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hexxalite-hecate · 2 years

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I see Cullen x Amell or Cullen x Surana a lot in the Cullen tags, I'm a Cullen x Lavellan shipper and I haven't played Origins, what is the deal with him and the mage warden? Some people say he was obsessed and stalked her, I don't wanna believe that bc I love him but I'm confused about what's canon. I know some people hc they had a relationship but I can't seem to get a straight answer what actually happened in canon? Sorry for random ask 🦁

Hi! I love asks ❤️ And this is a good question!

From what I've seen, this topic can get a bit spicy because people have opinions on Cullen's history with Amell/Surana (hereby referred to as f!mage because I'm lazy). I'm active on the Dragon Age subreddits and I've had a lot of discussions with people who genuinely believe that Cullen is an abusive, stalking rapist, and Bioware did a lazy retcon on his history to turn him into a whitebread vanilla love interest for DAI.

I’ll put my cards on the table: Amell was my first playthrough and subsequently canon Warden, I got attached to Cullen early on, and I love me a bit of Cullen x f!mage fic and art, though my preference is post-Inquisition reunion. I don't agree he’s been retconned from an abusive stalker into a poor little meow meow (and I'll be going into a detailed breakdown of why in a minute). HOWEVER, despite my personal bias I’m going to try and present information fairly so people can draw their own conclusions, and I can definitely see how the less flattering opinions of Cullen wrt f!mage ended up being formed.

There are several explanations for the, ahem, strong views on Cullen’s relationship with f!mage during their time at Kinloch Hold, some entirely reasonable and some less reasonable. Some examples of the range I’ve encountered:

1. People have difficulty emotionally separating the character of Cullen from his VA, who holds some utterly loathsome alt-right stances and has historically used the character to try and spread those disgusting views. (Can't really blame anyone for this, fuck that guy.)

2. People haven't actually played through Origins as f!mage and only have second-hand knowledge of his canon interactions, going off hearsay that gets escalated and distorted like a Thedosian game of telephone. Well, lucky for you I gathered every single interaction between them into this post, so now you have the facts to make an informed decision.

3. Information from abandoned writing concepts and dev interviews often conflicts with what’s actually presented in the game itself, muddying the waters with regard to Cullen’s character vision. (This one is genuinely complicated, but I'll try and present everything fairly for your consideration.)

4. A lot of fans understandably started disliking Cullen based on the choices he makes and the viewpoints he espouses in DA2. This doesn't directly affect his relationship with f!mage at the Tower, since all their interactions happened before that point. However, some people argue that his behaviour during DA2 indicates tendencies that he would have had from the beginning, including during their time at Kinloch Hold together. It also affects his post-Circle opinions of her, which is relevant to whether or not he could be termed as obsessive. This, too, is complicated, and I'll try to be as fair and unbiased as possible.

I'm going to tackle your ask by breaking it down into two main parts. Firstly, what is the canon evidence of exactly how involved Cullen and f!mage were at the Ferelden Circle? And secondly, what canon evidence is there that this involvement was characterised by obsessive/predatory/stalker behaviour, and in what way does that behaviour develop through later games?

Buckle up, this turned out long.

1. What canon evidence is there of f!mage and Cullen’s relationship at Kinloch Hold?

Let's take this from the beginning, based directly on what f!mage encounters in the game. On waking from your Harrowing, you are immediately greeted by this ambient conversation from two gossiping apprentices:

If you walk around spam clicking other apprentices, one will also volunteer this information:

So, we are immediately given evidence that whoever Cullen is, his feelings for you are obvious enough to be a general subject of gossip. Interesting! But it doesn’t say anything about your character’s feelings for him. Are we in a forbidden relationship? Or is my character only just finding out about this? Would she react with ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or ಠ_ಠ? Ok, let's go talk to the guy himself and find out what the deal is.

(Forgive the cut and pasted dialogue; I just centred it over his head so I don’t have to post full size screenshots.)

Straight away, we can see that Cullen is a stuttering, bumbling wreck. He stumbles over his words and clumsily tries to make conversation. We are presented with a range of options in response to his greeting:

As you can see from these options, f!mage seems to know who Cullen is. There’s no “Uh, who are you again?” dialogue. However, she doesn’t appear to know him very well. They’re unfamiliar enough that when he tries to compliment her, he has to obfuscate:

If they had any sort of relationship, whether simple friendship or more, Cullen wouldn’t need to hide that he’s familiar with an apparently key part of her personality - that she’s confident. To me, that reads that they’ve hardly interacted outside the occasional nod in the hallways, or at the very most a brief conversation.

I suppose you could argue that they’ve been having purely physical trysts that account for them having a ‘relationship’ without him knowing her personality very well, but his bumbling awkwardness seems utterly contradictory to that theory. And then, as the nail in the coffin, we get this:

F!mage can suggest such a tryst herself, picking up on his attraction and showing reciprocation. Cullen reacts first with confusion, then stunned realisation... then absolute rejection.

Then he automatically ends the conversation and literally runs away from you.

Despite his obvious attraction - described as love, no less, by random NPCs - he doesn’t even entertain the idea of acting on his desires. We’ll come back to this conversation in the second part, because Cullen’s language reveals a lot about why he rejects you. But for now, the important thing is that he does, and nothing about this exchange indicates that there have been previous, non-rejected encounters.

So, the definitive answer to the question did Cullen and f!mage have a romantic or sexual relationship at the Tower?

No. Through their canon interactions, we can deduce that they were both aware of the other’s existence, and f!mage’s opinion of him is anything from dismissive to neutral to flirty depending on your dialogue choices. However, these canon interactions completely contradict the idea of them having any kind of established romantic or sexual relationship - or even just friendship, given Cullen’s hasty “or so I’ve heard” correction, or f!mage’s offer that “we should get to know each other”. Obviously players can headcanon anything they like - I’m partial to friends with mutual unspoken crushes - but it’s not canon.

So that’s that. Now on to the second, less clear-cut, messier question...

2. Did Cullen ever behave in an obsessive/predatory/stalkerish way towards f!mage?

Oh man. There is a LOT of ground to cover here.

Let’s take this in chronological order. Firstly, let’s examine their actual relationship at Kinloch Hold, using all the canon evidence above. It’s clear from their interactions that this relationship - such as it is - is weighted more towards one side. Cullen’s feelings are so obvious that everyone and their dog is gossiping about them. It’s also evident through your conversation with him that he and f!mage don’t actually know each other very well, so regardless of whether or not your character chooses to shock him by actually showing interest in return, Cullen’s feelings up until that point must have been born of watching and admiring her from afar. So yes, there’s scope to interpret such behaviour anywhere on the spectrum from youthful crush to obsessive, and there isn’t much primary source information to confirm one way or the other. But predatory? I don’t believe the canon information supports that Cullen ever behaved in a predatory way towards f!mage during her apprenticeship in the Ferelden Circle, and here’s why.

To set the scene, we have already been shown that Cullen is young and idealistic. He’s 19, and very clearly inexperienced in terms of navigating social situations. (F!Mage’s age is flexible, but since Harrowings are not generally taken until 18/19, she and Cullen are either contemporaries or f!mage is actually older than him, which neutralises that particular facet of imbalance). Every writing choice made for Cullen during the mage origin intro highlights that he is simply naïve, unable to conceal his crush and unaware of how revealing his statements are. Look at this; he can’t even stop telling on himself while he’s actually talking to you, let alone with anyone else:

These are very stark writing choices which make the character of Cullen seem as awkward, bumbling, nonthreatening and - dare I say it - cute as possible. This was intended to be endearing. Take a look at the VO direction for Cullen’s voice acting, taken from this post of @soularia discussing the same topic:

Sincere and sweet is the clincher for me. There’s no way to reconcile that with predatory. Even if you personally disagree that the overall effect was endearing rather than creepy, the directorial intent was clearly to evoke the former.

However, even if Cullen’s attentions at the Ferelden Circle can be characterised as an innocent crush, the next hurdle to clear is the inherent imbalance of power between Templar and mage, which is one of the major issues people have with his romantic fixation. Despite his youth and inexperience, Cullen is still in a position of authority over f!mage, and as such any relationship between them would be inherently exploitative. But as you can see from his rejection dialogue, the person who is most cognizant and serious about that imbalance is Cullen himself. When Cullen turns f!mage down, the language he uses is very revealing - he doesn’t say “No, we’ll get in trouble” or even “No, your kind and mine shouldn’t mix” (which you might expect from his stance in DA2). He says “it would be really inappropriate.” You’re offering him everything he wants on a silver platter, and he won’t take it because he’s the one who’s concerned about power imbalances. That speaks of responsibility and duty of care, not predation. If his behaviour was narratively intended to be read as predatory, this would have been the perfect place to hammer that point home. You could even do it in a soft-touch morally grey way - “oh we shouldn’t, but I just can’t help it!” But instead, pains are taken to ensure the player sees Cullen acting in a respectful and principled manner.

So it’s perfectly understandable for fans to dislike the Cullen/f!mage dynamic because of the inherent power balance. However, I think it’s unfair to term Cullen himself as predatory because of it. The imbalance is not of his making, and despite his feelings, he does the exact opposite of exploiting it.

I think it’s interesting that Cullen isn’t present alongside the other Templars in the scene outside the repository when f!mage and Jowan are confronted by Greagoir and Irving, and as such we have no chance to see what side he would pick in that scenario. If you pursue the relevant dialogue options during your earlier conversation, he regretfully declares that should you have been possessed by a demon during your Harrowing, he would have followed protocol and helped the rest of the Templars put you down, despite his personal feelings on the matter:

Ouch. This tracks with the ‘duty first’ mentality that causes him to reject your proposition, even though it’s presumably all he dreams about. This topic of conversation makes Cullen visibly uncomfortable in both voice and mannerisms - because it’s fucked up and he seems painfully aware of that - and he moves on as soon as possible. But I think it’s interesting to note that in the one situation where his devotion to duty could have been proven - at the confrontation outside the repository - Cullen is conspicuously absent. It’s possible there’s nothing narratively meaningful about his exclusion from this scene, but part of me wonders whether it was intentionally kept ambiguous whether he really would have been able to attack f!mage if Greagoir ordered him to. This one is up for individual interpretation, however, and I’m aware that it’s another major reason the Cullen x f!mage pairing leaves a sour taste in some fans’ mouths. If nothing else, it’s consistent with his character presentation so far.

(As an aside, it’s interesting to note that the one time we do see Cullen presented with this choice - in the final act of DA2 - he chooses to stand with Hawke against the rest of the Templars. And that’s during his worst phase of mage prejudice. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.)

Cullen and f!mage next cross paths where all the non-mage PCs meet him for the first time: during the Broken Circle quest, where he’s been tortured, starved, assaulted and abused for days by a Desire Demon wearing the shape of none other than f!mage. This is where we get definitive proof of Cullen’s feelings, in the form of a delirious confession:

(NB: the fact that one of your dialogue options here is basically “so who the fuck were you, again?” is both hilarious and sad. Poor Cullen.)

There’s some epic Greek-tragedy-cum-extreme-Catholic-guilt here, and let me tell you this shit was like catnip to the angst sluts when DAO first came out. You have to understand that female players were typically NOT catered to in the gaming scene of 2009, especially in terms of fanservice, and having this himbo pour out his agonised forbidden desire for your character hit a LOT of people’s targets. There’s a reason Cullen was a breakout favourite. (I’m aware that mores have changed since then and this particular trope might be recieved less favourably in a more recent game. This was 2009. We had to take what we could get.)

Anyhow, regardless of all this, Cullen insists that the ordeal he’s been subjected to has destroyed whatever tender boyish regard he may once have nurtured, and says some pretty jaded and upsetting things to back it up:

What we’re seeing here is the genesis of Cullen’s radicalisation, which is hale and flourishing by DA2. I won’t go into detail about this here because it’s getting off topic, but one interesting thing to note is a line which serves as evidence against the theory that Cullen held his DA2-era radical opinions before his ordeal at the Tower:

This seems to indicate that prior to Uldred’s rebellion, Cullen was a mage sympathiser in the mould of Ser Thrask. (This was later confimed in a messageboard comment by his writer - we’ll get to that bit later.) Food for thought - however, we’re straying from our intended path.

The fact that the easiest way for the Desire Demon to break Cullen is to use his feelings for f!mage is very telling. Remember, Desire Demons are not simply about sex, despite how much boob-fondling Bioware insisted on programming into their models. The Desire Demon who possessed Connor in Redcliffe played on his wish for his father to be healed. Cullen could have had plenty of things for the demon to work with - he might have been hungry to prove himself as a devoted Templar, or conversely been dissatisfied with his life choices and yearned to see more the world - but no, it’s his feelings for f!mage that the demon focuses on like a laser beam. This trick, again? Cullen says when you find him outside the Harrowing Chamber. Still here? But that’s always worked before! I close my eyes, but when I open them you are still here! “Again”; “always” - this was more than once. The demon has been using the f!mage doppelganger technique over and over. Such insistence on this tactic by the demon - who can see directly into Cullen’s head - seems to indicate that Cullen’s feelings have moved beyond mere crush into something potent enough to be used to break his spirit entirely. How might Cullen have been affected in the time between f!mage leaving the Tower with Duncan, and miraculously returning as the prodigal daughter during Broken Circle? Remember, the news from Ostagar was that everyone but Loghain’s unit was dead. Until her reappearance in Broken Circle, Cullen was likely under the impression that his crush had died a horrific and violent death at the hands of monsters. What does that do to a lovelorn teenager? Well, it’s possible that grief and lack of a healthy emotional outlet turned those innocent feelings into an obsession. As we’ll see later, Cullen makes some curious remarks indicating that he has pedastalised f!mage in his memories. But this is moving into the realm of speculation again, and we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

This scene marks the end of Cullen and f!mage’s canon interactions in the Ferelden Circle. Despite being present during the post-battle discussion with Greagoir (and Irving, if he survives), Cullen does not address f!mage again directly, and this is his last on-screen appearance in DAO. However, he is one of the few characters who returns in all three games. So what can we glean about Cullen’s ongoing feelings from his appearances in the later instalments of the DA series?

