So in IDO all the brothers have proper jobs now (apart from Lucifer which is hilarious), and I don't remember where it says but I think MC also has a position in the new Devildom government?? Consultant or something maybe?
Anyway since IDO takes place after a timeskip, I was wondering if grown up-IK would also get a position. Beel works at Hell's Kitchen in all the other routes but in his route they've given him a new interest in/affinity for animals and it looks like his new job is being a researcher/rescuer/caretaker for them and ngl as soon as I saw that i was like "That's so IK's influence" even though she isn't canon LMAO
it's a bit of a different situation for ik, since she's largely living her adult life in the human world while mc seems to be marrying into the devildom, so it makes more sense for them to have a permanent position, while ik has a regular human job she needs to be doing on top of that
if she were to end up living in the devildom more full-time as an adult, though, i do think a creature researcher would suit her! she brings all her knowledge of the scientific method from her zoology/biology studies and beel brings his immense strength and pure-hearted love and they are an excellent dynamic duo
i could see her becoming a creature studies professor at the RAD after some time of doing fieldwork like that as well. her first day on the job, professor kaz brings a giant bouquet of flowers to her new office and cries his eyes out
diavolo probably also gives her an honorary "ambassador" or similar job title as well. she's also constantly credited as "best assistant" to the first consul and press secretary, levi often calls her his "chief editor", and she's listed as belphie's "emotional support" on all of his business cards
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How exactly do you think the family would handle Lucifer's whole arranged marriage in his IDO route? I can't lie, I feel like a lot of them would find it incredibly funny at first.
Do you think Lucifer would try to get out of it by asking the prospective family "Well, are you prepared to add a human to your family tree? Because if you make me do this my daughter is 100% coming with me."
i feel like everyone just assumes it's a prank in the beginning. satan is going through the mail while the others play uno around the dining table, he picks out a letter with a very fancy seal, opens it, then snorts and announces "apparently lucifer's getting married" and everyone just kind of laughs it off and goes back to the game
then lucifer walks in, levi says something like "lmao here comes the groom-to-be" only for all the colour to drain from lucifer's face. and then everyone finally has the "oh shit. for real?" response and starts panicking
i feel like realistically, lucifer's immediate response would be to get really mad. this is mr pride here, he would not tolerate being manipulated like this and i feel like he'd publicly expose the noble family for corruption and coercion immediately (probably with some help from the newspaper club as well) - but for the sake of plot let's say things do happen as they did in IDO: he refuses at first, then receives a threat that essentially ties his hands, so he accepts for what he thinks is the greater good...
...but he is going to be SO annoying about it. you know that story about robert pattinson going to dinner with a stalker fan and boring her so much that she left him alone? that's lucifer. he is actively trying to be the most irritating, pretentious version of himself possible in hopes that he'll put off his arranged fiance enough for them to call off the engagement. and it works
(i do also like the idea of him threatening to add ik to this noble family that most likely looks down on humans, but i also think he'd probably want to refrain from bringing her into it as much as possible, for fear of how far the noble family would go to get what they want. of course, they should know that going after ik is a 100% foolproof way to get themselves eradicated, but on the off chance they're desperate and/or enough to try anything...)
the more i think about it the less i think the 'arranged marriage' plot point works for IDO future. i reckon that, instead of this being clauderic's genuine plan (stupid), it'll instead be part of a larger double-bluff. when confronted about it, house clauderic's response is 'earnest' apology - an honest mistake, some kinda magic mix-up, really old paperwork, etc. - but subtly sowing the idea that some other group in the shadows is out to get him
in this case house clauderic is banking on what they know about how lucifer got to his current position, and are essentially trying to manipulate him into owing them a similar vow of loyalty that he did to diavolo - which in turn helps them get their claws into diavolo's still-developing new order (going after diavolo directly would be both suspicious and most likely unsuccessful)
initially they'd wanted to reawaken and reinstate sonno and restore everything to the status quo, but that's been completely unsuccessful -zero response. so, since they can't go back to how things used to be, they'll find a way to make themselves a place in the new world
(ironically even if they had succeeded in contacting sonno, his response would not have given them what they wanted. despite everything, he does still hold his son in high importance (or else he wouldn't have stood down in jtta in the first place), and he also believes in the absolute right of the royal family to rule. he'd just see house clauderic's activity as high treason and probably erase everyone involved)
quite a long post ahead! i've done my best to format this so that it's readable. for this purpose i am even going to adhere to the full rules of SPaG in a tumblr post (rare)
Contents:
The timeline
Loose background/lore
Where are they now?!?! (Characters)
Relationships (short)
The wider timeline (and what went on in between)
IDO Future and Nightbringer are divergent futures for JTTA. In a timeline where NB happens, IDO doesn't follow; in IDO Future, Nightbringer didn't happen. (This is because the events of NB would shake up the development of things enough that things don't progress into IDO in the same way. That stuff does things to a kid's head.)
