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Maskydoo — Mass Effect Crack: Horizon
Published: 2013-01-21 23:05:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 12662; Favourites: 111; Downloads: 45
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Edit: To anyone who has never played Mass Effect, this probably makes very little sense. So watch this [link]Coloring takes a lot longer than I expected... and I'm actually not all that happy with it. I'm not sure if I will continue to color these silly little comics in the future.
Every time I get to the this scene in Mass Effect 2, I just wish I could skip it. I don't like being yelled at. It seems yelling back or punching him isn't an option.
Mass Effect is awesome. I own nothing.
Props to troodon80 for reference models. His pictures made it a LOT easier to get the armors looking right. To be fair, I did take some artistic licence with the armors, and by that, I mean I simplified them mostly because I'm a bit lazy.
Also, Jack is wearing a shirt. Her nipple-tape necklace thing she has in game is stupid. I'm sorry, it just is.
Drawn in my sketchybook. Re-drawn with my Bamboo tablet in Manga Studio. Colored and edited in Photoshop.
Edit: In case anyone cares, I sketch ideas very simply at first, often going through several draft versions before I finally scan one sketch that becomes the basis for the final, inked version. This is how ideas evolve.
First draft -
Second draft -
Line-art -
For more of my Mass Effect work, go here - [link]
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Comments: 90
One more thing, I just looke dup the ME3
Happily, I'll see use for it soon. I'm replaying all of the Mass Effect games and DLC. I'm almost done with ME1. Just a bit more to go...
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You’re right. Every Shepard is different. Even if your Shep and mine made exactly all of the same choices in game, each of us as players will have our own internal context in our heads that colors the characters in ways unique to us.
My Shepard is paragon, but not without flaws. She is very slow to trust people, but then sets unreasonably high standards for people she does trust so is often disappointed. She holds grudges when she perceives that people have let her down. And she does have a few “berserk buttons” that, when pressed, will make her flip out.
Shepard died. I imagine that she remembers her death vividly. Then she blinked and woke up, in pain, in a strange place, where she was immediately under attack. Shepard is mentally strong, but that would throw someone for a serious loop. Then she discovers that the galaxy has pretty much gone to crap in her absence. She lived a life of endless battle before, and is annoyed that even death isn’t enough to rest in peace – she has to do it all again. She wasn’t brought back because anyone missed her, she was brought back because someone had a use for her.
She died remembered as a hero, but when she came back, people treated her with, at best, distrust, and at worse, like a villain. No one really seems all that happy to see her alive. What does that do to a person’s self esteem?
Her former friends seem to be replaced with alternate versions of themselves which she barely recognizes. Sweet, shy, bookish Liara is now a cold-hearted, vengeful information broker. And the once kind and caring Kaidan was replaced with some angry guy who just shouts at her. She wasn’t around for their transition into their new lives – no time has really passed for her.
She’s forced to work for an organization she hates and doesn’t trust for a minute, unable to get any help from the Alliance. It is partly the Alliance’s fault she now works for Cerberus, as they apparently hadn’t been bothered to recover the bodies of the Normandy for a proper burial (seriously, in the DLC, the Alliance sends to you what is pretty much your own grave. How messed up is that?) Shep still does work for the Alliance, and even gives the Alliance intel on Cerberus whenever there’s a chance. And yet, even when Kaidan himself see the dang collectors, they don’t seem to do much as far as actually listening to Shepard.
Then Shepard has to deal with her new existence, which I imagine as being a major berserk button. She’s been told by Cerberus that she was “meat and tubes” and had been brought back to life. That’s horrific enough. But is Cerberus really telling her the truth? She could be a clone or a VI for all she knows. And being now partly synthetic, she wonders if she’s even really human anymore. And after all, people do keep telling her that she’s changed. Those are questions that would tear someone apart. She puts them on the back burner for the sake of the mission, never really dealing with it.
