#behold my secret thoughts about multi-fandom blurbos making out

[zet-sway]

tell me about your secret crossover with your side blorbo Jack Harkness aka my baby the light of my life the one true and only. but only if you want to. no pressure.

Oh my gosh oh my gosh you flatter me, thank you for asking ;u;

So years ago when I first started writing mass effect fic, I also watched Torchwood and Dr. Who for the first time, in that order lol I became enamored with Jack. He's a very handsome, witty, and complicated character with a ton of flaws and history.

Naturally, I had a weird brainmash of Torchwood /Mass Effect thoughts. It's extremely easy to drop Jack in the canon Mass Effect timeline by virtue of the fact that he can't die. So I did exactly that. I designed a Shepard specifically for him. Her name is Vera.

I had a couple ideas of how he came aboard the Normandy,

One started with his ship being found disabled and long lost but still emitting a distress signal. They bring him aboard and he wakes up as soon as it's warm enough for him to resurrect, shenanigans ensue.

The other involves him being assigned to the ship by the human ambassador. I figured if space/time rifts exist in Cardiff, they could exist in other places too. Maybe Jack is still helping out with those. And maybe his organization (which I assume would not still be called Torchwood, but you never know) thinks the reapers might be a space time anomaly (and maybe they actually are!)

When he first joins the crew, Shepard thinks he's a fucking tinfoil hat looney who uses a military title for (seemingly) no reason. But they grow to respect each other because he connects her with resources. Hell maybe he even knows where illos is 🤔 because it fell through a time rift for a hot minute.

Anyway, Shepard dies in the collector attack and Liara contacts him to help secure her body, but doesn't reveal until later that she plans to give her to Cerberus with the intent of resurrecting her. This is a point of friction between them because Jack thinks the dead should be fucking left alone (because he can't fucking die lol) and doesn't wish his experience on anyone, even in a one-time scenario. But after Shepard returns, her and Jack have a very niche thing to connect over. And that's when their relationship starts to develop. I sorta wrote smut for them but not anything near what I've written for Thane lol

But probably my favorite part about this secret crossover is the ending. Because humanity eventually leaves the galaxy in the Torchwood universe. (I didn't use the Andromeda Initiative because I brainstormed this in like 2013 when Andromeda was not a thing.)

I came up with this thought that Jack knows about sentient machines that carried humanity out of the milky way, because he's from the distant future. Surprise, those were the reapers, controlled by Shepard. I chose the control ending for her so she could bridge the gap between the Mass Effect ending and Jack's future. I think control is really tragic but I love the idea of Jack finding out that these machines he's heard about in stories are actually this woman he came to love. It's angsty and terrible and yet so distinctly in line with him, I think.

Anyway, back then, I wrote a handful of drabbles about them, they're on AO3. The first one I wrote, before I thought up an entire saga for them, is called Heroes and it's secretly one of my favorite fics ;u;

Oh also my ship name for them is "sharkness" lmao

Thank you so much for asking!