WIP game -- I have to ask about Chicory. (mmm now I want chicory coffee.)
Chicory is part of Weaver Shepard's floralegia series. I wrote a 'first impressions of Garrus' ficlet and then realized I 1: wanted to do the rest of the ME1 crew, and 2: needed to figure out a flower title to fit the series theme. And chicory is a great combination of pretty & useful & all of it's edible but the inherent classism involved in a lot of people's opinions of chicory coffee (I want some now too tho) and is sometimes considered a weed & etc. so it seemed like a good fit for the complex assessment(s) Weaver is trying to make of people who don't, in general, make good first impressions on her as being viable marines for a high pressure mission 😂
[make me choose] oh look, you got me to write more Weaver! I've been wanting to do that, thank you. 💙💙💙 (In this case, you got first impressions of a cop from an Earthborn Shepard... 😅)
Vakarian makes Shepard feel old.
He’s probably about her age, though she’s not as good at reading turians as humans, for obvious reasons. (It’d taken her for fucking ever to figure out how to deal with humans, honestly. Which… is not a thought to help her feel less ancient.)
It also doesn’t help that he is systematically doing the absolute worst thing to make a good impression with her every time they’re in the same room.
She thinks she’s managing to hide that opinion.
Except maybe from Executor Pallin. Something in his eyes looks exactly as exhausted as she feels. (It's disconcerting to realize she identifies more with the politician-policeman than the reckless idealist, considering she's usually regarded as more of a reckless idealist herself.)
For all Pallin is the head of C-Sec, he's remarkably straightforward and pragmatic. Enough so that he doesn't ping against her instincts as cop, but Vakarian does.
And she’s (embarrassingly) still enough of a street kid to hate that.
A hypocritical street-kid, considering she’s basically Space-SWAT whenever Alliance Command sends her on a pirate-sweep.
Apparently the space part makes a difference to her lizard brain.
Vakarian’s also in space though?
No, her lizard brain doesn’t buy that.
Her lizard brain’s a fucking moron.
Do turians have lizard brains? She’s afraid that Vakarian doesn’t even have lizard sense. (She can suddenly hear Litty laughing in her head, ‘but common sense isn’t, you should know that by now,’ echoing out of a past Vakarian keeps reminding her of, a past that she thought she'd put to rest, a past she knows she'll never completely let go.)
Not helpful.
Every time he opens his mouth, she has to consciously resist the urge to sigh and knuckle her forehead or pinch the bridge of her nose. The physical pressure will not actually relieve the mental pressure, no matter how much it feels like it should.
But seriously, who introduces themself only to immediately complain about failing at their confidential assignment while very much in public?
Who follows that nonsense up by going right for an entirely unnecessary headshot in a hostage situation?
That had almost made her want to headshot him.
But she hadn’t. Because she has impulse control.
Doesn’t she?
Certainly more than Vakarian.
That’s not saying much.
She doesn’t have a problem dealing with the arrogance of people who are actually as good at their job as they think they are, but he seems to have no idea that he’s entirely failed to convince her that he might be one of them.
Despite all that, recruiting him is the right decision.
It is, she knows it is.
They need to make it clear this isn’t just a human vendetta. He’s Turian and Citadel and Police and makes this whole impossible situation reputable.
Closer to reputable?
But probably only to people who haven’t met him. He’s loud and brash and pulled out a sniper rifle in a med-clinic on the Wards.
He made the shot.
He took the shot because he saw it and he felt it and he wanted to protect Dr. Michel a hell of a lot more than he cared about himself.
so average-mako-enjoyer made this post about Shepard being forced to have a social media account for morale and only posting hamster pictures and like
I read that and immediately had four different Shepards yelling at me in my head (I blame @shadoedseptmbr's Aedan tags) 🤣🤣🤣
*
Weaver would in fact include hamster pictures, but they'd be macro pictures of like, whiskers and toes only.
The whole account would all only be macro photos. No tags, no comments, no explanations, no definitions. No time stamps or metadata, all expertly wiped, no location cues beyond maybe the quality of the light... which isn't that hard to manipulate after all, if you've got an omnitool and some good flashlight/spotlight blueprints.
