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[series]: Angel Sanctuary
[character]: El’s Voice, Prime Minister, Lord Commander, Supernal, One of Three Wings, Inorganic Angel of Destruction Rosiel
[character history / background]: beneath his sister. Yes, in all things :( b
[character abilities]:
It’s fair enough to say that when GODMODE’R’US first opened business, Rosiel owned a solid chunk of its shares. He’s so ridiculously overpowered, even he’s at a loss as to how to kill his own body.
Aside from the immortality, flight and aura abilities of all angels, he’s got very strong, if not always immediate regeneration, and he’s immune to bacteria and poisons on account of... apparently besting their life force with his. Given the later revelation of his true power of destruction, it’s possible he just exhausts their life force, thus effectively proving himself the parasite of other parasites.
His capacity for destruction is apparently enough to take down humanity and the known world, but not a power like that of God Himself. Given his current timeline, it’s a latent ability, and not one he can control at any time. It’s also responsible for devouring his body from within.
The real ". . ." comes with his abilities as the inorganic angel: in the beginning of the series, he acts basically like.... gd malware. He claims he can somehow memorize and absorb the measurements of human beings and recreate their matter, but it’s likelier he can only accomplish that out of inorganic materials. It’s later shown that he tends to take information from cells and brains waves ( probably by working with their biological code, rather than by accessing the powers of flesh itself - that seems more like Alexiel’s territory.) He also uses recoding to produce a pill from his feathers that... aligns the will of its consumers under Rosiel’s own. In the case of humans, it gives’em the best and cheapest high of all time - along with wire innards, turning them into ‘golems’. Thankfully, the effect is much more limited on angelic beings, which it... only brainwashes... sometimes to the point of madness. Um. Yeah.
Notably, the pill is significantly less effective on people who’re very, very used to narcotics. So remember, kids: a life-changing addiction a day keeps the psycho angel away!
He’s also... got... inorganic tentacles of doom, with which he likes to... penetrate... writhing... targets...
And he can sense with enviable accuracy when reincarnations of his sister are getting it on with their sisters.
...yeah.
Since having access to most of these powers would make him pretty much unplayable, I’d like to annul some of his abilities, and to significantly tone down the others T_T; Because yes, er. That’s a ridiculous list up there. ._.
[character personality]:
In actual angelology, Rosier (with the -er usually replacing the -el for Fallen angels) is a secondary demon of obsession, tainted love and seduction. Hideous, insulting, and completely unfounded implications about his relevance aside, that reference actually paints a pretty good picture of Angel Sanctuary’s Rosiel: he gives professional creepers a high-heeled run for their money, and his possessive streak accounts for 99.73% of his genome.
Since badtouching is caring, he doesn’t really discriminate between the objects of his fixation, and will frequently become fascinated with people on a whim. This might sound flattering, until you realize that he’s very much feline in socialization habits: he doesn’t coexist, but possesses, and those around him tend to serve as belongings on which he dotingly writes his ownership in scars, amputations, holes, indelible blood stains and nervous system makeovers. Because they’re his goods, he takes damageagainst them as double offence against himself: on the aggressor’s part, for touching something of his - and on the victim’s, for allowing themselves, something that belongs to Rosiel, to be harmed.
It only gets worse when it comes to Alexiel’s things: since his sister is part of and the source of him - closer to his being than most - all that she knew, all that she cared for and those who held her dear must belong to Rosiel and fall in worship of him as well as they did of her. Some of his most confounding relationships result from that: he loves Setsuna Mudou for wearing Alexiel’s soul, her face and part of her nature; and he hates him, both when Setsuna looks any other way, and for sheer fault of not being Alexiel - while privately admitting that if Setsuna had more of his sister’s character, he would reject Rosiel completely. (Hilariously enough, he seems to want exactly what would bring him the most pain.) Likewise, he has no personal interest in Lucifer, beyond the latter’s worth as a tool, beyond presumably the same polite admiration everyone once bore the fabled Star of the Morning, and beyond grudging amusement at a creature that caused so much chaos in Heaven. But Lucifer loved Alexiel absolutely, and so Rosiel demands the same consideration - yet even in spite of that, he makes the offer to pretend to be Alexiel for the Demon Lord’s sake in hopes of taunting him and driving him away.
