#the world is not dying; it is being killed ( solarpunk ) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

terramythos · 3 years

Text

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 32 of 26

Title: The Siren Depths (2012) (The Books of the Raksura #3)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 11/09/2020

Date Finished: 11/21/2020

Moon's past has always been obscure. A winged shapeshifter, he has spent most of his life as a solitary wanderer. He has few memories of his childhood, and only recently found others of his kind-- the Raksura. Now Moon has found a home as first consort to the queen Jade in the Raksuran court of Indigo Cloud.

However, when a neighboring queen recognizes his bloodline, Moon's new life is upended as he's forced to return to a family he doesn't even remember. Seemingly abandoned by Jade and overcome with doubt, Moon has to navigate the complex politics and grave secrets in the court of Opal Night alone. But an old enemy is about to return, threatening every Raksuran court in the Reaches.

The one thing he hadn’t expected to do was miss Indigo Cloud so much. He had been leaving people all his life, to the point where all the turns seemed like an uninterrupted progression of departures, and there had been people he had missed terribly. But this was a never-ending ache in his chest... You’ll get over it, he told himself. You always get over it.

But somehow, this time was different.

Some major spoilers and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book: As always, graphic violence and action. There is a disturbing scene that's... kind of forced cannibalism I guess (I'm not sure how else to describe it). Some sexual content is implied but not graphic. The r*pe plot point from The Cloud Roads is relevant, but is not depicted or described in detail. A romantic relationship with a significant age gap is briefly mentioned (both are consenting adults but it may make some readers uncomfortable).

For the most part, I enjoyed The Siren Depths more than the previous entries. I connected much more strongly to the central conflict, and was pleased to see some deeper character development than in the last two books. This entry also introduces fascinating new settings and characters while exploring some genuinely interesting ideas. It serves as a good parallel to The Cloud Roads, with similar plot beats explored in different ways. I did have one big problem which I will detail further in the review, but let's talk about the good parts first. Moon's conflict in this story, like the rest of the series, has to do with belonging. But The Siren Depths has the advantage of two books of development. From what we know of Moon's past, he sees any home as temporary, and when he's suddenly forced to leave Indigo Cloud (presumably for good), his new attachments and way of life come into question. To some degree, Moon sees this as an inevitable part of his life. Sooner or later, something out of his control will happen and he'll be abandoned. What I found relatable is there's several times Moon knows he is being irrational but still can't stop the negative downward spiral. Like... jeez, just call me out specifically next time! While a depressed protagonist can be a drag to read, I think it really works here because we've grown attached to Moon and know how far he's come. And sure enough, he does get his ass in gear when he realizes this ISN'T like before, and lots of people do care about him. The found vs biological family conflict is interesting as well. I think The Siren Depths does great here because you can see both points of view. Moon always assumed his biological family died, and they assumed the same thing about him. This should be a happy homecoming, but under the circumstances simply isn't. Moon resents being torn from Indigo Cloud because a group of people he barely remembers have a legal claim on him. Opal Night seems strangely hostile until you learn more about its politics and secrets. Even though they're early antagonists, they're not really villains; just a traumatized group of people who see Moon as a missing link from their past. When he's not what the others are expecting, obvious issues ensue, but Moon finds he does care about some of these people, even if it's not really his home. Outside of Moon, several other characters have arcs in this book. While the previous books feature a likeable enough cast, the characters are mostly one dimensional. Not so here; we explore the insecurities and struggles of some of the supporting cast. Jade isn't nearly as self-confident as she appears to be, and grapples with this throughout the book-- for example, wanting to prove to Moon that she is willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Similarly, Chime's struggle with his involuntary transformation comes to a head here as his strange new powers become relevant again. We see just how bitter he is that he's cut off from his old magical gifts and still holds out hope that they'll return. We even get some indication that while this HAS happened before in Raksuran history, it's incredibly rare. There’s also an interesting hint on what the powers really are, which has some pretty big implications. This is potentially a future plot point, so I’m hoping it gets explored. (Also, I was totally right about Moon/Chime, do I get a prize?)

There are several new characters I found really interesting, namely Malachite and Shade. Malachite (spoiler: Moon's biological mother) is initially presented as the antagonist, and her behavior seems inscrutable. She's a powerful queen who commands respect, yet seems unpredictable and standoffish. All of this starts to make sense as one learns more about her. Turns out unbelievable, extended trauma really fucks with a person. The Fell destroyed her colony, killed her consort and most of her children, and she spent almost a year in full guerilla warfare against them. Yet she adopted the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds and raised them as her own children, demonstrating nothing but indulgent love and kindness towards them. I'm not sure I would be able to do that in her place. In general she's just a huge badass; totally decked out in scars and the first to leap into battle. At least we know where Moon gets it from. Did I say Fell/Raksura crossbreeds? Yup, that plot point is back. Only, it's explored in a different way here. The crossbreeds in The Cloud Roads are terrifying weapons deployed by the Fell. The ones in The Siren Depths, raised in a loving home, are just kind of weirdly pale Raksura. I liked Shade in particular, who we learn is Moon's half brother and serves as an interesting foil. Moon would probably be much more like Shade if the Fell attack on Opal Night never happened. Shade is an earnest and kind (if naïve) man and behaves like none of the Fell we’ve met in the series. I hope we see more of him (and Lithe, the other crossbreed) in future volumes, because I think they're an interesting take on nature vs nurture with the "inherently" evil Fell. Speaking of the Fell, while they themselves haven't changed much, I thought they were more effective villains than in The Cloud Roads. We see their manipulations and twisted views of the world in much more detail. There's a long sequence where much of the main cast is captured by The Fell, and their struggle to survive and potentially escape is harrowing. I also like that Moon isn't their main focus this time, which adds some nuance and perspective to their behavior. They’re also just... creepy as shit. While I do have some issues with the ending of the book, I think the Fell are handled pretty well beforehand.

I'd be remiss to ignore the always excellent worldbuilding in this series. Like in The Serpent Sea, we get to see more Raksuran courts, all of which feel distinct. It’s cool and impressive for a singular fantasy race to have multiple believable factions and societies. The settings in this book are also creative, including a giant half-dead mountain tree, a city carved into a giant statue, and what I can only describe as "Rapture, but make it a solarpunk prison". Wells goes into vivid, loving detail when it comes to the world. That being said, I would like to see more of the sea/sky realms, since this series has largely focused on the earth. The Three Worlds is kind of a misnomer if two of them don't really show up much. Oh well, maybe in future books/stories.

My main complaint, and what drags down the rating, is the ending. It's... underwhelming, confusing, and seems pretty rushed. I'll go into more detail below. *major spoilers for the ending* So... one of the big plot points in both The Cloud Roads and The Siren Depths is that the Fell are crossbreeding with captured Raksura. In The Cloud Roads, this is explained as a ploy to strengthen the Fell with some unique Raksuran abilities; queens can prevent others from shifting, mentors can scry future events, and so on. In The Siren Depths, however, we learn it's not that simple. There's some third party manipulating the Fell and encouraging their actions. The goal is to produce a crossbreed that physically resembles the (unnamed) Fell/Raksura common ancestor for... reasons. We are led to believe the being orchestrating this is in fact an ancient ancestor, though its motives are unknown.

