Since it’s N7 Day, thought I would share some of my numerous Shepards over the years. This game has helped me through some of the worst times of my life and provided me with the absolute best moments. Thank you, Commander Shepard.
gillian shepard * earthborn * sole survivor * vanguard
“You have survived so much that no one remembers. And you still spread warm rain on all your overgrown lots. And you still get dressed in the morning. You still open wide for the sun.”
More on me screaming about how much I love my Shepard
Don’t mind the little bar at the bottom, I have no idea how to make it go away when I’m recording
parents meeting when they take their kids to class au
holy shit. ignoring the huge age gap between kolyat and alexis tho.
The Citadel Academy for Young Sapients was known for being as expensive as it was exclusive. All children were accepted after extensive background checks and with a substantial quarterly tuition. In return, the children were given a top-rate education in classrooms with a 7:1 teacher:student ratio, a nutritious lunchtime meal, and the highest security a school could boast without appearing to be a fortress.
(Gillian heard of the school while heading out to an op, shot messages out to Merritt and Sarah, and immediately put enough money aside for Alexis’s first ten years at the academy. Just in case.)
The school advertised itself as incredibly diverse, and the first day lived up to expectations. Alexis clung with one hand to Gillian’s skirt and with the rest of his body to Merritt’s leg. He got cagey when Sarah walked too far away.
"Hello," a smooth-voiced asari said. The director of the school, something Aleiri. Gillian smiled when she realized they weren’t speaking to her. "Would you be Alexis?"
"Say hello," Merritt prompted, gently prying Alexis off his leg.
"Hello," Alexis said, straying more towards Gillian.
Gillian turned to the side, giving him nowhere to hide. The director smiled encouragingly.
"Would you like to meet the other children, Alexis? Or would you prefer to stay with your parents for the moment?"
Alexis promptly plastered himself to Gillian’s legs. Behind her, Sarah badly stifled a chuckle.
"Very well," Director Aleiri said. They gestured to a corner of the main hall, where other parents with child-parasites milled around, trying to get their children interested in each other. "There are snacks that way, if you would like some."
"Why not-" Merritt began.
Sarah elbowed him. “We’d love some. Thank you, director.”
It was barely a minute before Merritt wandered off with some corporate bigwig he recognized. Sarah talked animatedly to a turian woman about the development of holo-artistry after the Unification Wars and how it connected with early-modern human artwork after the invention of the Internet. Gillian tried to appear interested, in the hopes that Alexis would get bored and forget his shyness.
When he let go of her legs, Gillian glanced down. His eyes were fixed across the room, on an odd pair of aliens. It took a moment to place the species.
"They’re drell," Gillian murmured, crouching down next to Alexis.
"Are they related to lizards?" Alexis asked.
"I don’t know," Gillian admitted.
"They look like Margaret."
(Margaret was Alexis’s ball python, who was honestly more Sarah’s ball python. Sarah had certainly been excited to buy that Christmas present for their four year old.)
"They’re more colorful than she is," Gillian said. The… mother? father? The parent caught her eye. "Want to go say hello?" she asked.
Alexis suddenly went quiet again.
"Let’s go say hello," Gillian decided. "And you can tell them about Margaret."
Alexis reluctantly followed her around the crowd. The tall green one was murmuring to their child, probably much in the same way that Gillian had done for Alexis.
"Hello," Gillian said, and gently drew Alexis around from behind her so he could lean on her legs without actually clinging to her. "My name’s Gillian Shepard. This is my son, Alexis."
"Hello," Alexis said shyly.
The parent nodded. “Well met. I am Tannor Nuara. This is my son, Kolyat.” Kolyat kept glancing between Alexis and Gillian, edging close to Tannor’s side.
"Alexis was telling me something," Gillian prompted, nudging Alexis gently.
"Are you…" Alexis began. The rest of his sentence was lost to mumbling and the ambient noise of the room.
"Are we what?" Kolyat asked.
"Are you related to snakes?" Alexis repeated, only slightly louder. "I mean- My snake, Margaret, she looks a little bit like you, but, without arms and legs and stuff, and she’s not as bright, she’s red but mommy said pythons aren’t naturally red and that Margaret is different, and…"
Gillian got lost in the child logic, especially when Kolyat asked why pythons couldn’t be red. Alexis was too young to grasp gene modifications and made up some story about paint, and that got him babbling about Sarah’s work.
