#but i wanted to include the little bit of me2 in here

[edains]

Mhairi McFarlane

[average-mako-enjoyer]

Mass Effect LGBTQ+ representation issues and some headcanons

I've seen a few Mass Effect posts about the sexuality of the trilogy's characters, and I'd like to add my 5 cents, since none of those posts take into account the whole xenophilia aspect of canon relationships. And some of us are here for it. For the aliens. I am here for them. I'm not sorry.

Also, I have to acknowledge the fact that Bioware has made some very questionable choices, and the in-game representation is bad. Like BAD-bad.

I.E.(this list is going to be looong):

All Male Shepard/Kaidan Alenko dialog for ME1 and ME2 was written and fully voiced, but NOT INCLUDED in the final version of the game. And I know that the same thing happened to FemShep/Ashley, but that a bit different because...

The only "gay" romances in ME1 and ME2 are for femShep, and either with a female-representing human-like aliens (who like to dress in tight clothes that emphasize the size of their breasts), or with the equally feminine Kelly Chambers in ME2. Because, you know, guys who buy this game will be more tolerant of two "hot chicks making out" (insert a bunch of mods that make your femShep wear only lingerie and look like a TikTok e-girl) than a more realistic same-sex romance.

Especially when this romance is between two guys. Because ew. Right, Bioware? But you also wanted to sell your games to LGBTQ+ folks, so you installed a…

… so-called "gay button" into your games.

Before ME3, no one except for "hot chicks asari" states their sexuality. You can go through two entire games as a straight character completely surrounded by other completely straight characters. Oh, maybe Kelly likes aliens a little too much, but "who doesn't like asari", right? Even asexual salarians are into them. Sure, a straight woman like femShep…

"Hot chicks making out" really sells those game copies, I guess.

If you think ME3 is better, think again. The only two gay characters in the game are Cortez and Traynor, and they are both supporting characters, who are not even in your squad!

Cortez and his whole "I lost my husband" drama is conveniently placed on the lowest deck of the ship, so if this story offends your bigoted sensibilities, you can just ignore him along with the "dumb jock" Vega who is really unpopular with the players. Is it because he's really friendly with an openly gay character? Oh, who knows?

Meanwhile, Traynor is either mocked (oh, she found EDI voice hot and commented on that! what a shame! awkward lesbians, amirite?) or fetishized (don't get me wrong, Donnelly is funny, but his remarks about Traynor are even more yucky than the way he talks about EDI and lube).

But don't get mad about all this, because all the women in the trilogy are fetishized and heavily sexualized. The best example of this is Samara, whose character design is a war crime.

Bioware made Benezia look horrible (she tried to make Saren change his ways not with her power or wits but with those giant bazooms and the cleavage, I guess), and then they doubled down in ME2 and gave a warrior samurai nun a boob window. A FUCKING BOOB WINDOW. Because boys buy games, and they love boobs, y'know.

Oh, and any inappropriate remarks made by NPCs in the game are directed only at the femShep. Just like the MShenko romance, the male version of the dialog is fully voiced, but conveniently excluded from the game. Because guys can't tell other guys that they look hot in "that soldier getup". That can make bigots uncomfortable.

And let's talk about bi representation, because Bioware apparently hates bisexuals as much as straights and some queers do (trust me, as a bisexual I've experienced both types of hatred, and it's ugly). The only bisexual characters in the game are Kaidan and Diana Allers.

If you're a bigot playing as the maleShep, you can "safely" kill Kaidan on Virmire in the middle of the first game and not have to deal with his uncomfortable love confession at all!

So, yeah, Bigots: 1, Representation: 0. The bisexual is successfully killed, congratulations!

If you play as femShep, you won't even know that Kaidan is/was bi. Because who wants a bisexual guy who is comfortable with his sexuality? You can't sell that kind of romance to the good ladies who buy this game.

Diana Allers romance, meanwhile, is laugh-worthy. If you play as maleShep, you won't even know that she's bi. And if you're femShep, this romance is as insignificant as the one with Kelly, you won't even get an achievement for it! You can also kick her out of your ship without any consequences, so she will be KIA offscreen. You will find about it via fucking email. Bigots: 2, Representation: 0. Both of dirty bisexuals are successfully killed, congratulations!

The bi-xenophile Kelly suffers the same fate: no achievement for her romance, you cannot continue the romance after ME2, and she will either take a poison pill and die or be killed in the Collector's Base/Citadel offscreen in ME3. If she survives both the base and the Cerberus attack, you won't even get to say goodbye to her before the final battle of the game. Bigots: 3, Representation: 0

9. And I almost forgot about Omega DLC that kills the only female turian in the game. Who's also into asari. God, they did her dirty.

"Those were different times," you might say, but all of this could have been fixed in 2019, when the Limited Edition was released. Instead, we just have fellow modders changing the design of Benezia and Samara, restoring MShenko (one of the most healthy, respectful, and mature romances in the entire trilogy) and other gay romances in the game, making all NPCs flirt with your character, adding female turians and krogans to the environment, etc., etc.

Still, I think these games are great. The characters, the cinematics, some aspects of the writing, great! I love that canon. But the LGBTQ+ representation in those games sucks. Big time. But that doesn't stop me from having a bunch of headcanons. For the sake of convenience, I'm going to separate out all the characters for the games in which they debut.

Mass Effect:

MaleShep/FemShep: Both are canonically bi. Both don't mind the alien physiology thing and polyamory. Both are "married to your job" type, so they were okay with casual sex and one-night stands, and only mellowed out while in charge of the Normandy crew. Because of convenience, both had more hetero than same-sex hookups.

Ashley: Straight as a plank and xenophobic, but not homophobic. She's definitely into maleShep, but more into the idea of him as a sole survivor/war hero/butcher of Torfan than an actual person.

Garrus: He likes turian and quarian women. And both fem and maleShep. But with maleShep, he's more busy with the whole "flirt him to death" aspect of their bromance, so there's really no time to get on the floor and get dirty.

I also feel that turian society in the game is very patriarchal, so Garrus has a bias towards femShep and feels less restricted by her rank. With mShep, I think he would have only acted if mShep had specifically pursued that relationship. But mShep is also more interested in just flirting with Garrus.

Kaidan: Canonically bisexual (more into women) and demi. Not into aliens, but not xenophobic. Not a stranger to casual sex, but would really prefer to go steady because #introverted and has enough problems already. "How can you flirt with all these people, Shepard, it's exhausting…"

Liara: She's into both versions of Shepard. And maybe a bit into one drell. Classic demi/asexual. Also, imo, all asari are agender and Liara is not an exception.

Tali: Is a mess and can definitely go cross-species (her romance with Garrus is canon, after all). She's also a massive nerd and a bit kinky. I think she's into human/turian/quarian males, but maybe this femShep really is THAT SPECIAL.

Wrex: Krogan women - that's his sexual orientation. Real bros with mShep, more cautious with femShep because bias. Another "married to his job" character.

Joker: Straight and nerdy. #Irony. Too cool for homophobia.

Chakwas: More married to her job than anyone on this list. Cool lesbian aunt.

And this post is already so long that I'll make a separate one for ME2 and 3.

[dgcatanisiri]

Tried to make a brief summary of the issues of Mass Effect Andromeda’s handling of queer men and how it relates to why we’re (broad use here) upset with the Legendary Edition failing to provide better representation than the originals, and it kinda turned in to what amounts to an open letter for BioWare.

So, what the heck, here it is.

A little personal background. I spent my high school life completely in the closet. After graduating, I had a new computer and the opportunity to play a new game. The game chosen was BioWare’s Jade Empire. Still a fairly recent release, and I was a big fan of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, also by BioWare. So, being a young gay man, still uncomfortable and uncertain of who I was, I was very excited when I got to play this game that would allow me to play a gay romance, a romance that featured two men. I burned through two playthroughs of the game within less than a week, enjoying that rush of acknowledgement that yes, gay guys could be the hero. It was a massive affirmation for me at the time, something that said that my sexuality was not going to prevent me from being the hero, which legitimately was a message that I felt like most media was giving me to that point, because gay men barely appeared in anything other than guest roles for an episode or two on a TV show, but certainly not in video games. That game, that experience... I’ve said for years that it had cemented me as a BioWare fan for life.

If I say that now, it is a statement with a few caveats.

The history of the failure of Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 to provide any male/male romances is well documented. I was excited, very eager to romance Kaidan Alenko in Mass Effect 3. But even then, I noticed that there were things that were lacking in the romance. It was noticeable, for instance, that the basic dialogue between male Shepard and female Shepard was unchanged, if either was starting a new romance with Kaidan. The thing that always felt... WRONG about that was that if I’d had the option to begin a romance with him in the first game, I would have. Yet there’s not even a bit of dialogue that even references that inability, no comment of “I didn’t think you were available,” or anything of the sort, nothing to say that, say, Shepard was interested in Kaidan at the time, but didn’t believe he’d be receptive, didn’t want to damage their friendship, something of the sort. There was even a cut in the romance scene, where female Shepard will sit in Kaidan’s lap before being lifted up and carried to the bed, but with male Shepard and Kaidan, just fades to black. And then in the Citadel DLC, while all the other pairings walked in to the casino arm in arm, male Shepard and Kaidan are leaving plenty of room between them. There’s also the absence of any cuddling as they return to the Normandy.

To say nothing of the lack of Steve Cortez during the story segments of Citadel – he is not part of the big team entrance to the apartment, just spontaneously appears in the lounge room. He doesn’t participate in the briefings, and he is not a casino date, despite being part of the assembled team. Cortez also suffers from the fact that his romance spends so much time on how he needs to move on from the death of his husband, Shepard can come across as predatory towards him, trying to push him out of his grief and his pants. Due to the lateness of his arrival in the story, in game three, as opposed to game one or two, there is significantly less time to establish him as a person – beyond his past as a pilot and the death of his husband, we gain almost no concept of his personality or personal history.

I bring all of this up to help set the stage of what was expected when Mass Effect Andromeda was nearing release. Mass Effect had been full of problems of representation of queer men specifically (not that they were perfect on the count of female/female relationships either, because there’s plenty to talk about there, but as I’m not a lesbian or bisexual woman, I don’t feel comfortable talking about their experiences for them). While there were flaws, Dragon Age, what is often considered Mass Effect’s sister franchise, HAD managed to provide male/male romances in every iteration of that franchise.

In fact, considering that Dragon Age’s most recent installment, Dragon Age Inquisition, had been put out with a lot of fanfare about the first gay male companion, who was considered rather popular in the fandom, and the game itself receiving the Game of the Year award that year, indicating that, if there was any risk in the business sense of providing representation of queer men, it was negligible at most in the bottom line of that game, the attitude of a lot of gay men in the lead up to Andromeda’s release was some variation of “okay, Mass Effect has been flawed, but BioWare’s learned from their past mistakes, and they’re coming off the heels of a hugely successful game that had a gay character whose gayness was front and center in his storyline... We can expect that things will be fine, and we don’t have to worry.” That was the dominant attitude I found in a lot of my queer-oriented spaces.

But we started getting uncomfortable as the developers remained cagey about romance options in Andromeda – there were Twitter responses to “we’re concerned about Mass Effect’s history of gay representation, we would like to know about the options” that came out as “we checked and yep! They’re there!” These responses came across as flippant and even tone-deaf – the reason that the question was being asked was because of prior failures to be included, and not simply a desire to get all the details before launch.

As the trailers started coming out, the questions continued from the fans, and the response from the developers... continued to be uncomfortable. When asked directly for a listing of romances prior to release, the response was that the developers wanted players to learn as they played, that “the fun is in experiencing it!” This was a specific response when it was learned that the romance options could be flirted with regardless of orientation, but they would shut it down. Despite the fact that the trailers DID include content from certain romances – specifically, the male Ryder/Cora and male Ryder/Peebee romances.

This was uncomfortable for a lot of queer players like myself because it spoke to a lack of consideration of what it is like to be queer. In many places, it is a serious question of safety to even put yourself out there to find a partner, to flirt with someone openly unless you are already certain that there is a chance for a positive response. There are places where a queer person flirting with the wrong person can get them harassed, assaulted, even killed for doing so. Even in the safety of a virtual construct of video games, these are honed instincts that queer people have developed. And no matter how many times we would say this to the developers, no one seemed to understand. Likewise, the fact that the trailers felt free to show off heterosexual romances, but not queer ones felt... questionable.

Then, finally, firm details started coming out, and... There were problems. Early data-mining said that there was an even split of romances between orientations. But there was a bit of discomfort around the reveal that the gay characters, Suvi and Gil, were limited to the ship, rather than being companions who would accompany Ryder on missions. There is a history of companions being given more involved storylines and involvement than secondary characters. It also didn’t help the disappointment from queer people who’d been eager for Cora or Liam as romances, who were firmly established as straight (Cora herself had a popular lesbian following).

That discomfort increased when it came out further that, ACTUALLY, Jaal would not be available for Male Ryder. This caused a lot of upset. Now it was a case where there was NO M/M squadmate romance option. This on top of the group of fans who were uncomfortable with the idea that, in a sci-fi series, gay men couldn’t romance an alien, while this had become a staple of the series, considering Liara, the character from a species described as equivalent to Star Trek green-skinned Orion girls, had been available for straight men and lesbian/bi women from ME1, and straight women got in on the act with Garrus and Thane in ME2, on top of straight men also getting Tali.

This got worse when the achievement listing for the game was released and there was an achievement for “romancing three different characters.” Meaning that it was absolutely impossible for a gay man to play the game and get this achievement without playing a sexuality other than his own.

This is why I led with my experience with Jade Empire, why it was so affirming to me. Because to hear all this, ten years later, to see what had been so affirming to me a decade prior be functionally dismissed, be shown to take a secondary position at best... It hurt.

And the game proper did not help that feeling at all.

