#exdiff

[aceouttatime]

@sparatus' girlies, Galenia and Taniria Arterius--Leni's visiting her big sis on the Citadel after getting her tattoos! Thank you again for letting me draw these two, and you really do bless us with your worldbuilding for the Arterius clan <3

And, yes, I may or may not have taken inspiration from Saren's concept artwork (specifically the black robes he's wearing in the one piece) for Leni's outfit. Currently a puddle because she really is a baby goth who looks up to her uncle, isn't she?

Commission type: Two-Character, Bust, Colored Sketch; $70 USD Interested in a comm? Check my availability, style, and pricing HERE!

[sparatus]

👀

send me a 👀 and i’ll post a snippet of art/writing that i never got around to finishing this year

so my plan for not-affiliated-with-certain-orgs nanowrimo this year had been a post-itlog novella feat. garrus and feron in no-reapers au lair of the shadow broker but then life kinda. hit me in the face with a whole freight train so it dropped off but i do still want to pick it up again cause im invested in the story, it adds plot stuff for exdiff but also it deals with garrus's trauma and depression after omega and how he finds his drive in life again. and also furthers my garrus/tasora propaganda and includes feron and tazzik and quentius + nautilea and their mildly feral xenoarchaeologist daughter

it also gets into my hc that after The Rocket Thing garrus is rendered mostly blind on his right side and reduced hearing so here's some of the first chapter that includes that

--

Whoever had decided that omni-tools needed to default to yellow text on orange holo, with low contrast and a tiny font size, deserved to be shot.

Solana had been the one to help Garrus find the display settings and figure out what would let him actually read. High contrast, large font size, yellow text on blue holo, and a button in the corner to turn on a screen reader that never moved so he didn’t have to hunt for it. He didn’t ask, not wanting to run the risk of a lecture and more shame over his actions than he already gave himself, but Sol was always the smart one. She let him have the courtesy of not calling him out in front of anyone, too, just waited until they were alone in the spaceport waiting for their shuttle to Palaven for Solstice while Tasora was in the restroom, slid a seat over, and asked if she could show him some tricks she’d found in the settings to customize the display.

She never once said the word blind. He didn’t even know if she knew yet, not right then. By the time Tasora got back, he could read his own notifs again, and they were watching dumb extranet vids on it like nothing had happened at all. He let her pick the toppings on their cheap spaceport pizza lunch in quiet thanks.

Staring at the screen now, though, reading felt just as impossible as before. The old Normandy group chat from over a year ago had randomly come back to life early that morning, Torres popping in to say he would be on the station again soon and would love to meet up with anybody still there, and it had been buzzing periodically ever since as other crew in other time zones woke up, saw the chat, and got excited with the rest. Kaidan was stationed on a training base down in Zakera, Ashley was doing a guard rotation at the embassies, Haugen and Isotalo were here, Khulozai was there. In the past hour, maybe fifteen more messages had popped in as people got off work or woke up for the day or took a convenient break to see why their ’tool was buzzing so much.

His gizzard rolled over on itself. The message bubbles scrolled past in a vague mass of shapes. Seeing, but not reading. If any of them had noticed he was online but not speaking, none of them had said.

He fluttered his mandibles and forced himself to tab back to his home screen. It was the end of the work day in the turian embassy, and Tasora would fuss if she came out of her office to him having a pity party. She didn’t need to be fussing over him, not right now. He could be a big boy and ignore it.

He fluttered his mandibles and instinctively started to look around, only for the blurry shadows that made up most of the right side of his field of view to make him dizzy, so he had to stop and remember to scent the air instead. The rocket hadn’t damaged anything in his nose, at least. He’d managed to learn the scents of a fair number of the embassy team in the past few weeks, and they'd started recognizing him, too, and said hello to him on the days he came in to pry Tasora away from her work on time. There was Auggie, of course, rocketing around collecting last-minute notes and reports and whatever else the councilor's assistant was responsible for at the end of the day. Ambassadors Orinia and Treninius were loitering outside the latter’s office; a turn of his head so he could look with his good eye confirmed they were chatting as they got their cloaks on. A mess of scents he only barely recognized was milling about by the door to the lawyers’ suite. Old Ambassador Itatumus was approaching on his bad side, and gave him the courtesy of a click-whistle to announce his presence before Garrus turned his head.

