Profile

Player's Name: Doc
Contact info: AIM: shoesncandles; email: shoesncandles[at]gmail[dot]com
DW: leonyne

Character: Simon
Canon: The Prophecy
Version: Original film
Canon Point: Before he passes the soul to Mary. Because that's how I roll.
Age: Same as the age of the universe?
Gender: Angels are sexless in their essential forms, and their physical forms are hermaphroditic but Simon presents as male



History: In the beginning there was the Word, and from the moment Simon was created, the Word, to him, was everything. The Word provided a system of perfect order and harmony, and Simon understood that his purpose and the purpose of his siblings was to preserve it. Sometimes--often, even--it meant acting as warriors; evil had to be purged, of course, and wickedness had to be punished. But they were more than that. They were the custodians of the most glorious kingdom in creation, the cherished and favored first children of God. Simon took the role, the life seriously, found fulfillment in it. Life wasn't always perfect or carefree, but it was good. It made sense. He was happy.

But for some, it was not enough. In Lucifer, love only served to feed his sense of entitlement and fuel his already unseemly vanity. If he was the favorite, if he were valued above his brothers, he should have priveleges that reflected his status. He should have power and authority over those obviously less deserving of attention. Simon watched his brother's incessant preening with distaste at first, then growing concern and wariness as Lucifer became more vocal in his convictions, more aggressive in his efforts to assert his dominance and prone to acting out. But even when it started to become clear that Lucifer was getting out of hand and something would have to be done about it, he never imagined it would end in such cataclysmic violence.

He was perhaps not alone in underestimating Lucifer's charisma, his powers of persuasion and talent for awakening and playing up in his siblings the same distorted self-image and logic that had become so characteristic of him. When Gabriel and others moved to take Lucifer down a peg, Lucifer raised an army and not only fought back but attempted a coup. He sought to make himself a god in his own right, and his followers imitated his behavior--and, well, as long as they were lesser gods than he, Lucifer saw nothing wrong with that. This, naturally, could not stand. Lucifer had gone beyond just throwing his weight around and crossed into blasphemy, and unforgivable arrogance. Gabriel, Michael and the righteous archangels went from merely putting their rebellious brother back in his place to casting him out indefinitely and destroying as much of his faction as they possibly could.

Appalled by Lucifer's actions and the disruption of what had been a peaceful, meaningful life, Simon joined the war effort. His home was in flames and life as he'd known it was in real, immediate peril. Such a scenario must never be allowed to come into being again. Lucifer's army had to be eradicated, so that no second attempt could be made. Together with Gabriel and others, he decimated Lucifer's army, casting out the survivors and destroying all remaining trace of them in Heaven. Finally, the war was over, peace was restored, no angel harmed a brother and they were free to focus once again on their true source of purpose. Lucifer was gone, his followers were gone, they were never coming back and no one still in Heaven could possibly have missed the message that rebellion would not be tolerated.

He'd thought that was the point.

However, the intervening centuries saw a change in the order of things, and in Gabriel particularly, though there were others who later shared his sentiment. One day, the order of the universe was rearranged. Humans were no longer lowly apes to be kept strictly in line with fire and salt and swords, but cherished children of God, like them. A little more than them, in fact. This was the new order, the new Word: Man was the the favorite now, put in God's grace and elevated above even the angels. Many, like Simon, were fine with it. They had never controlled the Word, only venerated it. It was not theirs to reason why, only to respect and obey. God made his own decisions, and was hardly required to explain or justify his actions to his creations. They didn't have to understand to obey, either: that was the essence of faith. And when God said nothing further, Simon and many of his brothers simply concluded that it was because there was nothing more of significance to be said. It made sense to God. He knew what He was doing. Who could argue that?