While this feels like a retcon, the discrepancy is acknowledged in the story, and it is explained that the Fell in The Cloud Roads were either lying or those specific ones decided to pursue their own agenda. Which... fine, makes sense based on what we know about them. I'll let it slide. Perhaps it was hinted at earlier and I just don’t remember.

So Moon and the others follow the Fell to the mysterious source, a vast and abandoned underwater city. Soon they find the creature that's been imprisoned there. Turns out it's not the Fell/Raksura ancestor, but something different. I can only describe it as sort of eldritchy, with a vaguely creepy physical form, and the abilities to speak through dead/dying Fell and to create disturbingly realistic illusions. The Fell/Raksuran ancestors trapped it there eons ago, and the only way to free it is the physical presence of a member of the ancestor species (for some reason). Which explains why it has been encouraging the crossbreeding, since their common ancestor is presumably extinct. It's freed from its prison since Shade fits the "ancestor" criteria based on his physical appearance. Then, in the span of literally one chapter, it attacks everyone, chases the characters through the underwater city, gets hit by some water, then promptly melts like the Wicked Witch of the West and dies.

I had a couple problems with this ending. First, the whole Fell crossbreeding conflict with the Raksura is a huge generational trauma thing. Moon has his own horrible experience with them, of course, but it's also a big issue with both Indigo Cloud and Opal Night. Hell, it's the whole reason Moon was separated from his family and lived thirty-some years in exile without knowing what he was. The series literally wouldn't have happened without this conflict. To have everything explained away by "an eldritch wizard did it" is very anticlimactic. I vastly prefer the original explanation.

Second, we know basically nothing about this creature. How was it able to communicate with the Fell (and Chime)? Why was it imprisoned other than being super evil and stuff? Who knows. And yeah, it's possible this will be expanded on later. Except I'm pretty sure that when this book came out, it was the last one planned for the series. The next two books follow a different storyline and came out four years later. So this was probably the only explanation we were ever going to get.

I'm not totally against the concept, but it needed more time and a more interesting/memorable villain for it to work. Introducing all of this in the second to last chapter of (presumably) not only the book but the series, then defeating it with little effort, feels unsatisfying. Hell, there’s more time dedicated to discovering and exploring its prison than anything involving the creature itself! As it stands, the Fell were much creepier and more memorable bad guys in this book, yet narratively serve as bit players in the end. It just feels off.

Also, a nitpick, but the title of the book is weird. The Siren Depths is obviously referring to this imprisoned being. It's trapped underwater and is calling the Fell to it. But it's never referred to as a siren; I'm not sure that word is used at all in the book. It just seems like an odd choice of title that doesn't really fit the vernacular of the world. Siren has some very specific meanings/connotations in our world that don't translate to The Three Worlds. Not a huge deal, just something I noticed.

*ending spoilers end here*

Despite my issues with the ending, I really enjoyed everything else about the book. It does everything the other books do well while featuring serious improvements. I've heard mixed things about the next two books but plan to go in with an open mind.

#8/10 #taylor reads #2020 reading challenge #BONUS ROUND #*casually posts this a week late*

5 notes · View notes

particlemilk-unlockable-gender · 5 years

Text

Cyberpunk 2077, like the entire of genre of Steampunk before it, interprets Punk to mean "perpetually at the technology level described in the previous word", which is completely disconnected from the fact that in every x-Punk genre, Punk means railing against the latest way that the system is suppressing human rights and the greater good, while the other word describes the major thematic technology that is providing the societal upheaval being exploited for the gains of the rich.

Steampunk, factories and steam engines have the capacity to make life easy for the whole world, instead, life stays just as hard, gets more dangerous, and the main group whose life is improving is the rich.

Dieselpunk, weapons of war destroy human lives so quickly, it becomes difficult for people to be truly aware of our power to kill each other without becoming depressed. The people in charge of countries seem not to care for the people on the fronts dying by the millions.

Cyberpunk, ridiculously advanced technology is in easy reach, but bizarrely a comfortable life is not. The rich have conglomerated all the land and wealth, and they dispense just enough for most people to survive. The cheapness of staggering technologies makes you ask why homelessness even exists and why the masses live in tenements and tent cities.

Solarpunk, a couple dozen companies are destroying the planet, betting that they won't be alive long enough to deal with it. Lack of oversight and legislation from a bought and paid for government along with a society whose upper echelon has inbred into itself that accumulated wealth is the only metric for success means that despite humanity's incredible ability to create and design and improve things, without major societal changes our entire species may extinct itself because it would be too difficult and complicated to do something else.

#x-punk #steampunk #dieselpunk #cyberpunk #solarpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #my writing

691 notes · View notes

voidarcana · 5 years

Text

Funnel Web Abilities

Lol, so I just read an article about how funnel web spider venom (or, a particular part of it) is being used in research because it can apparently kill melanoma cancer cells? So I decided that was what Parker’s mum (I should probably name her huh.... let’s go with Alice) was working on with the Australian Oscorp Lab. The funnel webs were experimented on, obviously, since this is a superhero story, and Oscorp's never really been on the level (what corporation is amirite? Fucking capitalism)

(Parker’s world is a little more solarpunk then ours, but as a dying system capitalism is fighting back as hard as it can)

So, the venom Parker produces is less like an actual funnel web (their design is based off of a Sydney funnel web btw. Black and purple!), because Oscorp messed with the DNA of these spiders, trying to get more of the particular component they were interested it. The particular spider that bit Parker was a failed version, with less potent venom than a regular funnel web, but an added paralysis effect that... wasn’t very useful in medicine. As a bioweapon however... (Oscorp tries not to write anything off as a loss. There’s always a use for it! Even if not the intended one)

Being involved with Oscorp’s experimental medicine may have been what endangered Parker in the first place, but it also saved them. Their mother, Alice, was able to use research provided by Oscorp to stablise the effects of the spider bite, which also kinda... mixed with it? And ended up giving Parker their powers. Because this is a superhero story and I get to decide how medicine works XD

The reason they didn’t notice their powers right away is that while they were in the coma, their body adapted to the changes, and it all evened out before they woke up. So all they could feel upon coming out of the coma was less joint pain, and they just sort of... brushed off/rationalized the other things. Until the fight with Rhino when they, you know, stopped a car that was flying at them. Kinda hard to rationalize that XD

So, final list of powers, both innate and mechanical:

Super Strength and Durability. (Like, super super strength. Peter can canonically punch people’s heads off their necks, Parker is about the same in terms of strength. They like to arm wrestle for funsies)

Wall Climbing. Like Peter, and, you know, actual spiders, Parker can stick to walls/ceilings, walking on them as easily as they do the ground.

Venom. Parker is extremely venomous, although not quite as venomous as their namesake, and fair less deadly, since they try not to use it. Their canine’s slowly grew into straight up fangs, and are the delivery mechanism for their venom when biting. They can choose whether or not this happens though, and mostly just harvest their venom for use with their gloves.

Super Senses. Again, like Peter, Parker’s 5 senses are enhanced above the average human’s.

