because wdym we talk so infrequently your initial response to finding out your child is alive is “guess you’ve been undercover or something! anyway don’t forget to call me!!”
but at the same time you turned down a massive promotion and called the brass out for slandering her name and said instead you’d honor her legacy by following her childhood dream of being a ship captain. the dream you encouraged her in by making up bedtime stories as a family. back when you still were one.
Liara defending her decision to give a Spacer!Shepard's body to Cerberus as 'it was them or the Collectors' just makes me go crazy because while the argument works for Earthborn and Colonist Shepards who have no next of kin, Hannah Shepard is out there having to deal with the Alliance trying to turn her grief for her dead child into some kind of political spectacle when she just wants to mourn and honour them in her own way. Like I don't know Liara, I think she would have liked to have a say in whether or not to give their body to Cerberus for the chance to bring them back.
you know that thing where people tend to beg for their mothers in the face of death?
imagine colonist!shepard, begging the universe to feel her mother’s embrace one last time while she’s clutching her wounded side, the catalyst waiting for her decision
imagine earthborn!shepard crying out for a mother she never even knew, yet some part of her knew that she wanted her mother at that moment
imagine spacer!shepard fruitlessly sending her mother one last message from her omnitool, knowing that she’ll most likely never receive it but she has to try to make sure her mother survives without her
My Shepard is a Spacer and I always loved this little detail specific to the background where both Shepard and Garrus ask about each other's missing families.
Shepard reassures him that Castis and Solana will be alright, to which he replies: "That's the thing about getting old, Shepard; the platitudes get just as old"
It's a comment that comes from a place of hurt, of being tired that no one listened to the warnings about the Reaper threat and now many people are dying or missing. He's jaded and denying himself the niceties because he doesn't think that there's much that can be done about it. Still, he feels close enough to Shepard to ask them about their family-
This is the first time I've used flycam for this scene and I didn't realize how worried Shepard looks about not knowing if their mother survived. The original angle doesn't let us see that moment of vulnerability and sadness from Shepard, only Garrus gets to see it, and his reaction to seeing Shepard so worried….is him wringing his hands awkwardly and reassuring them that their mother is okay lol.
It's like seeing Shepard this worried made him come back to himself.
Rules: Post pic of your OC. Add a variation of pics/a collage/anything that transports the OCs vibe. A selection of songs that add to the vibe may be posted along the visuals.
I was tagged by @vorchagirl and I've chosen to highlight my most beloved blorbo, Natasha Shepard.
I'll tag @halesshepardn7 @tealenko @ficbrish @pickel182 @rotschopf-thedrow @shockdowndefiance @commander-krios and anyone else who would like to do this :)
The problem with Kai Leng is Mac Walters desperately tried to convince us that Leng was Shepard's ultimate equal when he could barely hold his own against an aged Anderson and a Drell with terminal cancer and in the end he was a tryhard egdelord that would make Kylo Ren embarrassed.
The solution to this is make Leng deeply connected to Shepard's personal history. Making him be a ghost from Shepard's past with a personal connection would have made this character much better. His backstory could change with whatever your selections are for Shepard.
If you are Earthborn, you are both members of the 10th Street Reds
If you are a Spacer, Leng and Shepard's families served together and Shepard and Leng were childhood friends
If you are a Colonist, Leng was Shepard's childhood friend and was in the rubble with Shepard
If you are a War Hero, Leng was wounded as Shepard held off the Batarians during Elysium. Leng's survival and stand against the Batarians attack on Elysium caught Cerberus' interest.
If you are Sole Survivor, you both survived an ambush on Akuze. Only Leng wasn't taken to be experimented on. Leng was recruited into joining Cerberus for his survival. Cerberus convinces Leng that the Alliance left him for dead and so did Shepard. Leng's sense of betrayal and human supremacy leads him to joining Cerberus
If you are Ruthless, you and Leng slaughtered the Batarians on Torfan without mercy, The sense of ruthlessness inspired Leng's cold hearted exterior and human supremacist beliefs and led him to Cerberus.
Where do we go from here? Replace Jacob with Kai Leng. And the books would be his ventures with Cerberus(but less as a cringe tryhard) Jacob ultimately added to nothing. He's so fucking boring and unlikable and turns into the stereotypical black guy who cheats on you.
Kai Leng's motivation when it comes to Cerberus would be this. I would say he was a young man who wanted to serve the human race and the alliance but when he saw that the politics of the Alliance kept holding him back from doing the right thing or the greater good, he saw that Cerberus was the only ones helping humanity.
