Holy Shit XBOX ONE

I did it. I broke down and bought an Xbox One. I made that last post on Thursday and the VERY NEXT DAY the One went back on sale to $350, which I obviously took as a sign! So right after work I drove to Target and picked up the Xbox and another copy of DA:I, and holy fuck you guys.

Holy fuck.

It's, not even exaggerating, like playing a completely new game. I mean, I knew it was going to look better, and maybe have a few more trees at Skyhold, but oh my god did I not know the full extent to which DA:I on the 360 fucking sucks.

I just. There are so many more trees. Trees everywhere! In the Hinterlands, I barely even recognized where I was and I've spent hours questing in that godforsaken zone. There were trees and vines and flowers and grass where there were none before. Light filtering through trees. Motes of dust drifting through that light! Tents flapping in the breeze, actual NPCs in towns and camps (not just the one requisitions officer and like, one other person). My coat blowing in the wind. My companions' coats blowing in the wind. EVERYTHING blowing in the wind!!

I've only been to one zone and I'm completely blown away. This is 100% worth the money. I cried the first time I saw Cassandra. I cried in the Hinterlands and Val Royeaux. I can't believe how beautiful this fucking game is! How are games this incredibly detailed? How are they this gorgeous? I feel like I've been playing this game blind and now I can finally see!! It's incredible!

So, conclusion: buying the Xbox One? Best investment of my entire life. Y'know, after that whole grad school in London thing.

First World Problems

My feels.

Okay but... why am I so tired this week?

Seriously. It's out of control how tired I am this week. Usually I can easily make it to bedtime at 10:00, but this week I've been draaagging. Work has gotten a little more stressful than it used to be, which is probably draining me a bit. I don't know?? Am I dying maybe? Or just getting old?

I really don't have anything interesting to say but I felt bad not blogging so here I am. The only real happenings in my life are all video game related, which... nobody cares about! And if you do care, please go to my twitter because it's all I ever talk about there.

Speaking of video games, payday is today and I've been good about not spending much money lately, so I have a bit extra to spare... plus we got little Christmas bonuses at work and Shaun just sent me some money for our plane tickets to LA (!!!!!), and I just made a big ol' payment on my credit card bill so I could pretty comfortably afford an Xbox One right now? Only... I'm super torn about whether I should do it? I mean, I know I am going to be needing one eventually, as all the new games coming out will be too graphics-heavy for poor ol' 360. The only reason I'd buy it now is to play DA:I. But I'm already like 70+ hours into my second playthrough of DA:I. Will it hold my interest enough to play the whole game again? And yeah I'd have to buy the game again so I'd have two bloody copies of it (although I'd likely trade in the 360 copy or something). The more I write about this the more ridiculous it seems!! But... but my Skyhold doesn't even have trees or grass because the 360 can't handle rendering all that detail! It's a goddamn tragedy, I tell you.

Maybe I'll finish my current playthrough and see how I feel at the end of it. It's possible I'll be so bored of the game by then that I'll want nothing to do with it (HAHAHAHAAAhahaaa). Plus I need a new iPhone as well. Life is hard, let me complain about the most first world of first world problems, please.

Wow, I really did have something to write about! Something completely stupid! What do you guys think, though? Xbox One now, or later? Or should I just save my money like a good little adult?

Best Saturday

Today has been the best Saturday.

Earlier this week I was feeling really sad and empty and I was terrified that depression had come back in full force, but instead I'm pretty sure I was just PMSing. Although I always say that and am never sure, because with my IUD I never have any clue when I'm supposedly on my period, but I feel a billion times better today than I did a few days ago. So yay! Also I slept for 14 hours last night so maybe that's part of it.

Regardless, today has been the best. I woke up at noon and made pancakes, touched up my roots (which I had let grow in way too much), went grocery shopping, and promptly read this fucking beautiful work of fiction, which has ruined my entire life. It's Cullen/female Trevelyan, so if that's your bag... read it. That's an order.

Like I said, best Saturday.

Now I'm going to eat some Amy's frozen pizza and gaze wistfully into the middle distance.

And by that I mean I'm going to play DA:I and kiss Cullen 500 times in a row.

BYYYYE

DA:I Round Two (and Lyall's Butt)

So I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition for the second time, and am discovering a lot of fun new things this time around. Mostly it's quests that I never did, because I got super impatient the first time through and just wanted to find out what happened in the story. This playthrough I'm taking my time though, doing as many quests in each zone as I can (unless they're too hard for my current level -- Emerald Graves, I'm looking at your fade rifts), killing all the dragons, and completing everybody's loyalty quests. 

I thought it might get boring doing all this stuff when I know what will happen at the end of the game, but it's actually been really rewarding and satisfying! It's a completely different experience from the first game because I'm going about it differently. I'm also playing a warrior, which is usually not my first class choice but I'm loving being a two-handed reaver.

And yeah, yeah -- I know, I didn't do all the loyalty quests the first time through. That is because I hate Solas and was creeped out by Cole, so I ignored them. I don't know why, because it's even better when you talk to Solas and can disagree wholeheartedly, and his disapproval is a beautiful thing. And Cole now kind of... seems sweet to me? I dunno man, I'm having a totally different experience altogether and I kind of love it!

Plus dragon slaying. I don't know what the hell possessed me to not kill a single dragon my first playthrough? Admittedly they're huge and breathe fire and ice and can one-shot you if you're too low level and the fights last for ages, but oh man when you finally take down your first dragon. SO SATISFYING. And I get really freaked out while fighting so it's a major adrenaline rush, and then all that loot and Iron Bull yelling about how badass we all are! It's so great! I'm going to kill all of the dragons.

So yes, I spent much of today playing DA:I because Lyall (my dog) was in pain (or seemed to be in pain??) in his butt region this morning and I was really worried his anal gland had ruptured again, so I stayed home to keep an eye on him. Of course it turns out he was fine and who knows why he was yelping and licking his butt earlier. Sigh. He's the dog who cried wolf, only he doesn't know not to cry wolf and is not intelligent enough for me to teach him otherwise, so I have to assume he's dying or something every time he acts like this. What a jerk!

And now I'm gonna pretend to get ready for bed and probably just sit on tumblr for the next hour.

Too Many Inquisition Feels

If you play video games, or even if you don't and you just like to think about video games (I don't know, someone might??), then you've probably thought about what your ideal video game would be like. I know I think about it a lot! Mass Effect is my favorite video game series and probably one of my favorite stories of all time. But it's missing something. It's perfect, I mean I would never change it and it's an experience I will never forget, but let's be real. There are no blonde templars in Mass Effect. And there are no masquerade balls or castles or bards in taverns playing songs about your adventures.

And all of that is in Dragon Age: Inquisition, which IF YOU'VE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK is BioWare's latest installment in the Dragon Age series, and came out last Tuesday. So naturally I've done nothing with my life since then but play it. BECAUSE IT IS PERFECT.

This isn't going to be a review, because I'm only about 45 hours into the game and nowhere near finished, but I just have to write about it because it's swallowing me whole and I need to express my feels before I explode. I'm still not even sure this game is real, that's how good it is. I started playing when I was in the throes of a cold, so I was all delirious and kept thinking, "Is this really happening?? Is this game really this good?!" Yes. It is real! Unless I'm dreaming right now!

Just. This world is enveloping me so completely it's as real to me as ~real life~. It's open world, so you can pretty much explore wherever you want in a zone, unless there's a big ol' mountain in your way, or a dragon that you're too scared to try to fight ("run awayyy!"). That means it feels more like you're truly existing in a fully realized world that's there whether or not you have a quest to finish in the area. As you wander you find letters, chapters from books, and various bits of history or stories or personal anecdotes that add so much more depth to the setting. I'm constantly learning more about the world of Thedas, and losing myself in it is so easy.

The characters are just as real and complex as the setting, and I love every single one of them so much. Except for Solas. He's a big giant jerkface and I am aggressively not doing any of his stupid personal quests. Go to the Hinterlands yourself, Solas, if it's so important! Cullen, though. And Josephine (Leliana calls her "Josie", kill me). And CASSANDRA can we talk about Cassie because she is the tank of my dreams and one of my favorite characters of all time even though I hated her in Dragon Age 2. And I can't say enough about Varric, who writes erotic friend fiction, and Vivienne calling you "my dear" and Dorian's fucking mustache, and the Iron Bull's whole crew, and SERA'S PRANKS, I just can't with any of these people! I would fight and die for them without blinking an eye. Leading an inquisition is so much easier when surrounded by a whole buncha lovable badasses.

There are still so many things I want to write but I don't want to spoil anyone, so I won't go into much more detail. I'm just... I'm so in love with this game and I'm not even done! This despite the fact that my heart was broken last night during one of the quests. I won't say why, but BioWare... I hate you. You are a pile of masochistic jerks. There was a choice I had to make, and it was so awful and heart-wrenching I literally had a panic attack. Like, I started hyperventilating and my hands went numb and started doing that clenchy thing lol so I breathed into a pillow until I "calmed down", which meant I still kept sobbing uncontrollably but at least my hands were working? Thank god for my friends, who were there through all of it, talking me down and reminding me that it would all be okay. Eventually.

Let's be real though, BioWare is the best thing to ever happen to gaming. Thank you for being so wonderful, you pile of masochistic jerks.

N7 Day Part 2

OKAY I'M SORRY this is another N7 Day post, sue me it happens once a year let me have this. Let me take a bunch of selfies of me and my Shepard tattoo and harass you with them.

Sooo, today has been pretty goddamn great. Like, this might be my second favorite holiday now, tied with Thanksgiving, because let's be reeeaalll Christmas is just completely on another level. Anyway. Today has been wonderful. I wore my N7 shirt (AS U CAN SEE), geeked out with other fans across the interwebs, and of course I made N7 cupcakes all alone all evening Because OBVIOUSLY?

It took me way too long to make these, and this is only half of them, but they were WORTH IT and came out way better than expected as I have pretty much zero experience decorating baked goods with icing?? I'm super proud, regardless! And they taste so good. Dark chocolate fudge frosting, you guys. Dark chocolate fudge.

Anyway just a short lil post this time, but I just... I want to say again, thank you BioWare for creating such a wonderful thing that even my crusty old bitter heart can love so much it consumes me entirely. Thank you for bringing Stacey and me together. Thank you for reconnecting me to old friends. Thank you for making me feel like part of a community of amazingly talented, enthusiastic, and lovely people.

Here's to us! Who's like us? Damn few! And they're all dead.

What N7 Day Means to Me

"What does N7 mean to you?" BioWare asked in a blog post last month in anticipation of November 7th, now celebrated as N7 Day by Mass Effect fans. Well, buckle up, sit back, and get ready because I am going to tell you exactly what N7 means to me!!

We all know by now that I'm a huge fan of this series. I got an N7 tattoo immediately after finishing the game, and a half sleeve of Commander Shepard shortly after that. I'M A LITTLE OBSESSED. This game showed me a female character who I love more than anything. It introduced me to a fictional world that is so vivid and engaging that it's real to me. It's part of me.

But what N7 really really means to me, even more than the deep (and frankly impossible-to-express-in-mere-words) way it touched me, is connection. It means discovering an incredibly vast and welcoming fan base of people who are just as in love with the Mass Effect series, are just as emotionally invested, and wanna bang Garrus just as much as I do. Being a fan is more than just enthusiasm about the game. It's about sharing the experience with people who have that same enthusiasm, and letting that excitement bounce back and forth and grow into art, music, stories, conversation, whatever, inspired by this one thing we all love together.

Which brings me to the best, best thing I got out of the ridiculously intense emotional experience that was my first playthrough of Mass Effect. And by "thing" I mean person. And by person I mean Stacey. It's Stacey. Stacey is the best thing to come of Mass Effect for me, let's be real. Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone who you immediately get along with, who has the exact same stupid sense of humor as you, who understands all of your weird-as-shit personality quirks because they have those same quirks, and who just gets you? 100%? That's Stacey. I've never even met her in real life and we've only known each other for a short time, but I trust her as much as I trust family. It feels like we've been friends our whole lives.

I feel super lucky to have multiple girl friends who are like sisters to me, who I would kill and die for, and who I would trust with my life and all of my darkest, weirdest secrets. Stacey is now one of them (a friend, not a weird secret). She could call me in the middle of the night and ask me to drive through the night to LA and help her hide the body of the man she just murdered, and I would do it. No question. I'd engage in fisticuffs for her. No seriously, I would take a punch in the face. I'd also give as many punches in the face as I could manage with my very limited reach. And I'd play any goddamn video game she wanted me to, just to talk to her while doing multiplayer. EVEN SCARY ONES. Even Call of Duty.

And the thing is, Stacey is the one person I lived Mass Effect with. We played it almost in tandem; I finished the game after her, but she stayed up until 3:00 in the morning the day I finished so she could talk me down when I lost all of my shit as the credits rolled. She understood completely every ridiculous Mass Effect-related thought I had, every moment that upset me or made me laugh or made me cry. You know how at the end of Speed, Keanu Reeves says to Sandra Bullock, "I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work"? Well he was DEAD WRONG because going through one of the most intense emotional experiences I've ever endured (aside from like, you know, breakups and the deaths of loved ones I guess, although this weirdly comes close?) with Stacey forged our bond like the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Which means it's strong. It's a strong-as-fuck bond.

I used to be so worried that as we stopped replaying and replaying Mass Effect and moved on to other things, that our friendship would fade or diminish in some way. But it's only gotten stronger as we discover new things we have in common, and are continually reminded how similar we are. I just love her so much, you guys. It's stupid. And I may never have realized just how much I love her without Mass Effect.

So thank you, Mass Effect. Thank you Commander Shepard. Thank you Biotic God, thank you Thane in the vents, thank you "behind the crates", thank you Kaidan's scream in London, thank you Wrex cosplayer with the tiny arms. Thank you BioWare, you fucking brilliant assholes. N7 means the world to me because N7 means Stacey.

Love you, bae.

Postcards from Purgatory

Here are two side-by-side photographs of me holding geeky rectangular items in front of my face! 

So firstly, I started Borderlands a few days ago. I did this for three reasons. I know you're all way curious to know these reasons, so let me outline them for you in a numbered list!

Reasons Meg Started Playing Borderlands:

1. I needed a new game to play in an attempt to distract me from my all-consuming impatience as I wait for Dragon Age: Inquisition to come out, and everyone (like two people I guess) said it was super good and that I'd like it.

2. I wanted to cancel out my previous experience with the series, which was playing co-op Borderlands 2 with my ex Greg, the most stressful and frustrating gaming experience of our time. It was only my second time ever playing an FPS (the first being about ten minutes of shitting my pants in Left 4 Dead with no idea how to use a 360 controller and getting dog-piled by shrieking zombies, or was that my own shrieking, idk).

So Borderlands 2 was my sad attempt to bond with Greg, as video games were one of the only ways to do that, and it was terrible. He's really good at games and an extraordinarily fast reader, so he would just barrel through every quest, not giving me time to read the objectives or figure out what I was doing in any way. It resulted in me firing my gun wildly into the sky at nothing and then dying, in quick succession, over and over. I never had any idea what was going on, where we were, or how to fucking aim my gun or walk anywhere without getting stuck in a corner.

LONG STORY SHORT: I am traumatized by that experience and would like to replace it with a positive one! Yeahhh positive gaming experiences! There's actually a lot of satisfaction that's come from being able to play games, enjoy them, and most of all be good (relatively) at them without Greg's presence to pressure me, or help me, or do it for me. I've taken gaming and made it my own, and I'm super proud of myself for that?

3. I wanna talk to Stacey about it. Let's be real, all of my gaming-related decisions in life from now on are going to hinge heavily on Stacey. Is she playing the game? I WANNA PLAY TOO. Is she not playing the game? I DON'T WANNA PLAY EITHER. Am I excited about a game series that Stacey has not yet played? NAG HER UNTIL SHE DOES. Sorry, Staceyyyy I love you (too much).

So there you have it. I've played a couple hours of it so far (pretty much nothing), but already it's a million times more enjoyable than my experience with Borderlands 2. It's more difficult than other games I've played, mostly because there's no ~casual~ mode (wtf, guys? What are fake gamer girls like me to do when there's only one difficulty setting??), but I'm quickly getting the hang of it! I was busy all weekend fucking around with this stupid blog, but I'm excited to play more this week! Will keep you guys updated because I know you super care.

SECONDLY, and here's the best thing that's happened to me in probably my entire life: Stacey's Purgatory postcard finally showed up omfg!!!

No, you don't understand. A couple months ago now, when we were in the throes of full-on Mass Effect obsession (we still kinda are), Stacey sent me a series of postcards over the space of a few weeks, all from various places in Mass Effect. I got postcards from Illium, the Citadel, Feros, and one from Omega. I eagerly checked the mail every day when I got home from work, hoping for the next one and shrieking with delight every time it arrived. But when the final postcard from Purgatory didn't come, and didn't come... and still didn't come, Stacey grew worried. She asked if I had received it and I said I hadn't, even though she'd sent it. Where could it have gone?? We wondered if it got lost in the mail, if it went to the wrong address, if I'd accidentally thrown it out with junk mail. We were both devastated. The postcards had been telling a story, and I was forced to accept the fact that I would never know how that story ended.

This all took place, as I said, months ago. And then on Friday I checked my mail, pulling out the usual junk and the electric bill. But I felt one more piece of mail in there and pulled it out. And I SCREAMED. Like, I'm hoping none of my neighbors were home because I straight shouted "OH MY GOD!!" and started jumping up and down on the front step. THE POSTCARD HAD FINALLY ARRIVED FROM PURGATORY. And as I read the final chapter in the saga of Stacey Shepard and friends finally making their way back to Earth and to me, I shed a tear. No, I cried. It was an actual tear. I say that I'm crying a lot on social media, and you may think that's an exaggeration, but I swear to you that 98% of the time I'm literally crying. Just as I was in this case.

It was so emotional and I'm just beyond happy that the postcard arrived at last! I wonder what it was doing that whole time? Did it go to the wrong address? If so, did the recipient have any earthly idea what the fuck any of it meant? Because obviously they would have read it. I would have read it. And I like to think that they were transported, if only for a moment, to another world... a world among the stars, stranger and more fantastic than any they could have imagined, a world of adventure, rare beauty... and sexy aliens.

