#Lucifer Was Innocent Novel

[digitalwebshopping]

Lucifer Was Innocent Novel

Lucifer, the angel who fell from heaven and was expelled due to his rebellion, poses a difficulty to our conscience of good and evil books. Was he really a bad guy or a victim of circumstances who refused to get involved? His disobedience is the cause of the disagreement: truth seeker or power hungry egoist? The exploration of Lucifer's story causes us to question ethics, free will, and the essence of evil.

[onyourowndaisymae]

thinking about the obey me characters dropping their roster for you...

SYNOPSIS

they've been alive for so long before you came around. it's only natural for them all to have some prior experience, someone else to admire and love. but when you come into the picture? everything changes. suddenly all those previous lovers are discarded for a chance with you-- they'll offer themselves all for just a chance to taste you.

content + warnings: NSFW CONTENT!!! MINORS DNI!! lots of yearning and desire, obey me love interests x reader, various sexual acts described (fingering, oral giving and receiving, penetrative sex, etc etc), mentions of the characters sleeping with others

DEMON BROTHERS

lucifer - [who just wants a night of peace with you]

mammon - [who can't keep his cool around you]

leviathan - [who can't control himself when you at him like that]

satan - [who is practically living in a romance novel]

asmodeus - [who wants you bad enough to wait for you]

beelzebub - [who is so, so hungry for you]

belphegor - [who is too lazy to entertain anyone else]

DATEABLES

diavolo - [who is endlessly fascinated with humans]

barbatos - [who didn't realize how close you'd grown]

simeon - [who isn't such an innocent angel when it comes to you]

solomon - [who proves that humans have needs, too]

mini-playlist for inspo:

doves in the wind - sza // you should probably leave - chris stapleton // nonsense - sabrina carpenter // telepatia - kali uchis // streets - doja cat

[obsessedwithlute]

No Use Trying To Fight It

Happy birthday @niafromheaven!!

Emily x Adam X Lute (AngelicGuitarSword), angst, no happy ending.'

TW/CW alcohol, heavily implied depression, queerphobia, implied/referenced abuse, swearing

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADAM | “I Miss You, I’m Sorry” - Gracie Abrams

Adam stared blankly at Charlie, who was going on a rant about happiness and marshmallows and shit to Alastor across the room. He resisted the urge to laugh at her stupidity. As if true happiness even existed. Charlie’s idea of the word was really just bliss. Two completely different things.

Ever since his death, Adam had done a good job faking to Charlie how grateful he was for the second chance she had granted him, and how determined he was to make a change in his afterlife.

When really, all he wanted to do was become good enough that maybe he would prove himself wrong and go back to heaven.

Wanting to prove himself wrong was never something he had thought would happen. Fuck it. It was too hard to be sober this week. Adam got up, left the room, and trudged over to Husk’s bar. The flying cat wasn’t there, so he just poured himself a huge glass of beer, downing it all in one gulp. Adam looked around to decide what type of alcohol he’d consume next.

You know, drinking that much will only make you sadder, Emily’s voice echoed in his head.

“Stop it,” he hissed. “You’re not here.”

He hadn’t heard of anything concerning Emily for the last few months. Adam could only hope that Sera wasn’t lying to her and locking her up and “protecting” her again.

She probably was. Sera wouldn’t change.

Adam uncorked a bottle of cheap booze and took a few long gulps straight from the bottle. It burned his throat, but distracted him enough that it was worth it.

Emily still wasn’t getting herself out of his mind. Was Sera hurting her? Threatening her? Forcing her to do her bidding? Adam started to breathe heavier. Adrenaline and anxiety coursed through his veins. He collapsed to the ground, unable to support himself.

Lute’s voice appeared in his head. The high and mighty leader of the Exorcists, in a heap on the floor of Lucifer’s brat’s hotel. Toughen up, Adam.

“I can’t,” he gasped.

Emily again, You failed me. You lied, just as much as Sera did. And then you couldn’t even save yourself in the battle.

“I’m sorry.”

It was his fault, it was all his fault. He deserved this pain and fear and hurt. And worse, he’d been too much of a fucking coward to even tell them how he felt before he died.

EMILY | “Rumors” - Ava Max

Emily stood crooked over a thick novel, combing through every page, searching for some hidden meaning in the words. The only thing she could decipher from it was that the title, Les Miserables, perfectly described the mood in Heaven these last few months, what with the constant rumors. About a lot of things- the exterminations, Sera’s authority, the fabric of Heaven itself- but especially about Adam.

He was gone for good, true death.

He was in Heaven but waiting, biding his time.

He was in Hell and an overlord.

She didn’t want to believe any of them, although something had to have happened. You can’t rewind time and go back to when you didn’t know your sister was a liar, when your crush wasn’t maybe dead, when your other crush wasn’t a walking shell of a being.

At least she wasn’t ashamed to admit her emotions, unlike most people she’d spent her life speaking to.

Everyone had always thought of Emily as the innocent one, the sweet one. Sera’s naive little sister. And she had to keep up that persona now, as always. Feelings had never mattered to Sera, and they certainly weren’t about to start mattering to her now- especially when those feelings involved the wish to be in a relationship that, if Emily were to bring up with Sera, the seraphim would perceive as unfaithfulness, what with her conservative mindset.

And as much as Sera was a liar and a turd, Sera was all Emily had. And she couldn’t give that up for a relationship that would never happen.

Emily read a few more words and slammed the thousand-page tome down on her desk.

Air, that was what she needed. Fresh air, maybe some of those chocolate-dipped strawberries they had down in the lobby. Emily could take care of herself. She stepped out onto the balconies and took a few breaths.

In, out. In, out. In, out.

She went on like that for a few minutes until she was a bit calmer. Alright, Em, see? It’s not so bad after all. Now keep your mouth shut, attend Sera’s meetings, don’t under any circumstances even look at Lute…

You can do this.

You’ve always done this.

You’re stronger than they think.

LUTE | “champagne problems” - Taylor Swift

Lute had always dealt with her negative emotions in one way and one way only: Violence.

Punching a wall, sword fighting another Exorcist, killing a few sinners- anything, really, as long as it involved violence or weapons of some sort.

But that’s because her negative emotions had always fallen into one of three categories: Anger, cockiness, disappointment.

Never anything close to “sad”.

But she fucking sucked at describing how she felt, and “sad” was really the only word she could come up with to explain this… this weird feeling, almost like her soul was being ripped out of her body, like she couldn’t control her limbs enough to get up and stab something. Or someone. Stabbing someone sounded really satisfying.

What was that thing Vaggie had always said to her? Oh, right. You need to find ways to cope with your emotions other than extreme violence and cruelty.

Kind of ironic, considering what had ended up happening to Vaggie.

What Lute had done to Vaggie.

Lute rolled her eyes. Everyone made mistakes, right? But your mistakes end up either killing or permanently injuring people… That’s normal. That’s very normal. That’s kind of what you were created to do. It’s fine.

Ugh, there were people outside of her door, and they were talking very loudly, and maybe she should stab them to make them shut the fuck up. But, wait. Would stabbing them be considered sanctioned, or would she have to sit through one of Sera’s lectures about self-control again?

And if she had to sit through one of Sera’s lectures about self-control again, would she at least get to see Emily as a result? And why the fuck did she want to Emily? Get a grip on yourself, you are the lieutenant- now commander- of the Exorcists. You represent Heaven. You are too strong to-

The people outside her room weren’t done talking.

Two of her Exorcists, neither of them liked her that much.

“...heard she wanted to fuck Adam,” one of them said.

Were they talking about her? “Please, we both know she’s one of those gay freaks. Probably had her eye on Sera or something,” the other responded,

Shit, they were definitely talking about her.

They didn’t think she was in her room. At this time of day, she was always training. They were just having fun gossiping about her in front of her own door.

“Damn asshole. She deserves to end up in hell, just like Adam.”

“Hah! She’d be happy, wouldn’t she? Get to be around those fuckups just like her.” Fuckup.

They were right.

Wait- what about Adam?

“Can’t believe Sera never told her. Guess she wouldn’t want her or our little bitch of a princess to go running off looking for them.”

Emily.

Sera had lied.

Again.

Lute heard some more laughter, and then the Exorcists walked off.

Emily.

Lute needed to tell her- but she couldn’t. Emily didn’t want to talk to her. Emily hadn’t even looked at her since the battle.

There was nothing she could do.

<Hope you have a much better birthday than these guys, Nia! <3>

[devildom-moss]

The others try out pick up lines

This includes Raphael, Thirteen, and Mephisto. Because I could make it innocent and platonic for him, I also added Luke in this one.

Diavolo

Diavolo: *picks MC up in his arms*

MC: you don’t have to physically pick me up to do a pick up line, you know?

Diavolo: I know, but I wanted to show you that I’m ready and able to take you to bed whenever you want.

MC: So now isn’t out of the question?

Barbatos: My Lord, did you complete that paperwork I warned you about this morning?

Barbatos

Barbatos: You should understand that my feelings for you are much like my duties as a butler.

MC: It can be hard work loving me, I suppose.

Barbatos: But I would be delighted to service you every day of my life, without tiring.

MC: . . . I think I need to take inventory of the supplies in that broom closet over there, do you think you could assist me with that?

Luke

Luke: MC! You’re my best friend; if you were a plant, I’d want you to be a houseplant so I could hang out with you every day!

MC: *pulls out phone, eyes watering* can you say that one more time? Your dads (Simeon and Barbatos) would love this.

Luke: Absolutely not!!

Simeon

Simeon: Do you recall that I write books under a pen name?

MC: Of course.

Simeon: Well, it might be greedy, but I’ve been thinking about taking on a new name.

MC: Are you working on a new novel? What name were you thinking of using?

Simeon: I was thinking I might like to take your last name.

Solomon

Solomon: MC, would you be willing to do an experiment with me?

MC: What kind of experiment? If it’s culinary, I’ll pass.

Solomon: You see, I have this hypothesis that I’d like to try and prove incorrect, and I need you to help.

MC: And it is?

Solomon: That there’s no way I can give you so much pleasure that I leave you trembling.

MC: Oh well if it’s for science….

Raphael

Raphael: It’s strange.

MC: What? Solomon’s cooking?

Raphael: No. He’s a great cook. I mean that even though I have the ability to make spears rain down, you seem to possess the ability to summon up a spear or two yourself.

MC: I’m going to walk out of that door, and the next time I see you, this conversation will have been wiped from my memory. Goodbye.

Thirteen

Thirteen: I think our future is a lot like the traps I build.

MC: How so?

Thirteen: I spend hours thinking about it, and I’d spend endless nights working just to create something amazing.

MC: … my heart.

Thirteen: Also, it’s useful in both cases that I’m very good with my hands.

Mephistopheles

Mephisto: I used to think I couldn’t hate a certain pompous demon more than I did before.

MC: And now?

Mephisto: I hate him even more now that he has you.

MC: 2/10.

Mephisto: I didn’t ask you for feedback on my line.

MC: I didn’t ask to be a pawn in your little Anti-Lucifer game. Do you even like me, or do you just like being bitter?

Mephisto: I can do both. . . do you still want to get lunch with me?

[elegantlovelyreader]

Angels Before Man by Rafael Nicolás

10/10

Violently exhilarating to read! I had deep thoughts about the novel and really related to Lucifer up till the violent end. (that was a bit much for me) That anger from being hurt being told it comes from a place of love? Been there. Michael is such a tragic angel in this story and I would kill for his p.o.v. overall, I enjoy a good tragedy, and this delivered. With a grace and elegance so violent you almost forget this is about the fall. The beginning is sweet, perfectly ripe and soft, part one cradles you softly with praise and innocence. Part two is a slow descent. With themes and commentary on abuse, worship, blind love and jealousy. Leading you to a bitter end. Biting into a dark chocolate so devoid of sugar.

[leareadsheresy]

Legion

This post contains spoilers for Legion, by Dan Abnett, first published as a novel in (as nearly as I can tell) March, 2008. Isn't it interesting how books are published "in" a month but "on" a specific date within that month? Also isn't it weird how I can find specific publication dates for some of these books but not others, so some of them just get the month and some get the day in these opening paragraphs?

Mixed feelings about this one. Or, rather, two sets of contradictory feelings about this one. Probably appropriate, given the subject matter.

So, for context, the Alpha Legion has been the Mysterious Traitor Legion What We Don't Know What They're Up To for a while and this book, when it launched, was sort of an unprecedented reveal about them. It has informed their portrayal ever since; it seems to be commonly regarded as one of the better books in the series. It's about espionage and counter-espionage and the viewpoint characters are all either spies, spymasters, or people dealing with spies. So, I guess as usual let's start with a summary.

The book is divided into, roughly, two halves, the first half taking place on a planet called Nurth and the second half taking place on a planet called 42 Hydra Tertius. Collectively it takes place about... I dunno a year, two years? Before the Istvaan III Atrocity. The actors within the plot are as follows:

A group of soldiers belonging to the Geno Five-Two Chiliad, a regiment of the Imperial Army and part of the 670th Expeditionary fleet, basically innocent bystandars to all the espionage going on who are drawn into it as a group. There are a bunch of them and they all have names and at least roughly sketched out personalities and are essentially the secondary protagonists of the novel but for the purpose of this summary I'm going to refer to them as a group for reasons I will get to later.

The Lucifer Blacks, another regiment within the 670th Expeditionary Fleet, and Teng Namatjira, the Lord Commander of the fleet who for narrative purposes functions as a unit with the Lucifer Blacks. Basically one of the Lucifer Blacks functions as the Lord Commander's counterespionage guy, so narratively these are a bloc.

John Grammaticus, closest thing the book has to a protagonist, immortal human psyker and spy for an alien alliance called the Cabal. They've tasked him with making contact with the Alpha Legion.

The Cabal, an alien alliance who are trying to brace for the Horus Heresy, a civil war they've forseen farseen (see, space elf future-predictors are called Farseers, so when they talk about foreseeing the future in this book they say farseeing it instead).

