#no shepard without vakarian etc etc

[ozziyo]

Terra's post me3 retirement years involve a lot of this and i think it's what she deserves

#mass effect #shiara #femshep #liara t'soni #garrus vakarian #female shepard #shakarian #if you squint #i go back and forth on whether or not i want them to be a throuple but either way he's there #no shepard without vakarian etc etc #video games #my art #my fanart #terra shepard #redraw #also i know i've done this redraw before but i haven't done it with mass effect so shshshhshshhshshshshhhh

[magnoliabutters]

HOW ABOUT THAT WINE?

pairing: garrus "archangel" vakarian x fem!shepard

inspiration: @chestharrington’s lazy ghoul's kinktober → week one: love making

warnings: 18+ content, mdni; mass effect 2 spoilers & references, dorky fluff, dom smut vibes, lovey dovey, p in v, cunnalingus, human anatomy, etc.

word count: ~3.4k

note: it is the beginning of kinktober, y'all! straight from a writing hiatus and right into some alien (*cough* turian) smut. let's get freaky kinky dinky babes...

You're crazy about him. Abundantly crazy. There isn't a minute - no, a second that goes by where his name isn't scribbled all over your mind. The way he makes you feel, god. It's almost like he doesn't even know what power he holds over you.

You thought a shower might help clear your mind, but it only gave you a room filled with steam and thoughts. You are already red hot, pink in the cheeks from just saying good night after your last mission. He shot you a smile and you instantly turned into an absolute puddle. Does he even know the power he holds over you?

Garrus Vakarian is all you can think about - clothed, armored, naked. Nothing else matters.

And yet, some how - some way, this man has no idea what he does to you. He walks around the Normandy without a single care in the world. Not knowing in the slightest how quick you'd drop to your knees, begging him to carry you up to your cabin and fuck you better than you've ever had.

For now, there's only simple greetings and salutations. Professionalism at its max, seeing as you are his superior. God, you could hear Alliance HR calling after your last conversation with Garrus.

All that talk about how turians like to release some stress after harrowing missions... Now, after every mission, you bite your tongue until you can scream into your pillow.

Brushing your hair back, you let the warm water sink into your scalp. You hope - no, pray that these feelings go away. At least until the squad gets through the Omega-4 Relay, if we make it back.

The pipes squeak as you hastily turn off the water. You throw the towel over your body, soaking up all the moisture from your slick skin. Another towel to your face as you reach the corners of your eyes and rub the texture against the tops of your cheeks. Your hair is still wet as you tie it into a loose bun. Strands fall without any distinct pattern around your head.

One last wrap around your body, and you make your way back into the cabin. As you turn the corner, you catch a glimpse of the sweetest, most delicate man wearing his nicest blues and with wine in hand.

"Hey," he says with that dark melodic voice.

Your jaw slightly drops. Your brows raise and lips quiver as you stand before him in your white towel. His eyes stray to your chest, down your stomach and to the tops of your thighs. "I - I'm sorry, you need to get dressed."

Garrus turns to walk out the door, but a hand at his shoulder stops him. "What do you have there, soldier?" you ask with a bit of tease. You could care less about getting dressed. Hell, the quicker you get this towel off the better.

"I brought wine," he answers nervously. "Best I could afford on a vigilante's salary."

Your cheeks perk into a smile as happy little butterflies fill your chest. Eyes upon him, begging for him to ravish you right here - right now. Push you up against the desk and fuck you until you both pass out.

Alas, those seductress eyes fill him with worry. Garrus rushes towards the sound system. His finger furiously tapping against the holo until a fast-tempo, bass rattles your ribcage.

With hopeful brows raised to the heavens, you watch as he timidly sways to the beat. Your heart calls for him. Your sweet, little nerdy boy. How he ever got anyone before you is beyond you, but - hell, he'll never have anyone else after you.

You waltz over him with seductive movements in your steps. Your tongue runs over the smooth of your lips. Your lashes bat his way, forcing his grip to tighten at the bottle's neck. Your smile gentle and inviting, wanting nothing more than his hands upon your body.

"If you were a turian, I'd be complimenting your waist or your fringe," Garrus states, trying his hardest not to be overwhelmed by your sexuality. His head is down with eyes watching his stimming fingers. "So...," he takes a deep breath before slowly raking up your body. "Your, uh, hair looks good. And your waist is very supportive."

You giggle with a hand planted at your hip. Everything he does, everything he says fuels that fire in your stomach. The need - the desire to feel his touch. God, you wish you could find some excuse for accidentally dropping your towel, but no. It would be much much better if he was the one pulling it off you.

With silence being too much for him to bear, Garrus carries on, "Hopefully that's not offensive in human culture." He takes a deep sigh, realizing he is still too formal. "Crap, I should've watched the vids Mordin sent." Spouting off facts like this, you and him, was some kind of science experiment - interspecies intercourse.

Recognizing the face of self-deprecating thoughts, you raise your hand and land it against his shoulder. "Whoa! Consider me seduced, smooth talker." You pull yourself closer into him. He peers down at your face, taking shivering breaths at your proximity. "Now shut up and stop worrying."

You squeeze his shoulder before trailing your palm across his chest. You walk over to the sound system and turn down the blaring noise. All you want to hear is him. All you want to see is him. You lean back against the wall, kicking your foot up as you shoot him your shining smile.

But something troubles him.

Garrus' head falls once again. He doesn't close the space between you two like you had thought. His words soft and sincere. "I just... I've seen so many things go wrong, Shepard. My work C-Sec, what happened with Sidonis..."

You push off the wall. Your hand falls at his scarred cheek. The silly boy thinks his wound is what got you interested, when you would have easily been in his bed back when they were dealing with Sovereign.

"I want something to go right, just once."

His ocean eyes raise to yours. They are humble, gentle, and vulnerable. It almost aches your heart. The way they peer into you - hell, like he's peering into your soul. Muscles in your face soften as you let him in. Let everything in.

This isn't just a fling. This isn't just because you're able to go on a suicide mission. No, you found something that you've never had before. You both found something within each other. You didn't understand what it meant to have a bondmate until this moment, until looking into these eyes.

You love him, more than you've loved anything or anyone in your life.

Almost as though he was drawing you in, you and Garrus both lean in with foreheads pressed against each other. Soft and powerful. You feel that fire reignite deeper within you.

You can feel the heat resonating off his chest as he pulls you in closer. His hands slowly guide your own back to your sides. With a single finger, he tilts your chin up to look at him. Your lips part as all the breath escapes you.

Garrus' eyes look at all features of your face, bouncing back and forth until they land on your lips. His hand finds its way at the base of your skull. He pulls you in with a force you did not expect.

His lips press against yours, firm and tight. Your hands fall into the concave of his lower back, pulling him into you. As his fingers dig into your hair, you can feel his lips begin to relax. They become pliable and gentle.

You brush your tongue against his mouth, begging for more. Garrus is more than happy to oblige as he slightly parts his lips and digs his hips against your stomach. Your tongue is deep within, crashing against his own as your hands drag him back against your chin and nose. You've been waiting for this moment for quite some time and, now, he knows it.

Your passion for Garrus is not just chance. Not just a simple sexy scar on the right of his face. No, you wanted him. You wanted to devour him, and he is more than happy to oblige.

Arms rush to wrap around his neck, forcing your towel to crash at your tip-toed feet. Eyes closed and breathing hitched. Your tongue massages against his, causing little moans to float between you both.

Garrus' hands explore your freshly exposed body. They are firm as they discover the curves of your bodice and waist. He staggers, guiding you back against the wall. You gasp at the cold sensation, but he didn't care. His hand digs under your right thigh, pulling your bent leg up to his waist.

His tongue slides across your lips. You push against him, practically biting into his kiss. Lips red and bruised and you still crush them upon him. This is all you have wanted, whether knowing it or not, since you met him. Hell if you're going to hold back.

And yet, Garrus picks you up. His hands secure your legs around his waist as he walks down the steps to your bedroom. His eyes still closed, but he navigates through the space flawlessly. His hands grip tightly onto your ass, pinching with excitement.

He places you down upon your mattress with a mixture of dominance and pleasure. You pull your wet hair out of its bun before resting on your back. He sinks to his knees between your legs with hands trailing up your thighs.

Garrus rakes over you. Those same very eyes bouncing left to right, up and down. There's so much to look at, so much to enjoy - so much to love. He decides to start at your thighs with determination. His kisses cause your heart to pound. Sweet, little pecks that prickle your skin. You struggle to keep your thighs from closing upon him.

As he presses his soft mouth against you, he breathes you in. "You are so beautiful, Shepard," he purrs with a vibration to his chest. "Your waist..." His hands find their way back to your hip bones. He rubs against them as he grinds into the side of the mattress. "Your hair," he mewls as he plays with a long strand resting just above your left breast.

"God, Garrus," you whimper at his touch. Your hips rut against his chest. Your clit craving sensation, craving him.

A sharp smirk forms across his face. "Say it again, I like it."

With a laugh, you prop yourself onto your elbows. You try to look at him but are stuck in a haze as he circles the space where your hips and thighs meet. A deep breath and you plead, "Garrus, I need you."

He growls as the other side of his smile perks up. His kisses become bites that travel down your inner thighs. You try to curl in to yourself, but he holds you down, showing you exactly who is in charge in this part of the Normandy.

His tongue lathers up your thigh, finding itself at the tip of your slit. Your breath hitches every so often, floating on the edge of overstimulation. His hands dig into the meat of your thighs, leaving little crescent shaped indents into your reddening skin.

Your hands crash into your hair as Garrus' tongue parts your lips. His thickness lathers up your juices as he guides you down to your ass. "Oh god," you cry out. He groans, growls into you. Any sound you make fuels the raging thrusts forming a hole into the side of your bed.

