#like i was thinking about cullen

[pinayelf-archive]

I realized another reason why I dislike ai generated images so much besides the fact that it steals from art

I saw someone who makes ~realistic versions of animated characters w ai and I saw they did Hercules based off the Disney movie. I always had a crush on Hercules but the ai ~realistic version was so bland

he was just a Conventionally Attractive Guy TM. I know disney!Hercules was drawn to also be a conventionally attractive guy but he had features like a prominent nose and chin. the ai version wiped it out and just gave us some super polished generic attractive guy

I've seen convos about people being pressured to live up to that type of beauty these days (the kind where it's a generic sort of beautiful) and how it's basically unachievable because a lot of times it's due to filters and plastic surgery and it's like. that's the kind of look you get using ai

idk it's almost too on the nose with calling it artificial beauty but in real life even conventionally attractive people don't look like that. they have distinct features that make them unique

[formulanni]

I see why you need the thunder!

Tag list: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls @brawngp2009

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

i saw a thirst trap of carlisle cullen last night and i immediately thought about a steddie twilight au but where eddie falls for steve, the patriarch of that weird-ass foster family that just moved to town at the start of eddie's third go at senior year (he moved to hawkins to stay with his uncle and try this last time to graduate after people in his home town keep only thinking of his now convict dad whenever they see eddie. maybe now he can actually graduate without all the teachers holding a grudge).

steve, or Dr. Harrington to the folks of Hawkins, who studied medicine to help people after he was attacked in his early 20s by an actual vampire his father was trying to hunt down after it killed steve's mother

steve, who forced himself to feed on animals, to not take a single breath when he went to his best friend robin's home after being changed to tell her goodbye

steve, who winds up changing robin too (accidentally biting her? he comes back not a year later and robin's sick? idk)

steve, who just kept collecting kids by accident when he'd find them on the brink of death, all throughout his long life.

steve and robin, who are now professionals at pretending to be married (and have been officially platonically married loads of times at this point).

eddie, who skids his car roughly into chrissy cunningham's in the school parking lot after they've just come back from winter break and they both end up bonding over the ride in the ambulance/long wait in the hospital

chrissy, who immediately clocks eddie's reaction to Dr. Harrington as soon as he walks in the room and relentlessly (lovingly) torments him about it from then on.

something something eddie falls for steve the otherworldly being and steve who falls just as hard for this entirely breakable human

classic miscommunications about "He's married!", "He's still totally into you though.." and "Oh my god he thinks I'm married...That's why he's not flirting back!", "And why did it take you so long to realize this?"

dr. harrington's meddling kids (who somehow look just like steve even though they're fosters??? ("They're vampires Chris, they've got to be.")) trying to push eddie on their 'dad' and eddie's 'robin' chrissy on their robin...

idk idk i just can't help but think about a twilight au now lmao

[spanishinfluenza]

"If Carlisle was the soul of our family, then Esme was the heart."

everybody give it up for the world's most sepiatone couple

[iveleftitwithyou]

to this day i cannot believe i let smeyer convince 12 year old me that the Quileute tribe was unreasonable for hating the Cullens. they could have lived anywhere else but instead they stayed in Forks and forced the wolf pack back into existence, changing the lives of the boys within it forever. it is not at all unreasonable for the tribe to hate the Cullens for taking away the youth of their children !!!!

[kirkwallguy]

still can't stop thinking about the fact that they have demigenders in tevinter but if you're in ferelden you're still using medieval euphemisms for being gay. there are some extremely funny situations to put several characters in

[fuckmeyer]

Jasper as a character is so interesting because he ends up a Confederate because he can't actually empathise with the slaves and because he simply accepts cruelty around him, and then when he becomes a vampire he literally can't ignore others suffering because it hurts him, but even decades after he becomes a Vegetarian he still can't get a hang of it partially because he still can't see humans as *people*. Idk there's smth to be said about him becoming a vampire because of his own cruelty and then being eternally in horrific pain because of said cruelty that fucks.

