This is a project on a character for Nero's mother and an AU where V is female.
i explain my art so you dont have to look it up.
i wanted to conceptualise my LiR visually too. Ive been writing about her since i played dmc4. i based the depiction on two paintings of the farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis. by Raymond Auguste Quinsac Monvoisin and Jacques-Louis David. The story of Eucharis is not in the original greek mythology, but is a later french addition, much like the order of the sword has changed from its original meaning when they served sparda directly on the island. Telemachus searched for his father who had disappeared in battle, met Eucharis on a remote island on this journey, and had to leave her to continue his search. It is heartbreaking to think that vergil perhaps didnt only search for his fathers “power” and knowledge, but also the man himself.
LiR is a bleeding heart dove, because her lifelong heart disease weighs her down. Nero however, i made a common city dove. Fits his devil trigger colors.
LiR is not able to leave with him, but giving birth to nero and the subsequent worsening of her illness makes her question her loyalty to the order, and she decides to leave without Nero. After a difficult immigration process, she becomes a trendy city woman who performs theatre, and exorcisms like she did for the order in her down time.
She stays in red grave when it is attacked, and eventually meets V at that theatre, but she passes before the events of dmc5 and vergils reformation. when she sets LiR's soul free, it is a raven. To symbolise, death, rebirth of himself, and intelligence, emotional, and what connected him to LiR in the first place. It is of course also a reference to the most famous goth poet and his piece "The Raven" in which the main character mourns the loss of his lover.
Summary
Vergil is not himself, she has one month to prepare for the complete end, or a small chance to fix his mistake. Red Grave is a silent Pompeiian necropolis, but by fate, she unexpectedly meets the love of her past again.
Characters
female V, Lady in Red.
Content [17+]
Trigger warnings: (let me know if i should add more)
- Major character death, grief
- Chronic diseases
- Canon-typical violence
- Cults, disownment, traumatic birth
What headcanons story goes into:
- Lady in red, and their romantic relationship. /span>
- Alternate universe female V
Authors notes:
recommended to view on reread or if needing immediate context.
Contents
- ℑ 𝔎 𝔫 𝔬 𝔴 𝔱 𝔥 𝔢 𝔈𝔫𝔡 Read
Summary: Vergil is not himself, she has one month to prepare for the complete end, or a small chance to fix his mistake. Red Grave is a silent Pompeiian necropolis, but by fate, she unexpectedly meets the love of her past again.
uploading the first draft of that. i might write it better if something else doesnt catch my interest.
I wasnt able to find a genre-accurate (darker, older) song for this story that i liked as much as I know the end by Phoebe Bridgers.
I was trying to come up with a character that compliments the dmc storyline. she had to be someone vergil would like and respect, but not someone he could have a happy ending with without undermining the darker aspects of his character and neros trauma. it was the ideal choice to make her abandon nero as part of abandoning her faith, and to make her not die young and suddenly, but give her parallels to V as someone who is on borrowed time. Vergil is left with the guilt, when she is eventually killed by the qliphoth, but it isnt the only reason she dies. V embodies vergils heart, but only what is left of it. I wanted LiR to be expressive and romantic while staying a soulmate-type. i also wanted to keep the self-insert aspects so i didnt give her a distinct personality you might imagine for a DMC character. for this reason the tone is a bit different.
i chose the name Liliana for LiR because it is easy to remember. think smarter not harder.
teenager
my lady in red is a student and exorcist. fortuna didnt have women as knights (but wasnt uncommon, kyrie wanted to become a knight like in the concept art), vergil was 17, she was 20. she was more mature and thats why he fell for her in part, but they also have similar personalities and they first met when lady got suspicious of him and followed him to make an attempt on his life. in general, she has a lot of mirrors to vergil. they met, when she found him searching fortuna and taking things, and she believed him to be a demon and tried to kill him. not that nobody had tried to kill him before, but he thought it was cute. she followed him around fortuna whereever he went from then on, and they became infatuated with each other. but vergil had to leave to raise the temennigru at a deadline. he had his hair down because he thought dante dead but she told him she liked it tucked back :)
pregnancy
she had a heart disease, chronic illness and not long to live, even when she met vergil, she thought she was infertile and what she told vergil, and having nero nearly killed her, it was what made her decide to leave fortuna. She thought she didnt deserve nero and wanted to abort him but you couldnt do that on fortuna so she orphaned him instead. she thinks herself a bad person and knows nero has a better life without her, although shed like to meet vergil again.
abandoning the order
When she expressed the desire to leave, she was turned down by her family and society. With little care for them, she decided to fake her death and alchemized a dummy body from a demon, escaped in the night, and hid in a ship that sailed north.
red grave
when she left fortuna, she did shitty jobs like cleaning as a poor immigrant, but theatre on the side, but also continued to do exorcisms as well. she never knew about dante, nero or the fortuna incident, but she did know about te-me-ni-gru.
red grave, present
by age 44, her health quickly deterioates with the qlipoth, because her parents apparently made a deal with a devil to siphon her mothers health while she was pregnant, this as the source of her chronic illness the prescense of demons makes her sick. she has used this to solve paranormal issues for people but the qlipoth is too much and she dies shortly after meeting V. demons dont even attack her because she is so weak, they just siphon her when she is close which is felt to her as a discomfort around demons. her own parents died for the savior project after becoming demons when she was 10.
this Vergil
Vergil is a static character, so V goes through a lot of character development for vergil in visions. im putting him through more. id like more things to have happened in the one month he had to live in the apocalyptic red grave. its a very striking setting.
V is already eccentuating Vergils characteristics a lot, but making him a woman. My V is shorter, lighter voiced, has a feminine body, and comes to identify with the latent, rejected femininity in Vergil. I believe Vergil identifies vulnerability with womanhood due to the trauma of his mother and his stereotypical views on outright, direct power as a favored male virtue. Which is never outright stated in canon but kinda implied by him being a representation of the war trauma that belongs to the older, conservative japanese population -and every egoistic competitive gamer. I also played with the idea of making V younger, but I wanted to write a mature love story more.
i thought it might be distinct and interesting to have Vergil meet LiR again when he is most vulnerable and not himself, and their relationship to be that of old lovers, very chaste and about recalling memories, reminiscing about their lives.
Design
The motifs of Liliana are her black shawl, representing funeral clothes and therefore death. The red rose, which was prominent in dmc4 is her main symbol since i dont dress her in red. Red roses are also commonly put on graves. She wears a heart necklace always, but golden feather earrings as an adult too. I gave her many flower motifs.
As a young adult, Liliana has long, messy dark hair inspired by the female concept for V, her design is also inspired by Kyrie and Eva, the women that the other Spardas fell in love with. She wears black hood and gloves to show her more mysterious and dark nature that she shares with Vergil.
as an adult, Liliana wears her hair in a fashionable style due to being a very outgoing and free woman, following trends in the big city and being a teatre performer. but she still has bangs that are remiscent of Nero's in devil trigger. she is more sickly, but wears red lipstick. She has open laquered shoes and a dress that can show her legs. She wears a corset instead of a festival vest, but still a poofy top.
the green accents are inspired by daisanfar.
i like the face for LiR drawn by cyanorhis.
please also see the work by liibrra.