The Nurthese, human natives of Nurth, who the 670th Expeditionary Fleet are trying to bring to Compliance.

The Alpha Legion, tricksiest of Legions, not yet traitor at this point but definitely sus.

Part 1: Reptile Summer. The book opens with members of the Geno Five-Two Chilliad, who are part of a force besieging the Nurthese city of Mon Lo, dealing with some bullshit. Again I will get into why I don't have clear detail on this later but for now suffice to say they witness a patrol being not where it's supposed to be, there's a fight with some Nurthese, and a giant of a man who it later turns out is a Space Marine of the Alpha Legion intercedes. Weeks later, some of this cast are called to investigate a mysterious body dressed as a member of the Genos; they can't identify it and set out to deliver it to a superior for further investigation but the Alpha Legion attack them, kill one, and the camera cuts away as they draw a gun on another.

We then cut to John Grammaticus, a spy who has infiltrated the Genos and is having an affair with one of their commanders. He leaves to infiltrate Mon Lo, where he has an established identity as a merchant, and the city wigs him out because he constantly feels like he's being followed and also Chaos-worship is deeply embedded into the Nurthese culture, to the point where prayers to Chaos are worked into their basic grammar and vocabulary. He's found by an Alpha Legion psyker assistant (not a space marine; the Alpha Legion make heavy use of non-Space-Marine assets) and is brought to a safe house where he tries to make contact with them and explains that he and the Cabal have been seeing the Nurthese conflict with elements that are designed to attract the Alpha Legion's attention, but it turns out his feeling of being followed wasn't the Alpha Legion agents but was instead a third, Nurthese party, who were using him to find them; they attack the safehouse with a swarm of lizards and crocodiles and things and everyone flees; he's separated from the Alpha Legion in the chaos and makes his way back to the Genos outside the city.

Three days later, the 670th Expeditionary Fleet have received news that the Alpha Legion are en route and will support their attempt to bring Nurth to Compliance. As far as Teng Namatjira is aware, this is their first arrival on the planet, but we know they've been here for months doing Spy Shit. Speaking of Spy Shit, Lucifer Blacks are concerned that a commander of the Genos have been compromised because of some weird shit that went down involving a body that disappeared, and believe that Geno commander Grammaticus is having an affair with has been compromised. Some more spy shit happens, the Lucifer Blacks come to believe Grammaticus's cover identity within the Geno is a false identity for what may be a Nurthese spy, Grammaticus eavesdrops on a meeting between a figure he believes to be the Primarch Alpharius and Lord Commander Manatjira but is sussed out and has to kill a Lucifer Black to escape, this sets the Blacks on alert and Grammaticus has to run off into the desert to a safehouse. Simultaneous to this, a bunch of the Genos also have to run off into the desert because the Blacks are chasing after that commander; they are captured by Alpha Legion agents and surrender the commander to them for interrogation. Grammaticus considers the whole situation blown and tries to abort the mission so he can tell his bosses they'll need to find someone else to contact the Alpha Legion, but then his bosses arrive in person to tell him a) no, it's now or never, and b) the Nurthese have a weapon called a Black Cube and the entire Imperial force has to evacuate the planet or else they're all going to die.

Then the Nurthese pour out of Mon Lo and charge the Imperial positions and are largely slaughtered. There's a big battle and in the middle of it, Grammaticus meets up with one of the Genos who's been recruited as an Alpha Legion agent, who takes him to "Alpharius." He explains that a Black Cube is a Chaos artifact, an ancient weapon powered by human sacrifice, and that the Nurthese attack on the Imperial positions is fueling the Black Cube, which, when it activates, will make life on the planet impossible. "Alpharius" tells Grammaticus that if he's lying he'll kill him, and Grammaticus is like "Look man that's fine with me, we're all gonna die if you don't get us out of here."

It should be noted that at this point we've seen two named Alpha Legion agents, "Petch" and "Herzog," who look nearly identical (as all Alpha Legionnaires do), as well as the "Primarch" "Alpharius" who is notably larger than them and a second Space Marine who is equally large and who is introduced as a just a normal trooper named Omegon. It's pretty weird for a normal Space Marine to be the same size as a Primarch but Alpharius was always the shortest Primarch and space marines can get pretty tall so don't worry about it! This will be important later for Lore Reasons. Also, there is a bit of third-person omniscient narration in which "Omegon" is described as actually being a normal, unusually tall marine and not a Primarch.

Part 2: The Halting Site. Five months later the Alpha Legion have commandeered the entire expeditionary fleet and have spent the last five months traveling towards a system called 42 Hydra, because Grammaticus suggested years ago this ought to be the place where Alpharius and the Cabal meet up. Grammaticus chose this place because a three-headed hydra is the symbol the Alpha Legion uses for itself and he thought having the meeting there would be, I dunno, neat? He explains it to "Alpharius" as a tribute to the Alpha Legion but "Alpharius" basically goes "What is this your idea of a joke?" and isn't impressed.

There is a brief flashback in which it's established that the evacuation of Nurth went badly -- the Black Cube summoned black clouds and sandstorms that made everything chaotic, and Lord Commander Teng Namatjira initially refused to evacuate and in the end only half of the fleet made it off the planet. The Black Cube made the entire star system uninhabitable and the fleet only barely escaped its influence.

Grammaticus is being held prisoner on the Alpha Legion battle-barge Beta alongside a member of the Genos and the commanding officer is being held prisoner elsewhere on the same ship; he hasn't been allowed to see her. He tries to convince "Alpharius" that he has to go down to the surface of 42 Hydra Tertius first to set up the meeting, but the "Primarch" is instead intent on landing the entire expeditionary fleet there and taking the position so he can meet the Cabal on his own terms from a position of strength. The planet is uninhabitable with no human-breathable atmosphere except for a big sphere of air on a spot where the Cabal have set up atmospheric generators for the meeting.

The Lord Commander of the expeditionary fleet demands an explanation, "Alpharius" explains the situation -- he's found a spy who claims to be aligned with a powerful cabal of aliens and wants to judge what they have to say because either they're telling the truth about having intel vital to the survival of the Imperium or they're lying and he can attack them; either way he can take action for the good of the Imperium. The fleet commander is like "Oh, you found that spy the Lucifer Blacks were looking for. Cool, sounds reasonable, I want to be there when you meet with the aliens." The commander is a power-hungry blowhard asshole, by the way, and wants equal access to whatever secrets the Cabal wish to bestown on Alpharius.

In the middle of the deployment to the planet surface, Grammaticus uses his psyker powers to turn his Geno companion away from the Alpha Legion and uses him to escape to the surface to set up the meeting safely, but they stop briefly to rescue the Geno commander Grammaticus thinks he's in love with. She's been driven insane by psychic interrogation, though. They get to the planet, Grammaticus gets to the meeting site, the Cabal leaders are all there and he starts to ask them not to take the mass military deployment as a betrayal on Alpharius's part but surprise, the two Genos who went with him were all still loyal to the Alpha Legion (having been turned earlier in the book); his companion was just faking being subverted by Grammaticus and the commander was just faking being insane. A bunch of Alpha Legion including "Alpharius," teleport in and demand to be told what's what, and the Cabal agree to tell them, but only if the "whole Primarch" is there, at which point "Omegon" steps forward and they describe Alpharius Omegon as one soul in two bodies. This was a major lore drop back when this book was published. The Alpha Legion actually having two Primarchs is a big deal.

