#there is a repeating brocade pattern in the red silk
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pattern matching on curved seams because I’m just wacky like that 🤪
#lol#RRD cosplay#my cosplay#my sewing#sewing#pattern drafting#pattern matching#there is a repeating brocade pattern in the red silk#which I'm grateful for bc I use it to square the grain and make sure everything is cut straight lol#but it's a 10 panel princess seam dress#and I have a 10 inch difference between bust and underbust#and only slightly smaller difference between bust and overbust#so the princess seam that goes over the bust is hella curvy#I just went and put my muslin mockup just to see which elevation should have the more perfect pattern matching: overbust or full bust#gonna go with full bust#I think it'll be most noticeable there#the pattern will all line up on the horizontal but can only meet perfectly at the seam in one place with something that curvy#and I think the fullest part of the chest is the most obvious#and hey it doesn't have to be like PERFECT perfect#since there's the trim that gets sewn on top of the seamlines anyway#but still#I managed a little bit of pattern matching on the back 4 panels and it looks so cool#hopefully the front is even better#hokay back to it#7 pieces cut out 5 still to cut LET'S GO
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Boomerang Trends: How Lehenga Styles Keep Coming Back
Out of designs for your next lehenga!?
It’s time to bring the 90’s back!!
There are many traditional Indian outfits with a rich history, but none is more splendid or alluring than the lehenga-choli. It has a pivotal history that has always played a major role in Indian fashion.
The Lehenga Craze!!
Since the beginning of time, lehengas have been an integral part of Indian culture and are still in style today. While there are many options for wedding or party attire, an Indian lehenga is just unmatched in beauty.
Trendzzz….
Every industry has its share of trends. After all, it is what keeps the crowd energized, and Lehengas are obviously no exception.
The Past Rizzz….
Indians gained fame for the lehenga choli during the Mughal Empire, where the lehenga gradually evolved into a royal garment.
Since then, everything about the lehenga has changed, including the embroidery, fabrics like silk and brocade, and the stitching patterns. Instead of being the norm for the majority of Indians, this royal attire is now a statement of fashion.
Lehengas did not regain popularity as a trendy outfit until the 1990s. The lavish Bollywood movies with wedding scenes were the ones that would captivate fans with their vivid colors and beautiful needlework.
And after becoming widely accepted in Bollywood films, it made an appearance on the runway during Indian Fashion Week.
Traditional lehengas gave way to avant-garde styles like straight lehengas, a-lines, paneled lehengas, mermaid or fishtail lehengas, and many more.
Revolutionizing the Trends…..
The clothing worn today differs from that worn centuries ago in a variety of little ways.
There are also many more varieties, from the classic ones still worn in the villages of Rajasthan to the innovative, modern ones seen on fashion ramps and red carpets.
Today the Lehengas have changed not only in terms of style but also in terms of philosophy, sociology, history, politics, and geography.
The Current Vogue!!
Of course, there is a huge selection of intriguing lehenga cholis available on the market today. The variety is extremely wide, ranging from intricately embellished designer lehengas to vibrant festival lehengas.
Depending on the chosen silhouette, the skirt style can change. For example, mermaid-cut skirts have a seductive fit that is close to the knees before beautifully flaring out. A-line skirts feature the standard, straight-cut appearance of Western skirts, whereas circular lehengas have a fall that is both structured and voluminous with a broad spread.
The Lehenga Cholis that are currently on the market use urban themes and techniques. Even though the Lehenga Cholis are minimalistic and visually appealing, they still show signs of cultural tradition.
Rebounding Trends…
"Retro." "Vintage." "That looks so 90s!"
Do you hear this often? Quite a lot, right?
Have you ever wondered why the latest fashion trends have fallen out and outdated designs are taking over the market? It is the boomerang impact of trends in clothing.
According to industry experts, this occurs once every 20 years. And that two decades is sufficient to settle the current tendencies and come to the conclusion that the earlier ones were far superior.
The repeating trends in Lehengas are due to the fact that Indian designers have significantly broadened the scope of their businesses and designs over the past several decades. Rediscovering traditional patterns and designs is one of their main areas of interest now.
Additionally, social media has changed the game entirely. Girls choose vivacious fashion choices to appear polished on social media. The notion of rekindling the old-fashioned sparks while clicking like or browsing Instagram or Pinterest.
The Upcoming Sensation!!
A lot of designers are looking into various eras in the history of lehenga-cholis in an effort to uncover and revive the pride in gorgeous classic designs that have been out of style for a long time.
They are also planning on fusing unique Western aesthetics into their designs to produce chic, fusion clothing.
Additionally, they want to make sure the lehenga has absorbed and combined with contemporary influences and world trends.
Wrapping up (just like the trend of heavy lehengas)…
Designers from throughout the nation have given the lehenga their own unique spin, and the weavers of these lehengas have added their own innovations to a variety of fabrics.
Now that we live in a social media age, we are more aware of many cultures and their artistic creations. Observing how the lehenga evolved from a royal garment to what it is today is quite amazing.
House Of panchhi has been influenced by the interchange of culture and customs within communities as well as by the always-shifting geopolitical situations.
At House Of Panchhi, each of our lehengas is an homage to this iconic outfit that has stood the test of time and fashion. Browse through our sizable collection, which demonstrates the dedication and tenacity of the talented weavers in our land.
Happy Clicking!
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Geralt would never admit it in a thousand years, but he loves Jaskier’s clothes.
He loves how the opulent colours glint and change in the sunlight, the bright jeweled blues and the deep hearty greens and the rich, rich reds deepening and brightening as they shift with each move Jaskier makes. More than that, he admires how boldly Jaskier wields his palette, how he is unafraid to shine, to be noticed, to take up space.
He likes the fabrics of Jaskier’s garments too, from the smoothest silks which are like dipping his hand in running water when he touches them to the elaborate brocades with their endlessly repeating patterns which feel like a secret language running beneath his fingers. Jaskier’s winter cloak is a heavy, thick velvet with a pile that shifts and resists when he passes his hands over it, pushing against the pile to make it stand up, smoothing it down again in long, sweeping strokes.
He finds excuses to play with the textures, to investigate the tiny rows of neat buttons with his fingertips or to run over the carefully folded seams with his fingernails, each angle a new sensation, soothing and intriguing at once.
He especially enjoy ties and ribbons, the delicate cords which lace up trousers and hold shut shirts, the way he can wind the thin strips of fabric around his finger and pull, the wispy feeling of silk cord sliding around each digit.
“This needs laundered,” he’ll say, gruffly, waving a bar of soap at an item and not looking Jaskier in the eye. “Give it here and I’ll wash it.” And Jaskier will hand it over with a smile. Sometimes that smile looks a little too knowing, like he thinks the item isn’t that badly in need of a wash, but he hands it over anyway.
When they’re staying at an inn and Jaskier is going downstairs to perform, he’ll casually inform Geralt that he's leaving his doublet here on this chair, could Geralt put it away for him? There’s no reason he should do that, but he’ll leave a different item each time, each one a new set of textures and sensations for Geralt to experience as he carefully lifts it, smooths it out, and folds it into a neat square left on Jaskier’s bed.
He wouldn’t admit it even on pain of death, but his very favourite item is the old, baggy shirt that Jaskier sleeps in. When he dares to invite Jaskier close on cold nights and puts an arm around him, he finds the fabric is worn smooth with age, the cotton cool and supple, so thin it drapes in soft lines over his hands. The hem at the bottom is fraying, but that’s just another interesting texture to enjoy, carefully running his fingers over the loose threads.
Parting for winter this year had been particularly vexing, the months of cold and grey stretching ahead of him seeming lonelier than ever. But when he arrives Kaer Morhen and unloads his packs, he has to roll his eyes. How many times has he told Jaskier to keep his things in his own bags?
There, at the top of his pack, is Jaskier’s sleeping shirt, worn so many times that Jaskier’s scent of cardamom and musk and lavender seems woven into the fabric itself. He runs his hands over the shirt and can't help but smile: The sensation beneath his fingers feels almost like home.
#me; a texture fiend: geralt loves touching clothes ok#i am projecting this onto him and you can't stop me#geraskier#the witcher#my writing
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Indian ‘Dhal’ shield 19th century. Ahmedabad, Gujarat. (via Instagram: Runjeet Singh) The convex shield, with rolled edge, is made from treated hide and the entire surface painted. The centre has discs of floral patterns, with an outer sunburst in gold. The main area of the shield has a deep-green repeating floral patterns on a black background. Iron rings, and a red silk covered pad with brocade border. Signed by the maker: Khooshal Dhunjee & Sons.
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Miss Fisher’s first outfit of “Queen of the Flowers” (Season 1, Episode 9) is an eye-catching burgundy red three-piece ensemble comprised of a matching coat, skirt, and shirt.
All the items are made of a luxurious wine-colored silk sari fabric with ornate golden brocade along her cuffs and hems. Upon closer inspection, the detailing includes subtle blue and red flowers surrounded by golden leaves in a repeating pattern, bordered by a straight line with alternating blue and red crosses with golden floral motifs in between.
Phryne’s shirt is in a camisole style, with a straight neckline and thin red shoulder straps. Her ankle-length pleated skirt has a flat waistband with embroidery along the hem the same width as on her cuffs and neckline.
Her gorgeous jacket has several interesting features, including a curved Mandarin collar, five fabric-covered buttons on each lapel, brocade detailing on her sleeve cuffs, and oddly enough, two red pocket flaps, the lower one slightly larger than the top. The back of her jacket shows off the intricate golden brocade pattern, with the lapel embroidery continuing down to the hem, a much larger portion on the lower half of the coat, and another medium-sized stretch of embroidery reaching up from her waistline.
She accessorizes with circular Bakelite sunglasses, which she wore back in 1x02, red leather gloves and a matching leather purse.
Her familiar red felt cloche with feather and felt detailing makes its eighth appearance in this episode, having been seen twice in 1x01, once in 1x02, twice in 1x04, once in 1x05, and in 1x06 as well.
Season 1, Episode 9 - “Queen of the Flowers”
Screencaps from here, promotional photos from the official Facebook (x, x, x, x, x, x, x) and various sources (x), compilation photo of embroidery detailing by me, hat photo from the official Pinterest.
#mfmm#miss fisher's murder mysteries#phryne fisher#Phryne costumes#phryne fisher's frocks#season one#1x09#red cloche#queen of the flowers#s1e09#red skirt#vintage#1920's#1920's fashion#Essie Davis#marion boyce#hat repeat
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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
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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
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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
#ooc ;; memes#long post#the longest post#Fell Dragon ;; Grima#impossible odds ;; au#ooc ;; aesthetic
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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
#headcanon#meme response#cut for length ///#blood tw#gore tw#horror tw#nihilism tw#unreality tw#body horror tw#( i mean if i were being completely honest i'd have bolded way more of this but...y'know...i had to be discerning so it wasn't like...every#spooky thing )
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Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme
REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG AND DO NOT DELETE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.
The following quotes and phrases are taken from the stories in Thomas Ligotti’s anthology Songs of a Dead Dreamer. Some of these quotes were slightly tweaked for the sake of this meme. If you enjoy the imagery or writing in this meme, please support the author by purchasing his work. Content warnings for horror in general and brief mentions of blood, nihilism, unreality, mannequins, dolls, puppets, and some body horror.
Bold what applies to your muse.
Muse: (If you are a multimuse blog, specify what muse you are filling this out for.)
