#vergil meta

[dmbakura]

Tell me more about your neurodivergent Vergil headcanons? 👀 If you want to, I mean.

these are just my own views ofc but to me he feels very autistic, almost to a comical extent (i dont believe it was intentional on capcom's part at all but idk) and the portrayal of his trauma/ptsd is one of my absolute favourites in media. i think he's just so sensitively handled and with so much nuance, which is shocking for a high action series like this.

just, the fuckin... the fuckin concentration gauge. weaponized sensory disorder. he literally cant function and gets debuffed if he isn't exerting complete control over his actions/starts taking in unwanted stimuli. his playstyle rewards precision, repetition and patience. he just like me fr

his general social mannerisms and the way he carries the yamato, dare i say stimming with the yamato, feel very much to me like someone who NEEDS order- which is a good contrast to dante (who i see adhd hcs for which is also pog) and definitely part of why vergil gets so fucking pissed at him.

onto the V side of things, there's that special interest in poetry, again weaponizing a sensory comfort/hobby as a game mechanic which is just. SO fucking cool to me. he powers up by reading poetry. i also love his complete inconsistency with tactile sensations. in the VoV manga, V constantly gets covered head to toe in demon gunk without it bothering him, but when he goes to eat a burger he has no idea how to without getting sauce on his fingers, which he cannot STAND. griffon even calls him out on this and V says he doesn't know why but he just hates that feeling in particular. again, just like me fr

about his trauma... man just the entirety of dmc5 + VoV being about vergil's literal deconstruction and journey back to himself, reclaiming the entirety of his identity, even the parts he found undesirable, is just so powerful to me. it's more lowkey in dmc5 itself, but in VoV there are very clear moments of V experiencing flashbacks/panic attacks/etc and the manga takes a more direct approach with his mental state. it's handled really well and never feels like it infantilizes or demonizes him in any way

eugh this got long enough im cutting it off here lol

[cainhart]

My brief theories on hybrid psychology, biology, lifespan, historical connections to our world, and the possibility of other hybrids in the DMC world aside from the loser twins and Nero.

In Devil May Cry, being a hybrid is not exactly seen as a freak of nature but rather as something disgraceful on the demons' side. The reason for this is quite simple: humans are considered "food" for demons. Human blood is both literally and spiritually a fuel, an essential substance that feeds the demons. The fact that a demon has "disgraced" itself to the point of mating with "food" is a big deal among demons. A lot of Devil May Cry media comment on this—it's even directly said of Sparda that he "turned into a lustful monkey," because, in their eyes, humans are lustful monkeys. Worse, humans die very quickly; they're weak and fragile. You can imagine how much worse it is for demons, where power is everything.

As for humans, there is no canon information about their perspective that I know of. My theory is that some of the "demigods" and mythological figures mentioned in the history of the world are hybrids who were born on Earth before the separation of the two worlds, but that's a topic for another day. As far as we know, the hybrids that are on Earth right now are Dante, Vergil, Nero, and (probably) Matier.

What confuses me more is biology. Humans and demons are different species, even though they were once "one." And even devils differ from each other by looks, too. While Mundus looks like a human man, particularly Zeus, Sparda looks like a bug. Agrosax has both a female and a male body. But it looks like they can alter their looks and DNA enough to have a human-like body by using their demonic magic. And they can have hybrids, hybridity works strangely in humans and animals too.

In Homo sapiens-Neanderthal hybrids, only the female was fertile.

In the animal kingdom, female hybrids are usually fertile unless there is a direct biological problem.

This is a Mule. A hybrid born from a female horse and a male donkey. Female Mule can only breed with male horses. Male Mule are infertile.

This is a Hinny, born from a female donkey and a male horse. Both male and female ones are infertile.

Liger's are both thought to be unfertile, but like Mule's, female Liger's can breed with male lions, creating Liliger. Tigon females are fertile, but males are not. A female Tigon and a male tiger had bred and created Titigon.

The reason for this is Haldane's Rule. When I tried to apply it to demon-human hybrids, I came up with something quite funny: Vergil shouldn't have been able to have a child. The Sparda twins are supposed to be infertile. But if we replace this with demon fuckery, we get at least the following result:

Male hybrid: Can breed with human females. Cannot breed with demon females. Cannot breed with Hybrid females.

