#guided potential au

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So... I've been thinking about PoP some more and needed to put these down to paper

First things first: I'm renaming the au from 'Prince of Pride' (PoP) to 'Guided Potential'! It's just more fun and winks and nods at Emily as well, since she is the second main character <3

Al and Rosie being creeps lurking in the shadows- very them. Charlotte's outfit in this one is a direct copy of human Al's while having some subtle referenced to Lucifer in the gold embellishments.

Second things second, I've been thinking about what I'd like to do with season 2, since that's where much of the actual plot diversion would happen. Alastor's end of his deal with Rosie is to raise Charlotte to be The Devil (the title of the monarch of Hell rather than a Lu-specific moniker). Through manipulation of both Vox and Charlotte after the extermination, he gets her to declare herself The Devil in what would be Vox Dei (switching out the 'Cuz I'm the f*ror' lyric) as she declares war against Heaven, breaking his chains. This would be the new finale of season 2 instead of just episode 5.

Charlotte and Emily hugging <3 Their relationship gets complicated in season 2 as Charlotte is made aware of Lu and Emily's relationship (to many conflicted emotions), Em getting increasingly frustrating as she fixates on Vox, and Alastor's manipulations. At the end of the day, they are family and care about each other- Em is the only loved one to stick around without being forced to after all.

Below it is the end of the trial in season 1. In lieu of Vaggie not having the same role here as she does in canon, the dynamic shifting event at the end of this episode is Emily Falling. She got too radical and the elders decided she was a risk to their security. Lu is not happy with this but there's nothing he can/ will do so recently after his own return.

The furthest right is a much younger Emily with Lucifer. This is a few months after his sentence ended so she and Charlotte are still 13.

When he found out his sentence was ending, Lucifer made a deal with Heaven that he would sign off on an annual extermination of sinners as long as his family could ascend with him. Little did he know that his daughter wouldn't be able to as a hellborn being. He ends up being more than a bit of a wreck when the day does arrive and, desperate for any way to soothe his soul, emotionally adopts Emily. He's replacing one daughter that he can't get back with her best friend/ cousin and 'Lottie' is not happy when she eventually finds out.

Design-wise, Lu's palette is pink and yellow because he's the morningstar while Em's is blues and cool tones because she's polaris, the north star. If we want to go really in depth (and you know I do): Em being blue and white means she is a newer star and burns hotter while Lu is bigger and has dimmed from his experiences. Charlotte is all in reds at the end of season 2- she's older, wiser, colder, and building up to a supernova.

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I wanted to take a crack at some PoP designs.

The only design note that I forgot to include is that I wanted to balance Alastor's shadow looking like his demon form when he was alive by making his shadow in Hell human :)

Textless version below

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Have some screenshot redraws with PoP Charlie/ Charlotte with bonus notes to myself on how to move forward <3

Trying to balance this character still looking like Charlie while having a very different backstory and being functionally fused with Alastor has not been my friend. Also reigning in my reimagining tendencies (I almost gave her a chimera motif someone needs to stop me).

Without design notes:

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In less than 3 minutes, Charlotte gained and lost everything.

Little comic inspired by the idea that Alastor calls her Luciole when they're speaking French to avoid names for secrecy/ privacy reasons. It's inspired by her powers: Luciole= firefly/ lightning bug

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What if Lucifer and Lilith's sentences in Hell were temporary?

As Charlie was born in Hell, the angels wouldn't let her join her parents above. Rosie and Alastor are ordered to raise this child in the Morningstars' stead. They didn't let a little thing like accidental baby acquisition stop them from continuing their fun however, instead teaching their new ward to do the same.

A week after the king and queen abandon them, the first annual Extermination occurs, killing millions of sinners in a single night and throwing the newly Anarchist state into chaos.

After seven years of Exterminations, a young seraph (Emily) is sent by Lilith to see if sinners are capable of reaching Heaven. "Rue" is sent to see what all the hotel fuss is about. Well... at least it will be entertaining.

