#rachni

[greypetrel]

WIP Wednesday

Long time no see, uh? Thank you so much for the tag @whimsyswastry (I'm going through everything, sorry if I'm late in replying, just 3000 things all at once keepin me busy)! <3

I was sent the cover of Jessie Dumont's I Prefer Girls by @ndostairlyrium (Hi Ali you're tagged), and of course it had to be done. I was about to post it, but then I realised I completely forgot I should really do the background on my own, shouldn't I. -3-

Some colour maps from an upcoming illustration. I finally sat down to make tarot cards for my babies, and Alyra came jumping in first place. Considering her arcana is The Chariot, it only seems fitting she gets to be the first. I am convinced on the bottom right version, but tell me what you think of course. :)

A doodle. When I played the Noveria mission in Mass Effect, that logo with the flaming vial just screamed to me Science Bros. They WOULD adopt it as their brand. They're scientists, and they're hot! It ensued picturing them in the Mass Effect universe, and thinking that it was them in that lab. Experimenting on the Rachni. They managed to convince one, a cute girl named Polpettina ("Little she-meatball" in italian) Aisling taught not to eat humanoid flesh by singing to her, pretty constantly, only songs about proper food. It worked, they got on the Normandy, Polpettina became the most spoiled rachni in the galaxy. Sure, they both get possessed by the Queen at times, but it's all innocent.

Tagging: @salsedinepicta @shivunin @dungeons-and-dragon-age @daggerbean @theluckywizard @pinayelf @melisusthewee @heniareth @dreadfutures AND YOU!

[thefloatingstone]

Here's one that completely BAFFLES me.

On a frozen world, right on ground level, on top of a frozen lake, there's THIS sound.

This is..... not the Rachni Queen...

I have no idea what this is...

[socialprawn]

I’m working on egress after all this hype (thank you guys ;v; ) but i doodled these rachni bbs real quick before uni

[i-am-worm]

Inktober 52 2023 - Week 44 - 'Sing'

It was N7 day yesterday and I had to do some mass effect fan art. So have the Rachni queen singing the song of the Shepard to her new brood.

I hope that if there is ever another game, we get to interact with the great space bugs.

[mysweetlambkin]

Inktober Day 2 Spiders

I absolutely LOVE Noveria, it is my fav ME mission, creepy and spooky in a good way!

And the Rachni queen voiceover is hella cool

[spindlephysalia]

mass effect (1) is so irritatingly off with how it uses the rachni, the way it'll say in the big moments "hey genociding them is bad" and then turn around and say "but it's good to slaughter them in general, just as long as you make the right choice on novaria specifically"". It's like watching starship troopers and saying "well yes, obviously this is insane fascism but it looks fun!"

[veshialles]

salt and burn

[konigs-left-pec]

Anyone getting Rachni vibes from the Ahamkara? 👀 Anyone? Like they weren't inherently evil and it was all just a big misunderstanding and they didn't deserve to be hunted to extinction?

Just me?

Also this whole thing just destroyed me...

Bonus...

...why our boy have to moan like that? 😂 I'm not bothered. It was hot.

[sol-consort]

Humans having just discovered that the gaint metal tongs in space unlock fast travel through the galaxy: oh boy, can't wait to activate every mass relay we can find, whoever turned these off must be an idiot lol

Turians opening fire without warning at first sight of relay 314 glowing again:

[ultrakatua]

Food for the fish: 200 credits

Data: 150 credits

Rent: 800 credits

M-98 Widow upgrades: 1,500,000 credits

Utility: 150 credits

Someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. The galaxy is dying.

[death-rebirth-senshi]

"You let the Rachni Queen go!?!?" Yes I support women's rights. But I guess y'all aren't feminists.

