you did well today.

From the earliest chapter of Kuroshitsuji, Elizabeth’s shoes were drawn as flats, from her first appearance in Chapter 2 though it is not visible when she is dancing with o!Ciel, you can see in the first panels she ever appears in that she is depicted wearing white flats (while Sebastian’s black stiletto heels were first seen in Chapter 13). It is also in chapter 2 where we get our first parallel between her and Sebastian with Sebastian teaching Ciel how to dance the waltz with her. We know Elizabeth would like to wear heels, but she can’t because she does not want to be taller than Ciel whose pride and masculinity she tries to protect and ultimately only gives up on protecting when she had to save his life through her swordsmanship. She and Sebastian parallel each other in the fact they’ve both lowered themselves to serve Ciel’s needs. Elizabeth’s heels represent her limitations as a woman and how she has to make herself smaller to fit in Ciel’s world while Sebastian’s heels reflect the nature that he is hiding from Ciel and his position as a servant (lowered a peg from a free demon). It’s fascinating how we see their heels and flats in the same volume of the same arc (Volume 13, chapters 58 and 61). In fact, this arc draws the most parallels between Elizabeth and Sebastian. For example, Ciel tears off Elizabeth’s dress to prevent her from being dragged down by it and proceeds to give her his tailcoat. It is while wearing his tailcoat that she begins to protect him. In this arc, both of Ciel’s protectors wear a tailcoat and when Sebastian, after fighting the BDs attacking the boat, is finally out of commission (falls over from injury), he is no longer wearing his tailcoat (as he’s given it to Ciel). Elizabeth even offers to carry Ciel while wearing that tailcoat. The clothing represents whether these characters are being protective or not. It’s even fascinating how they both apologise to Ciel for not being able to fulfil their respective roles (be a dainty, vulnerable lady who needs protection VS be a perfect, protective butler who never falters). They ought to sacrifice their own selves for Ciel. This is also reflected by their dialogue, in Elizabeth’s big character moment in the Luxury Liner arc (58), she says, “For the sake of Ciel, who is pushing himself to grow up fast, I wear my childish, low-heeled shoes and smile beside him.” On the other hand, Sebastian, in the Green Witch arc (99), expresses a similar sentiment, “However, if you are particular to my being such a devil, I shall act accordingly.” (Alt translation: “If that’s the way you like it, I will play the part of a devil.”)

Both the characters exist solely for a ‘Ciel’ and though their ideas of which Ciel to serve differs (r!Ciel vs o!Ciel). For the majority of the chapters, the only Ciel in the story is o!Ciel.

Visually, Ciel and Elizabeth parallel Vincent and Rachel, a gloomy bluish grey-haired man and a cheery blonde woman. Vincent is also portrayed as holding Rachel in a protective hold when they had died. However, Sebastian also has parallels to Rachel. We know Rachel would spank her kids, it’s even referenced by r!Ciel in the blue memory arc and we know Sebastian also uses corporal punishment as per the Luxury Liner arc. However, a parallel has been hiding in plain sight and I doubt anyone has seen it. In Chapter 133, when r!Ciel is upset his brother wants to go to London to make a toystore, Rachel takes Vincent’s ring and puts it on r!Ciel’s hands and tells him the ring belongs on his finger. A complete parallel to the Chapter 2 scene where Sebastian brings back the broken ring (fixed) after o!Ciel throws the ring out of the window (Elizabeth had thrown and accidentally shattered it earlier in the chapter). I think it’s insane that at the end of the memory arc, it cuts back to r!Ciel at the top of the stairwell and o!Ciel at the bottom of it, with Sebastian stood next to him and at the top of the stairs, Elizabeth appears. Both representations of Rachel stood next to the respective Ciel. In my mind, Chapter 2, Chapter 133 and Chapter 143 are intrinsically tied. The first time we see Elizabeth WITH o!Ciel (2) and the first time we see Elizabeth standing AGAINST o!Ciel (143) and with her rightful fiancé (the visual Vincent/Rachel parallel); the chapter that establishes OUR Ciel as the one who should be wearing the Phantomhive ring through Sebastian’s words (2) and the one that teaches us that  REAL Ciel should be wearing it through Rachel’s words (133). Again, both of these characters narratively serve the Ciels, even through their comparisons to Rachel (the twins’ mother).

To sidetrack for a moment, Sebastian plays a role similar to that of Rachel’s in Chapter 133 but not just in Chapter 2, but also 14 (by letting Francis win and ‘teaching’ Ciel to lose), all of the memories in the Luxury Liner arc (where we see how he raised Ciel as an Earl), 107 (where he gives the ‘you are a leader of men’ speech), 108 (where Victoria compares Ciel to his father and Sebastian proceeds to tell him that if he rests well, he’ll grow taller) and 120 (where he tells him it is important to take care of the people on his land and we see the payoff of Ciel’s leadership of the Earldom under Sebastian’s guidance as opposed to r!Ciel, see: 151). We also have him inflict the same starvation he is suffering for o!Ciel’s soul unto the girls in Ciel’s life, notably Elizabeth (37) but also Sieglinde (107). He not only acts as a maternal teacher for o!Ciel (feminine dance partner, repeats the ring scene his mother had with his brother, echoes Queen Victoria’s words) but also as an etiquette teacher of femininity in general while plays a masculine role visually (for a paternal framing, see Dystheism in Kuroshitsuji).

Anyway, back to parallels between Sebastian and Elizabeth…

Other than the staircase scene during r!Ciel’s return where they are once again the protector and protected (though it’s ironic since Elizabeth technically protected r!Ciel through BCA but whatever…), we also get two visual parallels of Sebastian and Elizabeth in Chapters 14 and 37 where they are talking about Ciel/looking at him. It is almost sad how insecure Elizabeth is in her ability to make Ciel happy, which is why Sebastian consistently reassures her as his master’s happiness. It also makes chapter 117 even more hard-hitting where Sebastian questions why Elizabeth is attacking him if she wants to see Ciel smiling. However, it is not just Sebastian who thinks Elizabeth is quintessential aspect for Ciel’s happiness—it also goes the other way around. In Sebastian’s faux funeral in Chapter 50, Elizabeth cries and says, “Sebastian is a liar, he said he would be by your side forever!” And rejoices when Sebastian turns out to be alive. This implies that she is aware, at least to some extent, how important Sebastian is for Ciel to be alive, let alone happy. Sebastian immediately corrects her and says he doesn’t lie, which could just be his ego or another attempt at consoling her like he had done in chapters 14 and 37. He could just be saying he wouldn’t leave Ciel’s side, so she has nothing to worry about. He even apologises to her in the Luxury Liner arc for making her do his job of protecting Ciel.

What’s fascinating is that both of these characters are led into these roles as protector and protected for Ciel by the narrative but ultimately they are far more similar than they are different. Elizabeth suppresses anything that will take away from her femininity like her height, incredible strength and swordsmanship under the guise of cuteness, but Sebastian suppresses the aspects of him that make him weaker like his susception to injury from death scythes, his obsession with cats which he suppresses for o!Ciel’s allergies (Chapter 111) and most importantly, his humanity—or lack thereof—which Ciel questions and undermines (Chapter 107).

However, this does not change the fact that o!Ciel is portrayed as having a healthier attitude to masculinity and femininity. In fact, the twins have opposing viewpoints on class and gender, which again makes Our!Ciel far more sympathetic for the modern audience than Real!Ciel. As explained by Tanaka in Chapter 151, o!Ciel has pursued business that focuses on women and children as he had anticipated products aimed to these demographics would become more popular (likely due to the rights and protections of women and children steadily increasing), this is coincidentally also where r!Ciel mockingly calls his brother's toy business idea ‘middle class’ and ‘ridiculous’ which again reflects that his Earl Phantomhive status was realised by Rachel’s words “Only you can wear this ring… Only you can be Earl.” VS Sebastian’s “Here's your ring but you still need to work hard.” It is also ironic that he is the one who used Elizabeth for his protection during his recovery as a BD after being the one who inadvertently caused some of her biggest insecurities, while o!Ciel gives the people around him confidence and despite his relationship with Sebastian being toxic throughout the narrative is, the demon has taught him a healthier attitude when acting as a guardian (14, 107, 120)...

Overall, I adore Sebastian and Elizabeth very much and they are both deeply important to the function of the Ciels in this narrative. I think they are insanely complex and both deserve a lot of respect for how interestingly they are depicted. I could probably talk about them a lot more but I think it’s best I cut this off here. As always, please let me know your thoughts, I would love to chat about this topic!

(Don’t forget to check out the images for this analysis!)

