#conjuring

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Plaque of conjuration against the Lamashtu, called "plaque of the underworld" or Hell Plate.

Period: Neo-Assyrian (1st half of the millennium)

Place of origin: Assyria

Medium: Bronze

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Against Lore

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

One of my favorite nuggets of writing advice comes from James D Macdonald. Jim, a Navy vet with an encylopedic knowledge of gun lore, explained to a group of non-gun people how to write guns without getting derided by other gun people: "just add the word 'modified.'"

As in, "Her modified AR-15 kicked against her shoulder as she squeezed the trigger, but she held it steady on the car door, watching it disintegrate in a spatter of bullet-holes."

Jim's big idea was that gun people couldn't help but chew away at the verisimilitude of your fictional guns, their brains would automatically latch onto them and try to find the errors. But the word "modified" hijacked that impulse and turned it to the writer's advantage: a gun person's imagination gnaws at that word "modified," spinning up the cleverest possible explanation for how the gun in question could behave as depicted.

In other words, the gun person's impulse to one-up the writer by demonstrating their superior knowledge becomes an impulse to impart that superior knowledge to the writer. "Modified" puts the expert and the bullshitter on the same team, and conscripts the expert into fleshing out the bullshitter's lies.

Yes, writing is lying. Storytelling is genuinely weird. A storyteller who has successfully captured the audience has done so by convincing their hindbrains to care about the tribulations of imaginary people. These are people whose suffering, by definition, do not matter. Imaginary things didn't happen, so they can't matter. The deaths of Romeo and Juliet were less tragic than the death of the yogurt you had for breakfast. That yogurt was alive and now it's dead, whereas R&J never lived, never died, and don't matter:

https://locusmag.com/2014/11/cory-doctorow-stories-are-a-fuggly-hack/

Hijacking a stranger's empathic response is intrinsically adversarial. While storytelling is a benign activity, its underlying mechanic is extremely dangerous. Getting us to care about things that don't matter is how novels and movies work, but it's also how cults and cons work.

Cult leaders and con-artists know that they're engaged in mind-to-mind combat, and they make liberal use of Jim's hack of leaving blank spots for the mark to fill in. Think of Qanon drops: the mystical nonsense was just close enough to sensical that a vulnerable audience was compelled to try and untangle them, and ended up imparting more meaning to them than the hustler who posted them ever could have dreamt up.

Same with cons – there's a great scene in the Leverage: Redemption heist show where an experienced con-artist explains to a novice that the most convincing hustle is the one where you wait for the mark to tell you what they think you're doing, then run with it (scambaiters and other skeptics will recognize this as a relative of the "cold reading," where a "psychic" uses your own confirmations to flesh out their predictions).

As Douglas Adams put it:

A towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Magicians know this one, too. The point of a sleight is to misdirect the audience's attention, and use that moment of misattention to trick them, vanishing, stashing or producing something. The mark's mind is caught in a pleasurable agony: something seemingly impossible just happened. The mind splits into two parts, one of which insists that the impossible just happened, the other insisting that the impossible can't happen.

You know you've done it right if the audience says, "Do that again!" And that's the one thing you must not do. So long as you don't repeat the trick, the audience's imagination will chew on it endlessly, coming up with incredibly clever things that you must have done (a clever conjurer will know several ways to produce the same effect and will "do it again" by reproducing the effect via different means, which exponentially increases the audience's automatic imputation of clever methods to the performer).

Not for nothing, Jim Macdonald advises his writing students to study Magic and Showmanship, a classic text for aspiring conjurers:

https://memex.craphound.com/2007/11/13/magic-and-showmanship-classic-book-about-conjuring-has-many-lessons-for-writers/

There's a version of this in comedy, too. The scholarship of humor is clear on this: comedy comes from surprise. The audience knows they're about to be surprised when the punchline lands, and their mind is furiously trying to defuse the comedian's bomb before it detonates, cycling through potential punchlines of their own. This ramps up the suspense and the tension, so when the comedian does drop the punchline, the tension is released in a whoosh of laughter.

Your mind wants the tension to be resolved ASAP, but the pleasure comes from having that desire thwarted. Comedy – like most performance – has an element of authoritarianism. You don't give the audience what it wants, you give it what it needs.

