Michael, the Ruined Prince

Michael, having used all of his power to seek out God, had failed as the Prince of Heaven. He had abandoned his people, absent for centuries on a fruitless search filled with unheard, increasingly desperate prayers and an unrelenting, bone-deep exhaustion that is now permanent. His grief grew day by day, and an angel in isolation begins to wither, to warp – they must be with one another lest they twist into their extremes, retreating into their divine purpose until it becomes self-destructive parody. And Michael had already been scarred long ago by his role in banishing Lucifer, by God’s own ever-mounting wrath that ate away at the mercy he was meant to feel alongside it. Michael had already been insular, something had already pulled at the seams of his soul, and now centuries of failure consume him. He would return to Heaven with nothing for his people. Nothing for the siblings he swore to protect.

So his final thought in a deeply troubled mind urged him to try one last time. That if he could not find God, then he must bring God to himself. He must sin, he must beg for punishment, and then God will come to deliver it onto him. Just as He once did to Lucifer. It disgusted him, to think he had to debase himself to be as the sinners he held nothing but vile contempt for ever since he couldn’t cope with the guilt of the first fallen angels. But his prayers have failed, his days of weeping have failed, he moved Heaven, Earth, and all of Hell to come up with empty hands. Less than that. Not even a feeling. So Michael, even as a Cherub who could not, did everything he could to replicate his memories of when he had witnessed God Himself tear the light from His angels. Michael had seen it every time, it was he that had to bind any fallen angel that survived it to their place in Hell. He knew, implicitly, what the ritual was even if God seemed to enact it in one beautiful, elegant motion. And he did just that. Imperfect pantomiming, flawed execution, but the same ritual as best as Michael could copy it. All to himself.

But only God and the high Seraphim can sever an angel from their light.

His soul was rent from his body. His light was torn to shreds by his inexperienced hands. The agony that it screeched resounded all the way back to Heaven in unintelligible, muted whispers of nauseous grief no one could understand. Michael felt himself die, but it was incomplete. He was left in a corpse, a body destroyed and succumbing to all it meant but with him still inside of it. God did not come, and Michael was trapped a ruined body, bereft of a soul, of his light, giving way to rot and deterioration yet fully functional. He could do nothing but take this as a sign from God, one that he will not be punished no matter his crime for being such a loyal servant. Even as his body falls apart, as plants begin to burst from his remains, he believes himself to be blessed – see how he grows God’s garden. See how his crown remains pristine. He adorns his exposed bones with gems and finery, ostensibly as thanks to God for keeping him alive, keeping him sinless when he had so despised his impending fall from grace. But. Michael is, in the back of his mind, highly aware of what he’s become. He knows he is rotting, he knows he is in a dead body, he knows, somewhere, God had nothing to do with it. It was just a mistake, it was just his own foolishness with catastrophic consequence. He is more noxious than a fallen angel now, a botch job shambling numbly back to Heaven when he feels the death of Gabriel.

Upon his return, he largely attempts to hide the rot of his body, at least from the citizenry – he cannot hide it from Raphael or Uriel, nor does he try. To Michael, it proves his devotion, it shows God’s still present love for him, and it is a testimony to how he cannot fall, that he can never lose his place in Heaven. Raphael begs for him to be healed, Uriel pleads reason to him, but neither had ever been as strong as Michael and ultimately, he is their leader. No matter the state he returns in, he is the Prince of the Archangels and truthfully...they both fear him now. He is not the Michael they loved, not the one that had been quiet and stoic yet still loving in return. The Michael that would have done anything for them, that never wanted to lose another like he lost Lucifer. He commands them now to join him in binding Gabriel, his tangible grief the only thing that seems to be left of who he had once been.

Internally, Michael sees their fear, he feels the crushing guilt of Gabriel’s fall, he is violently ill with one true look at himself. He had gone wrong a long, long time ago, when he lost Lucifer, and now all of that was being made manifest, but he can’t face it. As flesh falls away, he covers it more and more with jewels as if that could hide the decay he can feel spreading night and day, the only thing he feels now. He must retreat into his purpose, he must not allow such devastating failure to be his legacy. So he turns on Gabriel. Gabriel, whose light had been severed. Who walks freely in an abandoned Hell. Who still has a living, breathing body. Michael’s vitriol toward the damned hones in on Gabriel, consumed with being sure he is left nailed to the lowest pit in Hell for his treachery. All the love he once had turns to hatred and in it, the other three can see that Michael has been left shattered, that nothing in him truly believes God made him this way. God’s most loyal, left to rot.

