Hazbin Hotel AU where the sinners are forever haunted and mentally tortured by their ‘inner demon’ which is an entity that branches off of them and appears just as they do but is far more unsettling and gruesome-looking (perhaps with features that highlights the way they died). It’s a constant reminder of their sins, their failures, their insecurities, their flaws, their mistakes. It’s that voice you often hear in your head when you think you’re not enough, but it’s made 100x times worse.
Many sinners end up selling their souls so they can have some freedom from these monsters that follow them around everywhere. Because if they are no longer in possession of their own soul—which contains the inner demon—then they no longer have to put up with it and it becomes their owner’s problem.
Overlords gradually figured out a way to dispose of the inner demons of the souls they own, which paints the idea of selling your soul in a much better light.
It’s also why Charlie is so insist on redeeming sinners. Yes, the extermination is terrible but it provides mercy to these poor souls that have that reminder of their past mistakes following them everywhere they go. But she knows there’s a better way to save them not just from second death, but from the psychological torture of being a sinner in Hell. Redemption is made 10 times harder with the inner demons following the patrons around telling them they can’t be fixed and that they’ll never be worthy of living in Heaven.