Shepard Tattoo: Complete!

Okay hi, I haven't blogged in forever! Mostly because I've been dealing with not-very-crippling anxiety and depression, which is just crippling enough to make me not want to put myself out there very much, both in real life and online. It's okay, it's being dealt with and isn't that big of a deal, but I thought I'd explain!

That said, I wanted to share my beautiful Commander Shepard tattoo with you guys now that she's healed. I love her so, so much. I'm thrilled with her, she means the world to me, and I'm so happy with her I want to die. The artist, Gin Hicks, is incredible. She really, really is. My crappy selfies do not do justice to her delicate linework or her subtle coloring. It's such a lovely tattoo and well worth every penny. If you live in Portland or nearby I would highly recommend her! She's attentive, listened to what I wanted, and even though I gave her a lot of artistic freedom, she came up with a piece that I'm so proud to wear. I want to cry just looking at it.

Back in July I blogged about my feels regarding Commander Shepard (from the game Mass Effect, obvs), which will give you a tiny bit of an idea of just how much I adore her. It's hard talking about my love for Shep without sounding like a complete freak who is 100% removed from normal society and real life in any form. I have a hard enough time articulating my love for Mass Effect itself without feeling like a cray cray, and there are plenty of people out there who I know love it just as much as I do.

Shepard is, to be totally honest, my first real fictional female hero. I fall for male characters all the time. I identify with them, lust after them, admire them, take inspiration from them. But I've never felt quite the same way about any female characters, until now. And Shepard blows them all out of the water. She is everything to me. If she were real, I would kill for her. I would die for her if she asked. I wish I was exaggerating but I'm pretty sure I'm not?? I would legitimately sacrifice my life for Shepard's cause. I'd follow her into hell, and I wouldn't follow the Doctor there. Shepard is a fucking force. She means so much to me I get physical pangs sometimes when I think about her, okay. In my chest. Physical chest pangs.

Whatever you guys, it's fine it's not a big deal. It's fine.

Anyway, I think David Anderson, a superior officer in the Systems Alliance Navy, puts it well (and in a way that makes me weep like a tiny child every time I listen to the voice recording in his apartment):

Thing is, you never heard a complaint. Never once got 'No, sir. I can't do that.' She never hesitated. Few people know what Shepard's been through. I'd like to think I come pretty close. And I worry sometimes she forgets: there's a whole bunch of people who lose sleep over her getting back home. Maybe it doesn't need to be said. Maybe we're too dumb to say it. 

Soldiers like the Commander are rare. Women like Shepard... even more rare.

20 Stupid Thoughts: Mass Effect 3

I finished Mass Effect 3 for the second time last night, so in celebration (mourning?) of that event, I have decided to inundate you with my thoughts and feels on the subject. Since this was my second playthrough, maybe some of my outbursts will reflect that. I'm not sure yet though as I'm literally going to just pull this out of my ass as I go. You're welcome.

20 Stupid Thoughts: Mass Effect 3 (Or: Why Synthesis Is The Best Ending, Shut Up You're Wrong)

1. Okay but the main thing I need to get across first of all is that EDI and Joker are everything. EVERYTHING I TELL YOU. They're the crux of this whole story I swear to god and if you disagree I don't know how you can exist in this world. The entire trilogy is based on organics vs. synthetics, and the increasingly blurred line between the two. Can synthetics have souls? Can organics become synthetic? Joker and EDI's relationship represents the ideal harmony between organics and synthetics. They are everything. Synthesis, mmkay.

2. Talking to Citadel Child made me super confused this time around, even more so than the first time?? Especially as I'd done the Leviathan DLC, which I feel should have clarified things but only made them worse. I'm pretty sure this was not meant to be the case. Instead I was like, Leviathan? Reapers? Star-Lord? Who? I don't remember that mission, I did it like three weeks ago. Christ. Just let me pick an ending already.

3. Uhhh. Miranda died this time? She didn't die last time. What the hell did I do wrong? Or, let's be real: what did I do right.

4. Arriving on Palaven's moon and being met with that view of a mountainous reaper with the war-torn Palaven behind it? Fucking shivers. The epic scale of this game just blows me away on a pretty much constant basis.

5. The final stretch in London with the big ol' canon going off and then the reaper coming ever closer, with the whole SCREEN SHAKING, holy shit have I never felt this immersed in a game before. It's beyond scary, it's overwhelming, it's like I'm actually there and it kills me how good it is.

6. The Citadel DLC is the most happy/sad thing of my entire life. Everyone is so mad at Shepard for breaking the floor of the best sushi place on the Citadel! Nobody cares that a bunch of dudes were coming at her with guns and she was wearing her fancy dress! Her evil clone says "I should go"! They throw a house party! EVERYBODY GOES ON A MISSION TOGETHER, INCLUDING WREX. Just, all of that DLC. All of it. The best thing to ever happen to me. I don't even need a husband or children at this point because they couldn't possibly make me happier than this DLC.

7. Thane vs. Kai Leng. Jesus take the fucking wheel.

8. The dream sequences. No, it's cool, Mass Effect. You go right ahead and crush my soul into smithereens. I didn't need it anyway.

9. Shepard's defeat after Thessia just hits me on an intensely emotional level. When she goes to talk to Joker and accuses him of taking things too lightly, and then he reminds her that his family might be dead, and to shut up anyway because everyone is so worried about her, and how Anderson told Joker to look after her because she's under so much stress, I'm just no no nope no. Nope. Nooope.

10. Garrus asking if Shep thinks she could be a one turian kind of woman. I clasp my controller to my chest, shrieking: YES I CAN BE A ONE TURIAN KIND OF WOMAN. NOW KISS ME ON TOP OF THE PRESIDIUM RIGHT NOW YOU STUPID ADORABLE ALIEN. (Yeah I threw the shot, what am I, some kind of asshole?)

