Status Updates From Les Mémoires de Vanitas, To...

OOOOOOOOH one of the other random things i remember from this arc is noé briefly losing a hand and i wonder if his posture here is foreshadowing that.....he's adjusting the glove on his left hand, so we'll see if that's the one astolfo cuts off

the LOOK on vanitas' face oh my god shut UP he's so worried and noé KNOWS IT and reassures him????? i really love this side of noé cause it sets him apart from other sunshine-y, golden retriever type main characters. he's a great fighter and he doesn't like losing!!! he places a lot of moral value in fighting i think, so this chance at redemption is about needing his moral code to win over astolfo's

okay SLUT???? he did NOT have to wipe noé's blood and tug on his scarf like that, AND paired with him saying "convince me they're worth saving" with that smirk??????? vanitas really hard rebooted after the "i'm worried" incident and now he's back to full power and i LOVE IT. also love that he admits to knowing that noé WILL ultimately convince him, it's just a matter of how and exactly when

WOAH what a cool moment!!! noé doesn't disparage chloé for wanting revenge bc vanitas is after the same thing and he has come to understand and respect him and his motivations. a really beautiful way to show the growth in their relationship and how it's impacted noé's overall worldview

NO FUCKING WAY DID VANITAS JUST SLIP UP LIKE THAT OH MY GOD?????? this is not a fucking drill he literally just admitted that he was worried (which we all already knew but STILL) and had to do a full brain reboot afterwards to reset back to his usual moody-apathetic-facade.exe. noé i know you're going through a lot rn but you better file this away to overthink about later

PLS of course vanitas would slap noé to snap him back to reality aksdhakdha i'm pretty sure when vanitas was dazed after moreau mentioned mikhail, noé used motivational speaking to snap him out of it but it's much more vanitas' speed to resort to fists instead and yknow what? fair. put him on a leash next

no wait i'm not over this actually cause noé's hand reaching out to some unknown light as the wolves get closer and closer, and then it's vanitas who suddenly grabs his wrist????? and noé looks up at him in awe with tears still streaming down his face????? and vanitas is pissed cause he's been so worried for at least a day and couldn't possibly admit that

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO vanitas pulling noé out of the darkness AGAIN just like he did with naenia at the ball. AND just like noé did for him in moreau's lab!!!! they really save each other again and again specifically by dispelling the darkness of emotional pain and i just think that's neat. and the light, simple composition of this page really contrasts the darkness and chaos of the previous pages

this sequence is so incredible!!!! i love seeing how vivid noé's experience of people's memories is, and how that rush of emotional trauma is so debilitating for him cause YEAH OF COURSE IT IS. i understand why jean-jacques apologized after feeding him the blood cause this is BRUTAL. all the darkness and chaotic paneling really captures the panic and upheaval of the moment

something something those who have been physically abused often sharpen themselves into knives, and both vanitas and jean-jacques are two sides of that same coin. jean-jacques gave up a piece of his soul for a pair of actual claws, and vanitas wears fake ones in his gloves and wears pieces of luna's identity and jewelry as armor

chloé and jean-jacques were both neglected and forced into hiding due to their vampirism, but jean-jacques was also a victim of constant physical abuse, both from his father and other kids in his village, and later, those who hunted him. and so for HIM to be the one who was successfully seduced by naenia's promises of destruction makes so much sense. of course he is the one who wants physical power for ONCE

and so the poison of loneliness twisted jean-jacques into a beast. it's so interesting seeing how curse-bearers function when naenia has to convince them to submit to her cause it really seems more like a partnership than a possession. they maintain their sanity and some level of control over when they shift, so they must be fully allied with naenia in order for it to work. it's a more complete corruption

AND THERE'S THE REVEAL AHHHHH one of the only things i actually remembered from this arc!! god how gorgeous was that sequence of the memories engulfing noé holy SHIT but him fighting against it to ask jean-jacques that one last question bc above all else, noé just wants to understand people

