sirenspull application
Player Information
Name: Seth
Age: 25
AIM SN: Zarathustra wove
email: sethkukai[at]gmail[dot]com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes. At present, I have 3 characters in dirtyvegasrp that have been there for 7+ months apiece.
Currrently Played Characters: I have never played in Siren's Pull.
Conditional: Activity Check Link:
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Kuroshitsuji 2
Canon Format: anime
Character's Name: Claude Faustus. This is the name given to him by Alois Trancy, the human he made a demonic contract with. There is no stated canon significance to either first name or last, although "Faustus" is likely a reference to the protagonist of a German folktale who had a similar contract.
Character's Age: Unknown, but he is an immortal demon. He appears to be in his late 20's to early 30's. The series creators said that Claude is at least as old as another demon, Sebastian Michaelis. Sebastian claims to have met the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Smenkhkare--who reigned in 1333 BC--so Claude must be 3,000+ years old.
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take? Claude's antique pocket watch will be replaced by an NV unit that resembles a digital pocket watch like this design here. On the inside, there are two display screens: one where the watch's face should be, and the other on the inside cover. The first screen bears a keyboard and other modes of input (like a camera), while the second will be for watching/reading the Network. The NV's exterior is still a gold pocket watch, attached to Claude's usual watch chain. The lid has the Trancy family crest embossed on top.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Claude Faustus is an ancient demon with a human master, and thus has quite a few abilities:
--Inhuman strength, speed, and reflexes. He is extraordinarily acrobatic, jumping and flipping everywhere, and his sense of balance is perfect... unless he is intoxicated by something. He is quite the skilled dancer in styles ranging from flamenco to ballet.
--Control over the elements of nature. Claude demonstrates extreme proficiency with controlling water. He can kick the surface of a lake to create multiple destructive waterspouts at will. He also has some grasp on fire, since he is able to command candles to light up in the first episode. Whenever he clashes with Sebastian Michaelis, there is always a lot of wind and thunder to accompany them.
--Transforming into a spider. His spider form looks like an unexceptional, if slightly large barn spider with light and dark brown stripes. As a spider, he can do normal spider things, such as spinning webs and catching prey in them. It's good for surveillance purposes. In this same vein, he can command spider mites and probably many other spiders. Claude can also use other kinds of transformation magic, like when he redecorates the whole Trancy mansion in no time at all.
--Supernatural spider threads. Since Claude is a demon with a strong connection to spiders, he can manifest very thin but very deadly spider threads that sound like high-tension wires when he tightrope-walks across them. They're shown capable of cutting through solid rock, and he explains that they can cut through steel. Against flesh, they cut as easily as the sharpest razor wire does. Apparently, they can be turned invisible and/or immaterial, since Sebastian doesn't even notice them being woven around him until he is trapped in the very center of a web.
--Spider-Man web-shooting. Not even kidding. From within his left wrist, Claude can shoot out webbing like a superhero. It can reach long distances, wrapping around and adhering to whichever surface or object he wants. He can swing around on it, too, so the webbing is obviously strong enough to support him.
--Ability to infiltrate dreams. Perhaps in reference to spider webs being associated with dreamcatchers, Claude can intercept and/or enter humans' dreams to communicate with them.
--Extreme dexterity with his hands for creating instantaneous origami, very detailed crochet designs, and epic sculptures out of cake batter.
--Impressive swordsmanship. He seems to know how to handle a sword very well; he's elegant and powerful with every attack.
--Limited telepathy. He communicates psychically with Sebastian during one of their battles.
--Bewitching birds. Claude can call down birds from the sky to him, and they'll trust him completely.
--Enhanced healing/regeneration ability when wounded.
--Generally, Claude is highly, supernaturally skilled at any and all domestic duties (such as cooking and cleaning) due to his identity as Alois Trancy's butler.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Weapons: Claude is able to manifest an endless supply of gold cutlery--specifically, butter knives. He turns most of these into projectiles, but they can also be used in close quarters combat for striking and blocking. The knives are made of much, much harder material than normal.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: From the Kuroshitsuji wiki. Unavoidably, his personality section below explores many of the listed events.
Point in Canon: Post-canon (after episode 12), after Claude has died and achieved eternal enlightenment (nirvana) with Alois Trancy, Luca Macken, and Hannah Annafellows.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history:
Character Personality:
EDIT, 5/31: As of the final OVA about the Trancy family, some of the following is incorrect. I'll... eventually go through and fix it up, but just bear that in mind. Claude's default personality--before Ciel's soul influenced it, even at a distance--was more like a lower key Episode 10 (cf CRACK ADDICT). Believe it or not.
Claude Faustus is the primary antagonist of Kuroshitsuji 2. He is a demon that holds a Faustian contract with a young boy named Alois Trancy, acting as a head butler to the Trancy household and fulfilling the terms of their contract. To ease understanding, please internalize the following about Alois: when Claude and Alois met, Alois was actually a slave named Jim Macken. "Alois Trancy" and "Jim Macken" are the same person, describing two periods of Alois' life that must be differentiated to be factually correct. Since I'm not writing an application for Alois, I won't get too into what all that is about aside from Claude's contributions to the how and why of that duality.
That said, Claude is one hell of a butler. He's also ridiculously complex. I'm going to break this character up into four distinct sections: THE BUTLER, THE DEMON, THE CRACK ADDICT, and THE REDEEMED.
THE BUTLER
To be honest, most people will never get to know anyone but Claude-the-butler! The butler persona is just a front he presents to the rest of the world, which he uses to more easily honor his obligation to fulfilling Alois' wishes. The butler is a mysterious, austere, stoic man--"a black butler"--that showed up alongside Alois Trancy one day out of seemingly nowhere. He infrequently has facial expressions, aside from small movements of his eyebrows and lips that demonstrate pale versions of irritation, focus, sincerity, pleasure, and surprise. He cannot be goaded into any extreme emotions like anger or happiness, not even by his master Alois. When he says something, he is doing so for a good reason; the words he chooses to say are measured and careful. He performs every task he's given to perfection, no matter what it is, effortlessly and efficiently. It takes the same amount of effort to wake up Alois every morning as it does to transform the Trancy mansion's décor at a moment's notice.
Transformation embodies the Trancy butler. His catchphrase follows a very simple yet profound formula-- "I transform day into night, sugar into salt, saints into corpses, and navy into golden. That's what makes a Trancy butler." Another example: "I transform day into night, pleasure into pain, and waltzes into requiems." And another: "Day into night, snow-white into crimson, and lies into truth." He is a cold, unaffected, logical man that divides his world into neat opposing halves because it's easiest to comprehend and digest that way.
He is polite, proper, refined, accommodating, responsible, and invested in managing a clean, efficient household. He is well-versed in all the rules of the house, Victorian England society and how to treat guests of the house, expectations of a nobleman's butler, and good manners. For example, he admonishes Sebastian Michaelis for wearing a coat to the dinner table. Other times he is quick to passive-aggressively point out that Sebastian has failed his duties as a butler for X, Y, and Z reasons (mostly related to disobeying orders). "To a butler, the master's orders are absolute," Claude says, rehashing something Sebastian told him early on. It's another passive-aggressive jibe...
Because there is an undercurrent of passive-aggressiveness to Claude-the-butler. Claude will be passive-aggressive when confronted by people he genuinely detests. (There aren't many of those! They're limited to people that want to fuck up his plans: Sebastian Michaelis, another demon in his home named Hannah Annafellows, death gods investigating him, and even Alois Trancy later on.) If he isn't interested in a conversation, he'll do his best to politely stop responding or, in Alois' case, flat out not respond. He doesn't indulge silly whims related to emotions, like Alois telling him to laugh; he's too serious to have stuff like that dictated to him by Alois. But he is patient enough, as evidenced through early supplemental canon on Kuroshitsuji 2's official Twitter, to indulge Alois in playing hide-and-seek, searching for the lucky white deer, making a hundred dolls, singing a lullaby, reading a bedtime story, and any other fun and childish things.
He seems to look out for his master's enjoyment and best interests at all times. He'll dote on Alois whenever the boy is upset, which includes providing physical comfort. When the need arises, Claude holds Alois' face and insistently reassures him of his (soul's) worth. They're "constant companions," Claude murmurs, so Alois doesn't need to do anything special to have his attention. Claude enjoys taking any orders from Alois and receiving actual physical punishments for failure, since he displays a lot of masochism later. (Being slapped or kicked in the face is pretty awesome to Claude.) Of course, his willingness to receive orders just seems unnatural--at one point, Alois accuses him of being brainless livestock. Receiving orders is extremely important to Claude, because he is also...
THE DEMON
To call Claude-the-demon a manipulative motherfucker would be an understatement. Behind that stoic, unruffled butler's façade is a hungry demon that simply wants his next meal--and he'll do anything to get that meal exactly how he wants it. He will outright lie, even to his own master; he'll cheat, hurt, trick, and steal his way to victory. More than anything, the demon is a greedy and cruel monster that will go as far as Stockholming young boys, transforming (!) them from independent badasses into dependent brats. (More on this soon...!)
The demon's familiar is a spider; since he can transform into one, he is known as the Spider Butler by other demons. He embodies an evil spider in many ways--cunning, patient, bloodthirsty, tricky, ever-waiting for the opportunity he needs to strike when his victims' defenses are lowered the most. His logical mind, intelligence, and keen observational skills are his best allies for doing this. The series creators said that the entire aim was to create a butler-demon character that was much more of an opponent than Kuroshitsuji 1's angel antagonist. According to them, Claude-the-demon is stronger than that angel, "possibly" more skilled than Sebastian, capable and seemingly flawless, and just as experienced if not more so than Sebastian is.
Looping back around, Claude Faustus is ultimately just a manipulative motherfucker. Among the many things that he has done to manipulate the environment and people around him:
1) As mentioned above, Claude is responsible for why his master's personality changed fucking drastically. When Claude and Alois met--remember that duality I mentioned?--Alois was actually a slave named Jim Macken whose life experiences made him feel largely apathetic and meaningless. Jim had no reason to live, so Claude decided to give him one: Jim could think of a wish upon which to base their demonic contract. (It should be noted that Claude was originally summoned when Jim used an incantation that another slave talked about. Though the incantation isn't real magic, it does attract Claude to the person saying it. That probably means Claude has been preying upon children in the same way for a while.) Jim was able to come up with a wish--one shrouded in vagueness--and their contract was formed. From there, Claude somehow broached the subject of Jim's murdered little brother Luca. Claude had no qualms about lying to Jim about the identity of Luca's murderer. Claude said, in no uncertain terms, that Luca was killed by another demon named Sebastian Michaelis, whose own contract was to a boy named Ciel Phantomhive. Carefully and craftily, Claude got Jim to issue the order he wanted to hear: "Bring me Ciel Phantomhive."
For whatever reason--no canon elaboration given, sadly--Claude seemed to have a vendetta against Sebastian Michaelis. His plan, which he diffused through Jim and was ordered to carry out, was to take away Ciel Phantomhive from Sebastian, force Sebastian to suffer tremendously for all the horrors he'd supposedly committed, and then consume Ciel's soul (although that last part was kind of an unknown element to Alois for a long time). In reality, Claude knew or soon learned that another demon named Hannah had been the one to kill Luca. He kept this hidden from Jim in order to continue carrying out his own goals of challenging and hurting Sebastian.
For the next three years of his contract with Jim--after they killed Lord Trancy and Jim was given a new identity as Alois Trancy (Lord Trancy's long-lost son), and while they're waiting for Sebastian and Ciel to open themselves up to attack--Claude slowly morphed Jim from Jim Macken into an almost entirely different person. It got to the point where Alois rejects "Jim Macken" as his real name, even at the subconscious level. Claude made or let Jim become Alois from the ground up. Period. For this reason, I think Claude has some sort of god complex. He transformed this apathetic, sadistic almost-adult into a dependent and needy child just by being constantly attentive, considerate, spoiling, and doting. He gave Jim a fairy tale come to life by granting wishes--he handed out the attention that Jim had been craving for his entire life, turning Jim into psychological putty that he then reshaped into Alois Trancy.
Mind games are a must to imagine, though they're only briefly touched upon in canon. For example, Claude used the phrase "Your Highness"--a term of endearment that Luca had for Alois--to constantly remind Alois of what was at stake, and also to make him feel like royalty. Genuine facial expressions could have been used to scare, sicken, and unbalance Alois. There is also reason to believe that Claude reinforced Alois' fear of the dark into a full-blown, crippling phobia, just because it'd be easy to manipulate him via darkness. And Claude reveals that he had the rose gardens surrounding the Trancy mansion enchanted to ward off any intruders/unaccounted for visitors. Since the mansion was so quiet and lonely anyway with only stoic demons around (Claude, Hannah, and Hannah's mute triplet demons), Alois craved any stimulus he could possibly get--and by the end it all came from Claude only. There was no one else worth a damn in Alois' world.
Then, eventually, Claude was able to steal Ciel's soul away from Sebastian. He presented it to Alois, and a few months later, the series began.
Why did Claude do that to Alois? Because he could. Because he was bored. It's that simple and just so cruel. Claude asserts that Alois Trancy is still a worthy soul to him--until he gets a taste of Ciel, anyway--so it must not bother him much at all, if at all. He was still very much impressed by Jim Macken's original personality, but Claude wanted a dependent, needy master for whatever unelaborated upon reason.
2) Claude convinced Sebastian that Ciel's soul was imperfect due to the amnesia that Ciel suffered after his soul was returned to his body. Ciel forgot that he had finished his own contract of obtaining revenge for his humiliation and his parents' deaths. According to Claude, that meant Ciel was incomplete until a second revenge was attained. Together, Claude and Sebastian made a demonic pact with roses to give Ciel that second revenge--Claude offered up Alois Trancy (his own master!) as a scapegoat for those crimes against Ciel and Ciel's family. In exchange, they'd battle evenly for who got to consume Ciel's complete soul. HOWEVER, Claude sabotaged the rose pact from the very first moment by infesting the roses with spider mites. Sebastian didn't find that out until much later.
More or less, Claude predicted Sebastian's every fucking move ever and then played him for a complete fool. The series creators admit that if they hadn't made Claude get "progressively weirder" after a certain event (cf. CRACK ADDICT), which caused him to act bizarrely and erratically, then there was a good chance he would have bested everyone in the series.
