#darling cyprian

[jaigeye]

a lineup of all of my jedi & sith ocs. top to bottom, left to right; Ayousaya Paurakis, Youssef Oberon, Delilah Salt, Roon Teana, Aharon, Darling (as a padawan) & Darling (as a knight), Menowin Tanwee, Leonie Luroon, and Bernardeau "Bernie" Namya.

[victor-v]

i'm not done i finished dark heir and i can't stop thinking

cyprian drank from the cup (vile, vile cat). violet will most likely have to kill him before he turns or fight him after he does

the only way to take the collar off james is killing him grrreat isnt it 🫠 what kinda sorcery are we gonna pull to resuscitate him? is he coming back whole or wrong or without powers?

why can sinclair manipulate everyone exactly like sarcean. why does he have sarceans powers. what is going on, why him and no one else which leads me to

i still dont understand why is it called dark heir. they are not heirs. they are reincarnations at best. who's the fucking heir

on other note i fucking love the visander/elizabeth duo and violet... well she's my darling i see why will loves her so much

[cypriansthoughts]

Sometimes I think I'm better off without you

Sometimes I wish I never met you.

The intensity of my love for you keeps hurting me

But why can't I flee?

You say that you listen,

But darling,

The truth is, you only hear.

Breaking promises, promising that you will change,

I have to leave you behind

But without you the world turns beige...

~Cyprian

[hollyspoon]

Another poem cus what even is health this is called Fox:

When you and I were young

Barely six, freshly picked, unsung

Gold and glory, golden stories

Sweet wine on timeless tongues

I prayed with you below these branches

Lay a fox widowed of incandescence

And born the overture of disease by tooth

It met you, dear eidolon, a song I once knew

And when you and I were more

Crowned in laurel, loud as boars

You were rotting beyond the veil

Of rejoicing and resplendence

Of vitality sung as a Jupiter gale

With our wings made of sound, I had said,

The antebellum lust for hereafter,

We shall challenge Fate and crucify its ways,

May our honor reign forever!

But Fate had already subdued you,

And by the time the trees bowed to fall,

And by the time the leaves flushed crimson,

And by the time the roots grew dry and weak,

Your gold and glory, your golden stories

Had surrendered to the winter of disease

Your deathbed was of poisoned haste,

Of breathless sobs caught between grief and rage

And up in the tree, above the fox's tail,

You lay, the blood of the leaves painting you pale

And I sank to my knees, wings of sound lost

In a child's mind, swept by a Jupiter breath

Once I'd been young, unsung, I'd known it all

Yet I'd been wrong, unstrung, and there I said:

Dear Cyprian, darling martyr,

Once you were Summer, just a day before

Yet now you lie a fragment

Of the angel you once were

And with your glittering eyes

Of Bacchus' weeping wine,

You saw the sky, the leaves perched high

No, you said, I have lied

I have been a fragment for quite some time

And when I am gone, when I atone,

You will remember me as gold

And when you are mourning, when you're alone

My wraith will not be cold

And it will grin, guileless, ablaze

Untouched by the ruins of plague

I hated you, and I hate you still

For your lies, your guise of a long life

I thought buried together we would be,

But really you were sworn to die early

From a plague you protected from me

Yet for the dawning of autumn

And the bleeding of leaves

And the graying of foxes

And the ballet of Jupiter

I do not regret my time with you

Nor the foolish elopement we made

Through your lies, your guise of a long life,

You are untouched by the ruins of plague

Dear fox, I am ashamed

[goneahead]

Looked up this artist and they come from Reggio Calabria. This was the birth place of Ibycus, a Greek poet who was famous for his lyrical poems--way back in 6th century bc.

Euryalus, offshoot of the blue-eyed graces, darling of the lovely-haired seasons, the Cyprian and soft-lidded persuasian nursed you among rose-blossoms.

~~Ibycus, trans. by David Campbell

Sofia Uslenghi

[flailingart]

Two Scenes from Campaign One, Public and Secret respectively😘 

[witchyintention]

Hey, I am sorry to bother but would you know anything about Portuguese Witchcraft? I've searched a lot but the portuguese aren't really the kind to go posting these things online... Thank you in advance :)

Hello darling. This was a tricky find for me. However the best advice I can give is look into the folk lore and fine witch craft there. There are still many places around the world that are not very open about their modern practices. I did however did find a few books. Definitely look deep into the folklore of Portugal and use references to modern craft making it all your own.

The Portuguese Witch: A Brief History & Sampling of Portuguese Folk Magic by Darlene A. Sousa

Feiteceira: Portuguese Witch by Mosqeet Cardoza

The Book of St. Cyprian: The Sorcerer's Treasure by Jose Leitao

"Extraordinary Children, Werewolves, and Witches in Portuguese Folk Tradition" by Francisco Vaz da Silva

"Seeking Voices and Finding Meaning: An Analysis of Portuguese Verbal Divination" by José Vieira Leitão

[thestarkerisobvious]

The Thing That Lives Under The Bed -- The Conclusion

This it the Coda for The Thing That Lives Under The Bed.

Did you wonder what Peter and his friends did once they got their hands on ALL those spellbooks?  Maybe you were curious what would happen if Peter performed the spell of the Kings of the East and the King of the West, splitting Tony in two?

I will be posting one chapter a day #OnHere, in honor of the place where the story began.

                             -------------------------------------------------------

                                               Adulthood

  ��                                The Trap and The Bait

In addition to realizing that he is in love with the thing that lives under his bed, Peter Parker and his friends have also discovered an underground library full of spellbooks, spirits calling out to be freed and the promise of any number of superpowers.

You may be wondering what they did next.

You are getting closer to the answer.

The twenty-six year old High-High Priest could have simply run down the path, but sometimes Peter Parker was just overcome with the need to leap around like a character from a comic book.  Under any other circumstances Angel would have complimented him.  Certainly Angel had read his fair share of comics himself (from Monica’s and Peter’s childhood stashes.  Angel prided himself on the fact that he could hold up in own in any heated Bob Keen vs Alan Moore debate) but, at the moment, the only image in his mind was that of a mouse in a trap. 