Reflexes, Agility and Speed. See previous XD

Fighting Style. Parker has been trained by Peter in his ‘Way of the Spider’ fighting style, and Dash insisted on teaching them a trick or two based on her MMA training. They’re slowly developing their own fighting style to suit them and their preference for stealth.

Spider Sense. Parker and Peter share a subconscious ability to sense everything in their surroundings, giving them an almost supernatural ability to predict and avoid danger, as well as helping them navigate and use their webs to their fullest potential.

Webshooters. Modeled off of Peter’s famous designs, Parker’s best friend/platonic partner Dash made Parker their own set of webshooters to help them fight crime and traverse New York just as Peter does. Like Peter, Dash is constantly tinkering with the design of the shooters and the formula for the webbing, making endless improvements to help her friend.

Parker and Peter are very similar in terms of powers, although not in styles. Parker is more of a stealth fighter, and in team ups Peter acts as a distraction, to great effect. In the beginning, Parker shadowed Peter a lot, learning from him, but eventually began to split off and establish themselves as a hero in their own right, even if they’re always ready to help their fellow Spider.

#parker #petra parks #funnel web #spidersona #headcanon #world building #long post #their mother has a name now!#i gotta do a post about their family at some point #my notes posts are always this rambling #sorry not sorry #this is how i do my best work!#this was supposed to be a quick post about something cool i read #instead i've spent hours looking up things and getting distracted by netflix

5 notes · View notes

em-dashes · 6 years

Photo

A LIST OF ALL MY STORY IDEAS

click below the cut for premises

APHELION

The interplanetary war is about to come out of hiatus, and the three people who want the least to do with it--Cay, a boy who is supposed to be dead; Shelby, a scavenger trying to leave the planet; Rian, a boy chased by a shady organization--are forced to come together when they are caught up in the fight for a superweapon that could tip the balance of war.

LIKE THE SUN

A solarpunk heist story featuring a diverse cast. Plot is undetermined.

THE TREACHEROUS BRIGHTS

The king has been assassinated, and it is up to a group of rebels to take down the new ruler as the kingdom falls into turmoil. On their side are Robynn, a 15-year-old princess who fled the palace fearing for her life; and Clara, a teenage runaway whose family was murdered by the new monarch.

HARVEST

20 years ago, Earth was dying. A group of scientists created HARVESTER, a machine capable of opening wormholes and siphoning the energy from the universe on the other side. The public was told the wormhole leads to a world devoid of life, and 18-year-old Ree believes it too--until she finds her alternate self crash-landed in her farm. Her alternate self, Marie, reveals her world is dying because of HARVESTER, and she was sent to kill the person in charge of the operation and destroy the machine. And it just happens that the person in charge is Ree’s--and Marie’s--mother.

FAINTHEARTED

Being a teenager is hard, but for 17-year-old Calan Rice, it becomes infinitely more complicated when she meets a ghost--and falls in love with her.

UNTITLED DANNY PROJECT

After their mother dies, 12-year-old Danny uncovers why the police have been chasing their mother so relentlessly--and why the police are now chasing them.

SUDDENCE

With the help of a fellow escaped cult member, 10-year-old Amber Lee travels across the country to release the monster living in her head.

DEADED

20-year-old Perry takes on a vigilante persona after losing his father and twin sister to a fire, only to discover his sister had survived and is bent on taking revenge on the arsonist.

INTO THE SKY

When she was seven, Anna Redgrave met a winged boy. Now twenty, she wonders if the boy had been a strange fever dream--until the boy reappears in her life, and now she and her cousin Quint must help the boy return to the world he came from.

#writerblr #writers on tumblr #as you can see...i am VERY into sci-fi and superpowers #aphelion #like the sun #the treacherous brights #harvest #fainthearted #suddence #untitled danny project #deaded #into the sky #uhhhh me #em-dashes

32 notes · View notes

siarven · 6 years

Text

Dreams and Shadows

AKA my current fantasy WIP novel of too many words even though it’s not even done.

Other projects I’m working on

Status:

First Draft done. Second and third drafts abandoned half-way through because they were stupid. Currently on the fourth draft, the one that might actually be worthwhile!

Wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2014. 93,734 words. At first it was called Dreamweaver, then Dreamweaver and Shadowdancer, and then I shortened that because it sounded stupid.

Now the total wordcount that I’ve invested in this stupid book is in the 500K words area, and the current approved words are roughly 75K. It’s probably going to be two books if I can’t get myself to write less ô.Ó

The world (called Aelaris) is a mix of steampunk and solarpunk and fantasy, it has three intricate magic systems, and is also set after an apocalypse that pretty much wiped everything from the face of the earth. So while it’s been about 500 years since then (and the world from before was technologically incredibly savvy, on the brink of wrecking the whole planet) almost nothing from that world has survived except sealed-off ruins and mouth-to-mouth told legends. The technology that society does have nowadays is a wild mix of magic-, steam- and solar-powered machinery. Most of the continent is ruled by the Empire of the New Dawn, a conglomerate of different tribes who subjugated each other after the fall of society. The Empire grew so strong mostly because they managed to find out how to control the magic-users who started popping up everywhere after the apocalypse. Nowadays children with magic potential are found by a procedure called the Testing, which every child reaching age 4 has to undergo. If they have potential, they’ll be whisked away to be trained and raised (and indoctrinated) seperately, and they’ll only see their parents twice every year afterwards. The only reason why the Empire still exists and almost nobody is able to oppose them is because their grip on the Asim (magic-users) is absolute, and brutal. (It’s one of my meanest magic systems yet, because it makes the user HIGHLY addictive, usually kills you before you turn 25, and only a handful in the Empire know how to make the fluids used...) Maybe I’ll make a post about Asim-Magic in the future!

Synopsis:

The lives of two siblings, Ava and Ben, are thoroughly disrupted when Ben has a life-threatening freak “accident” that leaves him in a weird coma-like state, and nobody knows exactly what happened. Ava’s whole life up until that point has been revolving around Ben so this comes as quite a shock, especially since their parents aren’t exactly healthy or well-functioning either, and nobody knows how to cope with this possible loss since Ben was always the one holding the family together. Ben, meanwhile, “wakes up” days later in a sort of In-Between-World and remembers nothing at all. Now he has to find a way to return before the living give up on him, and Ava has to help her parents reconnect and learn that pushing everyone away when they only want to help is probably not the best plan. And maybe there’s a way for her to help Ben, even if she isn’t quite sure if he’s still there. It’s a good thing, then, that the family cat is a lot more than she seems! Also includes a bunch of tiny dragons, some ancient entities, a former pirate queen, a few monsters, a whole bunch of pigeons, and a demon who may have something to do with the accident.

Characters in this story include:

The Nichols Family

- Elizabeth “Liz” Nichols, a clockwork engineer/scientist who loves science more than anything and is kind of bad with people but tries very hard, most of the time. She connects with Ava over their shared love for knowledge and science and loves both her children and her husband very much. She’s incapable of properly conveying those emotions. I’m so sorry, Liz.

