#make mass effect inclusive

[who-is-riley]

I'm sorry I just had to

[reasonsforhope]

A new treatment combining ReCET and semaglutide could eliminate the need for insulin in type 2 diabetes, with 86% of participants in a study no longer requiring insulin therapy. The treatment was safe and well-tolerated, and further trials are planned to confirm these results.

Groundbreaking research presented at UEG Week 2024 introduces a promising new treatment approach for type 2 diabetes (T2D) that has the potential to greatly reduce or even eliminate the need for insulin therapy.

This innovative approach, which combines a novel procedure known as ReCET (Re-Cellularization via Electroporation Therapy) with semaglutide, resulted in the elimination of insulin therapy for 86% of patients.

Globally, T2D affects 422 million people... While insulin therapy is commonly used to manage blood sugar levels in T2D patients, it can result in side effects... and further complicate diabetes management. [Note: Also very importantly it's fucking bankrupting people who need it!!] A need therefore exists for alternative treatment strategies.

Study Design and Outcomes

The first-in-human study included 14 participants aged 28 to 75 years, with body mass indices ranging from 24 to 40 kg/m². Each participant underwent the ReCET procedure under deep sedation, a treatment intended to improve the body’s sensitivity to its own insulin. Following the procedure, participants adhered to a two-week isocaloric liquid diet, after which semaglutide was gradually titrated up to 1mg/week.

Remarkably, at the 6- and 12-month follow-up, 86% of participants (12 out of 14) no longer required insulin therapy, and this success continued through the 24-month follow-up. In these cases, all patients maintained glycaemic control, with HbA1c levels remaining below 7.5%.

Tolerability and Safety

The maximum dose of semaglutide was well-tolerated by 93% of participants, one individual could not increase to the maximum dose due to nausea. All patients successfully completed the ReCET procedure, and no serious adverse effects were reported.

Dr Celine Busch, lead author of the study, commented, “These findings are very encouraging, suggesting that ReCET is a safe and feasible procedure that, when combined with semaglutide, can effectively eliminate the need for insulin therapy.”

“Unlike drug therapy, which requires daily medication adherence, ReCET is compliance-free [meaning: you don't have to take it every day], addressing the critical issue of ongoing patient adherence in the management of T2D. In addition, the treatment is disease-modifying: it improves the patient’s sensitivity to their own (endogenous) insulin, tackling the root cause of the disease, as opposed to currently available drug therapies, that are at best disease-controlling.”

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to conduct larger randomized controlled trials to further validate these findings. Dr. Busch added, “We are currently conducting the EMINENT-2 trial with the same inclusion and exclusion criteria and administration of semaglutide, but with either a sham procedure or ReCET. This study will also include mechanistic assessments to evaluate the underlying mechanism of ReCET.”

-via SciTechDaily, October 17, 2024

--

Note: If it works even half as well as suggested, this could free so many people from the burden of the ongoing ridiculous cost of insulin. Pharma companies that make insulin can go choke (hopefully).

[husband-steve-cortez]

I kid but the Kaidan being explicitly inexperienced to being domineering pipeline is important to ME.

[female-malice]

Did you know that estrogen weakens the muscles and makes them exactly like a cis woman's? Did you know trans men on T are put in women's leagues still, when the T causes muscles to grow?

As a trans man, educate yourself.

Did you know that estrogen weakens the muscles and makes them exactly like a cis woman's?

When you say "estrogen weakens muscles and makes them exactly like a cis woman" you are regurgitating extreme misogyny. Women are not weakened men. We are not made out of Adam's rib.

When males take estrogen, that does not weaken male muscle mass. Trans-identified males take other medications to suppress testosterone. That has nothing to do with estrogen. Estrogen does not suppress muscle growth at all.

You are thinking like a misogynist. You think estrogen=women and women=weak so estrogen weakens muscles. That's anti-scientific. You understand that right? That's just bigotry. Stop thinking like a misogynist. Stop thinking testosterone=good and estrogen=bad. Take some time to learn about how natural female hormones strengthen and fortify the female body. Educate yourself.

Did you know trans men on T are put in women's leagues still, when the T causes muscles to grow?

There are zero female athletes on testosterone competing in professional women's sports. Testosterone is a banned substance. Gaining an unfair advantage through testosterone doping results in a lifetime ban from professional competition.

Athletes who use cough medicine and heart medication to manipulate their stamina and recovery do not receive lifetime bans. They receive temporary bans because the effects of their doping are temporary.

Testosterone is a lifetime ban because the long-term effects of testosterone are permanent. These decisions by WADA are backed up by thousands and thousands of studies. The science is indisputable. Athletes who engage in testosterone doping permanently exclude themselves from sports. And artificially suppressing testosterone in male athletes does not negate the effects of male puberty.

Women's sports competition is for female athletes regardless of how they identify. Men's sports competition is for male athletes regardless of how they identify. Open sports competition is for everybody regardless of how they identify. Everyone is included as long as they're not doping.

Testosterone suppression might temporarily cause a male athlete to lose their competitive edge against other male athletes. However, it is not female athlete's responsibility to include male athletes who lose their competitive edge. A female athlete is not a male athlete that takes testosterone suppressing medication. A female athlete is a female athlete. Taking medications and cross-sex hormones does not turn males into females. And it does not turn females into males.

Tinkering with your body and hormones is a voluntary activity. When you make a choice, you live with the consequences.

Many people interested in body building use banned substances to change their body. They do this knowing it will bar them from competing in sports. They're okay with this. They don't go around protesting. They don't go around clamoring for inclusion in sports. They make their choice to exclude themselves from fair sports competition and they're fine with it.

Your body modifications are your own choice. Your body modifications are your own responsibility. When those modifications ban you from competitive sports or dull your competitive edge, that's your consequence to deal with.

[evidence-based-activism]

IOC Study on Transgender Athletes Severely Flawed

So, to a certain extent, the question of "should transwomen be able to compete female sports?" is an ideological question (i.e., "should identity supersede reality?").

That being said, there's a recent report [1], funded by the IOC, that is being used to "prove" that transwomen do not have a biological advantage over non-trans women. This report is severely flawed and does not actually lend support to the idea that transwomen have no biological advantage in sports over female people.

(I will mimic the language used in the report (e.g., using "ciswomen").)

Significant differences noted by the report that do NOT support transwomen's inclusion in women's sports:

Transwomen were substantially taller than ciswomen

Transwomen had more lean/fat-free mass than ciswomen

Transwomen had better lung function than ciswomen, as measured by forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in one second, and peak expiratory flow. (See the next section for a discussion on the ratio.)

