Testing Thesis: Cobbled Swan Case Decision Has An Answer With No Dependencies (Spoiler)

The following seeks to address whether players should accept or refuse the offer posed at the end of the Cobbled Swan Case. It is a spoiler for the characters and story related to that mission.

[b]Should I accept Makal Damas' deal at the end of The Cobbled Swan? Answer: Yes.

With the extensive amount of contradictory information on the internet that remains even now (made worse by AI implementation into internet searches) I want to find any consequences that disagree with this thesis.

The oft-asserted claim is that rejecting the deal impacts whether you can choose "Inspiration" as Neve's ultimate character arc. My thesis is that it does not. While I can't find any evidence of negative consequences for accepting Makal Damas' deal, that doesn't mean there aren't any.

This is mostly just an experiment to put some of the confusion about this decision to rest, so if anyone has chosen to accept the deal, and then faced negative consequences (such as being unable to select "Inspiration") it would be really useful to have that information confirmed. I'm currently testing it, but I'm limited to 1 set of parameters per playthrough, which limits how many factors I can test at once.