adzandiel-blog

[adzandiel-blog]

Oh, Shakespeare was anything but pretentious. In our all entire lives, spanning from a few millennium ago to this present day, both of us agree that we've hardly met anyone as willing to get as down and ridiculous as William Lark Shakespeare, who once discreetly rented an entire brothel for a night, brought in the most attractive actors he's written for, and spent the entire night giggling his arse off as the actors read poems that were nothing but extended sex jokes for the bemused prostitutes.

shakespeare is not pretentious. fans of shakespeare are pretentious. shakespeare is twelve hundred dirty jokes strung together by increasingly ridiculous plotlines and increasingly homosexual characters. don’t let the archaic language fool you

[adzandiel-blog]

Once a young lady stopped us in the streets and asked us if we had a moment to spare to talk about Jesus and I said truthfully "He was a punk-ass bitch who still owes me thirteen shekels" and that also did the trick

If you’re dealing with a door-to-door evangelist, pretending you’ve never heard of Jesus isn’t a power move – they already assume you’ve never heard of Jesus. It’s actually an article of faith among many such organisations that the truth of their teachings is intuitively obvious to everybody and the only reason everyone hasn’t already converted is that they literally don’t know who Jesus is. Acting like you’ve never heard of Jesus is making their day.

No, if you’ve got some time to kill, what you do is pretend that you’ve never heard of religion. Like, as a concept. They’re very rarely prepared for that one!

[adzandiel-blog]

An Unfortunate Headbutt With a Guillotine  (Zan Thought it Sounded Exotic)

Well, who wouldn’t? I mean, back in the 18th century, tons of things were popping up in the streets1. Steam engines, locomotives, dynamite, the telegraph, the idea of eating cake when there’s a lack of bread, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, mercury thermometers… Really, it was all very thrilling back then. The ‘guillotine’ sounded like a new French dish, or perhaps a new type of massage.

But really Aden, with your proposed title, you make it sound like the conversation went somewhere along the lines of me asking them for an exotic way to spend our time. As in…

US, knowing exactly one phrase of French and it is “We don’t speak French”: Good day, sirs. Prithee, point us in the right direction of the newest, most exciting way to return our mortal bodies to the Heavenly and Damned Home Depot?

EXECUTIONERS, speaking French, knowing exactly one phrase of English and it is “Chop chop, motherfuckers”2**: The fuck? Take them away.

US, realizing:

And… you could guess what happens next.3

But no. That’s not what happened, despite what Aden’s recollection might be.

What really happened was that Aden and I‌ were both coincidentally in Paris—on individual assignments given to us by our respective superiors, I’m sure you understand. Aden was supposed to go strengthen faith in a few local faltering churches, and I‌ was supposed to do… well, the opposite.

We sensed each other in the vicinity and met up a while after that. And ten minutes after that, we promptly agreed to take the time to relax and enjoy the European weather, instead of running around undercover for a week or so, working our damnedest—and holiest—to do our jobs, but instead undermining each other’s efforts. Smart of us.

So then, we did what any pair of friends—or, in our case, sworn Adversaries who never really got the whole ‘enemy’ memo—would do on vacation. We went sightseeing.

There wasn’t a lot of… sights to see, though. Not exactly a charming vibe, with a butchering block every few blocks and the rotting scent of death in the air. For a bit, Aden and I‌ had to resort to dulling our senses whenever we ventured into the city. It was that bad.

Then, of course, Aden insisted on us still carrying out a few benevolences (and misdeeds), despite all the shit going on. I, of course, wasn’t able to say no, because not saying no to Aden ranks high on my list of My Fucky Morals.

We were out of place—that’s what I‌ reckon landed us in shit.‌ We stood out of the crowd like horses in a hospital. Aden in a fine white tunic decorated with little sewn details of blue thread, me in a similar fashion but with a black and gold scheme. Meanwhile, the masses of the streets were grubby and reeked like death—well, quite frankly, we would’ve reeked of death and despair as well if we hadn’t taken the liberties of making ourselves stench-proof—and the most important thing was that we did not speak French.

