How does Veeky Forums like their angels?

How does Veeky Forums like their angels?
I like mine Legion style
>uncaring mercyless killing machines
>razor sharp bulletproof wings
>can posess people

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Drama and "Muh feelings" aside, Supernatural's take on them is actually pretty good

>Designed to do their jobs unquestioningly
>Really need structure as thinking for themselves really doesn't doesn't compute as an option for them
>they can learn to be independent, but usually not before some sort of existential crisis
>opinion on humans tends to range from "Guilty of not giving a fuck" to how we might view apes or other animals ("Aw, how cute, their using tools now. They probably think they're people, too!") to downright contempt
>can posses people, but need their consent (although they aren't above tricking or threatening people to do so)
>most everything on Earth says "Fuck this, I'm out of here" when they arrive

I've gotten so fucking tired of edgelord Angels who are just as bad/worse than demons.

They're so played out at this point. I feel like we see more of them than Angels played straight at this point.

I think it's a shame too, because there's a lot of interesting questions that open up when you do have Good Angels.

The problem they face is pretty obvious, if pure Good beings like that exist why are there still problems and Evil in the world? But finding interesting answers to that without compromising their nature is more interesting to me these days than the various flavours of subversion.

The angels were created with the sole purpose of upholding god's law so for them thends justify the means.

That depends. Is it a spiteful and raging Old Testament God? Or a forgiving and merciful New Testement God? Honestly, I'm partial to the latter because I think the former is kinda edgy the way it's done these days.

I still like my angels incomprehensible and made of wheels, eyes, and wings, just also benevolent and righteous.

One of my favourite ways of justifying divine neglect is straight out of the bible- Angels love free will.

That humans have the ability to choose between sin and virtue makes the sin all the worse, but the virtue all the better. Every time an Angel steps in to force change or right a wrong, they're robbing humanity of the most precious and beautiful gift the Divine ever gave them, Freedom.

In an old setting of mine, where the world was beset by Demonic armies, this was the main reason the Angels were loathe to get involved. Many humans were willing to host Angels, but doing so destroyed their free will, bit by bit.

The first order were the Eyes, who lent Angels their sense, gaining supernatural sensory perception but losing privacy, knowing that everything they ever did or observed was being monitored and judged.

Next came the Mouth, those who gave their lips and tongues to an Angel, able to channel divine pronouncements and speak with divine authority, but losing the ability to speak against God or to lie.

After them were the Hands, those who gave their whole body to an Angel. They were truly superhuman, stronger and faster, much harder to kill... But they surrendered control of their own body. At will, an Angel could take them over and do whatever it would with them.

Lastly, greatest and most terrible, were the Wings. True incarnations of Angels, with wing and flaming sword, avatars of the divine... At the cost of snuffing out the mortal soul of the host, denying them Heaven or any afterlife as they became part of the Angel.

At times it was necessary, because the war with the Demons was going that bad, but no Angel wished to do so, and all of Heaven wept at the sacrifices necessary to keep fighting.

I mean more like god dosent really do mutch of anything so without direction they take it way too seriously

That's the way I spin it. Angels only get involved at the most dire of times for the most pious of people. Otherwise they leave people to do stuff on their own because having the will to do something is part of what makes it good. Demons and Devils are perfectly willing to help out huge amounts, but taking the easy route is obviously evil.

That's heavy duty Puritan thinking, but I stand by it at least in fantasy settings.

I don't. I actively try to curb Abrahamic influences from my games.

After having read the Bible, I realized just how omnipresent ideas from it are and kind of grew to hate it.

I prefer the old school biblical angels

Bizarre appearance
Multiple wings
Inspire fear in mortals

The two aren't incompatible though. Incomprehensible good is kinda fascinating.

I have three varieties: barbarian angels charged up by the sun, gothic pirate angels and kung-fu angels from flying monasteries.

Sexualized and dangerous at the same time.

They were stolen from earlier religions.

Genuinely good, depending on the deity they work for, but unable to come in and solve every moral dilemma due to some external limitter. An encounter with an angel should leave the players feeling better in some way or form. This is in contrast with encounters with demons/devils which should optimally leave the players feeling ultimately conflicted.
Angels tend to be too busy to answer most matters in my games so one appearing should be a huge warning sign to the party thar they're in the big boy league now and that something important is about to go down.

