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twins babysitting !!

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Mephisto probably feels so guilty about Ik in the roleswap au

I wonder if he can even stand being in a room with her without the guilt eating him alive

(Also, is Solphisto a thing in this au? Because if so I can’t imagine Solomon would take knowing his ex(?) orchestrated his daughters fall or at the very least took part in orchestrating it very well)

ouuhhhh yeah just imagine the feeling that hits him square in the chest when he first recognises the younger of the two demons

there isn't really any way for mephisto and solomon to have met prior to this, so this would be a rare occasion where the entire progression of their relationship happens 'on-screen', so to speak, rather than them showing up already possessing Baggage from the past...

we can get a sort of... torturous progression where mephisto is avoiding both demons as much as possible, but ends up cornered by one or both of them over and over, and then solomon starts taking an interest in him and he's like "shit" because they keep having accidental heart-to-hearts and realising that they're not that different and things just sorta proceed from there

so then you get to a sort of critical point where they're maybe together, in a maybe mutual way, and solomon's just real happy with everything (he's making friends, he's having fun) and mephisto's like "SHIT" because it was NOT ever meant to get this far

ik doesn't remember the celestial realm so there's no pushback from her, but i think diavolo (and barbatos) have unsubtly been monitoring the whole relationship so solomon gets the feeling from them that certain things are being kept from him. i don't remember whether we established whether ik herself ever recovers the memories or if someone just confesses the truth, but in any case, mephisto probably comes clean as soon as that happens - or is even the one to break the news, if diavolo doesn't do it first

after that???? idk, it depends on how well solomon's experience in the celestial realm has mellowed him out. he's definitely not perfectly calm and levelheaded but he doesn't go ballistic like he would have at the start of the year either. this is out of my usual ballpark but maybe it turns into a weird kinda toxic situationship lol

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I can't stop thinking about how Lucifer carries IK when she's very tired, no matter what age she's always a little girl to him

as long as she can fit in his arms (which is to say, forever) he will never stop <3

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SpiderIk gets Nightbrought

For months, Satan is the only one who sees her do weird spider things. Satan, who was born so very recently and has likely never met a human before Ik and Solomon

He assumes this is just a Normal Human Thing that demons can’t, like how human don’t have demon forms

It isn’t until the family finds Ik stuck to the ceiling and freaks out that Satan realizes that it is not in fact a Normal Human Thing

(The family catatonic while I’m hangs from the ceiling and Satan walking in and saying hi to Ik like nothings wrong)

ok ok so recall that one of the first things satan does when he shows up in nightbringer is start rampaging and then get knocked out. this all happens in a roundabout way, and then later he wakes up and the first thing he sees is ik crouched upside down on the ceiling, carefully re-stacking one of his endless piles of books

satan just blinks lethargically at her, too out of it to go back to being angry, and is like ".........i didn't know humans could do that". ik just cheerfully replies "most don't! anyway, lucifer doesn't know i'm still in the house, gotta run!" and climbs out his window. satan pokes his head out just in time to see her swing her way down on a web and just thinks to himself 'wow humans are kind of weird'

i like to think he's pretty chill with her even from the beginning, to the point where he'll just go to cocytus hall to hang out to avoid being around his brothers, and just gets used to all the everyday ways that ik uses her spider powers for convenience, asking offhand questions and nodding along when she explains the particulars to him

so you get the other brothers all sitting there with their jaws halfway to the floor, and each time one of them asks a faint, extremely bemused question, satan is the one who answers very matter-of-factly like "come on you didn't already know this??"

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Do the brothers know why Mephistopheles decided they were Enemy Number One? Do they know it’s about Ik’s safety?

