✦ The LIs Preferences: Sweeping The MC Off Their Feet Vs Being Swept Off Their Feet!

(post 2.1 quest) unexpected

*note from OP: it may sound obvious to many people that there's going to be time where you're neither dysphoric nor euphoric and you're just existing without gender feelings, but personally i don't have that. i'm pretty much always feeling one way or the other, or at least that's how i conceptualize my feelings. i wanted to see just how uncommon my situation is.

Hiiiiiii i keep forgetting I have a tumblr acct haha I’m more active on Twitter

But hiiiiii I here's some scattered doodles and drawings based off this amazing zolu fic by @swordsmans (I hope you don't mind! 🙇💕✨)

please please you guys have to read it pleeeease I usually don't read fics (or read in general LOL) But I swear I've read it like 6 times already I'm obsessed

✦ LOST IN LIMBO — A DARK FANTASY ROMANCE VISUAL NOVEL KICKSTARTER IS NOW LIVE!

Lost in Limbo, our +17 dark fantasy romance visual novel, is now live on Kickstarter!

When you finally quit your dead-end job and move back to your mother's house in the ever-peaceful town of Faybourne, you think things could only get better. However, the moment you set foot in your childhood home, a harrowing nightmare long forgotten appears to haunt you once more. 

A tower that crumbles in the vastness of a bleeding sky. A voice that mourns and yearns for something.

Torn away from your peaceful life and thrown into a world of danger and deceit, you are at the mercy of the Seven Sovereigns of Limbo. Navigate the Realm Between as it faces an impending cataclysm that threatens to swallow you and those you love whole.

As the consequences of a plan set in motion long ago start to unveil, will love be the key to your freedom, or the first chapter of your downfall?

We have some amazing stretch goals, like a Switch Port, two unlockable new routes, and +18 NSFW chapters! Please consider supporting us if you enjoyed our demo!

✦ PLAY OUR DEMO HERE:

STEAM

ITCHIO

GOOGLE PLAY

this is not a joke. cécile is taking over my life.

- you can call me soren. or assmaster i know you guys love my government name

- this is a primarily sfw blog, but i don't mind suggestive or nsfw content (it's just not what i primarily make or interact with)

((edit as of 1 year later; i will definitely be making nsfw content lol))

- im 18 (ate teen) and im NO LONGER selling my soul in the depths of finals hell

- im malaysian yes i love nasi lemak that gives me unbearable potty time does ibs stand for i be shitting cause das what i do

- this is a side account!!! so i will almost never send you asks off anon my main account is chernobyl

- i suppose im pretty pro-ship in that i think you should be allowed to ship what you want and make whatever ship content you want as long as its legal, i still will block if i don't like your content (though i block at any minor inconvenience so don't take it personal xoxo) ((live and let live!!))

- though my primary fandoms are hsr, lost in limbo, and touchstarved-- ive been in the arcana, twst, jojo, last legacy, castlevania, nana, evangelion, bayonetta, jjk, silent hill, alice; madness returns, blue period, genshin, resident evil 3/7/8, arcane, vampire in the garden, chainsaw man, avatar, hunterxhunter, demon slayer, and dangaronpa. or talk to me about whatever you want i don't care throw the watermelon into the lions enclosure for enrichment

how do you think cecile would react to you falling for him instead of one of the main characters? would he push you away? or do you think he’d try to pursue you as well?

i honestly think he'd just look at you funny and beat the shit out of you. then spit on your dead body and leave. unfortunately for him, id just moan

seriously, though? i guess it really depends on how close you are to him. if he's still untrusting of you (which will last for a long time because he's not easy to romance, i imagine), then he'd curl his lip at the idea... and maybe almost pity you. like, seriously. of all people. you want the one man who wants to strangle you like a raggedy ann doll. pick your standards and your deadbeat body off the floor lest he trip on you. where the fuck are the palace maids when you need them?

if he's more accepting of you, then i think it'd send him into a big dilemma. he's not interested in the why's and when's and how's.

he just knows that it's wrong.

you just had to ruin it all, didn't you? and what a fucking shame, at that, because he was just starting to trust you. your interest in him is legitimately a betrayal to him because he can't have people burdening him. yes, this love is a burden. the moment you care is the moment you tether others, and that's not very convenient for his job.

he can't believe it.

all this time, through out everything that you two have gone through, you've been harbouring this dirty desire, haven't you? it sickens him. (love sickens him, it always does. he was not made for it.) he can't even stand to look at you.

so he doesn't.

he's not above abandoning you high and dry; remember first and foremost that he has a duty. he can't be troubling himself with such matters, and really - he's doing you a favour. no good comes of loving men like him. he flinches in the face of intimacy, he snarls at vulnerability. he won't do it, he can't.

