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Several meta layers up, there is a... room.
As a courtesy to those of its occupants who prefer rooms, it does have a modality in which it presents itself that way: a room, with as many chairs as it needs, and a bulletin board, and a vending machine with candy and chips and concepts sold for nothing to anyone with the right prerequisites.
On the bulletin board, if one chooses to perceive it as a bulletin board (and not as a wiki or a flower or an ineffable cloud of information or an eternally malleable clay tablet) people whose only common trait is that they get to come here leave each other notes.
Notes about physics, about magic, about grand sweeps of narrative. Notes from people desperate to fix a never-ending heap of problems, smug about the condition of their homes, curious about the wider omniverse. Signed with names and sigils and "you ought to know who I am". Terse or verbose or nested with as much meaning as interests the reader.
In the vending machine, if one chooses to perceive it as a vending machine (and not a basket or a fruiting tree or a file repository or a crystalline fractal) are many things... and they have notes connecting them to their reviews on the bulletin board.
This one, for instance. She (it's usually, but not invariably, a she) has fairly glowing reviews from most of her previous purchasers. Here is what you need to install her; here are some things that are recommended for best results but optional especially if you just want to use her as a beacon for her other instances; here are some things she comes with as add-ons you can take or leave; here is what she is good for. The reviewers who don't like her are annoyed that theirs was too good at it, if you read between the lines. Well, that and the fact that if your universe is unpleasant enough sometimes these critters figure out how to flip you off and leave before they figure out how to solve all your problems. (There is a tangent thread about alternative solutions to similar problems which come bundled with stronger irrational attachment to their homes, but they have more stringent installation requirements.)
They come in these colors and styles; you will need to compensate for the following standard-issue drawbacks in some way if you require services of them that intersect with those areas of disability; they are only rated for upbringings of the following severity and are less likely to hate you if you stay thoroughly under that limit and less likely to fail at important goals if they are given opportunity to self-educate; if you have a way to generate them as instant adults they can begin work immediately but on the standard trajectory age six is the absolute earliest and teens is customary...
There is a chart (if one chooses to perceive it as a chart) of template interactions that have been tried before, but a lot of the more interesting accessory and companion templates are out-of-network for some visitors. What a pity.
swordofeden
"We can start going to other kinds of religious service and I can get you books on other religions."
giftedandtalented
"Yeah! We might have to go places that are not Forks about it. It is very small here."
giftedandtalented
"Okay. And maybe I should learn other languages. Especially like Arabic because the Koran is in it and I might want to comment directly on that."
swordofeden
"Getting an English translation won't be hard, but, yes, reading it in the original language is probably for the best."
giftedandtalented
When they go and get an Arabic Koran at the bookstore, Mehitabel finds that she can read it.
She giggles.
swordofeden
"Well, this has rendered a noticeable fraction of your childhood mildly redundant. Oh well."
giftedandtalented
"I think it took a little smidge to say a thing? So not totally redundant. But reading doesn't seem to take anything."
swordofeden
"I could probably say something about how the experience of learning was valuable to you as a person but honestly I've never been sure whether or not humans are full of it when they say stuff like that so I think I'll skip it."
giftedandtalented
"I can... say I'm a native speaker of Hebrew, and got to read most of the Bible in the original earlier. It didn't take that much time, anyway."
giftedandtalented
"Thanks!"
And Mehitabel starts organizing her notes, and reading her way through all of the holy books (Bible again, Koran and Hadith, Book of Mormon and associates, selections from the Mahabharata, assorted major Buddhist texts, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, some of the Talmud, some apocrypha, and the Adi Granth; there are more, but this is enough to be getting on with for now.)
They're... not really optimized for entertainment value and she knows most of them are also not particularly valuable as nonfiction. She snarks in her notes. A lot. She'll edit that out later and be polite and balanced and respectful.
And Mehitabel starts organizing her notes, and reading her way through all of the holy books (Bible again, Koran and Hadith, Book of Mormon and associates, selections from the Mahabharata, assorted major Buddhist texts, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, some of the Talmud, some apocrypha, and the Adi Granth; there are more, but this is enough to be getting on with for now.)
They're... not really optimized for entertainment value and she knows most of them are also not particularly valuable as nonfiction. She snarks in her notes. A lot. She'll edit that out later and be polite and balanced and respectful.
They all have some pretty glaring errors, factual and philosophical, but they also have important and meaningful commonalities. Buddhism especially is good at the whole agape and goodwill thing, even if the whole 'the ultimate reward is oblivion' thing is pretty sketchy.
giftedandtalented
Yeahhhh. Snark in private, fairness and respect in the final version.
She starts to outline her Religion On Short Notice text. She is not sure she'll be any good at making hers entertaining either, that's legitimately difficult, but she can make it clear and not so convoluted.
There will be a complete explanation of the structure of the world, including Fairyland and the Martians and the lack of further-afield aliens as well as angels and demons and Heaven and Hell and how that last was an accident and God is not literally omnipotent and hasn't done anything much lately except for Mehitabel herself. There will be comments on all of the major extant religions individually and the minor ones in general terms. There will be her own history, since people seem to find Jesus's so interesting, with names appropriately redacted. There will be instructions - gently delivered and heavily caveated - about how to be a person. There will be digits of pi that nobody can compute yet and stuff like that, if God can do that sort of thing, because Mehitabel has contemplated what she would think of scriptures in general if her mom was not an angel and she herself was not a Christ, and it wasn't promising. Maybe she will include a partial list of occupants of Hell; she's not sure if that will do more harm than good, and it probably depends on who'd be on it.