A door at the other end of the lobby, just before the doors to the big office and the Blackwatch soldiers bristling with guns guarding it, chimed a warning, and he turned his head just as his nasal plates tingled with bourbon and salt.

The whole lobby seemed to suck in a breath as Ambassador Quentius strode out of his office, mandibles set and crest slightly raised like a man on a mission. Orinia and Treninius stepped further out of the walkway, Auggie paused to look where the embassy’s resident giant was going, the lawyers fell to a buzzing hush. Garrus lifted his head, fluttering his good mandible in curiosity, but not too much, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

Red-orange eyes snapped to him, and he tried not to wince. “Oh, good, you are here,” Quentius huffed, taking a few more long strides before stopping not too far from the couch Garrus had parked himself on. “If you can convince her to go home within the next half-hour and without causing any more fusses, I’ll send you a few fish.”

Garrus blinked, fighting the urge to shrink back into the cushions. Quentius had been a major in the Imperial Army, and carried himself as such, and it had been all too obvious the first few times Garrus had dropped in on the embassy after the disastrous anniversary gala at the end of last year. He didn’t think tensions between the embassies had ever been higher; following the funeral, he’d seen more talons left ungloved, unbooted, and filed sharp around the Citadel than a younger him would have thought legal. Tasora had told him nobody saw the councilor very much at all outside him arriving in the morning and departing several hours late each day, embroiled as he was in calls and conferences with various Imperial leaders trying to decide what to do about the rot in their midst, and there were some days where you could go an entire day without even realizing the old man was there. That had been half of why Garrus started coming up at the end of the day to walk out with her, a nagging fear in the back of his head that if he let her out of his sight for too long, something terrible would happen.

His therapist had said that was the PTSD talking, and they’d work on it. He’d told him he’d feel better in a Palaven month, and then he wouldn’t have to go anywhere anyway, just stay home and protect the nest. This was also apparently not a normal thing to say.

[outpost51]

meteorite?

Make Me Write

you got it!! [salutes]

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Septimus kicked his ankle sharply under the table without ever looking away from Ierian’s speech. The bastard hadn’t even rattled his medals with the movement.

He kicked back.

If Septimus felt it, he didn’t react, and the boiling indignation was enough to distract Des’s hindbrain for the time being. It didn’t last long; Ierian introduced the newest councilor—

“Councilor?” he hissed to his alleged babysitter, hiding his mouth behind his drink. “Since when do they have a councilor?”

Septimus was clearly just as blindsided by the announcement. “Since just now, apparently,” he muttered back. “Don’t be obvious about it, but the attack dog doesn’t seem terribly happy about her new master either.”

Des had never been subtle a day in his life and he wasn’t about to start, dais be damned. He looked directly at Hannah — if she could spit his first name like a curse, he could use hers — whose face had turned the same shade as her hair and looked about ready to explode. A shorter, wilder mop of red caught his eye elsewhere in the crowd as he looked away. “She’s not their attack dog anymore. They’ve got her brats for that.”

“Still fucks like one,” Septimus chuckled to himself, and it was all Desolas could do not to choke on his drink. He didn’t need to look to know exactly who the old general tilted his glass to in a subtle greeting, but his eyes slid back that way of their own accord, if only to lay them upon the table’s occupant that he desired in much the same way as Septimus wanted—

Ah, that cooled his jets. He’d never thank Septimus for it aloud, but he did make a silent toast in his head. As a treat.

