Hello I'm a gal who sometimes pretends to be a Jedi, treasure hunter, Stargate Officer, wizard, assassin, space cowboy, star fleet officer, time traveler, secret agent, swords woman, and much more. Anything to make sure every day is filled with plenty of laughter. When I die i can look back on my life and said I lived it well. This is a Place where all my obsessions come to be seen which includes: Harry Potter, Castle, Stargate SG-1,Doctor who, Chuck, X files, Legend of the Seeker, Merlin, Uncharted, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed, and more I just can't think of them at the moment! I'm a huge Geek and Gamer!!! I'm also a huge shipper so you are warned!!!! These include Castle/Beckett, Jack/Sam, Mulder/Scully, MShep/Ashley, Nate/Elena, Chuck/Sara, and so so so so so so so many more!
I have found that i love love LOVE caleb and cal being friends but would merrin and hera also be besties? I can see them spending time together talking about their disaster jedi boyfriends
oh 100%, they're immediately great friends in the rebel survivor au <3 the jedi boyfriend support group probably takes a bit longer
Inquisitor Aiden Trevelyan at the start of Inquisition a broken and haunted man and then him at his healthiest and happiest towards the end of the main game. First art done by@crownleys and second done by@iamclarex2art
Hit a point where I'm going through the Cullen Critical tag on tumblr cause I really like Cullen, but in a fucked up way and I hate that the writers overlooked some of the more egregious things this guy did (or, more accurately did *not* do) while serving in Kirkwall
Mostly i think im mad that the writers fucked up the chance to take a guy who spent a long time turning a blind eye to and justifying a fucked up system of abuse, and actually have him held accountable for it
Instead of him just. Feeling kind of bad about it but not actually addressing it in a real way?
I mean, dont get me started on how Inquisition fumbled pretty much everything that happened in DA2 (the fact that there's no option for Hawke, Varric, or even the Inquisitor to agree with what Anders did? You can either condemn it or like... waffle around it?), but like. Cullen was actively looking the other way when Mages were getting whipped in the streets, SA'd and fucking lobotomised
The templars turned Kirkwall into a police state by the end of it, and all the writers have him saying is like "man, i feel bad :("
Cant believe im saying this, but Blackwall actually does have a better redemption arc than Cullen
I just
There is gold. Right there
They had a fucked up guy and completely squandered the opportunity to have him SO fucked up about the shit he's done
They still could've had their poor little meow meow of a commander! Just make him so much more fucked up about his mistakes man!
But we already know bioware is full of cowards so im pretty much talking to the wind here
sometimes i honestly don’t know what game you guys were playing when you talk about cullen. “turned a blind eye”? he was twenty-two, hooked on magical heroin, had horrific ptsd, and was grieving the loss of his parents when he arrived in kirkwall. he says he let anger dictate his actions and isn’t proud of it.
so let’s fucking recap. almost all of this is explicitly written into inquisition, and the rest can be inferred by a reasonably intelligent player.
he accepts command of a second broken circle after betraying his commander and (depending on player choices) allowing the apostate who blew up the chantry to walk out of kirkwall alive
i’m gonna need a source from DAI/asunder before you can claim mages were being “whipped in the streets, SA’d, or lobotomized” AFTER meredith was dead. most of the mages were GONE and the templars were off doing other things - such as laying brick and hammering nails
because despite having family alive in ferelden, cullen stayed in kirkwall for months/years after the explosion, leading cleanup/rebuilding efforts
(this despite, assuming the player didn’t side with the templars and annul the circle, not actually being named its knight-commander)
during that time, says he made an effort to keep as many templars gathered under his command so they didn’t go off indiscriminately murdering mages and using red lyrium
this is later confirmed by Rylen, sent from starkhaven to provide relief, who lauds cullen for basically doing the work no one else would
rightfully criticizes kirkwall’s rebel mages for abandoning their tranquil**
when cassandra extends her invitation to the inquisition, he immediately gives up lyrium at exceptional cost (painful, neurologically damaging withdrawal. for months) because being on the chantry’s lyrium leash is no longer something he can morally accept
leaves behind the only career he’d ever had or wanted, says the Templars have “nothing further to offer”
clearly bones up on military strategy after the disaster of being unable to protect haven (not his fault but he assumes it was) and subsequently runs what krem (ex tevinter soldier) calls a textbook siege of adamant fortress.
