#other people's sheps

[pioneer-over-c]

"You and I, we are important right now. This is what will never happen again. Us."

My gift for @jentrevellan this Harbinger Holiday season! Aster is an extremely cool Shepard and it was a pleasure to be able to draw her!

Piece is rotatable in any direction so you can change the narrative a bit :> Hope you like it!

Thank you @masseffectholidaycheer for running this event so smoothly!

[the-lonelyshepherd]

the masses requested vanmari and who am i to refuse the people

[fuckhouse2theelectricboogaloo]

there's a new blog about venting and vague posting and name dropping called rpcvent

not only that but Jesta (spookyjesta) is reblogging from and contributing to it

Yeah this is definitely worse then the usual confession blog! This can lead to other rpers getting harassed, or drug through the mud for actual petty bullshit. Beacuse no one knows how to fucking handle their problems normally. 😔

If you see this blog or if your blog name gets dropped on it, please block and report it! We don't need more headassery ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE THAT’S BEEN GOING ON!!! 😭😭😭😭

[shepards-folly]

It wasn’t even really your fault. I don’t know why I can’t let go of it.

You’re allowed to be mad at me! You know that right?

You’re allowed to be hurt, Fin…

[avame]

malena! happy (belated) bday @lavampira 💙✨

[heyclickadee]

I want to know how Phee met the Hazard family. Did she meet them on Pabu, after making her way there as a refugee? Were they all refugees who happened to be looking for somewhere safe at the same time, and they met that way? Did Phee meet Shep a long time ago, before he even had a kid? Did Lyana grow up on Pabu? Did Shep grow up on Pabu, for that matter? Because it seems like they are people who come to Pabu late fleeing one violence or another, and others who have been there their whole lives, and I feel like Shep could fit into either category. Just. Generally, how did Phee end up being an honorary part of that little family?

[wantonlywindswept]

me, starting my mass effect replay and hearing the music hit:

[seithr]

heartbreaking: this user enjoys characters who have a romantic relationship that breaks off permanently in favour of a different one, but really hates when fans of the second one get really weird and hostile about the first one, so they're never fully satisfied

[lordofthemushrooms]

Literally obsessed with my own perception of Shepard. Obsessed with the things I’m making up in my own head that are not text in the gameplay.

Obsessed with how fucked up her relationship and subsequent breakup with Liara is. Can not stop thinking about her being mentally older than Liara (because of species aging differences since Liara herself says she’s hardly older than a child to the Asari) (and my Shep is around 40) and that causing them issues. Shepard falling so hard for Thane for a million reasons but also because he feels her equal when Liara feels….not that

Going fucking feral over how much Shepard is on the brink of mental collapse during 3 because the universes safety rests with her. But all she can think of at night when she tries to sleep is the very young Asari that she hurt terribly and the man that she loves dying without her.

[emrisemrisemris]

2917 words rated G

Finally the projector produced a coherent image, and Byron pulled himself to attention, and saluted. "Admiral Shepard."

She had an electronic cigarette with her this time, as well as the ever-present cup of coffee. She brewed it like rocket fuel; he'd gotten the taste from her. She looked exhausted, but was smiling. "You're never going to stop doing that, are you?"

"No, ma'am," Byron said, grinning. "Happy birthday. For what it's worth."

"Birthdays are a human thing. Don't think Reapers have them." Admiral Shepard took a drag on the cigarette and stared contemplatively into the middle distance. "Hell, that's enough of a reason to celebrate. Thanks, kid."

---

Shepard and his mother mark each other's birthdays, before and during the Reaper War. new fic, or rather old fic; I started this I don't know how many years ago and dug it out recently to poke at again.

A lot of different Shepards turn up in my fic, but Byron Narragansett Shepard - spacer, soldier, war hero, sentimental renegade - was my first playthrough and the one I still think of as "my" Shepard. His mother Hannah is a perennially tired lesbian engineer.

[the-lonelyshepherd]

your thing about fanon lottienat kinda validated my theory that fanon lottienat is just jackienat but worse

OGH yeah honestly….

like. jackienat is right there. they have a shitton of parallels that are exactly what makes lottienat cool as well, just without some of it but in place you get like. actual punk and popular but also actually nuanced. because it’s an actual big part of the characters!! like the opposites factor!! idk i think jackienat should be more popular it would be cool

[fuckhouse2theelectricboogaloo]

This isn't Shep related, but more of a funny discovery I made beacuse of Shep.

AIN'T THIS THE SAME BLOND BINCH PATCH USES AS AN FC!? 😭😭

[shepards-folly]

A wc!birdsibs doodle cause they’ve been in my head. [alt without the wet cat text under the cut]

[swordmaid]

all I ever draw is angsty shrios … I need to draw something happy soon I promise they’re not always miserable 😭

[pegglefan69]

patrick wolf long-awaited comeback REAL.....

[tarysande]

Mass Effect 2: The Case for the Heroine's Journey

I have a theory. And I think it's something others--especially other storytellers--might find interesting. It explains why some people absolutely adore Mass Effect 2 while others (not as many, in my experience!) think dealing with all the companions and their personal quests is boring or irrelevant.

What it boils down to is the difference between the Hero's Journey and the Heroine's Journey. There a couple of takes on the Heroine's Journey (ranging from more philosophical and psychoanalytical to more story-based), and I'm going to be pulling hard from the story-based iteration, which author Gail Carriger has written a fabulous book about. I highly recommend it.

One thing I want to mention right off the bat: the gender, sex, or sexuality of your protagonist has nothing to do with whether they're a hero or a heroine.

