#THERE IS SO MUCH THERE I JUST URTYBRTY

[zorkaya-moved]

zarina had the biggest character development arc in obey me out of all verses tbqh.

all because: 1) she is in a position where she is literally at the bottom of the food chain. she came from the human world. she was AT THE TOP of the food chain, fought her way there, suffered her way through there, but got there. in devildom? in the celestial realm? she's like a dust particle before ancient powers. it hits her pride, but also slams her survival mindset: how can I survive and flourish? how can I protect my family from this??? 2) forced to accept that aside from humans, angels and demons are actually real. and witches too. which means that there are far more things to take into consideration when she lives on 3) her survival instincts kick in a bit too hard in the beginning because she has 0 information, and it means getting it at any means possible while making sure she won't die. 4) almost dying countless times because of some of the demons' inability to control their power, attempt to use their powers on her, or plains lower demons trying to get at her with pranks that could end in death if she wasn't smart/quick enough or she didn't have one of the brothers by her side 5) her masks don't work on demons like lucifer, diavolo, barbatos... it's hard; the fact that they see through her acting rubs her the wrong way. it was usually her being able to play her way out of any situation, but here it just doesn't fucking work. she needs to learn new techniques, be smarter, be quicker, be more adaptive. they force her to be less stubborn and learn flexibility 6) accepting magic because now it's an essential skill. she didn't want to learn magic at all because to her it felt like it goes against all of her hard work with working out, with studying, with military training, etc. however, she sees it's essential... and even... fun. and it's challenging 7) she had to ... forgive belphegor. for killing her. in the timeline she appeared in. she watched him, learned about him, but she'll never forget that. she'll NEVER forget that. but she forgave him. that's a massive fucking character development. it was the hardest thing for her to do. i mean, if she forgave other brothers for ALMOST killing her (aside from mammon), then she concluded it was logical to forgive him as well. logical. rational. yes. 8) understanding that in those 2 moments when she was 'supposed' to die, lilith's spirit actually protected her and saved her. meaning that if not for lilith, she would've died. twice. in the human world. thus, her accepting that she owes to lilith to ... understand the demons, the angels, and these news worlds. she owes it to her. 9) when she became a threat to 3 worlds and had to choose between stabbing herself or lucifer to sever the contract, she concludes that - yes - she doesn't want to die, but if it means protecting her family in the human realm and those people she came to care about, then she'd rather die herself. she's a human. but there are pillars of powers like lucifer who must live on to keep the balance. so, yes, stabbing herself was done out of 'i'm not as important in terms of power as thes people are, but also I have those I need to protect.' 10) luke got the best treatment right away because he reminded zarina of her youngest brother aleksey. but simeon? took a bit. she didn't trust his kind nature at all because she thought that angels are less trustworthy than demons due to how cynical she is, but... took year(s) to understand that he is genuine. she also apologized for her behavior because she's an adult and she must acknowledge her wrongdoings.

Zarina, altogether, remains the same: ambitious, confident, and adaptive. A survivor and fighter at heart. She has to learn how to be less judgemental, how to look at others in a new light, and be honest about her experiences with emotions. About how and why she behaves the way she does. How her past affected her. She needs to learn to trust and let them in, which she hadn't done since her team. Building relationships with others may take time, but it does develop. She's still selfish, but she is FORCED to learn to be more flexible. She is FORCED to break out of that ice. She is FORCED to face the changes.