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luvleekaotix-imagines · 7 years

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Fresh (Reader ft. Scott Ryder)

A/N: Andromeda drabble to try and get back into writing... something. Waking up and seeing a friend again. Set after the end of the game.

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You knew what you had signed up for, but actually experiencing it was something different entirely.

You sat quietly watching the large flat screen with a looping info vid. So much had happened while you were still in cyro. It felt like you had overslept because you had overslept. The conflicts and complications upon coming to Andromeda left many people asleep during the first phase. Now that things had apparently settled, it was finally time to put down roots and get to work making Andromeda home.

While you had been staring at the screen for awhile, none of the information had really gone in. It was still… overwhelming. You had woken up a little over a week ago with some minor complications that left you doing some rehabilitation to shake off the last lingering effects of cryo. Basic military exercises and drills with others, just getting back into things.

Now you were waiting for some kind of news regarding reassignment. Someone had said that someone had requested visitation with you, but you weren’t sure of who that could have been. The only person you knew that had also come to Andromeda was someone that you had previously worked with, but they seemed like the kind of person who would be way too busy to deal with you now.

Waking up in Andromeda was lonely. There was no fighting that. You expected it—everyone did, but actually experiencing it was something else. It was a crushing kind of loneliness where there was absolutely no turning back.

It wasn’t just a saying, it was a reality.

“Hey!”

You blinked and there was someone in front of you, crouching down to look up with a smile. A familiar face.

“C’mon, don’t give me that look. You’re making me feel bad for not coming to see you fresh out of cryo.”

Scott Ryder was the only other person you really knew coming to Andromeda. The both of you had been stationed at Arcturus Station and he was the reason you had applied for the Andromeda Initiative in the first place. His enthusiasm for seeking glory and his never-ending wanderlust had been infectious and even though he had only suggested and never pressured you to join the Initiative, you ended up doing so on your own terms.

“Scott!” You threw your arms around him in a tight hug, glad to see someone you knew. “I thought maybe you’d be too busy helping your sister to come see me. I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to see each other again or—”

Scott laughed, returning your hug with mirrored enthusiasm. “No way! Even if I were too late to catch you before reassignment, I would track you down to say ‘hi’. I did promise we’d see each other when we woke up.” He smelled fresh and felt warm. This was your first proper physical contact with someone in Andromeda. In a whole new galaxy. “Oh shit, you’re crying. Did you need me to get someone? It’s okay, it’s normal, I heard that have a whole clinic of people crying somewhere. It’s just some kind of coping mechanism. Don’t panic—”

“You’re the only one who’s panicking, Scott. I’m okay. I just—I really needed that hug.” You pulled away and dried your eyes as best as you could, letting the stray tears fall as you sniffled. “I dunno, waking up in Andromeda—I’m excited, but I’m scared. What’s happened? I missed so much and—”

Your friend laughed and gently placed his hands on your shoulders as an affectionate grounding action. “A lot has happened, but even more is happening now. We’ve only just started and you’re gonna be part of it.” Scott offered you a hand to help you stand. When you were on your feet he gave you a few pats on the back before slinging an arm around your shoulders. “Welcome to Andromeda. Welcome home—”

“No, stop it!” You wailed with a telltale stinging in your eyes, “I’m gonna cry again if you say that!”

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If things in Andromeda had ‘settled’ now, you hated to think how everyone felt when they first arrived. Things were an absolute mess. Despite several established outposts, there were still many outstanding tasks as well as a limitless number of potential projects—and this was only the Initiative focused projects. There were loads of other tasks to do with diplomacy and managing ongoing skirmishes with not only the threat of the Kett, but outlaws and rebel groups from both the Milky Way and Heleus.

There. Was. Just. So. Much. To. Do.

Every outpost had listings for personnel, but as far as you could tell the most popular was Prodromos on Eos. There were also administration and security jobs on the Nexus, but it didn’t seem as exciting as being stationed on a new planet.

“Did you pick what you’re applying for yet?” Scott leant over the back of your seat to read the datapad over your shoulder. He was due to leave for his post on Prodromos in a few hours. While he wasn’t technically a Pathfinder, his sister Sara—the human Pathfinder—had pretty much roped him to be part of her crew. You had only met Sara once or twice in your life since you were friends with Scott, so you couldn’t really recall what she was like.

All of Scott’s assignments either came from Sara or the Initiative, both which pretty much worked in tandem, but if there were any conflicts, then the Pathfinder’s orders took priority. As far as you knew, conflicts hadn’t happened yet, but it was interesting to hear that the Pathfinders role had developed to become almost like the new Spectres.

“I can’t figure out what I want to do.” You were conflicted as you pretty much felt like you could adapt to anything. You just wanted to be useful. There was a crazy amount of organisational and administration work that you could do, but there were also an innumerable amount of combat operations and specialised missions that you could have applied for as well. Your job on Arcturus Station had also been pretty varied, so you were used to being a jack-of-all-trades. “I thought maybe they’d assign me, but all of that’s changed. We have to have a preference first.”

You had been worrying for a few hours now over what to do and Scott hated to see you like this at the start of a brand new journey. You were meant to be excited! “Okay, how about this.” He reached around you with both arms to take the datapad out of your hands and place it down on the table. “I can probably ask Sara to pull a few strings and get you out to Prodromos with me.”

“Scott, you can’t bother your sister like that—”

“Hear me out; Prodromos has plenty of work in both administration and security and if I’m around I can help you get used to things.” It sounded like he had thought the idea through a little bit without telling you. “Plus it’ll be like back on Arcturus Station, just more exciting because we’ll have something better to look at than just a mass relay.” Scott moved to drop into a seat beside you. “C’moooon,” He elbowed you a few times with a goofy grin, “It’ll be fun if we get to run assignments together. Plus my sister has her own squad and I need to start my own—”

“Oh ho! So the real reason you want to ‘help’ me is revealed.” You chuckled and crossed your arms. “As much as I’d like to be assigned to the same outpost as you, the chances of that are slim. I heard a lot of people are being sent to the outposts on Kadara and Voeld in the recent lots. I’ll mostly likely be sent to either of those planets too.”

Scott stared at you for a moment. “Throughout that whole protest, I didn’t exactly hear a ‘no’—”

“Scott Ryder! Do not bother your sister about this.” You hadn’t met the human Pathfinder before and you were certain that she was very busy and didn’t have time to deal with her twin’s silly requests. You’d be fine anywhere and would be reassigned after a time anyway. It would be fine.

Your friend simply pursed his lips.

He was totally gonna bother Sara about it.

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#i dunno how to tag this cause it's just a reader insert dump #mass effect andromeda #reader insert #scott ryder #i dunno i'm just running with this idea

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pregnantcornbread · 7 years

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Mass Effect: Andromeda - Choices, romance, further questions.

So, I preordered Mass Effect: Andromeda to be delivered to me via courier on release day. Why? I absolutely loved Dragon Age: Inquisition, and loved BioWare’s style. The hard choices you have to make actually make a difference in the story, as do your personality and influence (not like TellTale’s Walking Dead series, who promote that your choices matter, when actually, they really don’t, the story continues regardless). In DA: I, I was a female hunter Lavellan, with not-so pointy ears (which made a difference how the other elves interacted with me), and a Ghilan'nain vallaslin (which endeared me to the halla herders). I originally romanced Blackwall, but when he left, I went full Cullen, a satisfying relationship filled with awkward coughs, innuendo, and drug withdrawal – and frequent visits to the ramparts for ‘alone time.’ I spent over 300 hours completing every side quest, relishing in new environments, killing everything bad in sight, trying not to whine when all the important choices somehow fell to me (including what is to be done with a man who is flinging goats at my stronghold) and taking down all the dragons. I never felt tired playing that game, the ‘fetch’ quests were fun due to the party banter (hint: if you have your romantic interest in your party, things get hilarious!), and the lovability of your party, well developed characters who don’t just rehash the same lines all the time (except in fight mode: “Solas needs help” is still ringing in my ears, after all this time). The DLC was quite well crafted as well (although The Descent is possibly my least favourite – why am I collecting mugs in the deep roads again? Trespasser had a great ending, and gave you another change to mix it up with your crew). So my expectations were quite high with ME: Andromeda.

After spending a quick five minutes deciding on a male or female Ryder, I chose the obvious. After having to play countless RPG’s as a man (Far Cry, Shadow of Mordor, Sleeping Dogs, GTA:V, Witcher), I chose a woman, because yeah, I am one. I spent an hour fixing my Sara to look like a human rather than whatever the preset was. My Sara, in the design part, sort of looked like a young Mary Steenburgen. Satisfied with my choice, I got on my merry way with the game. Upon waking up out of cryo, I saw everything that was wrong with my Sara’s face, the shading was shitty, the skin was terrible, her nose was way bigger, her eyes looked purple in some lights (instead of deep blue) and what was up with her goddamn eyebrows? But in some scenes, she actually looked like the Sara I had designed. Rather than spend another hour redesigning her face, I decided to roll with it and keep her. It was a good choice, because she looked like present day Mary Steenburgen with worse skin and a neck tattoo, and looked like she had seen some shit and could handle her shit, rather than some prim and proper pathfinder’s daughter who was only on the ark because her dad said so.

