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]

He doesn't. He just sniffles about how he's wasted enough of my time, nursing his hurt feelings, and furthering my not caring about him.

So I end this night with a great big, "Why are you so boring, Kaidan???"

[temples]

He's a Nice Guy with an inferiority complex that we're supposed to... find endearing?

Yeah, let him die.

[rainfall]

/bounce bounce bounce

[sincere]

I was all set to go start Wrex's sidequest, but the asari councilor from the Citadel decided to contact me instead! Okay, sure.

[sincere]

An infiltration unit gathering intel on Saren tried to contact the council on a channel reserved for mission-critical information, but the message came through as only static. If they have relevant information, though, Shepard may want to go check up on them...

Duly noted.

[sincere]

God, I hate fighting in the fucking Mako.

[sincere]

I got distracted. I went on a sidequest to get Wrex's armor, and I did. I went on another sidequest to fuck up a misbehaving AI on the moon.

Then I read codex entries for, like, twenty minutes. I love reading codex entries. omg. The turians are so cool. I can't even.

[rainfall]

CODEX ENTRIES

are kind of

the best thing.


Sometimes they remind me of FFXIII, and then I mentally add, "Only awesome."

[sincere]

Anyway my teammates have new things to say now that I'm on the ship!

Wrex talks about how he can't really avoid other krogan in his job, but he tries not to think about them too much. Sometimes they're his enemy, and he's cool with killing them in the face. It's just one of the things about being a mercenary, getting paid to travel the galaxy and kill dudes in it. He loves his job.

Ashley tells us that her family is infamous: her grandfather is the only human commander ever to surrender to an alien force. During the First Contact War with the turians he surrendered to save his forces and the civilians caught in between, and the military has sort of snubbed her family ever since. I tell her Shepard gives no fucks about her family background and her grandfather deserved better, and she invites Shepard to drink and play pool with her on shore leave.

I want them to make out, but I think mostly because I'm in a Bioware frame of mind, expecting to pick someone to make out with. I think I can definitely live with them just being awesome kickass gal pals.

[rainfall]

I feel like I also want to make out with Ashley even more because I know we can't.

[sincere]

Garrus is super worried in a quiet vicious way. He's very concerned that we might never catch Saren, and that if we do, the Council will let him off light or try to protect him. He wants to just straight up kill Saren instead of bring him back to face justice. I tell him we'll see.

[rainfall]

Lalalalala vigilante justice.

[sincere]

Tali gives us what seems like a premature "when it's all over..." speech, thanking us for treating her so kindly -- like an equal instead of a burden or an insect. Most people just want the quarians out of the way, considering them a plague of locusts, so it means a lot to her that Shepard values her participation, because she's adorable.

[rainfall]

Tali knows what you don't: MINI BOSS INCOMING.

[sincere]

Me: So that's my downstairs crew.
Me: Heh. My romantic options are upstairs.

rainfall: Non-romantic options are consigned to the basement.

[rainfall]

You know it to be true.

[sincere]

Okay, Kaidan. Say something interesting.

He's worried the aliens are ignoring what's right in front of their faces, about... something. I'm not really sure. Anyway, it's a hook to talk about his past, and his favorite abusive instructor at Biotic Camp, Vyrnnus! He showed Kaidan that even aliens are not so superior, they're jerks, just like humans. He broke a girl's arm as a punishment for an extremely tiny infraction and Kaidan snapped, and Vyrnnus pounded on him until he snapped and accidentally killed the guy. Whoops.

[sincere]

Liara talks about how humans are high-strung and bossy and the rest of the galaxy sees us as bullies. It's up to Shepard to change that. She's so... compelling.

rainfall: /makes groping motions

When I suggest it might have something to do with the Prothean beacon, she says it was originally her interest, but it's grown into something....... more. But she wasn't sure there might already be something between me and Kaidan!

I don't have a "wtf made you think that" or "nah man he is securely friend-zoned" option, unfortunately. All my options imply that we do have something between us. Gag me. /stares at them forever

[sincere]

Whew! The "It's not serious" option is actually a "We're just friends", not a "IT'S JUST CASUAL FUCKIN'" or anything.

By process of elimination we have selected Liara as our romantic interest, so I tell her I am attracted to her. I don't think that's how it works in real life but it's how it works in Mass Effect, okay?

She's actually freaking out a little bit about our mutual attraction. BUT ISN'T IT STRANGE? WE'VE ONLY KNOWN EACH OTHER A LITTLE WHILE AND WE'RE FROM DIFFERENT SPECIES AND WE HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON. THIS MAKES NO SENSE!!!

...at least the game can tell its romance is not well-developed!

Anyway, I tell her not to overanalyze this, science is not for relationships.

Liara: You make it sound so... chaotic. So... dangerous.
Me: Swoon a little more, why don't you.
Shepard: [1. I'll protect you.]
Me: From relationships?

