Jenna Moran's blog posts on learning Chinese are excellent, and who knows how long the Eos-sama website will be up after all the shenanigans. So, here's an archive.
Yǒu (有) is actually a pretty cool-looking word. It’s got a wild-and-crazy bit and a sensible boxy bit. I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone after my rhapsodies over shì (是) that I like that kind of thing.
I’ve been trying to read—well, pick out words from—random Chinese-translated manga about the house. I wound up drawn to look up what yǒu (有) meant after seeing it a few times. It means “to have.” The symbol derives from a hand, holding meat; once you have a meat in your hand, you control that meat—
Is what it seems to say.
I prefer to think of it, though, as a meat windsurfer. It seems to be an ordinary plank of meat, such as would hardly suffice to ride across the ocean, but it also has a jaunty sail. The sail billows in the wind. It leans forward. Suddenly you are not simply standing on still meat but rather racing vigorously across the waves, shouting, “Hello many happy people!”
Is this really me? you might be thinking. Am I really the one who is on that windsurfer, who has that meat, who shouts to the many happy people?
It is really yǒu (有).
Deep contemplation of the letter “yǒu (有)” and the expenditure of Domain Miracle Points may yield instruction on the following miracles:
Joy of Meat (1 DMP)
You may achieve the full joy of having meat without actually having meat, simply by staring at this character. Specifically, your mundane actions are every bit as effective, impressive, and satisfying without meat as they would be with meat, even if the action is heavily meat-dependent such as “cook a Thanksgiving turkey.” You need only rest your thoughtful gaze from time to time upon the symbol “yǒu (有).”
The meat of this sublime contemplation is unfortunately hollow. Your meatless mundane actions remain and must remain potentially less productive than working with actual meat would be. We apologize for this, and particularly to vegetarians—but if it were otherwise, A Book of Divine Letters would encourage that foul degeneracy that is symbol-referent confusion and many would call the scholarship of these words into question.
Once you develop this ability you retain it for the remainder of the story. It is like a piece of meat, which you have.
Possession (4 DMP)
You may mark your possessions with the symbol “yǒu (有).” You may use any desired method for marking them, from putting a slip of paper near them with “yǒu (有)” written on it to burning the character into their metal frame. This establishes your ownership, and nobody can remove that thing from your possession without first removing or altering the mark or overcoming a level 2 Auctoritas. “Your possession,” “remove from your possession,” and “remove or alter the mark” are terms of art whose meaning can be established or altered through player-level arguments about semantics.
Once you develop this ability you implicitly mark it with the symbol “yǒu (有),” making it yours for the remainder of the story. Other people can develop a similar ability, of course, but it’s nowhere near the same—their ability, after all, marks things as theirs instead of as yours.
Is There Mayonnaise? (1 DMP)
So here’s a bit of an advanced topic!
Yǒu (有) also means “to be there (in that location).” Méi you (没有) means “not there (in that location).” So if you’ve not just studied “yǒu (有)” but also taken some time to think on “méi (没),” you can learn the following technique.
Firmly declare: “Yo, mayo!” and write yǒu méi yǒu (有没有) in the air with one finger or appropriate indicator appendage. The strokes you trace will remain in the air and begin to glow a terrible, eggy white. Drums will drum in the heart-furnace of the world. The eyes of God, or Cneph, or perhaps simply your temporal lobe’s perception of such an entity’s attention, will turn to the characters you have drawn.
Then, if there is mayonnaise in the vicinity that you may use for your intended purpose—
Which may be any purpose legitimate to mayonnaise—
Two of these characters will burn away, leaving yǒu (有). And wheresoever that mayonnaise will be, it will call back: “Yo!”
But if there is none such mayonnaise, a single character will burn away instead, and only the dreadful negative méi yǒu (没有) shall remain. A voice as from Heaven and the Earth itself calls out: “Mayo (没有)” and leaves you with much to contemplate about theodicy.
In theory, and this is part of why this is such an advanced topic, negative mayonnaise would invert this effect, returning “méi yǒu (没有)” when negative mayonnaise existed, or “unexisted” if that term should be more fit, and declaring “yǒu (有)” when it did not. Attempting this ritual in the presence of genuinely undefined mayonnaise would be, of course, a terrible threat unto the continuity of the world.
Once you develop this ability you either have it, or don’t have it, for the remainder of the story. If you don’t have it, and wish to have it, you will have to return to an appropriate fastness, spend another MP, and contemplate “yǒu” again.
Yǒu Dawg Sup (2 MP)
You may enchant a dawg, strengthening its ability to have and sup on meat. This is a level 6 Lesser Binding of Sup, binding the dawg’s destiny to supping and to a lesser extent to “yǒu (有).” This typically manifests in the dawg as a level 2 “sup dawg” Bond.
