Creating a Demon: The Inspiration for Asmodeus Rising

Thank you all for taking the time to join this adventure wth me. I sincerely hope that you come to love and cherish these characters as I do. So many of them are rooted in the people and places that have defined me as an individual and, as such, to release them out into the world feels like you're holding a part of me each time you open up the pages.

So where did it all start? Where did this world begin? How did Asmodeus, this being of enormous passion and pain, come to exist. Well, for me, it starts with therapy. A

nd I know what you must be thinking - Of course it's fucking therapy. Well, it actually was and I'm genuinely grateful for it. My children were adopted when they were toddlers and, for someone with deeply baked in, crusted-over, undiagnosed CPTSD and anxiety, shit was getting real. I found myself agitated constantly and losing my temper at the smallest inconvenience. So, after about a year of this, it was finally clear that therapy was the only option.

So I went and it sucked initially. I felt stupid as hell closing my eyes and visualizing colors and words, a component of the EDMR (EMDR? I can never remember) of the therapy I was doing. But after some time and some success - also one hell of a PMHNP and a Lexapro script, I was able to settle into a routine to control the anxiety that felt somewhat normal. I was actually equipped to be a better mother and partner.

It was around December 2025 that I had the inspiration for a pain demon after therapy. A creature, similar to "Angel diving into a rat in 'Becoming Part. 1'" (shout out to my "Morbid Podcast" girlies, IYKYK.) She was physically unable to touch anyone without harming them. The MMC would be able to touch her and blah, blah, blah. Very much on the nose and "of the therapy," right? So I put it on the backburner and really didn't think too much of it until a month of two later when my brother kept coming to family events and talking about people thinking he was a Lyft driver.

So here's the deal. My brother drives a Hyundai in the Phoenix area. You don't need to know more than that - it's a generic ass Hyundai. As such, while driving in the Phoenix metropolitan area, as one does when one is cool and not old (like me), you have to stop at places. Apparently people were attempting to get into the back of my brother's car, assuming incorrectly that he was a Lyft driver. It happened enough times that it became a joke. but it got me thinking - what if your Lyft driver was evil?

I packed my purse of bullshit and ran out the door to the local B&N to pick up a few necessities - The Satanic Bible, by Anton LaVey, The Divine Comedy, and The Complete Book of Demonolatry by S. Connolly. I created the idea of a gender-bent demon princess by researching demons and finding one whose history and lore would resonate with the story's message. With that, Asmodeus, the Lyft driving Demon Princess was born. She's born out of pain, but I truly hope that - as I did, through her you find some sense of healing. She's yours now.