#francis midford

[grelleswife]

Plunging feet-first into the abyss.

[abybweisse]

Found this...

And did a thing...

You know she probably also practices it while riding a horse....

[mackerel1522]

i love my girlbossing girlbosses

[rabbastian]

[alexisyoko]

Tag yourself, I'm half Sebastian, half William. I'm not saying which half...

Please check my Black Butler meme videos!

video 1, video 2, video 3, video 4

[imviotrash]

The Midfords and the inversion of gender roles

So the Midfords have been on my mind lately, specifically the way they establish themselves within a heavily gendered society.

This already starts when we look at their names. Alexis and Frances are incredibly gender neutral names, meanwhile Edward and Elizabeth are THE boy and girl names of that time.

They present themselves as the ideal family: a powerful husband, a dutiful wife, an ambitious eldest son and an engaged younger beautiful daughter, but if we look closer at the family, we see that they do not fit neatly into those categories.

-Alexis may be a man of high power and status, but he is also very much like his daughter. He's bubbly, incredibly affectionate, crafty and absolutely adoring of his strong wife.

-Francis is very well mannered and proper, but she is strict. She is very open about her opinions (especially regarding men) and is authoritative over the way people present themselves. She possesses over incredible strength (which lead to her husband falling head over heels for her) and acts as the head of the household.

For Lizzy and Edward we thankfully had some internal dialogues, which makes it a lot easier to read them.

-Elizabeth is a sweetheart and a girly girl in every sense of the word, but just like her mother she possesses over a lot of strength and skill. In terms of her behaviour and interests, she takes a lot from her father, being very affectionate and bubbly, but when faced with danger, she takes after her mother: jumping in the face of danger without a second thought and abandoning her image of a helpless girl to protect her loved ones. Her character arc revolves around her struggling to find the balance and connection between her girlhood and her strength. She is tied to the gender roles of Victorian society, but because of her families status as British knights as well as her future husband's job, she is also forced to abandon them in order to protect herself.

-Edward is ambitious gentleman and very protective over his family, but he's also incredibly awkward and his desire to be a gentleman is stretched to a very ridiculous extreme, causing the exact opposite effect of what hes trying to achieve: He doesn't trust other men, He's awkward, hes loud, he is very salty and very sex-repulsed. He does not possess the same strength as his sister and has come to accept that with grace. He takes after his mother in both looks and behaviour, although he fails to have the threatening aura his mother does, because of his awkwardness. He takes a lot after his father in terms of his awkwardness, being a little air headed just like him and being very obedient to Francis.

Overall, this family adheres to gender roles on a surface level, but the deeper you look, the more it is apparent they also stray very far from them. I love the way they are written and I do hope we get to explore more of them in depth in future arcs.

[secretanimeart]

lizzy and francis 💕

[triptych-of-voids]

If you're still taking drawing requests, then maybe Undertaker hanging out (being chaotic) with a younger Vincent and Francis? I just know this man has been lurking rent-free in that damn manor for ages now, lol.

theyre doing his hair :]

good luck getting that all untangled though

[nullbutler]

Vincent Phantomhive is back from the dead, and back with a vengeance. He wants to avenge his wife. He wants to find his sons. Most importantly, he wants to reclaim his pride. Truly, hell has not seen the force of a Watchdog on a rampage.

The first chapter of Vincent's story [vol.1] is complete! yes I'm making a fucking black butler webcomic

READ HERE

[deusa-astaroth666]

Kuroshitsuji Mandela Effect (Vincent and Francis)

Vincent doesn't have blue eyes, he has brown eyes.

Since a long time I've been noticing a very large amount of fanarts and people who color the manga putting Vincent with blue eyes.

This is because of the Phantomhive twins who have blue eyes and as the three have the same haircut, same hair color and are father and son, people imagine that Vincent has blue eyes, and the twins' eye color comes from Countess Rachel who is the mother of the two

-Francis

Another Mandela effect that occurs is that many imagine that Francis is blonde, when he is not! Her hair is gray like Vincent's, this is because of the lightness of her hair in the manga and her association again with her children, who are all blonde.

[filosof-art]

I don’t know how nobody see this dynamics before with the Midfords. My bestie and I always joking about Alexis being the Golden retriever boyfriend/ Husband and Frances the Black cat girlfriend/ wife. Lizzy obviously is a cute golden and Edward is a silly golden who tried to be a cat but he can’t.

Also nobody talk about my audacity of come back to this account days before the new season

[abybweisse]

Why I think Undertaker has to be Cedric, revisited

At this point in the series, I'm a bit surprised how many in the fandom not just don't see him as Cedric K. Ros-- but actually rail against the idea.

So, here's a long, somewhat thorough overview of the situational and physical clues that he's Cedric, the father of Vincent and Francis/Frances.

Situational hints

How he cries over the details of Vincent's death. Not just that he died but what became of his remains. I'd cry over my dead son, too, especially if I had the ability to reanimate corpses but his body was destroyed by fire so that I couldn't do that. Let alone the fact his cinematic records were destroyed, so I not only couldn't make a bizarre doll of him, but I couldn't even review his memories to see what happened right before he died. This ties in with what he later says about not wanting to lose any more Phantomhives. But it strongly suggests that whoever set the fire did so specifically to thwart the efforts of a grim reaper. Whoever did that either knew Undertaker was a reaper or was at least following the instructions of someone who knew.

