@Sammi
It is no more or less extreme than any other life-or-death choice.
If you believe that life or death situations are equal simply by virtue of being life or death, and that all forms of oblivion are equal, and that if you're going to suffer any one of those forms what happens (to you, to others, etc) afterwards is meaningless, then no there's really no reply I can formulate that's going to mean anything to you.
That's not what you said earlier. You said that a character can make that choice even if the choice they made in Arcadia has no connection with their personality, because it's somehow more extreme than life-or-death. You implied that they wouldn't have to live with it if they didn't want to, because that was a one-off thing and they'd never do it again.
Again, if you actually believe all life or death situations are absolutely equal, I can see why it wouldn't make sense to you.
That said, what you quoted isn't really what I said, which was that just because you made a choice to initiate your escape from Arcadia doesn't mean you must continue making that choice. A Fairest who stepped up and took on the abuse of its Keeper and inspired an uprising, where she then led as many of the others to escape as possible, will always be marked by those actions. It certainly says something about who they were in that moment, and what sort of person the right circumstances might turn them into again.
Supernaturally, you are a Fairest. There's nothing you can do about that. But if during that uprising you lost good people, or those closest to you, even if you understand that you stepping up was the best thing for the most people, you might swear never again do you want to be responsible. That somebody else can be the shining beacon of hope, but you're done. That doesn't change the fact that you're a Fairest, and supernatural forces have imprinted on you with their mantle and inclinations. People will still look to you to step up, and you'll refuse and look the other way, and maybe things turn out fine or maybe they don't and you'll have to live with either. Or maybe you'll step up, and realize along the way that stepping up and having the people looking to you and up to you feels good, that controlling people's destinies feels good, that the whole thing is a rush and maybe you like it all too much. Right up until something falls apart, and people get hurt, and that absolute control slips and you're confronted with your plan falling apart. Maybe it hurts because people in your charge got injured, but you tell yourself the pain is anger because it's their fault, that they must have not understood or deviated from your plans or somehow screwed up and the solution is to crack down even harder with your control.
The Fairest writeup flat out says that Fairest can fall to corruption, after all, and that couldn't be the case if Fairest were incapable of being anything but the sheep-coddling-super-leader-hope-beacons people otherwise complain about them being. What a Fairest did in Arcadia was surely bound to their personality, and how they took agency to escape. It put its supernatural stamp on them, cemented them as Fairest with a set blessing and curse in kind, but what you did in that moment in Arcadia does not determine the sum total of who you end up as once you are out living in the real world. It will for many Changelings, perhaps even most since that's the default, but the assumption that it must for all and there is no alternative, that you cannot possibly play against your archetype, seems like nonsense.
offers reassuring words for @Thenomain indicating that Seemings are optional
What he said was:
- "Playing without Seeming is an option. I don't know if it's specifically mentioned in the outline, but it's been discussed numerous times."
That's not the same thing as saying that seemings are optional. When something is optional there's nothing lost by not using it except for opportunity. For all we know it could be optional like an Order in Mage is 'optional'. Sure, you can choose not to be part of one, but you lose out on free High Speech, get no Rote abilities, etc. Hell, he might just mean a way to run a game without Seemings, but not that some people will have one and some won't.
and also has something to say about the Seeming writeups being less flexible than in the first edition.
He certainly has something to say about not thinking 1e was as flexible as people give it credit for:
- "I absolutely disagree that Fairest in 1e were particularly broad. I feel that many of the concepts presented were very overlapped, many of them were too focused on who they were and what they looked like, and not enough about what they're like now at the table."
All I really saw him say regarding flexibility otherwise was that he disagreed with what the person he was quoting termed flexibility (see above) or limitations (see below).
The A_Newfie person he's responding to even tries to claim Fairest are just locked into being leaders, period, with such nonsense like "Here it is lead or don't play fairest." and he says pretty much flat out exactly what I've said, which is:
- "As far as those things go, Fairest aren't leaders. They're people who their peers prop up as leaders. They're perceived as leaders. That's a million concepts."
Two of that million would almost certainly be 'Fairest Tyrant' and 'Not The Leader' characters who play exactly contrary to their Seeming despite the choices they made in escaping Arcadia, and the expectations of others who think that because you did something once you'll be willing, ready, and able to do it again.
