History: Here with a canon update to Chapter 65, the Voyage of the Campania.
To investigate a mysterious organization known as the Aurora Society, Ciel and company depart on the maiden voyage of the Blue Star Line's luxury ship the Campania. The Aurora Society is involved in illegal human experiments, possibly leading to the medical resurrection of the dead, an unforgivable mingling of the underworld and general society, meaning the Queen's Watchdog (Ciel Phantomhive) must mobilize to assess and stop any threat to the Queen. After sneaking onto the ship, they discover that the Aurora Society is using a machine to bring the dead back to life - but in doing so they create zombies. As expected, all hell breaks loose and the zombies attack the ship - as they do, being zombies and all.
This is where the death gods come in. A young death god named Ronald Knox has been tasked with reaping the over one thousand souls to be lost on the Campania that night and investigating the reason behind the reanimated corpses. And as if killing zombies and reaping the souls (and ticking each soul off the List provided) wasn't enough, the Campania decides to take a very obvious Titanic parody turn and slams into an iceberg which just helps more people along the way to having a very unpleasant death. It's a daunting task to collect all the souls, but thankfully he isn't alone.
Fresh from her suspension, Grell Sutcliffe appears on the scene - fashionably late - and dives headfirst into the fray. After slicing through quite a few of the undead, she joins up with Ronald and they go on their way cleaning up the undead and reaping the souls of the recently deceased. Eventually, Grell gets fed up with walking around the decks and cuts her way through the floor until she and Ronald fall practically into Sebastian, Ciel and Lizzie's laps. Coming across her old flame, Grell immediately tries to kill him and in the process chainsaws the wall open, causing water to gush in and ruin everything. She's boss like that.
Lizzie turns into a dual-sword wielding badass and protects Ciel's butt, but almost attacks Grell in the process until Sebastian stops her. After Ciel mentions that they need to get to Ryan Stoker, the head of the Aurora Society, Ronald brings the List to Grell's attention. The two death gods take off to find him and catch him (literally, Grell grabs him by the foot as he falls over a railing as the ship careens to one side) in the First Class Hall. They get him to lead him to where he has a machine that should stop the moving corpses, but the machine is missing by the time they arrive. It's been stolen by the Viscount of Druitt, and is found by Ciel and Sebastian - and is carried by the information dealer, the Undertaker. They meet up with Ryan, Grell and Ronald in the First Class Passenger Lounge where the Viscount unveils his weird plan to create an empire with him as Caesar while the undead break in and try to kill them all.
The Viscount forces everyone to pledge themselves to the Aurora Empire (with him as leader) with a super embarrassing dance and then he turns on the machine.
Only for it to fail and be a total dud much to everyone's (but the Undertaker's) chagrin. Frustrated, Grell cuts her way through the crowd of undead and tries to kill the Viscount, but is stopped by the Undertaker and his Buddhist prayer panels. The deathscythe can't cut them and Grell is shoved out through the glass ceiling. Now that the Undertaker's eyes are no longer hidden by his hair, everyone can see the yellowish green shade to them and realize that he, too, is a death god - albeit a rogue one. He reveals that he's the mastermind behind the moving corpses, reanimating the bodies and brains by editing their soul records and putting a continuation (aka the Undertaker's weird home movies) onto the end of the mortal's Record so they come back to life minus their souls. The bodies crave a soul, however, so they eat people, trying to reclaim their souls. So the tl;dr of it is the Undertaker is super crazy deserter and made zombies to amuse himself and for some society that was hoping to use the zombies as the perfect animal weapons.
The death gods try to capture the Undertaker and take him back to their bosses to uncover how he managed to cheat Death, but Sebastian and Ciel interfere since they have a duty to report to the Queen of England. From there starts a free-for-all battle against the Undertaker, with everyone trying to beat everyone else in order to capture him. The Undertaker reveals that he's stolen his deathscythe and taken it with him despite being retired, and uses a trick to stab Sebastian through the chest and see his Record while Grell and Ronald are kicked out of the picture. After viewing Sebastian's Record, the ship suddenly tilts forward due to the floodwater and Ryan Stoker falls to his death - which Grell notes is in the List. Grell tries to take down the Undertaker while Ronald tries to finish Sebastian off - but gets his butt kicked. Grell and Sebastian try to take the Undertaker down, but he escapes by shaving the ship in half. The ship goes under and William, another death god in the management division, shows up, dragging Grell and Ronald out of the water. Together all three end up reaping the rest of the souls lost that night and for the death gods, the chapter is at an end.
Grell was in Luceti once and she will remember her time there, vaguely at first, but gradually over time she'll come to remember the people and places and - most importantly - the events that came to pass there. During her time in Luceti, her most memorable experiences were nearly killing several people (Jack Sparrow, Jay the Unseen, and Rupert Giles by request) and dating Smoker for a brief while.
Personality: Grell is, in the neatest and kindest way to put it, just the tiniest bit off. However, how much of that is a show and how much of it is actual delusion is hard to tell. Her personality is made of several facets, the first and most prominent being her transgenderism (physically male and mentally/emotionally female) and her flashy persona. Grell calls herself a first-rate actress and acts extremely flamboyant; wearing make-up (fake eyelashes and lipstick are mentioned in the series itself) and talking about how she had to "resist being fashionable." She later steals Madam Red's coat to wear since she no longer deserves to wear the color red in her eyes. She boasts about being a female, but will readily admit and lament that she's biologically male, and talks frequently about how she wants to bear children, despite knowing that it's physically impossible. She speaks in a feminine manner, using the Japanese personal pronoun 'atashi' which is feminine, and the sentence endings 'wa' and 'no yo' to make her sentences sound girlish to the Japanese speaking audience.
She delights in the theater and the flamboyant nature of the stage, taking time out of her work schedule to do such things as reenact scenes from a Titanic parody. She puts particular stress on making a big entrance and an even bigger impression, taking time on her appearance and always paying attention to how she appears to others. Her delight in the theater and acting also ties into her love of the playwright, William Shakespeare, and her flamboyancy. When confronted with Sebastian, she sees herself as Juliet and Sebastian as her reluctant Romeo. She flirts endlessly with Sebastian and other cold, sadistic characters every chance she gets, despite the fact that her affections are neither wanted or returned. Another target of her overzealous flirtations is her supervisor, William Spears, and although William tends to call everyone by their full names, he doesn't seem upset by Grell calling him by the nickname, Will. Knowing Grell's personality, it's likely she hits on his supervisor in the same way she hits on Sebastian. Very little success and yet no sign of giving up.
Grell wears her heart on her sleeve and is very honest with her emotions. The main reason she became Jack the Ripper was because she "fell in love" with Madam Red. She loved to see her covered in the blood of her victims and her ruthlessness and hatred of women who gave up their babies while she remained childless struck a chord with her. She loved her in a platonic way, able to understand her pain and wanting to wreck vengeance on women who threw away the gifts God gave them so easily, just as the Madam did. However, her emotions often get the better of her and if she no longer feels a certain way, she doesn't see the need to keep the object of her affection around. Once Madam Red stops being of interest to her, she kills her even if, as she says, she's disappointed and saddened by the loss of her. Her emotions also cloud her judgment and she gets sloppy when fighting if angry or otherwise perturbed. Another example of this is when she forgets that she's not allowed to kill people (that aren't listed and up for reaping) because she's annoyed with the Viscount of Druitt.
In all things, Grell's love of a person is tied intimately to her bloodthirsty nature. She loves the color red, the color of roses, passion and, most importantly, blood. Grell loves her job as a death god because it allows her to peek into people's pasts to see all their dirty secrets. It gives her an excuse to exercise her love of carnage and, an added bonus, is that she is very good at her work. She had apparently never deviated as strongly from her work as she did when she killed off the Death List for the Madam, but from Will’s attitude toward her, we can assume she isn’t the best worker and probably finds some of the rules restrictive – including the one about regulation scythes. Despite sometimes touting the rules, she bends them whenever it suits her needs. She's extremely selfish and only does what is best for her (and sometimes whoever is partnered with her on a mission), imagining herself the main character of whatever drama is unfolding before her eyes. She has no remorse about killing anyone, and often her 'affection' is just a cover for her desire to kill. Although she does legitimately seem to like Sebastian, she keeps hitting on him precisely because it makes Sebastian uncomfortable and Grell loves to see people squirm before they die.
And while Grell is a formidable opponent, she's also a giant spaz. Even when Sebastian is threatening her with death, she responds by saying that the fear she feels just makes her want Sebastian's babies even more. She is extremely vain and freaks out if anyone tries to hit her in the face. She is also easily defeated once Sebastian stops his chainsaw because she's too distracted by it being broken to fight back. Even after losing to Sebastian, she's still heavily reliant on her weapon and without it, her effectiveness in battle is cut in half. That said, she's very strong - obviously stronger than Ronald as stated in canon - and can survive a deathscythe cut and a grueling battle against a demon and another death god at the same time.
