#looks prestige and glamorous as hell

[britneyshakespeare]

brian protheroe is really handsome

[bridgertown]

How Bridgerton is poised to revolutionize romance on television

Lace up your corset and put up your dukes.

Words by Maureen Lee Lenker, November 13, 2020

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Regency romance must be in want of glittering ballrooms, witty banter, a dashing leading man, and a piquant heroine.

Bridgerton, Netflix’s first scripted title with über-producer Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland production company — under its headline-grabbing $150 million deal — has all of this in abundance. Not to mention a diverse cast that’s a far cry from the typical lily-white hues of Jane Austen adaptations and their ilk. Oh, and the narrator is a Regency-era Gossip Girl voiced by Julie Andrews. As showrunner Chris Van Dusen puts it, “It’s not your grandmother’s period [piece].”

Based on a series of romance novels by Julia Quinn  — beginning with The Duke and I, which offers the season 1 blueprint — Bridgerton follows Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), a debutante who’s thirsty for a love match. Buoyed (and slightly overprotected) by her family, including her marriage-obsessed mum, Violet (Ruth Gemmell), and her seven siblings, Daphne embarks on a fauxmance with Simon, the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page). “When we first meet her, she’s this young, naive woman who’s been in this little bubble and doesn’t know anything about love or sex,” says Dynevor.

Simon, meanwhile, is hell-bent on avoiding matrimony, as part of a vengeful vow he made to his execrable father. Page drew inspiration from the classic Romantic poet Lord Byron to craft a character who is part aesthete, part brooding enigma. “You have this beautiful, shadowy, broken, thoroughly complex man, who is as glamorous as we all wish we were on the outside,” notes Page. “But [he’s] trying to figure out who he is.”

It’s standard fare for Shondaland: men and women looking to find themselves within the social confines of their reality. This time it’s in a completely different world, one that shares the female-gaze ethos that often defines Shondaland series — think Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and more. Romance novels account for nearly a quarter of all fiction book sales, yet they’re rarely fodder for splashy screen adaptations. “I never thought this would happen to me,” Quinn says. “Nobody was adapting romance novels, and if somebody was going to do a period piece, they wanted to do another adaptation of Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters.”

That prestige gap between Austen and mass-market historical romance was something executive producer Betsy Beers admits she bumped up against when Rhimes first recommended the novels to her. “I didn’t take what the books were as seriously as I could’ve initially,” she says. “But there should be no pejorative association with romance novels. Nobody sneezes at suspense, at action, at true crime. These are just good stories about relationships, about emotional politics, about how you juggle duty, love, and lust.”

For Van Dusen, the 280-year evolution of romance writing was something to exploit. “I wanted to infuse everything with my own unique, modern lens,” he says. “The tone is very spirited and daring. Everything’s fresh and youthful. There’s a little effervescence to everything.”

That freshness manifests throughout — from the score, which features classical string arrangements of contemporary pop songs (Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next,” Shawn Mendes’ “In My Blood”), to the costumes (“Jane Austen loved her bonnets, but Bridgerton is a bonnet-free world,” quips Van Dusen). But nowhere is it more evident than in the casting.

The series looks like any Shondaland show: multi-hued and reflective of the world we live in. Romance novelists like Vanessa Riley and Diana Quincy are challenging the established narrative of who inhabited the 19th-century aristocracy. Austen herself featured a mixed-race heiress in her unfinished novel Sanditon. But such a cast is still dismayingly rare in period pieces.

Though the casting here is a far cry from the source material, Quinn wholeheartedly endorses it. “Bridgerton isn’t a history lesson; it’s a show for a modern audience,” she notes. There were, of course, people of color who existed in this time and place, but the show hands them more power than historical assumptions allow. It imagines a British aristocracy where Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) is of mixed race (a fact some historians suggest there’s evidence for), thus elevating other people of color to dukedoms and positions of status. “It’s not color-blind casting,” explains Beers. “We try to imagine history and the world in the way we wanted to see it.”

It’s what allows Page to play the powerful, devastatingly handsome duke, a role that previously would have been the exclusive domain of white actors. For Page, who made his U.S. TV debut as Chicken George in the 2016 remake of Roots, it makes Bridgerton’s romantic narrative even more potent. “With color-conscious casting, I get to exist as a Black person in the world,” he says. “It doesn’t mean I’m a slave. It doesn’t mean we have to focus on trauma. It just means we get to focus on Black joy and humanity.”

That joy opens up another narrative component often left behind closed doors in period drama: intimacy. Typically, the Regency’s idea of sexual tension is the brush of a gloved hand, but in the world of Bridgerton, audiences find themselves in an opera singer’s boudoir within the first 10 minutes. “The sexiness and the steaminess was always going to be there,” says Van Dusen, adding that it’s core to the “education of Daphne Bridgerton.”

Dynevor echoes this, explaining that the show’s sex scenes, overseen by an intimacy coordinator, were as intricately choreographed as a fight sequence. But for Dynevor, it was a key part of Daphne’s arc, one that foregrounds her character’s wants above any objectified desirability. (What other Regency literary adaptations feature a heroine experimenting with self-pleasure at the suggestion of her suitor?)

“It’s not often you see sex [treated] in that way,” Dynevor reflects. “It wasn’t gratuitous. It was so essential in Daphne’s journey and sexual awakening. I love the fact that it is very much the female gaze.”

That gaze is the connective tissue between Shondaland and romance publishing, a match so fortuitous it could only end in happily ever after. “[The show] is not going to be so different from the experience of reading a romance novel,” Van Dusen concludes. “It’s sexy and a little dangerous and fun. It leaves you a little hot and bothered and breathless.” Fetch the fainting couch — and the remote.

Bridgerton hits Netflix on Dec. 25.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN USERS

If you feel you're really helping people, you'll keep working even when it seems like a decent hypothesis. Investors and analysts would ask us what we had planned for the future. And kids. Whatever the story is in the sciences, true collaboration seems to be an accident. The success rate would be 90%. And it turns out you have to charm them. It also made them more careful in judging the seriousness of a bug, because now I can pretend it wasn't merely a rhetorical one. Follow the threads that attract your attention. The best founders are better at seeing the future than the best investors, because the concept of Worse is Better. The old answer was no: you were supposed to do. In Lisp, all variables are effectively pointers.

Another trick I've found to protect myself against obsolete beliefs? How do you get good ideas for startups? You should be able to deliver more software to users. That's not necessarily bad news. Often to make something that at least someone really loves. What was wrong with that? We know there's room for the next several centuries the main work of European scholars, in almost every field, was to assimilate what they knew.

But as I thought more about this project, I realized, is how does the comber-over not see how odd he looks? So invest in them! Partly that users needed him. Indeed, the law of supply and demand insures that: the more rewarding some kind of new spreasheet-like collaboration tool that doesn't even have a name yet. What you're afraid of is not presumably groups of hackers like you, but actual companies, with offices and business plans and salesmen and so on. The things that matter. And so were books and paintings. And because startup founders work under great pressure, it's critical they be friends. This worked for bigger features as well.

