#mass effect aliens

[gemsbokk]

do you think one can call themselves an alienfucker if they disagree that batarians are fuckable

[mass-effect-anonymous]

CONFESSION:

I am so grateful that Mass Effect has not subjected us to "hybrids." I mean, asari and their essentially psychic reproduction is a bit wild -- but it also makes more sense than species that evolved on different planets being able to reproduce together by blending gametes. Even if some of Star Trek lore sort of explains why species are compatible and mostly just vary by forehead prosthetics, it's a weakness. A weakness that Mass Effect does not share.

[kyliafanfiction]

I'm always baffled by people who critize Mass Effect, of all things, as being like, super stereotyping about the various species, because...

That's the exact opposite of the experience I got? Like, with the possible exception of Mordin Solus (and even he is more nuanced), every alien crewmate you get in the Trilogy - and I'm pretty sure in Andromeda, though I never got around to finishing that and I really should one of these days - to one extent or another does not represent the stereotypes of their species. Usually the exact opposite.

Which, given the limited amount of space and time the game actually has to show us all this, is a pretty clear indication by them that 'the stereotypes are just that' - i.e. stereotypes, not categorically accurate.

Wrex and Grunt certainly have some conventionally seen Krogan traits, but neither of them are simple thuggy brutes who kill for the sake of it or anything close. They're both complicated, nuanced people who are capable of being farsighted, who run the exact opposite as Krogan are seen as by many non-Krogan.

Liara is a Doctor when most Asari her age are 'supposed' to be running around dancing and mercing and having wild sex. She's shy, and if not a virgin in ME1, damn close. She's a huge intorvert in a species that's stereotyped the exact opposite.

Likewise, Samara is a tightly controlled, zealous warrior with no real sense of diplomacy, against a species that is usually cast as loose, lax, sometimes flippant and irreverent (the Goddess is not actually that commonly worshipped by Asari anymore) and certainly more interested in subtlety and going along to get along (remember that Cop who had the issue with Samara and was like 'this isn't Asari space and she's a wrecking ball' or whatever).

Garrus explicitly says he's 'a bad Turian', and he repeatedly shows that he runs counter to those typical 'Turians are all militaristic and hiercharcical and follow orders and like rules and systems'

Tali is the first Quarian in 300 years to make friends with a Geth and she seems to be actively xenophilic (I don't mean in a sexual sense, though that too, but more in a 'she likes outside culture stuff a lot' which appears to run a bit counter to the insularity of Quarian culture).

And these are just the big picture examples - we see in other ways, at smaller times, Krogan and Asari and Turians and Quarians and Volus and even Salarians (though I do think they get a bit of a short end here) that don't match up to the stereotypes we're given in the codexes.

Batarians - yeah, there's not much there. They got shafted on this front all around, I'll admit.

Far from being some horribly racist, stereotyping game, I'd argue that one of the great things about Mass Effect is that it spends just about as much time undermining the stereotypes as it does establishing them, overall - it's not perfect, not by any stretch, but still.

Some people just want to be angry about shit, I swear.

[milkywayes]

there's downsides to ranking high in the hierarchy [prints]

[varanidius]

collection of my Mass Effect fanart

[thehollowprince]

... and why?

Edit: It's my own fault for not clarifying, but the reason Post Earth is in quotation marks doesn't denote the future, but a scifi setting where humanity from Earth branches outward.

[that-wildwolf]

hey, remember being 18 years old and playing mass effect for the first time and it's got this like intense aura of being very small and very insignificant in a very big, very empty galaxy? remember playing mass effect for the first time and everything all of this is so new and mysterious, and it's 2am and you're sitting in a dark room in the light from your tv and you're playing through feros for the first time and you feel that this is someting very old and very ancient and you are somewhere you shouldn't be and you don't know what's going to happen or where you're going but you keep on. there's a tingling in your stomach and you're playing mass effect for the first time. the thorian is a milennia old sentient plant being. the rachni queen is old and telepathic and a hive mind and in pain. sovereign is an ancient machine that has not been built but is, and has always been, and this is something so alien and so unlike and beyond anything your human mind can comprehend, and this is something unexplainable and huge and as uncaring and indifferent as the empty galaxy around you. you're playing mass effect for the first time and you're walking on the surface of an almost completely empty planet with nothing but your two companions silently walking beside you and everything is so huge and empty and silent and you're so small and insignificant and it's so beautiful and so scary and you feel like you are on a rollercoaster about to drop down. you are playing mass effect for the first time and you're playing the mission on the moon and you stop and just look up at earth visible in the sky. you know this. this is home. you are playing mass effect for the first time, and the galaxy is so big, and you are so tiny, and everything is about to change for you.

[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.

[deep-space-lines]

I am inflicting, or perhaps bestowing, upon you: Garrus as various unnecessarily sexualized references that come up if you look up refs of women with guns :)

(( @milkywayes i know we’ve like almost never interacted but the silly comment i left on your post would Not leave my brain. I need to show u what you inspired ))

[xplore-the-unknwn]

You’re on a mission and you hear some crunching noises from your six. 😭

[sol-consort]

Humans having just discovered that the gaint metal tongs in space unlock fast travel through the galaxy: oh boy, can't wait to activate every mass relay we can find, whoever turned these off must be an idiot lol

Turians opening fire without warning at first sight of relay 314 glowing again:

[kattysouza]

Sunset Eyes

Old oil painting of Thane.

[quantumghostart]

trigger finger ;)

[shittybundaskenyer]

stranded enemy soldiers during the first contact war au has me in a chokehold. rest is on ao3 because it's a bit spicy :))

[milkywayes]

someone's let his guard down >:)