#there's a lot of talk about Protheans

[springagainafter]

Post-Therum crew meeting!

I really miss the post-mission crew meetings in 2 and 3. In 2 it's just Miranda and Jacob talking at Shepard and in 3 I think the only time it happens is post-Thessia, when everyone's upset.

This one involves Liara - who sure is Having a Day - and PROTHEANS and Merrick just happening to have the answer to the question Liara's been spending fifty years trying to solve.

Joker was fabulous ("The Normandy isn't equipped to land in exploding volcanoes. They fry our sensors and melt our hull. Just for future reference") and shocked Liara a bit because hey, they almost died.

Apparently coping with humor is not a common trait in asari academia - Liara's comment was "It must be a human thing."

Much like Ash doesn't have much experience dealing with aliens, Liara doesn't have much experience dealing with humans.

She was grateful for being saved from the geth and the volcano (and no doubt the Prothean bubble, although she doesn't say that).

Kaidan asked if she knew what the Conduit was; Liara didn't know.

Liara: Only that it was somehow connected to the Prothean extinction. That is my real area of expertise. I have spent the last fifty years trying to find out what happened to them.

Merrick absolutely looked her up on the extranet before heading to Therum, so he has no grounds later to be all offended when she looks him up on the extranet.

This was prompted by a very awkward conversation with Joker earlier where Joker went straight into defensive mode and Merrick was a little startled because he hadn't known Joker was sick because he didn't read Joker's file first (because Anderson was all "why don't you talk to everyone before reading their files"). So naturally his reaction to getting a mission to find an asari scientist was "look her up on the extranet to get some idea of who I'll run into."

His main takeaway was that he was impressed by the sheer amount of research she's done, and he did notice that there were also multiple "here's why my esteemed colleague Dr. T'Soni is dead wrong" papers, which did not seem to slow Liara down any.

At this point he asked how old she was because wow, fifty years of research.

Liara: I hate to admit it, but I am only a hundred and six.

Ash chimed in and said she hoped she looked that good when she was Liara's age XD.

Liara: A century may seem a long time to a short-lived species like yours. But among the asari, I am barely considered more than a child.

Ohhhh, that is some Unfortunate phrasing coming from a character who's written as a love interest.

The intended reading (or what I *hope* the intended reading is) is what she says next: "That is why my research has not received the attention it deserves. Because of my youth, other asari scholars tend to dismiss my theories on what happened to the Protheans."

I do think it's significant that 1) other asari dismiss her and 2) the Normandy crew does not, which must make a lovely change and I'm just going to ignore the phrasing in that previous line because she acts like and is treated like an adult by everyone. Other asari in the same stage of life she's in are running around the galaxy being mercs or dancers or whatever and are also treated like adults.

The Normandy crew - aside from some mostly offscreen initial suspicion because she's Benezia's daughter - treats her like a Prothean expert and she gets referred to by her title and last name several times.

(The first conversation has Shepard calling her Liara from the get-go. Merrick absolutely gravely refers to her as "Dr. T'Soni" when he's talking to or about her most of the time, which is mostly out of respect - he'd do that even if he didn't like her - and a little bit because he's sticking with formality to hide the fact that he's attracted to her. Liara refers to him by his title for similar reasons).

Anyway, Merrick listened to her talk for a while about PROTHEANS and how "the galaxy is built on a cycle of extinction" and "I've dedicated my life to finding out why the Protheans disappeared" and finally told her the Reapers wiped out them out.

Liara: The-- The Reapers? But I have never heard of-- How do you know this? What evidence do you have?

Here comes some random human casually having the answer to the problem that she's spent half of her life working on, whoops.

Merrick explained about the Prothean beacon ("It burned a vision into my brain" - that. uh. sure is a fun choice of words - and "I'm still trying to make sense of what it all means").

Liara fortunately knew a bit more about Prothean beacons and talked about them for a bit and how "finding one that still works is extremely rare." Ooof, that is painful given what's on Thessia.

And then she talked about how the beacons were only meant to work with Prothean physiology and got a little starry-eyed at Merrick (who spent most of this meeting letting her talk and looking grim because that's just his resting >:| face.)

Liara: I am amazed you were able to make sense of it at all. A lesser mind would have been destroyed by the process. You must be remarkably strong-willed, Commander.

My interpretation of Ash's rather snippy "This isn't helping us find Saren. Or the Conduit" line at this point is that it's related to the love triangle, so I'm ignoring it. Presumably she still redirected the conversation at this point since it's gotten off-track but didn't say it Like That, then Liara said she didn't have any info on how to find the Conduit or Saren.

But of course she's sticking around anyway, hooray!

Shepard: I don't know why Saren wanted you out of the picture. But I think we're a lot better off bringing you along.

Yeah!

The Saren's-out-to-get-Liara plot point gets totally dropped after this. I would not have minded some Fallen Order-esque "mercs occasionally pop out of nowhere to attack you" shenanigans.

Liara said thanks and that Saren might come after her again (he doesn't) and "I cannot think of anywhere that would be safer than on your ship" (aw) and "my knowledge of the Protheans would be useful later on."

For the romance, I vastly prefer this version of events rather than picking her up post-Feros. She's had a tough enough day without having to do the mind meld with some human she's known for ten minutes; Merrick would not have been real thrilled about that prospect either.

Merrick told her it was good to have her on the team (and smiled a little!) and Liara thanked him again and narrowly avoided swooning right in front of him (alas).

Kaidan asked her when she'd last eaten or slept and that Dr. Chakwas should look at her (I LOVE Kaidan and Liara being friends, aaahh) and that was pretty much it for the meeting.

And then Merrick got to talk to the Council and immediately got defensive over Liara Dr. T'Soni when they were all "are you taking security precautions since she's Benezia's daughter?" And then they were all "did you really have to blow up those Prothean ruins" and he was all "yes. there were geth" and nobody was real happy but at least it was a mercifully brief chat.

[hawkeykirsah]

50 Things I Love About Kaidan Alenko

I love that little smile he gives Shepard in the med bay after Eden Prime.

I love his slip of the tongue on the Citadel in ME1 when he indirectly tells Shepard he thinks she’s beautiful.

I love his dry comments when you take him along groundside in ME1 and his snarky remarks when you talk to him back on the Normandy.

I love how annoyed he looks when Joker interrupts that almost-first kiss in front of the lockers.

I love that tentative smile he gives Shepard at the beginning of ME3.

I love that strut when he comes to Shepard’s aid in the Citadel DLC together with that smirk and the “Looks like you’re having a bad day, Shepard.”, and his smirk after asking the volus to open the gates for them on the Cision Motors skycar lot.

I love the entire Citadel DLC dinner.

I love his “Next time … wake me.”

I love the love and admiration you can see in his eyes when he comes to Shepard’s quarters before the assault on Cerberus headquarters. 

I love his “I lied. I didn’t come here for a quick drink”, and the grin on his face when he carries Shepard toward the bed.

I love how his voice wavers but doesn’t break when you talk to him in London and how he doesn’t care that everybody can see them when he kisses Shepard good-bye. 

I love his “Don’t Kaidan me!” on Mars.

I love how he turns half around and looks over his shoulder when Liara asks Shepard how they manage.

I love his incredulous “Me?” after Shepard tells him he’s always been stubborn.

I love how his voice drops at “ … can be the difference between success and sitting at home in your PJs taking red sand” when you talk to him at Huerta. (I’m certain he’s speaking from experience.)

I love how he places his hand over Shepard’s briefly after they tell him they care about what happens to him.

I love the determination on his face in the elevator during the Coup before he encounters Shepard and their team.

I love that short laugh of relief when Shepard tells him they couldn’t imagine facing the Reapers without him.

I love the moment you walk into the Starboard observation after he rejoins the Normandy and you see him staring into space.

I love how nervous he is on that first date on the Citadel.

I love his “I love you, Shepard. I always have.”

I love how he takes Shepard’s hand and presses it against his cheek.

I love his banter with Tali aboard the geth dreadnought.

I love his worried “Shepard!” when they step on that first mine on Rannoch.

I love how concerned he is while Shepard is in the geth consensus.

I love how he places his hand on Shepard’s shoulder on Mahavid.

I love his “Let’s make sure we never let time just slip by us, okay?” after returning from the mining facility.

I love his “I’m not too crazy about this plan” on Despoina followed by that little nod he gives Shepard after Shepard tells him they’ll be fine.

I love his worried “Never do that again” in the shuttle after Shepard talked to Leviathan and his “You scare the hell out of me with those risky stunts …” back on the Normandy.

I love his “Nah” on Eden Prime after Liara realizes he was joking.

I love his enthusiasm back on the Normandy after finding Javik.

I love his level of snark on Thessia. (”Reaper convention”, all his “… looks like a Prothean” comments at the temple, etc.)

I love his comment about liking a challenge when Shepard tells him Joker has a terrible poker face.

I love his reaction to James “Flawed implant” comment during the party.

I love his “Wow, Shepard. Did you really just say that?” if you side with James at the party.

I love watching him and James doing push-ups (and that Kaidan wins even without Kasumi sitting on James’ back).

I love his “You’re the boss. Except when you’re not. And in that case … find me later”.

I love the wake up-scene after the party.

I love the once over with that predatory smirk he gives a male Shepard in the romance scene.

I love that he wants to be Shepard’s rock and soft place to land.

I love the look on his face when Shepard runs their fingers along his cheekbone and then down to his chest before gently placing them on his chin and giving him a kiss after waking from their nightmare.

I love his “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen” after getting injured during the run for the beam. (Stubborn, remember?)

I love his “I love you, too. Be careful.” (Just rip out my heart and stomp on it why don’t you?)

I love his “And I’m not leaving, either!” at the beginning of ME2. (*cough*stubborn*cough*) 

I love his integrity.

I love his friendship with Ash.

I love seeing him and Shepard remembering Ash’s sacrifice after disarming the bomb on Tuchanka.

I love his “Why can’t it be both? Ow, my heart!” before entering the casino and his disappointed “And here I had this good cop routine all planned” after finding Elijah Khan.

I love his apology for tripping at the Ardat-Yakshi monastery.

I love his shoulders. Seriously. They do things to me.

