ciellaseine

[ciellaseine]

Preview from chapter 218

The full chapter is 14 pages

[ciellaseine]

bestfriends lol 🩷💙

[ciellaseine]

[ciellaseine]

The best part about Homestuck was how it defied convention and ascended past the medium that it took place in. It’s what inspired me the most, honestly. It was wordy as all hell because it was mostly text chats that talked about insanely convoluted game mechanics and a lot of the character came from typing quirks and other ways to play with that medium (especially with characters like Doc Scratch or pretty much anything with the Felt).

What could possibly go wrong with adapting it into an animated series?

[ciellaseine]

[ciellaseine]

I feel like something happened.

[ciellaseine]

this being tumblr’s rep feels deserved ngl like u guys reap what u sow

[ciellaseine]

[ciellaseine]

The "Nectar Springs" Hotel

concept/symbolism breakdown for fun analysis, fun facts about the history of blood transfusions and how it's executed in the manga (cw: long//there is no point at the end it's just "organized rambling")

Was doing my usual Black Butler note taking (where I just write little things I notice or put small theories to come back to later) and wanted to see what I can gather on the hotel our earl and demon are staying at.

We are introduced to the owner, Barnabus, and the staff, Ms. Hoffman and Rodney Hall. Due to Sebastian's inconvenience with our mysterious boy, Modri Vladis, we see the hotel's staff in action for the first time.

Weird people in a weird hotel. We might not fully understand how the place works, but it’s clear from the way things run in the very short introduction that there’s a solid system behind it like the rest of our spread out assigned locations.

That's when I thought I'd poke my finger onto the hotel's name: Nectar Springs. It has a nice ring to it. Sound graceful and refreshing. Perfect for wealthy tourists to check into. I think it would be creative if the name may reference a beehive system.

Yana loves to get really creative herself with the amount of detail she puts into so that means as a fan it is law to over analyze even the smallest things like names.

Rodney Hall: the name Rodney derives from the old English words "rod" meaning famous and "ey" meaning islands. Hall is also an old English name meaning "residence" or a large manor.

Fitting name for a man who works at a large manor by the sea

Ms. Hoffman: a German surname, Hofmann. It means "manager" or "property owner of a wealthy estate"

Ms. Hoffman is although a maid, still fitting as she does work at a luxurious hotel and is most likely a higher up alongside Rodney. If they're the ones who came upfront to clean Sebastian's little mess, they're probably high maintenance workers. (Or maybe they were just standing there at the right time.)

(extra: Barnabus's name has middle eastern roots meaning encouragement, supportive, or motivator. Fitting name for an ambassador of any hotel.)

So why "Nectar Springs"? (I made sure to double check for any historical context around the inspiration of the pierre; Brighton Palace Pierre in England. However, nothing to imply the importance of nectar or honey related around the area geographically.)

The word "nectar" comes from Greek and originally meant a magical drink that gave eternal life which came from parts that mean "not" and "kill," People started using "nectar" to mean the sweet liquid in flowers around the year 1600. Honey = Eternal life source of the bees. Blood is our honey in this case.

As for springs, "The word "spring" has its roots in the Old English word "springan", meaning "to leap, burst forth, fly up, spread, grow". It also shares origins with Dutch and German words like springhen and springen. Essentially, "spring" signifies a sudden movement or bursting forth, which is why it applies to both the season of new growth and the mechanical device that recoils or rebounds." - Google Overview

The closest thing I could make similarities between nectar and the hotel was the process of blood transfusion itself specifically. Nectar comes before the honey and therefore I researched how bees produce it. Honey symbolizing blood is a cool concept but going the extra mile to use nectar to symbolize a whole complex procedure is cooler.

I used blood transfusions as a hypothetical base to branch off of. The hotel being another blood bank would make sense but there needs to be something at the springs hotel that differs from the rest of the locations.

Sphere Music Hall, the FOL Orphanage has children (the promised neverland style), Athena Sanatorium has patients, and maids at the Heathefield Manor. All sources are groomed in different methods to become "honey."

