I saw an anonymous message and thought "Uh oh, what flavor of weird angry is it this time?" and instead it's this LOVELY message. Thanks so much for writing!

I jumped ship from Pandora to Spotify, and went and made a playlist with most of the stuff tinierpurplefishes and I had selected for the A Star to Steer Her By playlist/soundtrack. I'd never actually listened to them all in a group before. It's missing a few things (the Beatles aren't generous with music distribution services, and apparently AC/DC has some issues) and there are a few tracks that don't stand up to the quality of the whole and I'll cut, but...

Holy shit, we picked some AWESOME music.

That was over solid two hours of rock with some perfect slow breaks and a really nice variety from angsty to upbeat to driving. 

For the writing meme:

An image started to shimmer into place where the galaxy map normally glowed, but she heard Wrex’s voice before it cleared. “ARE YOU DEAD AGAIN, SHEPARD?!” He roared so loud the whole CIC heard him, and Rhi rocked back on her heels. When the image came through the massive krogan was standing too close to the pick-up, filling the entire screen. “WELL, ARE YOU DEAD AGAIN?” Shepard spread her good arm in an innocent shrug. “Don’t think so,” she said. “Good,” Wrex grumbled. “Good. Once is enough for anyone. Hmph. Watch your back out there.” She smiled to herself, charmed and befuddled. “What brought this on, anyway?” He stepped back enough that the vid pickup could catch more than just his face and brandished a helmet at the screen. Her helmet; the burned and broken one she’d picked off Alchera in her daze. How the fuck did Wrex end up with that? She hadn’t given it a second thought after dropping it – she didn’t even remember where – somewhere in the Normandy. “Thought it was some kind of message. If you’re not dead again, then what in the name of Shiagur is THIS about?” He waved the helmet. Shepard planted a fist on her hip and swept a disapproving look over her crew. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Anyone? Why does Wrex have that thing?” Beside her, Chambers cringed. “I, er, mailed it to him…” She dropped the scowl. “What? Why?” “I, it, uh – Joker said to!” “For shit’s sake, I was being sarcastic!” Joker’s voice came through her earpiece, but he said it loud enough she could faintly hear him from the helm, too. “I can explain later,” he said more quietly, for her ears alone. “When?” she asked Chambers. “Right after Alchera – as soon as we hit a transfer station. Shipping from the Terminus Systems to the Krogan Demilitarized Zone isn’t exactly regular,” Chambers pointed out. Wrex nodded. “Got held up in customs. Have to let the turians poke it and prod it and cover it with official stickers before they let the krogan have a chance at it.” He grinned, revealing a huge mouthful of teeth. “Never know what kind of super weapon we could make out of a broken helmet. HA!” He looked at it again. “Mistake, huh? Want it back?” “No!” She realized that came out a bit too forcefully and backed off. “No, no, just toss it out or something. It’s trash.” Wrex held it under his arm. “Think I’ll keep it, then.” He grinned again. “Good to remember you came back from that, Shepard.” “Wrex.” “Shepard.” He nodded and closed the connection.

Ha! Oh, that's another scene that was a long time coming. I wrote (most of) it while I was writing about Alchera, as kind of an antidote to the seriously heavy emotional stuff going on then. It was too light, though -- I needed things to be getting grimmer, not lighter. It was distracting and it didn't fit. Sticking it in the epilogue felt almost like a marvel-post-credits scene, a little bit of fairly random humor that calls back to the main event. The package getting held up in Turian customs is entirely to cover how much time had passed between Alchera and the epilogue -- that it was delightfully banal to have this gruesome memento lost in shipping was just a bonus.

Forgive me for frequently forgetting bits of what I wrote, but the only interaction between them that comes to mind is when they’re rescuing the crew from the collector base. Is that the one you mean, or is there another I’m missing?

If it is that one, it’s mostly that I like to show contrast in Zaeed’s behavior. There are bits of it in game dialogue if you have him along on missions — he doesn’t believe in torturing prisoners, he loathes what Cerberus did to children on Pragia. In the actual fight he’s absolutely ruthless, but in the aftermath, I wanted a different side to come out, so I wrote him being solicitous of two crew members who are younger and far more civilian (or at least less front-line) than he is — he helped Daniels after the bomb on Omega, and Mercer post collector pod.

Mercer is kind of the baby of the ship — competent (whatever Joker says), but sweet and sheltered — so if anyone would bring out the protect-the-kid tendencies, she would. For Zaeed, there’s a gender component there too, definitely. He might not admit it, but damn if he’s not saving the bloody damsel in bloody distress.

Oooh! I actually have rather a lot of it, and haven’t found an opportunity to divulge in fic. *rubs hands together*

Joker’s dad is an always-looking-for-the-next-best-thing kind of guy. He takes gambles and changes jobs and wants to head off to unknown space to live on a new colony when the current thing isn’t working out. Frustration with that led to his mom splitting. Joker stayed primarily with her because it’s a lot easier to get top quality medical care in a stable situation on an advanced station than it is in hopping around the backwoods. Joker and his mom were also pretty close with his dad’s extended family — in the thing I never quite wrote about the vacation between 2 and 3, his aunt Renee is visiting Tiptree — and most of them were easier to visit.

His dad remarried; Hillary is his baby half-sister, and he thinks she’s marvelous.

By game time his mom is dead (canon: “If my mom could see me now… we’d have zombies on top of everything else”) — I’d say for a few years; it’s not a new grief. It did estrange him from the rest of his family a bit, not because of any drama, but because Mom was the one who kept up with letters and Christmas cards and things, so he’d never had to. Without her passing on messages and organizing things they kind of drifted apart. Between that drift, depression, and physical distance, he didn’t turn to family after the SR2 went down — something Dad, Stepmom, aunt Renee, grandmama, and various other unnamed relatives berate him for once he gets back in touch post ME2 (“You WHAT? You should ALWAYS come to us for help, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” *giant hugs*).

GUESS WHAT GUYS THERE IS ANOTHER CHAPTER AND THIS ONE KIND OF SORT OF ACTUALLY HAS REAPERS. 

It's also half again as long winded as the last chapter! 

You can also read it on fanfiction.net.

For new followers and the easily confused: