Banner art by Gary Jamroz-Palma for Dan Luvisy. Mun is +30, minors respectfully requested not to interact. This is intended to be a brief rundown of the character and an FAQ for interacting. More information can be found here. I have two other active RP blogs: @godsinthewater and @apisanonymous.
WHO IS THIS?
Archangel Metatron, Celestial Scribe, Chancellor of Heaven, Voice of God. This interpretation is fandom-independent, and I have little interest in playing any canon Metatrons out there (as in Good Omens, Supernatural, etc.) There are, however, currently four main settings for my take on Metatron , which can be read in greater detail here. The Mun goes by "Ick", but also answers to "Metamun".
WHO WILL YOU PLAY WITH?
Reiterating that I'm not open to playing with minors; there WILL be mature themes on this blog from time to time. Other than that? I'd prefer to only do threads with mutuals, but I'll take asks from anybody.
ANY CONTENT WARNINGS?
Violence, religious horror, and similar topics are gonna be prevalent. I will not roleplay smut with anyone under 21, and frankly I'd prefer not to with anyone under 25. My dedicated smut tag is nsft. Please ask me to tag anything if something makes you uncomfortable-- I have a dark sense of humor, but I don't want to seriously disturb anyone.
WHAT IS METATRON LIKE?
Under the cut for length.
METATRON IS LOUD. VERY, VERY LOUD. EXPECT A LOT OF CAPSLOCK, although he is capable of dropping it when need be. Metatron has an extremely abrasive personality-- he is in essence an overworked bureaucrat. He's also rather foul-mouthed, which is much harder for him to drop.
With his twin Sandalphon, he is one of the most powerful beings in existence, second only to his Creator. His perception of reality is unlike that of most beings who perceive at most four dimensions of spacetime, which can make his mindset seem at times alien and callous. More on that here.
At heart, Metatron wants to see creation thrive. But having almost destroyed it through sheer force of love during an incident before the beginning of time, he tends to keep people at arm's length.
WHAT'S HE LIKE PHYSICALLY?
Metatron spends most of his time in the form of a tesseract, also known as a hypercube, a theoretical 4-dimensional shape that is to a cube what a cube is to a square. For your average person who can perceive only three dimensions of space, it's kinda trippy to look at. Colors and patterns play across his faces according to mood.
When he takes human form, he tends to be tall, broad, and bearded, often wearing a suit and tie. Christian Bale is his former faceclaim, and his current faceclaim is Joseph Cannata. He manifests up to six wings at a time, but usually only sports two when manifesting at all. His feathers look oddly translucent and crystalline, but are soft to the touch.
In situations that call for a more humanoid shape but fewer human features, Metatron takes the form of a faceless entity with silvery skin across which pass the same patterns and colors as his tesseract form, along with various cosmic phenomenon. A vague idea can be seen here. Unlike the image provided, though, Metatron does have "hair" that flows like fire or plasma, as well as two large bull's horns (or ram's horns, in verses without a connection to the Canaanite pantheon). This is usually his preferred "polite" form among his siblings.
"Noted. I feel like it used to be easier to tell." He tilts his head inquisitively, blank face impassive. Because really what else could it be?
"Welp, I'm down here for... other reasons, but what the hell. You wanna talk about it? You're a lot more fucking interesting than most of the schmucks I run into."
It's Sexual Sunday and I feel like... experimenting. Experimenting in this case meaning talking about Metatron's weird niche kinks and admitting by extension it's stuff I also enjoy writing. Here is me leaving my comfort zone, hooray.
Before I start no, it's not what you're thinking. No, not that, either. No, not that. Definitely not that. Whatever you were thinking, you missed the mark. Unless you didn't, in which case I am very shocked. When I say "weird niche" I mean "weird niche". It's not even stuff that most people would think of as gross, I don't think, it just would not come to mind.
Putting under a readmore just in case.
Metatron likes having his partners inside him. Literally inside him. "Are you talking about vore, Ick," no I am not talking about vore. In this case I'm not even talking about endosoma or "safe" vore. I am definitely not the only person to think about this kind of thing, but I don't know if there is an agreed-upon term. Just bear with me as I explain the vision.
Metatron's form is very fluid. It can be very fluid in a very literal sense. And just... OK, some people really like cuddling. Metatron likes advanced cuddling. You know the thing of how Venom from Marvel is a symbiote and just kinda... encases its host? How it's inside Eddie, but also Eddie is inside Venom and just.
