#i mean for crying out loud i ship the andromeda 5 and that's 5 whole different alien species lmao

[whatudottu]

Hot take: the Ben 10 fandom and the NSR fandom are pretty much complete inverses of each other when it comes to what kinds of characters they simp for.

Ben 10 has tons of sexy aliens to the point of literally featuring an entire species of buff leotard-wearing cephalopod people that you think would attract alienfuckers by the dozen, but like 80% of the fandom simps for the basic white boy and white girl.

NSR has an entire boy band of conventionally attractive anime boy robots who outright flirt with the female playable character, but like 80% of the fandom simps for the DILF cyborg war veteran with a screen for a head and the space-themed forty-something DJ with a bowling ball for a head.

The NSR fandom said 'those old men can GET IT' and fucking ran with it so hard that it's the most written about romantic relationship (going by ao3 stats) by almost 50 give or take if you're reading with an account or not- honestly? 'Round of applause, y'all really meant it, those old men CAN get it!

But I suppose it might be helped due to the more 'boss rush' style presentation of NSR, being a game centered mostly around who you fight rather than who you fight as. More time is proportionally spent in the media (game in this case) actually focusing on characters like DJ Subatomic Supernova - representation of the self-centered DJ - and Neon J - representation of boybands and specifically as the manager - and getting a comparably significant amount of focus; space themed object head has an ego so dense it LITERALLY causes a singularity (and causes spaghettification) and war veteran cyborg ordering around troops with protocols.

With Ben 10 god I fucking wished more people simped for Tetrax, bestie is just such a cool fucking character let alone how he was introduced and thus executed, but as a show with MANY iterations we kinda need to have a central cast (that gets narrowed down eventually into a central character). Whoever wears the Omnitrix - the one main driving force of the series - is essentially forever a main character, and that character just so happens to be Ben Tennyson after one alien device did what it did.

Despite it's main focus BEING the aliens that Ben turns into - in addition to being a universe with an active alien presence - it never particularly set out to be more than anything other than a sci-fi alien flavoured action story, centered around a human boy (who probably gets his egg completely shattered only to crack an entire coop of eggs in the aftershock) walking only a few steps in other species' shoes. It was only rather late that the actual extraterrestrial exploration of the series really came around, at least in full force (SoTO my beloved 😫). Kinda hard for EVERYONE to simp for your favourite side character when you've got like... seasons worth of a mostly human main cast, lmao-

#ask #anonymous #no straight roads #nsr #ben 10 #i like babygirling old men because it seems like i'm investing (even if it's less my own relationships and more my own reflection) #(not that i can aspire to have the reflections of djss or neon j but like goals am i right?) #i am most certainly an example of the 20% of ben 10 fans to rotate like a microwave side characters #i mean for crying out loud i ship the andromeda 5 and that's 5 whole different alien species lmao #probably also a difference in audiences too lmao ben 10's been here for a WHILE and nsr's only been like 3 years? #i don't hear many kids talk about nsr (like kid kids- which on tumblr may also just be a narrow perspective) #not sure how a kid might access nsr without a parent going 'oh this game looks nice' and getting it for them #while ben 10 was throughout it's runs very much a kid's show #ya it had things an adult could enjoy but predominantly it ran on tv back in the day- easy access media for a kid #you can grow up with ben 10- nsr is nsr and came out in 2020 and isn't the type to need or warrant a sequel #idk why this answer became a study on media and audiences lmao this was probably meant to be a shitpost #and by probably i mean pretty much guaranteed i'm just not committing to absolutes in the off-chance i'm wrong lmao #have a ramble: on the house

[sugarbubbleslove]

Kadara - Mass Effect Andromeda

So...that was fun.

And yes - I'm playing this game again and romancing Liam again.

Under spoilers for those who likes Sloane - don't read this.

So, this time I chose to pick 'none of your business' when Sloane asked me what I wanted Vehn Terev (cause I always picked truthfully) but this time, I wanted to play my Ryder as someone who didn't think Sloane had any right to the information.

She's not Nexus, she's not Angaran so really, she doesn't need the information.

and she TRIED to have her escorted out at GUNPOINT! Then I picked the interrupt disarmed her bodyguard (and he's a pretty lousy one since he allowed himself to get disarmed by a 5 feet woman for crying out loud!), SHE raises her gun at Ryder and tells Ryder to drop the gun only for Ryder to say 'you first'.

