#oc: malena shepard

[lavampira]

don't leave me behind. no matter what happens, know that I love you. always.

#that cutscene when shepard has a flashback of the LI while shooting at the circuit has been haunting me #and it's been a week since i finished the trilogy so time for pain #dani plays me #game: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #ch: kaidan alenko #malena/kaidan #shenko #fshenko

[lavampira]

seems like you're having a bad day, shepard.

#i miss them. very much. this was peak comedy dgfgdh #dani plays me #game: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #ch: kaidan alenko #malena/kaidan #femshep #shenko #fshenko

[lavampira]

tagged by @carlosoliveiraa to make some ocs in this picrew 💚

willa michaels [stardew valley]

malena shepard [mass effect trilogy]

veronica scarlet [scarlet hollow]

evie thierry [resident evil/blooming panic]

and tagging (with no pressure!): @hythlodaes @scionshtola @coldshrugs @galadae @gwynbleidd @the-rogue-mockingjay @narrativefoiltrope @veeples @rosenfey @thedeadthree @ravensgard @risingsh0t @erielake @hylfystt @reverienne @unholymilf @rolangf @leondaltons @celticwoman

#this is such a cute one <: have some gorls !! #tag game #dollmaker shenanigans #oc: willa michaels #oc: malena shepard #oc: veronica scarlet #oc: evie thierry

[lavampira]

tagged by @carlosoliveiraa @risingsh0t @thedeadthree @gwynbleidd to make some lovelies in this meiker x

EVIE THIERRY [resident evil/blooming panic]

MALENA SHEPARD [mass effect]

VERONICA SCARLET [scarlet hollow]

LAGUNA KEATS [coral island]

and no pressure tagging @hythlodaes @birues @narrativefoiltrope @veeples @elvves @elliewilliums @night-triumphantt @perpetuagf @bethesdas @sirotras @the-rogue-mockingjay @scionshtola @coldshrugs @aphoticfairy @unholymilf @erielake @hylfystt @sysba @rosenfey if anyone would like to do it too <3

#making evie in this fit and then discovering That Sundress Thing in the bp asks was an experience. tbh. anyway #dani.txt #dollmaker shenanigans #tag game #oc: evie thierry #oc: malena shepard #oc: veronica scarlet #oc: laguna keats

[lavampira]

wip wednesday

tagged by @birues and @coldshrugs ty my loves!! the sidalia wip is currently my priority but I don’t have much new to share from it so I decided to revisit a tiny dialogue section of the malena & garrus friendship study <:

and passing the tag along without pressure to @hythlodaes @scionshtola @the-rogue-mockingjay @kirnet @impossible-rat-babies @carlosoliveiraa @gwynbleidd @famewolf @creaking-skull @erielake @daggertongue @galadae @aphoticfairy @lilas @veeples @hylfystt if anyone has some art or writing in progress to drop too <3

“Garrus, I’m a goddamn Spectre. The first human one.”

“A pain in the ass is what you are.” A low, scratchy laugh escapes him as she jabs him with an elbow, nearly muffled by the clack of their armor. “Sure, you’re one of the best damn soldiers I’ve ever met, but you’re all biotics and a shotgun to the face. Sniping takes a little more delicacy.”

Malena fights the twitch in the corner of her mouth as she glances over her shoulder at him. “That your way of saying I’m not delicate?”

“Yes, Shepard, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

#director’s commentary but it’s a moment in ME2 of garrus trying to check in on mal. while dunking on her. as besties do #but she’s in a fragile place and he knows her better than anyone #and what’s a better way to decompress than shooting the shit while shooting shit #dani.txt #wip tag #oc: malena shepard #ch: garrus vakarian

[lavampira]

malena shepard ⟣ normandy crash site

#i've been going through screenshots of mal and found these in my me2 folder ;-; #proud of that 3rd one tho that was all me being artsy in photo mode #dani plays me #game: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #mass effect #mass effect 2 #femshep

[lavampira]

wip wednesday

tagged by @coldshrugs 🖤 and I’ll tag (and sorry for any double tags) @hythlodaes @birues @scionshtola @impossible-rat-babies @galadae @kirnet @creaking-skull @carlosoliveiraa @hylfystt @gwynbleidd @aphoticfairy @ghostwise if anyone has things to share!! I don’t have much new from the sidalia wip this week since I’ve just been rewriting sections of it, but I got consumed by some ideas for an emo study of malena’s & garrus’ friendship, so here’s a bit of that x

The intense gaze that Garrus trains on her peripheral feels too much like he’s marking her in his sights. Her stupid, foolish heart is too exposed even beneath her armored breastplate, bleeding out all over the goddamn floor, with nowhere to take cover. When he finally speaks, his question comes like a finger curling around the trigger to take the shot: could she have done it?

It doesn’t really matter—could and would grow more meaningless when they’ve already lost so many, and by the way the names keep getting added to the wall in front of them, it will still be a hard fight. But at least Kaidan isn’t one of them.

Malena swallows the vicious urge to return fire and ask him the same thing. She suspects that she knows the answer, but she doesn’t actually want to hear him confirm it. Garrus would live with it so that she wouldn’t have to, and then chalk it up to doing the hard things for the greater good, because there simply isn’t a reality where he doesn’t move to cover her ass if it comes down to it.

And at the end of it all, it’s why she hands her whole heart off to him, passing a broken and desperate Kaidan into his arms with the trust that he will do this for her, otherwise she will never be able to let go.

#sorry my ffxiv frens who don’t go here with mass effect 😭 #this concept is just rotating *me* instead of me rotating it. yk how it is. #dani.txt #wip tag #ch: garrus vakarian #oc: malena shepard #malena/kaidan

[lavampira]

trust fall

malena shepard x kaidan alenko. mass effect 3; post-geth dreadnought. 2k words. [also on ao3]

Malena doesn’t scream when her hand misses the ledge. Her heart races like it’s in a damn marathon as she floats in zero grav, which in its defense, she has been trying to outrun the explosions behind her, and a hoarse gasp rips past her lips in sheer frustration that’s mirrored by someone swearing over the comm, but she does not scream. Not even with the imploding geth ship under her.

“Shepard!”

Tali, her brain supplies. She ignores her for the time being. She’s on autopilot now, maybe flipped that switch from the moment she had to walk her way through space not even five minutes into this mission, reliving an experience that she definitely would’ve preferred not to again. But she can think about that later.

Her mind does run through a mental list, though. Garrus. Tali. Legion, whom she hadn’t expected to see, but she can’t say that she’s unhappy about it even with that chunk of her old, charred N7 chest plate still fused over his circuits. The first two are safe. The latter snatches her hand out of the air, tugging her back to the walkway to lead her through a new escape plan.

Someone else—Joker, maybe—calls over the comm as they flee in a geth fighter, Legion at its helm. She thinks she answers this time, but she can’t be sure. Briefly, she thinks of Kaidan, still on the Normandy in a search for his students when they’d left, but she pushes aside those thoughts, too. Her teeth chatter and muscles shake with the excess of adrenaline the entire way.

As shitty as the mission has gone, she’s almost surprised that they make it back in one piece.

The relief when they finally pass through the airlock and her boots are firmly back on the Normandy floods her. It’s almost funny in a warped sort of way, considering she’d died on the last one. But Garrus lightly knocks her shoulder’s armor plate with a gentle fist on his way past her, that simple reflex of their old routine after all these years briefly settling her frayed nerves, further grounding her to the sanctuary of her ship.

Not that it lasts.

Malena stews through the Quarians’ debrief. She wants to kick the admiralty off the ship, wants to yell over the conference line that it was stupid to start a war with the galaxy at stake and even stupider to fire on a dreadnought with the woman bending over backwards to help them still on it, but she does none of those things. She bites her tongue hard enough for the metallic tang of blood to fill her mouth and plays at civility with her trembling hands folded behind her back until it’s done.

The fact is that more than her frustration that so few people are willing to consider the risks of division while the Reapers decimate whole worlds, and being the one in the unfortunate position of trying to hold them all together with scraps of hope to even stand a chance, she hates that this is the mission threatening to undo her.

All because of her own fear.

She can fight through fear—her entire career has been shaped around her capacity to do it and accomplish the impossible in spite of it. But in the aftermath when the adrenaline ebbs and the quiet sets in again, that’s the real pain in the ass. By the time that she manages to scrub the sweat from her body and soot residue from her armor, change into a plain tee that she’d confiscated from Kaidan some time ago and hangs slightly loose over her frame, and lower herself to her cabin’s lounge with her face in her hands, it’s begun to eat away at her composure.