End game spoilers ensue, so please read at your own peril:

The following is split up into three parts: My choices in the game, romance, and post-game questions.

My game is at 111 hours and 98% completion. There were two quests that I did not finish before completing the game (excluding the medicine quest after Herbal Entrepeneurs, because it was bugged) – ‘Path of Hero’ and ‘Aid Apex’ (because I killed all the architects before I got the mission, and so had no option to scan them). Post game, these quests are no longer available to me.

My Choices:

Sometimes I would leave the game running for hours while deliberating on a choice. My first choice was whether or not to have a scientific outpost or a military outpost on the first world, Eos. As your advisors tell you, what you choose will reflect on how the initiative is seen in the eyes of possible intelligent life in the system, and will set the standard of what you intend to do in the system. I chose a scientific outpost – less “we’re coming to invade you”, more “we’re just here to live and learn.”

First murderer: I chose to release Nilken, because intent is not a crime, but I also didn’t speak to his wife outside the jail, so his secret was not exposed.

Vehn Terev: I gave him to the resistance, because interfering with Angaran justice wasn’t the right play.

Path of a Hero: I spoke to Kerri, but declined her offer, as I was just new to this pathfinding business, and didn’t feel that I could offer any nuggets of wisdom. Then I forgot about it and it failed the quest. Meh.

Reyes Vs Kelly: Both are terrible choices for leaders, but at the time, I wanted to see where a romance with Vidal would go, I played it out, and was disappointed, but in my do-over, I still let Kelly die, because she was quite evil. Even though Reyes was a tosser for cheating, he still seemed the better hand.

Angaran AI: I gave the Angaran the AI, because I didn’t feel right about keeping it for myself – and potentially angering the Angara.

Secret Water reservoir: I let the Angara merchant keep the water in reparations for the outcasts killing her brother, and to prevent the Nexus from becoming a thoroughly colonising body in Elaaden.

Drive Core: This one was a bit fuzzy for me, because I was also doing the quest with the AI saboteurs, and they were talking about Overload (I think), a program about a weaponised AI, and Drack was sending me emails about Overload Morda, so I thought that Morda was a weaponised AI. I ended up scanning Knight’s hideout a little too thoroughly, which made her people hostile to me, and she ended up being sniped on the Nexus. Alain vows revenge, which is unfortunate, because SAM made him walk again. After finishing a few more quests, I came back to Elaaden and I ended up trusting Morda with the drive core, because pissing off all the Krogan was not my idea of ‘peace among worlds.’ Also, after all the shit the Krogan have been through, the Krogan need a voice at the table – they didn’t even get their own pathfinder!

Avitus Rex: Rex became a pathfinder, because he was out finding Turians when the Turians weren’t.

Sarissa’s Fate: I couldn’t let Sarissa keep her position after all that dickery that got her Pathfinder killed. It may not have been the smart move, but although she was the best person for the job, a huntress without her squad’s support will not go far. Also, I don’t think I could have looked at Cora if I agreed to lie to everyone about it. If Tann (number eight in line) can be the director, why can’t Valderia?

Salarian doctor: Ehh, what a moral dropkick. He got jail.

Exaltation facility: I let it stand, for further help in the final mission.

Salarian Pathfinder: This one was heartbreaking. A female Salarian who is an actual trained pathfinder (would have been the only one in my crew), who is captured trying to rescue her people despite my commands to get the f out of there vs Drack’s dime a dozen Krogan scouts. I had planned on saving the Krogan scouts beforehand, and had Drack in my party, but while I was doing this mission, I was really torn. If I choose the Salarian, the Krogan won’t trust or respect me, but if I chose the scouts, I would get further support from the Krogan, with no real consequences on the Salarian side. Whatever I chose, I would be taking a side, with consequences down the line. I went with ‘Krogan lives matter,’ despite sacrificing the most badass Salarian, ever. I mean, every Salarian would want to mate with her just for the prestige!

Kill code: While it may come to bite me in DLC or sequels, I used it, just to get it out of the way. I don’t trust Primus to honour his deal in the future.

Ambassador: I loved Morda for the choice (just to spite Tann), and Bradley would have been a good second, but I ended up conceding power to the Moshae, I believe she was the smart choice. Although I had enough of a presence to unite the Angara and the Initiative, the Moshae would not be swayed by outside or inside influence. If I chose Hayjer, the Krogan would hate me, as much as “Krogan lives matter,” Morda would only act in favour of the Krogan and Clan Nackmor, and possibly make a heated attack against the Salarians/Turians in retaliation for the genophage, and Bradley, well, I could be accused of being specist.

