#bioware that could be us

[aika-the-cupid]

Larian Studios:

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #laezel #karlach #wyll #gale #shadowheart #halsin #minthara #bioware that could be us #but you be playing #still love dorian and leliana though so no hate

[couslande]

maybe this is mean but I think when people get really upset over anders enjoyers and resort to ‘oh so you like terrorism then?’ it’s really obvious that the most morally complex stories they’ve engaged with are 2010s BioWare games

#specifying 2010s because I don’t think these bitches could handle revan #obviously I’m excluding like actual discussions/discomfort with the imagery bioware used and what the devs were evoking #that’s an entirely different more important discussion #text

[tabriscadash]

my most controversial take apparently is that i genuinely don’t think alistair is an equal to anora as a candidate for the crown, and that nothing bioware claims about him as king after the fact is substantiated by any gameplay up to the landsmeet.

#and he would agree with me #alistair theirin #this insistence bioware retroactively does that he is an equal to anora/would make a good king is laughable actually <3 #he's not stupid - i do believe he is perceptive and educated to a degree that indicates that he is a lot more capable than often argued #but the man is emotionally immature and clearly meant to be seen as naive/a 'himbo' #which sets him up at a disadvantage against anora at the point of the landsmeet EVEN IF he could ofc grow and mature over time #at the point of his being made king he's not that guy yet #when it crucially matters! #and he's selfish and spiteful and spineless in a really fundamental way that justified the hof's position above him :))) #he's not an idiot ... but in a much more significant way... he is an idiot at the point of us giving him so much privilege and power #and the ONLY reason why we would ever think that would be a good idea is because of his blood? lmfao?? get real. #sorry to the bioware liberal stannies caping for monarchy but i'm built different (better)

[mrs-gauche]

So, a month ago, I sat here, looking at my trillion folders worth of recorded flycam footage that I have gathered for over a year now and can't bring myself to delete, because some of this stuff took *a lot* of effort to capture.. so I was thinking what I could possibly do with ALL this footage now, other than making gif sets.

When suddenly, like some kind of heavenly sign, BioWare for some reason decided to casually drop the title of DA4 on a random thursday afternoon.. with a single tweet.. and a picture...

...which was of course a nice surprise from them, BUT I was honestly just a liiittle bummed that the reveal didn't come with a little teaser or animation or.. anything, really.

Sooo I still sat here, looking at the title.. and still looking at all my flycam stuff, which just so happens to be 99% Solas shots.. which is why I then felt kinda obligated to take matters into my own hands. lol

...so I said SCREW IT, I'm gonna make my OWN "title reveal trailer" 😂 Even though I've NEVER done anything like this before, I'm SUPER BAD at editing videos and my PC (and I) is going to die in the process (no seriously, my editing software crashed like 20 times during this and I had to completely redo some parts several times 💀) but... I did it! It's not perfect, but I tried my best and had fun making it and that's all that matters!

So here it is! The title reveal trailer we never got. Hope you like it! *drops dead*

#dragon age #dragon age dreadwolf #solas #OOF I never thought this would be SO hard to do #I was thinking about completely giving up on this several times in the process lol #after like the fourth friggin crash.. #my pc just can't handle this kind of stuff *sob* #I know I used the most clichee trailer music you could think of lol #this turned out SO dramatic omg #then again - so is Solas 😂 #so it's your turn now bioware lmao #where is that official trailer #dragon age 4 #da4 #dad

[hellafluff]

Still wild to me that like alot of Major Asari characters we meet in Mass Effect are Purebloods. They just keep throwing that in when I think it's way more interesting when the Asari has mixed parentage.

That being said: Samara's story still destroys me and meeting Liara's father is still one of my favorite character moments with her

#crazee talk #mass effect #bioware: yeah so pureblood asari as looked down upon and are pretty rare #also bioware: heres a whole buncha major and minor plots about Pureblood Asari :) everywhere :) #please ME4 give us atleast an Asari/Human Asari or an Asari/Salarian Asari #especially the Salarian one with a plotline about how shes Totally Not Bothered About losing her Father So Soon (shes very bothered) #tho for ME4 I think a really fun and bold character could be Liara/Shepard's daughter #if you romanced her #because Lili's in the trailers! having an Asari with a Hero Figure Father complex would be very fun

