#shlee t'selvi

[rawliverandcigarettes]

One year ago, day for day, Halfway Home, my Mass Effect fanfiction that took me seven years to complete from start to finish, began to be released on Archive of Our Own. I have dusted off a drawing of Shlee I had never managed to finish for the occasion, and finally completed it to celebrate!!

It's my little space frog and he's having Problems!!!

Truth be told, I wanted to do approximately eight billion things in regards to Halfway Home, and I have finished barely three in that very long list (one of them being: I made printing tests for the cover of the book and it looks way better than I feared!!! so when I do eventually move forward and make a physical copy, it will look good at least.)

To be quite honest, I think I needed a break from Mass Effect and this story in particular, and so I allowed myself to step away for a while. But! I have been (tentatively, and wayy less efficiently than I had hoped) making slow progress on the sequel, The Empire of Preys! It hasn't reached first draft stage yet, as it is an incredibly long and stupidly complex story --but we're getting there eventually. It may just take a little longer than I first anticipated.

Anyway: happy birthday Halfway Home!!!!! Happy birthday longest project of my life that taught me how to write and did so many good things for me in general in spite of being a story about wallowing in the Horrors!!!! Happy birthday!!! Happy N7 Day ten days too late!!! Woooo!!!!

[rawliverandcigarettes]

So. I think I have my cover for Halfway Home? 🥺

(I wanted it to be less saturated originally, but the tests I made made me understand I needed the colors to pop a little more and the dark to be less dark, so. okay I guess)

I am not comfortable drawing landscapes or anything precise in general, so I allowed myself to get a little messy as long as I did the thing. But I think the main point is conveyed, and I'm really happy to have landed on this idea, which both conveys a lot of things about this specific story in my opinion, but also sets up a nice theme for the future iterations in the series..... (I already know what the TEoP one will be like, I think it will be cool!!!)

It was a journey, and I'll probably need to make adjustments when I actually send stuff to print, but! Cool! Happy!

[rawliverandcigarettes]

HELLO!!! EVERYBODY LOOK!!!! RIGHT NOW!!!!

My immensely cool friends, being the best, all gifted me absolutely wonderful pieces for my upcoming birthday and now I'm going to brag about it!!!!

The Anetha fanart was done by the wonderful Zoe B. Simpson !! The insane Khocress pixel art interpretation was the work of Robin Loisel, and the absolutely batshit wild stitchwork of Shlee has been commissioned to Alice Rage, based on an illustration by Van Vermyllion.

I can't even FATHOM the amount of work that went into all of these pieces, and I am SO very blessed to have such wonderful friends, and I am going to CRY now. 😭😭😭😭

[rawliverandcigarettes]

One thing I'm slowly figuring out about my style of character writing, especially characters in tragedies, is that they tend to have a Covert Emotion circumstances had them repress, often because of the social constraints surrounding them. It's the emotion they will not express, or will express sideways through a range of compensatory behaviors that never address the core issue.

For example (in my own writing), Shlee's covert emotion is anger. He can't express anger because he doesn't have the shoulders to carry it, was socialized to repress it at all time, and had to flatten himself to survive the more commanding presences in his life (Rhanda, then Anetha, then literally everyone on Omega) --complacency being a trait in him that everyone values; even when said trait is criticized, the end goal is still for him to listen and act the way another person wants him to act. This is not sustainable, and so his anger begins to overflow and bubble like toxic waste, with searing consequences for him and everyone it touches; and, ironically, it's the emotion that ends up defining him the most.

[rawliverandcigarettes]

A little over 7 years after starting my neverending project of Mass Effect fanfiction, we've *finally* reached that unattainable summit. And I'm super proud to announce the following:

The first chapter of Halfway Home will release the 17th of November 2022!!!

Following that fateful day of November, new chapters will be uploaded every Thursday (CET / UTC+01:00)!

This particular drawing has known *many* iterations, but I'm super happy to have a nice Shlee to introduce to the world! So here's Shlee T'selvi, the main character of Halfway Home, whose brain and intensely messy life will be dissected over 174k worth of words.

Shlee is a salarian raised in secret by a dysfunctional asari family fractured by things unsaid. His doting, convenient persona and the hypermnesic quality of his memories makes him a shy and introverted boy.

The kind who simmers, quietly.

Halfway Home's Presentation Post

Full Trigger Warning List

My Ao3 account

[rawliverandcigarettes]

But Shlee was tired of silence. Tired of restraint, tired of quiet entropy. He longed for warmth. He wished he was less scared. That he would dare to reach past the gun once again.

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✨READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 23 HERE!✨

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The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

This is the last chapter.

Thanks to everyone for following me along in this journey. 💜

( a long meandering post will probably be posted in the coming days to take the time to dissect the fact that I finally published Halfway Home from start to finish, because I will need some time to digest that fact and my feelings around that fact )

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Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

The first time Shlee saw the sky outside of a holoscreen, the night was overcast and the city-state of Armali blistered in neon-blue.

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 1 HERE! ✨

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The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

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Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

In Afterlife, the dancers had no right to their own fame. Not in Aria T’loak’s domain. They were to be jewels in her crown, admired as part of a whole, as embellishments. Many didn’t get that. Many left because of it.

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 13 HERE! ✨

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The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

He had never considered salarians as children before. Never realized they looked that way: lightning strikes confident in their immediacy, delicate as flies.

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 3 HERE! ✨

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The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Shlee had never understood Omega as a concrete location before. Mathematical formulas about swirling neutron stars in the molten eye of the Milky Way had an actuality that Omega lacked. Too foreign to conjure empathy.

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 9 HERE! ✨

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The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

So he thought of Khocress. Khocress, shackled to the things he wanted to absolve; excusing each and every one of them.

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✨READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 21 HERE!✨

---

The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

But he couldn't forget anything, so he forced his legs to carry him still; him and the load of memories, the living and the dead. The taxidermy in his brain.

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 17 HERE! ✨

---

The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

“I won’t survive this war,” he said.

Shlee couldn’t block the weight of disillusion from conjuring distorted pity, recognition even: nausea dissolved by exhaustion, and the taste of salt, and the sadness of entropy, of things shattered and forever lost.

“I survived you.”

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✨READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 22 HERE!✨

---

The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

“Getting castes to work together and build something new, rekindle dignity out of the mess we’re left with... This might take a lifetime. But when the crown slips, I need to make sure my people is ready.”

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 14 HERE! ✨

---

The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

“When I’m a thousand years old,” he stated, “I’ll have visited every planet, every moon and every star in the galaxy.” Nails in his thigh. Mom’s breath bristled in her throat. And in the dark, Anetha burst into the sourest snort Shlee had ever heard.

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 2 HERE! ✨

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The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List

[rawliverandcigarettes]

As they passed from iron to a lush carpet Shlee understood; he was built for escape —everything in his DNA honed for evasion. Why did any of the T’selvis ever think they could keep him from the stars.

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✨ READ HALFWAY HOME'S CHAPTER 18 HERE! ✨

(MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER. PLEASE CHECK THE TAGS AND STAY SAFE.)

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The night Shlee hatches in the trunk of a skycar, an asari watches and cries. She promises he will survive, at all and every cost. Shlee believes her. He stomachs the resentment of his alien sisters forced into hiding with him, and dreams about the stars. But the Milky Way is vast, swirling; painfully interwoven. And when Shlee begins to wonder who he is, who he should be, and what secrets keep this fragile galaxy from splitting apart, perhaps it’s already too late.

(this story is complete; new chapters will be published every Thursday!)

---

Link to my Ao3

Link to Story Presentation Post

Link to the Trigger Warning List