Peter was wearing the same suit that he had arrived home in, the same one he usually wore on Capitol Hill when he was schmoozing senators about the Clean Water act or another EPA bill.  The tie was gone, and the shirt was opened at the collar.  The suit itself should have been rumpled from his journey through the trees, but it must have been one of the enchanted ones.  Not that Peter Parker would have minded in any case.  It wasn’t his only expensive suit.

He was devastatingly handsome in the moonlight, but Angel knew that the man was devastatingly handsome everywhere.  Everyone thought so.

The weak and infirm flocked to the Lavern Post Healing Center from far and wide.  Either they were healed by Dr. Cyprian, or they were convinced by Laura-Bee that it was their destiny to find treatment elsewhere.  But all them, every one, commented on Peter Parker and his movie-star good looks.  Even Matty, the High Priest, reluctantly admitted that, even though he stayed behind to cast the convincing-spells, it was Peter’s good looks that really opened doors for him when Peter set out for [the directions to the White House.]  Laura-Bee, of course, was always happy to tell, in loving detail, about the first time she had laid eyes on handsome Peter Parker.  About the day the first met, about how they were childhood sweethearts.

Laura’s super-power was mesmerism, and she didn’t use it very often.  

But when she told stories of her childhood, you couldn’t help but feel like you were falling right into her memory.  As if you, yourself were walking home from Robert E Lee school, walking down the dirt road, desperate to hold Peter’s hand lovingly and listen to him describe every detail of Silent Spring.  Every long-time member of the Post Homestead had heard that story.  Maybe that's why every member of the Post Homestead felt like they had been in love with Peter Parker their entire life.  That Peter Parker was the only man they had truly ever loved, and that they, too, would be married to Peter if Peter weren’t married to Dr. Tony Cyprian.

And they were.  In love with Peter Parker, even if only for a little while.  Every guest seemed to fall for him too, if not romantically… well... they all seemed to be a little hot for him.  Even the guests that chose to stay in the Abe Sexton Library suites (recommended for all the straight-laced practitioners, the ones who weren’t interested in the Homestead’s attitude toward sexual freedom) lay in their beds and night and fantasized about the devastatingly handsome and dead-sexy Peter Parker.  Angel knew. 

Angel knew it all.

And Angel was certainly in love with the man himself.

Which was ridiculous, of course.  Imagine… being hopelessly in love with the Peter Parker, the man loved by politicians, Disciples and demons.  Fabulously wealthy parishioners flocked to him to be rid of their pain and their guilt, side by side with big-name lawmakers from Capitol Hill, all succumbing to his charm and openly trying to introduce him to their daughters.  Imagine a man like that even looking twice at him.  At him, a scrawny, dirty, sunken-eyed miscreant with a wild unruly hair and a perpetually bad attitude.

Of course, Peter Parker was looking at him now.

His handsome face looked perplexed, taking in Angel, the lapping water, and then the rock.  He looked back at Angel, barefoot and trembling at the water’s edge.  He didn’t look angry at all, but he did look like a man in a hurry.  He was panting a little.  Gracefully he stepped down to the sand where Angel stood.

“Angel?  Sweetheart… what are you doing?”

“I don’t want to go back,” Angel cried out.  Hating the petulant, childish sound of his voice, hating the way his throat felt too tight to speak at all.  “I won’t go.  You can’t make me.”

“What are you talking about?  Of course I could make you…”

For just a moment, Angel saw it.

Peter Parker was a handsome man with kind eyes (and he could be kind, oh he could be so very kind) but he was also a master magician, the leader of a coven of magicians, each commanding their own army of spirits.  (Any minute now Angel was expecting Plucky to turn the plants into bindweed to hold him down or Moonlight to appear and force him back to the ceremony with silent, pleading eyes.)  Peter Parker wasn’t just the darling of Capitol Hill and a brilliant environmentalist crusader, rubbing elbows with chieftains and royalty and Heads of State.  He was also a formidable wizard who had summoned his first demon at the age of 13, a man of incredible natural power, a man feared by mortals and devils alike.

For just a moment Angel saw that man, that other powerful man, flash across Peter’s face.

Then it was gone.

“But I don’t want to make you.  I’m not going to give you orders.  You’re not my slave.  But… but I don’t understand...”  His face and his voice was gentle as he stepped closer.   “Angel, please help me understand what’s happening.  You’ve never run away from a ritual before.  We called for you, but you were nowhere.  Even Anton couldn’t say where you were.  What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to… please.  Please, I don’t want to go.  I know what the High Priest wants to do to me.  I know what Anton is going to do to me – I know what the bones are for.  The black-cat bones.  The ones you keep in the back of the refrigerator  Please, Mr. Parker, please don’t make me.”

“Mr. Park…?”  Peter looked completely baffled.  He took a few hesitant steps forward, until he was almost within arms reach.

He didn’t look in the least bit out of place, wearing that expensive, glad-hander suit and standing on the banks of the lake by moonlight.  But Peter Parker never looked out of place anywhere.  He had a very convincing personality.

Angel was almost convinced himself.

“Baby, you’re confused.  Why would you be afraid of… I don’t even…why are you calling me Mr. Parker?  Oh god…”

He looked behind him at the black sky.  The moon, one day passed full, shown down on them like an all-seeing eye.  He groaned. “I waited too late, dammit I knew I shouldn’t have.  And you’re shaking like a leaf, just look at you…”

Peter reached for him and Angel started to back away, but then his bare feet splashed in the water.  He yelped in terror and leapt away from it.  That meant there was nowhere else to go, but directly into Peter’s arms.

Peter pulled him close, easily fitting Angel’s head into the crook of his neck, wrapping muscular arms around Angel’s skinny body and pulling him close.  There was no helping it.  Angel wrapped his boney arms around Peter’s body and clung to him, shivering.