For a queen bee perchance? RCiel/Lord Sirius? the four stars? Undertaker? Queen Victoria? The Aurora Society? (Barnabus is a member) Who is THE ultimate higher up? I know that Undertaker is the one we can blame for the blood collecting as he is the inventor of the product that needs it and yes although that be true I simply mean to ask who would the THE queen bee (who is the priority of all bee colony) parallel to? Could be all of them and maybe I'm just trying to put everything into a box mentally.

I did at first think the hotel was what represented one big flower that attracts bees but it made more sense for our guests/victims to represent flowers since they are the one's getting sucked of their nectar for the honey making. Plus the bees are in my opinion more specifically worker bees (all who work behind the scheme.)

In the early 1800's England, honey extraction used the cruel method of having to kill the bees after destroying the skeps (man made beehives made of straw) due to it being too difficult to access the honeycombs inside.

Killing bees after taking their honey? Sounds familiar to throwing out people after they're no longer of use for taking their blood.

Bees dehydrate nectar to make honey with their stomach enzymes to break down complex sugars into simpler sugars like glucose. This causes the nectar to be less liquidy.

For blood transfusions, it's the opposite. It actually requires hydration via saline.

Saline solution is simply a mix of water and 0.9% salt and it's really important to every transfusion of blood ever done. It's used for priming the tube to help prevent air bubbles, blood clotting, and dehydration.

So this small detail is what puts my analysis at a weird cross roads. I thought about reversals and switching is a big theme in Kuro anyways so it'd be a funny contrast but this is a bit much even for Toboso in my opinion.

Something interesting I discovered though was that saline wasn't used for the transfusions during the 1800s despite being invented around the 1830s though it was mainly used for patients with cholera not blood transfusions. As much as I researched every crevice and corner, there was no definite find to knowing when exactly saline priming was practiced. So as though transfusions were fatal because of blood incompatibility; it also had complications due to improper care of the blood flow.

However we do know that saline bags aren't included in the manga whenever we see blood bags attached to RCiel or Modri.

Speaking of Modri, I find his cross with wheels as a replacement for a dropper stand pretty creative. Dropper stands (the thing that carries the two blood and saline bags) weren't actually commonly used until the 1970s. So sure, it's inaccurate but it's not like no one could have come up with a device to hold something if you wanted to still move around. A gothic cross with wheels is funny.

The twins' fondness for honey could have a darker twist to make room for a joke too. R!Ciel: "Milk and honey, huh? My favorite till the end." Or something to mock about I dunno. Did you know that milk was used as a blood substitute during the earlier days before the saline solution? Milk and honey indeed.

Another small thing, if I'm correct about this symbolism then I can also add that bees are also highly associated with detective Sherlock Holmes. Holmes retires to beekeeping and even studies bee behavior to compare it to his past encounters with criminals (and people in general) for psychological research.

Remember I did mention that I was using blood transfusions as the main symbol for nectar/honey making but I also wanted to add that the nectar could mean anything really:

While the rest of the Phantomfam is out at their designated locations, Nectar Springs needs a unique method or source. I have to assume there is something special about the hotel our main characters are staying at for protagonist storytelling reasons.

or maybe it's not even blood, I think it was Tumblr user, @abybweisse who mentioned the possibility of the hotel being a hub for cinematic records to experiment memory switching.

There's definitely something way way bigger here. As big as a bee hive.

thank you for reading my first very messy analysis <3 If I left anything out that I missed, got something incorrect , or you'd like to add something please comment :)

[ciellaseine]

I know this is really late, but I saw your “combining the twins” post, and my first thought was “I know Undertaker’s crazy, but I don’t think he’d be sick enough to sew the twins together!”

Let’s call this:

🧐 to discuss a specific theory (mun responds)

No, not sew them together, however that’s similar to things Josef Mengele did to people for “research” during the Third Reich. Specifically, he was obsessed with twins, and he would do terrible experiments... like amputate limbs from twins and exchange them... to see how well the limb transplants worked. Horrid, I know. One of Dr. Andonuts’ labs in Mother3 has been compared (and not just by me) to Mengele’s experiments, since some of the lab’s tanks have identical twins in them, and Dr. Andonuts (and the Pigmask Army) created and built various types of Fascinating Chimera. Even one example of a triplet, if I recall correctly. I’ve got some old posts about that. Maybe try searching for “josef” or “mengele”?

