#i have never played mass effect

[milkywayes]

GARRUS VAKARIAN: DATABASE IMAGE ACCESS. > PT. 1 : 2160, 2166, 2170. > all files backdated according to user preferences: (terran_coordinated.calendar).

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[c-rowlesdraws]

/blows off a cassette hand-labeled "headcanon Tali" and slams it into the tape deck

if the boy quarians at least get to have those cool bundles of cables coming out of the backs of their helmets, surely the girl quarians have something similar under the hoods they wear. The way I draw Tali and her people might be stubbornly different from canon in some ways, but I can believe it's not too far off.

[painterofhorizons]

Reda Shepard, Beginning of Mass Effect 1 (Legendary Edition) Earthborn, Sole Survivor, Infiltrator, paragade, and really fed up with how often people call her out for Akuze. AO3 | fic masterpost | Akuze masterpost | tumblr tag (arcane filter version of this post)

[thefloatingstone]

Of everything I was expecting of the party at the apartment, the one thing I was not ready for that made me yell "THANK YOU" out loud was Shepard saying to an arguing Miranda and Jack "would you two just fuck already?"

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF MASS EFFECT: VIRMIRE

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard and Cmdr. Dominik Shepard With: Lt. Kaidan Alenko, Gun. Chief Ashley Williams, Urdnot Wrex, and Tali'Zorah nar Rayya Ft. Special Guest Appearances by: Spec. Saren Arterius and Sovereign There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own, you cannot even imagine it... Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (2021)

[antennatoheaven]

finding games when you like robots is hell bc all i'm getting recommended is games with cool fighting robots but what i mostly care about is if i can be friends with said robot. the answer tends to be no

[fereldanwench]

this might be the year i revisit my mea stuff

maybe

idk could just be the coffee talking

i had started going all again shortly before cp77 just took over my ENTIRE EXISTENCE and i do still have such a fondness for one dr harry carlyle

i love my ryder, too, although i think i'd have to age her up even more to get back in that headspace. iirc, i made her 25 instead of 22, but as of this april i feel like i can officially say I'm very much pushing 40 and I'm good to leave the 20-something experiences far behind lmao

and i was taking some pretty cool shots using the basic features of ansel and having no idea what i was otherwise doing. it'd be fun to revisit ~*virtual photography*~ in another game. i don't think anything is gonna come close to vp in cp77 tbh but mea is a very pretty game with very pretty characters uwu

[sarahlancashire]

mass effect is mass-effect-ively discounted atm so i decided to give it ago!! i tried to make my shepard pretty close to her default look but without the annoying hair in her face & with some of my own flair 💖

[spikrock]

so like, last month or something i picked a used copy of mass effect andromeda up for 4 dollars at a gamestop, but at the time my dad told me i shouldnt. he said it was my money, but that he heard the game wasnt very good and that he wasnt going to play i think i got like past settling podromos when he decided he WAS gonna start a game yesterday he told me he was very happy i didnt listen to him and bought it anyway because he was having a lot more fun than he thought he would 😌

i win

[bitchesgate3]

I will always be in favor of playersexuality. Until the day game designers have more nuanced understandings of sexuality.

Game designers still only understand flamboyant gay, mean lesbian, slutty bisexual, and quirky queer. Any identities not those are not even recognized. And any complex characterizations are only afforded to "normal" straight characters.

While Larian gave us a step in the right direction, they are still coming from the above framework and trying to reiterate upon that. And you have to understand that framework in order to recognize why their implementation is still somewhat shallow while still being the best offered compared to other games in the genre.

In the past, every time I encountered a woman in a romanceable video game who correctly represents my own experience of bisexual/pansexual identity, she was only romanceable by male characters.

These are women who have tough exteriors on a spectrum of "bitchy femme", a midpoint of "aloof androgynous", to "tough masc". All points that are gnc in some way, but all are women who also have a soft interior that is interpreted as conventionally feminine.

Game designers interpret these two traits (outward gnc and inner softness) as a nullification to heterosexual woman. Time and time again. Falling into the stereotype of being a woman for a man to tame.

Will they ever understand? Or do people as a whole just don't understand the many ways bisexuality can take shape?

[ermakeys]

Get to know you video game edition! Tagged by the wonderful @ratcready

No pressure tags for @fooolisher @jekyllnahyena @certified-anakinfucker @jadowdra and anyone else that would like to! :)

Guess who forgot to add the blank as well 🙈

[chroniclesinlacuna]

the desire to learn how to draw is always very strong. but it's never as strong as when I remember mass effect and the desire to be able to draw kaidan and casey hits with full damn force.

[simmonsized]

I have been sick for seven days straight now and I am getting pretty tired of it!!!!

[skullmoss]

i got that mass effect brainrot

kaidan is just never going to make it out of a ME1 playthrough alive unless i play as male shepard (which i won't......)

because like.

the Plot of having shepard flirt with him and having them skirt around a romantic relationship only for him to die on virmire is /fistclench/

it's too good. sorry man i use you as angst fodder for my shepard. i'm saving her for hot alien ass in ME2.

[gay-loser-tibalt]

My issues with the Krogan dilemma can boil down that is feels like a thought exercise drenched in colonial beliefs written by settlers to justify genocide