Let’s look at Cullen’s attitude towards Amell/Surana post-Origins - how long can you nurse a crush before it becomes unhealthy?

Before we move on from DAO, let’s squeeze in a last little bit of piping hot tea from our favourite Kinloch Hold gossip girls:

This takes place during your return to the Tower in the expansion Witch Hunt, set roughly two years after the Blight. Apparently Cullen’s crush was such a juicy topic that it’s still being brought up, even though neither of he nor f!mage have been at the Ferelden Circle for literal years now. However, the question of whether he’s still holding that torch doesn’t get an answer from Kristen Bell over there, and since Cullen himself isn’t present to confirm or deny it, there’s no further information to be had here. To get the update from the lion’s mouth, we need to spin on to DA2.

There’s a lot to be said about Cullen’s decisions, viewpoints and state of mind during DA2, and I could write an entire separate post about the toxic behaviour that can result from extreme trauma, PTSD and radicalisation (and probably will; just give me a week with my psychotherapy textbooks and I’ll post another thesis-length meta). While Cullen’s fragile and toxic state of mind during DA2 does have a bearing on this discussion, I’m going to try and keep things focused on the topic of the ask, just to stop this post from tipping over into magnum opus territory.

The comment Cullen makes to Hawke in DA2 is specifically directed towards f!Amell, since you can only trigger it by bringing up Hawke’s family connection to the Hero of Ferelden - but we can reasonably assume he’d have the same opinion of Surana if asked. When congratulating Hawke on restoring the status of the Amells in Kirkwall, Cullen will make this statement, entirely unprompted and unsolicited:

This is completely contradictory to every sentiment Cullen expresses regarding mages for the entirety of DA2, and entirely conflicts with the manner of his parting with Amell after the Broken Circle quest. He’s been tortured, abused, traumatised and radicalised, and he spends the 7 years of DA2 unequivocally paying it forward. Every word he speaks about mages in this game is about damage control, and how their human rights must be balanced with the dangers they present to society. Whether you agree with this or not (I don’t, obviously), it’s inescapably part of his ideology in Kirkwall. Arguably the starkest and hardest-to-handwave nadir of his character arc is when he insists to Hawke that “mages aren’t people like you and me”. Cullen can’t see past his fear and trauma to even consider mages human.

And yet this comment about Amell, a mage who was (unwittingly and unwillingly) central to the abuse he endured? No caveats at all. Not “she was special, for a mage”. He doesn’t mention the fevered accusations he threw at her in the wake of the disaster at the Tower, when he claimed he was beyond caring what she thought of him, and accused her of dooming them all with her ‘compassion’ if she chose to spare the mages. There are no qualifiers to his wistful statement, and it remains the same regardless of what story choices you made in DAO - Amell could have left the village of Redcliffe to burn, killed a ten year old boy, joined a crime syndicate and robbed Denerim blind, defiled the Urn of Sacred Ashes and been an honest-to-god blood mage, and Cullen’s still reminiscing like she’s a milkmaid he had a summer fling with. He completely disregards the complex and negative circumstances in which they parted, and explicitly separates her from other mages (because she’s not like them, apparently).

Now, you could argue that Cullen has simply accepted that his torture by a Desire Demon hiding behind a lifesize Amell cutout was not in fact the real Amell’s fault, that he regrets his hasty chastisement of her, and has peaceably and healthily decided to move on without malice. But his baseline indictment of literally every other mage ever is not compatible with this reading. He can’t healthily and fondly reminisce about Amell while also hating and fearing all other mages. You could argue that Cullen’s use of “special” and “never met her like again” could simply refer to her saintly status as Hero of Ferelden, but keep in mind that this dialogue is only in the game to be an easter egg for Amell DAO players. The writers were explicitly throwing a bone to existing Cullen fans, who at this point were overwhelmingly mage origin players who’d experienced Cullen crushing on their character and got attached to him as a result. In this orchestrated context, Cullen’s reminiscences are intentionally and directly linked to his romantic feelings, and his mental separation of her from mages et al actually denote that Cullen has put Amell on a pedestal, and is idolising his memories of her.

Considering the context and implications of this exchange, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for players to infer at this point that Cullen has unrealistic and possibly obsessive tendencies towards the mage Warden.

That’s the only mention of f!mage we get in DA2, despite the wealth of character insight the game gives us into Cullen’s 7-year annus horribilis. But what about during DAI, after Cullen has undergone his so-called ‘retcon’ into an acceptable human being? How does he feel about f!mage a full 10 years after their last canon interaction, now he’s left the Tempalr order and been deradicalised of his least palatable opinions?

Yet again, the writers are generous with the bones they throw to those original mage Warden DAO players. We, as Inquisitor, get the opportunity to probe Cullen when the topic of the Hero of Ferelden comes up. Not having managed to play through DAI with the correct worldstate yet, I have none of my own dialogue screenshots on hand, and will have to direct you to a youtube video of the exchange (keep in mind that this conversation is with a ROMANCED Inquisitor):

Inquisitor: If you don’t mind my asking... the Hero of Ferelden was a Circle mage. Did you know her?

Cullen: I attended her Harrowing, actually. She was a lovely woman.

Inquisitor: ...“Lovely?”

Cullen: There was some... youthful infatuation on my part. A feeling I had forsaken until recently.

Inquisitor: You never acted on it?

Cullen: She was one of my charges. Even if she felt the same, it would have been... inappropriate. I saw her once, after she became a Warden. She freed the Tower during the Blight - I would be dead or mad if not for her. I was in a sorry state when she found me. The things I said were... unkind. Untoward. I regret them now. I wish she knew that.

This exchange is a cornucopia of hidden gems. Cullen’s tone is wistful, fond, a little sad. In general, I really do agree that Cullen sounds like he has a sane and stable handle on his historic trauma by this point in the series, and his evaluation of the way he and f!mage parted is self-aware and fair. His use of the words infatuation and inappropriate echo his language from DAO and give legitimacy and consistency to his character arc. But it does amuse me that he’s still throwing out unsolicited compliments like “she was a lovely woman”, and to his CURRENT GIRLFRIEND at that. And what’s this about “a feeling I had forsaken until recently”? Is he actually implying that he’s had no romantic feelings for anyone between f!mage stealing his heart and getting together with the Inquisitor? No dates? No relationships? Not even any interest in anyone else at all for 10 freaking years? That’s really not helping the ‘not obsessive’ meter. It’s also eerily similar to his pedestalling “never met her like again” comment from DA2.

Then we have a snippet of banter around the War Table which only occurs if you imported a worldstate where Leliana romanced the f!mage Warden. Again, I will have to rely on the kindness of others and direct you to a video that isn’t mine:

Cullen: So you and, er...

Leliana: Yes?

Cullen: Was she - I mean, did she ever...

Leliana: Are you asking for details?

Cullen: I-ah - no! That would be... inappropriate.

Of course, f!mage is never mentioned by name, but by the use of the running joke inappropriate coupled with Cullen’s stuttering, stumbling speech which echoes his earliest DAO introduction, it’s clear what we’re meant to infer. Did she ever... what? Ask about Cullen? Bring him up? Discuss her memories of the Tower? Want to see him again? Bioware knew exactly what they were doing with this snippet. Those who know, know. Those who don’t, don’t. But it does indicate that even though 10 years have passed, Cullen is still preoccupied with f!mage, and is noticeably concerned about her opinion of him. As before, he reacts appropriately (heh) by dropping the subject... but he just couldn’t help but ask, the same way he couldn’t help but tell on himself all those years ago.

(Of course, if f!mage died fighting the Archdemon in your particular canon, it adds a different and very sad facet to his wistful musings. Cullen’s last memory of her would be that terrible interaction after the disaster at the Tower, and consequently there will never be a chance for him to gain closure, leaving him full of grief and regret. That sort of thing can really mess a person up - and incidentally, it’s much easier to pedastalise a dead person than a living one. No wonder he was too traumatised to love again for a decade. Honestly this possibility is just tragic.)

This juncture seems the opportune place to bring up the controversial subject of decanonised or canon-adjacent material, which often paints a darker interpretation of Cullen. Sheryl Chee, who wrote for Cullen in DAO, made the following statements about her vision of the character in a messageboard discussion with fans after DAO’s release (relevant comments on pages 2 - 7):

I’d say he starts out tragically oppressed with some tendencies towards creepy stalker (I think you’d have to be, to be a templar). He ends up, I believe, completely broken mentally and emotionally and hates both himself and the femMagePC. I think nothing, not even love, can redeem him. He’s too far gone. Of course, that’s not canon, it’s just my take on it, and I revel in the angst and the pain.

Despite Sheryl’s own assertion that her comments aren’t canon, obviously opinions from the writer herself hold a lot of weight, and it’s important to realise that this quote was a strong influence on fandom’s divided opinions on Cullen. If this was where Sheryl was coming from during development, however, I do feel like something must have got a little lost in translation between her initial writing of the character and Cullen’s VO direction and in-game depiction. Maybe it’s my bias, and you’re free to draw your own conclusions based on the facts presented, but in my opinion her description bears no resemblance to the Cullen we actually experience, in-game, during the mage origin of DAO. You can’t claim that a romance between Cullen and f!mage would be “very quick, very violent, and only undertaken as a way to get her out of his system” alongside a voice acting direction that describes him as “sincere and sweet”. Make your mind up! No wonder people got mixed messages and everyone’s arguing with each other!

Sheryl’s further posts regarding the matter also contradict herself:

I did imagine him to be a young, fairly normal kid torn between his hormones and his duty. Like a more serious Alistair. Later on we decided we needed a templar survivor in the post-Uldred tower, and since people seem to enjoy it when they see people from their past, I decided to make it Cullen. In the beginning, he is sympathetic to the mages, but he comes away very changed by the things Uldred and the demons do to him.

As for the creepy stalker tendencies--er... I think that may have been started by David Gaider's little Cullen Romance snippet. I never imagined him as a creepy stalker.

Given this clarification, I feel we ought to take her initial comments with a sizeable grain of salt - but people do use these quotes to justify the darker reading of Cullen, so I think it’s important to note that not even Sheryl herself was serious or consistent about it.

I think the problem here is that there was undoubtedly some playing around with Cullen’s trajectory in the writers room, and those aborted arcs have been set free on the internet and absorbed into people’s interpretation of the main canon (not helped by Cullen’s legitimate spiral into radicalisation during DA2). Sheryl Chee’s darker vision was echoed in the infamous (and latterly decanonised as ‘false rumours’) DAO epilogue that claims Cullen had a psychotic break and slaughtered three apprentices:

The young templar Cullen never quite recovered from his ordeal. After months of attempting to convince his superiors that the tower was still a danger, he finally snapped and killed three apprentices before being stopped by his fellow templars. Eventually, Cullen escaped from prison, a madman and a threat to any mage he encountered.

Again, it was decanonised. But again, it does add fuel to the fire.

Then we have a datamined line of voice acting from DAI here (timestamp 1:57) which has Leliana angrily reacting to a messenger bringing news of what appears to be Cullen nagging for details about the mage Warden, similar to their earlier and much more restrained War Table banter. No names are mentioned, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume we’re covering the same old ground here:

Leliana: I thought this obsession was over! Has he been drinking?

Agent: I don’t know; I’m just the messenger.

Leliana: Tell him to drop it! I am not going to discuss what she was like!

Welp, she actually uses the word obsession. Again, this was presumably cut for a reason, and I guess it’s because it didn’t gel with Cullen’s deradicalised and softer character trajectory.

However, these abandoned arcs do indicate that there was a lot of concept-stage (and even development stage) flirting with the darker depictions of Cullen, and that’s undoubtedly where the arguments stem from. A lot of these concepts have filtered into the fandom consciousness, especially now DAO is a 12-year-old game that not everyone wants to actually play to see for themselves what’s true and what’s false. In that respect, I really can’t fault anyone for using these secondary-source snippets in their character interpretation of Cullen, since you could argue there’s plenty of evidence in the actual gameplay that dovetails with it.

So, my answer to the ask? No, it’s canon that there was no discernable relationship between Cullen and f!mage at the Tower, regardless of whether your character flirts with him, and his behaviour during that time indicates responsibility more than predation. As to whether Cullen exhibits obsessive behaviour to the female mage Warden after their separation? Well... this one’s trickier. I think it’s clear that whatever feelings he once held were exploited and warped through severe trauma and abuse, and that he did unrealistically romanticise his memory of her while he was going through his most fragile mental period in DA2. However, I think it’s also clear that his grasp of the situation is far more realistic and grounded by the time DAI rolls around, though he still holds a harmless torch for an old flame.