[came-out-of-the-coffin-desisted]

writing dragon age fanfiction is so so so so hard for me because every time i spot another historical inaccuracy that’s like “i don’t care that it’s fantasy they have the same level of technology this is WRONG” i have to have a moment of like. “kaed NO ONE ELSE will EVER care about this. you watch ‘ranking period dramas on corset accuracy both in construction and writing’ videos on youtube for entertainment normal people simply do not give a FUCK about medieval castle layouts!”

and yet this cycle continues, because the dragon age devs so so so so clearly DID research but they did BAD research and it HAUNTS me. like WHYYYYY is there only one courtyard that isn’t even really a courtyard in castle cousland WHY is the “main hall” huge with no furniture while the great hall “dining room” is tiny as fuck and in a horrible to access spot WHY are there no ovens in the kitchens where the FUCK do they bake the breaaaad!! like ok fine cool servants get beds in thedas i’ll bite. that fucks hard, actually! but WHY are there more servant rooms than rooms for visiting nobles do you honestly think anybody in the middle ages fucking had servant rooms???? they slept on the FLOOR in the GREAT HALL! and WHY is there a fucking library and a ‘treasury’ (which what the fuck is THAT there should be a DON-JON in there you locked your valuables in the TOWER at the TOP, not in ONE room centrally located on the first floor with TWO guards!!) like i KNOW it was for level design i KNOW it was but oh my fucking g-d it’s gonna KILL ME to write out creeping through corridors when there WERE NO CORRIDORS! like look at this. look at this.

castle cousland: stupid, awful design, honestly they kinda asked to be coup’ed with their garbage unsurvivable castle that supposedly nobody sieges regularly even though it’s literally a death trap. there is ONE main exit, no way to trap your enemies, and only one official guard post that i can see. fuck awful.

harlech castle in wales: it took 115 years for someone to successfully take this castle, and it’s withstood COUNTLESS sieges, you can go visit it right the hell now if you go to wales (not at all getting into the evilness of the english building castles in wales, that’s not the point i’m trying to make.) see how the outside makes it so that even if your enemies breach the walls, to actually reach anyone important they have to survive the volleys of arrows from the ramparts? and then presumably kill everyone ON the ramparts, or the minute you go to open a door or try to drag someone out, you’re going to get shot full of arrows. that’s after breaching TWO heavy doors (which would require a battering ram both times) which would wake up the entire castle LONG before they got anywhere NEAR the heir to the castle’s wife and child.

and before somebody says “oh well kaed maybe you just don’t know your castle building periods very well” think again. i know my castle building periods. that style above is concentric (harlech castle’s initial construction was finished in 1289 and was one of the first finished castles in england in this style,) which came after the keep and bailey style, which came after the motte-and-bailey style, which came after the burh (which arguably WASN’T a castle but whatever,) etc. there are no fortified castles in english history that look like castle cousland, because it’s fucking indefensible. now, this does lead to the question of “oh, well, what is the timeline for the game, maybe there’s something you missed!” so let’s examine the time period of origins:

at the very, very latest, origins could be based off of the BEGINNING of the british “wars of the roses” (the civil wars between the various members of the house plantagenet) which began in the 1450s— this is personally what /i/ think origins is based off of, for a couple reasons. 1) trevelyan was a real person— g.m. trevelyan was a british historian who wrote about the wars of the roses, and in one instance there’s a quote of his the devs almost verbatim used for the design of the free marches: “the Wars of the Roses were to a large extent a quarrel between Welsh Marcher Lords, who were also great English nobles, closely related to the English throne…” they ixnayed the part about the marcher lords being ferelden nobles, i imagine because it was too complicated, but trevelyan? marcher lords? a close relationship with this country? (i.e. like somewhere that might take in their refugees after a catastrophe?) cmon. 2) because ferelden is fucking huge and the histories are kinda weird, because they aren’t 1 for 1, i’m gonna say that we have to use the norman conquest of england as our unification date. in other contexts i wouldn’t try to argue this, but in this one, i’m saying 1066 is the unification date of the anglo-saxon kingdoms into england. calenhad gives us a hard unification date for ferelden— the first landsmeet was in 5:42 exalted, ergo origins is 388 years later. the wars of the roses started in 1455, 389 years after the norman conquest ended. 3) the wars of the roses happened because of a succession crisis— admittedly, these two succession crises are very, very different, but there are definitely parallels between loghain and henry vi and alistair and edward iv. henry vi was crowned at a young age (loghain largely ruled for maric at various points in his life, starting when he was very young,) and was very ineffectual— he suffered from an unknown mental illness which made him extremely unstable and unable to rule for large periods of time. loghain, on the other hand, ruled when the /theirins/ weren’t stable, so you argue he had the opposite— meanwhile, his policies WEREN’T sustainable, whatever you might think of him. loghain is too shaped by his own experiences to be a truly good leader, and by the time his rule/anora’s rule is threatened by cailan, he’s sacrificed enough of his principles that he’s willing to commit atrocities (notably, margaret of anjou ruled during the worst parts of her husband’s mental instability, which again could apply to loghain OR anora, as they ruled fairly jointly after a certain point.) edward iv was the son of richard of york, who was eligible for the throne at a very young age (18 to alistair’s 19) because his father was dead. he was coaxed and led into battle by his cousin, the earl of warwick (also known as the kingmaker— sound like a protagonist you might know?) that’s about where the similarities end, but that’s largely because alistair is a grey warden— if he weren’t, he’d probably be able to have kids and end the question of succession. but he can’t, which, assuming the devs eventually remember, WILL lead to another civil war. hence why i say this is at the BEGINNING of the wars of the roses.

