#so glad i can post screenshots from this area now h

[overtheriver-throughthewoods]

🦋 a secret butterfly garden 🦋

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

this DLC has me FUCKED UP and i keep screaming

spoilers for Bounty of Blood under the cut, keep reading at ur own peril. Also some Guardian Takedown spoilers for anyone who hasn’t beat it yet

tl;dr: a comparison between something taken from BL2 and a thing taken from Bounty of Blood. more spoilery tl;dr below the cut.

also the siren thing is not spoilers so i’ll share it here for anyone curious, it’s just this: siren tattoos are blue but when lily absorbs eridium in 2, they turn pinkish/purple. just like how vaults do from bl1 to bl2. they’re white/blue in bl1, then purple-pink in bl2 (and tps), y’know, after Eridium begins erupting from the ground. just a neat little detail i noticed that im not entirely sure was intentional but im gonna believe it is.

tl;dr: Gythian Blood = Core and the Ruiner is of Eridian Origin even tho everyone in the DLC likes to say it was created with Jakobs’ bioengineering. disclaimer: idk if I’ve found every hidden ECHO so I may be missing a few things but I have done every side quest and took ample screenshots of all important dialogue in the DLC : )

“man i just sat here for like 15 minutes staring at my keyboard mentally comparing core and eridium like the dumb bitch i am. 

it's not like we can do an actual comparison because we have no idea what the natural fauna of gehenna was like before jakobs came and mutated everything with core unlike pandora where we know what skags and rakk and shit were like BEFORE the eridium crust erupted. 

altho!!! there's a neat comparison between joey ultraviolet and rose. like obviously he wasn't getting tattoos and was just doing lines of crushed up eridium but the point stands they both have glowy eyes and unique powers so i don't necessarily think this means rose is a siren just because she has magic powers especially when we know she got the whistling passed down to her from her grandmother. 

especially because we've never seen a siren interact with core before. altho that leaves the question we have seen core tattoos now what are eridium tattoos like? actually rose's tattoos were on her right arm obviously she isn't a siren as we know them right now (I saw a post on reddit where people thought rose was a siren) 

of course that brings up the point perhaps siren tattoos ARE eridium tattoos. but then we hear the general's log about how the devil riders were tattooing a man with core and blood so obviously they're not ‘naturally’ occurring unlike siren tattoos. so odds are they're probably not equivalents but something interesting i thought of while thinking about this is how well siren tattoos compare to the Vaults from borderlands 1 and borderlands 2″

anyway. this is all ive been thinking about. yes yes i know guardian takedown post but! >:( im still salty even tho this update has been lovely (outside of Blane not getting his correct damage scaling ‘till today......). so i’ll do that at my own damn pace. now let me elaborate so i can sleep at night lmao

Eridium

refinement produces slag, which weakens people and can mutate things

has mutating properties, mostly with imbuing elements into shit- possibly causes insanity

seems to be connected to another dimension, likely the one the Eridians are from

Core

has a secondary form of Infused Core

has mutating properties, mostly regarding a thing’s body and mind

apparently radioactive

there are some things i wanna note

1) People throughout the DLC say the Ruiner was created by the Jakobs corp (the company) thru bio-engineering but I’m 99% sure that’s not true. The paperwork seems to me like they found the egg somewhere on Gehenna and decided to roll and experiment with it like all corporations do when they find weird alien shit. so maybe they experimented with whatever was inside the egg, but I don’t think they actually created it entirely

“Excavated from [REDACTED] ... Local legends speaks of a [REDACTED]. This theory is not endorsed by our research personnel.

2) The Ruiner’s design reminds me a lot of the Warrior.

3) Core immediately reminded me of Gythian Blood from Guns Love and Tentacles and I don’t think that’s coincidence to have 2 back-to-back DLCs where the big bad is focused on green death juice. I think Gythian Blood and Core are of the same stuffs.

4) Therefore, I think the Ruiner is (mostly) of Eridian origin (if you haven’t already guessed). 

This gives us an amazing look into how the Eridians actually create their beasts!!! And I’m so happy they showed us this.

(side note, Interitus Regina (the long name for Ruiner) literally means Destruction Queen and I think that’s beautiful <3)

i mean the idea that they plunge them from orbit to create an explosion similar to a nuke is fucking horrifying (but holy shit I love it so much ahhh it’s so cool!!!!)

the one side line from Oletta about how the company couldn’t control the Ruiner deffo makes me double down on this theory. I’m not entirely sure how Rose’s grandma knew about the whistling (I don’t think I’ve found every echo log in that area YET), but I would bet it was part of the testing given how many fuckin’ tape players they have throughout the facility. The Warrior was controlled by verbal commands via Jack, so it’s possible that the Ruiner was intended to be controlled similarly, but Jakobs intervention (or something like the way Rose hatched it) fucked it up.

now we know the Warrior was created to protect the Vault of the Destroyer (hmm.) so what the heck was the Ruiner created for? Ruiner is a name given to it by Jakobs/the people of Gehenna so we can’t really assume, but then again the monster names are pretty apt in this series even tho they probably technically shouldn’t be. 

it was only an egg, so maybe it was another test of Core? A Vault Monster incubating until it was ready to protecc and attacc but was never hatched because the Eridians ‘sacrificed’ themselves before it could? (I’m still not convinced the Eridians are the good guys. Listen. LISTEN. The guardian takedown is something to think about, BUT it doesn’t disprove that theory and I’ll stand by it because I 100% trust the Overseer more than bitchpants mcgee over here who thinks he’s soooo special for no reason fuck you and your dumb ‘I did what the Watcher could not’ bull you haven’t done shit.) ok sorry im done he just angers me. stupid guardian man. your whip is stupid and you should feel bad. oh also I totally called us actually being Guardians thru Guardian Rank before the game came out aha yeah.

I definitely think Gythian was a test/use of Core from the Eridians. We see in Bounty of Blood that core seems to mutate more the physical (and occasionally mental) parts of people, like with the crew challenges u do for Juno with all the weird hybrid people and whatnot. Gythian had the whole ‘the heart still beats’ thing going on (which is definitely a physical mutation if i’ve ever seen one), plus the whole, you know, mind control and shit. Which is p similar to what the menta gnats can do when charged with Infused Core. And keep in mind in BLaT we see DAHL notes on what happens to test subjects when injected with Gythian Blood. They mutated physically and went insane.

What im saying is Sirens and Eridium and Elements are connected, so what does Core equal? body/mind sure but are there unique creatures for core (yes holy shit I’m not talking about h2o au for once and FINALLY they gave us a canon name for the green stuff!!!). If not, I’d love to see a Siren interact with Core to see what it does to them. seriously why hasn’t tannis interrupted us yet. horrible excuse for a science lover (kidding kidding, I love her). I’d also really love a fuller rundown on what the hell Rose’s powers were. Because the whistling thing seemed to just be her grandma’s thingie passed down to her from her mom

but the core stuff

her gun seems to be infused with it. So did her sword thing. I didn’t really get a good look at it i was too busy trying to see thru my blurry tears of LOVE for this DLC.

Strangely while her tattoos are (mostly) green I actually don’t know if they’re core infused bc look at this

n look back at hers. hers aren’t very lime.

anyway

her eyes

I’d love to know if the core gives her immediate future sight or just increased perception or reaction times. there’s a huge difference but she seemed to be able to shoot the gun outta the sheriff’s hand near immediately and it seems kinda implied its because of the core (or at least because her eyes are glowing green)

there’s a possibility she has some unique core powers/possibly implants because of her relations to the project in the first place, or as leader of the devil riders after looting the facility. it’s really hard to say without more info and like i said im not sure if i missed an ECHO or two or not regarding her backstory :( 

Her hair is also green which I just noticed. Maybe she has core powers bc her grandmother got suuuuuuuuper irradiated/influenced working on project horizons and it passed down thru her n Rose’s mom, to Rose. Tannis does have a line about Sirens having unique hair colors and, if Sirens are linked to Eridium, perhaps those linked to Core also have unique hair color. Could also explain why only Rose seems to have those whistling powers. That said we don’t really see anyone else trying that whistling thing out afaik and idk if it was, like, a special ability or a certain tone/ditty or w h a t. 

i know being vague with everything gives them more creative freedom to create amazing characters and scenarios, but dammit I want A N S W E R S.

All THAT said man I’m so glad magic is real in the borderlands universe. oh, sorry, “magic”. It’s magic. Science it, tannis, I dare you. either way, I win. Either it’s magic and H2O AU is canon, or it’s science and I finally get my goddamn answers. Hey gearbox can you make a book just explaining all the science and eridian stuff. please. I’d love you forever. please. pleaheheheheaaasseee it’s all i’ve ever wanted.

oh also can i just say, suuuper disappointed we didn’t learn anything about anshin. Really wish non-fan favorite corporations would get the spotlight/lore for once. Like, I like Jakobs as much as the next guy, and I get WHY they did it (can’t have a corporation looking too good!!!) but they now have 3 DLCs (Jakobs Cove, GLaT, and Bounty of Blood) and also a hefty chunk of the main game. Like... we all know Jakobs fuckin sucks, look at what they did on Pandora. I really just want info on a medical corporation 😭 I have to do everything my damn s e l f. but SERIOUSLY IMAGINE the possibilities that could come from a medical corp getting its hands on eridian tech. like, yeah obviously the weapons corps are gonna use it for weaponry and stuff BUT WOULDN’T THE MEDICAL CORPS MUTATING PEOPLE MAKE MORE SENSE??? ldfhgldfshg I have to do everything my damn self...

anyway all that aside, this is definitely by favorite borderlands dlc by a LONG shot. Nothing comes close. Ahhh the lore, the nuclear aspect, the a e s t h e t i c (seriously, have I mentioned how much I adore Trigun???), the art, the music, the cryoslinger, the fact I can bust out going beeEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAans like Ray Chase at any time and it will MAKE SENSE. I love all of it.

oh, also, Rose is totally not dead. C’mon, they couldn’t find her body. She pulled a Lilith. “Are you sure she didn’t just suffer a wound that LOOKS fatal, only for her to come back in a blockbuster sequel...?” is a line from mr Jones himself (the movie guy)

I just hope when she comes back she gets to meet Captain Scarlett. I’d love to watch their interactions plus pirates and or ninjas. That’s 2 DLC villains now that have vanished without a trace. And I like Captain Scarlett way more than Rose (seriously I spent the entire beginning of the DLC complaining about how her voice bothered me- I was so happy she was a villain, I was hoping that was the case).

oh yeah, reminder, the people of vestige were living next to highly radioactive egg for likely years. i feel really bad for them :(

also!!!

this made me smile

[shiredwarf]

alright, so mea impressions

there’s a lot of rambling behind the cut but have a quick tl;dr

is mea as good as the original mass effect series: nope did that in any way impact my enjoyment of or love for it: NOPE!

there might be very slight spoilers behind the cut, nothing major though (especially main plot wise), just general stuff and a few screenshots but i blurred the spoilery stuff!

gonna start off with

Stuff I didn’t like: - i think my main complaint is that it could have been so much better. i love it quite a lot already but i feel like there was so much potential that was wasted - ah the bugs. so i didn’t experience anything major apart from one side quest flag malfunctioning and suddenly people were shooting at me and i was like ‘BUT I HELPED YOU’ and they were like ‘i don’t know her’. and there are just a few tiny things that don’t really matter that much in gameplay but just started to annoy me quite a lot as time went on. Like broken *new* notifications in my inventory that wouldn’t go away. Or broken sound flags that made you hear those horrible animal growling noises even though you were inside a cave and the thing was on the other side of the mountain. oh and SAM’s constant “this area can be mined for resources” or “pathfinder the environmental conditions have changed” YES I KNOW YOU’VE TOLD ME EVRY SINGLE TIME I’VE MOVED AWAY FROM THE LAMPLIGHT WHICH HAS HAPPENED ABOUT 20 TIMES IN THE LAST MINUTE SO SHUT UP. now that’s not a bug but you would have thought someone testing the game would have told them to turn that off after the first few times because omg it is annoying - now this wasn’t really an issue it was more something that disappointed me: detail and lack of diversity on the planets. Don’t get me wrong, the individual planets with their own specific environments were great but like if you look at DAI and the scenery programming, MEA is lacking in that regard. the thing is though, i’m not sure if it was maybe done on purpose. now at the end of the game i can totally see why the same animal life was present on every planet  because it does make sense story wise. But it was never mentioned in-game so i don’t know if that’s just a happy coincidence and i’m reading too much into it or not^^

and moving on to the stuff i did like:

Storyline:

so listen i was hyped from the moment i heard we’d go explore a new galaxy! That’s exactly my thing! Exploring, science, curiosity, that human need to push beyond known boundaries and of course lots and lots of drama. In short: mass effect^^ It’s starts of really great as well and while it does take a while for more complex issues to reveal themselves I enjoyed the storyline a lot. I know there were a lot of concerns about the whole ‘colonization’ thing before the release and I can fully understand that. there were a few moments during the game when I was like ‘right… but…. Maybe ask the indigenous species first???’ turns out they DO ask them but you only know that if you read the codex/post-mission emails so maybe that should have been more carefully addressed. I like that not all questions are answered, that it’s pretty clear at the end of the game that this will continue but I’m glad they answered one of my burning “BUT WHERE ARE THE ***” questions in the epilogue. And without going too much into details I love the throwbacks and connections to the original series and I want mea2 rn to find out what was really going on! (that being said I’m still destroyed over the recording of *** talking about my two fave space dumbs from the original series after the last unlocked memory :3) additionally I loved how dark it got sometimes, darker than the original trilogy and I’m so so, so happy everyone got to swear as much as they wanted :’)  so storyline 8/10 cause some stuff was a bit rushed and I wish they’d given some races (like the turians) more spotlight (though I’m happy the krogan are so prominently featured, they deserve that!)

Gameplay mechanics:

I LOVED THE GAMEPLAY MECHANICS! LOVED THEM SO MUCH! You can run without gasping for breath after five steps, JETPACKS!, tactical cloaks, and building your own character specification without having to decide on a class at the very beginning! (now to be fair, unlike da I’m mostly going for the soldier specs in mass effect cause I love to snipe everything from far, far away. So for most of the game the only powers I used were one biotic close combat one for when enemies got too close, the tactical cloak and grenades against the big stuff^^) I also loved the new morality system! I can finally throw some sarcasm and “renegade” options into my mostly paragon gameplay without having to worry about impacting my ability to, at some point, convince someone not to make a horrible mistake like jumping off a cliff :)))))) surprisingly, I even started to like the nomad and driving around H-074c was so calming! So yeah, gameplay 10/10

Companions:

Loved the new team! Not as much as in the original series but I think it’s unfair to compare the crews seeing as I spent god knows how many hours with the original and only one playthrough with the new one. The loyalty missions were great and the journey from acquaintances to friends was very smooth and natural and I appreciate that most of them have relationships outside the Tempest crew too. Makes them seem much more alive and real. Before finishing this off just a few of my faves: Jaal: I think the reason I love him so much is because he’s got by far the most believable and profound emotional reactions to what’s going on. Also, he’s blue and sad and weird looking and we all know I apparently have a thing for weird, sad, blue aliens. Anyway, his character development is great, his personal journey too and it’s great to see a very non-stereotypical portrayal of the rough and though male resistance fighter. (I chose him as romance option during this playthrough and I’m not regretting it. Though I feel like my ryder will spend the rest of her life going “OMG JAAL YOU CAN’T JUST SAY STUFF LIKE THAT IN FRONT OF PEOPLE!” while blushing^^) Peebee: Defiantly my romance choice for my next playthrough! She’s just so lovely and deserves someone to stay with her and care about her. (I still regret not stopping the flirting soon enough so in the end she did the whole propositioning thing and I had to turn her down and that was horrible :(  ) Vetra: VETRA IS AWESOME! so awesome! Also my favourite away-team-member cause she’s like… invincible??? I think out of the crew she might have had one of the bigger personal character arcs in terms of personal growth and letting people in and her relationship with her ***. and surprisingly my absolute fave is: Drack:  So shepard got to adopt a dozen krogan babies with garrus, ryder gets adopted by a krogan grandad and is 100% fine with it. Apart from being tied for 2nd place (with jaal) in my away-team-member preference list he’s just such a sweetheart while still remaining a true krogan at heart. He also completely blindsided me with one of the most profound lines in any mass effect game and I’m still reeling. (He also kind of adopted Vetra but don’t tell her, she’ll get embaressed!). so yeah, love my krogan grandad :3 companions: 9/10 because there is no way cora is straight and I didn’t get to punch jill in the face and scott wasn’t around nearly enough^^ i goes without saying that i love my awkward ryder twin right?????

in conclusion:

I was a bit disappointed at first and I understand why others might be disappointed by mea as well especially since people were badmouthing it even before it got released latching onto every flaw. But honestly mass effect was so good and set the standard so high, there was very little chance mea would be able to live up to the enormous hype, the expectations and the excitement that has been developing over the past years. So I feel like it’s being judged unfairly by constantly being compared to the original instead of treating it as a standalone game which it really is. It is set in the mass effect universe and you’ve got all those familiar and well-loved elements and races but there are surprisingly little references to the original trilogy which should give you an idea about what they were trying to do with mea. This was not supposed to be a sequel. This is supposed to set off a new storyline in this universe and while the basics are the same it is different in many aspects. so instead of asking whether it was as good or better than mass effect (and the answer to that was always going to be no because mass effect is THE game for me. nothing will ever compare) what i should be asking is: is it an enjoyable game worth the time and money i spent on it. And personally, I’d say abso-fucking-lutely! It fun, it’s entertaining, it’s huge, it’s got a new array of lovable and diverse characters, it’s got some really profound stuff in there and most importantly it restores your faith in humanity a tiny bit and makes you dream of faraway stars and all those discoveries still waiting for us the way mass effect games tend to do :)

And just to round this off, have a few of my favourite bits:

[when you gotta clone yourself to properly express just how done you are]

[when your Krogan grandad is about to fuck someone up and the poor bloke doesn’t even know it yet!]

[Drack being Drack]

AND THE DA REFERENCES IN THE POST MAIN GAME THANK-YOU-MESSAGES!!!!

i identify a lot with the ryder plant. I too am not viable.

And finally this beautiful quote and shot:

“We turned our backs upon a dwindling star, to chase a dawn beyond our childhood’s end.”