How does Mephistopheles react to knowing Diavolo was aware Spiderkid was Ik the whole time?

the brothers are like vaguely aware that mephistopheles thinks they're all stupid as shit for allowing a child to do this, but they don't really feel the full extent of his rage because to them it's like... well, she's kicking ass constantly, so it's fine, right?? like, they'd get it if she was constantly getting hurt, but ik is having a great time, so....... what's the problem man

mephistopheles is FURIOUS, ten seconds away from grabbing the nearest brother by the throat, absolutely grinding out the words through gritted teeth, "it is about the PRINCIPLE. it is about the POTENTIAL danger. it is about LETTING A YOUNG CHILD FACE THESE SITUATIONS AT ALL"

i think he's in denial about diavolo's involvement at first, but then he sees the stuff he gets up to with ik when they're hanging out and has to sorrowfully conclude that diavolo is also an enemy in this particular battlefield. you'd think he was starting a civil war with how he talks about it

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As soon as Mephistopheles finds out Spiderkid is Ik, he joins Raphael in seeing all the weird scary spider things Ik

He tries to bundle her up in a blanket and kidnap her every time

Raphael starts praying for him not to bring Ik’s attention to him

everywhere he looks it gets worse. the small human child is plummeting large distances, hanging from sheer heights, almost getting crushed/stabbed/blown up, giving him 1000000 heart attacks per second

mephistopheles becomes like team rocket constantly trying to capture pikachu, except he believes he is 100% in the right (and he is probably the most reasonable person in this situation)

raphael just nods along while he's ranting while trying to avoid saying anything, but this just ends in mephistopheles thinking raphael is his only ally in this insane world, so now he's getting roped into his looney tunes capture schemes and desperately trying to sidle away without giving away his fear the entire time

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Raphael being superstitious, specifically regarding this one magicless kid, is so funny to me

He probably did that cross gesture when he blocked the Spiderkid hate account just in case

pfffft raphael is only really religious when his fear of spiderkid is involved. father up in the celestial realm literally only ever hears from this child of his when he's praying that ik doesn't find him hiding around the corner

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You can’t tell me Solomon and Simeon wouldn’t find how scared Raphael is of Spider Ik hilarious

Girl maybe makes it to waist height

solomon absolutely points and laughs every time raphael shows fear. simeon tries to be more tactful about it but it's clear to anyone watching that he's holding back a little giggle

simeon's like "oh raphael you don't need to be so nervous, ik wouldn't hurt a fly" and then raphael grabs him by the shoulders and whispers furiously "YES SHE WOULD SIMEON SHE'S A SPIDER THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT THEY DO THEY HURT FLIES AND THEY EAT THEM"

it does not help matters that raphael, in the opposite situation to luke, somehow always witnesses it when ik is doing weird spider things

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inspired by belphie borrowing astaroth's nickname for ik, wouldn't it be cute if nightbringer solomon started using mephisto's nickname for her? it'd really add onto his growing dad vibes too lol

oh yeah solomon calling ik "moppet" would cement everyone's belief that he's actually her father by like 10000%.... and honestly it does fit him i think, and it is VERY cute

i like to think he tries out the nickname on their first night in cocytus, as a point of familiarity to comfort her a little through the whole past-brothers-don't-know-them thing, and then it sticks because he keeps doing it throughout the day as a sort of quick and subtle "i'm here for you", and then at a certain point it just sticks

'moppet' becomes his default form of address and then he starts using 'sweetheart' (picked up from asmo) in particularly tender moments. yet another piece of evidence the brothers will point at and be genuinely kind of pissed because what do you MEAN you AREN'T her father????

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Hello! Ur art is rlly good, like a cozy blanket, pls excuse my rusty english

thank you so much, that's such a lovely thing to say!! your english is just wonderful :)

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I think it’d be funny if Raphael treated SpiderIk like some feral stray cat or how the Greeks treated the gods

Like, he’s obviously scared of her so he starts leaving little tributes to try and appease her the way one would leave tributes to say, Poseidon, to try and appease him for good sailing

But he obviously doesn’t want to get too close and spook her so he does that thing you do with feral stray cats where you try to get closer but not too close to where they’d attack

Ik has no idea what Raphael is doing. She just thinks he’s kinda weird

ik is early to class and sitting alone in the classroom waiting for everyone else to get here. the door slowly slides open. raphael peeks inside. ik says "hello". he just blinks with oddly wide, almost frightened eyes, then withdraws again

a minute or so later, he creeps in, still not saying a word. he stops five paces in and stares at her for a moment, then looks back and forth as if expecting someone to show up. when no one does, he very quickly walks ten paces further in, then stops at the far end of the bench ik is sitting on. he sets down a little box. he turns and speedwalks back out of the room.