His finger curls around to lightly flick your bean. His tongue doused with your love and, fuck, did he love every single drop of you. The way your musical moans floated in the air forces something dark to emerge within him. Something primitive and degenerate.

The things he would love to do to you...

Garrus flicks his tongue in a way that makes your head spin. Your chin is up to the sky and your eyes are squeezed shut. Your fingers are tangled in your hair and your hips are pressed firmly against his wet chin.

Only briefly do both your eyes meet during the act. Those sparkling eyes highlighted by thick navied tattoos across his nose and cheekbones. All you want to do is ride that face. Ride that serene, tender face until you explode.

His thick tongue laps against you. A hand rushes to your breast with fingers tightly clasping your hardened nipple. The pinching sensation creates a light-headedness that holds your eyes closed. Your moans can surely be heard throughout the cabin but you couldn't care in the slightest.

"Jesus, fuck," you choke out. "Oh, shit - right there, right there."

Garrus hums, sending another pleasant vibration across the sheets. He utters, proud of himself, "Seems like those vids really helped-"

"Vakarian! Stop talking!"

You push his head down onto you, sliding his tongue further inside. Your entire body feels like pins and needles. Sounds you don't recognize fall from your lips. The pleasure intense. Time slows as you feel your body tighten around him. Your lashes flutter, only showing the smallest glimpses of the lit room.

Garrus delves his firm tongue in. He tries his best not to rip into your skin, not knowing what might hurt and what might feel good. If he trusted his instincts, he would be balls deep within you - thrusting until there was nothing else left for him to give. He always thought he wanted an honorable death by combat. Fuck that, he wants to die in a concussive blast of two bondmates cumming as one.

Fire begins to pool at your abdomen. Your heart races in ways that leave you seeing stars. Your body becomes jagged, happily enduring his powerful thrusts as the rubber band gradually begins to pop.

"Garrus, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," your mewling voice grows higher and higher in pitch.

Upon feeling your walls cave around his tongue in pulsating bursts, Garrus chuckles softly. His pink, fleshly tongue still thick and firm within you. His hands gentle as one softly circles your nipple and the other circles your protruding hip bones.

"Mmm'Shepard," he mewls as he licks his lips.

You struggle to control your heaving breath as jolts of pleasure disperse across your body. Garrus rips his shirt off of him, pulling the cloth over him with one hand. He begins to crawl over you with something firm and pointed traveling across your skin. His own breathing hitched as he crashes a hand beside your head.

You open your eyes to his sweet, endearing smile. His hand warmly pressed against the side of your face. A finger brushes across your cheek bones. His touch gentle as you pant your way back to baseline. His cock hot and hard as it rests against your thigh.

"Ready for more, Commander?"

"Yes, Archangel," you whisper tenderly.

With those two words, Garrus' breath hitches and a voice whimpers out. He leans into you, hovering his lips just above you. You crave him. You feel the static thick in the air between you.

Finally, he caves and drops his loving lips against you. His tongue, your new favorite thing, runs over your lips lightly tracing where they part. He slicks them over, just before you suck in his bottom lip. Your teeth slightly dig into his flesh as you pull him back towards him.

Garrus growls as a slow smirk sprawls across his face. He looks down, only to guide himself at your entrance. The tip barely brushes against your flower and your entire body fills with electricity. He sinks himself into you with one fallen swoop. His girth perfectly filling all the bumps, crooks, and crannies. It forces your jaw to drop as he places caressing pecks upon your cheek.

He pulls back, simply to see himself appear and disappear within you. His breath halts as he furrows his brows. You are tight, tighter than he has ever had. Part of him is holding on by a damn thread, trying not to bust upon first contact. The other part of him is hell bent on feeling your walls convulse around his pecker, squeezing the cum out of him and filling you up.

You hold back winces at the feel of his cock. He is much bigger than you're used to, much bigger than you expected. You widen your legs for him, begging for him to bury himself within you. Your lashes flutter once again as you melt into his touch.

His thrusts are slow at first. His hand traveling from your hair, cheek, neck, breast, and hip in soft, sullen motions. His heart races as he watches your eyes lighten up with each bottoming thrust. He can feel the coil within him tightening and tightening.

Garrus never knew what love was until he saw your face. He never knew what primal attraction was until now.

Gradually, his thrusts become more powerful. His hips digging in deeper and harder. His kisses expand from your neck to your tits. Love bites firm against your clavicle. He loves to hear you gasp, to feel you clench around him. Your hand tightening its grip around his waist.

He sets his pace - firm, solid, and hard. The sight of your breasts bouncing due to his thrusts forces trails of fire to form across his body. He clenches his thighs, working hard to maintain his speed and rhythm.

Words begin to babble from your lips as the endorphins fill your circuiting brain. Your whole body falls limp as it jolts with each of this pounding ruts. Knees begin to buckle and you can feel yourself tightening up. Your legs wrap around him, pulling him closer and closer for all of eternity.

Huffing, Garrus' movements become more jagged. His breath heavy as he presses his forehead into yours. His lips hang just above yours, brushing against them with each push. He breathes you in, wanting nothing more but to inhale everything that you are.

He bites back a moan as his hips fall out of synchronicity. He tries hard, desperately hard to maintain his rhythm but you can feel him twitching. You can feel his throbbing cock wanting nothing more than a release.

You push back against him, digging your hips against his. With a swift motion, he falls onto his back sending a rippling effect across the mattress. His eyes widen as you sink onto his cock.

Struggling to keep his eyes open, Garrus watches as you effortlessly take him in. His breath hitches as your lips part, gasping ever so lightly with each rut of your hips. Your nails dig into his chest, forming a painful yet orgasmic feeling.

His hands fall at your waist, digging in and holding you in place. Never letting go. His own hips grinding against your warmth.

“Shepard, fuck, if you keep doing that, I’m not gonna be able to-”

“Able to what, Vakarian,” you say breathlessly. Your hips dig a bit deeper, grind a bit harder. His brows furrow and his mouth opens. His body shakes, trembling by your movements.

“Oh fuck,” Garrus mewls.

“It feels soo good,” you whimper.

“Oh god, Commander. Oh god.”

“Cum for me, Garrus. Cum inside me! I need it!”

“Fuuuucccckkkkk…”

With a growl, Garrus floods your system with his seed. The very sight of his body trembling beneath you. His thrusts like firm, bursting staccatos. The flick of his head bounces against your g-spot. Your own body shivers with pleasure.

You both ride out your highs, still grinding into each other. Garrus sits up, pulling your chest tight against his own. His breath hot and harsh into the nape of your neck. Your hand hooks at the base of his head, holding him lightly in place.

Hips still jagged as they move. His arms wrap around your waist, forming a tight hold that bounces love between you both. Breath whimpering upon each other’s lips. He presses his nose against your cheek, nuzzling this way to your own. His skin sweaty and warm against your forehead.

“I love you, Garrus Vakarian,” you whisper softly upon his lips.

“I’ll never tire of hearing that.”

“I’ll never be tired of saying it.”

“You are beautiful, absolutely the most beautiful of all the galaxy,” he coos before lightly rubbing his nose against yours.

A soft kiss forces both your eyes to close. Your legs wrap around his back as you rest your weight on his lap. “How about that wine?” you tease before landing another peck on his cheek.

Garrus’ brows jump as that smooth talking smirk shines from left to right. “It’s red… like the blood of our enemies.” He playfully bites into your neck, forcing a squeal you didn’t foresee. “Well, some of our enemies.”

“Okay, calm down, mister vigilante,” you chuckle to yourself.

“Never,” he says before nipping at your neck again. A bustle filled with giggles to end an night you’ll never forget.

note: if you love mass effect & garrus, come back and visit me on N7 day 🩵💙🩵 i has surprise for yous; beginning dialogue & scene are as close to the mass effect 2 romance cutscene before jumping off the ledge into creative shhmut

coming up next sunday → week two: sex toys with ssa aaron hotchner

kinktober taglist? 🎃

✷ kinktober2023 masterlist ✷ navigation ✷ impromptu prompts ✷

thank you for my beta reading bestie, @nackrosor

#garrus vakarian #mass effect garrus #mass effect #shakarian #Shepard x garrus #femshep #commander shepard #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #mass effect 2 #LazyGhoulsKinktober2023

[clericofshadows]

7, 12, 16

thanks for the ask!

choose violence ask game

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

Easy pickings again, it's Garrus. Granted, I wasn't the biggest fan of him either in canon since I didn't like the "no shepard without vakarian" thing they had going on, but the fandom pushes him everywhere, some ppl act like you have to love him and never say anything bad about him, and it's so tiring seeing ppl treat sha///karian as the "canon" ship which is BS. There's more but that's the jist.

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

Jacob is a perfectly fine character with some really shit writing decisions, and tbh, I'm sure most of the people who hate him for the cheating thing never even romanced him anyway to get that scene. He's a normal, well-adjusted guy who can be a good friend to Shepard between all the messy drama from some of the other squadmates, and I've always liked him just fine. so when I entered the fandom and saw all the hate, I was... shocked, but also not tbh.

Plus the Corsairs are really interesting and I always wanted to know more about them.

16. You can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

I don't really get the obsession with default femshep. Sure, she's fine and I'm glad she got a default appearance like mshep but... I've never been the biggest fan of her appearance (why are her eyes so big, I sculpted my OC Wren off of her and made the eyes like, 50% smaller I swear) and she's sometimes treated as the canon default, which I never like to see. "Bonus points" if she's a renegade for her enemies, paragon for her friends kinda character. Which again, is fine, but it's tiring seeing it everywhere. I prefer seeing custom sheps anyway.