So first we meet Gil Brodie. Engineer of the Tempest. One of the first things we learn about him is that he has a close friendship with a woman named Jill. And then he immediately tells us that one) she is a fertility specialist, and two) she “says [he’s] part of the problem” because he won’t have kids the natural way. This is immediately setting off red flags to me – I can think of plenty of my friendships where we give one another grief for various things, but I would never think of introducing any of them to someone else with that fact. So my reflexive thought in this situation is “what kind of a friend is this really?”

And then, as the game goes on... This is the only thing that Gil’s conversations involve, the prospect of having kids. We do not learn much more about him, just have him talking about considering the idea. The lock-in for his romance requires Ryder to meet Jill, who Gil again says that she will talk his ear off about his “civic duty” to reproduce, a fact that makes those earlier red flags wave higher and more furiously, because who DOES that to a total stranger? And this is passed off as being “charming.” This leads to the culmination of the romance, where Gil says that Jill has decided she wants to get pregnant and she wants Gil to be the dad.

There’s... A LOT going on here, so let me work through this. First, one of the few things Gil says as a bit of establishing his character is that he is impulsive, that he joined the Andromeda Initiative, the journey from the Milky Way galaxy to the Andromeda galaxy without really thinking through what it would mean, that it was a one-way journey with no way to back out once he’d gotten there. So this is already saying to me that this is not a person who really SHOULD be a parent, at least at this point in his life.

We also get a couple of emails from him in-game that paint him as putting in thirty-six hour workdays into the engines on the Tempest, that he cares about and puts a lot of time into those engines. So when I think about him as a father, I see him having to give up something he’s deeply passionate about to do it, because the Tempest is certainly no place to raise a child – they can’t exactly put a playpen in the cargo hold, for example.

This would be one of the first things that I would think of as a discussion element, but... it’s not there. All that we get is a couple of casual comments about how Gil should know that bringing a child into the world is a big thing, something that shouldn’t be done lightly. But this is framed as Ryder questioning Gil’s fitness to be a parent at all, rather than questioning if he’s thinking this through and having considered this enough to be ready to take on this responsibility, or if it’s even something that he even wants.

Because that’s the other big thing here – this is not Gil’s idea. This is not something that he makes clear is his desire. No, it’s Jill who has decided that she wants to get pregnant and use Gil’s sperm. For all that he matters in this whole thing, he might as well be a turkey baster. He’s basically an accessory in his own story, because he goes in to this with all the passion of a math equation: “The Andromeda Initiative is a colonization effort. Therefore, the idea is to have babies. Therefore, I should find some way to reproduce.” This isn’t him having a passion or desire to have kids, just it being “something you do.”

This is, genuinely, a failure to understand the character who was being written. Gil’s writing reeks of having been written by someone who does not know what they are talking about. There is an element to the gay experience that is not innate but learned. When we realize that having children is not a thing that will just happen, that if we want this to happen, it will require a lot of additional steps, there are many who will simply say “this isn’t for me, this is more work than I’m willing to put in to for this.”

Now, Gil could have been someone who had decided it was worth it, but that butts up against the idea of him being impulsive, that he doesn’t think things through. There is no time given to focusing on the reason he decides this is the right choice for him, to the point that many players felt that this was not Gil’s decision but something that Jill was pushing, that she expected him to jump on her command. Because we have so little of Gil, as a character and an individual, but plenty of him talking up her, this “friendship” feels toxic to many.

Just about everyone I have ever spoken with about Gil is deeply uncomfortable that literally, the only way that he will not have a child at this point is if a romanced Ryder stops him – if I am playing a game where I don’t romance him, I actively just stop interacting with him at a certain point so that this never comes up, because this does not come across as happy. It comes across as forcing a gay man into a heteronormative experience to satisfy some traditional idea of “man and woman, raising kids.”

And, as the cherry on top, if you do tell Gil that you’re not comfortable having kids – a very real thing, whether gay or straight – then, unlike other romances, Gil and Ryder do not share a kiss at the finale of the game. And, during the last conversations on Meridian, the only thing Gil even brings up is Jill being pregnant, whether or not it’s his child.

This is what “representation of gay men” amounted to in Mass Effect Andromeda. A homophobic story that was about a gay experience written by someone who is not a part of this community and does not know or understand the experience personally, going through the motions of development when really, all that is cared about is the end result. To say that most of the gay men I know who have played this game find this homophobic is to undersell the point.

It doesn’t help that, of all the Tempest romances, Gil also clocks in with the least amount of romance exclusive material – a few flirts, the romance lock in and scene, and being able to stop Gil from having kids. Other than that, his friendship and his romance are virtually identical.

Speaking of, the romance scene consists of a make out session that fades to black, before coming back in with Ryder and Gil, shot from about shoulders up, briefly wrapping up their conversation that preceded the fade to black. This is noteworthy when the heterosexual romances between Ryder and their human love interests, as well as Peebee and Jaal, the former having a similar body model to naked human women, just blue, and Jaal, who is naked at other points in the game, have much more involved romance scenes – Cora’s in specific received special attention.

All of this, individually, may have just been reflective of time crunch and other external pressures – we all understand the realities of game development, that for all the ambitions that go in, when the deadlines are nearing, something has to give. But taken collectively... The kindest question is to ask why all of the “give” happened in regards to the gay man?

The end result with Gil honestly feels like he was written in response to the bad faith arguments that had come up in the period after the name for the game was revealed and it was made clear that the game would follow a colonization effort. There were a contingent of people who said that “there shouldn’t be gay people coming along, a colonization effort needs to reproduce.” This is a bad faith argument from homophobes, trying to justify why they don’t want gay people in “their” games. In answering their question, the question they only “ask” in order to explain why they don’t want to have gay people in the game without saying that, it comes across as catering the gay content for a heterosexual audience. It should go without saying that this is a bad position to take.

So, that’s Gil. What about Reyes? Well, Reyes himself is bound to a single planet, which, again, points to a minimizing of how much content he will even get, since his content can only be accessed on this single planet. Likewise, Reyes, as a character, is someone who falls in to several old, tired tropes with regards to bisexual men – he is a shady, untrustworthy character, in this instance literally a criminal, meant to be evocative of the “dashing rogue” archetype. This is a characterization that has often been BioWare’s go-to with regards to bisexual men, because we see this archetype drawn on in Jade Empire’s Sky, Dragon Age Origins’ Zevran, Dragon Age 2’s Anders, and even elements exist in Dragon Age Inquisition’s Dorian (even if he is a gay man). It’s a well that BioWare has frequently tapped when it comes to a romance option for queer men, to the point that it starts to feel like BioWare in general believes that this IS what queer men are.

There’s also the questionable portrayal of Reyes that leads to a description of the trope “the depraved bisexual,” an explicitly bisexual character who uses sex and sexuality as a manipulative tool, that they treat others as simply there to be their toys. Over in Dragon Age Inquisition, one of the romance options was specifically NOT made bisexual in order to avoid this trope, but Reyes himself seems to be a candidate for that trope all the same.

All this, and, again, the romance options for gay men were unequal to those for everyone else. This prompted the campaign #MakeJaalBi – Jaal was, notably, the character initially assumed to be the bisexual male companion, and on release, his romance was heterosexual exclusive. But datamining revealed that there was code for him to be romanced by male Ryder. Indeed, on release, it was noteworthy that Jaal could not even be flirted with by male Ryder. Liam had a distinct turndown for male Ryder, a couple of them, depending on when Ryder flirts with him. Jaal had no such turndown.

And this worked. BioWare released the patch for Andromeda that gave Jaal a bisexual romance. However, this was the only change that Mass Effect Andromeda received in regards to the issues of the romances before support for the game ended. While it was seen as an improvement, it was also questioned why this was the only change, when... Well, I spent the better part of two pages outlining the problems of Gil’s portrayal.

(I feel I would be remiss to not mention there was also a character, Hainley Abrams, who would, upon interacting with her, proceed to deadname herself to Ryder, as if that is the only way to establish that a transgender person is trans. This was also changed in a patch after the trans community complained, and, in conjunction with the above, led more than a few people to wonder if the Andromeda script had been looked over by any queer sensitivity readers, given the earlier issues with Gil. This does go out of the scope of everything else in this discussion, but it is worth mentioning.)

When Mac Walters says players will talk about how Shepard is each of theirs, that every individual player approaches Shepard as being “their” Shepard, he isn’t wrong. He says the characters, and the relationships we have with the characters is the heart and soul of the series, he isn’t wrong. And yet... When I play the trilogy, my heart and soul are being torn apart, because I do not get to see myself in the trilogy. I am not there in this story, at least for two thirds of the way. And in that third that I am there, I feel like I am cared about less than my counterparts who are heterosexual.

The idea that “making” characters available for same sex romance changes them is like saying that there is some inherent difference in a person because of their sexualities. While it’s true that the experiences of queer people does offer different perspectives on matters, it does not fundamentally alter the person, the individual that we are. It does not change our heart and soul. Restoring the bisexuality of characters like Jack, Jacob, Ashley, Thane, or Tali is not changing who they are. Making Kaidan bisexual in ME3 did not change who he was, and restoring a romance between him and male Shepard in ME1 would not change him either.

Every game has some cut content surrounding queer content specifically, and a great deal of that content is specifically for gay players like myself. I said at the beginning that I once thought of myself as a BioWare fan for life, but that now comes with caveats. The caveats are pretty simple – while the games produced by BioWare once felt affirming, now they feel like they’re only grudgingly allowing me to be there. That if I must be there, I should just take the scraps I’m given and be content with that, rather than being treated as an equal.

I like to think that this is not the message that the people at BioWare wish to impart to their players. I like to believe BioWare’s statements of wanting to be an inclusive and welcoming environment for their players, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, orientation, whatever identity and label one chooses. But based on the experience of the last four games, of the Legendary Edition perpetuating the homophobia of over a decade ago... I have a hard time believing that.

BioWare games once made me feel like I was equal to the straight heroes across my media. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that way about their games anymore. Not when, after having the opportunity to restore the bisexuality of Kaidan – of multiple characters, really – in the Legendary Edition, I am still being told that offering representation for people like me is something that only comes grudgingly.

And if that’s what I see now... What does it say about what the future of the franchise will offer? If every game in this series involves fighting for content that, in particular, heterosexual players will see offered as the rule, what motivates me to want to continue to be invested and involved in this franchise?

[virmireisms-a]

Red Shepley and Blue Shepley :)

Red Shepley

Who’s the cuddler? I'd say Ashley. She's more touch-oriented, so while he's responsive to her touch, I'd say she's more willing to make the first move in most cases. She'll quietly initiate without question as long as he doesn't seem to mind it.

Who makes the bed? Both given they're soldiers, but probably more frequently Ashley... let's be honest, she has the better manners. He's rude :P

Who wakes up first? Shepard. I feel like he has more trouble sleeping than she does, and is more likely to just let her sleep. It's probably fairly balanced, though, because they both have traumas in their lives to deal with.

Who has the weird taste in music? Probably Shepard. I don't know if Ashley listens to a lot of music; she's more into poetry. That being said, she probably reads song lyrics as they're poetry-adjacent.

Who is more protective? This is hard to say, honestly. I want to say that initially, it was definitely Ashley, especially if including her ME2 AU. She's much more fiercely loyal early on, and incidents like Mars or the Citadel, she's quick to jump to his defense because of that loyalty. (Also, throw in that post-war with him being her SIC on the Normandy for a period that we'd talked about? Absolutely Ashley jumping to his defense. 100%. She will *always* have his back.) I do think part of this is attributed to their combat classes, too, as Ashley is, in general, the more aggressive/protective class, vs he's more team support oriented.

Who sings in the shower? Neither? Maybe Ashley? Ashley probably hums to herself once in a whiel.

Who cries during movies? Ashley. No question.

Who spends the most while out shopping? ......depends what they're buying. If it's guns, Ashley. If it's tech to tinker with, Shepard. Overall, I want to say Ashley, as some of the tech that's out there are things he could probably build from scratch.

Who kisses more roughly? Shepard.

Who is more dominant? 50/50. I think they switch, but Shepard's probably a little more so than her, by just a bit.

My rating of the ship from 1-10? We're going 100/10 because I love this ship WAY MORE than I expected to. I find it adorable that he just--kind of melts under her affection a little, and he literally tries so hard to be sweet even if he's awkward about it. And he is sweet to her--I mean, he's outright apologized for being a jerk in the past and upsetting her. Their competitive nature is also wonderful and hilarious at times. The banter is top-notch. As they'd say in G.rey's Anatomy, "she's [his] person". Also, Ashley learning to be very patient when he's being moody and temper herself to avoid a blowout is definitely interesting.

----------

Blue Shepley

Who’s the cuddler? I'd say both. Again, with Ashley being touch-oriented, she's more likely to initiate, but I do think there's a bit more balance.

Who makes the bed? Shepard, probably. I feel like Ashley would, but he just does it for her without asking. (She appreciates it.)

Who wakes up first? Probably Shepard, Ashley's probably the heavier sleeper. But I think there's more balance here compared to red shep.

Who has the weird taste in music? Shepard. He probably listens to a lot that Ashley doesn't.

Who is more protective? Shepard. You can't get any more aggressively protective than a Vanguard, lmao. But I think Ashley's more socially protective, i.e. willing to defend him with words.

Who sings in the shower? Shepard, probably.

Who cries during movies? Both. Probably depends on context.

Who spends the most while out shopping? Shepard. Because he's probably spoiling her. (Unless there's gun shopping involved... then it's Ashley.)

Who kisses more roughly? I'd say Ashley. She's more forward than him, so while she's not going to be rough, exactly, she will be aggressive.

Who is more dominant? Ashley. No question.

My rating of the ship from 1-10? 100/10. They're so adorable. They're both so awkward in different ways, him trying too hard, Ashley not knowing what to say, but they're making it work. They're just. Sweet and wholesome.

