#vcanon

also asked by @thievesguilding

B A S I C S

full name: Vanessa Irene Shepard

gender: female

sexuality: supremely gay

pronouns: she/her

O T H E R S

family: Hannah Shepard (mother, estranged); Andrew Shepard (father, deceased); Ashley Williams & Tali’zorah vas Normandy (partners)

birthplace: SSV London

job: Alliance Commander, Reaper Queen

phobias: tight, enclosed spaces

guilty pleasures: sleeping in with her partners, hot fudge sundaes

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: chaotic neutral

sins - wrath, lust, pride

virtues - diligence, justice

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert/extrovert: extrovert

organized/disorganized: organized

close minded/open-minded: closed-minded, in a “everyone else is a fucking moron and I’m right” sort of way

calm/anxious: calm

disagreeable/agreeable: disagreeable, though mostly it’s just “cold” and “closed off”

cautious/reckless: we’ll figure out the plan in the car

patient/impatient: patient

outspoken/reserved: outspoken

leader/follower: leader

empathetic/unemphatic: low empathy; low compassion as well, unless you’re one of her inner circle (which is maybe five people)

optimistic/pessimistic: optimistic in a confident sort of way

traditional/modern: modern

hard-working/lazy: hard-working

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: Vanessa/fire

ot3: Vanessa/Ashley/Tali

brotp: Vanessa+Miranda, Vanessa+Jack

Olivia Shepard - fairly, though she’s got a pretty short temper when people aren’t listening to her about something important. She’s uncomfortable with small talk, but otherwise good at talking to and working with people (especially kids; she’s fantastic with kids).

Vanessa Shepard - not in the least. She’s very cold and standoffish unless she likes you, and she likes very few people. She prefers hacking or punching her way through things, always has.

Kylie Lavellan - fantastic. She spent several years grifting and conning her way through the Free Marches before Bull picked her up and brought her into the Chargers, at which point her education into people-reading and manipulation absolutely skyrocketed. She mostly hates people who aren’t her people, but she knows how to work them.

Ariadne Trevelyan - halfway decent. She’s not very good at it as a child (being a Chantry orphan suddenly yanked into the Circle will do that to you), but she opens up with friends. With some coaching from her First Enchanter (and later Vivienne), she starts learning the Game and how to fake it. Especially once she’s pulled into the Inquisition, she’s very much my Fake It Until You Make It OC.

How did they meet? Ashley was getting shot at by geth, Tali was getting shot at by Shadow Broker agents. Vanessa was the knight in shining armor who stood back like “Hang on, I can hack this,” but by the time she was done hacking both princesses had knocked off all the nonsense themselves. Instant heart eyes emoji.

Who developed romantic feelings first? [sorry about the Cora answer I left here; this is what I get for copy/pasting]. It all sort of happened mutually around the same time. Ashley and Vanessa were very much headed for something romantic, when they realized - subconsciously - that things felt a bit weird whenever they flirted without Tali present. So then they - also subconsciously - started flirting around Tali and including Tali in it and everything poofed into a magical OT3.

Who is their biggest “shipper?” Karin Chakwas. And EDI. 

When did they have their first kiss and under what circumstances? Some time after Virmire, they all ended up in Vanessa’s bed (just sleeping; there’s fic, but it’s on my old blog and given a recent anon I’m hesitant to link it right now). Kisses happened after they mutinied and stole the ship. Sort of an adrenaline filled holy shit what did we do omg this is happening kind of thing.

Who confessed their feelings first? No one. They just sort of…happened.

What was their first official date? [frakking hell, here’s another one with a left answer]. Post-Citadel attack, Vanessa and Ashley are stuck in debriefings all day long (and getting kind of murderous about it), and Tali’s wandering around not really sure what she’s meant to be doing. She stumbles on a paintball arena miraculously untouched by the geth, decides that her girlfriends are probably going to need to shoot something, so makes them reservations for later that night. It’s not an official date, but it’s their first date.

How do they feel about double dates/group dates? There’s three of them already, no need to add more.

What do they do in their down time? Ashley reads (and dabbles in a bit of writing) poetry. Tali builds stuff, Vanessa tries to hack her way through omnitool games.

What was the first meeting of parents as an official couple like? Vanessa’s estranged from her mother, both of Tali’s parents are dead, but Ashley’s mom loves all three of them enough for all the missing and dead parents.

What was their first fight over and how did they get past it? It was an argument on how best to handle the geth on one of those UNC: Geth Incursion missions (specifically, and I can’t remember what planet this was, the wintry one where you’re on top of a mountain (or at least I’m always on top of a mountain) and the geth are all contained in the snowy clearing below, but it’s a relatively tight clearing with zero cover but the fucking Mako can’t perch on top of the mountain and aim its pulse cannon below).

