#Anders Positive

[sweetmage]

For all that I love characters with no will to live, I think the tragedy of Anders is that he does want to live and has always wanted to live but was never given the chance. And in the end he was willing to sacrifice any future opportunity of doing so if it meant others wouldn't have to experience the "life" he had.

But this is why I love the fugitive ending. Anders deserves to live and love in the world he helped create too.

[elflutter]

warrior fem!hawke x anders is such a compelling ship to me i know we love mage!hawke x anders but the idea of hawke being fiercely dedicated to mage freedom without being a mage absolutely rips me to shreds.

in every single oppressed mage she sees her little sister, she sees her father, she sees anders. all of the mages she loves. she's never been afraid of mages, and always ALWAYS was so damn angry that she could never make a difference when she saw the fear of being discovered in the eyes of her family.

i think she might support anders and mage freedom even more than some mage hawkes would, because her dedication to the cause is so selfless and there is no internalized self doubt or hatred of being a mage to contend with (which i think hawke as a mage might deal with). i think anders would love her even more for that dedication.

this hawke is usually purple in her dialogue but when it comes to mage's rights she is red and she would have helped anders if he told her his plan. kirkwall is literally an authoritarian police state after all, and the chantry is a huge symbol of that power.

in the end she runs away with anders, and it takes time to build up their trust again. not because she didn't agree with him, but because he wouldn't let her help. maybe this makes justice fall for her too. i like to imagine they all get their happy ending.

[5queerducksinatrenchcoat]

I'm scared of the hardcore solas girlies because I don't know how they feel about my boy anders

[faderifter]

“anders is a terrorist” “anders killed innocent people” “anders ate some guys” ok. who doesn’t like a bad boy

[the-angst-chronicles-fanworks]

“All the mage love interests betray you”

Yeah yeah maybe to you, I was with Anders the whole way

[omo321]

just a little bit of a rant, but some time ago I saw someone on there saying anders "wanted to be martyred" and I can stop thinking (being annoyed) about it. I don't expect people who execute him every time to know this, but he's happy to help if you do spare him?? it's just that he doesn't expect you to??

and if anything, I respect that while endangering others, he's ready to lose his own life too. a "some of you will die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" kind of guy is one of my least favorite kinds of guy

[azurechicken]

I find it curious that people who end up disliking Anders usually list their reasoning as him being snappy. Well, yeah? He is snappy, he is loud, he is fiery, and he doesn't know how to stand down most of the time. If he was not the way he is, he would be another Circle Mage. But that is not really the point, is it? He does not start out as this fiery mage who cannot shut up about anything injustice. He starts out as this jokester even the fans always look back and say "I liked this Anders better". Between the jokester!Anders and fiery!Anders, is there really that big of a difference though? Don't get me wrong, I do see the way years changed him, as well as the merging of course. But who he was and who he is are just a reflection of how he reacts to the same problem he always faced; being unheard. This man spent his entire life trying to make points that never really reached their destination. At first he joked about them, and everybody waved him off. Then he got serious, and he was shut down or ignored. From the point that we meet him, between dead templers, he already looked like he lost the argument about having anyone just listen long ago. So he jokes about it. Now, Awakening!Anders is young, not yet faced the unending taint and darkspawns, he is just starting. He didn't yet see the mess Kirkwall is, didn't help anyone who needs it in a sewer selflessly until drained. Didn't have an ethereal being of justice push him towards righting the wrongs done to his kind. He still had Ser Pounce too, if that helps. And in a way, Karl, of course. But the Anders we see in Kirkwall has seen and done all that. He is now all that he suffered. He changed, he didn't have a choice against it. But one thing did not change; he continued to make his points, and he continued being unheard. And at this point, I think it is already a bit late to hear him out. Because he has been unheard for so long, he feels unheard. And feelings are louder than facts, always. And, yes, he is snappy. He snaps because who would hear if he didn't? He is fiery because he has people to stand up for. It is not just his voice anymore, it is of many more like him. So yes, he is loud, with many voices hidden behind his own. Yet, even then, 'he is just an abomination.'

[storybookhawke]

He deserves nothing but the best.

[drthrvn]

can't believe that after DA2 the devs are constantly presenting Anders as a villain while simultaneously making the entire game about Mr Genocide aka S*las, who is probably gonna get a redemption arc in the end cause we don't wanna upser S*lasmancers

[astarionconsort]

OH MY GOD ANDERS MY BELOVED MY MEOW MEOW KING OF MY HEART MY SUN AND MOON HIIIIII MY LOVE YOU NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG EVER!

[sweetmage]

I love the drama of the "Varric sees Anders when he looks at Solas" posts that have been going around, but I personally do not vibe with the common "I should have stopped Anders from blowing up the Chantry" narrative that some of them have but instead "I could have prevented it from even getting to that point." I've been putting some thought into how I would spin this for my own purposes. I'll place it under the cut since it's a little lengthy :)

To begin with, this was not an overnight decision on Anders' part. He held out for years, tried to find other solutions, tried to rally a group of supposed friends who would not hear it. Varric thought himself a listening ear, a supportive companion, but he was as deaf as the rest of them. Varric had the resources and connections to keep the templars away from his clinic, he had the fondness to invite him out to drinks and trade jokes with him, but when the threat grew larger and more serious, Varric's response did not.

Anders, who had spent most of his life in a prison surrounded by uncaring jailors watched his home, his friends--family even--become no better. And Varric became one of them, meeting every silent plea or cry for support with words and actions that protected those walls, those structures, but not the people who lived within. That was, of course, unless they were quiet, uninvolved. It was easier to face than the reality that the city he loved was rotten and diseased.

In the end, he never gave Anders what he needed. He never used his resources to fight or his words to speak out, he never even told him that he understood him, that mages shouldn't have to go through that. And in the end, Anders had to do what he could alone and Varric lost his friend and the city both.

Anders lived, but at the cost of his own freedom, his home, his friends he had tried until the very end to convince. But that didn't settle in for Varric right away. It was easier to be angry, even if much of that anger was turned inward. He disparaged Anders in the same breath that he called him a fond nickname, he protected his and Hawke's location while claiming he never wanted to see him again, he placed blame upon him for what went wrong in the world while pretending to himself that the world itself was not at fault.

It wasn't until he was faced with another friend, another mage, in a situation all too similar that Varric realized what he had done. Or rather, failed to do. And what he must do this time in turn. It was too late for Anders, he could never go back to Kirkwall and the trust he lost for his old friends must have been near irreparable, but it was not too late for Solas.

So to me when he looks to Solas and sees Anders he isn't seeing some mage who did a bad thing, he's seeing the friend he could have saved, or at least could have tried to understand, but didn't. So it's personal. He throws every resource at tracking Solas down, every contact, every favor, and when it finally pays off and he stands before him, he tries, even when it puts his life on the line. But, like before, it seems too late. He could look back and see every moment he could have offered his ear or his aid to Anders before things reached a breaking point, but he didn't have that time with Solas. He may as well have been trying to talk Anders down that evening in the Gallows when the culmination of so many years of injustice were ready to boil over. But he never tried then, he had to now for Solas.

[mywitchcultblr]

Manifesting Anders happiness 2023

[senseandaccountability]

God I had forgotten how much I love this romance ashksfffhfhfhfh.

[troublemakerhawke]

i really like thinking about anders and justice BOTH falling in love with hawke.

it becomes even better if hawke is also a mage apostate.

i mean.

- hawke speaks with them like he/she would speak with any other person. that is not what anders is used to.

- hawke is compassionate. he/she sees good in anders and justice. he/she tries to understand the complexity of the situation they find themselves into to the best of his/her ability.

- hawke openly supports mages. more over, he/she ofter helps said mages to escape kirkwall, like, all the time.

- hawke is ready to announce to the whole world he/she is dating an apostate and that he/she is ready for any consequences it brings.

yes, justice isn't exactly pleased when the relationship just starts, but it is because he fears they will stray from their ultimate goal. then they understand, that hawke's goal is the same – freedom for all mages. and that hawke is ready to fight for it.

justice is probably able to force himself out if he STRONGLY disagrees with something. during anders' interactions with hawke, even romantic ones, he doesn't.

and that makes me believe he eventually falls for him/her, too.

