#r!ciel

[bull-shit-suji]

with the hiatus ending in less than a month i'm casting the dice for kuro finale predictions. a lot of this is based on the manga's narrative style, as well as season one's ending (which, though yana didn't write it, she DID give the production team input). place your bets now!

the manor burns down again. partial credit for Something burning down because yana loves a full circle moment

elizabeth lives and is instrumental for some part of the climax, i.e. crashing out at o!ciel (it's what he deserves).

elizabeth inherits the title of guard dog and maybe funtom. girlboss!

sebastian gets badly injured or nearly dies. i think he needs to suffer a little more (endearing)

the phantomhives' killer is someone we've already met. that's murder mystery ground rule number one baby

bonus points if queen victoria did it! she's the only known character who i can piece together a viable motive for

madam red makes a harrowing return as a bizarre doll

undertaker is a red herring villain BUT knows who orchestrated the phantomhives' murders and/or tried to prevent it from happening. isn't telling o!ciel because that would mean satisfying the contract.

said contract is concluded

r!ciel is definitely dying again. let the kid rest man

tentatively theorizing that rachel phantomhive will be important to the murder reveal in some way. we've seen a lot of vincent thus far and it's suspicious that rachel, who parallels elizabeth in visuals, emotional intelligence, AND moral uprightness hasn't had her moment yet

[bitter---rabbit]

together forever / i can never forget you

[cedric-k-rossignol]

[arkthesilliestandroid]

Idk if anyone has done it yet but

help

[samuraimomo12]

Black Butler AU of Harry Potter Idea

I was thinking about how I could make an AU between Black Butler and Harry Potter work in an interesting way. Obviously I think the easiest plot is that instead of going to Weston Ciel goes to Hogwarts. But honestly you can’t do much with it because all that’s new is Ciels a wizard.

So what could possibly make for a better story and infinitely funnier option?

Ciel’s a squib.

R!Ciel was a wizard, O!Ciel wasn’t. Not only does that make sense canonically (the stronger vs the weaker twin) but also it makes Ciel’s job of pretending to be his brother so much more difficult. Sebastian would have to continuously find new and weirder ways to make Ciel look like a wizard. It would also make getting into Hogwarts and attending classes almost impossible.

I think there would only be two other people (other than Tanaka) who would know Ciels actually a squib, and that would be Soma and Agni. Like Francis and Lizzy might suspect something’s up, but Lizzy would just assume it’s nothing and Francis isn’t around him enough so she can’t truly tell what’s up. But I can imagine Soma and Agni catching him immediately.

To explain, Soma and Agni are very intelligent characters and perhaps know Ciel the best out of every other character. Agni could tell somethings off, he would watch Ciel and eventually see what’s wrong, but say nothing to respect his privacy. Soma would figure it out because, with how many siblings he has, there’s bound to be squibs in the family. And for a family of royalty they would probably want to look like they have a powerful family so any squibs would be made to look like wizards. Agni and Soma would know within the week, corner Ciel, and proceed to give him tips on to improve and give their sympathies.

-

Another way would be to make a Harry Potter AU would be to have Ciel be an obscurial. He didn’t show any magical abilities until his brother died, and instead of summoning a demon he becomes an obscurial. Sebastian is just a weird manifestation of it.

[goodkoji-kun]

One more meme and then I’ll draw something serious 😌

[gmo-oo]

Everyone dies in the end

[congeals-7]

the little lord and his loyal court

inspired by @heymarushii's art of a tea party

[chibimyumi]

What do you think about OCiel and Vincent? What is their relationship? When we see Vincent he is always with RCiel and he hug him and not our earl, and when OCiel talk about Vincent he call him his predecessor and not his father!

Dear Anon,

That is a very good question because that is indeed very hard to tell. The Book of Flashbacks did last for very long in real time, but we actually only saw the interaction between Vincent and O!Ciel sporadically spread across 4 chapters.

Though it had been short, in the very least there is some level of objectivity because the flashbacks are being told by the omniscient storyteller. It could not have been O!Ciel, R!Ciel or Takana’s subjective pov, because in most scenes at least one of them was missing. However, that it was told by the omniscient storyteller doesn’t mean we have seen everything. Yana does leave things out when its unnecessary like a competent storywriter would. We don’t need to know everything. In storytelling often “less is more”.