- Jonathan “Jon” Nichols, a children’s book artist who never got over the loss of his oldest daughter, Elinor. He’s depressed since a few years because he feels responsible for losing her, and he feels responsible for not connecting with his wife like he used to, and he feels bad for failing his children, but mostly he feels empty and lost and all those burdens are slowly but surely drowning him. The only light in his life are Ben, Ava, and Elinor, when she visits. What am I doing to this poor man???

- Elinor Vika Nichols, the oldest daughter, 15, who was taken by the Asim (the “magic-users”) at age four because she had potential abilities herself. She is allowed to see her family twice every year and lives at the Asimdrium during the rest of the time where she’s trained. The Asim are controlled by the Empress and basically the reason why the Empire doesn’t fall apart, and why the society works the way it does. [And the magic-system(s) and all that are very complex, I think I’ll make a new post for that specifically when I have time. Suffice to say using this sort of magic also kills you, slowly. Most Asim live only between 20 and 25 years.] I’m so sorry, Eli.

- Benjamin Alec “Ben” Nichols, the middle child (and oldest one, after Elinor got taken). He’s basically the reason why the whole family hasn’t broken apart yet. He more or less takes care of both his father and his little sister while excelling in school at the same time, because he thinks it’s what people expect of him. And now he’s practically dying. Poor baby, he just needs a break! What am I doing to him?!

- Ava Elyssa Nichols, the youngest daughter, 8 years old. Her whole life basically revolves around Ben, she’s afraid of the darkness and the monsters it holds, afraid of her parents fighting (which hasn’t happened in a long time but still) and sleeps in Ben’s bed at night because she knows that he’s the only one who can keep the monsters away. She loves her parents, too, and connects best with her mother because she also shares her fascination with sciency stuff. And now her whole life has collapsed because Ben is suddenly gone and Ava doesn’t know how to cope with that.

Others

- Kiyera Sy, a 57-year old woman who has given up on life after losing both her lover and son. The only thing that keeps her going is taking care of the city’s abandoned pets and carrier pigeons. She spent most of her life as a pirate queen fighting the very empire she now lives in. One day I might will write her story.

- Amelia Chastner and Niall Cohen – the best friends of Ava who have to put up with so much shit but still love Ava and only want to help, bless them. Amelia is also bad with people so she’d probably get along perfectly with Liz, and Niall is a people person. Nobody knows why he chose Ava. Also, they hate each other but they are willing to put up with that shit to help Ava. If only Ava would see that!

And now before we move on to the OTHERS, here’s a general overview of the worldbuilding so you understand at least the basics of it beforehand :P

There’s a group of creatures known as the Ellariel. They’re remnants of an older world that has been destroyed millennia ago, the last survivors so to speak. They live in a sort of In-between world which they cannot leave because they can’t survive outside of it. Ellariel are practically immortal but this has been so long ago that there have been more than ten generations in between the original survivors and now. The only two original Ellariel are the creatures watching over this world: Viridaeya, Goddess of Creation, and Ruienn, God of Destruction. Both chose their names themselves, based on the powers they would embody when they chose to Ascend, to properly fulfill their tasks. When the first and second generations had died and only the third remained, the Ellariel broke into two subgroups: The Natah and the Nanaël, mostly because there were a few incidents and it was generally decided that they were too powerful, so each Ellariel chose for themselves which of their Gods they would follow, and which power they would choose over the other. The results were mostly balanced because back then they still knew about the importance of balance.

Since the Ellariel who are alive now are from the fifth to the tenth generation they never got the chance to choose between Creation and Destruction, being born into their role, which is a sore point for many of them.

They can’t leave the In-Between spaces or influence the physical world so they bond to a human child which can do that for them. Every child is chosen by both a Nanaël and a Natah, though, because humans can decide between creation and destruction so the Ellariel aren’t capable of influencing directly, they can just hope that their chosen human will act for them. Every child therefore has the potential for magic, it’s just that some have more and some less. Also, the Natah and Nanaël have formed into regulated pairs, so that they either work very well with each other (like Azrae and Iuri) or try to cancel out each other’s influence (like Mikaën and Luzire).

Ellariel and Affiliated include:

- Fiyare, a 500-year-old once-human Guardian who is trying to protect the Nichols family. She’s kind of failing, though. Badly. She’s also best friends with Mikaën.

- Alasayr, a demon and once-human, who is responsible for all of Ben’s problems (maybe not all but at least most of them). He is Luzire’s right hand.

- Azrae, a Natah who chose Ava; They’re the Protector of the Realm of the Fallen (and Guide of those on their way there). They fall on the nonbinary spectrum and prefers they/them/their but is also all right with she/her.

- Iuri, Ava’s Nanaël. She’s also known as Lady of Fire.

- Mikaën, Ben’s Nanaël. He’s the leader of the Nanaël but has sort of given up since every child he’s chosen during the last 300 years was either taken or killed by the Asim. He only chose Ben because Fiyare told him to, and he trusts her wisdom.

- Luzire, a Natah who strongly dislikes being forced into roles she hasn’t chosen herself. She’s also completely bonkers and wants to destroy the universe. Since she and Mikaën are partners in choosing children she’s Ben’s Natah. At least she’s imprisoned ever since she brought on the last apocalypse and even though she’s not quite as imprisoned as everyone seems to think she is still in there and hasn’t found a way to escape yet. Alasayr works for her only because she isn’t powerful yet to get access to her other friends.

#dreamshadow #about the novel #wip novel #writing projects #siarven writes #ava elyssa nichols #ben alec nichols #fiyare #worldbuilding

1 note · View note

gillytweed · 7 years

Text

Okay so It's 1:30am and of course I read some interesting shit that got me thinking (good bye that solid 8 hours of sleep). The post I saw was about solarpunk and if it was actually punk or not. The answer of which, in the current scheme of things, is yes. Because right now the world seems to be focused on nitty gritty dark and depressing as fuck capitalist systems, and solarpunk is essentially the opposite. It focuses on renewable resources, nature and optimism, which basically makes it a huge fuck you to the current system for a bunch of reasons I won't get into. Anyway, it got me thinking about the 100s universe and how the council of the ark used the fact that there was no other alternative but to work together to stay in control. If one person fucks up, they fuck up for everyone, so a riot or protest would basically make everyone's chances of dying that much greater. However, that isn't the case on the ground. There's no more limit of resources, people aren't restricted to what is basically a glorified tin can, so why do people stay. If I were any one of the delinquents I would have fucked off the second I found out we were on good terms with the grounders. I'd be like one of those alien enthusiasts screaming "take me with you" cause dictatorships really aren't my style. So, the actual point of this post, why didn't the delinquents leave once the mountain was defeated? The adults still treated them like kids, not taking them seriously, and they'd already proven they could survive on their own. They could have gone off and made their own settlement. They could have gone and joined the grounders. Like, the biggest fuck you to the Ark they could have given was proving that they could take care of themselves. I mean, yeah they tried to do that in season one, which honestly was not the time or place considering the thousands of lives hanging in the balance, but after the mountain they easily could have gone and been free? Like dudes, go build your base camp again. You have Lincoln and Octavia who actually know what they're doing. You've still got the drop ship. You're not being killed by grounders anymore. Like, guys. I thought teenagers were supposed to be rebellious jeez

