Just A Girl Invested In Too Many Fandoms

this is genuinely the best and most useful description of discrimination i've ever seen and its wild that its in the bisexual doomed polycule manga

LOVE how Johann gets the last laugh here just by virtue of his attitude

I'm fascinated by the Noé stuff in this chapter. I feel like Mochijun has been working toward calling more attention to his particular comprehension problems as we move into the new arc (like the "be a little bothered" reaction back in 57), and I can kind of see a way this slots into that.

One of Noé's biggest issues is that he seems to be utterly incapable of processing most trauma as trauma. His optimism goes beyond the point of what's healthy to straight-up incomprehension of reality. I don't even want to call it denial, because I think denial requires some small degree more of awareness than what Noé has going on. I've used this line before, but it's like bad things roll off of him like water off a raincoat, never making an imprint in his conscious mind. The guy was abducted by human traffickers while mourning the death of his foster parents, and he seems to have been injured in the process. Yet he laughs it off and says the experience was fun! Like taking a trip!

And I think I see that same tendency as the roots of how he acts in this chapter.

Noé is aware that mistreating and/or de-personing the Dante and co is wrong. And that's what all the other vampires are clearly doing in this scene when they refuse to call them by their names—they're de-personing them. But! Noé likes the other vampires in that scene. He likes Nox, Manet, and Orlock, and he thinks the world of Domi, so I think he really struggles to comprehend that they're purposely doing something he knows is hateful and wrong. "My friends whom I respect are being hateful and actively de-humanizing other people I care about" is not a concept that's going to find easy purchase on Noé's denialbrain. So his lovely toxic optimism lands on the easier answer instead. They must just not have been introduced!

To take Dante's phrasing, I don't think he's doing it on purpose, and he's not stupid. He's just sheltered and hopeful to a truly spectacular (and unhelpful) degree.

Thus far, Noé's over-optimistic incomprehension of reality has only been with regards to things about himself. His friends might get a bit concerned when he brushes off his suffering, but he's never accidentally hurt others or brushed off their pain before. However, this time his inability to confront or even process the Bad Thing—the fact that his friends are dham racist—has affected other people (the people actually suffering the racism). If nothing else, it's a really interesting way to call more attention to his slight disconnect from reality.

Nox and her brother, being characters we’ve began to like, end up saying some vampire racist shit is SOOO accurate to the real world. It’s always the people you liked and didn’t expect to say racist shit, say racist shit.

I like how we’re approaching the dham prejudice now bc if we entering an arc focusing a lot on them, that will be addressed very much. And we have each part of the spectrum here.

-Nox and Manet who are very prejudiced and hold strongly to those beliefs.

-Orlock who wouldn’t openly say these things but do align with his servants.

-Vanitas who’s a jerk to everyone which is why Dante gravitated towards him.

-Domi, who is the most interesting element here. Because that’s the majority, and even us at times, may end up in.They know the bigoted thinking is backwards and wrong but subconsciously feed into it. And she was ashamed discovering that fact.

-And of course Noé, the sheltered boy who sees the world honestly like a child, is just confused. And rightfully points out the elephant in the room. Also I think it’s fitting (even though it makes sense regardless bc its Noé) that it’s the character with melanin who speaks up about it.

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My piece for a vanitas no carte zine!!

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The best ‘totally not vampires 100% human humans’ in all of France

Day 21 - drain

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