Putting Aden’s arsenal of available languages and mine together, I’d say it’s quite impressive.‌‌ English, Swahili, Latin, Hebrew, Mandarin, Japanese, a few dead dialects, Enochian, Portuguese… We tried our best to negotiate in Latin, but really, unless the Pope was out for a stroll, it wouldn’t have been of much use. In fact, I’m fairly sure speaking in these foreign languages was what got us condemned and marked as demons.456

Of course, we were never in any real danger. It would’ve only taken a small miracle and we’d have been out of there in a jiffy.7 But we had to maintain some semblance of being mortal—we couldn’t have had the word about two otherworldly beings having escaped from the Bastille from certain death—imagine the paperwork.8

So it was… what, ten days of sulking in the cell?91011 An angel and a demon stuck inside a small enclosed space. It’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other.12 Although, we weren’t entirely bored. It was rather fun to talk with the ghost of the Count de Lorges.‌ (Did I‌ ever mention I could do that?‌ Communicate with spirits? Damned soul and all, you know. Comes with the occupation.)

The day they came to get us, we had worked out a plan. But you know what they say—no plan survives first contact with implementation. I‌ agree! Because our plan failed. Miserably.

Our plan was the following, laid out as comprehensibly as I‌ could possibly put it in modern terms:

1) Roll to seduce.13

And… that was about it.

Yeah, I know. “What happened to the concept of a backup plan? Weren’t you friends with Alexander the Great, what happened to strategy and formation—“ Listen, Aden and‌ I share one brain cell, alright? When we’re apart, sure!‌ Everything’s fine. Everything’s normal. But when we’re within… oh, three miles of each other? One brain cell.14

Suffice to say it… We had to think of a Plan B really fast. And I mean very fast. Miraculously fast. Because we’re quite attached to our heads. Less so than most mortals, but still considerably attached nonetheless. We possessed no desire to lose them.

So what was our rapidly improvised Plan B?

Well, we remembered that while it would fail in logic and strategy to teleport away, we did still have powers. Quite a good deal of raw power, too. Good news, right?‌ Snap your fingers, stop time or whatever, and everything’s fine.

Oh, ho, no.

Because we forgot that each other has powers.

Here’s something that you should know about celestial beings who can do almost anything if they try hard enough:‌ Even in magic, they have their own distinct styles.

Mine, for example, involves golden sparks (when I’m feeling in the mood for it, of course), the occasional stopping-time gig15, and, most notably, fire.

Aden’s, bless him, is subtle, not flashy at all, but brutally efficient when he wills it to be.‌ Mainly, he goes for raw magic, something he can shape and bend to his will, whether it manifest in the form of water, earthly manipulations, air, or fire.16 Usually, though, he exhibits it by molding air—forming protective shields, cages and restraints when necessary, weapons out of solidified air, and the suchlike.

So what happened?

Fire. Air. Golden sparks. Whoosh.

We’d proceeded to accidentally bring down the entire stone corridor, causing quite a panic for the prisoners, guards, and sentries alike. And, apparently, a bit of my magic had backfired—rebounded off of Aden’s minor explosion of hard air and went ricocheting right out of the Bastille and straight into a barrel of gunpowder outside the building.17

Aden and I took the chance among the chaos to vanish.

We’d reappeared in a quaint countryside, miles away from good ol’ Paris. While recovering from the not-exactly traumatic but at least disturbing experience, we received the news that the Bastille had fallen, and we promptly agreed to never, ever, revisit Paris, at least not in that millennia.18

And that’s how we ended up holding a grudge against the entirety of France for at least two decades.

At least I got a promotion for destroying the Bastille and wreaking general chaos, yeah?