And I also prefer Mark Meer's voice acting overall.

#dataheights #ask #ask game

[oatbrew]

tags you're it

mostly psycho-pass, joseimuke, (j)rpgs, and video games, lit, vibes, and some misc romance-adjacent stuff. maybe writing and some art. 

i don’t tag everything but i will tag content/trigger warnings so drop me a line. i also collect tropes/themes:

#god’s not dead; she’s just very tired. catch-all religion, spirituality, and mythology

#they used to shout my name; now they whisper it. prophets, martyrs, and made heroes

#après moi le déluge. witch grandma à la strega nona and/or neighbor who communes with goats and that old dead guy who lives in your cupboard

#those who do and those who don’t. cyberpunk, machines who dreamed themselves into sentience, (non)binary states

#upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand. decaying empires, beasts slouching towards bethlehem, and crumbling concrete in the backstreets of the city

#tragedy is clean. it’s restful. it’s certain. the ontology of tragedies, loop storytelling, doomed endings, and good old-fashioned classics

#half daughter / half apology. kind of an ‘about me’ tag— mixture of queer-ing, gender-ing with monster theory and being slightly off from that mental illness luv <3

#diaspora blues. soul-weary homesickness when home doesn’t resemble home anymore

#whatever walked there walked alone. ghosts, hauntology, places that are born rather than built

#romance novels are good actually. because they are!!! also featuring romance novels that i’ve recently read

#💌. future love letters for me and you <33333

#growth. revisit and repeat

#provocations. other food for thot

#footnotes. arbitrary to-read list, mostly history or critical theory/activist texts

fandom-specific things:

#secondhand smoke. tsunemori akane and kougami shinya from psycho-pass (this is THE blog essentially)

#hawya. my fic, “here, and where you are”, a shinkane pride and prejudice/regency au

#pp. psycho-pass meta, memes, discussion, etc.

#sims. my long lifespan sims 4 playthrough ft. shinkane and their descendants

#daybreak. zayne (and his variants) and mc (named "aurora chen" in-game) from love and deepspace.

#one single thread of gold. artem wing and rosa/mc (named “elle finch” in-game) from tears of themis

#got your six. shepard and garrus vakarian from the mass effect series because no universe exists where one is without the other

#shepard. my mass effect oc, augustine jane shepard. she’s a pinay earthborn sole survivor with a paragade streak.

#if he is not the word of god. god never spoke. tomas ortega and marcus keane from the exorcist

#please picture me in the weeds. five and viktor from the umbrella academy, and the loving oroborous of the apocalypse that is their family.

#there was the poetry. a dot ham and a dot burr from hamilton. yeah i know

other:

#jm. catch-all liveblogs/notes for all my joseimuke playthroughs

#tme. my book, the moon eaters, which is magical realism set in contemporary los angeles with elements of filipino mythology! really love this novel, hope to write it someday

#for a rainy day., #drafts. prompts, ideas, fic fodder/memes, and works-in-progress

#notes., #fic rec. media reviews, notes, and recs

#weekly reads. my round-up/reviews for what i read the past week

#audio. mostly showtunes, my middle school emo phase, etc. that i downloaded from limewire

#🇵🇭. philippines and filipino diaspora-related art/text

#gif., #edit. non-fic/art related things i’ve made

#reply. answered asks/replies

#pinned.

[danzafila]

I admittedly have only played ME1 but yeah. I was hyped for Garrus because I knew he was really popular and he was ultimately a dull and crappy person :\ Maybe he gets better later I dunno.

Like if you were looking for a Murder Lizard as a favourite Wrex is RIGHT THERE. Better personality, better motivations, better design. (Maybe it’s silly to compare them but STILL)

So many people say 'oh that's just ME1!' and that he gets so much better and deeper and more complex and etc. in 2/3 once Bioware saw his popularity and decided to play into it by giving him more attention (like the whole making him a romance option due to fan demand).

But I just... don't buy it?

(Hope you don't mind character spoilers since I'm gonna get into the rest of his arc here. Skip the following paragraph if you do?)

So like, I played a pretty much full blown Paragon in my first playthrough, which meant my Shepard spent pretty much the entirety of her interactions with Garrus in ME1 trying to rein him in and slowly but surely teach him the simplest of moral lessons like 'shoot first, ask questions later bad;' 'taking law into own hands bad;' 'disdain for due process bad;' and 'extrajudicial executions REAL BAD BUDDY.' ....Aaand then ME2 started and he'd taken what he learned from Shepard and gone off and become a fucking vigilante in the interim. Admittedly, there's some understandable circumstances that explain why Shepard's lessons didn't stick, it makes perfect sense why he regressed, was actually good writing, yadda yadda. But dammit dude! Did you learn nothing?? And it REALLY doesn't help that the fanbase saw that and was like 'WOW Garrus is so BADASS now!' and Bioware just played right into that perception. Like, it really hurts the narrative of a character who thinks he's above the law and wants to met out vigilante justice learning restraint and that killing isn't a solution to all life's problems if you're constantly playing up how COOL being a 'plays by his own rules' vigilante he is, Bioware! By ME3, he gets straight up rewarded for all of this by attaining a position of respect/authority within the Turian Hierarchy (you know, that notoriously by the book militaristic society). And it kinda... reframed his whole struggle into not being able to follow bad orders (like a good little turian should) and not being comfortable with the "ruthless calculus" of leadership/war? The dude who when you first met him didn't care about innocents getting caught in the crossfire of his actions? Apparently that was his issue with following rules all along?? 🙄

And then there's the whole Bioware pandering to his fan favorite status by basically forcing him onto the player as Shepard's best friend/100% trusted and valued second in command by the end. Personally, my Shepard was too preoccupied with concerns he was a hairsbreadth away from mowing down innocents (or supposed criminals who really should get a fair trial before we decide if they're guilty or not, Garrus!) to ever bond that deeply with him. But sure Bioware, "there's no Shepard without Vakarian."

(and lol hard agree on Wrex being way cooler. he had a better voice/design from the get go and had a MUCH more satisfying arc by the end imo.)

#domande #youngerfrankenstein #sto parlando #tbc i don't actually dislike garrus or anything. his rapport with the rest of the crew is very fun and he;s got some good one liners and al #but goddamn was the standom surrounding him annoying

[dutyworn]

SHIPPING INFO // ANSWER THE FOLLOWING FOR YOUR MUSE(S) SO PEOPLE KNOW HOW SHIPPING WORKS ON YOUR BLOG.

WHAT IS YOUR OTP FOR YOUR CHARACTER(S)? I am such a multishipper with Shepard in general (any vague fanon femshep since I engage in fanfiction as well), and I'm the same way with Wren on this blog! No OTP, but probably because the first time I ever played Wren, also the first time I played Mass Effect, I had her romance Garrus despite having planned to keep going for Liara after the first game... since Shepard/Garrus just happened, if I was held at gunpoint to name one, then yeah, probably Shepard/Garrus. It's funny because most of my ships that I ship actively enough to seek fanfic of are not wholesome (like... literally one of my favourite ships ever is Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham), and Shepard and Garrus are so wholesome in canon. That "there's no Shepard without Vakarian" is a canon dialogue without romancing Garrus says it all, about how they are best friends first. I don't (obviously) push for ships or assume ships, and Wren's default romance for this blog is no romance (so that she's open for shipping with anybody; I sometimes pair her up with whoever as an NPC if me and the other mun plot so but default is no romance), and I truly up to testing the waters of pretty much all ships. But yeah if I had to name one.

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE? As long as all muses are 18+, no age gap makes me uncomfortable. Like I come from fandoms where one of the most popular ships is between a 19-year-old and a 900-year-old, and I ship it as well, so. I write so many non-human immortal or near-immortal muses too so it's like... I'm used to age gaps of literally billions of years. In general, I'm less likely to ship something where the younger muse is below 25, the older above mid-twenties, and there is a large age gap. Not because I'm uncomfortable but because chemistry doesn't often happen like that? As long as there's chemistry and the muses are both 18+ (and the older muse hasn't consistently known the younger one since childhood), it can happen, with my muses. With Wren, she's around 30 in her main verses (listen age is hard when you die for years), so as for muses younger than her, I don't see her super easily going for muses younger than 25 (but like I said, it depends on chemistry: for example, I've shipped her with Tali, and Tali's younger than that; I've shipped her with Liara and Liara's relative age is up to anybody's interpretation when she's a bit over 100 but in Asari terms considered really, really young). For muses older than her? I don't think you really feel it when a person is older/younger when you're past your mid-twenties, so there's no limit whatsoever.

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY ARE CONSIDERED NSFW? I don't know, I'm shit at deciding when to consider it that and begin to use a readmore. If genitals are being described??? I tag for lemons cw rather too early than too late, I start using readmores with descriptions of private body parts but also with heavy kink I guess, even non-sexual kink.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING? I mean yes in the sense that I won't force myself to ship something that the muse isn't feeling. No in the sense that I am very happy to try ships; work towards a ship, be sent flirty memes without being asked, etc.

WHO ARE OTHER CHARACTERS YOU SHIP YOUR CHARACTER WITH? Pretty much every canon romance option, including ones only available with same gender romance mods? Obviously respecting other muns interpretations of their muses sexual orientations and preferences. I can't think of a canon romance option I don't ship at least right now. I also ship many canon character ships that aren't shippable in the trilogy, such as Shepard/Joker, Shepard/Nihlus... And I'm always, always happy to entertain crossover and OC ships.

