Do you have a fav of the Pacthesis charas? I love the entire Number Days cast (especially Arlo) but I also especially like Xolga, Mr. Toko, Daichi, Jack, and Lewis :D Arlo is my best boy and Evelyn is my best girl, though if we’re talking MCs Saige’s my second fave

OOH good question!! :D

Arlo and Bryce from Number Days are my two favorite dateable options out of all of the games!! Number Days is also my favorite out of all of Pacthesis' dating sims. I love the story, I love the mechanics, I love the cut scenes, I love the character designs. All of it is gorgeous and funny asf. Lena's also my fave romanceable girl 😍😍😍

The Xolga and Mr Toko series is AMAZING, I remember crying the first time I played it. I don't even remember how old I was... I probably wasn't even a teenager yet... I think it was also my first time ever experiencing a visual novel and I was so fascinated with how complex everything was. I loved figuring out the puzzles. Pacthesis really has such a way of making her games so emotional, and with such unique twists! I really miss her games and would be thrilled to play any of them again, I'm still hunting for sites that might possibly have any of her games archived. Especially Number Days!

OHHH DAICHI!!! WOW I looooved Memory Days!!!! Daichi is such a Sweet Boi. Kai was my favorite from that one :D I also very much LOVE Emmett from Chrono Days 🥰 I remember liking Quoto quite a lot when Star Days was released, too. Oh my gosh, I remember the first time Star Days was released, it was a complete and total shock. Pacthesis returned from her years-long hiatus out of nowhere and completed the whole game and none of us had any clue. It was just... suddenly uploaded, such a pleasant surprise, I was so excited. It was such a treat to see her art again. I remember she used to have a website with backgrounds on ALL of her characters -- I wish I could find it again bc I really would love to look back on 'em!

YESSSSS you have such good taste in characters!!! I love the MCs you chose, I agree those are also my top two favorites as well :D

Have you seen her Redbubble? I really want the tree hugger merch, IT'S SO CUUUUTE!!!!! 🥰🥰🥰 Thank you for the lovely message btw!!! :D

Humans had taken the stars and brought them down to the earth.

Raven's first apartment was a small studio that overlooked busy Broadway, New York, which was the farthest one could get from the quiet and contemplative halls of The Temple Azerath. There were no stars that could be seen from the streets of New York, all the light instead came from the City itself. A Million Million electric lights, recreating the heavens here on Terra ferma.

It was topsy turvy. It was absolute chaos, Which only mildly bothered Raven.

Despite what people might think, she quite liked the chaos of the hustle and bustle. The Temple Azerath was a quiet place, as temple tended to be. A great place to meditate on the mysteries of creation, but a very cold and isolating environment for a small child. As such, the organized chaos of New York City positively fascinated her.

For one, because in an academic sort of way, she was fascinated at the goings on of life in the city below. After all, her area of study at school was philosophy, world religions, anthropology, Earth history, anything that had to do with People and their doings. She was an all around student of life, and there below her window was Life, in all its wonder and terror.

For Two, she had senses beyond the base line human. The Street below was a din of noise, this is true, but to her other senses, Her Emotional Sense, it was a magnificent sea of Stars.

No stars could be seen from the street of New York, indeed to see the stars you had to be looking down.

The emotional ecosystems of her little side street was as brilliant and complex as any starscape. Bright Yellow Fear and Dark Violet Love and piercing White Creativity and Cool Blue Hope and all manner of complex and intense colors and feelings lite up the world brighter than the mere filament light bulbs of Time Sq.

Each soul as bright as any star. Each star, just as in the void of space, from far away looked singular, a point of light in a sea of darkness. But if one would draw closer, the complexities begin to come into view. Planets of formintive memories, ideas shooting across the system like comets, asteroid belts of emotional walls. And each star giving off waves of emotional light like the Stars of heaven gave off radiation and gravity.

The stars were had been brought down to Earth.

Should Raven have been in the vastness of the emotional space, she would have surly become lost in the great astral sea, exposed to an open and intense environment that could sunder her. But above from her humble vantage point she could observe the stars, and enjoy their distant warm light, safely.

Her favorite part of the night was when the Plays and Musicals went on. Every night, just around 7 PM, the shows would start, and from her high window, she could perceive great waves of emotion sending ripples into the aether. The stars pulled together and became whole Galaxies of souls, the feelings of hundreds of people, thousands, all synchronized in the experience of story telling.

Raven wondered what it would be like to throw herself into one of those galaxies, and just let herself drift on the emotional waves. Many times she wondered what it would be like to dance amongst those distant stars and be enveloped by their gravity of personality.

A dark part of her wondered how all that feeling would taste. That part of her soul whispered hunger for the heat and light of the souls, it wanted to consume the light.

But those thoughts didn't come as frequently as they used to. She knew that to consume the light would bring only cold and darkness forever more. That would be such a waist.

Still, she wished to navigate these emotional stars and her friends helped he craft it everyday. Her soul self was an excellent vesal for traveling the vastness of emotional space, but she loned for more. She wanted to feel the light and heat on her own skin. One day she might be sturdy enough to explore, and to be a part of it.

For now, though, she was happy just to sit from her vantage point and watch the stars below.

If you are considering prompts, how about a widomauk with:

4. “Would you like a hug?”

Hi!! Oh thank you, this is such a sweet prompt and it works so well for widomauk

Molly looks like he’s just fallen into a deep sleep. Wildflowers bloom to life all around him, sprigs of bluebells and unfurling ferns and blossoms of moonflower beside morning glory. Until he’s laying on a flowerbed, peacefully resting in a sea of verdant greenery. 

Caleb can’t help thinking of childhood fairytales. Stories of royalty charmed into eternal sleep, denizens of the fey born among flowering fields. A prince or princess locked away, caged by a nightmarish monster. A cursed spirit finally set free.

