morningovertakes

[morningovertakes]

(22 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, "Footbridge")

User !!mOon()L0sTT posted to [Land.0f.L1v1ng] 9 months ago: Decaying footbridge in DY, USA, site of several disappearances within the past four years. Note the markings on the first plank— they should be familiar to anyone here. The police didn’t notice it. I checked the reports, and they don’t even seem to suspect ritual breakdowns. [Landlink from [Land inaccessible] 9 months ago: *** User b1ueskaidy wrote: im not saying this is where i died but im saying this is where i died lol End Landlink].

[morningovertakes]

(8 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, “Bunny”) 

I left my stuffed rabbit on the staircase when my family abandoned our home. This is all I remember of the last fire; being dragged out of my bed, holding on as tightly as I could to my little spaceship suitcase, looking back as my father carried me out of the house and seeing Bunbun abandoned on the third stair-step, leaning to one side. I hardly remember anything else before the last fire, either. My clearest memories start where natural air ends. When I was eight I went down to the memorial room, where water trickled all night and all day, stale and artificial, and dipped my hand into it. It was so cold it stung. My father had taken me there before, to say goodbye to my mother and her family; they hadn’t believed him, had chosen not to run even as the smoke grew thicker. I know I mourned for them, but I don’t know why. Bunbun is the only thing I have ever loved which I’ve been able to remember after the ash settled.

-- Jonathan A827B3, Forgotten Soil

[morningovertakes]

(7 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, “Dilapidated”)

User !!mOon()L0sTT posted to [Land.0f.L1v1ng] 7 months ago: Abandoned house in DY, USA. [View images.] I think the door carvings were made after the owners abandoned it, but the array on the dining room floor is definitely much older. Based on the array and the traces of berry juice I think this was for a mortal. Classic mistakes— there are seven, four of which are incredibly obvious. See if you can find them all. User __perSimMon&&# posted to [Land.0f.L1v1ng] 7 months ago: They inverted their stone glyph, O.M.G. Rookies! Did they die?  [Landlink from [Land inaccessible] seven months ago: *** User b1ueskaidy wrote: yeah the array was 4 me lmao. 3 years ago? ty 4 this, brings back memories End Landlink].

[morningovertakes]

(6 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, “Thirst”)

Dry as dust, dark as rust, Wanders softly where it will. Thick as smoke, strong as oak, Killed by ice or rotten swill. Deep as stone, sharp as bone, Taking all the strongest men. Sweet as blood, tough as mud, Soon to find you yet again.

- From the Adka Childrens’ Folklore Collection, available online through the ZWXL World Music Portal

[morningovertakes]

TAEK T. MILLER: Oh, no. He doesn’t look here. Not at us. He tastes your thoughts, but doesn’t look unless you get very, very close— and thank fuck for that, or Wrett and I would be dead sure as hell by now.  WRETT PREYTENN: [distant] I could win a staring contest, fuck off! TAEK: He really couldn’t. Don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot. -- from Blood Meadow Blues, available for free on the web through Marsden & Qian University's Audio Archive

Can the god(s) see you?

[morningovertakes]

(5 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, “School’s out”)

In the months after Riversend Smite’s public self-immolation, hysteria rose to a fever pitch, and handwritten flyers such as those pictured became common in most large American cities. Fig. 1: “School’s Out! Time to Face the Wrath of your Lord; She Who Wields The Flame Everlasting, She The Maker Of All Things, She Who Looks Without Mercy Or Warning.” Fig. 2: "Summer Reading List: 1. The Verses of the Last Dawn 2. A Complete Guide to Outdoor Survival 3. The Tale of Our Glorious Prophet Riversend 4. The Last Story 5. The Only Story 6. The End Of All Things 7. How To Continue In The Infinite Murk Beyond Death” Fig. 3: “June is the Month of Blood. June is the Month of Water. June is the Month Of Which You Shall Never See The End.” Fig. 4: “She will get You as She did RS”

--Excerpt from The End That Never Came, written by Max Star, published by Knotworks Press.

[morningovertakes]

Thaeker, Thaeker, chaos-maker, Light your candles, watch the breaker. Doun, Doun, wait for noon, Say your prayer, come home soon. Aali, Aali, melancholy,  Watch the wind and sing your folly.  Thaeker, Thaeker, marrow-raker, Meet our Father’s only taker.

 — Traditional, as sung by Isa Miller, age 5, on Blood Meadow Blues, available for free on the web through Marsden & Qian University's Audio Archive

[morningovertakes]

(4 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, “Mint green”)

The salesgirl laughed when I asked whether it would be unsafe for me to buy the dress. “It’s blue,” she said. “What’s wrong with a nice ice-blue? It’s in fashion.” I bought it, the bills creased from their time in my pocket, dampened by my sweating fingers. She told me to have a nice day. I think the name-tag on her black workers’ uniform was Citrine or Honey or Daffodil; a good name, a proper name, a name as gold as summer wheat. I would never have an opportunity to wear the dress, though I loved its swirling skirt from the moment I saw it; my mother, ever vigilant, seized the bag as I passed through the door, and scolded me severely for having purchased it. “No child of mine will wear a mint-green dress,” she said, and whisked it away. (I would find it, several years after she died, in a box in her closet, pictures of my great-grandmother packed safe within its folds).

— J. Yang, “Esmeralda.” Crooked Lovers.