The intimacy of it all?
I know for a fact I'm not the only one into that shit but I don't think there's a standard term for it. This is especially frustrating because there are kinks associated with it that I am very much not into. I want to hasten to add, for example, I'm not just thinking of Meta clinging to someone like a skintight suit. That's a different thing. But someone just kind of... sinking into his fluid form... him holding them like that... his lover feeling completely covered in him, every inch of skin a point of contact while he gets a possessiveness rush from having them so close and hidden from the rest of the world...
This is one of those things that isn't even really exclusively a kink, it hits some part of my brain that just. Gets happy about it.
Doesn't have to be exactly like that, though. There is one thread I did waaaaaaay back where Meta was in hypercube form and, in short, his lover entered into him and tentacle sex happened. For him, there's a similar sort of satisfaction. It's the having someone inside him completely, thing. Him being a barrier between them and the rest of the world. Them being so close, closer than anything possible for mere mortals. It wasn't like covering someone just... having them in him, even though there was a lot more space internally.
An embrace beyond anything else.
And now I am going to stop writing because that's enough being outside the comfort zone for one night.
“You'd have done the same, " said Lily.
"No," said Granny. "I'd have thought the same, but I wouldn't have done it."
"What difference does that make, deep down?"
"You mean you don't know?"
-- Lily and Granny Weatherwax, Witches Abroad
The context here, which I can give without major spoilers, is that the evil witch-- Lily-- has set herself up as the shadow ruler of a fairytale kingdom. She is the kind of person who turns people into beetles and then steps on them. Granny Weatherwax is the good witch. She doesn't particularly like being a good witch. She would like to be the kind of person who turns people into beetles and steps on them, but she cares about the difference between right and wrong and therefore has to choose right.
Note that Lily is utterly convinced she's the good one, despite it all. Granny knows of her own worse inclinations and chooses to be good anyway.
I kind of want to smash this quote in the internet's face sometimes. I am not naive enough to imagine every dead writer I admire-- in this case Terry Pratchett-- would agree with me on everything, but the most basic point is that there is a difference between thinking about something and doing it, and we really need to learn that.
And it is especially relevant that the bad guy is the one who doesn't understand the difference.
I have some specific examples in mind but I'm trying harder not to rant these days and this is long enough.
Seeing other people complain about hatred and ignorance without doing the introspection to avoid displaying it themselves. Particularly in the form of projecting a set of traits and motives on to entire groups of people.
like
you know that you and yours are often misrepresented. so maybe try to apply that insight a little more broadly to others. i'm not only speaking in terms of being "fair" or "just", it's that because you it is very difficult successfully engage with people meaningfully if your impression of them is wrong. and i'm talking both positively and negatively.
and i have more to say on that but is should stop before i get too ranty.
very tired but also vaguely smug to learn the person who got the history of copernicus' career and the reception of his ideas wrong also completely butchered Ovid, ascribing to him the line:
"The gods play with us as if we were dice, and all their pleasure lies in our suffering."
and you know what? i almost bought that but then i had the wherewithal to look it up. Ovid has the gods doing some very nasty things but that still didn't sound like his voice. and yep, total fabrication, at best some kind of mishmash of shakespeare and einstein. i thought it was suspiciously pithy and i was right.
i just enjoy when people i disagree with are consistently wrong. lord knows i've had to grudgingly acknowledge when ignorant people make decent points too often for my taste. i am going to fully roll around in my pettiness for a moment.
today on "I am posting this here to avoid making drama elsewhere"
Every time someone brings up Copernicus I really feel the need to object to his being framed as "lucky" to have escaped the Church's censorship when he died in full communion and well-respected. His ideas weren't even particularly criticized until decades after his death. In 1533 German theologian Johann Albrecht Widmanstadt gave a lecture on Copernican theory to Pope Clement VII and the papal court, and was rewarded with a copy of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s De sensu et sensibili. Widmanstadt went ahead and inscribed that copy with a note about the circumstances he'd received it. He went on to be a secretary to Pope Paul III, and then Cardinal Nikolaus von Schönberg. The cardinal directly wrote to Copernicus in 1536:
Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you, and also to congratulate our contemporaries among whom you enjoyed such great prestige. For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe; that the eighth heaven remain perpetually motionless and fixed; and that, together with the elements included in its sphere, the moon, situated between the heavens of Mars and Venus, revolves around the sun in the period of a year. I have also learned that you have written an exposition of this whole system of astronomy, and have computed the planetary motions and set them down in tables, to the greatest admiration of all.
Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject. Moreover, I have instructed Theodoric of Reden to have everything copied in your quarters at my expense and dispatched to me. If you gratify my desire in this matter, you will see that you are dealing with a man who is zealous for your reputation and eager to do justice to so fine a talent. Farewell. (Rome, November 1, 1536)
These are not events which would have transpired if Copernicus, in his own time, was not allowed to speculate on heliocentism, or if people who were enthusiastic about his ideas were afraid to share them. High-placed individuals in the Church were excited about his ideas. Obviously by the time of the Galileo affair the political climate had shifted, not least because the Reformation had been going on for decades and the Church was increasingly paranoid about laymen making theological statements. Authoritarian institutions in general are more permissive the more complete they feel is their control, but also Copernicus was a hell of a lot more diplomatic than Galileo. It's unacceptable when people in power act out of misplaced wounded pride (as Pope Urban VIII certainly did after the whole Simplicio mess) but that's not an issue of dogma, it's petty feelings.
Moral of this story being, even within very old, established institutions what is or is not heresy is subject to change. I actually have no objection to your statement "The system doesn't care if you're right – it cares if you obey", that's completely correct. Dogma is bad. I just personally feel like tearing my hair out every time the fine details of Copernicus' career and reception get glossed over.
(This was going to be posted on a goddamn Genshin Impact subreddit and I am trying not to hit the submit button.)
// if could possibly get a bit of help... My Mom wasn't able to work this week due to a medical procedure. She's talking about checks bouncing. I don't get paid until middle of next week. (The hotel we stayed at yesterday was paid for by my aunt who lives states away.) And even after I get paid, I have a medical appointment coming up myself that will cost around $400. 🫠 (It's for vision. So it's important. Would rather not reschedule.)
I have ko-fi. Also have cashapp, venmo, PayPal.
My mom and I have to combine our incomes to get by. Anything at all will help. Or sharing this if you can't - nobody is getting by easily in this economy.
I need some kind of AU where Metatron gets to have the energy Lillian Gish has here. There aren't many opportunities I have to portray him as frightened but absolutely adamantine in his defense of people he loves.
"It's a hard world for little things," with that tired bitterness is absolutely already something at the core of his heart.
😿 - I’m too shy to reach out
👥 - I don’t know which of my muses you’re interested in
➕ - Other reason(s) -i'm pretty stupid haha, and don't know what to say to start something half the time.-
Why aren't we interacting?
Let me open by saying thank you for doing the commentary with Raph, because that did make it easier for me to reach back. It was brave of you, I hope you don't mind me saying.
Funnily enough one thing that stops me from doing more with multimuse blogs is I'm never sure which muses they want to play against mine. I used to do more muses but right now they're all on the backburner because it turns out too much switching on my end burns me out if I'm not careful, but the other way around is fine. Lemme know if they're any muses you'd especially like Meta to interact with?
Almost everyone I follow I worry about bothering, including you. So. Thank you again for reaching out!
this is going to be morose and not very coherent. you can read something else. in real terms i'm ok.
normally i would put this under a readmore to strike a compromise between venting and not forcing people to see me being unhappy. this time i'm just going to rely on the tags for that because i do, somehow, want more of a chance for all this to be seen. it's not really logical, though. it's still me trying to have things both ways.
i just. need help. and i have no idea what kind of help, really, but even thinking about being seen is something of a relief. i know nobody can really do more than that. everyone i know just seems so in the thick of problems. but i am not doing well and i feel like i need to do something about that. right now all i can think of is to ramble about stuff at the heart of my unhappiness.
this has given the reader plenty of time to set this aside. i hope that counts for something. you take care of yourself.
ha. let's do the readmore anyway, just in case. it's enough the rest of this is visible.
just had a long, rambling discussion with my mom about, in a word, what is wrong with me. i love her a lot. sometimes i say to myself that i am still hanging on to life because of her, but if i'm totally honest the usual cowardice derived from the survival instinct plays as much a part. as much as i would like to imagine being able to un-problematically do away with myself after i lose her, the fear is probably going to keep me hanging on for a while at least. not looking forward to that. not looking forward to much of anything, really.
we got do discussing personal beliefs. i am essentially a nihilist, and not the fun kind. i really hate the fun kind. from my point of view they won a kind of deterministic lottery that enables them to be happy where i can't be. it's nothing to do with reason, it's all feelings. there's this "if nothing matters you might as well be happy and have fun" kind of thing. or as it was once expressed in an xkcd comic, "the future is an adventure!"
