She Hoover on my booktok till I Colleen

Colleen Dyson wakes up with love on the brain and determination in her tiny, tiny soul. Inspiration is the greatest fuel for writers and Colleen has never been short of it in her entire life. She knows she sparks pride into all of her devoted readers with her powerful ambition to write. Her great passion manifests in heartfelt stories of forbidden love, romantic triumph during trying times, becoming infatuated regardless of the love interest’s multitude of problems such as gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, and war crimes- honestly, who isn’t inspired by her works?

Halfway through writing her newest Y/A novel, dramatically titled Whispering Whispers, Colleen gets an answer to that question.

“This sucks,” says the Devil, leaning against the back of her office chair. “How does a human even ‘growl’?? ‘He snarled’, what is he, a dog?”

“What the fuck,” Colleen says appropriately, because what the fuck. 

“I just think your main love interest in this book is sort of an asshole. Like, a mega asshole. He’s so awful that he gathered up enough sins to summon me, and he’s not even real.” The Devil continues reading Colleen’s unfinished draft, wrinkling his nose at her sentences as if they smelled like holy water.

“Who…Who are you??” Colleen asks.

“The Devil,” says the Devil, and when Colleen doesn’t know how to reply to that, he adds, “y’know. From the Bible. Like The Devil. As in, Satan, Lucifer, the guy who invented pop-up ads-”

“You invented pop-up ads?!”

“Naturally, because only a truly evil being would create those thi- hold on, we’re getting off topic.” The Devil shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. Colleen watches some smoke puff out of his ears. A few sparks land on her carpet. She’d be afraid if she wasn’t so mad about his judgmental attitude towards her work in progress.

“Anyway, your book is like, major garbage.” Colleen lets out an offended gasp at this. “I mean, Asmodeus had to put your other book down after only fifteen pages. Truly criminal. I’d actually invite you to have a throne in Hell because of how bad it is, but your books are so bad even I, the Devil, from the Bible, don’t want you. Do you know how sad that is?”

“My books are not bad,” Colleen scoffs. She is no archangel, no warrior, no soldier, but she will defend her books to the end. Even if she has to face Satan for it. “They’re cute. They’re just romance novels. What’s so bad about young love?”

“Oh?” The Devil’s crimson red skin gleams. All at once, the sunlight streaming through her bedroom windows vanishes. The skies darken. Colleen’s radio stops playing classical music and switches to Shape of You by Ed Sheeran.  “What’s so bad, you ask? I’ll tell you what’s bad.

“You are one of the greatest contributors to internalized misogyny in young girls of this generation because of how you glorify toxicity within relationships. By that, I mean you train women into believing they exist to take responsibility for the flaws of men in the name of true love, which, of course, is a fallacy. Your stories preach that women sacrificing their independence and character in order to live in a fantasy that objectifies their existence is a great thing to do.”

“Nuh-uh,” says Colleen, because she’s not intelligent enough to comprehend any of that. 

The Devil slaps a hand on his face, flames actively whipping out of his nostrils. Shape of You bass boosts itself to the point where Colleen’s speaker peaks. “Oh my Satan, can’t you just write decent characters for once??”

Colleen Dyson holds up her outline. Bedward Cullen, her beautiful, dark, hot main interest is described at the bottom. Next to his bio is Ella Duck, her equally hot (but she doesn’t know it yet), busty character with big bazongahongas. “These are exactly what you just described.”

“No, Jesus-” The sun momentarily comes back with a choir of holy angels singing in the background until the Devil waves it away, replacing it with dark thunderclouds again, “-you’re missing a lot. You need to branch out. All of your characters sound the same from each book. How about you write something different? Like oh, I know.”

The Devil poofs a scarlet notepad into existence and starts writing into it with a red pen. “You need a nice, decent man who actually cares about the girl he loves, you need a girl who is her own person who is independent and her own person outside of her love interest, and…”

Colleen stares back at him expectantly.

“And you need more homosexuality. Satan, woman, your hetero tendencies are like, fatal. Get some gay shit in there.”

Colleen puts a hand on her heart. She would have collapsed onto her knees if she wasn’t sitting in her chair. She settles for sinking towards the floor. “I could never. I-I will never. All of those things- they’re terrible for publicity. No. I’ll never write that.”

“Fine, asshat. I have to do everything in this damn mortal realm,” the Devil scoffs. Before Colleen can do anything, he takes her unfinished outline, puts it in his grubby crimson hands, and hops directly into her writing.

—

The Devil from The Bible woke up in Spoons, Washington, the melancholic gray skies casting shadows over his head. People had all sorts of issues with the climates of Hell, but he would choose the fiery warmth over these cloudy skies on any day.

His first target was acquired; Ella Duck. She sat, nibbling on her hair, her focus on Bedward Cullen.

Oh, Ella, he thought. How could she adore this anemic loser of a man?

The Devil from the Bible swiftly walks towards the couple, and shoots Bedward Cullen into the wall with a flick of his wrist. Ella watches as her love is tossed carelessly into the plaster, beautiful gray eyes tearing up instantly. 

“Who are you?!” she demands, standing upright.

“I am the Devil, from the Bible.” he introduces. 