Well, Gabriel for one. Incensed at the sudden change, he openly challenged the decision--to his brothers, at least. Who were these monkeys, anyway? What could be so great about them, what had they done to deserve such favor? It was not Man who had thrown Lucifer from Heaven and slain his armies, that was Gabriel, that was the Host of Heaven. The monkeys had figured out electricity at the very most, from what he could see... it was hardly the same thing. When God said nothing to contradict him, Gabriel concluded that He was indifferent, maybe even absent, and began to raise an army of his own to take back creation and restore the old hierarchy. Simon and the others firmly opposed this plan, and with neither side prepared to back down, Heaven settled into a tense stalemate that shut down the gates themselves. A Heaven that might turn to a battleground again--or worse, a second Hell, as Lucifer predicted--was hardly a safe place for the souls of creatures so hated by a significant portion of the population. Better to leave them resting in the earth until the issue could be resolved.

The impasse stretched on, until one day there was chatter about a new plan of Gabriel's, one that would harness an evil soul before it made its way to Lucifer in Hell and use it to wreak havoc and destruction on Earth. To counter it, Simon's side identified the soul, and sent Simon to find and hide it before Gabriel could get to it. Simon took form on Earth and began his investigation, though first he stopped to speak to a former priest in training who had left the Church after receiving visions of the First War. Simon had been in the church that day, and now as he set about his task, he'd decided to take a moment to pass on a kind of warning to this human who had been as horrified at the carnage as he was. He then tracked the soul as far as an old apartment--they had only a name to go on--and as he was preparing to leave, Uziel, an angel in service to Gabriel, attacked him. They fought, and while Simon was able to kill his assailant, he sustained a deadly injury himself, a hole ripped in his chest, heart exposed. He continued the search in spite of it, ultimately finding the soul still in its body, lying in an open casket. Simon took the soul into himself and took shelter in the attic of a reservation school. He'd completed his mission, but would likely not survive long enough to ensure its complete success. He needed another solution. After a time, a young girl wandered into the attic and discovered him. He talked with her a while, until her teacher came to fetch her. The teacher offered to get him assistance, but he told her he was past help and that she should leave. The teacher sent the child back downstairs, and left. And that's where I'll be picking him up.

Personality: Simon represents the more mainstream, traditional population in Heaven. Tradition and order are supremely important, faith overrides reason or quarrels of logic. He is not unemotional, but doesn't have Gabriel and Lucifer's propensity for intense rage, or their concept of ego and perceived worth. He values his mission and his commitment to it over how much that devotion may or may not be appreciated or rewarded; if he is not lauded for what he does, it's not an insult, because no one owes him anything for giving everything to the cause of Heaven (whatever it is defined as at the time). That was what he was created for, you don't praise something just for functioning properly. He doesn't understand Gabriel's self-righteous attitude, sees too many parallels between it and Lucifer's egotism, and his response to Gabriel's rant is simply look back at his brother and ask him almost sadly when he lost his grace.

As for the source of the conflict, Simon has no problem with humans. He quite likes them, in the distant, adoring way that humans like small kittens. He finds their curiosity, tenacity and fearlessness with their apparent disregard or simple unawareness of their own vulnerability charming, and he respects their new place in the order of things. His conversation with Mary serves no purpose initially, she stumbles across him and he is quietly amused by her curiosity and so humors her a while. He is polite and gentle toward Katherine, and even when she mentions calling authorities to help him makes no attempt to forcibly keep her from drawing attention to his location. He simply tells her he can't be helped and asks her to leave. It's not until Mary returns and the conversation turns to hiding and her cleverness that it occurs to him that she could hide the soul even if--or rather, when--Gabriel or his minions turned up to finish him off.

Simon is a capable fighter, and has no problem doing whatever is required to achieve his goals, but is not particularly prone to violence. He has a great deal of respect for creation and for humans as the new favorite children. It's the Word, after all. He doesn't go looking for trouble.

At the same time, respect and affection do not necessarily equate to empathy. He likes Mary, trusts her, trusts her goodness and her cleverness, and the whole purpose of his mission is to protect her and her kind but when he finally decides to leave the soul with her minutes after his start point, he skips right over "this is going to massively suck for her and be terrifying and she won't understand it and might not be able to handle it mentally and emotionally over a sustained period of time." He's not indifferent, it just genuinely never occurs to him. Angels struggle with empathy even among themselves, the entire dialogue of most of their conflicts is essentially a lot of mutual yelling "The actual hell are you even thinking?? What's wrong with you?? Stop this nonsense or I'll stop it for you!" No one tries to reason with Lucifer or Gabriel, or even thinks to try. Simon only looks on in confusion. His intentions are good, and he doesn't want to hurt people, but people can still get hurt in his pursuit of the Greater Good because he cannot see things from another perspective.

