#This is the also inspired by that one tiktok where a strong villain and a weak one are friends and go bowling alley together
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empty-blog-for-lurking · 2 months ago
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My wish is to have the motivation, the concentration, and the time to write my dream fic (voltron superhero au where Honerva is The Strongest Supervillain bored out of her life, joins a book club where she meets Lance, a D-list only doing it for an Internship villain and just proceeds to grow on her like a fungus)
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anxious-witch · 11 months ago
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Uh. I have no excuse for this one, it's partially inspired by that bojere painting ajd partially by me watching The Pieces Series on tiktok.
Weird time/reality travel, bojere, blood, temporary character death(kind of)
Bojan stared at painting, willing himself to make sense of the shapes and colors he was seeing. To see anything, but achingly familiar painting.
No. It couldn't be him. It couldn't be Jere.
He stared at year written under the painting. 1932.
-.. --- / -.-- --- ..- / .-. . -- . -- -... . .-. ..--..
A brush tapping on the table as he chewed om his lip. The painting was almost finished. It was just missing something. Something like-
"Are you painting again?" Jere said, leaning his head on his shoulder, "Oh! It's the one where you dream of me, huh?"
Bojan laughed, putting the brush aside and turning around, smiling at him.
"I am always dreaming of you."
Jere cupped his cheek, soft smile on his face.
"You are so funny. My Joker man."
.--. .-.. . .- ... . / .-. . -- . -- -... . .-.
Bojan stumbled a step, swaying on his feet. Strong hands stedied him.
"Whi, Jokerman! Easy."
He stared at Jere's eyes. Shokingly, electricly blue. Blue like-
-.. --- -. .----. - / ..-. --- .-. --. . - / -- .
-blue like the sky. Bojan was not going to let this piece of the sky dull out and dye. He would not.
"Just hang on a bit longer. If I can get you to Nace, he can heal-"
"Bojan," Jere said quietly.
Too quietly. He sounded too tired, too hopeless. Like he was giving up.
"It's the end of the line. We both knew it was coming."
"No!"
Bojan felt as if he was ripping his heart out of his chest. The villain stood dead few meters away and it meant nothing? What was the point if he didn't have Jere with him after?
"The prophecy-"
"Fuck the prophecy! I am not letting you go."
A thought came to mind, equally beautiful and horrfying.
"The artifact," Bojan whispered, looking at the body of a villain. The one still clutched in his hand.
The one with the ability to travel time and dimensions.
"Bojan-" Jere tried to interrupt, but he choked instead coughing blood.
Fear siezed Bojan's chest and he breathed out harshly.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I can't lose you."
Then he went to retrieve the artifact. It resembled a clock, except it also had years and to the side, numbers of what Bojan could only assume were dimensions. Currently, they were at number 2.
He turned the clock back.
.-. . -- . -- -... . .-. / .... --- .-- / .-- . / --. --- - / .... . .-. .
"Bojan!"
Bojan took in a lungful of air, feeling as if he was submerged underwater. He was shaking and Jere was holding him, his eyes wide and worried.
"What happened?"
Jere shook his head.
"I don't know. You almost collapsed and then you started shaking."
He remember the hallucination so clearly. It felt so real. Jere's blood was sticky and smelled of cooper. Power underneath his skin was drumming, he could almost feel echo of it.
"I don't know either," he said, "Can we just please go home?"
Jere furrowed his brows. He scanned his face, as if trying to gauge something on his face.
In the end, he just nodded.
Bojan kept his arm around him, almost afraid that if he let go, Jere would disappear. As they made their way out of the museum, Bojan shivered and put his hand in his coat pocket.
There, his hand closed around an object, shaped like a clock. A completely different shiver went through him.
"Alright?" Jere asked again, still looking worried.
Bojan forced a smile.
"Yeah. As long as you are here with me."
As much as he tried not to even think about cold, smooth metal under his fingertips, part of him knew that if he looked at it, number would have shifted to number 1.
.-. . -- . -- -... . .-. .. -. --. / .... . .-.. .--. ... / ..- ... / -. --- - / .-. . .--. . .- - / - .... . / ... .- -- . / -- .. ... - .- -.- . ...
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yumiyue07 · 3 months ago
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The Dreaded 8 - Afterword
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The Dreaded 8—my first longer story—has finally come to an end. I’m feeling a bit emotional about it, and I’m not entirely sure why. 🥹
This journey began at the start of the year when I wrote the story as one of my first Stray Kids-inspired pieces. Back then, I didn’t know much about the boys or their relationships with each other, so I’m pleasantly surprised at how well I managed to capture some of their dynamics and character traits.
In March, during their fan meeting, Stray Kids showcased magical powers in their trailer, and to my delight, a few of them even aligned with the abilities I chose for them in my story. It’s thrilling to think that I came up with a similar concept without even knowing theirs! 🤭✨
As for the title, I wanted to include the number 8 (Stays, you know why) and emphasize that they’re a formidable group by using the word “dreaded.” After all, they’re not a group to be messed with.
When it came to the pairings in my story, I based them either on the chemistry between the characters (LeeFrost/HanHealer and StormJin/FelixBlaze) or on the compatibility of their powers (ThunderBin/AquaIN). The skills I chose were inspired by their personalities and character traits, and their names give an indication of their abilities:
Bang Chan (ChanShield 🛡️), with his caring and protective nature, was given the ability to create shields to protect what he holds dear.
Lee Know (LeeFrost ❄️), known for his calm and sometimes cold demeanor, as well as his piercing gaze, is known to make people freeze in the spot with a single look.
Changbin (ThunderBin ⚡), one of the louder Kids and physically strong, was given the powers of thunder and lightning.
Hyunjin (StormJin 🌪️), with his impressive dance talent, was given the power of wind and storms—when he dances powerfully across the room, it’s as if he truly generates fierce gusts of wind.
Han (HanHealer ✨)was given healing powers due to his calmer nature (at least that was my first impression, though I now know he can be quite different 😅). Plus, every group needs a healer for those kinds of battles.
Felix (FelixBlaze🔥), oh Felix, 😌 our Mr. Sunshine, makes the sun rise with his smile—and when the sun rises, things heat up!
Seungmin (TerraMin🌱🪨) is usually quiet, but when provoked long enough, the earth starts shaking—fitting for his power to cause earthquakes.
I.N (AquaIN 🌊), our Baby Bread, was given the power of water because where there’s fire, there must be water to balance it out, right? (And also because of his smooth singing skills 😉).
I wanted to explore something different from my usual romantic stories, and I’m proud of how this one turned out. Writing an adventure story wasn’t easy, as that genre isn’t really my strong suit—especially the action-packed scenes, which I know I still need to practice. 😅
I originally intended for the villains to be even nastier and more brutal, but I found it difficult to inflict too much pain on the boys.
To lighten the story, I tried to include some jokes and inside references, especially during the introduction of the boys. For example, how Lee Know can silence and make the others break out in sweat with just one look, or how Hyunjin can judge everything and everyone with his gaze 🤨. And of course, I couldn’t resist adding their current favorite phrase, "That’s very nice." 🤣
I hope you enjoyed seeing the boys as superheroes, despite a few rough spots. 💗
Who knows, maybe there’ll be a sequel one day...🥷🏼
Love, YumiYue 💖
(〜 ̄▽ ̄)〜♡
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Follow me on: 📸 Instagram: @yumiyue07 🎵 TikTok: @yumiyue07
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fan fiction inspired by Stray Kids’ song “Thunderous”. All characters and events are fictional and are not intended to represent real people or events.
All rights reserved. Please do not repost or reproduce this story without permission.