Plan A (Vanessa): creep down the side of the mountain, hide behind those rocks; hack, shoot, overload, fire (fire powers totally existed in this game fight me), repeat, punch anything that gets too close

Plan B (Ashley): stay where we are where the geth can’t see us, snipe the fuckers even though it’s windy as fuck and also we only have one sniper

Plan C (Tali): hack the armature on that end, hack the colossus on that end, throw down a bunch of grenades and hope our aim doesn’t suck as much as usual

Ultimately they used a combination of A and C (a plan Ashley dubbed “D for Dumbass”), which involved Vanessa sliding on her ass down the mountain, yelling “YOOHOO OVER HERE” at the geth and leading them on a chase into a choke point, Tali hacking the armature to distract at least some of the killer robots, while Ashley maneuvered the Mako into position where she could use the cannon to take out the majority of the geth chasing Vanessa.

Which one is more easily made jealous? At one point or another, they’ve all been jealous of time the other two have had with each other. Ashley and Tali while Vanessa’s dead, Vanessa and Tali while Ashley’s abducted by the Collectors (DEE I WILL FINISH THAT I PROMISE), Tali while Vanessa and Ashley are together again for bits of ME3. But not of other people outside the relationship.

What is their favourite thing to get to eat? Vanessa’s a burger kind of girl, I feel like Ashley likes steak, and Tali just hangs out with her quarian food. They make an effort to find dextro places for Tali on the Citadel, though, so she’s not always eating paste (there’s a dextro vegan place right across from The Lost Sheep Bakery which yes shows up in every Shepard canon, it’s kind of like how Kylie’s a Charger even when she’s not Inquisitor).

Who’s the cuddly one? What their favourite cuddling position? They’re all a giant cuddle pile, but really Ashley’s the bigger cuddler of the three of them. Even if they somehow manage to fall asleep separate, Ashley’s cuddled up to at least one of the others by the time they wake up. There’s no space between any of them on the couch during movie night.

Are they hand holders? Nope.

How long do they wait before sleeping together for the first time? What’s the circumstances? They non-sexually sleep together pretty consistently after Virmire. Sex only happens post-Ilos, because they don’t want to risk any sort of infection with Tali or anything. 

Who tops? Vanessa and Ashley, though Tali has her moments of “I’m going to be in control now.”

What’s the worst fight they’ve ever gotten into? C E R B E R U S. Hot damn is that a doozy. At the end of ME2, after rescuing Ashley from the Collectors and finishing up the mission and boo-yah we saved the day, none of them are in a mental position to be able to discuss the whole Cerberus thing. All three of them are really fragile from that ordeal, so that brewing argument takes a back seat. 

But, after Ashley and Tali are both back on board in ME3, all three of them know that Cerberus is this big giant elcor in the middle of the room that they need to talk about or it’s just going to sit there and stew. Everyone yells at everyone for a good long while, but then they get it out of their systems and it’s okay.

Who does the shopping and the cooking? Ashley does both, with Tali’s help.

Which one is more organized and prone to tidiness? Vanessa and Tali. Vanessa because she grew up on a military ship, Tali because she grew up in the Fleet. It’s not that Ashley’s disorganized or messy, it’s just that the other two are pristine.

Who proposes? None of the above.

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

Who is the best man/maid of honour? Any other groomsmen or bridesmaids? N/A

Big Ceremony or Small? N/A

Do they have a honeymoon? If so, where? N/A

@musicdreamer26 asked for V!

slow blink

oookay, anon. You want 35 bits of headcanon about my OCs? You got 35 bits of headcanon about my OCs. But behind a jump, because 35 bits of headcanon about my OCs is a lot of bits of headcanon about my OCs.

(also behind a jump because I’m gonna talk about sex baby let’s talk about you and me sorry there was a loooooooot of caffeine today)

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.

I will absolutely tell you about my SFW shipping headcanons for both of those ships!

Yael/Sam/James:

Who cooks? James. The other two can stumble their way around a kitchen and feed themselves, but James actually enjoys it. And if he cooks, they end up with something a little more creative than noodles.

Who’s the messiest? The cleanest? They’re all pretty clean and neat, being military and having to live out of a suitcase for most of their lives. But of the three of them, Yael’s absolutely the cleanest and neatest: she didn’t have a lot of stuff growing up, so she doesn’t acquire a lot of stuff and takes care of what she does own. Sam’s probably the messiest, but only in terms of missing the laundry basket when she tries to toss dirty clothes in; she has crap aim.

Who fixes the vehicle after a breakdown? Garrus. James’ idea of maintenance involves kicking it, and Yael knows enough about vehicles to know when she should stop poking around under the hood and get a professional. And Sam’s knowledge of internal engines is academic at best.

Living space has a leak! Who fixes it? James. If the leak’s not going to turn into a flood or damage anything, Yael doesn’t really care about it, and Sam tried to fix her own toilet in college and it ended quite dramatically so she’s never attempted home plumbing repair again.

