In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.

"We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire." private multi-muse blog. ask to interact. click the moon to switch displays.

[mothtoflame]

mini bios for my characters who dont have actual bios yet:

rowan - comes from a line of unicorns who were cursed to live as humans. these descendants went on to live in communities similar to christian plain groups (eg. quakers, mennonites). rowan and her mother fled their community and moved into the modern world just before rowan was a teenager. she became a student of botany due to her inherent knowledge of flora. she happens to be a vessel of the virtue chastity.

lucian - rowan’s father, who briefly lived in their community before splitting from them to pursue his doctorate and begin his career as a psychiatrist. he is a vessel of patience.

anna - a solitary woman & witch who provides therapy services out of her own home. though she is licensed, her practices are questionable, but no one would know it. she’s adept in matters of the mind and illusion magic, among other things. she can disguise herself as various ages, hypnotize, magically persuade, etc.

millard - a prophet who doesn’t know he’s a prophet. a clairempath who wishes he wasn’t. he has seen and felt the ugliest of society, not with his eyes or body, but his own mind. as a result he has become bitter and unstable, and is in and out of psychiatric hospitals on a frequent basis.

rasmus - an interrogator for the russian mafia, as well as a double agent for their opposing syndicate. rasmus cares little for agendas, but he loves to play along, especially if he can get his hands bloody in the process. considered the most skilled interrogator of his time. a vessel of war, but they are synonymous with one another.

nigel - working for the russian mafia more or less against his own will. though he has taken work as an assassin, he doesn’t actually like the violence or killing. kind of a party boy and a creep, and on top of his gothic appearance this doesn’t earn him many friends. helps out rasmus (his uncle) once in a while.

stephen strange - formerly the sorcerer supreme, but resigned his position after most of his friends were blipped or otherwise destroyed by thanos. though he does what he can to help who’s left, he’s lost his way. this was only worsened by his desperate, botched attempt to bring his friends back, via forbidden eldritch magic, which has been affecting his mind and body ever since. he’s recently become acquainted with a peter parker... well, piper parker, from another universe.

[mothtoflame]

CHARACTER TAGS

[ 🗲 live wire. ] — ellie. [ 🐉 the dragon. ] — jacob.

[ 💜 love & glory. ] — percy. [ 🖤 corporate devil. ] — pierce. [ ꙮ peccatum originale. ] — pride.

[ ⛾ comfortably numb. ] — xander. [ ⛈ stormbringer. ] — juniper. [ 🦌 healing path. ] — lucian. [ 🐇 funny bunny. ] — melanie.

[ ✿ bloom in the dark. ] — anna. [ ⧖ prophetic perfect tense. ] — millard. [ 🔪 street rat. ] — vinny.

[ 🦄 pure of heart. ] — rowan. [ 🦄 prosecutor. ] — chastity.

[ 🦉 inquisitor. ] — rasmus. [ 🦇 creature of the night. ] — nigel.

[ . ] — stephen.

— — — — — — — —

— — — — — — — —

VERSE TAGS

[ 𝑣. verse name ] 

[mothtoflame]

@bittenichtstoren

"No, I don't think I can pull over. I think... I'm going to keep driving," Jarod rasped, watching for Ellie's reaction in his rearview mirror. She looked panicked. They all did. He wouldn't say that it didn't tug at his heartstrings, but it didn't exactly inspire mercy either.

For good measure, he clicked the door locks shut. He found the child safety features of modern cars to be convenient. It made things easier. He didn't have to babysit so much.

"I haven't decided yet, what I'm going to do with you."

Ellie had heard about this... man, a cab driver, who picked up unsuspecting passengers and drove them for miles before dumping their bodies on the side of the road. Passengers didn’t always end up murdered, though there was no discernible pattern to his victims; all were chosen on a whim.

“Come on, this really ain’t funny anymore,” Ellie breathed, her body pressed to the furthest corner of the vehicle. She gazed out the window to see nothing but wilderness reeling by. She’d happily jump right out of the vehicle if they weren’t moving so damn fast. Defending herself like this would be a terrible idea, too. If the driver was too distracted from the road, they’d crash. It wasn’t at all like her to stay put in the face of a crisis, but there was a chance of getting away safely if she did.