That kind of contradictory pull-close-push-away M.O. is pretty much his trademark: once he’s creeping on taken with someone, he treats them as if they’re a scab within reach, teasing and picking at it until it breaks and he sees blood - then wondering absent-mindedly why they’re no longer with him and why it actually hurts him. You can tell how much he loves you by the sheer WTFery of what he’s willing to do to you: if he’s ruining your career and wipe your memory and free will? He’s telling you ‘hi.’ He’s estranging your every hope and ideal and making everyone turn on you, slowly and surely? You’re worth consideration! He’s looking forward to cannibalizing and drooling over your body? You’re definitely special. He’s threatening to pluck off every feather off your wings, if you try to desert him? (...which only seems charming and cute and a play-threat, until you learn that shedding their wings invites the most terrible pains angels can suffer, and leads to their madness) You’re Katan very close to his heart!
The crux of it is that Rosiel simultaneously wants to be loved, but that his myriad of insecurity complexes ensure he’ll also scorn those who love them. He holds them to unrealistic expectations - gives them his feather, which reduces them to his worshipping drones, then despises them for their affection. It’s even worse when said affection isn’t artificially prompted, as he’ll question that they truly know him (because if they did, what could they possibly find in him to love?), and be disgusted with their ignorance, superficiality, or poor insight. If anything, Rosiel thrives off blunt disregard: he seems strangely at ease around Lucifer, who will always tell him the very blatant truth about his revulsion of Rosiel and of his ugliness; he fixates on Alexiel in part because she is the only one who perpetually denied him; he sets Katan aside in his graces, because his #1 Minion is the only one in his ranks who is both unpredictable and disobedient; and he spares Setsuna Mudou on multiple occasions because of the boy’s overt hatred of him. Also, because the manga would have been over far sooner otherwise, and there were still many flying robot zombie nazi embryo angel heads to draw. No, really.
Most of this is a defensive mechanism: born unbelievably fugly as a reflection of his inorganic power of destruction and in testimony of the sins of mankind, and rejected by both his caretakers and his sister, he doesn’t trust anyone to care for him, and not for his new beauty gained by consuming Alexiel’s flesh. Consequently, he holds himself closest to God, but seems to question whether even He loves him, and to perpetually beg Him for attention and His pardon --- at least, to God’s face, or when Rosiel needs someone in whom to feign trust. In reality and as proof that anti-paternal figure adolescent tantrums are common even among immortals, he seems to almost... judge God. The (once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away) saner Rosiel remarked that the Father was headed down a dangerous path, constantly ‘experimenting’ with monsters and repeating old errors of Creation. Later, Rosiel gave precedence to his perception of the plight of the Grigori and went against divine commandment by elevating one to angelic status. Don’t ask how he did that, when his power supposedly stands for destruction. He had a secret stash of moe batteries, and thus the cute-brat-maker was activated.
Since defying Daddy is a Thing in Heaven, Rosiel’s piled up his own offences: he acknowledges all the vices, then partakes of them anyway (usually with great amusement), and he even seems to have taken it upon himself to succeed where his creator failed. As Katan explains it, Rosiel only loves himself, and perhaps Alexiel, as she is part of himself - yet in doing so forgets that he was also given an inkling of Rosiel’s power, and therefore kind of fits the ‘part of’ system. In that way, Rosiel may well have had the last laugh yet: God created beings meant to love Him, who betrayed Him by also loving each other - Rosiel among them. By contrast, Rosiel Made himself a companion in Katan, who is so tightly wrapped in every dependency complex ever that he only cares for Rosiel.