[omegastation]

Musings about Liara & grief post Thessia

I know we appreciate characters in our own way, and what would frustrate me would not frustrate someone else. But Liara post Thessia has often been talked about as selfish and focused on her own pain, ignorant and/or dismissive of everything that happened to others before. I disagree, because every single time - for every loss - she has shown empathy. Even on Thessia, when her own planet was dying, she tried to put her own hand on Shepard’s shoulder as if to comfort them. And that’s one example. I truly think Liara cares a lot, even too much sometimes.

But really there are many things to consider:

We truly don’t know how we react to things until it happens to us. It’s one thing to have empathy for others, but you truly grasp the horror when it’s done to you. It’s one thing to see another species being deformed and changed by Reaper tech, but seeing features that are your own, familiar to you, being torn apart in front of you? That’s something else. Seeing a planet destroyed, you feel empathy. Your own planet and civilization? What are you supposed to do next? Liara does things, that’s how she fixes what isn’t working. But facing this kind of devastation, what’s the next step?

Liara post Thessia is not just grieving people. She’s also dealing with all the revelations regarding the protheans. I think, in the conversation with Javik, that her anger is misdirected, and he knows it, and he takes care of it in the best way possible. But she’s angry because: 

The asari probably didn’t achieve the excellence she believed they ought to achieve to save the cycle

She hints that she believed they would be protected and didn’t help them as much as she thinks she should have

Her research and career feel like a joke to her 

Her mother hid things from her 

Her entire species hid a big secret that, if known, might have changed the galaxy and this cycle’s future 

There's a lot of guilt and shame in her post Thessia. It's not self-righteous anger. It's never been about that.

And thankfully, Shepard reminds her that she can still do things to help people. That's the moment right there with her face full of tears:

She finds the will to go on, gets up and tries to help the refugees.  She thanks Shepard.

For this moment, I think she’s allowed the tears, because grief can be so devastating. Getting up at all is already a big step. But I don't think there's any moment there where she believes her pain is worse than anyone else. And her pain doesn't take away from others, it doesn't mean everyone else isn't in pain! I don't think ME3 is trying to tell us that. The opposite in fact.

Earlier Tali is found near the wall with all the names of the people they lost, Legion is added there. Garrus has found his family is safe, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have tough choices to make. Joker talked about his family and Reapers going to destroy the colony they live in. They're all allowed their moment of grief and triumph. Liara's deepest grief is just at that moment. And she's not the only one being comforted. Garrus and Tali both really worry about Liara, but they each have reassuring words for Shepard post Thessia. Joker and Anderson are focused on taking care of Shepard as well.

People need people, and they're all dealing with grief in their own way. They also all love each other very deeply and it shows. That's my conclusion post Thessia.

[sol-consort]

Javik talks a lot of shit about other races and calling them primitive, but rarely humans.

Sure, he mentions we were also primitive but he isn't demeaning. He doesn't mention embarrassing past facts about us like he does about the salarians or asari.

It makes me think, does he like humans? Have a preference for them, perhaps? We know the protheans kidnapped a human from the Stone Age back in an ME1 artifact.

Do they find us adorable? Cute? Like he we look at cats or dogs but make fun of other animals a lot? Like If I woke up 50k years later, I'd be excited if cats evolved to be sapient but if a roach did then I'd have the same reaction as Javik.

He doesn't praise people, so the fact he isn't as condescending to humans as other races shows his affection for us, huh?

[writtenjewels]

Informal

Shepard was excited when he stepped on board the Normandy. Captain Anderson prepped him on what he would find: a sleek frigate with an unusual set-up for the CIC. Apparently that part of the ship was inspired by the turians. It would definitely take some getting used to, but what better way to flatter your former enemy than to model your command center after their design?

He wished he had more time to read up on the crew before launch. Some of the names looked familiar—no doubt his parents talked about them, or possibly even worked with them—but Shepard wasn't familiar with anybody. He trusted Anderson's judgment, though.

Shepard stepped onto the bridge, where he found the pilot and copilot, along with their Spectre guest. Though he hadn't gotten a chance to talk with any of them yet, Shepard already knew that the pilot preferred being called “Joker” and that the guy in the copilot seat was a biotic. Even if he hadn't read it in the lieutenant's file, everyone onboard was talking about Alenko's biotics. Just one of the many factors that made this shakedown run a little unusual.

After Nihlus left the bridge, Joker declared, “I hate that guy.”

“Nihlus gave you a compliment,” Alenko remarked, “so you hate him?”

“Spectres are bad news,” Joker insisted. “Call me paranoid.”

“You're paranoid,” Alenko obliged without missing a beat. Shepard had to fight back the laugh that wanted to burst out from that. The conversation continued, with Joker warning Anderson that Nihlus was on his way.

“He's already here, Joker,” the captain replied.

“Is it me, or is the captain always angry?” Joker observed.

“Only when he's talking to you, Joker,” Alenko responded. Again, Shepard had to bite back his laugh. He tried to catch Alenko's eye, and the lieutenant looked up to meet his gaze. Alenko's lip pulled up in the barest of smiles and there was a glint in his hazel eyes. Shepard smiled back at him, then they both broke eye contact to focus back on their tasks.

Shepard still hadn't lost the smile when he stepped into the meeting between Nihlus and Anderson. He found himself grateful for Alenko's playful banter putting him in a good mood. He needed it to balance the seriousness of what this “shakedown” run was really about.

No one was in the mood for playful banter after Eden Prime. Losing Jenkins weighed on Shepard, and every time he closed his eyes, his mind would play back the images from the beacon. They had some down-time before reaching the Citadel and Shepard was feeling restless. He left the crew quarters with no real destination in mind.

He found Alenko at a work station. The biotic wiped an arm across his brow and stepped away from the console. His expression was tight and strained, but the moment he spotted Shepard it cleared. He snapped a salute.

“At ease.” Shepard waved him off. Alenko relaxed slightly.

“How are you feeling, Commander?”

“I don't know how I can answer that, Lieutenant.”

“For me, I think 'shitty' would about sum it up,” Alenko commented. Shepard felt his lip twitch and a brief lightness filled him. “Corporal Jenkins was just a kid, eager to get his feet wet on a real mission. And Nihlus...” He let out a breath. “He was a Council Spectre. I can't imagine how his death is going to reflect on the Alliance. Then there's the beacon—a priceless Prothean artifact, and it was destroyed on our watch. So... yeah, things are shitty.”

“Hard to find a bright side,” Shepard sighed.

“We're going to the Citadel,” Alenko reminded him. “The hub of the galaxy, where all the species come together. I've only ever heard about its size and scope before. It'll be incredible to see it in person. And we'll get to see all the other aliens that make up our galaxy. There will be asari, salarians, elcor, and volus. It's an opportunity to learn more about them.”

“Wow.” Shepard let out a soft laugh. “I like your optimism, Lieutenant.” It was more than that. Alenko had clearly been thinking a lot about their situation, both the good and bad. The fact that he could be optimistic made Shepard more hopeful, too.

“I'm just hoping some good comes out of all this, that's all,” Alenko said. “Sorry if I'm being too informal,” he quickly added. “Something about this reminds me of Brain Camp, and we were never big on protocol there.”

“Brain Camp?” Shepard echoed.

“That's what we called it. Officially, it was known as Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training. I'll tell you about it later.”

“I look forward to it. And don't worry too much about informality. From what I saw on the bridge, it's a strength of yours.”

“Oh.” Alenko looked surprised. His expression softened and he chuckled. “You'd be the first of my commanding officers to even notice, let alone consider it a strength.”

“I'm honored.” Shepard smiled at him. “I hope I can see more of it in the future.” That got Alenko to smile back at him.

Their situation was still shitty, but Shepard was feeling better about it after talking to the lieutenant.

[seigephoenix]

Kinktober 2024: Blindfold

Just 8 days left in October! I'll have my Kinktober set to reblog all day, ending with the finale of the "Don't Say a Word" fic for Halloween. After that, expect lots of Dragon Age: Veilguard stuff popping up (with proper tags of course).

Ship: Rhys Shepard x Garrus Vakarian Content Warning: sass, p in v sex, description of alien anatomy, fingering Length: 2.8k

Rhys Shepard was many things but survivors was at the top of that list.  She wasn’t known as the most diplomatic soldier in the Alliance Navy, which was why top brass tended to keep her out of the front lines.  Though that had been blown to hell and back when she’d encountered that Prothean artifact during that fucked up mission with Nihlus.  Her methods weren’t universally loved because she didn’t care if someone was human so long as they got shit done.  Her rough exterior was enough to scare most people off, and she preferred it that way.  Letting people close let them hurt you, and she’d be damned if she’d be vulnerable in front of anyone again.  Until she died and was given a second chance.  Rhys swore she wouldn’t squander that chance, not when she knew what was coming.  So she gathered her crew and swore to take the fight to the Collectors.

Commander Quarters

Rhys leaned back on her couch as she studied the smooth metal ceiling.  She’d just gotten out of the shower and her towel draped around her neck.  For once she let her midnight hair down from the tight bun falling over her shoulders in damp waves.  She ran a hand through it and shook her head at the onyx strands that flowed through her fingers like water.  The only thing she wouldn’t do was cut her hair; she’d put it into the tightest bun in the platoon but cutting it was out of the question.  She dropped her hand to the couch as she sighed.  “I fucked up again.”  She’d spoken to Garrus and left feeling like she’d done something wrong.  They’d just confronted Sidonis, and while she normally would be all for the ruthless options…  Something in her knew that doing so would break Garrus.  Rhys was used to shouldering those burdens but she didn’t think Garrus was nor did she want him too.

She recognized the burning hatred in his eyes, hell she’d felt it herself many times.  The only reason she survived so long during that assault was pure hatred.  Rhys wished she could help him, but she’d never known the right words to say to anyone let alone to someone she cared about.  Her pale green eyes cut to the door when it slid open.  Her eyes narrowed at that.  She wasn’t expecting anyone and EDI hadn’t given her any warning about her guest.  If it was Miranda again wanting to talk about plans, Rhys wasn’t sure what she’d do.  To her shock, Garrus walked through the door looking behind him as the door slid closed with a quiet hiss.

