#neiticora

I nearly choked reading your last tag. But in general, I’m a casual fan and don’t know nor care about MCU fandom much. I just cherry pick stuff that I enjoy. That’s apparently my saving grace.

Wren Ryder and Cora sat across from each other on the Tempest’s broad table, Ryder pushing reconstituted eggs around with her fork, Cora reading something a datapad but looking up periodically as the fork hit the surface with a clang that destroyed the fragile silence sacred to breakfast.

With a sigh, Cora put her datapad down. “Ryder, what’s bothering you?”

Rather than just opening up (Jaal would be ashamed,) Ryder grew defensive. “Nothing’s wrong, Cora. Everything is normal. Perfect. Peachy.” Another circle of eggs on her plate, pushing a little more aggressively this time.

Cora rested her face on her fist, using her free hand to rub small circles on her temple. “Cut the crap, Ryder. Don’t make me call in Lexi for a psych eval.” This was no idle threat- if Cora said she’d do something, it would happen.

Okay. Fine then. Alarmed, Ryder put down her fork and pushed the plate away. “We’re speaking in hypotheticals here. Understand?”

“Perfectly.” Was Cora trying not to smile?

“What if, hypothetically, you were some big, important title in the Initiative. You had your own ship, and your own crew. The crew is great, and you like them a lot, but there’s one of them you like more than you should.” Her hands were looking for something to do, anything. Not looking at Cora’s knowing smile and nodding head, she snatched a cup of coffee, swirling a spoon through it in broad spirals. One, two, three. “You even meet his- or her- family. But isn’t it kind of… unethical? Or something. It’s one of your crew. An abuse of power. Asking for a friend. For a hypothetical. Not for me.” Very convincing. Very smooth. She hadn’t even managed to trick herself into believing it. Finally she looked up from her coffee.

Cora was still smirking, damn her. “I’d say that there’s paperwork you have to fill out with Lexi’s approval. Theoretically, of course. I would also say that I could email the forms to the interested party- commander and crew liaisons, form 90417 B.” She bent over her omni-tool for a few seconds, swiping through something and then leaning back. “I think, in this purely hypothetical situation, a woman’s friends might ask her if she’s sure, though.” The smile faded slightly; it was still prepared to emerge again, but caution had clouded Cora’s features.

Ryder couldn’t keep up with this charade for any longer. “Listen, Cora. I feel like I’m going crazy and I just had to talk with someone about it. Don’t laugh, but I think I’m in love.” Actually, she might laugh at herself just for saying that, sounding like a teenager too caught up in the emotions of her first real relationship to understand there was a world outside her own feelings.

“And Jaal?” Gently, Cora pulled the coffee cup away from Ryder, shaking her head. “You don’t need more caffeine right now.” Fair point.

“He took me to meet his family.” To her credit, Ryder managed not to turn entirely red- just partially, high on her cheekbones and the tips of her ears. “I think it’s serious.” And there was only so much longer she could keep it quiet from the rest of the crew, especially when she wanted things so many normal couples seemed to take for granted- holding hands, those light touches that said your lover was there, a kiss on the lips when the opportunity came.

Lifting her eyebrows, Cora stroked her chin in an oversized gesture, clearly mimicking thinking deeply about the situation. “Does he make you happy?” she finally asked.

Another moment of feeling stupid, of wanting to sigh dreamily and act like someone ten years her junior. “Sometimes he’s the only thing in this damn galaxy that makes being Pathfinder bearable.”

“Then do it. You’ve been happier lately. Don’t forget that you’re still only human, Ryder. Your dad did, sometimes, but you’re not your dad.” For the first time, there was no criticism as Cora said those last words. It was simply a statement of fact. “Fill out the forms. I think someone is here to see you, by the way.” Nodding to the stairwell that led up to the comm table (which was also their breakfast, lunch, and dinner space,) Cora stood and gave Ryder another nod and a wink before vanishing down the other side of the stairs, her breakfast plate in hand, clapping Jaal on the shoulder as she did so.

Ah, shit. “Jaal! How long were you listening?” Was there any egg stuck in her teeth? Did she reek of coffee? No and no, thankfully.

In the dubious privacy, Jaal pulled Ryder into his arms, crushing her to his chest and kissing the top of her head. “Enough,” he finally answered. “Your people must fill out forms to be with one another?” He sounded confused, but still didn’t release her, and she was glad to rest her head on his chest, feeling it rise and fall with every breath he took. It felt risky to do this out in the open when no one else in the ship really knew, except for Cora, but if they were going to go public anyway…

“No, not at all. It’s just because you’re technically a member of my crew. You don’t mind signing it?” What if he didn’t want to? What if he found the human concept of military permissions too obviously foreign and decided that the cultural boundaries were too much?

