Nyx, the FutoShu Popess (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nyxmidnight) wrote,@ 2005-05-26 22:58:00 |
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| Current mood: |  accomplished |
| Current music: | DMC3 OST - Vergil Sentou 3 |
| Entry tags: | dmc1, dmc2, dmc3, dmc3.5, dmc4, fandom is crazy, fandom is fucking funny, fandom: devil may cry, fanwork: primer |
Devil May Cry: A Primer
This is a newbie's guide to the Devil May Cry universe and fandom. I won't pretend that I've written an exhaustive primer, so please, fellow fans, feel free to point out errors and omissions and add resources. New fans, please feel free to comment and ask questions.
Spoilers for most of the series and its background except DMC4 because I haven't played it yet and it came out yesterday anyway.
I would like to warmly thank wolfsbride, jchaos and emerald_embers for helping me bring this crazy idea to life.
A Devil May Cry Primer for the New Fan, Second Edition
In the beginning was the Word...
Oops, wrong side of the story.
In the beginning was a devil.
His name was Sparda. One day, he took pity on the poor humans' short and painful lives. That, or he stopped finding us tasty as snacks. Either way, he took it upon himself to defend the human race against his own kind.
Taking his sword—named after himself—in hand, he slew one of the kings of Hell and his legions. Then, he escaped to Earth,
These things always involve virgin sacrifice one way or the other.
Sparda was not the virgin.
In the beginning, but much later, was Eva. She met
Also, the babies had white hair. But they were still the cutest.
In the beginning was a poet, and his intellectual guide.
No wait, wrong couple.
In the beginning, 19 years later, was a
In the beginning, but about two decades later, was a devil hunter with pristine white hair. After a clone of his mother trashed his office, impaled him with a sword, shocked the hell out of him and tried to bash his head in with a bike, he embarked with her on a journey to Mallet Island to defeat the very same Hell King his own father destroyed two millenia ago.
Dante has never been too bright when boobies are involved.
In the beginning, later still, was a devil hunter with white hair. Nobody really knows what happened then, but he still fought evil on Vie du Marii (spelling unknown) island, a refuge of different pagan people from Christianity.
No, the evil was not Christianity.
In the end, it didn't happen in that order in the series at all.
The series
There are&mdashso far&mdashfour games in the series: Devil May Cry 1, Devil May Cry 2, Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening and Devil May Cry 4. Actually, there are 5 if you count Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening: Special Edition separatedly. Why Capcom put a subtitle on the third one is still a mind-boggling mystery. Don't be fooled by the names, though, because the third one is actually a prequel; thus, if you want to see the series in chronological order, you have to play DMC3, then DMC1, DMC4, and DMC2.
No matter the order you play them in, though, it'll all make sense in the end. Except for all the unexplained things and the plot holes that even Capcom would have a hard time explaining. You don't exactly play these games for the rich and deep plot.
The family through which it begins:
Note: Let it be known, the Devil May Cry characters don't believe in last names.
Sparda
Devil. Badass. In devil form, has goat feet, really big horns and cockroach wings. In human form, has white hair, dresses in stylish purple clothes and wears a spiffy monocle. His rebellion against his devil master(s) and his escape to Earth, followed by his sealing of the portal to Hell and his vow to protect humans from evil, started the whole saga.
Sparda lived for about 2,000 years on Earth, and presumably even longer in Hell before that. Although he is the instigator of the whole mess, we never actually see him except in flashbacks, stories told by the characters, or as an unlockable playable character&mdashthough then he still has Dante's voice. Lazy game developers.
Eva
The mother of the twins and&mdashpresumably&mdashwife of Sparda, at least for a while&mdashthe guy lived for over 2,000 years on Earth alone, he surely got around. She was also the keeper of Sparda's amulet, which she separated in two and gave to her sons later on. Almost nothing is known of her except her name and the fact that she was blond and beautiful.
Sadly, she died, most probably at the
Dante
Everyone's favourite immature, macho, attention-seeking, trash-talking, showoff devil hunter. Dante is the star of the show, and he won't let you forget that. He also apparently can't die, except in the hands of the players.
He starts off hunting devils for the thrill of it, then for revenge for his mother and brother, then, presumably, out of a sense of duty. That, or after DMC2's rather bland Dante, Capcom decided to crank up the fun-seeking side of Dante's personality to the max to try and regain their fanbase with the prequel.
Loving Dante is mandatory. You'll find your time in the fandom very boring if you don't. Unless you love Vergil. Then all is forgiven. Well, almost all. Dante hates not being the centre of attention.
Vergil
The other twin. Much more mature and calm than Dante, but he can also be a showoff when he wants to. He's driven by ambition, very proud of his father and his blood, and considers guns an insult to a warrior's way of life&mdashsadly, that doesn't keep him from blasting your ass with magical projectile things.
Vergil is very samurai-ish, in a way, and the fact that he uses a katana, Yamato, only makes the link between him and the whole "noble warrior" thing even more obvious.
Defeated at the end of DMC3, he willingly falls deeper into the bowels of Hell, where he finds what he thinks is a worthy adversary to prove he can be as strong as his father was: Mundus. If you played DMC1, you can guess what happens to his sorry ass.
Note: Per the first and third game's subtitles, and Capcom itself, his name is spelled with an "E". Vergil. Virgil is the Roman poet living in Limbo.
And the others it would help to know:
For length reasons, I've only included here the most important secondary characters. If you have any question about other characters (Phantom, Nevan, etc.), comment!
Arius (DMC2)
President of a big multinational corporation. He is after four talismans, called the Arcanas, hidden on Vie du Marii to open a portal to Hell and steal the powers of a devil named Argosax for himself.
Arkham (DMC3)
He of the Permanent Scowl. Creepy scholar helping Vergil open the portal Sparda had sealed. Has a big orange scar on the side of his face
Jester (DMC3)
Devilish buffoon who inhabits Temen-Ni-Gru, the big tower dedicated to evil in DMC3.
Lady (DMC3)
The girl of DMC3. Full-blooded human who hunt devils out of revenge because her father killed her mother to try and become one. Her definition of "devil" include Dante and Vergil. Rather proficient with firearms. Looks like one of the singers of t.A.t.U., in more goth.
Lucia (DMC2)
The girl of DMC2. Guardian of Vie du Marii. Prefers blades to guns, even in combat from afar. She is actually a devil, created by Arius, but she was a defect and most probably thrown away, after which Matier rescued and raised as her daughter and future protector of the island.
Matier (DMC2)
Old guardian of Vie du Marii, too old for duty now. She raised Lucia as her own daughter, walks with a cane that's actually a magic Arcana, and knows Sparda "very well". That's not an innuendo for anything.
Mundus (DMC1)
Sparda's archenemy, and by extension, Dante's. He is the devil king who Sparda sealed away and whose army was destroyed before Sparda's big escape to Earth. DMC1 hints that he is the one who killed Dante's mother and brother, out of revenge.
Nelo Angelo (DMC1)
A knight from Hell, fighting Dante with honour and a giant sword. Is actually Vergil, brainwashed and transformed after about 20 years in Hell, but still the same old honourable, blade-wielding warrior.
Trish (DMC1)
The girl of DMC1. A devil clone of Dante's mother Eva who Mundus used as a bait to lure Dante out to Mallet Island, where he could destroy him. Trish backstabs Dante, then "sacrifices" herself for him&mdashshe doesn't die&mdashand escapes Mallet with him. Last seen
Your fellow fans
Before going any further, be warned that 2/3 of the fandom is incest, and the remaining 1/3 is strange pairings.
Just kidding.
I must warn you though, it's true that there are a *lot* of incest fanfictions and fanarts in this fandom. The first game had no humanoid characters to pair Dante with save for his twin brother and a clone of his mother, and the fans ran with it. There lies the main rift in the fandom: the het part with Dante/Trish, and the yaoi part with Dante/Vergil. Overall though, both sides of the fandom seem to get along rather well when fans of both sides meet. Since then, the het side has grown with the arrival of Dante/Lucia, Dante/Lady and Vergil/Lady fans, and the yaoi side got a huge serving of fanservice with Vergil's appearance as the main antagonist in the third game.
There is also a lot of pairings with Dante's anthropomorphized weapons, because the first game gave his sword Alastor and gauntlets Ifrit shreds of personality, and if you wanted to avoid both the incest and the pairing of Dante with monsters, they were the other option. The game Viewtiful Joe, also by Capcom, even went so far as to give Alastor a devil body, dressed in
With the fourth game and Nero's
An important thing to remember is that we don't combine the names of the shipped characters to name our 'ships. And that is a good thing.
There are no central archive for Devil May Cry fanfictions. They're unfortunately scattered through personal sites and LJs, and thus can be hard to find. I have a small recs page on my Devil May Cry fansite, but my taste are firmly on the yaoi and strange side of the fandom—except when it comes to Sparda/Eva because dude, het OTP forever!—and it might not be useful for some of you.
Most of the fandom's infrastructure is centred around LJ communites.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
devil_may_cry_c has some good general information about the series and other things that relates to it, such as Dante's cameos in other games anc Capcom's Should you be tempted by the yaoi side of the fandom,
dmc_yaoi will welcome you, and demoncest will as well, though the last one is specifically for Dante/Vergil yaoi, while the first is for DMC yaoi in general. Not interested? dante_trish might cater more to your interests.If you are looking for fanfictions to read, no matter where your tastes lay, or if you are a DMC fanwriter looking for a place to post your fanfiction, head over to
dmc_fics.Need icons to fancy up your LJ? Or perhaps you're an icon artist who wants to show off your new DMC icons?
dmc_icons has icons for those who need them and is ready to welcome your icons if you make them!If there's anything you don't understand, just ask! We're overall a friendly bunch and ready to help you bring more shinies to the fandom. We crave Teh Shiny.