And in the sheets, too, but Aden’ll never admit that.‌‌ I will, though. Proudly. I‌ might have had something to do with it. ↩︎

Or something like that. ↩︎

‌ You might’ve guessed what happens next, but take a stab as to who definitely didn’t back then?‌ You’re quite right. It was our favorite demon. —‌ Aden ↩︎

‌ An accusation worthy of execution, of course. Although, the sentence wasn’t being burned at the stake—it was still beheading. Only witches got burnt at the stake. You should’ve seen Aden’s face when they sent in a translator to our cell in the Bastille accusing and sentencing us to death on behalf of us being, and I quote, “Dastardly individuals spawned straight from the depths of Hell”. ↩︎

‌ It wasn’t funny, Zan!‌ It was an insult. An affront. I was affronted. ↩︎

Whatever, angel. It was absolutely hilarious. I‌ don’t care what you say. ↩︎

Did you know a jiffy is scientifically defined as a hundreth of a second?‌ So really, no one can do anything in a jiffy. I‌ think it even took Aden at least three jiffies before he got all worked up over being called a demon. ↩︎

‌ Either we’d have to erase all the humans’ memories, which would take a while—memory magic is always the hardest, with so many mental threads poised to tangle—or we’d have to arrange for Upstairs/Downstairs to do so, which takes explaining, which is something we’d never planned on doing. Thus:‌ Caution. ↩︎

‌ Ten days of being stuck with our respective sworn Adversaries/immortal enemies/literally the ONLY‌ person on the planet who could bring up that one incident from the early 1300s and hit that sore spot. ↩︎

Aha!‌ Blackmail material. If you aren’t careful, Zan, the truth about Geneva might just slip out. ↩︎

Oh, you bastard.‌‌ We agreed to never talk about Geneva. What happened in Geneva, stays in Geneva. Anyway, no one reads our blog, so your threat doesn’t hold much merit here. ↩︎

And perhaps it was! — Aden ↩︎

Want clarification? Either Aden or I‌ would seduce the guards into letting us free. Simple as that. We fucked up and landed ourselves into this mess, so we would fuck our way out. ↩︎

When we’re drunk together, it actually becomes two brain cells, but we don’t really use them, we just rub them together like pennies to further emphasize, using a parody of the classic idiom, how little brain cells we really have. ↩︎

It’s not as easy as it sounds, though. It requires tremendous effort, and even then, it makes me want to pass out for weeks afterwards. I think I’m getting better at it—last time I did it, I only slept for five days after. ↩︎

I’ve asked him not to do fire too often. It really takes from my branding, you know?‌ And sure, I could wield multiple elements, but it’s just so much cooler to have a signature style. ↩︎

It was by sheer luck that it didn’t hit the main supply, or history would have gone very, very differently. The stray barrel did detonate, however, and that’s probably why the crowd started fighting—out of a perfect mix of confusion, fear from hearing the sound, anger at the confirmation of how much firepower there was stored in the Bastille, and enthusiasm. ↩︎

We lied. We did go back one more time to watch the day the Eiffel Tower finished its construction. ↩︎

[adzandiel-blog]

We’re not complaining about the lack of people liking or reading our posts—after all, even Satan started as a servant in Heaven—but what is with the ONLY readers being a couple of Russian-titled accounts? They also seem incredibly succubus-like for a stranger on the Internet.

[adzandiel-blog]

66 Things To Do (As a Demon) While Sitting in Hell at a Board Meeting

Including, but not limited to: An overindulgence of AC/DC songs, Pac-Man, and copious amounts of arson.

Please do try at home.

Set fire to the PowerPoint projector.

Spike your colleague’s drink with anything but holy water or Dr. Pepper.

Make all the PowerPoint slides have a fade-in transition.

Add Highway To Hell as the background music for the presentation.

Set fire to someone’s papers. Anyone’s papers.

Try to see if you can count the damned souls in the lamps.

