#mass effect three

[fictionisthebetterreality]

At least we threw one hell of a party. Probably the last one.

Last one until you finish kicking the reapers asses, you mean. Because that's the plan.

-

Mass Effect 3 - Citadel DLC

[mairalynn416]

Baldurs gate three has spoiled me in terms of romance in rpg games. I've been playing Mass Effect 3 and the people you romance just have no different dialogue options once you've become official? Like I romanced Treynor and still every time I try to talk to her it's just the one "Commander" line no matter what. No different dialogue, no different actions. I'm not comparing them, they are two very different games but man, Larian has spoiled me.

[assorted-things]

This is how I feel every time I talk to Zaeed and I kind of love it tbh

[gammaraydeath]

a miniature timeline for my shepard, showcasing her recovery from the lazarus project

[necer0s]

Okay this is something I’ve been thinking about since I started my Mass Effect replay and it finally just crystallized: The opening scene of the series— with Anderson, Udina, and Hackett discussing Shepard’s backstory as they decide whether to recommend him for Spectre— is fascinating to me because it’s clearly a choice that they are making. The way they talk makes it obvious that Shepard is part of a list of names, and their name just happens to be the one at the end. Udina says he’ll “make the call”, which implies that he could make that call for anyone. As long as they were a soldier with a sufficiently convincing record, Udina could pull the political strings to get anyone nominated as a Spectre candidate.

At the time, they were just trying to make a good political move for humanity. They had no idea that the fate of the galaxy would depend on the person they chose. Because in some ways, the only thing special about Shepard is the positions they happen to be in.

On a meta level, this is obviously very thematic because any of the different Shepards that a player could create can rise to the challenge and save the galaxy. But the thing that really gets me is the in-story implication that someone else could have shouldered that burden. Someone else could have suffered that loss.

And maybe that other person would have failed to save the galaxy! But we’ll never know. Because Shepard is the one who stood in that position.

[rhaegar--targaryen]

When analysing Dragon Age and Mass Effect protagonists, I think everyone at some point in their life could associate themselves with Commander Shepard.

Imagine, you get a job you love and where you have to cooperate with other companies and manage a lot of people, and you do it well for the first year. You do shit your boss tells you to do because you still love it and its’ your job after all. But then the other company boss comes and keeps harassing you with his ideas and telling you that everything you did was wrong. The work you once felt proud of? Apparently, it wasn't good enough.

You’re revived into a position that feels eerily familiar but distinctly different.

At that point, you definitely feel like you died and somehow revived but in an altered form, feeling like a shadow of your past self. You see threats everywhere and all of a sudden you start asking yourself serious but dangerous questions - are your colleagues trustworthy? Are your relationships suffering because you’ve changed, or because they have? You continue to work, but you start having weird, stress-induced dreams, you feel like you're having a burnout because you're actually having one but refusing to accept it. You keep telling yourself you’re fine.

At some point, it breaks you. Maybe you don’t physically die like Shepard did, but you stop feeling like yourself. You go through the motions, doing what you have to, but it’s not the same. You look in the mirror, and you still see yourself, but it’s like something is missing. You stop trusting people as easily—who’s actually on your side? Who’s reporting back to the boss?

Now, let’s look at Dragon Age.

The Warden (DA:O), Hawke (DA2), and the Inquisitor (DA:I) are all thrown into leadership unwillingly, but their struggles feel different. They aren’t being forced into a never-ending corporate grind; they’re caught up in fate’s cruelty.

What separates Shepard from the Dragon Age protagonists is that Shepard’s struggle is eerily close to the reality of career burnout. The Dragon Age heroes get thrown into leadership, but they’re often reacting to the world’s chaos. They somehow have enough space and support to adapt to the new situation. Shepard, however, has to keep showing up for work, keep making decisions, and keep pretending everything is under control.

At some point in life, everyone feels like Commander Shepard. It’s not about saving the galaxy.