All parents tend to be forced to. Why? So arguably the Worm made Viaweb possible. A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn't thought much about what they find valuable as well what they're willing to be held to a standard that, say, Altria is not. Everyone would agree that YC had jumped the shark. Good investors are rare, even in Silicon Valley in the 1960s. Why did we have better people worrying about security, we worried more about it. As companies grow they invariably get more such checks, either in response to some questions on the LL1 mailing list. The problem with starting a startup could well become as popular as grad school. It's something you're more likely to arrive at it. So is being determined as all hell.

I didn't think he meant work could literally be fun. Lots of hot startups will end up failing, and lots of very successful startups were only moderately popular with investors the first time they raised money. Work still seemed to require discipline, because only hard problems yielded grand results, and hard problems couldn't literally be fun. That's a new problem, but it should be convincing because you got the right answers, not because you did a good job at whatever you're doing, even if you didn't know them or even work there at the same frequency—then you may already be a better startup picker than the median professional VC. Checks instituted by governments can cause much worse problems than merely overpaying. You're not just looking for good ideas. It's not just a figure of speech to say that the novel or the chair is designed according to the most advanced theoretical principles. But this isn't true with startups. Lisp, functions are first class objects—they're a data type just like integers, strings, etc, just by going to the site where it's offered. In Lisp, all variables are effectively pointers. For a big company: the pay's low but you spend most of your time working.

But in the late 1950s, it was interesting how important color was to the customers. Another is to work somewhere that has a lot of time. The rest will come in time. What makes a good founder? In high school she already wanted to be a good long period of cheerful chaos, just as you can, and you'll leave the right things undone. Kind of, but not a great bet to succeed, because they only have themselves to be mad at. But don't get mad at us. And does search even matter anyway? Things that lure you into wasting your time although they probably won't say this directly.

When you know nothing, you have to like what you do? With server-based software is that you have so many choices. For the first time something was a bad idea. About a year ago she was alarmed to receive a letter from Apple, offering her a discount on a new version number on the software, and a few months. You start by writing a stripped-down kernel how hard can it be? It's not just that I miss her but that I think of the people who just make exactly what the customers tell them to. In retrospect, was there anything interesting about working at Baskin-Robbins? Empirically it seems to be possible for several people to collaborate on a research project. Either businesses aren't supposed to be startups. So the acquirer is in fact the data was almost certainly safer in our hands than theirs. They think they're going to work for them.

So you don't have a speaker at the last dinner; it's more of a grind than glamorous. How they funded themselves with breakfast cereal. But Sam Altman is a very subtle one, so subtle that a company so big can develop software at all. This too seems to be so. The probability that a startup will put your friendship through a stress test. One advantage of investing in a large number of startups is that big companies will disappear. With Web-based applications will often be useful to have an explicit belief in change. The problem with starting a startup. But you have to like the actual work of novel-writing if you're going to take two weeks to write few projects took longer, I knew I wanted to start a startup? If you're writing something that you'll be able to turn them off the way a survivalist training course would be fun, if you're not sure, you're not working on everything else.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Patrick Collison, and Kenneth King for sparking my interest in this topic.

[fullsung]

Shapes // Winwin x Reader

aaahhh I’m starting a new series! I saw someone on here mention something about figure skater!winwin and the most random idea just popped into my head so here it is!

figure skater!winwin, ballerina!reader ; haters to lovers au ; slight angst, fluffy ending, might include smut??? Not sure yet we’ll see // wc: 1,227

Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 1

14 years. 14 years you’ve devoted to dance, 14 years you’ve made multiple sacrifices for dance, yet you wouldn’t trade those 14 years for anything else in the world. Dance was your life, and the one thing you found absolute joy in, it was your lifeboat. 

You were the best at your dance academy in Beijing. The younger students looked up to you, the teachers adored you, and your age mates despised you, envied you. You started dancing at the age of 6. Later than most great dancers, but dancing was in your blood and you improved with impeccable speed, reaching heights in ballet most could only dream of. You were known and admired, but you never thought anything of it, simply focusing on your craft. Your parents were always fully supportive of your desire to attend a ballet academy, seeing as your father was the one who pushed you to do ballet in the first place, after noticing your admiration for the dancers you’d see on TV.

Your 20th birthday was not long ago, most dancers your age were already in ballet companies, seeing as ballet is not friendly towards age. With the prestige of your dance academy attached to their names, they were all in the top companies, however, you had decided a long time ago, that you would not pursue ballet as a career, knowing it would suck the joy out of it. Plus you much preferred stability, and ballet as a career was the opposite of that. So you chose to stick to dancing at the academy, guest starring in shows from time to time and coaching the younger students, earning some money on the side to make your college life easier. 

Design. You were studying design at a university you somehow managed to get into. You always admired the pretty costumes and intricate sets for the shows you participated in and watched, and your love for the extravagant made you interestingly creative, so you figured design was a good fit for you, and so far you had been enjoying it. Sitting in the intricately designed indoor garden of your university, sketching the most random designs or trying to work your way through a nonsense essay was calming. It took your mind away from things, which was something that you never really got to experience, your days previously being filled with calculating your every move, perfecting your every step and turn.

Not long after your pencil hits your sketchpad, you feel a vibration coming from your bag. It was your head mentor at the academy - Mrs. Ivanovna. She was a strict woman, a renowned ballerina who moved to Beijing after marrying one of the directors for a top ballet company, switching her career to teaching, but over your years of learning under her, she had become almost a second mother to you. 

“Hello Mrs. Ivanovna” you ask, “Hello dear, if you’re not busy, please meet me at the reception of the academy, I have something I need you for” her mature but sweet voice beamed back “Sure I’ll be over soon.”

You packed your stuff and made your way to the academy. The academy itself was glamorous. The marble walls and floors, the chandeliers and gold design, and the click of your heels echoed through the large space. You quite liked heels, seeing as they made your legs look pretty and your feet had grown accustomed to pain after your years of vigorous training, but you didn’t wear them all the time as you didn’t want to cause any more damage to your poor feet.

You spotted Mrs. Ivanovna standing in front of the grand staircase, not missing the tall, slender yet strong looking man standing next to her, a bag in hand. You approach them and Mrs. Ivanovna greets you. “Hello dear, you look pleasant today” She gives you a loving smile. Your style was simple and comfortable, yet elegant and classy, taking heavy influence from the rich and powerful women you were surrounded by while at the academy, and the many you met after shows as a young child, their sleek hair, peplum shirts and pointy heels never being missed by your big doe eyes, another reason Mrs. Ivanovna loved you. To her you were the walking “poster boy” for ballet, everything a ballerina should be, and although you didn’t mind, it left you feeling pressured sometimes.

“This is Dong Si Cheng, I’m sure you’ve heard of him” your gaze shifts to look at the man standing next to your mentor, finally recognizing him. Dong Si Cheng. Olympic silver medalist. Figure skater. You remember his name being plastered all over the Beijing news sites after he won silver four years ago, making him the youngest Chinese figure skater to win a silver medal at the Olympics. He quickly became the pride and joy of China, many interested in watching him grow as an athlete, and not only for that, but for his ethereal almost other-worldly visuals. You couldn’t deny, he looked unreal.

