LavaImpZ

black butler fan blog

[lavaimpz]

I'm glad a sixth season hasn't been announced bc I'm hoping they'll switch studios. Cloverworks was so lazy imo and they looked so shiny and weird. (Sorry if you like it just my opinion)

[zimowahistoria-kuro]

my two (probably) controversial kuro takes:

people who constantly complain about how tired they are of sebastian’s new design are boring. yes, he looks more round now. yes, he looks softer. yes, the art style from the first volumes is not coming back. yes, he won’t have those narrow eyes and sharp chin anymore. how many times can you say the same thing and make edits about it? show me an author who doesn’t change their art style over the years, especially after 20 years. when i compare it to given, i forget how rough the art looked in the beginning because of how much kizu has improved.

i don’t know what would have to happen for sebastian x mei-rin and ciel x doll to become interesting to me. even when i try, i just don’t see it. to me, it’s like lukewarm water among delicious cold lemon lemonade on a hot day. a dried plum among juicy peaches. the air before a storm compared to a sea breeze. i’m not saying there’s anything wrong with liking them, but if there’s ever a day when i wake up and think “i’d like to read a fic about sebastian and mei-rin,” that means i’ve either been attacked by aliens and brainwashed, or replaced with some kind of experimental humanoid model. (not counting that one fic where sebastian sleeps with everyone, but i’m a slutbastian truther and that's an exception.)

god help me it was so ugly at times

[lavaimpz]

I only wanted to hear from him, Sebastian and Ciel and they're the only ones that didn't get a turn 😭

[zimowahistoria-kuro]

winter olympics if sebastian and william were to take part in team ski jumping

[lavaimpz]

A hiatus from WHAT?? THE ONE CRUMB A MONTH WE GET? YES I'M MAD.

[lavaimpz]

Yana throwing in Undertaker at the end of the chapter so no one will ask what the fuck is even going on anymore:

[lycheeboxx]

I don't buy that it's a coincidence. Yana has clearly been keeping Undertaker and William separated for a reason. William knows exactly who Undertaker is, knows he's gone rogue and has even briefed other senior Reapers about him, yet these two have somehow remained completely separate for over 200 chapters.

And this is Yana we're talking about... the queen of playing the long game. It's hard to see it as anything other than intentional. You don't keep two major figures of the Reaper world, with all their parallels and completely opposite views, apart for that long unless you're saving something.

So when Yana eventually let's them share a scene, when they finally stand across from each other on the same page... I don't expect a casual chat. I expect a moment with real consequences, one that completely redefines what we thought we knew.

[lycheeboxx]

⚠️Long-ish post: Phantomhive Bloodline × Hunter Theory: A Possible Link?⚠️

The impression I’m getting lately, especially with the recent reveals and backstories piling up left and right... it's only a matter of time before Claudia Phantomhive gets hinted at somewhere and somehow (alongside her backstory too, by the way... because we really need more context on her.)

|f we're talking purely canon and completely setting aside fan theories: There's not much to work with beyond a death date, her being Ciel's grandmother, and a single ambiguous panel where we're not even certain it's her back.

(The mourning locket is technically another detail, though it doesn't expand the canon information we already have here, so I'm not really factoring it in.)

If demon hunters (assuming this concept is actually being implemented into the manga) and the Phantomhive ancestry are being linked, she isn’t really optional to the narrative anymore… she’s likely part of the wider plot.

If the lineage concept starts opening up, you can’t just gloss over the grandparents like they aren’t carrying half the lore.

Not in the near chapters (I don't think), but if a hunter theory develops (ahead in future chapters), we might get more focus on previously unknown details about past Watchdogs. That’d be the perfect opportunity for Yana to drop more breadcrumbs about her backstory/identity/past.

What could those details imply about who they were, their past dealings, their missions, and how they carried them out?

Also, what I’m getting at here is that if the hunter theory includes the idea that they can kill demons because they themselves have some kind of supernatural ability (or what not), it could also pave the way for an explanation of Undertaker.

We’re not exactly starting from zero here (the groundwork is already there) when the story has already hinted that O!Ciel himself may be connected to abilities beyond those of a normal human.

Conveniently enough, the manga first brings up the whole "one foot in the grave" explanation, only for the very next panel to immediately steer readers toward the idea that O!Ciel’s ability to sense Grim Reapers may actually come from his lineage instead.

Ngl, that one manga page alone pushed the grandfather theory up to like 85% credibility for me lol

BUT! The real question is whether Yana was foreshadowing Undertaker specifically, or simply planting the idea that supernatural abilities already exist somewhere within the ancestry itself.

Which would make the lineage panel even more meaningful, especially now that we know demon hunters may exist within the lore.

The fact that the family tree is literally sitting in the background while lineage gets hinted at feels WAY too intentional. I'd put my hand in fire that Yana did that to keep readers guessing between Undertaker and other bloodline-related possibilities. She loves confusing us, doesn't she?