#mun mumbles #not a serious post #more like a potential writing snippet eventually #solarpunks cool tho

5 notes · View notes

foxhenki-blog · 4 years

Text

Monstrum and Aglæca

“Take what is here and discover the rest…’ Simon

Portals, gates, windows, doors, and thresholds are of primary importance to the Lovecraftian Magic-User. The same holds true when undertaking Simonomicon Workings. As is stated early in the text:

“The key to one gate lies in mastering the one before it…” (Simon, XLII)

The first technique to master is acceptance, an acceptance of chaos. Simonomicon Workings are core chaos magic praxis in that they are a lesson in the rejection of dogma, the acceptance of alternative forms of evidence, and the embrace of syncretic forms. This is eluded to in the grimoirist’s introduction when it is stated that:

“Meditations upon the various Things mentioned in the Mythos will permit the scholar to draw his own conclusions [about their origin and correspondences].” (Simon, XLVII)

The proper Simonomicon Working methodology includes the exploration of archetypes and meditation or active imagination sessions on the spirit-forms and entities which lie within the grimoire to discover those archetypal qualities not apparent in the research. Only through these sessions (as opposed to sorting through volumes of occult lore) will their true natures be revealed to the Lovecraftian Magician. And with the knowledge of their true nature comes the opening of the gates of power that they guard. As an example of the expansion of archetypes as a foundation for the practice of active imagination let us examine the Sumerian night sky as it is reflected in the Simonomicon. The constellation of Aries is known as ‘Agru Xubur.’ This could be translated as ‘The Place Above’ [related to ‘super’] or ‘The Great Mother’. Ummu Xubur is the chaos-dragon Tiamat. Agru means field or ground in Latin. This is likely a description of Summerland, some other holy place, or merely a representation of Tiamat in the night sky). The constellation of Taurus is known as Kingu, a term that describes the unskilled laborer as well as the name of the son and lover of Tiamat. Unskilled labor is the most put-upon labor group today as it was then. When examining this cosmogony one can see all individuals in the ‘gig’ economy, farm labor, immigrant labor, etc. and their subsequent torture and neglect by the plaguemongers during the 2020 pandemic as a continuation of persecution of Marduk of the human race. Humans were formed from the clay of the earth and the blood of Kingu and were thus looked upon as slave labor by Marduk. Marduk, the hero of the Babylonian cosmogony, is the patron of the colonialist and the oligarch — when ‘evil’ is named in the Simonomicon, this is the sphere to which it references). The archetypes of the spirit-forms of the Simonomicon are in the process of revealing themselves to the 21st century human. It is their time, again. As is stated by the grimoirist:

“The method of the [Simonomicon] concerns deep, primeval forces that seem to pre-exist the normal archetypal images of the Tarot trumps…” (Simon, LXII)

We know for the Lovecraftian Magic project that every entity in Lovecraft’s fiction can be mapped to the web of the Tarot, but this statement is nonetheless pertinent. It points to a pre-modern, pre-historical consciousness — that of Ötzi the Iceman and the painters of Leang Timpuseng. The spirit-forms in the Simonomicon are a direct line to the unknowable fear and reverence felt by pre-historical humans and other hominids as they explored the world they were born. Simonomicon Workings are the process of discovering this pre-historical consciousness via the knowledge laid out for us in the grimoire. This work is necessarily incomplete — as are all the grimoires in Lovecraftian Magic — for the research of magic and spirit-forms are an inseparable component of our praxis. Simon lays out this path at the very onset of his work:

“if I do not finish this task, take what is here and discover the rest, for time is short and mankind does not know nor understand the evil that awaits it, from every open side, from every open Gate, from every broken barrier, from every mindless acolyte at the altars of madness.” (Simon, 5)

‘Take what is here and discover the rest…’ is the first fundamental premise of the Simonomicon — an invitation to the chaos magician to discover through dreaming, divination, and spirit-contact new chapters to the imaginal grimoire. This is in fact how all grimoires have been created since humans began to write down the magic they have wrought. The second pillar of Simonomicon Workings is the magic-users opposition to Marduk. Those beings that critics of this work state are ‘fictional’ (whatever fiction is, it is not unreal) are only as yet undiscovered. Their mystery is intentional for they are an:

“Ancient Race of… demons… that seek revenge… the Elder Gods… the race of Marduk…” (Simon, 6)

Marduk is the god of the city of Babylon and his the deity the architects of the Tower of Babel sought as they built. He holds a snake and a spade. Kings, the ruling class, were expected to be initiated by contact with Marduk — he is the first God of the Imperial Class and the Elder Gods are his progeny. When Marduk is defeated, cities fall and empires crumble. This is the role of the Viruspunk, the dismantling of these structures, the toppling of statues, the erasing of empire and the reconstruction — to paraphrase Gordon White and Miguel Connor, to get to the Solarpunk era we must travel through Cyberpunk. This intermediary stage, the fog between these two eras, is the sphere of the Viruspunk and biopolitics. Foucault describes biopolitics as power taking possession of life, aided by technologically enhanced regulation and authority (think of those new curfew alerts your phone sent you during the protests). These new technologies seek to govern the organic and the biological, they seek to govern our bodies and the population:

“with the body as one pole and the population as the other… What we are dealing with in this new technology of power… is a new body, a multiple body, a body with so many heads that, while they might not be infinite in number, cannot necessarily be counted.” (Foucault)

The Viruspunk is a representative of the population, the body politic. The Technologies of Regulation that seek to oppress and control the body politic, the multiple body, the body with uncountable heads, are wielded by the Race of Marduk, whose weapon are the imperialists. The Viruspunk as the body with uncountable heads is the manifestation of Tiamat. Looking at Foucault’s theories in more detail we find that:

“Biopolitics is a complicated concept that has been used and developed in social theory since Michel Foucault, to examine the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed under regimes of authority over knowledge, power, and the processes of subjectivication… Foucault begins to theorize liberalism as a practice and as a critique of government, the rise of which he argues is inseparable from the rise of biopolitical technologies of governance, which have extended political control and power over all major processes of life itself, through a transferral of sovereign power into “biopower”- that is, technologies and techniques which govern human social and biological processes.” (Retrieved from https://anthrobiopolitics.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/biopolitics-an-overview/)

The Viruspunk is the liberal as the sorcerous guerrilla militant that specifically opposes the employment of biopolitical technologies as they are wielded by the imperial class. The Viruspunk is Tiamat risen from the (post-modern) fragments of her own corpse and employing her primary weapon — multitudinousness, numerosity, multiplicity. Taken in the context of the year 2020, the year of COVID-19 and mass riots across the United States we are seeing Tiamat rising against the armies of Marduk who seek only to extinguish their lives and control their movements. We are seeing the leaders of the federal government fractured, with the imperial ruling class encouraging the body politic to not protect themselves against the virus killing hundreds of thousands around the world. This ruling class does not wear masks but bear their teeth and claim that this is freedom. The Viruspunk wears a mask as protection against the now culturally weaponized pandemic and as the uniform of the protestor and rioter taking power from the governors of the Capitalocene. As Viruspunk’s rage at the dying of the light in the urban centers, dodging tear gas canisters and sniper rifles trained on their autonomous zones, glimmers of Solarpunk are already peeking through at the borders beyond the distributed urban singularities of chaos. In suburban and rural environments, the focus is shifted more towards resilience and away from revolution. This structure is also familiar to the context of the Simonomicon. Gordon White, in his work ‘Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits’, states that:

“in Sumerian Mesopotamia, sacred structures were located at the edge of settlements, with later additions being built on top of earlier ones…” (White, 36-37)

Sumerian ritual space, the context we are accessing through Simonomicon Workings, was rural or suburban. White continues, discussing the origins of the agriculture and animal husbandry that belongs to rural and suburban contexts:

“From the Holy Mound, domestication is sent down to mankind. At that time, at the place of the gods’ formation, in their own home, on the Holy Mound, the created Sheep and Grain. Having gathered them in the divine banqueting chamber, the Anunnaki of the Holy Mound partook of the sweet milk of they holy sheepfold but were not sated. For their own well-being in the holy sheepfold, they gave them to mankind as sustenance… At that time Enki spoke… now Sheep and Grain have been created… let us send them down from the Holy Mound…” (White, 37)

Enki is the father of the Viruspunk’s archetypal enemy, Marduk. It is Enki that gave domestication of plants and animals to mankind.

“Enki, our Master, the Lord of Magicians…” (Simon, 6)

The Viruspunk are the magical daughters and sons of Enki, and therefore the sisters and brothers to Marduk. Enki, the Lord of Magic, is also the giver of domestication to humankind. Enki is then also the giver of permaculture and the Gate through which the Viruspunk find their Solarpunk Summerland. Permaculture is the legacy of the Viruspunk. The city as it is embodied by Marduk (not as it is reimagined by the Solarpunk) is the natural enemy of the Viruspunk. Again from White’s Star.Ships:

“A culture as decidedly pro-urban as Sumeria will necessarily have a negative view of preagricultural societies but it is extremely hard to argue that this story is anything but a cultural memory of humanity’s transition to permanent settlements… Where this becomes extremely compelling is that the transmission of grain-based agriculture happened at a holy mound upon which were resident sky beings and from which the god of the wild animals had not yet been banished… The ancient einkorn whet, found in the hills surrounding Göbekli Tepe [is] the… ancestor of every strain of wheat grown and eaten across the earth. People gathering at a temple on a hill to worship ‘heavenly beings’ were like passengers in an airport during a pandemic.” (White, 39)

Marduk the city-god, the god of civilization, knew that the only way to grow his power and to grow cities around the world was to enslave and terrify the producers, the agriculturalists, to pull them into his systems of value (currency and property) and through that system devalue their goods so that those that produce the food that support the growth of the urban are themselves poor and starving despite the riches they pull from the Earth. The allies of Marduk walk their lands and spread pestilence and fear. In the words of the Simonomicon:

“I have seen the Unknown Lands, that no map has ever charted. I have lived in the deserts and the wastelands, and spoken with demons and the souls of slaughtered men, and of women who have died in childbirth, victims of the she-fiend [Lamashtu].” (Simon, 6)

Lamashtu is a singularly malevolent being depicted much like a traditional harpy, but with a lion’s head. She nurses snakes at her breasts. She is also known as ‘The Seven Witches’ for she is called upon by seven names. Her malevolence is directed primarily towards children, her preferred food. In this way she is the ruler over the sphere of Hollywood. Even the most cursory of studies will reveal that the majority of films and television shows in the twentieth-century feature a child being abused, witnessing abuse, dying, being kidnapped, ad infinitum. Hollywood is a demon that seeks to enculturate the plaguemongers and zombiekin with the idea that the role of children is to be fed to Lamashtu. Pazuzu, the Lord of Famine and Drought, is the only entity that can be successfully invoked against her. Pazuzu is the ally of the Viruspunk. The Louvre features a statuette of Pazuzu in their collection, which features the inscription:

“I am Pazuzu, son of Hanpu, king of the evil spirits of the air which issues violently from mountains, causing much havoc.”

The form of Pazuzu is that of a man with a dragon’s head, two pairs of wings, and the talons of a falcon for feet. He is covered with scales and has the tail of a scorpion. While indomitably evil and intimately associated with the plague, he is invoked for protection. In the Louvre’s description of the artifact it is mentioned that Lamashtu is his wife and she is also associated with infecting humankind with diseases. This statue is thought to be apotropaic magic. The displaying of the image of Pazuzu is enough to drive away disease and other social and physical pestilence attributed to Lamashtu. Materials commonly used to create statuettes or talismans are clay, soapstone , and jasper (Retrieved from https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/statuette-demon-pazuzu-inscription/).

Let’s pause for a moment and revisit our methodology. At the beginning of the article this researcher stated that the proper Simonomicon Working methodology includes the exploration of archetypes and meditation or active imagination sessions on the spirit-forms and entities which lie within the grimoire. The Simonomicon not only offers us descriptions of the spirit-ecology we are engaging with, but through its storytelling, the environments we must access through active imagination. In the grimoire, the story is retold of Alhazred’s early journeys:

“I came to possess this knowledge through circumstances quite peculiar, while still the unlettered son of a shepherd in… Mesopotamia… traveling alone in the mountains to the East, called Mashu by the people who live there…” (Simon, 7)

According to Akkadian versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Mt. Mashu lies near modern day Lebanon. There are three extant cedar preserves in modern day Lebanon, the Cedars of God in Bsharri, Tannourine Cedar Forest Nature Reserve, and the Souf Biosphere Reserve Barouk Cedar Forest. he Cedars of God still carry the myths of the battle between the humans and the Gods. Upon winning this territorial war 4700 years ago the Cedars of God were decimated by humans who used the resulting timber to build the civilizations of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Romans. As they are a very real place of power on our planet the magic-user undertaking Simonomicon Workings can either visit them physically or journey to them using the techniques of active imagination or liminal dreaming.

Alhazred continues his narrative, filling in details the Lovecraftian Magic-User can utilize when beginning her Simonomicon Workings:

“I came upon a grey care ed rock carved with three strange symbols. It stood as high as a man, and as wide around as a bull. It was firmly in the ground, and I could not move it. Thinking no more of carvings, save that they might be the work of a king to mark some ancient victory over an emery, I built a fire at its foot to protect me from the wolves that wander in those regions and went to sleep… Being about three hours from dawn, in the nineteenth of Shabatu, I was awakened by the howl of a dog… The fire had died… and… red, glowing coals cast a faint, dancing shadow across the stone monument… several men in… black robes… came together over the place where I was… murmuring together a prayer or invocations… The chanting of the priests became louder… “IA! IA! Zi Azag! IA! IA! Zi Azkak! IA! IA! Kutulu Zi Kur! Ia!” (Simon, 7)

This simple mantra accompanied with a singular focus on being among the sacred cedars of Lebanon in front of a large three sided stone is the most basic and preliminary Simonomicon Working for the Lovecraftian Magic-User. Through this practice the spirits of the imaginal grimoire are awoken and in the space of active imagination those spirits will speak. There are also two inscriptions to be used with this act — these can be constructed and utilized as implements with the task of creating a stronger foundation for your ritual space. The first can either be inscribed on clay or some other earthen material and is a representation of the original stone that this journey is centered on, ‘The Gate to the Outside,’ as it is called in the Simonomicon.

