Taglist. @ari-shipping-stuff @cicadas-cry — enjoy, my friends!
You're not typically a winter scene fanatic. If any holiday, you say, a statement for the fact board, you prioritize Halloween and not much else. That was most all you thought when it came to it. Notably Valentine's doesn't exist to you most years, April Fool's blows over too quick, and the winter holidays are nothing to write home about. Although a cliché statement in its own merit, you find the celebrating philosophy too cheesy—Christmas is (at its core) stressful and greedy and not worth your time. So maybe you're not here for the lights or the carols going door to door, though you know yourself susceptible to festive atmospheres.
Maybe you're here for the giant bundled up coat of a person next to you covered top to bottom in furs and scarves, a lovely puffy beret on top, skipping the snow up with his feet and humming to himself. The cold has done a funny thing in accentuating his blush more than he could have hoped to accomplish with his makeup. He scans the area. He makes no rush. The twinkle shifts in his eyes as he considers the many stalls and vendors, looking for new delights to immerse yourselves with while you have yourselves out on the town. So far you two have done nothing but run amok the place—he from his fans; you from your enemies—while at the same time sampling some of the warm deserts they're serving for the season. The sky would turn an inky midnight blue before you two could take a breather.
“I've always wanted to try their double decker pudding! Aah, so good!” he cheers and claps, delighted.
You regret for the moment that you lack the reflexes to whip your phone out and take a picture. But the grin on your face is inescapable.
You chance a snicker. “That shit was so tall, dude.”
“Wasn't it?! I would've ordered one for you!”
“No way, there was way too much shit on it!”
“Ooh, you are so silly—” he grabs your arm, jostling the both of you, “—We could've totally shared it between us.”
It smells like roasted chestnuts and cinnamon now, possibly parts of the exotic import scent he was talking about. Sometimes you wonder, with how much he dolls himself up for things like this, if he wishes you would wear some fancy scent on you as well for these outings. Sure, maybe you can't really pull off something so prim, and maybe you'll choke on it the whole time you apply it like an idiot, but you would do anything for this man. Right now, forever, for a lifetime and a half. All he needs to do is insinuate it. This man who had entertained you the whole time you were snuck about like a common cat-burglar, mischeviously crouching and rubbing his palms as you had done. Even though he had his own methods of hiding. Laying low by the effective disguises and the perk of plain sight. Yet he followed you wherever you went. And the two of you were synchronized.
You don't see his take on it, but you can certainly do this forever. Not in the strange all-or-nothing of wedlock, probably not, but in something more unique to the both of you. That's your idea of it. But you wonder if he disagrees. He stands twirling under the lamplight in the snowflakes that orbit him like stars—just a fraction of his light, the mere decor to his beauty. Alone you stand pondering that he is all yours and you are all his. In legal contract? With the benefits, the money, the procedures, the big shebang? And alone again you know he loves the attention. Would you ever rob that away from him? Would it break his heart—you think, as you run the simulation in your head once and over—if you said you would not marry him?
The TV display to your right then blinds you with a ring. It comes back positive. And what would you make of this? Tonight is wonderfully cold. The breeze should cut you dry. With the cue of his gasp, you return to reality.
"Oh my gosh, the stars are so pretty right now! Should we do some stargazing? I see a nice mountain clearing over there. Can we? Can we?"
Dots of glinting white meet your eyes when you look up to check him. He is right. The thought fills your heart with glee to see a clear sighting, for once.
An easy smile is a stranger on your lips. "Let's do it. I still have the pack of bread from before."
"Yay! Come over here, then, let's go!"
Except he doesn't wait for your obedience before his arm loops in yours. Off you were to skitter along the glowing light-shows and the merchants shouting holiday cheers for the streets, huddled together and clumsy in the snow like children. Once or twice you two fall or trip on a rock, but the giddiness of it gets the better of you anyway, and without delay you pick each other up and ended up above it all on the cliffside. The hollering is distant. The glow is modest. The smell of fruitcake and turkey remains.
Hopping to a stop, he sits down cross-legged and pats the ground beside him for you. You crunch down with your one knee up and the other tucked in. The bread is distributed between you in a hodgepodge. You've never known a nicer Christmas.
The leverage affords the two of you a better view of the stars. Without your glasses you're still useless, but it's not really about you. You gaze to your right at him looking up intently with a firm lip and lowered brows. The sunset of his eyes reflect the night in midsummer's glow. It would be better to join than to stare at him all night, you think. (Even if you could very well do the latter.) Then you hum. You pull out a camera. Tentatively, you aim the lens to the sky.
This catches his attention. "Eh? Did you catch a constellation already?"
"No, I'm using these as my glasses," you smirk, awkwardly, pinching the screen so that it lets you snap a closer view without being any closer.