The future the Cabal had foreseen farseen was an Imperial civil war in which Chaos subverts Horus, which tears the Imperium in two, with two outcomes: If the Emperor wins, he'll be crippled and the Imperium will fall into a stagnation which will eventually lead to total victory for Chaos within the next ten to twenty thousand years. If Horus wins, the last spark of nobility and defiance within him will motivate him into an orgy of self-hatred and genocidal slaughter that will wipe out humanity; in the absence of humanity's psychic energy, Chaos will be starved and fade and the galaxy will be saved. The Cabal want Alpharius to side with Horus and help him win, ensuring Chaos's ultimate defeat. "Alpharius" demands to see proof, and so the Cabal expose him to a device called the Acuity, which shows their farseeing prediction to anyone exposed to it in a way that apparently carries some sort of undeniable truth-qualia such that if you see it you can't deny that it's true. He comes out of the exposure convinced, and then exits the meeting and seems to psychically brief "Petch" on how the meeting went. They then all immediately teleport back to the Beta and are challenged by Lord Commander Teng Namatjira, who's jealous that Alpharius met with the Cabal without him. A second battle-barge, the Alpha, de-cloaks, and the Alpha and Beta destroy the 670th Expeditionary Fleet and fly off. Below, on the surface of 42 Hydra Tertius, the atmosphere engines turn off and all the soldiery who'd deployed to the planet are left to suffocate. Some of the survivors of the Geno Five-Two Chilliad go with the Alpha Legion to be used as agents elsewhere, and Grammaticus leaves with the Cabal, but everyone else we've met over the course of the book is left to die.

Grammaticus, on the Cabal ship, is congratulated on a job well done and then goes to jump out an airlock, distraught that he's just caused the doom of his species. The end.

So.

First, I've seen a lot of commentary about this book, and something I've seen a few times is how mysterious and inscrutiable the Alpha Legion are and that it's not clear what they were doing in the first half, but I legitimately do not find it complicated. If the standard Alpha Legion procedure is to do recon and infiltration of any theater of war they plan to operate in, then everything they do up until the point where they make contact with Teng Namatjira just makes sense as standard infiltration tactics. That weird body that kicked off the opening? We don't have to know what that is, that's just, like, a signal to the audience that Spy Shit is happening. The book goes to some lengths to establish that the overall 670th Expeditionary Fleet is quite large and we only see a small part of it, so having elements of Alpha Legion infiltration that are never explained just demonstrates how they're infiltrating the entire force on both sides -- with subversion of assets within the Geno Five-Two and establishment of safehouses within the besiege city of Mon Lo, they're clearly just locking down the whole theater of war before they reveal themselves.

Second, you'll notice that I've been putting "Alpharius" in quotation marks throughout most of this description. I am pretty sure "Alpharius" is not Alpharius. I am, in fact, pretty sure that for the purposes of this book (and as I understand it this would be popularly conceived as contradicting facts established in future books, but I'm reading all of them myself to draw my own fucking conclusions separate from the Lore Explainers so maybe I won't agree with that either), Petch is the real Alpharius, Herzog is the real Omegon, and "Alpharius" and "Omegon" are body-doubles. Here's my reasoning:

We know the Alpha Legion is lead by a physically identical pair of twins named Alpharius and Omegon and other members of the Legion are physically altered to pass as them.

We know Petch and Herzog are identical.

We know "Alpharius" and "Omegon" are identical.

We get a single third-person omniscient paragraph establishing that "Omegon" is not a Primarch.

Following his experiencing the Acuity, "Alpharius" psychically briefs "Petch."

This has significant lore implications inasmuch as it implies that the real Alpharius was never directly exposed to the truth-qualia of the Acuity, which means his motives remain mysterious well into the rest of the series, rather than his motives aligning with the common fan understanding that, yes, he actually was convinced that siding with Horus and working towards the extinction of humanity was the only way to save the galaxy. Since Petch is the first Alpha Legionnaire we meet in the book and he introduces himself with "I am Alpharius," it's also quite funny.

And now the other thing.

This book took me six months to read, and here's why. In characterizing the Nurthese, the book does two things in quick succession: First, it establishes them as stereotypical Indiana Jones / Lawrence of Arabia 1920s Cartoon Muslims, and then in the next breath tells us that their whole culture is Chaos-aligned to the core.

This bothered me deeply enough that I went off and finally read my copy of Edward Said's Orientalism that I'd been meaning to read for years, and then the prospect of somehow making this a summary of both Legion and Orientalism seemed like so much work that I stopped reading the book and completely reorganized my kitchen and got back into Minecraft for half a year. The only reason I came back is because I want to read Mechanicum because I hear it has cool Skitarii in it, and I only need to read this and Battle for the Abyss before I can get to that. And then, in the end, it kind of didn't matter, the Nurthese are basically just a plot device during the first half of the book; in retrospect it looks like he characterized them as 1920s Cartoon Muslims because he had to characterize them as something. I still don't think it was a particularly tasteful choice on the writer's part. Anyway my point is there is a huge break in my reading of this book, and I don't particularly want to go back and read it again to get it all clear in my mind because I have The Worst Book In The Entire Horus Heresy series to get through and I'd rather travel lightly over rough terrain.

Also John Grammaticus is a creep and the first half of the book is full of creepy descriptions of female members of the Geno Five-Two Chiliad, whose officer corps is entirely made up of young, nubile, promiscuous women who get minor psychic powers from their libido. It's a whole thing, they're called Genos because they're the product of genetic engineering on pre-Unification Earth to create an officer corp with an intelligence-gathering advantage. Anyway my point here is that the first half of the book feels like it's written to make me throw it at a wall so no wonder I dropped it for six months. Fuck this book.

[thenightling]

Who are the Dead Boy Detectives?

This has been asked a lot lately because there is a new show coming to Netflix (originally it was going to be on HBO Max). 

Who are The Dead Boy Detectives?