“Garrus?” Rhys asked quietly as she slowly got to her feet.  She realized she wasn’t wearing pants!  Rhys hadn’t expected any company for the evening.  “Wait a minute,” she said as she stepped towards the bathroom.  Rhys jumped when his hand reached out and blocked her.  She cut a glance over to him but realized he wouldn’t be bothered by her going without pants.  Not as if turians found humans that sexy, if she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t the epitome of femme fatale either.  “Sorry, what can I help you with?”

Rhys didn’t move as he stepped closer to her but her heart did start racing.  They’d shared that one night but it had been more like clumsy fumbling than anything else.  Garrus had been avoiding her since.  Rhys wouldn’t admit it hurt; she’d rather bite off her tongue.  Garrus simply stared at her and Rhys felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise in alarm.  She ducked and avoided the hand that reached out for her.  “Jesus, what the hell is going on Garrus?” Rhys demanded as she stepped away.

“Commander, do you require assistance?” EDI asked through the speaker and Rhys sighed and rubbed the back of her head, heedless of the way her shirt rose over her stomach.

“No EDI.  I can handle it just fine.  Don’t call in the cavalry please, I’d rather not have Miranda or the others catch me without pants.”  EDI gave the affirmation and the silence descended again.  “Now, care to explain what the hell you’re on about this time Vakarian?”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said and Rhys huffed.

“You were the one who bit my head off when I went to talk to you the morning after.”  Rhys waved dismissively as she crossed her arms under her breasts.  The urge to spit an insult rested on her tongue but she held it.  This was Garrus.  “I figured that you sated your curiosity and that was it.  Humans weren’t attractive to you and I understood.”  She turned away from him and towards her bed where she reached for her hair tie.  Rhys yelped when hands shoved her to the bed, she landed on her hands and knees.  She paused as her hair swung down over her shoulders, assessing to make sure what happened did happen.

“Vakarian…”  She spun around but his hand closed over her ankle.

“Mordin told me that humans have ways to show trust in the bedroom.  Is that true Shepard?”  Rhys stopped fighting him and looked up at him.

“That’s what you want to ask?”  He nodded and held her gaze before she dropped her head back to the bed.  “Ugh, yes.  There are certain ways to show complete trust in your partner in the bedroom.  That humans do, I mean.  I assume turians have similar things?” Rhys sat up and pulled her legs under her when he released her ankle.

“Something like that.  Most turians go into sex knowing it’s not going to be something that will hurt the other.”  Rhys wanted to roll her eyes but she resisted.

“Did Mordin tell you any of these trust activities?” Rhys asked as she propped her elbow on her knee when Garrus sat next to her on the bed.

“No.  He said I should ask you.”  Rhys cast a skeptical glance at him but she sighed.

“Well, there’s plenty.  There’s giving your partner total control over you.  How your body moves, tying them up, giving orders, not letting them orgasm until you say so, and then there’s smaller things.  Blindfolds are a basic activity to build trust.” Rhys told him plainly.

“Blindfolds?  You willingly do that with your partners?”

“It takes a lot to get me to bend for it, but yeah, I’ve done it before.  We assume that if we’re going to be blindfolded that we won’t be stabbed in the back by our partners.  For me, I don’t like leaving myself so unguarded.  It takes a lot of trust for me to let someone put a blindfold on me, it makes me nervous when I can’t see.  Thanks to Akuze.”  Garrus paused at her words.  She could sense the hesitation in him and looked over at her nightstand.  She grabbed the tie she’d kept from her dress blues.  Not that she had any occasion to wear them in the near future, so what better way to put it to use.  The material was a smooth silk that flowed over her fingers.

“What are you doing Shepard?”  Rhys wanted to laugh at how nervous he sounded.

“Relax Vakarian.  I’m just grabbing my tie.  It can double as a blindfold.  When your sight is cut off all the other senses become sharper to compensate.”  She let the silky material slide over her hands again and she wanted to grin as his eyes followed the movements.  “I’m guessing your conversation with Mordin was because you wanted to ask about us doing something like this?”

“I meant what I said Shepard.  You’re one of the few people I respect the hell out of in this galaxy.  I wanted to know how to make you feel good.”  Rhys felt her heart soften and she reached over to trail her fingers along the side of his face, falling away at the end of his mandibles.

“You could have just asked me.  Mordin can tell you all day long about sexual positions and orgasms and all that shit.  Doesn’t mean a damn thing.  Most humans are wired the same way biologically.  Sex to us is a lot more than just put tab A into slot B.”  Garrus looked down at her curiously.  “A lot of time it takes more atmosphere as you found from last time.  Typically, I’m not the kind of gal you wine and dine.  I’m happy with a romp in the sack to relieve tension.”

“But I want to make you see yourself like I do.”  Rhys paused at his words and looked up at him.  His hand reached out and stroked her hair, letting the strands cling to his rough skin before falling away.  Rhys felt the vulnerability trying to slip in and she fought desperately against it.  She wanted to lean into him and just let him make her forget everything.

“Alright then.  We can give this a try.  From my understanding, the Normandy is going to dock for repairs so there’s no mission that requires my attention tomorrow.  So we have the time.”  Rhy lifted the silk tie and slid it over her face, knotting it easily to make it snug.  She took a calming breath and reminded herself she was with Garrus.  “Alright.  I can’t see anything.”  She grinned when she felt his hand waving in front of her face.  “I can’t see your hand but I can feel it moving,” she said with a smile.

Rhys sucked in a breath when his hand rested against her breast.  The last time he hadn’t paid much attention to them, but not this time.  Her head fell back when he squeezed hissing when her nipple pebbled against the palm of his hand.  A needy whimper escaped when he gently pinched her nipple, she could tell how cautious he was being.  “I’m not made of glass Garrus,” she said sensing the way he stiffened.  “A little roughness isn’t going to break me.”  Rhys squealed when her back hit the bed followed by a laugh as he knelt between her legs.  He eased his hands up between her thighs feeding the ache throbbing in her body.

She lifted her hips when he hooked his fingers in the sides of her underwear, shuddering when he pulled them away from her.  Rhys suppressed the whine when his thumbs caressed the inside of her knees.  She wanted his hands on her and driving her wild until she forgot this whole damn mission.  He slid his hands down her thighs, skimming over her trembling core, before tugging her tank top off her.  Rhys huffed as she propped up on her elbows.  “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“Having the galaxy’s most badass Commander at my mercy?  No, of course I’m not enjoying this.”  He leaned in and nibbled at her shoulder, earning a soft moan from her lips.  She groaned as her walls squeezed around nothing when his tongue soothed the sting.

“Sarcasm doesn’t, ah, doesn’t become you,” she moaned.  His hands slid around and cupped her ass squeezing the soft skin.  His talons scraped against her leaving trails of white hot heat behind.  His tongue reached out and teased her nipple until it was a hardened point beneath him.  Rhys let out a keening whimper when he nipped the side of her breast.  Garrus slid one hand between her legs, chuckling when he felt her thighs squeeze his arm to lock it in place.

He rested his palm against her clit, just one tiny push and she’d get the friction she needed.  Rhys rocked her hips against his hand, whining when the spike of heat burst low in her belly.  “Yes.”  Garrus paused at the soft word and she whimpered.  “Don’t stop.  Please.”

Garrus leaned in and Rhys was surrounded by him.  She’d never get tired of his scent.  Gun oil and the sharp sting of smell right before a thunderstorm hit.  Her hands reached for him as she curled into him with his palm grinding down on her clit.  Her fingers curled over the chitin layering over the softer layers of his skin, desperate for something to cling to at the pleasure haze that threatened to consume her mind.  Her toes curled into the blanket as the pleasure built higher and higher, threatening to explode.  She clenched her jaw on another needy whimper for more.

“Rhys.”  Garrus’s low voice was right in her ear.  A keening moan escaped when he slid a finger inside of her body.  She felt his subvocals against her body when her walls squeezed his finger.  She trailed her fingers down over his chest, memorizing the shape and feel of him.  She brushed over the plate that protected his cock and eased it to the side.  He growled when she palmed his cock.

Her fingers wrapped around him, marveling at how different he was.  Turgid and wide.  Rhys wondered how it fit the last time.  Her lips parted on a needy sigh when his finger curled inside of her.  Her head dropped back as the heat broke inside of her.  Her thighs squeezed tight around his arm, the moans coming through clenched teeth as it crashed through her in a violent wave.  Rhys fell backwards after the last wave ebbed and laid there catching her breath.  She sensed him shifting and she grabbed his arm.

“Not yet.”  She flipped over onto her stomach and reached for the lubricant in her nightstand.  Even as wet as she was there was no way she was risking it.  “We’re not done yet Garrus.”  She handed the bottle over to him and raised her ass in the air towards him.  A universal sign she hoped.

Rhys grabbed a pillow to hold.  A sharp cry escaped when his cock slid inside.  Her fingers twisted in the sheets as the subtle ridges along the sides of his cock hit just right.  Her sensitive walls tightened around his cock until he was fully inside her.  His talons grabbed her waist, digging into the soft skin.  Rhys knew she’d have bruises later.  She rocked back against him, relishing the low growl from him.  Rhys pitched forward when he slammed into her deep.  Her lips parted on whimpers for him to go faster, go harder.  She didn’t even care that he was seeing the scars from Akuze, something she never showed anyone.  All she could focus on was how good his cock felt inside of her.

Tiny stabs of pain at her hips merely heightened the pleasure clouding her mind.  Garrus leaned over her, letting his body rub against hers with each thrust.  He reached under her to squeeze her breast in time to his thrusts.  His other hand slipped between her legs to tease her clit.  She was going to go crazy.  Her head thrashed at the heat building low in her belly again.  His subvocals were rumbling against her back each time his cock hit deep inside of her.

“You know what I want Rhys,” he murmured right against her ear.  “So go ahead and give it to me.”  Rhys whimpered when his finger massaged her clit, keeping her skirting the edge when all she wanted was to throw herself into the abyss.

“I.  Please.”  Rhys couldn’t string two words together, she merely rocked back to meet his thrusts.  Sweat dripped down her forehead, plastering her hair to her temple.  Her fingers curled into the sheets as the sweet tension built to a breaking point.  “Fuck, Garrus.”  Rhys moaned as her walls fluttered around his cock with each wave of heat that rolled through her.  Her first orgasm had been like a tempest battering a beach, this orgasm was slow as molasses in winter.  Rhys savored each spasm of pleasure moaning only a little when Garrus pulled out of her.  She knew why he did it, but she so desperately wanted to feel him come inside of her.