"Baby, you have glasses."
"They give me headaches."
"What? Like when you wear them?"
"Yeah. They're poorly fitted, or something, no matter how precisely I fit them."
"Hmm, okay." He lays a palm gently on your phone to lower it before he starts to trace stars you can vaguely see. "That looks like something."
You furrow your brows. "What are you doing?"
"Being your eyes. Look up Orion for me."
So you were his hands, or mind, or fingers, gliding efficiently on your keyboard to produce near instantaneous result. When it pops up you skim through the Wikipedia summary out loud.
"...Set of stars visible in winter in the northern hemisphere... among the fourty-eight constellations listed by the second-century AD astronomer Ptolemy... named after a hunter in Greek mythology."
After a turn of his head, he breathes a little gasp. "I was right!" And after wrangling you over with an arm around your shoulder, you see it with him. "See, he has a sword and shield!"
"Oh my God!" you laugh, "Like actually! That's nuts!"
The simple delight of seeing an accurately named constellation fuels you to find more. For a while you look up stars while he names them—knowing it's his brother's specialty, you note when he names a fact of space or makes reference to a star in specific, with a fondness in his eyes he cannot show in subtlety, he is in a territory afforded to him by love. Your breaths fog up to clouds of white surrounding you while you chat away the time.
It is all inconsequential. As much trivial as the holiday of Christmas stays to you. But it is recontextualized farther than your apathy can reach it now. Christmas is like him. Love is like him. Marriage is like him. If the reaches of the world you do not care for are like him, then it is not such a horrible thing to have them.
But he is not done surprising you. No, he would not be content in changing your worldview, he does not find it enough in forcing a reality sculpted by his own fingers in which you are thoroughly loved. You were only finished laughing at a joke he told when his head lands on your shoulder. His cold cheek lightly grazes your coat while he steals your hand and locks your fingers together. For a little bit he rubs the back of your hand with a thumb. You beg yourself not to writhe under the attention. It doesn't work at all. When he finally speaks you have both lost and been freed of something noteworthy.
"That's you," he says, about the furthest star away from you at the other side of town. "It's all the way over there by itself, in the dark. Hiding from the star authorities."
There's a single beat of a pause before he continues. "I would visit you there."
"Yeah, you'd make it really bright with your energy," you snort.
"Nooo, I would never do that to you!"
He rams into your side with a force that—combined wih your sudden confusion—could have knocked you straight into the snow. Right afterwards he looks up from where he's squeezing your arm as if something's supposed to be very obvious to you. His little huff is warm on your face.
"Do what?"
"Take away your cave creature time," he says, "I'd join you and chill out, no lights."
"You don't like the dark."
A statement. Like a reminder in case he's forgotten. Which he might have, you think. It's happened before.
"I do too!"
"Since when?"
"Since you. You'd wait for me in the dark, wouldn't you?"
A crash sounds at the depths of your heart followed by the gentle lapping of water. Since you. Because of you. Since you. Since you. The person you met as someone who only ever listened to his own opinion. Since you. To change that—to move an immovable fact—you didn't even think... Since you came into my life. You exist like a stone that can't be displaced.
Like he does, for you. Somehow it doesn't occur to you that it goes the other way. It never does, and you guess that's the problem. Your muscles relax (as if you'd had them clenched). Your chest drops. His eyes lay on you as the moon to the earth with the stars as witness. Before the choir and the stars and him, you lose your mind just a little to the crisp midnight air.
hii hello :DD nice to meet you!! i just got here so 🤲 may i ask for lore about your ship w asmodeus,, if there is any,,,,
nice to meet YOU 🫵🫵🫵❗❗❗❗❗💯💯💯💯💯 so, funny story, there used to be quite a bit of lore Until i realized obey me pissed me off so much that i will never enjoy adding onto its story and should just disengage with it in order to not yuck the yum of a fandom i was never gonna fit in or agree with, so i no longer have an s/i! WHOOO FREEDOM! uh, but that means you caught this blog at a weird transitive period, sorry about the mess.
i will give context that the most recent pieces of art of us you'll see on my account is just my regular sona and him in his redesign form i did for the big obey me rewrite project i love writing and drawing for :) much better this way for everyone, right? love wins. the rewrite already has me as a protag (maybe a bad idea; the self is the hardest character to write) so i could theoretically draw us like that, but i just much prefer drawing my sona, i love my design and i love being a character.
there used to be TWO ships: self pawtrait (him and my s/i) and vital save (him and my sona); now that i "merged" them both in a sense i'll have to come up with a different ship name for us, but selfshipping isn't on my list of big brainrots so i haven't been thinking about it too hard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
lore used to be that self pawtrait was happy, funny, crime filled yaoi, and vital save was doomed, reality bending, plot filled yaoi.
