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Mila-Valentine

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I'm on Patreon!

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I'm making A Past and a Future Secrets Comics! Which you can read here:



And I decided to open a Patreon to help me with my living expenses (and maybe become my sole occupation), Patrons will have access to exclusive drawings, comic previews and even Commissions!

Click here to support me on Patreon!


Here are some details on my Patreon reward tiers:

$1 ♥ Access to the Patreon feed, where I will post details about my story, drawings, doodles and pieces of Lore I don’t always share elsewhere. A new “Thank you!” doodle will also be posted on the wall each month!

$5 ♥ I will post the sketched layout for the next A Past and a Future Secrets episode as soon as I finish it! You can also vote for  “Awesome! Wow! Thank You!” drawing for the next month! This isn’t the same drawing as the $1 “Thank You!”  Yes! There’s two of them!

$10 ♥ Whenever I draw the comics I have to cut it in little horizontal strips because the whole thing is 800x8000! So while I draw it I will be posting these little pieces for you to see! The whole thing may be edited a little after I finish the whole comic but this means you’ll also see where I did an oopsie.

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These are the support tiers! Now, there are also Commission tiers!!! And they go as follows:

$15 ♥ All the rewards up to the $10 tier AND a B&W (or other two colors) Commission!

$25 ♥ All the rewards up to the $10 tier AND a fully colored Commission! 

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$50 ♥ All the rewards up to the $10 tier AND a character sheet with front, back and profile drawings of your original character + if you want to, have the character appear in the APaFS comic!

On top of all that you will be helping me a lot! Even if you can’t collaborate, please support me by sharing this post.

The reason why I’m aiming for $500 is so I can pay all my living expenses. It might sound like it’s not much but Brazilian Real is super undervalued compared to US Dollars, one dollar is worth around R$3,40, and for comparison my college tuition is close to R$800 monthly, that’s a little less than $250 per month. If I manage to make enough for a living I can focus on studying and creating!

Each dollar helps three times more than you would expect it to ♥

Thank you!

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I am taking commissions through my tumblr, here are the details:

tebianco.tumblr.com/post/11392…
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BioWare created a monster.

Mass Effect is a series with unlimited potential, granted, it's not the first RPG where your decisions affect the world, but it plays with the notion that everything you does will come back to bite you in the ass sooner or later, and it did, for most of the game, characters wouldn't forget your kindness (or lack of), sometimes I even found myself asking who the hell was that person sending me an e-mail thanking me for saving them. Feedback, all the time, you could influence your companions through your own personality, handle people and situations in so many different ways I wouldn't doubt that there isn't a single Shepard with the same history.

The game's narrative style was so advanced and became something so big, that when it came to the ending BioWare couldn't live up to it's quality, maybe it's a flaw from doing something SO RIGHT, with few flaws here and there that anyone would overlook for the sake of the overall quality, that the mechanics of the game would make it impossible for the ending to live up for that quality. There are so many variables, from that colonist you spared in Zhu's Grace to the amount of Cerberus soldiers you killed (not really - but still, variables), that maybe BioWare decided to go for the 'simple' solution and gave us a 'push this button for fireworks' ending, no effort.

The bad taste of defeat was that there was nothing to defeat, I thought the reaper battles through the game were preparing us for THE battle, fighting six Brutes and another four Banshees wasn't all that pleasant, but they weren't bosses. The defeat was the disregard for all the work Shepard had, during all those games, was because rallying the galaxy to a single objective wasn't something positive in the end (actually, taking in consideration all the military fleets are stranded on earth, turned it into a rather negative point), because all you had to do was push a button.

Mass Effect became something so innovative, and so huge, that BioWare simply lost control over it, the gamers had control, there was no Canon story, they tried to pull an Elephant (the entire ME story) through the eye of an needle (the endings), narrowing every experience in this huge and variable universe, in three different 'choices', destroying many Shepards moral grounds, having them to choose between choices they would have never accepted.

Maybe the sad truth is that there wouldn't be a good (by that I mean with quality) ending, regardless of how much effort BioWare had put on it (though I don't want to believe that, it's not excuse for their horrible ending either), because there is no game mechanics able to deal with that amount of variable and expectations, because no ending would possibly live up to the series' quality.
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I am currently struggling to get some strips drawn, the images are in my mind but as many other artists know, it turns into crap whenever I try to draw it, so there is a huge chance I will never get to finish it.

