#courage badge

[dragongirldg]

This is for my fanfic :3

I don’t know how the chrome filter/ tool works, so Computer is just going to look weird.

I’m finally getting to the last sentence of the summary. The mysterious letter :3

They have a black and white tv :3

It’s human au but I drew them like this because I didn’t want to draw them as human at the time. I would of had to get the proportions right lol

[abybweisse]

So,what IF the lockets undertaker has with himself orginally belonged to claudia phantomhive herself ?first of all they are just too elegant and also all of them are from the same time period of claudia's life And she is the last person on undertaker's chain so maybe she died and then undertaker added her locket on...It's just a headcanon ofc cuz we literally know nothing of undertaker's lockets but it's possible

Whose lockets?

I used to have a theory that Undertaker treasures these lockets because they are all he has from Vincent, but ch131 shows us Undertaker is already wearing the chain while Vincent is still alive:

It was a slight bummer to realize he couldn't have taken them from Phantomhive Manor in an attempt to save them, or as a memento from Vincent, since that would have matched up with Mother3 incredibly well! Flint (the mirror twins' father) entrusts his Courage Badge ("treasured" family heirloom that's actually the legendary Franklin Badge) to Nippolyte (the eccentric gravedigger) to eventually pass it on to Lucas (the younger mirror twin brother). However, my happiness returned when I realized Vincent could have owned the chain of lockets and similarly entrusted them to Undertaker, quite some time before the attack.

I have to admit it's entirely possible he got the chain from Claudia/Cloudia herself and added a locket for her soon after her death. Then again, the "Courage Badge" is a family heirloom, after all... so... the chain of lockets could be passed down from watchdog to watchdog, and each generation adds lockets of people important to them, the last one being for Claudia/Cloudia, probably added by Vincent (or possibly Undertaker). She was alive when Molly/Mally died but just a little kid; her father, the previous Earl Phantomhive and Queen's Watchdog, would have likely added the oldest lockets to the chain. Either way, it could have eventually gone from mother to son, then it went to Undertaker for safe-keeping, before Vincent dies.

Like Vincent speaks with Diedrich in the same chapter, just before this scene with Undertaker, he might have recently sat Undertaker down (maybe even just before talking to Diedrich), talked about the possibility of dying soon, and handed over the chain of lockets... saying "please keep these safe and pass them over to my heir, when the time is right". That would be a damn near 100% parallel to Flint entrusting Nippolyte with his "treasured" family heirloom... with the instructions to pass it along to Lucas when the time is right.

I noticed an earlier image of Undertaker, when he's sitting on the edge of the pool table, and he's sitting with his legs crossed... so I can't see if he's got the chain of lockets. We just don't know how long he's had them, so we can't tell how he came by them. Whether they came from someone else, collection already started, or he is the one who started the collection.

We also don't know how Gregory Violet ends up with a similar looking chain of lockets when our earl goes to Sphere Music Hall for his special "Sirius" event. Had Undertaker snuck around Phantomhive Manor and taken them back sometime between the events of the Campania and the events at Sphere Music Hall... or is it actually another chain? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I hope we eventually get answers to all this.

I will say, though, in defense of the chain of lockets being Undertaker's the whole time, he has also shown an interest in Alex B's locket, and that's a much earlier death than Claudia/Cloudia's.

[abybweisse]

Stop the fighting, addendum

Oh, there’s something I left out in the previous post.

When I mentioned the lockets, I forgot to talk about their own item parallel in Mother3, which is the “Courage Badge”… which turns out to be the legendary “Franklin Badge”. If our earl or someone else uses Cloudia/Claudia’s locket (or any of those lockets, I guess) to convince real Ciel to stop, that also works as the plot parallel to Mother3.

You see, in the game, after Hinawa convinces Claus to stop fighting, Claus makes one last attack. However, he aims his last PK Flash directly at the Courage/Franklin Badge Lucas is wearing, knowing it will ricochet off the badge and hit him instead. And this attack is lethal, so Claus uses his last breaths to apologize to Lucas as he dies (again?) in Lucas’ arms.

Keep in mind that Claus is the older mirror twin brother, he had apparently died earlier, and he was turned into a “heartless” Fascinating Chimera. It really is just like real Ciel being the older mirror twin brother, dying, and being turned into a “soulless” Bizarre Doll…. Claus is also the more outgoing of the two, trying to protect his younger brother, just like real Ciel.

