#looooooong meta
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Julian + Loneliness + Love: an essay
BASHIR: Wait. Quark, did you really mean all that? About Dax being my one last chance for true happiness?
In Change of Heart, Season 6, Julian really latches onto these words from Quark, leading us to half-a-season of having to painfully watch him become re-obsessed with Jadzia. Here, I’m going to examine how Julian perceives love – particularly romantic love -- as being that one, impossible-to-get thing that could actually make him happy, and why he might think that way about it.
--
First: a couple of things I learnt about in therapy that I think are pretty relevant to how Julian does life.
(Please note I am not a professional – my therapist is wonderful and I’ve tried to re-research this too, but I might well have misunderstood or forgotten something, so please don’t just take my word on it! The descriptions of the concepts are also rather simplistic in the interests of time.)
Drive, threat, and self-soothing systems
In ideal conditions: we will be seeking out satisfaction from our lives through our drive system. There will be things we want in life that will give us purpose and make us happy, and we’ll move towards our goals because we *want* to.
At times, we’ll face things that are difficult, and when we are in danger, our threat system kicks in to warn us of it and get us away. The old fight-flight-freeze-fawn thing; our limbic system takes control, so that we don’t waste time *processing* things and thinking through everything logically -- we need to get away from that sabre-toothed tiger automatically, not stand there thinking about it!
Once the threat has gone away, our soothing system kicks in to neutralise the threat system. As we go through life, we learn from our experiences how to better self-soothe, and gradually add to that system.
However, it doesn’t always work out that way and my best guess is that Julian’s system is going to be heavily threat-based with very little soothing.
I imagine that post-enhancements as a kid, he did manage to develop his drive system, finding things he enjoyed doing and chasing after them just because he wanted to. However, his parents’ very high expectations probably meant that even then, his threat system was conditioned to think of *failure* as a threat, and so even from a young age, Julian’s threat system has been highly active in being a driving force behind his ambition - undermining his *actual* drive system.
Then, of course, he learnt about his enhancements, meaning that he becomes preoccupied with not being discovered -- and from this moment on, his threat system is pretty permanently activated. He seems to find some relief in distraction: escapism through books, in his work, in tennis -- but he doesn’t have a way to soothe this threat, only ignore it.
By the time he arrives on DS9, I believe he has a few things in his actual drive system, including wanting to help people and seeking adventure. But he is also so used to his threat system being engaged that he doesn’t even notice how driven by fear he is -- and his soothing system is an absolute wreck, with minimal coping mechanisms.
Attachment style
There are four different attachment styles, as pictured above. These influence how you form and manage the relationships in your life -- in the image it says “partner”, but it’s also involved in your friendships and families.
As warned, this is a little simplistic, but basically your attachment style is formed by having a warm, consistent and loving relationship with your primary caregiver in infancy. Julian very much didn’t have that, and we know that from when he was very young he “knew he was a great disappointment to his parents” -- so I think it’s very likely he would fall into having a fearful attachment style, with both low self-esteem, and low trust in other people.
(Having a secure attachment with your caregiver also helps you develop good soothing strategies for your threat system! Another reason why his is so depleted…)
Attachment styles can change and improve, so I think that during his time at DS9 (maybe even during the Academy) as he begins to gain experiences of friends who do consistently choose him and with whom he is safe, he probably moves more towards the preoccupied category. But I do not think this man has ever made a *really* secure attachment in his life. 💔
I also don’t think he has ever examined this too deeply? Maybe after DBIP, hopefully some of his friends might have gone “that was a super fucked-up childhood you had there”, but I figure he probably attributes the way he approaches social situations to his autism (which due to his parents’ ableism, means he thinks “I’m doing socialising wrong and everyone else is doing it right so I should listen to everyone else and do it their way regardless of how I feel about it”) and so he doesn’t realise that actually his fear of being rejected and his craving for validation through meaningful relationships -- if he even recognises those feelings for what they are -- are unhealthy coping mechanisms that he could learn to shift into something more positive if he had the time and space and help of a professional.
His relationship with Palis was almost definitely a victim of this, imo. Even if he doesn’t realise it, he’s terrified that she will inevitably reject him (having a ridiculously catastrophic secret doesn’t help with this assumption, but being fearful-preoccupied also just lends him to believe that people are inevitably going to reject him) and so he makes his excuses and leaves her first.
Amatonormativity
Even if I hope that the 24th century is less amatonormative than now, I don’t think Julian has necessarily been able to benefit from that. Given how ableist his parents are, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that they might be queerphobic too, or at the very least dismissive of any lifestyle that isn’t the same as theirs.
In addition, on DS9, his best friends are Miles O’Brien (who has always been very vocal about how happily married he is) and Jadzia Dax (who had been as happy as he was to be flirty and single and not tied down, until she found her One True Love, and got married), which wouldn’t exactly help discourage the notion of “romantic love = marriage = happiness”. So I think that Julian has definitely internalised all this, and – especially since he’s been taking cues from those around him how to act and what to think about social situations his entire life – he accepts this whole “you need to have a partner” thing as true for him, just because it’s been true for his friends.
I headcanon Julian as being somewhere on the aromantic spectrum, too (hovering around WTFromantic) -- but crucially, he has no idea. He genuinely struggles to tell the difference between platonic and romantic feelings and guesses how he feels a lot of the time, but since he doesn’t know that he's guessing, he really believes he's in love. And because he has never connected the dots that he’s aro, he assumes the disconnect between *his* experience of love and everyone else’s is just down to his autism, and therefore everyone else is right and he needs to follow their lead in finding happiness through romantic love.
We also know that he really likes old books like James Bond. (I headcanon that he finds pre-1990s fiction safer, because there is no chance that the villain is secretly going to be an augment all along, or any other anti-augment prejudice or micro-aggression in them.) So despite being a 24th century guy, he becomes steeped in these 20th century views -- and with him trying to figure out all the time what’s a “normal” way to act, both in a “not-an-augment” sense and a “not-autistic” sense, he’s internalised a fair amount of “what love really is” from these books which, like, isn’t always great to say the least.
Season 6
QUARK: You know what's really sad, what really keeps me awake at night? She's out of reach because we let her go.
BASHIR: I suppose so. But some things just weren't meant to be. Evade.
O'BRIEN: Julian, are you sure you want to--
QUARK: Chief, please. You know the rules. No coaching during a round. You're probably right. But what if that's a convenient rationalisation? What if deep down in our heart of hearts we both know she's something unique, something we may never see again. A chance at true happiness and we let her slip through our fingers.
And so we come back to this conversation. Quark is manipulating Julian to win the game of tongo, but whether or not he knows how deeply his words will cut, they leave a lasting impression upon Julian.
Quark calls Jadzia “a chance at true happiness”, but when Julian repeats those words later -- despite his perfect recall -- he describes Dax as being his “one last chance for true happiness”. And this, I think, is what really gets to him.
We’re deep into Season 6 -- Julian is not “happy”. He’s become depressed, despondent, weighted down by the war. It’s not been long since Statistical Probabilities -- is he watching the casualty count grow, the war continuing exactly as they had predicted for the time being? At this point in time, “happiness” feels like a pipe dream for him.
How long has it been since he has truly had a long stretch of contentment? Most people put it at pre-Dominion-camp, right? So he had a pretty long stretch of being happy and (incidentally) in a relationship with Leeta from the end of Season 3 until s05e07, and then a few months later, he was kidnapped – which makes me think that if he’s thinking back on the “good old days” of DS9, it’s quite likely he’s thinking of a time when he was in a relationship.
Julian comes from a background of believing that no-one would accept him for who he is. Even in Statistical Probabilities, among his friends, O’Brien and Sisko and Worf all openly discuss how augments should have restricted access to general society. And that’s just the augmentations: he also knows that his personality can be annoying and off-putting to many people. So he thinks that it would take an extraordinary person to actually like him and want him.
> Back in Season 2, when he was talking about Palis, he said “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I think to myself, will I ever find anyone that wonderful again?” Quark describes Dax as similarly unique -- and I think that strikes a chord with Julian, causing him to think “I lost Palis, I’ve lost Leeta, I’ve lost Dax -- how many more extraordinary people can there be? Dax really was my last chance.”
Julian doesn’t properly understand his feelings. He’s used to relying on other people to help him figure out what they are and how he should react.So Quark asserting that Julian does still feel attracted to Jadzia and does resent Worf and that he should have tried harder with Jadzia is something he accepts. (Just like later on, when Vic tells him he should be moving on, he accepts that very easily, too.)
> His preoccupied attachment style and fear of loneliness also means that he gravitates towards social interaction and people being friendly to him. After this, and particularly after Jadzia’s death, he starts having a bit more time for Quark: Quark’s inclusion of him in this “we both like Jadzia and resent Worf” club does provide him with some of that relationship-ness he needs, and even though he isn’t quite on the same wavelength as him, Quark is making him feel seen and understood, so if he’s lonely and there’s no-one else, he’ll probably seek Quark out that bit more.