he can't put himself through the painful ordeal that knowing; yes, he is, in his own way, starting to care for you too. just leave him alone. please.

but you never do. you never fucking listen, don't you? this one time, he tries to be nice, and you spit in his face by chasing after him. you better not regret what comes next - when cécile finally decides that you aren't too bad to hunt down.

alas... one never knows how well a prey animal can fight back, much less if they are prey at all and not another predator disguising themself under sweet wool. because let's face it; the way you torture him? by making him want you back? you're no innocent lamb. you are another foreign wolf, and now... he can't tell if he wants to kill you, or make you his, or both.

atleast that's what i think! :p cécile realising that mc likes him and then realising he likes mc is just gonna be a shit show of push and pull like a tag of war and honestly, im here for it. it's gonna be a LOT of push, kinda like a constant warning. but once he finally decides to give in, there is no going back. he's not gonna push you away anymore - he's gonna pull you in like a black hole consumes all. WAITERRRRRR WAITERRRRR ONE EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE MAN NEOWWWWW

sunday has been living in my head rent free so he’s the latest victim of my experiments 🕊️💙

So the Lost in Limbo ROs and the DLC routes are given the trial in the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Who would succeed? Who would look back?

✦ The LIs and The Tale of Orpheus and Eurydice

✦ Succeeds:

Amon

Raeya

Ara

Lázaro

✦ Fails:

Gael

Envy

Xal

Father Pride

Cécile

I need to know all your thoughts of cecile

i need to preface this spiel with thanking you for opening my can of worms. will this satiate my endless need for this freak? maaaybe not. but like gay sex, it's a temporary fix and by god will i take it.

so, this post will delve into multiple aspects of my thoughts on cécile. i'll have to section it because if not, you'd probably just have a post the equivalent of a werewolf barking at their reflection in a mirror. here they are;

i. visual design

ii. personality and traits (backstory) / character development + his romance arc

iii. comparison to other characters + what made him stand out to me

no read more will be added on this post because i'm forcing everyone to either scroll past a wall of text or indulge my insanity. is this analysis? my simple thoughts? who fucking knows, man. not me. i don't know anything ever. everything is speculation, because my man's ain't even in the demo yet. ask me this question again when the extended demo drops LMFAO

i. visual design

the most notable aspect to cécile is his metal jaw, facial scar, and black eye.

his metal jaw had me in a pickle. for the longest time, i thought it was a prosthetic. as in, he had his lower jaw removed - regardless of how and why - and it acted as a replacement. however, on the ravenstar tiktok account, they show a draft of cécile's sprite that caught my attention.

he doesn't have his metal jaw, nor his iconic scar or black eye. he does have his original lower jaw, though. maybe this is just a draft before they settled on his current design. maybe this is how he looked in the canon past. maybe! but on top of seyl (the director of lost in limbo) confirming that cécile still has his tongue, i believe he was always intended to have his lower jaw. so the prosthetic is out of the picture.

right now, i believe it's more like a retainer; teeth appears to literally be growing out of his cheek, and i don't think it's the teeth in his mouth jutting out. i can't tell what exactly is the cause of all this, too. my favourite medical student (bean ily muah) said his facial scar appears to have been caused by a controlled flame, and shrapnel to the face based on the scarring around his lip. so he could have suffered an act of assault (physical? magical?), an accident, or maybe he's afflicted with a curse that developed teeth on his skin + his red eyes. could he be turning into a monster as time passes?

i also find it incredibly tragic that his eyes used to be brown before The Incident (air quotes). there's always something inherently tragic about the mundane being unattainable - to think that of all things in the world you are forbidden from, you are barred from the sweet innocence of adam and eve, rather than the glorious garden. brown eyes are the most common eye colour here on earth; imagine how cécile feels, the interloper with a face unmarred. a face that was once his. his dislike towards mc runs deeper than his dislike for everyone specifically because they're a harbinger of danger to the master he protects, and they could just be the past he's been hiding like a wound underneath his clothes.

the gaze of his bloodthirsty eyes... is it really? as in, always bloodthirsty? or is it so because it's your blood he needs on his hands?

aside from the practicalities of his metal jaw, i just think it's super... metal. (i wink at a camera offset and i proceed to get shot a million times. where were these snipers at the trump speech smh)

cough... anyways. i think it's bias, but one of my own oc's has a metal jaw prosthetic because they lost theirs in a fight long ago, so you can imagine i morphed into the spiderman pointing at spiderman² meme when i saw him. it's just automatically intriguing when the character's face is unapologetically damaged, unapologetically different. cécile and lázaro attracted my attention instantly because of how unique they look, and i appreciate that cécile's face does all the talking of his character while his attire is rather subdued. (even that itself speaks for him tbh)

as for my personal feelings, i appreciate a man with a long/wide nose. hit tweet, let doja cat smite me down herself.

now, as for his sprite's body language. i was rather taken aback at the fact that cécile has a less imposing stance than envy - yes, there's a defensive undertone to the way he holds his hands in front of him, but it's not to close him off from the world the way envy's crossed arms communicate that. in fact, cécile appears to be comforting himself. most people who hold/rub their own hand tend to do so because they're revolving a subtle conflict within themself. it doesn't help that the hand being held is the one that appears to have suffered the brunt of whatever he endured, based on the scars around his wrist. he could be holding it because it's instinct - to protect the side of him that was hurt the most. cécile is a weapon of war and a shield to his very core. he hurts others, and i don't think it'd be a stretch to say he hurts himself (why wouldn't he? the man that stares back in the mirror is so very wretched and it wouldn't be wrong to want to tear it all away.) cécile protects others (literally only gael) from the world, and cécile protects himself from the world and the additional enemy of himself.

he is a walking wound of all that has happened to him, and he knows acutely where the gash continues to weep.

yet, his cocked head also denotes a level of serenity that not even envy has. atleast, that's what it reads to me. it could also be an expression of interest in his surroundings, and hence, he's actually more on guard than envy. he doesn't keep his arms crossed, and instead in a stand still, because he constantly needs to be ready to pounce. maybe!

back to his attire. i adore the idea that gael actually picked it out for him. cécile is, technically, a representative of gael, so it makes sense his attire needs to hint at that, with the purple and all. but again, i would like to think of gael comparing outfit after outfit on cécile, engaging his opinion on which he thinks is best - and all cécile offers is, "whatever you deem is best, i will accept." (never ask this hoe where he wants to eat /j). one of the few things gael can do for a man like cécile is offering him a part of him to carry around.

also, for anyone who missed it - cécile has freckles ;)

ii. personality and traits (backstory) / character development + his romance arc

cécile is stated to be an istj, and seyl confirmed he's likely to be a scorpio sun. if so, loyalty is legitimately built into this man. a man if the fates wept tears of their eternal duty onto the spool when they wove his life into existence.

his reliance on the past + his traditions is gonna be like a pair of crutches to a man with both legs lobbed off. routine is the prison that keeps him going - break it, and you break him. after all, experience is all he has to go off of. as much as he may try not to linger on his past - that's exactly what he does. his memories are like ghosts in the corner of his bedroom. every good and bad experience, and by god is there a plethora of the latter, stands out like bruises he can't stop pressing down on. that's why i believe it's especially harder for you to gain cécile's worship; gael is all the good he's known, and you're just a strange human. why would he love you, a fickle being that can barely stop themself from being killed by him, when he could have an immortal sovereign? why, indeed. and it's gonna be especially hard for a man like cécile to grow accustomed to a love that's soft, because he's known violence all his life. he was born of it, made of it, and will be undone by it. that's all he can offer you, so he will expect the same from you the day he accepts you.

also, like... cécile literally fits the bill of scorpio's holding life long grudges. aside from protection, his primary desire is vengeance. and it's not something you can dissuade him from. why would you? you loved cécile because he's a walking bundle of rage and despair. you love him because his heart bleeds on you like an open wound. you will kiss the blood off his lips after the carnage - yours? his? someone else's? who cares, it's ours - and he will only sigh on yours, a thank you for being the best constant in his life of spite.

i can also see where cécile's need for domination comes from, with that extraverted thinking (Te). he may be a bodyguard in subservience to a god, but even they must know when and where to call the shots. it's very clear that control was robbed from him repeatedly ("[...] those who snatched his soul away from him—"), so it comes as another instinctual need to maintain control in every situation. and if he must trap it in the iron-fisted palm, so be it. that's exactly why cécile, like envy, benefits from an mc who knows how to push past sharp commands and loud warnings to chase after him. he relies on people shrinking away from him when he snaps to establish a clear line of boundaries. ultimately, it is by obeying caution that you'll never romance him, because you're playing into what he wants - and what he wants is you away from him. he needs an equally dominant person in a way that has them constantly battling for ultimate dominance, or maybe someone who is more dominant, but not in a way that completely imposes on him. in a way that shows him why exactly you can be his new master, y'know? in this life, everything is chains and prisons to cécile. it's just a matter of picking the most luxurious one. if you're shameless about what you can offer him, he might just take you up on it.

i think it's pretty obvious that cécile has volatile emotions hidden underneath (aries moon maybe???). he buries his softer sentiments deep below, where they lie, they run rampant. i'm a little unsure as to how this'll manifest, but cécile obviously can be soft and sentimental when he wants to, especially or only when the mc isn't looking. he traces their face in the dead of night - he alleviates their burdens behind their back - his favourite sex position is one where they can't see his face, but he can service them just fine. he can be vulnerable, but he doesn't want you to see him when he chooses to be once in a blue moon, lest you get the impression that there is a secret goodness to this violence. there isn't. he's not like envy - standoffish and cruel on the outside, soft and pliable underneath. no, peel away layer and layer of rage and you'll find more rage. crack away at that and you'll find a hollow heart. he's doing it because every human, no matter how depraved, is capable of SOME tender intimacy.

also, man. i think switching his loyalties is gonna be the equivalent of ripping all his skin off. like, yes. he loves you. the need to worship is strong, but it is unbidden for a reason. it is essentially betraying gael, isn't it? loving someone else? a man like cécile has a lot of 'love' in his heart, and all that love can only be directed at one person.

now... extraverted intuition? coupled with his scorpio sun? i imagine it feeds into the possession and obsession. it's less about worrying that you might look at others - it's about knowing that everyone has their eyes on you. it's an irrefutable fact, that there's a bounty like a guillotine on your neck. and he promised to protect you. he did, he promised. and he will, no matter what it demands of him, because you're the one thing that makes it all worthwhile and he'll be damned if the world takes more from him.

i don't know if i can sum his personality up, and i'm not interested to. he's an enigma, and i prefer complexity. as for his character development? i don't know. i really don't know. would it be bad to say? that i don't want him to get 'better'?

the appeal of cécile is that he can't offer you a 'normal' love that even a god, for all they're entrenched in, can offer you. his love is always bloodied. his love is always cruel. his love is all-consuming, like a punch in the mouth.

i think the one thing i wanna see, or predict for him to have, is to learn that there is someone who will do more than passively accept him. there is someone who actively desires him - needs him, even, in all his depravity. i want him to realise that he's not the only one who loves like he's the forest fire, and they're the forest or the witness. fire meets fire. violence for violence, like beasts.

maybe i want to see him become more open to someone calling the shots for him? and know that he can trust them, that they won't use him like everyone else has. honestly, it's difficult to not 'use' him. he's a lover, a weapon. the only difference is the affection in your grip when you swing his blade down to take another head. i want romancing him to come slow yet fast, harsh and cruel and intimate. i don't want the devs to feel like they need to water his morality or cruelty down, because like... isn't that his whole appeal. he's a killer and a sinner and that's why you love him. so on that note,

iii. comparison to other characters + what made him stand out to me

i originally was not interested in lost in limbo, because i tend to prefer darker horror. that changed when i saw lázaro, because the knife scene made me believe they were a FREAK freak. turns out they're pretty chill; and that's simply not my cup of tea, so my interest waned even more.

until i saw cécile.

my favourite romance trope of all time is obsession, but it's something i abstained from for so long because it's ALWAYS one-sided. with cécile, there's the strong potential that you're mutually obsessive, because let's face it. you won't be able to get anywhere with cécile without matching his freak. AND I MATCH HIS FREAKY I LOVE HIS NASTY!!! I LOVE UNAPOLOGETICALLY VIOLENT CHARACTERS!!! I LOVE CHARACTERS WHO UNAPOLOGETICALLY KILL AND MAIM AND DESTROY!!!! FUCK!!!!

i am not someone who is made to enjoy the tender mundanity of love. i want to be loved like a body hits the pavement below and that is exactly what cécile is.

i think the biggest difference is that cécile's whole romance with mc, aside from his loyalty to gael, relies on the dilemma of knowing he's just a man. the main cast are gods, they can afford to put up a better fight against whatever is ailing the two of you.

but cécile? he has almost nothing. he's just a dog, after all. he'll fight tooth and claw just to keep mc because there is quite literally nothing else he can do in the face of it all. and i love that it would make his route a lot more desperate. in life, we will all suffer so very beautifully. he might as well be your suffering, in name and heart. then, is he truly yours. then, are you truly his.

also, i adore the fact that cécile is the only openly hostile love interest to mc! envy has that ease to growing flustered that endears him even in the face of his... lack of manners. but cécile's only official existing line of dialogue is warning you to stay out of his way lest he gives you a quick death. STAY AWAY is literally printed in big, bold, black letters on his forehead, and i don't doubt he isn't afraid to be the one to kill mc.

AND I LIKE THAT OK!!! GIVE ME A CHALLENGE!!!

i think that is... the brunt of my thoughts, off the top of my head. feel free to ask me any more questions and i will try to go in depth but for now... we rot. @ravenstargames this is all your fault cécile is chasing me around in his basement AND I CAN'T GET OUT

eating him tuesday

(photo reference)