Malena was born in space. Her childhood had been spent moving from ship to ship with parents in the Alliance, never spending much time on any singular planet besides infrequent visits. Her adult life had been dedicated to serving the Alliance herself, training at Arcturus and Grissom, going through the N7 program, and then bunking on other ships until she had one of her own to command. She’s trained so thoroughly for spacewalks that she could damn well do one in her sleep. It should’ve been like any other day for her.

The problem lies in the fact that she had died in space, too. Blown right out of her very first ship trying to save her pilot, suffocated in her own malfunctioning suit, and burned in Alchera’s atmosphere, only to wake on a Cerberus lab table two years later with recreated parts that still discomfort her thoughts and residual terror from the experience seared into her psyche, apparently.

Kaidan eventually finds her in her cabin—or theirs, she supposes, now that he’s tentatively moved in his belongings for some semblance of normalcy as a couple despite everything else going to hell around them—with a soft hiss of the door granting him access. She can tell by his quiet pause at the entry that he’s skimming the room for her.

“Hey, there you are,” he calls softly. She doesn’t know exactly what her face shows when she finally glances up, but it must be a doozy because his thick brows furrow, and he adds, “You okay?”

I’m fine, Malena wants to say. How many times does she say it in a day? Fine, fine, fine. Chin up, back straight. It’s a necessity on a ship—if others see their commanding officer lose her shit, morale goes right out the airlock. And so Commander Shepard has the situation under control, and if she doesn’t, then she’ll get it there.

She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice breaks before she can form a word.

Kaidan is there in an instant. He kneels in front of her, searching her face with those soft brown eyes until she ducks her head. If she looks at him too long, she will cry, and that will only worry him more. She can only imagine what his train of thought was already doing while she was aboard that damn ship.

Guilt pools low in her gut and propels her forward, sinking into the warmth of his arms that open instinctively to hold her. His stubbled cheek prickles against her skin as he leans his face against her, but she doesn’t mind, tethered by the familiarity of that simple gesture. She rests her own head on his shoulder, allowing herself this singular point of comfort.

“So, rough day, huh?”

Malena huffs a laugh into his neck. “Understatement of the century.”

“Yeah. If you want to talk about it… I mean, I don’t know. You’ve listened to me through the hard things. I want to be here for you, too, if you’ll let me.”

“You always are.”

“Not always,” he returns ruefully. “But I’d like us to be better.”

The heaviness in his voice forces her to draw back to see him better in the dim lighting of the room. Her palm finds his cheek, letting her thumb sweep away the regret pulling at his features. In so many ways, Horizon and Mars still haunt the space between them as much as her death, every step to get past it seemingly a monumental one at times. But they’re trying, and that’s enough for her.

She could deflect it with a joke. It would be so easy to do it, shooting him a little smirk around a teasing comment, maybe bring a soft laugh out of him for even a moment. It doesn’t feel right with all his earnesty on display, though. Not when her resolve is still so close to shattering in his arms and her latest brush with death, far too similar to the real one, lingers over their heads.

“Hey, you’ve got me,” Malena finally says, trailing her hand to brush back a dark curl fallen over his forehead. “This is when it matters. And you’re here.”

The corner of his mouth twitches as if fighting the urge to smile. “I thought I was supposed to be reassuring you.”

“Well, maybe we both need a little of it right now.”

“Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”

Kaidan reaches for the hand still cradling his face, twisting it to press his lips to the sensitive skin of her wrist, right above her pulse. A reminder that she’s alive, though she can’t be certain if it’s more for his sake or for hers. All she knows is that it’s become a habit ever since they decided to stop holding back how they feel for each other and a comfort all the same.

Before she can react to it, he rises from the floor and slides easily into the space beside her, tugging her close with an arm wound around her back. Part of her wants to protest that she still has reports to make before she can allow herself a reprieve. But she also knows he will just fight her on it, equally stubborn and insistent in his care, and so she caves into it. She rests her head against his shoulder and settles her strong thighs over his lap, his free arm holding them in place.

“These are the moments that scare the hell out of me,” he says quietly.

“What, cuddling?”

“No.” An uneasy laugh escapes him. “Thinking of how I could’ve lost you again, and how I wasn’t even there.”

Malena swallows around a lump in her throat, but she steadies herself, tightening her grip on him for purchase. Last time he had voiced something like it, she’d quipped that she had a problem staying dead anyway. Guilt still gnaws at her chest for how horribly quiet he had gone, how tense and rigid his body had grown with her remark. No matter how much she wants to brush off the thought, even to alleviate the dour mood, she doesn’t want to go there again.

Instead, she confesses, “It scared the shit out of me, too.”

It might have been her lowest point yet. The walk between ships had seemed vast and endless, only made longer by how often she’d stopped to double check her omni-tool that her suit was still intact because everything was so silent save for her labored breathing in rattled bursts. Even with Garrus’ snark to keep her company over the comm channel, she couldn’t fully hide the damn shake in her voice with each response. Her heart had been hammering hard enough in her chest to feel lightheaded and unsteady in her boots by the time that she got the other entry open for the others.

“Yeah, I… Well, Garrus might’ve mentioned it. I mean, I’d figured it could trudge up some memories, but he seemed pretty worried, too.”

Her eyes squeeze shut as she buries her face further into him. “That traitor.”

“He’s looking out for you. Can’t fault him for that.” A placating kiss is placed on the top of her head. “You know, you’re strong, Mal. Maybe the strongest person I know. But even you can be shaken up.”

“I can’t— I’m not supposed to show it.”

“You can with me. I’ve got you, remember?”

Kaidan draws her closer to emphasize his point, or maybe out of his own reassurance as well. It doesn’t alleviate all of the residual fear and frustration, Malena finds, but some of the weight does feel marginally lifted from her chest with the fervent honesty in his words. She raises her head to respond, but her throat feels too tight to speak, forcing her to take an alternate approach.

She presses a kiss to his temple, right on the dark hair flecked in more silver than it had been a few years ago. You do.

Another kiss to his stubbled cheek. Thank you.

And a final one to his lips, ignoring the uncomfortable chafe of his fatigue pants against her legs as she shifts in his lap to face him more fully, desperate for the proximity as he matches her breath for breath. I love you.

If he doesn’t understand, Kaidan doesn’t say. He simply takes the gesture in stride as he finally allows himself a small smile against her lips. And Malena has to admit, letting herself drop the veneer of unshakable strength is as exhilarating as it is terrifying with the man who loves her doing his damnedest to get her through it, despite everything they face.

It’s a trust fall, but it’s one she realizes she’ll make every time.

#dani writes things #game: mass effect #fic: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #ch: kaidan alenko #malena/kaidan #mass effect #mass effect 3 #mass effect fic #shenko #fshenko #femshep

[lavampira]

ocs as types of love

tagged by @leondaltons to take this quiz for some ocs! tysm <3 and no pressure tagging @hythlodaes @coldshrugs @scionshtola @birues @galadae @carlosoliveiraa @rolangf @thedeadthree @rosenfey @the-rogue-mockingjay @gwynbleidd @sirotras @lilas @queenofthieves @hylfystt @narrativefoiltrope @veeples if anyone wants to do it too!!

D'ALIA LIVEQ [ffxiv] — LOVE THAT LASTS

love unconditional, love unfailing. you love no matter what happens because you believe in the best – of you, and them. it will hurt and it will fail you, but this love tastes so sweet – you can never believe that it bitters sometimes. the way you choose to love unconditionally is incredible.

KAI AMHI [swtor] — LOVE THAT HEALS

your love is healing. it burns you with every bit of your soul, but you choose to heal, nevertheless. you are so, so, so strong and i hope you know that. i send you peace. i send you calm. i hope things will become better for you in time, just as you have made others better in time as well.

MALENA SHEPARD [mass effect] — LOVE THAT PROTECTS

you love so fiercely, with every fibre of your being. maybe you were wounded by love in the past; such that you choose to love and love and love so wonderfully that the next person who comes into your life never doubts that they are loved by you.

EVIE THIERRY [bloomic/resi evil] — LOVE THAT STRENGTHENS

you make sure that people know that they are loved, and you give them strength when they need it the most. this is an ability that is rare; the love that you hold speaks wonders of yourself. i hope you're doing alright. isn't it exhausting always being the bigger person?