The author has a pattern of keeping things ambiguous and unresolved early on, only to revisit them much later with a significant reveal that reframes everything.

Now, back to UT and Claudia and their very suspicious possible union...

Why would a legendary grim reaper care about a normal human girl? Perhaps she had "abilities" that set her apart.

I know this may sound a bit contradictory, but keep in mind we still don’t know whether the supernatural powers/abilities come from further back in the bloodline rather than from him directly.

Dumb lil side note: That reveal panel (maybe in the future) where Ciel’s entire identity, and the only reason he exists at all, is reduced to a Grim Reaper and his grandmother having "fun" is going to be absolutely epic.

That said, it would only apply to Undertaker if the grandfather theory proves to be accurate.😝

Phantomhive bloodline + possible supernatural traits = Undertaker connection or another source? Only time will tell.

All in all, if Yana starts pulling on the Claudia thread, Cedric's is likely around the corner too.

But of course, this is all just speculation, not fact. Oh great Yana, I really do wonder what you have in store for us.

I summon the council, fellow theorists, opinions?

[lycheeboxx]

The manga has completely screwed up my brain chemistry because now every harmless little explanation sounds like foreshadowing for some devastating supernatural reveal.

This is a series where everyone has at least three secrets, a traumatic backstory, and half the cast is secretly hiding supernatural identities, so the manga has basically conditioned me to expect hidden identity reveals at every turn.

At this point, I fully expect it to hit us with an Irene Diaz-level reveal à la Grell Sutcliff, where the whole drinking perilla leaf juice to stay young explanation turns out to be complete nonsense because she simply cannot age… because she’s one of them.

It sounds fake (even if we saw the liquid) in the exact same way every suspiciously convenient explanation in this series sounds fake right before the author drops an identity reveal that changes absolutely everything.

But hey, take all of this with a grain of salt 🤓

[lavaimpz]

Sorry if anyone has posted this before! But in that flashback scene with Vincent, he and the vicar are discussing the twins' names, and just after that the vicar mentions the upcoming St. Michael's festival.

The reference felt like it meant something so I googled it and St. Michael's day is also known as Michaelmas, and the flower associated with the festival is the aster, and Astre is one of the theories regarding o!ciel's real name. I wonder if Yana was hinting at his real name, or just making a reference to the theory...

[lavaimpz]

Crack theory: the demon's eye was shot off by van helsing knockoff, he has a special demon hunting weapon that doesn't allow their wounds to regenerate so this demon is missing an eye and that's why John Brown always wears glasses

[lavaimpz]

Yana please stop holy shit

[nataliaphantomhivesblog]

i will say something i never thought i would say, but im getting a huge black butler burnout. I have breathed and adored this manga since I was a child, but the new content has felt very lackluster to me.

I used to blame GFantasy for the slow paced chapter, and was patient with the story because we get very short chapters, but the addition of new characters and the way we jump to new questions every chapter without any resolve is driving me insane. It doesn't help the lack of focus on characters and storylines that have not been touched in years.

I am obviously not done with Black Butler and i will take my time and talk about it here and then but right now the current fraction of the story is making me loose an intrest that I love so much.

This is no way to disrespect Yana or her masterclass writing, I deeply love her work and have for years, but thats exactly why I take this piece of work so seriously.

I genuienly hope we get answers in future chapters instead of more questions, it's getting tiring instead of exciting.

Anyways, don't come at me for this opinion, I still love black butler, i'm just very demotivated with the new content.

[sebubunny]

Quick thought on Modri

Does Modri... not remember Lady Anna's face anymore?

More under the cut. Spoilers for Kuroshitsuji up to chapter 225!

Has anyone else noticed just how blank Lady Anna and other character's faces are in this flashback?

It is one thing for the devil in the flashback to not have a face and to have his name scribbled out. It could be seen from a storytelling perspective that, if this devil is Sebastian, then the devil's face/name is not relevant, only his actions are. That despite the role he had in Modri's past, he is Sebastian now.

But that doesn't explain the blankness on Lady Anna's face. Someone that Modri held clear affection for, to the point that he brought someone who was essentially a stranger to their home in order to figure a way out of marrying Lady Anna off. All this, but her face remains noticeably blank.

And what of Modri's master? The one who saved Modri and took him in, that Modri has been shown to have clear loyalty for, and yet his name has yet to be spoken, and his face is always obscured?

You could argue that they are side characters, cannon fodder who had been dead prior to the beginning of the story. Except Yana has always consistently detailed the faces of the deceased if they held importance to the characters. Yana has even detailed the faces of side characters that we may never see again. So it feels very deliberate that characters who are written to be important to Modri are drawn lacking most of their facial features.

A part of me wonders if this is because he may actually be a bizzare doll, and his memories are incomplete. However, that brings in the implication that the Undertaker (and potentially any partners he may have) can not only extend cinematic records after a person's death, but can also defile already existing cinematic records by changing them- which he has not been shown being able to do.

