theliarshart

[theliarshart]

//Since we've started posting here again, I'm reblogging this here. All of these same things really apply to Cypher. He has a history with drug use, prostitution, violence, and abuse, even if not to the same extent as Angel. Additionally, there will likely be discussion of childhood sexual abuse on this blog, because that's something Cypher lived through. There won't be anything explicit, obviously, but we can't promise it won't be discussed. But for that reason and for the reasons listed in the previous post, we don't want minors on this blog.

//Just a reminder for folks, now that the fandom is picking up steam and there are a lot of new people: If you interact with this blog and do not have an age listed somewhere on your page, I will block you. I tend to look for any sort of anything in your bio or pinned post that says you aren't a minor under US law. (It helps significantly if it's visible on mobile, as I'm on mobile like 80% of the time.) Even if it just says 18+ and that's it, that's sufficient. I'm not looking for an exact age, just 18+.

I do this for my own protection, as this is a show with adult content, and this character in particular is very much tied to that. The show is about as explicit as it can get about Angel's porn career without anything in the show actually being X-rated. This is not a kid-friendly muse by any stretch of the imagination. This blog does contain sex - and very kinky sex, at that - it does contain graphic violence, and it does contain themes of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. These are all plot-relevant parts of who the muse fundamentally is. These are things that have shaped him. Those things aren't really separable from him as a person. Because of that, I do not want minors on this blog. I'm also just not comfortable with kids in general. So for your protection and my own, please stay off this blog if you are a minor.

[theliarshart]

One ear twitched to the side a little at the way the other demon addressed him before flicking back upright. But the mention of reservations added to the tension in the set of his shoulders. "I didn't think about reservations. I thought... I dunno. Never really stayed in a hotel before."

He had done, once or twice, while he was alive. But they had been the sort of isolated, no star, last resort sort of establishments that didn't ask questions. And even then he'd been leery of them. He had never stayed in a proper hotel under no sort of false pretenses. Now that he thought about it, reservations were a bit of an oversight on his part.

"Walking in, I suppose. If it isn't too much trouble."

The mention of the staff got another flick of his ears. He knew it was run by the princess, of course. The whole of Hell knew that. But the mention of the Radio Demon had him reevaluating. He had heard of Alastor before, of course. The first thing he had done upon his arrival was find out who all the major powers were. The Radio Demon's name was at the top of that list.

"Hi. I, um, I'm new here. And I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to work? I've seen your ads, but I don't really know..." He trailed off. Of course he'd seen the ads for the Hazbin. Most of Pentagram City had, though most seemed skeptical. But Cypher had thought this hotel would be a good idea. Someplace safe, at least for now. It had seemed safe.

[theliarshart]

//Well, apparently Cerise got to the entire explanation before I could. But yes, this blog has two muns now. I haven't been giving it the attention it needs to actually go well. I got frustrated early on because I wrote Danny as a human for 5 years and struggled to get people to interact with him, as I was basically the only Tumblr RPer out there writing anyone from that series, at least in English. Not sure about other languages. But I love the character and he's the reason I picked up Angel Dust as an RP muse. The first time I watched "Addict" I was already seeing similarities between them. So when I created this AU, I was extremely excited about it. And then it went nowhere. I wrote a zillion open starters and no one answered them, I wrote starters for specific people and they never answered them, the two threads I did have with him fizzled and died very quickly... I was just really frustrated and kinda stepped back from writing him.

Cerise has been listening to me talk about this AU basically since the beginning. He hasn't really done Tumblr RP before, although he's been around it for a couple of years. He's very creative and very well acquainted with my writing style, and with us collaborating, we can sort of find a style that works for both of us. So yeah. Two muns now, because I didn't really want to see the muse die off and neither did he, and this was an easy entry point into RP for him.

[theliarshart]

//We don't actually have any art of Cypher. He's an AU and neither of us can draw for shit. But I did make him a sprite in a game we mostly just use for making sprites. It's inaccurate in that it's a pony, first off, and it's also not real detailed, 'cause it's a pixel sprite. You can only get so much detail. So this is currently our best (and only) reference image for Cypher. Basically imagine this, but bipedal and with numbers carved into his neck and wrists instead of just bands of red.

