PARTY BANTER MEME

[faderifting]

In the Dragon Age games, as you travel Thedas with your best pals, they have a lot of short conversations about politics, the weather, butts, etc. So this is the Fade Rift equivalent, in four easy steps!

1. Imagine your characters are on a very long walk somewhere, or on a very long walk back after kicking ass, or standing guard together, or gathering herbs, or working in the library late at night, or anything else sort of boring. You can provide context if you'd like, like "[ On the way back from Antiva: ]," but it isn't mandatory.

2. Post a few different remarks your character might make—similar to TFLN, except spoken out loud and less ridiculous, maybe, or maybe not, I don’t know your life—while passing the time.

3. Tag around to reply to those general remarks or to start new/wildcard conversations! Threads should be pretty short and involve minimal action; there’s no need to turn anything into a big production. Threadjacking to create multiperson conversations is encouraged (unless someone says not to). Multiple different conversations between the same characters occurring on different days are also encouraged.

4. Gather up all of your little conversation snippets like a bouquet and keep them forever, because they’re game canon.

Comments

[cozen]

I mean—it is very close. Especially chocolate tarts.

[ He weighs his hands in front of him. Byerly, chocolate, Byerly, chocolate... ]

But he's a little better.

[justashotaway]

What makes him better? Chocolate is very good.

[cozen]

[ He laughs. ]

He melts a lot more slowly.

[ For most people, he'd leave it there. But Laura is different. Her only wicked, sharp parts are her claws. The rest of her is bluntly earnest, curious, and kind. Nothing he says to her will get turned into a joke at his expense or melted down into a personalized knife to stab him with later.

Besides, she's young, she's in love, and Bastien might very well be the only (relatively) old person she knows who's in a long and steady relationship and actually willing to talk about it. So after a shy sort of pause, he keeps going. ]

And he makes me laugh, and he makes me think, and he helps me do things I might not have been brave enough to do without him, and he's really much more interesting than food. It's not a close call at all. I can think about chocolate for maybe a minute at a time before I am bored. But Byerly is complicated, and he grows. He has his own life I get to watch and be proud of. And chocolate only makes me any happier when I get to have some, but because of Byerly I'm happier all the time. Even when he isn't here.

And of course, [ with a deep breath and a bracing pause, as if he's reluctant but helpless against the pull of this horrible corniness, ] he's sweeter.

[justashotaway]

[ Laura loves stories, and this is one, somehow - stripped down to the bones, the events hidden inside these descriptions of a man she knows distantly, if at all. Byerly is more figure than man in her mind, a force within Riftwatch who has provided her with both assistance and admonishment. To Bastien, he's clearly someone else.

She smiles at the end, not quite startled into laughter. (But close.) ]

You love him.

[cozen]

Very much.

[ A smiling sideways glance. ]

I would say we should take you and your young man out dancing sometime, but I think it might come to blows.

[justashotaway]

[ a pinscratch of a frown between her brows. ]

Why?

[cozen]

Matthias does not seem to like Byerly very much.

[ Understatement?? Maybe. ]

Politics, or—I don't know. It is not fair to call the matter of someone's future politics, is it? It is only politics to the people it does not concern.

But my sense is that a lot of the mages do not think he is sufficiently on their side of things.

[justashotaway]

Oh. [ as explanation: ] We do not talk of Byerly often.

And I have not spoken to Byerly about his opinions on mages. [ Which is to say, she's not entirely familiar with them. ] But - I think you may be right.

[cozen]

[ A tiny bit sadly, or maybe just tiredly: ] Ouais.

[ But he brightens quickly. ]

If they ever come to an understanding, then we will go dancing.

[justashotaway]

[ This is what people do when they no longer wish to talk about something. What Bastien does. So she follows his lead. ]

We could not go now. I don't know how to dance.

[cozen]

No?

[ That's not nearly as rare a thing as he'd like it to be, among Riftwatchers. ]

Do you know if Matthias knows how?