Pagan angelkin here, responding somewhat to the confession by the Christian angelkin, but also more general thoughts. I understand anon was trying to sort out feelings and genuinely trying to understand, but it really rubbed me the wrong way as a wingless, non-Christian angel.
Honestly, speaking as a former Christian, this is kind of why the community is averse to Christianity. A lot of Christian people, while claiming to support others, also have the underlying holier-than-thou attitude or belief that the people acting or believing non-Christian are "disrespectful" even though they themselves don't actually have as much knowledge about their own religion to make that claim.
Now, speaking as someone who has studied Christian theology and angelology from a historical and cultural anthropological lens, technically you can also say the winged humanoids of modern Christianity "aren't angels". Why? Because angels in the Bible actually don't have wings.
They had no described appearance prior to the creation of humanity, and afterwards, are described to look no different from humans. The portrayal of winged angels came much later in Christianity's history, after adopting Greek motifs such as the wings of the gods Nike or Hermes. "Angel" as a word even came from this, from the Greek "angelos" meaning "messenger".
In line with this, the nine choirs of angels don't have full basis in the Bible; Christian theologians to this day actually still argue whether the wheels from the book of Ezekiel are even considered angels.
My point isn't that certain beings aren't angels of course. It's that even Christians have an ever-changing view towards angels. What is a "real angel" to you isn't a "real angel" to another culture or even to another denomination of Christianity. "Angel" etymologically just means a messenger or servant spirit of a god.
Winged angels, wingless angels, animalistic angels, non-humanoid angels, non-Christian hierarchy angels? All valid.
Because throughout human history, nobody truly knows what angels are. And that's how it's meant to be, that we are incomprehensible and never fully grasped by human minds.
๐
Vlad Fausto A.
Fern Gully. ๐ฟ๐ฒ
Lunar Surfacing
here are some kintype reaction images I made! First one is mine and the rest are traced over.
First one is for when you just gotta go GRERHRGRRRG!!! RRR!!! Rage kill stabbing maiming pouncing on u mauling tearing w my claws stabbing stabbing blood violence!!! Imagine the stick figure is a transphobic politician and thatโs basically the mood. Itโs for when mauling and biting in a werewolf feral animal way isnโt enough for me and I just gotta pounce and stab w my killing claw/raptor talon deinonychus style. The rest are for my angel kintype and last one is my vampire kintype where I get just absolutely covered in blood. Drenched little guy.
Painted over this old illustration to spruce up the rendering and brushwork a little ๐๏ธ
thinking about alterhumans doing daily tasks is so funny like wdym dragons drive to work??? wdym LITERAL GODS go GROCERY SHOPPING??
I am going to write about something weird that unsettles me deeply. ๐
So, say I were to take all my experiences literally, and say all my current theories are true. Say for a moment that I were to genuinely, deeply believe I am in fact the spirit-beast I perceive myself as.
I am not an entity that has a natural, built-in mind. I was conscious from my inception, sure, but a mind? No. I was an empty existence. I had no capacity for thought or feeling. I was static, silent - sleeping, in a way.
I learned how to think and feel from the biological life on this planet. As life became more complex, so did I; but always limited to the bounds of the experience of animals, plants and others, from whom I could learn how to experience the world rather than just existing as a self and nothing more.
So I was never what you could call "sapient". I had the knowledge of billions of years of memory, but intelligence is more than just knowledge - intelligence is reason, deduction, imagination. And in the realms of intelligence, I was animal. I had never had anything to teach me anything besides that.
And for all the hundreds of thousands of years humans have walked this Earth, and their disappeared relatives, I never once learned from them. I... think they scared me. I watched from a distance, but I never walked among them.
And now... here I am. I... didn't want this to happen, I think.
I'm... scared.
See, I as a spirit am functionally immortal - both in the sense of not aging, and in the sense that I cannot be killed or destroyed, as far as I'm aware. And I also, as a spirit, have a flawless memory; that's my entire purpose. That's what I do.
Naturally, when this body fades, I will remember the life I had here. I will remember what I learned... how to think in abstract, how to imagine something entirely unreal, how to wrangle hypotheticals and make complex goals and plans. I will remember having a concept of morality. I will remember feeling angry at a world I can understand so deeply yet cannot change.
So... well... I have been changed, by being here, you see? And I don't know what that means.
A billion years from now, when humans are long gone and no trace of them remains, will I - immortal and timeless - still be thinking in English? Will I find myself playing an old song in my head that hasn't been heard aloud in an unfathomable eternity? Will I catch myself daydreaming of playing minecraft?
Will I feel lonely, like I often do now?
And what does it mean for my nature, for my mind to so radically change? What impact will that have on the role I assume, the actions I take? A scary thought in itself, honestly. I wouldn't trust a god with the mind of a human. Humans care and feel far too deeply for that kind of position.
This is one of the things that makes me most fearful that any of these experiences might be true. I... hope they're not. Or at least that my view of things is such a warped interpretation that none of these fears I have actually apply.
Cause if not, then... I am scared.
Though... maybe I should learn some more languages just in case. I'd hate for the only human language to be preserved in immortal memory for all time to be fucking English.
Magical Madeira, Portugal
michaelkagerer
Shared a memory dream with my beloved a while ago, and ever since I've been called Divinity/Angel/God/Godling as a regular term of endearment... It brings me such joy, I truly can't understand it. My beloved worships me in her own way, and I cannot explain how much it makes me feel... Needed. Like I belong somewhere again- connected, to that time long since passed. I truly feel divine again when I am with her; I feel how I did with the one who showed me how to see... Imagine if their soul had carried over into what I now know as her? A nice thing to think about...
The fact that she heard my dream, and came to the conclusion that it must be a memory, all on her own, makes me want to be more open with her about other lives I recall. More than I can describe. But, if nothing else, this.. this is enough. To make a difference in my beloveds life- to provide her comfort and safety and joy, even if we are unable to see each other outside of pictures or long trips.
It makes me.. very happy
Found a picrew that I could make a more accurate imitation of my visage than most, though it does paint me a bit too feminine. All things considered, I'm glad that's the only thing that feels too inaccurate.
On the left is a fairly accurate portrayal of how I looked without my veil. Usually my veil covered my eyes, so all that was visible were my nose and mouth. My kind all had long, straight hair, and our skin was extremely pale and fragile. I believe the headpiece was a sort of formal attire used when going to speak to our Creator, and other important scenarios. I'm not sure if I ever had jewlery, but I feel that necklace is what it'd look like if I did.
On the right is, again, a fairly accurate portrayal of how I looked without my veil. I didn't wear it always, but I had a black veil covering my nose and mouth. I believe I wore it when meeting new/important beings. I remember having dark/soft robes that I wore -perhaps a cloak- that had an opening for my wings. I always wore white face paint, especially the dots under my eyes. On occasion I'd change the markings on my forehead.