#so in nero-verse

[i-mybrunettelady]

been thinking a lot about pre-commander nyra and her first bf erryk and their romance at 17, so charming together, charismatic, the it couple of the season

for reference, here’s a quick picrew of the man

for some additional info: he’s also krytan-ascalonian, he’s a mesmer, a professor, happily married to the man of his dreams, but also one of the people she keeps a semi-regular correspondance with. they’re friends even years after their amicable breakup.

putting this here as a self-indulgent reference point to an obscure part of her life lmao

[romulanslutempire]

[devilsharm]

@wolfsmuses ASKS FOR A STARTER

Something about this stranger felt off. So much so that Nero has been sitting at his table just watching him for a GOOD THIRTY MINUTES by now. Fortuna hardly, if ever, had any visitors even at its peak of life as a city. Now that it's pretty much a shambling, hollow corpse of what it once was? The only visitors they get are families, both rich and poor, looking to adopt the orphans left by the destruction of the city. But this couldn't be it. This stranger doesn't look the familial type AT ALL. If anything he looks like---

...Fuck.

He looks like your everyday walking, talking, fucking BOUNTY HUNTER. Shit. What the hell would one be doing here?

There are a few more minutes where Nero just sits and watches the man before his curiosity gets the better of him. He rises from his chair but only so he can make his way and sit right next to the stranger in question. A man of subtlety, Nero never was. Well, he USED to be, but that's a time of his life he'd rather not remember.

" Fortuna doesn't usually get visitors, ESPECIALLY the kind lookin' for bounties. " Just like he lacks subtlety, he's also straight to the point. Nero looks at the man from the corner of one teal eye. " Here for someone OR JUST DECIDED TO COME SIGHTSEEIN'? "

[akumanoken]

So in bed relaxing because tomorrow is my interview, imma read Vergil and Souji things and cry because I'm in dmc hell/heaven rn

[sunshine-and-ladybugs]

“I don’t suppose you could fix scarring with your stand?” A deep voice shot out from a corner of the room. Seemingly out of nowhere, Risotto appeared, standing with his back resting against the wall, both hands behind his head. He wasn’t kidding about the scars. Despite the smirk on his face, there was no missing the oddly shaped scars on his temples, forehead, and bared chest. The elusive assassin had actually been here awhile, having snuck in when when the door to Giorno’s office had opened earlier in the day. Risotto spent hours quietly observing the young Don at work. “I’m quite impressed with the name you’ve built up for yourself, boss Giovanna.” - (you know who this is. I just don’t have his url yet xP)

"WH-"

Giorno absolutely was not halfway through a chocolate pudding that he was now choking on when that voice came out of nowhere and scared him. Of course not. That would be ridiculous and unbecoming of the new don of Passione.

Finally getting his coughing under control and setting aside the carton for now, he got up, staring at the large man warily.

"...how did you get into my office?"

More importantly, were any of the guards alright?

Giorno recognised this man. He and Polnareff had gone through Passione's files on every single Stand User working for the organisation when his position as don was secured, and he knew the name Risotto Nero had made for himself as the leader of Diavolo's deadly assassination squad.

The same assassination squad who had attempted to kill him and his friends during that No Good, Very Bad week they'd had.

Like every single member of that team, Risotto's profile was marked as terminated, and he could very well guess what that meant. He'd speculated that he had attempted to go up against Diavolo personally, rather than capture Trish like the rest of his team members had attempted to, and failed.

That really did not explain how he was standing before him, alive and well. Although he did notice the strange scarring all over his body...

[nerosdayinanime]

generational trauama<3

very basic explanation: Shuya, the youngest child, was killed during a mission Sanemi was leading & Kyogo was very disrespectful and dismissive about it bc he doesnt see them as anything other than fodder. Sanemi, overcome with the grief of his latest sibling's death and the years of abuse, lost his shit and lunged at him with intent to kill.

His arm went through Kyogo's chest and together they went through the window, Kyogo briefly fought back and Sanemi used a wind jutsu to utterly shred the inside of his chest cavity. He sits back and processes what just happened and realizes that the pain and grief hasn't gone away.

Shizu finally gets to him- Genya close behind though I didn't show it -and he breaks down over the fact he just killed so brutally so easily. He's become a monster just like Kyogo shaped him to be. Shizu calls for some water & washes the blood off, then gets the bone fragments out and heals him.