I was actually impressed with my Ryder. That was kind of badass (and she's totally her father's daughter) but at the same time, really Sloane? You raised a gun at a pathfinder and you expect them to take it sitting down?

I mean - My Ryder is not the most impulsive one (the only impulsive things she done at this moment was Shoot the Cardinal in the back - still sends shivers down my spine when I get that option - and kiss Liam) But seeing a gun in her face is enough to make her snap into action.

Plus I don't get where people says Sloane is professional? I always choose the professional/logical options with her and Sloane basically keeps spitting in her face?

And to top it off - Sloane 'tells' Ryder that if she wants that outpost, she will attend to the meeting to protect Sloane.

Yeah - sure, let's bring an outsider who really doesn't give a shit about you Sloane, considering you shoved a gun and spat in her face.

So yeah - this only just makes me want to side with Reyes even more. He is actually friendly - I have done a professional/Logical playthrough and got called a 'bitch' by him, which was hysterical but eh, I feel like Reyes and Peebee each remind her of Scott so she can't help but pick the causal response because she misses him that much.

He actually helps me out, is quite happy to work with me and even protects my Outpost without a fee. Hell - he even does away the Protection Fees. The only thing is he hikes up the transport cut but everyone seems happier that there isn't a protection fee anymore.

And another thing - which is just hysterical - is TANN is the ONLY one who actually had faith in Ryder at the beginning. Addison comes off as a bitch, demanding to know how your father dies.

Kesh bitches about Tann and explains why the Krogan left.

Kandros was mostly like - fucking hell, someone else who is actually competent showed up. Finally (poor guy, he was really getting the run around).

But Tann actually tells you he's story for the loss of Alec (first one, BTW), is willing to put faith in Ryder despite being a newbie and he understands the position she's in cause hello 'Surprise! Responsibility!) and gives you a ship and he acts pleasant with my Ryder so maybe it depends on how you speak to him.

Yet Morda and Sloane? You'd think they know Ryder wasn't part of the uprising since the Ark hadn't shown up - which was part of the reason why the whole uprising started. Morda and Sloane know Ryder is the Pathfinder so they are obviously getting intel.

Not sure who Sloane would be getting it from (maybe Spender?) but Morda is clearly Kesh and Drack.

Yet they spit in her face? Even when she acts professional and cordial? Still gets called out on being Nexus Trash and such?

Eh...so...you're letting grudges with the Nexus impact a potential relationship with the person who can actually make the planet viable?

Hmm. Maybe I should read the book but at the same time, it's annoying that those information are IN a book when if they are meant to be impactful, they should be in the game.

I mean - look at Initiation. It focus on Cora and her dealing with SAM-E but at the same time, it doesn't impact the game itself. Sure Ryder doesn't quite know (just yet) that SAM could only be transferred to the twins only because Alec only explained about their mother (though they probably might have an idea since SAM went straight to Scott when Sara was taken out of the game, but it could be explained because SAM node is on the Hyperion and that's where Scott is so it was easier to access Scott instead of Cora who is either on the Tempest or locked in the room with a dead Sara).

I wonder if it will come up at some point - like if Sara dies again (Liam is gonna end up wrapping her up in bubble wrap if this continues) and instead of going to Cora, SAM goes straight to Scott and it's discovered that way. *Shrugs*

So...Bioware. Andromeda 2 is when?!

#Mass Effect Andromeda #Not for Sloane fans #please don't read #I choose a different option this time round #and what the hell?! #On a another rant #again #and still romancing Liam #*sighs* #He just sucks me in with those beautiful eyes of his #...and I think I just discover why I keep picking Alistair/Kaidan/Cullen #But I do like Sebastian and Iron Bull #But Josephine also has brown eyes!!! #Ah!

[dulcidyne]

Experiments in Diplomacy: Troubleshooting [7/?]

There’s nothing in the Interspecies Diplomacy subsection of the Initiative handbook that covers sharing a tech lab with an angara who can kill her in her sleep. She knows, she’s read every page. Twice. (A collection of in-between vignettes from the Tempest tech lab) 

//Jaal x Ryder // Humor. Romance. SFW // Previous chapters: [1][2][3][4][5][6] or read on Ao3

“I’ve got it.”

