#drell assassin

[normandyslounge]

scrumptious art by @mrtntw, I love their Shrios so so much ❤️❤️

Just a fluffy Shrios fic inspired by that lovely piece. This is my first ever ME fic and I have not play the games yet, forgive me if Shep and Thane are OOC, I just NEEDED to write them alive and happy

You make your keys twirl at the tip of your finger as you walks.  

Earth. 

The last time you came here was years ago. 

But now you are here for some time, to enjoy this new life and the time you received with it. Santa Fe is always sunny and warm, perfect after you spent so many years in space. The interspecies community here is loud and alive and that is exactly what you need. 

You hum a tune as you walk confidently on the scorching hot pavement of the street, listening to the songs of birds in the trees, a song you did not hear for years on end too used to the low buzzing of lights and computers on the bridge.  

You reach the cafe and enters with a smile. 

"Morning Thane." You greet warmly. 

"Siha!" Thane's face immediately lightens up when he sees you, "Welcome. Look what I've made." 

He grabs a clean cup and operates the large coffee machine with practiced ease like he did it all his life until it is full, the coffee hot and foamy. He grabs a bottle of chocolate syrup that he generously adds, and then gets a jug of cream and draws a delicate heart in the foam as you sit down. He delicately hands you the cup with a tender smile, still discovering the simple joy of creating something something instead of destroying it. You take it and taste it. 

You gather it is supposed to be a Moccaccino, and by all technicality it is... but the taste is not quite there yet. 

You refrain from a wince before your lover that observes you, hopeful. 

But it is definitely better than his first tries and you command him for it! 

"Delicious..." You say under his caring gaze, "You're getting better at this." 

He winces as he leans forward on the table, his old wounds acting up. He immediately stops you as you stand up to look after him. 

"I am all right Siha." He promises, taking your hand in his to gently squeeze it, "Just a phantom pain, as always." He reassures you. 

You nod, observing your love, eyeing where he was stabbed through the chest under his shirt. 

"Shepard or not, you can't just give out coffee for free." A rough voice rises from the side of the counter. A Batarian stands here, arms crossed looking harshly at your beloved. "This is the last notice." 

"Don't worry chief!" You intervene gently, "Also the taste is much better today, he's learning." 

"He may be learning but I don't do charity. If you keep distributing coffees for free you take the door, Thane!" And the Chief disappears back into his office at the back of the coffee shop. 

"Grumbly today." You joke, amused. 

"He is right." Thane sighs, grabbing cups to wipe them dry, "I have a bad habit of offering the first drink for free." 

You shake your head with a smile. Despite being a former assassin, Thane always was such a sweet soul, nice from the bottom of his heart... You take another sip. 

"This is not necessarily a bad marketing idea." You counter, "I would love my first drink to be free everywhere. It is good for students' wallets." 

"You are no student, Siha." 

"But I remember how hard it was! Speaking of students, how is Koyliat? Did you talk recently?" You wonder. 

"He complains his studies give him headaches, but he holds on." Thane says, "I think those studies really are to his taste, he just worries no company will accept a Drell with his... record." 

"I’m glad that he is interested in his studies. He was not meant to be an assassin. He deserves a peaceful stable life after everything he went through. Ask him for the names of  the companies he contacted, I'll talk to them." 

"As Shepard the terrifying Citadel's hero?" Thane muses with a smirk. 

"Yes. And if it isn't impressive enough I’ll call them as his new stepmother!" 

"They will be shaking in their boots Siha." He chuckles. 

"Good." You respond on the same tone. 

Suddenly the bells at the door chime and at the same time the chorus of cheerful “Hi, Thane!” and “Good to see you” is heard from the entrance 

You turn your head to see a group of young men and women, aliens and humans alike around 20, entering the shop, smiling at Thane, pressing themself at the counter to get his attention. 

"Hello you all, the usual?" Thane asks already preparing the cups. 

"You know us well!" One of the young women responds, leaning over the counter. 

Is she... Trying to highlight her cleavage? 

You chuckle at that silly thought as you keep drinking your Moccaccino.  

"Go sit down, I'll bring you everything." Thane starts his row of coffees. 

They all go sit down near the window, where an abundance of plants flourishes under the rays of the sun, gushing about their favorite band or movie. Thane quickly pours the different orders for each client with practiced ease. 

"You remember everything?" You wonder. 

"Perfect memory." He responds with a smirk. 

"You never cease to amaze me, Thane." 

He clears his throat as a light pink shade comes coloring his cheeks. He grabs a tray, puts all the cups on, and brings them to his young patrons. 

"Are those free too?" The rough voice asks near you. 

You turn to the chief observing his employee carefuly. 

"No.  And I'll pay for my coffee too of course." You let him know. 

"I know you will Shepard. He just needs to lose this habit." 

"You are not really going to fire him... Will you?" You investigate the Batarian. 

He considers you before laughing. 

"I can't. Do you know how many customers he brings to the shop with his pretty face?" 

You raise an eyebrow, considering your lover taking the orders without even a pen and a notebook. 

"Does he now?" 

"He does. A lot of students and single mothers come from all over Santa Fe to see him. And they order a lot." 

You purse your lips at the scene before you, Thane smiling at the women making eyes at him. At the young woman with a deep cleavage... 

"Ah, but maybe I should not have told you that maybe?" The Chief smirks. 

"Mmmmmmh." You shrug, "I trust Thane. We both cherish our relationship." 

"I hope for you because some of them are really insistent." And he leaves with a voracious laugh. 

You lazily stir your drink as you observe your drell watering the plants and answering his clients’ playful banter. 

Yes... You trust him. 

You keep sipping your drink, leaning against the bar with a peaceful sigh, observing him working. As he comes back toward you the young woman stands up and sprints to him to give him something before sitting back down with her friends. 

He looks at his hand with a sheepish expression and hurriedly hides it in his pocket. 

You lost none of that. You squint at him coming back, repressing a mischievous smile. 

"I bet it’s her phone number." 

He stands here, stunned for a split second before sighing. 

"Yes..." 

"Ooooh, Casanova." You mock gently. 

"Please don't. You know I would never." 

"I know Thane, I know." You reassure him, "I'm more worried about the single mothers." 

"The sin- Who told you about that?" He demands 

You burst out laughing, putting your empty cup down. 

"None other than your own boss. He is very proud of you. You bring a lot of customers in!" 

Thane grumbles as he puts clean glasses in a cabinet.  

"I would prefer they came for my coffee." 

"They will once you master the art of torrefaction... But also for your cute face!" You mercilessly tease him. 

"I don't know why me. There is a lot of Drell barista in Santa Fe." 

"I guess they can feel the tragic backstory of the sexy single-father assassin." You keep toying with him, "That would have driven younger me absolutely feral too, you know." 

"But it did drive you feral, remember that night in your cabin, Siha?" His voice drops an octave as he knows makes your heart pump faster. 

you slap his arm with a warning smile. 

"I do not think you can flirt with your clients during your shift, Mister." 

"I am flirting with my wife, Siha." He keeps a low voice. 

He leans against the bar to grab your chin between his fingers and caress your lower lip. He leans further and you do the same, opening your mouth slightly apart, ready to caress his soft lips. 

"Thane! Work!" You both jump at the sound of a fist hitting a wooden door. 

You both turn your heads to his chief warning him through his office’s window that he is watching him. 

"Too bad, Casanova." You smile. 

"I'll see you tonight, Siha." He grabs your hand and gently kisses it. 

You stand up and walk to the door. Before leaving you turn back to him. 

Thane is readjusting his apron before taking new orders from the patrons. 

You smile at that scene... At that vision of him, alive and well, a survivor. Something in your gut tells you that this happy moment could have never been in another life. 

But in this one, you are together. 

[dalekofchaos]

Imagine the Virmire Sacrifice as the Cerberus assassin instead of Kai Leng

Inspired by my poll

Kai Leng was a terrible character from terrible novels. No one wanted him in the games. He could barely handle a Drell with space cancer and couldn’t even kill Anderson and Sanders, but they want us to expect us to believe that Leng is Shepard’s equal? To me I would just have him executed on Omega since Leng DID kill Aria's daughter.

But yes storywise, it's better. Shepard was haunted about not being able to save either Kaidan/Ashley. TIM would use the Virmire casualty as Plan B should Shepard turn against his interests.

Imagine Cerberus was on Virmire. Cerberus scientists working on a counter agent to stop the Genophage cure and even working on a virus that could kill Saren.

The Illusive Man reveals to his agents it's too late, however he tells them there can be a valuable asset they can retrieve.

Cerberus mad dashes to the bomb site and grabs Ash/Kaidan in time, however the bomb goes off and the after shock hits the Cerberus vessel and renders the Virmire survivor in a comatose state.

A second Cerberus ship comes and rescues Ash/Kaidan. They report to TIM that Project Virmire is ago, but once they wake up, it will take a lot of convincing. TIM has a plan.

The Virmire survivor wakes up during the time of ME2. Confused, they recognize this is not an Alliance facility and definitely no Council race facility. They put two and two together and realize it's Cerberus and try to escape and then they are sedated.

They are brought before TIM. Ash/Kaidan swears they would rather die than join Cerberus. Explains they know about Admiral Kahoku, the Rachni, Thorian and Husk experiments and most importantly Akuze.

TIM explains it easily. That they were a necessary evil. and tells them how easily their near death experience could've been avoided if those monstrosities were weaponized against Saren. The Admiral knew too much and Akuze, Shepard/Toombs got justice and Dr Wayne was put on a very public trial that damaged Cerberus reputation.

Then the manipulation begins.

If it's Ashley, then TIM uses the fact that he knew and personally served under her grandfather. Shepard, The Alliance and the Council left her for dead and acts as if the Reapers don't exist, as if the very reason she went missing never happened. Says things how "I've seen your records and seen you in action. If you were there, Shanxi never would've fallen and the Williams family would be the most prestigious family in the Alliance and you would've been the first human Spectre, not Shepard." "You were looked down on the Alliance, the family that was cursed because the good general wanted to protect and save lives. Little do you know, the Turians were looking for something on Shanxi. Saren was there, and his brother" Ashley looks curious. He has her. He explains his story with General Williams, Desolas Arterius and Saren. Desolas indoctrinated for Turian supremacy, leading Saren down the path he would take and what would be the foundation of Cerberus. Ashley asks one simple question. "When do I start?"

If it's Kaidan, TIM uses Kaidan's past against him. His righteous murder of Vyrnnus that he was shunned and how gifted he was. Admitting Cerberus should have snatched him when they had the chance. "Had we had you, you could've provided our failed experiment the guidance she needed(obviously I'm talking about Jack here) then goes on to tell him how the Alliance abandoned him, Shepard has forsaken him and worse of all, they all deny the existence of the Reapers. Kaidan refuses to believe him and snaps. Cerberus agents are prepare to stun him, TIM wavers them off. Kaidan gives off a look that he wants revenge. On The Alliance, The Council and Shepard. "They will all pay."

Ashley would be turned into Cerberus' Super Soldier. Wearing the Cerberus Assault Armor(the armor WE wear, not the shitty ME3 grunt armor), but with the Shade/Nightmare/Spirit helmet.

Kaidan becomes a mix of Phantom and Phoenix. The ultimate human biotic, he is what Jack could've became if they kept her.

Their goals would be to eliminate high valued targets for Cerberus. Killing key Alliance figures, people who are close to cracking down on Cerberus(example, Dr Wayne was publicly assassinated and after Toombs threat to get a merc team to hunt Cerberus down, they kill him) killing Alien leaders and a whole bunch of targets that stand in Cerberus's way to control the Reapers.

Or in a different scenario. The explosion nearly destroys the ship carrying them in, causing them to be husks of their former selves.

Cerberus in this scenario would experiment on them to make them the ultimate soldier for Cerberus. They would essentially become The Winter Soldier of Mass Effect.

it would’ve been far more impactful if the Cerberus assassin was masked, and later revealed to be a heavy cyborg’d and indoctrinated Ashley/Kaiden, whichever you left behind on Virmire. There would be a reaction if you bring the one you saved with to encounter the one we did not save on Thesia.

But storywise.

The first time you meet the Cerberus Assassin, is on Earth. We see this shadow stalking you and Anderson and as we’re leaving Earth, we see Kai Leng killing Anderson. With Shepard swearing revenge.

Throughout ME3, Ash/Kaidan would be stalking Shepard. Causing trouble as we encounter Cerberus. Trying to kill Eve, attempting to abduct the Grissom Academy students, activating the bomb on Tuchunka and the attempt on the Council.

When we finally confront them on Priority Citadel, they kill Thane and omni-slash their mask off. We get the reveal. Shepard is shocked, Ash/Kaidan hesitates after hearing Shepard utter their name.

It would also help to explain his inexplicable plot armor. Rather than surviving against the onslaught of Shepard due to plot reasons, he would not be killed, as Shepard is haunted by not being able to save them, Ash/Kaidan uses that as the opportunity to take him down on Thessia.

Because Ashley did not undergo her character arc, I could imagine Ashley saying things like "I should have been the First Human Spectre, a hero for humanity, not aliens." "I am the hero humanity deserves" "I will make my grandfather proud." "The Alliance has failed humanity and my family" If you romanced Ashley and accidentally left her behind "You BASTARD...I loved you and you LEFT ME TO DIE!"

With Kaidan I can see him saying things like "I am the peak of Biotic perfection." "The Alliance betrayed me. You left me and the Council deserves to die" "Vyrnaus deserved to die, I know that now." "You will pay for leaving me to die" If you didn't save Grissom Academy. "I personally went to Grissom Academy, took those kids and made them like me. Subject Zero never should have left us, now she is ascended to perfection."(if you got Jack's loyalty, Jack begs Shepard to kill her) If you romanced Kaidan and accidentally left him behind "You're just like Rahna. You left me and you betrayed me. After I kill you, I'll kill Rahna."

If we go with the Winter Soldier concept, then it's just TIM manipulating them like a puppet. However periodic exposure to Shepard and the other VS makes them remember

However, if you bring the other Virmire survivor with to Thessia, then there is a chance to turn Ash or Kaidan back to the light.

This works better if you romanced the other Virmire survivor, but if not it works the same result. You can only save Ash/Kaidan if you bring the other VS.

With a charm/intimidate option, Ash/Kaidan follows Shepard's lead and talks down Ash/Kaidan. and in the end they break through their indoctrination and apologize for everything.

Otherwise, they would have to be killed and could not be saved. I don’t think that convincing him to commit suicide like Saren or TIM would work, because it would be too similar to the TIM suicide not too long, and would lose impact because of it. They would have to be fought and killed one last time in combat, and have a tragic end with Ash/Kaidan cursing Shepard while Shepard looks on them with despair or disdain.

If you saved them, then Ash/Kaidan would board the Citadel with you. And when TIM tries to talk you into controlling the Reapers, Ash/Kaidan will shoot him dead.

If Winter Soldier scenario, then both Shepard and OVS can break through and save them. They join us and depending on your war assets, if high, they kill TIM without incident. If low, they sacrifice themselves and gives Shepard the opening to kill TIM.

We talk, have a moment. If it's Kaidan, they talk about the good old days with the original Normandy. Jenkins, Dr Chakwas and Anderson. "Oh Shepard, I'm so sorry" Shepard forgives them. If romanced, they talk about the relationship they were going to start and Shepard says "we can have a cup of coffee and see where things go from there" "I'd like that, Shepard". If Ashley, they reminisce on meeting on Eden Prime, the Normandy, their almost relationship with Shepard saying "we can finish where we left off" "Oh Shepard" and remembering why she volunteered to stay behind.

Alternatively since Ash/Kaidan wasn't shot, they save Shepard. They call the other survivor and rescue Shepard as the Crucible is about to be fired off if destroyed is chosen. If you choose Control, then Ash/Kaidan shoots themselves because they can't bare to live after Shepard fulfills TIM's desires. If Synthesis is chosen then they will be on the Normandy with the other crew members.

[swaps55]

I drafted a chapter!!! It only took 2 months.

It needs some work. It was complex. But it EXISTS. Which means I have two complete chapters in the can. They just aren't consecutive. So the current plan is to figure out The Problem Chapter I skipped, which is less a problem so much as it is I need to plant my ass in a chair and do some work, then get some shit beta'd, and hopefully have three chapters to post with some actual consistency!

PROOF OF LIFE. [this is one of the scenes that probably needs some work but it makes me laugh.]

The terrible music fades when they exit the lounge back into the ward’s busy corridors, replaced by the shouting of an angry customer at Rodam Expeditions. The irony of telling off a merchant with a terrifyingly sophisticated arsenal behind him is almost funny. Hm. He’d meant to check to see if they carried a new sniper rifle model he’d been hearing about on Omega, but— Shepard is halfway down the corridor. Garrus breaks into a jog. It’s so much easier to keep up with him in combat armor when he’s wearing a transponder. “Once we get back to the ship I’m telling Joker to get ready for departure,” Shepard says over his shoulder.   “Really? We just got here.” “There’s nothing here for us,” Shepard says, expression dark. “And I’ve got a drell assassin and an asari justicar to break in. Could use some help, especially with Samara.” “Don’t tell me the monk makes you nervous.” Based on the pleasantries they’d exchanged, Samara struck him as the most stable person on the ship. Shepard snorts. “Liara says if I’m too much like me a justicar will declare me morally bankrupt and use me for target practice. It’s a little hurtful how convinced she was Samara would win.” “So…you want me as backup, is that it?” “No. Well, yes, but. I was thinking as more of a chaperone.” Garrus laughs hard enough the bad mandible starts throbbing. “I don’t exactly think my history as a vigilante makes me a paragon of virtue either, Shepard.” “I can make that work,” Shepard says with a truly astonishing level of confidence. “If you agree with me, I’ll know I’m about to fuck it up.” “Great.”

[msunitedstatesjames]

A few years ago, I played through the Dragon Age games. Now I'm playing through Mass Effect, and I find it kind of hilarious that in both DA2 and ME2 Bioware was like, "Okay, these games are pretty combat heavy, so we've got to figure out who the protagonists are going to be fighting the whole game." And in both games, they were like, "How about various gangs, each with a gimmick, whose members will ceaselessly throw themselves into the deadly path of the protagonist?"

I've written about this before for DA2, but it's just as funny in ME2.

You've gotta imagine the conversations happening in the mercenary gang headquarters throughout the events of this game. The leaders have gotta be like, "Okay, why are our members dropping like flies all of the sudden?" And then they get a little intel and they're like, "Oh."

So they gather their crews around and they're like, "So guys, we just want to let you know to keep an eye out on any jobs coming up because we've been taking some hits."

And the crew members are like, "Okay, who are we looking out for?"

And the leaders go, "Well, first of all, Commander Shepard. You know that human who saved the Citadel from the Geth and that rogue Spectre a couple of years ago?"

And one of the dudes is like, "I heard it was actually a Reaper she defeated."

And the rest of the crew laugh at that crazy conspiracy theory and are like, "One human? Big deal."

And the leaders are like, "Well...not exactly. She tends to run with a crew."

And then the leaders have to tell them about Shepard's crew, consisting of:

Some human lady who always wears a hood (Kasumi is actually good at her job, so I assume they wouldn't have reliable intel on her)

A Quarian tech expert

A former Alliance marine who survived Eden Prime and the attack of the Citadel

A lady who's pretty much a clone designed to be physically and mentally perfect

A Salarian who helped redesign the genophage and was also a member of the Special Forces

The galaxy's top bounty hunter and also co-founder of the Blue Suns

Some Drell dude who may or may not be the most successful assassin in the galaxy

A biotic prodigy who has broken out of more than one high security containment facility

Weirdly, another clone designed to be physically and mentally perfect, but this time they're a Krogan

An Asari Justicar (or her even more murderous progeny)

A Geth who can talk, apparently

And a Turian who looks like, sounds like, and shoots exactly like that guy Archangel, who took out large swaths of merc crews almost singlehandedly before mysteriously disappearing (or dying?) on Omega

And at first the crew isn't that impressed. They're like, "Sounds like a bunch of weaklings to me." And then somewhere around Zaeed they start to be like, "Okay, we'll keep a lookout." And then somewhere around like Samara they start to be like, "Well, shit." And then they get to Garrus and they're like, "Please don't let it be that asshole again."

And the merc Commanders are like, "Good luck to you guys. Make sure to wear a helmet or you might be getting your head crushed through some mixture of pure biotic force, a Krogan bodyslam, and/or a headshot from the guy who's definitely not Archangel!"

And then after the guys leave the Commander thinks to himself, "I'm glad I made it up through the ranks before all this bullshit."

[average-mako-enjoyer]

Bigots and Failed Promises of Mass Effect games

(I had this thing in my drafts for almost a month, and it would have stayed there if not for the wonderful post by @androidtrashfire, because I saw it, and I was like: "Fuck it, I have to rant about these games." I love Mass Effect, and I really think we should critique it. We should criticize things we love because silence = compliance.)

So I was talking to @liss-art recently about the bigoted fans in the Mass Effect fandom, and I think I need to make a post about it because it's something that really, truly bothers me, and it needs to be addressed.

Canon

Mass Effect is a story about deeply flawed people with a lot of problems, and through them it touches on issues like xenophobia, sexism, corruption, elitism, morality, identity. That's why we like it, right? But why are there so many bigots in the fandom? My theory is that it happens because Mass Effect, for all its supposed complexity, only touches on these issues without giving any meaningful commentary on them.

Here are a few obvious examples:

The Quarians are a distasteful allegory of the Roma people (right down to their accents). They are persecuted and ostracized for creating Geth, but the game never gives us any socio-political reasons why the Quarians did that. They just developed real AI because they were naive and stupid? Or because they were the only ones smart enough to do it? Did they do it in secret? Why did other races not make the same mistake?

Same with the Batarians. Yes, the game mentions tensions between humans and Batarians because humans try to claim territories that Batarians think are theirs, but that's about it. Batarians are all racist slave traders and they're bad, don't think about it, here's some memes about 300,000 of them dying, good job. And yes, I know you can read more about their history in the Codex (why is it an Asari who writes about Batarian history,btw?), but it's basically the same thing as saying D*mbledore is gay (I really am sorry for this reference). If no one ever mentions this rich Batarian history, then it doesn't exist.

And please don't get me started on Hanar. They "mercifully" saved the Drell by inviting them to their planet, immediately assimilated them into their own faith and also put them in conditions where they have to train as assassins from the ripe old age of 6 and eventually die of sci-fi lung cancer. But don't worry about it, Drell actually love to serve the Hanar, they do it willingly and consider their servitude an honor. Do you really want to criticize some stupid jellyfish who talk funny? Do you really want to talk about why the so-called Council races do nothing about it? LOL

Another thing the trilogy does is present entire races, including humans, as amorphous blobs. Do all Asari believe in the same "goddess"? Do all Turians obey the same Primarch? Well, what's important is that all humans in this bright future speak English.

But what about the genophage? That's a profound story, right? Well, not really, and it raises more questions than it answers. We hear a lot about how brutal, aggressive, and short-tempered Krogans are, but every single Krogan we meet is extremely well-mannered, and they only resort to violence against other races in dire circumstances. So why not save them? Does the game really present you with this moral dilemma or not?

And can anyone tell me why Salarians are allowed to abduct and experiment on sentient beings, and why Turians are allowed to wage wars? Why does no one talk about Asari in this context?

I really want to say that at least the characters are well written, but I can't because they're not.

Kaidan is a good example of this. We are told about his implant, we are told that he has chronic pain, but do we see him suffer from it? Do we see him in those moments of weakness and vulnerability?

The scene where he gets annoyed with Jenkins acting like he's a circus monkey who has to do a trick and biotically throws a cup at him was cut from the game. We occasionally hear him mention some of the side effects of his migraines ("Too many lights, too much noise"), but that's about it. What has happened to "show, don't tell"? And no, I'm not saying that the writers should feed me the story or walk me through it. What I am saying is that if you gloss over your characters' mistakes, flaws, and circumstances, you're getting people to ignore them. Do people who call Kaidan "boring" and insult him think about how his chronic pain, his trauma from Brain Camp, and the loss of Jenkins and Ashley affect who he is? Hell no.

Thane is another great example. What Mass Effect is telling us as a story is that you can completely abandon your family and your child and be forgiven if your reason for doing it is good and heroic enough. Like avenging your dead wife, because of course there has to be a dead woman thrown somewhere.

Everyone's favorite Garrus (mine too) is a cop whose character arc basically consists of deciding that he is above the law (since the law forbids him from killing people he thinks should die) and then involving his squadmate/friend/partner (depending on your playthrough) in the public assassination of his former squadmate, whom he never even bothered to confront first. Are there any consequences for Garrus for his actions? No. Again, it's all glossed over, and that's unfortunate because it removes the conflict and therefore the character development and depth.

And if you're going to tell me that ME is just a space opera, and that I should just enjoy the spectacle and the romance, then I'm going to tell you that I know that, and that I think it's a wonderful spectacle, and that some of the romance subplots are absolutely amazing story-wise, but the superficial commentary (or lack thereof) on the most important issues that ME covers actually harms the audience.

Fandom

On the one hand, we have people making mods that remove all the clothes from all the female characters (or remove all of femShep's organs and replace them with giant tits). We have people reposting that horrible, horrible art of Miranda and Jack fighting, tearing each other's hair and clothes, and maleShep smirking and saying "I should stay". We have people who say ME2 is the best game in the series because "there are no f*gs". On the other hand, we have people saying things like "there are two Commander Shepards - female and the wrong one". We have people who say "only weird people play as dudebro in 2024". We have people who think that simply playing as a female character is some kind of feminist statement, and that it makes them better and smarter than everyone else (the same people who use the term "dude gamer" as an insult). And all of those things are kind of the trilogy's fault.

Both maleShep and femShep have the same story. The only differences are the romance options, sexist remarks directed only at femShep, and flirtations from various NPCs directed only at femShep. What this tells you is that sexism exists in the Mass Effect universe, and only women suffer from it. It also tells you that only women are worth flirting with.

Another thing this game does (and modern games like Cyberpunk do the same thing) is equate the female experience to the male experience by giving both femShep and maleShep the same lines.

So there are some mixed signals here. Sexism exists and doesn't exist in this universe, Shepard is both genderless and very gendered, romances with underdeveloped characters are all over the place, and bigots thrive in this kind of environment.

The lack of commentary, the lack of perspective, the disastrous worldbuilding allows you to freely choose your sexist, racist adventure and not be punished by the story in any way.

Mirrors

There's a passage from Solaris that I absolutely adore and think about often.

"We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos. […] We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is."

I think that perfectly describes what Mass Effect is as a universe. And in a way, it's a reason why it's so compelling. It's just empty enough for us to invest in it, to fill in the blanks of that narrative with the stories of our own. And it's also a reason why this fandom is a fucking hellscape.

[n7valkyrien]

dossier: the assassin

↬ can we all agree that thane is the coolest assassin in BioWare history (no offense to zevran and full offense to kai leng) with the most badass introduction scene

↬ his outfit reminds me of this meme. not that i stare at his tits a lot. in fact i never noticed it until someone pointed out all drells have their chests out due to kepral’s syndrome.

[sol-consort]

Okay, but imagine Javik, literal prothean, with god status to the hanar, coddling this one human because "you obviously can't look after yourself."

He just ends up looking like your servant, when in his mind he is supposedly showing the lesser race—humans—their place. So stay still while he helps put the socks on your feet, tie your shoelaces for you afterwards.

Casually picking you up to carry after he notices a sluggishness to your steps. Do what if the two of you are in the middle of the citadel praesidium? Ignore the gaggle of hanars following closely behind, chanting his praises, and also ignore the gaggle of drell assassins following the hanar from the shadows to protect them.

He is still his condescending normal self, showing his love in acts of service instead. All while commenting on how weak humans are, how your kind should've stayed in caves, that at least the reapers wouldn't have been a threat to you now.

Getting you food when he feels that you're hungry, oh, yeah, he reads your emotions a lot. You're minding your business when suddenly, his hand is grabbing your face, cupping your cheeks, four eyes stare unblinking into yours... before deciding that you need to drink water, maybe grab a snack with vitamin C. Primitve human, what would you ever do without him around?

Here, give him the orange. He will peel it for you. Actually, forget that he asked. He'll just reach over and take it himself, silently peeling it with deadly focus. He'd even handfeed you the orange slices over some dumb excuses that protheons are superior...so uh, you see...therefore...you must let him do whatever he wants.

And what he wants just happened to be constantly looking after your needs and health, never asking for something in return.

You could stretch, lay your head on his lap, and Javik would let you stay for as long as you'd like. Observing how your eyelids grow heavy before fluttering shut, your breathing slowing down as you dirft off to sleep, face buried into his thighs, nose brushing against his stomach

Even as his legs start going numb, he never moves a muscle. Not wanting to disturb your comfortable nap, he endures it and remains still. This is nothing for a disciplined soldier like his.

Deep down, he really likes holding you in his arms. Protheans didn't get to see much of humanity before the reapers stole you away from them—abandoning their observation Mars base as the war grew in intensity and more forces where called back to fight, forced to forgo the opportunity to study your kind, this new species they just found out about.

Might as well get his fill now of this intriguing species, of their soft skin, the fire in your eyes.

[imakemywings]

One Morning (of Several) on the Citadel 2/2

Fandom: Mass Effect

Characters: f!Shepard, Thane Krios, Kolyat Krios

Summary: Kolyat is just here to drop off groceries. He doesn't want to talk.

AO3 | Part 1

________________________________________________________

“It won’t take even five minutes, I’m just going in and out,” Kolyat said. “I just need to drop this off and we can go.” His left hand gave a slight lift to the canvas bag of food he was holding. In response to his friends’ looks, he gave a low huff that hummed through his sub-vocals. “He doesn’t fucking eat.”

            “I thought you hated your dad,” Xeto said, hands thrust deep into the pockets of her dark coat.

            “I do. But you can only watch someone eat reheated udyat burritos from that skanky corner store so many times before it gets to you,” Kolyat said. “I’ll be like, two minutes.”

            “Can’t we come in?” Trevor asked, flashing his shiny teeth in a grin that made middle-aged adults of all species direct him promptly out of the vicinity. “We’ve never gotten to meet your dad!”

            “And you won’t. Just wait outside, it will be like, five seconds.”

            “The clock keeps running down,” Xeto said at the same time Trevor whined, “Come on, your dad is assassin! A really good one! That’s so cool!”

            “He’s not cool, he’s an asshole,” Kolyat snapped. “He can’t have a conversation for five minutes without saying something weird. And he’s retired. And dying.”

            “Still! You’ve met my dad!”

            “Your dad has been in a coma for four years, Trevor,” Xeto said.

            “So? Kolyat’s still met him!”

            “Fine!” At this rate, they were never going to make it to the arcade. “Fine. Come in. But we’re in and out. The sooner we’re done with this, the sooner we can get down to the plaza.” He was not going to spend his only day off listening to his only two friends being starry-eyed over some romanticized image they had of Thane. It didn’t help that drell were a relative rarity in most parts of the galaxy; both Trevor and Xeto had pointed this out when they met him.

            Really, Kolyat could not afford to be too rude to his friends. Xeto and Trevor were the only ones he had. Thane had warned him that getting into a career as an assassin was not something one could just drop out on. Kolyat had never officially been an assassin, but when he abandoned that path and took Commander Shepard’s proffered job with C-Sec, he suddenly found himself quite bereft of the friends who had supported his future career in professional killing. Trevor and Xeto were the sort that his old friends would have scoffed at—losers who weren’t cool enough to run drugs or steal, but not ambitious enough to have a real job. He wasn’t so different now, he supposed.

            The detour to his father’s apartment was an extra twenty minutes out of their way, but Kolyat couldn’t put it off. There was no understating the irritation he felt that the father who had abandoned him for a decade could still inspire some sense of filial guilt in him when he thought about Thane’s sickly, solitary life. As far as he could tell, his visits were the only thing to which Thane genuinely looked forward.

            As Kolyat unlocked the locks on the front door—no one did paranoia quite like Thane—Xeto adjusted her beanie, pulling it further down over her cartilage crests.

            “You think he’d tell us about a kill?” Trevor asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

            “We’re not talking to him,” Kolyat said. “And no. He doesn’t tell anyone anything, unless you catch him recalling.”

            “Sounding a bit salty there, Kolyat,” Xeto said.

            “I wonder why!” Kolyat turned a biting look on the asari, who put her hands up. Neither Trevor nor Xeto had picture-perfect relationships with their families, which meant they weren’t afraid of taking jabs at Kolyat’s rocky relationship with Thane.

            The apartment was quiet when he swung the door open, and Thane was not on the couch, which meant he was probably sleeping. Good, Kolyat thought before he could stop himself. He did not linger on how unfair it was that he should finally rediscover his errant father, only to face losing him any day.

            And this way, he could avoid having to introduce him to Xeto and Trevor. Kolyat might have missed spending his avoidant teenage years with Thane, but he could make up for it now. He’d just drop the groceries off and go.

            He realized just as he turned towards the kitchenette that there was someone in it, but his brain took several seconds to process that it was not Thane. It was a human, with warm brown skin and brown hair, and scars.

            “Kolyat?” It was not his father standing at the stove in boxer briefs and a t-shirt—it was Commander Shepard.

Out of uniform.

Cooking.

In her underwear.

In his father’s apartment.

Kolyat tried to do something better than gape, but it was difficult. Ragged scars zig-zagged across Shepard’s legs—her thighs looked like they could snap a spine with just a bit of effort—matching the glowing mess that Cerberus had made of her face, and while normally, seeing a person in such a state might make them seem less intimidating, Kolyat felt it really had the opposite effect with Shepard. Last time he had seen her, she’d put a bullet through his target herself to stop him from making the kill and for the first time, he had believed in his father’s stories about siha. So why, for all the mercy of Arashu, was she in his father’s apartment?

            “Commander Shepard?” Maybe he was seeing things. He could practically hear Xeto and Trevor perk up and abandon whatever they were looking at in the apartment. The commander was staring, which made him feel better about his own state of shock, and then she turned in the direction of the bedroom.

            “Thane!” It was very possible Thane was about to meet an end even more untimely than they had been anticipating before Kolyat stepped through the front door. Predictably, he burst, shirtless, out of the bedroom with a gun, apparently deciding anything that put that kind of alarm into Commander Shepard’s voice was something that needed to die, quickly. 

