#tamlen

[crunchbuttsteak]

You want me to look at myself in the mirror? The thing that killed Tamlen in Dragon Age Origins?

[snuffysbox]

the Mahariel/Tamlen angst I'm contractually bound to draw every once in a while

[twobaileys]

I wanted to be with you, of course.

I thought that might be the case. I'm glad.

[girl-gwoe]

Dont save me, please...

Another tarot dragon age art :>

[wwsans]

missed you, miss you, missing you

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

not to out of left field dragon age post, but i’m thinking of replaying origins and it made me think about how like. mahariel and tamlen are definitely old enough to be married/bonded by dalish standards, and they’ve been friends for at least a fews years if not their whole lives (and it’s probably their whole lives honestly) so they’ve had time to get bonded.

so the implication is that either a) they haven’t gotten their shit together enough to tell each other how they feel much before like. the week origins begins OR b) the elders wouldn’t allow them to bond, the way they wouldn’t let mahariel’s parents bond, and eventually they relented. and i know a lot of people like the first one and i agree that it is like. nicer to the characters. but the second one makes me go INSANE because it’s like. we think you’re too immature, or maybe just one of you is, you’re too impetuous, you don’t think before you act, and you egg each other on, or one of you is too devoted to hold the other one back. whichever it is, it’s a matter of worrying they won’t be good for each other— they don’t approve of the match.

until someone (probably ashalle or marethari herself) intervenes, and the FIRST thing, the very first thing that happens is they find that cave. no matter how it happened— if tamlen refused to go back to prove that he was worthy, if they egged each other on, if mahariel led tamlen forward— they WERE bad for each other, but not out of malice. out of love. and afterwards, when mahariel is a warden and tamlen is gone from them forever (even if they will, unbeknownst to them, see him again, just in the most horrifying way possible,) i can just imagine them sitting up nights, afraid to sleep because of the horrible dreams, alternatively blaming the elders for not letting them be together sooner and blaming themselves for not going back, for not making him go back.

in the gauntlet, the spirit or demon or whatever it is takes the form of tamlen, taunts them about their failure, about their waking fucking nightmare.

and months later, when there have been so many loses that they’re sort of numb to it all, when they’ve made a new family and maybe fallen in love again, when they’re living every day like it could be their last (because it could be,) they wake up one night in a cold sweat, or they’re in the middle of ~something~ with their new partner, and shrieks ambush their camp. they have to come out and fight, back to back with their new family, with their lover— they finish the fight covered in blood, every inch the warden, every inch the hero of ferelden. and in the aftermath, there he is. the ghost of the one person they never thought they’d lose, their best friend, the soulmate they were /supposed/ to have. and he’s a ghoul, he’s dying, and if they don’t kill him, the blight will force their hand.

and then there’s one fucking line with alistair about it. you can’t follow up on it. …but imagine if you could. imagine if the warden absolutely melts down afterward. imagine if they got to feel, for once, the ENORMITY of what they’ve lost, the enormity of what the blight took from them, which they’ll never get back, even if they have people they love. even if they live through it all, they save the world, now they’re the warden commander and they get to live free of fear—they’ll still never be one half of the happy elder couple who laughs and jokes and says ‘yes’ to every match because they believe in love over all. they’ll never get to see merrill become keeper and tease her about how pompous she was as a kid, they’ll never have children. they’ll never hunt again, never sit with the halla and smile about the beauty of the world.

in a lot of ways i think that the elven wardens lose the least, because they gain power they’d otherwise never have— but they still lose things. there is no easy way to become a warden. the only way that a warden loses nothing by joining is if they had nothing to lose at all.

[ghostwise]

I raced against death, and you were the finish line.

[vigilskeep]

do you think tamlen and mahariel had being orphans in common, or that he had parents that mahariel had to beg forgiveness from

[chimeowrical]

A kissy commishie of Tamlen, Merrill, and Mahariel for buffsea!!!

[proffbon]

Man...

[sweetmage]

Click for full res!🍃

The seasons will change and the sun will rise again...

~~~~~

Wanted to draw Tamlen in different stages from my AU where he lives as a ghoul for 7 years before ultimately being cured by a certain blood mage (though there are serious side effects that linger for years).

The last one is a few years into his recovery (so about 10 years from the initial mirror incident) where he's been slowly healing mentally/physically with the love and support of his clan💗

Edit: There's now a fic that goes with this too 🥰 Read it here on AO3

[snuffysbox]

still not over Tamlen 2k23

[mabaris]

preliminary round masterpost

[transprincecaspian]

boyfriends of all time. doomed by the narrative

[calico-callista]

I have nothing to say in my defence-