Anyway, Liara wants space to figure it out and this is kind of getting a little statutory here, are you, like, a 106-year-old virgin, Liara? So Shepard backs off and the conversation ends.

[sincere]

I defeated the first of four geth outposts I need to tackle to do Tali's quest! ...time-consuming.

[sincere]

I took down three geth infestations and then got really incredibly bored and went to do Garrus's sidequest. LET'S FIND OUR ORGAN-TRAFFICKING CREEPER.

[sincere]

When I board his ship I'm attacked by a bunch of zombie creepers. Garrus observes that he's doing more than just growing organs now! How nice for him.

When we actually find him, though, he's like, "THANK YOU FOR RESCUING ME FROM THOSE MONSTERS. :D I'M DR. HEART!"

And Garrus is like, "The hell you are. That's him! IT'S HIM IT'S HIM. Can I kill him?!"

[sincere]

In debating how to do this scene, I looked it up online and realized that I was right in my earlier analysis of Garrus. He's wavering from his morality system. He's tempted to go the expedient renegade route instead of sticking to the by-the-books paragon route, because that route has burned him before. And the choices you make not only help sway him one way or the other, but carry over into the next games, I think!!

I love Garrus.

I'm going Paragon so I'm taking him with me.

[sincere]

Anyway, Shepard tells Garrus not to murder the doctor, because we need to interrogate him and find out what he's done, and then he'll serve his time. Garrus reluctantly sees the logic in that, but Saleon does not, and tries to run and snipe us. I murder him, and Garrus is all, "YOU SEE?"

Shepard tells him, "You can't predict how people will act. But you can control how you behave. That's the only thing that really matters."

Garrus is impressed. I can tell. He says he's never met anyone like Shepard before.

♥

[sincere]

Back on the ship, Garrus thanks Shepard for bringing him along -- and for helping him -- and for making him see what he was doing. Ends justify the means, willing to sacrifice civilians to take down a bad guy, trying to be his own justice... But when he thought about why he'd really wanted Saleon dead, he realized it wasn't because of what Saleon had done to innocents, but the fact that Saleon had slipped out of his grasp. He'll be keeping that in mind, for when we find Saren.

C-c-c-c-character development! I love him. And the turians in general. But especially him.

[sincere]

Wrex tells us about this one time he was hired by a volus diplomat who wanted him to assassinate a friend who "knew too much" -- an asari commando. Actually someone Wrex had been quasi-friendly with, in the way that mercs can be, competing for a kill. "It was a tie. I got the head, she got the rest of him. As far as I know, we both got paid."

He told her about the contract, and they laughed, and then he let her pick the location where they'd fight. She picked a station full of smugglers so no innocents got hurt. :D

Three days later the station was falling apart, the ammo was gone, and everyone else on it was dead. Wrex had her pinned, but the ship's core went critical. He escaped to his ship and watched to make sure no one left before it blew, but somehow she still escaped and taunted him later. He decided she deserved to live and he told the volus that she was alive and pissed, so he'd better keep Wrex on as a bodyguard if he wanted to survive. :|a

I will end this night on awesome storytime.

[valleyheart]

Thought you might enjoy this.

[sincere]

Cracking up omg stop

[sincere]

So I had a sad yesterday because 1) I want to do everything, but 2) I have a huge pile of sidequests, and 3) I can really, incredibly easily, spend an entire night doing just a handful of sidequests and not advancing the plot, but 4) I have like two other games to play after I'm done with this one! Which, at my current rate of progress because of items 1-3, will be in 2015.

So I told myself I would compromise. I would do a night of dicking around on sidequests, and then a night of advancing the plot, etc.

[sincere]

BUT BEFORE I GO TO VIRMIRE, A SIDEQUEST! --A plot-related one, I swear. When I was on Feros I had evidence that the geth were ready to stage an attack on the Citadel from a nearby galaxy. I'm going to check it out.

[sincere]

Oh, I was already doing that. It reached a level of seriousness that the Citadel noticed it and told me to stop it, I guess! I guess I could finish the final geth outpost form last night.

[sincere]

Okay I've finally got Tali's stupid thing and it's only 8:20. Huzzah. Now on to Noveria for some plot, I guess.

[sincere]

So I go to tell Tali I have a shiny for her!

She says that the data we recovered could be the key to uncovering how the geth have evolved over the past few centuries, even if it takes years to decrypt. I agree to give her a copy and she gets all emotional. She vows to stay with us until Saren is defeated.

[sincere]

Okay, Noveria.

They practically shoot us down when we approach this icy rock and warn us that if we're lying about being a Citadel vessel with a Specter on board they'll impound our ship. Gee, thanks.

[slayerofgod]

They take their law breaking seriously.

[sincere]

They try to take my weapons when I arrive. Garrus and Liara politely tell them to go fuck themselves. Our identity is confirmed before we have to murder some bitches.

This facility is super tightly locked-down and everyone follows the rules and no one has any weapons and we're definitely not going to have to murder anyone while we're here.