Mass Effect liveplay (complete)

[sincere]

Spent two hours wrestling with my taxes, gave up. I'll have to go to H&R Block next weekend and pay them to take this mess off my hands. Also spent some time looking at apartments/houses?? but it was not fruitful.

Meanwhile, I have been having the random want to replace all my icons with The World Ends With You character poses. Like, FUCK YOU, YURI AND SIF AND DINOSAUR ICONS. I NEED TWENTY ICONS OF SHIKI MAKING FLIPPY HAND GESTURES.



And finally, Mass Effect liveplay, continued from here. Mass Effect, pages 1-8. Mass Effect 2, pages 8-15. Mass Effect 3, pages 15-24.


Latest: ...finished...

Spacer sentinel with traumatic survivor backstory and adorable facial scar! LET'S GO.

Comments

[sincere]

Victus returns. He'll go, but he he won't spare the fleet while Palaven is under such heavy siege. If Shepard wants the turian fleet... She has to get the krogan to lend their strength.

Fortunately, the asari councilor is like, "Fuck your summit," and refuses to even participate. That's helpful! Real helpful. Who needs asari anyway, they are the worst and they barely even have a military to contribute. We don't need them at our summit, Shepard!

[rainfall]

I have such a weird idea of what the asari military would be like. We were told in the first game that, basically, they have a small number of Amazon-style kickass ladies. In the second game, we gave them a similarly super-rare(?) police unit, the Justicar. Both situations are such isolated incidents, and we made it very clear that a Justicar is authorized to do whatever the fuck she wants, and it's impossible to picture multiple people working together under those conditions. You know? Their Code isn't a regimented thing, that one asari chick treated Samara like a completely unfathomable force of potential explosions. There are no real asari LAWS you can follow and be safe, just faith in the absolute morality of people like Samara.

[sincere]

Meanwhile, EDI is now inhabiting the naked cyborg Bond girl body of the Cerberus operative who bludgeoned Ashley half to death, so that she can have sex with Joker, I mean, be attractive to the crew I mean the player I mean, be useful in battle. Great. Can I just ask for Legion back?

[rainfall]

Joker and Samantha can have a threeway with her.

Bleh.

[sincere]

Went to talk to Garrus and he's still adorable. He was unsure on the reunion protocol, and Shepard reassures him that kissing and hand-holding is the way to go.

Shepard asks him how he came by his fancy advisory capacity and he says, "Yeah, I took a page from your book and went around shouting until they gave me a title and a squad to shut me up. They didn't really care, though."

"Not until things start exploding. Then they put you in charge," Shepard agrees.

It's beautiful.

[sincere]

He hasn't heard from his dad or his sister. (Shepard tells him she's sure they're okay. He says, the platitudes are getting old. What about your family? She tells him she hasn't heard from her mother. He says, I'm sure... she's... okay, while fidgeting. adorable bbs)

He went to his father -- who had heavy political pull -- and his dad listened to the whole crazy story of ME and ME2, and he saw the logic. He went to the primarch (Shepard admires him) but the primarch waved it off with a "task force" so he'd stop making a big deal about it.

If Primarch Victus can't get the job done, they'll find a new primarch who will. Shepard asks why not Garrus. Even generals are saluting him these days. Primarch Vakarian could get things done~ Garrus's self-esteem is not improved enough for this treasonous line of thinking.

[sincere]

Pause to watch the new Twilight Rifftrax. /suffers immediate withdrawal upon turning off the console

[sincere]

Back.

[rainfall]

/slides in here

[sincere]

Now I will go to the Citadel, because Ashley and Thane and quests are there!

[sincere]

Thane is right at the doorway, air-punching things. He promises to look after Ashley, since she's a bro of Shepard's. Doctors can't really tell him how long he's got left ("My favorite told me I had three months to live... nine months ago.") and he doesn't mind, and his son visits him regularly. He's degraded physically, and he can't play with us anymore, but it's cute seeing him.

[sincere]

Ashley has been asked to become a Spectre and she's hemming and hawing a bit. It's an honor, but also a huge decision. Ashley wants to ask Shepard about her family. Her mother and most of her sisters were all on Earth during the attack, and it's driving her crazy.

♥ Warming up.

[sincere]

Joker is so bitter about the denial going on in the Citadel, aww. But EDI gets to go out and about as Joker's "mobility assistance mech". I don't think EDI and Joker are capable of having conversations anymore without it being about the other one.

I'm sobbing quietly because it feels like every time I walk past a conversation I get a new quest. How am I supposed to keep up!

[sincere]

James convinces Shepard to spend money on the marines so they'll like her more. I mean-- They don't see her as human, but some godlike figure of myth, the first human Spectre, the Commander Shepard. So she buys them drinks!

[sincere]

Aria T'Loak has been kicked out of Omega by the Illusive Man; Cerberus took control. And she's pissed off about it. For now, though, what she's going to do is help Shepard. Assuming Shepard wants the help of the three scummy merc groups she spent literally all last game fighting. But they'd be a powerful war asset!

HMM

[sincere]

Kasumi!

[sincere]

The Kasumi sidequest is adorable.

[sincere]

/finds Garrus--

/AND THE SHEPARD VI

/TALKS TO THE SHEPARD VI ENDLESSLY

[sincere]

Okay, apparently fuel is really, really difficult to come by in this universe, because between ME2 and ME3 there stopped being a fuel depot in Skepsis (or anywhere) and I don't think I have enough to get to N7: Cerberus Lab and I don't know how to get more.

