My, my those
eyes like fire
I'm a winged insect,
you're a funeral pyre
Come now, bite
through these wires
I'm a waking hell and
the Gods grow tired
Reset my patient
violence along both lines
of a pathway higher
Grow back your
sharpest teeth, you
know my desire
I will travel far beyond
the path of reason
Take me back to Eden
Messy Horizon Angst upon ye!
Song: Take Me Back to Eden- Sleep Token
So it's ME appriciation week, and I figured I'd participate with some writing/headcanons and creating a ME apprication week thread. I'm behind, so I'll just jump back in time and do the first three days today! Here's the prompt list I'll be following
Day 1- Shepard (Background/Identity/Picture)
Day 2- Shepard's relationships (Friends/Li/Lovers/Family)
Day 3- Characters (Traits/Quirks/Meaning)
Day 4- Non-Shepard Relationships (Romance/Friendship/Family/Care)
Day 5- Ships/Universe (Normandy/Miky Way)
Day 6- Lore (Leviathans/Reapers/Citadel/Protheans/...)
Day 7- End/Future - "Thank you Mass Effect for..."
Day 1 Liska Shepard:
This is so long (2,815 words) Everything under the cut
Overview: Liska Shepard (she/they) is an N7 infiltrator, Earthborn, and Hero of the Skyllian Blitz.
She was youngest to graduate N7 school (beating the previous one by 1 month) and the reason why now the regulations say you can't "challenge" vocation tests. Her class was the first to have every N7 candidate that came in pass the Astroid Test, in large part due to her leadership. She has an uncanny ability to get people to work together and that kind of aura that makes you want to spill your life story.
Her favorite weapons are a sniper rifle and heavy pistol.
Personality/Philosophy: As far as most Shepard's go, Liska is very chill and laid back. She likes to joke, enjoys a good quips, is often sarcastic, and wears her signature wry smile most of the time. She's an excellent people person, usually opting for diplomacy or talking well before violence, if she can help it. Morally, she's a paragon with a sharp tongue. A lot of people would look at what she's been throigh and wonder how she's managed to stay relatively cool and even headed. Her secret? Don't think about it! Keep moving forward! This eventually does come to bite her in the ass. She never looks back at her past and doesn't even blink at the future, which allows her to be able to respond to things like suicide missions with the air of "just another tuesday." Because if she survives, it is. If she doesn't, well, she'll be too dead to care.
Her entire shtick is teamwork. She's always been a great people person, and even as a child, she was used for this ability in the Reds. The reason why her N7 class was as successful as they were was because she got them to work together. She's a deep believer that if you can come together, anything is possible. Even after the Reaper War, Liska still considers getting the ME2 gang to get along her greatest accomplishment.
Identity: If you asked her what she identified as she'd shrug. There's a word out there for what she feels like (it's bi gender), but she isn't too concerned with it. She identifies as Shepard. Her mannerisms often with masculine in presence (she loves to man-spread. Jokes that it's assert dominance) but won't say no to a cute dress or a girl's night out. Her primary pronouns are she/her, but she isn't opposed to they/them if some feel inclined.
Early Childhood: Liska was born Jane Weaver and found on the steps of a fire station still covered in blood with her placenta attached on April 11, 2154, in Seattleside, Vancouver-Seattle. Per privacy laws, DNA tests to discover parentage on surrendered children aren't allowed until the child is 18 and makes a request. (Which she never bothers with). Shepard then spends the first 12 years of her life going from foster home to foster home, encountering a string of sub-par foster parents who end up dropping her for a variety of reasons and causing her to develop a need to be seen as useful. Her last foster home had the potential to be everything she needed to grow up normal, but the fear of eventually disappointing or being dropped led her to run away.
Middle-childhood/Early teens: After an encounter with a couple of gang members that left one dead, Liska is tracked down by the leader of what is now known as the 10th Street Reds. At the time, they were just the Reds, and their rival gang were the 10th Streets. Impressed by the child's ability to take out a grown man and then evade Padre in his own territroy for nearly 12 hours, Padre Shepard decided to offer Liska a place to stay, a living wage, and his name if she worked for him. She had refused to tell him her original name of Jane, for fear he'd turn her back over to the police knowing she was a runaway, and so he dubbed her Red Shepard.