First we have Edwin Paine.  Edwin was roughly twelve or thirteen-years-old and blond haired.  Edwin was murdered some one hundred years ago in a boarding school in England. He had been killed by some older bullies who were wanna-be Satanists.  The bullies tried to offer up Edwin for demonic favors. The bullies died for their own various life-related reasons very shortly after murdering Edwin (it was close to the first World War) and the bullies went to Hell because they believed in Hell and felt that is what they deserved. In DC comics lore you only go to Hell if you believe in it, and believe you deserve it. That part of the lore can be problematic as it condemns people who have been brainwashed by abusers that they deserve to be tortured.  And it also can exonerate sociopaths who genuinely don’t think they did anything wrong. Currently The Sandman Netflix series has not addressed the old comic lore that you have to believe you deserve Hell to go there but it has acknowledged that you have to believe IN Hell in order to be able to go there. Edwin, though an innocent, spent a century trapped in a strange corridor where he thought something was following him.  He believed he was in Hell but according to another comic he ended up in this place via a “clerical error.” In The Sandman storyline called The Sandman: Season of Mists Lucifer quits ruling Hell and shuts the place down.  (Basis for the Lucifer TV Series.) When Lucifer shut Hell down all the demons were left to their own devices and all the souls that had been trapped in Hell returned to Earth. This is where poor Charles Rowland comes in. Charles was a dark haired living boy of about twelve or thirteen-years-old. In the 1990s Charles was attending the same boarding school that Edwin had died in.  The ghosts of the bullies returned to the school after Hell was shut down and looking for someone to torment they went after poor Charles and badly burnt his back with a hot stove. Edwin (who was also haunting the old school) tried to help Charles but Charles was dying from his injuries so all Edwin could do was stay with him and try to comfort him as he died up in the attic of the school, not far from where Edwin, himself, had been murdered. Death herself showed up to take Charles but Charles didn’t want to leave his friend, Edwin.   Death was very busy that day with demons and evil souls wandering the Earth and the evil souls killing people so she allowed Charles to stay with Edwin, implying she may come back for them later. The boy ghosts left the school after that and in their own comic book formed a detective agency to solve supernatural themed crimes together. Being naïve children they figured reading a few kid detective stories was enough education for this.  They were wrong.  Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland first appeared in The Sandman: Season of Mists: Chapter 4. Issue 25 of The Sandman comics. They were created by Neil Gaiman for The Sandman: Season of Mists.         The ghost boys later appeared in their own comic book called The Dead Boy Detectives. The Dead Boy Detectives (characters) appeared on TV in the HBO Max series Doom Patrol.  In Doom Patrol the boys ages were bumped to late teens so that Edwin could be portrayed as secretly being in love with Charles.   Doom Patrol also changed Charles’ cause of death so that he died of hypothermia when bullies forced him into a freezing lake. On Doom Patrol one of the boys was played by Ty Tennant, the son of David Tennant. David Tennant was Loki in The Sandman audio drama and was in episode 11 of The Sandman Netflix series in the story Dream of a Thousand Cats.  David Tennant was also Crowley in the show Good Omens (also based on a Neil Gaiman novel, this one that he co-wrote with the late Terry Pratchett). The version of The Dead Boy Detectives who appeared in Doom Patrol were given a spin-off series of their own for HBO Max but it was to star another new set of actors playing the roles of the teen ghosts.  Due to internal shake ups at Warner Brothers, The Dead Boy Detectives series never made it to air on HBO Max and will, instead, premiere on Netflix, which may allow it to connect more directly to The Sandman like it’s original literary incarnation.        

[rakruined]

The Religious Implications of GotG vol. 3

So, it's Easter, and while I've got a lot of stuff to work on and things to do, I wanted to take the time to discuss the utterly insane things Guardians of the Galaxy volume three has done to my brain chemistry. After seeing @adamwarlock's post here, I've been thinking about just how many religious themes there seem to be in James Gunn's magnum opus. From a villain with a god complex to Rocket Raccoon becoming my new favorite satanic archetype maybe, this is gonna be a deep dive into everything I've picked up from the trailers so far.

So, let's start with the implications of that post I linked: "some corners of the galaxy consider (The High Evolutionary) God".

Now, the High Evolutionary has always had a theme of 'playing god' in the comics, what with his whole deal being creating sentient life from animal experiments, but in the MCU, his connections to Christian notions of religion are a lot more fascinating. For starters, his goal is stated to be wanting to create a "perfect society", which you'll notice looks a lot like suburban Bible Belt America, albeit with a lot more hybrid animal-people.

Now, in the comics, he uses Earth animals as a basis for his new lifeforms because he was once a normal human named Herbert Wyndham. He eventually traveled into space to continue his experiments on his own world, later adopting Adam Warlock (this will come back later). Given his desire to make himself more powerful in the movie, this makes him an interesting counterpart to MCU!Peter Quill, who was born with Celestial (ie. godly) power and left Earth not by choice.

Now, there are a few things they changed from the comics, his connection to Rocket being the most significant in the context of this story. While Halfworld performed similar experiments on Rocket and the other uplifts, the H.E had nothing to do with the planet. And while I'll get back to why his connection to Rocket is significant, as well as what I said about Adam, I want to get into another major change: his design.

Here we have the comics design on the left and the movie design on the right. But isn't his movie look almost priestly? Almost... familiar...?

IT'S FUCKMOTHERING ENRICO PUCCI WITH THE STEEL CHAIR

Okay, JoJo references aside, the High Evolutionary's connections to Adam Warlock definitely add to the whole religious overtones. I mean, a guy who's considered God has a perfect creation literally named "Adam", trying to create a perfect world? This shit writes itself. But if you consider a few additional facts, this takes on a pretty wild meaning. For starters, Adam has been stated to be relatively naive and innocent, unknowledgeable of the universe.

But where this gets interesting is that, based on Rocket's absence from most group shots during what is clearly being billed as the midsection of the movie (spacesuits scene, that fight where they're all in orange, the team arriving on Halfworld) that he possibly is captured by Adam and brought back to his creator for additional experimentation. Shots of someone implied to be Rocket on the operating table and Gamora carrying him to the ship half-naked serve as further evidence of a rescue mission.

But if he's captured by Adam Warlock, that means he has the opportunity to tell Adam what his creator is really planning. He has the chance to tell him how he was made and what the High Evolutionary's "perfect society" is built upon: the blood of innocent creatures he'd deemed imperfect. This could be what changes Adam, what makes him turn against his god and his Garden of Eden.

The voice of the devil on his shoulder.

Edit: I forgot to mention this wild coincidence! Gunn once said Rocket was inspired by Frankenstein's monster. It makes sense on the basic level of a tragic science experiment abandoned by his creator, but it gets even more bizarre. In the novel, the monster identifies with Satan in the book Paradise Lost, making him the same sort of tragic figure as Lucifer. Rocket too was an imperfect creation cast out by the "god" who made him. In this light, it's undeniable that yes, Rocket Raccoon is as much a satan figure as Adam Warlock is space Jesus.

[pynkhues]

So, if Lestat is a Milton’s Satan hero, Louis is a Byronic hero, Claudia is a gothic heroine and Daniel is a Prometheus hero... who's Armand in this analysis? 👁️👁️

I go back and forth on Armand a bit, but I generally lean towards him being The Monk.

The Monk archetype basically became a thing during the Spanish Inquisition as gothic authors were horrified by what the the clergy did in the name of devotion / God, and it's really what created the huge anti-Catholicism throughline that's fairly central in gothic literature to this day. They're less of a defined archetype, I'd say, than Milton's Satan, the Byronic Hero, or the Prometheus Hero (in fact, The Monk can actually be fed by any of those archetypes), but they're really defined by the fact that they hide behind devotion and you never know how much power they actually have, nor if you're dealing with a true religious man, a cad or even a tyrant.