Tagged by:
Tagging:
The Frolic
Absolute madness paired with a sharp cunning / an expression of sky-blue peacefulness / the indistinct happiness of the future / a piece of moon above the opulent leafage of spring trees / a broken-down kingdom of miracles and horrors / a Neverland where dizzy chaos is the norm / a cosmos of crooked houses and littered alleys / a slum among the stars / a jolly river of refuse / jagged heaps in shadows / a phantasmagoric mingling of heaven and hell / a moonlit corridor where mirrors scream and laugh / dreamy back-drops / ice cubes in an empty glass / shifting expressions on a lean face / vague suggestions and subtle jokes / an Aphrodite sculpture / the wind, cold and dead / a crumbled piece of paper / black-foaming gutters / the dank windowless gloom of some intergalactic cellar / starless cities of insanity / a bright freezing scream of laughter / a passing anecdote of some obscure hell
Les Fleurs
Sorrowful flowers / lilting blossoms for a loved one’s memorial / a florist shop / flowers which open only at night / a hothouse warm smile / night-blooming cereuses / a sleek ocelot / well-preserved old places / plants resembling birds / white picket fences / flower-printed curtains / liqueur tasting of flowers from open fields / cool, clean offices / invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness / the sounds of black orchids growing / the flower-bedded earth / a ripple of empathetic insight / a gorgeous kingdom of glittering colors / velvety jungle-shapes / contorted rainbows and twisted auroras / hyper-radiant hues / a marvelous arcana / tongue-like floral appendages / tongues flowering
Alice’s Last Adventure
Volatile years when anything might go wrong / the embodiment of topsy-turvydom / pools of rainwater / tarnished mirrors / moonlit windows / a thousand misshapen marvels / a universe handed over to new gods / stoic tolerance of a second-rate reality / two complete strangers gawking at each other / a shiny, pearl-grey casket / black orchids / a strange combination of relief and confusion / a delayed echo with oblique origins / a chain of occurrences with links as weak as smoke rings / a sunny autumn morning / a sense of duty, vanity, and other less comprehensible motives / the seas of the moon / costumed kids / the cries of bedlamites / the clamor of rambunctious kids / a half-cocked oration / jack-o’-lanterns glowing orange and yellow / masked children / a plastic cup of cider / shadows wavering against two-story facades / a lamp with a shade of Tiffany glass / a disciple of the bizarre / an autumn moon hanging in the blackness / demonic giggling / the moon / a clock / shadows in the window
Dream of a Manikin
A mostly tacit but somehow complete biography / a marvelous trick of the mind / jeweled lamps along the walls / lights shining on an intricately patterned carpet and various pieces of old furniture / star-clustered blackness / a starry abyss / an iciness drifting in from a starscape / a horrible truth / a legend written somewhere at the bottom of a dream / echoing voices bouncing here and there around the room / a motto printed on fortune cookie-like strips of paper and hidden in bureau drawers / a broken record repeating itself on an ancient Victrola / an alighting flock of birds / a field of dynamic tension / a dry sibilant voice / people dressed as dolls / shaking with tremors of the uncanny / a manikin dresser / astral ambience / occult studies and depth analysis / delving into speculative models of reality / cosmic static / harassments of the self / the boundaries of the self / a Bigger Self terrorizing its little splinter selves / cosmic ennui / a serendipitous discovery / this dream of flesh / guilty until proven otherwise / valerian and camphor baths / cryptic impudence / softly glowing display windows / the divine bonds of unreality / a medium-intensity shower / display-window dummies / rain-spotted glasses / a car with rain-blinded windows / a moment of self-terror / the mythical conspiracy of a treacherous universe / a galaxy of constellations / a vaporous glowing / a whitened hallway / dolls made up to look like people / eyes shining in the white darkness / a powerful psychic metaphor
The Chymist
Daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism / bubblegum and beer / a chalice in a church / a serum vial in a laboratory / the tartness of one’s smile / a very keen appreciation of diversity / decrepitude / the withering heart of the deceased / bastardized nostalgia / the putrescence of things past / arching mirrors / chrome chandeliers / second-hand fantasies and out-of-date distractions / one strange thing next to another / a genius of vulgarity / a lawless paradise / violence without violation / a smoke-gray sky / city-soiled clumps of snow / fluxing clouds that swirl above the chimneys and trees / alchemical transmutations / the glamour and sanity of former days / a new mask of rats and rot / a hopeless stroll along the path to hypothetically higher worlds / a body whose true outline remains unknown / the whims of chemistry / the caprices of circumstance / the enigma of personal taste / a leather vessel with a void inside / the skeleton of a dream / lights outlining the different venues and avenues below / a bottle of powdered light / pulverized diamonds / the flesh and blood kaleidoscope of one’s imagination / a prodigious insurrection of entity / a tempest of transfiguration
Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes
The full powers of a master hypnotist / a mesmeric wilderness / marked by fate’s stigmata / crystal twinkling under a chandelier’s kaleidoscopic blaze / power and prestige socializing / a pair of metronomes / a glossy black cabinet / two bluish gems in an alabaster setting / a tiny sequined outfit / mesmeric stunts / intact and unbloodied / routines in defiance of death and pain / a jaw-dropping finale / a blare of heavenly horns / a labyrinth of light / a gossamer veil / snow-white wings / the angelic luminary beneath the human beast / the eyes of the audience / mock-death and bogus-pain / sinking deep into a downy darkness / pillows stuffed with soft shadows / a sun at the center of a drab galaxy / vacant and full of grace / a business card with a cloud-gray pearl finish / riotous rococo / a chair of blinding brocade / flowery fabric / a shelf of delicate figurines / tall smoky mirrors / a bottomless pool / a sky wiped clean of clouds / dispassionate elegance / postures and poses like frozen roses / pajama-clad legs dangling /a shiny chrome-plated pen / a very soft but not condescending tone / a mazy wallflower / cartwheels of agony / somersaults through fires of doom / nosedives of vulnerable flesh into the meat grinder of life / serene constellations / sweet nullities / a spell-binding, snake-eyed charmer / high society vulgarians / eyes recessed in their sockets, sunken into a rotting profundity / labyrinthine depths / dancing clothes all clotted with putrescent goo
Eye of the Lynx
Missing girls in Gothic garb / amber going on red / a reddish haze / a crazy purpurean tapestry / a fair-haired girl / denim slacks and a leather jacket / bloody moonlight / a long sip from a can of iced tea / persecutions and imperilments as glamorous as those of any Gothic heroine / violet eyes / the machinations of an evil-hearted malefactor / haunting second-hand shops / a strip of dark velvet seized by a pearl brooch / a frail chain from which dangles a heart-shaped locket / a whirlpooling lock of golden hair / gloves, long and powdery pale / the shoulders of heavy capes lined in satin that shines like a black sun / enveloping hoods / capes with deep pockets and generous inner pouches for secreting precious souvenirs / capes with silk strings that tie about the neck / capes with weighted hems that nonetheless flutter weightlessly in midnight gusts / doll-size in a dark doll’s costume / quivering bones and feverish blood / fear’s funereal plume / carriage wheels rioting in a lavender mist or a pearly fog / nacreous fires twitching beyond the margins of country roads / cliffs and stars / a blur of crimson shadows / vast regions of sublime desolation / mountains hulking in hazy twilight / a rather large animal collar at the end of a chain leash / a light the color of fresh meat / a page in a depraved story book / a single candle glowing through red glass / little zippers and big zippers / a moth-eaten cloak / enthralling cruelties / spangled eyebrows / a brow of glittering silver / glistening with tiny flecks of starlight / the velvet embrace of one’s favorite cape / the tall candles one lights on stormy nights / chains of raindrops whipping against one’s windows / places where raging storms and brutal subjugations never end / the hardships of traveling to strange faraway places / frail little dolls / wild-wind nights and sadistic villains / corridors of scarlet darkness / a captive of one’s heart and its infinite chambers
Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story
Something magical / something timeless / something profound / a sooty basement / the putrid members of a man who is decomposing / a plain brown package marked Hope, Love, or Fortune Cookies and postmarked: the Edge of the Unknown / a helter-skelter universe where things are ever threatening to go abnormal and unreal / a normal, real love / impermanence and decay / evils sent out under various covers / sublime and terrifying conflict / fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman / moon-trimmed shadows / lunar landscapes of craggy peaks / skeletal wastelands of jagged ice / a brooding Gothic hero / an ethereal Gothic heroine / a castle-like skyscraper / an extra dose of obsessiveness / the Gothic tale / a militant romantic / waves of bombast / winds of ecstatic hysteria / a partially shattered window, its surface streaked with a blue film of dust / a sublime sense of desolation / the diluted glow of twilight / night’s enveloping cloak / grimy azure dimness / bluish semi-luminescence / tears of confusion / turquoise haze / blue shadows of silence / liquefying legs / an old storyteller / the voice of a tiny insect crying for help from inside a sealed coffin / a piercing, crystal shriek that lacerates the midnight blackness / a haunter of spectral marketplaces / Gothic glory / a horror writer / an ardent consumer of the abnormal and the unreal / a visitant of discount houses of unreality / subject only to the rule of demonic forces / puppet-shadows / a hell so excruciating it is bliss itself / bony wings rising out of one’s back / jaws that are a cavern of dripping silver / rivers of putrescent gold running through one’s veins
The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie
Diamond-paned windows / a thick December fog / a serene congregation of colors / holly, both fresh and artificial / a pale purple ribbon / a ritual forever reenacted without hope of escape / a large chair beside a fogged window / crackling logs / a foggy winter’s night / bright Christmas lights shining through the fog / always dead with darkness / always alive with lights
The Lost Art of Twilight
A streak of iodine red / a spattering of flat black / the early autumn sun / silver hair / a gray suit / a long envelope, neatly cesareaned / the charnel house creeps / a silver shield / crepuscular radiance / an offspring of the dead / the progeny of phantoms / the big green eye of an EEG monitor / De Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal / a rainbow of insects / the science of superstition / the Provencal countryside / a pantheon of gargoyles amid the splendor of a medieval church / a holy soldier of the living / a monster of the dead / the astral banquet of Art / the rotting flesh of rainbows / the sonar screech of a bat / vampiric origins / the oncoming onyx of a storm / shadows and sunshine / glare and gloom / bright clouds and black / iron-red leaves / tentative drops of rain / blue bears and yellow rabbits / neither a blood-warm human nor a blood-drawing devil / oceans of blood / the ravenous life of the undead / an authoritative impatience / eternal life in an eternal death
The Troubles of Dr. Thoss
Pale gray pajamas / thick sheets of paper / a bottle of black ink / a shapely black pen with a silvery nib / strands of blond hair, almost white / a sudden salty breeze / silhouettes and shadows / unreflecting windows / metal hinges squeaking somewhere in the wind / a sleepless night / constellations beyond the window panes / star-filled hours / the pure whiteness of the page / a flung shoe leaning toe-up against a bedpost / nothingness unstained by inner conception / white snow in a white sky / dark lines and vacant spaces / vast expanses of frozen whiteness / a church in a foreign town / assorted devils and demons / ice-mad mountains / a spirit of malicious abandon / nightmarish anatomies / a sickle-shaped scar of moon / sea-licked shores / dark letters / feeding one’s troubles to the sea / brown-leafed trees / a forest of memorials / clumps of crosses / groves of gravestones / dark, cowl-shaped windows / unblemished by shadows / the sound of crashing waves / bending dawns into twilights / static from a broken radio / breaking waves / seaside air / a gleaming crescent moon / a bone-white cicatrix / chronic insomnia / a blade of moon / white night, white noise
Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie
The confusions of carnival night / gyrations of squealing abandon / lines between pain and pleasure / a rainbow of rags / a startling length of blade / pale pages elegantly dappled by somber verses / a pair of strangely darkened spectacles / the toneless voice of one who is dead to all appeasement or mercy / mounds of snow that had been sown with ashes / eyes as dark and swirled with shadows as the raving night itself / a constellation of designs / mad games of flesh and steel / a forbidden madness / dense forests of tall pikes planted in the earth / shadows rolling in empty sockets / lacerated mouths / the darkness of dreams / to see the world drown in oceans of agony / visions of butchering the angels / a god of deceit or illusion / chaos at feast / black with scars of madness / darkly clouded glass / the brightest and highest of stars / shimmering halls / unnaturally colored wine / red-smeared forms / many-taloned claws / the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand / a pair of leviathan leeches / a lord of the sword made mad / the dark powers which we cannot understand but only hate / rhapsodic voices in the streets / a privileged doom / the face of the soul of the world / the cool marble of the floor / an onyx-black knight / a face flushed with crimson glory
Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech
A scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky / a long, brightly colored coat / noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically / life-size dolls hanging suspended by wires / wetted strands of a spider web / shiny satin legs / a beautifully pale hand / pulverized stars / dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets / the repose of ruin / an oily red glare / a well-dressed dummy / a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks / a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars / wood waking up / a sleep that should have never been broken / something too painful for tears / the false fire of the moon / two faces sharing a single head / faint, hollow screams from high above / a dummy’s silence / leftover tears of berserk laughter / bluish-green irradiance
Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror
Mist on a lake / fog in thick woods / a golden light shining on wet stones / a little trickle of suspicion in the bloodstream / the solar brilliance of a summer day / supernatural horror / a corner alive with cool drafts and fragrant with centuries of must / a rancid world rife with things smelling of the crypt / a sower of vice / mad winds / wan moonlight / pasty specters / the vividness of pain / the lasting effects of fear / natural-born puppets whose lips are stained with their own blood / dead bodies that walk in the night / living bodies suddenly possessed by new owners and deadly aspirations / the sepulchral pomp of wasting tissue / compassion for human hurt / a humble sense of one’s impermanence / an absolute valuation of justice / a demented innocence in the face of gruesome facts / the horrific reprisals of affirmation / the Cosmic Macabre / the shudders of a thousand graveyards
Dr. Locrian’s Asylum
Gray walls pocked like sponges / nights of futile tears and screaming / an expression of almost paternal forgiveness / the supreme delirium of the planets / bright puppets dancing in the blackness / a golden speck of magic / the silent, staring universe / something as pathetic as a puppet and as exalted as the stars / something at once dead and never dying / autumn constellations in the black sky above / harshly brilliant eyes / the remote places where truth had been shut up and abandoned
The Sect of the Idiot
Extraordinary joy / extraordinary pain / the great hollow of dreams / an infinitely secluded place / a world that both menaces and surpasses this one / a holy madness / infinite stillness on foggy mornings / miracles of silence on indolent afternoons / the strangely flickering tableau of neverending nights / deceptive depths of shadow / heaps of clouds like dust balls / a fluorescent map of the cosmos / medieval autumns and mute winters / kaleidoscopic windows / a kind of cataclysm of empty space / an earthquake of the invisible / strikingly clear eyes / a dusty trunk of dreams / a maze of streets / an abyss of stars / a great reaching blackness / a stale gray dimness / an alien order of being / an icy blackness / starry blackness / a great round moon / deep aquatic blue / the voids of astronomy / a state of both paralyzed terror and spellbound curiosity / whispering figures / stagnant moonlight / withered, wilted claws / drooping tentacles / the spinning legs of spiders / the greedy rubbing of a fly’s spindly feelers / the darting tongues of snakes / the triumph of the grotesque / whispering effigies of chaos / putrid arcana / an ecstatic horror / horrific ecstasy / the demonic elements of which all creation is composed / corruption in disguise / a cache of unwonted offerings stored out of sight / currents of fear / dark tremors / splendid scenes broken with malign shadows / the lurid and the lovely forever lost in each other’s embrace / the arch of an old street / tunnel-like hallways / sickly light shining through unwashed, curtainless windows / atmospherics of infinite melancholy and unease / a decayed paradise / the everlasting residue of some cosmic misfortune / a solemn, mechanical intentness / a smooth and solid cube of black glass / a malignant puppet of madness / dazed in darkness / embarrassed throat-clearings / reproving looks / words which could only have meaning in a nightmare / a thing of strange degeneracy / a quintessence of hellish delirium / freakish, echoing laughter / the whispering of strangers / twitching tentacles / a horror which cannot be helped
The Greater Festival of Masks
The old and new / the real and imaginary / truth and deception / shops of costumes and masks / an incautious curiosity / shredded rags that are easily disturbed by the wind / a poster stuck to a crumbling wall / strange pathways of caprice / the outsized moon / silvery windows / doors which are elaborately decorated yet will not budge in their frames / massive shutters covering blank walls behind them / faces of dreams / sardonically grinning / innocence and excuses / a reddish glow of fire / a wad of bubbling blackness / smooth and faceless faces / the speaker in the shadows / the soft creaking of new faces breaking through old flesh
The Music of the Moon
Breaking the quiet of a moonlit room / enchantments that nearly make amends for one’s stolen slumber / some unusual shape leaping across steep roofs / a bewildering agility / many nights of sleepless hell / a knife / rope / a poison vial / an exploit of uncommon decisiveness / blank nights of insomnia / a handbill / ashes mixed with grease / a door with a faint yellow aura leaking out at its edges / small, shadowlike things moving in corners and along the floor molding / a quartet of musicians / a voice which sounds both exhausted and malicious / pale, ragged clouds of hair / sonic abnormality / an empty shaft of blackness / spherical lamps caked with dust / the silence of a dark, lifeless world / black silhouettes of human heads visible only in the moonlight / slow music in the soft darkness / a single note wavering in a universe of darkness / a incalculable proliferation of slightly dissonant harmony / the light of a quiet gray dawn / completely helpless, and yet content to be so / thick layers of webs / gazing at nothing with bleeding sockets / the moon all fat and pale, glaring down from its gauzy webs of clouds
The Journal of J.P. Drapeau
Unstained by any habits of the human / the ideal of everything alien to living / some molding backwater of the earth / the city of Bruges itself / a corpse of the Middle Ages / bony bridges / the black veins of old canals / a lonely evolution in shadowed streets and beside sluggish canals / the music of graveyards / a resonant chorus that fills the air and sometimes drowns out the voices of those who still live / layers of cobwebs floating about the near ceiling / a burst of resistance / the pealing of church bells / the language of whimsy / the force of stars tugging away at various points / the dark waters of a canal / shiny black hair parted straight down the middle / a low table covered by a red velvet cloth / a world that applauds trumped-up illusions while denying or demeaning those that create the very lives they are living / a spectral thing full of strange suggestion / an untenanted room filled with the echoes of nothingness / the eyes of certain crudely fashioned dolls / a greenish glow from a mirror /placid meandering canals / enwrapped in mist / close crumbling houses / odd arching bridges / innumerable church towers / narrow twisting streets / queer little courtyards / everything gone forever / an empty mist / an eternal twilight
Vastarien
Candles in a cloistered cell / shapes beneath the shadows / tall buildings whose rooftops nod groundward / wide buildings whose facades follow the curve of a street / buildings whose windows and doorways tilt like badly hung paintings / stairways that wander off-course into useless places / caged elevators that urge unwanted stops on their passengers / a sequestered civilization of echoes flourishing among groaning walls / thin ladders ascending into a maze of shafts and conduits / the dark valves and arteries of a petrified and monstrous organism / a desolate serenity / silvery cinders / the mouths of great chimneys / shadow-puppets / cluttered gardens and crooked gates / the purling waters of black canals / faded masks concealing profound schemes / a place of supernatural clarity and stillness / the crystalline glare of a lantern / moonlight through a curtained window / darkened windows / souls who believe that the only value of this world lies in its power—at certain times— to suggest another / a scattering of stars and lights / a coveted paradise / the most gauzy phantom of another place / a shadowy mimic / the anatomy of a great dream / everlasting echoes / a rectangle of smudged glass within another rectangle of scuffed wood / crowded shelves / remnants of a luxuriant autumn / an obscene reality / to dwell among the ruins of reality / shadowed volumes / scripture that would begin with the portents of apocalypse and end with the wreck of all creation / to become the wind in the dead of winter / to howl the undoing of all that would abide in warmth and light / an enticing verse in a volume of esoterica / the dream of attaining some untainted good / a disastrous enlightenment / some hypothetical state of pure glory / the revelation that nothing ever known has ended in glory / some strictly demonic enterprise / something about one’s presence that makes one think of a crow / a scavenging creature in wait / a large, two-headed shadow / the sad frustration of the uninvited, the abandoned / the brilliant rectangle of a doorway / hopes and curiosities of an indeterminable kind / free-standing bookcases / pages and bindings of uncommon texture / abstract diagrams suggesting no orthodox ritual or occult system / a chronicle of strange dreams / an invocation of a world in waiting of genesis / days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares / a deliverance by damnation / nightmare made normal / a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or a thwarted searching for the good / a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge / a utopia of exhaustion, confusion, and debris / a dialogue of mystification, and possibly one of lies / the edge of a dreamless void / a dark and devouring bird / shadows and moonlight / an unbending web of heavy wire / unjust confinement / a slender syringe crowned with a silvery needle
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Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme
REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG, AND DO NOT DELETE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.
The following quotes and phrases are taken from the stories in Thomas Ligotti’s anthology Songs of a Dead Dreamer. Some of these quotes were slightly tweaked for the sake of this meme. If you enjoy the imagery or writing in this meme, please support the author by purchasing his work. Content warnings for horror in general and brief mentions of blood, nihilism, unreality, mannequins, dolls, puppets, and some body horror.
Bold what applies to your muse.
Muse: The one this blog is for?
Tagged by: Me, myself, and I.
Tagging: @wargod @rubberbodied @sharedpractice I’M TOO SHY TO TAG ANYONE ELSE.
