#and i think raphael would really start becoming ok with it when v1 showed him the vatican examples

[muzzleroars]

Going back to the Vatican stone ask,

What would the other archangels think of it?

And the mental image of V1 trying to identify what mini fossils Gabe has like how people try and find constalations on freckles so cute! Just V1 being like a little kid with dinosaurs is just so silly I love it.

I imagine a conversation would go something like this:

V1: "YOU GOT A TRILOBITE! :D"

Gabriel: w h a t

(see this!)

i think the only archangel that wouldn't be surprised by the development would be uriel - there was a lot of information on hell that was censored, including the initial set of fallen angels, but subsequent falls weren't so thoroughly stricken from the record. so he does have a bit of insight into their biology, and he would be aware especially of surface level changes (this information was made available as threats essentially, so show that angels become no better than hell mass when they fall). nevertheless he finds it interesting, as i doubt he was allowed to know all of the specifics, and he can instantly see the stone that makes up gabriel's body is far different in its composition from hell mass. he would absolutely participate with v1's identification process, but because of uriel's vast knowledge, he would almost instantly know each and every fossil - so he lets v1 guess based on its research, and then lets it know if it's correct (gabe feels like a museum exhibit)

raphael, truthfully, is a little put off by it though he does feel guilt for that. i just really think he's instinctively fearful of hell entities since he was never really meant to interact with them nor has he ever really had to, so gabriel's stone skin is a bit shocking for him. he can see an aesthetic appeal to it and i think he would slowly come around on it, but at first it's just too strange (plus he believes it seems a bit painful, given how gabriel's cracked the stone around his joints). michael is, predictably, disgusted by the demonic form in all its guises, and he greatly pities gabriel having to be anything like them. however...he also struggles feeling paradoxical envy at gabriel's successful fall, and there's something very appealing about a marble-like casing to someone whose skin is falling away more every day. in some ways, to him, gabriel's physical form has become incorruptible, preserved in stone and ice, and as much as he consciously rejects it, he actually wishes he could have that. he sees what falling fully looks like now, and he prefers it to this (especially observing gabe up close to see all of god's little creatures inset into his skin....if only he had gotten it right.)