eighthphase (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eighthphase) wrote2012-02-20 12:29 pm
eighthphase) wrote2012-02-20 12:29 pm
Entry tags:
(no subject)
I should probably actually start tagging things; it's not like I don't have a stupid number of tags. I guess I just always forget.
Anyway, I'm on Noveria with Cam - Port Hanshan, specifically. I haven't gone and done much yet except the smuggling assignment; I'm not sure how I want to play out the garage pass part. I think I might just do Qui'in's thing and leave it at that. It feels like that's the kind of thing Cam would do. I'm still trying to get a feel for her character, really. It's not too hard to figure out what Liv does; she's the hopelessly hopeful paragon hero except for when there's a renegade interrupt, because those are always really badass. I can rationalise that as her being, well... a hopelessly hopeful paragon hero who's become a bit jaded since her death and subsequent revival. She still wants to do the hero thing, but she's not going to take shit from anyone, either.
Cam, on the other hand, is a bit harder, partly because she's greyer than Liv and partly because the game makes it hard to play the kind of Shepard I think Cam is. She's definitely got more renegade tendencies than Olivia does - but playing really renegade just makes you a total asshole, and that's not Cam. She's not really a nice person, but she's not a total asshole, either. She doesn't do things by halves - if she's going to do a thing, she's going to go all the way. (Hence, Torfan.) She tries not to stick her nose in where it doesn't belong, and she doesn't exactly like to do things for free if she doesn't have to. She's pro-human but she thinks that means we should work with the aliens if it means everybody benefits; if it's us-or-them then obviously we win, but there's no reason it has to be us-or-them in the first place. (Which is why she rides Ashley's ass for saying racist shit but not for actually being space racist - if you have to work with aliens then you have to work with aliens, and what you think about it doesn't matter.) She tries to be nice to her crew, because you don't want to piss off people you're going to have to hang around for the next however long the mission lasts, but if somebody starts shit then she'll finish it.
I'm still figuring out Cam, but I have a decent grip on her. The problem comes in actually playing as Cam. If I want renegade points I have to be a total asshole; if I don't want to be a total asshole I end up getting a ton of paragon points. Cam doesn't do all the side missions on Feros because she's nice; she does all the side missions on Feros because she was sent to help the colony and kill the geth. The colony needs power and water and food and the solution to all those things lie in the tunnels; there are geth in the tunnels. She kills the varren and turns on the water valves and grabs the power cells because she has to go down there anyway. She makes a point to not kill the colonists because killing the colonists isn't the way to help the colony, and it isn't really their fault that they've been turned into mindless plant zombies. (She kills Jeong because it is his fault that they were turned into mindless plant zombies, and that shit's not cool.)
Cam doesn't do any of that because she's nice. But she gets rewarded with nice person points for doing it, anyway.
Similarly, she's not going to be an asshole to her crew. That's fine with Wrex and Tali, since they're plenty talkative anyway. It's fine with Garrus because he's a confused guy trying to work out his morality (and basing it on Cam's, who's teaching him how to be a renegade 'cause that's how she rolls). It's fine for Ashley, because Cam can't romance her.
It's not fine for Liara or Kaidan, because they're the Designated Love Interests, and the game interprets being nice to them (read: not being an asshole to them) as wanting to get into their pants. Since I was planning on romancing Kaidan this time around, that works out okay, but it basically means I don't get to talk to Liara. (Which is fine, really, because I got enough of that from playing as Liam, who, coincidentally, was romancing Liara.)
But what if I wanted to play a Garrusmancer, or a Jokermancer? Disregarding that you can't actually romance Joker, being nice to Kaidan means getting into Kaidan's pants, which means I'd be cheating on him when I did romance Garrus, or cheating on Joker because I, you know, can't actually romance him. Maybe I just want to be friends with Kaidan. Well, I can't, because there isn't an option for that.
It's even worse in ME2, really. Being nice to Kelly means sleeping with her, although that's not a 'real' romance (but it does mean you can ask her to feed your fish). Being nice to any of the other female crew is fine, because you can't romance them with a female Shepard (except possibly Samara, except you can't actually sleep with her; you can with Morinth but that's a really bad idea). You can be nice to Grunt, and Mordin, and Legion, because you can't romance any of them. You can be nice to Jacob, Garrus, and Thane - until you do their loyalty missions. If you're nice to them after that it means you want to get in their pants, and if you don't want to get in their pants then I hope you didn't want to talk to them, because they've got nothing else to say!
I thought it was bad waiting for the next part of Garrus's romance to activate, and even then I got so sick of getting blown off for calibrations. Why can't I ask him about how that last mission went? Why can't I ask him about what he thinks of any given squad mate? Why can't I ask anybody things like that? I can ask Joker those things, in a limited way, but I can't ask anybody else.
