#my brain sorta stuck in a hell loop of *dorian was happy* *he will give that up for them* *some part of him thinks it was inevitable*

[sparring-spirals]

Hi! Absolutely loved your metas about exu and c3 characters. I really am going through it with e12. Do you have any more Dorian meta (I would love to hear it if you do)? Thanks either way!

Well, trying to write coherent Dorian is really hard, both because I'm still parsing through my own feelings about it, and because I've got So Many Damn Feelings About it. In the meantime, a rough outlining on my current train of thought:

- Dorian is introduced to us as an air genasi bard. Light and floaty and singing songs. Bright and free and cheerful, if a little nervous at times.

-- Dorian is light, and carefree, in the way of someone getting to be that for the first time, reveling in it, grasping it with both hands and utter joy and a sense of disbelief. A sense of wonder. A sense of fear.

- Dorian has been running, for the entire time we’ve known him. 

- For Dorian, the concept of “home” is a prison. “Going home”, is a tragedy, a punishment. Opal says “i want to go home”, and the thought jars Dorian. Dorian says “everyone I care about is in this room”, and it is, perhaps, a lie, but there is a tragic element of truth to it.

-- Dorian exclusively speaks of family and his past in little, horrifying asides- Zones of Truth, being stifled, being a disappointment. Drowning under expectations. Dorian does not want to go home. Dorian does not want to go back to being Bronté.

- Dorian knows he doesn't get to prioritize what he wants over what is needed.

- Dorian seems to think it's inevitable, that he'll have to go back to being Bronté.

- “I’m a runaway noble.” “I’m second in line.” Dorian doesn’t talk like someone who has severed ties and is starting anew, Dorian talks like someone who was running, who was searching for a reprieve, and got it. He got a reprieve, he got a taste of freedom and happiness and people he loves and people he is comfortable around-

-- but he was never going to be able to keep it. He knew that, from the beginning, didn’t he?

- Dorian looks at the worried faces of his friends, (who need a noble maybe more than they need Dorian, right now), and takes off his pearls and finery and the things he wants. Pulls on a persona he had been running from, and that hurts. But this all started the moment Cyrus was standing in front of him, the moment he painfully admitted that yes, he was a bit of a prince. It was all crumbling since then, wasn’t it?

- Dorian would burn the world for his friends. Dorian would burn himself for them too. Dorian loves these people, even if he can't keep them forever. For them, Dorian would wear an evil crown. For them, Dorian will be Bronté again, with all the weight and fear and pain that comes with.

- Dorian will crumple up his mask and his outfit, trade out his joy for dread. He will shutter away things he loves and things he wants and his joy and his indulgences- all of it. All of it was indulgent.

- If he was going to lose this all eventually, if he was always going to have to go back to his awful painful unbearable unimaginable boring old life- isn't it better that its for them?

- For them, Dorian will stop being Dorian. It was going to happen eventually, right?