another option that could be argued but makes much less sense and i have no evidence for is that alistair has similarities to edward ii (second son who only became king because his brother died, married a more powerful woman to consolidate power, not very good at ruling, no offense to alistair,) but that still puts origins at like 1307-1327. in either case, they would have been using concentric castles— and given what time period castle cousland was originally built in, it would have been built as a motte-and-bailey, which would NOT have lasted four hundred years. so the castle had to have been rebuilt, and bryce cousland would have had to update that rebuilt castle, because no one lived in it during the orlesian occupation. so where the hell does this winding, weird multi-level design come from?

i GUESS— and this is SO charitable— they could have designed castle cousland based off of a country house design from the mid 1500s, but none of them look like that, either. they’re exclusively rectangular, for one thing, and one of the huge bragging rights of owning one was that they weren’t fortified— they came into fashion during a period of relative stability under the tudor rule, when it was considered guache and maybe even treasonous to build a fortified castle. ferelden is NOWHERE NEAR a period of stability, if anything at the end of origins they’re entering their greatest period of INstability, given what happens in inquisition, and that no matter who ends up on the throne, there’s no way for them to have children. so there’s NO way this castle is a country house, or inspired by one.

leaving us with the final conclusion that a) the game devs definitely did do research into the time period because i can fairly directly trace a line between the event i think inspired origins and the plot, but they didn’t do enough research to figure out what the everloving fuck the BUILDINGS looked like. so these castles make no fucking sense and can’t possibly be called historically accurate even with the fantasy defense, and b) i care WAAAY too much about this for somebody who isn’t even a medieval historian. my area of expertise is the paleolithic, i have no clue why this bugs me so bad i spent four fucking hours writing this post.

#anyone: so what are you getting up to on spring break? me: uhhhhhhhhhhh *spends four hours writing a bioware calloit post about their #historically inaccurate castles* Normal Things #it took me four hours bc i had to pare it down like 8 times btw. i could have kept going #btw there are image descriptions on the maps #dragon age origins #dragon age #long post #actually i take it back i DO know why it bugs me and it’s because they made this g-dawful design part of the plot on every single occasion #like highever? would never have been sacked if not for this design. redcliffe? whole story is about infiltrating this castle through these #extensive dungeons they never would have fucking built bc there’s no use for them. the palace in denerim (which doesn’t even have a name) #is so so so fucked. we can’t even get into it but i HATE it. denerim is a city small enough that not all the banns arls and teyrns can have #their own estates in the city meaning they would need rooms in the palace dedicated to them. where are those rooms??? if’s tiny as hell. all #they needed to do was to put up some extra wings you can’t go into that’s all they needed. i’m so so so annoyed by this it’s such a pet #peeve of mine. especially since skyhold is SOOOOOO good if’s the pinnacle of dragon age buildings no one else will ever be her #there’s multiple courtyards. there’s a garden. there’s the stables centrally located there are concentric walls there’s that weird palace #thing in the center with the world’s hottest great hall. there’s a FORGE there’s a keep there’s a guest wing there’s a tabern there’s #ANOTHER tower you can build there are sentry posts there’s a gatehouse there’s a bridge no one will ever replace her in my heart i know this #skyhold baby you are so so so sexy and delicious and everything a fantasy castle in a video game should be MWAH

[crossdressingdeath]