Everyone and their dog knows the Hero's Journey. A literal ton of writing advice refers to the Hero's Journey as if it's the be-all and end-all of narrative (thanks Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Christopher Vogler); it ain't called the monomyth for nothing.

But if a part of you grits your teeth every time it gets trotted out as The One Right Way to tell a story that sells or a story people love, you may have your mind blown by the concept of the Heroine's Journey. Every single one of you who tingles with excitement at the very thought of found family (or romance, for that matter)? Yeah, strap in, we're going for a ride.

I don't want to go into a lot of detail about the Hero's Journey; it's everywhere. You know it even if you don't realize you know it. So for brevity's sake, I'll give you wikipedia's one-sentence description: a hero goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed. Luke Skywalker. Everyone always talks about Luke Skywalker. And on the surface, Mass Effect could seem like a Hero's Journey, right?

According to Gail, a Hero's Journey boils down to

A repeated pattern of withdrawal and return, and those withdrawals are voluntary, as voluntary withdrawal and increased isolation yields self-reliant strength.

Victory is in isolation and asking for help is bad.

But looking at it (especially ME2) through the lens of the Heroine's Journey is where it gets interesting.

This is the infographic Gail created and supplies on her website:

In her book, Gail notes that not every element has to be present to qualify a story as a Hero/Heroine's Journey and the events don't have to happen specifically in this order.

In the Heroine's Journey

The heroine's withdrawal is involuntary; something is broken and she must abdicate the power she had in order to rebuild, retrieve, or reunite with what was taken or broken.

Victory is a group effort; asking for help is a sign of strength; and the protagonist realizes that while she can't do everything herself, she has surrounded herself with people whose skills she can effectively deploy.

In the Heroine's Journey, the DESCENT is involuntary. Something is done to her or taken from her, and it breaks her familial network.

In ME2, obviously, uh, the thing that's taken from Shepard is her own life. Of course, instead of that being the end of the story, it's the inciting incident that leads to the involuntary withdrawal from her found family on the Normandy, her connection to the Alliance, and her Spectre status. Her home is literally destroyed. And then, kinda hilariously, she wakes up in the literal underworld. You know. Cerberus, dog that guards the gates of Hades?

I play a very Paragon Shepard and haven't played Renegade, so I can't speak to that. However, I can tell you that my Paragon Shep wakes up working for Cerberus and promptly proceeds to gain more Renegade points in the first couple of missions--hell, the first couple of conversations with Miranda, Jacob, and TIM--than she got in all of ME1.

Jacob: Do you trust me, Shepard? Shepard: NO, omg.

I've probably played ME2 five or six times with this Shepard, and she always strikes me as a bit off, a bit manic even, until she sees Tali. And she doesn't really start to settle or feel like herself until Archangel takes off his helmet, believes she is who she says she is, and without hesitation agrees to follow her into hell.

(As the protagonist in his own story, Garrus is also a heroine on a Heroine's Journey, by the by. Shepard's death breaks his network; C-Sec and the Council's denial of the Reapers leads to his abdication of power in the hunt for justice. His underworld is Omega. He puts together a surrogate family to fight injustice; he learns to delegate; he doesn't do it for glory... And then Sidonis's betrayal breaks the new family and sends him on another cycle. My theory, however, is that if you let him kill Sidonis, his journey takes on the revenge aspect of a Hero's Journey instead of the family and reunification structure of a Heroine's Journey.)

In ME2, the arc of recruiting an ally, earning their loyalty, and deploying their suggestions to improve the entire team's chances of survival is repeated over and over; this is the SEARCH of the cycle. And anyone who's ever tried to race their way through ME2 without doing all those loyalty missions or without scanning all those planets for resources finds out pretty quick why they're important.

So, while you potentially could race through ME1 without even recruiting several teammates (did you even know you can play that game without recruiting Garrus???), thereby making it much more of a Hero's Journey of the Strength of the Individual, you really can't do that in ME2 without massive casualties. You need the people around you. You need to build relationships. And you need to learn to delegate well, or things will absolutely fall apart during the end run.

Even the stated mission of ME2 is more Heroine's Journey. You're not fighting for glory; in fact, most of the people who used to be in awe of you now think you're a crazy terrorist. You're fighting to stop what's happening to human colonists.

The end run is so satisfying specifically because it leans in to the Heroine's Journey of information gathering and network building. You cannot beat the game as a solitary soldier. You cannot achieve a good outcome--minimal deaths, etc.--without having spent a lot of time and effort gaining the loyalty of your crew and then knowing how to deploy them to best serve the whole team.

ME2 is a story about finding and building a family after the last one is broken.

And though it's a whole other can of worms, I actually think the reason why the ending of ME3 was ultimately so unsatisfying for so many (again, not all) is because the majority of the game is once again a Heroine's Journey--team building and information gathering across the galaxy--but the endgame pulls the expected narrative out from under you. Instead of actually using the resources you've so carefully built, you're quite literally beamed up into complete isolation (weakness) and left to make a choice in isolation. It breaks the narrative promise that's been set up since the beginning of the game. And, whether you realize it or not, that's a huge part of why that lonely choice feels so hollow. Instead of a structured reunion and a rebuilt network, it's actually the broken family and involuntary descent that heralds the beginning of a new Heroine's Journey--not the the end of a successful one.

Also, incidentally? It's Heroine's Journeys that usually get satisfying instead of distracting-the-hero-from-his-real-mission romance, banter, fully realized side characters, and humor.