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#a lesser personal demon of many
beyondthetemples-ooc · 3 months
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It just turned xmas eve and I'm sitting here grinning like a lunatic at how I described Dove's transformation into demon!Dove, specifically because I really like what I headcanon'd about the letters!
In the climax battle scene of DDD, I gave Dove the same runes that Raven glows with in s4, except I Elaborated. I gave them Purpose besides just Look Cool and Ancient. Excerpt below (DDD, ch20).
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And when the merging was complete, Raven couldn’t believe what she saw.
What had he done to her?
She lifted herself from the dust and stood with a stance so powerful, so confident that Raven couldn’t believe it was DOVE under that cloak. The newborn demon stretched, flexing, gathering and astrally caressed the currents of energy – Suddenly she threw the scorched cloak away and revealed an outfit that swept across her curves, skirting her back and shoulders, so provocative it was barely even there; its pieces embraced at her cocked hip and accentuated her battle-ready stance.
So little of that crimson and leathery flesh was hidden, the real Dove would have fled under the covers from embarrassment. But more importantly, more frighteningly, this utterly uncharacteristic outfit revealed messages sewn into her skin like astral battlescars:
Dove was marked with dark scrawls of energy, the epistles burning in activation, scripts to keep his power in her body, runes to channel evil energies ripped from the very cosmos, letters as old as the chaos they channeled were strewn across every inch of her exposed flesh. Warnings on her arm. Triumph flooded down her back. Terms of surrender splashed across her collarbone and met at the four cauterized scars on her chest.
Trigon was gone, sealed within her by the sigil of damnation, and the magic now thriving within her was clamoring for violence - delirious to be unleashed, even as embers of the fading hellfire still lit her skin.
And here was the perfect target.
Dove’s senses, human and preternaturally enhanced, all detected Raven’s presence. She sensed the signs of heightened emotion: Raven’s calm mask was strained. She saw the subtle tension in her shoulders, heard her heart pounding a heavier rhythm than it had a moment ago. She felt the slightest shift of blood flow as Raven’s muscles tensed, preparing for battle at her instinct’s call, and she could feel the air strung tight around her as Raven's powers raged within her, the trained instinct to eliminate the threat, warring with the protectress instinct to not hurt her little sister.
And most satisfying of all, her telepath mind tasted Raven’s fear, an absolute delicacy whether the fear was for herself or her lost sister’s soul.
#ddd#rhs stories#rhs personal teen titans#tt headcanons list#(Because this really IS all headcanon; aside from the Mark of Scath we really DON'T know what the fuck it all mEANS)#I don't know how much of those lines about the letters was headcanon power vs. Nexus on both the Raven and the Dove axis...#but gods I'm proud of it WHEREVER the fuck it came from.#I'm also proud that it took me approximately 10 minutes to come up with that many words for ''letters and sentences and words''.#I'm still not sure of the CONNOTATIONS of the word ''epistle'' but I could always slap an ''unholy'' before it if I find out it's unfit.#The punctuation in this chapter is still Under Review (as is demon!Dove's outfit?) but GODS I'm proud of the verbiage!#Doylist: the outfit is to show off the glowing spell words. Obviously.#The energies of it is probably what burned off Raven's clothes.#Watsonian though??? Yeah there's a thing with ''Dove lacks confidence and demon!Dove has too much of it'' but like.#Did I have to SEXUALIZE her to show that? Like. I didn't MEAN it that way; it's supposed to be ''she's proud and doesn't mind showing skin'#but does it come off as fanservice-y or sexualizing or objectifying or equating Showing Skin with Power?#this post brought to you by a zine I just read about One of the LEsser-Flaunted Aspects of my Identity#and it had a really interesting superhero world sort of thing and I forget why it made me think of DDD....? I think I was thinking of likin#the narration style or verbiage choices or something and was like ''I like my own sometimes too. LIKE THE MARKINGS''#--OH I was thinking about Trigon's design and having stripes sometimes for some reason (like Tony the Tiger)#and that made me think of demon!Raven and then demon!Dove.
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krummholz-go · 3 months
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The Final 15 - Aziraphale’s Perspective
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I see a lot of empathy for Crowley’s experience during the final 15 minutes of season 2 and it makes sense that we feel deeply for him. What he is experiencing is very human - acknowledging the depth of his own feelings, plucking up the courage to say something, having it come out all wrong, feeling utterly rejected, and then walking away in a mix of pain and anger. Who among us hasn’t been there?
But Aziraphale is experiencing something more complicated, something fewer of us have analogs for. Aziraphale has internally acknowledged his feelings for Crowley for some period of time, probably at least since 1941. Michael Sheen confirms this mental state in a NYCC 2018 interview:
“I decided early on that Aziraphale just loves Crowley. And that’s difficult for him because they are on opposite sides and he doesn’t agree with him on stuff. But it does really help as an actor to go, ‘My objective in this scene is to not show you how much I love you and just gaze longingly at you.’”
Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale’s struggle isn’t acknowledging his feelings. His struggle appears to be two-fold: 1) believing that Crowley could ever love him back and 2) even if Crowley did love him, believing a future for the two of them together could exist within the restrictions of his larger world view.
Can Crowley love?
Angels are, traditionally, beings of love. We see Aziraphale embody this time and again, showing kindness and support to almost everyone he meets, including the amnesiac Gabriel who has treated him abominably in the past. He is attuned to love, remarking on how the area around Tadfield “feels loved” twice in Season 1. As for how Aziraphale personally understands and expresses love, he shows his love to others through verbal affirmation and, to a lesser extent, physical touch. There are many examples of Aziraphale expressing his love for Crowley through positive verbal affirmation, typically by praising him for instances where he has been kind, nice, or good. And on the rare occasions when Aziraphale receives verbal praise, he absolutely interprets it as an expression of love, blossoming with happiness.
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But from Aziraphale’s perspective, it may be unclear if Crowley can feel love in the same way. Can demons love? Did he lose that capability when he fell? Crowley can’t feel the aura of love in Tadfield that Aziraphale remarks on, and his reactions to Aziraphale’s praise are always to shrug it off, tell Aziraphale to “shut up,” or in the most extreme case to physically slam him against a wall and get in his face about it. In this last instance he tells Aziraphale, “I’m a demon, I’m not nice. I'm never nice. Nice is a four-letter word.” A four-letter word, like love, that is not in Crowley’s self-defined vocabulary.
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If Crowley can feel love, does he love Aziraphale?
Even if Aziraphale believes Crowley is capable of feeling love, he does not always recognize how Crowley expresses it in the moment. Crowley shows his love for Aziraphale through actions, but Aziraphale often misconstrues Crowley’s motivations. In 1793 when Crowley rescues him from the Bastille, Aziraphale initially assumes Crowley is only there because he is responsible for the Reign of Terror. Similarly, in 1941, Aziraphale’s reaction to Crowley’s appearance is to assume he’s just part of the Nazi gang, saying,“I should have known. Of course. These people are working for you!”
Crowley doesn’t help matters in this regard because he is constantly muting and undercutting his signals to Aziraphale. Every time Crowley expresses his love for Aziraphale through actions - rescuing him, saving his books, even taking him to lunch - he does so in a nonchalant, dismissive manner, indicating he ascribes little value or importance to the actions he has performed. “I just didn’t want to see you embarrassed,” he says when he appears in 1941. And when Aziraphale positively glows with happiness about his books being saved, Crowley tells him to “shut up."On top of these confusing signals, Crowley is almost pathologically incapable of expressing his feelings in the verbal love language that Aziraphale can understand. This is heartbreakingly demonstrated in this scene after the bookshop fire:
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Crowley can’t even say “I lost you.” Instead he speaks of Aziraphale in the third person while sitting in front of him, saying, “I lost my best friend.” The little hitch on Aziraphale’s face when he hears this is just devastating. Who is Crowley talking about? The last conversation they had before this scene was when Aziraphale called while Hastur was in Crowley’s apartment and Crowley said, “Not a good time - got an old friend here.” Aziraphale is left to wonder - is that who Crowley means when he says "best friend?" Crowley is everything to Aziraphale, but what is he to Crowley?
How Would It Even Work?
Even when Aziraphale does get flashes of the possibility that Crowley may care for him he immediately runs up against his second mental block - there is no world he can imagine where they could be together. When Crowley first suggests running off together in the bandstand scene in S1E3, Aziraphale collapses under the thought: “Friends? We aren’t friends. We are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common. I don’t even like you.”
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While he is obviously in denial, Aziraphale is also under tremendous stress in this moment and is desperately trying to hold onto some stability by falling back onto his world view and ideology. In this state he backpedals all the way to “I don’t even like you.” In his understanding of the way the universe is supposed to work, he and Crowley are hereditary enemies and should not even be friends, much less in love. Aziraphale expresses this core belief throughout the series. What kind of existence could they ever have together in reality?
The Final 15
With this as a background, we can better understand what Aziraphale experiences in the final 15 minutes. Even before the Metatron enters the scene, Aziraphale begins to have his fundamental beliefs challenged which puts him off his footing. The revelation that Gabriel and Beelzebub are in love is deeply impactful. When Beelzebub says “I just found something that mattered more to me than choosing sides” and takes Gabriel’s hand, Aziraphale immediately reaches out to make contact with Crowley, a look of incredulity on his face. Here is proof that demons can feel love and that an angel and a demon can carve out a space together. The road may be difficult, but it is not impossible.
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Before Aziraphale can digest this revelation the stakes are ratcheted up: Michael threatens to erase Aziraphale from the Book of Life due to his part in hiding Gabriel. The future that Aziraphale has just barely glimpsed is already under siege. It is at this point that The Metatron enters, offering Aziraphale not just survival and protection, but a version of everything he has ever wanted.
If Crowley is reinstated as an angel, Aziraphale will no longer have to wonder whether Crowley is capable of feeling love. And if they are both angels, there will be no conflict inherent in having a life together. In one fell swoop, the Metatron entices Aziraphale with a future where there are no remaining blockers to an eternal, loving existence with Crowley. It will be “like the old times, only even nicer” because they now have millennia of their shared history to build on together. Of course this logic is horribly flawed and does not take into account at all what Crowley wants, but in the moment it must feel like an enormous gift to Aziraphale.
Unfortunately, not only is Crowley’s reaction to this “incredibly good news” not what Aziraphale expects, the conversation quickly takes a baffling turn for him. Crowley shuts down the talk about returning to heaven and attempts to say what he wants to say. Sadly he once again utterly fails to speak in a way that Aziraphale can understand.
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The audience knows what Crowley is trying to say because we have the context of his earlier conversation with Maggie and Nina. But Aziraphale lacks that and thus can’t understand where this is coming from or what it means. Rather than expressing his feelings as Beelzebub and Gabriel did, Crowley recites facts: we’ve known each other a long time, we’ve been on this planet a long time, I could always rely on you, you could always rely on me. He can’t even say the word “couple” when he describes them, referring to them more as colleagues with words like “team” and “group.” And the one time he does try to express his feelings and desires he is physically unable to get out the words: “And I would like to spend—.” He then retreats into his old plea to turn away from heaven and hell and run off together. Nowhere in Crowley’s confession does Aziraphale hear “I love you” or even “I want to be with you.” What he hears instead is what he’s heard multiple times before - Crowley wants to abandon both heaven and hell and default to just the two of them. From Aziraphale’s perspective this will not solve anything for them. They will still be an angel and a demon, at some level fundamentally separated by their very natures.
Having failed in his speech, Crowley then does two things in rapid succession that must be excruciatingly painful for Aziraphale. First, he does the opposite of verbal affirmation by calling Aziraphale an idiot. We have seen Aziraphale become physically radiant in the rare instances where Crowley has praised him, so a direct insult like this must feel poisonous. Then Crowley makes a last desperate attempt to communicate through Aziraphale’s other love language - physical touch - by initiating the kiss. But without context or understanding of what is behind it, Aziraphale can initially only experience it as forceful, angry, and shocking. With more time to parse it I think Aziraphale will come to understand Crowley’s meaning, but in the moment it must feel manipulative and borderline cruel.
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The Results
In a very compressed time frame, Aziraphale has to move quickly and radically through multiple mental and emotional states. For 6000 years he has believed he and Crowley cannot be together. Suddenly, with the revelation of Gabriel and Beezlebub, that foundational belief is challenged. Before he can work through what that could mean for him and Crowley, the Metatron offers an even cleaner solution - they can be protected from retribution and be on the same side again. When Crowley rejects reinstatement wholesale, it makes Aziraphale feel that he and his loving offer of a life together have been personally rejected. Then that rejection is further confused through the shocking experience of the kiss which Aziraphale does not have adequate context for or time to understand and integrate. In his emotional turmoil, Aziraphale falls back on his default crutch for dealing with sadness and anger - forgiveness - which further cuts him off from Crowley. Taken all together, this is a tumultuous rollercoaster of whiplash emotions that pull at every part of Aziraphale's self- and world-views.
Compared to what Crowley is going through, I think Aziraphale is going to have the tougher road in Season 3. Crowley may still need to better reconcile and integrate his feelings for Aziraphale, but Aziraphale has 6000 years of foundational ideology to challenge and evolve to reach a place where he and Crowley can be together as their authentic selves.
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cherubfae · 16 days
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Red String of Fate || Alastor
Alastor never put much faith in things like fate, no matter how much the red string tied around his left ring finger seemed to say otherwise. It hadn't glowed for him like it had for many others. Would it ever start? Perhaps his soulmate died long ago, that would be just his luck.
tags: fem!fallen angel!reader, human to demon Alastor, blood/gore, mentions of death/killing, soulmate au, one shot
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Alastor loathed the idea of soulmates. Someone perfectly aligned for every being on earth. A silly little thing to give one false hope. There were many out there who drove themselves mad, staring at the red rope tied in a neat little bow around their left ring finger, the invisible end of it somewhere in the ether. Hoping and praying that it would emit a bright glow one day and tug them towards their person.
For thirty years, Alastor's string never glowed a single time. He wished it didn't dishearten him at times, absentmindedly stroking at the soft cord. His invisible leash tying him to someone else. Perhaps his person was dead. A depressing thought. But his cord remained red, not the ugly monochrome grey that widows often bore. No, his person was still out there somewhere. Some place he'd never been.
Tracking was a skill Alastor took pride in. It went hand-in-hand with hunting. He was skilled and knowledgeable in almost every aspect of hunting, including miserable human prey. The filthy degenerate he was attempting to bury was one of Earth's worst. The kind of man who preyed on the kindness of women and manipulated them into more depraved acts. Alastor would stand for none of it.
Bang!
A harsh popping sound reverberated loudly in Alastor's ears. His eyelids drooped closed for a second. Opening them again, he realized he was kneeling in pitch black. Blood soaked his hands and pooled the dark ground surrounding him. It was hard for him to focus. Was this his blood?
In a split second, the ground opened up beneath him. A fiery red opened to swallow him whole, and down he fell into the pits of Hell, straight into the Ring of Pride. Where all Sinners go.
Alastor was quick to make a name for himself, as the Radio Demon, one of Hell's fiercest sinners. He took great joy in broadcasting lesser demon's worthless screams all across his radio signal. It reminded him of the finer days of his life as a human. He truly enjoyed being a radio host.
And the most peculiar thing? His string would glow on occasion, yet every time he tried to find its source, the red light would dim and then extinguish entirely. It renewed in him a hope he didn't realize he had. His soulmate was alive--well, undead, perhaps, and here in Hell. He must find them.
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Centuries passed, Alastor had stopped chasing the glow. A part of him feels hopeless like a dog trying to capture his own tail. Running in circles and always just out of reach. This petulant curiosity and, ugh, longing were not suited to his taste. He'd given up entirely. Maybe you wouldn't want to see him. Have you heard of him? Were you already terrified of him despite never having met yet?
Today, the buzzing static in his brain wouldn't cease. Creating an ever-growing migraine that not even his moderately chilled whiskey could provide relief. Still, the liquor provided a nice burn as it slid down his throat. He downed it in one gulp, sighing at the now empty crystal glass. Empty. Just like him.
A strange buzz tingled in his chest, a tugging. A rippling sensation that electrifies his body to surge forward. Snapping a glance down at his hand to find that the string itself now extended to the floor, leading out beneath the hatch of his radio tower-- and it's glowing a bright fuschia red.
Molting into shadow, Alastor follows it like a wolf scenting blood. Trailing it all the way to the hotel's lobby where he stops dead in his tracks. A woman with great wings folded at her back he had never met before stands before him chatting gently with Charlie. Thankfully, Lucifer was nowhere in sight, but he had a feeling you two were well-acquainted. The string pulled taught and Alastor's no longer beating heart soars at the squeak you emit. The lobby goes silent.
You turn to him with wide, almost owlish eyes. A deep flush coating your cheeks as you rather comically look from your hand to him and back to your hand. The fated rope has considerably shortened, encouraging Alastor to take an experimental step towards you; delighted when you do the same.
