#mass effect....ass effect

[tarysande]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[milkywayes]

battlefields, internal

[continuous-spec]

Still one of my favorite details of Garrus’ writing is that one of his go to curses is crap.

Flubbing in flirting? Crap

Mech showing up for a fight? Crap

About to get blown up by a bomb? Crap

[s0upbuggi]

A series of images of various angara over images of my cats and a certain meme cat.

This is the worst pile of images in my gallery formed by my hand.

[exactly24bees]

He’s the specialist boy in the whole galaxy

[nukednick]

vanguard

[gemsbokk]

I know I was JUST in your dms, but if you're still taking ideas for the emotion wheel— Legion and isolated? I have so much emotion for that crazy machine

Legion - (no longer?) isolated

You might’ve thought I’d forgotten about you but no! I am still doing my best!

The emotion wheel thingy and no text version below!

[the-shotce-newsletter]

If the 141 were in Mass Effect, you know everyone single one of them would be an N7. In the Systems Alliance for Earth in Mass Effect that’s the most elite, top tier, badass rank you can get. Ghost having a pet- *cough* trained varren was @starlightvld ‘s idea. Boo has adopted Soap until Shepard’ been set loose (though you know Price would totally break them out). Instead of calling them muppets, Price calls them all pyjaks (space monkey) because he was a krogan in another life.

As I doodled and tried to figure out their classes, I had this idea of Price starting a task force of N7s to help Shepard in the war against the reapers.

[madameoni]

Today I woke up with a single thought in mind: what it Shepard gets Garrus' colony marks tattooed on her hand

[janewayintersection]

i know i've posted about fshep lifting kaidan like a sack of flour throughout the trilogy, but i think the best part is that kaidan has also canonically lifted fshep like a sack of flour. like these two can rag doll each other across the room. bonus points if shep is a biotic because then that means they can both physically and biotically rag doll each other across the room.

[edains]

Mass Effect Legendary Edition: Introducing: Ashley Williams

[legionofpotatoes]

I know the discourse well is poisoned and no one hates bioware games more than bioware fans, but I am just 🫠 having so much fun with veilguard it's unreal. It is selfishly the dragon age game I always wanted. with less emphasis on cRPG, a more focused story, curated mission based design that spotlights the high fantasy stuff, slowburn structure with companions, significantly less sidequest bloat, and a fully real-time action-oriented combat system that isn't riddled with the growing pains of previous titles. when I first played origins I imagined something almost exactly like this as my ideal version of a sequel; and it was one of those dirty, selfish thoughts that I knew was disrespectful to the then-established DNA of the thing, but I can't help but feel giddy about having it here and now. like down to the shift away from the childishly dark tone and to something more inherently flexible with a baseline aspirational quality. I hate aesthetically depressing games so much. am I not alive right here and right now already

When I say "aesthetically" there though I do mean it. I'm fully on the opposite side when it comes to tone and positions expressed in the story itself. I am just not including that in my analysis because I am not done yet - so please no spoilers! I think I am where most people consider to be the second act, and I definitely have my gripes with the narrative framework and some of the optics, but I won't put the cart before the horse and will see how it wraps things up first. Above that level, in terms of how it presents itself, of how it plays, of how it balances its core pillars - it is such a bioware-ass game and I could not be any cozier in it. So grateful it exists

[laelior]

The ride back from Rift Station is eerily silent.

Liara sits near the back, contemplating the hands folded in her lap. She’s earned the numbness that radiates from her.

Shepard might as well be a statue at the front of the tram, her back ramrod straight and her shotgun slung across her lap, one hand resting on the stock. She keeps a quiet vigil, her eyes continually scanning the track ahead of them for signs of danger. Kaidan hasn’t seen her move once since they’d boarded the tram, in a stark departure from her typical restless energy. He puts it down to deference for Liara’s grief and the unnerving encounter with the rachni.

Kaidan is somewhere in the middle, pacing from side to side while keeping an eye on both Liara and the peripheral sight lines as the tram hurtles along back toward the central station.

The tram lurches around a bend, and the statue at the front of the tram winces. It's subtle, as is the way she shifts her left shoulder. Someone else might not have caught it. But Kaidan does.

He sighs and makes his way to the front of the tram to kneel down in front of her, looking her over critically for the source of her wince.

“Alright, show me where it is,” he says, quietly so as not to disturb Liara.

“Where what is?” She barely looks at him, eyes flicking down to him before resuming their scan of the horizon ahead.

“Whatever injury you’re trying to power through. Let me take a look at it."

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Go check on T’soni, she could probably use it.” She waves her hand, shoeing him away like she would a fly, but Kaidan is having none of it.  Not today. Not after all they’ve been through.

“Liara’s in shock. She needs time to process what happened, not a medi-gel patch. Now quit being stubborn and show me.” He stares her down, unwilling to concede this battle of wills to her and her mulish pride. Before she can protest, he takes the shotgun from her lap and places it on the floor–easily within reach for someone with a normal range of motion. Her nostrils flare in annoyance but she finally meets his gaze.

“For fuck’s sake, Alenko,” she snaps quietly. She moves her left arm away from her side and Kaidan sucks in a breath. There, the plates of her Onyx armor have blackened and cracked, leaving a fist-sized dent right over her ribs.

Carefully, he picks at a piece of ablative ceramic and it flakes away in his hand like so much tissue. The undersuit is tattered, showing the bruised expanses of her skin underneath and two bony knobs sitting close to the surface. “How…?

“One of the commandos. Hit me with a warp and shotgun blast right after.” Her accompanying shrug is not effortless. “Maybe shorted out the medi-gel delivery system, too,” she concedes with a quiet grunt.

He pulls a spare medi-gel pack from his own armor and breaks it open, gingerly applying the clear, viscous substance directly to her skin. His field medic training had never specifically advised this particular method of applying medi-gel, but there had been a number of edge cases that training had failed to cover. She hisses when he presses just a little too hard.

“Sorry,” he murmurs reflexively. He peels off his gauntlet for a gentler touch and sets it next to her shotgun. The medi-gel is cold on his fingers, a sharp contrast to the heat of her skin under his touch.

“These look broken, Shepard.” He hovers two fingers just over her fifth and sixth ribs, careful not to touch.

“I’ve had worse.” It takes all of Kaidan’s self-control not to grind his forehead into his palm.

“The moment we get back to Port Hanshan, you’re going to see Chakwas,” he says flatly. It is not a request. 

“Are you giving me orders now, Lieutenant?” There’s a cold edge to her voice and a look of hard steel in her eyes. Another time, that would have made him back off. But now…now, he meets her hard stare with one of his own.

“I don’t have to. Chakwas can still countermand you on medical matters.” She glares down at him, using that look he’s seen a hundred times now to bend others to her will. But he refuses to break under the weight of it.

And then she does the last thing he expects.

One side of her mouth turns up in a dry, lopsided smile.

Kaidan quickly drops his eyes, feeling a flush start to creep up his neck, and finishes applying the medi-gel. He fumbles to get his armored glove back on once he’s done. He resumes his place in the middle of the tram, but somehow he just knows she’s still smiling that little smile of hers.

When the tram finally slows to a stop at the central station, he’s still not sure who won that round.

[noobmasteria]

Liara T'Soni

[clericofshadows]

ZAEED MASSANI MASS EFFECT 2 - RECRUITMENT

[shaebutter-baby]

There are not enough people horny for this woman… my god look at her😩✨🫶🏾