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Whoah. I was just about to bring up Mass Effect as an example of popular bad sci-fi. Not simply for its ending, but from structural design perspective (a terribly managed/planned trilogy structure that led to the ending), an inability to stick to character arcs (many reoccuring characters flip from their initial story arcs to fit into the narrative / character appeal niches as needed), it's heavy power fantasy dynamic verging into sycophantism, the tendency to emotionally heal traumatized women by boning them, and so on. A good enough contrarian could even write an amusing spiel on it's fascistic themes and narrative style (though admittedly most who do aren't good enough to pull it off).
That's an interesting perspective. The only circumstance I can remember in this game isJack, but if you do that immediately in the early game after you recruit her it actually locks you out of the more interesting parts of her romance arc- and you... actually don't fuck in that one if you take it to its conclusion, if I recall correctly . (And I don't think Morinth counts, because if you do that, obvious consequence is obvious; though I do admit that mimicing her mom plot point came out of nowhere if you side with her during that quest... which you have literally no reason to do other than to meme. Which is also probably why "we'll bang, OK" with her exists in the first place.)
Personally, I would have preferred to bone Legion, but you... kind of do that anyway, in a way. The Garrus romance is about as close as you can actually get for that one and he's not the same.
The Jack romance certainly ends with a lovers relationship, and her romance is the only one where she makes meaningful emotional healing and interpersonal progression in ME2. Miranda is uniquely characterized as smiling in a way she never did before and is also only able to have a healthy emotional relationship solely if Shepard is the one to provide it (with their dick). Kelly Chambers, in so much as that one qualifies, resolves it's emotional catharsis by having her do stripper dances in your room after she was kidnapped, locked into a pod, and nearly turned into bio-goop. Tali is much less emotionally traumatized, but certainly emotionally questionable given that she risks death itself for the sake of the Shepard bone out of a mix of captain-crushing hero crush (and the fact that you covered up her father's cultural war crimes).
Ashley... is a more mature frank attraction in ME1, but Ashely's character arc also jumps to the point that the tomboy not-a-model gets a major model glow up come ME3, so who knows there.
Ah yes,
ReapersMiranda. Putting the ass in Mass Effect since 2010.Honestly I'm not too much in knots about Tali since ME2 isn't even the first game she's in. Same thing with Liara, but maybe she doesn't count since you can't romance her in ME2 (not that you can do that with Ashley either, of course). I think the least fleshed-out/one that makes the least sense is Samara, discounting the alternative option.
I do find that the male options in ME2 were better but that's just because I think Garrus and Thane are better characters (not that Jack isn't a good character herself). Too bad they memed on Jacob in ME3; they didn't really flesh his character out at all in ME2 (maybe ME1 players blew up Carth more often so they didn't think it was worth the effort, lol).
Doesn't that option become available to you before she gets kidnapped? I do agree it would be more interesting if that option was locked out after that because of that, but I'm not sure they thought about it that hard.
You could maybe make the case for the current crop of female 3d modelling, but storytelling? Miranda, as well as all the other ladies of Mass Effect, were all properly fleshed out characters, with their stories, struggles, charms and flaws. You could put them all in a niqab, and they'd still be interesting characters (as proven by Tali). The current crop of female characters are all cardboard cut-outs. Miranda's ass tipping the domino that launched a chain reaction leding to the collapse of the skyscraper of game writing, makes absolutely no sense.
I know we disagree off and on, but may I commend you for making me laugh out loud at this visualization? The scaling alone...
I do appreciate the disagreements, for what it's worth. You argue straight and clearly, and even if I remain stubborn, it tends to be the kind of disagreement that triggers some introspection.
And in any case laughing at my jokes will always trump disagreement.
I mean it as a compliment when I say the same in turn. You are among the posters here who I've bookmarked simply to see what you're commenting on, simply because even when I disagree I appreciate having to justify to myself why. (I do try not to argue with you on anything I spot from your page directly, though. That would be creepy!)
Lol!
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