3) Claude brainwashed Ciel Phantomhive into believing he was Alois Trancy. This was his most detailed, complex plan overall that he put into motion while also high as fuck (cf. CRACK ADDICT). It might've been even more elegant and impressive if he had been clear-headed. Regardless:
First of all, Claude perpetrated a series of violent assaults on the children in London, gouging out their eyes and compelling them to lie about who the perpetrator was. The Queen of England ordered Ciel to check into these assaults, though Sebastian mused that it was Claude forging Her orders. Ciel and Sebastian started investigating; midway through interviewing locals, Sebastian was attacked and led away from Ciel by two death gods that believed Sebastian had been manipulating souls recently. (Actually, Claude was the one messing around with souls, but he somehow pinned the blame on Sebastian.) While Sebastian was busy fighting for his life, Claude had Hannah and humans from a mental asylum find and accuse Ciel of being the eye-gouging assailant: Alois Trancy. Ciel freaked his shit, since he definitely was not Alois Trancy, but the mental asylum people carted Ciel away anyway.
Likely at Claude's direction, they tortured Ciel by dunking him in liquid over and over again, repeatedly telling him he was Alois Trancy as they tore down his psychological defenses. (Sebastian accused Claude of using "medicine" to confuse Ciel, so the liquid in the dunking tank might have been infused with some sort of psychotropic drug.) Afterward, when Ciel was visibly traumatized and questioning his identity, Claude performed a "soul-infusing ceremony" to seamlessly blend Ciel's memories together with Alois'. To make a long story short, though CRACK ADDICT's section will add to this: Claude killed Alois, turned Alois' soul into a ring, and put the ring on Ciel to inject Alois' soul into him and bind the two souls together as best as he could. He planned to eat them both.
4) Believe me when I say that I could go on and on and on about the fucked up shit that Claude has masterminded throughout the series. I'll stop here, though, and say this:
In general, Claude Faustus is a master strategist behind everything that happens. He's so much of one that he even creates battlefield strategies for other Trancy servants, giving each formation its own name like he's playing Pokémon or something.
Also, it should be evident that Claude has extreme understanding of both demon and human psychology. Unfortunately, there's a bit of bad news for him and his plans: he did not plan for Alois Trancy falling in love with him instead of just staying a needy, spoiled child that wanted his protection and approval. Claude seems to strongly dislike love--after all, Kuroshitsuji demons are defined as hatred incarnate in season 1. Alois himself says that his love is muddling the taste of his soul, and when exposed to that love, Claude seems impatient and disgusted with Alois. ("Don't be ridiculous, master." After Alois professes even more love: "What a thing to say to a mere butler." And after killing Alois: "Not to worry, master. A crude little soul who gives his love to a butler... I could hardly work up an appetite for that. I'll keep you always with me. I have a use for your soul.") EDIT: LOL J/K WE GOT TROLLED. This is how Claude felt about love while under the influence of Ciel's blood (cf. CRACK ADDICT). It completely did a 180 to many of his personality traits, turning his ideal master from Alois Trancy into Ciel Phantomhive. Oops.
His relationship with Alois, overall, is something I could talk about at extreme length. I'll sum it up by paraphrasing what the series creators had to say: Claude and Alois are "dependent on each other, so after a while you can't understand anymore who is the spider and who is the butterfly." The creators thought it might be "erotic" to portray "such a sticky relationship." It reminds them of a "subtle husband and wife scenario," and they call Kuroshitsuji 2 "a grand lovers' quarrel" between Claude and Alois. Although Claude and Alois are constantly rating each other's value, "it tends to feel like some kind of romance." That romantic-feeling dependence Claude has on Alois is very important--he's a spider that, unbeknownst to him until the very end, has been caught up in his own nefarious web of deceit and treachery. In crafting Alois' current self, Claude made the one person that could and did utterly destroy him. Claude created the agent of his own demise.
Now, you might be asking... why is Claude Faustus such a bastard? Like, really? Why the fuck?
Short answer: He's a lonely, bored demon that has nothing better to do with his life.
Long answer: He has lived for so long; for far too long. He has eternal life--more time than he knows what to do with. The only thing that gives him any sort of pleasure is the taste of human souls, so he spends his days tinkering with them via contracts in search of the "ultimate flavor" that will give him orgasmic bliss (cf. CRACK ADDICT). If there is anything going on between Claude and Sebastian in their backstory pertaining to why Claude targeted Sebastian specifically, it's never ever explained. However, there is an upcoming OVA about the Trancys slated for the end of May, and maybe that will fill in some blanks.
THE CRACK ADDICT
So, I want you to take everything you just learned and put that on hold. Claude thus far has been characterized by his quiet, stoic demeanor that hides a hungry demon's chessmaster mind. Almost all of that gets thrown right out the window when episode 7 happens: Claude inadvertently tastes Ciel Phantomhive's blood.
Due to events in Kuroshitsuji 1 that I won't explain here, Ciel's blood (and soul) has become the equivalent of potent crack cocaine for demons. In Claude's own words: "[Ciel] knows blood and death and darkness, and yet his soul is pure, untainted, immaculate... Day into night, pleasure into pain, and this chance encounter into... ecstasy..." The effect this glorious blood has on Claude is nothing short of devastating.
Yep.
The series creators say Claude gets "progressively weirder" after tasting the blood, but that phrasing doesn't even begin to describe what happens to him. Claude becomes singularly obsessed with Ciel--something that he mocked Sebastian for at the beginning--until he drives himself insane. He starts acting bizarrely and erratically, breaking his own rules for conduct and propriety. He displays all manner of facial expressions that he mostly hid before. He reveals his now-enhanced emotions freely, wearing what little heart he has on his sleeve.
He murders Alois without a second thought and transforms Alois' soul into a ring so he can use it as a tool to obtain Ciel for himself.
He waxes poetic about Ciel's everything--Ciel's slender legs and feet, Ciel's teeth being brushed ("Perfectly uniform, close-fitting teeth like a row of fresh young skulls... close-fitting, tight, enchanting..."), Ciel's reckless and tyrannical pride.
The most disturbing thing is how Claude becomes a demon Disney Princess: he's so ecstatic that he communes with nature, drawing in canaries to sit on him and putting sweetbriar flowers in his hair. He demonstrates a heretofore unknown ability of making origami and crocheting a super complex wedding shawl for Ciel.
He even dances ballet like there's no tomorrow while explaining his villainous, cracked out plans to the other Trancy servants--it gets so silly, it's fucking surreal. At times, he'll be weirdly excited about having Ciel to himself, as when he yells out the window about HOOOW GOOOOD (HOOOW GOOOD (hooow good, the echo goes)) Ciel's soul is, just to annoy Sebastian.
When confronted with Sebastian's obvious angst, Claude is playfully derisive and mocks Sebastian time and time again for being a loser.
Above all else, Claude loathes and/or dismisses and kills anything or anyone that gets in his way on his insane crusade to obtain Ciel's soul. I mean, you just need to watch this video. It covers what I'm trying to say very well.
you're my cuppy cake from Terri Berri on Vimeo.
Ciel Phantomhive is Claude's cuppycake of ecstasy. There is a tremendously skeevy moment where Claude doodles mindlessly on a piece of paper. If you pause and zoom in, it's possible to see phrases like "Ciel Phantomhive," "delicious soul," "a soul to be relished," etc. on the paper, as if he's a lovesick girl writing in the margins of her notebook about her biggest crush yet.
THE REDEEMED
The series reaches its conclusion when Sebastian Michaelis uses the sword Lævateinn to fatally stab Claude for trying to steal Ciel away. Lævateinn is an "ancient, cursed sword of eternal darkness" that prevents any wound it inflicts on a demon from healing. As Claude begins to die, he comes back down from his blood-induced high and tries to understand everything that happened while he was tripping balls.
