puppyfan9000

I mentioned before something about writing about the Sexy Puke™️ scene in depth so since I’ve been talking a lot today: I think the Sexy Puke™️ scene from Book of Circus gets written off very quickly by people (understandably because most people don’t like puke!) but I think the scene has emotional significance that’s easy to miss. Namely that it can be considered an overture to Ciel’s weakness by Sebastian, a creature who appears early in the manga to have a contempt for human weakness.

Some things to keep in mind: this is a demon who, pre-canon, mocked a ten year old boy for crying over his twin brother’s murder by cultists to his face, resulting in said boy very quickly learning to put up a wall between his “savior” and his true feelings. In canon, one of the first significant scenes between the two is when Ciel wakes from a Poe-induced nightmare and holds a gun to Sebastian’s head, who then indirectly spends the next few minutes making fun of him for being afraid of dreams. Another early significant scene is when Sebastian questions him about his inability to shoot Madame Red despite carrying a pistol, which Ciel deflects by rationalizing his actions and even bitterly (?) quoting some lines relating to demons uttered earlier in the arc.

Sebastian is very early on defined by his disgust for human emotions and weakness. Ciel is defined by his best attempts to conceal them so that he can best keep up his charade as Earl Ciel Phantomhive, The Queen’s Watchdog, while also maintaining control over his demon so that he can’t be manipulated. This is the foundation for the roots of their relationship.

So, at the climax of Book of Circus, when Ciel’s trauma is laid bare by Baron Kelvin and Ciel vomits during a panicked flashback, the work he’d been doing to keep up that wall between his vulnerable emotions and Sebastian was unceremoniously upended. In that moment, he was forcibly removed from the power he’d reclaimed and reduced to something weak, something that Sebastian despises, something patently disgusting: a vomit-soaked, crying child. Far from the beautiful soul who marches towards the darkness.

Which makes Sebastian approaching him in this moment interesting because he doesn’t respond the way he has before. His behavior diverts from course in this moment and it becomes the first time Sebastian offers something resembling comfort. Sebastian pulls Ciel close and touches him very sensually while asking him to say his name, to make an order, unbothered by the bodily fluids in a way that only an inhuman beast who’s bathed in gallons of blood could. And by gently coaxing an order out of Ciel, in doing this, he’s actually helping to ground the boy so that he can regain his power over that moment, that sick recreation of his trauma. Posturing his demeaned state as something desirable.

It’s an overture that’s almost immediately rewarded because two scenes later we have Ciel airing out his emotions to Sebastian again, willingly, about the similar nature of humans and demons. To which Sebastian instead concedes that the weaknesses of humans is something he finds interesting, which is a stark departure from his previous disgust.

You could probably say that the Book of Circus arc was like a sort of trust fall between these two. It spearheads their growing intimacy towards one another and their relationship becomes markedly less antagonistic from this point on. While it’s a slow, subtle change, the Sebastian of the beginning of the series is very different from the Sebastian who watches his little master panic at the foot of the steps before his resurrected twin with a look of compassion. And the Ciel who rationalized away and only played his assumed role at the beginning is also very different from the enraged Ciel who ranted over a meal about taking back what belonged to him.

ask-the-undertaker

Yes! I felt like this scene had sooo many layers to it, regardless of how antis have stripped it down to just a moment that is ‘fetishizing twauma uwu’.

But it’s SO much more significant than that.

It gave Sebastian the opportunity to paint himself as Ciel’s savior yet again, therefore reinforcing the boy’s dependence upon the demon.

That moment between them reassured Ciel that Sebastian is not only his rock, but his faithful battalion. He is all of Hell on Ciel’s leash and he will willingly lose a limb to protect a single hair on that boy’s head.

That moment told Ciel that he could safely crumble and shed all of his bravado before the demon, and even with his soft underbelly exposed- even if Sebastian would see him as the vulnerable and sickly child that he is- Sebastian would still desire Ciel as he is- the spare standing in his brother’s shadow.

That moment cemented some serious trust between them, and even with how viscerally it was portrayed, it was fucking beautiful.