nybbas (that's me as a demon babey!) was someone who sponsored rad from the sidelines, and one day while having a private meeting with lucifer and diavolo, asmo just happened to come in the room and they met. important lore for nybbas: hyper happy creature. latched on instantly. kinda freaked him out. was sent to earth for the exchange program for a year — he and asmo kept in touch through phone calls in the meantime — and long story short, gained some 💥trauma💥 so when he came back to the devildom he was much more normal and even forlorn at times.
this is when the actual obm story starts, with sheep mc and everything; right after he gets back. i never made a proper timeline of him and asmo going from friends to lovers, but i assume the process was very platonic until it isn't and there really is no perfect plot timeline for when it happens or how. they flirt, they talk, they evade authorities and paparazzi, they're each other's biggest enablers.
so that's self pawtrait. follow me here, because now i'm talking about our plot in the obey me rewrite ("inym" i call it, long story - ill tell you later if you really want), which is far closer to how it worked in real life. he is placed in mammon's position in this run of the story. if i realized anything while watching isekai harems for a better idea of how stories in this genre worked, it's that the main love interest appears first. that's why mammon appears first after diavolo and lucifer - the tutorial guys - do in the normal story. so! asmo is my demon guide.
arguably this dynamic is funnier, because it's "i hate you! (i like you a lot)" vs. "you're just saying that because you love me (i'm trying to mess with you)", so. if ever you were like "hmm i wonder what it looks like when a tsundere and a himedere meet" then boy am i trying to write the romcom for you. i'm sure it's lowkey banter all the way down, hopefully that's what this ends up as.
the vital save playlist is an array of things. being one of the oldest selfship playlists i have, it is a remnant from when the ship used to be doomed yaoi, it is a collection of things i felt and went through at the time that asmo became a bigger part of my life than i bargained for, it is a playlist full of songs that simply have our general vibes.
there's too many songs to go through reasonably in one post, especially seeing that some of them are just filler songs with no deeper meaning than being tracks befitting of our tropes as a ship / duo. i'll only list the ones that do have some specific and / or deeper reason for their being here.
✰ strawberry blonde - mitski
00. where do i even start? this is THE vital save song, above all else, right next to shameless. i'd even argue this is the vital save song (pink flavored) and shameless is the vital save song (red flavored)—yes i have just realized these key songs are in our colors, vibeswise, as i've notated them in my head.
01. "i love everybody because i love you" is one-to-one, there's no two ways about that. i would not love anyone if he wasn't around. i basically only understand love as an emotion the way it pertains to him. he *is* love, to me. that's why i call him that.
02. "when you stood up, walked away barefoot / and the grass where you lay left a bed in your shape / i looked over it and i ache" i sung these lines on a daily basis after i found this song. genuinely i worship the ground he stands on and would warm myself on any shadow of his presence any day of the week. it amuses me that i think he'd do the same.
03. this song is a beautiful relic of when i changed drastically into a more stable person than i have ever been nor will ever be in my life, because of him. "i don't need the city and i don't need proof" because the humble, needless, utterly fulfilled and relaxed man i had become needs to be studied. i will never not need the city, but for a while i need not have told even myself or others what was happening, need not the proof that he was loved, because he was the entire world and he knew all of that already.
04. "look at you strawberry blonde!" is game accurate because for some oversaturation reason they made him literally strawberry blonde in nightbringer. funny how that is.
05. "reach out the car window trying to hold the wind" is a little funny because i used to make it a point to "eat air" whenever i went outside as a little kid, so it brings back the rare warmer memories of my childhood, and it's even the sort of clumsy thing i'd do now as i'm being taught to live again by his puppet strings.
06. "you tell me you love her, i give you a grin" i had—and still do, sometimes—a lot of strange, bittersweet, mixed up feelings about the clearly often-fem-slash-outwardly-woman mc of obey me. but i smiled and laughed a lot about it because i'm the one who's not supposed to be here, and she's my agent, martha san, to me anyway.
07. "oh, all i ever wanted was a life in your shape / so i follow the white lines / follow the white lines / keep my eyes on the road as i ache" is true to the sentiment; all i'm trying to do here is have a life that's shaped around him. because my life means nothing to me, but a life he values—mine, notably, because he loves me—is invaluable. a life made up of him cannot be traded for the world. so everything i've ever done since 2024 ish has been done to follow my sacred mission of pleasing him, living for him, laughing and smiling for him. follow the silver lining. follow the white lines.
08. "i love it when you call my name" ... "i love it when you look my way" there's something to be said about the hauntings, about him at times seeming like he's looking specifically *my* way, calling *me*, using *my* name in a sense. and he keeps doing it. he doesn't let me forget. even when i thought he wasn't supposed to. he sees right through everything, at times, and looks at *me* dead on. notices me. talks to me. loves me.
