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My participation for @mhanderszine in the RebelHearts Zine.
On the official page you'll find link for 33 participations Fic and Art.You'll be able to download it, take a look and have fun!
Stay Suave and cool. (like emile De lancet, oui oui Teagan !)
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地底下的花不會開 by Timo
👉The Dark Urge x Astarion fan-made comic
👉EN version (translate by AI)
👉If there is a translation error, please ignore it. haha
👉Chinese version
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Anders and Justice leading the mage rebellion is my fav headcanon okay
also yes I'm back in the damn fandom and I have freetime so get ready for fanart spam
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After Kirkwall , Anders is wearing a hood/cape. i’ve seen it a lot in many fanarts :D
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Some parenting drawings I had laying on my computer.
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It ain't much but it's honest work - righting Bioware's wrongs
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Decided to draw the da: awakening crew because I actually really liked this dlc a lot. Wish there was more :,)
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Omg gimme all! ♥
Hey folks I have some prints finally!
Not many yet but so far uploaded DA fanarts and few orginal, you can find them
HERE
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– If I could hold you for a minute
Darling, I'd go through it again.
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I’m a bit late to the party, but happy Dragon Age Day everyone!!
Thank you so much to BioWare for commissioning me and giving me the opportunity to paint Anders for this amazing collab!! ❤️❤️❤️ If you haven’t seen the full tapestry, you should absolutely check it out on BioWare’s twitter or ig! It’s filled with so many incredible artists 🥺🤲
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Garrett “why is everyone in my party dying” Hawke
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The Andersmance as a narrative of hope
One thing I've noticed while in the Dragon Age fandom is the prevalent interpretation of the Anders romance as a tragedy, or a romance that's inherently tragic. Anders acts behind Hawke's back, destroys the Kirkwall Chantry no matter what choices the player makes, the player sees this as a huge betrayal, and — despite having romanced Anders, and/or being mage-sympathetic — they decide to execute or banish Anders as punishment for his 'crime'. Tears are shed; it's all dramatic and tragic and angsty.
While I sometimes appreciate tragedies, I would like to posit a different perspective: The romance with Anders is a story of hope; a story of standing up to insurmountable odds and overcoming them. The romance with Anders can be approached as one with a happier ending, where Hawke and Anders are the heroes.
Before I elaborate, a disclaimer: These are my own opinions. I understand some players prefer the Andersmance as a tragic romance, and to each player their own. I am not here to dictate the choices you should make in-game or how you approach your playthroughs, merely to present a different perspective to one I've seen very often.
Also, this post is critical of the rivalmance with Anders — more on that later.
The Andersmance as a narrative of hope relies on two perspectives:
Firstly, the Chantry is an authoritarian institution who are the antagonistic force that the heroes need to oppose and take down. There is plenty of meta that explores and supports this.
Secondly, Anders is a heroic character:
He is a healer who set up a clinic providing free healthcare for the marginalized and downtrodden people of Kirkwall who otherwise have gone overlooked by their own Chantry.
He let a Spirit of Justice into his body, simply to help Justice continue to exist in the physical world when he would have otherwise disappeared into the Fade.
He regularly risks his safety and security by helping mages escape abuse in the Gallows and have a chance at freedom via the Mage Underground.
These are all acts of someone who is kind and compassionate, and, yes, heroic.
He is not a villain who needs to be stopped. He is the hero of the story who needs help and support as he challenges systematic oppression. He's Katniss Everdeen standing up to the Capitol; he's Luke Skywalker opposing the Galactic Empire.
Hawke is that supportive pillar, that safe harbor, that source of unconditional love for Anders in his times of struggle. "The one bright light in Kirkwall" who stands by Anders' side as they face insurmountable odds together.
In World States where Leliana becomes Divine Victoria, this means Hawke and Anders' struggles were not in vain. Through their actions, they sparked a series of events that culminated in the abolition of the Circles.
Anders' prophetic speech about how, "Ten years, a hundred years from now, someone like me will love someone like you, and there will be no Templars to tear them apart" carries so much more weight, because loving Hawke gave him hope for a better future that Anders actually gets to witness in his lifetime.
