I've realized that this blog is a disorganized mess. So this is an attempt at a masterpost. I've only gone through my servamp posts so far and put together the interesting ones by topic. Edit: added link to Witch Hat Atelier Masterpost and Vanitas/Pandora Hearts Masterpost
Witch Hat Atelier
Vanitas no Carte/Pandora Hearts
Servamp
The Alicein Family Drama
On Love and Fear
Chapter 130 Cover Analysis: Mikuni as the King
Mikuni and Lady Justice
Alicein Mikuni: Sower of Scandal
Mikuni (and Lily): Sowers of Scandal Part 2
Servamp's Pandoras: Kiriko and Akira
Hokaze's Illusion of Control
Lily and Enlightened Despot Theory
Lily's Second Betrayal
Mikuni, Lily and the Alleged Lack of Resentment
Dunking on Mikado's Pathetic Everything
Kiriko's Music Box
Clergy Jeje
Mirror Mikuni and Hokaze
Mikuni Doesn't Respect Anyone's Will
The Tragedy of Hokaze
The Shirota Family Drama
Touma and Projection
Tooru as the Stagnant Shounen Protagonist
Imposters and Second Generations
Mikuni and Touma
Where does the Alicein Family Drama Meet the Shirota Family Drama
Tsubaki Accidentally Kickstarting the Shirota Family Drama
Touma and Sakuya
Mikuni's Projection on Mahiru
Toumakira Parallels
Touma's Villain Origin Timeline
Saint Germain
On Saint Germain
On the Myth of Saint Germain
Theosophy Myths and Saint Germain
Saint Germain and the Jesus References
It Was More Than Eight Times
Who Will be Killed by Vainglory
Vainglory and the Traitor Servamps
The Ritual and the Lunar Eclipse
Sloth Pair
Mahiru: The Rook
Mahiru and Kuro: Saint Alban and Amphibalus
Kuro's Self-Acceptance and the Culmination of his Arc
When the Protagonist Isn't Always the Center of the Universe
Mahiru Reaching Out His Hand Like Tooru
Mahiru and C3
The one I strongly believed in, and the one who strongly believes in me
People will make fun of yugioh as just that stupid card game anime BUT what anime are you watching in which the shonen protagonist proclaims his undying devotion for his bigender dragon lover, who was the villain of an entire season, and then soulbonds them together so they'll never be apart.
wanted to have a more anime-only-friendly print available at the con i'm tabling at this weekend so i cooked this up over three days of nonstop work and not enough sleep. i'm not 100% pleased with how it came out but sometimes a piece is done because you just can't look at it anymore. inspo for this was the vol3 ch15 title illustration with the girls all napping with a bunch of pillows
I fucking love when people give in-universe reasons for omegaverse shenanigans being a relatively new phenomenon and not just a fact of life. And this is probably my favorite out of all of them. Insane choice, and I want to kiss the author sloppy style about it.
As we all know, the Spanish Flu caused the omegaverse. Iconic.
finding a new doctor. applying for jobs. searching for apartments. messaging used car dealers. getting your health insurance to do their job. getting a pharmacy to do their job. getting the dmv to accept the documents they told you to bring. just listing things they probably make you do in hell
Now that we've gotten four of them, I think I have a much better understanding of what Mochijun is cooking with this door series. It's all about emotional honesty—how each character interfaces with their interior self and how they do or do not share that self with the outside world.
Mémoire 64—Dominique
Domi's door is closed, but she's poised to knock as she looks back nervously at the reader.
For a long time, Dominique has been actively repressing most of what you might call her "true self." She's deeply traumatized and struggles with her self worth, and she's coped with those troubles first by trying to become her dead twin brother, then by crafting a theatrical, de Sade-ified version of "herself" to playact as. Her true feelings and vulnerabilities have been buried deep down, enough so that she's never breathed a word about most of them even to Noé, her closest friend.
However! Following her suicide attempt, Noé and Jeanne's subsequent words of affirmation, and her harsh awakening to her own latent anti-dhampir tendencies, we've seen her making an active effort to change all that. She wants to take Noé's words to heart, to find value in herself and to interact with the world as Dominique, rather than just as "a de Sade" or as a subpar substitute for Louis. Domi's "door" has been closed both to the outside world and to herself for a long time, as she's been unable to let herself exist without a mask of performativity, but now she's finally knocking on that door and trying to see who and what she might be should she crack it open.
Even the flower petals drifting in front of the door echo the petals she throws whenever she makes a grand entrance in peak de Sade form. They're the embodiment of the artifice that has thus far been blocking her honest self-expression from both herself and the outside world.
Mémoire 65—Dante
Dante's illustration is much more straightforward than Dominique's. He stands square toward the readers, looking on sternly in front of a sealed door, because he is an utterly closed book. Much of what he projects to the outside world is a construction intended to bolster his customer service and protect him from the public's hatred of dhams. He also refuses to trust or open himself up to vulnerability with anyone who isn't a dhampir, even though his bond with Vanitas runs deep enough to make that stance feel like brazen denial.
And even among the other dhampirs he's close to, he's something of a hero figure and an unofficial leader. He's not one to willingly reveal the softer, less self-assured parts of himself to them. His gruff exterior (which breaks into outright anger and hostility when provoked) is a protective shield that guards the vulnerable parts of himself that he keeps sealed away.
The one caveat I'll give to all that is that this illustration came at the beginning of mémoire 65: before Vanitas convinces him to accept help and before the events of the circus. I think you could argue that Vanitas has gotten him to open the door a bit since then, or at least pushed Dante to realize that Vanitas managed to pick the lock when he wasn't looking.
Mémoire 67—Ogier
Ogier's illustration features him gesturing the viewer toward a wide open door with a smile on his face, welcoming them in. This captures the attitude he projects to the outside world—Ogier of Sphene is a cavalier open book with no internal conflict to hide. However, there is no "true self" behind the open door that Ogier draws attention toward. There is just another door, and another door, and likely another door after that were the illustration to continue. The "honest face" that Ogier presents is substanceless; it's artifice all the way down.
Ogier believes that there is no such thing as a "true" self. Everyone has a role to play, a mask to wear, and all that matters is how well they play it. As far as he's willing to acknowledge, there is nothing more to him than his mask, his performance, which is why there is nothing but more doors beyond his door.
In truth, though, there is absolutely more to Ogier than the role he plays, the face he puts on to the world. He may not think it matters, he may brush it off and think it might as well not exist, but it's clear from mémoire 67 that he feels some amount of frustration and displeasure with his role. He has to push himself to keep acting, has to reassure himself nothing else matters. There is a human being behind the mask. And I think that's what the curtain is there to remind us of. Even though he may state that there is no man behind the curtain, even though he may attempt to believe it himself, we the audience know that there really is something real and raw and vulnerable hidden past Ogier's artifice after all.
Mémoire 68—Béatrice
Of all the characters featured so far, Riche seems to be the most genuinely open, and we see a real open door in her illustration as a reflection of that fact. There's no reason so far to believe that her "true self" is anything other than the face that she shows the world.
That said, Riche's "true self" is somewhat shy, awkward, and easily frightened, and Dante and Johann go out of their way to keep her from harm's way (which has the side effect of often keeping her out of the plot). That means that, though she's entirely herself, Riche hasn't had much chance thus far to actually act as herself. She's all internal with little impact on the world to show for it, and this current arc marks the first time where we see her coming out of her shell and placing herself on the stage where all the big action is happening. That's why we see her peeking out from behind the closed side of her door—her honest self isn't locked away, but it's also just now starting to step out into the wider world.
It's also worth noting that her bat, a signifier of her status as Machina's dham, is the one thing fully in front of Riche's doors. Riche may not attempt to hide her true and vulnerable self from outsiders, but nonetheless, outsiders will always read her as a dhampir before they recognize her as an individual person.