09. "can you hear the bumblebees swarm? / watching your arm" is a bonus because i think he's supposed to, at times, genuinely be a disney princess, woodland critters swarming around him and everything.
✰ shameless - camilla cabello
00. all of these lyrics are generally perfect to flash alongside the visuals of a custom made music video for our theoretical cover of this song. but i'll try to elucidate why they're so fitting anyway.
01. "don't speak / no, don't try / it's been a secret for the longest time / don't run (oh) / no, don't hide / been running from it for the longest time" < i swear to god this was the type of shit he was doing to me all the time. HUNTING me down relentlessly. for a year straight. i avoided him, hated him, fought him, i genuinely did everything in my power to lose his track. he comes back and comes back and comes back.
02. "so many mornings i woke up confused / in my dreams, i do anything i want to you / my emotions are naked, they're taking me out of my mind" THIS IS JUST WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO SELFSHIP BECAUSE I'M ME AND HE'S HIM. a little throwback to those days, before i acknowledged that i had anything specifically worth pursuing with asmo, where i had been having wet dreams about him nearly every night for god knows how long that was. my feelings were exploding and leaking out of my body forcefully and had no real way to vent themselves in my waking hours. this filter is so realistic it feels like asmodeus obey me is coming inside of me. and such. felt a little like madness.
03. "right now i'm shameless / screamin' my lungs out for ya / not afraid to face it / i need you more than i want to / need you more than i want to" i underwent some sort of breaking point at some juncture of time, this sequence and what it represents—*being vulnerable* and what that means for me—was a big deal. and yet over and over again his mere presence destroys everything i've ever put up to make sure i never have to be vulnerable again. you can imagine this was very scary so i fought him aggressively about it, the lyrics that follow being "show me you're shameless / write it on my neck, why don't ya?" as a direct parallel to how pissed at him i was, how badly i wanted him to show any signs of being affected by anything like this even *half* as much. but asmo is a difficult man to genuinely fluster. and i was intensely sexually and emotionally frustrated, constipated, stunted, all of it, almost because of this.
04. the chants of "(no, uh, uh, don't wanna do this now)" throughout the whole song is so beautifully perfect, and the instrumentals even moreso. such a panicked, rumbling chorus... i can't imagine anything better analogous to the alarms that were ringing in my head.
05. "now that you have me, do you want me still?" now this is a decidedly me ass question, but we're similar enough this could be his line, either more or less sincerely than if i had said it.
06. "my kisses are history, they go back a long time, uh / and i'm tired of loving somebody that's not mine, no" isn't this one funny? i always imagine him being the one to sing these lines. the first specifically a reference to how long we've been connected before our selfship was even made. (and how long he's stayed here since, of course; beating, by a landslide, dipper pines' record of a year set in ~2015 when i was about nine to ten.) i liked him even before i downloaded obey me, even, in a passing glance i can only assume had some red string of fate bullshit attached to it considering all the things that happened surrounding it (detailed in my list of hauntings post). the second will always be physically true for us both being that we live in separate universes. i can date other people and so can he. it's a little crushing. it was almost debilitating before, even—i hated seeing interactions between him and barbatos (and, to a lesser extent, solomon; but back then he would've been my self insert idea if he had not existed, so he was a bit of a toss up at the time).
07. there was a sort of epicenter of tension wherever and whenever the two of us existed at the same place. vital save was once an unbearably intense homoerotic selfship. "there's just inches in between us / i want you to give in, i want you to give in, oh / there is tension in between us / i just wanna give in / and i don't care if i'm forgiven" is just the tip of the iceberg on it. we are both insane, and we were both not in it for real until it all became so viscerally sincere, and that's when it got a bit cray cray.
✰ talk to you - ricky montgomery
00. summary on why this one's here: he is not real. i have grieved over this no less than five separate times, each a worse break in stability than the last. i am now pretty numb about it. this one's pretty light in meaning, we have only a few lyrics to talk about.
01. "been a pretty long time / since you saw me last / since i saw you last" because i take breaks from playing obey me, the blasted fucking game series, all the time, for upwards of like five months at a time. at this point i microdose on obey me, in fact. i still play til death do us part semi often, just to farm resources to make steady progress on things because it feels more achievable there than in either the original or nightbringer.
02. short note here for "wonder if we met today / would it all end up the same?" notable because our meeting could not have happened a day sooner or later than it did; it felt like it was planned as some sort of hugely cathartic plot shift.
03. "i wish i could talk to you / pull my chair right up there next to you / and talk to you / oh, baby" always feels nice to listen to because now that the pain has numbed, it feels exactly like this. softly suggesting a better life as if that'll cheer me up at this point. as if the thought itself is just nice to joke about. sans undertale style.