It's all just exquisite close-ups of pieces of gravel and seeds and leaves and pollen or fractions of circuit boards and weird screws or clamps or the odd pattern of wear on a [redacted but clearly the Mako for those in the know] tire.
She and Aeden would clearly get along great.
*
Ngaio would flat out refuse. (She would've done it if she'd met Traynor sooner, because she can refuse Traynor nothing, but that was too late, on several levels.)
*
Ella would be asked to make an account after she gets her N7 status and starts showing up in the news periodically; she's told to try and soften the public image of the infamous Butcher of Torfan.
She does set something up, posts some generic pretty Alliance Training Stock Photos, the kind you get in a recruiters office, but that's it for ages.
And then she posts five separate in-depth tutorials in a row, three on astronomy and two on France of all things, one specifically about the language, one about cooking.
Then nothing again.
And then a three-part series on astral navigation, and how different species figured out the math for measuring where the fuck they were in space.
Then a thing on baking with chocolate, including how to convert levo recipes to dextro (and vice versa) and which things were more likely to translate into something that might still taste good.
She never shows herself however, so it does fuck all to counter all the pics and videos of her stalking around heavily armed and armored in full gear, occasionally with a bit of a blue halo from biotics usage, generally glaring or scowling as she avoids reporters trying to get a comment.
Most people don't connect her socials to the Butcher of Torfan at all, and those that do assume someone else is running the account in her name in a failed Alliance PR stunt.
After the Battle of the Citadel, there are enough recordings of her helping with clean-up efforts and being polite at formal ceremonies to make it clear that the Butcher and the Shepard-who-goes-on-weird-tangents-on-social-media are actually the same person, who is also POSSIBLY a galactic hero, so the whispers about Torfan finally start to fade out a little...
And then she dies.
*
Ward would be some terrifying (but delightful once you got past the scowl) combination of Adam Savage and Mercury Stardust because he would legit show people how to take things apart and upgrade and fix them (and which bits are 'legal-ish' depending on whether they technically own them or not) but also things probably explode sometimes (or at the very least spark A Lot™️) and Tali guests wearing glorious (flame-retardant) Turian fashions and ALSO sometimes PROPRIETARY TECH THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE and no one ever bleeps ANY of Jack's swearing and sometimes the three of them are gleefully trying to make something that probably shouldn't exist and some poor Alliance PR officer cries in their office sometimes because they are actually spectacular PR and GREAT for morale and also they break so many TOS's but it's Commander Fucking Shepard so who's gonna tell him to stop?
tagged by @shadoedseptmbr like a month ago? Because what even is time. No-pressure tagging anyone who'd like to blame me and uh... @quilleth @awaylaughing @angstmongertina @thievinghippo @theherocomplex
Weaver Shepard I guess, since I have half-a-fic about her I attempted for sept's b-day that's still not done 😅
Seasoning: all of them! possibly all at once until no one can eat the thing she put them all in! but it smells good! (to her at least)
Weather: yes! (it's a lovely relief from stations/ships)
Color: green
Sky: with atmosphere when possible?
Magical Power: morning person
House Plant: she gives other people spider plants because almost anyone can keep them alive (she mostly prefers things like swaths of clovers and garland daphne and fruit trees and trellises of full-sized veggies, which means she visits a lot of community gardens in different postings over the years)
Weapon: [ic she would have a very precise answer to this, but I don't remember my options well enough to manage anything beyond something sniper-y]
Subject: whatever the future sci-fi equivalent of shop is, probably
Social Media: Sure! Lots of pictures of the current nerdery! Very little actually social conversation
Makeup Product: BB cream! very good for still feeling like a person when you take your helmet off :D
Candy: pop rocks
Fear: existential abandonment/betrayal? Slightly less metaphorical, uh... cilantro? Food should not taste like soap. It disturbs her.
Ice Cube Shape: no preference. cronchy is good.
Method of Long-Distance Travel: whichever the Alliance will pay for?