Female hybrid: Cannot breed with human males. Can breed with demon males. Cannot breed with Hybrid males. A sad day for people with Vergil/hybrid!Nero's mother OCs because hybrids are unable to breed and produce offspring. Probably. Their partial infertility isn’t the strange part—that’s expected. Hybrids are known to have accelerated healing, incredible strength, agility, speed—the list goes on. These are part of their demonic heritage. But the truly fascinating aspect is how it plays into their biology. The human body can't display even half the strength of hybrids unless adrenaline is involved. If humans could perform such actions, our muscles would tear, our bones would break, and our blood vessels would rupture. Not to mention the risk of brain hemorrhage, blood coming out of the eyes and ears, or even heart attacks. The reason hybrids don’t suffer from these conditions might be due to their superior healing abilities, but even that explanation only scratches the surface. It’s directly related to the fact that they are hybrids.

The reason why Dante and Vergil can fall or jump from great heights (with Vergil literally falling into hell and only fainting, and Dante jumping off a cliff in DMC4) and continue on as if nothing happened is perhaps due to the high ratio of collagen, protein, and hydroxyapatite in their bones. This trait likely begins developing in the womb, as their bodies produce an abundance of osteoblasts. However, it would be nearly impossible for human women to survive such pregnancies. The human body would struggle to provide the immense amount of nutrition a half-demon child requires, leading to either a miscarriage or the mother dying from malnutrition and exhaustion. This could explain why hybrids are so rare.

How Eva carried TWO hybrid babies remains a mystery, but Sparda was likely-no, surely highly active during and after the pregnancy. Otherwise, Eva would not have survived, since there are six hours between Vergil and Dante’s births.

I believe that if a hybrid woman ever became pregnant by a human male or a hybrid male, her pregnancy would be shorter. Since hybrids are not fully human, their bodies function in a way that's almost like Homo sapiens 2.0. Their growth factors would be insane: -Growth hormone would be highly elevated. -their IGF1 would be mutated, leading to significantly increased cell growth and development -mutated CDKs would regulate the cell cycle to promote faster cell division and growth. -placental efficiency would be enhanced, with Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor doubling the blood flow and nutrition supply. The cyncytin genes would also be more active. Anyway, you get the picture. Hybrid women could grow and pack a whole ass baby in about 4 months and call it a day. This process may be even faster in Devil Trigger form, but Hybrids can't hold their DT long enough. What bugs my mind is whether female hybrids would have periods. I think so? But the duration and intensity would likely differ from human women. One day I will write in-depth about female and male hybrid anatomy but for now, this is enough.

Another thing is, assuming hybrids are not easily cut or pierced by mundane weapons, their skin must produce high levels of keratin. Keratin is a protein that gives nails their hardness and forms the outer layer of the skin (epidermis). The calcification—the storage of calcium salts in the skin—must be high. At the same time, neither Dante, Nero, nor Vergil have any scars, acne scars, blackheads, or blemishes. Their skin heals perfectly, restoring itself to its original state. The white blood cells of hybrids must be working like crazy lol. To put it crudely, when they get a cut—or any wound, for that matter the white cells ring alarm bells and rush to close the wound. Blood clotting (hemostasis) begins, then cytokines are released and after that the bleeding stops, what follows is tissue formation (Proliferation). This happens in such a short time that it is hard to believe. At the same time, as I mentioned above, the high collagen and keratin ratios of hybrids also prevent scars. It's really strange.

Another thing is that hybrids have a highly developed sense of smell, hearing and sight. In DMC5, Dante could smell Urizen from quite a distance. And demons, even hybrids, have their own scent. According to Dante, it's not a nice smell. That's my guess, too. I think the sons of Sparda are fire-based demons, considering their devil trigger form (I don't know what to think of Nero because his DT form is very vague and very humanoid. But he still can be a fire-based demon, considering Sparda, Agrosax, and Berial are prolly fire-based demons but none look alike). Therefore, the smell of all three could be like burnt flesh or a sooty, weird grotesque smell which I like the idea of. This is probably the smell of their demon blood mixing with their human blood. The hybrids smell must differ from each other based on their type. We've seen demons from the four elements throughout the series, but I think there could be more concept-based demons, like ‘darkness’ because nobody knows where to put these demons, so they just call them darkness or void… things like that. Even though we humans are the same species, we can give ourselves different names to feel special, so it's not surprising.

