#playin mass effect

[xoshepard]

mass effect: you can just use 100 omnigel to restore the core like you do with all the other puzzles you know

me (loves towers of hanoi): nah i'm a pro hacker i got this

[spookyvalentine]

my first attempt at drawing mercy vs my most recent

[curly-cottage-girl]

Guess who just legally changed his name to me?

Lol

[questioningespecialy]

The Mass Effect series was originally released to widespread acclaim, with praise heaped on its story of intergalactic war and survival against all odds. However, Mass Effect also tells a story about human colonisation and expansion across the galaxy – a far more complex and fraught topic. (…) It’s important to note that Mass Effect’s whole narrative discussion of colonisation is explored through a colonial lens – and one that represents the act with positivity. For players that do not treat the idea of colonisation with kindness, this narrative can be distinctly alienating.

Aside from Ashley, people were also noticing how dated the dialogue and story felt by today’s standards, and just how problematic it had been. (…) She’s an incredibly uncomfortable character whose views represent most of the human colonists that are expanding their reach through the galaxy. In some respect, it makes the option of leaving her out of your story so much more meaningful – but that decision also comes with its own issues. (…) But where the portrayal of each side differs is in how the aliens are depicted: as the problem. (…) For me, in exploring and saving these human colonists I began to wonder: ‘Are these the people I really want to save?’ For the most part, the answer was ‘no’. (…) Playing Mass Effect years later, I’m irritated with how this series constantly wants you to go along with the actions and dialogue of racist, xenophobic behaviour in order to mine depth and meaning from the plot. The game keeps illustrating the expansion of the human colonies across the galaxy as a good thing, despite those human colonies being filled with racists who want Aliens dead. It makes it hard to root for the humanity portrayed in Mass Effect to survive. I feel as though Mass Effect would have a far more interesting story to tell if we were anything but human. Though it does dabble in the ideas, Mass Effect as a series struggles to portray any meaningful anti-colonialist, anti-expansion narrative, because it simply does not want to. Mass Effect champions a colonial struggle against the threats of an expansive galaxy, and in returning to the game, I realise just how little room there is in this story to find myself and my values.

—Mass Effect’s colonisation narrative isn’t pretty, ten years later by Nich Richie, GamesHub.com (8 Nov 2022)

[lodgeofthecat]

Tonite we're playin' Mass Effect

I just met this Krogan and I WILL cure the Genophage for him! https://www.twitch.tv/schoolofthecat

[culttvblog]

Monty Python: Michael Ellis

This is by way of another experimental post, because I am trying to overcome the inability I have always experienced to blog about Monty Python's Flying Circus. I can happily watch this show over and over again, roaring with laughter each time, but when I have tried to blog about it, I invariably find I have nothing to say. I am therefore wondering whether this is because Monty Python doesn't work with my usual format of one blog post per episode of a show and am going to let the show overflow the usual format and blog about a few things in addition to Michael Ellis. My excuse for this is that of course the idea of a blog originated as a 'weblog' so I'm going to log Monty Python's effect on me and just log what comes into my head, so this post will be even more chaotic than usual, I'm afraid, but you can blame the penguin on top of the telly for that.

In reality, I find that the way Monty Python affects me is that a particular sketch or episode will enter my consciousness for a matter of months and flatly refuse to leave, until it is replaced by another one.

For a long time the Monty Python sketch which was inhabiting my head was Mrs Premise and Mrs Conclusion Visit Jean-Paul Sartre, from the third series episode, Whicker's World. There is absolutely no reason that these two pepperpots should be introduced in the middle of Njorl's Saga and the repentant mass murderer, just as I'm not sure there is any reason Monty Python should refer to the female characters they playin drag, as pepperpots. But I love the way it starts off with a philosophical discussion in a laundrette.

Completely off-topic, I have to say that the laundrette in Birmingham most likely to chance to have a Paris phone directory would be the Selly Soak (in Selly Oak), which as well as laundering also allows you to transfer money, which tickles me no end. This is of course because it is closest to the university, and I'm only sorry that I couldn't choose the laundrette in Moseley for this honour because there was once a showing of My Beautiful Laundrette *actually in the laundrette*, which if you don't know Birmingham tells you everything you could ever want to know about Moseley.

I love Mrs Sartre, I love the life of a philosopher, I love that the two ladies just drop everything to go and ask Jean-Paul their question, and I love the way Mrs Premise met him on holiday in France. There is something completely perfect about this sequence, it's perfectly paced, just realistic and ridiculous enough, and it took a long time for it to leave my head.

Then for a long time Ethel the Frog (from the series 2 episode Face the Press) entered my head and wouldn't leave. I love the way it's in the form of a mock documentary which is absolutely insane.

Doug and Dinsdale Piranha are, of course, completely inapproproately based on famous vicious gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray, who did a lot worse than nail people's heads to coffee tables. The comparison is made complete by Dinsdale's interest in boys' clubs, sailors' homes, choristers' associations, scouting jamborees, and the household cavalry, which perfectly mirror Ronnie's interests. Also Inspector Harry 'Snapper' Organs mirrors the officer who brought down the Krays, Detective Superintendent Leonard 'Nipper' Read.

When I say that Ethel the Frog parodies a documentary I mean this quite literally, and of course there are lots of documentaries about the Krays reflecting our national interest in them. However perhaps the best example of the sort of documentary which Ethel the Frog parodies is the 1977 The Ruth Ellis Story, about the last woman to be hanged in Britain. It is exactly the sort of cast of larger than life characters and eccentrics that the Pythons parody in their spoof documentaries, and reflects the same hopelessness and inefficiency of our national life in actually getting anything done or sorted. The Ruth Ellis Story periodically appears online before being taken down again, but I'm not aware of any commercial release at the moment. However honestly it's just like a Monty Python documentary, just that the subject is real and deadly serious.

The same eccentricity at the centre of our national life is also reflected in the current Monty Python episode to settle into my head and refuse to leave, the final series episode Michael Ellis.

I think the reason it has taken hold of me is that it has taken a perfectly normal setting - a department store - and filled it with the sort of eccentrics that couldn't possibly be real but are perilously close to characters we know. The collecting animals and TV sets appear relatively normal in comparison to some of the things in the store, and I think what I like best is that some scenes (such as the scene where the man who isn't Michael Ellis hears Michael Ellis being called on the PA), were clearly recorded in a real department store, which I haven't been able to identify.

A department store is a wonderful setting for Monty Python because it is an institution anyway, so the outsider feels out of sorts and isn't necessarily acquainted with all the rituals of the insiders. It also particularly has a high level of artifice: the furniture is arranged in rooms which aren't real, and the clothes are displayed on models which aren't real. Like all retail settings a department store sells dreams which actually aren't ours yet.

Haven't we all wondered whether you could actually buy a flame thrower from a department store? After a suitable test in the shop which would involve setting your fellow shoppers and the complaints department on fire, of course. Harrods in Knightsbridge of course has always been said to sell literally anything so you probably could get one there. The show further draws on reality in the act of buying a pet ant - only a few years ago a British Pathe film had shown a London secretary walking her pet leopard on a lead round the streets, so the Pythons have only really gone one step on.

And we all know someone with a passion for collecting technology, even if it does mean heaping up the television sets in the living room while you're giving drugs to the tiger. My own father used to collect and restore antique grandfather clocks, and at one point we had four of them in a row on the landing, all working. He would stop them chiming at night of course, but during the say they would often chime different times because they weren't very well. We were used to it but guests could get rather freaked out by the clocks randomly striking 13 when they felt like it.

Michael Ellis is another example where it's close enough to reality that it could actually happen. The show inserts us further into its own reality in the Victorian poetry reading scene by having the audience in mixed Victorian and contemporary clothing: possibly not as valid 50 years later but it's like we are the characters dressed in sta-prest and bri-nylon next to the Victorian characters.

It's also unusual for being one of the only (I think) two episodes of Monty Python that carry one setting or story arc across the whole episode. This provides quite a different atmosphere, more like a film, than most of the other episodes. The show once again derails this continued narrative by having the end titles at the beginning and by considering several different endings before the actual abrupt ending.

Even though it has actually ended, Michael Ellis nonetheless managed to live on in my head. I'm also impressed with the utter bizarreness of the blog post it's managed to produce.

But then that's life in the UK. You didn't think Monty Python was a comedy did you? It's a documentary.

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[necrofuturism]

tfw u playin either mass effect or subnautica idk

[socialprawn]

I don't mean to sound weird, but i thirnk your posting of mass effect have revired my brain. I haven't draw p much anything in the past ~4 years bc of how much i was dissatisfied with my own skills and lack of creativity. I have spent last month playin ME trilogy and seeing you draw Diana caused such an irresistible desire to do silly drawings of my own Shep that I actually put my old graphic tablet back to work. Haven't drawn anything ME ralated (yet) but spend past three days on this like sketch-daily websites doing more or less consistent drawing practice. The whole process suddenly feels pleasant again. Anyway. Sorry if this rant sounds insane.

It doesn't sound insane or weird at all, it's very heartwarming to hear 🙈 and I'm glad you started drawing again! Take it easy and just focus on enjoying yourself while doing it, it's the ultimate reason!

I'm going to be thinking about this a lot /v\ 💕

[sinisterexaggerator]

ALRIGHT. Gimme numero 18 for the writer one and 16 and 18 for the Star Wars one, por favor.

Ooh, thank you for the asks!

#18 from writers: What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

I am really proud of the chapter I wrote in Stars Above where Hondo Ohnaka and Cad Bane are "having a conversation," but Hondo is trying to make Cad out to be immoral even though he himself is a scoundrel and Bane points out he is hypocritical.

“So Cad, you agree then? This New Order’s not to be trusted?” It was more than conversation; the Weequay was a strategist in his own respect. His antics were parlor tricks, his comedic gestures just for show. He would get to the bottom of his business dealings before the night was over.

[...]

“Ne’ver said I trus’ted dem.” He was short with him, cutting straight to the point – that’s what he wanted; he wasn’t stupid – this was a mere game he was playing, though Cad Bane wouldn’t bite.

“Then why work for them?” The Weequay’s face had transformed into a mask delineating that he was serious, his cordial demeanor all but fleeing for this instant. Zulara herself was curious, and Kayson had been afraid to ask, though perhaps it was his good fortune to have invited a man like Hondo to their sabacc game. Even old Masse had turned his gaze, thumbing through a small datapad he had produced, though his ears had never strayed too far from the conversation, and the Rodian rather soundlessly kept his place, yet this new round of queries promoted him to speak in Basic.

[...]

“Did you hear that, my dear? Cad Bane’s a murderer. What a ghastly business, bounty hunting… By the way, what is your name?”

“Zulara,��� she stated, even-toned. She felt relaxed, her mind was drifting to pleasing thoughts; the Gardulla was having its effect on her.

Cad Bane sneered, hating this back and forth that only he seemed to be privy to. Hondo was the one that had told him her pretty title, yet he still pretended to not be the deceitful pirate that he was; a smuggler, a racketeer. “You actin’ like yer’a honest man. ‘Least I don’ try’t hide m’nature.”

"No one's hiding anything! I was merely pointing out your lack of conscience. I pick and choose carefully; death only need be present where there is no alternative."

"You playin' Maker, den? Sounds like’a fun game… Must be nice t’pick an’ choose. Ain’ no monster – rather take scores a’live - sometimes it can’t be ‘elped. De Jedi … d’ere’a sspecial lot, and dat one deserves t’die fer double crossin’ me.”

“Ahem.” Hondo nearly coughed; it was a façade.

I just wanted to do right by both the characters. They never met in canon. I thought it would be so much fun if they had a back and forth.

--

#16 from Star Wars asks: Which movie/episode have you watched the most?

The Bad Batch: Reunion and Bounty Lost ft. Cad Bane. ;) I love his TBB outfit, but also his unaltered voice is to die for.

18. What is your favorite star wars book or comic?

Resistance Reborn and Shadow of the Sith because they both feature Shriv Suurgav in canon outside of Battlefront 2.

[woofularunit]

Im playin mass effect 2 come hang out!! :3

[jmkitsune]

Games I streamed this year

So like with it being december, I realize like "shit what did I wind up playing for 52 weeks this year?) so I went back and looked only at the stuff I've streamed/uploaded to youtube this year and yeah was both MORE than I expected, but also less lol

Final Fantasy X (replayed for fun)

Minecraft (replayed for fun)

Batman Arkham Origins, Asylum, City, Knight (replayed cause THE BATMAN came out back in march)

Some Breath of the Wild (tried to finish it on stream...still can't lol)

Final Fantasy Pathfinder Game (started another dnd game on stream again)

Horizon Forbidden West (Thanks to Britt for buying it for me)

Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga

Mass Effect 1-3 (Legendary Edition)

Overwatch 2 for like a day

Lego Marvel SuperHeroes

Uncharted 1-4 (replayed for fun)

Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider (first time STREAMING)

Modded Fallout New Vegas (replayed for fun)

so like 20ish games in 52 weeks

NOT AWFUL if you ask me

here is to 2023

starting my star wars dnd game and my homebrew world hopefully so I can have 3 ttrpgs going on my channels

and whatever other games we wind up playin :D

What games did you spend the most time playing this year?

[xoshepard]

i did noveria before feros against my better judgment simply bc i am fucking scared of the zombie colonist part of feros. sure i cant save every colonist on casual or normal but insanity??????

but then on the other hand, eva is a renegade so like. maybe she wouldn't be so broken up about not being able to save a couple of the colonists. from her perspective, losing one or two is better than losing the whole colony. she's not SO renegade that she would kill them all but this might work for her personality

[shesgonnachangetheworld]

hey @persephinae guess what I started playing? :D

[semlramis]

me1 moments that made me chortle: misplaced zoom and a :3

[flame2ashes]

Me: I want more content of my Shepards interacting :(

My brain, logical: Why don’t you just draw them

Me: Hmm I don’t feel like it. I think I’ll just mod my game instead

[amygdalae]

Ashley Masseffect literal xenophobia moments