Romance:

This is where I think the game could use improvements. It is pretty disappointing if you are FemRyder or a MaleRyder who doesn’t romance Cora (the extreme effort put in this relationship compared to the minimal effort of the others is quite disappointing – they actually kiss properly and there’s thrusting!).

Look at those two humanoids realistically kissing!

The lack of dialogue choices means that relationships become boring and quickly. While in DA:I, the cut away sex scenes did hold a little to imagination, that fact that you could go and talk to your interest during long, arduous missions and sneak away for a little kiss cut scene helped keep your interest in them, and having them in your party was always a hilarious time (“Keep your eyes off the Inquistor’s behind!”). While playing the game, you get a sense of your SO and your squadmates, their endearing and not-so endearing traits, it almost felt like they’re almost real people. DA:I is a well-fleshed out, well-written RPG, and the relationships are defining trait of this game – I’m sure that if all there was to do was going around killing things, I probably wouldn’t care. Instead, you help Cullen get off his lyrium addiction, let Iron Bull teach you your umm… limits, hunt around trying to find the perfect gift for Sera (much to the utter dismay of your compatriots), read terrible poetry to Cassandra, strong-arm a fop for Dorian’s pendant, save a spirit with Solas, challenge Josephine’s fiancée to a duel, save Leliana from spy assassins, and want to give Blackwall the coward another chance.

The last major RPG I played that had multiple romance options was Fallout 4, and I romanced MacCready, Cait, Piper (just to shut her up – every time I’d talk to her, she’d want something more - ehhhhgghh), Danse and Curie (to also shut her up). Having one romance option in FO4 became too tedious, the only thing that changes is their scripted dialogue when they wake up next to you, so I romanced others to see what they said – because I honestly didn’t care about romance in that game because it was so flat.

Here’s who I romanced in ME:A (usually by flirting with everyone and then seeing what happens):

Liam – I started off flirting with Liam because he seemed interesting, until he quickly didn’t. His dialogue doesn’t change. You can’t really flirt with him in between missions after you’ve had a one night stand, and he’s so boring, I’d rather eject myself out of an escape pod than deal with him. If you go the whole game with Liam, he makes you a jump pack, but is it really worth it for being bored to death?

Vidal – I quite liked having someone off the ship to avoid a HR nightmare, but it turns out that after you become exclusive and dance with Reyes, that’s it – that’s your big romantic scene. Reyes becomes a chatterbox of nothing after that.

Jaal – Jaal is interesting, and unknown, and kind of reminds you of a perfect, dreamy boyfriend who is too in touch with their feelings, and you stay with them because you don’t want to deal with the fallout if you break up with them, because they’ll probably kill themself. Rocking a sexy, deep voice, I was almost convinced to be in a relationship with him, if not for Jaal’s confusing switch between Vulcan logic and hopeless romantic during the course of a conversation. Jaal is a warm space Mufasa, and will tell you what you want to hear, but his sex scene kinda sucked. Although the post coitus (?) debrief with Lexi is quite hilarious.

Vetra – I’m not sure if I didn’t flirt enough with Vetra, or if she didn’t want to be with me because I told Sid off – a lot, but perhaps it was never meant to be. My codex reads that Vetra hopes that we can be friends, so perhaps admonishing Sid worked against me.

Suvi – I didn’t flirt with her at the beginning, and I decided against a relationship with Suvi because her sex scene was awkward/awful.

Which leads to my commitment for the game:

Peebee is the one with the purple jacket… not young Sarah Paulson rocking the undercut…