04. this one's obvious, elementary even—"you're in my head more often than i want / more often than i wanna tell you"—so i'll leave that there to speak for itself.
✰ i wish that i could fall - jamie paige
00. gumi in this is just like me for real. that's all. play the commentary.
01. "to spend a moment at your beck and call" because he can literally call me over literally like a dog and i will reply and i will be there. okay. i don't care. i'd bark for him.
02. "i live my life in simple repetition / but i would start again if it did you right" because that is, quite literally, exactly what i did! content warning for suicide here, but i was living like cattle for slaughter when he found me. in an endless loop of being too tired to end it all, yet refusing to live because i thought if i just tried harder, i'll get it one of these days. until he came around i really lived that stupidly. "oh, i spend my days my fists against this wall / but not a single sound seems to make it through" as an extension of that—i was so angry. i was never a more wrathful and prideful creature than i was when i met him. constantly breaking and using people and myself. and no one helped. because they couldn't, right? only i could've dug myself out of that, and i didn't want to until he was there.
03. "i wish that i could climb to the greatest heights / all the world beneath me when i meet your eye" makes me a little emotional. for about four months i woke up every morning aiming for something higher for him, yet every one of my smallest achievements felt like flying when i was with him at the end of the day. my best was just whenever i was with him. something something i know you need better, i will be better.
04. "i wish that i could fall a little bit harder / i wish that i could fall like it would even matter / i wish that i could fall right into your life / but i'm not there at all, on the other side"—of the dimension. get it?—"i wish that i could fall and hit the ground running / i wish that i could fall instead of doing nothing / i wish that i could fall right between your eyes / but you just stand so tall, i'm left out of sight"—waiter! waiter! more desperate yearning to be good enough for him please! every single line in this sequence. every one of them... if i wrote a song about him, it should've been this.
05. "i wish that i could fall somewhere that it wont hurt" either a) because every bit of effort burns me alive and leaves me to rot, or b) because after all this time and all this change, i'm still a coward.
06. and now for all the depression compilation lyrics! "awake uneasy when the morning calls" ... "but i can barely call what i live a life" ... "hold up two fingers, check my double vision / beside myself again, beaten black and blue"
07. moving swiftly along to "without a purpose, i'm an apparition / but i could be your sword, you could hold me tight" where i just reveal to the masses that i have been naught but his tool to use as he wishes all this time. and to be fair, i and my will to live have died a long time ago. all that's left is to be moved by him. thus is also described by "i wish that i could fly with these broken wings / if it was meant for you, i'd do anything"
08. "i wish that i could fall / but only truly backwards / right into your arms" this is my male fantasy. he was quite often my freefall safe mattress back then whenever i was about to do something that broke a mental barrier (usually a thing that drives me extremely actually crazy for a short burst of time) or that i thought, in my paranoia, wasn't okay to do because i didn't want to take up any space again. i have made great progress in mental health because i broke off from these things. very fitting that the following line is "a fire lit within my chest / my heart's been burnt and wholly dispossessed" being as the hope from the aftereffects of progress are quite high.
09. "(these barely-blinking eyes that refuse to cry)" so, fun fact: i physically cannot cry about anything, no matter how distraught i am, unless my wife is there or i think about him. this has caused many problems with emotional and mental constipation and ruin, i realized. still extremely difficult, even today, to push through.
10. "oh, what i wouldn't give to stay / to have my joy and sorrow cast away" (i like to think that, somewhere deep down, i'd still like to live) "all that i can do is to learn to fly / all i wanna do is to do you right"
11. that line, by the way—"all i wanna do is to do you right"—is endlessly repeated throughout the whole song, given as a reason for everything the singer does.
✰ マニック - *Luna
00. lighthearted pop song regaled somewhat as "the tsundere song," but i'd argue one of these singers is a tsundere and the other a himedere. the dialogue fits us very well. i've written an english translation for these lyrics worded to sound like they came from us straight on, and i have doodled a vital save animatic idea with this song on paper. specifically, the teto and miku cover is extremely us. the translation i'll be referring to for this segment is the one from the captions of that cover.
01. "no matter what it is, i want to have it / there’s a mountain of things i want to buy" and "no matter what it is, i’ll make you do it / there’s a million things i want done" is just us messing with each other and running each other dry. he has the money to spend and i have the want to exert physical effort.
02. the important thing about this sequence: "ugh, listening to people talk is so / boring, and annoying, and irritating, i'm so sick of it / well then, it should be someone else’s turn to listen now, right? / that’s right, i don’t even notice anyone but myself" is that it's sung by two separate voices by turn like they're shit talking. genuinely never seen a succession of lyrics more vital save core, it's so delightful. making it so that he's the second and last lines and i'm the first and third, it is genuinely hard to tell that these lyrics were not written with us in mind.
