#mass effect

[inkiedraws]

*blows a kiss to the stars*

For the krogans

[angrykittybarbarian]

Imagining Garrus sounding like this without the translater sends me into a different dimension every single time.

Tbh, I always thought the pi5ch of the turian voices would be the same while the pronouncable words would of course differ.

This is a sampling of the leftover alien language sound files that can be found in Mass Effect’s PS3 release. These were meant to be walla, which is an ambient sound effect that mimics a crowd speaking.

At some point during ME1′s production Bioware created these for the alien races and then decided not to use them. The file paths suggest that they were meant to be used in a bar.

Asari (0:01)

Turian (0:11)

Salarian (0:19)

Krogan (0:25)

Volus (0:32)

(Sources: as_env_asari_walla, turian_walla_04, salarian_Patron_02, as_env_krogen1, volus_walla_01, etc.)

Edit: You can actually hear the turian walla in-game if you stand by the stairs in Flux! It seems a few of these leftover sounds (there are about forty sorted by race) were combined into a single generic soundcue. Thanks to @sciencefictionismyjam​ for the correction!

[average-mako-enjoyer]

Kaidan Alenko has the most interesting story in the Mass Effect canon.

Exposed to Element Zero in utero.

Basically kidnapped from his home by a government agency when he was a teen.

Forcibly implanted with a piece of tech that literally makes people mentally ill and/or disabled but gives them godlike powers.

Survived that with pretty mild side effects (compared to others).

Survived a torture boot camp for kids.

Killed the authority figure who physically and emotionally abused him and other kids for over a year and was about to kill him.

Caused a diplomatic scandal.

Survived Red Sand addiction.

Still decided to return to military service.

Risen to the rank of Staff Lieutenant WITHOUT using his biotics on the living targets (no, seriously, he must be really good at shooting, hand-to-hand, and strategizing to become the head of the marine detail without using his main cheat code).

Trained a team of biotic superspies.

Literally a second human spectre.

Learned by HIMSELF the biotic skill that only Asari matriarchs can perform.

...

"Basic man", "generic noodle", are you fucking kidding??

[felassan]

David Gaider on Morrigan, under a cut for length:

"Morrigan began, waaaay back, as a bit of Morgan le Fey (hence the Dark Ritual) mixed with Delirium from Sandman. The Delirium elements subsided into more of a weird cadence of speech as my idea of Morrigan solidified - more cynical, wanting to connect but unable to. Originally, we were looking for a Middle Eastern actress to play her, as Shoreh Aghdashloo was slated to play Flemeth and we wanted a similar sounding voice -- but it was a real struggle, and then Shoreh unfortunately had to drop out to do a movie. So suddenly we had nobody for either character! Then, one day, Caroline (our VO Director) comes in with a recording sent by a rep for Claudia Black - who hadn't done game VO back then but wanted to get into it. And it was Claudia doing a slow *beat poet* rendition of Baby Got Back. I kid you not. I was already a fan, so I lost my goddamn mind. (Yes, I still have the recording. No, you cannot have it.) Naturally, we jumped on that immediately. As I recall, this was met with resistance from higher up - they had this image of Morrigan as young, like 18 years old (no idea where this came from) and complained that Claudia sounded "too old". Them: "She sounds like she smokes three packs a day!" Me: "That's what I like about her!" Caroline and I were determined, so we pushed ahead. We had to agree to get Claudia to sound "younger", which I was dubious about. The first two sessions we asked her to pitch her voice up and it was AWFUL. Claudia had to focus on sounding "right" instead of acting. So Caroline and I did the sneaky thing, and on the third session we asked her to just... act. Use her natural voice. We loved her performance so much we had the feeling that the team would love it too and forget their nonsense. They did. My best memory of Claudia was when we first met. I'd been flown down to LA for the initial sessions to help the major DAO actors find the character "voice" and, boy, was I nervous. It didn't help that I was a huge fanboy of Claudia's and she was going to be the *first* of all the actors I'd talk to. Caroline gave me a list of rules for "how to talk to a celebrity" - top of the list: DO NOT COMPARE THEM TO OTHER ACTORS. So I meet Claudia, and I'm sweating. I think: I'll start from the beginning, right? "Well, when I started writing Morrigan, the voice in my head was Helena Bonham Carter..." Claudia gives me a look and tilts her head. "So what you're saying is... I'm a very cheap version of Helena Bonham Carter." I'm mortified. I melt. I gasp and stutter and she lets me implode for maybe 30 seconds before she throws her head back and LAUGHS. So wicked. I love her instantly and forever. For the next several days, whenever she's in the booth and I make a comment to Caroline - which she can't hear, because the booth is sound-proof - she'd say "Oh, does he want it more like Helena?" And I'd melt into the desk in renewed mortification and she'd LAUGH. This is Claudia in a nutshell. Morrigan became a real touchstone for me, the heart of DAO. Way beyond her initial inspirations. Some said "she's just an ice queen" like some I'd written (Viconia, Bastila, etc.) but such categories are very reductive, I find. She had a voice I could instantly slip into, every time, without fail. The problem, after DAO was said and done, was with how we were going to honour the Dark Ritual going forward... or, more to the point, how we *weren't* going to honour it. I wasn't willing to let her go, however, so I had to figure it out. BUT... that's a story for another day. CORRECTION: A friend reminds me that the beat poet recording Claudia did was "Smack That" and NOT "Baby Got Back", and now I need to go give it another listen just because I can."

[source thread]

David Gaider: "Actually, when Shoreh's movie wrapped she came back and asked if the role was still available - her grandkids were VERY excited for her to be in a game. It wasn't, but as I recall Caroline was all "well, we have this role in ANOTHER game we're making..." Hence why she ended up in ME2." [source]

David Gaider: "Tali's accent was purely created by the actress - which made it a bit of an Issue when the time came to have more Quarians in ME2. "Do we get the actors to all try and mimic... whatever she's doing?" I'm certain Caroline could write a book about how THAT all went down." [source]

User: "I also never knew that Delerium was part of the inspiration for her (atleast in the beginning)." David Gaider: "It'd be difficult to see that now. The very first drafts were a lot more eccentric - more like Flemeth, I'd say, but times ten. The feedback I got was that she's a bit too LALALULU and I had to agree (and my idea of her was changing anyhow). So that slowly got weeded out." [source]

User: "What had you seen Claudia in that made you such a big fan already? (was it pitch black?)" David Gaider: "Originally? Farscape. Then Pitch Black, yes. I tried watching Stargate just for her, but coming in so late I kinda bounced off it." [source]

User: "My only complaint is, and has always been, why is she the straight romance when everything about her screams lesbian?" David Gaider: "I would have written it, if it’d been allowed (remember this was VERY new back then), but after all was said and done I’m kind of glad I didn’t. The friendship path I wrote for Morrigan with a female Warden is perhaps my favourite but of writing I did from back then." [source]

User: "Morrigant to me was such a fantastic character because of the way she sounded! Her introduction in DAO is iconic to me "Well, Well, what have we here?"" David Gaider: "You have NO IDEA how many takes that took. 😳" [source]

User: "Claudia Black did an amazing job with every line in every game." David Gaider: "She absolutely did. It took some time for her to get her bearings, but by the end of our first few sessions I actually went back and re-wrote a bunch of lines to match Claudia's voice. She informed so much of who Morrigan became." [source]

User: "are YOU the reason we see so much morrigan after dao? (positively, she is one of my all time favourite characters)" David Gaider: "Yes and no. She was always considered, by both me and the team, to be a "face" of Dragon Age. I'd have put her in DA2 if there'd been room, but thankfully that limitation is what allowed Flemeth to grow into her own." [source]

User: "were Morrigan and Flemeth always supposed to be Chasind, and/or did the Chasind have any ties to northern Thedas in earlier drafts of the character? The Chasind are universally depicted with dark skin except for Morrigan and Flemeth." David Gaider: "I don't think we had a very clear idea of the Chasind in general back then - they kind of got abandoned as a concept once we cut the Human Barbarian origin for DAO, and were only picked up again later." [source]

[tarysande]

Me, to myself: Maybe I don’t hate the Hammerhead as much as I remember.

Me, after one Hammerhead mission: Haha, joke’s on me, I HATE IT EVEN MORE.

[chanihobbit]

D

remember to kiss your biotic boyfriend daily (▰˘◡˘▰)

[lingle-dingle]

So in Mass Effect, Shepard is pretty famous. So if she was dating someone it would get noticed and you can date Garrus Vakarian - a Turian. There’s already at least one movie about her, I feel like the Turian x Human nature of it after the First Contact War would lead to a romance movie or two being produced.

So, I feel like there’d be an era where human and Turian relationships would become a lot more popularized and real friendships and relationships would form because of that representation. Like it’d be really cool for a human to have a Turian friend and vice versa.

Lipstick is waxy, and by the look of Turian skin, it’d probably be hard to get lipstick off of it. There’s a reality where Garrus gets caught with a lipstick print in public.

I feel like lipstick marks would become a fashion trend amongst Turians - going off to war with it as a token of good luck, boy band members with lipstick marks in scandalous places, Turian school girls getting their human friends to kiss them on the cheeks for the iconic print.

I really feel like it’d be their leopard print.

[cannyparagon]

Relatively recently, I started studying Clip Studio and asked my subscribers to send me characters.

This is what came of it 🧡

[noodlini]

[spacevixen2024]

I've had it with these mother fucking Reapers on this mother fucking planet!

[thesuprememe]

the feeling’s mutual

[masseffectholidaycheer]

**ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL OF THIS GIFT EXCHANGE*

GREETINGS, VERMIN. THE HOLIDAY HARVEST SEASON IS UPON US ONCE MORE.

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY before filling out the survey.

DATES TO REMEMBER:

Surveys will be collected until December 06, 2024.

Match emails will be sent out by December 10, 2024.

Gifts may be given between January 15, 2025 and January 31, 2025.

Anyone making/sending a physical gift must provide proof of postage by January 15, 2025.

*Postal services are often somewhat hampered by distance, weather, strikes, etc. If you’re receiving a physical gift, it may be delayed.

But worry not—everyone gets a gift. Minion Keeper is VERY good at this job! They have a sacred spreadsheet, which they keep in the tiny sacred backpack. (Nothing gets past the sacred spreadsheet. Not even Shepard.)

Read the rules. We’ve made some changes/clarifications this year.

FILL OUT THE SURVEY! (Enjoy Holiday Harbinger’s sense of humor. Truly, the gift that keeps on giving.)

**Follow @masseffectholidaycheer for the duration of the exchange. This is where we communicate. It’s also where you can enjoy all the gifts people make.**

Spread the news! The more the merrier! Otherwise, Holiday Harbinger will never collect enough organic paste to make a Tumblr Reaper.

Join in the fun before the Harvest takes you all.

If you have questions you’d like answered, please send Holiday Harbinger an email at holidayharbinger@gmail.com.

JANUARY JUBILATION CANNOT BE STOPPED

[rahuratna]

Me, every single time. Every time. God. I need another playthrough.

Sorry Thane

[spacevixen2024]

It's okay, I don't need my heart...

[the-mummy]

Both kinds of Bioware girls got a lot of rep at the 2024 VMAs