But I haven't been able to sleep just for thinking of how I could make up the ending for my FemShep, and epic ending, with everyone taking part in something, and I came around to a "go around earth trying to help people" series, I want to make it compact, for the sake of my own determination. So I will write the original ideas (which will change if I ever draw it, because I keep changing things all the time when I'm creating them), in a script-like text.

If you believe I will be able to finish it and don't want to be spoiled don't continue reading. Thank you everyone for the support so far!


After the Citadel/Crucible (this strip here: fav.me/d4te2fz)

The Citadel arms close again and Cortez rescues Shep and the squadmates from inside it (don't really care how) . Shepard goes into comm with Hackett and tells him the Crucible was never an option, and if he doesn't want to diminish everyone's morale he should tell them that the Reapers can be defeated now, that the Crucible weakened them (or option of lying to him instead). She asks him to send someone to retrieve Anderson's body. - WILL NOT BE DRAWN (probably)

2nd Strip - WREX and the Krogans - England:

Shepard receives a message from Joker while still in the shuttle, he says they are having a problem with the Krogan who are trying to set up a nuke on a 'dead' reaper because it's been discharging "Husks" (marauders, banshees, brutes, etc) after it was taken down and fell on Earth (somewhere in the coast). Shepard goes into comm with Wrex and tells him to stop the nuke before he turns the shore into a radioactive wasteland, Wrex does as she says and waits for her arrival.

Upon reaching them they see the Krogan being overrun by reaper minions and Wrex tells her that they lost communication with the team who was setting up the bomb, she decides to go inside by herself to deactivate it and Tali says they can try to explode the Reaper's core to destroy the minions who are inside/around it. They go in only to find that the reaper is repairing itself and blocking the communication of electronic devices, the Krogan are dead and Wrex reaches them (riding a kakliosaur he 'borrowed') saying he got worried once their communication was shut off too.

The group protects Tali as she disarms the nuke and removes it's radioactive core, they decide to use the bomb (without the nuclear load) to explode the Reaper's core, but since the reaper is messing with the electronic signals it would have to be set on manually, as they reach the Core Wrex decides he will detonate it, Shepard and the others run outside.

One of the explosions makes the Reaper hull shift and angle in a way Shepard starts sliding back towards the explosion, she manages to grab and stop falling, Garrus starts running back to catch her but stops once Wrex rides the kakliosaur up and swoops Shepard fast enough to prevent them from being caught in the explosion.

Wrex puts Shepard down as he laughs, telling her she will never again see a Krogan outrunning an explosion, and thanks her for the help.

As Shepard goes back to the shuttle she covers the wound on her stomach with the hands and slouches on the bench as her nose starts bleeding again. Wrex looks up as the Shuttle leaves and back to his hand covered in her blood.

(if you didn't retrieve the kakliosaur fossil Wrex dies and Garrus/other squadmate saves Shepard from falling)

3rd Strip - Grunt and Samara - Belgium(?):

Shepard is taken to the med bay and wakes up with Chakwas telling her she lost a lot of blood but would be ok. Shepard receives a distress signal from one of the Alliance ships saying that a hospital in Brussels (or somewhere else) was endangered, they managed to shoot down a Reaper (a small one) but it was still moving and towards the Hospital, they couldn't shoot from 'space' (I'll look for a proper spelling later) because the accuracy wasn't safe and they could hit the hospital.

Shepard then tries to contact the hospital only to find out Grunt is there, he says the Asari commandos and Samara are holding off the Husks but they have to destroy the Reaper before it reaches the Hospital. Shepard arrives and sees Samara on the other side of the battlefield, two harvesters arrive and Grunt hands Shepard a heavy weapon (will look for the model/reference later), she decides to shoot the Reaper instead (even knowing it won't do any harm to him) to catch it's attention and orders everyone to hide, as the Reaper charges it's bean she runs toward Samara and the bean rips through the harvesters while Shepard takes cover from it near the Asari.

The group reunites in a middle-ground cover and Samara tells Shepard she can take the Reaper down, it's almost dead but the Core (that's behind the bean) is working, she can reach it from behind and destroy it if Shepard manages to get her there. The group them cuts through the minions, running and ducking as the Reaper tries to kill them with the beam. After reaching the area under/behind the Reaper (and safe from the bean), Samara thanks Shepard and levitates towards a crack just behind the Reaper's beam.

Shepard runs away to not be crushed as the beam structure falls down, followed by the core. Samara manages to use a barrier while she's thrown away from it by the explosion and falls down injured. Shepard reaches her and Samara is semi-conscious, she talks a little before passing out from exhaustion and Shepard asks Grunt to take her to the hospital.

