As it stands, we have real!Ciel in the manor spoiling for a real fight with his brother.
He seems so cocky here, and why shouldn’t he? Our!Ciel has been framed for the murders committed by the Blue Sect. Real!Ciel has been proven, by the word of Lizzie and Tanaka, to be the real heir. Things seem to be going his way, and he doesn’t seem to have much to fear at this moment.
Except for maybe Frances.
When he was younger, he found Frances to be scary.
In fact, she’s one of the few people that real!Ciel has ever found to be intimidating. He doesn’t even seem to find Sebastian frightening or intimidating, and there’s a good chance he knows that Sebastian is a demon.
Frances was also oddly absent when Scotland Yard along with Alexis and Edward when they entered the manor. Edward’s focus was purely on Lizzie, and Alexis was never an intimidating individual to either twin. He’s more of a loving uncle than an authority figure. The simple truth is things might have been much different has Frances had been present.
There’s also the fact that Frances undoubtedly knows more about the family history and secrets than most of the others. (Tanaka being the other one who would have this knowledge.) She might know the connection between Undertaker and the Phantomhives. After all, Frances and Undertaker have never directly interacted throughout the series. Maybe there’s a reason for this.
Either way, I think Frances is very important to the story. She’s someone that real!Ciel has shown to be intimidated of. She’s always been shown to be someone who does understand situations more than she initially lets on – like spending the day with our!Ciel on his birthday or insisting that Lizzie continue her training since she knew it would be important one day. Finally, she knows more about the Phantomhive family secrets and history than probably anyone else.
Des fois, je suis triste parce que les gens qui ne sont pas français ne sauront jamais combien les livres de Pierre Bottero sont géniaux, avec des personnages principaux féminins forts, courageux, complexes et inspirants, et des messages super importants et une histoire et un univers de ouf et des personnages masculins respectueux et excellents, des personnages secondaires complets et fantastiques, des créatures magiques et envoûtantes et des dialogues sublimes
I love that Artemis Fowl’s response to “You have a girls name loser” is “yeah she’s a powerful goddess of the hunt and I’ve earned her name bitch” cause homeboy don’t have time for anything even remotely sexist and transphobic
I’m listening to the Bartimaeus audio books at work this week, and it’s incredibly scary listening to them and comparing them to current politics. I’ve loved this book series my whole life, and known the messages it sends, but today they hit home harder than I can ever remember.
If you want a book that talks about authoritarian regimes, read Bartimaeus
If you want a book that talks about slavery, read Bartimaeus
If you want a book about systemic oppression, read Bartimaeus
If you want a book with a strong female character fighting in a resistance movement against the government, read bartimaeus
If you want a book that shows a white boy coming to terms with his privilege, and his own crimes within society, WITHOUT LETTING HIM OFF THE HOOK, Read Bartimaeus
(it doesn’t make excuses for him, it’s him making excuses and by end of book three he’s like “oh shit i’m a jerk”)
If you want a book with an agender main character, read bartimaeus (although pronouns are he/him, bart clearly states that man or women doesn’t matter. he shape shifts)
If you want a book that confronts and points out slur usage, read Bartimaeus (the word Demon is a slur for spirits, and considered very insulting. Bart consistently points this out to Nathaniel and asks him to stop saying it)
If you want a swash-buckling djinn who is sarcastic/rude to his white boy ™ master, read Bartimaeus.
And seriously, its funny as fuck. This is the book that taught me what footnotes were, and their only uses in the story are to 1) tell hillarious history lessons and 2) insult everyone including the reader.
He might have just… never developed one tbh. Ongoing cannibalism (and the massive influx of RC cells that goes with it) can trigger the mutation but it’s not an inevitability; apparently it’s pretty rare. Plus there are ghouls, like the Tsukiyama family, who cannot develop them for genetic reasons – there’s nothing in the text to suggest Yomo or his family share a similar trait but I guess it’s a possibility.
I really like the idea that he can produce a kakuja and chooses not to though – he and Arata were headed down the exact same path, and it took Arata’s death/Touka & Ayato’s abandonment and Yoshimura’s patronage to show Yomo how destructive and pointless his need for revenge was. Rejecting the power he was able to amass in the way of a kakuja would be a nice symbolic nod towards his character development, and I think ensuring he was able to protect his niece and nephew without the destructive power that killed Arata brings with it a sense of atonement for what (Renji feels) he forced their father to do.
It’s also thematically kinda cool considering his advice to Ken: that everything he accomplished was through his own strength and not through the strength he was ‘borrowing’ from others (Rize, Yamori). Forming a kakuja necessarily requires one person to ‘steal’ [kill and consume] from others and, unlike Kaneki (who was a victim of Rize, Kanou, Yamori), Yomo was an aggressor. He probably orphaned kids just like Touka and Ayato.
Choosing not to use a kakuja, if he’s able, could be an acknowledgement that his earlier actions were wrong or selfish; or evil, if we’re going full Kuzen.
