#carabas

[overthinkingfeathers]

mikkeneko replied to your post “carinavet replied to your post “Just finished my destroy playthrough...”

The problem with Synthesis as a 'happy ending' is that you don't get all those beings' consent before making such a momentous decision for them, afaic

Not gonna lie, that part didn’t bother me as much as maybe it should have. Given what’s currently happening while you’re there, there’s not really time to hold a galactic vote on it, and at the end of the day, you’re doing something significant to a large number of beings no matter which ending you choose. Far more so with synthesis than any other option though, true, and it’s not like you can go back if that galactic vote happens later and disagrees. 

queen-scribbles replied to your post “carinavet replied to your post “Just finished my destroy playthrough...”

My canon Shepard picked destroy, and honestly it's the only one that felt "right" to me. I really don't like synthesis, both bc of what mikkeneko says, and bc if you pick that, you may as well have let Saren win in the beginning(imo) since that's what he wanted. Still a bummer that EDI and the geth are destroyed with the Reapers.

Yeah, Saren’s previous endorsement of synthesis plus the catalyst’s insistence that it’s the best answer makes me deeply suspicious of it. Like, the Reaper’s goal is to preserve life by turning it synthetic, so here’s an option to do it less messily? 

I really thought they were going to hit us harder with EDI and the geth’s deaths. Like, I kept waiting throughout that first post-decision cutscene for a scene of EDI dying or the geth ships just stopping, and it never happened. We were absolved from seeing the angst our decisions caused, and I still feel weird about that. 

carabas replied to your post “carinavet replied to your post “Just finished my destroy playthrough...”

that war points issue was the one thing that really bothered me about the endings! it's hard to believe it's all about the player's choices and how you want to tell your own shepard's story if the game's going to make unlocking one ending a bigger achievement than the others.

Yeah, exactly! I can kind of understand the reasoning - the more resources you have, the more you pour into the Crucible, the more you actually build and can use of it - but I think it would have been better to keep all three options open from the start and just have the details vary based on your war points. Like high EMS destruction is better than mid EMS destruction is better than low EMS destruction except for all three choices. That way you’re still reflecting how much work was actually put into the Crucible without making endings inherently ranked. 

That plus the way the catalyst itself talks about the various endings (destruction’s “peace will never last” but synthesis is “the final evolution?” ‘Kay.) makes me wonder if Bioware actually intended the destruction ending to be considered worst, control mid, and synthesis best. You’re always going to kill an entire race and a companion if you pick destroy. Synthesis, as far as I can tell, will not only always achieve peace but undo some of the other choices (like, if you didn’t cure the genophage, it does). I don’t normally assume the character’s views reflect the creator’s (like Kasumi enjoys stealing, but I don’t think the writers were like ah yes, we also personally think stealing is great), but in this case, where the endings that are hardest to unlock are also the endings the catalyst is in favor of, I wonder. 

Also - you did the control ending, right? Does it control all AI (including EDI and the geth), or is the ‘it totally can’t distinguish between AI’ thing a destroy only feature?

[ijustkindalikebooks]

Picked up a lot of fantasy this week! Anyone read any of these?

[mikkeneko]

2, 8, 14?

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

Merrill/Hawke, and to some extent Warden/Alistair. I adore Merrill to itty-bitty pieces but while I can at least *see* the attraction for most of the Bioware romances, for Merrill I just can't see her as anything other than a little sister.

8. Have you received anon hate? What about?*

A few times! It's actually hard to remember most of them because most of the time when I get anon hate I simply delete it without engaging, and within a week the details have passed from my mind. Let's see.

I know I've gotten hate a few times about Anders. I've been called a pedophile once or twice, don't remember specifically what that was about. I've had people go off on me for promoting "unhealthy" body images when posting fat-positive or weight-loss-industry-critical posts. And my "city elf mafia" post inspired some pretty negative responses, although most of them weren't anon. Oh! And there was the time I got called out for "fetishizing disability" after making a post about nearsightedness in Circle mages.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?Hmm. I'll have to think about this one. Most of my unpopular opinions are also popular opinions in other circles, if you see what I mean. I suppose one might be that I really don't like Vivienne.

[rederiswrites]

Imshael + names?

Alright first of all, I love your beautiful mind and thank you.  That said, I’m glad I saw this before I left the house so I had time to think without blowing away my evening.  As it is, I pulled over at one point to scribble things down.

There are those who believe that names hold magical power over the things named.  He knows, of course, that names hold power only in the mind.  But that which perceives the world necessarily also creates and defines it, and he has made excellent use of the power of names.

