#or mochijun's razor:

[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.

[torterrachampion]

Because I haven't said anything insane in a while I'm sharing one of my most absurd theories. I've shared it before (just never on tumblr) and I'm not even sure I believe it. Nonetheless we proceed.

The basic gist is this is not Faustina in the tank but Jeanne.

We know that after the original Gévaudan incident Jeanne was placed into an induced slumber by Ruthven and now ~100 years later she's allegedly been reawakened.

When Ruthven put Jeanne into slumber he said he would wake her after the war was over. And the funny thing about that is... the war was already over when he put her to sleep. The war ended in 1702 by Chloé's recount, long before the original Beast incident. Meanwhile Jeanne's slumber started sometime around 1767 if we use the actual historical Beast of Gévaudan incident as a landmark.

By this we can assume when Ruthven mentions war he doesn't mean the one between humans and vampires that he helped end. So either the "war" he's referring to only ended recently or, potentially, it's still being fought. Within the past few years the only major events that I can think of that could have signalled an end to Ruthven's war would be Luna or Faustina's deaths (if what happened to Faustina even counts as a death or was recent to begin with). But for my purposes continuing this post I'm working under the assumption his war isn't over.

At the very least Ruthven isn't acting as though he's content and they're living in peacetimes with all the scheming he's doing behind the scenes. My main point is we have reason to doubt Ruthven's criteria for awakening Jeanne have been met, and because speculating about his motivations is too difficult I will say no more about him.

Moving on, if I may invoke Occam's razor the simplest explanation for who is in the tank would be that it's the only character we know has been tanked. Assuming it's Faustina makes things more confusing not less. We already have two competing explanations of what happened to her body with Loki saying it was smashed contradicting the apparently intact body in the bed.

As for physical evidence of my claims my kind of silly argument is the hair. It looks more similar in texture to Jeanne's than Faustina's in my opinion, and almost identical to how baby Jeanne's was drawn when she started out in her tank. Tank girl's hair just doesn't look as wavy as Faustina's. While it does look longer than Jeanne's I'm willing to argue it could've grown during her sleep. It's certainly not the most insane thing I'm arguing here today.

In the below images I've marked pictures of Jeanne with pink dots, Faustina with red dots and mysterious tank girl with blue dots for ease of comparison.

Additionally, the depiction of Jeanne from memoire 4 when Vanitas talks about her induced slumber shows her hair as incredibly long. Longer than we've ever seen it. During her Hellfire Witch days it came down the length of her back but this single panel shows it reaching down past her knees. Perhaps the inconsistency is because Mochijun had not yet fully settled her character design for that time period but what if we entertain the idea that it's intentional? It looks about the right length to match the girl in the tank.

Looking at hand sizes it's hard to say but I'm willing to concede that tank girl's hands look a little smaller than Jeanne's. It's not so different that I can claim they're 100% not Jeanne's but it's worth pointing out. Ruthven's hand can kind of help scale but it's not super clear how big his hand is compared to Jeanne's in any panels I can find so it's hard to make an accurate comparison.

And I'll admit there is good evidence that tank girl is indeed Faustina. Most notably she reacts when Noé yells at Naenia in Gévaudan. Indeed my own arguments against this are at best wild speculation and grasping at straws. But grasp I will.

We know there is some relationship between Jeanne and Naenia so perhaps it isn't so unusual. Naenia was with Jeanne in Gévaudan just before Ruthven came and subsequently put her to sleep. It's possible she did something to Jeanne/her body in that time and that some connection between them now exists.

It is mentioned that Jeanne is a 'vessel' and one would assume her body has the potential to be both filled and emptied of consciousness if we take it literally.

Although, whatever else I may say, our current Jeanne definitely doesn't have any mental differences from pre-sleep Jeanne. She has all of her memories as far as I can tell, besides a few that have been tampered with. So even if I claim Jeanne's body is in that tank I'm not sure I can say the same of her consciousness. And I don't exactly have an explanation for who/what our Jeanne is if I'm working under the assumption any of my claims are true. Really any belief in this nonsense creates more questions than it answers. Yet it compels me.

Look, my main point is the person in the tank does not look like Faustina to me and I'm suspicious of the gap in time wherein Jeanne was asleep.

I know I wanted to say more but I forgot and I'll probably only remember after I post this so... Thanks for coming to my crack theory. Don't take it too seriously orz

[cheekbites-moved]

At some point you have to use occam's Razor and realize that most fans are probably just projecting cishetness on the story and that it being gay Makes More Sense

listen, i agree with you. it does only make sense if they're gay & in love. full-heartedly. & this isn't me snapping at you.

but, also, nah dude i'm not gonna accept people fucking claiming mochijun is baiting us here.

first of all, there are multiple canonical lgbt characters.

domi is canonically a wlw. she is in love with noe, & flirts with multiple women, including jeanne, but she flirts with nox very fucking apparently when she's first introduced to us.

and the dhampirs are canonically in a relationship together. johann and dante literally kiss right in front of us.

luna is canonically non-binary, trans, genderless, gnc, whatever term you wanna use to describe them... (i myself am nb & reject people's rejection of luna's rep btw. just wanna be clear if ppl try to pull that)

& there's too many romantic scenes between vanoe to list, they happen like every chapter they're together, which is obviously most of them.

i agree with you, i'm not snapping at you. but i'm not gonna sit back & "accept" people accusing a story with multiple lgbt characters of baiting solely because They Themselves refuse to acknowledge & accept the romantic scenes between vanoe are clearly intended to be romantic.

wow, they don't kiss. ok. they literally talk about kissing, as vani touches noe's lips. & noe later asks vani to indirectly kiss him when he's asking what love is, while they’re holding each other and dancing, after vani gave him the impression kissing is part of it.

wow, they don't say "i love you" to each other, but they show it in so many ways that are much more significant, & meaningful.

i am sick of people claiming shit's baiting because it doesn't align with the representation they want in particular. write your own fucking story, and leave mochijun, & vnc, which is clearly made for the lgbt community or at least with us in mind, alone & HUSH.

[digital-dhampirs]

what are your thoughts on the new chapter? I don't think it's translated yet, so from the raws🏃

Hiya, thanks for the ask! I’m trying my absolute hardest to dodge spoilers from the newest raws for now (which means not touching the vnc tag, me, don’t do it), so my thoughts on the chapter will be out once the English translation is out in a few days..!

For now, though, here are my thoughts on the apple iBooks cover….

First and foremost oh my god Teacher oh by the blessed blue moon I’m—

It looks like we get a Teacher face reveal this chapter! He looks just as friendly and approachable and horrifying as I imagined. Breaking all vampiric tradition, the Teacher doesn’t have any rings in his eyes, or even pupils… just when I thought I had vampire eyes figured out, mochijun decided to introduce a new flavor.

Speaking of eyes, it looks like our dear Teacher has heterochromia— his left eye is far lighter than his right. Considering this is pretty much exactly how human! Murr’s eyes are shaded in volume 8’s cat cafe omake (sans pupils), this seems to be pretty solid confirmation that the Teacher is connected to Murr. I’m still somewhat hesitant to say anything definitive though, because if the Teacher really is Murr…. uh…

he’s… what I would generously refer to as a method actor…

I think there’s a definite possibility that Murr could be one of Teacher’s familiars, or maybe the Teacher purposefully gave this form heterochromia for some reason… but yeah Occam’s razor is absolutely suggesting that the two are one and the same. If the Teacher actually is Murr, this suggests that the Teacher keeps this type of heterochromia in every form he takes (whether intentionally or not), which means I might be able to finally finally close the casket on that Ruthven = Teacher crack theory that’s been haunting me for literal years at this point.

Regardless of Murr’s relationship to the Teacher, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Teacher’s current form has one purple eye and one bright blue eye. Suffice to say, this is very sus. So far the only characters we’ve seen with copper sulfate blue eyes have been vampires born under a blue moon and members of the Blue Moon Clan. I’ve already theorized that the Teacher acquired the Books of Vanitas along with Luna’s blood at some point in the past, and later passed them on to Moreau— could he have done experiments on himself using these items? Did Luna give him these things willingly? Did Luna make him part of the Blue Moon Clan? Was he once friends with Luna? Luna says that at some point in the past they tried to figure out what they truly were, but they now deeply regret it, does that have anything to do with the Teacher? The Teacher told Mikhail that he has the ability to bring Luna back to life, why do all his experiments seem to revolve around Luna and Faustina, what—

theory brain is running absolutely wild with this one (1) image

Turning our eyes to Teacher’s other eye… this magenta/purple eye is just as sus as the copper sulphate blue one. Why do he and Noé have the same eye color? Don’t tell me this has something to do with that crack theory that the Teacher and Luna are Noé’s parents (I’m not gonna touch this one until the EN chapter actually drops but tldr I kinda just don’t like it on a storytelling level)….

in order to soothe my soul a bit I’m going to pretend that the heterochromia is just the Teacher having a little fun and choosing the two most plot relevant colors for his current form’s eyes

So!!!!!! That’s all my thoughts on the one random image from chapter 55 I’m allowing myself to look at. Thanks again for the ask! I know some of the questions I’ve raised in this post may be answered in the chapter, but I’m really trying to avoid spoilers from the raws, so please try to avoid spoiling content from the newest chapter in the replies if ya can. Thanks for reading my ramblings! see you when the English chapter drops and I officially lose my mind