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     “THERE ARE NO JEDI HERE ANYMORE.                                                                 ONLY DREAMERS.”

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          “He is a survivor: prudent, wise, perhaps a little cold. You do not want to be in one boat with him, however admirable you judge him to be: you may well drown, but he will reach land.”

                                                         Independent Zaeed Massani, by Jay.

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Jumping off of that last post: because I’m a pretentious hoe, I lowkey intend the way I write Zaeed to be a deconstruction of Renegade Shepard’s character archetype, of where a character like this can really expect to end up when they aren’t the protagonist of the piece. The idea was already present in canon - (”Zaeed is like you, except he takes checks.”) - and I think Zaeed works very well as a foil to Renegade!Shep (particularly the Earthborn/Ruthless background), having gone through and done many of the same things, but ending up washed up and outcast rather than as an icon largely because circumstances failed to align in his favor as they did for Shepard.

The deconstruction lies in showing how a ruthless character can really expect to be treated for doing what they do when a galactic threat hasn’t forced the galaxy to rely on them, methods be damned. Because while sociopathic characters have a dark glamour on a superficial level, any deeper below the surface and they generally prove themselves to be difficult, treacherous, manipulative, and unpleasant to be around. The whole idea can be pretty easily summed up with a quote from The Seven Psychopaths: “You’re the one who thought psychopaths were so interesting, but they’re kind of tiresome after awhile, don’t you think?” This doesn’t stop them from being enjoyable characters, but in-universe, from the point of view of those who view them as people, very few are going to like them or put up with them indefinitely, and what you get at the end of the day is a washed-up, bitter old merc with no friends and no prospects - with nothing but stories, a couple of trophies, and a fixation on the past for lack of a future.

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Hard to believe in all this time I never actually got around to doing a mental health headcanon for Zaeed. So:

I write Zaeed as being somewhere on the sociopath spectrum, likely legitimately diagnosable with APD. He is still capable of the rare sensation of empathy, and can occasionally bond meaningfully with others, but the scope of his affection is usually both narrower and shallower than that of the average person, driven by ultimately selfish motives and proven self-benefit. He can love and he can care, but not generally in the “right” way, and as a rule his personality is characterized by impulsiveness, pettiness, and the vast chasm between emotional extremes and total ambivalence to the suffering, morals, and opinions of others. This disorder is partly nature and partly nurture; he was born physically predisposed to it, but a healthy, structured upbringing might have mitigated it - exactly the kind of upbringing he didn’t have. He grew up poor and alone in the slums of London, and the rigors of that life ingrained selfishness, ruthlessness, and practicality into him before puberty had even hit, and set him on a darker path pretty much for life.

I also don’t think I’ll have to work very hard to justify a case of PTSD: even ignoring the fact that you just don’t skirt death as many times as Zaeed has in as many horrible ways as he has without coming out traumatized, I’d say his entire attitude on Zorya is evidence enough that he’s still psychologically raw from being all but murdered - (”For twenty years I’ve seen that bastard every time I closed my eyes. Every time I sighted down a target. Every time I heard a gunshot.”) - and his comic shows that he spent at least the first year or two after Vido shot him in a depressed, alcoholic slump. He’s also been betrayed by multiple lovers and friends in addition to Vido, been in a Batarian supermax prison for enemies of the state for an unspecified amount of time, fought in two official wars and many unofficial ones, watched countless people both friend and foe die in every imaginable way, and been tortured - and that’s just what we hear about in canon. This was another contributing factor to entrenching his sociopathy, emotionally desensitizing him, feeding his paranoia and hypervigilance, adding gasoline to the fire of his rage issues, and encouraging the brute selfishness of the survivor. 

Now, just as a clarification: these diagnoses explain a lot of Zaeed’s terrible behavior, but in no way excuse it. Mentally ill people still carry responsibility for the effects of their actions on others and the moral obligation to work to prevent those effects from being hurtful, or to make up for where they already were; there was definitely a point when he was younger where Zaeed could have been excused by way of his circumstances, but at fifty-five, there was definitely a time when he began to actively choose to stay the way he was rather than try to get better, for the simple reason that he just didn’t care, and that was the point where he wore out the clemency his trauma offered him.

