Gabriel

Gone was the angel who walked barefoot around the Manor library in jeans and T-shirts with a smile for his cats and anyone walking in; the being pacing Lucifer's foyer now was every inch a cold, furious Archangel.

In the Manor chapel, Gabriel had paused long enough to send notes to Michael and Raphael explaining what had happened - they might have sensed it, have already known, but Uriel was their brother too and Gabriel should at least let them know - and another to Mary Hodges, saying he'd be away for a while due to a family emergency and requesting that she keep an eye on the cats. Outside, the rain turned to unseasonable hail.

Gabriel had called his sword and horn to him and hung them on the belt of now ornate robes, his wings unfurling behind him, lit by the glow of his own aura; he normally disliked reminding people of his rank, but his younger brother was in Hell and he wanted to remind any demon trying to stop him that he was not in the mood to be stopped and cross-examined.

And it had not worked. All Gabriel wanted was to find Uriel and Belial, but he had been met by enough politeness and red tape and bureaucracy to put Heaven to shame. Asmodeus had met him at the gates, oozing civility, and agreed to grant him safe passage to at least see his brother, and as they entered each successive circle there had been new border checks and forms and repeated questions and attempts to get him to disarm. By the time Asmodeus had finally shown him into what seemed like Lucifer's foyer and left, the Messenger's already stretched patience had been hanging by a frayed thread.

He strode up and down, wondering desperately where and how Uriel was while trying to avoid any thoughts about Uriel's Fall itself, or any possible changes in his brother. He had failed Uriel, should have been more vigilant, should have made sure Belial stayed away from him, should have tried harder to intercede with their Father on his behalf, and his face was stony as he imagined everything he could have done to keep Belial away.

Well, this post has been a long time coming, but much-needed. XD

Back when I was still playing Gabriel regularly, I was a little dissatisfied with some aspects of his character and thought about making changes. Then stuff happened and I've pretty much ended up taking a long hiatus from RP, especially RPing Gabriel, though thankfully it has been punctuated now and then by some fantastic AU RPs with the lovely reigns_in_hell and we've got a couple going on right now. But back when I wasn't getting any - RP, that is - sometimes I considered dropping everything entirely and sometimes I just considered character makeovers to make myself want to write them and to make others want to play with them. And I thought of some things about Gabriel I wanted to change, mostly bad choices on my part as a writer, and decided that there was no better time.

He'll still stay very much the same, mostly. But back at the beginning of 2009 when I created him to play at the Lower Tadfield Safe House RPG, I randomly decided that he hadn't been on Earth for a century just because it would be hilarious. And while it did lead to a lot of hilarity and Michael mocking him him being at a complete loss when it came to pop culture - he had read reports on important stuff like communications and the Internet and such but rarely got any references or in-jokes, daytime television and Disney movies were a whole new world to him and he would be absolutely oblivious to attempts at flirtation - I felt for ages that as the Messenger and as someone who loves humanity so much, it wasn't quite right. It did change the more time he spent here but it was inconsistent.

So minor change #1, probably the biggest change (though I was already trying to move him towards it): Gabriel has spent a lot of time on Earth, from the beginning to now, regularly. He has a lot of duties in Heaven but he pops down here whenever possible, and isn't clueless. As the Messenger and a watcher of humanity he is very familiar with communications - it's his job - and since modern communications involve so much technology, he is somewhat familiar with the capabilities of cellphones, computers and the Internet. He'll probably be utterly horrified if you show him all the steamy Bible fanfiction (*guilty cough*) but he is comfortable with things like e-mail, credit cards, buying/booking things online and Google. He is aware that online porn exists and gives it a wide berth; I imagine any computer he uses has some sort of holy firewall that prevents popups.

He is aware of things like Batman* and iPads and cosplay conventions through some degree of observation and experience, not just reports from other angels on Earth sent to him in Heaven. He would have no idea who Lindsay Lohan is (but might Google her), a very vague idea of who David Bowie is, and be pretty well-versed in, say, General Douglas MacArthur. He's probably still oblivious when it comes to slang but can guess from context rather than being completely lost.