Rhys struggled to get her breathing back to normal as she laid on her bed limply.  She didn’t have the energy to move at the moment and wasn’t keen on doing so either.  She jumped a little when his hands tugged the blindfold off.  “I see by your expression that you enjoyed that?”

“Hmm.  Don’t make it a habit Vakarian.” Rhys grinned as he huffed at her.  “Come on.”  She turned her head to look at him and extended a hand to him.  Garrus grasped hers in his and grunted when she tugged him down to the bed.  Before he could get his bearings, she was already tucked up against him.  One leg thrown over his hips, and her arms wrapped around his neck.

“You can’t be comfortable like that…”  Rhys huffed.

“I’ve slept in worse conditions than this.  Now, let’s get some sleep Vakarian.  We can talk tomorrow morning when I’m able to string words together.”  Garrus didn’t comment on her sarcasm, but he shifted until his arm draped across her waist.  They had plenty of time to talk about it, and to his surprise he looked forward to it.

[holedaemon]

ASS RESPECT 3: Garrus and Wrex go to White Castle

It's done. We did it. This weekend Ari (@freakpatrol) and I finished the Mass Effect trilogy. The third game is... massively flawed. There's *a lot* about it that I did not like, but despite that, it had some really profound aspects that I won't soon forget.

THE GOOD

MISCELLANEOUS

Shepard can run much longer now

They brought back weapon mods

The armor system is pretty decent, allows for a lot of customization

You can heal in battle using medi-gel again

Garrus is able to be romanced

ENEMIES

There are three factions you go up against in Mass Effect 3. Primarily, the Reapers & their forces, Cerberus, and to a lesser extent, the Geth. I'm here to talk about the Reapers' forces. In terms of design & background, they are peak. BioWare really went all out with them. They essentially took the idea of the Husks and how they are genetically altered, cybernetically enhanced humans, and applied that to most of the other races seen throughout the series. The process leaves them as former shells of themselves, the origin race barely being distinguishable. It's the perfect body horror and totally up my alley. A few of them that really stood out to me:

Cannibals

Harvested Batarians. They have a tendency to eat corpses they find on the battlefield, hence their name

Brutes

Unique in that they are a combination of Turians & Krogan. They remind me of the Tank from Left 4 Dead. Very fun to rip apart with a shotgun

Banshees

Harvested Asari, possibly specifically Ardat-Yakshi? Wasn't really clear. They resemble the Spitter from Left 4 Dead and function similarly to the Summoners from DOOM 2016. Ari HATES these things. Every time one of them screamed I'd hear "Oh I hate that noise"

SQUADMATES

The only new squadmate that really matters in 3 is Javik. You find him on a colony planet that's been overrun by Cerberus. He's a Prothean that's been in cryostatis for the last 50,000 years; when the Reapers last attacked. This is our first time SEEING what the Protheans looked like, and honestly they're pretty cool. Prothean society draws heavy inspiration from Rome & its structure, so you can imagine what Javik is like. He's a soldier; very cold & calculated, carries a lot of baggage knowing he failed his mission & his people perished, which manifests as him being a total dick, but we like Javik, so he gets a pass. The only thing I find disappointing is how he was included in the story, I'll elaborate on that later.

STORY BEATS

Okay, so let's be clear here: the story in the third game more or less sucks major balls. Turns out that's because the lead writer for the first two games left to work on fucking Star Wars: The Old Republic??? That said, there are some really profound moments throughout the story that I absolutely adore, even if they break my heart.

The first being summoning Kalros to fight the Reaper destroyer on Tuchanka. Before you run in to the arena to set off the hammers, Wrex stops you to say

You've been a champion to the Krogan people, a friend of Clan Urdnot... and a sister to me. To every Krogan born after this day, the name "Shepard" will mean "hero!"

HANDS DOWN my favorite Wrex quote.... Just. Gah. I love his development throughout the trilogy. Going from a grumpy merc with no purpose to the fearless leader of the Krogan people. It fills my heart with joy. He also calls Garrus his friend............ THEY HATED EACH OTHER IN THE FIRST GAME!!! NOW THEY'RE FRIENDS REMINISCING ABOUT THE OLD TIMES. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!

Still on Tuchanka, this next moment hit me HARD. I can't remember the last time I cried at a video game, but this fucking got me.

Kalros has defeated the Reaper by pulling it fucking underground. We're at the Shroud ready to disperse the Genophage cure across Tuchanka. Except the Shroud has been damaged, it's coming down, and the STG (basically Salarian armed forces) has sabotaged it to prevent curing the sterilization plague. Mordin walks into the elevator leading up to the top of the Shroud, his final conversation with Shepard goes

Shepard: I'm sorry Mordin: I'm not. Had to be me. ... Mordin: Someone else might have gotten it wrong.

Hundreds of feet in the air, amid explosions, Mordin hums the same Salarian scientist tune he sang to Shepard in the second game. He pauses, the sabotage has been overridden, the cure is being dispersed; the scientist looks out over the Tuchanka skyline and smiles. Peace has been made with his fate, he can die happy knowing his wrong has been corrected. He picks up singing his song, but before he can finish the verse, the top of the Shroud explodes. That's the last we see of Mordin Solus.

Compounding the loss of Mordin, during a conversation prior to the events of Tuchanka, he tells Shepard that the Genophage needs to be cured. He does not relent that it was the correct thing to do for the time, but the circumstances have changed and it needed to be stopped. Shepard also asks him what he plans to do after the war had been won. Mordin talks about spending his final days on a warm beach, collecting seashells. The commander retorts saying he would go crazy within an hour, the Salarian responds saying he might run tests on the seashells.

I was really torn up about Mordin for a few days following this LMAO. He really grew on me over the course of the 2nd and 3rd game, hands down one of my favorite characters. Seeing him go sucked a lot, but I'm glad he was able to do it on his own terms. Curing the Genophage was the right thing to do, and I think it really added a lot to his character. He gave up his life so many, many Krogan could live. I love that a lot.

There's one last moment that really stuck with me.

The team is on Rannoch, the Quarian home world. They just defeated a Reaper that was transmitting a signal to control the Geth. Besides controlling the Geth, the Reaper transmission was also upgrading the synthetics. Their consciousness was on par with that of an alive being. Legion reveals to Shepard that he still has this code running in his systems. If he were to upload it to the Geth collective, the entire race would be upgraded to become fully sentient & alive. The commander agrees, telling him to get started, and asking Tali to delay the impending Quarian attack on the Geth. After some bickering with the Quarian admirals, the fleet hold their fire. Legion says

Legion: Error: copying code is insufficient. Direct personality dissemination, required. Legion: Shepard-Commander, I must go to them. I'm... sorry. It's the only way. Tali: Legion, the answer to your question... was yes. Legion: I know, Tali, but thank you. Legion: Keelah se'lai.

Legion falls to his knees in front of the Rannoch sun. In his final moments, he achieved true sentience, evident by his use of "I" instead of "we," as well as calling Tali by her first name. He was an equal, he was a person, he was truly alive. Through his actions, Legion brought on a new era of peace between the Geth and Quarians. In the days following his death, the Quarians had returned to their home planet and started to rebuild with the help of their newfound allies. The Geth's assistance was speeding up the rebuild exponetially. Processes that would have taken years, were taking days to weeks. Some Geth also volunteered to upload themselves into the suits of Quarians, to kickstart their immune systems. This would make the environmental suits the former nomads wore irrelevant in a few short years.

Losing Legion hurts A LOT. He was my precious baby boy. Everything about his death compounded the loss tenfold. The fact that he achieved personhood; the way he fell in front of the sun; his uttering of keelah se'lai as he keeled over... just. UGH. Much like Mordin, his death was not in vain. Had he not done what he did, the Quarians would have been wiped from the galaxy by the Geth. He managed to save two civilization and end a 300 year conflict. This has really, really stuck with me. Genuinely one of my favorite moments & outcomes in any video game, period. I love Legion, I love the Geth, I love what they all stand for & represent, and how they grow over the course of the series. It's fucking awesome.

THE BAD

That's about all I have in terms of good things, now onto the bad.

ACCESSIBILITY

Mass Effect 3 took a step backwards from 2 in terms of accessibility. The second game was perfect; menus were simple and concise. I actually knew what I was doing & where to go. That's not true of 3!!! Shit's back to being convoluted & confusing!!! I look at a menu and say "what the fuck is this?" It sucks!!!!

The other thing is the galaxy map. On the map overview, it tells you the description of missions in certain systems, not the name!!!! So you'll just have shit like "go to Anderson's apartment" appearing over nebula & shit, like what???

Your journal is a disaster too. Missions, both main & side, were grouped together in one tab, so you can't easily decipher which is which. They also decided to remove mission details, rather only giving you a vague description of what you needed to do??? Extremely frustrating.

GAMEPLAY

The movement sucks. It's like halfway to where it needs to be. I gotta give them credit for trying to make it good, but they just fucking floundered. Everything is done with the space bar, and so fucking often when I tried to interact with stuff, Shepard would take cover or do a fucking roll in the wrong direction instead of doing what I wanted her to do. It got genuinely annoying.

Another big issue were missions. For some reason, BioWare decided that missions should expire in this game, except they don't tell you when!!!!!!! SO YOU JUST HAVE TO GUESS!!!!!!! COMPOUNDING THAT, THEY GIVE YOU SO MANY MISSIONS. Literally I had like 20 missions at one point. Most of them were just fetch quests too. The formula for fetch quests is basically as follows:

get mission from random NPC

go to system

ping map to find scannable locations

uh oh, you probably alerted the Reapers. Which means you can't scan in peace without doing a mission.

if you can somehow avoid the Reapers, scan location for random junk until you find your fetch quest item

take it back to random NPC

rinse & repeat 100,000 times

Not a big thing but they... got rid of all of the minigames? There's no more hacking minigames, rather when you need to access an area, you just interact with the door & stand there for a few seconds. Again, not a big deal, but definitely a step in the wrong direction. There's also no resource collection, which I really enjoyed.

