#alphahelices

[swaps55]

21, 42, 63, 84 for the spotify wrapped game!

[cracks knuckles]

[rowanisawriter]

🛒 💖 for the fanfic writer emoji asks!

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

I love character focused stuff, mostly vibes and very loose to no plot. Lately, my most common vibe is the quiet time between missions/major plot points in games so there’s nothing in the way of character drama.

💖 What made you start writing?

I can’t remember! I started writing when I was around 11? It’s my only creative outlet now so I’m glad I stuck with it 20 years later.

[ripley95]

Writer's First Lines

Rules: post the first sentence of your last ten fics. If you haven’t written ten fics, share as many first-sentences as you have.

I was tagged by the awesome @mordinette ! Thank you so much for the tag!

I'll tag: @ljandersen @alphahelices @unicorn-farm @laelior @painterofhorizons @pigeontheoneandonly @aricazorel

Brown Paper Packages Tied up With String (fShenko)

Shepard was riding the elevator down to the cargo hold of the Normandy. She'd just made her way back from the Citadel for a quick supply run, or at least, that's what it was meant to be. A quick supply run was never just a quick supply run anymore.

2. Remember Me (ME:A)

Sara landed with a thud on the metallic floor, unsettling a thick layer of dust. Behind her, Peebee and Liam followed suit. A slight haze formed thanks to the particles being displaced. Sara waved her hand through the air to help it dissipate and get a clear view of her surroundings.

3. The Calm Between the Storms (Hannah Shepard)

Captain Hannah Shepard was looking out at the view from the cockpit of the Orizaba. It was something of a routine of hers when she hit a lull in her duties. She used to look out at the stars with such fondness. They were once filled with so much adventure and potential, but her perception of them had changed over the years.

4. Not Tomorrow, But Today (fShenko)

I love you.

They say it to each other all the time.

5. A Cursed Blessing (Kaidan Alenko)

It covers the apples he picks up from the market. It glistens off of the faces of smiling civilians still thriving on the high of survival after the war. He even sees it in the mirror when he wakes. He sees it on his fingers as he rubs his eyes, heavy from nights without sleep. It's inescapable, this new green sheen to everything.

6. Forever, I Choose You (Assasin's Creed Odyssey)

Kassandra stepped up to the ledge of the cliff next to Darius. Makedonia's coast wasn't too far off in the distance. The sea was glistening as the sun was getting ready to set, and there were rolling hills and forests as far as the eye could see. It was a view she'd seen many times now.

7. Downhill (fShenko)

The winter holidays were finally here. Shepard and Kaidan had both been working hard and had earned some good time off.

8. What's Mine is Yours (fShenko)

Shepard walked through the front door of her and Kaidan's apartment. It had been a long day at work. Hackett had needed her to stay late to rush through an urgent project imperative for the next stages of the rebuilding efforts. Kaidan would have been home for hours already.

9. Finding Peace (fShenko)

Shepard awoke to her room which was still in a dark haze. There was a noticeable lack of warmth by her side, prompting her to rub her eyes and look over to Kaidan's side of the bed. He was already awake, standing by the window, pulling the curtains back ever so slightly in a way that she couldn't see what he was looking at.

10. Echoes of Old Embers (fShenko)

“I’m here to see Admiral Hackett,” Shepard said, shoulders poised, looking pristine in her dress blues. She was at Alliance Headquarters in Vancouver, determined to make an impression. Having just finished medical leave, she was hoping for an assignment.

[ljandersen]

Thank you for the tag @ficbrish! It’s been a while since I’ve seen a new game.  Thanks for thinking of me!

Rules: Pick any ten of your fics, scroll to the midpoint, pick a line (or three) and share it. Then tag ten people. 

[I went with six and a longer excerpt] 

‐----------------------------------------------------

1. Sideways Part 1: Sideways

“Here.”  Shepard grabbed his hand.  He tried to pull away, but she slapped the pistol into his palm and curled his finger around it.  She shoved his hand back at him.  “There, Admiral Alenko .  Feel better now?”

Kaidan considered the pistol in his hand.  He looked up at her. “You know Cicero would like to see me KIA?”

Shepard frowned.  “What?  You think I’m his hired gun?  I’ll take you out while we’re down here alone?”

2. Sideways Part 2: Entwined

Kaidan laughed and cupped her face.  “You know there are cameras in here.”

Shepard realized her hand had brunched up his shirt almost to the shoulder.  Her palm pressed against the hot skin of his chest.

“I don’t care.”  She panted wolfishly and reeled him back to her mouth.

“Whoa.”  He laughed and playfully batted her grasping hands away.  “You want this all over the extranet?  Councilor-Spectre sex tape.”

“Sure.  Aquarium Sex Romp Part 1. ”

“Part 1?”  Kaidan sputtered, backing up, and laughingly batting her hand away again.

3. Sideways Part 3: Prism

“That’s how you got them?  Sleeping gas?”  Shepard threw Feron back a step.  “After I save you, I’m killing you.”

Feron tugged on his jacket and stood taller.  “Then I’m not going.”

“Oh, you’re going.  I’ll knock you out with something more concrete than nerve gas and drag you.”  Shepard waved at Wrex.  “Get over here.  We’ll lift them out biotically.”

Grunt roared and beat the wall approvingly.  Garrus seemed less certain.

“Who’s lifting me?”  Garrus got to his feet.  “Is Kaidan up there?  Do I get a choice?”

4. Sideways Part 4: Abyss

“You sure you should be operating heavy machinery?” Shepard forced mirth into her tone.

“No.”  Kaidan punched another series of buttons.  A hiss and lift in the gravity made her scramble to grab the back of his seat for an anchor.  Just as quickly, the gravity settled.

“Outer doors locked.”  York ran up the gangway to them.  “Why aren’t we moving?”

“Because I’m not a real pilot,” Kaidan snapped.

York shoved past Shepard and leaned down beside him.  “You sure you should be operating heavy machinery?”

“Does someone else want to do this?  Hmm?” He rubbed his temple.  “At least I can name some of these buttons.”

5. About Mars . . .

“Donkey laugh?”  Shepard shoved him away.  “You’ve got it somewhere.  That picture.  Holding out for something you really want before blackmailing me with it?”

Kaidan lifted his Omni-Tool.  The holoscreen image made her cringe.

“Damn.  It’s worse than I remember.  And, oh nice – ha! – I do have hair in my mouth.  Lovely.”

Kaidan laughed and snapped the screen down.

“You found that pretty fast,” Shepard said.  “Got it on shortcut?”

“It’s a favorite.  Won’t lie.”  Kaidan put his hands on his hips.  “It’s a good memory.  Ash was there.”

6. About Horizon . . .

“Yeah.”  Kaidan leaned an elbow on the bar and studied her profile.  “I’ve lost a lot of people close to me. Been years now for some of them.  Still hurts like hell. You know, let’s just talk about biotic ball or turian prions again.  Who doesn’t like a spirited prion debate, hmm?”

Her lips stretched into a weak smile.  “I didn’t mean to dampen things. Damn.  I’m a bad date, aren’t I?”

“You didn’t stand me up.  That strong out the gate, what’s to worry about?”

She grinned sideways at him.  “No one would stand you up.”

“Ha.  Well, thanks.  Go on a date once a year, it keeps the odds in my favor.”

“Once a year?”  Her eyebrows raised.  She rotated on her stool.

Heat flushed in his cheeks.  “Well, I’m deployed a lot.”

Tagging: @rpgwrites @ripley95 @alphahelices @unicorn-farm @jamesholden @ghostxofxartemis @halesshepardn7 @acciokaidanalenko @aricazorel

[rpgwrites]

25, 37, 39 for the 40 questions game!

Thank you for asking!!

25. What do you look for in a beta?

Usually I’ll look for someone who can be honest with me. Tell me if something doesn’t make sense so I can change that. They can also look for general errors and language and spelling errors. Throughout everything they can tell me if something shouldn’t be in my fic. 

37. Talk about your current wips.

I have a few but I won’t talk about them all. 

Tomorrow I’ll start writing on a one-shot. It’s a gift fic for my best friend in the world. It’s a story about where Liara is mourning the loss of her mother’s death and Shepard is there for her. 

I’m also working on Golem. A fic prompted by @ljandersen I already began working with the second chapter. Though I don’t know when I’ll post it. Somewhere soon. It’s a story in ME2 where Miranda have put a control chip into Shepard. 

Another story I’m working on is A Galaxy Without Hope. It’s a what if story where the ending of the MEA is change. What would have happened if the Archon won? How will the Galaxy deal with it? This story explore that. 

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I’ve never received any rude comments. All my comments mean so much to me and I feel so lucky I never gotten any rude comments. I’m sorry people get them. So I can’t really say how to deal with them. I also hope I’ll never find out how to deal with them. Cause that means I’m getting rude ones. 

Feel free to ask me

[swaps55]

5, 20, 38 for your fic writer questions!!

Fic writer meme

5. Share one of your strengths.

Dialogue. I love writing dialogue, and I think I’m pretty good at it. Banter is my favorite, but I’m getting kind of fond of Sam’s love confessions, too. This banter is currently one of my favorites: 

He pokes the fire with a stick. “Too bad neither of us knows how to play an instrument.”

“Is that something you do around a campfire?” Shepard asks.

“Mmhmm.”

Shepard tilts his head. “Garrus once showed me a turian whatchama thing…fuck, it was something that sounded like a lute.”

Kaidan snorts. “Garrus plays an instrument?”

“No,” Shepard says with a grin. “He showed it to me. But that still makes me more of an expert at playing an instrument than you are.”

“Bite me. I saw a piano once.”   

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

Whatever I need at the time. Right now it’s sitting at my desk with headphones and the right music, without interruptions so I can get in the headspace I want and stay there. Pre-COVID, it was sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by white noise, sometimes with music, sometimes without. 

38. Talk about a review that made your day.

I am really lucky that I some incredibly amazing people comment on my fic, and I’ve had several comments that have really knocked me on my ass. The latest one is someone who told me that they’ve read through 78 of the 104 pages of mShenko fics on Ao3 and thought Opus is one of the best series in the tags. That was a pretty fucking phenomenal thing for someone to say.

[rowanisawriter]

last line meme

rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words.

thanks @nirikeehan and @demandthedoodles for the tags!

He lunges forward, the tip of the sword slamming into the dummy.

12 words is pretty short for me tbh, there is also only one comma lol this is a big improvement

tagging (not 12 people because that’s too many but I’ll do 8!): @samseabxrn @cr-noble-writes @hannahmationstudios @ar-lath-ma-cully @shadoedseptmbr @alphahelices @varricscrossbowbianca @monowires and anyone else who sees this, consider yourself tagged!

[ripley95]

9 People You Want to Know Better

Tagged by @ljandersen @alphahelices and @nerdyspeechy ! Thank you so much for the tag, everyone!

1. Three Ships:

Kaidan/Shepard

Alistair/Cousland

Jaal/Ryder

2. First ever ship:

I think it was technically Sydney Bristow/Michael Vaughn from Alias. But the first ship I ever really fell into the deep end for was Shepard/Kaidan.

3. Last song: 

Take Off by Prinze George

4. Last movie:

Everything Everywhere All at Once

5. Currently reading:

Surprisingly, nothing at the moment. I just haven’t had time to pick up a book recently.

6. Currently watching:

Cunk on Earth

7. Currently consuming:

Coffee

8. Currently craving:

A solid chunk of time to play a video game.

Tagging: I’m so late to this, and I think most people have done this already. I’ll tag anyone who happens to see this, missed getting tagged and wants to do it. (feel free to tag me as having tagged you)

[ljandersen]

9 People You Want to Know Better

I was tagged by @jessquil!  Thanks for thinking of me!  This was fun.

1. Three Ships: I’ve only really focused on one. I like a lot of pairings but very few have I written or read fanfic for. By that definition of shipping, I can scrape together three:

Shepard/Kaidan

Kaidan/Liara

Mulder/Scully

2. First ever ship: Mulder/Scully

3. Last song: “Easy Come Easy Go” Imagine Dragons. I listen to more podcasts than music.

4. Last movie: Wow . . . I rarely watch movies. Hmm . . . maybe Ticket to Paradise? I watched it with my mom.

5. Currently reading: "Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outling and Write a Riveting Novel” by Lisa Cron. I like reading about writing, and I usually have a lot of them on my Christmas list. This is one of them.

6. Currently watching: YOU on Netflix, the new season just dropped.

7. Currently consuming: Ice water. I had an apple scone and scrambled eggs for breakfast.

8. Currently craving: Nothing until I read this question. Hmm . . . maybe chicken piccata? 

Tagging: @ripley95 @rpgwrites @unicorn-farm @laelior @aricazorel @jamesholden @pigeontheoneandonly @alphahelices @ly-sari @theearthwelivein and anyone else who wants to play!

[rpgwrites]

H, S, Y! For the fanfic ask game :)

Thank you for asking!!

H: How would you describe your style?

I don’t know. I do like to explore things. See what can be different if this happened instead of that. 

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

I’m not really into tropes, but one I really love is found family. That blood isn’t always family. That’s always something I loved in stories. A character with a sad character only later finding their family. That’s just precious. 

Y: A character you want to protect.

All of them? Right now, I’ll go with Amber Ryder. Some of her stories are very close to my heart. And since I’m actively working on her series I think a lot about her right now. 

Feel free to ask me

[crqstalite]

WIP Meme

tagged by @pigeontheoneandonly ! thank you :D

Rules:  Write the latest line(s) from your WIP and tag as many people as there are words in the (last) line. Make a new post, don’t reblog.

Someone’s a little ticked off with Citlali’s theatrics, and it’s not Kodelyn this time around. A certain pilot is starting to wonder whether the self-sacrificing gene runs in the family.

“I care about you, and yeah, I care whether you make it back in one piece.

-

I’m...genuinely not sure if I even know sixteen writeblrs. Hm. (Edit: Apparently I know more than sixteen. Sorry for any double tags!)

@that-wasnt-so-bad @greencrusader13 @sheyshen @naaklasolus @staff-lieutenant-alenko @aricazorel @ma-sulevin @enasallavellan @ghostxofxartemis @mai-nonsense @midnightswaltz @actualanxiousswampwitch @a-mongoose @jedirangerpenguin @alphahelices @lyrishadow

[piecesofdust]

alphahelices said: psst you look cute as hell

<3 <3 <3

[rowanisawriter]

9 People You Want to Know Better

(thank you @alphahelices for the tag ✨)

1. Three ships: shepard/kaidan, cullen/trevelyan, and my latest obsession aloy/kotallo

2. First ever ship: nightwing/zatanna from young justice! my original otp ☝️

3. Last song: miracle aligner by the last shadow puppets. this is my on repeat comfort song. it’s also the hottest song in the universe

4. Last movie: wow I used to be a movie person before I had a baby, now I just rewatch frozen and encanto so let’s go with one of those two lol

5. Currently reading: tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin (it’s good so far!)

6. Currently watching: blues clues usually

7. Currently consuming: slowly making my way through a package of fundip I got myself for valentine’s day

8. Currently craving: at least two (2) business days in a house in the middle of the woods completely alone with just a notebook and a pen

9 people is a lot…. so tagging @little-box-of-wonders and @samseabxrn but no pressure ✨

[ripley95]

ahhh happy birthday! i hope your day is excellent and i’m so grateful someone as awesome as you is in the mass effect fandom. thank you for all the things you’ve created for us!!

Thank you so much for such a heartwarming birthday message! I’m so grateful you’re in the Mass Effect fandom too and I’m so happy to have met you and stumbled across your work! I think the day will be a nice relaxing one which is exactly what I wanted.

[ljandersen]

WIP Word Search

Tagged by @mordinette Thank you for thinking of me! I haven’t played one of these games in a long time. This was fun! I love word searches!

Rules: find the words in your fic, post the section, pick new words, and tag more people.

Prompt words: Safe, Ignore, Face

This is from the last chapters of Sideways Part 4!

Safe:

“Your thug made nice work of my safe.  You got your panties back, I assume?”

Ignore:

For once, she wanted the path less taken to be the path Kaidan ignored. 

Face:

“Tell us more about your wedding, Lola.” James pushed rose petals firmly out of his face. “We talking courtroom? Wedding chapel?”

I’ll tag: @ripley95 @rpgwrites @pigeontheoneandonly @aricazorel @halesshepardn7 @acciokaidanalenko @jamesholden @unicorn-farm @alphahelices @ficbrish @tealenko @laelior and anyone else who wants to play!

Prompt: Touch, Break, Hand

[rpgwrites]

For wip wednesday: reaction, running, time

Thank you for asking!!

Reaction

When his favourite part of the movie arrived he looked at her, wanting to see her reaction. But she drifted off to sleep.

Running

He peeked his head out of the crew quarters and was surprised not to find Ryder running but Liam. This was not a run of excitement but urgency.

Time

"One moment please."

Jaal looked in disbelief at the direction where his blue orb was. There was no time for SAM to say something like that. She needed help immediately.

Feel free to ask me