#also if anyone is wondering/waiting on the fic (my hubris to assume that would be the case of anyone) i plan to drop around 7pm est!

[gilears]

endeavouring to reply to All my unreplied to comments on the o&t series (and, stretch goal, my d20 fics?) bc i am notoriously bad at replying to comments but i do love doing it and also would love to have everything cleared away before o&2 tomorrow.

anyway. wish me luck and sincere apologies for people that have commented on multiple chaps/fics and are about to have their inbox terrorized by ao3 user sulfuric. i love you okay bye

[zaxal]

Hi! I am a big fan on your current running series Lambs to the Slaughter and I am at awe at your characterisation and language skills. It has been incredible and especially your approach to biblical events that have such perfect blend of the accuracy of the story as well as the context of the reality. The way that you wrote Jesus was absolutely immaculate. It was exactly how I imagined someone like him to be: divine and so utterly human. Thank you for this! I do have a question as well. What inspired you to create Lucifer the way you have (visuals and characterisation)? I am very curious since he is one of my favourite characters to write and interpret in the fandom as well.

ok first of all

thank you so much for my entire life this was a wonderful thing to find in my inbox. i'm so glad you like it ;www; i've been struggling w writing now that the story's moving away from bible stories but this makes it so very worth it to know someone's waiting and cares.

a lot of the early fic development was done via text rambles with @transfemmbeatrice and we developed lucifer together based on what we felt would be most interesting to each other and the story we were coming up with.

we needed someone who was both the equal and antithesis of god in the au. god isn't talking to anyone; They're absent in heaven and on earth. how much They're influencing things is always up in the air. lucifer, on the other hand, is very hands on, and he's a present and constant danger. azram knows what lucifer wants both in broad strokes and in intimate minutiae, and it leaves him with enough room to wiggle around, but also enough to hang himself if he's not careful. this contrasts to corvai who is, and will increasingly be, flaunting what heaven expects of them.

the 7 deadly sins are one of my special interests, so it was important to me that lucifer embody both pride (the cardinal sin associated with him) and wrath (the cardinal sin associated with satan). he's powerful, and it's gone to his head. he's already been punished by the most powerful being in the universe, and he's arguably the second. he doesn't have anything to lose, but everything to gain; all he has to do is take it.

this plays out on a smaller stage with azram, who is the first being who will not fight back in any meaningful way against him (as far as luci knows). every other demon expects some level of autonomy and dignity; they're comrades, they Fell with him, and grinding them endlessly into the dust would eventually spark his own rebellions that he doesn't want to deal with. but azram didn't. and azram needs his interest and protection; he'll take anything and invite more because anything is better than being forsaken, alone, abandoned. lucifer understands; as much as azram is screaming for both his and god's attention, lucifer is equally desperate for recognition, for god to regret casting him out. he gets it, but he's also cruel and a megalomaniac, and it amuses him to see azram struggling physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. i wrote on the info post for sweet surrender that lucifer barely sees azram as a person, and that's true. he calls him a pet on purpose; he sees azram as a living tool, a toy to use and discard when it no longer amuses him. lucifer's also arrogant enough to assume that azram can and will never go against him in any meaningful way. that's hubris, babey.

as for appearance, we gave him pale skin to emphasize his place as the archangel of light, the ruthless incandescence that burns at the bottom of hell. we gave him yellow hair to contrast against corvai's dark/red (and his white wings contrast to azram's black), and because adam has golden hair in canon.

the black scales on the sharper parts of him are remnants from his time as a serpent and as a prelude to his transformation into the form we see at the end of the tv show, tho i think he's going to look significantly more like a dragon and less like a very big red man by the time we get there. the scales are red when they're burning, either from a big emotion or because he wants to singe the one touching him, and one day, he's going to start and not be able to stop.