info for capeandcowl
BACKGROUND:
World:
Angel’s world is mostly like ours, save for the existence of magic, demons, vampires, and all kinds of terrible creepy crawly’s that come out most often at night. There’s also the existence of a giant, international law firm by the name of Wolfram & Hart, which is quite literally the root of all evil, and Angel just happens to be working for them.
History and Connections:
In 1727, Liam (later to be Angelus/Angel) was born in Galway, Ireland to a linen and silk merchant. Angel grew into a hedonist, a man who enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh and the booze, and quite literally nothing else. His father deemed him to be a waste of space that would amount to nothing. Darla, a vampire who was sired in 1609, took notice of him out one night and turned Liam in 1753. After rising from the grave, Angelus kills his family, friends, and the rest of the village he was born in. He takes on the name Angelus when his sister, before she dies, mistakes him as an Angel.
Angelus travels with Darla up until 1765 where they’re trapped inside of a barn in France by Daniel Holtz, a vampire hunter whose family they had destroyed. Sadly for Angel, Darla decks him and escapes on their horse, leaving him behind without even a look back. Two years later, Angelus catches up with her in Vienna and they continue on together. Angelus and Darla keep themselves occupied turning people into vampires, eating girls, and meeting French poets. In 1860, Angelus meets a woman by the name of Drusilla in London. Soon enough, he’s killed her entire family and slowly drives her insane, turning her on the same night she takes her vows to become a nun.
Twenty years later, Drusilla goes on to turn William aka Spike, who Angelus meets at the Royal London Hotel. The four go on to wreck havoc through Europe and Asia for the next twenty years or so, and during this time, even though Angelus and Spike don’t get along perfectly well, he takes the younger vampire under his “wing” so to say. Angelus uses this time to continue to perfect the art of killing, and they all have a jolly good time. That is until, in 1898, Darla gives Angelus a gift of a gypsy girl for his birthday, who ends up cursing Angelus with a soul. After this horror occurs, he deserts the other three for two years. Eventually, he returns, but only for a short while again, leaving after he saves a child from Darla. In 1902, he takes a boat to New York, hoping to find a city with far more Irish people.
During the next ninety years, it’s unknown as to what exactly Angel did apart from feeding off rats, living in alleys, and saving innocent puppies. He doesn’t stay in New York, traveling across the US and even spending some time at the border to Mexico. In 1943, he’s taken by the US government and ends up on a German submarine where he meets Spike once again and sire’s another vampire. Continuing on with his life, Angel plays tennis with Bugsy Segal, meets the Rat Pack and even crashes Elvis and Priscilla’s wedding reception. In the 70’s, Angel discovers Barry Manilow and continues to do whatever it takes to drown his sorrows.
But in 1996, Angel meets a demon by the name of Whistler, who finds him feeding off rats, and tells him that he needs to get himself a better life. He takes Angel to L.A to see the new Slayer, Buffy Summers, who he promptly falls in love with, or as some might say, begins to stalk, helping her out with cryptic messages whenever the opportunity arises. Buffy eventually develops feelings for him right back that provides for some lovely sexual tension, though all good things must come to an end and she discovers that he’s a vampire, which is a problem for everyone involved.
A number of months after their first meeting, Angel saves Buffy’s mother Joyce from Darla, and he later stakes her while being held at crossbow-point by Buffy, continuing to try prove to her that he’s only trying to find redemption for all his bad vampire deeds. Even so, they still decide that they shouldn’t pursue any kind of relationship, and they say goodbye. Almost half a year later, Spike kidnaps Angel in an attempt to cure Drusilla of her weakened state from being tortured. Needing his blood to perform a ritual, Spike fully intends to kill Angel when Buffy interrupts the entire thing, saving Angel and severely wounding Spike.
