#using a new browser which doesn't underline links

[therealvinelle]

Aro def took Carlisle's virginity right?

Beautiful question, anon. I like you.

Let’s be methodical about this one, because there are two assumptions made here, one being that Aro got a homerun with Carlisle, the other being that Carlisle was a virgin. Let’s examine both.

Did Carlisle die a virgin?

Considering Carlisle’s looks as a vampire, his human self was most likely very attractive as well. He was in good health and lived to be 23, so if this was someone else I’d assume he’d gotten laid. As it happens, I don’t.

Carlisle was a very pious man, living in a time when pre-marital sex was bad not only because it was sin, but because it would ruin the woman involved if it got out. To say nothing of pregnancies, both mother and child would suffer major stigma for the rest of their lives, or STDs, which are bad news all around. If Carlisle were to get laid in life he’d have to either solicit prostitutes, or ruin good women, and both are dishonorable, unchristian ways to act. As for homosexuality, I don’t think that would occur to him.

There’s technically the option that Carlisle was married at the time of his death, but it’s extremely slim because as a young man only just taking over from his father, he would have been in the process of becoming financially able to care for a potential wife. He wouldn’t have been able to marry sooner, since with his father still active in the parish there wouldn’t have been a spot for him. (Contrary to common belief, no, people did not all get married at the age of eighteen before the 20th century. The upper class could do that since they had the financial means, middle and lower classes could not. As a cleric in post-Reformation England, Carlisle would have been middle class. A commoner, as Edward puts it. For him to be unwed at twenty-three is perfectly reasonable.) Also, it’s the kind of thing that would have come up. It doesn’t.

So, Carlisle dies a virgin.

Enter Aro.

Did they do the do?

Carlisle liked Aro well enough to move in with him for over two decades, Aro thinks Carlisle is da bomb and has the highest regard for him. Aro is also from a very different, non-Christian culture and appears to be gay.

So, you have two attractive men meeting each other, one of whom is gay, and they get along so swimmingly that Carlisle decides to live with Aro for decades until a difference in opinion makes them part amiably. And I can’t stress the living together part enough, because Aro is the only one Carlisle does this for. He doesn’t join any other covens even though he has plenty of good friends, and what holds the Cullens together is the fact that he created them and that they share the diet. Aro stands alone as the one Carlisle felt strongly enough about to spend a lifetime trying to convert.

Not just that, but of all the people Carlisle’s met over the centuries, the only ones who made it into Edward’s Carlisle summary were the Volturi, which we later learn was really just Aro. Which to me sounds like pre-Eclipse Carlisle would speak or think of Aro fairly often, or Edward wouldn’t have thought to bring it up.

On the other end we have Aro, who openly fangirls at the mere mention of Carlisle’s name, and won’t shut up about how amazing he is to anybody who’ll listen.

Now, we have guys being dudes, bros living together in a close relationship, for... decades. What on earth were they doing there, Aro only has so many books.

That being said, I do think it’s a bit up in the air. I try to keep this blog canon adherent, so I’m not going to say “Yup, they definitely had sex” when there’s the possibility they didn’t.

To get a bit into the reasons why I think it’s possible they forgot to say “no homo”, we know that they were very close and Carlisle was something more than a visitor (as he was included in the Solimena group painting, there are implied to have been more, and the fact that he chose to leave points to his invitation having been indefinite), and Aro shows every sign of being uninvested in women (his courtship of Sulpicia sounds like beard shopping) and his marriage in general. And, again, Carlisle is very attractive.

There’s really no reason for Carlisle to spend twenty years in Volterra unless he felt very strongly about Aro. Aro made it extremely clear he wasn’t switching diets, Carlisle stuck around and spent decades (and he was young, to him this was a lot of time) refusing to give up anyway. If he’d stayed a month or even a year, then sure, I would be on board with Carlisle merely thinking Aro’s library was neat. But when we’re talking twenty years it’s... pretty personal.

More, I see people bring up Carlisle’s faith for why it wouldn’t happen, at the very least not without angsty angst. Well, everything points to Carlisle having formed his own doctrine. I think how that would affect old beliefs, internalized homophobia, and such is best left for another post, as I have two separate asks for that and we’d get way off-topic, suffice to say that Carlisle was in a place where the theological argument that sodomy was not a devastating sin could be made by Aro (who I’m sure had a twelve-step plan to seduce Carlisle).

Given how close they have to have been, there’s an intense intimacy in choosing to live with someone who through physical contact sees your very soul. Even if their relationship never became physical, this still sounds to me like the recipe for a charged relationship.

And so it is that I think if Aro decided to go for it, he would succeed. He would have to seduce Carlisle, as homosexuality wouldn’t have been on the radar at all for him prior to meeting “Alexander and Hephaistion were close friends, you know” Aro, but he would succeed.

