Hello! Wow, it's been a long time since I lurked around LJ, even longer your journal.
I saw your name in bioware fangirls comm and decided to take look if you played DA:O as well and this post made me go and look for some fanfiction after reading the fans part - I did not dare going in search of communities however.
Most of the fics I stumbled across tell more about the writers rather than a story or the characters from the game. Admittedly, I'm a little shocked how this fandom managed to create so many poor quality fics. I pray that it's my luck -or lack there of- that I found only one promising and one really good story out of a few dozens I tried to read and there are way more good ones that I'm yet to find.
My main annoyance with the fics has been the portrayal of the characters - particularly Alistair because they tend to put him in the center of a story yet he sounds anything but himself. It's true he makes silly jokes and what not but I tend to think there's much more to him than the stuttering fool who goes frolicking with the PC hand in hand - based on my own game, though, who knows? Strangely, I was hearing Carth's voice in my head when Alistair talked in these fics. I tried to rationalize it that maybe I was more familiar with that voice thanks to Kotor and ME until I found a fic where Alistair was perfectly in character and I could actually hear his own voice in my head. Hmm.
Speaking of voices, the VA in the game was fantastic. Brilliant writing and briliant voice acting made me feel above the clouds for a while. But of course, there were times when I was utterly bored with the game too.
Another problem was; I don't remember any other Bioware game that I was disappointed with the PC's dialogue options so many times. A lot of times, the answer I wanted or even a close one simply was not there.
On a brighter note, I really liked the ambiguousness of 'right or wrong decisions' in the game. Like you mentioned for example, making Alistair king is not necessarily the right decision just like making Anora queen is not a wrong one either. However, I feel ashamed to admit that I guess I became a victim of fangirls there. I saw many comments about how to make Alistair king and your PC a queen, trying to avoid reading them all the while that I ended up thinking that is the game's ultimate goal for you to achieve and the idea of it all ending up as you becoming a queen really made me lose my enthusiasm for the game after that point. (I think I also forgot how the RPGs work in principle but that's another story.) I dutifully achieved that ending and was left depressed. Silly me. I too however find it rather terrifying having to go through even the last part of the game again. For now at least.
I am with you about Morrigan/Alistair. I enjoyed their banter a lot and now after reading a fanfic that had no intention of making the reader feel that way made me like them as an utterly disfunctional pairing. Well, at least they got their one night.
All in all, I think this games's strength is the characters. Very well thought out, well written and acted. With the game fleshing out it's characters so well, I'm not amused when I see them OOC. Or maybe I'm just getting pickier and grumpier as I get older after all :P
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I saw your name in bioware fangirls comm and decided to take look if you played DA:O as well and this post made me go and look for some fanfiction after reading the fans part - I did not dare going in search of communities however.
Most of the fics I stumbled across tell more about the writers rather than a story or the characters from the game. Admittedly, I'm a little shocked how this fandom managed to create so many poor quality fics. I pray that it's my luck -or lack there of- that I found only one promising and one really good story out of a few dozens I tried to read and there are way more good ones that I'm yet to find.
My main annoyance with the fics has been the portrayal of the characters - particularly Alistair because they tend to put him in the center of a story yet he sounds anything but himself. It's true he makes silly jokes and what not but I tend to think there's much more to him than the stuttering fool who goes frolicking with the PC hand in hand - based on my own game, though, who knows? Strangely, I was hearing Carth's voice in my head when Alistair talked in these fics. I tried to rationalize it that maybe I was more familiar with that voice thanks to Kotor and ME until I found a fic where Alistair was perfectly in character and I could actually hear his own voice in my head. Hmm.
Speaking of voices, the VA in the game was fantastic. Brilliant writing and briliant voice acting made me feel above the clouds for a while. But of course, there were times when I was utterly bored with the game too.
Another problem was; I don't remember any other Bioware game that I was disappointed with the PC's dialogue options so many times. A lot of times, the answer I wanted or even a close one simply was not there.
On a brighter note, I really liked the ambiguousness of 'right or wrong decisions' in the game. Like you mentioned for example, making Alistair king is not necessarily the right decision just like making Anora queen is not a wrong one either. However, I feel ashamed to admit that I guess I became a victim of fangirls there. I saw many comments about how to make Alistair king and your PC a queen, trying to avoid reading them all the while that I ended up thinking that is the game's ultimate goal for you to achieve and the idea of it all ending up as you becoming a queen really made me lose my enthusiasm for the game after that point. (I think I also forgot how the RPGs work in principle but that's another story.) I dutifully achieved that ending and was left depressed. Silly me. I too however find it rather terrifying having to go through even the last part of the game again. For now at least.
I am with you about Morrigan/Alistair. I enjoyed their banter a lot and now after reading a fanfic that had no intention of making the reader feel that way made me like them as an utterly disfunctional pairing. Well, at least they got their one night.
All in all, I think this games's strength is the characters. Very well thought out, well written and acted. With the game fleshing out it's characters so well, I'm not amused when I see them OOC. Or maybe I'm just getting pickier and grumpier as I get older after all :P
Look at the length of that comment!