Jasper's whole life is a curse & i love to see it

here we have a Confederate supposedly so empathetic that he acquired a "gift"... yet not so empathetic as to recognize he was fighting for the enslavement of an entire race. despite seeing the consequences of slavery literally every day. now, the man who spent his last human days denying the humanity in others is forced to spend his immortal life being slapped in the face with their emotions. forever. hueeueueueu-

yeah, i would call that "gift" a curse, actually.

if Twilight weren't a horror story, we might see a discussion between Jasper/Bella about how immortality forces you to confront the darker side of your nature (e.g. "there will come a day when the societal beliefs imbued unto you leaves you standing on the wrong side of history"), & Jasper's journey with finding love & humanity. OR, y'know, he could've just had ONE (1) line where he says "yeah i'm not proud of my service." simply, if Twilight weren't a horror, Jasper could see the error of his ways & change for the better.

HOWEVER. Twilight vampires are "mentally frozen" when they turn, so Jasper is likely still a racist who does not regret his service. no matter how many times he is confronted with his cruelty, he won't change. meaning whatever life he chooses, his gift dooms him.

wow! eternal curse!

we see evidence of this frozen mental state in his decision to go vegetarian. he doesn't switch bc he feels bad about killing humans:

"I could feel everything my prey was feeling. And I lived their emotions as I killed them. [...] You've experienced the way I can manipulate the emotions around myself, Bella, but I wonder if you realize how the feelings in a room affect me." (Eclipse, Ch 13)

note the dehumanizing term "prey" & the focus on himself. he laments not that the human lives he's taking have value but that their dying moments harsh his vibe.

the irony! trapped as an empath while never possessing the ability to be an empath! CURSE CURSE C-

herein lies a bigger, juicier curse: Jasper is, himself, (hot take) enslaved in the sense that he will never know freedom, philosophically speaking, due to the choices he made in life. the series tries to paint him as a master tactician & competent leader; fanon often paints him as a free-thinking amoral black sheep. in reality, he simply obeys the commands of higher authorities & abides by their worldview regardless of how toxic it is to himself or others.

in the beginning, he had María.

he entered the Southern Vampire Wars not by his own volition but stayed because he was content not having a choice. however one feels about María, the fact of the matter is 1) as a newborn he was stronger, bigger, & faster than her & could have run away or overpowered her, 2) had the "gift" to identify emotions & could KNOW when/if she was malicious or manipulating him, & 3) could have escaped by influencing her emotions to make her disinterested in him. at any time in the 100 years they were together, he could have left. he talks about never knowing a life outside the war & discovering "options I'd never dreamed I had." ok???? run 100 miles in any direction & you would have seen a life outside of war. BOI-

instead, he took comfort in being submissive & adopting someone else's ideology. not only did it remind him of his past, but it meant he had no need to reflect on his actions or beliefs. he prefers others dictate his worldview & order him around even if it means being unhappy. he only left because he was going to be assassinated, & even then, it wasn't until someone else told him another life was possible that he "realized" another life was possible.

notably, the period where he's most free— living with Peter & Charlotte— is his rock-bottom where "the depression got worse." but, again, not because he realized the value of human life: "I was so wearied by killing [...] even mere humans."

then he meets Alice.

Alice, who has visions of being vegetarian & converts him so they can live with the Cullens. Alice, who dictates how her family should live their lives to the point where she manipulates them. Alice, who goes so far as to dress the Cullens, who orders Jasper to wait in the car while she & Bella go shopping, who Jasper refers to as "truly [...] one frightening little monster" because for all his experience she can still beat him in combat.

his eternal soulmate is authority.

despite being unhappy with his vegetarian life, as it makes him feel weak & coddled & a liability to everyone around him, he follows the lifestyle because Alice tells him to.

then there's the Volturi, another authoritative body. "We owe the Volturi for our present way of life," says acclaimed bootlicker Jasper Hale, who in the same moment shudders at the atrocities they committed, yet strangely sees no other way for a governing body to keep the peace... so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but, since Carlisle outranks the Volturi as an authoritative figure in that he more closely aligns with Jasper's new worldview, Jasper sees no problem deposing the vampiric governing body if it means his sister-in-law of like 2 months can keep her demonic spawn. so i guess we don't really owe the Volturi that much

to his credit, we see glimmers of him questioning his leaders: 1) his decision to leave Maria, 2) his considering switching diets to defeat Victoria, & 3) going against the Volturi. but, again, these decisions are all just a result of his self-preservation & submitting to the higher authority du jour.

in the end, he has the perfect storm of conditions that would allow him to escape the prison he's created, to find freedom & to love humanity unconditionally... but he won't. Jasper's ultimate curse is that regardless of whether he realizes the enslavement of his own self, he will never leave his cage because it's cozy & easy & allows him to never think for himself.