The whole not wanting to lose more Phantomhives thing. Claudia/Cloudia is gone, and so is Vincent. Reanimating real Ciel is the best he can do to not let the older twin go. He tried to destroy Sebastian to release our earl "Ciel" from their demon contract and might try again. Makes you wonder just how many Phantomhives he's really lost already. As well as where others might still be alive. What exactly was his business in France? 🤔

Even his odd comment to our earl (before the attack) that he wasn't sure which twin this was... but that it didn't matter because they were both Phantomhives. Instead of seeing an heir and a spare, he saw them equally. At least he did then. I suspect he now sees our earl as a spare soul... or conversely sees real Ciel as a spare body. I guess both could be true, making them still essentially equal in his eyes. Again, this could be another attempt to save our earl from Sebastian. By putting our earl's soul into the unmarked body of real Ciel, that might void the contract... unless the seal on our earl's eye also somehow affected his soul. 🤔 Anyway. I digress, since that gets into a separate theory discussion.

Standing in to help young Mr. Pitt take a photo of the twins. That's right after telling our earl it doesn't matter which twin he is. Then the other twin and Mr. Pitt arrive, the latter holding a new camera. It's odd that Mr. Pitt would ask a non-relative of the kids (besides a nanny) to help stage the photo, though Pitt is perhaps the non-traditionalist anyway. Undertaker seems like he's shocked to be asked, but he also seems amused. Mr. Pitt likely doesn't even suspect Undertaker is the twins' paternal grandfather, otherwise he might have seen it as a scoop, á la "LOWLY UNDERTAKER IS SIRE TO PROMINENT NOBLE FAMILY" or something equally scandalous. Because undertakers were considered low class citizens. So, Undertaker acts shocked but complies with giddy delight. By asking Undertaker to help stage the photo, he has likely, unwittingly asked a relative of the boys, which would be considered completely appropriate for the time period.

How he treats the Midfords. He recognizes Lizzie's talents and skill with a sword, otherwise he wouldn't have wanted her at Sphere Music Hall as a protector of the lords of the stars, while he kept them and Blavat hidden away. So he probably had Blavat bring her into the cult. Undertaker might see some of himself in Lizzie, but he definitely sees it in Frances/Francis, and I don't just mean physically. Both women fight in a similar manner as he does: highly skillful and graceful. Idk what he thinks of Edward, but I know he got a great laugh from watching the Phantom Five (including Edward) perform onstage. He doesn't interact much, if at all, with Alexis, who isn't a Phantomhive.

What he says to Francis/Frances, as well as how she responds. Again, he hardly acknowledges Alexis' existence, but Undertaker speaks directly with "Lady Phantomhive". That's really important because she's married into the Midford family and hasn't gone by her maiden name in many years. As long as Edward is old plus at least a bit longer, since she strikes me as too proper for a shotgun wedding, even if she weren't a noble. So, he sets her apart from her husband because she was born a Phantomhive. He doesn't want to lose her, either, because she is her mother's daughter. Then, when she nervously states he hasn't changed in roughly four years, he pokes fun at the fact he hasn't changed in a much longer time frame. He says her birth, over 30 years ago, seems like just yesterday. She's sweating bullets, and it's not just his creepy vibes. She knows he means it -- that 30-some-odd years is nothing to him... and that he very specifically recalls her birth. I'm pretty sure she knows he's her father, and she's horribly embarrassed by the fact. Alexis doesn't have a clue about it, and she'd rather keep it that way. But what he says strongly implies that he was present at her birth. Maybe down the hall, like Vincent was when his sons were born, but there... and just as anxious and excited and proud.

How the years for Cedric's birth and death dates are hidden by a speech bubble. Cloudia/Claudia's dates are fully shown because she's a regular human being. Well... a human, anyway. But if Undertaker is Cedric, then the birth and death dates for him would be from when he was a human, before he committed suicide and was sentenced to serve out his punishment as a reaper. That death date could be decades or even centuries before Cloudia/Claudia was even born. Remember that this family tree isn't one prepared by humans; it's part of the dossier that the German reapers have for our earl. The focus is purely biological ancestry, not marriages. Cloudia/Claudia and Cedric don't have to be married to be on this family tree; he is biologically the father of both Vincent and Francis/Frances.

Physical hints

He looks a lot like Francis/Frances and Edward. And Yana-san tweeted years ago that Francis and Edward look like Cedric. Here's a comparison between Edward and Undertaker. Here's one between Francis/Frances and Undertaker.

The place on his right where his hair has a long braid seems to match up with Lizzie's and Francis/Frances' right side locks that tend to stick out. He's got it tucked behind his right ear, but the braid might originate from the same spot. If Lizzie and her mother pushed those locks back, behind their right ears, the placement would be the same as Undertaker's braid.

He has the exact same baby hairs at the nape of his neck as Lizzie and Francis/Frances. They might be a bit shorter, but they are definitely there. Here's an old post about it. Edward possibly does, too, and we could tell if his hair was grown out and pulled up, but his hair is short and a bit shaggy on the nape of his neck, so we can't be sure.

[blondeaxolotl]

What do you think of theory of Undertaker being Vincent and Francis Father ?

I don't think much of it! Doesn't really change my perspective of anything so I'm neutral

but if somehow the theory does end up being true, then I'm forever bullying the fuck out of Vincent and Francis cause imagine being related to this thing

[bapydemonprincess]

Another brilliant scene I CANNOT WAIT TO BE ANIMATED

[kuroshitconfessions]

I don’t think the women in Kuroshitsuji are all sexualized or stereotypes at all. Characters like Lizzie, Sieglinde, Grell, Angelina, Frances, Mey-Rin, and Doll are all complicated characters in their own right, female characters can be flawed yet interesting just like male characters can. Even in cases where they are definitely sexualized (which I am critical of btw) like Ran-Mao, Beast, or Nina, they still are intriguing characters that have agency and/or importance in the story.

^

[every-ciel-phantomhive]