© 2024 LunaVerse - YumiYue07. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
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smallboyonherbike · 1 year ago
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forced my friends to watch the objectively dogshit but beloved rugby movie forever strong last night (basically walmart version of any inspirational sports movie but throw in scared straight messages about the dangers of drunk driving). which for one thing i managed to forget penn badgley is the villain with the most horrific facial hair of all time.
but my friend was like okay so what is the rugby thing where they do human centipede and i was like oh yeah the scrum ofc. and then he said i follow these rugby players who are also movers on tiktok and they're always doing homoerotic shit and i'm like well yeah the game involves putting your head in your teammates asses so there is no personal space.
like as a hooker my head wasn't in anyone's ass just tucked up against other ppls heads destroying my neck, but sure did have my teammates heads up in my ass pushing me forward that's just life baby. tho i'm sure male ruggers are more no homo about it we were all just openly queer
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adenthemage · 2 years ago
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tell me about the works in progress you have
Oh shit thanks for indulging me anon!! I've been super busy with work lately, but has that stopped me from starting new projects? No because i am a foole. So I have a decent bunch of them stacked up atm
Seeing as I am in tmnt hell with no end in sight yet, a majority of it has been centered on fanworks for that! In the art department I have:
-draw the rottmnt gang in your outfits
-just. SO many screenshots I wanna redraw
-animating rottmnt boys as youtubers I think are funny (<- this one is VERY CLOSE to being done, I just have a few segments I'm dragging my feet on. I have the boards I just don't wanna liiiinnnne)
-animation sent to a Thriller remix focusing on the 03 villains. This one is heavily inspired by a PHENOMENAL Jojo animation of which I will be plastering all over the promo for when my version is finished. I don't even watch Jjba (yet) but I am obsessed with that video. Part of me is excited to finish just so I can show more people that video. I am stealing so many techniques from it
-I have a TH storage account full of characters I mean to draw as warmups, but I keep forgetting. They're either set to be sold (and adding art gives them more value) or I just don't have anything for them to do yet and they need a little detail (sometimes drawing helps me flesh out a character's personality and backstory, by way of it reflecting in their design)
-Another TOH six fanarts! The video of me speeddrawing the first one went viral on both Youtube and Tiktok, so I had plenty of character requests to fulfill. I've decided on the ones I want to do, but it's been hard getting motivated to work on it-- presumably because I've moved fixations and brain gets very mad when I think about anything else
On the writing side, I've found myself being a bit more engaged with a little community that's made up of a lot of talented fic writers! I've never had the skill or motivation to finish a fic, but recently I've been trying my hand at fixing that, largely because of their influence. I have a few I'm considering polishing and one I'm nearly ready to actually post!!
-Fire and Stones is, I guess a character study, and the one I'm hoping to post very soon. It examines Agent Bishop in phases of life that aren't really represented in the show, with an emphasis on his odd relationship with death and all the different ways he's experienced it (as in every conceivable way except actually dying, himself.) I'm a little iffy on the first chapter because it takes place so early on, there are no canon characters even alive to interact with. I worry it won't be as fun or engaging as the next two, of which I'm actually pretty happy with! (This is rare as I am a very opinionated mfer and my own work is not immune to my strong need to critique.) I guess I'm just overthinking it because I intend to post it publicly and I'm a little nervous about it. I've never shared any of my fanfiction before!
-a new piece that spawned from Fire and Stones is a "sickfic" that begins hitting the usual fluffy beats with a hint of strangeness, and then quickly devolves into angst and political drama as the sick character in question becomes sure they were actually poisoned and this is an attempted assassination. It will be fun, if I can manage to stick with such a long pace.
-There is also a fic set in the 2012 tmnt universe, heavily inspired by another fic out there where Donnie and Mikey run away and start their own life and begin to heal. I absolutely adored it, and after discussing it with a buddy we were like 'what if they hid out in EPF with Bishop lol' and then it spiraled into a found family drama hoorayyyyy. Most of what I have so far is just waxing poetic about utrom Bishop, though, because I like him and am apparently allergic to writing povs in anyone else's voice.
-ok so. Confession time. I like Rick and Morty. During one of the season finales a villain gives Morty the option to join him and escape Rick forever, and genuinely I feel it is ooc that Morty did not take them up on it, because they were RIGHT. Anyway I have the beginning of a canon divergence fic where he does accept the offer. I actually really like what I have so far! It's just one scene, but at the very least I might try finish the one setup chapter. I might never do more, but I really like what I do have and wouldn't mind showing it off.
-I have a little self-indulgent story about Naruto OCs learning the basics in genin training. I have one scene done but it kinda tapered off in the next rip
I love all my projects but I am always so tired from work I just end up not working on them. But I hope I can have some cool stuff to show sooner rather than later! May it bring someone joy
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ababanerb · 4 years ago
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“when the pillars fall” shoto todoroki
Inspired by @/maddsbuckley on TikTok. Please go check her out, she’s amazing!
                                                      x x x
summary: shoto todoroki is strong, and he’s got the good looks to boot. but sometimes, in the dead of night, he falls apart and without fail, you’re there. you’re always there for him. then, the pillars fell, and he’s there for you just as much as you are for him.
genre: angst with a kinda happy ending
warnings: manga spoilers, takes place after the war arc, some cursing, critical injuries, hospitalization, shoto and reader are weak for each other
word count: 2,217
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Shoto Todoroki is supposed to be a hero prodigy. Shoto Todoroki is supposed to stand tall and strong, and keep his father's hero legacy alive.
And he's all of those things. Except for late at night when he comes creeping into your dorm with the key you gave him to crawl underneath the covers with you because of a nightmare he had.
"I'm sorry. I can go if you want." Is what he says the first time he comes to your dorm, but knocking this time because you had yet to give him his own key.
"You've gotta at least tell me what's wrong first." You say gently, and he crumbles. He mumbles that it was just a silly little nightmare as tears roll slowly down his face and you pull him into your dorm to cuddle.
"It's not stupid if it woke you up, Sho," You say as he pulls you into him like you're a teddy bear. And it’s always a little awkward cuddling with him after he’s had a nightmare, his body fluctuating sporadically between hot and cold, but you don’t mind because the longer he holds you the faster you fall back asleep.
You ask him if he wants to tell you about it, but Shoto never does, saying that he’s already forgotten, but the feeling stays longer than the visual. And you nod, and drift off faster than you should, but Shoto doesn’t mind - he never does - and he’s so completely lost in you. He’s so completely enamored by you, and he’s never been so happy to be lost.
He continues to knock for his next five visits after the first night, and you eventually get tired of him waking you up in the dead of the night so you give him his own key.
The seventh time he shows up at your door, he doesn’t use the key. No, instead, he stands outside your door and calls you. The dial tone rings in his ear and it doesn’t help soothe the tightness in his chest or the lump in his throat at all, and he wonders if it’s really so bad for him to use the key you’d given him. Eventually though, you answer - you always do - and he falls in love with you all over again.
“Sho?” You ask, voice scratchy and stiff, and he can hear you through the door, “What’s going on?”
It’s technically a stupid question to ask, you know he’d only ever call you so late at night if he’d had a nightmare, but he also doesn’t call you very often either. 
“Can I come in?” Shoto asks, and you make a groggy noise of confusion.
“What d’ya mean, Sho?” 
“Can I come in?” He repeats, and then softly knocks twice on your door.
You hang up then, and Shoto watches your door swing open with tears pricking at his eyes. And when you drag him into bed with you the world feels like it could never be wide enough.
                                                         x x x
Then, your world fell apart. 
The pillars that held up Japan’s hero society crumbled in a measly seven hours. 
With too many prison breaks, fatalities, and injuries to count, Shoto could care less. Because you were gone. He’d been with you early that morning, before everything fell apart.
He’d been in bed with you, cuddled up close and basking in your presence, the two of you had changed into your hero costumes together. He’d been with you for hundreds of hours too little that morning, and he wants to know where you are. 
He asks his older brother Natsuo where you are by showing him the little sticky note that he’d written the question on and shown to every nurse, doctor, teacher, and friend that came in to see him. His throat had been burned to hell, and he wished more than anything to get up and ask every damned person in the hospital where you were.
He’s supposed to be talking about Touya - he’s not Touya anymore, he has to remind to himself, that man is Dabi, not Touya - and all he can think about is you. 
Shoto has to remind himself that he can’t cry. Because right now, the people around him need him to be strong, and that includes you, where ever you are. He hopes you can feel him wavering, desperately wishes for you to show up.
It’s on his sixth night in the hospital that somebody finally tells him where you are. It’s Bakugo, surprisingly enough.
��Hey, IcyHot,” Bakugo greets, and Shoto uses text-to-speech to ask him if he should even be walking. The blonde is covered in just as many bandages as Shoto, and when Aizawa had come by on his third day in the hospital, Shoto had been told all about everybody’s condition except yours.
“Yeah, i’m fine,” Bakugo says, easing himself into hard plastic chair next to Shoto’s hospital bed, “Y/N’s not though.”
Shoto croaks out a pathetic noise, but Bakugo doesn’t need prompting.
“All the other damn extras said not to say anything to you,” Bakugo continues, and for the first time ever, the cocky blonde is visibly nervous, worried, even, “Y/N’s in the ICU. They haven’t stabilized since they got in. Nobody’s told me what happened to them, but apparently Dunce Face was one of the last people to see her before she was brought here. He... He thought that Y/N was already dead when he last saw them. They’re in a medically induced coma, according to Mr.Aizawa.”
Shoto sits there, in silence except for the quiet humming of the AC unit, for thirty minutes. Bakugo sits with him, just as quiet. 
“Where are they now?” Shoto’s phone asks, the words choppy and abrupt, and Bakugo looks pained when he tells him your room number. Neither of them do anything for a while after that, and Bakugo sits in the hard plastic chair that’d begun to make his butt sore until Shoto falls asleep with a million things on the tip of his tongue.
Shoto is released from the hospital four days later, extensive healing and pain meds made sure of that, and nobody had been allowed to see you yet. He’d asked around, and eventually he learned that you’d undergone six different procedures since you’d arrived.
Tonight would be your seventh.
                                                          x x x
It’s hot. Very hot.
