~by the great sammvitch
~by the talented jensenshackled
Profile: Shyama T'Saiph
Name: Her first name is sanskrit, unisex and means 'dark blue, black', a reference to her skin colour (dark cerulean). Her last name is a mixture of the typical T' prefix and Saiph, a star of Orion. Saiph also means 'sword'.
Age: 117. That's a reference too, but I'm not gonna tell.
Sexuality: I go by the popular headcanon that asari sexuality is not defined by gender or gender identity, but species. So Shy is technically pansexual, but only attracted to humans, drell, asari and krogan.
Eye colour: a light brown verging on sandy.
Skin colour: dark cerulean with white freckles over nose, scalp and large parts of her body.
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 162lbs
Build: Bulky. Shyama is a very hands-on vanguard and those 162 lbs sure as hell aren't fat or armour. She naturally has wide hips and a not-very-slight frame, so ends up looking like a miniature tank. And somehow still managing to look attractive, if unconventionally so (but don't tell her she's pretty, she'll yelp and then I have to go pull her out from under the desk again).
Scars: ((sorry for the horrible handwriting)) [x]
Class: Vanguard.
Facemodel: (Vicki) Zhao Wei [x]
Voice: Somewhere between Anika Noni Rose (Tiana from The Princess and the Frog) and Tia Carrere (Nani from Lilo&Stitch). I migrate from one to the other on a daily basis. Possibly Samira Wiley.
Anything else relevant to appearance: Doesn't wear make-up or dresses unless forced or lost a bet. Over the course of ME3 she gains more scars, most notably the loss of a large piece of her fringe, facial scars and several cuts along the inside of her thigh.
Personality: Goody-two-shoes, yet easy to influence. She'd be one of the first to give in to indoctrination when faced with reaper tech. She is, however entirely aware of this and stays as far away from any tempation as she can. She walks a thin line of being incredibly insecure and knowing exactly how powerful and capable she is. Very emotional. She cries rather easily (movies, dramatic situations... like she's not looking into the sunset and sobbing but sometimes everything is just too much) and most of her decisions and reactions stem from emotion. She has great adaptability, even psychologically. For example she will only succumb to showing weakness when she is absolutely sure the people around her can take it. If there's even one member of the shore party that is as scared as she is, or even more scared, she will play the part of the tough and optimistic girl.
Would never initate romantic relationships on her own - here she definitely suffers from an inferiority complex. Doesn't help much that she's a virgin in a society that celebrates sexuality as something like a rite of passage. She feels stunted, trapped and mostly just not really up to the task. She's not asexual, but it takes a lot of trust for her.
There's a certain naiveté she never got entirely rid of, even when running as a merc on Omega and killing people for money. If she can, she will avoid killing. When she knows she has to kill though, all bets are off. Shyama can get almost out of control. Control has never been her forte in biotics, power has. As an individual that felt powerless for a large part of her life, this makes her thrive on power - and, incidentally, violence. Shy is the most likely to come out of battle looking like she'd showered in blood& entrails. She has good hygiene though.
All in all Shyama stands at odds with her people and her family, claiming to have felt more at home on Omega than she ever had on Thessia. Yet she is a patriot at heart, and will defend her people faithfully, even if she feels rejected by them.
Family:
Father: Emerentius Gereon, retired turian general. Deceased.
Shyama believes that there was a man down in there somewhere that was her father, but the countless wars he's witnessed killed that man. He was dead to her when he hit her sister hard enough to cut gashes into the scales of her cheek. He died in First Contact, when Shyama ran to Omega.
Mother: Jaya T'Saiph. Matriarch and one of the many guides of her people.
A good woman, who could have been a better mother. In trying to fix her husband she broke herself. She never turned violent towards her children but she tolerated the acts of her husband without complaint. Shyama was more disappointed in her than she was mad. Jaya tried to search for her on Omega, causing a lot of trouble for the young mercenary Shy, but eventually failed. Their relationship is strained, if not beyond repair.
Sister: Arjuna T'Saiph. A journalist and mother.
"The one person in this family that's worth a damn.", Shy would describe her. Arjuna is a spitfire of a woman, quick to anger and quick to calm down again, a stark contrast to her calm and adaptable sister. She's inherited the temper of her father, but handles it with more grace than Emerentius was capable of. Their relationship is strained as well, but both secretly wish to see each other again on a regular basis.
