Omega Sebastian and his little tiny alpha Ciel

Part of me headcanons that Sebastian would host an elaborate funeral for his master after his soul was consumed. To celebrate that tiny little human life that was so much more than a blip in his long existence.

But another part of me knows that Sebastian would return to the manor, alone. He would clean every nook of the house, leave no piece of silverware unpolished, and cover all the furniture in pure white linens to preserve their ephemerality. And he would sit, solitary, in the empty mansion, and mourn the end of the most enthralling chase, the most intoxicating high of his immortal existence. He would mourn the days before "Ciel" Phantomhive cursed him with a glimmer of humanity that will mar his nature until the end of days.

“We hate them” my child, we are the original. You’re the weird ones. I’ve been following the manga since it’s 8th chapter. Kuroshitsuji would not be where it is today without SebaCiel.

This is a case for why Asian IP should gatekeep you weird westerner actually. Your media literacy is 0.

favourite scene in the Weston College Arc has got to be the one where Ciel and Sebastian make out while Sebastian uses his rosary as a choking collar.

Aight because there's a new kuro anime I have to say this and I'll only say this once. I dont get the people who vehemently deny the existence of sebaciel elements in kuro.

Look its valid if you are not into certain ship but screaming 24/7 that sebaciel aspects in this series is not real, and hating on the shipper all the time, insisting the shipper 'doesn't get it' and 'this is not what Yana wanted' and claimed the fandom hates sebaciel shipper (acting like fandom colonist) make no sense...

I saw someone said "I dont really have anything against /those shippers/ bc how can i blame them for liking (ok i kinda blame them) something that's there poisoning the entire manga, but im tired of thinking about that disturbing visual baiting"

Sebaciel is not poisoning Kuroshitsuji, sebaciel bait and the development of ciel relationship with sebastian is the whole thing

I personally always been pretty neutral about sebaciel, its just the thing that happen naturally in the series ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some people went as far as insisting that Sebastian is Ciel father figure and all of the romantic bait between them are totally platonic father and son moments. I'm sorry but this is such a cope

"I don't like this thing in an anime that I like so I will erase it or change it into something that it is not in a god honouring way, and I will gaslight the fans of this thing because it made me uncomfy"

Also if you still watch or read Kuro, I'm sorry girl but you dont get to throw stone in the glass house, you are a freak just like the 'freak shippers' that you condemn. Its fine to enjoy 'impure' media

You cannot claim moral high ground while still endorsing the series and participating in the fandom. Just sit your ass and calm down...

Young master lost a bet 🤭🐱

gift for @dante-redgravee 🥰💖

I can't talk about it at any length because it's not as easy as grabbing a manga panel or two but my favorite thing about the Book of Circus anime is how they added the monologue from Sebastian in the first episode about his treatment of prey and filling Ciel with despair, specifically because it echoes this text from his seduction of Beast later in the arc. But by occurring first in the anime adaptation, it retroactively turns the text from the seduction into the echoe.

The manga canon already compared and contrasted his treatment of Beast and his treatment of Ciel through the paneling and composition of these scenes. But I think it's interesting that in the season that is the most canonical interpretation of the text (even according to antis), with Yana's most involvement in production on record, that the queer subtext here was essentially doubled-down on and emphasized—and yet somehow "only the degenerate OG anime has gay stuff and isn't canon".

The addition of this anime-only monologue to a scene featuring Ciel on the edge of his bed in only a night shirt, lamenting that Sebastian "only wants his soul" before asking him to stay with him while he falls asleep is a deliberate amplification of what the manga has always done, which is establish a sexual undertone to Sebastian and Ciel's relationship and imply a certain form of desire.

Sebastian and Ciel’s contract mark is so bd/sm coded I don’t even wanna hear it. Literally their version of collaring. A mark of possession that’s more powerful the more obvious it is? Binding them to each other? Displaying a power exchange and loyalty to one another? Yeah right.

Have you ever?

Just reading Rainbow Butler 2 and there was a story where Ciel had a nightmare on which Sebastian told him he would eat his soul out of his ass.

For a bit more context, Ciel and Sebastian are in a carriage on a long journey (Sebastian says they have about an hour left at the beginning of the story).

They pass the time with a game of shiritori, a japanese word game where one player says a word, and the next person must pick a new word starting with the last kana of the previous one - sort of the equivalent of the next word having to start with the old word's last letter.

After a few rounds of Ciel complaining about the words Sebastian is choosing, he says he doesn't want to play any more. Sebastian says that if Ciel is quitting the game, that makes him the winner and he will have to write it down. He gets out a notebook, and Ciel asks what he's up to with Sebastian telling him that he has been keeping score on who wins at their word games. Ciel asks what would happen if he lost overall, which is the point where Sebastian says that he would then eat Ciel's soul out of his ass. After this, it is revealed that Ciel actually fell asleep on the carriage and the whole exchange has been a dream.

Please enjoy Google translate's shitty rendition of Sebastian's panel:

Now, the word game they were playing, 'shiritori', directly translates to English as 'take the end' or 'take the rear' due to the nature of using the previous word's last kana, but the kana for 'shiri' itself (しり) can be used to mean not just rear/last but also rear/buttocks, as it gets used here.