[morningovertakes]

(3 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, "Strawberry moon")

LILY PAVLIVA: Aster, Theo, you really tried that? THEODORE HU: Listen. Listen. Real people have their metaphors and their jokes and their nicknames for certain full moons in June, I get this now, but, y'know... shit, I was young, and dumb. LILY: Mm. What did your parents say? THEODORE: Oh, they were furious. I nearly drowned. They hadn't taught me to swim, and I put my face in our garden pond and fell in trying to sneak a taste of the sky. LILY: Oh. THEODORE: Y'know. It's almost prophetic. Moon, stars, all the same. LILY: Mm. That's poetic, but also a lie.

-- Episode 14: "Fruit-picking season and simple divination." CRAFTING with Lily and Theo.

[morningovertakes]

(2 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, “Pigeon”)

User !!mOon()L0sTT posted to [Land.0f.L1v1ng] 3 days ago:

Six doves, dead on my porch this morning. [View image]. I think the rest of us are soon done for, in accordance with the prophecy; expect to see my name in [Land Inaccessible] within a few days. This after the seven stars I saw around the moon the previous night leaves me in no doubt as to the truth of the prophets’ words. Death is coming. She laughs in my ears. I’ll be learning her song three days hence, and then sitting down to wait. You should too.

User !!D3ad_or_/\l1ve posted to [Land.0f.L1v1ng] 3 days ago:

Those are rock pigeons.

User !!mOon()L0sTT posted to [Land.0f.L1v1ng] 3 days ago:

pigeons are a type of dove you ignorant piece of shit

[morningovertakes]

(1 June 2023, @nosebleedclub, "Early summer")

MACKEM MILLER: Why do you have to? TAEK T. MILLER: Kem, sweetheart, you know the wind's coming in. I'll be back as soon as it starts to cool down again. Don't worry. Be good, okay? Listen to Ma. MACKEM: It's not fair. Just because Da-- TAEK: Sometimes things aren't fair. I gotta leave now, okay? Wrett'll flip his-- he'll be upset if I'm late. MACKEM: Tell Wrett he's short and dumb. TAEK: He's taller than me! MACKEM: [laughing] You're short too! TAEK: Such disrespect, for your poor suffering big brother. And with all the things I do for you. Love you, Kem. Be safe.

-- from Blood Meadow Blues, available for free on the web through Marsden & Qian University's Audio Archive

[morningovertakes]

TAEK T. MILLER: Wrett's full of shit. I dunno why I keep agreeing to go on his fuckin' wild-goose chases after divinity through all these shithole swamps. Well. I do know. I dunno why I expect it ever to actually work. WRETT PREYTENN: [distantly] Taek! Over here, there's a bunch of fireflies, I think it's an omen or some shit, come on! TAEK T. MILLER: Fuckin' hell.

-- from Blood Meadow Blues, available for free on the web through Marsden & Qian University's Audio Archive

[morningovertakes]

And the fourth door was made of iron and its doorknob set with a single ruby, and on it were carved the following verses: Dare not ye enter and dare not ye leave For I am the gateway that nothing may cross. My walls are of air and my lock only dross But to break from your prison your heart would bereave. Any mortal thing such as you or I would be daunted, for we have all known prisons that need no walls or locks, but which work in secret ways through the twisting minds of ordinary folk. But the pigeon was wily and true to its goal, and waited til the door was opened only an inch, by a weeping lady with blood on her fingertips. It fluttered through the narrow passage, over her frightened head, and continued on its way.

-- Tales from the Wreckyard, "The Story of the Pigeon and the King's Bread". Edited by A. M. Kali.

[morningovertakes]

my cerulean day didn't end well. you held me but the wound kept bleeding. never to match the scar on your wrist. never to mean anything at all.

-- rickie despair, "failure", published in dead love poems

[morningovertakes]

it took the rest of my life to erase your true name from the inside of my mouth. i died with your courting gift still the first spell i knew.

-- rickie despair, "first girlfriend", published in dead love poems

[morningovertakes]

THEODORE HU: Yeah, must be weird not to come from the Craft. Nice, though. That you chose it. LILY PAVLIVA: It's not-- it's very isolating, to have to learn everything from scratch, without family secrets or, uh, family support. THEODORE: Yeah. Yeah, I get that. But-- y'know, uh, my mother gave me stars in water for my fifth birthday. Put them in my little china cereal bowl. I miss that bowl, sometimes. It had a little train on it, it would chug along the track and puff out painted smoke. My dad-- uh, it got broken. Anyway. Yeah, stars in water, in my little train bowl, and my mother said it was a special treat, like, for my birthday, and I ate them. LILY: Oh. THEODORE: I just ate them. Not knowing. I was five, you know? I didn't know any better. I didn't know I was making a choice. You know? I thought they would be sweet. I didn't know it would hurt. LILY: If it'd been-- if you'd known, mm, would you have chosen it? THEODORE, after a brief pause: I don't know.

-- Episode 13: "Origin stories?" CRAFTING with Lily and Theo.

[morningovertakes]

Katya downstairs thinks so. She swears her wife saw them last Wednesday in the courtyard, by the light of a single candle; the eyes sucked all the glow from the flame, though it still burned her hand when she tripped and fell running back into the house. Katya downstairs thinks the landlord is right, that a demon lives here. That it's feeding on our poor starving souls. I don't think so. My daughter watches with such attention that if the demon were real, she would have been the first to see it.

-- J. Yang, "Lightlessness". Sour Winds Blow West: Stories of Haunting and Heartache.

Are the rumors true?