I'm pretty sure it's in the car anyway (or if not, in my room with my work clothing) which means I'll just get it tomorrow!

I had a really good one for today, but I lost my sheet with my notes! I'll see if I can locate it tomorrow.

I just need to be in the mood to give it, and not be super duper tired!

As I fail both conditions right now, maybe I'll give it tomorrow.

So have one now!
Today, I developed another take on God and Angels which would be for a story.
What story, heck if I know. Not the Rubyverse, not Phyrra and Cyrus, not Soano, so that disqualifies the usual candidates. Could be new, could be an existing story (but probably not), got no clue even what form the story would be; all I know is that the story would feature what I developed today.

And what I developed today was basically an origin story of roles and relationships which persist to the modern day.

God, in this setting, as per my usual, is agendered, having no actual gender. God is an entity, existing in a way transcending our understanding, neither male nor female. However, God likes to present itself in the form we are most comfortable with.

As most humans identify God as being 'He', that is the form He usually takes, and will be how I refer to Him for the rest of the ramble for the sake of simplicity. All of His creations are also agendered at their base levels. The souls of humans have no gender (even though spirits have gender), and so too are all angels agendered, able to appear as male, female, both, or neither, at will.

God has more to him than that. He is not the all-powerful God that we know.
​In this setting, God both did, and did not, create the universe. God gained awareness, but was blind to everything. He saw absolutely nothing. He could do absolutely nothing. But then, He noticed something--the event that we would come to define as being the big bang, as a possibility. Not a reality, but a possibility. And He could make that possibility become a reality, so He willed it to be, setting off a chain reaction.

In the resulting universe...God can't break the rules of reality, but He can bend them a bit, where He influences events. So, He is bound by the rules of the universe, thus, is not what we'd call all-powerful...even though He is able to do just about anything.

God can see everything in our universe...but in order to see a specific thing, He has to actually focus on that thing. This can be thought of as seeing the forest instead of a specific tree within--He sees the whole forest and thus has an idea for what happens within, but the only way for Him to know what happens to one specific tree within the forest is for Him to focus His attention on that tree.

Since the universe is a very, very big place, that's a very, very big forest for Him to be monitoring the trees within.

God can see into the future...but He only sees the probable futures that are most likely to happen. He is thus able to be surprised both by natural freak occurrences and of course by any creature with free will, including humans. We usually act in the way He sees us acting, but we can still surprise Him at certain times.

God both knows everything about the universe, and yet doesn't know everything about the universe. This can be thought of as an instinctive knowledge. He, by what we'd know as intuition, more or less knows what everything does...but He doesn't know precisely why they work that way, only that they do.

So when you combine all of this, He's not all-knowing or all-seeing, but He's still fairly close, in that He knows the general workings of the forest, the general happenings of the forest, and the most likely occurrences to happen in the near-future of the forest, and He is able to directly influence the forest.

...Just, not turn the forest into a fire, as it were. (Though He's quite capable of setting the forest on fire, should He so will it. He just...isn't.)

God has, throughout the history of the universe, been trying to influence it as positively as He can, but while He has capabilities beyond what any human has and his existence is far above our own, He is not perfect; He can both make mistakes, and have oversights which lead to bad things having happened.

To this end, He actually uses His direct creations as tools.
Angels, with a single set of wings and the ability to take on any form they please, serve as monitors of sorts. They observe areas of reality, interact with it on a more direct basis, influence it subtly rather than overtly, but also constantly and consistently rather than sporadically.

Cherubim, with two sets of wings, serve as more or less the 'workforce of the heavens' (if angels can be thought of as the 'workforce of the non-celestial'). They sometimes interact with the less-astral planes, but more or less do most of the "behind-the-scenes" work of running/influencing the universe for God.

Seraphim, with three sets of wings, serve as overseers. They are, more or less, the bosses of angels, but also are conduits. They serve as a direct line of communication. They occasionally communicate directly with God, and are more or less His direct assistants and underlings. They very rarely, but on occasion, interact with more mortal realms.

Arcangels, with four sets of wings, serve as almost-equals to God. Direct underlings, direct 'generals', direct advisors, who are full-time entities serving more or less as His direct "balance-checkers" as it were. It is literally their job to question God's decisions, more or less. Well, two of them at least. (Gabby, the third, more or less has the job of being the direct enforcer of God to keep unruly children in line, and serves as a balance and tipping point, keeping disarrest from happening.)

​Arcangel Lucifer, The Lightbringer, Satan of Hell, is "a bit" of a rebel, using his male name and pronouns but taking on a permanently-female form. (Why? Because.) He is not actually evil. Just...argumentative, and strongly opinionated. (He's the oldest of the three arcangels.) This puts him frequently in disagreement with God, but he's not always antagonistic with Him. Just usually antagonistic.