Fail to see if you can count the damned souls in the lamps.

Play Tic-Tac-Toe with one of the damned souls in the lamps.

Flick a tiddlywink counter into Abaddon’s cup of Americano (extra damned American, no sugar).

Flick a cockroach in next.

Watch in disgust as they drink from the cup.

Watch in disgust and mild amazement while they compliment the extra crunch.

Make a list of mundane things to do.

Make a list of ways to lead humans astray (namely involving super-glue).

Make a list of things to do next time you not-so-discreetly meet up with your supposed hereditary enemy who’s now kinda-sorta your best friend.

Make a list of excuses as to why you’re meeting up with your supposed hereditary enemy who’s now kinda-sorta your best friend.

Make a list of things to do at a demonic board meeting.

Set fire to Gaigus’s hair.

Tell Gaigus that Asmodeus set fire to his hair.

Summon popcorn.

Read Dante’s Inferno.

Read Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

Summon‌ Dante and give him a comforting yet understanding pat on the back.

Laugh internally at the fact that Dante’s one of yours, and so is Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens—while Upstairs only has Shakespeare.

Actually give your standard report to Abaddon, who you’re 80% sure is asleep under the three films of their eyes.

Wonder idly if one of Abaddon’s eye files can double as sunglasses.

Campaign for Hell’s theme song to be Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

Start designing fliers and posters in your head as a start to said campaign.

Send a piece of your conscience out into the world.

Look around.

Glue at least three quarters to the pavement.

Widen the gaps between sewer covers on a richer street.

Tear up as many anti-homeless prevention spikes as you can and toss them at the police with a strong wind.

Replace the cinnamon and chocolate powder labels on those little shakers at coffee shops.

Make a order for a large Devil’s food cake miraculously appear at your favorite bakery.

Arrange for expedited order.

Snap back into Hell as Abaddon notices your drifting conscious.

Pretend to acknowledge Abaddon’s reprimand.

Snooze a bit while Gaigus gives his report.

Wonder why you chose to label this list as 66 things, as that is a bit too much to think of.

Debate over the technicalities of the Egyptian myth where people’s hearts are weighed on a scale compared to a feather, and the weighing of said heart compared to said feather will determine which afterlife they get sent to.

Think about how the heart doesn’t reflect one’s corruptness or innocence. A heart weighs, and will weigh, despite all sins or good deeds, roughly eleven or twelve ounces. If they really wanted to measure something and have it correspond to the person’s moral iniquity/lack thereof, they should’ve gone with the soul, which is located in one of the two kidneys.

Play Flappy Bird.

Give up on Flappy Bird.

Play Pac-Man.

Ace Pac-Man.

Get 3333359 points on said Pac-Man game.

Throw a full-sized Pac-Man arcade game console at someone.

Anyone.

Stop time.

Walk around the room while laughing at the frozen mid-yawn poses.

Readjust the tables and surrounding detachable objects just three centimeters to the left.

Restart time.

Watch the poised demons bump ungracefully into a stool, the table, and the wall, consecutively.

Snap your fingers and make at least several thousand Microsoft Word programs freeze around the world.

Do the same for editing programs.

Check your phone.

Swear as you find that an upcoming film that you were rather looking forward to will have a prolonged release date, as a mysterious and sudden bug in their editors’ computers has accidentally erased all their progress, and their backup disks seem to have malfunctioned as well.

Sulk.

Sulk a bit more.

Cheer up a bit once you find that you’re already at No. 61 in your list.

Four more to go!

Panic a bit as your Microsoft Word lags.

Breathe a sigh of relief (See: autosave feature).

One more!

Share the list with the world. Maybe in a blog. That’s run by you and your friend. Which no one reads. (For now.)

[adzandiel-blog]

Why Julius Caesar Was REALLY Assassinated (pt. 1)

Sometimes, it’s embarrassing when you claim to have known someone from the past1, but you’ve never actually met them in said past, and you completely forget about telling people about knowing said person.2 You know the feeling. We’ve all had that experience.

(This is Zan, by the way.)

But in this case, I can assure you that I was definitely in acquaintance with good ol’ Caesar. Not ‘friends’, mind you. Just acquaintances. I was more buddy-buddy with his pal Brutus. This is extremely relevant to what I’m about to tell you next.

First, I need to dig a bit deeper into an introduction on Aden’s and my part.

Both of us love books; books and reading and enjoying the—well, certainly not Heaven nor Hell—out of the written word. While in this modern day he mostly enjoys dystopian fiction and fantasy, whereas I‌ go for more of a science-fiction and thriller genre, our love for reading actually stems from the very beginning.3

Libraries, reading, Julius Caesar… You can probably guess where we’re going with this.

You’re right.4

The Royal Library of Alexandria, when it first opened in 300 B.C.E., was one of the first ever times that Aden initiated one of our meetings.‌ In fact, prior to that, we’d relied on sheer luck to ‘run into’ each other throughout the years, around the Earth. About three or four months after its opening, Aden sent me a message5 using a piece of parchment and some fire, and we’d agreed to meet in one of the main gardens.

And listen, I’m a demon and we’re not supposed to show positivity or happiness (I think they call it being ‘soft’ nowadays) and all, but when I saw the library for the first time… Holy fuck.

That’s just about the only way I could describe it—can describe it, really. I don’t have a really vivid memory of it, since it was… quite a long time ago, but I‌ can still remember my jaw dropping open.6

Fast forward two and a half centuries or so.

I’m visiting the Library again for a couple of rare scrolls. Couldn’t find ‘em anywhere else.7 And then I begin to smell something weird, right? Normally, I’m all for outdoor barbequing, but they didn’t exactly rave about corn on the cob back then. Also, I‌ was standing in the middle of a library filled with flammable paper scrolls, in a desert, with no fire extinguishers to speak of.

You can see how I‌ got concerned.8

So I’m rushing into the now very visible fire, which is right at the heart of the library, where the most valuable scrolls were (and where I could sense Aden was). It’s not blessed fire, and I’m a demon, so I‌’m able to step into the flames and stumble around until I got my bearings, and managed to collect three thoughts.

1) The Royal Library of Alexandria, with all its books and scrolls and stored wisdom, was currently going all up in flames, and there’s no way—even for me and Aden—to save it.

2) Aden was currently in the middle of the blazing inferno, probably trying to save as many scrolls as he could—but he’s not a demon, which meant that his human body was definitely not invulnerable to this fire; he could withstand some flame, but not as much as I‌ can. TL;DR: He’s dying.

3) Shit.

Let’s make that four thoughts.

4) Fucking shit.9

I find Aden. He’s honestly, truly, very near to dead. Not going to go into details.

Fuck.

Er. Aden here.

Zan got a bit emotional while writing the above. We’ll end this post here for now, but we’ll continue later on. After all, Zan can’t wait to tell you what really happened to Julius Caesar. It’s almost a bit of a grand gesture on my behalf, really—I’m still flattered. Not spoiling what happened, though.

Until next time, then? Thanks for reading. We’ll be back.

Like… give or take two and a half millennium. ↩︎

What I’m trying to say is, if you’ve never actually met Alexander the Great, and only observed him from afar as you plotted his untimely death, don’t go around telling people that you and him were buddies—because the next thing you know, you’re going to be at an occult gathering, and someone’s going to sidle up to you, mention a rumor, ask you what ‘your good pal Alexander III of Macadamia’ was like, and you’re going to very awkwardly reply with ‘not as nutty as you’re thinking’. ↩︎

Or, more accurately, the Library of Ashurbanipal. We used to be considerably fluent in cuneiform. Now we’ve lost touch with the language, although I’m sure if I look around in the back of the cafe, I’ll find a couple of old transcribed slates. ↩︎