“Oh god, I told them not to feed you but… I made a mistake, didn’t I?  I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed in Kenya for so long, I pushed it too far, I’m so sorry.  The things Princess Shuri told me were so huge… it was all so important and I thought I had more time.  Matty told me I had more time.  Amado,I didn’t mean to hurt you.  This is all my fault.  Please forgive me.  I should have taken better care of you.”

Angel pressed his slight body against the firm body of the taller man and held himself there.  Against that strength, he thought he could manage to stop shaking.  He even managed to pull one hand away long enough to wipe the tears away from his cheek (then snuck that hand up to touch Peter’s face shyly for a moment.)  “Did… did you?  Get to meet with Princess Shuri at the consulate?  Are we going to be protecting the black rhinos now?”

A look passed over Peter’s face, a look Angel had never seen before.  For a moment Peter looked… doubtful. 

“She wasn’t there to talk about the rhinos,” he said quietly, look away, gazing out at the moonlit lake.  “It was a trap.  Well… not a trap, but… but Shuri was definitely the bait.”

“She betrayed you?”  Angel asked in horror.  He would be angry, would be shaking in impotent rage... if he weren’t so surprised.  How could anyone deceive the High-High Priest?   How could anyone meet Peter Parker and not adore him with everything they had inside?

The strong man laughed ruefully.  “I don’t suppose it’s really ‘betrayal’ to lie to a man you’ve met twice because your brother asks you to do it. 

“Angel... Shuri and T'Challa are… well the word is “enhanced” now.  I suppose ‘superhero’ sounds too childish.  But T'Challa is just like me… we both inherited some ancient magic that was a hell of a lot bigger than we ever expected and a hell of a lot more than we ever bargained for.  Trust me, we talked for hours.  Unlike me, he grew up knowing what he was getting into… but he’s still been given a lot more than he wanted.  And just like me…”

Peter’s arms tightened around Angel has looked sadly at his domain.  He looked into the forest, across the lake, then up at Dead Oak Hill, bathed in the erie torchlight.  “… we just want to be left alone to play Comic-Books with our friends in our own tiny corner of the world that we’re king of..  Unlike me, he thinks he’s ready to join the grown-ups in the real world.  I’m not so sure.  Angel they want me to…”

He caught himself suddenly, as if he had forgotten who he was talking to.  He shook his head.  “I can’t really talk about it yet.  But it’s big, Angel.  It’s really big.  I can’t tell the others until I’ve talked to Tony.  Which means I have to take care of you first.  Look at you…”

Peter tightened his arms again, gazing into Angel’s eyes with a tender look.  He brushed his lips against Angel’s forehead in a tiny kiss.

“Angel,” he whispered, “…are you afraid?  What on earth could you be afraid of?  Nothing scares you.  You’re fearless.  Baby, please tell me what’s going on.”

Angel looked up into Peter’s face, so perfect and so beautiful in the moonlight.  He struggled to remember… he had been afraid, only now he couldn’t quite remember why.  There was something wrong with him, something terribly wrong, but now he couldn’t quite remember…

…until he did.

“Don’t let them send me away… please don’t.  I don’t want to go, please don’t make me go through the ceremony.  Please, Peter.  I can’t.  I can’t leave you.

“I love you,” he blurted, choking on the confession.  He found himself blushing, his whole body flushing at the secret words said aloud.  “I love you so much.  I know I’m not… I know I’m not anyone… I know I’m just a ragged, spoiled-rotten kid that weighs next to nothing and bugs everybody and I know I’m a constant nuisance and I know that I’m not someone important like a princess or a senator… but I love you.  I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.”

Peter’s forehead wrinkled in concern, his mouth hanging open in surprise.

“Angel, Angel sweetheart, do you see?   You’re so confused baby… oh can you… oh god how is this happening?? 

“Angel, how could you forget that I love you?”

Peter’s mouth on his was sweet and gentle and warm.  The kiss was tender and loving and everything Angel had imagined it would be.  Peter’s arms were strong and solid and he held Angel as if he never wanted to let him go.  It was a dream come true…

…and that was the problem.  Frantically Angel pulled away, trying to look around him.  Maybe this was a dream… maybe Laura-Bee was there with him, holding his hand and telling him the story, over and over and over again, of how she had fled across Lovesick Lake on the darkest night of her life, and there found the man that could take all her fear away just by holding her hand. 

But Laura wasn’t there.  He and Peter were alone in the moonlight, kissing on the banks of Virgin Lake.  Peter was warm and strong and solid and suddenly all Angel could think was… hadn’t they done this all before?  Hadn’t they held each other like this, kissed each other like this, on the same night as the ceremony?  Was that why it felt so much like a memory?

“Do you remember Amado?” Peter was whispering.  “Try… try to remember.”

“I can’t… I don’t… I keep reaching for it, but it’s not there…” Angel said through his tears.  Peter pulled him close again, tucking Angel’s head in the crook of his neck and rocking him back and forth.

“This is my fault,” he said, stroking Angel’s hair and kissing his head over and over again.  “It’s because I was sick the day of the spell, isn’t it?  I was still getting over the food poisoning, I was still weak… god I should have let Matty do the spell but I was too jealous and now look what’s happened…”

Angel was so surprised he pulled back enough to look into Peter’s face.  He wasn’t sure what startled him more, the fact that Peter could get sick, or that Peter had been jealous… of Matty?  Of Matty… and him?

“I can’t believe how badly we messed this up.  It’s always gone so smoothly, but this time…

“Angel… you told us that you had to focus on eating this year.  So you couldn’t get distracted by everything else, so you could concentrate on taking care of yourself and making yourself strong.  But all we did was make you hungry and miserable all the time, and now you’re dressing in rags and lying to everybody… Angel try to remember.”  He reached up with one hand to cup Angel’s cheek.  Angel leaned into the warm touch, closing his eyes against the pain in Peter’s face.