Exhaustion scuffs her smile down to expose the wiry, frenetic energy she scraped up from the bitter dregs of her last coffee. Jaal tilts his chin to angle a skeptical glance and a wry smile her way. Both say he’s expecting her new idea to be highly impractical. Neither are wrong. 89 consecutive power draw trials and three hours of sleep mean her ideas are starting to get a little...eccentric.

“I’ll just wear more power cells.” Se-ah slumps her weight onto her forearms, letting Mags do most of the work of keeping her upright. “Problem solved.”

“Pathfinder, by my calculations the number of additional power cells required exceed the free surface area of your hardsuit.”

For an AI living in her head, SAM can be surprisingly gullible. She finds it delightful. Tapping her raw, bitten-down fingernails against Maggie’s carbon glass, she pretends to give his objection serious thought.  While she’s at it, she also pretends not to hear the dull staccato thump on the tech lab door. It’ll go away soon. At least, she hopes. The other side of the door is the last thing she has the mental capacity for right now.

“So we stack them.”

“Pathfinder—”

“Or I’ll just bring a portable generator, plug in for battle. We could make a harness for Drack.”

“Limitations in combat mobility render this solution highly impractical.”

SAM isn’t programmed with state-of-the-art emotional inflections—conveying emotion wasn’t ever high on her father’s list of priorities, clearly he didn’t think it should be high on SAM’s either—but there’s a jarring fluctuation in his modulated voice akin to alarm.

Jaal hears it too and works a thread of reproof into his smile, which, along with the majority of his attention, returns to the kett bioconverter he’s in the process of ripping apart for the sake of his own curiosity.  “Ryder…”

“There are no bad ideas,” she intones defensively, grabbing the jumper wires Jaal sets down by her hand and getting back to work. They’ve developed a good rhythm together in the lab, much like the one they have in the field. It’s a dance of increasing familiarity, steps formed out of subtle gestures, reflex, and split-second instinct. She gets the shields while he lines up the shot. Static crackle and rifle report ringing out a background duple meter. The tempo in the lab is slower, less frantic without projectiles and wild animals trying to rip through her armor, but it still thrums in her bones like a reverberating pulse straight out of the Vortex subwoofers.

“Is that a common human expression?” Jaal asks her in a way that tells her he doesn’t care for it. “I’ve had several experiences that prove the opposite.”

Se-ah clips the connectors into place and grins, wide and slow. “Yeah? Would any of them involve teaming up with a ragtag group of Milky Way aliens?”

Before he can reach over for it, she slides a tube of thermal paste his way. Her fingers pause on the rolled-over top, waiting for him to ask for an explanation of the phrase ‘ragtag’ even as she opens her mouth to launch into it.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he huffs a low laugh, drawing closer. “No...but I suspect you only ask because you are already sure of my answer.”

Distracted by his proximity, she studies the variegated violet freckling over his cheekbones, awash in rippling blue light. Are they the angaran equivalent of freckles? Do angaran biochromophores react the same way to sunlight as melanin does? Does the scientific curiosity explain the urge to trace her hand across them and map an array of constellations all for herself? Distantly, she notes that the thumping on the door has stopped.

“Maybe I’m just making sure we’re on the same page?” The words gust out of her, soft and too breathy. She can’t spare a moment to be embarrassed over how blatantly romance-vid her reaction to him is. There’s nothing critical in his soft chuckle except a hint of exasperation over one too many idioms.

His hand cups the back of her own—still perched on the tube of thermal paste—engulfing it in half the span of his fingers. Warmth grips her through the material of his glove and palms a hot, shivering caress up her arm and into her chest. Before she can think, her palm impulsively twists to catch it, pressing up against his and slip her five fingers between his three.

The pad of his thumb traces over the line of her own, slow and soft as a sigh. “I think that whatever is on your page is on mine as well . ”

“Good, that’s good. About that. We should probably talk about exactly what’s on that page—besides your email, I mean, and with this whole. Fraternizing . Thing. ”

Her heartbeat thuds against her sternum. Not because he’s pulling her closer, well that too, but because her carefully-planned response to his email is garbling up in her head as if his nearness is so much interference turning her carefully planned words to static. She’s never been good at these types of conversations. Good at avoiding them? Absolutely. But she’s tired of living in the liminal spaces of relationships where nothing is concrete or defined and everything is vague half-hopes and swallowed desires. That might be good enough for the person she used to be but not anymore. She wants this. Wants to tell him.