It's idealistic, I know, but I prefer having a clear "you can always trust these guys no matter what happens" element in my games. Even if the setting might be dark outside of that. The darkness of the setting merely affects the power level of the angels. In a grimdark setting they are fairly powerless and only able to do so much. In a heroic fantasy they can rally armies to fight against the forces of evil when the needs are dire.

Basically a paladin strives to achieve that which angels represent.

I can't remember where I read it, but I always remember a neat concept about why Angels and Demons might rarely act directly, instead mostly going through proxies.

Angels are beings of pure holy light. Beautiful and magnificent and awe inspiring, so full of truth and warmth that they're unlike anything in this world...

Imagine what an experience like that would do to someone. Having seen something so perfect and pure, that when you turn to the rest of the world it seems like ash. No good is equal to the radiance that was the Angel, and all evil is only worse because of what an affront it is. An encounter with an Angel can ruin your life.

And an encounter with a Demon can do the opposite. After seeing such a concentrated force of pure evil and wickedness, if you survive? Suddenly the world is bright. All those little worries no longer seem to matter, as you've seen the absolute worst things can possibly be, and it gives you new vigor and strength to go on.

Thus, servants of the Divine act in secret, in mortal guise or through lesser agents, as revealing themselves is actually harmful to their cause and ideals.

...

I'm a fan of Unknown Armies's "Cruel Ones", which are only known as such because that's what Demons call them, and if any human has ever seen one and survived, nobody knows(there is a ritual in one of the 2e books that summons 3 of them, but it requires that the 3 people casting the ritual kill themselves, and their bodies are used as hosts for the Cruel Ones, which immediately go about killing everything present.)

I also like CofD's God-Machine Angels, which are uncaring servants of an uncaring 'god'(and visibly are biomechanical monsters), and the Principal's Qashmallim, which are embodiments of the Divine Fire that exist primarily to guide Prometheans on their journey to achieve Humanity(and visually can look like basically anything, but often have some sort of fire on/around them, iirc).

Where in the bible does it say angels love free will? Where does it say people have free will?

Genuinely righteous and basically likeable if you can get past their varyingly inhuman appearances. Some wear fine disguises so that they can work amongst mortals without drawing attention.

Dumping some neato stuff from my angel folder. If I recall correctly, the ones made of wheels and eyes and fire were called chariots.

Avoiding the angel lewds because blueboard.

I like my angels as beholders of the righteous fury and justice as god, as holy messengers that mortals tremble and fear to behold. And, sometimes, as cuties.

...

And occasionally, with a touch of eldritch horror.

...

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>Legion/Dominion

I'm struggling to think of a franchise that represents more wasted potential.

Michael and Gabriel were awesome in Dominion, at least. On completely opposite sides of a war but they never stopped loving each other as brothers.

>I still like my angels incomprehensible and made of wheels, eyes, and wings, just also benevolent and righteous.
I remember many, many threads ago, some user was talking about a book series with cool-ass angels and demons
>Portal to hell opens in norwegia somewhere, bunch of demons spill forth
>Find local power centers approach, and go "Hello, we'd like to sue for political asylum"
>EU is like wut
>Surrounding countries are like wut
>Fundamentalist sections of murica start frothing at the mouth, but nobody cares
>Giant fucking house-sized masses of eyes, wings, and light show up in the capitol, announce "WE ARE MONITORING THE SITUATION" in a voice understood by all, then hang around not really doing a whole lot
>Unconfirmed reports of them vaporising muggers and rapists
>Confirmed reports of them singing along with random buskers in a wordless, beautiful harmony

Actually, that would be an interesting limitation, if they can't actually speak for themselves; just passing along deific announcements.

...

I fucking love that movie

>Genuinely righteous and basically likeable
Righteousness is an inherently unlikeable quality.

If so many people like Biblically correct angels made from wheels and eyes, why are they absent from games?

Like Mothman from the Mothman Prophecies, or like the Angels from NGE.

In general the more ayyy the better, no winged-human tropeshit.

Edgy, incomprehensible ayyyngels are the new tropeshit. Good-natured non-warrior winged humans are under-done.

Not really? You can be both. Self-righteous is different to righteous.

You must visit the real world more often.