Alastor lifts his hand up, a motion you mirror. Your palms meet, fingers lining up against his sharp red claws. His hand greatly shadows yours. The smile you beam up at him is infectious, a soft crease in his eyelids as he returns the gesture with a relaxed gaze. No wonder he couldn't find you. You were angelic-born.
"Hello." You breathe softly. A gentle whisper that makes his mind hum a low tune, gentle static echoing the room, and his smile increased.
Alastor links your fingers together. "Hello, my dear. It's lovely to finally meet you."
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|| please don't repost, reuse, or edit my works in any way! I do not give permission. Tumblr is the only site where I post. All characters belong to their rightful owner and the story belongs to me © CHERUBFAE 2024 ||
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yandere-daydreams · 5 months
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Title: Domesticated.
Commissioned by the very lovely, very inspired @elsecrytt.
Pairing: Yandere!Satan x Reader (Obey Me).
Word Count: 7.0k.
TW: Dub/Con & Non/Con, AFAB!Reader, Reader Is Straight Up A Bad Person In This One, Toxic Relationships, Semi-Public Sex, Bondage, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Coercion, Prolonged Grooming, Mentions of Blood and Violence, Slight Stalking, and Obsessive Behavior. Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.
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You were the first one to find Satan.
It wasn’t difficult. You’d been around long enough at that point to know that the birth of a demon was a strange, spontaneous thing; loud and wild, often accompanied by pillars of flame and always violent enough to leave the earth scarred in its wake. While his brothers fell from paradise like stars displaced from their heavens, you followed the cloud of smoke rising from the wasteland that made up the Devildom’s outskirts, tracked the scent of cedar and ivy and sulfur until you found him, seething in a crater of his own creation, freshly charred feathers still littered around him as he lashed out blindly, his aggression without a target but no less volatile for its aimlessness. He was bare save for the ash smeared across his pale skin, and you could make out a lashing tail behind him, a pair of curling horns sprouting from his waist-length hair, a pair of cat-like pawed feet he’d grow out of in a few weeks – all the same shade of black as the obsidian that surrounded him and tipped with a green you could only compare to the color of toxic waste, to the kind of emerald shine an insect might wear to let you know it was venomous. Every part of him practically glowed with rage. If you’d been aware of which throne he would take after he and his brothers found their footing in their new realm in that moment, you would’ve thought it was fitting.
In short, he was beautiful. Awe-inspiringly, breath-takingly beautiful.
And you were never the kind of person who could resist beautiful things.
Carefully, with dampened footsteps and a preference for the shadows, you edged closer to him, never letting Satan leave your peripheral. You were still a hundred or so feet away when he snapped toward you, pointed teeth already bared and curved talons poised to attack. You couldn’t be sure how lucid he was, but whatever happened to be running through that empty mind of his, it wasn’t enough to stop him from snarling at you, from hunching his back and digging his claws into the ground and charging, intent on tearing anything he saw apart before his anger could cool. Elation overwhelmed you. You felt the corners of your lips curl upward as he lunged, your heart practically beating through your chest as his lithe body streaked through the flame-tinged moonlight, as you took in the rabid creature that would be your end. There were sixty feet between you, then forty, and then—
And then, something dark and terrible descended from the clouded sky, tackling Satan and pinning him to the ground. Lucifer, you discovered, once the dust cleared and you could make out his face, his wings (lesser by two and painted the color of impurity, you noted with a not inconsiderable sense of satisfaction). You didn’t wait for him to notice you. Slipping back into the shadows of the wasteland, you stole one more glance toward Satan only to find his attention still fixed on you, unwavering despite his new guardian. Your eyes met his, and without hesitation, you spared him a smile. Of course, he didn’t return the gesture, but you didn’t mind.
You slipped into the night, already dreaming of the day you’d see him again.
~
By the second time you got so close to Satan, he’d already gained a reputation of his own.
You couldn’t say you weren’t proud. His anger cooled in the months after his conception, and he found a place among his brothers who, in turn, established themselves in the Devildom’s admittedly lax hierarchy of power and pleasure and all the many things that thrived when given reprieve from the harsh light of the sun. You kept your distance. As greedy as you were, you knew better than to get involved with people who knew better than to get involved with you.
Instead, you watched from the crowd as Satan grew into his rank, as the more untamed parts of his demonic nature fell away and he came to resemble something… cleaner, something less animalistic. You didn’t care for the change, but still, you kept track of him. What could you say? Even polished, he was still a gem worth keeping an eye on.
Your dutifulness was rewarded, too. Or, that was what you told yourself, at least, as you picked the lock on the door of the lecture hall where he’d thrown his latest fit, where it’d taken Mammon and Beelzebub’s joint strength to restrain him. You let your fingertips graze past overturned tables and side-stepped the shattered remains of shattered chalkboards and wooden chairs, taking in the proof of his untamed rage as you approached him. He’d been restrained, left to fester in his wrath until he was calm enough to deal with properly. Silver chains adorned with hundreds upon thousands of archaic runes kept him bound to a marble pillar near the center of the classroom, his arms trapped against his side and his more demonic features still on full display, much to your delight.
Despite having been on his own for a few hours, now, his rage had yet to die down. His fangs were still bared, his claws still biting into his own palms, his thorned tail still lashing back and forth behind his back like that of some starving wildcat, agitated that its quarry had been taken away. He only had a fraction of the wild radiance you’d been so captivated by during your first encounter, but still, you found yourself grinning. Even diluted, he was still beautiful.
This time, you didn’t have to mind your distance. You came to a stop less than a full arm’s length in front of him, ducking slightly when the point of his tail made a jab at your throat. “It’s alright, princess,” you started, keeping your voice low, your tone light. Like you were trying to soothe a wild animal – which, to be fair, wasn’t exactly not what you were doing. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to see that pretty face again.”
He really was so unlike he had been, the first time you’d met. There was a flicker of recognition in those burning eyes, a slight change to his posture. He pressed his back against the pillar, squaring his shoulders as his rabid snarl dulled into a thin scowl. His tail continued to thrash and writhe, but he didn’t try to go for your throat again. “I don’t need your help.”
“I wasn’t going to make an offer.” His eyes narrowed, and you held his piercing gaze for a second, then another, before allowing your attention to drift lower. Surprisingly, his uniform hadn’t been damaged during his rampage, only displaced; his shirt missing a few buttons where he’d torn at the collar, the jacket he always let hang open pushed so far back, it now threatened to fall from his shoulders altogether. What you were looking for lied lower, though – in the unnatural creases and unusual tautness of his pants. It was a common (albeit, no less embarrassing) side-effect of supernatural creatures giving into their true nature, especially for younger demons who never learned how to control their more primal instincts. He probably knew that, but you doubted he knew how to take care of it, just yet. Especially with his older brothers still learning how to handle their own sinful impulses. “I mean, I would be willing to give you a hand, if you need one,” you went on, nodding to his painfully hard cock. “But, if you’d rather seethe and growl in an empty classroom until one of your brothers comes back for you…”
You held up your hands, moving to turn on your heel and leave him alone with his anger, but Satan’s eyes widened, straining against his bondage as he lurched forward, practically drooling at the first hint of fresh blood. “You… you can do something about that?”
The muted excitement in his voice gave away his eagerness, his desperation. You let out a breath of a laugh, taking half a step closer, testing the boundaries before trying to catch such an active spark in your hands. When he didn’t immediately lunge at you, you brought a hand up, cupping his cheek and running your thumb over his jaw. “Of course,” you said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. As if he was the foolish one for being stupid enough to doubt you. “But only if you ask me to. I’m not going out of my way to help someone who’s going to tear my throat out as soon as I’m done.”
And, even then, you could’ve been persuaded to lay back and let him have his way with you if he begged prettily enough. Luckily, he was already distracted, already leaning into your touch and staring up at you with a new kind of reverence. He couldn’t have known he was doing it – his pride wouldn’t have allowed him to. As far as you could tell, this was all instinct. “Do it.”
You sighed, shaking your head. “You’ll have to do better than that, princess.”
He was quiet for a moment, then another. “Please,” he spat, finally, as if the word burnt his tongue. “Please, help me get rid of it.”
“No one’s going to want to do anything with you if you use that tone.” And yet, you stepped forward, resting one hand on his shoulder while the other dropped to the tent in his pants, to his cock. You ground your palm against his shaft through the thick material, and Satan grit his teeth. He didn’t know much, but he knew enough not to debase himself so willingly in front of you. “You’re lucky I’m such a bleeding heart. Otherwise, I would’ve left you here to suffer minutes ago.”
You watched him try to fight it, clenching his eyes shut as he braced himself, putting more effort into limiting his reactions now than he’d ever spared for his temper tantrums. With deft hands and saliva already pooling below your tongue, you shifted his pants down just far enough to free his cock – hard enough to press into his stomach. Like everything else about him, it was beautiful – pale but not ghastly, visibly veined but not overly defined, the head tinted a deep shade of pink you didn’t know you’d held such a fondness for, before you saw it on him. It was already leaking, too – pearls of precum dripping down his length and smearing against your skin as you wrapped your fist around the shaft and pumped lazily, playing indifferent to the way he bucked and writhed underneath you. “This,” you started, slowly, “is called a handjob. You can do it yourself, too, but it’s not as good. You’ll probably just end up making it worse.”
You swiped your thumb over his leaking tip, and he gasped, pressing himself flush against the marble pillar. You heard his restraints rattle and tightened your grip just enough to distract him, to give him something better to think about than getting away. “Pay attention, ‘cause you’re going to have to return the favor. That’s how this kind of thing works – I help you, then you help me.”
He nodded, sucking in a shaky breath. He wasn’t the brightest thing you’d ever come across, but he still might’ve proven himself to be a dutiful-enough student. “A h-handjob.”
“Good boy.” You teased the head of his cock by way of reward, then ground the heel of your palm into his base as a punishment for making you wait. When you were sure the lesson had sunk in, you took to jerking him off in earnest, taking on a pace just on the brink of satisfying and drinking in the little, stuttering moans that dripped past his lips in response. When his legs started to buckle, you worked a knee between his thighs and slotted your chest against his, staring up at him with as much adoration as someone like you could lend to something like him. You felt his cock twitch in your hand, heard his breathing turn raspy and shallow, and without warning, you pulled away, removing yourself from him completely.
He let out a desperate whine, the embodiment of pitiful. With an airy chuckle, you lowered yourself onto your knees, letting your hands fall to his waist. “This one’s a blowjob,” you muttered, just barely loud enough to be audible. He might’ve been a mediocre student, but you were an excellent teacher – always striving to fill curious minds with as much applicable knowledge as you could. “Some people call it oral sex, too. You’ll like it even more.”
His voice was so weak, so prone to cracking and breaking that in another world, it could’ve been cute. “…sex?”
“We’ll get to that later.” You pressed a fleeting kiss into his hip. “Just pay attention to me, for now.”
He really was lucky to have you. Anyone else might not have been able to handle how roughly he thrust into your mouth as soon as you’d taken the leaking head onto your tongue, might not have been willing to put up with his insatiable desire to bury himself in your throat – unaware or uncaring of your desire to breathe. You were patient, though, and strict, eager to swallow him down as deeply as you were able to before pulling back, pinning his hips down, and running the flat of your tongue up the sensitive underside of his cock. Whatever well of self-control he’d been using to bite back his pathetic little noises had clearly run dry. He moaned unabashedly, throwing his head forward and shuddering. His tail lashed out, his body determined to protect itself where his mind was unable to, but you didn’t pull away as it curled around your arm, didn’t waver as its curved thorns shredded your sleeve and sunk into your skin. Rather, you groaned around him, savoring the pure heat dripping down your arm, the way his agony seemed to drive itself under your flesh and make a home there. It was an overdue paradise, one that paled in comparison to what you could’ve had if Lucifer hadn’t interrupted you on that first night. You tried to treasure it all the same.
You fell into a steady rhythm quickly, no longer in the mood to tease him. You kept your eyes open as you bobbed your head, fixed to his flushed cheeks, his pained expression, the way he couldn’t seem to decide whether he wanted to shrink into himself or struggle against his restraints. “Stop, I—” He cut himself off with another moan, a quick jerk of his head to the side. As if there was anything he could do to hide from you, in a state like this. “There’s something wrong with—”
“You’re going to cum,” you corrected, pulling off of him just far enough to speak. With your lips still pressed against the head of his cock, you added, “That means you want me to keep going.”
If he had any mind to protest, he wasn’t able to put his complaints into words. Instead, all he managed to spit out was a fractured sob as you felt him throb against your tongue, as he came undone in your mouth. You milked him for all you had, pumping a fist over his shaft as he clumsily fucked your throat, his inexperience shining through once his inhibitions had been thoroughly pushed to the wayside. When you were sure you’d gotten everything out of him that you could, when your senses had been overwhelmed by the heady taste of him and the proof of your labor sat heavy in the pit of your stomach, you drew back, pushing yourself to your feet and taking in what you’d done to him. He was a mess, his face red and damp with sweat, emerald scales visible just underneath the collar of his shirt. With a slight smile, you fished something out of your pocket – a small, silver cage that you’d liberated from a succubus’ locker about an hour prior, when you heard Satan had lost his temper yet again. It fit the base of his cock as if it’d been made for him – pressing flush against his skin as it snapped into place with a satisfying click. When you were done, you pushed a kiss into the corner of his lips before stepping back.
 “When that starts to get uncomfortable,” you started, grinning. “Come and find me.”
You didn’t give him a chance to protest before slipping away, leaving him panting and half-dressed for someone more tender-hearted to take care of.
~
He made it three weeks before seeking you out. An impressive lapse, considering he’d been hard again by the time you left that classroom.
This time, you made an effort to keep your distance. No more trailing behind him as he walked with his brothers or standing on the outskirts of the crowd as he picked a fight with yet another low-ranking demon – no, what he needed from you now was separation, the time it would take for him to think to look for you in his peripheral and then, later on, to convince himself the pleasure you could give him was worth the blow it’d deal to his ego. You’d started to lose hope by the time bridged the gap at one of Lord Diavolo’s frequent balls, thrown to celebrate Satan and his brothers ascending to the rank of Avatar. No one could seem to remember there ever being a rank by that name before their arrival, but legislation was for the Celestial Realm. Citizens of the Devildom were always more than happy to sample their prince’s generosity, regardless of the occasion.
You’d just finished slipping a stunning silver ring off of a witch’s finger and onto your own when he found you, red-faced and visibly out of breath, as if he’d just run from one side of the castle to the other. You grinned, moving to speak, but he clearly didn’t have an interest in whatever you might’ve said; taking hold of your arm and dragging you out of the main ballroom by way of greeting. You made no effort to resist. Struggling was for people who wanted to run, people who’d lost control and needed to be somewhere else. You, on the other hand, couldn’t imagine being anywhere but here.
You let haul you down a dimly lit hallway and through a simple wooden door – almost meager, by the prince’s standards. It was a storage closet, as far as you could tell, the shelves stocked with miscellaneous supplies and the light limited to what little could flood through the gaps between the doorframe after Satan slammed it behind him. You didn’t mind it, but you would’ve preferred something a little brighter. You would’ve preferred to have him on a podium, underneath a spotlight, where you could see every last inch of his perfect body. You would’ve preferred to have him on a stage, posed to your preference for the approval of an eager audience. You’d always been charitable, like that.
But, you couldn’t linger on how you would’ve liked him when you already had him right in front of you. As soon as he’d ensured you were alone, he was scrambling to find your hand in the darkness, to press your palm into the outline of his throbbing cock and whine ­– a sound it’d taken him minutes to make, the first time you were alone together. “I can’t take it off, and—and it hurts.” His speech was frantic, disjointed, prone to slipping and tripping over itself between coherent words. You couldn’t imagine how he’d spent the past few weeks. Even his brothers would’ve noticed something was wrong, if he was always this worked up. “The cage burns when I touch it, and it won’t stop leaking—”
“Ah, ah, that’s enough.” The saint that you were, you chose to put him out of his misery sooner rather than later. “Why don’t you show me the problem?”
At that, he froze up, his neediness momentarily overwhelmed by pure, unadulterated shame. His fangs caught on his bottom lip as he looked away from you and towards himself, his hands shaking ever-so-slightly as he brought them to the button of his adorably uncharacteristic dress pants. His brothers must’ve picked out his clothes – partially, at least. You didn’t know whether to be amused or endeared by the fact that he wasn’t quite ready to make decisions for himself, just yet.
Under your instruction, he stripped quickly, the pieces of his suit falling away until he was left exposed in front of you, dressed only in your last gift to him. Speaking of – his cage was… stranger than you’d remembered it bring, the silver bars pulsing with a dull violet glow. A lasting enchantment, you figured. You should’ve expected as much from something you’d snagged from a succubus, those freaks.
