#⟡°⋄ ––––– ◜ answers // ( shepard . ) ◞

[swaps55]

What I really, really wish Bioware had focused on when it came to defeating the reapers is the singular advantage our cycle had. Every previous cycle lost all chance at survival the moment the reapers came out of dark space, because the reapers took the Citadel, and therefore the relays. With the reapers in control of the relays system, they cut off travel, communication, and obliterate supply lines.

Everyone in every previous cycle was cut off and isolated before they even knew what hit them. If they didn’t even know the reapers existed, it might be years, even decades before they knew what happened at all! There would be no way to share intel, to warn others about reaper movements, etc. A society that developed to rely on the relays would be utterly crippled without them, and every previous cycle lost the relays in the opening minutes of an attack they didn’t even know was coming.

Except us. Our cycle kept the Citadel. When the reapers showed up we still had control of it AND the relays. We were the first cycle in the history of the reapers to keep that advantage - because of the prothean scientists on Ilos. It's really an incredible thing when you think about it.

The previous cycles couldn't evacuate, fall back and mount a defense with their allies. They couldn’t reach safety. Without the relays there was nowhere to go! All the reapers had to do was go system by system to wipe everyone out systematically, and all that any previous cycle could do was wait until they were next and fight the best they could with what they had available.

The crucible is such an insane concept because there would have been no way to pull it off. You don't have the resources, the labor, the logistics, to even begin to build it, because you don't have the relays to move the resources or the people where they need to be. And even more insane, the battery for the whole damn thing was the Citadel, which every previous cycle lost access to in the opening minutes of the initial attack!

Even if the protheans or anyone else could have found a way to build it, there would have been no way to use it. Why in the world would you base your MacGuffin on something so inaccessible?

If you had to use the Crucible as your win button, it could have been interesting if you looked at it not as something that everyone else ran out of time to build, but as something other cycles had conceived of and had no way to build - but we did. At a cost.

The reapers are here. We might still have comm buoys and the relays, but the reapers are still killing billions, destroying strategic locations and wreaking havoc with supply lines. So if you are diverting supplies to build the Crucible...who are you taking them from? Whose front collapses because you took what they needed to build that thing? Who gets fucked over because this ship had to mine minerals to build the crucible instead of run supplies to refugees? A war table like you had in DA:I could have been so interesting in Mass Effect 3.

The fact that the protheans reached through time and made one, small change that dramatically changed the way the reapers harvest a cycle had so much potential. We were different. We had a chance no one else ever had, not just because Shepard is a badass, but because a small group of people who had no hope for themselves decided to have hope for someone else. We weren’t better than other cycles – we were gifted something no one else got: the protheans broke the cycle. We didn’t. They did.

I wish the game hadn’t forgotten that, and I wish the ending would have found a way to tie back to that. Instead of boiling the end of the trilogy down to an RGB choice between control, destroy, and synthesis, I wish it had celebrated the truth that we are nothing without our differences. We are nothing without each other. We could bring a bunch of disparate organic and synthetic races together to fight for each other’s right to exist because the people who came before us performed a selfless act to help a future they would never see.

[n7valkyrien]

Garrus: You okay? You've seen... off all morning

Shepard who had a nightmare about Garrus having a long neck like a giraffe: ... 'm fine

im a little confused if this was meant for me but this is funny

[broareweabouttoviberightnow]

shepards who are half black half Latinx n speak in a heinous mix of slang, southern, n Spanish I love u more then anythin

[shadesofmauve]

Alliance Normandy SR-2 redesign: Deck 5

We've finally arrived at the bottom: deck 5, home of the hangar, the Kodiak shuttles, and now, Marine Land!

There are some oddities with this deck, because I was guessing at how fast the hull tapers towards the bottom at the back (I'm working off references that show front and rear elevations, but that only shows you the broadest points). I messed up something with my core chamber measurements and had to make the entire rear end (heh) slightly bigger here before posting, but the deck design errs on the side of narrower.

Hangar

When I wrote A Star To Steer Her By I ignored the silly shipbuilding because I was focused on a relationship (and because it wasn't supposed to be a door-stopper novel. Oops), but as I went on things like "this hangar should be regularly exposed to vacuum, how can you leave gym equipment in here" bothered me more and more. By the time of Sunset and Evening Star I couldn't let that state of affairs stand. So: this hangar is regularly exposed to vacuum. No fancy force fields that keep in the air but let out shuttles. You don't leave anything in here that isn't protected from vacuum and strapped down.

The hangar is the limiting factor in the size of the entire ship; it has to fit between the central elevator and the hangar door, and it must fit two Kodiaks. To reach this size I had to make the Kodiaks boxier; my drawings are taller for their length than the game models. They still seat twelve, and there's room for one to do a 180 on it's axis while the other is in its cradle. The hangar floor slopes down slightly towards the door in the middle, and the Kodiaks are 'shelved' to the sides.