LON LAURIER [call of cthulhu] — LOVE THAT CALMS

this is sweet. i hope you know that you make others feel at ease around you. you're a gem, a blessing, a treasure – and you should know it. it's comfortable loving you. it's a privilege to be around you and to be let into your world.

#very emo about alia as an unconditional hopeful kind of love. kai burning himself but sm in his heart to love and mend. #mal’s protectiveness for loved ones and a galaxy. evie giving her all to uplift others despite insecurities. lon’s calming presence. #i wanted to add river too but they would’ve been a repeat result </3 but know they’re also love that strengthens ;-; #dani.txt #tag game #oc: d'alia liveq #oc: kaizen amhi #oc: malena shepard #oc: evie thierry #oc: lon laurier

[lavampira]

time will tell

malena shepard x kaidan alenko. mass effect 2; post-horizon. 1.2k words. [also on ao3]

Malena returns to the Normandy SR-2 in a foul mood. She’s given a wide berth as soon as she steps through the airlock, and even Joker elects to keep his comments to a minimum, unable to completely withhold the crack about her confrontation on the surface but clearly using it to gauge how bad it’d gotten. Only poor Kelly tries to speak to her, but she blows past her with a dismissal wave and an internal promise to apologize once her adrenaline has ebbed. No one else breathes a word. Frankly, she doesn’t blame them.

She beelines for the showers to cleanse herself of this entire shitty day. Her failures cling to her like the dirt, grime, and blood on her body, and she has to again grapple with the discomfort of facing the missing scars from battles and childhood antics as she scrubs viciously at her too smooth, yet still freckled skin until light beige turns pink. Her icy eyes are severe in the mirror’s reflection as she dresses, though she can’t even face herself for long these days.

It’s only when she returns to her cabin and flops unceremoniously into the chair at her desk that she finds what Kelly had been trying to tell her. A new message at her private terminal, specifically from someone who she hadn’t exactly thought she would hear from again. Not after today.

She reads Kaidan’s message twice simply to process the fact that he had more to say to her. Again, a third time, trying to wrap her head around each and every word through the emotions they trudge up, her frustration once again building to a breaking point. An apology for what he’d said planetside. An admission that he’d been stuck in his own feelings, too. So much left open about their past and their future. Yet still a hard line about his views on her allegiance, even if worried for her.

Her fingers fly over the keys before she can stop them, already typing up a response.

Shove your apology up your ass.

Malena immediately deletes it. She doesn’t mean it, not really, even as much as his words still sting. He had hit too close to the shame that has gripped her since she woke in that damn lab. Maybe she has become a dirty sellout in her resurrected life, nothing but a traitor to her own principles and her past, making a deal with the devil in hopes that she can save a galaxy that’s once again in denial of the truth.

The fact that the Illusive Man all but admitted with a smirk on his smug face that he’d fed the Alliance rumors to manipulate their encounter only makes it worse. She hates that he’s seen through her to know exactly who would hurt her the most, displaying some show of power that while she has free reign of the mission, he can still distort her life and put the people she cares about in the crossfire if they threaten his goals involving her. And he remains the only one giving her the resources to deal with the threat.

She steels herself and tries to type again.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m being used. Maybe I’ve gone off course from myself, but I’m on my own here. Nobody will listen to me. No one else is willing to help.

Her fingers backtrack over the keys. It’s not like Kaidan had been willing to hear her out either, too caught up in his own emotions to let her explain. But as frustrated as she is that he turned away from her, and devastated, if she’s willing to admit that much, she gets it, too. Her actions don’t align with the woman he knows and trusted once upon a time. If anyone told her months ago—or two years, she supposes—that she’d be cooperating with Cerberus, she would’ve had a few choice words for them. Maybe even a strong right hook to a jaw.

Hell, Kaidan had been there when she discovered that Cerberus had been behind the Akuze ambush. When she closes her eyes, she can still see his tight grip on the Mako’s door as she had gunned it to evade the thresher maw lured there in yet another of their sick experiments. She can still hear his gentle voice talking her down after she throttled Cerberus’ sensors and took apart their heinous labs, nearly breaking her own damn ankle despite her armor with a few unnecessary kicks for good measure, and feel his careful hands apply the medi-gel before wrapping it for her.

