OOC: Minor changes

[cattygabriel]

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

Comments

[kunenk]

Heeeeey /wave

…oh man I think everyone I play who have trolling instincts just perked up /)_(\ I mean just all the memes!

Because UST is cool probably.

Boiling water by miracle is cheating anyway.

Would you be interested in threading something?

[cattygabriel]

*waves back!*

Gabriel narrows his eyes and resolves to Google trolls because he doesn't think you're referring to the fairytale creatures living under bridges.

I love UST, but he was so angsty! XD To be fair though, he was also more worried about that game's Raphael who had so many issues.

And also convenient when you just need your hot drink in the morning. XD

Sure! Did you have anything in mind?

[kunenk]

o:) Well, most of them are human, so that would be a touch uncomfortable.

Ah, yeah, that'd take up a lot of energy. Fair enough.

But not if it makes all your kettles and pots stop working.

I have a couple of musebox posts open? One mistletoe, one catching bears. Or I could toss up the random scenario meme and roll something from there?