#molly!shep

[thessalian]

Thess vs Mass Effect: LE

Soooooooo I was going to break down and buy the Legendary Edition after I did some digging and found that yes, the UI on ME1 was no longer made of hot garbage.

And then @true0neutral tried to buy it for me on Steam but because price differentials, that couldn’t happen. And then he threw money at my PayPal to compensate. Sooooooo I was pretty much obliged.

(And then later I found out that @fauxfire76 had plans in that direction himself so my two best friends were determined that I have a ME1 experience with the UI not made of hot garbage. So that’s a thing.)

Anyway, really glad I had designs on buying it no matter what. Because between the changes to the UI and the practice I’ve had with aim in other games over the years, ME1 is no longer a slog that requires cheats. It’s actually damn fun.

Sooooooo guess what, guys? More liveblogging of Mass Effect, with the entire damn game this time, with the return of Molly!Shep! Also Jessie!Shep and Astrid!Shep ... or maybe I’ll replace her with Jallira!Shep; not sure. Either way, one I’m going to add to this whole cavalcade is Srina!Shep, because I like snipers.

Somehow I have become a sniper player. I’m not 100% sure how this happened but I blame @true0neutral. Because that’s usually the best course for something like this.

So hold onto your butts; Molly!Shep rides agaaaaain!

[thessalian]

Molly!Shep vs Eden Prime

Anderson: So you probably know that this isn’t just a shakedown run for a prototype ship.

Molly!Shep: Well, since the Alliance doesn’t promote stupid, sir...

Nihlus: You don’t ask permission to speak freely before being flippant?

Molly!Shep: I did try in boot. It really didn’t work, and just about everyone figured out that flippant is my version of respect.

Nihlus: Dare I ask what your version of disrespect is?

Anderson: Never mind; just we need you to pick up a Prothean beacon thing. Take Alenko and Jenkins with you.

Molly!Shep: *checking service records* Alenko, Kaidan, and Jenkins ... Richard L. ...Can I ask what the L stands for?

Anderson: Leroy, I believe.

Molly!Shep: ...Sir, speaking as a connoisseuse of early 21st century memes, can I respectfully ask to take anyone else, for his own sake? I have a really bad feeling; the kid’s desperate to prove himself and I don’t think his last words are going to be, “At least I’ve got chicken”.

Nihlus: I see why I’m considering you for Spectre now. You wouldn’t survive anywhere with actual discipline.

Molly!Shep: Thanks for noticing, sir.

One really unfortunate charge into the fray later

Molly!Shep: ...DAMNIT LEEROY!

Kaidan: I thought his name was--

Molly!Shep: I am forwarding a link to your omnitool; then you will understand.

Kaidan: Wha--? ...Oh. ......Oh.

Some time later:

Molly!Shep: So I just lost the Spectre who’s supposed to be evaluating me--

Kaidan: Well, geth on site did kind of change things, Shepard...

Molly!Shep: --rescued two civvies and a kick-ass trooper from essentially a late 20th century zombie movie--

Ashley: Thanks again for that, ma’am.

Molly!Shep: --before finding the guy evaluating me for Spectre dead by the hand of some other turian Spectre, which I only know thanks to--

Ashley: A lazy shithead of a dockworker?

Molly!Shep: --a dockworker with enough sense to not operate heavy machinery while tired, is what I was going to say...

Kaidan: She has a point.

Molly!Shep: THANK you. Anyway. Then I went disarming bombs like some deranged TSA agent with no sense of professional boundaries--

Kaidan: I have no idea what you just said and I’m still pretty sure that’s not how that works, Shepard.

Molly!Shep: ANYWAY, I guess it was fun, gave my engineer chops a workout and looks like all’s well that ends well so all we have to do is wait here for pickup and not poke anything.