11. WHEN YOU THINK GRUNT IS GONNA DIE AND HE'S FIGHTING IN SLO-MO TO SAD PIANO MUSIC BUT THEN HE SURVIVES AND YOU'RE LIKE "wut" WITH TEARS RUNNING DOWN YOUR FACE

12. Everyone around the Citadel. The conversations taking place are so captivating, I stand and listen and am so taken by all of the NPCs. All of them! Especially the salarian with the special new suit that his friend sold her fancy new car to buy for him so he'd be safer in the war. And the turian looking out for the girl who's been separated from her family. And the woman who's worried about breaking up with her boyfriend for the woman who's been there for her while he's away. And the fact that Shepard goes around dispensing advice and inspiring people with her presence is just so magical to me.

13. I feel like Shepard has grown so much as a person since the beginning of all of this shit with the reapers, and while she's not afraid to do what it takes to get things done, she's still compassionate. She feels pain for every person she couldn't save on Earth. She hated to leave them behind but she had to so she could unite the galaxy, and that sheer weight of responsibility tempers her, I think, but it also motivates her and shapes her, and the fact that she endures for so long under that weight is just. Beyond words.

14. I liked Legion more and the quarians WAY less this time around? I'm pretty sure part of it was that I was paying more attention while I was in the Geth Consensus, because man those quarians are jerks!! The geth just wanted to be helpful, dudes! Don't turn on your synthetic children! Not cool, guys. Not to mention that idiot admiral starts firing on the dreadnought while Shep is still on board?? SERIOUSLY NOT COOL GUYS

15. Does this unit have a soul? UGLY SOBBING

16. Liara's parting gift to Shepard. I don't even have the faintest idea what it's supposed to be but it made me cry a fucking lot.

17. Jesus H. Christ, can Jacob go die already? How can any one person be so overwhelmingly monotonous? Seriously. I'm upset that Jacob even gets his own thought, so here, have a bonus James thought: WHY IS SHEP ALWAYS FLIRTY WITH JAMES BY DEFAULT. I would actually like ol' Jimmy Vega (sounds like a pole dancer on Omega) if he didn't have a creepy flirt-fest going on with Shepard all the time? I had to spend literally 12 minutes doing 183 pull-ups in Anderson's apartment to beat his stupid record before I could feel better about it all.

18. I just really like the bit on the Citadel after Cerberus attacks, when you're zooming around on top of an elevator, shooting down other elevators; and Captain Bailey, meanwhile, is foiling Kai Leng by making his elevator stop on every floor.

19. Seriously though you guys, the synthesis ending is 100% the only ending you could possibly choose and here's why. You can't choose control because that's fucked up. You can't choose destruction because it destroys all of the goddamn mass relays, AND it destroys every synthetic in the galaxy, including, oh wait: your friend EDI. Also fucked up! Synthesis takes Shepard's ~essence~ and turns it into this magical green light that achieves the ultimate in evolution: a melding of organic and synthetic beings! EDI and Joker fully understand one another. EDI is alive. The reapers now fucking help to rebuild in the wake of the destruction they caused. Everyone is at peace. Shepard sacrificed herself so that the galaxy could be the best version of itself. If you go destruction, then pretty soon organics will create more synthetics that will inevitably rise up against them, and the cycle starts all over again. But with synthesis, it's over. And it's better! So there. The only logical choice to make. And if your reason for choosing destruction is so that you can get the one "happy" ending, well fine. FINE I understand that I guess. (But watching Shepard dive into that beam, slowly breaking apart at a molecular level, all to make the galaxy a better place? Fucking most heartbreaking moment of my life thus far okay.)

20. I'm Garrus Vakarian, and this is now my favorite spot on the Citadel!

Shepard Tattoo

Aah! Finally, you guys! The first session of my Commander Shepard tattoo is finished. I am beyond in love with how it's come out so far. BEYOND. I am so, so happy with it!

I started thinking about getting a Shep tattoo before I even finished Mass Effect 3, which seems like ages ago but was actually only around six weeks ago. I knew I wanted a big ol' Shep on my upper arm, but I didn't really have a preference for how big, and I didn't have any specific idea of what I wanted it to look like; more like loose guidelines.

So at my consultation a few weeks ago, I brought in some references such as Shepard's armor, a screenshot of my Shep, and so on. I was really more interested in seeing my artist's take on it, as I love her style (Gin Hicks at Icon Tattoo Studio in Portland), and wanted something she would be excited about too. I told her to make it as big as she wanted, which I had assumed would be pretty big, but I wasn't expecting to see a half sleeve when I went in yesterday! Honestly though, I was super excited about how big it was. I've been playing with the idea of a full sleeve on my right arm anyway, so for half of that to be Shep right off the bat is perfect.

Only the lines and some shading are done now, and the color will be added later in September. I'm just so, so happy and excited about it! Shepard, as you know, is one of my favorite characters of all time and is my actual hero. I can't really articulate what this tattoo or Shep mean to me without sounding ridiculous, but I love it so much.

Thank you Gin! Thank you Rose and Megan for sitting with me for two hours and distracting me from my pain! Thank you, self, for being brave enough to sit through two hours of pain like a total badass!

The lines before shading, and Gin's original design.

Sexual Orientation: Garrus Vakarian

"Some women find facial scars attractive."

Welcome to my blog! Where I write entire posts dedicated to video game aliens who I find attractive! You're welcome. Today I would like to explain to you, dear readers, why I find Garrus Vakarian (from Mass Effect, obviously) to be so goddamn sexy. Like, so sexy. So sexy I'm not as attracted to human men anymore now?? YOU GUYS HELP ME my life is a shambles.

Whatever, what's the point of living if you can't be sexually attracted to a turian at least once in your life, amirite!!? Ahahaha... haa.

Moving along. Garrus is Commander Shepard's turian bestie and, if you're not a loser and romancing someone else, her boyfriend. The best boyfriend. He sticks with her through all three Mass Effect games, and in ME2 gets some wicked hawt facial scars (as seen above). He knows they're hot, too. And he knows Shepard is into that. Plus he's supportive and fun and badass and takes her bottle-shooting on top of the goddamn Presidium, so what's not to love?

If you're still having trouble finding reasons to love Garrus, here. Read this handy list I just made! (Note: I refer to Shepard as "you" because she is you and you are Shepard.)