ik hears his footsteps disappearing very rapidly. she scoots over and opens the box. it's a little cake. she contemplates all of this, then leans back over and looks out the window. raphael is sprinting out of the rad grounds with no signs of stopping his momentum

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Mephistopheles after finding out Spiderkid is Ik and the brothers are letting this happen: *already winding up his fist* The only proper response to this is unimaginable violence

forget supervillains, the real threat spiderkid has to quell is a berserk mephistopheles who is fistfighting his way through the entirety of the devildom's ruling class

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Do you think Simeon or Solomon know Luke is getting into flame wars on the internet over Spiderkid? Does Luke have unsupervised internet access?

Simeon’s a lost cause but surely Solomon or Raphael would know what’s going on

solomon knows that luke is getting into internet arguments based on the many times he's seen the little guy hunched over on the couch and furiously tapping away, but he doesn't know that luke is arguing about spiderkid specifically. he mostly just thinks it's funny and only tells luke to cut it out when he starts getting visibly, genuinely angry ("come on, there's no need to get to worked up over something on the internet")

simeon of course has NO idea and barely even knows how to use his settings app, so he has no way of putting parental controls on the internet (and solomon is too protective of his own browsing interests to let him)

meanwhile, raphael doesn't really pay enough attention to what luke does on his phone, but he has blocked luke's spiderkid hate account (without knowing it's luke) out of some sort of superstitious fear that it will invite spiderkid's wrath if he keeps reading the posts

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in a bit of a block both art and writing wise but here's solomon and ik having fun in the midst of the nightbringer situation

ref:

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Does Mephistopheles knows Spiderkid is Ik? And if so is he trying to take guardianship away from the brothers because they are obviously failing at their job if their ward is swinging around fighting crime in cosplay?

Perhaps he finds out Spiderkid is Ik at a later time and just loses whatever chill he had managed to retain about the situation because not only is that a child, it’s the human child and they are so much more fragile than a demon one- Why hasn’t anyone stopped this yet?

somehow, like luke, he doesn't make the connection himself and misses every opportunity to find out, and no one ever tells him because they assume he does know but is deliberately disconnecting spiderkid from ik during all his outbursts of disapproval

until finally one day lucifer says something that suddenly makes it clear that 1. ik is the spider vigilante, and 2. is being the vigilante with the approval of the many guardian figures in her life who SHOULD be stopping her from putting herself in harm's way, like a NORMAL ADULT WOULD

mephistopheles is unable to conjure a verbal response that expresses his horror and disgust with lucifer for allowing this. everyone else at the party whips around to see him drawing back his fist and decking the avatar of pride in the face

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Mephistopheles and Raphael both have negative reactions to Spider Ik in different directions but I just know Thirteen would have so much fun with Spider Ik

mephistopheles feels negatively because he thoroughly disapproves of the whole concept of masked vigilante children, and raphael feels negatively because spiderkid scares him

but YESSS thirteen would be like ik's Gadget Guy who is always inventing little gizmos to help with her hero-ing. she ends up making so many modifications to the initial hero costume levi designed, both aesthetic-wise and practicality-wise, and levi would be offended if the new suit wasn't so sick

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I think Alecto and Spider Ik switch whose who when doing Get Help

The only rule is that Ik can’t be Loki if the brothers are there because they will lose it if they think Ik is hurt or god forbid, dying

i like to think they just do Get Help as a party trick because there aren't exactly a lot of situations in which they need to take down large amounts of henchmen, and it's gotten to the point where the brothers absolutely should know better than to panic if ik plays loki's part, but they still do because what if this time--

sometimes alecto will even bust out special effects make-up or glamour spells to really sell it (trick she picked up from her career in in the underground fighting ring), but now it's even more imperative that she only does this when she's the one who 'needs help' because the others will have an aneurysm if they see ik fake-bleeding