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU? No, you can send in shippy memes as long as they're interactions suitable for not assuming an existing relationship between muses. Like if your muse wants to flirt with Wren or do something sexual/romantic? Go for it, send the thing, you don't need to ask me; if she'd point-blank react badly, I'd just not respond to the meme, unless you specified it was fine to write out her reacting badly to it. No harm done. I guess in theory, starting from something like that, we could entirely wing a romance, but... I would much prefer to talk about it ooc at that point? Like if we want to go further than have the muses flirt/show interest, it works better if we discuss it a little at least! And no, you can't assume an unplotted, pre-existing ship between our muses; that's difficult to write without ooc communication. So you can flirt and show interest without asking, with her, but you can't assume how she feels about your muse.

ARE YOU SHIP OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS? I don't know what this means. I love to ship, yes, but I don't like to use the word "obsessed" in a positive context because I have OCD. (I don't mind when other people use it that way though, at all.) I also feel like there's this vibe of needing to disclaimer you like platonic dynamics as much, and even this vibe of superiority to preferring platonic interactions sometimes, in the RPC? Not with any of my mutuals and not with any individual anyway, but more like a collective thing where preferring romance/smut is seen as inferior. Or I might be imagining things, I'm not socially that skilled. I love to ship, I like to write romance, I like to write smut. I also love to write friendships, familial relationships, enemies... etc. I don't love one more than the other; how much I love a particular muse dynamic depends on how much we write it and talk about it ooc, rather than the flavour of it being a ship or not.

ARE YOU MULTISHIP? Yes, in every sense of the word. I will never do exclusives, or exclusive ships, I don't even list mains. Every depiction of a canon character is unique and I don't wish to limit myself to shipping (or interacting) with just one version of a character. You cannot replicate muse dynamics even if you literally start with the same trope with two versions of a canon character, let alone using different storylines for duplicates. If I like a trope I will repeatedly engage with it; never so far has it turned out repetitive in storytelling or felt the same than writing it with another person. I will also multiship with the same muse. Our muses have an established ship? Let's make an AU for them and ship them in that AU as well...

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM? I'm not going to name favourites. I don't like to try to place muns or muses in order. Obviously there are ships I've written more, plotted further, feel closer to. But I see no point in naming names. All ships have the potential of becoming favourites and I don't see why I can't have more than one favourite as well.

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU? Message me with "hey, want to ship our muses?" or send Shepard a flirty/shippy meme. I try, but I am so shy about suggesting/initiating ships myself, so... unless we're close ooc, the ship idea probably has to be brought up by the other person unless I get over myself enough to suggest it (I TRY). If we haven't interacted much yet, my response most likely will be "oh I would love to see if it happens". It can be hard to gauge muse chemistry without writing them or at least without tossing around ideas ooc for a bit. If I really don't think I will want to ship it, I will clearly tell you that I'm not interested/I don't see them as a ship. So me leaving an opening for a ship isn't a nice way of turning you down. It's a "yes, I just can't definitively say before we plot it a bit". When I mean no, I will say no. When I mean yes, I will say yes. When I mean I don't think so, I say I don't think so. Etc. And if it is a no, I won't in any manner feel weird about it. You are not forceshipping by sending a meme or asking if I want to ship.

#well i rambled on this didn't i #; extra guidelines #; outofarmour

[deadlyglacier]

20 Questions tag~

I was tagged by @mythicamagic thank you senpai~<3

How many works do you have on AO3?

40 right now, plus 1 that is still hidden because of the SOFA Exchange event.  (I’m still a lil fish.)

What’s your total AO3 word count?

486,920!  That’s so amazing to me!

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

InuYasha - A Feudal Fairytale (18)

FullMetal Alchemist (18)

Mass Effect Trilogy (3)

Let’s Play (Webtoon) (1)

Kingdom Hearts (1) But I hope to write for many more fandoms in the future!  I have ideas for fics for Castlevania, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Last of Us Part II, and more!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

#1.  Stardust FemShep/Garrus, Mass Effect Trilogy, Rated Explicit. A retelling of the Shepard/Vakarian love story, with lots (and LOTS) of sexiness, from Garrus' point of view. Starts from before the Omega-4 and will end sometime after the end of ME3. Trying to stay as true to the game as possible, while adding some things happening off camera and a new ending.

#2.  Flamingo Sess/Kag, Inuyasha, Rated Explicit Kagome's method of beating the summer heat attracts a certain demon lord...

#3.  Hawk Sess/Kag, Inuyasha, Rated Explicit Kagome and Sesshomaru discover they have a mutual attraction for each other after a battle and a slight comedic incident brings them together. At first their relationship seems entirely sexual, but eventually evolves into something real. What will this romance mean for Naraku? Or even the future?  *TRIGGER WARNING FOR CHAPTER 6! MAJOR VIOLENCE AND TRAGEDY* Very, very loosely based on "A Mere Digression" by elle6778

#4.  Daisy Sam/Charles, Let’s Play, Rated Mature Sam wakes up somewhere unfamiliar with a splitting headache with no memory of the night before. Takes place right after the S2 finale.  First chapter was my prediction for what would happen next, and then three other “wishful thinking” chapters happened, lol.

#5.  Chemistry Ed/Winry, FullMetal Alchemist, Rated Mature A look at how the relationship between Ed and Winry developed after Brotherhood ended.  Cute, sweet, funny, and hot (eventually—y'all that know me know I gotta have some NSFW in there).

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to respond to everyone, especially when a fic of mine has just been posted, but sometimes I just forget.  If I haven’t responded to your comment, please know it’s just because I’m a big dumb and forgot!  I love getting comments, and I reread them all the time!  I just feel like there’s a time limit to when I can respond to them--if I let too much go by, it’s awkward if I reply.  Gah, but that’s just me getting in my own head, I guess.  I’ll do better!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oof, definitely Psychology, a fic I wrote for RoyEdOTPoly this year.  The prompt I got was dark, and I didn’t see any way around an angsty ending.  Read at your own risk!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Well, aside from the last fic, I try to write happy endings for all my fics!  But, if I have to name names, I’m torn between Zoology (another FullMetal Alchemist fic, RoyEd, for RoyEdOTPoly this year) and Stardust (my Mass Effect fic, which is long, but so worth it, in my opinion).  Both are very fluffy in the end!

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Argh...  I don’t really like crossovers, to be honest.  I actively avoid them when looking for fics to read.  But that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought of writing them myself.  (I’m a total hypocrite, I know.)  I had an idea for an Inuyasha x The Sims fic, years ago, that I never did anything with.  The premise was basically Inuyasha and Kagome would get trapped in the game somehow (via the jewel or magic or something), and they’d be controlled by Souta, Kagome’s friends, Hojo--all sorts of different people who think the fact that Kagome and Inuyasha are in the game is just some kind of silly mod.  I probably won’t write it, so if anyone is interested in that crazy idea, have at it!  You have my blessing. <3 I also have a crazy crossover idea for what I call an “Ultimate OT3″ of mine that I’ve mentioned to my friends, but I haven’t actually written down yet:  Sesshomaru/Alucard/Sebastian Michaelis.  So be on the lookout for that!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I wouldn’t call it “hate” so much as “mansplaining,” but I have gotten a couple of comments that made my eyebrow twitch on Stardust--both on AO3 and FFN.  Just dudes (and I’m fairly certain they were dudes, just from their tone) trying to explain why a certain plot twist wouldn’t work, or tell me how to save Sidonis in the actual game (which I already knew, that person just didn’t read what I wrote). I’ve also gotten a comment on one of my more controversial fics, Hippology, on FFN, where the person asked me if I thought my summary was K-Rated (which, admittedly, it does need to be for the site, and mine wasn’t--because of a single word).  I changed it and messaged them saying it was fixed.  Going to that commenter’s profile, however, proved to be fairly enlightening...  They’re nuts.  They have another profile, too.  Read at your own risk.  Yikes. There’s also a team of people on FFN who make it their life’s mission to report stories with rule violations.  I’ve gotten a comment from one of them as well.  These people are not mods, they just like to pretend they are--one of them even made their name look official!  “CU Administration,” gtfo dude. I also recently got one of my fics removed from FFN.  It wasn’t even one of my sexiest ones!  They put me in timeout for 48 hours, and when I was finally able to publish something new on the site again, I posted Hippology (my centaur smut), and it’s still up as I type this.  (Wonder how long it’ll take them to notice?)  And since the fic that got taken down was a SessKag fic, I’m thinking it might have been a petty SessRinner who reported it to the “authorities” of FFN, because another friend of mine got hers taken down not long after mine, and it was also SessKag.  Just my tinfoil theory, anyway!

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes, yes, yes.  It’s practically all I write.  I do all sorts of smut, from romantic, sensual stuff, to specific kinks, to monsterfucking--all that good stuff.  Can’t change me~<3

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

God, I hope not!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don’t think so.  No one has asked me if they can translate one, anyway.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not yet!  I’m open to the idea, and I’ve had little discussions with my fic-writing buddies about it, but nothing’s come out of it just yet.  Keep your eyes peeled!

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Oh, now come on!  I can’t pick just one!  But I’ll give you a top 3 (in no particular order, because they change places a lot, depending on how obsessed I am with them at the moment). Inuyasha:  Sess/Kag FullMetal Alchemist:  Roy/Ed Mass Effect:  Garrus/FemShep

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I have a couple of stories that I deleted from my original FFN account that I’d like to re-write and re-post on AO3, but I don’t think I’ll ever get around to it.  There were a couple of Inu/Kag fics I had in-progress, and then a Koug/Kag fic.  I recently rewrote and reposted my SessKag fic from years ago, Hawk, on FFN, AO3, and Dokuga!  So maybe all hope isn’t lost.  I’m even writing a sequel for Hawk! All the stories I have in-progress right now I plan on finishing.  At some point, lol.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, without a doubt.  It’s my favorite thing to write, aside from smut, of course--which is another strength of mine.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions, ugh.  I try to do them well, but I always feel like they get stale.  So I keep them somewhat vague, because in my mind, I think readers will fill in the gaps themselves whether you describe something immaculately or not--they’ll see what they want to see, and that is totally fine in my book!  Or maybe I’m just making excuses, lol.  I’ll only describe something in a lot of detail if I want the reader to focus on that--usually an outfit, accessory, or weapon--otherwise, I leave it up to their imagination (I don’t want manipulate it too much, I suppose).

