✧ 04. Archive - Mutilating My Childhood Interest

Eek…

At this point, the Celia of today does not resemble the Celia I made years ago, in 2023. However… I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing.

Why?

Well, firstly, back then I based her SOLELY off of DEEMO. She was an homage to my favorite video game, rhythm game, and character ever — Alice (as well as Celia, the masked lady.)

The thing about Limbus Company, though, and how it interprets the medias it takes from is never 1:1, or solely JUST the one media. It will inspire and draw from the themes and ideas of various related stories — whether said relation is by author, concept, or general plot structure. Initially, I did not really think about that, and so it resulted in a rather one-and-done Sinner who often had her relation to her source be very blatant …. To the point many thought I straight up just remade the character instead of making the sinner inspired by her.

This also produced another problem — I had much guesswork to do. I mean, the story of DEEMO itself is very one-and-done, no? It’s a short rhythm game (story-wise), and has little complexity to the characters unless you were to really dig deep into it — and even then, such a story is rather self-contained. After Alice remembers her brother, what is there left for her to do than to grow up happy?

In that case, I had much to fill in, and much to change. That’s where multiple sources become a thing.

Technically, Alice is the one who I would deem to be the closest to strictly DEEMO canon. I even interpreted the blue dress seen in an artbook to be a blue skirt in part of her design — if you want more on those choices, look out for “The Anatomy of a Vessel” and “Alice and the color Blue” for more on all of my design choices.

Celia, although I used the more interesting choice in DEEMO’s relatively small cast (5 characters, but more-so only 2) to make a Sinner… deviates far from it in favor of only retaining appearance, general story arc, and the personality. Now that I have that written down, it seems like she heavily draws from her and is rather faithful. But no, I promise, I made many changes. I don’t get the comment nowadays of people recognizing her — perhaps that could be because I ran out of people who know DEEMO in the Project Moon space, or because my changes were so significant that she’s no longer instantly clocked as the girl from DEEMO (maybe because I don’t draw her with the mask as much anymore).

I could’ve just rewritten the story of a little girl with no memories trying to get home, but made her an adult. That’s easy, it’s very honorable to the original source, and is a touching story — however! What was more interesting to me was portraying how immense trauma and a lonely girl left unchecked can manifest into a web nearly too complex to unravel. After all; the ideal was that after the little girl remembered her brother, she’d eventually make friends and graduate, and potentially become a wife and a mother… right?

Well, she’s not exactly EXEMPT from that (See: Part-Timer Celia), but… realistically, there’s some things missing.

Where are her parents?

If they’re gone, who’s caring for her?

Does she ever miss her brother?

Do her friends know?

These were all questions I had to answer and consider when writing Celia. After all, this isn’t the little girl whose story was over. This is an adult who has YEARS of going through life, potentially never facing her trauma, and… well, someone has to tell the tale. Looking into the other DEEMO retellings — in which it forms a very complicated canon of many authors disagreeing — gives some ideas, but only as a whole do you get a full story.

The novel, Last Dream, adds context on the parents. I never fully read it because I heard it was bad, but discussions from my friends told us about the parents. Their names were Lucas and Emma, and they fell in love at first sight. Eventually, Lucas dies of a sudden heart attack at work, and then not too long after Emma ends her own life out of grief over Lucas’ death and having been a horrible mother to her kids. I actually DID retain this part of how they died, but I believe the narrative purpose of Emma dying was to be a parallel to Alice, who also loses a loved one. However…. it just felt dull lmao. Alice was too young to get to know her parents, so why did that matter?

I ended up just using it as a means to justify why Alice would grow up relatively alone or be primarily raised by Hans. It’s a hollow comparison to use Emma as a parallel to Alice here.

The movie gives a bit more on an older Alice — likely around Hans’ age. Most of the film is the same, but with sections of Alice at school. She’s distant, a little snarky, and mysterious. There’s two more characters in the dream sequences that I feel don’t add much, but also… I dunno, guess we gotta sell merch. It eventually shows that after Hans died, his music professor adopted Alice and invited her to study at the school and excel in piano just like her brother.

… Okay….

Lastly, both of the Manga — the sequel ‘Sakura Note’ fitting the movie — give expansion on all ends, and are THE BEST representation of the story and world outside of the original game. Hans and Alice are from a wealthy family, one wealthy enough to have an entire estate and a piano, but once their parents died, they fell upon hard times. Hans wanted to become a famous pianist, and had the opportunity to, but chose to stay home for his little sister. Then the canon event happens.

Alice’s novel is similar to the movie, but with more depth on the characters and putting more emphasis on Alice actually dreaming through the dream-world sequences, and each time the dream being stopped by Celia — introducing the idea of Samsara, and Alice being unwilling to let go of her grief. It’s easily the best telling of the story, with beautiful art and even better characters.

There’s also stuff on Hans’ friends Akari and Gino, and Alice’s friends Sania and Rosalia. But it’s not about them today.

oh, right.

Alice in Wonderlove exists too, which I just don’t …. want to consider canon at all. It’s a bonus chapter from Last Dream (which already is a bad sign, lol) where Alice has a crush on her friend Elena’s (unnamed) brother. We’re not gonna talk about that.

With all of that, I could make a few changes and fill in some context:

1. Just like in Last Dream, the parents died when Alice was young, largely of the same reasons.
2. She’s being taken care of by the head butler (Aunt/Mom’s friend in the book), and not the professor like in the movie.
3. The friends she has are the same ones as the movie and Sakura note — with slightly less involvement.
4. Mirai takes a more active role.
5. Defining the ages of when the accident happened, and how old Alice and Hans were (6 and 17 respectively).
6. Gave her a proper name and background. Also, getting the money back but having it be Celia’s sole inheritance.
7. Much like in Sakura Note and Memorial Keys, Alice is a young adult when she remembers what happened to Hans.

Alice then ends up being the one who’s much like the happier Alice in DEEMO, she eventually overcomes her trauma on her own. Celia, on the other hand…

Well, Limbus Company helps with that eventually. In fact, the main difference between which it ends up being depends on who approaches at the end of a recital.

A music professor? Then, Alice.

Faust? Then, Celia.

Anyone else? Hm hm.. that’s how you get the wide variety of vessels.

In the end, it’s okay that I sort of chopped up the source of Alice, and mixed it in with others. On the profile page, you can see where I pull my sources from — there will be more articles showing how I interpreted everything as time goes on.

REPRISE

(link to a now-deleted thread)

I want to state my rebuttals over and over, but this thread covers it a lot. I am aware of this mutilation, but there’s a few more points to be made over and over again.

• There is a canon adult design of Alice as depicted in DEEMO. That is the design I build off of, and I keep the little girl separate to the past and how she’s depicted as much as possible to retain the sanctity of the original Alice and reinforce that this is my OC.
  • In that same vein, Sinclair is 10 in his original story and is 18 by the end of it. By this logic, his existence must be wrong, too, right? Not really — he’s a different character, an interpretation of the original Emil Sinclair.
• A ‘lack of resemblance’ is partially on purpose. That is my take on the character, an homage to the original — but not 1:1, because it is my work with inspiration. Does Faust have white hair and blue eyes? Was he a woman in her 30s? Not really.
• I don’t stick closely to canon, much like Project Moon does. Don Quixote didn’t have vampires.
• I would like the patience to be given the time to show the story in the way I wish to tell it.

Although the Triad isn’t much like the true Celia, and there’s many factors at play, I still like to believe I’m honoring the media I’ve loved for 12 years in a way that’s true to me.