#susancanon

How did the meet? “Can anyone hear me? Help! I’m trapped!”

Who developed romantic feelings first? Susan. Definitely Susan. I think Liara did too around the same time, she just didn’t know what to call them.

Who is their biggest “shipper?” Garrus and Tali. Big fans of Susan and Liara.

Who confessed their feelings first? Susan. She sort of held her breath and jumped.

What was their first official date? After Ilos and the Citadel (and thus after months of actually being together), they decided to have an actual date. Unfortunately, most of the Citadel was destroyed. But they did find The Lost Sheep Bakery (run by Hannah Christensen and her daughter Olivia because I like smashing canon together in weird places), bought some pie, and sat on one of those random couches near the fake plants and called it a date.

How do they feel about double dates/group dates? Not fans. They’re really private people (plus they’re both ace, and get uncomfortable around PDA). Circa ME3 they do occasionally end up going out to dinner with Garrus and Tali, though.

What do they do in their down time? Susan draws, Liara studies.

What was the first meeting of parents as an official couple like? Well they weren’t together yet during Noveria (which was probably for the better, really). Hannah Shepard adores Liara, though. Susan was really nervous about introducing Liara to her mom (first person she’s ever really brought home), but Hannah adored her from the minute they met.

What was their first fight over and how did they get past it? Liara not telling Susan what’s up on Illium. Susan understands that people from her past can’t always join her, but she wants to know why and Liara doesn’t tell her, just makes cryptic references. She bites her tongue and doesn’t say anything (doesn’t want a fight, doesn’t want to say something that might make Liara leave her; anxiety is so fun she says every time she looks in the mirror). So not so much a fight as an internal problem.

Which one is more easily made jealous? Neither. 

What is their favourite thing to get to eat? Susan’s lactose intolerance, but she loves sorbet and popsicles (specifically lemon-flavored). There’s an asari snack Liara loved as a child that she gets frequently now that she’s not on a backwater planet away from major shipping lines (it’s similar to Pocky).

Who’s the cuddly one? What their favourite cuddling position? They’re both super cuddly. Usually they fall asleep with Susan on her back and Liara resting her head on Susan’s chest.

Are they hand holders? Yes.

How long do they wait before sleeping together for the first time? What’s the circumstances? Neither of them get the “I’m ace, sex is not a thing I’m into” memo from each other until they actually try to have sex that night before Ilos. It’s a really awkward and uncomfortable ten minutes before they come to the mutual realization of “omg you too???” and put their shirts back on and curl up next to each other and go “yes, this is so much better.”

Who tops? N/A

What’s the worst fight they’ve ever gotten into? It starts after the Ardat-Yakshi mission and escalates until after Thessia. Susan understands that Liara’s not had much personal exposure to this war (her mother aside, obviously, but she seems to be doing okay with that). But Liara’s been killing husks since the day after they picked her up on Therum, and Liara’s been a privileged participant in this war since the beginning. So to see Liara flop herself onto her bed and claim that she can’t believe Thessia is lost and Goddess, what they turned my people into, really sets Susan off. She actually yells. 

Because logically, she knows this is Liara’s first (and rude) awakening to the reality of the war, and is thus allowed a bit of drama. But emotionally, Susan’s people have been turned into monsters for three years, Susan’s been killing her own monster people for three years, Susan’s planet was lost months ago, and if the asari had just stopped trying to be better than everyone else maybe it wouldn’t’ve gotten this far.

(not coincidentally, Olivia and Liara have this exact same fight. Only dialed up to eleven, and it gets physical between the two of them; by the time Tali hacks through the door, Olivia’s pinned to the ceiling by a weakening stasis field and is pointing a pulse pistol at Liara)

Who does the shopping and the cooking? Both of them.

Which one is more organized and prone to tidiness? Both of them. 

Who proposes? Susan.

Do they have joined Bachelor/Bacheloette parties or separate? N/A

Who is the best man/maid of honour? Any other groomsmen or bridesmaids? They have joint attendants: Garrus, Tali, Ashley, Wrex, Joker. James presides.