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Wildly unnecessary unless that author speaks the language as well, or if certain words already exist in the fandom’s translations (ex. “youkai,” “alkahestry,” etc).

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Inuyasha, and the fic(s) I wrote in the beginning were terrible.  I want to burn all traces of them off the face of the earth.  I was in middle school.  I was young and stupid.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I gotta go with Stardust.  It’s the longest fic I’ve ever completed at more than 160k words.  I was so immensely proud when I typed “The End,” and I was able to say to myself “I did it.”

I tag: @glassesmcfancyhair @willowsrain 

#SessKag #RoyEd #SamCharles #Shakarian #Inuyasha #FullMetal Alchemist #Let's Play #Mass Effect #fanfiction #writers supporting writers #q and a #I don't know what else to put so here

[spectre-requisitions-exchange]

Nominations are LIVE!

Time to get to nominating this year’s delicious rare pairs!

When nominating, please fill in “Mass Effect – All Media Types” in the fandom box.

As a reminder, both gen (&) and romantic (/) relationship tags are allowed for this exchange. Any relationship that fulfils the criteria below is eligible! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask the mods!

ELIGIBILITY RULES:

A pairing must have 200 or less works when viewed with completed works OR

NEW: A pairing may have over 200 works, but when viewed with completed works and otp:true parameters, the amount of remaining works is both under 200 and less than 1/3rd of the total number of works. 

For Example:

* If Adrian Victus/Steve Cortez has 138 works, then it will be accepted as it has less than 200 works. No further filtering is needed.

* If Volus God (Self-Declared)/Liara’s Hanar Half-Sister has over 200 works, but when searched with the above parameters, only has 5 works, it would be allowed as it would have met the under the 1:3rd ratio rule.

* If Brooks/Krogan Wondering About Fish on the Citadel has over 200 works, but when searched with OTP: true and completed works parameters, has 100 works, then it would not be allowed, as the ratio between the completed works and completed works with just the pairing (otp:true) would be too high to qualify. This new rule is meant to help pairings that are commonly used as “side pairings” but rarely are featured in works where they are the focus.

If you have any questions on those rules or you just want to hang out and talk Mass Effect pairs beyond the most popular ones, consider joining us at Our Discord server. It’s a great place to hang out and talk rare pairs.

If this is your first year or you just want a  guide to find out how to do nominations, please read below:

1) Go to the Ao3 Tagset Page for Spectre Requisitions while logged into Ao3. A tagset is what most Ao3 fan exchanges use to determine what relationships (in Spec Rec’s case) or other criteria are used for an exchange.

If a pairing is not nominated, it will not be able to be used for sign-ups, regardless of whether it would have been eligible otherwise. (Example: Suvi/Chakwas, while certainly being eligible as far as total works go, won’t be an option to ask for if it’s not nominated.)  

If you don’t have an Ao3 account, contact the mods, we’ll be happy to help you get one with an invite link!

If you do have an AO3 account and you’re logged in, you should see this button in the corner that says “Nominate”:

2) Click the Nominate Button.

You should wind up with a page that looks like this, with 1 fandom tag and lots of relationship fields to fill out:

3) Fill out the Nominations Sheet.

For fandom, please use “Mass Effect - All Media Types”. We only use Mass Effect - All Media Types because it gives us the highest chance of getting that sweet, sweet Mass Effect content in there regardless of potentially sticky couples (for example: crossovers between a book and a game, or between the Mass Effect Trilogy and Andromeda, or crossovers between other media and Mass Effect) and because Ao3 frankly doesn’t like it when we have couples wandering through different fandoms in the tagset. For Relationships, any pairing/threesome/moresome that meets the eligibility rules. For most pairings, Ao3 should help autocomplete it for you -- but if you come up with a very original pairing (or AO3 is feeling unhelpful), it may require you to type in the full thing. If it does not auto-complete, don’t worry - you can still submit it! Pairings should be in alphabetical order of names. One pairing per line, please!

4) Submit your Nominations! Just click the button on the bottom, and you should be off off and away!

FAQ:

How can I tell what is under 200 completed fics? I’m not a mind reader, C-sec officer!

You can search AO3′s tags here to find pairings for a given character (canonical only gives you pairings big enough that Ao3 has declared them canonical categories). It should look something like this:

If you see a number under 200 here, you’re golden! Submit away. If it’s over 200 here, however, don’t despair - check the completed works. For example, let’s look at this couple, Garrus/Tali:

Doesn’t look eligible if you just do a tag search. However, if you click the tag and then do a search for completed works only and you might be surprised!

To do this search for completed works, look at the “Sort and Filter” sidebar and scroll down until you reach the “More Options” field and under “All Works”:

Click complete works only. And in this case, you’d find this couple is, in fact, eligible!

However, let’s say you look at the couple and find they are still over 200, as in the example below?

Well, there is one last thing to check:

Go back to the sidebar, then down to More Options and scroll down to “Search within results”:

OTP: True will show you ONLY the works that are tagged with JUST the target couple. When you sort and filter, you will see a total. In this example’s case, that number is 30:

What this means is that off the 204 works in Garrus/Tali right now, only 30 only focus on Garrus/Tali as a couple. As a result, the ratio of otp:true works to completed works is less than 1/3rd of the total, and the couple would be allowed to participate.

What if I accidentally nominate something that’s not eligible? Will I get in trouble?

Nah. You might wind up with it being rejected, but we assume most people operate in good faith in their nominations. If we reject a couple, we will always put it in the spreadsheet for the year linked on the sidebar with a reason why.

How many things can I nominate?

10 pairings - so choose carefully what you’d like to see and write. That covers both Andromeda and Trilogy, and all the novels, comics, etc.

Can I nominate, even if I’m not sure I’ll sign up or don’t plan on signing up?

Of course! Nominating isn’t a binding process - you’re only voting for what you’d like to see. You don’t have to sign up after nominating things - in fact, nominations are anonymous, so we can’t tell what you’ve nominated.

Are there any special rules/restrictions on what I can/can’t nominate?

Only the eligibility rules.

Can I nominate Original Characters?

Yes - ish. We allow original characters who are defined enough to give the person who matches on the original character something to go on, but not so much so they have to do an exhaustive amount of research on a fanon character. For example:

Allowable OC nominations:

Female Asari Spectre/Female Cerberus Agent - both these roles are defined in terms of what category of pairing they want (f/f), and the two roles give someone an idea of who these people are without being excessively limiting.

Not-so-allowable:

Communications Officer/Male Original Character: both of these are too vague. We’re not sure whether this person wants a male, female, nonbinary, or other gender for the Communication’s Officer; Male Original Character is so nebulously defined that we’re not sure just who that might be.

Female Shepard/Batarian(s) - We don’t know who these batarians are, or how many of them there are. “Five Male Batarian Pilots” tells us a lot more.

Male Shepard/Legion/Ebony Raven Darkmayne (My OC) - While we encourage you to add details about your Shepards or other OCs, it’s very hard to write for original characters someone else has formed. Please nominate your OC in more generic terms (ex Male Shepard/Legion/Female Original Goffic Hogwarts Student).  You can add in names and descriptions in optional details in your sign up, but this way the writer or artist has more wiggle room for what will suit their fic or art, and you have more options of matching more people since you aren’t limited to one interpretation of a concept.

A good rule of thumb is if you can sum up an OC in five non-name nouns, it’s probably a valid nomination.

Can I nominate crossovers?

Yes! Crossovers between different Mass Effect properties are welcome and and are crossovers between ! Just please, if the character you’re crossing over doesn’t hail from a Mass Effect canon, add in the canon next to the character name, eg “Darth Vader (Star Wars)/Garrus Vakarian.”

#Mass Effect #spectre requisitions #specrecs2021 #specrecs_nominations

[antibioware]

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

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

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

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

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

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

The problems with the gameplay itself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Empty self-referencing

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

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

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

A couple call backs I really liked were:

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

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

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

The plot, and the problem with binary choices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#long fucking post ahead beware #mass effect #mass effect andromeda #me:a

[actuallykiwi]

Phoenix

Fan-written Mass Effect 3 Epilogue

The Reapers are destroyed. The galaxy knows peace once more. Mostly. Amid the crashed ruins of the Citadel, the “Hero of the Galaxy”, Jane Shepard, lies barely alive. It takes a keen eye from one team of paramedics to find her broken body. The galaxy was saved, but now it’s Shepard’s turn once more. 

So many bodies. So much debris. The next four or five generations would be seeing the scars of the Reaper War. Clean-up had only been going on for about 48 hours. Most of the Citadel ended up in the ocean, but that still left a lot of it on the shore. “Shore” being 1/3 of Manhattan. The rest of it was reported flying back down on London.

Evening was falling. Dawson and his team of paramedics were part of the New York Search & Rescue (NYSR) squad, scouring any and every part of the Citadel debris that landed in New York. They were looking for anything or anyone they could salvage, but so far, no signs of life had been detected. And the damage the explosion had done, the damage the Reapers did to the citizens of the Citadel... they would all have mental scars for the rest of their lives. Dawson’s team only had 45 minutes left until they had to call it a day. The hardest part of the job was finding and identifying every single body they found. And today they found... less than yesterday, but a staggering, heart-wrenching number nonetheless. 