AAAANYWAY Jasper's life sucks & he's trapped in an eternal prison of his own making. lol

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Cullen (taking lyrium): I am bound to the Inquisition. I will serve until I am no longer needed.

Cullen: I always wanted to be a templar, to protect people. After Ferelden, I served out of fear… and because I was compelled. I thought if I removed the part that kept me chained, I would find my own purpose again. There are templars who have been through worse. Once your sacrifices are made, is there no end? Are you leashed until the day you die, or lyrium takes your mind away?

Cassandra: Mages have made their suffering known, but templars never have. They are bound to the Order, mind and soul, with someone always holding their lyrium leash. Cullen has a chance to break that leash, to prove to himself—and anyone who would follow suit—that it’s possible.

i see the words 'bound' 'chained' and 'leash' and black out and start barking

[vultures-and-scavengers]

cullen's thousand yard stare at getting interrupted is so funny. like at this point i assume he's trying not to think the maker has it out for him specifically, considering all the Unprecedented Historical Events he keeps witnessing up close. so like. of course there's something good in his grasp and then. interruption.

[perilegs]

one of the things i'm most disappointed about is that da:tv will sell well. it's been designed to bring as much new players in as possible, and apparently a lot of people disappointed in it will still buy it on launch day. and ea will keep producing absolute steaming garbage with some ip slapped onto it just because it sells. theyre treating the series with as much respect as netflix originals with their medias.

[ansburg]

yall ever read da meta and know that op thought they were cooking. but the post is like this

[inqvisitor]

i’m so brainrot for this goddamn game i literally don’t remember what romances i’ve done or not because i’ve watched all of them multiple times on youtube

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Are there any companions you can't stand?

I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.

The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.

I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.

I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.

Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?

For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.

I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.

It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.

If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.

But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?

Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"

And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.

My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to run… so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.

Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.

He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.

Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?

We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.

Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.

[abyssal-ilk]

How do you like Vivienne but not Cullen? They have the exact same views?? You call other people hypocrites but you do the exact same thing.

did we play the same game series. did we play the same games anon. because i really don't think we did. vivienne and cullen do not have the exact same views, and their experiences with the circle and chantry are VASTY different. cullen is a jailer and vivienne is a prisoner. of course i'm going to be more sympathetic to the person who has been forcibly subjected to circle life and traumatized from a young age to fear demons and magic than i am with cullen, who willingly became a templar and has been in constant positions of power over mages his entire life. what.

also let me reverse the question; if you like cullen, why don't you like vivienne? since their views are, apparently, the exact same.

[edwardsdeathcabcd]

hey gang if I were to do a little project for school about why it's interesting & special that twilight's queer online fandom finds queer themes & narratives within a story that's so overtly pushing a mormon heteronormative agenda.. would anyone be like interested in sharing their thoughts on that with me or

[kirkwallguy]

genuine question, what about cullens crush on the mage hero is creepy? like in canon was it implied he was being weird about it that I just missed? I'm for sure not remembering every dialogue he had about them but I can't recall anything super weird?

i mean it's more the circumstances/dynamic than his actual actions - i don't think he's particularly written as a creep in the way a lot of the da2 templars are, but his crush wasn't supposed to be cute imo, it always came across as a way to make players think about the potential dynamics between mages and templars within the circles. in fairness, cullen isn't taking any steps to pursue the warden and he can't help having a crush, but it's apparently noticeable enough that people comment on it in ambient dialogue. imagine being in that situation:

he's an armed jailor whose job is keeping you in a tower against your will and killing you if you step out of line. i don't think extra attention from someone in that position would be welcome or fun as a young girl, especially an apprentice since they're in a more precarious position and more likely to be made tranquil. maybe cullen is nice and won't use his station to manipulate or threaten you, but what about the next templar to become infatuated with you? or the one after that? cullen is young and pretty and doesn't have much influence, but they won't all be like that. there are templars like ser alrik who make mages tranquil specifically to abuse them, how do you know that he won't go and whisper in the night commander's ear that he saw you using blood magic if you tell him to stay away from you? idk. i just think the whole situation is a horror story.