Big Ceremony or Small? Very very small. Very small. Like ten people small. Susan coming back as a robot is a very important secret to keep.

Do they have a honeymoon? If so, where? Some planet largely untouched by the war, but I haven’t decided where yet.

Absolutely!

Vanessa:

31: Most prized possession? Her omnitool. This thing has her entire life on it, and it's her lifeline during combat. She has backups stashed all over (even routinely sends a hard copy backup to a storage locker on Arcturus).

47: How do they express love? With romantic love, she's physical; she touches the people she loves, hugs and kisses and cuddling, but in private. With platonic/friendship love, she's going to give you so much shit. If she's not giving you grief about something, if she's not mocking you or teasing you, she doesn't like you.

Olivia:

12: Favorite book genre? She's not one for books. It's been talked about vaguely in a few fics (especially that last one with Hannah, excuse me while I pimp my own writing), but never outright stated, that Liv's dyslexic. She has a lot of trouble with novels; the blocks of text just scramble and she gets easily lost, and also frustrated with herself. So she doesn't even try anymore.

Epic poetry's her go to reading material: having the text split up into stanzas with obvious whitespace and breaks between them makes everything so much easier for her. Dante's her absolute favorite (she's been through The Divine Comedy a few times, and it's getting her through the war), and there are a couple asari writers Liara pointed her to in college. She tried really hard to get into the turian authors Garrus suggested, but the translations were just so horrible (and when she read back the translated version to Garrus, he looked so appalled she burst out laughing).

33: Concept of home and family? Home doesn't exist without her mom (and later, home doesn't exist without Garrus). Family is people she cares about and trusts.

Susan:

8: Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging? Generally being lazy and staying in bed with Liara. She has anxieties about doing nothing (what did she forget, what is she meant to be doing, what can she be doing, what should she be doing), so it takes a bit of planning ahead to make that lounging around with her girlfriend actually relaxing.

SUSAN/LIARA HERE WE GO

Who cooks? The chef of wherever they chose to get takeout from. Post-game, Liara's the only one who actually needs to eat, but they share the cooking.

Who’s the messiest? The cleanest? They're both pretty well organized and neat. 

Who fixes the vehicle after a breakdown? Garrus. 

Living space has a leak! Who fixes it? Garrus.

Who buys the groceries? They go together. Otherwise Liara gets stuck somewhere in the asari section because she's reminiscing over Thessian fruit, and Susan just gets lost because Susan is me and can't navigate her way out of a paper bag.

Going out to eat: Who pays? Who orders the most food? And who has dessert? the more I answer this question the more perplexed I am by it. Liara gets dessert.

Would they go to the beach? Yes, and Susan would slather herself in SPF 500 sunscreen and sit underneath an umbrella all day and still manage to burn because Susan is me.

Who knows how to swim? Who doesn’t? Susan knows how to swim, Liara knows how to not drown.

Is someone multilingual? Do they try to teach another language to the other? How does it go? Liara speaks an asari dialect, and she thought she spoke one of the prothean languages until Javik balked at her pronunciation. She's taught Susan a bit of the asari, just a few phrases; it goes okay, but Susan's not going to be fluent any time soon.

Any pets? Or plants? Boo the space hamster, all the fish. 

Baths or showers? Together or separate? Any bubbles or bubble fights? Separate. They used the apartment hot tub once and neither one of them feels the need to immerse themselves in scalding hot water in a steamy bathroom again any time soon. Susan overheats and gets heat sick easily because Susan is me, and Liara would just rather be on a couch.

Can they stand silence? Who talks the most? Who talks the least? They're mostly silent, actually. Susan's a massive introvert (all together now: because Susan is me) and so's Liara.

Who stays up late? Who sleeps the most? Does the other have to force them to sleep/wake up? Susan instituted a "no Shadow Brokering in the cabin" rule, because otherwise Liara would just stay up all night with her information feeds, and the point of Liara sleeping in Susan's cabin is that Liara and Susan sleep together and Liara doesn't sleep much when there's a blinking light indicating a new message.

Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind? Neither of them is particularly high maintenance. Susan's anxiety requires a bit of attention, especially in ME3, but Liara doesn't mind at all.

Across The Sky! Gosh, I love that story so much.

3: What’s the part of the fic I’m most proud of?

Legion-Savior and the Geth Prime choosing a name.

(And not just because aroacenatasha yells at me on a semi-regular basis for that)

That little section is just four sentences, but so much happens in those four sentences. I think it adds a nice depth to the fic that wouldn’t be there had I just focused on Shepard. And it also really highlights the core piece of Control for me and why I love it as an ending so much: giving the Prime that tiny little spotlight drives home that this is the ending where everyone survives.

Destroy fics don’t have geth at all, much less ones that are learning about individuality and can choose their own names.

(also, not gonna lie, I’m really proud that I gave you Control feelings)

4: What part of the fic was the hardest for me to write?

The ending. I knew that it was going to end with Liara and Susan back together (that was the entire point of this fic, to give Susan her happy ending with Liara and have an everybody lives scenario), but I had so much trouble making that happen.

Subtly addressing Susan’s anxiety is a thing I constantly have problems with when I’m writing her, and I didn’t want to just wipe that away because she’s in synthetic form now: she’s still Susan, her personality hasn’t disappeared. So trying to balance her underlying anxiety issues - which come screaming to the surface when it comes to not knowing if Liara wants anything to do with her like this - with her excitement about existing again and the possibility of old age with Liara was tough.

5: What part of the fic am I still dissatisfied with?

The early parenthetical bit about the Prime debugging her sleep code makes me want to throw things against the wall. It’s just so clunky. I know why it’s there and I do like that it sets up the theme of “how many lines of code to do a thing that used to be natural,” but putting that much text in parentheses in the middle of a thought like that was a terrible idea.

(Sometimes I play with style and it works for me. Sometimes I play with style and it crashes and burns.)

There are actually a lot of clunky bits that make me a little cross with myself. I think if I’d waited a few days to post it, let myself process the end of the game (I wrote this less than 24 hours after finishing the game for the first time) and the fic itself, I could’ve worked out the awkwardness with those parts and it would be a lot better for it.

Susan thought she might be gay since she was about thirteen, didn’t know for sure until she was twenty-one. Not having any interest in sex or having any inclination toward sexual attraction confused things a lot for her, and she spent most of high school reclusive and feeling weird and slightly broken. Her mother was immensely supportive, assuring her that dating is not a requirement of life. And when Susan started to try out labels for herself, Hannah stayed up when she needed to talk about it. Liara is the only person she’s ever been completely comfortable with, the only relationship where she’s completely trusted her partner.

I’M GONNA DO ‘EM ALL

Full name: Susan Unknown-Middle-Name-Because-I-Haven't-Come-Up-With-One Shepard

Best friend: Garrus

Sexuality: asexual lesbian

Favorite color: blue

Relationship status: bondmate with Liara T'Soni

Ideal mate: turned out to be Liara

Turn-ons: nope

Favorite food: pistachio gelato

Crushes: Liara

Favorite music: Jimmy Vega's Excellent Combat Mix (which I'm actually making, shh, it's all rock from the 70s)

Biggest fear: not failing, necessarily, but being remembered as a failure

Biggest fantasy: that the reapers never happened, but she still got to meet everyone

Bad habits: overthinking everything; seriously, Susan, just go to bed. It'll be fine.

Biggest regret: that Jacob didn't make it out alive, and it was her decision that caused his death.

Best kept secrets: that she's alive at the end of the war. It's like the Normandy crew, Hackett, a few geth, and a couple of blue kids who know she's still alive.

Last thought: "If this doesn't work, I'm sorry Liara."

Worst romantic experience: literally everyone before Liara. Sex is weird and ew, why.

Biggest insecurity: until she met Liara, she was pretty much the most insecure character I'd ever made. But the two of them propped each other up.

Weapon of choice: M-11 Wraith. She's a sniper and loves her Viper, but also likes cloaking and getting up close and personal with her shotgun.