You ran a finger over the curved spine, taking a long moment to appreciate the craftsmanship before you turned your attention back to the source of Satan’s suffering: his cock, already hard and, like he’d said, already leaking. You probably should’ve been more selective when it came to how you restrained him. The flesh of his shaft strained painfully against the bars of his cage, the tip already drooling enough pre-cum to smear on your palm and pool on the floor in between his legs. The poor thing looked nearly suffocated – pale and ever so slightly discolored, sensitive enough to twitch and send a rough shudder up the length of Satan’s spine as you ran your thumb over what little of the underside remained exposed. He only had himself to blame, really. If he’d only swallowed his pride and come to you earlier, he wouldn’t need your help so badly now.
He wouldn’t need to prove that he deserved your help, after ignoring you for so many weeks.
“Poor baby,” you half-cooed, taking his face in your hands and pressing a lingering kiss into his forehead. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to take something so difficult so soon. I’m sorry for making you suffer, like this.”
Immediately, you felt him stiffen. You could only hope it was a habit he’d never grow out of. You couldn’t imagine a version of Satan who was driven by anything other than the ongoing, everlasting need to prove himself and, when that failed, tear down everything that could claim he hadn’t. “I’m fine,” he said, as if he hadn’t been on the verge of tears only a second ago. “I could take this and more, if I needed to. It’s just— you said I would need to find you, eventually, and I wanted to get it over with before—”
“That’s enough.” You were sure he would’ve gone on for the next century if you let him, but you weren’t really interested in what he had to say. Not while he was so put-together, at least. “Do you want my help or not?”
He might’ve been a bad liar, but to his credit, he wasn’t delusional. Shakily, he nodded, keeping his lips pursed and his eyes pleading.
“Is that all you’re going to give me to work with?”
“…please.” He was more hesitant than he’d been the first time, but not quite so acidic, not quite so aggressive. He was begging, now, and you could never seem to turn away those in-need. “I’ll do anything.”
You sighed, the gesture airy and drawn-out. Eventually, when it seemed like his already-tenuous patience was starting to thin, you let your touch fall away from him altogether. “Why don’t you get on your knees?”
His expression fell – not so much disappointed as he was confused. “How will that—”
“I have other things to do tonight.” An expectant smile, a nod towards the floor. “I can’t help me if you don’t help me too, Satan.”
The weight of his given name seemed to do the trick. Slowly, his movements stilted and reluctant, he lowered himself onto his knees, his eyes quickly falling away from yours and find a home in his lap. You were glad you’d chosen to wear what you had – making quick work of the sashing binding your robes together and discarding your panties while Satan watched out of the corner of his eye, too embarrassed to stare but too curious not to look. You were tempted to take him by the hair, to find something to wrap around his neck and pull it tighter and tighter until he was exactly where you wanted him to be, but you couldn’t let yourself be so selfish. You couldn’t let yourself forget to take care of him – even if you could justify putting it off until he’d taken care of you.
With little warning, you brought up a foot and ground the toe of your heeled shoe into the shaft of his caged cock. He hissed, throwing his head forward and shrinking into himself, shrinking against you; his chest pressing into your thigh as he bucked mindlessly against your foot, the lewd act coming to him more naturally than you ever could’ve dreamed. Now, you raked your fingers through his hair, jerking him upward and guiding his mouth to your cunt. His eyes widened, a surprised grunt slipping out of some vulnerable pocket of his chest, but you held him in place. “Remember what I showed you last time?”
He hesitated, but not for very long. There was a slight lapse, a pause as he tried to bridge the gap between your anatomy and his, but after a moment of scraping your dull nails over his scalp, of grinning down at him with as much love and patience as you could muster, he let his eyes fall shut and opened his mouth, his tongue darting part his lips and lapping tentatively over your slit. His next swipe was a touch more confident, and the same went for the one after that, and the one after that. A slight groan bubbled up from the base of his throat, his hands coming to rest on your thighs – his curved talons biting shallowly into your skin. You embraced the spark of pain without complaint. As if you had the heart to interrupt such a valuable learning moment.
It was slow work – as sloppy as it was messy, his enthusiasm barely managing to overshadow his inexperience. You couldn’t tell how much of it was on purpose, if he meant to grind the bridge of his nose against your clit, if there was any rhyme or rhythm to how he drew his tongue over your entrance, but it was savage enough, animalistic enough to draw a shallow moan from your lips, to earn the flattened edge of your heel ground against his cock. It took ages for his tongue to slip into you, the tapered point curling and probing against the walls of your cunt. He was lucky to have been born such a rabid creature, to have been gifted such a pretty face. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be worth a minute of your time.
It was a good effort, but it wasn’t enough. With a sharp jerk to his hair, you pulled him away from you and threw him to the ground, his pointed talons leaving a row of raised skin in their wake. With a startled expression and a fog over his eyes, he blinked up at you, barely bothering to try and push himself up before you brought your heel down on his chest and pushed him flush against the floor. “Stay down.” You flashed him a smile, trying to pretend you meant for it to be comforting. “Don’t you trust me?”
He didn’t answer. You didn’t wait for him to, shedding your robes completely and straddling his waist. His prep work had been… minimalistic, to put it kindly, but you’d never been one to back down from a challenge. You met his eyes, holding his half-lidded gaze as you wrapped your hand around his cock and pulled his cage away as easily as if it’d never been there at all.
You took slow, agonizing seconds to line him up with your entrance, rolling your hips to spread his precum over your slit. He let out a slight whimper, then managed to find his voice. “What… what are doing?”
“I think I’ve already told you about this one,” you said, your smile now genuine. “We’re going to make love, princess.”
In your own defense, you gave him a chance to protest, to complain, to throw you off of him and rejoin his brothers in the prince’s ballroom. You waited a second, then another, and when he failed to do anything more than stare up at you with that pleading expression, you lowered yourself onto him, only stopping when you were sure he’d bottomed out.
You were able to bite back your voice, but Satan wasn’t so skilled when it came to hiding his reactions. His body went stiff underneath yours, his eyes falling shut as a sinful moan trickled past his lips. You heard his breath hitch, felt his cock twitch, and then he was coming undone inside of you, likely marking the first time he’d cum inside of anyone, because of anything but your mouth. You couldn’t help but laugh, drinking in his fractured whines as you started moving, rolling your hips and grinding against him, riding him properly – not that he’d know the difference. “S-stop,” he managed, though little pained noises and blissful gasps. “It— It hurts—”
Overstimulation, clearly. It was amazing, how sensitive a demon so ferocious could be. “You’ll like it once you calm down. Just try to tough it out for me, alright?” With one hand on his chest, you let the other slip between your legs and to your clit, sorely neglected by his earlier guesswork. “I’ve made you cum… how many times now? Twice? I think I get to take a little something for myself.”
If he was capable of responding, he didn’t seem to think it was worth the effort. Instead, he only collapsed underneath you, his talons scraping against the stone floor and his point fangs biting at his own lips while you used his cock as your own, personal toy; as something to be played with but otherwise left on the outskirts of your consideration. While he might’ve been willing to fuck anything you put in front of him, you held yourself to higher standards, seeking out whatever made heat pool in your core and that aching knot in the pit of your stomach draw itself that much tighter with a refined sense of determination. You’d known how pretty he was, but there was a different kind of beauty to the way he looked writhing below you, to the pitiful sounds he made every time you clenched around him or moved in a way that threatened to milk his cock – still hard, despite his whining, still needy – dry. It was clumsy, little more than reflex winning over dower rationality, but he tried to move his hips in time with yours, to seek out the heat of your cunt whenever you threatened to pull away and abandon him completely. Not that you were going to. As pathetic as his sensitivity was, you weren’t much better – the anticipation you’d built up in his absence more than enough to make up for his inexperience. Your climax rolled over you in thick, lethargic waves, dimming the edges of your vision and pulling a raspy, vaguely humored gasp from somewhere deep in your chest. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. You’d make him keep going until he gave you something better, next time.
Tonight, though, you had better things to do than babysit. With a shallow inhale and a moment taken to compose yourself, you pulled away from him and pushed yourself to your feet. Satan let out a displeased growl, loud enough and deep enough to rattle off the walls of the storage closet, but you shut him up quickly, pressing the sole of your boot into his shaft and rocking with just enough force to leave him spilling ropes of thick, ivory cum on his stomach, the evidence of his depravity left splattered against the pale skin of his midriff and the dark leather of your shoes. He moved to grab your ankle, to keep you that much closer to him for that much longer, but you pulled back, straightening yourself and shrugging your robes back on while Satan watched you, his eyes glassy and his fangs bared. “Maybe, next time, you’ll be able to take the lead,” you wondered aloud, then laughed. “Wouldn’t count on it, though. I think you’re cuter when you don’t have to think for yourself.”
You could still feel his eyes burning into you as you slipped back into the castle.
~
He started asking you to meet him in the House of Lamentation, after that. You told him you didn’t have a problem with empty classrooms and storage closets, but he insisted. You weren’t surprised. Just as he was learning that he would have to be well-behaved for you, you were starting to realize that you’d have to be gentler than anticipated with him.
That’s what you were doing now – being gentle. The collar wrapped around his neck was loose and lightweight, the leash that connected his throat to your hand allowed to fall lax for the moment, at least until the next time he did something that you would need to. You’d even let him take charge, laying back while he buried his face between your thighs, a skill he was eager to hone after you admitted his natural talent left more than a little to be desired. He was making progress, too. He’d learned to bite back his pride while he lapped over your cunt and pushed aimless patterns into your clit, spurred on by every twitch and moan he could draw out of you. There was a pillow between his legs, something soft and pliable he could grind against while he took care of you, but the thin golden ring sitting at the base of his cock made sure he wouldn’t have his fun before you had yours. This one wasn’t enchanted (you’d been tempted, but magic could be fickle and you didn’t want to bring an arcane locksmith into your time with him), but it worked well enough, and he’d never really gotten the hang of taking care of himself. To be fair, that was something he didn’t have to learn. He had you to dote on him, and you weren’t going anywhere. Not for a few hours, at least.
His hand curled around your hips, spreading you open further as the tapered end of his tongue lavished your clit, his drool mixing with your slick and staining the inside of your thighs. You let your eyes fall shut, using your legs to pull him closer as you bucked into his mouth and used his tongue to nurse yourself through your climax, only letting him go when the first pangs of overstimulation began to set in. Even without your encouragement, he didn’t go far. You felt the mattress shift, sensed his body on top of yours, and then, his mouth was crashing into your own, his kiss all teeth and tongue and violent lust. Within seconds, you could taste your blood on his lips, make out the little, airy noises only partially muffled by your connection. You could—
Your fist was crashing into his cheek before you had time to think, to stop yourself. Your knuckles caught his jaw with enough force to pry him off of you and leave him on the floor, still sitting up but visibly folded into himself. You cursed under your breath, your eyes only flitting to the door once before you lowered yourself to the ground beside him. There was a half-hearted snarl, but it died in his throat as soon as you were close enough to cup his cheek. You let out a softened coo as you pulled him close, pressing a fleeting kiss into his forehead. “Ah, I know, I know.” Another kiss, this one to the bruise forming along his jaw. Your remorse, although left mostly unspoken, was genuine. Anyone would’ve mourned leaving a mark on such a beautiful face. “Are you hurt?”
“As if something like that would affect an Avatar.”
As sharp-tongued as he was defensive. You were thankful for his ego-serving tendencies in this moment more than most. With an airy laugh, you strung your arms over his shoulders and let him bury his face in the dip of your shoulder. “Just don’t surprise me like that again, alright?” And then, after he managed to nod, “I know you’re strong enough to take it, but it’d break my heart to see you get hurt. Because of something so trivial, especially.”
When he didn’t pull away, didn’t respond at all, you sighed. “Do you have anything to say to me?”
It was little more than a mumble, spoke just under his breath. “Thank you,” he paused, melted that much further into you, “for taking care of me.”
“Good boy.”
You left a few minutes later, dressed in one of his shirts and little else. For your own peace of mind, you decided not to think about how long it’d been since you’d seen him bury his teeth in anything aside from you.
~
Honestly, it’d been weeks since you’d seen his fangs at all.
You’d had this problem before. Ever the romantic, your idle mind tended to linger on what couldn’t be reclaimed, to drive you towards the pursuit of wild beauty despite knowing that truly untamed things couldn’t be found twice, let alone a few times a week, whenever the careful surveillance of his brothers lapsed and Satan could seek you out like some mangy, prowling predator, spurred on by the promise of relief. Really, you would’ve given up on him after that first encounter, after he failed to sink his claws into your neck, or—
A ragged grunt drew you out of your thoughts and back into the present moment, back to Satan where he hovered above you. You were in some shadowed tunnel of the catacombs underneath the House of Lamentation, tonight, and you’d been kind enough to let him take charge, to keep your thighs wrapped around his waist as he fucked into you like a trained mutt, rather than the wild animal you were looking for. The stone of the altar he’d laid you over was cool against your skin, his horns pleasantly calloused where your hands were wrapped around them, and yet, your mind still wandered, the feeling of his cock beating against the walls of your cunt numbed by your lack of interest. Satan was less unaffected, his eyes clenching shut as he buckled against you, burying his face in your chest as he pushed open-mouthed kisses into whatever he could reach. It was sickening, the thought that he might’ve wanted you to return such tender affection. It was sickening, the thought that he could be capable of being so banal.
His hips crashed into yours, and you felt his lips turn upward, his cock twitch inside of you. “I think—” A pitchy whine, a half-swallowed whimper. “I think I’m in love with you.”
God. You might’ve been starting to hate him.
You let your hands fall to his shoulders. “Down, boy.”
He shook his head, too lost in his own bliss to listen to you. You scowled, shoving lightly at his chest, attempting more to get his attention than to force him off of you. “Down. Unless you want me to assume you’ve forgotten how to be obedient.”
“I—I love you,” he repeated, and then again, “I love you.” One of your legs was forced over his shoulder, his chest pressed almost flush to yours – bending you in half in a way that would’ve been painful, if you’d been anyone else. You let out a throaty growl, marking the first time you’d stopped to his level, but Satan didn’t hesitate, didn’t relent, only bowing his head and letting his rhythm deteriorate into something less calculated, less taught. You would’ve been pleased, if you hadn’t been so angry with him. “We— We’re going to be together, and you’re going to be mine, and I’m going to be—”
You could see tears running down his cheeks, hear his voice shake from something entirely separate from pleasure or desperation. You cursed under your breath, dragging your nails down the length of his spine and clawing at his back with enough force to break the skin, but he didn’t seem to notice, didn’t seem to mind, to care, to notice.“I’ll be yours.” He sounded so pathetically determined, as he thought it would come true if he only spoke loudly enough, if he only fucked you desperately enough. He probably did. You’d never taught him any better, and you weren’t sure he had anyone else who would even know to try. “I’ll only be yours.”
You were struggling, now, thrashing underneath him, but he was still an Avatar, still ranks above any station you would ever be able to reach. He held you in a bone-crushing, heart-wrenching embrace; close enough for you to feel his heart beating through his chest, to pick up on the half-muffled sobs catching in his throat. He only pulled away to bring one of his hands up to your jaw, to hold you in place while he pressed his lips against yours in a kiss so soft and so gentle, you would’ve been tempted to call it loving had it not been so vile.
By the time he drew back, he was smiling, and you couldn’t seem to remember why you’d ever thought he could be anything but hideous.
“And you’ll never have to leave again.”
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sith-qween · 1 month
Text
Sign On The Line
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel
Pairings: Reader x Lucifer, Reader x Alastor
Words: 1.8K
Rating: M
Warnings: Teaser, Blow Job, Masturbation, Real warnings to come if this is finished
The days were definitely not the same as they used to be. Since the last extermination, Hell had been in overdrive. Everyone had been scrambling to try and make the most of what little pathetic after life they had - be that begging for their lives, to kill and maim as many creatures as physically possible, and others just trying to party and fuck as much as they could. 
Maybe you would’ve gotten in on that action but unfortunately for you, you had a lovely little bargain that had you on the ropes. You would’ve been so lucky to get away with murder and just enjoy what was left of your pitiful existence. However, like anything else, there was a sick plan for you. 
You had hoped that one of those disgusting angels would’ve made a pit stop and taken you out of your misery but, that was too easy. Everyone was on edge waiting to see what Lucifer’s little duckling would do, and to everyone's surprise - the bloodbath had been a holy one. Then the news went around and suddenly the first man was gone. The one who had led the charge was now nothing more than ash. It was a frost day in hell that was for sure. No one knew what to do once the panic ceased, some returned to normal while others started asking questions, what did this mean now? Did they stand a chance against Heaven?
Bah. You couldn’t care less. Mind you, you never intended to get much closer to the victoring side. Mind you - one moment you were in the safety of your friend’s bar, and suddenly you were face to face with a very familiar grey face. Ever since that red haired antler fuck came around and sealed the deal he had you waiting in the corner. Sure you were a lot stronger now that you’d made that deal - but at what cost? It wasn’t like you could go out and enjoy that power and take whatever you wanted, you had to behave.
And just like that, your peace and quiet was over. Ever since the Hotel won their little war, there was an increase in crowds around the place. Some begging for redemption - and some burning with the desire to get closer to some obvious powerhouses, minus the Overlords. 
Alastor had deemed you a credible source to play greeter and take care of any guests that arrive personally. Those also came with the job of making any swift removals if someone wasn’t playing by the rules. Basically you were there to give Vaggie a break and let her focus on other things. 
There was one thing that had caught your eye though. Every now and again you would catch the slightest glimpse of the King of Hell. You had been there for about a month now but it was rare to see the man sauntering around with the lessers. You don’t think you’d say he was repulsed by the likes of demons, but more disappointed. The few times you had seen him he was a very pleasant man - he definitely carried himself with a very regal air, and it was something of a dream. Maybe it was just the part of you longing to have done a few things differently in your own life. Maybe then you could’ve been up there living a fantasy instead of being stuck slaving away down here. 
A few interactions had taken place between the two of you, but you wouldn’t exactly chalk them up to being overly positive? You were never out right rude to the short King - but you also didn’t kneel and kiss the very earth he walked. You were a lot of things - but a kiss ass was not one of them. While your attitude made some of the others a tad nervous, he never seemed to mind. In fact he got a small kick out of it once in a while. 
After running laps around the hotel to try and manage the requests of some newer guests you felt a deep growl rumble in your chest. You had no ties with these people and they were driving you up the wall. You couldn’t be bothered to care about this redemption nonsense, but if these idiots were serious they would have to work on a lot of things. All they were doing was getting on your nerves and you had to admire the patience that they others had. You could never. 
Making your way down the halls you noticed a shadow in the corner of your eyes and it quickly caught your attention. Not on your watch.
You weren’t about to let anything come in here and get you in trouble with your deal. Satan knows that Alastor would have you begging for death if you didn’t hold up your end of the deal. The very thought caused a shiver to run along your spine. That could wait - narrowing your eyes the growl continued as you turned down an unfamiliar hallway to track the shadow. Maybe it was someone playing a prank on you, but you’d rather be made a fool then let a danger slip in here. 
The shadow was quick and always just out of sight. Picking up speed you were sure you could get a pass on using some of your power if it was for the Hotel. Slowly two dark horns with careful curls started growing from the top of your head, eyes glowing red you darted with extreme speeds down the halls to catch up. Finally it turned into a door that was ajar, and you slipped in after it.
However, what you found was far from the last thing you expected to see. The adrenaline that had been building and starting to flare as you chased down the threat seemed to vanish in seconds. 
The room in question was on a newer wing of the Hotel, one that was not meant for guests. In fact if you had to put a label to it - it was much more on the administration side of things. The walls were not the normal royal red - these walls were tall and a nearly blinding white with golden accents. You could feel your blood run cold. 
It was one thing to add a little sass in a conversation with the King of Hell - but it was another thing to burst into his own personal room. Let alone like this.
It wasn’t just his room, no he was there. Not in any old way either. In a way that would cause Heaven to weep. Your lips moved to speak but nothing would come out, you couldn’t help the disrespectful stare as your eyes landed on the man in the large regal bed. It was a lavish bed, much larger than any single person could ever need, and the canopy on it draped perfectly to enclose the whole thing - except the front of it. It was the perfect little window to see the man lounged, his legs spread wide as your eyes locked. 
He was completely unphased at seeing you appear in the room, in fact his face grew into a wide grin. This only made the blood run colder in your body, completely flabbergasted and lost for what to do or say.
“Well,” he started as he looked you up and down, “that worked a lot better than I thought it would.” he chuckled, crooking his head as he studied your expression. You hated the fact that you could feel the blood rushing to your cheeks, you weren’t no prude - but this was something else. 
“Wait,” you managed to mumble out, trying to keep your eyes on his face and not straying to the careful motions happening in his lap under the sheets “that was you..?”
“I was curious how devoted you are to this Hotel. I don’t want anyone here that might let harm come to my little girl and her dreams,” he started, making it seem like some nonchalant and totally normal reason to have dragged you down to this side of the building. 
“I might not care - but I have a deal to uphold. So long as Alastor is invested you can count on me to do what is needed.” you scoffed. Noticing the momentary anger that reached the other's face. It amused you how much the two men hated each other, and yet both craved the same desire to push and support Charlie.
“Is that so..?” he hummed, eyes slowly shutting for a moment. AS they slowly rolled back open he was once again locked onto you, his smile turning lazy before he spoke again, “well since you’re here, perhaps you would like to keep me company. After all it seems as though you’ve have a rough day today”
HIs voice was deep and enticing. No wonder Eve was so easily pulled into his promises of free will. What soul wouldn’t find themselves entranced in him. 
“Come here”
Your mouth was dry as you found yourself moving towards the bed. Everything about him was so inviting, so pure and yet so down right sinful. Reaching out his free arm in a welcoming manor you knew then and there that there wasn’t going to be any turning around and second guessing this. Letting your tongue run along your bottom lip, you weren’t going to give up this chance. How many can say they laid with Lucifer himself?
Reaching the end of the bed his hand flicked, shutting the large doors and locking them. 
“Remove your clothing and then crawl to me, darling” he purred, the words silky as they rolled from his tongue. You weren’t about to be told twice as the shirt came over your head in a flash, and your pants were quick to follow. Dropping them in a contained mess on the floor your hands met the sheets followed by your knees. Keeping some modesty in front of the Holy King, you could feel your heart race as the excitement surged through your body. Carefully crawling towards the man, you watched him, taking in as much as you could. 
Your motions slowed as you neared the small man, your knees on either side of his leg. He looked so blissful and perfect in every way. Pulling the sheets away you could see his hand doing exactly what you thought it would be doing. Wrapped around his sizeable dick you could feel your mouth water at all of the sinful thoughts that raced through your mind. Seeing what you were doing his hand stilled and you wasted no time taking over the stimulation he had been doing. He was heavy in your hand and you couldn’t help yourself from rubbing your thighs together for some kind of friction before leaning forward to take him into your mouth.
“What do you think about adding a third party?” a staticy voice chimed from behind you.
AN: This is a teaser fic - I might finish this if anyone else is interested. Until then pay me no mind. I'm gunna go thirst after these two and Adam, cause I have no standards.
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ninapi · 8 months
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- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ Mine ❜┊˚ ̥۪͙۪◌
Premise: Not everyone can be the strongest sorcerer, Suguru knows this. Not everyone can have it all, no matter how hard they try. But there was one thing he wasn’t wiling to give to his best friend just like that, and that was you the only one who could made his demons go quiet…
Word count: 3691
Warning: spoilers of the original manga timeline~
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Summer months were your least favorite of all.
The air was hot, and breathing was unbearable, there was no trace of a single breeze, the mood around you always the worse. Not just you, but your teammates hated the season and not just due to the weather, but the excessive number of curses parading around, left barely any time left for you to even shower and scrub the stickiness of your skin off.
Being a first year in the Jujutsu academy wasn’t easy. The missions were tough, you were being tested all the time, your wit, your physical strengths, cursed energy levels, individual rites and skills; not just that, but you were constantly in danger specially being their new addition, they would always throw your team around for cleanup missions, messy back-up harsh ones and even sent you out to fight a special grade curse on your own once by mistake when they gave you Gojo-senpai’s mission instead, sending him to fight a lesser curse in the country side in error, one that almost got you and Nanami, who came after you when he realized what had happened, killed, though that’s what you signed up for.
Having to back up the two strongest sorcerers in the campus surely didn’t help.
Your party consisted of the very much constipated, moody Nanami Kento and the very opposite of that Haibara Yu. You got along with both of them just fine, they were both very different though, Nanami would always help you get your head straight, help you train, strive to be better, while Yu was always there to cheer you both up, always bright and smiley, a lovely man. But somehow you always ended up flocking around your seniors instead of your own group, regardless of the rumors of you and Nanami being actually a thing, your interests were some place else.
Shoko was a wonderful model figure, you wished to be like her one day, she’s still so young yet so powerful, being able to cure others was a noble task, much better than having to go around chasing ugly stinky curses. So you were seen around her often wanting to learn as much from her craft as possible. In all truth, she didn’t like having others snooping around, but you were helpful, having you there helped her with her experiments and helped her develop new techniques, having you around was far more useful than having her own teammates invading her personal space.
As for Gojo, he had an open crush on you. There was no soul in the school that didn’t know about the intense flirting and shameless looks he threw at you all the time. But then again, he does the same with almost every girl around, or so you thought, that’s what he leads on anyways.
You on the other hand, had a crush on his partner. The beautiful, kind, loved by many, Geto Suguru. A year your senior, yet the coolest guy you’ve ever seen in your entire life.
Unlike Gojo, he wasn’t as interested in you, as a woman at least. He’d give you the same attention he’d give the rest of your party. He was kind, gentle, always offered his advice, he did a great job taking care of his juniors and his own party, he was what every sorcerer wanted to be, powerful, known for and feared from, yet not cocky in the slightest.
It was impossible not to have a crush on him.
Though, as time went on, you noticed his demeanor change. He had bags under his eyes, his smile seemed shallow, fake even, his body thinning as days went by, his peaceful aura disappearing into oblivion. His attitude was very unlike him.
While everyone fuzzed about Gojo being the strongest sorcerer ever, all your worries were on his counterpart.
He wasn’t as needed anymore and his whole set of values were being challenged at that very moment. His sleep deprived self, had been overly consuming curses and he couldn’t think straight any longer, now unable to distinguish what was bad from what was good, it was a subjective concept after all.
“Geto-senpai! There you are! I’ve been looking for you all over the place.” he was leaning against a tree, seemingly lost in his thoughts when you found him. You could see he was coming back from a mission, his uniform and a good part of his face still covered with someone’s blood and remains of some kind of goo.
“(Y/N)? Sorry did you say something?” his smile didn’t reach his eyes, you could see how he was trying to avoid worrying you, he always dotted on your team and didn’t want his existential crisis to affect sweet little you, who was constantly checking up on him, unlike his friends.
“Just that I was looking for you. Here! I got you a souvenir from my last mission!” placing a small tin on his hand you smiled up at him, waiting for him to discover its content.
“Oh, for me? You didn’t have to bring me anything. Thank you. Let’s see, what could be hidden in this small box~” a little of the old Geto could be seen on his features every time you talked to him, it was nearly impossible for him to keep sulking in his insecurities when you smiled so sweetly up at him like that, your eyes shining with excitement, it was almost contagious. Maybe not everything was lost for him just yet.
“Cinnamon candy? Never tried them before, are they good?” he tilted his head, seemingly analyzing the treats. Normally Satoru was the one that received this sort of gifts, he didn’t know what to think about it. Did you perhaps confuse the two of them? He didn’t want to believe that was the case, you’d always been on his side unlike the rest who clearly preferred the strongest of all in their presence instead.
“I was just thinking about the last mission we had together. About how cool you looked while you were consuming that evil giant curse. But then it occurred to me, it must taste disgusting, poor senpai. Then! I saw these candies in a shop on my way here, cinnamon candies aren’t really what I would call sweet, they’re more like a cleanser, spicy even. It might make your job easier.” he was speechless, in all these years nobody ever thought of the consequences of his technique, nobody worried about him, it stirred something within him that he didn’t know he could feel. You were always this kind and not just towards him, but right there, a few minutes ago, he had been hating on humanity with all his might, hating on all those looser monkeys, good for nothings, hating on his own friends even, how they left him behind, how they didn’t care about him as much anymore. And now there you were, being as selfless as one can be, thinking about him even during one of your missions. Getting distracted like that while fighting curses could get you killed, it was a worrying thought, but one that filled his chest with a warmth he didn’t know it could shine so brightly within him.
“Senpai?” you reached inside your skirt pocket to look for your hand towel, gently dapping the blood away from his handsome face.
“Sorry, I’m spacing out a lot today. Thank you, you’re a sweetheart, nobody really cares about good old Geto and his disgusting technique these days.” his smile was more genuine this time, making your cheeks tinge with different shades of red, you hadn’t seen him smile like this in quite some time, it made you feel proud of still being able to pull smiles out of him unlike the rest.
“It’s not disgusting! I actually think is cooler than Gojo senpai’s.” you whispered the last part making him chuckle. To think he was on the edge of despair a few minutes ago.
Maybe not all was lost just yet.
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His self-doubts kept growing oddly quickly, Satoru’s success rate and popularity fanning the fire of his loneliness even more.
There were few moments now where he got to be with his teammates, most of the missions were now handed to Satoru alone without questioning and that was taking a toll on every sorcerer there was in the school, not just him, the mood around the classrooms was grim, some of the upperclassmen didn’t even attend to classes often anymore. What for? They weren’t necessary any longer, not with the heir of the Gojo clan and his almighty technique at their beck and call.
You wandered around the training grounds looking for the apple to your eye when a wild Gojo jumped at you from some side bushes. “Jeez senpai! You almost gave me a heart attack, what the heck!” you were panting, trying to calm your racing heart from the jump scare.
“Your fault, how do you pretend to be a good sorceress when you can’t even notice ME, the great Gojo Satoru, the best there is out there~” he leaned against you, snaking his arm around your shoulders, a full confidence display that you weren’t comfortable with.
Shrugging him off, you walked over to Shoko, who you spotted not far from the offense zone reading a book on her own while trying her best to ignore her annoying teammate as usual, Gojo trailing behind you like a wounded puppy, “You’re so mean to me (Y/N), you’re always hurting my poor heart. Maybe a little kiss from those pretty lips of yours could help it heal~~” Shoko could physically feel your frustration irradiating from your body from where she was sitting, sighing in shame and about to puke at his antics she got up, facing you. “He’s over there, (Y/N).” she pointed over to a set of stone steps to the side, hidden by some trees. You couldn’t see him, but he could see you and the entire scene unfold, a proud smirk shining at the way you rejected him so easily.
“What? You didn’t come to see me, sunshine? I could swear you came to ask me on a date. But don’t worry, I won’t make you go through it I know it can be embarrassing, let me ask you out instead.” the lust filled eyes he was giving you made Geto get up from his seat, walking over to you faster than he intended to.
“Senpai!” your eyes lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as he was in your line of view, causing Gojo to scuff.
“Hey, were you looking for me?” he addressed you and you only, infuriating Satoru who had tried really hard to get your attention and that had now been lost to his best friend.
“I was! I haven’t seen you around much lately…I was worried…” he reached over for one of your hands, looping it around his right arm. “Shall we go get something to drink then, catch up maybe? I’ve missed you too...” the soft tone he was using with you made an entire swarm of butterflies move permanently to your guts, Satoru’s look of disbelief causing Shoko to snort. This was very unlike Geto, he’s never hitting on girls, that was Gojo’s role in the team.
“What? You seriously didn’t know they were like a thing, sort of? You’re ridiculous Gojo, and you dare to call yourself his best friend? Have you not seen the way they look at each other? Even I get it and I don’t give a damn about anybody’s love life.”
“What do you mean a thing?” his eyes were glued to your bashful smile, the way your eyelashes fluttered oh so beautifully for another man, for his brother in arms, his best friend, he didn’t know how to feel about the entire situation, specially not now that he saw the way Suguru returned your smile, honey dripping from it just as it was from yours.
He did have an honest crush on you, he loved how sweet you were and how cute you looked when you were being all shy. He wished you’d smile for him the way you were smiling right now for his friend. And the truth is he didn’t really know you were interested in Geto, not romantically at least, he thought you were just being nice as usual with your seniors, maybe he was just always too busy and failed to notice both of you slipping through his fingers.
Geto had never been interested in dating anyone, that was a known fact, it was just not in his plans for the near future. But having you around made him feel calm, made him forget how desperate he felt, made him feel understood. Your smile could drown his doubts and sorrows, just like your candy could kill the nasty taste of death from his tongue.
Suguru knew Satoru was serious about you, he knew him well after all, but so was he. Satoru didn’t need you the way he did, he was already the strongest, the most wanted dead and alive, the one every woman drool for. He loved his friend, that was never a lie. But he wasn’t willing to share the only ray of light he had in his life with anyone, not even with him.
A possessive hand landed over the one you were resting on his arm as he walked you to the closest cafe to the school, his guard going up almost creating a bubble around you, separating you two from the rest of the world.
To you it felt endearing, to others, Shoko and Satoru included, felt dangerous.
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The night Yu died in your mission, you lost a part of yourself.