Grell's love of acting also means she has another part to her personality that must be taken into account. When dressed up as the butler, she is bumbling, easily flustered and confused, directionally challenged and generally a poor excuse for a butler. She spends most of her time apologizing or ineffectually calming down Madam Red when she rants against Lau or other characters in the series. Grell is shown to be an extremely adaptable character, fitting her role and personality to the people around her. She needed to escape notice, so she did all she could to remain quietly in the background. She is capable of being subtle and will be when the situation calls for it, but when being herself, she doesn't see a need to do so. She's smart and, even if she gets distracted easily, she's ruthless and isn't one to beat around the bush when it isn't needed.
no subject
To investigate a mysterious organization known as the Aurora Society, Ciel and company depart on the maiden voyage of the Blue Star Line's luxury ship the Campania. The Aurora Society is involved in illegal human experiments, possibly leading to the medical resurrection of the dead, an unforgivable mingling of the underworld and general society, meaning the Queen's Watchdog (Ciel Phantomhive) must mobilize to assess and stop any threat to the Queen. After sneaking onto the ship, they discover that the Aurora Society is using a machine to bring the dead back to life - but in doing so they create zombies. As expected, all hell breaks loose and the zombies attack the ship - as they do, being zombies and all.
This is where the death gods come in. A young death god named Ronald Knox has been tasked with reaping the over one thousand souls to be lost on the Campania that night and investigating the reason behind the reanimated corpses. And as if killing zombies and reaping the souls (and ticking each soul off the List provided) wasn't enough, the Campania decides to take a very obvious Titanic parody turn and slams into an iceberg which just helps more people along the way to having a very unpleasant death. It's a daunting task to collect all the souls, but thankfully he isn't alone.
Fresh from her suspension, Grell Sutcliffe appears on the scene - fashionably late - and dives headfirst into the fray. After slicing through quite a few of the undead, she joins up with Ronald and they go on their way cleaning up the undead and reaping the souls of the recently deceased. Eventually, Grell gets fed up with walking around the decks and cuts her way through the floor until she and Ronald fall practically into Sebastian, Ciel and Lizzie's laps. Coming across her old flame, Grell immediately tries to kill him and in the process chainsaws the wall open, causing water to gush in and ruin everything. She's boss like that.
Lizzie turns into a dual-sword wielding badass and protects Ciel's butt, but almost attacks Grell in the process until Sebastian stops her. After Ciel mentions that they need to get to Ryan Stoker, the head of the Aurora Society, Ronald brings the List to Grell's attention. The two death gods take off to find him and catch him (literally, Grell grabs him by the foot as he falls over a railing as the ship careens to one side) in the First Class Hall. They get him to lead him to where he has a machine that should stop the moving corpses, but the machine is missing by the time they arrive. It's been stolen by the Viscount of Druitt, and is found by Ciel and Sebastian - and is carried by the information dealer, the Undertaker. They meet up with Ryan, Grell and Ronald in the First Class Passenger Lounge where the Viscount unveils his weird plan to create an empire with him as Caesar while the undead break in and try to kill them all.
The Viscount forces everyone to pledge themselves to the Aurora Empire (with him as leader) with a super embarrassing dance and then he turns on the machine.
Only for it to fail and be a total dud much to everyone's (but the Undertaker's) chagrin. Frustrated, Grell cuts her way through the crowd of undead and tries to kill the Viscount, but is stopped by the Undertaker and his Buddhist prayer panels. The deathscythe can't cut them and Grell is shoved out through the glass ceiling. Now that the Undertaker's eyes are no longer hidden by his hair, everyone can see the yellowish green shade to them and realize that he, too, is a death god - albeit a rogue one. He reveals that he's the mastermind behind the moving corpses, reanimating the bodies and brains by editing their soul records and putting a continuation (aka the Undertaker's weird home movies) onto the end of the mortal's Record so they come back to life minus their souls. The bodies crave a soul, however, so they eat people, trying to reclaim their souls. So the tl;dr of it is the Undertaker is super crazy deserter and made zombies to amuse himself and for some society that was hoping to use the zombies as the perfect animal weapons.
The death gods try to capture the Undertaker and take him back to their bosses to uncover how he managed to cheat Death, but Sebastian and Ciel interfere since they have a duty to report to the Queen of England. From there starts a free-for-all battle against the Undertaker, with everyone trying to beat everyone else in order to capture him. The Undertaker reveals that he's stolen his deathscythe and taken it with him despite being retired, and uses a trick to stab Sebastian through the chest and see his Record while Grell and Ronald are kicked out of the picture. After viewing Sebastian's Record, the ship suddenly tilts forward due to the floodwater and Ryan Stoker falls to his death - which Grell notes is in the List. Grell tries to take down the Undertaker while Ronald tries to finish Sebastian off - but gets his butt kicked. Grell and Sebastian try to take the Undertaker down, but he escapes by shaving the ship in half. The ship goes under and William, another death god in the management division, shows up, dragging Grell and Ronald out of the water. Together all three end up reaping the rest of the souls lost that night and for the death gods, the chapter is at an end.
Grell was in Luceti once and she will remember her time there, vaguely at first, but gradually over time she'll come to remember the people and places and - most importantly - the events that came to pass there. During her time in Luceti, her most memorable experiences were nearly killing several people (Jack Sparrow, Jay the Unseen, and Rupert Giles by request) and dating Smoker for a brief while.