Who buys the groceries? James. He cooks, so he knows what they need. If they go as a group, their cart mysteriously has more stuff than is on his list.

Going out to eat: Who pays? Who orders the most food? And who has dessert? Yael pays, because she never buys anything ever and therefore has the money to feed a biotic, a giant soldier and a comm specialist who likes chocolate. They generally order a variety of things for the table (though it’s usually takeout) and just pick and choose a bit of everything. Sam gets dessert.

Would they go to the beach? James talks about it enough that they couldn’t not go to the beach just to see what all the fuss is about.

Who knows how to swim? Who doesn’t? James knows how to swim. Yael and Sam technically know how to swim because it was part of Alliance basic training.

Is someone multilingual? Do they try to teach another language to the other? How does it go? Yael speaks Hebrew and James speaks Spanish. They don’t really try to teach it to anyone else, though the other two are getting pretty good at the Shabbat prayer (no idea what it means, but they can pronounce everything now). 

Any pets? Or plants? The hamster and some fish. Sam attempts a cactus.

Baths or showers? Together or separate? Any bubbles or bubble fights? Separate showers, usually. Sam and Yael have promised James no sex or precursor-to-sex activities when he’s around, so shared showers and baths are reserved for when he’s on duty or otherwise not in their quarters/apartment. The three of them do use the hot tub together, but it’s not a naked session.

Can they stand silence? Who talks the most? Who talks the least? Silence is good. Yael doesn’t talk much, and sometimes Sam gets in a mood where she rambles a whole lot.

Who stays up late? Who sleeps the most? Does the other have to force them to sleep/wake up? They all stay up late, but Sam is a morning person no matter when she went to sleep, and the other two are so incredibly not. After Yael, half-asleep, accidentally put her in a stasis field, Sam doesn’t try to wake anyone up anymore.

Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind? Well, Sam has a toothbrush that cost almost as much as a gun mod. 

Vacation ideas: who decides them? Where would they go, if anywhere? James and Sam decide on vacation; Yael’s never really had the opportunity to go on vacation so she doesn’t know how that even works (leave doesn’t count, since it was always with a group of people who didn’t know where to go so they all just found a bar). California sounds nice.

Vanessa/Ashley/Tali

Who cooks? Ashley. Vanessa forgets to eat unless someone reminds her. Tali teaches Ashley how to cook dextro food that isn’t paste.

Who’s the messiest? The cleanest? Continuing the theme, they’re all pretty clean and neat. Ash and V come from a long line of military families and training, and there isn’t much room on the Flotilla for having a messy room (not to mention you can’t exactly toss your suit off in the corner when you get home from work).

Who fixes the vehicle after a breakdown? Tali and Vanessa. Ashley stands around and offers moral support.

Living space has a leak! Who fixes it? Vanessa. She lived in an impressively crappy apartment her junior year at the Engineering Academy with an equally crappy super, so she learned a lot about home repair via the extranet.

Who buys the groceries? Ashley.

Going out to eat: Who pays? Who orders the most food? And who has dessert? Vanessa pays, usually. Ashley orders the most food, and Tali always has dessert.

Would they go to the beach? Probably.

Who knows how to swim? Who doesn’t? Vanessa was on AEA’s swim team, so she’s pretty great at it. Ashley also knows how to swim. Quarians don’t usually jump into bodies of water for fun.

Is someone multilingual? Do they try to teach another language to the other? How does it go? I’m trying to work through my Vanessa linguistic headcanons and I keep coming up empty. Tali obviously speaks one of the quarian languages in addition to Galactic Standard (I will hold tight to the idea of Standard until the end of time, especially because it gives rise to pigin and creole languages and that’s just super cool).

Any pets? Or plants? A space hamster. No fish. Between Tali and Ashley, they keep a few indoor plants alive.

Baths or showers? Together or separate? Any bubbles or bubble fights? Tali’s envirosuit can make things kind of awkward (they have the prep time down to about fifteen minutes, but it still requires a bit of planning ahead), so they tend to shower for cleanliness separately for the sake of time. Her suit’s waterproof, somewhat obviously, so showers and baths for Fun are 100% things that happen.

Can they stand silence? Who talks the most? Who talks the least? There’s not a lot of silence with this crowd (though they’re okay with it when it does happen). They all talk a lot, about the same amount.

Who stays up late? Who sleeps the most? Does the other have to force them to sleep/wake up? Vanessa doesn’t sleep a lot, never has, but she lets the others sleep. Tali doesn’t need as much sleep as humans, so she’s usually the second one awake. They both tease Ashley for sleeping later than them, even though she’s waking up at a perfectly acceptable time.

Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind? Technically Tali’s the high maintenance one on account of being a quarian in a relationship with two humans (and Ash and V certainly don’t mind), but in terms of what I think this question is getting at, no one’s particularly high maintenance.

The line is "Maybe if I was a stupid grunt," but I feel like Vanessa would go into a rampage at his hologram.