You didn't ask for this.
Who the hell signed you up for this shit?
Okay, it wasn't as bad. Demons here just wanted to eat you except they couldn't because another demon told them not to. That was reassuring. Time to cause as much trouble as you could just to screw back with them.
Maybe it wasn't as terrible as you thought. Or you were just adapting, breathing demon air, sleeping in demon beds.You liked these people; yes, they were people to you. They meant something to you.
Then when one of them killed you, you came back to be a stand-in, a living ghost of someone you never knew.You couldn't hurt them like they hurt you. But it wasn't about that anymore. Now it was how spitefully you were going down.
A retelling of Chapters 1-16 of a reluctant MC who learned to trust and got punished for it.
An Obey Me! – One Master to Rule Them All! fanfic,Your Coal
by Angrish (Lettuce Bean) follows an alternate retelling of the events post-chapter 16 in which Belphegor isn't so easily forgiven by the protagonist.
Your Coal contains examples of:
- Adaptational Jerkass: The protagonist themselves is much more snippy and bitter than what their canon dialogue options suggest. Also Justified: being dragged away from home, having your life threatened frequently, and feeling like you're being treated as a commodity at best can take a mental toll on someone.
- Also heavily downplayed for Diavolo. He's still very much his kindhearted self from canon, but being the future ruler of the Devildom means he tends to overlook the individual.
- Adaptational Personality Change: Inevitable. The protagonist in canon is blank slate players can project into and while some of this remains, they do have a much more defined personality than canon.
- All-Loving Hero: Zig-zagged and deconstructed with the protagonist:
- When they first wake up in the Devildom they're snarky, a gadfly and rather annoyed at being dragged into a world where they're treated with formal kindness at best. Still, they're perfectly willing to open up to and help the demon brothers anyway.
- After the incident with Belphegor, they're less than willing to forgive their former murderer and grow increasingly resentful of what his other brothers put them through.
- Ambiguous Gender: Just like in canon, the protagonist's gender is never referenced or alluded to, and are referred to in gender-neutral pronouns.
- Deconstruction Fic: Of several tropes present in canon:
- First, as much of an All-Loving Hero someone can be, that doesn't mean they won't have doubts or limits. The protagonist already felt like they weren't being seen as an equal in the eyes of the demon brothers, their death at the hands of Belphegor as well as the brothers sans Satan initially starting to view them as Lilith was the straw that broke the camel's back.
- Also, while they were willing to move past it, the protagonist did not forget the times where the brothers' legitimately threatened their lives over minor things, particularly Levi and Satan.
- In addition being Trapped in Another World against their permission ends up souring the protagonist's opinion of Diavolo later on, and end up missing life in the human world.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: It's been stated on multiple occasions that demons cling more to the present: so if the consequences for the protagonist dying never had to be, they can just move on, right? Much of the story is the protagonist getting the brothers to realize that no, the fact that it ever happened won't ever be erased.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Happens after the protagonist's first death at Belphegor's hands, in Mammon's arms no less. And then happens again after their second one, the difference this time being that Mammon was the forced to do it himself due to his pact.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Belphegor's first attempt at apologizing to the protagonist basically amount to this, essentially trying to guilt them into forgiving him which only angers them more.
- Fantastic Racism: The protagonist is viewed either a nuisance or forbidden fruit by demons outside the House of Lamentation and Diavolo and Barbatos.
- Also confronted on by the protagonist to Belphegor, stating that the only reason why they, a human, meant anything to Belphegor was that they shared Lilith's blood.
- And ironically, the protagonist shows a bit of shades of this later on, referring to characters (particularly Belphegor and Diavolo) as "demon" in the same derogatory context they're called "human". Downplayed though, as this attitude doesn't extend to demons they trust such as Beel and Satan.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: When Lucifer dragged the protagonist to an intervention with his brothers and Diavolo he genuinely meant well, and was planning on throwing them a party in their honor to affirm their place as an equal and member of their family. What DOES end up happening though is that the protagonist ends up dead, permanently this time. And then Luke walks into the room
- Innocently Insensitive: The demon brothers as a whole genuinely love and appreciate everything the protagonist had done for them and even consider them to be part of the family. But due to Deliberate Values Dissonance and a dim understanding of human psychology, they struggle to understand the psychological impact dying and seeing their own corpse had on the protagonist.
- Irony: Possibly unintentional, but of all the brothers it's Satan, the Avatar of Wrath that arguably handles the situation with the protagonist the best and is the most levelheaded.
- Mercy Kill: Invoked by the protagonist during their intervention. Instead of invoking their pacts with Levi, Asmo, Mammon, Beel, and Satan to protect them in the event they're attacked while allowed to speak as plainly as they want. After provoking Belphegor into attacking them by pressing his Berserk Button, it's ultimately Mammon who's forced to kill them. Barbatos is unable to bring them back because he can't act in a way that violates another demon's pact.
- No Name Given: The protagonist is never referred to by name to keep up with the Self-Insert aspect as in canon.
- Not Helping Your Case: A major reason why the protagonist begins to drift away from Lucifer and his brothers is that they feel like the brothers don't view them as an equal. So Lucifer dragging them to their "intervention" meeting early and into the student council room where each of the brothers is sitting on a throne quite literally looking down on them as though they were entering a court trial does not help matters.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Belphegor tries to threaten Solomon into helping him find a way to bring back the protagonist after their second death, it's not Lucifer that lashes out at him, but ''Asmo'', essentially calling him out for causing so much damage to the protagonist and trying to undo the death he caused.
- Pet the Dog: Even after the protagonist begins to shun the demon brothers, the only two of the brothers they can't bring themselves to lash out against are Beel and Satan.
- In Beel's case is because unlike his other brothers he never threatened their life beforehand and that he genuinely treated them as a friend.
- In Satan's case, it's because the protagonist could connect with his struggles in being overshadowed by someone else, he was one of the only brothers to ever apologize for dragging them into his mess, and listening to their issues about his brothers' reaction to their death and being compared to Lilith. It helps that, unlike his brothers, he's much more considerable about giving them space.
- Rage Breaking Point: What drives a wedge between the protagonist and the brothers is their death at Belphegor's hands and his brothers being willing to forgive him for it because it was undone. In the second chapter this on top of homesickness and frustration at being not considered and equal at best and food at worst, culminates in them attacking a group of demons speaking behind their back, getting severely injured in the process, and blowing off the brothers and Diavolo via text the next day.
- Rejected Apology: Happens twice between the protagonist and Belphegor
- The first time Belphegor tried apologizing failed because it essentially amounted him trying to guilt them into accepting an apology while not understanding just how traumatizing dying was for the protagonist. The only thing he really accomplishes is pushing the protagonist's Berserk and Trauma button simultaneously.
- The second time goes off a bit better, but the protagonist still angrily rejects him stating that they fell for his lies before twice and he's basically given them no reason to forgive, let alone trust him.
- Replacement Goldfish: The protagonist feels like they've become one for Lilith after the revelation of their bloodline. Satan and Lucifer were the first to realize this and actively make sure their siblings don't treat the protagonist as such.
- During the intervention, the protagonist confronts Belphegor on this, citing it as one of the biggest reasons why they can't forgive him: That their life meant nothing until he learned they shared Lilith's blood.
- Swapped Roles: The plot of Obey Me! is the protagonist slowly winning the trust (and eventual love) of the seven demon brothers while working through their personal issues. Here, after a wedge is driven between the brothers and the protagonist following the latter's death and revival, the brothers have to regain that trust and work with the issues and psychological scars the protagonist had developed since entering the Devildom.
- Later on, this goes full circle: after the protagonist gets sent to the Devildom to foster better relations between humans and demons, Belphegor gets sent to the human world to do just that same thing, this time with the added incentive to get to know humans better and slowly reconcile with the protagonist.
- True Companions: Luke, Simeon, and Solomon quickly become major pillars of support for the protagonist outside the House of Lamentation, though in Solomon's case they're more like Vitriolic Best Buds. Luke in particular acts somewhat like a little brother to them and reacts the absolute worst to their second death.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: The protagonist and Solomon often snark at each other, but they mutually consider the other a close companion.
- This is the protagonist and Belphegor's relationship after the latter's time in the human world. While it's more of a case of Forgiven, but Not Forgotten, Belphegor is on considerably better terms with the protagonist, both due to the effort he started putting in to gain their trust and their mutual hatred of Diavolo.