The most important thing here is that Claude finally acknowledges Alois Trancy as a soul worthy of his hunger and attention. He realizes that it was Alois who bested him in the end, not Sebastian or Ciel. Alois "made a stir in the long, long, idle life of a demon" and should be commended for it. Right before dying, Claude repeats a variation of his catchphrase one more time:
"Passion into insincerity, lies into truth, and a stray dog into an earl."
What happens afterward is described by Hannah, Alois, and some official art. Hannah says that Alois defeated Claude, "ending Claude's life as a demon." When she dies too, not long after, she happily proclaims that her, Alois, Luca, and Claude's love will allow them to achieve eternal enlightenment (nirvana) with each other. Alois has a voice over stating that they're going to stay together forever.
What does that mean? Well, apparently they really do get to nirvana! Official art released post-canon corroborates that assertion: Claude and Alois standing in a field of black and white roses, a location associated with the edge of reality. Alois embracing Claude peacefully while sitting on a large, dew-covered spider's web. The eternal happy family with Sebastian being hella jealous of them. There is also this random picnic scene that may or may not belong in nirvana, but I'd say it is nirvana because there is no other time that Claude and Alois look so peaceful with and adoring of one another. (Ciel and Sebastian are only there for promotional purposes.) Yes, Claude and Alois are at last at peace.
Nirvana literally means "blowing out" or "extinguish"--in the Buddhist context, this refers to blowing out the fires of greed, hate, and delusion. Wikipedia goes on to say, in much more eloquent terms than I could ever hope to: The Buddha described nirvāna as the perfect peace of the state of mind that is free from craving, anger, and other afflicting states. It is also the "end of the world;" there is no identity left and no boundaries for the mind. The subject is at peace with the world, has compassion for all, and gives up obsessions and fixations. This peace is achieved when the existing volitional formations are pacified and the conditions for the production of new ones are eradicated. In nirvāṇa, the root causes of craving and aversion have been extinguished, so that one is no longer subject to human suffering or further rebirth in samsāra.
When I look at those pictures above of post-canon Claude Faustus, I see something similar to these descriptions of nirvana. Alois has freed Claude of his inherent demonic traits, like that eternal hunger--Claude is blissfully happy and loving and loved.
The problems begin again when Claude is taken out of nirvana and put in Siren's Port with an Alois that has a much, much earlier canon point (right before episode 4).
Conditional: Personality development in previous game:
Character Plans: Siren's Port isn't nirvana. When Claude arrives, he will still be under nirvana's influence--but that will wear off soon enough. (Nirvana will have a lasting effect on his mind, however. The restoration of his demonic hunger will be particularly vexing to him.) Basically, he's going to get in touch with Alois, integrate into the "Phancyhive" family, and be a source of awful conflict for Alois and anyone who cares about Alois. Claude will also be very much conflicted and at war with himself over the events of Kuroshitsuji 2, since he'll be confronted with an earlier canon point Alois and if he could do it all over again, would he? Could he do it better? Does he still acknowledge Alois? So on and so forth. There's also Ciel Phantomhive to deal with... and it might not be the crack cocaine Ciel from his timeline, but powerful addictions are partly memory.
Also, everything I've said about Alois has the blessing of Rinna (Alois-mun). I made sure that our characters would mesh well.
Appearance/PB: Right here, wearing his usual butler attire. The glasses, given to him by Alois, are not necessary for him to see. His contract mark is on the back of his left hand and his nails are black; he hides both with white gloves. His eyes will turn from gold to shimmery purple-red when he is tapping into his demonic power. It's hinted in the show's opening that he has a true form, which other demons do, but nothing beyond sharper teeth is seen of it.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample Network post, video format:
[Two proud Canadian geese. They're the only things of visible interest, standing no more than a few yards away. The video stays steady as a white-gloved hand moves into view, its palm turned to the sky and holding a few leaves of romaine lettuce. The geese immediately notice the offering, but they're too wary to approach for some reason.]
You've nothing to fear, [says someone off-camera, addressing the geese, not the Network. The voice is definitely masculine and has a vague foreign accent. Despite having an undertone that can only be described as dark, the cameraman speaks gently and calmly.] I always preferred red meat to poultry.
[Just like that, both geese forget their fears and make a mad dash for the cameraman. He tears the lettuce into smaller pieces (one-handed and fast as hell, displaying amazing dexterity) to feed them each an equal portion.]
Hmm.
[The view, still steady, rotates away from the geese to reveal his surroundings: this is a very nice residential area of Siren's Port. Beautiful landscaping, magnificent houses--wonderfully pure greed in material form. He lingers on some architecture, but the viewpoint keeps going until it's aimed over his shoulder at the impressive mansion behind him.
Then, much more directly:] They have no difficulty finding their way home after flying south for the winter. [With a change in angle, the cameraman's wavy black hair appears. He turns his head enough to reveal part of his pale face, which is wearing glasses that don't do much to hide mellow gold eyes.] After such a long absence, it must feel nostalgic. [Pause.] I cannot recall being here at any point--
[When the mansion replaces him again, it might be recognizable by now to its residents and visitors--the Phantomhive estate. The cameraman is standing outside in front of the approximate location of Alois Trancy's bedroom.]
But it is nostalgic, and much like a dream. And in dreams... hoheo taralna...
[It's another offering--it's bait, and now Claude Faustus must wait patiently for a bite. The video ends there.]
Third Person Sample
Claude stared dully at the bookshelf. If he wasn't mistaken (and he never was), this bookshelf had been crafted from solid ponderosa pine for the base and hardwood for the fluted moldings. Anyone else would think the design was sophisticated, enough to express time and expense, but Claude looked at it and just thought,
Amateur.
When he touched the bookshelf with his bare fingers, Claude was sure he could feel Sebastian Michaelis lurking inside of the wood. That demon created this bookshelf, and this library, and this entire mansion that Claude was now standing in. Claude's stomach burned with anger and memories that made his hunger more poignant. There was no way he could have reminders of Sebastian as constant as this without going mad.
Claude abruptly swept his hand over the bookshelf and changed it all from the ground up. The pine and hardwood whined softly as it transformed into exotic, solid cherry wood with a cinnamon brown glaze finish and svelte trim. Cherry wood was much hardier, better textured; as it got older, it would only become more beautiful as its unique red tones deepened.
The other parts of the library weren't exempt from redecoration. Claude exchanged the silver light fixtures with gold ones and turned the chair cushions from midnight to navy blue (which was a subtle, but important difference). Last but not least, he rearranged the books so they were ordered by genre and subject matter rather than simply by the human alphabet.
He didn't feel happier after that, but it was worth it to make his new living space a little more comfortable. There was no telling how long he'd be stuck here in Siren's Port. He wasn't so much of a masochist that he'd stare at Sebastian's poor attempts at interior design for the days, months, or years to come. How long was it going to take to complete or escape his contract? (Did he even want to, anymore?)
Frowning slightly, he returned to the same bookshelf he started at, which now bore folklore and fairy tales instead of encyclopedias. His eyes fell on a comprehensive guide to variations written by the Brothers Grimm. After pushing up his glasses, he reached forward and pulled out the thick volume.
His master might not wish to hear any stories tonight, being as angry as he was with seeing his demon again, but it wouldn't hurt to brush up on the popular ones. Claude hadn't forgotten any of them, not even after having his brain rotted through by eternal nirvana, but he wasn't going to take any chances with misunderstanding nuances and details. A Trancy butler always knew how to weave words into nets capable of snaring the imagination.
Claude sat down with Little Red Riding Hood, Alois Trancy's favorite, and wondered for the thousandth time why the wolf was punished for doing nothing more than trying to eat.
