Bartleby Tales

Once upon a time, long, long before even I was born, God was kind and fair and ruled His universe wisely. However, have you ever heard the saying, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?"... Then imagine infinite power. And imagine it corrupting infinitely

—Razielphustar on God

Jack Chick was right, at least in his depiction of God. Even the pettiest sinners are now condemned to Hell--including Jesus himself, for falsely preaching of God's love. But there is hope, because Satan has no interest in torturing the innocent. After all, it is his mandate to give the dead exactly what they deserve.

(For "exactly what they deserve," read "sex in every possible configuration.")

Yes, this is Porn with Plot--and marketed to the Furry Fandom, to make things even weirder. It's too NSFW to link, but it's available on Inkbunny if you're curious.

Tropes used in Bartleby Tales include:

• Abusive Dad: Bartleby's father often insulted or even hit his children, and was directly responsible for Bartleby's death.
• Age-Appropriate Angst:Bartleby, Xander, Crystal, Gillian, and that's just the canon characters.
• A Hell of a Time: The second level is where people deprogram from all the taboos they were forced to follow in life. This includes sex, but it also includes things like dumpster-diving.
  • Note that 98% of people who ascend to the first level voluntarily descend back to the second. Perfection is boring--and besides, a lot of people ascend before their friends do, and would rather be with them in the second level than without them in the first.
• Arc Words: "You're so lucky!"
• Ass Shove: This isn't even the weirdest fetish explored.
• Axes At School: Thankfully people can regenerate
• Bad Boss: Averted with Satan but played straight with God.
• Black Comedy: What did you expect?
• Blob Monster: Crystal is the "goo girl" subtype (most recognizable to Western readers from It's Always Time or Living with Monster Girl.)
• Celestial Bureaucracy: Hell is the good kind.
• Children Are Innocent: Double subverted. The series is quite frank about the sexuality of its barely-pubescent protagonists, but it still portrays children as less jaded and more idealistic than adults.
• Chunky Salsa Rule: God left behind a trap in the place where an angel was caged, designed to invoke this. After thousands of years being left to rust, it no longer functions as planned--a single drop of Bartleby's blood remains intact. (It should be noted that the rule still wouldn't have killed Bartleby. Again, God is not a nice guy in this setting.)
• Circles of Hell: The story takes place in the second circle--see A Hell of a Time. The seventh is an Ironic Hell for the truly irredeemable, the first is the closest Satan can make to Heaven, and the rest are more like Purgatory.
• Class Clown: Xander is the resident one in Bartleby's class
• Cloudcuckoolander: Gillian and Crystal are the most obvious examples, but Lexi lampshades the fact that people find her weird, and even Bartleby has his quirks. (It's telling that the most "normal" member of the core cast is Xander, who's first seen trying the grenade stunt mentioned below.)
• Content Warnings: One per chapter. This one's probably the best:

WARNING: This story contains more diapers than you can shake a stick at. Believe me, I tried. I went in my backyard, found a stick of approximately twelve inches, and attempted to shake it at all the diapers in this story. I could not. You should not attempt this either, unless you are a professional.

• Contrived Coincidence: There are very few coincidences in Hell, but Bartleby finding a captive angel seems to have been genuinely random.
• Costume Porn: Quite extreme during Halloween.
• Crapsack World: Earth is ironically far more hellish than Hell itself. It's best summed up in a sequence where Bartleby feeds a (willing, immortal) mouse to a snake, and remembers a terrified mouse on Earth struggling in vain to escape a similar snake.
• Creating Life: The one thing people in Hell can't usually do. Every once in a while, a newly arrived soul will fragment, bringing to life a replica of a dearly beloved object, but those who've been in Hell a long time can make no life at all. (Of course, with God the way he is, there are plenty of damned children to adopt.)
• Crosses the Line Twice:
• Dark Is Not Evil: Stated quite explicitly--Hell can be disturbing at first, but it's ultimately a place of redemption.
• Deader Than Dead: The fate of those who do not give up their hearts within the time limit.
• Dead to Begin With: The entire series starts off with this
• Defanged Horrors: Some aspects of the second level are designed as non-scary versions of scary things--for instance, Fire and Brimstone Hell as a beach where you can swim in the lava.
• Easy Road to Hell: The title character went to Hell for being gay, despite barely being pubescent and never having acted on his feelings.
• Empathic Environment: Hell changes based on what people want it to be.
• Furry Confusion: Earth is post-humanity at this point, but there are still a lot of unevolved animals. They're not intelligent enough to worship God, so they automatically go to Hell, where Satan grants them rational thought and allows them to live in peace. (And before you ask, this includes species that existed before man.)
• Glasses Girl: Gillian could heal her eyes, but she no longer feels like she needs to, because in Hell, she's no longer being made fun of for having glasses.
• God Is Evil: Let's just say that this story was directly inspired by Chick Tracts.
• Gorn: Completely nonlethal, given that everyone's already dead. (Apparently, being deep-fried and eaten is an amazing sensation.)
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Lampshaded as only possible in the cartoons--or in Hell.
• Hermaphrodite: Lexi the hyena.
  • Shown Their Work: Female spotted hyenas actually do have a pseudo-penis.
• Improbable Species Compatibility: Xander, an anthro fox, receives anal sex from a non-anthro elephant. The fact that he's in Hell is the only reason this doesn't kill him.
• I Miss Mom: Xander's the only main character who died together with his parents.
• Immortality Bisexuality: Most people try this eventually, although a few characters aren't interested.
• Jesus Was Way Cool: His Father on the other hand...
• Logic Bomb: "The sentence below is true" / "The sentence below is false" is used at one point to destroy an angel's cage.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Xander manages to be one even by the standards of the setting.
• Naughty Tentacles: But of course!
• The Nudifier: There are several devices that serve this function.
• The Pig Pen: Gillian has an oddly sexual interest in grime and filth, and tends to be accompanied by the smell of garbage. After a while, Bartleby starts to find it endearing.
• Power Perversion Potential: Hell is a place where you can swallow a live grenade, get blown into Ludicrous Gibs apart from your Smoldering Shoes, pull yourself back together, and actually get off on the experience.
• Reality Warper: Everyone in the second level of Hell has a small-scale version of this--they can shapeshift, pull items from Hammerspace, teleport, and affect the local environment. (And regenerate. Can't forget the regeneration.)
• Satan Is Good
• Shotacon: It's not exactly clear how old Bartleby is, but he's clearly under most countries' age of consent. He and the other "child" characters tend to be treated as small adults, with the capability to consent to anything, but the right to refuse it. (Then again, it's hard to tell whether the other children are really children--they tend to say that their deaths were "a long time ago," and nobody in Hell has to age if they don't want to, so this may be a case of Immortal Immaturity.)
  • Note that the very young go directly to the first level of Hell--the second level would be too scary for them.
• Squashed Flat: In quite a variety of ways.
• Unusual Euphemism: Follows the furry tradition of using "Yiff" to describe sex.