I made a post after mémoire 67 proposing that one of the central themes for this arc would be the idea of the "self" as performance—an examination of types of affectation. And now that we're another chapter into the arc, I'm even more certain of that. Domi, Dante, Ogier, and Riche all have very different relationships to the ideas of "true selves" and performance, and as the arc goes on, I suspect we'll see even more characters' relationships to these ideas expressed through the imagery of a set of doors.
It also doesn't escape me that all of this riffing on identity and personality as performance vs vulnerable emotional honesty is happening in a series where
The main character has the power to see others' memories, arguably giving him the power to see someone's "true self" more comprehensively than anyone else ever could, should he choose to explore to their depths
The main antagonist has the power to completely rewrite people's selves without their consent
and I'm eager to see if/when we'll be connecting back to either of these larger ideas.
Wouldn’t it be really funny if Jaden had like The Most Messed Up Traumatizing Childhood but is completely unaware that what he went through isn’t normal? And every time he says something his friends take +1000 points of psychic damage. (It’s like that one meme of the guy in the fast food drive thru talking with the employee looking like they’ve witnessed The Horrors) For example:
Chazz, fed up with whatever dumb crap Jaden has said this time, not expecting a serious response: oh my god why are you like this, were you dropped on your head as a child or something?
Jaden, goes to retort, but then pauses, actually considering something, then half mumbles to himself: hmm you know that might explain the botched lobotomy actually…
Chazz & everyone else in the room: I’m sorry the what
Or alternatively:
Alexis during lunch with the crew hanging outside the Silfer dorms, concerned at how run-down they seem to be getting: Why don’t you move up at all? If you’re that attached to the red, at least see if you can just move into the Ra or Obelisk dorms, I’m pretty sure the Slifer dorms are an actual health risk at this point, the building looks close to collapsing…
Jaden, completely unbothered, eating a sandwich: I mean up until enrollment I was living in a cardboard box in some back alleyway, the Slifer dorms are paradise compared to that. Plus the other dorms are too fancy for me idk-
Everyone: You what.
Jaden, taking another bite of his sandwich, entirely oblivious the growing looks of horror that worsen with every word out of his mouth: I mean it wasn’t so bad, it was only for what? 3 years? The rats were actually pretty friendly if you gave them food scraps! Better than the giant possums at least.
Everyone: The what.
Or!:
Jesse, hanging out with Chazz and Jaden in Jaden’s room and going through decks: You have such a good relationship with Winged Kuriboh, I can tell he cares about you a lot, you must have been friends for a long time!
Jaden, casually sifting through his cards: Oh, no actually, I got him the day of the entrance exams. Actually I didn’t even know I could see duel spirits until I got to the academy. Or at least I think I couldn’t? I have vague recollections of something from way back when, but I try not to think back too far, otherwise the screaming gets in the way
Jesse, completely unexpecting the way he says it so nonchalantly: The,,, screaming?
Jaden: Yeah if I think to like,,, any time before I was 8? All I get is a bunch of static and screaming. Weird huh?
Chazz, half paying attention, once again joking and not expecting anything seriously: Screaming huh? What, you commit a murder or something?
Jaden, once again pausing before contemplating, unaware to the horror building the longer he stays silent, before finally responding: Huh. Y’know that might explain the blood that pops up too actually-
Chazz, now fully paying attention and regretting every life decision that has led him to this point, and is barely holding onto his sanity by a thread: *deep bone-weary sigh* was this before or after the botched lobotomy
Jesse, who is completely and utterly devoted to Jaden, but is unfortunately New and has not yet been exposed to his special brand of out-of-pocketness, and is now internally screaming: excuse me the what-
I’m realizing now I wrote a lot on this BUT I want to see your interpretation too sgshdjd This is just the funniest thing to me, I love it when a character is completely unaware of the psychological damage they unintentionally inflict on others it’s so funny hahashsjsjs (all of the scenarios are from before the Dark World arc do with that information what you will)
