The Demon Alya AU is a Miraculous Ladybug Fanfic (sort of) by Sorry Just Another Person
, the same person who wrote There's More Magic Out There and The Adventures Of Panthera Noire.
Alya Césaire has a secret: she is a literal demon from Hell. But just because she's a demon doesn't mean she's a jerk, and she finds herself charmed by the caring, empathetic Marinette Dupain-Cheng. And so Alya begins her dual missions of stealing as many souls as she can while also being Marinette's best and most devoted friend. Then Juleka discovers Alya's secret, but rather than being scared off, she decides to become the snarky and irreverent High Priestess of Alya's cult. Of course, complicating matters is that Juleka is also trying to date Rose... who just so happens to be an angel. Rounding out the original supernatural gang is Lila, another demon and one of Alya's rivals, who has a more focused mission specifically devoted to obtaining Gabriel Agreste's soul. Later, it was mentioned that Zoe is an archdevil and one of Alya's nominal superiors—though Zoe quickly prioritizes enjoying the pleasures of Earth over chastising Alya for not gathering enough souls—and that Nora is a demon too, though one who ostensibly cares less for humanity than Alya.
The Demon Alya AU is a parody of salt fics which feature Alya as a cruel and evil person who bears little resemblance to the character in the show; in this story, Alya is a literal demon, but still acts as kind to Marinette and the others as ever (at least when she isn't trying to trick or manipulate a classmate into losing their soul... and frankly, she and Juleka often take better care of those souls than the classmates themselves).
Sorry Just Another Person hasn't written an official 'fic' for the Demon Alya AU, but commenters on the blog did write a few chapters. They include:
- Juleka meeting the Parisian demons and becoming Alya's high priestess.
- Marinette learning about Demon Lila
- Angel Rose rescuing Alya from an exorcist
- Ladybug learning of Alya's true nature
- Alya failing to take Max's soul because he already put much of it in Markov
Note that because there is no 'canonical' version of the story, it's possible that some elements and tropes will contradict each other from chapter to chapter, or between the written chapters and the blog notes.
The Demon Alya AU provides examples of the following tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Max putting half his soul into Markov. According to Alya, putting that much of oneself into anything is so rare that even in Hell it's practically an urban legend. It's implied that this kind of event actually can't be done on purpose.
- Act of True Love: Nino says his parents told him to only to give his soul to the person he marries.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Inverted with Alya and Nino, who is a wonderful and caring boyfriend.
- Angelic Abomination: It's mentioned that Rose tries to invoke this and use the 'Be not afraid' line from the Bible, but her angel form is basically just her human form except with fluffy wings and a halo, so nobody is scared of her anyways.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Juleka notes in the fanfic that Alya, being a demon, probably had never encountered any kindness at all before meeting her and Marinette, which would explain why Alya seems to care so much and does so much for the two of them — they were literally the nicest people she'd met in her eternity of existence.
- Being Evil Sucks: Alya does not like the highly cutthroat and antagonistic nature of Hell politics and business and much prefers just being friends with good people like Marinette.
- Came Back Wrong: Mylène agrees to give Alya her soul in exchange for Alya resurrecting a cute pet of hers that got hit by a car. The animal is creepy and definitely came back wrong... but it is still a good pet (if only to Mylène), so she's satisfied.
- Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: A variant. When Alya realizes she’s falling for Nino, she assumes she’s supposed to seduce him. Nino, who isn’t ready for that step in the relationship, makes sure to derail these attempts with fun, wholesome activities.
- Cult: Alya technically has one consisting of herself, her high priestess Juleka, and whichever classmates she's gotten souls from at any time. They focus less on chanting and blood sacrifice, and more on snuggling under blankets while watching anime.
- Deal with the Devil: Marlena and Otis had trouble having children, so they made a deal with dark forces: in exchange for being able to have kids, they would be obligated to take care of two demons. They thus wound up acting as Alya's and Nora's 'parents,' providing them with the cover that the demons need to live in Paris without anyone wondering where they came from (although Alya has noted that Marlena is intimidating enough she actually can ground Alya despite Alya having various demonic powers and not really being her kid). Marlena and Otis were then able to have Etta and Ella, who are human.
- Demonic Possession: A power demons have, usually exercised over those whose souls they have collected. One interpretation of Demon Lila is that she stole the real Lila’s soul after the girl made a foolish and ignorant bargain to make friends more easily and has been living Lila’s life since.
- Duels Decide Everything: It's mentioned that both Alya's and Rose's superiors would rather the two fight to kick each other out of Paris. Rose and Alya, though, usually just wind up playing a video game to determine which of them will have more influence that week.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: A few of the posts have the premise that Alya returns some of the class's souls to them but gets them mixed up, so people's souls are in the wrong bodies.
- Forbidden Love: Juleka and Rose. Not because they’re both female, but because Rose is an angel and angels are forbidden from having romantic relations with mortals. This doesn’t stop them in the slightest.
- Friend to All Children: Nora, apparently by complete accident. She has no love for humanity in general, thinking them weak, and the only person she admits to caring for is Alya. Then she sees a co-worker trying to tempt a kid Ella and Etta's age and she snaps, kills the co-worker, takes down a child soul smuggling ring, and runs crying to Alya that she's gone 'soft' while holding an armful of rescued child souls.
- Grail in the Garbage: One common source of humor is Alya leaving the class's souls out in the open where funny things can happen to them, like a crow stealing one or her little sisters playing marbles with them.
- Hollywood Exorcism: The power of the Black Cat miraculous, properly applied, skips both this and Banishing Ritual to straight up obliterate a possessing spirit while leaving the body intact.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Alya can shapeshift the people who's souls she got. Usually this just means she turns Chloé into a hellhound so she can pet her.
- Our Demons Are Different: Alya is a demon and has some of the usual powers, including being able to throw Hellfire around and being able to take on a form with horns, wings, and a tail. However, she doesn't actually hate humanity and actually grows protective of the souls she collects.
- The Paladin: Juleka is often referred to as a 'Paladin/Warlock Multiclass' because she has powers from both an angel (Rose) and a demon (Alya).
- Redemption Equals Life: An odd case for Lila. Demon Lila manages to out herself to Ladybug unintentionally and unknowingly piss off Plagg at the same time. This results in her death and allows the much nicer real Lila, who she had been possessing, to reclaim her life and gain the friends she wanted.
- Ship Tease: Alya and Juleka. Rose is seemingly happy to share Juleka, but Alya stresses over what it would mean for her relationship with Nino.
- Soul Jar: Alya stores the class's souls in little marble-like balls which glow. It's noted that the classmates are still connected to the souls, so Alya washing and cleaning the souls will make the classmates happier, and Alya tickling the souls will make the classmates laugh.
- Artisans are apparently capable of pulling an unintentional variation of this by literally pouring themselves into their work. However, most of the time the amount of soul they lose is negligible and easily restored by a reasonably normal lifestyle. Actually putting a significant amount of their soul into a work is the kind of masterwork that is done once in a person's life and in the event they do pull it off the stress is potentially fatal. Also, the only real benefit is that their soul can no longer be stolen by extradimensional forces, demonic or otherwise, so long as it's also anchored to the finished work (and they are unlikely to be aware of this). Said artisans are still likely to consider all of this worth what they have created.