When they're a lead, they're usually defined by their moral degradation. They start as a true and virtuous innocent and are corrupted by an incident, usually involving sex and sorcery (the trope being established in Matthew Lewis' 1797 novel aptly titled The Monk, where a pious, but repressed monk is seduced by a woman who turns out to be a demon planted there by Lucifer), and through that incident become usually hyper-sexual and also often tied to dark, supernatural gifts that they use to try and control other characters (usually the gothic heroine, but not always).

The Monk uses his devotion and the trust placed in him as a religious authority to then control his congregation, and usually to exact overreach over other characters within the text. Interestingly too, The Monk can also be pretty passive in the face of other character types? Just never the Gothic Heroine, which we see I'd say in how Armand treats Claudia.

The fact that Armand goes from being groomed by Marius to being literally instated as the leader of the Children of Satan cult, then placed again as a sort of 'agent of God / head of church' figure by Lestat in the Paris Coven I think lends itself to that pretty neatly, but also his need to serve a hallowed figure plays into that sense of the perversion of church and the corruption of the clergy in the desire to control not just congregation, but often that that they purport to worship as well.

I do think Armand has little bits of all three of the main archetypes though too, which actually isn't uncommon for The Monk!

[aziraphales-library]

Hello there! I was wondering if you have any Aziraphale/Crowley whump fanfics, but mostly about Aziraphale? I’ve seen the masterpost, but I was looking for something maybe set in an au? If you don’t that’s cool. Thanks!

( I love ur blog btw )

Hi! We do have plenty of fics on our #aziraphale whump, #crowley whump, #hurt aziraphale, and #hurt crowley tags. You didn't specify what kind of AU you wanted, so here are some human AUs...

Angel With the Book by Eigon (T)

This is loosely based on the CJ Cherryh novel Angel with the Sword, in that there is a 'canalrat' (Crowley) who sees an 'uptowner' (Aziraphale) thrown into the canal, and rescuing him changes Crowley's life. I've followed the CJ Cherryh plot, more or less, with the necessary changes to fit Our Heroes (and supporting cast of angels and demons).

The Long Night by Adzeisval (T)

Anthony Crowley meets Aziraphale Fell while waiting for a plane. They hit it off and are planning to go out for a drink when their plane lands, but sometimes things don't go as planned, and the two find themselves trying to survive instead.

Between Sand and Stars by Dashicra1 (M)

Aziraphale has been wounded while defending innocent civilians and summarily sentenced to death via wandering in the desert for his actions, but when he stumbles upon Crowley’s house by chance, his luck changes rapidly.

Crowley is a strange and skittish man who lives alone, tucked in amongst a collection of medicinal herbs, broken pottery, and torn blankets.

When the reason for Crowley’s caution and odd behaviour is revealed, Aziraphale can think of nothing he’d rather do than try to help him free himself from his tragedy, and the two embark upon a tender romance which will change both of their lives for the better.

A Treatise on Pinnipeds by CandyQueenAO3 (T)

Anthony J. Crowley has left his adulterous ex-fiance and uprooted his old life to purchase a seaside cabin to start fresh and get away from it all. One night, he stumbles across a man sitting on the beach with eyes the color of the sea and a soft, white coat over his shoulders to match...

Imagine how the world could be by HolRose (T)

Salesman Crowley is driving home when he sees a man in obvious distress at the side of the road. He stops and offers him a lift. Little does he know that this compassionate action will change his life forever.

This is a human AU that can be read as a stand-alone story without reference to the other works in the series.

Sea Foam on Golden Sand by ShesAKillerQueen98 (M)

It has been 270 years since Sirens were cursed to live under the sea and tensions have only been rising like steam from a boiling pot.

Crowley, a Siren in his late two hundreds, has felt out of place his entire life and wonders where he is meant to be. He figures he'll never find that answer until one day he meets a human, the prince Aziraphale. He'll do anything to stay with him, even make a deal with the notorious Sea Witch, Lucifer. Will he be able to keep his end of the deal or will Lucifer claim his life? Will he be able to stay with the man he loves or will he live the rest of his life under the sea?

- Mod D

[digitalwebshopping]

5 Reasons Why ‘Lucifer Was Innocent’ is a Must-Read for Fans of Dark Fantasy

Dark fantasy has always been a shot in the arm for readers thanks to its unrivaled supernatural elements, trauma that prompts moral reflections, and otherworldly narratives. Are you in the process of selecting your next book? If so, you might want to add Lucifer Was Innocent to your list as it is a great representative of the genre. In this blog, we will explore five compelling reasons why this novel is an essential read for fans of dark fantasy.

1. An Intriguing Premise

The thought of Lucifer as the one who has been wronged, a fallen angel who can relate to us, is a tempting one. In Lucifer Was Innocent, the age-old argument of the battle of good and evil is turned upside down. Lucifer is depicted not as the typical villain but as a figure whose interpretation of sin and justice makes you question the existence of such a concept. This unique perspective bring you in and you are eager to find out...

2. Rich, Dark World-Building

World-building is a vital part of any dark fantasy novel and Lucifer Was Innocent is no exception. The book allegorically describes the regions of heaven, the dimensions and different places where angels and demons come from, and the shadows of the earth. These accurately portrayed settings of the realm of the true and false create a world that the reader can interact with, which ultimately enriches the experience. If you are a fan of dark and gothic places, you will be amazed by and entranced by this beautiful, horrible landscape.

3. Complex and Layered Characters

One of the significant advantages of Lucifer Was Innocent is its character development. Each and every character, respectful to angels as well as demons, is moralistic grey. The character of Lucifer is at the cognition of duality, being an example of both repentance and insurrection. The other characters are just as exciting, with the likes of the main character, who you think is one thing at first but then you find out he is someone else, and also the characters whose pasts and motivations are not straightforward and keep changing throughout the story. The lesson of moral relativity, together with an emotional sliding scale, makes it a must-read for those who enjoy complex characters in their fantasy reads.

4. Exploration of Thought-Provoking Themes

Even though Lucifer Was Innocent is a work of art in its own right, its relevance to very real topics like free will, morality, and the nature of evil remains unquestionable. The book illustrates this through Lucifer's travel to the outer limits. So, the novel gives rise to the notion that good and evil may not necessarily be as starkly defined as they appear to be. The book contains a wealth of ideas for readers who like stories that explore deeply philosophical issues and are imbued with an engaging plot.

5. Unpredictable Twists and Turns

The book keeps readers on their toes with its completely unpredictable plot twists. Just when you think you have the story figured out, it suddenly takes you by surprise. This unpredictability is exactly what makes Lucifer Was Innocent a mesmerizing page-turner. The story's perfectly timed revelations and surprises are what let it stay gripping for a long time.

Conclusion: Why You Should Buy It

In conclusion, Lucifer Was Innocent Novel is not just another dark fantasy novel; it's a thought-provoking exploration of morality, identity, and redemption set in a beautifully crafted world. Its layered characters, gripping twists, and rich themes make it a standout title in the genre. If you’re a fan of dark fantasy, this novel is a must-read. You should buy Lucifer Was Innocent from Amazone today and immerse yourself in a story that challenges everything you thought you knew about good and evil.