I don't like angels.
I prefer chosens and god avatars who are previously just human and now something else due to their connection with their divine/demonic/otherwordly patron.
It set up better fun and conflict in both setting and plot than simply ye god one track servants with no minds of their own.

Post a few examples of mainstream films, shows or whatever that have been released since 2010 that have had non-edgy, non-ayy angels.

As incarnations of JUSTICE

WoD has the really trippy Old Testament/Jewish Kabbalah angels, right?

>you will never play a game where you fight against the Kabbalah demons, which are also trippy as fug

Legion. No other angel films have been made since 2010.

>Kabbalah demons, which are also trippy as fug
And you're speaking based on what? The Zohar doesn't describe demons in any detail.

I like my angels to be genuinely good and making sincere attempts at preserving life, but in the end thinking that what's best for the universe may not be what's best for the mortal races.

>You are important to us, but unfortunately preventing the end of all things is our highest priority
>We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause

I like angels that are at the same time Eldritch Abominations and all loving and compassionate. But it epends on the setting.
I also like the inhumanly methodical, god machine kind of angel, the ones that follow guidelines, protocols and programs.
Or the angels that are just people with wings who sometimes don't even know what are or what they should do because God works in mysterious ways. Extra points if they are hot.

Yeah, the bible doesn't talk much about free will as a concept itself. It DOES however talk a lot about choice as a major factor in life, not fate. It's explored a lot more in non-bible aspects of Christianity.

St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas wrote extensively on free will, drawing on the passages that talk about choosing sin or life. Mostly on the idea of 'If people have free will, how does this interact with the concept of Grace'.

Free will and it's importance is a highly important concept in theological talks mostly because of how it interacts with culpability for our own sins.

same

my angels are not infallible, but they still strive to do their best to uphold justice and stop evil

they also wear hoods up, or helmets on, at all times with no visible face

lawyer pls go

Turbofanatic has some great ideas.
turbofanatic.deviantart.com/art/Raquiel-188484506

oh cool, deoxys, my favourite pokeymon

The angels in my setting died when the mortals declared war on the divine.

Problem solved. Now only demons exist.

I was playing around with a setting idea where the Rapture arrived, but unfortunately, humanity had already spread amongst the stars. The setting would have factions that are devoted to Heaven or Hell or independent, and technology that works with magic. Like a spaceship that runs on hellfire. And Angels that participate in space battles alongside fighters and capital ships, flitting between space vessels, evading return fire and boarding spaceships by cutting through their hull with their flaming plasma swords.

I agree. I love how they depicted them so far. Still slowly grinding my way through it, though.

CUTE, and with a halo.

Because a halo is perfect decoration for a blowjob.

I have a soft spot for unironic angels

the image of beings who help us get through our worst moments, lights shining in the darkness, is a powerful one
they need not be perfect, but always being there for us, for guidance and support, is a very comforting one

Don't know exactly, but I'm guessing that humanoid angels are easier

Think about it: If you have these wheels with eyes and flying heads with 6 wings and whatever else, then you need models for them and animations and all that other shit
But if your angels are humanoid you only need to take the standard human template and add wings and a halo

Old school biblical please. I've always imagined that it would be like a couple of dudes showing up at your front door and like, and somethings off. Then its all, holy shit! their eyes are portals to infinity! what are they!

Then one smiles at you and says:
>"Do not be afraid"

This borders on memery. Not all biblical angels looked like that. In fact, the Thrones were the only wheel angels, and they spent their time carrying god's throne and fangirling over Seraphs.

I like my angels roastred in a nuclear fire.

actually none of them are like that. They're made of smokeless fire and have no material form.

the bizarre angels are just what happens when an unskilled or inexperienced angel triggers a seizure in the poor prophet they were talking too.

why nuclear fire and not fire?

Orthodox icons at the very least depict angels correctly.

You mean the film in which angels were genocidal zombies?

Not edgy at all.

I like biblical, eldritch angels. I like the alien design and mind, the blue and gray morality of it and the implications they bring.

I like drone-warrior servants of god. I like the robotic practices, inhuman logic and the notion that they're nothing more than foot soldiers of some holy war.

I like the paragon angel. The superman, the bastion of good and the champion of the righteous, who despite being figuratively and literally above human still believes in the best of us, the ability we have to be good, to make a difference, and inspires nothing less. Bonus points for being actual characters on top of this.