IMEEJI APP

[untiltheend]

Player name: Dre
Over 18?: Affirmative.
Contact: Drepedia#8945 @ Discord, narrowmybed @ Plurk

Character name: Sebastian Michaelis
Character canon: Kuroshitsuji (manga)

Canon Summary:

On his 10th birthday, Ciel Phantomhive's family was attacked; their manour burned down, his parents killed. Ciel himself was kidnapped and spent months being tortured by a Satanic cult. At his absolute lowest point (to put it vaguely because of spoiler reasons) Ciel, in his deep despair, decides there can't possibly be a God. This summons a demon - it offers Ciel a Contract: it will serve Ciel until he can take his revenge on whoever's responsible for his suffering, and then, as payment it will eat his soul. Somehow this is the premise of a sometimes absolutely ridiculous manga.

The demon takes the guise of Ciel's butler, is given the name "Sebastian", and together they set out to rebuild Ciel's life as the new Phantomhive earl. The idea is that Ciel will grow to be enough of an influence and threat that his family's mysterious enemies will return to finish him off - until then, Sebastian has his hands full assisting Ciel in his education to become a full-fledged earl, saving him from what seems to be semi-weekly kidnapping attempts... not to mention taking care of all the chores around the manor while staving off daily disasters caused by the other (comically incompetent) servants. To top it off Ciel's has also inherited his late father's title as Queen Victoria's "Watchdog"; an investigator of any underground going-ons that the Queen can't officially be seen engaging in (and the occasional executor of her dirtywork). Busy kid, Ciel is.

Now, being a demon comes with the advantage of being Good at Everything Ever, overpowered to the point where he can effortlessly win against an army of people, practically impossible to kill or even to seriously injure, so on and so forth. Taking on murderers, mafia bosses, werewolves, Zombies On A Boat and curry chefs (yes) are about as much work as keeping the Phantomhive manor running - and really, Sebastian would probably rate the latter as the most taxing and the most important of his jobs. Life is hard for a poor put-upon demon butler, but hey, he likes it.

Character in Canon:

Sebastian is in many ways just like you'd expect a Faustian demon to be: clever, manipulative, practically unflappable, effortlessly capable in everything he sets out to do, polite and charming on the surface while really - in deed and by own admission - cruel, sadistic and callous in regard to human life. Humans are to him weak and pathetic creatures who can occasionally be amusing and interesting in how far they are willing to go to satisfy their own selfish desires. His motivation for entering contracts in the first place? He's bored, and gobbling up just any soul he comes across is too easy and predictable.

On the other hand Sebastian's also... kind of a giant weirdo. He's a perfectionist, almost neurotically so, in absolutely everything he does, down to the last minutiae. Being five minutes late serving dinner is the same level of inexcusable as failing to protect his master Ciel from an attacker. He hates disruptions to his perfectly planned schedule and gets annoyed being behind even by a couple of minutes. For that matter, while Sebastian presents as cool and suave he's easily irritated and quick to lose his patience, often having to make an effort to conceal it. Sebastian's way of thinking also tends to come across as somewhat... odd: he has a way of solving problems in roundabout, showy, peculiar ways… when he's not simply bulldozering over them (the manga author once described him as the kind to solve problems with his muscles rather than brain. that is, he's not unintelligent; his first answer just tends to be brute force). Whenever he needs to act as a tutor he insists on dressing up specifically for the part and wearing glasses for no earthly reason other than that, apparently, that's how a teacher looks to him. He can't be in the presence of cats without being reduced to a mess of "ablublublu", and he enjoys silly demon puns. Nerd.

Upon entering their contract, Ciel gave Sebastian the following conditions:

He is to never disobey an order from Ciel.
He is to always protect Ciel and never betray him.
He is never to lie.