(if you didn't salvage the Library of Asha for the Asari, Samara will be so badly injured when she reaches the reaper that she will die after escaping the explosion, if Samara died then Falere will be the one there, she snuck out from the Monastery to honor her mother and sister's death, she will definitely die after the explosion regardless of what is done)

4th Strip - Jacob + Turian Fleet - Arctic (Finland):

A Reaper shot down a fleet full of scientists who were evading the battle-zone, the Reaper landed over it and the remaining ship is sinking in the Arctic sea, Jacob is in one of the submarines from a heavy armed fleet who managed to get near it, but not enough for a rescue. The communication with the scientists ship was cut off and they don't know whether they're alive or dead. One of the Turian fleets can shoot the Reaper down but is holding back until the scientists are secured.

Shepard decides to reach the ship for a chance of rescue, she lands on the ice (with EDI and Liara) and runs towards the reaper  (who's more interested in trying to take down the submarines, though sometimes he will melt the ice to make her path harder) to reach the ship. Once there she has a limited time to reach the ship by swimming (because of the cold water) and find a way in before she freezes to death. Shepard goes in and finds only a few scientists made it out alive by shutting themselves inside a room while the others were flooded in water. One of the scientists is a Turian who tries to convince the others to repair the ship just enough so they can move out from the Reaper's area and allow the Turian fleet to shoot the Reaper down.

Shepard chooses to help the Turian by swimming/removing the area of some rooms so the scientists can reach the ship's engineering room, they manage to drive the ship away and reconnect the comm so the Turian fleet and the submarines can shoot it down. One of the submarines reaches the ship and rescues Shepard and the surviving scientists (Dr. Brynn included).

(if you fail to rescue the Turian engineers then there won't be an option to move the ship away, you will try to rescue the scientists but Dr.Brynn dies of hypothermia and Jacob suicides after the reaper is shot down by the Turian/Submarines)

5th Strip - Jack + Aria's Mercs + Mako - Alps (Switzerland):

Normandy answers to a distress signal from a Blue Suns mercenary saying that they are trying to make a rescue to a group of biotics trapped inside a tunnel (Gotthard Rail Tunnel), a reaper has blocked the other side and there are minions overrunning the place and preventing the mercs to get inside it.

Shepard lands with Vega and Garrus and after being informed that Jack and her students are inside she 'borrows' a mako from the Eclipse (who 'borrowed' it from Alliance to start with) and rides in through the tunnel, shooting down the enemies and sometimes having to step out of it to move something away from the rail so she can continue), as Shepard finds Jack, she and her students are barring a group of minions from coming through the other end of the tunnel while trying to rise two rockets to hit the reaper with (like the ones you used to defeat the reaper in London).

Jack asks Shepard to take down the minions while she and the students manage to use their biotics to fling the rockets at the reaper's beam core, it explodes and falls down while covering that end of the passage. Shepard and Jack are debating on a way to go back all the way through the tunnel when the Mercenaries arrive and rescue everyone out.

(If you didn't recruit the Mercenaries the students will be dead when you arrive (on foot) and Jack will kill herself while flinging the rockets on the Reaper/become super exhausted but survive if you go renegade at her for being sad for her students, you go back by yourself/with Jack passed out.)

6th Strip - The Normandy + Geth + Quarian - Sahara (Egypt):

After Jack's mission Shepard receive a call from Joker saying that Harbinger is following the Normandy and he's trying to avoid it, Shepard's shuttle is picked by another ship (alliance? quarian? geth? I dunno yet) and follows the track until the shuttle is in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, the communications are shut down and after a while you reach the 'crashing site' on the Sahara desert, there is a thick sand curtain covering most of the scenario but you can see Harbinger 'landed' some kilometers ahead of the Normandy, and is struggling to 'walk' in the sand because of it's massiveness.

Shepard lands with the shuttle as EDI and the others leave it, EDI had transferred the rest of her system to the mobile hardware (body) and that's why the Normandy lost it's communication. Joker is badly wounded (a lot of broken bones) and is put on one of the other shuttles that were aboard the Normandy, EDI tells Shepard that she couldn't salvage the aiming 'weapon' (I forgot the name) but she managed to retrieve a device and make a trigger and a copy of it, the device sends her coordinates in pulses with a incredible precision, it's meant to be destroyed, and the last coordinate will be sent to the galactic fleet once she regains a communication channel to them.

EDI suggest that she goes to Harbinger and sacrifices herself to send the signal to the fleet so they can all shoot him down at once, Shepard refuses and says she will go herself, she has Vega to drive the other shuttle and get the crew out of there while Shepard rides with Cortez and the other companions towards Harbinger.