>> And come to think of it, we’ve definitely seen Miles leaving Julian behind at the bar (with no-one to talk to but Quark) to go home to his wife and kids, just reinforcing the people-with-relationships-get-to-be-happy thing.
So yeah: Julian’s actually feeling some really big feelings about his loneliness and unhappiness and wanting to feel better, but he ends up projecting all of this onto his lack of a relationship, and more specifically, that Dax is probably the last person he’s going to come across who would accept him so completely.
Which sucks, and is a really toxic attitude. We don’t see it change the way he treats Dax on-screen, but even so, there is a sense of misplaced entitlement: he’s entitled to be happy and therefore he should have been entitled to have Dax. And I hate that for him. But he really is deeply, deeply afraid that without being in a relationship with her, he’s never going to feel genuinely happy again.
(Yes, he has friends, and he enjoyed spending time with them, like in Take Me Out To The Holosuite. But remember -- his threat system is constantly on with his fear of loneliness, and he doesn’t have the skills to actually soothe that fear and put it to rest. What he can do is use his malformed coping mechanism of distraction -- distracting himself with his friends and holosuite games and so forth. And no doubt they do give him some true satisfaction and validation -- but since he doesn’t have an internal source of validation, he’s lost when they can’t provide.
And additionally, when they can’t provide it’s often because they’re in a relationship. In the beginning of Chrysalis this is made super obvious, when Miles can’t hang out, and Kira and Odo are going to Vic’s together, alone, and he just ends up in bed working. Until 3am. I can’t help thinking he was somewhat trying to avoid being alone with his thoughts.)
And then Jadzia dies. And he has to refind his footing in a Daxless world and I can only imagine that he just accepts the depression is here to stay forever now.
Season 7
And now Chrysalis happens and firstly: I’m not here to make excuses for him. Chrysalis was pretty fucked-up, and irl I don’t think I could be friends with him after what he did. (But also irl I’d have given him a real talking to and not just accepted his bs like everyone else did in this episode and I think with that he might have realised earlier what he was doing so idk. I think if you’re gonna judge Bashir for this episode you also have to judge everyone else for standing by…)
Anyway, Sarina appears, appearing to be his dream woman, and Julian’s just lost.
It doesn’t happen immediately. When Sarina shows up on his doorstep and falls asleep on him, he is so awkward and uncertain what to do. And in the morning he’s still unsure and hesitant as to what this all means.
I’m certainly nor blaming Sarina -- she’s figuring everything out even more than Julian is! -- but when she makes breakfast for him and sends him off with it, I figure that is a massive romance-cue for Julian, who’s given up on his dreams of domesticity. If his feelings are just platonic at this point, he figures out they must actually be romantic, because people who are in love live together and make breakfast for each other. And if he has already started falling for her, it’s a confirmation that he’s allowed to fall for her, because they’re already acting romantically, and she started it. (Again, not an excuse -- he should have known that she is in no position to make a move to start a relationship.)
He’s not thinking logically and pursuing a relationship with his drive system, he’s still being driven by his threat system and fear of loneliness, and being in a relationship is the only thing that he can imagine will soothe him. (I mean tbh this has been his problem all along -- possibly even back to Palis -- and ugh, it sucks, because even though in a way he kind of can’t help it and he’s clueless to why he wants a relationship so much, it’s also kind of on him that he’s never done some serious self-reflection, and the fact that his trauma has led to him acting like this doesn’t negate the fact that he’s taking advantage of a very vulnerable woman and hurting her.)
It’s been implied by a) Quark, b) Vic, c) Bond-type books and d) most recently, Ezri, that he wasn’t quick enough to get Jadzia and should have tried harder. So of course, once he starts thinking he’s in love with her and that a romantic relationship is what they need, he’s desperate to start as soon as possible so that he doesn’t lose his chance. Because if he thought Dax had been his last chance, how much more is he going to be thinking that Sarina is his real last chance?
Sarina is pretty similar to him, and he can empathise a lot with her. And he knows how augments are treated by the world. And he knows how difficult it’s been for him, finding someone to love. And so he projects his own loneliness and fears onto her, and figures that being in a relationship is what they both need, because she’s unlikely to be given many chances either (which is kind of a contradiction to “I need to act now in case I lose her”, but hey, limbic system. Rational brain has long been taken out.)
And then as soon as he realises she’s only gone along with him because she feels like she owes him, it clicks and it’s over. It doesn’t make up for what he’s done but it genuinely never occurred to him -- and what’s more, he knows it should have occurred to him, and he still can’t figure out why he wasn’t more rational about this all.
> Which is also why none of the other characters were allowed to have a proper talk with him this episode because I think that would have made him realise what he was doing. (I know Miles kind of tried with “Julian, she’s your patient”, but when Julian came back with his excuses, Miles didn’t exactly argue against them.)
> And also, how much do you think that her telling him “I don't even understand what love is. I don't understand anything… What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to feel? Tell me. I want to make you happy” resonates with him. Does he realise that these are the things he’s been asking himself his whole life, that this is actually how he’s been living his life and doing relationships this whole time. Are these actually a direct reflection of his thoughts about her: meeting with his friends, showing her off at dabo (he was always so proud of Leeta, remember?), that whole cliche of a romantic dinner… Are these all things he felt he was meant to do to make her happy and to show her what a romantic relationship is like?
And the thing is -- he does learn from this experience, and we see that he doesn’t try to rush in with Ezri when he starts getting feelings for her. (Yes, his learning shouldn’t have come at the cost of Sarina’s wellbeing, but it did, and I’m just going to accept that because he’s a fictional character and also I love him.) I don’t know if he got to the bottom of figuring out why he went so off-the-rails with Sarina. But clearly, it’s a mistake he doesn’t want to repeat. And I do want to give him some credit for that.
So let’s go on to Ezri.
BASHIR: Funny, I was just starting to...
O'BRIEN: Starting to what?
BASHIR: I don't know. But there was something-- something about her, wasn't there? Something that made me happy, anyway. She was this old soul and yet so young at heart, and… and-- I don't know what I'm saying.
I read this as a sort of admission that he doesn’t know what romantic love is. He knows he felt something, but I don’t know if he found something in what Sarina said that makes him doubt and wonder if it is love that he’s been feeling, or something else. But also, he leaves before O’Brien and Quark can comment, not asking for anyone to help figure out what he’s feeling. (Particularly as Quark’s made it obvious he thinks Julian must be in love with Dax, even if he doesn’t want Julian to be in love with Dax.)
And then when she returns, they begin their whole awkward dance around each other: though interestingly, as he’s talking about his inability to talk to her about his feelings in their eventual conversation, he sounds genuinely confused, and even distressed, when he says “I mean, I'm not usually like this. If I find someone attractive, I just-- I just tell them. I don't play these ridiculous games.” It seems he’s been experiencing some subconscious barrier whenever he’s wanted to bring his feelings up -- probably not dissimilar to most people’s hesitation to ask out a crush, but like he said, that’s not usually his style at all.
Presumably, this is because he’s worried that he could lose Ezri altogether if he makes a move and his feelings are unrequited, along with the knowledge that pursuing Sarina had been the complete wrong thing to do. Although again, maybe more subconsciously than not: when Ezri suggests they’ve both been hesitating because of their friendship, it seems to click for Julian as something that he’d not properly registered before.
Additionally, at this point in the show, losing people to the war seems inevitable. There’s been a long period with very little hope that either Ezri or Worf are alive, Kira, Odo and Garak are all off on Cardassia doing goodness-knows-what, until Odo returns with the Founders’ disease and again, there’s very little hope that he’ll survive. So it’s not really surprising that Julian finds himself unable to speak to Ezri about his feelings, given that this is the time least suited to losing friends to stupid mistakes like telling them you love them.
I definitely think there’s more to say about Ezri and Julian, but I feel like I’m losing the plot of what I’m saying a bit, so I’m going to stop there.
In summary:
Julian’s driven by his threat system: his fear-of-failure, fear-of-loneliness and fear-of-discovery/fear-of-rejection-for-being-an-augment. He doesn’t realise how much this affects him.
Julian thinks that other people/pre-90s media know about romance and love more than him and he should try to emulate them rather than figure out what he wants from them.
Julian doesn’t really understand his own feelings – his upbringing never gave him the chance to, and it hasn’t occurred to him to explore them and figure out what makes him tick and what doesn’t.
He’s deeply unhappy by season 6 and relying on easy but short-lasting waves of happiness to get by (e.g.holosuite adventures)
Because of all these things, when it is presented to him that there is a way to get lasting happiness, and that one way is to be in a relationship, he buys into it completely – falling for that idea probably far more than he actually falls for any of the ladies in question.
#Looooooong post#But worth the read I hope!#Julian Bashir#Julian Bashir meta#autistic julian bashir#aromantic julian bashir#genetically enhanced julian bashir#god this man needs therapy 😅#andi writes#my trek musings#wsb
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There's something to be appreciated in book!Aramis being a stickler for etiquette: d'Artagnan did nearly cause trouble for a woman and, in the same incident, nearly got Aramis into terrible trouble, just by trying to be polite about the handkerchief thing. xD You know at least you could trust book!Aramis with your confidences. =) (I mean, he's still an utter disaster sometimes, all the same. xD)
That is a hundred percent sure, he's super secretive! Aramis has always been my favorite character because of his ambiguity really. On the one side, there is the etiquette, the secrecy, the self-chastising he deems necessarry bc of his weird religious fear. On the OTHER side, he makes nasty jokes about the queen's honor, turns into some sort of harpy when Porthos tells him off, fights two enemies at the same time without twitching and just his SMUGNESS when he fights with d'Artagnan over the tissue!! But whenever Athos is around, Aramis is a little different, more the shy sort (I always love it when Porthos makes fun of him then and Aramis basically shrinks to tinman size while Athos just smiles knowingly). It's just... he's so toooorn between doing what he thinks he should be doing and doing what he really likes and I will now not delve into all my thoughts on his sexuality BUT yes Aramis, precious Aramis, what a train wreck, really, total disaster just like you said. I don't know what sort of image he's trying to portray towards d'Artagnan to make it seem like he's superior - which he isn't that's the whole point - but he really needs to stop it, it's embarrassing :D (just thinking of the moment he wants to join the Jesuites or the moment he tells d'Art that he's turned i don't know 38 or something and d'Art is like: now hold on I am 38, this can't be possible :,D)
To sum my stream of consciousness thoughts up: Aramis notices that d'Art is superior to him, simply bc he doesn't try to be anything he's not. Athos loves this in d'Artagnan. And there are a hundred reasons why I think d'Art and Aramis can't stand each other, but Athos' love is in my opinion one of them. d'Art gets so much of it, basically taking over the role of the youngest of the group, and Aramis keeps his distance to him. (Only in d'Art's last ever line in the last book is the rivalry and disdain between them really acknowledged, it hit me so hard in the gut omg i googled for days afterwards trying to deal with the pain.)
#this got looooooong#aramis meta#the three musketeers#d'artagnan meta#athos#porthos#les trois mousquetaires#alexandre dumas#aramis headcanons#athamis#d'artagnan x athos#athos x aramis
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Looooooong :0
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Soooo how did your idea of dark being the captain started ? how different would his role be compared to the y/n captain in iswm ?
Alright... Let's get into it
Question 1:
It actually started as a theory that I gradually believed more and more in a short span of time as everyone was consuming ISWM part 1, and when part 2 dropped, it both lead me on further, as well as disproved it. … (but really Markiplier's live stream on it disproved the theories for real)
But that didn't really bum me out, because I had been ready from the start for it to not be true, so I just converted it to an AU, because I was projecting my own measure of story/characterization into it anyway.
Question 2:
I don't have 1 answer for this! Either a complicated one, or one that enables any kind of headcanon…
Answer A: The captain's choices and behavior doesn't change because we are sharing a body with Darkiplier('s parts) -- I just really like the idea of "What if we (D/A) stayed with Dark" and how that would be like a dramatized version of DID (of which I have! /info) of the "D/A" part (us) (…on top of likely forgetting the events of WKM due to AU stuff, but then remembering after gaining the multiverse abilities of the paradox…) forgetting or not knowing what Dark is doing in other timelines, (my favorite characterization idea of Cpt.Dark is that he's fronting in the routes where he throws Mark around or generally leads us to demise that might benefit him in the looooooong run- aka how he somehow canonically "finds" the paradox gem for the box at the post-credits) … while the Captain chooses to get along with Mark in other routes, doing something childish as sharing candy, which is much closer to my personal "D/A" characterization, not at all what Dark would be doing ahhaha
Answer B: If I wanted a timeline to occur differently from the "Canon" events of ISWM, to characterize Captain Darkiplier as separate from Canon Captain… well, Dark could just do about anything he wanted,
(from here onward is rambling, not relevant to the question!:)
… if he could .. If he somehow escaped the inevitability of the causality of meta-narrative events of what has and will occurred in ISWM via the writing of Market Plier- lol
Kind of like how Damien and Celine can't outrun their fate or Actor's bullshit as seen at the end of DAMIEN, which I think holds some thematic power or significance over the future events after the "seal" is broken on the multiverse stuff- aka everything After WKM. … Mark has said a lot in live streams but one thing that stuck with me is how he explained the "timeline" noting that moment when Dark picks up the staff , as the exact moment where the events of DAMIEN is condensed. IIRC. And then for this AU I kind of added more onto that- AHWM ISWM ADWM could have happened in a condensed fashion similarly… The glass breaking in the first video of ISWM, the ice breaking in DAMIEN twice… The lines Head Engineer speaks at the canon ending mirroring the lines spoken by Damien and Celine at the end of DAMIEN… It's as if it's like, a loop, or pocket, or spiral, some kind of non-linear shape… Whichever way it is, I guess the most important point is that it's non-linear. I like to call it wobbly time (a theme in my OC's as well) It's not essential to consume nor understand a story by understanding how its universe works. After all, we as people in real life don't know how our universe is shaped. Is it infinite, or does it loop? (Can you tell I'm a bit autistic about space?) But the desire to adventure and discover what's out there is sometimes commendable and a beautiful instinct of human life… other times, not so much. We could all learn from Head Engineer's mistake.
But yea, Dark is powerful but not God of this Universe powerful… I think it'd be funny that if Dark tried everything in his power to defy the laws of the universe, once he finally got a hold on the time paradox that literally allows him to traverse the multiverse to find any timeline that gives him an upper hand on his #1 Enemy, when he travels to literally the ends of the universe, Mark (The Real Life Author) is like "no" so Dark has to go back to the main story line (or at least close to it, there's plenty of legroom for fanon things to occur around the "main timeline") Dark's like "ugh fine" and completes the ending of ISWM like it's a videogame to gain back his agency splitting from D/A (You and your choices in the "videogame") again, and to get away from Head Engineer- even though he's one of the more tolerable Marks, I GUESS- (Frenemies trope x The Unlikely Friendship trope x Doomed trope, and some other dynamic or development that can't really be similarly labeled as a trope, which hopefully I will be able to share to everyone who will want to know about it)
I also like to think that's why he's dangling the box in front of us in AHWM instead of actually using it for anything. He can use us to get what he wants quicker than by doing it alone. Using the anomaly gem in the box for his own needs a second time would not work nor worth the risk of ISWM 2.0
What I love about Markiplier's cinematic universe is that it involves both distortion of identity and distortion of time/space- anything and anyone can happen. I relate to it and my chaotic (and also very analytical and ""DeeP"") creative style is very compatible with it. :)
Thank you for the questions !! Feel free to ask as many questions as you like about what I said here if it didn't make sense, because damn it's compact. It could be explained better if paced out (or storytold?) instead of all dropped into one post heheh
#Sorry for my copious usage of () and * That's how this shit gets me#Right in the autisms of layered explanation#I like the convoluted multiverse of MarkCU because there's still a heart to it besides the convolution. Like EEAAO my Beloved!!!#-- also a note: I'm super busy rn but when I'm on breaks I can go to answer these asks so they are still VERY encouraged if you'd like to.#asks#taikeero-lecoredier#darkhenge#<-- name of the cptdark AU btw#long post#darkiplier#head engineer#ISWM#ISWM AU#text
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not to be basic but 1 and 2 from that meta ask meme?
all the question are on the list for a reason Anon! no need to put yourself down for it v-v 1&2 are Excellent questions I"m happy to answer!
now.
I Imagine you intended this for Lazarus, But!
you were not specific
so you will now get a Very long post about Everyone >:3c
(and by everyone I mean the main 3 characters I consider 'Bartholomew's Nasty Little Bastards')
First up, of course, we will do Lazarus!
1. What inspired you to create your oc?
The really obvious answer here is Re8, my instant consuming love for it and for Karl, the overwhelming need to like... Participate, somehow, in that world, but not being able to cross the Full self-insert hurdle..
He's basically a very Warped-beyond-recognition version of a self-insert, a guy all his own but in somewhere still very Connected to the Me.
But the more like.. in depth stuff, like what inspired Lazarus to Be Who He Is is like.. I love like.. weird Art Gore, Body-As-Art kinda shit, Meaningful and disturbing.. somehow Comforting and he's kinda the perfect vessel for that. I've had the Human Taxidermy Artist thing floating around the back of my mind for a decade or so just Waiting for a place to land and Laz was a golden opportunity v-v.