Hybrids also have the ability to sense energy. This is something we humans possess as well since we live in an energy field and are always in touch with it, we can feel the energies around us. It’s the same for hybrids, but their ability to transfer and sense energy is far beyond what we can ever achieve. It’s canon that demonic energies can bring a hybrid’s demon side to the surface, calling and provoking it. In Deadly Fortune, when Yamato is fixed/healed by Nero, Dante feels a sudden and all-too-familiar demonic energy that unintentionally triggers his demonic side for a moment. This is Yamato’s call. Dante’s demon side is provoked by her and, inevitably, by Vergil’s energy because I wholeheartedly believe Yamato contains a part of Vergil’s soul. They are inbound.

Not much is known about how long hybrids live, but they do age, as we’ve seen with Dante and Matier. Interestingly, Matier lived long enough to meet Sparda. I think hybrids outlive humans, and an average lifespan of 300 years, like Tieflings. I’ll delve into the biological factors of this separately another time.

In the Devil May Cry anime, there’s an episode about a devil’s sincere love for a human. This kinda confirmed my belief that there MUST be other hybrids besides shit twins, Nero and Matier. People in love sometimes have sex, and if they want to, children are born as a result. However, based on what I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure how healthy the pregnancy would be.

The character themes are the best source for understanding the inner conflict a hybrid experiences. Their demon and human souls and blood clash with each other, fighting to see which will come out as the victor. This is evident even with Nero, which is interesting because he’s only about 15% demon, having a hybrid dad and a human mom. It’s weird because, physically, demon blood is dominant, but according to the lore, the human soul is superior. Nero has so little demon blood that he nearly lacks the demonic smell (Dante in Deadly Fortune and Malphas in Devil May Cry 5 comments about this). He’s more human than the twins—a very domestic boy. His psyche should be stronger than the twins. 

Dante's theme songs, however, are understandable, he is a half-breed, a perfect balance of two opposite sides. We see that these demonic urges are directed toward other demons, but I’m curious about whether hybrids have any violent urges toward humans. They are half-demon, after all. Demons are the predators of humans—Sparda himself ate humans before he awoke to justice. We humans even have cannibalistic urges, thanks to female genome transaction, our time cannibalizing each other has scorched into our brains.  Human blood is not just tasty to demons yet hybrids are not berserkers or lesser demons with zero intelligence. They have a brain and a human heart; I don’t see them openly fantasizing about mauling or eating people. But I’m pretty sure the smell of human blood would be appealing to them. It might be like smelling a barbecue and thinking, “Damn, that smells good.” But maybe it wouldn’t be enticing enough to make them attack or eat people. You wouldn't want to eat an alive cow while it stands there cowly, eating grass. You may even interact with it in a nonaggressive way. That’s how I think hybrids would act towards humans if they were in control. Yeah, IF. Returning to Sparda Kin’s theme songs, the inner conflict of a hybrid makes sense with what I’ve said earlier. When you lose control and your demonic side takes over, you essentially leave part of your human consciousness in the hands of an apex predator. In such moments, you could harm those you love or innocent people, or commit worse acts. In the Bible, Nephilim are said to eat humans. This is, of course, a biased point of view, assuming that Abrahamic religions derive their sources from ancient records. But these Nephilim (hybrids) are not all the same; they are all different from each other and this is proven by science, human hybrids and animal hybrids are always different. It is also said that Nephilim are immortal, but there is no explicit mention that they are truly immortal; they simply die. However, the existence of man-eating Nephilim might suggest that some hybrids would indeed have a desire to eat humans. By the way, Nephilim are directly related to our world and the DMC hybrid concept—giants. Hybrids result from the mating of Annunaki people left on Earth with humans.

And don't even get me started on the creepy similarity between the Annunaki legend and Sparda and Mundus. :l

Well, uhh, that's all. I didn't touch on everything I wanted to touch on, but this post would be too long if I let myself go. Have a good day!

[23rd-petethecatguy]

KNOW OUR POWER.

[fabdante]

the one about vergil being jealous of dante

i would like to share my girlfriends theory about vergils thoughts during that bridge scene for mission 7 which i full heartedly agree with

so im talking about the one at the bridge. kat just told dante her whole deal and dante and her are cool now. they meet vergil at the bridge and tell dante about how he needs to break into bob barbas jail. vergil says kat can't go, dante says shes done enough, she warns him about this situation, dante says it'll be lovely and winks at her before going

and vergil just...stares at kat

he just stares at kat

the camera specifically pans to him and holds on him staring at kat. so its important to ninja theory that we see this moment, that we see vergil looking at kat here. we are meant to get something out of this.

according to my very lovely and very smart and very talented girlfriend who is also very enlightened and got me to ship vergil and kat, a possibility here is this is when vergil's mindset shifts.

let me explain.