Evfra is bleeding.

For only being three words long, the thought sure is the sneeze that causes an avalanche in Sara’s brain. One - holy shit that looks bad. Two - medigel works on angara, right? Where’s Jaal when you need him? Three-

Did he take that instead of me?

Evfra is a brutal fighter when he has the freedom for it. She’s seen him snipe a target from truly breathtaking distances if the mission requires it, but she still remembers the gleam in his eyes in the split-second before the kett had ambushed them.

It resonates. She’d charged into battle with the same wild ferocity she always wielded, and he had joined her in the middle of the fray, slaughtering kett with the same terrifying efficiency he did everything. Including taking hits for her, apparently. Sara’s brain rocks back to reality as he stumbles, and she moves quickly to stabilise him, sliding under one of his arms.

“Heyheyhey, I’ve got you,” she says, except he’s of course refusing to rest his weight on her. That earns him a scowl, which gets her a blank look in return, because it’s just her luck to be saddled with the one angara in the universe allergic to sharing his feelings.

“I do not,” he growls, “require your assistance, Pathfinder.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell me again when you haven’t just had your back torn open.” She squints up at him as they stagger their way back to the relative shelter of the Nomad, before straight up kicking him in the shin. He grunts, sags for a second, and then gives her a look that’s somewhere between rolling his eyes and tearing her head off.

But he lets her lead him to the Nomad, so Sara’s going to consider this one a win.

She raises her voice for a second. “Vetra? Watch our backs, would you? We don’t seem to be that great at doing it ourselves.”

“Already on it,” the turian’s dry tones report back.

Evfra’s eyes flicker after her, return to Sara. They’re disconcertingly blue, and wow, now is definitely not the time to be thinking about that.

“You trust your team,” he says.

She lowers him to the ground, thanking her dubious parking skills for landing them next to one of the heat lamps the kett had set up. Warmth and cover, a good first start. And, her memory pings, Jaal has definitely used medigel before. Sara fumbles for some of her supply. Good step two.

“With my life,” she says. “Look, I’m not a doctor, but I’ve got medigel and steady hands that are going to reach this wound of yours a lot easier than yours are. Will you let me deal with it?”

He looks at her for so long that she starts to wonder if the translators have borked. She opens her mouth to repeat it, but he makes some kind of noise in the back of his throat, shaking his head. Frustration, she realises, although if it’s for her or himself she can’t tell.

“In this, at least, I’ll trust you.”

“Thanks,” she mutters,, crouching behind him. The round ripped through his armour when his shields were nearly depleted, and weeps a sluggish blue. Ugly to look at, but Sara’s just grateful not to be using words like pouring or gushing.

Honestly, she should probably have him removed the armour for this, but they’re still in uncertain territory, and...on Voeld. Heat lamp or not, it’s fucking freezing.

“You underestimate the importance of the angaran Resistance leader presenting an alien with his back,” he says flatly.

“I kind of thought our relationship had moved beyond that. I’m applying medigel,” she warns, not wanting to surprise a guy who just announced she’s lucky to be helping him at all. “Come on, Evfra. What do I have to do to prove I’m not here to hurt you?” A beat. “Or - or the rest of the angara.”

“I trust your intentions.” He doesn’t move other than breathing as she applies the medigel, sort of...awkwardly poking it to cover the worst parts of the wound, working around the cracked armour. “I even trust your skill. And I trust that you will do everything in your power to keep your people safe. The same as I would.”

Sara’s hands still, pressed flat to his back. She can feel the faintest rise and fall of his torso and - and the smallest tremble running through his form. Not bioelectricity, something else. Your people. Her mind flashes to the Tempest first, of course, but the Initiative is hard on its heels. The angara are allies - close allies, and Sara thinks that Evfra knows she’d do her damnedest to keep them safe in almost any situation imaginable.

Unless.

She draws in a gulp of icy air, the next best thing to just beating her head against the side of the Nomad. It would be nice, Sara thinks, if one thing in her life could be simple. Just one thing.

“So what does that make me?” she asks, immediately inserting her foot into her mouth instead. Classic Ryder. “Because last I checked, that hit was coming right for me.”

She watches helplessly as his shoulders stiffen, and then he’s twisting, unfolding until he towers over her. Sara remains cross-legged on the ground, eyeing her goop covered fingers and determinedly pretending like she hadn’t just insinuated she meant something to the head of the Resistance. Strategy, she expects him to say. Or, politics. The last thing I need to deal with is your people making a fuss about the death of the human Pathfinder.

Except it seems that Evfra is subject to the same sentiments as the rest of the angara when it comes it emotion, if in his own taciturn way. What she gets instead is a hand in her face, and a gruff - very gruff--

“You are important.”

There’s a hideous sort of intimacy to the admission, coming from a man who had so brusquely explained the death of his family to her.

“Oh,” she says unsteadily. He’s the injured one, but she allows him to pull her to her feet. She stumbles a little because she’s Sara Ryder, free hand flying up to steady herself against his chest. “Right.”

His eyes are really blue. Alien, and all too recognisable at the same time. He fails to let go of her hand, and she fails to move hers from his chest. That fine tremor, she notes dizzily, slowly eases out of him. Like he’s become more certain of something, in this breathless moment between them.

“Incoming!” Vetra calls, and the sound of gunfire snaps Sara right back into Pathfinder mode.

“Get down!” she barks at Evfra, reaching for for her shotgun and forgetting everything about who and what he is at the same time.

His lips peel back from his teeth in an expression that might be a smirk, or might be a snarl, and if there were less kett incoming, Sara might find either option kind of (very) interesting.

“You must be joking,” he says, shields flickering to life around his form.

“Ugh,” Sara says back, summoning her biotics and Charging the enemy in lieu of dealing with him and the riot of feelings the man stirs in her.

...I'm probably missing some note here, but why is this a bad thing? They made all the romances available for both Ryders. What's the problem? Honest question.

Gil and Suvi are gay.  They are super gay.  And they are the only explicitly, exclusively gay characters we were given.

It's pretty meager representation (as non-squadmates they have less content, and ham-handed content at that), but it's what we have, and promoting a mod which erases that representation is abhorrent to me.  To a lot of people.  The very same people who asked this same modder to remove her Straight Sera and Straight Dorian DAI mods from the Nexus.  Which she refused to do, and the Nexus backed her up.

Oh! But the mod erases heterosexuality, too!   That’s unfair, too!

I WILL POST MOREEEEEE MY DARLING!!!

I’ve been busy in academia land (and will continue to be so sadly T_T) BUT HIGHLIGHTS BY DAY

Hi neiticora! Thanks for ask. I am also curious why you are curious about it haha.

Basically, I wanted to be able to have my OC’s name as “Sara Ryder” in game so they can use her first name via voice acting. At the same time, I wanted something prettier than “Sara” while being long enough of a name that she might consider it too formal.

I tried to combine the first syllable “Sar” with endings common for more “feminine” names (or names gendered as that of a woman).

Sar + ina

Sar + ana

Please recommend some! Especially if you know some non-spoilery ones (Journey to Meridian is next for me).

My absolute faaaavorites so far are by octobig here (jaal’s romance scene) and here (movie night spoilers, forgot at what point in the game that happens)

OH MAN i have probably written too many fics to answer this properly but let’s give it a shot.

After, a pjo AU set two years after Percy and Annabeth broke up because they were taking their Tartarus trauma out on each other.

Every time I look at you, she says, I see the end of the world.

And he has to let go of her, because clenching his fists and hating himself are more necessary than holding on.

 I know.

A Finer Chain, a post-six of crows grisha AU in which the characters from the Grisha trilogy have to deal with what parem means for them. Including Alina.

Alina glances back at Mal, just once. Brown eyes scrape his face, searching for something. All he can do is love her, and maybe that’s enough, or maybe it’s not. Whatever the answer, she finds what she’s looking for. She turns away.

Her hand is pale as she stretches it up to Tolya, but the man is kneeling before it reaches him. Her fingers hover in the air for a moment, caught in the light. She doesn’t tremble now.

every fall comes from a height, a star wars fic in which Rey muses on the darkness inside her, and how to fight it. 

It isn’t fair. That’s a brand new thought for Rey. The only way to get through life as a scavenger is acceptance, a slow conviction that everything is fine, I’ll be okay like this. If she had never left Jakku, Rey knows that she would have lived out the rest of her life telling herself that, and there’s something obscene about that.

renewal, a star wars fic in which Luke finds out he’s going to be an uncle.

He kisses her forehead. “Don’t worry. The Force isn’t like - brown eyes, or dark hair. The Dark Side doesn’t filter down through generations.”

Her tone turns dry, grateful at the same time. “Right. So if something goes wrong, it’s all my fault.”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” he assures her. A beat. “Besides. Let’s be real here, if something did happen, it’d probably be Han’s fault.”

such a quiet thing, to fall, a star wars fic about how Rey creeps under Kylo Ren’s skin.

He has wanted. That is what it is, to be of the Dark Side. You want and you want and you want, until it gnaws a hole inside you and lets everything else spill out. You wait for the darkness to creep in, only to realise it has already made its home there.

You cannot get it out.