#turian week 2017

[anymash]

Turian week Day 4 - Domestic life

Children of all species from the galaxy love sweets and don`t know when is time to stop (^_^)

Buy Me a Coffee  ✦ Instagram

[nevarrite]

listen I just got here two weeks ago so I missed the discourse while I was busy making poor choices in 2017 but you’re telling me people didn’t like the andromeda crew?! my beloveds? MY found family?!?!? MY adopted krogan warlord father, his tall intimidating (hot) but tender hearted adopted turian daughter, our ray of sunshine himbo brother, the genuine and thoughtful angara HE adopted, our goofball irrepressible asari sister (and pet remnant vi), and our no-nonsense and unflagging biotic badass?? THAT squad??? sorry I just don’t see it!

[thunderheadfred]

Fred’s Fic Index

Sorted alphabetically by fandom, then from newest to oldest. See #fred writes for all writing posts, including WIP snippets.

Ace Attorney

Proxy — AO3

The truth is simple: Phoenix Wright no longer wishes to associate with Miles Edgeworth. Or: This is how, two weeks too late to do anything about it, Edgeworth learns of Phoenix’s disbarment.

Phoenix/Miles - found family Mature  - explicit sexual content 37,000 words - Mar. 2020 ✓

reunion scene  //  Phoenix/Miles - E - 1,700 words

The Arcana

riddles  //  G

cost  //  Asra+Muriel - T - 670 words

egg  //  Asra+Nadia - G - 970 words

aether  //  Asra/Julian - E - 3,750 words

stop that  //  Asra/Julian - T - 540 words

the cave  //  Asra/Apprentice - E - 1,420 words

memory  //  Asra/Apprentice - T - 530 words

first kiss  //  Asra/Apprentice - T - 790 words

letter  //  Julian/Apprentice - T - 370 words

stiff drink  //  Julian/Apprentice - T - 780 words

Avatar: The Last Airbender

stealing Appa  //  Aang+Appa - G - 880 words

sneaking  //  Aang+Gyatso - G - 270 words

BNHA

Todoroki x Reader Headcanons

Aizawa x Reader Headcanons

Shigaraki x Reader  //  HC’s  -  The Second Worst

Bakugou x Reader Headcanons

Hawks x Reader Headcanons

Kirishima x Reader Headcanons

Dragon Age

fraternizing  //  Zevran/Warden, T, 390 words

fireside  //  Zevran/Warden, T, 450 words

glad to have you  //  Zevran/Warden, T, 370 words

Good Omens

Incense — AO3 / PODFIC

Not you. I know what You smell like.

Crowley/Aziraphale - gender, magical realism Mature - explicit sexual content 16,000 words - Sep. 2019 ✓

—

scent //  T - 500 words  //  [podfic]

sleep  //  Crowley/Aziraphale - T - 675 words

Mass Effect

Double Blind — AO3

Professor Solus was curved the same way scalpels were: not rounded for safety, but precisely honed, so sharp that Shepard wouldn’t feel the edge until she was six pints lighter. The promise of so much gratuitous blood loss made her dizzy. Dizzy… and something else.

Femshep/Mordin - Omega, PWP Explicit - BDSM, violence, blatant disregard for canon 14,000 words - Sep. 2018 (WIP) #tagged  -  playlist

a new toy  //  E - perfect 100

werewolf girlfriend  //  M - 234 words

a kiss for luck  //  M - 485 words

smile  //  M - perfect 100

sharp  //  M - perfect 100

weakness  // M - perfect 100

cupcake  //  M - perfect 100

hair   //   M - perfect 100

—

In the Yellow Time of Pollen — AO3 / FFN

Velocity and time make for curious bedfellows, especially when Kallo Jath flies out to meet his biological imperative.

Sara/Kallo - unreliable narrator, non-chronological Mature -  sex pollen trope, awkwardness 15,000 words - Mar. 2017 (WIP) #tagged  -  playlist

height difference kisses  //  T - 725 words

a kiss to give up control  // T - 228 words

washing machine  //  T - perfect 100

another lifetime  //  M - perfect 100

a kiss meant to be gentle   //  M - 1.8k

—

A Pretty Taste for Paradox — AO3 / FFN

After being resurrected by Cerberus, Shepard is a raw nerve, a stranger in her own skin. Why else would the never-ending nattering of Professor Mordin Solus send a shiver down her spine?

Femshep/Mordin - asexual romance, vignettes Mature - angst, violence, suicidal ideation 10,000 words - Jan. 2017 (WIP) #tagged  -  playlist

casual, in joy  // T - 620 words

the end of the world  //  T - 420 words

jealousy  //  T - 370 words

a kiss to shut them up  //  T - 240 words

juggling  //  T - 370 words

balance  //  T - perfect 100

unable to open their eyes  //  T - 0.4k

topaz // G - perfect 100

date   //  G - 300 words

routine kisses   //  G - 0.7k

kisses meant to distract  //  G - 1.8k

mordin solus   //   G - perfect 100

—

Red Streak — AO3 / FFN

During the surrender of Shanxi, ex-Marine Hannah Shepard agrees to parley with the fleet captain of the invading turian Blackwatch. Two decades later, Hannah’s daughter Jane lives in the shadow of that infamous truce.

Shakarian- first contact, novelization, shifting POV Mature  - excplicit sexual content, violence 100,000+ words - Sept. 2016 (WIP) #tagged - Red Streak Index

Shakarian:

passionately, in a rush of adrenaline  // T - 350 words

a kiss on a scar  // T - 330 words

drunk message  //  T - perfect 100

window  //  T - 200 words  

a gentle “I love you” whispered after a soft kiss //  M - 1.4k  

breaking the kiss to say something  //  M - 1.2k

synthetic insights  //  M - 800 words

Hannah/Albacus:

a hoarse whisper  //  M - 875 words

lazy morning kisses  //   M - 320 words

throwing their arms around the other person  //  M - 1.2k

when one person’s face is scrunched up  //  G - 500 words

Jane + Albacus:

growing pains  /  T - 3k

—

Misc. ME Drabbles

Zombie AU   //  T - 380 words

Citadel NPCs   //  T - 730 words

Tattoo Parlor AU  //  Shakarian - M - 500 words

Even More Bullshit

Rigor Mortis // Beetlejuice / 2010 / 4.9K / explicit Sex with a dead guy is hard… get it? AO3 / Tumblr

Shine On You Crazy Diamond // Cowboy Bebop / 2010 / 4K / mature Grown Ass Ed + Spike / post-series, and not as stupid as you think AO3 / Tumblr

Sublimation // Half-Life / 2011 / 8.4K / explicit It is his turn now, he realizes, his half of the conversation. AO3 / Tumblr

Lacuna // Historical Fiction / 2012 / 2.6K / mature A pornographic exploration of Austrian fin de siècle composer and conductor Gustav Mahler, which is probably not the sort of thing a person sees every day. Tumblr

Nebenstimme // Historical Fiction / 2013 / 3.7K / explicit Nebenstimme (Ger) under part; i.e., a secondary contrapuntal part, always occurring simultaneously with, and subsidiary to, the Hauptstimme. Tumblr

[antibioware]

My final thoughts on Mass Effect: Andromeda (a 3 years late review)

So I spent the past week and a half playing a game I paid 13€ for, one that I promised myself I wouldn't touch but that in the end I gave a solid try to anyway, because I was willing to give Andromeda the benefit of the doubt. Because I'm aware that sometimes I'm a bitch, and that the Mass Effect trilogy had its own problems too, but I still regard it as one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

It wasn't as bad as I had expected it would be, but that doesn't make it good. Above all else, Mass Effect: Andromeda is a game that could have been interesting, had the creators actually cared to make something out of it outside of just “Dragon Age Inquisition in the Mass Effect universe”.