Again, this one is less of a problem but just kinda weird. The game is fucking easy. I died less than 10 times in combat. I didn't even know you could heal with medi-gel till the finale. I barely ever had to take cover, I could just run & gun and be fine. Compare this to 2 where I was dying left and right. My performance in the prior game was so dogshit that I think Ari was starting to get annoyed by it, so often would they say "BABE TAKE COVER," meanwhile I'd look like this

SQUADMATES

I was really kinda disappointed with the squadmate selection this time around. The last two games had so many different characters that I really jived with, but 3's selection was pretty lackluster. So as soon as I could, I took Garrus everywhere with me, and would switch between Javik & Tali for the secondary. Not bad, but not ideal. I don't really like human squadmates, so I never picked James or Kaidan. James is just too dude-bro military hot head for me; Kaidan's a whiner & got really annoying. Giving EDI a body was unnecessary, but cool I guess? Her relationship with Joker was cute. Never really cared for her much as a squadmate though. Liara was also just kinda... meh. I think I was really just spoiled by having Wrex and Legion as options in prior entries.

THE CITADEL

Okay this is a quick thing: you spend WAY too much time on the Citadel. This kinda ties back into my complaints on missions, but, I swear a huge portion of the game is spent there, doing side missions. It's fucking boring, man. I really did not enjoy any of the time spent in between priority missions. The citadel is novel at first, but by the end of the game, you've spent at least a few hours just running between the same 4-5 floors picking up quests, turning quests, listening to NPCs. GAH.

THE STORY

Okay, so like I said, Mass Effect 3 has some really good subplots that I enjoyed a lot!!! Overall though, dude, the story is just... weak, the ending especially. Ari and I spent some time reading the Wikipedia article detailing the controversy surrounding this game, and it makes sense. Like, once BioWare lost the aforementioned writer for the first two games, everything just went to shit.

The first thing that really irked me is the child Shepard sees die and his subsequent use throughout the story. Sure, alright, seeing someone so young die is traumatic, but why does it hold so much weight?? Shepard has seen thousands die, personally, she has taken the lives of at least 300,000 people, why does a single kid she never even spoke to for more than a second keep popping up? There's zero substance here. Keep the trauma, keep the dream sequences if you must, but use the people that really matter. Mordin, Legion, Thane, Ashley, I guess, even her fucking parents or squad on Akuze! USE ANYONE BUT A RANDOM CHILD!

Now, let's address the elephant in the room: the ending. That travesty blows shit out of ass, dude. Why is the aforementioned child there? What do you mean there's this intelligence that was created to solve a problem? What even is the problem?? Oh, it's that synthetics and organics don't really truly understand one each other? Okay. Why is that just now becoming the overarching problem of the series? Where was that concept in the first two games? The introduction of this intelligence, the Leviathans, and the "problem" really diminishes the story. It explains away the mystery of the cycle. It diminishes the Reapers a lot! Before, they were these mysterious, almost god-like machines from beyond the veil of reality. Their purpose was unknown & said to be incomprehensible to a normal mind. Turns out they just harvest the universe because it "solves a problem?" Like, fuck off, dude lmao. Giving any context whatsoever to the Reapers and their motives was a bad idea and really killed the magic that they brought.

Anyway, as you finish up talking to the child, you are giving three choices

Control the Reapers

Destroy the Reapers & all synthetic life (EDI, the Geth)

Use your DNA as a template for life to combine & share the same DNA between all species, organic & synthetic alike. (AKA the Synthesis)

Ari & I chose the last option, as it's allegedly the "true ending." Well, when you do that, Shepard jumps in the crucible, turns to mist, a huge explosion of green energy crosses the galaxy through the mass relays (breaking them in the process??), and everyone becomes cyborgs & "understands each other." Reapers & their forces stop fighting and begin to help rebuild the galaxy. Everybody glows green now? It's not well explained and even if it were it's stupid as fuck. Besides that, you're also violating the bodily rights of the entire galaxy?? Forcing change at a DNA level without anyone's consent?? Kind of a weird way to resolve a war. Furthermore, what about the Reaper's abominations? They're all sentient now! They're not fighting anymore! What do you do with them? What they once were is barely even recognizable!!

THE DLC

Alright, last talking point: the DLC. DLC is not a new concept in the Mass Effect games, and while it was not a big deal before, this time really bugged me.

Before I start: the DLC involving Aria & taking back Omega was really fun, I enjoyed it a lot. Anyways.

First off, JAVIK IS DLC????? THE PROTHEAN CHARACTER THAT IS SO VITAL TO THE STORY IS DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT THAT COSTS EXTRA???? REALLY AWFUL DECISION BIOWARE.

Second, the Leviathan DLC. I love the Leviathans, they're really cool creatures in design & concept. But again, their introduction and involvement in the story just Ruined the Reapers pretty much entirely. It sucks. I wish they were better utilized. Also, again, to put something so """important""" to the story in a DLC??? Fucking lame.

Finally, the house party DLC. It was fucking AWFUL. The entire mood of it does not fit the game ONE BIT. Every other sentence is some weird, unfunny quip. Brooks as a character is just fucking annoying. You're running around chasing your clone??? Then YOU HAVE A PARTY??? The dialogue throughout the party is just fucking awkward and forced. Kasumi and Saeed are there for some reason?? It just sucked. I could go on for hours about it but I'm just burned out even talking about this shit.

Overall, a really, really disappointing end to an otherwise fantastic series

Fuck this

[swaps55]

Mezzo - 06 - Control

Pairing: mshenko | Rating: M Tags: Canon-typical violence, trauma, dealing with your problems poorly, body autonomy struggles   Summary: The twists and turns of ME2, through the eyes of everyone but Commander Shepard. Chapter Summary: Kaidan runs into a familiar face. Dr. Chakwas does some detective work. EDI is always watching. AKA, the chapter with EDI feelings you were not prepared for. Thank you @sinvraal for betaing!

Chapter 6: Control | Read on Ao3

04 November 2185, Rosetta Nebula, Enoch System, Joab

As alien planets go, Joab is nice enough, but the best part about it is there are no geth to be seen.

“Incoming!” Pendergrass yells, barreling into Kaidan and flinging them both behind a rock fractions of a second before a grenade detonates.

No geth, but plenty of Blue Suns mercenaries.

Kaidan hits the ground hard, but the pain in his shoulder is a lot more manageable than the side effects of a thermite-coated grenade would have been.

“Get ready to eat your own dick, fucker,” Aslany growls from somewhere behind and to their left, seconds before her light-refracting cloak drops with a shimmer, and the batarian who threw the grenade gets a sniper bullet between his teeth.

Pendergrass laughs as she rolls off Kaidan, palms one of her owngrenades and loads it into the launch rail of her pistol. “Mine’s better,” she hollers as she aims and fires at the last two guarding the barricaded bunker door.

The EMP grenade erupts in a shower of arcing electricity, followed by dismayed cries. Two pulls of Aslany’s trigger and the door is no longer guarded.

The bunker they’re trying so hard to get into is unremarkable in all ways save the prothean signature buried somewhere inside it.  

“Let’s see what the hell they found in there,” Kaidan mutters, heading for the bunker. One of the batarians stirs on their way past. Aslany whips out a pistol and fires it through his faceplate without breaking stride.

Kaidan eyes her but says nothing. Better to wait and ask how she’s doing when she’s unarmed. Besides, he doesn’t want to talk about Shepard anymore than she does.

Pendergrass waves a hand with a flourish when she coaxes the door open. Resistance on the other side is surprisingly light, and they clear it without fanfare, to Pendergrass’ disappointment. What’s left is a hastily erected temporary quarters and haphazard lab equipment, all staged around a mining tunnel.

“Goto was right. These are definitely Hock’s goons,” Aslany says, nudging one of the cooling corpses with her boot.

“And they haven’t been here long,” Kaidan muses, scanning the disarrayed supplies.

“Who gets to go first into the creepy mining tunnel?” Pendergrass pipes up, hopeful.

Kaidan gestures for her to go ahead with a reluctant sigh. “Just don’t touch anything.”

“You’re no fun.”

She practically bounds into the tunnel, Aslany close on her six and Kaidan on Aslany’s. A few meters down the tunnel opens up into a larger chamber. 

Like the archives on Ilos, the air is musty, old, like time had taken a deep breath and just…stopped. The crumbling architecture shored into the excavated walls of the cavern doesn’t resemble Ilos any more than Therum had, but the sweeping curves of an innate, ancient computer interface are instantly familiar. 

“Prothean,” Kaidan murmurs.  

Read from the beginning | Read the rest on Ao3 | The Mezzo Playlist

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 2 replay, exploring and part of Tali’s loyalty mission:

Phi Clio

-Cyllene – There’s an archaic helium-3 refueling station. This implies someone found the system by FTL, rather than the mass relay.

-Parnassus – It has geothermal and solar power station. There’s no history of the planet or its government in Citadel Council records. Since Cyllene is on record, it must have been deleted.

-So what the hell is the deal with this system?

My take away is that once the mass relay was discovered, the Parnassus population bailed because now it was too close to main traffic routes.

I am very curious. I suspect it was used by the Council for purposes they did not want officially known. The Citadel Archives probably has a history for it.

Enoch

-Laban – There are bunkers from an ancient race that were blown apart by a dreadnought class weapon.

-Mizraim – There’s debris orbiting the planet indicating that artificial satellites were destroyed

-Joab – Thousands of years ago a primate like spacefaring species were destroyed by massive orbital bombardment to their population centers. They’re only known because of time capsules buried outside of population centers.

-The buried time capsules implies the species knew death was coming and took some measure, however small, to ensure they would be remembered. Pretty tragic.

-Is this where Liara got the idea to leave behind time capsules in ME3, just in case her cycle also lost the fight against the reapers?

-The most likely culprit are Reapers.

This comes back to what level of civilization Reapers destroy. Was this race just barely spacefaring? This is the only planet I’m aware of where they’re remains exist.

If so, it comes back to my hypothesis that the Reapers are very thorough when exterminating civilizations to prolong the next harvest. They destroy races well before they develop mass effect technology.

-N7: Archaeological Dig Site – To the shock of no one, the planet is Earth like. At least the haze is an interesting twist.

