Feros

Rescuing Liara is designed as our first mission. It’s easy and short. After that we have our choice of two other missions, each much more complicated. I choose Feros, a human colony barely surviving under Geth assault. (We’ll take Noveria, the third mission, last.)

The colonists all work for the corporation ExoGeni. After we clear out the Geth in the residential section, we head across the skybridge to the work environment. It all seems straightforward, except some of the colonists act weird. They’re secretive and a little cult-like. Also, why are the Geth here? Something over at ExoGeni has attracted their (meaning, Saren’s) interest.

It doesn’t take long to get the story. ExoGeni is here to study an indigenous life form, the Thorian. It’s an immense, brain-controlling plant. (Gross.) The colonists have been unknowingly infected, living right on top of it. ExoGeni considers them guinea pigs, basically. Evil corporation, human lab experiments, the usual villainous plotline.

Remember, I have two Shepards, the renegade Tag and the paragon Athena. Tag wipes out all the colonists and double-taps the Asari mystic aligned with the Thorian. Athena is a more forgiving sort.

Before passing judgment on the Asari Shiala, though, we receive her information, the ultimate purpose of this location. She is an associate of Matriarch Benezia, following her into Saren’s service. The Asari thought to soften Saren, but instead he persuaded them to go against their nature. He has an enormous alien warship, Sovereign, that exerts a subtle but all-consuming mind control. Benezia no longer acts independently.

Meat with a gun, baby.

Shiala merged with the Thorian so Saren could communicate with it. Apparently, the Thorian predates the Protheans, so knowledge of them is stored in its memory. In order to understand the vision of the Beacon, Saren (and Shepard) need to think like a Prothean. Shiala’s biotic/magical connection allows that memory to be transferred. She did it for Saren, and she does it for Shepard, imparting another dream sequence of orange apocalyptic destruction.

It’s mission-critical, so we can’t say no. “Embrace eternity!” Shiala calls out before she invades our physical and mental space. This game really has a problem with personal boundaries.

MARY KATE DANAHER, FOUR

The Quiet Man still has a lot to love. The couple riding in the matchmaker’s cart and escaping into the Irish countryside is charming. When she shelters against his wet, white shirt, it’s one of the more romantic moments ever put on film. The beautiful horse race on the beach, the Playfairs jovially riding their two-person bicycle through town, Father Lonergan battling with his fishing — all wonderful to watch. I can (and do) quote Michaleen Flynn all day.

However, Mary Kate dragged by her husband through the fields nullifies everything else. I can’t say how that scene played in 1952, but today it’s offensive. 

When we strip away the baggage, this love story is simple. She’s a Four and he’s a Nine, a classic combination. She’s passionate and quick-tempered, having all the feelings for the both of them. He’s laid back, able to disengage from much that riles her. Perhaps as a Four, an open book to all of the village, one more degrading moment doesn’t shame her? Perhaps his display of feelings, no matter how ugly, reassures her of his love?

Nope, it’s all the language of abuse. It’s an unnecessary scene — the intent is quite clear without pulling a woman through sheep dung — that could be reworked, making a movie that is watchable today. I hate to see classic filmmaking consigned to the dustbin. John Ford made his choices, though, and today’s audience will judge accordingly.

First Station: Jesus is condemned to death

3″ x 3″ on wallboard

I’ve decided that my Lenten observance this year will be encaustic paintings of the Stations of the Cross. Every Friday I will post a piece I started at the beginning of the week, contemplating on the Mystery. These will be WIPs that I will continue to develop throughout Lent. On Good Friday I’ll post an update on where the pieces finished.

Or, at least, that’s the plan now, at the beginning of Lent. Sometimes (well, every year, actually) what I think Lent will be and what Lent ends up being are different things.

Ash Wednesday, 2022

This is a WIP, a devotional of Our Lady using rose petals surrounding a high school portrait of my mother. (The great artists all portrayed Mary as the most beautiful woman they could imagine, so I’m allowed to use Mom.) In the spirit of the beginning of Lent, this piece is unfinished. In Holy Week I’ll post the update and we’ll see where the journey took me.

Farewell to Gazes

6″ x 6″ on wallboard

My beloved main toon on the PS EU server, Gazes-at-Shoes, is retiring. Because of technical issues, I no longer play The Elder Scrolls Online on PlayStation, only on PC. She looks somewhat fierce here, but she was always a sweetheart and a joy to game. My new toon wouldn’t be half as fun if I hadn’t learned it all first with Gazes.

No Bonnie waits to take my toy. The digital world, imbued with just as many tea parties and heroic adventures as Andy’s room, isn’t suited for introducing a plaything to the next generation. My first Barbie doll in the early 1970s would look, except for cosmetic differences, like a Barbie of today. Gaming moves too fast, though, for that. Not only do hardware and programming advance, but human reflexes and multi-tasking abilities become more sophisticated. I like the next shiny as much as anyone. Therefore, my girl is gone, an old file in a junked console. The friends I made through her, real people inhabiting a virtual screen, are left behind, too.