[laughingcatdog]

The Divine Sinner / Chapter 15

Fandom: Dragon Age II/Inquisition

Pairings: Inquisitor!Anders x Femhawke

Summary: Varric knew when the sky opened that he would be writing another book. New villain, new disaster, new hero to rise above the chaos -- only now, the Maker has chosen to prove once and for all that he has a sense of humor. And a very strange one, at that.Invited to the Conclave by Divine Justinia in hopes of peace, Anders half-hoped the Templars would kill him before the Calling did. He didn't expect to survive an explosion, much less wake up with a glowing mark in his hand, but he's a survivor; if he could endure three heartbroken years after Kirkwall, he can endure the Inquisition.

[salsedine]

Per l'ask game propongo Solas e Anders di Dragon Age

Ps ho schiacciato sul blog sbagliato e ho mandato un ask per sbaglio all'op voglio morire

Hello e grazie mille per l'ask! Credo che l'op non se la prenderà, ci sono ask decisamente peggiori in questi lidi 🙈 E se può consolare, una volta Tumblr ha glitchato di brutto inviando un mio messaggio critico verso uno show molto popolare ad un blog iper fan del suddetto show. Capisco l'ansia!

Daje now we'll switch to badly written English.

Solas: I wish I could say something, but I still haven't played DAI 🙈 (and i don't even know if I'll be able to without melting my laptop). However, from posts and fanarts I deduced that he is some kind of old god/trickster archetype/the dreadwolf thingy that wants to destroy the world. Interesting!

And a fun fact. For... quite some time I used to think that Solavellan was the name of an actual character. In my defence, it sounds legit for a fantasy setting.

Now, let's move on to the character that will make people stop talking to me lol. Under the read more because I'm on mobile and have no idea how long this is going to be.

* First impression: hello fun guy that hates the chantry and is obsessed with cats, I like your earring! Oh you refused to speak and ran away multiple times so... they left you a year in solitary confinement?? Oh and then your ex/first love is illegally magically lobotomized as a threat against you? WTF WTF WTF.

* Impression now: I pretty much like all the characters, but he really grew on me. I find him very interesting and compelling, BUT I also want to hit him with a brick for every bitchy/condescending/hypocrite comment towards Fenris or Merrill. I also suspect that with him the writers tried to portray mental illness or something similar? I think I read something somewhere.

* Unpopular opinionS: ehhh, here we go. It's called "the last straw" and not "I'm going to commit a political assassination at the first inconvenience" for a reason. I agree that it could have been handled differently (with more time- this game definitely deserved more development time), but it wasn't on a whim, nor I see it as some grand machination that he planned for years. It's a very desperate act that was preceded by years of activism and trying to find a compromise. A compromise that it is impossible to reach, imho, because compromises in order to work need good faith and/or some kind of leverage. Mages have no leverage and Meredith (and Elthina too) have no good faith. Meredith explicitly wanted an excuse to kill them all, and the right of annulment has been sent for... how can you compromise with someone that considers your existence a mistake to correct? I can see that it's a political situation that would have required more nuance than what the game had time to provide - but overall I think it's pretty clear why he did it.

* Favourite moment: The "hello Varric, take my mother's embroidered pillow, just in case something happens ahah I'm so subtle" scene is quite sweet (despite everything that follows), and while I affectionately mock it for being very loud, the First Big Kiss in the sewers is a classic. And any mention to cats is very much appreciated, obviously.

* Idea for a story: the 3 years gap between the acts are full of possibilities, and I love missing-moments stories. Also! If the "something here is a metaphor for mental illness" idea is true I'd definitely love to read some in-depth exploration of it.

* Favourite head canon: considering what I saw from the official writers about him after the events of DA2, I'd just say "the opposite of that".

* Favourite relationship: platonic, I'd say Varric ("let's brainstorm how to kill my brother :D! Also I'm paying criminals to stay away from your underground free clinic, bye"). Romantic, definitely Hawke. But with a disclaimer: I've tried the romance path thingy with a male rogue/archer Hawke (after much consideration, I was really curious about Fenris and Isabela too, but the "ten years, a hundred years-" quote got me) but I still haven't finished it. So yeah, I'm aware I'm missing pieces here -and this is why I looked for all the spoilers. "And I love you so much I'm going to let you kill me" indeed, mrs Welch singing during the end credits, indeed.

Thanks again for asking! 💃✨

[edit] finished the game - he is now in the top 10 of my favourite characters, huge fan of the romance with Hawke (friendship route and 'let's run away' ending).