[slothssassin]

OC/Shepard as a companion

So ages ago the lovely @alyssalenko tagged me to do this, thank you, and sorry it took so super long! Originally this is a meme for your Shepard, but since I wanted to add a new OC to my Jules Shepard's story, I did it for her. Hope you don't mind!

Tagging @liaorban @starsandskies @playstationmademe and @galacticnug but no pressure of course, and feel free to do this for your Shep and not for an OC!

Picrew is here!

THE BASICS:

Full name: Tori Robin Royle

Class: Engineer

Pre-service history: Enlisted to basic Alliance training when she was 18 in 2175. After she had finished school, she traveled around for a while, performing at different places, planning to start her career as a singer. All in her family are active Alliance soldiers though so Tori felt the pressure to enlist as well.

Psychological profile: Unlike the rest of her family, Tori wasn’t meant to be a soldier. During her basic training, where she also met Commander Shepard and became their protegé, it became clear quickly that she wouldn’t be able to fight at the front line. The Alliance encourages her to improve her tech skills though, and with hard work (and help from Shepard) Tori becomes an Engineer. While she’s not a powerful fighter, Tori can quickly oversee the battlefield in combat and debuff enemies with her tech skills, actually becoming one of the most valued Engineers in her unit. Still, Tori never really felt at home in the military and didn’t stop dreaming of a career as a musician. While Shepard oversees other young soldiers as well, they developed a special connection with Tori, reassuring her to go her own way, even if that meant leaving the Alliance. To her own surprise, Tori gets assigned to a unit that hunts down batarian pirates in 2179. During an attack she gets heavily wounded though and loses her right arm. After she spent months on her recovery, she finally decides to leave the Alliance. Not much is known about her life after that - but she did become rather well known on the Citadel, finally working as the musician she always wanted to be. The Alliance loosely keeps track of her as she’s still in contact with Commander Shepard.

Rest is under the cut :)

MASS EFFECT 1:

When/how are they recruited: She won’t be recruited in ME1. She’s 26 at this time (2183), and left the Alliance in 2180 after she couldn’t get over her accident in 2179. Tori used to play the guitar in a band, but in 2182 she started her solo-career. She’s not really a celebrity but has made a name for herself as a singer, mostly performing at bars. Shepard can meet her at the Flux where she performs on Wednesday nights with her “Oldies” show - heavily influenced by 1950s Earth music.

Where are they on the Normandy: At the Citadel. She can be found at the Flux when she performs or at the Presidium

Are they romanceable: No

Personal quest: If Shepard visits her at the Flux they can talk about their common past. Tori will ask Shepard to check on her parents who she hasn’t heard from in a few months - which is not uncommon, as they aren’t close, but she started to worry. Shepard can then check the last known coordinates for the spaceship Tori’s parents worked on and find out that there was a major technical problem. The crew was trapped on the Carrier with no means to land and no way of contacting anyone. If Shepard does the mission and saves the ship, including Tori’s parents, it will contribute to Tori and her parents getting closer plus you get to see Tori perform. If Shepard doesn’t visit Tori or doesn’t do her quest, a Turian ship will save the Carrier and Shepard will hear about it in an elevator on the Citadel.

Who are their friends: Shepard is her friend, and she would get on especially well with Liara, Joker and Kaidan.

MASS EFFECT 2:

What does their dossier say: Tori Robin Royle, or Robin Royle aka RR when she performs, is a seemingly harmless, popular singer on the Citadel. But, behind the mask of a performer, she’s a retired but very capable Engineer. She has ties to Commander Shepard, could be easily influenced to help the mission, and, as a friend, might improve Shepard’s mood and thoughts about working with Cerberus, if she is recruited.

When/how are they recruited: She can be recruited in Act 2 after Shepard went to Horizon. If Shepard was in a romantic relationship with Ashley or Kaidan, Tori will send a message to Shepard, telling them she heard what happened and is there to talk whenever they want. The Illusive Man will encourage Shepard to visit Tori on the Citadel and ask her to join as she could be a valuable asset - hinting heavily that he has the means to end Tori’s career if Shepard doesn’t ask her.

Where are they on the Normandy: Either in the Mess Hall on Deck 3 or in the Starboard Observation.

Are they romanceable: No. If Shepard doesn’t romance Thane she’ll be in a relationship with him though.

How do they react to the PC returning: She will be incredibly surprised, but happy - after all, they had been friends and Tori had grieved for them. She’d be unsure about their connection to Cerberus though, and worried that Cerberus rebuilding them might have changed them. Tori would ask Shepard some personal questions, but would stop quickly as she’d feel like she’s invading their privacy. Only later on, on the Normandy, they would talk again about how Shepard feels about working with Cerberus, their cybernetics, and their personal history.

Personal quest: Tori approaches Shepard after she gets a call from her parents. If Shepard did Tori’s assignment in ME1, she will tell them that she got a bit closer with her parents, even though they don’t see each other often. If Shepard didn’t do her quest she’ll say that her parents wouldn’t contact her if it’s not important. Tori’s brother Andrew, a rather high-ranking Alliance officer, has gone missing and the Alliance wasn’t able to investigate or didn’t share any information. Shepard and Tori will meet with the Shadow Broker, aka Liara, to get information on Tori’s brother. They will discover that the Alliance did investigate but couldn’t find out what happened to Andrew either, and that his last coordinates are somewhere on a planet in the Horse Head Nebula. After following the coordinates and finding some clues they discover that Andrew had formed a small unit to hunt down a gang of Turian pirates. The pirates got the better of them though and Andrew and his unit died - their bodies can be found inside a factory, seemingly killed in action. Tori will be devastated, even though she wasn’t close with her brother. Shepard can assure her they will hunt down the pirates (which would lead to another side quest) and that they’ll do her best so the Alliance honours his death - this will cheer Tori up a little, but it’s not necessary to gain her loyalty.

Do they fight with any other companions: She has companions she’s not very close with due to them being rather different - like Miranda, Jack or Zaeed. However she rather keeps her distance than to engage in any fights.

What files does the Shadow Broker have on them: Her personal history, information on her family and video material of some of her performances. A list of songs she wants to cover, an extensive shopping list and the history of her watched videos. If Shepard hasn’t romanced Thane, then he and Tori get close - there will also be some files of songs she wrote for him (and changed frequently) and some emails they exchanged.

Can they die in the suicide mission, and how: She can die if she’s left behind as a defender as her combat skills aren’t the best.

MASS EFFECT 3:

When/how are they recruited: After the suicide mission she takes some time off. First, she visits her family and grieves for her brother. Then she goes back to the Citadel, planning to continue working as a singer. If she’s with Thane she spends less time performing and puts all her energy into helping him find a cure. She can then be convinced to come back to the Normandy after Thane dies (or for those like me who refuse to accept that Thane dies: They both come back after the Coup). If she’s not with Thane she will still join the Normandy Crew after the Coup.

Where are they on the Normandy: Mostly in the Starboard Observatory or the Mess Hall, just like in ME2.

Are they romanceable: No. If Shepard didn’t romance Thane she’s with him.

Citadel meetup (during the game, where do you meet them on the Citadel and what do you talk about): She can be found on the Silversun Strip, happy to get the chance to perform again. Other times she’s seen with the refugees, talking to them or playing the guitar for some children. If she’s with Thane, both can also be found at the Presidium. She and Shepard would talk about their past, how things have changed, and their hobbies. If she’s with Thane Shepard can also talk about his sickness (and recovery) and how they spend their time together.

How does the PC relax with them in the Citadel DLC (ie, buying gifts with EDI, watching the game with James and Vega, etc.): Tori would invite Shepard to watch one of her performances. She’d also suggest some firearms training as she feels like she needs it. Alternatively they would go to a bar or a restaurant to talk, or go shopping for supplies (and maybe more fish).

What do they say to the PC before the final battle: “I can’t believe this is it.. I’m scared Shepard, but I’ll do my best to assist you. And please, know that whatever happens - you’ve been a true friend to me, always helpful, always supporting. I’m thankful I met you all those years ago. Now let’s go. We’ll get out of this. We’ll see each other again, I know it.“

[diekaduwee]

That Ending

So I got to the end of Mass Effect Legendary Edition and discovered that was the first time I has seen the extended cut ending. On reflection the ending is a terrible as it often made out to be, but it manages to the miss the mark a number of times. If I was to point the finger at anyone problem, it was that the ending was trying to be more than just defeat the Reapers, which is was pretty much unnecessary.

Breaking it down.

Pacing.

The ending can be split into two parts. The face off with the Illusive man and the bit after that. When you are sitting next to Anderson watching Earth, it feels like an ending, it has all the emotional impact of an ending, and just want to watch Earth too while crying a little bit, or a lot. The control or destroy options could have easily be fitted in there. That didn't happen. Instead the player is forced to play on in a jarring manner and deal with a context shift. It isn't that switch itself was a bad idea, just how the player is taken from one bit to the next was rough and could have been done better.

The information drop at the very last part of the game is also an issue. If that switch was built up to during the game more, a few more clues dropped then that would have made a significant difference.

Your Choices.

ME2 is generally held as having a great ending which how your choices all lead into and build up to the final push. The various decisions having a visible impact on the events. Mechanically ME3 is pretty close, but impacts are less visceral because they are mostly just additional numbers.

ME2 managed to make small differences feel big. There is isn't much difference in ending, but getting to see Miranda turn on the TIM or here Tali genuine fear in the tunnels feel a lot bigger than there actual narrative impact. even if companions actually die the impact is little, but it still carries weight. I think this is where ME3 failed the most, but in all fairness, it was probably the hardest to pull off.

The Catalyst

My biggest problem with the Catalyst is that it takes away your victory. Unlike in the collector base where you get to feel control of events (even if the game actually gives the player less freedom), the Catalyst or Intelligence gives the opposite impression. All your choices at the end of the game are granted by the grace of the Catalyst, or least it feel like that. The Catalyst has decided that the Reapers are no longer working, but if it wanted it still just let them wipe everything out and try something different next time. By the end if can really feel like that you didn't earn much at all.

The Impact

I think my biggest frustration is that many of the choices and even before then what happens to the Citadel can undermine what you have done previously. What is the point of peace between the Geth and Quarians if next week you just wipe out all the Geth? Why bother helping anyone on the Citadel if they all end up dead anyway. Once again, these elements could be included and be great, but ME3 misses the mark with them.

Conclusion

In general i am much more favourable towards the ending now then I was in the past, i think in part because I have a better handle on its flaws. I also agree that Bioware was right not to change it, Mass Effect is a great series of games, warts and all.

[tealenko]

Somebody that I Used to Know (Chapter 2)

Chapter 2: Life Support

This one will be the most angsty of the bunch... I really wanted to show Kaidan getting worried about Shepard and being there for her before the full romantic stuff is back in the picture, to show that he really cares for her.

Summary: Shepard is having a hard time because of Thane's death. After a long shift Kaidan finds her in front of the memorial and tries his best to cheer her up.

Words: 1623 Rating: Teens and Up Warnings: Dealing with death

Previous chapter -> [link] Read in AO3 -> [link]

---------------------------------------------------

Even though it’s been years she still looks as she did before. Same gestures, same routines, same kind of conversations.

Kaidan spends some time watching her as she goes up and down the ship, talking to everyone, fixing messes, helping people… she always has something to do, just as she used to back in the day.

He is concerned about her, what she must be enduring, and after a few weeks his worries increase as he starts to notice that there’s something off, and that whatever it is she’s keeping it to herself.

He knows she used to do that quite a lot. Fake a smile and pretend everything is fine, letting her problems sink as if everything else around her was more important. He has seen her do that before and he’s afraid that with all she’s carrying on her shoulders she is doing it again.

They have a few more conversations in between missions, things starting to normalize a little, before he realizes his fears are true after a long shift.

He should be sleeping but he can’t. Even though the headache that woke him up is long gone he cannot stop staring at the ceiling and he eventually decides to go to the kitchen to grab something.

He sees her as soon as he’s out of his room, in front of the elevator, with her eyes glued to the memorial. She’s so lost in her thoughts that she doesn’t notice the sound made by the door and neither does she hear Kaidan’s footsteps getting closer to her.

He stops halfway, and a fragment of his soul breaks, shattering into a million pieces, when he sees a small tear running down her cheek.

He has seen her fight, and yell, and fall… he knows she’s been through hell and back, but he has never seen her cry before, and the sight of it is piercing a hole in his heart.

Kaidan opens his mouth to talk, but the words don’t come up. There’s so many questions traveling through his head that he wants to ask: are you alright? Is there something I can do for you? Or something you need? But he already knows the answer to all of them: no.

Instead, he gets closer to her, and looks at the memorial, giving her a few seconds before talking just in case she wants to clear her face and pretend she is alright, but she doesn’t.

“What was he like?”

“Which one of them?”

“The one you’re staring at. I didn’t get to know him, but even through the distance he kept track of me back in the hospital, I think... he was trying to protect me.”

Shepard smiles a little, reminiscing how he told her he would watch Kaidan for her, and another tear starts falling down as her mind replays pieces of the conversations they had back in the day.

“Thane was.. he was one of a kind, even at the end.” Shepard stops staring at the memorial, turning her head to her right. “You know, I... haven’t had the heart to go into that room since... well, you know.” She stammers, taking a second to breathe before talking again. “It might seem stupid.”

“It isn’t, believe me I know how...” He cuts himself in the middle of the sentence and takes a deep breath. “If you wanna try… I mean, maybe it’s easier if you’re not alone. It doesn’t have to be now, of course, but whenever you are ready… well... you only have to ask.”

Shepard looks at him for a second to confirm his offer. When he nods at her she starts walking into the room and Kaidan follows her right away.

Everything is intact. The table, the cot, the chairs… the room it’s the same one, but for her it will never feel complete again.