I wanted to write a more coherent post about what I didn’t like about it, aside from just shitting all over it like I’ve been feeling like doing since the canonical bury your gays in the game slapped me in the face. So here it is, an overlong post about a 3 years old game.

Before getting into the main elements that I disliked, I wanna preface this post by saying that I enjoyed parts of the game. The main characters, while not as well characterized as they could have been (no Bioware character ever is), grew on me the more I played the game, and by the end were the main reason why I kept playing. Unlike DA:I, the writers did a really good job building up the found family trope in this game, and while it turns corny at times, it’s very heartwarming. I think many of the planetary settings in Heleus were stunning to look at, to the point that I didn’t even mind all that much having to drive from point A to point B.

I didn’t hate the game, and I’m speaking from the point of view of someone who enjoyed it, but not enough to simply accept its many flaws.

The problems with the gameplay itself

There are three main things that I don’t think work well and are up in your face since the first seconds of the game: the game interface, the fight mechanics, and the open world aspect of the game.

◦ The first impact I had on Andromeda, right from the first 2/3 hours of playing it, was that it was very cluttered and very, very confusing. I had just finished playing ME3 and I had issues understanding how to move without having a proper map onscreen, how to read throught the thousand tutorials for the 100 new, useless elements they added to the game that are either reused from ME1 or taken directly from DA:I. The game didn’t need a crafting system, especially not one DIVIDED IN TWO DIFFERENT SECTIONS, it didn’t need an inventory system, and especially it didn't need to have the sheer amount of sidequest it had.

◦ The fight mechanics + leveling up/classes system is a hot mess. I understand they wanted to try something new, and in part they did make the fighting feel more fluid, but not being able to rely on teammates for necessary stuff like overloads/specific powers that you need during fights severely impaired the strategic element of the game. Now it’s just a third person shooter with teammates dying left and right because you have 0 control on how they fight, aside from putting them in one place or another.

The fact that you can only use 3 powers at the time is a consequence of the confusing leveling up system. Because you can have an endless amount of powers you can give your character, they needed to find a way to make them not too overpowered. The problem is…. You had more powers to use in-game in ME1. It doesn’t work so well.

When the fighting mechanics in ME3, a game that came out in 2012, feel way fluider and more enjoyable than the ones from the game that came out in 2017, something is very wrong.

◦ Open world games are a challenge, because too many developers don’t understand that turning a game into an open world doesn’t make it good, it just makes it bigger and slower. It was a problem with Dragon Age Inquisition, and it’s a problem here with Andromeda - with the only good aspect being that at least Andromeda gives you a decent car to explore the planets.

ME1 had some level of open world-ness, and there was a valid reason why ME2 and ME3 got rid of the concept: the maps you’re given are a big, cluttered mess of nothing. You have several thousands sidequests, many of which incredibly similar to each other, and nothing fucking else. Sometimes you will accidentally stumble upon something interesting, and then return to a 6 hours drive into the nothingness that keeps repeating over and over again.

It got to the point I almost stumbled upon the endgame because I got exhausted of running around doing errands, and I tried continuing the main plot, only to realize I was almost done with it. That was it.

Empty self-referencing

This is the term I used to describe my girlfriend why the way the game made call backs to the previous games bothered me so much. Call backs aren’t new to the concept of the game (the Mass Effect trilogy literally lived on characters returning from previous games, referencing things that had previously happened, etc.), but because this game wanted to be a separate thing from the ME trilogy, it couldn’t use this sort of material. And that’s completely fine! The game wanted to be its own thing, I was happy about it at first, because the trilogy was over and done for. If Mass Effect was indeed gonna continue, it needed a fresh start.

The problem is, it also needed to remind players that it’s a Mass Effect game, the game from which Commander Shepard came.

So, how to solve this matter? Well, instead of referencing stuff that actually happened in the trilogy, it solves the referencing aspect by putting a bunch of relatives of characters from the trilogy in the game. You get Conrad Verner’s sister, Nyreen Kandros’s cousin, a lost illegitimate son of Zaeed Massani, a brief cameo of Garrus Vakarian’s dad, a krogan on New Tuchanka being from clan Urdnot, and so on. And it was funny the first time or so, maybe even the second, but at some point it just turned awkward, and I started asking myself, “is this it? Is this all that’s left of the trilogy, just a bunch of big name characters to remind the player you belong from the same universe?”. The brief way they referenced back to Shepard was also very awkward and felt... out of place, with the rest of the game.

A couple call backs I really liked were:

Liara being acknowledged for her work as a Prothean researcher and being in contant with Ryder Senior, without much reference being done to her time in Shepard’s crew. It was good, seeing her from an outsider perspective.

The fact that Avitus Rix, being a turian ex-Spectre, knew Saren and was in fact his disciple.

Both these elements are things that make sense and tie the game back to the trilogy beyond just going “hey, this x character is the relative of this other x character, isn’t it crazy!”

The plot, and the problem with binary choices

It’s easy to make fun or critique the game struggling to find its own plot after something as big as the ME trilogy was. But Bioware isn’t an indie developer, it’s a huge fucking company, and they could have done better.

While I liked the design of the Remnants architecture and enemies, putting a plot point revolving around an ancient, long lost alien civilization who was much more technologically advanced, sounds a lot like a bad repeat of the Protheans.

I liked the Angara conceptually, but I didn’t like their design all that much and I often found it hysterically funny that angara are supposed to be a deeply emotional race, when the animators left them stuck with those mono expressive faces and unemotional eyes.

And on top of all of this, the kett are boring villains. The exaltation progress is really just a bad repeat of how Reaper indoctrination worked, and the way they talk reminds me of the big bad templars from the Dragon Age universe. It’s literally nothing new, and because of it, it’s boring.

When I was playing the endgame, all I kept thinking was “this is it? this is all they came up with? for real?”. I liked the twins aspect of the endgame, but aside from that, it didn’t feel satisfying.

And now comes the reason why it didn’t feel satisfying: the game got rid of the Paragon/Renegade system from the trilogy, and because of that, they also got rid of the possibility of additional problem-solving solutions during big choices. 

