#i mean they are no shakarian but i really like them

[lilmissnatcat24]

shakarian brainrot is back and better than ever because their me2 relationship is everything to me. "Hey you're my best friend do you wanna have sex?" "Yes best friend let's bang." So like we think this is just going to be some fwb situation right? I mean SURE there was some flirting but Shepard flirts with a lot of people (not ones she would consider her BEST FRIEND but it's still cool and casual and TOTALLY cool). But then it totally devolves before it even starts. Garrus "I Get Really Nervous Every Time You Walk Into A Room" Vakarian. Commander "Let Me Just Touch Your Arm To Show You How Truly Casual I Really Am" Shepard. I'm foaming at the mouth. It took them collectively 24 hours for them to realize that they actually DO have feeling for another but neither of them understands it or knows how to move forward with it. And then the night, THEE NIGHT, before the Collector Base and Garrus has completely melted into a puddle. Doesn't remember how to act when you're in a woman's bedroom. Fumbling and bringing gifts and weird misguided compliments. And Shepard just EATING IT UP. AND THE CHEEK BRUSH. THE FOREHEAD KISS. ((I know we like to hc that it's how turians kiss but let's just pretend it isn't)) THATS ABOUT THE MOST INTIMATE THING THEY COULD HAVE DONE IN THAT MOMENT TO CALM EACH OTHER DOWN. THEY DIDNT NEED WORDS TO SAY THAT THEY BOTH HAVE FEELINGS FOR EACH OTHER. I HAVE RABIES RAAAAAHHHHHH

#i am so normal about shakarian i promise #shakarian #garrus vakarian #mass effect #mass effect 2 #shepard x garrus

[everyoneonthenormandyisgay]

I'm having thoughts about Miranda and Shepard's conversation when Shepard warns her about Kai Leng. something about how Shepard asks her to be safe and Miranda refuses to promise that when Shepard can't do the same for her. I'm doing a Miranda romance playthrough right now and in context of a romantic relationship, I find it really fascinating how on the same page they both are with their mortality in this war. they know they both might die tomorrow and neither is willing/able to leave their causes to live for the other but there is some comfort in that. knowing that the person you love and who loves you has the same priorities even if those priorities aren't each other. there is more depth to this romance than I think I was expecting. I kinda love it

#mass effect #commander shepard #miranda lawson #i dunno what their ship name ks #they are cute tho #shepson #thats probably not it lol #i mean they are no shakarian but i really like them #Miranda is so deeply sweet underneath all her gruff #mass effect 3 #shawson

[lordbhreanna]

SHIP HEADCANONS - Garrus/Shepard

Thanks for the tag @naldoreth 🌺

Gives nose/forehead kisses: Garrus (he likes to do the forehead touch, which in my headcanon is a common way for turians to display affection, since they don't really do the kiss thing).

Gets jealous the most: Well, we have seen Shepard getting a liiiittle jelaous of the turian lady (though that could be part of the roleplay). I don't think any of them is particularly jelaous, beyond some silly stuff like that.

Picks the other up from the bar when they’re too drunk to drive: Garrus.

Takes care of on sick days: They would both take care of each other. I have this headcanon that Shepard would check on him every free moment she got in ME2 when Garrus' injury was still recent.

Drags the other person out into the water on beach day: We know turians are not very fond of water, but he's curious enough (he wants to retire somewhere tropical, after all) so when they're on the beach and he hesitates, Shepard would push him.

Gives unprompted massages: Garrus. Shepard needs them, and according to Vetra in MEA, massassing a turian requires powered tools 😆 Not much room for unprompted ones.

Drives/rides shotgun: Much to everyone's (and Garrus especially) chagrin, Shepard usually drives. In her defense, she's better with skycars than military vehicles.

Brings the other lunch at work: Shepard would bring him food to the main battery when he was overworking himself, and he would take her dinner to her quarters 💕

Has the better parental relationship: I think Castis isn't as bad as it looks, and the good thing is that, despite their differences, he and Garrus are able to see common ground. However, if we count Anderson, Shepard wins. You can't beat Anderson, sorry Castis!

Tries to start role-playing in bed: Shepard, all the way. The whole Citadel date seemed like her idea and I love that, actually.

Embarrassingly drunk dancer: It's tempting to say Shepard, but she's already a terrible dancer, so I like imagining that after a certain amount of alcohol, Garrus would fit the bill. I mean, he's already a bit silly when dancing in full armor.

Still cries watching Titanic: It would be funny if Shepard showed Garrus the movie, and he was the one ending up more teary eyed. He likes Fleet and Flotilla if I remember correctly, so it'd suit him. He's such a soft boy 💕

Firmly believes in couples costumes: Similarly to the roleplay, I think Shepard would be the one to come up with this.

Breaks the expensive gift rule during Christmas: They would both do (weapon mods are expensive!)

Makes the other eat breakfast: Garrus to Shepard. And sleep as well.

Remembers anniversaries: They both do, but I think Shepard would have them more in mind. Garrus has a family of his own, but Shepard doesn't - and she has found one in him and the Normandy crew, so she's extra careful with those details.

Brings up having kids: Garrus, canonically.

(I love that so many of these can be answered thanks to the actual canon material. Shakarian will always be the ships of dreams ✨)

Tagging @ithilien-wolf @visualheresy @fiannans and whoever wants to do it!

#mass effect #shakarian #my posts

[pikapeppa]

Hi!

Just finished re-reading Desert Blooms and Western Wind, and gearing up for Becoming Whole and wanted to remind you how awesome you are!

But my actual point, I stumbled across you during my AloyxDrakka phase and then you managed to suck me right in to Kotaloy…

And then I got in to BG3, which you were right behind with Kiss me on the Mouth & Someone Great. And I have to confess I wasn’t all too keen on exploring a Halsin ship, let alone a HalsinxAstarionxTav ship but you’ve sucked me right in to that too…

And while my brain festered away on Rolan, I stumbled across Catskarky’s Mass Effect comics which preemptively started my GarrusxShepard phase (and forced me out to buy the trilogy which I’m now just concluding). And so anyway, that got me thinking and I vaguely recalled that I’d seen you had previously dabbled in the ME fanfic space and I was right, and I’ve come to this conclusion:

You are the ultimate source of good games and great ships (ignoring your unfortunate Shakarian oversight lol). So please, please share your wisdom! Recommend anything and everything. I literally value no one’s opinion more in this!

HAHAHA OKAY BUT this made me laugh, both with delight that you've enjoyed so many of my beloved ships -- but also because Shakarian is my OG ship. Garrus Vakarian is my first-ever OG videogame boyfriend LMAOOO. The reason I haven't written any significant fic for him is that my Shepard picks the control ending, meaning that she sacrifices herself to save the geth and EDI and thus she essentially "dies" and leaves beloved Garrus alone... and I could never write that. I can write angsty-ending ships, but I just don't have the heart to write a ship where one member of the pairing literally dies. (And no, I've never considered doing a non-canon workaround because I really like the control ending as it is, which may be an unpopular opinion, but I'm sticking to it!)

I have written one (1) Shakarian oneshot, though!! It was shortly after MELE came out and one of my BFFs got into Shakarian, so I wanted to see if I could bring myself to write them, but this oneshot is as far as I got, sadly 😭❤

(more below the cut!)

As for other game recommendations: off the top of my head, Dragon Age and the Witcher come to mind -- specifically Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Witcher 3, which are both the third installments of their respective series. DA:I has historically been the greatest source of fic inspiration for me, and my Geralt/Reader series might actually be my favourite body of work. You can play both of these games without having played the previous two games -- this is what I did, and both games are among my top 5 favourites!

To prepare for playing these games, beloved friends had recommended some primer articles for me, which basically just introduce you to the lore and the worldstate so you can jump in. Those articles are here, if you decide to check out these games:

The Witcher worldstate for dummies

The Dragon age worldstate for dummies

As for the rest of the Witcher and Dragon Age games: I can't speak for The Witcher 1 and 2, since I haven't played them, sadly! I played the first Dragon Age game (Origins) once, and I... struggled a lot because the gameplay shows its age now. I'M SORRY TO EVERYONE WHO SWEARS BY IT, but I just didn't enjoy playing all of it. The storytelling is good and the companions are a treat, but I wouldn't be able to play it a second time.

I loved Dragon Age 2, and I adore the companion dynamics in DA2 even moreso than in Inquisition, but I actually have only played DA2 one and a half times, mainly because the gameplay is also dated now. It's definitely playable though, certainly moreso than DA:O in my humble opinion, so I would recommend it! And I will say this for DA2: Fenris is the canon romance that I fell the hardest for and have written the most for, of all my videogame LIs. Take that to mean what you will. 🤣

If you like anime, my top two favourite animes are ones that I've also written for: Samurai Champloo (which would be considered retro now 😭💀) and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Both of these anime made me cry for very different reasons, and I highly recommend them! You also don't need to have played Cyberpunk 2077 in order to follow and enjoy Edgerunners (I haven't played it), so don't worry about that!