[bed-wed-behead-your-fave]

The Rachni Queen from Mass Effect

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF THE NORMANDY SUMMIT

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Primarch Adrien Victus, Dalatrass Linron, and Urdnot Wrex With: Comm. Specialist Samantha Traynor Commander, you need to keep Cerberus at bay- I can't overstate what a victory a treaty between the Turians and the Krogan would be for the Alliance. We need all the help we can get... Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[tanadrin]

explicit sexuality, especially in media, really does occupy a weird place culturally. like imagine explicit depictions of eating food were derided as tawdry and disgusting, and were so impolite that media depicting that couldn’t get mainstream distribution or funding. and that people also complained that all media depicting eating was inherently disgusting and encouraged gluttony, because it only appealed to our hunger in the most superficial and unreflective ways.

like sure, a lot of porn is gross and aimed at the lowest common denominator. but we also shie away from all but the most circumspect depictions of actual sex in media, and treat explicit depictions of even loving, consensual, normative sex as being far more reprehensible to show than absolutely unhinged forms of violence. that’s pretty weird! and in the context of, for example, single player narrative-driven video games, it produces an artificial divide between those dirty nasty sex video games, which tend to be more cheaply produced, or made by smaller teams, and big triple-A games, which can reference the existence of sex, and tastefully fade to black before any actual sex might happen.

and sure, some of this is crass self-interest--i don’t mind sex in media i enjoy, and in fact would quite like to see more of it. being able to romance and fuck a bug-eyed monster in a video game would be a lot of fun! but also, i think our prudishness as a culture really cramps our ability to explore certain topics meaningfully in art, because as soon as you broach them, you have entered the territory of “mere” pornography, with all the expectations and restrictions that entails.

[nellasbookplanet]

I just finished my most recent Mass Effect playthrough (and I'm a big girl and absolutely didn't cry) and am once again thinking about the endings. I've spoken before about how the endings work weirdly against the core themes of the trilogy (tl;dr: Saren and the Illusive man argue for synthesis and control, and are both proven to be wrong and indoctrinated, yet they are presented as valid and equal endings; cooperation with the geth and EDI prove that peace between synthetics and organics is possible, yet destruction of all synthetic life is, again, a valid and equal ending), but as with the Arrival DLC I once again feel that my frustrations lie largely with the fact that it could so easily have been fixed, had only the narrative been ever so slightly nudged.

The endings are not only about making a choice, but making a sacrifice. You sacrifice your morals, your ethics, your allies' lives or agency, your own life and humanity, all for the sake of stopping extinction. And this isn't bad! It goes well in hand with the themes of choice and sacrifice throughout! But not only does it fail to take these previous choices into account (frankly, renegade and paragon endings should've looked wildly different even if you pick the same option), it also fails to make the choices you have feel feasible. (and then the extended endings seemingly caved to pressure and painted them all as wholly happy endings, while completely burying the inherent tragedy every choice brought with it, leaving you with a weirdly disjointed final product)

We know coexistence with synthetics is possible despite it being argued against by many characters because there is also a running theme of disproving it: in ME1 Tali's dialogue shows that the history of the geth is more complicated than them simply wanting to wipe out organics; in ME2 Legion and EDI show that cooperation is possible; in ME3 actual peace can be achieved. Yet none of this same care is shown to synthesis and control. Saren is disproven, the Illusive Man is disproven. There are little hints - such as EDI and the geth having reaper code and Shepard having A LOT of implants and interfacing with geth - that reaper upgrades or a mix of synthetic and organic could work, but it isn't enough of a running theme for it to rival the absolute dismantling of the arguments prior. Adding them as options feels, well, like the reapers' last attempt at derailing Shepard from destroying them (as I've said before, there's no wonder the indoctrination theory caught on). But they aren't. The endings are legit, no matter how out of left field they feel.

So, my recipe for fixing the endings: either actually do the indoctrination theory (they would have to change very little), or plant the seeds for control and synthesis being feasible without indoctrination throughout the game for narrative satisfaction, while also incorporating renegade/paragon in the epilogue for individual player satisfaction.