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Demon Candy: Parallel is a bondage-fetish fantasy webcomic by Lord Dragon Master about an 18-year old man named Jonathan who accidentally sells his soul for a Klondike Bar and attempts to win it back by living with Victoria, the Succubus Queen, for one year, while resisting her attempts to enslave him.
The story starts with Jonathan, an ordinary 18-year old human, being hassled by a woman named Noelle. Noelle is is doing a survey on what people would be willing to sell their souls for, and is harassing him about it. In an attempt to get rid of her, he says jokingly that he would sell his soul for a Klondike bar, a reference to the popular ad jingle for said bars. Noelle then gives him the bar and leaves. That night, Noelle breaks into Jonathan's room to claim his soul.
Realizing that she's not kidding, Jonathan protests, claiming he did not intend to actually enter into a contract, so Noelle takes him to Hell to see her manager: Victoria the Succubus Queen. Victoria decides to make a deal with Jon: if he can stay in her house for one year without submitting to her, she will return his soul. Jonathan agrees, but since humans usually die when they stay in Hell, he is turned into an incubus for the duration of his stay.
The main characters are:
- Johnathan: Ordinary 18-year-old person who accidentally sells his soul for a Klondike Bar, and is now the newest incubus in Victoria's manor.
- Noelle: A human-turned-succubus. Has finished training to be a submissive, and is now training to be a switch.
- Victoria: The Succubus Queen and one of the leaders of Hell... And owner of Noelle and Johnathan.
- Caley: A fallen angel who occasionally visits. Eventually becomes one of Victoria's subs, after her master gives her to Victoria's rival, only for Victoria to realize no one's laid claim to Caley's permanent allegience in the form of a demon mark.
The webcomic is available in print up to the first eleven chapters in two volumes at Lulu.
This Web Comic includes examples of:
- A-Cup Angst: Noelle is not happy when Jonathan's Gender-Bent form turns out to be bustier than she is.
- A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 14 focuses heavily on Noelle, whilst guest character Rael recieves some attention in Chapter 7.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: Victoria is not a nice, middle aged looking Housewife-type.[2] In reality she's a demon queen, a being who rules a very large portion of Hell and is one of the most powerful creatures in all of existence. Jon walks in on her casually releasing her full power (sans any Battle Aura or emotion behind it) and is immediately stricken with so much terror that he can't even stand up.
- Alternate Universe: As explained in the title, Demon Candy is the original series, which revolves around Jon turning into some form of Incubus Messiah. DCP is a comedic side story with the same characters in an alternate situation. The original series has all but been forgotten.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Noelle to Jonathan in Chapter 14.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "I've got no clothes in a weird room...and the pizza's gone.
- Art Evolution: Here are two examples: Jonathan and Victoria.
- Attractive Bent Gender: Joani, Johnathan's female form. Both from crossdressing and from putting on a pair of Gender Bending horns.
- Author Appeal: Lord Dragon Master doesn't even try to hide it. Each chapter basically covers a different fetish unless it's advancing the plot (often both at the same time).
- Aw, Look — They Really Do Love Each Other / Friendship Moment: For all his complaining, Jon is still wearing his collar, has sacrificed himself multiple times for the others, and has came thiiiiiiis close to giving in on several occasions.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Amusingly, the comic is technically speaking 100% clean. Granted, this is only technically true, given the fetishistic elements... Even in Jon's shirtless scenes, even when we're talking about Future!Jon (with nipple rings!), you see nothing.
- Bondage Is Bad: Totally averted. It's more a case of 'Abusive BDSM is Bad', if Lilith is anything to go by.
- Bound and Gagged: Well, duh. (The only trope more common in the comic is Spy Catsuit.)
- Butt Monkey: Johnathan.
- Bishonen: Jon's body has become more slender and curvy since entering hell. Word of God says that this is a natural consequence of him getting used to his incubus body. Also Calamity.
- Casual Kink: Take a guess.
- Cerebus Syndrome: It's light, but it's there. The original few chapters had noticeably sillier gags, such as giant talking flowers appearing, and Noelle carrying around 6 foot tall salt shakers. As the author gained his footing, he apparently felt more comfortable with more serious (but still light and amusing) storylines. The decision to break up the chapters alongside fetishes and story development arcs worked well. Then Lilith shows up as a Knight of Cerebus and throws a bit of a wrench into the works.
- Also, the ominous foreshadowing that Citoria may be making an appearance in the future.
- Chekhov's Gun: Several. Victoria's explanation about the difficulty in making Jonathan enter subspace with any degree of permanency in Chapter 9 proves vital in foiling Lilith's plot. The odd feeling Jonathan feels passing through the portal on the way to the Demon City is probably one, as is Noelle's remark that he was born to be a demon. Page 300 is more of a Sneak Preview but definitely contains a few Guns as well.
- Jonathan's still unused wish from the demon city arc is unquestionably this. Noelle apparently can't remember her human past, so that might be one as well. In any event, LDM is an absolute master of foreshadowing.
- Corrupt the Cutie: The point of the series. In an interesting subversion, the corrupters are all women, and the cutie is a 18 year old man.
- Covert Pervert: Johnathan, although Victoria is working on the 'covert' part. At the end of chapter 13, she may have finally succeeded.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Caley. Stupid ditzy angel bimbo, right? Bwhahaha, wrong. She's lived for millennia, spending most of that time watching every single act humanity has done, for good or bad. Every single disgusting, hidden fetish, she's seen done in a thousand different ways. She chose to give up heaven so she could try some of them out herself. The stupidity? An act (mostly), because she's The Hedonist.
- Dark Is Not Evil: But it does have a BDSM fetish. (Justified in that the non-Horny Devils seem to be ambivalent to the whole thing, and the Horny Devils would, justifiably, be kinky as hell.)
- Deal with the Devil: What started everything. Compounded by the fact that Jonathan keeps making more deals with Victoria despite knowing that it'll probably end badly for him. Amusingly, Vicki has not tried to make any deals extending his time with her, which strikes some in the fanbase a bit odd.
- Death Course: Of a sort. Chapter 13 revolves around the Pandora, a Magitek device built specifically to test and break recalcitrant subs. It is Bigger on the Inside and contains a medley of devices and challenges, and can recalculate after measuring the reactions to any test in order to adapt itself. According to Noelle, nobody has ever beaten it. And now Jonathan is inside it. He doesn't beat it.
- And yet he vows to fight on even though his denial has been shattered. His reserve of determination seems endless.
- Defector From Decadence: Inverted with Caley, who could watch every single element of human culture, even the dark parts, but couldn't join in. The boredom drove her a little bonkers, and she decided to voluntarily fall from grace so she could join in on the Decadence. This also adds an element to her character — she acts like a ditz (and might indeed be one), but she is very wise about every dark aspect of the human soul, as seen when she gives Jon a lecture on why otherwise ordinary guys enjoy crossdressing.
- Determinator: Jon and his resistance, although since Victoria owns his soul (at least, temporarily), Word of God says he literally can't hide anything from her. He can, however, live in denial...
- Turns out to be a literal superpower of his — he's immune to outright coercion. Brainwashing won't stick, torture would wear off, etc etc. When this power was amplified by the horns he was wearing, lash marks from a enchanted torture device faded seconds after they landed. This is the major reason Victoria is so enamored with him — if he surrenders, it's because she earned his submission.
- Taken Up to Eleven in the latest chapter, where Jonathan insists he's going to keep trying to get his soul back even after being forced to admit that he enjoys his current predicament.
- The Dragon: High ranking demons have both a Right and Left Hand, their two most loyal followers, in this position. Victoria already has Noelle as her Right, and would clearly love to have Jonathan as her Left, if Chapters 10 and 11 are anything to go by.
- Dragon with an Agenda: It has been repeatedly hinted within the comic (and outright confirmed by Word of God outside) that Noelle has her own agenda where Jonathan is concerned. Indeed, Noelle went to the human world on her own initiative and not because Vicki ordered her to.