The "you have no idea what this is like for me" in his conversation with Thomas comes out like a reproach, but it's really more of a realization. Angels have observed empathy enough to have registered that it's a thing, but they don't really know or understand what it means or how it works. Thomas breaks down sobbing and screaming at the visions he receives of the First War, and ultimately leaves the Church because of them. Having witnessed this horrified, fundamentally repulsed reaction, Simon assumes "he feels as I do, if I approach him he will understand implicitly what I am doing and why." He mistakes a common feeling for a common understanding of its source and its attendant implications, and is surprised when he reaches a point in the encounter where he would expect to be discussing the problem and Thomas is still stuck at "who are you, how did you get in and what the fuck are you doing here?"

Destruction is not something he enjoys, even when it's necessary. Gabriel gloried in the carnage of the war, remembers it with excitement and nostalgia; to Simon, it was the worst thing to ever happen. As much as Gabriel's wish for a return to their glory days drives him in his mission, Simon's desire never to see history repeat itself drives him in his.

Simon can tend to talk around a subject rather than about it. His conversation with Thomas is a series of questions and pointed observations that lead to a thought process that leads to a revelation, rather than a straightforward "you know that awful scene you were shown? There's a very real chance it's about to happen again. I'm trying to do something about it; keep your eyes open." Simon feels he's made his point--Thomas, meanwhile, is confused as hell and needs time to process the pieces. (There seems to be an overall tendency among angels to be somewhat enigmatic; Lucifer's had enough time around humans to have figured out conversation for the most part and Gabriel's too pissed off to mince words, but they both have their moments of it as well.)

Fears: More than anything, Simon fears another war. Angels turning on angels. Having to kill hundreds, thousands. It's not just the mass death of angels specifically that makes the prospect of war so horrible, though. There are aspects of it that are frightening independent of the conflict Gabriel seeks to incite. Chaos, anarchy, and the collapse of order, reverence of the Word and the solemn respect for The Way Things Are. Loss or corruption of purpose. Wholesale slaughter and destruction, needless waste of life and grace and beauty. Being compelled to participate in said destruction, as well as being helpless to prevent it. Being compelled to serve something other than the Word, being made to act against his conscience. Loss or radical alteration of identity. Simon has a very set notion of what is Right, what Should Be. Anything that threatens to upend that vision of the world is frightening to him.

Weaknesses: Having taken a physical form, Simon is mortal as long as he inhabits it. Angels in his universe lack the accelerated healing often seen in other interpretations; while wounds do not necessarily slow them down, they do not close any faster than they would on a human body. The achilles heel of angels is the heart, which if taken out will kill the angel. It's unclear if the underdeveloped/only barely calcified skeleton of angels' earthly forms would be more liable to break with blunt force and make the heart more vulnerable, or if it is supernormal strength that allows them to remove hearts barehanded, but I don't imagine it helps matters.

Angels are uncomfortable fighting on the ground. When attacked, an angel will invariably take a flying leap at whatever is coming at them (usually another earthbound angel) to at least make initial contact in midair, imitating the in-flight fighting they are used to in their essential forms. This is done in inexplicably flagrant disregard for gravity, and when it kicks in (as everything on Earth must come down once it's gone up) the result is most often both of them hitting the ground without having much prepared to land. The ensuing melee is more a scrabbling battle with entanglement as much as each other, and they are less able both to attack and defend themselves effectively until they can regain their footing and a degree of distance. Had Simon done the sensible thing upon realizing Uziel was going to come crashing through the window--backed up and given himself room to fight--rather than leaping into the attack, he would likely have walked away from the fight with comparatively minor injuries, given how quickly he was able to dispatch the other once he'd regained balance and a decent range of motion. They can fight decently on the ground, but their unwillingness to initiate or respond to attacks there puts them at a disadvantage right off, and they can sustain considerable damage even if they regain the advantage later.