As she approaches the Reaper she sees a huge explosion in one of his claws, she then sees the Geth jumping down to Harbinger and exploding after entering the joints on his claws and junctions, not enough to take it down but damaging and crippling it. Tali notes that the Geth are also sending coordinates so the Quarian army can shoot on the weak spots they find before self-destructing themselves to further the damage.

Cortez drives the shuttle under Harbinger and Shepard throws the tracking device under Harbinger, ordering Garrus to shoot it when they are driving away from it, Garrus shoots the device and after a minute or so the Galactic fleet shoots it down, damaging the hull, and making Harbinger fall on it's 'tail', with the beam aiming towards the sky. The shock is so great it creates a sandstorm that flings the shuttle away and damages it.

Shepard asks Cortez if he can repair the shuttle and he says it might be possible, she then nods at the companions and kisses Garrus one more time, pushing him away before jumping out of the shuttle and manually locking the door from outside, as they manage to re-open it, she had disappeared in the curtain of sand.

Shepard climbs through Harbinger's damaged hull, towards the beam core, falling and slipping as it shakes and moves, she then reaches an area around the beam and throws the device (insert witty commentary here), she slides back down as Harbinger's shoots his last beam and the Galactic Fleet retorts with a massive attack, Shepard continues to run as the explosion catches up with her, one of Harbinger's hull plates falls down and protects her from the gross damage from the attack.

Shepard is found unconscious after the sandstorm fades away.

(Now the "if's", If you don't buy the upgrade for the Normandy's core, you'll lose Joker (who died since the crash was much harder), the Engineers and the Normandy once the rest of the crew is out. The option to let EDI sacrifice herself or not will come depending of your answer when she asks you about free-will (probably needs to be checked, I'm taking my gameplays into account here). The Geth will help you only if you save them (duh), same for the Quarians, if not, the damage in the first Galactic attack won't be as heavy, Shepard dies (In the scenario I'll describe here later). If Vega is in your team Garrus will drive the shuttle, if both are in your team (or Garrus died in ME2), Kaidan/Ashley will drive the shuttle, if they are in your team, Tali will drive your shuttle, if Tali died then Liara will drive the shuttle (with the Crew)). If Garrus isn't in your team then Shepard will shoot the device, if you decided to shoot the bottle during Garrus' outing in the Citatel, you will shoot the device, if you lost to him, you'll ask him to shoot it, if you didn't do the friendship/romance outing, you will shoot it. If Cortez isn't friend/romanced he won't be able to repair the shuttle and Shepard will die. If you didn't save the Destiny Ascension, Harbinger won't be as weak, but if you had the Geth/Quarian to help you, it won't kill Shepard.)

Scenario for Shepard's death: Shepard is too tired/Harbinger isn't weak enough. So without the Quarian/Geth/Destiny Ascension Shepard will have to run under Harbinger and crush the device to call for the other attack. If Harbinger is weakened but Shepard lost two of the old companions he will be weakened (of exhaustion) and you will run to the beam core and jump on it while Harbinger shoots, killing Shepard and being destroyed. If Cortez isn't romanced/friend, and you didn't buy the Normandy's upgrade, Shepard will be found dead.)

I will probably need more time to edit this later, I might have messed up some of the info/variables here, but that's what I thought up until now... Dx' I HAD to write it down because I way too damn stressed from over thinking it.

Ideas are accepted~

I'd edit it now but I'm late for class D:' bbl!
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It is soo convincing, holy shit.

If this was BioWare's plans all along then it was the biggest Dick Move of all times in the Gaming history, because BW could have avoided the shitstorm by delivering the real ending after the Endocrination hudda-hudda thing. But if it was clearer then the ending would have been much more easy to swallow (without the Normandy crash + Stargazer/Child BS), but still hard to accept the lack of closure in everything. And it would still be a problem that pretty much everything we gathered through the games didn't have any influence in that ending. To quote Mário Quintana:

"O TRÁGICO DILEMA
Quando alguém pergunta a um autor o que este quis dizer, é porque um dos dois é burro."

A rough and free translation would be: "THE TRAGIC DILEMMA: When someone asks an author what he meant to say (in a book/piece), it's because one of them is dumb."

And it's hard to imagine that BW wanted to select their players sooo much that few picked up on this endocrination theory while others raged, like I said, if they meant to end like this they should have worked harder so everyone could comprehend. Or maybe they did want to cause the shitstorm, I really don't know...
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