"Well," Gillian said quietly, once Alexis dragged Kolyat off to meet Sarah. "That worked out quite nicely."
"Indeed," Tannor said. "Thank you for approaching us."
Gillian was trying to work out a polite way to excuse herself when Tannor said, “May I ask you a question?”
"Of course," Gillian said.
"You are Commander Shepard, are you not?"
Gillian half-smiled, unsure of what was coming next. Please, let it not be an autograph request. “Yes, that’s me.”
"You live a dangerous life."
Nevermind. Gillian would have preferred a dozen autograph requests. “I do,” Gillian agreed. “Does that deprive me of a right to family?”
"No-" Tannor held up his hands in supplication. "No, of course not. It is merely that- I, too, live a dangerous life. I am often preoccupied by what would happen to my son if I were to perish."
"Same here," Gillian murmured, turning to locate Sarah and the boys. Sarah stood with the turian woman from before, but the children had moved on. "It’s one of my nightmares, really."
"How do you cope?"
Gillian shrugged. “I make plans, for ‘just in case.’ I try to tell him I love him as much as I can, and to make every leave as long as I can make it. I take lots of pictures. If I leave him only with memories, I want them to be good ones. What more can I do, really?”
"I see," Tannor said quietly, as though that answer was not quite what he was looking for. this is getting long but yeah idekmaybe one day thane tells her his real name and identity lmao
I was playing Gillian Shepard for the first time in forever, and then... then i noticed that she and liara were, like. holding hands. and i thought "huh that's strange" and then she reached out and touched liara's cheek and i was like "WAIT A SECOND THIS ISN'T MY KAIDANMANCING SAVE"
so now i get to replay an hour of the game
ETA: Or maybe not, because Poopbutt's save didn't make it over when I switched to my own Xbox. Damnit. Time to load up Cordelia and get her through ME2.
Sarah’s pansexual. Merritt is more or less heteroromantic demisexual, but Thane’s pretty hot so sometimes they make out and shit.
07. Turn-ons:
Sarah’s way into how people look and move. Part of why she wanted to be an artist is because how people interact with their surroundings fascinates her. Sometimes it can be something weird like how people sit on a chair or lean on something. Sometimes it can be like Thane sizing up their apartment or managing to be graceful while carrying a literal pile of books. Also, she likes to be tied up and informed that she is a bad, bad girl who doesn’t deserve all the nice things she’s about to be getting.
Merritt’s pretty vanilla. Most of the time he isn’t actually very into sex, but then Sarah will smile at him all gooey-eyed or Gillian will dance him into the bedroom and he’ll be like “oH HELLO.”
11. Biggest fear:
Both of them fear Gillian never coming home. Both of them fear someone killing or kidnapping Alexis because of his parents’ jobs. (Merritt is a pretty well-known weapon modifier, Gillian is the first human spectre, and someone’s probably been offended by Sarah’s art at some point.) Learning about their son’s death on the news is a recurring nightmare of Sarah’s after Gillian’s death.
Merritt sometimes worries about Sarah and Gillian deciding to cut him out of the triad and taking Alexis with them, but he knows that’s ridiculous and they’re very quick to reassure him. Gillian is sometimes worried that Merritt and Sarah will get sick of her constantly leaving for Military Shit and that they’ll be fractured because of that. (Sarah is actually very secure in their relationship.)
14. Biggest regret:
Merritt regrets designing mods, at times. He went into it because he was good at it, because there was a lot of propaganda around about needing better weapons to beat the aliens (both during the First Contact War and after), and because it seemed like a good idea. He is very careful about contracting to the military as much as possible instead of selling to gangs or mercenaries, but he knows that shit gets to them. One of his worst nightmares is Gillian being killed by a shotgun with a Canasi Smart Choke or a pistol with a Canasi Silencer.
(After the Reaper War, he retires early.)
Sarah regrets letting her fight with Gillian about leaving the military get so out of hand. At the time she thought, “Well, that ended badly, let’s leave it there,” and resolved to never really contact Gillian again. But then Gillian started talking to her again and she realized that she still really loved her, and then it became what they have now, and she almost let that slip away because of a fight.
