#nightmareunleashed

@nightmarestudio606 gifted me this painting of my OC Shep Johnny Shepard-Itō for my Birthday yesterday. 🥺🥺💖💖 THANK YOU SO MUUUCH

To celebrate today on the Beef, Bacon, and Beer server, some questions were asked about people's Shepards and their N7 experience. When did they know they made N7? How did they feel when they got it? Did they have anybody special there when they got pinned? How old were they when they were made N7?

So I figured I'd post my answer for my primary mshep.

Mark is 2 years older than canon, so he's 24 for Elysium and the Blitz, not 22. Some universes he's there but not the Hero, some he's not at all. But always in 2176, his mission in the Hunted that got him his invite to the Villa happens, and that's what starts the whole journey. He takes about a year or so to go through it, and I'm of the old school canon where N6 is the last proper assigned rank and N7 is awarded for going above and beyond in the field. He is 26 when he makes rank. Universe depending, he's either newly N7 for Torfan and that's his first assignment, or he's awarded N7 for Torfan, and Torfan is always what catches Nihlus' eye for recommending him to the Council for Spectre. As for when he knows he's N7, it doesn't ever really sink in for him at once; it's in small increments. Small snapshots of clarity about it. Once was when he was told, once was when he was pinned, once was when he got access to new armor and weapons, once was when he was wearing the blood and bone stripe for the first time, once was when he was in command of a battle and it clicked 'I can do this, this is why they chose me, this is what N7 means', and once when he was sitting in meetings for strategy that he thought was above his paygrade until people started asking his opinions and listening to him.

When he is pinned, Anderson is the one who pins him and tells him “Glad to see my recommendation was correct, son. You proved me right.” He knows professionally who Anderson is but had no idea that he'd been flagged and was being watched by him.

I also HC that an old tradition of 'blood pinning' happens, even though on paper no it doesn't how dare you insinuate. What it is is the pin backing isn't put on, so the pin is affixed to the cloth and isn't secured, but then is lightly punched or tapped into the person's chest, making them bleed. Blood oathed to the unit, blood sacrifice to show worthy of the designation, blood offering for the blood to be shed in future service.

I had grand plans, lol. Release the next long overdue chapter of HIMYF. Sketch something. Both. Both? Both... ehhhhh....then life intervened with a kiddo home sick from school , and... *sigh*. But I *do* have a lot of screen shots! Have a humble offering, and hopefully the chapter will be posted soon.

the loneliness of command:

hehe, I love his face in this one:

I feel this quote on a visceral level:

This hurts us:

Can't not have a pic of the Normandy...

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

Ohhhh, goodness, where to even start, hehe. There's so many good things in the lore.... like how an Akuze Shep feels about being on a Cerberus ship, and what about more about the keepers and the role they play?? What about the volus and their gripe about being ambassador race status and not on the Council? More attention on Blasto and other media!! SO many fun things

19) you're surprised you actually like...

the games in general, actually, lol; I'm not a huge shooter fan, nor do I consider myself really interested in sci-fi, but this franchise has consumed my soul for the last 8 years straight and I don't see it stopping anytime soon. I know I've talked about it previously, but I fell into it with an article on Cracked.com (number 4 on their list). Previously, I was more interested in Skyrim and Borderlands and if you had asked, Borderlands was an anomaly for me because I preferred fantasy games. Yeah, I loved Halo: Reach, but it was the story behind it, not the space aspect. (Now I say Reach was my first Mass Effect before I got into Mass Effect lmao)

In short, the listicle was talking about insane easter eggs in video games and has said 'explicit gay sex in ME'. *record scratch* whuuuu??

To the best of my knowledge about the games at that point based on other things I'd seen on the site, it was another boring space game like Star Trek with politics and 'shoot 'em up' like Star Wars (aaaand the politics there, too) and nothing I would pick up by myself. There was something about 'the choices you make matter', which, yeah, that's pretty cool, hadn't seen it in other games before, and then there was the 'you carry your character throughout all three games with those choices', which okay, yeah, that was also hella cool and I hadn't seen it in other games before quite like that, but still, the subject matter, meh. Oh, and there was something called the Indoctrination Theory, which I didn't quite understand at the time since I hadn't played the games, and it sounded interesting but also 'ah, this is part of the boring politics stuff, maybe'. And the whole showdown about the 'pick your ending color'.