When she was 16, there was a coup lead by this wannabe right-hand man. He had teamed up with the rival gang, the 10th Streets, and slowly took out Padre's pillars of strength before finally coming after him. After gunning Padre down in his home, in a flurry of choas, Shepard took out 3 of the 4 men who had broken in and made a break for it. After running for who knows how long, she ran into a man stumbling out of a bar. He brought to her attention that she was bleeding perfusely, to which she looked down, said "So I am," and passed out.
Liska wouldn't pick up the name Liska until she was 14, when their arms dealer, a man from [edited: I apparently don't know my world history and thought czechoslavikia was one nation. So I'm going to have to put more thought into R's orgins when I get a chance] simply known as R, called her one after she snuck off with a sniper rifle he was selling to Padre, and nearly killing Padre's wannabe right hand man. He had informed her it meant Fox in his mother tongue, and considering her ability to be quiet, sneaky, and to trick people, Padre was inclined to admit it was fitting. Even after, though, some of Shepard's closest friends from the gang still called her Red.
That man was Commander David Anderson, the first N7, and one of Liska's heroes. After she helped him with tracking down the source of Alliance Guns being sold on the street (a fic i'm toying with) he helped her get into the Alliance's Ward program, and took temporary custody of her. He also helped her get her documents changed to her name of Liska Shepard and trained her when he was home. He saw her as his unofficial kid after that, and she saw him as a father figure.
Pre-ME: As mentioned above, Shepard was the youngest to graduate the N7 program, and this was primarily because she challenged the first 3 N school tests. She had been obsessed with the idea of becoming a N7 since she was 10/11 after being fostered by an Injured Alliance Vet, and during her time in the Reds, would pirate leaked Alliance training videos off the dark extranet and study them. With Anderson also training her since she was 16, she was more than prepared to skip those ranks and jump to the tests. At the time, the Admiralty Board allowed, thinking nothing of it, but after she passed the rank 3 test, they began to get nervous that this could set a dangerous precedent and allow others to skip crucial training for their vocations just to pass the test and earn the rank. They revised the regulations, and she had to proceed the rest of the ranks traditionally. Anderson further teased her for being the first person to get the Admiralty Board to review the regulations since the Alliance's conception.
After her first one night stand fails spectacularly, Shepard is pulled aside and asked to investigate a claim of an illegal weapons dealer by the local authority. Begrudgingly, she does and meets charming smuggler Calhad Malcom fronting as a quarian rug dealer, and "his" pet varren, Fish, that he was desperately trying to get rid of (and the source of the weapon allegation). Calhad, however, had been hired by Haliat to break into the Elysium defense tower and turn off/trick their defenses and comm buoys. Calhad had assumed it was so Haliat could sneak a large illicit package in and didn't realize it was for a large-scale attack.
Skyllian Blitz: When she was 23, Shepard went on shore leave with her friend and posting's doctor, Dr. Chakwas, to Elysium. Shepard's main goal is to spend the entire week "drunk and in the arms of hunks."
Calhad sees Shepard as an opportunity to get his job done and using his charm and a variety of misadventures (and a night of deep passion), he steals her N7 access card to get into the defense tower and uploads a virus that scrambles everything.
When he returns to ship, planning his exit, he picks up stray radio frequencies and learns of the impending batarian raid. He quickly warns Shepard, revealing to her his hand in the dealings, and the two of them prepare the city to defend itself. During the attack, Shepard and Calhad have to undo the damage to the defense tower to send out a distress beacon, which the ssv Agincourt responds to.
During the celebration, Calhad and Fish say goodbye to Shepard, and she gives him her dogtags as a way to remember her.
ME 1: Shepard becomes Anderson's XO for the Normandy, something they joke was bound to happen eventually.
Shepard becomes smitten with the ships Head of Marine Detail, Lt. Kaidan Alenko, even before the Normandy leaves port. She had heard some things about him from Anderson while Kaidan had served with him on the Tokyo, and straight face humor and ability to get flustered easily won her over.
Shepard treats the visions and Nightmares like everything else in life, with a balsé "Well, I'm not dead yet," attitude.
She becomes close to her new crew, surprising all of them with her willingness to care about them. They observe her and Kaidan falling for each other with bemusment, often talking amongst themselves about it or teasing one or the other about it.
After the battle of the Citidel and saving the Council, they take a 4 week shore leave where Shepard and Kaidan solidify their relationship.
Some of the crew go their separate ways and don't see each other again until Shepard's memorial.
ME 2: Shepard has a hard time grappling with her resurrection, primarily the concept of "what makes you, you". She's easily manipulated by TIM in the beginning, falling for his narrative.