In an ultimate irony, Rosiel’s sheer selfishness proves skin-deep: it’s later proven that, even in his madness, he only wanted to recover his body in order to avoid its destruction - and with it, the destruction of all of humanity, which he truly loved all this time, but who had indirectly caused him too much harm for him to embrace openly.
Rosiel’s extensive Issues [TM] with ‘I love you’s and associated Care Bear mottos aside, let records show that he is no less ‘WTF’-worthy in less subliminal interaction. He shows every sign of a histrionic temper, and probably creates a few signals of his own: he’s quick to resort to drama, hot anger, screaming and scratching, when he’s not getting his way - yet he’ll recover at the tip of a hat, often raising suspicions as to whether he actually gave a Jimmy Choo pair on what just happened, or whether he only reacted quite so violently as part of an act. Certainly, he is by far more dangerous when overcome by cold anger, and his grudges, like his penchant for leopard print, run eternal.
Because of the previously mentioned... difficulties... with his complexion, he can come off quite vain with his need for reassurance on whether he is beautiful. He enjoys attracting attention through his aspect, and feeds off spotlight, but it also seems to drain him emotionally. Interestingly enough, he’s quite the Master Genderbender, wearing women’s clothing without much qualm, and even playing the part of one to avoid a gaudy assassination attempt. This is particularly relevant because by God’s ordinance, all angels must have a separate and well-defined gender and stick with it (failure to do so, for instance, led Belial to Fall). Yet here Rosiel is, dancing that line with unbelievable nonchalance, and getting away with it because, hey - if it works for Andrej Pejic...
The matter of Rosiel’s arrogance is... interesting. Yes, he definitely talks the talk, usually declaring such preposterous things that half the cast is left : O -lining. But he generally follows up by walking the walk ( in rather impressive pumps! ), relentlessly pursuing whatever he set out to do*
* ...unless he gets bored with it. orz.
While he has a moral code, it’s certainly not human: cannibalism, torture, murder, kinslaying, incest vibes? Just an average day in WTF-Are-You-Even-ON-Rosiel-Oh-God-It’s-Your-Own-Drug-Brand???-ville. He’s even nonplussed by those vices considered last season out of place in Atziluth, usually easily adopting them when they serve. Dobiel once recited that in order to no longer live in fear of evil, he must become evil itself - since he was under Rosiel’s control at the time, and transmitting his message, it’s possible that this sums up Rosiel’s attitude about sin as well.
Generally, Rosiel is fond of manipulation, sometimes for the finesse of its own sake. He fakes friendships with confidence, and he’s been known to give Metatron quite the Judas’ kiss. It doesn’t help that whatever his sins, he’s got a great deal of eloquence and charisma, and a rather enviable capacity to BS improvise.
In his spare time, he finds weakness, cultivates it, and seduces his targets into corruption: he has no trouble leading Kirie on, then discarding her once she’s exhausted her usefulness; Katan even speculates that the girl was particularly chosen because Rosiel was aware her youth translated to oblivious recklessness and was likely to yield an advantage. At his worst, he can be absolutely vicious, loving to toy with his victims by tormenting them slowly and surely, over giving them the mercy of a fast kill - cue Sevotharte and Metatron. At ease, though! He’s perfectly capable of controlling that preference and of opting for fast executions too, just to spice things up if there are time constraints!
His cruelty can sometimes eclipse, but doesn’t usually eliminate his sharp intelligence. In spite of his... peackockish ways... Rosiel’s rotting brain works ratherwell. In fairness, a lot of the knowledge he wields, he cheated to get, either through his ability although if we go with the option of him being the internet, does this also make 99% of him porn... or through the privilege of his well-timed birth. He was there when other angels gained their worth and their rank, and he’s got scoops on their dirtiest secrets. Think of him as tyrant Gossip Girl, if you will.