Anyway. In Black Butler, the mourning lockets could be used in a couple different ways:

Whoever holds the lockets displays them and convinces real Ciel to stop fighting. I mentioned this in the previous post. Again, it might not be too convincing, since neither of the twins met their paternal grandmother. And we don’t even know who the other six people were. Will they mean anything to the twins? Likely not. Our earl saw their death certificates, and he didn’t react to them. Real Ciel probably wouldn’t recognize them, either.

Like in the game, the locket becomes a physical protection against attack. The badge is able to reflect lights and lightning attacks, like PK Flash, but that’s not what would be used in this manga. Here, we could end up with a locket stopping a bullet. Clichéd, I know, but it would still be a cool way to both use and destroy the locket. I mean… even if the lockets don’t have souls in them, they still remind me of the horcruxes that Voldemort intended to make (one of them was even a locket). 😆 But seriously, who else here thinks that Undertaker’s mourning lockets will pretty much need to be destroyed in order to make Undertaker let go of the obsession that has such a hold on him?

Something else I like to remind people when I talk about the mourning lockets paralleling the Courage Badge/Franklin Badge: If Undertaker is Cedric, then Cedric K. Ros— probably is a character parallel to Cedric of Rotherwood from Ivanhoe. And Cedric of Rotherwood is a Saxon lord. The Normans called these Saxon landowners “Franklins”. Meaning they were “free” (as opposed to feudal peasants or slaves) and owned land and their own titles. And Francis/Frances basically means the same thing….

In Black Butler, Undertaker calls the lockets his “treasure”. In Mother3, Nippolyte says the “Courage Badge” is Flint’s “treasured” family heirloom. Flint is the twins’ father; he’s alive, but he’s not actively involved in Lucas’ quest for revenge. Instead, Flint obsesses over Hinawa’s death and Claus’ disappearance by going back and forth between visiting her grave and searching for Claus. He doesn’t find any closure until he finally sees Claus (returned as a Fascinating Chimera) with his own eyes.

[abybweisse]

i'm waiting for this chapter: seb has to find a way to defeat ut, so he (or maybe ociel?) pretends to destroy the lockets (his weak spot, as far as they know), ut loses his shit and gets finally defeated by seb. you think it's plausible?

Lockets back into play?

Kind of fits in with part of Mother3 theory, since I said the lockets are a parallel to the Courage Badge, which turns out to be the Franklin Badge. In Mother3, wearing it saves Lucas, since certain attacks bounce right off of it, like… I think it’s called PK Flash or something? I haven’t thought about the attacks in quite a while. Except that Lucas usually uses PK Love. (There are also huge parallels to Harry Potter, but that’s a series of posts I’ve yet to properly write….)

Anyway, I theorize that they don’t think about the lockets too much and don’t know their true worth… to Undertaker or to themselves, but when the twins have their final confrontation, those lockets become important again. I don’t know exactly how they come back into play. There are some options; here are three:

Undertaker has such an emotional bond to the lockets that breaking them “breaks” him. That’s pretty much what you suggest in your ask. (It’s a bit like destroying the horcruxes in HP, even though Undertaker is not a direct parallel to Voldemort.)

The lockets have an unrevealed use, like containing the souls of the people they represent. See, in Mother3, the ghost of their dead mother, Hinawa, is what finally gets Claus to stop fighting his younger mirror twin, Lucas. Then Claus aims a final attack at the Franklin Badge — PK Flash, I think — and that is what finally destroys him… who had been turned into a Fascinating Chimera after he had essentially died. (Items containing souls/soul shards and releasing them to finally destroy a “twin” brought back to life goes back to HP, too. 👀 😏 Recall that Harry and Voldemort have “twin wands”, and ghosts from Harry’s past show up to give him pep talks, and…. Yeah.) Now, Hinawa isn’t in the Franklin Badge, but the combination of her ghost showing up and that badge being there are the key to Lucas winning the battle, which ends up being mostly psychological.

The lockets save our earl in a more physical way; just like the Franklin Badge reflecting a PK Flash and saving Lucas just to destroy Claus… perhaps a locket blocks a bullet. Maybe the bullet even ricochets?

I expect our earl to not really want to fight this bizarre doll version of Ciel, not in person, because even though real Ciel is now hardly the brother our earl once knew (soul is gone), he still looks the part, as he has the body and the memories. Like in Mother3, I expect real Ciel to be more willing to physically fight our earl than our earl is willing to physically fight real Ciel. Because Fascinating Chimera Claus is “heartless”, just like Bizarre Doll real Ciel is soulless.