Art Style: pretty classic art deco; clean lines, machines are neat, shiny
Mythological Creature: Would a retro-future-sci-fi robot count? Because that's the first thing I thought of after writing the art style one 😅🤖
Piece of Stationery: Either a blank page ripped out of the back of a tech manual OR hand-made-pressed-flower-paper with like NOTHING in between
Three Emojis: 🌼🎯🎛️
Celestial Body: I feel like she'd make a joke about how she IS a celestial body all on her own, and she's not really serious but she's not wrong either, she's kind of stupidly pretty
(and a copy-paste version of the question list under the cut for y'all if anyone's interested)
so, like a million years ago (aka over a year, time is a lie, shh, I refuse to double check exact dates) @awaylaughing prompted me for words! LOOK! WORDS!
Camellia (my destiny is in your hands) + Mass Effect (dealer's choice on all else) [OG prompt list]
This is, uh, perhaps more legacy than destiny, but it makes sense in my head. Hopefully it translates? Opening of ME2, F!Shepard, Joker, & Kaidan (with a little bit of Shenko for the tragedy of it all).
All Shepard could hear was her own breath, ragged and stuttering and too sharp in her throat.
For the first time in her life, she hated space, hated the bright lights that blinded her, the fact that the stars were too far away to matter, that her ship was exploding, her people were dying, the enemy was fleeing, its job done, the rest of them too small to matter, and she couldn't hear any of it.
Her heart beat so hard her ears throbbed in time, her breath too fast to match, too small, too shallow, yet she could still hear it beneath the whine of overlapping alarms. Her eyes burned with the flash of almost every alert possible simultaneously lighting up the edges of her vision, her HUD desperate to show her what she needed to know, desperate for her to fix it, help it, help them, fix them, fix everything, but still too dim to show clearly against the flares of lasers and oxygen burning burning burning.
Joker was swearing, the edge of pain clear in his voice, a hiss and a spark just audible beneath the rasp of his voice, and she was reasonably sure he'd just broken through a wall panel to access the system directly. As if he could refuse everything that had just happened, as if he could pilot an escape pod to come get her, as if his will was strong enough to turn around something without an engine or steering.
She almost laughed, felt it catch in her chest. If anyone could, it would be Joker.
“Shepard?” It was Alenko, his voice off-rhythm, unsteady, somehow both too fast and too slow, too low and too loud and yet so hard to hear over the silence around her. “Shepard, can you report? Status,” his voice caught, a swallow she could feel, could hear, “Shepard, please, damn it, Shepard.”
Her comms were still on.
Everyone could hear her breathing, Alenko had heard that almost laugh. Impossible though it seemed, that slight tremor of a breath wasn’t too faint for him, not with the way he always listened, always paid attention.
Especially to her, just as she’d always done the same for him.
She could hear Alenko’s breathing now, steady, let it steady her own, let herself pretend for just one inhale, one exhale, that there was something someone could do.
Something that Alenko could do, her Lieutenant, her XO, the best marine she’d ever worked with, that beautiful studied calm of his backing her up. He’d crossed every t, dotted every i, noticed every misstep around him, just so he could help someone take the next one and keep going…
He’d kept her going.
He’d keep them going.
He was the only one who could.
“Suit malfunction.”
Her voice sounded… normal.
Fucking N training.
She hated Anderson for a moment, almost as much as she hated space. Got her killed, the two of them, and trained her so well along the way that she couldn’t even panic about it, not when it would hurt someone else.
Kaidan.
She had to clench her jaw, close her eyes.
I’m sorry.
She opened her eyes.
“That final attack spread us all in different directions.” Her trajectory was almost exactly the opposite of Joker’s pod. Even if he could manage to steer the damn thing out of sheer fucking spite, he’d never be able to catch up.
Fucking physics. Newton was a bitch, and she’d tell him so herself when she met him.
Soon, now.
“Weaver,” Alenko’s voice was hollow in a way she’d never wanted to hear, especially not between the two of them, not when he was saying her name.
She just barely managed to mute her mic before she made a noise she couldn’t repress, rage and sorrow and cold, something that hurt her ears even more than the still whining alerts, something she couldn’t let him hear, not now, not like this, not as the last thing he’d ever–
She bit her tongue so hard she could taste copper and turned off the alerts so her mic wouldn’t pick them up, ignored the way the O2 sensor flashed as if it wanted to refuse her command.
“Get them home, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, ma’am.” His voice was solid this time, solemn, and she hated to think what it had cost him to put everything else away. “Understood.”