            Trevor screamed; Xeto threw up a biotic shield in front of the pair of them; Kolyat swore in irritation.

            Thank the blessed gods he was wearing pants at least.

            “What is it?” Unable to see any immediate danger, Thane had just a heartbeat of wondering what Shepard had been yelling about when the scene in front of him made itself apparent. He lowered the pistol as Xeto’s shield went down and Shepard exclaimed:

            “Come talk to your kid!”

            “Kolyat,” Thane said pleasantly, his shoulders relaxing, biting down on a soft trill. “You brought friends.” As if he were a lonely 14-year-old who had finally brought some schoolmates home for a playdate. His attention moved to Commander Shepard at the stove. “Shepard, what are you doing?”

            “Talk,” Shepard said sharply, pointing at Kolyat with a spoon.

            “Commander Shepard?” Kolyat repeated, looking at Thane. It was horrifying enough, the idea of one’s father seeing someone, let alone to consider that person was Commander Shepard. And Thane hadn’t mentioned a word of it to him!

            “Holy shit,” Xeto whispered behind him. “That’s Commander fucking Shepard!”  The ground was opening up. A hole appeared, it was swallowing Kolyat whole, welcoming him into its suffocating darkness—no, wait. He only wished it was.

            “You brought food?” Thane guessed, gesturing to Kolyat’s bag. “I’m sure that will go well with…whatever Shepard is doing.” Kolyat couldn’t even bring himself to look at her, in his father’s apartment.

            “Were you going to tell me about this?” Shepard sidled behind Thane and disappeared into the bedroom, which was just the awful proof that she had, in fact, slept there. He didn’t want to think—he didn’t want to think—hells, his father and Commander Shepard were fucking. (He did not—could not—think about the logistics of that. He had seen enough on the Citadel to know that humans and drell were simply not compatible that way.)

“I…yes. It was—well, we were not planning on returning from the Omega 4 relay.”

            “Oh, so it was fine not to tell me as long as you died before I found out?” The apartment was not nearly large enough for Shepard to be out of earshot, but she could give them the semblance of privacy by staying out of sight—which was more than could be said for Xeto and Trevor, hanging around behind him and staring at the closed door like they could will Shepard back out to share a story about Saren Arterius with them. “Goddammit. Man…this…you have to tell me things!”

            “I know. I’m sorry, Kolyat. I didn’t…I didn’t want you to think that…your mother…” Thane cast an eye about for a place to set the pistol, and eventually decided on a shrine to Amonkira he had arranged on a shelf. He was careful not disturb any of the candles (never lit—Citadel fire regulations did not permit any open flames in private residences) or charms (unclear if purchased or homemade).

            “Died eleven years ago. I’m not a kid anymore. It’s not my job to tell you what to do with your life.” Nobody wanted to think about their parents dating. But Kolyat wasn’t some child to assume Thane was trying to replace his mother with someone else just because he’d finally given up on dying alone.

            “You’re angry with me.” Incredibly observant, as always.

“Yeah, duh! You didn’t fucking tell me! We’re trying to be…like family and this is…you’re always asking me about my love life! But you didn’t say anything about this! You’re…you’re seeing Commander Shepard!” Truthfully, there was more disbelief than anger in Kolyat’s voice; there was a crack in it as he emphasized her name. “You are seeing her, aren’t you? This isn’t—it’s not—” He didn’t know what he would do if he’d walked in on his father having a one-night stand with Commander Shepard. Die, probably.

“…I was planning on telling you.” Kolyat snorted.

“Sure, of course. That’s how it always is.”

“I’m sorry, Kolyat. I didn’t want to upset you.” Mission failed. Kolyat heaved a sigh, the fingers holding the groceries flexing as they started to lose feeling. “Will you stay to eat? You can introduce your friends.” That was the last thing he wanted to do, but the two of them were nearly vibrating with excitement over their proximity to Commander Shepard, and Kolyat knew he’d never get them out of the apartment without getting the chance to talk to her. They had already been nosy about his dumb dad, now there would be no getting rid of them.

“Fine,” he said wearily, heading to the counter to put the bag down. Thane went over to the bedroom and pushed the door ajar.

“You can stop hiding,” he said.

“I’m just straightening up,” Kolyat heard her say, which was definitely bullshit. “Are you done getting read the riot act by your kid?” Thane blinked at her in confusion and she guessed translators had not conveyed the colloquial meaning. “Getting your ass beat,” she clarified.

“Ah. Yes, I believe Kolyat is finished scolding for now. Although I am sure none of it will be directed at you.”

“I can hear you,” Kolyat emphasized from the kitchen. When Shepard emerged (wearing pants, thank Arashu), he was unloading more food items onto the counter. The kitchen was bare of any virtual windows, but there was one beside the front door, showing that “morning,” as it was, had fully arrived. Kolyat was muttering under his breath as Shepard rinsed out the pan she had been tending when he arrived. “Dating Commander Shepard…never tells me anything…going on about me getting a date…Commander Shepard…un-fucking-believable…”

“Are you, like, the Commander Shepard?” Trevor was looking at Shepard like he might combust if she answered in the positive, clutching at the hem of his jacket, his eyes as wide as Kolyat had ever seen on a human. “Hero of Elysium and the first human Spectre and all that?”

“That’s me,” Shepard said, popping the cap off a bottle of something that was theoretically juice, but bore a strong resemblance to several other hideous “energizing” concoctions one could find at any cheap food market in the Citadel. She knocked back half of it in one go and leaned back against the corner between the kitchen and the rest of the apartment.

Thane was examining the gelatinous mass Shepard had left on the plate by the stove.

“What did you do to the udyat?” he asked politely.

“Scrambled them,” Shepard announced.

“Holy shit!” from Trevor. Xeto was whispering frenetically in his ear and Kolyat could see Trevor’s hands flapping excitedly out of the corner of his eyes as he replied.

“They are eggs, aren’t they?” Shepard turned an uncertain eye on the two drell, who stared back at her.

“I’ve…never seen them prepared this way,” Thane said with his typical reservation.

“Are those scars from Cerberus?” Xeto burst out, then immediately fell silent with a tiny, sharp gasp.

“What, these?” Shepard dragged her finger down one cheek, pulling at the skin and stretching one of the scars rather grotesquely. “This is what happens when you get face work done in the Terminus systems.” Thane was quietly scraping the udyat mess into a waste receptacle while Kolyat started dicing up a fish loaf and whispering urgently to Thane that he should at least go put a fucking shirt on, a suggestion which Thane declined to take.

“Is it true they…you know…brought you back?” Trevor asked in a hushed voice.

“Brought me back from where?” Shepard asked, fixing Trevor with a gleaming red stare that made Kolyat’s human friend retreat from further probing. “And don’t fuck around with Cerberus, for the record. Bunch of shitheads.”

“While Kolyat’s making food, maybe you could tell us a story?” Xeto asked, biting her lower lip in excitement. “About the Normandy?”

“One time the reapers tried to take control of the Citadel and destroy the galaxy but I stopped them.”

“Shepard,” said Thane, taking one of the two seats at the table. “I believe they were hoping for a bit more detail.”

“Liara was there,” she added. Trevor and Xeto exchanged a dismayed look while Thane considered and gave up on trying to get Shepard to be more voluble.

“How is work, Kolyat?” Thane asked instead, twisting around to look at him, and it might have been casual, if Shepard did not know how hard Thane had been working to try to figure out how to connect with his formerly estranged son, which included enormous conversational effort, something at which Thane demonstrably did not excel.

“It’s boring.” Kolyat paused and glanced back at Shepard. “But it’s. Stable,” he amended. “Auntie and Uncle are happy about it. You know, you could call them.” A mildly intrusive sing-song chime came from the apartment, reminding Thane that it was time for his morning walk. Kolyat waved it away on the nearest wall screen. Apparently after his refusal to help Thane figure out how to set up such reminders, he had figured it out himself.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

It took Kolyat a moment to realize Thane was taking his turn at being evasive, and he was about to pounce on that when Trevor jumped in.

“You went through the Omega 4 relay with Commander Shepard?” he asked Thane, sliding into the other chair.

“I did.”

“What was it like?” Trevor asked the question, but Xeto was leaning forward over the back of Trevor’s chair, hands stuffed so far in her pockets they were in danger of ripping through the fabric. Thane considered a moment—Kolyat thought he might slip into recollection—and then said:

“I would not like to do it again.”

“Wow. Sign you up for story time at the local daycare,” said Shepard sardonically.

“How come you don’t want Kolyat to be an assassin like you?” Xeto asked, since it seemed neither of them was going to be giving the epic retelling of tales for which she and Trevor had been hoping.

“It is not a good way to make a living,” Thane said quietly. “Outside the Compact, there is great risk and low reward. There are a great many dangers and few friends. And Kolyat is capable of better things than I. He has proven that already.” Trevor did not register the full meaning of this, but Xeto recalled some mention of the Compact from school and her eyes gleamed with interest. Kolyat rushed to intervene before she could ask Thane about life in the Compact, and did not think about his father’s last statement.

“Look! Food!” He slapped the fish loaf down in the middle of the table and tossed a few small plates around. To his relief, Xeto picked up a plate and helped herself to the fish loaf rather than continuing to probe Thane. But the relief faded quickly—Thane had barely even told Kolyat about life in the Compact. Suddenly, he was sorry he’d blocked her. He wondered what Thane would have said if Xeto had asked.

Auntie had said Thane had been given to the Compact at six years old, and that was why he didn’t know how to be a person right. Kolyat wondered if a thing like that could ever be fixed.

“Say, Kolyat, did you see Blasto 6?” Shepard asked suddenly, but before Kolyat could respond, Thane made a noise like a restrained groan.

“Shepard, let us not…”

“No, no, I want to hear his thoughts about it,” she insisted.

“I thought it was awesome!” said Trevor, bouncing up and down, and Thane looked over at Shepard from the corners of his eyes. “Like that part where Blasto drives a flaming car through the Presidium with a plasma canon strapped to the hood? That was so badass!”

“I think you’re overthinking it,” said Shepard to Thane, who looked pointedly away, as if this conversation pained him too much to continue.

A perky pinging came from Shepard’s ever-present omnitool and she tuned into her earpiece for a moment.

“I swear to God, Vakarian, the Normandy had better be on fire.” She paused to listen, glanced over at the “sunlight” beaming at the “window” and sighed. “Yeah, alright. I’m out of bed. Do not go there; I will kick your ass again. What is it?”

“Garrus Vakarian,” Trevor hissed in Xeto’s ear as Shepard frowned and nodded pensively.

“Yeah, okay. We should deal with that pronto. Mhm. Give me ten minutes; I’ll meet you outside the embassies. Call Tali too; I want her in on this.” She hung up and glanced over at Thane. “The race goes on,” she said.

“Tali’zorah nar Rayya!”

“Vas Neema,” Thane corrected mildly, while Trevor’s brown cheeks flushed faintly.

Ignoring Kolyat’s whispering friends, Shepard straightened off the wall and disappeared back into the bedroom, reappearing in uniform, looking like the Commander Shepard Kolyat remembered from news broadcasts. And from getting punched in the face on his first assassin job.

“Take care of yourself,” she said, brushing a hand over the back of Thane’s chair on her way by. “I’ll see you when I’m around again.” Thane caught her fingers and laced them through with his own for a moment, looking up at her in a way that Kolyat couldn’t watch.

