magerights:

some fun stuff from da2′s party banter:

• varric talks about writing an epic with the hero based off of anders
• varric either hires guards for anders and the clinic or pays off the undercity gangs so they don’t bother him
• fenris believes that suicide is a sin in the eyes of the maker
• fenris says meredith “is the only thing holding back the madness” in kirkwall
• anders and isabela met in the pearl. she identifies him as “the runaway mage who could do the electricity thing,” so presumably they hooked up
• anders jokes about isabela having a heart of gold
• if anders kills ella, he asks aveline if he can go to her funeral. aveline doesn’t allow him to
• before act three, aveline says she always expected anders would be the one to “go out in a blaze”
• anders describes warden mahariel as “valuing privacy rather highly”
• merrill and anders both like cats. anders seems to have a preference for tabbies
• merrill calls anders’ coat “a crow in the middle of anting”
• hawke is taller than fenris, according to varric
• isabela writes “friendfiction” about donnic and aveline and shares it with varric
• varric bribes the guards so merrill won’t get in trouble for wandering through people’s gardens and picking their flowers
• according to aveline, varric “hates commitment” but remains at hawke’s side even after six years. according to varric, he lies a lot
• carver used to nail bethany’s braid to the bed while she was asleep
• varric gives merrill a ball of twine in case she gets lost. merrill tries to give it back near the end of the game, but varric tells her to keep it
• varric, again, either hires guards or pays off gangs so they don’t bother merrill during her late night walks
• merrill is afraid she may not live to see what happens to kirkwall. she asks aveline to watch out for her friends because “anything could happen”
• isabela thinks fenris and elves in general have pretty eyes
• an unromanced fenris and isabela hook up at least once and are implied to continue doing so
• carver has a tattoo of a mabari that he got before the events at ostagar. he can make it bark
• aveline often changes the guard patrols around fenris’s mansion so none of them get suspicious of him commandeering the place
• sebastian invites fenris back to starkhaven with an offer to train soldiers
• fenris and donnic play diamondback together once a week
• sebastian’s armor is so shiny that isabela uses it as a mirror
• merrill doesn’t always get dirty jokes, but she certainly wants to get them
• sebastian adds wesley’s name to the memorial in the chantry
• merrill’s mother used to sing to her when she was sick

and some stuff from dlc banter:

• varric offers hawke three potential nicknames depending on what personality hawke has: red is killer, blue is waffles, and purple is chuckles
• anders played cards with the coterie, who now have claim on his right ear
• hawke picks up a feather and considers giving it to anders. they say he “molts in the spring” and could always use more feathers for his coat
• isabela wrote and sent books to bethany while she was in the gallows
• isabela broke into a prison in val chevin to rescue her first mate
• merrill has always wanted a baby griffon called “feathers”
• anders isn’t very good at wicked grace or diamondback (varric mentions that hawke’s mabari is better at diamondback than anders is)
• anders calls the grey wardens “the taint brigade”
• merrills drops marbles into isabela’s boots to see how long it takes them to reach the bottom. she says her boots “go on for eternity”
• hawke once led the party around the wounded coast for three hours because they were lost but didn’t want to admit it
• merrill busted hawke’s wardrobe; it fell over the railing when she and sandal were trying to climb onto the chandelier

katalpa:

DRAGONAGE II : ANDERS

magerights:

as requested, some neat things from dao’s party banter:

• zevran has tattoos all over his body and offers to give alistair a tattoo when he asks about them
• it’s insinuated that zevran can be taken on as king alistair’s personal assassin
• alistair has “brotherly concern” for a warden romancing zevran
• alistair is jealous of a romanced morrigan. she says it’s because she took his “favorite grey warden” away from him
• according to wynne, marriage between circle mages “isn’t encouraged” and any child born to a circle mage is given to the chantry
• alistair has his name stitched into his socks and says it was “part of templar training”
• shale seems to be jealous of alistair when he’s romancing the warden
• leliana implies that she sometimes seduces her targets to kill them
• shale really hates birds and finds the thought of eating one sickening
• zevran spends a lot of time on his hair
• there’s a lot of (gross) dialogue between leliana and morrigan when both are being romanced by a male warden
• leliana catches sten playing with a kitten and/or picking flowers and pokes fun at him by calling him a softie
• sten calls shale “kadan”
• alistair is a full-body blusher
• morrigan flirts with sten quite a bit

and some bonus stuff from daa:

• anders baby talks ser pounce
• sigrun once had a pet nug, but her uncle ate it
• velanna is very self-conscious about her ears
• nathaniel respects velanna (and thinks she’s pretty)
• velanna’s sister seranni pushed her into an icy river twice and liked to put sap in her hair
• nathaniel also has respect for sigrun and thinks she’s “remarkably perky”
• anders is claustrophobic, or at least just hates being underground
• sigrun steals and returns justice’s dagger and ring, just to prove she can
• anders hates grand enchanter irving
• nathaniel is an idle hummer

overthinkingfeathers:

The easiest way to get people to trust you is to be a bad liar.

Anyone who stopped to think about it would know that Varric’s not. He’s a storyteller, rogue, and occasional spymaster. If he wasn’t quick on his feet, he wouldn’t be alive. He certainly wouldn’t be half as popular as he is.

But the Seeker demanding answers is willing to believe that she can see right through him. She’s underestimated him. The whole damn Chantry has if this is the interrogator they sent. It’s more than a little insulting. Useful, sure, because he knows Hawke is still safe within 15 minutes of being rudely dragged from the Hanged Man, but he can’t help but feel like he deserves a more practiced captor. Still, he needs her to limit her stabbing to books. (Another demeaning gesture. He burned through more than one contact at printing presses during his time with Blondie’s illegal manuscript. Getting this book reliably printed was difficult.)

So he starts with the story he wants to be true. Heaving bosoms, shining armor, effortless battles with the heroes getting nary a scratch for their troubles. Every word is an outrageous lie. The Seeker’s bullshit meter might need work, but she’s clearly seen enough fights to know what he’s saying is impossible.

When she calls him on it, Varric tells her the unvarnished truth instead. He tells her about exhausted, terrified refugees fleeing from a war they could never win, about seemingly endless enemies coming from all directions. He tells her about a near conflict with the only other people they had seen in days, religious beliefs ingrained so deeply that they nearly came to blows in between the corpses of monsters. About a dead sibling left on the side of the road, because they didn’t have time for anything more.

By the time he reaches Flemeth’s involvement, Varric knows she’ll believe anything he wants her to.

__________________________

He still tells gentle lies, of course. He has a reputation to maintain.

The dramatic meetings, the nasty fights, the gangs jumping from roofs and appearing from behind large crates – all of it is at least exaggerated. Part of it is vanity; even a Champion’s day to day life can be boring. Mostly though, he’s testing the Seeker’s limits, seeing what she knows. Not much, he realizes pretty quickly, and that’s a relief. There’s little to hide in the early days. There’s much more later.

__________________________

He delivers the serious lies with the same straight face as before. Everyone noticed Anders’s worsening demeanor and openly disapproved. Of course no one knew what Anders was planning. Even Hawke. Especially Hawke. They shared a bed for years and a heart for even longer than that, but somehow, that slipped through the cracks.

There’s a moment where the Seeker scrutinizes him, and Varric worries that he made too much of a point earlier about how bad of a liar Blondie is. If she suspects Hawke of being involved or realizes that Varric has been running a similar charade, the past few hours have been for naught. But her thoughts are on how the explosion worked exactly, and Varric is glad to truthfully say he knows nothing about that. His thoughts were elsewhere when it happened.

His feelings about the situation are complicated, to say the least, but his loyalty to his friends runs deeper. The Chantry isn’t interested in Anders right now; they’re interested in Hawke. Not that it would really matter – both of them are more than capable of defending themselves and each other – but he’d rather they stay hidden.

“I wish I could help you,” he tells the Seeker, and that’s the biggest lie of all.