Text

[tadanokusuriuri]

Date: August 30th
From: Anonymous


A simple question.

Of the names you bear, does one seem to you the truest?

Comments

[tadanokusuriuri]

Is it more real to you even than your birth name?

[futhark]

That's right! To the point that my birth name is more like "just my first name" not my "real name", barely of importance at this point.

[tadanokusuriuri]

If you had come here as a shinki, which of them do you think would have followed you?

[futhark]

Hmm, that's a good question. My instinct tells me it would be that "real" name. [ But he can't be sure ] Or maybe it's just hope, I don't know.

It is the name I associate strongest with myself, that's why I think it would stick.

[tadanokusuriuri]

I wonder what would happen if one didn't associate a name with oneself at all.

[You know. Hypothetically.]

[futhark]

I wonder... I was taught that names are important and powerful. But not everything that seems like a name is one. And the other way around too. Something that doesn't sound like a name might be exactly one.

[ And then there are those who name themselves, who were able to shed their names and become something else. Magic is a complicated stuff, that's for sure ]

[tadanokusuriuri]

Just so.

A name is a reflection of someone's truth. If it is not... then is it a name?

[He thinks often about truth, about the nature of the idea. It seems a little bit ironic to him that he's so drawn to the concept, when his "name" itself feels like a lie.]

[futhark]

[ Grandfather is that you? It's been a long time since he had a discussion like this ]

A definition. A bind on the soul. Words have power after all. Attach one to a soul and you get yourself an explosive mix. [ Add to that more words, a story, and the power grows. ]

[tadanokusuriuri]

That, precisely.

A true name resonates. It's tied to all that which it signifies.

Is it personal attachment, then, or a sort of intuition? The thing which determines a name's truthfulness.

[futhark]

I'd vote intuition first. It's what helps in discerning the true name, and true nature the best.

Though instinct would be the be a better way to phrase it.

But then shinki might have different opinion on this subject. Although the new gods have also names - often unfamiliar - forced upon them... I hail from a different land, our way of seeing things might not be even applicable here.

[tadanokusuriuri]

Even within one land, there are near infinite ways of seeing. I don't imagine that yours lies so far outside the pattern as to be irrelevant.

If there's no name that instinct draws someone to, I wonder if they can even be said to have one...

That, I suppose, may be the core of my inquiry.

[futhark]

Magic works differently though, the fabric of the world changed with time. Speaking of which- nameless, yes?

Someone who cannot associate any name with themselves, someone who considers themselves Nameless. Wouldn't that word, that concept exactly eventually become a name?

[ Nameless is a word, it is a definition, and can be a bind ]

Many curses and spells require a true name to work, not having one might be seen as very beneficial... Obscuring one's name to the point of erasing it from the bearer memories and existence could be possible. But also incredibly dangerous.