The second is a lamen or amulet that can be used as a type of protection. It is described in the text as being inscribed on metal but it is also said that the mere sight of the seal bathed in moonlight is enough to drive back whatever entities attracted to this working attempt to approach the magic-user. This working is then, necessarily, done in the evening on a clear night with no adverse weather so that moonlight is readily available.

These can be conjured in the active imagination space also, but their ease of constructibility allows them to become simple and potent corporeal elements desired by most magic-users when conducting rituals. The use of moonlight allows their use to be expanded into the ritual spheres of other grimoires, such as The Book of the Moon. If the lamen is, for example, made of corporeal materials by the Lovecraftian magic-user the following incantation from Liber Lunae can be utilizes without changing the context of the ritual:

“In the name of the meek God and merciful, to God alone honor and glory This is… the book of working that is said Liber Luna The circle of which is to the dwellers of the earth… For with it may be done good things and evil” (Karr, 41)

If smoke is used to carry one’s petitions to the spirit-world, Liber Lunae contains instructions for using these ritual elements as well:

“These are the names of the angels who serve the Moon, which you will sear over every image with each suffumigation… whether these are good operations or evil ones… Anilin, Quntzilim, Gashgorzim, Awashimadi, Amikhjilim, Abrakiim, Abrashim, Lairayozim, Yamaghash, Manenim, Mangororam, Harninay, Montaginim, Latzandonim, Qamshilindim, Shaaman, Sharailim, Amaamilim, Haqoilim, Balknaritim, Arihaylim, Beqshdeilim, Abranodomilim, Qarmayndim, Andaalashim, Sharahitzimin, Adiamenim, Tztahotim, Yatzarpnishim, Teibinenim, Nehelim, Hiraminim, Abramatim, Lanagotim, Wipoliyaqa, Belgahalidim, Gaporim, Aqrapirim, Tayrimim, Diqomeylim, Genithokim, Madarilim, Kearldim, Yebrunkhelim, Aladim, YUadalim, Shethakam, Panaplor, Badayulin, Dabnotirorin.” (Karr, 104-105)

The point of this first Simonomicon Working is to invoke spirit-contact in the active imagination space. In Alhazred’s narrative, the contact comes in the form of tentacles emerging from the earth, tentacles which are then fed the blood of the faithful at their own hand. In bearing witness to this manifestation, but not taking part, Alhazred is admitted through the first gate. It is the ‘showing’ that is important here, the ‘seeing’ of the monster’s viral tentacled hooks pulling the plaguemongers to a diseased bosom. Scott R. Jones, in his work “When the Stars are Right: Towards an Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality” makes the assertion that:

“the Great Old Ones are monsters… [understood] in [the] original Latin sense of monstrare, from which we derive demonstrate, ‘to show’… An interesting comparison… would be with the… ‘Wrathful Buddhas’ of Tibetan bon-po shamanism: aspects of universal constants that… tear the supplicant, body and soul, from his own delusions…” (Jones, 21)

A vision which echoes Alhazred’s in Simon’s narrative. If the key to one gate lies in mastering the one before, then understanding the nature of gates and Lovecraftian spirit-forms is an important skill. Jones offers insight here, when speaking of the spirit-form Yog-Sothoth. In ‘When the Stars Are Right,’ it is stated that:

“Yog-Sothoth is ‘the threshold’ itself, the key and guardian of the gate, and the gate: a liminal state-of-being, a limitless boundary. What is a door, a gate? A tool of transitioning, from one space to another, from Inside to Outside; a piece of architecture that… defines a nothing but which is… nothing without that Nothing it defines… Yog-Sothoth… hints at the truth of doors, of gates, and of that which lies beyond them: everything is permeable.” (Jones, 24)

Interaction with Lovecraftian Spirit-Forms in the imaginal or in-the-real is the act of transitioning. Once one has faced a spirit-form of this line, there is no returning to a state of unknowing. Through Simonomicon Workings we feel the gate. Our hormones race, our nervous system crackles, our circulatory system is taxed. These are not loving spirits that we understand. They do not promote feelings of well-being. Nevertheless, once we have passed through a door like Alhazred’s viral dirt-borne tentacles, we are the stronger for it. These visceral experiences are why the Simonomicon is the grimoire of the Viruspunk. It is magic that traffics directly with biopower. The Viruspunk are antenna tuned to the manipulation of the body politic. The Viruspunk are a Very Large Array wired with organic systems. Donna Haraway, in her phenomenal work ‘Simians, Cyborgs, and Women’ describes this relationship acutely and with prescience:

“The immune system is an elaborate icon for principal systems of symbolic and material ‘difference’ in late capitalism… the immune system is a map drawn to guide recognition and misrecognition of self and other in the dialectics of Western biopolitics… the immune system is a plan for meaningful action to construct and maintain the boundaries for what may count as self and other in the crucial realms of the normal and the pathological… The immune system is both an iconic mythic object in high-technology culture and a subject of research and clinical practice… Myth, laboratory, and clinic are intimately interwoven…” (Haraway, 204-205)

The immune system as iconic mythic object is both the dragon and the damsel for the Viruspunk movement. As the damsel our immune systems are subject to the violations of the natural world and from the imperial ‘science-as-hero’ figure perpetrated for hundreds of years. This is the archetype of all of Lovecraft’s ‘protagonists’ (a description in quotes for all of the men in the protagonist role in Lovecraft’s oeuvre are transparently powerless and inherently evil within the context of his fictional universe). Haraway continues, deepening our understanding of our collective enemy:

“no reader, no matter how literal-minded, could be innocent of the gendered erotic trope that figures the hero’s probing into nature’s laminated secrets, glorying simultaneously in the layered complexity and in his own techno-erotic touch that goes ever deeper. Science as a heroic quest and as erotic technique applied to the body of nature are utterly conventional figures. They take on a particular edge in late twentieth-century immune system discourse, where themes for nuclear exterminism, space adventure, extra-terrestrialism, exotic invaders, and military high-technology are pervasive.” (Haraway, 205)

Biopower is derived from the anti-hero poking at the vivisectioned corpse of our rights to our own bodies. This is being done today by a stream of gaslighting from the right demanding that protecting the immune systems of others (through wearing masks, social distancing, etc.) is us succumbing to the will of the deep state, to a socialist conspiracy demanding we give up our free will. The body politic is subsequently plied with a perversion of the narratives of extraterrestrials and otherness to strengthen the fear of those archetypes. The Viruspunk embraces these themes, combines them with the entire human history of operant magic, and weaponizes their bodies against those that seek to add them to their necro-erotic vivisectionism. The Viruspunk understands that through Simonomicon Workings and other magical systems both the body and the spirit are constructed. The body is as mutable as Tetsuo Shima’s in Akira.