In terms of other recommendations, you can check out my writing masterpost, which lists all the fandoms I've written for and the ships within them. This could help you decide on what you want to play (or watch) next! ❤

If you want any more recommendations (movies, shows, books etc), feel free to hit me up with another ask or a DM! NOT THAT I CONSIDER MYSELF ANY KIND OF AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING LMAOOOO, I'M JUST A POTATO SMUT WRITER, I swear I'd only offer this if someone asked first 🤣🤣🤣

Enjoy!!! And THANK YOU GENUINELY for the praise!! You don't know how much it thrill me when people tell me that they got started with one of my ships and trusted me enough to try ones that they'd not considered before. It means the world! 😭❤❤❤

-- much love from your friendly neighbourhood Pika! xoxo

#fanfic writer's life #pikapeppa writes #i won't be a nuisance and tag all the fandoms and ships but PLEASE KNOW I'M CONSTANTLY THRILLED BY MULTIFANDOM READERS 😂🥰❤❤❤ #please forgive any typos too i should really be running off to shower and go beddy 🤣💀

[mtreebeardiles]

Things I'd like to know about my fellow writers

Tagged by @illusivesoul -- many thanks!

Tagging uh... um. All of you. Any writer who sees this and wants to participate

Last book I read: oh god I read a lot of books at the same time uhhh hmm I did recently finish Claudia Gray's The Fallen Star (book three in the High Republic books) and am emotionally compromised about it

Greatest literary inspiration: Ooh, gotta be Tamora Pierce. Amazing world building, great characters, a wonderfully down-to-earth writing style you don't often see in the high fantasy genre. Good stuff all around.

Things in my current fandom I want to read but I don't want to write: luckily for me someone IS writing WWII crossover fics ( <3 @theoriginalladya ). Otherwise it's less an issue of not wanting to write something and more an issue of not feeling like I can pull it off as well or else not having the energy to do so

Things in my current fandoms I want to write but I think nobody would be interested in them but me: Guardian Angel x Songbird in a borderlands/cyberpunk crossover/au. The entire concept of the second part of my ME:A long fic because I go even more off-script -- talking Kett characters from beyond the heleus cluster, AI fuckery, poking at the jaardan, and yeah. Stuff. Probably why I'm struggling so hard to finish the first part, eh?

You can recognize my writing by: excessive love of commas and semicolons; third person with a stream of consciousness touch. a rousing game of "is this a run-on sentence or does the comma negate that" (it DOES, i swear).

My most controversial take (current fandom): Hoo boy okay uhhh

For Mass Effect: ... I don't ship shakarian and I don't ship Talibrations. If I were to write anything with Garrus it'd probably be an OC or someone with less established interactions in canon, because i feel Garrus's canonical depictions are all over the fucking place. And I just really like Tali with Traynor /shrug

ME:A is a good game. Cry about it. (as in im crying about it because chances are high they won't let us go back)

Top three favourite tropes: idk if this is a trope per se or if it is idk what it's called but I'm such a sucker for people being super dorky in their relationships. Absolute nerds. Hmm I also like "saved" by the narrative -- characters who have to face the consequences of making it out alive and figuring out what that means. Found family is another goodie.

What’s your current writing mood (10 – super motivated and churning out words like crazy, 0 – in a complete rut): 0.5 -- i wrote like! Some sentences recently! Ayyy!

Share a random frustration: I think I need a different dedicated writing space. My current office is just too "this is the place you work" and it just adds to the already pervasive sense of burnout.

#tag meme #tag game #writing stuff

[naomifj97]

Hoping and wishing

"Garrus is a sniper. He knows about waiting."

Shepard makes a choice in the Crucible that should’ve cost her life. But also should have suffocating in the depths of her spacesuit and falling off from a planet’s atmosphere like a falling star.

Or: In which Commander “I don’t die easily cause I’m pretty much immortal at this point” Shepard refuses to leave and Garrus hopes that’s enough for them.

Hi! Haven't been posting here in a while, but life has been a bit difficult lately and my creativity is suffering consequences. However, last saturday my friends and I went to a thematic Mass Effect party (surpirse! I'm a Mass Effect fan, too) and I had the urge to post this very short oneshot that has been on my laptop for like...two years, I think? Nevermind. I'm Shakarian trash and still in denial about the ending of Mass Effect 3, so, enjoy!

"I'm falling

In all the good times I find myself

Longing for a change

And in the bad times I fear myself

I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in

I’ll never meet the ground

Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us

We’re far from the shallow now

In the shallow, shallow”

She’d been told she would die. He said she’d die.

Death and she were old friends. Close enough to know how the other behaved, smelled, felt.

But she was Commander Shepard. Cheating death, escaping from its claws, was something she’d became pretty good at.

She had to admit that, for a second, she thought she would.

And then, collapse came. Her body’s, that just couldn’t support the burden of her devastated system; the platform’s, that was swallowed by the weight of her decision.

She felt everything. The burning in her skin, her cells ripping apart, the shocking wave. And the fire. The problem had been the fire. It licked the shattered pieces of her torn, ripped armour, burying her in an indistinguishable mass of ravished flesh, metal shards and broken pieces.

So no. Not this time.

While the rumbling started, the Citadel exploded and the Crucible fell apart around her, Shepard found herself remembering Garrus. His jokes and his warm voice, the purring of his subvocals, the ones he thought she couldn’t hear, the soft stroking of his talons in her back during late hours of the night, when sleep was too stubborn to arrive, or the feeling of his words whispered under breaths in her hair when he thought she was too asleep to notice.

She thought of everything she was going to miss.

Before everything went black, Shepard thought that maybe, this was really it.

It isn’t.

She’s pretty sure she’s dead.

She can’t see anything.

She can’t hear anything.

She can’t feel anything.

Until the pain hits, so sudden she can’t help but gasp.

She’s breathing.

—I’m sorry. We…we haven’t found her.

Admiral Hackett’s words feel deaf, hollow in his brain.

—She has to be somewhere!

Joker’s reply is a bit louder, like a voice suffocating under dark waters.

Garrus can’t force himself to worry. Or care.

Was that what she had felt? That first time, after the Collector’s attack, with her damaged suit, suffocating, trying to breath but not finding air, wandering around with nowhere to go. That second time, when the Crucible crumbled over her while the Reapers suddenly stopped in their trays and fell to the ground like lifeless puppets whose strings are suddenly cut.

—The ruins are still there.

—Doctor T’Soni…

—If the remains of the Crucible are there, that means Shepard may be, too. We’ll dig her out. Give me a shovel, I’ll do it myself.

Of course she would.

—Even if she’s…still there…there’s no way she could have survived.

That’s obvious.

Even if the explosion that had ended with the Reapers had not killed her, the fall of the Crucible should have.

But she’s Shepard.

She’s been dead before.

And not even Death has been able to stop her.

—She’s not dead.

His voice sounds strange to him. Hoarser. Fiercer.

—Vakarian. I understand-

No, he doesn’t. No one else does.

—She’s not dead.

Commander Shepard made him a promise. And she has never failed him.

So, Garrus hopes.

Why? He doesn’t know.

It’s only during the long scanning of the battlefield, over the battered ground covered in ashes, blood and broken dreams, searching for her in the place he saw her for the last time, that he realizes it’s because he knows that their first can’t be their last “I love you”.

EDI finds her first.

Her radar catches the soft, minimal thumbing of her heart, so mild that other sensors would have missed it.

She races towards the spot, transmitting her position to Tali, Liara and Garrus, falls to her knees, and starts digging. By the time she finds her arm, three more pair of hands, one with five fingers, two with three, have joined her.

Tali radios Joker, tells him to get Doctor Chawkas ready for them and set a course to the nearest medical centre. Liara stabilizes her vitals with such an amount of medi-gel she may had gotten high on it wasn’t she so outside her body, and EDI connects herself to the implants that have kept her alive despite death to make sure they don’t stop working.

And Garrus picks her up, prepares her for transport, keeping her torn and exhausted body (or what’s left of it) together.

Shepard breathes.

And Garrus breathes with her.

Miranda works with the doctors. She pushes them, screams at them, sometimes, when they don’t do as she commands, when they say that’s simply not possible.

Bullshit.

She brought Shepard back from the dead once.

They don’t get to tell her what’s possible from what’s not.

There’s nothing impossible to her.

Kaidan, Hackett and Vega are fighting with the Council for resources to keep Shepard alive.

They say she’s not going to make it.

But the Alliance is not giving in this time.

Because they did once, and Shepard paid the consequences. Because she’s in an operating room fighting for her life as they speak because they did not support her. Because she’s dying cause the Council refused to listen, refused to believe.

Because Shepard is a hero.

The discussion ends when Urdnot Bakara arrives to the Normandy’s communications room and menaces with unlashing a horde of angry krogan if they don’t pay. By her side, Urdnot Wrex growls in a signal of support.

And then, the Council decides to pay.

Grunt is a bit disappointed, but, well, he can handle it.

Because Shepard is going to survive.

They’ve done everything they could, they said to him.

Now, all that’s left is waiting.

Garrus is a sniper.

He knows about waiting.

He’s good at it.

So he sits down near her bed, counting her breathings and taking note of all her heartbeats, eyes fixed in the bandages that cover her body.

He’s made a mental list of her wounds. Knows is not healthy, but he just couldn’t help it. Burns, cuts, bruises, broken bones, destroyed tissue. A lot repaired, but also a lot permanently scarred.

She needs time.

He sits and listens, in the quietness, the fear that creeps in his chest, but also the blind hope. He asks the spirits for a chance, the last chance, because they’ve come too far to end this way.

Doctors says she’s a fighter. She refuses to leave.

And Garrus hopes. He just hopes. He chuckles a bit, too, because of course Shepard is a fighter.

Of course she’s stubborn. Of course she’s not leaving.

She promised.

So, the afternoon he feels her hand moving in his talon, her eyes fluttering lazily awake and the light smile she gives him in the haze of pain-killers, analgesics, skin grafts, needles and gauzes, he thinks he should’ve known better from the beginning.

Her voice is low, barely a whisper, but Garrus hears her as she had screamed in victory.

—So…a human-turian baby, was it?

He smiles.

Shepard and Garrus deserved better. Hope you liked it!

A/N: Team effort to save Shepard? Sign me the fuck in.

I kinda invented my own ending for this because I'll never get over the three ones we are given in the game. Also, are you really telling me that Cerberus tech could bring Shepard back to life in ME2 but not after ME3? Not buying it, Bioware.

#shakarian #garrus vakarian #femshep #commander shepard #female shepard #shepard x garrus #mass effect #mass effect fic

[dispatchwithlove]

📙

Oo, digging around my drive I just found this idea that I totally forgot about. Working title is Conjugal Visits. It's Shakarian, no romance occured in ME2, and it takes place between ME 2 and ME3. Can you guess where I'm going 🤭

So Jane’s in the ol slammer, and by that I mean she’s under house arrest because of Cerberus things (I refuse to acknowledge the whole batarian relay thing, funny fact about me). So she’s locked down, BUT as they’re checking her into lock down they ask if she has a significant other for conjugal video call visits. All people in standing relationships are allowed one conjugal visit partner for calls. She has absolutely no romantic or sexual prospects, but it’s really her only chance to socialize with anyone, so she blurts out Garrus. He immediately comes to mind because they’re good friends, he’ll cheer her up, and she hopes he won’t freak out about being listed as her conjugal visit partner. She’ll explain on their first call, it’ll be okay.

Garrus is confused when he gets contacted by Alliance Administration asking for his number so they can arrange secure vid calls for conjugal visits with his girlfriend Commander Jane Shepard. Shepard must have her reasons, but the whole idea still makes him a little nervous. On their first call she’s apologetic and explains that she just wants company and even though it’s cheating the system she needs some social contact with someone who can lighten her mood. 

They obviously can’t talk about reapers or wars, but they can talk about basic life stuff. Not that they didn’t talk about life stuff before, but arranged hanging out is a bit new to them. They’re close, but never “hung out” like friends normally do. Because, you know, they have weird lives. He agrees to the calls, though, because he does care about her. 

They fall into a comfortable habit just talking about tv shows, books, gossip, favorite foods, childhood, etc. They grow closer, he’s organizing reaper prep back on Paleven, she’s mentally buckling under the weight of not being able to do anything. They can’t talk about any of that, though. They can see the stress in each other, they begin to wish they could comfort each other more. 

And their emotional intimacy blossoms into deeper attraction (because they both felt something before, but never mentioned it). They start to flirt a little. They start to flirt a lot. They start to tease each other a bit. They start to actually have vid sex. 

And, yeah, that’s the fic. 

Thanks for the ask! I've daydreamed about this one for years but I don't think I've ever talked about it at all.

Edit: I just had this thought...On one of the early calls the video goes out due to technical difficulties and then it's just his warm voice speaking to her, tickling her ears, and Jane nearly combusts 🔥 Yes, yes I love that.

#i would actually like to write this one it'd be sweet and sexy too #shakarian #garrus vakarian #commander shepard #shepard x garrus #garrus x shepard

[sparatus]

4 & 7 for that one ask game and then 12 so you can rant about grandpa I already know that’s the answer

you know me so well

choose violence🔥

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

genderbending saren to make kryterius m/f like a fucking coward*. tagged me in wip games featuring her sharterius work when i am very openly and vocally an aggressive hater of that ship and also wrote saren horrifically ooc. other annoying crimes. finally rbed a post from me and tagged it as being about "milf saren" and i lost it and blocked goodbye

*note: i enjoy a good gb fic myself, there's a few from ye olde kmeme that i still like, but she ONLY wrote kryterius as gb m/f and didn't ever interact with my stuff for them that was m/m which reeks of bad implications to me. go away straight

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

kaidan. kaidan kaidan kaidan. the ONLY way i managed to save him for myself was retreating from fandom and finding a few sane shenko mutuals (they know who they are). he's a good fun character! i enjoy writing him! he's my friend! but my god shenkos (and frankly ESPECIALLY mshenkos) make me hate him so much.

garrus also started to suffer this fate but tragically there are no sane shakarians only ex-shakarians who migrated to the niche corner (mwah) so instead i had to just ship him in a rarepair nobody likes but me, quite literally i'm making the fucking tag, that's the only thing that's saved him and tbh i still kinda worry im not writing him in character

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

i mean really. is there any other character i COULD talk about. look at my entire brand here.

the councilors in general have WAY more character than they're given credit for, especially the original three who have 3 games of dialogue to work with instead of just 1 for the replacement three, and i could honestly do an entire essay for each of them, but let's stick to grandpa for now. putting this under a cut i went insane

this man is the ONLY councilor who's actually DOING HIS FUCKING JOB CORRECTLY. he's the one who's always trying to stick to the law and uphold it, tevos's hand-wringing about diplomacy be damned, especially in the first game. he's a representative of the people and he CARES about the people, every SINGLE time he scolds you in the first game and when he makes his dramatic entrance in udina's office in the third he's specifically concerned with the public at large:

after feros he's concerned that you only intervened because it's a human colony, and wants to be certain you aren't going to just ignore non-humans and will protect the galaxy at large, not just humans

after therum he's reasonably worried that liara is working with her mother and you've just helped a huge threat to the galaxy walk free

after noveria, if you killed the rachni queen he's reasonably concerned about why you just acted without any sort of "yo heads up" call or advice, whereas if you saved her. YEAH NO SHIT HE'S WORRIED ABOUT THAT ACTUALLY did you hear all the reasons the rachni returning should be a much bigger deal than the game treats it of course he's like "that's extremely fucked up why would you do that"

at the start of me3 he is the ONLY one of all 4 councilors to actively, directly state that people are scared and it's their duty as galactic leaders to stay calm and protect their people, indirectly calling out udina for calling him a coward because udina demanding help for earth and ignoring the alien worlds is doing the exact same thing he's complaining about them doing in turn

keep in mind that from his perspective in me1 YOU ARE LITERALLY A POLITICAL POWER PLAY. you literally get the job because udina wants a human spectre and it's convenient to send you after saren, you didn't actually go through the proper process to be vetted and confirmed, for all they know you're every inch as human-centric and unconcerned with aliens as every other alliance twat they've met at this point. and the alliance, via hackett and anderson's attitudes, REGULARLY prove that all they care about is having somebody who can ignore the law! and depending on how you play the game you can in fact confirm that you shouldn't have been given this authority and are just doing shady shit for hackett that he can't do on the level! you can in fact PROVE SPARKY RIGHT! high-renegade shepard actually fucking proves why sparky was right to vote no on you i will die on this hill

he's also the only one to actually fucking help you in the third game right away. literally goes behind the others' backs to do it. they just voted "nah we have to worry about our own people first" and he swooces right around with a solid first step for you to take and a clear understanding that everyone has to work together regardless of udina being a lil bitch. everyone who likes those mods/edits of doing air quotes and "ah yes, reapers"-ing him back to mock him in this scene is my enemy and also a fucking idiot you don't mock the person who is 1) actively trying to help you and 2) YOUR LITERAL BOSS SHUT UPPPPP

speaking of ah yes reapers. he's justified in saying that. i dont care what whiny little princesses your shepards are. he's been dealing with anderson for TWO FUCKING YEARS who has literally not shut the fuck up about it, when inciting galactic panic is the LAST thing they should be doing. of course he's tired. of course he's annoyed this is coming up again. the man has been putting up with this for two fucking years he wants to go back to bed.

ALSO in the opening scroll in 2 it's in fact strongly implied they DO believe you but are keeping quiet to avoid a panic ("the official story") and then the archives in citadel dlc confirm it with the secret spectres-only edition of sovereign's entry. they're not fucking ignoring you or dismissing the threat they're trying to avoid GALAXY-WIDE PANIC YOU FUCKING MORONS

also he has some BITCHING quotes, these two are my favorites they're burned into my brain:

[in response to udina saying he and the council are scared and trying to save their own asses] "Our people are scared, and we're looking out for them the best we know how."

[if you save the rachni queen on noveria] "I hope you're right, Shepard. Our children's children will pay the price if you're not."

also his facial scarring is badass and implies there's so much more to him than just "consummate politician" like bioware's little bio of him implies, and his "children's children" line strongly implies he actually has children's children which lines up with him being visibly older and more aged than the turians we're usually running into in the games and im sure ill think of more stuff later on but that's my unhinged rant for the day

also if you ship him with shepard i am loading my shotgun

#press conference #korblez #sparatus tag

[jadequarze]

Would you do the edgy meme for the wonderful Shepard you just drew in that shakarian Pic for 1, 3, 6, 17 + one of your choice, please? I need to know more about your Shep!

I'll be honest, I genuinely didn't think anyone would ask about my Shep. Anyway,

1. What memory would your OC rather forget? Watching helplessly as her twin brother dies in front of them when they were young by a stray bullet during a gang fight, hiding surrounded by her dead family (She's an Earthborn)

3. What is your OC's fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw?

Will never tell anyone when she gets shot/hurt, she would rather stitch the wounds herself. Though now after serving the Alliance for decades, it mostly doesn't escape Dr. Chakwas eyes now that she knows Shep enough. She understandably wont tell the crew but made Shep swear to come to her to heal.

6. How easily could your OC be convinced to do something that goes against their moral compass?

This is tricky, like I play them mostly Paragon and slight Renegade (Like it's pretty hard to play full Paragon). I mean, she lives a pretty harsh life back on Earth with the shit she had to go through. Slightly hard I think, it's really hard to say. She's in gray morality, depends on her mood

17. What is the worst thing you have put your OC through story-wise?

Non-game story wise, letting her watch her family dies and her twin brother (her other soul) looking at her wide eye, dead. That it's her reoccurring nightmare for as long as they live, even after coming back from the dead. Plus the trauma of the war with Reapers, so yay :D

11 (My choice). What is your OC's weapon of choice? Have they ever actually used it?

A sniper rifle (and cheating here, a knife). Yes, to both. A sniper rifle, which is fitting because they utilize the tactical cloak being an infiltrator. She's did shadow operations in her time in the N7 and is considered the most efficient. Hence, her and Thane has a lot to talk about their assassination operations for the people they work for.

#asks #painterofhorizons #oc asks

[iheartgarrus]

N7 Month Day 7: Free Space - College Roommates AU

(AO3 Link - Folks, this concept has been kicking around in my head for years, so I'm glad to bring you this teaser, even if I have no idea when there will be more to it. Please let me know if you like it, because you never know! It could motivate me. Oh, it's Shakarian. Obviously.)

“I was surprised to see a room available mid-semester like this,” Shepard noted as the elevator started its climb. “I hope your roommate wasn’t as desperate to escape as I am.”

Garrus huffed a laugh. “Well, she was, but not in the way you’re thinking. My sister and I were sharing the place, but she just moved in with her boyfriend. Don’t know why she couldn’t wait until our lease was up.”

“Ah,” Shepard said with a knowing smirk. “Seen that before. Younger or older?”

“She’d say older, but only by six minutes.”

“Twins, wow.” The elevator doors opened on Garrus’s floor and they stepped out. “Must be close if you were willing to keep sharing a space like this.”

He shrugged one shoulder as he led Shepard down the hall. “Close enough to not kill each other, I guess. But we’re also just used to each other. This way we didn’t have to deal with new roommates and whatever horrifying habits they might have.” He paused and glanced over at her. “Uh, no offense.”

She chuckled. “Trust me, you’re lucky I’m here and not the roommates I’m trying to get away from. So I know what you mean.”

Garrus stopped at number 2203 and waved his omni-tool over the panel. “So what was it? Too loud? Too messy?”

Shepard tilted her head from side to side. “Bit of everything. Eating my food, coming home drunk and hurling in places other than the toilet…” She trailed off as they entered the apartment and she got a look around. “Damn. This is…”

“Yeah, I know.” Rather than cocky, Garrus seemed shy, looking off to the side and rubbing his neck.

“For the rent you listed I was expecting-“

“I know. It’s- my dad and the owner of the building are old friends. He got us a deal.”

"I'll say," Shepard muttered, brow raised. She stepped further in and tentatively examined the living area. A turian-style couch, naturally, but she knew that when she answered the ad - she'd used them in the student union and they were comfortable enough. The vidscreen on the wall wasn't disgustingly huge, but it was bigger than any she'd ever had. The exterior wall was mostly windows, plus a sliding door leading out to a small balcony that looked out over Zakera Ward. A kitchen area sat tucked away to the side. It was of a modest size, but she could tell that all of the appliances were no more than a few years old. And there were dish and laundry sanitizers. The dream. She hadn't even seen the bedroom yet, but she commented, "You know, even if you got a deal on this place, you could've listed the rent way higher in the ad. No one would've known you were ripping them off."

Garrus shrugged, still awkwardly shifting his feet. "Nah, it's... I mean, that wouldn't be..."

Shepard laughed good-naturedly. "Relax, I'm kidding. Mostly. So, bedroom?"

"Ah, yeah. Just this way." He headed down the hall, and she followed, glancing at some of the photos and posters on the walls. A few alien landscapes, framed vid posters, a couple that appeared to be family photos - it was honestly a pretty tastefully decorated place for a 20-year-old college kid. Shepard was pretty desperate for a new living arrangement, but it was a relief to see that this wasn't a classic "bachelor pad" situation. Maybe that was only a human stereotype.

Garrus stopped in front of the last door on the right and gestured inside. "This is the one."

She gave him a quick smile as she stepped by him to take a look. Her jaw dropped - the holos really hadn't done the size of the room justice. She could put in a full-size bed, dresser, and desk and still have room to do jumping jacks in the middle of the floor if she wanted. A sizable picture window afforded her the same view as the living room, and the closet made her want to weep tears of joy.

She turned around to face Garrus, who was watching her curiously from the doorway, and asked, "When can I move in?"

#mass effect #n7month #n7 month 2022 #shakarian #oh my god they were roommates #fanfic #fic teaser #college roommates au #my work

[that-wildwolf]

Edge of Yesterday post I promised to make

Look. Look. When you write a fanfic that's almost 150K words, you get obsessed. And if you're me, you get unhealthily obsessed.

Playlist with all the songs quoted in the fic:

Playlists I used while writing:

Deleted scenes: (the links don't work in the app, you have to open them through the browser on mobile)

👉 Shepard with turian kids in Alba

👉 Alternative ending of chapter 29 — more focused on fixing the Charon Relay

👉 Shepard playing Russian roulette

Some general trivia I didn't know what else to do with:

👉 Shepard was originally going to remember much sooner; she got into an argument with Garrus that eventually culminated with something along the lines of "I can't make myself remember" "Neither can I make myself stop loving you". Realising she'd hurt him was enough to make her unlock, and she immediately apologised even though he didn't initially understand what had just happened. I changed it for a wide variety of reasons, but mostly because I did not see it as in-character for Garrus to tell her he loved her.

👉 Another discarded version included Shepard never fully getting her memories back. She would continue to have those flashbacks like in Act 2, but nothing beyond that, and she and Garrus would slowly build a new relationship on the foundations of what little she remembered. It would be implied at the end that she might regain all her memories one day, but that it's unlikely. I liked that version a lot but scrapped it because I really wanted to include the "I love you" scene, which could only exist in this version of the story.

👉 The following is an excerpt from chapter 34.

"You've done so much for them and it might feel like they don't appreciate that — and maybe they don't, maybe they never will."

This is a reference to Starry Starry Night by Don McLean.

👉 Shepard was humming Reignite in chapter 28.

👉 I'm not sure if everyone saw what I was doing with these, but at the beginning of some chapters in Act 1, there are small flashbacks to when Shepard was in a coma. This is a way to show that Garrus is still kind of living in the past, fixating on that he's still waiting for her. With time they get less and less common to show that he is slowly starting to connect to her in the present too instead of just living in the past. They're gone completely by the time Act 2 begins.

👉 In chapter 33, Victus says it's been almost three years since the war's ended despite the three year mark passing a few chapters earlier. This is because a year on Palaven is the same length as 14 months on Earth.

👉 There was originally supposed to be smut in this fic, but I deleted it because I didn't want to do something their relationship couldn't recover from. I also deleted a few scenes of what I believe is professionally called a "sad wank". I mean, it was three years. and he was bound to be sad and horny. Why didn't I write that in the end?

👉 In chapter 18, Shepard panics because she doesn't want Garrus to see her during one of her flashbacks. In truth, most of the flashbacks have been around him.

👉 Look I'm not usually that straightforward about symbolism in my writing but screw it. Tea is a metaphor for love, Coffee is a metaphor for friendship. The weather reflects the characters' emotions. This also goes for the changing of the seasons.

👉 Obviously Shepard's flashback in chapter 12 was because she remembered the ME3 Presidium date with Garrus, but actually every single one of her flashbacks is due to a situation that reminds her of something from the games. For example, the following is an excerpt from chapter 18:

She put a hand on his cheek. [...]Despite what she expected, Garrus didn't pull away from her touch — though neither did he move closer. He just stayed completely still, his eyes zeroed in on her as she slowly brushed her thumb along the rugged scars on his cheek.

Garrus flared his mandibles, his eyes shining.

"Shepard, I..."

The reason she's having a flashback here is because this reminded her of their goodbye at the end of ME3 :)

👉 The idea for Alba City was taken from one of my scrapped endings for this fic, where Shepard and Garrus are on the run from the law (don't even ask. 😅 It went in a wildly different direction.) and are hiding out inside a dead Reaper while Shepard recovers from blood loss after Garrus had to cut out a tracking device out of her body. I obviously got rid of most of that, but the idea of living inside a dead Reaper stuck with me.

👉 Some honourable mentions for songs I didn't manage to fit into the 36 chapters include... Well, a lot of things, but mostly My Immortal by Evanescence. Look at the lyrics. Fits too good.

👉 I replayed Mass Effect 3 twice as research for this fic. *shudder* the trauma

#wild rambles #edge of yesterday tag

[allisondraste]

Other Side of the Scope

Fandom: Mass Effect (Trilogy)

Pairing: f!shakarian

Rating: T+

Words: 5000

Summary: Shepard has been on Omega for approximately five minutes, and she would already like to give this Archangel joker a piece of her mind. It get's complicated when he turns out to be an old friend. Even more complicated when he is gravely injured

Note: I'm BACK! I started this fic in January or February and between studying for licensing exams and working full-time I have not had much chance to write (or even reply to the FIFTY comments in my inbox that I definitely am so grateful for <3)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. :D

[AO3 Link]

Omega reminded Shepard of Earth.  Not the planet itself nor its diverse biomes and skyscraping megalopolises that seemed quaint in comparison to others in the galaxy, just the filthy gang-controlled, plague-infested streets she’d once called home.  The asteroid was comforting in a way, a place where the muscle memories of a distant adolescence allowed her to navigate with relative ease, memories she was surprised her new body still possessed, as painful as they were useful.  She supposed it was too much to ask that Cerberus leave out the trauma when they rebuilt her from scratch to do their bidding. 

After all, The Illusive Man needed her “exactly” as she was when she fought Sovereign, “exactly” as she was the moment she died. 

Shepard still hadn’t processed her own death, hadn’t exactly had time between waking up in a Cerberus lab in the middle of an attack, investigating the attack on Freedom’s Progress, and being handed a stack of dossiers of potential specialists to track down and recruit for some suicide mission no one in their right mind would agree to sign on for. 

It was those dossiers that led Shepard out into the Terminus Systems, to one of the biggest centralized hubs of criminal activity in the galaxy, trying to save the sorry ass of some irresponsible vigilante trying to impose law and order.  The joker who called himself “Archangel,” was apparently in hot water with every mercenary gang on the asteroid, and if Shepard wanted an Illusive Man- approved gunnery officer, she was going to have to pull him out of the fire personally.

“Shepard,” Jacob asked from the seat behind her as the transport vehicle slowed to a stop near a makeshift base of operations for the mercenary collective, “Do you really think this is a good plan?”

“No,” she sighed, scanning the bustling, heavily armed crowd, some decorated with their faction insignia, others in freelancer plainclothes. “But it’s the best one I’ve got.”

It was the only one Archangel had time for.

Signing on as gun fodder for the mercs left a bad taste in Shepard’s mouth for more reasons than one.  Mercenary work was a life she’d escaped when she joined the Alliance all those years ago, a life she preferred to pretend had not existed.  She was only six years old when her parents died, only thirteen when she’d decided to stop ruining the lives of every well-meaning foster parent who dared to take her in and began working for a human supremacist gang for protection.  She spent most of her teenage years sneaking into cramped ducts where her employers couldn’t fit, hacking terminals, stealing, spying, and occasionally taking out a target or two.  

It wasn’t something she was proud of, but it was something that she had to do to survive, something she could see reflected in those working for the gangs she had currently infiltrated.  Sure the Blue Suns and Eclipse and Blood Pack all had a hand in terrorizing the Terminus Systems, pirating ships and stealing cargo, shaking down colonies, smuggling dangerous drugs, and just general violence.  It was easy to hate them as collective groups.  It was much harder to hate the individuals that comprised them.  

Shepard saw herself in every exhausted, disgruntled face she passed as she, Miranda, and Jacob made their way toward the center of the encampment.  Injured technicians and soldiers sat groaning against walls, gunshot wounds to legs and shoulders.  The smell of dead bodies and burning flesh filled the air around them.  

The gang leadership was terrified and out for blood, something Shepard could hardly blame them for.  Any one of those injured mercs, anyone of those freelance kids who’d signed up for credits and bragging rights and ended up dead, could have been the acquaintances Shepard had grown up with on the streets.  Hell, it had been.  She’d lost more than a few people to law enforcement and vigilantism, to people who were so convinced that they were right they did not  stop to think about the person on the other side of the scope.

With each step, it became more and more difficult to find the motivation to even want to rescue this Archangel person.  If those had been Shepard’s comrades, she would want his self-important head on a spike, too.  

Archangel’s dossier had provided very little information about what they were actually up against, only that he was supposed to be some sort of tactical whiz and omni-tool expert, something that seemed to hold weight if his current set up was any indication.  It was a strategy Shepard herself might have come up with in a similar position. He’d holed himself up in an abandoned apartment building, sealing off every entrance except one-- a very narrow bridge that led directly to the front door.  Anyone brave-- or dumb enough-- to try and cross that bridge would find themselves directly into his line of fire like fish in a barrell. 

Shepard also gathered, from snooping around and talking with the mercs who didn’t immediately snub her for the expendable freelancer she was, that Archangel had not always been on his own.  He’d been heading up a team of twelve, himself included, not a week prior.  Now, they were all dead and he’d been on his own ever since, backed into a corner and undoubtedly losing hope. She was impressed he’d managed to make it this far.

According to a Blue Suns’ engineer Shepard had spoken with, Archangel had managed to disable one of their gunships and that “it was like he knew exactly where to shoot.” Now, it seemed, their new plan of action was to send wave after wave of “volunteers” across the bridge to distract and exhaust Archangel until an infiltration unit could bypass his lockdown and take him out, if he hadn’t already run out of ammo.  If he hadn’t just given up. 

If all else failed, there was always the gunship again. 

It was a solid enough plan, crude and unsophisticated as it was, and Shepard was there to throw a wrench in it.   Literally.

“Getting to Archangel should be easy enough,” Miranda noted, tapping the side of her visor as she looked across the bridge.

“Yeah,” Jacob sighed, “It’s getting back out that I’m worried about.” 

A shot whizzed past Shepard’s head and directly into the neck of an unarmored freelancer behind her, and she glanced up to the balcony where the vigilante was perched.  Something about his shooting stance was familiar in a way she couldn’t put her finger on.  Anxiety tightened her chest as the ringing faded from her ear.  She looked to her team.  “One thing at a time, people.” 

The gathered crowd surged forward, but she held her position, watching as more gunshots flew into the crowd, plucking people off one by one.  He was fast, but there were too many targets, and they were covering too much ground.  Shepard made the executive decision to slow them down and give the shiny new arc projector Cerberus procured for her a test run. 

One shot at the group ahead of her sent at least a dozen opponents convulsing to their knees in waves. She looked down at the compact heavy weapon, turning it in her hand as she examined it.  It was impressive and diabolical and she could have really used something like it when she was fighting droves of geth. 

“They’re with Archangel,” shouted one person who’d managed to avoid the arc projector’s devastation, pointing a gloved finger in her direction, just before a concussive blast smacked into their chest, sending them hurtling off the bridge with a yelp.

It wasn’t funny, but Shepard laughed anyway.  At least until another shot hit her shoulder, knocking out her shields.

“I guess that means hurry up,” Jacob said, shrouded in the blue glow of biotics as he sent a group of freelancers hurtling into the air. 

“He sure is antsy for someone with thermal clips to spare,” Shepard muttered, using her omnitool to bring her shields back up manually. 

“We should get going,” Miranda said as she reloaded the pistol in her hand, “Before reinforcements arrive.” 

“Right.” Shepard nodded, then tilted her head toward the front entrance.  “Let’s move.”

The lower floor of the apartment building was boarded up and vacant, with the exception of the row of body bags on the floor.  There were ten of them, arranged carefully and respectfully, by someone who seemed to care.  If her gut was right, that was Archangel’s team, and Shepard had been in those shoes before.  

It did not take long to reach the vigilante from there, just one flight of stairs and a short narrow hallway with a lot of open space.  If it weren’t for those sealed doors limiting access to the building, the man would have been a sitting duck. 

“Archangel,” Shepard asked when she entered the room. 

He turned away from his scope and brought one finger up to his helmet, a shushing gesture that was uncharacteristically human for a turian.  Clearly he’d spent enough time in human company to pick up a mannerism or two.  She stalled and fell silent, holding a handout to communicate to her squad that they should do the same.  

Archangel returned his attention to his rifle, taking several seconds to aim– something that should have been difficult considering how much his leg was fidgeting– and fire.  The shot hit its mark, and he lowered his gun, resting it against the wall.

In the several second span of time that it took him to remove his helmet and turn to face Shepard, approximately a thousand thoughts flew through her head, most of which involved her giving that smug turian asshole a piece of her mind.  She remembered the harrowed faces of the exhausted mercenaries, the doe-eyed freelancers just looking for quick credits, and the body bags downstairs. So much suffering, and for what? So that one man could play hero on a cursed rock?

It was too bad that the entire lecture she’d planned to give him disintegrated as soon as she saw his face, something-- someone-- familiar in the vast nebulous uncertainty in which she’d existed since her resurrection.  Suddenly, nothing else mattered.  Not the mercenaries, not the freelancers, not Cerberus, and certainly not her principles. 

“Garrus,” she asked, laughing in disbelief, “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know… just a little target practice,” he said flatly, sitting down on a nearby crate, “Keeping myself sharp.”

Her old friend did not seem particularly surprised by her presence, or by the fact that she was not, in actuality, dead.  In fact, the only thing he seemed to be was defeated.

“You okay,” Shepard asked, unable to disguise the concern in her voice.

“I’ve been better.” Though he was speaking to her, it was clear his mind was elsewhere entirely. “It sure is good to see a friendly face, though. Killing mercs is hard work, especially on my own.”

“You’re not freaked out that I’m alive.” 

“No.” He let out a dry little laugh. “Just glad you’re here.  Right in the nick of time, too.” 

“How did you manage to piss off every major merc organization in the Terminus Systems?” 

“It wasn’t easy,” Garrus drawled, sarcasm thick in his voice, “I had to really work at it. I’m surprised they all teamed up to fight me.  They must really hate me.” 

Shepard crossed her arms and frowned, sharpening her tone. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” came his reply, equally as sharp. His rough edges had definitely gotten rougher in the two years since she’d seen him. 

“If I’m going to help you with this,” she argued, “I think I deserve the whole story.”

“You do.” He sighed, rose to his feet, and walked over to her. “But it’s a long story, and we’ve only got a few minutes before they regroup.”

“He’s right, Shepard,” Jacob interjected, loading a thermal clip into his pistol. “More of those bastards are lining up by the bridge as we speak.” 

“We need a plan,” Miranda added, “And fast.” 

Of course, they were right. Shepard hated that.  As much as she wanted to grill Garrus about his current situation, to ask him what happened to returning to C-Sec and applying for the Spectres, how he’d ended up in the Terminus system, and why he’s painted a target on his back over some petty crime on Omega.

And that did not even broach the subject of Shepard’s own uneasy stomach.  It’d been easy to resent Archangel when he was just some out of touch vigilante.  It was much more difficult now that he was her friend.  She couldn’t help but wonder if she would have been one of those corpses lying on the bridge when she was younger, full of bullet holes and unrealized potential.  She couldn’t help but worry that if he knew her history, he’d hate her for it. 

She shook her head free of thoughts she would have to deal with later, bottling up the attached emotions and shoving them back into the dark corners of her mind.  

She could be hurt and angry with Garrus later.  For now, she needed to keep him alive. 

Fortunately, he had several ideas for getting out of this mess.  He’d been plotting for days, trying to figure out a plan of escape that didn’t involve him meeting his gory end.  There’d been nothing he could have pulled off on his own, but now he had help and Shepard watched the spark of hope ignite in his eyes as he explained their current situation and what he believed was the simplest course of action. 

Holding their position and waiting for a break in opponent defenses was a sound plan at first. They could easily take out any forces that attempted to cross the bridge, and with the help of the Eclipse’s YMIR mech Shepard had managed to sabotage in her stroll through their opponents’ camp, they might not even have to break a sweat. 

Of course, they hadn’t expected that the mercs’ infiltration team would be successful in their attempts to break through the lockdown.  Somehow they’d managed to force open several bay doors in the building’s sub-level, and had begun to pour in from below.

Distressed, Garrus turned to her. “Shepard, we’ve got to get those doors closed.”

She could see the fatigue in his eyes, hear it in his voice.  “It’s okay. I’ve got it,” she said, pulling up her omni-tool and uploading a schematic for the building from a nearby terminal.  There were three flashing red markers that indicated the defense breaches below. 

“Thank you I—“ A missile flew past his head and crashed into a bookcase along the wall. 

“Stay focused,” she instructed him and he nodded. “We’ve just got to hang on a little longer.”

“Right.”

“Jacob,” Shepard said, turning to look at him, “Stay up here with Garrus, watch his back.”

“Are you sure that’s a good i—“

“It’s an order.”

Jacob nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

Shuttering the doors in the sublevel was more of a hassle than Shepard anticipated.  Blood Pack troops had already begun to charge through the doors the Eclipse and Blue Suns had hacked open.  Sensors near the doors detected their movement and prevented the door from closing completely.  She and Miranda had to take out any Krogan and Vorcha near the threshold and hope that the door closed before more could flood in.  

It didn’t help that Garrus’ vitals were flashing in the corner of her visor, inching downward with each passing second. He was losing his edge, and quickly.

She returned just in time to intercept the Blood Pack leader on his charge up toward his rival. Garm was a tough son-of-a-bitch, but even he wasn’t immune to being biotically thrown from the staircase and slammed into the ground. Shepard left Miranda to finish him off and rushed to assist her other companions, to make sure Garrus was alright. 

“Shepard,” he said, relief audible in his voice when she entered the room, smacking the Blue Sun in front of him with his assault rifle and then turning to face her fully. “You did it.” 

“Did you have any doubt?” She smirked.

“Nah,” he laughed, “Just… it's been a while since something went my way.”

Shepard opened her mouth to agree with him, but the words left her and she froze as she saw the gunship shoot up into view, hovering just outside the balcony, heat seeking missiles already locking onto their target. 

“What is i—“ Garrus began, but fell silent as he turned to see the Blue Suns leader staring him down and slamming a hand down to launch the missiles. 

Shepard’s heart sank into her stomach.  There was nothing she could do but watch the heavy ammunition slam into her friend point blank and explode.  No choice but to watch another person she cared about die right in front of her.

The events that happened next were a blur of anger and adrenaline, tearing through the surge of mercs that flooded in, shooting that damned gunship so full of holes it’s pilot had no choice but to flee, throwing down her weapon and rushing to Garrus’ motionless form lying on the ground surrounded by a swelling pool of cobalt blood. 

“Garrus,” she shouted as if barking an order, as if she could command him to stay alive.