And sewing people together is exactly what Ash/Angela does to the bodies of Vincent and Rachel in s1 of the anime....

But what I’m theorizing about Undertaker is that he collects our earl’s soul and fits it into real (bizarre doll) Ciel’s empty “soul hole” like a missing puzzle piece. That’s the only reason I can think of for Undertaker to have Baron Heathfield convinced that he needs to find a soul that’s the right “shape” to revive his dead wife. And even though Jane claims to not know what’s done with the blood, she’s also been hearing the baron go on and on about “soul shapes”. I think Baron Heathfield’s dead wife and some of the earlier maids might have been used by Undertaker to test out if it was possible. Notice that the manor went through something like a hundred maids, but Mey-Rin and Ran-Mao didn’t save nearly that many. So, some likely died earlier and were used for this experiment.

As much of an AU as s2 of the anime is, don’t forget that Claude combined Alois’ soul (stored in the Trancy ring) with “Ciel’s” body (and soul), and he emphasized that their souls had to be similar enough for this to work. And it did work, after Claude made “Ciel” recognize all the similarities between the two, which included having a brother. And don’t forget that Claude was earlier able to steal “Ciel’s” soul for a while (and keep it in the Phantomhive ring, in a tin of tea) simply because the contract was temporarily broken... simply because Sebastian had temporarily lost his left arm. The one with the contract seal on his hand.

So... I don’t think Undertaker will sew the twins’ bodies together. I think he might rip out our earl’s soul and shove it into real Ciel’s body. And he might think it would break the contract, since our earl’s soul would no longer be in the body that has the contract seal in the right eye.

[ciellaseine]

Dancing Queen, Young and Sweet~

Please vote for this outfit in the tournament! @ciels-best-fit

(for @fishfilletinacan requesting one of my favorite dresses)

[ciellaseine]

[ciellaseine]

S4, ep13

After watching ep13, I'm reminded of how seriously bad it is when our earl and Sebastian don't confide in each other the things they have done or learned or experienced, at least in regards to their contract. Our earl should have told Sebastian what he'd experienced -- what had caused all his tossing and turning in his sleep -- when Sebastian was there to wake him up.

As I just replied to an ask from @martina0144 in my DM's regarding that scene at the end (it's ch108 in the manga):

I believe Undertaker is administering some sort of medication to the real Ciel in that scene... and our earl is experiencing it to some extent because of a special bond between the mirror twins. Recall that the bedroom for real Ciel at Sphere Music Hall looks nearly identical to our earl's bedroom at Phantomhive Manor. I believe this is to give real Ciel similar experiences to our earl, just like we find out about later. Real Ciel was on a cliff, watching Kelvin's manor burn, he was on the ship with our earl etc, and he was at Weston to watch the cricket tournament. I think it's to make their memories as similar as possible; I think Undertaker wants to take our earl's soul and place it into real Ciel's body. Just like in season two of the anime, when Claude says about souls and memories/experiences. The shape of the soul has also been mentioned during Mey-Rin's and Ran-Mao's assignment in Yorkshire. I think the orphanage in Norfolk is shaping the kids' souls to match with the four advanced bizarre dolls: real Ciel, Doll/Freckles, Layla/Al, and Polaris. But I don't think real Ciel will be able to use (possibly not even get hold of) Theo's soul, and the next/best option would be our earl's. However, I think the fact they are *mirror* twins will cause a problem. The shape might be the same, but it would have to be "placed" inside backwards, and I expect that to have severe consequences.

------

In Mother3, there's no attempt to combine the mirror twins, but the younger boy must deal with the dead, soulless and reanimated older mirror twin... and one thing that the player witnesses happening to Lucas, the younger mirror twin, is an accidental psychic connection between himself and his older mirror twin, Claus.

And a later reply from me:

He's not really alive anyway, but yes, just like Claus in Mother3, I expect the older dead and reanimated mirror twin to fail and be destroyed. The only real question I have about that is exactly how. Does he choose his own demise, like Claus does, or is he merely defeated despite fighting to the very end?

[ciellaseine]

Funtoms greatest competitor

[ciellaseine]

folks...can i say something...😳

[ciellaseine]

alois my beautiful son they could never make me hate you

[ciellaseine]

dadbastian cuz I can🎻