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smallmeanssafe:

broken a bone | gotten stitches | had a serious illness | had a near-death experience | killed someone | tried and failed to kill someone | invented something | been hungover | kissed someone | slow-danced | been in a long-term relationship | had sex | had sex and regretted it | had a one-night stand | had a threesome | experimented with their sexuality | had a kid | gotten married | gotten a divorce | self-harmed | traveled to another country | been in a play | received an inheritance | been in a car wreck | lost a loved one | been dumped | dumped someone | smoked | gotten high | been slipped something in their food/drink | won a contest | won an election | joined a sports team | gone skydiving | gone hunting | been in a band | had a job | been fired | been in a wedding party | owned a pet  | seen a ghost | skipped class/work | learned an instrument | gotten a noticeable scar | sued someone | been robbed | been mugged | been kidnapped | been sexually assaulted | been brainwashed/hypnotized | gone more than one day without eating | had a recurring nightmare | been bullied | bullied someone | seen someone die | attempted suicide | been tied/chained up | shot someone | stabbed someone | saved someone’s life | cheated on someone | been cheated on | had a stalker | been betrayed | been in a fight | been arrested | been to a funeral | had surgery | broken someone’s trust | gotten a piercing | gotten a tattoo | used a fake name | been tortured | been abused | been blackmailed | had an attempt on their life | gotten away with a crime | gone on a road trip | been in love

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watch in amazement as i flawlessly shift from emotionally detached to emotionally overwhelmed and unstable in a mere .72 seconds 

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Intimate.

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Alright, fuck it, I’m going to be self-indulgent and make it a headcanon: Zaeed is fairly well-versed in poetry - war poetry in particular, but he occasionally branches out. He spends a lot of time alone, plenty of it traveling on cargo carriers for long periods of time, and he picked up reading as a means to kill time decades ago - it’s left him unexpectedly well-read, but his total lack of interest in others’ opinion of him has left it solely a personal interest, not a means to impress, so when he does quote or discuss literature it seems to come completely out of the blue.

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(War Time) There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white, Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (via litverve)

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What doesn’t kill you gives you a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms and a really dark sense of humor.

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rosurogue:

Humans had simple, guttural voices. Yet there was no missing that tremor of fury, for it had not been the slightest bit repressed; that there was no mere ambition. That was a promise.

Nihlus found his gizzard boiling with an alien burst of empathy – and a surge of fresh resolve. 

“Massani, was it?” He asked. His voice was dissonantly calm. “I know this doesn’t mean much. But frankly, I don’t care.“ 

“I’d bet a million on you, too. Good to have you.” 

And thank you.

     In the swell of his sudden anger he had seemed to almost physically increase in size, raw, old fury making the air around him nearly heavy, but Nihlus’ entirely positive reaction put a hitch in his stride, a bemused scowl twisting his scars; he seemed to deflate a little, had instinctively gotten himself riled up to defend his position, to justify his hate, only to be left without an outlet for his aggression when the need didn’t present itself as expected.

     Nihlus hadn’t vocalized his thanks, but he was left with the bizarre impression nonetheless that he’d somehow managed to influence someone in a major life decision. Not used to the empathy - when was the last time being a vindictive bastard had earned him an honest to God compliment? - and unsure of what to do with it.

     “Don’t get fucking sappy, you’ll make me swoon.” Sardonic, barbed words, but the lack of real heat behind them indicated that he’d been appeased, at least for the moment. Then, after a brief hesitation, he thrust out one tough, pitted palm for a handshake. “Zaeed Massani. Gun for hire and professional son of a bitch. You?”

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describe your muse as shittily as possible in the tags.

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did you just reference metal gear solid

yes...

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rosurogue:

“That’ll be me; one of Shepard’s madmen. Dragged me out of a ditch – wouldn’t be the first time.”

But he’s hardly invested in telling that story – not after what he’s just heard.

“Twenty years. Hell of a chase.” More than twice the time he’s spent trailing a dead man. His vocals are heavy - troubled.

“Ever wonder how many steps it’s worth?”

     “Hell of a personality cult she’s pulled together. Reminds me of a merc I knew out in the Traverse, twenty, twenty-five years ago. Big guy, never saw him without a cigar in his mouth - could convince people to die for him after talking for ten minutes. Conquered some jungle planet and renamed it ‘Outer Heaven’, played king for a good half-decade til his bastard kid snuck in and assassinated him. Good job for you Shepard’s not the crown-wearing type, I reckon.”

     Falling into the steady rhythm of storytelling was easy, but the question Nihlus directed at him made his hackles rise on instinct, mangled face curdling into a dark, vicious sneer, mood turning on a dime the way it only could when Vido Santiago was the topic of conversation.

     “Never.” His tone could best be described as pure, black hate, still so fresh after all this time - hard to let it fade when the pain of what Vido had done stayed with him every day, pounding in his temples and behind his eyes, a reminder of what had been stolen from him. “Your best mate murders you, you don’t let him just walk away - you hound that bastard for the rest of his goddamn life. You bring down Arma-fucking-geddon, make him wish he was never born.”

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I feel like the phrase “I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it” sums up Zaeed’s decision-making style pretty much perfectly.