shecanbeheroes:

(This post has been edited to rephrase or remove potentially inflammatory or antagonistic language.)

I was going to stay out of all of the Cullengate discussion going on here on Tumblr and BSN. I started writing a couple of posts/reblog comments in the last few days, but ultimately I deleted each of them because I just didn’t think that my voice would add anything new to the discussion. Unfortunately, I made the incredible mistake of sending what I thought was a relatively innocuous ask to someone whose name I’d seen popping up in the tag a lot. The response I got didn’t address my question at all, it was simply:

“lol ok gtfo with ur fake queer straight girl tears”

Stop. Rewind.

I am queer. I have had long term intimate relationships with cis men, cis women and one trans-man since I started dating over half my life ago. I suppose I’d define myself as a “panromantic demisexual”, but beyond my personal identity, I’ve spent the better part of two decades doing outreach, education and advocacy work in my local LGBTQ and kink communities.

Can you not erase all of that and label me a “fake queer straight girl” just because I don’t share your opinion?

The hate flowing through the Dragon Age fandom right now is strong, and continuing with this angry dialogue isn’t going to create a solution.

In the end, all of this Cullengate discussion comes down to a few points: 

Sexuality Mods

I’ve seen a lot of talk either supporting or protesting mods to make Cullen or Cassandra be bisexual. I’ve also seen a lot of angry people SAYING that straight women want a mod to romance Dorian. But you know what I haven’t seen? I haven’t seen a single person actually say they want a bi/straight mod for Dorian or Sera.  

What the straight folks seem to be continually asking for is an explanation for why modding Dorian’s sexuality is different from modding Cullen or Cassandra. The short answer is: It just is. Dorian’s homosexual identity drives most of his personal plot line, whereas Cassandra and Cullen’s respective orientations are never explicitly referenced. Erasing Dorian’s homosexuality is erasing him as a person. And that’s just not OK. 

However, I’m also of the opinion that modding ANYONE’S sexuality is dancing on a pretty fine ethical line. While it’s very wrong to mod away Sera’s lesbian identity and INCREDIBLY wrong to mod away Dorian’s gay identity (That would make you no better than his father.), it’s not exactly OK to play with the sexual preferences of Cullen, Solas, Cassandra or Blackwall, either. As a queer woman, I’ve had attractions to both straight women and gay men before and I had to accept the fact that they would never reciprocate it, and move on. In real life, you can’t change someone’s sexuality just because you have a crush on them, and you probably shouldn’t in a video game, either. 

Canon Sexuality

We now know that at some point in the story development of DAI, Cullen was written to be interested in both male and female inquisitors. The sound files pulled by DanaDuchy clearly show this. A former Bioware employee also tweeted that Cullen/M!Inquisitor was scrapped due to time constraints late in animation development. This could be true, but in an interview with Lady Insanity at GaymerX, David Gaider also made it quite clear that the sexualities in DA:I are deliberately chosen and a concrete part of each LI’s identity. Which of these is true? Is there bisexual erasure happening here? Until someone at Bioware says something further, none of us know. 

What we do know is that Cullen, in the final CANONICAL version of the game, is presented as a straight man. 

Am I going to rage over this and harass Bioware employees and my fellow fans because my ultimate fantasy headcanon of a Cullen/Bull/F!Inquisitor triad was almost a possibility before Bioware snatched it away? 

No, I’m not. 

Because I love my little queer guild of friends and companions in the Inquisition. There is gay representation, lesbian representation, pansexual representation, bisexual representation and transgender representation all in one game! Is it enough? No. It will NEVER be enough, but Bull and Krem and Josephine and Leliana and Sera and Dorian are all incredible and well-written LGBTQ characters with their own fully formed identities. 

I can’t be angry with Bioware, because they have come SO FAR from the token bisexuals in DA:O and the Hawke-sexual robot romances of Dragon Age 2.

Representation

Finally, a lot of people are talking about LGBTQ representation in video games and using this as justification for their opinions on Cullen’s sexuality, specifically. If you’ve planted your flag on Representation Hill, I legitimately hope you mean it, because a huge amount of the the support for [Queer!Cullen = Representation] seems to be coming from two separate fronts: 

1. Cullen/Dorian or Cullen/M!Inquisitor shippers (largely female) who want to see two attractive men making out. I’m giving this group the side-eye, because I feel like what this is really about for them is their slash fantasies about queer people. This makes me really uncomfortable and feels very similar to straight men who fetishize lesbian/bisexual women.

OR

2. The more vocal contingent of kamikaze trolling “activists”. I really want to give these folks the benefit of the doubt, because I can see exactly where they’re coming from. Cullen is beige. (A lovable and handsome beige, but still beige.) He makes a great canvas to paint your own agenda on. You can have GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder!Cullen, PTSD!Cullen, RecoveringAddict!Cullen, Gay!Cullen, Bi!Cullen, Asexual!Cullen and even Trans!Cullen or NonBinary!Cullen. We want to see ourselves represented in fictional works, and that includes video games. And, I don’t just respect and support the above headcanons, I share many of them.

What I don’t respect, support or share is running around telling players who liked the heterosexual characters portrayed inside the game things like:

 ”blololol ur a homophobic dumpster child trash monster cullen is queer hahaha love that bi lion”

Not only does that not help people understand what they may have misunderstood, it’s also not exactly helping with a positive representation of our LGBTQ community. 

And a final side-note to all those Cullen loving heterosexual ladies out there: I’m picking up what you are putting down. Cullen is a hot romantic knight in shining armor. His love with your female inquisitor will live forever. But please remember: if he had been bisexual, that wouldn’t change your romance AT ALL. Bisexuality simply means that you are attracted to people of both genders. It doesn’t imply an insatiable sex drive or need to have partners of both sexes at all times. Bisexual and pansexual people enjoy monogamous relationships just as much as you do, we just have more fish in the sea to choose from. 

Now can we get back to posting great screenshots, videos, art and fics of our favorite curly-blonde horse-riding lion prince? 

Whoops, not that one.

This one.