Here in all this ruin and decay, Molly is glowing and radiant, surrounded by new life. So ethereally beautiful, he seems unreal. Like a dream. His hair falls in long flowing curls, threaded with budding blooms of soft baby blue, delicate petals unfurling in his lovely violet locks, spilling over the spirals of his ram horns. 

They all watch with bated breath, congregating around their long lost friend. A chorus of gasps and soft sighs as Molly begins to stir; his tail flicking idly, swishing to and fro. He twists and turns in aborted little movements, fidgeting as he slowly comes to wake, caught in this strange patch of sun and the scent of a calm ocean breeze, cradled safely in the Wildmother’s embrace. 

Dark lashes flutter. Brilliant red eyes finally open and Mollymauk Tealeaf looks at the world again for the first time in the longest time. Once upon a time--

That spark of Molly’s life thrumming under Caleb’s hands, resonating with his very soul. Pouring an endless wellspring of tumultuous magic and emotion into this one spell, this last chance. Molly’s heart beating faintly in time with Caleb’s own, their souls inexorably bound as he wills this infernal blood to flow. Daring the Matron to just try and take him—He’s ours. And he’s coming home. A fervent promise. A crushed stone and tearful kiss. Kneeling over Molly’s still, lifeless form and wishing he had anything left to give. 

It’s chilling, to lose Molly’s last shard of a soul like this. His light snuffed out in the empty carcass of a dead empire, one more lost soul claimed by the wrath of the gods and hubris of wizards. To fade away into nothing here in the dark, banished to the astral sea, so far from the light of his beloved moon. Alone. Empty. 

When his Transmuter stone was alight with the soft glow of arcana and hope, Caleb swears he could see Molly bathed in the light of full moon, lucent and beautiful. A ghost of his still lingering soul, or else a vision sent by the gods to torment him. And if he strains his ears, he can just barely hear that familiar, haunting voice, Molly singing softly to soothe his anguished heart.

“For the dead yellow king, a throng came and song. On the longest day of rain, he would rise again. Long, long may he reign."

Molly stumbles forward, wobbly and wide-eyed in wonder as a newborn faun, and Yasha’s strong, steady arms are there to catch him, holding him tight as he takes his first fumbling steps back into the world. 

“Molly. Mollymauk Tealeaf.” 

They all hold their breath, time suspended in a single moment that stretched on for all eternity. A soft cry, a sharp intake of breath. And then, in the gentlest voice, so soft and full of tortured longing, “Love.” 

Everything was worth it, just for this. For Yasha’s sob of relief that breaks off in a warbling laugh, for Molly’s own breathless chuckle as she wraps him up in a warm embrace, holds him tight and vows to never let go. From there it's all a rush, a flurry of tears and laughter as they all embrace Mollymauk.

Caleb is spellbound. He simply can’t look away as Molly spins around and tilts his head up at the starscape shimmering above, tail swishing in glee. Eyes twinkling with mirth as he watches Jester dance around drawing ornate silks in midair. 

Caleb can hardly breathe. He’d just kissed him, lost in the moment of gutting, grievous pain and guilt ridden grief. But now that Molly is here, awake, he finds himself too afraid to reach for him. As though Molly’s soul might slip away at any moment. As if the spell would be broken by his touch. 

He holds himself back. He is content to watch, to let the others have their moment with the dear friend they all lost. They are—more deserving, certainly. Caleb has no right or claim to Molly’s attention, not when they were never particularly close to begin with. Not when he did not even have the courage to present his own offering at the ritual—not when it was his magic that failed Mollymauk when he desperately needed him most.

All that time, that wasted effort, pouring every ounce of sheer willpower into that ritual, channeling all the arcane power he’d painstakingly honed since childhood, and still, it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. He gave everything, and he was still too weak to many any difference. 

He is happy just to have this chance to see Mollymauk wake again, to hear his warm burst of laughter and watch their little family all flock to embrace him. It is enough of a joy to admire the tiefling from a distance, to bask in that spark of light he always carried with him. 

He doesn’t need anything else. 

But then Molly turns and meets his gaze from across the Astral Sea, gleaming red eyes shining bright. He starts forward, just a step, hand cautiously outstretched—reaching for him, of all people. 

Caleb’s heart seizes. 

Yasha is there beside her tiefling still, angelic wings enfolding him in soft feathers and ethereal light, sheltering him from the wreckage of Lucien’s decaying husk in this city of bones.

She catches it, that moment that passes between them, enthralling and electric. Yasha, who had fallen to her knees beside Caleb only moments before, choking back tears as she begged him to do something, anything, to save him—

When Molly hesitates, Yasha gives his hand a reassuring little squeeze.

“It’s okay,” she says, promises. But it’s Caleb she’s looking in the eye, her gentle voice just loud enough to reach him. “Go on.”

It's all the encouragement Molly needs. He gently pads forward barefoot, tail swishing in glee, a slow smile spreading across his face. Long, sweeping folds of red velvet wrapped around him, the ostentatious red coat draped over his bony shoulders. Hands bunched up in the rich crimson fabric, reveling in the feel of something tactile and real.

Words fail Caleb, now that this gentle soul is standing proud before him. Now that he can finally see the warmth of Mollymauk's beaming smile again.

"I. Would...would you like a hug?" he babbles, eyes downcast and cheeks flushed, suddenly very aware of all the eyes on him, of Yasha's soft smile and Jester's delighted gasp.

He still doesn't trust that any of this is real.

But even as he falters, Molly crept closer, nestling into the crook of Caleb’s shoulder, settling into the solace of his still trembling arms. And when Caleb's breath caught, doleful eyes stinging with the blur of hot tears, the tiefling nuzzled into his neck, burying his face in the soft folds of a cozy scarf, sighing in sheer content. 

“Magician,” Molly murmurs, soft and bubbling with warmth. Then, nuzzling closer, eyes lighting up, “Magician!” 

Caleb can't help but chuckle softly as Molly reaches for him, claws gently skimming over the place where his heart lay.

