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[arts-butthound]

Ugh, was having a great time mocking my recently imprisoned rival when I noticed the camera positioning makes it so that I appear behind the bars, thus framing me as trapped in a metaphorical prison of the narrative, now my whole day is ruined. Fuck.

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He baby. We should have been allowed to plant a big ol' kiss on that forehead.

Kallo Jath

MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA -> (7/?)

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Liara: "...Javik, the book has been out for months.."

Javik: "Yes."

Liara "WE'VE SOLD MILLIONS OF COPIES."

Javik: "Ye. ::)"

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🍌 🍓 🥭 🥥 peas for my ot3 (inonsi/nilea/lou) and korak because im rotating him rn

🍌~ What are your ocs weapon of choice and why? (if applicable).

Inonsi prefers lightweight pistols if she's going to have to use a weapon. She doesn't prefer getting into firefights or taking lives, though she's quite capable of both.

Nilea loves the M-99 Saber. "But Daisy!" You say, "that's a ridiculous fucking gun!" And to that I say shut up! It's a huge fuck off rifle for a tall and strong woman. Let her have her big fuck off rifle. (Yes this is just because I really love that gun in game, don't @ me.)

Lou carries an M5 Phalanx that she modified herself. It's lightweight, it's accurate and it just looks darn sexy strapped to her thigh don't you think?

Korak is a no guns guy. He's not strictly a pacifist, but he has never used a gun and never intends to use a gun.

🍓 ~ What item comforts your oc?

Inonsi I answered more in depth a little early, but the serious answer is a picture of her and Tertus.

Are spreadsheets considered an item for the purposes of this question? Nilea isn't really a comfort items kind of girl. But she does find organizing information and data entry a calming exercise.

Lou's comfort comes in the form of good food and some just downright terrible old harlequin style romance novels.

Korak's comfort comes in the prayers he says and also the insignia of Aumellio's regiment that he has from before the Reaper war.

🥭 ~ What person comforts your oc?

Inonsi doesn't currently have like ... a person. Unless I REALLY change some things in PtK (like putting Inonsi in this story at all). It was Tertus. She's not lonely though. She has friends, and finds a life of short, whirlwind romances and flings to be quite satisfying!

For Nilea prior to the events of PtK it is Yaeno. They're very good friends. Yaeno was there for Nilea when her mother died during the geth attack on the Citadel.

Lou's comfort person is her dad. Which is extremely very tragic considering what the whole premise of PtK. As I'm often saying, Sweet Baby Lou, I'm sorry for what I'm doing to you.

Korak's comfort person is his adopted daughter, Trisha, of course. ☺️

🥥 ~ What is your ocs favorite food?

Okay, I'm going to go with real human food that I can go eat right now because I don't have the brain juice for inventing alien cuisine.

Inonsi - Cotton candy.

Nilea - A good, well seasoned steak, rare, with a side of grilled vegetables and a good glass of red wine.

Lou - Bacon and waffles.

Korak - He wants the spiciest curry he can get his hands on please and thank you.

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Follow me for more ❤️

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Shaeed fluff? Coming from you?

15. Trembling hands

🖤🖤🖤

Okay, I had a lot of feelings today and I managed to twist them into something I think. Also I got a little carried away.

Also here's this song that put me in my feelings this afternoon:

Her Hands Were Shaking

Her hands were shaking.

Well, all of her was shaking, trembling. Somewhere in the utter dark, halfway off the mortal coil, she laid beneath the rubble, dying very slowly. She drifted in and out of consciousness, the moments she was awake were hardly lucid, visited as she was by hallucinations in the dark. But then the wreckage started to move, and the shot of adrenaline that sent through her heart set all of her muscles on fire.

It wasn't until familiar, armored hands wrapped around her and hoisted her out of the rubble and broken glass that she'd resigned herself to becoming a part of for what little remained of her life. But the one person more stubborn that she was found and dragged her carcass out of the rubble.

She hated him for it then. Jane tried to tell him to fuck off and let the dead get some goddamn rest. She'd done what she had been brought back to do, was it so much to ask that she get a permanent vacation?

But all that came out was a pitiful whimper, a cry of pain and desolation. She lost consciousness again before she could curse at him and whoever else refused to just let her go in peace.

Her hands were shaking.

Panting, the world came into focus slowly, machines screamed and beeped. Hands were on her, panicked voices spoke words she couldn't understand yet. Jane had a creeping sense of deja vu, like she'd done exactly this before, but the memory was too far away for her to really understand.

Raw fear built and she tried to sit up, she needed to leave. She didn't know where she was, she didn't even know who she was but she knew everything was wrong.

A different hand squeezed hers. “Go back to sleep, Shepard,” he broke through the panic in the room and in her brain. The world grew bleary and unfocused again, and she forgot it even happened.

When she woke up again, still connected to so many machines the electric buzzing from the power supplies threatened to overwhelm her, he was still there. Sitting in a shitty foldout chair in what little room there was in between all of the medical equipment. Shepard groaned, “I must be in hell if I'm in a hospital and you're here.” She tried to smile but every part of her felt like it was on fire, a pained grimace curled at her lips instead.

He rolled his eyes, leaning forward with one arm propped on his knee, “Hell'd be more entertaining. Think this must be goddamn purgatory. Watching you take a weeks-long nap was about to bore me to tears, some of us have work to do, you know?”

“What are you doing here, Zaeed?” Her voice was changed, raspy, dry, and weakened. She felt small, listless. Shifting her head took a gargantuan effort, like a newborn baby unable to hold up its own head.

