#ella shepard

I have not! I don't read it terribly often either, because half the time it squicks me out and half the time it's fine and I do not actually know why it is one or the other even when I'm reading it until I go 'ugh' and stop.

/brains are weird

THAT SAID

there are a couple different ways I might go about it

College AU with grad-students because those poor TA's exist in one of the world's worst liminal spaces and should get some good romance and/or fucking out of it?

and then whoops feelings

(that seems to be an important aspect of the mentor/student thing, that whether they are trying to be professional OR they are trying to be friends OR they're actual fuckbuddies or whatever, it does very much require the OH NO I DO NOT HAVE FEELINGS to progress properly for me? like, this is not an easy friends to lovers things, this is we should probably not thing. that is probably where the sometimes-squick comes in, if I don't think they balance the 'probably not?' quite right)

as we are generally ME feels at each other, and I cannot imagine Weaver getting involved with a mentor somehow... I will have to pick a different Shepard.

Ella Shepard would totally have an affair with a non-Alliance mentor/instructor if they were both into it, because competence is the Most Attractive Thing In The Galaxy, and if they're an outside instructor she's not fucking with the chain of command so why not get to the fucking part, that's fun!

(but also she is secretly a romantic so 'I respect your skill' to 'I am physically attracted to you' to 'oh shit I have feelings' would not be a difficult progression and would be HORRIFYING for her in a very delightful sort of way for me, because sometimes I'm mean)

“Ella Shepard loved the stars

Growing up, she had old (actual paper) books of the constellations on Earth and memorized them all, compared them to the ones on Mindoir

Some of the same stars showed up, in entirely different places, framing entirely different shapes, different brightnesses, different twinkles.

In the year after the Raid she broke two doors, (three fingers), one skylight; she had to see the stars where she was sleeping.

Her electives at the Academy were mostly astrogation, navigation; the only history class she aced was astronomy.

She memorized Relays, routes, stations.

She held the galaxy in her dreams.” - faejilly, knowledge.

-

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.

ooooh, sapphy <3 

*

Ella Shepard: 

Ella sort of had a girlfriend before the Raid, they were at the adorable puppy-eye stage, and were attempting to figure out how to word at each other well enough to actually go on their first date the day before she died.

(Her boyfriend after the Raid was a very unhealthy-fuck-buddies/distract-from-pain kind of thing, and he ended up joining a gang and trying to recruit her and she almost killed him when he didn’t want to take no for an answer, but hey! Biotic flare = Alliance recruitment so it all worked out. Eventually. Most of her other flings were pretty shallow, and an awful lot of them were assholes; she likes the snarky, and sometimes gets fooled by someone who’s legit that selfish & cynical rather than someone who’s exhausted and sarcastic about it.)

Her parents didn’t really have any family left when they ended up on Mindoir, so Ella didn’t have any family post-Raid, and she and Joker never do have kids, but they foster a lot? I think? I never have figured out their life post-games. 

For friends... she has a lot of acquaintances, but before ME1 I’m not sure she had a lot of people she could call really close friends. (Outside of AU Lex & Meg obviously.) She gets there with the Normandy and all three of her crews, though. 

*

Maia Ryder

Did I ever tell you about Maia’s Complicated Introduction To Angaran Family Structure Because Polyamory? (Basically Jaal of all people is forced to point out that if she trusts Reyes then he’ll trust Reyes and why is she trying to cut out her own heart, at which point Maia attempts to explain monogamy and Jaal is horrified.) Angara have Mothers and Fathers and Cousins and there are a lot of different words they have to differentiate degree of connection that English just doesn’t get and the translation and interpretation of that takes ages. There’s a different word for your husband’s wife who you are also married to vs your wife’s husband with whom you have a platonic relationship and siblings with the same parents vs siblings of siblings that all have overlapping parents, and your biological sister vs raised by the same group of mothers even if your biological parents are different sister vs your spouse’s sister (and which version of sister it is over on that side) and if she didn’t have a SAM keeping track Maia would have wandered around with flashcards or a notebook or something for like, five years before she got it all mostly figured out. 

Evfra and Keema grumpily show up to Maia and Jaal’s wedding as Reyes’ cousins because he can’t very well stand there without a family web at all when his fiance’s getting married and it gets very weird for awhile for the humans. (Reyes and Jaal are never really friends but they do eventually make good family.)Jaal convinces the entire Tempest Crew to stand up as Maia’s & Morgan’s extended family, not that it took much effort. 

* 

ADELAIDE AND SEBASTIAN never really fell in love with anyone before each other, or after. Which is perhaps a little sad? They had lots of children, which helped them both get over some of their Family Issues, but also gave them both a few panic attacks because every other family either of them ever tried to have is dead.

tagged by @evilsapphyre; tagging @theherocomplex @thedivinemissema @tarysande @balyhane @elfyourmother

Adelaide Hawke does not know how to flirt but is probably accidentally adorable?

Ella Shepard is much better at it... depending a bit on one’s definition of flirting, I suppose

Theia Hawke is the best tho

Icy Yaling just pines very seriously

Maia Ryder has more fun with it