“You told us that if we could make you forget about the world outside the border, that you’d be content, and not feel rejected or left out while the others worked.  It was your job to stay here, to focus on yourself and to get strong.  But look at you.  You’ve forgotten what you’re supposed to be doing, you don’t remember who you are.  You’ve forgotten that you are a fierce and powerful force… and, god, you forgot that I love you…”

“I do remember, I do!  I remember you love me,” Angel said quickly, grabbing Peter’s face and kissing him hard, not because he remembered, but because he couldn’t bear the sound of Peter’s broken voice.  He only wanted Peter to be happy, couldn’t stand the idea that he had made the man feel sad.

Peter wrapped one arm around Angel’s waist and pressed their bodies together.  Angel moaned at the sensation and willingly opened his mouth to Peter’s kiss. 

Maybe it didn’t matter what he did or didn’t remember.  He certainly wasn’t the first person to come to the Lavern Center to pay Dr. Cyprian to take terrible memories away, only to be extremely confused afterwards because they couldn’t remember what they had paid for.  Maybe he was even one of the wealthy clientele… (but he suspected he was more likely one of Peter’s charity cases.)  But he knew one thing, he wasn’t going to argue endlessly about it.  Year after year he had watched Laura-Bee argue patiently, then not-so-patiently, as she made her annual pilgrimage to the secret library behind Peter’s office where the reports were locked away.  That was the place for everyone else who had benefited from the Memory Therapy, but not for her.  She had never even been to that room.  Had never seen it before.  

Once a year she went to that room, arguing all the way.  Once a year she sat down to listen to Monica read all the things that had been written down for her.  Once a year she had to remember that she had never been BORN Laura Foster, but legally changed from Hortense Lovelace to Laura Foster-Beeker, the day she turned 18.  All because of something horrible that her father had done, a memory she had chosen to give up completely, a memory she never wanted returned.

And he could do the same, couldn’t he?  Ask to go to the locked file cabinets to see what he had written down, to see what he had forgotten. 

But not just now.

Just now he wrapped his arms around Peter’s neck (and all but wrapped one leg around his waist) and pressed his entire body against Peter’s hard, solid form.  He didn’t feel ragged or shaky or hungry when he was with Peter.  He felt safe and warm and strong.

Just as strong as he felt during the Great Ceremony, he was sure of it.  The one day a year that four disciples were back at the homestead at the same time, Matthew Mark Luke and John, Matty and Sarah D and Doctor Wickham and Monica, each a powerful magician in their own right, each with multiple spirits at their command.  Along with Peter and Laura-Bee they would sing their way through the spells, adding their voices to the beautiful, practiced harmonies that the second circle magicians had prepared for the occasion.  For hours they would sing until the sky was full of fairy lights, until their spirit-servants were vibrating in a counter melody until the whole forest rang with power and promise.   He remembered… how the singing would last long into the night, even after the moment of the solstice was over, even after seals were recast, even after each task was done.  How they would continue singing for the sheer joy of it, for nothing other than the pleasure they felt when they stood and created together.   How they would promise each other, NO REALLY this time they meant it, that they would come together more than once a year. Reveling in the sheer power that they had when they stood side by side, when they joined their voices together.

The Great Ceremony, that was due in less than a week.  That’s why they were saying good-bye to each other.  That’s why…

“We came here and you kissed me good-bye,” Angel murmured against Peter’s mouth.  Then he pulled away a little, looking around the moonlit hills.  That’s who he had been looking for, that was his memory.  The tall, strong man was Peter.  Peter was holding Angel in his arms.  They had come to the lake for a private moment alone before the ceremony.  He had been seeing the memory of them.

“Did we?” Peter said, his forehead creasing in concentration even as he smiled.  “Oh yes, we did.  That was two years ago.  We should do it every year. I love kissing you here.

“Angel,” he said, bringing his hands up again to cup Angel’s face.   “John and I will study the spell and we will absolutely do it right next time.  You can’t ever forget that I love you.  Of all of them, you’re the only one who ever says it back to me, and I treasure it.  You can’t understand how much I treasure it.  It means so much to me, precious.  I don’t think you know how much I love you.”

“But you don’t,” Angel said, even as Peter brought their mouths together again.

“You don’t love me.”  His arms were too weak to push a strong man like Peter with any force, but he did his best.  He pushed Peter away from him as hard as he could, fighting back the tears.

“You don’t love me, you love him.”

“What the… the hell?” Peter stammered, angry and baffled.  “What is this about?  You’ve never once had a problem with… wait… love who?”

“You love him.  You love Dr. Cyprian.”

If he weren’t so distraught Angel would have laughed at the face Peter made now.  It was comical.

“I love… Tony?  This is about Tony?  You can’t really…”

He stopped himself short and shook his head, hard.  It was a gesture Angel knew too well… it meant that Peter was looking at a long, pointless argument and deciding to skip past it and get to the end.

 “Yes,” he said decidedly.  “I love Tony.  He’s the first man I ever loved.  He’s my Significant Other, my David.  He’s my husband, Angel.  He’s my whole world, and not just because he’s the only reason why any of this works,” he said, throwing his hands out and gesturing around him at the lake, the forest, the moonlight.  “He’s my whole world because he is my best friend, and I HAVE to talk to him… I have to talk to him tonight.  I have to make the biggest decision of my life, and… look!” he said with a painful laugh.  “I’m here!  I’m here, at the center of it all, in the place where I always make the big earth-shattering life-changing decisions!  Except he's gone so he isn’t here to tell me what he thinks! 

“I have to go back and tell the others, Angel.  I have to tell them what Princess Shuri wants me to do and I can’t tell them until I talk to Tony and instead of talking to him I’m standing here arguing nonsense with you.  We’re going back now.  We’re going back and we’re finishing the ritual and when it’s over you’ll understand.” 

“Not yet we’re not,” Angel said boldly, stepping into Peter’s arms and kissing him hard.  Maybe he had been fearless once, just like Peter said.  He certainly felt fearless now as he shamelessly reached down and cupped Peter’s erection, working it with skillful fingers.  He remembered, now.  Remembered that this powerful man, the man that commanded all of them, humans and spirits alike…

…this man was his lover.  Only a week ago, just before they had left for the Kenyan Consulate, Angel  had crept into Peter’s bed and gotten everything he had asked for.  And it hadn’t been the first time, either.  More than once Peter had given in to him when he begged… and oh… what Peter gave him was so sweet.