“Thank you, Kaidan,” she whispered. She thought she heard his breath again, just for an instant, something warm and alive and oh so far away, but then she cut her comm lines completely. She couldn’t bear to hear him say good-bye, would not allow him to hear what was going to happen next, what was already happening, the cold and the weight and the effort it took to inhale, the tremble in her arms, the battle she was about to lose to keep herself still, to stop herself from desperately scrabbling at the edges of her suit to try and find some way to fix everything that was broken.
Alenko would save as many of her people as could be saved, she had no doubts.
so this is a prompt fill for @jadesabre301 from a billionty years ago, but she put three in one ask so I have to like, be organized about posting them or something? idek anymore. BUT I WROTE A THING (or edited a very old thing so it fit the prompt, shhh, don’t tell anyone. there was actual writing involved along the way, promise)
[flower prompts] forsythia - anticipation for Kaidan Alenko
Please enjoy Lt. Alenko meeting Anderson, the Normandy, and Shepard, all in one morning.
*
The Normandy is a beautiful ship. She makes Alenko almost breathless to look at her as he waits for his new Commanding Officer to meet him.
Captain Anderson.
He's going to work with Captain David Anderson on a brand new ship.
It feels like an adventure, like the kind of thing he dreamed about when he was young, actually young in spirit, not just years, back before all the things that made him grow up faster than his sisters, the friends he'd just started to have right before he lost them all.
He hears the familiar sound of combat boots on plating, and turns to see Captain Anderson, as tall and imposing as he'd been back when he'd given guest lectures at OCS, even in his Class-A's without an N stripe to add to the intimidation factor.
"Lieutenant."
Alenko salutes, holds it as Anderson salutes back, drops his arm and waits. Watches, though he's learned the knack of looking attentive rather than assessing.
He can usually tell exactly what sort of "opinions" his commanding officers have regarding L2's and biotics by how they react when he first meets them, and the fact that they have one of those in their sights becomes practical rather than just theoretical.
Anderson's voice stays smooth and easy. "As you were."
That's a lot better than usual. Alenko doesn't force himself to relax, it just happens. There's a glint in Anderson's eyes that looks like amusement, as if he can tell how rare that is, and he's pretty damn sure he knows why. More than that, Alenko thinks the Captain understands. There's no hint of offense or pride, just that glint, the lift of his chin, and the fact that he's not frowning.
Damn, that's better than Alenko's ever gotten at the start of a new posting.
"Let me show you around?" The Captain asks as if it's actually a question.
"I'd be honored, sir."
Anderson actually smiles, just a little, looking up at his ship for a moment before he starts walking, before Alenko falls in step just behind his shoulder. He reaches out, the barest brush of his fingers against the hull before the airlock opens.
The Captain knows how lovely this lady is, too.
This is starting to look like the best posting Alenko could have ever gotten, and he's been here less than a minute.
He doesn't change his mind during his tour. It's tight quarters, hot bunking and sonic cubbies by the gym instead of more showers or locker rooms, but it's clean and sleek and comfortable, and the CIC is fascinating, he can't wait to poke around at how all the systems are organized. And the engine... he's never felt anything like that core. They're running some sort of diagnostics and the way it hums against his biotics is soothing and invigorating both at once.
He's pretty sure he's falling in love, and if Anderson turns out to be an asshole he almost doesn't care, because he's damned if he's going to let anyone drive him away from this beauty.
He finds his rack, his locker, stows his stuff. Takes a look at the space that's going to be his, the single bay which is the extent of Marine Country for a frigate. He tries not to rub his hands together in too-obvious glee at the panels and lockers. There's space for some good toys packed in there, a lot of modular rearranging possible, and he has a feeling he's going to be able to make PT and evals the good sort of evil for his Marines; tough and unexpected, but not quite impossible.
The Captain's smile is back, and Alenko lets himself smile back at him, all his usual careful masks down for just a moment.
"Any questions?" Anderson asks as they finish up.
"The galley is clearly out of bounds." Alenko had seen half of an engineering team in there, panels pulled off the wall and tools very firmly in hand as they worked. "Got any recommendations for lunch?”
"We've got an impromptu mess outside."