- It's heavily insinuated that the "agenda" is that she fell for Jon at one time or another, and wants him as her own personal slave / boyfriend.
- Dressed All in Rubber: We finally have a trope for it. Jon literally hasn't worn anything but latex since the start of the comic, even the dog costume he was forced into was made of it. The latest chapter has Caley and Jon literally dressed in nothing but skintight latex footey-pajamas / Space Clothes as they're sent to their latest adventure.
- Enemy Within: The latest story arc has Jon being placed in "Pandora", sort of a VR Simulator designed to test submissives in training. Inside of it, Jon faces Theme Park Versions of the various trials and experiences he's been put through. Except the last one, which is a mirror image of himself brought to life, with the one difference that Mirror!Jon is openly accepting of every dirty little aspect of their psyche that Jon is desperately repressing.
- It then turns out that Mirror!Jon was Victoria hidden by an illusion, who lectures and points out that, for all his complaining, he chooses to keep his collar on, when all he would have to do is take it off and leave... which means that deep down, he enjoys the goings on at the mansion. Jon makes the mistake of looking back at the past few months and realizes Mirror!Jon has a point, which leads to Victoria and Jon's first kiss.
Jon: "It's... All true..." |
- Even Horny Devils Have Standards: Victoria might be the queen of all the Horny Devils, a literal anthropomorphic personification of lust and perversion, but doing something BDSM related with a 5 year old Jon never even enters her mind. (She does, however, daydream about leaving him that way to take The Slow Path back, allowing her to raise him as a submissive from the ground up. She declines, cause that wouldn't be fair to him.)
- Evil Counterpart: Lilith, apparently like Victoria but with far less compassion.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Victoria, being a bit of a Magnificent Bitch, usually has ways to come out ahead no matter what Jon chooses in her games with him. One example is the end of Chapter 8 — The 3 submissives are put into a demonic version of a VR video game, with the last boss being an encounter with Victoria herself. Each are given a choice to turn over one of the other three for punishment to win the game. The two girls hate each other, so they sacrifice each other. Jon sacrifices himself to avoid having to let the other two get punished — exactly what Vicki expected him to do. But, as Vicki explains in the next page, that means they all lose, since they were playing the game as a team.
- Fantastic Arousal: Jonathan's tail is apparently very sensitive. Noelle enjoys pulling it on occasion.
- Fetish Fuel: Every. Single. Panel. We have bondage, cross dressing, pet roleplay, gender bending, female domination, rubber, D/S, and much more. Each chapter focuses on a specific fetish and/or interpersonal relationship. (Chapter 13, for example, is Jon/Caley, Chapter 14 is going to be Noelle's first chance to "tame" him solo, etc.)
- Gender Bender: Jon puts on a pair of succubus horns as a favor to Vicki, after some foreshadowing of horns turning whatever half-demon who wears them into the same general body shape of the original owner of the horns. Enter Joani, who really wishes she had paid closer attention to that last bit...
- Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: What Vicki is ultimately aiming for with her plans for Jonathon. Whatever the methods, after Chapter 11 it's clear she has his happiness as her primary goal.
- Which is a bit of Fridge Brilliance when you realize that since Vicki owns Jonathon's soul, she knows explicitly that he is submissive at heart, what kinks he enjoys, etc. She just has to get him into a place where he's willing to admit it all to her.
- Go-Go Enslavement: See the Impossibly Cool Clothes entry.
- Happiness in Slavery: Victoria's goal is to show that not only is this possible, but desirable in Jonathan's case. So far, she's not having much luck.
- Nevertheless, he's slipping and has nearly given in once or twice. And he still has four months left...
- Heavy Sleeper: Jon, who as of the start of Chapter 13, slept through Victoria stripping him nude and dressing him inside a full body latex catsuit. (Although it should be noted that, as we saw during the Gender Bender chapter, Vicki does have magical Liquid Latex potions.)
- The Hedonist: Caley. She spent so much time watching humans have sex from heaven that she decided to flee paradise so she could try out some of the fetishes she had observed.