A slow, shaky breath escapes her as she runs her hands over her face. More than the residual terror from getting spaced and burning in atmo, more than the grief over the years that she lost while dead on a table, more than her own guilt and shame for the shitty situation she’s entrenched in now, and more than the ache of everything he’d slung at her on Horizon in the heat of the moment, she just misses him. Sinking into his arms before it all went south had been the first real bit of relief she’s felt in weeks.

I wanted to reach out to you, Kaidan. That night together before Ilos was everything to me, too. And I’d meant it when I said you make me feel like I could take on the impossible. I could use that steadiness right now.

With a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, Malena deletes the entire draft and shuts down the terminal. Her hand swipes at the stupid framed photo beside her, knocking it on its face so she doesn’t have to look at his face, unsure whose bright idea it even was to put the thing in her cabin. But then she lifts it with a tentative hand, flipping it around as she draws it into her lap.

The ache in her chest only deepens as she examines it, running a thumb over the likeness of his thick, furrowed brows, but she can’t squash down the fondness that also blooms through her. Timing hasn’t been on their side. So much caution and tiptoeing around the regs while on such a high-stakes mission had prevented them from officially getting anywhere, always on pause aside from that night, and then she died, leaving him with two years to mourn their almost, and her to be confronted with it now.

Kaidan loved her. Still does, maybe, if the concern and open-ended offer to see when things settle again mean anything. It’s only now that she realizes that she may love him, too. Leave it to her to charge into the thick of a situation head-on, only figuring things out once she gets there. And it’s so damn hard to let it all go, no matter how much she hurts.

Malena sets the framed photo back on her desk and rises to her feet with a languid stretch. They might very well only ever be a series of almost and maybe, but maybe, if they really are the same people who fell in love two years ago at the end of this shitty mess, and if her luck doesn’t run out and she survives this suicide run, they can see where they really stand. Only time will tell.

#your honor they are so stupidly stubborn and unable to communicate and i am unwell #dani writes things #game: mass effect #fic: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #ch: kaidan alenko #malena/kaidan #femshep #shenko #fshenko

[lavampira]

ocs as types of suffering

tagged by @gwynbleidd to take this quiz for some ocs! and I’ll tag @hythlodaes @scionshtola @galadae @hylfystt @birues @veeples @narrativefoiltrope @thedeadthree if anyone would like to do it too but no pressure <3

D’ALIA LIVEQ [ffxiv]

LONELINESS — your heart feels full of the connection you feel you lack. no matter how many people are around you, strangers or not... someone is missing. you don't know who, what, or if you'll ever find them. you're unsure if there's a person out there who'll really satisfy your life, so really what's the point of continuing to look?

KAI AMHI [swtor]

THE GIVER — your energy depletes as you hand it out to anyone passing by your basket. people walk by and take, but no one ever leaves. you're constantly running on low when people keep asking you to give. you'd give your soul away for free, and then what left do you have of yourself if you can't say no?

MALENA SHEPARD [mass effect]

YEARNING — the pain in your chest bubbles knowing that what you want may never be yours. you're lost in a fantasy world, or consumed by what you wish you were or had as opposed to what you do. it's hard to appreciate what's around you when you're appreciating the hope of what could be instead.

SONI RYDER [mass effect andromeda]

SELF INADEQUACY — you crack under the weight of your own percieved inability. how can you be enough for anyone else when you're just barely enough for yourself? insecurity causes you to have little back-bone, and so you fail to reach your full potential when it comes to what you're best at. you sabotage opportunities with fear you'll fail before you've begun. it hurts to never feel like your best is enough, but setting your standards too high or too low ensures it.

LON LAURIER [call of cthulhu]

DESPAIR — the tunnel never had a light. you wish for nothing because you know you'll receive nothing, and your hopes died out long ago. the only thing that keeps you going is the thrill of emptiness you feel when things don't turn out your way. it's bitter. it's proof. proof that you don't feel this way for nothing.

#this quiz did lon so brutally tho help. #dani.txt #tag game #oc: d'alia liveq #oc: kaizen amhi #oc: malena shepard #oc: soni ryder #oc: lon laurier

[lavampira]

wip wednesday

tagged by @creaking-skull ty <3 and it’s a bit late in the day now but still passing it on to @hythlodaes @coldshrugs @scionshtola @lesbianalicent @impossible-rat-babies @durues @jillvalentinesday @gwynbleidd if anyone has art or writing to share!! mine’s a little section from a post-ME3 thing I’ve been working on <:

“Have to hand it to you,” Malena mutters. “You rebuilt me like a damn tank.”

