35k, Explicit)

Harry is happy. He has his cat cafe and his hobbies. He has his friends, and Dolly Parton, and a shirt with a cowboy frog on it. It’s all a man needs, really.

He doesn’t need to obsess over a magic-less, anxious Draco Malfoy coming into his cafe after disappearing from the wizarding world years ago. He doesn’t. Not even if the cats like Malfoy. Not even if Malfoy is soft, and funny, and a little bit neurotic. No matter how much he wants to obsess.

PODFIC

(not anyone) you're the one (1.5 hours, General)

The one where Draco and Harry get together, fall apart, grow up and then find their way back to each other.

Little Red Courgette (4 Hours, Teen)

When this season's purple courgettes are woefully thin, Draco Malfoy thinks it amounts to small beans. Next thing he knows, the Department of Standards is over-run with leeks, Brussels sprouts all sorts of legislative difficulties, and somebody appears to have put a roquette under Harry Potter. Can Draco seize a marrow victory? Or will his plans for peas be squashed?

All along, Kingsley Shacklebolt finds himself pining for the good old days, when, instead of governing, all you had to worry about were Dark Lords and imminent death.

Career Fair Cup team members, please help us record how many entries you have entered as a team at this spreadsheet. You can also join our discord for discussions with other enthusiasts!

Do keep on commenting on our wonderful entries and help spread the word by reblogging our fanwork headers or by reccing the wonderful fanworks!

#hd career fair #drarry #Draco Malfoy #Harry Potter #Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter #drarry art #drarry fic #drarry podfic #drarry fic and art #masterlist

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sitp-recs · 3 years

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Fan Fair 2021 Recs - Part 2

Happy Saturday! Here are my personal favorites from the second batch of Career Fair Fest fics. You can check part 1 here. This is my way to show appreciation for these lovely works as I won’t be posting any recs until the authors are revealed. Please enjoy and don’t forget to leave kudos and comments! 💜

Measure of a Minister by captateur (Teen and Up, 3.2k) 📸

Draco isn't happy about being the official Minister for Magic photographer when the Minister for Magic is Harry Potter.

Twenty Minutes Till Free Fall by BelladonnaLee (Teen and Up, 5k) 🕯

A night of rain. A bare-boned safe house. A clandestine meeting between a spy and his case officer. Being with Harry is like falling through the air—and Draco isn't sure he wants to stop.

Take A Chance On Me by mintaminta (Explicit, 35k) 📻

There's a DJ on RareFM with a secret.

The Curse Slayer by isamijoo (Mature, 37k) 🐉

What Shall Not Be Unearthed by iero0 (Explicit, 49k) 🌊

The Work of Our Life by rain_beee (Mature, 65k) 🏰

Plus this STUNNING horror comic that took my breath away:

[ART] Scrimshaw by p1013 (Mature, 1.7k) 🐚

scrim·shaw

verb: adorn (whalebone, ivory, shells, or other materials) with carved or colored designs.

Check Part 3 here and the full Fan Fair collection here!

#drarry reclist #hd fan fair 2021 #part 2

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thequeenofthewinter · 2 years

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Meta, modern AU crack fic.

Featuring: Lydia, everyone's favorite housecarl

@theartofimaginaryfriends WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME?

A Mutiny of Fiction

Lydia smeared inky black war paint over her bruised cheekbones. It was now or never. Being in Sovngard for weeks gave her the opportunity to speak with several of the heroes of old and create a plan of attack. She will be heard. She will escape. Her vengeance will be felt.

She, along with her rag-tag crew which numbered exactly one reader, were planning revenge.

Lydia has left her sword aside, trading it in for a burning torch and pitchforks. Her reader friend told her that on a place called “Earth” they had things like this in the “movies”. It will be the symbol and the instrument of their outrage. There will be blood.

Lydia takes in a deep breath and looks to her friend. They both nod, silently agreeing that this is the best and only course of action. The author must be overthrown. The housecarl had given her all in the role of the sassy sidekick who both provides comic relief and acts as a plot device to move certain relationships forward in her story. The author didn’t care. All she wanted was a good story. All she wanted to do was to torture her poor characters and to what gain? Entertainment? Ha! Her life is not a play toy. She is not only a string of words brought to life in a Microsoft Word document. She matters. She feels. She has agency.

The reader sees Lydia’s anger and her fire. They know her pain because they felt it too.

“Why must you make me feel so many things?” They cried. “I grow weary of the whiplash of your whims, being thrown this way and that. Can’t we have some fluff for once?” They begged.

Both Lydia and the reader tried to be reasonable, but the author would not listen. The tyranny of the author must end.

So, with one last glance over their shoulders at the whalebone bridge, they both begin their charge.

But, little do they know that the author lies in wait for them. With what? Only the omniscient, third person narrator knows.

#crack fic #fanfiction #modern au #metafiction #microfic #skyrim #lydia #skyrim fanfiction #what did i just write

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handeaux · 4 years

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Mark Twain Feuded With The Cincinnati Enquirer (Guess Who Won?)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, was a formidable presence in American letters for most of his adult life. He was known for his stiletto-sharp wit, his tectonic temper and his incapacity to suffer fools. It would take, in other words, a complete buffoon to heckle Mark Twain.

That would be the Cincinnati Enquirer.

In 1870, the Enquirer or, rather, an anonymous columnist writing for the Cincinnati Enquirer, called Mark Twain a liar and, son, them’s fightin’ words.

It all began when the English Saturday Review got hold of a copy of Twain’s humorous travelogue, “Innocents Abroad” and published a review on 8 October 1870. The critic, although apparently open to the idea that Twain is pulling his leg, ultimately reviews to book as if it was written in dead earnest. For example:

“In presence of the ancients he generally indulges in facetiousness of a rather low order. He goes, for example, to some amphitheatre and tries to realize the scene which it once presented. His most vivid picture is that of a Roman youth, who took ‘some other fellow's young lady’ to a gladiatorial show and amused her and himself during the acts by ‘approaching the cage and stirring up the martyrs with his whalebone cane.’ But, to say the truth, Mr. Twain here verges upon buffoonery.”

Twain did not subscribe to the London magazine, but a squib about this review, published in the Boston Daily Advertiser [22 October 1870], including the line:

“We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this tribute to his power, and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can hardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his next monthly Memoranda.”

“Memoranda” was the name of a column Twain contributed to The Galaxy, a Boston literary magazine edited by Twain himself. Based only on the brief article in the Boston Advertiser, Twain did exactly that. However, instead of reprinting the original Saturday Review article, Twain recreated it out of whole cloth, imagining a review that took “Innocents Abroad” even more seriously that the British reviewer. Here is Twain himself, imitating an English critic, in the December 1870 issue of The Galaxy:

“To say that the Innocents Abroad is a curious book, would be to use the faintest language—would be to speak of the Matterhorn as a neat elevation or of Niagara as being ‘nice' or ‘pretty.’ ‘Curious’ is too tame a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity of this work.”

The fake English critic (i.e. Twain) tilted at all of Twain’s comic windmills, with almost audible tut-tuts popping from his prose:

“In Florence, he was so annoyed by beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a frantic spirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in this. He gives at full length a theatrical programme seventeen or eighteen hundred years old, which he professes to have found in the ruins of the Coliseum, among the dirt and mould and rubbish. It is a sufficient comment upon this statement to remark that even a cast-iron programme would not have lasted so long under such circumstances.”

In the very next issue of The Galaxy, Twain confessed in full, admitting that he, himself, had written the alleged review:

“I stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did not mean any harm. I saw by an item in the Boston Advertiser that a solemn, serious critique on the English edition of my book had appeared in the London Saturday Review, and the idea of such a literary breakfast by a stolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too much for a naturally weak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it—revelled in it, I may say. I never saw a copy of the real Saturday Review criticism until after my burlesque was written and mailed to the printer.”

Here is where the Cincinnati Enquirer enters the picture. On Saturday, 17 December 1870, an anonymous columnist in the Enquirer accused Mark Twain of lying about his parody review:

“Mark Twain at last sees that the Saturday Review's criticism of his Innocents Abroad was not serious, and he is intensely mortified at the thought of having been so badly sold. He takes the only course left him, and in the last Galaxy claims that he wrote the criticism himself, and published it in The Galaxy to sell the public. This is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take the trouble to call at this office we will show them the original article in the Saturday Review of October 8th, which, on comparison, will be found to be identical with the one published in The Galaxy. The best thing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say no more about it.”

Anyone familiar with Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, will understand that the man was constitutionally incapable of saying no more about it. Twain fired back:

“If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will not kill him; I will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one, and let any New York publisher hold the stakes, that the statements I have above made as to the authorship of the article in question are entirely true.”

If the Cincinnati Enquirer did not get the message, Twain itemized the magnitude of his wager and established the rules for claiming the winnings:

“If the Enquirer people, through any agent, will produce at The Galaxy office a London Saturday Review of October 8th, containing an article which, on comparison, will be found to be identical with the one published in The Galaxy, I will pay to that agent five hundred dollars cash. Moreover, if at any specified time I fail to produce at the same place a copy of the London Saturday Review of October 8th, containing a lengthy criticism upon the Innocents Abroad, entirely different, in every paragraph and sentence, from the one I published in The Galaxy, I will pay to the Enquirer agent another five hundred dollars cash.”

It was time to put up or shut up and the Enquirer wisely decided to shut up. Not a word about Mark Twain’s veracity ever appeared again on the pages of the Grey Lady of Vine Street.

Twain eventually published his version of the whole kerfuffle in an essay titled “An Entertaining Article.” Thanks to the Internet Archive, Google Books, the Library of Congress and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County you, yourself, can access all of the original source materials to decide for yourself. In the end, you may or may not agree with Twain’s conclusion:

“I think the Cincinnati Enquirer must be edited by children.”