Transwomen had greater hand grip strength (a proxy for overall strength measurement)

Transwomen had higher absolute peak power (lower extremity) compared to ciswomen. (See next section for a discussion on the relative measure.)

Transwomen had the same "absolute strength" as cismen

The data showing no significant difference between transwomen and ciswomen has substantial flaws:

The sample size was too small to reliably determine differences in bone mineral density

For lung function only the FEV1:FVC ratio was lower for transwomen, but the values are generally within the normal range for both groups. The impact of this difference is therefore questionable, as the transwomen have greater absolute values on each measurement and the ratio is not showing any abnormalities. In addition, the effect size (size of the difference) is much smaller than the effect size of the absolute differences described above. The conclusion here is simply that the participants do not have any obstructive respiratory diseases, and the transwomen have greater absolute lung function. (Although there are better tests for this.) There is also one outlier in the transwomen group that is likely driving this relationship in the ratio; unfortunately they do not perform the expected control analyses to demonstrate the retention of results without the outlier. [2]

The researchers decided to examine power in the lower extremities relative to lean/fat-free mass, which yielded a lower result for transwomen compared to ciswomen. However, this methodology make absolutely no sense. We have already established that transwomen have significantly greater lean/fat-free mass, and this paper is interested in determining equitably in sport performance. In general, sports aren't divided out by mass (and certainly not by lean mass), therefore we are interested in absolute differences, not in differences adjusted by some other factor. (Particularly not when that factor is established to be significantly different between transwomen and ciswomen!)

The same criticism applies to their analysis of cardiac function. But even more importantly, "the most crucial variable influencing VO2_max was not assessed in the present study" which is a significant oversight given the stated goals of this paper.

There are numerous other limitation and issues with this report:

This study is of "cross-sectional design, making it challenging to establish causation or examine if the performance of athletes changes as a result of undergoing GAHT"

"The athlete training intensity was self-reported. Therefore, the results may suffer from selection and recall bias." [emphasis mine] -> In other words, these results may be "comparing apples and oranges" with varying rates of fitness impacting the results.

"The athletes participating in the present study represented a variety of different sports, and this would have undoubtedly impacted the results of the study as different sports stress different training and sports modalities." [emphasis mine] -> This is a significant limitation, as comparing the strength of a ciswoman weight lifter to a transwomen distance runner (or vice versa) is meaningless. It's true that measures of fitness tend to correlate, but comparing across sport disciplines for highly competitive sports (where they are focusing on improving specific characteristics) distorts the results. (They explicitly note this: "Exercise type, intensity and duration all have an impact on physiological responses and overall laboratory performance metrics.")

"Social media recruitment leaves this study open to sample bias"

"The gender-affirming treatment of the transgender athletes was not controlled"

"The participants were not screened by a clinician before participation, and any medical conditions were self-reported"

The transwomen in this study all suppressed testosterone to ciswomen's levels and increased oestradiol above ciswomen's levels. This is a limitation because this degree of success in hormone suppression is uncommon, meaning that even these these poorly-supportive results are likely inapplicable to the majority of transwomen. [3]

There is a significant conflict of interest: this study was funded by the IOC after they had already changed the rules to remove the "hormone suppression" requirement [4]

All in all, this study is a classic case of researchers misrepresenting their data in the study's abstract. The data they actually collected shows that transwomen on hormone suppression maintain significant advantages over ciswomen. Further, the flaws in the study limit the applicability of their results.

---

In addition, there are other studies that contradict this result:

This review [3] discusses numerous sources describing "the inherent male physiological advantages that lead to superior athletic performance and then addresses how estrogen therapy fails to create a female-like physiology in the male"

This review [5] found "the performance gap between males and females becomes significant at puberty and often amounts to 10–50% depending on sport" and that "longitudinal studies examining the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed."

This study [6] found that transwomen "generally maintained their strength level" during "gender-affirming therapy".

This study [7] found that all physical advantages were present after one year and that some are retained even after years on hormone suppression. They also specifically hypothesized that "gender dysphoria could stimulate the opposite behaviour [differences in exercise habits] in transwomen, decreasing push-up performance and explaining why transwomen performed fewer push-ups than [cismen] prior to starting oestrogen." This motivation difference likely won't apply to elite athletes, which further supports the idea that transwomen athletes should not be competing with female athletes.

As this position statement [8] indicates we know that there are substantial differences in athletic performance for male and female people.* However, there is little high-quality, definitive evidence concerning the effects of hormone suppression/replacement on people's athletic performance. The current state of evidence suggests that hormone suppression/replacement fails to bridge the physiological gap between male and female people, but we need further higher-quality evidence to definitively prove this.

(That being said, the burden of proof here is on the people attempting to initiate a change; that is equitably between transwomen and female people should be (have been) established prior to eliminating biological sex-separation.)

*Before anyone jumps on this: this is not a moral difference. There is absolutely no reason why running faster or lifting heavier things would make someone "better". The biological difference in performance exists, but it does not in anyway suggest superiority of men over women. Beyond that, it is unsurprising that men outperform women on traditional sports given that sports were designed by and for men. In sports that cater to women's physiological advantages (e.g., endurance, flexibility), women outperform men. [9]

---

So, given all this, what would we actually need to make determine transwomen's relative advantage over female people?

The "perfect" study would involve (at least) these elements:

Random selection from the desired population(s) of transwomen (e.g., top-ranked athletes in a specific sport, non-athletic, etc.) with matched (for population) non-trans female and non-trans male controls

Observation (not self-report) of activity level prior to, during, and following a standardized treatment (hormone suppression/replacement) initiation

Continual measurement of various physical and athletic performance, preferably with a range of laboratory (e.g., spirometry, body measurements) and naturalistic (e.g., actual sports competitions) tasks along with monitoring the treatment and clinical/health issues in all participants (again, not via self-report)

Large enough sample sizes to allow for sufficiently powered tests of all groups/differences of interest

A double-blinded assessment approach (or "placebo" controlled) such that both the researcher assessing the participants and the participants do not know what is being evaluated until the study is complete. For example, you may tell one half the transwomen participants that you are tracking the long term health effects of the intervention (hormone therapy), while you tell the other half that you are assessing differences in athletic performance as a result of the intervention. This will allow for the evaluation of demand characteristics like the ones impacting [7].

There are likely even more factors I have not currently thought of. Of course, completing the "perfect" study would likely be almost impossible. It would certainly be impossible to do for every population of interest (e.g., Olympic weight-lifters, adolescent track and field athletes, sedentary office workers) at the same time.