Maybe this is what fanfiction is for. Maybe I should be coming up with my own answers to these questions. Maybe I need to make up a list of headcanon. Garrus always blows you off with calibrations because he doesn't know how to act in casual situations. Kaidan falls for you because you're the first person who listened to him without judging or pitying him. Liara is socially awkward penguin. (Okay, maybe that last one is more canon than headcanon.)
Speaking of Kaidan and his romance! I decided I was going to cap everything he says to you in it so I could make a post about why I thought Kaidan was creepy and awkward, but now I think he's just... awkward. It's not his fault, the poor thing. At this rate I might feel bad cheating on him with Thane, but I haven't seen his version of the Horizon scene yet, so I still might not. Feel bad, I mean. (And even if I do feel bad about it, Thane's going to die of space pneumonia soon anyway. ...saying that makes me feel like a terrible person, ugh.) Maybe I only thought he was kind of a creeper because I didn't actually want to romance him the first time; maybe I don't think he's a creeper now because I've read too much positive-Kaidan fanfic.
In less heavy stuff, Tali's arms look strangely thin, I can't tell if her shoulders are too wide or her waist is too narrow (her hips match her shoulders, so it looks a bit less weird in a full body shot, but it could still be either one) and some of her stuff about the quarian culture pegs me as strange. "We need to keep our population stable, so couples are only allowed one child." Tali, honey, that's not going to keep your population stable; it's going to put your population in decline. (Maybe that's why her next line is that multiple births are allowed when the population is in decline.) I still think she's sweet, though. Ashley is space racist no matter what she says ("It's patriotism, ma'am." "It's not racism. Not really." No, Ashley, it is. Sorry.) but maybe she gets better, like Pressley did (I don't know if she does or not; I didn't talk to her much in my save-Ashley run). Not that she's going to get the chance; Kaidan lives this time. But still. I feel bad turning Garrus renegade but it's a pretty Cam thing to do; she's definitely letting him kill Sidonis, because when somebody betrays you, you don't let them live to do it again.
And Wrex is Wrex. That's really all there is to say about him. Cam's going to renegade him into not dying, just like she's going to renegade Saren into killing himself. (Well, I guess the proper word would be 'intimidate', but whatever.) Because that's how she rolls.
(And then I realised I only have icons of Olivia. Oops.)
edit: now with bonus Cam icon!
Anyway, I'm on Noveria with Cam - Port Hanshan, specifically. I haven't gone and done much yet except the smuggling assignment; I'm not sure how I want to play out the garage pass part. I think I might just do Qui'in's thing and leave it at that. It feels like that's the kind of thing Cam would do. I'm still trying to get a feel for her character, really. It's not too hard to figure out what Liv does; she's the hopelessly hopeful paragon hero except for when there's a renegade interrupt, because those are always really badass. I can rationalise that as her being, well... a hopelessly hopeful paragon hero who's become a bit jaded since her death and subsequent revival. She still wants to do the hero thing, but she's not going to take shit from anyone, either.
Cam, on the other hand, is a bit harder, partly because she's greyer than Liv and partly because the game makes it hard to play the kind of Shepard I think Cam is. She's definitely got more renegade tendencies than Olivia does - but playing really renegade just makes you a total asshole, and that's not Cam. She's not really a nice person, but she's not a total asshole, either. She doesn't do things by halves - if she's going to do a thing, she's going to go all the way. (Hence, Torfan.) She tries not to stick her nose in where it doesn't belong, and she doesn't exactly like to do things for free if she doesn't have to. She's pro-human but she thinks that means we should work with the aliens if it means everybody benefits; if it's us-or-them then obviously we win, but there's no reason it has to be us-or-them in the first place. (Which is why she rides Ashley's ass for saying racist shit but not for actually being space racist - if you have to work with aliens then you have to work with aliens, and what you think about it doesn't matter.) She tries to be nice to her crew, because you don't want to piss off people you're going to have to hang around for the next however long the mission lasts, but if somebody starts shit then she'll finish it.
I'm still figuring out Cam, but I have a decent grip on her. The problem comes in actually playing as Cam. If I want renegade points I have to be a total asshole; if I don't want to be a total asshole I end up getting a ton of paragon points. Cam doesn't do all the side missions on Feros because she's nice; she does all the side missions on Feros because she was sent to help the colony and kill the geth. The colony needs power and water and food and the solution to all those things lie in the tunnels; there are geth in the tunnels. She kills the varren and turns on the water valves and grabs the power cells because she has to go down there anyway. She makes a point to not kill the colonists because killing the colonists isn't the way to help the colony, and it isn't really their fault that they've been turned into mindless plant zombies. (She kills Jeong because it is his fault that they were turned into mindless plant zombies, and that shit's not cool.)