In Andromeda, almost every major quest has a binary choice attached to it: choose this or that. Burn the facility or save all the angara but leave the facility standing. Save the krogans or Raeka. Pick Sloane or Reyes. Keep Sarissa as the Pathfinder or not. Etc.

in the trilogy, complete, important binary choices were rare (choosing Ashley or Kaidan is probably the biggest one) and the consequences had long lasting effects. Not all of them did (saving or killing the rachni in ME1 and rewriting or destroying the geth in ME2 didn’t have so many long term consequences in ME3, for example), but a great deal meant big changes in the following games.

The issues with these choices in Andromeda? None of them matter. Characters will get angry at you for going against their will in a single dialogue line, and then never mention it again. The opinion on the Nexus won’t change if you expose Spender, Addison’s connections to the Exiles, or Nexus people targeting the angara. None of your companions will betray you or leave you for going against their will during their loyalty missions.

A Mass Effect game with choices that don’t influence the final result of the game feels like a joke, and while I know in many ways the trilogy also had a problem on this matter on some parts, dead characters stayed dead and betraying a friend’s trust meant losing them in the near future

The unavoidable part where I mention the issue with LGBT rep in this game because I’m a nonbinary lesbian and I can’t detach that aspect of myself from how I consume media

Endless gays and trans folks out there have already written this sort of matter so as my last point of critique, I’ll make it quick. Bioware has a long story with homophobia and transphobia in its character writing - this without mentioning the huge problems with racism in the character writing, too. Many gay/bi women in Bioware games are written by the same homophobic straight cis man with a lesbo fetish, AKA Lukas Kristjanson, and that alone gives a really good feeling on why such issues exist.

The original Mass Effect trilogy had very little gay romance options, out of the amount of romance options: as of ME3, there are two main gay romance options for fShepard (Liara and Traynor, without counting the mini-romances that were put in the previous games for pure fetish fuel) and two for mShepard (Kaidan and Cortez, both only added in the last game).

Andromeda wasn’t... the big breath of fresh air in the representation department they tried to pass it as. There are more romance options, but for once, there add to add another m/m romance option later on because the only gay romance available were with minor NPCs, and there’s an issue with the amount of content gay romances get compared to main het romances.

There’s a single trans NPC, and it's a random person you meet who tells you her deadname and the reason she transitioned right away. Ugh.

And now we come to the bury your gays mission that made me almost uninstall the game: the mission to find the turian Pathfinder with the help of his partner, the previously mentioned Avitus Rix,  who also happens to be the first gay male turian character in the game (the first gay female turian being Nyreen Kandros, who dies btw). You invest time to trace back to the turian arc, while listening to Avitus talk about how important the turian Pathfinder is to him, you realize pretty fast they’re lovers, and when you find out the turian arc, it’s all to discover that the Pathfinder is already dead. Not a choice in the game that could accidentally kill him, like with Raeka, or an active choice you make to keep him in his role, like Sarissa. He’s already dead, and you’re left with Avitus alone and mourning.

The game is from 2017. This sort of bullshit is unacceptable, and I will keep screaming it until Bioware manages to pretend like they care about their LGBT fans.

To end this mess of a post - Mass Effect: Andromeda lasted me a total of 50 hours of game, and in a way, I’m glad I got it out of my system. It was a delusion, but at least now I can cross it off my list and go back to playing other stuff. I understand that this is a game many ended up liking, and I’m sad I can’t say I’m among them, and that I couldn’t even fully enjoy the game at times. Also I promised myself I wouldn’t mention this but goddamn the facial animations of the game were so ugly.

DESPITE THIS, I really loved the characters, and I very much enjoyed Vetra’s romance, which was the main reason why I bought the game. 

[midnightsix3]

I dived into some of my older drawings today and one in particular caught my attention, I had almost forgotten about this. This is the first ever drawing I did of Nyreen. 

She was… quite different from how she is now, right? Yeah, when I saw it I kind of couldn’t believe it… that’s from 2015 actually. I’d like to elaborate on her creation process so if anybody wants to know more about that I’ll ramble about it here below with a couple more old drawings of her too. It’s kind of long so I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read it LOL.

So um, back when I first started drawing I was never much of an OC guy. I had a couple dragon and cat characters I either designed or adopted but I never invested myself that much on them before. I mostly drew fanart and other friends’ characters (especially Callykitty’s LOL) so having an OC of mine was something pretty alien.

Back when I first started drawing MLP fanart I mostly focused on that, characters from the show and sometimes other people’s OCs but making a pony OC of my own every time got me like “dude no wtf, what would that even look like”. For a long time I was too afraid I guess? to make one of my own.

So fast-forward to 2015 I had a Photoshop course in college, we had one assignment which was to design a character and color it in there. I was super pumped like, I had been drawing a lot of stuff in Photoshop ever since middle school so having an assignment for school to do just that was immensely exciting.

After a week of brainstorming, thinking to myself about how that character would look like, sketching and drawing ideas I came up with this:

I had always loved dragons even before I drew ponies, they’re pretty much what made me start drawing in the first place so making a dragon made sense. Looking back she’s obviously a dragon-pony mix but at the time I kinda overlooked that. I don’t think I ever put in so much passion into a school assignment before.

Her name came out from what I was playing at the time, there was this really badass character, a female turian, from a DLC in Mass Effect 3 that’s called Nyreen Kandros. Her name immediately stuck with me so when I sat down and thought about how I should name her the choice was pretty obvious.

We even had to print it, going to the print shop to have a drawing of mine printed was so unreal (which the teacher actually kept, wish I had gotten that back though). Oh and I even made a couple other sketches in Ps to get a better sense of her, I even doodled her as a bat pony, which looking back is kind of funny.

Come the due date at class, we were told we had to present our character. I immediately froze. I thought we only had to hand it in and it would be done deal right? I thought it wouldn’t go beyond that.

But no, we had to stand in front of the class with our prints in hand and explain our character... I’ve always hated talking in public you have no idea, I get so fucking nervous I can’t even talk properly. But yeah, there you have me talking about this stupid character I designed in front of my other classmates and a couple of friends. It mostly went well I guess, people seemed to like her design and the teacher was happy with what I had come up with so I felt good about it.

After that I kind of forgot about her? I drew her like once or twice after but not much more than that.

That last one was a vent from some assignment I had, don’t exactly remember which one but I was pretty mad LOL.

Come 2016, late 2016 I had this idea bouncing around my head of making a pony OC for myself, I said “fuck it let’s just do it dude”. So I went back to what I had done for that class since I liked it so much and redesigned most of her look. I think the first ever sketch of her as a pony was this, I didn’t date that but I’m pretty sure it was:

Always date your sketches kids. After that I made a couple more sketches and decided to create her first reference sheet:

I really liked that sheet, I was so excited to have a character for myself I ended up drawing her a lot and like everybody who has any OCs, ideas start flowing into your head about how their story should be, their personality, likes, dislikes, whatever- just like... all of those things.

Fast-forward to 2017 I redid her reference sheet again and tweaked some small stuff from her and ultimately came up with how she looks like up to this point. I am very happy with how that ref sheet came out, actually.

So yeah that’s kind of the story of how I came to create Nyreen, I did this mostly to show those old sketches but I kind of got excited I guess? If it wasn’t obvious she’s kind of a very personal thing for me, which I’d like to think is something most people who have OCs of their own feel. 

Sorry this was such a big wall of text, I actually didn’t expect to write this much. I guess it was kind of therapeutic? I don’t know.

And if you’ve actually read all of this up to this point then I’m completely baffled. Don’t think anybody would even care that much to read up to this point to be honest, but thank you for reading my ramble!

[bethadastra]

187 Drawings

Counted through my 2017 pictures folder, and was amazed to see that I completed a drawing the equivalent of once every other day. 

Considering I had many weeks where I went days without drawing, or went on a doodle rampage over the course of an afternoon, this is really exciting to see (for those of you who don’t know, I basically never drew between 2011-2015 and had to relearn drawing from scratch).

Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t grow just by drawing what you love. Look at me. I love drawing turian butts, and it gave me some of the best friends a gal could ask for, and a pretty bangin portfolio 💁

[overclicked]

Dawn

MicroWriMo 2017 Prompt: Barefoot Fandom: Mass Effect Andromeda Pairing: Vetra x Ryder Words: 680 ---

Tiny red mountains formed from the sand sifting through Ryder’s fingers as she sat staring out across the aptly named Big Lake in the early morning twilight.

Only a few months ago, the shore was still too irradiated for anyone to sit here safely, suit or no, and here she was in sneakers and a hoodie enjoying the feeling of the cool air blowing in off the water.

SAM had been kind enough to give her a moment alone.  Of course, when you have an AGI for a permanent roommate, there’s only so “alone” you can ever be, but SAM was getting better at negotiating boundaries while still monitoring the Pathfinder’s vitals.  They still had some kinks to work out, like turning off SAM’s preemptive cardiac alerts when Vetra and Ryder managed to squeeze out some alone time, but otherwise, they were managing.

The sky shifted from warm purples to a pale and brighter green that reminded her a little of Vetra’s eyes.  Dawn was coming, and with it the inevitable email from Gil ranting about whatever Kallo had had the audacity to install in the Tempest this week.  The two were finally working together, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t friction.  

Not like she and Addison were any better.  The search for the remaining Arks was in full swing, and Ryder and the Nexus administrator butted heads at every turn.  Still, it was a vast improvement over their initial relationship.  They were all growing together now, trying to make a home in the new cluster while the looming threat of the kett cast a shadow over every sector they came across.  They were gone, but definitely not forgotten.

Ryder let out a long sigh and pulled her knees in under her chin, feeling suddenly very small in the universe.  They’d come so far, and not just across galaxies.  The Initiative had a home now - several of them, clumsy and small, but surviving.  The people had a future, thanks in no small part to what she and her friends had been able to do.  And still she felt like she was making it all up as she went along, drifting rudderless from one challenge to the next.

The soft crunch of footsteps behind her drew Ryder out of her momentary funk, and she turned to see the tall, familiar figure of her turian smiling back at her.  “Hey, little duck.”

“Hey.”  Ryder unfurled, getting to her feet and dusting off the back of her pants.  “Gil and Kallo at it again?”

“No, not yet,” Vetra chuckled.  “I, uh...I made breakfast.  Tried.  I tried to make breakfast, anyway.  I think I may have mostly gotten it right this time.”

Ryder tried to stifle a laugh, not wanting to hurt the girl’s feelings, least of all when Vetra was clearly trying so hard to master human cuisine.  But the sound welled up inside Ryder until she was bursting at the seams, laughing until her side hurt and she needed to lean on Vetra just to stay standing.

To her surprise, when she caught her breath, Ryder found Vetra smiling, looking practically on the verge of tears.  Happy tears.

“What...what is it?” Ryder asked.

“Been too long since I heard you laugh, Ryder.”  Vetra’s long arms pulled her into a tight hug.  “I was starting to miss it.”  

Ryder leaned against the turian, holding her tight and feeling all the uncertainty wash away into Big Lake and disappear, at least for now.  She pulled back just enough from the embrace to look up into Vetra’s eyes.  "Breakfast can wait,” she said.  “Walk with me a while?”

Vetra happily agreed, falling into step beside Ryder and looping an arm around her waist.  They had only taken a few steps when Ryder paused, looking down and kicking off her shoes.  She smiled as she wiggled her toes, feeling the cool red sand between them.  Vetra pulled her close, and together the two started off again around Big Lake as the sun slowly rose over Eos and the colonists preparing for another morning in Andromeda.

[that-vicious-vixen-blog]

Self Insert Week 2017

SELF-INSERT WEEK 2017

A year ago I read a post shitting all over self-inserts and Mary Sues, trashing them for being “poor writing” or too self-indulgent. And I thought to myself, what’s the damn harm? If you’re not trying to reshape the future of literature with self-inserts, then who the heck are you hurting? So I introduced Self Insert Week 2016 - a week where people were encouraged to shove themselves into WHATEVER fandom, to just have fun with it. Let’s do it again!

SELF-INSERT WEEK 2017

What is it?

Just a fun reason to make ourselves into the awesome characters we daydream up while going about our normal lives! Through the week people will be encouraged to post self-insert fic and fanart under the tag “Self Insert Week 2017.” The only rule is that you’re the main character!

When is it?

The week will be the second in May, May 7th - May 13th.

Do I have to sign up to participate?

Nope! Last year I got a lot of messages asking for rules or specific fandoms, and that’s not the point of this exercise. You make this week into what you want it to be; fanart, fanfics, mood boards, cosplay, whatever you want! I don’t “run” it, I’m just kicking it off (which isn’t to say you can’t reach out to me for any reason). 

Will there be a master post?

Naaaah last year so many people participated that I’d have to be nuts to commit to making one. Just tag it “Self Insert Week 2017″ and everyone can browse your work!

So sort yourself into your favorite Hogwarts house and win the House Cup! Design yourself as a sick as fuck Overwatch hero! Make yourself a rad space explorer and romance a turian! This week is for YOU, have fun!

[felassan]

Your first look inside Mass Effect: Discovery, the first Mass Effect: Andromeda comic

Discovery will take us inside the ‘mysterious’ Andromeda Initiative

[pic captions: Lieutanant Tiran Kandros on the cover of Mass Effect: Discovery; Lieutenant Kandros’ tragic backstory, from the Mass Effect: Discovery interiors]

Mass Effect: Andromeda will hit stores on March 21, and just a few short weeks later, BioWare will publish its first expansion on the story of the long-awaited game, Mass Effect: Discovery.

Created as a part of the game publisher’s longstanding relationship with Dark Horse Comics, we now know that Discovery will follow a Turian soldier going undercover in the Andromeda Initiative — a private multi-species coalition seeking to travel beyond the Milky Way to the Andromeda galaxy.