"It is good to see you too, Circus Man."

Kokomi locks the hatch of the courrier pod and sends it off with a wave. Handhold of the parcel firmly in hand, she pushes out of the docking bay. She propels herself through the few corridors of her home, the deep space frontier outpost Time and Wind, until she reaches the copula she’s claimed as her main room.

A hundred trillion stars greet her as she enters. Once upon a time she’d hung valences—soft pinks, shimmering purples, dusty blues—around the perimeter of the window, but it took away from the starscape so instead, they cover the walls like geometric splotches of paint. She’d bolted her pillow topper and sleeping bag to the wall facing the window and there it remains but she ignores it for now, instead twisting herself around so she bonks gently against the window. There, surrounded by her beloved friends—a toy goldfish with a sparkly tail, four dolls (one in white with blonde hair, another in purple with dark hair, and the third in blue with red hair, and a fourth with green hair and a mask), a pink fox, a plush tengu, and a squishy box with cat ears—she boots up her comm and places a call.

The line connects almost immediately, as if the recipient had a tracking number for her newly delivered parcel.

“Good morning, Commander,” greets Kaeya.

“Good morning, Captain.” Kokomi peels the tape off the box. “I received a courrier with this morning’s post.”

“Oh? Anything of note?”

Kokomi pops thé lid—

A cheerful narwhal smiles up at her.

“You sent me your boyfriend’s merch?”

“I sent you *our* boyfriend’s limited edition merch.”

Kokomi pulls out the packing paper—

Kaeya croons, “Theres thé good smile.”

Kokomi huffs as she lifts her new friend from their cradle—Almost immediately, Ayakat throws herself at the box.

Kokomi looks her new friend over: fabric, of course, put together with patches in a variety of sizes. Mostly blues other than the side of their head: instead, a handful of overlapping reds and oranges. A goofy smile, button eyes, a soft, stubby horn, blanket stitching throughout, and—

She smiles, feeling like she herself is full of warm stuffing.

—under their fin, an off palette blue/grey patch and a violet.

“And there’s the /best smile.”

Kokomi hugs them close and presses her face to theirs. “They’re /perfect.”

Kaeya’s is a breathless sort of laugh. “I am /very glad to hear it.”

Kokomi drags her face up from the plush and tucks them under her chin. “Any word on when Her Majesty’s Vanguard’s shipping out?”

“A couple weeks, last I heard.” Kaeya’s grin takes on a mischievous glint. “They may even be charting a deep space course.”

Kokomi pouts. “Then why didn’t Tartaglia deliver his merch himself?”

“And leave me without such an easy gift idea? Perish the thought! Besides, maybe his personal item allowance had no room for his own merch.”

Kokomi smiles into the plush. “What stories are thé gossips milling?”

“Well, Tartaglia and the Traveller looked at each other for a whole half second yesterday so the net is on /fire about them.”

“It’s incredible that no one’s found us out.”

“It helps that one of us is a dashing starship captain in a different sector and the other is a beautiful princess on sabbatical at a deep space observatory.” Kaeya leans back. “We are, shall I say, not active in the same news reels. Or—“ His eye twinkles. “—any news reels, for some of us.”

“On the subject of news reels, what’ve you been up to? You seem like you’ve been busy.”

“I don’t look that tired, do I?”

Kokomi hums non committally.

“I’ll have you know I was in the middle of getting ready for bed when you called.”

“Don’t stop on my account!”

Kaeya chuckles but adjusts the comm and then leaves the frame. Kokomi can still see him in the washroom mirror though. “I haven’t been up to anything too exciting. A few dramatic fights against pirates in well-covered sectors—“

Kokomi watches his deft fingers loosen the laces of his corset. “But mostly just toodling around Mondstadt’s systems. Heh, I’ve also taken to parking /Pavo juuuuuust inside scanner range of some rando Fatui ships, maxing out the shields, running a power cycle on the weapons system, and just—“ He shimmies free, and as he puts it away, “—sitting there for a little bit.” He leans into the frame, eye glinting mischievously. “I hope I’m making them squirm as much as I imagine I am.”

“Has Tartaglia promised comeuppance yet?”

“Not that I’ve heard!” He pulls off his shirt. “Which means nothing. I expect he has quite the punishment for me whenever we meet next.”

Kokomi drinks in the lines of his back: from his toned shoulders to his trim waist, along the path of his spine. As she traces the angles of the scar that stretches from shoulder to hip, she asks, “Hands over head?”

Kaeya steps back into sight (blocking her view of the mirror), raising—he yanks his arms down to his sides. “Oh no you don’t!”

Kokomi huffs, then, “How is it that in all the galaxy I’m somehow dating /two people who can’t lift both arms straight up at the same time.”

As he unfastens his trousers, he replies (with a grin), “You sure know how to pick them, princess.” He tosses his trousers into the hamper. “At least I have a janky prosthetic. What’s Tartaglia’s excuse? A birth defect?” He scoffs—Kokomi giggles—and returns to his closet. “Besides, since when is anything about me straight?”

“What about you? How’s the sky doing?”

“You’re a starship captain, Kaeya.” She clicks her comm into place and hugs her narwhal close … while also attempting to get Ayakat into a leg hold so she’ll stop nipping at Kokomi’s socks.

“Sure,” Kaeya replies, likewise putting himself to bed. “But they’re not your stars.”

As he locks his comm into the dock by his pillow, he also /casually shows off that he too has a new narwhal plush. He knows exactly what he’s doing, smiling smugly at the delight in her eyes.

Kokomi squashes the impulse to /cut, to hide that vulnerability; she lets it stay and even /flourish, telling Kaeya all about the Carmen Dei binary star as he drifts to sleep.

(When Ayakat wiggles from her sleeping bag and takes off to freedom by leaping from Kokomi’s face, Kokomi manages to only squeak softly.)

Kaeya’s breathing slowly and softly by the time she’s run out of fun facts and figures (but only on the subject of Carmen and Dei).