Dawson, stone-faced as usual, helped his teammate load another poor asari onto the shuttle before climbing over the debris back to where he was. He wanted to leave so bad. But someone had to do this job. He sighed as he turned off his flashlight and sat on jagged metal slab, head in his hands. 

It was only when he sat completely still that he heard it. 

He couldn’t be imagining it. He shot up and stood quietly. There, ever-so-quietly to his left, he could hear it. 

Breathing. 

Raspy, soft, labored breathing. Someone was still alive. 

Dawson almost dropped his flashlight to turn it on, but quickly and carefully tread to the source. “I’ve got a live one over here!” His heart was racing as he reached the dark figure and his teammates began to trek over to him. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the N7 tag, bloody and crumpled, but there. The flashlight glided over their hardly-moving torso, over the various scars and broken bones, the bloody, singed black hair, and to the nearly-mangled face of none other than... 

“OH MY GOD! IT’S COMMANDER SHEPARD!!!!”

And then chaos. Every team that was close enough to hear him immediately rushed to his position. Dawson and a few other men began clearing the rubble around her body as carefully as possible. At least a dozen paramedics stood by ready for action. 

“We need as much medi-gel as we can spare over here, NOW!” 

“Oh my God, Shepard’s still alive?!” 

“Get anyone that worked on the Lazarus project in an OR!”

“Has anyone been able to reach the Normandy crew yet?!” 

Shepard’s unconscious body was delicately placed on a gurney, and a dozen or more tubes were now sticking out of her every which way. They had to move through the debris to the nearest landing zone for the chopper to receive her. From there, it was a short ride to the hospital. 

“You’ll be alright, Commander. Just hang in there!” 

*******************************************

I need more medi-gel in here! That rubble was keeping her from bleeding out!

Voices. They were faint, but she could still hear them clearly. All she could see was white. Then black once more. 

Keep that IV in. She’s gonna be in a hell of a lot of pain whenever she comes to. You mean if she comes to. She will. She’s Commander Shepard, after all, this wouldn’t be the first time she’s beat death. 

She could smell this time. It certainly smelled like a hospital. Then black again. 

Shepard, I’m almost certain you’re immortal at this point. 

That voice. Miranda? It had to be. 

I’m not sure if you can hear me, but you’ve done it again. You’ve cheated death. Though this was a bit different than last time. We don’t have the tools we did in Cerberus, during Lazarus. And I’ll be honest, you’re in... much worse condition this time. You’re an actual miracle if you wake up... But I know you. You will. 

She felt slight pressure on her head. A gentle rub. 

You lucky bastard. 

Blackness. 

This time was a whole host of voices. She could recognize each one distinctly, but still didn’t have the strength to respond.

“-and yet here we are. Here you are. Somehow still kicking. I’m honestly a little scared of you now.” Joker. 

“Now? I always have been! To come back from death once was scary enough, but now? To still be alive after all that?? Shepard, I could almost worship you.” Laughter from sweet Tali. 

“I don’t know about worship, but I definitely believe you’re immortal, or close to it.” Kaiden. 

“I’m just glad you are still alive, even though you’re not with us.” Liara. 

“Alright, her pulse is rising, give her her space.” Dr. Chakwas. And from the distance, she must have been standing right outside the door. A few more people said things, complained, pats on the shoulder, but began to fade away. 

But someone was missing. Whose voice was she missing? She wanted to hear it, to- 

And then a hand was around hers. Gently on her cheek. And that voice, right above her... 

“Come back to us, soon. We miss you. I miss you... It’s empty without you here.” Garrus. Garrus Vakarian. Her pulse slowed back down to normal and she could feel herself breathe with relief. She heard him chuckle. “That’s my girl. Keep breathing, and open those pretty eyes soon.” She felt him kiss her forehead. 

She was beginning to fade out again, but she could just make out him asking Chakwas if he could stay. She argued, stating “if he did, they would all want to”, but she begrudgingly accepted. She felt his hand around hers again, and then everything went quiet. 

**************************************

It was silent, minus the beeping of the heart monitor. Steady. That’s good. It took effort, but she moved. A twitch of the hand. A nudge of the shoulder. Face squinting. And hoo-boy, she was sore. A little grunt came from inside her, and for the first time in God knows how long, her blue eyes welcomed the pale ceiling. She could feel the cold nightgown across her torso, which was also strangely freezing. It was a slow process to move anything. At first it was just her eyes, which glimpsed the ceiling, window to her left, monitor to her right, and monitor on the wall, displaying her name, condition, date, etc. 

Then, her head, moving to fully look at everything, including her turian boyfriend sleeping soundly on the chair. She grunted again, trying to move her arms and legs, and found it more difficult to move her whole left side. She swallowed, painfully, and mustered what little strength she had to call his name. 

“G-Garrus...” 

Her voice was raspy and quiet, but audible. He snorted and slowly woke up. He looked over at her. She stared sleepily back, and smiled as big as she could manage. “Hi...” 

“JANE!” With his height, he was over to her in one bound, hugging her as gently yet as tightly as he could. She grunted and laughed, groaning from pain. “I knew you’d be back, nothing can keep you down. God, I missed you!” 

“I.. missed you too.” She whispered, forcing her right arm to hug him back. He released her and held her hand as he sat by her. It was only when his other hand wiped her cheek did she realize she cried a little. From joy or pain, she couldn’t tell, but she was happy to see him, too. 

“I know it’s probably difficult to talk, so I’ll answer your questions before you ask. Yes, the galaxy is safe. You did it. The Reapers are destroyed. But also so is most synthetic life. I say most because, it was all, but the quarians managed to bring the geth back online, which the quarians are doing great by the way, and we’re working on bringing EDI back. She’s a bit... different from the geth, a bit more complicated, but we got some experts to look at her and she’ll be back soon. Like you.” He smiled at her. “The Citadel was destroyed though, as well as all those who didn’t evacuate in time. A good percentage did, but there’s still so many casualties... Most of it landed in the ocean, then some in London, and the rest here, in New York. You’re in a hospital in New York, by the way. Miranda, Chakwas, and a few other professionals and people from the Lazarus project we could find fixed you up as best as they could. Which, by the way, uh... was... most, of you.” 

Garrus reached for her left arm and lifted it up for her. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to be looking at metal. She flexed her new metal fingers, testing it out, and found that it only felt a little heavier than normal, but otherwise fine. “Your whole left body was... in bad shape. Well, you had no arm or leg, and a chunk of your side was chiseled, but the best smiths on this side of the universe got you replacements real quick. I didn’t even have to use my bad boy charm to convince them to give them to you.” They both chuckled. 

Shepard shuffled her left leg a bit. Sure enough, it was slightly heavier too. That would also explain why her side was freezing; it was metal. “You also have several broken bones, but I’ll let Chakwas explain all that.” 

He cupped her cheek again and sighed. “I’m glad you’re back. I’m buying you a whole bar worth of drinks once we get out of here.” She grinned. “I’ll take you up on that...” He laughed, and leaned down to kiss her. Her metal arm draped around his shoulders and their hands tightened together. 

A moment after pulling apart, Dr. Chakwas softly knocked on the wall and approached. “Glad to see you’re awake, Commander. We missed you.” Chakwas gave her a quick, soft hug. After their greeting, she gave her a rundown of all her injuries. Thankfully, most injuries were on the outside, including: a new arm, leg, and a few new ribs, multiple permanent scars on her face and torso, skull fractures, and her other leg broken. Inside, slight internal bleeding, which surprisingly was already healed. 

“You were found about 2 months ago, and I suppose you just awoke today. In terms of your new synthetic attachments, your entire left side of your body...” She cleared her throat and read from a tablet. “Your omni-tool is hardwired into your arm, so you can now even activate it without it your armor. It also comes with a hidden blade in both your arm and leg, so the omni-blade is no longer necessary, but there just in case. Your middle finger has a laser now, though I’m sure you can guess who chose that location in design.” She rolled her eyes. Garrus chuckled. “There’s also a long list of other goodies in your synthetic attachments that I’m sure you’re just dying to have me read off to you, but I’ll send it to your omni-tool because I have no desire to do so, and I need to do a quick physical before-” 

“SHEPARD!!!!”

“-that.” 

The entire Normandy crew had their commander surrounded, and were showering her in tears and welcomes and hugs and jabs and... you get the picture. It was emotional. 

The whole next month was like that. Garrus and Shepard had a movie night that ended as... passionately as it could. Joker compared notes about the usefulness of Shepard’s legs to his now. Liara, Tali, and Miranda had something like a tea party with her, only it was wine. So, a wine party. Samantha had a heart-to-heart with her. Joker brought a newly-revived EDI with him, and they agreed to go on a double date soon. Jack played with Shepard’s middle finger laser and discovered the arm came with minor biotic capabilities. She broke the monitor on the wall. 

Eventually, Shepard started taking physical therapy, but to be safe, they kept her in a wheelchair. 

She rolled out to the hospital balcony overlooking the city, and took a deep breath. It was her first time seeing the destruction herself. It was covered in bulldozers and other cleaning machines by this point, and several hundred people were packing up for the day. Even from here she could see the more massive pieces of the Citadel sticking out of the ocean. How she survived that, she would never know. 

“Gonna miss that place, for sure. Especially my favorite spot.” Garrus walked up beside her, arm draped behind her. 

“You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?” “Nope.” They both laughed. 

She sighed. “...Honestly, I’ll miss it, too. But I’m just glad this is all over. What was it you said? You wanted to retire someplace tropical, or something?” He nodded. “Yep. With you, of course. We’ll still adopt a little krogan, if you want.” 