-According to one of the terminals, Exo-Geni contacted “co-executive” Commander Vido Santiago of the Blue Suns for transport.

Nice call back to Zaeed’s loyalty mission.

-And the Prothean pyramid returns! With a side of the prothean vision Shepard received in ME1.

For such a short mission they crammed a lot of references into it.

-Who did Shepard give the Prothean pyramid to? I hope not Cerberus, but it’s not specified.

Normandy

-The email from Leslie, one of the woman on Aeia, has more reflection and emotion about Ronald than anything Jacob has expressed.

It’s frustrating. Bioware clearly can use the mission to generate turmoil, but they refuse to let Jacob experience it.

-Speaking of Jacob, he has more to say this time.

-If you go renegade (by asking how he’s handling the revelations about his father!), he actually calls out your attempt to talk him through any trauma he has. He points out you don’t have the qualifications to do so.

-If you go neutral or paragon, it’s all about the mission.

It’s interesting – he refuses to dwell on personal issues, doesn’t want to hear that everyone will die, but also rejects the false optimism that everything will be okay.

It’s over all a very grounded approach, but shows how Jacob is less malleable than some other characters. He has hard boundaries with Shepard and won’t let Shepard overstep them, even to reassure him.

Since one of Jacob’s boundaries is Nothing Personal Ever, it results in a character that feels more distant than the other squad mates. It’s not rejection of Shepard, exactly, so much as Jacob’s coping mechanism is to work and never do internal reflection.

So the issue Jacob is in most dire need of help with is the one he refuses to let Shepard assist on.

-Mordin has more post loyalty dialogues than any other crew member. Most only have their initial post dialogue loyalty and than one more conversation. I think this is Mordin’s third such conversation.

-Why did salarians develop unconscious social cues to discourage others from prying into secrets? What the hell kind of evolutionary tract results in that?

-Mordin presumably does not have any children of his own, since he’s using his favorite nephew to personalize the conflict.

Given Mordin’s prestige, that must be by choice. I’m sure he’d have no trouble obtaining a breeding contract.

-He’s very happy to be participating in an effort that involves no ethical conflicts. This is something he can be unambiguously proud of.

-Zaeed says he can’t blame Jacob’s father. You do what you need to do to survive.

I say Zaeed deserves a punch to the face. At no point was it necessary for Ronald’s survival to rape his crew.

Raheel-Leyya

-Migrant Fleet – The amount of care Tali’s mission has compared to Jacob’s is stark.

There is so much world building and complexity in just the first part of Tali’s mission alone.

By comparison, Jacob’s mission was barebones and straight forward. There was no world building and never any ambiguity about Ronald’s actions. The only question was how he would be treated.

-Tali specifying the Normandy is not clean is a nice touch. Of course that would be a standard question to ask all docking ships.

-The importance Quarians place on captains is also logical. Quarians live their entire lives in ships; it’s natural for captains to receive tremendous respect.

-Shepard, if they clarify they’re only a commander not a captain: Technically, I’m no longer in the Alliance military at all.

I suppose this is because Shepard was dead and not because they were/are a spectre?

It would have been nice if ME1 had ever explained Shepard’s status once they were made a spectre. See, it only takes one line!

-Miranda’s breather cannot possibly be acceptable for the quarians. Get the woman a helmet.

Actually, given the quarians’ history with Cerberus bringing her along probably isn’t much better than bringing Legion. The only saving grace is that the quarians might not know she’s officially with Cerberus.

-There are two layers to stripping Tali of her ship name.

First, it makes her look worse to the audience.

Second, it screws over her defense. Since Tali didn’t know she’d been stripped of her name, Shepard had no time to prepare a defense for her. Moreover, since Shepard is not familiar with quarian law or custom, it puts Tali at a huge disadvantage. They’re improvising on pure instinct what will work.

-If Shepard goes renegade when told they’re defending Tali, she says: They’re trying to turn the crowd against me.

Nice hint most players never see that choosing the option “Rally the crowd” later on can win Tali the trial.

-The trial comes across like a blatant attempt to get Shepard to reclaim the Alarei.

Every time I play it, I always think they could have saved a lot of trouble by shooting Shepard an email asking for help. No need for the farce that plays out.

-Why haven’t the geth fixed the Alarei yet? It should be well within their abilities.

-Once again, will Veetor ever complete his pilgrimage?

I doubt he’ll ever be in condition to do so. Quarians must have exceptions for those that cannot go on one.

-The dialogue with Kal’Rheegar discusses dark energy at length. The build up to it as a plot point in ME3 is incredibly obvious.

The fact it was dropped entirely in ME3 is a sign of Bioware’s decline in writing. You cannot have a concept built up that extensively and than do nothing with it without the end product feeling disjointed. They should have at least worked it into a side plot.

-Kal’Reegar on the effects of dark energy: Some days I think flying around in the fleet without a planet of our own is the right idea.

Like the Reapers?

This line is such obvious foreshadowing.

-Kal’Reegar straight up explains that the plan is for Tali to kill geth to build up audience support and find evidence to clear her name in the meantime.

I suppose Bioware felt the need to spell it out for anyone in the audience that missed it.

-Admiral Xen is awful, but I like her as a character. She’s quite pragmatic.

If Rael experimented on live geth, he was an idiot and no trial is necessary. If he did not, then this was a tragic accident and no trial is necessary.

-Her end goal is to regain control of the geth.

It’d be interesting to get her and TIM on the same call. I’m sure she’d be fascinated by Project Overlord.

And consider it appropriate that nearly everyone got killed by geth, because only idiots experiment on live geth. She would have done a much better job with a ship of crashed geth. Send it to her!

-Shal’Raan set up the trial carefully to best help Tali, even if it hurt Tali in the process. Not informing Tali of her father’s fate until mid trial was a necessary evil.

On a similar note, later on you can clear Tali’s name by handing over the evidence of her innocence. This helps Tali by preventing her from being exiled, but loses her loyalty since it tarnishes her father’s name.

Tali wants to be respected as much as cared for. Trampling over her desires to do what you consider best for her does not make her happy.

Does it remind her too much of her father, perhaps? He was so focused on providing for Tali that he never took the time to be with her.

-The “bubble” (environmental unit) quarian children are placed in from birth is so damn tragic. Logical and fantastic world building, but so incredibly sad.

Children need stimuli. They need physical contact with other people. But this must be limited for quarian children so they can survive.

Their parents need to work. How much time do quarian children spend away from their parents out of necessity? How small are their worlds for their own safety?

Receiving their first environmental suit must be a tremendous increase in freedom for them.

Ironic, as the rest of the galaxy considers their suits their prisons.

-The real purpose of the trial is whether the quarians will start colonization efforts or go to war to reclaim the homeworld.

Tali is just collateral damage in that debate. Is the risk in fighting the geth worth the possible reward?

-Koris guesses correctly that Rael experimented on live geth. His mistake is assuming that Tali was also aware of that.

-He also calls correctly that going to war could end with the fleet dying over the homeworld.

-Koris is extremely sympathetic to the geth. That he was made an admiral shows that a much more significant portion of the quarians must be sympathetic to them than we see.

[nihilnovisubsole]

"you also don't want to put the player in a situation you haven't taught them how to handle, or confuse them with your world."

care to elaborate?

this is more of a crunchy design thing than a narrative thing, so i'm kind of leaving my wheelhouse, but i've heard teammates talk about it. i think the idea is, like, it's not fair to give the player a problem that's solved by a specific tool until you've shown them the tool is there. you wouldn't want to put a quest objective at the top of a rocky ledge until you've taught them there's a button to climb. that's what tutorials are for!

re: confusing players with the world - a lot of video games are Big Genre. you're in some speculative world with lots of concepts to introduce. "commander shepard" in a vacuum doesn't mean anything. how do we know who they are? what's the "alliance navy," and what do they do? what's a "prothean artifact," and why do the characters care about it? you know, all the exposition you have to handle at a story's outset.

[sindri42]

I wanna talk about Liara T'soni for a minute.

I know a lot of people, myself included, have sometimes dismissed her over the years as a kind of boring fallback. She's kinda cute, a little annoying, always just sorta there over the course of the series. As a romantic option she's nowhere near as bad as Ashley or Kaiden or Miranda or Jacob, but not nearly as cool as Garrus or Tali or Jack (YMMV on Thane and Samara). Maybe worst of all, the game itself treats her as the "default" since she's always available, never driven away from Shepherd regardless of your choices, and the only squadmate guaranteed to survive all the way to the end.

But recently I've taken a step back, tried to look past the disconcerting bioware body language animations and her mid-tier writing and voice acting and, just looking at the simple facts presented, Liara is one of the most Characters of all time.

When you meet her, Liara is 106, and has spent the past fifty years in Prothean ruins. Asari aren't considered adults until age 100, so in human terms she's a 19-year old who has been devoting every waking moment to archeology since she was ten. During that time she's developed a lot of theories about the Protheans, which have been largely dismissed by the scientific community, leading to her primary motivation at the start of the series being to Show Them, Show Them All! with a particular focus on Those Fools from the University.

The thing is, they had a very good reason to dismiss her "findings" (on top of the whole 'wait a minute this paper was published by a twelve year old' thing): she has absolutely no evidence. If you press her for details in the first game, there's not a single thing she can point to that would support her theories, except for the fact that there's not as much evidence as you would expect for anything else. It's just a feeling she got as a kid and ran with... which happens to be 100% correct. The girl had never even heard of a Reaper before Shepherd told her about the vision, but she was able to predict their entire playbook from raw intuition and a few piles of rubble. That's the archeological equivalent of when Nicola Tesla built a remote control toy boat a decade before anybody else figured out what a radio signal was. That's right: She's a Mad Social Scientist.

Looking at her background some more, yeah she's Pureblood which is weird among modern Asari, but on top of that her parents are both Matriarchs. And Benezia never had any other child in 800-some years, then spent more than a century with Aethyta, then disappeared the moment she realized she was pregnant? Combine that with how Liara has more raw biotic power than most asari ten times her age, and she's almost definitely got the recessive Ardat-Yakshi genes on one side... and she's a quarter krogan on the other.