I expect Sebastian to be too busy dealing with Undertaker, as well as possibly Polaris and the other lords of the stars, to be able to help break up any fight directly between the twins. A bit like how Grelle was keeping Sebastian busy while Madam Red and our earl faced off. Madam Red went in for the attack but finally hesitated at the last moment. Meanwhile our earl completely hesitated to shoot his aunt; he didn’t even grab his hidden gun. But this time, real Ciel might not hesitate at all, and idk if our earl has the guts to shoot back. 🧐

And that’s kind of where the lockets might come into play. It could be as simple as a locket physically stopping a bullet from killing our earl. Or it could be turned into something way more complicated.

Imagine this crazy scenario:

Sebastian is yelling for his young master to fight back against real Ciel, but our earl is hesitant. Real Ciel aims a pistol at our earl and fires. The bullet hits the locket of their grandmother. Her soul is released, and it somehow manifests itself in a way they can perceive — maybe because they are both part reaper? — and she tells them they shouldn’t be fighting each other. She might also give Undertaker a stern talking to for putting his children and grandchildren through so much pain and emotional trauma. Perhaps she disapproves of all the experimentation he’s done? You get the idea. Then the twins stop fighting, and Undertaker finally stops, too. Granny Phantomhive convinces real Ciel to join her (just like Hinawa’s ghost said Claus must be tired and should join her). Perhaps real Ciel even decides to bring his own existence to a final end, just like Claus does.

And Undertaker parallels a few characters in Mother3 — two who live and one who dies — and Snape (who dies) in HP, so it’s possible he either gets destroyed… or gets captured and returned to the reaper organization.

[abybweisse]

Tags for Mother3 theory, part one

Honestly, the only tag you should need for that is #mother3. Or check out @abybweissekuromother3.

But, if you want to look for stuff about specific aspects of Mother3, check out these tags.

I maxed out the 30 tag limit, and there’re more things to include. But this is pretty good. I still suggest checking out the side blog... and scrolling all the way back to the oldest instance of masterpost 1.

[abybweisse]

If the manga is loosely following Mother 3's story plot, is our Ciel going to use Undertaker's mourning locket chain against Real Ciel, in some fashion soon?

Not *terribly* soon, but it’s one of my major “mother3 predictions” if you search my blog for that. Or if you search for things like “courage badge”, “franklin badge”, or “locket”.

I do think it will help our earl in some way against either real Ciel or Undertaker, I’m just not sure how. Though I do propose a few possible scenarios.

[abybweisse]

Hmmm maybe in the future, if RC seizes all property that OC formerly held, there may be something about OC and sebastian trying to get the locket back

Hmm. Well, in Mother3 Lucas does lose track of the Courage Badge for a while. One of these odd characters called Mr. Saturns took the badge away to clean/polish it, then he later finds Lucas to return it. When Lucas places it back in his inventory, it no longer displays as Courage Badge but as Franklin Badge.

If the earl temporarily loses possession of that chain of lockets, then when he manages to get them back something about them *might* have been altered.

[abybweisse]

i've been reading the posts about your m3 theory and somehow it reminded me of dis anime i watched years ago called 'hybrid child'... i thought wow the bizarre dolls sound like the hybrid children of evil (oooh well, not really buuut ^^...). have u already watched it? i totally recommend it but proceed with caution your heart is gonna bleed ~hands box of tissues~

Never heard of it, but now I’m interested. Thanks!

(Accepts box of tissues….)

The Bizarre Dolls remind me of the Inferi in Harry Potter. In book 6, Harry and Dumbledore go to the cave to find Slytherin's locket, and they cross an underground lake by boat. The Inferi are in the water. When they are later disturbed by vibrations, they climb out of the water and try to drag Harry and Dumbledore into the underground *lake*. Inferi are essentially zombies, corpses that have been reanimated by a dark wizard. Keep in mind that they do get a *locket* from the cave, but it was a fake... then they have to fight off the Inferi and escape from the cave. In BB, the Campania arc has the earl and Sebastian fighting off Bizarre Dolls in the *ocean* not long after they ended up with Undertaker's silver mourning *lockets*.... M3 has the grave-keeper (Nippolyte) handing Lucas the Courage Badge/Franklin Badge. There are zombies in the cemetery sometimes, but Nippolyte sometimes has to fight them off, too.... I'm slowly working on a chart that compares BB, M3, and HP. 😊