#mass effect official art

[grtmnick]

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead. And sheathed their swords for lack of argument. That those whom you called fathers did beget you."

William Shakespeare. "Henry V". First Folio. First published in full by Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard, 1693. England.

[onedismay]

Height charts my beloved. Includes my two favorite canon blorbos Tazzik and the Shadow Broker (their heights are not canon, I'm making shit up), and also three OCs of mine. Might expand this later, might not.

shoutout to my friend who knows nothing about mass effect but still said "that one's kinda hot" in reference to tazzik (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

[katarrinskey]

Ah, yes, here we go again-

[ghostgirlvii-art]

It's been FOREVER since I drew my precious. I can't remember when was the last time, but Ihave been missing coming up with ideas and shenanigans for them. Maybe I should try again. For now a small headshot sketch will do.

[shannonpurdyjones]

One side effect of my research for this novel being steeped heavily in textile history is my swelling disgust with modern fabrics.

Firstly they're so thin? Like most things you see in Old Navy or even department stores might as well be tissue paper?? Even some branded sports t-shirts I've bought in recent years (that are supposed to be 'official apparel' and allegedly decent quality) are definitely not going to hold up more than a year or two without getting little holes from wear.

This side of even two hundred years ago fabrics were made to be used for YEARS, and that's with wearing them way more often because you only owned like three sets of clothes. They were thick and well made and most importantly made to LAST. And they were gorgeous?? Some of the weaves were so fine and the drape so buttery we still don't entirely know how these people managed to make them BY HAND. Not to mention intricate patterning and details that turned even some simple garments into freaking ART.

I know this is not news, the fast fashion phenomenon is well documented. Reading so much about the amazing fabrics we used to create and how we cherished and valued them, though, is making it hard not to mourn what we lost to mass production and capitalism. Not just the quality of the clothing and fabrics themselves, but the generations of knowledge and techniques that are just gone. It makes me what to cry.

I need to get a sewing machine.

[thefloatingstone]

Apparently Cards Against Humanity had a Mass Effect themed set come out in 2017 and this was their official fucking art for it

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How the kleptocrats and oligarchs hunt civil society groups to the ends of the Earth

It's a great time to be an oligarch! If you have accumulated a great fortune and wish to put whatever great crime lies behind it behind you, there is an army of fixers, lickspittles, thugs, reputation-launderers, procurers, henchmen, and other enablers who have turnkey solutions for laundering your reputation and keeping the unwashed from building a guillotine outside the gates of your compound.

The field of International Relations has studied the enemies of the Klept in detail: the Transnational Activist Network is a well-documented phenomenon. But far more poorly understood is the Transnational Uncivil Society Network, who will polish any turd of sufficient wealth to a high, professional gloss.

These TUSNs are the subject of a new, timely scholarly paper by Alexander Cooley, John Heathershaw and Ricard Soares de Oliveira: "Transnational Uncivil Society Networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism," published in last month's European Journal of International Relations:

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5e5a3052-c693-4991-a7cc-bc2b47134467/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=Cooley_et_al_2023_transnational_uncivil_society.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article

The authors document how a collection of institutions – some coercive, others organized around good works – allow kleptocrats to take power, keep power, and use power. This includes "wealth managers, company providers, accounting firms, and international bankers" who create the complex financial structures that obscure the klept's wealth. It also includes "second citizenship managers and lawyers" that facilitate the klept's transnational nature, both to provide access to un-looted, prosperous places to visit, and boltholes to escape to in the face of coup or reform. It includes the real-estate brokers and other asset facilitators, who turn whole precincts of the world's greatest cities into empty safe-deposit boxes in the sky, while ensuring that footlose criminal elites always have a penthouse to perch in when they take a break from the desiccated husks they've drained dry back home.