Same goes for TTRPGs: the game master's role is to deny the players the victories and treasure they want, until they can't take it anymore, and then deliver it. That's the definition of an epic game. It's one of the durable advantages of human GMs over video game back-ends: they can ramp up the epicness by "cheating" on the play, giving the players the chance to squeak out improbable victories at the last possible second:

https://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/03/behind-the-screen.html

This is so effective that even crude approximations of it can turn video-games into cult hits – like Left4Dead, whose "Director" back-end would notice when the players were about to get destroyed and then substantially ramped up the chances of finding an amazing weapon – the chance would still be low overall, but there would be enough moments when the player got exactly what they'd been praying for, at the last possible instant, that it would feel amazing:

https://left4dead.fandom.com/wiki/The_Director#Special_Infected

Critically, Left4Dead's Director didn't do this every time. As any showman knows, the key to a great performance is "Always leave 'em wanting more." The musician's successful finale depends on doing every encore the audience demands, except the last one, so the crowd leaves with one tantalyzing and imaginary song playing in their minds, a performance better than any the musicians themselves could have delivered. Like the gun person who comes up with a cooler mod than the writer ever could, like the magic show attendee who comes up with a more elaborate explanation for the sleight than the conjurer could ever pull off, like the comedy club attendee whose imagination anticipates a surprise that grows larger the longer the joke goes on, the successful performance is an adversarial act of cooperation where the audience willingly and unwillingly cooperates with the performer to deny them the thing that they think they need, and deliver the thing they actually need.

This is my biggest problem with the notion that someday LLMs will get good enough at storytelling to give us the tales we demand, without having to suffer through a storyteller's sadistic denial of the resolutions we crave. When I'm reading a mystery, I want to turn to the last page and find out whodunnit, but I know that doing so will ruin the story. Telling the storyteller how the story should go is like trying to tickle yourself.

Like being tickled, experiencing only fun if the tickler respects your boundaries – but, like being tickled, there's always a part where you're squirming away, but you don't want it to stop. An AI storyteller that gives you exactly what you want is like a dungeon master who declares that every sword-swing kills the monster, and every treasure chest is full of epic items and platinum pieces. Yes, that's what you want, but if you get it, what's the point?

Seen in this light, performance is a kind of sado-masochism, where the performer delights in denying something to the audience, who, in turn, delights in the denial. Don't give the audience what they want, give them what they need.

What your audience needs is their own imagination. Decades ago, I was a freelance copywriter producing sales materials for Alias/Wavefront, a then-leading CGI firm that was inventing all kinds of never-seen VFX that would blow people away. One of the engineers I worked with told me something I never forgot: "Your imagination has more polygons than anything you can create with our software." He was talking about why it was critical to have some of the action happen in the shadows.

All of this is why series tend to go downhill. The first volume in any series leaves so much to the imagination. The map of the world is barely fleshed out, the characters' biographies are full of blank spots, the mechanics of the artifacts and the politics of the land are all just detailed enough that your mind automatically ascribes a level of detail to them, without knowing what that detail is.

This is the moment at which everything seems very clever, because your mind is just churning with all the different bits of elaborate lore that will fill in those lacunae and make them all fit together.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm about to give some spoilers for Furiosa.

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FURIOSA SPOILERS AHEAD!

Last night, we went to see Furiosa, the latest Mad Max movie, a prequel to 2015's Fury Road, which is one of the greatest movies ever made. Like most prequels, Furiosa functions as a lore-delivery vehicle, and as such, it's nowhere near as good as Fury Road.

Fury Road hints as so much worldbuilding. We learn about the three fortresses of the wasteland (the Citadel, the Bullet Farm, and Gastown) but we only see one (The Citadel). We learn that these three cities have a symbiotic relationship with one another, defined by a complex politics that is just barely stable. We meet Furiosa herself, and learn something of her biography – that she had been stolen from the Green Place, that she had suffered an arm amputation.

All of this is left for us to fill in, and for a decade, my hindbrain has been chewing on all of that, coming up with cool ways it could all fit together. I yearned to know the "real" explanation, but it was always unlikely that this real explanation would be as enjoyable as my own partial, ever-unfinished headcanon.