The Frolic
Absolute madness paired with a sharp cunning / an expression of sky-blue peacefulness / the indistinct happiness of the future / a piece of moon above the opulent leafage of spring trees / a broken-down kingdom of miracles and horrors / a Neverland where dizzy chaos is the norm / a cosmos of crooked houses and littered alleys / a slum among the stars / a jolly river of refuse / jagged heaps in shadows / a phantasmagoric mingling of heaven and hell / a moonlit corridor where mirrors scream and laugh / dreamy back-drops / ice cubes in an empty glass / shifting expressions on a lean face / vague suggestions and subtle jokes / an Aphrodite sculpture / the wind, cold and dead / a crumbled piece of paper / black-foaming gutters / the dank windowless gloom of some intergalactic cellar / starless cities of insanity / a bright freezing scream of laughter / a passing anecdote of some obscure hell
Les Fleurs
sorrowful flowers / lilting blossoms for a loved one’s memorial / a florist shop / flowers which open only at night / a hothouse warm smile / night-blooming cereuses / a sleek ocelot / well-preserved old places / plants resembling birds / white picket fences / flower-printed curtains / liqueur tasting of flowers from open fields / cool, clean offices / invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness / the sounds of black orchids growing / the flower-bedded earth / a ripple of empathetic insight / a gorgeous kingdom of glittering colors / velvety jungle-shapes / contorted rainbows and twisted auroras / hyper-radiant hues / a marvelous arcana / tongue-like floral appendages / tongues flowering
Alice’s Last Adventure
Volatile years when anything might go wrong / the embodiment of topsy-turvydom / pools of rainwater / tarnished mirrors / moonlit windows / a thousand misshapen marvels / a universe handed over to new gods / stoic tolerance of a second-rate reality / two complete strangers gawking at each other / a shiny, pearl-grey casket / black orchids / a strange combination of relief and confusion / a delayed echo with oblique origins / a chain of occurrences with links as weak as smoke rings / a sunny autumn morning / a sense of duty, vanity, and other less comprehensible motives / the seas of the moon / costumed kids / the cries of bedlamites / the clamor of rambunctious kids / a half-cocked oration / jack-o’-lanterns glowing orange and yellow / masked children / a plastic cup of cider / shadows wavering against two-story facades / a lamp with a shade of Tiffany glass / a disciple of the bizarre / an autumn moon hanging in the blackness / demonic giggling / the moon / a clock / shadows in the window
Dream of a Manikin
A mostly tacit but somehow complete biography / a marvelous trick of the mind / jeweled lamps along the walls / lights shining on an intricately patterned carpet and various pieces of old furniture / star-clustered blackness / a starry abyss / an iciness drifting in from a starscape / a horrible truth / a legend written somewhere at the bottom of a dream / echoing voices bouncing here and there around the room / a motto printed on fortune cookie-like strips of paper and hidden in bureau drawers / a broken record repeating itself on an ancient Victrola / an alighting flock of birds / a field of dynamic tension / a dry sibilant voice / people dressed as dolls / shaking with tremors of the uncanny / a manikin dresser / astral ambience / occult studies and depth analysis / delving into speculative models of reality / cosmic static / harassments of the self / the boundaries of the self / a Bigger Self terrorizing its little splinter selves / cosmic ennui / a serendipitous discovery / this dream of flesh / guilty until proven otherwise / valerian and camphor baths / cryptic impudence / softly glowing display windows / the divine bonds of unreality / a medium-intensity shower / display-window dummies / rain-spotted glasses / a car with rain-blinded windows / a moment of self-terror / the mythical conspiracy of a treacherous universe / a galaxy of constellations / a vaporous glowing / a whitened hallway / dolls made up to look like people / eyes shining in the white darkness / a powerful psychic metaphor
The Chymist
Daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism / bubblegum and beer / a chalice in a church / a serum vial in a laboratory / the tartness of one’s smile / a very keen appreciation of diversity / decrepitude / the withering heart of the deceased / bastardized nostalgia / the putrescence of things past / arching mirrors / chrome chandeliers / second-hand fantasies and out-of-date distractions / one strange thing next to another / a genius of vulgarity / a lawless paradise / violence without violation / a smoke-gray sky / city-soiled clumps of snow / fluxing clouds that swirl above the chimneys and trees / alchemical transmutations / the glamour and sanity of former days / a new mask of rats and rot / a hopeless stroll along the path to hypothetically higher worlds / a body whose true outline remains unknown / the whims of chemistry / the caprices of circumstance / the enigma of personal taste / a leather vessel with a void inside / the skeleton of a dream / lights outlining the different venues and avenues below / a bottle of powdered light / pulverized diamonds / the flesh and blood kaleidoscope of one’s imagination / a prodigious insurrection of entity / a tempest of transfiguration
Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes
The full powers of a master hypnotist / a mesmeric wilderness / marked by fate’s stigmata / crystal twinkling under a chandelier’s kaleidoscopic blaze / power and prestige socializing / a pair of metronomes / a glossy black cabinet / two bluish gems in an alabaster setting / a tiny sequined outfit / mesmeric stunts / intact and unbloodied / routines in defiance of death and pain / a jaw-dropping finale / a blare of heavenly horns / a labyrinth of light / a gossamer veil / snow-white wings / the angelic luminary beneath the human beast / the eyes of the audience / mock-death and bogus-pain / sinking deep into a downy darkness / pillows stuffed with soft shadows / a sun at the center of a drab galaxy / vacant and full of grace / a business card with a cloud-gray pearl finish / riotous rococo / a chair of blinding brocade / flowery fabric / a shelf of delicate figurines / tall smoky mirrors / a bottomless pool / a sky wiped clean of clouds / dispassionate elegance / postures and poses like frozen roses / pajama-clad legs dangling / a shiny chrome-plated pen / a very soft but not condescending tone / a mazy wallflower / cartwheels of agony / somersaults through fires of doom / nosedives of vulnerable flesh into the meat grinder of life / serene constellations / sweet nullities / a spell-binding, snake-eyed charmer / high society vulgarians / eyes recessed in their sockets, sunken into a rotting profundity / labyrinthine depths / dancing clothes all clotted with putrescent goo
Eye of the Lynx
Missing girls in Gothic garb / amber going on red / a reddish haze / a crazy purpurean tapestry / a fair-haired girl / denim slacks and a leather jacket / bloody moonlight / a long sip from a can of iced tea / persecutions and imperilments as glamorous as those of any Gothic heroine / violet eyes / the machinations of an evil-hearted malefactor / haunting second-hand shops / a strip of dark velvet seized by a pearl brooch / a frail chain from which dangles a heart-shaped locket / a whirlpooling lock of golden hair / gloves, long and powdery pale / the shoulders of heavy capes lined in satin that shines like a black sun / enveloping hoods / capes with deep pockets and generous inner pouches for secreting precious souvenirs / capes with silk strings that tie about the neck / capes with weighted hems that nonetheless flutter weightlessly in midnight gusts / doll-size in a dark doll’s costume / quivering bones and feverish blood / fear’s funereal plume / carriage wheels rioting in a lavender mist or a pearly fog / nacreous fires twitching beyond the margins of country roads / cliffs and stars / a blur of crimson shadows / vast regions of sublime desolation / mountains hulking in hazy twilight / a rather large animal collar at the end of a chain leash / a light the color of fresh meat / a page in a depraved story book / a single candle glowing through red glass / little zippers and big zippers / a moth-eaten cloak / enthralling cruelties / spangled eyebrows / a brow of glittering silver / glistening with tiny flecks of starlight / the velvet embrace of one’s favorite cape / the tall candles one lights on stormy nights / chains of raindrops whipping against one’s windows / places where raging storms and brutal subjugations never end / the hardships of traveling to strange faraway places / frail little dolls / wild-wind nights and sadistic villains / corridors of scarlet darkness / a captive of one’s heart and its infinite chambers
Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story
Something magical / something timeless / something profound / a sooty basement / the putrid members of a man who is decomposing / a plain brown package marked Hope, Love, or Fortune Cookies and postmarked: the Edge of the Unknown / a helter-skelter universe where things are ever threatening to go abnormal and unreal / a normal, real love / impermanence and decay / evils sent out under various covers / sublime and terrifying conflict / fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman / moon-trimmed shadows / lunar landscapes of craggy peaks / skeletal wastelands of jagged ice / a brooding Gothic hero / an ethereal Gothic heroine / a castle-like skyscraper / an extra dose of obsessiveness / the Gothic tale / a militant romantic / waves of bombast / winds of ecstatic hysteria / a partially shattered window, its surface streaked with a blue film of dust / a sublime sense of desolation / the diluted glow of twilight / night’s enveloping cloak / grimy azure dimness / bluish semi-luminescence / tears of confusion / turquoise haze / blue shadows of silence / liquefying legs / an old storyteller / the voice of a tiny insect crying for help from inside a sealed coffin / a piercing, crystal shriek that lacerates the midnight blackness / a haunter of spectral marketplaces / Gothic glory / a horror writer / an ardent consumer of the abnormal and the unreal / a visitant of discount houses of unreality / subject only to the rule of demonic forces / puppet-shadows / a hell so excruciating it is bliss itself / bony wings rising out of one’s back / jaws that are a cavern of dripping silver / rivers of putrescent gold running through one’s veins
The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie
Diamond-paned windows / a thick December fog / a serene congregation of colors / holly, both fresh and artificial / a pale purple ribbon / a ritual forever reenacted without hope of escape / a large chair beside a fogged window / crackling logs / a foggy winter���s night / bright Christmas lights shining through the fog / always dead with darkness / always alive with lights
The Lost Art of Twilight
A streak of iodine red / a spattering of flat black / the early autumn sun / silver hair / a gray suit / a long envelope, neatly cesareaned / the charnel house creeps / a silver shield / crepuscular radiance / an offspring of the dead / the progeny of phantoms / the big green eye of an EEG monitor / De Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal / a rainbow of insects / the science of superstition / the Provencal countryside / a pantheon of gargoyles amid the splendor of a medieval church / a holy soldier of the living / a monster of the dead / the astral banquet of Art / the rotting flesh of rainbows / the sonar screech of a bat / vampiric origins / the oncoming onyx of a storm / shadows and sunshine / glare and gloom / bright clouds and black / iron-red leaves / tentative drops of rain / blue bears and yellow rabbits / neither a blood-warm human nor a blood-drawing devil / oceans of blood / the ravenous life of the undead / an authoritative impatience / eternal life in an eternal death
The Troubles of Dr. Thoss
Pale gray pajamas / thick sheets of paper / a bottle of black ink / a shapely black pen with a silvery nib / strands of blond hair, almost white / a sudden salty breeze / silhouettes and shadows / unreflecting windows / metal hinges squeaking somewhere in the wind / a sleepless night / constellations beyond the window panes / star-filled hours / the pure whiteness of the page / a flung shoe leaning toe-up against a bedpost / nothingness unstained by inner conception / white snow in a white sky / dark lines and vacant spaces / vast expanses of frozen whiteness / a church in a foreign town / assorted devils and demons / ice-mad mountains / a spirit of malicious abandon / nightmarish anatomies / a sickle-shaped scar of moon / sea-licked shores / dark letters / feeding one’s troubles to the sea / brown-leafed trees / a forest of memorials / clumps of crosses / groves of gravestones / dark, cowl-shaped windows / unblemished by shadows / the sound of crashing waves / bending dawns into twilights / static from a broken radio / breaking waves / seaside air / a gleaming crescent moon / a bone-white cicatrix / chronic insomnia / a blade of moon / white night, white noise
Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie
The confusions of carnival night / gyrations of squealing abandon / lines between pain and pleasure / a rainbow of rags / a startling length of blade / pale pages elegantly dappled by somber verses / a pair of strangely darkened spectacles / the toneless voice of one who is dead to all appeasement or mercy / mounds of snow that had been sown with ashes / eyes as dark and swirled with shadows as the raving night itself / a constellation of designs / mad games of flesh and steel / a forbidden madness / dense forests of tall pikes planted in the earth / shadows rolling in empty sockets / lacerated mouths / the darkness of dreams / to see the world drown in oceans of agony / visions of butchering the angels / a god of deceit or illusion / chaos at feast / black with scars of madness / darkly clouded glass / the brightest and highest of stars / shimmering halls / unnaturally colored wine / red-smeared forms / many-taloned claws / the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand / a pair of leviathan leeches / a lord of the sword made mad / the dark powers which we cannot understand but only hate / rhapsodic voices in the streets / a privileged doom / the face of the soul of the world / the cool marble of the floor / an onyx-black knight / a face flushed with crimson glory
Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech
A scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky / a long, brightly colored coat / noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically / life-size dolls hanging suspended by wires / wetted strands of a spider web / shiny satin legs / a beautifully pale hand / pulverized stars / dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets / the repose of ruin / an oily red glare / a well-dressed dummy / a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks / a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars / wood waking up / a sleep that should have never been broken / something too painful for tears / the false fire of the moon / two faces sharing a single head / faint, hollow screams from high above / a dummy’s silence / leftover tears of berserk laughter / bluish-green irradiance
Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror
Mist on a lake / fog in thick woods / a golden light shining on wet stones / a little trickle of suspicion in the bloodstream / the solar brilliance of a summer day / supernatural horror / a corner alive with cool drafts and fragrant with centuries of must / a rancid world rife with things smelling of the crypt / a sower of vice / mad winds / wan moonlight / pasty specters / the vividness of pain / the lasting effects of fear / natural-born puppets whose lips are stained with their own blood / dead bodies that walk in the night / living bodies suddenly possessed by new owners and deadly aspirations / the sepulchral pomp of wasting tissue / compassion for human hurt / a humble sense of one’s impermanence / an absolute valuation of justice / a demented innocence in the face of gruesome facts / the horrific reprisals of affirmation / the Cosmic Macabre / the shudders of a thousand graveyards
Dr. Locrian’s Asylum
Gray walls pocked like sponges / nights of futile tears and screaming / an expression of almost paternal forgiveness / the supreme delirium of the planets / bright puppets dancing in the blackness / a golden speck of magic / the silent, staring universe / something as pathetic as a puppet and as exalted as the stars / something at once dead and never dying / autumn constellations in the black sky above / harshly brilliant eyes / the remote places where truth had been shut up and abandoned
The Sect of the Idiot
Extraordinary joy / extraordinary pain / the great hollow of dreams / an infinitely secluded place / a world that both menaces and surpasses this one / a holy madness / infinite stillness on foggy mornings / miracles of silence on indolent afternoons / the strangely flickering tableau of neverending nights / deceptive depths of shadow / heaps of clouds like dust balls / a fluorescent map of the cosmos / medieval autumns and mute winters / kaleidoscopic windows / a kind of cataclysm of empty space / an earthquake of the invisible / strikingly clear eyes / a dusty trunk of dreams / a maze of streets / an abyss of stars / a great reaching blackness / a stale gray dimness / an alien order of being / an icy blackness / starry blackness / a great round moon / deep aquatic blue / the voids of astronomy / a state of both paralyzed terror and spellbound curiosity / whispering figures / stagnant moonlight / withered, wilted claws / drooping tentacles / the spinning legs of spiders / the greedy rubbing of a fly’s spindly feelers / the darting tongues of snakes / the triumph of the grotesque / whispering effigies of chaos / putrid arcana / an ecstatic horror / horrific ecstasy / the demonic elements of which all creation is composed / corruption in disguise / a cache of unwonted offerings stored out of sight / currents of fear / dark tremors / splendid scenes broken with malign shadows / the lurid and the lovely forever lost in each other’s embrace / the arch of an old street / tunnel-like hallways / sickly light shining through unwashed, curtainless windows / atmospherics of infinite melancholy and unease / a decayed paradise / the everlasting residue of some cosmic misfortune / a solemn, mechanical intentness / a smooth and solid cube of black glass / a malignant puppet of madness / dazed in darkness / embarrassed throat-clearings / reproving looks / words which could only have meaning in a nightmare / a thing of strange degeneracy / a quintessence of hellish delirium / freakish, echoing laughter / the whispering of strangers / twitching tentacles / a horror which cannot be helped
The Greater Festival of Masks
The old and new / the real and imaginary / truth and deception / shops of costumes and masks / an incautious curiosity / shredded rags that are easily disturbed by the wind / a poster stuck to a crumbling wall / strange pathways of caprice / the outsized moon / silvery windows / doors which are elaborately decorated yet will not budge in their frames / massive shutters covering blank walls behind them / faces of dreams / sardonically grinning / innocence and excuses / a reddish glow of fire / a wad of bubbling blackness / smooth and faceless faces / the speaker in the shadows / the soft creaking of new faces breaking through old flesh
The Music of the Moon
Breaking the quiet of a moonlit room / enchantments that nearly make amends for one’s stolen slumber / some unusual shape leaping across steep roofs / a bewildering agility / many nights of sleepless hell / a knife / rope / a poison vial / an exploit of uncommon decisiveness / blank nights of insomnia / a handbill / ashes mixed with grease / a door with a faint yellow aura leaking out at its edges / small, shadowlike things moving in corners and along the floor molding / a quartet of musicians / a voice which sounds both exhausted and malicious / pale, ragged clouds of hair / sonic abnormality / an empty shaft of blackness / spherical lamps caked with dust / the silence of a dark, lifeless world / black silhouettes of human heads visible only in the moonlight / slow music in the soft darkness / a single note wavering in a universe of darkness / a incalculable proliferation of slightly dissonant harmony / the light of a quiet gray dawn / completely helpless, and yet content to be so / thick layers of webs / gazing at nothing with bleeding sockets / the moon all fat and pale, glaring down from its gauzy webs of clouds
The Journal of J.P. Drapeau
Unstained by any habits of the human / the ideal of everything alien to living / some molding backwater of the earth / the city of Bruges itself / a corpse of the Middle Ages / bony bridges / the black veins of old canals / a lonely evolution in shadowed streets and beside sluggish canals / the music of graveyards / a resonant chorus that fills the air and sometimes drowns out the voices of those who still live / layers of cobwebs floating about the near ceiling / a burst of resistance / the pealing of church bells / the language of whimsy / the force of stars tugging away at various points / the dark waters of a canal / shiny black hair parted straight down the middle / a low table covered by a red velvet cloth / a world that applauds trumped-up illusions while denying or demeaning those that create the very lives they are living / a spectral thing full of strange suggestion / an untenanted room filled with the echoes of nothingness / the eyes of certain crudely fashioned dolls / a greenish glow from a mirror / placid meandering canals / enwrapped in mist / close crumbling houses / odd arching bridges / innumerable church towers / narrow twisting streets / queer little courtyards / everything gone forever / an empty mist / an eternal twilight
Vastarien
Candles in a cloistered cell / shapes beneath the shadows / tall buildings whose rooftops nod groundward / wide buildings whose facades follow the curve of a street / buildings whose windows and doorways tilt like badly hung paintings / stairways that wander off-course into useless places / caged elevators that urge unwanted stops on their passengers / a sequestered civilization of echoes flourishing among groaning walls / thin ladders ascending into a maze of shafts and conduits / the dark valves and arteries of a petrified and monstrous organism / a desolate serenity / silvery cinders / the mouths of great chimneys / shadow-puppets / cluttered gardens and crooked gates / the purling waters of black canals / faded masks concealing profound schemes / a place of supernatural clarity and stillness / the crystalline glare of a lantern / moonlight through a curtained window / darkened windows / souls who believe that the only value of this world lies in its power—at certain times— to suggest another / a scattering of stars and lights / a coveted paradise / the most gauzy phantom of another place / a shadowy mimic / the anatomy of a great dream / everlasting echoes / a rectangle of smudged glass within another rectangle of scuffed wood / crowded shelves / remnants of a luxuriant autumn / an obscene reality / to dwell among the ruins of reality / shadowed volumes / scripture that would begin with the portents of apocalypse and end with the wreck of all creation / to become the wind in the dead of winter / to howl the undoing of all that would abide in warmth and light / an enticing verse in a volume of esoterica / the dream of attaining some untainted good / a disastrous enlightenment / some hypothetical state of pure glory / the revelation that nothing ever known has ended in glory / some strictly demonic enterprise / something about one’s presence that makes one think of a crow / a scavenging creature in wait / a large, two-headed shadow / the sad frustration of the uninvited, the abandoned / the brilliant rectangle of a doorway / hopes and curiosities of an indeterminable kind / free-standing bookcases / pages and bindings of uncommon texture / abstract diagrams suggesting no orthodox ritual or occult system / a chronicle of strange dreams / an invocation of a world in waiting of genesis / days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares / a deliverance by damnation / nightmare made normal / a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or a thwarted searching for the good / a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge / a utopia of exhaustion, confusion, and debris / a dialogue of mystification, and possibly one of lies / the edge of a dreamless void / a dark and devouring bird / shadows and moonlight / an unbending web of heavy wire / unjust confinement / a slender syringe crowned with a silvery needle
#cut for length /#headcanons#rp meme#I'M ALWAYS A SLUG FOR THOMAS LIGOTTI#blood tw#gore tw just to be safe?#nihilism tw#unreality tw#some v brief body horror tw#horror cw
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REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG AND DO NOT DELETE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.
The following quotes and phrases are taken from the stories in Thomas Ligotti’s anthology Songs of a Dead Dreamer. Some of these quotes were slightly tweaked for the sake of this meme. If you enjoy the imagery or writing in this meme, please support the author by purchasing his work. Content warnings for horror in genera and brief mentions of blood, nihilism, unreality, mannequins, dolls, puppets, and some body horror.
Bold what applies to your muse.
Muse: (If you are a multimuse blog, specify what muse you are filling this out for.)