Those are my conclusions, though. My parting words are that it’s up to your own interpretation. You now have all the facts, canon, canon-adjacent or decanonised, and you can conclude from them what you wish.

Typical. Four and a half thousand words just to say that.

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butwhatifidothis · 3 years

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So if it is MEANT to be a villain route...Why are the villanous actions NEVER ADDRESSED by ANY of the characters outside of "Huh. I wonder if there was a better way to do this."

Why did they have Rhea go insane and torch a city? Why make potray Rhea as a villain when you could potray her as the hero whos genuinely trying to do good? Why have a majority of the characters still be able to be recruited regardless of if it makes sense? Why have the ending narration mostly be possible? WHY have Edelgard succeed and somehow turn her tyranny into a society that "ensures a free and independent society fot all."

If it's REALLY a villain route, why is there not a single character ending mentioning things like rebellions and conflict? Hell, the ending narration shows not a hint of villainy and potrays its ending as heroic.

"Embracing her newfound power, Edelgard could at last set about destroying Fódlan's entrenched system of nobility and rebuild a world free from the tyranny of Crests and status."

Again, if it was TRULY meant to be the villain route, it would have been POTRAYED as such. Instead of a villain route, we got "A route where one of the villains is made the protagonist and her views and villainous actions are never questioned OR addressed and outside of the conquest and starting the war, everyone is mostly happy."

Alright so this is going to seem like a nonserious answer, but I'm 100% serious when posting this image as part of a genuine answer to this question:

On CF, your actions are never addressed because of ignorance. On the surface, your actions seem like they've helped Fodlan, but as soon as the player looks any deeper it starts to become evident that something isn't right.

If Edelgard made a free and independent society for all, why are the people spied on in Hubert's ending with Dorothea? Why are rebellions secretly being put down in his ending with Shamir? That's not free, in a general sense or from specifically tyranny. That's a direct contradiction from two of the characters that can only be played on CF, and this is only found on CF.

Rhea is portrayed as a villain because she is Nabatean, and Edelgard hates Nabateans, and you are playing a route that emphasizes her ideals - which include wiping out all of the inhuman, bestial, vile, cruel Nabateans that have been plaguing humanity’s world. Rhea goes insane on CF because unlike all of the other routes, where the player and the lord never go out of their way to trample and spit on their enemies' trauma, that's what you are doing the entire time you play CF to Rhea - for months once Byleth returns, and that’s being extremely generous and not counting the entire war. You help drive Rhea and the other Nabateans away from their homes when taking over Garreg Mach - like Nemesis did to Rhea after the Red Canyon Massacre! You're helping someone try to kill off the rest of her people - like Nemesis did at Zanado! You're trying to kill Rhea with the Sword of the Creator, her mother's mutilated corpse - like Nemesis did! You're doing so with the descendent of Wilheim - spitting on the legacy of the one human Rhea could trust during the War of Heroes! You're literally recreating the single worst moment of Rhea's life, all so that you can help the one who views her as less than human.

Portraying Rhea as "the hero who's genuinely trying to do good" goes against Edelgard's viewpoint of all Nabateans being evil, and you're never meant to question Edelgard or make her change her beliefs. You as the player are actively discouraged from talking back to Edelgard, as she will noticeably get upset whenever you do - many times you will even lose support points with her, and this is especially bad for specifically Edelgard because you have to get to a certain support level with her to enter her route, with you having less chapters to do so because she won't talk to you until after Byleth achieves the Sword of the Creator in Chapter 4.

Look at how Rhea, Dimitri, and Claude are portrayed on CF. Rhea and Dimitri are demonized, while Claude is given some leeway from Edelgard. Now notice who of the three of them always speak their minds over Edelgard's villainy to her face, and which of the three of them bends to Edelgard's view of them as the bad guy. Dimitri and Rhea never allow themselves to bend to Edelgard - they call her out and call her actions evil. Claude, on the other hand, will remove himself from Fodlan and then afterwards make himself out to be a bad guy whom Edelgard managed to take down. He puffs up her ego, and he gets to live, while the two that don't must die. Edelgard is the one always out for the kill, and only by submitting to her is anyone allowed to live - which, I don’t think needs to be said, isn’t very heroic of her.

I've had my fair share of complaints over the characters that can be recruited over to CF, but even with those complaints... look at how those characters behave on CF. None of them are Felix levels of negative character development, but they all act noticeably worse on CF vs how they are on the other routes. To name some notable examples: Ignatz goes from wanting to paint Garreg Mach as it stood five years before to preserve its beauty to wanting to paint the violent downfall of the Alliance, Lysithea wants to abandon House Ordelia, which is in direct contrast to her core character motivation, Ingrid is willing to throw away her lifelong dream of being a knight of Faerghus, which she herself says is her spitting on her dead betrothed’s dreams, Leonie works with Jeralt’s killers, etc. etc.. And mind, CF is the route that locks out the most units - there's the obvious ones like Dedue and Gilbert who were already route exclusive, but then there's Seteth and Flayn, Catherine, Cyril, and Hilda. CF is the only route to have even non-exclusive units be completely unavailable no matter what.

Edelgard doesn't make a society that is "free," like I said above - having a secret police monitor the people's actions, or is ready to put down anyone who tries to rise up against her, is literally the opposite of free. Edelgard can and will ban plays she doesn't like - not free. Edelgard only allows state-sanctioned religion, if she does allow it - not free.

CF is a route that wants to make the player believe the lie that you're not the villain, because you are playing from the perspective of someone who herself doesn't think she's the villain, but like. Look at what you're doing. You're invading two countries for the express, explicit purpose of taking them over and making them your own. You're working with someone who's been trying to reunite Fodlan back under Adrestia as early as the prologue when she tried to have Dimitri and Claude assassinated. You're helping TWS. Your Imperial presence makes Church people flee - which, given that Edelgard wants Rhea and those involved with the Church dead, I don't blame them. You're working with someone who is starving her people so that she can carry on with her war.

CF lies to the player - Edelgard lies, constantly. She says she's willing to let Rhea live, but literally the scene before she says she seeks to fuckin' Exodia Rhea. She lies about Arianrhod. She lies - or is flat-out wrong, which isn't much better - about the Church hoarding wealth and about the Church splitting up the Empire. She lies about not knowing about TWS pre-ts. She helps spread the lie of Duscur being the ones who killed Lambert. She lied about not knowing where Flayn was when she was kidnapped. She lies to her people by making them believe she’s making the orders during the war, not Byleth. There's a student who doubts all of what Edelgard says right before the timeskip happens and who isn't sure about his decision to stay, and then there’s a man who calls Edelgard “a tricksy one” on the last explore section for lying about attacking the Kingdom capitol. She’s wrong about the history of Nemesis and Seiros, calling Nemesis killing all of Rhea’s family a “simple dispute.” She lies to her people about an entire war against a group who just a little bit ago were her allies. Lies and ignorance are staple points to CF as a route, it’s baked into it, so the idea of the CF going “oh no you totally are the good guys” literally as the city burns down around the players doesn’t come from nowhere.

And like... the ending narration “shows not a hint of villainy?” Um.

Her stepping on the flags of the Alliance and Church? Her recreating a painting of Napoleon - that little known imperialist - down to the hand of justice? Her denouncing gods constantly and then being ushered in by a statue with heavy resemblance to Nike, Goddess of victory? Hubert plotting away from the sight of the rejoicing people? Yeah, there’s a lot of hints to villainy.

Again, CF isn’t “portrayed” as a villain route because it’s you falling for the lies of Edelgard. You have a wool over your eyes. You accept everything Edelgard says as fact, even when she actively contradicts herself - sometimes as radically as in back-to-back scenes. You view yourself as a savior to humanity, even when you plunge it into darkness. You don’t think you’re the villain, so your actions aren’t going to be put in an explicitly villainous light - at least, not by anyone on your side.

This post showcases the difference between non-recruited characters fighting non-CF!Byleth vs CF!Byleth. Characters are mostly saddened by having to fight Byleth in the former, while they are mostly betrayed on CF. Byleth is very clearly seen as being wrong for having sided with Edelgard on CF by the non-recruited characters - Edelgard’s actions may not be directly criticized (save for by Dimitri and a few others), but it makes no sense for these characters to be this shocked and betrayed by Byleth siding with her if her actions were so good. Leonie deadass calls you a traitor to Jeralt, Ingrid says that you are not fit to rule Fodlan specifically for siding with Edelgard and the Empire after all she and they have done, and Dimitri questions you as to why you chose Edelgard and her “savage, bloody path,” just to name a few notable examples. You, as the player, are being criticized for siding with Edelgard. You say that the villainous actions are “NEVER ADDRESSED by ANY of the characters,” but what else are these reactions but characters addressing your villainous actions?

And like... “a route where one of the villains is the protagonist” bro that’s a villain route. Like. I’m not trying to be mean, but I am genuinely confused as to what you were trying to get at here.

Like. In a vacuum? I might can get the idea of CF not being a villain route a little better, were it the only route available (though even that is a very big stretch). But you have three whole other routes where there’s no conquest, there’s no working with TWS, there’s no using Demonic Beasts, there’s no killing/exiling the remaining (immediately known) Nabateans, there’s no continuous and long-standing lies that never get outed, the lords never stay flat out wrong about the events of the game, non-recruited characters aren’t shooting Byleth up the ass with accusations of being a traitorous lemming who’d follow Edelgard off a cliff... and they achieve peace. Those endings, with Dimitri Claude and “Rhea” (SS ain’t really her route even though it should’ve been but ye), lack the following in any of their endings:

Censorship

Spying on the people

Constantly putting down rebels in secret

State-sanctioned religion

(mind, this last one is in direct contradiction to CF’s ending narration that says that Church is destroyed)

None of this happens on AM, VW, and SS. They all have peaceful endings. They all have Fodlan see the light of dawn, and that is never contradicted in their endings. CF is the only route to have all of these things happen in it - I think that’s enough for it to be considered a villain route lol

#ask #anon #anti edelgard #Anti-edelgard #Edelgard discourse #Edelgard critical #just to be safe #Again really hope I don't come across badly and I'm sorry if I do!#like. I do see where you're coming from! A lot of times villain routes acknowledge you to be the big bad meanie bobeenie!#at least more directly than CF does - because CF does! Through the non-recrutied characters and through the subtext!#sure you can miss out on the former if you manage to recruit everyone but the latter is always present!#Fodlan is in a noticeably worse state in CF than on the other routes and you are actively questioned as to why you joined [lord's] side #by some of the characters you CAN'T recruit (Dimitri; Catherine)#which doesn't happen on the other routes - the other character just wish that Byleth chose them or don't want to fight Byleth #plus there's all of the actions you commit/are complicit in on CF vs the other routes #it just isn't flat out in your face with it because like... Edelgard doesn't view herself as the villain. A Byleth who chose to walk with #her doesn't view her as the villain - even while knowing all oft he heinous shit she's been a part of #so if Edelgard doesn't view herself as the villain and this Byleth doesn't view her as the villain and everyone trusts Byleth's word #who on your side is going to call you out?#hope I'm making sense!

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crossdressingdeath · 3 years

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"Boys will be boys" logic is interesting since WWX himself basically uses that exact excuse in the book when he tells LWJ not to take JC's homophobic rant/assault seriously in the ancestral hall bc that's just how JC is, as if WWX himself wasn't furious when JC targeted LWJ in that scene. A lot of WWX's famed unreliable narration is rationalizing the crazy shit JC does but sometimes people tend to take it at face value.

Yes, exactly! That is such a huge thing. WWX spends so much time telling himself (and through himself the audience) that oh, it can’t be helped when JC mistreats him, JC is just like that, it’s totally fine, he doesn’t mind, and we see how that viewpoint was encouraged and strengthened by the people around him, especially JYL (sorry Shijie but it’s true). Hell, you could argue that this particular aspect of his character was entirely her doing, given YZY just thinks he should be subordinate to JC in all things and JFM mostly ignores JC’s behaviour; it’s just JYL going for the “oh boys will be boys, you’re strong and always smiling, you can take it” angle.

...Actually, let’s go into that a bit more because it very much gets buried under the “best sister” shit; I am prepared to argue that JYL consistently taking JC’s side did serious damage to WWX. Like, she was the only Jiang who consistently showed him affection and support and he convinced himself that it was unconditional! But the “unconditional” aspect was an illusion entirely based on his ability to consistently and convincingly pretend that JC wasn’t hurting him. WWX isn’t stupid, I don’t doubt for a second that he knew JYL would take JC’s side if it came down to it. She always takes JC’s side from day one. Literally; she hears WWX say he’ll take the blame for JC chasing him out of Lotus Pier and getting WWX’s leg broken while all JC did was come out looking for WWX personally (instead of doing the smart and more helpful thing and getting adults to help) because he was scared he’d get in trouble and he got a little scrape because he was running through the woods like an idiot because, again, he was too scared of getting in trouble to GET ACTUAL HELP THAT WASN’T A CHILD and she’s like “Yeah, that sounds reasonable and fair and not like a really, really bad precedent to set with a kid whose safety relies on my family liking him”. ...There’s also an aspect of “Sure, it can’t hurt to let the kid my mother very clearly hates take responsibility for something that he could be punished for by someone with a motive to take everything possible as a wrongdoing on WWX’s part”, but to be fair at this point she doesn’t know YZY will whip WWX for literally anything she can even slightly suggest is any sort of wrongdoing on WWX’s part. And let’s not pretend WWX wasn’t punished for JC getting hurt; come on, it’s YZY, she punishes him for sunbathing.