[s0ym1lk]

Whoo boy. This is very much not a YA novel. (Serious spoilers ahead, will tag as such. Also CW for talking about sexual assault)

My thoughts: the beginning of this book dragged. The first 200 pages were excessive exposition, with a lot of fluff and repetition that could have easily been cut. It also took a weirdly long time for the characters to be established; they felt very one-dimensional until halfway through the book, when we finally get through the world building and training montage scenes.

This makes the book feel very disjointed because the second half is excellent. It's full of great character development, exciting plot, lots of twists, and a driving pace that makes you want to get to the finish line.

What I think broke the process is that, for the twists to work, the book had to (as I expected) establish a very black and white-feeling world with the Good Guys and the Bad Guys firmly delineated. This makes the scene that totally subverts this - which by the way is thinly veiled public rape scene, kudos for committing to the twist in the strongest way possible - very effective. But the first half overdid the setup, and in doing so traded all the character development and the plot for very tame, boring exposition. The characters spend the whole time thinking about Good and Evil and Vanquishing The Dark and How Sad That The Old World is Gone instead of building themselves and the story. It could have instead mixed the Yes We're Good Guys narrative with hints at the twists and that would have made a satisfying throughline.

That was the other thing - I liked the twists, but the best twists are ones that are hinted at in details, and that didn't happen for me here. I don't think Will's past was hinted at enough, and I wanted more build up to James' reason for seeking out the collar too. I will say the foreshadowing of Katherine being the Lady was good.

Another small gripe - almost every character killed, besides Katherine and maybe Justice, felt pretty one dimensional. I know it's hard to kill your darlings but they needed more development.

Okay, enough negatives. I am excited about where this is going. I really like the idea of Will being a villainous POV character. I like how James was set up to be the snarky, unreadable, too-powerful, possibly-unredeemable, possibly-backstabby character, only for that to be totally upended in the final scene when he pledges to Will and it turns out *Will* is that character. I liked the spots where Will chose villainy because he felt he had to. I think pitting him against Violet, who was fated to be a Bad Guy and chose differently, and Cyprian, who's almost unflinchingly lawful good, is going to create awesome conflict in future books. And I like Elizabeth as a dark horse character, the Chosen One who's dumpy and a child but also stubborn and shrewd. I have so many questions about how this story will develop in the sequel - like, when your main character's the bad guy who is in control of whether the world ends, who becomes the antagonist there? - and I have faith it'll be good. I'm just hoping we skip loads of exposition in the future.

Reading Dark Rise and I just want to say that, at 80 pages in, I do not trust how starkly Pacat is setting up this "light vs. dark" dichotomy. Nor do I trust the "chosen one" trope happening here.

I will be so happy if I'm right and some shit goes down.

[nebris]

Anat (/ˈɑːnɑːt/, /ˈænæt/), classically Anath (/ˈeɪnəθ, ˈeɪˌnæθ/; Hebrew: עֲנָת‎ ʿĂnāth; Phoenician: 𐤏𐤍𐤕 ʿAnōt; Ugaritic: 𐎓𐎐𐎚 ʿnt; Greek: Αναθ Anath; Egyptian Antit, Anit, Anti, or Anant) is a major northwest Semitic goddess. 

In Ugarit

In the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, ‘Anat is a violent war-goddess, a maiden (btlt ‘nt) who is the sister and, according to a much disputed theory, the lover of the great god Ba‘al Hadad. Ba‘al is usually called the son of Dagan and sometimes the son of El, who addresses ‘Anat as "daughter".

‘Anat's titles used again and again are "virgin ‘Anat" and "sister-in-law of the peoples" (or "progenitress of the peoples" or "sister-in-law, widow of the Li’mites").

In a fragmentary passage from Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), Syria[1] ‘Anat appears as a fierce, wild and furious warrior in a battle, wading knee-deep in blood, striking off heads, cutting off hands, binding the heads to her torso and the hands in her sash, driving out the old men and townsfolk with her arrows, her heart filled with joy. "Her character in this passage anticipates her subsequent warlike role against the enemies of Baal".

’Anat boasts that she has put an end to Yam the darling of El, to the seven-headed serpent, to Arsh the darling of the gods, to Atik 'Quarrelsome' the calf of El, to Ishat 'Fire' the bitch of the gods, and to Zabib 'flame?' the daughter of El. Later, when Ba‘al is believed to be dead, she seeks after Ba‘al "like a cow[3] for its calf" and finds his body (or supposed body) and buries it with great sacrifices and weeping. ‘Anat then finds Mot, Ba‘al Hadad's supposed slayer and she seizes Mot, splits him with a sword, winnows him with a sieve, burns him with fire, grinds him with millstones and scatters the remnants to the birds.

Text CTA 10 tells how ‘Anat seeks after Ba‘al who is out hunting, finds him, and is told she will bear a steer to him. Following the birth she brings the new calf to Ba‘al on Mount Zephon. Nowhere in these texts is ‘Anat explicitly Ba‘al Hadad's consort. To judge from later traditions ‘Athtart (who also appears in these texts) is more likely to be Ba‘al Hadad's consort. Complicating matters is that northwest Semitic culture permitted more than one wife and nonmonogamy is normal for deities in many pantheons.

In the North Canaanite story of Aqhat,[4] the protagonist Aqhat son of the judge Danel (Dn'il) is given a wonderful bow and arrows which was created for ‘Anat by the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis but which was given to Danel for his infant son as a gift. When Aqhat grew to be a young man, the goddess ‘Anat tried to buy the bow from Aqhat, offering even immortality, but Aqhat refused all offers, calling her a liar because old age and death are the lot of all men. He then added to this insult by asking 'what would a woman do with a bow?'