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If Charlie/ Charlotte is Alastor, Emily would be Charlie

Backgroundless redraw of:

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Can you go into detail on the Guided Potential!rally where Charlotte declares war on heaven and makes herself the devil/root of all evil? Just whatever you want to expand on, talk about. The scene itself, the tone, the path to getting there, how villainous Charlotte is. Etc.

Ooo! This question sent me down a rabbit hole that I haven't been able to fully dig myself out of, but I am getting there >:]

In order:

"The Root of All Evil" is something that Heaven called her growing up. The daughter of The Devil and the first sinner being evil incarnate is something they feared would happen, whispering about it in shadowed halls when they thought no one was listening. I have toyed with tying in a little bit of Paradise Lost in making her Sin the character, but I keep going back and forth because of... Death (if ya know ya know). She is able to see out of the eyes though :)

The Scene Itself:

Instead of Lucifer and then Sera, Abel, Lute, and Emily, its Lucifer, Vaggie, and a team of exorcists that crash the rally. The sins are also there, and a lot of the relevant stuff revolves around them.

Charlotte starts singing her equivalent to Vox Populi when Lucifer and Vaggie arrive (in a reverse of Vox interrupting Lucifer). Charlotte taunts her family about how this is the first time they've been in the same space since that day 8 years ago, rants about how they've left her to deal with the exterminations mess on her own despite her attempts to reach out, and baits Vaggie into attacking her (not necessarily in that order)

Charlotte (in what is a crazy amount of control on her part) manages to possess Satan into kneeling and holding his hand out with the beginning of her Vox Dei equivalent. She cuts his hand, drawing blood and successfully transferring over the title to herself, aura farms for a while, and the angels flee by the end of the song.

She loses her trust in Alastor's sincerity and loses Emily's trust in her in one fell swoop.

The Tone:

Probably similar to the Vox Populi rally. The events are different but the fun and triumphant tone while still being a little ominous remains.

The Path to Getting There:

On a wider scale, Charlotte's descent is the culmination of almost 8 years of work by Alastor and Rosie to comb her into being politically and magically powerful- someone that can make the crumbling pride ring better (and fulfil their own goals but shhh). Charlotte killing one of the leaders of the Exorcists was a necessary show of physical strength and resilience that they could spin.

On an interpersonal level, Charlotte brutalizing Lute in front of Emily flicked a switch in her brain- the fallen angel finally saw why everyone was so terrified of her cousin. It recontextualized her interactions with Charlotte since they popped back into each other's lives. Charlotte sees how Emily looks at her differently and it hurts. She was just trying to protect Em and do her job of defending the hotel- she was in the right. The Sin closes herself off from the others and begins to retreat more towards Alastor and Rosie, who absolutely do not mind what she did, even praising their niece for it.

As people roll in to attack Emily, now knowing that they can, Charlotte fights back further and further from the hotel (where Emily won't have to witness it again). While she's doing this, she's stewing in her own resentment for Heaven and all they've done to her and her people. They don't care; they're fools for turning away the most brilliant and strongest of mankind- winners are all God's sheep anyways. Charlotte wouldn't turn them away, separate parent and child, leave them barely alive for years at a time as they struggle to get by.... she could do better.

She begins to embrace her hatred for Heaven, her resentment towards the other Sins for having more than enough space to house sinners and yet they're trapped here in this hotbox until they double-die, her father who has never done anything to help sinners- before or after ascending. She'll do it all if she has to, tear it down and build a better world in its place.

Her aunt and uncle support these thoughts and start buzzing up support for Hell's Morningstar.

How Villainous is Charlotte:

Honestly, she's not. She just wants a better quality of life for her people. She can't even properly go to war with Heaven since she can't get up there. Her declaring war becomes more of a public promise that she/the public will kill any exorcists that come down- the Exterminations will not continue.

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The apple of Lucifer's eye

Just a little doodle of Charlotte and Lottie while I try to figure out whether I should right-side-up Charlotte's Ω shaped horns