[lieutenantabrudas]

in which saren meditates (with mixed results), galenia has ALL the anxiety, and desolas and valis are out late on hierarchy business - and come home with ominous news.

exdiff updates will be slowing down or on hold until after november, i’m using nanowrimo as a motivator to finally finish kryterius murder mystery aka to catch a rabbit! join us we’re getting to the exciting part

[sparatus]

"oh ill try to get a bunch of asks and tag games done today while it's slow" i said yesterday, immediately before spending 5 hours putting together a picker wheel of all the ocs i can remember. it's up to 76 now btw

[sparatus]

ao3 meme

tagged by @omniblades-and-stars thanks daisy!!

tagging uhhh @helila @threewhiskeylunch @commander-krios @thetrashbagswasteland and whoever else wants to

my ao3 is NoisyNoiverns for the record

How many works do you have on AO3?

127. dont look at me.

What's your total word count?

normal amount. 1,365,339.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Broken Mirror - 127 kudos, mass effect, first fic of my no-reapers au

Coffee & Cuddling - 113 kudos, mass effect, shiara fluff piece i wrote for a fandom secret santa back in 2016

The Spectre's Greatest Enemy Is His Niece - 94 kudos, mass effect, kryterius + implied desabrudas, saren is babysitting his niece on the citadel when nihlus turns up. i think this was taniria's first ever appearance actually.

breathe in, breathe out - 90 kudos, mass effect, kryterius, short ask prompt fill

It's Not Like That (Except How It Is) - 83 kudos, mass effect, kryterius + implied desabrudas, yes-reapers au where both saren and nihlus survive me1, series of vignettes of saren insisting he's definitely not in love with nihlus despite all evidence to the contrary as observed by everyone around him

i mean it when i say i used to be an old god of kryterius before i veered off into desabrudas and sparatus/oc content yknow

Do you respond to comments? Why/Why not?

ehhh sometimes i do most times i dont, if a commenter asks a question i definitely will but i have chronic "read the notif and forget to say anything until like 5 years later" syndrome. i do read them all and try to give shoutouts in the longfic a/ns tho

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

oh man that's tough, i dont usually go for angsty endings cause i have So Much Depression to begin with but. probably gonna have to say All We Can Do (mass effect, sparatus/oc), specifically because there really isn't an ending, there's no resolution. the fic focuses on the pain and terror ierian and teia are struggling with watching their new baby fight for her life in the hospital, and we end still there. callie doesn't get better by the end, eri and teia just have to sit in that limbo. i put it in my author's note that cal survives and grows up happy and healthy, but at the point of the ending, the pov characters dont know that and the audience just has to sit there with the ache.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

alright that's harder cause i love me a good happy and/or relieved ending. let's say At the End of the Rainbow (no-reapers desabrudas post-shanxi) cause it's the first one i found while scrolling that definitely i would call a happy positive hopeful ending

Do you write crossovers?

nahhh, ill consider them but ive never written one. m.e. x stellaris tempts me tho

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

people have gotten real mad at exdiff for having a nonbinary protagonist and broken mirror in particular for having a muslim woman who wears hijab in it

also some dude willfully misinterpreted everything i put in serpents in the garden (my m.e. big bang fic, oooh you wanna go read my xenopolitics nonsense so bad) and that upset me pretty bad (the comment is deleted but i still have the screenshot somewhere, basically criticized my entire plot and analysis because he just desperately wanted the councilors to be dumb and incompetent that bad and couldn't accept that i was positing otherwise)

Do you write smut?

not really, at least nothing published. i have a few M-rated fics but i dont go into too much detail it's all non-graphic

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yeah the original rise & reign and now the rewrite (i swear im still working on it adhd just went wheeee) are co-written with my partner @lightspeedpowerpunk aka xMidnightSun :3

What's your all time favorite ship?

you can't ask me that. if i must choose then probably a four-way tie between desabrudas kryterius barrix and spirian (sparky and my oc for his wife) but are we really surprised by that answer

What's a WIP that you want to finish don't think you ever will?

desperately want to finish uneasy lies the head aka bad end cause its soooo juicy but. dont like rehashing canon events. could just skip ahead to the next fic where it gets Juicy and we really get into the canon deviation but mltdog is necessary to actually set it up

note: i am notoriously stubborn and am hoping that answering bad end here will give me motivation to continue if only because my brain loves proving itself a liar

What are your writing strengths?

character work and worldbuilding, also i'm told my banter and dialogue are really good

What are your writing weaknesses?