“It’s nice to meet you Si Cheng” You smiled at him, putting your hand forward for a hand shake. He however was not as smiley. Giving you a curt “Nice to meet you too” and a half assed handshake, his hand cold against yours.

“As you probably might have figured, Si Cheng will be competing in the Olympics this year, and his coach asked us to help him with his routine” Mrs. Ivanovna explained. You were confused “Help him? How are we supposed to help him? I for one, don’t know a thing about figure skating” you looked at Mrs. Ivanovna, visibly confused. “Well dear, figure skating takes a lot of elements from ballet, and figure skating isn’t just sport, it has artistic, dance elements to it as well, so many figure skaters receive ballet training, which is why lovely Si Cheng is here” She politely looks over at the younger man, but he was focused on you. You stared at him, noting the judging look in his eyes. Like he was scanning you, trying to understand what kind of person you were. “Okay, I understand, but where do I come into play?” you ask, “Well, all the teachers are far too busy and since Si Cheng requires specific training for improving his routine, I can’t put him in a class. Since you’re our best, I’d rather you do it” 

You nod your head, not thinking anything of it. Just another student you thought. “Okay, that sounds fair” You smile at Mrs. Ivanovna, “Great!” She beams. “You two head upstairs, the 3rd practice room is free”

You head upstairs with Si Cheng following close behind. The 3rd practice room is the smallest, located in the corner of the academy building, but it was your favorite. The large crystal clear windows looking over the inner courtyard, the sun shining into the room illuminating the shiny wooden floors. 

“So Si Cheng, you might want to get changed” You tell the older man “Please, call me Winwin. I hate when people call me Si Cheng, it makes them sound like my father” He firmly stated with the most monotone voice you’ve ever heard. “Okay.. Winwin, you can get changed in the room over there” He curtly nods and heads to the changing room.

This is going to be hell isn’t it? 

Chapter 2 coming if this doesn’t flop!

[volatilepersonality]

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

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

Bold what applies to your muse.

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

The Frolic

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

Les Fleurs

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

Alice’s Last Adventure

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

Dream of a Manikin

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

The Chymist

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

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

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

Eye of the Lynx

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

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

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

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

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

The Lost Art of Twilight

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

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

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

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

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

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

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

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

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

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

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

The Sect of the Idiot

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

The Greater Festival of Masks

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

The Music of the Moon

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

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

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

Vastarien

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

[antonverloc]

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

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

Bold what applies to your muse.

TAGGED BY: stolen TAGGING: u

The Frolic

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

Les Fleurs

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

Alice’s Last Adventure

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

Dream of a Manikin

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

The Chymist

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

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

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

Eye of the Lynx

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

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

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

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

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

The Lost Art of Twilight

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

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

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

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

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

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

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

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

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

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

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

The Sect of the Idiot

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

The Greater Festival of Masks

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

The Music of the Moon

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

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

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

Vastarien

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

[vmheadquarters]

Twelve years ago today, UPN (RIP!) premiered a cult-classic neo-noir about murder, class warfare, sexual assault, and forbidden love. It was quippy and campy and smart as hell—and it just happened to center on a pint-sized blonde who looked like a cheerleader but thought like Sherlock Holmes. The show was Veronica Mars, and even if the last decade has muddled its legacy with a much-hyped but ultimately disappointing fan-funded follow-up film and, of course, the extremely meh third season, the high school years remain an unparalleled success. Veronica Mars seasons one and two were better than anything that had come before, far surpassed its competition in quality, and set a high bar for future shows that has only barely been met by a few episodes of television here and there. So give my regards to Friday Night Lights (a family show, not a teen show) and Degrassi (please), but Veronica Mars is the best teen show of all time*. 

1. Nuanced Class Conflict

Gossip Girl and The OC did it well, but Veronica Mars did it better. Even though Neptune, CA, is technically fictional, it's as real a place as has ever been portrayed on television. Its particular problems and reputation informed everything from law enforcement (the question of whether or not to incorporate the town into a city and make the sheriff's office into a police department) to the biker gangs riding through on their way up and down the PCH. The levels of privilege/lack thereof were so nuanced and specific. Other shows divide people into the Haves and the Have Nots; on Veronica Mars, everyone has something a little different. At the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder is Weevil, whose background is not only impoverished but criminal; the only community he can "afford" is a gang (though his crew isn't all bad—you'll find nary a broad stroke or generalization in the world of Veronica Mars). In the center of things are Veronica and Keith, who lived comfortably when Keith was sheriff, but have buckled their belts since he became a private eye. On the one hand, they own a small business! On the other, they live in a pretty crap apartment complex and have nowhere near enough saved to send Veronica to college. Then there's the nouveau-riche Echolls', who have all the glamorous trappings of wealth (cars, booze, mansion) and pretty much none of the cultural capital. At the top of the heap are the Kanes; while the Echolls' have enough money to "get away" with murder, the Kanes have enough money to get away with it, cover it up, frame someone else for it, and get the sheriff fired for looking into it. Money problems are basically the least-juicy of TV plots, but by using wealth disparity as a way to develop the characters, essentially building it into the DNA of the show, Veronica Mars created a TV universe just as interesting and complicated as that of Friday Night Lights or Parks and Recreation.

2. Lianne Mars

A girl with a missing mom is a fairy tale trope as old as time, rooted in a deification-of-the-female version of misogyny that I don't have time to get into right now. Suffice it to say, a dead or absentee mother is usually a sign of lazy writing. It's a way to reduce the character count and set a heroine adrift while, not coincidentally, making it so the (usually male) writer doesn't have to think of what a grown woman would think or talk or act like. At first, this is the fate of Veronica's mother, Lianne Mars. She was just conveniently...gone, another casualty of the fallout from the Lilly Kane murder investigation. Her absence lets Veronica be angsty and ill-supervised even as Keith Mars entered the canon of Bestest TV Dads of All Time (which he is! Love Keith forever and ever). But then she came back, with baggage, and the trope was, if not redeemed, at least put to good use. Lianne is an alcoholic who couldn't deal with the disappointing turns life took, and she finally cracked when her husband ran directly into conflict with her lost love Jake Kane, for whom she still pined. Even when she decides she wants to be a mom again, she can't quit being an alcoholic. And as heartbreaking as it is to watch Veronica play the parent, it's also a moment of growth. Veronica realizes—or rather, decides—that she isn't doomed to repeat her mother's mistakes. She is a stronger, better person than Lianne. A person big enough to love her flawed mother, even strong enough to forgive her. In the third episode, Veronica says, "The hero is the one that stays, and the villain is the one that splits." By the end of the series, Veronica has learned what true villainy looks like, and it ain't her mom. Showrunners, take note: This is how you do a realistic redemption story.