“Shepard,” Miranda said, tone almost empathetic, “I don’t—“

She was interrupted as Garrus gasped and wheezed, gurgling in pain as he grabbed and clung to Shepard’s arm. 

“Shit,” Shepard exclaimed, unwelcome tears burning in her eyes. “I’m here.  I’ve got you.  Just stay with me, okay?”

Please just stay with me. 

She looked up to Jacob who knelt across from her, grim expression on his face. “It looks bad.”

“I know,” she said, bringing a blood stained hand up to open a comm link. “Joker, we’ve got a man down.  I need an evac ASAP.  I’m sending you the coordinates.”

“On it,” came the pilot’s response. 

Shepard had witnessed a lot of gruesome things in her time with the Alliance, a lot of more gruesome things before she’d joined up, but there was nothing quite so nauseating as the swollen, shattered, and barely recognizable face of her unconscious comrade.  The gunship’s missile had struck Garrus on the lower right side of his face, somewhere between where his ear and jaw would have been were he a human. The subsequent explosion had caused damage radiating outward from that point.  The turian had second and third degree burns on his neck and shoulders.  A chunk of his carapace was missing, and a piece of his armor had melted and fused to the crumbling edges.  

She refused to think about the massive pool of blood left behind, even as she rinsed the dark flecks of blue from her face and hair and scrubbed the traces from under her fingernails, even as she watched its remnants swirl down the shower drain.   

It should have been impossible for the Normandy’s  medical crew to move him safely, but they managed.  He had survived the transport, and now his life was in Dr. Chakwas’ skilled hands.  There was no one Shepard trusted more with the task, and with the technology Cerberus had at its disposal, Garrus’ odds for survival weren’t as slim as they could have been.

Whether he would be up to serve as the gunnery officer for a suicide mission was much less certain.  Not that Shepard cared about any of that at the moment.  She’d happily take him home to Palaven and leave him in the care of his very concerned —if the extranet messages she’d been forwarded from his dad and sister were any indication— family.  

And to think she had been so angry with him at first, then just excited to see a face she could trust.  Now, the only thing she wanted was for him to be okay. For him to be safe. 

They could work out the rest later.

Shepard grabbed her towel from its hook near the shower and stepped out, turning off the water before giving her hair a quick tousle, blotting herself dry and throwing on some sweats and a tee.  As much as she had been trying to establish a sense of authority and distance between herself and the Cerberus crew, she couldn’t bring herself to give a shit at present. Screw uniforms and protocol.  Her friend might be dying on an operating table, and she wanted to be comfortable. 

Once dressed, she made her way down to the crew deck, past the mess hall and toward the medbay where the doors were shut and locked and the blinds on the windows engaged. Jacob stood outside leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.  He straightened up and nodded when he saw her approach.

“How is he,” Shepard asked, looking at the door then back to Jacob.

He let out a heavy sigh and shook his head.  “They’re doing what they can, but… I don’t know Shepard. His injuries were—“

“Cerberus resurrected me from the dead,” she snapped, “I trust that we have the equipment to keep Garrus alive.”

“If he were human, maybe,” Jacob explained.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“The Illusive Man didn’t exactly spring for alien medical supplies. We’re lucky Dr. Chakwas knows what she’s doing.”

Shepard rolled her eyes, huffed, and fought the urge to slam her fist into the medbay door. “Un-fucking-believable.” 

“I’m sorry.  Really.” Jacob stared at the door, avoiding her gaze. “Sounds like you two were close.”

“He was there when I fought Saren.” She took a deep breath, trying to hide the shakiness on the exhale. “He’s a friend. Something I don’t have too many of these days.”

Jacob opened his mouth as if he were about to say something else when the medbay doors opened. Dr. Chakwas stepped out, grim expression on her face, lips pressed into a thin line. Shepard’s chest tightened, as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs. 

“Commander, can I speak with you for a moment,” Chakwas said, then shot Jacob a warning glance, “In private.”

Shepard nodded, and looked at Jacob. “Thanks for looking out. I’ll keep you posted.”

Jacob nodded, stiffened his posture, and gave her a brief salute before heading toward the elevator. 

“How bad is it, Doc?” Shepard asked, shaky voice betraying the emotion beneath her composure.

Chakwas tilted her head toward the medbay, and Shepard followed her inside, metal doors sliding closed behind them.  

The medbay was larger than it had been on the SR-1, with a dozen or so beds and what had to be millions of credits worth of medical equipment. Shepard would have been more grateful, if more of it was useful to her alien comrades. Cerberus may have been her only option at the moment, but they were still xenophobic pieces of shit. 

At the far corner of the room, Garrus lay motionless on one of the beds, connected to an IV drip and several beeping and buzzing monitors.  Shepard supposed it was a good thing they were making so much noise. 

“I have done all I can for him, and he’s stable,” Chakwas said from behind her, “The rest is up to him.”

“Garrus is tough,” Shepard said, approaching his bedside, “And stubborn. He’ll get through this.”

Chakwas let out a quiet chuckle. “Sounds like somebody else I know.”

Shepard snorted out a laugh and glanced over her shoulder at the doctor. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, well…” Chakwas said, looking down at her blood stained uniform then toward the door, “I should probably get cleaned up. Do you care to keep an eye on my patient for me, Commander?”

Shepard knew a tactful attempt to provide her time alone with an injured friend when she saw one, and was grateful.  She nodded. “Sure thing.”

With that, the other woman smiled and exited the room, leaving Shepard alone with one terribly wounded turian.

For someone whose rough gray skin resembled stone, Garrus looked so frail, a wiry skeleton beneath thin hospital sheets.  Shepard had never seen him out of his armor.  She’d never really seen any Turian out of their armor. Ridiculous as it was, she’d often wondered if it was built in.

Her eyes lingered on him for several minutes, first examining the blue burns across his mandible and the cybernetic wiring holding injured pieces  into place, then the large crack in his carapace. He looked rough, an ironic observation from a dead woman, and she wished she could have prevented any of it from happening. 

Garrus’ hand and fingers twitched, then he shifted beneath the sheets and grunted in obvious pain. Without thinking, Shepard took his hand and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“Garrus?”

“His eyes blinked open slowly, beady blue irises looking up at her. His mandibles twitched outward, as if by reflex, and he winced. “Ouch. It almost feels like I got hit by a rocket.”

Shepard snorted out a laugh, then settled into a more serious tone. “For a minute there, I thought we’d lost you.”

“Me? Taken out by a merc with shoddy aim? Please.”  He acted tough but the weakness in his voice suggested otherwise.

Shepard rolled her eyes. “I’m serious.”

“You sound like my dad,” he laughed.

“Who is also very concerned about you, by the way,” she scolded, “Cryptic goodbye messages to your sister? Come on.”

“I know,” he sighed, examining the fluid filled bags hanging next to him, “I thought I was going to die up there. Wasn’t exactly thinking straight. I’m sorry that I worried them.” 

Shepard nodded, pressing her lips together to avoid expressing any of the overwhelming mix of anger and relief churning inside her.  She froze when Garrus’ fingers tightened around her hand. 

“I’m sorry that I worried you too, Shepard,” he said, gravel in his voice.

“Yeah, well…” She awkwardly tugged her hand free from his. “You can make it up to me by getting better.” 

“Is that an order?”

“You know it.” 

They shared a brief laugh that dwindled into silence and the beeping of medical equipment as Garrus caught a glimpse of his face distorted in the stainless steel tray next to him.  He brought a hand up to his mandible, hissing at his own touch. 

“Damn, that hurts.”  He tilted his head as if trying to get a better look at himself before turning his gaze back to Shepard. “How bad is it?  Chakwas wouldn’t give me a mirror.” 

Awful. Shepard thought, still haunted with flashbulb recollections of blood oozing from wounds now sutured.  Aloud, she replied,” Hell if I know, Garrus. You’ve always been ugly. Just slap some paint on there, and no one will know the difference.” 

Garrus laughed, then winced at the pain his flaring mandibles seemed to cause. “Don’t make me laugh.  My face is barely holding together as it is.”

The pain was obvious behind his attempt to joke, but he continued. “You know, I hear that some people find facial scarring attractive.”

Shepard crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Granted, most of those people are Krogan.” He sighed. “Well, anyway, ugly or not I should be up to specs soon.”

“You almost died,” she attempted a lecture, “No one is expecting you to be battle ready tomorrow.”

“Right,” he drawled, “Because I’m sure Cerberus wanted me on board for my ‘alien’ perspective.”

Shepard frowned. She knew he was going to find out who her employer was eventually, but she’d hoped to have an excuse prepared. 

“About that—“

Garrus cut her off. “You don’t owe me an explanation Shepard. I trust you.  I just hope these assholes don’t screw us both over.”