Another part of me is more convinced that Modri is still alive theough other means, and his memory is faded due to the passage of time. That would suit him more narratively, as it would highlight just how much Modri has lost of himself in his obsessive pursuit of the devil who took so much from him.

[sprinkledsalt]

"Simply put, the endless relitigation of how we owe it to men not to speak plainly about their exploitation and abuse of us—a conversation that largely occurs between anglophonic women in certain socioeconomic spheres who have the ability to choose who to partner with to a degree that is mostly denied to women worldwide—pisses me off. If you are lucky enough to be able to determine what your relationship to men is, I would suggest you have a responsibility to do more than muse about whether it’s unfair of you to say any harsh words about the guys happily mainstreaming incel ideology and birthrate panics into the modern political landscape. Because that’s the part we keep stubbornly ignoring in these discussions: that today, men everywhere want more patriarchy. A lot of feminists seem to be laboring under a collective amnesia of what the feminism that led us to this political moment was actually all about. We had nearly forty years of 'patriarchy hurts men too' and sex positivity and making the case for anti-patriarchal politics to men. It did not result in the downfall of patriarchy, or a mass defection of men to the feminist cause. Instead, today we have Andrew Tate and fundamentalist Christian theocracy in mainstream US politics and Mark Zuckerberg going on podcasts to talk about how women in already male-dominated tech workplaces bring too much 'female energy'."

--Talia Bhatt in Political Heterosexuality, or: The Tragedy of Feminism

[sprinkledsalt]

I kind of love how this quote is from a woman pointing out the absurdity of people saying feminists need to play niceys with men more while the reality is that men everywhere want more patriarchy, and some jobless, loser sack of shit has commented on this post several times from several different throwaway blogs (which I just block instantly) that I should be raped. That loser is really just proving Bhatt’s point about the disconnect between the weeping and wailing over women accurately describing how shitty men are vs what men actually say about women right in real time lmao

[ace-aro-taku]

It’s really pushing for this mystery character to be Sebastian… like shoving it in our faces but not showing the character’s face.

I’m still not fully convinced though now we have a contract symbol… if it truly has been Sebastian this whole time, then why hide the face?

Why couldn’t have just been shown outright at the start of this mini arc? It just bothers me its dancing around the obvious.

Majority of the fans are hard core its Sebastian while a smaller portion says its not. With Yana’s foreshadowing way back in volume 1 its something she’s done. She did the same in Book of Circus for the twins.

So why not just say it outright. This whole reveal now just feels so anticlimactic like the shock was never there. All this teasing “is it sebastian or is it not?” has ruined the reveal for me honestly.

I think I would’ve enjoyed it better if the truth was revealed at the beginning instead of being dragged out like this.

Oh so all these little details of his animal parts, the black goop isn’t enough? Okay fine, what about his contract symbol? Is that enough to tell you it’s Sebastian??

I’ve never felt more frustrated and slightly disappointed in a reveal of a secret. I keep wanting to wait and see but all we get is more evidence and no answer.

Maybe he his Sebastian, okay we get it. Just tell us already. Stop dragging it out.

Yana, we love you, and I’ve been into your series for the past 10 years. I’ve been here long enough to know she also likes to drag stuff out. Some for the good some just to extend the series…

So is it Sebastian or is it not? I’m tired of waiting…

[onehawtwriter-blog]

writing PSA from someone who has absolutely committed crimes against sentences before:

there is a whole category of words that aren’t bad… they’re just quietly draining the life out of your prose while you’re not looking

like:

just, really, very, kind of, sort of, maybe

(the little gremlins that sneak in and soften everything until nothing hits like you want it to)

and the classic:

was, were, had, is, are

(not evil—but stack too many and suddenly your sentence is lying face down in the mud)

then you’ve got the camera-distance offenders:

“she saw”

“he noticed”

“she felt”

congrats, you just moved your reader three feet away from the moment for no reason

like instead of:

she felt the cold air against her skin

just let the air hit her. let the reader feel it without the narrator narrating it

—

also watch for the “I don’t trust my own writing” phrases:

I think

it seemed

as if

in a way

pick a lane. commit. the sentence will survive, I promise

—

and my personal favorite flavor of nonsense:

there was

it was

there were

these are the beige paint of writing. technically fine. emotionally devastating

—

and then:

then

suddenly

after that

if everything is sudden, nothing is

—

plus the ones that pretend to add intensity but actually do nothing:

completely

totally

absolutely

if the word needs backup singers, it’s probably not pulling its weight

—

and PLEASE:

nodded his head

shrugged his shoulders

sat down

what else was he going to nod. his elbow???

—

none of these are banned. use them when they earn it

but if your writing ever feels flat, distant, or like it’s not hitting the way you want?

start here. prune the filler. tighten the verbs. pull the camera closer

suddenly your sentences have teeth again 😌