It’s about carrying an impossible weight while pretending everything is fine. And whether it’s work, relationships, or life in general, we’ve all been there.

I am Commander Shepard.

[confusedgato]

Giving yautjas a lemon

Pick the victim

Time to victimize my oc 😈

He died trying 🤷💀

[nnatasha]

last living prothean n shit (wip of something else)

[galpalaven]

origins did so much better at making me feel like i was actually a hero. if i worked hard enough i could minimize the damage. i could unite the country. i could help people and save people.

veilguard ends unceremoniously and empty. nothing i did mattered. the world fell to ruin. the veil is still up. the titans are still tranquil. the blight has wiped out all of southern thedas and like 75% of northern thedas. the wardens are in shambles. minrathous is in ruins. treviso is. okay i guess but not great.

what did it matter, in the end? the losses were too big and the wins too small to make it feel like rook did fuck all.

and my companions didn't even like me lmfao

[mastersofunlocking]

no matter how long it's been, no matter how many hyperfixations i've had and lost, i always seem to come back to mass effect 💔

[prezs]

i miss my shepard guys i miss her a lot

[fictionisthebetterreality]

Thoughts(TM) on Mass Effect, in no particular order or preference.

- What did they do to Ashley??? Why did she go from kick-ass takes-no-shit-soldier to... kick-ass-takes-no-shit-soldier with eyeshadow and lipstick and a fringe and hair to her shoulders which probably somehow breaks regulations?? That shit would be getting in her eyes when she was trying to shoot, if it wasn't getting ripped out by a rabid husk first... just no.

- While we are talking about this - WHY did they make us suffer the dress(tm) every time woman Shepherd had to dress 'fancy'? First, that is the ugliest effing dress I've ever seen in my life, not to mention out of character for my (and I'm sure a lot of others) Shepherd, who would have been in a suit at the most, or something nicer than that (no, literally, anything would have been better).

+ Garrus... where to even start? Possibly the best developed character in the whole damn game. I adore Garrus. Would kill for him die for him etc. The friendship between him and Shepherd was so lovely and a really nice highlight of all the games. Except for when Shepherd tries to set him up at the bar. Bit weird.

+ Liara... love of my life, light of my life etc etc. Second only to Garrus and only because the romance scene I had ('will you be my girlfriend' in the presidium commons, not sure if there are any others) was so dry and stale compared to the rest of their cutscenes I hated it. But the chemistry between these two across all three games was amazing, and made their relationship (should you choose to accept it) all the more realistic and believable.

- The endings of ME3. Need I say more. -100/10.

+ The 'fight' scene with James at the start of ME3 was so cute. Loved the option of telling him off at the end for the nicknames. Tbh the recurring options throughout the game of whether to respond 'friendly' or 'professional' was a nice touch.

+ Also - the fling/relationship between James and Ashley was equally cute.

+ Anderson and Shepherd?? Maximum cuteness. Especially the 'I'm proud of you' moment at the end. Really focused in on the parent/daughter relationship.

+ The symmetry/comparison of Earth/Palaven/Thessia worlds burning and being ravaged by the reapers... the hurt/comfort of 'I understand exactly how you feel' 'i thought i understood how you felt but this is so much worse??'

+ The party... the party!! Ahhhh the only complaint I had was the prompt to dance disguised as talk... but thats just personal preference. The photo at the end - SO CUTE. Also, Traynor reciting the elements of the periodic table while drunk and dancing was probably one of my favourite moments of the whole game.

+ Joker and EDI. 10/10. Perfect pairing.

- Jacob in ME2. Literally the most bland, boring character I'd ever experienced. Specifically chose him for the mission at the end of ME2 cause it was pretty obvious it would end in death.

+ Tbh, all the other characters I loved to varying degrees. Thane, Samara, Javik, I could probably take or leave. The rest- their stories were all so complex. Hated Miranda at the start, was genuinely upset by her death at the end. Jack's character development was insane. Barely touched Wrex in ME1, thought he was a throw away character (boy was I wrong). Probably the best element of this game is the characters and relationships. Love-hated the death of a character in ME1. That was Kaiden for me, and it fitted so well into the storyline generally it really gave so much depth to Shepherds backstory.

- Samara.... did someone put eight-zero-zero-eight into a calculator while they were having a meeting about her?? Did she put her costume into the dryer when it was line-dry material?? Please TRY and make it less obvious who you are catering to, here. Also upset there was no option to stop her killing her daughter, just...stand by and watch, I guess.

+ ME3 acknowledging and showing the effects of constant war on Shepherd with the nightmares. Enjoyed that you could play it cool/fake it when asked or genuinely respond and say what was wrong. Although, I did notice that for the 'survivor' backstory on Azure, pretty sure it changed from 'Threshermaw attack' in ME1 to 'Cerburus' in ME3. Might've missed something there, tho.

+ Honestly, just the dialogue in ME3. Esp. the mid-fight chatter among teams Mako and Hammerhead in the clone mission. 10/10, apart from the occasional cut-scene dialogue we didn't get enough interaction between characters. Enjoyed it a lot, really put a lot more personality into everyone.

+ Aria... 100/10. Really nice deviation from the 'classic' asari we see elsewhere. Also, her whole appearance and personality were matched so seamlessly, I love it. Felt like it gave my Shepherd an opportunity to play the bad guy a bit more away from her crew. Although would have been nice to get a warning that you can't get back to Omega in ME3 once the mission is completed... I never did find her couch. Saying that, it was a shame she was never made to appear in the final fight cutscene.

+ The ring from EDI... literally the best gift ever. Shepherd is forever keeping it on her tags. Forever.

+-Kinda loved and hated the whole going-to-the-room-the-person-is-in-for-a-chat. The elevator got old pretty quick. A nice touch being able to invite people up to your cabin and meet up on the citadel (although again, at some points it felt like I was at the citadel meeting people more than I was out there saving the galaxy. Shepherd is a popular woman, but more missions to compensate, or mission-related/style meetings could have been nice).

[guchaigue]

The ever wonderful @andersleyn7 gave me the highest honor of illustrating Anders Shepard and Tali’s wedding at Rannoch🫡💖

details and inspirations under the cut 👇

[wafflesrock16]

Decided to lose myself in fanfic this week, so here’s a shameless plug for one of my all-time favorite shakarian series, Turian Machinations of Spectres and Primarchs by Some_Writer.

It’s post Destroy Ending done so goodddddd. First installment is from the perspective of Primarch Victus with the next part being from Garrus. I could gush for hours, but y’all can trust me when I say it’s fantastic characterization and head cannon with some great OCs and the angst with a happy ending? Flawless. If you love shakarian and haven’t read this series or at least The Primarch’s Order you’re missing out!

[gammaraydeath]

ro, inspecting her rapidly-healing skin graft during a bandage change.

[reallyquitestrange]

"KAIDAN IS BORING! HES SO BORING OMG!"

I'm sorry you don't want to hang out with a guy who has his shit together cause he has to be on ALL THE FUCKING TIME. I'd bet half the migraines he gets are from having to constantly box his problems up and deal with everyone else's shit! Comparatively, the backstories of all the other romance options in the first game, Kaidan is the only one who actually learned something from his own mistakes! Ashley "family honor" Williams takes 3 games to really learn that hey aliens aren't the problem, government is; And Liara "mommy issues" T'soni has to be perfect so everyone will love her and not see her as "the girl with the dead mom who helped Saren"

Kaidan is already there, 32 year old independent man with trauma he has dealt with and dealing with of his own design. he knows the Alliance and governments meddle and make hard, fast decisions the enlisted pay for with their lives. He gives you advice on how to avoid making those mistakes. Emotional maturity isn't your turn-on? That sounds like a you issue.