Remove the cyber ninja aesthetic and combine Soldier, Adapt and Engineer to make him a Cerberus super soldier.
As for Kai Leng. A Leng who has personal history with Shepard has potential, plus Leng being indoctrinated with Cerberus human supremacist beliefs, but also somebody with a moral conscience when it comes to the missing human colonists, somebody emotional that you could agree with or understand, contrasting Miranda as a starting squadmate.
Through the course of ME2, he would grow on you as the rest of the squadmates of ME2 did. His loyalty mission would be centered around our background. If we're a War hero, we hunt down the Batarians who survived Elysium. If we are Sole Survivor, we hunt down the Alliance officer who led their squad to Akuze. If we're Ruthless, we deal with Batarians who want revenge for Torfan who plan on giving human hostages to the Collectors. Throughout their talks, Shepard can convince Leng that Cerberus is wrong and eventually Leng's loyalty with Cerberus begins to wavers, especially after TIM sends them to be ambushed in the Collector ship.
Leng started completely loyal to Cerberus, but when he works with Shepard he sees that Cerberus is wrong, but stayed loyal, but also loyal to Shepard. When The Illusive Man asks Shepard to give the base over and when he/she refuses, he asks Leng to force it. This is where Kai Leng finally stands up to Cerberus. Kai Leng all his life, all he wanted to do is serve and protect humanity. He sees that the humans of the Terminus Systems were proceed into becoming a human Reaper and was horrified and when the man he looked up to for years says we should use what killed the humans, he gets the message we should sacrifice humanity and the costs of uplifting humanity. Kai Leng has had enough. He sees through the illusion of Cerberus and with Miranda tells TIM to fuck off and he stays loyal to Shepard.
Between the events of ME2 and ME3, when Shepard betrays Cerberus, they realize that Kai Leng is probably the strongest link between Shepard and themselves, and try to use him against Shepard. Not as lucky as Miranda, TIM does not want to lose Leng so he captures and indoctrinates Leng, making him an agent, and reprogramming his mind to become somebody he was not before, working mindlessly for TIM, as his first lieutenant in combat, much like Bucky Barnes, we have an emotional connection to Kai Leng before seeing him as a villain in ME3.
The first time we'd see Leng in ME3 is on Earth. We see this lead Cerberus Phantom in a unique mask stalking you and Anderson. And as we're leaving Earth, we see Kai Leng killing Anderson. With Shepard swearing revenge.
Throughout ME3, Leng would be stalking Shepard. Causing trouble as we encounter Cerberus. Trying to kill Eve, activating the bomb on Tuchunka and the attempt on the Council.
He would become the same Kai Leng that we all know and hate but we would be able to sympathize with him more.
When we finally confront him in Priority Citadel, we face him and omni-slash his mask off. We get the reveal. Shepard is shocked, Leng hesitates after hearing Shepard utter his name. Maybe in the Cerberus coup on the Citadel, if his loyalty mission was completed in ME2, he would not kill Thane, out of respect of a former squadmate, and regain conscious thought again for a brief moment to spare him.
It would also help to explain his inexplicable plot armor. Rather than surviving against the onslaught of Shepard due to plot reasons, he would not be killed, as Shepard still sympathizes with him, and doesn't want to kill him, sparing him and letting him escape, or not being able to fully focus, hoping there's a little bit of the real Kai Leng still in there.
Of course this would lead to multiple outcomes towards the end of the game. He could either be recruited back or un-indoctrinated somehow, but for a good plot he would only be able to turn good again and rejoin the squad way too late in the game, maybe in the last third of the game, like Legion in ME2. Bonus points if you can romance him as Femshep, would still make a better romance carrying on to ME3 than Jacob.
Otherwise, he would have to be killed and could not be saved. I don't think that convincing him to commit suicide like Saren or TIM would work, because it would be too similar to the TIM suicide not too long, and would lose impact because of it. He would have to be fought and killed one last time in combat, and have a tragic end most likely.
If we saved Kai Leng, he would've been transported on the beam. Depending on your reputation and war readiness, Leng can break through the indoctrination and kill The Illusive Man or Leng kills himself, which distracts TIM and Shepard shoots The Illusive Man. If Leng broke through and killed TIM, he apologizes for killing Anderson and being unable to control himself. If you were just friends they hug, if they were LI, they kiss. Leng's fate would be either being aboard the Normandy to put Shepard's plaque on the memorial or finding Shepard's body and bringing him back and then we'd get Shepard putting Anderson's plaque on the Normandy.
SO that's how I would've handled Kai Leng. Making him more connected to Shepard and less of a tryhard edgelord that they made him to be in canon.
