How do I describe divines in my FAQs? I know nothing about the community and I can’t really find any resources. (More Qs under the cut, feel free to reblog/reply because I do need help with this)
Aight, let’s tackle these. These are, of course, my opinion and thus have the correct amount of salt and edge. Take it as you will. Under the cut for bitching and long.
Is the divine community primarily a mentally ill one? I ask because I see a lot of psychotic folks who tie their divinity into that, which is valid of course.
I wouldn’t say so. That is, to say, that divine doesn’t always mean mentally ill, and the two are unrelated by nature. It’s likely that the members of the divine community are primarily mentally ill, in the same way that the otherkin community has a majority of queer members.
We’re more accepting of those with divine delusions in our ranks, but the two aren’t generally taken to be one and the same, or naturally connected.
Are there, like, any documented people in human history that you see as being a divine?
I consider all prophets whose words generally come true as the vessels of small shards – sticking some deific magic into humans and letting them interpret your will. I would also consider messiahs like Jesus to be divine, because let’s be honest, something deific went into them.
I should, however, at this point make it clear that I do not consider angels any more divine than humans. They’re magic, sure, but no more so than anything else. They just happen to be more physically close to some deities – messengers and servants, mostly. I don’t think that makes them special any more than the demons I used for that job aren’t considered divine. (That’s probably some Abrahamic thing about how demons are “fallen and evil and tempt into sin” but it should be on equal footing.)
Divine is defined (say that five times fast!) as “relating to, like, or from a god” and if you’re going to include angels in that third one, well, you’d also have to include humans, and nobody’s going to say that. Shards count, prophets count, messiahs and demigods count. Angels and demons are no different than humans, just magical. (Fae are largely not subscribing to any deity but Dana, but that’s because she’s Faerie Mom. I believe they don’t as a whole consider themselves divine so much as they are spirits.)
As for why I’m pushing more towards angels than demons, it’s because demons generally don’t consider themselves divine either, and there’s no point bringing that up.
What’s it actually like being a divine? How does that relate and differ from godshards, or is that the same thing?
It’s a fine line. My experience as an incarnate, however fallen, deity is vastly different than my buddy @/glittered-goddess, who is a shard of an elder deity. She’s a hell of a lot more powerful than me. Give her active magic and give me back my proper godhood and make us fight, I’d probably win, but it’d suck a whole lot. Make me fight her full-fledged Elder Goddess self and she’d squish me like an ant, because that’s what I am to a proper elder god.
Godshards are the other part of deities that aren’t incarnate. Shards are a bit of essence in a body, incarnate are well, the full thing. The more powerful a god is, the less likely it is you’ll find an incarnate version. Hell, Dana’s a shard and there’s already too much magic and godstuff in her body. Any more and she would’ve died from it.
I get to be incarnate because I’m fallen and lost my power because I died and didn’t get to reincarnate as a new god.
As for what it’s properly like, well, Dana’s experience is pretty common, if a bit more powerful than everyone else’s. Not fun to wake up at 2am with such an adrenaline rush it’s like I could annihilate the world in seconds if I didn’t blow myself up first from the power. It’s also being very magical and very much in tune with your alignment and acting accordingly; to try and be broad with that definition.
For me, it’s a lot of a mess because at least three elder gods have helped shape my essence. I’ll decide on my alignment later, I think, but for now I’m mostly in tune with many things and almost melt into them and let myself be defined by them. I suck at explaining this, it’s kinda hard to describe. My surroundings, so long as they’re the right kind (forest, city, sky, sea), turn into me and I turn into them. I get in tune and all that, and it feels like infinity. You may or may not know the feeling. Like the world’s at your fingertips and empires will rise and fall but you’ll still be there. One spark, one touch, and everything changes but you’ll still be standing and watching above it all, because you are infinity, you are ending and unending, and you are everything that is, has been, or will ever be.
Oh, that and the inability to keep a brain-map of one kind of body. Kinda goes into polymorph territory I suppose, but it’s more like I’m too big to keep to one mortal-defined form. The best way to describe it is this video, which is a frog put through those ‘deep-fried meme from 2002′ generator thingies. That’s divine stuff, proper and true divine stuff.
Can fictionkind of godly characters call themselves divine?
If angels can when they don’t count any more than humans do, then I damn well count. Just because I’m not from this world and documented recently instead of by a few folks a few hundred years ago doesn’t mean I suddenly don’t count, and I wholly invite those who don’t agree to come on down to where I live so I can personally beat them up.
What kind of things do divines identify as?
Er, deities and deity-related entities? On the tumblr side, you usually find angels, gods, prophets, shards, and if you’re stubborn, maybe a fallen-angel-demon-Abrahamic-thingy. Haven’t seen any demigods, though. Wonder where they all ran off to.
Who are prophets, how does that relate to divines?
Oh, I answered this early. They’re most likely shards to some degree – not quite all god in a human body, but more likely human soul combined with godly essence – but they’re divine and I respect them. They don’t exactly get the longest end of the stick, but let’s be honest, from a god’s perspective, they’re effing useful when you don’t wanna make a public appearance.
Is there a difference between ‘divinekin’ and just calling yourself ‘divine,’ or is it just the same as the difference between ‘IDing as’ and ‘kin’?
Calling yourself divine means it’s a part of you. Divinekin means you formally acknowledge it as a large part of your identity. It’s just a preference – like how I’m technically deifigender or whatever, but I don’t use the term because I don’t place much importance in it. (That and I think it sounds stupid to say out loud, but that’s just me being weird.)
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