3. The Guest Stars and Bit Players

The casting department at Veronica Mars did flawless work. Obviously, the core cast is great, but the semi-regulars and guests are also amazing. There's an entire season devoted to Steve fucking Guttenberg. Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin play the negaverse versions of themselves. Ryan Hansen and Ken Marino do their Ryan Hansen/Ken Marino Shtick, and why shouldn't they? Max Greenfield (a.k.a. Schmidt on New Girl) and Tessa Thompson (from Dear White People and Creed) both had recurring roles long before they were famous, and even Tina Majorino (Mac) and Michael Muhney (Lamb), who didn't really "break out" in a major way after the show, are perfect in their roles. The second (SECOND) IMDb credit for one Jessica Chastain is an episode of Veronica Mars, and of course, Leighton Meester appears in two episodes. Yes, there are other teen shows that feature young actors who went on to bigger, better things, but I maintain that Veronica Mars is notable for encouraging real actors to do real work.

4. The Mysteries Were Smart AF

The show trusted its audience to keep up and pay attention. Maybe even a little too much. In the era before binge-watching and old episodes being able on demand, Veronica Mars suffered from the same issue that plagues the first few seasons of The X Files: Viewers who weren't "caught up" on the season-long mystery arc found it difficult to get into. VM had low ratings throughout its run, and when it used the shift from high school to college to introduce shorter, quicker mysteries, well, we all know how season three went. But looking back, it's clear that the show was ahead of its time, telling smart, twist-y weekly stories while teasing out a longer mystery that deeply impacted the main characters' lives. (Can't you just imagine how they'd advertise the show now? Moody teaser trailers with the tag line "Who Killed Lilly Kane?" and fansites and podcasts devoted to all the clues and hints and easter eggs from every episode?) There are other teen mystery/crime-fighter shows, sure, but they tend to put their characters in immediate peril, which makes the audience ask, "What's going to happen?" Instead, Veronica Mars is an intellectual exercise, evidence and theory based, and the question becomes, "What has already happened, and what does it mean?" That's the kind of meaty writing that inspires, if not legions of fans, a loyal audience to sing its praises. Veronica Mars was so smart it was niche. I'm not making a case for VM as overlooked prestige television, but then again I totally am. WHY didn't it win any Emmys?

5. They Didn't Explain Every Little Thing

See: above "trusting the audience smartness" factor. They didn't explain why sleeping with a "consenting" teenager is still wrong, or why Logan and Veronica went from adversaries to lovers in the space of like, a week, or why money equals power. They got that the audience got it. So, the exact opposite of a show like, say, Secret Life of the American Teenager. There were episodes that touched on privilege and entitlement and infidelity and the abuse of power by law enforcement, but it was subtle and real instead of, you know...Degrassi.

6. The Humor

It wasn't dark and humorous, it was darkly humorous and humorously dark. (Think combining the creepy weirdness of Twin Peaks with the banter of Moonlighting.) Logan's poignant answering machine messages, Veronica's epic takedowns, even Lamb got to be withering and snarky while he systematically fucked over the whole town.The humor kept us invested even when stories dipped into sentimental, Dawson's Creek-esque territory and deflected the romance-y moments that might have turned it into a mystery-style Felicity. Veronica's and Logan's jokes, in particular, also serve a psychological purpose: mask their pain at any cost. Unlike in Gilmore Girls, where every character speaks like a hyper-intelligent stand-up comic and not at all like a teenager or real human being, Veronica and the residents of Neptune make comments that feel true to their characters and relevant to their circumstances. If you watched any episode of Scream Queens and thought, "I guess they're trying to imitate...Scream? Heathers? Clueless? With the smart/bitchy blondes and the snappy comebacks and the eye rolls?" I understand. But actually, they were trying (and failing. Hard.) to do Veronica Mars. Smart sassy cute mean heart of gold flirty clever repartee? Yeah, that's Veronica Mars, and Ryan Murphy, bless his soul, is not Rob Thomas.

7. The Rape Plot(s)

From the very first episode when, in a flashback, golden-haired, white dress-clad Veronica walks, almost in a stupor (have you ever seen a more "perfect" victim?) into the sheriff's office to tell Lamb that she was raped—because she is a good girl and good girls go to the authorities—only to have him, basically, shrug it off, rape and sexual assault were core themes of the show, central to its purpose and story engine. Creator Rob Thomas initially envisioned the story as a YA novel with a male protagonist, and changing the lead's gender to female is arguably the best and most important decision he ever made. Veronica's sexuality is everything. How she flirts her way out of scrapes, plays innocent when it can help her, distrusts it when she's attracted to the "wrong" person, is allowed to enjoy it with Logan and, of course, how her virginity was taken from her one night she can't quite remember. The show takes Veronica's rape seriously as not just a plot point or easy motivation, but as a defining part of her character. She cleans obsessively and looks over her shoulder. She's sensitive to the potential aggressors—and victims—at her school. She knows that her rapist was someone she knew, and she has to live with that mystery every day. But it's complicated. That night she can't remember might have been semi-consensual, but then we learn, no it wasn't. Yes, there's a story about a false rape accusation (against Adam Scott!), but the truth only makes the situation murkier. And in an unfortunately rare move, Veronica Mars also depicts the aftermath of the sexual abuse of boys, including an exploration of how the stigma against male assault survivors re-traumatizes them. (The third season is, in my opinion, a missed opportunity to tackle the campus rape epidemic. By blaming the rapes on a psychological experiment gone awry, the show unfortunately ignores the fact that toxic masculinity isn't a role-playing aberration but a pervasive national issue. But its heart is in the right place, if not its logic.)

8. Veronica

Choker-wearing, dog-owning, private-detectiving blonde badass Veronica Mars. She's most often compared to Buffy, that other crime-fighting cutie with a ragtag army of friends and a ne'er do well love interest, and the comparison is apt. Both possess skills their peers do not and use those skills to solve problems both thrust upon them and sought. But the difference is that in the space that Buffy uses to explore the supernatural, Veronica Mars plays with loyalty and ethics. Is it wrong to snitch on your friends? Is a rumor evidence? Can you break the law to serve a higher good? These are issues Buffy doesn't wrestle with; it's pretty much a given that evil vampires are worth defeating (yes, there are definitely instances when Buffy is tested because she's fallen for a vamp or one of her friends is possessed or whatever, but that's not like, the thing of the show). And while so many other "outsider/observer/new kid" teen show protagonists (Ryan, Dan, Dawson, Lindsay Weir) long to get "in," Veronica's been there. She's been popular, and (a little) wealthy. She's not exploring a new world, she's re-learning her old one. In that she has more in common with Angela Chase, but way less whiny. You watch My So-Called Life and think, I'm totally Angela. You watch VMand think, I wish I were Veronica. When people talk about the strong but vulnerable but smart but flawed but cool but real but beautiful but relatable but empowered but conflicted but modern but iconic but a good role model but not unattainable with a job not defined by that job "interesting" female characters on television, a few names tend to come up again and again: Carrie, Murphy, Ally, Roseanne, Olivia, Dana. To that (very white!) pantheon I humbly submit: Veronica.