Reasons to Love Garrus Vakarian:

1. His voice for the love of god. His voice. It's all deep and gravelly but also sarcastic and just a little bit bad boy and kill me please. Here's a video of nothing but Garrus dialogue.



2. He doesn't give a shit if you push people out of very high windows to their deaths. Kaidan Alenko gets butthurt if you so much as look at him while wielding a gun, but you can literally shove a dude out of a skyscraper window for no good reason and Garrus will not bat an eye. He'll just be like, "Yeah okay, Shepard. Go right ahead with that." And still bring you wine and attempt cheesy pick-up lines later! He accepts you as you are. What a man turian.

3. He watches how-to videos on turian/human relations. I can't stress this enough. He watches how-to videos on turian/human relations. He's basically sitting down in the main battery between calibration sessions, watching youtube videos of how to make sexy times with the captain. He also attempts valiantly to do things that the vids tell him the ladies will like. And then he says to you that he learned it in vids. He doesn't give a single fuck! He just straight owns that he has no idea how to date a human let alone a living thing, and his awkward charm is disarming as FUCK okay.

4. This fucking song. Go listen to it now. Somebody made a stupid fucking thing with Garrus dialogue from ME2 over electronic shit and I don't ever listen to this on repeat for hours at a time. Never.

5. He calls himself your boyfriend. And he calls you his girlfriend. And the fact that Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre, savior of the Citadel, renowned badass and uniter of the goddamn galaxy, can simply be somebody's girlfriend is just... it makes me really really happy, okay. The fact that Garrus feels so comfortable around you that he casually calls you his girlfriend (while checking out your ass in a tight dress) is just the most painfully sweet thing I can think of in the universe right now. FML.

6. He wants to be a goddamn dad. I can't elaborate on this or I'll fucking cry but he wants to be a dad.

7. He's a huge badass. When you first meet him he's basically working as a fucking space mall cop, but he's one of the only people (turians?) who agrees with you that Saren (a turian Spectre and murdering jerk) has gone rogue. So he joins you so you guys can kick ass and take names together. And then when you meet up with him a second time in ME2, he's known by the nickname Archangel and is such a goddamn badass that every mercenary group and criminal on a space station that is chalk-full of mercenaries and criminals wants him dead but can't kill him. Why? Because he's just moseying here and there, dispensing vigilante justice willy-nilly like a TOTAL BOSS. No big. Then he gets shot by a fucking rocket and survives. Ain't no thang.

8. HE ROLEPLAYS WITH YOU ON A DATE. He literally pretends he's just meeting you at a bar because you asked him to and then he hits on you awkwardly and tells you how great his voice is. Yes, yes please tell me more, Garrus. I mean, stranger. And then he reveals that he's learned the goddamn tango and dances with you in a bar in space, I mean can we please talk about this. He roleplays with you and then tangos with you after taking dance lessons on the side, which he somehow managed to fit in while rallying the various fleets of the entire galaxy to join with Earth to defeat a race of beings that were created solely to destroy all of life as we know it. I mean look! Look at all the effort he's putting in! Look at it.

9. Whenever you make a headshot, he sometimes says "Im-pressive!" And it's just the highlight of my day every time.

10. He'll be there whenever you need him. In the Shadow Broker's dossier on Garrus, it says that he has great leadership potential, but that he's likely to be overshadowed by Shepard's badassery. Which is just painful, because Garrus probably knows it, and Shepard is too obtuse to realize it, and Garrus sticks with you anyway. Because he's loyal and he loves you. He chooses you over his career and it breaks my goddamn heart. Fuck this guy for real.

"Lucky for you, Archangel's your boyfriend."

If all of this doesn't make you wanna take this turian to the boneyard right the fuck now, there's something terribly wrong with you.

Another Fucking Tattoo

Here, have a horrible photo from Mass Effect 3 that's not even a proper screenshot it's just a phone pic I took of my TV (which is really a computer monitor)! Because I'm gonna talk about Mass Effect some more. It's been what... seven weeks? Almost two months straight of intense Mass Effect feels over here in my too-hot corner of Portland (news flash: all of Portland is too hot and I hate it), so settle in for more where this came from in the days to come! You're welcome!

On Saturday I had a consultation for my next tattoo. I bet you can't guess what sort of tattoo I'm getting. Hint: It's a Mass Effect tattoo. I'm getting another one. An even bigger, stupider one than the N7. It's going to be my Shepard, in her armor and holding a gun with like, some fucking botanical shit framing her because I guess if I'm gonna spend upwards of $500 on permanent fan art on my body, I may as well throw in some flowers.

I'm a nervous wreck pretty much 90% of the time, so when I showed up at the consultation I was literally shaking and felt like a complete FREAK because I was like, zooming through my printed out references, all, "And this is her gun, ahaha and this is her armor (but ignore that head use this other reference for her head), and I like the way this tattoo looks, haaa, and this is her head, and this is a picture I drew of her but it's horrible I'm sorry, please don't hate me." But the artist was really cool about it all! When I showed her my drawing of Shepard she said it was really good, and then said my horrible "screenshot" of Shepard's face was beautiful, and then I got really happy/embarrassed and even more awkward and tripped over my words even more.

So clearly I'm an emotionally stable, responsible adult who should be making decisions like putting $500 video game fan art on her body permanently.

It's just that I haven't been this excited about something since Doctor Who. Maybe Sherlock? But that wasn't quite the level of obsession that this Mass Effect mania has reached. And there's no Steven Moffat here with a mission to ruin everything I love.

I just... I feel like a total freak trying to talk about Mass Effect because I know how I sound to other people. "Oh yeah, it's this video game, but it's special because you actually make decisions that affect what happens. Oh and you can sleep with various aliens. And it made me cry!??" Wow okay, yeah, that makes total sense, please get a bunch of tattoos of that on your body where everyone has to see them.

I dunno. I figure at this point only the people who have played a game and really, really really loved it will understand. Or maybe people who have read a book and become overwhelmingly obsessed with it. Or maybe even anyone who's loved anything? I'm not sure. I feel sometimes like I enjoy things far too much, to the point of excess, but then I realize that life is way more fun if you can get so fucking excited about something that you can't sleep and all you wanna do is immerse yourself in that thing. So really I guess I'm about passion. Getting passionate about things. Mostly aliens, though. I could get passionate about aliens for days.

