Ain't no party like a vanguard party

So, I have a confession to make. @commiemood, my darling, my love, all the time we’ve been talking over the past few weeks I’ve been holding the terrible secret that @the-emerald-halla and @leothelionsaysgrrrr and I bought you a present <3

The lovely @thefailureartist basically made us all cry with how beautiful this is and I know you’ll love it too! <3

I know you’re going through a lot of stuff right now but I hope whenever you look at this you can hear Reggie saying “you’ve got this, beans!” and know how much we all love you. No matter what happens, your Mass Effect family will always be here for you… both them and us. I hope you know how much you mean to us all and what an inspiration you are, and even more than that how fun and bubbly and kind and wonderful you are <3

A very special edition of my captain’s logs because omg, I just did Liam’s personal mission… and can honestly say it was my favourite in the entire Mass Effect franchise so far.

There’s not one but three plot twists, all of which I did not at all see coming; the writing does a brilliant job of leading you down one hole and then in an “oh shit” moment doing a 90 degree turn down another, but in a way that works and isn’t disjointed–like it keeps the flow going; it still fits

The level design… oh my god, the level design…

The level design was brilliant. What an excellent and smart way to reuse assets by making us go through the same areas over again, without making it boring, and implementing a feature you downright forget about, that being the gravity is tech based.

And it’s as if the game knew my favourite feature was the jet pack!!!

I saw the Star Wars reference and I fucking took it. And Liam’s giggle made it all the more satisfying.

The part where Liam is having a minor panic attack, and Ryder is trying to calm him down, all while they take turns turning off the pirate guy insisting he will not be ignored was hilarious.

So was the part where Liam opens up the door, sees a fucking canon and quickly closes it.

I love that things were only accomplished because of everyone working together. What a simple but great message, and I feel the big point of Liam’s character? Like he just wants everything to work out so badly, he just wants everyone to get along.

And all his effort pays off! It really feels like we accomplished a major thing by succeeding here!

The whole quest just had me walking away with such a feel good moment. It was wonderful.

Like I honest to god cannot believe I’m saying this, but I think Kristjanson actually learned something. Comparing Jacob’s quest in ME2 to this quest is like comparing a granite to diamond.

Honestly, as a whole, Liam’s character is the biggest surprise to me. My first impression of him was not so great, and then finding out he was written by Kristjanson had me extra suspicious… and he turns out to be a fantastic character that I adore to pieces. 

FINALLY.  This one hurt, folks.  3775 words of pain.  Thank my love @pathfindersemail for not letting me give up on this.

Puck goes home to her brother after dropping Sarianna’s drunk ass back at the Tempest, and things start to fall apart.

Read on AO3.

Nights like this, when a hushed vidcall whisked his sister away unceremoniously at some ridiculous hour, left Oliver Park with plenty of time to think.  

Too much.  Too much time to wonder if keeping to his silent memorization of her antics was enough; whether the face she showed him or the one she showed the rest of Kadara was the true mask, and whether her lies, old as she was and proliferating as they were the more she worked for Reyes, would catch up to them sooner or later.  

The sky was already a few shades lighter by the time the soft whirring of the shack’s door announced her return.  His sister, the formidable outlaw known as ‘Puck’, dragged her feet across the threshold, wrenched off her grisly helmet, and let it fall irreverently on an empty crate next to her.  Oliver watched silently as she stared at the floor for a moment after the door shut behind her, heaving exhausted breaths in and out before realizing she wasn’t quite safe from all scrutiny just yet.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

A classic Reggie response.  No explanations, no excuses, and certainly no apologies.

“I didn’t say anything,” Oliver replied with a shrug as she shed piece after piece of her armor, like she couldn’t get it off of her quickly enough.  The tension in his neck and shoulders released bit by bit with each hard clank on the floor.  Little by little, she left ‘Puck’ and everything her alias entailed behind.  Soon, it was just Reggie standing in front of him again, desperately trying to counter the ever-present nuisance of helmet hair as she secured the top half of her undersuit around her waist and let the skin exposed by her fraying tank top breathe real air once more.

“I know, that’s why I said ‘don’t look at me like that’.”

An emerging trend in this routine was a stab of bittersweet melancholy once his sister’s face was wholly hers again.  It hadn’t changed much over the years,  although she’d lightened her hair from the same deep black as his to a warm chestnut brown and went from a tight ponytail to cut short and shaggy once helmet hair became a daily inevitability.  Years weren’t what wore on her, though.  He was, his burdens that she’d been fighting him to carry since they were kids.  Four years her senior, he’d always been her hero, her Superman; the last thing Oliver ever wanted was to be to his sister the reason she looked so damn tired.

The heaviness in that idea wouldn’t let him laugh at her joke like he knew she wanted.  Instead, he gathered her into a tight hug, the fraternal sort that ended with a healthy rake of his knuckles across the top of her head.  The screech inlaid with rolling, high-pitched laughter as she tore out of his arms drew out a chuckle, and things felt okay again.  This was normal.  This…this, he would let be his fault.

“You okay, assmaster?” she taunted, and threw a light shove at his shoulder.  “Anything happen while I was gone?”

Oliver plucked a wrench off of the shelf next to him and waved it back and forth between two fingers.  

“Well, buttface, I dropped this, and it made a loud noise.”

Whether from his facetious answer or his low effort contribution of ‘buttface’ he couldn’t say, but Reggie’s entire body groaned.  

“Chodefarmer,” she muttered, a smile teasing at her face as she opened her omni-tool.  Starting that medical scanning software she’d stolen from the Nexus before they left, no doubt.  “How’s your head?  Any better?”

It was his turn to let his entire body groan.  Not a day had gone by since he woke on this evil-smelling rock that he hadn’t spent at least a few minutes awash in the orange glow of that fucking scanner.

“Just fine, dicksocket,” he replied, giving it a bit more thought this time.  Predictably, she grinned her approval behind the omni-tool screen, but she didn’t reply.  Data from her scans raced in between them and held her attention, interrupting the succor he’d found in the flow of banter between them.  Brows furrowed, Oliver waved a hand in front of her, hoping to break her concentration.  “Come on, put that thing away.”

“Shh,” she hissed, swatting his hand away while keeping her eyes glued on the screen.  “I’ve gotta-”

“Hey, Reg…” Momentarily abandoning their game, Oliver set a firm but gentle hand on her arm and slowly lowered it.  He met her protesting eyes with raised brows he hoped would drive the point home.  

“I’m fine, kiddo.”