2.Why does your oc look the way they do? What are your reasons for their appearance?
When I was settling Lazarus's design I wanted him to have this appearance of like, a very refined and elegant individual; beautiful in a sort of Severe way, but twist it up ever so slightly so he registers as Uncanny and Gross.
Beauty Hiding Filth and all that.
(just think about how many Fluids get into that Velvet Ensemble on the daily, it's Not Good.)
Like the way his pants cut him and the vertical lines make him just All Leg. And his pallid bloodstained skin which makes him look like a Walking Corpse, hair slicked back with its own grease.. a figure that's bewitching and unsettling to witness
also yes, the hair is Both a Me thing and a Bride of Frankenstein thing.
Virgil always feels right coming Second on these things..
1. Inspiration
Virgil is ooooooooooold, he's so Old, virgil is Ancient
Virgil is possibly my oldest still-in-use OC, I created him a Looooooong ass time ago.
like 2010 Long Ass Time.
That is to say I do not know Why she exists.
Okay, Not entirely true.
I made her for a comic I was writing with my friend at the time. She was my part of the main villain pair, but I do Not remember how I ended up on Toxicologist prodigy but make it Cowboy (which was always a bit of a misnomer for the vibe but nowadays Especially he's less Johnny Cash more Nickleback)
I Think, I Think, what I wanted was to have a character that contrasted the Hardest against my friends main villain? who was very Orderly and Serious and Efficient?? beats me though that was So long ago..
I was also just listening to a Lot of Nickleback-esk music at the time, which may have been an influencing factor lmao
2. Appearance
Virgil's appearance is pretty simple to explain, all told! He's a Country Boy/Girl, rowdy and ostentatious, and very secure in her understanding of that part of herself. It's where she comes from, and despite his rocky relationship with home it's who he is, y'know?
The brightest (and most dangerous) mind in Toxicology doesn't Have to look exactly how you'd Expect her to look now does she?
(Virgil pictured here on the Right)
Now our wonderful little Ulysses vwv)/
1. Inspiration
oh this is an Interesting one!! Ulysses (and Charlie, for that matter) came from 2 distinct places to land where they are now..
From time to time I like to entertain the idea of starting a band and having a musical career of some kind, something that blends my love of folk/bluegrass, prog-rock, and power metal into a loud villainous and exhilarating sound.
and a few years back, as I was getting into Bluegrass for the first time, I was struck by a Concept for a Concept Album.
It was called The Book of Brother UIysses; the story of a sniveling little priest in the frontier days and his Cursed Book, following him around as he fed townsfolk to whatever entity lived in its pages until he was finally Consumed himself.
I toyed with it for a bit and eventually put it back on the shelf until the Musical Fancy struck me once more, untiiiiil I was listening to friends at the table: sangfielle and had both a deep desire to do a Horror-Fantasy Western ttrpg And satisfy my ever-present desire to weasel my way into playing two characters at once.. and I pulled ol' Ulysses off the shelf again and made some.. Additions.
This has evolved now into them being just like.. free floating OC's? I don't plan on making a comic out of them, I would Still love an opportunity to play them in a TTRPG setting, but I'm not Banking on it, and hey, who knows, maybe I Will make that album someday, but for now they just kinda amorphously Exist within Something resembling a Narrative in my head after a long and complicated journey...
2. Appearance
Similar to Lazarus, I wanted Ulysses to be unsettling, but in a Slightly different way.
He's too clean- his all black outfit is never grimy, he is clean shaven his hair perfectly quaffed, with that plastered on grin, under eyes obscured by reflective glasses the vibes are just Immediately Off.
To the flip side of that I always wanted him to look kinda.. pathetic. When we see him outside of his Persona as The Keeper of the Book, as just a man that is still Human in many ways; he's just..
small, waifish, behind the glasses his eyes are big and jittery, like a pray animal caught in a snare and still trying to fight its way out..
#monster noises#meat husband#dirtbag super genius#the book of brother ulysses#okay so I Lied#All told there are 5 characters in the#'Bartholomew's Nasty Little Bastard's'#club...#but I got tired and these three Are like.. the Main three#and the three I think people may actually recognize and care about#the other two#for those curious#are Idris#(the golden robot who runs a smuggling empire from the same story as Virgil)#and Montgomery (my Renn Faire costume character -#originally excluded because he's both a character and a persona and sometimes that makes me feel weird about including him in group stuff)#but if you take the time to read this and you Do wanna know that stuff for these two I will gladly hop on tomorrow sometime and add them!#explaining my design process for characters is such a Trial though oh my God#because my process is so.. not on purpose?#if that makes sense?#nine times out of ten these motherfuckers appear in my head fully assembled and I just have to go 'Okay!!!' and get on with it#Sometimes I gotta do a bit of work#like Lazarus went through a few iterations before we landed on the pinstripe vest and pants combo#but the core of the outfit and the Intent of the whole thing was always the same#and I Did have to change Virgil over from a Anthro Coyote to a human and That took a few passes to get right#but I don't feel like there's any.. Why to that#at nothing I can place in words#she ended up looking like that because that's how she's supposed to look!#what else do you want from me!!!!
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A Bit of Meta: Rogers the Musical (as it would appear in the world of RP)
So I think I have this MOSTLY figured out. The only thing I can’t really figure is how you would fit in the whole Winter Soldier / Civil War thing... But we’ll get there. So far I have... (Hidden under a cut because it’s looooooong)
ACT ONE
1. A Pre War Montage: Introduces Steve along with Bucky and Bex. Shows them growing up and ends right as Bucky departs for the war.
2. A Short Number where Steve and Bex are shown dancing around their feelings for one another.
3. Project Rebirth number which would introduce Peggy.
4. “Star Spangled Man” aka the USO Tour
5. Azzano and a catchy number introducing the Howling Commandos.
6. Reprise of Steve and Bex dancing around their feelings -- would end with Peggy and either Dugan or Jack literally pushing them together. And a kiss, of course.
7. Montage to sum up the rest of the War
8. The Valkyrie and Steve and Bex’s goodbyes. Instead of a date, Steve makes her promise to marry him when they get back home.
9. Bex Solo/Ballad that would show the passage of time and hint at the formation of SHIELD. (If you’ve seen If/Then it would kind of be similar to “Learn to Live Without” or “Always Starting Over”). This would end with the announcement the Valkyrie was found.
10. Steve wakes up. Times Square. Reunion with Bex. BIG EPIC LOVE SONG. (aka the song Reb and Junior like to torment her with).
END OF ACT ONE. On Steve and Bex kissing in Times Square, of course.
ACT TWO.
1. Fury Introduces the idea of the Avengers / recruits Steve
2. “Save the City” aka the Battle of New York
3. INSERT REST OF MCU HERE...like how do you summarize Winter Soldier, AoU, and Civil War...
4. Big epic preparing for Battle Number as they go to fight Thanos
5. Steve, post Infinity War, having a solo similar to Bex’s in the first act where he and the ones left talk about reclaiming those who fell.
6. Defeat of Thanos.
7. Reunion #2. REPRISE OF BIG EPIC LOVE SONG. (Also this, like Antman being at the Battle of NY would be hysterical...in a tragic way, because I don’t think Bex was snapped. So her sitting in the audience like WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK).
8. Steve done. Ready to move on. Live his life with Bex. Passes the shield on to Sam. A new era begins.
9. Finale.
END OF ACT TWO
Thoughts????
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@marigoldmelancholy 😞 How do they keep up their energy?
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ASKS
"Keep up my energy? Dunno what you mean, I do what everyone does. Eat.”
[ Grimmjow is not nearly as high energy as he presents himself in front of others. I do try to make this obvious in how I write his internal monologue, but he’s an introvert at heart. He wants to keep to himself in a safe, secure, and predictable bubble. I think this really only becomes obvious when looking at his expressions on the whole. Everyone remembers him for his bloodthirsty grins when he’s in combat, and that seems to inform the vast majority of peoples opinions about him (in world an in meta) but the reality of the situation is that he’s not existing in a combat scenario at all times, and the fascade and appearance he needs in those moments is not the same as what he needs the majority of the time.
The loud brash personality he displays in combat is intended for 2 reasons: 1) to distract 2) to make his opponent underestimate him. His loud, aggressive, bloodlust (while not entirely faked) is put on to lure his opponent into a false sense of security. These scenes are high energy and high adrenaline. I don’t know if I can say for certain that this energy comes from anywhere in particular other than Grimmjow’s intense desire for survival and victory. There is no alternative.