TRANSITIONS MY OLD NEMESIS. also i personally hate writing action sequences and struggle a lot with them, i get comments saying i write them well but personally idk how since my experience writing them is "i hate this i hate this just get it over with"

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

don't worry about it.

What's the first fandom you wrote for?

i think. i think soul eater? it was either soul eater or hetalia (nods sadly along to booing), didn't really publish any of it tho cause i was 14 and anxious. it's for the best really

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet, but want to?

one of these days i'm going to pop up with stellaris fic about my custom empire. i tripped and got attached to the spiritualist pacifistic space peacocks. i am tying you to a chair and forcing you all to learn about the cevantian dynastic union against your will.

What's your favorite fic you've ever written?

well that's just rude. gonna cheat and throw down uhhhh 5? 5's a good number

Still on Patrol - turian ocs, naval horror, turian sailors at palaven's north pole encounter an old patrol boat out at the edge of their territory

The Man in the Mask - desabrudas, pre-canon, there's something Off about desolas arterius and valis isn't quite prepared to find out what

Serpents in the Garden - pre-ME1 xenopolitics feat. my pet conspiracy theory. this was my mebb 2023 fic and im still so chuffed with it there's a lot of small notes in this and i still get periodic notes telling me i got people to see the councilors in a whole new light

Prince With a Thousand Enemies - cnclr sparatus backstory, from a small anxious kid growing up in the far north to a baby law student trying to rebuild his self-confidence after abuse to a demigod. if you ever see me say "shayustu in the shatha's den" i'm referencing this. inspired by that one quote from watership down

To Catch a Rabbit - the kryterius murder mystery that started a whole series. saren and nihlus get sent to babysit an interspecies conference and think they're getting a free vacation but oops there's a locked-room murder to solve, and also anita goyle and fedorian and the lady sparatus and macen barro and some others are here. and they both have huge stupid crushes on each other but think it's unrequited because they're so so smart in literally every department except this one.

honorable mention goes to Blood In the Water, because i really did pop off with that one but it's 2nd in a series. i think you could read it without the context of broken mirror but it does have spoilers for that

[outpost51]

listen okay listen i know it'd have to be a big collab project with input from both of us but. would you ever. des mafia au

I think I need it about as desperately as you do lmao whenever crossfire and exdiff are done maybe?

Writer’s Would You Ever

[sparatus]

WIP Masterlist

... because at this point I have enough running projects I should probably make a proper list instead of just the one post for ExDiff, huh?

Hiiiii!! It's-a me, NoisyNoiverns, your friendly neighborhood niche Mass Effect author, most famous as "that one dude who built the entire Desolas/Abrudas tag from the ground up" and the turian councilor's defense attorney who made up an OC for his wife and... also the entire clan, and then accidentally convinced some people she's canon, oops? I've got multiple longfics and series going now, so I figured I should put together a proper list, lol.

Current Longfics

In the Land of Giants: Fic 3 of 10 in Exponential Differentiation, "ItLoG" for short. With Hislop dead and Terra Nova safe, Shepard and Nihlus continue the hunt for Cerberus. A friend's disappearance and a clue from a mysterious message both point them towards Omega, where they encounter a surprising new ally... who seems to know more than she's letting on. [AO3]

The Weight of Memory: Companion novella to ItLoG. While Shepard and Nihlus gallivant off to Terminus, Saren returns home to Palaven to rest, recover, and get used to his new leg as he adjusts to retirement. But the galaxy isn't done with the Arterius clan, and their problems are getting too big to hide from... [AO3]