Peebee – Peebee is a thorn in your arse from the moment she joins your crew. Rem-tech this, remnant structures that. Tight-lipped, evasive, and a motor-mouth, she’s a bit like Sera from DA:I, but a bit more grown up. She has limited long-range fighting skills, so bringing her to anything bigger than a small raider camp firefight is pointless. She insults Vetra, Liam, and Cora, but has some quite funny conversations with Jaal (interspecies breeding) and Drack (about their age). Liam and Cora, even during the final stages of the game, relentlessly question her loyalty. I chose Peebee because her storyline was the most interesting, as opposed to other potentials (Liam – “Hey, I’m a boring human too.” Jaal – “I’m an alien, meet my mothers, I moisturise my neck flaps.” Vidal – bad boy Han Solo). I turned down Peebee’s offer of casual sex, because at the time I didn’t want anything to do with her, so I told her that I’d want more to get her to leave me alone, and I didn’t want a Liam thing – where you have a one night stand once and then all of a sudden they want you to commit. But I kept flirting with her, regardless, recycling the “I like it when you flirt” dialogue whenever I got on the ship. I couldn’t do that with Liam, Jaal, or Reyes. Turns out, the more I learned about Peebee, through doing her loyalty missions, the more endeared I became towards her. From being tight-lipped and evasive to slowly trickling out interesting snippets – like her relationship with Kalinda, and her rem-tech project, she started to grow on me as I realised that she was not like the others, who give you all the information up front and you spend the rest of the game cycling through dialogue that you first heard 70 hours ago, with minor changes mirroring your progression in the story. You have to prove to her that you’re trustworthy. If you do commit to a relationship with her, and reciprocate her trust - it leads to a pretty explicit sex scene – complete with Asari melding. While the mechanics of the scene are quite awkward with FemRyder’s weird facial features – she looks like she’s super confused and not enjoying it all – trusting Peebee enough not to leave you brain dead during the first time she has melded with someone, and having Peebee trust you enough to meld with you makes the relationship all that more worthwhile. While I’m all for space boinking, Peebee’s relationship was less about the physicality of the act of boinking, and more about the trust and emotional connection inherent in the relationship, which I felt was satisfying. Post-meld Peebee has some killer dialogue aboard the Nomad, inviting Cora over for a pyjama sleepover, faking extreme horniness to get Jaal to admit that he was faking being asleep, and at the end, when you ask her ‘what am I going to do with you?’ she offers to make you a list. But the relationship and closeness doesn’t really go anywhere near the level of a relationship that DA:I does, due to the stunted dialogue choices. Although, I hope I didn’t get Peebee pregnant.

Post-Game Mysteries:

The ending scenes kind of set up the unfinished issues for the DLC/sequels – Primus wanting to kettify everyone, exploring Meridian, understanding the Jaardan, finding all the other lost arks, how many more useless solar systems are around, etc. Some questions remain, though. Say if I find a way to fix Ellen Ryder, what could she add to the story, other than my mother being there? She may be able to assist with new gadgets for players who chose a biotic route, or will she just serve as a ‘bringing your romantic attachment home to mum’ trope? Should we care about Jian Garson’s death and the mysterious benefactor? You learn during the game that the Milky Way has been fucked over by the Reapers, but we can’t save them, should we care?

After finding out why Alec Ryder made Sara the Pathfinder, all I wanted to do was talk to Cora about it – she wasn’t “looked over” and the promotion was to protect Alec’s secrets (i.e. Ellen on board, Milky Way gone to shit). I felt like my number two deserved an explanation, rather than sullenly assisting the other untrained Pathfinders on the Nexus (who did nothing, by the way – go out and bloody Pathfind – it’s not that hard!). I noticed that after ‘Journey to Meridian,’ Cora seemed cold, and would barely speak to me. Perhaps she was disappointed in me choosing Peebee, or perhaps SAM leaked what I found out to Cora. Will I ever get the chance to tell Cora about it?

During the pre-prologue descision making process, you get to choose if you want a Male Shepard, or a FemShep (your ME:3 save has no bearing over this game). I went with a FemShep, like my ME:3 counterpart. Did I hear Jennifer Hale during the game? No. Does it even make a difference? Unknown.

After leaving Meridan and coming back to talk to everyone, some questions remain. During the epilogue, you meet the new crew responsible for Meridian. After you come back, the Australian implores you to go and find the sprog (a baby). Every time I see Addison, I ask about the baby that was born on a spaceship flying away from the Kett, who I suggested the family settle on Eos (no way was I going to get that lady on the Nexus – she’d have hated it!), but when I’m in Prodromos, I can’t find the baby. If that baby has been stolen by the Kett, I swear – I will hurt Bradley!

Further questions: Will Lexi and Drack ever get together? Will Vetra find love? Will Peebee take Jaal’s offer to try Asari-Angaran reproduction? Will the Nomad ever get some tunes? Will Drack live to see great-grandfatherhood? Will Cora hook up with Scott? If I agreed to sign up for Jill’s insemination program, and Peebee was carrying my child, could I raise them as siblings? How would my FemRyder deal with being a father?

What would happen if the Jaardan came back to Meridian to check on their experiments? What happens if the scourge takes over Meridian? Have I screwed over all of humanity by settling them there?

#me: a #mass effect #me:a spoilers #mass effect andromeda #kroganlivesmatter #me:a mysteries #andromeda spoilers

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