#javikweek

I’ve been waiting weeks to make this hhhhhhh

Oh boy. I don’t imagine there’s a lot of Javik content that’s eluded us, considering how small our community is, but I’ve not ended up reading a whole lot of fanfics that people have written. I’ve done that a lot with a lot of fandoms. But I still remember way back when I was fresh out of Mass Effect 3, certainly upset by the initial ending but excited and buzzing with my love for the game and its characters and the universe, and I crept through the Mass Effect Kink Memes and landed on one that I think really sold Shavik for me: Heuristics.

Since then, the writer shed their anonynimity and cross-posted the work (which I absolutely just finished again and it makes me as giddy as it did when I first read it), and maybe they still never finished writing it, but I couldn’t care less because I simply enjoyed it that much.

It’s been a long time since I first started liking Javik. Naturally, as the last Prothean, he’s absolutely unique and fascinating, but I distinctly remember first being attracted to his mouth, which is strange to admit. His lips and his teeth were just... Well, attractive. But he was harsh, maybe slightly amusing because of it, though it was hard to go anywhere with that. Until he started warming up to everyone else. He was snarky, and his quips could be genuinely funny, but I wanted to see him actually connect to everyone, and I wanted to connect to him, myself. This would be made so easy with his ability to share information. It would be so simply to convey emotions, feelings, and even complex thoughts, but also drive a connection that’s potentially deeper and more intimate than any other. 

Yeah, his perspective is pretty calculated and firm, rightfully so considering his life before, but I also wanted to see him have a chance to live a life in peace. I also realize that a lot of the reason why I like him is because of his potential, which is also the reason I like a lot of characters, but he at least actually starts making the shift into becoming friends with the Normandy crew during the events of ME3, and to see him start caring about everyone is heartwarming.

I always imagined prothean life in Javik’s time was very bleak. He was born well into the war, and all he ever knew was the war. There was probably barely time for him to be a child, let alone a baby. But that’s where his deterministic nature comes from. Most prothean holidays from the past probably never survived through the war. If any, the only ones that would’ve were those that already celebrated the might and victories of the protheans in war. More might arise for specific victories against the reapers, but they’d become more bitter celebrations as the reapers took more ground. Javik might have avoided celebrating much, too, considering how wasteful he deems anything but fighting to begin with. On the other hand, I have no doubts that he’d find other ways of de-stressing to be perfectly relieving.

All around them, they lived in echoes of the past, and those lived on in some of his squadmates, surely passed down from one generation to the next, or from one friend to another. Much like the echo shard, pieces of culture would’ve been passed on directly, and hints of songs, sips of drinks, and fleeting feelings of happiness and joy would get passed along with it. I’m sure it would’ve been a way to cope, to share, and to bond, but a number of protheans would come to hate that even more and become closed off. Those who stayed open to it would absolutely still try to share it out loud. They’d recount old folklore from ancient times, which would be waved away by some and listened to fondly by others, some would sing the songs that had been passed down, even if parts of them were lost and they had to finish it on their own. Javik would sit, rolling his eyes, but listen anyways. The tales of war heroes would secretly leave him on the edge of his seat, as he admired them greatly.

“Monday: Favorite Ship! This can be a romantic or platonic relationship. Who do you think Javik’s closest friend is on the Normandy? Who does he have feelings for? Who has feelings for him? Feel free to share your writing or art or just excited flailings. NSFW is definitely allowed, just please tag it so I’m not sharing alien butts with people who aren’t interested in that sort of thing.”

Favorite ship would definitely be Shavik (Shepard and Javik). It used to be T’Sovik, but guess I got way more into Shavik Ahah