#-he doesnt know whether to be relieved by your being alive OR to curl up and disappear forever bc he cant stand to be perceived like this

[shepcdr]

was thinking about the idea that post-me3 happy ending shepard would benefit from a service dog but i know he'd just end up with smth like this

anyway. jokes aside. more rambling re: the post-me3 ending thoughts below

the scenarios im cooking will work i think whether or not the normandy crew have already returned from being crashed on that random planet in the middle of gods-know-where?? ... though i do have some thoughts on how he struggles with vulnerability going from strong and capable commander shepard to... what he is, after the war. aka an injured and disabled man who needs to heal, but he doesn't immediately see that — but the main difference, if the normandy crew is there, is he goes through... some difficulties with being perceived as vulnerable and weak around them. people who've only ever known him to be commander shepard, relentless and hardened and impossible to knock down.

post-me3 — depending on if they're even there, or if they arrive back on the citad lwhilst he's still in the process of recovering, re-learning basic functionality, even unable to walk again yet — is a really hard struggle. Either he's struggling to function without his crew there (because this is how he feels about ALL the normandy crew btw [excerpt from this thread]:

because he bonds on such a deep. and v codependent level when it comes to the mass effect crew, especially the me1 people. these were the first people he trusted after so many years of self-isolation and loneliness)... Or he's experiencing the horrific struggle of "holy shit i can't let them see me, the man they followed across the galaxy to fight REAPERS, like this"

but all that aside:

i think he'd jump onto helping rebuild as soon as he's physically capable. he doesn't know what else to do, and he's probably best off not using biotics for a while (uncertain what the destroy ending ... EMP sort of thing would have done to his biotics implant but either way. his body probably needs all the help it can get recovering. so no biotics). he certainly can't jump back into active duty whilst still struggling with even day to day functioning, and perhaps even struggling with having undergone some amputation (i'm undecided on that part...). So, volunteer work. Rebuilding both structurally and in terms of of contributing to community, building that all back up in the aftermath of horrific suffering and loss.

And part of that means he ends up on earth for a bit and perhaps.. passing through the area where he grew up. just to see how hard the reapers hit. and then he'd decide to stay a bit and help out!!!

bc i'm always always thinking about the various news you can hear in me2, in particular... about the Shepard Memorial scholarship on earth that's aimed towards disadvantaged kids (well. aka just sends them to the Alliance. but that's certainly a step up from a lot of situations they could be in) and the "Shepards" charity that conrad formed to help orphans/POWs/refugees... and i think after some contemplation, that's where shepard's mind goes first. so he sticks around, puts in some work in the place he came up in + in other low-income and disadvantaged areas/communities similar to it. my heart says he's particular dedicated to charity & work with disadvantaged kids. he bounces between there and anderson's apartment on the citadel, because he's helping there too (and. because. do they ever?? fucking move that thing back to where it was?? or is it permanently hovering above earth now? — i like to think in control ending that shepard as the catalyst + the reapers help rebuild, and drag the citadel back where it used to be because. just easier that way for everyone. but, like, in a post-destroy ending??? it's just stuck there now...)

and he probably has a dingy and modest little apartment he rents on earth around where he grew up, where he's concentrating a lot of these efforts. and in the morning he gets out on the streets for a morning run with this giant fuck-off service dog in tow... it's sitting there with him so well-behaved when he's hanging around with the bunches of rowdy kids he's working with ...