Haraway takes us roughly down this path, smashing the myth of the body as an immutable object incapable of transformation:

“Bodies… are not born; they are made. Bodies have be thoroughly denaturalized as sign, context, and time. [Twenty-First Century] bodies do not grow from internal harmonic principles… Neither are they discovered in the domains of realism and modernism. One is not born a woman, Simone de Beauvoir correctly insisted… the political-epistemological terrain of postmodernism [insists] on a co-text to de Beauvoir’s: one is not born an organism. Organisms are made; they are constructs of a world-changing kind. The constructions of an organism’s boundaries, the job of the discourses of immunology, are particularly potent mediators of the experiencers of sickness and death for industrial and post-industrial people.” (Haraway, 208)

COVID-19 is the breath of Lamashtu. Just as the Spanish Flu was, as SARS and MERS and influenza are. It is not a fantasy. To buy into narratives that it does not exist (narratives that were pervasive during the Spanish Flu and other pandemics) is to let down your defenses and to allow Lamashtu and the plaguemongering minions of Marduk to overrun your ‘Helm’s Deep.’ Marduk’s greatest weapons are the whispers of lies that spread throughout urban populations. Returning to Haraway one final time, we find that:

“our hopes for accountability from the techno-biopolitics in postmodern frames turn on revisiting the world as coding trickster with whom we must learn to converse… while the [twenty-first century] immune system is a construct of an elaborate apparatus of bodily production, neither the immune system nor any other of biomedicine’s world-changing bodies - like a virus - is a ghostly fantasy. Coyote is not a ghost, merely a protean trickster.” (Haraway, 209)

The Simonomicon lists the enemy of the Viruspunk explicitly in Alhazred’s narrative:

“I learned of the various classes of demons and evil gods that exist, and of the old legends concerning the Ancient Ones. I was thus able to arm myself against the dread Maskim, who lie in wait about the boundaries of the world… [and] against the she-devil [Lamashtu]… After One Thousand-and-One moons… the Maskim nip at my heels, the Rabishu pull at my hair, Lamashtu opens her dread jaws…” (Simon, 14-15)

The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology states that the Maskim are equivalent to the Princes of Hell, such as Azazel and Mephistopheles. The term means ‘ensnarer’ or ‘layers in ambush.’ The Sumerian descriptions describe them as either having no sex or being hermaphroditic. They do not respond to worship or rituals and their places on earth are the highest mountains or the deepest caves. Their sphere of power encompasses earthquakes, asteroids, solar flares and the evilest of curses. It is said that they despise humans most of all (Guiley and Zaffis). Their association with Lamashtu in the text is significant. The Maskim are the causes of natural disasters and are those whose spells attract devastating asteroids to the earth. One could theorize that they hate humans because it was their own actions that created life on earth. Through their spells, when the earth was young and they sought to deface its beauty with their star magic, an asteroid fell upon our planet that contained the seeds of life. From those seeds the power of humans arose, which challenge the Maskim for dominance. Through their jealously they brought the asteroid to our planet that wiped out the dinosaurs, also paving the way for the Anthropocene. In conducting this research the Rabishu have made themselves known to me through synchronicity and memories. The Rabishu, as they are described in ‘A Field Guide to Demons: Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits’ are ‘House Demons.’ They live in entrances and are also called ‘Crouchers.’ Anytime one is in a home and gets chills, gooseflesh, or has the hair stand tip on the back of their neck — a rabishu is there. The entire built environment is filled with Rabishu and has been since humans have started to erect structures. There are classes of Rabishu as well: Utukku and Ekimmu: Ghosts of the Dead that frequent or are rooted in graveyards Gallu: A bull-like creature that haunts city streets Alu: Similar to the gallu, but in the guise of a black dog Rabishu: Sin that crouches at each door The Syrians have another class, which they call Bar Egara. These Rabishu live on rooftops and pounce on pregnant mothers and parents leaving the home for work. The deity Janus is a powerful ally against Rabishu. Times to make offerings to Janus are on the ‘calends’ of the month. Calends are equivalent to the first moon after a new moon — the beginning of a Waxing Crescent Moon. Janus prefers offerings of the smoke of bay leaves, capers, and wine. With those offerings the following incantation is appropriate:

“Come, be present, Father Janus, the Opener. Arise Planter of the Stars. All things, truly, I entrust to Patulcium the Opener. Now You are Janus the Gatekeeper, Now Cerus the Good Creator, Now Janus the God of Good Beginnings. Come, now most especially, God of Gods, You who are the better of these kings.”

Make your offering of incense after these first phrases, and then state:

“Janus, though I propitiate other Gods, I do offer wine to you first, So that I may obtain access through You, Janus, To any of the other Gods I may call upon. In You, dearest Father, In Your hands do we place our safekeeping. Janus, in offering to You this incense I pray good prayers that You many favor me, My children, our house and our home.”

Pour the wine and then state:

“Father Janus, be strengthened by this offering, Be Warmed by this wine. Janus, come! Father Matutinus, is You so prefer to hear, Regarded by men as the beginning of works And life’s labors, So does it please the Gods, may You hear my prayer:”

Make your specific petition to Janus here. In this instance it is advisable to include protection from the classes of Rabishu, stating something like:

…and protect my family and myself from the demons known as Utukku and Ekimmu in their graveyards, Gallu and Alu who walk the streets at night, Rabishu whom are at every doorway, and the Bar Egara who lie in wait on rooftops.”

One can then choose to close the prayer with a second offering of wine and capers, another thank you and the normal admonishing of ‘Make it so, Immediately, Immediately’ or some version thereof.

The recognition of the existence of Rabishu and using the petition to Janus is particularly important to the VirusPunk. At this writing we have all been forced indoors by Lamashtu and her winds of plague. The cemeteries are filled with Utukku and Ekimmu born of the thousands of lives cut short in her wake. Gallu and Alu inhabit the authorities that prowl the streets looking to enact extreme violence against the citizenry, Bar Egara pounce on those forced to go to work in the service industry, trades, and labor, and we are all trapped inside with the Crouchers, the Rabishu, who snatch at us every time we walk through a doorway in our home. As Janus is also the blesser of new beginnings, his name should be on the lips of every Viruspunk as we join the throngs of anti-racist protesters standing firm against the plaguemongers who walk about Lamashtu’s earth unprotected and defiant with no mask between her foul wind and our immunity-as-identity. As evil fights evil the best, may we gather beneath the moth-man wings of Pazuzu and mimic his visage in the face of his consort Lamashtu, her generals the Maskim, and their hordes of Rabishu. As we weaponize the body politic, we will become the virus ourselves tearing down systemic racism, weaponizing our immune systems, and marking the trail to a Solarpunk future with empty police stations, the shells of big box stores, our three-sided stones dressed with cedar bows, and our flowered, brightly lit altars to all of our allies among the monstrum and aglæca.

References

Guiley, R., & Zaffis, J. (2009). The encyclopedia of demons and demonology. New York: Checkmark Books. Haraway, D. J. (2015). Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. Jones S R (2014) When the Stars are Right: Towards an Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality. Martian Migraine Press. Karr D (2017) The Book of the Moon. Golden Hoard Press. Simon, . (2008). Necronomicon. Lake Worth, FL: Ibis Press. White, G. (2016). Star.ships: A prehistory of the spirits.

#Simonomicon Workings

0 notes