#:'D yeah though I maintain anything that results in memory loss is viscerally /horrifying/ for drell so

[astorythatwritesitself]

How about 3, 14, 20, and 21 for Adrian?

Well this one was a lot of fun 😂

3: Scars or painful spots: Many |D Her hands got it worst, ME1 era they were littered with scrapes and burns from weapons; and there's a large scar across her face that she has no active memory of receiving (happened while on raid-guarding duty on a colony world, she got ambused with a knife). All of these get nullified during the Lazarus project- but hey, blank canvas! From there on, she develops:

-Permanent burn scars and mild nerve damage (even with the cybernetics- its not enough to mess with dexterity, there's just some loss of sensitivity) in her left hand from heavy use of fireballs, she's actually lost part of her fingerprints for a while there.

-The glowing scars fade, but that side of her face is always a little... tender.

-Everyone Lives scenario sees some nasty damage from the Citadel's fall, but her right leg gets it the worst- even when re-set, it's not straight and tends toward nasty flares of pain.

14: Ingrained habits/force of habit: Adrian Shepard's weapons are extremely well maintained, her armor is spotless, and if she has a bed, it is  c r i s p. She also tends to position herself at the front of any group she's in- even fully off duty, which gets annoying and kind of hilarious when it's somewhere she's never been.

20: What Ifs/Alternate Timelines: WELL FOR A WHILE I just had an 'everyone lives' AU but in trying to cross media to poke a buddy's angst button I'm now on uh.

Take your pick depending on angst tastes I guess, all stemming from 'haha hey what if Cerberus DID chip Shepard with an Order 66 style deal', and further context that Shrios happens.

Fuck it, is it really an OTP if you can't make them kill each other: chipped Shep goes after the salarian Councilor so it's Thane vs Shepard instead of Kai Leng! Fun options of:

otherwise fully canon compliant so Thane is far from top form and further hampered because this is is partner coming at him with full intent to kill, and we basically get That Renegade Interrupt From Later but now. (Further flavoring: Shepard as we know her is gone. Or: oh no she is FULLY fucking aware in her own mind and can't stop her body)

Less compliance with canon but following the sense that yeah if Mordin starts trying to cure Joker's issues for shits and giggles, he can probably at least alleviate Kepral's symptoms if he puts effort into it. Thane is in good form. Reapers and emotions be damned, he is one of the best assassins in the galaxy and a Shepard under Cerberus' control will doom them anyway. Assume the Virmire Survivor takes over from there. (I've always thought one of the cruelest AUs for my runs is Thane Lives Shep Dies, but wait! It can get even worse!)

Non-lethal takedown and chip is neutralized but uhhhh. It was pretty fucking wired in there. You don't have Shepard actively trying to fuck things up! Because her memory is rapidly deteriorating and her health won't do much better, so it's similar to above of the Virmire survivor taking over, while Adrian rides out her last few weeks with this very sweet guy who she halfway recognizes as being very important, but can't really place it. (In particular: early in, it seems to be a good day, they're talking... and Thane is very abruptly thrown back to what had been a very treasured memory of the SR2 when Adrian says, 'I think my translator just glitched.')

(I'm aware these are far from original, I've seen a few chipped Shep takes around xD but I never really considered it for Adrian til now.)

21: Turning Points In Their Life: Getting lost as a little kid and a turian helped get her safely back to her family. She didn't have a translator of her own yet (& human dialects had literally only JUST been added), and she had seen glimpses of stuff from the war (hard to avoid when your mom had been on the ground at Shanxi), so she was very nervous but put on a brave face. The turian was nothing but concerned because like, that's a clearly lost kid and some instincts are very common between space-faring sapient species. That pretty much sticks with her forever, the fact that even if she couldn't understand the words, their body language and actions were just like when her parents were irritable from worry.

Akuze, naturally, is another one. For a solid three years after, she simply gave in to a near fugue state of following orders... and more importantly, even once she started waking up and really got back to herself, another notion stayed in: She's the first one into a fight and the last to leave, even if it kills her.

(Send me some numbers + character for some headcanons!)