“No goodbye?” he said. Shepard’s gaze slid over to Kolyat and friends, and Thane responded by getting up and sweeping them over in the direction of the bedroom. There wasn’t much space for privacy in the miniscule Citadel apartments occupied by the likes of—well, anyone in the room.

“Be careful,” Thane said, his fingers still linked loosely with hers.

“That’s my middle name,” she replied.

“I thought it was ‘Danger’?”

“I’ve got two.” She flashed a lopsided grin, and Thane raised his free hand to trail the pad of his thumb from the bridge of her nose to her ear, a drell gesture of affection which Kolyat was not certain meant anything to a human. Sobering a little, Shepard shuffled her feet. “I should be back here within a month,” she said. “If things time out properly. So I’ll see you then.” In the silence and staring that followed, Kolyat suppressed a groan, and went on stabbing his fish with far more zeal than needed.

“I will pray to Arashu for your safe return,” Thane told her, and reached his arms up around her shoulders to pull her into an embrace, which Shepard sank into, arms around his waist. She was several inches taller than Thane.

“No taking any swims until I get back, alright?” Thane gave a wheezy chuckle.

“I will do my best,” he promised. More silence, except for the audible sound of Thane’s breathing, and then: “The Normandy needs you. I’ll be here when you get back.” As if he had any control over that. Kolyat cringed and hunched over his plate at the appalling sound of a kiss being exchanged. The mortifications would never cease; he didn’t think Xeto and Trevor had stopped staring, but he didn’t want to look. Thane was still shirtless.

“You’d better be, or I’ll find some poor son of a bitch to hold responsible.” Shepard’s voice quickly regained its certainty and he heard the sound of her boots sharp against the floor. “Kolyat!” The bark of his name made his head snap in her direction, and he resisted the urge to give a salute, or whatever other gesture might be appropriate when being addressed directly by Commander Shepard of the Alliance N7. “Keep your nose clean,” she said, pointing a finger at him.

“Yes, commander.” The response tumbled out naturally. It was all Thane’s doing, that Kolyat ended up with Commander Shepard having an eye on anything he did! She made a gesture that was half wave, half salute, and quitted the apartment.

“We have to go too,” Kolyat announced as soon as the door was closed.

“But I’m still eating!” Xeto objected.

“Going!” Kolyat insisted, grabbing Trevor by the neck of his hoodie to drag him out of his seat.

“Kolyat!”

“Come back again when you can!” Thane encouraged. “And bring your friends!” Trevor gave a clumsy wave as he was hustled out the door, and Xeto flashed a youthful smile.

“Nice to meet you, Sere Kolyat’s dad!” she called over Kolyat’s shoulder.

“We’re leaving!” Kolyat managed to get the door shut with all three of them on the right side of it.

“I don’t see what the big deal was,” Xeto declared at once. “Your—”

“I can’t believe I met Commander fucking Shepard!” Trevor looked like he might faint, or scream, and although Xeto was more contained, Kolyat could see the shine of excitement in her dark eyes.

Kolyat groaned and raked his nails back over his crest. He was never going to hear the end of this.

[clericofshadows]

Okok I'll ask for Kasumi and Thane for the "break this character down"

ooo thanks for the ask!

character ask game

How I feel about this character

Kasumi: She's the coolest ngl, her design is very visually appealing (if annoying from a modding perspective with the baked in shadows). immediately fun from an introduction to a character you wish wasn't dlc so you can see her more often and actually speak to her normally beyond ambients. plus, she has a heist mission. but to be a little more serious, she's a fun look at a different character archetype away from killers and military and cops to a thief doing her own thing and killing it.

Thane: in a vacuum, he's cool. in reality, I think he's overrated. I find the drell interesting with the recall, religion, the dynamics with the hanar, but honestly? thane does not do it for me. I honestly don't know why... I think a mix of the "assassin who repents" and "terrible father" is probably why, but he's just there for me. cool design though.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Kasumi: girl you turned me onto nyreen x kasumi and I'm here for it. I think she would have also been a great romance option for Shepard, even if I don't have any Shepard OCs for her. I also think Kasumi/Tali is cute - hacker girls bonding over drones and scripts and maybe a little about shrouding your identity...

Thane: honestly, nothing much. again, thane's just kind of there for me so I don't have much to offer.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Kasumi: I'm a bit obvious but c'mon I think zaeed and her would have such great conversations. swapping stories. zaeed talking about his own heists and you know kasumi would pipe in on how she could do it better. with less killing. and zaeed would grumble about it and probably acquiesce to some of her points. I can also see some tech swapping too -- I think zaeed is a munitions and explosives expert and probably has many opinions on smoke grenades. kasumi likely does her own thing and they end up with many a debate on best practices. dlc bonding with dlc.

Thane: ngl, I think Thane and Ashley would have had some interesting conversations while in huerta together. comparing perspectives on religion. thane sharing drell literature and ashley sharing her own favorites. likely a kindred spirit in some aspects - but as ashley religion helps her inform her perspective on the galaxy, thane's religion helps him inform his perspective on his role as an assassin, and I can see them talking a lot about that.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Kasumi: I'm not sure if this is unpopular but while I don't ship Kasumi/Jacob, I think it's a fun part of her character that she's so open on who she likes, and I think ME could've done more with companion relationships since it's very poor in that area IMO

Thane: He's just not that interesting to me and he's relatively high on the list of "characters I'd remove to make ME2 less bloated"

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

Kasumi: I just wanted more of her ngl. I think she would've been a fun part of the casino mission in the Citadel DLC. she's probably the best person to have on hand for a heist mission and would've been fun to see what she would've been like on the casino mission.

Thane: As much as I'm very meh about his character he didn't deserve to die by Kai Leng. That's just rude of the developers and their fight scene made zero sense

[wingsofthesun]

As with most of the fandom, I despise Kai Leng.

Unfortunately, as I've specifically made Astra's timelime the same as canon (albeit with minor details that diverge from but don't fully change the plot), I have to deal with him and his stupid plot armor.

However, all is not lost! I figured out how to mitigate the effects of his plot armor and make him look like the whiney nobody he is!

Citadel Coup: Kai Leng shows up to kill Valern in C-Sec headquarters as expected, and Thane stops him. However, Thane is a trained assassin, and manages to wound Kai Leng so badly that he only lives thanks to the ridiculous amount of cybernetics he has. Kai Leng has to retreat and Cerberus goes with their Plan B, which is throw a bunch of "generic" Phantoms at the rest of the Council.

(Side note: Thane unfortunately still dies. Kai Leng managed to wound him, and his Kepral's Syndrome had advanced too far for him to recover. Thane is satisfied with the outcome though, and reassures Astra that she won't have any trouble with Kai Leng if a terminally ill drell managed to make him retreat.)

Thessia: The fight STARTS with the gunship attacking the temple. Kai Leng only goes in when parts of the temple have already collapsed and Astra and the squad had to scatter to avoid being killed. (Yes this means there's not another conversation with TIM, but who cares?) He is still wounded, which leads to...

Cerberus HQ: There's at least three people with tech powers on the squad. Garrus has a Black Widow sniper rifle equipped. Results are obvious and Kai Leng doesn't get up again on account of not having a head anymore. Sadly no renegade interrupt, but the last thing Kai Leng ever saw was Astra laughing at him trying to be an edgelord because she could clearly see Garrus lining up the shot behind him, so I think everything balances out.

Honestly this chain of events satisfies me so much the only way to make it even better would be just to get him out of the way entirely.

[illusivesoul]

WIP Whenever

Was tagged by @timesthatneverwere . Thank you :)

I'll tag @thedascharlatan @bardofheartdive @morganaseren @keriweird and @uchidachi . Only if you feel like doing this, of course.

.

Jack’s eyes were already open before the alarm sounded. Old habit. She had always been a light sleeper, on the rare occasions when her brain decided to let her rest and not keep her up with dreams and old memories that the chemicals and the exhaustion couldn’t drown out.

Then after tearing Purgatory apart inch by inch and joining Shepard for his suicide mission, 2 aliens had helped her start to sleep well again. An asari justicar and a drell assassin were the last thing she’d have expected to find on a Cerberus ship, and yet, there they had been, and over the 9 months they spent together fighting the Collectors, they had shown her a number of ways to get some proper rest. Well… they had shown her as much as she had let them.

And it had started working, slow but certainly. She eventually didn’t need the chems anymore.

They were the type to help others without asking for something in return. A rare kind. She hadn’t seen them since then, but she’d always be grateful to them. She just wished she had said it to them then.

Jack quietly stretched as she sat on the edge of the bed, letting out a hushed groan as the discomfort from her tired muscles made itself known. Standing, she turned around and looked towards the bed, the corners of her mouth curving slightly upwards as she saw the reason her body was feeling so sore, but in a good way. Ashley's back rose ever so slightly with each breath she took, hogging all the sheets like she always did, still lost in the world of dreams. An standard, by the books Alliance soldier who followed rules and regulations like a volus banker followed galactic trade stocks, and herself, a former convict, former pirate, former a lot of things that should have gotten her locked up for several lifetimes, now turned teacher and trainer for the Alliance, with somewhat of an anger issue to boot. They should have gotten along like oil and water, and yet here they were, familiar with each other in more ways than one.

[lilmissnatcat24]

you know what fuck it i'm writing an assassin au thane smut one shot

please enjoy what i have so far :

She was a shadow. 

No-- she was better than a shadow. She was invisible. People didn’t see her, they only stared through her body as if she didn’t exist in the first place. Because why would guests at a society party pay any attention to the one cleaning the tables, collecting the plates, stacking the glasses of wine? That’s how Shepard liked it. 

Because when Silvius Aetilus, the lumbering oat of a turian merc who thought that throwing a gala would make the citizens kiss his weird two-toed feet, keeled over tonight with blood oozing from his eyes and poison mixing in his blood, she would rather not be remembered by anyone else there. Stick to the corners, don’t make eye contact, and just pray to the higher powers that she didn’t bother believing in that the drell assassin son of a bitch wouldn’t take him out first. 

She saw her opportunity a few hours into the night. Aetilus was being pumped with wine and spirits and started to get sloppy. He would stumble with his steps, he would slur his words, his eyes were glazed and unfocused. Shepard took her chance when tripped over his feet on the way to the bathroom, grumbling about how asari these days couldn’t be relied on to let him rail them for free. She slipped inside while the party raged on behind her, no one giving her any attention or bother. 

She had it all planned out. Bump into his shoulder, apologize profusely, place the poison just underneath the crook of his arm. Turians had an unplated part where the human elbow would be, but like humans had very minimal nerve endings. One little needle, barely more than a pinch, and he would be coughing up blood and bile in just three short hours. She’d done it countless times before, it was her preferred method to take out turians. They never suspected humans, anyway. Some pride thing, she didn’t know or care enough to give it any more thought. 

She waited outside the door to the bathroom. He was taking his good old time. Shepard, with a pang of disgust, wondered if he was jerking off in the stall-- it seemed like something he would do. But after ten minutes, she began to grow impatient. She was normally not one to deviate from the plan, but the longer she waited outside the more likely it was for someone to notice her. Swearing under her breath, she tentatively opened the door of the bathroom. 

Aetilus was on the ground. Blue blood gushed from a gash on his neck, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, his mouth opened as if the last thing he did was gasp. Shepard groaned-- not because her escape was going to be a helluva lot more difficult now, nor because now she would have to explain to her boss that no, she didn’t ignore the directive completely and opt for a gory, bloody death. 

She groaned because a little message popped up on her omnitool. She knew exactly who it was from before even having to look. 

Too slow. Better luck next time. Xx.

[worktheraft]

kind of curious about thane's education like we know he's been trained to be a professional assassin for all his life so it's reasonable to assume that his upbringing & education are heavily combat-centered and less focused on culture. after all what's the point of teaching asari literature or turian history or human philosophy or anything to a guy who's literally meant to be a living weapon. and yet dude talks like he's got three English degrees and seems quite literate in both his own culture (constantly referencing ancient drell mythologies) and alien ones (quoting human philosopher hobbes). wtf thane, where did you get all that? spent all your spare time reading Homer n shit when you're not busy bombing krogans?

[omniblades-and-stars]

following the current, circling the drain

read on a03 | spotify playlist for good vibes

Well, shit, this certainly complicates things. Found myself in a bit of a conundrum now, haven't I? You probably have too, since you're also sitting in this shitty little cracker box of a "prison cell" in the basement of self-proclaimed warlord and arms dealer Sitis Epirian's sort-of-mansion. Or what counts as a mansion on this blessed rock called Omega. It’s more like a mercenary compound with fancy art tacked up on the walls than an actual mansion. Big and fortified, just like any hobbyist warlord should have.

Name's Inonsi, I'd say it's good to meet you, but the circumstances being what they are ...

Shit, will you calm down? Stop freaking out, it's not so bad here. They even put a bucket in here so you can piss somewhere other than your pants or the floor. I've been stuck in worse, comes with the territory. If you wait patiently, everything will work out, you can trust me on that. I've never let something like six-inch bulletproof glass with kinetic impact barriers, high tech security systems, locks, and a literal mercenary army stop me before. And if you so happen to slip out when I'm done ... well, that's none of my business, now is it?

I know what you're thinking, how did the drell with beautiful shining scales and eyes like endless obsidian pools end up getting manhandled and tossed into a man like Epirian's torture dungeon? Well, I could tell you the entire story from start to finish in exacting and exhaustive detail, right down to the number of buttons on my father's dinner jacket that he wore one time when I was five years old (seven brass buttons that caught the light and shimmered like small stars, by the way), but I won't do that. You humans don't have the attention span for that kind of biography.

But we've got some time to kill, I love talking about myself, and you seem like you're on the verge of a stroke. You need a distraction. Put your feet up friend, relax and let the tide flow out to the sea.

 

Disappearing Apprentice

I was a special child, training under a specialist known far and wide for her skills in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. Why was a child training under someone like that? Easy enough answer, the Compact. The hanar saved my people two centuries ago and now there's some long-held belief that all drell owe a debt to the hanar for it. And so sometimes, promising young upstarts with apparent skill in sneaking around and good balance get plucked from their parents to be trained as assassins, soldiers and mercenaries, and they're supposed to be thankful for it.

Etensan Laon was a difficult mistress, impossible to please.

"Again!" She shouts. A crimson scaled hand flies out and wraps tight around my ankle. One short tug topples me from my perch on the worn balance beam, the fading vinyl covering over the center evidences the apprentices of times past. I land hard on my back, my breath comes in short, painful gasps, her fingers are still digging around my ankle. She sneers down at me, lips turned up in the left corner with disdain. There are white stripes running from the crown of her head to her neck. "Balance and attention, Inonsi! Simply remaining upright when you land your jump is not sufficient. You will fall to your death if a strong breeze catches you unaware, as I have just done."

I am only seven years old, but she will not let go of my ankle. I know I must free myself from her grasp. One cannot depend on never being caught. Her talons scrape against my scales, still sore from the last two days we have been doing this exercise, repeating this exact scenario. "Yes, Sera Laon," I say before I swing my other leg beneath hers and attempt to pull her down. She does not fall to the ground, her knee only buckles, but her grip around my ankle weakens and I roll back, pulling myself free.

It is sloppy, unskilled, but it works. I leap back onto the balance beam to start again. I must be perfect. Etensan Laon does not tolerate imperfection.

Oh, sorry about that. Happens sometimes. You get used to it.

Well, I trained with Laon until I was ten years old. I was great. At ten years old, if something had a neck, I could theoretically snap it. If there was something to climb, leap from, hide behind, or twist myself into, I could do it. You know that thing in all the spy movie vids where the spy disappears into a crowd or into a passing shadow? Well, I could do that too. But I wasn't perfect, and I hated that as much as Laon seemed to hate me. It worked out in the end though.

Because I got to leave.

I was allowed to visit with my parents sometimes, and one of those times, my world went upside down. You see dear old dad got involved in some political scandal, the nature of which is quite embarrassing if you know anything about hanar-drell politics, which you don't, so don't worry your head about it. Suffice to say, he and mom elected to leave Kahje and well, they weren't going to leave precious little Inonsi behind. I waved goodbye to Kahje from the private passenger cabin of a very pricey transport shuttle. I was ten and to my mind it was an exciting adventure. Besides, I'd gotten in trouble with Laon because I had been caught stealing yetae blossoms from the tree in the meditation garden, and my parents were in such a rush to get off world that she never had the opportunity to tattle on me.

How was I supposed to know you weren't allowed to pluck them straight from the tree? It's not like there were signs posted around the ancient tree that I willfully ignored from the moment I arrived at the training center to the moment I left it. The blossoms smelled so sweet. If they didn't want me taking them, maybe they shouldn't have smelled so good. Following the rules has never been my strong suit.

If my parents had known then exactly how often I was stealing they might have kept a better eye on me once we landed at our destination, because flowers from a tree didn't even really count as stealing, there were other things. Mostly Laon's things. I didn't even keep them, I would just sneak into her quarters or pick her pockets and take things. Datapads, credit chits, clothing, incense burners ... whatever I could get my little hands on. I threw almost all of it into the ocean. She never caught me stealing anything that mattered. Just those fucking flowers that she treated like holy relics.

Urchin? Sort of.

And then, middle, middle, middle. You don't want to hear about the quiet years on Teyolia, where father dearest conducted secretive business, and I definitely did not make a habit of listening in on his conversations or hacking his computer terminal and reading his encrypted emails. I most certainly didn't bug his office. Nope. Not Inonsi, she never ever would have done that.

Just kidding. Let's just say that perhaps nature versus nurture might lean more toward nature in my case. My poor, long-suffering mother.

I kept to myself at school mostly, I stuck out like ... well a bright orange and purple thumb in a sea of tall, blue and beautiful girls. I was easy to mock, short by asari standards (and also drell standards, but that's neither here nor there), and very, very different. It's okay though, the meanest of the girls, Paresya, found a lot of her school supplies missing. A lot of her girlfriends too, as we got older. What can I say? I have a certain mystique about me, it would be a shame not to leverage that to my advantage.

Oh please, don't give me that look. You're in this cell too. Don't tell me you've never done something juvenile and vindictive like stealing someone's girlfriend or boyfriend out of spite. I don't believe it.

When I was sixteen I grew dreadfully bored of school and of teenage asari superiority, so I started skipping classes frequently. It's incredible how long you can get away with that if you know how to hack into the school's attendance system and reprogram the VI that calls the parents when you're absent. All those phone calls went to some takeout joint in the next city over. By the time my parents were contacted by a real person, I'd missed approximately a quarter of that year's lessons.

You know, those asari do a very good job of making their colonies and cities look like marvelous, utopic jewels. If you stay on all the main thoroughfares, in all of the tourist centers, you might even find yourself believing it. But at sixteen, I found my way to the seedy underbelly of Iare, a moderately large city in the main colony of Teyolia. I found a group of kids, far more diverse than I'd ever been exposed to before. I was used to living first around drell and hanar exclusively, and then mostly asari. They were poor kids, a pair of turian siblings whose parents were day laborers, a salarian whose dad was sort of like mine, but unlike mine had recently had the rug pulled out from under him, and an asari who didn't talk about her family at all.

I pulled the same trick. They were fun kids, and I didn't want them to know that I got to go home at night to a nice apartment with flawed, but loving parents. Zelthatea, Zel to anyone who didn’t want to get socked in the face, didn’t talk about her family for much darker reasons, but I was sixteen, and using her method seemed like the best way to fit in.

We were tight, those kinds of bonds formed by committing small acts of theft and property damage together. The kinds formed through spending whole days together rough housing and running away from cops, shrieking with relieved laughter as we narrowly escaped capture. And then they found out I could do tricks. I could scale a building, leap from rooftop to rooftop, and I started teaching them how to do some of it. Soon enough, we had ourselves a little gang of roof running hooligans, we would do beer runs on convenience stores, and escape into alleys and up and away from prying eyes, that sort of thing.

We got too big for our ill-fitting pants, though. I wish I could tell you that I don’t remember whose idea it was to break into a corporate office and try to make off with company secrets, but if a drell ever tell you that, you know they’re lying. Only one of us had a dad who was in the corporate espionage business, so you do the math. There I was, in the CEO’s office with Zel, Apus and Catiae were our lookouts and were pretending to be janitors. Dex (the salarian, he didn’t like us using his real name) was our man on the outside, he was supposed to keep an eye out for security and police activity. He lost his nerve the first time he saw someone who looked like she might have been security and darted off without telling us!

“Shit, something’s up, get out of there!” Apus calls into the room right before tossing the trash cart over on its side and dashing down the hall towards the fire stairs. Catiae is hot on his heels. Her secondhand boots crash against the tile floor noisily as her footsteps pound heavy, sounding her escape. They don’t quite fit her yet. They were her mothers, one of the buckles hangs loose, it clinks mockingly as she ducks through the door.

Zel looks at me, panic in wide, ocean blue eyes. She is already crying, but she doesn’t want to leave me behind. She is always so sweet, usually quiet. Three emerald lines draw down over her pointed chin, the only facial markings she has. “Zel, hide! I’ll run a distraction. Don’t leave until it’s safe,” I say. Out of all of us, she doesn’t deserve to get caught committing a real crime.

I snatch the OSD I was using to transfer a clone of the CEO’s terminal on and beat feet out of the door. Four guards turn the corner, they wear heavy armor, deep blue, accented with gold. I wave my hand at them, making sure they see the OSD held in my fingers. “Genteux gives his regards!” I shout. Genteux doesn’t exist, or at least, I do not believe he does, I’ve never heard of anyone named Genteux. I run for the elevator and dart inside. I send it down to the first floor, climb out of the maintenance hatch and pry open the doors on the second. One, two, three, four running steps to the window. It is not the kind that opens. Shit, I panic. I pick up a chair and send it hurling through with a neon biotic burst.

No hesitation, I leap through, tuck and roll to the ground. It hurts, but I haven’t broken anything. I land right in the center of a congregation of Iare’s finest, guns raised and trained on me.

Everyone but Dex got caught. I did my best to take the fall for it. It was my big-brained idea after all. But well, my dad wasn’t exactly a paragon of upstanding citizenry, as I have alluded to already. Money floated into someone’s grasping hands, and I was let off with a slap on the wrist. Despite my desperate pleading, daddy dearest did not extend his kindness to the poor kids who got wrapped up in my ego.

Well, my days as an up-and-coming criminal mastermind were cut quite short at that point. Mom was furious, dad was embarrassed, and apparently lost a lot of business (judging by the angry phone calls I was still horning my way into) because I allegedly chose my target based on some conversations that were very private. Allegedly.

We picked up and moved again. I won’t tell you where to, dad still lives there, conducting his business.

They say there’s no honor among thieves, but I am daddy’s little girl. I never put his lifestyle in jeopardy again, and I will not do so now.

Mom eventually wised up to his shenanigans, by the way, and is living the high life in the tropics. Last I heard, she’s started seeing a nice young drell. Good for her. I believe you humans would call her a cougar. She seems happy, and that’s what matters.

Hey, settle! The guard’s just cranky because of the little surprise I left in one of the bathrooms. I mean, maybe some people think a flashbang rigged up so that the pin gets pulled when the door opens isn’t a good prank, but those people aren’t tormenting assholes like these guys. This guard’s a pussy, he’s just trying to rattle our cage a bit. Keep it together, will you? Losing your cool because the guy is threatening to pull our fingernails out one by one because he has a migraine and moderate to severe hearing loss now is a surefire way to miss our chance.

Now, where was I? Oh, don’t answer that, it’s hypothetical. I know exactly where I was.

Actually an Acrobat

I was kept under lock and key right up until my parents could no longer do so without it being considered false imprisonment or kidnapping. I mean, I still got out. Often. Civilian security is child’s play, and it’s frankly embarrassing that more people don’t know how to hack open a regular old apartment door and slip out into the night.

This story has to, of course, touch on tragic young love. All the great stories do. And mine is pretty good, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Upon gaining the freedom afforded by adulthood, I immediately tried my hand at the nightclub scene. I learned two things right away, club goers are easy pick-pocketing targets, and that the cocktail called the “Rough Tide” is the best alcoholic beverage to be crafted by clever asari mixologists. Its main components are lunassa, a very strong asari liquor, and juice from the olan fruit native to Kahje. There are other things mixed in it, but I’ve never bothered with the finer points of cocktail mixing. The sweetness of the fruit masks the surprising strength of the liquor, and when you stand up the tide sweeps you off your feet.

I’ve made some of my best bad decisions under the influence of a Rough Tide … or three … or four. My favorite best bad decision was Tertus Achaso, even when you account for the aforementioned tragedy. I was sitting at the bar, pleasantly drunk but not out of my mind on it, when a barefaced turian with a charming smile, chipped third tooth, and sharp, honey eyes slid onto the seat next to me. His first words to me were, “So do the colors go all the way down?” Very charming. Very smooth. It should have been very off-putting. But what can I say? I’m a sucker for a good smile.

“Buy me another drink, and maybe you’ll find out,” I answered. I was looking for a good time, and it seemed I had found it.  What? Oh, the answer? I am all the colors of a desert sunset from my head to my toes. You should be so lucky to see me in my full glory.

Stop distracting me.

We talked for a while, and he did buy me a drink, another Rough Tide. He laughed when I told him that I couldn’t stand the taste of hard liquor. He laughed even harder when I admitted that I had (still have, thank you) a terrible sweet tooth. One thing led to the only place this was ever going – a cheap hotel room.

He smells of fresh cut lumber and canvas. There is a scar cut deep into the keel of his chest, long healed. Dark brown hide, patterned with sandy, rough plates.  He’s surprisingly gentle for someone so large. Fingers tenderly trace down-

Ahem, sorry. That’s not the kind of memory that one should share, especially with a stranger. We’ll just gloss over that by me telling that he worked for a traveling circus, and I happen to be very flexible. I made an impression on him, and he made an impression on me.

So Inonsi runs off with the no-so-smooth talking turian to join the circus, right? I had stars in my eyes, like all young women do. Tertus could do no wrong, and I became enamored with both him and the idea that I could make a living of being an entertainer. I wowed audiences with suicidal feats of acrobatic grace, tight ropes, swinging on long swathes of cloth, leaping from heights that made most people sick. Finally, I was putting my training to use. No more petty thievery for me, and breaking and entering because I was bored, I was going straight.

Ha!

See the thing was that those kinds of circuses, the ones that are not owned by multibillion credit entertainment conglomerates, are filled to the brim with criminals and rejects of every stripe. Beautiful, gentle, and sweet Tertus was one of them. A criminal, I mean. He was probably a reject too, but he was my, admittedly very small, world so I didn’t see him that way. Some nights, he would step away from the other stagehands to go make phone calls. I’ve always been too curious for my own good. I listened in on those too, I am ashamed to say. I am capable of some shame, not much, but some.

Look, I didn't listen because I didn't trust him. I just like to know things. People are always having such interesting conversations, don't you think?

If only listening in on his conversations drove me to some sort of action. But it didn't. He had the kind of debts a lowlife criminal with a former drug addiction came upon. Tertus did more crimes to make creds so he could pay those debts, circus work does not pay well, and in the process, he pissed some very bad people off. This place wasn't like Omega, where you can't throw a rock without hitting some wannabe mob boss, so he thought he would be safe traveling with a planet-side circus.

It was the morning before our first show in a new city, I'd been with the circus and Tertus for several months at that point (eight months and four days according to the local calendar, to be exact). We actually had an auditorium to perform in that time, and I was excited do all of my tricks. There were poles to climb, flowing fabrics to spin around in, things to dive off of. It was going to be magnificent, and people were going to learn my name. And Tertus and I were going to live happily forever. And he was late to meet me at a diner for breakfast. That wasn't very unusual, circus folk run on a different sort of clock - the kind that's always late.

But after an hour of waiting, I decided to go looking for him. As I was crossing over a foot bridge heading back towards the hotel most of us were staying at, I heard boots slamming on concrete. Have you ever heard a sound that's innocuous, an everyday sound, but it's so wrong it sets your teeth on edge?

Sun is warm on my back. One, two, three, four rushing steps, panicked breathing. I look up and see Tertus running full speed toward me. He doesn't see me at first, too focused on watching his feet to make sure he doesn't trip. His eyes meet mine, halfway across the bridge, eyes wide with fear. "Go! Run!" he shouts as he grows nearer to me. But I can see what he cannot.

Three men carrying assault rifles are gaining on him. Two turians, one krogan.

I know something that Tertus doesn't. You can't outrun a bullet. The world slows to a crawl. Fear roots me to my spot until it is too late to do anything to save him. I have never heard a gun fired outside of a range or without protection for my ears before. Three, four, five muzzle flashes. Cobalt blood like rain splatters across the ground, Tertus falls forward as though he has been pushed.

My training spurs me to action. I’ve never actually taken a life before, but these men hurt my Tertus. I run towards them, using my very unimpressive biotic talent to generate a barrier. Dodge to the right, jump onto the railing of the bridge, leap from the rail, use the momentum to snap the neck of the turian closest to me. Maintain my momentum, stay in fluid motion. There's a gun in my hand and the second turian falls with the sound of automatic gunfire filling my ears. It's too fucking loud.

Something burns in my leg and my stomach, but I can’t stop moving. If the krogan gets his hands on me, I'll die. I leap onto his back, I nearly drop the assault rifle, it’s too big for me. I launch myself from his crest plate and fire down into his neck while I’m still in the air. It's sloppy, it's messy, it's too fucking loud. He’s still coming, and I just keep firing. It's over. I'm covered in blood, indigo, cadmium orange, and my own emerald. A cruel painting in brilliant organic color. I run to Tertus.

He's already dead. Honey eyes glassy. Jaw lax, mandibles hang limp next to his dear, sweet face. I scream, everything hits me all at once. The fear, the anger, the heartbreak. But I have no time, I hear more boots on the ground, and I am surrounded by bodies and covered in blood.

I don't hesitate. I leap into the river and follow the current to somewhere new.

Please, don't apologize. Everyone on this station has a tragic backstory. I bet you have one that's a real doozy. The river flows out to the sea, and so too I've learned that you have to keep living. You humans have a saying, "Go with the flow." It fits very nicely with my personal philosophy. Which is why I have to insist that you keep your pants on and stay calm, our time will come. If you try to take your chance too soon, it fucks things up. Swim with the current, not against it, friend. You'll just make yourself tired fighting the undertow, and then you'll sink to the bottom.

We wouldn't want that, now would we?

Star System Hopping Woman of Mystery Thief

If you have to ask how or why I ended up on Omega, I'd have to ask you if you've been listening at all. True, I don't live here full time. I'm sort of a star system hopping woman of mystery. But I do end up on Omega very often. You'd be surprised how many art sellers and antique collectors are just straight up criminals. Or maybe you wouldn't be. You are in the same basement holding cell as I am, after all. Or did you come here for something other than stealing priceless relics from a murderer?

Please don't tell me you came here to steal his weapons! How uninspired.

Anyways, of course I mourned Tertus. But I was scared, possibly wanted for the murder of three people, maybe four if you account for the possibility that it would have been very easy for the local police force to pin the whole disaster on me. I was naïve, but I wasn’t stupid. So I did what every young, unfortunate fool who gets tangled up in big time criminal activity and is too stubborn to ask dad for help does: I caught the first transport to Omega I could get. (I snuck aboard some mercenary gang’s smuggling vessel. I fit into crates quite nicely, don’t you know?)

Here's what I learned my first week on Omega:

No one gives a shit about you. They don’t care who you are, who you were, or what you did. Minding your own business is a matter of survival here.

The pickpockets here don’t even try to hide what they’re doing. They just run real fast when they get caught. I always catch them.

The bartenders here have never heard of a Rough Tide. At any of the bars and clubs.

There are a lot of assholes here who think they’re hiding the fact that they have goods that are worth something.

Hallex is a great time if taken in moderation and while dancing with bright lights and pretty girls.

Oh, don’t give me that look. Go back to lesson number one and mind your own fucking business. I was dealing with the traumatic death of my boyfriend, and the guilt of killing people. Besides, you learn to have a more relaxed view of party drugs when your own skin secretes a toxin that makes people see sounds and hear colors. I’m a walking party drug. What? No, you can’t try! What, am I supposed to let a stranger suck on my fingers or lick my face just because they’re curious? I don’t know you well enough for that. There’s a two drink minimum for that kind of talk.

Besides, you’ll need a clear head to get out of here. Or did you forget that we’re in a warlord’s torture cave?

It didn’t take very long for me to grow bored of partying my feelings away, and even less time for me to start planning a heist. Eh, less of a heist, and more like I broke into some rich pirate king’s hideout and stole anything I could carry that was worth something. I also hacked his terminals and wiped all of his accounts and infected everything with a computer in the building with a virus. His operations came to a screeching halt, and I gleefully lined my pockets with his ill-gotten gains.

Oh, you thought I was one of those do-gooder thieves who robs the rich to feed the poor or whatever? You’re too funny! I have rules against stealing from poor folk, and I don’t use street kids and beggars in any of my schemes like some others of my ilk. But I’m in this business for myself.

Breaking into low security hideouts and penthouse suites when no one was home lost its luster very quickly. I’ve always loved a challenge, and I’m prone to acting unwisely when I’m bored. I started traveling again, I’ve hit museums, government archives, art galleries, even corporate research facilities. Sometimes, someone pays me (I come pricey) to steal something for them, but mostly I hear about something I really want to touch (or fence, whatever,) and I go and take it. If my marks don’t want me to steal it, they should secure it better.

Oh, you’ll love this. Once, I received word that a relic of one Earth’s ancient royalty was going to be up for auction at some high society party in Paris, yes that Paris. Collectors have been shuffling around Marie Antoinette's pearl and diamond pendant for literal centuries. It was one of those “benefits” that the rich and famous throw that never actually benefits anyone but their own image. Stealing it was surprisingly easy. I stole it before the display case ever made it to the auction floor, but they didn’t even notice it was gone until they unveiled it to start the bidding. It was my first, and only, taste of champagne.

A waiter wearing a tuxedo hands me a fluted glass filled with golden, bubbling liquid. I taste it, and I’m very unimpressed. It’s very bitter for something that looks so tempting. A warm chuckle takes me by surprise, and I turn to see a handsome young man, dark curly hair, very dark skin and wide brown eyes, who is watching me. “Not a fan of the beverage offerings, I take it?” he asks jovially.

