Hi there, I read reap what you sew back when you were posting it and recently went back to reread it because I think about it a lot (I've since gotten into modeling lmao and I often think of Valkyrie's 'I don't know fashion I just wear it' because same but you DO need to know a bit when you start and have to sort out your first photoshoots for yourself rip). [1/2]
HI HELLO!! First of all, thank you for reaching out!! ;o; secondly, if you mean on @roarhaven that “I’m done with this fandom” post was posted in............. 2014! clearly my fandom breakup went real well. LMAO
That’s so cool you’ve started modeling and so lovely you thought of my fic!! The wearing her own clothes thing is something I’ve thought about it (more about that in a bit) but I can not oblige your request for a summary because, I, a clown, am still determined to get that last chapter out!! I’ve had an insane last few years but I do love this fic and I want to try my damndest to finish it. I don’t know when that will be (especially as I’m afraid the lst chapter will be like, 10k lmao), but as an apology for the long ass wait here is a nice valdug tidbit updating you on how valkyrie’s state side modeling is going.
Skulduggery opened Instagram and was surprised to be immediately greeted by Valkyrie Cain’s face - published by a popular fashion magazine in the US that had his own mage branch as well. He knew she had done a shoot for some boots - this must have been it, she had told him very eagerly to look out for it. He scrolled down.
Time suddenly seemed to slow to a crawl.
She was modeling the boots. Heeled, just above her ankle, not anywhere practical enough to be something she’d wear normally, but nice.
She had paired the boots with his gifted Bespoke leather jacket. (Mentioned in the description as “from model’s own collection.)
That was it.
Of course, she was sprawled in a way that covered the most important bits. But not -- enough bits, was it really appropriate to show that much of her hips and, ahem, derriere?
The intense eye contact with the camera was characteristically Valkyrie Cain. Nothing quite seductive about it - more threatening. “Keep looking and I’ll punch you in the throat.”
It had a rather different effect on him.
He received the email alert while he was still gawking.
i'm interested in hearing your thoughts on garrus being shoe-horned into the best friend role if you want to talk about it!
I may not be able to talk about it as much as some people who are super Garrus-critical, but yes I can try!
this really becomes a problem in ME3 more than the other games. basically my understanding of Garrus’s writing in ME3 is that they were well aware that of the fact that he was a fan-favorite, and didn’t want to threaten that, so they made it his crux. they took most of the fandom’s feelings for Garrus and decided to reflect that in Shepard’s relationship with Garrus, but by doing this, they basically ended up pretending a relationship had been there throughout ME1-2 that existed in some player’s heads. of course, Mass Effect is an RPG (well, sort of) so in theory... your best friend could be whoever you want to be, so with that in mind, it’s a little strange for a dev team to go “your best friend is this one character and we will write all of his scenes around that assumption.” unless they really want to play up the fanservice, I guess.
when he’s introduced in ME1, people joke about how they would never not recruit him, but it is a possibility—you could run through the entire game having only met Garrus in the Citadel Tower and never spoken to him again—in which case by meeting him again in ME2, it is a little strange to see that guy you barely remember from the Citadel in the last game show up, but not entirely unwelcome, because at least you, like, recognize him. it’s a little odd how you banter like old friends by making fun of his scars, but what is straight-up bizarre is how in the next game, ME3, Garrus talks about how he was there with you fighting Reapers from the beginning. of course, not a lot of people would specifically go out of their way to avoid recruiting Garrus in ME1, and very few people probably naturally avoided him standing by the elevator in ME1 (which is the only way to not recruit him if you don’t find him in Dr. Michele’s clinic), so the odds of someone not recruiting him in ME1 are low unless they intended to, but it’s still possible.
come ME2, I think they chose to forget that. a few lines have changed in 2 if you don’t recruit him in 1, but not many. remember in ME1, Garrus was an optional squaddie, who had an optional side quest, and his relationship with Shepard there was very much superior/subordinate, or as some people interpret it, more mentor-like. the most personal they get is when they talk about their jobs, the difficulties they face making moral choices, a bit about their families, and Spectrehood. it’s a nice introduction to Garrus’s character but the lines are drawn pretty clear between their roles; by the end of ME1, given the canon dialogue, the closest I’m personally willing to believe of their relationship from helping him deal with Saleon is “subordinate I am fond of,” or post-Saren after Garrus leaves the Normandy, “ally I can call on later.”
and then Shepard dies and is gone for two years. by ME2, when you meet up with him again, I actually find this jump from “subordinate” to “ally/friend” works for my Shepard, but it might not for people who never really engaged with Garrus or even liked him on the SR-1, or those who weren’t thrilled with the idea of him... basically running off to kill as many people as he could on Omega after Shepard got themselves spaced. if you don’t romance him in ME2, he has so little content in ME2: his recruitment mission, post-recruitment convo, loyalty convo trigger, loyalty quest, and post-loyalty convo. if you romance him, you get several more scenes, but compared to other romanceable companions like Miranda or Jack—whose attitudes toward you change the more you talk to them—or even Samara, who you can just chat with while looking out at the stars, Garrus’s platonic relationship with Shepard seems to stall after the Sidonis quest: you gain his loyalty for the suicide mission and then you’re assumed to be all cool. realistically, they could’ve given us a lot of reasons why Garrus might not want to talk—he’s probably still reeling from getting his face blown off and confronting his betrayer again, or if you don’t let him kill Sidonis, maybe he could’ve gotten pissed at Shepard and confronted them—but that’s me trying to justify a lack of content. truthfully there’s very little non-romanceable Garrus content in ME2 to build up that “best friends” angle they want to sell in ME3.
in ME3, you DO get more content that shows how naturally “at ease” he feels working with Shepard: his recruitment mission, longer conversation trees when he joins, more banter from squaddies—including Garrus—on missions, him inviting you to go bottle-shooting, a scene with him after every main mission where he asks you how you’re doing, if you miss Ash/Kaidan, mutual struggles over the burden of leadership, worrying over his family, etc. by this point though, if you didn’t romance him, he’s treating you like his best friend even though he basically ignored you all of ME2. again, you could rationalize that time as his social awkwardness on a Cerberus ship, or him dealing with trauma, but in my friend’s words, it’s really more of bioware telling-but-not-showing that they really wanted you to like this guy but waiting until the last game to give him consistent scenes with the player that reflected that closeness.
on paper, Garrus makes a lot of sense to be close to Shepard, because assuming you recruit him in ME1, he’s been fighting Reapers with Shepard in every game, but also... so has Joker or Chakwas or Tali, for the same reason; so does Ash or Kaidan, for being the only Alliance teammate who was there at the beginning and end (assuming they didn’t both die); so does Liara, for being there every game and only abstaining in ME2 because she was still dealing with the fallout of saving your life (there’s lots of criticism of her being “forced” on the player too and while I agree with some of it, that’s a topic for another time lol). Bioware does introduce Garrus early in each game—I don’t know if this was intentional, because they knew he was so popular so they wanted to give him to the player early—but then he has so little to say in ME2, the game about building relationships, that introducing him early just means he stands around for half game talking about calibrations. a lot of fandom, especially shakarian fans, end up filling the gaps of ME2 with their own headcanons, myself included, to make the relationship development feel a little smoother, but the trouble there is when we start treating it like it was always canon for everybody.
I know it seems weird to complain that such a popular character should’ve had even more content—there are lots of other characters just as or more deserving who got really screwed over (coughs Ashley)—but in my ideal world, they all would’ve had more content lmfao.
**Send me your name for a moodboard based on what it makes me think of: 23/[30](http://onelassieandherfandoms.tumblr.com/tagged/name-moodboards)****maxine:** silk, class, summer berries, red lipstick, rose petals, one-shoulder tops, jackets with slogans on the back, stubbornness, feathers
(i'm shepgarrus) shakarian + high school or university au for the three-sentence fic!
this is………Not three sentences lmfao
really i just wanted an excuse to combine the riff on “i’m unfuckable i’ve never been fucked” with that absurd reference to having reach, idk fencing technicalities i’ve only ever watched it is this how it works
If you can disarm me, I’ll consider talking to the coach.
Most men wouldn’t try and fence a woman. Suffered from some inane notion that it wouldn’t be fair. Arcane ideas of men and women masquerading as an honor code when really it was nothing more than their inability to see her as an equal in combat.
He didn’t appear to be having trouble with that.
Shep’s ass is unkickable, Ashley had warned him. It’s never been kicked.
He was a full foot taller than her. She had assumed that would make him slower, but the man had reach.