Cam doesn't do any of that because she's nice. But she gets rewarded with nice person points for doing it, anyway.
Similarly, she's not going to be an asshole to her crew. That's fine with Wrex and Tali, since they're plenty talkative anyway. It's fine with Garrus because he's a confused guy trying to work out his morality (and basing it on Cam's, who's teaching him how to be a renegade 'cause that's how she rolls). It's fine for Ashley, because Cam can't romance her.
It's not fine for Liara or Kaidan, because they're the Designated Love Interests, and the game interprets being nice to them (read: not being an asshole to them) as wanting to get into their pants. Since I was planning on romancing Kaidan this time around, that works out okay, but it basically means I don't get to talk to Liara. (Which is fine, really, because I got enough of that from playing as Liam, who, coincidentally, was romancing Liara.)
But what if I wanted to play a Garrusmancer, or a Jokermancer? Disregarding that you can't actually romance Joker, being nice to Kaidan means getting into Kaidan's pants, which means I'd be cheating on him when I did romance Garrus, or cheating on Joker because I, you know, can't actually romance him. Maybe I just want to be friends with Kaidan. Well, I can't, because there isn't an option for that.
It's even worse in ME2, really. Being nice to Kelly means sleeping with her, although that's not a 'real' romance (but it does mean you can ask her to feed your fish). Being nice to any of the other female crew is fine, because you can't romance them with a female Shepard (except possibly Samara, except you can't actually sleep with her; you can with Morinth but that's a really bad idea). You can be nice to Grunt, and Mordin, and Legion, because you can't romance any of them. You can be nice to Jacob, Garrus, and Thane - until you do their loyalty missions. If you're nice to them after that it means you want to get in their pants, and if you don't want to get in their pants then I hope you didn't want to talk to them, because they've got nothing else to say!
I thought it was bad waiting for the next part of Garrus's romance to activate, and even then I got so sick of getting blown off for calibrations. Why can't I ask him about how that last mission went? Why can't I ask him about what he thinks of any given squad mate? Why can't I ask anybody things like that? I can ask Joker those things, in a limited way, but I can't ask anybody else.
Maybe this is what fanfiction is for. Maybe I should be coming up with my own answers to these questions. Maybe I need to make up a list of headcanon. Garrus always blows you off with calibrations because he doesn't know how to act in casual situations. Kaidan falls for you because you're the first person who listened to him without judging or pitying him. Liara is socially awkward penguin. (Okay, maybe that last one is more canon than headcanon.)
Speaking of Kaidan and his romance! I decided I was going to cap everything he says to you in it so I could make a post about why I thought Kaidan was creepy and awkward, but now I think he's just... awkward. It's not his fault, the poor thing. At this rate I might feel bad cheating on him with Thane, but I haven't seen his version of the Horizon scene yet, so I still might not. Feel bad, I mean. (And even if I do feel bad about it, Thane's going to die of space pneumonia soon anyway. ...saying that makes me feel like a terrible person, ugh.) Maybe I only thought he was kind of a creeper because I didn't actually want to romance him the first time; maybe I don't think he's a creeper now because I've read too much positive-Kaidan fanfic.
In less heavy stuff, Tali's arms look strangely thin, I can't tell if her shoulders are too wide or her waist is too narrow (her hips match her shoulders, so it looks a bit less weird in a full body shot, but it could still be either one) and some of her stuff about the quarian culture pegs me as strange. "We need to keep our population stable, so couples are only allowed one child." Tali, honey, that's not going to keep your population stable; it's going to put your population in decline. (Maybe that's why her next line is that multiple births are allowed when the population is in decline.) I still think she's sweet, though. Ashley is space racist no matter what she says ("It's patriotism, ma'am." "It's not racism. Not really." No, Ashley, it is. Sorry.) but maybe she gets better, like Pressley did (I don't know if she does or not; I didn't talk to her much in my save-Ashley run). Not that she's going to get the chance; Kaidan lives this time. But still. I feel bad turning Garrus renegade but it's a pretty Cam thing to do; she's definitely letting him kill Sidonis, because when somebody betrays you, you don't let them live to do it again.
And Wrex is Wrex. That's really all there is to say about him. Cam's going to renegade him into not dying, just like she's going to renegade Saren into killing himself. (Well, I guess the proper word would be 'intimidate', but whatever.) Because that's how she rolls.
(And then I realised I only have icons of Olivia. Oops.)
edit: now with bonus Cam icon!