Oh god, oh god, I didn't mean to start romancing people, I swear, I just thought most of the romance options were hilariously inappropriate for the tone of the preceding conversation. And then Cassandra had to go and be all vulnerable and honest and a woman whom I seriously respect and want to be happy and now I guess we're together???? Oh noooo, I'm such a shit. What if she finds out I flirt with like everyone who's not scary or Blackwall? Can she find that out?? I should never be romantic in these games, I'm terrible at it.
Query; does every DA:I love interest bang you on the first date?? Cause Cassandra does and it made me really uncomfortable. Also, after the do she says something like "we're meant to be" and that is also uncomfortable for me. Doesn't help that I made this particular Inquisitor look as much like me as I could manage, so he's a baby faced barely twenty.
@hoarmurath, sorry if i sounded combative, its just that it is a very dear subject haha i think anders is tragic as fuck and im persevering hard on the subject of chantry stuff. I do think there's absolutely no reason to actively support the templars in DAO AND DAII, but i'm honestly happy how theirinfal redoubt was handled in inquisition because the templars became a lot more.... redeemable? that's not the word, but i'm sick and bad at second languaging right now. the second part of my 'mages, templars, and how the chantry is shit' rant is about templars after all, and while they are a dangerous institution because their extreme power over the life and death of mages and how easy a brewing ground for hate and abusive behavior this makes - cough, cough, Cullen "mages aren't people like you and me" Rutherford - they are at their core glorified slave soldiers, and i do feel bad for people like Evangeline, Cullen, Alistair and Ser Barris, and many Templars didn't have a choice, either, about serving the Chantry just like the mages don't have a choice. but anyway, that's a very long and detailed rant. and yeah Orsino turning into an abomination at the end just made me wanna toss the game out the window LOL that was some shitty writing there. The Sebastian turning them in to the templars is a bit of party banter he has with Fenris: Spoiler Sebastian: It's our duty to tell the templars. Fenris: Then why haven't you done it? Sebastian: I guess I was hoping they'd come to it on their own. Fenris: And then you wouldn't have to betray Hawke's friends, right? Sebastian: That's not reason enough to allow a maleficar to walk free. (If Anders is in the party) Anders: You think the templars don't know I'm here? They just haven't caught me yet. (If Merrill is in the party) Merrill: Are you talking about me? Sebastian: Which of us should do it? Shall we draw lots? Fenris: Uh-uh. You want to turn them in, you work it out with Hawke. According to game lore - I read all the codexes and stuff - Rivain has a really rich tradition of magic, with a close relationship to mages, who work in the villages as counselors. Rivaini mage women, especially, are trained as Seers, and often safely commune - sometimes even are temporarily possessed by - various spirits, according to the needs of their villages. It's such a strong culture that Rivaini mages rarely turn abomination! They even have special amulets designed to avoid that "good" spirits become corrupt by being near earthly emotions they can't comprehend, like what happened to Cole in the White Spire during Asunder. The Circle in Rivain was notoriously relaxed because Rivain is only loosely Andrastian, and allowed the mages to marry/have children/keep their children, work outside the circle in their villages, visit people in the cities, and they trained their women in traditional Seer magic. Basically the circle in Rivain was a school, and their Templars, because they were raised in a culture that valued the social contributions of magic, didn't abuse their position. And like... after the events of Asunder but before the war was officially declared by both mages and templars/seekers breaking things off with the Chantry, a group of templars anulled the Rivaini circle - killed all the mages and i think the templars, too - because they thought they were heretics. The Avaar have a similar position, with senior mages in the hold overseeing things, and younger mages being taught magic by spirits themselves. they're even possessed by these spirits, their teachers, and they have a ritual so they can unmerge without damage to either spirit or mage. which is what i think only makes Anders's desperation sadder! if the chantry wasn't so desperate on holding power that they don't allow information to spread, he could have actually unmerged with Justice - avaar mages literally do it, like, every day. But yeah, i agree. DA2's writing sucks a lot and is very rushed, which leaves a lot open to gut feelings/interpretations. I think i'm so against it because magic has so many more uses that would actually help the population! Cullen's ideas regarding mixed military service and templar-overseen healer's clinics are a great idea, given that mages themselves are guaranteed their civil rights and the templars work with them as counterparts, not jailors.