She had expected to have him down within thirty seconds. Three minutes later, she wasn’t so sure.
This is just the fun part.
It was just a tiny slip. Something that wouldn’t have caught the attention of a combatant without the laser-precision this Garrus seemed to have. The hilt slipped just a millimeter in her hand. It was enough. Only a moment—
—and the her weapon was out of her hand. His was at her throat. She blinked behind her net mask.
This was what she liked about it; practice scenarios for certain death.
“You asked me why I should be on the team,” he said quietly, low enough so that only she could hear. “I should be on it because you want me.”
Shepard smiled where he couldn’t see. She twisted back and away with an explosive agility that caught him off guard, and instead of staying on her feet she rolled sideways, snatching her saber off the ground as she moved. Before he could react she was up and had it at the back of his neck.
So Shepard finds that there's actually a movie version of her and garrus's relationship and she drags garrus to go see it because she knows it's going to be AWFUL
And it IS it's the cringiest, stupidest most inaccurate garbage ever and they just make fun of it the whole time
except for the very end where there is actually a sort of romantic scene and the both of them are like aw 🥺 maybe this isn't so bad lol
thanks, i figured it was something like the cup example from grade school, flkdfjldkfd what i couldn't get was how the water wasn't all rushing out cause it looked to me like the glass case's bottom was sitting just on the waterline, and with the water sort of choppy it seemed like an unstable setup? but the case probably just went a bit deeper under the surface. i def didn't notice the pillars lol
26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?
I think before I began this second phase of my writing career I was really scared to do tropes. Like, I dunno, I wanted to be more ‘’’’original’’’’ than that. But I’ve since, obviously, completely changed my school of thought. There are things that I want to try and haven’t yet, but it’s not fear. Usually it’s lack of an idea I’m excited enough about to put in the work to write the damn thing. Or Time.
I feel like fear isn’t a good thing to have when it comes to writing? I dunno, writing is a fun hobby. If you want to do something, do it. Who cares how it ends up? As long as you’re happy and you had fun that’s all that matters. Everything else can fuck off.
33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?
lol that it takes for-fucking-ever? I’ve heard writing described as trying to move a lake from one spot to another, where all you have is a bucket. Though this year, it’s felt like I’ve been armed with a teaspoon. But I’m still moving water, I promise. :)
for the au headcanons: that boffinshield au where thorin and bofur are roommates and bilbo is bofur's boyfriend :D
Send me an AU and I’l give you 5 Headcanons
(i feel like this is cheating because @amahhi and I already rp’d this a;sldkfjaslkdf)-Bofur had a crush on Thorin when they first moved in together (i mean how could you NOT with a gorgeous long haired and blue eyed surly-yet-kind dude like that who insists on wearing well fitted jeans and leather jackets??? it is impossible) but Thorin is so Dense that he assumed all of Bofur’s flirting was just Bofur being Bofur and ignored it. Bofur figures it’s no use and moves on (while still oggling because he isnt BLIND)-Thorin has a huge crush on Bofur. Thorin is too Dense to realize this. He just knows he Does Not Like It when Bofur starts dating Bilbo. He knows he has no REASON to not like it, so he mainly just kind of skulks around and disapproves of Bofur’s foppish rich boyfriend.-Once, Bilbo gets to the apartment before Bofur, and Bofur tells Thorin to keep Bilbo entertained. Thorin, in a moment of poor judgement, thinks it would be HILARIOUS to take the rich ponce to a super seedy dive bar. It starts backfiring when someone starts harassing Thorin. It REALLY backfires when Bilbo starts a barfight by clocking the said harasser in the face. Bofur has to pick them up from the hospital and Thorin’s heart is so confused by what he thought was the rich fop standing in front of him in a blood stained cashmere sweater and chewing him out.-Bofur and Bilbo have very frequent and very loud sex. This distresses Thorin before the bar incident. It HIGHLY distresses Thorin after the bar incident.-Once Bilbo and Bofur catch on to what is happening and get Thorin in on their thing, it is seriously like they took in a gruff stray who is terrified that this Good Thing will be taken away from him and reassuring cuddles have to happen on a regular basis. It’s not difficult, no one can resist a large, muscular and intimidating man in nothing but soft pajama pants looking slightly vulnerable and confused. no one.