[sincere]

Haha, because the Reapers destroyed all the fuel depots.

Fine. I'll go refuel at the Citadel then.

[sincere]

Did some tiny quests, went to see Ashley again. She's a Spectre now and she's up and about and soon will be ship-going again! Maybe our-ship-going?! Who knows.

Her family is safe but her sister's husband was killed in action. She quotes some more poetry. bb

[sincere]

I downloaded From Ashes and now I'm going to Eden Primeeeee.

[sincere]

Cerberus has taken Eden Prime. My nostalgia team muses about how this fucking planet has it rough. This is where it all began with Saren and the geth and the Prothean beacon.

[sincere]

So I went in to answer a distress call at a school; it looked like turians were going to help them evac, but it was a fake, like the fake turian distress signal that lured us to the derelict Reaper ship. In reality, Cerberus came through here and is trying to acquire these kids who are training their biotics.

And who should their teacher be but... JACK! Jack with a cute mohawk/ponytail hairstyle going on and a punch to the face for Shepard.

Jack: HOW MANY TIMES DID I TELL YOU NOT TO TRUST CERBERUS
Shepard: ...You're not telling me anything I haven't told myself a hundred times.
Jack: GREAT. I'm sure that's really comforting to all the dead kids.
Garrus: Charming as ever, Jack.
Jack: BITE ME, GARRUS. Or better yet, BITE HER. Probably that's how she likes it.

True enough.

[sincere]

Jack is an adorable bitch now. She's super protective of the teenagers under her watch and she looks after them, even just self-esteem-wise, although obviously in her rough way. She says that she's listened to too many of Shepard's crappy girl scout speeches not to have picked up a few things.

[sincere]

Anderson's alive yaaay. And he's happy we saved everyone, although of course not thrilled they have to go into battle. But. Yay!

[sincere]

On to Primarch Victus's negotiations.

"Messages sent by each faction indicate that they would welcome the Normandy as a neutral meeting ground for their diplomats. The fact that they have not agreed on a ship to serve as a neutral meeting point before now does not bode well for the negotiations."

...Oh boy

[sincere]

Is it hilarious or is it hilarious that the only factions present at this meeting are the krogan and the two races that genetically crippled the krogan? Eh? Ehhhh?

[sincere]

Wrex bros it up with Garrus and Shepard briefly on the shuttle ride down and then immediately starts harassing the local salarian populace. He's a little on edge. The salarians don't want to let him in, so Shepard tells him to stay put and she'll deal with it. He trusts her enough to let her do it.

[sincere]

omg I can't even take Garrus and Wrex being bros

Wrex: Tuchanka may be a pile of radioactive rubble, but it's our pile, and we'll fight to the last krogan to keep it that way.
Garrus: Radioactive, huh?
Wrex: Garrus... I had to go and make friends with the one turian in the galaxy who thinks he's funny.
Garrus: Imagine how I feel. I'm supposed to hate krogan, and then you come along and warm my heart with your winning personality.
Wrex: I could throw a few salarians off a cliff if it'll make you feel better.
Me: Boys.

NEVER STOP TALKING, PARTY

[sincere]

As we enter the base, alarms start going off and things start going haywire. Something is happening on the perimeter. Shepard and co are ushered inside, where we meet Mordin! And his unsettling new voice actor.

He's the one who fed the information to Wrex about the fertile females, he reveals. He's been trying to protect them -- their immune systems have been compromised due to the cure. There's just one surviving female krogan, immune to the genophage, and she's the last hope for a cure.

Cerberus is attacking the base, so we need to get her out right now.

[sincere]

After a prolonged, nerve-wracking assault, we freed the female krogan successfully and she killed the attackers in the face and then moved on.

The admiral applauds us for brokering peace between krogan and turians, and announces that Project Crucible is underway: They're... they're building a Death Star! THERE'S NO WAY THIS COULD GO WRONG. /shot

[sincere]

Anyway, the krogan/turian peace is a little trickier than that because Wrex is like a wall, man, he does not even hear or care about your attempts to make him see reason when he knows he has what you want and you'll make shit happen if he says so.

Mordin is confident he can do it. He suggests Shepard speak to "Eve" sometime.

Wrex and Victus are both like, "I HAVE MORE THINGS FOR YOU TO DO SHEPARD, BUT I DON'T WANT TO SAY IT IN FRONT OF HIM." This is not very peaceful, guys.

[sincere]

Eve is pretty awesome.

[slayerofgod]

^^-b

[sincere]

So a turian ship went down on Tuchanka and Victus won't explain why they were there, only that it's very important they be rescued and permitted to carry out their mission.

Meanwhile a krogan ship went down in rachni space and we're worried the queen might be acting up again.

Tuchanka is plotty so, as per my usual, I'll go there only when I'm out of other things to do.

[sincere]

And Wrex's backup team includes GRUNT! Of course. He is the HAPPIEST TO SEE Shepard he's still a bb. He commands the best krogan commando team now. And he's excited to fight what might be rachni!! The old enemy!!

Shepard tells him to take it down a notch, we don't know if there's rachni, [and we can't figure out why the rachni are making trouble because the queen promised us she'd be good]

[sincere]

The rachni queen was captured by the Reapers. Rescued her again.

Grunt bb almost died letting us do it, but everyone is back and in top shape! Victory is mine.