1) hey so what the actual fuck are you talking about here? why the hell would i project onto ciel when he’s canonically a biological cis male (confirmed by GWA scene with sieglinde) who has never been even implied to be intersex? if anything, i would relate more to characters like grelle, sebastian or even wolfram who are trans, outside the human gender binary or degendered by the narrative respectively (source). do you know what being intersex means? my intersexuality isn’t actually very visible (i control it through hormones and meticulous grooming) and it actually doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with my genitals. i didn’t mention my intersexuality in relation to the way people prefer to portray ciel’s genitals, i mentioned it as an extension of my queerness, because i am an asian person who both queer and intersex and because i was talking about how ASIANS portray QUEER and TRANS people especially women who PROJECT onto QUEER characters they perceive as BOTTOMS? now why the fuck did you think it was appropriate to talk about my intersexuality (and in extension, genitalia) in relation to a conversation about a character’s genitals when i never related my sex to that topic at all? i said i was part of a demographic of people who are subjugated in asia and i see that the mindsets prevalent across the continent affect how they enjoy ships involving queer people. i even said multiple times the genitals don’t matter that much because it’s just fucking fiction but it’s combined with overall feminisation. do not mention my intersexuality like it’s something you can just easily weaponise against me to prove a point, it’s fucking vile.

2) i have no idea what this sentence means “The counter-argument you calling it heteronormativity is performative automatically arises in my head just as easily as I can call their repulsion wrong and/or insincere.” are you saying my opinion about the people who share similar cultural backgrounds to me about homosexuality and how heterosexual roles are applied (a form of heteronormativity) is performative? what are you saying? i didn’t say their repulsion was wrong, i explained why they have it. if you can’t understand that, either the english language or comprehension isn’t your strong suit. if it’s the former, i understand because this sentence made zero sense but if you speak english natively… god help us

3) “it’s hypocritical to me in a way i can’t ignore” who the fuck are you? the pope? the grand vizier? the ghost of the ayatollah? oo shiver me timbers you can’t ignore my hypocrisy 💀 this ask could’ve been avoided if you took your fingers and typed a simple reply to my post asking me to clarify my stance rather than writing this nonsensical coke rant because you clearly don’t understand what i said. it’s not too late to reread everything i said, including links in my previous asks where other people share their perspectives.

4) i clarified i was not offended, i was analysing why these people felt that way, which is deeprooted homophobia. just like shotacons don’t like real kids, yaoi loving fujos often don’t like real gays. they only like the palatable version that fits the mold of a straight relationship. you know, the first sentence you wrote is the exact same way i think, right? you know i clarified that my issue with that person was the way they treated another human being, not their words about people who liked cielseba, right? and you know the people who felt sick and wanted to die from clsb are overreacting because how the FUCK do you see shota noncon and think “this is fine” but seeing a versatile couple makes you sick? idgaf that’s so odd, keep it to yourself, it’s like me going around saying “SEBT*KER MAKES ME SICKKKK UGHHHHH” after writing violent dubcon… hydrogen bomb (explicit shotapussy sebaciel) vs coughing baby (people who think sebastian and ciel should switch)

to circle back to the first point. stating my existence as an asian intersex person who is queer was relating to my perspective that asians (and people from less accepting countries in general) put queer relationships into certain boxes (someone is the “man” and someone is the “woman”… it’s just advanced homophobia). do not presume what is going on in my pants, do not send me asks like this again but if you’re going to send bad faith asks to me, at least get off anon. be brave and say it to my face. you’re making these wild assumptions about my sex and personal feelings, twisting what i say intentionally or not, but you don’t know me and you don’t know how i think.

anyway here’s some pics of the royal gallery in madrid, i think we should all get some cultural enrichment in our lives, otherwise we’ll end up mentioning random strangers’ genitals like it has something to do with us x

iranian rugs are far older than islam’s concept of allah (islam is a relatively new religion, younger than 1500 years old), while iranic rugs have existed since 2500 years ago (that’s even older than christianity) and while judaism (ergo abrahamic religion) existed and people believed in the concept of a singular perfect god (well, we can argue god in judaism wasn’t really perfect if we consider the gnostic yahweh-demiurge theory…) but regardless of that, the pan iranist zoroastrian concept of god/goddess(es) did not tell us to stifle ourselves for the pride of a god and there was no such concept of humility in our art. there was no punishment for aiming for perfection and no shame in having the audacity to aim for it. in fact, if we put flaws in our work, wouldn’t it be arrogant in itself to assume that we could achieve perfection but we’re holding back to not “hurt god’s delicate heart”? thinking of it like that, i wouldn’t put it beyond us bitter dystheists to do something like this… but i doubt it. as haughty as it sounds, iranian art has always been created by perfectionists who wouldn’t be willing to purposefully put flaws into their hard work

even THE mahmoud farshchian who made plenty of islamic art and was a shia who presumably thought a perfect god existed wouldn’t ever put a single error in his exquisite paintings so do we really think the people who were hand-making his art into rugs to be framed would make any errors? my own farshchian designed framed rug doesn’t have a single error, neither do any of the rugs adorning the floor of my house.