Circling back around to her relationship with Shepherd, her idea of an ideal pick-up line is "I want to study your brain". She definitely looks at you as an irreplaceable scientific specimen, and I'm not entirely convinced that she doesn't decide to have sex with you just to ensure she can maintain convenient access to the shiny new dig site inside your skull? She probably publishes a new paper on her findings after every time the two of you "embrace eternity".

And when she loses Shepherd, when everybody else is finding various ways to mourn and start to move on... Liara pulls together the Illusive Man and Aria Motherfucking T'loak into a conspiracy to put together a godsdamned resurrection, declaring war on the Collectors and the Shadow Broker in the process almost as an afterthought.

[springagainafter]

shadoedseptmbr replied to this post

the squad having a picnic while liara runs around squeaking about protheans, kaidan and ash having a catch in the background with tali, garrus and wrex talking about the time wrex did a job for garrus' great granddad, shep having a damned nap in the sunshine

YES to all this.

Liara on cloud nine because PROTHEANS and friends.

Kaidan and Ash playing with Tali and explaining about some human sports, yessss.

Merrick would snooze like that; he's a lot like a cat and clearly there are no thresher maws in the vicinity, so time to doze since everyone else is awake.

[stormikins]

Gimme Ghost for Jenn pretty please?

from this OC ask game here! thank you!!!

Ghost: who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

For Jenn, the main thing that haunts her is the vision from the beacon. So, her ghosts are protheans who died 50,000 years ago. Their memories, their emotions, etc she's almost always thinking about the vision and how to destroy the Reapers. it quite literally does haunt her bc it rarely ever stops talking to her.

Saren definitely haunts her. They're very similar initially, and then you throw in the Reapers and they get even closer. There's a lot of parallels between them so Saren still kinda haunts her narrative even though he dies. Something about how she helped him get freedom in the end, but there's no freedom for her. Not truly, not even in death.

Ashley would haunt her too, reminding her that these are the prices she's gonna have to pay to kill the Reapers. And ultimately, she can pay them as we see that in game. Doesn't make it any better.

While the vision doesn't get any better, it gets easier to deal with the longer she has it. She has ways to keep herself grounded in the present, and how to remind herself that the people of today matter just as much as the protheans from before.

[monowires]

Big profile textpost about my personal canon Shepard! There is a Lot of stuff under the readmore (I added the readmore so that y'all don't have to scroll 3,000ft to get past my post), just warning you.

COMMANDER JOHN SHEPARD

PRONOUNS: he/him | SEXUALITY: Gay | BIRTHDAY: April 11, 2154

AGE: 29 (ME1), 31 (ME2), 32 (ME3)

ORIGIN: Earthborn | BACKGROUND: Sole Survivor | CLASS: Adept

COMBAT ROLE: Long-Range Offensive Support

WEAPON SPECIALIZATIONS: Sniper Rifles (Primary), Assault Rifles & Handguns (Secondary)

DOES NOT USE: SMGs, Shotguns

BIOTIC SKILLS (ITALICIZED = MOST USED; BOLD = MOST PROFICIENT): Backlash, Barrier, Cluster Grenade, Flare, Lash, Pull, Reave, Shockwave, Singularity, Slam, Throw, Warp

NOTE 1: Backlash is a ME:A exclusive skill, but I like it so much (and am somewhat salty about it not being in the trilogy), so in my canon, Shepard knows this skill. I also felt it was unrealistic to confine him to 8 skills; while this is a gameplay mechanic, canonically there technically wouldn't be a limit on skills he can learn.

NOTE 2: He is also capable of deploying a spherical biotic shield (much like the ones deployed by asari, or by Cora in the beginning of ME:A). Because his specialization is long-range offense rather than defense, this exhausts him relatively quickly; it is something he only discovers via protecting his squad in a situation that would've otherwise killed them.

Shepard's combat style differs from that of a Vanguard or even most Adepts in that he prefers to maintain distance. He occupies a support-esque offensive role, backing his squad with sniper fire while deploying his biotics from range. Having trained for many years (both in- and outside of the N7 program), he has a refined control over his biotics and thus is capable of devastating the enemy with biotics regardless of the space between them. His most often used combat method is to deploy a Singularity field from range before picking them off with his sniper rifle.

Originally, Shepard was outfitted with L3 implants. During the Lazarus project, he was equipped with L5x implants. This upgrade allowed him to expand his arsenal of biotic skills. Though he lacked access to Alliance training facilities, he trained himself in these new skills with help from the many biotics aboard the SR-2. It was after his revival that he learned the skills Flare, Reave, and Slam.

MASS EFFECT 1 SPECIFICS:

MORALITY (BEGINNING OF GAME): Paragon (roughly 90% paragon, 10% renegade).

MORALITY (END OF GAME): Paragon (roughly 80% paragon, 20% renegade).

COMBAT DISPOSITION: Pacifist; violently capable, but often disinclined to engage in combat unless given no other choice.

GENERAL DISPOSITION: Though not optimistic to the point of ignorance, Shepard has a relatively bright outlook on his future. He has finally crawled out of the shadow of Akuze and reestablished his footing serving as Lieutenant-Commander on the Normandy SR-1. Though the images given to him by the Prothean beacon leave him troubled, it is more of a motivator than anything; Akuze left him without a sense of purpose, and stopping Saren/the Reapers allows him to have a central focus again.

He does, however, have a ruthless side, holding the mentality that sometimes the only way to get rid of a problem is to get rid of it.

RELATIONSHIPS: Shepard establishes a casual friendship with all of his crew; he does not consider himself a social person, though, and often avoids close relationships. Early on, he does develop a small crush on Kaidan, though it's more of a "wow, he's good looking" than anything else. He becomes close friends with him, growing to trust him outside of their Alliance-related relationship. Though his feelings deepen, both regulations and fear of rejection prevent him from ever acting upon them, and he is content to just be friends.

MAJOR CHOICES:

Recruited all potential companions/allies.

Saved the entire colony on Feros.

Released the Rachni Queen on Noveria.

Spared Balak on X-57.

Talked Wrex down on Virmire.

Saved Kaidan on Virmire.

Kept Kirrahe alive on Virmire.

Told Saren that Sovereign would betray him, avoiding the first half of his boss fight.

Saved the Council.

Chose Anderson as humanity's representative.

LESSER CHOICES:

Killed Fist himself.

Saved Rita's sister.

Intimidated Helena Blake into disbanding her gang.

Disabled the Rogue VI on Earth's Moon.

Hung up on the Council only once, after being challenged/taunted for saving the Feros colony.

Chose Renegade options in Garrus's dialogues.

Gave Tali the Geth data.

Recovered Wrex's family armor.

Completed all smaller assignments (i.e. the collection assignments or smaller tasks pertaining to NPCs).

MASS EFFECT 2 SPECIFICS:

MORALITY (BEGINNING OF GAME): Paragade (roughly 65% paragon, 35% renegade).

MORALITY (END OF GAME): Paragade (roughly 75% paragon, 25% renegade).

COMBAT DISPOSITION: Abrasive; prefers to shoot first, but does not stand for needless violence.

GENERAL DISPOSITION: Working with Cerberus leaves him distrustful, especially after having learned of their involvement with the Akuze disaster. He adopts a pessimistic/realistic viewpoint which contributes to the worsening of his scars. He is a bit more ruthless, often intimidating and/or harming people if they don't give him what he needs (though he doesn't behave violently towards civilians). He is still tethered to his own moral code, but has experienced a drastic upheaval in that he has been stripped of the Alliance identity he's maintained for the past 11 years.

He also somewhat blames himself for the destruction of the SR-1, a fact that is only worsened as the game progresses, since it's shown that Harbinger has a direct interest in him. This causes him to adopt a mindset wherein he feels that the only way to keep his crew safe is by eliminating threats at their source. Because of this, he will often seek revenge and/or refuse to show mercy to his enemies (unless taking revenge would endanger civilians/innocent people, in which case he relents, though it does stress him out to do so).

He has a more positive outlook towards the end of the game, though, when he manages to free himself of the Illusive Man's influence and reminds himself of who he is.

RELATIONSHIPS: Though wounded by Kaidan's distrust on Horizon, he does understand it. However, due to working with Cerberus, he is generally distrustful towards people and thus does not establish a solid support system as he did before. His friendship deepens with both Garrus and Joker, and he finds new friends in Kasumi, Samara, and Thane.

MAJOR CHOICES:

Recruited all potential companions/allies.

Completed all loyalty missions successfully.

Maintained cooperation between all companions.

Installed all Normandy upgrades (aside from the Med-Bay upgrade).

Saved Maelon's data.

Destroyed the Geth heretics.

Saved the entire SR-2 crew from the Collectors.

Destroyed the Collector Base.

Everyone survived the suicide mission.

LESSER CHOICES:

Completed all DLC/lesser assignments.

Sent David to Grissom Academy.

Let Veetor go with Tali.

Got Kal'Reegar to stand down.

Set the memorial at the SR-1 crash site.

MASS EFFECT 3 SPECIFICS:

MORALITY (BEGINNING OF GAME): Paragade (roughly 75% paragon, 25% renegade).

MORALITY (END OF GAME): Renegon (roughly 20% paragon, 80% renegade).

COMBAT DISPOSITION: Violent; shows no weakness or mercy, especially with Cerberus. Does his best to avoid civilian casualties but acknowledges them as often being unavoidable.

GENERAL DISPOSITION: The invasion of the Reapers despite his warnings causes Shepard a great deal of stress. Dealing with his stresses alone while also having his worst fears realized causes him to become more abrasive. As the war progresses, his patience grows thinner and thinner, especially as the expectations placed upon him seem to only grow in magnitude. Hardened by the obvious fact that his word only matters when it conveniences others, he adopts a colder personality. He detaches himself from the war, unable to psychologically handle the stress otherwise, and views things in black and white.

However, he is not evil, and is in fact often overburdened with his own sense of empathy and responsibility. The major shift in his psyche occurs on Thessia, as he holds himself completely responsible for the deaths after his defeat—both on and off the planet. After this defeat, his taste for revenge which began in ME2 grows stronger, as he knows that the only way to truly put things to rest between himself and Kai Leng would be to kill him.