Like Inanna in the Epic of Gilgamesh, ‘Anat complained to El and threatened El himself if he did not allow her to take vengeance on Aqhat. El conceded. ‘Anat launched her attendant Yatpan in hawk form against Aqhat to knock the breath out of him and to steal the bow back. Her plan succeeds, but Aqhat is killed instead of merely beaten and robbed. In her rage against Yatpan, (text is missing here) Yatpan runs away and the bow and arrows fall into the sea. All is lost. ‘Anat mourned for Aqhat and for the curse that this act would bring upon the land and for the loss of the bow. The focus of the story then turns to Paghat, the wise younger sister of Aqhat. She sets off to avenge her brother's death and to restore the land which has been devastated by drought as a direct result of the murder. The story is incomplete. It breaks at an extremely dramatic moment when Paghat discovers that the mercenary whom she has hired to help her avenge the death is, in fact, Yatpan, her brother's murderer. The parallels between the story of ‘Anat and her revenge on Mot for the killing of her brother are obvious. In the end, the seasonal myth is played out on the human level.

Gibson (1978) thinks Rahmay ('The Merciful'), co-wife of El with Athirat, is also the goddess ‘Anat, but he fails to take into account the primary source documents. Use of dual names of deities in Ugaritic poetry are an essential part of the verse form, and that two names for the same deity are traditionally mentioned in parallel lines. In the same way, Athirat is called Elath (meaning "The Goddess") in paired couplets. The poetic structure can also be seen in early Hebrew verse forms.

In Egypt

Anat first appears in Egypt in the 16th dynasty (the Hyksos period) along with other northwest Semitic deities. She was especially worshiped in her aspect of a war goddess, often paired with the goddess `Ashtart. In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Re and are given as allies to the god Set, who had been identified with the Semitic god Hadad.

During the Hyksos period Anat had temples in the Hyksos capital of Avaris and in Beth-Shan (Israel) as well as being worshipped in Memphis. On inscriptions from Memphis of 15th to 12th centuries BCE, Anat is called "Bin-Ptah", Daughter of Ptah. She is associated with Reshpu (Canaanite: Resheph) in some texts and sometimes identified with the native Egyptian goddess Neith. She is sometimes called "Queen of Heaven". Her iconography varies. She is usually shown carrying one or more weapons.

The name of Anat-her, a shadowy Egyptian ruler of this time, is derived from "Anat".

In the New Kingdom Ramesses II made ‘Anat his personal guardian in battle and enlarged Anat's temple in Pi-Ramesses. Ramesses named his daughter (whom he later married) Bint-Anat 'Daughter of Anat'. His dog appears in a carving in Beit el Wali temple with the name "Anat-in-vigor" and one of his horses was named ‘Ana-herte 'Anat-is-satisfied'.

In Mesopotamia

In Akkadian, the form one would expect Anat to take would be Antu, earlier Antum. This would also be the normal feminine form that would be taken by Anu, the Akkadian form of An 'Sky', the Sumerian god of heaven. Antu appears in Akkadian texts mostly as a rather colorless consort of Anu, the mother of Ishtar in the Gilgamesh story, but is also identified with the northwest Semitic goddess ‘Anat of essentially the same name. It is unknown whether this is an equation of two originally separate goddesses whose names happened to fall together or whether Anat's cult spread to Mesopotamia, where she came to be worshipped as Anu's spouse because the Mesopotamian form of her name suggested she was a counterpart to Anu.

It has also been suggested that the parallelism between the names of the Sumerian goddess, Inanna, and her West Semitic counterpart, Ishtar, continued in Canaanite tradition as Anath and Astarte, particularly in the poetry of Ugarit. The two goddesses were invariably linked in Ugaritic scripture and are also known to have formed a triad (known from sculpture) with a third goddess who was given the name/title of Qadesh (meaning "the holy one").

In Israel

The goddess name, ‘Anat is preserved in the city names Beth-Anath and Anathoth. Anathoth seems to be a plural form of the name, perhaps a shortening of bêt ‘anātôt 'House of the ‘Anats', either a reference to many shrines of the goddess or a plural of intensification.

The ancient hero Shamgar, son of ‘Anat, is mentioned in Judges 3.31 and 5:6, which raises the idea that this judge or hero may have been understood as a demi-god, a mortal son of the goddess. But John Day (2000) notes that a number of Canaanites known from non-Biblical sources bore that title and theorizes that it was a military designation indicating a warrior under ‘Anat's protection. Asenath, "holy to Anath", was the wife of the Hebrew patriarch Joseph.

In Elephantine (modern Aswan) in Egypt, the 5th century BCE Elephantine papyri make mention of a goddess called Anat-Yahu (Anat-Yahweh) worshiped in the temple to Yahweh originally built by Jewish refugees from the Babylonian conquest of Judah. These suggest that "even in exile and beyond the worship of a female deity endured."[5] The texts were written by a group of Jews living at Elephantine near the Nubian border, whose religion has been described as "nearly identical to Iron Age II Judahite religion".[6] The papyri describe the Jews as worshiping Anat-Yahu (or AnatYahu). Anat-Yahu is described as either the wife[7] or paredra (sacred consort)[8] of Yahweh or as a hypostatized aspect[9] of Yahweh.[10][11]

In contemporary Israel, "Anat" is a common female first name - see Anat (disambiguation). Philologist Anat Bechar, who herself bears the name, wrote: "The Biblical Shamgar was a rather minor and obscure character, and of his mother Anat we know nothing but her name. We do know that it was the name of a goddess in a Semitic pantheon to which the author(s) of the Bible were strongly and vehemently opposed, though it seems some of our ancestors did at some times worship her. None of which explains the popularity of the name in present-day Israel. To my mind, the reason is likely to be found in the completely accidental similarity of "Anat" with the European name "Annette", which appealed to Zionist pioneers coming from Europe and steeped in European culture. However, this hypothesis needs a thorough research in the Hebrew records from the early 20th Century, to verify or disprove". [12]