IDO Future is essentially one where the story went from the OG game to NB S3 - i.e. no time travel - and then timeskipped into IDO. This doesn't necessarily mean that there are direct JTTA analogues for all of OM S2-S4 like there was for S1.
The OM S2-S4 and NB S3 events are also sort of combined over a wider time scale - multiple years - rather than being three distinct chapters in the timeline.
This covers (but is not limited to): A second exchange year at the R.A.D., the three-worlds imbalance (Lucifer amnesia arc), Raphael+Thirteen+Mephistopheles' arrival in the Devildom and subsequent development, IK's biological + adopted dads getting together, the human world vacation arc, and the moon going haywire.
Simeon's brief soft-exile from the Celestial Realm did occur (he still steals the Ring of Light, after all), but his change into a demon doesn't. (Half for the sake of the setting, half because I do think the demon-turning was at least partly because of the whole being-in-love-with-MC thing)
IK part-times the second exchange year, since she also has human world schooling to be doing and Solomon has threatened to wallop everyone involved if she fails her GCSEs and/or A-Levels because of them
A lot of the non-AU pop quizzes are included in the timeline and within the time-skip to IDO as well. (The only relevant one to these notes is that wedding festival one.)
IDO Future takes place somewhere around 14 years after JTTA ended.
Story beats from IDO will be adopted very loosely, mostly from Lucifer's route since... y'know, him and Zhao. (Most of my notes are just about the setting, actually, so this doesn't matter too much)
Background
RAD
The way the exchange program works has been overhauled. Diavolo has finally realised the logical errors in his plans and is now being much more sensible about it!!!
Currently, applications are open for roughly fifty additional students per year. Most of these students are sorcerers/witches from the human world, a small percentage of reapers, and an even smaller percentage of angels.
The aim is to establish a steady student population of witches/sorcerers - humans who adapt more easily to the Devildom - before beginning to bring in more non-magic ordinary people like IK. Since the whole 'giving the human to the student council to babysit' isn't really the sort of set-up that can be repeated
Studying and certification for non-magic humans will be a separate system from the main one, and it's currently still being fine-tuned.
Diavolo has set up a new Inter-Realm Communications department at RAD to aid with development.
World
Sonno's brief re-emergence during JTTA has had some slow butterfly effects. Mainly, demons are beginning to become restless about his absence. While no one knows he reappeared, even if only in dreams and reflections, his power is such that his influence was felt subconsciously across the Devildom.
More modern-minded demons are beginning to whisper that Diavolo really ought to just take the throne soon. The more traditional ones are still stung by his open acceptance of angels and humans in the Devildom, and would much rather Sonno return to rule.
Sonno has been silent since that incident. There isn't really any way to check on him - Archaic Pit, guarding enchantments, you get erased from time itself if you get caught, etc. - and Diavolo has been tentatively making adjustments to policies, organisation, etc.
House Clauderic (as seen in Lucifer's route) was greatly favoured by Sonno during his rule, but mostly faded into obscurity after his departure. Recently - thanks to the old bat's influence - their resent as to their fall (both socially and politically) has been building. They may or may not be about to make some big moves about it
(Note: family names aren't really a thing in the Devildom. However, in the past, a lot of nobles followed Sonno's example and adopted monikers to act under to prevent enemies from using their true names against them. Noble families are generally referred to by the name of its head, and Clauderic is the false name chosen by this family's patriarch. (This is sort of also why the brothers are always referred to as "Lucifer and his brothers". Since he's the head of the family, his name becomes the family name. The "House [Blank]" format is reserved for 'pureblood' noble families, though.)