but the thing is, if you really take the time to consider all of the implications of a universe without any inherent meaning, things get tricky. existentialists drag themselves out of nihilism by claiming, essentially, "it's my life, and for the duration of my life i will create meaning as it is relevant to me". this is appealing because it essentially sets up the individual as a kind of god in an extremely narrow sense. it just completely falls apart when it comes into contact with materialism and determinism. you end up incapable of making value comparisons if there is no objective value. if life and death are really meaningless at the most you have an eternal stalemate.
there's a bit lots of my fellow atheists like in the terry pratchett novel Hogfather where death justifies believing the little lies of childhood-- the tooth fairy, the hogfather (discworld's santa claus) as a means of preparing people for believing in the "big lies":
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.
Death goes on to say, "NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?"
i. fucking. loathe. this. speech. because ultimately what this is, is, "We really want society to function in a certain way, so we're going to act like some things are true and real despite knowing that they aren't." it's willful ignorance. how the FUCK can you defend reason and logic and empiricism in any fucking context if you get to the point where you realize it's only by encouraging other people to believe lies that you're going to get the life you want? why not just encourage people to be religious, why is that pack of lies a problem over your nice secular sophisticated pack of lies? at least religious people aren't lying.
the bit at the end about "how else can they become" is verbalist bullshit. the implication is that if people believe these things they can become real, which is self-defeating if you're already starting from materialism. that's a kind of argument that goes at least back to the ancient Confucian philosopher Xunzi, who argued if you spent enough time faking believing there was a point in rituals and etiquette, you'd come to prefer them. other confucian and daoist philosophers pointed out plenty of people fake cultivated virtue and don't lose a wink of sleep over it. mainstream confucianism, in contrast to Xunzi, asserts there is some kind of heavenly design. it's not the same thing as a personal god but it is a transcendent order that provides a means of making value-judgements. pratchett was not breaking any new ground.
i will say again, i hate that speech. i had the assumptions that come with it. it's clinging to idea that there IS, actually, some kind of value in people creating value. at best we're dealing with solipsism, and the "i fucking love science" types are hypocritical for embracing that because at the moment what science seems to indicate is that human life, individually or collectively, is totally worthless. and it disgusts me how people can go from waxing poetically about how insignificant earth is in the grand scheme of things and how it's arrogant to position humans at the center of things to getting angry about injustice. if humans are so insignificant than how is just believing in justice supposed to bring it into existence? and if you go the full materialist, daniel dennett route then you have to confront that everything we think we want is just the result of material processes anyway.
rocks fall. everyone dies. there's no meaningful difference between those happenings under that assumption.
when i started writing this, i thought i was going to open with talking about how much i envy people who can just... choose to believe in things. because that's what was preying on me most in the moment. my mom believes a kinda quasi-Indic thing where everything in the universe is a manifestation of god, that everything is god learning and experimenting with itself. what i would like to believe is that old, battered teddy-bear of a worldview that there is a underlying order to the universe, that good is objectively real, and that somehow at the end of everything there is something that takes care of people. that all separations are only temporary or illusory. that things turn out ok.
i know i am seeking consolation, and that very self-knowledge hurts because consolation is not the same thing as truth. some people can choose to believe something even if there's no evidence for it, and god, god, god do i envy them. i cannot comprehend them and i wish i could. i wish i could just make something up and believe it because it made me happy. i wish i could just believe what somebody else made up. i wish, most of all, that i could believe that there was something good that wasn't just made up. that there was something real at the base of it all. that it wasn't just atoms and the void. that there was a right and wrong beyond what a bunch of weird little conglomerations of matter act out like figures in a clock.
i don't know how to get out of this, but if i don't talk about it i never will. i don't know.
The elder angel casually de-materializes his jacket and shirt so Andras can directly feel his silvery skin. He was quietly fretting about the proper temperature, and he's pleased he's apparently picked a good one.
"I do my best. Especially when my best gets the hottest fuckin' angel alive to press against me." He nuzzles Andras's hair. "You wanna swim somewhere, love? No salt and no chlorine, of course."
The archangel is in his less human form, and when he wraps his wings around the younger angel, the effecting is actually cooling. Even through his suit, his skin temperature is noticeably cool. Not freezing, but something like gel pack on the cooler side.
"If you're doing any melting it's gonna be against me, lover."
