Just for me to collect my thoughts on anything noteworthy or suspicious. I forget a lot of things in the series so this should help me keep track and anyone else who wants to look back without rereading the whole series.
A lot of people read Vani's relationship with Jeanne either as him telling the truth about loving her the entire time or him lying about it the entire time and both of those takes are wrong and piss me off so this is a product of rage. Most of you probably have good reading comprehension and don't need this but I needed to write this so I could stop dwelling on other people's incorrect opinions about vanijeanne.
Their first meeting: vanitas was fucking lying. Of course he was lying. Vanitas knew nothing about Jeanne, other than the absolute vaguest information that Luna had told him and what he'd picked up over the course of their fight. He wasn't planning to kiss her, it was obviously a spur of the moment decision and a power play. He wanted to throw her off balance and assert himself as superior. Does his face looks sincere? No! He's fucking with her. The speech bubbles are black for a reason! Besides, he has literally no reason to believe he will meet her again any time soon, so he's not actually trying to start a relationship. He's messing around and getting people to hate him, because he prefers it that way. He doesn't want to be liked and he's certainly not the type of person to just fall in love instantly. You think a closed off asshole like Vanitas would fall that quickly? Of course not!
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Second meeting: he's still fucking lying. When he sees her he starts playing around again immediately, acting theatrical and irritating for his own amusement. But it is during this meeting he shows his first moment of weakness around Jeanne. When he notices there's something wrong with her he becomes serious for a moment. Whatever else he may be Vanitas is still a doctor and he doesn't actually want people to get hurt. He doesn't have any real personal connection to Jeanne yet but he is sincerely concerned for her well-being in that moment.
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Of course, after observing her for a moment, he realises she wants to drink blood, though he has no idea if she's a curse-bearer (but he seems to suspect she isn't). Now that he knows what's wrong he doesn't have to be concerned though, he's free to take advantage of her vulnerable state to fuck with her a bit more, satisfy his own curiosity and, to some extent, probably to hurt himself. Though he was clearly motivated by Domi and Noé's earlier blood drinking session I don't think his initial reaction of not caring was false. He was in a bad mental state during and after announcing himself at the bal masque, so this really does come across as not just a manipulative move against Jeanne but also a self-destructive one against himself. He doesn't have any particular interest in Jeanne, she's just useful in the moment. A "convenient woman" if you will.