This is a running thing going forward in their dynamic, too! JC does something horrible, JYL immediately starts in on the “Oh, boys will be boys, A-Cheng might get upset if you call him out on his shit” shtick if WWX shows the slightest trace of dissatisfaction with being treated like garbage, WWX smiles and forgives JC for whatever he did without question, there’s a period of calm, the cycle repeats. JYL very much teaches WWX that he cannot EVER show any unhappiness with JC’s threats and insults. If he ever shows so much as a shred of anger or sadness or generally being upset at the way JC mistreats him JYL takes JC’s side. At most she’ll tell JC that maybe he should back off a little while basically telling WWX to grin and bear it because JC might be slightly upset if anyone ever calls him out on being horrible to literally everyone. And don’t even get me started on the whole “Oh you’re always smiling” bullshit, talk about teaching a mistreated orphan that he has literally no right to look sad about anything ever. Like, let me put it this way: WWX doesn’t even feel he can go to JYL about JC TRYING TO KILL HIM. That’s a lot? It’s a lot? And it never really gets discussed in any way? WWX doesn’t feel like he can tell his supposed sister who supposedly loves him unconditionally that her brother tried to murder him like three times and when the third time comes up JYL takes JC’s side because JC’s arm got broken in the process of the staged fight where JC stabbed WWX in the gut and that’s fine and healthy apparently. Stan WQ, the actual best sister (god I love WQ).

Anyway, now that I’m done enraging the fandom with my tangent about how much JYL sucks as a sister to WWX... Yeah, WWX insists that JC’s attitude can’t be helped because JC’s just like that even when he very clearly doesn’t buy that? He’s obviously pissed when JC goes after LWJ to the point of genuinely going after JC for it... but when they get away from JC he goes into the “Oh, he can’t help it, don’t get mad at him”. And in this particular case part of it is him panicking because JC’s homophobic ranting (and LWJ’s clear anger at it) left him questioning his and LWJ’s feelings and the mutuality thereof, but it also... really does throw every other time he insists JC’s behaviour is fine into question. Like, we know he’s not buying his own line in this scene! He was furious at JC! He’s still furious and upset! But he feels the need to cover for JC. Even after he’s realized that JC’s behaviour wasn’t okay, he still feels like he has to protect him from anyone else getting angry at him. WWX knows JC’s behaviour isn’t okay and that it’s not fair that JC treats him the way he does and I’d argue (especially at this point in the story) that he deserves better than JC’s treatment... but he still insists that JC is just like that and it’s fine.

That throws every single time WWX smiles through JC’s mistreatment into question, I’d say; we know he’ll react this way even when he knows that JC’s behaviour isn’t okay, so who’s to say he ever isn’t aware that JC’s behaviour isn’t okay? In CQL XZ does an excellent job of showing that at least in that continuity he is extremely done with JC’s shit even from when they’re fifteen; the novel is as far as I remember a little less clear, but it’s still pretty obvious that he’s not enjoying the way JC treats him. He knows that the way JC treats him is hurtful and upsetting and sometimes even frightening (think of the times JC threatens him with dogs and he’s clearly scared, which is a whole other thing because either he’s so scared of dogs that even the threat terrifies him or he has zero doubt that JC for sure would set dogs on him, which is a big thing either way and also I’m still not over how CQL JYL laughs when JC threatens WWX with dogs even though WWX is clearly scared and she totally would’ve laughed if that happened in the novel too but showing it so blatantly and then never actually getting into how messed up it is is just unnecessary), but he feels like he has to smile through it and cover for JC, just like when they were nine.

Anyway yeah, for a fandom so obsessed with WWX being an unreliable narrator the MDZS/CQL fandom sure does miss a lot of times where WWX is actually being unreliable, huh.

#mdzs #grapehate #wei wuxian #lotus sister #...got a bit off-track there whoops #anyway the jiangs ALL suck and FUCK jyl for enabling jc's horrible behaviour #anon #asks

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studiobeebo · 3 years

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THAT’S OK DUDE! Honestly I prefer people be off anon because then that way I know if the requester liked their thing or not since anons rarely follow up 😅 but like I said I’ll do anything that catches my eye and I love me some Teenage Gojō Being A Pest so I hope you enjoy!!

♡ Road Trips ♡

Satoru Gojō x Fem! Reader

as always if y’all enjoy this please remember that reblogs are greatly appreciated :D

“I am seriously starting to think that the only person you care about is your damn self.”

The shouted words were sharp enough to hurt his pride just a teeny bit, but the slamming of the passenger door actually made him wince as if you had just slapped him rather than just yelling in anger.

“Wow, nice job. And you thought this trip would be romantic.”

Gojō sneered and stuck his tongue out at his friend who was all-too-eager to mock him for his obvious dismissal of your annoyance, but how was he supposed to know you were actually upset with him? He had practically annoyed his way into being your boyfriend and his general personality was something you had become well acquainted with, and usually loved, but sometimes he was just too much to handle and this seemed to be one of those times, only he was noticing far later than he should have.

Gojō, Getō, Ieiri, and you had been planning this road trip for a good couple of months, but you were starting to regret it already. For the past hour or so, Gojō had been driving without the usage of his GPS or a map of any kind and you were sure at this point you were entirely lost. It was funny at first, it didn’t surprise you that his free spirit may want to go off the beaten path a bit, but as it got later into the evening your anxiety began to kick in as you saw fewer and fewer buildings. Still, even when you started nagging him that you were getting worried you wouldn’t make it to your hostel for the night or mentioning you didn’t want him to be driving without a map in the dark, he’d have some flippant excuse or shitty attempt at convincing you that he was fine. As much as you loved them, Getō and Ieirei weren’t much help since they had long since resigned themselves to the fact that Gojō did what he wanted, when he wanted, so after another half hour filled with bickering between you and Gojō, you practically demanded him to pull over at the nearest look out area, one that actually would have been quite nice if he hadn’t been so damn irritating. To your surprise, he actually listened for once, so here you were a short walk away from the car, standing at the edge of the viewpoint staring out over the vast ocean that had just a sliver of sunlight left to bask it in a dimming light.

You let out a sigh as you wrapped your arms around your waist, quickly taking notice of how the temperature had dropped considering how high up you were, plus the lack of sunlight didn’t help either. You heard the other car doors slam shut one after the other, figuring everyone else needed a breather or maybe the others just wanted to check out the view before the sun set, but for now you just wanted a few minutes alone to cool off. Those ‘few minutes’ were short lived though as after a short amount of time, you felt a familiar pair of slim hands attempting to snake their way around your waist, an attempt of which you were quick to shove away and turn your head with a small huff of defiance, but Gojō was just as quick to try again. A few more attempts later and you finally gave in with another irritated sigh, though you still refused to speak or even look at him as he hugged you closer and rested his head on your shoulder.

“Still mad at me?”

The pointed glare you turned to give him was almost enough to make him raise his hands up in a defensive motion, but he was afraid that if he let go of you, you wouldn’t give him another shot at wiggling himself out of the doghouse.

“Ok, ok- stupid question.” He hummed, tapping his fingers against your hips in thought.

He had never been very good at the whole ‘apologizing’ thing, but that was mostly because he never really felt the need to apologize. He was quite the nuisance to a long list of people, pretty much all of which he couldn’t give two fucks about whether they liked him or not, so why apologize for his antics if he didn’t care to be forgiven? With you, however, that was a different story. It made his stomach twist in an uncomfortable way whenever he saw you look at him with something other than a smile, let alone an angry scowl, and nothing got him to drop his pride quicker than that. Still, as much as he wanted to be able to make things better instantly, or just not make those sorts of mistakes in the first place, he was still learning how to navigate expressing his feelings in a way that didn’t come off as fake, because everything he felt for you was as genuine as possibly could be.

“I pulled up the map, we aren’t too far off, I swear it.~ I’ll even let you nap in my jacket until we get there, if ya want.” He spoke, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his phone to show you the route as if he knew you wouldn’t take his word for it.

You glanced at the phone screen that lit up your face now that the sun had set, and while it did fill you with some relief to see the hour and a half ETA, that didn’t change the fact that he had taken it upon himself to completely ignore your previous discomfort up until now and judging by his lack of apology he didn’t seem to think he needed to give one, but before you had the chance to open up your mouth to give him a piece of your mind, he beat you to the punch as he squeezed you closer.

“...And I’m sorry- seriously. I should’ve listened to what you were saying. AND it won’t happen again.” He spoke, lifting his head up a bit so he could look you in the eyes over the rim of his glasses.

You couldn’t tell if using those pretty puppy-dog eyes of his was part of his apology schtick or not, but after a moment of mentally debating yourself you let out a sigh as you relaxed into his touch.

“Did you practice that in the car?”

“I’m too perfect to need practice, babe.~” He responded with that characteristic smugness before pressing a kiss to your shoulder, then to the curve of your neck, peppering kisses upwards across your skin before finally meeting your lips.

After a moment he pulled away, slowly releasing his grip on you and giving you some room. He turned with a satisfied smile to head back to the car, but was halted by your foot catching the back of his heel causing him to damn near face plant into the ground as he stumbled before turning to give you a perfect ‘what gives?’ look that you would have photographed if you could.

“I do want that jacket though.” You stated matter-of-factly with one hand on your hip and the other held out expectantly. “Oh- and the keys, too.”

“Huh?” He questioned, ignoring the snickers that came from not too far behind where the two of you stood.

“I’d give her the keys before you end up single by the end of this trip.” Ieiri yelled as she and Getō shuffled into the back of the car in a fit of laughter at his expense.

He groaned and made a face before shrugging off his jacket and then digging the keys out from his pocket, handing both over to you with only a hint of hesitation.

Had it been anyone else, he would have been annoyed with the power shift, but seeing you practically skip back to the car was more than enough to make him crack a smile as he trailed after you, counting his lucky stars that at least this time his title of ‘boyfriend’ had been safely secured.

#summer dreams #bee writes #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru #satoru gojō #gojō satoru #satoru gojo #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader

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writhingcreature · 3 years

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The Big Four (Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragon) in the Hogwarts House colors according to my own hc’s! All finally done. I think we did them DIRTY back when this was really popular and I know we all hate JKR but I just really had to state this before I let it go forever lmao.

1. Hiccup Horrendoue Haddock III, of Burk. Ravenclaw. He definitely might be a secondary Hufflepuff, but his cleverness and craftsmanship skills always save the day, and when it’s all said and done his willingness to be open minded and understanding and see things from viewpoints he’s never even experienced comes from a very intelligent mind that asks questions and seeks answers and pushes the limits of all things known to find the new truth. He paved a way for a peaceful, better future and with it, all he ached to do was learn more.

2. Rapunzel, of Corona. Gryffindor. Trapped in a tower, she accepted her reality and sat in it. The only thing that could keep her busy was reading of a world she yearned for but stayed out of her reach, and her greatest wish was to go out and see things for herself. Explore. Experience. Despite her loyalty to Gothal, the call of the universe was too great and she heeded it. Even when she got back to her family and uncovered the most painful truth and ended up with an amazing man, all she wanted was to feel the grandness and size of the world and to explore every inch of it. Any captivity made her feel claustrophobic and I’m surprised she was ever able to stay in one place for more than a second. No wonder she moves around so often. Why stay here when there’s so much out there?

3. Merida of Dunbrough. Slytherin. Being under the control of anyone else made her go absolutely insane. She knew what she wanted, and she was willing to do anything to get it. Her thirst for freedom and power over her own life came mostly from a desperate need to make the world shift in her hands, reshaping it with her fingers to act and look how she wanted to. With no hesitation or questions asked, she worked hard and took the best first road to where she wanted to go, and she made a mess on the way. She cleaned it up and finally saw viewpoints outside her own, but that doesn’t change the fact that she took hold on her own fate and fought for what she wanted to no end, even when her mom was a bear and they had very limited time to undo the spell.

4. Jack Frost, Guardian of fun. Hufflepuff. His lively and kind heart was weighed down upon for centuries by loneliness. He risked everything to save his little sister, and lost. He wouldn’t change it for the world though, because she’s safe. His ties to others is what makes or breaks his very way of living. Not being seen was the most painful thing to him, and being ignored are him up completely. Having Jamie believe in him was the single best thing that had happened to him since dying, and it changed the way he saw the world entirely. He’s fun and kindness and energy and warmth and family, all on one heart that bleeds gold and everyone he touches feels like they’ve finally come home.

If you would like me to go into better depth on any of these headcanons (or the head canons of any other characters’ houses in these franchises) let me know! As well, I also have seasonal and elemental hc’s for these characters, so if you’d like something for that let me know. For now, remember to click for better quality and to have a great day!

