#alas I can no longer feed my dog any constructive criticism I get for this

[airlock]

so, I’ve been showing people this for a while now, but I was thinking today’d be a good day to expose this wretched creation to the world

it was roughly a month shy of a year ago now when Brian David Gilbert did a video where he rated Mortal Kombat characters on the quality of their cuddling, and I’m nothing if not forever smitten with making silly graphs, so I attempted the same thing with the FE16 gang (although I made this before we had the ashen wolves so bear with me on that one)

(for those who aren’t looking to have one of the best 15 minutes of their lives yet: the vertical axis is for emotional availability, the horizontal axis is for physical risk, and a great cuddler lands as close as possible to the middle.)

under the cut I will provide a brief rationale for each of them (and it will be gently spoilery at times, but nothing very major; if you’ve cleared the pre-timeskip on any route you’re good to go)

The Body Pillows (low emotional availability, low physical risk)

Cyril: look, it’s not that he’s not entirely touch-starved deep down, it’s just that he still is supposed to be handling some chores and you’re interrupting him

Gilbert: the only way anything exciting is going to happen with him is if you lean in close to his ears and start speaking heresy

Hilda: she could hypothetically reach the zenith, y’know! but that would be haaaaaard

Ingrid: the good news is, you’ll probably get a great deal of constructive criticism if you cuddle ingrid. let’s leave it at that

Leonie: come for the cuddle session, stay for the advice on how to get a mattress as good as this one but a lot cheaper. like, if you do choose to stay, that’s what you’re getting

Linhardt: you see the name of this archetype? it was made for linhardt

Marianne: she’s really sorry. she knows you said you wanted to cuddle with her, but she thinks you’ll just have a bad time and get disappointed. she's afraid bad things will happen to you if you touch her

The Michael Ceras (high emotional availability, low physical risk)

Alois: ever wonder what happens to a himbo when he breeds? like, dadification? well, you don’t have to anymore

Anna: imagine someone trying to cuddle you and, every single time they move around or try something, they ask you, “IS THAT THE ONE?”

Ashe: if so little happens as, say, you shift and rustle something and a draft blows in at the same time, he will assume it’s a ghost coming for him. if you really wanted to, you could scare him on purpose. oh god, you’re going to do it, aren’t you. you bastard. you villain. you meanypoop

Ferdinand: “am I, ferdinand von aegir, cuddling you better than edelgard? am I, ferdinand von aegir, cuddling you better than edelgard? am I, ferd”

Ignatz: don’t be fooled into thinking he’ll make a canvas of your body; he gets ideas for sure, but they’re all too scandalous for his shy little hands

Mercedes: why cuddle with her when you could get roughly the same effect by falling asleep to an ASMR compilation

Petra: to have honesty, she tries with a small amount of too much hardness

Raphael: aw, he might be a big guy, but he knows not to hurt you! just don’t expect him to know a lot of other things

Sylvain: as easy as it is to get him into a bed, you’ll really be wishing you’d taken him to a therapist’s couch instead

brian didn’t name these (low emotional availability, high physical risk)

Catherine: those calloused hands might feel nice until the part where they’re abruptly zooming into your face

Edelgard: you know what it means to cuddle with someone who “dislikes losing control”? it’s just not an experience designed around the idea of you having a good time

Felix: watch him find some way to turn this cuddle session into a spar session

Hanneman: cuddling hanneman is all fine and well until he goes for the blood sample extraction

Hubert: he nasty

Jeritza: “why are we cuddling? why won’t you spar with me?”

Lysithea: are you the kind of person who always hoped to die comfortably laid on a bed? if so, there’s exactly one thing that’s going the way you wanted it to in this scenario

Rhea: this isn’t even speculative, it’s empirical. you can, in actual canon, on any route, witness a scene where Rhea cuddles you and it’s fucking terrifying

Shamir: the least you’ll want to do if you find yourself cuddling shamir is to telegraph your every move; if she feels something unexpected, she might assume it’s a bug, and your finger will thus be pest controlled

The Scissorhands (high emotional availability, high physical risk)

Annette: cuddle annette and you will experience things you could never have imagined. things she could never have imagined either, because she didn’t mean for them to happen, and yet, somehow, they did.

Bernadetta: at the very least, she’s the girl to ask if you want the ultimate range of possibility. anything can happen, from her fainting to you fainting

Caspar: don’t mistake this shrimp for an ordinary himbo; given enough provocation he can and will jump into the nearest fight with you still attached to his shoulders

Dimitri: so needy, and yet, so likely to break your everything with so much as a hug... an archetypal scissorhand

Flayn: you’d think it’d be a decent time, besides the fish smell, but if you touch flayn you get vaporized by seteth, that’s just how it goes, it’s a law of nature

Lorenz: say what you will about the man, he’s open to experiments. for better or for worse. ever wonder which new and exciting places you don’t want to find a rose in?

Manuela: if you remember spending the night with manuela, you will wish you didn’t. if you don’t remember spending the night with manuela, you will wish you did

Tier List Rodrigue: look at how close he already is. you will never be apart from him again. it’s too late

The Cuddler’s Zenith (perfectly balanced)

Dedue: the strength to make dimitri look like a twink, and the wisdom to tell you not to eat the weeds -- what’s there not to love?

Dorothea: she’s full of youthful, bisexual energy; one day it will expire into a manuela-esque deposit of issues, but if today’s not that day, best not to wait until tomorrow

Gatekeeper: greetings, professor! nothing to report! nothing to disturb our calm, dreamy night

Seteth: don’t be fooled by all of that stiff hardass act he puts on; he’s stronger than he looks... and even softer

Sothis: hang out with her, and you might feel like you could touch the sky, or rip it a new one

Claude: look, I’m not going to explain this to you. just touch the nearest object around you. do you experience a sensation when you do so? if you do, then you have everything you need in order to understand, all by yourself, that claude is the most sublime cuddler in all of Fódlan and beyond