She tries her hardest to convince herself she's the same (after all, she feels the same, mostly looks the same). But struggles with the concept of how much time has passed and her emotions around feeling betrayed by most of her friends, which TIM absolutely feeds into. For her, she took a nap and woke up to everyone gone. For a while, she has a hard time wrapping her head around it and finds herself acting as if no time had passed, having to be reminded of it often.
She bounces violently between existential crisis and abandonment issues for most of the game.
After Horizon, she decides she is going to somehow prove to Kaidan she's still her, and hopefully, in the process, prove it to herself as well. She becomes even closer to Joker, Chakwas, Garrus and Tali who all become her rocks in the storm. And eventually becomes close with most of the other crew members. Especially as she struggles to get them to get along with each other.
Kaidan and Shepard circle each other throughout ME 2, as Kaidan "coincidentally" keeps ending up cleaning up her messes. (Anytime the mission says something to the effect of 'we're sending the Alliance in to do xyz' at the end, I headcanon that its Kaidan).
6 months between ME 2 and 3: Shepard is court martialed almost immediately, and the case becomes international news. Anderson represents her in the court and manages to wrangle Kaidan into testifying in her favor. Anderson paints the event as something that was out of Shepard's control (leaving out the part where she turned on the thrusters for the astroid). Kaidan is able to testify that despite her involvement with Cerberus, she still managed to do a lot of good. With everything considered, and the Batarian Hedgemony breathing down their necks, the Admirality Board give Shepard house arrest for an indeterminate amount of time, citing they needed to have deliberations with the batarians to decide. They set her up in an apartment at the Alliance HQ and Anderson gets Vega to be her gaurd.
After a successful suicide mission (or maybe unsuccessful, considering they're alive), Shepard allows everyone who doesn't want to be turned in to the Alliance to get off on Omega. She forces Garrus and Tali to go, with Donnelly, Gabby, Chakwas and Joker vowing to follow her. (Donnelly and Gabby claim they can't leave the ship or else who would keep the engines running? Joker points out that there was no way Shepard could pilot the ship back, hushing EDI when she tries to chime in that she could autopilot it, and Chakwas says she has to be there to take care of everyone. And also she isn't too concerned with being court martialed)
ME 3: Shepard's ability to keep things moving forward, because 'its just another tuesday', is beginning to unravel rapidly. The weight of uniting an entire galaxy weighs heavy on her and her failures and mistakes begin haunt her nightmares in the form of her childhood self (I headcanon that she's dreaming of her child self, and not some random kid).
She spends that time largely trying to keep her physique up, becoming good friends with Vega, and even shortly getting back in contact with her old friend Liam just before the Reapers hit. Unfortunately, the reunion ends up disastrous.
Her and Kaidan reunite, and his presence back on the Normandy provides Shepard with a rock and safe haven from the chaos. Along with the added benefit of being able to blow of steam often.
The final assault comes, Shepard destroys the Reapers, and the Normandy ends up on a strange tropical palnet.
Immediately after the Reaper War: With Liam Daniels unique skillset in both special ops and search and Rescue, Hackett assigns him to retreive Shepard and Anderson's remains from the wreckage of the citidel with a crew of his choosing.
Liam asks for volunteers among the celebrating soliders informing them that Shepard and Anderson are presumed dead. Two come forth and correct him. She most certainly isn't dead. The two are Urdont Wrex and Jack with her varren Eezo. They volunteer to help Liam, and the three take the beam into the wreckage.
After finding Anderson and TIMs body, Eezo begins circling a spot while looking up. Shortly after a large pile of debris fall on the varren. After using biotics to stabilize the platform that was now threatening to collapse beneath them, Liam and Wrex uncover Eezo projecting a protective bubble around itself and a battered (an understatement) and unconscious Shepard.
They are able to extract from the ruins and the shuttle takes them to the asari medical ship (a near dreadnaught sized ship used as a mobile hospital for fleets).
Jack gets in contact with Miranda enroute to the medical ship, and Miranda meets them there, impersonating a medical doctor and taking charge of Shepards recovery. With the help of Liam and Westie, she's able to retrieve all the things needed to bring Shepard back to full health, though it takes a couple of months to do.
Once awake, and moving Shepard has to face the reality that the Normandy and her crew are assumed KIA. Everything unravels, and all the things Shepard had been trying move away from come crashing in like a tidal wave.
Her and Liam face their past together, and with the help of Westie she begins to piece herself back together again.
(4-6) months after the Reaper War, the Normandy returns, limping home.