Name: Seth
Age: 25
AIM SN: Zarathustra wove
email: sethkukai[at]gmail[dot]com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes. At present, I have 3 characters in dirtyvegasrp that have been there for 7+ months apiece.
Currrently Played Characters: I have never played in Siren's Pull.
Conditional: Activity Check Link:
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Kuroshitsuji 2
Canon Format: anime
Character's Name: Claude Faustus. This is the name given to him by Alois Trancy, the human he made a demonic contract with. There is no stated canon significance to either first name or last, although "Faustus" is likely a reference to the protagonist of a German folktale who had a similar contract.
Character's Age: Unknown, but he is an immortal demon. He appears to be in his late 20's to early 30's. The series creators said that Claude is at least as old as another demon, Sebastian Michaelis. Sebastian claims to have met the Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Smenkhkare--who reigned in 1333 BC--so Claude must be 3,000+ years old.
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played.
What form will your character's NV take? Claude's antique pocket watch will be replaced by an NV unit that resembles a digital pocket watch like this design here. On the inside, there are two display screens: one where the watch's face should be, and the other on the inside cover. The first screen bears a keyboard and other modes of input (like a camera), while the second will be for watching/reading the Network. The NV's exterior is still a gold pocket watch, attached to Claude's usual watch chain. The lid has the Trancy family crest embossed on top.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Claude Faustus is an ancient demon with a human master, and thus has quite a few abilities:
--Inhuman strength, speed, and reflexes. He is extraordinarily acrobatic, jumping and flipping everywhere, and his sense of balance is perfect... unless he is intoxicated by something. He is quite the skilled dancer in styles ranging from flamenco to ballet.
--Control over the elements of nature. Claude demonstrates extreme proficiency with controlling water. He can kick the surface of a lake to create multiple destructive waterspouts at will. He also has some grasp on fire, since he is able to command candles to light up in the first episode. Whenever he clashes with Sebastian Michaelis, there is always a lot of wind and thunder to accompany them.
--Transforming into a spider. His spider form looks like an unexceptional, if slightly large barn spider with light and dark brown stripes. As a spider, he can do normal spider things, such as spinning webs and catching prey in them. It's good for surveillance purposes. In this same vein, he can command spider mites and probably many other spiders. Claude can also use other kinds of transformation magic, like when he redecorates the whole Trancy mansion in no time at all.
--Supernatural spider threads. Since Claude is a demon with a strong connection to spiders, he can manifest very thin but very deadly spider threads that sound like high-tension wires when he tightrope-walks across them. They're shown capable of cutting through solid rock, and he explains that they can cut through steel. Against flesh, they cut as easily as the sharpest razor wire does. Apparently, they can be turned invisible and/or immaterial, since Sebastian doesn't even notice them being woven around him until he is trapped in the very center of a web.
--Spider-Man web-shooting. Not even kidding. From within his left wrist, Claude can shoot out webbing like a superhero. It can reach long distances, wrapping around and adhering to whichever surface or object he wants. He can swing around on it, too, so the webbing is obviously strong enough to support him.
--Ability to infiltrate dreams. Perhaps in reference to spider webs being associated with dreamcatchers, Claude can intercept and/or enter humans' dreams to communicate with them.
--Extreme dexterity with his hands for creating instantaneous origami, very detailed crochet designs, and epic sculptures out of cake batter.
--Impressive swordsmanship. He seems to know how to handle a sword very well; he's elegant and powerful with every attack.
--Limited telepathy. He communicates psychically with Sebastian during one of their battles.
--Bewitching birds. Claude can call down birds from the sky to him, and they'll trust him completely.
--Enhanced healing/regeneration ability when wounded.
--Generally, Claude is highly, supernaturally skilled at any and all domestic duties (such as cooking and cleaning) due to his identity as Alois Trancy's butler.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Weapons: Claude is able to manifest an endless supply of gold cutlery--specifically, butter knives. He turns most of these into projectiles, but they can also be used in close quarters combat for striking and blocking. The knives are made of much, much harder material than normal.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: From the Kuroshitsuji wiki. Unavoidably, his personality section below explores many of the listed events.
Point in Canon: Post-canon (after episode 12), after Claude has died and achieved eternal enlightenment (nirvana) with Alois Trancy, Luca Macken, and Hannah Annafellows.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history:
Character Personality:
EDIT, 5/31: As of the final OVA about the Trancy family, some of the following is incorrect. I'll... eventually go through and fix it up, but just bear that in mind. Claude's default personality--before Ciel's soul influenced it, even at a distance--was more like a lower key Episode 10 (cf CRACK ADDICT). Believe it or not.
Claude Faustus is the primary antagonist of Kuroshitsuji 2. He is a demon that holds a Faustian contract with a young boy named Alois Trancy, acting as a head butler to the Trancy household and fulfilling the terms of their contract. To ease understanding, please internalize the following about Alois: when Claude and Alois met, Alois was actually a slave named Jim Macken. "Alois Trancy" and "Jim Macken" are the same person, describing two periods of Alois' life that must be differentiated to be factually correct. Since I'm not writing an application for Alois, I won't get too into what all that is about aside from Claude's contributions to the how and why of that duality.
That said, Claude is one hell of a butler. He's also ridiculously complex. I'm going to break this character up into four distinct sections: THE BUTLER, THE DEMON, THE CRACK ADDICT, and THE REDEEMED.
THE BUTLER
To be honest, most people will never get to know anyone but Claude-the-butler! The butler persona is just a front he presents to the rest of the world, which he uses to more easily honor his obligation to fulfilling Alois' wishes. The butler is a mysterious, austere, stoic man--"a black butler"--that showed up alongside Alois Trancy one day out of seemingly nowhere. He infrequently has facial expressions, aside from small movements of his eyebrows and lips that demonstrate pale versions of irritation, focus, sincerity, pleasure, and surprise. He cannot be goaded into any extreme emotions like anger or happiness, not even by his master Alois. When he says something, he is doing so for a good reason; the words he chooses to say are measured and careful. He performs every task he's given to perfection, no matter what it is, effortlessly and efficiently. It takes the same amount of effort to wake up Alois every morning as it does to transform the Trancy mansion's décor at a moment's notice.
Transformation embodies the Trancy butler. His catchphrase follows a very simple yet profound formula-- "I transform day into night, sugar into salt, saints into corpses, and navy into golden. That's what makes a Trancy butler." Another example: "I transform day into night, pleasure into pain, and waltzes into requiems." And another: "Day into night, snow-white into crimson, and lies into truth." He is a cold, unaffected, logical man that divides his world into neat opposing halves because it's easiest to comprehend and digest that way.
He is polite, proper, refined, accommodating, responsible, and invested in managing a clean, efficient household. He is well-versed in all the rules of the house, Victorian England society and how to treat guests of the house, expectations of a nobleman's butler, and good manners. For example, he admonishes Sebastian Michaelis for wearing a coat to the dinner table. Other times he is quick to passive-aggressively point out that Sebastian has failed his duties as a butler for X, Y, and Z reasons (mostly related to disobeying orders). "To a butler, the master's orders are absolute," Claude says, rehashing something Sebastian told him early on. It's another passive-aggressive jibe...
