#javikweek2018

[skyllianhamster]

I’ve been waiting weeks to make this hhhhhhh

For #javikweek2018

[illusivesoul]

“What are you exactly ?”

“Prothean”

[blighted-elf]

“I am the anger of a dead people, demanding blood be spilled for the blood we lost.”

[illusivesoul]

“You will be the voice of our people”

[tyvani]

“Thursday: Favorite Javik content! Is there a piece of art or a fanfic about Javik that’s caught your eye and you’ve always wanted to get excited about it? Give some love to our fellow Javik content creators and share some awesome work with fellow Javik lovers who may have missed out on things that have been out there for a while but gotten buried in the abyss of the internet. Maybe something just got posted and you really love it and want the world of Javik lovers to know about it. Also if you’ve created something Javik related and want a plug for it, here’s your chance!”

Oh boy. I don’t imagine there’s a lot of Javik content that’s eluded us, considering how small our community is, but I’ve not ended up reading a whole lot of fanfics that people have written. I’ve done that a lot with a lot of fandoms. But I still remember way back when I was fresh out of Mass Effect 3, certainly upset by the initial ending but excited and buzzing with my love for the game and its characters and the universe, and I crept through the Mass Effect Kink Memes and landed on one that I think really sold Shavik for me: Heuristics.

Since then, the writer shed their anonynimity and cross-posted the work (which I absolutely just finished again and it makes me as giddy as it did when I first read it), and maybe they still never finished writing it, but I couldn’t care less because I simply enjoyed it that much.

But, nowadays, I’ve found the lovely @anna-antoshchenkova and her dozens and dozens of Shavik paintings that are so beautiful and elegant, and being on tumblr and getting to see every new painting is an absolute delight. 😊

[tyvani]

“Wednesday: Why do you love Javik? He’s an ornery character but we can’t help but love him. What do you love about him? What drew you to him in the first place? Did you want to romance him? Basically just give me all the reasons why you love Javik. Everything from “his outfit is cool” to “I want to gaze into his four beautiful eyes while doing all manner of NSFW stuff with him” are allowed.”

It’s been a long time since I first started liking Javik. Naturally, as the last Prothean, he’s absolutely unique and fascinating, but I distinctly remember first being attracted to his mouth, which is strange to admit. His lips and his teeth were just... Well, attractive. But he was harsh, maybe slightly amusing because of it, though it was hard to go anywhere with that. Until he started warming up to everyone else. He was snarky, and his quips could be genuinely funny, but I wanted to see him actually connect to everyone, and I wanted to connect to him, myself. This would be made so easy with his ability to share information. It would be so simply to convey emotions, feelings, and even complex thoughts, but also drive a connection that’s potentially deeper and more intimate than any other. 

Yeah, his perspective is pretty calculated and firm, rightfully so considering his life before, but I also wanted to see him have a chance to live a life in peace. I also realize that a lot of the reason why I like him is because of his potential, which is also the reason I like a lot of characters, but he at least actually starts making the shift into becoming friends with the Normandy crew during the events of ME3, and to see him start caring about everyone is heartwarming.

Originally, I never wanted to romance him at all. The playthrough I met him in, I had my sights already set on Ashley, even though she was unattainable as Fem!Shep, and his comments about her pheromones and looking elsewhere for a mate really caught me off-guard, but I would probably have to attribute my fondness for him to fanfictions I read out of curiosity well after I finished the game. It made me think of him in a new light, and things just took off from there. In fact, I’m very tempted to “romance” him in my next playthrough, whenever I get around to it.

[tyvani]

“Tuesday: Prothean society. What do you think life was like for Javik before the Reapers came? What holidays do you think there would have been and would Javik have participated in them? What was the art and music like? Do you think Javik sang drunken karaoke to beautiful but haunting Prothean ballads about battle hardened heroes? That’s up to you to decide.”

I always imagined prothean life in Javik’s time was very bleak. He was born well into the war, and all he ever knew was the war. There was probably barely time for him to be a child, let alone a baby. But that’s where his deterministic nature comes from. Most prothean holidays from the past probably never survived through the war. If any, the only ones that would’ve were those that already celebrated the might and victories of the protheans in war. More might arise for specific victories against the reapers, but they’d become more bitter celebrations as the reapers took more ground. Javik might have avoided celebrating much, too, considering how wasteful he deems anything but fighting to begin with. On the other hand, I have no doubts that he’d find other ways of de-stressing to be perfectly relieving.

All around them, they lived in echoes of the past, and those lived on in some of his squadmates, surely passed down from one generation to the next, or from one friend to another. Much like the echo shard, pieces of culture would’ve been passed on directly, and hints of songs, sips of drinks, and fleeting feelings of happiness and joy would get passed along with it. I’m sure it would’ve been a way to cope, to share, and to bond, but a number of protheans would come to hate that even more and become closed off. Those who stayed open to it would absolutely still try to share it out loud. They’d recount old folklore from ancient times, which would be waved away by some and listened to fondly by others, some would sing the songs that had been passed down, even if parts of them were lost and they had to finish it on their own. Javik would sit, rolling his eyes, but listen anyways. The tales of war heroes would secretly leave him on the edge of his seat, as he admired them greatly.

This isn’t much of a speculation post on Prothean society, and I gave it some thought through the day, but I think it’d take more than a day to really feel out what kind of everyday culture they have, and I hadn’t already brainstormed that because Javik just wasn’t that present for it all.

[tyvani]

So, I still wanted to do Javik Week, but I also misunderstood and I thought the prompts started Tuesday. Whooops!

“Monday: Favorite Ship! This can be a romantic or platonic relationship. Who do you think Javik’s closest friend is on the Normandy? Who does he have feelings for? Who has feelings for him? Feel free to share your writing or art or just excited flailings. NSFW is definitely allowed, just please tag it so I’m not sharing alien butts with people who aren’t interested in that sort of thing.”

Favorite ship would definitely be Shavik (Shepard and Javik). It used to be T’Sovik, but guess I got way more into Shavik Ahah

I think Shepard honestly could be his closest friend, especially because of the beacon giving her the ability to understand Prothean and have a perspective to comprehend the message. But it would be something they would connect over. Besides that, I still think Liara might develop feelings for him, especially when he becomes such a big focus of her fascination, and when they get over their spats, they’d become very good friends, too. In fact, they’d probably get together if Shepard wasn’t interested. As for the others, I always saw Javik as finding it hard to fit into the Normandy, but if at least someone tried to include him in stuff, he’d eventually warm up to the others. He’d love Wrex and Grunt and Zaeed and would have so much fun going to the gun range. Hell, he’d probably be happy to go to Tuchanka and fight thresher maws with ‘em, too! Garrus and Javik would absolutely bond over their militaristic cultures, and I think he’d have a lot of respect for Samara, especially in being able to make such clear-cut decisions on who she is required to kill. The others, he might have a bit more difficulty bonding with, but as he comes to accept his place in this new galaxy, I think he’d come to find things he likes about the others, too.