we are out of oat milk

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UHHHHH HOLY SHIT!!???

Mass Effect 3: Citadel DLC - Concept Art by Alex Figini

“Final Goodbye” - in anime style.

Hot take: pretty much all the vorcha we meet/talk to in Mass Effect speak with poor grammar, which makes them sound unintelligent and violent, but we definitely see vorcha are capable of understanding complex conversations and concepts. They aren't as technologically advanced or maybe as intelligent as a lot of other species, they canonically primarily use nonverbal communication, but they still have a language.

Which leads me to believe that they don't speak like that because they're dumb, but because nobody ever bothered to make good vorcha-English translator? Whoever programmed it got some basic vocabulary but clearly didn't bother with grammar. Maybe the vorcha language is very heavy on using context clues & body language, and nobody thought it was important enough to put in that amount of effort.

Asari, turians, salarians- they're all important enough that a lot of work/effort went into translating their languages perfectly into human ones, but nobody actually cares about the vorcha and having them seen as stupid and violent and dehumanized (for lack of a better word) probably suits everyone else just fine. Idk the vorcha aren't my favorite aliens but I like overthinking sci-fi translators and space sociolinguistics and I think the weird little guys deserve better

This is also, to me, why the quarians have way more 'untranslated' words: Bosh'Tet, Keelah Selai, etc. etc. Because who on the Citadel gives a fuck about the quarians? They're probably using translations from 300 years ago, and language CHANGES.

This might also explain why we have massively diverse accents in the quarians we hear, compared to every other race that are mostly Canadian/American sounding. Whereas the quarians are a mish-mash of accents from Kal'Reegar Y'all, to Tali's 'what even is that'.

The Citadel species are all working with the best of the best, and quarians and vorcha are left with a bootleg cassette from 1982.

Oh you are so right!! I hadn't considered this and it explains a lot. It's also interesting that the batarians and krogan are in sort of a similar situation of being 'exiled' from the Citadel, but their translators are also really good because they're dangerous- know your enemy sort of deal- whereas the quarians are seen more as a nuisance.

(I have actually wondered about the alien accents before, and I will propose an alternate, potentially funnier theory: they can choose what accent they want the translator to use for them. Imagine you don't speak a single word of a language but they let you scroll through a bunch of accents to see which one sounds the coolest to you, and you think you sound awesome but all the humans around you are secretly wondering why the fuck this asari sounds like she's from Texas)

That being said; imagine how fucking funny it would be if the quarian translator got a patch, and Shepard only found out because she overheard Tali telling Garrus "You are a motherfucker"

I wonder how we could understand The Shadow Broker, then. I doubt the Yagh even had basic language library registed for the Citadel.

The Shadow Broker himself programmed his translator?

Could be! Either that, or it’s possible the Shadow Broker speaks one or more Citadel languages? I can see that guy being fluent in asari, salarian, and turian at least. Somehow it feels like it would be even more intimidating for Shepard to meet this guy and realize he’s speaking perfect, fluent English to them.

Hot take: pretty much all the vorcha we meet/talk to in Mass Effect speak with poor grammar, which makes them sound unintelligent and violent, but we definitely see vorcha are capable of understanding complex conversations and concepts. They aren't as technologically advanced or maybe as intelligent as a lot of other species, they canonically primarily use nonverbal communication, but they still have a language.

Which leads me to believe that they don't speak like that because they're dumb, but because nobody ever bothered to make good vorcha-English translator? Whoever programmed it got some basic vocabulary but clearly didn't bother with grammar. Maybe the vorcha language is very heavy on using context clues & body language, and nobody thought it was important enough to put in that amount of effort.

Asari, turians, salarians- they're all important enough that a lot of work/effort went into translating their languages perfectly into human ones, but nobody actually cares about the vorcha and having them seen as stupid and violent and dehumanized (for lack of a better word) probably suits everyone else just fine. Idk the vorcha aren't my favorite aliens but I like overthinking sci-fi translators and space sociolinguistics and I think the weird little guys deserve better

can i say something elcors have such a cunty walk it's unreal

I just get excited by Mass Effect, what can I do.

me: (takes two obscure characters and makes up an elaborate AU that spans multiple years and involves political intrigue and nearly lethal injuries and a soul-crushing amount of pining. tells no one. posts out of context art anyway)

So hey I've been on a Shadow Broker/Tazzik sidequest lately. Has anyone else even read the Redemption comic

redraw of #1 sacha

Dear Shadow Broker

He's cool

i liek him :)

said with increasing distress and volume fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball fuck it we ball

Bareface.

The only cure for being stuck at the airport is sketching a comic about my Mass Effect OCs. This is the day when Siwa (the volus) and Kesh (the quarian) first met, while Siwa was working a shift at her dad’s exosuit repair shop on the Citadel.

bonus business card closeup:

MASS EFFECT 2: LEGENDARY EDITION (2021) dev. BioWare -> Legion – Reaper IFF