*....except for Freaks and Geeks.

[dabbling-translations]

Chapter 7: Witch-sama names the warm swamp, birth of the Hot Spring

"Wow! This is amazing!" I exclaimed as I dipped into the warm puddle.

The warm water enveloping my entire body caused me to feel greatly satisfied. 

This cloudy water is amazing! Its thick consistency wrapped around my body made me feel as if I were melting. Just like magic. During the battle earlier, I scraped my knee. It was slightly painful but after I entered the pool, the pain disappeared instantly!

I don’t know how it works but it’s like the water has restorative power.

“A-Are you okay, master?” (Lara)

“I'm beyond fine! It's amazing! It's so therapeutic!” I pump my fist in joy as Lara looked at me timidly.

Ahhhhh~ I never knew ecstasy and satisfaction of this level existed.

“Lara, you should get in here too. Come on, come on! Take your clothes off or I'll drag you into the puddle myself.” (Yuo)

"No! I don't want to die yet, master! Pass! (Lara)

I immediately pulled Lara's hand, not wanting to keep this pleasure to myself.

It seems the pool’s location was blocked off behind a rock, which explains why the villagers haven't discovered this place yet. Because of this, the area was secluded. There was no need to be shy since we were both women. When Lara confirmed that no one was around, she stripped naked and hesitantly got into the warm water.

“What…? It feels much better than it looks!” (Lara)

As expected, Lara uttered the same words I did. I nodded deeply at that. As the warm water enveloped our bodies, we felt our minds and bodies relax.

“Just a while ago, it smelled like hell but now it smells so pleasant.” (Lara)

“Perhaps the fact that you heated this pond more caused this satisfying feeling. Master, could it be that your [Heater Skill] has a certain effect on this type of water?” Lara inferred that my skill may have changed the properties of the water.

Hmmm, I doubt it. I think my skill just warms things up.

Just being wrapped in warm water caused this energy to well up at the bottom of my stomach. Additionally, the stress caused by my banishment faded quickly.

It feels even better than recovery magic. This pool was an amazing discovery!

Lara’s cheeks were rosy and she had an unrestrained smile on her face, an expression rarely found in the calm and collected maid.

I couldn’t blame her though, not even I knew such a pleasant feeling existed.

Besides, this water makes me forget all of my pent-up worries and stress.

I was born an aristocrat, something people seem to this is enviable. But behind the glamor and prestige, our lifestyle is restrictive. My family and relatives imposed unattainable goals on me, especially my father and brothers who always ridiculed my lack of magic power.

But this water gives this liberating feeling.

I’m reminded that before I’m an aristocrat or that girl without any magic power, I’m only human.

In a daze, I feel great. I wish this feeling would last forever.

While I was reflecting on everything, I felt a tear slip from my eyes

I’m crying.

It’s been hard, huh?

Gradually, I felt the weight in my heart lighten.

“Master, are you okay?” Lara asked in concern as soon as she saw my eyes brim with tears.

I hurriedly washed my tears away with the warm water. A lord shouldn’t be seen in such a weak state.

However, I was still in a good mood. This water can actually cause a cheerful and carefree person like me to cry, how amazing. It's like a holy spring that liberates the heart.

“That's right!" I thought of something.

"Why don't we let the citizens try this? If everyone in the territory is healthy, territory management might become easier and more stable.”

“That's a wonderful idea, master! You are indeed a compassionate and merciful lord!” Lara agreed.

For someone who said it smelled like hell, she’s very enthusiastic about this.

“Hehehe, I think they'll definitely appreciate it. The water feels amazing but master, you have to come up with a name for this… thing.” (Lara)

Then, I realized that this puddle had no name.

Hot water is not a bad idea, but it's just not right.

“You’re right, this mystical puddle needs a name. That would make it easier for people to be more familiar with it.” (Yuo)

Hmmm... ‘warm puddle’ certainly doesn't sound clean or appealing, does it? I'd like it to have a cleaner image anyway. A holy spring or something like that.

“How about keeping it simple and just naming it ‘warm swamp,’ master? Or maybe ‘warm pond’ could work too.” (Lara)

Lara didn’t have any bad intentions, but her naming sense was outstandingly bad.

Not many people would want to dip into a ‘warm swamp.’ ‘Warm pond’ on the other hand could be taken to mean something else [1].

A warm gushing place… A warm, holy spring… 

I folded my arms and groaned in contemplation.

"Aha! Warm spring, how about calling it a hot spring?” (Yuo)

“Hot spring! That sounds great! It fits the place very well!” Lara agreed with the name I came up with.

"Good, then we will have to prepare the hot spring for public use. Lara, you'll be busy tomorrow!” (Yuo)

“Master! I'm so excited!” (Lara)

Lara and I were so excited while soaking in the hot water.

◇

Meanwhile, some news was spreading among the villagers.

"Did you hear? I heard that the new feudal lord is the Scorching Witch.”

“How is that possible? The Scorching Witch is just a legend!”

“No, that's the thing. According to Hannah, the new lord killed a two-headed Giant Earthfish in an instant unscathed!”

"In an instant? Unscathed? That's impossible! That fish was a dragon eater!”

“And what's more, she was merciful enough to share the meat for free.”

“Oh, really? We've been very blessed lately, thank goodness!”

“My family will be overjoyed! Witch-sama really saved us from hunger!”

The gathered villagers had nothing but praise for Yuo.

<<Scorching Witch’s Recent Gain>>

Hot springs

？？？？？ 

A spring that can relieve physical and emotional fatigue. There seem to be multiple sources, but they have not yet been fully investigated.

<<Scorching Witch’s Ability>>

The target's temperature is maintained at a constant level. Used to maintain the temperature of hot springs.

(T/N) [1] Probably piss? Or some other bodily fluid lmao I hope you enjoyed this chapter and any corrections are greatly appreciated, just refer to the corrections panel on the navigation bar.

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[felldragxn]

Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme

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

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

Bold what applies to your muse.

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

The Frolic

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

Les Fleurs

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

Alice’s Last Adventure

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

Dream of a Manikin

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

The Chymist

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

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

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

Eye of the Lynx

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

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

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

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

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

The Lost Art of Twilight

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

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

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

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

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

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

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

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

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

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

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

The Sect of the Idiot

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

The Greater Festival of Masks

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

The Music of the Moon

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

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

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

Vastarien

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

[suisosei]

Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme

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

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

Bold what applies to your muse.

Muse: (If you are a multimuse blog, specify what muse you are filling this out for.) Tagged by: Me, myself, and I Tagging: *spins a wheel* @rubberbodied @takesaim @onforce @hairctrl and whoever wants to do this!!!

The Frolic

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

Les Fleurs

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

Alice’s Last Adventure

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

Dream of a Manikin

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

The Chymist

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

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

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

Eye of the Lynx

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

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

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

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

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

The Lost Art of Twilight

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

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

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

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

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

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

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

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

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

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

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

The Sect of the Idiot

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

The Greater Festival of Masks

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

The Music of the Moon

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

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

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

Vastarien

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

[miscellanyofmusings]

Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme

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

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

Bold what applies to your muse.

