(we're still here) application

[demonicmiracle]

PLAYER INFO.
NAME: Justine
PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her
ARE YOU OVER 18? Yes
CONTACT: batsecretary
CURRENT CHARACTERS: n/a

CHARACTER INFO.
NAME: Anthony J. Crowley
CANON: Good Omens (TV)
CANON POINT: Episode 1/2015-ish, while Crowley is working as a nanny for the Dowlings (American politicians whose actual baby was swapped for the Antichrist), helping raise the Antichrist (actually a normal kid, the real Antichrist is elsewhere).
AGE: Existed before time itself, immortal, at least 6000 years old, appears to be in his late 40s
GENDER: Currently presenting female due to the nanny role (think demonic Mary Poppins). Angels/demons don't really Gender the way humans do, but he uses he/him pronouns regardless of presentation.

HISTORY: Wiki link!

APPEARANCE: David Tennant but with red hair and snake eyes, and here he is as Nanny Ashtoreth. Also: a set of big black wings that he obviously won't have at the start of the game. Also: sometimes he can turn into a big black & red snake.

With being humanized, he won't have the yellow serpent eyes. They'll just be normal, hazel, human eyes.

ABILITIES: STRAP IN LADS

The best way to summarize angelic/demonic power is to say that they’re reality warpers. The world is shaped by their thoughts — Crowley's refrigerator runs simply because he expects to it, despite it not being plugged in, and his plants are sentient because he wants to be able to yell at them effectively. He kept a burning car driving for an hour through sheer force of will and imagination. He can wish clothes and other items into existence from raw firmament/matter. He can kill animals & resurrect them with a thought — this could apply to humans as well, as Hastur (a Duke of Hell) is able to do at least the former. The concept of physics doesn’t apply to demons or angels — according to God "size and shape are simply options" — they're capable of travelling through phones lines & instant teleportation (of themselves and others), and shapeshifting (Crowley can turn into a snake, for example).

Crowley also has a knack for controlling time, able to stop it with a snap of fingers, or pull himself & others outside time, though he can't hold it long term.

As part of his general demonic-nee-angelic nature, he’s considerably more difficult to damage than a human, has no need to eat/breathe/drink/sleep, has a set of black wings that just disappear when he doesn’t want them around. The body he inhabits isn't strictly him, but rather a vessel that contains his demonic form, killing it doesn't kill him, only makes him incorporeal. Being a demon, he's able to sense what humans want (unlike angels, who can sense love). They're also able to manipulate humans in various ways, from forcing them to answer questions, to making them unable to perceive them, or subtly influencing them. This latter mechanic is not particularly well explained, but other demons talk about convincing humans to sin, or putting "Doubt" in their minds. Doubt is, in fact, capitalized in the script book, whatever that means.

While it's not specified in the show how Crowley is able to consistently find Aziraphale to bother him over the millennia. Considering Gabriel (the Archangel) is able to sense that something evil has been in the bookshop, it seems likely that angels & demons are able to sense each other. Crowley probably got very good at honing in on Aziraphale, but he would be able to sense other angelic beings as well.

In terms of weaknesses, he can be hurt by consecrated items and would be completely destroyed by holy water, even a drop. His body can be injured with some effort by mortal means, but it would only discorporate him, not destroy him.

SUITABILITY:

He's a demon from the depths of Hell that's currently dealing with the oncoming apocalypse. It's heavily implied that he's been tortured in Hell, has lived through innumerable wars, and doesn't think twice before destroying another demon in self-defense. He's not going to enjoy living in the 1960s and dealing with all the associated bullshit, but honestly? Could be worse.

PERSONALITY.