Additional information:

Michael now always exudes the Odor of Sanctity, but there is a distinct undertone of mold to it

The opalescent webbing that runs through his body is the angelic brain - normally it is iridescent and transparent with a strange glow, but Michael's is opaque and dull

Michael now prefers walking, something noted as unusual when he returned to Heaven, but it's simply due to the fact that his body has been left entirely numb and so it's difficult to maneuver in the air properly

He is very protective of his crown and dragon-skin bag, as they seem to be the only things left uncorrupted on him

you don't have to post this if you don't want, i just wanted to let you know I support you. maybe I'm just not in the right headspace to understand, but i truly don't get the mentality that you not wanting to create 18+ content for an au you love, even one that's specifically 18+, is somehow censuring. you are the owner of your blog and you create for you and how you're comfortable doing it? just because you personally aren't publicly making nsfw content doesn't mean other people can't/you don't like them. the only thing I sorta understand is the name thing and how, out of context, it could seem you weren't happy with the original, but even then that's a valid perspective. not everybody has to like an AU, and if someone wants to do their own version there is literally no excuse for sending them hate. this is a fandom of AUs and derivative content, to get mad at someone else for following suit is hypocritical. you aren't in the wrong here, and the people spreading misinformation about you with the intention to hurt (even if they feel thReAtEnED by your PERSONAL AU INTERPRETATION THAT RHEY ARE FREE TO CURATE OUT OF THEIR FEED SHOULD THEY NOT LIKE IT ...) are absolutely being horrendous. I'm here for you if you wanna talk, you can DM on discord or here. I hope you're okay.

I mean, in a way I can understand taking it as censoring, especially after talking to a few people about it directly, since it was a bit of a combination between both the interpretation of the name misunderstanding as well as ULR not being 18+ leading to the conclusion that it was censoring Underlust. But after I explained it, the couple of people who approached me about that specific issue understood pretty quickly, too.

And, in all honesty, if I don't really like something, I wouldn't go through the effort of trying to make anything based off of it. The closest example that I can think of where I did something akin to that is when I once tried like, writing an AU for Fire Emblem Fates, because I love the concept of the games, but thought the execution couldn't have been worse. (I've done insane amounts of research on how it truly was so bad, and honestly, the dev team was a complete mess, so I don't really blame them for how it turned out despite them being the ones that made it lol. They barely could come to a midway point for it, so the fact they released it was a miracle.) Sure, there's points of Underlust I don't like, but as I've said before I could say that about everything I like. Except maybe Promare /j (but it is a good movie)

It's also probably really weird, but like, even with things I know I don't like, I'm willing to read or look into sometimes. Like, I don't like Dreamtale at all, but I've gotten myself fairly invested in More than one fic about it and do like some people's works based on it. I'm between unable to handle and yet can tolerate yandere fics nowadays thanks to Alch's fics and them just being a generally wonderful human being, but like, before that they just sent me into a panic attack lol. Ragnartale is also a weird one I am somehow invested in, since it's like, on the surface, it looks like something I wouldn't enjoy, esp since. None of the ships showcased I'm really into at all. But I'm very invested in it ;w;.

Anyway, my point with this part lol is like, I love seeing different interpretations of the same thing, and it's absolutely wild to me walking into this fandom from every other fandom I've been in where like, and AU is just the same characters in a different scenario, while here an AU is literally a whole separate world based off of either Undertale itself or a different AU entirely and the cast is really varied and even if characters are of the same origin from one AU to another, they're so distinctly different that some of them are unlinkable to the character they originate from. And y'all made a multiverse out of it!! With consistent lore between said multiverse!! Wh?? Like I said I've been on the internet a long time but this is genuinely the only instance I've seen this happen, and while I've been told it used to be worse, y'all are super respectful about stuff here too (and like, notably on YouTube with AMVs and MEPs, people actually credit where they got the fanart from in the description?? It's not all of them, and some may be without permission, but this is still the ONLY fandom I've seen do that and that's one hell of a leg up on everyone else.) It's like weirdly, to me, like... an ideal way art should be? Like, a world where anyone can make whatever they want, and people work with each other and from different things, taking inspiration from each other with credit and care and love and not slamming people in the face with a big copyright button for so much as thinking about making something off of their content (coughnintendocough). Obviously Toby's a chill guy too, for not only allowing this to all happen, but based on that message he left in i think the 5th anniversary vinyls, adores it just as much.

So yeah, definitely being slapped in the face when I step in with my idea after all of that openness before me definitely kinda hurt LMAO. It does feel nice to finally like. Actually talk about it instead of holding it in though. Even if it's actually almost two months later now (cause this happened on like December 5th and i was like already having an awful week with a real bad birthday so that was fun avdbwvsn)

I don't know that the original intent was to spread misinformation, because from what it seemed like, they merely read one post, blocked me, and then told everyone about the information they got from said post, but from there it became misinformation, because that one post is probably the oldest post about ULR and doesn't properly summarize anything about it at all it just has character faces and rules for the ask box lol. And frankly, before I updated it, it was out-of-date and inaccurate as well, cause i never thought it would be necessary to change. But that info that i have is also from like one or two posts my friend snagged off of twitter (cause, well, they blocked me lol), so I'm not really 100% certain.

But even so, thank you for the support man, I think I'm good for now, but I really appreciate your offer and checking in on me like this, it really does mean a lot💕💕