Make Less the Depth of Grief: After the fall of the Destiny Ascension in the Battle of the Citadel, the galaxy is in shambles, and the hunt is on for Alexander Shepard. In order to find him, Ashley Williams consents to be interviewed about her time on the Normandy. But the more she talks, the less sure of her answers she feels... [AO3]

In Retrograde: When a rescue mission goes horribly awry, turian soldier Axilus Madelivio and quarian Pilgrim Thie'Haasn nar Olyna are thrown together, their fates inexorably intertwined by the biotic explosion Thie set off to save their lives. Now Axilus's latent biotics have been activated, and Thie's Pilgrimage has been thrown wildly off track. In order to escape Axilus's impending transfer to the Cabals and earn Thie's place in quarian society, the two of them are going to have to work together - for better or for worse. [AO3]

Sentiment and Reason: Fic 2 of the Dead Parents Club Murder Mysteries. A visit to an old friend of the Arterius brothers goes awry when the friend in question is found dead in his own home, and Special Tactics are asked to investigate. The problem? Saren is too recognizable, and the late general's neighbors aren't talking. It's up to Avitus Rix and Macen Barro, posing as newlyweds, to infiltrate the neighborhood and find the killer - while coming to terms with their own old rivalry and new feelings. [AO3]

Overarching Series

Exponential Differentiation: No-Reapers AU, DMAB nonbinary Shepard. "ExDiff" for short. After a mysterious all-human team attack Eden Prime and destroy the Prothean beacon found there, Shepard sets out on a grand adventure to hunt them down - and gets in so much deeper than they ever thought possible, uncovering a massive terrorist organization and facing impending war with the Hegemony. Nihlus and Saren join the crew, as well as several OCs including additional Normandy crew, new Spectres, and the batarian Resistance. Also a lot of worldbuilding for alien cultures, especially turians and batarians. Primary ships are Kryterius, Desabrudas, Garrus/OC, and Shepard/Jack.

Series on AO3

Detailed masterpost

Completed: Broken Mirror [x], Blood in the Water [x], Where the Wind Rests [x]

Currently In Progress: In the Land of Giants [x], The Weight of Memory [x]

Upcoming: Belly of the Beast, Straight On Til Morning, Towards Peace, The Distance Between Us, A Most Dangerous Game, Entwined, Jack Harper Must Die, Once and For All

Uneasy Lies the Head: Also referred to as "Bad End" for short. Canon divergent, male Shepard, past mShenko. The Destiny Ascension was left to die, and now the rest of the galaxy is paying the price. While Shepard is hunted down for high treason and terrorism, everyone else has to pick up the pieces he left behind and try to move on. The Normandy crew and the Alliance are insisting it was a necessary sacrifice, but was it really? Examines the consequences of Shepard's actions, both for himself and for the galaxy at large.

Series on AO3

Currently In Progress: Make Less the Depth of Grief [x]

Upcoming: Come What Come May, But a Walking Shadow, A Necessary End

Dead Parents Club Murder Mysteries: Exactly what it says on the tin. Series of mission fics featuring Saren, Nihlus, and Avitus, with occasional guest Macen, and other friends such as primarchs, Councilor Sparatus and his wife Aediteia, and various canon characters loosely associated with the trio (say hi, Benezia and Hannah!). Main pairings are Kryterius and Barrix. No-Reapers AU for ease of timeline sorting and not having to factor in indoctrination or Andromeda, because I don't want to.

Series on AO3

Completed: To Catch a Rabbit [x]

Currently In Progress: Sentiment and Reason [x]

Upcoming: Through the Bars, An Immodest Silence, The Greatest Vulnerability

Celestial Interference: OC-centric series following Axilus Madelivio and Thie'Haasn nar Olyna as their lives are thrown wildly off-course and inexorably twined together. Mostly against their wills. Axilus wanted to be a historian, dammit. Co-written with xMidnightSun. Rewrite of the "Rise & Reign" series, ten years of writing skill improvement and so much character development later.