Kaidan: *pokes the thing*

Molly!Shep: DAMNIT, KAIDAN, YOU DON’T HAVE A NAME COINCIDENCE AS AN EXCUSE FOR THIS SHIT--

Molly!Shep: *basically throws herself on Prothean info-grenade*

Ashley: ...the fuck just happened?

Kaidan: The mission is blown, and the Commander just saved either my life or an awful lot of Alliance money on migraine medication, and only had to because I’m an idiot; that’s what happened.

Ashley: Do we know if there’s an operational code for that? For the report I’m going to have to slap you upside your head with?

Kaidan: ...Alpha-eight-zero-zero-two-nine-nine.

Ashley: You knew that off the top of your head?

Kaidan: You would too, if you worked with Jenkins as much as I used to. ...Poor guy. At least he died as he lived.

Ashley: What, stupid?

Kaidan: I really don’t want to speak ill of the dead so how about let’s make sure that the Commander’s still alive? There’s a whole other operational code for getting your CO killed.

Ashley: I’m not even going to ask how you know that one...

[thessalian]

Molly!Shep vs the Citadel

Molly!Shep: Ambassador Udina ... can I just ask ... were you sick the day they taught Keeping Your Temper 101 in diplomat school?

Udina: You shut up! You didn’t do any better!

Anderson: She did a little better.

Molly!Shep: Also didn’t go to diplomat school. I was raised on the streets. I went to the opposite of diplomat school.

Udina: Look, just ... go find proof that Saren is a traitor.

Molly!Shep: Proof that a career shadow operative is doing shadow operative shit. On a station this size. Where credits talk and everybody walks. ...Sure! Okay! No problem!

Ashley: How do you sound so confident, ma’am?

Molly!Shep: Credits talk, sure. But so do I. My ‘opposite of diplomat school’ doesn’t work on high muckamucks but does real well in the lower wards. And if that doesn’t work, there’s credits. ...Or fists. Whatever.

Later:

Garrus: Thanks for the assist.

Kaidan: You could have hit the hostage!

Garrus: No I couldn’t. I’m not that bad a shot.

Molly!Shep: I’m not really big on endangering civilians but if you call that an easy shot and you’re really motivated to go after Saren, we could use the assist.

Kaidan: ...wait. What?

Ashley: Do you have the power to recruit people, ma’am?

Molly!Shep: Either I make Spectre and I have the power to recruit who I damn well please, or I don’t and at least he has something good to put on his C-Sec career highlights. Plus, look at this guy; do you think we could stop him if he wanted to help?

Garrus: Spoiler for you: you really couldn’t. I’m in.

Kaidan: Well ... I guess the enemy of our enemy is our friend...

Ashley: Could we just not recruit anyone else without authorisation?

Later:

Wrex: You’re after killing Fist? I’m in.

Ashley: What did I just say?

Molly!Shep: You’re not the boss of me! Plus if we couldn’t stop Garrus, what are the odds of us stopping him without a couple of hundred yards of distance and a sniper shot to the eye?

Wrex: Spoiler: that’d just slow me down. I’m in.

Molly!Shep: Come on! When was the last time you heard such an enthusiastic recruit?

Kaidan: You ... and Jenkins.

Molly!Shep: Yeah, but he’s a krogan! A few blasts from geth drones would probably just piss him off.

Wrex: You people lead interesting lives. I might enjoy this for more than just the payday.

Later:

Fist: I know why you’re here! You’re here for the quarian!

Molly!Shep: ...You either have a fear-induced speech impediment or we’re not talking about the same person.

Fist: Saren wants her dead so I led her into an ambush. Just down the hall.

Wrex: Thanks. *SHOTGUN*

Molly!Shep: Oh, come on! He was unarmed! He was wetting himself! He was talking a lot!

Wrex: And then you two would talk all day and the quarian buys a bullet. Which life is worth more to you?

Molly!Shep: ...All right, fine. But I want it known for the record that I could not have stopped you.