The flames are blue, and a few of them lick at you, but they don’t burn. There’s a battle cry from both sides, and you watch as villains pour from the Gunga Mountain Villa. It takes five minutes, and war has broken out all around you.
You’re fighting too, better suited for close combat, and you’re watching your classmates, your friends being battered around, fighting in a war that they shouldn’t be fighting.
You’re the first to make inside the building, and you’re vaguely aware that you’re bleeding. Fatgum tells you to retreat, telling you that you look on the verge of death. You tell him you’re fine.
You’re not fine. The building is rumbling, and the ceiling’s begun to cave in, it’s hard to breathe, and you can’t see through the blood that’s caked over your left eye.
The pillars fall in seven seconds, and you fall too. 
You call for him, for Shoto, in the last three seconds of your consciousness, you call for him.
It’s dark.
                                                        x x x 
When you wake up, really wake up and open your eyes to look right into the harsh white fluorescent lights of your hospital room, nobody’s there with you. There’s a vase of dying roses on the windowsill, and you can already tell from the crisp handwriting on the brown tag that Shoto had been the one to leave them. And it’s cold, but you prefer that to the blazing heat you’d felt when you’d fallen asleep.
Where is Sho anyway?
Your heart monitor steadily beeps away, and when a nurse comes in to check your vitals she’s surprised to see you’re awake. And even more surprised when the first thing you ask for is Shoto.
“Sho,” You say, and your voice is dry and raw and barely a whisper, “Where’s Sho?”
The nurse stares at you wide-eyes for a moment, before she gets you a little dixie cup of water.
“Who’s Sho?” She asks, and you struggle to swallow the little cup of water she’d given you.
“Shoto Todoroki,” You say, “Is he here?”
The nurse purses her lips, and looks at you sadly, and you wonder what she’s thinking about before she tells you that she’ll be right back with the doctor. She leaves three more dixie cups of water on your foldaway table before leaving.
You sit there for almost an hour before the door opens again, and it’s a horrible hour because every time you close your eyes all you can see is the bloody battle that should have killed you.
The doctor comes in first, and right behind him is the person you’d been thinking about since you’d woken up. You’d been with him all that morning before the war, and all that night. And you were with him now.
The doctor tells you what day it is, and you start crying when he tells you it’s been almost a month since you’d first been admitted to the hospital. 
“Fuck,” You whimper, voice crackling and breaking as you reach out for Shoto, and he’s there - he always is - and his hand feels so good in yours - it always does - and you start crying even harder when you see the tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sho. You look so tired.”
“I love you,” And he says it like there will never be another chance to say it, and once the first ‘I love you’ leaves his mouth fifty more follow. And the doctor looks you over as best he can, before telling you that you’re cleared for visitors and that you’d be able to leave within the week.
And as Shoto begins to cry he has to remind himself that he is supposed to be a hero prodigy. That he’s supposed to stand tall and strong, and keep his father's hero legacy alive. But you hold onto his fingers so tightly, and for once, you’re asking if you can come over because you’ve just had a nightmare. It’s a shared nightmare, Shoto tells you, shared by millions.
Two days later you’re allowed to go back home, back to the dorms, and Shoto has to help you get dressed because you can barely breathe standing up let alone walk without your legs collapsing. Shoto kisses your tears away when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You’re covered in scars, and there are still stitches in places where the wounds were slower to heal. 
Your whole world fell apart in seven hours that day, and it continued to fall apart after that. Shoto’s there for you the whole way back to UA, and he tells you that your school, your second home, had become a home to thousands of others too. Shoto had given his dorm away and he’d been staying at his family home while you’d been in the hospital.
But your dorm is still there. And nothing’s changed at all.
“I’ve also been staying here too,” Shoto tells you when he helps you into bed, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all, Sho,” You tell him - you never do mind - and he crawls into bed next to you, minding your right knee with it’s poky little stitches and the new metal patella that replaced the kneecap you’d shattered during the war.
Japan fell apart in four days, Shoto tells you, and you can’t find it in you to care, because the world is too big and too wide but Shoto makes it feel smaller.
It was dark, when the pillars fell. And the two of you are blind, lost in it, and you’d never been so afraid of being lost. 
“I don’t think I can go back to hero work,” You tell him early the next morning, as he gets dressed to go back to his family home, “Not for a long time.”
“That’s okay, my love,” He replies, he won’t tell you, but he’s not sure he wants you to go back, “Do you want to come home with me?”
He doesn’t need to ask, because he would have taken you with him anyway.
“Yeah,” You tell him, and you struggle to push yourself up into a sitting position, “Just... Will you promise me something?”
“Anything.”
“Promise me you won’t die.”
It’s stupid thing to ask for, you know it is. Because everybody dies eventually, but you don’t know what you’d do if you lost him. The two of you are lost, but at least you’re together. 
Shoto doesn’t need to question it, because he’d thought you were dead for almost a whole week. And he doesn’t ever want to be without you, even though he knows he’ll have to.
“I promise you, Y/N, I won’t ever leave you, and I won’t die.”
It’s dark, Shoto thinks, as he helps you into the back of his father’s car, But it’s much less dark with you.
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mirkosintern · 4 years ago
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Crawlin’ back to you
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pairing: dabi x fem!reader
genre: smut with a lil angst and fluff if you squint
notes: reader is a member of the lov, set in the meta liberation army arc (before the war!), possessive dabi, wowee this is my first work!! I never expected myself to be able to write a piece but here we are ehehe this was inspired by a certain tiktok actually. U may have already noticed but the title is from the song do I wanna know? by the arctic monkeys<3
warnings: 18+, unprotected sex, breeding, cum play, dubcon-ish?, toxic relationship, degradation, vulgar language, alcohol
word count: 3k
⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅
That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day Crawlin’ back to you Ever thought of callin’ when you've had a few? 'Cause I always do Maybe I'm too busy bein’ yours to fall for somebody new Now I've thought it through
⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅
Dabi wasn’t one to do feelings. He’s screwed numerous women, but they were nothing more than some toys to fulfill his sexual needs. Neither did he want to have feelings, nor did he need to. Afterall, his side hoes who begged to stay with him even after all the degradation he’s given them disgusted him the most. He would snicker at their pathetic attempts and cut them off ruthlessly.
However, you were an only exception.
No, he did not have feelings for you, he swears he never did and never will. But you were different from his other disposable sluts--he kept you around. He didn’t ghost you, instead, he kept coming back. It is only because you’re a member of the lov as well, he thinks. You are easy to access since you’re always around the lov base, and he doesn’t even have to worry about getting caught by civilians or stupid bitches who suddenly decide to turn him into the police. You guys were practically co-workers with benefits, fuck buddies where the “buddies” part is questionable.
Dabi didn’t mind that he made an exception for you until that night. That very night where you sleepily decided to crawl into his arms after a rough round and whispered him how you loved the rough texture of his skin against yours. That very night where you pressed delicate kisses beneath his jaw. The moment of intimacy—making his heart pound and warmth spread beneath his cold skin—was threatening. You were threatening.
That’s where he cut you off completely. He did not knock on your bedroom door located in the lov base anymore. He stopped sending those “you up?” texts at 3am. He didn’t even lock eyes with you or talk to you anymore.
It feels as if something heavy dropped inside you, squashing your heart to the point where it’s painful. You try your best to ignore the pang in your chest and remind yourself that you guys were nothing more than co-workers with benefits. However, the enduring heartburn only functions to make you realize how attached you were to him. He’s Dabi, the biggest scumbag you will ever meet, what did you expect? What were you thinking? It should be no surprise this happened, right? But having to encounter his stupidly handsome face every day was not doing any help. You are a girl with dignity, you tell yourself, trying your best to ignore his strong scent of campfire and cologne drowning you every time you guys are in the same room.
The pain is suffocating you for weeks, and you finally decide to completely get over him. The night Dabi brings a bimbo to his room and fucks her loud enough for everyone in the lov to hear—for you to hear—you’re done with everything. You step outside, get drunk, do anything to numbify the pain the raven-haired guy has caused you, and even meet a nice-looking guy who seems to be interested in you.
You are doing good without Dabi.
You don’t need Dabi anymore.
You are not letting him get to your head.
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A party.
League of villains is all about privacy, but they also started having some fun after uniting with the meta liberation army. Now they had sufficient money, people and place to throw parties every now and then without the danger of getting caught by civilians. Afterall, a number of heroes were in their side as well.
“Not gonna lie, you guys do know how to host parties.” Keigo smirks, picking up a glass of bourbon whiskey. “It’s fuckin’ lame,” Dabi answers as he downs a glass of liquor.
“So, what happened with y/n?” Keigo throws a suggestive smile.
“The hell you mean what happened with her?” Dabi frowns.
“Y’know, didn’t you guys used to be a thing or something?”
“Nah, she was an occasional fuck and that’s it.”
“Oh really? The Dabi I know never fucks a same bitch twice though. I thought she was something special.”
