JOPHIEL

[Jophiel]

[app] Jophiel [/app]

[app]Full Name:[/app] יופיאל, Iophiel, Zophiel
[app]Preferred Nickname/Alias:[/app] Jophiel is a nickname, of sorts. Goes by Joseph Phelps when he needs to give a human name.
[app]Gender:[/app] Male, insofar as it matters
[app]Age:[/app] That is not a relevant question for an angel.
[app]Sexual Orientation:[/app] Another mostly irrelevant question. But only mostly, he's been running around the earth a long time. If he has leanings, they're toward men more than women so...gay?
[app]Member Group:[/app] Angel, Cherubim
[app]Canon or Original:[/app] Original

Almost six foot four, skinny but built to be so. His face is inexpressive; too sculpted and perfect to look anything but sphinx-like unless he's trying hard to emote. It ends up looking androgynous, though taken piece by piece his features aren't at all feminine. There is a tattoo of Dali's Temptation of St. Anthony on his left upper arm and shoulder.

He wears his dark hair spiky and uneven in a vaguely 50's-ish cut, and his eyes are an unremarkable flat blue until you look into them. Because he has been on Earth so long, Jophiel's mortal form is not the borrowed flesh of a righteous man but rather a construct created millennia ago.

[app]Face Claim:[/app] Tyler Riggs

[app]Likes:[/app]

• Religious art, especially with heretical overtones.
  
• Old-school punk
  
• Cigarettes
  
• Human love
  
• The song 'Hallelujah', written by Leonard Cohen. He collects covers of it.
  
• Salads. He's not a vegetarian, he just really likes salads, especially the kinds that have eighty-seven different things mixed in to them.
  
• The 1950s Rebel-Without-a-Clue aesthetic
  
• The Colbert Report
  
• His siblings.

[app]Dislikes:[/app]

• Modern churches
  
• Zealotry, of any kind
  
• Taco Bell
  
• Humidity
  
• The entire fifteenth century. All of it.
  
• When his siblings lose perspective.
  
• Having to sacrifice another human to protect his charge.
  
• Those reality shows that are about encouraging people to be awful to one another.
  
• Hydrangeas. They smell...wrong.
  
• Frogs. Their mouths are disturbing.

[app]Strengths:[/app]

• Standard Angelic abilities, but in addition as chief of the choir of Cherubim, Jophiel possesses one of the biblical flaming swords which only comes alight in the guarding/protecting of the righteous.
  
• Jophiel has been on earth for a very, very long time and has a profound understanding of human nature.
  
• A good reputation among the angelic ranks, allowing him a bit of freedom in his movements and decisions.
  
• He has a complicated mind and though it's not any part of a cherub's job he's picked up some of the combination of psychology, mathematics, and narrative instinct that lets angels predict the likely future.
  
• Because he has been on Earth so long, Jophiel's mortal form is not the borrowed flesh of a righteous man but rather a construct created millenia ago.

[app]Weaknesses:[/app]

• A touch too sympathetic toward humans.
  
• Jophiel likes it on earth, and has no desire to ever return to Heaven permanently.
  
• He never entirely lets go of a charge and keeps an eye on them even once he's theoretically no longer involved.
  
• Carries a good deal of guilt for his role in the Fall of Man.
  
• He thinks he might be figuring out what all the fuss about sex and romance is about. This is a problem.

[app]Fears:[/app]

• Being recalled to Heaven
  
• His one act of true disobedience being discovered. (See Secrets)

[app]Secrets:[/app]

• Twenty centuries ago, when the Lamb of the Nazarene was born, Jophiel slipped back to the lost Garden and removed the flaming sword that had prevented the sons of Adam from ever re-entering Paradise. So far as he knows, no one has ever discovered his private rebellion, but someday he will inevitably pay for his initiative.
  
• He would like to have a child.

[app]Habits and Quirks:[/app]

• Smokes like a chimney, though most of the time what he's actually smoking is the memory of a Players he enjoyed in 1932.
  
• He's a little more fond of sarcasm than an angel ought to be.