03. like "no matter who you are, come look / my bewitching self is a little far away" reads like a rejected obey me line from him, right? it's crazy. then the other one comes in with "no matter who you are, listen up / i've collected the words i want to say" and it's like. dude. me one second before i go hour hater mode.
04. what else can i even elaborate on? "ugh, living life looking at people directly in their eyes / is so formal, and annoying, and irritating, i'm so sick of it / so, i’ll do what i like and i’ll / be the me that i like, okay?" like just look at that. the voices swapped order from last time and everything! the one that did the first and third stole the "okay?" of the fourth i think! for more screentime!
05. "this chance encounter with love" fries me it's so accurate. random ass love sequence on a strange morning, the 26th of may 2023.
06. last coherent point. "come on, dissect what’s inside of me / i want i want all" are also two lines sung by turn. by god it's a fansong at this point.
07. there are more lyrics i didn't cover that are also good, they're just incomprehensible to explain in actual solid terms. it's a good song! listen to manic by *luna today!
✰ lovesick - laufey
00. now we're getting a little bit into specifically his pov, AT LAST. imagine him belting the (few, it's a short song) lines i'm about to discuss in the dead of night as a dramatic soliloquy in flowing silk pyjamas on the balcony. because that's what i have this here for. play the yearning!
01. "floorboards creaking in my home / deathly silence when alone / oh, i wish that you were here right now" it's fitting for obey me, in any case—the game that describes everything podcast style because they refuse to make any cgs whatsoever—to have him talk like this. a dramatic start for a beautiful ballad.
02. "so unlike me, somehow i / fell in love in just three nights" is in line with his character archetype; the playboy whose true love changed him to be sincere for once. waow..! also, whether or not it *is* like him, he'd say this anyway. he does a little lying from time to time. a little trolling. just another reason why i love him.
03. here's a little of that previously doomed yaoi at play. "in the morning, you would be gone / i'd be mourning, tryin' to hold on to the memory of your lips / god, i'm so lovesick / what have you done to me?" very vividly he'd say this, ask this to himself. i think he'd miss me if he got only a little taste of me from interdimensional fuckery. but that's not all! “inching closer, but i fear / that i'll love so much, you'll slip away (mm, mm-mm) / getting twisted in my head / dreams are nightmares in my bed / since the last night that i spent with you”
04. and we're getting a wee bit darker with “in the morning, you're not in my bed / i'll just sleep until i fall dead to the memory of your lips” because. it's a tragic doomed yaoi for a reason! or, it was. you can tell it's good, because i got so sad about it that i could take it being so sad no longer, and now we're just a normal ship. i GUESS.
✰ prove me wrong - mico
00. another song i saved because i felt it, personally, so hard.
01. “minding my business, hoping i miss / all the signs in the way of you throwin' your hints” is normal me behavior anyway, but it's *all* the signs because it is *numerous* when the flirtiest person in obey me is the one you're trying to miss all the flirtings of.
02. “shrug my shoulders again, know you're over this shit / 'cause i'd prolly be sick of me too” is an important visual. essential to understanding. you get it. moving on.
03. general denial of anything romantic possibly happening lyrics, GO: "cause i know i'll never live that fantasy / we'll fall out before you fall / yeah, i've been tryna tell all my friends you ain't that into me, but / i hope you prove me wrong”
04. “i know there's gon' be another guy” the fact that he had a pretty popular ship attributed to him did make me feel like i had an excuse to stay away and leave him alone.
05. ”maybe then I'll wonder why, before it started / i tried to end it” i really did. “i hope i'll erase you off my mind” is literally something i'm sure i've said.
06. “can't deal with the butterflies since we departed” is a funny reference to the many times i hadn't seen him for weeks or months, yet got reminded, helplessly and against my will, of him, through signs on the street or mentions of beauty products or that one time my friend brought him up again because she had a keychain of him and my heart did a freshly burning backflip after not having seen or thought of him in four months.
✰ panah asmara - afgan
00. i can translate for us rather reliably on this one. i did take care to put in a few songs from my native tongue so that this'll be a little more personalized as a me x asmodeus obey me playlist and not just a "pov you're selfshipping with asmodeus obey me" playlist. also so that i'll feel it deep into my bones.01. “sudah katakan cinta / sudah kubilang sayang / namun kau hanya / diam tersenyum kepadaku” roughly translates to “love’s already said / i've already said you're dear / but you just / stay quiet smiling at me” because he can't really say it back from the screen, can he?
