#da: awakening

[harrycollins]

Dragon Age: Awakening + textposts

[rhaegar--targaryen]

[oldowlshollow]

honestly, i have mixed feelings about the new dragon age game that will be coming out soon. i liked DA2 and inquisition okay, but it just didn't hit for me like origins and awakening did. i felt like i had more attachment to all my party members (especially zevran and sten) and my cousland warden and the story than i ever did hawke or the inquisitor. i did like a couple of the party members in DA2 and inquisition (carver and cullen), though not enough to play it to death like i did DA:O and awakening. i have so many stories and head canons in my brain for alec cousland and nathaniel howe, and my original warden will forever be my favorite OC i've created. so, here's my OTP boys because i love them to pieces.

[rhywhitefang]

Here's the finished art I did for the @dragonagebigbang ! It was so much fun to work with @samseabxrn and their wonderful fic! Please go check it out :)

Process under the cut!

[fangsandfeels]

Oct 11 - Favorite Awakenings scene/dialogue

All dialogues with Justice and Sigrun are my favorite as they reveal entirely new worlds and philosophies.

Justice shows the part of the Fade that few non-magi actually know: that it's not just a place of demons and horrors. It's also a place of spirits, who are genuinely sympathetic and curious, and kind. They reach out to mortals in their most horrible moments (Cole, Wynn), when these mortals are completely and utterly alone - and they stay with them. Or they will fight for the doomed and trapped souls because they can't stand seeing their pain and let them be hurt any longer. It's incredible, how powerful and yet, how innocent they are.

(this is also why I have always hated that "Justice becoming Vengeance = bad" in Dragon Age II. It's not that I'm opposed to the idea of spirits becoming more aggressive and getting corrupted by the influence of the mortal world, but making vengeance the scapegoat yet again and demonizing it. I feel like Justice becoming Judgement would be more fitting.)

Sigrun's story and interactions with the world show the perspective of a Legion of the Dead fighter. And, I sympathize with Legion of the Dead immensely. They're basically Grey Wardens, minus the darkspawn blood transformation and heroic aura around the name, but equally doomed - and they know it. What makes things even more tragic is that their work is necessary -- they are the ones standing between darkspawn, but also Orzammar and the rest of the world that couldn't give a shit unless a new Archdemon is awoken. However, at the same time, people like Sigrun end up being Legionnaires because their own homeplace wants nothing to do with them. It doesn't give them a chance because they were born castless, it punished them for getting forcefully drugged into crime or resorting to crime to feed themselves, and then it offered them ways to die - either by execution or joining the Legion of the Dead. Given that the Darkspawn are the main threat for Orzammar, Orzammar is shooting itself in the knee with that approach.

And, yes, Bernadette absolutely kept coming up with very important tasks for Sigrun, delaying her long walks over and over. And Sigrun amasses an ample collection of surface world trinkets, from books to plants to toy figurines - sometimes she jokes about Bernadette inheriting her collection once she is gone. Bernadette doesn't think it's funny, but plays along.

(Also Bernadette would have never told Anders to give up Sir Pounce-a-Lot. Are you fucking kidding me? Having a pet doesn't make you too soft, it keeps you sane - Bernadette would know she gave him the cat in the first place and in this essay I-)

[feykrorovaan]

Anders glitched out on the stairs and he got stuck running in slow motion against a wall saying "On it!" "Anders to the Rescue!" "On it!" Over and over.

If that isn't quality entertainment,I don't know what is.

[caffeine-cowboy]

Something I think is really underrated in the DA fandom is the experience of playing Awakening if your Warden died in DAO.

Suddenly, this Warden Commander is brought in - from Orlais - to try and actually get things running again in the wake of this era-defining crisis. And while the order itself will be treated with a measure of reverence for ending the Blight, this Warden Commander don't have the clout that the Warden would have had - they weren't the one whose face the Arls and Banns knew, who put the new monarch on the throne, who ended the Blight.

They're just another Warden with the biggest shoes of the century to fill. And while the writing can't really lean into it (Awakening definitely seems like it's assumed that your Warden lived), can you imagine the uproar that making an Orlesian the Arl of Amaranthine would cause in Ferelden, who barely wanted to let in the Orlesian Wardens when they had an actual Blight occurring?

It's just all so stacked with political implications and potential for drama that I think gets overlooked.

[translucentdragons]

My baby is a Warden-Commander once again and I'd forgotten how quickly things progress in the awakening DLC DAMN. Pick up all the companions (not Kristoff yet) and half the arling's nobles are out to get you before their joinings. But also, the 2nd image is so funny to me, like sure you've been talking to a random blighted man on the ground but 3 newbie wardens and 1 senior doesn't realize there's 12 darkspawn behind you until they're RIGHT there?

I gave the city elves their bann, I know it doesn't work out but I gotta give him some slivers of hope that his family will be taken care of in some capacity.

[thehawkewhocamebackwrong]

As soon as I see Anders I'm smitten all over again smh

[sirvingart]

Next up is my Awakening Warden I have, Venance Caron. A city elf from Orlais with a complicated past and a duty to keep Amaranthine safe. Way in the future, he's in a relationship with Anders after the events of Dragon Age 2.

Down below I put what he'd do if somehow he was a Warden during the events of Orignis, but in Awakening, he made a deal with The Architect and kept Amaranthine and the Keep standing.

Next up I'm going to draw my Hawke!

[oghrensniffer]

My Orlesian warden, Olida Kader <3

Doing awakening (for the first time ever) and with my warden Valin Brosca sacrificing himself, I thought it was an opportunity to actually try downloading CC to make a pretty character.

[justanotherflemethstan]

Dragon Age Awakening hot take:

I actually don't mind that there are no romance options in DAA. I headcanon Sigrun as ace, ship Nathaniel x Velanna, Oghren has a family, and we get to romance Anders in DA2 anyway. And if you wanted to romance Justice... well. I guess there's that.

[rhaegar--targaryen]

pov: anders singing kylie minogue's can't get you out of my head

[oldowlshollow]

this is very much a self-indulgence piece as i continue to mourn the downfall of the dragon age IP and bioware. i'm so sad and i will never be over it lol.

nathaniel howe and my canon cousland warden, alec. i love these boys

[antivancastle]

i love when people like my justice dragonage posts. i don’t post a lot about him but he’s my blorbo

[fangsandfeels]

Oct 12 - Favorite Awakenings lore/codex entry

Architect's notes and journal, of course. You can see how detached this motherfucker is. He isn't doing it out of sadism, it's all scientific curiosity and lack of understanding how living beings work. He would have made a much more scarier villain that Corypheus because of how dedicated and at the same time dispassionate he is.

Corypheus was basically a confused old man throwing destructive tantrums because his gods stopped picking up the phone. You look at him and you can imagine that he was a human once - his arrogance, his wish to bring the "good old days" back is human.

But Architect? He no longer remembers being human - and it shows. Therefore, his goals wouldn't have been rooted in ambition or desire for dominance, they would have been about good inentions done wrong while bordering on sociopathy.

Had he decided to dissect the Fade and find the Black City for answers, Thedas would be royally fucked.