“Special?”
“Yeah, thought maybe you actually wanted her.”
A smug grin appears on Dabi’s face. “Never even liked her.”
“Have you seen her and her new boyfriend?”
The smile is quick to vanish from his face after hearing the word boyfriend. Dabi’s eyes widen, immediately glaring at Keigo. Before he could say anything, Keigo tilts his chin to point something.
“There they are.”
Dabi turns his head only to find you clinging onto some guy’s arm. Your cheeks are flushed –a pretty, pink glow on your face—as you bat your eyelashes at the guy. Bubbly giggles escape from your lips while you stare at him through half-lidded eyes. The guy’s arm is secured around your waists, pulling you closer to him.
Dabi sees red.
His entire body freezes as his grip around the liquor glass tighten. Dabi doesn’t say anything for a moment, but there is no way Keigo wouldn’t pick up how his cerulean eyes are flaming at the sight. “Well, I thought you knew.” Keigo pats Dabi’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t matter anyways right? You never liked her.”
“…Right.” Dabi takes another sip from the liquor, his eyes still fixed to you.
Keigo’s words are true; at least they are supposed to be true. Dabi didn’t have feelings for you. He doesn’t do romance. No feelings were ever involved with any of the women he’s slept with, and he made sure of it. It was so clear for Dabi without a question.
But why is it unable for him to erase the sight of you with some guy as he forces himself to sleep that night? Why are your sweet giggles echoing his head? Why can’t he get rid of the thought of you in that tight, black dress that perfectly complements the curves of your body? Why is the moment where the guy places his hand on your inner thigh replaying in his head? Why are thoughts of you messing with his mind?
“Fucking hell.”
Dabi gets up. This was fucking annoying. You were truly fucking annoying.
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You tilt your head to check the glowing digits of your digital clock on the nightstand. 2:15am. It’s late, and you haven’t even taken off the dress you wore to the party. You are too tired both physically and emotionally. You’ve done quite a decent job in entertaining the man who��s accompanied you through the whole party, but it was truly an energy-consuming task. You and him walked around as if you guys were the happiest couple in the party; but the truth is that you guys aren’t even properly dating yet. Solely because you have constantly been refusing to properly answer him asking you to be his girlfriend. It’s not that he’s bad looking or anything, but the idea of being with him just doesn’t sit right with you. Ever since you’ve met him, he couldn’t keep his hands off you without asking you anything about consent. You always had to pull his hand away with an uncomfortable smile, yet he never took a hint. However, when a dating rumor about you and him started and spread quickly, you didn’t try to correct anything. Maybe it was because you wanted to pull out a reaction from a certain villain. Maybe your unusual actions at today’s party; clinging onto the guy and laughing at every single word he spoke; was to make Dabi witness how happy you were.
 Truthfully, you were dying inside.
 What was even worse was that none of your attempts seemed to bring an ounce of reaction from Dabi. When have you become so pathetic and desperate? You feel tears welling up in your eyes, hot and burning, but you don’t want to cry. Not for an asshole like him. You take out your phone, find the guy’s name, and text him that you don’t want to see him anymore. You feel a little guilty, thinking that you may have used him to provoke something from Dabi, but your thoughts are too worn out for you to comprehend anything. You flop onto your bed and bury your face in your pillow. You huff out a deep sigh, and the soft texture of your cotton pillow feels warm on your cheeks. In all honesty, you were thinking about Dabi the whole time you were at the party. Whenever the guy’s hand creeped up your thighs or gripped on your ass, you imagined it was Dabi’s, trying your hardest to feel something from the contact.
 You weren’t over Dabi. You never were. Realization hurts, leaving a sour feeling in your mouth.
 Your body shoots up at the sudden, loud slamming sound emerged from your door. Your teary eyes widen at the lean man slamming the door shut. “Dabi?” You ask, not believing your eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?” Without an answer, Dabi’s one hand reaches for your throat as his other hand grips your wrist. His large body is towering over you, and you feel your bed shift as he dips one knee in the mattress. His sapphire eyes pierce through your soul, and you can feel his raging anger just from looking at him.
“You’re such a pain in the ass, y’know that?”
“Dabi, what are you-“
He doesn’t let you finish the sentence, pulling you in for a heated kiss. Your lips open reflexively, enabling him to deepen the kiss. The kiss is aggressive, and he doesn’t know whether it is because of his anger or his pent-up desires towards you that he has been suppressing. The kiss gets sloppier over time, hot and wet with saliva and tongue. He lets go of the grip on your wrist and starts tracing your inner thigh with his thumb, and you let out a soft moan. You finally pull away from the kiss to catch your breath, but he doesn’t cease to caress your thigh. Instead, he lowers himself to your ear. “You seem to really love thigh touches, don’t you?” His low voice and hot breath brushing the shell of your ear sends chills down your spine.
“Huh?”
“I always knew you were a slut, but never knew you were this much of a whore. You would bend over any guy who offers you some touches, right?”
Tears swell in your eyes again at his vile words, but it’s hard to talk when his knuckles are repeatedly brushing your clit.
“I’m… not a slut…nngh.” Suppressed moans escape your lips.
“Yeah? Why are you making those sounds then?”
“Dabi…”
He yanks your dress up and dips two fingers inside your lace panties, making you let out a weak yelp. Dabi raises his brows with a smug grin on his face.
“Oh, so she indeed is a slut huh? You get this fucking wet from a kiss?”
His two digits start pumping inside you, and you grip on his white shirt at the sudden sensation. Your gasps and moans get louder, and you suddenly feel his wet lips against your neck. Dabi sucks hard, making sure to leave dark purple marks from your jaw to your neck and shoulder, as he repeats the step of curling his fingers and pulling them inside and out your hole. “Dabi…too fast.” You whine out. “Yeah?” A sadistic grin appears on Dabi’s face. “Be a good slut and take what I give you.” His thumb reaches for your clit, making your legs shiver.
“Nngh…stop, I’m gonna… Dabi I’m gonna cum.”
“Stop? You want me to stop?”
“No!”
“Do you deserve it though?” he slows his pace while teasing your clit. “Beg.”
It’s humiliating, really—but do you have any other choice when you are this close?
“Please, Dabi… I’ll be your good slut. Please let me cum!” Your desperate cries have him pumping his fingers fast again, and soon you’re seeing white. Hot drops of release coat Dabi’s fingers as he pulls out.
“Say ah.”
“A-ah.”
You obey, and Dabi sticks his digits inside your mouth. Your mouth wraps around them immediately, sucking as if it’s a pacifier. “Good girl,” Dabi says as he pats your head, and it makes your stomach swoop with sick pride.
The bulge in his pants is becoming painful, and he contemplates on fucking your mouth. But he’s too impatient; He feels the need to abuse your cunt right now. He wants to hear your screams and cries as he proves who you belong to.
“Take that off.” Dabi gestures at your dress, and you start undressing as he demands. Dabi pulls down his sweatpants and boxers, causing his cock to spring out. It’s so pretty, you think, and you can’t help but admire his red tip, glistening with precum. He pumps his length a few times and lines it up with your entrance. You inhale a sharp gasp as you feel his whole length inside you. It feels so full; it feels as if he’s gonna split you in half if he starts moving.
“Ah, too big.”
“I know.” Dabi looks down on you. “Take it like a little slut you are.”
Before you could even talk back, he is moving inside you. Your moans blend with the noise of the bed creaking; a perfectly harmonized orchestra to Dabi’s ears.
You knew Dabi wasn’t one to prep you or go slow, but you feel like he’s going way rougher than usual. His wild thrusts have your head lolling backwards, and Dabi does not miss the chance to take a hard bite on your neck. You scream out of both pain and pleasure, and you feel two hot streams of tears on your flushed cheeks.
“Aww, she’s crying.” Dabi says in a mocking tone. “Bet you love the pain.”
Humiliation fills your chest and you turn your head away, but Dabi quickly grabs your chin with one hand, forcing you to directly face him.
“Who’s the one making you feel this full?” he asks.
“Y-you.”
“Did he ever make you feel this way?”
Wait, he? Who does he mean by he? Your alleged boyfriend? Could it be possible that Dabi was doing this out of jealousy? You try to comprehend, but it’s impossible for you to think clearly, not when Dabi is fucking you stupid. “No!” You shout.
Dabi’s free hand reaches for your clit and starts rubbing circles. “Tell me, who does this pussy belong to?”
“You…” You try to answer, but he suddenly lifts up your lower body and slams into your cervix in the right angle. It has you moaning even louder, your insides spasming around his cock.
“I can’t hear you.” He smirks sadistically.
“You, Dabi, it belongs to you! I belong to you!” You’re screaming his name like it’s the only word you know, making his cock twitch. “That’s right. You are all for me, all for me to use. Just a pathetic little slut for my cock.” A satisfactory grin appears on Dabi’s face.