She sets her comm to retroactively record the call and then just.

watches him sleep.

watches him breathe.

watches him be /alive.

just for a little bit.

Dressed In White Noise (which is a GORGEOUS title btw) and Gravity Well for the WIP asks please!

Thanks for the ask!! ^_^

Dressed in White Noise: This is an EDI/Joker fic based on the question: what if EDI + violet wand? EDI discovers she enjoys the sensation of tiny shocks and comes into possession of a violet wand, thinking Jeff might get the same joy out of it that she does. Jeff is unsure at first, then he sees how EDI responds to it, lets her try it on him, and finds that he really likes it. That's about all I have for it so far!

And the title!! I wish I could take credit for it, but it's a lyric from Strict Machine, by Goldfrapp. I love her music so much—her whole vibe has inspired the mood for a lot of my fics <3

Gravity Well: This is a tiny flash piece I wrote for last month's NYC Midnight 250-Word Microfiction Challenge, in which I was assigned the following prompt:

Genre - Sci-Fi

Action - inflating a ball

Word - "entry"

We were given 24 hours to write a 250-word max story with all three of those elements (I really love the NYC Midnight challenges and the 250-word one is my favorite and the least stressful by far, imo). Anyway, I ended up writing about a space explorer whose research vessel collided with a mysterious mass orbiting Charon, and the crew is launched out into escape pods and put into cryo sleep. Most of it is the MC dreaming in cryo, until she wakes up (maybe?) and she sees a completely unfamiliar starscape flying past as her pod falls toward an equally unfamiliar planet blanketed in city lights. Here's the bit where the action of "inflating a ball" was (very loosely, lol) incorporated:

Floating in the infinitely silent stretches between the stars, she’s suitless in the hushed glory of the universe. Oxygen in her body expands, making her think of the slumped volleyball her father re-inflated the summer she recovered from a torn ACL. She expands to twice her size and remains inconsequential in the stygian maw of all creation. A peculiar alchemy of fear and wonder renders her an alien unto herself as the water on her eyes and tongue boils away.

WIP Tag Game: ask away!

hi

new year new url

violet-starscape -> starryskiesahead

The Lunar Sanctuary: Part II

Following the Operator’s small confession, Simaris flaunts the Sanctuary. But it's not like he cares about the Operator's well-being.

It doesn't matter: the Operator has a field day with it.

[PART I]

No sooner had Cephalon Simaris finished speaking did the misty sky tear itself open before their eyes to reveal a starscape of violet and magenta. They can barely even register the rapidly shifting datascape. Not waiting for their senses to catch up, the new world extinguishes the brightness of the old. The Operator rises to their feet in fear of falling blindly. There is no ground anymore. It’s dark save for the two pitchers and the sky with its glowing stars hanging overhead. But it doesn’t stay dark much longer.

One by one clusters of flowers burst from the ground, all glowing the same blue-white of the Lunar Pitchers. Despite their uniform color, the flowers and leaves are all different lengths and shapes and sizes. Soon the original two Lunar Pitches are completely lost in a thick field of endless digital blooms.

They’re standing in a flower field of light. A garden without border.

The Operator looks in every direction, pivoting on their feet in disbelief. This place. It almost seems too much for the computational limits of Sanctuary: the tips of the digital flowers occasionally glitch and then chip off, ascending into the fake sky like a microscopic lantern until the light dies. They reach down in curiosity to pluck a flower from the ground by its stem, and to their surprise the ground yields, granting them a blossom with open petals and a hair-like stem.

“You’ve...outdone yourself.” They say, their voice incredulous beyond control. “Why?”

“Is it not obvious, Hunter?” Simaris says, taking care to sound extra inconvenienced. Though he is physically nowhere to be found, his words seem to come from everywhere at once. It makes sense: this is his realm. “It is you I now study and must preserve. Allowing you to fall from top efficiency ratings does not fall within my interests!”

The Operator makes a face at that. A very Simaris answer, but they’ll take what they can get. Besides. This place is beautiful. Unreal. Not too cold. And to think Simaris, hater of music and fun, had created it. They’re grateful for this. Before they know it, the Cephalon’s voice is starting up again, a touch quieter but just as grating.

“You have served Sanctuary well...recent performances withstanding. Now let it aid you, so that you may return to our shared endeavor!” He lectures. “This is a privilege.”

They sigh. Cephalon Simaris is many things, most of them negative, but even the Operator can’t deny that he is no slouch in the gratitude department. Compensation, reward, pay. All of it was a must for Simaris.

When they sense that he is done speaking, they begin to explore. It takes everything to not just dart off in a random direction like an insect. Instead they walk, constantly looking around them at the lunar field.

Soon they find a dense cluster of wildly diverse flowers with long, thin stems. They inspect the patch with wonder, and then with barely, barely contained excitement, the Operator lowers themselves to pick more and more flowers with long stems, until they have a bundle. It's an entire quest. Bringing the bouquet up closer to their warframe’s face they find that it has no scent. Instead, they placate themselves by imagining a sweet perfume, one that grows stronger with every flower they add to their growing bunch. Gather them all, their brain commands.

This flower picking task takes them several meters in different stretches across the gently glowing field. When they have enough, they flop down on their back. They know Simaris is watching, or rather irritatedly supervising. It doesn't matter. Here they are exposed to everything, everyone, not least of all Cephalon Simaris, and they don’t particularly care. With great determination, they get to work weaving the stems together.

“I lied, you know.” They tell him, flat on the ground with their hands raised to their eye level. They are too focused on their job.  “Fighting’s not the only thing I know how to do. I can also do this!”

After a few seconds of silence to tie off the loop, the Operator triumphantly lifts their creation high into the air: a shoddily-made circlet comprised of of digital flowers, the stems woven together. It might fit a wrist. They slip it through their warframe’s arm and hold their hand out, exaggeratedly inspecting their new accessory at every angle.