Let's Talk About Commander Shepard

Let's just take a moment to talk about Commander Shepard, shall we? I have already filled the first four pages of my brand new journal with thoughts about Shepard, because I'm a terrible person who writes about fictional characters in her journal at the age of 28. But I'm not done thinking about Shepard, and I'm not done writing about her. So because my blog has already devolved into an empty, echoing place where I very occasionally yell into the ether about my love for Loki or a video game or whatever, I may as well just carry on in that vein and shriek about Commander Shepard for a while.

Commander Shepard is the protagonist, and the character you play, in the Mass Effect trilogy. From the very beginning you shape her, from her face to her first name to her personality and her moral compass. She is your baby. And she can even be male if you want, which is 100% the wrong choice, but fine if you wanna listen to that guy's derpy voice for 240+ hours I guess.

But Shepard isn't just my baby, the lens through which I saw the world in Mass Effect. She's my hero. She's a hero, yeah, but she's also mine. Not just because I created her, in the limited way that one can in a video game like this. Not just because it's up to her to unite the galaxy and lead a rag-tag band of badasses to save the day. But also because she never understood why she should be the one to do it. Because she has a group of friends and allies who love her, who would kill and die for her, and because she would do the same for them. Because she's scared she'll fuck up. And because she does fuck up sometimes, and can be an ass sometimes, and punches reporters in the face sometimes. But she's also kind and risks her life for strangers and sucks at dancing and doesn't have time for your shit. She's real and complex and I love her.

I can't think of another female character in a game, in anything, who has come to life so fully and won me over so quickly and completely. Shepard is written to be gender neutral, which rescues her from the typical gender-specific tropes that writers fall into so often with video game characters. And because you have full control over her dialogue, her reactions, and her decisions, she comes to life in subtle and complex ways that I haven't seen before in a female character.

Shepard is mine, an extension of me, a woman who is my idol but isn't free of fault. She's made tough choices and has broken hearts. And as much as she accomplishes, she still doesn't understand why she's the one who's expected to save the galaxy. She's just a marine who happened to be at the right place and the right time when shit hit the fan. She's no chosen one and she's no hero -- at least not at first. But she's my hero. And I love her so much.

I would follow Shepard anywhere, do anything for her, and trust her unequivocally. I know she's a character in a video game, and I know that everything she does is guided by me, and maybe that's why I love her so much -- because she is me, in a sense. But I've cried for her, shrieked like an idiot when she fell in love, laughed with her, felt rage at those who wronged her, fought with her. All of those emotions were real. And while the game itself is just a game, what I've taken away from it is true and genuine. I experienced a story that was so visceral I spent the entire last hour of the game sobbing brokenly. (And I still cry when I listen to the music from the sad parts because I'm the worst.)

Those hours and hours I spent with Shepard mean so much to me. That experience means so much to me. I'll write later about the game beyond my Shepard-related feels, but she is at the crux of my all-out adoration of Mass Effect. I cannot say enough how important she is to me, or how important she is to gaming and the future of female characters.

But I'll shut up now, as I'm sure you're all like, "Wow Meg you are horrible stop blogging about things we don't care about." Well I'm sorry! Not I'm not. Now go play Mass Effect if you haven't, for the love of all things good in this world. Go. Get the fuck out. Go now. Right now.

Space Military Video Game Tattoo

New tattoo, everyone! It was kind of spur-of-the-moment, if that means thinking about it for a couple weeks and then doing it. So maybe not as spontaneous as I feel like it was, but still spontaneous for me. Wow boring. Anyway, it's from Mass Effect which is a game series that some people kinda like I guess. The Mass Effect Wiki explains it better than I can, and I'll even post a quote from it here because I'm pretty sure none of you are gonna click that link:

N7 is a vocational code in the Systems Alliance military. The "N" designates special forces and the "7" refers to the highest level of proficiency. It applies to marines who have graduated from the Interplanetary Combatives Training (ICT) program.

Hahaha wow, I graduated from that combatives training program, guys! I did! No, I didn't. Anyway. None of that makes sense either, I know, I'm sorry. Here let me try to explain. The Systems Alliance military is Earth's (i.e. humanity's) military, in the far-off future when we discover technology that catapults us out into the far reaches of the Milky Way and introduces us to a wonderful world of adventure, intrigue, the impending destruction of organic life as we know it, and a veritable cornucopia of alien sexual conquest opportunities. Most notably turians, with drell coming in as a close second on the alien hotness scale. Shut up Meg. Anyway, I'm now a badass space marine who bangs aliens and could totally take Commander Shepard in a fight, is the conclusion I'm trying to reach here. Clearly. (I would be killed in a fight against Shepard. Within approximately one second.)

I'm at the point where I feel like I should just start a new blog for all of my gaming thoughts, because I have A Lot Of Them. I'm pretty sure it would be the most self-indulgent thing on the planet though? Not that this blog isn't already that.

Back in the Game

I spent the great majority of today gaming. It was a day very well spent. On Thursday evening I finally bit the bullet and bought myself an Xbox 360. My old one belonged to both Greg and me, and he ended up keeping it, so I've been without my beloved games for almost eight months. I'm not such an avid gamer that a console or a gaming PC are absolutely necessary for me. A laptop, internet, a smartphone, and a Spotify account are pretty much my only true necessities. But lately the ache for video games has grown particularly strong, and since I'd been devoting all of my daydreams for several weeks to fantasizing about Dragon Age and WoW and even Yoshi's Story from back in the day, and since I had the money, I decided to finally just do it. 

I'm so glad I did. I set it all up last night. I had to buy an HDMI cord because of course it didn't come included with the console, an extension cord and a power strip, and a set of headphones because I couldn't find the right adapter to connect my speakers to my Xbox (which I've since had to order from Amazon, wah, get here already tiny adapter). Instead of a TV I'm using my PC monitor, which had until yesterday been in its box in my room, taking up space. It's only 24", but I set it up so that it's basically right in my face so I can pretend it's bigger. It has an HDMI connection, though, which is ace, and the game looks gorgeous on it. I woke up this morning, took Lyall on a little walk, made coffee, and spent the next eight hours happily in another world.