“Someone had to keep the vultures and boot-lickers away,” he said quietly and looked down at his feet.

Shepard closed her eyes. “Sure,” she said just before dripping off to sleep again.

Her hands trembled, covered in pine needles and bile, as she tried to push herself back up. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she wretched again. She didn't know where she was. Jane had been running towards the beam desperate to end the invasion, when she'd tripped and fell, hitting her head. There were trees all around her now. Blood was in her eyes.

Intentional footsteps snapped twigs, and crunched through dried leaves. “Coming up behind you, Janey,” he warned her just above a whisper. He crouched next to her, examining her face without touching her, concern knitted in his brow. “Do you know where you are?”

“No,” she cried pitifully. Her hand slipped out from under her weight, his were there to catch her before she ate dirt again.

Zaeed wiped the grime off on his pants before brushing hair off of her face so he could look at the cut above her eye. “Middle of nowhere, West Virginia so you can get some peace. Reapers are dead, you fucking dropped them out of the sky.”

Her head hurt so bad, but after a few quiet minutes of trying to pace her breathing with his, she was able to put the pieces back together. It had been months since the hospital. They'd never even really talked about whatever … this was, but in the aftermath of the near end of the world, they hadn't been able to part ways. “From you, that sounds like hero worship,” she said trying to crack a joke. She couldn't mask the trembling in her voice, the anxiety in wide, panicked eyes.

“If I wanted to kiss your ass, Shepard, I'd just pucker up and do it,” he shook his head and helped her up. “Let's get you cleaned up, Jane. I've seen enough of your blood to last a lifetime.”

Her hands were shaking, but they found their home held in ones that were steady.

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Oh, we going off about clone Shepard here? Great! From the clone's perspective, they've got as much right to be Shepard as Shepard. They've been AWARE for about six months at this point, if my memory serves me, I think it's reasonable to believe that they've been grown at the same rate, or slightly excelerated rate, as Our Shepard. (You know, spare parts, body and all.) What makes the two any different?

Unfortunately, we don't get to really dig into the poor sod's psyche, but I do believe it's understandable that they could consider our Shepard a clone of "the real Shepard" too, just one that had the luck of being grown on/around the dead body, instead of just the cells. We're just the "better, more convenient clone." Especially with Brooks and TIM behind the reigns, whispering things (he paid for them to exist, he knew they were still around, he might have even authorized their waking up for all we know. I'm sure he did put Brooks in charge of making a more useful Shepard.) Can you imagine having the memories of someone, having that person's face, no other identity than what's in your head, and being told that you're made for spare parts. You weren't even a person until we graciously woke you up.

You've got the memories of this person but not their morals. The people who have warped what Shepard used to be, used to stand for, so thoroughly and so quickly for the clone that being Shepard- this flawed, ignorant person (hello xenophobia) might even be a badge of shame. Their face isn't their face, but is their face. They are Shepard and not Shepard. Shepard made all these mistakes, Shepard let the aliens taint the mission, Shepard got the universe to the state it's in now. Being a clone of Shepard- you will be seen by the galaxy as responsible for all Shepard ever did. And that's just the information you WAKE UP TO.

Then you've got Brooks, sweet, determined Brooks, saying that you can make it better. Be better. Be the Shepard that sets things right. You just have to deal with the other Shepard who's running around first. The Shepard that will make all the same mistakes as the first one.

There could be so much you could narratively unpack with the clone, how after only a short time alive and one act of betrayal/lack of care, they willingly let themselves die. Unfortunately, they are a one shot dlc character in the midst of a war, and there's only so much time to be given to them. I mean, we barely had time for Javik.

Gods clone-shep breaks my fucking heart. The fandom and the DLC itself treats them as a joke but they are so fucking tragic. Brookes was the real villain and she doesn’t get enough hate.

When we meet clone-shep they’re only six months old. They look like an adult, talk like an adult, they have the faculties of an adult, the thought processes of an adult, but no memories of their own, no life experience to teach them morals. They have the life experience of an infant.

From the moment they wake up they’re told they were just a bag of organs for the person you’re a copy of. They have nothing, own nothing, not even their face is theirs. But Brookes is whispering in their ear, feeding this new naive mind hatred and anger and jealousy. And Clone-Shep follows it, because like an infant they’ll follow and trust the first guiding voice they hear. No one has Clone-Shep’s back except Brookes, Brookes only wants to help them be stronger, Brookes knows what best, Brookes is giving them a purpose. If they follow Brookes they can be happy.

Clone-Shep truly doesn’t know any better. That’s not me making excuses or infantilize them, they truly don’t know, without memories they can’t know.

And the “why you and not me!” line? Soul crushing. Clone-Shep is hurting so fucking much and just want to have a purpose, just wants to belong.

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I can't make fun of him. I can't make fun of him. I can't make fun of him

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Friendship is worth the work! I wish we saw more examples of it working out for people like this.

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...I mean, if I meet someone nice out there- I volunteer.

NASA advertising "do you want to be an astronaut" to tumblr users surely means something. What have you found out there, NASA? What have you found that you believe tumblr users, specifically, are best equipped to handle?

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Purple Harlequin Toad

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Drew this months ago in one night for stress relief reasons, decided not to post it, forgot why I decided not to post it, happened to look at it again today, decided to post it before I remember. 👍

(Tazzik from Mass Effect: Redemption)

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Personality test, is 80f/26c too hot for you?

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Astarion approves 🐲🍈

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Spider friend! Spider friend! Spider friend!...and the guy who owns her, I guess XD

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