[app]Overall Personality:[/app]

Guardian angel, protector, with a fiery sword and a smart mouth and a cigarette in his hand. Always looking for the best but expecting to be disappointed, forgiving over and over when he is. Loyal to his Father, to his Host, to the ideas that they were given so ver long ago and yet in no great hurry to return to Heaven. Smirking and sarcastic, laughing and unimpressed, but he loves these flawed, foolish creatures he is meant to protect. Humans will never know, should never know, how beautiful they are in Jophiel's eyes.

In his interactions with his charges he is whoever they need him to be. Compassionate, gentle, hearty, violent, whatever it takes to keep them safe and moving along the correct path. With everyone else he comes out dry and self-mocking. Mocking of everything else, too, though that's more habit than real disdain. Jophiel loves everything about the world of men, he just knows he's not supposed to and so he pretends very well.

[app]Family:[/app]

• The Host of Heaven

[app]Overall History:[/app]

Loyalty is a funny thing. Jophiel is emphatically not one of the four angels who has ever spoken directly to their Father; he's not nearly important enough for that. But that has never particularly bothered the cherub guardian, whatever his failings--and he has them--Jophiel has never doubted his place in the Universe and that place is carrying out his Father's will. When Lucifer rebelled nobody even approached Jophiel to join the ranks of the apostates, his loyalty was too clear. The cherub and his fifty-three legions remained at the right hand of Metatron.

Jophiel has been on Earth and guarding Mankind since the beginning. The very beginning; he was one of the guardians of Eden and it was Jophiel who wielded the flaming sword and drove Adam and Eve out of Paradise and to the cruel lands beyond. He is a guardian, a protector, and has been watching over the sons of man ever since. His instructions come directly from the Voice and he had never lost a charge until this most recent war.

Like all angels, Jophiel lacks free will in the Biblical sense, but because of the nature of his tasks and service he has rather greater freedom than most angels as he has to use his own judgment to know how best to protect his charges. Over the centuries he has developed a sympathy for humanity that may well be heretical, especially his admiration for mankind's stubbornness and defiance. He's getting closer and closer to heresy, and so far the only thing protecting him is that his superiors have long since stopped monitoring him closely while on earth. He gets his work done, his loyalty to the Host is solid, nothing else particularly matters.

[app]Member Title:[/app] cranky, chain-smoking cherub

[app]Roleplaying Sample:[/app]

The demon had been moving around the city for weeks, Jophiel caught the stink of her everywhere. Clinging to cars and the sides of buildings, lingering in the air in parking lots, fouling everything it touched. It offended the angel on a fundamental level, but his orders were very clear and unless the creature did something to directly threaten his charge he was not to engage.

Jophiel's current assignment, a young man who would someday write a very important piece of music, was out clubbing with his friends that night and so the angel was nearby, just in case. He wouldn't have stayed so close if it weren't for the demon's presence, but better safe than sorry and the cherub had no intention of ever failing to protect a charge again, no matter what. So he lingered a bit down the street from where the young human and his friends were partying, close enough to move in immediately if there was any trouble but hopefully not drawing attention to the boy by stepping too close.

To any onlooker it was just a skinny, somewhat androgynous young man leaning against the brick front of a defunct bank, the collar of his pea coat turned up against the nighttime chill, smoking a cigarette and probably waiting for someone. A few of the cars driving by slowed down, men leaning across the passenger seat to peer through tinted glass. Jophiel could taste the shame and desperation on them, curdled longing for something they hated and needed in equal measure. He kept his head tilted down, eye contact only encouraged some of them and nothing was more embarrassing than having to confront a man with the flaming brand of God just to convince him that you weren't a hustler. It had been a good long time since Jophiel got backed into a corner that badly, but why tempt Fate? Better to keep his head down, smoke his cigarette, and leave the venial sins to others to worry about. He had a reckless young musician to keep alive and that was plenty of work all by itself.

---

[app]Player Name:[/app] Briar
[app]Player Age:[/app] Older than 35
[app]Years Roleplaying:[/app] About 20
[app]Where You Found Us:[/app] Devi
[app]Other Characters:[/app] Castiel, Ed Zeddmore, Adam Milligan, Norah Byron, Zee Kerrick
[app]Favorite Supernatural Episode:[/app] Monster Movie
[app]Favorite Supernatural Character:[/app] Castiel

[Devi B.]