#vnc really makes me think

[visjules]

1880s: Dominique is very Masculine, and very Eccentric

In today's standards, Dominique is a fairly feminine woman. Yes she's wearing a prince inspired outfit, but it's feminized with the tight pants, long stockings, heels, and long hair, but what if I told you that was all considered masculine in the olden days?

The Time Period

Givn the story takes place when the alternate Eiffel Tower (can't remember the name) was being built, we can assume vnc takes place in the late 19th century, otherwise known as the Victorian era, ranging from 1820 to 1914.

The fashion looked somewhat like this, you can see some similarities to the outfits worn by the main cast.

Dominique's outfit doesn't really resemble much of the fashion at the time, you can make som mild comparisons to Victorian royal menswear, but I'd say her fashion is more similar to 17th century royal menswear, specifically,

King Louis XIV

The long hair, the tight white bottoms, the heels, the loose sleeves, the train of fabric behind him, It is said that King Louis was a big womanizer, who does this all sound like? It's almost as if Dominique is trying to be Louis- oh wait.

Also fun fact, King Louis XIV was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Masculinity & Eccentricity

For us in the present, King Louis XIV looks pretty feminine, and that was probably a shared sentiment in the 19th century, he looked outdated, but that same outfit on a woman like Dominique would cause some controversy if not for her status.

In the 19th and early 20th century, a woman wearing pants was not too accepted, women usually wore dresses, and pants were kept as a sports/work attire. A woman would not just go on about her day wearing a pair of pants, she'd be seen as strange, and maybe even get into trouble. Dominique wearing pants, and very tight pants reminicscent of older eras, is definetly a bold choice.

Her hair is long and straight, which is not how you'd usually describe a victorian woman's hair. It wasn't even that much of a gender thing, but more of a formality thing. Women at the time would have their long hair in an updo. Actually, according to Whizzpast, long loose hair was a thing only models and actresses wore to depict romantisiscm and intimacy.

Dominique's long hair makes a lot of since, she has a bold, eccentric personality, she's not one to conform, she's the current family outcast, but she is also a very romantic person, and is constantly seen in romantic/intimate scenes, so her loose hair really depicts that.

All in all, Dominique's appearance states a bold, romantic blast to the past with a pinch of her desceased brother.

If you want to look into queer subtext, you can assume that''s one of the reasons Noe drinks her blood.

[crehador]

parting thoughts on ragna crimson (first cour)

i think it was... the first episode? that i didn't really vibe with. felt like a decent enough fantasy, but unremarkable in just about every way

THEN A WEIRD GUY APPEAR

iirc it wasn't until the second week that we really met crimson, which is kind of a shame because imo the show doesn't really start to come together until then. i like ragna well enough, but it's really the combination of the two of them that compels me

always love a duo where they have the same goal, but drastically different personalities/values/modes of operation/etc

always extra love a duo that's like "team up with me, a dragon, to kill all dragons then once we've achieved our goal you'll kill me too"

(like vanoe but with dragons. i think. my memories of vnc are actually very hazy)

and always extra extra love when ayu gets to just do his thing, playing guys who are girls who are guys who are etc etc etc

it's certainly not the best of the season, and still overall fairly unremarkable imo, but also not really bad in any way. if there's one thing i find lackluster i guess it's that i feel like they don't lean enough into this... pseudo-past life thing that ragna has going on (with the powers and presumably memories of his 'older self' passed down to him)

like ragna is still more or less his 'normal' self in terms of personality, which is fine, he's got a fun enough personality, but if he had some like... old man tendencies mixed in there, or if we saw more of his memories with crimson maybe? i don't know, just feels like something more could have been done with that fusion of past and present (or rather future and present)

looking forward to the second cour but at the same time... hoping this series won't be too long lol

[neversetyoufree]

Every time I revisit the end of VnC chapter 8, I can't stop thinking about how it's basically like. the ending of chapter 1 in miniature.

Vnc chapter 1 ends with two pages of narration by Noé, and that narration introduces the story we're about to hear in subsequent chapters: the story of his relationship with Vanitas. Then we get one final splash page in which narrator Noé tells us how Vanitas will die at the end of that story.

Vnc chapter 8 ends with a fade into a page of narration by Noé, and that narration introduces the topic of the story we're about to hear: the story of Noé's relationship with Louis. Then we get one final splash page in which narrator Noé tells us how Louis will die at the end of that story.

The art pushes the correlation even more, as the two death announcement pages are framed/constructed in the exact same way. Even the expressions are similar.

The Louis/Vanitas parallel has always been fairly evident, given they both fit the role of "dead guy Noé was in love with (or at least extremely close to and fascinated by) who asked him to kill him," and that's just scratching the surface of their whole deal. But something about this particular connection really gets to me. There's a something about it that forces you to look at the cyclical, nested nature of the manga's narrative.

Like I said, the structural parallel turns the ending of chapter 8 and its subsequent flashback into the manga (and chapter 1) in miniature. Noé begins his memoir by saying, "this is the story of Vanitas. He died at my hand." Then he pauses the main story of the memoir for a moment to say "this is the story of Louis. He died at someone else's hand." It's a recitation of grief within a recitation of grief.

And the Louis flashback ends with us seeing exactly what grief does to Noé. He fails to kill Louis, has to watch him be beheaded in front of him, and it breaks him down to such an extent he falls physically ill. He is haunted by that grief for the rest of his life. And by showing us the ending of that smaller framed story of grief while we're still in the middle of the larger one, it primes us to think of how the ending of the story of Vanitas will compare.

Will grief make Noé crumble again the second time around? Will he be haunted to the same extent if he makes the kill?

The matched framing of these two introductions tells us that not only are these characters similar to one another, but the structures of their stories are the same. Or at least, the structures of their stories are similar enough to be worth evoking a connection between them. They start with Noé's first meeting with someone and build toward the moment when that someone dies in his arms, slowly building up throughout just how much Noé's someone wants to die. Both are doomed to die by their own feelings and their physical circumstances (curse, Mark). Both are doomed to die because Noé tells us as much from the very beginning.

Noé doesn't know Vanitas is doomed when he meets him, and he doesn't know Louis is doomed when he meets him, but Vanitas and Louis both know the whole time that they're not well or long for the world (especially in Vanitas's case). The structure of starting both stories with an announcement of the ending captures something of Vanitas and Louis's emotional states as much as it captures how Noé feels when he recalls those memories in grief.

"This is Vanitas. We were together. He died." "This is Louis. We were together. He died." This is how Noé starts to tell both stories. And since Noé, per a watsonian reading, chooses this structure in-universe just as Mochijun chooses it irl, perhaps future Noé writing his memoir is choosing to liken Vanitas and Louis to each other on purpose. Maybe he sees the similarity between them, and introducing both suicidal boys with the threat of death hanging over their heads from jump is a way to capture what he thinks was in their heads.

[falling-star-cygnus]

link click hc that Lu Guang instinctively cuddles things in his sleep [like Noe from VNC but without the super-strength] and Cheng Xiaoshi loves it. like- he was full on ecstatic when he found out

aka- the 3 times Cheng Xiaoshi gets Lu Guang to subconsciously cuddle something + the 1 time Lu Guang sought it out on his own

1: The first time it happens, they've only been official friends for a handful of months.

Sure- some could argue they were official friends from the moment Lu Guang helped Cheng Xiaoshi paint an entire building without any pay... or compensation.. or really anything more than a soda. Or they could've been official friends since that moment on the basketball court. But Cheng Xiaoshi would argue right back that it didn't count.

He's heard the things Qiao Ling says about him, he hears all the things people say about him, actually, because most of the time he's in the room when the people are saying them.

And maybe she's right when she says he gives his trust and time away too easily, to people who won't give it back, and maybe her folks and their friends were right when they called him an ungrateful kid all those years ago.

But he knows. He knows how a friendship works, and he knows he has it with Lu Guang when the sight of pale white hair soothes this itch under his skin. And he knows when someone is holding him at arms length.

Cheng Xiaoshi glances at his dozing friend, who's curled up on the couch with his nose tucked into the dusty cushions, and huffs a quiet, tight sigh.

He doesn't know what he did, aside from accidentally nailing him with a basketball, to make the other boy distrust him so much. There was an undeniable distance between them, one that felt like it shouldn't exist at all.

Maybe it was just because their friendship was still tentatively new, practically a baby compared to his relationship with the landlady. Maybe Cheng Xiaoshi was asking for too much too soon but...

When the light brushes it's warm fingers over Lu Guang's fair features.. when the pale haired boy thinks no one is watching... he looks far older than his years. Tired in a way that goes beyond insomnia, tired in a way that Cheng Xiaoshi knows with his full chest.

Lu Guang, in those quiet glimpses of time, looked like he was mourning.

Cheng Xiaoshi reaches out, leans over the back of the couch and reaches his hand down to brush pale white hair off a clammy forehead.

"I know I said I'd wait... but I wish you'd trust me more," he breathes into the air between them, quiet like a secret as he gently traces his finger down the crease that seemed like a permanent fixture between grey brows.

More than anything, Cheng Xiaoshi wished that whatever was haunting Lu Guang would at least grant him peace when he slept- grant him a single moment of reprieve.

He's about to pull away when his friend makes a small, sleepy sound.

Lean, slender fingers come up to weakly grasp Cheng Xiaoshi's wrist. It's a meager grip, one that the dark haired boy could easily pull away from, but the mournful sound Lu Guang makes when he tries actually makes something hurt in his chest.

He lets Lu Guang tip his head into his palm, internally freaking out as the pale haired boy tucks his entire body around Cheng Xiaoshi's arm. The crease between his brows smoothes out, his breaths get deeper, and he actually looks his age for the first time since the dark haired boy hair met him.

"Phone- phone, phone, phone," Cheng Xiaoshi whisper screams, digging in to his pockets with a near manic intensity as he tries to keep his other arm still, "Oh my god-"

How is this the same boy that held Cheng Xiaoshi like he was a live bomb? Held him like a live bomb in the hands of someone willing to die, sure, but like he was expecting the dark haired boy to stab him in the chest and leave his body cooling by itself.

....maybe Cheng Xiaoshi wasn't as distrusted as he thought.

To the surprise of no one, Lu Guang is just as pretty on camera as he is in real life.

CXS: OH LANDLADY~ CXS: *one picture*

QL: !! QL: lol he's like a cat! QL: 💗😺💗

Cheng Xiaoshi's arm goes numb, but it's completely worth it for his new wallpaper. Call it payback for that photo of him in a cosplay skirt.

2: The second time it happens, Qiao Ling only gains ammo for her cat allegations.

Lu... had not been in a particularly touchy mood that day. He kept looking at his hands when he thought Cheng Xiaoshi's attention was elsewhere, and when the dark haired boy tried to grab one to lead him out of his head he...

flinched.

Not his usual startle, that got less frequent as he acclimated to living with Cheng Xiaoshi's loud mouth, but a full body flinch. He had pulled away and left the room.

Lu Guang almost never left the room, even if he got fed up dodging the dark haired boy's attempts at glomping onto him. He would usually just- stand there.. or their attention would get called to something else- he never outright fled.

Unless...

"GUANGGUANG HATES MEEEHEEHE," he wails into Qiao Ling's lap.

"E-eh? Xiaoshi!?"

To his sister's credit, she doesn't whack him off right away. She's more than a little confused, maybe a little worried about his sanity, but her hand gently pats at his head- wary of the bandage still present.

"I'm sure he doesn't hate you.." Qiao Ling tries, looking around for any sign of said issue, "Lu Guang could never hate you-"

"Then he's definitely mad at me! He hasn't let me get close all day and- aCk!"

They really needed to dust their floors...

Cheng Xiaoshi sneezes as his nose makes friends with the hardwood.

"What was that fo-"

"Of course he's mad at you, you idiot!"

"H-HUH!?"

As if no longer caring for his brutal head injury, his sister flicks him right in the middle of his forehead. While he goes back to wailing in pain- physical this time, as he rolls on the floor- Qiao Ling tears him a new one:

"I told you to stay in the studio! You-"

The thump of unsteady feet cuts into her sentence, and suddenly Lu Guang is peeking his head around the corner- familiar wax paper bags held in his hand.

"Cheng Xiaoshi?"

The dark haired boy stops wailing, but he doesn't let go of his head as he turns in a weird sguiggle to see his friend. He barely blinks before slender fingers- and bruised knuckles, how did he miss that?- are prodding carefully around the lump still vaguely present above his ponytail.

"What's wrong? You were..." Lu trails off, pulls his shaking hands away and clears his throat, "..sorry. I- I thought.."

Cheng Xiaoshi catches the wrist attached to those bruised knuckles and doesn't let go when his fair friend tries to pull away and hide it again.

It's not fair, he thinks, that Lu Guang is allowed to care for him but he can't offer the same courtesy. Not fair at all.

The siblings haul the pale haired boy up to his feet and sit him on the couch, staunchly ignoring his sputtered protests as they set about their separate tasks. Qiao Ling distributes the milk tea [except he can't ever recall telling Lu Guang his order], and hands Cheng Xiaoshi the first-aid kit, and the dark haired boy makes sure Lu Guang doesn't run away again while he treats his hand.

If that involves hooking his ankle over Lu Guang's knee, then- he didn't get his usual amount of physical contact today, so Lu could deal.

"Haven't you ever thrown a punch before!? How did you bruise yourself this badly?" he scolds, taking immense pleasure in the cowed look his friend sports, "Guangguang-"

"You were in the hospital-"

"That's no excuse-!"

Whatever Lu Guang was going to say gets cut off when Qiao Ling shoves the straw of his milk tea into his mouth- partly to distract him from the sting of antiseptic, partly to stop whatever self sacrificial bull that was inevitably going to fall out.

Because it wasn't enough for Lu to be pretty, no no noooo, he had to be nice too. And get Cheng Xiaoshi things like milk tea, and like anime, and cats.

Cheng Xiaoshi channels all his focus onto gently applying the blue and white cat plaster, because he could buy nice things for Lu Guang too, over the worst of the bruising. Honestly, it's not going to do much for a bruise but hopefully it'll make his friend a bit happier.

Something, something, placebo effect- Qiao Ling was talking about it once.

Cheng Xiaoshi can still tell Lu wants to bolt.

So he sidles up next to him, practically traps him against the arm really, and heckles his sister into a round of online PVP. He even lets Lu Guang pick his character, though he's used to a completely different playstyle and loses each round. Which is the excuse he uses when Qiao Ling beats his ass ten ways from Sunday. Again.

In the warmth of the sun behind him, with Cheng Xiaoshi's thigh pressed to his, the pale haired boy succumbs to an inevitable cat nap- open novel falling loosely from his slender fingers.

Cheng Xiaoshi catches it, barely, before it can thump against the ground- struggling between keeping up with the fight and not losing his friend's place- and...

Ah.

The semi-loud [he turned his volume down when he noticed Lu dozing off] theme of defeat plays from his phone, accompanied by large red letters spelling out K.O. He almost doesn't care though, when it was caused by soft white hair brushing his cheek and an even softer cheek on his shoulder.

Lu Guang's hand, that had previously been holding his oh-so-precious novel, had curled around Xiaoshi's lower arm while his other gripped onto the sleeve of his upper arm. Just like last time, it was feeble, but oh.

This was not good for his heart.

Distantly, he registers himself making a squeaky- prolonged sort of inhale, and his arm trembles with the effort of keeping completely still and it takes Qiao Ling forcefully shutting his jaw with her hand for him to chill.

"Oh my god-" Cheng Xiaoshi wheezes, dropping his phone onto the couch cushions [he's careful not to drop the novel though], "It happened again!"

"It's happening again," she corrects, scrambling for her own phone, "Guangguang..."

If there was one thing the siblings could agree on, it was that Lu Guang was adorable and ethereal and it really wasn't fair how he could be both without even trying.

"...you'll send me those photos right?"

"Duh."

3: The third time it happens is completely on purpose.

Well- not on Lu Guang's end. But, regardless! An experiment demands results and Lu introduced too interesting of a hypothesis. Who knew his best friend was such a secret cuddlebug?

Well- he was a secret [was it a secret or did Xiaoshi just never ask...?] coser too, so maybe it was par for the course. Lu Guang and secrets.

Anyway-

Cheng Xiaoshi is standing dutifully just outside the living room, occasionally casting glances at Lu's dozing form. It was just around midday, which meant the sun was hitting the cushions in just the right way to keep the pale haired boy content and lazy. In Cheng Xiaoshi's blue and white sweater.

Yeah, he wasn't that oblivious. He knew he wasn't getting that shirt back any time soon. Or ever. Damn.

Qiao Ling sidles up next to him, her phone poised to begin the final phase of their cuddlebug theory.

See, they tested if Lu Guang would do it awake [he wouldn't. His self control was too strong] and they tested if he would reject physical affection when he was awake [he would, but only if Cheng Xiaoshi was being annoying] and now. Now it was time.

To be fair- Cheng Xiaoshi kind of owed Lu Guang for the last test too. Which had inadvertently led to his friend being in a... rather uncomfortable situation. It wasn't on purpose, obviously, normally the siblings were very good at keeping Lu away from touchy strangers.

Sometimes one would just- slip through the cracks.

Regardless, Lu Guang had earned his current doze and even more so had earned another cat gift. Not that he had to earn those, Xiaoshi was more than happy to keep buying them.

Speaking of- his sister sidles up next to him, phone at the ready.

"You got the goods?" she asks.

Cheng Xiaoshi pulls out the longish, white cat plush he had seen in the window on his way home- embellished with blue eyes and forget me nots on the flank- and nods.

The final cuddlebug test... was it just human contact Lu Guang sought out when asleep? Or... would he cuddle anything? These were pressing concerns!

Also Lu Guang could never find out about his album of sleepy pictures. Ever. Or he'd undoubtedly make the siblings delete them. Xiaoshi wasn't doing anything with the pictures, nothing nefarious at least, but for some reason the pale haired boy always seemed uncomfortable having his picture online.

It was hard to notice, if you didn't know him, but Cheng Xiaoshi liked to think he was an expert in Lu language by now. And he noticed things. Like how Guangguang would only let his picture be taken by Qiao Ling or yours truly.

So maybe he wouldn't make Cheng Xiaoshi delete the album. But hey, Xiaoshi should be allowed to keep embarrassing photos too! Equivalent exchange or whatever it was that blond pipsqueak said! He didn't really get a good look at what Lu was reading.

He creeps forward, trying to keep his footsteps light. His socked feet helped, as well as the years he spent playing basketball, but sometimes-

creeeak.

The floorboards would do that.

Lu Guang snuffles slightly, but Qiao Ling opens the curtains a bit wider and he settles down.

God, he was best friends with a cat.

Alright.

Finally, Cheng Xiaoshi finds himself in a position very similar to the one he was in when this all started. Behind the couch, and reaching down. There's just big enough of a gap between Lu and the cushion that Xiaoshi can set the kitty plush down without disturbing him too much.

The results are immediate.

The second the soft fur of the plush brushes his cheek, [which was arguably softer, Xiaoshi would say] Lu Guang was curling into it. It was too goddamn cute, god, why did he think this was a good idea. He was going to have a heart attack before he even hit 30.

The pale haired boy brought his arm around the cat plush, burying his nose somewhere between the ears, and brings his knees up. His breaths even out from a light doze to something truly peaceful.

This might've worked better than Cheng Xiaoshi's arm.. huh.

That kinda made his chest hurt a little, in a distinctly more painful way than an abundance of affection.

Xiaoshi goes to pull his hand away, which had still carefully been resting on the scruff of the cat, to let his sister get some unobstructed pictures [and snag a few of his own] when Lu makes another sound. A sad little sound.

A sound that makes Cheng Xiaoshi freeze.

Because slender fingers are holding onto his jacket sleeve again.

It's a grip closer to his hand than his wrist this time, not really much of a grip at all, but it still stops Cheng Xiaoshi cold.

Qiao Ling is having the time of her life taking pictures.

So... experiment inconclusive?

+ 1: There's something tacky under his nails.

It's caked over Cheng Xiaoshi's fingers and palms too, so deeply engrained in every groove and arch and whorl that it cracks when he curls his fists.

He can't get it off.

Water runs and runs and runs and runs until the basin is pink and overflowing and drenching his socks in the blood of someone he doesn't know.

Or- does he know them? Who is he? Who's hands is he washing?

The scene around him changes, breaks away like static as he finds himself back in the living room. Their couch- who's couch?- is splattered with bright red paint. Thread hangs from the ceiling, looped in nooses and strung across cork boards and holding photos. A blood moon paints everything like a darkroom, but the light doesn't feel safe at all.

Then the bodies appear.

Lu Guang on the couch, Liu Min strung from the ceiling, Emma on the floor by the blond's feet, Li Tianxi by the windows, and so many more. Faceless people and limbs sticking out from under the floorboards and furniture and there's so much blood.

It's no longer just caked to hands, it's on his face. It's in his mouth, on his clothes-

The photos develop with startling intensity, full of people he never knew personally but that he's been. It's all too much, too soon, too many pieces of information that click into a truly ugly overexposed piece, too many lives-

His foot hits something fleshy, something that warms his sock with thick, cloying intensity.

When he looks down, he sees his own face.

Cheng Xiaoshi wakes up with a scream on the tip of his tongue.

His blanket twists around his limbs, creating a damning sort of cocoon that makes him want to just to throw himself off the side of the bed and get to Lu Guang or a mirror and check if they're both still alive-

Unfortunately, he neglects to remember where he was sleeping. Thin arms wrap around Cheng Xiaoshi's middle before he can splat into the hardwood.

"This-" Lu Guang huffs behind him, fruitlessly trying to drag his friend back onto the mattress, "is why you sleep on the bottom bunk."

Right..

Cheng Xiaoshi scoots backwards until he doesn't feel his stomach swooping- his mind still reeling and his hands still tacky. He.. vaguely remembers now. Why he was in Lu Guang's bed.

Lu Guang-!

The startled yip his pale haired friend let out would be cute in another circumstance, but right now Xiaoshi only cares about finding a pulse. That dream had felt too real, too vivid, and- and Cheng Xiaoshi needs proof, okay? He just needs..

There's nothing but smooth skin when he jerks Lu's sleep shirt up.

"What are you-!?"

"It's gone..." he mutters, trailing his thumb over the spot where there should be a thin scar, but Cheng Xiaoshi finds nothing but tensed muscle. Or- muscle adjacent. "Why is it gone..?"

Lu Guang looks terrified when Xiaoshi meets his eyes, with an odd amber glow passing over his soft face.

It's only then that he realizes he's practically groping his best friend.

"ack- Sorry! Sorry," he sputters, pulling away just as abruptly as when he jumped him, "I was just- I was so sure..."

"It was just a dream, Cheng Xiaoshi."

Slender fingers grab onto both sides of his face, forcing him to meet weirdly determined kitten grey eyes. Lu Guang holds his gaze until he nods. And then he nods more emphatically.

Yeah- yeah. Seriously- why would Lu Guang have a knife scar? And he's never even met someone named Emma or Li Tianxi- he thinks he might've heard about Liu Min on the news before, briefly, maybe. But..

But it felt so real. And personal. Like- like maybe he had lived it before, lived as those people and watched- watched them die.. had seen himself die-

"-Xiaoshi." Lu Guang shakes him out of it and presses his forehead to his, miming deep breaths, "It was just a dream. Everyone is okay."

Just a dream.. just a dream. Right. His pale haired friend takes one hand off his face to press one of Cheng Xiaoshi's to his chest- over his clothes this time.

God, he can't believe he just manhandled- he'll worry about it in the morning. When he's not desperately focused on the slightly too fast thump-thump-thump under his fingers. Then he'll think about Lu Guang's very soft, very unscarred skin.

"Go to sleep, Cheng Xiaoshi."

....he reeeally hopes he didn't say any of that out loud.

If he did, it doesn't look like Lu Guang cared all too much. At least, it didn't look like he cared enough to pull away as he maneuvered the two into laying down again. And buried his nose into loose black hair.

Cheng Xiaoshi wheezes, astounded by his luck. This- Lu Guang never cuddled him! Not consciously! He- oh, he couldn't wait to-

"No one will believe you," his friend murmurs, sleepy and warm and devious, "Sleep, Xiaoshi. Or I'll make you go back to your own bed."

For a second, Cheng Xiaoshi believes his fair friend. But he feels the slight trembles of slender fingers on his shoulders- the jackrabbit heartbeat under his ear and the shallow breaths on his hair, and he thinks Lu needs this just as much as he does. Xiaoshi smiles.

"Liar."

[phmonth]

Pandora Hearts Month 2024 Prompts!

Wonderful art made by for Phmonth23 by @yanderefairyangel!

What is Pandora Hearts Month? Pandora Hearts Month is an event that celebrates, well...Pandora Hearts, the manga created by Jun Mochizuki! Each day is a new prompt. The first three weeks celebrate the three main trios, and the fourth is a bonus week that celebrates any ships/friendships/ot3s fans chose and love--or simply any characters not covered by the other weeks! You can create edits, fanart, drabbles, fanfictions, amvs and mms...whatever you can think of, really! This year we have a fifth week celebrating her current work: Vanitas no Carte! (If and when you make creations for VnC tag your spoilers!!)

Pandora Hearts Month 2024 Prompts:

Golden Trio Week (Alice, Oz and Gilbert), October 20th-26th:

Day 1, Sunday Oct 20th: Yellow or Bones

Day 2, Monday Oct 21st: Rose

Day 3, Tuesday Oct 22nd: AU

Day 4, Wednesday Oct 23rd: Abandoned

Day 5, Thursday Oct 24th: Moon

Day 6, Friday Oct 25th: Winter

Day 7, Saturday Oct 26th: Ravens and Writing Desks

Rainsworth Trio Week (Sharon, Break and Reim), Oct 27th—November 2nd:

Day 1, Sunday Oct 27th: The Shadows Are Watching

Day 2, Monday Oct 28th: Sweet

Day 3, Tuesday Oct 29th: Sorrow

Day 4, Wednesday Oct 30th: Blood

Day 5, Thursday Oct 31st: Reaper

Day 6, Friday Nov 1st: Spring

Day 7, Saturday Nov 2nd: Stars

Tragedy Trio Week (Lacie, Jack and Oswald), Nov 3rd—Nov 9th:

Day 1, Sunday Nov 3rd: Steampunk

Day 2, Monday Nov 4th: A Reward You Will Regret

Day 3, Tuesday Nov 5th: Hair

Day 4, Wednesday Nov 6th: Rest

Day 5, Thursday Nov 7th: Reverence

Day 6, Friday Nov 8th: Black

Day 7, Saturday Nov 9th: Weaving Fate

Fan’s choice Week, Nov 10th—November 16th:

Day 1, Sunday Nov 10th: Purple

Day 2, Monday Nov 11th: Autumn

Day 3, Tuesday Nov 12th: Vampire

Day 4, Wednesday Nov 13th: What's the Catch?

Day 5, Thursday Nov 14th: In the City of Dust

Day 6, Friday Nov 15th: Mystery

Day 7, Saturday Nov 16th: Sweet Nightmares

Vanitas no Carte Week, Nov 17th—Nov 23rd (Please tag your spoilers!!):

Day 1, Sunday Nov 17th: Holiday or Nails or AU

Day 2, Monday Nov 18th: Comet

Day 3, Tuesday Nov 19th: The Cosmos in Your Hands

Day 4, Wednesday Nov 20th: Loyalty

Day 5, Thursday Nov 21st: The Language of Flowers

Day 6, Friday Nov 22nd: Ghost

Day 7, Saturday Nov 23rd: Moonflower

(If you want to use other prompts to make a Halloweeny piece, feel free! You don't have to save that for Halloween day!)

When you post, please remember to:

Tag me @i-prefer-the-term-antihero, @phmonth, and/or @this-idiots-left-eye in your posts to make sure I reblog them! (My main blog is your best bet).

Tag #phmonth24 in your tags! I will go through that tag and check if I've missed any direct tags. (If you don't see your piece reblogged on this blog after doing both these methods, please dm me!)

As I've said, please tag your VnC spoilers!! Not everyone is caught up!!

Either put a link, or a “read more” on long fics (or long posts in general), so they're easier to reblog!

NSFW content is allowed, but please make sure it’s clear it’s NSFW/tagged that way, and is beneath a read more so anyone who doesn’t want to see it doesn’t have to!

I also made a collection on Ao3 for writers! Don't hesitate to add your fics to it!

Don’t forget to join our discord if you haven’t! It’s a fun place to discuss the series and more easily share your creations!

You are free to have fun with this!! As I said, as long as you tag it, NSFW is allowed! Tagging ships is nice too. You can pretty much do whatever you want with the prompts!

As long as you make sure the characters from the trio are your main focus, it’s okay to use other characters in your creations too!

You can join any time, and use as many or as few prompts as you want! You don't have to post on the exact day if you can’t make it! I’ll reblog things late!

Since we live across the world, you are free to post whenever the day is for you. I myself will be making posts according to my time, which is Central Standard Time in America. 

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to send an ask here, or post in the #questions channel of the discord!

Feel free to get started on making stuff early! (But please wait to post until the month has started!) I'm so excited to see what you make! Thank you for all your support!

i-prefer-the-term-antihero

[polycule-playoff]

Cookie Run vs The Case Study of Vanitas

Descriptions Under the Cut:

Cookie Run:

"They're all regulars at Sparkling's bar. Sparkling is a smooth bartender, Herb is an easily flustered gardener, Mint Choco is a charming violinist and Vampire is some sleepy guy who drinks a lot."

"for Cocoa specifically her and Mint Choco cookie are basically canon He loves her alot and invited her to be his guest of honor at his important music recital

I actually don't remember alot of cookie run lore I just didn't want to disclude her from the polycule because I love her and so does Mint Choco cookie He would want her to be apart of this aswell"

The Case Study of Vanitas: (submitted by @spark-lapis)

"One of my favorite things about this ship is that you can immediately see that Domi and Vanitas both have A Type, and that is sweet kind-hearted people with deep compassion, white hair, and trauma.

Domi is (I think) canonically engaged to Noé, her childhood friend who she grew up with and shares everything with— Noé in turn is Vanitas's chosen companion (unwillingly at first, but over time they end up having a very specific vibe for one another in which Vanitas says that Noé is the only person he trusts to kill him and Noé really doesn't want it to come to that and clearly thinks of him fondly enough to write a memoir in the first place. also they're roommates).

Vanitas and Jeanne then also have canonically expressed romantic feelings for one another— like many things in this series, it's a little bit complicated and roundabout in its execution, including such items as "the character making unwanted advances to mask their own feelings and intentions is Genuinely Distressed when they actually catch feelings", "fake dates with your detested enemy that you shockingly find yourself enjoying because you've never even had fake affection before", and their conclusion, "the character making unwanted romantic advances suddenly going 'wait no' and running away the moment the object of their affections genuinely wants to reciprocate". it's great. spectacular relationship that i REALLY thought i would hate at first.

and finally, Jeanne and Domi— in the more recent chapters of the manga, there's a scene where, more or less, Domi tells Jeanne that she loves her, and Jeanne replies with "yes!!! Me too..!!! I love you too!!!". this screenshot is rightfully EVERYWHERE in the #vnc tag and i cannot imagine how they could possibly make it more obvious. Domi also calls Jeanne things like a beautiful flower and suggests with distaste that she should date Noé before considering dating Vanitas, which to me sounds like a "maybe we could be a polycule instead" suggestion from someone who is not fully sure if Jeanne is interested romantically in women. Domi compliments Jeanne a lot and follows her around on her fake date with Vanitas, extremely upset and kind of jealous when it seems to be going well at all.

there's also a scene where Domi and Jeanne dance and they're both sparkling and happy. and in this same scene Noé and Vanitas are dancing as well, and discussing what it means to love someone in a sort of philosophical manner. it's great.

the two legs of the relationship that weren't included, Domi × Vanitas and Noé × Jeanne, are really cool to explore in my opinion but i do understand why they weren't submitted because they barely have any interaction in canon (besides Domi being jealous and a little resentful of Vanitas, mostly). HOWEVER i think Noé and Jeanne could have a really deep and meaningful friendship considering all they've been through and all they've lost, and the kindness they both hold for the world despite it all. i think they could have each other's back when it counts and spend restful evenings sleeping by each other's side and plotting together for how to best fluster their mutual partners. it would be great it would be awesome it would be amazing.

and Domi and Vanitas i think COULD have an interesting and meaningful relationship in the same way, if maybe not a romantic one. Domi and Vanitas both struggle intensely with feeling unwanted and hurt by the world, they both hold immense grief in their hearts for all that has been taken from them, they both have seen family members pass away or be killed, they both feel like outsiders to kindness and gentleness and safety, they both feel undeserving of a kind, soft world. they've stopped believing in that possibility for themselves, and i think that is why they hold so much love in their hearts for the same kinds of people— Noé and Jeanne are both people who have been touched by the world's cruelty but come out of it with a resilience and an insistence on love and care for others, and that is something that both Vanitas and Domi yearn for. On the flip side, Jeanne and Noé are both kind, but feel alone and unwanted, unneeded, helpless— they were unable to help when it mattered most, they feel like failures that can only sit by and watch things happen. and the fact that Vanitas and Domi care so deeply about them is reassuring and warming to them, because it means that they matter, that they're wanted.

Vanitas and Domi kind of hate each other because they are too much like themselves and I think learning to love one another, even platonically, would be a sign that they've learned to see themselves as deserving of love as well.

this polycule is an embodiment of kindness and care and empathy even when it's hard in this essay i will— (sorry it was so long)"

[bitemevanitas]

Not sure if you write Nfsw from your profile and it doesn’t say anything about it But if you do can you do various vnc charactets receiving a 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 letter from s/o?

𝐒𝐥𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐀 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞

𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐦: The Case Study of Vanitas

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬: Roland Fortis, Dante, Vanitas, Noé Archiviste, Dominique de Sade, Jeanne

𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞: Headcanons

𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒

• Finds it in the pocket of his uniform

• At first, he doesn’t register what he just read

• He glances at the note, thinks it’s a sweet message

• Pockets it absentmindedly—only for his brain to catch up a few seconds later

• Immediate double take

• He yanks the note back out, reading it again, slower this time

• Oh. Oh.

• This man turns red to the tips of his ears

• But that flustered look quickly morphs into a beaming grin

• Will absolutely track you down immediately

• No delays

• “Would you care to explain this? Or should I just follow up on your little request right here, right now?”

• Will tease you, but 100% follows through on whatever the note suggested

• This man is nothing if not devoted

𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄

• Finds the note in his pocket while digging for something else—maybe loose coins or a lollipop

• Almost chokes when he reads it

• Immediate panic

• Eyes dart around, like he’s checking if anyone else saw him pull it out

• Even if he’s completely alone

• Face red

• Hands shaking

• Brain short-circuiting

• He absolutely reads it three more times

• Tries to act casual when he finally finds you, but it’s so obvious he’s struggling

• Voice cracks

• "You—! You can’t just—! I mean—! What am I supposed to do with this?!"

• (He knows exactly what to do. He’s just suffering.)

• Ends up coming to you anyway, despite being embarrassed

• Stammers through his words, but will not refuse the invitation

• You win this round

𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐀𝐒

• Finds the note in his pocket while outside

• Reads it, and instantly gets something akin to butterflies

• He hates that

• Tries to play it cool

• Fails miserably

• "Tch. Trying to get a rise out of me, are you? Cute."

• Oh, he’s going to find you Immediately

• But not for the reasons you think

• He fully intends to out-freak you

• Ends up freaking out, instead

• Gets flustered, malfunctions

• "This wasn’t supposed to happen!" He accuses them, pointing at the note, "You can’t just say things like that!"

• Still follows through on the note’s implications

• But... at what cost?

𝐍𝐎𝐄́ 𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄

• Reads the note. Blinks. Reads it again.

• Still doesn’t get it

• It’s written so beautifully, really, but the message is…confusing?

• Is this some kind of metaphor? A poem?

• Immediately goes to Vanitas. "Vanitas, what does this mean?"

• Vanitas dies on the spot

• "WHAT?! YOU’RE ASKING ME?! DO YOU NOT—?!"

• Cue Vanitas biting into his fist while Noé just looks even more confused

• Once it’s finally explained to him, he turns bright red

• "O-Oh! Oh. That’s—uh—" brain static noises

• Needs a moment to process

• Hands on his hips, staring into the distance like a man questioning his entire existence

• Once he composes himself, he absolutely goes to find you

• Noé.exe has crashed

𝐃𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐄 𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐃𝐄

• No hesitation

• Absolutely zero <3

• Finds the note, smirks, and immediately seeks you out

• If you were hoping to fluster her, bad move

• You have only given her ammunition

• She does not waste a single second

• As soon as she finds you, she pulls you into an embrace, lips brushing your ear

• "So impatient to see me again, aren’t you? I love that about you."

• Teases mercilessly

• If you show even a hint of embarrassment, she dials it up

• "What should I do with you, hm? Such a naughty little thing, slipping me something like this."

• She absolutely follows through, but she will make sure you squirm first

𝐉𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐄

• Finds the note while getting ready for battle or training

• Reads it, freezes

• Ears go red first

• Then her cheeks

• Then her entire face

• At first, she can’t believe they wrote something so bold...

• But then?

• Oh, she’s turning the tables

• She marches straight to you, all soft smiles and innocent demeanor

• Her eyes tell a different story

• "Oh, my love… what exactly did you mean by this?"

• If you get flustered, she wins

• If you stand your ground, she’ll just smile sweetly and say something that absolutely wrecks you

• Flustered Jeanne? Only for a moment

• Jeanne on a mission to make you blush instead?

• Absolutely

.

.

.

.

[existingtm]

I've been revisiting old VNC chapters for a variety of reasons, and I came back to these panels in Memoire 7:

This is when Domi accuses Vanitas of worshipping the Vampire of the Blue Moon.

Now, we've seen Vanitas use this kind of de-personing language when he needs to create emotional distance, such as when he calls Noé "that vampire."

We know a few things. We know Vanitas killed Luna. We know that in order to protect his memories, Vanitas will go into a trance that de-persons whoever he's fighting (Is this only applicable to vampires? I'm not sure). And we know he cared about Luna and Mikhail at one point (and likely still does despite his deeply repressive reaction).

What we don't know is if his de-personing mindset lasts after he breaks out of the full trance. Is this intense, de-personing reaction... 1. left over from an altered state of mind he needed to enter in order to kill someone he loved? 2. a regular trauma response? Or 3. an indicator of something more sinister about Luna?

These are the three possibilities I can think of.

I don't think Luna is secretly evil in the way Jack was, however, I suspect there's something rather sinister about them all the same.

The devil symbolism is a pretty well-known aspect of Luna's character at this point, but Luna's comment about trying to find out what they are is also intriguing to me. Whatever it is doesn't seem to be their fault, but it does seem to be bad all the same. Maybe it's really just their Malnomen form, but these little hints about them in their normal form make me think that there's more to it.

@lynnlyrae mentioned their theory about Luna being a homunculus here, and that's a possibility I find very intriguing. If Luna's not a homunculus, then they must at least have a narratively similar origin.

[k4txlulzz]

(warning: this is a random late night rant y'all , feel free to not take this seriously its just my scrambled thoughts lol)

vanitas no carte fandom is a lot more chaotic than i remembered it to be😭guys what happened i just came back to see how the story progressed (BTW MY FAVE SCENES GOT ANIMATED SO WELL !! the eng dub is so good too)

okay so! vanitas is my favorite character and i truly think he has a good, selfless heart. but yk what? that kiss scene with him and jeanne keeps popping up in my head. but then i remember that if i consider that moment SA i'd have to consider ALOT more romance scenes in the story as that too and i just don't think there can be that amount of **intentional** assault scenes from the creator ?😭

folks have brought up the cabin scene and??? that just confused me. because i never even thought of that possibility while looking at the panels or the scene. people hate vanitas or vanijeanne or even jeanne because of this kinda stuff and . while im conflicted and even uncomfortable(the kiss scene specifically) i also believe that the creator would not make a character SA anyone like that and make it seem romantic. i see this as: if its shown to be cute or romantic and does not show negative mental consequences of the characters after the event, it was not **intended** to be assault. (edit: while vanitas is shown to be malicious in this scene, the incident gets brought up like once after and doesn't really turn into an obstacle in vanitas' and jeanne's relationship which is what made me think this) basically, if it's shown to be harmless, it was most likely intended as that. and i understand the issue with that one weird kiss scene, i don't like it either. its just that vanitas happened to be my favorite before i learnt all this and that made me try and look for an explanation or some sort of evidence that maybe this is a "suspend your disbelief" moment but i dunno. i just desperately don't wanna think that a character and one of the dynamics that mean a lot to me have gross, scary implications . the creator wouldn't write jeanne or vanitas to do something so horrible because those are some of the characters she wants fans to be invested in and that can't be done if those characters are assaulters😭 the kiss scene still does ick me though and i think the moment should have been done differently? in any case, i generally think that media literacy is something every fan needs to have. because otherwise we back ourselves into a corner and "criticize problematic stuff" ourselves into viewing every character as a terrible person who should not be liked

but then again, this IS just my opinion and, to be clear, i don't support assault being brushed off in any media

[edit 2: i also acknowledge that i may be leaning towards copium with this one but that doesn't mean i don't recognize the creator's attempt to create a complex dynamic and characters; i just feel like because of this one scene a lot of people hate vanitas and brush off his dynamic with jeanne entirely which is sad because they have a lot of stuff thats worth getting interested in. i just wanted to make it clear that this post is just me ranting about something and not meant to be taken as a proper analysis ^^🙏🏼 it has also been a while since i looked at VNC stuff and may have gotten a bit rusty. i acknowledge that SA may perhaps be a significant part of the storytelling in VNC but i don't really want to think about those moments for personal reasons and especially when it is shown to be done by a character that really does mean a lot to me:) i enjoyed reading the comments i got on this post and am genuinely quite grateful for them]

[menelaus-blue]

i had a very important realization while i was out walking today. out of the main four vnc characters, noé is the one we know the least about. he fits into a category of what i would call the glass protagonist–a guy who basically exists only to narrate the story, joining the ranks of those like nick carraway and richard papen, except he's just like way more mysterious.

see, part of what makes a narrator like nick work narratively is that we know just enough about him to 1) understand his perspective on the events of the story and 2) know what his role in the story is. nick is able to give his insider/outsider view of gatsby because he is neither part of the buchanans' world nor part of gatsby's, and his role in the story is to serve as a kind of mediator between the two of them. he's daisy's cousin in long island, but he's also a working man in city, etc, etc.

the funky thing about noé is we just...don't know anything about him. we're told a couple of things about his childhood; that he was adopted by an old couple in the human world, that they died and he was somehow on sale in altus, and that the comte took him in. but really, the time before and after louis's death is uncannily empty for the guy who we're following through this world. yes, of course it's fair to say that we know the most important things about noé, but we honestly know way more of vanitas's childhood than his, and that's a big part of the central mystery of the story.

(there's an element to this, of course, that comes from both of the examples i gave before, the great gatsby and the secret history, being novels. as readers, we get an extra level of introspection from nick and richard that is very difficult to translate directly into manga as a medium. however, i would argue that it's not impossible, and all that being said it does sometimes feel intentional on mochijun's part just how little of noé's background she's shown us.)

both nick and richard narrate their respective stories onto the reader from their position as outsiders, which we know is noé's role in vnc from the get-go. i mean, he says this explicitly in chapter one: "this is the tale of how i met vanitas, and how we walked together, of all we gained and lost, and of how, at the end of that journey, i would kill him with my own two hands". he's the narrator and this is his story, just like nick and richard, right?

but while nick and richard are the narrators, and give us, the readers, an excuse to look into their worlds, they are not exactly essential players on the board. both the great gatsby and the secret history give the impression that, without their narrators, they would have continued nearly exactly as written; the characters were doomed to fail long before the story began, and the intervention of some white guy isn't enough to either stop that. and yes, vanitas is doomed as well, but we are introduced to his death as an event that is intrinsically tied to noé himself.

"with my own two hands", noé says. he is not only an actor in the saga leading up to vanitas's demise, he is a starring player in it. (and yes, we ofc later learn that vanitas is going to die with or without noé's intervention but i think it's important to understand that this is our introduction to noé, vanitas, and the story itself) in this way, noé differentiates himself from his glass counterparts, in that he inserts himself irrevocably into the plot. he is both a character in the story and an observer, a chess piece and the one playing the game. this is why the gaps in his backstory feel so jarring, at least to me, because we are not meant to view him as solely a window into the world of vnc, but as a character all on his own.

anyways, all that being said, i'm hoping with the introduction of lady archiviste we're finally going to learn more about noé and his time with the comte, just because it's like a HUGE gap in the story.

[callilemon]

hi!

i hope it's not too weird to ask, but how do you keep connected/active in the vnc fandom/online so well?? i admire the way you interact with other artists and fans, how much love/creativity you always seem to put into your art, and the genuine enthusiasm i feel in all of your posts! i just,,,i don't understand how to be someone like that when i have nothing artistic to give, but part of me always wants to be as extroverted and fun as you are on here, if that makes sense? i give nothing so i receive nothing i suppose, but the internet's daunting to me lol

anyways, im sorry for rambling (and doubly sorry if my ask creeped you out at all) but i hope you're well!

Hi! Thank you for the question!! I actually stay connected through social media. Specifically, these two!

(If I have an account somewhere, my handle is always @callilemon)

It really means so much to me that you think of me that way! I'm actually an introvert, (INFP-T) so it was really hard for me at first to interact online. I was terrified of it. But, when I actually did, the VnC Fandom was so welcoming! I really appreciate everyone I've met from this Fandom.

I'm a strong believer that everyone is artistic! You just need to find the "thing" that brings you joy and happiness! It can be anything, really, art, digital, or traditional. Writing, sewing, head canons, edits, anything! I'm positive someone will come across a post and really enjoy it! That's how I got started, at least!

Please never think you're creepy! I really love these asks! It's wild to me that others are actually interested in me and my thoughts!

[neversetyoufree]

Since writing my last post about how Vanitas understands "salvation" as the preservation of one's self, even at the price of death, I've been thinking about how that plays into Vanitas's thoughts on resurrection. It's only two short lines, but I find the view he expresses in this scene absolutely fascinating.

Vanitas tells Misha that the dead "don't come back," and the fact that he phrases it that way stands out to me. He doesn't say that resurrection is impossible on a physical level; he implicitly concedes that maybe Misha could "bring back" something that looks and acts like Luna. He doesn't quibble about the practicalities of reanimating someone whose body turned to ashes or bring up whatever concept of the afterlife he may have.

Instead, Vanitas says that a resurrected Luna would simply be "something else that looked like her." A resurrected Luna would lack some fundamental part of whatever it was that made Luna who they were in their first life.

But what would they lack? I don't think he's implying that a resurrected Luna would lack their soul—not really. Setting aside the absence of souls as a conceptual presence in VnC, I think that would be too concrete and specific for what Vanitas is gesturing toward. Rather, he's conceiving of the Self in a somewhat ineffable way. On a metaphysical level, a version of Luna brought back from the dead simply Wouldn't Be Her, and he can't put it in more concrete terms than that.

So why does he think this way?

I think the concept of resurrection is awful enough to Vanitas that he has to reject it outright for his own stability. He cannot even slightly entertain the notion that resurrection might be possible, because that would destroy one of his main coping mechanisms.

Resurrection is nightmarish to a man that relies on death as an escape. Vanitas is suicidal, but beyond his self-hatred, his relationship to death is very particular. He's someone whose body and being has been corrupted and violated several times—through violence, through experiments, and through Luna's bite, and he's desperate to retain control of himself in the aftermath. He's desperate for control in regards to everything in his life, but especially his body and his death.

Vanitas is being slowly transformed into something inhuman, and he plans to die someday to escape that fate. The idea that after he's gone, someone could override that decision and force him back into living a life he doesn't want must be unacceptably horrific to him. He dismisses it out of hand because he has to.

Vanitas says a resurrected Luna would, on some level, not really be Luna. Whatever comes back might look like them, but it would lack some fundamental self that makes Luna "Luna." Thus, if Vanitas himself were ever "resurrected" after his death, it would be the same. Death remains an absolute escape for him, and even if someone contrives to bring back something that looks like him after he's gone, it won't be him. That life won't be his problem.

In addition to whatever beliefs Vanitas might have about death and afterlives the feasibility of resurrection, I think this is a key part of his relationship to the concept. He lives his life knowing that death waits for him as an escape valve. He needs that looming death as his salvation. Thus, faced with the concept of resurrection, his argument basically boils down to "nuh-uh." He shoots down the concept and declares that a resurrected person wouldn't be themselves in some nonspecific way, because the possibility of anything otherwise isn't something safe for him to consider.

[grassbreads]

I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

[auburnflight]

Sooo a little bit ago, I made a post comparing 9S to Vanitas from VnC, in which iirc, I made an offhanded comment about how, unlike Vanitas, 9S drinks the "respect women" juice.

But I'm going to revisit that. Because he certainly respects 2B... at least, in the first half of the story. After its turning point, though, that becomes debatable. In fact, I'm starting to think that he loses his respect for 2B entirely, because his rage has become the most important thing driving him. And what comes along with his rage is a sense of possessiveness.

Even before the story's turning point, we've already seen hints of this possessiveness. When Adam traps 9S, claiming to be reading out his thoughts, nearly every sentence starts with "you want." And when Adam brings up 2B, it can even be argued that it's not what 9S wants from 2B that's devastating for 9S to realize (especially given that the specifics aren't even offered to the reader). It's the very act of wanting.

This refrain of "wanting" is echoed in the second half of the story, most prominently in the novel form Long Story Short. The novel has multiple passages in the second half demonstrating 9S's possessiveness over 2B and any thought related to her. She should have belonged to him. No one else. This culminates at the end of the scene where he's fighting the multiple 2B-type dummy models in the Tower:

Reconstructing 2B's chassis without his permission was unforgivable. Animating her chassis without his permission was unforgivable. That's precisely why he was going to destroy all of them. The only one who can destroy 2B is me. "I'll tear you apart... Every last one of you!" Because they were all his. He wasn't going to let anyone else have them... not even 2B.

She's not her own being with agency anymore. To 9S, she exists only as his possession, and as his obsession.

In stark contrast to the first part of the story, where 9S is kept at a distance, in the second half, he takes his wanting into his own hands. (Literally?) In situations when he's confronted with illusions of 2B's form, he violently destroys them. Even after battling the numerous 2B models, after a brief moment of rest and tenderness, he steals the corpse's arm (with which he had caressed himself just moments before, as if the corpse might be more than an imitation) in the name of his rage. Because more than remembering 2B as her own person, he has to keep fighting and fulfilling his own desires, even if it means (and perhaps even by way of) taking advantage of her.

(Man, I love that scene.)

When others attempt to remind 9S of 2B's agency, he denies them outright. He doesn't really internalize what Devola and Popola are telling him about her. (As Long Story Short in particular illustrates, he is heavily dissociating at that point.) Nor does he stop to listen to A2 and consider there might be alternatives to his internal narrative (that she was infected by a logic virus, that she wouldn't wanted him to have embarked on this mission of self-destruction, etc.). Without 2B's physical form to ground her presence in, all that's real to 9S anymore is what he possesses in his thoughts.

Long Story Short calls his thoughts and feelings toward her--the ones he experiences throughout the story, not just in the second half--"perverse." I don't currently have access to the text in the original language, so this is an interpretation of an interpretation. Still, this translation choice suggests an objectification of 2B, and this is supported by 9S's thoughts and actions throughout his bouts of fury.

There are multiple facets in which this possessiveness is tragic. First, androids are not allowed to want. Regardless of how much 9S may or may not respect 2B, the very feeling of wanting is punishable. Emotion are forbidden. Even without any questions of agency or morality that we would attach to the situation as humans, this makes 9S's feelings "perverse."

Second, unknown to 9S, 2B still exists in the second half of the story--just in a form that thoroughly evades his possessiveness. I mentioned earlier how a physical form in which to ground her presence, her agency and her wishes, has been lost. Some form of 2B's memories and consciousness does still exist inside A2, but she is apparently unable to take control herself. To my recollection, it's not even made clear whether she's actually present and can perceive what's happening through A2's senses, or if a ghost of her simply lives somewhere as memories in A2's systems. Either way, though, 9S does come to realize this, at least partially--at the last moment possible, in one version of the game's ending should the player decide to side with him.

This whole time, as far as 9S is concerned, with 2B's original body and data gone, 2B's only existence is what he's had in his head and how it serves him. But she in fact does still exist, and the power to give or take away her agency didn't even fall with him:

So that's where you were, 2B.

(I wish we had gotten a screenshot of that part. I'm sorry. T_T)

In some ways, NieR:Automata is a very subtle story, and the first half very much trusts the reader (especially in game form) to put clues together and form their own interpretation. So with his innocent and curious air, it can be easy to forget 9S's complexity as a character, and to be shocked when he's far more eager even to kill machines than 2B herself, the unit dedicated solely to battle, is. But even 9S has his own flaws, his own vulnerabilities that will drive him to madness when exploited just right. And as we can see with many of the side characters we encounter, many androids are driven to madness by loss or by their circumstances, leaving them convinced that, whether for them, others around them, or both, none of their agency, respect for each other, or meaning that they've created for themselves matters--that all they exist for is violence.

[questioning-transmasc]

updated intro post

what is this, my third one now? beats editing my old ones over and over again like i said i would

i'm writing this while i'm tired so if i seem snarky or anything that's why

dni: terfs, queerphobes (homophobes, transphobes, biphobes, aphobes, and more that are anti lgbtq), ai art/artists, pedos, rapists, anti furry/therian, people who like to mischaracterize on purpose for entertainment, sexual nudity, pornography, proshippers, racism, sexism, fatphobia, hate, nazis, neo-nazis, i'll add more once i remember

im fine with the occasional sex joke but my level of sex repulsion is fluid

anyway my bad, had to get that out of the way before you know my name. my name is rome (not the city). pronouns are she/they (sorry to disappoint)

i decided my user when i was still figuring myself out, but i think right now im agender before i dig to find a more specific label

facts:

i don't really mind rp if i'm being honest; i love rp and gimmick blogs. i would just prefer watching other people rp rather than myself

i'm trying to learn german but it's not going well lmao

if you're my moot, i'm not ignoring you, i'm just watching what you put on my fyp and it makes me happy. i still love you guys even if i'm not interacting with yall

kinnies include but are not limited to chuuya nakahara (bsd), edgar allan poe (bsd), ranpo edogawa (bsd), nikolai (bsd) (am i ok) (don't answer that), sousuke mitsuba (tbhk) (preferably the original alive one), noé archiviste (vnc), and reki kyan (sk8)

i'm always tired and i get really polite if im socially anxious

also wait can i mention @leillaaaa because even though we may not ship all the same things i love seeing your posts on my fyp and you've really helped me become more open minded on other peoples opinions on franchises

pan oriented aroace

i like purple

i like jrock, vocaloid, alt, and indie music

i'm so foul mouthed it's not even funny

OK BYEEE OH SHIT I FORGOT MY TAGS

ok so #rome's rain appreciation# is what it sounds like and #rome's messages!# are the occasional screenshots of messages i've sent

art below>>> (click for better quality)

[polycule-playoff]

The Case Study of Vanitas vs Zero Escape

What do the colours mean?

The Case Study of Vanitas: (submitted by @spark-lapis)

"One of my favorite things about this ship is that you can immediately see that Domi and Vanitas both have A Type, and that is sweet kind-hearted people with deep compassion, white hair, and trauma.

Domi is (I think) canonically engaged to Noé, her childhood friend who she grew up with and shares everything with— Noé in turn is Vanitas's chosen companion (unwillingly at first, but over time they end up having a very specific vibe for one another in which Vanitas says that Noé is the only person he trusts to kill him and Noé really doesn't want it to come to that and clearly thinks of him fondly enough to write a memoir in the first place. also they're roommates).

Vanitas and Jeanne then also have canonically expressed romantic feelings for one another— like many things in this series, it's a little bit complicated and roundabout in its execution, including such items as "the character making unwanted advances to mask their own feelings and intentions is Genuinely Distressed when they actually catch feelings", "fake dates with your detested enemy that you shockingly find yourself enjoying because you've never even had fake affection before", and their conclusion, "the character making unwanted romantic advances suddenly going 'wait no' and running away the moment the object of their affections genuinely wants to reciprocate". it's great. spectacular relationship that i REALLY thought i would hate at first.

and finally, Jeanne and Domi— in the more recent chapters of the manga, there's a scene where, more or less, Domi tells Jeanne that she loves her, and Jeanne replies with "yes!!! Me too..!!! I love you too!!!". this screenshot is rightfully EVERYWHERE in the #vnc tag and i cannot imagine how they could possibly make it more obvious. Domi also calls Jeanne things like a beautiful flower and suggests with distaste that she should date Noé before considering dating Vanitas, which to me sounds like a "maybe we could be a polycule instead" suggestion from someone who is not fully sure if Jeanne is interested romantically in women. Domi compliments Jeanne a lot and follows her around on her fake date with Vanitas, extremely upset and kind of jealous when it seems to be going well at all.

there's also a scene where Domi and Jeanne dance and they're both sparkling and happy. and in this same scene Noé and Vanitas are dancing as well, and discussing what it means to love someone in a sort of philosophical manner. it's great.

the two legs of the relationship that weren't included, Domi × Vanitas and Noé × Jeanne, are really cool to explore in my opinion but i do understand why they weren't submitted because they barely have any interaction in canon (besides Domi being jealous and a little resentful of Vanitas, mostly). HOWEVER i think Noé and Jeanne could have a really deep and meaningful friendship considering all they've been through and all they've lost, and the kindness they both hold for the world despite it all. i think they could have each other's back when it counts and spend restful evenings sleeping by each other's side and plotting together for how to best fluster their mutual partners. it would be great it would be awesome it would be amazing.

and Domi and Vanitas i think COULD have an interesting and meaningful relationship in the same way, if maybe not a romantic one. Domi and Vanitas both struggle intensely with feeling unwanted and hurt by the world, they both hold immense grief in their hearts for all that has been taken from them, they both have seen family members pass away or be killed, they both feel like outsiders to kindness and gentleness and safety, they both feel undeserving of a kind, soft world. they've stopped believing in that possibility for themselves, and i think that is why they hold so much love in their hearts for the same kinds of people— Noé and Jeanne are both people who have been touched by the world's cruelty but come out of it with a resilience and an insistence on love and care for others, and that is something that both Vanitas and Domi yearn for. On the flip side, Jeanne and Noé are both kind, but feel alone and unwanted, unneeded, helpless— they were unable to help when it mattered most, they feel like failures that can only sit by and watch things happen. and the fact that Vanitas and Domi care so deeply about them is reassuring and warming to them, because it means that they matter, that they're wanted.

Vanitas and Domi kind of hate each other because they are too much like themselves and I think learning to love one another, even platonically, would be a sign that they've learned to see themselves as deserving of love as well.

this polycule is an embodiment of kindness and care and empathy even when it's hard in this essay i will— (sorry it was so long)"

Zero Escape:

None.