Completely ignoring their previous idea to not pursue a relationship, Buffy and Angel end up having sex, which turns out to be a horrible idea because of the curse that had been inflicted upon Angel by the gypse, which takes his soul away if he’s to have a single moment of pure happiness. Which he does, and Angelus promptly joins Spike and Drusilla in an attempt to destroy the world, something which Buffy ends up banishing him to hell for. And sadly for Angel, he spends a thousand years there. Not so sadly for him though, he returns to Sunnydale were Buffy rehabilitates him. However, the second slayer that was activated on account of Buffy's seconds-long-death, Faith, who finds out about Angel’s existence, tries to slay him. Buffy saves him once again, and after helping her in the battle against Mayor Wikins, Angel decides that it’s truly for the best that they not stay together, knowing it’s not fair to her in any way.
Moving to Los Angeles, to brood and start over once again, he eventually begins a detective agency, Angel Investigations, along with Doyle, a half-demon, and Cordelia, who had also moved to L.A. in hopes of becoming an actor. Conveniently, Doyle receives visions by way of the Powers That Be that show them who’s in immediate danger of demons and other creepy crawly’s that wander in the night. When Doyle dies, he passes along his powers to Cordelia by way of a kiss, and shortly afterward, the rogue demon hunter, ex-Watcher Wesley, joins their team to fight the forces of evil. Granted, while all of this is going on, Wolfram and Hart begin to advance on Angel, hoping to garner more of his attention by bringing Darla back to life.
Much to his displeasure, Angel ends up meeting a vampire hunter by the name of Charles Gunn, who’s initially rather keen on killing him, considering he runs a street gang of people intent on doing just that. Gunn eventually realizes what Angel is doing and reluctantly begins to help him out. Shortly thereafter, Angel finds out that Wolfram & Hart accidentally brought Darla back as a human, and one who was still suffering from the syphilis she had when she was turned. Lindsey McDonald, the head lawyer of W&H brings in Drusilla, who promptly returns her to vampire-hood and the two of them begin on their own miniature warpath through Los Angeles.
Angered completely by all of these things combined, Angel tries to cut himself off from the rest of his group so he can go after Darla and Drusilla on his own, believing fully that he’s the only one who can do anything about this. Granted, this angers the rest of the gang, but no matter how hard they try, Angel remains persistently aloof and tries his best to force them out of his life, even going so far as to fire them all completely from Angel Investigations. Much to his mistake, just being around Darla and Drusilla again is anything but good for Angel and he ends up sleeping with her in an attempt to “feel something besides the cold.” Thankfully, upon awakening the next morning, Angel realizes his mistakes and promptly returns to his group, banishing Darla from his life once again, and rehiring his team members.
On a quick side quest, one of the many that Angel is constantly forced to go on, Cordelia is kidnapped away to Pylea, a hell dimension. Lorne, the demon owner of the karaoke bar, Caritas, is thankfully from Pylea and accompanies the group to his home planet to rescue her. This is when Angel finds Winifred Burkle; a former physics student turned crazy cave painter as she’s been stuck in the hell dimension of Pylea for five years, Angel rescues Fred and brings her back home with them.
On his return from Pylea, Angel finds out that Buffy’s been killed and sends himself away to a monastery for three months to deal with the loss. When he finally returns him to Los Angeles he finds that Darla’s pregnant with their child, something that should be an impossibility as vampire’s can’t conceive. Eventually, Darla is forced to give up her life to save their child, and Angel is quick to assume the role of father, refusing to so much as put his newborn son, Connor, down to let anyone else take care of him.
Unpleasantly enough for everyone involved, Wesley learns of a false prophecy that Angel will kill his son, and tries to save Connor by way of kidnapping him from the rest of the group. Finding out that the prophecy had been a lie when Wesley’s throat is cut and Connor is stolen from him, Angel tries to get his son back from the man who’s stolen his child, a person from Angel’s past: Daniel Holtz, who had been resurrected by a demon and was now once again trying to exact his revenge by way of stealing Angel’s child. He steals Connor away to a hell dimension through a portal which closes immediately and Connor is supposedly lost forever.