While he certainly wanders the line between self-destructive and suicidal, he never fully crosses over to the later. Death is not an option. He uses everything in his arsenal, including his abrasive personality and a copious amount of smack talk. Can’t stop, won’t stop, don’t know how to stop is his ethos.
When he’s not in combat, you’ll notice that he’s generally much calmer and quieter. Unless he’s deliberately trying to provoke. He’s low energy. Conservative. Beside the fact that this is generally representative of his feline nature (high energy bursts of exertion followed by periods of rest and recouperation). He’s much more introverted and mellow. Dangerous, yes, bc he is prone to lashing out at the slightest provocation. That danger comes from the fact that he doesn’t need to be wound up first. He’s capable of violence even at rest.
I feel like I’ve waffled a lot without actually answering the question lmao. I’m trying to express that his energy comes in waves. He doesn’t actively do anything to keep it up. He’s either in fight mode or in recover mode, depending on what is needed. Even if his energy isn’t actually high, he can project that for a looooooong time until he reaches actual physical exhaustion, and he’ll still be glaring and snarling then.
Ways that he recovers his energy does include eating – it’s a very quick reward. “Personal care” such as grooming and napping also do wonders for him. Even certain amounts of socializing are really good for him (preferably the kind where he and whoever he is socializing with are both just sitting quietly and minding their business near each other). ]
#[ answer || 𝖈𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖔𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖙𝖞 ]#[ ooc || 𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖑 ]#[ headcanon || 𝖎𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖓𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖌𝖔𝖉 𝖇𝖑𝖚𝖊𝖘 ]#marigoldmelancholy#TSP Activity Check
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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.
#HOLY ANDRASTE THIS GOT OUT OF HAND#looooooong meta#cullen rutherford#cullen stanton rutherford#cullen#amell#cullen x amell#dragon age#dragon age origins#dragon age 2#dragon age inquisition#dao#da2#dai#meta#cullen meta#dragon age meta#surana#amell x cullen#surana x cullen#cullen x surana#cullen x female mage#cullen x hero of ferelden#mage hof#hero of ferelden
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All the gods are turning their backs on him these days aren’t they?
@exaltedideals
Pretty much. XD The kais back the Saiyans like....90 percent of the time, the one Tuffle left gets screwed by everyone....
Though this ties in to an idea I have in mind, where, kind of playing with an idea you brought up with King Vegeta that there were more extreme Tuffles that didn’t exactly help in the situation that eventually lead to the extinction of the Tuffles.
What if there were different cults of ideas that sprung up based on particular gods? Even though religion for the Tuffles largely got left behind for science, it still had SOME impact on their society, probably resulting in political parties.
The majority would have been descendants of those following the kinder, more balanced cult of thought, but a few extremists would have followed the darker, more aggressive path hearkening back to the Tuffles being a prey species, rather than a predator race.
Baby could have been created by those aggressive Tuffles. The gods themselves would reject him because of his aggression, but also because he’s not “one of them.” He’s not a “real” Tuffle, rather a freakish toy that THINKS it’s a Tuffle......like Pinocchio.
His own gods reject him, and the only one who speaks to him is the Tuffle equivalent of a Destroyer, who plays the part of Satan by tapping into Baby’s weaknesses in order to gain power.
It’s just something I’ve been considering that would make sense as to why a peaceful race created such a corrupted thing, since before the war, battle robots and machine-mutants didn’t seemingly exist.
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I received an ask about if Eddies trip to Texas might be because of a family tragedy situation similar to Bucks rather than a queer awakening story and my response got long so I thought it would be better as an actual post rather than an answer to an ask!
My opinion is that its very unlikely that thats the route they'll take - simply for the reason that I can't see the writers repeating a storyline such as Bucks secret family tragedy - especially so close to Bucks (and Maddie's) own family tragedy which is still very much playing out - we've seen some of how the family secret has weighed on Maddie in 5b - how it impacted on her and her own mental health struggles and we really haven't explored how this new knowledge is affecting Buck. Buck is a master of disguise in many ways in that we actually know very little of what is going on with him - he said it himself in season 4 'I hide my true feelings from others' and Buck is very much doing that in season 5 - Hen is probably the person he's revealed the most to and even that is some what superficial. The fact that Buck has spent the season trying to 'fix' everyone else's problems - Maddie, Chimney, Eddie and Chris (and even Taylor) has allowed him to deflect and avoid dealing with his own mental health - I'm fully expecting season 6 to explore this. Once everyone else finds themselves in better places and therefore Buck can't keep 'fixing' everyone else to avoid fixing himself he's going to have to turn his fixing skills inward and I am of the opinion that talking about the shooting with Eddie is actually the first step on that path.
So that is why I think we have to look elsewhere for Eddies story. Then there is also the fact that the synopsis specified his father - not his family in general, or his parents, but his father. If it was a family tragedy then we would expect them to state it in the synopsis. Instead of ‘Meanwhile, Eddie visits Texas, where he attempts to reconcile with his father’ we would have something like ‘Meanwhile, Eddie visits Texas to deal with a family emergency’ or words to that effect.
Mexican American families tend to have a fairly defined family dynamic with a set of expectations that everyone is expected to conform to - the patriarch sets the rules and the matriarch enforces - it can be very traditionalist and tends to play to old school gender norms - and Eddie as an only son would definitely be expected to follow his fathers example and not step outside of the narrow lines. He would be expected to ‘be a man’ - not show his emotions and provide for his family. We’ve seen him speak about it - ‘if I hadn’t joined the army I’d still be working with my pop’ and we also know that Ramon was proud of Eddie for serving - in Eddie begins we see him reading the silver star certificate - its implied that this is not for the first time and you can hear the pride in his voice - Eddie is described as a hero - he claims its what anyone would’ve done but Ramon contradicts him saying that ‘if that were true everyone would be walking around with a silver star.’
All of this gives us hints at the complexity of that dynamic - Eddie has conformed to family expectation and its made his father proud but it was actually an incredibly traumatic experience for him - one that continues to be as we’re seeing play out. It goes to suggest that this is something Eddie has been doing repeatedly - conforming but it continuously compounding the trauma and that it is all connected to his father.
We've also been given enough textual hints this season to be able to figure some things out - the 911 writers are very careful about what words they choose to have their characters say - the scrip has to do a lot of work and so every word is important. Therefore the fact that the word 'repression' was used during Eddies health scare is important, the choice for Eddie to say 'the first woman i've wanted to spend time with' and many other examples are all loaded and designed to give viewers clues if they’re paying attention as to where the story is heading - there is a reason we’ve all been speculating about Eddie queer awaking in fandom for a while - we’ve been reading the clues.
The whole of Eddies therapy appointment in 5x13 is very loaded - the way the conversation is directed (its exactly how real life therapy works) to push Eddie (and the viewer) in certain directions so that he can begin to connect dots for himself. Now in real world therapy this might happen over several sessions, but 911 doesn’t have the time to do this so they have to ‘speed up the timeline a little’ - so we have Frank choosing to bring up Eddie blowing up at Bobby - Eddies defacto father figure - pushing the idea that in the present we lash out at people who represent an aspect of out past which holds trauma or complexity - the thing which has played a major contributing factor in our present struggles - hence Eddie lashing out at bobby - when he really wanted to lash out at his father.
Franks loaded line ties all of this together - his telling Eddie ’maybe you should talk about your pain with someone who shares it. Think about that first trauma and then talk to someone who can understand what you’ve been through.’ Of course, it plays perfectly into Eddies time in the army - the viewer will naturally go straight there in their mind - because that is where Eddie has gone in his - because he’s still repressing. The thing is the army clearly wasn’t his first trauma - in part Eddies breakdown is as a result of his repression (i’m going to probably explain this very badly, but hopefully it will make sense!).
Think about it this way - something happened to you in childhood or your teen years - whatever it was lead to big problems - major arguments with you family and possibly the reprobation of the society in which you live, who then started to constantly behave and speak in ways that were unkind, derogatory and made you want to make it stop - so you start repressing that part of you and put huge amounts of energy into trying to fit in. The comments etc never fully go away, but you are able to live more comfortably - as long as you maintain this facade you’ve put up. Then when the first opportunity presents itself you escape (into the army). The thing is your escape route is both freeing and traumatic and so your trauma compounds itself - the army is a loud kind of trauma - unlike the first trauma it tricks you into thinking that this is actually the first trauma - because that’s what trauma should be right - loud - a big event that has defined perimeters.
So when you reach the point Eddie is at - where you’ve had several loud traumas, you will trick yourself into thinking the army is the first trauma. So you reach out - as Frank has told you to - only you find you can’t - because they’re all dead - so you can’t do you homework and deal’ with that trauma - so you spiral because that loud trauma is no longer in play - its now a new trauma and therefore more recent. That trauma from further back - the quiet one - that now comes into play - almost as if its taunting you - so you lash out because you know that all your trauma stems from this one trauma that you’ve been attempting to outrun since it happened - it was the reason you joined the army, it was the reason that you ran from you family and the society you knew - to LA (its no coincidence you chose somewhere more accepting and diverse) where you start a job which is similar enough to being in the army - the freedom you enjoyed such as the camaraderie - but without the traumatic bits - the getting shot at etc.
But then - your new job turns out to not be as trauma free as you thought and eventually you get to where Eddie was in 5x10 - where you get a wake up call. Only Eddie, because he is so repressed and conditioned, didn’t seek help - he changed jobs. Now though, he has lots of time to think and cycle through all that trauma - he thinks going back to what he was doing will solve the problem and when that can’t happen lashes out at the person who represents the cause of his first trauma. So you do get help - thinking that will allow you to keep on repressing that first trauma because if you deal with all the other stuff - you’ll be able to get a better grip on the one thing you’ve been working on repressing for the longest - the first thing. After you lash out you feel guilty (both for the misplaced anger, but also at yourself because you know deep down that you lashed out at the wrong person and you know why) so you do what they suggested - you go to therapy - and your therapist tells you ‘go back to the first trauma and talk to someone about your pain’ - and you are still in denial so you go for the loud trauma - the army - only you can’t talk to someone about your pain and that actual first trauma is their waiting for you to lower you guard and the moment it happens - you lash out and break down because now, now you are going to actually have to face up to the real first trauma.
Note what Frank tells Eddie - ‘talk about your pain with someone who shares it’ followed by ‘and then talk to someone who can understand what you’ve been through.’ That is two separate conversations and it doesn’t follow that they have to be had with the same person - in fact its heavily suggesting that they aren’t/shouldn’t the same person - so Eddie going back to Texas is the first conversation - the one to be had with the person who shares the pain - Eddies father. The person who Eddie has ‘disappointed’ because we shouldn’t forget that Ramon will have pain in this as well - the pain of disappointment in having a son who doesn’t conform to his and the family ingrained expectations. You have to look at this from the outside and understand that from his perspective - because he is seeing things very differently - he is right in his thoughts and opinions (his ideology is outdated and wrong, but it is an ideology that unfortunately still exists in the world and the show is telling that story so don’t @me anyone for saying this).
However that conversation goes, Eddie will then be in a position to have the second conversation - with someone who understands - now we don’t know who that will be but I’m guessing that weight see Hen (and or Karen) come into play here - because they are the most likely of our cast to understand. Of course it might be Buck, it might be Maddie (although she has her own thing going on so its very unlikely) because they understand about disappointing your parents etc. But we’ve seen the show expanding the Eddie/ Hen dynamic this season and I feel like it’s been done to lead into them having that second conversation and this also slots in nicely with the HenRen vow renewal theory because Hen preparing to celebrate and reaffirm her love for Karen is the perfect premise for Eddie and Hen to have a conversation about being gay and finding love but also acceptance and potentially about learning to live with a family member who doesn’t approve. We don’t know her fathers opinion on Hens sexuality remember - he might’ve been estranged in part because of it and his pride wouldn’t let him accept he was wrong so he followed her life secretly and from afar and there is no reason that Ramon couldn’t be in the same boat - to ingrained in his way of thinking to admit cubically but secretly proud of his son and the life he lives.
#I have zero idea if this even makes sense!#kym 911 meta#its looooooong#i'm too verbose for my own good!#911 meta#911#911 spoilers#911 speculation#911onfox#911 fox#911 on fox#Eddie#Eddie diaz#Eddies queer awakening#anti ramon diaz#not really but to be safe
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Sam tells Cas of Deans' comment about Jack "not being family" and Castiel decides that he has had enough so the angel takes Jack and Sam on a long relaxing vacation away from Dean
They go to Rome and Greece and Paris, they visit the Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx, they go snorkeling in Hawaii, they just go anywhere that they think looks fun
Jack gets a chance to be a kid, not having to worry about hunting (or being hunted) and Sam also gets to relax, spending time with his little family of freaks <3
Jack calls Sam and Cas his dads when talking to a waitress and Sam and Cas both almost tear up
in the secret good spn this is exactly what happens 😔
Jack, Cas, and Sam all have this very intense desire to make the world a better place, and this idea is very fitting for them because neither of those three characters get the chance to see or experience the world or free will they've fought so hard to save. It can be very disheartening, seeing them struggle so hard to accomplish something (saving the world and overcoming their own person struggles with feeling worthless) but never getting to reap the benefit of surviving said struggle (seeing the world and all the good they've done, all the people and lives they've saved).
#they deserved to just be domestic!! and to have the autonomy and self-respect to just-- walk away!#to save themselves from dean's abuse! i don't understand why they didn't get that for themselves#this has been in my ask box for a looooooong while but i was waiting for something super smart to manifest in my brain#so i could give a response as fluffy and sweet as your ask was! unfortunately the only thing my#brain was willing to supply was a meta :/#oh but i def think sam and cas and jack should visit not just earth but the entire universe!#they should wander on the surfaces and moons and rings of other planets#jack brings one of the rocks from saturn's rings for show and tell at school one day#and the teacher's like *sigh* *calls the number of jack's parents* ''we need to talk''#castiel#jack kline#spn#sam winchester#dean critical#i'd tell you god's name if you asked
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Kisuke’s poem at first appears to be critical but the message is actually strangely uplifting. It also speaks a lot about the type of person he is because he does not follow his own moral code.
そう、 我々に運命などない
sou, ware-ware ni unmei nado nai
無知と恐怖にのまれ
muchi to kyoufu ni nomare
足を踏み外したものたちだけが
ashi o fumihazushita mono-tachi dake ga
運命と呼ばれる濁流の中へと
unmei to yobareru dakuryuu no naka he to
堕ちてゆくのだ
ochite yuku no da
Viz’s translation (of which they are known to have quite literal translations):
True, we don't have anything such as ‘fate’.
It's only those who drink in ignorance and fear
and stumble over their own feet
that fall and disappear within the muddy river
known as ‘fate’.
So here Kisuke is criticizing the idea of fate—that people’s destinies are predetermined. It’s a rather typical trope to have characters with ‘genius intellect’ to scoff at spiritual ideas like fate, as they see the universe as a place where things happen based on probability, inclination towards that thing, and work put in to make that thing happen, rather than a predestined outcome. And Kisuke goes right along with this trope. He appears to be harsh, as he calls those who rely on the idea of fate to be ignorant and fearful people who will eventually fail.
To give a little context to why this poem says what it does, this is also the same volume where Kisuke talks to Orihime and Chad about their newly awakened powers. He tells them that they have a choice to make about whether they want to explore their powers or decide not pursue it.
He says in the volume to Chad and Orihime, “Your transformation is not a disease. You were just given the key to the door in front of you. There's no need to know the cause. No need for sorrow or sadness. What comes next is up to you. You can use your keys to open the door... or lock it tight. And if you do choose to open it... you can still decide not to pass through.”
With that bit of context in mind, at first he seems awfully harsh, but that’s only the first half of the message of this poem. The real takeaway message is in the volume itself and is rather uplifting:
If fate is not real, that means that you are in control of your destiny. That you can change the outcome of your life. There will still be many obstacles to overcome, especially if your genes or your heritage goes against you, or if you are unsure of what you want. And it will be hard work if it doesn’t come naturally. But you are in control of your destiny because you have a choice.
I think if there’s one moral principle Kisuke always stresses, it’s allowing people the right to choose—he did so back in TBTP as well, with his quote to Hiyori about choosing whether or not to let your feelings control your actions.
Interestingly, this is also in direct opposition to his tendency to manipulate situations to his own liking—usually by keeping information to himself—in turn taking away others’ ability to choose with full knowledge and awareness of the situation.
This is also highlighted in Volume 6 where he (creepily) uses Kido on Rukia to prevent her from helping Ichigo. By doing that he allowed Ichigo to choose completely on his own how to deal with Uryuu and the Gillian, without Rukia’s interference. But at the same time, Kisuke himself was interfering with Ichigo’s choice by denying him Rukia’s aid and changing the outcome of the situation.
What I see from this is that Kisuke does indeed have morals; he wants to be a good person who allows others around him to freely choose what they want. But he often fails to do that because he feels a need to interfere with their choice if it’s not what he himself wants from the outcome. He seems to have conflict with allowing people their right to choose even if he believes that it could be harmful to them or not according to his own bigger-picture agenda.
This is why I think Kisuke’s poem and volume are so interesting and speak a lot about What He Believes vs. What He Actually Does: they are contradictory. We have Kisuke calling fate bullshit and stressing to Orihime and Chad about the importance of choice, then immediately flip-flops on his words—not even a few chapters later he acts against his choice principle, manipulating a situation’s outcome and taking away Ichigo’s choice to be given aid.