The Celestial Realm has seen some recent shifts in rhetoric and organisation. It's still very reluctant to deal with the Devildom, but rules around angels visiting the human world have relaxed even more, and many angels are doing so for the purposes of learning about it.
The Celestial Father (i.e. God) has been very quiet recently. This may or may not have something to do with Sonno appearing to have gone dormant.
Remember the lore about how the Devildom's stars are placed in the sky layer by the current monarch? It turns out that that this firmament is actually laid on top of a true sky with its own natural stars - discovered for the first time following the whole Moon Incident. The first rulers of the Devildom were just so vain and convinced of their own power and glory that they thought their own sky would be better, and over-wrote an entire layer of Hell because of it.
There has been a recent shift in how reapers organise and interact with the human world in specific. Their practices previously hadn't changed since, like, the Bronze Age. New reaper code of conduct is adapted more to the way human society runs now, and involves a lot more personal excursions there.
How Everyone's Doing
Yi Family
IK returned to the RAD periodically on a part-time basis, with an accelerated program so that she could just focus on the subjects she could actually do rather than just sit and listen to magic theory. Diavolo gave her an honorary diploma around the same time that she graduated from human-world university.
In the human world, she studied a degree in zoology with marine biology, spent a few years doing field research, and considered pursuing a doctorate but ultimately opted not to. She currently splits her time between part-time work in the human world (guest lectures; tutoring) and as a junior staff member at the RAD, undertaking research and teaching in Creature Studies under Professor Elderflower.
The new system being built for non-magic humans is based on her study track. She's also the lead officer for the Inter-Realm Communications department.
Zhaoxi was invited to study medicinal herbs and potions at the RAD while IK was away at university, and has a position as a medic/pharmacist. He spends most of his time in the Devildom these days, but he still goes back to the human world often. He's still not very good at gardening, but he's very slowly turning the HoL's garden into a small jungle.
The shadow that he ran away to England to get away from has mostly been diminished. This may or may not be thanks to some strings pulled with the Sorcerer's Society, courtesy of a certain friend. He lost employment during the Year Where Everything Sucked For Him (i.e. the first exchange year), and it took some time for him to properly fresh-start, but he TA'd for a few years before his relationship led to integrating more into the Devildom.
The Brothers
These guys have technically had sufficient credits to graduate from the RAD for ages now (Lucifer hadn't actually attended any classes in years and years - he was mostly just doing organisational work). So, when IK received her degree and honorary RAD diploma, they all figured they might as well move onto the next chapter as well.
Since they're no longer students, the Student Council has elected new officers.
Lucifer currently holds an administrative position for the RAD, and he also does additional odd work for Diavolo. He doesn't have a formal government title or position, but it's fairly well known across the Devildom that he's basically second-in-command.
Mammon has done various announcer and presenter jobs (incl. the fight ring gig from the IDO game) and is involved in a lot of entertainment in general - competitions, quiz shows, similar. He also models on a commission basis, although he doesn't do it too often because he finds the whole ordeal stuffy.
Levi has published his first light novel - under a pen name - but still hesitates to call himself an author. He's currently still trying to find the inspiration for the next book. In the interim, he's taken up streaming (behind a dragon VTuber model). (Whenever he makes appearances as the author, he wears a snake mascot mask over his head. Most fans are aware that the dragon and the snake are the same guy, though.)
Satan is the head curator of the RAD's library (which has seen significant expansion under his management), and also acts as primary advisor to the Student Council. He likes to sit in on classes for new courses of interest. (He's also a seasonal part-timer at a cat cafe on IK's workplace campus.) (Yes, she helped him get the job.)
Asmo did a lot of lifestyle/beauty social media stuff, brand deals, etc., then began getting offers to act in small dramas and sort of built up an acting career from there. He ended up moving away from the high-visibility celebrity stuff and has been funding and appearing in more independent film projects.
Beel bounced between part-time busywork for a time, but developed an interest in creatures after IK and Elderflower enlisted his help in a rescue operation. More recently he's been working with them on establishing wildlife sanctuaries and habitat re-development in the wider Devildom.
Belphie apprenticed under RAD's Prof. Bune (astrology) for a while and took up some hobbies in divination on the side. Currently, his main interest is in mapping and navigating the true sky, and he funds this through a side-hustle in fortune-telling. (Fortune-telling is a little controversial, given that any demon can study divination magic, but it's notoriously finicky; superstitious demons with deep pockets often pay a lot for consultation.)