#Jack Frost #Hiccup Haddock #Hiccuo Horrendous Haddock III #Rapunzel #Merida Dunbrough #Rise of the Guardians #Brave #How to Train Your Dragon #rotg #Tangled #hhtyd #rotbtd #rise of the brave tangled dragons #fan art #recolor #art

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septembercfawkes · 4 years

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Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Don't Write Direct Dialogue!"

Over the years, I've done a lot of posts on dialogue, in part because when I went searching for a deeper understanding on the topic, I didn't find a lot of material. One of the recurring things I did find though, was about writing indirect dialogue. And this is absolutely one of the best places to start, when learning how to craft better dialogue. Dialogue should always be saying and doing more than what's on the page.

Almost always, anyway.

Naturally, this means incorporating indirection.

Which plays closely into subtext.

But a few times I've been asked, when is it okay to use direct dialogue? For this post, I have at least four answers.

What's the Rule?

Don't write direct dialogue!

Why it's a Rule

Usually the best dialogue considers what the character doesn't say, and how. In other words, subtext. When subtext happens, the dialogue is bigger than what's on the page--a quality that seems to be key to drawing in readers and writing a great story.

And in reality, most of us do talk indirectly. And we are always revealing more about ourselves than what we say (whether or not we want to). Interestingly, the more powerful emotions we feel, the more indirect we tend to be.

Indirect dialogue also holds more tension. (This again draws us in.)

On the flip side, direct dialogue releases tension, something we rarely want to do.

And when we talk about powerful emotions directly (and disproportionately), they can actually lose power. This is one of the many facets of the "show, don't tell" rule. Talking about powerful emotions directly in dialogue, labels, or in other words, "tells" them, which usually is not as satisfying as showing them so they can be experienced by the reader.

Direct dialogue also means one-dimensional dialogue. What you see (or read), is what you get. This turns the reader into more of a spectator, instead of a participator, in the story (and we want participation).

But a lot of beginning writers write direct dialogue--we probably all did. Writing indirect dialogue is a skill--it takes study and practice (and more practice).

In case anyone isn't quite sure what I mean about direct vs. indirect, here is a quick example:

Direct:

"You're an idiot, Shelly," Jasmine said.

Indirect:

"You wouldn't know this, but I don't do much writing anymore," Jasmine said. "Those days are over. I use what are called 'ghost writers,' Shelly. People I hire to do the writing for me. I like to sit back and brainstorm a few concepts with a glass of champagne. Do you know what 'brainstorming' is?" "Yes," Shelly said. Jasmine simpered. "You're smarter than I was expecting."

In the second example, Jasmine implies she thinks Shelly is an idiot in the way she talks to her (in bold).

I realize this example takes up a lot more space--and sometimes being indirect does.

But, as the story builds upon itself, strengthening context, you can be clearly indirect in less space. For example, if the reader went into the scene knowing that Shelly is a world-renowned writer and that Jasmine is stuck up, then a line like "Do you know what 'brainstorming' is?"--is all we need. (Obviously Shelly knows that, so Jasmine saying that is like slap in the face.)

When to Break the Rule

The majority of dialogue should be indirect. That's just the way it is. But that's not necessarily the same as never being direct. So when is it a good idea to say it like it is?

1. When You Want to Release Tension

Indirect dialogue holds tension.

Direct dialogue does not.

When you move from indirect to direct, it releases tension.

And sometimes that is exactly what you need.

It's the same thing in story structure. You start with your hook and introduction, go to the rising action and climax, and finish it up with the falling action/denouement. Or to put simply: introduce tension, build tension, release tension.

The denouement is all about releasing tension--that's why loose ends are tied up (generally speaking).

Releasing tension isn't bad, and if it is done at the right time, can be highly effective.

And that may not be necessarily during the denouement.

Because, as I talked about in this post, that story structure permeates all parts of story (like a fractal), not just the overall plot. Scenes, conversations, even descriptions, have that structure. This means that some direct dialogue may be just what you need after you've introduced and built up tension.

Consider a conversation where two people in a relationship are arguing over dirty dishes. While they might be fighting about dirty dishes, perhaps the real argument (subtext) is about one partner thinking the other might be cheating. Either context or indirectness introduces that idea. And it builds and builds and builds as the fight goes on and on. But for your plot, you don't plan on carrying this conflict through the entire book, maybe only this scene. So, after the conversation reaches its high point, one partner says to the other, "Just like you've been cheating on me with your secretary!"

The other says, honestly, "I haven't been cheating."

And then perhaps through direct dialogue, the problem is sorted out.

During a denouement, not only are loose ends tied up, but changes and ideas are validated and a "new normal" established. So, here in this example, by now talking about cheating directly, it will validate each person's concerns and they can start a "new normal" (one that doesn't include someone thinking the other is cheating).

You've seen similar dialogue arcs before. Perhaps there is sexual tension between the protagonist and love interest, which builds and builds and builds, until one tells the other directly that they love them. And in most stories, that's when the two starting kissing. Both those things are part of a denouement, even if it's not during the denouement.

So when it's time to let go of tension and start a falling action, direct dialogue may be just what you need.

But, I do want to note, it's also possible to hit that falling action without direct dialogue. Say, in the text, the main character intentionally tells the love interest she loves him, indirectly, but it's clear to both of them exactly what she is confessing, so in a strange way, it's direct and indirect simultaneously. But let's not confuse ourselves too much.

2. When Being Direct Adds Tension

In the above examples, tension is released--but only if having an open discussion about possible infidelity or being in love doesn't lead to new, immediate potential conflicts. Remember, conflicts are problems happening. Tension is the potential for problems/conflicts to happen. If we already know that two characters can't be together because a romance will lead to them losing their jobs, which they both need critically right now, then in some situations, one directly confessing love to the other, introduces more tension. It's similar to the "Yes, but" idea--if you are familiar with that writing term. Yes, the character got what she wanted . . . but now she's going to lose her job, which will create even bigger problems. In other words, it adds tension. But, keep in mind, that to some degree, the prior tension is released, if only a little or temporarily (at least until the end of the scene). Because, say they both want to keep their jobs, so ultimately decide not to see each other. Well, the tension was released during that confession, but in the next scene, we have heightened sexual tension--because each knows the other loves them, but can't act on it. (Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt's relationship in Parks and Rec is a great example of this sort of thing.) Keep in mind though, however it plays out, the confession still works as a sort of denouement, because it validates and establishing a new normal (either losing jobs or dealing with heightened attraction).

3. When The Character is Direct

Some rare characters are very direct. It's just part of who they are. But that also means they come pre-packaged with their own kind of writing challenges. Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter is a great example of this. She almost always speaks directly. But this is because she has nothing to hide. As Rowling once put it, "She doesn't give a d--- what others think of her." So it's not like she needs much subtext. In one of my ongoing projects, I have a viewpoint character who is similar. Part of me wishes I knew what I was getting into when I started with him, but then part of me is glad, because then I might have picked someone safer. Needless to say, he's been one of the most challenging characters I've tried to write. You see, the thing with having direct characters, is they lack the usual avenues of tension and conflict. If they are direct, and don't care about being direct, then a lot of techniques you have at your disposal with other characters, are gone. (It took me some drafting to figure out how to work through this.) But even if your character is direct, you still need to incorporate tension. We've talked about this a bit in the last section, but for characters like this, you need to look at how being direct causes tension, conflict, and complications. Think about it. If you were direct about everything you thought and felt, and in the way you shared that, what would happen? A nightmare! That's what would happen. This is one of the reasons we as human beings aren't direct in our speech in real life. (And how many children have been labeled rude or hurtful for saying exactly what they think?) This sort of thing happens with Luna, although it's tamed down somewhat in the films. In the books, she's regularly getting in arguments with Hermione. Why? Well, in part because Luna says whatever she thinks and believes and doesn't care how Hermione responds. Her directness leads to people feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and is one of the reasons she's an outcast; translation: complications.

4. When Something is Urgent or Somewhat Unimportant

When characters are in an urgent situation, they are more likely to talk directly. It saves on time. So something like, "Look out! A cliff!" obviously works. It seems like common sense. How many times has a character thought he was about to die, and made a point to confess his guilt, love, or feelings directly, right in that moment? When it looks like your world is falling apart before your own eyes, there might not be much time to be indirect--and there may be a sense of desperation to be direct. Worth noting is that the less we care about something, the more direct we might be. If it's unimportant to me that I ate a hamburger for lunch and you ask what I had, then I'll have no problems sharing that. If I'm supposed to be an a vegan diet, then I might try to dance around the answer. Usually in manuscripts though, we cut way down on the unimportant--things like small talk and basic introductions often get axed, unless there is subtext within. Which then usually makes them important, anyway. Both urgency and importance/unimportance also play into the story's pacing. So that's something to keep in mind.

So is it always bad to write direct dialogue? Nope! But just like "show, don't tell," your story will be better off if the dialogue is more indirect than not. Related Posts: 5 Most Common Mistakes in Dialogue Writing Realistic and Complex Dialogue Kicking "Great" Dialogue up to "Killer" Dialogue Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Only Use 'Said'" Generic Dialogue—Staaaahp (Don't) Tell Me How You Really Feel How to Punctuate Dialogue Writing Callbacks

#writing tips #writing tips and tricks #writeblr #nanowrimo #dialogue #writing #writing help #writing reference #writing dialogue

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 3 years

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I genuinely do not know how to engage with the Loki fandom anymore without regularly tanking my mental health, and I have no idea what to do about it.

the thing about my brain is that it sucks, see, and one of the big ways in which it sucks is that it is incredibly easy for me to miserably fixate on anything that upsets me, which then often expands to include all kinds of other tangentially related things that also upset me, thereby becoming a very bad spiral even if the thing that originally upset me was objectively not a huge deal. (I’m also really, really good at catastrophizing, which just accelerates the whole process.) at best, I then find it completely possible to do much of anything, like work on anything creative, or do my actual job that pays my actual bills, or in general remember that anything good can ever happen again. about all I can do to reset my brain when that happens is to ignore every single one of my responsibilities and do something really distracting like playing a game so my brain is engaged in something other than eating itself alive, or maybe just take a sleeping pill and go to bed. (if neither is an option, then it just sucks even more.)

for reasons that I certainly hope are obvious, that’s something I prefer to avoid.

the thing about Loki is, he’s been my absolute favorite character for about a decade now. he’s my comfort character. I can’t reliably write anything except Loki fic (which would be enough of a personal investment even if I hadn’t written a fic or two that helped me deal with the death of my dog a few years ago and my generally unhealthy feelings about death as a concept, but I did that too). I’ve spent a not-inconsiderable amount of money--again, over the past decade--on my collection of Loki stuff because it makes me happy, and I’ve invested probably even more thought and emotion than money into this character. Loki, in general, is very important to me, if for no other reason than that he’s been part of my life for a long time.

and the thing about the Loki show specifically is, I mostly like it. in part this is because I want to like it, because I’m invested for all the reasons mentioned above. there have been aspects of every episode so far that I’ve enjoyed without reservation or qualification...and there have been aspects of every episode so far that have made me cringe or genuinely upset me for one reason or another. but because I want to like it, and because I have that tendency to fixate on things that upset me in a way that makes me absolutely miserable and renders my brain completely useless for doing anything except continuing to be upset, it is genuinely unhealthy for me to spend much time at all reading negativity about the show.

some of the criticism I don’t totally understand and that’s less of an issue, but a lot of it has merit, a lot pretty obviously comes from a place of actual pain, and there’s a lot I agree with (or at least understand even if a specific thing doesn’t bother me as much). so if I read much of it, I will fixate. I will lose sleep. I will be pretty much unable to do things I actually need or want to do. if I want to avoid those things, it’s not enough just to avoid reading really intense criticism of the show; I have to actively seek out positive opinions, both to reinforce my enjoyment of things I already liked and to provide additional viewpoints on things I didn’t particularly like on first watch so I can keep myself from fixating on them (which my brain is quite happy to do on its own, without even seeing specifically negative posts, so you can probably imagine how much worse my brain gets having the negative opinions reinforced).

like--maybe this all sounds kind of silly, I don’t know, but I’ve lived with this garbage brain for more than three decades and I have a pretty good idea of how it works, at least in terms of what makes it even more garbage. to take care of my mental health, I have to approach certain things in certain ways, and I’m...working on not feeling like that’s silly all by itself. in this specific case, that means avoiding a lot of the negativity and making an effort to seek out positive opinions. as long as people tag appropriately, that shouldn’t be hard, right?

well you’d think so, except actually no, because I’ve had the worst time finding people who like the show and don’t also spend a significant amount of their time dumping on fans who hate the show or just, like, have any issues at all with any aspect of it for any reason. it starts to feel like people think that if you’re not worshiping at Marvel’s feet and loving every second of everything in this massive profit-driven franchise, then you are deluded, whiny, entitled, stupid, sadistic, or some combination of the above. and you know what, maybe it’s weird but I absolutely find that just as upsetting as negativity about the show itself. constantly seeing that stuff is equally bad for my mental health, equally likely to make me miserably fixate on it and lead to a spiral of “everything is bad and hopeless and nothing will ever get better in literally any aspect of life so why even bother trying?”

for reasons that I once again hope are obvious, I still want to avoid that! regardless of the cause! and apparently...I don’t have that option. people typically don’t tag criticism of criticism, or at least not with anything specific enough to be really useful, and it sure seems like I can’t look for the positive opinions that help me enjoy the show and avoid unhappily fixating on things I didn’t like, while also avoiding the negative opinions about other fans that also get me unhappily fixated on things that upset me. so the only alternative is, what, take several steps back from fandom entirely? well, I’d have to stop using Tumblr at all for at least a couple weeks, probably avoid the finale for quite a while, stop writing for the most part because Loki fic is too tied up in the overall fandom and I struggle too much with writing anything else, stop reading most fic for the same reason, stop working on customizing any Funko figures or other action figures that aren’t just for Etsy, and generally give up a lot of things that make me happy. weirdly enough, I don’t want to do that either.

if everyone in this fandom 1) tagged appropriately and consistently and 2) stopped being unnecessarily mean to and about their fellow human beings, I’m pretty sure it would be basically fine. and of course there’s no possible way I can make that happen. if I want to keep enjoying something that does genuinely make me happy often enough to be worthwhile to me, it seems like I just have to choose between two different types of mental-health minefields rather than, you know, being able to avoid all the mines.

so what am I supposed to do with that?

