delicate-pointofview

[delicate-pointofview]

[delicate-pointofview]

[delicate-pointofview]

Sebastian's Use of Body Language to Assert Dominance

Manga spoilers.

Sebastian may be relatively tall (although not even in the top half of butlers in kuro when it comes to height), but he is not physically intimidating. Both Mey-Rin and Baldroy initially describe him as a 優男, basically a tall, slender man who looks gentle and delicate.

This is advantageous as a butler, who should fade into the background when serving. However, as a demon and an instrument of the Queen's Watchdog, Sebastian utilizes body language to assert dominance and control.

We can see this in his aggressive eye contact, physical touching, and invasion of personal space.

He's communicating that he's in control of the situation,

ensuring he gets what he wants with minimal fuss.

The only person I remember being uncowed is William.

Rarely, we see others use the same tactics on Sebastian himself. Sometimes successfully unsettling him:

Sometimes not:

Unsurprisingly, Sebastian's body language with Ciel contains enormous variation. In the beginning he has no respect for Ciel and communicates that, although he's temporarily in his service, Sebastian is the one in control.

Even after he settles into his role as a butler, Sebastian frequently shirks etiquette with his master.

Sometimes he uses authoritative body language to correct Ciel's childish or indecorous behavior.

At other times, the situation is so dire that Sebastian decides to immediately take charge, signaling this to Ciel by suddenly dropping any pretense of deference.

(Some of this is also clearly fanservice, but this post is attempting a Watsonian rather than Doylist explanation.)

Outside of these situations, and especially in front of others, Sebastian's body language toward Ciel is perfectly deferential (although sometimes at odds with his antagonistic or teasing words)

When acting as a butler, he refuses to sit in his master's presence, standing when Ciel enters a room and giving him the most authoritative chair.

He often waits for Ciel's signal before acting.

And when Ciel displays the strength that called to him across dimensions, Sebastian even humbles himself and bows to him on bended knee.

[delicate-pointofview]

[delicate-pointofview]

are we ready?

[delicate-pointofview]

Ciel you LITERALLY have a demon butler.

[delicate-pointofview]

I want Sebastian to be mad at Ciel. Furious. Angry to the point where his perfect calm facade slips and his fangs show, just enough to let young master know he’s at his breaking point.

how this happens? I dunno. But it’s hot.

[delicate-pointofview]

another nightmare

[delicate-pointofview]

a century later, he still remembers his face

[delicate-pointofview]

returning the favor

[delicate-pointofview]

I like to think about how Sebastian finds Ciel endearing through every emotion he goes through but frustration is one of his favorites, the way his young master ruffles his hair and the face he wears is too adorable

[delicate-pointofview]

in a future after consuming ciel's soul sebastian starts to experience "dead wife in a flashback montage" but it looks like this

[delicate-pointofview]

Kuroshitsuji S5 || Sebastian Michaelis Episode 2

[delicate-pointofview]

comforting during sickness

[delicate-pointofview]

“When someone could show you heaven, that person could show you hell too.”

— Unknown

[delicate-pointofview]

Grief is weird. People act like it’s this unifying experience- where we all hold hands and cry together. It’s not. It’s messy, and ugly, and lonely. Everyone says there is no right way to grieve, but no one tells you what to do when it festers and spreads until it kills what you used to be completely.  My Dad, for example, did not fall apart as quietly as I did. His grief is loud and angry. His grief is whiskey and growing piles of trash with clenched fists and teeth- crawling into every dark corner of that house until there is nowhere left to hide.  Where he grew into something bigger, I wilted.  I folded myself into a tiny ball and shoved it all into a locked chest within my mind. I withdrew from everything and everyone, knowing how much it hurts when one of the threads that tie us together is inexplicably severed.  I think, maybe, that made it easier for him. I was already curled in on myself when he decided to lash out. 

[delicate-pointofview]

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you