@hoarmurath Don't worry about staying on the Tevinter/chantry who is the terriblest! I'm enjoying the conversation, and I like that there's disagreement. I get a little passionate about things, but I'm not trying to convert you or shut you up or anything. This isn't tumblr. And yes, with a softened Leliana, things are definitely looking up for the Chantry. Hope it'll last though. I honestly think that most permanent way to change the Chantry to treat mages better is to make Vivienne divine. Even if she's not as radical as Leli, no one can take away that a mage was Divine. Early in game development, there was going to be an option to make /yourself/ Divine. It would be really hard for anyone who wasn't a human woman, but it would be possible. There's some amazing concept art out there of a male Adaar sprawled on the Sunset Throne with Cass and Leli as his guards, in tears (implication being because he is evil, not because he's qunari). As for Solas. GOD DAMN EGG. Fuck that end bit was awesome. I'm so excite!
Eh, well, I feel like we got to the end point of that one though. Man, you can't make yourself divine when a human female? Why not though. There were some conversation options that let you be like that. I am still having that pious racist inquisitor playthrough though. lol egg. he is a fucking egg isn't he.
A+++ would read again Also, tumblr recs? For cool tumblrs who art and/or reblog funny/cool inquisition stuff?
Hmm. As for tumblr recs: http://siriusdraws.tumblr.com/ is an amazing artist. Her comics kill me ded, check out her tranquil inquisitor if you want your heart killed http://greendelle.tumblr.com/ has a massive crush of Cullen and makes beautiful paintings of him http://the-assquisitor.tumblr.com/ blogs a lot of other video games too http://anaeolist.tumblr.com/ check out her art and comics, they're gold. http://iron-bae.tumblr.com/ super solid bioware blog http://phemiec.tumblr.com/ check out her music! http://gemwillyart.tumblr.com/ my favorite comic person and all around adorable cutie http://elthadriel.tumblr.com/ this is her personal so it's got a lot of random crap on it (I'm allowed to say that she's my bezzie). But she's a massive Adoribull nerd so reblogs lots of that and has a some great fics of that pairing.
I have several too but they're horrible and about a character not a lot of people seem to like. But I have one enabler at least so that's good. :D
ahaha. Me too. Sannah will read all my fics, even ones for dead fandoms and oversaturated pairings (KOTOR and Quizzy/Cullen, Hawke/Anders respectively). But I think I sprained my writing organ when I wrote my thesis. I just can't seem to do any right now. It's very frustrating.
my brain is mostly on shitty trashy aus starring the rarepair of dude hawke/sebastian, so. I'd be over the moon if I ever stanned/wrote for an oversaturated pairing, but I never do, because my brain hates me and only goes for the fandom underdogs. (I mean sebastian is likely the most unpopular da2 companion, if I am not wrong?) female!adaar/cullen I would read in a heartbeat, but I think all the ones I've seen are either female!trevelyan or female!lavellan, so uh no. I've never really been able to fic past plotting, I feel like my interpretation is the wrongest and that nobody cares.
*shields my Fem!Lavellan from the CRUEL ABUSE* /sarcasm Nah i get where you're coming from. Cullen with a Lavellan or especially Trevelyan is super oversaturated and tbh most people do a pretty shitty job of making them interesting. Adaar and Cadash are less popular and so usually have better characterization. Particularly if they're being written for a character who they can't canonically romance, they're usually designed to be interesting for that character as opposed to the many poorly written self-insert-y OCs who dominate the fics. But... Ren isn't like other Lavellans!
^ same........................................... i was really hesitant to publish the stuff i wrote for them because there's so much cullen/inquisitor, and the one fic hasnt been updated yet, but. idk. i get attached ):
Let me tell you this: if you don't make Cullen worship her in a creepy reenactment of his abuse at the Fereldan Circle by the desire demon, you would likely win out over most of the fic I've seen. I think I accidentally clicked a few and augh...so creepy. Cullen reads very tight and very closed off emotionally to me. Very repressed, as far as deep emotions go. He's a bit like me. So, if he ends up working for an interesting young woman (or man, since he was supposed to be bi anyway), I think it would take months for it to go anywhere, and there should be a long friendship progression before any smooching happens. And no worshipping, that's just fucking creepy. Basically, the point isn't that I hate female!oc/male character fic, it's just that I am very very picky about het fic since I am not interested in seeing real life shit and abuse getting replicated in it, especially if the author is unaware they're replicating them. It's not like I don't backspace out of slashfic that is also super weird. Like, this one day there was a fic where essentially the Iron Bull rapes the male Trevelyan, and I was just like "no no no no fuck no", and the fic had no dead dove classification or any warning for rape, so um yeah. Ugh. Of course tumblr would say I am sexist, but the truth is that some stuff flies in slashfic for me that it doesn't fly in hetfic.