“He always sat there,” she says, pointing at one of the chairs. “I always came back in between missions and sat in front of him.” She smiles softly, passing her hand through Thane’s chair.

“How did you meet?”

“He was trying to finish a job, his last one, he had given up on everything… he planned to die that night but… well, I guess I avoided it.”

“How?”

“I gave him purpose, I suppose.”

“You’ve always been good at that,” Kadan says, trying to meet her eyes. “What did he do to… I mean, he seems special.”

“He was… he… “Shepard takes a second, feeling her eyes getting ready to start pouring again.” He saved me.”

“From what?”

“Everything.”

The tears start flowing and that does it. Before he has time to overthink anything he turns her and gives her a hug, wrapping his arms around her body.

He knows what she’s going through, the pain of losing someone that important to you, and even though he cannot find the words to try to comfort her he can let his actions speak for him.

She leans into the hug, burying her face on his chest and grabbing onto his shirt like he is the only thing that keeps her from falling.

Kaidan can feel a lump in his throat, and tries to hold back a tear, but seeing her like this makes him fail and he starts crying too. Maybe they are tears out of compassion, friendship or maybe out of love… He doesn’t really know. Perhaps it’s a little bit of everything.

He moves one hand to her head and they stay like that for a while, almost an eternity, neither of them having the will to break the hug. So much time passes that the tears are long gone when she speaks again.

“After what happened to me… to the Normany, I needed someone, a friend… Thane was that and more, he was family. He listened to me whenever I needed, helped me, guided me in my darkest times and never expected anything in return.”

“But you helped him anyway, didn’t you?”

Shepard laughs at his comment.

“You know me… I couldn’t stand still knowing he was suffering. He didn’t need my help, but he said he wanted it nevertheless.”

“So what did you do?.”

“We saved his son and, with time, he ended up regaining a relationship he thought forever lost. I’m glad he was able to do so before it was too late.”

“Then you helped him go in peace. I’m sure that meant a lot to him at the end.”

“I guess I did, I… never thought about it in that way.” Shepard's smile gets bigger, finding comfort in Kaidan’s words. “I knew his time would end sooner than later, I should be prepared for this, but every time I see his name out there or even if I’m close to this place… You have no idea how much time I have spent here with him, talking, laughing, reading… we did everything together.”

“Tell me about it.”

They sit on the cot and she begins to talk, and they start traveling together through her old memories. Hours pass before the silence fills the room again, with both of them contemplating how the core of the ship glows through the window.

She turns to look at him, seeing how the blue light illuminates his features. There’s something in the way he carries himself, in his expression, that makes her feel at peace. He has always had the ability to calm her just with his presence, feeling like a safe port in the middle of a storm.

“I’m so glad that you had someone like that in your life.” He says, still looking through the window. “Who took care of you no matter what. I...” His head falls a little, fixing his eyes to the ground for a few seconds before meeting hers. “I’m sorry… for your loss… If there’s anything I can do…”

“You’ve already done it… ” She moves her hand and rests it on his arm before squeezing it a little. “Thanks Kaidan, for talking to me… I think I needed that.”

“My pleasure.” Kaidan smiles at her, and the grip on his arm starts getting tighter. She smiles back at him and he feels a little bit lost for a second, it’s been a long time since he’s seen her smile like that, and his heart starts hurting again, although now it’s for a completely different reason. “Whatever you need… you only have to ask, you know that right?”

She nods at him and the silence fills the room once again, but this time they’re looking at each other. Kaidan moves his gaze through her face, noticing little scars that weren’t there a few days ago, a small bruise on her jaw and dark circles under her eyes.

“It’s pretty late, you must be tired.” He starts wondering how long she’s been awake, worrying what the lack of rest will do to her in the long run.

“Yeah, you’re right, I should sleep a little.”

“Or a lot.” She laughs at his comment, and his preoccupation warms her heart a little.

“I’ll try my best to do so.”

Neither of them want to stand up, but they are indeed pretty exhausted. She is, in fact, more tired than ever, but at the same time she feels at ease, like she’s taken a load off her shoulders, and for the first time in months, she doesn’t feel alone.

They walk together out of the room, stopping in front of the elevator, trying to spend one more second with each other before going on their way.

“Goodnight Kaidan.”

“Goodnight”

Once she is inside she turns to look at him one more time before leaving.

“Thanks again.”

“It was nothing.”

And the door closes.

Not to me.

-------------------------------------------------

Next chapter -> [link]

This one was interesting to write. I really wanted to include Thane in this fic. I feel like him and my Shepard really bonded in ME2 (friendly / platonic relationship), so his dead in ME3 really affects her. I've always loved Thane but for me the time they meet makes it impossible to develop a romantic relationship. My Shepard still wants to be with Kaidan and he is still mourning his wife. But I know there's people who goes for it, so I left it pretty ambiguous just in case you want to think there was a romantic relationship between them.

As always feel free to ask for fics or give me suggestions!!!

[dianapocalypse]

Kieran Shepard - Character Profile

(Systems Alliance vector by Deviantart User Karlika)

I got extremely carried away so let’s go under the cut

this only goes thru about the halfway point of Mass Effect 2 right now because I’m still working thru the game! I’ll update it when I’m done with ME2 and after ME3 probably.

Pre-Mass Effect 1

Kieran Shepard was born on Earth and grew up in the slums of Chicago. She was shuffled around various foster and group homes for her childhood, and the only sense of stability she knew was in the gang she was recruited to at a young age, the Tenth Street Reds. She was part of the "Clubs" suit of the organization, specializing in hitting hard and fast. She was outfitted with her biotic amps by the gang to make her more effective in close quarters combat. She grew up very distrustful of law enforcement and authority in general.

After a job went south when she was 16 and she ended up tied up in a homicide, she was given the option by the courts to go to prison or go to an 'alternative education' school funded by the Systems Alliance. It was her first taste of structure outside of the gang life, and she adapted to it better than expected, eventually falling in line with the Alliance’s way of doing things despite her initial resistance to trusting the authority of a large military organization. Upon her graduation at 18, she joined the Alliance military. She served under Captain Anderson on the SSV Tokyo, and was one of the Alliance marines on leave when the Skyllian Blitz hit Elysium. Leading the charge to defend the colony and using her years of experience of fighting dirty and coordinating disparate people in the Tenth Street Reds, coupled with her military education, she and the colonists beat back the invaders and she was awarded the Star of Terra.

After this point, Kieran’s dedication to being the Perfect Alliance Soldier intensified; there were eyes on her now, and expectations to meet. The impostor syndrome began setting in. She fought back against it by overworking herself to be better than the best, taking even the slightest mistakes as evidence she was worthless and going to be discovered as the fraud she was. This only got worse when Captain Anderson hand picked her to be his XO on the SSV Normandy.

Kieran kept a fairly stiff outward appearance and did her best to emulate Captain Anderson, thinking this was what was expected of her. Despite this, she, Jenkins and Joker managed to develop a sibling-like banter while the Normandy was being prepped for its first mission.

Mass Effect 1

Eden Prime was her first mission officially having a command, Elysium having taken place before she was promoted. Losing Jenkins so quickly was terrifying, proof that she wasn’t fit to be here. But, no time for that, she carried out the mission, recruited Ashley, was sucked into the Beacon, etc. No one seemed to blame her for Jenkins’ death, which only served to make her feel more fraudulent. Like now that she had authority, there was also a lack of appropriate consequences. Her old disdain for authority tried to breach above the water, but she forced it back down. She found some solace in Kaidan’s logical, clinical way of explaining things, including Jenkins’ death; it helped the Subjective feel more Objective, and she came to trust his opinions.

The Council’s reaction to Saren was, as it is for all Shepards, infuriating. Again, her old reasons for distrusting authority had one more ‘point’ in their corner. Still, she did her best to stay in line, to be the Soldier she needed to be, and eventually to be the Spectre she needed to be. Losing Captain Anderson to politics, though, shook her. Before, she had at least someone higher than her on the food chain to turn to when she was in over her head. Now, she was on her own.

She came to lean more heavily on Kaidan’s advice during this time, and on Joker for levity. She didn’t take well to Garrus; his history as a cop and constant complaints that red tape kept him from getting justice done ‘his way’ smacked of crooked cops on Earth. Still, when they clashed, he tended to back down and consider what she said. She enjoyed Wrex’s company, though, his old war stories reminding her of the senior members of her gang on Earth. She also enjoyed her talks with Ashley and Tali, the former because of her candor-- Kieran could at least be sure Ash was always honest with her--and Tali because she was the only person on board who seemed as out of place as Kieran felt. Plus, Tali’s a delight, who wouldn’t like her? She was fairly ambivalent to Liara, not sure if she viewed her as more of an extension of her Prothean research as a person, and they had their fair share of awkward conversations, but there’s no malice there.

Kieran’s next Major Event takes place on the Citadel, when a member of the Tenth Street Reds tries to blackmail her into using her newfound power and influence to release one of their own from prison. In the time since she left, they became an even more outwardly xenophobic organization, which rubs her the wrong way. Doing her best to be a Model Soldier, she immediately reports him to C-Sec, leading to a confrontation. In the heat of the moment, Kieran panicks. Her past is a matter of public record, but she can’t have him dragging her thru the mud, spreading lies, hurting her reputation and the Alliance’s. Her position is too precarious. They’ll find out that she’s a fraud, even if he’s lying. She shoots him, intending it as a warning, but killing him on the spot instead. (I wrote more about this here when I played that part of the game!) The Turian cop is impressed. Kieran is horrified, both by her actions, and by the cop’s approval of her killing him in cold blood. She returns to the Normandy and throws up.

I’m fudging the canonical timeline a little bit here, but I think this event is what leads into Kaidan telling Kieran the story of how he killed the Turian ‘teacher’ on Jump Zero as a way of helping her contextualize what just happened. They Bond. The rest of the game unfolds without too many more Major Character Moments that are unique to Kieran versus All Shepards. Wrex survives Virmire, Ashley doesn’t. Ash becomes the second to die under her command, the first to die as the result of an explicit choice she made to save the man she has feelings for. The guilt threatens to rip her in half, but we have a galaxy to save, so she does. She manages to talk Saren into realizing he is indoctrinated, but it’s too late for him. She leaves the council to die on the Destiny Ascension, not willing to risk losing firepower to use against the Reaper, and is infuriated when the political spin on the story becomes that she was ‘protecting human interests over galactic ones’. She does not understand why the lives of three politicians should outweigh thousands of soldiers or millions of civilians on the Citadel, and she never will.

Having never trusted Udina, Kieran nominates Captain Anderson to lead the new council. She spends the ensuing months cleaning up pockets of geth resistance with the Normandy crew before getting spaced by the Collectors, as all Shepards do from time to time.

Mass Effect 2

Kieran wakes up in a Cerberus facility and is horrified. She ran into Cerberus plenty in Mass Effect 1, and her impression of them is bad to say the least. After fighting her way through the facility under siege and being horrified by Miranda’s actions killing Wilson, she heads to Freedom’s Progress, all the while trying to figure out a way to get out of this, even tho she suspects The Illusive Man’s statements that she’s free to do as she pleases to be lies. No one invests that much without expecting returns, or demanding them. Her only solace is in Joker, who at least seems not to have changed much, and Dr. Chakwas. She tries to communicate to Tali on Freedom’s Progress that she doesn’t want to be here, tries to get her to come along for the mission, but at least for now, she can’t. She goes to Captain Anderson on the Citadel to try to bring the mission to the Alliance, the Council, anything to get away from Cerberus, but he cannot help her. Her old crew is unavailable, Kaidan’s location is classified, she can’t get messages out to any of her old crew without risking Cerberus reading them and someone has to stop the Collectors.

Even though the two had never been close, she is elated to see Garrus on Omega, in as bad shape as he is. At least he’s a familiar face and someone who doesn’t trust Cerberus. She bonds with Zaeed for similar reasons to Wrex; she likes his old war stories and he reminds her of the people she grew up with. And, he doesn’t treat her any differently because of her status. She’s still guarded around Jacob and Miranda, she doesn’t trust EDI, and she immediately gives Jack access to all of Cerberus’s files. The two don’t exactly get along, but they at least have hating Cerberus and their colorful backgrounds in common. Grunt at least is easy to understand for her; prove you’re strong, and he’ll respect you. Good enough for now.

Horizon hits Kieran like a truck. Seeing the Collectors in action is traumatizing enough; then she sees Kaidan, who she’s been wanting to talk to since she woke up, who she hoped would understand that she’s trapped, and he lays into her for a situation she feels she cannot control. He says she betrayed the Alliance, betrayed him, wonders if their relationship meant anything to her. She’s stunned. Until this point, the fact that she was gone for two years never really felt real, never sunk in. But now it’s undeniable. It’s changed her, it’s changed the people she cares about, and she feels like she truly lost everything. Even after getting his follow up email (which I highly recommend listening to the voice actor read), Kieran’s mental health is in shambles. It’s not enough to undo her self doubt spiral. He thinks she’s a bad guy now? That she’s a traitor? Fine. No point in fighting it, then. (To be clear, I personally don’t blame Kaidan at all for Horizon, nor Shepard, it’s just a shit situation, but Kieran’s self esteem is SHOT)

Kieran starts getting reckless in the ensuing missions. She starts taking a lot more renegade actions, in a gameplay sense, things she would never have done when she was trying to be the Perfect Soldier. Now, everyone already thinks she’s out of control, and she falls back into old habits. If everyone already thinks you’re bad, it’s easier to just become what they say you are.

I’ve only done Miranda’s loyalty mission so far, and the first exception to her current downward spiral into Renegade is Niket. His logic reminds her of Kaidan, as does how Miranda describes their friendship; she tells Miranda not to shoot, has a brief moment of clarity that oh, yeah, killing someone you were friends with is traumatizing, probably. Don’t do that. She and Miranda bonded a bit over that mission, I think; she still doesn’t like Cerberus, but she likes Miranda, and I think that counts for a lot for her.

That’s as far as I am in the game at the moment! Her current attitudes to the rest of the crew are: Jacob she is indifferent to but respects his honesty; she doesn’t like or trust Mordin due to his treatment of the Krogan and the sense of racial superiority over the Krogan; she likes Kelly and the engineers fine; she has a respect for Jack even if Jack doesn’t like her; she likes Garrus more now that he’s not so into his “justice by any means necessary” bit but we’ll see how his loyalty mission goes; she likes Kasumi; she is really glad to have Tali back, esp because she’s SO OUTWARDLY HOSTILE TO CERBERUS and it’s great; she likes Grunt and views Zaeed as kind of a fucked up father figure; she likes and trusts Chakwas and Joker; jury is still out on Thane but she at least can see he does his job well; and she CANNOT STAND SAMARA. Might end up going with Morinth on this playthru!

If you made it this far, holy shit, why???? Also thank you!!

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Six

Wherein we get out into space and explore a bit, and complete our crew.

And post a lot of gifs, because screenshots were lost.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

So I use the NVidia Control Panel app to take screenshots and videos.  Since it’s already running and it takes good shots it seems dumb to not use it.

I ended up being super busy this week and didn’t play much, just got through like, talking to Kaidan after the big speech on the bridge more or less for the entire week, and through Therum.  I updated my drivers a day or two ago.  And then I didn’t notice that for whatever reason, yesterday when I went to play for a few hours, NVidia decided to record videos just fine, but not take screenshots.  I probably actually mashed the button several hundred times.... but all I got were videos.

Most of it wasn’t a great loss, it was a lot of talking to the crew, and a few planetary missions which... so I’m going to have to go back and redo some of it later for screenshots.

But I thought... hey, for posting on tumblr, I’ll just make it a shorter update and make a few gifs and most this a mostly-gif post!  That’ll be fun!

...and then I spent several hours making almost 80 gifs, including a lot of what I also had screenshots for but thought making gifs would be more fun.  

I mean I was watching the last few eps of the newest season of Great British Bake Off on Netflix, and a few other shows this morning so it wasn’t just gif time... but yeah I made a lot.  So I might split this into two posts now because... that’s a lot of gifs. This post will still have a lot of screenshots, too.  So here we go!

There are so many things to love about this moment.  It’s such a great like, re-launch of the game... Bioware telling us “Okay, now you know the plot, you know all the major players, you know a lot about our world (galaxy) and how it works and who lives here, now, it’s time for you to go out on your own.”

First, it starts with being able to vent a little to Joker, which is a nice touch.  Shepard might feel guilty about taking the ship over from Anderson, but Joker also assures us here, a great preview of the way he’s tasked with helping Shepard keep it together in ME3.

I love seeing Shepard’s words affect the crew.  The swelling music, the same as the “you’re a Spectre now!!” music just underscores the journey, and what’s to come.

I used to always miss this scene by not picking the right speech option, and would be mad Kaidan was left out of this montage.  My fault!

This moment is so beautiful and epic.

...and here we go.

ALOT, btw, makes the galaxy map so pretty.  Sharper and clearer and more colorful.  

We all usually just head to Liara’s Dig Site first, right?  Unless you’re doing one of those “Pick up Liara last just to see what happens” playthroughs?  I did that once. It felt weird.  And sad, when you tell her “oops I killed your mom and I’m not sorry.”  Seems like she shouldn’t have gotten over that so quickly, but well, that’s game design.  The entire plot just doesn’t feel the same and more flimsy without Liara around from the start.

I usually do Therum --> Feros --> Noveria --> Virmire.

Well okay, first a stop at Edolus, since, you know, it’s on the way.

What a LOVELY day, nothing could possibly go wrong on this barren world. I feel like they gave us a pretty easy-to-get-around-on world to start out with.

I honestly love driving around in the mako 90% of the time?  Once you’re used to the controls, it’s not that hard to get most places you want to go.  Though I admit the Nomad in Andromeda is a big upgrade.  I kinda miss it in ME2 and ME3, though I only do what driving is necessary in Overlord and skip Firewalker like, half the time.

First, let’s check out the map...

I’m pretty sure I didn’t realize you could mark your destination on the map and it’d put a handy arrow on your radar until I started playing on PC.  Before then I was checking the map every 5 seconds making SURE I was going the right way.  *facepalm*  

Generally my scanning strategy on the planet is... just go to the things on the map, but do go to ALL the things on the map.  If I see something along the way, stop and get it.  I don’t go way out of my way to look for unmarked stuff.  Usually the UNC missions can be completed doing that + complete planet / asteroid scanning.

Oh hey here’s a guy, let’s just grab what we can off him...

UGH.  MINIGAMES.

Like I get that the minigame is a stand in for “looking for clues, are you successful in finding anything useful?” or whatever but it’s still just the worst.  A minigame is fun occasionally, making it as a gate to something like looting a body is stupid.  I guess I have to forgo actually putting points into things that keep Kaidan alive at the early levels so he can help me... loot bodies.  Cool.  Great.

Since I’m cheating in credits, all weapons and armor get medigelled almost immediately so that I don’t have to do the minigame later on when they get harder, like, ever.

The ME2 minigames at least make a little more sense than this moving puzzler thing.  That’s at least an attempt to look like some kind of code hacking or rewiring/reprogramming.  This thing is just... silly.

ME2 has a disable minigames mod... so there will be no talk of minigames from here on out.  They don’t exist after the easy minigames early on in ME1.

So I ... somehow managed to not get video or screenshots of you know the ICONIC THRESHER MAW attack on Edolus?  So please enjoy this gif I made of it back in 2013 instead.

It’s such a great fakeout and moment.  Like “Oh man how easy my goal is like right in front of me!  That’s great, so easy!” then OH HELL NO, FUCK YOU, GIANT WORM!!

These gifs are from another planet later on, but they’ll do.

My normal MO with Maws is to get out of the way, far enough that they can’t appear too close to or especially under me, but close enough that they do still show up, then stay stationary and jump over the goo while shooting at it.

YOU’RE FACING THE OTHER WAY HOW DID YOU SPIT AT ME?!

This is fine.  EVERYTHING IS FINE. We’re just A LITTLE ON FIRE.  Our shields are at full...

Oh hell, Kaidan slap some medigel on it, please.

Even though we don’t know who Cerberus is yet, FUCK YOU CERBERUS. I always bring the VS to any Cerberus mission because THEY WERE RIGHT NOT TO JOIN YOU IN CERBERUS.  Let’s keep a FUCK YOU CERBERUS count going to remember all the horrible shit we SAW Cerberus do in ME1 to remind ourselves why Ashley or Kaidan is the only SANE ONE for going “No, sorry, I’m not joining you in Cerberus.”

Deep breath

OK, let’s go get Liara.

Wrex comes with us to Therum.

Dear Lord, Therum is gorgeous.

This is real nice just a pleasant day on this thresher maw-less planet and great scenery, we’ll find that asari scientist in no ti--- WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

Have I mentioned how everything is fine lately?

Well it’s time for how I deal with most of the geth while in the Mako...

Armatures are worth five points each!

Rocket troopers are only two points, but I got a lot of them!

Stopping and fighting in the Mako takes way too long.  Push on through all the way til we’re stopped.

Hm, this is the one I should push, right?

*crickets*

Fine.

Just... real pretty.

I love this part of Therum right here.  A really great, scary fight that feels so dangerous, but winnable.  Great level design, too.

Then this happens.

Does everyone’s hair do that in this cutscene, or just mine, or this hairstyle?

Also, ME3 has a mod now that lets chracters use their correct weapons in cutscenes, my eternal devotion to the modder who could do that in ME1.  None of these characters use assault rifles in-game!!

I’m fairly certain I have played and replayed this fight more than any other in ME1.  AKA RUN FOR COVER OH SHIT AVOID THE BOMBS AND LASERS FLYING AT YOU AT ONCE PLEASE DON’T DIE COMPANIONS PLEASE KILL SOMETHING I CAN’T DO THIS ON MY OWN AHHHHH!!! 

This time around, I died my first time, actually did really well the second time, and decided to go back and record the fight for gifs and... won, barely.  The gifs would not be good.  Wrex and Kaidan didn’t last long. 

Anyway, It’s a great cutscene, but hoo boy I wish it were skippable.

Okay but what were these ruins *for*.  Also, real lucky that they had the boss fight way up here instead of down where Liara was.

Speaking of Liara...

Hello Doctor T’soni!

I have a lot of questions like... how long have you been in that bubble?  How are you sustaining it that long?  How long has it been since you’ve eaten?  If I didn’t come get you until after Virmire, would you have been holding that bubble up for the weeks in between then and now?  

Ah well, you’re here now, and I suppose I’m going to owe you my life later so... welcome to the team.

You gotta admit that’s one badass entrance, though uh, if the forcefield is still up, where did he come from?  Doesn’t matter.  Wrex, let’s kill us one of your brethren (sorry.)

I’ll just *assume* that Liara is too tired from holding up her stasis bubble she was in to actually be USEFUL.

I love the chaos of running the fuck out of there.

Texture popping is still an issue even with a decent computer and texture packs, but at least it’s quick now.

Also I really feel the loss of this conference room in the future games.  The awkward oval table never quite feels the same.  But also, uh, this is a lot of room taken up in this small ship for eight chairs and a holoprojector.  You gotta think there’s more uses for this space than just that.

But yeah, I love these check-ins, it’s a chance for everyone to get together and really hash out what’s going on, as well as reinforcing the plot to the players in a more natural way.  Having Liara this early will let us understand the Protheans better at an earlier stage, even if it turns out she’s wrong about some stuff (though at the time this was written, she was right for all everyone knew.)

Wrex and Garrus don’t talk much here, probably because you can make it through the game without one of them.  I did a “didn’t recruit Garrus” playthrough in ME2 once.  They change like one or two lines then Garrus goes back to talking about Old Times.  So like you CAN, but you really shouldn’t not recruit Garrus, because Bioware didn’t do a great job changing anything aside from your initial greeting during the Omega Archangel mission.

Not recruiting Wrex, though.  Wow that’ll have consequences later on.

OK!  So the gang’s all here, and this post is already very long.  Next time: Let’s go talk to everyone for awhile, and do a few more sidequests because we can’t go back to the Citadel til our persuasion is high enough to grind Mikhailovich’s arguments into the dust!

[sights-on-the-scifi]

Violence in MASS EFFECT.

Alright Tumblr i’m gonna try even harder to satisfy your content laws... God I hope this posts.

MASS EFFECT 2 Marked a change in the creative direction of the series in many ways not just limited to style and presentation. But also in how it tackled violence in its narrative and gameplay.

It developed a near uncritical affection for its violence. Removing any semblance of scepticism towards its application with exception to a few storied and mechanical instances all for which will be talked about as we progress.

VIOLENCE IN GAMES AND OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA AS A WHOLE.

Before we begin ill like to explain to you why violence in a video game is so fun to the player on a mechanical basis. You see video game violence is complete fantasy that much is obvious just from looking at it I hope, it has no real basis in reality. For example the simple fact being that you are interacting with simulated combat via mouse and keyboard on a flat 2D surface, not with your hands, feet, arms, firearms, grenades and depth perception... Some games like the first CALL OF DUTY title go out of their way to communicate this very important distinction to you with its death quotes system, which communicates a famous anti war saying every time you die on the digital battlefield, and you do die a lot in the game so the words always have time to sink in...

The chest high wall games of wack a mole and close range engagements you typically find yourself in are inherently ridiculous, but something that is true about these portrayals is the deep psychological stuff that occurs in the back of your mind through play.

Fight or flight. Those instinctual, primal/animal like areas of your mind that govern responses to threats and general dangers that were extremely useful during our species evolutionary development as hunter gatherers, if a game is designed well enough it can take advantage of those responses and insert them into game-play loops which encourage positive reinforcement when taking down digital combatants... These are the things games tap into and the things military companies etc also tap into as part of training or recruitment programs especially in modern digital age armies where focus groups have to find new ways of getting young people interested in soldiering without conscription and a national crisis to absorb individuals into service positions. Anyone has the capacity to be violent and become a killer you need only the right training and psychological conditioning and in the army that is one part of basic. Popular video games and films provide you with that psychological training in a very subdued, consumer friendly fashion and that is through desensitisation. “Image training”

It is turned into a power fantasy, for military recruiters it is also an effective strategy for recruitment purposes.

“War is delightful to those who have not experienced it” Erasmus.

Violence in real life is brutal, random and horrifying even in a domestic sense to any sane or normal person with the capacity for human empathy (Though sometimes there are forms of desensitisation that override this), not even most soldiers who undergo psychological conditioning to be able to kill are immune to this trauma. Violence is not fair, violence is not graceful and more often than not it is also used irresponsibly in any situation where in it is absolutely necessary to be used, even then those situations are themselves questionable. Especially in present day conflicts waged overseas out of sight and mind of the general public for wealth, oil and resources.

I have experienced forms of domestic violence throughout my childhood such as being beaten by my parents and having animals ordered to attack me, I understand how awful it can be to live in absolute fear and experience excruciating pain and misery as a result of this so making a post like this I hope makes you think about this a bit more from that personal lens too.

Games and movies on their own dont cause violence that much is certain from studies no matter how vivid their depictions get, but they do desensitise you to its realities in strange and weird ways both mechanically, visually and also sometimes in the narrative. (Until we can someday reach the point where in we can perfectly simulate reality and violence there is no way in hell military companies are going to rely on it exclusively to train soldiers). But they can rely on the positive mental associations they bring to warfare.

HOW MASS EFFECT 2 PORTRAYS VIOLENCE.

