i. the violent bear it away - flannery o'connor // ii. "ptolemaea" - ethel cain // iii. jude 1:14-15
( michael ealy / dog soldier wolf, 151, cis man, he/him ) — Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that ABEL BARNES is a PASTOR ( + PODCASTER ) that works in SECTOR 10. According to the file, they’re a mutant with the power of ROUGAROU PHYSIOLOGY. That must be why they’re CHARISMATIC and VOLATILE. If you ask me, they remind me of moonlight shining on a room of crosses, a slap on the hand for stealing the cookie out of the cookie jar, the creature every child fears. They are affiliated with NOBODY.
QUICK FACTS:
full name: abel lucas barnes
date of birth: may 29th, 2024
zodiac big three: gemini sun, capricorn moon, virgo rising
gender & pronouns: cis man & he/him
sexual + romantic orientation: bisexual + biromantic, but celibate now!
ethnicity: black
nationality: usamerican
religion: christian ( raised southern baptist, current ideals (when he's preaching! not when he's entirely insane!) are baptist-adjacent )
languages spoken: english (5), french (5), latin (4)
enneagram: 1w2
mbti: isfj
temperament: phlegmatic-melancholic // choleric
alignment: lawful neutral // neutral evill
ability: rougarou physiology
affiliation: n/a
task: mutation breakdown
BACKSTORY
triggers: brief implication of dementia, murder, religious insanity, more murder, more religious insanity
Recounting all 151 years of Abel Barnes's existence ( at least, all 140 fictional years... because we actually do love history in this house, but... ) would be rather difficult. A man who went from a restless child in New Orleans, LA to a man leading evangelicals in Sol City... and to think, it was only one event that caused the change. But that event, the split that that event caused, did not come from nowhere.
See, Abel Barnes's grandmother, Ruthie, played a very integral role in his upbringing. His parents both picked up two jobs upon the birth of his younger brother, thus leaving Ruthie in charge of the boys. It was nothing unremarkable. But Ruthie? Oh, that old broad -- she was unremarkable!
She did not raise Abel gently -- not that she raised him poorly, but she would not let him believe that God would ignore his existence just because he only went to Church on the important holidays ( oh, she certainly tried to force him and his brother to go every Sunday with her, but she ultimately had to accept what their parents demanded... something she had learned the hard way ). The most effective way she found, however, was telling him about the Rougarou.
-> Ruthie was a superstitious woman by nature, so it only made sense that she would weaponize the iconic figure in Cajun folklore.
The Rougarou had been all but cursed after breaking his Lenten vows. Every night, he was turned into a creature -- the body of a man, the head of a wolf. He was nearly invulnerable, and he was very, very hungry. He feasted most often on misbehaving children. And he made sure that their deaths were not quick! He made sure that they suffered! Not that he discriminated, plenty of sinners were targets, but children were his favorite.
Well, this concept terrified Little Abel™... but gradually lost its allure as he aged. By the time he was a teenager, he was doing everything the Rougarou would hate to see and joking with his buddies about how 'ooh, he's gonna get me!' And his absolute favorite? The Rougarou Fest in Houma.
Nothing Ruthie weaponized was working... so she just had to pray he would learn the error of his ways.
He did mellow out as he grew, became a more respectable man. By the time he was 30, he'd married a lovely woman. By the time he was 35, he had a child of his own. By the time he was 38, Ruthie had come to live the rest of her golden years out with him.
He was careful to keep his child away from Ruthie's superstitious and religious ramblings, worse now that she was aging and her brain was slowly deteriorating.
40, however? That was when his life changed forever.
-> The meteor struck the Earth, killing his wife and infecting him.
The head of a wolf, the body of a man. All but invulnerable. Blood-thirsty. Righteous. Complete 180º.
Seeing his child wearing mismatched clothing, he killed him first. Ruthie? She begged. She told him she had spent her entire life in the pursuit of God's love. And that was the exact problem -- how very selfish! Her slaughter... well, he relished in it.
He continued the spree, though it was now focused on friends and strangers who had managed to scrape by, up until the cure was found. He did not like the cure. He did not want the cure. But it was forced upon him...
