Dragon Aspect

Eventually, they twig (ha, forest) that the deer is the source of the vines - it's not trapped, just pulling a sickie so it can hang out and watch whatever's on the iced-over scrying pool all day. In fact, the deer does this every year, dragging its hooves over shedding the antlers to transition from winter to spring.

The party must find a way to motivate the deer, whether diplomatic or forceful.

It’s cool that the Star Forge gives you your Revan outfit if you bother to explore the frustrating hallways of endlessly respawning enemies.

I just want to catch spelling errors and accidental double spaces and repeated phrases and whenever I use the wrong too/to or affect/effect and shit. But no. They've shoved AI up the ass of every grammar checking software out there and now they all fucking suck and make the most random, obnoxious, nonsensical suggestions.

I get why people keep saying this (and other versions of it like "Use Adobe alternatives" and "Use Google product alternatives."). But here's the problem: I do not create in isolation. Even my own 100% personal projects are getting sent to other people whether it's editors or printers or beta readers and unless every single person in that train is using the same products, things can get wonky.

Libre Office and Word handle formatting differently on the back end, which can completely break documents if you move them back and forth between the two. So if I write in Libre Office but my beta readers are still using Word, when I send them a manuscript for review there's a good chance things won't look right and my beta reader will not actually be reviewing what I sent them.

:| :| :|

(Well, really this starts with the batarians in ME1's Bring Down the Sky, but it's clear BioWare was in the ME2 mindset when it was created.)

All of the new species in ME2 that are usually cast as the villains are designed to be repulsive by most people's standards:

-Vorcha are sinewy with their teeth always bared and are in BDSM outfits.

-The Collectors are bugs with the same sinewy/bare muscle as the vorcha. They don't get any clothes.

-The yahg have hollows for eyes and a triangle mouth with their teeth always showing. The Shadow Broker does at least have a nice suit.

While I'm sure there are some that are attracted to these designs, I think most people would find them off-putting to ugly.

Meanwhile, the new species on the good side is the drell. Thane was designed to be attractive since he's a love interest. (Source: https://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/02/09/drawing-mass-effect-the-creation-of-thane.aspx)

So all the new 'villain' species are ugly and the 'good' new species is attractive.

...That certainly has some implications.

Yet in ME1 BioWare managed several neutral species that players may or may not find attractive but are obviously designed not to be repulsive. Hanar, elcor, turians...

As is so often the case, ME2 feels like a step back in worldbuilding. BioWare wanted an easy method to convey 'these are the bad guys' and went with a 'villain' design without considering the broader impact on the universe.

And it leaves me grumpy. Would Bioware have been so casual in the vorcha's poor treatment in-universe if they were beautiful? If they looked like the asari, would they have gotten an arc that improved their conditions in ME3?

It's been a point of debate for years because the scars on a Renegade Shepard and Chakwas' words about them really reinforce this idea.

And it leaves me grumpy. Would Bioware have been so casual in the vorcha's poor treatment in-universe if they were beautiful? If they looked like the asari, would they have gotten an arc that improved their conditions in ME3?

The vorcha can be canon fodder, so I'm not surprised they have what people perceive as an "ugly" design.

But I think the situation with species can be a bit more complicated than that because we must never underestimate the misogyny in a dev team. Derek Watts can't even fathom women and children. If you have trouble designing female members of a species, there's something wrong there.

I mean, it's my personal opinion here, but I think Mass Effect is very male-centric, so yes the asari are beautiful, but men don't trust women they find beautiful or they project a lot of things into them. And while I have nothing but respect for sex workers, putting asari as strippers, dancers, barely clothed all over the games is not, I believe, about lore and how it makes sense for the different stages in an asari life. It's about the fantasy of those men working on the dev team, and also their need to acknowledge this beauty but in a way, to humiliate it at the same time. There are many quotes, even coming from asari themselves, that show they have little respect for sex workers. Which is INSANE to me considering the context they're in and the respect they should have. But it's not an accident. And even the Matriarchs are designed to attract and allure, with gigantic breasts and not even comfortable and protective armors.

And men's distrust of beauty can go very far: that's why asari's morals are always going from one extreme to another. They're peaceful, wise, everything you could expect from a species that lived for so long and seem to know so much, but in reality, the game tells us many times that they're also dangerous and untrustworthy. Illium, one of their planets, is one of the most dangerous places on the galaxy.

It implies that beauty -> seduction -> wrong morals -> watch out.

And their own beauty plays against them: they can't reproduce among each other without being judged.

And that's also why they're at the core of one of the biggest secrets hidden to the galaxy, as we found out in ME3 and the Protheans.

So idk, I'm not going to write a full essay here but I think beauty doesn't automatically mean the dev team will treat people or characters well, it just means they chase it and will spend more time on it, with sometimes a very clear bias as we see with the asari.

While I'm sure there are some that are attracted to these designs, I think most people would find them off-putting to ugly.

Designing Miranda - make her sexy.

Designing Jack - make her sexy.

Designing Samara - make her sexy.

Redesigning Tali - make her sexy.

Redesigning Ashley - make her sexy.

Redesigning EDI - make her sexy.

Sexy meaning boobs, butt, makeup, combat heels, let her hair down, standard male gaze stuff.

Designing Thane - make him attractive to women...a harder design process because they had to think about it.

As far as men go – like with the Asari – you make her blue and give her the perfect body and you’re good to go. Women are more sophisticated than that.

(from Drawing Mass Effect 2: The Creation of Thane)

This isn't to diminish the artistry that went into capturing personality and history in each character's design - just that male gaze sexy was so innate it needed no explanation, but female gaze sexy threw them for a loop. I can imagine them sitting around with Sherlock's ????? vision trying to find a starting point until someone throws out "boob window!" and that's how we ended up with Thane's medically-prescribed peephole.

20+40=60

60+15=75

At Donovan Hock's party:

Party Guest: "Some say Commander Shepard is still alive. Really!"

Party Guest: "Oh, please. It's wishful thinking at best."

Now this is the behavior I would expect from most people.

I know a lot of people don't like that Shepard died and was resurrected. I personally fucking love it, it's one of the core elements of my love of Mass Effect and I will NEVER forget my first playthrough of ME2.

But they really dropped the ball on execution in so many ways. I would accept losing like, half the squad if it meant that Shepard's death and resurrection was handled with the gravity it actually deserves.

Instead, it's either barely mentioned or isnt mentioned at all. Everyone takes it so in stride throughout the entire game that when the VS reacts more in line with what one would expect, like "hold up you died, were brought back from the dead, and now you're just.. going about your business????", they are the outlier and catch a lot of player ire as a result.

You want to kill Shepard and rebuild them I'm all for that, I'm foaming at the mouth for that actually, but I want the fully formed version.

I know no one wants to spend the whole game continually having the conversation "yes I'm alive" but at least in the beginning, and especially with our squad and close friends, let me have that conversation. Let me have a few variations of it, explore it from a few angles, let Shepard express how they feel about literally dying and being brought back. Let Shepard's friends tell them what it was like for them, going through Shepard's death.

If you're so afraid players will hate talking about it, make some renegade interrupts where Shepard cuts the conversation short and doesn't want to talk about it.

Shepard leaving Cerberus because of the level of violation and distrust would be game-breaking, possibly a Critical Mission Failure. There's not enough narrative space (or disk space) in the game to flesh out two viable paths against the Collectors, so Shepard has to stay onboard literally and figuratively.

The poor VS catches undeserved flack because the dialog tree is infuriating - the VS is right (Cerberus can't be trusted) but the game doesn't allow the player to agree.

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