MASS EFFECT is by no means a game that is used as a vessel to drive up real world military recruitment, there is no indication of official army endorsement since it is just a trilogy of science fiction video games after all. But it does include violence that tries its very best to make you the player think its wicked cool in addition to finding it fun if the game-play loop is effective enough. Which in ME2 it is especially effective and the marketing wanted to push that.

So how does MASS EFFECT 2 and to an extent MASS EFFECT 3 make its violence so fun and “Cool”... Ill break this down into a variety of factors starting with your enemies.

DEHUMANISATION OF COMBATANTS AND KNOWING YOUR ENEMY.

MASS EFFECT 2 takes players to the Terminus systems and other parts of the galaxy that do not fall under official council law, so naturally this means there is an seemingly over abundance of private military and mercenary organisations. But ME2 is not interested in what these things represent completely, more so it is interested in using their presence as a convenient means to provide the player with thousands of disposable henchman to shoot, stab, pull and blow up in a variety of fun and exciting ways!... (Those gamified ways) All the while giving you the excuse to not feel bad while doing so no matter how cruel you are in the application of your response to incoming fire.

In fact throughout the whole ME2 experience you probably kill more mercenaries comprised of Turians, Humans, Asari, Krogans, Vorcha and salarians, more so then you do the Reapers or Collectors who are supposed to be the primary antagonists of the series... Which it seems is pretty antithetical to the overall themes of uniting the galaxy to fight a common threat which threatens all life, perhaps you have already done the job for em in this regard. What you are seeing here is a form of precision engineered dehumanisation of combatants for purposes of providing a player with something to shoot and kill without much thought and sympathy... and the military also employs this tactic in real life to dehumanise other humans for soldiers to shoot and actually kill.

Make your enemies faceless, inhuman or “irredeemable” cannon fodder and the feelings you get for uncritically slaughtering them all are palpable, especially with such entertaining gameplay systems that make the whole endeavour that much more exciting. The same was true for Cerberus in ME3 effectively turning the whole organisation into faceless storm-troopers with filtered voices and intimidating armour again another form of enemy dehumanisation in addition they are all conveniently indoctrinated so thats another justification hooray!. More bad guys to shoot right?

You dont have to feel bad if there is nothing to feel bad about right? You are Commander Shepard! Or a soldier in the military you are right in all actions and decisions you make by virtue of the fact you fight for a cause like stopping the Reapers.

VIOLENCE AS AN ONLY MEANS TO A DESIRED END.

Despite MASS EFFECT’S status as an RPG experience, the games rarely if ever provide you with substantial opportunities to employ diplomatic solutions to various problems where in it would seem feasible that it can be at least attempted.

Most of the time you will be exhausting dialogue options on a screen and shooting faceless thugs behind chest high cover throughout the entire experience.

In the narratives themselves this refusal to resolve conflicts peacefully are actively supported by characters or hand waved as being frivolous by the plot and sometimes even Shepard himself. Kill or be killed rains supreme in again, But in real life that mindset is far from being realistic or preferable.

THE BADASS CHARACTER CLICHE.

Something that will severely age the MASS EFFECT 2 experience is its over reliance on making every single character a BADASS stereotype. Even beloved Mordin Solus falls victim to this strange fixation with violent attributes and histories being considered wicked cool bro! In combat Mordin will utter lines that hint to the fact that he very much enjoys the killing he is participating in.

“Killed that one!”

“Thought I was harmless did you?”

“Oooh headshot!”

“Here... Enjoy” (Plays during times he sets people on fire with his tech attacks)

He also lists at one disturbing point in the story, all the ways in which he has killed people. Which includes using lethal drugs and... farming equipment, thats funny right? Actually MASS EFFECT 2 seems to include a lot of moments like that in where people list off hilarious methods they have used to kill people.

Every character in one way or another has the capacity to kill and does kill, they kill quite a lot of people actually and in some cases this is celebrated with gleeful enthusiasm by the plot.

Even Shepard can participate in a little bit of casual BADASSERY no matter if you are renegade or paragon. Be that shooting through hostages, threatening Batarian thugs, shooting Konrad in the foot or generally acting like a ruthless prick all for the fun of it like when you trick a injured mercenary into thinking he is going to die from minor wounds. This is a stark contrast to ME1 which at least tried its best to codify violent or aggressive acts as morally questionable. You are the first Human spectre in that game after all a shining beacon to all humanity in the new frontiers of space, what you do in that story is emblematic of the attitudes the whole of humanity express going forward.

Jack is probably the most blatant example of this new approach to violence the series took for reasons I have already described in previous posts.

To be clear, I’m not saying MASS EFFECT 2'S inclusion of glorified fantasy violence is entirely a bad thing. I just think that if you are gonna include violence you best be a little more intelligent when it comes to its usage in mechanics and narrative. Because it can be a powerful thematic tool if used right, in some cases there are moments in ME2 wherein it does get used extremely well but those moments are also still few and far between.

We can do so much better.

[bloodiedbiotic]

Thanks to BioWare and their well-practiced ability of not giving us lore for key things  ( ie. the Lazarus Project ), not much is known in detail about Shepard’s reconstruction. What we do know is it took two years and over four billion credits to complete; and even then, it wasn’t officially complete as Wilson’s betrayal put a halt to things  ( thus why Shepard has facial scarring )  but it was still a success with Shepard regaining full neurological activity.

Not to mention that throughout Mass Effect 2, you can upgrade Shepard’s cybernetics through the research terminal in the Tech Lab. So, after garnering small bits of description text from those upgrades and screen caps of the Lazarus Project, I’ve decided to go into detail about Shepard’s reconstruction during the Lazarus Project and elaborate on the extent of their cybernetic implants.

As far as the details go regarding Shepard’s body and what’s what, it’s stated that cybernetic implants were used to reconstruct their skeleton, which, as evidenced by the Lazarus Project cameras and scans, was heavily damaged due to crashing through Alchera’s atmosphere groundside. Granted, the damage could have been a lot worse; it’s clear their hardsuit absorbed much of the damage, the breastplate more than likely reaching its breaking point and falling into pieces  ( as evidenced by Legion and Liara’s apartment in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC ).

Still, the damage done to Shepard’s body as a whole was enough to make them nigh-unrecognizable, a salarian named Tazzik stating that it's “hard to tell if it's even a man or a woman, blown to hell like that” when observing their body in the stasis pod. Of course, while this was also a playful reference to Shepard’s gender being player-determined, it still meant that their body went through so much damage prior to reconstruction, they couldn’t even be recognized. As Jacob said, “meat and tubes”. 

As seen here, there’s a lot of the damage done to the skeleton, though I feel that a good part of it is focused on the upper body: rib cage, arms, and the spine  ( granted, the legs are definitely looking pretty gnarly as well ).  Look closely at the lower half of the spine between the rib cage and pelvis and you see a large part of it is missing. We’ll get back to that later. 

One interesting thing to notice is the little amount of damage to the skull. If the Normandy Crash Site DLC is played, you can find Shepard’s old N7 helmet and have it kept in their cabin, and upon inspection, it’s relatively intact. And it’s a good thing it is, because it kept the most important part of Shepard intact: their brain. While Shepard was confirmed to be clinically brain dead — thank you, Mass Effect 3, for that — their brain was intact and that more than likely saved tons of time for the Lazarus Cell.

Of course, Shepard needed more than a functioning brain to get back to action. All those breaks in the skeleton had to be fixed and considering that there’s nothing in ME2 or ME3 regarding the Lazarus Cell regrowing any bones, it becomes apparent that most, if not all, of Shepard’s skeleton was reconstructed via cybernetic implants. Remember that part of the spine that was missing? We actually see cybernetic implants being augmented for that missing section!

We also know it’s that part of the spine being augmented due to the scene overlooking Shepard’s repaired body.

In addition to the cybernetic implant for the spine, other parts of the body share the same blue-tinted highlight, indicating there are other cybernetic implants in place. From the screen caps, there’s one in Shepard’s left forearm and two in the right  ( and one in the upper right arm ), one in their right shin, as well one in their right quad and two in their left. Something I noticed that I find interesting is the five ribs highlighted on the right side. Looking back at the damage sustained to the skeleton, it’s reasonable to assume that those ribs were completely replaced with cybernetics.

Now, that’s just covering the SKELETON.

It’s stated that the Lazarus Project moved from simple organic reconstruction to bio-synthetic fusion. I believe that the simple organic reconstruction started and ended Shepard’s internal organs and circulatory system. The extensive damage to Shepard’s skeleton is what led the move over to bio-synthetic fusion. It’s comfortable to say that Shepard’s skin was more than likely all bio-synthetic fusion, given the facial scarring they can experience through the games. 

Now, throughout Mass Effect 2, there are upgrades — I’m sure everyone knows about those. There are different categories for the upgrades, but the one I want to focus on are the Cybernetic Upgrades. There are three that can be upgraded multiple times throughout the game:

—  LATTICE SHUNTING: Strong synthetic fibers can be woven through the skin, dramatically reducing damage taken from most attacks. These fibers also act as a medi-gel conduit, improving healing. —  MICROFIBER WEAVE: Perforating the muscles with micro-fibers increases overall strength and decreases the potential for muscle damage from exertion. —  SKELETAL LATTICE: By reinforcing the skeleton with a synthetic weave, bones can be made almost unbreakable. In the event of bone trauma, medi-gel conduits allow for bone regeneration in a matter of days.

Taking these into consideration is honestly insane; Shepard’s skin has synthetic fibers woven through it, and their skeleton, which has already been augmented in numerous places with implants, is reinforced with a synthetic weave. The latter honestly explains why in Mass Effect 3’s Citadel DLC, Shepard is able to walk off that fall through Ryuusei's fish tank without any broken bones.

These upgrades also explain how Shepard can achieve and display certain feats of indescribable strength and durability across Mass Effect 2 and 3, including but not limited to:

—  Matching the strength of a fully grown Yahg, even hitting it hard enough to knock it back —  Headbutt a Krogan on their crestplate hard enough to stagger them without sustaining any injuries —  Knock out the fully-armed guards on The Project  ( Arrival DLC )  with their bare hands —  Survive high falls with no impact on functionality  ( Vancouver and Citadel DLC ) —  Lift up the Virmire Survivor  ( while they are clad in battle armor )  fireman-style with ease —  Use weapons such as the M-98 Widow and M-300 Claymore, guns that both tout in their description that a normal human is not capable of firing them without serious injury; the Widow can shatter an ordinary human’s arm after firing and the kickback on the Claymore has enough force to break a human arm —  Lift the giant metal slab that was on top of them and one of their squadmates following the destruction of the Human Reaper Larva

Now, with these augmentations, Shepard’s humanity comes into question. Technically, Shepard is a cyborg. Something about that, however, doesn’t quite feel right. It’s basically told by the games that they’re a super soldier, already having gone through genetic enhancement as an Alliance recruit to improve their natural human abilities: their strength, speed, reflexes, etc. Though, that was genetic engineering and comparing that to bio-synthetic fusion is like comparing apples to oranges. Shepard’s humanity and their take on it is a headcanon for another day!

This is definitely something I have as a personal headcanon, but in regards to Shepard’s facial scarring, I fully believe that morality has no part in the healing process. I believe that stress has an adverse affect on those incomplete cybernetics, thus as Shepard gets into more stressful situations, the scars worsen. This explains how Shepard can turn themself in to the Alliance with their face laced with glowing scars after destroying the Alpha Relay and then face the Committee scar-free, having spent the past six months in Vancouver on house arrest.

Also, this is something I’ve seen people talk about, but people question how their Shepard can be biotic in Mass Effect 2 when they played a non-biotic class  ( Soldier, Engineer, Infiltrator ). Well, according to developer documents, Shepard had already been exposed to eezo in utero, being born with latent biotic potential. It was only when they received secondary exposure to element zero at the age of fourteen that biotic abilities began to manifest. Fast forward three years, and Shepard is “officially” detected as biotic and outfitted with L3 implants at the age of seventeen. Upon enlisting at eighteen, it’s completely possible that Shepard chose not to develop their biotic abilities as an Adept, Vanguard, or Sentinel in the Alliance. Yet, they are still capable of biotic abilities  ( ie. Barrier, Throw, Lift, Stasis, etc. ). This explains how a Soldier / Infiltrator / Engineer Shepard can use biotic abilities in ME1.

With ME2, Shepard is given a new biotic implant, an L5 that is one of three variants. My guess is that Shepard’s combat style is determined by their implant while they’re fighting for their life aboard the Lazarus Research Station. An L5n-implanted Shepard finds themself capable of charging across the battlefield, while an L5x-implanted Shepard discovers their ability to generate a singularity. If they’re not fitted with one of those two implants, then that leaves the other four classes with their own abilities, and Shepard still being able to generate mass effect fields  ( for the sake of bonus powers for Soldier / Infiltrator / Engineer ). 

This continues on into Mass Effect 3, only that Shepard is stuck with the implant they received from the Lazarus Project, but because of just how powerful a biotic Shepard is, they’re still capable of abilities such as: Reave, Flare, Slam, and others. As Kaidan states in the Citadel DLC, he worked to learn how to Reave, meaning it’s more than possible for Shepard to learn other abilities. 

I’ve just about tapped out everything I had for this headcanon, even going further than expected to bring up those extra details about the facial scarring and how Shepard can still use biotic abilities as a non-biotic class. I know this was a long read, and if you’d like to share your thoughts or opinions, I’d love to hear them! ^^

[words-writ-in-starlight]

aeondeug replied to your post

“Tag Game: Post the last sentence you wrote and tag as many people as...”

MASS EFFECTYRATH???

So when I play ME sometimes my partner hangs out in my room with me and I commentate to him, and he was hanging out with me while I was doing the Reaper IFF mission in ME2. And if you click around during that mission you can find the journal fragments from the scientists who boarded the dead Reaper and fell under its indoctrination, which features one of the most DOWNRIGHT CHILLING lines of the entire series: "Chandana said the ship was dead....but even a dead god can dream. A god--a real god--is a verb....it's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."