Another reason why I can never recruit Sera: I will never be over how in her "fun" little pranking scheme Josie, the sweetest and most caring woman possibly in the entire Inquisition, gets humiliated in front of her staff (who from what I've seen of the ambient dialogue about the pranks are not happy to have seen her humiliated and so upset she ran off in tears, because Josie's staff genuinely like her because she's a good person who cares about her people) while Cullen, Meredith's right-hand man who was at best complicit in almost a decade of abuse, torture and murder and depending on your worldstate took part in the mass murder of two separate Circles, gets a slightly irritating wonky desk. And Leliana gets nothing, because publicly humiliating someone who's done nothing to deserve that treatment and whose subordinates don't want it to happen is a-okay and perfectly aboveboard but looking through a locked box that may or may not contain personal shit is too far, which I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that Leliana would actually get even with her. And Josie is first, so you can't even do Cullen's mild and actually quite funny prank and then tell Sera she's going too far with Josie; you have to humiliate your genuinely wonderful ambassador to mildly irritate your shithead Templar commander.

Also: Sera decides to publicly humiliate Josephine, possibly lowering her standing in the eyes of everyone present, when Josie is the Inquisition's ambassador. Her public standing matters a huge amount! So not only does she not deserve to be treated like that, not only do the "little people" Sera is supposedly standing up for not want her to be treated like that, but it could potentially do damage to the Inquisition's reputation! And you can't bring that up to tell her she's going too far and needs to back off before she potentially does damage to the whole "saving the world" cause! And of course you can't even suggest a milder prank that Josie and her people might have been able to laugh about; no, it's public humiliation or nothing, and fuck the fact that none of the people Sera claims she's supporting want that!

Just... with a few exceptions like Blackwall (who notably was a respected Orlesian military captain for a while; not exactly what you'd call "little people", which is a bit of a theme in the people Sera actually seems to enjoy interacting with), Sera's treatment of the people around her ranges from irritating and massively inconvenient to the very important cause they're trying to achieve to "Why are any of these people putting up with her", and I get that she's young and coded as neurodivergent but that's no excuse. You don't get to throw away basic decency just because you're neurodivergent, and being young isn't an excuse for shit like putting a venomous snake in Vivienne's underwear drawer and beating a man to death because the Inquisitor asks questions instead of making a snap judgment! There is the bare bones of a really satisfying character arc about a young woman revelling in chaos for chaos's sake under the shield of a worthy cause and looking down on anyone who she decides fits into the wrong niche (see her treatment of Josie, who really only looks the part of your standard upper class jackass and in reality is slightly sheltered but genuinely cares for the people around her more than some of the lower class cast members do, and her treatment of a Lavellan who dares even suggest that they're proud of their heritage and believe in their own gods) who learns to genuinely care about righting wrongs against oppressed groups rather than using their suffering as an excuse to sow pointless chaos without even asking what they actually want here! But because DAI is allergic to character growth she doesn't get beyond revelling in chaos for chaos's sake, and unlike some of the other cast members she never shuts up about it. And yes, the fact that every argument you can actually make about the way she treats the people around her in-game boils down to telling her she's crazy and makes no sense sucks and I hate it, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of very valid arguments to make.

#dragon age inquisition #sera critical #i'd like her more if you could GENUINELY debate with her about what she's doing #like... to use the prank scene as an example give the option to suggest a lesser and less potentially harmful prank #or have lavellan point out that her unprovoked hatred of them caring about their own culture #is no better than the humans who hated her just because of her ears #but it's either blind agreement or telling her she's crazy #and i can't STAND it #bioware let us disagree with our companions like mature adults in da4 please

[immren]

friendship ended with dragon age. baldurs gate is now my best friend

#i keep thinking abt how bioware could be showing us stuff that . Isn’t solas or varric or tevinter but they’re… not #like it would be cool to see SOMETHING new. like new companions perhaps ??? whatever #show us gameplay too. like literally something. i’m not feeling as excited for it anymore #txt

[arvadthecursed]

absolutely bonkers that Qyzen says "To lose points was horror. But Scorekeeper has led through darkness to greater thing. You." Then declares himself your warrior and guardian, and that you are the herald of his fucking goddess!!! and SWTOR doesn't let you have sex with him. bullshit !

