＊⠀Pain for whose Forgiveness?
⠀ Dear Radiant Sun, May You grace us with kindness,
⠀ As I am starting this, it is 18:52, Sunday.
⠀ You know, sometimes I find Myself lying still in the night, staring up at the ceiling, wondering many odd things of the universe.⠀ Truthfully, I have always held a morbid, cruel curiosity over everything, even what may seem to be the simplest — such as numbers and letters.⠀ In any way, they perplex me, how did we decide that numbers look the way they do, add up the way they do, how do we know that something is a four, and not another number? How did we decide the alphabet sounds the way it does, how did we decide consonants sound the way they do?
⠀ There is clear, undeniable history for those two things, yet I feel like they grow deeper.⠀ The innerworkings of God do not relieve me in any way, I am always told that the ??? above all of us has planned a path for everyone to follow, has calculated, written, prepared everything for everyone, individually.⠀ Maybe, I should feel relieved.⠀ But really, it only drives me deeper — the idea of a planned path is horrific to me, it makes you wonder if you're following said path or deviating right now, perhaps you've deviated long ago.
⠀ Divinity has always interested me, the story I wrote for my Original Characters is of them fighting a God in a post apocalyptic world, the story of the main ending for a passion project I cowrite is of fighting a Cosmic Force to free multiple Gods, a main focus in that project is the differences in Divinity itself and how different Gods are between each other.⠀ I never realised it, actually, how I'm so interested in stories of fighting God in particular.⠀ In a way it is inspiring, to see what would be considered lowly creatures going against the highest point of authority in the universe itself, at the same time it dreads me, knowing it'll never happen — even if it did we'd probably be faced with judgement like no other.⠀ But, maybe it won't matter until long into the future, if it'll matter at all.
⠀ But... I got off track, I feel.⠀ Lan, my own interpretation of a modern version of Them, specifically, is somewhat written after my own self conflict with my religion.⠀ Even if I did not go through the same things as They did, and I can't begin to imagine myself in Their shoes out of sorrow, a rather huge portion of Their strange relationship with religion is after my own.⠀ Lan Themselves is, albeit fictional, a God that I find myself writing to ⸺ hence the starting of my entries, "Dear Radiant Sun."
⠀ To be truthful, They're really the first character that's a God that I genuinely found Divine in, so long? I don't have memory if I even saw another character like that before, Lan could just be the first.⠀ Maybe it's silly, bringing up a fictional God in the middle of a ramble like this, but I've already mentioned fictional Gods here, Why not? I have never loved a character so deeply, so passionately before, at least not in an environment where I am not shamed for it.
⠀ Going back to my modern interpretation, Lan avoids anything that could bring up Their religious background — yet knows that part is an integral part of Them, They'll never take it away.⠀ Not because They can't, because They don't want to.⠀ Lan's religious identity is tightly knit with Their queer identity, as both of those have been weaponised against each other in one way or another.⠀ Lan has, always, been an angel in Their past hometown, being the golden child of the local church or so, They were rejected of such identity when They learned They were queer — No longer were They an angel, They were seen as a devil — told to repent endlessly, before They ran away.
⠀ I think, "pray to god" is a rather hit-or-miss answer to give to someone who is struggling in some way, or does simply not fit into Society's mold.⠀ What does it mean to pray for something without effort put into that thing? What does it mean to do anything without praying? My religion teacher tells me, they say it's lying and being arrogant respectively.⠀ Whether my religion teacher's takes are right or not, is something I don't really care for.
⠀ Lan, like me, has an odd view of Divinity, partially influenced by Their friendship with Suiyang and the awakening of Their queer self.⠀ Sure, They find Divinity in the usual, Angels, Light, anything alike — yet They find Divinity in things that would be rather odd, Fire, Machinery, Tangled Wires, Bioluminescence, Sea creatures (in most cases Jellyfish), Lightning Storms, Natural Disaster, Scars — where one may be at Their most vulnerable, Determination, and many more I can't begin to remember.
⠀ I find curiosity in knowing what people might consider Divine, knowing that there may be endless answers that could be given.⠀ A random thing that I find Divine are Stellated Dodecahedrons, it's funny, I learned that they're called such on a kiss, marry, kill post featuring two other shapes.⠀ There is something just, all so Divine with the way it is shaped.⠀ I guess that's just the tip of an iceberg to what people might find Divine, it is the possibility that there's so many of us that even if we'll find a lot of the same answers, we might find ones that stand out from the rest.⠀ To find Divinity in the unconventional, the machine, the raw unfiltered emotion of a being, anything really.
⠀ Lan has, in a sense, come to peace with Themselves, They hold a lot of wing motifs all over Them, from the collar and back of Their jacket, to Their electric guitar, to various articles of clothing outside of what was mentioned prior, to even have it embedded into Themselves via a tattoo on Their back — done by Their bestest friend.⠀ Like, a reclamation of Their identity that was so brutally taken away from Them, They may have worn angel wings in the past, but now they are very well embedded into Their body — You cannot take it away from Them, no matter how hard You could try.
⠀ As I am done with this, it is 21.10 — the same day.⠀ I only have one thing to say, and that is that I wish the world can be kinder to religious queer people one day.