- Heroic BSOD: Jon gets several, mostly when he finds his resistance slipping. Chapter 13 results in him looking back and realizing that he actually has been enjoying himself... which leads to his biggest one so far.
- He has another one later on in the same chapter after forcibly leaving subspace. It's actually quite nightmarish and not played for comedy, and Vicki has to help him out of it with a Cooldown Hug.
- Ho Yay: In one of his very near misses with voluntary submissive behavior, Jon comes this close to giving Rael a kiss. Fortunately they are interrupted at the last minute. Fortunately this gives Victoria the idea to force Jon to crossdress later on.
- Horny Devils: Pretty much every major character, though one is a Fallen Angel instead. Another secondary character appears to be a hybrid of a Horny Devil and a Fallen Angel.
- I Am Who?: The end of Chapter 13 results in Jon realizing that he actually enjoyed at least some parts of everything Victoria has put him through. He doesn't take it well. ... initially.
- I Choose to Stay: A variant. In Chapter 4, Vicki points out that Jon is still wearing his collar, despite never being told he had to keep it on. She then points out what it symbolizes (his being submissive, specifically being her submissive) and gives him permission to remove it if he wants. He can't bring himself to do so and gets mildly flustered at the idea. She changes the topic before he can think too hard about it.
- Comes back in a big way during Chapter 13. The reason she changed the subject is that he hadn't gotten enough experience being submissive yet, once he had to the point that he couldn't deny it once it was brought up, she then let him face the cold fact that for all his complaints, he's still choosing to stay.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Vicki's fascination with Jonathon stems mostly from this. He's lasted the longest out of anyone...so far.
- The Immune: Jonathan is immune to direct Mind Control and highly resistant to conventional sub training. Turned into an actual superpower in full demon mode, with physical injuries dissapearing after a few seconds.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: All of the clothes are based on real life fetish wear, albeit dialed up to 11 in some cases. Anything in the comic could be cosplayed at the worlds most kinky comic book convention.
- James Bondage: Hahahahhaaa... Jon. In a twist, he's never in any danger while in his situations, due to Vicki being a consumate professional.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Everyone (except Jon), but Caley stands out the most; wanting to have sex was the reason she left heaven.
- Love At First Sight: Chapter 14 reveals that this is why Noelle went after Jonathan's soul rather than anyone else's. See Love Epiphany below.
- Love Epiphany: The end of Chapter 13 involves Jon realizing, to his mind-shattering shock, that he actually enjoyed the things he's been made to do. Noelle appears headed towards one with Jon as well, Word of God states that it was Noelle, not Victoria, that picked Jon out of the crowd, after all, and she turns downright Tsundere at times around him.
- Manipulative Bitch: Victoria. It helps that, since she owns Jon and Noelle's souls, she quite literally knows them even better than they know themselves.
- Marked Change: Full Demon Mode. Revolves around horns appearing, outfits and extremities changing (the wings and tail, for example, grow and shift), the affected characters turning more beautiful, and Black Eyes of Evil appearing. They also emit an invisible Battle Aura; Jon for example can pick up that Vicki is exponentially stronger when in Full Demon Mode than how she normally appears, and it scares him shitless.
- Mark of the Beast: People who swear eternal fealty to a demon gain that demon's mark on their body. Noelle has one, Vicki wants Jon to get one. Lilith forgets to force Caley to take her's, leaving her open for Vicki to use her position as Demon Queen to claim right of salvage.
- Masquerade Ball: Chapter 15
- More Than Mind Control: Victoria's plot for Jon in a nutshell. She's not interested in crushing him (which due to his unique soul even she might not be able to do) but rather in getting him to join in willingly.
- One of the first Broken Base moments in the comic involved her apparently trying straight Mind Control at the end of one of the chapters, involving leaving Jon in sensory deprivation while a brainwashing tape ("Obey your mistress") played in his ears. It was later shown that Jon is immune to that sort of thing, but at the time it seemed like a particularly gross violation of trust.
