#and he'll never remove it if anyone/anything other than v1 might see him

[cherubchoirs]

Oh I am soooo feral in love with the way Gabriel’s true face looks after his fall! It has this incredibly “gaze unto the abyss which in turns gazes unto you” vibe I love it. And something about the endless cavity just aaaahhhh. Where once was a flame burning with holy passion and devotion is now an endless and consuming maw of rock and sorrow. Does he let V1 pet the bone feathers I must know.

(reference to this!)

aaaaaa thank you!!!! i really wanted his design to reflect "the fire is gone" motif, to be left burned and melted from flames that once composed his very being. his defining feature as one of the four archangels, the eagle that blazed brilliantly to adorn his head, has been ripped out from the very core of his being to leave behind a cavernous abyss that was once the fount of his heavenly fire. just as he had burned endlessly with the fire of god's love, so now he is endlessly empty and his anatomical crown is split so all may see the vessel bereft of its sacred contents. and his face is petrified into that state, it may never heal or change to stand in contrast to the ever-changing, living flames that had consumed him before. only his eyes move encased in sockets that desperately want to freeze them in the same way, but he refuses to cry the tears that should forever lock them in place.

v1 definitely pets the feathers :] gabriel rarely removed his helmet before he fell, and only did so once allowing v1 to actually see him, so it thrills in having so much unbarred access now as gabriel learns to accept himself. it wants to touch him, hold him, experience a closeness it hasn't been able to have to this point....it's a bit overwhelming for gabe at first, feeling unworthy of so much affection and thinking v1 must be doing so as consolation. but it becomes increasingly apparent it's enamored with his face, finding it far more compelling, more beautiful in its aesthetic sense with it being scarred. like all the new features he's acquired, it shows what he chose, it's an unmistakable emblem of his autonomy. this is its gabriel, the one that it loves and knows...and besides all that, it just plain thinks he looks good yk

[cherubchoirs]

I love that in the Old Testament, mortals couldn't look at an angel's face or God's light, because they will burnout. And in Ultrakill, we can't see Gabriel's true face, but I'm pretty sure it's clearly there, by the holes in the helmet. What a beautiful reference. In my headcanons, Gabriel's face (his true form) is more destructive than the helmeted one. From angelic mercy, he never takes off his helmet.

How is it in your theories?

Oh and what do you think about Lucifer? What would he look like? Should we wait art from you, with him?

P. S. I love you art sooo muchh

aaaaa thank you so much! AND YES....more angel theories!!! my answer will include spoilers from the new update + the arg, so proceed with caution!!

ooooh i love theories on gabe's true face and just why he always keeps it covered, bc there definitely is something under there given those holes in his helm. i have two ideas on it, and one is what you've stated here - that simply seeing his open radiance would cause severe damage and so he keeps it concealed. even in a fight he cannot win, even as v1 bests him twice, he would never resort to removing his helmet nor even consider it. it's not in his nature, nor would he ever favor a victory that relies on something so sure and honestly so cheap (and it would be considered unacceptable by his peers as well, just an incredibly poor show from anyone in heaven let alone an archangel). in fact, he would protect against it, doing what he can to not allow too much damage to his helm, not for his sake but for others.

second theory is that he could remove it without causing harm, but his true form is only to be seen by god and so he never does. i do think it would still be dazzling to look at and would radiate a significant amount of heat, but it's safe to see, even to touch for something like v1, it's just not meant for anyone but himself and god. it goes back to the idea that his identity is not his, that his face is not to be known by anyone because he is not to be known - and this is so for all true angels, none of them know one another's faces. this is the one i tend to go with more often, but it's really just because i do like gabriel allowing v1 to see his face before he dies, to let himself be known even if it's at the very end. there is no god and soon there will be nothing left of him as well...so he wants v1 to see him as he is, to break that taboo and let himself truly be remembered.

now lucifer is interesting...i saw people speculating before that lucifer wouldn't be a part of the game, but now we know he's canon due to the newest testament. and that testament is....interesting in regard to how he might fit into the story. it states how god cast him into hell, but the preceding lines are vague and i'm not sure if they're in reference to lucifer or not. an angel asks god why eternal torment exists, and this angel referred to may be lucifer who was cast out for questioning god (and causing him to question himself) BUT generally the war in heaven that saw satan damned is what creates hell in most mythologies. meaning that lucifer is being mentioned here as an example of one that god has damned while the angel that asks the question may be someone else (obviously first pick is gabriel due to his narrative importance and how the angel is described in the testament - this could be god terrified that he will again lose his brightest angel). BUT ANYWAY....how he'll be incorporated is anyone's guess, though of course he could borrow from dante's satan and that depiction is pretty interesting imo - in the inferno, satan is locked in ice, forever in tears, and has caused the deepest layer of hell to freeze over by constantly beating his massive wings. he is frozen in eternal grief, he can't interact with anyone or anything because he is so deeply buried in his own tormented mind that the outside world no longer exists. his hell is wholly internal, he seems to know nothing of the external hell he and all his sinners are in, how he himself is making it unbearable to them because he sees and knows nothing but his own emotional pain. however, i'm not entirely sure how he might work as an enemy, considering how unresponsive he is (although it could actually be kind of funny as a concept. like that thing just doesn't care and you're trying to kill it lol)

BUT but i saw over on twitter that the arg has been solved, and through that we now know (if the document is correct in canon) that hell itself is sentient. it's bored, the humans came to it and it devoured their knowledge, it analyzed them to mimic their technologies and augment the husks there. it may have some kind of symbiosis at this point with the terminals or they have worked in tandem (i keep thinking now both of them together may have wiped out humans, hell for more to play with, the terminals so that all machines would be forced to enter hell for their shared entertainment). and i have to wonder. where is lucifer in this? is he as dante's satan, ignorant of all this due to his own isolated misery? is he a part of this, a part maybe of hell itself that gave it its mind and now they're one and the same and he is no longer lucifer? is he trapped in it like the rest of the sinners there and used for hell's entertainment too? honestly there's far too much to speculate at so i can't give any definitive answer but i do think whatever the case, lucifer is going to be in a wretched state. at the very least, i've got the nebulous sort of idea that he'll show just how vile a creation hell really was.