Personality: Grell is, in the neatest and kindest way to put it, just the tiniest bit off. However, how much of that is a show and how much of it is actual delusion is hard to tell. Her personality is made of several facets, the first and most prominent being her transgenderism (physically male and mentally/emotionally female) and her flashy persona. Grell calls herself a first-rate actress and acts extremely flamboyant; wearing make-up (fake eyelashes and lipstick are mentioned in the series itself) and talking about how she had to "resist being fashionable." She later steals Madam Red's coat to wear since she no longer deserves to wear the color red in her eyes. She boasts about being a female, but will readily admit and lament that she's biologically male, and talks frequently about how she wants to bear children, despite knowing that it's physically impossible. She speaks in a feminine manner, using the Japanese personal pronoun 'atashi' which is feminine, and the sentence endings 'wa' and 'no yo' to make her sentences sound girlish to the Japanese speaking audience.
She delights in the theater and the flamboyant nature of the stage, taking time out of her work schedule to do such things as reenact scenes from a Titanic parody. She puts particular stress on making a big entrance and an even bigger impression, taking time on her appearance and always paying attention to how she appears to others. Her delight in the theater and acting also ties into her love of the playwright, William Shakespeare, and her flamboyancy. When confronted with Sebastian, she sees herself as Juliet and Sebastian as her reluctant Romeo. She flirts endlessly with Sebastian and other cold, sadistic characters every chance she gets, despite the fact that her affections are neither wanted or returned. Another target of her overzealous flirtations is her supervisor, William Spears, and although William tends to call everyone by their full names, he doesn't seem upset by Grell calling him by the nickname, Will. Knowing Grell's personality, it's likely she hits on his supervisor in the same way she hits on Sebastian. Very little success and yet no sign of giving up.
Grell wears her heart on her sleeve and is very honest with her emotions. The main reason she became Jack the Ripper was because she "fell in love" with Madam Red. She loved to see her covered in the blood of her victims and her ruthlessness and hatred of women who gave up their babies while she remained childless struck a chord with her. She loved her in a platonic way, able to understand her pain and wanting to wreck vengeance on women who threw away the gifts God gave them so easily, just as the Madam did. However, her emotions often get the better of her and if she no longer feels a certain way, she doesn't see the need to keep the object of her affection around. Once Madam Red stops being of interest to her, she kills her even if, as she says, she's disappointed and saddened by the loss of her. Her emotions also cloud her judgment and she gets sloppy when fighting if angry or otherwise perturbed. Another example of this is when she forgets that she's not allowed to kill people (that aren't listed and up for reaping) because she's annoyed with the Viscount of Druitt.
In all things, Grell's love of a person is tied intimately to her bloodthirsty nature. She loves the color red, the color of roses, passion and, most importantly, blood. Grell loves her job as a death god because it allows her to peek into people's pasts to see all their dirty secrets. It gives her an excuse to exercise her love of carnage and, an added bonus, is that she is very good at her work. She had apparently never deviated as strongly from her work as she did when she killed off the Death List for the Madam, but from Will’s attitude toward her, we can assume she isn’t the best worker and probably finds some of the rules restrictive – including the one about regulation scythes. Despite sometimes touting the rules, she bends them whenever it suits her needs. She's extremely selfish and only does what is best for her (and sometimes whoever is partnered with her on a mission), imagining herself the main character of whatever drama is unfolding before her eyes. She has no remorse about killing anyone, and often her 'affection' is just a cover for her desire to kill. Although she does legitimately seem to like Sebastian, she keeps hitting on him precisely because it makes Sebastian uncomfortable and Grell loves to see people squirm before they die.
And while Grell is a formidable opponent, she's also a giant spaz. Even when Sebastian is threatening her with death, she responds by saying that the fear she feels just makes her want Sebastian's babies even more. She is extremely vain and freaks out if anyone tries to hit her in the face. She is also easily defeated once Sebastian stops his chainsaw because she's too distracted by it being broken to fight back. Even after losing to Sebastian, she's still heavily reliant on her weapon and without it, her effectiveness in battle is cut in half. That said, she's very strong - obviously stronger than Ronald as stated in canon - and can survive a deathscythe cut and a grueling battle against a demon and another death god at the same time.
Grell's love of acting also means she has another part to her personality that must be taken into account. When dressed up as the butler, she is bumbling, easily flustered and confused, directionally challenged and generally a poor excuse for a butler. She spends most of her time apologizing or ineffectually calming down Madam Red when she rants against Lau or other characters in the series. Grell is shown to be an extremely adaptable character, fitting her role and personality to the people around her. She needed to escape notice, so she did all she could to remain quietly in the background. She is capable of being subtle and will be when the situation calls for it, but when being herself, she doesn't see a need to do so. She's smart and, even if she gets distracted easily, she's ruthless and isn't one to beat around the bush when it isn't needed.