Salme @ SYSYSYGAMI

Hi. You’re Seye, right? Or Jorule was fucking with me I guess.

Anyway you don’t have to respond but didn’t know if you’d like to talk.

I mean. Or shittalk Jorule, but I figure that’s low stakes. Fun stakes sometimes, but low ones.

I’m Seye!

You can think of me as the “Angel of Freedom”.

I think the stakes will be low, because no matter what you ante, how could I meet it?

Insulting him behind his back… I don’t really want to do that.

But talking is nice. When you’re stuck on something, sometimes it’s easier to think about someone else’s problems, and celebrate their successes, than your own.

You can probably relate!

“Angel of Freedom.” I like that.

Ah to be honest I don’t really want to insult Jorule behind his back either. I like him a lot. I Keep trying to draw him more and more into this story, actually, which he keeps trying to stay out of. I actually admire him a lot. Hm. You’ve known him a while, right? He’s been happy, right?

I worry he hasn’t had much happiness, but … hm. He doesn’t seem to like to discuss how he feels about stuff? At least not with me.

Hah. Yes. Talking is nice. Part of why I don’t shut up. Are you stuck on something? And how much do you know about … all this?

I’m catching up, but if you wanted to talk, explaining things takes words and finishes sentences.

Even knowing yourself is a little hard. We see our own hearts and feelings only darkly, like through smoked glass. But even then, by speaking, we can know each other just a little bit, even though it seems impossible. So, instead of “knowing him a while”, I’d say “We met a few times.”

Looking over your metaphorical shoulder, it seems pretty happy in there. So, it’s a little funny that you’d say “I’m worried that he hasn’t had much happiness” about him, even though I think I get it, too.

“I’m worried that he hasn’t had many hotdogs…” said about someone holding two hot dogs… it could be true in a lifetime sense, but would adding a third hotdog help…

Ah… I cast impetuously… he could be sadder later in the bits I haven’t read yet…

I think knowing yourself is harder, in some ways, than knowing anyone else. At least, I’ve only recently been able to articulate a lot of things I’m feeling under the surface.

Hm I guess I was talking about Jorule’s past, before he came here. But I take your point about hotdogs, even if I’m not … precisely certain what a hotdog is? (A kind of food, right? I think I saw a couple street vendors selling them where I am currently at).

I guess also … I’m not. Sure. I’m new to think whole Spark/Angel/Pure Heart business. I’m not sure I actually understand it terribly well? I was speaking about Jorule-who-is-Jorule and not Jorule-who-is-part-of-Aurelius? I guess I tend to think of them separately, at least in part because my relationship with each is rather different? I don’t know if that’s standard. When I brought that up to Jorule, he kind of … did that thing where he just … skips over thinking about it.

Basically, I am aware of many of the meta aspects of the story right now, and I am aware it is a story. How well I understand those aspects is almost entirely reliant on Jorule’s ability to explain them to me when I’m idly poking at him while on my tomestone.

I hope our story’s good so far, as you’ve read it.

It’s not a story. It’s real. You can put your tongue anywhere in your mouth right now, behind any tooth or against any gum without telling me, and you’ll feel it, and no one else will.

Just because a story is written about something… Doesn’t make it a “story”, right?

And if all the words that rhymed meant the same thing, A dictionary would be a lot shorter.

Oh. Yes. Of course. I suppose, to me, everything is a story. The very nature of how we conceive of ourselves is a story. That does not make it any less real. Though I suppose that is attacking it from the opposite direction.

Without a narrative I am just a string of moments, events, and experiences unified only by the fact they all occurred to me in my body. Salme, the way I have changed and grown, the way that I can see a self moment-to-moment, she is herself a story I tell myself. She is also the realist thing there could possibly be.

I will never think something is lesser for being a story, I can assure you of that.

Though, “And if all the words that rhymed meant the same thing, A dictionary would be a lot shorter.” I like that way of thinking. I might steal it, if you don’t mind.

That’s true but it’s true in the way that you can go “reading is a WHALE of an adventure!” and it isn’t a lie but the picture of a big whale flying out of the book on a rainbow is not telling you that is literally what you will experience it is just hinting at the joy of fantasy and the broadening of your horizons that good fiction can lend you.

In a literal sense what is happening is you are sitting somewhere comfy and deriving meaning from viewing letters on a page, recognizing them as symbols, construing meaning from the accrued cultural associations and history of those symbols that you have garnered from your life experience, and assembling them into a narrative with your sense-making apparatus of choice

Similarly what is happening to you in a literal sense is you are doing things

feeling them,

touching them,

tasting them,

having thoughts within your head

Forget that at your own peril, Salme! You have to keep living after your “ending”, whatever it is. Because an ending isn’t real.

That is a valuable reminder. Thank you.

I will not forget. That is a promise.

You write beautifully. Are you a storyteller too?

Promise me things at your peril too - 50 dragons attack!!

🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

Hahaha!

I like these little guys 🐲. They’re cute. Jorule said you’re the … princess? Of them? What does that mean?

It’s not literal right now but was once! Maybe it will be again. “Time flows like a river and history repeats”. People are more alike than they’re different, so we’ll meet shapes and feelings that are like the ones we had before, and we’ll see parallels… if I said “stop calling me that!” I would stop being the princess of dragons, but since I haven’t, you can look for ways it fits.

A princess is someone who changes your life forever if you can reach her, or someone it entirely changes your life to become.

A dragon is a monster so great you can’t help but idolize it, beyond the point where “terrible” becomes “terrific”, where “awful” becomes “awesome”. It is great in fang and claw and breath and scale. It is majestic like how if you are rained on hard enough and rattled enough by the hot gale you smile instead of being miserable. Yes, they’re just like monster royalty!

That means that if it’s easier to remember, you can refer to me as “king of kings”, Salme.

I can manage to remember “princess of dragons” and “king of kings” and any other title you throw my way, Seye. That is one thing I generally do well. I remember.

Unless, of course, I am kidnapped by an awkward god with severe depression, and then I forget. Though the god helped, to be sure.

Well. If I have to die, 50 dragon monster royalty attack doesn’t sound like a bad way to go. Though. “Fang and claw and breath and scale.” Interesting terminology. Have you looked into our Rite of the Dragon at all?

Yes, I’ve looked at it. It wouldn’t be too hard to play over BBS, right? 🐉🎶

“Have to” and “going to” are really different…

Ha. Well, I mean, I’m going to die, obviously, but I’ve been thinking I might get a couple years, maybe most of a lifetime, before that happens. If I do have to die in the next couple years or months or days, 50 🐲 would be a fun way to go out.

I’d be happy to try the Rite via Linkpearl if you want? I’m not the most talented at it (Aurelius or Luĉja probably are? Maybe Wolf?) but I am starting to find it fun. We could also see if we could make teams? I see people strategizing about beating the Scorpion Queen.

People fail to do things they have to do all the time!

If you have to die in the next couple of days, you should just let everyone down.

Then, you make it up to them later if you feel like, which you can’t do otherwise.

I had to read that a couple times to get what you were saying, then I laughed.

You remind me of Awoken rather a lot, you know. Which I hope sounds like the compliment it is.

People are more alike than they are different, after all.

Angel of Freedom, how much stock should I put in these “Angel of [Something]” titles? Jorule tells me they don’t mean much, but I notice when he manifests he always puts at least one of his titles there. (Is it normal to have two?)

I also. Got thrown a title. Or. Something inside of my got thrown a title? I don’t know if you’ve caught up to that point yet. It’s towards the end of Samudra. I don’t know how to feel about that at all, honestly.

Who’s going to stop him from having two? It’s nice to have something to say when you spread your wings. You should put stock in it as “something we say when we spread our wings”…

I don’t think anyone can stop Jorule from much of anything he wants to do once he decides to do it. And that’s good, I think. If it isn’t presumptuous I’d. Make sure no one could stop him.

I was. Sort of. I’m still not sure it was an Angel like anyone else uses the term, but. Something inside me was referred to as the Angel of Tragedy and that feels. I don’t know what was being communicated, I guess. I’ve not been thinking about it overmuch, but sometimes I take it out and I (rotate) it.

I guess “Darkness” doesn’t sound particularly pleasant either, but to hear Jorule explain it made sense. But truth, hope, freedom … those are all lovely.

Though as … something in this board told me, a tragedy isn’t necessarily just sadness. I’m probably overthinking it?

Freedom for who? Hope for who? Law for who? Mercy for who? Truth for who? Miracles for who?

If you see someone cruising for some hamartia, it doesn’t have to be YOUR tragedy.

Oh. I can’t believe I forgot how critical perspective is with these things. And right after I spoke with Archie about not seeing much of a difference between tenebrous and radiant gnosis.