Garrus: You could have not brought him along--

Molly!Shep: When the walking tank wants to go someplace, you let him! Now let’s go before dead quarian.

Not very long later at all:

Tali: Thanks. I owe you my life. I have data that might help you.

Molly!Shep: And one righteous bitchin’ omnitool! Is that a kitbash?

Tali: Yes! The Nexus shielding technology is behind the curve, yes, but if you overclock the microarray--

Molly!Shep: Yeah, Kaidan keeps rolling his eyes at me when I do that. He’s still using the Logic Arrest. I guess he isn’t as big on simultaneous processes when he can pin things in a Stasis field while he waits for a process to complete.

Tali: Oh dear. I bet he’s using a substandard amp, too.

Molly!Shep: I think there’s some health-related issues there so I’m not going to give him too much grief over that, but maybe you and I can talk him around to upgrading what he can upgrade--

Wrex: Can we go before someone else comes shooting?

Garrus: Hang on; I could stand to hear a little more about overclocking the microarray--

Wrex: *shoving them towards Citadel Transport* GET IN, NERDS; WE’RE GOING TO PIN SAREN TO A WALL.

[thessalian]

OCs most likely to watch Leverage? (Or their respective universe's equivalent. Though now I'm imagining both a Dragon Age and TOR version of Leverage and it is AWESOME!)

1) TSW!Mych. She does. Hell, two of her mechferrets are named Parker and Hardison.

2) TOR!Srina. She doesn’t tend to much like fiction, but I think she’d make an exception.

3) Molly!Shep. She likely did too, actually - Molly!Shep had a thing for ‘retro’ TV because she’s an Earthborn and a lot of her entertainment when she was a kid came from the stuff whose copyright had run out so she didn’t have to worry as much about the whole piracy deal.

[thessalian]

Shepards vs Once Upon a Time, Season 1, Eps 1-3

Jessie!Shep: Nice to know we're not the only ones who get dragged into bullshit that makes no fucking sense whatsoever and go along with it because why the hell not.

Astrid!Shep: I ... don't get Regina's motivation. She wants to be happy ... and the only thing that makes her happy is everyone she feels wronged her - and everyone associated with the people she feels wronged her - never being happy again?

Molly!Shep: Pretty much.

Astrid!Shep: But that's HORRIBLE!

Jessie!Shep: They call her 'wicked' queen for a reason, Princess.

Molly!Shep: Horrible ... but also kind of stupid, if you think about it. I mean ... they can't remember that they were ever actually happy.

Astrid!Shep: ...That's worse.

Molly!Shep: Yes and no; sadder to us, not to them. They have no idea what they lost. Not to mention the fact that ... well, they don't remember the mayor as a wicked queen. Sure, they're afraid of her and she bends them to her will, but ... they don't remember that she fucked them over, much less what they did to supposedly deserve it.

Jessie!Shep: So ... what you're saying is that it's stupid to punish someone by taking away all knowledge that they're being punished and why because without knowing they're being fucked with, it doesn't mean a damn thing?

Molly!Shep: Pretty much.

Jessie!Shep: She remembers. I think it's a whole deal where she really likes shitting on them and that's all that actually matters. She sees them suffering; she's happy. She doesn't care why they think they're suffering. If she gave a shit what they thought, maybe she'd have enough empathy not to pull this fuckery in the first place. But it's not about them. It's about her. So long as their lives are shit and she rules with her iron fist and gets what she wants when she wants it all the fucking time, she's happy. Or at least she tells herself she is because she's fucked herself over so badly she can't ever actually be happy anyway - she cut her own heart out with her dad's and buried the last empathy in her sorry-ass soul with her dad's corpse and now she's so emotionally fucked up that she mistakes smug triumph for happiness. But she's a survivor sorta bitch so she'll take what she can get.

Astrid!Shep: ...................................

Molly!Shep: ....................................

Jessie!Shep: What?

Astrid!Shep: That's HORRIBLE!