“If you’re sure she just forgot…” comes a voice from the other side of the door—Scottish brogue muffled but distinct. Se-ah barely has time to pull free and step away from him before the hydraulic system hisses metal panels open to reveal Peebee and Suvi, who at least has the good sense to look very apologetic.

“Sorry Ryder, but she kept insisting there was some mistake.”

Se-ah exhales long and slow. Then she bows her head back down in the guise of surveying the connectors scattered across Maggie’s top while silently cursing her merciful decision not to throw a certain asari out the airlock.

“Nope.” She pops the ‘p’ hard against her lower lip. “Not a mistake.”

“So what’s with the tension in here?” Peebee scans between them, then flicks a commiserating half-grin in Jaal’s direction. “Mad at you too huh?”

Se-ah bites down on her retort, hard, and her lip smarts for it. The imprint of his hand against hers is a phantom warmth transmuted into an insistent ache. All the words she couldn’t say are still buzzing in her head, too loud. She unclips all the connectors that she just put in. They’re all wrong. What was she thinking?

Jaal has no response but Peebee never has a problem filling up other people’s side of the conversation--a trait Se-ah finds either exasperating or charming, depending on the situation.  “Well at least she can’t revoke your access to your own room, right?”

“Is there something you want Peebee?” Se-ah flexes her hand, willing the wistful ache out of her skin.

“Why do you assume I’m here because I want something?” Peebee does a convincing enough job of sounded wounded. “I can have altruistic motives too, you know. I came because I was worried.”

Confusion has Se-ah glancing up from the bench just in time to see Suvi wisely edge out of the lab and make a discrete escape. “Worried?” she asks, “About what?”

“About you , obviously. You know, the whole amnesia thing you clearly have going on.”

Well, that’s on her, she should’ve known better than to engage. Se-ah heaves a sigh up towards the deckhead panels for her own naivete and goes back to reclipping the connectors, hoping silence will be enough of a hint to be left alone.

It is not. Because nothing in Andromeda goes the way she wants it to, especially not when a certain asari is involved. Instead of leaving, Peebee crosses the room to stand on the other side of the tech bench, ducking her head low enough to press her cheek against the glossy top.

“Ryder,” she says, voice full of concern. “Do you remember who I am?”

“Peebee…”

“Good! Good, that’s a relief. Now, do you remember telling me you weren’t mad about the whole borrowing the ozone scrubbers and that I could have my access to the lab back?”

“What I remember telling you is that there are consequences for putting other people on this ship in danger and that your access to the lab will be contingent on supervision until--”

Peebee scrunches up her face as if this is the first she’s heard of all this. “Nooo, I’m pretty sure you said I had my access back, no babysitting required. SAM?”

“Leave SAM out of this. You took them. Without permission. You almost destroyed Ma--the machine. Do you think I should trust you to be in here alone after that? ”

“Trust has nothing to do with this. I was obviously going to put them back as soon as possible. You know that. How was I supposed to know you’d be up all night using the damn thing? It’s called sleep , Ryder. Ever heard of it? Look, just admit you’re still mad at me. Then we can hug or something, Jaal will probably cry, knowing him--it’ll be better than a drama vid.”

Jaal clearly agrees with either the idea or the prediction that he’d be left in tears. Possibly both. He nods sagely. “That’s an excellent idea. Once you acknowledge your feelings, you can work towards resolving the issue.” Se-ah drops all pretense of working and scrubs her hand over her face. “I’m not mad. This has nothing to do with my feelings and everything to do with a totally reasonable punishment.”

“If you’re not mad, we can just skip to the hug part then—”

Peebee makes to circle around the tech bench, proving it is no empty threat. Her unique brand of emotional distance is oddly physical in nature; pinching, prodding, jumping on, squeezing, all while holding everyone at an arm’s length. She’d do it, the madwoman , she’d hug her. Se-ah startles back, hands coming up defensively to ward it off.

“Calm down Ryder, it’s a hug, not a bomb. Why so tense?” Peebee snorts, delighted over this new development. Her eyes are bright and glittering in a mad-scientist way. A woman afraid of hugs is an oddity and Peebee happens to specialize in unraveling oddities. Se-Ah would much prefer to stay tightly raveled.

She clears her throat in a bid for composure but can’t bring herself to lower her hands. “You can’t just flirt your way out of everything Peebee.”