- The ending of Chapter 13 has elements of this: Jon has a Love Epiphany about being a submissive, instantly sending him into "subspace," a zen-like trance state. This would be well and good on it's own, except he's inside Pandora, a giant Lotus Eater Machine specifically designed to push submissives towards this.
- Noble Demon: Victoria — an incredibly powerful demon queen who comes across as an average, down to Earth Housewife type. She's downright civil and loving with her submissives, especially Jon, who she could break in half with a thought if she wanted to.
- For example, when Jon is turned into a five year old due to a magical clock, Vicki realizes that it's the perfect opportunity to raise him into her willing slave by simply not curing him and letting him grow up in a BDSM environment. She even has a flash forward about his life as he grew up in such an environment (which looks suspiciously like Jon from the original Demon Candy comic). She decides against it because it would be like cheating.
- Not So Different: Noelle sold her soul for a Kit-Kat bar.
- This means that in the span of however long she's been in Vicki's service, Noelle went from Jon's exact situation (presumably with just as much resistance), to surrendering and becoming a full submissive (and enjoying it), to actively training to be a domme/switch. This partially explains why she seems to be ready willing and able to roll her eyes at Jon's efforts at resistance — she's already said most of what he's said now, and not only did it not work for her, she ended up enjoying it all once she surrendered.
- The fact that Jon was given a chance at getting his soul back, whereas Noelle presumably didn't, probably has something to do with it as well. Word of God suggests Jon and Noelle will get some quality time together in Chapter 14, which will likely explore this aspect of their relationship more in depth.
- This means that in the span of however long she's been in Vicki's service, Noelle went from Jon's exact situation (presumably with just as much resistance), to surrendering and becoming a full submissive (and enjoying it), to actively training to be a domme/switch. This partially explains why she seems to be ready willing and able to roll her eyes at Jon's efforts at resistance — she's already said most of what he's said now, and not only did it not work for her, she ended up enjoying it all once she surrendered.
- Oh Crap: Any time Jon is caught enjoying what he's being made to do, surprised by someone catching him do something on his own, or when he realizes exactly what the current game will involve. Special mention for the look on his face when he walks in on Victoria unleashing her full power for the first time, she dials it back before he has a breakdown but even the few seconds of it he sees leaves him a simpering, terrified mess. Double special mention for when Noelle catches him and agrees not to tell Vicki for an unspecified favor later on.
- Happens to Vicki too, when she realises who Lilith is using as a sub for their little duel...
- Older Than They Look: A magic clock makes Jon into a cute little boy. And since The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body, he has to constantly remind himself not to act like a cute little boy.
- Property of Love: A clear instance of Type C.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The first few chapters had the occasional typo and mis-chosen word, which turned into the author's personal Berserk Button pretty quickly. Later chapters are much better, the impression is that the artist is no longer typing directly into his image editing software.
- Sense Freak: Caley. Angels are isolated from most physical feelings, so sensations of any kind are something new to them. Fallen Angels can experience these things, and is the main reason for Caley becoming a slave.
- Slave Collar: Everyone except Victoria and the other full demons. Jon voluntarily wears his, meaning he ultimately is accepting of the things he does.
- Spank the Cutie: So many times.
- Spy Catsuit: Well, duh. (The only trope more common in the comic is Bound and Gagged.)
- Ok, it's less Spy Catsuit and more "Kinky Rubber Fetish-wear", but we don't have a trope for that.
- Shout-Out: Here and there, the Peter Pan reference from chapter twelve being the most obvious.
- Not to mention a few My Little Pony references in Chapter 14.
- Static Character: An actual superpower of Jon's unique type of soul — he bounces back from anything done to him (in this case, a magical whip cannot leave marks on his body for more than a few seconds). This makes him an unbelievable prize to a domme, as by definition it means he submits out of his own will, no tricks needed.
- Status Quo Is God: Poor Jon isn't getting away or getting one up on Vicki anytime soon. Possibly averted at the end of Chapter 13 when Jon is forced to admit to himself that he enjoys being submissive. But then, as of the final page of the chapter, Jonathan resolves to keep on fighting.