Because there is an undercurrent of passive-aggressiveness to Claude-the-butler. Claude will be passive-aggressive when confronted by people he genuinely detests. (There aren't many of those! They're limited to people that want to fuck up his plans: Sebastian Michaelis, another demon in his home named Hannah Annafellows, death gods investigating him, and even Alois Trancy later on.) If he isn't interested in a conversation, he'll do his best to politely stop responding or, in Alois' case, flat out not respond. He doesn't indulge silly whims related to emotions, like Alois telling him to laugh; he's too serious to have stuff like that dictated to him by Alois. But he is patient enough, as evidenced through early supplemental canon on Kuroshitsuji 2's official Twitter, to indulge Alois in playing hide-and-seek, searching for the lucky white deer, making a hundred dolls, singing a lullaby, reading a bedtime story, and any other fun and childish things.
He seems to look out for his master's enjoyment and best interests at all times. He'll dote on Alois whenever the boy is upset, which includes providing physical comfort. When the need arises, Claude holds Alois' face and insistently reassures him of his (soul's) worth. They're "constant companions," Claude murmurs, so Alois doesn't need to do anything special to have his attention. Claude enjoys taking any orders from Alois and receiving actual physical punishments for failure, since he displays a lot of masochism later. (Being slapped or kicked in the face is pretty awesome to Claude.) Of course, his willingness to receive orders just seems unnatural--at one point, Alois accuses him of being brainless livestock. Receiving orders is extremely important to Claude, because he is also...
THE DEMON
To call Claude-the-demon a manipulative motherfucker would be an understatement. Behind that stoic, unruffled butler's façade is a hungry demon that simply wants his next meal--and he'll do anything to get that meal exactly how he wants it. He will outright lie, even to his own master; he'll cheat, hurt, trick, and steal his way to victory. More than anything, the demon is a greedy and cruel monster that will go as far as Stockholming young boys, transforming (!) them from independent badasses into dependent brats. (More on this soon...!)
The demon's familiar is a spider; since he can transform into one, he is known as the Spider Butler by other demons. He embodies an evil spider in many ways--cunning, patient, bloodthirsty, tricky, ever-waiting for the opportunity he needs to strike when his victims' defenses are lowered the most. His logical mind, intelligence, and keen observational skills are his best allies for doing this. The series creators said that the entire aim was to create a butler-demon character that was much more of an opponent than Kuroshitsuji 1's angel antagonist. According to them, Claude-the-demon is stronger than that angel, "possibly" more skilled than Sebastian, capable and seemingly flawless, and just as experienced if not more so than Sebastian is.
Looping back around, Claude Faustus is ultimately just a manipulative motherfucker. Among the many things that he has done to manipulate the environment and people around him:
1) As mentioned above, Claude is responsible for why his master's personality changed fucking drastically. When Claude and Alois met--remember that duality I mentioned?--Alois was actually a slave named Jim Macken whose life experiences made him feel largely apathetic and meaningless. Jim had no reason to live, so Claude decided to give him one: Jim could think of a wish upon which to base their demonic contract. (It should be noted that Claude was originally summoned when Jim used an incantation that another slave talked about. Though the incantation isn't real magic, it does attract Claude to the person saying it. That probably means Claude has been preying upon children in the same way for a while.) Jim was able to come up with a wish--one shrouded in vagueness--and their contract was formed. From there, Claude somehow broached the subject of Jim's murdered little brother Luca. Claude had no qualms about lying to Jim about the identity of Luca's murderer. Claude said, in no uncertain terms, that Luca was killed by another demon named Sebastian Michaelis, whose own contract was to a boy named Ciel Phantomhive. Carefully and craftily, Claude got Jim to issue the order he wanted to hear: "Bring me Ciel Phantomhive."
For whatever reason--no canon elaboration given, sadly--Claude seemed to have a vendetta against Sebastian Michaelis. His plan, which he diffused through Jim and was ordered to carry out, was to take away Ciel Phantomhive from Sebastian, force Sebastian to suffer tremendously for all the horrors he'd supposedly committed, and then consume Ciel's soul (although that last part was kind of an unknown element to Alois for a long time). In reality, Claude knew or soon learned that another demon named Hannah had been the one to kill Luca. He kept this hidden from Jim in order to continue carrying out his own goals of challenging and hurting Sebastian.
For the next three years of his contract with Jim--after they killed Lord Trancy and Jim was given a new identity as Alois Trancy (Lord Trancy's long-lost son), and while they're waiting for Sebastian and Ciel to open themselves up to attack--Claude slowly morphed Jim from Jim Macken into an almost entirely different person. It got to the point where Alois rejects "Jim Macken" as his real name, even at the subconscious level. Claude made or let Jim become Alois from the ground up. Period. For this reason, I think Claude has some sort of god complex. He transformed this apathetic, sadistic almost-adult into a dependent and needy child just by being constantly attentive, considerate, spoiling, and doting. He gave Jim a fairy tale come to life by granting wishes--he handed out the attention that Jim had been craving for his entire life, turning Jim into psychological putty that he then reshaped into Alois Trancy.
Mind games are a must to imagine, though they're only briefly touched upon in canon. For example, Claude used the phrase "Your Highness"--a term of endearment that Luca had for Alois--to constantly remind Alois of what was at stake, and also to make him feel like royalty. Genuine facial expressions could have been used to scare, sicken, and unbalance Alois. There is also reason to believe that Claude reinforced Alois' fear of the dark into a full-blown, crippling phobia, just because it'd be easy to manipulate him via darkness. And Claude reveals that he had the rose gardens surrounding the Trancy mansion enchanted to ward off any intruders/unaccounted for visitors. Since the mansion was so quiet and lonely anyway with only stoic demons around (Claude, Hannah, and Hannah's mute triplet demons), Alois craved any stimulus he could possibly get--and by the end it all came from Claude only. There was no one else worth a damn in Alois' world.
Then, eventually, Claude was able to steal Ciel's soul away from Sebastian. He presented it to Alois, and a few months later, the series began.
Why did Claude do that to Alois? Because he could. Because he was bored. It's that simple and just so cruel. Claude asserts that Alois Trancy is still a worthy soul to him--until he gets a taste of Ciel, anyway--so it must not bother him much at all, if at all. He was still very much impressed by Jim Macken's original personality, but Claude wanted a dependent, needy master for whatever unelaborated upon reason.
2) Claude convinced Sebastian that Ciel's soul was imperfect due to the amnesia that Ciel suffered after his soul was returned to his body. Ciel forgot that he had finished his own contract of obtaining revenge for his humiliation and his parents' deaths. According to Claude, that meant Ciel was incomplete until a second revenge was attained. Together, Claude and Sebastian made a demonic pact with roses to give Ciel that second revenge--Claude offered up Alois Trancy (his own master!) as a scapegoat for those crimes against Ciel and Ciel's family. In exchange, they'd battle evenly for who got to consume Ciel's complete soul. HOWEVER, Claude sabotaged the rose pact from the very first moment by infesting the roses with spider mites. Sebastian didn't find that out until much later.
More or less, Claude predicted Sebastian's every fucking move ever and then played him for a complete fool. The series creators admit that if they hadn't made Claude get "progressively weirder" after a certain event (cf. CRACK ADDICT), which caused him to act bizarrely and erratically, then there was a good chance he would have bested everyone in the series.