And I paused the game, abominations and husks all over my team, and turned to my partner who knew nothing about the Kencyrath, and said very intensely "I AM GOING TO WRITE A KENCYRATH AU OF THIS WHERE TORI IS SHEPARD AND THE REAPERS ARE PERIMAL DARKLING AND JAME IS THE VANGUARD OF THEIR INVASION WHO BROKE FREE AND RAN, AND I AM GOING TO TITLE IT 'EVEN DEAD GODS DREAM'"

And now I am doing exactly that. Some high points below the cut, in which I approach Mass Effect canon with my usual tender disregard for the rules and Kencyrath with an uncommon disregard for spoilers.

High Councillor Gerridon was one of a long-extinct, broadly human-like alien species, looked to as brilliant scientists and the creators of the mass relays and the Citadel by the current Council races.  His people, the Shanir, were wiped from existence mysteriously about fifty thousand years ago, and no one knows why.  The truth of the matter is that Gerridon betrayed the previous Citadel to the Reapers in return for immortality.  He sort of got it--he's the heart of the Master, a Reaper made from the genetic material of his people.  Jamethiel Dream-weaver was his twin and consort, who aided him in the annihilation of the Citadel and everyone aboard by using her species' natural biotic abilities to hold the entire populace in thrall until the Reapers came.  For this service, and for the potential she showed to be a weapon in future cycles, she was spared.  However, this massive expenditure of power began to erode her control over her abilities, and in turn her mind, and so Jamethiel was placed in stasis when it became too much for her to bear, until the next cycle came to an end and the Master decided to try a new method of harvest.

The new method of harvesting a cycle is named Jamethiel, for her mother, and when she's seven years old, the blood of her mother's ancient race finally comes to full bloom.  Jame sees her father, the disgraced general of the First Contact War who has been court martialed and drummed out of the Alliance for his recklessness that obliterated the Fifth Fleet, point a gun at her nursemaid's head, and without help, without an implant, without anything, she throws up a suddenly clawed hand and hurls Ganth into a bulkhead with a biotic shove.  The explosion of power is gone as quickly as it appears, and when Ganth picks himself up, he drives his daughter out into the void in an escape pod.  Aliens are less than animals, in Ganth's opinion, and while lashing out against him might be an unforgivable betrayal, it's the new, strange claws on Jame's hands that earns her exile.

Jame hasn't lost all her memories entirely, although they're horrifically hazy for the first decade and change after her escape pod is lost in the black.  Something about indoctrination at such a young age seems to have eaten away her ability to form memories at the time, although she's retained quite a few skills whose origins she's not quite sure of.  Somewhere in that fuzzy time period, she was given a biotic implant lightyears more advanced than anything the Council races can boast, so that she could focus her abilities with more ease--the splice of human and Shanir is dicey at times, and she seems to have gotten all the power and none of the biological road blocks that would normally keep her from becoming a living supernova.  It took a long time, the labor of years, for Jame to pull herself out of the endless black water of indoctrination.  One breath at a time, building biotic walls around herself.  It was impossible.  She did it anyway.  Then she heard that the latest cycle was almost ready for harvest....

Back on Ganth's ship of exile, Torisen grows up.  People die.  Torisen is not a biotic, is not an alien, is nothing like his sister.  He is a loyal and obedient son.  Until he's not.  Torisen Talissen, possessing the clothes on his back and not a single credit more, finds the turians before he finds the Alliance, and it's Primarch Adric Ardeth who sees to it that this young boy doesn't starve before he's old enough to become a soldier.  It's also Primarch Ardeth who gets him into the Alliance.  There are more strings on that arrangement than Torisen knows.

His father's name is Torisen Talissen's greatest secret, when he finally reaches Earth, the Alliance, because Ganth Knorth is a war criminal whose methods in the First Contact War were notoriously brutal, whose final stand with the Fifth Fleet cost thousands upon thousands of lives and left every ship under his command shattered and drifting.  Only a small handful of his commanders know the truth, and then Torisen is hand-selected for N-7 and half his life is classified anyway.  He's not a biotic, he's not an alien, he's a good soldier and the most stubborn bastard any of his comrades have ever seen, and the mystery of where he came from fades under the glamour of his exploits.  The Urakarn colony is the one everyone knows about.  No one questions why Torisen fights tooth and nail to take Burr, his most trusted lieutenant, and Rowan, the medic he dragged from the sand, everywhere with him, after Urakarn.  Even when he's assigned as XO on the Gothregor, second in command to Captain Sheth Sharptongue, they go with him.  

On the Gothregor's maiden voyage, they're assigned to Spectre Ashe, no last name given, an asari that Torisen knows as a friend of a friend (the friend is Harn, he's already on board because Ashe requested some muscle), and orders to take her to Eden Prime.

While the Gothregor plots her jump to the first mass relay, Jame steals a data chip and her armor and the first assault rifle she gets her hands on, and runs, not stopping even when she blunders into a Beacon that the Master has been experimenting with.  Her shuttle's navigation doesn't survive her rather explosive escape from the Master, so she slaves the thing to the first geth ship she sees and hopes for the best.

The geth ship is headed for Eden Prime.

Other highlights:

Tori actually super is a biotic, don't tell him, Shanir bloodlines allow limited biotic use without an implant and he's been unintentionally using it for years

I wanted Harn to be the captain of the Gothregor before she's given to Tori, but then I realized that the Best Outcome here is that Harn and Marc are both krogans but on diametrically opposed ends of the Self Control Spectrum.  Harn is your classic krogan berserker, Marc is a really good cook who is also prepared to fuck you up with a shotgun if you mess with Jame.  Also I just.  Really love Sheth and wanted him to be here.

Pereden is Saren, the Ardeths are all turians, you know I'm right

Torisen is the first human Spectre

The first narrative arc here (the contents of the first game) mostly feature Tori's in-group as squad mates, ft: 

Lt Burr, a sniper/assault rifle specialist

Kirien J'ran, an asari biotic who specializes in the history of the Shanir

Harn Griphard, a krogan mercenary whose record is actually pretty legit, shotgun specialist and berserker

Lt Cmdr Donkerri Caineron, disgraced grandson of an Alliance admiral, assigned to the Gothregor as a spy, pistol/shotgun specialist, he dies on Virmire

Grimly nar Weald, an upbeat quarian machinist, a friend of Tori's who's been on his Pilgrimage for a bit, a shotgun/tech specialist

Not a squadmate, but in the whole first arc the pilot of the ship is very quiet and unwilling to talk but over the course of the narrative Bel-tairi warms up to people a little

Jame is not a squadmate, she and Tori are both main characters in the first arc and if this was a game you'd have to take both always, but Jame is a biotic powerhouse and Tori is an assault rifle/melee specialist, don't question me

Tori and Jame stop Sovereign the Horde and still no one believes them about the Reapers, even though they make Torisen a whole-ass Council member and Jame a whole-ass Spectre (she doesn't even HAVE a military rank, she's not even PART of the Alliance, everyone on her ship calls her "boss" or "Jame")

It somehow does not improve things, re: Jame and Tori's relationship, to be more or less imprisoned on a ship together fighting the geth, and they'd die for each other but also everyone learns real quick to keep their heads down when they start fighting, until....

The Gothregor is destroyed not long after the Horde, and Jame Knorth (Tori and Jame take their real last name again, after everything, might as well redeem the family line while they're at it) is one of the casualties, killed saving Bel-tairi.  Tori has two years to become intimately familiar with the fact that he may, actually, have fucked up.  Then his sister shows up in his office with a new ship called the Tagmeth, new scars lacing her face and shoulder, and new horrible information about the fate of the galaxy.

Admiral Caineron is not actually running nearly as much as he thinks he is, he is being puppeteered by Matriarch Rawneth of the asari, but he's the one bankrolling the Tentir program and technically speaking Brier and Rue are his spies.  In the second arc, squadmates include:

Marcarn, an unnaturally calm krogan mercenary who's an intermittent presence in the first game and takes an intense interest in making sure Jame eats regular meals, shotgun specialist and Local Tank

Brier Ironthorn, genetically engineered perfect soldier, stolen from her father by her mother at a young age, orphaned not that much later (Tori brought her mother’s tags back to her), Tentir officer assigned as Jame's XO who turns on Caineron pretty quick-like, biotic mostly specializing in your standard push/lift/slam assortment rather than Jame's more intense reave/warp/singularity skillset, she refused to place a control chip in Jame's implant during the resurrection

Rue Mindrear, Tentir officer and self-appointed quartermaster of the Tagmeth because Jame has no idea what she's doing, assault rifle/tech specialist

Bane, ex-prisoner with unusually erratic biotic abilities (Jack, okay, he's Jack, Ishtier tried to replicate legends of Shanir biotic powers and Bane hates/loves Jame enormously even before they figure out that they're related, he dies on the suicide run no matter what)

Grimly again, he and Jame are kinda tight by now and she politely pretends not to know that he's keeping Tori elaborately posted on their activities

Timmon Ardeth, grandson of the Primarch, looking to prove his father's ultimate innocence, sniper/electronics specialist, insufferable due to constantly hitting on Jame

Kindrie Walker, not a squadmate but the new medic, who grows a spine over the course of a year of yelling at Jame to sit down and let him look at her broken ribs, Rowan got a job at Huerta so she could be close to Torisen

Aerulan, a geth mobile platform named after the quarian word for Legion, sniper/electronics specialist

Probably some other people but Jesus this is long already

Tori comes back to the Tagmeth for the third arc, after the Reapers start to hit hard, because he's in some minor-to-moderate hot water with the Council on account of using his accesses to help Bel steal the Tagmeth and break his sister out of her own trial.  This is also where they finally get to make full use of the datachip Jame stole waaaaaay back at the beginning, because the Reapers are here and she is the only person in the galaxy who has a record of previous cycles, including some odd schematics they can’t unravel.

They find a Shanir in stasis, his name is Terribend, and while he's too weak to fight for them, he might be able to help decode some of those schematics...especially the one labeled as the Ivory Knife.

The third game includes a Greatest Hits squad assembly of those left living and also features Jame and Tori actually functionally working together for once.

Um...I have no idea if I'll ever write this whole thing because I’m realizing it would be forty bazillion words, but I'll probably yeet snippets of it into the void from time to time.

[pip-n-flinx]

Little bit of Mass Effect Salt Incoming

So, one of my favorite twitch/youtube personalities recently released a video about his favorite series ever, mass effect! While I was initial thrilled (I didn’t even know he played ME tbh) I gotta say I’m a more than a bit salty about it. I still love him and and watch his stuff, clearly ain’t nobody perfect, but I want to get some things off my chest and most of the people I know who are into ME follow me here. SO here goes.

Here’s the thing, he absolutely hates one of my favorite characters from the franchise. He made jokes about leaving them to die, not regretting it, how horrible a character they are, and even references several moments in the first game as the source of his opinions. He goes into far less details from the 2nd and 3rd games in the franchise, but contends that they failed to change his mind.

Now, it will come as no surprise to some of you that he hates Ashley Williams.

For the sake of clarity, I’m going to get some stuff out of the way right here before explaining to you what he said and why I disagree:

- I have done multiple playthroughs of ME. One included the Ash Romance.

- Most of my playthroughs I romanced Liara.

- My opinions are not ‘ASH IS BEST GIRL CHANGE MY MIND’

- Before someone @’s me with some bullshit, I’d just like to observe I’ve heard a ton of Ash Hatred since I got into the fandom. I would be surprised if you were bringing something new to my attention when it comes to Ash. I’ve spent a great deal of my time playing this game and even more following other content creators of any medium I could find. Please Please Please PLEASE don’t waste your time regurgitating something you heard someone else say and I SWEAR BEFORE ALL THAT IS GOOD if I hear one more “She’s just a ____” comment I will end you no character in this series is “just” anything.

- THIS IS NOT KAIDEN ALENKO HATRED. I actually find the Virmire decision heart wrenching every time.

- Finally, before we move on, I’m not telling you how to play the goddamn game. I have enough trouble with Virmire, Horizon, and the Coup d’etat missions in my own playthrough, I have no intention of re-living the guilt and stress of it for someone else’s Shepard. I got enough emotional baggage from this game already thanks. MOVING ON “Ashley is a space racist.” ALRIGHT listen up kiddos. Her Grandfather, the one who started the Williams Curse? He did that by creating and signing off on Cerberus during the First Contact War. The pro-human splinter group founded during the first encounter and conflict with aliens that humanity experiences? That was her Grandfather’s Idea. And yes, she begins ME1 with some pretty racist commentary. “Can’t tell the aliens from the animals” is a reprehensible line. Now, I don’t think she says anything reprehensible when she talks to Shepard about not liking the aliens on the Normandy, but I can also agree that it comes from a place of fear and discomfort, and that definitely contributes to the argument that she’s a space racist. HOWEVER: what a lot of the Ash haters miss is a moment after Virmire on the Citadel, in the wards, when a isolationist xenophobic populist party known as the Terra Firma party approaches Shepard asking for their support in the next election. This comes after Ashley has had a chance to work with Wrex, Garrus, Tali, and Captain Kirrahe. She DRAGS the leader through the muck, stating that while she likes some of the parties platform the party is full of racists and the refusal by the Terra Firma leaders to denounce the racist comments and racists members of the party is enough to lose them her vote already. She gets so heated about Shepard has to command her to stand down. You don’t get to cherry pick her interactions from ME1 and ignore her character growth. She also falls right into her big sister roll with Tali almost immediately. She tells Tali that it took years to get women accepted in the military. When Tali responds that the Migrant Fleet doesn’t have the luxury of sexism, she replies “sounds great, but I don’t think I could get used to the uniform.” In ME2 she refuses Shepard’s offer, despite earlier referring to Shepard as “a god back from the dead.” Why does she refuse? Because Shepard is working with Cerberus, the organization her GRANDFATHER CREATED. She’s all for the Alliance, and the Alliance is either working with or directing the Citadel Council having earned an honored spot after the Geth attack 2 years before. She is committed to working with the government that is dealing with the other races and refuses to work for Cerberus even though you could argue its in her blood and definitely in her upbringing. Honestly, I can’t fathom why people bring up this scene when trashing Ash, this is a moral stand from a woman accused of being a racist and the flip flop here even from people in the fandom I respect is baffling to me. In ME3 there are a whole plethora of scenes you could pick from but I want to talk about her reuniting with Tali. She immediately tells Tali to drop rank with her, observing they’ve been through enough together that the rank isn’t important. This is especially poignant to me if Tali herself is exiled after the events of ME2.