And courtesy of Dark Horse, Polygon can reveal a sneak peek of the comic right here. The first of five four issues of Mass Effect: Discovery, written by Jeremy Barlow with art by Fabriel Guzman and Michael Atiyeh, will hit shelves on April 12, 2017 May 24th 2017. Here’s the official summary:

A young Turian military recruit goes undercover in order to infiltrate the mysterious Andromeda Initiative—and ultimately retrieve a scientist who’s made a potentially devastating discovery. Tying in to the highly anticipated release of Mass Effect: Andromeda, writer Jeremy Barlow and artist Gabriel Guzman team up to create the next exciting chapter of the Mass Effect comics series! [x]

Kandros?

EDIT: Update/correction to the original source -

Update: Dark Horse has sent Polygon corrected information on Mass Effect: Discovery. The series will consist of four issues, not five, and issue #1 will hit shelves on May 24, 2017.

[dearophelia]

four quarians who never made it back to the fleet (and one who did)

Holiday Harbinger gift for @carastian-candies. Happy belated holidays, and happy 2017! I hope you enjoy.

rated pg, warning for minor character death; also on ao3

lia’vael nar ulnay

This is it, she thinks as the volus accuses her, this is how my pilgrimage ends. She doesn’t even have enough money to eat anything more than the protein paste handed out by a turian charity, she certainly doesn’t have enough to hire someone to help her out of a C-Sec cell.

She doesn’t steal. Stealing money, especially from a bosh’tet like this volus, probably doesn’t count as harming another, but she wouldn’t do it anyway. Her mother taught her better than that. No matter how she begs, no matter how much she tries, she cannot make the volus or the C-Sec officer believe her.

Lia’s on the verge of tears when the human steps in, with a quarian and a turian behind her. The switch from despair to relief is too rapid, too sudden, and she’s left completely speechless as the human Spectre dresses down the officer. She’s even more stunned when the quarian speaks up and practically throws the missing credit chit at the volus.

“You left it in a shop,” the quarian says, disdain and barely-contained fury dripping from her voice.

The officer and the volus leave, both chastised, and Lia takes a breath.

She thanks her saviors repeatedly, explains that she’s been eating paste and dreaming of ships, and they all wish her luck and go on their way.

The quarian finds her in the shelter that night, as she stares at her half-eaten bowl of dextro protein paste and the straw sticking out of it. She sits beside Lia and passes her a credit chit. Lia scans it, and her eyes widen: it’s three times as much as the one the volus accused her of stealing.

“I can’t accept this,” Lia says, though she desperately wants to. It’s enough to get her a decent bed and food for a few months, or be a good down payment on the ship she wants. But the quarian must need it, too.

“Yes, you can,” she says, and closes Lia’s hand around it. “Do good with it,” she says, and then stands up. “Keelah’selai, Lia’Vael nar Ulnay.”

She looks up. “Keelah’selai…” she realizes she doesn’t know the quarian’s name.

“Tali’Zorah vas Neema,” she says. And then, with a slight nod, she leaves.

Lia blinks long after Tali has disappeared from her view. That was Tali’Zorah.

She doesn’t buy the ship. She looks all day, but with a full stomach – full for the first time since she was stranded on the Citadel – she goes back to the shelter that evening, and asks what she can do to help.

vali’gorel nar qwib qwib

Illium is beautiful.

That’s an understatement. Illium is gorgeous. It’s shining and shimmering, it’s glittering and dangerous, everything the Fleet is not.

It’s not that she doesn’t love her family or her people, she does. But Val’s always wanted more. More than life in space, more than trying to keep aging ships running, more than the life she grew up with.

And Illium is perfect. Nos Astra is perfect.

She’s had no shortage of work, either. Quarians aren’t noticed as much on Illium as they are elsewhere in the galaxy, and so she doesn’t stand out. She can go almost everywhere and melt into the crowd and shadows. She spent all last week in the diamond district, taking small black bags from back doors and delivering them around Nos Astra on a stolen skybike.

It’s shady work, she has no delusions of that. The people who hire her are the very people she was warned about, but they pay well enough that she has an apartment a few streets into a decent neighborhood. She doesn’t even need roommates to help with the rent.

It’s shady work for shady people, but it’s fun work. Val’s never felt so alive, so light and free, as she does when she’s boosting a skycar or carrying two million credits’ worth of jewels to a drop point.

The only downside is having to pretend to be interested in other people for the sake of a job. She’s a thief and a courier, not a grifter. There’s no thrill in it for her; the thrill is in the steal, the thrill is in the rush of maybe getting caught. The thrill is not in talking to the people she’s going to steal from. She has a tactical cloak for a reason.

But this particular job is a matter of timing, and she’s afraid to tell her employer no for fear that he’ll stop calling, and so she’s here, in Eternity, on a date with the most boring turian she’s ever met. Five minutes into the date and he’s already falling for her, but she can’t even remember his name. He works security for the mark, and she needs his garage access codes.

Val decides to string him along, see how long she can play him and what else she can draw out of him. He’s bound to have more than just access codes. She pretends like she isn’t interested – not much of an act – and gives him just enough that he doesn’t give up and call an end to the date.

She leaves the bar with access codes, guard rotations, and schematics for the target safe.

She walks into Nos Astra’s muted, glittery late night air, and sends a message to her employer that she struck gold. The turian calls out after her, and she politely and gently lets him down. Dejectedly, he nods and walks away.

Her omnitool beeps. Instructions – a time and place to meet for the job. The job she wasn’t originally allowed on, but the job she’s now running. She smiles. She’ll never leave this.

kenn’rala nar tonbay

He hates Omega. It’s dirty and sleazy, and his environmental seals have been working overtime since he stepped on board the station. He shouldn’t have even stopped here, and he certainly hadn’t planned on it, but he’s always been bad with money and unexpectedly found himself dangerously low on credits in a dangerous area of space. He’s bad with money, but good with salvage, and Omega’s a decent place for salvage.

Kenn barely has the lease settled on his kiosk when a pair of vorcha slink down the stairs, hovering in the shadows. He hasn’t even hacked into the electrical grid yet to power his kiosk.

“What?” he snaps after trying to ignore the lurking vorcha for a full five minutes. He prides himself on always being polite, but lurking vorcha can’t be a good sign, and he’s been fighting an irrepressible wave of desperation ever since the lease – the cheapest one he could find – was more than what he wanted to pay.

One of the vorcha hisses, wet breath rattling in the back of his throat. “Harrot’s territory,” he growls.

There are other merchant districts, but he’s stuck in this lease for six months. He can’t move, not without breaking his lease and digging himself even deeper. The batarian who rented him the stall looked like the kind who wouldn’t wait around for money, but who would just go straight for a gun to the head.

So Kenn agrees to Harrot’s terms. He doesn’t have a choice.

The vorcha aren’t even out of sight before he feels failure creep up his spine to join the desperation. He’ll never make enough to get off the station.

Weeks later, a human comes by. He tries not to sound too disappointed, too resigned to his fate when she asks about it: she looks like she might buy something, and no one buys from sad vendors. She even gets Harrot to drop his clutches, allowing him to charge a reasonable price.