He struggles with his morality, too, as combat inevitably becomes his only outlet; this subsequently causes a subconscious inclination towards violence, as it is one of his only methods of release. He is prone to violent reactions in the face of adversaries, though he does not act without thought (with the exception of the Omega DLC, where he restarted the reactor without hesitation despite the consequences; this was because he refused to allow Cerberus to try and get the upper hand on him again by manipulating his qualities).

NOTE: It's important that I emphasize his shift towards Renegade is a direct result of his traumas/their aftermath. He is not by any means intended to be a "cruel for the sake of it" kind of charcter.

RELATIONSHIPS: Despite his inner turmoil, Shepard actually develops closer relationships over the course of the war, partially because he recognizes that he may never otherwise get the chance. His closest friends are Garrus, Joker, and EDI. He initiates a romantic relationship with Kaidan, which is maintained even after the game's ending.

MAJOR CHOICES:

Chose Paragon options in the conversations with Kaidan on Mars; automatically had his trust by the end of Priority: Citadel (II).

Revealed the Shroud sabotage to Eve and Wrex.

Disabled the Geth fighter squadrons.

Saved Admiral Koris.

Brokered peace between the Geth and the Quarians.

Saved the Rachni Queen a second time.

Achieved the Destroy Ending with necessary TMS to get the bonus scene, thus confirming his survival.

LESSER CHOICES:

Rescued Grissom Academy's students.

Saved Samara on Lesuss.

Killed both his clone and Brooks in the Citadel DLC.

Held a revenge-driven/hostile attitude during the Omega DLC.

Restarted the reactor (Renegade interrupt) during the Omega DLC.

[sol-consort]

Oh sorry I didn't know if I came off as aggressive or negative I sincerely didn't mean to:[ with my dyslexia I have a hard time wording and I tend to avoid sending asks out of anxiety and embarrassment of not writing right.. again I'm sorry I came across as weird I really didn't mean to :[

But to explain myself again I didn't know to to word it right I am curious as to why headcanon the asari as parasitic your reasoning behind it and stuff since I don't think I've heard a headcanon like that before :[ again sorry for the bother

The original headcanon post is self-explanatory. It goes into depth about the reasons behind their parasitic nature, even comparing them to a parasitic species of birds. There is really nothing more for me to say to make my reasons any clearer, I'll just be repeating the original post if I attempt to explain it again.

The parasite thing was never ment to be an insult or hate for asari—I didn't like the ask someone sent after it completely trashtalking them—I think the asari are cool and their parasitic nature is a very neat and unique survival strategy. I adore the asari, I wanted to explore their darker side because nature is brutal at its core, because I don't like the "sugar and everything nice" surface impression people have on them.

Also it's very hypocritical of people to hate the asari for these reasons yet give a free pass to the krogans' animal cruelty, Hanar taking drell children to build their army with, Turians making a military bootcamp mandatory for all of their children, etc.

Humans aren't saints either, homophobia and misogyny are human inventions that aren't present in any other alien species besides our own.

It was a character study of the less talked about aspects of the asari. Not everything in that post was headcanons. A lot of it were canon events and facts taken from the Mass Effect index.

Only the conclusion that they are parasitic is the headcanon. Not all parasites are harmful either, asari offer a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with the species they exploit...sometimes. Other times, they fully take advantage of them: see Vorcha.

The "grudge" thing is just a joke, a bit I do because I'm salty about them thinking they're inherently superior when it was only thanks to the protheans uplifting that they became what they are. But that's not their fault. It's asari government propaganda. And if it would've happened to the humans instead, we would've done the exact same thing, if not more severely, because of our egos.

It also begs the question, how did they survive before meeting other aliens? Did they just accept the negative side effects that come from two asari parents? Were they always parasitic, or is it a side effect from the protheans meddling with their DNA to give them natural biotics? Is it a constant exposure to element zero that made having children with each other so risky?

They need other species to thrive, even their economy prospers on the exploiting of more poor and uneducated species, their biology alters your perspective on reality to view them as the ideal attractive mate, they trick your brain into seeing them as appealing. That's a parasite.

However, asari remain my beloveds <3 So do krogans, salarians, and other species. Because they're not real, they're tools to tell a story, intricate imaginary cultures, and worlds.

-

I read wrong into your intentions in that ask, I'm sorry, you won't believe the amount of people that come into my inbox just to argue over small details or things that I wrote which didn't align to their preference. People who legit get angry over these videogames, lacking the ability to tell fiction apart from reality, or to separate their subjective perspective from canon.

However, in the future, if you see something I've written you don't like, just scroll. It's not meant for you. I don't always want to explain my line of thinking.

And even if I do, most of the time, you won't like my answer or find it satisfactory because you came into this discussion with preset ideas and opinions. You didn't ask this because you genuinely found the idea of a parasite asari fascinating. You asked this because you found it disheartening and assumed I held a real grudge, that this was out of malice to your favourite species. It's the same as the person who took the HC post as an invitation to come talk shit about asari in my inbox, just the opposite extreme, both are weird things to do.

Wouldn't you prefer to talk to me about something you actually liked in my writing? Ask me to expand on a subject you deemed interesting and fun rather than this uncomfortable situation for both of us?

I'd prefer that, too.

[sparatus]

WIP Masterlist

... because at this point I have enough running projects I should probably make a proper list instead of just the one post for ExDiff, huh?

Hiiiii!! It's-a me, NoisyNoiverns, your friendly neighborhood niche Mass Effect author, most famous as "that one dude who built the entire Desolas/Abrudas tag from the ground up" and the turian councilor's defense attorney who made up an OC for his wife and... also the entire clan, and then accidentally convinced some people she's canon, oops? I've got multiple longfics and series going now, so I figured I should put together a proper list, lol.

Current Longfics

In the Land of Giants: Fic 3 of 10 in Exponential Differentiation, "ItLoG" for short. With Hislop dead and Terra Nova safe, Shepard and Nihlus continue the hunt for Cerberus. A friend's disappearance and a clue from a mysterious message both point them towards Omega, where they encounter a surprising new ally... who seems to know more than she's letting on. [AO3]

The Weight of Memory: Companion novella to ItLoG. While Shepard and Nihlus gallivant off to Terminus, Saren returns home to Palaven to rest, recover, and get used to his new leg as he adjusts to retirement. But the galaxy isn't done with the Arterius clan, and their problems are getting too big to hide from... [AO3]

Make Less the Depth of Grief: After the fall of the Destiny Ascension in the Battle of the Citadel, the galaxy is in shambles, and the hunt is on for Alexander Shepard. In order to find him, Ashley Williams consents to be interviewed about her time on the Normandy. But the more she talks, the less sure of her answers she feels... [AO3]

In Retrograde: When a rescue mission goes horribly awry, turian soldier Axilus Madelivio and quarian Pilgrim Thie'Haasn nar Olyna are thrown together, their fates inexorably intertwined by the biotic explosion Thie set off to save their lives. Now Axilus's latent biotics have been activated, and Thie's Pilgrimage has been thrown wildly off track. In order to escape Axilus's impending transfer to the Cabals and earn Thie's place in quarian society, the two of them are going to have to work together - for better or for worse. [AO3]

Sentiment and Reason: Fic 2 of the Dead Parents Club Murder Mysteries. A visit to an old friend of the Arterius brothers goes awry when the friend in question is found dead in his own home, and Special Tactics are asked to investigate. The problem? Saren is too recognizable, and the late general's neighbors aren't talking. It's up to Avitus Rix and Macen Barro, posing as newlyweds, to infiltrate the neighborhood and find the killer - while coming to terms with their own old rivalry and new feelings. [AO3]

Overarching Series

Exponential Differentiation: No-Reapers AU, DMAB nonbinary Shepard. "ExDiff" for short. After a mysterious all-human team attack Eden Prime and destroy the Prothean beacon found there, Shepard sets out on a grand adventure to hunt them down - and gets in so much deeper than they ever thought possible, uncovering a massive terrorist organization and facing impending war with the Hegemony. Nihlus and Saren join the crew, as well as several OCs including additional Normandy crew, new Spectres, and the batarian Resistance. Also a lot of worldbuilding for alien cultures, especially turians and batarians. Primary ships are Kryterius, Desabrudas, Garrus/OC, and Shepard/Jack.

Series on AO3

Detailed masterpost

Completed: Broken Mirror [x], Blood in the Water [x], Where the Wind Rests [x]

Currently In Progress: In the Land of Giants [x], The Weight of Memory [x]

Upcoming: Belly of the Beast, Straight On Til Morning, Towards Peace, The Distance Between Us, A Most Dangerous Game, Entwined, Jack Harper Must Die, Once and For All

Uneasy Lies the Head: Also referred to as "Bad End" for short. Canon divergent, male Shepard, past mShenko. The Destiny Ascension was left to die, and now the rest of the galaxy is paying the price. While Shepard is hunted down for high treason and terrorism, everyone else has to pick up the pieces he left behind and try to move on. The Normandy crew and the Alliance are insisting it was a necessary sacrifice, but was it really? Examines the consequences of Shepard's actions, both for himself and for the galaxy at large.

Series on AO3

Currently In Progress: Make Less the Depth of Grief [x]

Upcoming: Come What Come May, But a Walking Shadow, A Necessary End

Dead Parents Club Murder Mysteries: Exactly what it says on the tin. Series of mission fics featuring Saren, Nihlus, and Avitus, with occasional guest Macen, and other friends such as primarchs, Councilor Sparatus and his wife Aediteia, and various canon characters loosely associated with the trio (say hi, Benezia and Hannah!). Main pairings are Kryterius and Barrix. No-Reapers AU for ease of timeline sorting and not having to factor in indoctrination or Andromeda, because I don't want to.

Series on AO3

Completed: To Catch a Rabbit [x]

Currently In Progress: Sentiment and Reason [x]

Upcoming: Through the Bars, An Immodest Silence, untitled Spirian + Quentilea guest star

Celestial Interference: OC-centric series following Axilus Madelivio and Thie'Haasn nar Olyna as their lives are thrown wildly off-course and inexorably twined together. Mostly against their wills. Axilus wanted to be a historian, dammit. Co-written with xMidnightSun. Rewrite of the "Rise & Reign" series, ten years of writing skill improvement and so much character development later.

Currently In Progress: In Retrograde [x]

Upcoming: Slingshot Trajectory, Extraorbital, Perigee/Apogee