One aspect frequently misunderstood by those around him is the insanity caused by his disease - contrary to their expectation, it isn’t completely uncontrollable, and seems to condemn him to his baser craving for bloodshed, rather than to irrationality. Even when he’s reduced to strong feeling, he will usually tire himself out and fall back on cold logic, scheming some plot that, while born of a greatly eschewed intent, is not lacking in logistics. These episodes increase in frequency over time, and tend to make him more unpredictable and unreliable.
For all the above-mentioned bloodlust, Rosiel can be... surprisingly innocent, in certain ways, almost playful, and childlike. While it often materializes in slight teasing, he shows quite the sense of humour, and takes delight in... the... oddest little things, like gleefully facilitating Uriel’s admission to Sara’s trial because it’ll be such fun to see Sevotharte flustered in public, or pretending he has noooooooo idea about the Metatron-related voodoo dolls he works with, when Katan catches him with it.
Notably, he was once an all wise and responsible pacifist leader of Atziluth, and hints of that and of his very deeply hidden rabu rabu of all that moves still show on occasion. He is certainly capable of kindness, particularly towards children, or other creatures of sheer innocence --- in spite of his once jealousy of her, he grants Teiaiel a beautiful resting place, because she was troubled and kind and because Katan did love her. To that, you have to add his odd (and also increasingly frequent) fits of depression, or simple nostalgia. Sometimes he pities himself, claiming that he’s God’s waste, pure filth, something no one should love, and the sole reason behind Katan’s disgrace. He first treats his condition as an anomaly, then as an obstacle, then quietly admits he’s despaired of it and he’s frustrated by his inability to kill his body. This seems to be the only reason why, in spite of his all-encompassing love of Alexiel, he does resent her the littlest bit: he isn’t exactly thrilled her decision to not end him, in spite of his begging her to do so. By contrast, he calls it an absolute honour that Setsuna promises to kill him with his own hands - possibly proving that any atrocity is okay in his book, as long as it’s kept in the family.
/ Ruxiel, angel of tl;dr!
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: vol. 17, pre-ingurgitating defeating Sandalphon
[journal post]:
video post;
[ the camera sets on what some might recognize as the inside of the City cathedral, all but deserted at night. A pale creature of sorts can be barely heard whispering in song-song to each icon it kisses - ]
Shhhhhhhhhh, silent, still, broken at will, you all pass for their saints, don’t you? And if you’ve a secret, and I might yet keep it, and yet, and yet, and yet, it never could reach Him. So you hush, now. Very nice. Very, very nice.
[ he turns from pressing his lips to the last icon to coldly stare straight at the camera ]
And you. Whatever your names, your blood and your kind, your fancies, and your mind. Foul little things, I’ve walked your ruins, and I’ve greeted your gods.
And now, I am owed. Words, explanations, all that I ask for. Your very beings. I am owed, and I shall have my answers, hmmm? Hmmmmmmmmm?
[ ...and then a smile! ]
Pretty do please.
[third person / log sample]:
He pricks his fingers against rose thorns and laughs to see the red on them.
Blood. Blood will tell.
Blood of Alexiel’s blood, blood of God’s will, blood of all of Atziluth's worship.
Holy blood.
Blood on his lips, blood on his robes, blood on the tips of Rosiel’s fingers. Blood where nails scrape - are metal, where metal bends against warm gore.
Blood and bloodletting, for divination, between pagan revelry and half intoxication.
Blood and blood-shedding, as Lucifer imparts deathdestructionmeaning on Atziluth, on all who lie in his waiting.
Blood and waste, Sevotharte’s reign slipping through torn hands, the skin and nail and joints of them begging to be cut.
(He will. Rosiel will see them cut. )
Blood and culling, Metatron’s sworn men fall.
Blood and blood dreams, the lost prince, Sandalphon rises.
Blood and Messiah, the coin to wake ruin.
Blood and beauty, blood and sin, blood and disaster.
Blood and blood and blood.