Of course, it also includes the PR managers and philanthropic ventures that allow the klept to launder their reputation, to make themselves synonymous with good deeds rather than mass murder. Think here of how the Sacklers used charity to turn their family name into a synonym for culture and fine art, rather than death by opioid overdose:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Beyond providing comfort to "Politically Exposed Persons" and "High Net-Worth Individuals," TUSNs are concerned with neutralizing TANs. Activists in these transnational networks play an inside-outside game: in-country activists will recruit peers abroad to bring attention to the crimes of their local kleptocrats. These overseas partners target the klept in the places they go to play and spend, spoiling their fun – and if they succeed in getting corrupt leaders censured abroad, then in-country activists can leverage that bad press to fight the klept at home.

To fight this "Boomerang Effect," TUSNs seek to burnish corrupt officials' reputations abroad, getting their names on humanitarian prizes, beloved sports teams, cultural institutions and great universities. They seek to capture international governance institutions that might wrong-foot kleptocrats, co-opting them to enable and even celebrate looters.

When it comes to elite philanthropy, TUSNs are necessarily selective. Kleptocrats' foundations don't fund anti-kleptocratic groups – they stick to "education, public health, the environment and the arts." These domains steer clear of human rights questions that might implicate their benefactors. Russian oligarchs love children's charities and disability rights – provided they don't target the Russian state.

If charitable giving is reputation laundering's carrot, then "reputation management" is the laundry's stick. Think of organized copyfraudsters who clone websites that have criticized their clients, then backdate the articles, then accuse the originals of infringing copyright in order to get them de-listed from Google or taken offline altogether:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#dark-ops

Reputation managers also spend a lot of time in court. In the UK – the world's leader in libel tourism, thanks to a legal system designed to let posh monsters sue muckraking journalists into silence – Russian oligarchs have perfected the art of forcing their critics to shut up and go away:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/04/londongrad/#enablers

Indeed, London is a one-stop shop for the global klept, a place were forelock-tugging Renfields will buy you a Mayfair mansion under cover of a numbered company, sue your critics into silence, funnel your money into an anonymous Channel Islands account:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/07/the-klept/#pep

They'll sell you whole galleriesworth of "fine art" that you can have relocated to a climate-controlled container in a Swiss or Irish freeport:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poesy-the-monster-slayer/#moneylab

They'll give your thick-as-pigshit progeny a PhD and never check to see whether he wrote his thesis himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSE%E2%80%93Gaddafi_affair

Then they'll hook you up with a cyber-arms dealer to hunt your enemies by capturing their devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-dangerous-ideas

But don't let Brexit stop you from shopping for bargains on the continent. The Golden Passports of the EU – available in a variety of flavors, from Maltese to Cypriot to Portuguese – offer the discerning failson access to the luxury good shops and fleshpots of 27 advanced economies, making it a favorite of the Khmer Riche – the junior klept of Cambodia's ruling faction:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/cambodia-hunsen-wealth/

But golden passports are for amateurs. Skilled klepts travel on diplomatic passports, which offer the twin benefits of free movement and consequence-free criminality, thanks to diplomatic immunity. The former Kazakh dictator's son-in-law enjoyed a freewheeling diplomatic life in Vienna; one daughters of the dictator of Tajikistan had a jolly time as an envoy to DC; another, to London (where else?).

All this globetrotting serves a second purpose: when rival elites seize power back home and force the old guard into exile, those ex-monsters can show up in the lands they called their second homes and apply for asylum. It turns out that even bomb-the-boats UK will welcome any asylum seeker who enters via the private jet terminal at City Airport (to be fair, these "refugees" have extensive properties in Zone 1 and country places in the Home Counties, so they won't need housing).

This stuff works. After Kazakh state goons murdered at least 14 protesters at a Zhanaozen oil facility in 2011, human rights groups around the world took up the cause. But they were effectively neutralized by TUSNs, with former UK PM Tony Blair writing on behalf of the Kazakh government to the EU condemning any kind of international investigation into the mass killings (add "former Prime Ministers" to the list of commodities for sale in the UK to sufficiently well-resourced murderer).

The authors close their paper with two case-studies. The first is of the daughters of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, Gulnara and Lola. And President Karimov was indeed a dictator: he trapped his population within his borders, forced them to use unconvertible scrip in place of money, and ordered the murder of hundreds of peaceful protesters, plunging the country into international isolation.

But while Uzbeks were sealed within their borders, Gulnara Karimov became an international player, running a complex network of businesses that mixed the products of the nation's oilfields with her family's fortune. She solicited – and received – bribes from Teliasonera, MTS and Vimpelcom, who were all vying for the contract to provide service in Uzbekistan. All told, she extracted more than $1b in bribes, laundering them through Latvia, Hong Kong and New York. She acquired real-estate in France and Switzerland, and her spree continued until her father collaborated with Uzbek security to seize her assets and place her under house-arrest.

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was Gulnara's estranged younger sister. She and her husband Timur Tillyaev ran the Dubai-based SecureTrade, which did extensive business with "opaque Scottish Limited Partnerships," laundering more than $127m in a single year to offshore accounts in the UAE and Switzerland. They acquired many luxe assets – a jet, a Californian villa, and an LA perfumier.

Lola styled herself as the face of the Karimovas abroad, a "philanthropist and cultural ambassador." She was a UNESCO ambassador and commissioned works of monumental art – and also sued the shit out of news outlets that reported factual matters about her family repressive activity at home. She organized AIDS charities in the name of Uzbekistan – even as her father was imprisoning a writer for publishing a book explaining how to have safer sex.

The second case-study is on Isabel dos Santos, "Africa's richest woman," daughter of Angolan dictator Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Isabel's vast fortune stemmed from her personal capture of vast swathes of the third-largest economy in Africa: "telecommunications, banking, diamonds, real estate and cement, among many others." Isabel enjoyed seemingly limitless access to state credit and co-investment, and was given first crack at newly deregulated industries. Foreign firms that invested in Angola were required to "partner" with Isabel's businesses.

Isabel claimed to be a "self-made woman" – a claim credulously parroted by the western press, including the FT. She used her homegrown fortune to become a major player abroad, especially in Portugal, where she was represented by the leading Portuguese law-firm PLMJ. Her enablers are who's who of corruption-loving lickspittles: McKinsey, Ernst and Young, Boston Consulting Group, and the Spanish BigLaw firm Uri Menendez.

Isabel cultivated a public facade of philanthropic giving and public spirited activism, serving as head of the Angolan Red Cross. She attended Davos and spoke at the LSE (she was also invited to Oxford, but her invitation was subsequently rescinded). On social media, she dismissed critics of her wealth and corruption as "colonialists," decrying their "racism" and "prejudice."

Isabel dos Santos's corrupt sources of wealth were finally, irrefutably exposed through the Luanda Leaks, in which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists mapped the network of "top banks, management consultants and legal firms that were central to dos Santos’s operations."

Both case studies shed light on the network of brilliant, driven enablers and procurers without whom the world's greatest monsters would falter. It's a rare window on a secretive world, one that is poorly understood even by its inhabitants. As Michael Mechanic wrote in Jackpot, his 2021 book on vast, intergenerational fortunes, the winners of the lucky orifice lottery often lack any real understanding of how The Money is structured, grown and protected:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza

This point was reiterated by Abigail Disney, in a brave piece on what it's like to grow up subject to the oversight of these millionaires who babysit the children of billionaires:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste

This is an important contribution to the literature. We naturally focus on the ultrawealthy individuals whose reputations and fortunes are the subject of so much attention, but without the TUSNs, they would be largely helpless.

Going to Burning Man? Catch me on Tuesday at 2:40pm on the Center Camp Stage for a talk about enshittification and how to reverse it; on Wednesday at noon, I'm hosting Dr Patrick Ball at Liminal Labs (6:15/F) for a talk on using statistics to prove high-level culpability in the recruitment of child soldiers.