@tinyhydra Josie has no sex scene whatsoever, nor does Solas; Cullen's horizontal tango is the second-to-last romance scene, after you've finished WEWH and HLTA but before the arbor wilds. I know you can refuse to have sex with Dorian without breaking the romance - there's the breaking the romance option, the one that's basically [careless whisper softly playing in the background], and one "no, let's take this slow, I want a relationship that's more than just physical because i care a lot about you." but you've been flirting/dating for a while before he shows up in your quarters: your romance initiated scene is at the culmination of The Last Resort of Good Men - basically when he says 'what must you think of me now, after all this', the flirt option is the only romance trigger, so you'll respond 'many good things' and kiss, but his sex scene only happens after his gift quest and can be skipped. Sera I think involves completing her gift quest first, and as far as i know you refer to her as your lover, so it's implied you've been together for a while - i'm not sure because i havent done her route yet - but bull and blackwall also have pretty 'early' sex scenes. (bull's romance has the most hilarious scene of the entire game)
Okay. XD. I have only played the games so I don't even have an idea whether it's a book or a comic you're talking about. But that makes more sense, re: Rivain. Do note that Rivain is also partly somewhat Qunari, so that might affect things too. Apart from the breeding/dehumanisation/so forth, there are valuable things in the religion so maybe the good things stuck. I also haven't supported templars in the first two games, except on a specifically assholish DAO playthrough with my city elf who literally hated anyone who wasn't a city elf like him, I think. You're right in that the shitty writing makes a lot of this quite hard to discuss. Well, the thing with Sebastian - what do you expect? He's a dick. Of course that's what he is going to say and it's great Fenris doesn't engage him on it. But I have a soft spot for dicky religiously repressed dicks who need to posture, clearly. :P I guess it doesn't blip for me that much on the scale of terrible because talk is cheap (compare to all the evil rapist templars and so forth). I don't remember exactly how he behaves after Anders blows up the Chantry, does he only demand you kill Anders if you've taken him along or does he demand it if he's in your party in general? I mean, I see how that makes sense too, I would probably do the same thing if I was him. PS: Also dang, does refusing Dorian's sex while still romancing him mean there will be no sex ever? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO D: Also are there race restrictions for the DA:I romances or is it just gender? I want to play every race but if some of the companions don't romance dwarves I will be the sad! PPS: I cannot be the only person so done with jumping around for the shards. I hope someone writes a mod where you can do finding the shards as some sort of war table mission because really, I am quite sure I've spent hours hunting for the damn things and I don't plan to keep doing that in future playthroughs.
I know that Cullen won't have you if you're a dwarf or a Qunari, but other than that I think you're fine. I guess he's not up for dealing with extreme height differences. Can't blame him. My Cadash is roughly boob level with everyone he talks too, and that might make things a touch awkward. Crotch level for Bull.
@hoarmurath Asunder is a book! It's where you meet Cole for the first time and like, it tells the story of how the mage-templar war actually started. But yeah, I love that fenris doesn't engage him. I love Fenris, even if I had to walk with a water bottle whenever i put him and merrill in the same party. oh, god, my rogue playthrough... Fenris, Anders and Merrill in the party for most of the game. what a nightmare. stop being mean to my beautiful kind wife, you two. He demands you kill Anders if he was recruited, no matter if he is or isnt in the party with you atm. abt Dorain: Yeah, if you refuse that time you don't have another sex scene with him ever )): only mentions in dialogue and stuff iirc (same if you do bang) Cullen and Solas are gender and racegated (Humans and elves for Cullen, only elves for Solas) because they were late additions, but the others are ok with any race. also can i use this space to bitch about bioware scrapping Cullen's same-sex romance? BECAUSE I'M VERY BITCHY ABOUT THAT and i hate those shards. why jaws of hakkon wasnt part of the main game and the shard stuff the optional dlc, i'll never understand.
I kind of liked hunting for shards. Was V soothing, just running around and climbing shit. Don't much care for the rewards, but i guess hoarding useless junk is its own reward, yeh? Also, Jaws of Hakkon? This game has dlc?? I mean, non preorder/pc exclusive/entirely cosmetic dlc???