Mundane Strengths/Abilities: Simon is resourceful; in physical combat he will fight with whatever is on hand, and use the environment to his advantage whenever possible. He is skilled at hand-to-hand combat and has no weapon that he uses regularly, but instead will use anything and everything available to gain and maintain an edge over an opponent. His sympathetic nature works in his favor as well, as it allows him to better relate to others even across the "species barrier" that exists between humans and angels, and develop and recruit allies without resorting to threats or other means of coercion. It is not seamless or flawless by any stretch, but he's much better at it than certain others appearing in the film. He can also recognize when it's time to retreat and regroup--or at least try to. Gabriel's reference to a relationship as equals suggests he may have held or may still hold at least a minor leadership position, and the angelic notion of singular focus would work to any group's advantage.

Sensitivity/Magical Ability: Supernormal strength; pyrokenisis; a degree of telepathy that's more spiritual than mental (angels can know a person's name and their history, but not what they're thinking at that moment; has more to do with their familiarity with souls than anything). Angels can manipulate souls, take them out of dead shells, move them, or force them back in and keep them there. There's no evidence of telekinesis once they've manifested on Earth (at the very least, it makes more sense to bust out a window before you go through it if it's in your power to do so, and even Gabriel uses doors), so I'm going to leave that alone. Teleportation is kind of a mess, Lucifer does it fairly regularly, so it's possible, but Gabriel seems to prefer to commandeer deceased drivers to take him where he needs to go and it's not clear exactly why.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as magical or mundane, but since angels' earthly forms more manifestation than person, size and weight don't mean anything if they're not thinking about it too hard. Angels are seen perching on construction signs and other things that should collapse under them, and Simon appears to Thomas perched on the back of a wooden chair.

Supply List: One very nasty, potentially weaponizable soul. Other than that, not much.

Game Transfers:

Sample RP post: Humans really weren't so bad. Some were, of course, and the repulsive thing he was carrying was a testament to that--but Simon had learned a long time ago, the hardest way possible, that angels could sink just as low. So far, the ones he'd seen were at least trying to do right, to be better, and there were far more of them than the ones like the evil Colonel. If for some reason he'd ever felt the need to justify the new order, he could at least point to the arithmetic.

The two in the attic with him, for example. The woman Katherine had treated him with mild suspicion at worst, and that was only because of the young one. He could hardly blame her for that. Mary was a charming, innocent creature, and he'd enjoyed her simple, candid conversation. It was hard to imagine not feeling protective of the child. Even then, she'd offered help.

Gabriel was overreacting.

Which was why it was better that they leave. Nothing following him would have anything close to the same reaction as his. Simon settled back against the wall and opened his eyes--and was suddenly very confused. The attic was gone, the wall at his back was not aging drywall but a heavy wooden door, and, perhaps most uncomfortable of all, his haphazard shelter of boxes and upended furniture had disappeared. Bloody handprints on the ceiling hardly made one feel entirely safe, either.

It couldn't be rescue; home didn't look like this, grand as it was, and there wasn't even a vague scent of other angels. Besides that, as weak as he was, he still should have been conscious of being moved. If it was a vision, it didn't make any kind of sense that he could see. It was hard to know whether to be relieved for the possibility of being--or more importantly, of the soul being--even further from Gabriel's reach than he'd thought or alarmed for the fact that he had no idea why or how.

Settling on an uncertain wariness for the moment, he half-crawled toward the only available structure in the room, a fully stocked umbrella stand in the corner. Corners were equally dangerous and advantageous; they limited escape routes but also eliminated the possibility of attacks from behind. Umbrellas would make for poor weapons, but the stand itself might be of some use in a scrap. It was the best available option. One hand gripping the ring that held the ski and umbrellas upright, he dragged himself into a sitting position, one knee under him and the other bent to at least be partially positioned to move quickly if necessary. He pulled his coat tighter, better covering the hole in his chest, watched, and waited.