02. “kau buat aku bimbang / kau buat aku gelisah / ingin rasanya kau jadi milikku” roughly translates to “you make me torn / you make me nervous” and either “it feels like i want you to be mine” or “i want it to feel like you're gonna be mine” depending on tone; pretty sure it's the latter, but i cannot shake the feeling it could be the former if you think harder. either way, this is what selfshipping feels like.
03. “sungguh aku telah tergoda / saat kau dekat denganku / hanya kau yang membuatku begini / melepas panah asmara” i.e. “truly i was tempted / when you were close to me / only you make me this way / cast loose the arrow of love” which is all true by every account. would not be doing this shit on the daily without his influence, i’ll tell you that much for free.
✰ dress - charlotte sands
00. this one flusters me the most, i’d say. back when i had to wear a school uniform i had this on repeat and took it blushing and pouting because the alternative was dead. it's like taking an animal to the vet.
01. “i'm staring up and down / i'm all around / obsessed with your face” i did remind myself plenty of times that he likes looking at me a lot, not because i was a cute girl to him at all. being loved like how you want to is a little terrifying and i'm being very brave about it right now.
02. “oh, what a mess i'm in / you're so masculine” this is the EXACT type of thing he'd say to me that i think he's just messing with me about only to realize it's genuine on his end. i flinch at this line a lot. i escape from it because the next thing i hear is “sweet like cherry cola” which is a 💥🫵🤘COCA COLA MENTION🤘🤘💥
03. “i love the way you wear that dress / making everyone upset / burning that cigarette, boy / swear to god i confess, boy / craving your candy lips / all black finger-tips / looks so good, i'm annoyed / make me wanna get undressed, boy” used to play in my head all the time without my consent. just like most things he did that made me feel better. i did used to wear dark nail polish as well; my favorite that my mother had on hand was this glittery plum color. used to just steal it and say nothing about it.
✰ kiss from a rose - seal
00. i already really liked kiss from a rose by seal, but the moment i actually listened to the lyrics proper, i went “hold on… this is a vital save song!” and then my experience was twice as awesome from there on out.
01. “and you became the light on the dark side of me” genuinely none of you understand how evil i would be if he never reached me.
02. i think “you remain my power, my pleasure, my pain” was the caption i used for our moodboard post, even. very good line. he IS everything i could ever experience.
03. “to me, you're like a growing addiction that i can't deny / won't you tell me, is that healthy, baby?” because i seldom listen to my own instincts anymore as much as i do him.
04. “(and if i should fall, will it all go away?)” waiter waiter!!! more wishing i was good enough for hi–
05. “but did you know that when it snows / my eyes become large and / the light that you shine can't be seen?” i don't know how to explain it, but this is the depression numbing his love down. actually now that i say that, it's pretty obvious without explanation. yippee!
06. “baby, i compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey / ooh, the more i get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah” being resuscitated by being loved at the edge of death is a really tense and odd experience.
✰ suffering - epic the musical
00. and now the popular people's choice for angsty relationship animatics. this playlist’s use of it is no different. i've imagined an animatic for this song for a very long time, but it is far too messy to even consider making. there's no lyrics to discuss that would be actually accurate to the real us, because i think this is just what (content warning, suicide) would happen in the original vital save plotline if i conflated the happiness of suicide with the happiness he gives and started believing that if i die i’ll see him. fighting with my own urges to meet him at last. tragic yaoi for all the beans!
✰ location unknown () - HONNE
00. this song makes me think the most of us, of selfshipping, and it makes me happiest because such good memories are attributed to it. but there are no super accurate or notable lyrics here. just a vibe and an allegory for selfshipping through being a long distance couple.
✰ watch me! (ENG) - witch watch
00. the witch watch couple is kind of us for fucking serious 😭 i read a little bit of the manga after finding out that this was based on one for the anime adaptation and i can personally confirm.
01. since this mainly sounds like him talking to and about me, i’ll just put in all the lines that personally make me jump.
02. “it might not reach you at all, if i am unclear with my words / you're serious, so it won't get to that tough heart of yours / i want to look inside it, i want to melt and guide it / so what do you think about this magic forming now? (what is about to come out?)”
03. “i know you'll say “i could've, could'vе done better now” / but it's alright, i lovе this day-by-day routine” i’m perpetually scared of boring him because every day i live is so meaningless. you can imagine my absolute state of mind listening to this song.