Using this ability requires your miraculous action. It is fully functional when targeting an actual dawg; its effect on a dog or somebody you would tend to call or address as a dog or dawg is limited, and it has no effect whatsoever on somebody or something that is not a dawg at all.
Once you develop this ability you have it for the remainder of the story. However, its power is liable to sup upon your own: after the first dawg, or first three dawg- or dog-like entities, you will need to spend 1-2 MP of any type on every entity you thus enchant.
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A Book of Divine Letters: Yǒu
Deep contemplation of the letter “yǒu (有)” and the expenditure of Domain Miracle Points may yield instruction on the following miracles:
Joy of Meat (1 DMP)
You may achieve the full joy of having meat without actually having meat, simply by staring at this character. Specifically, your mundane actions are every bit as effective, impressive, and satisfying without meat as they would be with meat, even if the action is heavily meat-dependent such as “cook a Thanksgiving turkey.” You need only rest your thoughtful gaze from time to time upon the symbol “yǒu (有).”
The meat of this sublime contemplation is unfortunately hollow. Your meatless mundane actions remain and must remain potentially less productive than working with actual meat would be. We apologize for this, and particularly to vegetarians—but if it were otherwise, A Book of Divine Letters would encourage that foul degeneracy that is symbol-referent confusion and many would call the scholarship of these words into question.
Once you develop this ability you retain it for the remainder of the story. It is like a piece of meat, which you have.
Possession (4 DMP)
You may mark your possessions with the symbol “yǒu (有).” You may use any desired method for marking them, from putting a slip of paper near them with “yǒu (有)” written on it to burning the character into their metal frame. This establishes your ownership, and nobody can remove that thing from your possession without first removing or altering the mark or overcoming a level 2 Auctoritas. “Your possession,” “remove from your possession,” and “remove or alter the mark” are terms of art whose meaning can be established or altered through player-level arguments about semantics.
Once you develop this ability you implicitly mark it with the symbol “yǒu (有),” making it yours for the remainder of the story. Other people can develop a similar ability, of course, but it’s nowhere near the same—their ability, after all, marks things as theirs instead of as yours.
Is There Mayonnaise? (1 DMP)
So here’s a bit of an advanced topic!
Yǒu (有) also means “to be there (in that location).” Méi you (没有) means “not there (in that location).” So if you’ve not just studied “yǒu (有)” but also taken some time to think on “méi (没),” you can learn the following technique.
Firmly declare: “Yo, mayo!” and write yǒu méi yǒu (有没有) in the air with one finger or appropriate indicator appendage. The strokes you trace will remain in the air and begin to glow a terrible, eggy white. Drums will drum in the heart-furnace of the world. The eyes of God, or Cneph, or perhaps simply your temporal lobe’s perception of such an entity’s attention, will turn to the characters you have drawn.
Then, if there is mayonnaise in the vicinity that you may use for your intended purpose—
Which may be any purpose legitimate to mayonnaise—
Two of these characters will burn away, leaving yǒu (有). And wheresoever that mayonnaise will be, it will call back: “Yo!”
But if there is none such mayonnaise, a single character will burn away instead, and only the dreadful negative méi yǒu (没有) shall remain. A voice as from Heaven and the Earth itself calls out: “Mayo (没有)” and leaves you with much to contemplate about theodicy.
In theory, and this is part of why this is such an advanced topic, negative mayonnaise would invert this effect, returning “méi yǒu (没有)” when negative mayonnaise existed, or “unexisted” if that term should be more fit, and declaring “yǒu (有)” when it did not. Attempting this ritual in the presence of genuinely undefined mayonnaise would be, of course, a terrible threat unto the continuity of the world.
Once you develop this ability you either have it, or don’t have it, for the remainder of the story. If you don’t have it, and wish to have it, you will have to return to an appropriate fastness, spend another MP, and contemplate “yǒu” again.
Yǒu Dawg Sup (2 MP)
You may enchant a dawg, strengthening its ability to have and sup on meat. This is a level 6 Lesser Binding of Sup, binding the dawg’s destiny to supping and to a lesser extent to “yǒu (有).” This typically manifests in the dawg as a level 2 “sup dawg” Bond.
Using this ability requires your miraculous action. It is fully functional when targeting an actual dawg; its effect on a dog or somebody you would tend to call or address as a dog or dawg is limited, and it has no effect whatsoever on somebody or something that is not a dawg at all.
Once you develop this ability you have it for the remainder of the story. However, its power is liable to sup upon your own: after the first dawg, or first three dawg- or dog-like entities, you will need to spend 1-2 MP of any type on every entity you thus enchant.