“Ashley is just a soldier, she doesn’t have any personality beyond that.” BULLSHIT she doesn’t. She’s struggled to find her place in the military due to the family stigma around her grandfather, so she hangs a ton of her personal identity on her family. She’s a supportive older sister, an adoring daughter, at least passingly religious if only because “there are no atheists in a foxhole.” She calls her sisters regularly, tells stories about growing up with them, mourns her late father and reads a ton of poetry, demonstrating a more critical appraisal of literature than Shepard, Vega, Joker, or even Kaidan (”its about not giving up?” is that the best you’ve got Shep? thats pathetic.) Whats more, she doesn’t just read one poet, she picked up some poems from both her “sappy” dad and more pragmatic mom. She’s also a great window to military families in ME, which you can’t really say for Kaidan or 2 out of 3 Shepard backstories. I think in a story about a war to end all wars it would be a disservice to not write about all the widowed men, women, an aliens who are living not quite far enough from the war.

“Why can’t she just trust Shepard? Why does she have to refuse to help in ME2 and then be so standoffish in ME3?” Honestly? If my lover had been declared KIA and then magically came back working under cover for a shady organization with a history of criminal crimes like murder and torture I TOO would have trust issues. I feel like we often gloss over just how horrible an organization Cerberus really is. Even ignoring the “they rebuilt you” angle which gets EVEN CREEPIER in the first Mars mission in ME3 I can’t imagine immediately flip flopping between Cerberus are war criminals to my best friend presumed dead is working for them to its alright now totally nothing out of the ordinary that compromised my opinion of their judgement took place.

So I just can’t see the Ashley Williams hate. I can see leaving her behind (no I can’t, no one ever dies in this series, how dare you tell me anyone dies?) on Virmire. But I just can’t fathom the hatred.

With all that said Kaidan is not boring, Ash is more than a racist soldier, and I love all the characters in the ME trilogy. Thank you. Good Night.

[sky-ham]

tyramir replied to your post “After my first ME2 playthrough it’s consistently bothered me how most...”

While you are correct here, "realistic" storytelling isn't necessarily "better" storytelling. The audience would get extremely tired extremely quickly if they were stonewalled by all of their former companions and treated with nothing but suspicion right off the bat. In the interest of expediency, Kaidan/Ashley were the sacrificial lambs of realism, and everyone else represented what the audience wanted - a heartfelt reunion with friends.

Yes, I agree with this and am aware of why it panned out as it did. I don't mean to have everyone go hard on Shep as Ash/K, but to varying degrees at least. There are 8 returning allies from the SR1 - including Joker, Dr. Chakwas, and Anderson. Barring Liara, who was involved in Shep’s recovery, everyone else besides Ash/K do not show the slightest bit of doubt in Shep’s identity or in Shep’s survival after the destruction of the Normandy. It stretches the suspension of disbelief a little too far. 

A show of doubt can be achieved with a few well-placed lines, and the transition from doubt to belief can be self-contained in their own missions, not necessarily spanning all the way to ME3 like that of the Virmire survivor’s. For all intents and purposes of keeping as close to the finished product as possible, it would be great if at least one other companion besides Ash/K needed a little convincing. 

[rahkshirock]

Andromeda thoughts: midnight edition

mass effect is an interesting topic because it is a lot of people’s formative game series. i can respect that

personally I grew up with educational homeschool games like leapfrog, reading rabbit, cluefinders and fucking zoombinis

I got pretty deep into bionicle too but my folks wouldn't buy the games for me.

my first experience with a real plot was starcraft, which was pitch black toned sci-fi with a straight up villain victory at the end

in highschool i finally got some freedom and got portal 2, deus ex: human revolution and a little later, dishonored. throw in a little bioshock mass effect and halo, but only the first of each. mostly i watched let’s plays

so recently, since i’m not financially or educationally drowning, I am catching up on the series i kinda missed. most recently, Mass Effect.

I first played Mass Effect 1 in freshman year of college while procrastinating. I didn’t have a lot of fun, and it was the steam version that doesn’t have any dlc, so I stopped a few missions into 2, since the draw of the series is porting your character and decisions into the next game

3 years later, I finally acquired the entire mass effect series, including all dlc, and played through beginning to end, 100% completion of all quests, all side content, romancing garrus with femshep

and it was good. I enjoyed it. objectively speaking however, it has some issues. there are a few series retrospectives on youtube that explain this better than I can, but to put it simply:

mass effect 1′s intro is ham-fisted and frontloads you with 3 bad guys (including the reapers with no setup) in the first 30 minutes, before you even take control of the Normandy. structurally however, it was sound. the mako sections broke up the main missions, and so the pacing was alright despite only having 5 main missions (getting liara, stopping the thorian, stopping benezia, virmire, illos/citadel) and most people didn’t like the mako levels because the levels didn't like the mako and its stupid physics model. the ending was solid however, and ended on a fun optimistic note

mass effect 2 managed to have at once a more realistic, down to earth setting, a more personal story, and the most highlights of the series. Most people consider this to be the best one, and for some of the game, it is! however, the main plot and the suicide mission broke down for me because 1. you only fight the collectors 3 times, 2. legion, an intensely interesting squad member was locked behind the threat of losing my crew by getting him before 2 missions from the end, and 3. I put zaeed as the secondary squad leader in the protect the engineer part, and tali got shot in the face with a fucking rocket launcher. it took me out of the whole experience because I had to load a previous save, and looking it up, the assignments feel arbitrary. Miranda can lead the mission despite jack JUST saying she’s a horrible leader? but the founder of the blue suns can’t? what? what clues did I have to sniff out to prevent a VERY IMPORTANT CHARACTER from dying?

all I'm saying is, me2 is great, but it’s structured badly. it is a series of short stories, not all of which are even tangentially related to the existing universe.

also Jacob Taylor “I didn't think the alliance was doing enough to help people so I quit and joined a FUCKING TERRORIST ORGANIZATION EXPLICITLY FOR HUMAN SUPREMACY” “also if you romance me I cheat on you in the 3rd game” is the worst character in the game and I had to LOOK UP how not to trip into accidentally romancing him because just being nice can trigger that flag and his loyalty mission is FUCKED as far as implications go.

and ME3, while having the highest hights in the series (Tuchunka, Rannock) also undeniably has the lowest, with an ending that will be recorded as the worst ending to a good series of all time, and its main plot is inconsistent and generally poorly written before it completely breaks down in the 3rd act.

all of this proves that good games don't have to be perfect, and that a game can still be fun even if you hate the way its written (ME3)

so then I saw that Andromeda was only 20 dollars, and even though I had heard it was a tire fire of a game, I picked it up

after 115 hours, I can say that I do not understand gamers. this is not only a worthy mass effect game, it is the best one in its entirety. the volume of joy I’ve gotten from this game is equivalent to what I got from the ENTIRE original trilogy. the space you explore is tightly focused, and yet deep and richly detailed.

after 2 games, they finally reintroduced a working vehicle and designed levels around it. they tightened the cast and made your entire crew, not just your squadmates, interactable and fun. gone is the pseudo-military backdrop of the first game: npcs and squadmates come from a variety of backgrounds, from rescuing people from natural disasters, a human who trained with asari commandoes, or a turian smuggler who you would EXPECT to be the new Garrus, but instead puts on a minigun and tech armor. drack and peebe are definitely archetypal of the asari adepts and krogan battlemasters weve had through the series but heres the thing

tropes are not bad

take one facet of the new villain: the kett. they like to make more kett by injecting other species with a serum that causes them to mutate into them borg stile

now mass effect has had this as a plot point since minute 3 of the first mission of the first game: humans are turned into husks. 

however, how do characters react to these revelations?

just joking. in the original mass effect there is exactly one asari who is scarred mentally after she was attacked by a banshee that used to be part of her squad.

1 character, at the end of the series reacts to the tech zombies in a meaningful way.

1.

meanwhile, every squad member has thoughts on this revelation. jaal, the Angaaran squad mate, who has been fighting kett for decades French resistance style, grapples with the revelation for the rest of the game. you see many other resistance fighters give up, unable to kill those who used to be Angaarans, others you find are galvanized by the atrocity. every plot point has people in-game debating the implications. every party member of course gives you a personal loyalty mission, but they also ask for small favors, ask stupid questions, go on their own with big plans and need to be helped out of sticky situations. even if you think that the characters are cliché (which they aren’t) they have such a volume of interactions that each is fully fleshed out only a third of the way through the game, and continued to grow and change perspectives, arguing and falling in love. the loyalty missions are often main-plot relevant and sometimes wacky one-offs that bring in minor characters. I heard that if you want, you can steamroll through the game without stepping foot on 3 different planets, but that's not my style, and the final battle incorporates the allies you’ve made into gameplay seamlessly, tying off nearly every single combat capable person from the story’s plotline, in a sequence that puts HALO to shame.

on hard difficulty with 100 percent completion, I got the golden ending, and saw a LOT of people come to help me. even so, it was excruciatingly difficult, and I had to utilize every bit of skill and preparation I had to make it through

so to people who said that there are no consequences in this game for your actions? its the first entry in a new series so sure they can only kill minor characters. I get that. 

so they went for pure gameplay effect on said final battle. you can have very few people assist you at all.

I at least would not have made it without my effort, and so it was worthwhile and necessary to have done those sidequests. in my book, THAT is what ME3′s ending should have beenlike in the first place.

I don't really have a conclusion other than that yes, Andromeda adds just a few new ideas into the series, and more than a few recycled ones

but iT does it with skill, style, and occasional subtlety. it is, I’d say a GOOD FUCKING GAME, better than the original trilogy except for the very best of 2 and 3.

except for the inventory and weapons crafting system, that can go straight to hell

good night!

[servantofclio]

I noted in a comment to @tetrahedrals the other day that I’d been lacking some focus and motivation in writing lately. She asked what I was working on, or avoiding working on, if I cared to share details.

So this is going to be a bit of a rambling post in which I talk a little bit about what’s going on as well as list off some WIPs.

It’s not quite a matter of avoiding working on things, I don’t think... or maybe it is. Right now I’m not feeling a core, driving motivation to work on any one thing -- nothing has quite seized my imagination and demanded to be written, which means it becomes difficult to buckle down and work my way through a tricky bit of writing, whether that’s plot or an appropriate emotional resolution.

I suspect the underlying problem here is that work has been stressful and especially energy-consuming for the last couple of months, which hasn’t left me with a lot of leftover energy to put into writing. I have hopes that I’m starting to emerge from this particular tunnel of work-stuff, but I also can’t assume things will magically get easier as I do. Once I lose momentum on a writing project, it takes some effort to get back into it.

Possibly a related issue is that I have a lot of WIPs going on. Each time I get attached to an OC, I develop a bunch of story ideas for them, and that does tend to divide my attention. That also means my hard drive is a wasteland of partially-finished stuff. Some of these are half-baked ideas that don’t really need to be finished. Some of them are good ideas that I over-complicated to the point where they seem like work, and probably need to scale back to have any hope of finishing them. Some of them are longer arcs that require some plotting out. Finally, there are a number of things where I want to hit just the right emotional notes, and that often involves a bunch of tinkering and rewriting.

Works in Progress:

The Other Commander Shepard. I’ve actually started to make progress again on this, at least. It needs some plot-work, and it needs me to pull plot and character arcs together as it approaches its final arc.

Julian/Tali stuff. I want to rewrite the ME2 romance progression just a little; I started this a bit in Exile. I also would like to write about the ME3 Rannoch plotline in their continuity, and I have an idea I really like for a post-game story for them. Basically, I think they both have interesting character arcs (a Shepard who fails a lot, a Tali who’s both romanced and an exile) that I don’t see explored much in fic. I’d also like to explore a few other relationships in this universe -- I started something about Julian and Dr. Chakwas (since he’s known her since childhood), and Julian’s moms are important to me.

I also have a bunch of partially-written things to do with Andromeda. The one most likely to get finished is set in the immediate aftermath of the game, with POV alternating between Zoe Ryder, Zach Ryder, and Liam. What’s going on and how does the twin get integrated into the group, stuff like that.

That Hawke/Varric thing I’ve been promising for ages. I’m going to do this. I swear. But it needs some kind of plot? I think? What are the circumstances in which these two stop being idiots and figure themselves out, and how many friends are needed to shove them together?

Branwen Lavellan is kind of on hold as I’ve been waiting to see what’s going on with the next DA game. I’m getting impatient, though. :/

Twinquisitor stuff. Inquisition Holiday is close to done. Lost and I still have hopes of finishing Tome and Shield; in the meantime, I have a number of partly-written things about Simon and Dorian, including some Trespasser-related stuff. Once Inquisition Holiday is completely posted, I might start posting more of the Trespasser stuff.

There’s a Hawke/Fenris story that I started and haven’t gotten around to finishing, also.

I think that’s most of it? Oh, whoops, there’s also the Sewers to Stars endgame fic that’s been on the back burner for a while now. Those are the major stories / characters competing for attention. It’s a lot of different situations and moods and plot elements going on.

Writing out the list does make me more excited to get back to these, at least, though it doesn’t make it any easier to prioritize, heh.