She hopes she can talk to Kaidan about it, as he had been special to her before and had always been a good listener. She looked for him after being brought back, but had no luck. Even Anderson refused to tell her of his whereabouts. Then she ran into him on Horizon, having saved him just in time. But his reaction isn’t what she hoped for. He yelled at her. He wouldn’t listen (another thing that bothers Shep is that no one EVER listens to her, no mater how many times she turns out to be right, and Kaidan really should know better.) And you said “loved” in past-tense, which is a real punch in the gut. His reaction makes sense. It has, after all, been two years for him. For her though, it had only been maybe a few weeks. It was to her a brutal breakup.
Sure, he sends her a letter afterwards, but he may as well not have because by the time ME3 rolls around, he’s behaving just exactly the same.
After Shepard destroyed the collector base and returned to Earth, Kaidan apparently didn’t visit. Shepard would see her time on earth as Kaidan’s chance to make up. Maybe he couldn’t, like you say, but I would think that an Alliance Major should have been able to. As for a datapad, I must have missed that. How do you find it?
Then on Mars, he pushed her berserk button (something I made up and is totally not canonical, I realize) by brining up something that she was insecure about – what she is. Commenting that a dead Cerberus mook looks like a husk, then, apparently without considering that it might just be incredibly insensitive (Shepard is aware that while she helps other people with their problems, no one ever seems to care at all about hers,) asks Shepard in a way that is more accusation than concern, “is that what they did to you?” My Shepard would find this cruel and be quite angry. I like Kaidan, but that comment really pissed me off and I’m just the player.
His thoughts, of course, do make sense, just as you say. The question he asks is not unlike one that Shepard asks herself in moments of doubt. That’s exactly why it pisses her off. It’s a jab at a sensitive issue, and a blow to her confidence at a really bad time (in the middle of a battle, and right after the Reapers hit Earth. Shepard is already not a happy camper.)
Just because I, as an outside observer, can easily see it either way from the perspective of both characters, does not mean that they automatically poses such a power. It’s no easy to put aside your own hurt and into someone else’s shoes, and this should be a bit of a struggle for them both. That’s how it is for real people.
As my Shepard holds grudges, she wouldn’t visit Kaidan in the hospital (she’d expect he’d just yell at her some more anyway, even though we know he wouldn’t.) Or, if she did, she’d be cold and stand-offish and it wouldn’t go over very well. She’s been trying to move on, herself, after all.
I still imagine Shep and Kaidan getting back together eventually (mostly because I really like Kaidan as a character,) but the wounds are too deep for playing nice in the hospital to make it all better. They have serious issued that they need to address and “burying it,” won’t do that.
Like I said, I like things to be a bit more dramatic. It’s fun that way.
I haven’t played the Citadel DLC yet, but I’ve watched video of it. I actually imagine that as source of Shepard finally finding closure on her identify crisis. Since she sees what a Cerberus clone of her is like, she knows she can’t possibly be one. She has her memories, experiences, scars, relationships, and personality. She realized that can’t be cloned.
As a side note, I actually feel sorry for the clone. I imagine Brooks is the one pulling the strings, using her like she does everyone else. The clone is, essentially, just a child in an adult body, with some fairly large boots to fill. She never had a chance to grow up, make friends, learn right from wrong. She just knows she’s a copy of a very influential person, and someone who was seen as disposable by her creators.
She’d have a major identity crisis of her own (I like putting myself in the heads of characters, even the ones I don’t get to play as.) I think my Shep (after getting over being initially royally pissed) would recognize this and try to save her and help her form her own identity (apparently, not actually an option. But it would make for an interesting story. Something else that will have to be put on my back-burner, I’m afraid.)
I actually LOVE discussing characters. This is a lot of fun for me. It’s interesting to see other people’s insights and interpretations of character actions and motivations. So if you want to “ramble,” as you say, about it more, I would love to discuss it. I wish that all of my deviations sparked such interesting discussion.