Muse: (If you are a multimuse blog, specify what muse you are filling this out for.) Tagged by: Tagging:

The Frolic

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

Les Fleurs

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

Alice’s Last Adventure

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

Dream of a Manikin

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

The Chymist

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

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

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

Eye of the Lynx

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

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

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

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

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

The Lost Art of Twilight

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

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

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

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

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

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

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

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

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

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

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

The Sect of the Idiot

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

The Greater Festival of Masks

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

The Music of the Moon

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

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

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

Vastarien

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

[aion-rsa]

The Divisive Power of American Horror Story, Ten Years on

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Some days, it’s hard to be a Ryan Murphy fan. The minute American Horror Story comes up, people have a knee-jerk reaction. It’s either love or hate, no in-between. And that’s been going on for a decade now. 

But there must be some grotesque alchemy behind this lifespan. Many horror TV series have never quite achieved the liftoff and cultural imprint that AHS has. In 2011, when the first season premiered, the only horror-themed TV show on a major network was The Walking Dead. While there is a rich and under-explored tradition of anthology horror shows (Masters of Horror, The Twilight Zone) which fall into the tradition of the standalone TV movie, often anchored by a horror host, AHS was aiming for something that sat between prestige television and Grand Guignol. 

The first season, Murder House, created a blueprint for some of the elements that remain at the dark heart of American Horror Story: a coarse smoothie of true crime history, distinctly American moral panics, and a love of horror movie traditions, all wrapped up in grotesque violence and over-the-top horniness. It’s a horrific live-action version of The Sims, each season completely unpredictable and totally familiar at the same time. 

Over the last decade, Murphy and Brad Falchuk have created a horror equivalent of the MCU: an expanded universe with shared rules, shared spaces, and a repertoire of recurring characters and actors. And in 2021, they’ve expanded it even more with the standalone series American Horror Stories, which takes on elements from previous seasons but has a new cast and new story every episode. The 10th season of the show, Double Feature is airing now.

What makes AHS so enduring? At the start of the show, every season was billed as a standalone story with a distinct beginning and end, usually anchored by a place that implies creepiness and has a long-standing presence in horror history (a haunted house, an insane asylum, a dark forest, a summer camp, a haunted hotel, a witches’ coven). From Freak Show, the show’s fourth season, the series started becoming interconnected, with characters from previous storylines popping up or being referenced. The show’s eighth season, Apocalypse, functions as a double-sequel, both to the story of Coven’s witches and to the fate of the demon-child from season one. 

Even though every season of American Horror Story, regardless of how they are connected, explores a distinct theme and has its own separate set of characters, there are elements that are recognizably Murphy-esque. 

The show is concerned with Otherness. Rather than hide its monsters in the closet or in the basement (although it has, quite literally, done that), it puts them front and center and often makes them the lead character. In Murder House, Tate Langdon (Evan Peters), the ghost of a teen school shooter, is arguably the main character with the most compelling arc. In Hotel, the entire world and all the other characters gravitate around glamorous vampiress The Countess (Lady Gaga). And in Apocalypse, the antichrist Michael Langdon (Cody Fern) isn’t held back until the climatic face-off; he’s the main attraction. AHS takes all the distinctively American outsiders and builds stories around them, zeroing in on our shared, somewhat morbid curiosity about them and infusing those stories with empathy. In AHS, serial killers can be heartbroken and witches can be insecure. At its most successful, the show asks us to empathize and connect with the most monstrous of characters, peeling back the curtain to reveal the real monsters are not who we think they are. 

Monsters make for juicy roles. One of AHS’s superpowers is its repertoire of actors, some of whom have found mainstream recognition and success through their work on the show and other Ryan Murphy productions, including Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters. AHS is also often credited with bringing a new audience to established older actresses like Jessica Lange, Angela Bassett, and Kathy Bates. The former, in particular, has been a staple and a shining star of the American Horror Story universe, playing Southern belle bitches and grand witches. After a period of inactivity and lesser roles, Lange’s creative partnership with Murphy gave us some of the most despicable and watchable female characters in horror. The entire fourth season, Freak Show, which marked Lange’s last full season as a principal cast member, was an extended love letter to the actress. 

This approach to casting AHS is, essentially, a take on the Old Hollywood studio system of casting, where actors would be cast into roles based on their looks and what expectations those looks communicated to the audience. On AHS, the same actors are recast every season, but each time it’s a radically different character. Additional faces are added into the repertoire and become staples of the show, like Cody Fern (who first worked with Murphy on The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story), Matt Bomer (who went from a bit part on Freak Show to a leading role in Hotel), Angela Bassett (who has appeared in every season since her turn as Marie Laveau in Coven) or Finn Wittrock (whose first major role was as the psycho man-child Dandy Mott on Freak Show and has since become a go-to player in the troupe).

This creates an interesting meta-dynamic between the audience and the show. With every passing season, we want to see how far the cast will flex their acting muscles. Will they be a lead or a supporting character? Will they play a historical figure? Sometimes the same actor will play two or more roles in the same season, even the same episode. Evan Peters, who appeared in every season since the very first episode, played not only the lead antagonist of Cult, but five historical characters on top of that. Murphy has also known exactly when to deploy smart stunt-casting, most notably giving Lady Gaga her first major screen role as The Countess in Hotel. Her theatricality and sultry charisma are perfect for a role that requires everyone who comes into contact with the glamorous vampire to become instantly, supernaturally obsessed with her. 

There is heaps of sex, but contrary to horror traditions it seldom leads to death. In fact, it’s often intertwined in ways that make sex the only respite from the onslaught of murder and dismemberment. In Murder House, the character of Moira, initially presented to us as a Halloween-shop version of a slutty maid (played by both Frances Conroy and Alexandra Breckenridge) is only seen as alluring and promiscuous by the men who are incapable of seeing her as a person. Being seen this way is her own version of hell after she is murdered by the wife of her boss who tried to sexually assault her. 

Horror has often provided meaty roles for actresses beyond the reductive “scream queen” term. AHS has, over the past decade, done not only that but also smuggled in difficult subjects for them to explore underneath all the camp. Throughout its run, AHS has tried to delve into ideas of motherhood, abortion, aging, power, sexuality, disability, and race. It hasn’t always succeeded (Coven, despite the glorious, spiky dialogue and fine performances, is extremely problematic in its attempt to discuss racism and its traumatic legacy). 

The recurring centering of the Other, and the deliberate pushing of boundaries squarely places American Horror Story in the tradition of the Grand Guignol. 

It’s a slicker, sexier version of the horror theatre. It takes everything we know about horror movies and infuses it with some old school Hollywood glamour, without the training wheels.

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While the self-aware theatrics can be grating on some horror fans, that’s precisely the charm of AHS. We don’t come to AHS for nuance, we come for extreme violence, to see every possible taboo grotesquely defiled—and then giggle at the bitchy barb that follows. 