[ink-flavored]

okay okay so thinking out loud here about my metaphors.

heaven is gonna be an explicit parallel to evangelical christianity and mayybbeee fascism? the point is that if you're not following The Exact Rules (which is whatever God wants) then you've branded yourself The Enemy, even if The Rules we tell you to carry out contradict the other ones. the inciting incident is an example of this: pride is carrying a human soul with him when he breaks into heaven and killing him would destroy the soul. even though angels are supposed to protect humanity, they elect to kill him anyway and kill the human too. justice saying "hey that's fucked up, maybe we shouldn't kill an innocent person just because they're glued to a demon" is pushing against the status quo and therefore he has allied himself with The Enemy.

im making purgatory a parallel for like. the prison system, because it's where you go when you weren't good enough for heaven, but not quite bad enough for hell. you sit there until you've contemplated your sin and if you've contemplated hard enough, God will let you into heaven as a treat. if you just aren't good enough, you sit there until you slowly fade out of purgatory and go to hell by default.

so: hell. lucifer got so mad the humans were getting all daddy's attention that he started a rebellion. God blasted him and all his friends down to hell, and when they got there, lucy decided this realm of pain and fire was gonna be NEW heaven, and he was gonna be the NEW god, with blackjack and hookers. he tells everyone to keep hating God, stay bitter, remember He abandoned you. they never heal from the trauma of being abandoned/cast out of heaven, all the demons are festering in their pain and anger. they are actively encouraged to wallow in their suffering and use it to hurt others. this creates an "every demon for themselves" culture, dog eat dog world, fuck you, got mine, etc. etc. and because he never healed, lucifer is still so bitter about humanity that he torments sinners and does God's work for Him because he never healed.

so hell is like... for humans, it's about how recidivism in prison sets you up for failure? and for fallen angels/demons it's about the cycle of abuse? how never healing from your trauma makes you cruel to yourself, other people, and the world? and for both parties it's about how anything less than conformity and capitulation to the status quo is punished.

this romance novel about a demon and angel gay kissing and having gay sex is gonna have So Much in it

[mediaevalmusereads]

Between Two Fires. By Christooher Buehlman. 2012.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: horror, historical fiction

Series: N/A

Summary: The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.

Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: threat of rape, blood, violence, disturbing imagery, contagion/disease, antisemitism, animal cruelty/death, homophobia, misogynistic language

OVERVIEW: This book keeps popping up when I search for books set in the Middle Ages, so I said, "Fine! I'll read you!" I wasn't expecting much, especially since I'm incredibly picky when it comes to horror and historical fiction. But to my surprise, this book was more interesting than most stories I've read set in the middle ages. Though I can't rate it higher than 3.5 for personal taste reasons, I am still thinking about several scenes, so at the very least, it's memorable and different.

WRITING: Buehlman's writing is quite interesting. It does a good show balancing showing and telling, and it uses a lot of vivid, visceral descriptions that stay with the reader over time. It really did feel like I was reading the work of someone who cared about their craft, and even if you don't find this book to your liking, it's easy to say that Buehlman is purposeful with how he writes.

But to be fair, there are moments when the pace can feel slow or the story meandering, and there were some moments when I wasn't sure which character was being talked about. These don't necessarily ruin the entire reading experience, as I think on some level Buehlman was toying with pace and mood. It just made it a little difficult for me at times to understand who was doing what.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows Thomas, a disgraced knight in 14th century France who finds himself the companion of a strange girl during the height of the Black Plague. The girl, named Delphine, has a mysterious errand, and Thomas soon learns that she might be a binafide saint or agent of God.

I really enjoyed the religious themes in this story and the way Christianity was treated. Buehlman was careful not to treat the Church as wholly corrupt, though characters did criticize some aspects when necessary. It was a nice change of pace from books that portray medieval Christiany as solely oppressive or evil.

But by far the most compelling parts of this book were the supernatural encounters. Thomas and Delphine frequently encounter monsters on their journey, and every time, Buehlman paints such a disturbing and chilling picture that I kept thinking of the monsters for hours. In some ways, the episodes reminded me of a medieval romance, if a bit darker. But this book is horror, so.

My main complaints about the overall mood and plot, however, come from a place of personal annoyance. I'm very much not a fan of depictions of the middle ages as uniformly bleak, dirty, corrupt, and violent. Buehlman certainly does venture into this territory often, but then again, this is a horror novel with no claim to historical accuracy. Still, I could have done without the gritty misogyny and rape threats; the fact that Delphine is threatened with rape first thing almost made me put the book down.

TL;DR: Between Two Fires is certainly a memorable horror novel, featuring a number of scenes that feel like they've been inspired by medieval romance and Biblical lore. Though I wasn't a fan of some of the grittiness, I also understand this book wasn't trying to claim "historical accuracy." Thus, I think I would recommend this book more if you're a fan of gory horror (or even if you're a Dark Souls fan) than if you're a medieval history enthusiast.

CHARACTERS: Thomas, our protagonist, is a stereotype that will be well known to a lot of medieval fantasy readers. He's an outcast, gruff, irreverent, and very good at violence. In many ways, I felt like Thomas was an archetype more than a character; Buehlman tries to give him some depth by giving him a revenge (or justice) quest and creating a father-daughter relationship with Delphine. But in my opinion, Thomas doesn't dwell much on the injustice of his past, and he doesn't exactly have many emotionally weighty moments with Delphine where the two connect. It's not that there's nothing there, but I think more could have been done to develop that relationship.

Delphine, the mysterious girl with saintlike miracle powers, was kind of fun to watch. I liked that she was opposed to violence and challenged Thomas to stay his hand. She even verbally spars with him from time to time and can hold her own there. Since she wasn't a protagonist, I think there was just enough depth to her, but I do with more was done to show her deep emotional connection with Thomas.

Père Matthieu is a priest that Thomas and Delphine pick up along their way to Paris. Matthieu has a weakness for wine and harbors a lot of guilt for falling in love with a young man. Some of the way homosexuality was treated was better than I expected, but still wasn't great. I guess one could call it "period accurate," but I am one of those readers who doesn't want homophobia in my stories. Still, Matthieu was kind and likeable, and he was a good addition to the little traveling party.

There were numerous other characters, but I'm not going to evaluate them all. I will only say that I thought they were sufficiently complex for the roles they played, and they served their functions fine. The only thing I didn't like was when one or more of these characters would threaten rape or use misogynistic language.

[lilibetbombshell]

BOOK REVIEW

Series: The Four Horsemen Author: Sienna Moreau Rating: 5 / 5 Stars (for the series thus far)

I recently read Sienna Moreau’s new novel based in a world where the Seven Deadly Sins have a great deal of power (the title is Lust and it’s out now) and it was so good I wanted to explore her back catalog. So I started reading this LGBTQ romance series about the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the immortal beings they fall in love with. I fell in love with the overall story arc that carries throughout the four books (there will be a fifth–it’s due out summer 2024), the world building, the magic systems, the found family vibe, the kinks, the spice, and most of all? I fell in love with the characters and their chaotic hot mess found family vibe.

