#syanalyses

[ceoandslutler]

in order to truly understand kuro, you need to understand that sebastian and ciel have both affected each other in more ways than one, positively AND negatively. you don't need to ship them to see it but it does help. saying ciel is just food OR sebs is just dad/mom are both valid headcanons but they don't reflect the reality of the story.

ciel becomes corrupted and self-righteous due to the endless power he can wield with sebastian under his control (negative) but sebastian is a positive force who prompts him to be more social, kind and understanding towards others. sebastian through the manga tries to teach ciel lessons about life as if he is preparing the boy for his absence which he is not obligated to do, it obviously has a romantic connotation but some interpret it to be 'parental'. there is also no reason for him to do this as he wishes to consume ciel's soul so he doesn't have any reason to teach him things about how to live his life; it is also not the typical devilish corruption we expect from him.

when it comes to sebastian himself, he is weaker now than he was at the start (negative), he's hungry, stressed, overthinks his battles (lost his noukin-ness and has to ask ciel for advice more) and hesitates more but he is also more empathetic (suffered loss due to agni's death) which is a positive because he is able to enjoy his life more (the main reason the "butler game" is so fascinating to him). sebastian already had certain 'aesthetics' and 'convictions' which is pointed out to be odd but he has gone beyond basic humanity and i believe it is ciel's influence affecting him. there's a noticeable theme of class, nobility and hierarchy in manga kuro, which im writing about and sebastian oddly subscribes to a sense of moralisation particularly towards people who take advantage of their power OR only care about the upper class.

i don't mean to say either of them are good people but i am a firm believer that the manga is trying to imply that sebaciel (demon & demon's contractor) are better than corrupt human beings.

[ceoandslutler]

ooh this is interesting, let me explain why i think they were like that in the public school arc!

one aspect was just that these two were being awkward after the campania arc (where sebastian literally almost died 😭), we find out that ciel gave the demon a day off in chapter 131.5 (special chapter)

big shift in their dynamic, i think. ciel's probably holding back from pranking him for a while... sebastian also probably feels on edge because of undertaker. the previous arc finished with him saying he didn't want to see a storm after this

in fact, near the end of the arc, sebastian is disturbed at how he can't chase the headmaster and once he finds out that undertaker IS the headmaster in the final confrontation, he literally stresses himself out by imagining a similar scene to the campania.

we also know that sebastian was investigating UT's mourning lockets throughout the arc since at the end of the arc, we find that sebastian without being ordered to, checked to see who exactly the hair in the lockets belonged to.

they've gotten better at being undercover but they're also quite traumatised from the previous arc. anyway their teasing/pranks becomes a lot less harmful to one another later, eg sebastian in the GWA keeps making sex jokes, in the blue cult arc all ciel does is overwork him (halloween chapter "looking sharp is just part of it, you know" 🥺 i had to attach the page) and right now, they're being awfully friendly – likely because they want to comfort e/o.

and here's a lil bonus from 131.5 where ciel makes fun of sebs in the cutie pjs (he isn't intimidating anyone w THAT fit)

I think I figured out why the undercover mission in Weston seemed to me just a little lacking between Ciel and Sebastian. It's because they weren't being insufferable bastards to each other during it!

Sebastian was practically the perfect assist, at his master's beck and call with nary any teasing (he complains but doesn't tease as much).

With that in mind, I propose this situation (I'm still hooked on the Weston undercover gossip scenario 😭😭)

All the other students are like, oh that's Ciel Phantomhive, Teacher's Pet. "Teachers Pet" but in the way that he's always being called by Master Michaelis in class to read, to answer. And it annoys Ciel so much. (He doesn't have the time nor energy for this, when he could be spending it thinking of a strategy to meet the headmaster 😒)

They would treat each other differently from other members of Weston, but not in the way you'd expect. I like that in previous arcs, their masks would slip on each other, especially when they're being insufferable in the middle of missions, so I imagine it would transpire similarly.

Master Michaelis would be patient towards other students, but dealing with Ciel's snide comments during class is a truly different level of virtue. Similarly, Phantomhive would always be nice and would behave well with other students and perhaps other instructors, but not the housemaster.

Master Michaelis, endlessly kind to other students, but in class, when dealing with Phantomhive, they give each other clever and subtle comebacks that's almost uncharacteristic of the kind professor, and uncharacteristic of the kind student.

In canon, Sebastian loves teasing and testing Ciel even while they're both undercover (like when he was Reverend Jeremy and Ciel had to improvise the blank letter).

So I think it would be natural for him to keep annoying Ciel by calling on him in class (despite the fact he sits at the very back), and as payback for all the fag work hoisted on him.

"Mister Phantomhive, once again our top scorer, and yet another fumble on your infinitive verb forms? My, one would wonder if you burn the midnight candle at all! Unless that is, you neglect your tasks as a dutiful student and burn the candle on something else? Very well then, translate page 711, enunciate if you so please!"

At some point Ciel would start correcting Sebastian just to take the shit at him.

"That's quite interesting, sir, but if I recall correctly, is it not (insert smart thing about latin)? Oh but I don't blame you Master Michaelis, it's a common mistake to make after all. 😊"

The other arcs have Sebastian taking amusement to his master's detriment while Ciel does the same. Messing around secretly in equal measures. My good sirs, three dead bodies were found.

There were times they would accidentally call each other by their real names (or Bocchan)

Their masks slip a little, and they fall into their old habits (which I find adorable)

Sebastian, you're the one spoiling him lmao

Please I need them firing warning shots at each other for fun 🙏. It's funniest when there are other people to witness these things. I especially enjoyed when Arthur was just jaw dropping the entire time Ciel and Sebastian were infodumping in Book of Murder, like their "pranks" are completely normal things to do in a locked room murder situation.

Book of Murder and Circus truly were peak undercover arcs. Public School arc had this potential too 🙏🙏🙏🙏

It's too bad they got way too good at going undercover. I miss their slip-ups.

[ceoandslutler]

respectful disagree because i think the found family trope fits the phantomfam really well actually, my posts have mostly been about the heteronormification of their dynamics (eg dadbastian and kids, or sebard ft mombastian and kids or, let's exclude sebastian from the household and just put bard as the dad and call it a day). here are two of my recent posts showing these phenomena: excluding sebs from phantomfam and a long post about seb's relationships with the servants (the tags to this rb basically explains what antis do with phantomfam recently).

imho the found family trope is so good because it does not bind itself to the heteronormative idea of family with parent figures & children or sibling dynamics or age patriarchy. those things don't need to exist! it's a queer invention- a group of friends who are outcasted by society are found family regardless of having a "dad/mom" figure in the group or not, a bunch of drag queens doing shows together who are ostracised by society/family/peers can be found family even if they don't have siblings dynamics and some of them act more like friendly coworkers, a couple of lonely people who are neighbours in a decrepit apartment building with limited financial resources who take care of each other are family (regardless of what dynamics they have with each other). family is such a strange, unquantifiable concept, there are limitless possibilities to what a found family might look like.

popular media has twisted found family into heteronormative only, eg films about reconstituted families [those heartwarming films about stepparents, recently stepmother manhwa has gotten super popular], adoption stories [so many hollywood movies] or even stories like spy x family where the characters aren't related but become family. they're all heteronormative, even the same sex parent stories like buddy daddies, the shape of the family is always turned into something heteronormative with a parent and kid(s with sibling dynamics). popular stories that use the found family trope have warped its meaning into something much smaller than it is, it's a massive trope, encompassing many different ways people can find 'family'. sebaciel are quite clearly suggestive and romantically coded and there may not be a mom/dad & kids situation but they're found family anyway- in their own way. they don't translate into the antis definition of a found family but that doesn't mean they aren't one, sometimes a family is just a bunch of servants (one of which being a demon) and their little lord! <3

anyway they're not a '''normal''' found family but i think yana has written them as a found family and they consider themselves as the parts of one household.

Broke: Ciel is Sebastian’s adopted son, and Ciel likewise views Sebastian as a stand in Father figure.

Woke: Sebastian views his servants as his unruly adopted children, and Ciel in turn views his servants as his family.

Bespoke: Sebastian’s Relationship between Ciel and his servants does not evenly translate into the found family troupe, and that’s okay as they’ve got their own dynamic going on here.

[ceoandslutler]

i think sebastian michaelis is a jinn... well, not really.

i still think yana was mainly inspired by judeo-christian demons but there are other entities sebastian is similar to

inspired by this post by @applestorms

yes very MENA/SWANA of me to say BUT i have my reasons. jinns are a pre-islamic (mainly arab) invention however due to them being incorporated into the quran and the fact islam is an abrahamic religion, many of us equate them to the demons/devils that exist in judeo-christian beliefs. HOWEVER, jinn aren't actually "demons" or "fallen angels" or whatnot. while they are 100% supernatural, they are said to have been created as beings independent of humans yet they can feel love and affinity AND even help humans out.

reasons he could be a jinn:

jinn is essentially what we in the western world refer to as 'genies'; in islam, it is not permitted to seek help from them but pre-islamic arabian tradition was to worship them and many would ask them for 'protection' (sound familiar?). thanks to fairytales (1001 nights), we now believe they grant 3 wishes. very familiar.

when applestorms' post talked about expectations put on sebastian by humans, i find it quite fascinating that the jinn aren't considered evil demons (even in the quran), but rather they are mistakenly worshipped or revered instead of god (like how the cult worshipped/summoned him), they are considered idols (sebs idol era? jokes jokes). it is still interesting how jinn behave simply as the world tells them to so if they are told to be a beast then they'll be a beast.

they befriend and develop affection. while sebastian is not a romantic being AT ALL, we can't deny he has had some affection to characters in the story, e.g. whatever you think he has going on with ciel or his clear friendship with agni. manzur (a jinn) fell for a human woman named habbah once. if we think about it, this also aligns with the anime presentation of demons, as hannah felt love for alois and his brother. ignoring that though, sebastian himself has changed hugely throughout the story. be honest, did any of us read volume 1 and think 'man, this emotionless demon guy will definitely hug the corpse of his sole friend and say, "you were a great butler"' or 'can't wait until he stops enjoying it when the kid he's made a contract with gets beaten up'? no, literally nobody anticipated sebastian would go from 'haha i'm gonna release deadly snakes on you' to 'im so sorry someone injected you with a needle oh no !!!!!!' (honestly, i blame the anime for the line 'i can never be changed'... he did NOT say that LMAO)

jinn are (by some accounts) afraid of or hold contempt towards wolves. sebastian is portrayed next to a wolf on a chapter cover and he's certainly not afraid of any animal... but he is a hater of dogs. not to mention, he has a fight scene against the 'wolfmen' (also wolfram is very hostile towards him but that man isn't a real wolf, it's just funny lmao). jinn are also afraid of iron (clearly not, this man fears nothing… wait, can a death scythe technically count as iron? because he's definitely afraid of UT's scythe)

sebastian in the GWA tells ciel he has met many witches. those who believe in jinn also believe that witches enlist their help. jinn are also often referred to as mendacious/liars which fits the lie/truth theme that sebastian is always going on about. funny how he talks about having aesthetics, that also matches how jinn are different to each other when it comes to what things they'll do. but there are some things that break this theory down...

reasons he could not be a jinn:

nowadays thanks to islam, jinn are mainly seen as tricksters that will make you stop believing in god... but sebastian only appeared after o!ciel lost his faith in god. now we could say that's been written after islam so it doesn't reflect the pre-islamic tradition of jinn but ALSO, jinn are not ones to make contracts, they'll help you or they're hurt you. so either way, the contract with a human weakens this argument now if he was a pari then maybe... i'll expand on this possibility too.

jinn do not take souls but then again, isn't soul-taking just perma-death as opposed to having your soul taken by a reaper to do... god knows what with it? heaven and hell aren't really referred to in kuroshitsuji manga... at least they're not confirmed to exist. reapers talk about a day of forgiveness when they'll stop working but... forgiveness from whom? why hasn't UT been forgiven yet, apparently he's been a reaper for a while? is god on break? hold on, does god even exist in kuroshitsuji? there's no way to know. so ultimately this just leads us to think sebs isn't a jinn.

jinn are not beautiful. no really, they are not inherently beautiful. but sebastian is. from all the forms he took, his face stayed the same. he is extremely good-looking to almost everyone in the manga. in a sense, you could say he's more so like an evil pari (i'll explain what this is) than an actual jinn.

one of the most relevant jinn to my argument is al-jathum (this is basically a sleep paralysis demon but it's kinda more than that..? some people call them mares and some call them night hags). they steal "your breath", cause nightmares and hover over you while you sleep (very familiar) but he never actually causes the nightmares. it's more like he wants to prevent them by telling o!ciel not to read poe before bed for example.

it is said that jinn are able to possess people. we have not seen this happen. we could say the contract itself is a possession but that's not really logical. while jinn are believed to whisper in the ears of humans and manipulate them (like sebastian does on many occasions), they're also able to possess people if they have a weak mind, something we haven't seen sebastian been able to do.

now we could just say that he's an abrahamic religion amalgamation of islamic jinn, pre-islamic jinn and judeo-christian demons. but i also want to mention something i think is interesting... parīs, a zoroastrian pre-islamic entity. similar to jinn, they can be good or bad.

they have wings (dark or light depending on the artist) and while anime sebs is shown to have wings, manga sebs hasn't. but he still has feather and crow/raven imagery so i think it's important to note.

parīs are also extremely beautiful which makes sense for sebs, he changed his form multiple times and each time had the same perfect face. a criticism is that parīs are usually women but not always so there could've been inspiration.

in 1001 nights, other than the fisherman and the jinni (where the 3 wishes came from), one other story sticks out, ahmad and paribanou. a prince (ahmad) fails to win against his brother in a competition over their female cousin's (his father's niece) hand in marriage and the throne. instead finds a parī by accident and becomes close to her and hides her and her true nature from everyone. once it is discovered he is wealthy because of his supernatural partner, he is accused of wanting to usurp the throne and is nearly imprisoned but not to worry, his magical partner gets him out the situation–in the end, he gets the throne and becomes 'king'. the story is romantic of course and there's no 'contract' but it is still similar to the recent events of the manga (blue cult arc) and is painfully familiar.

this one is just my favourite, they kidnap humans either to punish them OR for the human to be their 'king' and they serve the human. i mean the contract is likened to an abduction by yana herself which is why she drew ciel as kai and sebastian as the ice king/snow queen in one of the special chapters for book for murder. the parīs are often looking for human rulers with a good head on their shoulders to lead beside them (see: "you are a leader of men")

they also have a funny sense of righteousness which is something sebastian has developed over time. he's obviously been disturbed at human depravity early on too (eg at baron kelvin's place) but he is now also a critic of the yard's classism and also tries to coax ciel into being "more compassionate", you can read more about this in my KIK (kindness in kuro) analyses, esp pt1 and pt3. i doubt he would do this if he were solely based off of judeo-christian demons or fallen angels. in stories, they're often helping the 'good guys' against the 'bad guys' who cause chaos and corruption. ciel's job as the watchdog is deadass to control the injustices and disturbances going on in the underworld.

overall, i think besides the obviously judeo-christian elements of the demon's character, jinn and parī and various other beings have inspired yana when it comes to sebastian. uhh i recommend not trusting wikipedia on these beings and trying to find academic texts on the mythology (it's tough), i mainly used my own brainpower (my cultural capital 😔) to figure this stuff out.

[ceoandslutler]

If you don't mind, can I ask something from Black Butler? What do you think are Ciel and Sebastian’s greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? Why? What do you love about their dynamic? Sorry if you've answered these questions before.....

P.s

Also, If you don't mind me asking (again), can I also ask your top fav characters and fav moments from the series (Black Butler)? Thanks if you want to answer....

SORRY I TOOK SO LONG !!! anyway here's my answer

i completely forgot about this ask and it was just hidden in my drafts, it's almost been a year, im sososo sorry my drafts r a mess ❤️‍🩹

"What do you think are Ciel and Sebastian's greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? Why?"

i think they're both very interesting, multifaceted and charming characters. to find out what strengths and weaknesses each of them have, i would like to say one thing. they are both egotistical and have superiority complexes. a nobleman and a demon who's lived for eons are bound to be like that. however, i think ciel's status as the "spare" for a large part of his life is what causes this, most people with a superiority complex use it to mask their inferiority complex but i think from what we've seen, he's slowly started to believe in himself- his lie of being "ciel" is becoming the truth. on the other hand, sebastian is just arrogant but his contract with ciel has made him less assured of himself, we see cracks in his usually self-assured persona when he starts panicking about not being able to protect ciel from undertaker—he can't brute force his way through ur h things anymore. also, i think agni's death had a profound impact on him, a human who could be relatively on par with him has died! while ciel's confidence is rising, sebastian's has plummeted post the events on the campania.

"What do you love about their dynamic?"

everything lol

realistically i like the fact they're fighting half the time, i love witty banter, i think the sexual and romantic tension it creates is topnotch.

when it comes to their general behaviour, i like the way they have a blend of femininity and masculinity; also i think they've got great designs and suit each other visually as well.

i also expressed in my kindness in kuro analyses (#KIK) that i think they're both "better" than a lot of the characters despite being 'evil'; also i think sebs has been a good influence on ciel especially recently.

"Can I also ask your top fav characters and fav moments from the series?"

this is tough!

my fav character used to just be o!ciel (secretly still my fav) but at the moment i have 3 main faves, 1) sebs, 2) meyrin, 3) sieglinde. i love all of them so much. some of the public school arc characters really stuck to me design wise eg violet, bluewer & harcourt. i don't think i have a set favourite. in the blue revenge arc, i really liked ranmao when she was working with meyrin. i love the kuro ladies in general including lizzy, grelle, francis, nina (very relatable woman /j)... but to be basic, i would say i love ciel the most still (my eternal crush) but my favourite character (as in characterisation and design) is sebastian. my character analyses about him (KIK pt3 coming soon!!) should say enough about what i think of him.

[ceoandslutler]

have you heard kuro dubbed in any language other than english? or in any other asian language other than korean or chinese? well i found a persian one and it's so fucking bad that it's hilarious.

(also stay tuned to find out why the persian dub of kuroshitsuji being so bad has directly to do with anti-shipping sentiment and puritanism)

i would like to politely invite anyone who's ethnically from/lives in/speaks the language of a country with an ultraconservative government to contribute to this post if they know a dub of kuro (fandub or licenced by a company) in their language to contribute to this post (agree or disagree that policing media causes a drop in its quality and accessibility in other countries) but let's keep it civil. if you are not from a country like this but have something to say, feel free to add anything on, the conversation is open to all :)

so i just heard the homemade persian dub of kuro's first ep made by some young people who sound like they're in uni (probs 18-23 yr olds), tears have been flowing from my eyes for the past 20 mins

(link under the cut)

to save time, go watch the bits i linked below or just laugh at the whole thing (full link) but don't blame these kids for being awful at this or just skip to the end of the post. as i said, there is a reason this dub is so bad and no official dub exists and it has to do with... anti subculture?!?*

but first, the funny stuff

ciel's voice is awful but just listen to the goofy dub laugh seb's va did at the start I'M FUCKING SOBBING (00:15-00:35), and also not ciel's va MOANING after the op song (2:35) ??? i REPEAT the woman who VA'd ciel was fucking MOANING, the YAWN was the worst part, dub team shotacons???

also SHEEL FANTOMHAYO?? THE KID'S NAME WAS DUBBED AS SHEEL FANTOMHAYO. (refer to 6:30 in the video linked)

now this isn't because we lack a 's' in our language (my alias is literally a persian name meaning shadow aka ✦sayé✦), we've just transliterated it as shiyel, but SHEEL???

the other guy calls him fantomhayo too (8:25) and the fantomhayo condition strikes again with sebastian's va talking about the fantomhayo hospitality at 12:40 ish in the video.

this is particularly bizarre because we do have a V in persian, please guys, use it!

please note: i have nothing but good things to say about finny's va... the way the va says "sebaastiyaan!" (12:43) is so cute <3

at 13:00, we get this golden crumb "meyrin... oh meyrin" from this college aged dude doing sebastian (who is SO lost) then he proceeded to say in persian "i beg you, ON MY LIFE, just pour the fucking wine in the glass and walk away" save me from the bad dub, ono daisuke, save me...

the furnace scene is just gold (18:50 onward is comical, the scream at the end... priceless), these people deserve an award, im tempted to do subs on this whole video because the translation is so wrong yet absolutely too hilarious to leave untranslated. also, i like how you can hear other people talking in the background constantly, they didn't even bother finding a quiet room 😭😭

finally i translated some of the best comments under the vid (everyone fuckin hated it 😭)

..tldr: irani/persian speaking netizens are brutal. but also, it shows that persian speakers are used to quality dubbing, otherwise this wouldn't be so offensive. if we were used to badly done dubs, the comments wouldn't look like this. many famous kdramas and jdramas and indian/turkish films have been dubbed. animated movies e.g. disney films and most commonly 70-80s anime have huge followings in iran and were dubbed extraordinarily well. in fact, in iran, many of our own films are dubbed especially if the original footage did not capture the audio well enough/the director was unhappy with the actor's delivery and it's usually hard to tell if this has happened because it's done very well. shockingly, dub is more popular than sub. so why does kuro not have an official dub? why is the fandub so bad???

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING

*IMPORTANT: an anime like this is not allowed to be legally dubbed by studios in iran because iran is under an islamic theocracy (the islamic republic) and all media that promotes devil worshipping and blasphemy is banned, homosexuality is too (anyone can tell kuro has homoerotic undertones, the homophobic heads of media would never let this queer gothic romance through). oh and trans people are "allowed" on TV but only if they're not vulgar/explicit (not even then, half the time) & grelle would not make it into the anime AT ALL. even if we ignore all the devil worshipping and queerness, sex is banned too (as well as lewd appearances of women), so season 1/2 & boc would never make it. oh and alcohol, bom would never make it. oh and also, women's empowerment is banned too so boa would never make it. when will it end? will someday everything be banned? sure looks like it. but isn't this what anti shippers want? i mean kuro IS problematic media, it never condemns people for having sex or partaking in drinks, not even murder is condemned.

moving on, the subtitled version of the episodes are very well done for what they are but it's still not good, you won't understand what's going on properly. meanings are lost. a dub is much more accessible to those who can't read subs and generally a necessary option. people NEED dubs. don't get me wrong, the iranian fansub team are dedicated however subs are much easier for fans to do than dubbing. as you heard, kuro's persian fandub was frankly terrible. these kids didn't even know how to pronounce ciel's name and it's NOT because of the language barrier, my theory is that because the internet access is so limited, they had to figure out how to pronounce ciel's name purely from the japanese original or another lang dub and had no access to the eng dub. as you can see, they are not able to follow the mouth movements either (don't have editing software); i assume the internet restrictions targeted streaming platforms w the dub on it (because the government wants to CONTROL what media people consume) so they had to figure everything out from japanese or another language, (they probably used another fandub to translate since the ed seems to credit the eng vas while they can never be heard in the bg) which is not easy. unfortunately english is taught in schools around the world not japanese so the dubbers' translation was quite honestly terrible- after all, they had no official script to base their translation off. BUT if a professional dubbing studio (e.g. iran's glory entertainment) got their hands on kuro, it'd probably be dubbed very well. if mehrdad raissi, CEO of glory, was on for seb's role, it would be glorious (pun intended). if he did flynn rider well, he can do sebs well too. but that studio often has their shows played on state televisions and the last thing they want is to get blacklisted and arrested for dubbing the gay demon butler anime. please do not take this fandub as representing all persian-language dubs. and remember, kuro itself is banned for being problematic media in counties like iran... no sebaciel needed (although anyone can definitely see the gay undertones to the story from a cover alone).

if you want to ban people from shipping things or making fan works that are problematic... soon you'll have to get rid of problematic media in general. and already, antis sound like the media people in charge under a dictatorship. "violence is okay, murder is okay but s-sex?!? women in scandalous clothing!!! oh good heavens..!" this is the kind of mindset which leads people down the rabbit hole of "this is problematic!! let's ban it!!!" until there's nothing left, a slippery slope. imagine this was the english dub of kuro. imagine it was banned in western countries and a team of young'uns had to gang up and make their own dub using only the japanese raws. imagine problematic media like kuro wasn't picked up the west because it's "shota" and that's bad. we'd be stuck looking at the same sanitised stuff and if we wanted to watch kuro, our options would be trash dubs (no offense) like this one. pretty scary to think this could be the state of the english dub if puritanism was as bad here as it is in countries like iran. policing media and deciding what creators should or shouldn't create will take you to the side of theocratic dictatorships and you will fall into alt right puritan lunacy, fanpoll are about as woke as a dictatorship, remember that.

don't sound like this:

NEVER sound like this.

it is clear that conditional freedom is no freedom at all. there should be zero criteria to the media we want to create, no religion or purity culture to it. just be media literate. let nobody control what you want to create or consume! (or you'll end up in a world where the media that is deemed "problematic" is maintained but only through underground circles, losing quality and accessibility day by day, until these channels are shut down too and only a sanitised husk of options for media consumption remain)

[ceoandslutler]

when it comes to the murder arc

there are a lot of reasons as to why i really love the murder arc (above are just two of my fav seb funeral moments) but i just want to highlight some of my favourite moments

(beware of the long post ahead:)

1. sebs and his cats

this panel is my fav ever:

2. sebastian just not liking lies

when accused of lying by arthur:

when ciel lied to snake:

these 2 moments 1) after ciel lies to snake and 2) after sebastian is done faking his death and comes out the coffin:

1)

2)

just this entire moment:

gay stare

3. how much sebs suffered and yet...

he liked this way too much... WAY too much

he did not like this one, his masochistic tendencies are very selective

and after all that shit he put up w...

he revealed himself to arthur just so he'd write more since ciel likes his writing and when ciel acts as though he didn't care so much about the writing, sebs just says HE wants to read what he writes next and it's all so good, such a perfect set up for campania arc, this is one of the first times we see an actual sign of emotion in this demon and we see it in the arc that is connected to the circus arc where ciel embraces humanity's more demonic side, we see sebastian embracing his more human side by becoming someone's inspiration USING his demonic nature in order to later read how a human perceives him... and also to entertain ciel since he feels something to him, probably not 'love', especially not at this point and i doubt he ever will but something akin to 'care', he did this without any contractual obligation and that's what makes it so special, for this dynamic, the little things really count

[ceoandslutler]

Hello! What's your favorite Black Butler arc? Which is your favorite season 1 episode? (If you liked it, or the one you disliked the least lol)

- 🕯️

ty for the ask, i ended up analysing a bit of the anime and comparing it to manga canon so sorry for the long response !!

"What's your favourite Black Butler arc?"

my favourite arc has to be the blue cult arc, there's so much romantic tension between sebaciel post green witch arc. i think post green witch arc to the start of the blue murder arc has most of my favourite moments between sebaciel <3

"Which is your favourite season 1 episode?"

for season 1, i recently rewatched it and honestly my favourite episode was near the end where sebastian abandoned ciel in paris (ep22). most sebaciel lovers will say the picture episode (ep9) where ciel tries to get a pic of sebs but that's only a good ep because they almost kissed; otherwise it was silly because ciel wouldn't be curious about that. he doesn't care about sebastian's past, he's never asked about it. that's what makes him fundamentally different to the reapers like grelle and undertaker who want to figure sebastian out. ciel doesn't need to know—he cares about sebastian in his own way yes but he doesn't care about his past. this is a cheesy comparison but a contract is like a wedding, eternal devotion and whatnot. ciel doesn't want to hear about seb's past contractees (partners), do you wanna hear about your partner's exes? probably not. (unless ciel is told that sebastian killed his parents or something but we obviously know he didn't because sebastian is contractually obligated to not lie, he would've had to admit it multiple times if he was involved.)

anyway for ep22, at first i liked it because it was SO ooc, it was funny. like sebastian gets upset bc ciel doesn't want people to get hurt and calls off the duel between the angel/the queen and sebs??? sebastian would never get upset at him for stopping carnage – he straight up checks if he's sure about killing those kids in the circus arc, do we really think this guy's gonna get pissed over this? more importantly, i thought the fact he abandoned ciel was ooc until i realised that no, this isn't ooc. this is exactly what sebastian would do if he truly lost faith that ciel wanted revenge... but in the manga, he never loses faith, he believes in him. but the anime showed an interesting possibility. would sebastian simply break the contract rules instead of devouring him? is it because he wants a quality soul? because he's testing him? i adored that episode for expressing this possibility as ooc as it may be. also the way ciel behaves when he loses him is so funny and untrue to his character, why did he try to pet a cat? 😭

then again, ciel in wonderland also takes this idea because ciel chases after sebastian, kinda like the way he does in his PTSD episode during the green witch arc. i find the dynamic shift when ciel is the one chasing to be so interesting.

[ceoandslutler]

i really agree with the first paragraph; he is very professional and he does not act emotionally or parentally towards the servants. i just want to add say that sebastian is not only masculine rather he takes on a myriad of personas that depend on what situation he's in or sometimes it just depends on what ciel needs. this analysis post is very much focused on the masculine presence of sebastian juxtaposed to his moments of femininity, narratively and aesthetically he's used as a masculine image while ciel is his feminine foil but there is a lot of nuance (which that post i linked delves a little more into, sebastian and ciel are very much balanced in the blue cult arc). personally i think the anime made him a lot more masculine while the manga teeters on the edge of making him androgynous while keeping his masculine edge. yana has steadily made him less solely masculine and more fluid in his personality. while sebastian's care for ciel is quite clearly non-parental, he is still the character who cares and nurtures ciel, not always in an erotic or sensual way (and often the other characters). we do not see his full dynamic with the servants (since the focus on kuro is not his relationships with humans but rather with one human–and that's ciel) but we do know he is strangely patient with the servants as he takes into account that their abilities are battle-centred and we've seen him tuck finny into bed and reassure the servants when it matters. below is a panel that is probably all over the dadbastian tag:

but it is proof that sebastian is more than trash demon, less than a parent. parents do not wake up their children to delegate roles to them. but similarly, superiors do not tuck other employees in. sebastian is just a wildly interesting character.

more importantly, when he is doing the care and nurture, it is not always sexually charged, sometimes it's just plain romance, literally my header

or the arc that's getting animated

the care he shows ciel is not solely sexual, it gets the romcom treatment, he swoops in, carries the boy to the nurse's office, takes care of him while he whines and throws a tantrum and he mocks him. mothers do not typically mock their children (except asian mothers tbh) and that's when it clicks: he does show some maternal(and paternal) style affection, however it's not painted in a parental way. the style of care is there but it's not enough to limit him to that. it's why i always say "he's more than that".

sebastian is very interesting and multifaceted, his care for finny in that panel was not painted in a suggestive way but his care for ciel often is but at the same time, the suggestive care isn't always sexual and sometimes just comes off as romance with little to no sexual undertones. he often appears 'parental' but you'd have to have no media literacy if you thought he was solely a parent character, he's not and antis are wrong. he appeals to those with mommy/daddy issues but that's it really and ciel has those issues so go figure; they're perfect for each other.

again, thank you for your addition, love hearing from you under my posts.

following up my recent post, i discovered this which proved me right about how antis view sebastian

STOP MOMIFYING HIM PLEASE, HE'S MORE THAN THAT, THEY DONE GAVE HIM THE HETEROSEXUAL CIS WOMAN TREATMENT😭😭😭

through gritted teeth, i say that i don't care about interpretations, be as wrong as you want HOWEVER the kuroshitsuji manga does not present mombastian/dadbastian as a canonical fact and your fanon interpretation is no more valid than sebaciel—in fact, sebaciel is much more embedded in canon.

where is the media literacy?

[ceoandslutler]

if you have no clue what im talking about, here's pt 1 & pt 2 of the analysis posts

im leaning more into long post personally but if like 90% of people don't want it like that then i will try to change it, although it will be messier separate since i want to connect arcs to each other

[ceoandslutler]

welcome to my blog - started 13/04/23

was recently on hiatus, semi active

hello, i'm sayé (pronounced SAA-YEAH) or just sy (pronounced SIGH), this blog is a space where i muse all about sebastian and o!ciel from kuroshitsuji/black butler and share all my other silly lil thoughts about the kuro world, i usually do not interact with people first unless they seem nice (courtesy of online social anxiety and fear of 🐜s) so i will rarely reblog random stuff unless i have something substantial to add (srry i can't tag that well and don't want to dilute my stuff and also i have autism brain lol so if my blog's not neat, i will literally DIE). also feel free to send me an ask/message, i will probably respond (90% of the time, teehee) but tbh it's like poking a dead person with a stick and seeing if they're alive.

this is just a place for me to share my musings about my fav evil boys and share writing if i ever get around to doing it, also this blog is not for minors, stay out, minors/-18!!!

also i am evidently anti censorship/anti harassment/profic/ship and let ship, antis shoo!!

i write, do edits (occasionally), cannot draw for the life of me and love love love sebaciel with a passion with an incline to sub bottom sebs (he's just so babygirl to me, i'm sorry).

RESOURCES FOR FIC WRITERS: • what fics sebaciel nation like to see | more coming soon

MY FICS: Stained Wedding Sheets | more coming soon

Long Analysis Posts: KINDNESS IN KURO PT 1 & PT 2 (#KIK) | BOOK OF MURDER ARC ANALYSIS | GENDER FLUIDITY OF SEBACIEL IN KURO (my reblog) | SEBACIEL: HOW THE LIE BECAME TRUTH (CARE&CHOICE) (honorary kindness in kuro pt3) | SEBASTIAN IS A JINN | MORE COMING SOON

tags listed below

as promised, tags to navigate through the swamp this blog will become:

#symuses - for all my random little thoughts, fic/au ideas, hcs etc

#syanalyses - for when i read the manga for the trillionth time

#sywrites - for when/if i post fanfics

#sybitches - for when i complain

#syshitposts - for shitposts (obviously)

#syedits - if i do any manga editing (rare)

#sydraws - won't happen but just in case (extra rare!!)

alternative links:

#symuses

#syanalyses

#sywrites

#sybitches

#syshitposts

#syedits

#sydraws