Any of those can be harm for those they don’t privilege. Sometimes they can be harm for the person who embodies it. Truth is … something I value highly, and I’d rather know than not no matter how it hurts me, but. It’s a thing that can and does destroy.

Speaking of which, can you tell me about … there’s an Angel of Law? And one of Miracles?

The Angel of Law is Alimeus Orovexi, or Orom. The original and greatest guide to fiendcraft and classification, “The Book of Gold”, is probably his work. Therefore, you could argue that he’s the progenitor of modern fiendcraft, such as it is. He’s the sort of man that would reshape heaven and earth to correct an injustice, and aside from the creation of monsters, is a strident pacifist.

You’re traveling along the Beast, right? That’s a world so savage that anyone there has to be strong. Once upon a time, Orom beset a world with fiends in the same way, so that everyone in it, from the least to the most, would be forced to become strong, so that ‘being the most willing to do violence’ would not give you a tyrant’s power. That’s the same world where Jorule and Flip and Hane and so many others grew strong enough fighting fiends to take on Crimson, who up until then, had been defeated!

…Ah, that trick hasn’t worked against the Scorpion Queen yet, has it? Well, “gnosis” and “mana” run on different rules. You can’t become powerful only by killing here. Rites are very even and fair, until they aren’t…

The Angel of Miracles is Lonely Tails.

There’s a relatively famous story about her saving the world from the brink of complete loss, but it’s rare to meet her face to face. She might not actually be an “angel” like the others…? It isn’t really possible for her to be mired in fate or circumstance.

A miracle is when only one thing can happen, which doesn’t.

Lonely Tails lives in these moments as easily as breathing.

…I’m a little envious of her, and maybe a bit afraid, too.

There is a way to gain strength in a Rite (Glory) though I’ve yet to figure out how the mechanism for acquiring it. We. Were observed by something ancient and thus recalled our journey thus far whilst in the Septentrione on Samudra, and that granted us Glory, but if simply reflective navel-gazing granted power I’d be the unbeatable champion, not Jae.

Imagine being above mired in fate and circumstance. Is that why you envy and fear her (just a little bit!) or is it something else?

Can I ask. About the Angel of Hope? I want to meet Jae as she is now, but. Well.

I’ll always ask the question, I think, even when I shouldn’t.

Don’t ask me a question without your heart in it!

Fine.

If there were three things you’d tell someone just meeting the Angel of Hope, what are they?

One, So the oldest story about Stings and Kills goes like this:

Once upon a time, one of the earliest sages, working along with the deer that brings great insight and spiritual wisdom, locked away all the evils of the world in a box. One of them was Stings and Kills’ true sword, the one in her heart, that is named Hope. She showed up. Knock knock. “You’ve got something of mine.” “You should forget about it, if it’s in the box. Only bad things in there.” She smashed the box open. Took her sword. Killed the man with it. Stalked off. They say that’s why we live in an era of turmoil and not one of tranquility. What would life be like, with hope locked away? Why would anyone lock it away in the first place? What kind of plan runs through Stings and Kills?

Two, once upon a time she stitched a wolf carcass back together as a beast of Winter and set it as a scourge upon all second names, just so that there could be one and only word for hero and it would be her, Crimson.

Three, if she doesn’t fight fair, and she’s not in your way, why are you trying to beat her in a fight anyway?

Who would think they could lock away Hope, the sword in her heart, and that she wouldn’t come calling? That she wouldn’t do anything to get it back?

Of course, the part of me that enjoys the riddle does have to ask if the sword actually the feeling of Hope, or is this clever wordplay?

I wonder if Jae’s grown tired of that in this lifetime. Something in me suspects she might be. Tired.

It was the time of dreams, when all things were like water that flowed between the fingers.

I wasn’t there, but I figure it was Hope itself…

Well. If I can tell you a secret, I really don’t care.

Or, no, that isn’t quite true. I want to see her smile. I want to hear her laugh. And I think beating her might be one way to do that. And the other (and this isn’t a certainty, it’s a supposition) but the other is that if it’s part of saving the Beast, then then I’d care about winning.

But winning for winning’s sake? That’s for the rest of them.

Ah. Well then.

If I’m being honest I don’t know what to do with that story. It’s interesting, certainly, and I appreciate you telling it to me (I appreciate every time you reply, Seye. If I haven’t said as much then I’ll be explicit here). In a world without turmoil and with only tranquility, perhaps you don’t need Hope? Perhaps hope also means change and change can only mean a shattering of tranquility? But.

