#the hellfire witch

[kamapon]

Jeanne joins the game

[almaadst]

Jeanne and Dominique from Vanitas no Shuki (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) When I saw this photo I just HAD to draw them like that! First of all Domi and Jeanne are OTP (as Vanitas and Noe are) and they should have ended up together! (✿◡‿◡) But I know my delulu will not become trululu so this is how I cope OAQ Other: Commission info Vanitas and Alice Vaninoe

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST  WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

[bitemevanitas]

𝑳𝒂 𝑫𝒐𝒖𝒄𝒆𝒖𝒓 𝒅𝒆 𝑳'𝒆́𝒕𝒆́

don't mind the blur at the bottom, i erased my signing as it contains my last name <3

[the-casestudy-of-fusion]

If you couldn't tell, Dominique is not fond of Tear Stone 😋🤝

I'm having so much fun with this AU! I have a lot I want to do with it!!

[crimsonrrain]

"What's with the tears and that feeble attitude? Such weakness is the result of wishing to protect something. But... I like it. I take back what I said Hellfire Witch. It's true that you 've grown week, but that very weakness makes your beauty shine all the most bright."

[neversetyoufree]

So Jeanne's coffin case for her gauntlet is like, okay-

I made a post recently about Vanitas's earring, and how his wearing an hourglass in which the sand has run out represents how he's dead already within the narrative. Like, he's clearly still alive, but his time has already run out, and his death is a forgone conclusion, so on a symbolic level, he's a dead man walking. And though Jeanne's character doesn't revolve around her own death like Vanitas's does, I think she's in a similar state of metaphorically dead, and the case for her gauntlet is the symbol of that. It's just that unlike Vani, Jeanne has the potential to rise from the grave.

On every level but the literal one, Jeanne has been dead since the moment of her parents' execution. "Jeanne" was a fully formed person with feelings and desires and individuality. But the moment her parents were killed, the moment she became a bourreau, all that went away. The Hellfire Witch was a tool, a mindless weapon of the senate, and in becoming her, "Jeanne" had to die.

Furthermore, Jeanne's name is explicitly called out as a reference to Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), and everything about her bourreau persona ties back into Joan's death. Joan was killed at 19, the same age that our Jeanne appears to be physically frozen at forever. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, just as Jeanne's parents' heads were burned. Joan was burned for, among other things, accusations of witchcraft, and Jeanne became "The Hellfire Witch." For all intents and purposes, our Jeanne burned on the pyre with her parents' bodies, just like the death of her namesake.

Then, as she begins her life after death, Jeanne is given her crimson gauntlet, and it becomes the Symbol of The Hellfire Witch. It's how people identify her. And she carries it around in a coffin on her back. It is the ultimate emblem of her status of bourreau, of Dead Woman Walking, and it lays in a coffin where her body cannot.

The gauntlet is the Hellfire Witch, and the Witch is already dead.

And to go back to the comparison to Vanitas's earring, it's so interesting to look at what a burden that coffin must be for Jeanne. Vanitas wears a symbol of his death, and he wears it seamlessly. It's a small thing, hooked onto his ear and ever-present. It passes as a natural part of him. But Jeanne's symbol is heavy.

Jeanne carries an object that marks her as already dead, and it is a massive, hulking thing that she has to carry on her back. She's strong enough to manage it, of course, but that doesn't mean that lugging it is pleasant.

Because Vanitas has his own issues to unpack, but unlike him, I don't think Jeanne is particularly suicidal. She doesn't want to die. She's just been pushed into an existence where "my individual self is already dead" is the status quo, and a lot of her arc so far has been about breaking out of that pattern of behavior. (And though she'd rather die than lose control and hurt Luca, I actually think Vani's promise to kill her helps her be more alive and lively in the long run). Vanitas's death symbol is something he presumably put on himself as a reaction to Luna, but Jeanne's was forced upon her.

She could be a vibrant, stunningly alive person if not for the Senate forbidding her to act as such, and we're beginning to see bits of that as her personality comes back to life. Her status as dead is something that she carries, but something outside of the core of who she is. And though the weight is tragic, and she's spent far too long "living" as an undead tool, the other thing about the coffin is that. she can take it off.

She'll be losing a weapon if she does, losing the power of her gauntlet and what little protection being Ruthven's bourreau offers her, but if it's someday made safe for her to do so, Jeanne can come back to life and put the coffin down.

[valkyrie-illust]

the hellfire witch

[abyss-no-ishi]

A quick sketch I made last night because I can't stop thinking about Domi and Jeanne having a coven with Ada 🥺💖