That being said, a study that fails to include all of these factors (particularly the blinded approach, matching of control participants, and sample size) is not going to meet the standard of evidence needed to make decisions of this magnitude (i.e., choosing to change the priority from biological categorization to ideological categorization). In reality, we would likely need many studies that individually evaluate each group of interest (e.g., transwomen olympic-level weight-lifters vs female olympic-level weight-lifters), each applying as many of the ideal study characteristics as possible.

In conclusion, the IOC has failed to perform their stated duty to regulate and ensure fair competition in sports. There is no current evidence suggesting that transwomen have lost their male-advantage in sports, much less any evidence suggesting they are at a disadvantage.

References below the cut:

Hamilton, B., Brown, A., Montagner-Moraes, S., Comeras-Chueca, C., Bush, P. G., Guppy, F. M., & Pitsiladis, Y. P. (2024). Strength, power and aerobic capacity of transgender athletes: a cross-sectional study. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 58(11), 586-597.

Al-Ashkar, F., Mehra, R., & Mazzone, P. J. (2003). Interpreting pulmonary function tests: recognize the pattern, and the diagnosis will follow. Cleveland Clinic journal of medicine, 70(10), 866-881.

Heather, A. K. (2022). Transwoman elite athletes: their extra percentage relative to female physiology. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(15), 9103.

“International Olympic Committee Issues New Guidelines on Transgender Athletes.” NBC News, 3 Jan. 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/international-olympic-committee-issues-new-guidelines-transgender-athl-rcna5775.

Hilton, E. N., & Lundberg, T. R. (2021). Transgender women in the female category of sport: perspectives on testosterone suppression and performance advantage. Sports Medicine, 51, 199-214.

Wiik, A., Lundberg, T. R., Rullman, E., Andersson, D. P., Holmberg, M., Mandić, M., ... & Gustafsson, T. (2020). Muscle strength, size, and composition following 12 months of gender-affirming treatment in transgender individuals. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 105(3), e805-e813.

Roberts, T. A., Smalley, J., & Ahrendt, D. (2021). Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators. British journal of sports medicine, 55(11), 577-583.

Pitsiladis, Yannis MMedSci, PhD, FACSM; Harper, Joanna MS; Betancurt, Jonathan Ospina; Martinez-Patino, Maria-Jose; Parisi, Attilio MD; Wang, Guan; Pigozzi, Fabio MD, PhD. Beyond Fairness: The Biology of Inclusion for Transgender and Intersex Athletes. Current Sports Medicine Reports 15(6):p 386-388, 11/12 2016. | DOI: 10.1249/JSR.0000000000000314

Ro, Christine. The sports where women outperform men. (2024). From https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240731-the-sports-where-women-outperform-men

[willowbythebog]

There's this moment in Mass Effect 2 when one of your companions makes a comment about treating the Geth (a synthetic race of sentient robots with shared memories) the same as other species (other being organic here) and you can choose to give the Renegade (the fuck you I get shit done morality) option and say "The Geth aren't like us" or something similar, which Shepard (you) obviously intends in a racist, organics-first way, and your other companion, Legion (a member of the Geth race) turns to you and says "Exactly" and Shepard is low-key taken aback by this and Legions continues "We aren't like you; why should your morality be applied to us?"

And like, this whole thing between synthetics and organics is a big conversation across this game and the next in the series and brings questions of inclusivity and understanding and idk, I think about it a lot.

The idea of wanting to treat other people in ways that I think are good is a pure intentioned one, but all of us are different and what "good" looks like is different, and the games take this idea and make it very stark and dramatic, but the core idea is there.

I think about this a lot.

[felassan]

Article: 'The Industry Is Divided On How To Write Video Game Romance', by Kenneth Shepard

Baldur’s Gate 3 is the latest big game to follow an inclusive (but divisive) trend in video game courtship

excerpts from the article are under a cut due to length and mentions and discussions of queerphobia, biphobia etc.

(note: I have censored the term "pl****sexual" throughout these quotes).

Some excerpts:

"In 2011, BioWare’s Dragon Age II portrayed its four main romantic conquests as bisexual, allowing them to be pursued by either the male or female version of main character Hawke. At the time, I was a young, mostly-but-not-completely out gay high school student, and I spent hours each week on the BioWare forums, hoping for some information about which men I’d be able to pursue as I ventured through the fantasy city of Kirkwall. When the game finally came out, much to my delight, there were no restrictions. I wasn’t forced into one choice like I was with the roguish elf Zevran in Dragon Age: Origins, or excluded completely like the first two Mass Effect games. The approach was met with predictable pushback from bigots, and Lead Writer David Gaider responded to criticisms that the game neglected the “main demographic” of the “straight male” in what became a core text about who deserves to be depicted in video game romances. He wrote: “The romances in the game are not for ‘the straight male gamer’. They’re for everyone. We have a lot of fans, many of whom are neither straight nor male, and they deserve no less attention. We have good numbers, after all, on the number of people who actually used similar sorts of content in DAO and thus don’t need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support our idea that their numbers are not insignificant... and that’s ignoring the idea that they don’t have just as much right to play the kind of game they wish as anyone else. The ‘rights’ of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent ‘right’ to get more options than anyone else.” The idea that romances could be “for everyone” stuck with me, and with the video game industry. Dragon Age II was an early example of what has become colloquially known as “pl****sexual” experiences, in which every romanceable character is pursuable regardless of your character’s gender. Everyone got an equal piece of the pie. Queer people weren’t relegated to table scraps while straight people got to have a feast. But it turns out, giving everyone all the same options brings its own baggage, and in the years since Dragon Age II, developers are still struggling to find the best approach. The mother of invention According to Gaider, while Dragon Age II’s love stories have become a model for inclusive romance design, they originally took this form due to the sequel’s breakneck development timeline. “We were working on far fewer resources compared to Dragon Age: Origins,” Gaider told Kotaku. “The whole game was gonna be done within a year and a half. So when it came up to how are we gonna do the romances, it was really a matter of economy. We’re gonna have four romances. If we decide to make them sort of a spread of sexualities that are immutable, then there’s no choice for the player. They have one character available to them, and we didn’t like that idea.” Resource division and lack of choice remains a cloud that hangs over even the biggest games that feature romance."