It’s quiet here. They can easily pretend that there’s nothing wrong with the world. If they had a choice, they’d stay here forever: force the Sanctuary to live up to its name. The Operator brings their hand back down to rest on their stomach, and settles for stargazing, surrounded entirely by data flowers. They nearly lose track of time, until they suddenly remember something. They paw at the ground in search of it. Here.

“I made an extra one.” The Operator calls, shooting their hand up from the ground where they lay with a matching circlet in their fist (their first failed attempt). To anyone standing up it would like a hand coming off the floor out of nowhere. “Want it?”

Simaris actually grumbles at them, or at least as close to a grumble as he’s willing to go.

“What use do I have of such meaningless things?”

They assume that that’s the end of it. They don’t actually expect Simaris to manifest, contrary to his words. But in the corner of their eye they see a flash of orange light weaving itself together into a coherent form. The Operator scrambles to a sitting position in mild alarm.

It takes no more than three seconds for Simaris to take a humanoid shape. His proxy has no features. It is just a tall, orange ghost of a person. His face is a blank, empty visor. His body is made of threads of moving light. They watch as he inspects his own hands for a moment before folding them behind his back.

“A primitive form. It is a curse to exist in a frame so...limiting.”

Simaris approaches, rigidly, moving to meet them where they sit, though he stands six feet apart for some reason. When he’s as close as he wants to be, they scrutinize him from afar. They can register the ever so slight tip of his head, as if he were taking in their surprise and dare they say, smugly reveling in it.

“Do you see now, Tenno?” He asks, patronizing them. “This is the Sanctuary. It is capable of even more.”

“Really? Is that why you chose such a basic and ‘primitive’－” they punctuate the word with air quotes. “－form?”

The question seems to catch him off guard.

“No. It is only because I had a desire to experience the vantage point of my synthesis targets.”

They glance around once more at the impressive picture around them. Was the Sanctuary capable of more? The sky, the field of moving flowers, the simulated breeze and constantly moving particles. It takes up memory and space. And then there’s Simaris: standing in probably the simplest form he could render with what’s left of the Sanctuary's processing power. The scene he had set here was likely just as taxing on the systems as a full battle with a million projectiles and objects to track, collisions to monitor. He must be trying to maintain efficiency through conservation. That’s their theory, anyway.

“I dunno. I think I know by now that you have a flair for the dramatic. You could have chosen anything” They tease, regardless. “Look around. All I was hoping for was a few planter boxes.”

“How predictable of you, Tenno, to think within the confines of a box. ” The sneer comes from the mouthless Proxy now instead of from the unknown, diminishing the harshness of it all. They don’t take his words to heart: a box is all they’ll ever know.

Despite it all, the Operator chuckles, mockingly holding up their circlet as a peace offering; a thank you gift. The Cephalon gives no indication of acknowledgement of the truce until he reaches out with one hand, as if to accept it...despite still being several feet away.  They bite down a remark and nearly jump out of their warframe when the circlet begins to leave their hands to levitate towards Simaris’. The silky petals brush against their fingertips on their way out, though they can hardly feel the texture. It floats to Simaris’ palm like a magnet, and once it is there he closes his fist around it, still looking at the Operator all the while.

He finally peers down at the circlet, already simulating a crumbling state due to the graceless force of Simaris’ hold. The Proxy opens its grip and lets the circlet rest around the base of its fingers.

“...Fascinating.”

The words come out betraying nothing. No sarcasm, but nothing genuine either. Just pure neutrality. The Operator sighs.

“This is all amazing but...I’m ready to leave now, Simaris.” It’s a lie, one they forced out only because they just didn't want to make him sustain this place for them any longer. A tiny frown slips onto their feature. In fact, this whole thing? Probably just a parlor trick to extol the “virtues” of Sanctuary, to restore his Hunter’s efficacy. He probably doesn’t care. Not Simaris－

The Proxy shifts its gaze to look at them.

“Heed my warning, Hunter: you are not to participate in Onslaught until a sufficient period of time has passed.”

They blink in their transference seat.

“What?” The Operator says. “Are you...forcing me to take a break? Are you serious? This is a joke.”

“A joke? Spare me this nonsense.” Simaris scoffs. “I have no humor precepts.”

Sure, maybe they could use a break, being burnt out and all, but work is how they relax! Right? In desperation, they push themselves up to their feet just to see Simaris’ shell still in the same position, not backing down whatsoever.

“But－”

“－Enough. Every other task remains open to you.”

The Operator raises one finger both in protest and to tell him to “wait just a moment.” They even open their mouth to strike a bargain, trudging closer to where he stands. But soon they slow down: their body is being pulled from the simulation, collapsing in on itself in order to reconstruct outside. Simaris is booting them from the Sanctuary! The nerve. His Proxy stands the same as before, but now somehow radiating an inexplicably smug aura.

The. Nerve.

Simaris tips his head in faint acknowledgement of their struggle. In horror, the Operator realizes that it had also been a parting gesture. He folds his hands behind his back.

“Hunter. Return to me when it is finished.”

With that, Cephalon Simaris ejects them from the datascape.

Xaela ask again. As someone who plays ffxiv, my favorite night sky is the Thanalan one, right outside of Ul'dah. And Noctis, Noctis who has never had a night where it was safe to go outside in his life, gets to see the stars. He gets to see them without being mobbed by monsters or obscured by light pollution. Because the beginning zone is pretty safe so I can sort of see your trio just, laying down on the ground with him and star watch. Extra points if there's a meteor shower. :)

Awwwwwwww

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

-It’s not that he’s never seen the night sky before. The Havens were great for stargazing if one wanted but... he usually hadn’t wanted to. Too tired, too deep in mourning, too hurt, too SOMETHING and the stars had not been worth staying up and listening to the not-so far off scream of daemons.

-That and after everything that happened Noctis is kind of ... afraid of the night. Afraid of what his instincts still think might be lurking out there.