Tagged by: (taken from op) @miscellanyofmusings
Tagging: @hopehallowed, @hopefromtheordinary, @hopetruth, @hopegamed, @hopestitch, @hopehaunted, @hopebvllet, @hopedenied, @opulentos - the hope crew + sarah’s togami lmao
The Frolic
Absolute madness paired with a sharp cunning / an expression of sky-blue peacefulness / the indistinct happiness of the future / a piece of moon above the opulent leafage of spring trees / a broken-down kingdom of miracles and horrors / a Neverland where dizzy chaos is the norm / a cosmos of crooked houses and littered alleys / a slum among the stars / a jolly river of refuse / jagged heaps in shadows / a phantasmagoric mingling of heaven and hell / a moonlit corridor where mirrors scream and laugh / dreamy back-drops / ice cubes in an empty glass / shifting expressions on a lean face / vague suggestions and subtle jokes / an Aphrodite sculpture / the wind, cold and dead / a crumbled piece of paper / black-foaming gutters / the dank windowless gloom of some intergalactic cellar / starless cities of insanity / a bright freezing scream of laughter / a passing anecdote of some obscure hell
Les Fleurs
sorrowful flowers / lilting blossoms for a loved one’s memorial / a florist shop / flowers which open only at night / a hothouse warm smile / night-blooming cereuses / a sleek ocelot / well-preserved old places / plants resembling birds / white picket fences / flower-printed curtains / liqueur tasting of flowers from open fields / cool, clean offices / invisible wings whipping the warm air in darkness / the sounds of black orchids growing / the flower-bedded earth / a ripple of empathetic insight / a gorgeous kingdom of glittering colors / velvety jungle-shapes / contorted rainbows and twisted auroras / hyper-radiant hues / a marvelous arcana / tongue-like floral appendages / tongues flowering
Alice’s Last Adventure
Volatile years when anything might go wrong / the embodiment of topsy-turvydom / pools of rainwater / tarnished mirrors / moonlit windows / a thousand misshapen marvels / a universe handed over to new gods / stoic tolerance of a second-rate reality / two complete strangers gawking at each other / a shiny, pearl-grey casket / black orchids / a strange combination of relief and confusion / a delayed echo with oblique origins / a chain of occurrences with links as weak as smoke rings / a sunny autumn morning / a sense of duty, vanity, and other less comprehensible motives / the seas of the moon / costumed kids / the cries of bedlamites / the clamor of rambunctious kids / a half-cocked oration / jack-o’-lanterns glowing orange and yellow / masked children / a plastic cup of cider / shadows wavering against two-story facades / a lamp with a shade of Tiffany glass / a disciple of the bizarre / an autumn moon hanging in the blackness / demonic giggling / the moon / a clock / shadows in the window
Dream of a Manikin
A mostly tacit but somehow complete biography / a marvelous trick of the mind / jeweled lamps along the walls / lights shining on an intricately patterned carpet and various pieces of old furniture / star-clustered blackness / a starry abyss / an iciness drifting in from a starscape / a horrible truth / a legend written somewhere at the bottom of a dream / echoing voices bouncing here and there around the room / a motto printed on fortune cookie-like strips of paper and hidden in bureau drawers / a broken record repeating itself on an ancient Victrola / an alighting flock of birds / a field of dynamic tension / a dry sibilant voice / people dressed as dolls / shaking with tremors of the uncanny / a manikin dresser / astral ambience / occult studies and depth analysis / delving into speculative models of reality / cosmic static / harassments of the self / the boundaries of the self / a Bigger Self terrorizing its little splinter selves / cosmic ennui / a serendipitous discovery / this dream of flesh / guilty until proven otherwise / valerian and camphor baths / cryptic impudence / softly glowing display windows / the divine bonds of unreality / a medium-intensity shower / display-window dummies / rain-spotted glasses / a car with rain-blinded windows / a moment of self-terror / the mythical conspiracy of a treacherous universe / a galaxy of constellations / a vaporous glowing / a whitened hallway / dolls made up to look like people / eyes shining in the white darkness / a powerful psychic metaphor
The Chymist
Daydreaming in the key of Rosicrucianism / bubblegum and beer / a chalice in a church / a serum vial in a laboratory / the tartness of one’s smile / a very keen appreciation of diversity / decrepitude / the withering heart of the deceased / bastardized nostalgia / the putrescence of things past / arching mirrors / chrome chandeliers / second-hand fantasies and out-of-date distractions / one strange thing next to another / a genius of vulgarity / a lawless paradise / violence without violation / a smoke-gray sky / city-soiled clumps of snow / fluxing clouds that swirl above the chimneys and trees / alchemical transmutations / the glamour and sanity of former days / a new mask of rats and rot / a hopeless stroll along the path to hypothetically higher worlds / a body whose true outline remains unknown / the whims of chemistry / the caprices of circumstance / the enigma of personal taste / a leather vessel with a void inside / the skeleton of a dream / lights outlining the different venues and avenues below / a bottle of powdered light / pulverized diamonds / the flesh and blood kaleidoscope of one’s imagination / a prodigious insurrection of entity / a tempest of transfiguration
Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes
The full powers of a master hypnotist / a mesmeric wilderness / marked by fate’s stigmata / crystal twinkling under a chandelier’s kaleidoscopic blaze / power and prestige socializing / a pair of metronomes / a glossy black cabinet / two bluish gems in an alabaster setting / a tiny sequined outfit / mesmeric stunts / intact and unbloodied / routines in defiance of death and pain / a jaw-dropping finale / a blare of heavenly horns / a labyrinth of light / a gossamer veil / snow-white wings / the angelic luminary beneath the human beast / the eyes of the audience / mock-death and bogus-pain / sinking deep into a downy darkness / pillows stuffed with soft shadows / a sun at the center of a drab galaxy / vacant and full of grace / a business card with a cloud-gray pearl finish / riotous rococo / a chair of blinding brocade / flowery fabric / a shelf of delicate figurines / tall smoky mirrors / a bottomless pool / a sky wiped clean of clouds / dispassionate elegance / postures and poses like frozen roses / pajama-clad legs dangling /a shiny chrome-plated pen / a very soft but not condescending tone / a mazy wallflower / cartwheels of agony / somersaults through fires of doom / nosedives of vulnerable flesh into the meat grinder of life / serene constellations / sweet nullities / a spell-binding, snake-eyed charmer / high society vulgarians / eyes recessed in their sockets, sunken into a rotting profundity / labyrinthine depths / dancing clothes all clotted with putrescent goo
Eye of the Lynx
Missing girls in Gothic garb / amber going on red / a reddish haze / a crazy purpurean tapestry / a fair-haired girl / denim slacks and a leather jacket / bloody moonlight / a long sip from a can of iced tea / persecutions and imperilments as glamorous as those of any Gothic heroine / violet eyes / the machinations of an evil-hearted malefactor / haunting second-hand shops / a strip of dark velvet seized by a pearl brooch / a frail chain from which dangles a heart-shaped locket / a whirlpooling lock of golden hair / gloves, long and powdery pale / the shoulders of heavy capes lined in satin that shines like a black sun / enveloping hoods / capes with deep pockets and generous inner pouches for secreting precious souvenirs / capes with silk strings that tie about the neck / capes with weighted hems that nonetheless flutter weightlessly in midnight gusts / doll-size in a dark doll’s costume / quivering bones and feverish blood / fear’s funereal plume / carriage wheels rioting in a lavender mist or a pearly fog / nacreous fires twitching beyond the margins of country roads / cliffs and stars / a blur of crimson shadows / vast regions of sublime desolation / mountains hulking in hazy twilight / a rather large animal collar at the end of a chain leash / a light the color of fresh meat / a page in a depraved story book / a single candle glowing through red glass / little zippers and big zippers / a moth-eaten cloak / enthralling cruelties / spangled eyebrows / a brow of glittering silver / glistening with tiny flecks of starlight / the velvet embrace of one’s favorite cape / the tall candles one lights on stormy nights / chains of raindrops whipping against one’s windows / places where raging storms and brutal subjugations never end / the hardships of traveling to strange faraway places / frail little dolls / wild-wind nights and sadistic villains / corridors of scarlet darkness / a captive of one’s heart and its infinite chambers
Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story
Something magical / something timeless / something profound / a sooty basement / the putrid members of a man who is decomposing / a plain brown package marked Hope, Love, or Fortune Cookies and postmarked: the Edge of the Unknown / a helter-skelter universe where things are ever threatening to go abnormal and unreal / a normal, real love / impermanence and decay / evils sent out under various covers / sublime and terrifying conflict / fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman / moon-trimmed shadows / lunar landscapes of craggy peaks / skeletal wastelands of jagged ice / a brooding Gothic hero / an ethereal Gothic heroine / a castle-like skyscraper / an extra dose of obsessiveness / the Gothic tale / a militant romantic / waves of bombast / winds of ecstatic hysteria / a partially shattered window, its surface streaked with a blue film of dust / a sublime sense of desolation / the diluted glow of twilight / night’s enveloping cloak / grimy azure dimness / bluish semi-luminescence / tears of confusion / turquoise haze / blue shadows of silence / liquefying legs / an old storyteller / the voice of a tiny insect crying for help from inside a sealed coffin / a piercing, crystal shriek that lacerates the midnight blackness / a haunter of spectral marketplaces / Gothic glory / a horror writer / an ardent consumer of the abnormal and the unreal / a visitant of discount houses of unreality / subject only to the rule of demonic forces / puppet-shadows / a hell so excruciating it is bliss itself / bony wings rising out of one’s back / jaws that are a cavern of dripping silver / rivers of putrescent gold running through one’s veins
The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elsie
Diamond-paned windows / a thick December fog / a serene congregation of colors / holly, both fresh and artificial / a pale purple ribbon / a ritual forever reenacted without hope of escape / a large chair beside a fogged window / crackling logs / a foggy winter’s night / bright Christmas lights shining through the fog / always dead with darkness / always alive with lights
The Lost Art of Twilight
A streak of iodine red / a spattering of flat black / the early autumn sun / silver hair / a gray suit / a long envelope, neatly cesareaned / the charnel house creeps / a silver shield / crepuscular radiance / an offspring of the dead / the progeny of phantoms / the big green eye of an EEG monitor / De Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal / a rainbow of insects / the science of superstition / the Provencal countryside / a pantheon of gargoyles amid the splendor of a medieval church / a holy soldier of the living / a monster of the dead / the astral banquet of Art / the rotting flesh of rainbows / the sonar screech of a bat / vampiric origins / the oncoming onyx of a storm / shadows and sunshine / glare and gloom / bright clouds and black / iron-red leaves / tentative drops of rain / blue bears and yellow rabbits / neither a blood-warm human nor a blood-drawing devil / oceans of blood / the ravenous life of the undead / an authoritative impatience / eternal life in an eternal death
The Troubles of Dr. Thoss
Pale gray pajamas / thick sheets of paper / a bottle of black ink / a shapely black pen with a silvery nib / strands of blond hair, almost white / a sudden salty breeze / silhouettes and shadows / unreflecting windows / metal hinges squeaking somewhere in the wind / a sleepless night / constellations beyond the window panes / star-filled hours / the pure whiteness of the page / a flung shoe leaning toe-up against a bedpost / nothingness unstained by inner conception / white snow in a white sky / dark lines and vacant spaces / vast expanses of frozen whiteness / a church in a foreign town / assorted devils and demons / ice-mad mountains / a spirit of malicious abandon / nightmarish anatomies / a sickle-shaped scar of moon / sea-licked shores / dark letters / feeding one’s troubles to the sea / brown-leafed trees / a forest of memorials / clumps of crosses / groves of gravestones / dark, cowl-shaped windows / unblemished by shadows / the sound of crashing waves / bending dawns into twilights / static from a broken radio / breaking waves / seaside air / a gleaming crescent moon / a bone-white cicatrix / chronic insomnia / a blade of moon / white night, white noise
Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie
The confusions of carnival night / gyrations of squealing abandon / lines between pain and pleasure / a rainbow of rags / a startling length of blade / pale pages elegantly dappled by somber verses / a pair of strangely darkened spectacles / the toneless voice of one who is dead to all appeasement or mercy / mounds of snow that had been sown with ashes / eyes as dark and swirled with shadows as the raving night itself / a constellation of designs / mad games of flesh and steel / a forbidden madness / dense forests of tall pikes planted in the earth / shadows rolling in empty sockets / lacerated mouths / the darkness of dreams / to see the world drown in oceans of agony / visions of butchering the angels / a god of deceit or illusion / chaos at feast / black with scars of madness / darkly clouded glass / the brightest and highest of stars / shimmering halls / unnaturally colored wine / red-smeared forms / many-taloned claws / the velvet fingers of a tightly gloved hand / a pair of leviathan leeches / a lord of the sword made mad / the dark powers which we cannot understand but only hate / rhapsodic voices in the streets / a privileged doom / the face of the soul of the world / the cool marble of the floor / an onyx-black knight / a face flushed with crimson glory
Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech
A scribble of lightning engraved upon a black sky / a long, brightly colored coat / noisy jets of blue-green light flickering spasmodically / life-size dolls hanging suspended by wires / wetted strands of a spider web / shiny satin legs / a beautifully pale hand / pulverized stars / dismembered limbs of dolls and puppets / the repose of ruin / an oily red glare / a well-dressed dummy / a white high-collar shirt with silver cufflinks / a billowing cravat which displays a pattern of moons and stars / wood waking up / a sleep that should have never been broken / something too painful for tears / the false fire of the moon / two faces sharing a single head / faint, hollow screams from high above / a dummy’s silence / leftover tears of berserk laughter / bluish-green irradiance