Sister-in-law: Noah. Quarian engineer with the patience of a saint.
She needs no less, considering her choice in spouse. Noah's calm, collected, difficult to anger. She doesn't think much of Shyama, considering her choices but will not pick a fight over it with her wife.
Niece: Reva T'Saiph. Old enough to speak and walk, but that's about it.
Shyama knows nothing of her or about her.
Other relevant people in her life:
Father-figure: Ji-in Vernadotte. Alliance desterter, lesbian (used to be bi). Deceased.
A matriarch in her own way. Losing both husband in son during First Contact, Ji-in lost faith in the organization and vanished to Omega, where she quickly made her name as a brilliant infiltrator with the Eclipse Sisters. She saw Shyama as a daughter of her own, due to Shyama's own similarities with her deceased son. She essentially made Shyama what she is today. Shy blames herself for her death - and rightfully so.
Partner-in-crime: Weshi. Insane salarian scientist with a love for explosions and eyeshadow.
Shy used to be jealous of her but eventually overcame her issues (with a heartfelt apology too) and the two quickly became friends. Weshi adored Shyama's biotic talents and together they blew up many a Talon's base.
Several other characters are important, but since they're all other people's OCs, I will not list them. Except one because I can't help myself and I asked permission okay.
ahem
Ryan Balter/Ryan N. Rarick/Further names depending on respective AU: lover, boyfriend, partner in crime, the guy that drove her to commit crimes I don't even know anymore at this point.
It's funny because when I started roleplaying Shy I deliberately made her conventionally unattractive and uninteresting. She was the only asari in a group of players that favoured humans and maybe the odd turian here or there, she was virginal, not the least bit confidant, bulky as hell with a terrible sense of humour and issues a mile wide.
So it'd be an understatement to say that I was surprised when samm introduced her OC Ryan to me, an old, charming, Malcolm Reynold's-style asshole and these two characters immediately hit it off. He was the first character that presented me with the opportunity to write Shyama when she is pushed. Not to extremes, just out of her shell enough to reveal a friendly, upbeat young woman with more sass than I originally thought she would have, but eventually her behaviour made so much sense.
So Ryan is not only important because they end up banging (a lot), but because he was a great chance to expand Shyama's character and break her out of the walls I carefully constructed around her when initally designing her. Suffice it to say the character left an impression and still does.
Shy and Ryan is a rather obvious case of opposites attract and if you go by zodiac signs, then they basically ring every warning bell there ever was. Shy comes from a family that left her emotionally vulnurable, Ryan has a short temper. Shy is largely introverted, Ryan's eccentric. Shy is virginal, Ryan was married for a long time and has a rather large history of one-night stands. I could go on for hours and still not get to the gist of it - which would be that they work. They totally, utterly work and I have no idea why but they just do.
I still don’t know why they work as much as they do. I guess what Ryan does is that he pushes her not in a way that she gets back into her walls but out of them. Ryan teaches her to deal with her feelings in a way she never knew. While Shy makes Ryan gentler and more calm than he ever thought he could be. After all, the woman he married first was a spitfire of one and much more dominant than Shy ever will be. Basically where they should clash, they compliment each other and this is not something I planned on happening and I reckon Ryan’s writer Sammvitch didn’t either.
Their canonical ME3-verse story contains a lot of anger, a lot of hurt feelings and a big betrayal (of which Shy will always wear a scar) but it ends with apologies and I love you’s in a way that does both characters justice.
Okay this got way lengthier than I intended but I just have a lot of feelings. Shyan is the one ship I always have ideas for, literally, every day I can come up with something new, an AU, a setting a scene. It’s a proverbial goldmine of a ship and I love it.
Gear: Shyama starts out with a shotgun/pistol combination, eventually switching to a shotgun/AR combo. Upon realization she's actually kind of a crap shot with pistols. Her preferred weapon is her trusty old AT-Raider, inherited from Ji-in, and her own Acolyte pistol, from her short time with the Asari Military. She eventually gains a Striker from a krogan friend and a smuggled M-11 Wraith. Because reasons. Her armour is unique, since the Asari Military has no uniform.
Inspiration: Liara T'Soni and Matriarch Aethyta, Hotaru Momochi (old OC), Maege&Dacey Mormont (or rather my interpretation of them), Brienne of Tarth, Disney's Hercules and Dreamworks' Hiccup.