Her face contorts in horror. “You- you-”

“Ah, spare me. You can’t love him! He hurts you, Bella. In his narcissistic ideologies, he can see nothing but his own tainted business ventures! He doesn’t love you, not as you deserve. My Hell is flooded by these mediocre men spending lifetimes wrecking beautiful women for cheap thrills! Well, I say no more.” The Devil from the Bible declares.

“But- but I can fix him! I know he’s just hurting- he just lost his grandmother-”

“Girl, please.” The Devil from the Bible says sardonically. “His grandmother died when he was ten.”

“And I’m sure it was traumatic!” Ella protests while she bites her lip intensely. 

The Devil from the Bible’s frown deepens. “How does he treat you?”

“How he should.” Ella says, a single tear forming in the corner of her crimson red eye. “He texts me back within two days, and when we go on dates he’s only sometimes drunk!”

“I would say the bar is in Hell, but I am in Hell, and the bar is nowhere to be found.” The Devil from the Bible mutters to himself, exhausted. He gathers what little strength he has left, and projects his voice. “Ella, why do you accept this love?”

“It’s how all of the epic romances are written.” she says, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t know. In It Completes With Us, Ryan loves her with such intensity. That’s how Beddy loves me!”

Internally, the Devil from The Bible groans at the nickname. Beddy. What is Bedward Cullen, a discounted mattress at Sleep Country? “Ella, all of those standards are fake! No one who loves you would ever treat you this way.”

“But- but-”

“No, Ella. There are no excuses. You deserve to be loved truly. You deserve someone who would never lay a hand on you, who supports your interests and wants to hear about your day. You deserve someone good, someone who’s good to you.” The Devil from the Bible implores, noticing the tears that streak down Ella’s cheeks. 

“But the books sound so- so lovely.” Ella sobs and falls into the brutalistic park bench that sits in the foyer of their highschool.

“Yes, they do. But they aren’t the truth. You have to know, no one who loves you would hurt you.” The Devil from the Bible says. He steps towards Ella and takes her hands in his, his hold comforting. 

Ella nods, sniffing away the snot that has gathered in her tears. “Who do I deserve?” she asks, looking up with her hellfire eyes. 

“Oh. Erm…” the Devil from the Bible stutters. He casts a look around the plaza, met with concerned glances from, well, everyone. He then notices a girl. Not just any girl, a girl who can stare at Ella’s blandness like it’s a Michaelangelo painting. She wears cuffed jeans and a flannel, and has been casting glances murderous enough to shame Cain. “Her.”

He motions for the girl to come over, and begrudgingly, she does so. She sits down on the bench next to Bella, and without wasting a moment, the two begin to kiss passionately. Because he willed it. And he can, ‘cause he’s the Devil. From the Bible.

He nods, certain his mission here has been accomplished. Certainly, in a decade or so he will receive invites to their wedding. Now, it is time to deal with the muppet of a man that is Bedward Cullen. 

He storms to the wall where Bedward Cullen is still pinned up, his piss-yellow eyes contorting in horror. He then takes Bedward Cullen’s jaw and slams his head into the wall with enough force to send the pair hurtling towards Hell. 

They awake on the floor of Hell, near a winding river of perfectly clear and sterile water. The floor is uncomfortable to Bedward Cullen, but the Devil from the Bible doesn’t mind much at all.

Bedward Cullen, full of terror and shock, runs frantically towards the river.

“No! No! Don’t- Bedward Cullen-” the Devil from the Bible shouts a warning after Bedward Cullen, but it lays unanswered. 

Bedward Cullen has gone too far too fast, his ankles already dipping into the River Lethe’s infernal waters. 

Soon enough, Bedward Cullen is fully submerged. The Devil from the Bible watches as Bedward Cullen’s memories and thoughts drift away, blood-red tinge dissipating in the vastness of the river. Bedward Cullen is no more, nothing but a lost, empty soul.

Confused and dazed, Bedward Cullen emerges from the water.

Oh.

Oh.

Painstakingly, the Devil from the Bible has a realization. Bedward Cullen, beyond the disgusting, fragile masculinity and narcissism, is smoking.

The Devil from the Bible never thought the sight of porcelain skin and daffodil yellow eyes could create such a fire in his gut. 

Sheepishly, Bedward Cullen smiles. “Sorry, who- who am I?” he asks.

The Devil from the Bible takes a moment before responding. He takes inspiration from the best show he can possibly think of, because this is the best man he has ever laid eyes upon. “You- you’re Kronk. Your name is Kronk.” he says.

“Kronk.” Kronk repeats, the cloudy expression fleeing his eyes. Then, a smirk pulls at his lips. “You can kronk me.”

The Devil from the Bible and Kronk lean in, their lips meeting. The passion builds, sparking higher and higher until-

Colleen Dyson screams so hard Ella and her new girlfriend stop kissing from the mortal plane. 

The Devil, annoyed about being interrupted on his homosexual reign and the volume of her screams, flicks her wrist.

Then she dies. And life is good again.

AUTHORS NOTE

This story is greatly important to us because it discusses the very tangible struggles of women around the world. These characters are so well developed and authentic it was physically painful for us to depict their lives. This story talks of struggle, redemption, love, and revenge. We really hope this story helps you understand just a fraction of how we feel, with the deepest emotion and suffering. Oh, and also? Happy April Fools.

Love, Sam & Vy