(i also talk about this in my really long post, the really long list of kat and vergil things )

prior to this mission, kat kind of really does not like dante. this is very clear to me with like...most of their interactions and her body language. she doesn't like it when he waves a gun in her face. she doesn't like it when he makes her job difficult and tries not to go with her. she doesn't like how he talks about humanity (she goes to argue with him about this until vergil stops her, which she also does not like). she doesn't like that he doesn't take her seriously when he asks her about her spells (then proceeds to wipe his fingers off on her). she doesn't like that when she tries to tell him things will be rough in limbo at paradise that he looks at her, says he 'likes it rough', then winks. she really does not like that one, we see her collect herself after this moment before she proceeds to talk to vergil because she does not like it. she does not seem to like how he's not taking a lot of things seriously. she does not like the confused tone he takes when he questions her going to limbo to escape her 'nightmares' (code word for kat's abusive household) because he doesn't understand how things could be worse for her then limbo.

and it's fair to note that there are moments between these moments where they get along! they have a bonding moment in mission 4 about her learning how to do spells and how the cans remind dante of spray cheese (also notable she's talking about vergil in this scene also, but i digress). they have another bonding moment in virility where they talk about their similar backstories.

but its also important to note she is often frustrated with him at this point in the game. and even more important that vergil knows that she's frustrated with dante. the singular conversation we see between kat and vergil in the game is about how kat doesn't trust dante and she finds him frustrating. this was so important for us to know it is the singular scene kat and vergil have alone in the entire game and we get it in the second mission of the game. she asks vergil if he thinks this will work because she thinks it won't, because she distrusts dante so much after just having met him she's doubting this whole plan they put together.

i've rambled enough though my point is this. kat does not like dante for a good chunk of the early game and she does not trust him.

but by the point of the bridge, she does.

it's fair to say the game is, in part, about dante and kat's relationship. it's about dante learning how to trust kat. but he does that pretty quick, the bigger part is dante getting kat to trust and like him. which he seems to figure out very quickly she does not. you can see it in the fact that he stops making comments like he does after mission 2. he instead focuses on trying to get to know her.

now, this i think ties into my meta on mission 19 where i talked about how dante is smarter then we give him credit for. certainly some of this is him trying to figure out the situation he's found himself in and kat is an in to learn about that situation. he's correctly deduced that kat and vergil are close, so kat is very close to this organization and the plan and probably knows a lot about this whole thing so he can learn about it through her.

but he also seems to genuinely want kat to trust and like him, given he is from very early on, pretty vulnerable with her. he tells her about his childhood before she gives him the details on hers and everything. he realizes to get her to trust him, he needs to trust her.

which gets us to the car scene.

i've talked about the car scene in my really long 'every single kat and vergil moment' list post. but i'm going to do that again here from a slightly different angle, that being the dante and kat relationship growth angle.

this scene is key because its where kat finally decides to trust dante.

she finally lets her walls down (kats theme playing, her hood coming down, all those fun little cues) and she tells him about her past, about vergils role in it, and about her goals. it's an interesting scene. i mean dante flat out tells her he trusts her and he wants her to trust him. he flat out tells her that he wants to know about her, and also vergil. he flat out tells her she can trust him to finish this with her. he's very upfront, he's very vulnerable, and he's very honest, something kat seems to resonate with.

i think up to this point we're seeing a slow progression of kat getting to know dante, getting to know how they're similar (in both conflicting and complimenting ways), and relating to the fact they had similarly traumatic experiences in their lives.

dante is not like vergil. he lacked the privilege's vergil clearly grew up in with his wealth, both adopted into and self made, and just the general stability of his up bringing. dante and kat have a lot in common in this way, it's a lot to relate to that vergil just...can't understand, not on that level. and like i said there's a lot of similarities with kat and dante, vergil flat out compares them in the aforementioned mission 2 scene ('he's raw. like you were when i first found you' or whatever the direct quote is).

so, this is where we are at with the bridge scene.

this is all that's happened.

from vergil's point of view he, notably, knows directly that kat does not trust or exactly like dante. he knows this has been hard for her. he knows that kat and dante are similar people. he knows that kat and dante just spent a lot of time together.

he knows there are just some things about both kat and dante that he is just never going to understand.

and then we get to the bridge. we get to the bridge and kat and dante are getting along swimmingly. dante is protecting her, saying she's done enough, that he doesn't need her to come with him. dante winks at her and kat doesn't do anything in response (unlike the last time dante did something like that). they're, fairly suddenly, fine. especially if we assume, as ninja theory implies, this is right after the drive and this is the first time vergil's talked to either of them since the phone call in the car.