Sebastian sticks to these rules with complete dedication, living his new life according to "a butler's aesthetics": his service is impeccable at all times no matter what, and he takes his role as a butler with utmost seriousness. Sebastian is confident, proud and more than a little stubborn, and thus he operates on a somewhat circular logic where, if Ciel orders him to defeat an opponent he will win, and if he says he will complete a seemingly impossible task he can do it, because otherwise he would break his word, and that's unthinkable.

We know very little about demons in the Kuroshitsuji verse – not even if they need to enter contracts with humans in order to consume souls. We do know they come from a different realm than humans, where they live with no laws, no responsibilities, no ties – all they have is their "aesthetics". This gives us valuable insight into how demons function: the only thing to give them meaning in their long lives is an arbitrarily chosen set of self-imposed standards. It may well be that nothing at all stops them from diverging from those standards… but then they're right back to their old purpose-less life. No wonder, then, that Sebastian is so willing to submit to others, work around the clock, endure all kinds of tasks heaped on him, suffer incompetent co-workers, and more than once nearly break his own neck to save his master – he could walk away from it all at any given moment and find some cheap souls to gobble up, but, heaven forbid, then he'd go back to being bored.

The takeaway here is that everything Sebastian does and endures as his master's pawn is a personal challenge and part of a game. Succeeding in getting dinner served on time is a game. Winning against an opponent is a game. Burning down a house full of innocent children while pursuing a criminal is a game. His thirteen-year-old child master's new life purpose, to get revenge on his tormentors and then die, is a game. Sebastian treats it all as such – certainly he's particular about always doing a good job and in that sense, Ciel's life goal is in good hands, but ultimately this is all for Sebastian's own entertainment, and his master better deliver or he might spice things up on his own. At one point, Ciel orders Sebastian to conduct an extensive investigation in order to track down a murderer. Sebastian dutifully does as he's told, only to then reveal that he knew all along Ciel was on the wrong track and that the investigation would be a complete waste of time. Why he didn't say anything sooner? Why, he's only a chess piece, and it's on Ciel to make the right moves with him. At another point, he deliberately puts Ciel in danger by following an order to the literal letter, since it's "your own fault if you give an unclear order" and "a game without thrills becomes boring".

As you can see, Sebastian likes to be an obnoxious bastard when the opportunity arises. He's not kind by any stretch of the imagination: a self-described sadist ("while I dislike being kicked, I do enjoy the feeling of kicking others"); world champion levels of passive-aggressive on a daily basis; blatantly enjoying himself when given the opportunity to intimidate, beat, or kill on his master's orders; outright acknowledged to be no good for Ciel's mental health and he himself remarking that misery will only make Ciel's soul taste all the better in the end. It would be a stretch to call him evil, however: Sebastian might revel in cruelty, but he never makes a move to, or as much as indicates he'd want to, inflict it on anyone whom he doesn't personally dislike or whom Ciel hasn't ordered him to deal with. He's not one to commit cruelties just for the sake of doing so – in fact, he's more likely to be randomly helpful (one of the official character guides mentions that he sometimes gives his pocket money away to random strangers, since he has no use for material possessions anyway). More than anything else, Sebastian enjoys doing things well, whether they be good or bad things, and he likes being recognised and praised for his good work. Being helpful neatly ticks both boxes.

While he'll needle, and make covert snide remarks to his master and others who annoy him, not to mention chew the household servants out and downright terrify them when they make mistakes, Sebastian doesn't speak unkindly to people who have not somehow, for lack of a better word, "earned" it. Ciel's fiancée at times confides in Sebastian how she worries that nothing she does makes Ciel happy, and instead of being distantly polite with her – which would be well within the bounds of proper butler behaviour – Sebastian often takes the time to reassure her that her fiancé does appreciate her efforts. Sebastian actually seems to generally appreciate honest, kind people (Ciel's fiancée and fellow butler Agni are examples) if they also show themselves to be competent and driven. Honesty, drive, competence and [insert vague hand gesture here] being interesting seem to be qualities he values regardless of whether a person otherwise is morally reprehensible or as pure as the fallen snow. It's a mistake, however, to assume Sebastian cares about anyone even if he might appreciate them: demons are incapable of the emotional depth of humans, and Sebastian often states that he does not understand humans. Oh, he's perfectly skilled at reading them and imitating them, but truly empathising with anyone is quite beyond him. And why would he want to, besides? Sebastian is firmly, unshakably of the conviction he is leagues above everyone else, humans in particular.