Sometimes Rosiel wakes and doesn’t know if it isn’t to blood eroding the bones of his skull. It could happen, he rather supposes, claustrophobically. Like a dam against full tide, every stitch that binds the parts of him could yield.
It will happen, one day, this bloody death. Sandalphon given time, the Messiah ambition, Lucifer a modicum of will - one of them could make it happen tomorrow.
He wonders if he will oppose it, hands clawing at his hair, pulling and ripping, digging through skin, digging deep. Whether he’ll wail and scream and ask for something pretty - something kindly and laced, to hold this wrecked head of his, whether he’ll bandage and perfume his rotting corpse, until patches come together to string a haggard whole. Again and again and again. Whether he’ll be the sum of his very broken parts for all eternity.
Or whether he’ll fall, arrested by gratitude and stupor, kiss the hands that strike him down. He has cultivated - he has educated his enemies, has bred the purest, the finest, the very most sophisticated and wholesome hatred of him within them.
Rosiel has been absinthe to them. He has warmed their beings and set them to motion, he’s served as poison.
By right, this death is his. He has done the deeds. He has said the words.
Ah, to think of it. Words, he’s waged-won wars with them. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words cannot, words will rot, words, like swords, reap madness.
Insanity. Insane. Is he? Truly, deeply, utterly, uncontrollably? Beautifully?
Perhaps.
He rolls among pillows, crushes silks, throws rose petals again. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Perhaps he is merely in rapture of El, of God’s presence, whom Rosiel alone will know in ways absurd. Perhaps he is drunk off his own wisdom, his grace, his great cunning, his vi -
He can’t but laugh.
“My virtue,” he whispers in the ear of his most recent kill, the flesh shell now host to a thousand willing wires, “is that I have made you all saints beyond compare.”
In Anagura, they take pride that ‘evil,’ read backwards, spells ‘live.’ To live is to sin. What a pretty little claim, brought by pretty little birds. Rosiel is no fool, to dismiss knowledge merely for its source. They of Anagura have their wit about them, and so when Rosiel kills, when he dismembers, when he cuts, when he replaces, he simply commits his chosen ones to sainthood.
Think closely, I have spared you life. I have spared you sin.
Alexiel did not do him a kindness in liking, and he had spoiled every tendril of dignity - and he’d begged. In a mosaic of hyperboles and synesthesia and tears, and oh, but he’d begged. Begged before she alone who held the beauty others saw in him. Begged before his salvation. Simply begged.
And for every word that went unheeded then, for every plea she dispelled, Rosiel will tear a thousand deaths from Setsuna Mudou. He will rip him piece by piece, then sew him together again, he will drown him and burn him and drag his hands through that human heart, and then he’ll rebuild Setsuna and do it again. And again. And again.
And kiss him, Rosiel supposes. Wanton, desolate, lost lamb that he is, Setsuna Mudou is still Rosiel’s to break. Rosiel’s to love. Rosiel’s to keep.
Katan will object. Katan objects even now, with his eyes, if not his mouth. And Katan wants of him what is no angel’s place to take: wants him worried and willing to mind Atziluth’s affairs, wants him to renew his - their society. Wants him to do what the others will not, cannot: Zaphikiel lost to his schemes, Uriel in mourning, Michael in aimless battle, Raphael in rags, Gabriel, soon in chains - all of them, useless against Atziluth at its worst. Atziluth in its decadent glory.
Well, Rosiel rather thinks they’ve a point. Atziluth isn’t worth saving.
...the architecture, to begin with, is simply abhorrent.
But even if it were, what a selfish creature Katan is, always interrupting Rosiel’s play. How selfish more so, Lucifer behind them, watching, watching, waiting.
A game of waiting, a game of gods, a game of nightmares. Sandalphon will want to give him dreams soon, he supposes. Another bloody play.
They’re all kin and kinslayers and blood bound.
What more can family do with its own blood than spill it?