The naming of things is about truth, and about lies.  It is about perception, which is both.  If you call yourself human--if everyone calls you human--does that make it so, or does the truth lurk in your elven blood, awaiting its moment?  If you erase the name your mother gave you, can you erase the pain she left you?  The shame?  If you call yourself Pride, is it a jest?  A reminder?  A warning?

If a name means one thing to the creature named, but something else to the rest of the world, where lies the power of definition?  If you name yourself a spirit, and others name you a demon, which holds the more power?  Or is planting the question enough in itself?

Some names are forgotten, and some are erased.  Some names persist, though the things they hold in their meaning are nearly empty of the original contents.  Some names are lost, though the owners abide.

He has kept his name for millenia now.  He could have shed it, become something else.  But he finds it still suits him.  He chose it.

[overthinkingfeathers]

carabas replied to your post “mikkeneko replied to your post “carinavet replied to your post “Just...”

Control's just controlling the reapers, like AI!Shep's the new Catalyst - yeah, that really is a destroy-only feature!

Grumble, grumble, fist shaking in Bioware’s general direction. 

tirnalias replied to your post “mikkeneko replied to your post “carinavet replied to your post “Just...”

I used to pick synthesis when i didn't know the game well. Recently I've been playing the trilogy on a loop every day and know the world so much better and most importantly know my Shepards better and destroy is the only choice that makes sense to me now. Synthesis feels like me metagaming because I know how it works out but Shepard doesn't. I can only pick destroy now which is sad because I worked so hard to get peace between the quarians and the geth. Damn it.

Yeah, synthesis is just... hard to understand how it would work? Like, destroy is understandable - though how it differentiates between true AIs and VIs is beyond me (and also concerning, because I’m pretty sure a lot of things in that universe run on VIs), and with control, you’ve already seen some proof of concept stuff. Synthesis though is sold as replacing the DNA of every living creature, and that’s not even close to on par with anything else in the known universe (AFAIK). Sure, you can regrow limbs (albeit slowly), so technology is advanced, but it’s not on that level. It’s hard to trust in something so beyond your comprehension. 

I’m just going to pretend you can totally bring EDI and the geth back to life. I am unknowledgable enough about AIs to think this is a reasonable possibility, and I’m sticking with it. 

[overthinkingfeathers]

Prompt meme: “You really shouldn’t be so trusting, the world is a dangerous place,” Hawke and Anders?

"You shouldn't be so trusting. The world is a dangerous place." Anders's voice is low, almost drowned out by the sound of Merrill's cheerful storytelling a few feet in front of them. A private chastisement but one with the tone softened by concern.

Hawke is no stranger to this lesson. His father's warnings had echoed in his ears even as he held a magic wreathed hand aloft in the Lowtown market, openly displaying the crime of his existence to a man who had repeatedly denied his own son. There are always templars within yelling distance. There is always danger. Good intentions and a missing boy wouldn't change a thing if he was discovered.

But there's a time and a place for everything, and he will not hide if he can help. Anders, at least, should understand that. "How long were you in Kirkwall before you opened your clinic?" he asks.

"That's different. I have no illusions about my fate. One day, the Grey Wardens or the templars will find me, and when they do, they'll try to take me back. Neither of them are the type to forget."

"Well, I certainly have illusions about it," Hawke says. "I won't let them."

"You can't, and you shouldn't try. That's my point. They don't know you. If you don't give them a reason to hunt you, they'll leave you alone. You can have what most mages only ever dream of: a normal life, a family, peace."

"You think you can't?"

Anders laughs. "I think I incinerated any chance of a normal life long ago."

And this conversation is getting too heavy for whispers behind an exaggeration prone dwarf, but there is a tone of grim resignation in Anders's words, and Hawke cannot stand it. He lets their hands brush - cool, Anders's skin is always cool, so unlike the nigh unbearable heat Hawke always feels when they touch - and tries to sound as sincere as possible when he says, "You can still have people who care for you."

That Anders doesn't disagree is gratifying.

[overthinkingfeathers]

carabas replied to your post: I don’t know if it’s canon or fanon that Anders...

it’s canon! hawke mentions it in MOTA if you bring varric and do his quest. anyway yes good headcanon.

!! Thank you! I had resigned myself to never knowing where that particular fact came from. Knowing that it’s both actually canon and where to trigger it is a gift.

[overthinkingfeathers]

11, 12, 14?

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

You know, I’m having trouble thinking of a character that’s widely disliked across fandom. Different pockets support different people, but I think I’ve seen pro-pretty much everyone posts at one point or another. 

So I’m going to substitute relationship for character and say that I like Isabela and Aveline’s friendship in later acts. I have a friend who I genuinely disliked at first, and over time when we were forced to be friendly for various reasons, we went from petty insults and low blows to... petty insults and low blows as a form of affection. with more thoughtful conversations randomly interspersed. Like, I’ll use the same terms now that I did then, but the meaning has entirely changed. Isabela and Aveline remind me a lot of that. Friendship doesn’t necessarily mean acting like completely different people towards each other, and I don’t feel like that’s fundamentally toxic. 

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Merrill and her mirror. So many people dismiss her as stupid and dangerous for it, and I don’t think that’s accurate. 

“I would have made a terrible Keeper,” she says, but I think she’s still trying to be one. “It’s a Keeper’s job to remember things, even the dangerous ones,” and “I will save our clan.” I don’t think she’s just trying to rebuild the mirror to regain Dalish knowledge; I think she’s trying to protect them all. Because to them, Mahariel’s origin story is random and unexpected. Some of their hunters stumble across a cave, touch a mirror, and then one is missing - presumed dead - and the other either dies or leaves forever as a Grey Warden. Her friends are gone because they don’t know anything about this thing, even though it’s of Dalish make. They forgot, and people died. 

They destroy the mirror, and everyone seems content with that as a solution, but what if there are more? They can’t predict where they’ll be. They can’t heal the illness it afflicts. I don’t think Merrill is trying to restore the mirror just to regain lost knowledge; I think she’s also trying to understand it, so the clan will be protected if they ever run across something like it again. 

And Merrill has given up everything for the clan before. 4 years old, traded from one to another, losing her mother and the only people she had ever known and the presence of multiple other mages, because the Dalish required it. Because clans need at least two mages, or else they risk losing everything if one dies, and sometimes a child has to be moved for that. 

I don’t think she had a choice then, and she wouldn’t have been able to fully understand it if she did, but with the Eluvian, she’s an adult. “It’s not too late to come back, da’len,” and “You can still change your mind.” The clan isn’t saying ‘you made this choice and cannot come back from it;’ they’re saying ‘we’ll welcome you back if you stop working with the mirror. Destroy it and return.’ And she doesn’t. She walks away from everyone she’s ever known again, lives in a city where people hate elves and mages and she’s in constant danger, because “my clan is all I ever cared about.” They’re willing to shun her for it, but she still honestly believes it’s the best thing she can do for them. 

I’d also love to know the details of her deal with the demon, because in 6 years, she never shows any sign of actually helping him. The short story makes it clear that his primary goal is escaping the statue he’s bound to, but he’s still there until Marethari releases him. “All spirits are dangerous. I understood that,” she says, and it shows. Audacity’s eventual release isn’t her doing. Whatever deal she made, she made it intelligently enough to keep him there. (I’m reminded of Calien, a blood mage in The Last Flight who rules lawyered his deal with a demon. The demon offered the knowledge of blood magic in exchange for healing, because she was badly wounded. He agreed, got the knowledge, then healed her a very small amount. And then he killed her, because hey, the deal never said how much he had to heal her or that he then had to let her live.) Now granted, she doesn’t know how to make the mirror work, but I’m not sure Audacity actually knows either. Each Eluvian, from what we know, requires a unique key; there’s a good chance he doesn’t know what that particular one, found far away from where he was bound, needs. 

On an entirely separate arc, I like the friendship path change from, “He is no longer my friend Justice; he is a force of vengeance, and he has no grasp of mercy,” to “Fire can cleanse,” to “We are one now. I could no more ignore the injustice of the Circle than he could.” Slow acceptance and reforming expectations of self. 

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

I am unconvinced the Dragon Age fandom is particularly bad. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t have its bad elements - it does - but I think all fandoms do. I have entire fandoms blacklisted, because the discourse that crosses my dash is unending. I think the whole morally grey thing (which fails in some respects but works in others) just means there’s more for people to take sides on. 

Otherwise... I think the debates about f!Hawke vs m!Hawke I see drift across my dash occasionally might have more to do with the fact that, ime, f!Hawkes are usually way more customized than m!Hawkes. Which isn’t to say that I don’t see Marian Hawkes or obviously custom m!Hawkes ever, but it’s much rarer than the other way around. I think some of that occasional drama might die down if people asked themselves whether they were actually negatively reacting towards the gender of the Hawke in question or just a personal preference for default vs custom Hawkes.