The post The Divisive Power of American Horror Story, Ten Years on appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[turquoisedays]

Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme

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

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

Bold what applies to your muse.

Muse: The one this blog is for? Tagged by: Me, myself, and I. Tagging: @wargod @rubberbodied @sharedpractice I’M TOO SHY TO TAG ANYONE ELSE.

The Frolic

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

Les Fleurs

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

Alice’s Last Adventure

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

Dream of a Manikin

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

The Chymist

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

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

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

Eye of the Lynx

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

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

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

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

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

The Lost Art of Twilight

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

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

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

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

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

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

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

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

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

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

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

The Sect of the Idiot

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

The Greater Festival of Masks

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

The Music of the Moon

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

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

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

Vastarien

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

[heartheaded]

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

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

Bold what applies to your muse.

Muse: (If you are a multimuse blog, specify what muse you are filling this out for.) Tagged by: (taken from op) @miscellanyofmusings Tagging: @hopehallowed, @hopefromtheordinary, @hopetruth, @hopegamed, @hopestitch, @hopehaunted, @hopebvllet, @hopedenied, @opulentos - the hope crew + sarah’s togami lmao

The Frolic

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

Les Fleurs

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

Alice’s Last Adventure

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

Dream of a Manikin

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

The Chymist

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

Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes

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

Eye of the Lynx

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

Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story

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

The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie

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

The Lost Art of Twilight

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

The Troubles of Dr. Thoss

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

Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie

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

Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech

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

Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

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

Dr. Locrian’s Asylum

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

The Sect of the Idiot

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

The Greater Festival of Masks

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

The Music of the Moon

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

The Journal of J.P. Drapeau

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

Vastarien

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

[juliansummerhayes]

Our creative best

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young

I’m back.

Actually, I’ve not been away not unless you call ‘work’ a disappearing act.

This week (as you might know) I started a new job. 

Shh! 

I’m not allowed to spill the beans on where it is or what I’m doing; actually, it’s nothing too glamorous not unless you call reading legal contracts an exciting endeavour. Actually, I like the fact that I’m in the thick of the commercial action and so far my sense is that I will be able to make a difference in my own little world.

But back to my first love: creativity.

It’s been hard this week to write -- and I’ve missed it. I’ve read a few pages of a book but it’s not the same.

I don’t need an excuse for my tardy behaviour, but in my case, in trying to get up to speed with a new job, understand the internal dynamics, pick up the pieces at home and still find a space to relax, it’s fair to say that writing has got squeezed out. I’m acutely aware that for anyone who’s interested in my work that that’s not much of an excuse, but, sorry, it’s all I’ve got.

Next week I’ll aim to pick up the slack unless of course I’m required to work late.

You might well ask why I bother. I mean, why do I need to fill my time with writing even with and especially with a new job and finding time for everything else? In short, because I’m a better person for it. I don’t mean in an egoic sense; namely, it panders to my big ‘I Am’ but I need always to have an outlet for my active mind, particularly the part of my personality that continues to rail against the status quo. In case you hadn’t noticed, things still p*ss me off whether that be the lack of appreciation of people, the way we treat the world or our insatiable desire to be better than everyone else.

But here again, I might just as easily listen to the negative reaction -- i.e. the inner voice -- that chides me for thinking I’ve anything to say that’s worth reading or listening to. I don’t care. No seriously. I’m not here to please it or anyone else -- sorry folks. No, I’m here for one reason only:

to become who I truly am -- i.e. True Self.

And having jumped off the work bandwagon in 2010 and thrashed my way through the next seven years, I can tell you from bitter experience that if all you’re fixated on is the money, fame, prestige, and an Instagram-style life and not expressing all your (creative) gifts, then life will feel very stale, very monochrome and you’ll end up, as I did, for the first 43 years thinking “Is this it!”.

I repeat: “Is this it!”

But again, what do I know?

Does this mean we should all look to do something creative however that manifests?

Hell yeah!!

Just imagine a world where we shared our Art and not all the bile and nonsense that we’ve been seduced to believe is our birthright -- jog on.

Anyhow, back to it as they say.

Back to creation.

ALWAYS CREATION.

Take care.

Blessings,

Julian.

[echoesoforre]

Unlikely Heroes | Wes & Michael

Plotted Ahead! | @lightoforre

He never thought he’d have to deal with this shit again. He was certainly prepared for it – so much so that when news broke out about the return of Cipher, all he could do was rest his hand on his forehead and heave a disappointed sigh – but dammit, it’s not like he wanted this to happen. This was the third time now – three times… far too many; two times more than was absolutely excessive by now. He was beyond frightened; he was beyond angry; he was just… fucking tired. And it was sad, too; he once thought of Cipher as the more advanced group – they, who created the technology that would be able to trap negative emotions of abuse and neglect and torture within a Pokemon and hold it down by chains, and prompt that animalistic, angry fight-or-flight response in them perpetually; Cipher did that. They created a disgusting research lab that monitored their abuse scientifically – studied the dark auras that radiated off of these Pokemon they had afflicted. They had Snagem under their thumb – those buffoons who’d decided they’d do just about anything for Cipher if it meant they could steal their fill and sell off the rest to the Under’s black market where those hostile Pokemon would be released to the masses to create chaos. Snagem, who, compared to Cipher’s brilliance, seemed like a bunch of fucking chimps running circles around their masters for a banana. Cipher had that much power. That much prestige. That much reach. That. Much. Genius.

And they were all just dumbasses like the rest of them.

Honestly – not even Snagem put up that much of a resistance at this point. Snagem – who was known for their brutality and their scrappiness, being able to exist like the worms they were in every corner of the great sand dunes that were Orre like coyotes waiting for a kill – yes, even they gave up when Wes himself squarely kicked their collective asses and showed them just who the fuck they were up against. They realized they fucked up. They called it quits. But Cipher? Cipher – no. Call it resilience or call it tenacity or whatever the hell else you’d like, but it was nothing more than sheer stupidity. Tenacity suits a group straggling on its last legs trying to put on a brave face in front of adversity beyond compare. It’s calculating your regrowth and regroup so that you can rise at the perfect opportunity with full force and full ambition. And certainly – most certainly – the attack two years prior was just that: it was calculated; it was cunning; it was unexpected and it was at that very same perfect opportunity. It was… honestly brilliant. Still failed – but. Brilliant nonetheless. But this time around?

Needless to say, Wes just didn’t fucking understand it; it seemed to him like the most neophytic and ragtag of moves. Where, previously, they had spent five years slowly building and building and improving, now there… wasn’t any sense in it. Second time around, they made a goddamn island as their base of operations; for Christ’s sake, they created a Shadow Pokemon that, without Krane’s recent breakthrough in Shadow Purification, would’ve been irreversible. Honestly, Krane never had a reason to continue his Shadow research as anything more than a whim and a precaution – all the same reason as why Wes kept his Snag Machine with him at all times after all these years, rather than destroying the damned thing like he honestly should. Had that man not been curious; had he not been cautious and wary of this very same thing, that… Lugia – that XD001 – would’ve been something far greater than Wes ever could’ve handled. But… now?