Nanami was just as broken, blaming himself for what happened while you just couldn’t stop crying. You knew this could happen at any time, your job was dangerous, and you were still new to the arts of sorcery. But you didn’t expect to lose the center of your team, everyone loved him, even Nanami was nice to him. It was a hard blow for the two of you and the school in general.
What was even more unexpected was the fact that the events had triggered Suguru to commit an atrocious act.
You were all broken, confused, hurt.
Nothing made sense to you anymore.
Not only had you lost your friend and teammate, but the man you loved committed treason and killed a bunch of harmless humans without a documented valid reason to do so.
The news hit you like a train, it had to be a misunderstanding, he’s the kindest man you’ve ever met, you decided not to believe in anyone but Suguru himself, you wouldn’t form an opinion on the matter until you had formally talked to him, he did have a different view on the world, not everyone understands him the way you do.
That night, the window to your room opened from the outside, waking you up from your restless sleep. “S-suguru…?” it was pitch black outside and all you could see was the outline of his hairstyle illuminated by the moon shining on your wall, but you could recognize him with your eyes closed, his scent, his presence, you knew it was him.
“Yeah…can I…?” he walked over to your bed, clearly distraught. Understanding what he wanted you moved to the side, making space for him to join you under your blanket, waiting for him with your arms opened and a warm welcoming smile on your lovely face.
“Is it true…?” he buried his face on your chest at your question, letting you untie his bun and run your fingers through his long hair. You’ve gotten closer over the past few months, yet you weren’t officially a couple, not to others at least. You kept things private, late night secret meetings, stolen kisses behind trees, an unnumbered amount of quiet cuddling sessions in your bedroom when his thoughts claimed the best of him, but this was all just for the two of you, the world didn’t need to witness your relationship to give it any sort of worth or weight, you two were the only ones that mattered in the situation.
“Yeah…I killed them all. They…were torturing these little girls just because they are like us, even had them locked up in a cage like if they were some type of wild animal in a circus…they all deserved death… Didn’t they, baby?” he looked up at you searching your eyes for your approval, he knew in his heart he did the right thing, but a side of him was uncertain if you would cast him aside for his actions and go to Satoru instead.
“Hmm…I trust your judgement. If there was no other choice, I would have saved the girls too. You did great, love.” your soft smile filled his chest with that familiar warmth he grew addicted to, he knew you’d be on his side, there’s just no one like you.
He wanted you, needed you.
Right now.
Always.
“Come with us, babe. The girls don’t have anywhere to go, they’re my family now. I was thinking maybe you could come too? Go away, never look back…Make this world a better place…together….” his head was back on your chest, satisfied with the way his day was going. He didn’t even need to see your face, he knew he would win you over even without trying hard to convince you.
He wasn’t manipulating you, he truly wanted you by his side, wanted you as his queen, as queen of the new world, a world where everyone would be part of his family, where nobody would ever feel lonely again, where he didn’t have to eat more curses, where sorcerers wouldn’t be treated like pests, or worse, like government toys.
“Are you asking me to be the mother of your new daughters, Suguru~?” you giggled, joking around to lighten the mood a bit.
“That’s exactly what I am asking you, yes.” he placed a loving kiss on the middle of your chest bone, his hand rubbing circles onto your hips.
You knew he wasn’t joking; this was serious, but he was now a criminal sentenced to death, Gojo would be sent out for his head. Was that the life you wanted? The life of a criminal on the run?
It wasn’t ideal, but a life without Suguru in it was even worse, he was all you wanted, regardless of the implications of that decision.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go before Gojo-senpai senses you in my room.” the smirk he gave you made heat pool in your stomach; you weren’t really trying to give him any crazy idea…
“Oh, but why? That would be so much fun…shall we make it known to him before we leave, how much you enjoy having me in your room…?” his mind had twisted even more as of recent, his possessiveness growing constantly with every little look Satoru gave your way. The thought of him knowing how much you desire and love each other instigating fire within him.
The night was long.
Satoru did feel his presence, but Suguru wasn’t stupid, he didn’t allow that to happen until you two were about to leave. He wanted him to know about your passionate encounter, he wanted him to realize you had gone with him, that you had chosen him, even if he was now a wanted criminal, a murderer, you still preferred him over Mr.Perfection.
When Satoru arrived at your room it was too late. All your stuff nowhere to be seen, your bed in disarray, the smell of mixed arousals and sweat hitting him right up his nose the moment he got in. He did it on purpose, and he knew it, made it clear for him he had claim you in every possible way, that you were his and his only.
Satoru was the one broken now, he lost his best friend, his teammate, his brother. And he also lost the only girl he’d been genuinely in love with. All in one night, without the chance to fight for any of you.
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Satoru went after Suguru many times, never being enough of a man to actually kill him, but he hadn’t had the chance to see you after you left.
Suguru kept you and your adoptive daughters safe in his newly acquired secret mansion, gave his queen everything and then some more. His family was a top priority for him, even if it wasn’t the only one.
Though, Satoru knew you’d come out of your hiding place if he dared to touch your man, and so you did.
He had attracted Geto releasing high quality curses within a secure invisible barrier, not even other special grade sorcerers would realize there was one to begin with, knowing he wouldn’t be able to pass on the feast. He knows how you always worried when he overconsumed them, and you would insist to tag along to keep your man in check.
What he didn’t expect to see though was how he consumed curse after curse, after curse, all high grades, with you in his arms. You kissed him deeply while the curses were still mingling inside his mouth, both laughing hysterically as you both indulged the curses as if they were carnal pleasures. A very different picture from the one he had in his head for his sweet innocent love and his best friend.
A grotesque scene, to him that is. To you and Suguru it was nothing but exhilarating and arousing. The taste of death mixed in with your deliciousness, it was addictive, to the both of you. Satoru was about to leave, disappointment sipping within his broken heart, his best friend turned wicked, his cute love lost her mind. That’s when he saw a little girl running towards you, panic almost dragging him to the scene.
“Mama! Are you done now? Mimiko is falling asleep!” Suguru kissed one last bit of curse out of your plush lips before indulging his daughter, quickly getting to them and lifting them both in his arms.
So this is how it was now, there was nothing left to save.
Nothing made Suguru happier than having his very dysfunctional and broken family gathered in his arms. You were all happy, satisfied with your current life.
Yeah, he definitely made the right choice…
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wanderingsorcerer · 9 months
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The 72 Demons Of The Ars Goetia
This will be multi parts and in each one we will be going over each branch of them "whoop whoop" let's get cracking
Starting off the 72 demons of the ars goetia are the amalgamation of the Occult Writings from the 15th century. Compiled into one text in the 17th that is where we get what is now known as the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis or simply The Lesser Key Of Solomon. Due to many translations spelling changes depending on region and personal preference for the author.
Let's start the Journey with the KINGs Of Hell
Baal (Bael): is the first king of hell with estates in the east and commander of 66 legions. This King is distinguished by his three heads, One of Toad , One Of Man, and One Of Cat. He teaches the art of invisibility and the power to Garner The Favor of Others. He also rules over Love and Science.
His Symbol
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As with most Spirits in the Goetia they prefer people who are clever and intelligent. Someone who is willing to put in the work instead of relying entirely on the power of the deity
Paimon(Paymon): one of the kings of hell with estates in the NorthWest he is the ruler of 200 legions of demons. Paimon is depicted as a man with an effeminate face, wearing a precious Crown, and riding a Dromedary. He is said to roar upon arrival and speak in a loud voice until asked a question from the caster. Paimon teaches all arts, philosophies, and sciences, and secret things; he can reveal all mysteries of the Earth, wind, and water, what the mind is, and where it is, and everything the conjurer wants to know.
His Symbol
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To summon him it is common practice to have a Sacrifice prepared, usually one of personal significance to the caster.
Beleth: one of the Truly Mighty and terrible kings of hell he is the ruler of 85 legions of demons. Beleth is depicted riding a war house and is said to have Loud music blaring as he arrives. He is said to look terrifying upon arrival and will attempt to frighten the caster to see if they are brave.
His symbol
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When summoning him it would be best to hold a silver ring on your left hand middle finger to your face, as to show him his respect due to his rank in the infernal realm.
Purson: One of the Great Kings of Hell, being served and obeyed by twenty-two legions of demons. Purson is depicted as a man with the face of a Lion, carrying a Viper in his hand, and riding a bear. He is commonly associated with the AntiChrist. His powers include knowing all hidden things, discovering treasures and divination (telling all things from past, present and future). He can take on a human or astral form.
His Symbol
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He represents the sun and the moon and symbolism from both is best when beginning his summoning. I.E Silver and Gold Jewelry and coloring
Asmodeus(Asmoday): One of my personal favorites, he's the one I have the strongest relationship with out of all of the demons in the Ars Goetia. Labeled as The Thirty-second Spirit He is a Great King, Strong, and Powerful. He appeareth with Three Heads, whereof the first is like a Bull, the second like a Man, and the third like a Ram; he hath also the tail of a Serpent, and from his mouth issue Flames of Fire. His Feet are webbed like those of a Goose. He sitteth upon an Infernal Dragon, and beareth in his hand a Lance with a Banner. He is first and choicest under the Power of AMAYMON, he goeth before all other. He teaches the Arts of Arithmetic, Astronomy, Geometry, and all handicrafts.
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When summoning him be respectful he has a soft spot for academics and is a true wonder of a friend to have on your spiritual journey, just don't wear hats around him.
Vine: is an Earl and also a King of Hell, commanding 36 legions of demons. This demon is portrayed as a Lion holding a snake in his hand and riding a black horse. He can tell present, past, and future, discover witches and hidden things, create storms and make the water rough by means of them, and also bring down walls and build towers.
His Symbol
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Acts as an elemental guide unto those who may seek to attack you. Vine is also a divinatory spirit who will also brings initiatory knowledge to Wizards, Witches and hidden aspects. Summon him if you wish to learn more about the Occult.
Balam:is a great and powerful king of Hell who commands over 40 legions of demons. Balam is depicted as being three-headed. One head is the head of a bull, the second of a man, and the third of a ram. He has flaming eyes and the tail of a serpent. He carries a hawk on his fist and rides a strong bear. At other times, he is represented as a naked man riding a bear. He gives perfect answers on things past, present, and to come, and can also make men invisible and witty.
His Symbol
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From the Daemonolatry Goetia by S. Connolly
“Invoke Balam to get over social awkwardness or to find the inner reasons for shyness or discomfort. Leave a piece of gold in offering to Balam (And his sigil) on the altar to keep magickal works secret until they manifest the desired results.”
Zagan: A Great King and President of Hell, commanding over 33 legions of demons. Zagan is depicted as a griffin-winged bull that turns into a man after a while. He makes men witty; he can also turn wine into water, water into wine, and blood into wine as well as blood into oil, oil into blood, and a fool into a wise man. Other of his powers is that of turning metals into coins that are made with that metal (i.e., gold into a gold coin, copper into a copper coin, etc.).
His Symbol
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Turns things into their opposites. Invoke to help curb addictions and bad habits or make delusional people (or dabblers) to see the truth. Zagam rites are a Daemonolatry Keeper ritual
Belial:He is a King of Hell with 80 legions of demons and 50 legions of spirits under his command. He was created as the first, after Lucifer. He has the power to distribute senatorships and gives excellent familiars. He takes the form of Two Beautiful Angels sitting in a Chariot of Fire.
His Symbol
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He must be presented with offerings, sacrifices, and gifts, or else he will not give true answers to demands.
Always when working with these entities show them great respect and take into considerations that the majority of these are gods from other cultures that have had there meanings shifted over the years to be perceived as demonic. Treat them with kindness and respect and for the most part they will treat you the same. Do your research and learn. Learn more everyday and don't forget to have fun. The occult is a wonderful and beautiful thing and I hope to take you on more journeys with me.
We will continue this next time when we go over the Dukes of Hell.
Thank you for being here with me and having tea with me on the other side of the Great divide :)
☕ Like My Blog? Then consider buying me a Ko-Fi ☕
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sunshine-jesse · 3 months
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Ashley Literally Did Nothing Wrong, Fuck You, Fight Me
Alt title: Ashley Graves: The most convenient scapegoat in the world
I'm going to espouse a take here that will no doubt be controversial, as you can tell by the title. This is a take I've created from my hollistic understanding of the events of the game, and isn't dependent on any one single point I make in this essay. Because of that, I want you to read it with an open mind; if you hyperfocus on one or two smaller details I might've gotten wrong or are fallaciously interpretated, and either use that to discount the whole essay or go into the comment section and immediately try to debunk my interpretation of that event, that'll make it obvious to me that you're not trying to seriously engage with the core of what I'm trying to say. Because unless quite literally everything I've said here is wrong, I feel confident in saying this:
Ashley Graves did nothing wrong.
Moreover, I think Ashley is on the level of people like Rossiu, Shinji Ikari, and Skylar White as far as people who are mistreated by their fandoms goes.
At first this was going to be an essay about how I don't think the demons are evil, using textual and thematic evidence to show that they're just part of a system that deals mostly fairly with humans and doesn't have any nefarious plans, or at least nefarious plans that stand to fuck anyone over. But then I realized that, goodness gracious, that is boring as shit to write! But I looked at what I had written already and realized that I could write something else with it: something better. I could sum up a lot of the points made in my prior essays and elaborate upon them in much more detail, showing why I think certain themes are obviously present within this game. And here, I intend on doing that.
I've spoken a lot before about how Ashley is a scapegoat for all of Andrew's worst habits; and to a lesser extent, her mother's. The game makes it seemingly obvious that she's the bad one, and generally just a Very Not Good person. It shows her and her brother committing many different acts that are, under most moral systems, wrong, and implicitly implies that she's the reason that Andrew ever did those things. It implies that she's corrupting him, that he could be better and refuses- or is unable to- due to her poking and prodding. But… is that the truth? Is that how their relationship actually works, in practice? I don't believe so. I think I've made it obvious by now that I believe the exact opposite!
I'm going to start off by tackling the morality behind their actions, especially relative to the world they're in. Specifically, I'm going to tackle how the game presents the morality of their actions from a thematic point of view, and any statements it may or may not make.
First of all, TCOAL plays with a lot of different taboos- demon summoning, cannibalism, incest, murder- but the game goes through great lengths to muddy the moral weight of the siblings' actions. Every single action they commit is portrayed in the most neutral possible light- killings were done in self defense (with one notable exception), or done to people who greatly wronged them, cannibalism was a necessity to survive (also with one notable exception), incest is shown to come from a marked improvement in their relationship- leading me to believe that this game is taking a hard morally nihilistic stance. Else, they'd be shown to suffer for their actions, when in reality, the literal exact opposite is happening; they are being rewarded for it. This isn't necessarily glorifying the actions, but instead showing that even the worst of actions can potentially be excused, but whether or not you do is up to the reader. Hence, nihilism, or at the very least, skepticism (as noted by Lisafication). There's an existentialist reading of this too, but I think much of that is contingent on the events of chapter 3 so I won't get into that here.
It contrasts this mostly nihilistic perspective on interpersonal taboos with the deep societal ills that drive people to commit such actions. Evil exists at every level of analysis here, but curiously, the only thing that are shown to do direct harm to others without having a justification of some kind- be it self-defense or retaliation- are those societal ills. There is no (morally) good reason to quarantine people, starve them, and harvest their organs. There's no good reason to burn all evidence and then put a hit on the ones who did escape. There's no good reason to extort sexual favors from someone in exchange for food. These are deep structural problems that force people to either retaliate/lash out or enable people's most exploitative or abusive habits lest they just let themselves die.
And thus, the obvious evils become much less obvious. The game makes a point of subverting the obvious or the well-known when it comes to morals, and I think it does so when it comes to everything else, too. Outside of those societal ills (so far, ch3 might have something else to say), every situation where someone could obviously be shown as the bad person in a situation is immensely more complex than it first appears. So much so that I'd argue that displaying said complexity and subverting simplicity to force/encourage people to analyze things deeper is one of the central themes of the game.
So why, exactly, does he blame so much on her? It's because Ashley is the world's most convenient scapegoat, and the game is well-aware of this and displays it in ways both obvious and not.
First off: the title screen has Ashley wielding the cleaver, establishing that she’s the violent one. It's covered in blood, too, implying that she's the one more driven to kill. The reality of this is the opposite; Andrew is the one with less hesitation to inflict violence on others, the cleaver is his weapon, and most of the kills in the story are done by him (and fully justified). Ashley might push him to do these violent acts, but… does she?
Her reaction to the death of the first warden is one of utter shock.
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And her expression afterwards?
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This is not the look of someone who enjoyed the fact that someone killed for her sake. This is not the look of someone who finds joy to be had in violence. It's not even the look of someone who is apathetic towards violence. It almost seems to express shame or guilt, but at the very least, she's timid over it. At the very least, it's an "oh shit, he actually had to do that for my sake" face. Not a "haha, I am making him worse!" face.
Not to mention, not only does Andrew kill the first Warden without a care in the world, he proactively kills the 302 lady to eliminate all witnesses, and because he believes Ashley would want him to. But Ashley actually grills him for it; she didn't want the 302 lady to die, although she hardly had good-person-reasons for it. But that's not my point. The point is that she is not the violent one between the two of them.
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The door doesn't open in response to violence, remember?
The game intentionally misleads us.
And what happens when Ashley tries to make him take responsibility for all this violence? To point out that she didn't force him to do anything and that he chose to do all of it, including lock Nina in the box? She lashes out, hits him a few times… and then he goes to strangle her, and doesn't let go until she acknowledges that he has no reason for her to be around. He literally doesn't cease his threat to her life until she acknowledges she's useless to him.
I acknowledge that this isn't the most charitable framing for Andrew, and maybe too charitable for Ashley. After all, she wasn't indignant. She was mocking him. She found it hilarious. But I have reasons for that charitability that I'll go over towards the end. But even with that charitability in mind, I don't think my reading is too off base. Defaulting to laughter or mocking in stressful situations is just what Ashley does. She's not indignant about it; she just finds it hilarious that people keep pretending to be better than her, when they're not.
Andrew killed the 302 lady and used Ashley as a scapegoat to justify it; this is indisputable, stated in the text during the dream. This alone validates Ashley's point of view. There is no interpretation of this event that doesn't paint Andrew as every bit as unscrupulous as Ashley, and thinking she corrupted him into this- when it was both one of the first actions he did on his own in the story and something he explicitly uses Ashley as a scapegoat for- is just ridiculous. It's frankly unreasonable. She has every right to be sick of being used as a scapegoat. And at the very least, whether or not you accept the idea that Andrew only let Ashley go once she acknowledged that she's useless to him, he's still so taken aback by his misinterpretation of Ashley's desires that HE goes to strangle HER.
This is NOT Andrew triumphantly standing up to his abuser. This is both of their masks slipping; Andrew revealing how violent and insistent on keeping up his internal narrative that he is, and Ashley revealing that she's getting tired of being blamed for everything.
And then, when he finally lets her go… she hugs him, and acknowledges that she's happy that Nina is gone, which makes little sense at the face of it. Why would that be her first response to being let go, when it was ostensibly what made Andrew so upset to begin with?
I think, to her, it's a conciliatory gesture. As chapter 2 showed us, she's more than willing to take responsibility for violence to relieve Andrew of stress over it, as evidenced by her finishing off their parents. This is an earlier instance of that; by acknowledging she was happy that Nina was dead, she took responsibility for it. She willingly framed herself as a bad person here, so Andrew wouldn't have to be.
She let herself be the scapegoat, because it's all she ever knew. She put the mask back on.
This alone is enough to challenge the idea that Ashley 'corrupts' Andrew in any meaningful way. How, exactly, can you define it as corrupt when society itself is twisted enough to force these actions to survive? In a more sane world, a lot of their actions would've been bad, sure, but they're also actions that the siblings probably wouldn't have done in a more sane world. Ashley's actions aren't making Andrew worse, they're helping to ensure their survival. You could say that this is still corruptive in its own way, but at that point it seems like your reasoning is motivated by having already had that narrative rather than making a good-faith reading of their dynamic.
At no point did she actually make him worse; he was already like that and just used her as an excuse.
Next up is the Nina situation. This one is obviously cut and dry- Ashley manipulates Andrew into killing Nina because she wants no competition between the two of them. It's not Andrew's fault and Ashley was an evil abuser from the jump. Obvious, right?
No. It's really not.
It's pretty strongly implied that Ashley was mistreated by people her whole life. The Lemon Cupcake scene shows this in more detail, about how people always neglect or ignore her birthdays, but she also says that nobody likes her because she's weird and loud in the Nina flashback too. But unless something big happened in between the two flashbacks, none of this behavior indicates particularly maladaptive or even strange tendencies on Ashley's part. She's a needy, bratty child, and the closest thing to a friend she has- Nina- wants to take away the one thing from her that's a source of comfort and emotional validation.
It's not entirely rational, sure! But it also -makes perfect sense-. NOBODY treated her well throughout her entire life; it's strongly implied that Nina never did either, given Nina's reaction to Ashley being there and the lower left-hand painting past the Questionable door showing her being distant from the two of them. We can also see a star bouncing off of her head, and stars represent closeness in this game, so it shows there was an attempt made somewhere along the line, it's just not clear as to who made the attempt.
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At the very least, Nina's reaction of disappointment fed into Ashley's preconceived notions of how people treat her, and how she deserves to be treated. Although, from what has been directly stated, rather than implied, Nina was nothing more than an innocent victim in this scenario; I don't mean to take that away from her.
"But she didn't care when Nina died?"
So? If Nina treated her like trash for most of her life, why should she care? She didn't expect Nina to die. It was just an acceptable consequence. You can say "That's not how normal kids act!" all you want, but there's a level of spite and apathy that comes with intense bullying and emotional neglect that I don't think you really understand unless you've been there to the extent someone like Ashley has implied to be.
Andrew, meanwhile, was the one who told Ashley that they had to lock Nina in the box to keep them in there. He's the one who looked for and found the stick to keep them locked in. You could say he was coerced by an abusive person into hurting someone, sure, but you'd be wrong. Cataclysmically wrong, even. Like, if you actually think that a seven year old girl (nobody wears overalls past the age of seven) can have anything approximating an abusive dynamic with her as the perpetrator with someone both older and stronger than her, you frankly have some issues with women you need to work out. That's simply not how abuse dynamics work at that age.
Andrew wasn't entirely responsible for it either, mind- he was just a kid who should never have been saddled with this kind of responsibility. But that's not my point; the point is that it enables other people, Andrew included, to use her as a scapegoat to avoid his own responsibility. All this scene does is retroactively justify any preconceptions you might've had about them from seeing their adult selves first. But the moment you start digging, it becomes much less obvious who's really culpable here. Andrew was, as evidenced by the blood oath scene, fully aware that he held the advantage over her in strength, and managed to give up nothing when making the oath while he made Ashley swear to silence. He was fully aware that he could've chosen to do better, but he refused, and instead opted to reinforce Ashley's insecurities for the sake of exerting control over her.
I've said before that the 302 lady was murdered without any input from Ashley, but this is also relevant on a meta-level because it's done without any input from the player, either. Both of the murders in chapter 1 were like that, whereas all that we, the player can choose to do in that chapter is either solve puzzles, or hilariously, die. The only person with control here is Andrew, the character, and this is reinforced by the fact that we have no control over him for much of the Nina flashback, too. He locks her in the box regardless of our input, even though Ashley spends a lot of time trying to convince him. The main difference between the Nina flashback and the scenes in the apartment is that Ashley had absolutely no idea that any of that was going to happen in the present, whereas it's something she wanted with Nina- which isn't that big of a difference when discussing how much agency she really has.
As much as the game frames Ashley as a manipulator- and much of the fanbase uncritically accepts- she is given shockingly little in-game control over many of the actions committed. Even in the case of the Hitman- as a good friend of mine pointed out- the only choice the player is given is whether or not to check the closet and be killed; an impulsive decision leading to a swift and unceremonious end. In the end, Andrew is the one given the choice to kill the hitman, and we can consciously choose whether or not his reaction is panicked or measured. No such choice is given to Ashley, as most of her reactions are impulsive and spontaneous rather than planned. This is not the makings of a standard "manipulative evil bitch" trope. She's pretty consistently portrayed as someone with poor impulse and emotional control who loudly and aggressively states her intent in every single scenario she's in.
And you can still call what she says and does manipulative despite that, sure, but at what point are you just pathologizing relatively normal (if extreme and highly emotional) social interactions for the sake of fitting into a narrative you already held?
We see Ashley's status as a scapegoat for people to use to pretend to be normal reach its most blatant with the parents. This time it's pretty cut and dry to anyone that doesn't already have it in their mind that Ashley is evil and unforgivable. Mrs. Graves explicitly brings up the possibility of a normal life without Ashley to Andrew in the basement, and claims that Ashley was at fault for shutting her out. She would've been a normal parent otherwise, right? Well, no; the game wastes no time in showing that this wasn't the case in the Burial ending.
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From when Ashley was a baby, Mrs. Graves was already tired of her shit, and too emotionally exhausted to be a parent. Despite her attempts at blaming Ashley, she would've never been a normal parent unless Ashley was a golden child in the same way that Andrew was. And yet Ashley didn't even deny shutting her mom out. She didn't deny the chance to be used as a scapegoat; it was all she ever knew. The fact that Mrs. Graves had the audacity to claim that she was a saint when she was never prepared to be a parent for a child who didn't make it easy, and when she was willing to sell out her children and let them die for a life insurance payment is absolutely astounding.
This alone should've been enough to recontextualize everything we supposedly know about how responsible Ashley really is in all of this, but bad parents have a knack for being great at manipulating both family members and everyone viewing from the outside, including the people playing the game.
And almost including Andrew.
Andrew almost accepting the mom's offer is the single most tragic moment in the game, by far.
Dandy said it best in his video essay: By Ashley leaving Andrew alone with their parents, she showed that she is capable of changing. That she is capable of getting better. She showed that she loves and respects Andrew enough to be able to put aside her usual role as the scapegoat and allow him to make the decision that was for the best for both of them. And make no mistake, it was for the best; if the mom really DID sell out the siblings, and given the two of them were already on the run for supposedly being dead, there was no hope of any of this ever working out. They saw through the conspiracy and knew the truth of how the quarantine operations really worked. They were an active threat to one of the most powerful entities seen in the setting so far, to the point where they had a hitman sent after them.
Mrs. Graves had every reason to sell them out again, for their presence in a public setting was more than enough to put everyone in their family in danger. Mrs. Graves had every reason to believe that the normalcy she wanted was nothing that could ever be grasped again so long as her children were alive, and as such, it was clear that she had nothing to offer either Andrew or Ashley. Ashley trusted Andrew to see through their obvious manipulations and lies, and understand that the parents had nothing left to give them. She trusted him to love her more than the false promises their parents could give.
…And yet. In spite of it all.
In spite of her love, in spite of clearly displaying that she can grow up and become a person that causes him less stress, and in spite of Ashley showing that all she wants now is their safety and security…
Andrew can still choose to consider Ashley the problem. He can still choose to use her as the scapegoat he always has.
He can still choose to see her as the one thing that caused him to be this way, that stands in between him and normalcy, when she, not once, forced him to do anything.
Were he to accept Mrs. Graves' offer, this would've been the single most tragic moment in the game. It almost was, and still stands to be, because he ignores every indication that things could be better for the sake of his own narrative, and a narrative echoed by much of the fandom.
But no matter what ending was picked, things could be better. They could've been better all along. Compared to chapter 1, their dynamic in chapter 2 is already much healthier. Their banter is less venomous, and while they still poke and prod each other in ways that aren't exactly great, they don't get into the same violent fights we saw in the 302 room. By all accounts, what happened in that room was an outlier. Even when they find themselves in their parents' house, where they stand to do the One Thing That Means They Would Never Be Normal Again, Ever (ignoring the fact that this is already a lost cause by then), Ashley doesn't get into any fights with Andrew in the same way she did back in the apartment. All she wants is affirmation and security. She doesn't even lay into her mom like she lays into Julia over the phone, even in their private conversations.
We’re led to believe that she’s still getting worse because the actions she’s taking are more extreme, but her attitudes and behaviors are much, much different. The actual actions they're taking are so obviously the right thing to do (both morally and practically) that I don't think it's until they eat their parents that you should make a double take and go "Wow, maybe these goblins actually are kinda fucked up," because until then, well… everything is justified! Perfectly so! Even then, eating their parents serves a purpose, even if not a mentally healthy one.
Maybe she’s calmer because she’s in control over the situation, but if the calls she made to Julia are any indication (independent of the theory that she didn’t actually say those things), were she unchanged as a person, she still would’ve lashed out at their mother over how much more useful she is to Andrew than their parents were, or something of that nature. Something about how nothing their mom offers could compete with what Ashley gives. But she makes no such claims. She feels no need to prove anything to her parents, or to reaffirm her place in Andrew’s life even in the face of her mother challenging it (or at least implying such a challenge). Regardless of her insecurities, she’s changed. It’s hard to see, but she has.
And then Andrew can ignore that and consider betraying her because he refuses to believe that she's willing to make their dynamic work, when she shows many different indications of being willing to concede as long as Andrew stops giving her mixed signals.
A friend of mine put it best, and I'm pretty much quoting her word for word here, because of how strongly I agree with it. When I look at Ashley, I find very few actual "flaws." I see familiar wounds.
The Burial ending, despite being triumphant and not nearly as "dark" as some people think, is still very, very sad. A lot of abusive dynamics are characterized by someone having to fight every step of the way to get what they need from the other person, usually some kind of emotional validation or relief. This is what happens between Andrew and Ashley for most of the game: Ashley wants Andrew to treat their relationship as special, to acknowledge there's something to it beyond just him going through the motions. And yet for most of the game, he refuses to, especially in chapter 1. And then, in Burial, when he does…
She's confused.
A lot of people view this as her being afraid of losing control over Andrew, since her "Andy," who she can push around, is gone. Andrew has changed, and the same tricks wouldn't work. But that's not what that is; it's not about control, it's about her finally getting what she wants from him without having to fight. She still thinks about using sex as leverage to keep him around, but that's because she's never understood what it's like to have someone actually want to be around her. And I speak from experience; when you no longer have to fight for every little bit of emotional validation or relief, when you no longer have to keep checking your messages to keep an argument going so you can finally be proven right, when you no longer have to force yourself to let go, to stop engaging, the reaction isn't happiness. It's not relief.
It's confusion. It's discontent.
Because something you've tied so much of yourself up in to is no longer there, despite it being more peaceful, it still feels wrong. The dynamic still has to be this way in your mind, because you've never known anything else. You latch on to whatever you can in order to justify that, and your actions are still heavily biased in favor of maintaining your place in that nonexistent dynamic. This isn't manipulation; it's trauma. And the fact that Ashley almost immediately understands that Andrew is changing is nothing short of a miracle. By consolidating past and present Andrew into a single person rather than splitting them into two, she showing that she can actually heal from that trauma. And all Andrew had to do to enable this is to acknowledge that she CAN change, that things CAN be better, and that everyone who claims to be better than her is full of shit.
I've analyzed the events of the story in a way that may seem needlessly antagonistic to some characters, and overly charitable to others. But I have to ask you, that if you disagree with anything I've said:
Where does that disagreement come from? What about my narrative clashes with your own? -Why- does it clash? Is it because the game presents your interpretation as obvious, whereas mine is not? Is it because you've experienced someone like Ashley before in your life, and you know it when you see it? Maybe you strongly identify with Andrew, and view his status as a doormat with no agency to be obvious? Or did you just accept the narrative that much of the fanbase has taken at face value, without further analysis other than building on top of it?
I don't believe these things to be contrarian; I've held most of these opinions since my first or second playthrough. I don't believe what I do because you don't, I believe what I do because I understand what Ashley has been through. I've experienced a lot of the specific traumas she had, such as deep feelings of isolation and being deprived of the emotional validation I need from the people who need to give it. I know what it's like to be misunderstood, to have who and what I am taken for granted, and to be terrified of being abandoned by the people I need the most. I see what I do because I understand.
And I want to give her that understanding that nobody gave me.
Maybe you should think about it. Why do you take it for granted that Andrew is a doormat who is strung along by Ashley? Why do you find it so odd when the trope of a woman corrupting a good man through leveraging sex is drawn into question? Why is Ashley seen as crazy, when all of her actions are so straightforward and rational? How is she corrupting him, when the single most needlessly violent act in the whole story- outside of the Nina flashback- is done without her influence? Why is Ashley seen as the abusive one when Andrew both threatens and resorts to physical violence and witholds emotional validation?
Weirdly personal tangent aside, Ashley and Andrew are two of the most well-written characters I have ever seen. They're not written like archetypes who interact with each other through a series of tropes; they're written like real people who's words and actions have astoundingly human motivations. They come from places that we can understand and relate to.
And just like people, they deserve respect. In spite of all they've done, they deserve love.
But make no mistake, Ashley is not the one stopping that love from happening. She just has the audacity to still want it in spite of everything telling her that she doesn't deserve it. We're led to believe she wants too much, but all she ever wanted was the bare minimum that she was never given.
And she has every right to be mad about it.
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vroomvroomwee · 2 months
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Angel Crowley - demon Crowley is such an insane trans alegory
Now I personally don't think that Aziraphale loves angel Crowley more than current Crowley, but it is very possible that Crowley thinks he does.
Something about your loved ones prefering a past version of you that they knew first and doing whatever they can to bring them back and have you gone? Yeah, sounds very much like the treatment trans people receive once they come out. Like the person they are now is not enough, or something lesser, or a tragedy.