Professor Nobody’s Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror
Mist on a lake / fog in thick woods / a golden light shining on wet stones / a little trickle of suspicion in the bloodstream / the solar brilliance of a summer day / supernatural horror / a corner alive with cool drafts and fragrant with centuries of must / a rancid world rife with things smelling of the crypt / a sower of vice / mad winds / wan moonlight / pasty specters / the vividness of pain / the lasting effects of fear / natural-born puppets whose lips are stained with their own blood / dead bodies that walk in the night / living bodies suddenly possessed by new owners and deadly aspirations / the sepulchral pomp of wasting tissue / compassion for human hurt / a humble sense of one’s impermanence / an absolute valuation of justice / a demented innocence in the face of gruesome facts / the horrific reprisals of affirmation / the Cosmic Macabre / the shudders of a thousand graveyards
Dr. Locrian’s Asylum
Gray walls pocked like sponges / nights of futile tears and screaming / an expression of almost paternal forgiveness / the supreme delirium of the planets / bright puppets dancing in the blackness / a golden speck of magic / the silent, staring universe / something as pathetic as a puppet and as exalted as the stars / something at once dead and never dying / autumn constellations in the black sky above / harshly brilliant eyes / the remote places where truth had been shut up and abandoned
The Sect of the Idiot
Extraordinary joy / extraordinary pain / the great hollow of dreams / an infinitely secluded place / a world that both menaces and surpasses this one / a holy madness / infinite stillness on foggy mornings / miracles of silence on indolent afternoons / the strangely flickering tableau of neverending nights / deceptive depths of shadow / heaps of clouds like dust balls / a fluorescent map of the cosmos / medieval autumns and mute winters / kaleidoscopic windows / a kind of cataclysm of empty space / an earthquake of the invisible / strikingly clear eyes / a dusty trunk of dreams / a maze of streets / an abyss of stars / a great reaching blackness / a stale gray dimness / an alien order of being / an icy blackness / starry blackness / a great round moon / deep aquatic blue / the voids of astronomy / a state of both paralyzed terror and spellbound curiosity / whispering figures / stagnant moonlight / withered, wilted claws / drooping tentacles / the spinning legs of spiders / the greedy rubbing of a fly’s spindly feelers / the darting tongues of snakes / the triumph of the grotesque / whispering effigies of chaos / putrid arcana / an ecstatic horror / horrific ecstasy / the demonic elements of which all creation is composed / corruption in disguise / a cache of unwonted offerings stored out of sight / currents of fear / dark tremors / splendid scenes broken with malign shadows / the lurid and the lovely forever lost in each other’s embrace / the arch of an old street / tunnel-like hallways / sickly light shining through unwashed, curtainless windows / atmospherics of infinite melancholy and unease / a decayed paradise / the everlasting residue of some cosmic misfortune / a solemn, mechanical intentness / a smooth and solid cube of black glass / a malignant puppet of madness / dazed in darkness / embarrassed throat-clearings / reproving looks / words which could only have meaning in a nightmare / a thing of strange degeneracy / a quintessence of hellish delirium / freakish, echoing laughter / the whispering of strangers / twitching tentacles / a horror which cannot be helped
The Greater Festival of Masks
The old and new / the real and imaginary / truth and deception / shops of costumes and masks / an incautious curiosity / shredded rags that are easily disturbed by the wind / a poster stuck to a crumbling wall / strange pathways of caprice / the outsized moon / silvery windows / doors which are elaborately decorated yet will not budge in their frames / massive shutters covering blank walls behind them / faces of dreams / sardonically grinning / innocence and excuses / a reddish glow of fire / a wad of bubbling blackness / smooth and faceless faces / the speaker in the shadows / the soft creaking of new faces breaking through old flesh
The Music of the Moon
Breaking the quiet of a moonlit room / enchantments that nearly make amends for one’s stolen slumber / some unusual shape leaping across steep roofs / a bewildering agility / many nights of sleepless hell / a knife / rope / a poison vial / an exploit of uncommon decisiveness / blank nights of insomnia / a handbill / ashes mixed with grease / a door with a faint yellow aura leaking out at its edges / small, shadowlike things moving in corners and along the floor molding / a quartet of musicians / a voice which sounds both exhausted and malicious / pale, ragged clouds of hair / sonic abnormality / an empty shaft of blackness / spherical lamps caked with dust / the silence of a dark, lifeless world / black silhouettes of human heads visible only in the moonlight / slow music in the soft darkness / a single note wavering in a universe of darkness / a incalculable proliferation of slightly dissonant harmony / the light of a quiet gray dawn / completely helpless, and yet content to be so / thick layers of webs / gazing at nothing with bleeding sockets / the moon all fat and pale, glaring down from its gauzy webs of clouds
The Journal of J.P. Drapeau
Unstained by any habits of the human / the ideal of everything alien to living / some molding backwater of the earth / the city of Bruges itself / a corpse of the Middle Ages / bony bridges / the black veins of old canals / a lonely evolution in shadowed streets and beside sluggish canals / the music of graveyards / a resonant chorus that fills the air and sometimes drowns out the voices of those who still live / layers of cobwebs floating about the near ceiling / a burst of resistance / the pealing of church bells / the language of whimsy / the force of stars tugging away at various points / the dark waters of a canal / shiny black hair parted straight down the middle / a low table covered by a red velvet cloth / a world that applauds trumped-up illusions while denying or demeaning those that create the very lives they are living / a spectral thing full of strange suggestion / an untenanted room filled with the echoes of nothingness / the eyes of certain crudely fashioned dolls / a greenish glow from a mirror /placid meandering canals / enwrapped in mist / close crumbling houses / odd arching bridges / innumerable church towers / narrow twisting streets / queer little courtyards / everything gone forever / an empty mist / an eternal twilight
Vastarien
Candles in a cloistered cell / shapes beneath the shadows / tall buildings whose rooftops nod groundward / wide buildings whose facades follow the curve of a street / buildings whose windows and doorways tilt like badly hung paintings / stairways that wander off-course into useless places / caged elevators that urge unwanted stops on their passengers / a sequestered civilization of echoes flourishing among groaning walls / thin ladders ascending into a maze of shafts and conduits / the dark valves and arteries of a petrified and monstrous organism / a desolate serenity / silvery cinders / the mouths of great chimneys / shadow-puppets / cluttered gardens and crooked gates / the purling waters of black canals / faded masks concealing profound schemes / a place of supernatural clarity and stillness / the crystalline glare of a lantern / moonlight through a curtained window / darkened windows / souls who believe that the only value of this world lies in its power—at certain times— to suggest another / a scattering of stars and lights / a coveted paradise / the most gauzy phantom of another place / a shadowy mimic / the anatomy of a great dream / everlasting echoes / a rectangle of smudged glass within another rectangle of scuffed wood / crowded shelves / remnants of a luxuriant autumn / an obscene reality / to dwell among the ruins of reality / shadowed volumes / scripture that would begin with the portents of apocalypse and end with the wreck of all creation / to become the wind in the dead of winter / to howl the undoing of all that would abide in warmth and light / an enticing verse in a volume of esoterica / the dream of attaining some untainted good / a disastrous enlightenment / some hypothetical state of pure glory / the revelation that nothing ever known has ended in glory / some strictly demonic enterprise / something about one’s presence that makes one think of a crow / a scavenging creature in wait / a large, two-headed shadow / the sad frustration of the uninvited, the abandoned / the brilliant rectangle of a doorway / hopes and curiosities of an indeterminable kind / free-standing bookcases / pages and bindings of uncommon texture / abstract diagrams suggesting no orthodox ritual or occult system / a chronicle of strange dreams / an invocation of a world in waiting of genesis / days distilled into dreams and nights into nightmares / a deliverance by damnation / nightmare made normal / a horror uncompromised by any feeling of lost joy or a thwarted searching for the good / a nightmare transformed in spirit by the utter absence of refuge / a utopia of exhaustion, confusion, and debris / a dialogue of mystification, and possibly one of lies / the edge of a dreamless void / a dark and devouring bird / shadows and moonlight / an unbending web of heavy wire / unjust confinement / a slender syringe crowned with a silvery needle
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Trinkets, 12: Interesting baubles, semi magical objects and items touched by mystery.
A sealed vessel topped by a jackal’s head, all crafted of glazed porcelain. The canopic jar contains a wrapped and preserved humanoid stomach.
A sealed vessel topped by a mummy’s head, all crafted of glazed porcelain. The canopic jar contains a wrapped and preserved humanoid liver.
A sealed wooden box holding seven sealed scrolls containing missives to seven different people. The missives are written in code and need to be deciphered.
A set of four metallic, pointed-toe boots designed to fit a horse or a similar equine creature
A set of soft leather suspenders that fasten to buttons on the front and back of trousers. They have two adjustable iron clips, triangular in shape and heavily rusted, each bearing an etched diamond shape.
A set of ten leather sleeves that fit over one’s fingertips and extend right up to the knuckles and palm.
A shattered stub of a wooden stake. Black blood covers the stake’s tip. Barely visible under the blood is some kind of rune, but its meaning is impossible to determine as part of it is missing.
A shrunken head of a zombie which still occasionally snaps its teeth together and moans.
A silk scarf once used to gag a captive siren. It occasionally makes strangely attractive sounds when the material rubs against itself
A single glove with three large fingers that puts out any candle sized or smaller flames it touches.
---Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.
---Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.
A sealed vessel topped by a jackal’s head, all crafted of glazed porcelain. The canopic jar contains a wrapped and preserved humanoid stomach.
A sealed vessel topped by a mummy’s head, all crafted of glazed porcelain. The canopic jar contains a wrapped and preserved humanoid liver.
A sealed wooden box holding seven sealed scrolls containing missives to seven different people. The missives are written in code and need to be deciphered.
A set of four metallic, pointed-toe boots designed to fit a horse or a similar equine creature
A set of soft leather suspenders that fasten to buttons on the front and back of trousers. They have two adjustable iron clips, triangular in shape and heavily rusted, each bearing an etched diamond shape.
A set of ten leather sleeves that fit over one’s fingertips and extend right up to the knuckles and palm.
A shattered stub of a wooden stake. Black blood covers the stake’s tip. Barely visible under the blood is some kind of rune, but its meaning is impossible to determine as part of it is missing.
A shrunken head of a zombie which still occasionally snaps its teeth together and moans.
A silk scarf once used to gag a captive siren. It occasionally makes strangely attractive sounds when the material rubs against itself
A single glove with three large fingers that puts out any candle sized or smaller flames it touches.
A single leather glove that is extremely durable and resistant.
A single sheet of of non-flammable paper that erases itself every night.
A six chambered spice box containing different varieties of pepper
A skull of a small rodent with a name carved into it in tiny runes.
A slate tablet with an exquisite picture of a prominent nearby landmark on it. The chalk image is unfinished and a small box of materials rests nearby.
A sleek corset which includes a patterned brocade of skulls.
A slender belt pouch specially treated to be waterproof. Inside the pouch is a variety of dried herbs. Each bunch is tied together with twine.
A slender chain supporting a small wooden holy symbol of an evil cult’s God. A cultist’s name is etched on the back of the symbol.
A slender scroll tube cleverly carved from an immense fang that holds a single sheaf of tightly wound parchment. The parchment holds a map showing the surrounding area in a simplistic form. The map marks several nearby dangerous locales.
A slender wooden twig which cannot be broken by any man
A slowly beating clockwork heart
A small black branding iron with a stylized “S” forms the iron’s head. The tips of the “S” end in crude snake heads. The iron is wrapped in bloody, scorched cloth.
A small black pouch containing a set of cosmetic tools for cleaning the ears.
A small blue disk that seems magnetically attracted to skin and is hard to pull off when its comes in contact with flesh.
A small bottle of eye drops that make the user’s eyes seem completely white with no pupils. This effect lasts for an hour and the user suffer no loss of sight
A small brass bell that rings a different note every time
A small card marked “Get out of jail FREE” in Common. The local King’s official stamp or good forgery thereof is displayed prominently on back.
A small ceramic cat with a perpetually waving arm
A small ceramic pot that produces a tiny puff of colored smoke once every hour and a half
A small coin pouch containing five large golden triangular coins stamped with symbols of the minor god of greed, lies and outer beauty. Perceptive PC’s will notice that they are actually lead coins covered in a thin layer of gold leaf.
A small coin purse containing a set of ten false fingernails painted with mysterious symbols.
A small drawstring bag of marbles made from real marble
A small flask of pure spring water. The leather flask itself has a small strap allowing it to be carried over the shoulder.
A small frozen glass-like flame that subtly melts and refreezes, morphing over time. It reflects light (Especially firelight) very well but gives off no heat or light of its own.
A small globe of glass with a city inside, if touched or moved one can hear soft screams.
A small half-full wineskin containing a powerful, but harsh, brandy smelling strongly of blackberries.