The first book, Conquest, focuses on the first horsemen and a naive baby angel who, for some reason, has no wings and no memories of ever being human. He’s an enigma and he’s being sent down from Heaven to try and find out as much as he can about what Conquest and his brothers are doing and report back to God and the Archangels. This book is heavy on the grumpy/sunshine, size difference, possessive alphahole, “touch him and you die” vibes. Raziel, the baby angel in question, is not only adorable, but he must be protected at all costs.

War is all about enemies to lovers and second-chance romance. Uriel is an Archangel who still remembers being human very well and somehow he and War get stuck in a different dimension together. They hate one another but boy do they love to hate one another. This one is heavy on the mutual possessive AF vibes, the “I’m the only one who gets to hurt you” vibes, and the opposites attract.

Famine is about the centuries and centuries old romance between Lucifer and the third horseman. These two have been in love for almost as long as they’ve known one another, but they’ve gotten too good at hurting one another. God punished them both for falling in love in extreme ways and Famine has never forgiven himself for it. Lucifer doesn’t care about forgiveness because he’s too busy being insane. This one leans very heavy on the second-chance romance, found family, and lots of kinky hot spice vibes.

Death is literally about “touch him and you die”, because Death’s touch is literal. Death last sent the demon Abaddon to death by kissing him. It was the only kiss Death has ever had and it was the only time anyone has ever asked Death to kiss them when they were sent back into the cycle. When Abaddon comes back in an unexpected way, all they can both think about is that kiss. It leads to more than they ever knew could happen. This one is HEAVY on kink and sadomasochism. Like, all the TW/CWs.

Throughout these books there is an intertwined story of gods, angels, demons, madness, blood, war, and terror. There are intelligent horses, innocent but cheeky cherubs, a cute as hell dog-sized arachnid named Paul that I would give my life for, and even a three-headed hell hound named Spot. I have enjoyed reading this series so much and I highly recommend it.

[projectcaramel]

Saccharine (4) - Satan x F!Reader x Lucifer

Surprisingly, Lucifer hasn’t killed you. Well, it isn’t as if you’ve given him a legitimate reason, but you’re pretty sure he hates you because of that entire fanfiction fiasco. It’s been a few weeks since then, and Lucifer hasn’t come to the library since taking Raveimp off your hands. It’s quite the reprieve in all honesty. 

And then out of the blue, he curiously pokes into a conversation that you and Satan were having about the novel while you were eating in the RAD cafeteria. 

“I thought the protagonist was quite respectable,” he says, in response to a comment about her being a bit dim. “Even after being betrayed that many times, she saw through Everet’s facade and still chose to love him.”

“But why would she stay with him?” you challenge. “He literally killed her. Twice.” 

“Clearly, you haven’t loved someone before,” Lucifer remarks dryly. 

“Like you have?!” 

“Supposing that Satan kills me with one of his asinine pranks, he’ll still be my little brother,” Lucifer replies with a sigh as he fluffs Satan’s hair, much to the latter’s displeasure. “Family will always be family.” For a moment, you think about challenging Lucifer on that idea, but when you catch sight of his eyes, the question dies in your throat. 

He really does care about Satan a lot—enough that you think Lucifer actually wouldn’t care if Satan killed him. The idea is alarming, and you decide you must be seeing things. But... it wasn’t as if it was a secret that Lucifer was like a mother to his siblings. The RAD newspaper had even done an exaggerated feature on it once (much to Lucifer’s dismay).

It’s an odd thing to consider—that this terrifying, sadistic monstrosity of a vice president is actually incredibly gentle. Then again, it’s also odd to consider that you’ve grown close enough to the cat-like Avatar of Wrath that you can call each other friends. 

“Oh, MC,” Lucifer says, shaking you from your bemused reverie. “I have a favor to ask.” You look at Lucifer like he’s from outer space, but he either doesn’t notice, or he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Your supervisor, Annis, I’ve tried to contact her a few times to talk about a misconduct of hers, but she hasn’t responded to my messages, and I haven’t seen her. Tell her that I’d like to talk about the Leicester affair.”

“Well... sure, I guess,” you reply eventually. Leicester affair? “But I haven’t seen her in weeks either.” Lucifer seems confused. 

“You haven’t either?” He presses his knuckle to his lip, his brows furrowed. You resist the urge to stare. “That’s a bit troubling.” 

“What’s the Leicester affair?” Satan asks for you, and Lucifer directs his eyes away from the floor to return to the pair of you. He hesitates for a long moment before he sighs. 

“Well, I suppose I should tell you. It’s strongly suspected that Annis was involved in a recent string of murders. Suffice to say, she’s meant to be fired post-haste and potentially imprisoned.”    

“Really? Annis?” you ask, almost offended by the accusation. “She’s a sweet, gentle lady! And in the first place, why are you having me talk to her if she's a murderer?” Lucifer sighs again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I did say suspected, not proven. It doesn’t help that I haven’t been able to reach her.” You fall silent again, wondering if Lucifer is right. If she was innocent, then why had she disappeared? But... at the same time, you did think of Annis as a good friend, maybe even a sister. How could she...?

Your musing is interrupted by the touch of a hand—two hands, actually—on your shoulders, and you glance at Satan, then at Lucifer. 

“It’s probably nothing,” Satan assures. “I know Annis pretty well myself, and she’s always been a little odd, but I don’t think she’s capable of murder.” 

“I will find out the truth,” Lucifer adds, oddly gently. “And hopefully, this is a misunderstanding. But I would like you to prepare yourself for the worst. Okay?” 

You have a feeling, as Lucifer squeezes your shoulder, that the black-haired demon knows a lot more than he’s letting on. Is he trying to spare your feelings, or does he just not want to make a definite charge against her without being certain? You want to ask him those questions, but he’s already walked away, leaving Satan to worry about the concerned expression on your face.

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[sol-fernan]

2024 Weeks 1-8 Reading List

My book picks for the next few weeks!

The Constant Gardener - John Le Carre: "The novel opens in northern Kenya with the gruesome murder of Tessa Quayle -- young, beautiful, and dearly beloved to husband Justin. When Justin sets out on a personal odyssey to uncover the mystery of her death, what he finds could make him not only a suspect among his own colleagues, but a target for Tessa's killers as well."

The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter: "Subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Bluebeard,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition."

A Mother's Reckoning - Sue Klebold (not pictured): "On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. For the last sixteen years, Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, has lived with the indescribable grief and shame of that day. She chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. "

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad: "The story is narrated by Charles Marlow, recalling his obsessive quest to locate the ivory trader Kurtz, who has become ensconced deep in the jungle managing a remote outpost. As he ventures further and further down the Congo, Marlow finds himself and his surroundings become increasingly untethered."

The Pale Blue Eye - Louis Bayard: "At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet's body swinging from a rope. The next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has removed the dead man's heart. An ingenious tale of murder and revenge at West Point, featuring a retired detective and a young cadet named Edgar Allan Poe"

Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman: "The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict."