trying to try

The first time, and the last.

Here are the sketches behind the artworks of my absolute favorite character to ever exist

I coincidentally started playing Mass Effect for the first time on November 8th two years ago, and back then I knew absolutely nothing about it apart from “it’s an old game with a good plot set in space”, but since then my life has not been the same (this is not an exaggeration)

There are no words powerful enough to describe how MUCH this story means to me, and how glad I am that I got to experience it 🥺 It really had a huge impact on me in so many ways...

I honestly think nothing else can ever compare to it

Ugh, now I feel like crying, nooooooo 😭 Also, here are some screenshots I used as references - they're too good not to share (especially the first one, just look at that, it's beautiful--)

I was just reminiscing, on this grey N7 day, about how life changing it was to play Mass Effect for the very first time and to have the WHOLE game ahead of you - completely unplayed! a mystery! a journey, waiting to be experienced! - when I realized something…

Two years ago, when I played it for the first time, I was in a habit of writing down a long list of “good things” that happened during the day, for every single day. So.

I have the WHOLE journey - of me knowing absolutely NOTHING about Mass Effect to being completely OBSESSED with it - DOCUMENTED IN FULL. ALL OF IT.

And it’s just such a roller coaster to read. And there’s literally so much, and rereading it all is a journey in itself, and I can only handle so much.

So for now I’ve just assembled some entries that show how my initial absolutely normal reactions to Garrus stayed absolutely normal, uh-huh 😀 Now, I have to preface it all by saying that I just wanted to play an old game with a good story so that I could feel all cozy and chill while the weather outside got worse. I did not plan to get invested, let alone COMPLETELY LOSE MY MIND over it. So my guard was down and it hit me like a truck 😊✌️ Come take a look 🫠🫠

First of all - I was invested in turians from the beginning, also I was quickly sad:

o7 Nihlus, you were a great first hook-- This brief day 3 entry has a certain premonition vibe to it:

On day 4 plans were already being made:

"the character that I might like" sweetie... On day 5 we can already see the beginning of the end:

On day 8 I finished the first game (certainly I was not speedrunning it to get to romance the character tHaT I mIgHt likE--) The start of day 9 features a lot of (pathetic attempts at) curbing my wishful thinking (=i tried to resist the inevitable):

brace yourself for curbed expectations coming true

and after that I am (almost) completely gone 😀👍 (please bear with me, I was excited, okAY??)

AND THEN HE ALMOST FUCKING DIED-- (mind you I really like drama and near-death experiences in stories, just fyi, AND DON'T JUDGE ME) But the game was not finished with me, oh no. Here you can see me experience fear and then fEAR~ (because none of this was planned~):

That moment when you understand krogan women on a spiritual level (also I looked at all those artworks of him that I did and was like "why is he always looking in the same direction?.." and then I was like "oh")

THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN, I JUST WANTED TO CHILL WITH A GAME--

And escalate it did, my life has never been the same since, yes👍 Here you can see any resistance still left in me disappearing faster than Normandy moves through a mass relay:

and by day 13 you can see me abandoning the concept of speech: