#akuze

[painterofhorizons]

It‘s a long way getting over something like Akuze, and it‘s no one-way-street.

Reda Shepard, earthborn, sole survivor of humanity's first contact massacre with the Big Angry Space Worms. Find out more Akuze related writings, musings and art in my Akuze-masterpost. Long fic for the illustration is currently WIP. Starting quote is from the 20 times Akuze almost gets Shepard fic. Commission by the most wonderful @drawinglinestoconstellations! I am beyond words in appreciation for the incredible art and brilliant work with Marty. 14/10, do recommend!

[fuckheadz]

[squigglysquidd]

Juxtaposed Snippet

Fifteen months.

Fifteen long months.

Fifteen months on top of the initial six of qualifying instruction pre-N-training.

After so long, she’s finally completed the extensive, rigorous, and torturous drills, exercises, and simulations and can call herself a true, hard-earned N7 Alliance soldier.

When the Alliance told her she’d been recommended for the N-7 training program, she never expected all the attention would focus on her because of Akuze.

Akuze was a failure in her mind. All she did was survive by outrunning, out-jumping, or—fucking—leaving people behind to die.

The Alliance fluffs its reports and tries to turn a blind eye to a serious fuck-up but she knows better. Perhaps this N7 position is meant to boost her through the ranks and inadvertently give Akuze some semblance of success to the masses.

Ignorance is bliss at its finest.

N-training took on a different meaning when she was enlightened on her reason for being here. Since then, she’s been fighting tooth and nail to prove to the instructors and herself—the worst and loudest critic—that she deserves to be here.

Surviving Akuze doesn’t make her a good soldier worthy of advancing to the N7s. Akuze was fate unforgivingly clearing the board.

A soldier worth commendations is able to take their squad out and bring every last one of them back. They earn a position where their leadership is the pivotal piece to accomplishing the mission and bringing everyone home.

Their people trust in them.

It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t commanding officer on Akuze because when the shit hit the fan, it came down to a situation where she became an unofficial leader to a group. This group trusted her, believed she could make decisions that would overcome their fears and get them to safety.

She should have been ready.

She wasn’t, and other people lost their lives because of it.

Her dreams know the truth. Although they haven’t reared their ugly heads while she’s been training, she’s sure they’re waiting for any sign of weakness in her mental walls.

They punish her for surviving. For the longest time, she believed it but she’s starting to see through her self-hatred.

That only goes so far, though.

She’s usually so run-down after training that any time off is equated with pure exhaustion. Her tired mind is so hazy that she barely remembers getting into bed before blacking out as soon as her head hits the pillow.

Now, despite all her objections in the beginning, she knows she’s earned her ranking among the N7 candidates.

Her training has been fueled by pure stubbornness and determination to prove she’s more than a pathetic ‘survivor.’ She’s more than her failures, more than sheer luck, and she used every fucking fiber of her being to prove that to the Alliance.

Soaked in blood, sweat, tears, and filth, it’s now that she truly feels worthy.

Things weren’t easy.

She succeeded.

She completed the same hellish training the Alliance put every marine through during the ‘Interplanetary Combatives Training,’ which is the last—and most grueling—stage of N-training. It’s at this point where she stands in a position where so many had been unable to continue.

It’s all because she did the work, she put in the effort, and she pushed her limits.

She deserves the N7 ranking, and as the ceremony’s acting Admiral pins her medal onto her formal uniform, she holds her head up in pride.

Everything blurs around her, except for the ever-so-slight weight of the medal as it lies on her chest and the sound of her name and newly earned ranking ringing over the crowd. She doesn’t care about the crowd clapping or the salutes she mindlessly returns to her superiors as she passes.

All that matters is that she’s made Akuze mean something.

It’s more than nightmares now.

It’s finally the turning point in her military career that she’s wanted.

Tonight, she attends a small, Alliance-sponsored gathering at the human embassy on the Presidium. Its purpose is to commemorate the ‘journey’ she and her fellow N7 graduates had taken throughout the over year-long N7 qualification drills.