I’ve been to the Architect’s Sanctuary where everything was quiet and still and safe, and I think I’d have wanted to change that too, even if it meant harm. But I would rather be alive and hurt than safe and suffocating, so maybe I’m the wrong audience here.

Suffocating doesn’t sound really safe to me!

Well, there are nine mana elements.

Just only eight at once.

Is the ninth element unaspected mana, or is it something else?

It’s whichever of Luna or Aura isn’t being used that day. They’re magically a little different.

There aren’t really any taxonomies that everything can fit perfectly in, after all.

I don’t think Jorule mentioned Aura. Hm.

Here’s a taxonomy question for you: does the term “prince” contain the same kind of valence as “princess” does, or are those two entirely separate categories.

Aura is metal and the future. “Tomorrow” as it’s different, even fighting against “Today”.

It’s cute what information sings into your shining heart from the aether unquestioned, compared to what you decide others should explain to you. No one had to tell you what a laser beam or a compass is, but I’m the one that gets tapped to lecture on gender and what it means to distort the boundaries of a category nominally normal to you versus pulling yourself into one that would be classically forbidden to you.

…I don’t feel like doing that!

A princess is when an actress in the Takarazuka Revue or the Rose Brigade wears a dress. A prince is when the actress wears really severe eyeshadow and tights instead.

There you go! Please make do with that unsuitable but correct explanation.

Well as your right to not do that, Angel of Freedom! Mostly there’s a lot of noise singing into my heart from the aether unquestioned, and “prince” has some weird connotations I can’t begin to sort through. I’ll either figure it out or I won’t.

Thank you for the image of Awa in severe eyeshadow. I know he’s not an actress, but the image remains.

Here are some useful pictograms for you to copy and use!

🐲🆗 🆒🔝 🪅🦙 🛞👣

♥🐲♥🐲♥🐲SEYE🐲YOU🐲ARE🐲THE🐲BEST🐲♥🐲♥🐲♥

Say that again, please!

♥🐲♥🐲♥🐲 SEYE 🐲 PRINCESS OF DRAGONS 🐲 ANGEL OF FREEDOM 🐲 YOU ARE THE BEST 🐲♥🐲♥🐲♥

🪅 < I love this guy so much

Wow, thank you!

Would you be willing to … tell me about Sparks and Angels and how they’re related? I’ve heard it from Jorule, but another perspective wouldn’t go amiss. I know you’ve stressed that I should focus on living my life, and I am trying to do that, but there’s … I still wonder, at times.

Obviously only if it tickles your fancy to do so, 🐲 princess.

“Angel” is a word for understanding those with a pure heart when they act and appear in ways that rip apart from mortal comprehension. It’s an explanation for when the freedom to be anything means that freedom to stop being entirely a person. It didn’t use to be really popular with “Us”, but I guess it’s caught on…!

“Spark” is a word for an understanding of a sense experience between two pure hearts, stripped of all situation and artifice. Close your eyes and your ears and your nose and your tongue and your hands and what remains that you sense and feel and know is the “spark”, small and burning and innate.

Speak with someone without your body, your time, or your history. …Oh, that someone isn’t me, of course! You’re very sweet, but I don’t want you getting too close.

Is there a distinction to you between “Pure Heart” and “Angel”? It kind of sounds like it, from my very limited experience—like someone with a pure heart might be happily nestled in context, but an angel always steps outside it, just a little? Though I guess I’m not sure what “mortal comprehension” really means, or what it means to be “entirely a person”? If I think of say, Jorule and you as examples, I can see it, I think, but I’m not sure if it’s entirely appropriate to think of you as examples!

I tried, once, to connect with … Aurelius or Jorule (I suppose it doesn’t matter which, in this particular case) on that level, though there was some level of interference. I did speak with … 86? Once. And something speaks to me, here, occasionally, that is … the something-within-me. I’m not sure if it’s a spark or an angel or whatever, which is kind of why I asked. Obviously, there’s no point in worrying over something I can’t change or understand, but … well, that doesn’t really stop me from worrying.

As for not getting too close … I can respect that, I think. I mean, I get nosy, but I do try to respect boundaries …?

Thank you, by the way, for the explanations. They were very helpful.

A spark is a kind of soul, And an angel is a way of describing why someone may seem strange to you by having that kind of soul.

It is inappropriate to think about me… but I can let it slide for now. 🎶🐲