“You don’t have to do anything. Look, I won’t tell nobody this happened. I’m not a snitch. You don’t have to take me anywhere, just let me out here ‘n I’ll wait for... somebody else...”

[mothtoflame]

ensembllle​:

The air is whisked out of her throat;  - she feels faint, feather-light. A paper doll, blown with the breeze, and she found herself here. He anchors her - a weight on her heart. 

Somehow, she can taste blood in his mouth, or hers… she doesn’t know. It tastes like time lapsed buried. But also, him: the warmth of every passing moment, steadily tainting the hollow depths inside. 

Eden is passive for a second or two, aside from grasping him tight; she then returns the kiss, with only some hesitancy. It’s like feeling her way down a path in the dark - a path she has certainly taken before, but she can’t trust her eyes to remember. Her fingertips do - they find textures in his flesh so familiar, that she’d say she had rehearsed this embrace. Even the sting of the wound has vanished temporarily, erased. She forgets her name - is it really her name? She is herself, and yet not at all. With each ongoing touch of the lips, Eden hopes to become more conscious - eking out tiny grains of memory, but it’s not enough. Her hand - bandaged as it is - ghosts up to his hair, raking softly past his ear.

In the absence of other thoughts, she breathlessly murmurs the one that remains, the only thing that still carries sense. 

“—Jacob.”

There is some hesitance in her returning the kiss... and somehow even that is unshakably familiar to him. They may be wandering in the dark, but they wander together, with an equal amount of certainty, or lack thereof. For this moment, the entire world feels less lonely to him, less cold. He gets the brief urge to crush her in his arms and sob in her hair. He’s had this dream one too many times before... there has to be a mistake. Is this real? Is she? 

Though he doesn’t quite break down, Jacob’s breathing does become heavy, as the beginnings of deep relief expel from his chest. His hands tremble, his eyes cannot focus on her for more than a moment.

From the whispering of his name, Jacob centers himself. He holds one side of her face in his palm as he gazes, tearfully.

“Yeah, I’m here...”

[mothtoflame]

bittenichtstoren​:

On a normal day, seeing Willy crack such a soft, natural smile was a rarity. It wasn’t as though he never smiled – he smiled plenty. But it always seemed… off. Maybe not quite forced, but not entirely genuine either. A smile from Willy always made its home in the uncanny valley. His day job required that he be animated, upbeat, bordering on cartoonish. Sidney couldn’t help but smile back.

After a moment of browsing, he selected two cookies he felt were worthy of Willy’s time: an elephant and a… tiger? Hippo? Sidney was never quite sure. Sometimes he wondered if even the manufacturer knew. He delicately deposited the cookies in Willy’s palm, then went back to the bag for seconds.

“I didn’t think you… liked sweets.”

“On... a certain day,” William corrects. Not a good day, to be sure, he continues in his mind. He shakily lifts one cookie to his lips, tastes it on the tongue before taking a small chip off of the end. The oversweetness is actually a welcome distraction from the constant ache and humiliation of being in his current state.

He takes tiny, careful, agonizing bites of both cookies, chewing only on his good side, until nothing remains.

“Mhm.. quite enough.. for now, I think..” He sideyed the packaged bun, decidedly waiting until he had the stomach for it.

His joyless gaze turned to Sidney.

“.. Ought to be going home soon?”

[ojibwa]

[iko66]

[twoweeks]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIudYyrpfYC

[unkindness313]

Matthew Goode as Matthew Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches S03E01

[koredzas]

Cosme Tura - Saint Dominic. Detail. 1475

[cafeinevitable-deactivated20220]

The Hidden Beauty of Seeds and Fruits: The Botanical Photography of Levon Biss

seeds and fruits from around the world

[mothtoflame]

bittenichtstoren​:

What else is there for Uriyah to do than laugh at his current predicament? He supposes he could cry. He could pray. He could beg Jacob to reassure him that everything will be all right, that his wounds will miraculously heal and that they’ll ride off into the sunset together without a care in the world.

All that will do is put more pressure on Jacob – on top of the immense pressure of knowing that the prince’s life is in his hands. It’s not fair to put that on him. It’s not fair to make things any worse. Uriyah would be bleeding out on death’s doorstep either way; the least he can do is make it easier for Jacob to stomach.