Furiosa is a great movie, but its worst parts are the canonical lore it settles. Partly, that's because some of that lore is just stupid. Why is the Bullet Farm an open-pit mine? I mean, it's visually amazing, but what does that have to do with making bullets? Sometimes, it's because the lore is banal – the solarpunk Green Place is a million times less cool than I had imagined it. Sometimes, it's because the lore is banal and stupid: the scenes where Furiosa's arm is crushed, then severed, then replaced, are both rushed and quasi-miraculous:

https://www.themarysue.com/how-does-furiosa-lose-her-arm/

But even if the lore had been good – not stupid, not banal – the best they could have hoped for was for the lore to be tidy. If it were surprising, it would seem contrived. A story whose loose ends have been tidily snipped away seems like it would be immensely satisfying, but it's not satisfying – it's just resolved. Like the band performing every encore you demand, until you no longer want to hear the band anymore – the feeling as you leave the hall isn't satisfaction, it's exhaustion.

So long as some key question remains unresolved, you're still wanting more. So long as the map has blank spots, your hindbrain will impute clever and exciting mysteries, tantalyzingly teetering on the edge of explicability, to the story.

Lore is always better as something to anticipate than it is to receive. The fans demand lore, but it should be doled out sparingly. Always leave 'em wanting more.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/27/cmon-do-it-again/#better_to_remain_silent_and_be_thought_a_fool_than_to_speak_and_remove_all_doubt

[getmeoutofhell]

I just read all of the slasher house stuff and I saw you did Valak head cannons so I was wondering if you would do Annabelle a.k.a Malthus head cannons please

Love you and your work ❤️

Annabelle/Malthus in the Slasher House

thank you and love you too!

where should i start? oh yeah, let’s start with the facts that’s that doll is always by you!

like idk if malthus likes to fuck around or what, but anabelle be all up on you i promise.

if he ever shows his self in the main room, it’s because of one reason. someone pissed him off.

“mortem mortem mortem.” he whispers sometimes at night. you can’t count how many times chucky told him to stfu. you can’t help but laugh more each time it happens.

“fuck u looking at?” chucky says to annabelle. you find that hilarious as well. you sometimes swear you see the dolls eyes move, but you never confirmed anything yet. it’s probably best if you don’t tho.

malthus is more in his own corner person. don’t bother him, and he won’t bother you. art had to learn that the hard way…

to be honest the doll creeps y’all out more than he does. malthus himself doesn’t fool with anybody there at the house. but if he does it’s for a good reason.

each week you catch that damn doll in your room. ‘why the fuck would you he put you there?’ you think, before tossing that bitch out the door. you sometimes wonder if he sort of trusts you with the doll, considering it’s by you at all times.

every so often you see his real form in the corner of your eye or in the shadows. “oh hey malthus.” he doesn’t respond to you but you know he heard you.

sometimes when you wanna be petty you and one of the clowns dress up the annabelle doll in different clothes. “malthus is gonna be so upset.” you laugh, knowing he’s gonna rage at y’all’s tomfoolery.

for some reason, malthus seems to like you the most out of everyone. you don’t know why…or how for that matter. just be careful if he gets to close to you…

[shanafierce]

the spooky series of paintings continues with the conjuring. 🩸 (x)

[slack-wise]

Muga Miyahara

[lilacskyflow-blog]

"Thank you, callimara" we all say in unison!

After watching how absolutely INSANE and DETAILED this video by callimara is... I have decided, to also make one crazy compilation, reasonings, and potentially a rewrite for "The Nun" specifically on behalf of Irene and Maurice as a ship.

After I figure out how to use milanote and successfully organize my ideas, it would be exemplary if I could also upload a youtube video on it! (i have never posted content like this on yt btw😭) and thank goodness I'm a professional yapper! only if I could make use of my time properly... and just in case I wouldn't, I'll just share the link here!

[evil-daily-ac]

been soo ill recently on game get phighted dingus

[givreencres]