Do you know how powerful such a love story is?
Their love literally changed the world for the better.
They loved each other, that love gave them courage, and now future generations of mages are free to find a love as strong and precious as the one Hawke and Anders share.
Of course, the condition of this is that Hawke loves and supports Anders wholeheartedly, meaning that this obviously takes the Friendship route for the romance. The rivalmance where Hawke downplays Anders' struggles, breaks Anders' spirit, undermines Anders' confidence, and tries to convince Anders that his cause is needless has no part in this narrative of hope; in fact, I would go so far to say that Hawke is the villain in that version of the story.
Personally, stories of hope have always strongly resonated with me. I gravitate towards stories where our protagonists are presented with challenging obstacles (whether they be internal, external, or both), and things may seem bleak at first, but they bravely carry on, and by the end of the story the characters have made themselves better people, and/or made the world a better place.
Anders and Hawke had many chances to turn away and ignore the plight of mages and just get their own happy ending, but they didn't — they carried on, because they were the heroes, and they knew all mages deserved to be free as they were.
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One of the criticisms I've seen DA players have in response to Anders' actions at the Kirkwall Chantry is some degree of, 'his actions forced innocent mages into a war they had no choice whether or not they wanted to be involved in'.
What a lot of these players seem to miss is this: The mages were already involved. They have been involved since childhood, when their magic manifested.
If you are born a mage in Southern Thedas, you are marked. The Templars will find you, or your neighbors who were conditioned by the Chantry to fear magic will turn you in, and you are brought to the Circle where you are at risk of Tranquility, or Annulment, and subjected to a Harrowing. Your children born to you in the Circle will be taken from you to be raised in a Chantry orphanage (like Wynne's child was). You are not allowed to get married, or start a family, or own land. You are not allowed to leave your Circle ever, unless conscripted to fight in the army (like in the Fifth Blight) or fulfilling some whim or need of those in power (like Malcolm Hawke being made to entertain nobles at a party). You might be thrown into the dungeon and left to stave to death, like the mage child Cole (and other mage apprentices of the White Spire) did. You are at risk of physical and sexual abuse, like the mages of the Gallows were.
Innocent mages were already involved. They were already being killed, they were already fighting for their lives for centuries since the inception of Circles, long before Anders' actions.
Also, in the case of the Gallows specifically, Knight-Commander Meredith had already called for the Annulment as early as the beginning/mid of Act 3. The mages' lives were already in danger, even before the Chantry was destroyed.
Anders tried for six years to make people listen and show how magic is not meant to be feared and can be used for good -- by publishing a manifesto, by providing free magical healthcare in Darktown -- to bring people's attention to the plight of mages and change things for the better. It took the imminent threat of his people being slaughtered wholesale for him to resort to what is aptly titled 'The Last Straw'.
If players want to blame anyone for subjecting mages to a conflict they did not want, look no further than the Chantry and their system of exploitation and oppression over the mages. Put blame on the Chantry for forcing mages into lives they did not choose, and asserting methods of culling and control over them, simply for how they were born. It was the Chantry that gave them no choice whether or not they had a say in staying alive or dying.
And if DA players would still say that the mages could have tried for a more "peaceful route" to alleviate their circumstances (despite seeing how Anders' manifesto, his Darktown clinic, and years of trying to negotiate with Elthina failed and Meredith was calling for Annulment anyway): very rarely do the oppressed win change by pandering to the morals of their oppressors.
Innocent mages were already suffering and being murdered in droves, for centuries. Innocent mages were already involved in this struggle, whether they wanted to be or not. And Anders' actions at the Chantry was like a rallying cry: If we're going to die anyway, then I'd rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want.
(Also, I have not yet gone into detail on what actually started the mage-templar war, which was the Seekers hiding the cure for Tranquility, and Lord Seeker Lambert's decision to dissolve the Nevarran accord and take the Templars hunting for the free mages across the countryside because he decided dead mages were better than free mages -- because that's a whole separate post.)
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