Hysterical and angry, Angel tries to murder Wesley in his hospital room but is stopped at the last moment. But sadly, Wesley is banished from the group and Angel tries to remove him from his life completely, even if Wesley had been trying to do what he thought was best. Much to everyone’s surprise, Connor returns a few weeks later, though he’s now a teenager who’s gone a little bit off the deep end after spending most of his youth in another dimension, being told that Angel is the bane of his existence and that Holtz is his real father. Tricking both Angel and Connor, Holtz escapes and leaves him with Angel, fulfilling the rest of his plan by being murdered and making it look like a vampire attack. Connor assumes that it was Angel who killed Holtz, and he locks him in a casket, dropping it to the bottom of the ocean.
Learning that Angel’s gone missing, even though Wesley has been completely thrown out of his group of friends, Wes manages to find Angel at the bottom of the ocean and frees him. Shortly thereafter, a hell beast is released and blocks out the sun over Los Angeles, because life can’t possibly get even more exciting. There doesn’t seem to be any way from stopping it on its rampage, killing staff members at Wolfram & Hart and doing all sorts of other heinously evil deeds. Hoping that Angelus might know something about the best, the rest of the team caves and removes Angel’s soul, trying to get information from him. But as with anything involving Angelus, all he wants to do is piss everyone off. He’s even let out of the cage they were keeping in by Cordelia (who is under the influence of Jasmine, a deity). Angelus is eventually put back into his cage and with Willow and Faith’s help, they put Angel’s soul back where it belongs.
The rest of this season is spent struggling with the release of Jasmine, and her effects on the team as a whole. Everyone Jasmine speaks to is put under her trance, including the entire team for a period of time, and once hooked, all they want to do is work for her spiritually to bring about world peace. However, it’s Fred who breaks free from her spell first, after contact with Jasmine’s blood, and works to bring the rest of the group out of the hold as well. Angel has to travel to another world that Jasmine once had a hold over to find out that by revealing her real name, they can free everyone else as well. Jasmine, unsurprisingly upset by this, goes to Angel to speak to him, but is killed by Connor. As a congratulation for preventing world peace, Lilah Morgan, the head of Wolfram & Hart’s Special Project Divison offers them the L.A. branch of their company. Angel agrees to do it, no matter how badly he doesn’t want to, because of the chance to save Cordelia (who was put into a coma by all her dealings with Jasmine) and Connor, a special offer that was given to him if he would take the job.
In the last series of Angel, the team begins work at W&H, taking on cases for their evil clients, causing Angel to feel massively disconnected from his acts of heroism, and at a loss as to whether or not what he’s doing is even right anymore. Opening a package in the mail one day to find an amulet, Spike is resurrected from it, much to both Angel and Spike’s extreme annoyance. Cordelia remains in a coma, causing Angel much constant distress, though she’s granted one last wish before she dies: to try to help Angel see the path that he needs to follow, saving people and using W&H as his means to do it.
As his seemingly final and greatest endeavor, Angel infiltrates the Circle of the Black Thorn, an inclusive secret society that’s run by great and terrible evil-doers alike and their plan is to start another apocalypse. Angel manages to make it inside the group, keeping out the rest of the team until the last moment possible so that the rest of W&H has no chance of finding out. Able to dismantle the group, even though Wesley is killed in the process and Lorne leaves entirely after killing Lindsey McDonald, Angel defeats the liaison to the Senior partners of Wolfram & Hart. However, this doesn’t exactly make the Senior Partners too terribly happy and they send their horde of minions after them: demons, warriors, giants, and even a dragon. In the last moment of the last episode, Angel is seen saying that “he wants to take out the dragon,” they all move in to fight.
The outcome of this battle is unknown.
Important Character Relationships:
↪ Angel & Spike: Out of all the relationships that Angel has with other people, the one he has with Spike is quite possibly the most complex. Starting with the fact that Angel sired Spike as well as taught him how to be a true monster, Angel hasn’t always been the nicest to the other man, and it tarnished their relationship completely from what it had once been. At one point in their lives, Liam (Angel) and William (Spike) had obviously been quite close, getting into all sorts of sordid trouble together and relying on each other. But when everything went wrong and Angel began to steal Drusilla out from underneath Spike, literally, their relationship began to fall apart.