Molly!Shep: Also surprisingly astute.

Jessie!Shep: Alliance doesn't promote stupid. I did actually TAKE English Lit, y'know. Passed pretty high, too, if you consider I wanted to fling half the books they made me read across the room because you could tell within three pages that the only reason the book existed was 'cos SOMEONE had to be a stupid shit.

Molly!Shep: ...Fair. Personally, I'm just surprised the sheriff-guy is apparently going to cataclysmically piss Regina off before Mr Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide And That Means Ignore Freud Because The Man Did Enough Cocaine To Choke A Horse. 'Cos looks like he's staying while sheriff is going bye-bye. I mean, it's pretty obvious they're setting Emma up to be sheriff, but...

Jessie!Shep: But we all kind of expect Kaidan to get a hair up his butt about morality. Which this guy so clearly is not.

Astrid!Shep: But you have to admit, the emphasis on conscience and THAT VOICE...

Molly!Shep: Leaving that aside ... Rumplestiltskin. Comments?

Jessie!Shep: KILL IT WITH FIRE IT CREEPS ME OUT.

Astrid!Shep: ...For once I kind of agree.

Molly!Shep: Astrid ... not surprised. Jessie, though ... I figured you'd like anyone badass enough to--

Jessie!Shep: I do not like that kind of slimy. I prefer people with the balls to pick sides.

Molly!Shep: He did. His own. I like him. I think he's canny and will keep things interesting.

Jessie!Shep: He's the Illusive Man with a better fucking accent.

Molly!Shep: ....................that's low. Fair, but low.

[thessalian]

Wouldn't you know it, I was also going to pick Lyna's vision for the meme, but I was beaten to it! How about "T is for Tradition" from "To the Letter" instead?

(Edit to add link for reference.)

This was around the time that “Call Me, Maybe” meme was turning up all over my dash. It just sort of popped into my head that that sort of thing would be exactly how Molly!Shep would propose. And, given Kaidanmance, she WOULD be the one doing the proposing, and she knows it - Kaidan’s very internal about things, and he thinks things out carefully before he makes a final call. Molly!Shep, by direct contrast, follows her gut with the surety given to the suicidally overconfident, so she’d be the first to decide that yes, it’s right, marriage should be a thing.

Basically, the whole thing was supposed to highlight two of Molly!Shep’s primary traits - her overconfidence and her adorkableness - and to give a hint, if the story’s thought about deep enough, at the layers. The first two are self-explanatory; Molly!Shep pauses in the middle of a war zone to give her impromptu proposal and is all about the getting married right here, right now, right in the middle of a war that, if lost, means the end of the galaxy … and it never even remotely occurs to her that he’d say no. As to the adorkable thing … ancient Earth internet meme based on ancient Earth pop ditty used in a fairly awkward way as a marriage proposal? Seriously.

But if you look deeper … there she is, up to her waist in husks, and she happens to be carrying this ring. She could have given it to him at any time, or she could have waited. Kaidan has been preparing himself for the worst since hitting Chronos station; Molly!Shep is psychologically incapable of thinking the worst, ever. But she’s savvy enough to know that positive thinking is the way to go, and she had to know there would come a time when Kaidan would desperately need something really concrete to fight for. So she waited … and then she saw Earth, what a clusterfuck this was … and what better time to make damn sure that Kaidan had something solid and concrete to look at to remind him what he was fighting for, and that she believed in him, in them, and in their ability to win in the end?

[thessalian]

Shepards vs Birthdays

Molly!Shep: I'm pretty sure I should have been the April Fool's baby of the bunch, but ... eh, irony is good. Happy birthday, keed.

Astrid!Shep: Aww, thanks! You didn't really have to--*rattlerattleshake*

Box: *alarmed SQUEEEEEEAK!*

Astrid!Shep: .......................................ogod...

Jessie!Shep: *chuckle* THIS is why you shake with a bit more care.