3) Claude brainwashed Ciel Phantomhive into believing he was Alois Trancy. This was his most detailed, complex plan overall that he put into motion while also high as fuck (cf. CRACK ADDICT). It might've been even more elegant and impressive if he had been clear-headed. Regardless:
First of all, Claude perpetrated a series of violent assaults on the children in London, gouging out their eyes and compelling them to lie about who the perpetrator was. The Queen of England ordered Ciel to check into these assaults, though Sebastian mused that it was Claude forging Her orders. Ciel and Sebastian started investigating; midway through interviewing locals, Sebastian was attacked and led away from Ciel by two death gods that believed Sebastian had been manipulating souls recently. (Actually, Claude was the one messing around with souls, but he somehow pinned the blame on Sebastian.) While Sebastian was busy fighting for his life, Claude had Hannah and humans from a mental asylum find and accuse Ciel of being the eye-gouging assailant: Alois Trancy. Ciel freaked his shit, since he definitely was not Alois Trancy, but the mental asylum people carted Ciel away anyway.
Likely at Claude's direction, they tortured Ciel by dunking him in liquid over and over again, repeatedly telling him he was Alois Trancy as they tore down his psychological defenses. (Sebastian accused Claude of using "medicine" to confuse Ciel, so the liquid in the dunking tank might have been infused with some sort of psychotropic drug.) Afterward, when Ciel was visibly traumatized and questioning his identity, Claude performed a "soul-infusing ceremony" to seamlessly blend Ciel's memories together with Alois'. To make a long story short, though CRACK ADDICT's section will add to this: Claude killed Alois, turned Alois' soul into a ring, and put the ring on Ciel to inject Alois' soul into him and bind the two souls together as best as he could. He planned to eat them both.
4) Believe me when I say that I could go on and on and on about the fucked up shit that Claude has masterminded throughout the series. I'll stop here, though, and say this:
In general, Claude Faustus is a master strategist behind everything that happens. He's so much of one that he even creates battlefield strategies for other Trancy servants, giving each formation its own name like he's playing Pokémon or something.
Also, it should be evident that Claude has extreme understanding of both demon and human psychology. Unfortunately, there's a bit of bad news for him and his plans: he did not plan for Alois Trancy falling in love with him instead of just staying a needy, spoiled child that wanted his protection and approval. Claude seems to strongly dislike love--after all, Kuroshitsuji demons are defined as hatred incarnate in season 1. Alois himself says that his love is muddling the taste of his soul, and when exposed to that love, Claude seems impatient and disgusted with Alois. ("Don't be ridiculous, master." After Alois professes even more love: "What a thing to say to a mere butler." And after killing Alois: "Not to worry, master. A crude little soul who gives his love to a butler... I could hardly work up an appetite for that. I'll keep you always with me. I have a use for your soul.") EDIT: LOL J/K WE GOT TROLLED. This is how Claude felt about love while under the influence of Ciel's blood (cf. CRACK ADDICT). It completely did a 180 to many of his personality traits, turning his ideal master from Alois Trancy into Ciel Phantomhive. Oops.
His relationship with Alois, overall, is something I could talk about at extreme length. I'll sum it up by paraphrasing what the series creators had to say: Claude and Alois are "dependent on each other, so after a while you can't understand anymore who is the spider and who is the butterfly." The creators thought it might be "erotic" to portray "such a sticky relationship." It reminds them of a "subtle husband and wife scenario," and they call Kuroshitsuji 2 "a grand lovers' quarrel" between Claude and Alois. Although Claude and Alois are constantly rating each other's value, "it tends to feel like some kind of romance." That romantic-feeling dependence Claude has on Alois is very important--he's a spider that, unbeknownst to him until the very end, has been caught up in his own nefarious web of deceit and treachery. In crafting Alois' current self, Claude made the one person that could and did utterly destroy him. Claude created the agent of his own demise.
Now, you might be asking... why is Claude Faustus such a bastard? Like, really? Why the fuck?
Short answer: He's a lonely, bored demon that has nothing better to do with his life.
Long answer: He has lived for so long; for far too long. He has eternal life--more time than he knows what to do with. The only thing that gives him any sort of pleasure is the taste of human souls, so he spends his days tinkering with them via contracts in search of the "ultimate flavor" that will give him orgasmic bliss (cf. CRACK ADDICT). If there is anything going on between Claude and Sebastian in their backstory pertaining to why Claude targeted Sebastian specifically, it's never ever explained. However, there is an upcoming OVA about the Trancys slated for the end of May, and maybe that will fill in some blanks.
THE CRACK ADDICT
So, I want you to take everything you just learned and put that on hold. Claude thus far has been characterized by his quiet, stoic demeanor that hides a hungry demon's chessmaster mind. Almost all of that gets thrown right out the window when episode 7 happens: Claude inadvertently tastes Ciel Phantomhive's blood.
Due to events in Kuroshitsuji 1 that I won't explain here, Ciel's blood (and soul) has become the equivalent of potent crack cocaine for demons. In Claude's own words: "[Ciel] knows blood and death and darkness, and yet his soul is pure, untainted, immaculate... Day into night, pleasure into pain, and this chance encounter into... ecstasy..." The effect this glorious blood has on Claude is nothing short of devastating.
Click to view
Yep.
The series creators say Claude gets "progressively weirder" after tasting the blood, but that phrasing doesn't even begin to describe what happens to him. Claude becomes singularly obsessed with Ciel--something that he mocked Sebastian for at the beginning--until he drives himself insane. He starts acting bizarrely and erratically, breaking his own rules for conduct and propriety. He displays all manner of facial expressions that he mostly hid before. He reveals his now-enhanced emotions freely, wearing what little heart he has on his sleeve.
He murders Alois without a second thought and transforms Alois' soul into a ring so he can use it as a tool to obtain Ciel for himself.
He waxes poetic about Ciel's everything--Ciel's slender legs and feet, Ciel's teeth being brushed ("Perfectly uniform, close-fitting teeth like a row of fresh young skulls... close-fitting, tight, enchanting..."), Ciel's reckless and tyrannical pride.
The most disturbing thing is how Claude becomes a demon Disney Princess: he's so ecstatic that he communes with nature, drawing in canaries to sit on him and putting sweetbriar flowers in his hair. He demonstrates a heretofore unknown ability of making origami and crocheting a super complex wedding shawl for Ciel.
He even dances ballet like there's no tomorrow while explaining his villainous, cracked out plans to the other Trancy servants--it gets so silly, it's fucking surreal. At times, he'll be weirdly excited about having Ciel to himself, as when he yells out the window about HOOOW GOOOOD (HOOOW GOOOD (hooow good, the echo goes)) Ciel's soul is, just to annoy Sebastian.
When confronted with Sebastian's obvious angst, Claude is playfully derisive and mocks Sebastian time and time again for being a loser.
Above all else, Claude loathes and/or dismisses and kills anything or anyone that gets in his way on his insane crusade to obtain Ciel's soul. I mean, you just need to watch this video. It covers what I'm trying to say very well.
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
you're my cuppy cake from Terri Berri on Vimeo.
Ciel Phantomhive is Claude's cuppycake of ecstasy. There is a tremendously skeevy moment where Claude doodles mindlessly on a piece of paper. If you pause and zoom in, it's possible to see phrases like "Ciel Phantomhive," "delicious soul," "a soul to be relished," etc. on the paper, as if he's a lovesick girl writing in the margins of her notebook about her biggest crush yet.
THE REDEEMED
The series reaches its conclusion when Sebastian Michaelis uses the sword Lævateinn to fatally stab Claude for trying to steal Ciel away. Lævateinn is an "ancient, cursed sword of eternal darkness" that prevents any wound it inflicts on a demon from healing. As Claude begins to die, he comes back down from his blood-induced high and tries to understand everything that happened while he was tripping balls.