“Oh yeah?” A dozen different flavors of innuendo squeeze into the smooth drop of her voice and the slow, satisfied curl of her lips. Glittering eyes shift into something beguiling, beckoning her. “Can’t you let me try though?” “I’m--a little busy at the moment,” Se-ah stutters, flushing all the way down to her shirt collar. Fabric scratches  her rapidly warming throat. She tugs it away impatiently. Damnit Peebee . She’ll take disarming a bomb any day over Peebee’s determined seduction technique. At least she knows how to handle a bomb.

White teeth flash into a triumphant grin. Whatever game Peebee is playing, she’s winning and she knows it. She moves closer, in for the kill. “Which is exactly why you should let me work out some of that tension.”

All at once, Se-ah is done. It’s so Peebee to derail conflict with a come-on; not even a come-on she’s actually invested in. Probably.

“Which is exactly why I can’t supervise you right now.” she snaps, imbuing her voice with every gram of authority she can muster. “The conversation about access reinstatement will have to wait for another time.”

Peebee’s smile dims and hurt slumps her shoulders before she squares them up for a shrug that tells Se-ah the wounded act from before was only partially put on. Being on the outs bothers her; which explains a lot. Peebee is at her Peebee -ist when she’s trying to hide the fact that she cares. It’s almost enough for Se-ah to forget how irritated she is and start feeling guilty over it.

“Have SAM make a note of it before the amnesia kicks in again,” Peebee quips over her shoulder, already halfway out the door.

Almost . Se-ah bites down on her very juvenile, very unprofessional retort. Snatching up a pair of needle nose pliers, she flays open an insulated wire with a focused viciousness normally reserved for Kett. Once the copper threads are stripped bare she realizes Jaal has been watching her intently the whole time. “Peebee is right,” he concludes. Traitor. Se-ah scowls, feeling hopelessly wrong-footed. She shouldn’t have snapped. A good leader shouldn’t ever let it get that personal. It’s just that Peebee...she clenches her jaw against a fresh wave of irritation. Peebee can be impossible sometimes. Flustered, she flings the wire away and watches it skid across the bench top.

“I am not mad. I’m just being reasonable. It was entirely professional.”

There’s a voice in the back of her head that says her claim to professionalism rings hollow . It sounds like a dead woman. She would never be this close with her crew, letting it undermine her leadership. She took Alliance regulations about fraternization seriously, didn’t see the point in risking her career over messy personal entanglements. She wouldn’t be on any page with Jaal, not with a diplomatic relationship with an alien species on the line regardless of if it went well or poorly. Something painful grinds in her chest, a raw fuse of broken emotion she’s still not ready to deal with. It feels like empty chairs at recitals, graduations, commendation ceremonies--like unanswered vid calls and unsigned cards and Scott’s accusatory, ‘You never get mad because you’re just like him’ . Career first. Personal entanglements later...she wonders what Jaal would think about that. What her--

Jaal’s palm settles over her shoulder and she glances up, startled. “She was right about the hug. You do need one, you’re very tense.”

His touch is a warm, reassuring weight that anchors her to the floor and she relaxes into it despite the objectively horrifying suggestion.

“Ryders don’t hug,” she says without much mirth. It’s an inside joke that isn’t actually a joke. One of Scott’s. He liked to pull a stern expression, looking eerily like their dad when he said it. Or, he used to. Once they realized the truth at the heart of it, after mom’s death, it was less a joke and more of an observation told with the cadence of one.

All of this is lost on Jaal. In her entire arsenal of idioms, she’s never seen him so baffled. A stomach-churning emotion props a stilted smile up at the corner of her mouth. It feels like it will topple off her lips at any moment. Beneath his hand, her shoulder bunches up as she shifts back to squeeze a couple extra centimeters between them without breaking contact.  

“We’re just not very good at it. We only inflict them on others on very rare occasions.”

Occasions she can count out on one hand: saying goodbye to halmeoni in the hospital, her and Scott’s 8th and worst birthday, Aunt Eldora crushing her lungs at mom’s funeral, the handful she shared with Iraenya, including the one signifying their tidy breakup after she signed on for the Andromedra Initiative. Even then, privately, she thinks the word ‘hug’ is far off the mark for all those situations.

There isn’t a single word that would be on the mark. All she can think of are the plastic dolls she played with as a kid and their serene, frozen-faced smiles (although her Matriarch Dilinaga was partially melted from her last expedition into the ‘Attican Traverse’, so it was more of a grimace) as she clacked them together into rough approximations of an embrace, their arms extended out and rigid.