Miranda laughs wetly, folding her arms over her chest. “Despite your best efforts to test the limits of my handiwork.”

“You know I like a challenge.”

“Quite the understatement.”

Malena catches the tense smile waver on her face, but she doesn’t acknowledge it. Neither of them have ever been very good at this sort of thing, these vulnerable talks, too reliant on pretense and control. Yet here they are, tiptoeing around the fact Malena might very well have died again under all that rubble with their emotional walls and traded jabs. But they have also come so far since she woke up in Miranda’s lab all that time ago to let that be all.

“Miranda—”

“For what it’s worth,” she interrupts, leaning away to examine the various screens at Malena’s side to avoid facing her friend still lying in a hospital bed, “I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve accomplished the impossible. Again. And I’m glad you survived.”

#i’ve been gripped by the idea of mal unexpectedly surviving post-destroy and feeling lost when stopping the reapers has been her purpose. #and miranda mirroring that after everything with cerberus. as well as how much they’ve grown as friends. #oc: malena shepard #ch: miranda lawson #tag game #wip tag

[lavampira]

so… how were those noodles? a little spicy.

#the way i laughed over mal getting called to bail grunt out of nearly going to c-sec lockup. paying for damages and making him apologize. #again saying mal is a proud mama of an equally shotgun-happy krogan son #dani plays me #game: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #ch: urdnot grunt

[lavampira]

malena + kaidan ⟣ shore leave

#the banter about whether to go out or cook was so funny actually. kaidan wanting to show off and mal being stubborn as usual. #finally getting to act like a normal couple after [gestures at the state of the galaxy] [gestures at the 2 years mal was dead] #dani plays me #game: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #ch: kaidan alenko #malena/kaidan

[lavampira]

some self-indulgent malena/kaidan thinky thoughts in the post-destroy ending 🙈

okay as a preface. I’ve never been the ‘and they had kids and lived happily ever after’ person with any sort of canon. BUT I thought too hard about a shepard-alenko kid in the future once things have settled. something rattling around malena’s head since the convo with anderson before he died beside her. something she never really thought to want for herself, doesn’t even know if she’d be good at it, but she knows without a doubt that kaidan would be (and damn if the idea doesn’t nearly KO her heart), and her parents were both actively alliance and raised her without issue, and they actually have all the time in the world to do what they want now that they didn’t think they’d even get, so you know, why the fuck not. what’s left for her now that she’s survived? it’s this - rebuilding their lives and adding to their kickass little family.

also: girl dad kaidan. “hey, there’s my girls” with a lopsided grin every single time he sees both of them.

mal not wanting to name her after any of the lost, no matter how much they’re loved and missed, too harsh to put on her baby girl’s head. but maybe luna. it works as a name on its own, but also maybe a little after the moon, its steadiness in its place in the universe with each rise of the tides and a guardian of earth in its way. and maybe a little bit in thought to that first meeting with EDI and how far organics and synthetics had come together by the end of the war, in spite of her anti-ghoulish tributes stance, and how that’s a legacy she could give.

#under a cut because i’m hiding from my own cringe shdghsd #dani.txt #oc: malena shepard #malena/kaidan

[lavampira]

another reason I think I prefer the idea that malena does survive the destroy ending is because the narrative between javik and her is both mirrored and cyclical as well. he once said to her, “only when the last reaper has been destroyed will my purpose be fulfilled; I have no other reason to exist,” but she refutes that to encourage him finding a new role in this cycle, and come priority earth, he’s accepted it to the point that he says this is her time to lead to victory against the reapers, not his anymore, and he’ll see the galaxy when it’s over to explore and find a new reason to live. he gets to have an after now. so the torch gets passed on from one civilization’s beacon of hope to another, and so does the search for purpose when their respective duties are done.

#if i think too hard about javik and shepard mirroring each other in me3 i will scream. #two people whose existences have been carved in war and loss being responsible for their societies’ futures #and what it means for them when they’re no longer needed to end the reapers and seek hope and purpose themselves #no other game has affected me this much that i’m still unhinged and processing it over a week after finishing it except maybe kotor 2 lmao #dani plays me #game: mass effect #oc: malena shepard #ch: javik