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"There's no Shepard without Vakarian"

I guess this is my first attempt at Shakarian fanart? I've had this idea ever since I saw this femshep outfit mod and thought it would pair well with Garrus's alternate outfit from ME2

(he looks silly)

#mass effect #fanart #mass effect legendary edition #commander shepard #femshep #garrus vakarian #femshep x garrus #mass effect trilogy #turian #shakarian #shepard x garrus

cycloneartz

my husband...

undergroundwubwubmaster

Local cringefail loser lizard father and his ugly-ass son.

#i need more of this #i would really loved to see this in-game #mass effect

undergroundwubwubmaster

No immune system 🤝 50 000 year old immune system.

#i need more of this #mass effect

perfectcleavage

Mass Effect is one of my favorite franchises of all time, but it can be so difficult at times to reckon with the fact that as a female gamer, they were simply not made with me in mind. And, ultimately, it suffers for it.

Ironically, the gender gap in the ME trilogy especially apparent when I recommend the games to a male friend. I finally talk them into playing it, and they will, more often than not, have absolutely nothing at all to say about the female characters (or lack thereof). Wandering through the games, you're bombarded with a diverse universe full of unique-looking aliens- but male aliens. Asari are the only female aliens you meet beyond Tali and a couple other female Quarians, until ME3, where we get Eve and Nyreen in the Omega DLC. Which means for two (and a half, let's be honest) games in the franchise, every Turian, Salarian, Krogan, Batrarian, Drell, Hanar, Vorcha, Elcor, and Volus is a male. But what is even more striking than this atrocious worldbuilding oversight is that, handing the games to your average male fan, they barely notice. It escapes them entirely as something worth mentioning. They don't perceive the empty echoes of the female voices we aren't hearing, of the other halves of alien populations completely unrepresented. It's as if the default setting of the world, fictional and not, is male.

Asari- the primary female voices in the game- are poorly written. We know this. An entire race of biotic-wielding, technologically-advanced aliens with lifespans in the centuries and incredibly rich culture and technology, and the most we see of them in the entire trilogy is as strippers and occasional mercenaries. Liara, Samara, Aria and Benezia break this mold, but not without their own flavors of sexualization. After all, Benezia still dies in what is akin to Turian fetishwear under the control of Saren. Her favorite color was yellow, remember?

But beyond Asari strippers, skin-tight Cerberus uniforms, and comically sexualized robots- all valid topics, but talked to death at this point- I truly believe the most astounding, hollow, and disheartening result of this casual misogyny is the Krogan.

The storyline of the Krogan cannot be emancipated from the concept of birth. An entire species near-sterilized, a war crime excused away for the greater good. The Krogan story IS the Genophage, and the horrifying explanations used by those in power to excuse atrocity. And for two entire games, not once are we ever shown what the Genophage has done to Krogan women. Not societally, physiologically, or psychologically. They are conveniently segregated away in briefly-mentioned "female camps," while the men discuss the horrors of a war crime that affects birthing rates. It takes until the final installment of the series to show you one female Krogan (who didn't even get her own model, they just covered her so you wouldn't notice) and to mention the absolutely devastating toll that a cultural pandemic of stillbirths, abuse, and chronic infertility-caused sickness can have on a population. Eve is a fantastic character. Truly. But after two whole games of the Genophage being such a critical cultural touchstone for so much of the galaxy, and so many player choices depending on it, it's incredibly difficult for this omission of perspective to be remedied by a few nuanced lines in the med bay.

On the other hand, I think about the Rachni a lot. The so-called ancient enemy of the Krogan people, the foe that led to them being uplifted by the Salarians (and then, ultimately, discarded by them) in the first place. A massive amount of pre-game lore is devoted to a culture that, interestingly enough, speaks to the player through a queen. In fact, the Rachni queen is one of the first female alien NPCs you encounter in the entire trilogy. And as you encounter her, she speaks of songs of mourning. Not for her, but for her children.

You are offered the chance to spare her twice, once in ME1 and again in ME3. Both times, she has been used for her control of her hive, her children, and the potential army that can be bred out of her. Given the choice to free or kill her, many argue she's too dangerous to be kept alive, her species too volatile to be left to reproduce unchecked. An eerily familiar narrative, echoed by the Krogan, creating very poignant foil to me. A species struggling to give birth, and another, their supposed enemy, constantly being taken advantage of for it. It is a struggle of mothers, being commodified by men, and everyone is losing.

I wonder what narrative depths this series could have discovered in the tragedies of the Krogan and the rich cultures of other alien civilizations if they had considered, even for a second, that female voices could support a story where male voices simply cannot. What would we have learned about Salarian women, and their opinions on fertilization regulations favoring male offspring? About Turian women in the line of duty and their place in the hierarchy? Does the Batarian caste system have a bias on the basis of sex?

Obviously, there is nothing that can be done about the erasure and treatment of women in a game series over a decade old. But, I do believe it can be used as an example going forward to show how cultural and environmental storytelling is genuinely made worse by the oversight of female voices. All that to say, I love this universe and these games. Sometimes, it's just difficult to remember that we were only given half a galaxy to truly appreciate.

forlornmelody

Things that are normal in Mass Effect that should be normalized now:

After you make 999,999,999 credits you are banned from making any more money. People have to pay you in omni gel or nothing. All the work you do from then on is pro-bono, baby.

AI is illegal.

twinkhole-destroyer

my diva moment will have casualties

twinkhole-destroyer

pathos-logical

[ID: A tag that says, "diva moment so catastrophic they're calling me Cher Nobyl". End ID]

badbadsloth

POV you're a dead fashion photographer and your two favourite detectives finally find you PS thanks to everyone who dropped by at the convention, appreciate you guys! <3

very rough and quick sketch of Garrus that I did on the train, sometimes I forget that I can draw even without a computer (it feels, weird tho' ngl)

should I do a full body version? maybe with shep?

#mass effect fanart #garrus vakarian #archangel #mass effect #sketch #mass effect legendary edition #turian #n7 #hand drawn

"You will make it, I'm on your side"

Quick Speeeeeeeeeeedpaint!

#disco elysium #digital art #volition #harry du bois #fanart

pjcoyci

Finished the first Trilogy and i can't do nothing but think about these dumbasses <3

#digital art #nsfw #ace attorney #fanart #dang i wish i could paint like this

One night, my bestie @messvoid and I had a single brain cell, and we hyperfocused on how we really wanted to paint Armand from Interview with the Vampire. This is my version, I can't wait for their version to be posted!!!