Realization strikes him and Jaal chuckles, squeezing her tense shoulder. “Ah, you’re... ‘pulling my foot’.”

“Uh...no.” Her frozen-faced grimace is a near exact replica of her Dilinaga doll. “I’m not. I am really bad at them.I get...tense and awkward. It’s like hugging a bundle of sticks but with less capacity for warmth.”

“Oh.” The word drops between them like a stone. As the echoes clatter around them something strange happens to his face. It’s been weeks, so it takes her a moment to realize he’s schooling his expression to mask his emotions. Poorly. He manages to banish some of the slow-dawning horror drawing his brow into a rictus of concern and plaster up a tremulous smile as he gently releases her shoulder. The loss gusts cold beneath the thin edge of her shirt.

“I didn’t...I didn’t think that was possible…” She watches him choose his words with care, discarding a dozen alternatives before settling on one free of judgement. Considering his vehement pronouncements on emotionally stunted humans, it’s absence is...unexpected. “I don’t entirely understand. Is that...healthy for humans?”

“For some it is. For some people, the physical contact can be overwhelming. Painful, even. But  I don’t think it’s something you can generalize with us.”

He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands and finally settles for crossing his arms over his chest, folding them away. “I see.”

It would be nothing to reach out and pull his hand back into hers. A dozen centimeters, maybe less. Her fingers ache with possibility but that dozen centimeters is a 2.5 million light-year wide gap between them, full to the brim with mores and customs and her own personal hang-ups piled on for good measure. She sucks in a breath and squares her shoulders, her muscles drawing tighter, her hands clenching in on themselves.  

“Then,” he asks, “for you, specifically?”

“Uh…”

Blunt but disarming. Her shoulders fall and her hands uncurl in synchrony—as if he’s hit a reset button and restored her back to original factory settings. Factory-setting Se-Ah is not eloquent. All she does is gape while her brain finishes the laborious process of starting back up again.

“I don’t actually know? It’s not an easy question to answer.”

“It isn’t?”

“No!” Se-ah cries, an improbable laugh hiccuping through the word. “I mean, maybe it should be but it just isn’t for me. It’s been over 600 years since I’ve really touched anyone, much less hugged anyone and only part of that is because of the cryogenic coma.”

“That sounds...so painful.” Naked distress flashes through his face, to raw to hide, and his hand crosses between them to thumb a line from the point of her jaw to her ear. His fingers skim the curve of her ear before he can collect himself again and draw back. She doesn’t let him. Her palm traps his hand against her neck, over her pulse point.

“It’s just what I’m used to. I’ve never even thought about it until recently.”

His gloved thumb rubs a reassuring circle against her skin. “And now that you’ve thought about it?”

Fitting her fingers  into the spaces between his, she smiles. His hand on her feels better than anything and she wants...she wants more.

“ I think the problem is that I don’t have enough data. I’ll need to run some tests if you wouldn’t mind...helping?”

Jaal’s laugh rumbles against her ear, his arms enfolding her. It’s awkward. Her cheek bumps against the alien ridge of his chest, her hands and arms don’t quite know what to do and her muscles lock up against him.

“I told you I was bad at this,” she says, glad that he can’t see her mortified blush. 

“Are you uncomfortable?” Jaal’s arms loosen around her. “No, but this can’t be comfortable for you.”

Still cupping the curve of her neck, he pulls her closer into the embrace with the arm banding across her back. Another laugh reverberates, deep, all the way down to her toes. “I think you’re doing very well. Just...try to relax.”

Tentative, her free hand slips beneath the fluttering line of his rofjinn  towards his back. He’s so warm. Her arms tighten against him and with a bit of settling, her cheek finds a nice hollow. Seconds pass, an interminable amount of time for a hug before, but now her whole body is tingling. It’s as if she’s fallen asleep on the workbench and woken up with her arm numb below the elbow before going to pins and needles--except all over. It’s like waking up in a cryogenic chamber. Coming alive all at once, overwhelmed with something where there was once so much nothing.

The miniature star in her chest expands, rises, and spills out of her lips as a gasping sob.

#jaal x ryder #jaal romance #mass effect fanfiction #dulcidyne writes #Tales from the Tempest Tech Lab #How to hug in 10 easy steps #They should make a manual #Not all of us are good at them