oh, and iron bull (ex qunari soldier and actual ben-hassrath) repeatedly compliments his command of the soldiers, but specifically because they’re well-disciplined (i.e. are expected to act with integrity)
rallies troops behind an inquisitor of any race, gender, or background. like. that is a FACT. this dork will obnoxiously stab the sky with that oversized sword for a qunari apostate just as enthusiastically as for a fellow templar warrior
treats maddox with compassion and genuine regret; and assuming your inquisitor requests it, he has soldiers retrieve maddox’s body from the shrine of dumat for proper burial
expresses regret for his prejudicial attitude toward mages and a resolution to examine his biases (“i shall try not to be so in the future”) and says he’s not proud of the man his experience at Kinloch made him
has a LITERAL meltdown in front of the inquisitor while in the throes of a withdrawal episode, at which point he asks the inquisitor (who may or may not be an apostate mage with an axe to grind) to decide if he should start taking lyrium again
caught between his desire to excel in his role and his horror of being reliant on the chantry/inquisition for lyrium again, but still so loyal to the inquisition that he leaves a matter of extreme personal autonomy to the one person (aside from cassandra, who is inadequately equipped to provide the support an addict would need) whom he feels must have a say in the matter. and again. if you say “take that shit,” he takes it. even knowing it will eventually lead to a painful, agonizing death.
during In Your Heart Shall Burn, speaks to allied rebel mage troops the same way he speaks to allied templar troops - with encouragement and clarity
does not refuse to send soldiers to support Quiz in redcliffe, or to work with the rebel mages, and his arguments against choosing redcliffe involve a COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED anxiety over the impossibility of being able to rescue the inquisitor if things go wrong with alexius because redcliffe castle is unassailable (we learn during hushed whispers that the inquisition’s military forces, i.e. cullen, spent MONTHS trying to get them out. he is absolutely right to worry about this possibility.)
although he does complain (not incorrectly! anybody remember that circle apprentice in Origins accidentally setting himself on fire in front of the future HOF? yeah) that some mages may need to be watched to ensure their magic is under control
HANGS OUT WITH KNOWN TEVINTER APOSTATE DORIAN PAVUS AND CLEARLY LIKES HIM
expressly pursues samson on a series of missions through the dales because samson is causing other lyrium-addicted templars (recruited in kirkwall while in a state of extreme vulnerability to rhetoric and the temptation of “even better” lyrium rations) to suffer excruciating pain and mental anguish, most of them before dying a horrible death, all to get revenge on the chantry by allying with corypheus
(please remember that at the point samson was recruiting templars to infect with red lyrium, cullen was recruiting them in his efforts to help rebuild homes damaged in an explosion that did, in fact, kill and maim hundreds of people.)
AND DESPITE ALL OF THAT: if instructed to do so, he will take on samson as an agent to help the inquisition. one must realize this would be a sort of personal hell for cullen. but he does it uncomplainingly and states that samson deserves the same second chance he himself got
exceptionally respectful towards blackwall as a soldier and servant of the people. later disgusted to find he’s a lying orlesian slut, but will let him live if the inquisitor says to***
if permitted to continue sobriety, sets up detox centers where other ex-templars can hack off their own lyrium leashes and leave behind chantry dogma and fear of magic
repeatedly states that the chantry/templars were supposed to protect mages along with “ordinary people,” but didn’t.
????? will literally marry a mage inquisitor if you let him.
** says he “doesn’t understand” tranquil, despite having lived with them in circles most of his life. this is a morally neutral statement and says absolutely nothing about his willingness to treat them like human beings…. more than can be said for some mages.
*** this is a completely reasonable position, given that blackwall only fesses up IF the inquisitor pleases him enough (he LITERALLY does not confess if your approval is not high enough???), and even then not until all the way after halamshiral.
like, this statement pissed me off a bit. blackwall doesn’t have a redemption arc. he has a “lie to player for 2/3 of game, then confess when feeling bad about lying to an inquisitor who was nice to him” arc. was he doing good things? sure. was he fighting for a good cause? sure. but he was still actively deceiving the entire organization. and if your inquisitor doesn’t kiss his ass he KEEPS lying until endgame!!!!
what’s more, it endangers your party to have him in the group.
during an expedition to valammar the inquisitor shouts to him, asking how many darkspawn to expect. he doesn’t know.
during an expedition to the storm coast, he’s asked for the best way to kill darkspawn. doesn’t know.
when asked about the Calling by hawke and loghain/stroud/alistair, he bluffs and pretends he can hear it, too, remarking something incredibly unhelpful
when asked for advice at halamshiral on orlesian chevaliers and other military knowledge he definitely has, demurs and says something else unhelpful
……he’s literally pretending to be a heroic warden to the point where he endangers his colleagues in the field
please compare this to cullen, who traumadumps when suffering, arrives in haven with his self-regard six feet underground (he criticizes himself almost as much as the templars), actively BEGS cassandra to relieve him from duty if the lyrium withdrawal affects him, and quite literally tells the inquisitor his life story and a terrifically neutral recounting of the events in kirkwall. if you ask.
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