A Journal: Conversations with the Stars

Journals, Group Rituals & Free Readings
121

All hail Sheliak!

My coworker, “Anna,” is now free of her shit husband, thanks to Lady Sheliak. He was the one who wanted a divorce, but then suddenly he refused to sign the divorce papers. He thought that by doing so, he could hold power over her by staying in her life.

According to Anna, he called her this morning to say that something strange had happened to him. He woke up with an overpowering compulsion to sign the papers, with the realization that things would be much easier for him to just let her go.

Anna rushed to his house to collect the paper before he changed his mind.

Sheliak grinned at me as Anna was telling this story. She was the one who had compelled him to give in, whispering in his ear that everything would be so much easier for him that way.

And Sheliak had meant it. She would have made his life a living hell if he had continued to hurt Anna.

All praise to Sheliak! She is a powerful protector of women and children!

1 Like
122

World’s Dumbest Scientist

Set couldn’t stop cackling like a cartoon villain while I was typing the last post. He thinks that fucking with abusers is hilarious. Then Sheliak asked for red-dyed beer (imitation blood) so I gave one to her.

***

Yesterday I went to YouTube and watched a playthrough of the Shadow the Hedgehog video game because I’m curious about the fictional version of both Rasalhagues.

All I can say is:

1). Those two have the most nonsensical backstories ever. But that’s Japanese video games for you.

2). As a scientist and a mage, this Dr. Gerald guy is the dumbest scientist ever. Seriously. If a giant space demon (Black Doom/Rasalhague A) with glowing red eyes and giant devil horns manifested in front of me and said, “I will give you the magical cure to every disease ever AND the secret to [physical] immortality! All you have to do is give me the seven chaos emeralds, the source of REAL ULTIMATE POWER!!!” I’d say, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Did the magic cure work? Of course not. I thought, clearly Dr. Shit-for-brains has never seen a horror movie. You never make a deal with the devil for things like immortality.

Honestly though, screwing over the puny mortal is something an Arrow-demon would do…if they decided they didn’t like the human for some reason, like “you disrespected me.” Or they could fulfill your prayer request in a fucked-up way like a malicious genie. I know that sounds horrifying, but if you respect them and treat them as a person instead of an object or vending machine, you’ll be fine.

So then this Dr. Gerald guy is like, the aliens are immune to human diseases. I know! I’ll inject alien blood from Shadow (Rasalhague B) and my granddaughter, Maria, will be cured of space AIDS. Um, no. That is not how blood transfusions work. That would kill her because her immune system would recognize the blood as “not me” and reject the transfusion. This is like saying, reptiles don’t get rabies, therefore I can cure myself of rabies by injecting lizard blood into myself.

Now that I typed that, this “cure” sounds like medieval spells I’ve read, which mainly rely on sympathetic magic. Want giant balls? Eat a bull’s balls. Want to cure yourself of kidney disease? Eat a healthy human kidney. Basically, the qualities of the thing you consumed will transfer to you.

Anyway, I can think of a plausible explanation for why the aliens don’t get human diseases: they are not humans. Pathogens are host-specific. They can evolve to infect new hosts, but it takes time. Now think of an Earth pathogen trying to infect an alien, which would have completely different biology from a human.

I’m not even done watching that playthrough, so I’m sure I’ll see more stuff to ramble about.

123

After typing the last entry, I realized that fictional avatar of Terebellum has a similar storyline.

Human scientist: I belong to the Osiris Corporation! I want to ensure perfect health! I want to eliminate all medical conditions, including that most dastardly medical condition: death!

Terebellum/The Undertaker: Hello! I am a shinigami! That means I know all the secrets of death, including how to, as you say, remove that medical condition. Just do everything I say!

Human scientist: Okay!

The Undertaker screws over the human scientist by giving him a design for a resurrection machine…that fails to work.

Undertaker then uses magic to resurrect a dead girl. Her grieving parents gasp in awe. They have their daughter back! The girl makes a zombie groaning noise and proceeds to munch on her parents. Everyone screams and chaos erupts. Undertaker laughs because he thinks this is all great fun.

Ok, scientist guy, did you really expect Death to tell you how to erase Death? At least he and his fellow scientists at the Osiris Corp are smarter than Dr. Gerald. They also give treatments by blood transfusion, but they know how transfusions work: human to human, matched by blood type.

Moral: Asking the plague+death entity for the secret to ending plague+death is a terrible idea.

124

I was at work and the pest control was walking around the lab, doing his quarterly spraying. I heard entities hissing and growling.

“We don’t like him! He kills bugs!”

I realized that the entities were Rasalhague A’s worker bees (vulture bees).

“Please just let the guy do his job,” I said.

Like physical vulture bees, these bees are very aggressive and will swarm and attack if they feel threatened. Their kind does not like humans in general because humans hate and kill insects. Humans think bugs are disgusting, ugly pests who should be eradicated. They know humans are causing the “insect apocalypse” on this planet and are very upset about it.

They will talk to individual mages, but only if the mage respects and appreciates insects. I have been told that it is still dangerous because if they feel threatened, the bee will call the entire hive and they will swarm and attack. It’s best to go through Khepra, the insect deity.

Khepra had to help me work through my phobia of insects before I was allowed to see them. I had such a severe phobia that I wouldn’t even touch an insect. If a bug, even a harmless grasshopper, jumped on me, I would panic and kill it.

This made Khepra very unhappy. “Why are you killing my children?” he said. Seeing Khepra as a giant scarab in my house scared me. One night he decided to show affection by crawling on me and perching on my head. As he did so, it took everything I had not to scream.

As I got over my fear of insects, he decided to bless me by filling my home with his bug spirits. I would see giant flies, spiders, grasshoppers, etc. I don’t know how that was blessing me, but okay.

Then he decided to show me his insect arrow, Rasalhague A, king of the vulture bees.

Khepra still pops in now and then and likes perching on my head. Ridiculous, I know, but it’s his way of showing he likes me. He feels very alien, like his arrow, but that is because insects are so different from mammals.

I have a brass ring with Khepra on it. When I wear it, I can hear him better. Sometimes I feel the urge to put it on, which means that he has a message for me.

125

Today’s Quareia Reading

Luna

Ghost

Disease