Astrid!Shep: That only applies to YOU! Because Tali makes you grenades every year!

Jessie!Shep: And you've got a fellow Shep who's bugfuck CRAZY enough to give you live presents. Do the math. Also, you've just left some traumatised rodent in there and if it pisses and shits itself with fear all over the place, I am not cleaning it up.

Astrid!Shep: ...ogodogodogod... *opens box* .........................

Molly!Shep: ...Also April Fool's?

Astrid!Shep: ...It's a ferret-mech.

Molly!Shep: With pretty impressive VI, don't you think?

Jessie!Shep: ...I don't know whether to cheer you on or slap you.

Astrid!Shep: .........IT'S ADORABLE THANK YOU! *glomphug*

Molly!Shep: OOF! Glad you like. And that you forgive me for traumatising you.

Astrid!Shep: It's YOU. You're at least amusing about your trauma-induction.

Molly!Shep: If it helps, I also baked you cake.

Astrid!Shep: Cake cures all!

Jessie!Shep: ...herehappybirthday.

Astrid!Shep: ...do I ... shake this one?

Jessie!Shep: *shrug* It's your ass.

Astrid!Shep: Soooooooooo no, then. *opens* ...An ID bracelet. What's--? "If Lost, Please Return To The Hole In The Headcanon. Preferably Gagged".

Molly!Shep: Okay, that's just mean. I thought that one only applied to me! I don't feel special anymore!

Jessie!Shep: Now ask me if I give a shit.

Astrid!Shep: It's lovely; thank you! *activates Barrier* *glomphugs*

Jessie!Shep: AGH! *tries Shockwave; does not work on Barrier* DAMNIT, STOP WITH THE ... AGH CHEEKKISSES AGH!

Molly!Shep: I love the fact that omnitools have cameras, y'know...

Jessie!Shep: I WILL END YOU BOTH!

...Happy birthday, Astrid Shepard, who in my headcanon is an April Fool's baby.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Shepard AUs

So awhile back (and intermittently for, like, ages) I've been trying to work out how to do an acceptable AU with all three of my Sheps, taking into account that two of them share a LI. And now with this high school AU thing whapping me upside the head, I'm actually having to sit down and figure it out, which is ... yeah. So I'm gonna run it past y'all for a few minutes and then go check out the death cave in Jade Empire. And then go to work, 'cos ... y'know, work.

The Shepards are sisters. Mostly 'cos you can't alternately love and hate someone THAT MUCH unless you're related to them (I am looking at you, Jessie).

Molly's the eldest by about a year. She does not act it.

Jessie and Astrid are fraternal twins. This explains the fact that they're both biotics, and their lack of being identical. Because seriously. TINY Astrid in a way that cannot be explained away by postnatal development.

After serious thought, I realised that of the two of my fraternal biotic twin Sheps, the one who fits with Garrus best is ... Jessie. He just brings out the gentleness in her. So in any AU I would end up writing, Jessie!Shep is a Garrusmancer for life.

Molly!Shep's been a Kaidanmancer for too long to give that up now. Thane notwithstanding, those two ... are just basically adorable together, and I can't just split them up.

Which leaves Astrid!Shep. Now, she'd share under normal circumstances, but neither of the guys are into that kind of thing. Joker's too much her "big little brother", James still thinks he'd break her or he'd make a move ... in short, I'm still leery of putting anyone with a non-romanceable character (or else Molly!Shep would have started as a Jokermancer and stayed that way). All told ... without Garrus, I think Astrid!Shep would have ended up with Traynor. Astrid!Shep thinks she's adorable, and gets the whole "MY TOOTHBRUSH!" thing better than almost anyone else.

Well. That decision's pretty much made. Now I can write a high school AU if I want to without confusing the crap out of anybody.

...YOU PEOPLE ARE A BAD, BAD INFLUENCE AND I LOVE YOU FOR IT.