Or you’re wrong. Why’d you even come and look at this footnote? What’d you expect it to say? ‘Huzzah, you tried’? ↩︎

It’d read something along the lines of: Dear Zan, there’s a lovely new library open in‌ Alexandria, Egypt, and I was wondering I‌ could convince you to explore it with me. Of course, there’s no need if you find our interactions excessively dangerous… And the note read on, with more to be unveiled, undoubtedly, but at that point, I was already looking for the nearest boat to Egypt. ↩︎

Aden, wisely, didn’t comment. Even if my jaw did seem slightly unhinged. Blame the Garden. ↩︎

Still can’t. ↩︎

And the real kicker here: Aden was working as one of the main librarians. I knew this because it was a huge deal back then—librarians have essentially the same status as High Priests, but with less sex magic going on—and because he’d sent me at least three notes, one of which consisted of nothing but exclamation marks. ↩︎

—shit shit shit shit fucking shit son of a motherfucking bastard oh fuck— ↩︎

[adzandiel-blog]

Fine, We Were Responsible for the Straight Pride Parade

*Originally titled "the time we thought straight people couldn’t get any dumber, made a bet, and then watched as they hit rock bottom and kept digging"

This is mainly directed at you Straight Pride Parade bastards. I read an article today, showed it to Aden, and we decided that yeah, we should probably fess up in a minor way.

You know that feeling sometimes when you trip or fall in your dream, and wake up with a jolt, feeling like you just fell a long way?‌ Yeah, I need to take credit for that idea. Not that I go around each night in the metaphysical dream realm and throw people off cliffs just for the kicks1, but that whole jolting you awake at 3 AM thing? That was totally my business pitch.

Anyway, that doesn’t relate in any way to this post.‌ Just keep in mind that we (both angels and demons alike) have the ability to just dip into others’ dreams and extend a little Heavenly or infernal influence.

This is a relatively recent event compared to all the other stories we’ve got, but we figured it’s a fun story to tell.

A few months ago, Aden and I‌ saw a gay couple being kicked out of a coffee shop, with the manager proclaiming loudly that ‘this is a Christian establishment’2 3 and that said couple should never return. And I’m the demon and all, yes, but then, I had to almost physically restrain Aden from rushing at the homophobic dick and giving him a shiner.

We left right alongside the couple in protest, bought them a meal at another diner4, and I‌ personally made sure that when the manager went home that night, he’d find that his walls were much thinner than he remembered, and that the couples living next to him, below him, and above him suddenly had much more energy for their libidos.

So when we went home that night, we were suitably tipsy, which is a context that often leads to entertainingly tangent-y discussions. It started with Aden drunkenly flipping through the Bible, finding Leviticus 18:22, and cursing when he finds the translation wrong.5

See, the thing is, the English translation of the Hebrew Bible is just slightly off. America paid for it, back in the day, and we’re not entirely sure what the Hell happened6 with the translation, but it came out different and gave millions of people the wrong impression.

In the Hebrew, Greek, German, Swedish, Norwegian, and undoubtedly countless many other translations of the Bible, the quote “Man shall not lie with man as he does with a woman, for it is an abomination” is instead (correctly) translated into “Man shall not lie with young boys as he does with a woman, for it is an abomination”.7

See the difference?

It’s all a great big bloody misunderstanding, is what it is. The Bible condemns pederasty.

So we began thinking. If millions—billions, really—of desperate Christians will believe and live by a wrong translation, how much stupider can they get?

We made a bet.

Aden’s money was on straight people already hitting rock bottom. Mine was on the belief that straight people—and people, in general—have, in fact, already hit rock bottom, but that it wouldn’t stop them from descending further.8 In fact, I‌ said, I can hear the pick-axe sales skyrocketing already.

And we had to prove that one of us was right, didn’t we?