He smiles, for the first time since he stepped aboard Omega. A spark of hope lights up inside of him, trying to beat back the crushing failure. He might actually make enough to leave, might actually make enough to get somewhere he can find something for his pilgrimage.

But Cerberus invades, and he’s just another casualty. A dead body at the bottom of the stairs, his kiosk picked over by scavengers.

maya’leen nar idenna

“Cut,” the director calls. “Let’s take lunch.”

Maya drops character and walks away from the set. These lines are ridiculous. As free as dust on the solar wind. She rolls her eyes, glad – not for the first time – that she has a mask, and wonders – also not for the first time – who wrote this shit.

“Don’t speak to me unless it’s as Bellicus,” she warns her costar, holding up a hand to stop him from coming any closer and inevitably asking her to sit with him at lunch where he’ll say something borderline offensive. She steps around him and keeps walking toward her trailer.

The director steps in front of her. “Maya, I’m just looking for more,” he gestures to his face. “You have to act through the mask. We don’t have your face, so it’s up to your body and voice to tell us what Shalei is thinking.”

Shalei is thinking that she would never say half the things in this mess of a script. “Okay,” she says cheerily. “I’ll work on that after lunch.”

She miraculously makes it the rest of the way to her trailer without encountering any other cast or crew. With a sigh, she locks the door behind her and drops onto the couch. The work is nice, and the money is even nicer, but the script is awful, her costar keeps hitting on her, and with the way that they’re already plastering ads all over the Citadel when filming hasn’t even finished yet – she’s never going to escape this character. Ever.

Maya makes herself a smoothie and sits in the quiet of her trailer for a bit. Shalei is her first role of any decent size, the first time she’s been pulled out of crowd scenes and background extras. She wishes there’d been something in the middle – something just on the edge of the spotlight, instead of being thrust straight into it. Then she’d have something else to rely on, something to point to when casting agents inevitably ask her about Shalei.

The set bell rings – two-minute warning – and she sighs. She slurps the rest of her smoothie, takes three deep breaths, and opens the door. If she’s going to be Shalei for the rest of her life, she might as well be good at it. She’ll take her mask off, she’ll sing, she’ll deliver the most ridiculously absurd lines.

Even if it means never getting another role in her life, convincingly selling Shalei means she’ll never have to worry about money. Which means she can stay on the Citadel. She won’t have to go back to the Fleet, where she’s nobody - just another quarian.

“Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd action!”

She gazes up at him – seeing only Bellicus, and not the turian who’s been mildly annoying her since filming started – and tries to feel, with her entire body, that she loves this man. Her shoulders relax and she leans a little bit toward him, just enough that their fingers brush against each other.

“Tonight, I’m as free as the dust on the solar wind,” she whispers, letting her gaze linger on him.

“Yes, perfect!” the director yells. “Cut and print that. Maya, that was beautiful, keep it up through the rest of the scene.”

She turns and looks over her shoulder. “Of course.”

tali’zorah vas normandy

Bosh’tets, all of them.

She helped save the galaxy, brought back information that would help them fight the geth, went to Haestrom and nearly burned up for research they wouldn’t even listen to, and the Admiralty Board decided to put her on trial for treason.

They accepted her back, even made her an admiral, and yet they didn’t listen to her – they decided to go to war with the geth instead. They made her an admiral because of the geth, and then didn’t listen to her about the geth. Bosh’tet isn’t a strong enough word.

Tali listens to Admiral Gerrel and Admiral Raan argue, and watches Admiral Xen stare at Legion like it’s one of her soulless experiments, and wonders why she even tries. Wonders why she even bothers to come back to the Fleet when all she’s ever gotten out of it is heartache and frustration. She loves her people, but it’s hard to see the rest of the Fleet through the stupidity of the admirals.

And then Shepard pings her omnitool with a departure time, and Tali swallows.

This is why she keeps returning.

She can hardly believe it, not even when they shuttle lands. Rannoch.

By the homeworld you may see some day…by the homeworld she’s lucky enough to see right now. The homeworld she is standing on. She’s breathing Rannoch’s air, tasting Rannoch’s dust through her filtration seals, feeling Rannoch’s rocks underneath her feet. Rannoch’s sun warms her through her suit, and she tilts her face up to the sky.

Shepard gives her a rock, a small round orange pebble, and Tali closes her hand around it. She smiles at Shepard, and slips the pebble into her pocket. It’s only a tiny bit of the homeworld to take with her, but it’s more than many will ever get.

A small lizard runs across the rocky sand in front of her.

“When you’re ready,” Shepard says, and heads back to the shuttle.

Tali takes a moment, lagging a little behind. All purples and pinks and oranges, she wants to remember Rannoch’s sky, and the way the scraggly trees cling to the rocks with so much life, and the quiet lap of the ocean below the cliffs. The water sparkles in the sun, and even the shadows are warm and welcoming. Beachfront property, indeed.

She smiles. With a deep breath, she turns back to the shuttle, to Shepard and Legion, to giving the Migrant Fleet their homeworld again, and a place to put down roots.

[pomemag]

A person with Bad Opinions waxes poetic over Mass Effect Andromeda hopes and dreams. Here’s what I’d like to see as the series leaves the Milky Way behind.

[anymash]

Turian week Day 7- AU

Garrus as a dragon, and Shepard as a mermaid. Because I can ^_^

Buy Me a Coffee  ✦ Instagram

[deadlymaelstrom]

A young Turian military recruit goes undercover in order to infiltrate the mysterious Andromeda Initiative—and ultimately retrieve a scientist who’s made a potentially devastating discovery. Tying in to the highly anticipated release of Mass Effect: Andromeda, writer Jeremy Barlow and artist Gabriel Guzman team up to create the next exciting chapter of the Mass Effect comics series!

Mass Effect: Andromeda will hit stores on March 21, and just a few short weeks later, BioWare will publish its first expansion on the story of the long-awaited game, Mass Effect: Discovery. The first of five issues of Mass Effect: Discovery, written by Jeremy Barlow with art by Fabriel Guzman and Michael Atiyeh, will hit shelves on April 12, 2017.

[thunderheadfred]

Red Streak [5.1]

Chapter 05: Surefire [Part 1 of 4. Revised August 2017]

Read the complete fic on AO3

Jane Kithoi Ward, Citadel Summer Shitstorm ’77

Less than a week had passed since that joke of an award ceremony at Alliance HQ, but according to Shepard's gut-tight internal clock, linear time was a bygone irrelevancy. Whenever the words Star of Terra entered her mind, several millennia would blur past all at once, reducing her memory to static. 

Five days previously at a hasty press conference on Arcturus Station, a visibly uncomfortable Amul Shastri had pinned the Alliance’s most prestigious military decoration onto a woman raised by an extraterrestrial war criminal. Just like that, at the pleasure of two-dozen swarming tabloid reporters, Second Lieutenant Jane Shepard's comfortable anonymity had been shot straight to hell.