We can also see Crowley grow some sense of resentment towards his past angel self. "The angel you knew is not me." Which is also a common thing that trans people feel towards the person they "once were" before everyone knew who they really are so they try to hide and bury that version that everyone else prefers and loves more. Crowley never even mentions his name, almost like it's a deadname to him.
There's also a sort of physical transformation from angel-demon and even demon-angel (transition and detransition).
Not to even mention the rejection and casting out of Heaven, which parallels the experiences of unfortunately many trans people who have been shunned and kicked out of their homes for being trans.
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heartfullofleeches · 2 months
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Can u like the post or hashtag for the casino group??? Ik that clover the bunny rabbit dude is there but my memory is a lil foggy
Yeye. Links to the main tags and the existing individual ones + some brief descriptions on everyone we have so far-
Clover [he/him] - Pathetic meow meow Rabbit demon man. Was a devoted Christian before his demise. Timid, somewhat cowardly. A magician who messes up a good percentage of his acts - also a hopeless romantic search for the other half to his heart and act. The dagger that took his live is still embedded in his chest - the wound bleeds profusely when removed
Hearts [they/them] - Acrobat Clown. The new head of security after Spade stepped down. Unlike their coworker who abandoned the role due to their violence when taking care of unwanted guests, Hearts is a trigger happy mess looking for any reason to strangle someone with their ribbons. Limbs are doll pairs - the ribbons they use for their performances are woven throughout their entire body flesh and not. Does not like to talk about what happened to their limbs.
Diamond [they/them] - Disgruntled bartender. Wears a gas mask they refuse to take off due to the effects their eyes have on mortals and lesser demons. Their saliva is a powerful toxic that in micro doses can give folks a nice buzz/act as an aphrodisiac. Grumpy asshole. Hates their job, hates the casino. Really wants to kiss someone, but at the same time they don't due to the whole poison thing.
Spade [any pronouns] - Head of maid staff. Invisible without their face makeup and clothing. Stoic, a person of few words. Secretly has a love for cute things which is once reason why they were glad to hand over their role as head of security to Hearts as it meant they could wear the maid outfits. On friendly/sibling terms with the Aces
The Aces [they/them] - A group of four assistances assigned to the other four. Pretty much hive-mind with some minor individuality between them. Still, they are connected mentally and almost never act alone.
Queen [he/him] - A signer at the casino. Siren Demon. Has a on land form, but rarely leaves his tank as the lack of water dries out his skin. Flirty, uses his voice to lure wandering mortals to his tank. Whether he eats/drowns them or befriends them depends on the humans actions.
King [She/her] - Big ass dragon lady. Another entertainer at the casino - the undefeated champ at the knight tournaments held. Loud, thickskulled. So many scars it looks like she got tossed in a blender.
Mr. Devil: Owner of the casino. Dealer. Only knows how to play blackjack. Seriously, what are they doing here? Tries to make the casino a safe space for humans, demons and everything else in between and not - but is nowhere to be seen when things go wrong.
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n0n-sen-se · 6 months
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𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐢 𝐒/𝐎!
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includes ;; muzan, kokushibo, doma, akaza, hantengu + clones, gyokko, gyutaro, daki, nakime, rui, enmu content ;; tw: blood/mentions of blood, fluff (?), possessiveness, jealousy, slight yandere themes (?), biting a/n ;; just wanted to remind those who forgot! marechi refers to a special (intoxicating to demons) blood quality that only a handful of humans possess! + i wanted to include as many demons as i could, so apologies for the long post!
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☆☆☆ # muzan kibutsuji !
he's known it since the start. in fact, it does make you special to him, its the reason why he noticed you so blatantly amidst other humans in the first place.
would try to use your blood in his research. after all, when would he get his hands on another marechi again? another 50 years?
but unfortunately for him. . . he's very fond of you.
at the back of his mind, whenever he takes you out for the night or watches you resting, he thinks to himself: when will you, and your blood outlive its usefulness? and when would be the perfect time to turn you into a demon?
surely you'd be very impressive as a demon.
he smiles to himself at the thought, looking over at your sleeping form with a tender feeling blooming inside of his chest.
☆☆☆ # kokushibo !
its. . . not surprising in the least. he could tell right away that something was off about you. its only when you clumsily hurt yourself that he confirms that you are a marechi.
he can suppress the urge to bite or eat you well enough, your just-- intoxicating to him altogether.
he likes to be near you now more than ever, accepting any kind of physical touch as a comfort.
likes to have you sit on his lap or have a hand on you whenever he can.
he would not allow any other demon (or anyone in general) to lay their hands upon you.
takes it as a challenge when someone oversteps their boundaries to you. will become violent as he's extremely protective of you + with added heft because of the fact that you are a marechi
☆☆☆ # doma !
he, like all the other demons, know just how rare a marechi is!
if he thought you weren't distracting before-! NOW, you are all he can think of
better than anything his followers could give him; no jewels, no gold, no praise could ever be worth more (it couldn't before he learned this, but now! now that he knows he's ecstatic!)
you whole-heartedly hold his all of his affections and adoration!
doesn't like the idea of fighting others over you (if its a lesser demon or a lower rank, he'll demolish them without a second thought. . .) but fighting someone like kokushibo is unthinkable!
but you know. . . he would.
becomes extremely possessive over you, not quite jealous per se. . . but he does need to know where you are at all times + occupy your space almost 24/7
gosh, you are just so damned precious aren't you?
☆☆☆ # akaza !
learning that you're a marechi is honestly. . . pretty bad news.
he worries that something bad could happen to you (being involved with demons after all) and that there's a chance he can't protect you like he wants
he doesn't mind your blood (his training disciplines him enough to not mind the fact that you're literally intoxicating)
spends a bit too much time with you, reassuring you that he's there for you and holding you. (side note: loves when you lay on him)
would not do anything without your permission, but if he thought turning you into a demon or hiding you was the right thing to do, he would say so
other than that, he's still your partner, through and through
☆☆☆ # hantengu + clones !
someone would have to point out to hantengu that you were, in fact, a marechi. and if that person was an upper rank demon, you can bet his personalities would split in fear
sekido, turns his rage onto the other clones and demons. they are inferior and could not keep you safe like he could
karaku, would love spending time with you, who cares about your. . . very potent blood? he's way more affectionate now that he knows
aizetsu, is (obviously) devastated to learn this. what if he's unable to protect you?. . . like karaku, he likes to be near you, laying his head on your lap when he can for comfort.
urogi, adores you! being a marechi doesn't really change a thing about what he thinks
zohakuten, is the one who can 'actually' protect you and makes it his sole purpose. after all, you do mean everything to him, its his job to do so.
when the clones learn about your blood, everything seems to be scaled up to 100 with them. . .
☆☆☆ # gyokko !
ugh! this is perfect! perfect! PERFECT!
it took him a moment too long to catch onto that-- particular smell that always followed you. he was always too preoccupied on his work or trying to garner your attention to realize it!
then it hit him like a pile of bricks.
you were a marechi! his own one of a kind work of art!
your blood crafted by the gods themselves and blessed upon him! of all people!
like the ❛true work of art❜ you are, he likes to flaunt and taunt the other demons with his relationship to you. (would definitely do that thing where he hides behind you and sticks his tongue out at them)
his body/tail is almost always encircling you (protective or possessive gesture? . . . maybe a bit of both)
i mean, in his eyes, you've always carried unique + immense beauty; but to have all the other demons jealous of him is the cherry on top! for a while (maybe a few decades or so) you and your presence become his ultimate muse
☆☆☆ # gyutaro !
conflicted about the fact when he finds out.
what is he supposed to do with you now? of course, of course! on top of being flawless in his eyes you're also a damned marechi! ACTUALLY FLAWLESS
(he's pissed off + currently picking the hell out of his skin with anxiety and frustration)
how could you hide something like this from him?! then, he calms down as ❛all is revealed to him❜
you're his, plain and simple. what's there to be jealous or insecure about? the problem (in his mind) lies within the other demons
currently: a little more clingy and teasing towards you. definitely likes to try and embarrass you by showering you with affection
overall, just indulging in your presence.
☆☆☆ # daki !
would not be able to tell on her own that you're a marechi, and when she learns that you are-- its like a dark heavy veil falls upon her: ❛you. . . WHAT?!!!❜
would try to bite you, and there's like a 50/50 chance she regrets the thought. or actually does it. . .
hopes you'll ❛get over it❜ and come cuddle with her again ♡
without a doubt, she thinks no one could over-power her to get to you (when/if proved wrong) she starts to cry because 1, she's weaker than she thought and 2, because what's going to happen to you if she can't protect you?
if she did ask her brother for help, she'd actually doubt him too. would gyutaro try and take you? because she'd fight with him too. . . just wouldn't want to resort to that.
she's not overtly possessive, but your dead wrong if you think she wouldn't be the literal embodiment of jealousy
would be really proud to be with you
☆☆☆ # nakime !
the biwa demon tries to care less when its revealed to her that you're a marechi:
❛is that a fact?❜
you've always been her source of comfort, its usually very reassuring to have you near her. . . but lately, its hard for her to concentrate on-just about anything she does.
is whole-heartedly trying to focus on her biwa and physically wincing at every missed note. . . but how can she when you're just sitting there overwhelming her thoughts?!
she's always adored your attention, and now that playing her instrument has become a tad distracting to her. . . she likes to spend time with you personally. you're thoughts on her infinity castle? would you like a tour of her favorite spots? and one new feature she is currently in love with is: holding your hands in hers.
wouldn't like confrontation with other demons, a physical fight is off the table. . . but she could sure hide you better.
☆☆☆ # rui !
accidentally cuts you with a string while the two of you are playing cats cradle.
is very interested in a ❛marechi❜ (at first he doesn't know what to call you as he's never encountered someone with your kind of blood before)
is over protective, to the point of casual violence (will casually slice up a demon that thinks you'd make a good meal)
besides the effect it has on other demons, rui doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. from the smell to the physical effects your blood has on him. . . its pretty minimal
but he can always be jealous-- and petty (he's 100% smiling at the prospect of fighting other demons over you)
really. he wouldn't allow anything to separate you from him. not because of anything. so your stuck with him, marechi or not.
☆☆☆ # enmu !
initially thinks that this is a WONDERFUL revelation!
then he's internally conflicted by the idea of eating you or spending his life with you. and will be for a long time.
dammit! just give him some of your blood!
becomes pesky pesky enmu.
and does revel in the fact that he can just openly lay on you, bothering and being as close as possible to you!
wants to spend a ton of time with you now that he knows + starts asking questions
finally thinks that turning you into a demon could be an amazing idea! : would your special blood make you stronger? would you be stronger than him? oh the possibilities!
but. . . as much as he loves having fun with you. . . he does care about your health. . . a little too much. everything in him is so conflicting right now.
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awakenedsalamander · 3 months
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This is gonna be a long walk. But I’ll get there. I promise.
In a lot of Chronicles of Darkness games, there are “minor templates” for players to take for their characters. These are basically lesser types of supernatural beings— undeniably marked by magic, but not transformed by it like the main templates are. So instead of being a werewolf, you might be a Wolf-Blooded, i.e., not the monster your stronger cousins are, but still recognizably having a connection to that world.
Again, a bunch of games have these. Mage has Sleepwalkers (and Proximi), Vampire has ghouls, Geist has the Absent, Demon has stigmatics, etc.
In Changeling: The Lost, there are the Fae-Touched. We’ll get to them in a bit. First, more on Lost.
In Lost, like many stories about faeries, oaths and vows are very important. They are, in the form of magical Contracts, the source of many fae powers. Changeling have a neat ability to make any spoken promise binding, invoking the force of the Wyrd to force even minor vows to be taken seriously. And many changelings are taken by the True Fae by getting ensnared in some kind of oath.
See, if you didn’t know, Changeling: The Lost is about humans taken to the home of the True Fae, and then transformed into changelings as the True Fae torment them. The game is very much about the way trauma changes a person, and how even recovering from trauma still doesn’t bring you back to the way you were— you’re healed, but you’re not the same.
And much like trauma changes a person, it isolates them too. Lost represents this in the fiction with fetches— the faerie-forged simulacra left behind in the stolen person’s wake, acting the roles of parent, sibling, friend, and so on while the original person is actually suffering with no escape.
But the Fae-Touched won’t stand for that.
Because while Changeling: The Lost recognizes that many promises aren’t serious, that when people swear, “I’ll always be there for you,” they don’t always live up to that, it also recognizes that some promises are different.
The Fae-Touched are the mortals who remember the words they swore, and will not ignore them. They can tell, in their dreams, through the nagging impulses they get in their waking moments, that the person they promised to help needs them now more than ever. They are lead by the Wyrd into the land of faerie to live up to that promise, and they follow it gladly.
A Fae-Touched is the father who knows the smiling fetch who claims to be his daughter isn’t the real thing, and that somewhere the girl he swore to protect is in mortal danger— and so he delves into a world of dreams and nightmares to bring her back.
A Fae-Touched is the woman who fights off briar wolves in a mad, twisting forest so she can find her wife, because when she said “I will never abandon you,” she meant it.
A Fae-Touched is the young man staring down a Lord of the True Fae and refusing to yield. He and his brother went through hell together years ago when their parents died, and they promised one another then that they’d always stand by each other, and some monster in a crown can’t change that.
Not every changeling is helped by a Fae-Touched, and not all of the Fae-Touched succeed. Sometimes you have to claw your own way back home. But God, what a beautiful concept.
I know that Changeling: The Lost is very dark, and the reason I love the Fae-Touched isn’t really because they’re the light to that darkness— I think that simplifies it too much.
I like the Fae-Touched not because they take away the darkness, but because they remind me we don’t always have to face the darkness alone.
Sometimes, when you think there’s no point going on, when you think it will just be the pain and the fear again and again and again… it’s not true. Because sometimes, maybe even more often than we think, there’s someone out there who knows you need help. And they ready themselves, they set out into the darkness, saying only,
“This is gonna be a long walk. But I’ll get there. I promise.”
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au: life was kinder to them (sabito, tsutako and kanae don't die)
rambling under the cut!
Both Shinobu's and Tomioka's personalities changed a lot after their loved ones' deaths, so if that never happened, I think they would act quite different (on top of having different haori). They would also both still become as strong as hashiras but don't achieve the rank due to already having nine hashira.
Sabito would become the water hashira instead as he improves faster than Tomioka so reaches the level first. I can't imagine Tomioka with a different breath style as he was so well suited to water breathing that he managed to create an eleventh form. For Tomioka to achieve the promotion to hashira, they would need to have multiple water pillars, unless Sabito uses a different breath style (I've seen people use ice for him which I think fits really well). This doesn't solve the numbers issue, though.
Tomioka would instead simply not get promoted but be informally known to be as capable as a hashira by those who go on missions with him. I think this could work well as it would lead to his canon self esteem issues as he thinks of himself as lesser than the others because he is literally not of their rank (rather than thinking lesser of himself because of how final selection went). I figure he and Sabito argue about this but make minimal progress. Tsutako doesn't know he feels this way because she and Tomioka don't talk about demon slaying things at all. She disaproves of his choice to join in the first place and wishes he picked up a "normal life" like her (who is happily married to her fiance) but doesn't stop him.
Meanwhile, Shinobu would become Kanae's tsuguko when Kanae is promoted. As Shinbou isn't a hashira, she would be on fewer missions and have more time at the butterfly manshion so she could focus more on poison production. I think she would develop a larger variety of weapons. For example, inspired after meeting Genya, she could make poison filled bullets or other projectiles that give her long range attacks. Maybe she would create long term attacks too but I'm not sure how yet. She would also train Kanao and other demon slayers in poisons. This means that there can be many poison users in the corps which enables lower ranked slayers to defeat stronger demons. This makes her really valuable despite not being a hashira.
With no reason to hide her emotions behind a smile, Shinobu is loud about thinking the "nine hashira only" rule is stupid. It's gotten her on the bad side of a couple of the existing hashiras (Uzui, Sanemi, Iguro), who consider this an insult to Ubuyahsiki. On the other hand, this makes Sabito respect her a lot. He also hates the rule and wants Tomioka to be promoted.
Shinobu and Tomioka would probably first meet in the butterfly mansion when Tomioka gets injured. They also interact quite a lot through mutual friends, such as waiting for a hashira meeting to finish. This sort-of-but-not-really-hashira thing would be something they have in common. There's rumours in the corps about both of them. Tomioka has no idea. Shinobu knows this and thinks it's hilarious.
Tomioka is still very introverted but doesn't avoid others like in canon. I think he would respond to Shinobu's teasing, even if only to complain, so they would become good friends over time (but won't admit it).