Dabi lowers his body down and grunts directly into your ear as he thrusts even faster. The sound of his skin slamming into yours is so erotic, and you can feel how close you are.
“You wanna cum huh?” His words have you nodding frantically, babbling incoherent words. Yes Dabi—wanna cum so bad—wanna be yours—wanna be your good girl—please, dabi.
“Then do it. Make a mess on my cock.”
“Nngh, Dabi!” You scream out his name as euphoria washes down your body. His release follows you soon enough, painting your walls white. You feel warmth filling your belly while his groans echo in your ear. You’re still sobbing and panting after he pulls out, without any energy left to move. As your blurry vision starts getting clearer, you feel his warm skin and the sting of his cold staples against your back. His long arms wrap around your oversensitive body, pulling you closer to him.
“You’re messing with my head.” Dabi rests his forehead on the back of your shoulder.
“Huh?”
You’re confused, but Dabi doesn’t elaborate. His ego doesn’t let him do such thing.
“When you said you belonged to me, did you mean it?”
You bite your lower lip, not knowing how to respond to his sudden question. Millions of unspoken words and feelings are hanging in the back of your throat, creating a huge lump. You swallow them all and spit out a question instead. “Do you want me to belong to you?”
“Yeah.” Your eyes widen at his unexpected response, butterflies fluttering inside your chest. “Be mine.” His low voice vibrates against your soft skin. Your heart melts at his words, and you cannot stop your feelings from overspilling anymore. At that moment you both realize; you and Dabi were meant to crawl back to each other, no matter how hard you both try and struggle.
“I’m yours.” You smile, “I’m all yours.”
547 notes · View notes
githvyrik · 3 years ago
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Excited about the Zariel headcanons. I’m a dm who isn’t running avernus but Zariel became plot relevant to one of my pc’s personal arcs, so I wanted to consult someone with a lot more knowledge and opinions about her than me. Thank you again!
Hiiiiiiiiiiii I'm so sorry it took me so long to get around to this but here it goes. Also tumblr ate your original ask when I tried to post this the first time #cringe. Fair warning I do not refer to the Nine Hells in a consistent way through this post. (also I know like 2 of my players are on here but they're not super active but if you happen to read this then KEEP SCROLLING lol) This is like 7.5 pages of me analyzing a villain from dnd admittedly a bit too seriously and I think that’s really cool and epic of me 
First off I want to clarify some stuff about the lore I'm using- I'm going off of what was established in MToF and expanded upon in DiA, BUT I've also taken a lot of inspiration from the Alexandrian remix of DiA (in general I'm following neither in their entirety I'm putting my own spin on them because I have issues with both the official adventure and the remix but we didn't come here to talk about that) plus my thoughts will probably evolve as I run DiA. Sorry this is kind of a ramble and DEFINITELY way too much info and also I don’t fully remember what I took from where and what I made up. The first part of this post is like an overview of her history (you can change whatever you'd like, of course, this is just for my setting), then at the end I put together some more disorganized thoughts.
Sooooo, let's just start with the basics that you probably know- Zariel is a fallen angel who is currently the archduke of Avernus, the first layer of the 9 hells.
Zariel was actually a solar, which are the most powerful of the angels as far as d&d is concerned. As this tiktok puts it, "When god goes on vacation, he leaves [them] in charge and nothing changes" (which is in fact a line I'm stealing to have an npc explain to the party how fucked they are if they try to fight her on their own directly tbh). Zariel was a solar of Lathander (also called the Morninglord), who is a god of the sun (dawn specifically but I'm expanding his role to include the sun in general), rebirth, renewal, creativity, vitality, etc etc etc basically all the goody-two-shoes shit that you'd expect a god of the sun to have in his portfolio. HAAHAHA she's a SOLAR of a SUN GOD. According to Reya Mantlemorn, an npc in DiA, her name means "companion of light" (which is a nod to the Companion, the device that dragged Elturel into Hell, wow they really should've been more suspicious about the convenient ball of light that randomly appeared in the sky and wouldn't leave which the leaders of the city made all the citizens swear allegiance to). First and foremost, she is a soldier, she was created that way and it is her nature (which sounds kind of fucked up when I put it that way but I'll try to expand on this more later). She was basically a cosmic being forever tasked to fight for what is Good and Righteous.
Currently, she's an archdevil, specifically Archduke of Avernus. Archdevils do, in fact, include more than just the archdukes, and they're the most powerful in terms of infernal beings- their power is almost on par with deities. While most devils result from mortals who sold their souls, archdevils sometimes have different origins. Archdukes are just the ones who proved themselves to be the Baddest Bitches and most capable of being in charge, typically through displaying their cunning or power. Among the archdevils, and especially the ones who actually rule layers of hell, Zariel is voted Best at Kicking Your Ass Physically. The majority of other devils use deception, trickery, and cunning to get their way, and while they are definitely strong if it comes to a fight, they prefer indirect methods. Zariel typically skips all that bullshit. She can be cunning and manipulative, but her real skills lie in her martial prowess.
So, the thing about Avernus is that while it's the first layer of the hells, it's not exactly Baby Mode. I'm personally of the opinion that considering the hells to be Worse just based on what number you're on removes a lot of nuance. Avernus is the first because it's the one you go into first- there's no getting to any other layer of the 9 Hells without going through Avernus first. As a consequence of this, Avernus is the front lines of the Blood War, an ancient cosmic battle between the evil sides of Law and Chaos- Devils representing lawful evil and demons representing chaotic evil. They've basically been at a stalemate for Literal Eternity (except also not eternity because technically it did have a starting point somewhere- idk time is weird in d&d but on like a Cosmic Scale it makes sense sort of whatever it's handwaved because mortal minds aren't rly meant to make sense of it). Demons come into the Hells by way of Avernus, but almost none of them can make it any further than that; and Devils have held them there but haven't made any real progress into taking the fight to them in the Abyss. Yugoloths, essentially beings of neutral evil, sometimes hang out to fight with whoever the Hell (pun intended) they want.
Zariel's current job is to be The One In Charge of the devils' side in the Blood War- in this task, she only answers to Asmodeus and in a lot of cases she's kind of free to throw his advice aside if she sees fit. Personally, I think Asmodeus is smart enough to know that this is a fight that can never be won, but he recognizes the importance of keeping it where it is. Even though the devils can't win, the demons can't either. Not, like, in the "it'll be bad if either side wins" way, I mean it literally cannot be done.
Now, let's cover how she got from one point to the other (again, I'll say that I'm taking this both from DiA and the alexandrian remix of the setting while adding some of my own stuff):
Zariel fought in the legions of the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia before the universe really Was Anything and the planes fully became what they are in settings that use the Great Wheel Cosmology. She was a soldier under the command of a celestial marshal named Ashmedai, who would later become Asmodeus (there are like 6 bazillion different origin stories for Asmodeus, I'm going with the one where he's also a fallen angel because Themes or whatever). Avernus was previously a paradise and eeeeeeverybody wanted it to add to their territory. This is a really complex chain of events that mortal minds can't really comprehend (wow this is becoming a running theme) and tbh it's not like. That Important. But it does make it so Zariel has a connection to Avernus from the beginning. What is important is that Ashmedai pulled a fast one and took Avernus for himself and ditched Heaven to align with the (at the time) Eight Hells. A bunch of angels followed him, but Zariel didn't. Stuff happened and Asmodeus became the leader of the Nine Hells, overthrowing whatever leader there was before him (Zargon in my mind but it doesn't really matter, there are also 6 billion versions of lore for this and it doesn’t come up in the campaign really, it’s just a cool tidbit you can throw in if you want). Zariel gave him the middle finger and refused to follow him.
(Important to note that Avernus actually remained a paradise for a long time, and Asmodeus kind of used it as a way to tempt mortals, showing that Hell was really no different from Heaven. This changed when the Blood War started, and now it basically sucks to be there because it's a war-torn wasteland, but traces of this paradise still remain in pockets of the plane.)
Ashmedai and his followers' betrayal made Zariel really bitter, so she was basically given a court-ordered chill-out time. During this time, she met a hollyphant named Lulu, who became her best friend and war mount. Eventually, she found some kind of peace, but it was really only temporary.
Time passed and eventually the forces of Heaven dragged Asmodeus out of the Nine Hells to stand trial for a) his betrayal, b) lying to mortals and beguiling them to evil for nefarious purposes, and c) generally being an asshole. They called in Primus, who's like the Head Bitch in Charge of Law, and it was basically an eternity of angels testifying that Asmodeus was an asshole. Primus eventually got bored and decided he was done with hearing testimonies, but Zariel hadn't gotten a chance to testify to what she personally witnessed and she got pissed, which started a brawl and disrupted the proceedings for a hot minute. As her former commanding officer, Asmodeus had possibly had his eye on her since the beginning, especially since she was one of the few to defy him during his initial betrayal, but this is probably what really drew his attention to her for the first time. After things settled down, Asmodeus' defense was basically that he hadn't violated any principals of the Law, and he never lied to anyone, not even once. He also said he was doing the universe a favor by using the souls he earned to keep balance between the evil sides of Law and Chaos. Primus was like "I'm a little lost but fair enough" and let him off with a warning, but he does basically have to keep a baby monitor on him for the rest of time (a ruby rod that bound him and all other devils to uphold any bargains they made with mortals).