[theliarshart]

//One other thing about interacting with this character is that your muse can't lie to him. I mean, they can, but he'll know. Cypher is able to tell when anyone is lying. That's his demonic ability. He's a (un)living lie detector. We've both written plenty about why that's part of this character, so I'll leave it there.

He can't make your muse tell the truth, but they won't be able to get a lie past him. To that end, we would ask that you let us know if your muse is lying about something. You don't have to tell us what the truth is - just as your muse doesn't have to tell him the truth - but please let us know if they're lying so he can catch it.

TL;DR, while Cypher CANNOT compel anyone to tell the truth, he CAN always tell when someone is lying to him. That's important to remember when writing with him.

[theliarshart]

//Side note that I'll add to the header and shit later, but we've got two of us running this blog now. Cyan started it and designed the AU. I'm Cerise. I've been around for pretty much all of this incarnation of the muse and I'm helping pull Cypher out of inactivity. We'll try to write him as much the same as we can, but there might be little differences. We'll use the tags "encryption sequence || cyan speaks" and "enigma machine || cerise speaks" for OOC posts to indicate which of us wrote them. We may also use sign-off emojis to indicate who's speaking in comments and chats, with Cyan's being 🎵 and mine being 💎. We may also tag RP posts with these, but not necessarily.

I originally wasn't going to reveal my involvement at all, but I'm not real big on trying to pretend to be Cyan when I'm talking OOC. If you'd rather write with just one or the other of us, that's fine. Just be aware that may mean it takes a lot longer for us to reply. We aren't always both around.

[theliarshart]

Cypher's ears flicked back in alarm at the boisterous greeting, but he quickly swiveled them back upright. His ears were his biggest tell even still, three years after he had ended up here. The man at the desk was certainly unusual. Not that there was a usual appearance for sinner demons.

"I guess, yeah," he replied in a soft tone that seemed mismatched with his own rather gruesome appearance. "You help people who want to get better, yeah? Redemption and all that?"

His tail wasn't visible to the man at the counter, but it was held stiffly aloft, the steel grey underside shown in a display of anxiety and tension. Cypher was used to hiding. He'd spent the past decade hiding, both on Earth and in Hell.

Introductions. Introductions were a thing people did when not actively trying to hide who they were. "I'm, um, I'm Cypher, by the way."

"Hi. I, um, I'm new here. And I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to work? I've seen your ads, but I don't really know..." He trailed off. Of course he'd seen the ads for the Hazbin. Most of Pentagram City had, though most seemed skeptical. But Cypher had thought this hotel would be a good idea. Someplace safe, at least for now. It had seemed safe.

[theliarshart]

//Since we're dragging this thing back outta semi-retirement, figure it ain't gonna hurt anything for me to give a little bit of an introduction to who and what Cypher is. We got a post here about why he's designed the way he is, but some things are a little outta date.

Cypher is a sinner demon, first off. He's an AU version of a muse from a wildly different show. He's the Hellaverse version of Danny Holt from the BBC's London Spy miniseries. (That's why he's got a real person - Ben Whishaw - as a faceclaim.) Danny was a guy with a real bad past who was trying to put his life back together and got dragged into the seedy underbelly of the shadow world of espionage. He's damaged. Like... real fucking deep issues. But he's trying.

Cypher's a sinner demon who died in 2021. He's a roe deer demon. He ain't based on Alastor, though. Completely unrelated, actually. His demon form's based on his daemon from a HDM-fusion 'verse we had for him on an old canon blog we ran for him. He looks largely human, though. But he's got antlers, deer ears, deer legs, a deer tail, and numbers carved around his wrists and neck. That has to do with his backstory, too.

As for abilities, he can run and jump really well and he's a walking lie detector. He can tell when anyone is lying to him. We nerfed his ability when we first made this AU, but we've decided he's not OP with it as it was originally meant. He died 'cause of a whole thing with a guy he was dating creating a lie detector that actually worked. Danny died protecting it from falling into the hands of any sorta government or intelligence agency. He was trying to do good there. And it killed him.

Cypher tried to get better in life. He ended up homeless as a teenager and got swept up into addiction and prostution. But when he was 19, he hit rock bottom and started trying to claw his way out of the pit he'd ended up in. Before the whole lie detector mess, he had a job in a warehouse and a flat he shared with a roommate. He still did drugs sometimes and he still went out and partied. He wasn't perfect, but he was trying to get his shit together.

After everything that happened to him in life, he's got walls like fucking Fort Knox. He's real fucking guarded and he can be abrasive. But underneath the prickly exterior, he's a gentle soul. He's had to build walls, 'cause if he'd let himself be soft, he would've died in his teens. And he's paranoid as fuck 'cause of everything, but especially being hunted by the global intelligence forces for the last 7 years of his life while MI6 killed him slowly and painfully.

But he takes the hotel 100% seriously. He's there 'cause he wants to improve. It started off as a safe place, 'cause he's always looking for that. But he wants to be better. All he ever wanted was to be better. The universe is just fucked up and cruel. So if he thinks he's got a shot at getting better, he'll take it.

[theliarshart]

//There's some Hazbin spoiler's here, but it's what got me thinking about this muse.

"What are we even talking about? / Some crack whore who fucked up already? / He blew his chance like the cocks in his mouth. / This discussion is senseless and petty.

"There's no question to be posed, / he's unholy, case closed! / Did you forget that Hell is forever?"

Lute's lines in "You Didn't Know", while they're about Angel Dust, could just as easily be about Cypher. With Cypher's backstory, that line got me thinking about him. He was exactly this. And yet, he tried to improve. Even when he was alive, he tried to improve. But it wasn't enough and he ended up in Hell despite everything. I think he would try again. I think he'd take the hotel seriously.

[theliarshart]

"Hi. I, um, I'm new here. And I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to work? I've seen your ads, but I don't really know..." He trailed off. Of course he'd seen the ads for the Hazbin. Most of Pentagram City had, though most seemed skeptical. But Cypher had thought this hotel would be a good idea. Someplace safe, at least for now. It had seemed safe.

[theliarshart]

"You really think I don't know that? You... I died because of this," Cypher ranted, gesturing to the bloody numbers around his neck. "I can keep a fucking secret. And I'm not stupid enough not to realize when something needs to be kept bloody secret."

[theliarshart]

@mysteriouslyhopefulstranger

It was strange to be back. In truth, he didn't really quite know why he was back here. It felt almost like the universe was taunting him, thrusting him back into the bustle and hum of London, back into the places he had loved and hated and hidden and hoped and feared. He hadn't been here in almost a decade, since the last seven years of his life had seen him engaged in a frantic, global game of cat and mouse and he had been in Hell for almost three years now. It didn't exactly surprise him, but he was certainly bitter about it.

If his otherworldly appearance was visible, it seemed to be attracting startlingly little attention. Odd though London may have been what looked like a satyr with bloodstained antlers and numbers carved into his flesh should surely attract at least a little bit of attention. There was, though, one person who seemed able to see him. The way she was looking straight at him, something not another soul had done since he had woken here, certainly made him suspect she could, at least.

"Can you..." he began quietly. He paused, taking a moment to chastise himself for being so hesitant. Either she could hear him or she couldn't. Given how much attention everyone else wasn't paying him, if it turned out she couldn't, he would hardly even be making a fool of himself.

"Can you see me?" he asked, pointing to himself with one black-clawed finger as though any clarification was necessary.

[theliarshart]

//I'm kinda reconsidering where Cypher's at in light of the most recent episodes of Hazbin. Danny honestly wanted to be better. During his life, he tried to be better. He tried to be good. He struggled with it, he stumbled and he faltered and he was forced into making some truly horrible choices, but he tried to be better. And I think that in death he would do the same. If he thought there was a chance for him to be redeemed, I think he would be willing to try. So I'm looking to play him as a resident of the hotel, or at least an interested party.

[theliarshart]

//I do still have this character. I haven't abandoned him. I'd actually love to get some new threads going with him. He's a muse I hold quite dear, and for reasons I won't get into here, he's actually a little easier for me to write right now than Angel is. So if anyone would be interested in a thread, please do let me know.

[theliarshart]

What will you do?

Ask to leave

Kiss cheek

Flirt

Leave them

[theliarshart]

//Cypher's been a bit lonely lately. He probably wouldn't say no to some company.

[theliarshart]

My problem is I never healed I just kept going