So our million-dollar idea was this: If we could get someone to celebrate heterosexuality with pride, in the sense of June being Pride Month9 and rainbows being flags of proud defiance against oppression and all, then I‌ would win the bet. If our targets refused to do something so blatantly disrespectful, then Aden would win.

You can probably guess who won.10

That night and the rest of the nights in the week, Aden and I would occasionally infiltrate and pop up in random dreams of heterosexual Christians (and/or other religions/lack thereof) and we tried our best to influence them into thinking that they, as straight people, deserve to be celebrated and proud of their sexuality.11

We didn’t expect it to, you know, work.12

And the thing is, you know, this isn’t even a new thing!‌ I went ahead and researched straight pride parades, and apparently, it’s been around since the late 1900’s, which is ridiculous. Humanity’s been around for… as long as we have, which is give-or-take five millennium, and they still sit around with the ability to pull this kind of utter bullshit.

How incredibly stupid is that?

I don’t remember their names (the guys behind the parade in Boston), but just in case they’re reading this:‌ Hi. Right big idiotic bastards, the lot of you. So idiotic, really, it’s almost hilarious. And besides that, you have an incredibly stupid website with an equally ridiculous domain name.

And one last thing:‌ Advocating to put an ‘S’ in ‘LGBTQ’?‌

God, Satan, and every being in between, I don’t even know where to start with that one.

It’sGreatToBeStraight…InOurCoreBeliefsOfRespectingTheLGBTQ+Community. God bless, Satan strengthen, Amen, and all that.

Until next time, folks. Don't make us write our next post with righteous anger again.

Or… kick people off cliffs just for the throws? ↩︎

Which, by the way, is an utterly stupid thing to say in response to kicking gay couples out of your establishment. Fuck you if you do that. God never said shit about disliking gay couples, She only talked about disliking pedophiles. And Her son just disliked figs. We would know. Aden met him once. In a stroke of demonic genius, I introduced him to apples. He liked them. ↩︎

The waiter who was serving the couple looked downright mortified and embarrassed about his superior’s behavior. Aden managed to convince him—afterwards, in a subtle manner—to resign, and he made sure of the fact that the ex-waiter (he couldn’t have been more than 18 in age) found a nice job with decent pay. ↩︎

The diner in mention had friendly people running the place and excellent food. The couple was grateful, and insisted on buying us drinks. Right now, the four of us are engaged in a loop of buying each other food and drinks. It’s fun, really. ↩︎

Aden wants me to mention that he never curses. That’s wrong, because I‌ can quote him, word for word, on that night—“Zan, Zan, would yo—look at this. Look at this bullshit—’Man shall not lie with man, for it is an abomination’—they really thought that was—God, ‘m not drunk enough for this shit”—and many other nights as well. Don’t give me that look, angel. ↩︎

Although Hell definitely might’ve happened. My kind aren’t inherently homophobic or anything, but it wouldn’t have been unthinkable for a demon to think it funny for a large amount of people to hate homosexuals. I’m not that guy. Abaddon definitely would’ve approved the idea, though. Whichever bastard it was probably got a commendation for it. ↩︎

This is because, back in those days, they encouraged a system in which boys (with ages ranging from 8-12) were able to be ‘coupled’ by older men. There’s even Ancient Greek documents that show us how their parents used this bullshit to help their sons’ social status. Needless to say, there was a lot of demonic curses going around in Ancient Greek. I used up my quota then and had to call Abaddon for an extension. ↩︎

The commonly known phrase ‘The descent into Hell is easy’ drowns out a long-forgotten alternate; "facilius descensus fatuitas", which more or less translates to ‘Easier is the descent into foolishness’. ↩︎

My idea. Aden helped. ↩︎

Three things to do as I‌ wished on Aden’s part. Still got two to go. Details not privy. ↩︎

It took Aden a lot of convincing on my part for him to actually do something that wasn’t purely good and angelic in nature, but it worked. Mainly because we were bored, and we don’t have much to lose if our automatically-generated reports to our respective Head Offices don’t shine a good light on us. Besides, we made them forget their dreams, but retain the influence. ↩︎

I‌ mean, I‌ did, but… I‌ didn’t. You know? ↩︎

[adzandiel-blog]

Hello, Tumblr.