Post-War: There is a 1 year gap between the Normandy returning and when its repairs are complete. Rebuilding efforts take almost no time, as just about everyone who was in the battle are still stranded in the Local Cluster with a handful of ships braving the long journey home without a mass relay to begin rebuilding there.
Hackett assures Shepard that she will still be able to head the Normandy, and gives her his word that he won't break up the crew on it. Garrus, Tali, and Liara decide to stay with her, and Liam and Westie join (taking Aller's and Javick's quarters respectively).
During the year of repairs, the crew take time to help rebuild, patch up old wounds, and rest. Kaidan proposes to Shepard (after a Citidel DLC like misadventure), and they begin planning their wedding, with Miranda insisting she do the planning for them.
With the Charon Relay also almost completed, Project Grissom begins form. With no way to tell if the Charon Relay will connect with its sister Relay, or even if it would work properly, or what is even on the otherside, Project Grissom plans to send the Normandy and her crew through to establish comm buoys back to the Local Cluster and pave a way to repairing the other Relays.
Shepard and Kaidan are married a week before the mission.
With the completion of the Charon Relay, the Normandy is shot through it into the unknown, essentially bringing Shepard's story to a close in a flash of birllant blue and white light.
omg I made an art on time.
Drew my and my husband's Shepard's (Liska and Darius) discussing how they took care of the Reapers in their universes. It was so fun to play this game after him and compare notes~
Bonus- Our Love Interests interacting:
Kaidan: Wait... so in your universe I'm dead?
Tali: Yeah... Sorry....
(never seen before, the first time I drew any of these fucks)
In Order of Appearance:
"Missed Us"
"Shepard Doodle Collection"
"Feeling Good"
"Happy Birthday Shepard"/"All That Ends Well"
"Ilos" with uncensored
"Take Me Back To Eden"
"Meat Tasting"
"Our Third"
"The Look"
"Crossover Episode"
"She's got a lot of spunk, that Red," Rose smirked as she settled at the dining table with her cup of hot cocoa. She picked up a small bottle of bourbon and poured it in and sipped it looking out her apartment window towards the little mobile home park that it over looked. She could clearly see Padre's old mobile home from there, and the light that shone from the back window that she knew belonged to Red.
"Tell me about it," Liam said around an unlit cigarette, currently carefully weighing small, green and sticky buds out into smaller containers.
"We can't let Padre suck that out of her... Like he did us," Rose said, taking a worried sip of her drink. Liam looked up from what he was doing, and set the cigarette down in an ashtray. He reached over and put his hand on her arm.
"Don't worry, babe, I'm going to get us out of here. You, me and Red. Few more months and we'll be far away from here, far away from this fucking city. And far away from Padre,"
Rose smiled, and rested her hand on his. "I know... It's just..." She bit on her red tinted lip.
"It's just, what?" Liam asked his brows knitting.
"It's Kev..." She whispered.
"What about that stupid fucking prick?" Liam snarled.
"He came by morgue today. I could hear him and my dad yelling at each other from the garage," she rotated her mug nervously. "Dad said he threatened him. Wouldn't say what about or what the threat was. Just went on a rant about him threatening him,"
"Did he tell Padre?" Liam asked. She shook her head.
"He doesn't take Kev seriously. But something... It doesn't feel right,"
Liam waved his hand dismissively and went back to his task.
"Fuck him," He said putting the cigarette back in his mouth. "He's already missing an eye, now finger. And if he doesn't learn to shut his fucking mouth I'll take the next fucking body part,"
Rose smiled, shifting in her seat and leaning back a bit more, her worries washed away by Liam's rant. She circled the top of her mug with her finger.
"y'know, it's kinda hot when you get all defensive," she bit her lip. Liam froze and looked up from his task again.
"Y-yeah?" he stammered, a blush forming on his face. Rose set her cup on the table, getting up to straddle his lap.
"Yeah," She whispered.
Love me some big booby she/theys!
Was feeling very gender in my outfit so I wanted to doodle my Shepard in it. Gender euphoria is a hell of a drug lmao
why the fuck I'm wearing thick plaid pjs in 90 degree weather who the fuck knows
2. What brings comfort to your OC (person, place, object, etc.)?
I think touch brings Liska Shepard comfort. She's never owned much, places seem to change a lot, and people come and go. Though the people who do bring her a lot of comfort are, obviously, Kaidan, Garrus and used to be/eventually again Liam. As well as I imagine Anderson gave her a lot of comfort. I can see his voice being very grounding for her.