This is important: Asmodeus never lies. At worst, he simply doesn't make plain the whole truth because he expects you to read the fine print and he and the universe at large consider it your fault if you don’t. He is just extremely good at getting to the heart of what people want and he knows how to manipulate that desire so he gets what he wants. Of course, all archdevils in general have an incomprehensible amount of skill with this, but Asmodeus like. Fuckin INVENTED that shit, he was THE first #malemanipulator.
Another eternity passed during which Zariel kept at her Divine Warrior thing, until at one point, the demon lord Yeenoghu decided to start fucking around on the material plane, having his demonic army just murder a bunch of people. (In my version of the Lore, gnolls aren't actual animals, they're a form of demon.) He'd probably done it before, but this time Zariel and a force of planetars were sent to stop him. She caught him at a village called Idyllglen, where her force beat him back into the Abyss, but they had help- from some devils, actually. A small force led by Glasya, Asmodeus' daughter, showed up, and they allied briefly to massacre Yeenoghu's army. After the immediate issue was over, things almost came to a fight between them, but Zariel and Glasya had a private conversation; no one really knows what was said between them, but they agreed to call it quits and go their separate ways.
Before, Zariel's duties as a soldier of Good had been abstract to her, but now she was convinced that something needed to be done about the Blood War. It had led to incalculable amounts of mortal suffering, and to her, that was unforgivable. She was frustrated that the tides of the war never changed and she was convinced that the Heavens could do something about it. Her superiors didn't agree with her; they told her they would let Evil annihilate itself. But she felt that Heaven was complicit by turning a blind eye to the suffering it caused mortals. Evil was not annihilating itself, it was simply continuing. She felt it was Heaven's duty to fight it, and if the other celestials wouldn't help her, it would be her duty alone.
That’s the thing about Zariel. If she believes her cause is righteous, there is damn near nothing that can convince her otherwise. This can be a good or a bad thing, there’s a lot of nuance to it. She will not be intimidated into putting it aside, it is very difficult to persuade her that her path is anything but just. It turns out, it doesn’t matter to her what angle this is approached from. She sees fighting the Blood War as her duty, and it started when she was an angel, it didn’t happen out of nowhere when she became a devil.
So, following her battle at Idyllglen, the villagers there grew to see her as their angelic champion and their guardian angel. A few centuries passed on the material plane and Idyllglen came under attack again, this time by the forces of Bel, the (at the time) Lord of Avernus. The villagers prayed to Zariel to save them, particularly a young woman named Yael, who had organized a militia of sorts. Zariel and Lulu did arrive to help, and over the next few months, the militia grew to attract the attention of surrounding settlements as they fell under threat (though they were also drawn to fight alongside Zariel because it’s hard to just ignore it when an extremely powerful warrior from the upper planes comes to ask you for backup). Eventually, Bel’s forces were beaten back and Zariel said goodbye to Yael and returned to Mount Celestia, though not for long.
This encounter with another force in the Blood War only made her more eager to truly get involved. She had seen the passion mortals had despite how fleeting their lives were, had seen their determination, and it made her even more frustrated at how apathetic Heaven was in comparison. She and Lulu hatched their plan- since the celestial forces didn’t seem to care, they would lead a mortal army into the midst of the Blood War and create a third front. They didn’t have to win, just upset the balance of the war enough to spur Heaven into action.
Zariel returned to Idyllglen soon (though, soon for her is like 20 years for mortals tbh) and told Yael of her idea. Yael was all for it, and suggested she knew ways of bolstering their forces. They grew their army over the next few years as Zariel taught her new mortal followers how to fight fiends. Their cause attracted mortals who wanted to make a difference, to deliver true decisive blows to evil; many in the area even had personal experience with the suffering the Blood War caused the material plane. It can definitely be argued that Zariel was using them to further her agenda, I can’t disagree with that, but I think her true motivation was just the desire to see something done about it and she felt this was her best option- at this point in time, what she wanted was to see her fellow celestials caring about the mortals they were meant to protect. 
Yeenoghu had this massive grudge against Zariel, and when he managed to hear of her plans, he once again attacked the material plane, essentially baiting her into going through with it. They met in combat once again at Idyllglen, at which point Zariel threw him back into the Abyss- though that wasn’t necessarily a bother to him. His job had been done. She decided it was time to mount a full assault into the front lines of the Blood War, and so, soon after, she led her army into Avernus. 
They fought for months, battling the endless onslaughts of demons and devils alike. They certainly did make a dent in the tide of the war, but it wasn’t enough. One of Zariel’s soldiers, a vampire named Jander Sunstar, eventually had enough. He’d watched his friends and subordinates die for an unwinnable war and he had barely seen any real progress. He decided they should cut their losses and leave. So, they did, deserting the army and leaving only a few forces behind. This was where they truly started to lose. 
Zariel’s remaining forces were quickly whittled down, but it took until they were in the single digits for her to give it up. She infused her sword with a spark of her goodness and had Yael and Lulu flee the battle, telling them to escape back to the material plane however they could and hide her sword so the fiends wouldn’t claim it. 
Asmodeus had been contacting Zariel ever since she arrived in Avernus, beguiling her to seek him out, promising her power. She decided to face him herself, and she fought her way through each layer of hell until she got to Nessus, whereupon Asmodeus’ forces finally proved too much for her. The Lords of the Nine all gathered to see her defeat, intrigued by who this invader was. Asmodeus gave the still-living but incredibly injured Zariel to Bel, who was given freedom to torture her in retaliation for all the havoc she caused him. His motivation for this was seeing that Zariel still had it in her to defy him, and he wanted to see if she could be broken.
Eventually, she did break. An eternity later, Asmodeus ordered Bel to bring her before him, and he gave an extensive villain monologue. The way Asmodeus tempted her isn't something that I think can be boiled down very easily. After all, we're talking about two cosmic beings who are meant to be beyond total human comprehension. They conversed throughout multiple planes of existence, and this conversation probably took what the human mind would experience as eons. In the end, it really comes down to the fact that he offered her the ability to continue her fight, but for him this time, and she took it.
Zariel was taken to become a pit fiend- these are basically the top of Hell’s hierarchy, second only to the archdevils and actual lords of the hells. Pit fiends are made from worthy greater devils, who are scorched in the Pit of Flame (the main volcano in Phlegethos, the 4th layer). In my mind, she actually emerged as an archdevil, which Asmodeus thought was pretty cool. Despite that, however, he still had her serve in the Dark Eight, a group of pit fiend warriors that had a lot of duties but mostly were the generals of the Blood War. This meant she was under the command of Bel, but she frequently defied his orders, choosing to pursue more aggressive strategies that pretty much always worked better than his original ideas. This really pissed him off and he kept throwing her into more and more trouble, hoping she’d just die or become too inconvenient for Asmodeus to keep around, but she bested every challenge.
So, there’s this thing called the Reckoning. It’s kind of complicated and a lot of the details probably aren’t super important to whatever situation you have, but essentially, it was a conspiracy orchestrated by Glasya in order to win herself more power, up to and including the possibility of her overthrowing her father and taking rulership of the Nine Hells for herself. She essentially managed to convince one half of the Lords of the Nine that the other half was planning a rebellion and vice versa. She involved Fierna, Malagard, Tiamat, and since she already had interest in Zariel, she got her on board as well. They believed they could seize considerable power for themselves if the archdukes all warred against each other.
Bel was the target of a failed assassination, which left him in a magical stupor. Everyone pointed fingers at Dispater (though in reality, Glasya was behind it, and the assassination was planned to fail). This gave Zariel and Tiamat the excuse to lay siege to Dis. The rest of the Reckoning happened around this, but Zariel spent pretty much all of it in Dis, and since this is supposed to be about her and I’ve already gone on too many tangents already, I’m not going to explore it too much. Essentially, the important bit is that Tiamat betrayed Zariel. The siege of Dis was broken and Zariel became Tiamat’s prisoner. Glasya, Fierna, and Malagard were able to frame Moloch, the Lord of Malbolge, as the mastermind. Asmodeus deposed him and installed Malagard in his place, but Glasya soon betrayed Malagard and killed her, taking her place as Archduchess of Malbolge. Meanwhile, Asmodeus demoted Belial, Fierna’s father, and installed Fierna as Archduchess of Phlegethos. (For the life of me I can’t remember if the Fierna part is actually canon in any official lore, I think I made it up???) 