(this is...more or less okay to reblog if you’ve felt at all the same way, wherever you might fall in your opinions about the show itself, as long as you make sure to not be an asshole about it to anyone. this is not the place to talk about how much you hate the show, and it is also not the place to talk about how awful Those Whiny Fans are. take that somewhere else and for god’s sake put a useful tag on it.)

#loki #loki show #loki series #marvel cinematic universe #brains behaving badly #mental health issues #I don't know what else to tag this #loki spoilers #not really but just in case #really hope I don't regret posting this

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acerace · 3 years

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@ruby-whistler so uh I accidentally wrote a bit of an essay here so I’ve made this its own post instead of adding it as a reblog lol

But yes the Prince reminds me very strongly of c!Dream in quite a few ways. This is probably not what my political theory professor had in mind when he had us read Machiavelli and Locke but the c!Dream brainrot is strong <3

Something that stood out to me about the Prince was, while it focuses how to be an effective leader and the balance between cruelty and kindness, it’s also about possessions, attachments, control. People are attached to their land and to their countries, and the way a leader approaches this attachment can make or break them. Sounds familiar right?

c!Dream, as the story progresses, loses more and more control of his server and his life, and becomes more and more of a Machiavellian villain as a result. By the time of the Disc Saga Finale, c!Dream has adopted this mindset of the ends justifying the means, and that the most effective mean is cruelty. This forms a super interesting contrast with c!Techno, who has a bit of an opposite story- he starts off believing the only way people will listen to him is if he uses violence to get their attention, but, when his withers after the Pogtopia Revolution fail to convince anyone of his viewpoint, realizes that violence doesn’t always work and tries to do a 180, becoming a pacifist. But when he is isolated and alone, his attachments (Carl, Phil) are used against him. He dies for his attachments and walks away not believing they don’t matter but rather realizing how important they are to him, and so he takes his horse and his bff and tells L’Manburg to kindly go screw themselves, then comes back later and blows them to smithereens for hurting him and his friends. And now, current day c!Techno has learnt through the Syndicate that attachment- friendship- is a far greater strength than violence. c!Rivalsduo my beloveds

So with that side tangent out of the way, here are some quotes from the Prince that I believe fit c!Dream :D under the cut for length

Chapter numbers are from the Wooton version of the text I believe!

Chapter 8:

"Well-used cruelty (if one can speak well of evil) one may call those atrocities that are committed at a stroke, in order to secure one's power, and are then not repeated, rather every effort is made to ensure one’s subjects benefit in the long run. An abuse of cruelty one may call those policies that, even if in the beginning they involve little bloodshed, lead to more rather than less as time goes by."

L'Manburg my not-so-beloved </3 from an in character pov, c!Dream was a very different person back during the Independence War and so he didn't "commit atrocities at a stroke" like Machiavelli argues, because he didn't really believe in this idea. But by not destroying L'Manburg, by not getting rid of c!Wilbur right from the get go, how much blood was shed? How much suffering did L'Manburg ultimately cause, suffering that would've been avoided if only c!Dream had stopped it then and there? Would he still have his big happy family? This is the beginning of the ends justify the means to me- you can hurt people, commit atrocities, so long as you’re doing it to prevent further violence.

Chapter 17:

"For love attaches men by ties of obligation, which, since men are wicked, they break whenever their interests are at stake. But fear restrains men because they are afraid of punishment, and this fear never leaves them. Still, a ruler should makes himself feared in such a way that, if he does not inspire love, at least he does not provoke hatred. For it is perfectly possible to be feared and not hated. You will only be hated if you seize the property or women of your subjects or citizens. Whenever you have to kill someone, make sure you have a suitable excuse and an obvious reason; but, above all else, keep your hand off other people’s property; for men are quicker to forget the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance."

"I conclude then, that as far as being feared and loved is concerned, since men decide for themselves whom they love, and rulers decide whom they fear, a wise ruler should rely on the emotion he can control, not on the one he cannot. But he must take care to avoid being hated, as I have said."

There's a lot to unpack with this one, but man, attachments. Once again they take centre stage. People may grow attached to you and vice versa, but “men are wicked” and may leave you out to dry. c!Dream Team anyone?? Two other ideas stick out for me- "fear restrains men" and "make sure you have a suitable excuse and an obvious reason" to kill people. This is c!Dream post New L’Manburg, c!Dream with exile and the hall of attachments. The burning of c!George’s house is nothing too unusual for this server, but it provided the perfect excuse for c!Dream to control c!Tommy. c!Dream, by exile, has lost just about everything- his friends, who fought by him in the first war, his pets, killed or stolen and used against him, his beliefs and his desire for peace and harmony overshadowed by the knowledge that he can’t make everything go back to how it used to be. c!Dream now believes the only way to take control of his life is to control everyone else’s, and to do that, he relies on fear. This ties into the second quote as well, because by now he is grasping for control the only way he knows how- through threats and violence. His downfall is that he makes himself hated in the process by trying to control people’s attachments- their property mentioned in the quote. He makes himself more hated than feared, but he is both by the time he is imprisoned.

Chapter 18:

“Of course, if all men were good, this advice would be bad; but since men are wicked and will not keep faith with you, you need not keep faith with them.”

“In general, men judge more by sight than by touch. Everyone sees what is happening, but not everyone feels the consequences. Everyone sees what you seem to be; few have direct experience of who you really are.”

What no pov does to a mf. c!Dream is judged entirely on appearance, constantly, both by the characters and the audience. He has no point of view, so we do not get his internal thoughts or his reasoning, we only see the results of his actions and not what led him to take those actions. As well as this, we see his behaviour toward people like c!Punz and c!Techno with that first quote- there’s no point in making friends because they will one day turn on you or be used against you, so it’s hired help and business partners at best. Since people hurt and betray and leave you, you can do the same to them, because that’s just how people are, right? “Men are wicked” so you can be to.

Chapter 19:

"You become hateful, above all, as I have said, if you prey on the possessions and the women of your subjects. You should leave both alone. The vast majority of men, so long as their goods and their honor are not taken from them, will live contentedly, so you will only have to contend with the small minority who are ambitious, and there are lots of straightforward ways of keeping them under control."

And here it is- attachments and control summarized nice and neatly. I think c!Dream realized the only thing that could help him in his goals of returning to his big happy family is through forcing others to do what he wants. Especially if the prison was built for c!Dream all along as a final villain to unite the server against him.

c!Dream does the opposite of what Machiavelli suggests here, actively "preying on" the other members' attachments, but he does it to help him keep this ambitious minority (especially c!Tubbo and c!Tommy) under control. By the Disc War Finale, c!Dream is pretty much universally hated or disliked, so I don't think he was particularly fussed with trying to make everyone content. Instead, I think he realized that all people value their possessions and attachments, and that this entire saga has been about people using their possessions to control each other (Dream with the discs, Tommy with Spirit and Mars and Beckerson, everyone with L'Manburg, the Pet Wars, everything has been about attachments and how they can be used against you). Once he realized this, he threw Machiavelli out the window, because how can he be an effective leader without any control of his subjects? He directly goes against Machiavelli’s advice and it comes back to bite him, because now he’s quite literally in a prison of his own creation.

This got… extremely long lmao anyway those are some of the quotes that stuck out to me when reading the Prince and skimming some articles about it! To me, c!Dream is Machiavellian by way of tragedy- he didn’t start out believing cruelty is kindness. But it’s so interesting to see how something as absurd as a Minecraft roleplay can echo the same political thoughts and arguments people have been having for centuries.

#dsmp analysis #my posts #this got so long oops #I'd love to see your thoughts if there's anything you wanna add!!

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Do you ever feel like you're pushing a boulder up a hill defending characters against the same whole-hearted misinformation that keeps getting repeated again & again as if it's canon? I tried 4 times in a chat thread where people kept insisting that Dick Grayson and even the Teen Titans were jerks to Jason Todd when he was Robin. I don't know how you do it. No matter what you say, it just keeps going. No canon is ever enough. Why are some fans so set on the idea that everyone ostracized Jason?

Ooof yeah, that’s a whole barrel of annoying. The big gripe for me, in both my major fandoms, is that so much of the misinformation comes paired with this contradictory insistence on how much people don’t give a fuck about canon.....even while willfully trying to reinvent canon to say what they want it to say, in order to back up their version of events or take on various characters!

Its like, if you don’t give a fuck about canon, THEN DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT CANON. Don’t TELL me you don’t give a fuck about canon, and then GO OFF on how canon does all these things that canon most definitely does not do, thereby casting MUCH MUCH doubt upon your claims of not giving a fuck about canon, and suggesting that in fact, you do give quite a bit of fucks about canon, actually.

Y’know?

fahsklfhalfhkafl

But honestly, I’m not the person to give advice on this front because oof, I make bad choices here. LOLOLOL, no but for real, I can’t really tell you how to just deal with this because I’m like, I do not have mastery of that skillset myself. I have however long since exhausted myself of any illusions about CHANGING the minds of people who are particularly insistent upon things that never happened informing their particular view of characters, because like.....the reality is, people who come into fandoms emotionally invested in views of characters that they derived from other fics or fanons, like......it doesn’t matter that those things aren’t canon, what matters is their emotional investment in this particular fandom is entirely bound up in those particular views no matter WHERE they originated from, and so most of them aren’t changing their minds any time soon because they don’t WANT another viewpoint, their original one is the reason they’re here and invested in the first place.

BUT at the same time, everybody wants to feel validated in their viewpoints, so the more that viewpoint is challenged by people being like uh no, here’s a thing that says you’re wrong, look, its here, its clear, the facts say shhhhhh the marketing campaign for all the Hateorade you’ve drunk about this character is based entirely on The Sky Is Green If We Say It Is logic.....the more people are like, determined to prove they’re right, even if their own personal conviction ORIGINALLY was not dependent on canon whatsoever and it only retroactively started mattering to them not as a source point for how they view characters but like, rather, a data point for Here’s How I Can Still Win This Argument.

And here’s where being in a comics fandom gets really fucking annoying:

Because there are so damn many comics.

And like, a lot of people in comics fandoms don’t even read the comics, and say so - and I mean, this is fine? If you’re here for the characters you don’t need to be here for the comics, so if you don’t actually like comics, like don’t read the comics, just read fic. Its whatever. BUT the bigger issue in my experience is like.....people arguing about comics canon even when they haven’t read the comics, like....often project onto everyone they’re arguing with, like, their own stance on comics.

What I mean by that is a lot of the people arguing about comics canon even when they proudly haven’t read a comic in their life because there are so many where would they even start and also, eww, I’m not doing all that.....like....there’s this presumption evident in a lot of arguments that the same holds true for everyone else in comics fandoms.....that none of the rest of us have read all those comics either, because how could anyone? There’s so many of them!

Forgetting of course, that many of us come into these fandoms from entirely different trajectories. If you come into a comics fandom because of fanfics, or a cartoon adaptation, or the movies.....upon your first day in fandom, when you look at all the comics canon that’s out there, you’re like holy shit that’s a lot, nobody could ever read all that, I’m certainly not going to read all that, I’m going back to fics.

BUT for those of us who came into these fandoms from the direction of reading the comics......our perspective was entirely different, because it was never some singular monolithic VASTNESS of unread comics that nobody could ever tackle because where would we even begin. For those of us who were reading comics for years or most of our lives......its been a handful of issues a month, month after month, year after year, rather than all in one sitting.

So the point of conflict becomes the presumption from a lot of fans who AREN’T here because of the comics, that comic book canon is this untapped cornucopia of potential validation, Schrodinger’s Canon, it can be basically whatever they want it to be, because who’s to say it ISN’T? If they can’t read all of that, nobody can read all of that, so when you think about it, its entirely plausible that the thing they insist happened in canon actually DID happen in canon, SOMEWHERE in all of that.....because just because they don’t know where it is and can’t point to it as explicitly existing, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist either. Who’s to say, really?

Well. Umm. People who in fact actually HAVE read all or most of the RELEVANT comics. Like yeah nobody’s read every comic ever I bet, lolol, but for lifelong DC readers, canon ISN’T this vast uncharted territory that can potentially contain everything.....its actually quite charted, and there are people who absolutely do know what it does and does not contain.