-It’s Cotota’s idea to take him stargazing after one too many times of noticing Noctis get a haunted look on his face as the sun sets and his one-time idle comment of not knowing the constellations (by which he means they’ve changed around since his time, but they all think means he’s never been taught).

-Noctis is NOT a fan of the idea at first. Very much not a fan. But the three are so eager and he owes them for their kindness so he very reluctantly follows them out of Ul’Dah and into the wilds as the sun sets. Is twitchy and wary and hyper-alert the entire trek out, almost refuses to lie down on the hillside Arasen picks out because WHAT IF THERE’S DANGER.

-Cotota knocks his feet out from under him.

-He wheeze-curses her for several seconds as he struggles to right himself and then goes dead silent as he catches sight of the sky over there heads.

-There is nothing quite so CLEAR as Thanalan’s desert sky, far away from the lights of Ul’Dah, unpolluted by the bustle of any of the cities Noctis once knew or even the light of Havens that no longer exist.

-The three pretend not to hear when Noctis’s breath shakes from the awe of it as he goes lax against the ground, sprawled out where Cotota knocked him down and staring up-up-up at the endless carpet of stars.

-“I never knew there were so many...” he breathes at last, and there is a childish wonder there, an awe that is as bright and wondrous as the sprawling constellations that caused it.

-Noctis remembers starscapes. Other Lucis Caelums in the past had gone stargazing, the Wanderer in particular was fearless in his love of the sky, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same to look upon a memory not-his-own, usually tainted with faint worry over daemons or later on the growing lights of cities. This is Noctis’s memory, Noctis’s LIFE, sprawled out on a hillside without fear of the dark, staring up at an endless swirling collage of white with specks of blue and red and twisting nebula of violet. It’s not the same.

-It’s so much better.

-He wants to take a picture of it, but he carefully doesn’t think that thought, because to do that would mean to think of Prompto, and from there his brothers and all he’s lost and right now he doesn’t want to grieve, he wants to ... be. Here. In the moment. Under these stars with these three new friends who have helped him so much.

-Then- a shooting star. It arcs across the sky and Temulun on his other side gasps quietly with excitement and tells everyone to make a wish.

-Arasen is just teasing her when another one arcs overhead. And then another. And another. And another until the sky is blazing with tails of light in a meteor shower and suddenly Noctis is laughing for reasons he can’t name but what might be a joy he hasn’t felt since before he turned eight and the marilith shattered his world.

-Cotota, stretched out lazily on Noctis’s other side, dryly comments that it looks like they are getting all the wishes.

-Noctis laughs softly again and doesn’t tell them that his wishes are impossible. But that if he could make just one he thought might come true....

-It would be this. Right here. A night without fear of infection and Darkness and Daemons, stretched out on the ground with good friends that he trusts.

-They end up staying on that hill all night watching the stars and telling stories, pointing out constellations to an eager Noctis and laughing when he cheerfully makes up a few constellations of his own with his imagination. They stay up they doze off, wake up as the dawn rises over the far off silhouette of Ul’Dah. Noctis wakes up first, and the others wake up to the soft sound of him singing. They don’t know the words, because he’s singing in a language too old for them to know (Lucian, his native language, not the one shoved in his head by whatever force brought him back to this world), but his tone is more wistful and nostalgic than sad and the melody is beautiful and so they listen without comment as the sun rises over the horizon.

-Sun risen, song done, night over, they trek back to Ul’Dah in silence. But it is a peaceful, contented thing, and Noctis looks ... lighter than he has in all the time they’ve known him.

-Arasen grins to himself and thinks they’ll have to do stargazing more often.

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

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

ok so idk if u guys remember from a few months ago i wrote like, a concept fic? for this idea i had for a fairy tale AU, but that was like, a super crude off-the-cuff scene, but i have been working rly hard on this au since i wrote that.

i don’t want to start officially posting the fic until it’s 100% complete, but i’ve honestly been so excited about this AU and am perpetually bursting to post it even though it’s not even close to done.

so in part to promote my own shit and in part bc i feel the need to offer some sort of solace after these recent developments lol, you can read a little excerpt of the WIP below the cut :^]

No wonder he never lost, Matt thinks to himself wryly. How could anyone have bested this guy when he’s so… distracting?

“Your move,” Shiro says after neither has taken any initiative.

Matt bites his lip in thought for a moment. “You’re quick in combat, but what about in pursuit?”

Shiro’s brow furrows and he straightens. “What?” he asks, but Matt’s already tossed his staff aside and backs away from Shiro with playful confidence. Shiro starts a slower pace after him.

Matt shrugs. “I told you to try and keep up,” he says before turning around and racing into the trees.

Shiro doesn’t miss a beat. “Not again, you don’t,” Matt hears him laugh before he’s running close behind.

Giddy and nervous exhilaration fueling him, Matt knows these woods like the back of his hand, and he leads Shiro in a circle around the glade, stopping to turn around often. They don’t run for long, Matt mostly walking backwards to weave through the trees. Shiro keeps a steady pace to follow, lunging once in a while for Matt’s arm.

It’s obvious he’s playing along with Matt, the way they laugh and tease back and forth, playing off each other’s wit. Together they draw out their improvised game of “don’t look away from each other but also don’t trip on the roots while you wander aimlessly in a circle.”

Matt closes the lap, redirecting himself toward the clearing once more in a final dash. Quick to catch up, Shiro grabs hold of Matt’s wrist and pulls back just enough to let Matt know it’s over.

Matt laughs, but he twists around and pretends to still put up a fight until Shiro manages to grab his other wrist. Both of them panting and red-faced as their laughter subsides, they move a little closer.

Matt makes no effort to free himself from Shiro’s grasp. “We’ll call this round a draw,” he says.

Shiro furrows his brow, amused. “It’s not a draw if you forfeit.”

“I didn’t forfeit; I used my speed and agility to try and gain the upper hand.”