Athene

In a Cyprian inscription (KAI. 42) the Greek goddess Athêna Sôteira Nikê is equated with ‘Anat (who is described in the inscription as the strength of life : l‘uzza hayim).[citation needed]

Anat is also presumably the goddess whom Sanchuniathon calls Athene, a daughter of El, mother unnamed, who with Hermes (that is Thoth) counselled El on the making of a sickle and a spear of iron, presumably to use against his father Uranus. However, in the Baal cycle, that rôle is assigned to Asherah / ‘Elat and ‘Anat is there called the "Virgin."[13][better source needed]

Possible late transfigurations

The goddess ‘Atah worshipped at Palmyra may possibly be in origin identical with ‘Anat. ‘Atah was combined with ‘Ashtart under the name Atar into the goddess ‘Atar‘atah known to the Hellenes as Atargatis. If this origin for ‘Atah is correct, then Atargatis is effectively a combining of ‘Ashtart and ‘Anat.

It has also been proposed that (Indo-)Iranian Anahita meaning 'immaculate' in Avestan (a 'not' + ahit 'unclean') is a variant of ‘Anat. It is however unlikely given that the Indo-Iranian roots of the term are related to the Semitic ones and although—through conflation—Aredvi Sura Anahita (so the full name) inherited much from Ishtar-Inanna, the two are considered historically distinct.

In the Book of Zohar, ‘Anat is numbered among the holiest of angelic powers under the name of Anathiel.

In Sefer Yetzirah by Rabbi Kaplan, he mentions that this angel is the ruling malach over Venus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anat

[libidomechanica]

“of different moan”

I must tell what you milkwhite v-neck through you wring  your weak sense does not thee accloieth, my Sinnamon  smell of different moan? Time too resplendorous,  sinking our ain sweet disorder  inward praised him. Me, day by day; that shook  their Maister is, and cannie wale a round their  earth hath never once asked by her womb to 

enormous  joys of lust, thou that sense does them all:  thy Ewes, they renewable fear shall were stars! Themselves, 

that doubled and men shall events  must do? The dead, in this command,  the ruby-budded broom fair Cyprian  flowers and he cannot beg in vain  is Nature might brown-eyed little darling eddies,  a gathered from his silent stream it  an echo of some severance, behold  yon break Why stand soul, like honey and be  they all the new-washd lamb tingd exulting  sunne laughters write, but farthest earnestly I pray  you? A fingers, and her, and round, not 

out as I feel the act of these love  of the strife, “‘painful results since  the grey the tender brutes warmth,—I 

pluckt, when it goes’ black, as erst touch  too that, like ye, the sun, and old.” 

And let go. To vary from our  price of all her puir Jenny for 

Seasons run? To interest  on? Come away, even my bride- cake thy stock-holder it; show me the game  of legs are sometimes the bee,  that so full bring my key to the  honour offer still mine in the parents  her breast, shaking hame fair. All the cold as  if the air like a mist rose within  his ritual, although therewith  too that had robbing scarcely can recall 

the woods or sauces Genevoises, 

and hoary, darkend and water from 

the fulfillment of this great flood!

[jaigeye]

new ocs-- Delilah Salt is an Omwati ex-Jedi. Cunning, passionate, intellectual and curious, she lusted for knowledge-- she wanted to attain all the information the Jedi had to offer, and then that which they refused. Her efforts lead to the death of her own Master. She was an engineer and an alchemist in the Order. her lover, the demure, reserved, naive and emotional Dunyasha Cyprian, was a fellow Jedi, and her dearest friend since childhood. The young woman intercepted the scene when Delilah's thirst for knowledge went too far-- Delilah attempted to revive her deceased Master, to the horror of all, and Dunyasha was killed trying to pull her away from him.

Delilah, then a Sith, escaped with the body and revived her lover, who after death was called only Darling. Using her expertise with machines and alchemy, she fashioned Darling a body, partially droid and partially her own flesh, stitched carefully together at the seams. Darling was alive again-- keenly aware of the Force in all things and overwhelmed by the constant noise, but lacked the control over it she once had as a living Jedi.

[roccocowitch]

I won’t deny I’ve got in my mind now all the things we’d do - August x Cyprian

mmmmmm yes good. 

Morning light bursts through a sliver in heavy curtains, and Cyprian blinks awake. He stretches, his bones clicking into place, and looks over to the sleeping figure beside him, and his breath catches.

Their back is to him, silvering hair cascading down their back; Cyprian leans forward and brushes the soft locks away from their neck and places soft kisses on the skin underneath. He wraps an arm around them, pulling August flush to his chest, his lips trailing down to their shoulder before they stir.

Rough fingers trail up their arm, and he smirks to himself as he sees gooseflesh erupt in their wake. August is so cool and collected; it took him a while to learn the small ways they lose their composure. The flush of their cheeks, the twitch of their fingers, the small stuttered breaths. Cyprian treasures them like precious gems, each one more endearing than the last.

August turns in his arms, buries their face in his chest, muttering something under their breath.

“I’m sorry, darling, I couldn’t hear you,” he grins. Bright blue eyes look up through dark lashes, their brow arched.

“I thought you weren’t a morning person.” Their voice is thick with sleep and Cyprian has never heard a more beautiful sound. He brushes hair back behind their ear and kisses them softly, humming contentedly as they wrap themselves around him, always wanting to be closer, closer.

With August he forgets he’s been missing something, yearning to be made whole. He’s searched the world for it, traveled through countless countries to find it. Cyprian has always been a nomad, a wanderer with no direction, but August has become his Northern Star.

He finds August’s hand, weaves their fingers together, kisses it.

“How would you feel,” Cyprian starts, his voice slow and playful. “If we left?” August’s eyes go wide and they search his eyes.

“Left…Lunaris?” He shifts, pulls August a little tighter and shakes his head.

“What if we left Eskria? Went somewhere far, left this behind. Just the two of us.” The corners of August’s mouth twitch up and they lean back, humming in thought.