What is this? Reasonable discussion and disagreement about Anders?? I suppose if it's possible anywhere, it would be possible on Kintsugi. This is definitely true. The game was super rushed because EA is terrible. I'm not sure how much that has to do with the lack of nuance in writing, but given what we saw in Origins and Inquisition, it probably had at least something to do with it. I think it was Anders' idea to do the thing, but he wouldn't have done it without Justice/Vengeance's influence. Like, in Witch Hunt, you find a doodle in the circle that has a tiger called Ser Pounce-a-lot mauling a templar that was drawn by an apprentice (almost certainly Anders). So I think him have this fantasy of blowing up the chantry is something he would think of in the same way. But the influence of Justice/Vengeance pushed him into action. There are two opportunities to initiate sex with Dorian. You can also complete the romance without initiating them. Both are very sweet. Cullen and Solas are both race locked. Cullen can only romance humans and elves, because he was added in as a romance when Bioware got the extra 18 months and they didn't have time to animate the height differences xD. Solas is fem-elf only.
@Kittenly I hope the Anders disagreement comes off as reasonable from my part, at least!! the last thing i want is starting unnecessary drama here. I think a lot of DA2's script sounds a little... first draft-ish? like, i can't pinpoint exactly (except for my disagreement on Ander's approval of the bad ending of Fenris's act 3 quest) but it just feels like it needed some editing. Yeah, i agree he wouldn't have done it without Justice. Like, we know that he really fears turning into a demon, and what turns spirits into demons is being denied their purpose, so my theory at least is that this fear + how bad the situation was + watching all the mage underground being either killed or expelled or turned tranquil was what did it. Is there another one besides the "so how bad does the inquisitor want to be?"?? Is it after HLTA/WEWH/WPHW? I still ahve to actually finish the game with Mosdef (warrior controls on pc, [disgusted noise]) so I never got his last scene. and now i restarted the game to recruit the templars lmao IF ONLY THEY HAD THE TIME TO MAKE CULLEN'S SAME-SEX ROMANCE. im still not over the audio files being there and the actual romance being scrapped. so close.... we could have had it all................... @tinyhydra yes it does! Jaws of Hakkon got released a while ago and its GREAT.
Yes, I was also trying really hard to reasonably disagree and actually explore WHY I was disagreeing, because usually what you get in real life is me shaking in my chair and twitching in "aaaejfslkjdsldfjalskjsdfjalskdjfsldksblakgjlskdfjsldjfslk", so. Okay, the race-locks sound reasonable. I was planning to romance Cullen as a human lady anyways. But what do you mean they had a same-sex romance? WTF? OMG? But if the audio exists, can't some enterprising awesome person just code the romance for same-sex too? I would play the shit out of that omg so hard. So hard. Yes pls tell me how to get the second sexing option with Dorian, this is important. I only have the last quest to go, and I am trying to finish up stuff. Also, funny thing! I am lvl 22. I went to the Exalted Plains and found a lvl 15 dragon. I had Sera's Focus ability (Thousand Cuts) maxed out on 3 tiers, and after punching the dragon a little, I had her do it. She killed it. Single-handedly. God I love her special tree. I will play the shit out of that skill tree when I roll my rogue (of first). Also man Blackwall's romance, is it a thing of awkward because of his whole thing? Daaang. But I do love the banter with Solas afterwards. When Solas sort of forgives him, it's amazing. I want to pet that banter on its head for a million years. Uggh. I wonder if anyone has a "best playthrough for story" list, because I feel like I went with the main game too fast and some of the areas don't make much sense if you do. Also overleveling much? It seems to sort of penalise you a little for actually wanting to be thorough, which feels weird. At least in the end bit of the game. Anyone understand what I mean? Also the romance timelines seem hella out of whack, tbh, but that might be also because I did Dorian's quests all in a row, iirc.
Just for clarification, the comment about civil Anders discussion was sincere. I am actually very happy with the discussion of him here. Before I go on a bit of an unpopular opinion about bi Cullen, let me preface: do whatever you want to your own game. I don't care at all and people usually have good reasons individually for wanting to change things like sexuality. This is in response to the trend I see, mostly on tumblr I know I'm in a tiny minority, but I'm actually very protective of straight Cass and straight Cullen. I think for Cass at least it's because in this game there is a clear attempt at making sexuality important, and I don't like erasing that for Cass. And I say this as a lesbian. As for Cullen, I think it's mostly because Cullen/Dorian is probably my biggest NOTP, and also because a lot of the younger tumblr fans seem to be doing it to make two pretty white guys kiss. I know this is a big generalization, but looking at some of the race stuff in this is actually really interesting. You have two canon queer r0mancable males who are either POC (Dorian) or heavily coded as POC (Bull). This isn't always the case of course, but I think it is interesting to think about. As for the Dorian scenes, The "how bad do you want to be" is the second option. The first is right after his personal quest.