Lol, well, this turned into more of an elegy than I expected! Gazes lives in the cloud, so any time I renew my subscriptions and find a PlayStation with the proper software, I can see her again. It won’t happen, though. I’ve moved on.

Finding Liara

I and my two away team members are dropped on a planet. We drive and fight our way into an archaeological dig site, a Prothean ruin. Here we’ll find Liara — Matriarch Benezia’s daughter who is a scientist and an Asari biotic (which is Mass Effect’s version of magical powers). Geth swarm the ruin, looking for her. Saren, for some reason, wants her. Is it because of her mother? Or is it her expertise in Prothean technology and history? We can only guess.

After rescuing her and bringing her to our ship, we tell Liara about the Beacon and its vision. Her research shows that the Protheans were just another in a line of races who inhabit the galaxy and then disappear. We introduce her to the idea of the Reapers, the ones who extinguished the Protheans. She’s never heard of them or the Conduit, but she believes her knowledge can help us as we search. Our team is now complete.

Liara is very impressed with Shepard’s strong will. She, like most every other NPC in the game, will eventually invade our personal space and suggest a hook up.

LI, NULL

This is Shang-Chi’s mother. We don’t see much of her, but she is so impressive I wish we saw more. Gentle, obviously. She defeats the Ringbearer in the smoothest, quietest manner possible. Nature swirls around her, a cloud of leaves dancing with her movements. It’s lovely.

She gives up her own country to live with her husband and children. As a mother, she’s a fearless defender and a patient teacher.

Actually, she’s kind of perfect. Too perfect? Is she a real character or only an avatar of motherhood and sacrifice? She’s portrayed so beautifully, I want to give her a number, lol! Sadly, though, she has no flaws, no arc, and she’s basically fridged.

King Thrushbeard

Not my favorite fairy tale, but I was inspired by the princess carrying food scraps around in jars tied inside her dress pockets.

The wood bead accents are from — shocker — a repurposed piece I never posted here. The plastic dome is something I found at the granddaddy of crafting needs (Hobby Lobby, lol) and added specifically for this idea.

Forming the Team

We’re still on the Citadel, trying to prove that Saren has gone rogue. In the process of digging up clues, though, we assemble the rest of the team. Garrus the Turian is doing his own independent investigation, and when we find him he rolls in. Wrex, a Krogan badass, is ready to join us. And Tali, a Quarian who always wears her head mask, has information we need.

Presenting ourselves for the camera. From left to right: Udina (who deserves to only be seen from the rear), Tali, Garrus, Athena (me), and Wrex.

While on her Pilgrimage, a Quarian tradition, Tali disables a Geth and accesses its memory core. There she finds proof that Saren is working with them. When we take her and her recording to the Council, they finally declare Saren a rogue and grant our Shepard Spectre status so that we can hunt him down. Hopefully we’re now ready to leave the station and begin our adventure.

Tali delivers much information that isn’t completely relevant at this point, but we should keep it in reserve:

Saren seeks the Conduit, a form of Prothean technology like the Beacon. Then we’re introduced to the idea of the Reapers, an advanced machinist species that wiped out the Protheans 50,000 years ago. The Geth revere the Reapers as gods, and Saren is presenting himself as the Reapers’ prophet, and the one who can bring them back. Working with him (identified on the recording) is Matriarch Benezia, a powerful Asari elder.

Also, something mostly irrelevant until Mass Effect 2, Wrex explains about the genophage. The Salarians infected the entire Krogan race with it and now his people, unable to reproduce, are dying out.

The Salarian Councilor. It’s easy to believe that this species bioengineered a deadly weapon. Look at that face!

SHAUN/SHANG-CHI, NINE

Our protagonist, who will become a Marvel superhero in later projects, has a very strict father and a dead mother. (Thanks, Disney, for killing off another mom.) He leaves home in his teens, making a new life in America, and only returns when his father sends goons to attack him and steal his mother’s pendant.

So, strong and self-determined. He sets out with nothing. Of course he’s a physical creature, but, interestingly, I don’t think he’s a Body Type. Until called to fight he shows no interest in physical skills. His father, through abuse, coerces him to train. It’s not really something Shaun seeks from his own sense of self.

What is he, then? First, let me honestly own that I wasn’t impressed with Shaun. He was the weakest link in an otherwise good movie. The actor is wooden, or too stoic to be understood even by a camera, and I had a hard time engaging with his character. He’s not a Body Type, and he certainly isn’t a Head Type. Before his father comes for him, Shaun is a valet driver with little ambition or interest beyond karaoke night with his friend Katy. By default he becomes a Heart Type (or a Null).

I’m wrong.

You know what he is? A badly written Nine. He avoids conflict, which would be a defining trait. He’s a superhero, so they’ve put him in the traditional Nine silo, but given him none of the other characteristics of a Nine. Where is his lazy good humor? Where is his curiosity about people and the world? Where is his drive to maintain his activity level? Where is his diplomacy and righteous judgment? He decides his must kill his father, render a verdict, but it’s all so bland and contrived. It comes from the writers and not from a character drive.

I will call him a Nine, because that’s what the movie expects us to see, but I don’t think the showrunners or the actor have earned the number.