And this I think is at the heart of the insistence on particular points of argument, like Jason was always perpetually mistreated and Dick and the Titans hated him on sight and that’s why the Knights of the Order of Protection for the Smol Jason Bean hate Dick, because he was a giant jerkface to a little kid who never did anything to him ever. Like it doesn’t matter how much we point out that no, this did not in fact happen and is untrue, COMPLETELY, like.....people who came into fandom because of fics about Jason in which the entire perspective upon his character is uniformly, with virtually no exception, that he was scapegoated by Dick from Day One and he and Dick will always be eternally at odds because of the remnants of what a jerk and failure of a brother Dick was to him at first.......like, I feel like there’s this conviction lying underneath all those arguments, no matter how much canon they’re presented with, that there still exists out there SOMEWHERE, some untapped treasure trove of panels proving what a buttface Dick was to his first little brother, validating everything they’ve ever believed and thought ever, because look all those depictions of Dick being a giant assbutt to Jason in fics had to come from SOMEWHERE after all, didn’t they?

Well, yeah. They did come from somewhere. They came from the writers who wrote those fics that way because they either just hated Dick’s character or they were working through their own sibling angst and projected certain dynamics onto the characters or someone told them this is what things were like in the comics and they didn’t know any different or just didn’t care or a hundred million other possible reasons for why they wrote them that way with none of those reasons being Cuz Canon Said So.....and then those particular depictions caught on and multiplied fruitfully like the offspring of rabbits doing it sans contraceptives.

Because its not like “perpetual black sheep of the family so unfairly hated, so misunderstood, especially by the family’s favored son, the golden boy” is a fan favorite trope on its own, regardless of whether or not the characters said trope is applied to actually FIT that trope.

So in the end, the painful irony was not only did canon have nothing to do with that trend, canon COULD do nothing about that trend, because the reasons people turned to it, despite how often canon gets brought into it....really had nothing to do with canon.

So tbh, my personal stance these days is the best defense to fic-borne and originating views of the characters and their dynamics is NOT canon, its....more fic. Fic that presents a counter-narrative to the ones that are so often the first thing people see when they enter fandom, and thus become engrained as Truth. So that there’s at least more variety out there, because where there’s variety, there’s varied points of view, and the more people internalize THAT, that there are variations to be found in how these characters relate to each other and their shared histories......the more people have to make a CHOICE about what variations they most want to adhere to, from among the OPTIONS they’re presented with, instead of just doubling down on the first thing that clicks for them, no opposition in sight.

And if these counter “Dick’s just the worst like what an uber asshole gonna give a five star rating for Sucking At Life to that guy” fics happen to be inspired largely by canon rather than fanon like....oh no, how strange and unknowable, that’s not the Process, we’re doing it wrong but hey whatever.

But does that mean its not still frustrating as hell to see people just parroting the Dick and the Titans were mean to Jason truism as fact, especially when you know damn well its not? Hell no. That’s annoying as fuck. But don’t worry so much about trying to change peoples’ minds, I say, and instead just find people who ARE open to canon or familiar with it, and just have a good rant. Its fun!

Here, I’ll start:

UGH AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT THIS WHOLE “DICK WAS SUCH A JERK TO JASON AND THE TITANS ALL FOLLOWED HIS LEAD” CRAPOLA SUMMER SALES EVENT:

Where would that even have happened???

Like what really chuffs my chopped onions here is when people are so suuuuuuuure that the gatekeepers of comic book fandom are keeping the real juicy anti-Dick panels hidden every time they ask “Hey Siri show me proof Dick’s a jerkmonster to Jason”....because like...they’re just SO SURE these panels are out there and its like lololol but where would they even come from?

Because everybody overlooks that in proper Dickens fashion, pre-Flashpoint Jason was a Tale of Two Jasons, the pre-Crisis adorable child of sunshine and whee, and the post-Crisis I have smoker’s lung at age twelve Jason......and these two Jasons can and do and are MEANT to co-exist within the same body! They’re the same Jason, in hindsight!

See, post-Crisis Jason only existed for like, less than TWO YEARS real world time, before A Death in the Family! People have this assumption that because of how rock-solid the post-Crisis origin for him is and how solidly that’s informed his characterization and stories moving forward, like.....there was this HUGE foundation for it back in the day that was built upon.....but no! We’re talking like, less than twenty four issues IN TOTAL. Post-Crisis Jason was a drop in the bucket compared to pre-Crisis Jason.

So why then, is post-Crisis Jason so much more firmly cemented in peoples’ minds than pre-Crisis Jason even though pre-Crisis Jason had way more material written about him?

Because for once in DC’s existence, they were SMART about a retcon. They didn’t TRY to pit post-Crisis Jason versus pre-Crisis Jason and make people pick between them. Post-Crisis Jason wasn’t an attempt at overwriting pre-Crisis Jason and making it so he never existed. Instead, what they did with their limited amount of time writing post-Crisis Jason was overwrite only two stories specifically: his actual pre-Crisis origin, and how he and Dick first met....and then they let everything else from pre-Crisis stay! It just got folded IN BETWEEN Jason’s new post-Crisis origin and everything that came after that, thanks to some handy non-linear storytelling and flashbacks.

So rather than Jason having two entirely separate storylines and directions, they still kept him at just one....and his post-Crisis origin and A Death in the Family became BOOKENDS surrounding not just the twenty issues in between those two stories......but ALSO surrounding ALL the pre-Crisis issues featuring Jason.....including the times he interacted with Dick and the Titans.

And that’s why there’s no untapped treasure trove of potentially vilifying issues showcasing Dick being such a can of Jerkola to Jason.......

Because post-Crisis only amounted to a grand total of like twenty something issues.....in which Jason interacted with Dick once and only once....the issue which ends with Dick giving Jason his blessing as Robin, his costume, and his phone number to call him if he ever has any problems with Bruce.

But simultaneously, because all those pre-Crisis issues still existed, were still relevant, were still in continuity (as evidenced by Jason himself when he came back as the Red Hood and fought Tim at Titans Tower, referencing how he was briefly a Titan himself.......aka those issues in which he teamed up with the Titans, which ONLY happened before his new origin)....we similarly know that it wasn’t like Dick and Jason never had any contact after their first post-Crisis encounter....we just never saw Jason use that phone number on the page AFTER that issue (because again, there was no time before he was killed off in the comics TO engineer another on the page meet-up, like both characters were busy in unrelated stories in the course of the mere year between that issue and ADITF). BUT by the power of retcon, we do know that Jason still must have used it at some point, or else Dick reached out to him again at some later point off the page......because Dick and Jason’s easy familiarity with each other pre-Crisis STILL EXISTED AS WELL. They had a sibling relationship post-Crisis because they had a sibling relationship pre-Crisis...AND IT WAS THE SAME RELATIONSHIP.

And this is Part Two of why no untapped treasure trove of Jerk Dick and Poor Jason panels exists......because other than that one post-Crisis issue, all their other interactions hail from the pre-Crisis era....where Dick adored Jason and so did the rest of the Titans.

Jason wasn’t resentful of the Titans or scared of them or nursing grudges, he thought getting to hang out with his big brother’s friends WAS THE COOLEST FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD and you could practically see him bouncing on the page the times it happened. He glowed when Dick would ruffle his hair playfully or compliment him, and the Titans’ collective energy towards Jason was very much OH OUR FRIEND’S BABY BRO IS THE MOST ADORABLE SMALL CHILD EVER AND WE WILL PROTECT HIM WITH OUR LIVES.

Like people WILLFULLY misconstrue this one issue where Jason teamed up with the Original Titans other than Dick for a mission against Cheshire, and claim like “oh see, this is the proof that the Titans were mean to Jason because of Dick, they kept giving him shit for not being Dick and hated him for replacing Dick....” which omg noooooooooooo, that is so odiously NOT what happened in that issue. First off, NOBODY blamed Jason for replacing Dick back then, because at the time those issues were written, he DIDN’T....this was when Dick had given Robin to Jason himself, when choosing to move on as Nightwing. And even RETROACTIVELY looking at this issue in light of the retcon where Dick was fired as Robin, this STILL changes nothing about Dick and Jason’s dynamic at this particular time or how the rest of the Titans would have viewed Jason as of this issue.....because that’s where the post-Crisis issue specifically writing Dick and Jason’s new introduction to each other on the page matters so much. As now the ultimate takeaway is even while not making Jason Robin himself, this issue STILL showed Dick giving Jason his blessing.....thus maintaining and stabilizing every pre-Crisis interaction between Jason and the Titans and ensuring that this whole “they resented him on Dick’s behalf” scenario wouldn’t throw any retroactive curveballs into how they were with Jason...because now there still was no need for anything on Dick’s behalf, as far as Jason was concerned, because Dick had given his A-Ok.

So that just flat out never happened, not originally, pre-Crisis, and not even in hindsight after the post-Crisis retcons were factored in, because the HOW of the post-Crisis retcons specifically factored in an avoidance of this potential tangle.

And in fact, what DID happen in the arc where Jason teamed up with the Titans without Dick, to go up against Cheshire.......is that Donna, who was in charge of the team at the time, kept trying to defer to Jason-as-Robin, because subconsciously she was insecure about her leadership at the time and having a Robin at her side was making her think of when Dick had been in that role, and simultaneously been their leader, and thus she was trying to lean into the familiar comforts of being able to turn to a Robin for direction.

And Jason CALLED HER OUT ON THIS. Politely. And cutely. No for real it was adorable. But like, he did it with poise and self-confidence and deliberation, and SHE HEARD HIM. She snapped out of it. Jason laid out exactly what she was doing and why and Donna was like oh shit, you’re right, I HAVE been doing that. And Jason was like, and that’s not fair to me. And Donna was like no, you’re absolutely right, that isn’t fair to you, I’m sorry. And Jason’s like, I can’t be the leader here, I don’t have the experience that Dick does. But you do, and you can be the leader. And Donna was like. You’re three for three kiddo, damn you’re good at this.

AND THEN THEY WENT AND KICKED BAD GUY ASS TOGETHER AND EVERYTHING WAS HUNKY-DORY BECAUSE THE POINT OF THAT ENTIRE PLOT WAS NOT “EVERYONE IS MEAN TO POOR JASON BECAUSE DICK MADE A CONSPIRACY OF MEANNESS” IT WAS “JASON’S A KICK-ASS LITTLE GO-GETTER WHO KNOWS HIS STRENGTHS AND HIS STRENGTH IS TELLING PEOPLE WHEN THEY’RE BEING DUMB AND THEY NEED TO STOP THAT.”

Okay, one caveat here. I must confess, its killing me....there is ONE Titan who was a jerk to Jason.

But uh....that Titan was Hank Hall aka Hawk. And he’s a jerk to everybody. Its kinda his superpower.

And he most certainly didn’t do it on Dick’s behalf, as Hank hates Dick and Dick hates Hank asfhilfhalfhalf. Seriously, they’re basically the hateship that ppl keep trying to make Dick and Jason into, only without the incest makes it spicy or whatever element, but like, if you’re not hung up on that and can ship people without them being related, oh no, oh woe, oh say it ain’t so, like, DickHank is the unsung hateship of dreaaaaaaaaaaams. They’re like:

Hank: As it is a day ending in y, I feel now is the perfect time to let you know, without prompting, that I hate your guts because people like you. And I hate people and everything they like, on account of people are the worst.

Dick: Well, you’re people, and you’re the worst, so that tracks.

Hank: So we’re agreed. I hate you. You hate me.....

Dick: Our hate is so in harmony.

Donna: What is even happening here and do I want to know.

Roy: In reverse order, no, probably not, and I’m not sure, but I THINK they’re getting hate married, and exchanging vows to hate each other in sickness and in health, forever and ever.

Wally: *skidding around corner* I CALL BEST MAN.

Donna: Its not a real wedding Wally.

Roy: Idk they seem pretty serious about it. Which means the best man position should be valid here, which means it should be me, because suck it West, only way you’ll ever be Dick’s best man is over my dead body.

Wally: Get ready to throw down then, Robin Hood, and just call me the Sheriff of Notachanceinhell, that best man position is MINE.

Garth: Whoa, hold up, I have an agreement IN WRITING from when we were THIRTEEN for Dick and I to be each other’s best men at our weddings, so I’m gonna need you both to stand down, I LITERALLY CALLED DIBS. Look. ITS IN WRITING.

Donna: Oh for fuck’s sake, you collective pluralization of buffoons, STOP TREATING THIS AS A REAL THING. ITS NOT A REAL THING.

Dick, eyes dead-locked on Hank: Oh this is real Donna. This is happening.

Hank, stepping forward, eyes equally locked: I have never been more serious about anything in my life.

Lilith: Sure, you’ve only both saved the world but hey why should that matter. This is definitely the real shit.

Hank: Please. I only did that to prove I could do it better than Dick could. I hate the world.

Dick: Aww, and did you cry yourself to sleep when that flopped?

Hank: Wouldn’t know. It didn’t happen.

Donna: I swear by every god on Mt. Olympus, the first one of you to say I know you are but what am I is getting flung into orbit.

Anyway. I might have gotten distracted somewhere in there. What was your question again and did I answer it? I think I did....fahlkfhaklfhalhfa.