● Here's the thing: a few of these answers, this one included, is all going to depend on a singular factor, and that's whether or not Aziraphale (his angelic counterpart on Earth that he happens to be in love with, don't @ him about it) would suffer any negative consequences, because he's the only person aside from himself that Crowley cares about. And honestly, he cares about Aziraphale a little more than he cares about himself. If the mistake involved harm to Aziraphale, then he'd fix it without a second thought for the consequences to anyone else in the universe, since none of them particularly matter to him. Other demons are awful, angels are awful, and humans are too fleeting to invest any emotional energy into. With the apocalypse looming and time running out on averting it, Crowley was willing to give up on Earth completely, including all the people on it, if only Aziraphale would run away with him to Alpha Centauri.

If it was another mistake, regardless of how it might've effected others or himself, he wouldn't risk consequences coming back on Aziraphale to change it. That's love, babey!

Though honestly, there's also not many terrible mistakes that Crowley would consider changing regardless. There's a few minor cock ups here and there he might consider fixing, but none of them are worth the risks, and being as old as he is, getting hung up on mistakes is exhausting. Compartmentalizing is wayyyy easier, especially if you've got a lot of memories rattling around in your head.

● Being a demon is kind of reliant on negative emotions, and as much as Crowley might theoretically like to never be afraid again, or never feel grief or anger, he's been around long enough to know that even the bad stuff is important to who a person is. When discussing the idea of a peaceful eternity in Heaven (for Aziraphale, not himself), he's quick to poke holes in why everything being good and perfect isn't actually all that great. Pain and loss are as much part of him as anything else and he wouldn't give them up forever. A day or so might be nice, but he's not going to numb himself to experiences, even bad ones. That would just be boring.

The memories are... a little more complicated. There are one or two memories that he might consider getting rid of, regardless of whether he'd know they're missing. But overall, he also knows the value of memories, especially as learning experiences. Forgetting the pain of falling would be great in theory, but if he forgets it, how will he know the full capacity of God's cruelty? If he forgets his awful fight with Aziraphale in the 1800s, how will he know that the angel cares enough about him to get angry at the prospect of his death? If he forgets every time he's been tortured in Hell, how will he know how to avoid making the same mistakes that led to it in the first place? Memories are lessons, some of them more valuable than others, but he can deal with whatever pain they bring if it means avoid mistakes in the future.

● No? Yes? Sort of? Mostly, he isn't concerned with being a good person, that concept doesn't really apply to a creature like him, because he's a demon and he's made to be shitty and do shitty things, so it wouldn't really occur to him that he should be forgiven*. He's not... purely evil, that's an oversimplification, because the entire point of the book & series is that people come in shades of grey, that nurture is more important than nature, and that we always have choices to do the right thing. Or the wrong thing, as the case may be, but you can't absolve yourself of responsibility either way. But Crowley is a demon and his concept of morals is entirely different than a human idea of morals, so what might be considered morally reprehensible by humans — such as tempting countless people to sin, thus landing them in Hell for eternal torment — is just him doing his job.

Which isn't to say that he doesn't experience guilt every now and then, or that he's completely callous and uncaring when it comes to humanity (he thinks they're neat!), but the concept of striving to be a good person is, to him, like it would be for me to strive to be a duck. He isn't necessarily correct in this idea, see above re: the whole point of the show, but that's how he feels about it.

In general, he just has a few hang ups about the concept of forgiveness and pertinence and the whole concept of it is complicated for him. We can blame God for that one.

*Gonna quote a recent comment by one of the authors along this effect because it vibes with me and my own interpretation of Crowley. "Crowley has not yet learned that just because you think of yourself as unforgivable it doesn’t mean that you cannot be forgiven. Or, indeed, that you need forgiveness."

● This bitch has kept the most important secret for at least a couple millennia and would continue to do so for the rest of eternity if he had to. Once again it comes down to the fact that the loyalty here is directed towards Aziraphale, and the secret protects the both of them, so he'd happily keep it to himself, no matter how many people might die for it.