On September 6 at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/24/launderers-enforcers-bagmen/#procurers

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

--

Colin (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palace_of_Westminster_from_the_dome_on_Methodist_Central_Hall_(cropped).jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[feeders-guide-to-gainers]

Feeders guide!

The importance of keeping track:

It’s crucial to keep your gainer on track! A lot of chubs require a certain degree of supervision! If they want to get fat they gotta eat! If your gainer isn’t completely self sufficient in the art of gaining it might be time to start Calorie counting together! If your gainer is not yet considered “overweight” then it might be time to get a meal plan and calorie counter started! Logging calories helps you keep track of your goals! Most beginner gainers start with 2900-3500 calories a day with MINIMAL exercise!

Some important numbers to remember:

Essential Body Fat: 2-4%

Athletes Body Fat: 5-13%

Healthy Fit Body Fat: 14-17%

Overweight Body Fat: 18-23%

Obese Body Fat: 24%+

Calorie Intakes:

Double check your gainers intake and Weight prediction based on this calculator!!!

This will save you lots of guessing!!! For example my Daily Minimum for 2lbs a week! Doing nothing but the bare minimum of activity, basically a couch potato I need to consume a total of 3,200 calories a day!!!!

Good ways to motivate your Gainers:

Clothes are EXPENSIVE so make your gainers wear their clothes till they become unwearable! Now I’m not saying send your chubs out into the world with only shirts that expose their mid-drift without raising their hands! Certainly don’t do that. What I mean is let the buttons pop let the pants rip when at home it should be shirtless or skin tight as motivation to upgrade. This will save you some money for the time being, getting an accurate size on your fatty will not only encourage them but feel like a reward! This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, however speaking from experience….going from a Medium to a Large is short lived and I wish I just held off until I reached XL’s! Save your money!!! If it’s unbearable wearing always trust what the gainer says it’s their body! You are just a big cog in the machine that’s to be your Gainer!

Friends outside of feeders:

Most gainers should do their best to make friends with other gainers! Feeders this will be super helpful to progressing their gains!! If even the people they hang out with are fat pigs and gainers they will automatically start to pick up on their eating habits too. While a Feeder takes a lot of credit for the beauty that will become a gainers belly, have friends to get them eating too will be helpful. There is nothing wrong with Feeders sharing the fun too!!! Make a gainer friend together feed your gainer and your newly found friend at the same time! A gainer will never say no to some nice belly rubs and a big meal! Being fat can easily be influenced! Make good friends with gaining influence!!!

Weigh In’s

While watching those numbers go up is exciting…sometimes you hit Plateaus and weighing yourself gainer everyday can hurt their motivation or self esteem! That being said! 2-4 Weigh in’s a month is good enough! Never let your big boys weigh in EVERYDAY!!!

Spicing up the bedroom!

While a lot of this is for the gainer’s benefit Feeders this is where a lot of the fun begins! Here are a list of things to try out with your Gainer when you want to get more intimate-

Bring a few fast food meals and feed them to your gainer while in some tight clothes.

Putting your gainers in Jock Straps!

Making delicious gainer shakes

Now while these are great options there is yet another option! WARNING most gainers start off having a hard time with these but after the weight starts to pile on Gainers will become dependent upon these. They do become addictive. Some people naturally like it but myself it took time!

BOOST VHS it is a small portion and 530 calories! When I tell you having 3 meals and 3 of these small shakes your gainer will BLOW UP in a matter of weeks!!

Belly play! If your gainer has a nice over hang slap it grab it shake it jiggle it rub it! All of that!

This one is going to sound strange but after the first 40+ pounds their chest should be bigger and nipples either puffy or soft. That being said nipples become sensitive and sucking them and playing with them can stimulate a very good sexual response.

Get them on their hands and knees make them eat without using their hands! Make sure to feel them up praise them for eating everything and treat them right!

Massage their prostate while they eat on their hands and knees!

Call them those special names they like so much! Check out my other post to see them all but this is your Pig/your fatty/ your fat fuck!

Start teaching them how to bottom if they don’t already. Topping burns more calories than taking it while lying on your back.

If you are someone that isn’t into shrinking dicks the fat pad will mostly steal a few inches from your gainer. Politely as about using a penis pump and making sure that they aren’t using chastity cages to stunt growth. This is so your gainer can maintain topping but a feeder should practice riding on top while your chubby man relaxes!

If you are okay with the fat pad eating away at the inches of your gainers dick. Don’t let them masterbate, and use chastity cages/belts to prevent them from touching them self! Make sure they are achievable calories or finishing meals before letting them take it off!

Feeding with tight clothes on! When a belly is bloated enough you can certainly pop buttons!

Make sure you are giving and receiving consent and everything that you do only makes the feeder and gainer(s) feel good!

The key to happiness is through the stomach so fill it up with food!

[felassan]

New Mass Effect official art from the Mass Effect The Board Game - Priority: Hagalaz Rulebook [source]

[lex-noctis]

Happy N7◢ Day, Mass Effect Fandom!

And here is a little fanart gift from me to you all. Ever since the Mass Effect Legendary Edition launched and Bioware gave us an official Cover Art Creator, I wanted to make a poster print combining as many pieces together as I could. And here it is. I have done my best in styling, composition and coloring to channel my favorite poster and illustration artist working today - Grzegorz "Gabz" Domaradzki. And then I got it printed and hung it up on my wall, where it shares the space with other posters of some of the greatest movies, tv shows and games. This is only a fanart and I wish I could credit every single concept artist that provided those amazing pieces, but sadly the only artist I know for sure about is Benjamin Huen, who made an incredible Miranda Lawson concept art that was used for the Art Creator. If anyone knows exactly who was responsible for any of the individual and amazing pieces, I would love to add their names, too.

Well, then. I should go.

[guardevoir]

100 days of art, 65/100.

I think I've officially run out of art fucks to give. I see this as a positive tbh.

Also, I am currently being so normal about Mass Effect

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

reminder: byler is officially going to be bones next season! ❤️

you and all your fellow bylers are currently having all your delusion mass screenshotted and put in my twitter mutual's archive... once s5 comes out and byler is bones, she'll make a video mocking almost a decade worth of your delusion. the video will become viral and every single person in the world will be laughing at you. ❤️

enjoy your delusion while you still can, you fool. ❤️

Ngl, this is simultaneously one of the funniest and saddest hate anons I’ve received. You should be embarrassed, but because you possess not a shred of self-awareness or shame, you won’t be.

The truth is, you’re clearly insecure and scared that we’re right because no one who is actually secure and happy with their ship acts this way. No one. If I were a Mlvn, I would simply enjoy Mlvn through fan art, edits, analysis, S5 predictions, memes, etc.- you know, all the things we’re doing here, like a normal fandom, in peace?

I wouldn’t spend my time harassing a group of shippers I believe to be “delusional,” who support a ship that I see as “bones.” We aren’t bothering anyone or harming anyone.

That isn’t even middle school behavior. That’s elementary school behavior. Your juice boxes are by the animal crackers and the Go-Gurt, btw.

So what if we're “delusional” (we aren’t, but so what if we are?) How do our so-called “delusions” have any effect on your fandom experience whatsoever? You’re making yourselves miserable by being bullies instead of enjoying Mlvn.

Additionally, Byler is beautiful and life-affirming and lovely and wonderful all around. There is nothing bad about rooting for queer joy and for Will (and Mike) to get happy endings together.

And there is nothing delusional about shipping a ship that is semi-canon where one half of it literally made a romantic painting for their bestie and the other half of the ship spent the entire penultimate season having heart-to-hearts with them. Nothing, nada, zilch.

