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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.
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giftedandtalented
Yes, that's true. It's still a little weird. It is probably not urgent to know what sloth demons do all day. Mehitabel will imagine they run hotels.
swordofeden
Haziel does not further pursue the question of why this is weird. Instead: math and technical details.
swordofeden
Technical details include some facts about angels like how their teleportation works, the flaming sword thing, the fact that they aren't natively shaped like humans which is why he's so bad at nonverbal communication, and the fact that their wings are arguably the most "real" part of their corporeal forms while they have them out. Math includes some good methods for figuring out how much energy she has, how much it's a good idea to use at any given time, and how much her cap rises over time.
giftedandtalented
Ooh, her cap rises! That's promising. She is puzzled about the "realness" of their corporeal forms.
swordofeden
The wings represent something inherent to the nature of an angel. None of the rest of it does. If she introduced herself as Isabel or similar, for some reason, the "bel" part of that would be more real than the rest likewise because it was part of her real name.
giftedandtalented
Huh. So that means "real" here means overlapping with what the person is supposed to be?
giftedandtalented
What do the rest of angels besides the wings really look like?
swordofeden
Well, it depends on the kind of angel! There are nine kinds. Principalities like Haziel and Anaphiel are sort of like winged, motile trees.
swordofeden
Seraphim are serpents with six wings each. Cherubim are spheres of hundreds of wings and hundreds of eyes. Ophanim are discs lined on the outside with eyes and wings on either side. Dominions actually do look a lot like winged humans, but differently-proportioned. Virtues are sort of cylindrical towers. With wings. Powers look sort of like winged crosses between an armadillo and an ankylosaurus. Principalities he already mentioned, and the classes of angel that are referred to in English only as "angels" and "archangels-specifically-with-a-
swordofeden
Capitalized Archangels are the four most powerful Seraphim: Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel.
swordofeden
...Haziel doesn't know.
Anaphiel does! "They were angels' names before they were human names, and the relevant human cultures mostly consider male to be the 'default,' so if they were naming someone after an angel, it was usually a boy, and if they were naming a girl after an angel, they felt the need to feminize it, hence Gabriella and Michelle and so on."
Anaphiel does! "They were angels' names before they were human names, and the relevant human cultures mostly consider male to be the 'default,' so if they were naming someone after an angel, it was usually a boy, and if they were naming a girl after an angel, they felt the need to feminize it, hence Gabriella and Michelle and so on."
giftedandtalented
"Are angels even boys and girls like humans are?"
swordofeden
"Some of us have aesthetic or otherwise superficial preferences to present as one gender or the other, when we're human-shaped, but nope."
giftedandtalented
"So it's like how you cut your hair," suggests Mehitabel.
giftedandtalented
Mehitabel takes notes on all the angel kinds, although since the angels are all doing okay this is probably not urgent. ...Right? The angels are all doing okay?
giftedandtalented
Good, because she has heard the phrase "fallen angel" and that sounded worrying.
swordofeden
Nope. There is, actually, an angel named Helel, which translates to Lucifer in Latin, and they are not entirely happy with that whole misconception, but fallen angels are not a thing.
giftedandtalented
That's good.
...But, why aren't fallen angels a thing? Sometimes humans decide to be terrible. Why don't angels?
...But, why aren't fallen angels a thing? Sometimes humans decide to be terrible. Why don't angels?