Rest of the clan's freaking the hell out bc He Just Snapped We're Next Oh Fuck Oh Fuck, no one knows what to do abt Kyogo bleeding out, but hes just Sitting There, Crying

[cof-death]

My current Icon ^

Some more pictures of my Dante refs below!  Feel free to ask me about DMC; I’d love to talk about it!

( Mod links here: For Dante: Turtle Neck Dante (With sleeves version) ( Demonic Eyes (Reddish Dante)  Balrog but DT Dante arm (Had to do some image editing with each screenshot to only have one DT arm alot of work) The last screenshot with Vergil he had on Presentable Dante (Mods for Vergil: Dad Glasses Devil Hunter Vergil (The default Urizen gauntlet one)

[lesenbyan]

NG+ problems: do I have to make a new glam for this??? do none of these fit baby Eve vibe??

[furykept]

@nulltune​​ asked:  ‘come with me anyway? just for fun?’

in the city of rain, there’s a restaurant that has everyone talking and singing their praises. whenever you dare to venture into town, you can count on overhearing about it at least once, especially the closer it becomes to lunch or dinner time. yet you have never gone in the hundred or so years you’ve spent hearing about it, because to you, the idea of dining in what you imagine to be a crowded, confined space isn’t in the least bit appealing. you would much rather stay home as you always do, making do for yourself ( even if your cooking is only mediocre ).  

but lately it’s become hard to resist when hakuno is the one asking you for anything. 

still, you do hesitate. slight grimace mars your features briefly while you weigh your options― hakuno is always lovely company, and since it’s later in the afternoon ( drawing near evening, actually ), the restaurant probably won’t be too crowded... maybe just a couple late-lunch stragglers. so it can’t be too bad. and you’ve done this well for so long, keeping to yourself and avoiding suspicion in this city. the likelihood of anyone bothering you is slim to none, if you put your paranoia aside. and when you do, you see no reason to deny hakuno’s harmless request.

you will not admit that you wouldn’t deny her even if you did think trouble might arise. 

❝alright,❞ comes the answer with a little nod. it’s a little more softspoken than you usually would be, but that’s come to be the norm when you’re with her. venom no longer laces your tone, edges disappear from your tone, and blunt words soften for her alone these days. you won’t yet speak out loud what that means, but you can admit to yourself, at least, that you readily consider her a friend― the first you’ve had beyond the other original wizards.

❝consider it my treat, though. if you don’t mind.❞

[feralidiotdomicile]

@feralverndari wanted a starter for Nero!

A low growl emanated from the white-haired quarter-demon as he sent shot after shot of double bullets from Blue Rose at the little demons surrounding, raising the gun and glaring at the Empusa Queen that was standing on a table that was split in half, with a bunch of food scattered around.

"Really guys? The one time I get to enjoy a meal in peace and you have to go and ruin it?" He let off more shots to a couple more trying to jump at him, still glaring at the largest one as though expecting it to answer (he wasn't expecting one, to be honest, he was just ranting). "Do you have any idea how much I was looking forward to that?"

So much for his one time he gets to relax.... ugh. He still made short work of the Queen and her minions before eyeing the ruined food forlornly. Maybe he could grab something later, or something...

That was quickly shoved to the side when he felt a demonic energy nearby, though it was..... odd. Not like any he knew of, though to be honest, he was still getting used to actually feeling for demonic energy and not just looking at his arm to see if there were any around, so he didn't really know the differences between all of them just yet.

This one felt familiar, though he couldn't put his finger on how even as he followed it to find a kid with.... a demonic arm. Except this didn't feel like the Devil Bringer or the Devil Trigger, it felt like something else entirely.

"Hey, kid, the hell're you doin' here? Don't ya know this place is off limits for a reason?"

[devils-little-sista]

Honestly I think Nico should have died at the end of BoO—hear me out ok just hear me out—and been a martyr figure for a while about a year and then somehow come back just before Tower of Nero and he’s there with Apollo the whole book hanging out with the trogs and kicking Nero’s ass.

It’s just that literally everything in BoO is foreshadowing Nico’s death. Hades’s whole speech about how “some deaths can not / should not be prevented”.

Nico having that dream about Ella reciting that line from the sybline books “the fall of the sun / the final verse”. Because that’s the next prophecy Nico will be apart of and also when Nico makes the big announcement that’s he’s alive again / came back from the dead / is immortal now.

It’s just that there is so much more foreshadowing into Nicos death and martyrdom beyond these points it’s insane. If BoO was fresher in my mind I would be going on about it for eternity.

I mean I kinda understand why Rick wanted to keep him alive because he didn’t want to buy into the whole “bury your gays” trope. But he could have done something like he did with Leo’s last chapter to show that even tho he’s dead Nicos not gone and that he’s still going to be part of the series whilst being a martyr and he may be back in the future.

Maybe Hades makes him immortal. I think that would fit best because of the parallels between Apollo just loosing his immortality and going through hell trying to get it back and then here’s Nico flaunting his fresh shiny new immortality with no idea what he’s doing with it.

Or Maybe Nico come back earlier than ToN because Jason did the Orpheus/Eurydice deal. And maybe when Jason dies Nico does the Orpheus/Eurydice deal so they’re both back from the dead there kicking Neros ass. That would be fun to see.

Side notes: it would be heart breaking if Nico gave Hazel the skull ring right before he leaves with the statue. And she doesn’t want to take it but she does.

And double heart breaking if she refuses to take the ring because she believes Nico will survive this and the ring is going to stay with him.

Triple heart breaking if Hazel doesn’t take the ring or if he can’t get to her in time he asks Reyna or Percy or Jason or Frank to give her the ring for him right before he dies.

I think Percy would be the most heart breaking and the most fitting for this because of Bianca trying to give Nico the Hades figurine. Nico trying to give Hazel the ring that was a gift from their father. History repeating itself. Percy is shattered once again.

[midnightkolrath]

So I decided to work on a Nero Iceberg post after the Vergil one and IDEALLY I wanted to trim it down in the final product...buuuut I ended up going even longer. Whoops.

Admittedly, I'm not AS well versed in Nero as I am Dante and Vergil, so forgive me if I missed out on some details. I also open the floor to any additions or such people want to add, as I have been for the Vergil post on Twitter.

I made a transcript for all the text juuuust incase opening it still makes it hard to comprehend.

[akumanoken]

Me writing Souij’s feelings about the twins like

[inviiberu]

[MHYK] 2021 Proposal Lines

2021 Proposal Lines from all 21 wizards! Translation by me and proof-reading and some revisions of the western wizards lines by @amorest-viesse​

✧˖°Central Country°˖✧

Oz: Even time, which feels like an eternity, is finite. Think carefully about whom you want to be with in this limited time you have.

Arthur: “Will you make miso soup for me every day of our life?” …I hear this is a common way of proposing in your world. We don’t have miso soup here, but I think it’s wonderful that such a simple word can become a pledge of eternal love.

Cain: We lose our magic if we break a promise, but there must be some other power you gain by makin’ a promise to someone you love dearly. I hope that I can make a promise like that one day.

Riquet: I love you Master Sage! Um, if I may ask, which of the wizards do you love the most? …Huh, me? Ehehe~ That makes me so happy!

✧˖°Northern Country°˖✧

Snow: If I were to ever get married, I would like to say the line that the previous Sage taught me. Ehem. Sage, would you like a meal? Or maybe a bath? Or maybe… Hohoho~

White: Should we be reborn again, I hope to also spend my next life with you. …Hohoho~ That’s my favourite pick-up line. Did I make you swoon?

Mithra: If you love me, please make sure it lasts for a thousand years.

Owen: How foolish of you to ask a promise of me, just as foolish as love itself.

Bradley: Marriage, huh… I’d probably consider it if it were with the kinda guy I wouldn’t be able to live without. Well, it’s not every day ya find someone who’d love ya like that.

✧˖°Eastern Country°˖✧

Faust: You want me to teach you the most common ways to propose in this world? How should I know? I could teach you the most common curses though.

Shino: A proposal is an important line you only get to say once. I should think about it while I still can.

Heathcliff: To think that someone might propose to me one day... I've no idea when that could be, but I'm getting nervous already.

Nero: It seems like everyone's proposin' left and right today. Marriage ain't really for it a guy like me, but I suppose it wouldn't be so bad to live a peaceful life with the person I love.

✧˖°Western Country°˖✧

Shylock: We Western wizards are known for seeking pleasure and thrills. Thus, if you'd like, I would be glad to entertain you for the rest of your life... Am I joking, you ask? Would you like to find out?

Murr: Hey, Master Sage! Gimme a proposal! Huh? Why? 'Cause I wanna know what you'd say! C'mon!! Please?

Chloe: A proposal!? Ehehe, just thinking about it makes me blush, but I think it's wonderful to be able to tell someone how much you truly care. Someday, if I ever get the chance, I want to be able to confess with everything I've got.

Rustica: Have you ever proposed to someone, Master Sage? What did you tell them? We Western wizards are quite fond of love stories after all. Why don't you confide in me next time?

✧˖°Southern Country°˖✧

Figaro: What kind of confession would you like most, Master Sage? I'll tell you whatever you want to hear.

Rutile: “My eyes are like a lake of stars. I gaze at you with everlasting love” …Fufu, beautiful, isn’t it? That was a verse from when my mother and father met. I hope that, someday, I will find a love like theirs too.

Lennox: If I had a significant other...? Ah, I know. I'd like to protect them, so they'll never have to feel sad.

Mitile: I suppose my brother might get married someday, but I'm sure whoever his partner is, they'll be a wonderful person! Eh, what about me? Well, if I ever meet someone, I'll definitely make sure to propose to them in a cool way!

[whumpbby]

Vergil coming back to Nero's life and deciding that yes, the offspring is strong and smart, he is proud. He will try to be a father.

Except he has no idea how to start, because memories of his own father as hazy and indistinct, and what he remembers of his mother doesn't seem to fit the situation.

He looks to Dante for pointers, but Dante is not a father material with vengeance, desperately trying to stick to the role of a fun uncle, because emotional vulnerability is a dirty word for him. Even though Nero is visibly desperate for a genuine familial bond with the younger Sparda twin, to the point even Vergil can see it (he may not be emotionally versed, but he's goddamn observant, had to be to survive). No help there.

But then, he notices... The children.

Nero's little gaggle of orphans.

The kids Nero and Kyrie took in and care for, ostentibly as caretakers, but anyone with eyes can see there's more to it. The kids are theirs. They are a family. A small, strange family made up of broken pieces, but more cohesive and caring that anything either twin has experienced in their life. Dante seems terrified of it.

Vergil is intrigued.

When on a job, he watches his son on the phone with the girl, and then inevitably some of the children, listens to his voice and the way it softens around the edges into something gentle and careful. None of the brash roughness, none of the swearwords, just - care and softness and emotion.

He watches the boy around his family, the first time Kyrie's request to finally meet him bears fruit. As difficult as it is with a human, Vergil admires her resolve to seem brave, because the girl is smart and knows how devil power tastes like in the air, and when she finally sees him Vergil can hear her heartbeat stuttering. Still, she steps in closer and reaches out to shake his hand, and it dawns on him she's doing it for Nero and the children. Her bravery, artificial as it is, feeds theirs, settles something in his son's eyes. It's easier to admire her after that realisation, so brushing his lips on her knuckles in an old-school greeting is no mockery.

Well, just a little. She giggles, bashful, and his son's hackles raise against his batter judgement. Amusing.

Thankfully, the children keep their distance and Vergil is glad for it. He's not comfortable with things so small, with sticky fingers and snotty noses. The oldest boy is in his teens, weedy and wide-eyed, and at his age Vergil already had blood under his fingernails and knew how it feels when his heart stops. The littlest one barely toddles behind it's adoptive mother and smells sweet enough for his teeth to ache and his instincts stir.

Children unnerve him and vice-versa. Maybe he should be blinking a bit more often?

("Blink, goddamnit!" The weaponsmith told him once, high on nicotine and new research materials, forgetting herself enough to stop stuttering. "It's like I'm talking to a fucking lizard!")

No, too much effort. The children will either shore up their courage or not, no point in condescending to them this young.

But his son doesn't seem to share that outlook - again, this softness. His step shortens, his eyes grow soft, his hands gentle as he brushes hair and cleans little mouths, and allows little hands to hang off his fingers. His voice drops an octave when speaking to them and Vergil wonders if the boy knows it's not a human trait. Demons don't care for their young like humans do, but strong offspring is coveted (either as legacy, potential opponents or food). Physical affection is always dangerous when instincts to care and feed are joined at the hip, so vocalisations take it's place.

The children respond, surprisingly. Young minds are easily trained, he knows, but Vergil never expected that instincts could be adjusted alongside. Not in humans. But it seems it's possible, because the pups flawlessly and haplessly follow every cue given by their caretaker.

Interesting. He's pretty sure his son is unaware.

A devil enough to follow his instincts, but human enough not to realise. Keeping himself between his brood and his father, regardless of his seeming eagerness for them to bond - somewhere under his skin he has to know how tasty they look, easy pickings for any demon around.

Vergil would never - well, not human children at least. Not his future kin (as soon as they prove themselves to him that is).

(But his son doesn't have to know for sure as long as it's amusing. Sue him, he's vindictive by nature.)

It gives him an idea, though.

He had no hand in raising his son, quite the opposite in fact (heh, Dante was rubbing off on him) and so he has no idea what sort of a parental care his son craves. Asking is out of question - his pride would never let him. Nero's pride would never give him honest answer. Explosively honest as he is, the boy guards his heart almost more than Dante.

Trial and error is also not viable - when the error carries danger of breaking the tenuous bond they have. Distastefully, Nero has a family to sate his emotional needs and a place to retreat to, if hurt enough he will not bother to stick around his awkward terror of a father. And it doesn't sit well with Vergil. Not now, when he's decided to claim his offspring as worthy of his attention.

No, it has to be a flawlessly executed plan without a chance of failure.

Luckily, he has a perfect example to follow that will get him into his son's good graces.

Nero.

The boy acting like a father to the strays under his care. Without an example to follow, he's still a good parental unit - in both human and demon sense. It's not instinctive to their breed of beasts, Vergil knows, thus it stands to reason his son built himself to be an ideal he wished for himself.

A caring father-figure appearing in the life of an orphaned child desperate to belong.

So, Vergil studies what he sees. It's not above him to take the easy path, he will use any and all advantages in battle. It's only fitting that Nero did his homework for him on this occasion too - just as he managed to somehow solve the age-old conflict between two brothers, regardless of their opinion. As if it was easy, as if he didn't pay it off with blood and heartache.

Still, a good example begs to be followed.

Before daring to put his plan into action, he tests it. Slowly and softly, out of sight of anyone with keen ears. The test material is right there after all, already primed - all three of them, his son's pups.

Dropping his voice is easy. It takes a couple tries to find the right tone - he never had a need to learn, but finds it as satisfying as any other type of research. The right combination of dominance and coaxing is fairly easy to find and hone.

He might have visited Kyrie a couple times to test his options behind his son's back - easily explainable by slowly growing interest in the weaponsmith's research tomes stacked in the mess of the garage-workshop. The fact he choses to visit at the least convenient times of the day, when the children are high on energy after returning from school and Kyrie is distracted by preparing food, is never mentioned.

The girl is always happy to see him - after her initial fear subsided, she exhibits the same desire for companionship as his son. She's also an orphan, after all, too young by far to be a mother of three. It doesn't hurt that his presence brings a steep decrease in the noise-level around the house.

Yes, the pups are responding well to his presence and verbal cues. Soon enough a low hum is enough to stop the boys running full-tilt in their tracks and quiet the youngest one's wailing.

Vergil tries not to feel accomplished at the last one, a paltry feat as it is compared to his other successes, but it still touches something within him when the child's eyes grow wide and glassy, staring at him in startled wonder.

He might have allowed himself to touch the little thing in a moment of weakness. A slight gesture, a brush of fingers across the soft, reddened cheek. A small reward for compliance, he explains it to himself, exchange of favours. A demon's rare tenderness for a moment of quiet.

It would last longer if it wasn't witnessed by the wide eyes of his son's girl, but may as well, no point in overindulgence. The child still smells too sweet, but at least now that sweetness doesn't make him salivate.

He knows Kyrie will tell his son of that short scene, of course she will. She'll want the boy to know his father is able of gentleness, she'll want to give him hope. Vergil is okay with that, if it makes the boy more open to his attempts.

He never refused an advantage in battle, after all.

[icecreamwithjackdaniels]

Petronius, in his dying letter to Nero:

"[...] Do not suppose, I pray, that I am offended because thou didst kill thy mother, thy wife, and thy brother; that thou didst burn Eome and send to Erebus all the honest men in thy dominions. No, grandson of Chronos. Death is the inheritance of man; from thee other deeds could not have been expected. But to destroy one's ear for whole years with thy poetry, to see thy belly of a Domitius on slim legs whirled about in a Pyrrhic dance; to hear thy music, thy declamation, thy doggerel verses, wretched poet of the suburbs, — is a thing surpassing my power, and it has roused in me the wish to die. Eome stuffs its ears when it hears thee; the world reviles thee. I can blush for thee no longer, and I have no wish to do so. The howls of Cerberus, though resembling thy music, will be less offensive to me, for I have never been the friend of Cerberus, and I need not be ashamed of his howling. Farewell, but make no music; commit murder, but write no verses; poison people, but dance not; be an incendiary, but play not on a cithara. This is the wish and the last friendly counsel sent thee by the — Arbiter Elegantiae."

— Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, 1895–96