for vergil, this is probably...very jarring, say the least. you go from kat having to calm herself down before she talks to you when dante tries to flirt with her, to her just being largely indifferent when he winks at her.

i've said before that, to me, vergil's downfall recontextualizes the entire kat/vergil relationship we see in game. because vergils downfall very loudly asserts that in some way he cared for her. he cared for her more then he cared about anyone else. we know this because when he's asked what he'd change, what would he do differently, the only thing vergil thinks of is his relationship with kat. that is it. that's the only thing that comes to his mind. we know this because the first third of vergil's downfall is him trying to save kat, again, with no hesitation. we know this because kat is the only figure in vergil's downfall he tries to explain himself to and she is the only person he has to turn into a monster before he can kill them. we know this because hollow vergil tells vergil that everyone he cared for, everyone he loves, hates him now and that includes kat.

it doesn't matter what way he cares about her, selfishly, platonically, romantically, whatever. he cared about her. in some way he loves her.

which brings me back to this moment were vergil stares at kat after dante leaves. this long hold of the camera while he does nothing but look at her, suspect.

and we get to my girlfriends theory that this is the moment where everything changed for vergil.

vergil's motives are...mysterious to us, say the least. we know he wants to save mankind, according to him. we know he makes some points that make sense (someone has to be in charge of the demons but who said it needed to be him). we know that, the biggest issue, is him lying to the others and his general regard of humans as weak despite everything kat does.

my girlfriend posits in this moment, vergil convinces himself that something is happening with kat and dante and he gets jealous. that he thinks he can't compete with his brother for kat (in whatever way, romantic or platonic) and that he no longer trusts either of them in the way he did before. he wants to, but he doesn't. this is the moment his focus shifts to the plan above all else, and this is the mentality we see him remain in for the rest of the game. and that it's here that he decides not to tell them about the ruling mankind plan (me and my girlfriend argue this plan develops during the game for him, but its fair to argue that he may have come up with it before the events of the game. it's also fair not to agree with me about any of this, it's a game from 2013 about killing demons like...it's fine)

we have evidence of this, also in downfall. it's the way hollow kat and hollow dante talk to him.

kat emphasizes that dante is a real man, and vergil is not. she emphasizes that she prefers dante, stoking fears vergil seems to have because its these escalating talking points about dante that lead to her turning into a demon. dante, similarly, stokes at vergil feeling inferior to him. he emphasizes vergil being the 'little' brother (if he means younger or if he means something else, up to you to decide). he points out how he'll always be the better one, the stronger one, the more powerful one. all culminating to him also being killed off.

i think the game is making a very clear point in this, all starting with that stare.

vergil wants to love his brother, he probably does, he's his brother after all. he even says in the game and hollow vergil's point still stands.

but he is also jealous of dante. there's a lot of jealousy about dante. and i think that jealousy fuels a lot of his actions and this moment, that stare on the bridge, is the moment that it really starts. when vergil sees dante as a threat to this relationship he has with kat and he just no longer trusts the two the same as he had before mission 7.

my girlfriend has always argued this and i think she's very right and very smart.

[auntarctica]

When it comes to your writing how do you see the differences between the reboot interpretation of Dante and Vergil versus their classic counterparts? What parts stick out to you as similar or as different?

So, I'm in the minority camp that thinks Ninja Theory did kind of an interesting thing when they opted to switch storylines and birth order (for whatever that's worth with identical twins) between Dante and Vergil in the reboot.

I know a lot of people hate the idea of Vergil being the "little brother" in the equation and thought it made no sense and was a meaningless change, and I get where they're coming from, because it probably was - what I mean is, it likely wasn't intentional on NT's part, for any other reason than an attempt to instead make Dante the "cool older brother" and to differentiate themselves in one more way from OG DMC.

But what's interesting about both the shift in birth order and the storyline swap is that rather than undermining their innate characters, it actually reinforced them, and proved that no matter the formative circumstances, Dante will act like Dante and Vergil will act like Vergil:

Dante, whether he's the one protected by Eva or disenfranchised from society and family, will become secretly wounded, insouciant, irreverent, sardonic, flippant and cynical. He will be in denial about the true danger posed by Mundus, and determined to avoid his father's legacy, but reluctantly protect humanity when called upon - though not for free, of course. The toilets need flushing.