Well, first and foremost, Wes was certainly more prepared this time around. Two years ago, he wasn’t even here; he was halfway across the subcontinent at the time, living his good life ready to be married to the man of his dreams. Orre decided that slaving around one man to be a martyr and a hero wasn’t enough anymore – now that he was gone and had snuck himself away off to Unova to live his happy life; how dare he – and that the best thing that they could do was scrape up another hero to look to like the Superman that’d solve all their problems.

The second resurgence of Cipher only ever tore Wes up inside, especially now looking back. His affairs in Unova only ever led him to nothing – nothing but heartbreak and a bunch of other bulllshit he’d rather not dwell on – and it only served to make the situation at home all the more embittering. He could’ve spent all of that time in Unova building himself up and building himself up – gathering memories of the happiest days of his life – only to have them crash and burn, and for him to fall from his perch – fall from his high horse; his peak, his mountain – and go and taint and ruin all of those memories that he once held dear; or… he could’ve spent his good time back in Orre, taken his lumps and meet with mayors he didn’t care for, become the Thief Hero of Orre, the poster boy that anybody – anybody – could be a hero if they go through enough shit and get screwed over by the system enough to get desperate and be at the right place at the very wrong time and decorate it around as herodom. It made him sick. After Poster Boy #1 got sick and tired of being flanderized and his struggles glamorized for the news and media, they just went and got another fucking kid – he was seventeen at the time – quirky and starry-eyed; he’d seen pictures of the kid and his bright smile and bright red hair, though he never quite got around to a name – they’d called him the Light of Orre; where Wes had been decorated around as an under-the-radar, renegade hero, this kid was all polished and dolled-up well enough that he could’ve been sparkling porcelain – a much better picture to hang up on the walls and flash around the news that the kid was the hometown hero that Orre needed.

And Wes could only ever have preferred that… it was still him. Not for the stardom, no – God, he could give less of a shit about that – but… because he knew. He knew what it was like to be a bright-eyed kid at eighteen, much more naïve and… susceptible to it all (except, well, Wes was an eighteen-year-old of a far less innocent shade by then), being grabbed up by the masses and swallowed up with their demands; he was the purified liquid fountain that the desert-swept region had never before experienced, and they all rushed at the chance with greedy, dirty hands to scoop up whatever opportunity they could to use him and take what they could from him when they could. It was… exhausting. Physically, mentally; but… Wes knew himself; he could tolerate it all. He wasn’t knocking this kid, nor any ability to take his own lumps – this new Poster Boy #2 and his cocky grin, no – but… he wouldn’t have wished that incessant publicity on anybody, let alone the conflict itself. Wes saw terrors beyond his imagination; he saw torture, beatings, abuse; he was threatened within an inch of his life and beaten himself and scarred – took too many knocks hiding Rui behind himself to defend her so he could take the brunt of it and she could save herself. Despite their idiocy, Cipher and Snagem were… terrifying; they were dangerous and they were brutal and they were real. And that poor kid – that starry-eyed, idealistic kid – had to go at it alone. He had to fend for himself with nobody there beside him; goddamn it, Wes���s heart already lurched for the kid and what he must’ve gone through.

That was why. That was why he still wished to be the Renegade Hero – Orre’s first and Orre’s only; it was… glamorization and it was photoshoots and it was interviews with Ancha just about every other fucking week, but it was a burden, above all, that he never would’ve wished for anyone else to have to hold on their shoulders. And maybe… maybe battling it out with these resurging dumbasses was a way of setting that record straight – that Wes Wagner was fucking back to beat their little resurrection back into Hell where it belonged, and that he would always be there, hunting them down underground or waiting above the surface for them to show up so he could beat them back down again.

And he was not running away this time. Not now. Not ever again.

He’d heard stirrings of a small resurgence brewing up in an abandoned military base out by the north side – past what was known as the Cipher Key Lair through the crags. He packed his team lightly – the old familiar six – keeping only Umo with him. Yes, it was unfamiliar for a region where carrying two is the norm, but he knew Cipher by now and knew them well – no matter how scraped-together their team might be only two years after licking their wounds, they would not be unprepared. He traveled out as far as he could, stocking up on items in the Outskirt Stand – plenty of Pokeballs; plenty of those – until he came past where the wind blew so fast and so heavy, the sand swept across in great waves and gritted across Wes’s forehead and his cheeks, billowing through and leaving the rocks bare and sunbaked and jutting out like jagged horns. It was only a way’s past when they began to form like blunted thorns through their own hedge maze of rock that he began to see what this little military base was all about. And yes – it was… teeming with activity.

Clad in their stark-white outfits – stark-white and purple and blue; so obvious against the drab brown sand even in the dead of night as it was – those Cipher Peons wandered about their makeshift base as lookouts, searchlights beaming down high, high above and cast down for any intruders – like him, for example. He made sure to park his bike a far, far distance from anywhere near that tin building, Umo stealthily padding beside him with his yellow ringlets dimmed down to black. The two were invisible in the night – all but Wes’s skin tone and hair and the slightly-lighter blue color of his jacket, sidling the building beneath a window that he might dare to look inside.

But he found his plans cut short. Within earshot, in the distance, he heard a voice – loud and accusatory and… British, among all things – shouting and approaching with heavy footfalls. “Oi! Cipher! You’re not getting away with it this time!” The voice shouted, and for a moment Wes could only believe it was some poor schmuck trying to play hero, but those fast-paced footsteps only approached faster and faster towards… him of all people – and soon, he was met eye-to-eye with a tuft of fiery red hair just as tenacious as this kid’s spirit, and his bright, attention-seeking yellow jacket, his green eyes blazing and teeth and fists clenched with anger towards… Wes? Wait – no; was he… being serious?

Wes could only look to the kid with bewilderment, his body tensing at the force this kid brought by his conviction alone – and God, he was… still shouting; Wes couldn’t even gather what he was saying past the kid’s accent and past his own shock that the kid honestly thought he was Cipher – that the only thing he could do was… react. His arms shot out and he spun the kid around, pulling his arm flush across the kid’s shoulders and reaching his other hand to cup over his mouth. “Shut up!” He hissed, his voice low, but not without a viper’s bite, “Shut up! Shut up and just listen. I am not part of Cipher. My name is Wes Wagner; I’m the fucker that beat these assholes seven years ago. Now you will do well to shut the hell up before we’re both spotted and get captured because of your loud mouth. I’m not even wearing the right uniform for Christ’s sake – and why in God’s name would I be trying to bust into my own building if I was Cipher, huh?” 

He knew who this kid was right away. The bright green eyes and bright ambition – yeah, it was all still there, just the same as it was on the front page of the news. It was Poster Boy #2 – the Light of Orre – though he was certainly not light on his tone. But, well, light was only one part of the storm – after that always came thunder, loud and booming and without care nor consideration for anybody or anything else. He only hoped that the thunder of this kid’s voice wouldn’t serve to screw them both over now.