Rambling on about video games in my blog isn't new for me. Sorry to yammer at you, again, about how great I think gaming is. Probably the best way to put it, at least in terms of why I personally love video games so much, is something I tweeted the other night: "I feel like playing a video game can be one of the most intimate & engrossing ways to experience a story. Much more than film or TV." (Hahaha yeahhh I just quoted myself shut up.)

I mean, it depends on which game you're playing, obviously, but to me the best thing about gaming is the combination of the fun of playing a game, while being told a story. Sometimes you decide how the protagonist reacts to things, and sometimes you decide how the story unfolds. Even when you're just along for the ride, it's just such a rich way to tell a story. In my opinion it's second only to reading a book in terms of experiencing a narrative in an emotionally fulfilling way. And that's only because with books, your imagination does all the work; an imagination doesn't have limits. But there are often times when a video game achieves what a book never could, and that's the level of control a gamer has over the story. There are some things that the written word could never get across properly, that only a visual medium can. It's just... I could go on and on about why video games are so important to me, and so important to the world of art. Nobody judges a person for spending most of their free time reading a book, but as soon as you tell somebody you've spent all weekend playing a video game, it's a different reaction. Video games are art. And they're important.

The game I'm playing right now is BioShock Infinite. It's... well, let's just say I'm super upset that nobody had told me about this game until very recently. I had heard of it, obviously, and I think I knew it had a vaguely steampunk feel to it, but for some reason I'd never looked into it further. But one of my coworkers was recently telling me about it, and when I saw it at Target in a bundle with Skyrim for only $30, I didn't have a choice. I had planned to play Skyrim first on my new Xbox, but since it's so open-ended and can essentially go on forever, I decided to start with BioShock.

Can I just say. Everybody who has played this game and didn't tell me: whyyyyyy? Seriously, why? I was hooked at the main menu. And about five minutes later when Booker ascends from the lighthouse up into the floating city of Columbia, I fell in love. I don't even like FPS games, and maybe that's why I never went for BioShock before, but I am so engrossed. It's strange, sweet, and unsettling, and really really good. I've been told it just gets weirder, which is perfect. I wish I could think of a better way to describe it. Look it up if you've never played it before and you're a gamer. Don't be like me and miss out for a year.

So yes, this was a Saturday well spent. Really well spent. And that $249 I dropped on the Xbox? Best $249 I've ever spent. (If you don't count my iPhone 5. Or the new tires on my car. Or the numerous plane tickets I've bought over the years. Whatever, you get the point.)

Video Game Music

I talk about this a lot, but oh well. Have another post about video games and/or their music.

Last night I was having a serious bout of nostalgia over video game music. Some people say smells bring back the strongest memories, but for me it's always been music. I used to listen to Enya while falling asleep after my dad would read Lord of the Rings to me every night, and so I've always associated Enya's Shepherd Moons with those books. I always listen to music when I read, so I have a very long list of books that go with specific albums or songs.

But when I associate music with a specific period in my life, that evokes such strong emotion that I feel like I'm almost traveling back in time, feeling the exact emotions I felt when I was listening to a certain song or artist, months or years in the past. Florence + the Machine's Ceremonials will always bring me back to London, riding the bus on dark rainy nights, watching the blurred lights of the city pass me by as I lean against the fogged-up windows.

When I listen to music from video games, though, it's powerful in a different sense. It's bringing me back, not to a time or place in my own life, but in another world altogether. I've never been a realist, and I much prefer escaping into fantasy worlds to doing whatever it is other people do (read crime novels? Eat cereal? I don't know). Video games are so important to me in that respect. They're not a waste of time or a distraction, as many people would see them. Last year while I was in Utah, I was trying to figure out what I could do to make myself happier, so I made this thing Greg suggested -- a value map. I had to write down my most important life values, and then gauge how my life was staying true to those values. One of mine was "escapism". It's a term with negative connotations, but it's always been of incredible importance to me. Ever since I was a kid, my dad and I escaped into magical worlds together. We both longed so much to eat at the tables of Rivendell, to lie on our backs in the grass of the Shire and gaze up into the sun-dappled trees. We ached to open up a wardrobe and find ourselves in Narnia. It was such a huge part of my childhood, and I wouldn't be who I am today without that desire to go somewhere new, and magical, and full of adventure.

I never stopped yearning for those worlds. When I started playing WoW it was for a boyfriend, but I hadn't expected to be so drawn to that world. It was beautiful. There were skies with northern lights that you would never see on this earth, mountains that disappeared into the clouds, fjords guarded by dragons, islands that drifted in the sky. Sometimes it took my breath away. It felt like I was really there, in that world, a world that would never exist in this reality. And there was always music. 

It's silly, but I remember the day the Wrath of the Lich King expansion came out, and I boarded the zeppelin that would take me from Orgrimmar to the Howling Fjord. That music, the music you can only hear on the zeppelin for some tragic reason, made me cry. Which was the first in a series of Meg-crying-in-Northrend moments, but as silly as it sounds, it really meant something to me. And it still does.

So when I listen to music from a video game that I love, it not only reminds me of the fun I had playing that game, but it brings me fully into the world again. Listening to music from Fable II takes me to the shores of a lake, gazing across dark water to the distant lights of the city, and above them, Fairfax Castle. Last night I spent a long time listening to music from games I used to play ages ago on the N64, and was instantly in those worlds again. It's comforting being able to get so close to reliving past moments that way, if sad in its own way. But you know me. I love a bit of melancholy.

And if you're really bored, here are some of my favorite songs from video games.

That song on the Northrend zeppelin:

Bower Lake, from Fable 2:

People have been known to say that video games aren't art, but I can't see how one could possibly think that. Just look at the music, guys. I could listen to video game music all day every day and be happy. It's some of the most beautiful music I've come across. Not to mention amazing concept art, as showcased above, from Fable and World of Warcraft.

And okay I've never actually played Skyrim (I know I know, shame), but you should really check out this arrangement of the theme. It's incredible. You're welcome.