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Hey there,
sorry it took so long to get back to you. I accidentally deleated
your comment and couldn't remember where to find it. But since I just
saw your Virmire-comic, I found you again and thought I'd finally answer
I can absolutely understnd where you’re coming from because it would’ve been nice to see someone at least mentioning Shepard’s death at one point or talk to her about it, ask her how she’s dealing with it. I can’t remember anybody really addressing it until the Citadel DLC where Shepard didn’t want to talk about her clone …
Anyway, I completely understand and agree to everything you say regarding Shepard and her reaction to her death and the whole new life she’s been thrown into. Or rather her old life with updated versions of everybody. It’s like everybody is version 2.0 while she still has the mindset of version 1.0 and can’t understand how that could’ve happened.
The thing is, I just can’t overlook how Kaidan might feel in that situation and that his behavior just makes sense to me. He lost the person he loved and mourned for two years, buried himself in work. To get over her death and, in my head, to prepare for the reapers because the Alliance doesn’t. But he knows what happened on Ilos and on the Citadel so he prepares in his way. And he does by rejecting Shepard, to some point.
Yeah, he is shocked when he sees her on Horizon. And of course he used “loved” in the past-tense because at this point he can not be sure that the person before him actually is Shepard. What would be worse: for her not to be Shepard but some kind of Cerberus plaything or for her to be Shepard and working for terrorists they fought against a few years ago. I guess for me Kaidan using “loved” is because he is unsure if the person he loves (present tense) is really in front of him and if so, how much has she changed or was she ever the person he thought she was. For me it always seemed like some kind of self defense. Against the Shepard-looking person in front of him and for himself since I think that he spend a lot of the two years telling himself that he didn’t still love her, couldn’t still love her and needed to let go. He used loved much more for himself than for her. Maybe even to resist the urge to go with her, to join terrorists and to leave the Alliance and everything he believed in and worked for behind.
As for his behavior at the beginning of ME3. Well, you already found the datapad so I won’t say more about it. But as I mentioned above I really think that he was preparing for the reapers in his own way. He was pretty focused on his work, otherwise he wouldn’t have climbed in ranks so quickly in just three years. I interpreted the message that he tried but they wouldn’t let him see Shepard but I also think that him being Major wouldn’t do him much good in that situation since the Alliance knew he had ties to Shepard (not being her ex-lover but being on her crew). Also, he still had his biotic spec ops team that should’ve kept him busy. Traning other biotics to get them ready for the reapers.
I guess it all boils down to my extreme dislike of all those arguments I saw online taking Horizon and Mars as excuses to demonize Kaidan, taking it as an excuse to hate him and sometimes to kill him. Did I like everything he did? Hell no. Still, it made sense and it made him human, if not one of the most human and believable characters of the whole series. Which is probably why so many disliked him (and Ash).
I read so many rants about it and while I would have liked some kind of talk between them and not the “let’s bury it” scene from the hospital, I found it tiring to read the same story again and again where Shepard just yells him down without even trying to understand his point of view. I have yet to see an interpretation of the scene that does not read like the mindset of an angry teenager but rather nuanced.
As for the hospital, well, I guess it made sense to me that Shepard wouldn’t be that standoffish after almost losing him. I actually think almost losing him on Mars might help her feel understand his position a bit more, the fear and the pain and even the anger. It might not make anything better the way BioWare handled it but I can believe it taking the edge. They are in a state of war and always dangerously close to losing each other. I guess that gives you some perspective about what really is important. Would I have liked a fleshed our confrontation? Yes. But not as some kind of Shepard-show but also her being confronted by how hard it was for Kaidan, her death and her coming back because the letter couldn’t do it justice. A real discussion, a conversation. But I have yet to read one that does both characters justice and is not just venting on the author’s part which is why I always get a bit defensive when a topic like this comes up, as you can clearly see ^^
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The situation wouldn't be interesting if it weren't complicated. 
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I wish it was an option. I would have skipped this scene.
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Baahahahaha yes. Those last few panels killed me. XDDD
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Thanks! I made this one very cartoony. I figured I may as well go all the way with it.
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I love the expression on Kaidan's face.