So essentially, Sebastian's reply to Ciel is "If you lose at 'take the rear', then I gets to take [the soul from] your rear."

Is Sebastian referring to the shirikodama?

But what the heck IS this?

It’s actually a pretty funny/clever little play on words in this story lol.

Yeah I think it must be (I did tag in my original post before reblogging again, it looks like they are often mentioned in reference to the Kappa yokai).

I haven't got pics of the whole thing rn but I do still have the image of the last 2 frames saved if that helps. I'm just going off of what Google has to say so it would be great to see what someone who knows more Japanese can tell me :D

(Also bonus: Google's interpretation of Ciel having his nightmare)

black butler fans 2017: things are getting so real in the manga!! we're about to understand EVERYTHING. I have so many theories based on the actual series. the anime was nothing but a bad dream shhh THE MANGA IS SO GOOD RIGHT NOW OMG WTF IS HAPPENING I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER

black butler fans 2023: ciel microwave now. the aloises are back and they're religious. watch your fav eat shit in a poll about them. maurice is back. oh a chapter? forget that, coattails had an update

We are eating and holding on to all of us to the crumbs that remain 😭

I'm still excited over the chapters knowing that we are more closer to the hotel arc and see the sebaciel working as a middle class people lol

Another thing that bothers me is the way antis will use the word "coded". Coded is a word for groups that aren't allowed to have explicit representation to use for when authors make something that's obviously for them under the radar. Like queer coded. In kids shows there can also be stuff with coding for neurodivergent characters, and race coding can also be a thing. The idea is authors can't directly do what they want because society is being a dick (like they want to make x and x characters gay or have a Black main character) and so they code it so that people of those groups can still see themselves in it and Understand What They Mean.

So "child-coded" and "family-coded" are not things that even make sense. If the author wanted a character to be read as related or a child they would have simply written them that way! Nothing was stopping them! I respect all headcannons, but you headcannoning someone as a child or related and seeing your own evidence for it is not the same as coding.

Do you know what is coded though? Sebaciel. That ship is so heavily queer coded- in everything from the way the characters are drawn to the age gap to the campiness to the contract, the relationship-that-isn't-a-relationship-because-taboo!

These are classic queer tropes. They are all over the place in queer fiction, especially older queer fiction, to illustrate and emotionally navigate relationships that are considered by society predatory and taboo. Queers have always been painted as predatory. Because when you kicked out your teenage kid for being queer, guess where they went? They found some older queers to take them in. And support them in ways you never could, and see their strengths. And then people would say little Johnny was "seduced" or "taken advantage of" by some "degenerates" and "perverts" because they didn't want to take the blame of putting little Johnny on the streets. (Ofc sometimes im sure there were predators doing this maliciously, but that doesn't mean it was always the case. Not everyone wants to take advantage of people.)

Queer people also tend to have overlapping relationships because of social ostricization. For example, your dating history is your friend group and back in the days of Houses and mentors, your dating history might also have them in it too.

Age gaps are also a very quintessential trope in queer fiction. It makes a lot of sense when you think of how someone whose family life was suddenly cut short (or never really there in the first place) would end up wanting the sort of dynamic where someone was there to take care of them. And again- I'm sure that this was sometimes abused by a handful of people, but it as a fiction and as a desire is part of queer history and has been for hundreds of years. Most people whose parents pushed them aside or actively hurt them end up with daddy/mommy issues! Not everyone of course but a good amount! I want a daddy! I feel so much younger than I am because I am only just now getting to live my life as me!!! So of course i project myself onto and want to read stories about some little victorian boy and his op demon butler!!

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Ciel is very heavily queer coded. He was ignored by his family and then forcibly removed from it (because they died here, ofc) and the fact that he is essentially rescued from his powerlessness, aloneness, from being abused and taken advantage of by Sebastian, who is also very queer coded, ticks a lot of boxes. Then there's the whole messaging of Sebastian being seen as an abusive monster (when he is really quite caring of Ciel) and Ciel being seen as some perverted, broken, godless freak (ey what queers haven't heard those?), the religious implications of "making a pact with a demon" ("you can't be holy because of this relationship! Satan made u gay!!!!"), the victorian setting, the costume choices, the idea of being eaten, hell even the kinky undertones of the power dynamics- there are too many queer tropes to count. Even Ciel's age, when taken metaphorically- someone who hasn't been given the chance to have much experience, who isn't taken seriously, who does not have the social standing of someone who can hold their own against "grownups"- can all be read as coding for someone being descriminated against. Raise your hand if you're queer and have been called 'boy' or 'girl' derogatory/been treated like a kid for no reason!

I'd go so far as to say that most of the reason Black Butler squicks so many people is because the coding is so overt and obvious, but people still take it literally and think it just means "p3dO!1!!!1!". Probably because ya'll stay away from queer history because the Elders reclaimed slurs and that makes u angry lol.

The fact is even if Sebastian and Ciel never "get together", their relationship is still inherently queer and always will be. And quite frankly if it was cannon then it wouldn't be coded anymore it would just be gay. :)

Anyways thats how i feel about coding thanks for comin to my ted talk. x