Sofie > Recent Status Updates

okay so even when jeanne is half naked in front of him he still finds a way to bring up noé uh huh yup good job vanitas!!! the way he immediately defaults to defensive and rude again after he’s given up another snippet of his past. and right after jeanne offers to give him something of hers BECAUSE HE SAVED HER AND GOD FORBID SHE PAY HIM BACK FOR THAT. god he really hates himself huh

MY HEART OUCH vanitas falling back into his past and instinctively calling out for luna when he’s weak and in need of comfort???????? he misses his parent!!!!! he didn’t want to kill them!!!!! just like jeanne doesnt want to kill chloé!!!!! SO WHY DID HE KILL LUNA I NEED TO KNOW

is vanitas the first person in jeanne’s life to ask her what she actually wants? to even bring up the idea that she could (and maybe should) defy her orders? i think this is when it really becomes clear how vanijeanne can help each other grow. they have both been seen as tools, but vanitas has gained a bit more agency in his role, and now it’s jeanne’s turn

vanitas allows jeanne to see his scars but he refuses to let her take off his right glove. there could be two reasons for this, one being that he wants to maintain the slightest illusion of power by keeping the claws in his glove as a self defense weapon just in case. and two being that he can’t bear to see luna’s mark on his skin rn when he’s already so compromised

oh how i adore a scene where the emotionally closed off character has to take off their clothes in front of someone else. AND love how jeanne sees the physical evidence of vanitas’ trauma, while noé has heard about his torture from vanitas and met the perpetrator of it. they each have separate puzzle pieces, showing that both relationships are vital to vanitas’ growth

i LOVE that the vanijeanne dynamic has been flipped completely on its head here, with jeanne being the forward one and making vanitas panic and blush

VANITAS HOLDING THE BROKEN CHAIN????? he’s basically cradling it, holding it so gently against him, and you can really feel the grief in the way it’s framed. it’s like he’s lost a limb

vanitas calling the situation “vile” yet again, but this time it’s not because charlatan is terrorizing everyone. it’s because he’s completely vulnerable, both physically and mentally. even him reusing the same word from just before could be a sign that he’s struggling to think straight

this is vanitas’ worst nightmare isn’t it? he’s lost the book, he’s not only injured but POISONED AND FEVERISH, and jeanne of all people is the one who has come to rescue him. the woman he’s delighted so much in having power over now has the upper hand in all capacities, and all vanitas can do against it is glare his eyes and swat at her and pray he doesn’t reveal too much (which he will)

oh so it’s okay for vanitas to prod at
people’s trauma but he thinks it’s vile when charlatan does it……well we know he hates himself so maybe he thinks his tactics are vile too but continues to fall back on them because he feels like he NEEDS the upper hand in every encounter asap

the subtle gear shapes in the blood of the members of the charlatan parade as they stitch themselves back together?????? what a fucking fantastic detail

VANITAS YOU BRILLIANT BITCH
i love that we get to watch him take in the details of the scene and quickly deduce that noé is better suited to stop jeanne while vanitas is better suited to fighting astolfo. also love that noé’s overly emotional approach to things can be negative, not just positive!! the contrast to vanitas’ more logical approach is part of what makes him them such a balanced pair and a great team

knowing how this story works, i’m absolutely positive that astolfo will be reframed as the victim he is by the end of this arc. he’s a CHILD and already a paladin, meaning that he was taken in by the chasseurs at an even younger, more vulnerable age. sounds similar to another character we know……if vanitas hadn’t been chosen by moreau, he could’ve easily ended up just like astolfo

vanitas showing once again how much he’s come to rely on noé’s presence, so much so that when someone does finally come to his aid in the fight, he immediately assumes that it’s noé

oh and i’m crying again COOL COOL COOL marcus and justice deserved so much better holy shit???????? those journal entries were absolutely brutal. also since i’ve already been in my vnc feelings, the intimacy of trusting in someone to kill you when you’re no longer yourself is making me extra emo

this entire book is just irony after irony as we and will know more than all of the other characters do, and that could be redundant but somehow it’s devastating and leaves a pit in my stomach every time

once again these books are at their best when they’re about will and james and the question of agency. the tension between them and the roles they’re drawn to by the story’s stand-in for past trauma is INCREDIBLE

how did c.s. pacat sneak one of the most explicit sex scenes i’ve ever read into his ya novel??? oh they were just doing magic together and trying to open up will’s potential mmmhmmm yup for sure
i love how queer people write sensuality, it’s just DIFFERENT okay

this flashback seems eerily similar to will “accidentally” bumping into katherine and fishing for info about simon from her…….he really is similar to sarcean huh

well i was close about mrs. duval!!!! so she’s working against sinclair then??? there’s so many balls up in the air rn my head is spinning

OH MY GOD IT WAS WILL BACK THEN IN VIOLETS LAST CHAPTER OH I AM SO GAGGED WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!! this is so brilliant my heart is pounding what a fucking scene

oh! oh my god! okay! will is a bad bitch and uh definitely kind of evil! good for him
the EASE of it is the most chilling part. i’ve been loving the buildup to this point, as will has slowly but surely sank deeper into his darkness. it really does feel like it’s always been there but has been exacerbated by being around james and all the old world stuff

OKAY VANOE CORE???? my breath just got yanked from my chest holy shit

the dichotomy of "i will always find you" as both a threat and a promise??? c.s. pacat loves her themes about love and possession, and it seems like sarcean twisted his once pure love for anharion by shackling him to his side forever when he likely refused to help sarcean. will and james now have the chance to break that cycle, and i bet that "i will always find you" will mean something much different for them

NO WAY ARE WE GETTING SARCEAN AND ANHARION FLASHBACKS LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO and even better that it's will dreaming about it now that he's unlocked that part of himself and is near the site of the old palace. oh i cannot wait to find out EXACTLY what happened back then holy shit

okay hold on they mentioned before what the 4 kingdoms were and i'm pretty sure there was a serpent one....what if mrs. duval is the serpent king/queen reborn

the fucking layers the fucking TENSION?????? will is secretly terrified of how drawn he is to james and the ways in which he seems to want to possess him just like the dark king did, and yet all james sees is a hero who is wholly unafraid to be near him, which must be completely foreign to him. can't wait for the betrayal to make everything a billion times more messy

if you'd told me at the halfway point of the previous book that i'd feel this much for devon now, i wouldn't have believed you!!! but HERE WE ARE. all of a sudden his entire character makes so much more sense and my heart aches for him. i thought james was lonely????? devon's loneliness is on a whole other level. i hope somehow he manages to help the light, if not switch over, but i wouldn't fault him if he never did

i feel like i had guessed at least the gist of most of the twists in the first book but this might be the first one that made me gasp out loud. this just keeps getting juicier and messier at every turn

ANDNSNXKSXMDDS violet is so pissed at will for being such a disaster bi and that’s just with the stuff she can SEE. imagine if she could read his narration about wanting to praise james, she’d be slapping him into another dimension