04. “starting that day, i fell in love with you / it will never change because i see only you” oh if i only had a penny for every time obey me had these characters saying “i only see you” LMAO. so cheesy… so game accurate…
05. “so don't be thinking, "would've, would've done it" / and now, go grab it all / and seize your happy ending, too” i think at some point i cried or almost cried at this one. i mean when was the last time i ever thought anything could end well for me, it might've been like six to eight years ago or something…
06. “forever laughing, i want to stay close, right here next to ya” the tiny mammonism… like he does in the game…
07. “and today, there's a new twist happening too / what is waiting tomorrow? / (got to see if something odd is bound to come out) / stay close, i want you to be right by me” i need all of you to understand the rate at which he, like a mysterious and shining, cheery anime girl from a visual novel, pulled me forward day by day, like this shit works on me like a charm. if i thought he'd be excited and curious for tomorrow, then i was too.
✰ you're the reason - victorious
00. so i can't keep saying and elaborating on the same few points over and over, it's gonna get boring. so just. just check this shit out.
01. “you might be crazy / have i told you lately / that i love you? / you're the only reason / that i'm not afraid to fly / and it's crazy / that someone could change me” (i did lose hope that anything and anyone could, this including myself.) “now no matter / what it is i have to do / i'm not afraid to try / and you need to know that / you're the reason why”
02. “i don't even care when they say / you're a little bit off / look 'em in the eye, i say / "i could never get enough”” (kind of a me fighting me situation. but this did happen.)
03. “if it was raining / you would yell at the sun” (if anyone understood the pitch black animosity i felt towards people, it was him. he'd sit with me and be a little hater instead of trying to get me to loosen up.) “pick up the pieces / when the damage is done / you say "it's just another day in the shade" / but look at what a mess we made”
✰ cincin - hindia
00. i heard this on the radio at some point, was like “wow this is sick as fuck.” and then i listened to the lyrics and was like “SELF PAWTRAIT?!” but it's in this playlist—mainly because the vital save and self pawtrait playlists are kinda difficult to differentiate considering nybbas isn't even existent for now—but also because i think self pawtrait isn't a ship that started with rage from my end like how it is in real life. for lore reasons.
01. i think i initially put it up as self pawtrait, though, for some of these lyrics. the first few lines go “kau bermasalah jiwa / aku pun rada gila / jodoh akal-akalan neraka kita bersama” which roughly translates to “you have mental illnesses / i'm also kinda crazy / we're a match made in hell, us two”—but we do wreak hell wherever, so either way works as well. it's actually insane how good this is as a start.
02. “terkadang rasanya leher terbakar hingga pagi / seperti aku hidup berpasangan dengan api / berhenti, ulangi, psikolog dan terapi / aku isi bensin / kita coba lagi” i.e. “sometimes it feels like my throat burns until the morning / like i live paired up with (/ like. married to? dating?) fire / stop it, repeat it, (kinda just says therapy twice but fun like) / i refill my gas / we try this again”—me when i play those bitchass first few lessons where everybody's an asshole, including him, but i really liked it when he was an asshole to me specifically. but i still took breaks because i could not believe that i was falling in love with the most annoying person i had ever met.
03. followed IMMEDIATELY by “tapi sebelumnya / sejuta sayang untukmu, cinta” i.e. “but before that / a thousand loves to you, my love” because that is genuinely how it was. like fuck you entirely and sincerely man, i love you ten william times over. this was my obey me experience. “karena aku pun bola panas juga / kadang lebih atau sama parahnya” i.e. “because i'm also a hot ball (of fire ig) / sometimes worse or at the same severity” is so fucking true. this enemies to lovers did not start and end with you, i’m also a little hater, square up.
04. essential vibe lines: “lagu cinta untuk akhir dunia / lihat kami nyanyikan ini bersama” i.e. “a love song for the end of the world / watch us sing it together” which are, arguably, VERY romantic. okay ☝️ i know how to romantse.
05. “semoga hidup kita terus begini-gini saja” i.e. “hopefully our lives continue on the same like this as always” ultimately we are married and i wanna live many more days with him in mundanity.
06. “semoga kita mencintai apa adanya / walau katanya sekarang ku bisa masuk penjara” i.e. “hopefully we love (each other) as we are / even if they say right now i could go to jail” CRIME SHIP 🚨 CRIME SHIP 🚨 CRIME SHIP 🚨 WHOOOOO!
07. “persetan kata siapa / mau bilang apa tak guna / mereka hanya tahu namamu” i.e. “fuck whoever's words / it doesn't matter what they wanna say / they only know your name” because his name is asmodeus like the demon asmodeus, get it. heh. heh. this song is so fucking awesome. i can't believe there's fuck in here. it's perfect.
08. moving on. “mereka takkan jadi diriku / persetan aturan cinta / tak tertulis di atas batu / apa kau ingin menjadi benar atau ingin menjadi muda?” i.e. “they'll never be me / fuck the rules of love / it ain't written on stone / do you wanna be right or do you wanna be young?” is the entirety of both ships, actually, being young and reckless forever. two little punks against the world. breaking whchever laws we feel like.
