App for Empatheias

[angeloftheeasterngate]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Meg
Contact: classylassy at gmail
Age: over 30 and accelerating!
Current Characters: None


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Aziraphale
Age: over 6000 years
Canon: Good Omens (book)
Canon Point: Post book

Background: Aziraphale is an angel. Quite literally. He's one of God's creatures, a Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, and so forth. He believes in God's ineffable plan for humanity and trusts God's will.

...well.

That's how it was supposed to be.

In reality, he's very aware that God has done (or allowed) some highly questionable things, and his demon counterpart, Crowley, has helped him with the questioning. Crowley isn't responsible for all of that, though. The first time they meet, it's not long after Crowley successfully tempted Eve with the apple and then Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden.

Aziraphale, obedient servant of God and God's will, gives them his flaming sword because he feels sorry for them.

In the next few thousand years, Aziraphale is Heaven's main representative on Earth. He has a human body, which is not immune to hurt and so forth, but he has the divine ability to heal said body and to keep it going long past a normal human's lifespan.

He becomes friends with Crowley, who's Hell's main representative on Earth. They establish an Arrangement out of pragmatism. If there are miracles and sins to be accomplished in the same area, then isn't it easier for one of them to do both and then nip back home? It's the same net effect. As long as they send the right memos to their respective head offices and make themselves look good, one with the wiles, and one with the thwarting of said wiles, then it's fine.

There's pain; of course there is. Aziraphale does actually care about humanity, and he doesn't like to see people get hurt, and at times it's unavoidable.

As they're each the only person who has a fair idea about what the other's going through, their relationship strengthens. They still don't entirely trust each other (Aziraphale has less trust than Crowley, because Aziraphale still thinks Heaven is largely good) but they rely on each other. They frequently meet up to feed ducks, or to go to tea.

It's quite a nice existence, really. Up until Hell sends the Antichrist to be born on Earth, triggering the Apocalypse, a war which Heaven and Hell will play out (Aziraphale is convinced Heaven will win, initially). It means the end of their existence, too.

So he and Crowley join forces at last, formally, neither one aligned to their home offices, and help save the world.


Personality: Aziraphale is soft and fluffy, and doesn't like getting his hands dirty. He loves food. It's one of Earth's greatest accomplishments.

He's a bookseller - he's the owner of a bookshop, and occasionally very reluctantly sells one or two, but not by choice. He is a massive bibliophile, and especially loves collecting books of prophecy.

He has no idea about popular culture and very little idea about technology. The book is set in the 90s, so he's aware of computers but has never used one, he doesn't have a mobile phone, and he doesn't understand answering machines.

Aziraphale enjoys magic. He is terrible at it. He could literally miracle the tricks and make them much better, but he truly believes that his sleight of hand and his outdated patter are both very competent and perfect.

He has the privilege of not needing to know about popular culture, and of not needing to dabble in various things, partly because of Crowley. He's hopelessly out of touch. He still thinks he's quite cool with his magic.

He does genuinely care about people. He gave his flaming sword to Eve and Adam, and got into some bother for having done so. He will randomly help people as he goes, performing the small miracles that will make their lives easier, or will save them.

But Aziraphale has been on Earth a long time, and he's found a sort of stasis, a sort of inertia, a sort of safety. He can tell himself that Crowley isn't his friend. He can tell himself that he's "the nice one". He can tell himself that everything's tickety-boo. He can tell himself that only the bad people really get hurt and God really does know what He's doing, in spite of things like God drowning everyone except for Noah's family. He can tell himself that someone who comes to his shop is a nuisance and not in need of help (they can buy books elsewhere, after all, and he tends not to delve deeper into what help people might need).

He uses Crowley, and while it's mutual to some degree, it's also quite unfair in many ways. Crowley was thrown out of Heaven for asking too many questions and hanging around with the wrong crowd. Crowley doesn't have any scales over his eyes about God and Heaven. Aziraphale knows, underneath, that things aren't OK, but he can allow himself to be wilfully blind because Crowley's there. Aziraphale puts himself first, and that means that if he wants to do something then he'll sometimes make Crowley tempt him into it.

He cares about Crowley. A great deal. It's not completely selfish on his part. But he doesn't admit to himself just how much Crowley means to him until pretty much the end of the book. His first impulse is to contact Heaven when he needs clarification, not Crowley.

He genuinely cares about people, and he's also the first one to suggest killing the Antichrist. Who has grown up as a normal human kid, and is only eleven years old.

He's a softy, and he's sweet, and he loves people, and he's also completely ruthless when he feels he needs to be. He doesn't want to hurt people. But if he thinks it's necessary, he'll do it immediately, and if he thinks it's unavoidable that others will get hurt and he can't stop it, he'll walk away. He'll happily help someone in front of him, and he'll mitigate Crowley being dark, such as when Crowley sinks a duck and Aziraphale tuts at him until it bobs to the surface again.

He has no problem walking away from disasters, which might make him sad but he'll still walk away. He has no problem spending time on his own pursuits.

Abilities:

Immortality - Aziraphale has a mortal body, and an immortal soul.

Physical endurance - doesn't really need to eat, sleep, etc. Still likes to. Would be very upset if he couldn't eat little treats now and then to keep his strength up.

Healing - on himself, and on others. Generally only what he can get away with, without people noticing.

Mind control - Aziraphale can exert small scale mind control; he can use this to interrogate, or to make people believe something different has just happened to them. He likes to be gentle about this and give them a nice memory.

Miracles - he can perform all manner of miracles, big and small, including things like fixing a broken bike or adding a bike rack to Crowley's Bentley (about which Crowley is not delighted). He tends to stick to the minor ones, as anything big can get him into trouble with Heaven, and post book, he especially doesn't want to be noticed by Heaven.

Possession - only when discorporated, so I don't expect it to happen regularly!! He can bumble around finding a mind to inhabit. This works better with consent but he doesn't have to get consent first.

Love - he can sense love on a grand scale.

Wings - he has a pair of angelic wings which are usually invisible and intangible.

Alignment: Piphron. A large part of his arc is accepting that he really doesn't trust Heaven... and accepting that he really can rely on Crowley, and perhaps he should even trust him. He wants to believe in something greater than himself, because it's easier, but also because that's how he was created. How he was made. It's very difficult for him to finally admit that he actually doesn't trust Heaven.

Other:

Aziraphale won't do anything that'd break the world and will only do things that seriously affect others with very specific consent. He doesn't want to give away his identity. I'm happy to put up a permissions post for that if you think it necessary, and/or to take nerfs.

⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

General Sample: here and here

Emotion Sample: here