Vergil, whether he comes from rubble or privilege, will always be ambitious, idealistic striving, driven, calculating but rash, with the overconfidence of youth and a reach exceeding his grasp. He will have an Icarusian fall, and ultimately a phoenix-like redemption. (We presume a DmC sequel would/have follow(ed) the same reconciliation trajectory, because what else would make sense/serve the story?)

It also rather neatly answers and dovetails with the retroactive rhetorical question classic Vergil asks himself at the top of the Qliphoth, whether things would have been different if he'd had Dante's life, and Dante had his.

And the answer we already have from reboot is, no, not really. The outcome could only have been different if the individuals involved were totally different people - but their core character traits, I think, stay true and remain intact in both versions.

Still, obviously there are variations in character within those greater macro aspects, things that make the expression of these personality traits different, which we can attribute to formative experience, and the swapped backstory.

For instance, Classic Dante hides his profound psychological damage by being a party guy and a rock n' roll rodeo clown whereas DmC Dante wears his inside out; we can see his sullen punk-rock defensiveness, his bitterness, and we do not doubt his damage for a minute. Being the disenfranchised one has left its mark on him, and he has no ability or willingness to mask his trauma. Both keep others at arms' length, but ironically, ReDante actually is more receptive to intimacy and connection, possibly because he doesn't have a false front, or a whole circus-like façade, just a default defensive stance he holds as a last resort, after being embattled his entire life. He has been given the classic Vergil backstory, and while he becomes similarly defensive and embittered, he reacts like Dante, not classic Vergil.

Neither Dante is ever canonically shown as having any particular interest in humans or humanity as a whole, so much as a keen interest in killing demons (which is why the ending fraternal conflict of reboot rings so false, non sequitur and hollow). Both shrug off human collateral damage, and if classic Dante is ever bothered by the mass casualties incurred in the raising of the Qliphoth, he never mentions it as he trips over their bodies to run to his brother. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Of the two, I think Vergil is the more different, with more personality contrast between interpretations - though his core traits remain: curiosity, intrepidity, enthusiasm, perfectionism, impulsivity, absolutism. With the strife removed from his life, Vergil is able to be emotionally open, to express his love for his brother, and his ambition comes from a proactive place instead of a reactive one.

However, like Dante, all his youthful flaws remain intact. He will always be the one who falls - and Dante will always be the one who fails to act at the crucial moment. The tragedy is thus complete.

The greatest difference, I think, is that classic Vergil has even less use for humans than Dante, whereas ReVergil is arguably the only one who actually has any appreciation for humanity as a class (even if he regards them as lesser beings) - which actually puts him more in line with classic Sparda, ironically, than anyone else. Reboot Sparda is never shown as having any particular interest in humans or their fate, and he and Eva are essentially depicted as just hiding out in the human world like it's witness protection.

That said, I'm sure I'm missing something, so I'm actually interested in hearing other people's opinions on this.

[mysteriousanderfels]

Imagine if they kept the Canon Dante like this when we start the game.

(Thinking of all the Vergil analysis the fandom will melt in)

[lifetimeoftired]

Tacking on to my other post about Vergil/Lady, there’s another interesting canon moment, that now that I’ve actually gone back to watch, that really got me.

In the cutscene in the post-second Vergil fight where she accuses Vergil of forcing Arkham to do this, he looks mildly annoyed and a bit disappointed. But note, he only attacks her once. She interrupted his fight with Dante, which annoyed him and that’s why he attacks her, but he pauses and takes the time to call her out specifically for believing Arkham. Sure sure, he could just be being dramatic cause he hates the guy, but this is also the same man Vergil just ‘killed’ because of “fondness” for his daughter when the guy has been leading him around to the thing Vergil wants and this was almost entirely Arkham’s plan anyway.

If we put our shipping googles on here for a minute, and consider Vergil’s pov, he might have been jealous of her. We know he hates Arkham, hated him the entire time from how he was constantly glaring at the son of bitch anytime he spoke. Part of that is the fact that he knows Arkham murdered his wife to become a devil. And this is Vergil! Mommy issues central! No doubt Vergil absolutely despises Arkham for killing his wife, and is just using he supposedly saving his daughter as an excuse to kill him for that. Also, he no doubt hates the idea that Arkham has any softer feelings towards his child (because maybe, his own parents were more complicated than he wants to believe), if he even believes that Arkham actually did. And if he did believe, for just a second, that Arkham actually cared about her, he most certainly wondered, in those few moments, why Lady was so damn special? Why did Arkham still choose to care about his daughter but his parents didn’t care about, him was something wrong with him? How come Arkham couldn’t a father to HIM? Then imagine his disappointment when he realizes Arkham manipulated Lady. To what end? He won’t know for a few more seconds, but he goes right back to thinking ‘lol Arkham’s a piece of shit, glad I killed him’. 

And maybe, he sees something in Lady that’s like himself. Someone abandoned, someone unloved who lost everything too soon. Angry, lashing out, doing everything to put the wrong right and make it so that she’s never vulnerable again. Going so far as to challenge something so far above her, she could never succeed because she must.

And then there’s Lady. She does stop, right then and there. She could’ve chosen not to believe Vergil. After all, there was no reason for her to believe him. He’s a demon! She just learned he was possessing her father and made him do terrible things! Except, she does believe him. She could just be thinking about how Arkham being possessed doesn’t really track with what she knows. She could be questioning why she’s even trusting Arkham in the first place. I like to think, that she sees that he’s honestly, genuinely disappointed in her. He says, ‘you really believe that?’ and she actually considers what he’s saying because, that’s not the reaction of someone who ‘won’ the manipulation chess game. Something I think she’d be well versed in, seeing as Arkham is Like That and it no doubt slipped through into his every day personality.

Obviously Dante/Jester interrupts so we’ll never really know how they would’ve reacted to after this exchange, but I like to think he would have let her walk away. Might have even told her, in his pompous way, that things were about to get bad and she should save herself while she could. She obviously would’ve called him a dick, challenged him, and I do think he would’ve killed her. But only because if he didn’t go all out, he would be ashamed of himself for not showing a worthy opponent respect. 

[scalproie]

adding to the list of dam's requirement to being a fav: banned in fighting games

[ridgystacis]

Dante and Vergil obviously but both in a narrative fashion as well as a meta-narrative fashion.

Narratively, their “dooming” comes from the fact that they are caught in a loop of repetition. Obviously there’s a reflection of childhood in any sibling relationship and Dante and Vergil aren’t any different, constantly harkening back to things that happened back then and recreating their childhood dynamic (“How many times have we fought?” “Hard to say. It’s the only memory I have of us since we were kids.”). However, they can’t remain in it because of their shared core wound - the night their mother died and they were separated. And so, as they recreate their childhood, they also end up having to recreate the end of their childhood. The narrative dooms them to always remain in the past, and as a result, inevitably separate. 

Meta-narratively, the conflict between Dante and Vergil is the core of the franchise. Therefore, they have to fight, because if they didn’t, that core conflict wouldn’t exist anymore. It’s why Dante tells Nero that it’s not his fight, “I need to stop him, and that’s all that matters.” Because yeah, Dante is the protagonist, and Vergil is his antagonist. Their fight near the end of 5 calls attention to this meta-narrative dooming, as even when both characters have no conflict between them (both have accepted the human and demonic aspects of their identity), they still have to fight each other. By the nature of the narrative they exist in and their respective roles in it, Dante and Vergil are doomed to exist in opposition to each other. 

Reason #473 why Nero is the goat - he’s able to save the two from their narrative and meta-narrative dooming. Narrative-wise, as a physical representation of the future of the Sparda bloodline, Nero yanks them out of the past and into the present, breaking the loop of repetition and allowing Dante and Vergil’s relationship to move forward. After all, it’s because of his existence and his strength that the two don’t have to separate once more and instead go into hell together. More interestingly, meta-narrative wise, Nero represents the future of the franchise. By taking over as the central protagonist of the franchise, the story no longer needs to be defined by the conflict between Dante and Vergil, and the two are able to move on from their roles and finally exist on the same side. 

People should make more doomed by narratives siblings relationship.

Like with lovers you can just sever it and not have it related to you ever again but with siblings how could you?

You grow up with them you raise them or they raised you you both know how unforgiving the world is to both of you? You would die for them but will hate them for doing the same and yet none of you would regret it and both of you know it. They could be the person you loath the most and miss the most cause you still remember how they sneaked a candy into your hands. You can sever the tie but you can never look away at what you've lost, at whom you've lost because fate doesn't allow you to be together, eating dinners in quiet peace, if only there's another life, another time, where i can make you another plate of pancakes i would im sorry im sorry im sorry —

[hohuios]

Tag drop: 2/2

[avengetheangels]

Looking for people/accounts that reblog or post a lot of the below!

Coming back to Tumblr after a long absence. After deleting my inactive following, it has been cut in half. So looking for more people to follow! If you reblog or post any of the following (gifs, meta, fanart, fanfic!), like or reblog and I'll give you a follow! Separated by category.

-Movies (HORROR!!!, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney)

-Anime (MHA, Trigun, One Piece, Bungou Stray Dogs, Mob Psycho 100, Fullmetal Alchemist)

-TV (The Last of Us, Avatar the Last Airbender, MASH, Game of Thrones, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Flanagan works, Teen Wolf, The Witch)

-Ships [Any Steve Rogers ships, any Bakugo ships, any Sanji ships, any Stiles ships, Eruri, Zuko/Sokka, Vergil/Dante]

[fabdante]

see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

happy 10 year anniversary to the reboot! this year I thought I’d tackle my first fan art idea for the game that i had in 2013 because I never got around to doing it. consider this a wip to, because I plan on coloring it (also don’t look too closely on mobile, tumblr maybe made these a little crunchy)

[i-am-the-egg-to-rule-all-eggs]

Ready, Fight!

i love when people tag textposts with five different characters at the minimum. like baby stop youre packing that meow meow shelter like a clown car

[moorishflower]

Hello! Who do you recommend I follow for more awesome dreamling content like you have? Thanks!

OH MAN okay so uh you might follow a number of them already BUT, all of the people here are incredible and lovely and I interact with them regularly or semi-regularly!

@avelera (Writes Come live with me and be my love, as well as Giving Sanctuary, incredible meta insights)

@dancinbutterfly (Wrote Fuckboi Hob vs. The Endless Family Dinner, and turn, my beloved, and be thou like a young hart, also does fantastic meta!)

@fishfingersandscarves (Definitely best known for their art, but also writes Better Strangers, a Daniel/Hob fic I'm rabid for)

@delta-pavonis (Writes the Dream Songs series, which got me into the idea of BDSM for Dreamling. I'd never written it before!)

@teejaystumbles (More amazing art! Torte on AO3, wrote The Storms of Life)

@softest-punk (Wrote Knight of Cups and Shelter, good insights into the writing process in general, overall very cool!)

@gabessquishytum (Premier Horny for Hob content, very NSFW but my gosh is it all compelling)

@landwriter (Writes Oaths, also wrote Black Shore and Saint Morpheus, LANGUAGE META)

@pellaaearien (Writes Another Word for Ache, has the cutest and most powerful video game character)

@wordsinhaled (Really cool modern art style Dream content + lots of soft Dreamling art, has written a lot of good lil tumblr fics <3)

@messmonte/@alexxuun (First is the NSFW account, second is SFW, Alex's has been the singlehanded inspiration for like. At least 5 or 6 fics I think.)

@dsudis (Wrote Licking the Spoon and the Dream Problems series, powerful in the ways of tagging and also just in the art of writing in general)

@mandolinearts (More soft Dreamling art! Wrote and illustrated the piece about Hob Gadling and the comet!)

@xx-vergil-xx (Writes Hounds, one of THE long fics of the fandom. Come for the fic, stay for the unhinged metaphors of devouring as devotion!)

I have a lot of other people I'd recommend following but I either don't know their tumblr handles (only know them from discord lol) or they aren't on tumblr <3 But if you follow THESE people and then follow whoever THEY follow, you're set!!!

[teatitty]

Dante not having Rebellion in DMC1 is obviously because Rebellion had not yet been created by Capcom but on a meta level what if the lack of Rebellion is because of the grief depression of losing Vergil. We know Vergil's "death" fundamentally changed Dante's personality for over 20 years [because he doesn't return to his 3 persona until 4, when he's 38] and he became heavily depressed, turning to all sorts of self destructive behaviours, including heavily implied alcoholism in the anime

He's lost his twin brother. And Yamato is the twin to Rebellion. So, what if he really didn't use Rebellion for a decade or so because he was still mourning the loss of Vergil - and, by extension, Yamato - and couldn't bring himself to touch the very blade that signified their connection

[scalproie]

the interesting thing here is that regarding the devil gene, jin is most likely applying what his mother told him aka "some times call for defense, some for offense" (as we saw in the flashback when xiaoyu was in danger) so rather than tapping in the devil gene for power just for the sake of it, he used it to do good as in save his friends and not just pure revenge, but all heihachi sees is the devil gene as a threat after getting attacked by two carriers of the gene (kazumi & kazuya) so of course he wouldnt accept what he interpret as jin embracing his devil gene, even tho maybe jin wouldve turned out okay if heihachi didnt interfere