Basically, if you tried something like the "One does not simply ___" meme on him, he'd recognise it as a reference to Boromir's line in the LotR movie and be confused as to why you're referencing it because he has no idea that it's a meme (he might know what a meme is but wouldn't actually know any). He doesn't know for sure what an 'Apple fanboy' is but he can guess since he knows what Apple is. He can recognise basic netspeak but will never use it. He's a lot better at passing for human, though he's terrible at picking a last name for himself. And if he spent a prolonged period of time here for any RP, he'd likely grow to learn all these things.

He'll still speak a little more formally than most people at times, but that's just him.

#2: While rereading some of his threads with Michael (angelofawesomeangelofawesome) in LTSH, I saw several things I would have changed or written differently now (I'd originally been thinking that they would hook up after the Dreamstone plot; I'm not quite sure why it got dragged out, although some other characters' situations did affect that). I'd say I hope he'll be a bit less melodramatic but I don't know how successful that'll be. Either way, while a lot of his doubts and fears there are things he would always have, being who he is, I think (and hope) he'll be a lot less scared when it comes to relationships now. If I start anything of the sort with Michael-mun (or anyone else, though that's unlikely unless it's pre-Fall Lucifer like with reigns_in_hell , where he doesn't have these issues) again, he'll still have those fears, but I think that after a much smaller amount of proof and advice and stuff he would be a lot more sensible about it.

#3: The whole thing about him being unable to cook or do anything in the kitchen without an explosion was started by Michael-mun in crack AIM RP and stuck because everyone (myself included) found it hilarious. And while I am nostalgically fond of that and want to keep it, it was sort of impractical to have him unable to boil water without it going FWOOSH, or his sandwiches causing stomachaches. So yes, Gabriel is still completely unable to cook, but he can buy stuff and make decent sandwiches for himself and he can boil water the human way for hot drinks or possibly instant noodles or Easy Mac. He can probably heat up canned soup on the stove about 80% of the time without incident. Anything else is cause for disaster, and woe betide him if he tries boiling water via miracle. The jury's still out on microwave ovens. Basically, if he were to live on Earth by himself for a while, he'd eat like a uni student who can't cook at all or something of the sort.

I think those are all the main changes I wanted to make, I'd considered these at various points last year but never wrote them down. There may be more minor ones - for instance, I might cut down on his tendency to easily blush and he might not be as easily scandalised either, though he's still pretty old-fashioned. And I'm not quite sure why he and I were so opposed to him assuming the female form; even if he found it difficult to travel as a lone woman in the olden days it's way easier now. But yeah, feel free to say hi to Gabriel v2.0!


* Re: Batman... My interpretation of Gabriel is highly influenced by the works of Neil Gaiman, and I've adapted Murder Mysteries very slightly to fit into Gabriel's backstory. He's also very Sandman-friendly, as seen in LTSH, and I've worked it into his canon - he is on good terms with Dream and occasionally uses the Dreaming to pass some sort of message to a human or two in dreams; I imagine he was quite busy during and just after the World Wars too, sending dreams of hope and strength and trying to help with PTSD (he likely wasn't directly involved in each and every dream, but he's Heaven's diplomat and would be discussing options with Dream while lesser angels, probably Healers, worked on the dreams). But Sandman is DC/Vertigo and Justice League characters (J'onn J'onezz, Batman) do show up in it, which would kind of complicate things. So in my canon Gabriel lives in pretty much our world but with the Endless (and Yahweh), but Batman and Superman and the rest are fictional characters. I am perfectly open to RPing with any DC (or Marvel) characters though, or in a world where Sandman is just a comic book series. XD

Since it's Easter, I thought I'd celebrate by posting a musebysentence set. :D

musebysentence prompt set #86. Yeah, yeah, I know the first one isn’t one sentence.  I wanted more angst. :P Michael (angelofawesome) and Uriel (

emberlight ) are lovingly borrowed (and my apologies to Michael for #6); Seshat is the Egyptian goddess of books, libraries, mathematics, astronomy and a host of other things, and was called Mistress of the House of Books.

 

1. Broken
2. Delicious
3. Protect
4. Renew
5. Duty
6. Ab initio (From the beginning)
7. Semper fortis (Always brave)
8. Totus tuus (Totally yours)
9. Scire quod sciendum (Knowledge which is worth having)
10. Dum vita est, spes est (While there is life, there is hope)

 

 

( Prompts )

 

OOC: Do note that these messages were sent aaages ago, via LJ's private messaging system, and that playing Gabriel was still fairly new and I was still working out bits of his backstory and interaction with Michael and so on.

