all of the vegapunks speak quite distinctly, and from what i’ve seen, they all use different personal pronouns with different levels of formality! going in order from what we’ve seen so far:
1: shaka speaks quite formally (for a man, which i’m loosely assuming he is)- he uses watashi as his personal pronoun, which places him in a neutral/formal spot, and uses kimi to address the strawhats (which is somewhat diminuitive/maybe a little condescending) but omae to address dragon (conclusion: ???).
2: lilith speaks like a stereotypical old man- she uses washi as her personal pronoun and the masculine omae as her ‘you’ pronoun, and tends to use ja as her sentence-ending copula instead of da.
3: edison speaks kansai-ben (though i don’t know enough to say if it’s a specific subdialect)- he self-references with wai, which is a dialectal variant of the washi pronoun that lilith uses, and ends his sentences with ya in place of the regular da.
4: pythagoras is, from what we’ve seen so far, the most polite of the satellites- he’s the only one to consistently use polite verb forms.
5: atlas speaks probably the most aggressively, which suits her general demeanor but is very incongruous with her actual appearance- she uses the masculine ore for her first-person pronoun and omae for ‘you.’
6: haven’t really seen york speak yet besides, like, noises.
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Trapped together with Belphie for the writing troupe!!
Well, friend, I went and accidentally ended up writing angst with no romantic ship at all. But once I had the idea of rewriting the attic scene from Lesson 16, I couldn't do anything else. Basically, it seems strange to me that Lilith more or less possesses you, the Main Character, both before and after the encounter with Belphie, but does absolutely nothing to try and stop the murder from actually happening. Like, come on, great x 27 grandma, give us a little grace here. (Plus, having him not actually literally kill you would have made the next few chapters way less awkward. I mean, really. Almost killed you? Well so have Levi and Lucifer and Beel...)
(Also I spent 15 story keys to finish the Hide & Seek card of Belphie's since I knew it would come in handy for this. It did.)
What Happened in the Attic
Belphegor & MC/Lilith
Genre: Angst, some comfort
Word Count: 1.3k
CW: Attempted murder?
[Part of my 250 Followers Mini Event!]
It was all...strange. Not just in the sense that it was a time paradox. For a moment, you weren’t yourself, and you pressed your hand to the spot in the wall where you’d heard Belphegor’s voice. A door appeared; the door you’d seen each time you sneaked up to the attic to talk to the seventh brother. The door you knew by instinct but not by sight. The door… The door… Yes, that’s the door. That’s the door that needed to be opened. You understood. Or…some part of you understood. Or…something inside of you understood.
Lilith understood.
You opened the door with a touch. You stepped inside. And the door behind you vanished.
Without paying that any mind, you looked ahead into the attic room. Sleeping on the bed was your big brother—no… It was Belphegor. He was curled up, hugging a pillow, and mumbling in his sleep. A strange explosion of affection flooded you, nearly bowling you over. You felt tears pressing at the backs of your eyes. Belphie. It was Belphie. You’d missed him so much.
(You barely knew him.)
You’d hoped he’d found happiness. You’d hoped he hadn’t blamed you.
(Blamed you for what?)
“Belphegor,” you said in a foreign voice as you approached the bed.
“Lilith,” mumbled the sleeping demon, stirring. “...Miss you…”
“I’m sorry.” Your voice was strange again; somehow outside you, though your lips moved.
Belphie stirred again, opening his eyes and turning his head to face you. And for a moment, he stared at you with a dazed expression that toed the line between astonishment and joy.
“Lilith?” His voice cracked and he reached out to you…
Then it was over. His expression dulled, he withdrew his hand, and he gave you a look of disgust.
“...How did you get in here?”
“I’m not sure,” you answered honestly.
Rolling out of bed, Belphegor walked to the spot in the wall where the door sometimes appeared. There was nothing. He ran his fingers over it, he pushed, he kicked it; he rammed into it with his shoulder. Still, nothing.
“How did you get in here?” he demanded again, his voice cracking this time with a sort of desperate rage.
“Lilith.”
The voice was yours, though the inspiration wasn’t. It was true though; you knew it was true.
Belphie, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. Already in tears, his horns and tail seemed to flow from his body like smoke as he stalked towards you. “Don’t… Don’t you dare say that name!” His hands formed tight fists and he clenched his teeth, shaking with rage. “How DARE you say that name!”
You should have been scared. The demon before you was quaking with rage and grief and confusion. A dark energy whirled around him as if he stood at the eye of a hurricane. But you felt nothing but calm.
“Belphie,” you said again. “Lilith let me in.”
“No she didn’t!” he screamed, stepping forward clumsily as tears flowed from his eyes. “Lilith is dead! She’s dead, and it’s all thanks to you! You killed her! You killed…!”
He was on top of you in an instant, his hands on your throat, and big salty tears caught on your tongue. You didn’t struggle. You just…stared at him, with a feeling of deep, aching sorrow.
“Belphie. Big brother.”
The hands were off your throat. Belphegor took a few staggering steps back, his violet eyes wide and disbelieving. “N-No… No! No, no! Witch! Or… Magician! Con artist!”
You coughed, keeled forwards with your hands on your throat as he shouted accusations at you.
“Liar! You’re a liar! H-How dare… How dare you use her voice!”
You take a few more deep breaths before your grip on your throat loosened and you spoke again, looking at Belphegor. “...Do you remember when we played hide and seek? The time when you couldn’t find me? Levi found me before you did, and he told me you were searching everywhere. You were frantic, like you might start crying. You did start crying, before I found you.”
Belphie looked at you distrustfully. His lips were tightly pursed, and his entire posture was guarded and suspicious.
“You were so angry when I found you, I thought you’d never forgive me. But you did. I shouldn’t have been worried about something like that, really. You always forgave me for whatever I did.”
The words kept flowing from your mouth, and Belphegor kept staring at you with this strange look, like he wanted to kill you, or embrace you, or hide from you, but he couldn’t do any of them.
“You told me later you were afraid that I wouldn’t forgive you for leaving me alone so long. You thought I was hiding on purpose to punish you. You should have known better than that too, dummy.”
Belphie’s lips moved. There was a short, sharp intake of air. His gaze darted to the floor.
“...I have nightmares about that game sometimes,” he murmured. “Well… something that feels like that game, at first. But I’m searching for you in the House of Lamentation, and I can’t remember where your room is. I come looking for you in the attic, and Lucifer stops me from reaching the top of the stairs, and he tells me that you’re dead. He tells me I’ll never see you again.”
Belphegor’s lips moved again, as silently as earlier, and his face slowly contorted. It was ugly to see; heartbreaking to see.
“Why can’t you come back and find me?” he finally whispered. “Why can’t you forgive me like last time?”
His horns and tail faded away as he curled up on the floor, his head in his hands, and he looked less like a demon and more like a frightened child. You knelt down before him. …Lilith knelt down before him, you supposed. You were just along for the ride.
“I’m sorry, Belphie,” you said softly. “I’m sorry I can’t come back and find you. It’s too late for that. But I forgive you.”
Belphegor looked up at you with red-rimmed eyes, his expression tired and heart-breakingly lonely. “...Forgive me…?”
“For showing me the human world. For surviving the war. You don’t need my forgiveness for any of that, but if you want it, I’ll give it to you.” You reached a hand out, and Belphie took it, a few silent tears spilling down his cheeks as he stared vacantly past me. “Belphie… This isn’t what I wanted for you. You loved the human world. We shared that together. So why…?”
“If it wasn’t for those…humans, you’d be with me now! How can you say that?”
“I am with you now. I never left you.”
“...Sentimental and stupid. I never thought I’d hear something like that from you.”
You laughed. Belphie smiled slightly.
“Don’t hate what I love, just because I loved it.” You touched his cheek tenderly. “I made my own choices. The Celestial Realm punished me. The human world must have made for an easy scapegoat, but nothing more than that. You know that, Belphie.”
“I still hate them.”
“Fine. But don’t kill them. They’re my family, Belphie. Just like you. I love you, Belphegor.”
“I love you, Lilith.”
Within a few seconds, the magic was gone. You felt yourself emptied of something, and Belphie’s look of serenity faded from his face. Withdrawing your hand from his cheek, you stood and looked at the attic wall.
The door stood open.
Belphie’s eyes were fixed on the same thing.
You extended a hand to him, and for a moment, he hid his face. You heard a quiet sniffle. Then, he took your hand and let you pull him to his feet.
Neither of you ever really discussed what happened in the attic that day. Neither of you understood it. But Belphie spent long hours there afterwards, despite it having been his prison for so long.
You thought you might know why.
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