- Sugar and Ice Personality: Victoria is a Type 1, nearly always keeping a tight rein on her emotions. It takes a lot to put a dent in it, like geniunely hurting someone she cares about.
- Take a Third Option: In Chapter 15, Jonathan has to decide which outfit (male or female) to wear to the ball, and he decides to wear both.
- The Hedonist: Everyone except Jon due to it being part of the Horny Devils package. Jon too, due to him being (technically) an Incubus... but he resists. Making him open up to this lifestyle is Victoria's main goal.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Victoria, who instead of living in the main part of Hell as properly befitting the leader of the Succubi is living in an Earthlike area with an Earthlike mansion, ignoring her responsibilities and hordes of Horny Devils and Slaves in lieu of training 3 hand picked ones. She's specifically called out on this by Lilith, who actually gets half of hell's ruling council to agree that she has to go.
- Fortunately, upon getting to know Jon / "Joani", they agree that he's interesting enough to warrant the personal attention she's giving him.
- There Is Only One Bed: Jon is somewhat dismayed to discover Vicki's guest house only has one giant bed. He's actually lucky that he's given a bedroom to himself in her mansion in Limbo — although given that Victoria has threatened to take away his clothing and underwear privileges if he misbehaves, privacy might be the least of his worries.
- Fortunately for him, he was a girl at the time (long story), so it was completely a-ok! ... right?
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Very rarely, Johnathan will escape whatever surprise Victoria has prepared for him. Like the transformation potion that Caley ended up drinking instead. He still got punished for wasting one of Vicki's potions, though.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Caley, being a fallen angel, has trouble differentiating between pleasure and pain, leading to this trope.
- Tsundere: Noelle to Jon, with a bit of a D/S bent.
- Underestimating Badassery: Jon forgets that Victoria is a demon queen, one of the most powerful creatures in the multiverse. Not surprising considering she is a Noble Demon — very polite, compassionate, but also dominant in the extreme. He is reminded/discovers just how inhumanly powerful she is very quickly in Chapter 10, when he walks in on her unleashing her full power — horns, black eyes, and all. It reduces him to a stammering mess.
- Unsound Effect: KA-DOOM!
- Villain Ball: Lilith would have won her duel with Vicki had she simply stuck with her original plan and continued to torture Caley. Instead she abandons her plan when Joani intervenes, choosing to whip her instead despite the fact that the plan was working and Victoria was clearly on the brink of losing her cool thus forfeiting the duel.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: After becoming an incubus, Jon barely ever
bothers with oneis allowed to wear one. - Weakness Turns Her On
- Whip It Good
- Wham! Episode: Chapter 13. Jonathan realises he enjoys bondage and BDSM, and is kissed by Victoria.
- Chapter 14. Noelle kisses Jonathan, and confesses that she specifically targeted him due to a combination of Love At First Sight and recognizing a kindred — and lost — soul in him.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: This happens to Johnathan in one chapter. Almost caused him to give in to Victoria, but managed to hang on by the skin of his teeth.
- Wings Do Nothing: Jon and Noelle's wings are purely decorative ... usually. Vicki and Caley, being less human than the other two, have working wings. It's also shown that when Noelle is in Demon Princess and Jon is in, er, Demon Princess form, they both have working wings as well.
- Xanatos Gambit: Several by Vicki. Any "game" or "lesson" Jon encounters will have multiple outcomes, all furthering her goal — that of Jon having a pleasant experience during some form of fetish game and coming that much closer to surrendering to her. The fact that as an experienced domme, she can work with changes on the fly is flat out abused by her at times.
- Chapter 13 has this combined with Chekhov's Gun: Jon's collar. He doesn't take it off because on some subconscious level he can't deny he enjoys his new lifestyle. She changed the subject the first time it was brought up... because the second time she brought it up, it was months later, the enjoyment was downright blatant, and he had nowhere to hide.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Things are looking up for Johnathan? Don't worry, by the end of the chapter he'll be the Butt Monkey again.