I found a series of messages that Michael and I had sent to each other, prior to his arrival at Tadfield Manor. Here they are, for archiving purposes.

 

( these are most certainly not love letters )

 

Continued here.

For _silverfox, who chose the prompt ‘Cat’ on my writing meme. This is a loose prequel to the Triangle prompt fill, where I wrote about the Plagues of Egypt. Since tomorrow (Oct 31st) is, in addition to being Samhain/Halloween, also one of Bast's feast days (although she shares this one with Sekhmet and Ra) I thought this was a fitting time to post this. :D Although please note that the Festival of Bubastis would have taken place in middle April.
 
Historical/mythological notes: While Bubastis reached its peak during the 22^nd Dynasty, the Plagues were believed to have taken place during the reign of Ramses II, of the 19^th Dynasty; I rather doubt Gabriel and Bast had talked things out by then, so this takes place sometime during the early 18^th dynasty.  Since the entrance hall, festival hall and hypostyle hall of the Temple of Bast were only built during the 22^nd Dynasty, most of the celebration here is outdoors. Tanis did indeed have a famous royal wine-producing estate, known as ‘Preserver of Kemet’ (though admittedly I don’t know if it was actually during this time period). Maahes is a leonine Nubian war god who was assimilated into the Egyptian pantheon and considered Bast’s son. And there is actually very little evidence supporting large-scale Hebrew slavery, so I avoid referring to them as a nation of slaves here.
 
Meme: Cat aka Bubastis, 1400BC
 
 ( It should be made very clear that Gabriel was not drunk... )

~*~

Yes, yes, so the previous chapter was posted in DECEMBER 2009. I had exams and this chapter was hard! :P I've been poking at it on and off since then.

(Disclaimers: The Silver City is my take on the one introduced by Gaiman in his Sandman series and short story Murder Mysteries. Gabriel, whom I claimed for this fanfic100 challenge, is mentioned by name in Good Omens, where it’s implied that he is Aziraphale’s supervisor, but other than that I am taking free rein with the appearances and personalities of him and the other archangels. Aziraphael and Gadre’el are my take on what Aziraphale and Crowley were like in Heaven before the Fall; they are the property of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
 
Thanks to my dear beta Jen/angelofawesome for helping with ideas, editing and the idea for the Michael-Gabriel dynamic. (Michael is inspired by Jen’s version and she has no objection to my borrowing him.)
 
Additional Note: Uriel is Presider over Thunder and Terror while Gabriel is Prince of Ice and Thunder; here, I explore my idea of the story behind this.
 
Chapter 2: Prompt 021 – Friends.
 
 
 ( Gabriel laughed at the feeling of the wind ruffling his feathers, looping in the air and luxuriating in the pure joy of flight, of the feel of wind against hair and skin and feathers... )


Reviews would be lovely. <3

For Yubi/starspiritgate /misterbkeele who requested the prompt Triangle on the writing meme. <3 I'm afraid that try as I might, the only thing I could think of was a pyramid. Which led to this; I've been working on it for a year. Tried my damndest to at least get a view of the pyramids in here (spent ages trying to figure out what time of the year this was so I could tell if the royal court was in Waset/Thebes or Memphis, because the Giza pyramids should be visible from Memphis), but then I remembered Ramses' capital was Pi-Ramses, so Giza would not be visible. So I thought, "To Hell with this, I'll just stick an obelisk in there."

   Archaeological evidence shows that the Egyptians did indeed have large soft pillows; as for Amonherkhopshef, I’ve taken liberties with his character, basing it upon that of Kha-em-Waset, Ramses’ firstborn son in Christian Jacq’s Ramses series. (Historically, it was Amonherkhopshef who was Ramses’ eldest son, not Kha. And Ramses outlived both of them.) Also, given how long-lived Ramses and Moses were and how young Egyptians married, I do believe that Amonherkhopshef would have been in his late teens at the least during the Plagues, aka an adult by Egyptian standards. 

Also, in my writing, my Gabriel spent quite a lot of time in Egypt during his travels and he and the goddess Bast were good friends. The Plagues strained that friendship, to put it lightly.

Triangle 

 

( …I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt... )

~*~

Because I think the PB, Dita von Teese, is gorgeous. <3 Edited her eyes blue, and that's it. I really like the first one in particular as a Gabriel-picture, and I want her hat. XD