It just wasn't as strong as it could've been. While he did return to a... slightly saner version of himself, mourning the loss of his son and grandmother and his friends, feeling great guilt over the murders of strangers... something had been permanently rewired.
It was comparable to sundowning. Every morning, Abel awoke as a... fairly sane man who had simply become much more religious than he had been before the meteor ( he would say it was the miracle of surviving it that turned him to God, but that wasn't the truth ). Every night, Abel was that Rougarou, pursuing all sinners he had seen throughout the day. And, as the day went from morning to night, he became progressively worse. Afternoon? The itch was there. Evening? He had begun a podcast inspired by televangelists, one where he went upon raging tangents regarding the Lord.
The physicality matched this. Every morning, Abel awoke with glowing golden eyes and sharp canine teeth. Afternoon? His nails had sharpened, fur was beginning to grow on his hands. Evening? Every tooth was sharp, his ears were standing upon the top of his head, his face and back had become hairier. Night? He had a wolf's head with fur littering his back and torso.
Morning? He awoke with faint memories...
He traveled from settlement to settlement, not leaving until the Rougarou had rampaged throughout and killed all of the worst sinners. Sometimes, that meant destroying entire villages... other times, that meant just a few bodies in his wake.
He reached Sol City some months back. As with all other settlements, he took up his usual mantel as a baptist-adjacent Pastor. But the Rougarou? His eyes have been scanning... and god save The Bearded Lady!
TIMELINE
BORN: New Orleans, largely raised by his religious and superstitious grandmother, Ruthie.
CHILDHOOD: A good kid... mainly caused by the fear his grandmother had instilled in him -- fear of God, fear in superstitions, fear in the Rougarou.
TEENAGE YEARS: Gradually stopped believing in those superstitions and the Rougarou, became a bit more reckless, much to Ruthie's dismay.
YOUNG ADULTHOOD: Started cleaning himself up. Became more respectable.
ADULTHOOD: Had a family (a wife and a child). Ruthie moved in as she gradually became incapable of caring for herself. He kept her far from his child, not wanting the fear she had spilled out onto him to be spilled out onto his child.
DIRECTLY FOLLOWING THE METEOR: His wife was killed by the meteor, meanwhile Abel? Infected by the virus. Rougarou form, baby! Mind did a complete 180. He murdered his child for wearing mismatched clothing. He murdered Ruthie for begging and telling him she had dedicated her life to God. He murdered some of the friends who had made it out. He murdered some strangers.
EARLY POST-CURE: His mind did not entirely recover. He went from roughly agnostic to very Christian, and that was the best of it. By night, he returned to who he had been before the cure -- save, perhaps, for not seeing any nuance in any situation.
POST-CURE: Traveled from settlement to settlement. Delivered sermons in the morning, ranted on his evangelist podcast in the evening, rampaged against all the sinners at night. He would move on only when all of the worst sinners had been wiped out.
HEADCANONS
Every time I imagine this guy talking, I just hear Rodney Barnes's voice. (Totally used the same last name.) (I did not learn about the Rougarou from him, but he does have an episode on it!)
The faint memories he has in the morning typically include nothing but flashes of where he had been. It's the blood on his mouth that tells him he'd done the unthinkable.
-> Of course, he does not always kill in Rougarou form. Sometimes he just attacks! And, y'know, there are even sometimes where all he does is scout out future targets.
more tbd!
CONNECTION IDEAS
Parishioners. When he's not going completely insane, he preaches Baptist-adjacent ideals. A lot lighter on the judgment and hatred, though! We don't need that in a safe space and who really wants to write that?
Friends by day. Besides being a bit fanatic, Abel's... fine in the morning. Tolerable in the afternoon, too.
Enemies by night. I mean... without even thinking about it, he hates everyone who works at The Bearded Lady, as already shared with Doc (though I still need to get back to more messages!). But there are so many sinners in this RP! If Heaven and Hell are real, as Abel believes, I'm pretty sure more characters in this RP would go right to Hell than the ones who'd go to Heaven <3
ElTangoDeRoxanne.mp3. But moooommmm, lust and envy are sins!
idk more to come probs