You being bereft of subtext, fueled by flagrant homophobia, and blinded by heteronormativity isn’t our problem. It’s yours. And if against all odds, we’re wrong, that’s on the writers of the show. It still wouldn’t make us delusional or foolish, and there would be nothing to mock.

That’s because there is nothing foolish or wrong about rooting for queer joy. The only thing that’s foolish is rooting against it, which you’re doing now. We have nothing to be ashamed of, and you have everything to be ashamed of.

So compile what you wish. Continue down the astonishing path of total self-unawareness. Laugh, mock, and cackle. Guzzle down your homophobia. Place your head on your pillow at night in the smug satisfaction that you’re oh so enlightened because you aren’t delusional and see that Mike and El are explicitly dating on screen, so they must be endgame.

And we will see you on the other side. And maybe, just maybe, when you’re entirely wrong in 2025 and Byler is not, in fact, bones, you’ll rethink your life and work on being a better, happier, kinder person. I pray that day comes sooner.

[szynkaaa]

✦ szynkaaa's masterlist ✦

Last updated: 28/10/2024

About me: [ EN+DE ] ✦ Berlin, DE based ✦ I make (fan)art, merch and bind books✦ PLEASE DO NOT USE, ALTER, OR REPOST WORK WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Personal commission are currently closed! For commercial commission inquiries, please send me an email to saltyhamramen [at] gmail [dot] com

Art

art post ✦ instagram ✦ portfolio ✦ twitter (inactive) ✦ poipuki (NSFW) ✦ twitch

Bookbinding

bookbinding posts ✦ carrd ✦ instagram ✦ shop ✦ commission info ✦ tools and materials list ✦ available typeset ✦ typeset request form

Black Myth Wukong

Black Myth Wukong tag ✦ Original Character

Black Myth Rambling ✦ lore, musing, rambling and screenshots about the game

✦ BMW Journal Entries: What happened to the FFM monkeys after SWK died ✦ BMW Journal Entries: Sun Wukong's Golden Armor Pieces ✦ The Three Tigers from Chapter 3 ✦ Bull King, Princess Rakshasi and Red Boy: A Tragedy ✦ Who is the Old Monkey ✦ BMW Journal Entries: The Three Tigers from ch. 2 ✦ The (tragic) Love Stories in BMW ✦ How tall is the Destined One / Sun Wukong in BMW? ✦ Height difference PingPing vs the Destined One ✦ Not BMW but SWK is great with kids in this comic ✦ Headcanon that DO/SWK drew all the achievement icon ✦ The one armor that shows a bit of his chest fur (we have been robbed) ✦ DO/SWK has a chipped left tooth (and so does the Stone Monkey transformation) ✦ DO/SWK has one non-circular pupil and also two moles on his neck ✦ Normal Ending credit song + what happens to the DO in the normal ending ✦ 4th Spider very likely married to the previous Destined One (reddit comment) ✦ Also this reddit comment about the 4th spider sister ✦ Monkey wearing shoes ✦ Destined One looking terrified and running away (the only time he is emoting in the game) ✦ Black Myth Wukong Official Mooncake

Black Myth: Wukong Screenshot Collection

Shen Monkey

Not My Circus, But Unfortunately That Is My Monkey ✦ the Destined One/Sun Wukong x Original Character fanfic

AO3 link ✦ ch. 01 ✦ ch. 02 ✦ ch. 03

Monkey See, Monkey Do ✦ Destined One x Original Character Modern!AU

Miscallenous

Animal Crossing ✦ Assassin's Creed ✦ Bucky Barnes ✦ Caravel/OUABH ✦ Chainsaw Man ✦ Demon Slayer ✦ Dishonored ✦ Dungeon Meshi ✦ Final Fantasy 7 ✦ Final Fantasy 14 ✦ Final Fantasy 15 ✦ Genshin Impact ✦ MARVEL ✦ Mass Effect ✦ MDZS ✦ One Piece ✦ Pokemon ✦ Star Wars ✦ Taylor Swift ✦ The Boy (Brahms Heelshire) ✦ TGCF ✦ Twisted Wonderland ✦ SVSSS

[pinkyjulien]

I really, really hate the "Female V is canon" vs "Male V is canon" debate that been popping here and here in the tags those past weeks

Cyberpunk 2077 is a Role Playing Game, there is no "canon" protagonist, that's the whole point. We all have a different playstyles, different stories and headcanons, our custom V is The Canon V of Our Own playthroughs!

After Phantom Liberty dropped, I've seen a lot of players, on Tumblr or Twitter, voicing their concerne and disappointment in how much more Female V focused the official promo, videos and even in-game credits became

I was one of them too, expressing my feelings multiple times, sometimes awkwardly, frustrated that Male V players were once again brushed to the side, because that's how it feels like, right?

Well, it might feels like it, but this isn't the case AT ALL, far from it. This is only what I would call a "Fandom Phenomenon" and I want to talk more about it a bit

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine who works in the game industry and it opened my eyes on the matter, and I've since been really interested in seeing RPGs statistics!

Because it's really, really important to make the difference between the Casual Player Base (majority of players) and the Fans / Fandom Base (minority of players)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I always been lurking in fandoms here on Tumblr, since Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and now with Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3

First I want to drop some stats- might be completly wrong, but I'm only sharing my point of view here, in an attempt to explain why some people are frustrated with Female V being the focus (and why we shouldn't be!)

I think it's not wrong to say that fandoms are mostly occupied by women and fem-identifying individuals; fandoms are a safe place for players and fans to share their passions. Women are STILL HEAVILY harassed and hated in the gaming industry as a whole, it doesn't take a lot of digging to catch a vile comment on Twitter or on Twitch for example, you cannot go far without seeing someone either attacking or sexualizing them

This is a huge problem in the industry still, every games that release with a female protagonist get trashed- just look at the bullshit surrounding GTA 6 just because players will be able to play as a woman as an option

Fandoms are also safe for non-gender conforming people, non-binaries, trans people and queer men, but I think fem individuals and women are a clear majority, at least on Tumblr (only talking about genders identity here and not about being queer or not, not talking about sexualities or attraction) (not an official stat at all and only my point of view and experience from being on Tumblr since ~2012)

Now let's talk about Cyberpunk 2077- because this is my main fandom since 2020, and what prompted me to write this post in the first place

CDPR didn't share any stats recently, but it's REALLY SAFE to assume the MAJORITY of players are playing a straight Male V romancing Panam, followed by a lesbian Female V romancing Judy, but the player pools for both options are still majoritarly cis hetero men (and they are still the focus for AAA studios to sell their games, this is sadly just how it is)

However on the fandom side, Fem V was always the focus; virtual photography, mods, ships, OCs... She was always more popular than Male V, getting more interactions and notes and why trends like "Male V monday" were created and why there is still a lack of male V focused mods (non-binaries and trans fem folks and characters are also sadly under-represented in all type of content and art)

So, being yourself as a non-fem player, playing as a Masc V, seeing CDPR officially make the switch from Male V to Female V, when the space you've been in for the past 3 years has been overwhelmingly Female V focused on all front, was a bit of a punch in the guts; like I said earlier, I was reaaally frustrated with this too!

And I'd say it's "normal"? or at least "ok" to feel this way, it makes sense considering how little attention Male V in general get in the fans community

BUT. BUT... It's REALLY important here to realize how we sound and how we look like when we voice our frustrations on the matter; we sound and look just like all the misogynistic people over on Twitter who screams about "woke games" everytime there is a female protagonist in their "non political games". We have to remember that fandoms are suuuch a small part of the game industry

Baldur's Gate 3 recently shared their stats and this interesting tweet got into my dash

▶ tweet

Astarion is nowhere to be seen in the official most romanced companions statistic, but I'm sure a lot of people will agree that he's probably the most popular one in the fandom side!

Another stat here from Mass Effect and really interesting info coming from David Gaider about how the hardcore fanbase aka fandom's choices were WILDLY different from the casual / main player pool

▶ tweet

Getting my head out of the fandom bubbles and seeing the bigger picture, how much under-represented women still are in official medias (not talking about fan content) and how insanly misoginistic the game industry still is, both on the player and devs sides, helped me handle my own frustration on the matter, accept and even celebrate Female V being the focus for the Phantom Liberty campaign

With all that said tho, we all should be able to vent about the lack of Male, Masc and Non-Binary content in the fandom side, while still being aware of the industry state, it CAN co-exist! It doesn't make anyone a bad or misogynist person!

We are all humans and can be awkward and make mistakes, especially when voicing frustration or talking while in a negative mood. Let's educate one another in good-faithed manners when we slip instead of jumping to conclusion and throw accusations

Not gonna lie I kind of lost my train of thoughts and not sure how to finish this post, but I hope this can enlight some people on why CDPR made this choice!

Repeating this as a finale note; this doesn't mean that Female V is the "main" V or "canon" V . It's simply her time to shine, and it's well deserved! The industry needs it

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Jake Wallis Simons

On Saturday, when Israel attacked the al-Taba’een Hamas command centre in Gaza City, jihadi propagandists swung into action straight away. The group had placed the military facility inside a school compound for precisely such an entrapment. Now it was time to cash in.

At first, things seemed to be going according to plan. “Nearly 100 killed in Israeli strike on school, Gaza officials say,” blared the Washington Post, a typical example. In the story, Mahmoud Bassal, a “Gaza civil defence spokesman”, was given space to hype up the supposed atrocity without any indication that the Gaza civil defence is controlled by Hamas. Women and children had been massacred, western audiences were told. Footage was released of scores of bodies wrapped in blankets laid out in the playground. Hamas sat back and waited for the international outrage to place Israel under pressure.

This time, however, Jerusalem was prepared. In short order, the IDF released a list of the names and mugshots of the terrorists who had been targeted, as well as their ages and the ranks they held within Hamas and Islamic Jihad. First, it provided the details of 19 such combatants. Then, when Hamas revised its numbers to say that only 40 had lost their lives, Israel released a further batch of information about 38 dead terrorists.Subscribe

The truth remains elusive. Aside from treating Hamas’s numbers with well-deserved scepticism, Israel has not offered a definitive answer on the numbers of civilians killed. In war, it takes much time to ascertain the numbers of the dead; all these years later, estimations of the casualties of the Iraq war, for instance, range within a spectrum of hundreds of thousands. The IDF has, however, confirmed that small and precise munitions were used in the strike to avoid harming civilians sheltering nearby and published a video showing that the compound was still intact, contrasting with unverified social media footage of the bodies of women and children.

Track records, however, speaks for themselves. In the past, Hamas’s strategy for manipulating the media, and consequently world opinion, has worked shamefully well. From casualty numbers to myths about Israeli soldiers menacing detainees with dogs, from allegations about starvation and genocide to specific lies about strikes on hospitals, its narrative has been lapped up by many influential organisations and figures who should have known better. The group has mastered the art of tapping the repressed Israelophobia in western audiences by appropriating the progressive language of human rights and anti-colonialism. All this has had a mass effect. The way in which Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime have felt comfortable openly celebrating the hordes of keffiyeh-clad westerners on the streets of our capitals, safe in the knowledge that their praise would put nobody off, is testament to the propaganda genius of the jihadis.

“As the vilest writer has his readers, so the greatest liar has his believers,” Jonathan Swift wrote in 1710. “And it often happens that if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies and truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late.”

[thefloatingstone]

Here’s that official art I mentioned that I haven’t seen anywhere else online.

Cover of the Bonus content box as found in the 2012 Pre-order Edition of Mass Effect 3 for PS3.