“And look where that got you.” Shiro tugs Matt’s arms gently, inching a bit closer.

Matt smiles as he closes the rest of the space between them. “I’m right where I wanted to be.”

I can be smooth too, Matt proudly thinks to himself, fully intending to punctuate his wit with a kiss. Shiro smiles in expectancy, but both recoil with a unanimous gasp, Matt losing all train of thought at the sudden spectacle before him.

“You’re glowing,” is all he can manage to say, however obvious. But it is true. Shiro is quite literally alight; his skin a spattering of what Matt can only describe as scarscapes—violet starscapes, reminiscent of those Matt takes such solace in on the clearest of nights.

Shiro’s face and arms, freckled by constellations and dusted by nebulas, brightest where their skin touches. Matt stares in awe, eyes following the trails of light as they travel up to the roll of Shiro’s sleeves, mimicking the stream just next to them as the patterns coil up his face and shimmer like slow fireworks, or those glittery oil lamps Matt always sees burning at festivals.

Matt redirects his gaze to meet Shiro’s again. He looks just as astonished as Matt, but a somber understanding weights his voice as he breathes, “I can feel you.”

Broken from his trance, Matt finds his own voice, but he still can’t seem to grasp any words. “You… what?”

Shiro visibly steadies himself, hands falling to his sides as he straightens. “There’s something I have to show you.”

you are cool, happy halloween ! (though its one day after in my timezone)

Happy halloween!!! :D I hope you had a good one!!

And oh my god!!!! I LOVE your Pacthesis Chrono Days icon btw!!!! :D That used to be one of my favorites of hers. What a blast from the past!!!!

Rebis paced in front of the Starwood Portal. She had had already been coronated, and had been running the clan during the entire Starfall Celebration, but her heart raced now that the moment Telos was leaving was finally here.

“She’ll be late,” she fretted.

“That would be an impressive feat given it will be many hours until the last star falls,” Hart pointed out with a smile. “Relax, little one. She would not miss this for the world.”

As if on cue, Pistis arrived with Telos in her wake, and both of them had to admire her. She wasn’t dressed in her old clothes like she had been during Brightshine, but there were definite echoes of that wardrobe. She was still in Alchemist skirts, but her old ones had always been simple leather, while these were deep, dusky blues and purples. She had adorned herself in simple violets and bright sapphire feathers...and she was still wearing her bracers.

“How do I look?” she asked. “Too casual?”

“Enchanting,” Hart answered immediately.

Rebis’ answer was slower and more deliberate. The urge to run up and hug Telos was agonizing, and she could see herself doing it as vivid as a fever dream in her mind, but she couldn’t have. Even if she weren’t covered in celestine, it simply wasn’t the time. And she quietly made peace with the reality that if there had ever been a time, it was long gone now. “You look like yourself.”

Telos’ eyebrows jumped, but her eyes quickly filled with warmth and she beamed. “That’s what I was hoping for. I just want them to see me. As I’ve become since we last saw one another.”

Hart gave a rumble of laughter, and offered Telos his arm. “If any single one of my kin fails to love you as much as we all do, tell them they can send you right back to us.”

The foot of the Focal Point had the feeling of a merry reunion. Not every member of the clan had come--just those who had once lived in those cliffs and their families. There was an air of cameraderie and community that was astonishing given where they were, and that was before the round of applause that welcomed Telos’ appearance.

Eoria strolled up with her sisters, hand in hand, and bowed her head. "We would like to offer the clan our voice, to sing the queen and her entourage off."

"Oh no," Telos said quickly, remembering their last major song and how that had ended. "Please don't do anything that will put you to sleep again."

The sisters giggled, and Frelia comfortingly patted Telos' hand. "That won't happen. There is no magic of ours in this one--Merlot will be leading us, it's only that kind of song."

The songstress stood by, bright-faced and waving a bottle. Her expression was cheerful, but much like the rest of the crowd, she was obviously on the edge of crying.

It warmed Telos' heart, their smiling faces and full hearts and tears that weren't from unhappiness at all. She whooped suddenly as Hart lifted her easily up onto his shoulder, and took off at a heart march, bellowing behind him:

"Let's not let the lady be late for her date!"

The clan cheered wildly, filling the site that had once been their home with the sound of life and love again. Merlot sniffled, cleared her voice, and sat her bottle down. Harvestasha and Eoria held her hand and words to a song she barely knew and yet recognized instinctively came to her.

Recommended Listening: Exec_Phantasmagoria/.

The last time Telos had come, it had been only a few in her company and it had been a somber and unintrusive visit to the graves. They hadn't even dared to fly; the skies had ceased to be their home and the Eye of Many Lenses had seemed a looming, inhospitable presence.

This time they passed old and bittersweet places as one; through the curling spires of the inner crystalspines until they came together into the dizzying plateaus of the Focal Point. The Great Staroak, grown strong and wild with its vow ties tattered but still swaying in the breeze. The path to where Horizon had died, where mountain starfall blossoms had taken root with the changed winds and young saplings were pushing the former limits of the treeline. The royal nursery which had grown so much that the pillar of celestine had snapped under its own mountainous weight and lay like a broken obelisk among the flower fields. The empty hollows of the Engineering Enclave and the once-floating Artisan Nebula which had fallen from its low-hanging orbit at some point and strewn its morganite cobblestones over 3 successive cliffs of the Focal Point.

These were places of old memory that easily might have invited somberness or sadness, but none among them could have their joy quelled. They acknowledged these places each with displays of respect and healing--petals carried on a guided gust from Azricai and Rieslingale's wings, a dazzling magic display that fell as gently and harmlessly as rain onto these ruined places. Granting them all the joy and energy and will to rebuild that had been previously confined to Aphaster.