GOD the concept of jean-jacques forcing noé to drink his blood so that his memories are known and remembered and potentially passed on by someone other than himself and chloé????? someone who actually belongs to the world in a way that he and chloé never really have and never will????? and he KNOWS that it's a horrible experience to force upon noé but the loneliness just runs that deep

i love how we're seeing noé, who is INCREDIBLY careful about blood-drinking bc of the trauma of his archiviste power, interact with chloé and jean-jacques, who are both SO flippant about the consent of drinking blood. they've both been holed up here for years with only their own rules to guide them, and it really shows how out of touch they are with the modern world. noé is the perfect touchstone for that

OH this mention of the girl only being 14 reminds me of one of my prevailing questions about the vampirism in this story: when do they stop aging? is it totally random? or is there a general range for most vampires? chloé's aging stopping at 11 seems like an anomaly but we really don't have much info about it. domi, noé, jeanne, and ruthven have all definitely aged past that

wow i am LOVING getting to see the drawn out corruption tactics of naenia when she can't just take someone's true name by force. it's genuinely so horrifying and makes me wonder if louis went through something similar like noé implied before. idk how powerful he was but he was just a kid?? although his family is super powerful in general so maybe he inherited enough to be a challenge for naenia even as a kid

oh thank GOD we have at least one solid year for the timeline now. so 1702 is when the war ended, and it had lasted for more than 30 years. and chloé was born in the late 1500s. not super positive when the present day story is taking place (my guess is mid-1800s???) but it's probably easy to infer for people who know anything about french history. god i hope the wiki has a timeline

naenia preying on loneliness is so tragic but makes so much sense. but chloé being visited by her hundreds of years prior to the current story makes me wonder about the timeline cause i thought curse-bearers only just started becoming more prevalent again. so naenia has been around for a LONG time corrupting people here and there, but she's only recently started moving towards some new goal? with ruthven's help?

pardon?????? what the FUCK could this mean and why did i forget about it completely?? does he have access to some kind of prophetic power or did he also make a deal with naenia?? or is it something completely new???? maybe he's just totally lost touch with reality due to the trauma of the betrayal idk

i'm a broken record at this point but everything about the paneling and composition of this page screams "allegory for sexual assault" WOW

fuck ruthven all my homies hate ruthven
i UNDERSTAND that the betrayal hit him hard and completely twisted his entire world view, of COURSE it did. but to try to force his will of revenge onto chloé through his blood drinking power??? to keep and cultivate jeanne as a weapon to be controlled by him alone???? this story is all about control, so of course one of the main villains is obsessed with gaining it at any cost

oh. my fucking god. i completely forgot about this aspect of jeanne's past holy shit????? so her parents were traitors and that's why she was forced to become a bourreau. and instead of letting her go free cause she's AN INNOCENT CHILD, ruthven continued to use her for his own revenge and STILL DOES SO TO THIS DAY. cool cool cool as if i needed more reason to hate him

i am SO curious about marquis machina and what their deal is!!! they're clearly another very powerful vampire if they're around the same age as chloé and ruthven, and they have influence over dhams which is interesting. and they always wear some kind of disguise??? for some reason??? kind of hilarious that they wore a bear costume in the olden days and in the present day we've seen them piloting an automaton instead

OUCH?????? i can already tell that this arc is gonna hit way harder the second time around and i'm so emotionally unprepared for it. if i'm remembering correctly, jeanne lost her parents, was groomed to be a weapon, and then got frozen in time by ruthven shortly after this, so this was her last chance to be a kid, while it's chloé's first (and also probably last)

IM SORRY ISNT THAT THE EXACT SAME THING NOE SAID ABOUT HIS STANCE ON HUMANS AND VAMPIRES?????? so ruthven was really fucked up by the war huh (shocker)

"i lived alongside the d'apchiers" really puts the tragedy of chloé's existence into perspective so succinctly. she was always on the outside, always watching, never part of the family. and of course that meant she just had to watch as her father's wish (which was already questionable but well-intentioned enough) got twisted up by greed and humanity's need for control over the very fabric of the world itself

okay YES i was wondering how chloé came to be a vampire when her entire family is human!! i wonder if these glitches of the formula still happen or if they naturally phased out as centuries passed since the babel incident. god how AWFUL to just wake up as a different being (when you're a CHILD) and then immediately be shunned and hidden away from the world as some kind of problem to be fixed