Kisuke’s poem seems harsh but is a feel-good message, yet he himself doesn’t follow his ideas of choice over a predetermined path. Deep down he believes in free, fully-aware choices, but due to his own desires (and fears) he wants to guide others only toward a path that he sees beneficial. It effectively takes away free choice, as he tries to make fate for others, and in the process makes him somewhat of a hypocrite.
He really is an interesting character because his moral ambiguity lies in his moral ideals clashing with his harmful actions, of which he tends to do very little of to change though he has the power to do so. But until he does decide to follow what he believes and chooses to be a better person, he’ll always have trouble socially and will always be making mistakes that could have been prevented.
#bleach#urahara kisuke#kisuke urahara#meta#looooooong meta#god i love this mess of a character. he's so needlessly complicated.#// i'm just dropping this entire thing because i haven't wrote anything about kisuke in ages
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sigh... might fuck around and rewrite the end of da2 to actually justify cullen's presence and characterization in dai lmfao. considering I'm pretty positive bioware never actually wrote the mage ending in da2 I feel like I'm allowed to just do that if I feel like and no one can stop me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#actually please link me to the good cullen meta so I don't have to#he has enough fans I know this must already be a solved problem#am I only doing this because alden trevelyan was a cullenmance once upon a looooooong time ago and I'm feeling vaguely nostalgic?#............mayhaps
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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 25, part one
(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)
Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
Holy crap, Episode 25! We’re halfway through! *Cue Bon Jovi*
Hunt Invitation
After taking a nice long break to watch Word of Honor pick lotus pods, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli return to stressing over the shitshow that is the post-Sunshot cultivation world. Jin Zixuan has come to invite them to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, with a special invitation from his mother to Jiang Yanli. Jiang Cheng reacts to this in a mature and reasonable manner, while Wei Wuxian...doesn't.
On the surface, Jiang Cheng has matured in recent months; much more than Wei Wuxian, with his secret burdens, has. But it's only on the surface, as we'll see later in the episode, when Jiang Cheng's insecurity will take the reins.
Jin Zixuan is adorably pleased by Jiang Yanli's acceptance of the invitation. Wei Wuxian is less pleased, but sort of tries to suck it up.
Jin Zixuan kind of undercuts the romance of his errand by asking Wei Wuxian for the Yin tiger amulet as soon as Jiang Yanli is out of earshot.
As always, Jin Zixuan makes an impression by being the best Jin currently in existence, but the Jins are terrible. JZX is working to advance his dad's ambitions, and as such he is currently Wei Wuxian's enemy.
(more after the cut)
Opening Ceremonies
There's a bunch of cultivators arranged for the opening ceremony. Later someone will say that this is more than 5 thousand people. Ok, sure.
As I've said before, it's best to think of it like a theatre production and assume the other 4,900 people are offstage or, you know, painted on the backdrop.
The young lead cultivators from the four main clans are standing together. Nie Huaisang is trying out some new body armor.
The clan leaders are seated up on the stage, along with Jin Furen and Jiang Yanli. Unfortunately Jin Furen doesn't seem to have a personal name that I can discover. Her title Fūrén ( 夫人) means she's the primary wife of the head of the family, according to this excellent meta.
So “Madame Jin” is a decent translation...if you're French? I feel like instead of English subtitles including borrowed words from French (”Marquis” in NIH), Greek (”Water of Lethe” in WOH), and other European languages, we could try borrowing Chinese words instead. Jin Zixuan's mom is titled, not named, Jin Furen. Since we don’t know her actual name, I'll call her that and abbreviate it JFR.
Wei Wuxian's childishness continues at the opening of the hunt, as does Jiang Yanli's encouragement of his childishness. I know she's had a rough couple of years, and it's understandable to want to baby her little brother out of a sense of nostalgia. But it's not good for him, and she shouldn't do it; she should encourage him to be more mature, just as she does with Jiang Cheng.
War Crimes Contest
Jin Guangyao says they're going to have an archery competition, and they're going to liven it up by endangering some prisoners. These prisoners are Wens in Wen cultivator uniforms, meaning they're not the noncombatants that were being hunted down earlier. But they’re still helpless people in chains.
There are three different reactions when the Wen prisoners are brought out. All the Jins are pleased, or neutral. All of the Jiangs, including Wei Wuxian, are upset.
The Nies and the Lans, what we see of them, are a little shocked, but not obviously upset. Based on those reactions, it seems like this is a maneuver that in-world is considered shocking and cruel, but not necessarily unethical or immoral. Shocking, cruel displays of power are pretty normal in this world; remember when Wen Chao lit a Lan cultivator on fire just to say hello, and nobody complained?
This whole scenario, of course, has been designed to provoke Wei Wuxian. One major goal of this event, and the whole reason for wanting Wei Wuxian to come, is to get the Yin Tiger amulet. Making him lose his shit in front of 100 5000 cultivators is a good step toward compelling him to hand the amulet over.
We see Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli both signaling Wei Wuxian to keep it together, and he takes a step back and tries to chill.
Meanwhile, Jin Zixuan seems annoyed by all this, and goes to take a shot at it, making it clear from his demeanor that this is easy and JGY is making a show of nothing.
He hovers in the air and makes a perfect shot, pleasing most of the crowd and impressing Jiang Yanli.
Then his cousin Jin Zixun taunts the crowd, challenging anyone to do better. This presents a bit of a problem for Wei Wuxian. For the sake of the Wen prisoners, Wei Wuxian should just take this taunting and let the contest end, if no-one else is willing to take a shot. But for the sake of the Jiang Clan’s status, and his continued control of the Yin Tiger amulet, he needs to put the Jins in their place.
Every Day is Blindfold Day
This moral dilemma is resolved with an abrupt tonal shift, where the humanitarian concerns of all parties seem to vanish. Wei Wuxian flirts embarrassingly with Lan Wangji and then goes as far over the top in besting Jin Zixuan as it's possible to go.
The flirting hits differently, incidentally, when you edit Jiang Cheng's annoyed reaction out of it:
Lan Wangji doesn't seem embarrassed by Wei Wuxian's request, despite it happening in front of 100 5000 of their fellow cultivators. He looks Wei Wuxian straight in the eye for longer than necessary before turning away; it’s not exactly stern disapproval. We’ll get very used to this look, in Wei Wuxian’s second life.
Fortunately, Wei Wuxian carries a blindfold with him wherever he goes, (gifset here), and he is such a good cultivator he can hit 5 parallel targets simultaneously without even holding his bow straight or tightening the string.
(OP fixed the angle of the bow for this gif, which is why everyone is standing on a hill in the background).
Everyone is pleased by this shot except Jins Guangyao and Zixun; even the Jin cultivators are clapping, and Madame Jin is presumably this happy any time Jin Guangyao’s plans go wrong.
With that they start the hunt. Jin Zixun challenges Wei Wuxian to do the whole hunt blindfolded. Wei Wuxian agrees, but the censorship committee said no, apparently, so we don’t get to see that.
Flute Hunting
We do get to see Wei Wuxian luring monsters into his nets by being too sexy for his robe, too sexy for his robe, and playing the flute.
We also get to see Jiang cultivators looking puzzled while random monster roars happen in the woods around them. We do not get to see any monsters, which is probably just as well.
Jiang Cheng is annoyed and concerned, muttering "I told you not to overdo it" which means he didn't, you know, tell Wei Wuxian NOT to do this, just not to do it quite so well. Jiang Cheng knows what Wei Wuxian’s abilities are and he is making use of him, as he should, but he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions.
Tree Confession
Wei Wuxian sees Lan Wangji and starts to say hi, but then he has a desaturated flashback to Lan Xichen telling him to back off, so he stops himself. But then Lan Wangji comes over to talk to him.
Lan Wangji starts off talking to him about his latest anti-resentment musical discoveries, and Wei Wuxian pushes back, even calling him Lan Wangji, but gently. Wei Wuxian asks "who am I to you?" and Lan Wangji turns the question right back at him, then waits a looooooong time, eyes downcast, while Wei Wuxian thinks of a serious answer.
Wei Wuxian says "I used to treat you as my zhījǐ" --which, as we’ve discussed before, is variously translated soulmate, confidant, intimate friend--with a strong meaning of "the person who truly knows me." Lan Wangji says "I still am." Coming from Lan Wangji, who NEVER says how he feels about Wei Wuxian or about anything, really, this sounds a lot like a confession of love.
It definitely takes the form, visually, of a love confession, as Lan Wangji speaks, then gazes at Wei Wuxian while he waits for a reply. Wei Wuxian's reply is this:
I don't think Wei Wuxian is oblivious (I'm speaking strictly of CQL, not MZDS, as always with these posts; they are different works). I think he loves Lan Wangji back, and knows it. But Chenqing and everything it represents are between them.