Now with that caveat established, let us look at whatever interaction we do see. But before we do so, we must first discuss what “parental love” even is.

What is parental love?

In the flashbacks Vincent’s affection is indeed mostly for his firstborn son. Even though we want to believe all parents love all their children equally and naturally, sometimes parents just love one child a little bit more. Even if parents do love all their children equally, it is also nothing weird that they “like” one child more than the other. Not unlike any other relationship, love between parent and child is also something that grows from building and investing in. Parental love is not a magically natural element in our DNA after all, as researched by Prof. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy on the “social construct of parental love”. Don’t worry, no need for moral panic; that parental love is socially constructed doesn’t make it any less deep or real. It’s just that because parental love too needs building, the more positive interaction you have with a child, the stronger the bond often.

Because O!Ciel was so sickly from age five on it hindered him from normal participation in family activities. Therefore it is only normal that Vincent could bond less with him, making his greater closeness with his elder son quite inevitable.

Vincent’s closeness with R!Ciel is in fact more out of the ordinary for their time. At least until early 20th century fathers did not have a parental role as we know it now. They were responsible as the “legal owners” of the child, but “parenting” was not part of their duty. It is not for nothing that when we hear “mothering” most people think of “child-rearing, raising and loving”, but when we hear “fathering”, it’s just... impregnating someone. Because that had been the actual definition for centuries!

Vincent’s parental love?

In chapter 131 I would argue we get the best indication of how far Vincent’s love goes for his second son. They had a family trip planned, but due to illness O!Ciel could not participate. In the back Vincent does look appropriately concerned, but we don’t know about what exactly. Put a pin📌 in there, I will come back to this a bit later.

Rachel judged O!Ciel’s condition too ill to go, and suggested postponing the boat trip, not Vincent. (In Japanese “we can go another time” was spoken in a speech pattern Vincent doesn’t use, so it’s definitely Rachel talking.)

Vincent doesn’t say anything so we don’t know what he thought about his wife’s proposal. Meanwhile, his seven-year-old had already selflessly offered to stay behind as not to spoil the fun of others.

What really caught my attention was how there was so little attempt to include O!Ciel. Rachel only said one “but...” and then immediately gave in to a seven-year-old.

Vincent did not even attempt to not exclude his son. He was like:

That is what I meant earlier by: “we don’t know about what exactly [he is concerned about]”  where I asked you to put the pin📌. It might as well have been:

Vincent and Rachel are rich adults, they should be able to judge that them skipping one boat-trip is something they can get over with. Leaving a young child behind who is regularly excluded from everything and clearly so upset having to be excluded again was apparently a less bigger deal than skipping something they could easily afford again. O!Ciel was so used to being excluded he had normalised that for himself, and was forced to learn selfless sacrifice. That is not healthy for any child that young!

If you can’t tell that this poor child was lying about “everything being fine” you’re actively unseeing it. R!Ciel is but a seven-year-old, so he is blameless. Papa, mama, looking at you though! ( Ò_Ó💢) I mean, dear readers, would any of you have left a sick young child behind to go on a trip??? It could be that Vincent really wanted to bring his recovered wife on a trip and that’s important to him, but to sacrifice your sick child for that?

We have not seen everything to judge whether in total Rachel was more, equally, or less often ill than O!Ciel. However, from what we have seen, every time O!Ciel was excluded, Rachel in the very least was doing better. This really paints a picture that overall, Rachel misses out on stuff less often than O!Ciel had to. And again, unlike young children, as an adult you can rationalise that. In my opinion if you’re unwilling to reschedule a trip to include everyone while it is within your ability, you are selfish parents. R!Ciel wouldn’t have thrown a tantrum, but even if he did, it’s your literal job as parents to rationalise that with him. So doing it for R!Ciel is no excuse.

“Predecessor” instead of “father”?

Yes that is indeed an interesting point you bring up! After O!Ciel returned as the Earl he indeed only referred to his parents as “father and mother” at the graves one last time. Afterwards she has consistently referred to Vincent as “predecessor”.

I however would argue this has nothing to do with his bond (or lack thereof) with Vincent. He also refers to R!Ciel using the formal term for brother (兄・ani) instead of the better-known “niisan” (big bro). And we know for a fact that they did have a deep bond. I would say that O!Ciel calling Vincent “predecessor” is because he does not wish to be seen as childish because he is trying to be taken as an adult.

In Japanese “father” as used by O!Ciel is “otousama” (お父様), which is polite but a bit childish. “Otousama” is vocative, meaning it is a word you use to call your own father; like “papa”. In formal company you won’t say to someone: “my papa said...” That sounds very childish and unprofessional. People nowadays do use the common version “otousan” to refer to their own father to others, but that is generally only acceptable in casual company. To my friends I might say: “my papa (otousan) said”, but to my superiours I would NEVER.

As O!Ciel never again addresses his father (because he is dead), it is only logical that he stopped using the vocative “otousama”. For nobles when talking about their late fathers, using “predecessor” is actually standard in Japanese culture. It is just one of the things that are natural in Japanese but get clunky in translation.

Conclusion

For Victorian standards Vincent’s involvement (or lack thereof) with O!Ciel was actually entirely normal. It was his involvement with his elder son that was quite exceptional. Judging from his lack of attempt to not exclude his sick child however, I would say Vincent didn’t love O!Ciel as much as he did R!Ciel. (Or... he just hated missing out on fun more than he loved O!Ciel, which is possible too). Not saying he did not love O!Ciel, just not as much as he did others.

Vincent was raised in a male-supremacist, ableist society, and was probably unaffected by these problems being an able-bodied, smart man himself. We know Vincent is a terrible exploiter and how he treats others, and therefore it would be unsurprising if he would hold his “disabled” male child in lesser regard than his “able” male eldest child. We don’t know why Vincent married Rachel or why he liked her, but women being frail was in fact considered no problem or even “attractive” in the 19th century (as long as she could get babies). For men though? SHAME!

[ena333333]

me and my other half

[nullb1rdbones]

[PART ONE OF THE] THE REWRITE IS COMPLETE!

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR INVESTMENT IN THIS PROJECT AND FOR HELPING ME GET WHERE I AM!

CREDITS!!!

Art/Story/Directing - Me! Null! @nullb1rdbones!

Our Ciel - @sneebnationalism (tumblr)

Alois Trancy - @d-3-m-3-t-3-r (tumblr)

Real Ciel - menheratenshi8040

Credits Artwork was drawn by Jugularvein

Lovely Tumblr Beta Readers

@d-3-m-3-t-3-r @jesteratheart @disconnected-dragon @anawkwardlady @madamemaddy @arachnidsm @fairydust-stuff

BONUS!!

Character refs/redesigns 🥺

The next one will be out in...I don't know! My hope will be August of 2023, but it will probably be much closer to summer. Still, I hope to see you all there <3

[just-themys-fanarts]

Siblings banter

[sp00ky9]

“I am not so noble that I would stake my life for someone else, nor am I so forgiving that I would sit by and allow someone to trample me.

I am a selfish and self righteous human being.

I, to clear my own shame, used your power. Not for anyone else! But for myself!” - ciel phantomhive

Prints can be found here

[darkspellmaster]

there something I had been thinking about its about how realciel treated lizzy and his comment that hes scared of strong girls this might be interpreted in how he liked his idea of someone but not the real thing

Yeah, straight up, it's one of the reasons I find him fake regarding his feelings for her. He plays with Lizzie, but he doesn't enjoy it since he says over and over he would rather be with O!Ciel, and playing with him. I think that while he probably cared about his cousin, he never really loved her. I think you're on point here that he liked the idea of her being a play thing, a toy, but not as a person. His aunt is scary to him because she's strong and can stand up to him. It seems to be true to of other people, like he expects Undertaker to be his butler and Undertaker is like...not happening, so he gets annoyed.

If you notice O!Ciel let's her pretty much do whatever, even if he doesn't say he enjoys it. I mean...can you really picture R!Ciel letting her pile on That many stuffed animals on him?

You know...he kinda reminds me of Hans in a way.

[luchigeon]

family portrait

[emomeishibot]

Don’t you miss the old times too