After a funerary receiving line of stiff, bruising handshakes, Shepard had been evacuated to the relative neutrality of the Citadel by her oldest mentor and only remaining friend in the Alliance: Captain David Anderson. Hidden away in the Captain’s private apartment, she was to spend an entire month’s mandatory leave keeping her head down, goddammit. Anderson had immediately returned to Arcturus HQ, where he was currently going far beyond the call of duty on Shepard’s behalf, kissing enough asses and pulling enough strings to prove that the Lieutenant was not - and never had been - acting on behalf of alien interests.

Now at the bleeding end of her first night of compulsory leave, Shepard was already blind drunk. Hazy and lethargic amid the neon-painted shadows of Anderson’s glamorous abandoned apartment, she drifted with smoke-gray apathy, finally crashing knee first into a desk. With the yelp of a woman shot, she succumbed to her wounds and fell on the spot, taking the Captain’s personal console down with her. After it landed dangerously close to Shepard's head, the console flickered weakly and then went dark. Another man down. 

Best to stay right here, she thought. Best to die honorably beside a fallen comrade, a pitiful chance to absolve herself of Torfan.

Thus relieved, Shepard spent her first night on the Silversun Strip sleeping face down on a polished cement floor. It was the best night of sleep she'd had in months.

The next morning, after she’d vomited enough alcohol out of her blood to see straight, Shepard did what she could to straighten up the mess she'd made. Luckily, Anderson’s console had survived the fall unharmed. Less luckily, when she managed to boot the system again, it was only to receive a patronizing lecture.

Hey Kid,

Don’t slack off. I can squeak you into ICT, but after that, it's up to you. Do whatever you want at night, just don’t break my furniture. During the day, your ass already belongs to those instructors in Rio de Janeiro. Use this time to prepare. Proving your worth at Vila Militar is going to hurt like nothing else [...]

The message continued, in no uncertain terms, to spell out exactly how much pain she was promised. Doom and gloom included, it was still good news. If she spent a month quietly avoiding any further media spectacle and forcing herself into the best shape of her life, Shepard might be allowed to exchange the very last shreds of her military reputation for the opportunity to be eaten alive at Vila Militar. All she could do now was ready herself for digestion.

Every day cycle, she ground away dutifully, slowly but surely losing herself in a numbing cycle of PT. Hours spent running on Anderson's treadmill were matched by repetitive weight circuits in his cold, echoing living room. To keep herself sane in the middle of the third… fourth… fifth round of burning reps, she surfed through alien television and tried to avoid catching sight of her own face.

The turians obstinately refused to talk about it. Hierarchy-affiliated channels aired nothing more titillating than the occasional bottom-line crawl: human sources claim excommunicated traitor Albacus Regidonis lived among their own and attempted to raise a human child before dying in exile.

Occasionally a turian military analyst would drop Shepard's name along with a grudging acknowledgment of the Star of Terra, but for the most part, Shepard endured little more than endless, droning isolation. Watching TV and lifting weights, she gained five pounds of muscle and learned more than she ever cared to know about Palaven's water crisis.

She lasted half a month cooped up in solitary confinement before she cracked.

She started small, sneaking out to a declining aquatic recreation center a few blocks from Anderson's. The place was well-maintained but otherwise unfashionable, patronized by rheumy-eyed salarians and one or two ancient, wrinkled hanar. Given a wide berth in this mostly-empty pool, Shepard brought a pair of combat fins and swam daily, going as long as she could take it. Back and forth, back and forth, until her ankles threatened to crack.

Just as the retirement home was losing its appeal, the keepers went belly-up and all hell broke loose in Kithoi. Overnight, the ambient temperature rose by twenty degrees, and by the end of the next day cycle, every pool complex on the ward was packed to capacity, including the unfashionable ones.

To keep off the radar, Shepard drifted ten blocks further from Anderson's apartment. There she found a hole-in-the-wall volus arcade that offered zero-g free-fall and untethered target practice. Good exercise with no background checks and minimal safety restrictions. Fun, for a minute or two. But it wasn't long before the constant drug hand-offs in the lobby started to get on Shepard's nerves. Time to move on.

Her last week brought her as far afield as she dared. Armax Arena was thick with trigger-happy turians and not a few Alliance meatheads. All of them, including her, were looking for a fight. She kept her helmet on and spoke to no one, but the first time she got a funny look, her stomach lining curdled.

Fresh meat, that glance had said. Nothing more.

She chose Eska as her pseudonym on the public scoreboards, and remained undiscovered. Gradually, so as not to draw attention, she blasted through enough combat sims to earn two honorable mentions on the board - and brought home nearly five thousand credits.

Three days away from Vila Militar, Shepard won her first major score at the Arena. No use bragging about it. As usual, she collected her winnings in silence, then rushed into her favorite low-traffic alleyway, the only place she might remove her armor unobserved.

She had just finished clumsily shoving her practice armor into a duffle bag when she saw him.

Standing in the middle of her getaway route was one of the Arena’s regular spectators, a retired turian general named Oraka. Something of an eccentric local celebrity, he was in the habit of shaking hands with promising newbies and doling out bits of archaic battle strategy to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen. Always courteous, even to humans, but always a little bit drunk.

Today, he was sober.

“Excellent shooting,” he called, clear-eyed and deliberate. He stepped closer, keeping his empty hands raised, turning his neck just enough to show he was no threat. “Very sharp with a rifle, aren't you? But the pistol... that's where you truly shine.”

"What do you want?"

Slowly, his eyes drifted to her clenched fingers, to the red lacquer on her thumb, obvious as a bullseye. Staring at her, he adopted a look of baffled recognition and opened his mouth to speak. Several times he tried and failed, biting back every comment but the last.

"There are few things I love more than being right," he choked.

She stood her ground, but felt her hand trembling on strap of her duffle.

Using a thin, tremulous sub-vocal that held more meaning than she could parse, he softly added, “I always told Alba he would make a fine patrem.”

That night, on the arm of a general, Jane Shepard visited her first turian dive bar.

Considering her chaperone, the choice of ambience was pleasantly unpretentious. The general himself made for thrilling company for the first half hour, answering every question Shepard asked. But before long he grew maudlin and weepy - and very, very drunk.

The next night she returned to the bar, alone. Despite being the lone human in a heavily populated dextro dive, Shepard was permitted to sit at a small grungy table and drink herself numb, completely unmolested. The turian patrons were preoccupied with rubbing up on each other; they had little interest in a rubbernecking culture tourist. Aside from a few bored once-overs, she was invisible.

Finally, her last night arrived, sudden and rude. The slim, waning hours of precious anonymity before Camp Militar came for her blood. After tonight, it was perfection or death.

Knowing that, Shepard bought a short, cheap skirt and returned to the bar.

As before, nearly all of the locals ignored her. The only trouble came in the form of a persistent, flirtatious drug runner who kept insisting that a monkey in a skirt was adorable, and that everything would look a lot brighter if you took one of these and danced with me, mellia.

Three hours later, everything was tangled up in blue.