Currently In Progress: In Retrograde [x]

Upcoming: Slingshot Trajectory, Extraorbital, Perigee/Apogee

[sparatus]

gonna do edits in the morning when it's not 4am but next chapter of weight of memory is finally done i think. it's been over a year i have such a big stick to hit the brothers with

[sparatus]

new exdiff plot point: you know those pics of lionesses completely covered in blood like the whole face with kinda a deranged hungry look in their eyes. that's valis abrudas during the climax of itlog. i will not elaborate.

[sparatus]

i wannaaaa try to get the next memory chapter published by the end of the year. need to torment the masses with arterius family content again. especially the part with desolas needing [REDACTED]

[sparatus]

still think it's very sexy and also funny of me that in broken mirror we predominantly hear about desolas and abrudas's ptsd and how they shouldn't let them find out about cerberus coming back from saren, and it seems to mostly be "they've been through enough i don't want to retraumatize them i can handle it myself"

and then we get to weight of memory, wherein it becomes abundantly clear that while yes both of them were traumatized by what happened and don't like revisiting shanxi, the actual reason they didn't need to find out is that valis abrudas is still Really Mad about what jack harper and his cronies did to her husband and is going to Personally put them in the ground about it with her bare hands and unholy rage, and des doesn't want her to go to maitrum over him (she is 110% willing to go to maitrum over him)

[sparatus]

Six Last Lines

tagged by @omniblades-and-stars a while back see i swear i do these sometimes <3 ty daisy!! tagging (gently) @teamdilf @thetrashbagswasteland and whoever else wants to do it just say i tagged you xoxo

told myself i'd work on a post-itlog novella for not-nanowrimo and then uh. y'know. last week happened. so kinda got off track but slowly pulling my head back into gear, have some straight on til morning:

--

[Garrus] didn’t think tensions between the embassies had ever been higher; following the funeral, he’d seen more talons left ungloved, unbooted, and filed sharp around the Citadel than a younger him would have thought legal. Tasora had told him nobody saw the councilor very much at all outside him arriving in the morning and departing several hours late each day, embroiled as he was in calls and conferences with various Imperial leaders trying to decide what to do about the rot in their midst, and there were some days where you could go an entire day without even realizing the old man was there. That had been half of why Garrus started coming up at the end of the day to walk out with her, a nagging fear in the back of his head that if he let her out of his sight for too long, something terrible would happen.

His therapist had said that was the PTSD talking, and they’d work on it. He’d told him he’d feel better in a Palaven month, and then he wouldn’t have to go anywhere anyway, just stay home and protect the nest. This was also apparently not a normal thing to say.

[sparatus]

actually fuck it posting this meme @thetrashbagswasteland made abt exdiff

matteo shepard working with saren, then meeting desolas and realizing saren's actually the nice brother, but hearing des's wife is more levelheaded and being eager to meet her only to discover within 30 seconds that uh-oh that was subjective,

also works for just dealing with the three of them in general. you don't want abrudas to get involved because then you're not talking your way out of it.

[sparatus]

very sexy of me i think that despite valis being in one chapter of bm and a main character in memory i still haven't given her a full physical description, because all the people in her chapters already know her and are used to her. there's snippets of descriptors when it's relevant, and we know a mountain collapsed on her on shanxi, and the overall impression is that she was heavily scarred by her near-death experience, but every pov character so far know her well enough that they're not going to turn to the camera and go "this is valis, my [mother/sister-in-law], here is a detailed description of what she looks like"

that leaves it to shepard in the itlog climax, who has not met her before and only knows from saren she's considered the level head to des's insanity and is 100% not expecting a hen the size of a house who looks like she can and will eat them for breakfast and pick her teeth with their bones

[sparatus]

current state of itlog is me in the fucking trenches trying to move the plot forward while my brain is off frolicking in a meadow somewhere daydreaming about the minor long-distance romantic subplot between garrus and the ambassador he ghosted