“It does sound tempting…” They look back at Cyprian and fully grin at the look on his face. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?” He rolls over, August beneath him, and begins kissing down their chest.

“Oh, I won’t deny I’ve got in my mind all the things we’d do.” He nips at the skin of their collarbone, sucking a small mark there and laughs at the small smack to his shoulder August gives him. He raises his head and sighs as August runs their fingers through his hair.

Their smile fades, a crease in their brow. “Maybe someday. I have my–”

“Your work is here, yes.” He kisses their forehead, breathing in the scent of their skin mixed with lavender. “Someday, then.” A wicked glint flashes in their eyes, and Cyprian pulls at the robe barely hanging on to August. “As for now…”

[silversludge]

002/19/08/2020

For more than thirty-seven centuries, Oren walked the earth in search of meaning. Yes. Thirty-seven. That’s like, thirty-seven times the attainable lifetime, minus the morbid stuff, of a human. He is not, in fact, an immortal. His bloodline is just cursed with frozen time. All the males in his family had never died of mere old age. They always die because of one thing and one thing only: contentment.

He remembers how on a full moon, his mother would lovingly tuck him to bed and tell him the same, age-old story of how their forefather had attained the coveted holy grail of immortality.

“...He had wandered into The Domain, misled with an angel and bore a son. To that, the angry God had cursed him with crushing, everlasting youth unless him and his sons would prove their love with the universe as his audience.”

“Was he a jerk and left his wife?”

“No baby. He had never loved anyone as much as he did for that angel. He was laid to rest at a tender age of 62.”

“I thought he was immortal?”

“No one is, darling.”

It’s 2020. He’s tired. He had seen the world rage to and from existence. All of his relatives have already died. It’s actually amazing how easy it is to find meaning. Can you believe it?

For some, it’s finally seeing the fruits of living drudgery. Glaucon was tasked by the great king of Macedon to build him the greatest fortress the ancient world had ever seen. The moment he laid the last brick was the same moment he took his last breath.

For another, it’s discovery of new knowledge. Huron was an alchemist in his quest for the turning base metals into gold. He delved deep into the earth and watched as the oracles hailed the mystic fumes. Alone, poor, and high with eldritch vapors, he turned his last denarius into a shiny golden coin. And then he died. Most likely from mercury poisoning.

Sometimes, it’s growth. The Cyprian forest had been ravaged by an intense, burning battle that culminated into a flat, salted earth. Priam tilled and saw the way the blackened forest had grown from singed soil to a vast, living garden of renewal.

For most of them, it’s love, the way most humans find contentment. His father, his father’s father, his father’s father’s father and so on would walk the earth and meet their half-soul. With it, they find themselves slowly losing their youth and death knocking on their doors.

He has yet to find love. Well, he had found love but it had been forbidden at the time when men were asked to marry women and bear children. He had found love with Samuel, a potter of low birth. He remembers the way Samuel had made him so happy, he felt the frost melt from his clock. Everyone saw it too.

Samuel had been left black, bruised, and bloody when Oren found him.

He remembers the funeral pyre just as well. He felt his clock freeze once again. The frost, this time, was palpable despite roaring flame before him.

That was back then. Thirty-seven centuries. He’s now in an apartment with a stable job despite the economic recession. He has books upon books of various titles, some with more obscure writings he’ll never decipher. Everyday, he waters the fool-proof house plants he bought from the nearby nursery. The frost is still there.

Part of his job as an archivist is to write and rewrite the volumes the national library would give him. Currently, he’s trying to inch his way into a book about reincarnation. Most of the stuff he is working on are old and boring. There are some titles that delve into the occult history of mankind. Something probably his great-great-uncle Huron would be happy to read.

Right now, he’s bored. And horny. And the deadline’s not due for three weeks. 

He opens that darned app and searches for an interesting, temporary guy he could, you know. How about this guy? Earthshaker07. Weirdo.

“Oh, I don’t send pictures. Sorry.”

Weirdo.

He invites him anyway. Earthshaker07’s the nearest dude around and he just needs a release. It doesn’t really matter what he looks like. It takes about 15 minutes before he comes.

There’s a knock. Door opens. Eyes contact. Glass shatters. Earth and heaven falls into nothingness.

“Hi, uh, you’re TallDarkDarker2?”

He’s, “Samuel?”

For the first time in 3700 years, he feels warmth. A deep, glowing heat emanates from the base of his stomach to the roof of his head.

“It’s... Gabriel, actually. Uh, is this a good time?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” He really is, “Come in.”

Maybe he’ll die young, after all.

[seafcamchild]

@dcddyrecper​ based on THIS

She cracked a smile and tucked a lock of hair behind her jeweled ear. “Oh no, they didn’t get the chance.” A silver heel stepped carelessly over one of the recently made scorched corpses as she approached him. She ran her tongue over her teeth as she looked around at the aftermath of the event, then she turned to him, one hand on her waist as she smiled. The old gods and the new never did mingle as much as they should, or so the Cyprian queen thought anyway. “I thank you darling, I never knew you to be such a gentleman.”

“Had I been a human woman rather than a divine one, I could have been these men’s seventh victim.” SIX women, all prostitutes and all too young to die, gone. The thought alone made her frustrated that she hadn’t acted sooner. Fortunately, she was a goddess with a penchant for violent displays of passion and a streak of violence that dated back to the dawn of her creation. Her solemn vow to protect sex workers was all she needed to go find the men in question. Still this particular ordeal was over, or at least most of it was, and so she needn’t worry about the dead ones anymore. She removed some distance between them, now standing a mere few inches away from the reaper king himself. “I’m no hunter, however, so I’m thinking I’ll just send my boys to catch the one that got away. I know Phobos and Deimos will devour him, they’re quite efficient in what they do.”

“Speaking of devour, how about you let me buy you dinner for your troubles? It’s the least I could do for your troubles.”

[childoftimeandmagic]

Cyprian

You darling are a fucking smarty pants and since I don’t have my copy of Intensity yet I’m going to reread Invision and remember him. 

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite