Someone stole their glasses and now they’re confused
I tried to go crazy with the colors for the ✨atmosphere✨ but still ended up in my usual purple-pink palette… at least I managed to add some orange and blue colors but idk
Noda from twitter said that Johann is the Judas of VnC and sent me down a spiral. Because one of Jesus’ missions was to convert sinners and spread the good news. You can interpret that as Vanitas’ whole healing curse-bearers thing. Assume then that Vanitas is Jesus. Bear with me pls. We can also assume Johann spider reveal will be the first turning point before everything goes to shit. Tipping the chain of events that’ll lead to Vanitas dying. What I mean by this is Judas betrays the squad. What’s funny is that Monsieur Spider is working with Ruthven and the extremist chasseurs aka the Church. Now, Judas betrayed Jesus mainly for greed. And it’s possible Johann, if spider, is being paid by Ruthven.
Btw when Judas goes to betray Jesus it’s described as “Satan entered him”. This could like the times we’ve seen Johann’s mask slip and he shows his crueler side. But it’s also a large belief that Judas was trying to scam the chief priests and get back at the Roman government. Judas very much believed in the coming of a mighty Messiah to free them from the Romans but Jesus was being too weak. He thought Jesus needed a little push in the right direction. So he betrayed him, expecting Jesus to perform a miracle and disappear like he always does. That didn’t happen and Jesus got condemned to death. Some ppl think that’s why he returned the 30 pieces of silver. This isn’t explicitly stated in the bible but simply popular theories people have.
Because this wasn’t the plan. Johann could be doing all this to get back at a society who’ve shunned dhams, his family. Initially I said Dante is Jesus but that’s saying he’s betraying Dante. Which I don’t think that’s the case but Dante will get wrapped up into it. So I guess you could still make an argument. He could kiss Dante as an apology , I could see him blowing a kiss at Vanitas to be a bitch. He’s made it very clear he isn’t a fan of him. But now it’s...what comes next?
Because Judas commits sui@ide. I don’t think it’s beyond Mochijun to write smth like that. If Dante or Richie or both die because of his involvement in all this, it’s not impossible. In PH, Alice did technically off herself to protect Oz and Alyss. And we did come back from hiatus to a flashback of Astolfo attempting so I cannot say it’s beyond her. Finally the traitors’ names begin with a J. Imma leave it at that.
Y’know with the latest reveals in the past couple of chapters, the fact that Machina sent Dante and Johann to Gevaudan and how irked and worried Dante was over not being able to fulfill their mission there makes a lot more sense.
Names are power in VnC. We call the piece of the world formula that defines a vampire their "true name." Learning and altering a vampire's true name gives you near-absolute power over them. Vanitas hides his old name as part of his "Vanitas" persona—a defense mechanism to hide his vulnerable self.
And names are an axis of discrimination too. The main way we've been examining discrimination against the dhampirs is through the lens of vampires refusing to call them by their names. And Luna, the perennial outsider, seems not to have been given a real name. They certainly didn't have a name that they liked or identified with for most of their life.
So with all that context, even more than it might be in another series, Teacher's whole name shtick becomes such an insane power move. He changes his name constantly and will brutally punish anyone that gets it wrong. Nobody has the power that would come from knowing whatever his first/true name was. He has the physical and social power to punish and correct anyone that doesn't call him what he wants to be called. He is in complete control of how people address him, or at least close to complete control, which is such a big deal within this story.
Badrinath Dham Hindu Temple, Badrinath, India: Badarinath or Badarinarayana Temple is a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu. It is situated in the town of Badrinath in Uttarakhand, India. The temple is also one of the 108 Divya Desams dedicated to Vishnu—holy shrines for Vaishnavas—who is worshipped as Badrinath. Wikipedia
commission for fellow dante enjoyer and bestie @/sail_to_me on twitter. i had so much fun with this. the fandom as a whole does not appreciate dante's hotness enough!!
Kind of fucked up that Machina apparently marks the dhams under his protection. Even if it's the best way to deter other vampires it's still basically a brand.
So can we talk about the dhams wearing glasses and how it symbolizes their shame or shield from society. And Dante doesn’t wear any bc he’s come to accept the world’s shit and bear everything with courage because fuck it, bring it on.
[Image Description: A panel from The Case Study of Vanitas. The Chasseur Ogier waves and says "Your clothes say you're dham information brokers. Is that correct?" End Description.]
Y'know I always thought that Dante and co's little matching suits were really cute, but now that we know it's a dictated uniform rather than a choice the trio made to match each other, it's honestly a little unsettling.
I know lots of jobs have uniforms, but given the power dynamics involved, something about it is just. hm.