Anderson heads toward the airlock, and Alenko follows, content to extend their tour just a little longer.
They're still on the station, so it's not like it's really outside, but they’ve borrowed a very empty bay with high pale ceilings, and someone set up a white open-sided tent over half the tables so it feels almost like a unit cookout, despite the lack of grills or wind or birds squabbling over the crumbs.
They’re not fully-staffed yet, clearly, but neither is it just a skeleton crew. Alenko can see the other half of the engineering team in coveralls for ease of poking around in the systems, a few officers in class-B's that he assumes are command staff, several NCO's in utilities at the farthest table, eating and chatting comfortably together.
And a woman in armor, an N7 stripe down her arm, weight back on her heels as she holds a mug of what's presumably coffee and eyes the buffet line.
"Commander!" The Captain raises his voice, and the woman (who’s probably the Executive Officer if she's a Commander), turns and puts her mug down at the same time, something oddly familiar in her posture, her stance, the way she approaches, and Alenko idly wonders if they've shared a posting before, something in passing distance, not the same squad obviously, or clearly he'd be able to place...
He can almost hear his brain screech to a halt once she takes a step or two closer and he does, in fact, recognize her.
Who wouldn't recognize her? Sleek dark hair, a smattering of freckles that make her face look almost young, round and innocent, until you notice the scars she never had removed, until you recognize the military in her stride, see the weight in her gaze as she categorizes everything around her.
The XO is the Hero of Elysium.
She looks just like she does in the news-vids, which isn't true of most people. She's got presence, too, drawing his eyes and keeping them, despite not doing anything besides returning the salute he'd somehow managed on auto-pilot, her stance perfect, the angle of her elbow precise, the drop of her arm back down to her side improbably graceful.
"I'm gonna need that introduction, sir." Shepard's voice is warm but precise, almost delicate, and from the way the Captain raises his eyebrows at her, there's some sort of joke in there that Alenko's not getting.
They stare at each other for a moment, until the Captain smiles. "Shepard, this is Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, Marine Detail Officer."
"Lt. Alenko." Her chin dips, and her stance is still picture-perfect, hands behind her back, shoulders straight without looking stiff. "Pleased to meet you."
She sounds like she means it, as sincere as all her interviews after the Blitz.
"It's an honor, ma'am." Alenko says, proud that his voice is clear and steady.
(He's a little star-struck. Discreetly, at least. He hopes. No one would be surprised that he didn’t need to be told she was Lieutenant Commander Weaver Shepard, not after the Blitz. Or that his own L2 notoriety was much less well known outside of a few very small circles.)
"See, that wasn't that hard, now was it?" Captain Anderson practically drawls.
Alenko wonders what he got himself in the middle of.
Shepard sighs. "It was one time, sir."
Anderson's smile widens into a grin, and he slaps Shepard on the shoulder. "Should've kept it at zero, shouldn't you?"
Shepard rolls her eyes, clearly unintimidated. "You're the one who tells us to stop dwelling on the past, to keep moving forward." There's a too-long pause. "Sir."
Anderson barks out a laugh. "Glad you listened."
"I'll always listen to you, sir." Shepard's posture softens, her expression eases, and Alenko realizes that while not insincere before, this, now, this smile is her, because she wants to, not because she's smiling for someone or something.
(She's got dimples, now, holy shit, she's adorable and also could probably kick his ass without hardly trying. N7's are generally terrifying; one with dimples was not a combination he was prepared to face today.)
The Captain scoffs, shakes his head. "And then do whatever you think is best, regardless."
The words could be sharp, but they're not. Anderson's voice is soft and he's smiling again, still, and Alenko is reasonably sure it's a compliment.
Probably.
"But enough cryptic nostalgia," Commander Shepard waves off their conversation, and presumably whatever memories they'd been sharing. "Apologies, Lieutenant."
"None, needed." Alenko echoes her gesture, waving away the apology. "But the sentiment is appreciated."
He gets the barest glimpse of the dimpled version of her smile again, and he's well past star-struck by her reputation and entirely charmed by her.
"Thank you, or you're welcome. I think I've gotten my manners slightly backward?" She shakes her head. "Our first command meeting is tomorrow at 0900, I don't suppose you'd be willing to meet with me in the comm room before, say 0820, so we can compare impressions before we have to answer questions about them?"
"Of course," Alenko nods. "I look forward to it."
"No one looks forward to staff meetings, Lieutenant." Her nose wrinkles in exaggerated distaste, and fucking hell, it's somehow more adorable than her dimples. "But I appreciate the sentiment."
He snorts at her dry repetition, and she flashes him a grin, and before he manages to say something entirely idiotic about how he's sure she'll be decent company even on command duty, the 'tool on her wrist buzzes and she lets out a sigh as she checks her alert.
"Duty calls, apparently." She glances sideways, something almost forlorn in her expression, and Alenko realizes she's looking for her coffee.
"I'll dump your mug in the bus bucket, ma'am."
She pauses, her expression still and opaque, but then she blinks her eyes clear and she's Commander Shepard again. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Captain."
The three of them round-robin their farewells, and both the Commander and the Captain leave him to settle in.
Alenko lets out a breath, and goes to pick up her mug, and find his lunch, and then he'll get to work seeing exactly what he's got himself into here.
So the most recent ME fic is a 5+1 F!Shenko thing from Kaidan's perspective, so I guess my first run at Weaver's POV is what you get?
*
It's only once she's in the Captain's Quarters (Anderson's quarters), the door sealed behind her, that Shepard lets her shoulders slump. She's still not sure what to do with a rack like this, all to herself, but she might as well take advantage of the luxury.
She collapses across the bed, arms and legs spread, head squished between the pillows, and sighs.
What the fuck is she going to do on Feros? A colony going dark could be slavers, could be geth, could be some new disaster out of the Terminus Systems, and no one wants another Raid...
But her combat team consists of a merc, the sort of cop she'd have felt no qualms about shooting first and asking questions of never about fifteen years ago, a brilliant tech-head who's barely more than a teenager, an NCO who knows her shit in theory but is green as grass aboard ship and dealing with mixed teams, and one proper marine.
One.
And she's supposed to save a whole damned colony like that?
The whole galaxy, even?
Shepard hopes, not for the first time, that her visions are just visions, misfired symbols breaking against her poor human mind into things they never should have been, rather than...
Reapers.
She doesn't believe herself, but it's that or start screaming, and that definitely won't help.
She grabs a pillow and presses it against her face so she can scream just a little, before she drags herself back up to her feet and over to her console to get to work, to try and figure out how to make a bunch of mavericks into something resembling a squad.
What the hell, she pulled it off on Elysium, and that time she didn't even have an Alenko to back her up.
/do I have other things to do now? NO, JUST SPACE.
//and also Kaidan 😅😅😅
[post]: @evilsapphyre said:
I can’t wait to see her!
@shadoedseptmbr said:
Weaver!:D
LOOK AT HER SHE’S SO GREAT!!!
(dimple!)
[post]: (just a general thank you to @shadoedseptmbr, @syzara @servantofclio & @evilsapphyre, ISN’T SHE LOVERLY? And I did use @annakie‘s roll the dice method, so to speak, for her headmorph and most of her features; tho sometimes I did a fate die for left, right, or about the same, rather than a number for a specific point along the slider. Gave me enough leeway to make sure I didn’t have any terrible face glitches. Tho her coloring’s a little weird in some lights? The only downside is that Weaver does not like that haircut... I will have to get a new one when she wakes up in ME2.)
[post]: @syzara said:
*hands over mobile mic* :p
@shadoedseptmbr said:
yell at me about her!!!!
I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START!!!! (I should reblog a meme or something, huh? *laughs*)
[post]: @shadoedseptmbr said:
*hearteyes*
🥰🥰🥰
@phdfan said:
Oh you have made a very nice looking Shep!
THANK YOU.
(I have thoughts about how pretty she is, tbqh, and how she used it as an earthborn brat on the streets, how she was the distraction whenever the gang was running a hustle because cute kid, and how eventually she was a pretty girl instead of a cute kid and she didn’t like that sort of distracting nearly as much. Also how that experience meant she was good at the PR circuit after the Blitz, how she was exactly the sort of Hero Of Elysium the Alliance could put on the posters.)