-

"When every romanceable character is pursuable regardless of who the player is, it creates a perception that these characters’ identities are defined by the protagonist’s presence. Gaider likens this to treating characters like a “toy” just meant to be romanced. This is part of how the “pl****sexual” moniker came to be, as it implies that characters weren’t bisexual or pansexual, but adhered to whatever main character they came across in any given playthrough. Dragon Age II has a specific plot beat that added to this: If the player chose to play a male version of Hawke, Anders would be forthcoming about his past relationship with another man, but that conversation doesn’t come up when playing as a woman. Gaider explained this was meant to distinguish how Anders related to male and female versions of the same character, with the BioWare team believing he might keep a past relationship with a man “close to his chest” if he were interested in a woman. In retrospect, he says he understands how it could be read as something only real in one version of the story. “Unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough time to get enough feedback and iterate on those situations,” he said. “We would hit a particular interaction, we would make a judgment call either as a group or the writer on their own, and that was it. There was no time for anything more than one gut-check, which is probably not the way to go.” Room to explore While Dragon Age II was written to accommodate any pairing because of the economic realities of its development, it’s become a recurring blueprint for several romance-driven games."

-

"As Dragon Age II has been pivotal in discussions around the pl****sexual design philosophy, its successor Dragon Age: Inquisition has been hugely influential on relationship systems featuring more defined identities. Gaider said the decision to tweak the approach came from a desire to decenter the protagonist in each of these character’s lives. “We didn’t like how [pl****sexual] made the characters feel like they existed in service of the player; like they were there in the game to be a toy. [...] We felt like that wasn’t why those characters existed. That wasn’t the kind of game we were making. These characters were characters first, and they had their own stories, and the player could interact with them, but it wasn’t always about the player.” The result of this shift is characters like Dorian Pavus, a mage from the land of the Tevinter Emperium, who is a gay man. His backstory involves nearly being put through a magical version of conversion therapy, an abusive and baseless real-world practice reliant on mental and often religious conditioning. Dorian’s parents planned to use dark magic to make him straight and take part in an arranged marriage, prompting him to run from his family. His story touches on real-life experiences of queer people, and fills in Dragon Age’s world in the process. “Dorian’s story could not be told if he was in a game where pl****exuality was the rule of the day,” Gaider said. “When I say that it opens up different types of stories, Dorian is the best example, because his story is about being homosexual and that doesn’t work in any other context. So that was very special. [...] it meant a lot to me as a gay man that I had this opportunity.” Defining Dorian as a gay man is intrinsic to his story, but sometimes the effects of this approach aren’t as grandiose. Cassandra, the first party member you get in Inquisition, is a straight woman, and if you flirt with her as a female protagonist, she takes you aside and tells you…well, straight up. Whether that’s a fun wrinkle to your story or feels like the game is gating content is in the eye of the beholder. “For players who just wanted to romance whoever they wanted, they would do something like encounter Cassandra as a female character and get turned down and be like, ‘that’s not the game I wanted,’” Gaider said. “But then you had other people who were like, ‘that was really cool that Cassandra has her own identity, and it has nothing to do with who the player is.’ I think that makes for more realistic characters, and a more coherent world, and allowed us to create characters that were more self-realized.” The middle ground between opting for pl****sexual romances and representing the queer experience is making sure those bisexual and pansexual identities exist whether the player is there or not. Baldur’s Gate 3’s party is a solid example of this. Characters like Gale, Wyll, Astarion, and Shadowheart have established relationships and flirt with others of different genders, regardless of whether the player romances them. This ensures their identity doesn’t come off like a switch to be flipped depending on which protagonist shows up at the beginning of the game. Gaider points out that part of circumventing the weaknesses of the pl****sexual approach is adding “a metric ton of content” as Baldur’s Gate 3 did. Overcoming those hurdles is “possible, just very expensive.” Howard-Arias cited Dorian from Inquisition as an example of a story that could not be told in a pl****sexual game"

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"When you’re on the outside looking in, it’s tempting to assume developers are intentionally snubbing certain groups of people. The Mass Effect series pushed the envelope for sex and romance in its time, but it was deeply dismissive of queer men, and BioWare’s explanations of Commander Shepard supposedly being a “predefined” character weren’t satisfactory considering the series’ emphasis on choice. Breaking down choices to numbers isn’t telling the whole story, but it does ultimately leave some people feeling burned. “[Some players reacted to limited romance] like it was unfair that I didn’t get more options, as if in-game romances were a matter of social justice,” Gaider said. “Like, in terms of how fairly you allotted them to players, like candy being divided. It’s such an awkward conversation to have because it’s so removed from the realm of game development. But still, game developers do need to stop and have that conversation.”"

-

"Even the word “pl****sexual” sounds like it’s an identity, which can be problematic. Gaider points out this is especially touchy for bisexual and pansexual people, who often face erasure in the real world, so labeling characters as something other than what they actually are sours the discussion before it even starts. Hunter echoed the sentiment, saying having characters “flip flop” felt like a betrayal. “The difference between a bisexual character versus a pl****sexual character really is a matter of context,” Gaider says. “By calling a character ‘pl****exual,’ you’re sort of erasing the fact that they are bisexual, but, the part where having a term for that becomes useful is when you start to investigate, like, why is this character bisexual?” So these two distinct approaches aim to be inclusive, but both can carry a perception of unfairness to either queer identity or queer experience. The sentiment from everyone I spoke to was that both approaches are legitimate; they just have their own pitfalls that anyone making a game should be aware of. Sometimes you just have to accept when one game is aspiring to something different than another. Gaider says the key to making either approach work is to stop trying to please everyone. “Say something with your writing, with your game, with your romances. Because if you don’t say anything, if your goal is to make it inoffensive, then it’s gonna land like a wet fart. It’s not gonna have any substance to it,” he said. “So say something and just be aware of how it can be interpreted and stand by it. That’s all you can do as a creator.”"

[source and full article link. the full article also discusses and covers other games]

[meggannn]

rambling thoughts here, and not to be all doom and gloom, but: i think i saw this coming when bioware announced htla won't matter in veilguard, so in my head i'm not surprised, but my heart is still very disappointed to find out the leak of imported choices showing ~3 decisions really is all we're getting.

i’ve been feeling for a while that every new game from bioware is probably going to aim to appeal to new players going forth, and i’m preparing myself that the choice importations we know them for are likely gone for good. inquisition was very new player-friendly despite being only a few years after da2 (which is fine) but ten years later, 0% of origins matters, 0% of awakening matters, 0% of 2 matters, and ~5% of inquisition matters. ten years from now, veilguard will be old news too, and it’ll be the next new batch of players they’re after. dragon age's proudest feature, its connective tissue tracking your changes between games, is basically a thing of the past, and i'm honestly expecting the same of mass effect going forward.

it makes showcasing varric and morrigan prominently in the trailers feel even worse, and i was already unhappy with how much space they're taking up. i'd guessed it was nostalgia bait, but now that we know they won't remember or mention hawke, hawke's lover, the warden, kieran, the well... their inclusion feels like insecurity that their game won't do well without these characters, but they don't, or can't, commit to expanding on the many variations that these characters can be.

based off of his lines in the trailers, i'm prepared to just be seeing varric the quip machine, who conveniently won't mention any details about hawke, but i'm sure his possible guilt over his role in his friend's death won't affect his personality at all when he's establishing yet another hero in the making; and a one-size-fits-all morrigan who is now the same character regardless of "i will not be the mother you were to me" or whether she drank any interesting bathwater. who cares, it's morrigan in the trailer! she's swooping! you guys like swooping, right? (by this point i fully expecting them to dig out varric's resurrected corpse in 2035 to get people to buy dragon age 5. and the frustrating thing is that it will work.)

i've had the suspicious sense that veilguard was made for solavellan players (and new players) first, everyone else second, and this news is not really changing my mind. i'm not happy, but i'm also not surprised.

[harveyguilleniconodelamoda]

Autumn Art Walk

Harvey recently spent a day at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in this fantastic outfit combining a sheer watercolor shirt, chocolate zip-up wool blend jacket from Zara, olive drab drawstring chino pants tucked into black Gucci combat boots, his signature sunglasses, and a black wool beret.

Achieving Visual Balance

This is such a great study of how thoughtful styling can take casual, comfy pieces and elevate them into something that looks ultra-cool and put together in a way the pieces might not on their own. This outfit achieves balance in three key ways:

Color: The thoughtful combination of soft late autumnal colors reflect and complement one another. The greens of the shirt tie into the green of the pants, and the black beret and black boots join with the hints of black in the shirt and the drawstring of the pants to create a throughline in the outfit's color scheme. The brown jacket contrasts to all without fighting with or overpowering. Rather, it makes the greens in the shirt really pop, and remains in harmony with the more muted green of the pants.

Texture: The thicker jacket material contrasts sharply with the thinner, less structured sheer material of the shirt in a way that's pleasing to the eye. The more structured wool material of the hat and the solidity of the leather boots balance out the softer texture of the pants, not so much dressing them up as edging them up.

Silhouette: The blockier, broad-shouldered shape of the jacket is contrasted by the tapered line of the tucked-in pants, creating a nicely balanced overall silhouette.

Balance vs. Symmetry

Some people think balance always means creating a reflection across a vertical or horizontal line: make the silhouette a square, rectangle, oval, or an hourglass. But that isn't balance, it's symmetry, and the two are not the same.

Organic life tends not to be perfectly symmetrical, and there have long been fashion trends that intentionally sought to disrupt the appearance of too much symmetry in favor of creating a visual effect that feels more lively and authentic.

Think one razored eyebrow, split-dyed hair, color blocking, or the many fashion trends that seek to create the appearance of super long legs, super short torsos, or silhouettes that resemble triangles rather than squares or hourglasses. If you find your outfits feeling boring, try to create balance, not symmetry!

Even the combination of mass market and designer items in one outfit speaks to the theme of balance, as does the inclusion of older pieces we've seen on Harvey many times with a brand-new jacket from his recent travels.

Affordable Options

The Zara jacket is pricey at $250, but Macy's has a similar one on sale for $49.99 that comes in sizes up to 2XL (50-inch chest). There's also this option from ASOS for $84.99, sizes up to 2XL (48-inch chest).

You can find wool or wool blend berets in a lot of stores this time of year (I highly recommend checking ThredUp!), but I like this one from Nordstrom for $29.99.

These loose tech cargo pants from Old Navy come in sizes up to 4XL (54-inch waist) and retail for $49.99 (currently on sale for 50% off!).

I have a whole post on lace-up combat boots! But these Madden Girl lace-up combat boots are currently on sale for $34.50 and come in sizes up to 11M.

I think I'm gonna do a whole separate post on mesh tops, because Harvey wears a lot of them, they're gorgeous, and it's hard to find nice ones for plus sizes that don't make you want to claw your skin off. I'm also still working on a sunglasses post, so stay tuned for that!

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 3 replay, Citadel part 1:

-I don’t hate Diane Allers, but I don’t particularly like her either. I wish we could take Emily Wong or Khalisa Al-Jilani on the Normandy instead.

Also, her model is… Not good. Given her inclusion was to essentially bribe goodwill from IGN, you’d think Bioware would have done a better job.

-Why does each successive game handle broadcasts more poorly?

In ME1, they were subtitled.

In ME2, they were subtitled if you prompted them on the Citadel from one of the spawn points. On Omega and Illium, no subtitles.

In ME3, no subtitles at all. And the sound quality is worse.

Some of us have hearing difficulties, Bioware! If I have the subtitles on, I need ALL dialogue subtitled!

-Mass Effect 3 NPC chatter drives me up the wall because you need to reload the level to hear the next bit of the conversation.

Why did they change it from ME2 where you could just take a few steps away and then come back to hear the next portion? That was much better.

-The actual dialogue itself is extremely well done, however. While I have many critiques of ME3’s actual plot, I have very few for these conversations. Bioware nailed them.

-That said, the Citadel is clearly set will into war when in Shepard’s timeline it’s been less than a day.

The Hierarchy’s already developed a war plan. The engineer’s familiar enough with it to criticize the munitions they’ve been provided. That implies he has experience with them or (more likely) has heard criticism of them from other engineers.

The asari PTSD soldier had been on active duty for three weeks before meeting the farm girl on Triptree. She was helping to evacuate a human colony, which means that the Alliance has already formulated evacuation plans and coordinated them with the asari.

The elderly woman at the embassy looking for her son says she hasn’t heard from him for a month.

If this were the actual start of the war, there would be a lot more confusion and people speculating what was happening and who the enemy is. That’s not what is occurring here. These folks know there’s a war on, have accepted it, and are living with it.

I don’t fault Bioware for not having a “start of war” Citadel, but it is a bit immersion breaking.

-Sanctuar is mentioned by the turian engineer speaking to his asari partner in the docking bay. He tells her it’s safe from the war.

It’s one of the first conversations a player is likely to hear. Kudos to Bioware for the early foreshadowing.

However, how can it be safe from the war? This is a galactic wide war to exterminate all organic life. The Reapers attack large settlements and destroy ones too small to bother with from orbit. One way or another they’ll come for Sanctuary.

I understand why people believe it. They’re desperate for any spark of hope. I am, however, disappointed by the lack of criticism it receives in game. More people should be skeptical of it. Especially since no one hears back from anyone that goes there.

-Asari PTSD soldier: I could feel her mind from where I was standing.

“Her” being the asari-turned-banshee Neaira.

Another hint that asari have stronger mental powers than mind melding. They can to some level broadcast their thoughts/feelings. I wish the games had delved into this more.

How much does this influence their perception/role of diplomats?

-Dr. Chakwas is a queen. She took a proper leave of absence from the Alliance and never officially joined Cerberus, so the Alliance has nothing with her.

-It’s rather amusing that you can insist to Dr. Chakwas that she can be best assist the war effort by staying in a research role, then turn around and recruit Dr. Michel as the Normandy doctor by telling her that she can make a bigger difference on the Normandy then in Huerta. The Normandy will win or lose the war. Shepard will tell anyone what they want to hear to get their way.

Someday I’ll take Dr. Michel with me, but for this playthrough it will be Dr. Chakwas.

-When you speak to Dr. Michel, she references you helping her by dealing with Fist. Does she still say that if you never met her in ME1?

-Avina continues to raise eyebrows. At Huerta Memorial Hospital: This facility’s attendant levels can also replicate the living conditions needed to accommodate other, more exotic species.

Fairly certain that referring to people as “exotic” is frowned upon, although I’ll give you that I’m not sure if that was true when ME3 was written.

-There are no NPCs visible from the view outside Huerta, which is a bit disconcerting. That’s a lot of empty space where people should be.

-The patients are still in uniform. Isn’t is standard to put patients in dressing gowns ASAP?

Especially the one who will need his leg amputated. He’s already been examined!

-Cloning is possible in universe, but it takes months to grown limbs.

…Well, that makes the whole Dr. Saleon side quest in ME1 even darker.

-Kaidan looks silly in the hospital bed with his chest prominently displayed. That does not look natural.

-ME3 has so. Much. Damn. Autodialogue. This game is far more a shooter then an RPG.

-Is there a reason spectre requisitions has moved out of C-Sec and into the Citadel Embassies?

Just saying, seems an odd choice to be storing and selling guns in the middle of all the politicians.

-The embassies have also received quite the overhaul from ME1.

There’s a convenient in game reason with the Battle of the Citadel, but I’m rather fond of the ME1 design. ME3 is more realistic but also more corporate.

-The volus offering assistance with the war effort specifically says Turian Empire. Not Hierarchy.

I love how the turians just. Quietly have an empire throughout the series. Nothing to see here, carry on…

-Why is the human embassy front desk staffed exclusively by asari and turians?

-Udina specifically picked Bailey to be the next commander, even though he didn’t lobby for the position.

Given Udina’s actions later in the game, I suspect Bailey’s correct post-Coup that Udina’s reasons were not complimentary. Bailey’s proven he’ll look the other way when given proper incentive and he’ll bend the law if he feels right to do so. Udina probably figured that one way or another those would prove useful.

And if he and Bailey felt differently on a matter – well, there’s not exactly a lack of blackmail material on Bailey, is there?

-Udina suspected Executor Pallin of plotting against the Council, Bailey investigated, found enough to arrest Pallin, and was forced to kill him in the process.

As many others have said: How convenient. What’s the likelihood that Udina framed Pallin?

Given that the executor during the Cerberus coup is a human…

-Bailey notes that Udina is ambitious.

He’s the human Councilor! What else can he be gunning for?

-The scene with Khalisa Al-Jilani if you go paragon is quite good.

She would have been great on the Normandy. The antagonism between her and Shepard would have made for great scenes.

-The spectre terminal provides information that the quarian pilgrims have been recalled and it looks like the quarians might be preparing for war with the geth.

Does ME3 foreshadow everything except the ending?

That somehow makes it worse. They clearly knew how to foreshadow and its importance. The endings just didn’t warrant the effort.

[desultory-novice]

Springing off of @icedragonlizard 's post about there not being a Dark Meta Knight plushie yet and why he deserves one...

...Crazy conspiracy theory here, but sometimes I feel like HAL put Dark Meta Knight in Star Allies without really thinking about the massive effect that the inclusion of the cameo Dream Friends would have on the fandom and the perception of the cast as a whole!

Like, people have already commented on how certain profiles make it sound like certain friends would be more likely to side with the Jamba Cult or just want the Jamba Heart for themselves!

But the Kirby series being the Kirby series, this suggestion of questioning loyalty faded slowly as the fandom came to warmly greet all of the friends... :cough: Susie :cough: WARMLY GREET ALL OF THE FRIENDS as Kirby's tried and true companions!

This came full circle in Merry Magoland where the park's golden statues really imply that, from the point of view of Magolor (himself implied to have seen multiple different timelines) these people are all HEROES who helped Kirby and saved the day with him!

...But then, HAL and even the fandom seemingly couldn't figure out a way to explain Dark Meta Knight's change. Even Daroach, who is almost explicitly in Star Allies to steal the Jamba Heart, was a steadfast ally in Mass Attack. It's easy enough to spin him becoming a friend. But DMK never had that moment of ally-ship. (Neither did Marx, but his heavily implied friendship with bad-guy-turned-good-guy Magolor indicates that he can at least behave.)

A few people, myself included, have worked hard to try and discover and share about DMK's heroic (?) side that could potentially earn him a place in the Star Allies! (In my verse, he's explicitly a forever unsung, uncredited hero of KatAM, mostly due to him being a terse bloodknight.) but I'm not sure HAL has decided just what he is yet.

Heck, he has NEVER had a speaking line, I don't think?!?

I don't know if this absence of additional lore means that they're still figuring out how they want to characterize Dark Meta Knight going forward or if they're all in their office sweating right now going, "Oh god!! We accidentally canonized the biggest jerk in the Kirby series as a HERO because we wanted to save on programming costs by including a palette swap Meta Knight!! How do we fix this?!?"

...But the Kirby Twitter DID make that post about DMK's ranking and the Mirror last year when Magoland was going strong, so they haven't forgotten about him. Even if they're staying characteristically... silent ...about him for now! ^_-

[scribe-of-ariel]

Just going off-topic for one post, sorry but it has to be said.

So I just learned that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is completely devoid of sex scenes.

If true, why? What the ever loving fuck convinced them that that was what their fandom wanted?

This is coming from the same team that openly admitted in 2019/20 that they had, and I quote, ‘the horniest fandom.’

So what is this Disney-fied, sexless, Barbie-doll story that they’re now pushing to that same fandom? How did they just forget that fact?

I largely put the success of BG3 down to the inclusion of sex scenes. It’s based, I know, but sex still sells. It’s a fact of human nature.

Honestly, this all beggars belief. It’s like they did know their audience, but deliberately chose to ignore it.

This makes me feel very low about the new mass effect. Imagine that game being released, the series that is famous for at least letting you believe that you fucked an alien (modders be praised), but it’s this devoid of even the slightest sexual content. How do you think that’d go down with the Mass Effect fandom?

