#q.e. shepard

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Saw this dollmaker by @elequinoa going around and uh. yeah. me likey.

say hi to shep

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My Turn (On Death's Doorstep)

Fandom: Mass Effect Characters: Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko, James Vega Rating: T Warnings: Major character injury, canon-typical violence Tags: Angst, hurt/comfort, Kaidan POV, Past Kaidan/FemShep

Thanks to @nerdoutloud​, Miles, and Kadia for their feedback!

Summary:

This run to the Kepler Verge to rescue a human dignitary was nothing: barely a detour before the Normandy continued on to meet the quarian fleet in the Perseus Veil.

Rather, it should have been just a detour.

[ AO3 Link ]

Extraction missions had become routine. As one of the few ships in the galaxy capable of evading detection by the Reapers, the Normandy spent a great deal of time in Reaper-occupied space retrieving people and resources. If there wasn’t something more pressing that demanded Shepard’s attention, they were darting from relay to relay just ahead of the Reapers. This run to the Kepler Verge to rescue a human dignitary was nothing: barely a detour before the Normandy continued on to meet the quarian fleet in the Perseus Veil.

Rather, it should have been just a detour.

That had been before they’d lost all communications with both the shuttle and the Normandy, the latter in orbit above the planet. Before Shepard had them split up to find and secure the dignitary faster. Before the damn building they were searching had collapsed on top of them.

If not for his biotic barrier keeping the debris off him, Kaidan is acutely aware that he’d be as much of a pancake as the building. Though their short-range comms had still been working before the collapse, there’s only silence on the radio now. He waits several minutes, until he’s tentatively sure nothing is going to shift dramatically, then shrinks and ultimately dissolves his barrier.

“Anyone know what just happened?” he asks the silent comms as he checks the thermal clip in his rifle. If this had been a trap—and it was starting to look suspiciously like one—then there was a distinct possibility that the collapse was only the start.

Worse, the sound would no doubt attract husks. It would be only a matter of time before the place was swarming with them. Kaidan waits for what feels like an eternity before the radio crackles.

“Wish I knew,” Vega says at last. “Lucky thing I was on the ground floor. Made it out by the skin of my teeth.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan replies absently. “Lucky.”

“Any word from the Commander?”

Though he knows Vega can’t see him, Kaidan shakes his head in response. “Not yet.”

“Then I guess we start digging.” Vega says it so casually that Kaidan’s briefly startled. Like the prospect of Shepard dying like this—

No. Nope. He knows better than to assume the worst with her. She’s already come back from the literal dead once. He wouldn’t put it past her to do it a second time, somehow.

( keep reading on AO3! )

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12 and 14 from the Shepard ask meme? 👀

list of questions here!

12. Are they more of a coffee person or tea person? Maybe both?

Quinn will happily drink either. Caffeine is caffeine, right? That said, she'll drink even the lousiest coffee but she's kind of a tea snob. No 2180s-equivalent-of-Lipton for this Shepard :P

14. What’s your Shepard’s favorite weapon?

She prefers a reliable SMG, but when all else fails: Quinn is extremely skilled with her biotics. She's not the most powerful biotic around -- not by a long shot -- but she's spent a lot of time refining her skills.

The best part, as far as she's concerned, is that people tend to forget that she is biotic. All the better when she's caught at a disadvantage.

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5 & 19 for the Shepard ask meme? 😁

eee ty for playing along! :D

here is the list of questions for anyone else who would like to join in :3

5. What was your Shepard’s dream job before they became a soldier?

Quinn was really uncertain about what she actually wanted to do with her life when she was a teenager. Though her parents were both in the Alliance--her mother Alliance Navy, and her father in the engineering corps--she honestly wasn't sure she wanted to follow in their footsteps. When she enlisted, it was mostly a "well, it's something to do" -- being biotic, she didn't see many better options. And, well, she wound up sticking around. She would probably do fine in any field, but she's a damn good soldier, so she stays put.

19. Which planet do they hate?

Hate is probably a strong word but she has... complicated feelings about Earth. Technically speaking, it is her homeworld--she may have spent most of her childhood on ships and space stations, but she was born on Earth, and had family there--but it never really felt like home. Hazards of growing up in space: being planetside feels weird.

She doesn't exactly have fond memories of Akuze. You'd have to work pretty hard to convince her to go anywhere near it.

It's not a planet, but she hates Omega. The whole station makes her skin crawl.

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WIP meme

tagged by @natsora​!

not tagging anyone in particular bc idk who wants to play along so. say i tagged you if you wanna join in. :P

here’s a snippet from some fic i was writing a few days ago :3

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Not for the first time, and definitely not for the last, she finds herself in the mess hall staring into a mug of instant coffee late in the Normandy’s night cycle. The critical areas of the ship--the bridge, the cargo bay, engineering--are fully lit at all hours, but the lights in the crew quarters are dimmed. It’s not quite as dark as real night, but even if the overhead lights were out there would always be the emergency lights along the floor. It’s a little like the reverse of being planetside: instead of the stars being overhead, the stars are under her feet.

The crew quarters were deserted when she dragged herself down here, and that hasn’t changed in however long she’s been sitting and staring at bad coffee. It’s only vaguely warm when she touches the mug--she’s probably been here for at least half an hour if she had to guess. Even so, she takes a sip from the mug and swallows it without tasting. Most nights, when sleep eludes her, she can find something to do: read through reports she’d only skimmed, or head down to the armory to tinker with her weapons. Tonight, though, she had slept. A little. And badly.

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for the low, low cost of...... donating to a cause I was gonna donate to anyway, I commissioned @esakris for a headshot of my Shepard! :D Such a quick turnaround, too. Thanks so much!

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Fictober, Day 3 (.... a day late.)

Missed the first two days because moving, and fell asleep yesterday before I actually finished, but I did a thing ahaha. this one’s short, but I’m sure I’ll have much wordier days.

It was just a model ship. Just something to keep her hands busy, fill the few spare minutes she could scrounge up. It wasn't supposed to be hard.

Once already Quinn had knocked the ship’s parts completely out of order, startled by an unexpected knock on her cabin door. Only Liara, with an update of the urgent-but-very-secret variety, but it was still a solid hour before she had an opportunity to reorganize the parts scattered over her desk and across the floor. One by one, each piece in its place.

“Now, behave,” she muttered. Assembling a model ship was not something she found difficult. It was, in fact, one of the few things she genuinely found relaxing. In the midst of a war that could spell the end for life as they knew it, they all needed a hobby.

Hers was a meticulous soul. No matter how long it took, every piece was organized, every player standing where she needed them. A chessmaster, to some. A manipulative ass, to others. She didn’t care, really. At times like this, the galaxy needed someone who could see the board and where its pieces had to be. With Liara’s network of information at her fingertips, her chessboard was the whole galaxy.

What was left of it, at any rate.

The estimates of just how many people were dead varied depending on who you asked. But every estimate had one thing in common: they just kept going up.

She lined up another piece, and was just about to glue it in place when EDI’s voice interrupted, “Shepard, Admiral Hackett is waiting on vidcomm.”

She sighed, setting the partially-assembled model down on her desk. “I’ll be down in a minute.” What would it be this time? Another errand, or another frustrating update on how little progress they’d made?

Sometimes it was hard to believe that it had been only two and a half months since that first devastating attack on Earth. It felt so much longer.

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tagged by @togepies​ to create some of my OCs in this picrew :)

left is my beloved Serafina Hawke; right is Quinn Shepard.

consider yourself tagged if you want to be, lol.