But, this is all assuming Aro tried. It could be he didn’t. They had a good thing going and he might not have wanted to risk it. If he tried and wasn’t successful, the friendship would be successfully ruined.

Could also be Caius cockblocked him by walking up to Carlisle during the first week and telling him “you know you’re only here because Aro wants to fuck you, right?”, which would very effectively block Aro from making any moves. (Caius’ incentive for this, of course, would be wanting scare away the Christian boytoy before Aro can get too unbearable about him. Well, tough luck, Carlisle sticks around anyway and now Aro and Caius are both losers because one isn’t getting laid and the other has to see Carlisle’s fugly face every day.)

So to answer your question, anon, yes I think it might have happened, probably even, it’s the side I fall on. And if so, then Aro did take Carlisle’s V-card. But it might not have happened, though if it didn’t then things were still pretty damn gay down there in Volterra.

(Oh and to do my part in sowing the seeds of chaos into this fandom: if Aro/Carlisle happened then I think Carlisle/Sulpicia might have happened as well.)

[arofili]

The only thing I like about the beta editor is that we can now embed alt text into images. That's it. Everything else is much, much easier to use in the original.

Things the original editor has that the beta editor doesn't:

ability to use ctrl+k to add a link to selected text (beta editor now directs you to the search bar in your browser when you do this)

ability to select and modify multiple paragraphs of text at once (beta editor only allows you to select and modify 1 paragraph)

smart quotes (this is a purely aesthetic complaint, but it's still annoying)

"Your text here" goes away when you start typing and doesn't reappear (when doing bullet points in the beta editor, the "Go ahead, put anything" text reappears)

when you're done editing a post, you are returned back to that post on your blog so you can see the changes (admittedly, with a refresh) -- the beta editor just. leaves you on your dash. and it takes two back clicks to get back to the original post!

in text posts, ability to add a new paragraph in between images (beta editor just. doesn't let you do this)

@ mentions show up as underlined when the connection to the blog you're @'ing is made (beta editor doesn't show that, so I'm never really sure if it's linked properly or not)

@ mentions are able to be detected from pasted text (beta editor doesn't register pasted @ mentions correctly, and when you click on the text of the pasted @ mention, IF it recognizes what you're trying to do it will insert the whole @ mention into the post, often in the middle of a word)

for that last one, here's a visual example of what I mean.

original editor:

which then turns into:

beta editor:

which then turns into:

or:

depending on where your cursor is in the text when you click on the little popup. and you can't see which is the linked text and which isn't!!!

BUT MOST FRUSTRATINGLY OF ALL: in the beta editor, dragging and dropping images is such a pain. it doesn't work half the time! it will glitch out the page and drag you back up to the top of the screen without letting you move anything! it takes way longer to load images, and you can't be nearly as precise when moving them! it takes me multiple tries to arrange anything right, and frequently the images get dragged to the wrong place and I need to save the post, refresh the page, and open the editor again in order to organize it properly!

the worst part, though, is that the beta editor gets rid of different "post types." all posts are now text posts, and if you're adding images (or videos or whatever, I mostly use images) that's just -- adding images to a text post. which means that when not viewed in-dash or in the blog view, images do not appear side-by-side!! this is SO FRUSTRATING. I want the organization of my images to remain consistent no matter how they're being viewed!

as an example:

in-dash, this post appears how I want it to. the images are next to each other, and it looks nice.

but on my blog, the first two images aren't next to each other! instead, the first image is blown up out of proportion (making it grainy and unappealing) and situated directly above the image it's supposed to be next to.

ideally, it should instead look similar to this post made with the original editor, where the arrangement of images stays consistent and reflects the in-dash appearance of the edit:

as a creator of graphics, organization of images is essential to their aesthetic. I can't use the beta editor (and thus the image description feature, which I do really want to use!) if I'm trying to arrange images next to each other - which is one of my standard ways of making graphics.

so, that's why it's hard for me to use the beta editor. again, I want to use it! I can handle the other annoying things. but this failure of image organization makes that impossible, unless my graphic is designed to appear with one image directly on top of the other, which is a format I don't use very often.

actually, besides having image descriptions, there is one other thing that's nice about the beta editor: I do like that my cursor remains in the same spot when I switch to a different tab and come back. the original editor moves the cursor back up to the top of the post, which is annoying. I'm glad the beta editor fixes that.

Hey there. We want your feedback about the beta editor on web!

We’re working on fully replacing the existing post editor on web with our new editor—which is currently available by toggling the “BETA” switch whenever you’re posting something on the web. We’d like to get as much feedback as possible about this editing experience before we make the switch permanent. We’ve already had some great feedback from some of you. Thanks to you, we’re already improving drag-and-drop images, discussing the image limit, implementing markdown support, and improving @ mentions and inline links.

What keeps you from switching to the Beta editor? Let us know by replying to or reblogging this post! Or send us a Support ticket detailing your feedback. Examples help if you have some!