Mass Effect 3: Death to Blonde Shepard

I am a girl. I come equipped with girly parts, like fallopian tubes and a smug sense of always being right. But don't let this fact make you think that I don't like looking at other girls. I like it. I like it a lot. There's something about the pleasing curves of the fairer sex that made my teenage years at an all-girls Catholic school a very exciting time indeed.

This is the first time that female Shepard will be shown to the world. The real world. It'll be the first time she's used for marketing campaigns, advertisements and, in my wildest dreams, adorning the box itself. Think about it – this will be the first in a long time that such a well-written, kick-ass female hero will be brought into the spotlight – merited not for the size of her dirty pillows and the tightness of her tramp-stamp jeans, but for her ability to dominate the battlefield, unite humanity, and stand up in the face of intergalactic adversity. So it breaks my heart that the mass public have gone for such the wishy washy, Barbie faced personality vacuum that is Shep 5.

The modern day world is already so much more culturally diverse than yester-year, so why don't future representations reflect this? Isn't it about time that the cliché of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed pin-up was phased out?

Commander Shepard deserves better than this. You're talking about a woman who brought down a teched-up Saren. A woman who survived being brought back to life after being blown out into space. The woman who punched that damn annoying reporter right between her lying eyes. Just look at Shep 5, then back to these words. Now look at Shep 5 again – that is the face of a woman who cares more about her glue-on nails and handbag Chihuahua. She's not the saviour of the goddamn universe.

Please, boys and girls, I implore you. Don't vote for Number 5. Vote for diversity. Vote for originality. Vote for personality. For the love of god, vote for someone I can proudly place on the first page of my Filofax. Thank you.