Shepard let out a humorless laugh. “They will.”

“And you’re… okay with that?”

“No, but I have no choice.” She met his gaze, hoping he could read the frustration in her eyes.  

He nodded. “I’ve got your back.”

“Thanks, Garrus. I’m glad you’re here.” 

“There’s no place in the galaxy I’d rather be.” 

As their conversation dwindled, the sterile air of the medbay grew heavy with questions unasked and unanswered.  Now was not the time to ask about his activities in the Terminus, and it especially wasn’t the time to address her concerns about those activities or his ruthless behavior. It might not ever be.  They might not live that long. 

Shepard was relieved when Chakwas returned, donning a fresh uniform and neatly combed hair.  She smiled and asked, “How’s my patient?”

“Ugly,” Garrus answered, “If you ask Shepard.” 

“Hey now,” Shepard protested. "That was a joke."

Chakwas offered a reassuring nod. “You’re injuries are severe, but once they have healed properly we can discuss reconstructive s–”

“I don’t care about that,” Garrus snapped, causing Chakwas to flinch.  He softened and lowered his voice so that Shepard could barely hear.  “Sorry.  I’m just… in a lot of pain.”

“That,” Chakwas said cheerfully as she approached the now empty IV bags, “I can fix immediately.” 

“Thanks, Doc.” 

Shepard watched for several moments as Dr. Chakwas replaced the several bags of medication, and as Garrus’ body seemed to relax.  

“I should go,” she said, motioning toward the door. “The crew will want an update on our new gunnery officer.”

“And about how badass he is,” Garrus joked, words slurring together as the meds entered his system.

“Of course.” Shepard snorted. “We’ll catch up later, okay?”

“Definitely.” 

With that, Garrus’ eyes fell shut and he was asleep again.  Shepard glanced up and gave a final nod to the doctor before turning and walking out of the medbay, and up the flight of stairs toward the conference room.  

There were many conversations in Garrus’ and her future, but for now she was glad she had someone to watch her six. 

It wasn’t just like old times, but it was as close as it could get.

#mass effect #shakarian #garrus vakarian #female shepard #writing #my writing #long post

[progmanx]

Stumbled upon your Black Lagoon fic, and was a bit baffled that you went for a m/f pairing? With so many badass women around in that show who have so much chemistry between them?

I'm curious if you read the fic or not when you found it. If you did, and read the end notes, I don't think there would be any question as to why Rock/Revy resonates with me so much, rather than anything else. It's far from normative in the first place, and also I don't... write based on gender of ship? I've never done that. I'm STILL a hardcore Shakarian shipper ffs.

I write based on character, themes, etc. What vibes with me. I don't even LIKE Kate/Maggie as a ship but that's what the story called for so that's what I did with Trial by Blood. Seriously, I wrote a Spy x Family Queerplatonic deconstruction with Loid/Yor because that's what I got from it. It's not femslash, or romantic at all, but that doesn't mean it's not worth reading or writing.

And if you want more femslash from me, buddy, I've published half a million words of it for Trails in the past year: The Ballad of Ice and Lightning

Here's the Black Lagoon fic, for those curious: Breechloader

And Spy x Family: Fake Beards and Moustaches

Oh, and personally I really don't see any romantic chemistry between Eda and Revy or any other combination of women from Black Lagoon. Doesn't speak to me. I can ABSOLUTELY see an unrequited complicated crush on Revy from Majuer (not because Revy is straight, she's not, but because she's otherwise involved) but that's completely different.

#batwoman #black lagoon #kiseki #trails #spy x family #asks

[sapphiredraco]

Alright ..now hear me out..

(Even though I have absolutely no tech knowledge..like none.. absolutely none..like the closest thing I can do is record a video 💀 pfft.)

I really would like to start a YouTube channel dedicated to a Shakarian fanfic called "Son of Palavan Daughter of Earth." Where I have people voice acting as the characters,soundboards, and someone animating the scenes..but not in the video game style no no no like someone's beautiful art like these lovely people: @jibberjibbsart @perpetualvelocity

@swimmingtrunks

(Please commission them, they're awesome!💕)

And like If it becomes a success I would totally split the incomes with everyone cause I'm only here for the fun of it not the income. Cause I feel like this fanfic needs a fanfilm..like it's honestly so good and I wanna surprise Kaitlyn and show her how amazing this masterpiece is. And even though it's a dream, I totally would actually do it if I had the help. It's all about fun and making new friends! So like.. if ya wanna..👀 don't hesitate to contact me. Ask for my discord. I'm 100% motivated to do this and make new friends and memories with this. I'm probably gonna set up an audition for this soon, but in the mean time give me your thoughts!!

#garrus vakarian #shakarian #garrus x femshep #shakarian fluff #jane shepard #garrus #Son of Pavalan Daughter of Earth #youtube #fanfilm #acting

[n7viper]

5, 8, 13 Shakarian & 22, 30, 37, 43 & 50 Mihren for OTP asks please 🥰

Random OTP Askerinos

This ended up being a longer post than intended, so I'm putting it under a cut :)

5. Who is louder in bed?

Lia! You'd think she would learn to be a little quieter after serving on ships for so long but... no. But that's fine because it gives him a chance to cover her mouth and keep her quiet :)

8. Who causes the tomfoolery and who has to try and stop the tomfoolery?

Oho! You're subverting expectations to ask about the other ship, I see. (Because you know the Mihren answer) For Lia and Garrus, I'd say they're equally as likely to cause tomfoolery that requires a third party to stop it. Lia is normally pretty straight-laced and doesn't tend to get into trouble, but they're both just horrible influences on each other.

13. Would they hate-fuck if they were mad at one another? If they had a falling out?

Honestly, I don't think so. I could see Lia being tempted to, but Garrus doesn't seem like the type to me.

Mihren (is that then canon name now? lol):

22. Who would be a lovey dovey drunk?

I really immediately thought of Cullen, but this might actually be Mihri too now that I think about it some more. So both of them? She wouldn't consistently be more lovey dovey, she's definitely usually just even hornier than normal.

But when they're drunk and alone? More than a few times, she thinks about everything that has happened to them and has to take a moment before she gets teary-eyed about it all. She's settling down. It feels... comforting. They make such an odd couple, but it doesn't matter. They're in love. (Gross 🤮)

30. Who is older, and who makes the ‘older’ jokes?

Cullen is older by about 5 years but acts like it's by 20. Mihri only really teases him about it when he's being especially grumpy and knows that it'll annoy him.

37. When the person who doesn’t normally have nightmares, has a nightmare, how does the other comfort them?

In general, Mihri doesn’t really start getting severe nightmares until after In Hushed Whispers. Even before then, she and Cullen don’t get together until early Skyhold and don’t sleep together until after Halamshiral (done before Adamant).

This isn’t an OTP answer, but let’s take a quick intermission. This reminded me of a hc I’ve had for a while, so I’ll let you have it. Mihri and Cassandra usually share a tent while traveling. There are many times where Cass has to comfort Mihri after a nightmare. Cass is kinda awkward about it, but she does try. It takes several occurrences before Mihri finally breaks down and admits that she’s haunted by what happened in that dark future and watching Cass and the others die to save her. Ok, back to our regularly scheduled OTP hours now.

Cullen usually pulls Mihri closer to his chest, and she usually turns to face him. Even if she doesn’t, he massages her scalp and runs his fingers through her hair the way she likes it. If it’s a nightmare that causes the anchor to flare, he holds her hand. He always asks if she’d like to talk about it, but she usually declines. It’s pretty much always a lot of bear hugging, forehead kisses, and fingers through her hair.

43. How do they say ‘I love you’ without actually saying it? Ex “Have you drank any water today?”

Honestly, Cullen just strikes me as a words of affirmation kind of guy. He's the type to drive you bonkers because he's just constantly saying it, to the point where it feels like it's lost its meaning. So not much to say on that front.

For Mihri, she shows her love through gifts; little trinkets that she picks up on her travels that she says reminds her of him. She shows love with meals sent to his office, through pulling him away from his desk late in the night so that he can finally sleep. Most of all, she says it by being honest with him and not putting up a front like she does with everyone else.

50. Who is more likely to cling to the other while they sleep?

I already answered this here, but I'm obsessed with the fact that three separate people asked me this. I am so soft 🥺

#supply chain is really wild rn huh #even the lead times on ask answers is delayed #also I answered half of these in the middle of a concert so just picture that #I had to sit through a Hated Band to get to a Beloved Band #enjoy your Shakarian tasties :) #they need an OTP tag soon #lia tag #mihri tag #long post #whoops #ask game answers #mihren