It’s this superb artwork from Yana Toboso’s Art Book (vol. 3) in commemoration of the series’ 15th anniversary.
Okay, Sebastian is pouring tea into our!Ciel’s cup.
But there’s a green liquid string coming from the flowers and plants blooming inside that fancy teapot, which then start to grow inside our!Ciel cup. What type of flower(s) Sebastian and our!Ciel are holding… I guess they are the same, right? Most importantly, what’s the meaning behind them? Also, those slightly violet, spiky flowers, curiously positioned in the foreground of the picture? It ought to have a symbolism too.
I’m completely in love with this imagery. There’s a faint bit of melancholy in our!Ciel’s stance… and serenity. Sebastian is 300% mesmerized by
gazing intensely at his extravagantly dressed master, in a very relaxing way cocksure bitch is not even paying attention to the task, yeah I know, “one hell of a butler”, they said. There is a bright sunlight bathing both from behind, partially, but it gets diffused through the foliage. So, on the whole, the picture seems positively idyllic…
Thank you @tohru-n very much for this high resolution snippet. I must confess that I didn’t really notice these two yesterday. And I really had to do a lot of research, because the flower with the red frame was very difficult to find. Likewise the blue one, but this one more, as there are many similarly flowering species. So I had to focus on the leaf shape and leaf colour.
However, I hope I got it right.
Let’s start with the flower framed in red, which I could identify as a Bellflower. I must confess, I must have looked for about a hundred flowers to come across it. But from the shape of the flowers and the very fine stem, it is my result.
As you can see, the Bellflower is extremely diverse. Probably because there are over 500 species. Some of them grow with their calyxes upwards, others fall gently downwards. However, its dominant petal colours are white, blue and purple. Matching the colours that reflect O!Ciel.
Its meaning, which again fits very well into the history of the painting so far and is very beautiful: The close calyxes of the Bellflowers symbolise togetherness and unity. Whoever gives Bellflowers as a gift wants to say: “Our hearts beat in the same tact”.
Well, a plant couldn’t express better how closely O!Ciel and Sebastian are connected, could it? Even if we take away the implied romantic background, the focus here is on their magical bond of contract.
But let’s take a look at the other flower in the blue frame, which I identified as white Forget-me-not.
After thousands of flowers - I’m not exaggerating - it was the leaves and the rich dark green of the leaves that made me think of the flower species. Also the small distance between the petals.
Ironically - in relation to this fandom - according to a middle-age myth, the plant Forget-me-not got its name because God asked it not to be forgotten.
Because of the emotional and romantic association, the flower is very often given as a gift to express love to someone. And the wish not to be forgotten.
If we take a look at the mythology of this flower, it becomes very interesting. Because apart from the fact that the Greeks saw in it a sacred flower of the faithful lovers, it belongs to the so-called elf plants of which there are two species: Those under the special protection of the elves and those who are supposed to protect against them. Forget-me-nots are among the latter.
Maybe I’m interpreting too much here, but are Sebastian and Undertaker possibly the focus here? Sebastian protecting O!Ciel from the Undertaker the whole time, while the Undertaker preserves and protects R!Ciel? I find this idea very interesting somehow.
And as if things couldn’t get any better, the flower is called the Blue Heaven’s Key. Or also: “The Forget-me-not - the key to the true treasures of the soul.”
I hope you enjoyed it again. Apart from almost giving up because of the slightly excessive variety of species, I enjoyed it again. And if you want more analysis on flowers or something similar, feel free to write me.
One of my favorite Kuro fandom past times is watching 🐜 get into the floral symbolism of the artwork and then aggressively sidestep any symbolism for Ciel and Sebastian that is tender or blatantly romantic when they would never do that under any circumstances for other character dynamics.
One of biggest ??? to me is how kuroshituji as a fandom even has antis?? Kuroshituji, which regularly has fucked up dark stuff happening. Kuroshituji, where I lost count of how many innuendos and suggestive scenes between Sebastian and Ciel I've encountered. Kuroshituji, where Yana herself sexualized life out of Ciel on way too many occasions
Recently, I came across a series of old posts translating some things from Yana’s now lost blog, in which she did an exercise to draw 30 different facial expressions for Sebastian.
The “shy” one particularly caught my eye because the translation describes Sebastian as “ultra narcissistic” and therefore he can’t really be shy.
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Now Yana does indeed use the word “narcissist” here (“narushisuto”), but keep in mind that loan words often have slightly different meanings/connotations in Japanese than they do in their original source language.
I do not have a loan word dictionary handy unfortunately, but I did do some investigating in one of my fave online Japanese-language dictionaries (it basically lets you see definitions from various sources at once).
The top definition describes a narcissist as someone who is so in love with themselves they’re “drunk” off of it.
The definition does not use the exact term, but there is a phrase in Japanese that essentially has this meaning. It’s a kind of phrase called “yojijukugo,” and these are always made up of four kanji.
In this case, they are 自己陶酔, which literally means “oneself, self, pottery, drunk,” or less literally, self-intoxication. In other words, extreme vanity.
Additionally, the words weblio includes as synonyms mean things like “pretentious,” “conceited,” acting “full of oneself.” It has a negative connotation and is probably intended as the opposite of the Japanese cultural ideal of the group before the individual.
Put this together with how Yana explains that it’s difficult/impossible to flatter him because he’s such a “narcissist,” and I think we have to assume that Yana isn’t meaning it the way we might here in the West when we use that word. Instead, I think what she means is that Sebastian is self absorbed and overly-vain, which makes sense based on what we’ve seen of him in the manga.
Now, ofc we can use narcissist in a similar way in English, as dictionary.com says:
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But, often it has more of an association with the second one, and I think we definitely need to steer clear of that connotation when we look at Yana’s intent. (As far as I could see, that word is not used for the disorder in Japanese, but as I am not an expert on medical Japanese I could definitely be wrong, there.)
Nevertheless, I think we can all agree that Sebastian is vain and self absorbed, though I do think he’s changed significantly over the four years he’s been working with Ciel, and it will be interesting to see if he overcomes this “flaw” before the manga ends.
(I personally don’t feel you can apply a disorder to a nonhuman like Sebastian, but that is not really the point of this post and I would prefer not to get into discourse. I am not trying to say people with NPD are demonic or anything like that. Simply analyzing what Yana said and what that might mean.)
@2gay2bealive No need to trade your soul!! I'm perfectly willing to draw them for free >:)
I didn't mean to draw surprised Sebastian at first. The idea appeared somehow in the middle of drawing the rough sketch and I thought, 'Oh? It's pretty cute!' so I went on with that plan~
To all of you who have found my page, hello!! I haven't used tumblr in years and I honestly have forgotten how. I don't know how to respond to tags in reblogs, but reading them is very fun and I appreciate the compliments!! Thank you ^^/
I can't choose a favorite, but the luxury liner arc is probably it!! I love seeing Sebastian badly wounded yet was still trying his best to keep Ciel safe. As for the drawing, I know Sebastian carried him on one arm most of the time in the manga, but I have a soft spot for bridal carry so voilà! 💫