​And, interestingly, he is not always wrong. God is, as mentioned, not perfect. He can make mistakes. Usually, a fair indicator of this is when Michael/Michelle agrees with Lucifer, but even when not, sometimes, God admits that even if Lucifer's exact argument may not be right, he still raised valid points to take into consideration.

His eight wings are all white feathered wings, representing his element being pure light.

Arcangel Michael/Michelle changes every human life cycle between which form (s/)he takes, and is currently in a male form. Lucifer tends to be a champion of the greater existence thinking on levels of souls; Michael tends to be a champion for existence on a smaller scale--most notably to humans at least, that of our own, dealing with us both spiritually and physically.

This still puts him/her at odds with God on occasion, and at odds with Lucifer on occasion, but the two are actually fairly similar to one another, having a lot in common and getting along fairly well. Michael/Michelle is the middle-aged of the three, and has his/her wings be of different elements:

Two fire-wings, two ice-wings (all four feathered), one water wing which more or less looks like a liquid octopus tentacle with dangling squid-like-tentacle protrusions and a jellyfish-like membrane (all made from different types of water, but giving it an aesthetic loosely like that of a bat wing, only with anatomical parts matched to sea life), a matching wing made of energy, with what looks like lightning for the bones and the membrane more or less being visible static electricity (so, another bat wing).

His final two wings, both feathered, are one white and one dark wing, representing light and darkness.

Arcangel Gabriel/Gabrielle, Gabby for short, usually takes on the gender opposite of what gender God would be represented as when appearing spiritually, and takes on the same gender as what God would be represented as when appearing physically. 

This is more or less because Gabby tends to take on the role of both arbiter and enforcer: as a representative of God, s/he will want to appear as if an incarnation of God when walking among mortals. However, on a more spiritual level when individuals have a stronger direct connection to God, Gabby then represents the opposite side of what God is seen as, as to provide a sense of balance.

Since, as mentioned, most people see God as male, Gabby is seen as male when in physical form and as a female in a spiritual form. And since arcangels tend not to spend much time in the physical realm, it's usually safe to assume Gabby is a she.

Gabby's got four wings like the other arcangels, but one pair (representative of air) is invisible, and thus, can't be seen. She has two metal (feathered) wings, two rock (also feathered) wings, and two vine-like spines of wings with hordes of bugs swarming from them to form a vaguely insectoid-like wing. Think like a butterfly wing, except instead of millions of scales, it's millions of bugs. These represent various aspects of life:
Rock, as the raw building blocks; insects/vines, as the creatures created from it; metal, as the refined products made from the life.

...That's as far as I got on that.

Like I said.

I don't really have a story.

Well, I do.

I think me describing the above?

That counts as a story.

In that I have four named characters with numerous implied lesser characters.
I have these characters' backstories defined, as well as more or less what their abilities are, albeit deliberately vague on the exact nature and scope of them.

So there's the makings of a story.

But I didn't really take it anywhere.
Haven't built it further and I probably won't.
Haven't placed it anywhere and I probably won't.
So what you see here is probably what you're gonna get.

The next time I talk about God, Angels, or anything like that, it'll be yet another story. Maybe already existing, maybe another new one, but I can guarantee you it won't be this one because I really don't know where to go from here. This was all I had.

So I stayed up late last night--nothing wrong with that.
I didn't set an alarm--nothing wrong with that.
I actually woke up at a reasonable hour, too--about 1ish. Now, mind you, that meant I only got about five or so hours of sleep, but I more or less went, "Uhg, it's not as much sleep as I want, but I'll just gather my thoughts for five or so minutes, get up, and prepare for the day, including the staff meeting."

...I woke up at 4:30.

You know.

Typically the time I'm already 15 minutes into having prepared to leave for said staff meeting.
And I needed to eat breakfast, and I'm typing this up, and I needed to search for confirmation of the staff meeting (found none, texted boss, and to my dismay, they told me the posted schedule was accurate; in spite of not having sent out any form of notification like they normally do, the schedule said we'd meet tonight so we're meeting tonight), and now I need to actually rush through the preparation for said staff meeting (I had planned to properly shave all my body hair and thoroughly comb my hair including removing a persistent knot in my hair which has been there for weeks and not even my special brush can remove; NOPE NOT HAPPENING) and leave.

Oh, and things other than a staff meeting?

For TODAY?

Pfft.
Yeah those aren't gonna happen.

GOODBYE LIFE.
​IT WAS NICE KNOWING YOU.