A small hand fan that only blows hot air.
A small hand mirror that shows someone other than the viewer when gazed upon
A small hourglass who’s sand only runs when someone nearby is hungry
A small inconspicuous black bag containing a collection of dirty implements including: a pliers, a dozen needles, a scalpel, a half dozen clamps of various sizes, a vial of powdered glass, a pair of thumbscrews and a suspiciously clean steel tablespoon.
A small ivory statuette of a small human child
A small knitted octopus
A small leather pouch of loose smoking tobacco
A small leather pouch tied shut with thin leather cords contains a half-dozen carefully wrapped white mushrooms. The mushrooms are fresh and tasty. They contain a mild hallucinogen that when ingested creates feelings of euphoria and visions of subdued colors bursting forth from any nearby mundane light source. Magical light gives forth more vibrant colors; the more powerful the magic, the more vibrant and scintillating the colors. The effects last for 2d4 hours per mushroom.
A small locked box that quietly hums a lovely melody at night but all who hear it cannot recall it by morning
A small mass of grey metallic ooze that can be stretched but not pulled apart
A small mechanical snapping turtle
A small metal bar etched with the word: “Help.”
A small metal box made of six inward facing mirrors that put off a dim glow which keeps the interior perpetually illuminated. Located inside is a small figurine of a crying angel. The figurine disappears if it is ever outside of the box and is not actively watched by at least one intelligent creature.
A small metal box made of six inward facing mirrors.
A small metal box with broken hinges. When pried open a preserved eyeball will be found inside. If touched the eyeball will share mentally with the user grainy imagery of several hidden treasure hoards but doesn’t provide any clue or direction to the hoards.
A small metal cylinder with a lens at one end. When looked into, randomly colored geometric patterns can be seen. The patterns change if the end is twisted
A small mirror on the end of a rod that can be used to peer around corners.
A small piece of amber containing a spider in the process of eating a fly
A small piece of apparently unbreakable glass that slowly ripples like the surface of a pond.
A small piece of fabric that still holds the scent of a lost love
A small piece of granite in the shape of a rhomboid that occasionally turns to liquid, but always reforms quickly
A small piece of rock that floats almost imperceptibly above the ground
A small portrait of a family with all of the eyes crossed out
A small pouch containing common herbs for making tea
A small pouch containing three quills wrapped in an ink-stained cloth, two small vials of ink (red and black) and several scraps of crumpled parchment.
A small pouch made of blue chain mail. When opened on a surface, hundreds of tiny, green ants march out, find nearby small objects (coins, pins, buttons, beads etc.) and begin hauling them back towards the bag. If bag is inspected it is always found to be empty of the ants or anything they have collected.
A small pouch that sometimes has a rock in it, and sometimes doesn’t
A small pouch with a fold-over top holds a half dozen slender knives. All are razor sharp and spotlessly clean. Some have very strangely shaped tips. To a collector of torture equipment (or perhaps an apothecary or necromancer) the set may be worth something.
A small rabbit-fur pouch filled with ceremonial herbs and incense
A small rectangular device that makes a chirping sound at the same time each day
A small red velvet pouch. The pouch is all but empty, however a determined examination reveals a few flecks of diamond dust stuck to the lining.
A small round grey stone that, when held, gives the user complete control over their pinky toes.
A small sack full of blood-soaked earth destined for the garden of an evil cultist. According to the attached note he believes using blood-soaked earth gives his crops a “certain taste”.
A small scroll case containing scraps of paper that, when ordered properly, become the outline for an epic poem. Based on the outline and the few incomplete verses, this would have been the bard’s masterpiece.
A small scroll tube containing several pages of sheet music for a haunting melody that sticks in the listener’s head if played.
A small silver locket that opens to reveal a tiny painting of a severe-looking woman wearing a ball gown. The clasp for the locket’s chain is broken, perhaps it was ripped from its owner’s neck.
A small spool of spider silk
A small stone chest containing the preserved heart of a virgin, wrapped in shroud-cloth
A small stone face that hovers a few inches in the air, occasionally slamming down to the ground
A small stone hammer, worn down to a nub
A small stone idol in the shape of a feral, wildcat
A small stone that shifts through the color spectrum over the course of a week
A small stone that sings a lullaby in an unknown tongue when you rub your thumb over it
A small travel pouch containing a symbol drawing kit, consisting of a length of string, chalk, compasses and a notebook with detailed notes and diagrams.
A small utility knife made of flint with bone inlays
A small wooden idol of a cross legged man in prayer
A small, colorful pebble that (No matter what) somehow finds its way back to its owner at sundown.
A small, corked, dark glass bottle filled to the brim with a powerful liquor
A small, slightly worn, silver broach in the shape of a dove with an inscription on the back that reads, “To my dearest, Lorael, on the 400th anniversary of your birth.”
A small, soft, black pouch containing a half-dozen lock picks. One is horribly bent and all but useless.
A smoked glass urn containing the ashes of a cremated mage
A smooth green stone that, when palmed, causes strange music to play in the bearer’s mind.
A soft cushion that never gets warm
A spindle-shaped piece of blue stone with a golden rod stuck in it that occasionally vibrates and produces fragments of not-quite-human voices, none of which speak a familiar language.
A spoon made of linen that makes food taste amazing when moving east
A square pane of glass set in a bone frame that shows images of animals you’ve never seen.
A squishy ball that randomly changes color when clenched or squeezed.
A standard copper coin that always lands on its edge.
A steel belt buckle that pulses when moving upwards
A steel holy symbol of a minor God of a Random Evil Domain, which has one particularly sharp edge. Close examination reveals dried blood smeared over it.
A stone tablet, broken at one end and covered with odd writing. Each night of the full moon the writing glows and dogs in the nearby area begin to bark.
A stoppered clay flask decorated with lewd images of demons cavorting with humans.
A strange barbed choker that makes the bearer’s voice more resonant
A string necklace made up of various bits of bone and teeth, presumably trophies from an adventurer’s travels. Most are from kobolds, goblins and the like, but the centerpiece tooth appears to be from a young dragon.
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A Wild Guide to Gingham, Jacquard, Damask, and Other Fabric Patterns
wsfurlan/iStock
Sure, you know what checked fabric is, but is gingham the same thing? And for that matter, what makes one piece of material plaid and the other brocade, or even damask?
If you’re foggy on what these things are, it’s high time for a crash course on home fabric patterns. Hailing from Asia or the Scottish highlands, these famous designs are ideal for upholstery, drapes, and myriad accessories.
And some can even be combined—though with care.
“As with all patterns, the trick is to pay attention to size and scale and to incorporate similar colors in the room,” says Karen Gray-Plaisted of Design Solutions KGP. Most of the patterns below are usually seen in traditional homes, but they can also be used in eclectic or boho rooms as accents, she adds.
Welcome to the wild world of home fabric patterns—including a bit of history and smart ways to use these looks in your space.
Jacquard
Photo by Julie Dasher
Jacquard is the name of the loom, invented by Jospeh Jacquard in the early 1800s, as well as the silk or cotton weaves it created, based on a pattern punched into card stock. Today’s Jacquard uses digital printing to make the telltale texture and complex weaves.
Jacquard often features large, repeating, tapestrylike patterns, explains Stephanie Thornton Plymale, president and CEO of the Heritage School of Interior Design. Common designs made with this method include brocade and damask (see more on both below). Jacquards can have multiple colors in one fabric, but muted neutrals and even ombre effects are popular and can be used on upholstery, drapes, bed linens, and pillows.
Damask
Photo by Kathleen Burke Design
Look for feathers, flowers, and geometrics in damask, a woven design made from silk and satin in varying shades of one color. The Jacquard weaving system is credited with making damask faster and easier to produce, though the original, handmade version dates to 300 B.C. China and may have been named for Damascus, a trading stop along the Silk Road that is now the capital of Syria.
Heavy damask feels dramatic, as it drapes in large folds; the weight also makes it ideal for curtains that block bedroom light. Damask designs are reversible, inspiring some decorators to use one pattern’s side for wallpaper and the other for nearby drapes or pillows that coordinate but are not exactly the same.
Brocade
Photo by Well-Designed Interiors
Opulent brocade may also be made on a Jacquard loom, but this typically floral fabric incorporates multiple colors, along with metallic strands of silver and gold. Brocade was historically made in China, India, and Europe, appearing on religious garments and tapestries, though the word may have Spanish or Italian roots.
Like damask, the weighty feel of brocade lends itself to bedding, particularly coverlets and headboards, as well as dining room chairs and window treatments in formal living rooms.
Tartan
Photo by ZAC and ZAC
Friend or foe? You knew who your people were before you saw their faces because their kilts’ tartan pattern distinguished each clan. This cultural icon of Scotland usually sports three or more colors and a base shade with crossing stripes that are exactly the same horizontally as vertically, explains Gray-Plaisted.
Durable tartan holds up on pillows, blankets, ottomans, and club chairs. Traditional hues include rich reds, blues, and greens, but a more modern approach might use a tonal variation in shades of gray, notes Plymale.
Plaid
Photo by Houzz.com
While plaid is usually considered its own pattern of crisscross lines in varying widths, it’s actually a Scottish-Gaelic term for a piece of tartan worn on the shoulder.
“The main distinguishing factor is that plaid stripes don’t necessarily have to match in width and color, whereas they always do in a tartan pattern,” says Plymale.
Plaids tend to pop up on den sofas, in rustic cabins, and on boys’ bedspreads, but don’t limit yourself. Plymale suggests stretching it over a wooden frame to create a bold piece of artwork or using plaid tile on a bathroom floor or kitchen backsplash.
Gingham
Photo by Nelson Barnum Interiors
Gingham is a light- to medium-weight cotton blend woven with a single color to make a checked pattern on a white background. Though first made in the Dutch colonies of Malaysia and Indonesia and named for the Malay word for “striped,” gingham caught on in many countries in Asia and Europe and eventually the U.S., where it’s now practically mandatory at Fourth of July picnics.
“It’s similar to check, but smaller, usually about an inch wide,” says Plymale. Grab gingham for table linens and dish towels—or a kitchen valance.
“This fabric works exceptionally well for sheer curtains since it has the same appearance on both sides,” Plymale notes.
Avoid small gingham patterns on larger items like couches (it’s too busy), she adds, and skip it in high-traffic areas, as this lightweight fabric may not wear well.
Houndstooth
Photo by Lulu Designs
As the name would suggest, two-tone houndstooth is characterized by broken or jagged checks that resemble dog’s teeth.
“This is likely one of the oldest recognizable patterns still relevant today, dating back to a Swedish peat bog in 360 B.C.,” reports Karen Miller of Decorating Den Interiors.
The Scots made the look famous in classic black and white, though aqua, yellow, and pink can used in a bedroom or sun porch. Just don’t pair it with stripes or plaids, and use it sparingly.
“A little houndstooth goes a long way,” Miller warns.
The post A Wild Guide to Gingham, Jacquard, Damask, and Other Fabric Patterns appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.
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Songs of a Dead Dreamer Aesthetic Meme
[SOURCE]
The following quotes and phrases are taken from the stories in Thomas Ligotti’s anthology Songs of a Dead Dreamer. Some of these quotes were slightly tweaked for the sake of this meme. If you enjoy the imagery or writing in this meme, please support the author by purchasing his work. Content warnings for horror in genera and brief mentions of blood, nihilism, unreality, mannequins, dolls, puppets, and some body horror.
Bold what applies to your muse.
Tagged by: No one.
Tagging: Again, no one. This meme is incredibly long, and I don’t want anyone to feel forced to do it. Feel free to fill it out if you want, though!
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
Prof. 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
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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: y’all
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
0 notes
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