It's Samson positivity week on tumblr and I'm having all sorts of feelings. @hoarmurath what do you mean with "worship her like a creepy reenactment"? Because I have a lot of issues w how fic usually portrays him, but I do like to bring his self esteem issues into romantic writing. But yeah, I agree that it'd take a long time for anything between him and the inquisitor to go anywhere, especially sexually, but that part is because I headcanon him as a sexual assault survivor and I don't see him dealing w it in his time in Kirkwall. My "meatier" inquisiton timeline takes about 4-5 years at minimum, and Idrilla and Cullen only really get together more than halfway through it (basically, after Here Lies The Abyss and Cullen's Advisor quest with Madox and stuff) after being friends for a while - and she starts out not liking him much so there's the progression from distrust to professional distance to respect to friendship to love in her part, and it's all very slow and mostly done by letter because they don't spend too much time together. What I try to write when I write in her POV (and don't see being addressed in fic) is her doubts - because like, she's a mage, and Dalish, and he's a templar, and human; there's a lot of romance content dealing with him being ok of her being a mage, but what about her? Is she ok with him being a templar, with what he enabled in Kirkwall, with his past actions, with what the chantry represents to the Dalish? They're still suffering the effects of the second Exalted March seven hundred years after the thing. Is she ok with dealing w this on her personal life, her feelings on being a Chantry figurehead aside? What are the mental gymnastics, what makes the relationship worth dealing with this? Like, I like his romance and stuff, but my inquisitor is 30 at the start of the game and she's fairly self restrained - the fire in her loins can't be the only thing driving her to pursue a relationship. Same with Cullen - I agree that he's very closed off and tight emotionally, so there has to be some slow burn to make it believable.
Yeah, I feel like slow burn is the only way Cullen's romance really works. He and Ren don't actively start doing anything romantic until post-Winter Palace (which is a solid year, year and a half after they meet). He sort of has a crush on her that develops through the first part of the game, but mostly they are really good friends. Ren is too oblivious to realize his feelings and her own developing feelings. It's actually Josie who points out to Ren that she's got romantic feelings for Cullen, which Ren then goes off an announces to Cullen and their relationship becomes overtly romantic. I treat Cullen both as a survivor and also incredibly aware by this point of the terrible things he enabled. And the combination of the two is really shitty for his brain-space. Ren is good for helping him through it, because she trusts his word when he says he's changed and Cullen really needs someone to just take that at face value. and then its all messed up in my AU and its angsty and great. */babbling*
Well, am I wrong but wasn't there sort of worshipping creepiness going on in the Ferelden Circle when he was being messed with? Or was it something I picked up from a different fic? I don't know. Maybe I hallucinated the idea. But reading worshipping shit like "I was amazed by the first moment we met" or " she is everything, she is a goddess" is sort of upsetting and creepy for me? Slow burn is good. Tbh it's my go to for practically most ships, yes.
OOH sad messed up AUs. me likey. My headcanon is that Idrilla and Cullen start on the wrong foot (suggesting they send soldiers to intimidate her family, who's just concerned about her, wasn't exactly the best way to get on her good graces), but she accepts he is the man with the hammer, and she does like (and shares) his enthusiasm about what the Inquisition could do, so they manage to stay relatively civil - with the eventual quarter-hour-long screaming match after she allies with the mages until they can reach a compromise sprinkled here and there, of course. And apparently snarking over Chancellor Roderick and Orlesians brings people together. But he tries to, like, get to know her and notices small things about her because of his little crush, stuff like that that warms her up to him - im trying to rewrite the "tell me about templar life" conversation into something more mutual where he asks her about dalish stuff too - and for a templar he's surprisingly good at not screaming HEATHEEEEEN on her face and CONVERT TO ANDRASTIANISM like Cassandra does. After the siege of Haven she's hit hard with the survivor guilt feelings and he helps her through it, and it's around that time that she starts furtively making heart eyes around him, to Solas's hahrenzoned horror and Dorian's delight. After that there's a lot of longing looks and supportive shoulder-patting that lasts a second too long and (i'm still not sure if WEWH takes place before or after they start having a thing outside of gameplay, bc i did it after) maybe some FRIENDLY STRICTLY PLATONIC BALCONY DANCING like they're john and karkat and this is promstuck and definitely her taking care of him when his withdrawal gets too bad (pimping my fic! is really sappy tho, and im thinking about reworking into a longer fic). But like, she's got dirthamen's vallaslin and it's because while she's Aggressively Dalish she is also Aggressively Relating To Dirthamen, she identifies with the message of his main story and tries to live bravely and truthfully, overcome fear and deceit, and the Nightmare Demon in the Fade taunts her with her cowardice to face her feelings about him because hiding and making excuses is neither brave nor truthful and isnt this a deeper betrayal of her faith? She's so afraid of betraying her people and her culture. and then she comes out of the fade a little affected in the head and decided to Go Get What She Wants only for Perseverance to happen bla bla bla Complications. But by the time they actually get together and kiss it's already been a while of really obvious romantic tension buildup. But yeah, I do imagine her as being really supportive and understanding, and believing in him and his willingness to change. they still have their disagreements - like with samson - but she understands where all that cullen did came from after he explains it, and its all very mature and supportive. they're good for each other. also, they're both the kind of people that look like they iron their underwear. i think in homestuck terms, they start waxing black until they both realize how much of a pity pool they both are. yeah, there was a lot of weird creepy stuff happening to him. its been a while since i played Broken Circle, so i don't remember word-for-word anymore.
I'll play it at some point and get back to you guys. I just recently got the first two games legally finally and plan to play through and draw my own conclusions based on what the games give me. Also what's up with all this crap about how Sera is a terribly written character? Uhh no. No. No. She's imho one of the most interesting companions in terms of characterisation. Also her and Cassandra as awkward friendship bros forever!!! #sera protection brigade 2k15
ooooh friend i completely understand bc i hate Sera hate. Like, she's one of the funniest characters? i LOVE her and bull on my party, ultimate dragon team, ultimate party team. what d'yall think of the sera = andruil stuff? I tried making Cullen on TS3 today (because i finally got the hang of the tattooinator tool and i'm making my inquisitor's vallaslin so i could have a couple photoshoot) but holy crap, why is it so hard. i have A MILLION screenshots and i still cant get his face right. Spoiler: dude looks like hes about to sneeze 98% of the time