Even after playing through ME2 countless times and ME3...considerably fewer...Horizon still makes me sob like a fangirl for Kaidan breaking Shep's heart.
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Yeah, that horizon scene is brutal.
Thanks for the comment.
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that face in the seventh panel...........
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I made that face while just doing some practice sketches. Decided I just had to use it for something.
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Sometimes I just doodle without much purpose and end up with funny (at least to me) ideas.
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Meh. Kaidan and Ashley are pretty much interchangeable in ME2.
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Raphael Sbarge is a great voice actor.
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OMG did you hear his reading of the letter Kaidan sends to Shep after Horizon?!
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I think it's really cool that the voice actor recorded that and put it up. That was really cool. After reading that, I always imagined that the E-maild Shepard got were really voice messages.
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Yeah, lower down on that same page he thanks the fans for all their support. It's weird to hear "Kaidan" talking like a "normal person"
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Yeah. I once heard a recorded conversation between him and Jennifer Hale too. They've worked together on many games, but that was apparently the first time they'd ever spoken together.
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Lol that must have been bizarre
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They said as much
[link]
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Lol, seriously though I don't hear Fem Shep as much when I listen to her but just about I hear is Kaidan when he talks lol
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Why yes, I found it in the Mass Effect Wiki nestled in the bottom:
[link]
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Right?! I read it really differently when I received it, probably because I was hurt and pissed. That certainly made it sting less.
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I had to be honest with You. My femshep was also terrified of having to face Kaidan after two years
of being dead and then brought back through Lazarus Project.
She told Anderson to tell Kaidan the rumors of her being alive is a lie.
And after Horizon, she wished this whole encounter was nothing but just a nightmare.
Needless to say Her younger sister found out about it and was very pissed off at Kaidan,
so she got revenge on him.
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When I played the game the first time, I really wanted to see Kaidan. I also really wanted to not work for/with/whatever Cerberus. First chance I got, I went to the Citadel. Neither the council, nor the Alliance were any help though. I didn't really have a choice but to work with Cerberus. Literally. The game would give me no other option.
I tried to ask Anderson about Kaidan's whereabouts, but he could/would not tell me. Eventually, I got to Horizon. Hey, there's Kaidan in a cutscene - yay! Too bad they're under attack by collectors. So as I'm playing, I think, 'holy crap, stakes just got high! I have to hurry and save this colony so I can save Kaidan.' At the end, the collector ship takes off with, as Delan says, half the colony. I couldn't tell if I did something wrong and should restart the level. And where is Kaidan.
Then Kaidan appears from behind a rock. And he's smiling. He walks up and hugs my Shepard. And he should, I mean, we just saved his life - again. And then immediately he pulls an emotional 180 and starts yelling and not accepting "I was dead" as an explanation. WTF?!
Ever time I've played that game since, I've DREADED going to Horizon.
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That Horizoin part really hurt, also an excuse to break it off with Ashley/Kaidan and romance someone else.
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That it was. I was amazed in ME3 when Kaidan is all like "was there something between you and Garrus?" and "I understand why you cheated." Horizon seemed like a pretty unambiguous break-up to me. He even made a point of saying "I loved (past tense) you," and stating that he'd moved on. So... yeah. WTF
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And speaking of Horizoin...
What would happen FemShep tells Kaidan Alenko that she cannot go through another heartbreak like she did before and leaves him for good?
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What, tells him that on Horizon or later when talking about Horizon?
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later when talking about Horizon
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My idea for an alternate conversation is just pointing out that to Shepard, Kaidan can not be trusted. He was not there and would not even listen when she needed his help.
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So how dose he take it when she tells him that she wants him out of her life forever, that she's with someone new?
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I haven't decided. It's not so much fanfiction as it is just an option I wish I had. Anyway, I'm thinking about making a comic on the matter. Not really sure where to go with it though.
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Dang it, now you've got me thinking about it again. I just dug up and started re-writing my old script. I'm going to have to make it into a short comic story now.
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