Cortez runs the flight deck from the exact same place he is in game, but now he has bulkheads and windows between himself and the cold death of space. Airlocks on either side give access to the flight deck. There are also giant doors straight into the deck 4 cargo bays, but those won't open unless the hangar is pressurized.

Marine Land

Jack's Sulking Pit is now a gym, with weights, treadmill, stationary bike, heavy bags, and mats for sparing (and occasionally making pillow forts for evacuee toddlers). Mats are usually stored stowed against the wall, and other equipment can be moved as needed.

To port are the marine berths. The usual compliment of marines is a dozen, including their unit leader, but there are twelve bunks as well as the officer's tiny cabin (because there's no point wasting the space, and you never know). Other than their semi-privacy, the marine racks are no different from the enlisted racks on the two decks above.*

*"Except for the smell." — the rest of the crew, probably.

Berthing the marines on deck 5 is all about quick access to their arms, armor, and transport. Directly across from the marine berths is the entrance to the locker room and armory. After armoring up they grab their weapons and can get to the shuttle through an airlock entrance in the armory. On the way back, they reverse the process; stow weapons, strip off armor — often dropping damaged plating into the recycler chute as they go by — strip down, and shower.

The Alliance military is gender neutral, and nowhere is this as obvious as the marine lockers. The marine unit regularly strips down in front of each other; it's just part of getting ready for work. You can't be body-shy and be an Alliance Marine.

(I like to think the separate bathrooms on the crew deck were the Illusive Man's weird traditionalist decision. Sometimes the gendered-bathroom thing starts to grate on Bo Huan, the third-watch pilot, so they come down to deck five to use the locker room showers, leading Joker to quip "Ah, the third gender: marine!")

More engineering, and the answers to a few questions

Ladders from deck 4 lead down to another engineering area on the hangar level. It's not connected to the main areas of the deck by conventional corridors, but it is accessible through the warren of service passages that run throughout the ship. More of those access-ways lead aft of the eezo core chamber to the fusion plant (not shown). Because the core chamber narrows faster than the ship, it's easier to get around it here than it is on the engineering deck, where the core chamber is at it's widest but the hull has started to narrow. These access tunnels are rarely comfortable to get through, though they often open out into areas that are easier to work in, or into surprising pockets of unused space. They may require crawling or climbing, or clambering over obstacles.

All the maintenance accesses are kept pressurized and aired up, but the habitable area shown on these posts is wrapped in an inner hull, and the doors for maintenance access are all pressure doors: if a hit damages the tunnel you use to access the ship's innards, it won't kill all the crew in the room next to it.**

**It will obliterate the illicit still and the not-actually-a-secret-make-out-nest, as well as anyone stupid enough to be distilling and***/or fucking in those locations, which is why we don't lollygag between the hulls in combat, private!

***AND?****

****Some people are remarkably talented.

Normandy redesign posts

Intro

Loft

Command

Crew

Engineering

Hangar

[super-man-curtis]

oooooo you wanna kiss boys (3 specific boys!) so bad ooooooo

he doesn't know we can see

[ask-sandy-the-outsiders]

what if you ask Pony about the fight between him and Curly?

"Hey, Pone. So, the fight between you and baby Shepard?"

"Curly said he didn't want to see me anymore. He's been acting different recently. It felt like he was pushing me away. I'm done with him."

[canisalbus]

A previous ask said machete was a cardinal and i instantly thought of him in this painting

Really tickled by the reactions of the background characters here, personally.

[mister-mickey]

When Angela was in kindergarten she brought curly to show and tell

[ask-the-curtis-gang]

Do ya ever feel like Dal doesn’t care about you as much as he cares about Pony and Johnny or that Tim doesn’t care about you as much as he cares about Angela or that Pony doesn’t like you as much as he says he does? Do you ever think that maybe they just don’t love you? That your just a burden to them?

... yeah.

[im-normal-about-everything]

I'm so sorry I'm yapping so much right now but the book through Curly's pov is probably so crazy since he spends the next 6 months in reformatory. He probably doesn't know what's going on unless he hears the occasional rumor from someone else or if Tim just kind of subtly drops something (maybe he doesn't feel like it's something he should tell Curly behind a glass wall or maybe he doesn't feel like it's his story to tell). And he and Ponyboy are friends but they're not best friends until Ponyboy randomly stops dropping by to visit him or maybe he doesn't see him until he gets back, and suddenly Ponyboy is at his door asking if he wants to hang out because he's been so fucking lonely for half a year and needs to talk to someone that's not his brother or he'll lose his mind.