He still does become insanely powerful but he’s strategic and incredibly well-rounded rather than being just another big ol’ one punch monster. Even Mutsuki calls him a perfect ghoul, and he defeats his equal even though Uta DOES resort to a kakuja in the end.
When Uta says “you’ve become really strong, Renji” after their final fight, he means since Ren left the 4th Ward – it’s a different type of strength, beyond whatever he was pursuing before Anteiku. He’s become strong in spite of the path he was on in his youth, not because of it.
That moment when you finally found someone in your life instead of trusting inanimate objects
the mirrored arcs of guts and casca and how they focus on their roles as weapons and soldiers and tools for powerful men. and how those roles have betrayed them and fitted them so badly. more and more so as they grow older and their personalities and beliefs start bursting out at the seams. they’re people. grouchy complicated loving people who in every respect are more than what they were meant to be. and who have so much more to be.
I was proud of her for realizing that her love was an illusion she used to comfort herself, but I also feel it was only a partial revelation and another one will be coming, and I’m excited for it. Lizzie is a Good Female Character, I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.
See, illusions have always been a calling card for Lizzie’s character, in that she’s lied about who she is as well to get Ciel to like her by pretending to be weak. I hope she realizes that the situations are basically inverses of each other soon, because she needs to. R!Ciel is an illusion himself right now, probably not actually alive (I think?), and also his persona is most likely an illusion itself. The only thing that’s real about him is his name.
I am also glad she does not see the twins as interchangeable (thank God) and also realizes that she doesn’t really love or know R!Ciel. I think that will be vital as well, because R!Ciel is still dead somehow and also is currently acting truly awful and quite possibly was manipulated into having his family attacked. She didn’t know O!Ciel’s true identity, of course, but I do think she knew quite a bit more of him than she ever knew of R!Ciel. Yes, there are things he keeps from her, quite a bit of them, and that’s wrong, but I don’t feel like everything is a lie. It’s up to her to decide whether or not that matters. I hope it will.
The illusions idea ties into the theme of conforming to expectations vs being yourself, which has been a persistent theme in Black Butler with Sieglinde, O!Ciel, Lizzie, etc. They all have roles they see themselves as needing to fill, but these roles are really prisons that limit them from truly realizing their own power and how close they can become with other people. Soma ties into this as well, but he’s done a far better job of escaping from it currently, which is why I really hope he has A Talk with Sieglinde and Lizzie when he realizes R!Ciel killed Agni and not O!Ciel. But the manga is also fairly sympathetic to the idea of expectations because you don’t really have a choice about the role you’re born into, but it’s not really responsible to just shrug it off either. So there’s a tension there and I think Lizzie is starting to explore just that.
One thing that really struck me in Chapter 140 is the
juxtaposition between Sebastian’s arrogance at the start of the contract and
his anxiety in the present. Look at this:
He’s so sure of himself here. He thinks this contract will be nothing
– that he’ll bow to the whims of a child for awhile before going home again having had
a good meal and a bit of a laugh. This is a game for him. What could possibly go wrong?
But here:
Here his cockiness has all but vanished. A soul he’d long since consumed has come back to life, his friend(?) is dead, and now he has to face the reaper he’s already lost to twice. Then of course there’s his physical appearance: he’s soaking wet and his hair is dishevelled – not at all the immaculate Sebastian from the past.
By this point in the series Sebastian has already tasted failure a number of times and almost lost his master on several occasions more. There’s been signs of Sebastian’s confidence wavering for awhile now, but never has it been as clear as in this chapter. He’s on high alert, he’s anxious, and I’m going to make a bold claim here: Sebastian Michaelis is frightened.
Sebastian’s character has been developing extraordinarily slowly for a main character, but when you look at chapters like this one you can see just how much he’s changed. He’s still overly arrogant and is the literal embodiment of secondhand embarrassment, but he’s clearly learning that he can’t throw cutlery at every problem that arises and expect certain victory.
It may have been instinctive on Mikasa’s part to protect Eren but what’s interesting is that it took only an instant for her to back down. She and Armin have an entire conversation with just their eyes. She remembers, he understands, she looks sad, perhaps even ashamed. In the panels that follow, Mikasa and Armin are not hovering over Eren. They are leaving him alone.
I would guess that Mikasa and Armin have gotten close these last several months. They’ve probably discussed this exact scenario. Maybe they tried to work out their anger and hurt before they arrived in Marley. Obviously, it’s still simmering.
I can’t imagine any scenario that would end with a permanent separation. He might be an idiot, but he’s their idiot. I don’t see that changing. They are disappointed, angry and hurt but still care very much. They know, too, that unless the curse of Ymir ends, Eren has only a short time left to live. That probably factors in.
As far as blame for Sasha’s death, I don’t think so. Jean is speaking emotionally and reacting with understandable anger, but I think once cooler heads prevail that will fade. Eren is likely facing desertion and insubordination, murder won’t be added to that list.
midnight-in-town 