“No, I’m afraid not. The drinks on the homeworld are much sweeter,” I respond. There’s a slim-to-none chance that a random human on Earth would know anything about Kahje, and an exactly zero chance that he would know about Rakhana at all. I could tell him literally anything about my “homeworld” (one which I had not been to since I was ten, the other a place that was more cautionary tale and myth than homeworld), and he would have to believe me. I set the glass on a nearby table.

"Are you here for the auction? There aren't very many aliens here." He nods his head back toward to crowd starting to form on the bidding floor. He's right, there are a few asari here and one salarian, bright yellow skin with emerald speckles on his horns and the backs of his hands. I know my time is coming soon. The man smiles, teeth shining pearls, his left incisor is too high on his gum, giving it the appearance of an animal's fang. I like it. It's a shame I'll be leaving soon. I never learn his name.

"I am as a matter of fact, here on behalf of a hanar friend. He has an interest in antiques from other cultures, but sadly, could not make the trip himse-" My lie is cut off by first worried tittering up at the stage and the chaos and panic erupts as they open the secure vault container and find it empty.

The man looks around frantically, trying to piece together what is happening until his eyes fall on me again. More specifically, to the necklace hanging framed by the daring neckline of my suit jacket. A single tear-shaped pearl hanging beneath diamonds arranged in a ribbon’s bow, and above that one large round diamond, all hanging from a cheap silver chain I nicked from a department store jewelry counter earlier that day.

I press my finger to my lips and whisper, "Watch this." I take off running for the open balconies, pushing party goers out of my way, one, two, three strides before I am standing on the balcony rail, the small barrier to a long drop and a messy death. I rip the pendant free of the necklace and place it in a secured pocket sewn inside of my suit and step off the balcony.

With a twist my body I am hurtling towards the ground in a dive. A press of a small button on my bracelet as I spread my arms, my daring fashion choice turns from a strange, webbed cape sewn into the arms and body of my jacket, into semi-rigid wings. Soaring between skyscrapers is one of the most freeing experiences I have ever had.

It took a little doing, but I managed to sneak off Earth the next day. I still have the pendant. I wear it to parties sometimes. What do you mean, why do I wear it? It's jewelry, isn't it? I don't have an art gallery, friend. I don't typically keep things in glass cases. But don't get it twisted, even if you found out where I keep my things and occasionally live, you wouldn't be able to get in. That pearl stays mine.

Oh! That's our cue. That sound that just rocked the very foundation of this building is how I'm getting out of here. If you would be so kind as to press down on the bench over there with your boot while I - uh - change positions here to - uh - get better leverage with a good kick. There's a cotter pin in there I can use to break the lock.

Alright, on three be ready so you don't eat it when the bench collapses. One, two, three!

Beautiful! Now while the guards are all going to check out the giant hole in the wall- why did I plant bombs? Rule number one of thieving, always have a plan for if you get caught. I wouldn't have been caught if it weren't for some clown getting caught with their grabby little hands in Epirian's weapons cache just as I was heading to my original escape route. Funny that. But it’s no sweat off my back (mostly because I don’t sweat) but also because I always have a secondary escape plan.

Though they aren’t usually quite so … explosive.

But all is not lost. These idiots couldn't do a successful pat down on me even if I was naked as sin. There's an OSD in a hidden pocket with clones of all of Sitis' terminals and datapads.

What? Oh, you thought I was here for the art or his antiques? Ha! I guess I did allude to the art quite often. No. Dear old dad needed a hand. Family business, and all that. Do you know how many creds those corporate bigwigs at companies like say ... Armax Arsenal will pay to keep proof that they've been dealing super advanced weaponry to pirate king arms dealers an ugly little secret?

So much it would make your head spin. Let's say that good ol' Sitis deals with a few of these bigwigs. Papa dearest collects the blackmail money from those nasty weapons manufacturers, and dear, sweet Inonsi helps collapse Epirian's little criminal empire. For purely selfish reasons, of course. (Dear, sweet Inonsi also makes a fat stack of creds in the process.)

Now, stop interrupting. This is a Saronis Applications Securitron-X78 model haptic interface lock. A baby could open this with the right tools, but I do still need to focus. Just insert the pin into this little gap here, use it as a conduit for a little biotic pulse like such and bingo! We're almost home free, my friend.

If you’re going to stick with me to get out of here, you’ll need to do what I say, when I say it. We go with the flow, take our opportunities as they come to us, not a moment before, not a moment after. If we play our cards right, we’ll slip out unnoticed. And hey, if you impress me on our way out, maybe you’ll get the pleasure of being another one of my best bad decisions. What do you say?

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 2 replay, Garrus’ loyalty mission:

-Bailey thinks someone is feeding Fade inside information and that’s how he’s avoiding C-Sec. This is the first hint that “Fade” is Harkin.

-In the warehouse, you immediately meet “Fade” (really his contact) who asks you who needs to disappear.

This feels like part of the mission is missing. Why is Fade’s contact here? Why does he assume someone needs to disappear?

I suspect part of the mission to trigger this contact was cut. I’m curious why. Garrus’ mission is already short.

-If you don’t take the renegade interrupt to shoot them, the krogan bodyguards just leave.

That’s pretty funny. The game clearly wanted you to shoot them.

I have the impression one of the developers asked “So, what do we do if the player doesn’t shoot?” and another said, “Eh, for now just have them walk away. We’ll come up with something later.” Then they didn’t.

-The contact mentions that Harkin is helping Blue Suns infiltrate organizations and businesses on the Citadel.

Why are they doing so? They’re a mercenary group.

This is the first and last time it’s mentioned, so add this to the tally of hooks ME2 provides that ME3 doesn’t use.

-And Harkin is conveniently at the entrance of the Factory District when Shepard and co show up out of the blue.

Their timing today is amazing. That made it easier to find the right factory. Can you imagine how long it would have taken if Shepard had to check each factory to find Harkin? Or if he was at home that day?

-Garrus says he’ll give Sidonis an easy death compares to what the rest of his men received. It’s implied they were tortured.

No wonder their deaths are haunting him.

-In Thane’s mission, Shepard chooses (or not) to beat up Mouse for information. Thane would prefer the mission was nonviolent.

In Garrus’ mission, Garrus beats up Harkin for information. Shepard chooses whether or not to hold him back.

Thane’s at the end of a long and bloody life and making what peace he can with it. Garrus is essentially having an early mid life crisis about the direction his life will go.

Garrus isn’t an assassin, but he has chosen to kill many men in cold blood. I think he’d benefit from speaking with Thane.

-Garrus is only reflective on this mission if Shepard challenges his decision to kill Sidonis.

If they do not, Garrus accomplishes exactly what he sets out to do and closes that part of his life. Nothing forces him to think more deeply about it.

Given that most of the loyalty missions are meant to drive character growth, I assume that Bioware expected players to go the paragon route.

-Shepard has a lot of faith that Garrus won’t shoot them. I’m sure he has bullets that can go through more than person.

-Even after you tell him that you’re blocking Garrus’ shot, Sidonis keeps moving. He decides to lean over a railing!

That’s the clearest evidence that he has a death wish.

-What finally convinces Garrus to not shoot Sidonis is Sidonis saying there’s nothing he can do to make his actions right.

I think that’s what Garrus really wanted – to hear Sidonis take responsibility and admit that he fucked up.

Turians take personal responsibility very seriously, so that’s probably what showed Garrus that Sidonis had some chance of doing better.

-The mission summary says that Cerberus has operatives in C-Sec. Lovely. And a bit of foreshadowing for the Citadel Coup in ME3.

Normandy

-Thane says that when he married Irikah, the hanar let him leave their service. He chose to continue to freelance.

The lengths this drell is willing to go to deny he has any culpability in the assassinations he’s performed is impressive.

Also, I wonder how Irikah felt about it?

If nothing else, the assassinations kept Thane from home. Did she ever wish he’d quit and take a job that let him stay with the family? I’m sure he could have found something, even if it didn’t pay as well.

-After killing his wife’s murderers, Thane was passively suicidal until he met Shepard.

Understandable. He’s said repeatedly his wife is what connected him to the world. Without her, he was adrift.

He should have reconnected with Kolyat, but I can understand why he’d feel that Kolyat was better off without him. He did mention in his loyalty mission that he checked in with him after killing his wife’s murderers, but decided to stay away.

-Samara has two conversations after her initial post-loyalty dialogue. Unusual, except for Mordin.

-Unlike everyone else, attempting to initiate a relationship with Samara is renegade.

-She lets you down very gently. She seems genuinely attracted to Shepard but resolute that she is not going to pursue it.

-If you stay renegade throughout, she implies sex without emotion is common for maidens. She’s only interested in sex with a connection.

-The entire point of this conversation is to establish that Samara is not a romance option.

It’s actually pretty funny that Bioware felt this required its own independent conversation.

I’m happy they did so – Bioware leaned hard on asari being “available” in ME1. It’s a good counterbalance to have an asari squadmate that isn’t interested.

-Garrus believes that Shepard will win but they’ll definitely lose people.

I look forward to proving him wrong.

-Good turians follow bad orders and know their place. Garrus is a rebel because he argues against bad decisions.

Garrus in fandom is often considered a “yes man” because he always goes along with Shepard’s decisions. Yet his willingness to question Shepard until his concerns are appeased are what make him a bad turian.

Turians that don’t fit in because they argue too much are probably fast tracked for command or tapped for special operations, such as spectres.

-Turian ships have more operations discipline but greater personal freedom.

I’m curious about what this like. How is operation discipline tighter? What personal freedoms do they have?

I don’t know much about miliatry operations. I suppose they’re given less leeway on how tasks are performed.

For personal freedoms – less strict uniform requirements? Able to take drugs while off duty? Fewer restrictions on relationships?

Give me examples, Bioware! I enjoyed those ME1 info dumps.

-Turians are implied to be highly active. Their ships have training rooms for exercise, combat sims, and they engage in full contact sparring.

I’m left with the impression that one of the responsibilities of their leaders is keeping them busy so they don’t find their own distractions. Like how you need to give a livestock dog a job or they’ll find their own. :) Turians need ACTION and will provide their own if not given any. If you want the ship to remain intact, make them burn off that energy.

-When speaking about the scout he sparred with, Garrus casually says the “betters” in the room were not pleased that they kept drawing.

The choice of the word “betters” is telling of the Hierarchy mindset. I bet Garrus casually uses the word “lessers” too and doesn’t mean it as an insult.

[sol-consort]

I keep thinking about Thane and being trained to be an assassin since he was a child.

A child, A CHILD! No matter how much Thane sugarcoats it, the hanar did treat the drell as a servant class. To steal someone's entire childhood? There is a huge difference between a willing adult wanting to serve them and a literal child who can't consent being trained to kill.

But would you have that argument with him? Would you break it to him just how bad the hanar are to the drell? How his world view is very biased since they indoctrinated him as a child?

Especially since he doesn't have much time to live. It becomes this dilemma of knowing the truth will hurt him when he's already suffered enough and close to death, or lying to him just to keep him happy in his delusion just so he doesn't suffer more and dies with a comforted mind.

Do you lie? Do you spare him the pain and try to free Kolyat from the hanar instead? Or do you force him to face the bitter truth that he wasn't the one to abandon and neglect his family, it was the hanar depriving him of a normal childhood and making him only know how to kill, not how to he a father or a husband.

In another life, I think Thane would've loved to be a priest and help people. He has such a kind soul, I don't think he would've taken a life if he ever had a choice.