It's hard to draw a clear line where the demon ends and Sebastian the butler begins, since we see so little of the demon before it became Sebastian. Does he really have such refined tastes, or did he adopt them because it's what suits a butler? While he does seem to draw some innate perfectionist pleasure from performing well, we know for a fact that Ciel's high demands on him have exacerbated this trait. In the end, a clear distinction isn't necessary. Sebastian's catchphrase in Japanese, a pun that means both "I am a butler to the core" and "I am a butler and a demon", is an accurate description of his character: he really is a butler to his fingertips at the same time as being a demon. As long as he's contracted to Ciel, neither part of him is less true than the other.


Character in Imeeji:

We briefly, briefly get to see a glimpse of what Sebastian is like before he forms the Contract with Ciel. When you strip away his thick layers of fake butler persona, you get: a blatantly arrogant, and much more of a visibly bad person than what he normally presents as. According to the manga author, demons are "hyper narcissistic" by nature. He's condescending, smug, and self-serving; he lies and attempts to cheat Ciel out of a fair contract. He's still very polished and refined - he keigo's all over the place even while calling Ciel a pathetic little crybaby and discussing murder - but his insincerity shines through clear as day.
Fortunately (???), faking it, and being whatever he's required to be at the moment are also innate traits of his, and despite his arrogance, he takes directions well: he'll likely listen to what his unitmates tell him is a correct way to act (Unit Aesthetics are important, after all). He'll probably even emulate his unit's Traits at all times just to be Extra. It'll be as fake as his butler persona, but at least Sebastian takes his faking very seriously.

As for how he'll deal with the setting... LMAO Sebastian is an attention sponge; he'll love being an idol. He's probably not even emotionally capable of being all that traumatised by anything - at most, his ego might be taken down a peg or two (which his ego will survive).


Unit Preferences:

I know you say don't look too much at unit Traits when stating your preferences, but. this nerd would, and he'd end up completely unrecognisable acting out some units' Traits. He'll prioritise his unitmates' directions over Traits, however (so, say BEDE's aesthetic is "be punk and do crime" but all BEDE members agree they're actually the Nice Unit, Sebastian will listen to that).

Anyway. I stated earlier that Sebastian will listen to his unitmates and take their advice. Addendum to that: he'll listen if he finds his unimates reasonable and worth listening to. He wouldn't dismiss people who are kind, but he'd disregard those who are too naive, airheaded, or idealistic to the point of forgoing practicality. During trauma Games, he'll obviously have no problem whatsoever with murder and will greatly enjoy it. With that said, he won't necessarily always advocate for rough play - there are several instances in canon when Sebastian steps in to break up fights, or stops an individual from hurting someone else in the heat of the moment: in the end, he values practicality over murder funsies.
Ideally, I'd like him to be placed with characters who will steer him away from his natural asshole tendencies - his unitmates being his fake butler persona substitute, if you will. Please let me know if this isn't enough for you to go on!

1st Priority: Taisho
2nd Priority: BARiTONES, ☆ZRAEL
Do Not Place: LiliS, sensitIV, Wild City (he'll never be able to pick just one animal. he'll want CAT and TIGER and PANTHER and LYNX and and and), Future Is Now.

Voice Sample:

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/miraclecountry/5416.html?thread=3105576#t3105576

http://asylums.insanejournal.com/miraclecountry/7119.html?thread=3786191#t3786191

(The Sebastian is me! I've noted that on the profile: http://servingdinner.insanejournal.com/profile)