Lan Wangji is quite literally NOT his zhījǐ any more, because he doesn't truly know Wei Wuxian right now. He loves him desperately, but he doesn't know about his core, and hasn't accepted his cultivation method. So Wei Wuxian answers his confession by showing him Chenqing, effectively declining to accept his still-conditional love.
Snake Measuring
Next we get terrible hetero courtship in the form of Jin Zixuan finding snake discharge on the ground and talking to Jiang Yanli about comparative snake measuring. Seriously: that is the actual conversation that they are having.
Jin Zixuan boasts for a bit, and then awkwardly tries to ask Jiang Yanli on a date. When she turns him down he gets mad, because he's a typical heterosexual dude even though he's secretly a delightful person...very, very secretly. Jiang Yanli, for her part, can't string a fucking sentence together to save her life whenever he's around, so she's not helping their mutual understanding.
Lan Wangji attempts to hold Wei Wuxian back from beating Jin Zixuan’s ass yet again, but eventually JYL wants to leave, JZX tells her to wait, and WWX intervenes. Why doesn't Jiang Yanli have a maid or Jiang cultivator with her while she's on a date, incidentally? These kids are confused about whether they're doing feudal patriarchy or whether they're doing modern social life.
Jin vs. Jiang
Wei Wuxian jumps in between Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, which JZX objects to. Jin Zixuan has no fucking business objecting and Wei Wuxian is 100% right, at this point. As soon as WWX shows up JZX should hand her off to her Shidi, bow, and leave her the fuck alone. Instead, he draws his sword on Wei Wuxian, and kind of on Jiang Yanli since she's right behind Wei Wuxian. Fortunately, Lan Wangji blocks him.
This instantly blows up into a Jiang-Jin Clan conflict, with Jiang Cheng unfortunately absent since he let his unmarried sister go off in the woods alone with the son of the Cultivaton world's most famous lecher. It looks like it’s a personal conflict, but since Jin Zixuan already told Wei Wuxian directly that Jin Guangshan wants his amulet, any arguments between them are part of a larger power struggle.
Cousin Jin Zixun comes running up to start shit. Wei Wuxian pretends--I am SURE he's pretending--not to know who he is. The dude hassles Wei Wuxian every time he sees him; Wei Wuxian is a troll, and right now CJXZ is butting in to something that doesn't concern him. Rather than argue, Wei Wuxian insults him by telling him he’s not memorable.
Jin Furen shows up with several maids and cultivator dudes in tow, which is the proper way for a highborn woman to wander around in the woods. She also brings Clan Leader Yao, because if it's Wei Wuxian Blaming Hours, Yao is going to be there.
I initially found the deep friendship between superhot Yi Zuyuan and dumpy Jin Furen implausible, but then I remembered that my lifelong bestie is a smokin' hot redhead with impeccable fashion sense, while I am a roly-poly nerd. Friends don’t always match. Also, Jin Furen's actress, Hu Xiaoting, looks like this:
...so she is actually hot in real life. Not as hot as Zhang Jingtong (who plays Yu Ziyuan) but literally nobody is as hot as Zhang Jingtong. Don't @ me, you know I'm right.
This is a heck of a long scene, so we’ll pick it up in part two!
Soundtrack: Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi
Writing prompt: Newly-divorced, cold-hearted CEO Yu Ziyuan buys an apartment next door to newly-divorced, warm-hearted pastry chef ...uhh let's call her Jin Dàngāo (蛋糕), sure. She can name her business after herself.
They discover their daughter & son are in the same college class, and so they meet up over coffee....several times...trying to matchmake their hopeless, hapless kids, while bonding over their own terrible (former) taste in husbands. Who will Cupid strike first, the kids or the moms?
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Hi Gem! 2 and 10 for the asks?
Hello dear! Thanks for the ask! 💜
2. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project
So the multi-chapter I am working on is very near and dear to my heart. It’s going to be a looooooong time before I share it, because I’m just writing bits and pieces of dialogue as they come to me and will end up stringing it all together later, so it’s already like an... escape fic for me? When I get overwhelmed with my current projects I clack away at it as well. It’s also very pertinent to some things I’ve come to terms with recently.
10. How would you describe your writing process?
Chaos. No but really I yeet the words onto the page, send them to a beta to make pretty, and then yeet them onto the internet. Usually by the time I sit down to write a fic, the idea has been bouncing around my brain for so long the words just flow out. I rarely use outlines, if I do there’s usually just a line or two of me pretending to be funny while roughing what I’m aiming for.
Send me a writer meta ask!
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Idk if you have already answered this, but when/how do you think Renji & Rukia *officially* said the big “L” words??
This is a very interesting question to me. First of all, have I already answered this? Well. I have written this scene into three different fanfics, all which take place at very different points in time (once at the beginning of the 2-year timeskip, once in the Royal Realm, and once post-TYBWA), with an additional time Renji slipped it casually and didn’t notice (Rukia did), and once where Rukia shouted that she loved him and all their filthy urchin friends at him. I surely have at least one more in the works, and who am I kidding? I am never going to stop writing variations of this. But this is not a question of when I would have liked them to, it’s when I think they did.
I did write an extensive meta once on when they hooked up, and this is a related, but not-entirely-the-same question.
So, a) of all, I am obviously a fan of slow-burn, and b) between Rukia’s emotional constipation, Renji’s ridiculous patience, and a looming Nii-sama, there’s a real good chance that it took a looooooong time, and if that’s the case, I think the confession was simultaneous with the hooking up. I realize now that when I wrote that, I did not consider at what point in the timeskip they hooked up, but I think it does make a difference. I had never really considered the case where they hook up right away (as in any time between right after the SS arc through the first half of the timeskip), but I think that if they did, it would take forrrrrreeeeeeeevvvverrrrr for them to say it, like, probably TYBWA or maybe after. I have never written this scenario and now I desperately want to, THANKS ANON THIS IS DEFINITELY WHAT I NEEDED IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. What if Rukia screamed it at Renji’s back while he was dragging Ichigo off to go fight Yhwach? What if they said it all super-casual when Rukia leaves Renji to fight the Luchador guy whose name I refuse to type? MY DING DANG HEART.
Oh, also, even though I kind of hate this trope, I have been kicking around this idea that it’s the end of the timeskip, Byakuya gives Renji some super lame, quarter-ass compliment, and Renji makes the Big Decision: Kuchiki-taichou has Accepted Him, It Is Time. He gets his New Years haori drycleaned, buys an assload of camellias, makes a completely unnecessary reservation at Rukia’s favorite shitty ramen stand, and Rukia’s like, “Hey, babe, do you mind if we postpone a week? I gotta go stick this magic sword in Ichigo” and that is why Renji is so phenomenally weird during the Fullbring arc.
Also, I never got around to addressing the case of: did they hook up in Inuzuri/the Academy? which I will now.
The answer is no.
A headcanon I firmly adhere to is that no one in Inuzuri expresses affection out loud. It’s bad luck. You never, never say it. People die constantly in Inuzuri, and it’s treated as a natural and good thing by people in higher districts-- life is shit there, get back in the resurrection cycle, cowards. To admit that there’s something to hold onto there is a radically optimistic point of view, and I find that very romantic and heartbreaking and is part of why I OTP them.
Now, in my fanfic, these two blessed morons tempted fate by embarking on some horny teen make-outs and stopped abruptly when one of their friends died, but I only did this for fanfic reasons, I do not actually headcanon this. I think that Renji had been in love with Rukia since late Inuzuri days and was aware of it, and his big plan was to CRUSH IT!! at the Academy, land a sweet gig, and then be like, “Rukia, behold, I am the GOAT! I have passed a gazillion tests and beaten up Kira so many times and I have been offered an actual paying job. It’s at the squad with the nerdy glasses captain, but money’s money. Also, I love you, like, so, so much, will you marry me? Please, my crops are dying. I have a character recommendation from my zanjutsu instructor.”
I think at the same time, Rukia loved Renji in a “this guy is literally half of my heart I need him” but not necessarily in a romantic way, the same way she will later come to love the Karakura kids. She went through some really traumatic self-worth times at the academy and definitely could not read whatever insane signals he was giving off. Rukia has a lot of tight control over her emotions, at least as far as denying them, and wouldn’t let herself be in love with him. If he had made it to that insane proposal he had planned, she would have been like “wat” and then punched him in the face.
Did I have a point? I do not remember. Right, when did they drop the L bomb? Probably New Year’s, timeskip year 2. But really, any time you want.
#renruki#bleach meta#i've been working on a drabble thing where renji actually does spring his Terrible Proposal on Rukia years after the fact#maybe if i'm feeling cute later i'll finish and post it#sorry if this is kinda rambley
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