I’m going to start this off with some radical honesty.

I don't know what we’re doing here, 'here' being some hastily whipped up site on the Internet. Aden suggested that we start to keep a 'blog', which I do know the meaning of, but I don't get the PURPOSE of. Anyway, who's he to tell us what to do with modern technology? He's the guy who couldn't figure out how cellphones work. How does he know about blogs anyway? Angels and their cryptic-ness. But alright. I guess a blog might be fun in some way, especially for us.1

But how the Holy Hell do we start one of these, anyway? It's ridiculous. What, do I introduce myself? Tell everyone a few fun facts about my personality? I'd rather get flung face-first into a pit of boiling sulfur. Again.2

Oh, fine. Aden wants me to at least say something about myself, or else why would anyone stick around?‌ What do I say—hi, nice to meet you, I’m not human, but I’ve lived here for five millennium alongside my righteous seraphic best friend? I think that covers all my basics, yeah.

I need a name here, huh?‌‌ Let me think. Zan.

Zan works. It’s short for something in the way that ‘May’ is short for ‘mayonnaise’.

No, Aden, I‌ don’t suppose they need to know how old‌ I am. I‌ did kind of tell them, though, but it’s only a rough estimate.3

Oh. Gender?‌ Seriously?‌ Is that really necessary?

Shit, fine. The answer to that question is, very simply, no.‌ Not really.4

Oh, yeah, but I‌ referred to Aden as ‘he’? It’s just the shape and form of his body that looks that way, and he doesn’t exactly mind—any more than he’d mind if I‌ started using different pronouns for him, her, them—so no harm’s done there.

Anyway, the way I‌ see it is that we’re currently here, writing a blog post (or, well, I’m writing the blog post while Aden hovers over my shoulder and points out inaccuracies), because we’ve got nothing to do. I run a coffee shop, sure, and Aden spends the typical working hours in his studio, but overall, it’s getting dull.

At least I don’t have Abaddon5 crawling up my ass 24/7 nowadays. And Aden hasn’t got Remiel6 down his throat now. It’s a pleasant break, if you count living in constant wariness of both Heaven and Hell as a break. Which we do.7

Consider this our debut for the modern age.

(Aden, I’m telling you, this is even stupider than the time you thought ‘Um, modern?’ was the answer to ‘Which way do you dress?’!)

Not because we’re somehow miraculously capable of becoming Internet famous, or at least, not that I’m aware of. We’ve just been told we’re high in entertainment value. After all, we do have a few millennium’s worth of stories to share. ↩︎

It wasn’t enjoyable the first time, but in my personal opinion, it’s somewhat preferable to opening up. Aden can’t make that connection nor the metaphor, since he hasn’t that first-hand experience. ↩︎

Our precise ages are, respectively, 5304 and 5310 years old.‌ We’re not telling you who’s which. ↩︎

‌ This is because of the fact that we aren’t beings who need things like genders. What’s between our legs, you ask?‌ Infernal wickedness and celestial righteousness. ↩︎

One of the demon princes of Hell, commander of locusts, general pain in the ass. ↩︎

An Archangel of Hope, guides souls into Heaven, Aden’s manager in Above’s Head Office, also a pain in the ass but at least he’s quite holy about it. ↩︎

Because this, compared to the 14th century?‌ A total breeze. It might just be me, but I’d take an extra look tossed over my shoulder any day over mountains of plague-ridden corpses piling up in the morgues. And hospitals. And streets. And schools. And homes. And front doors. I might be a demon, but I have living standards that include not tripping over three corpses before lunch. ↩︎