There's no such thing as yapping too much btw

It would be really interesting because his story would mostly just be about his time in the reformatory. It's just the standard practice with what happens there, with the occasional drop in from Time who mentions something happening with the Curtis gang. He didn't know that anyone died, he didn't know there was a rumble (he hated that he couldn't participate once he found out) and he didn't know why once he got out, Ponyboy looked like he'd gone through all hell and back.

She didn't mind Pony suddenly wanting to hang out more, he likes hanging out with him. Once he learns what exactly happens, a lot of puzzle pieces add up. Everyone , Greasers and Socs are either avoiding Pony all together or seem like they're gonna jump him at any moment. Curly'll stick closer to Pony, make sure everyone knows that if they mess with Pony, they're messing with him (and the other Shepards) He also makes sure (or at least tries to) that Pony knows he isn't going anywhere.

[yournormalidiot]

for the "give me a character" ask:

DALLAS WINSTON

AHHHH TYSMMM<333

How I feel about this character

I like dally, he's not my favourite or anything but I think he's a really interesting character especially for like analysing and hc and stuff.

But besides that I feel like he adds alot to the actual story, like without him the story would have obviously taken a very different turn. Sooo ya, idk I'm pretty neutral on him. I like seeing people's hc for him tho, especially when they add more depth to him than just "cold tough guy".

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Uhhhh, Sylvia ig. Idk, I'm not a massive dally fan so I don't think abt him alot or his ships🤷‍♀️

I've seen two bit x dally and I think thats funny and kinda cute and dally x tim which is also funny to me. Like they both seem like craic ships to me cause they'd prob never happen in cannon. (Not that I'm judging, idc who people ship characters with, so long as its not weird)

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Right so I'm not 100% sure what OTP means, but from my understanding of it I'd say Johnny.

I think they had a special bond and it was healing for both of them, Johnny had someone older, bigger and stronger then him. Who would protect and look out for him and listen to him. And dally had someone who looked up to him, saw him for more then just a hoodlum and violent. Who cared about him and enjoyed being around him, they were very much brothers in my eyes.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Idk if its unpopular but I think he's a pure cunt, like even around the gang. That's his sense of humour. bullying people basically and he enjoys annoying people

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I wish..uh....I wished he'd..uh I can't think of anything I'm sorry😭

Idk if this counts but I would have likes to see how darry and him interacted after Johnny and pony just ran away. I think it'd be interesting.

[newx-menfan]

We can just headcanon that Tommy pulled a Nori and kissed Julian which is why him and David aren't together anymore

🤣🤣🤣

The REAL Prodigy/Krakoan beef is that Julian is just a perpetual cockblock 🤣🤣🤣

[n7valkyrien]

Me, I'm reading all of that. I love seahorse pregnancy Garrus

Imagine the reunion though

Garrus: Maybe now we can find out what a human-turian baby looks like

Shepard: ...

Shepard: Garrus I need to tell you something. In private.

I'm giggling just thinking about his reaction to hearing "I can get you pregnant, Garrus. I don't know how the doctors found that out but this seems like a weird thing to lie about so I'm inclined to believe them"

Two years later and he's holding the weirdest looking baby the world has ever seen. They love their baby though

"I (1?30?32?F) just told my bf (29M) i could get him pregnant. then he fainted. i assume it's out of joy because he just told me we can find out how our baby looks like a moment earlier. AITA for telling him or is he overreacting? :("

(idk what am i writing)

[sobertwobit]

Yk what!!! Shepards but Angela and Curly have abandonment issues from their parents are are low-key actually very clingy to Tim you'd just never see it and he got mad after Dally died once and left for like a enite day and holy freak Curly actually cried because Tim said he was never coming back and Anglea was mad at him too and then got scared he was never coming back either.

omg dont do that to me 🙁

grease, you're mean.

tim saying he aint comin back is real tho. dally's death was not the first time he threatened them with that. btw once he came back after dallas' death he was like baked as shiiiii

[tenojan-in-tevinter]

AAAAUUGGHHHH my brain. My brain just hit me. Role swap AU where Kaidan is the one that died over Alchera and Cerberus revives him instead. In the years following his death, Shepard gets caught up in so much red tape and so many Council cover ups and fights it so much, that he almost ends up getting his spectre status revoked for his "erratic" behavior. He gets stripped of his crew and everyone still goes their separate ways like usual. The Alliance keeps sending Shep on shit assignments to nowhere colonies under the guise of hunting geth or pirates or smugglers. By the time Horizon happens, Shepard is so bitter and scared and alone, he freaks out about the whole Cerberus thing. Hhhhhhh i just like the idea. Of Kaidan standing where Shepard stands on Horizon, and the idea of it still playing out nearly exactly the same way because they're both so stubborn.

