#NOBODY has ever tried to overstep my portrayal

[dutyworn]

Garrus is Wren's second in command starting shortly after his recruit in ME2, on default, and during all of ME3 that he's a part of the crew meaning since Palaven (ME1 is Pressly, like in canon; she's too new to being in command of an entire ship to question the order of command). If your muse is literally Miranda, since she's canonically ME2 second in command, I will for our interactions, keep it as Miranda, on default. If your muse is Garrus, I won't assume he's in this position unless you tell me that's fine. If your muse is not canonically Shepard's XO, but for your portrayal in roleplay default they are, it's still going to be Garrus unless we plot it out ooc, and it has to make sense from Wren's point of view. Her second in command needs to be both someone she trusts to go by her values and trusts her life with, and someone with experience in leading a team. Garrus is, by default, her best friend, as an NPC. He also has leadership experience as Archangel, the game canonically recognises him as having leadership qualities during the suicide mission, and he's never had an issue following her lead, meaning she trusts him to do what she would do, not act as an XO by his own values, in the case of clashes. Please don't be offended if I keep it as Garrus. Obviously, this only applies to Wren; if we're interacting on my other muses, and your muse is Shep's second in command by default to your portrayal - canon or not, I will default my muse to it as well, as we're writing with a vague Shepard, rather than my Shepard. Same goes for verses where Wren is not in the "Shepard role". I am not the authority on who Shepard picks as her XO, I'm only the authority on who Wren picks. Nine times out of ten, unless your muse is canonically XO, I will keep it as Garrus. I don't mean this to disrespect your headcanons, I just... don't think it's fair to ask me to modify my muse for their sake, either, seeing as it is Wren, who makes that decision, if she is Commander Shepard in a verse. Also, how much your muse means to her, how close they are, has nothing to do with this decision. She might be best friends with your muse, in a relationship with them, your muse might even meet the requirements (goes by Wren's values, Wren trusts her life with them, leadership experience) and it will still be Garrus nine times out of ten because it will probably make sense to her portrayal.

I love Miranda. But it'd be out of character for Wren to not take control of the Normandy enough to demand she names her own second in command, and they do start off kind of rough; she doesn't trust Miranda until later, until her loyalty mission and knowing her better, by default. Like I love Miranda but my default for them becoming actual friends is around Miranda's loyalty mission; but they do become friends. This is not about character hate, it's about what's in character for Wren. And as I said, when I interact with Miranda blogs, I will default to Miranda being in her canonical position, as I don't wish to undermine other muses' canon at all. (In this case insert Cerberus bullshit as the reason why she can't appoint Garrus to XO.)

I use the EGM and Spectre Expansion mods for ME3 along with heavily modding the ending, and I believe it's EGM that adds it, but like I can assign positions on the ship, and I have Garrus, canonically to my gameplay for Wren, as her second in command on the third game.

Also, Tali is appointed Chief Engineer when a part of the crew, in place of Adams. But the rest is more or less in flux for roleplay purposes (mainly because fuck if I know what half of the full manifest even means lol I am really pretending I know what the fuck I'm talking about most of the time here)

I will not, ever, fuck with your muse's military rank. If you say your muse has a different rank than canon? I will roll with it. I will support it one hundred percent. I love diverging from strict canon. A muse's rank isn't Wren's business. It's simply a matter of who she would appoint to an important position on her ship. Same goes for squadmates becoming Spectres. I mean it when I say I'm super flexible with things, as long as I can make it make sense for Wren's portrayal. Like, if your muse needed a Shepard recommendation to being appointed a Spectre. 99 out of 100 safe to say I can make it make sense she would. If your portrayal is insistent on some big choice in the game Shepard makes being different to my default worldstate. I can most likely make it make sense as well. For example: No. I will not make it where she wants the geth destroyed rather than to have the quarians make peace with them. However, I will make it where she tried but failed. We're not limited to what's possible in the games, here, people. Give it an external factor that made the attempt fail. If it's about her values. Her words. Her emotions. Her opinions. I won't compromise who Wren is for the sake of someone else's muse. I will, however, gladly compromise the actual events. Bring in new factors. Make shit fail, outside of her control. Make her make mistakes, even.

But things where it's directly her decisions. If your muse, who canonically is not already Shepard's second in command, in your portrayal is? And you want to keep it that way for our interactions? She still would, most likely, ask Garrus first. Maybe your muse was her second choice, maybe we can justify that for her, maybe Garrus as an NPC simply did not agree to the position. I am flexible. But I am flexible in "third factor" kind of ways. Not in Wren's... self.