Under everything, they have an unspoken bond that might be there simply because of the vast amount of time that they’ve spent together. But it’s even more complicated than that. There’s implied sexual relations between the two of them, the love that they both share for Buffy, and the fact that they both seemingly can’t get rid of the other one, no matter what walks of life they go through. Eventually, they become the only two vampires with souls, a fact that irritates Angel because he “got one first.” Being the vampire with a soul had been Angel’s ‘thing’ and it only furthers the fact that they’re constantly competing with one another.
As much as they seem to be unable to stand one another at Wolfram & Heart, it’s obvious that they still know how to work together, be it on the battle field or in the office. They know each other better than anyone else, and they understand each other, which is just one more reason they rub each other the wrong way. Working towards redemption in their own ways sets them apart but also brings them together. And then there’s the fact that their bantering might be more akin to that of an old married couple than that of people who truly hate one another, even if both of them would never admit to it.
↪ Angel & Darla/Dru: Angel is far closer to Darla than he is to Drusilla, and she is his sire, but he shares a similar relationship with both of them, which is to say that he doesn’t outright care very much for either of them. He was willing to abandon Darla (as Angelus), and he views Drusilla more as a toy and a way to get to Spike then as someone he ever even remotely cared about. While Angel tends to be emotionally closer to the woman in his life than the men, he remains distant to both of them, willing to leave their group at a moments notice, and hunting them down as Angel.
However, his relationship with Darla differs when she comes to bear his child, a feat that should be impossible as they’re both vampires. Angel did try to do whatever he could for Darla while she was pregnant, but eventually had to stake her to save the life of his child. He obviously cares more for Darla than he ever did for Drusilla, but he never loved either of them in the way that he came to love and care for Buffy.
↪ Angel & Buffy: To put it simply, Angel will always love Buffy, and he’ll always be in love with Buffy. She’s the one person who has given him a “true moment of happiness” and they’ll always be star crossed lovers. While he started off simply stalking her back in the day, he came to love her as she loved him, and always wants to take care of her, no matter the reason. But Angel knows as well as she does, that seeing as they can never have a physical side to their relationship, it isn’t fair, and they can never truly be together. Angel does become frustrated with her at times because of how badly he cares for her, and he tries to keep her away so that they’re both safe. But his frustrations come from the amount that he cares for her and wants her to be safe. He simply thinks that he’s too much of a danger to be around for the both of them, a fact that tears him up for just how much he loves her. No matter what, he tries to be the voice of reason for her, somebody who can teach her things and keep her safe, and that’s all he wants to be.
↪ Angel & Cordy: Their relationship starts off simply enough; as a friendship, and Angel as her protector. Not that Cordy truly needs one, but Angel is prone on protecting all the woman in his life. But as they spend more time together, they do begin to fall for each other, and once again, Angel tries to do everything in his power to not let anything happen between them. Eventually it does though, and their physical relationship strains their familial one. Especially when Cordy sleeps with Connor, upsetting him, unsurprisingly. But no matter what, Angel cares for Cordelia greatly, taking care of her and mourning her loss heavily. While she’s alive, she’s an incredibly good influence on him, being the spunk in his life that he needs to bring him out of the dark more than once.
↪ Angel & Connor: Another vastly complicated relationship that Angel has is with his son, Connor. Though Angel obviously loves Connor immensely, and refused to let the infant out of his sight when he was born, their relationship became tangled up and strained when Connor was kidnapped away to a hell dimension, where he was raised. Connor was raised to despise Angel and it effected all of their later dealings, where Connor went so far as to have a relationship with Cordelia and even tried to kill Angel.
Eventually, as a means of convincing him to join W&H, Angel was given the chance to give Connor a better life where he would remember nothing of his actual father and his life. This goes to show exactly how far Angel will go to protect the people he loves. He knew that getting Connor out of his life, and out of the life he’d been leading would keep him safe. And even if that means sacrificing the existence of their relationship, as well as everyone’s memories of him, Angel was more than willing to do it as long as Connor would be happy and safe.