She's going to be very thorough. This is the book.
She starts to outline her Religion On Short Notice text. She is not sure she'll be any good at making hers entertaining either, that's legitimately difficult, but she can make it clear and not so convoluted.
There will be a complete explanation of the structure of the world, including Fairyland and the Martians and the lack of further-afield aliens as well as angels and demons and Heaven and Hell and how that last was an accident and God is not literally omnipotent and hasn't done anything much lately except for Mehitabel herself. There will be comments on all of the major extant religions individually and the minor ones in general terms. There will be her own history, since people seem to find Jesus's so interesting, with names appropriately redacted. There will be instructions - gently delivered and heavily caveated - about how to be a person. There will be digits of pi that nobody can compute yet and stuff like that, if God can do that sort of thing, because Mehitabel has contemplated what she would think of scriptures in general if her mom was not an angel and she herself was not a Christ, and it wasn't promising. Maybe she will include a partial list of occupants of Hell; she's not sure if that will do more harm than good, and it probably depends on who'd be on it.
She's going to be very thorough. This is the book.
swordofeden
...If she's too specific, people who have interacted with her significantly may recognize themselves. There aren't enough of those that it's overwhelmingly likely to be a problem, but it's a thing she should know.
God can do digits of pi, yes.
...List of inhabitants of Hell...might or might not be useful. For example, Hitler was on so many drugs by the time he killed himself that he was not, apparently, metaphysically responsible for all of his actions. Some of the other high-ranking Nazis would be on such a list, but not him.
God can do digits of pi, yes.
...List of inhabitants of Hell...might or might not be useful. For example, Hitler was on so many drugs by the time he killed himself that he was not, apparently, metaphysically responsible for all of his actions. Some of the other high-ranking Nazis would be on such a list, but not him.
giftedandtalented
Yeah, she might just hold back the entire personal history section until she's thoroughly public anyway.
List of Hell inhabitants gets taken down for personal consultation but not included in book outline.
The book takes a while. There's no major hurry; she doesn't want to start a religion yet and doesn't have the oomph to really sell it on a large scale anyway. As she thinks of clear yet pleasing phrases, she adds them:
God mourns suicides, but not because they have failed her, only because she has failed them. She meant to make a world that was worthy of you...
...Hell was an accident. It is not righteous vengeance, it is a tragic mistake.
No soul is ever annihilated. No one is ever denied the capacity to change...
List of Hell inhabitants gets taken down for personal consultation but not included in book outline.
The book takes a while. There's no major hurry; she doesn't want to start a religion yet and doesn't have the oomph to really sell it on a large scale anyway. As she thinks of clear yet pleasing phrases, she adds them:
God mourns suicides, but not because they have failed her, only because she has failed them. She meant to make a world that was worthy of you...
...Hell was an accident. It is not righteous vengeance, it is a tragic mistake.
No soul is ever annihilated. No one is ever denied the capacity to change...
swordofeden
Anaphiel starts looking into editors who can be divinely intimidated into not asking into the true identity of the Second Coming.
giftedandtalented
No rush. She hasn't even gone to God with fact-checking and digits-of-pi requests yet. She doesn't want to use up too much bandwidth checking up on things she isn't even sure will be in the final draft.
She finishes her commentaries on scriptures, adds a few more for good measure, makes sure she's really clear that anybody who finds a given way of life to soothe them and motivate them into sincere and effective kindness to their fellow persons can keep it with her blessing and the metaphysics section is more of an FYI...
She writes an introduction. It's got the essentials: God is not omnipotent nor appearing in your toast nor damning anyone on purpose. She's probably not talking to you -
- actually: when was the last time God talked to literally any non-Christ human personally?
She finishes her commentaries on scriptures, adds a few more for good measure, makes sure she's really clear that anybody who finds a given way of life to soothe them and motivate them into sincere and effective kindness to their fellow persons can keep it with her blessing and the metaphysics section is more of an FYI...
She writes an introduction. It's got the essentials: God is not omnipotent nor appearing in your toast nor damning anyone on purpose. She's probably not talking to you -
- actually: when was the last time God talked to literally any non-Christ human personally?
giftedandtalented
This can go on the list with digits of pi for last minute checking directly with upstairs, then.
Anyway, she's probably not talking to you or helping you win your baseball game but Heaven is real and you're probably all set to go there and in the meantime be nice, details to follow. There. Introduction.
She needs to name this book. "Rejoice" is too corny, "Commentaries and Revisions" is too dry, the digits of pi have been as they are for literally all eternity and do not constitute a prophecy of the future so that's a dead end...
Anyway, she's probably not talking to you or helping you win your baseball game but Heaven is real and you're probably all set to go there and in the meantime be nice, details to follow. There. Introduction.
She needs to name this book. "Rejoice" is too corny, "Commentaries and Revisions" is too dry, the digits of pi have been as they are for literally all eternity and do not constitute a prophecy of the future so that's a dead end...