The Old Guard (Ye Olde Cullen Thread v4.0 + gen discussion)

OK... are we going here again??? 
I AM the elder statesman here... or is it stateswoman???   

Yes, you are. Unless we have a lurker who hasn't spoken up. Though it's been fun discovering just how many people we have who are 40 and up, I thought I was a bit of an oddity, age-wise

Lol my sister said last night "You mean if he was real?" in reference to Cullen...I was like, no, now hehe

I turned 52 this summer.  And Cullen is my favorite romance so far, so romantic.  My husband just laughs when he hears me sighing at my computer.

Oh yeah, this is the oldest fandom I've ever been a part of. Which is a little surprising when you consider all the drama it can sometimes spark; you'd think we old farts would know better 

Meanwhile in my anime fandoms I'm Grandma Artemis at age 36, kickin back reading fanfics written by sixteen year old writing prodigies. Sigh.

Yes. :nods: Yes, you should.

LOL Beware, or I'll have to bestow a macaroni crown on you. 




(how's THAT for a blast from the past, meanieweenie ? )

OK, who was it who said they could change the size/font of their likes? I can't find anything like that outside of just picking different pre-set themes.

Other things I'm missing (and hoping I just haven't found yet...?):

- No 'unread posts' flag
- No 'skip to the end' button on the page numbers

Anyone know?

Hey, I remember macaroni crown!

R2, do you mean skip to new posts? If you click on the word "new" it should take you to the first new post.

I wonder how big our sig pics can be. I'm on the hunt for a good 'un!

Thanks for that, btw. I literally just checked in on the BSN and got your message. Or else I wouldn't have known about this place! The only option I could recall of all the new possibilities was fextralife. So glad to find you guys! So.... Hi hi!

Sorry, I’ve been playing make-up on work all day… I'll try to get as much as I can remember down.

One of the complaints I hear is that Bianca doesn't seem to care about Varric. First, does anyone really expect him to be attached to someone who fawns on him or idolizes him? Varric's going to want someone who challenges him. And they're dwarves, they aren't emotional in how they address each other in front of strangers (Bianca doesn't know the Inquisitor from a stranger on the street, after all.) To me, their banter screams affection of the sort you see in, for instance, parts of the US Northeast (particularly NYC.) I watched friends of mine from that area (I'm from the US South, so it was a shock) apparently argue for YEARS before one day, I watched as he said something that set her off. She's fussing away at him, and he's GRINNING ear to ear. Ten minutes later, she's sitting in his lap giggling (they've been married for close to 40 years btw.) I finally asked and was informed (amid much hysterical laughter) that if she's fussing at him, he knows she's paying attention and cares about him. You can almost measure their affection by the banter and teasing (you really don't want them to be formally polite to you.) He PROPOSED in the middle of an argument because, apparently, that was when he knew she was the one. (For anyone who's read my Acerbic Alchemy, these were the models for my Zheeva Cadash and Adan.)

As far as her "leading him on...," another common complaint, in what way is she leading him on? If anything, they both know exactly where they stand with each other. Varric could have ended it at any time, and has chosen not to. He's a big boy, he can make up his own mind, and nothing she said suggests she's trying to stop him. Apparently, he's happier with discrete messages at a distance and seeing her very rarely than never seeing her at all.

The biggest thing she did for Varric that everyone interprets as the opposite was to go through with the arranged marriage. Why do I say she did it for Varric? Because if she'd refused, even if she didn't marry Varric instead, both her family and the jilted fiancee's family would have been gunning for Varric with everything they had. If she hadn't been involved with Varric, if she didn't care about Varric, she could have refused to go through with the arranged marriage at all. The families wouldn't have been happy, but what could they have done to her? She's an amazingly talented smith, probably her family's biggest asset, so no, there's nothing they could have done. And if the jilted fiancee's family had tried to do anything to her in revenge, her family would have responded. And she stays married for the same reason. For VARRIC.

And last, yes, she makes a threat to the Inquisitor at the end of that quest. Stop and consider the exact circumstances - she's just had to admit she made a truly major mistake, Varric is angry at her, and she has to go back to a husband she doesn't care about and has to leave Varric knowing that he's taking a lot of unnecessary risks. She doesn't know the IQ, and from Carta lore we find, they're all assuming that the IQ is scamming the gullible, pretty much, and she only has Varric's word that that might not be the case. That threat...is perfectly in personality for a dwarf with her connections and who lets the mask on her emotions slip for just a moment in the hope that it'll keep him safe, even if she makes an enemy of the IQ.

To me, Bianca's like Vivienne, you have to really think through what she says and what she does. Neither is an angel, by any means, but there are a lot of depths.

(and I saved this to a Word doc because I'll be d**ned if I'll retype this a 3rd time