Quite badly, I think.

smh.

[hussyknee]

Twitter feels like an even split between pro-Palestine supporters and the most horrific kind of racists, Zionists and white supremacists. Tumblr is by comparison overwhelmingly in support of Palestine. And yet the level of dehumanization, isolation, Othering and casual racism on here is so much more unbearable and suffocating than Twitter could ever be.

Tumblr wants to be seen as the anti-racist good guys on the right side of history while reinforcing the racist white supremacist western-centric status quo. Black and brown people are given platform under strict conditions of what values can be challenged and how far white comfort can be pushed. It's on Twitter that we have our own communities, our own power of advocacy, and a collective drive to interrogate and dismantle structures of power.

It reinforces what I have known for a long time— Tumblr's hatred of Twitter and TikTok is based primarily on refusing to tolerate the reality of equal representation, leftist action and racial justice. A true diversity of power and perspectives is messy, chaotic, conflict-driven and upends the sense of stability and space that can only come with a homogeneity of racial demographic. The majority of disenfranchised people understands that power structures and bureaucracies are built on purpose to exclude them — the poor, the sex workers, the incarcerated, the ghettoised, the disabled, the colonized. We have to fight to be heard, and our reality and political investment cannot be separated from the minority trauma that informs them. True equality entails not having to funnel that trauma through behaviour and ethics that makes their expression more palatable or considering of others; it removes all respectability politics and allows us to behave with the same unpunished toxicity that is unleashed on us by white and western people. Conflict, cacophony and having to tolerate the untempered emotions and self-interest of all groups is the price of true diversity and honest dialogue. It also primarily empowers Black and brown people and disempowers whites. In contrast, the "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" on predominantly white-driven and Western-oriented spaces is a simply a neoliberal farce that requires us to perform our own humanity and ask validation from whiteness. This is why you see only the worst aspects and negative effects of Twitter and TikTok and use them to reject the the platforms wholesale while creating a narrative of moral superiority around Tumblr's relatively low levels of conflict and glossing over the receding presence of Black and brown people in its userbase.

Race is not a layer of oppression. It's the fundamental bisection that creates the underclass on which the colonial capitalist world order is built. It's the caste hierarchy of humanity; who gets to be labourer and profiteer, the exploiter and exploited, the worker and producer, the consumer and consumed, the masses and the individual. The living bodies and embodied lives. The experience of every other marginalization is shaped by its waters. White women and queers will neither understand nor share in the oppression of women and QPoC from both diasporas and the Global South. Even further, every marginalization becomes a weapon against BIPOC in the hands of its white demographic. Black and brown people of those marginalized communities will always only be a token and shield for their white counterparts, while being the workhorses behind their struggles.

It doesn't matter how many times you post "Free Palestine" when we know its only the product of your preoccupation with your own personal moral landscape. Politics based on egoism will always be eclipsed by threats to your material reality. This is why a userbase that spent its entire existence grandstanding against Nazis now cannot see Zionists as Nazis and begs people to participate in a political establishment that has revealed itself to be a genocidal white supremacist regime in the clearest possible terms. Fascism against its own enfranchised is the end stage of an empire that has begun to collapse under the weight of its war-mongering and now resorts to eating itself to survive. No amount of moral distance between yourselves and its machinery of death, no amount of scapegoating the lives crushed underneath it, will stop the roofs you sheltered under falling on top of you. This the truth that the colonized, enslaved and indentured people that built your house have lived all along.

[titleknown]

So, the US Copyright Office is asking for public input about the whole issue of copyright and AI art, and as someone who's not a fan of modern copyright overreach, but with the rise of this issue also feels like I have been abandoned by God in this respect because it feels like everyone just started suddenly turning like the Pod People in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and start shrieking at me when I'm consistent with my values...

...Well, let's just say I'm kinda nervous. But, I recall enough of you hate copyright that you might as well be able to help, so I may as well boost.

My views on it, which I will submit:

Limiting fair use to stop the harvesting of AI data would have huge after-effects, both allowing only megacorps with their own proprietary models to use these tools and also likely being abused by these same megacorps to shut down independent artists.

This is also true for laws forcing the purgation of models using previously mass-harvested data, the havoc it would wreak would be unfathomable and I could easily see that abused to further attack sites like the Internet Archive.

I think there is room to consider models finetuned on a singular living creator/artist's style non-consentually as non-fair-use, that would be reasonable, but no further than that.

The way non-consentual inclusion in datasets should be handled is through expanding online privacy laws rather than copyright law, because this is a privacy issue and always should have been a privacy issue, and you need to tell Chuck Schumer to stop serving as a lobbyist cumdumpster and actually pass some privacy laws that aren't "Think of the Children"-type garbage like KOSA or EARN IT.

Copyrighting artstyle would be an unfathomably terrible idea that would make the visual art world as much of a copyright hellscape as the music world and destroy the livelihoods of all traditional artists who utilize pastiche at all, DO NOT DO THIS, NO MATTER WHAT ADOBE SAYS.

The idea that purely AI-generated works are automatically public domain should be explicitly placed into law, and in fact stringent standards should be created for what counts as "human input" so that megacorps don't find loopholes to still displace workers while still keeping copyright on their AI creations, because "pure" AI art being auto-PD is potentially a major tool to prevent worker displacement and should be used for such.

Finally:

[glittertomb]

Nobody asked but these are some of my favorite podcasts!

I’ve gotten really into podcasts the past couple of years because of social isolation, my knitting addiction, and because they really help me get through tedious chores like folding laundry and washing dishes (this is honestly my favorite adhd hack, besides turning on instrumental fantasy music so I can focus when reading). So I’ve definitely cultivated a little mind garden of spooky, magical, and informative podcasts that I wanted to share with you. Some are more mainstream, some are a little more obscure, but all of them are dear to me and have comforted and nourished me during dark days.