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alwaysfeelingsaintlike · 3 years

Text

Depart&Return [G.W]

Description: George tells you that he’s leaving Hogwarts, but that doesn’t mean he won’t sneak back in to visit you.

Pairing: George Weasley x Gryffindor fem!reader

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: slight sexual content

“No…no you can’t do this to me,” you said, holding back tears.

“Y/N, it’ll be okay. I promise. We’ll find a way to see each other.”

“I’m coming with you then.”

“I can’t let you do that. If you want to become a healer, you need to take your N.E.W.T’s.”

“I don’t care about that. I just want to be with you.”

“Y/N,” he pleaded, “you need to stay and finish school. I don’t want you regretting your decision to leave. I want you to be successful.”

“George, please don’t. I…I don’t think I can survive without you,” you were crying now. He had completely blindsided you.

“Come on now. You don’t need me,” he said. You shook your head as a tear fell down your cheek.

“It’ll only be a few months and then you’ll be done school and you can come be with me,” George said.

“A few months? I have over a year left.”

“It won’t be that bad. Maybe you can take your N.E.W.T.s a year early.”

“I don’t think that will be a possibility,” you responded.

“Talk to McGonagall about it. You’ll never know if you don’t ask. I’m sure she will do everything she can to help you out,” he said, gently rubbing away the tear on your cheek with his thumb.

You gave him a small nod and said, “Promise that you’ll write to me everyday?”

“Of course I’ll write to you darling. And I’ll use the floo network and we can meet up for butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks any time you like. Oh, that reminds me. I have something for you,” he paused and rifled through his pack until he pulled out what appeared to be a piece of parchment. It took you a moment to realize what it was.

You gasped, “No…the map?”

“I don’t really have too much use for it now. Besides if you’re going to sneak out and see me, you’ll need this,” he smiled. As much as you had been positively influencing George ever so slightly, he’d been wearing off on you too. In all honesty, you probably didn’t need the map to sneak out. You’d gotten really good at it. But you took it anyway. It could come in handy. You didn’t know if this small gesture changed your viewpoint, but you realized things would be okay now. This way you could focus on your studies so that you could get the job you’d always wanted. You admired Fred and George for leaving and starting their own business. You had no doubts about their success. They’d been doing this stuff for years.

“Darling, please don’t cry. I promise everything will be okay,” he said.

“I know, I know. I just can’t help but be upset.” He pulled you close to him and held you for a moment. It was hard not to cry. You tried to keep it to a minimum but it hurt thinking there was a chance you could lose him forever. What if he met someone else? Thinking about that only made things worse so you tried to erase the image from your head, which proved to be pretty difficult.

George ran his fingers through your hair and brushed his hands up and down your back, trying to calm you down.

“I love you Y/N.”

You looked up into his eyes and just smiled.

“What did you say?” you grinned.

A sly smile spread across his face, “I love you.”

You put your hand on his cheek and pulled his face down to yours. You kissed him so deeply and passionately that your knees went weak. You wrapped your arms around his neck as he put his hand around your waist. The next thing you knew, he leaned you back into a dip while you were still kissing. You smiled, breaking your kiss and his face hovered just above yours for a moment. “I love you too,” you smiled.

Here it was, the moment you’d been waiting for. The moment that determined if you’d wasted 6 years or if you’d be successful. Essentially, your fate was sealed in this little envelope. You couldn’t open it in the common room. You wanted this moment for yourself. You didn’t need others there to see your reaction. You scurried off to your room and began to feel nervous yet excited at the same time.

It had been a rough couple of months. After begging and pleading with Professor McGonagall she finally agreed to let you take your N.E.W.T.’s a year early. But she told you it would be very difficult since most students had the whole year to prepare and you only had a few months. You were fine with that though, whatever got you out of school earlier. You still weren’t even sure how you were still functioning as a human. You had buried yourself in schoolwork to distract from the pain of being away from George. But you always found time to answer his letters. You managed to spend a few weekends at Hogsmeade with Hermione, but most of the time it was so that you could sneak away and spend an hour or two with George. Without him, you didn’t feel like yourself. It was like a part of you was missing and you didn’t like that feeling.

You opened the door to your room and dropped all your things on the floor. You leaned against the shut door and opened the envelope. Before you unfolded the parchment, you mentally prepared for the potentially negative information that could be in the envelope, but you were too eager to wait any longer.

You skimmed through the standard paragraph at the top that was a necessity for almost all Hogwarts documents. In order to become a healer, it was necessary to receive at least exceeds expectations in the following categories: Herbology, Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Potions.

ARITHMANCY: Outstanding – Septima Vector

CHARMS: Outstanding – Filius Flitwick

DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS: Exceeds Expectations – Delores Umbridge

HERBOLOGY: Outstanding – Pomona Sprout

POTIONS: Exceeds Expectations – Severus Snape

TRANSFIGURATION: Outstanding – Minerva McGonagall

“Merlin’s beard…I did it. I actually did it!” You excitedly whispered to yourself.

“Was there ever any doubt?” someone said. You looked up for the first time upon entering your room and noticed your favorite ginger sitting on your bed with a sly smile on his face. “Hey stranger,” he said.

“George!” You said before tackling him with a hug. “What are you doing here!?!” You asked after a few kisses.

“Well, I had to come and celebrate with you!”

“I’m so happy you’re here. This is seriously the best day ever.”

“And it’s about to get even better,” he commented.

“What?” you said perking up. You looked at him questioningly and he couldn’t fight back that adorable smile.

“I spoke to my Great Aunt Muriel…”

“Why? Isn’t she awful?”

“Let me finish.”

“Sorry…continue.”

“I spoke with her because she’s on the board at St. Mungo’s. I mentioned that you were hoping to get a position there and she read over your records. Your N.E.W.T. scores were on there, as well as your marks for school and it all looks pretty impressive. And she said she could get you an interview.”

“You did that for me?”

“I’d do anything for you,” he said. You wrapped your arms around him and squeezed him tight. “Thank you so much, George. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“I just want to make you happy,” he smiled at you.

“Being with you makes me happy.” You leaned in to kiss him again.

“What are the chances we’ll be alone in here for a little while?” he asked in between kisses.

“Well it’s risky. I don’t know when they’ll be back…” you sighed, disappointed.

George smiled, “I’ve got a better idea…”

He took your hand and pulled you off the bed with ease. You darted into the common room before you realized no one else could know George was there.

“Wait, George. We can’t let anyone see you here. I just…I don’t want anything bad to happen to you or the business or anything.”

He nodded, knowing you were right and you told him he needed to be sneakier once you left this safe haven.

You popped your head outside the portrait hole and scanned the hallway. Not a student or teacher in sight. George jumped out in front of you and took your hand. You still weren’t sure where you were going. After turning a corner, a door appeared in front of you. That’s when you understood where your destination was: the Room of Requirement.

Before he opened the door, he looked at you and said, “You’re sure you want to do this?” In response, you nodded excitedly and smiled at him.

He opened the door and the room was breathtaking. It was comparable to a suite at a five star hotel. There were pink rose petals scattered along the floor and floating candles all around the room. A huge king sized bed was featured in the center of the room and there were two cozy armchairs and a bar cart in the corner. The lighting was dim but it gave the room the proper mood for the occasion. The bathroom was lavish with a shower and a Jacuzzi tub. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

“Wish I could say I arranged all of this,” George said, “but the room has a mind of its own.”

“It’s perfect,” you smiled at him. He scooped you up and carried you over to the bed. You held his face in your hands and kissed him passionately. It was so hard being away from him. George was on your mind every minute of every day. But now he was here and for one night you had him all to yourself.

“You know, it’s funny because this isn’t how I pictured this moment. But it’s still perfect because I’m with you,” he whispered in your ear. He then moved his mouth onto your neck and began kissing your soft skin. He knew you loved being kissed on the neck and when he moved up to gently tug on your ear with his teeth, it drove you wild. You took his hand and guided him onto the bed, holding eye contact with him the entire time.

“I’m sorry I’m not wearing something sexier. Can’t say I was expecting this to happen.”

“Are you kidding me? Y/N, you know you are the most beautiful girl in the world to me. I don’t need you to dress in expensive lingerie just to impress me. You are sexy when you are the cute and humble human being that you are.” His statement made you swoon. You were even more certain this was the right decision to make. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that he loved you.

“I love you Georgie,” You whispered to him before kissing him softly on the lips.

“I love you more than anything in the world,” he replied.

You were extremely nervous for your first time, but also excited. More than anything, you were just happy to spend some quality time with George. “Where should we start?” George whispered, “The bed, the chair, the shower, the Jacuzzi…?” You didn’t realize you had so many options. You figured it would be best to keep it simple to start. You could expand your horizons later in the evening.

“I’m happy here…for now,” you smiled at him. George was basically twitching in anticipation. You decided to tease him a little bit. You pulled away for a moment and took time to take off your riding boots and socks.

“It’s just a little toasty in here,” you smirked at him. He gave you a curious look. You slid off your leggings to reveal sky blue, lace boy shorts. George was clearly enjoying the view as he made himself more comfortable on the bed. You slowly pulled at the bottom of your sweater and shyly bit your lip. George didn’t say anything but the look in his eyes said it all. You swiftly pulled the sweater over your head and stood half naked in front of him. George took this moment to remove his shirt; you couldn’t tear your eyes from his torso. It was perfectly chiseled, but not too bulky. You climbed onto the bed and crawled on top of George. You kissed his chest and slowly worked your way up toward his neck. He put his hands around you and started gently rubbing your back. His sighs and moans only made you giggle. Soon he flipped you onto your back, moving on top of you. Your kissing became more intimate and more intense. George pinned your arms up above your head and you found yourself very turned on by his dominance over you. George eased up on his grip and freed your hands and you started unbuttoning his jeans. Seconds later he was wearing only his boxer briefs and you wrapped your hands around his neck. He started kissing your neck again and this time you were the one doing the moaning. You decided it was time to step things up; you pulled at the sheets and you both went under the covers where the festivities continued.

“Well that was fun,” you smiled at George. You were resting your head on his bare chest and he had his arm around you and was stroking your hair.

“Indeed it was. You still love me, right?” he asked.

You propped yourself up and looked at him. “Of course I still love you.”

“Okay good. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t using me for sex,” he joked. You smacked his chest and laughed with him.

“Can we just stay here forever?” you asked him.

“Well I mean we could…or we could go make good use of the Jacuzzi…”

You gave him a mischievous look, accompanied with a grin, before you kissed him on the cheek and slid out of bed. You sauntered over to the bathroom and started up the tub. You poked your head out of the doorway and looked at George. “You coming? Or am I using this myself?” After that it didn’t take long for George to hop out of bed and join you.

“George, did you know this was going to happen tonight?” you asked him. The two of you had finally retired to the bed and were cuddling, about to fall asleep.

“Of course I wanted it to happen, but I wasn’t planning on it happening. I didn’t know how you felt about it and I didn’t want to pressure you.”

“Well you didn’t. I just wish we could spend every night together like this.”

“Who says we can’t?” he replied.

“What are you scheming…?”

“Scheming? I prefer the term planning.”

“Oh please, those words mean the same thing to you. But tell me what you’re thinking.”

“It’s simple, you move in with me.”

“Really? Is that an actual offer?”

“Of course it is. But, as you know, moving in with me entails moving in with Fred and his lady friend. I do hope you’ll say yes though, because I’m tired of being the third wheel.”

“I suppose I could relieve you of your third wheel responsibilities.”

“Oh is that all?”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad seeing your smiling face everyday,” you teased further.

“So it’s settled then. I’ll start moving things around to give you space for your stuff. Which basically means I’ll be cleaning out my closet.”

“Oh come on, I don’t have that much stuff.”

“Yeah but you will because I plan on spoiling you and buying you everything your heart desires.”

“How did I get so lucky?”

“You’ve always been lucky,” he stated.

“Do you ever just think about how we got here?”

“All the time. I think about how thankful I was that you helped me with that essay. And things just fell into place perfectly. You know, Fred always thought we’d end up together.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah, when we were younger he would always tease me about it. I never actually told him I liked you, but he just knew. And he knew how to press my buttons about it. Of course back then I just thought it was a lost cause and I didn’t have a chance in hell.”

“Did you ever think we’d be together?” you asked.

“I hoped we would. As I got older I started seeing us together more. But we also didn’t spend a lot of time together so it was still more of a fantasy.”

“When I was real little, like before Hogwarts, I always thought we were gonna get married. It wasn’t even because I had a crush on you either. Or maybe I did have a crush on you but I just didn’t know it. Regardless, I’m happy being with you. And no matter what happens between us, you’ll always be my first love.”

“You’ll be my first and last,” he responded. “I intend on being with you forever.”

You looked at him lovingly and kissed him softly on the lips. “I’d like that,” you responded. You cuddled up even closer to George, if that was possible, and you both started to doze off. His warm chest was under your head and his heartbeat slowly lulled you to sleep.

#george weasley #george weasley x reader #george weasley x you #fred weasley #weasley twins #george weasley x gryffindor!reader #george weasley x fem!reader #fred and george weasley #george weasley fanfic #weasley twins fanfic #george weasley one shot #hp fanfic

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