Masterpost
Updated Shinobu design
First comic
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littleeyesofpallas · 4 months
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today i'm just wrangling all my weird loose ends and crackpot theories. Stuff that doesn't actually have enough evidence to support it, or that I just personally headcanon or that just doesnt go anywhere or come back again often enough to really derive any meaning or implications from. stuff i can't really justify making individual posts on, so im making a post about how unpostable they are collectively
warning: long, also warning: nonsense
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So we know Bleach operates on a loose variation of the Buddhist samsara/rinne, the wheel of reincarnation, in which souls cycle through many lives in different forms, experiences hardships in life and the pain of loss and death continuously until/unless they can achieve enlightenment, as the first Buddha did, and in doing so escape the cycle of death and rebirth, ascending to a higher state of being in which life and death no longer apply. In traditional art of Buddhist cosmology this is represented by the Buddha being present off to one corner, literally physically outside the elaborate illustration of the wheel and its many facets(itself encompassed by the demon mara). This Buddha role is the figure the Spirit King occupies in the hierarchy of the Bleach cosmology, but there are a few little orbital details that are clearly related to that role, but as I stated in the preface to all this, never really go anywhere....
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So there's this thing in Hinduism and by some association Buddhism (although it plays more into Hinduism's actual faith in the mythology of their gods, where as a lot of Buddhism may still invoke the divine but ultimately is about undermining and escaping the authority of said cosmological structure) called the Hiranygagarbha[हिरण्यगर्भः] "The Golden Womb"/"Golden Egg," or "Universal Womb"/"Primeval Womb," and is associated with various gods described as Svayambhu[स्वयम्भू] "Self Born," many of which are some variation on a/the creation god --effectively it's just the explanation that while everything comes from something, the original something had to have come from nothing, or else there's just an infinite number of questions that theologians would be forced to come up with infinite answers for.
But it posits that while something may have come from nothing, that something still had to follow certain understood notions of cause and effect, like incubation and birth. Ergo the creator god didn't just blink into existence fully formed, he was "born" from the nothing and as the first and initially only thing to exist he birthed himself. In these myths he is frequently described as initially existing either "beyond" or without senses --obviously the without senses bit mirror's YHWACH's origin, but to exist not without a capacity to see, hear, feel, etc... but in a place or state in which those senses cannot perceive also echo's Aizen's rambling about power levels as he rapidly ascends toward godhood before being beaten surpassed by Ichigo.
But beyond creation myths the Golden Egg is evoked in some elements of meditation in which each person, in their innate capacity for enlightenment and this divinity, has within them their own egg, and to retreat into that egg and explore the potential to self actualized as a mental act of birthing an ideal self, has overt parallels with Bleach's use of an inner world in which the zanpakutou spirit, a reflection of the self and of a potential for power, dwells.
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Incidentally the egg also facilitates the creation of the world itself, one half of the discarded shell from the god's birth becoming the realm of the material and the other half becoming the realm of the celestial, and as per some rants I've been on before, between it and some questions about how zanpakutou really work, it reminds me very distinctly of a few other anime/manga where a god spirit's aura or range of influence, for which a lesser spirit's would normally sustain a single person, encompasses a domain in which the totality of other people's existences reside.
In addition the egg itself, a concept called Purusha that is at times a god and at times a concept, is in some myth the creator god in question in relation to the Golden Egg, born from said egg, and then thru their dismemberment by other gods, the world is molded. So obviously some pretty overt, if superficial similarities with the Spirit Kings lack of limbs and, yeah sure if we want to acknowledge it, the LN's feeble additions to lore.
But as a concept it represents self-awareness in the idea that there is a kind of Platonic ideal of the perfect awareness of everything that is in its definitive and empirical state that has become unknowable by the division of that primordial self-awareness, but which exists in fragments in all living things.
The quartering of the body is also the basis of the 4 castes in traditional Indian society; although that dismemberment is not specific to two legs and two arms like the Spirit King's.
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But speaking of the spirit king's body parts, there's a neat thing going on with the design of his eyes that got weirdly ditched... In his original appearance the 4 solid black pupils were shown in top-bottom, and left-right orientation, but once he showed up again later, Kubo switched to a 4 corners sort of thing instead. At the time there was no Allmighty reveal and thus no established power of all-seeing yet, but in the eventual context of The Almighty and it manifesting in YWHACH's increased pupil count from 1 to 2 to 3, it becomes apparent that should he reach full potential he would have the same eyes as the Spirit King.
But then what capacity for all-seeing powers has the Spirit King really shown? Well, not a lot in practice, although YHWACH addresses the Spirit King as one who had at one point seen the future. But notably the original design, which had been scrapped and pushed entirely out of mind by the time any of these new contextual details were actually being written in, actually does seem to imply some faculty of all-sight in the Spirit King: The Gotei 13. Their insignia frame, which we typically see with a captain's associated squad number, is shown during an explanation of the Shihouin's Onmitsukidou, is its own symbol even without any numbers. And the insignia appears to be a stylized depiction of the Spirit King's all-seeing eye. Is the insignia itself some kind of magic sigil or artifact, or simply symbolic of a role the Gotei plays? Who can say.
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Let's circle back to the Golden Egg though, because the anime changed its color to blue, almost matching the color and style of the generic Quincy spirit bows/arrows. But I personally always instinctively assumed it was a kind of golden hue; something the digital colorist clearly thought as well, which was gratifying. But I also assumed the coloration was something that matched a number of other things, and with very distinct meaning: Orihime's shields, Hacchi's barriers, and the Menos Grande's Negación beams. Before the Spirit King's crystal was even an issue to deal with, there was already a very conspicuous link,
Orihime and Hacchi have the same powers of Event Rejection
Hacchi's Rejection barriers stem from his Visored powers
Hacchi's barriers thus appear to be a more refined Negación
Orihime's powers are said to tread on the authority of God
With those implications in place, it seemed evident that part of the reason for the Spirit King's inertness and imprisonment in the stasis crystal was that thru some divine power, be it his own or someone else's, the crystal exists to reject events happen around/to him to preserve him in a particular state. And since we know it didn't seem to protect him from bodily harm, there would implicitly be a more important and perhaps abstract thing in mind being actively undone.
This in turn would have provided an adequate excuse for Orihime being unable to reject the crystal being broken, and the Spirit King's injuries within it, because as we learned from Hacchi; she has to understand what she's rejecting, and those powers are most potent when aimed at the abstract (an event) and not an object (an injury). For her to reject a rejection would mean understanding the nested abstract events taking place, which frankly no one was ever brought up to speed on, whether we're talking my theories here or the actual canon of the manga. This I would have found much more acceptable than Kubo falling back on "Important character too strong, implicit functions of established powers don't work on him." Which is a bad habit Kubo has just in general; he never actually thinks out the implications of how world building on the plot he's writing, he just muscles thru it by making up new excuses, rather than going back into what he's already established to find interesting ways for preexisting abilities or factoids to interact. He very consistently fails to "yes, and..." himself.
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Anyway...There's also a little followup on my persistent rambling about the nature of hollows and of the elusive Vastolorde. Until the revival one-shot just a few years ago, it was easy to forget about Hell in Bleach considering it never really came into play. But there was one interesting point made that hollows who have sinned in life go the hell, while the others are purified. Most hollows implicitly are just spirits of the dead overcome by powerful emotions, but their monstrous qualities aren't considered a sin, they're an animal-like instinct. And this is addressed only barely by Zommari's indignant rant against the moral authority of the Shinigami; that the natural way if things is to let hollows exist, but the shinigami invented the morality and ethics of "protecting" humans from hollows, and "purifying" hollows with zanpakutou. And we know from the example of someone like Nel that the Arrancar process returns a kind of human intelligence and morality to a Hollow, even across the process of individual spirits becoming hollows, amassing into colony minded Gillians, and then reemerging unique personalities as Adjuchas.
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I still maintain the real/sensible trajectory of the Nel plot should have been that she was a Vastolorde, that Nnoitra was sent to hunt Vastolorde, but threatened by her and infuriated by her power tempered with human morality, was beat and spared but took a cheap shot to break her mask, effectively forcing her into being a mock-arrancar, like Isshin and Urahara discussed, and so Nnoitra reported back negative results on the hunt to guard his own position in the Espada. But in the face of being unable to find enough surviving Vastolorde, Aizen's plan would be to take existing mock-arrancar and have Orihime reject the event of their mask removal, so that he can remove it via the Hougyoku. In this way I think Nel could have had her generic hot-girl-ification in a more sensible and satisfying way than magic cloud of smoke de-baby-fication. I think it also would have made for a cool reveal for Orihime's uniquely abstract event rejection --as opposed to time reversal-- to mean that although the process of her transformation would be undone, her experiences post break would not, thus she'd still remember Ichigo and be able to turn on Aizen and join the goodguys accordingly.
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Anyway, even without all that, Nel and her goofballs, and to a lesser extent Starrk and even Ulquiorra, and sort of Harribel, all prove that the Arrancar are capable of a pretty normal moral spectrum and aren't in fact just evil or monsters all the way down. In fact, it was always kind of present since Sora's chapter way back in the beginning. In fact, Sora was the first Hollow to be drawn with the now iconic double mouth, the prior two were just monsters. Sora however showed his human mouth behind the mask, and that was a feature that would carry forward from there. In fact, at the end of chapter 25 there is also the original arrancar hook, where we see Aisslinger perform surgery on GrandFisher. But while the main event is the removal of the mask, there's also the bodily surgery taking place that suggests that what would later be identified as the mock-arrancar process involves digging the humanoid back out from under not only the mask but the hollow's inhuman, bestial body as well.
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This is in turn echoed when we see Wonderweiss born as an arrancar in a much cleaner process, but one not dissimilar to Grandfisher's; his wrapped hollow form, while generally humanoid --and thus implicitly a Vastolorde-- also clearly includes some large protrusions that are stripped away along with the majority of his mask. And as Uryuu relates from Urahara's briefings, the more human form also means more human intelligence. Along with the apparent moral fiber of the matter it really seems like when a hollow gets more human, it gets more human in almost all respects. (ignore that harribel bit in the image there, we'll come back to it...)
So what happens when they get the most human?
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I've also gone over my whole thing before that the Nelgal Ruins seemed like the natural evolution of the architecture of the menos grande, lending yet another level of humanity to the hollows: society. More over, my crackpot headcanon that in the human development of the Vastolorde they discovered religion, and comprised the first cult of YHWCH. Of note in this random line of thought is that fact that Lille Barro is considered to be the first Sternritter given a schrift. It's not clear if that means that the sternritter we know are considered contemporaries (even ignoring the confusing timeline of Juugram and Bazz-B's whole flashback) and among them Lille is the first among them, or if there have been prior generations of sternritter and Lille is as survivor of some batch of sternritter long predating the current recruiting push.
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But there is the question of if Lille is an arrancar or not. He somewhat conspicuously speaks Spanish, although the Sternritter do have a loosely international shtick going on in their roster. But he also has a lot of design notes in common with Starrk, although it's super unclear if that's applicable to in world logic, or just a pattern in Kubo's art. The biggest hiccup in this would perhaps be that he has no signs of a mask fragment, but then the same went for Luders Friegen. Notably Asguiro Ebern still had a mask and Luders made a point to speak down to him. While we never got any clarification on that, I think it seemed like the superiority complex came from being less arrancar-like. And I wonder if there wasn't a process by which the Wandenreich were removing mask fragments in their entirety, resulting in a kind of forced and imperfect humanization process, but from which highly humanoid and thus Quincy-fiable arrancar could be produced.
And while the shot of Harribel was obviously just fanservicey battle damage, I like to think that the plan was to convert her, and that she was in the process of having her bone armor components stripped off, not unlike the process Grandfisher and Wonderweiss underwent: it resembles Wonderweiss' in posture, but Grandfisher's in bloody tortuous overtone.
Primitive Arrancar, without the ability to gain shinigami-like powers via the hougyoku, stripped of their masks might theoretically regain human intelligence, but would lose their masks and sense of self with no way of storing it in a sword let alone being able to retrieve it. What better subjects to manipulate with the promise of a discovery of self and of identity; drink of YWHACH's blood and receive the sense of self you lack. Something to fill that hole in your heart.
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Then there's the thing I mentioned earlier about how there's some interesting implications about what it means to throw a bunch of spirits together into one superdense thing. And it turns out a lot of them seem to be pretty similar...
You throw shinigami souls together to make white, who is himself like an asauchi.
You throw i guess also shinigami(?) "something similar" together to get asauchi according to Oh-etsu
You throw powerful human spirits together and get the King's Key.
You throw hollows together and get a menosgrande
and if we care to dip a toe into the LN (which normally I would hesitate to do) we have at least one other zanpakutou, besides White, explicitly crafted from a menosgrande
and when the miracle baby reclaims quincy spirit power you get YWHACH
My supposition then is that the reason Vastolorde were so rare, and explicitly in hiding from Aizen, was that in the first place hunting menos is how the asauchi are created. The very first time we see a Gillian, Rukia even comments that it's the Royal Guard's job to take care of them, not regular shinigami. As the power scale of the series naturally escalates that begins to feel silly, but what if that's not because only the Royal Guard can defeat them, but because the Royal Guard and Oh-etsu in particular are uniquely suited to hunt/harvest them so they can be turned into new asauchi.
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And in a way, if the Spirit King is indeed locked in a meditative state in his golden egg, if indeed the god sleeps in the egg, and the egg is the center of the world, and the world is the egg. If the world itself is the Spirit King's inner world, his bankai manifesting the internal as reality, then what is YHWACH if not the Spirit King's sword spirit? In the same way YHWACH is already a part of zangetsu within Ichigo. A reflection of the self, however dark, convinced that godhood is not in the Spirit King's best interest and determined to tear him from that throne? Is that not exactly what the fused Zangetsu tried to do in stopping Ichigo from learning the final getsuga and fighting Aizen? What is YHWACH's war on soul society but the struggle between two mirrored entities over who gets to stand at the top and who has to crawl around in the shadows?
What is the difference between a king and his horse?
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One of your recent asks mentioned non-Jewish LGBT spaces not considering Jews. As a goyim how should we show consideration for Jews in LGBT spaces? (I'm really not good with wording so I'm sorry if this comes across as too blunt, it's meant as a genuine question)
I am certainly not the only person to ask about this, as I am just one Jew in a sea of opinions, but there are many ways in which Jews are actively excluded in our communities. Primarily, the demonization of religion and the normalization of conspiracy theories are two major ways in which Jews are othered in queer communities.
Many people spread the idea that religion as a whole (although… most of the time they are generalizing their negative experiences with Christianity and claiming it is a truth of all religion) is homophobic, exclusive, harmful, and for the lesser-minded, ignoring the value, culture, and history that our religion has behind it.
In addition, we tend to be tokenized in our communities. I have yet to find a community where I am not treated as the spokesperson for every Jew upon this planet as soon as my identity is discovered. I am asked about the story behind every holiday, the best way to represent Jews totally unlike myself within stories, the appropriateness of misusing our culture, on and on. It gets quite tiring!
There are also many… more complex opinions I hold on this issue that I would rather not dive into on this blog due to their nature and the promise I made to myself when creating this account. Even so, I’m sure the reblogs on this post will be quite informative as well.
The best way to create an inclusive space is to listen to your underrepresented groups. Us Jews have been living with antisemitism for thousands of years (not exaggerating!), so we have learned how to identify it by now! As long as you’re willing to trust us, you’ve completed the first step in cultivating a space more welcoming to Jews.
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Okay heres what i got so far in my personal hc for Ghost Zone Classifications! Just copy and pasted from word so its not that pretty yet and i still gotta play with names
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..........................................................................................
Still Living / a Liminal
someone who has never died but is still susceptible to Infinite Realm law
Death Touched
Temporary died (ex. revived quickly with CPR)
“Radiation” exposure
Death magic users
- How much sway is determined by the methods used (medium vs high priestess)
Progeny (“hybrids”)
Dhampir, Nephilim, etc
Immortals
How much sway is determined by the method used to achieve and maintain immortality (ex. split soul from body, death magic). Lichs are the most susceptible.
The Undead / a Revenant
Animated corpses with a corporeal (physical) body
Once Dead
Zombies (includes skeletons) & Ghouls
Draugar (includes mummies)
Vampires
Dying-and-Rising
Half-Ghosts (“halfas”)
The Dead / a Ghost
Possess intangible spiritual (non-phsyical) bodies
Apparitions
Poltergeists
- Many of the ghosts featured in DP fall here
Never-Born / a Spirit
formed by belief, emotion, or faith
Impressions
blob ghosts
Village spirits (“city-spirit”) and other location personifications
Native Born
Children "born" to ghost parents
Divinities
Lesser Divinities
- Beings (angel, demon, monsters, etc)
Higher Divinities (“gods”)
- Minor Deity (minor gods, nymphs, etc)
- Major Deity (major gods)
Primordial (“ancients”)
- Oldest and most powerful personifications (ex. Nature)
209 notes · View notes