Purgatrio
All three retroactively were given honorary diplomas from the RAD for their first exchange year, but the angels in particular have only been able to attend sparsely.
Simeon was eventually allowed out of his soft-exile and even re-offered seraph status. This was a ploy to regain control of him, and of this he was fully aware, but accepted anyway. He's been using the position since to ve-e-e-e-ry gradually enact change. He has to be cautious though - many angels distrust him following his perceived lapses of faith, but slowly and steadily he's been able to shift opinions and viewpoints.
Luke grew up alongside IK (quirks of angelic development) and currently ranks about two tiers below seraph; he acts as a 'sanctifier' who maintains order, which these days involves getting to visit the human world to clear up magical anomalies often. He apprenticed briefly under Solomon for this before realising that Solomon is often the source of said magical anomalies.
Solomon travels often, flitting between the human world and the Devildom, undertaking his own research and occasionally completing odd jobs for the Sorcerer's Society. He tutors at the RAD occasionally, and is also the human representative for the Inter-Realm Communications department.
Royals
Diavolo has had a pretty big step-up in terms of management and taking charge recently, and he has his work cut out for him. He's becoming increasingly aware that he needs to make a big move soon, but he doesn't quite dare claim the throne yet. At the very least, he's done a lot of re-organisation and initiative that looks very promising for the future... the paperwork is neverending
Barbatos has shifted away a little from butler-work - although his main objective is still to make sure Diavolo doesn't collapse under the weight of everything he's trying to achieve. He works with Mephisto in establishing connections with ancient demons on the fringes of the Devildom - old chronodae, nobles who left after Sonno's departure, etc.
Newspaper Club
These four opted to graduate together soon after the brothers did. None of them had actually realised that was an option, somehow.
They still have their satire paper, which now publishes Devildom-wide instead of being only a school newspaper. Issues are sparser than their school days, though.
Many of the others guest-write for it. Satan is the most frequent contributor, under the pseudonym "Mr Tabby". (Everyone at the RAD knows it's him.)
Wiz works at the RAD part-time, teaching on the Curse-Breaking and some specialised magic courses. Her main job is as an artifact hunter, which involves a lot of expeditions into ancient grounds as well as forays into the human world. Her research and experiments are both dubious and dangerous, but she's having the time of her life
Astaroth does commission work from home as a composer, and is also Belphie's research partner. Specifically he acts as the 'astral navigator' who explores and finds the new stars, which Belphie then maps.
Alecto trains the demons at the same fight ring that Mammon announces for, makes sure everything's up-to-code and organised using her previous experience in illegal cage-fighting. She's Wiz's extra security and helping hand during her expeditions, and also frequently does 'favours' for the RAD.
Mephisto works with Barbatos; he deals more with the chronodae and fell-out-of-society types, since the estranged nobles typically remember him as Sonno's dirty-work agent and don't particularly respect him. He also travels with Solomon on his research expeditions.
The beautiful polycule <3
I've decided that they're canon to JTTA now and you cannot stop me
Thirteen is still technically a student; since she's out of the Devildom more often and also frequently skips class, she doesn't have the credits to graduate. She only studies part-time thanks to the shift in reaper duty. She's also the (reluctant) reaper representative in the Inter-Realm Communications Department.
Raphael hasn't graduated either. Following events involving Simeon's soft-exile and subsequent return to the Celestial Realm, he resigned from his position as seraph. He's spent some time traveling in the human world with Thirteen and attending the RAD.
Mephistopheles graduated around the same time as the Newspaper Club and inherited a military title thanks to noble tradition - though it's mostly accessory. He sponsors the club's satire paper, and is also the supervisor for the Devildom's actual newspaper (which is a little controversial to some.) He's also a benefactor of the Devildom Zoo and various creature rescues, and helps manage research funding for the RAD.
Relationships (very brief overview)
Wiz and Alecto were formally married under Devildom law soon after graduating. (Side note: I think Devildom marriage customs ought to vary a lot from human ones and I definitely want to elaborate on that some time)
Belphie and Astaroth have been dating for a while. Neither's really floated the idea of marriage, but they're very happy.