↪ Angel & Fred: Angel and Fred’s relationship doesn’t exactly follow suit with the one’s he has with the other women in his life. Angel and Fred are never romantically involved, for one thing, but they’re incredibly close with one another as it was Angel that saved her from the hell dimension she lived in for five years, bringing her slowly back to society’s warm embrace. He was the one that spent the most time encouraging her out of her room and trying his hardest to keep her safe. And it shows in the way he cares for her the entire rest of the series. Angel is always immensely worried about her safety, and cares for her a great deal, though it’s almost in a big brotherly fashion.
↪ Angel & Wesley/Gunn/Lorne: Though Angel’s relationship differs vastly with all three of these men, he does truly consider them all to be his team members. Angel is anything but a people person and yet these are the men that stick by his side, work with him, and endure equal hardships during their time together. Wesley’s relationship is one that suffers the most, but at one point or another, Angel does push all of these men aside for various reasons, and yet trusts them enough to fight alongside them when things get bad. Angel views Lorne as one of his confidants and goes to him when he needs to understand what’s in store for his life and what he should do about it, and Angel sees Gunn as a valuable member and muscle of his team, despite the occasional drama he might bring. Without these men, Angel wouldn’t have succeeded at Angel investigations, or in Wolfram & Hart, and he knows it.
PERSONALITY:
Angel is, in every sense of the word, his own personal contradiction. The person he is as a vampire with a soul seems to be practically the complete opposite to who he is as a vampire without one altogether. Even so, Angel and Angelus are indeed the same person; Angelus is simply without moral, a vampire fueled by evil and with no cares given.
Before Angel, came Angelus. And become Angelus, came Liam. Liam was Angelus before he ever became a vampire and he was known for doing whatever he pleased; he was a hedonist to be exact. He enjoyed drinking, and he especially enjoyed the ladies. After he became a vampire, he enjoyed the ladies even more so, he just didn’t always look for their consent on the matter. Angelus didn’t look for consent when it came to a lot of things, and taking became an expertise of his. Angelus is, by all forms of the definition, about as monstrous as you can get.
Angelus enjoyed torturing people, both physically and mentally; he’s a sadist to a T, garnering pleasure from every single act of evil he imparted onto others. Torture was a game to him, with the end never being the part he looked forward to the most -- torture is about the thrill of just that, causing pain, and watch the bearer of it slowly fall apart. Angelus loved hurting others, hunting them, and the thought of ever stopping, or ever having to stop, was nonexistent. He enjoyed the art of the kill, and he enjoyed the evil that went along with killing -- he killed because it was evil, and because it made him even more. He never had any qualms about who he took down in his path of destruction, and the fact that he started with his family first should only give further clues as to how much exactly he cared about anyone else. Angelus didn’t have a soul, he had no reason for morals or conscience, and he went wild with that fact.
He enjoyed every second he spent torturing, killing, destroying the world around him, and it all made him continue to want it even more. Angelus never spends one second brooding about the vampire life he was given, using it to only add fuel to the fire that is his life. And he enjoys it purely for himself.
While some vampires, even without a soul, are drawn to each are, Angelus never had that problem. That isn’t to say that he didn’t enjoy the company of others, he just wasn’t keen on doing anything within his power to keep it. While some vampires, such as Spike, are practically co-dependent even without a soul, Angelus is quick to give up his connections with other people to keep himself alive and to continue to do whatever he pleases. Angelus had no qualms about betraying Darla, even though she was his sire, and even though they stayed together for 150 some years. Because when he gets right down to it, he is his own number one asset, and he enjoys his own life too much to care about others.
It was completely possible for Angelus to be charming, even charismatic, though that never only ever went to serve his own evils, allowing him easier access to things that he wanted. But that never gave him any more humanity, and he was perfectly fine with that; Angelus never wanted to be anything but a complete and utter monster. A charming monster perhaps, but a monster nonetheless. Angelus couldn’t stand who he became as Angel, and believed his soul-filled counterpart to be ridiculous, worthless at best, and undeserving of taking away the life that he had so loved.