National park after dark~ my current favorite podcast is hosted by two new englanders with backgrounds in conservation, animal care, and park exploration who share stories about dark happenings, mysterious sightings, perilous treks, and deadly experiences at national parks across the globe

Your magic~ an inclusive and open-minded modern magic podcast hosted by popular author, tarot fanatic, and lifelong witch Michelle Tea that features an amazing lineup of diverse guests including scientists, musicians, actors, social justice advocates, fledgling magic practitioners, and people who were practicing magic without even realizing it

Pleasing Terrors~ hosted by a former tour guide of haunted locations, this podcast explores morbid histories, creepy folktales, and unexplained circumstances from the perspective of a person who has devoted their life to researching and sharing ghost stories for over 20 years

Out There~ this queer host with a voice like melted butta tells dramatic tales about the encounters with, descriptions of, and theories about the cryptids that haunt our imaginations (the podcast used to include a weird club segment at the end where they would invite their hilarious friends to discuss the believability of the featured cryptid, but it’s been missing for a few months and I hope it comes back 🥺)

Lore~ most people are probably aware of this delightfully spooky podcast about frightening folklore, but I had to include it because this is one of my go-to podcasts for when I’m taking a nighttime bath by candlelight and need a good spooky story to soak to, because I’m a little weirdo like that

The Strange and unusual podcast~ intoxicating and beautifully-told macabre stories that range from dark fairytales, mysterious murders, tainted histories, and hand-woven tales crafted by the host herself (it’s accompanied by melancholic music and the occasional low budget sound effects of people grunting/dying lol)

Morbid~ my emotional support murder podcast 😭😹. I was never really one to follow true crime, but I discovered this popular podcast when researching the haunted past of lake Lanier and I fell in love with these girls and their wonderful storytelling, hilarious banter, and thoughtful perspectives. Plus, getting extra insight from Alaina’s autopsy background is fascinating to me. And who doesn’t love the delightful nonsense and off-the-cuff witticisms that spout from Ash.

Cults~ this is the podcast that got me into daily listening! I was a big fan of welcome to night vale since the beginning, but Cults is the podcast that truly got me hooked on podcast listening and I even fall asleep to it (I guess listening to horrifying stories about mass manipulation is… soothing? Am I okay?). The podcast has unfortunately been on a year long hiatus but it has an ton of archived episodes that will thrill and chill you. Now I guess I need to start a new cult so they can have more content 🤔🤫

Coffee & Cauldrons~ this podcast is hosted by two professional tarot readers with mentoring personalities who want to make the world of magic accessible to everyone. Their show includes book recommendations for beginners, insights on how to practice during different lunar phases, tips on creating your own altar, and stories about their personal practice.

Spooked~ the latest podcast I’ve added to my very long list is hosted by a black creator who shares ghost stories from the first-person perspective. I really like this podcast because it’s produced by a team of people who are very diverse in race, age, gender, location, and background, and the guests they feature on the podcast to tell their own stories are just as varied.

If you made it to the end, thank ya and love ya! Happy spooking! 💜🌸👻

[otemporanerys]

A playlist for my species swap Shakarian fan fic set during Mass Effect 2

The playlist | The fic

Liner notes below the cut (tw discussions of suicide)

Happiness is a Warm Gun - The Breeders

I always like to start my playlists with something to set the mood - this is definitely an atmosphere song. I also like using covers for species swap, and a different one kicks off the ME3 playlist lol if I ever get around to writing that. The defamiliarisation sets up the AU

2. In the Wake of Your Leave - Gang of Youths

OK so technically tracks 2 and 3 are cheating because they're actually for Interregnum, leave me alone

Anyway! Sad bangers are my jam, and I wanted something that conveyed the grief of losing someone, but giving the energy a bit of a kick after the Breeders song

3. I Don't Smoke - Mitski

I'm a basic bitch who loves Mitski, what can I say?

No, this song is for the Gareth sad spiral (TM) and for the fact that sad smoking is cool, actually (don't @ me)

4. Peel - Weakened Friends

This is a Shepherd song, you know, the beginning of her terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad nervous breakdown.

There was an earlier version of LBEL which was much more actively about Shepherd trying to bring Cerberus down from the inside: but actually now I think the lyrics speak much more to Shepherd feeling like she always has to fit the mold of the pragmatic, practical soldier

5. Toy Soldier - The Menzingers

This is thee Garrus song, sorry I don't make the rules. The lost friends! Carrying on despite that loss!!! Dutyyy

6. Wicked Game - Chris Isaak

Gareth is kind of an old soul, which is why his songs lean slightly more retro - and just the deep well of yearning in this song always gets me. It's very much his feelings after Shepherd saves him, loving her and wishing he didn’t

7. Born to Lose - Sleigh Bells

I primarily associate this song with Shepherd being discarded by the Hierarchy and the struggles she has with knowing protocol is to kill herself

8. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away - The Beatles

Gareth: conceal, don't feel 😢 I have always loved this song and it's very much Gareth knowing that he can't be open about his feelings

9. Quitter - Weakened Friends

More good mental health time for Shepherd, excellent. I don’t mind repeating artists in my playlists but I do tend to keep it to one

10. Bullet with Butterfly Wings - The Smashing Pumpkins

The one thing I am actually a snob about with playlists is not using too many "popular" songs, but I did like this one for Horizon. Shepherd's really starting to spiral here, folks

11. Anybody (Stripped) - Dead Sara

Horizon sex, Shepherd POV. She's so lonely in this fic, really longing for connection, and this song is the words she doesn't know how to say

12. Baby I Got the Death Rattle - Los Campesinos!

Horizon sex, Gareth POV

This is one of those songs that doesn't start as a blorbo song, but if you tell me you've heard a lyric that's more "Garrus Vakarian down bad" than "Baby I got the death rattle and baby I got it bad | I've been digging my own grave for quite some time when I'm not digging up the past" then I would love to hear it

13. Bedroom Eyes - Dum Dum Girls

One of my favourite bits of LBEL is the quiet intimacy that Gareth and Shepherd have when they're sleeping together, and this song reflects that

14. Hopeless - Screaming Females

Shepherd dumping Gareth because she likes him too much 😭 I'm fine. The lyrics and the vocals are so plaintive, again the emotions Shepherd won't allow herself to express

15. Something Bigger, Something Brighter - Pretty Girls Make Graves

This isn't a terribly literal inclusion, it's a good angsty-sounding song for where Shepherd's at post-breakup

16. Heavy Metal Heart - Sky Ferreira

This is just. Shepherd's song 💖 I love it, and her

17. Apocalypse Now (&Later) - Laura Jane Grace & the Devouring Mothers

This is a great Mass Effect 2 song more broadly but man is it perfect for Gareth and Shep reuniting just before the suicide mission!!!

18. The Hand That Feeds - Nine Inch Nails

Fuck Cerberus, part 1. There just is not a better song for being done with someone else's bullshit

19. Search and Destroy - Peaches

Fuck Cerberus, part 2 (or, how Shepherd got her groove back). Peaches always has such brilliant swagger and I adore this cover - Shepherd coming back into her own power and recognising how dangerous (and unpredictable) she can be

20. I Would Find You - Oceanator

I adore this song, the softness and kindness at the end of the world. It's really the thesis statement of the fic, and a promise for Gareth and Shepherd going forward, even through the hard times. It was the perfect grace note to end on