Anyone else's secret and he wouldn't care. Loyalty isn't a concept he really vibes with, because in his experience, it isn't a two way street. Heaven wasn't loyal to him, not considering God cast him out for hanging around with the wrong people and asking a few questions, and Hell definitely wouldn't hesitate to throw him under the bus the first chance they got. He's been kept around and on Earth because he's useful and good at his job, not out of any sense of loyalty. He's frequently betraying Hell for his own benefit, and eventually for the benefit of humanity. Telling Aziraphale about the Antichrist, working together in an attempt to stop the child from wanting to destroy the world, would have saved billions of lives, had they been successful.

You know that Guide To Troubled Birds that's like "I'd sell you to Satan for one corn chip" that's Crowley re: betraying anyone aside from Aziraphale. He’s perfectly capable of being charming around other people, and might even grow to like them, but he’ll never have any loyalty to them.

● The simple answer to this is yes, and no, respectively, but it's another case of boiling things down to a human view of morality that Crowley doesn't really ascribe to, what with the whole demon thing.

Crowley doesn't necessarily enjoy causing pain in general, and he seems to find it fairly off putting when other character are overly violent for no particular reason (see: God drowning humanity during the Flood, Hastur being a violent weirdo), but he also doesn't have qualms about hurting people when he has to, and on one or two occasions, has enjoyed causing some kind of suffering. He has a little fun messing around with the paintballers at the manor, giving them real guns instead of fake ones, and although no one is actually hurt, it doesn't matter to him that the whole experience was likely pretty traumatic for all the humans involved.

He also gleefully drops a bomb on a bunch of Nazis (which... tbf... they are Nazis) and has little care for collateral damage, because he's enjoying playing the role of the suave rescuer to consider side effects of his actions. Overall, he's more selfish and self-centered than particularly cruel, willing to harm others to avoid harm being done to himself. He does also have a slight vindictive streak, albeit a petty one, and seems to somewhat enjoy dishing out retribution if he feels he's been wronged.

But none of it really bothers him, because it's not really meant to, or has been taught that it isn't meant to, even though if left alone, he wouldn't be a particularly violent person. It's been drilled into him and constantly reinforced that demons are evil and should cause suffering. If anything, he should be worse and he knows it, that’s the part that worries him, because it's the part Hell would exploit or punish him for. He lies on his reports to make himself seem better at his job and more evil/cruel than he truly is, to avoid them noticing the fact that actually, he'd much rather spend his time having lunch with an angel and driving around really fast in his vintage car.

WRITING SAMPLES.

SAMPLES:
Log sample from the TDM

And doing a c/p of a network post from another game (set in the late 90s with no network style devices) because the last two games I've been in have locked comms.

[On the community board in town, there's a simple note posted, written in a neat script.

Questions about the fog?
Look for answers.

Beneath the words is a html address that leads to a fairly simple forum website, once typed into the computer, whether it's a personal device or accessed at the library. It requests an account to be set up, but like many online spaces in the early nineties, there's no need for an email address or verification codes. Just a username and a password, and access to the site is granted.

Anyone who creates an account is able to reply to topics posted to the board, or make their own original topic. They can also privately message other uses with accounts. The website supports basic html and images, but like, barely.

Within the first week of the site being up and running, there's only a single topic pinned to the top of the board, with the title 'Information Sharing' by 'AJ Crowley'. If the title is clicked, the page opens to the topic:]

Let's get straight to business, shall we? There's a whole lot of us and we've no proper way to communicate with each other unless we sort it out ourselves, so this is me, sorting it out. The whole point of this is that we might pool together information to figure out what the fuck is going on in this place.

I'll start.

1. Attempting to leave will have you turning up in the closest medical facility and isn't advised, especially if it's foggy out.
2. No, this isn't Hell. Take my word for it.
3. The people that populate the town aren't real.
4. We're not all from the same universe or time period. Multiple universes are real, best get used to it.
5. The creatures in the fog can be killed, if you put the effort in.

If you've got something useful, let's share with the class, yeah? Can introduce yourselves as well, if you'd like, we might as well get to know each other if we're stuck here.

[And yet he does not introduce himself, because that's all there is to the message.]

NOTES.

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS: