#!whizzit

[journey-to-the-attic]

Wasn't there an ask chain about sin-powered IK? I would humbly request your thoughts on combining that and the newspaper sins ask (the part where you gave them their own custom sin if you would) please?

ooh okay let's see... i'm not sure how i'd translate their sins to powers so let's do some spitballing. i'm guessing the avatar-of-sin system is what gives the brothers their Special Powers, while the club are all regular demons*, so they don't really have special sin power-ups

pacts with demons allow you access to their powers because it's a connection at the soul level.... the club doesn't have pacts with ik, but since they do share a connection at the personal level, maybe their version is based in their knowledge/history instead?

in this case the power-up would be like a sort of proto-pact, where the demon is letting the human briefly borrow some of their power in a moment of extreme stress. though i'm not sure what the powers would grant?

i'm thinking instead of powers it 'grants' certain attributes. for example alecto (disregard of consequence) grants tenacity and durability/recklessness, wiz (blasphemy against nature) grants wisdom/'forbidden knowledge', astaroth (apathy) grants rationality/detachment

mephisto is an unusual case so i'm still not sure about him... if this was a game his power-up would be simply named "something mysterious", and you don't know which stats he's boosting but you do feel stronger...

(* mephisto is, by most metrics, an ordinary demon now - he does technically still have the differing chronodae biology, but doesn't have the powers anymore. in extreme situations he can access its remains, but that requires a specific medium to channel it through (e.g. a sorcerer, like solomon does during the king arc in jtta; solomon also used to have a pact with him))

[journey-to-the-attic]

You've probably answered this before but, is there a reason that Alecto isn't named after a demon? Or why Wiz doesn't use her demon name?

there's no specific reason that alecto has a greek mythology name, but my general worldbuilding reason is that biblical/ars goetia names are considered more timeless or modern for both demons and angels (like, say, katie or matthew is for english speakers), while the greek/roman mythology ones are 'old-fashioned' (e.g. mavis or reginald) for the devildom and celestial realm respectively!

and the italian names come from a tradition started by a ruler some time before sonno, where devildom monarchs rule under a different name to their true ones (this was me just making something up to justify diavolo)

as for wiz, she just uses a different name because she likes it! she isn't against being called havres, as a lot of the r.a.d. faculty knows her, but she much prefers wiz. (barbatos and diavolo also know her as havres because she gets charged under her true name when she's caught doing illegal stuff lol)

[journey-to-the-attic]

Omg the anon who asked about the Profile pictures made me think of someone! What would their usernames be on Devilgram?

they're the same as their contact names in all the little texting cutaways in the fic! they're like connected services (you can set your own custom contact names for other people, but ik hasn't figured out how yet)

(the usernames are wotarbk, mistoffeles, a-Star-roth, whizzit and alecto9376)

[journey-to-the-attic]

THOUGHT! What are the Newspaper Club up to in the past in Nightbringer?

oh good question!! it kinda depends, since previously in canon it was established the the rad already existed before the fall - but in nightbringer they retconned it so that it's proposed after the brothers already become demons.... the timeline is kinda messy, so i'll just be going with the nightbringer angle (since it also works better thematically)

so of course the newspaper club doesn't exist at this point! depending on how soon after the fall nightbringer takes place....

in the jtta timeline, sonno goes to sleep well before the brothers arrive in the devildom, so at this point our mephisto is either about to leave the devildom, or is already up in the human world with solomon. he won't have gone to the pit yet, since he befriends levi at a later point to get access to it. this is also before he meets the other club members, since astaroth only meets him after he emerges from the pit

wiz and alecto have been friends for a while, and are tentatively dating at this point - meanwhile, astaroth is acquainted with wiz and respects her as a mage, but doesn't know either of them particularly well. wiz is an apprentice to a cursebreaker and only just starting to get involved with witch magic, alecto's an underground competitive fighter to earn money, and astaroth's in loner mode and spends most of his time studying the sky

honestly, they don't have much to do as a group at this point in the timeline! mephisto is entirely separate from them, astaroth and the girls are barely distant friends - it's after mephisto's whole fall from grace that they start coming together. (astaroth brings mephisto to wiz to help him recover, since he knows she's good at magic, and alecto knows a great deal about patching people up)

out of them - astaroth is much the same as he appears in jtta, but a little ruder and more standoffish, plus a lot worse at talking to people. alecto is a lot rougher around the edges, as well as generally less confident; wiz is a little cockier and hasn't yet developed her love of big hats and wizard fashion

mephisto, predictably, is the most different. more subdued, seemingly constantly on edge, and has a lot less will of his own, still being used to taking orders at this point. if he's still in the devildom, he's very quiet and tends to skulk around, aware that he's not welcome under diavolo's rule - if he's already met solomon in the human world, he's starting to develop the sense of humour he has in jtta, but lacks much genuine energy