"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)

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣

★

pixel skylines
NASA
Sade Olutola
noise dept.
tumblr dot com
Xuebing Du
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Acquired Stardust

Andulka

JVL
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

Kiana Khansmith
Three Goblin Art

Kaledo Art
styofa doing anything
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Mike Driver
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

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@mtzstuffs
"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)
my husband...
Local cringefail loser lizard father and his ugly-ass son.
No immune system 🤝 50 000 year old immune system.
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.
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.
my diva moment will have casualties
[ID: A tag that says, "diva moment so catastrophic they're calling me Cher Nobyl". End ID]
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?
"You will make it, I'm on your side"
Quick Speeeeeeeeeeedpaint!
Finished the first Trilogy and i can't do nothing but think about these dumbasses <3
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!!!
been replaying disco lately 🪩💫🖤
omg they dressed lestat in jean paul gaultier in s3 all we do is win chat
Once again a happy N7 day makoheads! Wave 3 of Mass Effect locations commissioned by @swaps55 is now available physically if anyone wants to. Link!
Quick sketch for the N7 day!
please god let chatgpt die out like nfts did. With a fast and graceless fall into irrelevancy