Thirteen, Mephistopheles and Raphael have never really announced anything, but everyone with eyes knows what they've got going on
Zhao and Lucifer are basically married in all forms but legal. (They had that ceremony during the wedding festival, after all, which basically everyone considers to have been the real thing. Consequently neither has really considered the whole demon-marriage-rules thing because as far as they're concerned they've been married)
Solomon and Mephisto are doing the world's stupidest dance around each other and refuse to declare any kind of official-ness or exclusivity despite functionally doing that already. (On their timescale, over a decade really isn't that long for a situationship to last)
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IDO Levi's debut light novel was supposed to have been inspired by the brothers' story with MC... so would our Levi's light novel just be... JTTA? Much to think about
very funny thought, but let me counter: our levi's light novel should be one of the jtta aus (with different character names, of course)
one candidate being the rpg au because the high fantasy setting feels like it'd suit him... every time an interviewer asks him if his plucky little hero has anything to do with the plucky little human everyone knows he's besties with, levi just dodges the question
Now I'm curious, how would Zhao handle Lucifer's IDO route plot in general?
hmmm i think there's two angles to consider this from:
how zhao would handle the plot points in lucifer's route, but within context - as in, the characters/factions behave more in line with jtta
how zhao would handle the IDO route exactly as it happened, jtta context be damned
as one might imagine he's pretty stressed out in both cases, but he has it a lot lighter in scenario 1, since lucifer behaves drastically differently - i just can't imagine that he'd a. even entertain the initial attempt at forced marriage, or b. feel threatened enough to actually break things off and marry a stranger. i feel like you'd have to have an cosmic-and-therefore-unstoppable-gun to all of his loved ones' heads to intimidate him to that degree
the political situation is also very different if we carry over the stuff from jtta, and the other noble family would not have the kind of swaying power to be making threats or getting pushy with the avatar of pride like that. like, if i'm taking the set-up in isolation, zhao might not even hear about the whole situation until like a week later because lucifer chucked the marriage invitation and immediately took things to diavolo, who promptly shut the whole thing down
that is all very boring though, so let's instead consider scenario 2: where everything from the IDO route plays out as written
so first of all there's a little less uproar when the marriage invitation initially arrives, since everyone assumes it's either a prank or a mix-up. when lucifer reveals that it isn't a mix-up but also immediately vows to put an end to it, everyone is mostly thinking "oh okay great, back to business then". zhao is a little anxious but tries not to think about it too much, all good, no worries
turns out. yes worries. and in this scenario lucifer does not just decide to break the news over breakfast in front of everyone, he does actually sit zhao down and go through everything with him
i think the best option to make lucifer's bonkers decision here bearable is to have him be absolutely destroyed about it. he does already get pretty pathetic briefly in IDO but then he's all squared-shoulders, steeled-nerves about it. not here. he is miserable the entire time he has to prepare for the noble wedding. he just constantly looks like he's at a funeral and it's ruining the vibes for the nobles
although all that isn't to say that everyone doesn't still get mad at him, because they do. ik is in particular incandescent; sure, she's usually good at understanding and all that, but in this situation she just cannot comprehend why lucifer is doing this. why didn't he fight harder. why is he just letting this happen
zhao is. not doing great? he's trying to understand and he doesn't want to hold a grudge against the man he loves when said man is clearly genuinely filled with grief by the whole situation, but he also can't help but agree with ik and the other brothers when they ask lucifer why he isn't fighting harder. he doesn't exactly think highly of himself and the whole incident threatens to send him crashing down from what progress he's made since first coming to the devildom
in IDO everyone busts into the wedding in the middle of it happening and yells some sense into lucifer. for us, i think it would be a slightly different approach
the nobles probably explicitly didn't invite either zhao or ik, but they did have to invite the younger brothers, and it isn't very difficult for said younger brothers to smuggle in two humans. they're permitted/expected to be helping their big brother prepare for the ceremony, so of course what they do instead is stick zhao in his dressing room, lock them both in there, and occasionally shout encouraging things through the door until lucifer folds
much like in IDO, he does so impressively quickly. and then satan can get out the law books and diavolo can show up to resolve everything. lucifer is not off the hook, he will be receiving some choice words about how he chose to handle things, but mostly things are alright. lucifer has started thinking very hard about marriage in general now, but that's definitely not something to bring up too soon after the whole incident