So I looked at the guard schedule, and I saw four guards scheduled.
I thought at first I had read it wrong.

I didn't.

Then I thought, "alright, maybe it's a scheduling error?"

But as I examined it, it looked deliberate.

So if it was deliberate, the obvious conclusion:
They did schedule 4, but one or two of the guards would get to go home earlier than the listed time.

Since, after all.

Four guards would be complete, total, absolute overkill, right?

...WRONG​.

It's a random one though but it'd take me more time than I have for tonight so if I do it it'll have to wait.

Or rather, so randomly inspired as to be worthless enough to be uninspired.
I'm a fairly casual fan of many things. I'm not a hardcore fan of anything, but I tend to know more than the average person about just about everything which interests me.

For instance, Star Wars. As far as I'm concerned, fuck the new canon because the new movies are trash, I'm more interested in a question I came up with regarding the old expanded universe/Legacy canon and more or less knowing:

"Okay. This is something where there has to be an explanation for it. I know there must be an explanation for it. But in spite of me knowing more about Star Wars than most people do...I'm not a hardcore enough fan to actually know it."

In this case, I'm combining two of the most basic force-users (hereby referred to as Jedi even though Sith can use these just as easily) powers.

As early as The Empire Strikes Back, it has been more or less established that a Jedi can more or less utilize the force for superhuman feats of athleticism. The extent of these feats vary in how impressive they are, and I don't know the exact science behind how it works, but more or less a Jedi can do stuff like fall fifty feet unhurt, jump a hundred feet in the air, perform acrobatic flips on a dime, you get the idea.

Things which no non-force-sensitive person can do, and even those who are theoretically force-sensitive and yet untrained can't do. (For instance, think, say, Princess Leia; she can't do these things in the shown films in spite of her explicitly being just as theoretically gifted as Luke.)

So while I may not know the exact explanation, it can be reasonably inferred that it involves more or less utilizing the force to manipulate their own body, such that they are capable of doing those things.

As early as The Empire Strikes Back, it has been more or less established that a Jedi can more or less telekinetically move objects of significant size and mass--and in most material, said objects match or even exceed the size/mass of a human being.

So the question which has been bugging me all day, because I know there MUST be an answer...just not one I actually know of, would be...

...Why aren't the two combined? As in, why can't the Jedi use the force to actually fly on their own? They are always shown to (borrowing a phrase from Samurai Jack here) "Jump Good", in that they can make leaps which give them impressive amounts of air time to the point where they might as well be flying. But it's not actual flight.

They can make use of objects which are flying, and use more or less amazing grip strength to hold onto these, or manipulate these, and so on and so forth. They can ride flying objects, such as a speeder. (But there's nothing superhuman about that.) They can more or less use the force to sense when a flying object will be where, and from this, determine what they need to do in order to utilize the flying object.

But in all the material I am familiar with.

The Jedi don't actually fly using the force, unaided. In of itself, without jumping (which isn't flight), without balancing precariously over small objects, dangling from small objects, or piloting some flying machine. Just utilizing telekinesis to levitate themselves. I've never seen it done.

And it bugs me because by my understanding of the theory, it should be possible.

So I know there's an explanation somewhere for why it's not. And a more hardcore fan would have an answer for this. But like I said, I'm a filthy casual of the worst kind: informed enough where I can form these questions (whereas those completely uneducated would never stop to think about such a thing), but not informed enough where I know the answer, and this isn't exactly something I imagine there's a way to google an answer for.

So it kinda just bugs me, and this has been a major thought on my mind all day.

Like I said.

It might be, by some certain definitions, "inspired".
But by every pragmatic definition, that's a rather uninspired thought as it's pretty much utterly worthless to have.

Traditionally, people depict Hell as Fire and Brimstone.
While there's nothing wrong with that traditional take, let me tell you, fire would be a warm, warm welcome, so by comparison, it would actually be heavenly to have fire. Merciful. Not exactly what you'd depict Hell as being.

Some of the more open-minded instead insist that Hell is actually Frozen Over--not as an idiomatic expression, just that true Hell would lie in the cold, not the heat, that ice beats fire for inflicting unending suffering. Sure, I acknowledge that it's more painful than the naive fire-based Hell viewpoint would be, but even this pales in comparison to what true Hell actually is.

Because as any experienced, nay, war veteran of a lifeguard living through summer camp kids can tell you...

...True Hell is WATER.

​(Suffice to say, today has not been pleasant.)

Well, in fact. Best I've felt in quite a long time.
Ended up wasting the day, so didn't do anything productive, mind you, but all the same, I'm doing fairly well right now, which is better than nothing.

Don't really have a blog for you, but oh well.

At least it's not as bad as it could be!