Then, there was the Rift War. Essentially, a rift opened in Avernus, and a massive force of Baatorians invaded Avernus. (Baatorians are basically just baatezu, the difference really isn’t that important for most campaigns, but they were the ones who inhabited hell before Asmodeus’ time. You could get into it more if your campaign really dives into the nine hells). Asmodeus had Bel and the Dark Eight sent in to deal with it.
Bel’s a fuckin chump, though, so he blew it. Since Zariel had been imprisoned by Tiamat, he left the areas she had managed to conquer vacant and the baatorians were able to seize them. No alliance was made between the demons and the baatorians, but Bel was unable to fight both forces at once. With the situation rapidly deteriorating, Glasya took the opportunity to orchestrate Zariel’s release from Tiamat. There isn’t a solid conclusion as to how she did it.
Zariel went in and almost immediately took control of the situation. She was able to gather the scattered remnants of her legion from when she was a Dark Eight member and reclaimed the fortresses Bel had lost. She cut off the baatorian’s biggest lines of communication and sacked their most important strongholds. The baatorian’s strength was broken. This show of power attracted the other Dark Eight members to her side, who decided to answer to her to handle the situation instead of Bel. They attacked the Rift and defeated the last of the baatorian invasion; the remaining baatorians swore fealty to Asmodeus and the nine hells as a result, as it was the best course of action to avoid being wiped out entirely.
Asmodeus demoted Bel to Zariel’s position in the Dark Eight and promoted her to the position of Archduke of Avernus. She is now the absolute commander over the Blood War, answering only to Asmodeus. He is massively pleased with his decision, seeing her as far more successful and efficient than Bel ever was. I’ll clarify that “successful” doesn’t mean that she’s “winning” because, as discussed, neither side will ever win the Blood War. She’s just a lot better at keeping the demons off of Asmodeus’s turf so they’re less of a distraction to him.
That’s the basic history, now let’s get into some like. Headcanons and disorganized thoughts.
-I made a post saying this but basically, the way I like to view Zariel is that she’s like if Lucifer was the Doomslayer and also a Girlboss.
-THE most important thing to understand about Zariel is her Wrath, followed by her Pride. Both of these elements of her character can be good or bad, depending on her motivations behind them. Zariel as an angel was, like, basically created as a condensed form of the universe's anger at unrighteousness, and this is what I was talking about earlier when I said it's in her nature to be a soldier. It's what made her defy Ashmedai, it's what made her defend mortals from the forces of cosmic evil, it's what made her defy her superiors to go fight in the Blood War, and it can be argued that it's what made her Fall to continue fighting. Her pride is another factor that made her decide to fight in the Blood War, because she believed she could end it and win. This is something she still believes as Archduke of Avernus and general of the infernal armies. This doesn't mean she's, like, stupid or anything; she's arrogant. And she's meant to be. She may know on a logical level that nothing will ever change, but it literally can't stop her from trying because it's what, not just who, she is.
-A lot has been said about what alignments in d&d mean and it is literally impossible to reach a consensus. I personally have chosen to see it as good being selfless while evil is selfish, at least when it comes to mortals. At the core of Zariel's being is the will to fight. In my mind, Zariel fell because her fight in the Blood War came to be motivated by selfish reasons rather than selfless ones. She wanted to continue her fight, but she has lost sight of who and what she was fighting for.
-Asmodeus basically trusts Zariel completely. In his mind, his corruption of her destroyed her former self and bound her to him- she won't destroy him because she doesn't want to, because he gave her what she wanted. Whether this is true or just arrogance on his part is up to you if it comes up. For my campaign, it depends on whether the party wants to go the redemption route or not.
-Zariel is the jewel in Asmodeus’ crown. A fallen solar serving as his best general is one of the best prizes and “fuck you”s to the rest of the planes he could imagine. In his mind, the fact he won her over helps prove his superiority.
-Zariel really wants her sword back. Her motivation for this is nebulous, but it pretty much comes down to the fact that it holds the spark of her Goodness. She either wants it back to destroy it completely, or to redeem herself, or just to prevent it from falling into the hands of anyone who would use it against her. She’s pretty sure it never made it out of Avernus, but with all the searching she’s done, she’s never found it. 
-In DiA, if Zariel shuns redemption but gets her sword back, she destroys it and forges a new sword called the Blade of Avernus. If you think it sounds cool I can send you the stats for it if they haven’t been posted online.
-Fun fact! In DiA, she has the demon lord Kostchtchie’s hammer, Matalotok, and has imprisoned him in a ravine in Avernus. This led to him really hating her but she doesn’t really give a shit about him tbh. (And she shouldn’t considering his lore seems to indicate he’s a misogynist????? idk why that’s necessary but I guess if you’re gonna be a demon lord you can only get so scummy or whatever)
-Glasya considers Zariel to be very valuable to her, and Zariel doesn’t seem like she’s interested in becoming a threat to her for the moment, so Glasya wants to stay on her good side and keep her in power as long as possible (unless she starts encroaching on her territory). Probably a similar case with Fierna. 
-Zariel’s biggest enemies are Yeenoghu and Bel- she and Tiamat also aren’t fond of each other. The only reason Zariel never outright starts shit with Bel and Tiamat is because they’d be a distraction and upset the balance. She usually just avoids dealing with them whenever she can, but tries to keep a watchful eye so they don’t try anything. 
-She's large size category. Just a fun fact. Just saying.
-I have this idea that she never particularly emotes. Like you might get vague hints of emotion when she feels strongly about something, but she’s largely stoic to an extremely unsettling degree. I’m planning on using this to make some moments very dramatic (like in my campaign, if Lulu or Haruman or Olanthius die, she’s gonna lose her SHIT- I think it could make for a sympathetic moment).
-I also included an idea that when she walks, she makes no sound, but her feet burn into the ground and leave footprints glowing with embers. This phenomenon also happens to anything she touches- surfaces burn on touch.
-In terms of her voice, my plan is to make it kind of low and subdued, yet commanding. Even though the tone she uses should make her voice sound quiet, it booms louder than a human’s would. Not necessarily practical to act out, but I’m also adding the details that her voice echoes slightly and that behind her voice you can hear shrieking voices in infernal, like a choir in hell screaming with her, but they’re quiet so you can understand her. (As an angel, it was celestial voices.) She also has fire glowing in the back of her throat.
-Asmodeus’ body is reportedly covered in wounds that never heal. I’ve decided to extend this to all fallen angels, as these are horrific bruises and scrapes they received in their fall from grace. While most didn’t literally fall from an insane height and hit the ground hard (it’s usually like. metaphorical), they have wounds as though they did. Most of them, including Zariel, cover this up with their armor. 
-Zariel as an arch devil has never taken a war mount. She could have any number of fearsome, powerful creatures as a mount into battle but she never has. This is partly cool-factor; imagine someone walking into a full battle on horseback and absolutely dunking on their allies in terms of kill count. The other part is that she has never found one that could take Lulu’s place. It’s mostly subconscious; none of them ever measure up to what she wants and she’s not sure why.
-I personally refer to her with mostly masculine terms- Lord of Avernus instead of Lady, Archduke instead of Archduchess, devils and worshippers call her “my lord” or “sir” instead of “my lady” or “ma’am”, etc. The source material also does this sometimes, but they flip around on it. Idk, it’s just my personal preference, I think it’s fun. She’s a celestial/fiend in a fantasy story, I have zero reason to think she’d conform perfectly to the real-world western gender binary. 
-Zariel is metal as hell. I personally think at least 90% of songs used in moments with her should be metal, if you’re the kind of dm who uses music. The Doom 2016 soundtrack is your friend.
-My top 4 songs I like to listen to while planning for DiA are Archangel by Amaranthe (because duh), Baldur’s Gate 3 by Ilya Bov (just bc I listened to it while reading through DiA for the first time so now the two are permanently connected in my mind but tbh I think it has Vibes), One Winged Angel in the Style of Doom Eternal by Geoffplaysguitar (seriously this song kicks ASS, I’m absolutely using it if my party decides to try fighting Zariel), and The Only Thing They Fear is You by Mick Gordon (also using this in the final leg of the adventure, specifically if they redeem Zariel and have to fight their way out of Avernus).
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hereticpriest · 4 years ago
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Amplify Chapter 2
“What are you doing?”
“Eh? Oh, taking a selfie to send to a friend. Come take one with me, Sho!” Keiko pleaded, latching onto his arm. A hand plonked onto her forehead and shoved, drawing a laugh from her, but she held on.
“Fine, fine.” Shouto wrapped his arm around her and dropped his cheek onto the top of her head, letting her take a photo of them. Keiko beamed, twisting to peck his cheek and taking another, then putting her hands over his.
“I’ll send it to you. You can show Natsuo and Fuyumi! I’ll come visit soon, but I need to make sure I’m all settled in first. Plus, I want to make sure your old man is home or he’ll be super pissed.” That drew a snort from Shouto.