Not every graduate is here, though, so it can’t really be qualified as an N7 event. The legitimate ceremony happened on Arcturus Station a few days ago.

This seems more like an unofficial recognition of those N7 soldiers who spent the last of their training period aboard spacefaring vessels. There are mostly Captains—there’s even been one or two Admirals—walking around, mingling, and chatting about those N-trainees who had served aboard their ships. She’s even sure she’s seen a few N7 patches or medals on formal jackets or shirts.

She hasn’t been directly approached by anyone yet, but she has a feeling this is part of an initiation. The Reds had plenty of them when she was young. Many of them, she even participated in.

So, she suspects that even though she’s wearing the N7 medal, she still has to impress the masses to truly belong.

[mass-effect-galaxy]

Sole Survivor: A Mass Effect Fan Film

[dynamitegun]

It occurs to me that a Sole Survivor Shepard might be more sympathetic to Tarquin Victus in ME3 when they land on Tuchanka. They lost their own platoon on Akuze to Thresher Maws, they've been in Vivtus' shoes.

When Lieutenant Victus loses hope, wants to abort their mission, I think Shepard's pep talk comes from deep inside them, for a moment not from Commander Shepard, but Lieutenant Shepard, who watched their men slaughtered, yet fought on.

When Tarquin admits his responsibility for the loss of half his men, a paragon Shepard can tell him.

"Owning your mistake takes guts, but you have to get over it and move on."

The mission comes first. They have a job to do and quitting now will only mean his men died in vain. They'll mourn later. Shepard learned this at Akuze, that to give up betrays the dead and passed this lesson on to Victus.

In the end it's Victus who's willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of victory. To do right by his family name and perhaps pushed by advice from someone who'd tread that same path.

"All right, saddle up. Let's get back into the war."

-Final line, Sands of Iwo Jima, 1949

[grusik]

Akuze... by colourourcity

[snappingthewalls]

[bearlytolerant]

Fandom: Mass Effect

Rating: T (swearing and canon typical violence)

Character: Zero Shepard

Word Count: 610

Reflection

All her life she’d hated being a number. Despised the way her mother had trained her to be a weapon and not a person. Loathed the label, ruthless.

The thresher maw had killed them all. Every one of her fucking comrades. Jones. Miller. Even Toombs was gone. Hell, she was almost certain the blood splattered across her armor was Jones’. She dug her fists into the dirt and wanted to drown out the screaming. They were all still screaming in her head. But she clenched her teeth and crawled forward, a painstakingly slow process, eventually wedging herself between two rocks. She closed her eyes and remembered.

“Get up,” her mother commanded. “Quickly!”

She was ten when she finally had the guts to jump to her feet and do a sweep, watching as her mother fell on her face. She’d smiled, thinking mom would be so proud. But her mother just grabbed her leg and knocked her straight on her ass. No mercy. No pride.

“You’re pathetic,” she’d spat, looming over Zero. Then she’d turned on her heel and left while Zero laid there, the metallic taste of blood on her tongue.

Shepard opened her eyes again. Pathetic. Blood was on her lip. She was tired of its taste.

There was an explosion and she jumped, peering out from behind a rock, she saw one of the soldier tents go up in flames. Her chest squeezed, pretty sure Millers’ body was still in there. Or pieces of it anyway. One, two, three—ten. Counting to keep back the bile. Counting an inhale and exhale of breaths.

The ground shook beneath her.

“No, no, no, no, noooo–fuck–you’re not gonna get me you massive fucking bastard,” she muttered.

She dared to peer around the rock. Putrid green acid splattered against it just an inch from her face. The smallest drop splashed onto her cheek. It sizzled and sputtered as she held a gloved hand there, hissing a string of curses.

“You fucking asshole!” she screamed and lit up the thresher with explosive rounds. It screeched for a minute straight before diving back into the earth.

She sprinted for the landing zone. She counted her paces.

Ten—

Twenty—

Thirty—

A crack splintered beneath her feet and she stumbled.

“Can anybody hear me!” she shouted through her earpiece.

There was static.

The whoosh of the shuttle dropping to her level was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard.

“Dad. Thank the fucking stars,” she whispered.

The shuttle came to a stop. Ground trembling beneath him and he was stepping out and she was stepping on. Eyes wide and the word no, slipping off her tongue. What the hell was he doing? Time stopped within a second frame. She clung to the I love you from his lips as she watched in horror. The great maw snapped and he disappeared into the ground. Taking off in the shuttle with tears in her eyes, she numbed herself to what her mother would have to say about it all.

It was fitting, she supposed.

For her first real mission to go down like that.

She made it back but at what cost?

Nothing except everything that mattered to her.

They congratulated her.

Interviewed her.

Praised her.

Fifty dead and that’s worth a monument?

Her mother had scoffed and disowned her. Which was fair and she was too numb to care. And even if she could muster a feeling that resembled care, her mother had never been a mother.

And she still hated being a number.

Zero sucked but one was worse.

The fucking loneliest number.

She was the sole survivor and she wished she could go back to ground zero.

[one-little-nerd-stayed-home]

Y'know I'm still thinking about Shepard's resurrection because after the initial wtf wears off, after you’ve resigned yourself to your cerberus crew, recruited a few people you feel you can halfway trust and maybe even one or two you know have your back - then you wind up on Illium and Liara pays your docking fees and you're kind of excited because hallelujah someone you know. Someone you trust!

And then you find out she's the one who put you here in the first place.

I keep thinking about being rebuilt by your enemies. Accepting the fact that they found you first, that this is just how it is. How it was always going to be - and then finding out one of the people you trusted. Maybe even one of the people you loved was the one who gave your body to them in the first place.

I think it's just that sometimes the good things fuck you up worse than the bad ones because it's good to not be dead right? To be loved to such an extreme that someone would go to those lengths to have you back… That’s a gift isn’t it? Nevermind what it does to you right?

You can admit to yourself, to others that the bad things were bad. But Isn’t it good to have a healed body and advanced cybernetics and all of the strength and skill with none of the scars you’ve earned through your life? Aren't you grateful to be alive? Aren't you happy to be loved? Aren't you proud to be brought back to save lives?

Does it matter whether you are or not?

I dunno dude it just fucks me up.

[lovelywingsart]

After Cams initial freakout on him, Saren would join them for a late night drink when neither of them could sleep, and they would just kinda… talk. It helped Cam get a bit more used to his presence, and it helped Saren get use to speaking in general.

But sometimes, he would learn something that made him realize a few things.

One being that Cam was alone just like he was until the Normandy, and he had very nearly taken that from them.

[painterofhorizons]

It is literally not my fault that I never really progress more than 2h into the game, with the amount of Akuze related references thrown at you, like, how can I not obsess about that as a writer?

(Yes, I did start a new playthrough. Which will either result in me actually playing the game, or, you know, writing more Akuze.)

(Also, look at my beautiful space babe.)

(How can Mass Effect feel like coming home no matter when you launch the game? How. Tell me.)

[fuckheadz]

[squigglysquidd]

What is it about using your own nightmares to help illustrate the uneasiness and creepiness in your writing that makes it feel like some kind of ... relief?

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF PRIORITY: EARTH (PART 2 - REVAMPED)

Ft. Staff Cmdr. Sophie Oliveira-Shepard Alenko-Oliveira, Cpt. Arno Delacroix, Lt. Cmdr. Ashley Williams, and Zaeed Massani-Shepard MIRA'S MORE CANON ME3 "Convincing half of the Admiralty board to dissent from the majority's position? That's one thing, Arno. Having to do it while Mikhailovich leers at you from the other side of the chambers again? I think I'd rather push the boulder up the hill for a fucking eternity." Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[seithr]

remembered that my shepard/spacer shep has a still alive mom in the alliance according to ME2/3

also remembered that that character (katrine/caia) always has a sister uninvolved in the family's career military history

remembering she had to mourn her elder sister who just Disappeared for two years, and would have spent even longer knowing shepard isn't alive bc their alliance mom probably can't just tell a civillian doctor,

[grusik]

AKUZE instagram.com/akuzer/ by wiredforlego