#hes like a dad to thali but i wish i could make another consular to romance him. smh bioware #you let us fuck khem in later expansions!!! let us fuck qyzen!! #swtor #qyzen fess

[villainanders]

Oh you guys have very different feelings about anders potentially hallucinating mr wiggums than me

#agree that it easily could have been a matter of chantry record keeping (tho I don’t see why it would be worth including if that was it) #I’m actually glad that Bioware is acknowledging the effects of being in solitary confinement for a year I think this is the only time #they’ve done ANYTHING gesturing what that would do to someone’s mental health #also I get hating the way Anders’ mental illness is used to dismiss him but. he is canonically mentally ill. #and I don’t think potentially hallucinating a cat to get through solitary confinement is that big a stretch like it’s solitary confinement #for a YEAR

[coffeeworldsasaki]

ANYWAY time to stop being bitter and start thinking again about how we might actually get to choose pronouns on dragon age dreadwolf

#I'm 100% sure if it was up to bioware we would get the choice since you know game director is trans and lead writer is nb and uses #they/them pronouns #but ea still could not let them put them which ughhhhh #tho if they do give the choice I'd have people whining they've gone woke on twitter and queer people whining on Tumblr that the game is #still problematic so at least i would avoid that so #either pronouns or peace of mind? fjdkdk

[bhalspawn]

i cannot BELIEVE how little i see about judy alvarez. this is insanely adorable

#ik its cause she's a lesbian and ppl dont care about us ❤️ #she makes a heart shaped out of bottles of soda and alcohol in v's apartment when she's drunk. #she also drunk texts v and its so fucking cute im gonna cry #bioware could NEVER #wytxt

[immobiliter]

da2 is still my favourite dragon age game and that’s that on that

#* / be yourself. everyone else is taken ( ooc. ) #i'd also say arguably it's the best but i know that opinion is controversial lmao #i just always have the most fun playing it tbh #okay it could look nicer but the combat is the best. the character/group dynamic is the best #i love that it's more grounded in social realism than the other two #plus varric #my da muses are so asleep rn but i keep wanting to wake them up #same with garrus i really need to get back to my current me playthrough #i'm hoping with da as more info about the new one starts to be drip-fed to us by bioware #i'll go back to those games so i can get my world state in some kind of order lmao

[verysaxyberry]

Everything Bioware puts out just... does not make me want to play their games.

#like i wish i could be excited about the dragon age stuff #but i hate inquisition and based off of marketing it seems like nongame will be inquisition 2.0 #i cant say based off of what ive seen because they have literally shown us nothing #we have a concept art trailer #a trailer talking about how great of a company bioware is #a cinematic trailer that told us nothing new #and a new trailer with 'in game' graphics which is just (admittedly very pretty) stylized art with a narration by varic #which again showed and told: nothing new #maybe im jaded and cynical #i love origins so much i want that stule of game and story back #and while i like baldurs gate 3 no it is not the same thing #i dont know man #im just rambling #for those of you that are hyped: hope you enjoy it #as for me i guess im just done with bioware in general #it'll take a lot to get me excited about their games again

[hellafluff]

bioware leans way to hard into the blasto joke when it comes to mass effect stuff

#i get that its a in universe meme but like. #its not that funny outside that one scene in citadel dlc? #like i like the blasto tank top outfit in MEA but #do yall really want to make IRL blasto merch with like a whole ass figurine 2 t shirts a hoodie and a poster? #you know what you could give us? Shakarian art prints. More Wrex and Grunt merch. Team up with Nerf and make Mass Effect Nerf Guns #bioware #mass effect #crazee talk

[kit-o-nine-tales]

Through the Trees (I see you)

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: F!Mahariel/Tamlen

A short ficlet I wrote in like, 15 minutes and originally posted on pillowfort. Has a happy ending! Not really canon compliant! Healing Ghoul!Tamlen via deus ex machina via Flemythal, basically. There’s an even shorter lil sequel I will probably post tomorrow.

Read on AO3 (the small second chapter is here)

  How many times has she dreamed of that day?

It must have been every single night since it happened, even after the Joining filled her nights with visions of the darkspawn. Even after that, the parade of nightmares that plague her each night still find a space to revisit those ruins, that mirror, that loss.

Every night, she tries again. Tries to convince Tamlen to turn around. Tries to keep him from opening the door to the room containing the mirror. Tries to pull him away, to keep him from reaching out to touch it.

Every night she fails.

And when morning comes, the aching grief crashes down on her again, like chains, like a hole in the world where she'd expected solid ground. He isn't there. When she sees a cloud that looks like one of the halla and wants to point it out to him, he isn't there. When she masters a new fighting technique and wants to show him, he isn't there. When she nearly dies in battle against an ogre and she cries out, confused and in pain, reaching for his hand, he isn't there.

But every night she sees him, hears him, and even though the nightmare is a memory, sometimes she swears he sees her too. She finds a look in his eyes that hadn't been there that day, or his hands tremble slightly as he replays the motions.

Maybe she's imagining it. She has to be. He's dead. He couldn't -- there's no way he could have survived. And yet....

The night the shrieks attack their camp, she thinks she knows what's coming. She feels it, somehow. Hears his voice in her heart, maybe. They'd been tainted at the same time. It stretches like a tie between them, despite their disparate outcomes. She finds him at the outer edge of camp. Waiting. Waiting for her. His eyes, whited out by the taint, still manage to find her own. And in that instant they both know. Deep to the core of them. It goes beyond words, this knowing, this loss. He tries to smile for her. He tells her that he loves her. That he's sorry.

She's sorry too. Sorrier than she could ever express in words.

"I see you every night," she tells him.

"I... know..." he rasps. "I... see... too."

"Don't make me do this," she pleads. This can't be how it ends for them.

Her companions all watch from a distance. A distance she knows that they could close in an instant should Tamlen try to attack her. Like they know that she would just stand there and let him kill her, if that was what he wanted.

"No... help for me," he says.

She shakes her head. She won't! She won't kill him!

He draws his daggers.

"Wait!" she says. It's aimed at her companions as much as at Tamlen.

Everyone freezes.

Mahariel has a secret. Physically, it is very small. Figuratively, it is enormous.

When she took a pinch of the Sacred Ashes, she pinched with two fingers instead of just one. She'd done it right under the watchful eye of the Guardian, and he hadn't said a word. Either she's just that good of a rogue, or... it had been allowed. Either way, when they went to wake Arl Eamon, she only gave his healer a single fingered pinch. It served its purpose and the man awoke.

Mahariel still has that second pinch. Tucked carefully away in a small leather pouch inside a compartment on her belt.

Everyone stares at her, unmoving. It's not simply that they stand still. Even the wind stops. Everything stops moving except her. She wonders for a moment if this too, is a dream. But she reaches out to cup Tamlen's tainted cheek and finds it feverishly warm. This is real.

"Aren't you going to reach for the secret you carry?" a voice, familiar, old, impossible, calls.

"Flemeth?" she asks.

She had killed Flemeth at Morrigan's request.

"Perhaps," the voice replies. "But surely you've more important things to do than question me. Time won't wait forever, after all. Not even for two children of the People."

There's something almost... kind in the voice. But the voice is right. There's no time to ponder it. She opens the compartment on her belt and pulls out the pouch of ashes.

"What do I do?" she asks. She is no mage. It had taken a healer to make use of the ashes for Arl Eamon.

She receives no reply. But the wind picks up suddenly, drawing the sprinkle of ashes out from the open pouch. They swirl around Tamlen just as he begins to move again, glowing like fire-flies. His hands drop to his sides and he blinks against the light as it swirls ever-faster, ever-closer to his body, until the light enshrouds him entirely, obscuring him from view.

He cries out in surprise, and it's his voice again, not the dry, painful rasp of a ghoul.

Her eyes water at the brightness of the light, but she keeps them open anyway. She watches and she waits.

When the light finally dies, the darkness it leaves behind is nearly just as blinding. But even with the afterimage of the light leaving coronas in her vision, she can still see Tamlen.

And she sees Tamlen as she's seen him every night in her dreams since that day. Tamlen with his cloudy sky eyes and summer-wheat hair. Tamlen with that wryness permanently stamped in the curves of his lips and the arches of his eyebrows.

"How...?" He wonders, startling a little at the sound of his own voice.

Mahariel throws herself at him, laughing with joy.

His arms come up to catch her on reflex, as warm and reliable as they ever were. And just like that, she's home.

"I don't know, and I don't care," she says to the side of his neck. She presses her smile to his skin, reveling in the sensation of his steady pulse beneath her lips.

"Lethallan," he murmurs, still sounding stunned.

"I have so much to tell you!" she says.

"And I want to hear all of it," he replies.

That night, the dream comes again. One last time. They look at each other as they stand outside the entrance to the ruins. She takes his hand. They turn around and head back into the forest.

#Tamlen #tamlen x mahariel #ficlet #healing Tamlen #through the trees (I see you) #originally on pillowfort #fanfic #happy ending #flemythal being helpful! why? best not to ask too many questions #what i Wish I could use the sacred ashes for #Dragon age origins #dragon age fic #im taking over the tamlen tag due to hyperfixation #sorry #but also not really #tamlen lives because i said so #bioware dni #beginning lowkey inspired by spike's every night i try to save you speech from btvs s6 #because that shit was great #b4 all the nonsense that followed #Tamlenposting