Both are good! Just for different reasons.
Gambling is a chance of fortune and a chance of danger.
A deal with the devil is a guarantee of both at once. It pairs well with embarrassment/humiliation because the person taking the deal *knew* what they agreed to and can't pretend it was bad luck. :p

Another option: You agree to be locked in chastity for X days. You can get your code early by sending a command to a discord bot, but the bot will immediately change your bsky profile and lock you out of the account for the remaining time.
But that's more predicament bondage than deal w/ the devil

I sort of have something like that with @itzybitzy.simmtech.xyz. They get a custom handle on the SimmTech™ domain in exchange for following the "company" branding rules (though they aren't very active and the rules aren't formal. Its just teasing about toons that can't curse or be brand-unsafe. :p )

I think it could depending on the way it was formatted. You could have it as an addition to the FFXIV one I mentioned, or have it be with something else (e.g. you can use the "devil's" character for your profile, but they get control of the account too). I like when it matches thematically.

For a more IRL example: "devil" pays for your FFXIV subscription. But you only get to play healer classes, and they get your login creds to verify it at will. Break the contract? Goodbye to "your" account. After all, it's theirs now. They pay for it so they own it.
(All for fun and play, of course)

For example: a contract of fame and fortune, but you will be transformed by the company to fit their wishes. Nothing is off the table - your appearance, your gender, your name, even your species if furry. There's no obligation to turn you back if you back out of the contract. But you'll be famous :)

overall. I just need to get over my hang-ups with it enough to move forward on it. (3/3)

but I also kind of want to distance myself from tying a major Simm design variant to something so closely tied to a major IP. Yet doing an Absol-inspired thing feels like it loses the "lore" of Absol's disaster detection that I love so much.
I think the -inspired route is probably better (2/3)

Nobody sees the TF happen + no evidence of the result having once been a person (or way for them to communicate it, if animate). It might be reversible, but that'd require someone to know there was something to reverse. It's one of my favourite ways to suggest permanence without explicitly saying so

On a more serious note, getting it working is the most "system engineer" validation I've felt in a while. It may not be the fanciest thing, but I still feel great working on stuff like this.

* misophonia (wet chewing sounds variant)
* food touching the palms of my hands in any way
* "I love when [extremely negative thing]" - I'm conditioned to tense up at those first few words now, even for positives
* long sleeves that bunch up at the elbows (jackets are often loose enough to be okay)