“We could adopt Grunt.” She suggested. There was a pause. Then they both burst out laughing. 

“I know I’ve said it a million times by now, but God, I missed you, Shepard.” 

“Oh, you’re back to calling me Shepard, now? I was convinced you didn’t know my first name for the longest time.” 

He shrugged. “I know what it is, but I figured I’d call you that a bit longer before i change it.” 

“Change it?” 

“Yeah. I was thinking something along the lines of ‘Jane Vakarian’.” He looked at her and smiled warmly. “What do you think?” 

Jane reached for his hand and returned the smile. “Y’know, I really like the sound of that.” 

The End

#Mass Effect #mass effect 3 #jane shepard #Garrus Vakarian #Shepard x Garrus #shakarian #writing #fanfiction #epilogue

[theonyxranger]

9, 24, & 28 for the Mass Effect asks please!

9: What squad member do you bring along the most? Garrus because he's me BOY. There's no Shepard without Vakarian.

24: What enemy do you really hate fighting? Geth Juggernauts on insanity. Specifically on Rannoch when you come out of the elevator and you're surrounded with no cover... I want to cry.

28: What’s the most hilarious thing that’s happened to you while playing (a glitch, a mission that went haywire, etc)? Absolute favorite was definitely during a conversation with Udina when his eyes just started slowly rising up into and then eventually out of his head while he was talking. After about thirty seconds they were offscreen and he just had two big gaping holes in his face.

#what are ya askin? #ask meme #absurdistplayer #my heart my soul my life #mass effect #thank you!! #sorry i took so long to respond i slept most of today away oops

[crqstalite]

Brione and Garrus for the General Relationship questions?

ah!! sorry this took me a while to get to :p

ask!

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

In-game, it would’ve been Shepard and it crosses over pretty well to Brione. They were good friends before the incident over Alchera, even if she almost doesn’t recognize him the first time she’s out in the field with him during lead up to the Suicide Mission. As for how it went, she genuinely did feel bad for putting him on the spot like that -- but all around surprised about how much effort that he put into them. It confused her, after so many failed relationships before, she hadn’t expected him to be receptive to her throwaway flirt.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

I definitely wouldn’t say it was official, but their first ‘real’ date was probably on the Citadel soon after Sidonis was dealt with and they’d been out repairing their respective armor sets and weapons. It gave them some proper time to catch up on what the other had been up to for the last two years -- accompanied with a few poorly executed pick up lines on her part.

What was their first kiss like?

Relief, mostly. I abide by canon in this case (if I’m remembering right) of their first kiss being on the Normandy after the events of Palaven. She’d been so relieved to have him back alive that she probably wasn’t completely thinking either. Brione was beyond grateful the universe had given him back to her, enough so that her immediate reaction was to press a kiss to his mandible -- which I think would be as close as any kiss is really going to get with a Turian,

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

I’d say real relationship, like one with meaning behind it. Obviously, Brione would be Garrus’ first human girlfriend, but neither had ever been in a relationship quite like this. Both made it evident to each other without words that they were in for the long haul -- this wasn’t any fling they’d just forget about if and when they survived the Suicide Mission.

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Garrus is 6″2 (meandering google for that answer). Brione is now confirmed 5″9, though 5″11 or taller in any heels of her choice. Garrus is 28 in Mass Effect 3 (meandering google for that answer) and Brione is 34.

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Brione has no family to speak of (none that she knows about), but I think her reaction to Garrus’ would be all around happy, if not a tad awkward. Garrus caring about her after years of fending for herself with no regard for anyone else was odd enough, but now having two other people do the same? And after they’re married -- being related to these people? Both his father and Solana respect her wishes to be left alone for the most part, but she has made multiple attempts to become part of the Vakarian family.

Who takes the lead in social situations?

Probably Brione in diplomatic situations -- functioning as Udina’s assistant (and mouthpiece to the Council at times) for a few months as well as being the Alliance’s operative into Cerberus for the entire duration of the Suicide Mission has given her the ability to often be the social leader when someone needs to be talked down or convinced of something. However anywhere else (especially things that aren’t about guns or the models of said weapons), she clams up rather easily. Making small talk is not her talent, whereas then Garrus sometimes fills in for her. 9/10 it’ll probably make her snicker are at least make her a little more comfortable.

Who gets jealous easier?

I’m not horribly sure? Both of them trust each other that they aren’t out to break their hearts in two. Brione would be more likely to feel slighted by the chocolate comment, but more in an apathetic way. She’s been broken down enough times that she wouldn’t be surprised had it been more than just a gift -- but then she is when it was just a gift, and that Tali had been teasing again. 

Then again, she also has spent enough time trying to please every diplomat that runs by her office, maybe enough that Garrus has been colored green once or twice.

thank you for the ask! just a tad rusty on them lol.

[vakariaan]

What My Blog Means

I was tagged by the @murraywalker​ - thank you! :)

Header: Just some pretty waterlilies. Been thinking about changing it up though.

Icon: Ellie Williams from The Last of Us 2 (don’t talk to me about the delay I am HURTING). This one is by @wadewicons.

My content: Very very multifandom. About video games, tv shows, films, ships etc

Background colour: White (I’m a boring bitch tbh)

Letter colour: Dark purple...cause I like purple and it matches the header colour scheme.

URL: For my space husband Garrus Vakarian. My first 9 years on this hellsite I had the same url and last year I finally FINALLY changed it to VakarianDusks (lil bit of my old url and a new one) but tbh I wanted a fresh start (without the hassle of a new blog) and I wasn’t totally satisfied with it so I tried a bunch of variations and settled on this one which...feels good. Feels me ^^

Blog title: BECAUSE THERE IS NO SHEPARD WITHOUT VAKARIAN - actual line said by my gal Shepard to her one true love and soulmate Garrus Vakarian (alternatively I was going to go with ‘It’d be an awfully empty galaxy without you’ but I’ll probably keep that for if I get a space/galaxy themed header idk tbh the reason I was reluctant to use it was cause the Star Wars hype was big at the time and I didn’t want folk thinking it was for that lmao yes I know that’s ridiculous)

#about me

[deadlymaelstrom]

5, 6 11, and 18?

Thanks for asking! More requests are here

5. Who’s Shepard’s best friend?

John’s best friends include Kaidan Alenko and Garrus Vakarian. Comrades, brothers-in-arms… they fought side-by-side on the battlefield. When Kaidan died on Virmire, it was something John never forgot. “He gave his life for the rest of the team. Without him, I couldn’t have stopped Saren. He died a hero, but… I still miss him these days.” John ended up naming his first child after him.

As with Garrus, the two would usually compete with each other. Sniping bottles on the Citadel and getting horribly drunk at the bar. Aside from brotherly bonds, John was like Garrus’s mentor--teaching him patience, morals and occasionally defy authority if necessary.

6. What makes their friendship special?

No matter who you are, where you came from or what race you hail from (i.e., human, turian, asari, quarian, krogan, etc.)–John made sure those under his care are protected and treated with dignity, respect and equality. If wronged, John will literally send them to the depths of hell.

11. Are Shepard’s parents still alive?

John never learned of his parents or why they abandoned him as a small child. He grew up on the streets of Vancouver, fighting and stealing whatever he could to survive. To be honest, after all he endured John could care less. If they are somehow still around, they’re basically dead to him; his crew is his family.

18. Share a headcanon about Shepard and their LI.

After the Reaper invasion, John married Ashley in a small, private ceremony. Not too long afterwards, they had four children of their own: three boys, one girl: Kaidan, David, Ethan and Carolyn.

#john shepard #replies #vulpixelates

[lefthanded-sans]

Don't forget the Garrus analysis!

There’s no Shepard without Vakarian: An analysis of Garrus’ characterization in the Mass Effect franchise

Oh yes, thank you, Mun! During yesterday’s stream I commented I could write an analysis on how Garrus’ character arc is in many ways unusual, both within the Mass Effect franchise’s brand of storytelling, and in the broader scheme of how narratives tend to characterize principle personalities. Most main characters are given a significant arc that grows them greatly as an individual. By the end of the tale, they have actualized into someone with more experiences, abilities, and integrity. They stand on their own stronger than before. Garrus’ arc, interestingly enough, focuses less on him growing by himself, but rather him growing closer to Shepard.

A more typical characterization arc is found for most Mass Effect squadmates (especially those introduced in ME 2). It’s brilliant - large plot threads from major political scuffles, to individual personality plot threads of character internal conflict - are given arc, development, and wrap-up by ME 3. Mainly, squadmates are given a central conflict that is developed and resolved by the end of the storyline. To give a few examples:

Grunt is introduced with the problem of needing identity. He needs to become actualized as his own, personal krogan. By joining Clan Urdnot and leading the Aralakh Company, he becomes that krogan with a proud, personal, found identity.

Mordin’s character arc is wrapped around his complicated, conflicted logic and emotions regarding the genophage - whether it was, in fact, the correct choice to make. As much as his emotions and logic mostly agree that the second genophage was the correct move, his internal discomfort suggests that he’s not as settled in this choice as he should be. He’s still struggling. His logic and emotions come to a common goal to cure the krogan genophage in ME 3, leading him to internal peace. He goes from someone who sterilized the krogan, helping continue the collapse of krogan civilization… to their hero.

Miranda’s arc is focused around struggles with her abusive father. In the end, she can help her sister and stop Mr. Lawson once and for all.

Jacob struggles with the question of whether or not allying with a shady organization like Cerberus is okay so long as their mission goals are profitable and get the job done. His suspicions in ME 2 lead to worse experiences in ME 3; he leaves the organization and puts behind this conflict once and for all.