[l0stfoster]

Paul anon here to say eeeeeeYEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE ME SOME CURSED PAUL DOODLES THATS MY SCRUNKLY BOY IM LOEHEVDJDGUEHE I LOVE PAUL HOLDEN

I wanna know more about the feather situation now tho ohhhh you got me intrigued ohhhh my goddddd

And paul just thinking and knowing hes the reason johnny’s in a wheelchair and that’ll probably haunt him for the rest of his life cuz now hes so associated with the greasers he probably knows johnny a lot better now and ohhh im gonna be sick . He probably has so many feelings about the shit he did b4 he was kicked out of the house ohhhh my sweet boy i love you so bad

Paul anon I hope you know you're an icon among the writers. Novva has previously expressed how much they want to put you in a jar and observe you (/pos)

As always I am so joyous that you're enjoying Paul here hehe. I've said it once and I'll say it again. Canon Paul can go kick rocks, Cursed Paul, on the other hand, needs a break from me. I talk a lot below so yeah another below the cut.

The feather situation was a little thing I'd thought about recently, since I've brought up to the writers before about how Two would eventually offer Paul a feather for flock marking, and Paul, by god, does NOT want the feather. Not only does he feel like he doesn't deserve it for what he's done; but it proves something about himself too- that he's getting attached. What the fuck does it say about him if he begins to connect with these people? It doesn’t help the guilt, that’s for sure. Two tries for probably months to get him to take it; literally days on end of offering and being ignored or shrugged off- finally, Paul takes it, but he doesn't wear it, nor does he keep it on his person. The only reason Paul wears it visibly for the first time is because god DAMN does Two pull off some REALLY good sad, pathetic bird eyes (and Dally looks ready to kill him for upsetting Two-Bit, so.)

He just gets so damn unlucky with the timing and circumstances surrounding it. Not only do the harpies already hold beef with him because of Two’s original jumping and the feather issue (most of them are clueless to the fact that Two’s forgiven him, while others are aware and have kinda chilled), but having a soc who’s harmed one of their own in their territory does not sit well with a majority of them, even all these months later; something especially impactful to the Shepard’s Gang. The second one harpy spots Paul with this feather, the immediate assumption is that he’d taken it just as he did with the first one.

I don’t talk about the Shepard’s all too much, but this is a good time to mention that Two and Tim are pretty good friends— so, well, he takes this as a matter that he can settle himself; and it’s a good way to warn this rich boy imposing on their territory that he’s on strike two of three, whether he’s one of the cursed or not.

Paul Gets Jumped, Part 2. It’s definitely not as bad as when the socs got him because, despite their gripes, Tim is half aware that Darry does gaf about this guy (he’s very out of the loop, and doesn’t even know the two are dating). As bad or not, it does freak Paul the hell out due to how familiar it felt to the first time he was jumped. That’s called trauma big guy, you and Johnny can bond over shaking like chihuahuas when you walk home alone. They take the feather away from him too, and you bet your ass he will NOT ask Two-Bit for another one because he doesn’t want him thinking Paul had purposefully disposed of it, especially with how often he’d been turning it down. This mf also ends not up being very fond of harpies outside of the ones he knows (ie; Two, Mrs. Mathews, etc) for a little while. Refuses to walk outside the house unless he’s got someone else with the gang. Two dive bombs on and grabs Paul while he’s walking home once and the entire East side loses power for like 5 hours lmao. Two was not happy when he found out about it too. Harpy: “Oh yeah we got this back from a soc while ago here" Two: Two: “-Isn’t that Paul’s?” Harpy: Harpy: “Th. The soc?” Two: “Yeah??? Paul??? Darry’s boyfriend?? This was his-“ Harpy: “I mean, he had it b- ohhh shit. You gave it to him on purpose.” Two:

Tim is very confused when a ruffled Two slams the door open and off its hinges at his house

Two, slamming the door open: “WHY WOULD YOU JUMP HIM WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME ABOUT THE FEATHER????” Tim, half asleep on the couch: Tim: “..g’d mornin'?”

ON THAT NOTE Paul is,, so utterly haunted by both Johnny's and Two's disabilities, and that is absolutely not helped by the fact that they don't even seem to hold it against him. In Johnny's eyes, Paul wasn't the one who'd jumped him, resulting in him carrying the switchblade that killed Bob. He wasn't the one who held Pony underwater with the intent to kill. Two himself already knows that Paul didn't expect him to be burned as he was, nor was he the one holding the lighter. The blame the gang directs at him varies; especially when they see that the two who fell victim don't even seem to be mad about it. I think that a large reason as to why Pony throws his blame at Paul for Johnny is because, well, Bob's not around to take it. He's an emotional teen who's taking it out on the person he knows had some correlation to it. Besides, I think all of us know Pony blames himself for the church fire; directing that anger at Paul makes it easier to cope.

But yeah, Paul's practically eaten alive by the guilt. It sure as hell doesn't help that he already feels bad for being directly related to the witch that cursed Tulsa.