@Kittenly Ah, good that you actually think it's reasonable Anders disagreement. I know that the half of the fandom that isnt too busy going for each others throats is getting pretty sick of anders debate, so.... huh, i never knew you could bed him right after that. Yeah, my reason for wanting bi cullen is just that i'm bi myself, and i love the knight-in-shining-armor coded characters, which are always... surprisingly straight in DA, despite the chantry's official stance on sexuality being "whatever". All the bi characters fit the rogueish archetype, and i'm a goody-two-shoes, so it's.... kinda upsetting? Even Josie, who i ABSOLUTELY LOVE AND ADORE AND WAS SO HAPPY ABOUT AND WITH HER ROMANCE, OH MY GOD, WHAT A CUTIE, had a rogueish past as a bard, so... I'm just being picky? Like, I still have a terrible soft spot for the Alistair/Leliana/Zevran banter about Alistair hopping borders. Also, since i headcanon most of my inquisitors as queer (my main, Lavellan, is bi), the entire inquisition would be run by queer people HOW COOL IS THAT. Like, really, it wouldnt matter much in my games bc i Strongly Ship him and my female mage Lavellan, it's just for the being-there factor. And apparently we could have had it, if they hadnt run out of time. (but i'm just happy he's a romance option at all, so i shouldnt complain much. i'd suffer greatly during the game if i couldn't romance him.) I don't see the appeal of Cullen/Dorian, honestly. I like their friendship and value it more, I think, than a potential relationship- but you're right about the race issues.
Yup, I did not take you to be sarcastic about the relative lack of Anders hostility. I took it entirely as a compliment. Huh, it's funny. Because for me the real notps would be Varric/Cassandra, and those that would warp the sexuality of Dorian or Sera. But changing a het character into bi isn't actually something I mind? Weird?! Weird. Do note I have not been part of the tumblr part of this fandom at all so I don't know the current trends at all. I do like to make men kiss each other, but I also like it to make sense. Also yes, I totally agree with needing more not-het but "straightlaced" dudes. This is a good point actually! I mean, in my origfic often one pair of the couple is my male ideal which would be tall, blond and handsome and very very heteromasculine (using as descriptor not as a slur/compliment). So, I think Cullen hits the "most heteromasculine hot dude" button in this game for me, and that's why I wouldn't mind pairing him and Dorian. Also dang all the conversations re: mages vs templars they could have, because yess so much delightful material. Also it could go so badly, and I like terribad things sometimes. I did cry even in Origins about Alistair not being bi, because tbh he was way more up my alley than Zevran. Like way more. Do note also that all the shipping needs to be in character for me, so I know I am going to be quite picky about fic. If it doesn't make sense, I am unlikely to enjoy it.
Wow. Can I just hug you, because honestly so many people I see who want bi Cullen are also weirdly against having Cullen in a different sex relationship. As if bi is only good enough if it's "gay-lite" or something shitty like that. Which is also why I get protective. Ugh. The whole Cullen thing is very complicated in my head because I also headcanon him as hella-grey romantic/sexual and so I just get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people he's shipped with. It's all messy and I'm not good at describing it >.> I'm like that too with almost every other piece of media! For me it's that representation is hard to come by (or come bi eheh), and straight is the default so messing with sexuality is important and awesome. But in Inquisition, I feel like they made such an effort with sexuality diversity that straight isn't the default, and so I don't like people messing with it. This is definitely one of my criticisms of DA as a series. I would *love* a very typical chivalrous knight character who was gay or bi. Also have more het characters who aren't white or white coded. Anders, Leliana, and Sera are the only white queer romance interests. Where as the straight characters... Ali, Morrigan, Seb, Blackwall, Cullen, Cass, and Solas are all white. See, my reasoning for loathing that pairing is that they just wouldn't work. Dorian needs so much more attention and validation than Cullen could possibly give him. Cullen is a busy man and kind of a ditz with interpersonal relationships--he moves slowly and relies on you to make all the important moves. Dorian wouldn't do that because he needs people to prove that they like him. So it wouldn't even be bad in an interesting way. It just wouldn't work. As for mage/templar conversations, that's why I ship Cullen and my mage Lavellan 5ever. Cullen and Dorian make the best shitty friends though, and you can get a lot of good tension from that.