Dancing with yourself

Anger Sweet poison with an insidious, syrupy taste I say your name Like an old friend Like an old enemy I wait for you I resist you I fear you But I don't run away from you Anger Ravaging of beings You have already possessed me I have rejected you Now you come again Anger Pure energy Lurking, you're always there Ready to take your due A moment of weakness And there you are, temptress Ready to overwhelm Anger... anger... Anger... anger... I say your name I feel you lurking at the edge of my heart I beseech you before you act We confront each other Neither of us gave up A new dance begins Anger... Anger... Anger... Anger... Anger... Anger... I cry out your name I beseech you I confront you Our eternal tango resumes You take turns Charming Hypnotic Liquid I know all your steps We've been doing this dance for so long You and I have no secrets Our tango is driven only by pure will Anger... Anger... Anger... Anger... Anger... Anger... I say your name I deprive you of your hold I capture you I say your name I am no longer afraid of you Anger... Anger... Anger... Anger... I refuse to swallow your poison You can keep it Anger... anger... I look you in the eyes From now on I lead the dance You have no choice but to follow me To follow my heart To synchronize your movements with mine Anger... anger... Prisoner of my rhythm Here we are in alignment again

© Givre Encres

[yoursghouly]

hot take: valak is mother

nun of you can convince me otherwise

[conjuremanj]

Spiritual Waters/ Colognes.

On this post I wanted to speak on spiritual waters and colognes these products that I've listed are and have use in different spiritual circles. I think some of this products were added later because of the low cost and having a alcohol base, because alcohol in the south has a lot of uses and could cure most is what my grandparents said🤔😄 But enjoy this post.

What Are They Used For? These are use to bring you back up. It can bring back money, love etc. It's used to feed a mojo bags that's made specifically for a purpose. (See my post on Perfumes.)

Holy Water. Can't get must more powerful thin this as a reverend my self I can tell you it works. This water that has been blessed by an Ordained Priest or a member of the clergy or spirituality ordained person. Used for baptism, spiritual cleansing, to bless individuals, places and objects. To bless or dispell it has many uses.

Florida Water. Actually made in New York it was and still is a male cologne. It was used for a scalp cleaner, a foot cleanser. It has multiple uses it was dubbed paranormal. Now used mostly for spiritual properties, like cleansing. It's used to feed your gris gris bag (mojo bag) to keep it going, used to feed the spirit because of the alcohol and is oftentimes used in fire rituals (to start not to burn), in ceremonies and offerings, venerating our ancestors and the dead. It's a good ingredient used in a African spirituality religion like Vodou or Hoodoo. But it can also strip away [Example] If you cleaned yourself using florida water you are now cleaned of negative but what happens you are striped of your other workings like money drawing, and you can use a money cologne to help bring that back. Protection can be stripped away so doing a spiritual bath to bring it back. Always reply what you loss.

Peruvian Florida Water. This cologne is widely used by healers for purification, cleansing, healing, and protection. The Peruvian Florida Water has a sweet, and spicy scent. Different from traditional Florida Water. Because of its sweet scent if a good offering to Erzulie Freda. This is what you would see in Hispanic areas and botanicals but both are good.

Rose Cologne is used for peace and love It can be good to use when working or doing any love and attraction work or used as a offering to a spirit or deity of love. It can be sprinkle around the home or add to your mop with water for attraction.

Kolonia 1800 Natural Water. This is a nice alternative to Florida Water. It has a more manly scent to it and a different vibration. Used the same way to get rid of any spell and curses on your love life, sex life, or your luck etc. This Kolonia colone also come in different scents like 1800 Tobacco if one likes to work with native american spirits or ancestral spirits because probably 60 to 70% of people or spiritual practices deal with tobacco in some way. It's good for one self.

Kananga Water Cologne. A African word that it comes from Jamaica. Kananga water is mainly used for purification and for departed ancestors. Also dispel dark energy from a room, purification of one's spirit, energy, and ancestral communication.

Orange Blossom Cologne is good to use when you have a business to help draw customers. Sprinkle outside the front door, before opening.

The Siete Macho. Is used for spiritual and emotional guidance. It is also used to block or to send back and reverse negative energy, evil eye, hexes and curses. It has multiple uses.

Reve d'Or Lotion. Used to put an end to adverse conditions and open the way for luck, love, money, and happiness. This perfume scent is good for Erzulie Dantor.

Pompeia. Used in many spiritual baths and rituals, sometimes used in Vodou for love A good scent for Erzulie Freda.

Hoyt's Cologne. This is another good cologne. Is said that it's traditionally used in conjure and hoodoo. I can't really say that its used traditionally. But what ever was available alcohol wise was used.

Now it's great for feeding mojo bags and waking a High John Root.

LOTION FEUILLES D'HAITI (SIMBI COLOGNE) if you been reading my blog you know Water is part of the life source, and energies. Water is one of the four elements that Vodou initiates are taught to respect as natural spiritual forces; it covered the earth at the beginning of time, and separates the living from the world of the ancestors.

So I wasted to add this spiritual cologne to the list an original formula, created in Haiti by Monsieur Trouillot. It’s made with Saut d'Eau Water is French for "Waterfall" it stand approximately 100 feet high and is the tallest in Haiti.

It also has natural, select Haitian herbs. "Lotion Feuilles" cologne gets its name from "feuilles" which is French for leaves. These potent leaves are used by Vodouisants for their medicinal & therapeutic benefits.

It can also be added to Good Luck, Prosperity & Blessing Baths - there are so many ways to use this and it smells good.

Now there are a lot of simbi products but to get the waters from that fall make it that much more special.

Sandalwood Water. Is one of these items that was give to Christ. It's good if you do a lot of prayer work. Prayer circles, seances, spiritual baths even for ones self. I like the spiritual washes that has sandalwood, or frankincense and myrrh.

7 African Powers Cologne is a popular one.

[tuppencetrinkets]

328 gif icons of Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren in the Conjuring 2.

This content is free for anyone to use or edit however you like; if you care to throw a dollar or two my way for time, effort, storage fees etc you are more than welcome to do so via my PAYPAL.  Please like or reblog this post if you have found it useful or are downloading the content within.  If you have any questions or you have any problems with the links or find any inconsistencies in the content, etc. please feel free to drop me a politely worded message via my ASKBOX (second icon from the top on my theme!

[getmeoutofhell]

Your slasher house series got me stuck on Valak. Could u plss write some headcanons, it can be fluff or smut, I just need more Valak pics. I'm loving your work 🐱❤️🤸‍♀️

Valak x reader headcanons

SFW

firstly, you have no idea how you and him even became a ‘thing’. it just…happened out of nowhere you’d say. more specifically, he happened out of nowhere. like, he just appeared out of thin air and you excepted him.

i mean, sometimes you come to think he was planning to be with you for a while, meaning he was stalking you for some time before he showed himself to you. you asked him once, to which he laughed and didn’t disagree with your claim.

valak himself is full of evil. but with you his evil is dimmed down just a bit. he lets you talk to him, vent to him, and even cry to him in your time of need. he also kills for you. he’s a demon after all, so he needs humans begging for mercy to satisfy him.

eventually in the ‘relationship’ valak will show you his true self, revealing his demonic form. at first, you got flipped out, but after a little bit you relaxed. you thought he was gonna kill you, but he kept you alive.

valak uses pet names for you. well, i’m not sure if you’d want to call them ‘pet’ names. he calls you my little viper, my little demon, and sometimes he just straight up calls you the word pet. even tho he likes you, it doesn’t mean he’ll be soft with you. as i said, he’s a demon, so he’s gonna take every change to remind you that.

he sometimes scars you, it’s another reminder to not get fully comfortable around him. anytime he could snap and get rid of you just like anyone else. remember that.

another thing, don’t make him angry. like, please just try your best to not piss him off. unless you want a: your soul to be stuck with him all eternity. b: him to kill a loved one of yours and make you watch

NSFW

talking about valak in this section he’s full of lust and greed in the bedroom. he loves him a good time when he fucks you.

he’s pretty big down there as well, way bigger than a normal man would be. he tells you to shut up and take it, but if only he knew how big he really is. he’s a mastermind, which means he’s always in control no matter what you do.

if you tell him to slow down, he’ll laugh at you and sped up. in some cases he’s the first man to even make you orgasm this much. he knows that, he can read your mind. he knows when you crave him, think of him. it’s creepy i know but this is valak we’re talking about.

he’ll breed you over and over, leaving you a soaking crying mess. you’re not done until he’s done, so buckle up and get ready to be there for a while. there’s nothing you can really do anyway.

sometimes he’s ties you up, just to make you suffer a little bit more. you’ll wake up the next day with bruises and marks but don’t dare tell your friends that it’s because you have sex with a demon. he’ll kill them if he finds out. he knows already.

thanks for the kind words!!

[autistook]

i forgot how good the conjuring franchise is at times

[slack-wise]

Sara Fanelli

[gutz-radio]

Idfk, I wanna rewatch the nun, haven't seen the second one yet. But nuns are on my brain.