“Hey! Kei, are you taking pictures? Take one with me too!” Ashido nearly knocked Keiko over with a tackle, and Shouto moved away to give them space. Keiko happily took a picture of them, laughing as more and more of the 1-A students joined them for pictures over the next couple of minutes. They ended up having a mini photoshoot, making sure everyone had a picture with Keiko along with group pictures galore.
“What the hell are you nerds doing?!” Bakugo shouted from the opposite end of the hall, drawing a gasp from Midoriya and a loud laugh from Keiko as they were in the middle of taking a goofy picture. She practically skipped over to the blond, hooking her arm around his and dragging him around the corner away from the others. 
“Come on, Katsu. I know you won’t take a picture around the others, but I want one. I’ll send it to you if you want?” Keiko offered, decidedly quieter than she was around the others.
“Tch. Fine.” Bakugo answered after a long pause, standing stiffly while Keiko pressed into his side and snapped a photo. Bakugo moved behind her and dropped his chin on her shoulder, peering up at the camera.
“You didn’t put a stupid filter on it, did you?” The blonde asked, his voice a tinge softer than normal. Keiko laughed, taking his hand and pulling his arms loosely around her one at a time. She took another photo, her smile growing when she noticed that he didn’t pull away until after the photo was taken.
“No filter. Unless you wanna? They have a cute one that gives you hearts on your cheeks.” Keiko teased, just to hear him scoff and complain. Bakugo held his phone out to her, then stuffed his hands into his pockets while Keiko giggled at his silent demand. She added herself as a contact, even taking a contact photo of herself for him, then sent herself a text so she’d have his number. Before he could protest, she took a picture of him for his contact photo. She texted the two selfies to him, then gave him a gentle shove towards their classroom.
“Come on, Katsu, we have to make sure you’re fashionably early for class.” Keiko teased.
“Yeah, ‘cause you’re not always coming in a second after I do.” Bakugo retorted, shoving her gently so that she would walk into the wall instead of through the classroom door. Keiko obliged with a loud thump and a cry of distress that melted into peals of laughter. She would later swear she heard his quiet chuckles.
~+~
“Everyone line up according to your student numbers into two orderly lines!” Iida shouted, chopping his hand through the air and drawing elated giggles from Keiko and Ashido. The girls were arm in arm, both giggling as they boarded the bus. The two ended up sitting together, hovering over their phones watching a couple of Keiko’s tiktok videos.
“I can’t believe you’re a dancer too! This is so exciting. We’ll have to do videos together, ‘kay? You can show me how to do this cool... uhh, what’s this style called?”
“Shuffling. I usually dance to electric swing music, but I learned a ton of different styles. It was good for me to learn fluid movements to get better at fighting.” Keiko replied.
“Yeah, that’s a big part of why I started dancing too!” Ashido dropped her head on Keiko’s shoulder, pointing to a particular move on the screen, “That looks really cool!”
Most of the rest of the class was focused on a conversation with Asui and Midoriya, which soon turned to teasing Bakugo. Keiko listened in to the teasing for a moment before butting in.
“Katsu’s personality is loud, and he has a horrible temper, but that kind of passion will draw plenty of people in. And besides, Endeavor is the number two hero and he has a ton of fans, but he’s got a really terrible personality. Like, really terrible.”
Asui eyed her for a moment, glancing at Shouto for his reaction, back to her, and then to Bakugo. Throwing a knowing smile at Shouto, Keiko offered a shrug to their classmates, ignoring the awed pause from the explosive boy nearby. Suddenly, his brain seemed to catch up, and he shouted;
“I don’t have a horrible temper!”
Keiko’s smiling face crumbled, and she began to laugh so hard that Ashido nudged her.
“That’s all you got from all of that? I said nice things about you and the only thing you catch is that you’ve got a temper?”
“Shut up extra!” Bakugo yelled, but Keiko noticed how red his cheeks were, and the way the blush stretched up to the tips of his ears. She smiled, dropping the matter entirely and going back to her phone and pink friend, pointing out a dancer that she followed like nothing had ever happened.
~+~
Villains attacked USJ. Like it was nothing, they warped into her safe place and nearly killed her classmates. Her teacher. Her heroes. All to get to All Might, her teacher, and the dopiest man she’d ever met. He was kind, considerate, awkward, inspiring, and a total goofball. He wasn’t a very good teacher, though he tried his best, and he was learning with every lesson. A true hero to her, and to the world. The villains tried to take him out, and they showed the students of 1-A a different view of the world. True danger, and real fear. Keiko knew real fear. Keiko knew the real world. That didn’t stop her from cracking at the seams when she heard the true purpose of the villains. She’d landed in the fire zone with Ojiro, but they’d been split up by villains. Ojiro used sneak attack tactics, but Keiko didn’t have a chance to slip away, and by the time she did, she didn’t want to.
“Augment Shot!” Keiko’s voice echoed through the flaming streets, her left hand locked around her right wrist, right hand forming a finger-gun. Crackles of energy shot down her arm from her centre mass, and a blast of baby pink energy surged out of her finger with a sound that resembled a thunderclap. She had her safety on, as she referred to it. They were fighting real people, and as much as she needed to defend herself and her classmates, she also knew she could kill someone if she went too far. When a large villain with some sort of strength quirk tried to grab her, she’ll admit she snaps a little. He’d punched her enough times to fuel her quirk, and two other villains were trying to come up behind her, and she’s tired of being split up from her classmates.
“Discharge!” The crackles of pink energy burst from her in every direction, knocking back the three villains surrounding her. They all look like they’ve been knocked out, and one is bleeding from his nose, but Keiko simply shook off the last vestiges of energy and kept going. Two amplified punches to the face dizzy a villain enough to tell her why they’re here, and she tossed the guy away from the raging fire before continuing on. She’s covered in sweat by the time she’s gotten through the fire zone, but the fire has given her some energy to keep running. Still, she’s overheating, and her sweat keeps dripping into burns and stinging like hell.
She missed the main battle, busy with a villain who took advantage of a choke-point of fire to keep her from getting out into the main area of USJ. Ojiro met up with her finally, and she noted with some satisfaction that he’s covered in soot but relatively unharmed. Thank god for his ability to hit and run, otherwise he could’ve been in a lot of danger in this zone. When the teacher’s showed up, Power-Loader helped load up the villains in the fire zone and sent her out to get her burns cared for. She’s embarrassed to admit to the hero that most of the burns were inflicted from her carelessness, but she has a feeling that the hero is just glad that they’re okay. Everyone is okay. All Might, Aizawa, Midoriya and herself are the only ones with injuries worse than a couple of scrapes.
“Sho!” Keiko shrieked as she spotted the red and white haired man, nearly tackling him until he caught her under her arms and held her firmly away from his body. She’s strong and muscular despite being only 165 cm tall, but Shouto still held her up like she weighed nothing. To him, she probably did.
“You’re injured.” His voice was stern, but she could see the concern in his eyes.
“Just some burns from the fire zone. The villains barely got a hand on me, honestly. I wasn’t thinking.” Keiko admitted, and Shouto’s firm gaze softened further. He reached out with his right hand to soothe her burns, but a loud voice disturbed him.
“You have to ease the heat out slowly, with cool water first, then cold water once the heat is out. Otherwise you can make it worse.” Bakugo grabbed Keiko’s arm where it wasn’t burnt, and Shouto’s wrist before he could make contact. Shouto jolted, then seemed to realize his mistake, nodding along with the angry blond’s words.
“You’re right.”
“Hah? I know I’m right, half-and-half bastard.” Bakugo did a quick scan of the woman in front of him and bent to heft her over his shoulder, ignoring her insistence that he put her down. She had burns on the anterior of her forearms and her lower legs, primarily from bracing herself or not watching her footing. She could walk, but it was putting strain on the injured skin and he could see the winces and micro-expressions of pain she was trying to hide. Shouto raised his brows as he watched her be toted away, his expression curious, and he only waved when she demanded he rescue her. He was quickly caught up with some of their other classmates, and Keiko refocused on the man carrying her. He was being surprisingly gentle, trying not to jostle her too much despite it slowing him down. She was embarrassed, sure, but she was also grateful. Keiko grasped the back of Bakugo’s shirt gently, adjusting her weight to make her easier to carry.
“Thank you.” Keiko murmured. He didn’t respond, or react, so Keiko wiggled a little on his shoulder until he let her slide down off his shoulder, holding her bridal style instead. His face was pinched into a scowl that made him look equally angry and pouty.
“Katsuki, thank you.” Keiko tried again, tapping his chest to get his attention before she spoke. He huffed in response.
“You’re welcome, idiot.” Bakugo grumbled, maybe a tinge louder than he needed to. Keiko’s brows furrowed, but she was quickly distracted by the rest of her class. One of the officers ended up taking Keiko from Bakugo, as the teachers wanted all of the mostly uninjured students cared for by paramedics and kept together. He looked back at her before he left her, and it made Keiko’s tummy flutter as she was carried to the nurse’s office.
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