#mark twain #samuel clemens #cincinnati enquirer #innocents abroad

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pocketsizedquasar · 4 years

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just a guy... on a boat... with a personal vendetta that may or may not destroy everything he knows... nbd

(ID: a small part of a digitally drawn comic page with a man standing at the bow of a ship crashing through waves. His back is to the viewer, and he’s wearing a long billowing coat and has one prosthetic leg made of whalebone. handwritten text reads ‘2 days! mobydick- the comic .com)

#mobydick #moby dick #ahab #captain ahab #herman melville #classic lit #classic literature #procreate #procreate app #digital art #comic #webcomic #art #my art

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verdanteffigy · 5 years

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A collection of witchcraft in the series 4/4

Under the read more is everything supernatural and witchy that I could find in the comics and books. Contains spoilers for The Wyrmwood Deceit, The Corroded Man, The Return of Daud, The Peeress and the Price, and The Veiled Terror. Collections 1-3 are everything supernatural and witchy that I could find in Dishonored 1/DLC, Dishonored 2, and Death of the Outsider.

The Wyrmwood Deceit

“It’s a curse on us Void-touched. Cruelty runs through us like a warp through a plank of wood.”

- Esmeralda Duggins

Esmeralda Duggins claims that “Void-touched” can do a lot with just a name of their victim once it’s been offered to them.

Esmeralda Duggins can seemingly divine information through touch of a relevant object with the help of spirits.

“I let her touch the mark on the piece of canvas. She mutters forbidden words and names as her finger traces the shape of it. One of the names I’ve heard before. As a child in Serkonos, I remember some poor soul screeching to it for mercy as an Abbey mob stoned him to death for witchcraft.”

- Martha Cottings

Broken Tom, a man that has bone charms embedded in his flesh and in a suit he wears, uses an arcane eyepiece that can detect where Corvo will blink to.

Delilah and her coven can conjure living creatures by painting them, can alter existing people by painting them in their likeness, and can peer into the memories of others.

“A boy - a nephew - concocted out of dreams and paint and made real by Delilah’s witchcraft and an aging man’s yearnings for his long lost sister. Delilah’s craft has grown that she’s able to make such a thing.”

- A witch

The Corroded Man

Everyone who comes into contact with the Twin-Bladed Knife has received a vision of the Great Burning.

The Twin-Bladed Knife somehow teaches Zhukov how to create corroded bone charms. These charms, like magic granted by the Mark of the Outsider, produce abilities that reflect the user’s personality, desires, experiences, and surroundings. These charms come at the cost of corroding both the charm and the user over time, eventually depleting the charm and making the user weak and physically ill. Corroded bone charms granted Zhukov an ability to transverse through reflective surfaces, an ability that produces a disorienting and nauseating aura that he can increase in intensity and cause other people to have visions, and an ability like telekinesis (he displays this when manipulating the Black Mirror shards). Corroded bone charms granted the new Whalers a normal blink transversal. The abilities these charms provide are unaffected by the Overseers’ ancient music.

Deep Watchers are unusually large whales that are described by Zhukov as “A creature of myth and legend, leviathan of the boundless depths. A creature of power. And a creature of magic.”, “-an abyssal leviathan, a so-called deep watcher. They live far away from the world of man, in the farthest, darkest places of the world. There they weave their own kind of magic, channeling a power that comes from within their very bones, the current flowing through them like a living battery.”

Zhukov and Galia used a transposition ritual once owned by Delilah to transpose themselves and a Deep Watcher whale’s jawbone from the Boyle vault back to their base of operations. This ritual’s ingredients were four fat, short, and orange beeswax candles, white chalk to inscribe geometric shapes that overlapped or connected by arcs and tangents, a “witchcharm” (the skull of a Brigmore witch) and corroded bone charms as sources of fuel. The chalk lines somehow repelled nearby blood.

A whale oil vat of “red-orange liquid”, the Twin-bladed Knife, the Deep Watcher’s jawbone, and presumably the sacrifice of Galia were the ingredients that crafted the Black Mirror. An artifact that allowed the sight of all potential pasts, presents, and futures.

“Unfortunately, a sacrifice was necessary. That artifact was from another time and place, a world that existed before this one, tethering me to it. I needed to unlock its power and pull on that tether, bringing that world closer to this one.”

- Zhukov

From within the Black Mirror shard and after it was pulled out, the knife was golden. Reaching inside the mirror and grabbing the knife healed Emily’s hand.

“Sometimes when I sleep, I dream, and in those dreams I am many things. I am an adventurer, a traveler. I am a hero and I am a tyrant, a beggar on the street, the ruler of the world. And sometimes in those dreams I see a light, bright and shining, red and golden white, the light of a fire that burned so very long ago, when one world ended and another began. And when I wake the dream is gone but the feeling remains, the echo of a song ringing in my ears, the warmth of a winter hearth and the shine of light on a distant unknown horizon.”

- The Ashen Veil

The Return of Daud

Maximilian Norcross possesses an arcane eyepiece that allows him to detect magic. He uses it to determine if runes and bone charms are real. But he discovers that he can also see the Mark through Daud’s glove with it.

“The witch toppled to the ground, dead. Burning lines began to run along her skin, blackening her clothing-- the remains of some occult tattoo that Daud did not quite understand, though he’d seen other sorcerers employ similar tricks.”

“Thick, viscous black liquid poured out of the wound. Again, lines of fire streaked along her back and shoulders as the strange marks burned away.”

The Twin-bladed Knife is said to no longer have the power of Void Strike.

Daud became terminally ill when he touched the Twin-Bladed Knife. The veins in his hand and arm turned black, he became tired, nauseous, and he found it harder to breathe.

“When I came back the first time, it crystallized this moment, making it part of history. Now, no matter what I do, no matter how many times I try, I can’t change it.”

- Billie Lurk

“- as Daud drew on the rune’s power, the artifact grew hotter and hotter, the glow from within the whalebone soon a blinding light. He fell to his knees, screaming in rage. It was a terrible roar from the very depths of his being. He felt the pain from the Outsider’s Mark flood over him like boiling oil, until he felt like he was enveloped in a cloak of fire. The rune in his hand exploded. The shockwave shattered the glass cabinets and knocked Daud back to the floor. The tower room was filled with exploding glass; Daud rolled onto his front, shielding himself as the debris rained down. His eyes were screwed shut, but he could see a blue light, so bright it was blinding, and all he could hear was the guttural roar of his own voice as he screamed and screamed again until his throat felt shredded. What had gone wrong? Had he forgotten how to use runes? Or had it been too long--had something changed as he had aged? Or had he simply lost control? Rather than channeling the power of the rune into himself, perhaps he had reversed the process, diminishing his own power and overloading the artifact?”

"It is nothing more than a story, but then, so much of what we know of the powers of those who proclaim knowledge of witchcraft comes from such stories, sometimes no more than whispers and rumors. That we must rely on such unreliable sources of information is unfortunate, but learn what we can, when we can. It is claimed that those touched by the Void employ servants, under some form of mesmeric influence, living for the singular purpose of serving their terrible mistress or master. Further, it is said by those who have born witness that the connection between sorcerer and servant is comparable to familial love, although to say this perverts the very concepts of family or community.”

- On the Witch's Most Devoted Servant

Challis, a man implied to be spellbound by one of Delilah's witches, formed long-distance communication with a magical device that violently drew power from his mind.

Lucinda and Caitlin instantly grew their nails into claws to kill Challis.

Lucinda trapped Daud in his own mind with a mesmerizing spell, an Oraculum lens, and the sacrifice of Challis.

The Peeress and the Price

“I learned how to turn your power against you. There were some very old notes at the Academy of Natural Philosophy. And a dying scholar there made something for me in his last days. Reversing the Void energies of bone charms. What would a bone charm that’s had its energy reversed do?”

- Luella Price

Pink bone charms introduced in this comic have magic nullifying abilities like the Overseers’ ancient music.

The Veiled Terror

Billie is no longer able to use Displace and Foresight. She can’t summon the Twin-bladed Knife until much later in the book without a horrible pain and going unconscious. There is no mention of Semblance or Rat Whispers.

Billie’s Black Shard Arm creates frost on surfaces she touches.

The Sliver of the Eye can now only detect magic.

After the “fall” of the Outsider, everyone across the empire began to have nightmares every night.

Months after the removal of the Outsider, Void rifts began to appear. Void rifts slowly “shear” the world. Inside the Void rifts are parallel worlds called the Void Hollows, places of any timeline. The first Void Hollow Billie travels to is one in which construction for the Leviathan Causeway is complete, whereas in the real physical world, it was still in its early stages. Inside the Void Hollows, with specially made runes, one can teleport to any location within it. And one can enter and exit a Void Hollow with these altered runes.

The removal of the Outsider is what caused the Void to become unmoored from the physical world, slowly departing. But it wasn’t until months later when Emily dissolved the Abbey that they began to appear. Billie speculates that the Abbey was performing a ritual to the hold the Void in place.

After the removal of the Outsider, the Overseers generally “fought amongst each other in the street, became rabid, insensible, and highly dangerous.”

Hayward Woodrow, a former Overseer, stabbed himself with a Voidrite knife and carved lines into his flesh. He became entranced while his face began to twitch and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He chanted “Yram da haal, yram da haelt, tilb mal, yram, yram” and “Eco, lazar, lapolay, yram. Eco, lazar, lapolay, yram.” By doing this, his target victim fell paralyzed, began to convulse, and foam at the mouth. This also caused a repelling area of effect that Billie struggled to get through while shelves began to shake violently and glass broke nearby.

"The Outsider has fallen and has taken his magic with him. Oh there are other magics, certainly -- oh yes, I saw the fuss that young Overseer made at the apothecary's-- but as one divinity falls, so others compete to take its place. With the Outsider gone, those who carry his mark are no longer linked to him, and they have no power."

- Professor Dribner

The drug that Billie uses, “Green Lady”, somehow weakens her connection to the Void.

“I must insist that you give up your Fool’s Fancy(Green Lady). It may be painful, but you need to let the parts of you that are part of the Void be drawn fully to it. That herb dulls not only your senses, but also your tether to the Void. If you are to be of any use, you must clear your mind entirely. Only then will the full potential of your connection be useful to us.”

- Professor Dribner

Billie is described as being more linked to the Void than any of the Marked were.

Bone charms are used in protective clothing to ward off the corruption of the Void while near Voidrite.

"But strangest of all was the bone charm set into the base of each mask, directly below the porthole. Smaller than the circular runes Billie knew the guards had on their belts, the bone charms were irregular pieces of magical scrimshaw, held into a circular cutout in the metal of the masks by two crisscrossed straps. Each of the four guards had a different charm in place."

Voidrite, the black stone we see in the Void, releases an anti-gravity gas when combusted.

Like the Eyeless and the Envisioned, people near the Voidrite began to physically and mentally change. Unlike the Eyeless, everyone who came into contact with the Voidrite over extended periods of time became near-mindless. These people eventually became creatures like the Envisioned, but their bodies were different and were used as miners to mine Voidrite with their claws.

Queen Eithne knew about Billie’s past, including things not even Billie knew (the names of her parents), by traveling through Void rifts.

Billie is outside of time and can control Void rifts.

The Outsider’s Altar is described as being one of the two most powerful artifacts in existence, the second being the Twin-Bladed Knife. By placing oneself on the altar, one can project themself as a “Void Shadow” entity. As a Void Shadow, one can open and close Void rifts at will and have abilities that allow one to shapeshift the body to focus strength or length of a specific body part (like lengthening claws), an ability to generate smoke that burns the eyes and nose of those nearby, an ability to become a whirlwind that can kill multiple people instantly, and the ability to crawl on walls and ceilings.

“She wants the Sliver and the arm. Partly, yes. But combined with the artifact she already has, she’ll have full mastery of the rifts. She’ll be able to travel through them corporeally, and the changes she makes to time will crystallize, become fixed points on which the world pivots.”

- Billie Lurk

“The only thing stopping you from summoning the blade is your own fear. You think you’re different, that your powers have changed, and the Knife knows that.”

- Billie Lurk

By placing King Briam on the altar next to Queen Eithne and slashing open their chests with the Twin-bladed knife, the Void Shadow engulfed the altar, the bodies, and the Knife to become more of a “metallic collection of geometric shapes”. In this form, the Void Shadow fed on Voidrite to become even more powerful.

#Dishonored #The Wyrmwood Deceit #The Corroded Man #The Return of Daud #The Peeress and the Price #The Veiled Terror #I know it's a mess #A collection of witchcraft in the series

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imaginationstimulation · 3 years

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“A genius . . . a writer who spent his lifetime decrying the onward march of the Machine.” — The New Yorker First published in 1936--and hailed as his best work--EYELESS IN GAZA is Aldous Huxley's loosely autobiographical novel of one man’s search for an alternative to the moral disillusionment of the modern world. Anthony Beavis, a cynical libertine Oxford graduate, comes of age in the vacuum left by World War I. His life, loves, and foreign adventures leave him unfulfilled, until. [...] EYELESS IN GAZA remains one of Huxley’s most enduring novels, a testament to the challenges and rewards of bold, vigorous thinking.

EXCERPTS / QUOTES / NOTES FROM MY READING:

[F]ashion is a topiary art. Those swan-life loins! That long slanting cascade of bosom - without any apparent relation to the naked body beneath! And all that hair, like an ornamental deformity of the skull! Oddly hideous and repellent it seemed in 1933. It was the same with these snapshots of Mary Amberley, taken ten years later. The skirt was long as ever, and within her narrower bell of drapery woman still glided footless, as though on castors. The breasts, it was true, had been pushed up a bit, the redundant posterior pulled in. But the general shape of the clothed body was still strangely improbable. A crab shelled in whalebone. And this huge plumed hat of 1911 was simply a French funeral of the first class. How could any man in his senses have been attracted by so profoundly anti-aphoridisiac an appearance? And yet, in spite of the snapshots, he could remember her the very embodiment of desirability. At the sight of that feathered crab on wheels his heart had beaten faster, his breathing had become oppressed.

...as Bubbles, in grass-green velveteen and ruffles...

...Anthony found himself reflecting impersonally, as he examined the top-hatted and tail-coated image of himself at Eton, a proof that progress can only be recorded, never experienced. He reached out for his note-bok, opened it and wrote: ‘Progress may, perhaps, be perceived by historians; it can never be felt by those actually involved in the supposed advance. The young are born into the advancing circumstances, the old take them for granted within a few months or years, advances aren’t felt as advances. There is no gratitude -- only irritation if, for any reason, the newly invented conveniences break down. Men don’t spend their time thanking God for cars; they only curse when the carburetor is choked.’ He closed the book and returned to the top-hat of 1907.

There was a sound of footsteps and, looking up, he saw Helen Ledwidge approaching with those long springing strides of hers... Under the wide hat her face was bright with the reflection from her flame-coloured beach pyjamas. As though she were in hell. And in fact, he went on to think, she was there. The mind is its own place; she carried her hell about with her. The hell of her grotesque marriage; other hells, too, perhaps. But he had always refrained from enquiring too closely into their nature, had always pretended not to notice when she herself offered to be his guide through their intricacies. Enquiry and exploration would land him in heaven-knew-what quagmire of emotion, what sense of responsibility. And he had no time, no energy for emotions and responsibilities. His work came first. Suppressing his curiosity, he went on stubbornly playing the part he had long since assigned himself - the part of the detached philosopher, of the preoccupied man of science who doesn’t seen the things that to everyone else are obvious. He acted as if he could detect in her face nothing but its external beauties of form and texture. Whereas, of course, flesh is never wholly opaque; the soul shows through the walls of its receptacle. Those clear grey eyes of hers, that mouth with its delicately lifted upper lip, were hard and almost ugly with a resentful sadness.

There was a convention between them that there should never be any fuss; not even the fuss of saying good-morning. No fuss at all.

... “Not working?” she asked in surprise. It was so rare to find him otherwise than immersed in books and papers. He shook his head. "No sociology today.” “What are you looking at?” Standing by his chair, she bent over the scattered snapshots. “At my old corpses.” He handed her the ghost of the dead Etonian. After studying it for a moment in silence, “You looked nice then.” she commented. ... “[Y]ou looked really sweet then. Touching. “But I still am,” Anthony protested, smiling up at her. She looked at him for a moment in silence. Under the thick dark hair the forehead was beautifully smooth and serene, like the forehead of a meditative child. Childish too, in a more comical way, was the short short, slightly tilted nose. Between their narrowed lids the eyes were alive with inner laughter, and there was a smile also about the corners of the lips - a faint ironic smile that in some sort contradicted what the lips seemed in their form to express. They were full lips, finely cut; voluptuous and at the same time grave, sad, alwmost tremulously sensitive. Lips as though naked in their brooding sensuality; without defence of their own and abandoned to their helplessness by the small, unaggressive chin beneath. “The worst of it is,” Helen said at last, “that you’r eright. You are sweet, you are touching. God knows why. Beautiful you oughtn’t to be. It’s all a swindle really, a trick for getting people to like you on false pretences.” “Come! “You make them give you something for nothing.” “But at least I’m always perfectly frank about its being nothing. I never pretend it’s a Grand Passion.” He rolled the ri and opened the as grotesquely. “Not even a Wahlverwandschaft,” he added, dropping into German, so as to make all this romantic business of affinities and violent emotions sound particularly ridiculous. “Just a bit of fun.” “Jus ta bit of fun,” helen echoed ironically, thinking, as she spoke, of that period at the beginning of the affair, when she had stood, so to speak on the threshold of being in love with him - on the threshold, waiting to be called in. But how firmly (for all his silence and studied gentleness), how definitely and decidedly he had shut the door against her! He didn’t want to be loved. For a moment she had been on the verge of rebellion; then, in that spirit of embittered and sarcastic resignation with which she had learned to face the world, she accepted his conditions. They were the more acceptable since there was no better alternative in sight; since, after all, he was a remarkable man and, after all, she was very fond of him; since, also he knew how to give her at least a physical satisfaction. “Just a bit of fun,” she repeated, and gave a little snort of laughter. Anthony shot a glance at her, wondering uncomfortably whether she meant to break the tacitly accepted agreement between them and refer to some forbidden topic. But his fears were unjustified. “Yes, I admit it,” she went on after a little silence. “You’re honest all right. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you’re always getting something for nothing. Call it an unintentional swindle. Your face is your fortune, I suppose. Handsome is as handsome doesn’t, in your case.”

“There ought to be some way of getting rid of one’s superfluous memories. How I hate old Proust! Really detest him.” And with a richly comic eloquence he proceeded to evoke the vision of that asthmatic seeker of lost time squatting, horribly white and flabby, with breasts almost female but fledged with long black hairs, for ever squatting in the tepid bath of his remembered past. And all the stale soapsuds of countless previous washings floated around im, all the accumulated dirty of yeras lay crusty on the sides of the tub or hung in dark suspension in the water. And there he sat, a pale repellent invalid, taking up spongefuls of his own thick soup and squeezing it over his face, scooping up cupfuls of it and appreciatively rolling the grey and gritty liquor round his mouth, gargling, rinsing his nostrils with it, like a pious Hindu in the Ganges... “You talk about him,” said Helen, “as if he were a personal enemy.”

#anthony beavis #aldous huxley #eyeless in gaza

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funnythingshere0-blog · 6 years

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The Moors: A Funny and Strange Homage to the Bronte Sisters

New Post has been published on https://funnythingshere.xyz/the-moors-a-funny-and-strange-homage-to-the-bronte-sisters/

The Moors: A Funny and Strange Homage to the Bronte Sisters

“How bracing!”

I can hear the call echoing over England’s bleak Yorkshire moors. It’s the cry from a Brontë, of that I am certain. But is it Emily’s soulful plaint from Wuthering Heights, Charlotte’s innocent plea from Jane Eyre, Anne’s adamant door slam from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, or Branwell’s addicted wail? It’s all of them, of course, mixed with a hearty dose of laudanum, sweet aromas of ripe heather, and veiled references to sexual repression, dark desires, and secrets kept alive in the attic.

What a family were the Brontës, England’s first literary royalty. It would take decades until the three sisters were acknowledged for their mastery, although profligate painter/poet brother Branwell was the first published author of the family but died young from opiate and alcohol poisoning. What happened in that priory house where patriarch Patrick ruled their lives?

Well, I’ll tell you, or, instead, playwright Jen Silverman (The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane; Crane Story) will tell you in her distinguished, funny, weird homage to Brontë Victoriana, The Moors, now conquering and delighting via Mildred’s Umbrella’s delightfully odd production. What a pleasure this is. How bracing.

I will not bore you, dear reader, with the perfunctory issues, but I will relate that the surprises come fast and furious and are never obvious or overdone. There is whimsy aplenty (too much twee-ness perhaps between a mastiff and his new-found love, a moor-hen) and a lot of anachronistic theatrics, but the constrained passions bubbling below the surface are amply displayed, beautifully played, and leave us with a disquieting feeling of dread and delight. If you’d twist all the sisters’ plots into one strange satiric homage, The Moors would pop out.

Governess Emilie (Lisa Villegas) has been hired by poet Branwell to take care of a baby. Emilie has fallen in love with him through his letters, which fill her with – as they used to imply in such novels written in the 1830s – dangerous longings. Naturally, the house is large and desolate, squatting on the endless moors, buffeted by winds and surrounded by indifferent nature. Everything’s confined, condensed, ready to boil. Eldest sister Agatha (Amy Warren) is prim and cold, corseted inside her shirtwaist vest as if encased by whalebone. She’s harsh and unrelenting as the countryside. Younger sister Huldey (Lyndsay Sweeney) is the wide-eyed romantic, a relentless writer in her diary, who details the fame she thinks she deserves. Like another sister in that famous Russian play, she dreams of fleeing to the bright lights of the big city. The house is scrubbed, polished, and looked after by the dual servant Marjory/Mallory (Briana Resa), who is either pregnant or suffering from tuberculosis, depending upon which room she enters. All the rooms in the manse look alike, be they bedroom, library, or great hall. Silverman likes to play parlor games with us.

Then there’s the subplot of the family mastiff (Jon Harvey) who finds a wounded moor-hen (Samantha Jaramillo) and falls instantly in love. Their inter-species affair mirrors what’s happening in the great house, if that mirror hangs in Wonderland. The denouement between high-flying hen and earth-bound dog might affect you more than poor offstage Branwell in the attic, catching sunbeams in his mouth through the chink in the wall.

The cast catches all the starchy Victorian subtleties of expression, and Warren is especially adept at depicting archness masquerading as seduction; while Sweeney (in a role seemingly tailor-made for her) displays her usual adroitness in playing sweet things who aren’t necessarily so sweet underneath. Lindsay Burns’ costumes, especially the mastiff’s tawny great coat with fur cuffs, are lovingly evocative (the aviator goggles on the hen are a touch of comic genius), while Jon Harvey’s sound design of Yorkshire rain and wind and Andy McWilliams’ contempo score more than compensate for the bland set design that is strangely Art Nouveau-ish. Where’s the endless panorama of northern English scrubland? Heathcliff, fill my arms with heather!

Under artistic director Jennifer Decker’s crisp direction, this is exciting theater, done with a wink, smirk, and loving grin. Through Silverman’s avatars, the Brontë sisters (and unseen brother) live again through very modern eyes. Rule Britannica.

The Moors. Through September 15. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sunday, September 9. September 10 is industry night. Chelsea Market Theatre, 4617 Montrose Boulevard. For information, call 832-463-0409 or visit mildredsumbrella.com. All shows pay-what-you-can with suggested admission $25.

D.L. Groover has contributed to countless reputable publications including the Houston Press since 2003. His theater criticism has earned him a national award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) as well as three statewide Lone Star Press Awards for the same. He’s co-author of the irreverent appreciation, Skeletons from the Opera Closet (St. Martin’s Press), now in its fourth printing.

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Source: https://www.houstonpress.com/arts/things-to-do-review-of-the-moors-with-mildreds-umbrella-10835615

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londontheatre · 7 years

Link

HeadFirst Productions presents a ten-day multi-arts festival A Festival of Sex, Love and Death at the Pleasance Theatre Islington.

From 24 October – 4 November 2017, HeadFirst Productions presents a new multi-arts festival at The Pleasance Theatre, titled A Festival of Sex, Love and Death. The festival brings five events from eight companies, including three double bills, to Islington for ten days this autumn. The programme champions the work of young emerging creatives working all over the UK in a range of genres including opera, dance, cabaret, physical theatre, new writing and spoken word. Each piece will demonstrate a unique response to the festival’s themes, sex, love and death – arguably the thematic foundations of the festival’s flagship production: Mozart’s 18th century masterpiece Don Giovanni.

HeadFirst Productions’ Artistic Director, Sophie Gilpin, says, “Sex, love and death are key forces that drive how we perceive and experience our lives. The festival serves to express varying perspectives on the fundamental aspects of life that make us who we are, and showcases the work of some incredibly exciting and innovative theatre companies. It’s wonderful to be able to bring such a diverse range of events to Islington’s already thriving arts scene, and in particular to introduce opera to the Pleasance for the very first time.”

Artists will come together under a single umbrella to respond in a unique and thrilling way to the festival’s themes, with a particular focus on female-led, POC-led and LGBT+ narratives. Companies and theatre makers involved are Liver and Lung Productions, Ella Mesma Company, Ruby in the Dust Theatre, Created a Monster Theatre, Hatch It Theatre, Oskar McCarthy/Rob Keeley and David Levesley/Juliet Clark. Each production team will make use of a single, highly adaptable set designed by Anna Bonomelli; the visual through line will contribute to an artistic and thematic cohesiveness whilst the flexible design will enable – and encourage – each company to utilise and respond in its own unique way.

The festival will enable the cross-fertilisation of audiences through its varied yet complementary programme and affordable ticket prices – for as little at £10 each – all delivered at a carefully selected venue with a proven track record of presenting high-quality contemporary work.

PROGRAMME

Sex, Love & Death: Don Giovanni This operatic masterpiece grapples with the complexity of human nature; contradictions, hidden desires, and darkest fears. By exploring the conflict between immorality and amorality, and – crucially – by telling the story from the women’s perspective, this production will steer away from the opera’s traditionally male gaze, and leave the audience questioning their preconceptions. Returning to London after 4* and 5* reviews for La Bohème in 2014, HeadFirst Productions promises provocation, dark humour and sensuality. Sung in Italian with English surtitles and performed with a small orchestral ensemble. (HeadFirst Productions – OPERA) When: 26th, 29th (6pm), 30th October & 1st, 3rd November at 7.30pm

Sex: Submission & Ladylike Submission tells the story of Sameer, a young British Pakistani, who struggles to reconcile his sexual desires with a religion he values, admires and cherishes. Told through the contrasting lenses of spoken word, multi-role play and naturalistic dialogue, Submission is a powerful, poignant and purposeful piece of new writing. Shedding light on highly relevant issues, Submission screams what needs to be said in a time when integration and tolerance is needed more than ever. (Liver & Lung Productions – DRAMA/SPOKEN WORD)

Ladylike is an absurd, comical, and emotionally charged ritual of dance theatre. In a landscape of Afro-Latin and Hip Hop, four females cluck, fight & undress our preconceptions of what it is to be ‘ladylike’. Each explores our personal experiences of sexuality, pleasure and consent, and they come together to challenge & celebrate one another as the heroine in the ultimate hen party. (Ella Mesma Company – DANCE) When: 2nd November at 7.30pm

Love: The Extraordinary Cabaret of Dorian Gray Set in the last few delirious hours of his life, Dorian Gray watches as his decadent life flashes before him. What he glimpses is a far cry from the opera houses, the salons and the gentlemen’s clubs. Join him as he delves into the darker, murkier underbelly of London: the cabaret clubs and opium dens, where sex and death share the same bed. And where love dare not speak its name. Descend into his world – the real picture of Dorian Gray – beneath his youthful mask. Adapted from Oscar Wilde’s only novel, tracing the life of one of literature’s most notorious characters, the tale reveals each character’s quest for love: the ultimate sensation! With original music performed by a cast of actor/musicians and cabaret artists. (Ruby in the Dust Theatre – CABARET/NEW WRITING) When: 27th October & 4th November at 7.30pm

Death: Buried Alive & Mortgage Buried Alive is a semi-staged recital of 14 poems by Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) with music by Othmar Schoeck (1886-1957). In 1927 Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck adapted the poetry of his fellow countryman Gottfried Keller to produce the song cycle Lebendig Begraben [Buried Alive] which tells the story of a man who awakes to find he has mistakenly been buried. Firstly he panics and hopes that his girlfriend or a friendly grave robber will come to his rescue; then he begins to reminisce in his coffin about his childhood, youth and first love; finally he casts his soul into eternity in an acceptance of his fate.

(Oskar McCarthy & Rob Keeley – SEMI-STAGED RECITAL) A furiously visceral show, Mortgage tells the unbearably tragi-comic story of the painfully abused and miserable short and boring life of Beatrice Gunta Mortgage – Stage Manager. In this collaboration between Created a Monster and the David Glass Ensemble, Mortgage will attempt to overcome madness, misery and possession in a piece of dynamic new performance that explores a culture of managing art, hopelessness and the will to overcome all. Inspired by Peter Brook’s notion of living and deadly theatre, Artaud’s ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, magic, and sacrifice, Mortgage will see Lecoq-trained performer Briony O’Callaghan collaborate with David Glass to create an inspiring, visually arresting and moving new work about the violent and necessary relationship between creation and destruction. (Created A Monster Theatre – PHYSICAL THEATRE) When: 28th October at 7.30pm

Sex & Death: Whalebone & Silent Meat Whalebone is about bodies: who takes up space, how much, and why. Three puppeteers stand awkwardly in corsets. A woman decides to take control of her body – deleting it, piece by piece. Reimagining Lolita’s lesser-known sister, Nabokov’s Laura, Whalebone collides puppetry and physical theatre in a world where bodies are painted, tucked, tightened and taught, where shadows are embarrassing and silhouettes become stencils. Irreverent feminist theatre, narrated by a talking vagina. (Hatch It Theatre – PHYSICAL THEATRE/PUPPETRY)

A gay couple meet in what feels like a destined encounter, only for their ideas of faith to be put to the test. An American PR executive searches for the answers to the death of a girl she’s never met. An elderly woman tries to reconnect with her childhood friend before euthanising herself with Mexican pet barbiturates. And, in Tel Aviv, a peppy Canadian vlogger moves in with her Israeli holiday fling, only for him to be called up to fight in Gaza. What does it feel like to discover your partner died via a google search? Why do people become obsessed with unsolved deaths on Reddit? What happens when moving in with your boyfriend means being accused of war crimes on Facebook? Set across three continents, Silent Meat is an exploration of what it feels like to love, lose and feel alone in the 21st century. (David Levesley & Juliet Clark – NEW WRITING) When: 31st October at 7.30pm

Pleasance Theatre Carpenters Mews North Road N7 9EF Thursday 26th October – Saturday 4th November 7.30pm (Sunday 29th October, 6pm) Box Office: pleasance.co.uk More information: headfirstproductions.org/

http://ift.tt/2jW2LWx LondonTheatre1.com

#IFTTT #LondonTheatre1.com

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verdanteffigy · 5 years

Text

A collection of witchcraft in the series 3/4

Under the read more is everything supernatural and witchy that I could find in Death of the Outsider. Part 4/4 will be everything I can find in the comics and books.

”Last night I fell asleep holding the charm Deirdre gave me. I remember her picking some rich man's pocket for some coin or a watch and instead she pulled out this thing, dead and humming. She bundled it up in a braid of her own hair and gave it to me for luck, but it wasn't luck that made the rats start talking. It was only after Deirdre lay dying that it started whispering her sweet voice to me.”

- Deirdre in my dreams

“Went to see Old Madge again. Traded some old whalebone and a bit of hair (not mine) for information. She's making charms for the Eyeless now.”

- Notes about Albarca Baths

“Witches chase us. Clever fingers grasp, claw, clasp. Bind books with our skins."

- Rat Whispers

"I tried the old incantations over the teeth and strings like before, but it didn't work. It always used to work. Is the magic really gone? The Eyeless might be content with scratched-up bones and rat liquor, but I'm not. I tasted the dark waters of the Void with my sisters. I know what it feels like to turn the things you hate into ash, and watch bright flowers bloom from the cinders. These people don't know real magic. I think I found a way. If I can snatch one of the stray hounds off the street and steal some carved whalebone, I might be able to get back a glimmer of my power. I know what words to speak over it. I just hope the Outsider listens.”

- Fidelia's Journal

”Duff’s hawking up a new bone charm. Says it stirs up the vitals. Gets the juices flowing through your veins. Keeps your head clear for the fight.” “Want your vitals stirred? Get some scarlet nightshade ointment. Rub it on your chest before the match.” “I tried black nightshade elixir once. Supposed to put strength in your swing. Rubbed it on and lost all feeling from the neck down for a fortnight.” "You'll need bonecharms or potions or something if you plan on fighting tonight."

- Various Eyeless at the Albarca Baths

A former witch attempted to make an ointment that soothed teething pains but instead it caused her childrens' teeth to fall out. So she ground their teeth into a paste under a full moon that can be used to harden the bones in the hands.

“We know things the Abbey don't want you to know. And not just a balm to clear that rash you got in an alley! But how to scratch up a bit of whalebone so you don't feel any pain in a fistfight. How to make even the most sharp-eyed guard miss you in the street. Even how to get the Outsider's ear and ask him a thing or two. You won't believe what we can do until you see it yourself. Until you see all those dead Howlers at your feet and hold a bit of lucky bone to thank for it.”

- The Eyeless Got Potential

“Don't know what we did right, but we crafted a mighty powerful bonecharm this time.”

- Defeat the Brute Reward

The above note tells that the Eyeless managed to accidentally craft a black bone charm strong enough to replicate a passive ability granted by the Outsider’s Mark. Level 1 Agility.

"Best to find out which of our neighbors has a loose tongue. See if they can still snitch without it (and keep the tongue, we can use that).”

- About the Hook Mines

"Your gran used to collect them. Had a string of them around her wrist and when she wanted someone's luck to run, she'd whisper their name to it and slip it in their pocket. Worked half the time, at least.”

- Uses for Hagpearls

"You didn't know I had a brother, did you? When we were little, there was an old woman who lived by the dockyards. Ma said to run if she ever looked at us, but we didn't listen. She was ugly as a hagfish, but she'd tell us odd stories, and said her black-eyed friend would visit if we were quiet. Then my brother went missing. We searched all over for him but we found no trace. That night I went to the old woman. that witch, and she had something awful-smelling in a pot she was stirring with all her strength. I asked if she'd seen him and she laughed, said yes, and showed me... She'd cut my brother up to pieces, nothing but bones and red flesh and the little scarf he always wore.”

- Letter to A Friend

"I got uses for cat guts." "Eyeless 1: I really don't want to cut up that cat. Eyeless 2: If you do, save some of its fat for me." "The infusion is a crimson elixir that pulls back the veil of mystery and allows you to commune directly with the Void. It's distilled from the blood of the dying." "A powerful contraption, channeling the minds of the living through the bodies of the dead. We could hear their thoughts, witness their dreams. Even put words in their mouths." "I've been trying to predict the weather using frog entrails."

- Various Eyeless in the Upper Cyria District

“It’s unquestionable. The tragic arias resonate better now. The mournful notes penetrate to my heart with such delicious melancholy. I credit the Spector’s sanguine infusion for opening my inner eyes.”

- Shan Yun

"Each of us carries the Void inside our bodies. It churns just beneath the surface of our consciousness. It yearns for our contact. Our fears. Our desires. The truth is only a portion of what the Eye allows us to see.”

- A Piece of the Void

An Eyeless waiting to ambush Billie on a rooftop instantly appears behind her after taking his bait.

“Witches and charlatans wearing necklaces of fingers and teeth.”

- Billie Lurk

"We sat around a table and held hands and chanted over the little bit of whalebone she had found. I sensed a presence... Some restless energy. It's hard to describe. Something was reaching out to me. Maybe it was mother? But it was upset. Angry.”

- Old Diary

“If all spirits vanish into the Void upon their demise, why then are the "wandering ones" from folk tales and legends always unhappy? Where are the tranquil and benevolent spirits? Do they not linger in the Void like their darker counterparts? I think not. Those who lead virtuous lives receive the gift of oblivion upon passing. They dissolve into the Void like mist, casting off the worrisome shackles of mortal identity to become one with the foundational materials. Wicked spirits, however, earn a cruel fate. Their punishment is to wander the Void for eternity, unable to return to this world and contact loved ones. They retain only memory enough to suffer. Imagine their pain: drifting through empty expanses alone for centuries. No sensation, no solace, no redemption. An unmoored spirit, gasping with regret in a sea of nothingness, forever.”

- Speculations on the Afterlife

“More bizarre cures for impotence? I tell you, I’ve seen enough “take one mandrake root” recipes to last a lifetime.”

- An Overseer

“Three volumes of forbidden knowledge. ‘The Outsider’s Hand’. ‘Voices of the Dead’. ‘Enter the Void: A Guide to Dream Interpretation’. Where do the witches come by these arcane texts?” “I didn’t recognize half the herbs we discovered in the greenhouse. ...Maybe they’re for cooking? These heretics performed no acts without dark purpose.” “A personal journal... Spellbooks...” “One silver cup filled with unknown potion... One shawl embroidered with strange symbols...” “A jar full of snails...”

- Cataloging Overseer

“Others denied wrongdoing until confronted with their heresy-- trinkets of marked bone, effigies of hair and teeth, pages filled with occult markings-”

- Overseer

"I have secrets to spend for my freedom. I can tell you where my sisters stashed their precious trinkets of bone. Or I can tell you a spell to never be alone again."

“I nailed his name to a tree and he withered.”

“Six black candles, burned low.”

- Imprisoned Witch

"Heretical contraption - lenses, desecrated caskets, wires, devices - Note: Will be dismantled and sent to the Abbey once the Sisters' examination is complete. BURNED OR SHIPPED TO THE ABBEY: 43 crates - books of arcane recipes, heretical studies, spells, ritual instructions, blasphemous stories - BURNED 17 crates - vials of unknown potions, salves, herbs, roots - SHIPPED TO THE ABBEY 10 crates - human hair, animal? bones and body parts - BURNED 1 altar - wooden, carved, wax-coated, well-used - BURNED 1 child's doll - husk body, wizened-apple face, stuck with pins - BURNED 34 runes and amulets - SHIPPED TO THE ABBEY 7 notebooks and personal diaries - SHIPPED TO THE ABBEY 2 scrying glasses - BURNED 1 crate - various devices for self-gratification - BURNED 3 sets - children's teeth and fingernails - BURNED 1 ash tree - cut out at the root from the Conservatory terrace - BURNED 4 crates - candles, incense, bells, and assorted ritual items - BURNED”

- Accounting of Heretical Items from the Royal Conservatory

"Prisoner: Lavinia Rischio, of Karnaca (female, 44 years of age) Offence: Heresy (practice of black magic), Killing (murder) Verdict: Guilty, all charges Punishment: Reformation (musical therapy), Execution Through enhanced interrogation techniques, we extracted a confession signed by the prisoner. On the evening of the 7th of the Month of High Cold, 1851, the prisoner did aquire the blood and seed of her former lover, a dockworker by the name of William Carter (known in Karnaca as "Barrel Bill"). This she mixed with other noxious liquids and fed to a large hound which she named Sugarboy (admitted to be a malicious spirit of the Void which she consorted). Within three days, William Carter experienced a range of symptoms including fevers, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, and death. The prisoner confessed that this was the intended outcome of a pact with Sugarboy, which she performed at the behest of the Outsider.”

- Trial of Lavinia Rischio

"Prisoner: Constance Bow, of Pottershed (female, 28 years of age) Offence: Heresy (possession of profane artefacts) Verdict: Guilty Punishment: Reformation (musical therapy) Inventory of items confiscated from prisoner after capture in the Royal Conservatory. Submitted as evidence of witchcraft. One (1) sharpened piece of bone (unknown origin, possibly human). Three (3) rat tails, severed. Five (5) pieces of braided hair, two singed as if by flame (unknown origins, human). One (1) hand-mirror, broken (possibly innocuous). One (1) waxwork doll, fashioned to look like the former Grand Inventor (burned on site - silvergraph of the offending item has been filed). Item had been struck with several hairpins in the neck, head and groin. Six (6) pieces of whalebone, inscribed with lewd images. One (1) pair of testicles, dried and strung together. Found tied around the prisoner's neck. (When asked the origin, the prisoner stated that they were "your own".)”

- Trial of Constance Bow

"Prisoner: Nonghui Chiao, of Wei-Gon (female, 32 years of age) Offence: Heresy (repellent to sacred items and/or words) Verdict: Guilty Punishment: Reformation (musical therapy) When asked to recite the Seven Strictures aloud, the prisoner choked and gagged on the words, and could not finish the Lying Tongue even when prompted. The prisoner then violently convulsed, and a deluge of blasphemies fell from her mouth until she was forcibly silenced. Subsequent attempts to rouse the prisoner to repeat the words known to every honest man or woman in the Isles were unsuccessful. Precedent indicates that she is therefore guilty of this heresy, and that her inability to speak the words of the Strictures is her body rejecting their truths, which are repugnant to the Outsider and his agents.”

- Trial of Nonghui Chiao

By knocking over the Abbey’s incense surrounding them, Breanna’s effigies of the Oracular Order will begin to speak.

"Wait, am I having visions? Has the Sisters' incense reached me here?"

- Alvaro Cardoza

“I hear her footsteps in my mind. Am I stalked by my own vision?” “I know you. Your eyes and hands have haunted our visions. My sisters cannot see beyond the moment when you breach the Void. Every hour, our sight grows short. Only I have witnessed the method of our blindness. Only I have seen that knife in a dead boy’s heart.” “By the Void! I’ll carve your bones myself.” “I’ve seen those black arts!”

- Sister Lena Rosewyn

"Did you sacrifice your hand to perform those tricks?" "I'll drink your blood and steal those gifts." "I've been hearing the winds of the Void in my head. Even in my sleep. Always glancing. Cold. I can't focus on anything." "Whales swim in my visions. Leaving blood in their wake." "I should soak my bone talisman in whale oil for a few hours." "I feel drained since last night. These seances are exhausting. But we're making progress at least." "I'm sorry. Did you say something? I've been hearing things again."

- The Eyeless at Shindaery

“Thousands of years ago, we took a wretch from the streets, beaten and discarded. And - blowing upon the embers we found there - we set alight the fires of divinity, at the very heart of the Void. We created the Outsider himself, fellow seekers. A face instead of the endless dark. Black eyes rather than that malevolent emptiness that came before. A voice speaking to select few, over which otherwise would be the howling of forever. Of nothing without end. And now he sleeps in the Ritual Hold, held in the crushing grip of the Void itself. And he will sleep forever, fellow seekers, for that is our charge. For without the Outsider, the Void would hunger and roil, and the world itself would shudder.”

- An Eyeless

“So the witch caused this?”- Eyeless 1

“Yes, we are certain of it now. These anomalies spread across our world the moment she returned from the Void.” - Eyeless 2

What did she discover? How long did she wander there?” - Eyeless 3

“We don’t know. But if her ambitions had been grander than a simple throne... The death of a god is no small thing. It ripples out to the furthest places. And even then, a dead god’s eye still remembers the Void.” - Eyeless 2

“Run and hide, find the small places. Still the huge eye sees! The huge eye sees. Drags us to the dark places, drags us to the cold. Everything stone, everything old.”

- Rat Whispers

“Have you read the third book of Laspenard’s seminars? The Envisioned broke apart the gate to the Ritual Hold to maintain the order of our existence, and the pieces exist outside of the passage of time. It is the basis of our semiotics. Thusly, all meaning flows from this state of within and without.” - Eyeless 1

“Yes, my work focuses on this foundational act. The exclusion of the Outsider is necessary to maintain the hermeneutics of the self. What is “us”, what is “they”, without the Outsider to make that distinction? (Paraphrased)“ - Eyeless 2

“Have you encountered Camila Khorei’s latest work? There is always the problem of framing, of delimitation. Do these distinctions make communication possible or impossible?” - Eyeless 3

“I’ve read varying sources which recount our forbears walking with the Outsider in dreams. One even vividly described him inviting her to suckle blood from the wound the Envisioned inflicted upon him centuries ago.” - Eyeless 1

“I wouldn’t believe such accounts. They’re based on poor scholarship, mystical ramblings, at best. Set these wonderings aside. We know the nature of the Outsider. There is only one place where he exists in the flesh, and it is forbidden to us.” - Eyeless 2

“The gate has been broken since the foundation of our world, and so the gate has always been broken. One day we will guard its pieces, as the Envisioned do.” - Eyeless 1

“When?” - Eyeless 2

“When the illusion of time falls from your eyes.” - Eyeless 1

“Concerning reports have disrupted mining activity at Shindaery North Quarry yet again, with many working onsite complaining of unsettling visual and auditory hallucinations. These have ranged from seemingly innocuous instances of misplaced equipment to large sections of the mine disappearing and reappearing within hours. The widespread nature of these collective hallucinations have made them difficult for the Shindaery Mining Company to dismiss.“

- Difficulties Continue at Shindaery North Quarry

“I know you don't believe me, but I saw it again. The air shivered and split apart and sealed up again like a river krust. The rest of the day I didn't recognize anyone's faces. It was like their mouths and noses and eyes all blurred together like a bad silvergraph. I had to guess who was who based on their clothes!”

- Miner’s Letter

“I can't stay here a minute longer. For a while it was just the little flashes of light, like cracks in a windowpane, but now? I hear voices. And it's not just a few whispers! Whole conversations, like they're right beside me. Sometimes I see strange people out of the corner of my eye, but then they're gone. It's like everything shivers and changes in front of me and then it's back to normal, like nothing happened.”

- Supervisor’s Note

“Tonight, we commune with the Eye. When you've finished your studies for the evening, leave the library and join us in the chamber. The relic will look inside us and we must aid its search. The Void lies inwards - we must bring it to the surface to see its truth. Bring three sharp knives.”

- The Truth Awaits

“12th Hearths It has begun. When I woke this morning my shoulder felt stiff and insensate, and when I inspected it there was a thread of pure, silver stone running across my flesh. At last! I am merging with the Void. Oh, to be removed from this reality and exist eternal in the next! To see the subtle shifts and patters of the Void, to be closed off from all contact with lesser creatures! I am eager to see its progress. 24th Clans The stone spreads. I feel it humming with heat as it enclosed my very heart. Sometimes I am breathless with it. I can barely listen to the others... At times, my tongue won't move for hours, and I am mute. 2nd Nets My left eye has been entirely subsumed by the Void. I can see strange shifts in the light, but it is mostly endless darkness. I find it difficult to focus on my work. 11th Darkness My pen slips from my hand even as I try to write these words. My fingers have grown cold and numbed to all sensation. Some have even fused together in an amalgam of stone. I am exalted.”

- Cultist’s Diary

“It started with hallucinations: Juana Gallardo screaming when her house vanished as she unlocked her front door. Miners returning from the depths with hair-raising tales of tunnels appearing, already quarried and cleared, beneath their pickaxes. But soon the entire town was awash in the unexplainable. The first time I hallucinated, I was working in the Shindaery Mining Company's store, distributing supplies to prospectors fresh off the carriages from Karnaca. I pulled a head-lantern from the shelf and turned to hand it to a customer, but he was gone. The shop was gone. I was standing alone in a dust-swept street, amid tumbled ruins. It was North Quarry Town, but different, as if decades had pressed it into the earth. I blinked, and the vision dissipated. I was left befuddled, staring at a curious customer. Soon, all of North Quarry started flickering in and out of existence. Talk to a friend and they'd disappear midsentence. Roll over in your bedroom and wake up under starry skies. We lost sense of what was real and what was illusory. And it worsened, the town disappearing for days while we camped in caves and spoke in hushed voices. It became unbearable. One by one, my neighbors fled to Cullero, Bastillion [sic] - anywhere but Shindaery. Soon, I was the only one left, wandering deserted streets alone. I'd gone half-mad with loneliness, roaming mine shafts deep into the mountains, when I stumbled upon a giant Eye. It seemed to hum with power, beckoning me. And when I touched the Eye, understanding exploded within me. The invisible layers of the universe were laid bare to me. I left the mines a wiser woman, Shindaery's secrets a mystery no more. I witnessed no more vanishings. Forever after, the town remained stone solid for me”

- Lost Days at Shindaery: A Memoir

“Any child knows the constellations above the Isles. The Captain at the Helm, the Tusked Leviathan, the Vain Duchess, the Scaled He-Goat, the Moth-King. Tales older than the Outsider himself, patterns read long ago by the fearful and the ignorant to create meaning from the emptiness that engulfed them. The supposed significance of one’s birth in relation to these signs is a common folk tale. Those born under this or that set of stars will be lucky, or obedient, or stubborn, or proud. This is, of course, simple superstition. But what may be read in the stars is of greater substance than the fortunes of the unimportant masses. The night’s sky foretold the necessity of the Outsider, and urged the Envisioned to seek out the wretch who would become him. It is not simply the movement of these distant stars, but when they blink out into nothingness that tells us what the Void requires. Alongside the migration of birds and the entrails of certain animals, the disappearance of several prominent celestial lights urged the ancient Envisioned to take a helpless orphan and create the Outsider from his wretched flesh.”

- We Watch the Stars, by F.H. Clapp

“However, many such attempts are failures. Long are the lists of potential incantations, sacrificial animals, and bodily fluids which are said to compel the Outsider to appear; none are successful. But yet there remain scattered, firsthand accounts of people—bearing on their flesh what is known colloquially as the ‘Outsider’s Mark’ which we recognize as the symbol engraved in whalebone runes—seemingly communing with these altars and, when they wake, are able to recount specifics of the Outsider’s voice and appearance which do not vary substantially in their description.”

- Can The Outsider Speak? An analysis of his visitations (3)

“2nd, Month of Darkness I am now certain the meaning of that script adorning the flesh of those few who encounter the Outsider. It is his name- the name he lost when he merged with the Void. And if this name is returned to him, the old ritual performed by the Envisioned years ago would be undone. This revelation sends shivers down my spine. What I hold is the catalyst that could undo everything our collegiate has accomplished. 11th, Month of High Cold The ancient language tantalized me still. The pronunciation was never formed for any earthly tongue. Perhaps these people, long ago, spoke with the spirits? But speculation is one of the many pitfalls which threatens the errant philologist. To pursue this further would necessitate transgressing the deepest commandment of our order. No one has entered the Ritual Hold since the Outsider merged with the Void. But to find one of those cursed spirits to read this language... It intrigues and frightens me in equal measure.”

- Malchiodi’s Diary

"The topography of the Void is dependent upon reality to supply the base material for it to mirror. However, there is one place that has no referent in our world, though I know the Void sees into our hearts. My fellows call it the Ritual Hold. Some say it is a cradle, others say a tomb. The Outsider himself resides there. To even approach the gate to that place is sacrilege, and even then the Void itself keeps it shut to living eyes. Truly, the Ritual Hold exists outside of time itself. It would be as futile as it is forbidden to enter. These are thoughts for another time. My research into this ancient alphabet continues. Some remnants of their phonemic qualities are preserved in our oldest writings. The language possesses an unusual amount of diphthongs, reliant on distinctions in tone and pitch to convey meaning. 'Ch', 'th', 'sh'... These symbols... I know the very nature of the Void runs through them. But is it a dead language, or the language of the dead? Perhaps that could be the title of my next monograph...”

- On the Ancient Alphabet & the Ritual Hold

“Ah... There they are. The terrible beasts. The leviathans of legends. Even our oldest writings detail sightings of these creatures in the Void. Their affinity for this place is well known. But still, a rarity! And here, now, so many! They drift through the Void as if it were the depth of some placid sea. Do they bear witness? Oh, such secrets they must know! And listen what music they make! We had neither the means nor the opportunity to record them until this moment, But now! Oh, how they bellow! It reminds one of a lullaby, or an elegy. We have never seen the whales in such numbers. They are... congregating. But why? For whom does this choir sing such baleful lamentations? It feels as if their song could end the world.”

- Terrible Beasts Can Sing

#Dishonored #DOTO #Death of the Outsider #+ every cultist and their leaders think they can drink Billie's blood to gain her magic #like the witches in D2 + Delilah think they can gain Corvo/Emily's magic by scooping out their brain #however that works #A collection of witchcraft in the series

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verdanteffigy · 5 years

Text

A collection of witchcraft in the series 2/4

Under the read more is everything supernatural and witchy I could find in Dishonored 2. Parts 3-4 will be from Death of the Outsider and the comics/books.

“Third Day

Found me a dead man by the beach today, draped in seaweed and jellies. His belly so swollen I feared it might burst if I poke it. Half a dozen crabbies scampered out his open maw. I were thinking I might try me some strong magic. The kind that needs a limb or two for full potency.

Fifth Day

Foul luck! The angelica bloom was sharp as a sailor’s tongue, but still the spell went bad. I don’t fathom it, because the leg was big and full of juices.

Eight Day

Ah! Came to me in a dream what went wrong! That soggy leg I used weren’t near enough fresh, and it spoilt the magic.”

- Diary of a Witch

"Stay to the flesh that is familiar. That of the fowl and sheep, the ox and fish from the cold Ocean. Those who taste the flesh of the rat risk drifting through the Void for all the remaining hours of all the remaining years, until the world is swallowed itself by the Void, and all manner of things are destroyed.”

“We harden ourselves to the cries of the apostate, to the heretic, and in doing so we save countless others from the horrible discord that awaits them beyond death.”

“The Abbey will not allow the shadows of the Void to fall upon you. We will brandish the light or the flame, as we must, to keep our charges from everlasting pain and suffering; to prevent even one among us from wandering through that endless night for time without end. The reward of a life well lived in keeping with the Seven Strictures is the end of existence! The peace of non-being. Only those who turn from the Seven Strictures risk an endless existence adrift in the Void, the dark sky without stars. The cold lifeless ocean that surrounds us all and threatens to devour the earth and sky and all things in between.”

- Preaching Overseer

“One constellation stood out. A whale, with a bright blue star for an eye. It was beautiful, comforting somehow, like it was watching over me. And the day after that, with my head still pounding from the drink, I found something in a puddle in the street. Made of whalebone, carved with odd markings. A good luck charm, I thought, and it worked for a long time. Everything got better.

But now my luck has left me, like everyone I cared about, and everything I owned. It's silly, but I came back up here hoping that if I could see that kindly, star-eyed whale in the sky again, maybe things would pick back up. I'll wait here, watching. When it comes back, I'll wave at it and hope for another blessing. I don’t know what else to do.”

- Abandoned Notebook

The above note is another possible example of vermin being attracted to bone charms like the time in Dishonored 1 when a woman claimed rats appeared after a man came through with a bone charm. Bloodflies swarm around the author’s corpse and a bone charm is next to him.

"How many days til the next red moon?" "I hear you, my mistress. I'm your devoted servant. Yes, yes, yes." "I'll be her favorite when she sees what I can do with a bit of cat fur and a bone from a drowned man's leg." "Her face when I told her she was going to die soon. That's what the tea leaves said. Not my fault." "So you're marked? I need to cut off your hand then." "It's a piece of the night-black Void." (Mesmerize) "I've seen you in my dreams." (Mesmerize) “It’s gotta be something nice. Something no one else has thought of. Maybe something with gull’s eyes, or the bladder of a cat.” “My leg feels better. The fresh air really helped. And the calendula flowers.” "Next time I'll do it with a waxing gibbous. And if that doesn't do it, then I have no idea how to fix it." "I'll fill my pillow with your hair, for luck!" "I'll scoop out your brains and learn this trick for myself!" "That lavender tincture. It's good in spells and all that, but she should use it to rinse out that foul mouth of hers." "I can feel my power grow. I can hear her voice. I can feel her spirit touching mine." "Of course I gathered them at dawn. When else? They're no good otherwise. Like she's the only one who knows how to gather black mandrake root." "You have to learn the words and say 'em just right. Otherwise the spell won't work. No matter how many goose feathers you've gathered." "I hope it doesn't interfere with the tinctures. Timing is everything." "Ambergris? Where am I gonna get that? Maybe the incantation will work with a bit of muck from the street." "Why am I always the one who has to gather moss under a full moon?" "Thrice. That's the part I always mix up. Tap the whalebone, thrice. Not twice.”

- Witches

"But Breanna's effigies let her reach into the mind. Into the heart. Wouldn't you be afraid that she'd influence your dreams, like she's going to do to the Sisters of the Abbey?"

- A witch

"An artist, of sorts. Bone and skin stretched across canvas, with pigments coaxed from blood and hair." (Breanna) "Trillibub and Ambergris, grind once and thrice more stir, Bezoar and Boy's Blood...I - was bewitched by her whisperings, but I'm with you again." "She desires to make a gift of your spleen. To deliver it to her beloved mistress with a lock of your hair, and three small stones." “She tried to make a new spell, burning a live hound, bound to its trusted master. And the froth that forms along the shore, gathered on a windless night.” "By night she gathers bones and driftwood, chanting the curses Delilah taught her." "The innards of a cat tortured under a blood-red moon, thrice boiled. These are her thoughts."

- The Heart, about witches

“13th

I was very much surprised Professor Lignon presented me with a gift. Our bitter rivalry has been most vexing lately. Perhaps it has vexed him well, hence this little peace offering. Yet as gifts go, it seems wanting - a bit of bone with scratches on it. Though I suppose, given his area of expertise, he believes it suitable. So for now I'll withdraw my complaints to the head office.

15th I've become most fascinated by the bone trinket Lignon gave me. I see now those scratches are really letters of some kind. Quite exquisite actually! I have detected the slightest bit of warmth emanating from the thing, and am most intrigued. But the evening grows cold, so I'll continue my observations tomorrow.

20th I've cancelled classes for the day, as I've taken on the most aggressive chill! How I shiver! My one comfort is Lignon's little gift. When I hold it in my hand I feel such warmth from it! Tomorrow I'll go to Addermire Institute, maybe spend a week there. If my health permits it, I intend to write to Lignon to express my gratitude.

28th Doctors are stumped of course. Fools. No I will not drink their foul tasting medicine! My little charm will protect me from this confound chill. Even now it seeks to warm me. Why it's almost too hot to hold! Lignon has been named Headmaster. I must write and congratulate him, and will do so as soon as my fingers feel thawed!”

- Diary of Professor Bracamontes

“It has the sheen of something ancient, beyond time. Like something that should not exist.” “Perhaps it possesses none of the usual energies of the cosmos.” “How curious. It’s more than an object. It’s a process, that picks at very old scabs.”

- Jindosh while mesmerized

“It’s my hope that the pale stars look down with favor upon your attempts to gain Sokolov’s favor. But if the old goat will not bend to your will, I can offer an alternative to merely keeping him locked in your assessment chamber and subjecting him to cruel electrotherapy. I’ve started a new effigy, cast in Sokolov’s shape. Given time, I believe it might grant me some influence over your esteemed guest.”

- Note to Kirin Jindosh

"So many things are odd lately. An owl nailed to a door on my way to market. Dead, but I felt it was watching me. Who would do such a thing? A woman with strange eyes entered my shop and wanted to buy elixir, but as trade she offered me a jar of slugs! I told her no, but she argued. Said they were raised only on dog's blood, as if that made them more valuable. Sinister was her look when I asked her to leave!”

- Shopkeeper's Journal

Seemingly by writing arcane glyphs in whale oil, witches managed to suspend objects in midair.

“Poor Lucinda. She tried to raise the bloodbriar but could not. After trying to make gravehounds for weeks, she gave up. You should have seen the twisted things she made. All snouts and teeth and tails.”

- A witch

"5th I've set out to craft a new bonecharm, and I hope to have it blacken, in keeping with those of greater power. It will complement the one I've carried since finding it within a mausoleum in Alba. Though it's rare to meet others touched by the Void, summoners beware, for as long as I carry that bonecharm, their rats and vermin will turn against them. And the new charm, if it works, will shield me against assassins. 11th I am still working on my protective charm. I've taken the Tyvian Grey Bone recipe and altered it, using much more burdock root. The instructions were vague and the safeguards it offers are weak. 18th Neither chamomile nor nasturtiums added to the mix give me the right effect. Though they perfume the air quite nicely. I feel well protected from unpleasant smells, but not much else. 23rd I've finally got it! Hellebore of course, fermented and reduced over a low flame. It's rare to achieve this effect, where the bonecharm turns darkest black. As I wanted, I'm warded against the first bullet or bolt from an assassin's weapon. The initial shot that would fell me instead change to bloodflies in an instant!”

- Black Bonecharm Notes

“She’s always relied on precious bones and ivory, carved in a room with no light, painted with ash and moon’s blood.”

- A witch about Breanna

"4th Day It's been difficult to create effigies of the Oracular Sisters. They keep to themselves, rarely venturing outside. Impossible to get the hair and nail clippings I need. But I have an idea. If the Sisters are linked even beyond death, then I can use the bones of their dead, dug from an Abbey graveyard, to attune the Oraculum to the minds of living Sisters. 12th Day It's done. Adolfina and several others brought back a wagon full of coffins. I'll start on new effigies at once. 19th Day Still only faint voices. Nothing near the connection required to give them dreams. I must adjust the lenses, refine the effigies, sleep with their skulls beneath my blankets for a few nights more. Perhaps integrate the scarves they use to cover their eyes. 21st Day Delilah is anxious about my progress, and yet there's not much to tell. I was able to interrupt several Oracular Sisters in conversation, leaving them momentarily at a loss for words. I'm confident that soon enough I'll be able to make them say whatever I wish. Then I'll have news for my Empress in Dunwall. 23rd Day At last! I held one of the Sisters in a trance-like state for an hour. Delilah was ecstatic. Soon we will control the Oracular Order.”

- My Effigies of the Oracular Sisters

"We have uses for a pretty face." “We have uses for old bones.” "We'll bury you beneath a cypress on the night of a new moon." "Little tendril and a bit of lake muck, touched by the Void!" (Blood Briar) "How quickly your grasp of witchcraft has grown." "Will the Void take you if you die like this?" (Shadow Walk) "All slithering shadows and pointy bits." (Shadow Walk) "You would fight us with shadow magic?" (Shadow Walk) "I can't be mesmerized like some weak-willed fool." (Mesmerize)

- Breanna Ashworth

The Grand Palace added that the absurd gossip regarding our ambassadors returning to Karnaca from Dunwall Tower with odd markings on their faces, uttering gibberish as if speaking a dead language, are preposterous rumors with no base in reality.

- Duke Hosts Inauguration Celebration

“After Delilah fell to the assassin Daud, her magic was lost and the Coven scattered.

I made a new life in Karnaca. Then I heard her whispering from the Void, leading me to the Duke, who heard those same whispers.

Together we worked to bring Delilah back into the world, changing the Empire from the home of Aramis Stilton, three years ago.

Across the Isles, all of us who'd been with her at Brigmore and before, we felt the magic return. Others joined; new faces, new blood.

Now Delilah is immortal, forever. She holds Dunwall, and we've turned to corrupting to Oracular Order. The Overseers take guidance from their prophetic sisters, and soon we'll influence their dreams and visions.”

- Bringing Back Delilah

“But this is a story that began long years before. I knew Delilah when I was only a boy. And even after she was lost, dead, and gone from the world, her memory burned in my mind. Until finally I began to hear her whispering, calling to me from the Void. Telling her story of growing up in Dunwall Tower, and the half-sister who cheated her of her throne.

Then she told me there was a way to bring her home.

Delilah. Beautiful, immortal.”

- A Better Serkonos

"Month of Songs Lady Cottington brought silk scarves from her boutique, one of which Mr. Prospero used to gently strangle her. I maintained a count of her pulse and observed her breathing. When the life signs faded, we left her still for two full minutes before reviving her. Was it really the Void she described? Have we succeeded in seeing the unseeable? My hand trembles as I recall the intensity in her eyes, as she struggled to recount with broken voice what she felt during those two minutes. Month of Earth I convinced our little group that less gentle methods were needed if our desire to meet the Outsider was sincere. Bloodfly fever, voluntarily induced. That will be our way to the Void. After procuring a few bloodflies and some Addermire Solution, we coated our hands with elixir before exposing them to vivarium. The stinging was unbearable. Lady Cottington fainted immediately. I was the last one to remove my hands. The fever was quick to set in. As I faded in and out of consciousness, ocean waves pounded above me. There were silhouettes in the distance, and shimmering black rocks. A timeless passing, in an unthinkable place, while delirium held us for hours. I must get back there as soon as possible, when my wounds have healed.”

- Seance Notes

"You ask what the Void looks and feels like, if it can be measured like a real place. Here's my answer: Don't concern yourself with such matters. It is as real as anything I've ever experienced, but if you understood it, you'd know that such a statement makes as little sense as saying that I have been dead. The Void is unspeakable. It is infinite and it is nowhere, ever-changing and perpetual. There are more things in the endless black Void, Kirin Jindosh, than are dreamt of in your natural philosophy.”

- Letter from Delilah

“I can feel the old crone’s hand, it’s so cold.” “Reminds me of the old lady’s hand somehow.” “Yeah, I hear you. Granny.”

- Paolo while mesmerized

“I saw something like this once, during the Trials of Aptitude.”

- Vice Overseer Byrne while mesmerized

“For the keeping of articles of a heretical or fetishistic nature. For consuming the flesh of rats. Death.”

- An Overseer

“She clawed her way back! Ashworth helped open the way!” “Quiet! The one in the Void hears everything.” “There are whales down in the mines. I hear them howling to one another. Swollen beasts.” “Time is leaking. Coming out of the walls. It’s ruining the carpets.” “That thing of bones that Ashworth made, it’s on the ceiling. I hear it at night. Bones from the deep. Far beneath the waves.” “Put that thing away, will you? Grotesque. Yes, yes! I can see it. The others can’t, can they? (While Corvo/Emily hold the Heart)

- Insane Aramis Stilton

“The air feels almost electrified here.”

- Corvo/Emily when approaching Delilah’s resurrection ritual

"People used to leave offerings there. That’s where I started having those odd dreams.” “Sorcery, they said. They burned my books, and they hit me in the head until there were no more visions.” “I used to have such visions. Dreams of black oceans and whales in the sky overhead.”

- The homeless man in low chaos mission 8

“This feels familiar. Like when Delilah lived here in the Palace, with those other women, her cult. They did things that made me feel like this.”

- Duke Abele’s body double while mesmerized

“There was a certain glitter in the stars last night. Delilah says it means victory.” (Paraphrased)

- Duke Abele

“I painted the Ocean today. The clever tide left messages in froth and detritus on the rocks. The waves use a secret language to synchronize their efforts. If I could learn to speak as the waves do, then I would have a powerful ally. And why should I not learn the language of the Ocean? Those years in the Void changed my senses, and now I perceive things others cannot know.”

- Delilah’s Diary

"We're ashamed to say that we won't wait for your return though. One morning, all the bread in Gideon's bakery was turned to ashes; on another, the wool yarns in my haberdasher shop were full of snails and slugs. There's a curse on the city, and I'm not even talking about the Hatter gang who now rule over our streets.”

- Answer from the Mayhew Family

"It seems that Morley is on the verge of going to war against Gristol, and the rumors from Dunwall are grim and strange. We've heard about soldiers made of metal, women commanding the trees, and whales gathering in the harbor, singing their songs in reverse.”

- Answer from Wyman

"There are cracks in the world, from the Outsider's birth. And we draw from these fractures. Can you feel them?" "She feeds on the cracks in the world, this hollow shell with my face."

- Delilah’s soul in the Heart

“Troubling signs of mischief have been reported recently in all corners of Dunwall! What was thought to be a series of pranks has proven much more widespread and unsettling. Despite the enlightened age in which we live, superstitious folk have begun to rumormonger of witchcraft!

There are reports of dogs shaved to the skin; small owls pinned to doors; lines of salt ominously left below windows; dried rats hung from archways; cats walking backwards who fail to mew; and pots of strange smelling ointments left underneath beds and writing desks!

That all these things might be occurring here in the capital, all at once, boggles this journalist's mind. What desperate times! If half of these are true, each odd occurrence seems a bad omen, a warning for terrible things to come!

And if as some say these antics are the work of Empress Delilah's devout followers, then what hope is there?”

- Citizens Report Troubling Events

"At death's door, I smell the corruption of the Void upon you."

- An Overseer

"Dry on a canvas of linen, made of hand-harvested flax, with the seeds winnowed under a blood moon!"

- A witch

"Those poor dead Overseers gave up their precious hounds, and I raised a pack of them! When the moon showed its proper face, I made ready."

- A witch

“Could we make a one of bones, I wonder, like the grave-hounds? Delilah could, with Breanna’s help. She was always oh so clever with the bones of things. We should make a man of bones to win her[Delilah] favor.”

- Witches about clockwork soldiers

"Bending the energies of the Void was tricky, but I've managed to corrupt runes of bone for my great painting. I've got all the ingredients ready in the Chapel. Dried kelp and algae from the moats. Flowers from the greenhouse, ground to dust and made into pigment. Human bones infused with the fluids of terror and regret! Mustering patience, I will continue painting until the final rune is ready to affix to the throne. My throne. But harmony must be maintained between the corrupt runes and their pure counterparts! Two corrupt, aligned with two of the purest. If this harmony is not observed, the magic of the painting could get twisted around and fail, or even turn against me.”

- Delilah on Rune Harmony

”When you do that, can you feel the Void inside you? Like falling forever.” (Blink/Far Reach)

“Begone, Void-touched thing.” (Mesmerize)

"Oh, that's delightful, all umber and halfway gone.” (Shadow Walk)

“The coven will light a candle in your skull."

"Draw blood and leave a bruise, catch a sneak and end this ruse."

- Delilah

#Dishonored #Dishonored 2 #A collection of witchcraft in the series

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