I had zero concept of romancing characters in it, no idea about anything, so when I read the bit about it, and saw they had a video of it...hell yeah, I clicked on it, because I wanted to see the explicit gay porn, lmao.

But what I got was a scene opening on a cluttered desk panning over a hand with a finger tapping on the desk in nerves, sweeping up to a handsome man (probably the lead), and he was reading. And he was clearly agitated. Then he started walking to the door, and another handsome man walked in with a bottle, and...they teased each other. Gently, and affectionately, and...they liked each other. They were friends first, lovers second, and even though I had no idea who they were, I could tell they cared about each other. They had a palpable history. And no, the 'explicit gay sex' was absolutely not, lol, but it was a gay relationship that was treated respectfully and like no big deal and...normal.

Add to the fact that the graphics were the best I'd ever seen at the time, the music was so soft and gorgeous, and the animation was WOW?? (That finger tapping on the desk, man...that's one of my favorite things; I know, I'm weird)

I fell into mshenko that day, started looking up everything I could about Mass Effect, and then I got the games the end of 2014, posted my first story March 2015, and here we are.

So...yeah, okay, I fell for clickbait, hehe. But I'm not sad that I did.

Tagged by the fantasmical @foofyschmoofer! *blows dust off tumblr and cracks knuckles* Answer the questions from your OC's POV

Tagging: @threewhiskeylunch, @elleweird, @scribblesdg, @maxrev, @mareel, @pastelroyce, @dandenbo, @th3morrigan, & anyone else who wants to play

Mark A Shepard

name ➔ Mark Andrew Shepard

are you single ➔ uh...no?

are you happy ➔ *thoughtful* ...contented, I'd say. 'Happy' really ain't my thing. Also, if these are the way all the questions are gonna go, these are terrible

are you angry ➔ *raises an eyebrow* You're fuckin' with me, right?

are your parents still married ➔ *clenches jaw* Depends. Does marriage end with death? If not, then yes. If so, then no.

NINE FACTS

birthplace ➔ transport ship; I think...the Utopia? Ich habe vergessen.

hair colour ➔ brunette. Mutti said I have a bit of a reddish tint to it in the sun, though. Got it from her

eye colour ➔ blue. Your questions are borin'

birthday ➔  April 11, 2152

mood ➔ bored

gender ➔ male

summer or winter ➔ spring

morning or afternoon ➔ mornin'

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

are you in love ➔ *ears tip pink and tightens jaw* I dunno about all that

do you believe in love at first sight ➔ fuck no, this ain't no fairy tale

who ended your last relationship ➔ I'm usually the one that fucks it up

have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ Not on purpose

are you afraid of commitments ➔ ...depends on the context (all his partners offscreen: YES)

have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ partner, yeah

have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ *shrugs* Wouldn't be a secret if I knew about it, would it?

have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ *jaw tightens again* You need better questions

SIX CHOICES

love or lust ➔ lust

lemonade or iced tea ➔ iced tea, twist of lemon

cats or dogs ➔ none. If I have to choose, cat

a few best friends or many regular friends ➔ fewer is easier to keep track of

wild night out or romantic night in ➔ depends

day or night ➔ night

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

been caught sneaking out ➔ Naw. Been caught doin' other things, heh, but not sneakin' out

fallen down/up the stairs ➔ *furrows brow* I said you needed 'better' questions, not 'strange' ones. The fuck does that have to do with anythin'? I'm sure at some point I have. Graceful, I am not

wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ uh....food?

wanted to disappear ➔ *furrows brows deeper* ...you and I are not close enough for you to ask me somethin' like that. 

FOUR PREFERENCES

smile or eyes ➔ depends, like so much else

shorter or taller ➔ shorter for partners, taller for me. It's familiar 

intelligence or attractive ➔ depends. Both have merits and both are subjective

hook-up or relationship ➔ I...how do you define 'relationship'? I do hook-ups and then some of them turn into long-term hook-ups

FAMILY

do you and your family get along ➔ *softly* Familie ist alles...

would you say you have had a “messed up life” ➔ no. Some fucked up shit has happened, but fucked up stuff happens to everybody

have you ever run away from home ➔ Naw

have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ Naw

FRIENDS

do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ I don't hate anybody. Dislike some, sure, but I tend not to be friendly with them. Ignorin' them is the best policy

do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ I guess. Some are good for goin' out. Some are good for stayin' in. Some are good in bed. What's your benchmark?

Happy N7 day!! Have a screen cap repaint 🥰