Wrex’s arc is about becoming a revolutionary leader. Shepard meets him after he gave up leading a small krogan clan. But he becomes reinspired to try to build his people into a stronger civilization, a stronger future.

Jack is introduced with emotional scars from an abusive past. As a child she was abused and exploited for her biotics. In the end, Jack helps nurture other biotic children into a greater future.

And so we can go through almost all squadmates this way: Ashley / Kaidan regarding trust, Samara regarding her Ardat-Yakshi familial legacy, Thane regarding his family and illness, EDI regarding what it means to be a sentient non-organic, etc. Characters are given a central problem, which they grow through and overcome.

But Garrus, I feel… is a little different.

Garrus’ arc is centered around the idea “There’s no Shepard without Vakarian.”

Now, it’s true Garrus has a few overarching problems he needs to handle throughout the franchise. It mainly involves his sense of enacting justice outside the scope of regulations. In the first game, he wants to hunt down Dr. Saleon, who got away because C-Sec regulations forbid Garrus from making risky capture moves the first time. In the second game, Garrus wants vengeance for Sidonis’ betrayal. Several times, Garrus plays a turian Robin Hood-esque character: he skirts the law and does his own vigilante thing to enact justice and punish immoral lawbreakers who have harmed others.

The thing is, these incidences are framed secondarily to Garrus’ main narrative contribution. These narrative arcs are used to reinforce Garrus’ attachment to Shepard.

Garrus does learn and grow based upon how Dr. Saleon and Sidonis are handled, yes. He’ll reach different conclusions depending upon whether you take Renegade or Paragon dialogue choices, but regardless, Garrus takes away these incidences as life lessons... life lessons pulled to him largely by Shepard’s sense of justice. Results of the Dr. Saleon mission come from Shepard’s guidance and philosophy, ideas that Garrus take to heart and mull over. The same sort of thing happens with Sidonis. Shepard’s interactions in these missions influence how Garrus thinks. He reflects upon the missions and (no matter what path players take) ultimately reaches the conclusion Shepard has a point. He aligns his thinking more with Shepard after each incident. Thus, Garrus’ experiences on the missions with Shepard aren’t about Garrus growing beyond a problem… so much as it leads him to become more synced with and loyal to Shepard.

Even the problem of Garrus’ imperfect relation with his father ultimately ties up to him building a bond with Shepard. In the first game, Garrus mentions that his father didn’t approve of Garrus taking Spectre training, so Garrus found himself as a C-Sec officer instead… albeit one who didn’t play by the books as his father did. That leads him to be interested in working with a Spectre and leaving C-Sec... all driving him to Shepard. Garrus does eventually go to his father by ME 3 - a surprising development - and tell his father about his ventures and the upcoming Reaper threat. Garrus gains his own task force to handle the Reapers and lead… which pulls him back into the central war efforts with Shepard. He’s yet again a squadmate with humanity’s first Spectre. Everything Garrus does ultimately draws him back to the Normandy.

All of Garrus’ problems in 1 and 2 are written to build that bond between Shepard and Vakarian. It’s fascinating - his character growth arc isn’t about one specific personal problem to characterize through, so much as it is about him aligning with someone else.

In this sense, the Shadow Broker’s dossier on Garrus is curious commentary on his characterization arc. The dossier begins: 

Former C-Sec officer. Exceptional tactical and team-building skills. Leadership potential overshadowed by Shepard. Unlikely to fully develop under Shepard’s command.

Now Garrus does gain and expose these skills solo. He creates his team on Omega. He directs forces during the start of the war with the Reapers. But that is never where he fully actualizes, fully shines. Garrus being with Shepard is never narratively shown as a limitation, but contrarily, Garrus apart from Shepard is where he is shown to be weakest and most out-of-his-zone. 

Characters out of their element can be one means of growth - it’s hard to grow unless you’re out of your comfort zone, after all - but it can also signify they’re not where they’re supposed to be. The latter is primarily how Garrus’ time apart from Shepard is depicted. If anything, his experiences on Omega worsen him into someone more emotionally unstable, hurt, and raw. And instead of it being a time where Garrus notably actualizes, it feels like a somewhat stagnant period of his life, where he’s living active inactivity, trying to figure out what to do now that Shepard is dead. Shepard reuniting with Garrus on Omega is one where Garrus is in a tight and unpleasant spot. He demonstrates he can lead and build a team like Shepard, but his experience also isn’t the one where he is depicted at his best and most heroic. He gains more motivation, resolve, and heroics when he joins the suicide Cerberus mission - he’s not just picking off villains on Omega, but now he’s out to save every human colony.

Where Garrus is depicted as his best is with Shepard. Maybe it’s just me, but I suspect that many fans get excited every time Garrus returns to the squad because they associate him with that friend always at Shepard’s side. He’s the bud Shepard can always count on. And over and over again, throughout the franchise, Garrus says some great quotes about his siding with Shepard. One of my favorites comes from the start of 2:

G: Frankly I’m more worried about you. Cerberus, Shepard. You remember those sick experiments they were doing?S: That’s why I’m glad you’re here, Garrus. If I’m walking into hell, I want someone I trust at my side.G: You realize this plan has me walking into hell too. Hmm… just like old times.

And then there’s Garrus’ character farewell in ME 3 before the final London charge. Most of these farewells bring up the central point of the character’s conflict in some way or another - for instance, Grunt thanking Shepard for taking him out of the tank, Samara mentioning the monastery where her final daughters have lived. It’s the final wrap-up to the story we’ve experienced through each squadmate. It’s to note that Garrus and Shepard’s conversation is not centered on justice, ruthless calculus, Garrus’ father, Sidonis, regulations, or any of Garrus’ other side-struggles. Garrus and Shepard focus the conversation on their friendship. On supporting each other. They talk about them being together - be it here on Earth, or up in the afterlife:

G: Shepard. So I guess this is…S: Just like old times?G: Heh. Huh. Mmm. Might be the last chance we get to say that.S: You think we’re going to lose?G: No, I think we’re about kick the Reapers back into whatever black hole they crawled out of. Then we’re going to retire somewhere warm and tropical and live off the royalties from the vids.S: I wouldn’t know what do with all my time. Neither would you.G: Sign autographs?S: We haven’t won yet.G: James told me there’s an old saying here on Earth - “May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.” Not sure turian if heaven is the same as yours, but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there, meet me at the bar. I’m buying.S: We’re a team, Garrus. There’s no Shepard without Vakarian. So you better remember to duck.G: Sorry, turians don’t know how. But I’ll improvise. And Shepard, forgive the insubordination, but this old friend has an order for you: Go out there, and give them hell. You were born to do this.S: Good-bye Garrus. And if I’m up there in that bar, and you’re not, I’ll be looking down. I’ll always have your back.

Between these two conversations, Garrus and Shepard literally talk about going through heaven and hell together. They connect through old times and forge into new times together, onward and onward. And there is an undying support between the two. They make each other stronger.

The Shadow Broker is sort of right that Garrus’ leadership potential overshadowed by Shepard. Garrus gains respect from teams on his own, but he never rises to that legend Shepard does by himself. That said, the Shadow Broker is also wrong that Garrus development is hindered by being around Shepard. Garrus being with Shepard is the best that Garrus is. The point of Garrus narratively is to be with Shepard, and that’s where he makes the most memorable storytelling difference. Garrus’ narrative is about being Shepard’s loyal best friend (or lover, if you romance him) - the second-in-command whose support is critical to the Milky Way’s salvation.

Garrus’ story isn’t centralized about how to handle justice outside regulation. Garrus’ story isn’t one about deciding what to do with gray morals and ruthless calculus, as much as he speculates about that topic. Garrus’ story isn’t one of getting out of Shepard’s shadow. It’s a story about him syncing with Shepard’s shadow.

The idea that there’s nothing sweeter than his loyal friendship.

#mun3001s #long post #Garrus #ME #Mass Effect #ME2 #ME 2 #Mass Effect 2 #ME 3 #ME3 #Mass Effect 3 #Garrus Vakarian #my analysis #non-UT #female shepard #Commander Shepard #ask #ask me

[mssaboteur]

Chapters: 20/20 Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Female Shepard & Garrus Vakarian, Shepard/Garrus Vakarian Characters: Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Garrus Vakarian Additional Tags: Past Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Awkward Garrus Vakarian, From Sex to Love, Casual Sex, Casual Sex that isn’t really casual, Fluff and Smut, Light Angst, Interspecies Awkwardness, Interspecies Romance, POV Shepard (Mass Effect), Masturbation, Wall Sex, Eventual Smut, Shameless Smut, Friendship to Sex to Love, Friends to Lovers, Mass Effect 2, Paragade (Mass Effect), No Shepard without Vakarian Series: Part 1 of Stress Relief Summary:

Fiona Shepard woke up on a Cerberus operating table, apparently after being dead for two years. She wants nothing more than to see a familiar face, someone who will have her back as she works with her former enemies and tries to save the galaxy. Again. And then after one trip to Omega, she’s reunited with her best friend in the galaxy. But he looks at her differently, now - and she can’t seem to shake this new feeling. Especially not once she realizes it’s not really a new feeling.

Some fluff (mild angst as well) and smut of Fem!Shep/Garrus, starting with their reunion on Omega up until her return to Earth before Mass Effect 3. Focuses on their conversations and moments together from Shepard’s POV, so glosses over a lot of the action of ME2.

All rights obviously belong to Bioware. Kudos and comments, etc., are all greatly appreciated.

@laraslandlockedblues amazing FemShep and Garrus Smutfest, can't wait for you to pick this up again, one of my favourite Shakarian fics

#shakarian #femshep x garrus vakarian #BadassShepard #BadassVakarian #NerdsInLove #smut lots and lots of smut