One thing that can be said for the both of them, however, is that Angelus and Angel are both inherent leaders. They both seem to have other people quick to follow their lead, and they’re just as quick to take charge. Even more so, they enjoy being the one in control, using it to their advantage at every given opportunity. Angelus is immensely arrogant and believes himself to be the best at everything, which makes this even easier to understand. When Angelus returns in present day, this is even more true: he’s disgustingly cocky, flaunting the fact that he can get away with whatever he wants, and enjoys watching everyone fall down around him while he even goes so far as to bait dangerous people closer to him. While he might have attempted to play things safer in his “youth” as a vampire, growing older only makes Angel became that more more self-serving, infatuated with his own powers and loving all the chaos he can wreak.
Angelus is a superb manipulator, getting exactly what he wants from people almost every single time. A number of times, he pretends to be Angel and manages to get away with it until he himself cracks from just how ridiculous he finds Angel to be. But he knows how to get what he wants from people, and enjoys taking everything he can. It’s only one more form of sadistic torture for him, gaining pleasure from all the ways he can watch people fall prey to the power that he possesses and only continues to take away from others.
But when it comes to Angel, everything that Angelus was, Angel tries not to be. Angel is constantly trying to atone for the sins of Angelus, even though he believes wholly that no matter what he does, he will never truly be capable of making up for it. Angel’s primary, almost singular motivation in life is for atonement. But no matter how hard he works, he’s damned either way, and he’s not stupid enough to think otherwise. While this might make someone else throw in the towel, to Angel it seemingly gives him all the more reason to keep fighting, because who else is going to be the person that protects those that wander in the night? He understands how monsters work because he was one, and he constantly uses that to his advantage when it comes to saving peoples lives from the kind of monster that he used to be.
At first glance, it would be easy to label Angel as brooding and be done with it. And granted, he broods. The man broods more than darkness itself, but in all truth, the man has a lot to answer for, and he knows it. He prefers to spend his time alone, hating himself, riding the wave of a constant and futile guilty conscience. But he uses that to garner his strength and his reason from, using his hatred of himself to hate the rest of the monsters that harm others, and to protect all the people that he can.
Angel might want to save people, but that won’t stop him from using violent force against the bad guys to do it. Even if he can’t stand the person he used to be, he doesn’t deny the fact that there are brutal means that he has to use from time to time to be able to help others. You can’t save people without dusting a few vampires and bashing in a few peoples head. Or, you know, throwing people out of windows. It comes with the territory of fighting monsters who were just as bad as him. Angel might not be Angelus anymore, but that doesn’t make him any less powerful, or terrifying when it comes right down to it. He might not jump on the chance to beat up just anyone, he usually has a reason for it, but there’s no hesitation to the fights that he throws himself into.
Angel, like Angelus, is capable of manipulation though he does it for other reasons than his un-souled half. He’s incredibly good at reading people and knowing what they see in him and others, whether or not they’re good people, as well as understanding their motivations. This is why he’s able to make it to the top of Wolfram and Hart: because he knows how these people think, what they want, and exactly how far they’ll go to get it. While Angelus uses this to gain power and control, Angel uses it to know who he can trust and who he can’t. Angelus is at constant odds with other monsters of the night to know who may or may not be on his side and he wouldn’t have survived this long if that wasn’t something he was immensely good at doing. While Angel can, at times, be a complete idiot, the man is incredibly intelligent when it comes to some things, and relies heavily on his ability to judge other people at a moment’s notice. He’s street smart: he knows his way around back alleys with his eyes closed, and knows how to talk his way into bad-guy bars and inner circles better than almost anyone.
Even though Angel is wary of people who seem to have changed their alliances, Angel can’t help but be even more willing to help them on the road away from the dark side. He understands the difficult road it is, how hard it is to leave behind a dark past that’s constantly following, and if he’s been adequately convinced of someone’s change from bad to good, he’ll do almost anything to help them on their continued path towards it. Angel is more likely to try to see the good in people and to do whatever he can to bring it out, whereas Angelus is constantly trying to seek out the bad and abuse it until there’s nothing left.
Also like Angelus, Angel can be painfully arrogant, and also selfish. If he feels like it’s the necessary action to take, and at one point he does, he is more than capable of removing himself completely from others lives, as well as removing the other people in his life so that he can get the job done. Angel believes himself to be the most experienced at times, as well as intelligent, and comes up with his own plans without alerting others to them. He even leaves other people out of the loop to do what he believes is the best pursuit of action, and doesn’t exactly see this to be a problem if he thinks he’s doing what’s right for everyone involved even if it hurts them that he’s trying to go it alone. Even so, this is just one more way that Angel does everything he can to keep people at an arms length away and to simultaneously keep them safe.
Which is to say that another one of Angel’s prime motivations in life, apart from not being Angelus, is to care for other people. Granted, at the same time, he tries to keep them far away from the actual process of connection, even though he desperately wants to keep everyone safe. Part of this is because he wants to keep them safe from himself. He believes that he’s still a constant danger to others, no matter how much he wants to help, and this can be seen by how he constantly pushes Buffy away. Angel has an abysmally difficult time showing just how much he cares, and has an even harder time accepting it from others. It doesn’t help that he more often than not, prefers to be alone. However, he does appreciate the people he does have in his life and his love for them is at times, his undoing. His curse is only a continued manifestation of this: that if he ever experiences true joy, he’ll once again lose his soul and return back to Angelus. This is the main reason he tries to keep himself from getting into any kind of physical relationship, let alone even ones that don’t even go past hugs. His curse is the literal translation of the fact that he’s as undeserving as he believes himself to be, that he’s still a danger to others, no matter how much he loves them, and even more so because he loves them.
Angel’s time spent as a father is even more proof of that. He hardly lets Connor out of his grasp when he is his primary caretaker and he does everything for his son, to the point where he gives him a new life, taking away Connor’s memories of him so that he has a chance to be happy. While this destroys part of Angel, it also makes him far happier to know that Connor has a chance to live a life that he never had, far away from the monsters of the night. Once again, he removes another person from his life to keep them safe from the life he leads, to keep them safe from himself.
Angel and Angelus alike are both driven by the memory of their disapproving father, a man who believed that Liam would never be anything more than a drunkard with a propensity towards women. While Angelus used this to fuel his drive to be as heinously bad as he possibly could, Angel simply tries to make sure he’s worth something. Because at times, Angel is just a man who is completely and truly disappointed in himself, lost to guilt and unsure if he’ll ever be capable of being a worthwhile person.
Brushing aside all the darker, angstier sides of life, Angel is a closet dork, and tends to be awkward when it comes to people he doesn’t know how to react towards. He deals far better with people he cares about, but even then, he says it himself, he isn’t a people person. Nor is he much of a dancer, or singer, but he likes Barry Manilow, and even more so, he likes making the woman in his life smile when he can get away with it, through simple means.
He’s terrible with all things technology, and he also doesn’t really enjoy “eating” in public, preferring to keep his drinking of animal blood to himself, just like practically every other thing in his life. Being a loner comes naturally to him, and even though he is more used to refined society, and even though he deals incredibly well with high-stress situations -- even able to talk his way out of torture -- he's about as uncomfortable as it comes when he has to deal with women and relationships and things that don't have to do with hunting and killing monsters. He's basically a thirteen year old boy: take away his sword and his shining armor, and he doesn't always know what to do.
POWER:
Angel’s reduced abilities for CNC will be follows:
↪ Immortality (1)
↪ Super strength (2)
↪ "Vamping Out" (3)
⤿ The face he makes when he goes all "grr" or vampirey. It's when his fangs come out to play.
⤿ Drinking blood always brings this face out.
⤿ Has little to no affect on his abilities when he makes this face, but vampires do tend to act more feral or animalistic when they vamp out.