“I’m… I’m dying and you’re worried about a little… sting? You’re worried about… hurting me?” Uriyah laughs, disbelieving. He’s touched by Jacob’s gentility, even as misplaced as it is. A chill passes over him. Goosebumps dot his bare skin. The day is warm and sunny, but he’s feeling colder with each passing moment.

“I… command you to do me harm.”

“--Yes, I am...”

Jacob’s perplexed, rugged features become flush - despite his efforts to stifle his emotions, despite knowing this isn’t at all the time to be feeling flutters over someone leagues above himself, whom he swore to protect no matter the stakes and now lies before him, bleeding.

At the prince’s words, Jacob immediately begins to spread the salve over the cleaned wound. Uriyah’s skin is already wet with blood again, and the salve begins to wash away with it. It doesn’t work. There’s too much blood, and his hands are too unsteady. Jacob feels tears prickling the corners of his eyes.

Something emerges from the back of his mind: a memory, or maybe an instinct. Something he knows could work, though he doesn’t know why. But it’s worth a try. He would do anything.

Jacob flattens both palms over Uriyah’s wound, applying pressure. He can feel the prince’s pain in his own hands; he clenches his teeth against it, persisting. Beneath them, Uriyah’s blood withdraws quickly & unnaturally toward the wound, pulling his flesh back together, like a suture.

The pain begins to subside. After some moments, most of the gore has dissipated, the wound scars over, healed.

Jacob pulls his hands away. All he can do is stare in awe - or horror.

[taxidrivers]

cinema of 2007 + westerns

-> no country for old men (dir. joel & ethan coen) / the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford (dir. andrew dominik) / 3:10 to yuma (dir. james mangold) / there will be blood (dir. paul thomas anderson)

[mothtoflame]

ensembllle​:

“…Well, it isn’t known as a particularly kind place.” No reassurance from Felix - nothing to soothe her nerves. He’s not deliberately grinding her down, exactly - he just sees no use in sugarcoating the truth. 

“…A year is a long time. I suppose it’s something of a sprawl, though.”

His eyes temporarily lift to the window, checking their whereabouts. Felix rarely worries about taking detours or being late. People can wait. 

“—What made you come here? You don’t seem like the fame and fortune type.”

“It’s not that bad, really...”

Rowan smiles, a little less forced now. She means it genuinely: the city has been nothing but inviting for her, even just a year into her degree it feels like she’s living in an entirely new world. Much of her positive experience is owed to the people she’s met, friends she’s made, being a part of social circles where she is both a onlooker and a participant.

There have been a few... scuffs here and there, but nothing that’s stuck in her mind for long. She was warned over and over by her mother about how cruel people in the city can be, only to find that people aren’t as evil and harmful as she was told...

Felix reminds Rowan of her mother.

“I didn’t.. plan on coming to Los Angeles, really,” she admits, watching him glance out the window. She’s tempted to do the same, but for whatever reason, she’s finding it hard to let him out of her sight.

“I applied on a whim and got my acceptance letter a week later. I just ended up here, I guess. ... I’m mostly familiar with the area around the campus... I’ll try to visit more cities this year, when I have time. I’m interested in Palm Springs...”

Rowan stops herself; she doesn’t want to bore him with details of her planned student excursions. She allows a moment for pause, then asks:

“What do you do here, sir..?”

[polkadotmotmot]

Isabella Kirkland - 123 Lucky Mutants, 2017

[armthearmour]

A Maille Vest, Germany, ca. 1565-1600, from Hermann Historica.

[mothtoflame]

In fantasy verses, Jacob is typically some kind of demon/changeling who is discovered as a baby, then raised up as a human, usually in the role of a knight. His origins are only realized once he is well-established within the society he was brought into.

Jacob is born with the ability to self-heal, regenerating flesh, blood and even bone within hours, which only becomes faster and more effective as he ages, to the point where even dismemberment may be negligible.

When dealing with enemies, he can reverse this process: boiling blood, dissolving bone, cutting off oxygen & blood supply to certain parts of the body resulting in necrosis, etc. All of these require him to be in very close proximity to the target, however.

Depending on plot necessities, Jacob can resist, fail and succumb to his nature - or he can embrace it, gaining mastery over his violent urges.