the only cullen/dorian fic i read is a very sad one written by a girl i've been following since, like, 2010 when she still wrote homestuck, and basically if she wrote idk Flemeth/Frodo crackfic i'd read Flemeth/Frodo crackfic. @Kittenly /hugs! I also get super annoyed by that because wow, me being in a committed relationship with a cis dude since i was 14 doesn't erase the fact that i would be pretty okay with dating people who aren't cis dudes. My specific Cullen headcanon is very... specific, but along the lines of him being gray-asexual/demisexual and biromantic, or at least being the kind of person who is just really, really picky and intense in their feelings and whose 'fall in love and desire sexually' switch has a faulty gender filter. my Cullen at least has had feelings for my Surana, then while Kirkwall happened he was still too hurt to even touch sex and romance with a 10 feet pole AND still had major feelings for her until like after the qunari invaded, then when he started fancying my lavellan he was just like You've Gotta Be Kidding Me Oh My Fucking Maker I Thought I Was Finally Done With This Bull Crap. And he's a very stable, low-burning man in his passions when he's not under a ton of stress and ptsd - like, itd take him literal decades to get over his crush on Surana if things hadnt gone titside up. But I like the idea of Cullen not even having much desire for sex or sexual instincts when he isn't Fully Into a person, and that his criteria for being Fully Into a person don't necessarily include "cis female"? like, just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it couldn't, because his sexuality works the other way around, and his sexual attraction depends on the person he is romantically in love with. I was more surprised than anything about Cassandra being straight because I thought she had a sorta little crushy on Fem!hawke. X: And yeah, I even posted on the official forums about the lack of chivalrous queer romanceable characters, because it is sending a message when even in thedas that's supposedly had different influences, queer people are still coded as the deviants in the outskirts of society. I wouldn't count Cass as white, but I believe whiteness and poc-ness concepts vary a lot from brazil to north america. I LOVE dorians friendship with cullen and my inquisitor. they're both so serious that they need his sillyness around.
Okay, makes sense, re: why you think they wouldn't work. I am quite bored with original female character/male character relationships on my own, but that is probably because there's too much bleed-through into my own life where male attention has been a big fat zero for years. I suspect if I was in a happy relationship with a man, I might actually enjoy those fics, but as it is, I really don't right now. I probably wouldn't even be much interested in ficcing my own female inquisitors with dudes, even if I might like playing through the romances. This is also why triangles where a woman struggles between choosing two men piss me off because my brain is like "boo hoo bitch, life is so hard for you, oh wait". Which is petty and shitty, but I haven't said ever I am not petty or shitty, so. :P Ahh, when your own issues get all over fandom. I am just glad I can tell when it's happening.
Yessssss. We have very similar headcanons about Cullen's sex drive. And so your bi-Cullen makes plenty of sense to me. My second-favorite Cullen/Quizy ship is with my bestie's trans, Freya. And my favorite snippet she's written for them is a hilarious bit where Freya is explaining to Cullen how to have sex with her because Cullen is awkward and easily flustered and wants to get it right SO BADLY. That's true. Now that I think about it, I'm not exactly sure what Nevarra is supposed to be analogous to, if anywhere. But there's also no clear line between white and POC in a lot of cases, so that may have been too hasty of a judgement on my part. @hoarmurath, I'm that way for most fiction too. Het ships just don't do a whole lot for me rn. Bioware is the recurring exception though, as for some reason their male LI's just hit all the perfect buttons that make me love them forever.
For me it seems to be original female character/male character ships. I would read the shit out of Cassandra/Blackwall tho, forex. Esp considering how terrible it would be considering the events that come to light in the game at some point. Because with a female character who exists in canon I don't get the same feeling as I would with a original female character. Nevarra vibes me as sort of Spanish/Portuguese? Uhh. I mean, Orlais is clearly French and Ferelden is English/Scottish as are the Free Marches. And Tevinter is Rome. Anderfels are German/Scandinavian. Rivain? Uhh no idea, since there seems to be much more racial variety there (Vivienne and Isabela are both from Rivain and they are clearly different). So, if you go that Cassandra is Spanish/Portuguese, then you get this sort of almost white. I mean, for an European (I am on), we're mostly white, but I know that Mediterranean people vibe differently for Americans than Scandinavians do for example. What I mean is that I operate on the European model of whiteness and therefore most European peoples vibe white to me. ??? Not sure.