[djfatchip]

OC KISS WEEK 2017: LAST DAY

Event: OC Kiss Week 2017 - Day 7: Goodbye Kiss OC’s: Bryant Leon Shepard Words: 1172 Universe: Mass Effect Note:  AKEELAH MADAKI belongs to @leysendris

MY HEART IS BROKEN! I HOPE YOU LIKE IT AND HAVE MANY TISSUES IN HANDY! YOU ARE GOING TO NEED IT! *ugly sobbing*

Gustav ‘Gus’ Bertrand belongs to @erubadhriell Jessica ‘Jess’ Shepard belongs to @erubadhriell

LIKES AND/OR REBLOGS ARE LOVE ♥︎ THANK YOU FOR READING!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Akeelah dived into cover as more turian reapers came her way.

“I got you covered,” came Bryant’s voice as he provided cover fire.

It was a long exhausting fight as his team was pinned down. He didn’t know how long they were going to last if Anderson didn’t hurry up.

“Bryant! Where are you?” shouted Celestine in his ear.

“Don’t shout! I’m on the other side! Akeelah is pinned down!” he shouted to her back.

“Fuck! I can’t get to you! Gus! I need help!”

Bryant became a blue blur as he used throw to push all the husks away.

“I am almost there Akeelah, hang on!” he yelled for her.

She was so close yet so far.

Akeelah grunted in pain as she held her arm. She got shot by one of the bastard. She was glad her aim wasn’t off to repay him for the pain with it’s life. She reloaded, smirking as she saw that it was the last clip she had for her favorite rifle.

She peeked over her cover when she saw Bryant run to her with shotgun in hand, happy to see her well.

“You alright?” he asked her as she stood to full height..

“Yeah, you?” she asked in return.

“Yeah but you are a terrible liar,” he said as he pointed to her arm. “You are not ok.”

Akeelah rolled her eyes, “i'm fine. It’s only a flesh wound.”

Bryant scowled at her, “flesh wounds don't have holes.”

Akeelah sighed as she nodded for Bryant to take a look at her arm. He quickly and carefully took the gauntlet off and applied medi-gel.

“I can’t clean it but this should be enough,” he said as he placed her gauntlet back on.

A rumble caught their attention and Bryant was relieved to see Jess coming to her with Garrus following closely behind.

“You are all ok?” she asked as she looked between the two.

“Yeah, can you get to Celestine?” asked Bryant as he approached them.

Jess couldn’t answer as a roar went off in the distance.

“Fuck,” cursed Bryant as he unhooked a pouch from his belt and gave it to Akeelah. “I saw you had only one thermal clip. I always pack extra, just in case.”

Akeelah nodded in gratitude as she grabbed the pouch full of thermal clips.

“Let’s move!” Bryant called out as he took point.

Everyone followed his direction. They had to hold the area until Anderson got to them. Unfortunately it was started to get overrun by the husks that broke through. He didn’t know how or when he got separated from Gus and Celestine but he hoped they were alright.

Akeelah rolled out of the way as a husk came at her. Bryant shooting the other that jumped towards her.

“Bryant, look out!” Called Akeelah in panic.

He turned and shot out in time to see a husk jumping his way.

“I hate these things,” Bryant grumbled.

Akeelah didn’t comment on that. They both knew that the enemies before them used to be people. Real living breathing people. But they could agree that they hated to do this. They hated how this happened. And all because no one listened. No one heard.

Bryant turned in time to see another group of husks coming their way.

“We have to plug that hole,” said Bryant as he ran to it.

“Don't rush in you idiot!” Akeelah scolded as she ran behind him.

They both skidded to a stop as a brute landed in front of them. They both opened fired which angered the brute. It swung at them. Bryant jumped and rolled out of the way, grunted as he turned to face it.

His blue eyes widen as his heart raced. Her name cried out in alarm.

The brute got hold of Akeelah and in one blow slammed her to the ground, not stopping with once or twice but three times and leaving her there on the floor as it roared above her.  

Bryant shook his head, his shocked reverberated through each bone in his body. Akeelah wasn’t moving.

****

Celestine placed a shield on Gus to keep the husks from overwhelming him as he worked the explosive to rig in time.

Her heart froze as something in her broke. Something in her suddenly felt… empty. She turned to Gus for an explanation but he too looked at her as of something was ripped from them.

****

Bryant screamed. His biotic amp opening all the way and unleashed a more powerful blow than Jess had ever seen or been able to do. He ran at an inhuman speed straight into the brute, wasting shotgun bullets into its core. It died at some point but he stopped caring. An explosion went off somewhere but he didn’t hear, he couldn’t as hands tried to make him stop shooting.

“Bryant!” Gus called to him as he shook him. “Stop!”

Bryant snapped out of his bloodlust and finally remembered where he was. He turned around to find Celestine holding Akeelah as Jess and Garrus were nearby. Garrus holding Jess closely as her anxiety rose.

Bryant ran to Celestine, nudging her away from Akeelah. There was blood everywhere on her and a massive red puddle building under her.

Bryant’s tears fell, hitting her on her face.

“Don’t cry…” she whispered softly.

“You didn’t move fast enough,” he said with no emotion even if he tried to joke.

Akeelah tried to smile.

“Akeelah you have to hang on ok?” he asked, “promise you you will hang on.”

More tears fell and Celestine couldn’t watch anymore. Gus looking at her as she was walking away.

“You know, I always cared about you,” she began, “but you have a big head.”

Bryant laughed. It came out as a sob. His heart already working into overdrive as he knew here this was going.

He leaned forward, their foreheads touching, “I have always cared for you too. I --- I love you Akeelah, please don’t… don’t go,” he begged as more tears finally flowed.

Akeelah fluttered her eyes closed, unable to hold them opened.

Bryant sobbed again as he watched her last breath fall.

He began to rock himself, holding her close. He gave her a kiss on her forehead as more tears followed.

Jess and Garrus looked away. Jess began to softly cry on Garrus.

Gus shot his arm out to Celestine as she didn’t stop walking. He pulled her arm forcing her to turn around and in that instant he regretted it. She was in so much pain. She was already in tears and she collapsed as Bryant screamed out Akeelah’s name. Gus caught her in his arms, dropping his pistol, while shushing her. He knew this pain all too well.

Anderson’s convoy finally made it to the destination. What Anderson found was a devastating sight. Bryant stopped sobbing at some point. He was only now rocking Akeelah and himself. Her head under his chin.

“Bryant?” asked Anderson wearily as he approached him.

Bryant responded with soft humming of her favorite lullaby.

[anymash]

Turian week Day 1 - Introductions

After the reapers were destroyed and the peace was established in the galaxy, Shepard and Garrus finally found time for themselves. In short time after the victory, they got married. A simple and quiet ceremony for closest friends and relatives.

From the first days of family life, Garrus was constantly suggesting the thought, that they have to adopt a child. Shepard was hesitating, but finally agreed. She was an orphan raised on the streets of megalopolises and had no idea, what means to be a mom.

But all her fears and doubts vanished, when she saw this little turian boy, who also remain orphan after the reapers invasion on Palaven.

P.S I will be very grateful, if you will suggest me a name for their son ^_^

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