The most important thing here is that Claude finally acknowledges Alois Trancy as a soul worthy of his hunger and attention. He realizes that it was Alois who bested him in the end, not Sebastian or Ciel. Alois "made a stir in the long, long, idle life of a demon" and should be commended for it. Right before dying, Claude repeats a variation of his catchphrase one more time:
"Passion into insincerity, lies into truth, and a stray dog into an earl."
What happens afterward is described by Hannah, Alois, and some official art. Hannah says that Alois defeated Claude, "ending Claude's life as a demon." When she dies too, not long after, she happily proclaims that her, Alois, Luca, and Claude's love will allow them to achieve eternal enlightenment (nirvana) with each other. Alois has a voice over stating that they're going to stay together forever.
What does that mean? Well, apparently they really do get to nirvana! Official art released post-canon corroborates that assertion: Claude and Alois standing in a field of black and white roses, a location associated with the edge of reality. Alois embracing Claude peacefully while sitting on a large, dew-covered spider's web. The eternal happy family with Sebastian being hella jealous of them. There is also this random picnic scene that may or may not belong in nirvana, but I'd say it is nirvana because there is no other time that Claude and Alois look so peaceful with and adoring of one another. (Ciel and Sebastian are only there for promotional purposes.) Yes, Claude and Alois are at last at peace.
Nirvana literally means "blowing out" or "extinguish"--in the Buddhist context, this refers to blowing out the fires of greed, hate, and delusion. Wikipedia goes on to say, in much more eloquent terms than I could ever hope to: The Buddha described nirvāna as the perfect peace of the state of mind that is free from craving, anger, and other afflicting states. It is also the "end of the world;" there is no identity left and no boundaries for the mind. The subject is at peace with the world, has compassion for all, and gives up obsessions and fixations. This peace is achieved when the existing volitional formations are pacified and the conditions for the production of new ones are eradicated. In nirvāṇa, the root causes of craving and aversion have been extinguished, so that one is no longer subject to human suffering or further rebirth in samsāra.
When I look at those pictures above of post-canon Claude Faustus, I see something similar to these descriptions of nirvana. Alois has freed Claude of his inherent demonic traits, like that eternal hunger--Claude is blissfully happy and loving and loved.
The problems begin again when Claude is taken out of nirvana and put in Siren's Port with an Alois that has a much, much earlier canon point (right before episode 4).
Conditional: Personality development in previous game:
Character Plans: Siren's Port isn't nirvana. When Claude arrives, he will still be under nirvana's influence--but that will wear off soon enough. (Nirvana will have a lasting effect on his mind, however. The restoration of his demonic hunger will be particularly vexing to him.) Basically, he's going to get in touch with Alois, integrate into the "Phancyhive" family, and be a source of awful conflict for Alois and anyone who cares about Alois. Claude will also be very much conflicted and at war with himself over the events of Kuroshitsuji 2, since he'll be confronted with an earlier canon point Alois and if he could do it all over again, would he? Could he do it better? Does he still acknowledge Alois? So on and so forth. There's also Ciel Phantomhive to deal with... and it might not be the crack cocaine Ciel from his timeline, but powerful addictions are partly memory.
Also, everything I've said about Alois has the blessing of Rinna (Alois-mun). I made sure that our characters would mesh well.
Appearance/PB: Right here, wearing his usual butler attire. The glasses, given to him by Alois, are not necessary for him to see. His contract mark is on the back of his left hand and his nails are black; he hides both with white gloves. His eyes will turn from gold to shimmery purple-red when he is tapping into his demonic power. It's hinted in the show's opening that he has a true form, which other demons do, but nothing beyond sharper teeth is seen of it.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample Network post, video format:
[Two proud Canadian geese. They're the only things of visible interest, standing no more than a few yards away. The video stays steady as a white-gloved hand moves into view, its palm turned to the sky and holding a few leaves of romaine lettuce. The geese immediately notice the offering, but they're too wary to approach for some reason.]
You've nothing to fear, [says someone off-camera, addressing the geese, not the Network. The voice is definitely masculine and has a vague foreign accent. Despite having an undertone that can only be described as dark, the cameraman speaks gently and calmly.] I always preferred red meat to poultry.
[Just like that, both geese forget their fears and make a mad dash for the cameraman. He tears the lettuce into smaller pieces (one-handed and fast as hell, displaying amazing dexterity) to feed them each an equal portion.]
Hmm.
[The view, still steady, rotates away from the geese to reveal his surroundings: this is a very nice residential area of Siren's Port. Beautiful landscaping, magnificent houses--wonderfully pure greed in material form. He lingers on some architecture, but the viewpoint keeps going until it's aimed over his shoulder at the impressive mansion behind him.
Then, much more directly:] They have no difficulty finding their way home after flying south for the winter. [With a change in angle, the cameraman's wavy black hair appears. He turns his head enough to reveal part of his pale face, which is wearing glasses that don't do much to hide mellow gold eyes.] After such a long absence, it must feel nostalgic. [Pause.] I cannot recall being here at any point--
[When the mansion replaces him again, it might be recognizable by now to its residents and visitors--the Phantomhive estate. The cameraman is standing outside in front of the approximate location of Alois Trancy's bedroom.]
But it is nostalgic, and much like a dream. And in dreams... hoheo taralna...
[It's another offering--it's bait, and now Claude Faustus must wait patiently for a bite. The video ends there.]
Third Person Sample
Claude stared dully at the bookshelf. If he wasn't mistaken (and he never was), this bookshelf had been crafted from solid ponderosa pine for the base and hardwood for the fluted moldings. Anyone else would think the design was sophisticated, enough to express time and expense, but Claude looked at it and just thought,
Amateur.
When he touched the bookshelf with his bare fingers, Claude was sure he could feel Sebastian Michaelis lurking inside of the wood. That demon created this bookshelf, and this library, and this entire mansion that Claude was now standing in. Claude's stomach burned with anger and memories that made his hunger more poignant. There was no way he could have reminders of Sebastian as constant as this without going mad.
Claude abruptly swept his hand over the bookshelf and changed it all from the ground up. The pine and hardwood whined softly as it transformed into exotic, solid cherry wood with a cinnamon brown glaze finish and svelte trim. Cherry wood was much hardier, better textured; as it got older, it would only become more beautiful as its unique red tones deepened.
The other parts of the library weren't exempt from redecoration. Claude exchanged the silver light fixtures with gold ones and turned the chair cushions from midnight to navy blue (which was a subtle, but important difference). Last but not least, he rearranged the books so they were ordered by genre and subject matter rather than simply by the human alphabet.
He didn't feel happier after that, but it was worth it to make his new living space a little more comfortable. There was no telling how long he'd be stuck here in Siren's Port. He wasn't so much of a masochist that he'd stare at Sebastian's poor attempts at interior design for the days, months, or years to come. How long was it going to take to complete or escape his contract? (Did he even want to, anymore?)
Frowning slightly, he returned to the same bookshelf he started at, which now bore folklore and fairy tales instead of encyclopedias. His eyes fell on a comprehensive guide to variations written by the Brothers Grimm. After pushing up his glasses, he reached forward and pulled out the thick volume.
His master might not wish to hear any stories tonight, being as angry as he was with seeing his demon again, but it wouldn't hurt to brush up on the popular ones. Claude hadn't forgotten any of them, not even after having his brain rotted through by eternal nirvana, but he wasn't going to take any chances with misunderstanding nuances and details. A Trancy butler always knew how to weave words into nets capable of snaring the imagination.
Claude sat down with Little Red Riding Hood, Alois Trancy's favorite, and wondered for the thousandth time why the wolf was punished for doing nothing more than trying to eat.