#kuroposting

bocchan had a weird dream

Someone said something along the lines of: At this point in the story, Sebastian has ceased to seem like so much of a separate entity, as a kind of amoral conscience or ego for Ciel.

And I thought that was so interesting, because it's so similar to how I view that dynamic, whilst almost being it's exact opposite.

This was my response, which I think states pretty much everything I can coherently say in response thus far:

I find that so interesting, because it's somewhat different from my personal read of Sebastian. I do think that Ciel relates to him as a sort of other self/twisted conscience, but from Sebastian's perspective as the reader inhabits it, that seems to be an idea of him that sort of draws back and leaves something singular in the centre - I admittedly take him and his explanations of himself at face value, but I do see him as an entity that seeks to get closer to Ciel - to align him towards a conscience that will be enlightening for them both - and his held off by Ciel's superstitions towards him: those rCiel survivor's guilt related, and those illuminated here - his death drive, his darkest impulses and his excusing himself for them on the basis that he will die. Sebastian says the only thing he has to worry about is Ciel's selfishness - he's very far from caring about what he's lost, and death/destruction as a reminder of relevance and existence serves as a vicious cycle of his need for it. It isn't until real Ciel - literally what he's lost, and the paradigm shift that affects - that his world and comfort with it is blown open, and he strives again, with Sebastian manifesting himself as a helpmeet for perspicacious identity and survival.

Put like that, it actually rather does pose Sebastian as the shadow self to that projected, narratively literal degree - though I still think there's a space between how Sebastian acts towards Ciel and how both Ciel himself acts and how he relates to Sebastian, that would situate him as an almost idealising, attentive other self/conscience. (Again, I tend to take him at his word, which might be a problem, lol.) It's odd that for me, his separation/singularity as a being is revealed by how Ciel engages with him as an exonerating (not quite what I mean. More contextualising his culpability) circumstance because of how he poses him as destruction/punishment for existence, whilst also interacting with him as a companion complicit in that, and in the life lived upon that. But I suppose that could also be an irreconcilable consciousness.

This is such an interesting lens of addressing the story; from it's point of view, we have Sebastian the narrator as the projection/manifestation of conscience for all the layers of Ciel who we see acting in response. Or rather he is the response, and evinces an odd duty of care, or some equilibrium of honesty that comes off as something similar in it's affect, if twistedly.

Sebastian feels like an immensely separate character to me, more so than at earlier points in the story, though I can definitely see how he serves as Ciel's conscience/ego, in how he stands regarding him as illuminated by that separation, and within Ciel's perspective. I tend to view them as two poles in orbit around one another, entangling the other in their perceptions of them (and thus of themselves), there's a huge presence of the shadow self but to me, it's always felt dependent on that separation. What do people think?

"Or is this the eternal dark without a dawn?"

"Who will pray for you?"

"When your body's gone?"

"This is the consequence for what you've done!"

"Darkness will spare my soul"

I love to project being sys [forgot the word for it lol] onto characters

That's why I made OJ have OSDD-1A, Paper BPD, Balloon UDD, Knife OSDD-1B, Clover DID, Blueberry PDID, etc.

I love to do this so much I had to rant to a discord bot about it