Frelia sailed over them like a herald, and her sister's song seemed to carry with her. It rang up from the base of the Focal Point, always at their back like a melodious tailwind telling the tale of tragedies past and the healing they did and still would enjoy and the brilliant future that lay ahead of them still. Clan Shard's day was over and would not return, but they would fill the empty place it had become with something new and the remains would not be allowed to become lonely places haunted by pain and bad memories.

They only grew in excitement as they reached Exalt’s Path, which would guide them up to the Liminal Band and to the Observatory above it. It was the single site where so much had been taken from them, and they could scarcely keep themselves contained with the knowledge that soon all would be set right. Cloudwhyte was swinging Alchemilla in merry circles, Galbana was flying in large complicated patterns while Saber and Turan wept from pride and elation at walking the the ancestral paths again, as they once had at the very beginning of Clan Shard.

With a wave of her staff, Lutia raised them all on a current of her own starry magic and delivered them flightless but soaring to the heights beyond. It was only at the edge of the ice-crusted peak that she set them down again, and it was then that Telos broke free. She leaped from Hart’s shoulders at a sprint. The doors were already open and awaiting her and after so very very long, there was nothing between them and her. 

Yet she skidded to a stop, and looked back.

The ones she loved were all there. Dreamweaver and Abaddon and Junior and Jorah and Sirius. And her beloved Zo with a tender smile on his face. He trotted out to her, giving her a last hug. "You've said all your goodbyes, ma. Go."

She gripped him tight. "I love you." She felt more still pile on--Junior and Jorah first, then Saber and Ashes and Camellia and Azricai and Dreamy and Abaddon. Even Dust and Trathail, followed Hart and Safiri who enclosed them in their tight embrace.

Tears filled Telos' eyes as the circle of those who had loved and supported her along the way dispersed. She complimented them with the most radiant smile she had, and shouted aloud, for them and all the clan to hear.

"I love you!”

She hiked her skirts and took off at a proper dash toward the light. Behind her she heard Rebis voice, tiny but distinct and quavering with emotion, addressing the clan.

"Remember her! Not as the wife of the dynasty, not as the mourning queen, the xannite queen, or the celestine queen!”

“When you speak of her, write of her, think of her-- know she was Telos, the Indomitable!"

The chant rose, following on Telos' heel as she dived into the pulsing magenta light. The ground vanished from beneath her feet, and while she wasn't flying, she knew she was still moving. The sense of her body was lost. The glamour was gone, but she had little sense of horn or claw or wing. But she thought she saw the shadows of a dozen guardians in a vast nebula that spanned a starscape with no end or beginning.

They crowded around her, welcoming her in, and though they were indistinct, she knew each one was a Shard that had come to welcome her. She reached out dreamily to the one she knew must be the Radiant--thoughts and memories of Abaddon and Junior and Jorah rushing through her like a tide. He seemed to twinkle warmly in response, perhaps laughing, and nudged her deeper into the expanse.

From among them, two shooting stars collided into her, and without thinking, she caught both within herself. They lacked familiar forms, but just as they knew her despite all the time that had passed, she would have known them anywhere. There was so much she wanted to say and ask and apologize for, but little of it mattered in the exultant moment of knowing she was with them again.

After 21 long and difficult eons, Telos was at home in her family's arms.

@boyonetta

Violet eyes glimmered as Asra stepped into the elf’s space, close enough to be flush together. His hands slid to Aaravos' shoulders, deft fingers curling into the hair at the back of his neck. Asra gave no explanation as he tucked his head under the elf’s chin, grinning against pearlescent skin. “I thought so,” he murmured, breath fanning across the other’s neck. Tilting his head, Asra pressed his lips to a bright star just below Aaravos’ collarbone and let the kiss linger. “The perfect height."

@magicianbound || the tables tURN!!

    He’s unsure whether he’ll ever get USED to this again—

    A certain deprivation has led to an overwhelming hunger in the archmage, that which seems nigh impossible to satisfy, no regard to how many instances he’s felt that warm glow of skin against his: mere BRUSH of fingertips, the slightest shift of garments RUSTLING together when their shoulders touch—he’s fragile to every trace of it. And this much, Asra knows. Which may be the precise reason his little magician has taken it upon himself to act as he does now: retaliation for the TAUNTS of the taller, or simply a reward—?

    Difficult, Aaravos realizes, to discern when he’s instantly ensnared in a trap of which he finds himself… not incredibly DISAPPROVING.

    In the single breath of Asra drawing closer, a wave of nothing more than CURIOSITY flushes through him, bringing a noticeable PERK in pointed ears and owl-like slant of his head. He is, for but a moment, a trace amused by the now all too discernible difference of HEIGHT between them, and it shows in that playful twist at one corner of his mouth. The higher ground, quite literally, but only for a few steadying THUMPS of his heart, thereafter. Because Asra’s fingers dance over his shoulder, then, and the reaction is nothing short of IMMEDIATE.

    He feels those digits like pricks of heat gliding across the starscape of his skin, awareness to their every move so strong his breath already makes a RETREAT on one soft but distinctly quavering exhale. Sudden and sharp, the shiver leaps down his spine like a bolt of lightning, and with the ghost of contact left in the wake of Asra’s maneuvers, static darts wickedly through his limbs. Parted lips grant him shallow breaths, but are hasty in twisting to his DOWNFALL not long after.

    Warm air of an EXHALE taunts the starving skin at his neck. His own throat TIGHTENS and locks, barring the next breath he endeavors to take. But he’s forced to, the very second a new pair of lips seize a certain residence over that heated flesh.

    And SEARING, now, are the fires which sprout from that one bud of contact, BLOOMING over the whole of his frame.

    he gasps.

    The flutter of his eyelids is proof without necessity of the desired EFFECT. Aaravos struggles to steel himself, if only for a moment, as one hand scoots up Asra’s arm, splays over the small of his back. Breathless, the elf still manages a small chuckle, trailed by a whisper meant only for those ears in the CLOSEST proximity.

    “Sweet thing; how long have you WAITED to do that?”

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

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