Your boldness stands alone among the wreck

If you've read some of Lovecraft's more well-known works and want to see his take on a fantasy adventure, if you're looking for a lesser-known pulp fantasy story, or you just want to read an evocative and weird piece of fiction, I definitely recommend checking out The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

Randolph Carter (the only true recurring protagonist in Lovecraft's stories) is a lucid dreamer, and has the ability to explore fantastic alternate worlds in his dreams. Lovecraft's other stories imply that these aren't just dreams, but actual alternate realities that lucid dreamers can access.

Lately, Carter has been haunted by dreams of a city so beautiful he simply must find a way to dream of it again, but no matter what he does, he simply can't get there in his dreams. He thus sets out on a dream quest (say that again?) to seek out Kadath, the distant land of the gods of the dream world, who are said to have the power to grant Carter's wish.

On his journey, Carter encounters many strange and fantastical creatures, including talking cats (always a plus in any story imo), blank-faced "night-gaunt" monsters from Lovecraft's actual childhood nightmares, and ghouls, which Lovecraft helped popularize as a fantasy monster in western fiction.

One of the most interesting aspects of this story is all the characters from, and references to, Lovecraft's other works. While today we often talk about the "Cthulhu mythos" as this expanded universe of interconnected stories based on H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth's writings, Lovecraft's stories were originally intended as one-off, standalone shorts. Only later in his career did Lovecraft start incorporating connections between his stories into his writing.

In Dream-Quest, Carter visits many locations that were featured in Lovecraft's previous works, such as the wondrous city of Celephaïs, and Leng, a plateau region home to horrors beyond comprehension. He also meets certain characters that showed up in other stories, most notably the god Nyarlathotep, who is one of the only eldritch beings to act as the direct antagonist in multiple Lovecraft stories (not even Cthulhu gets that honour!).

If any of that sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend checking out the story. All his works are in the public domain, by the way. You can read them on hplovecraft.com:

Say the Reapers hadn't been real and/or something else happened that resulted in the Normandy failing their mission but the reapers not making an appearance yet: who do you honestly believe gets the blame? Shepard? The Council's latest pet? The soldier the Alliance sends to every possible situation, regardless of if they're qualified to handle it or not? The poster boy/girl/person for humanity? They'll get punished, sure, but who out of the Alliance and the Council is going to admit they got it wrong and ruin Shepard's life? They'll get the Harkin treatment and anything that can be swept under the rug, will be.

Kaidan? He was just following Shepard's lead. If anything he might actually benefit from it later on (again, after a promotion hold or some other minor punishment). He's a good soldier through his own merit, and a loyal one, no one is going to ruin him or go after his family.

Joker? Mr "best damn pilot in the Alliance Fleet"? He'd be grounded for a while and likely banned from ever being a test pilot again, but how are they going to justify removing him from his position entirely? He'll hate it, sure, but he'll still be able to do the job he loves.

Any of the alien crew? Wrex is a merc. Liara is a scientist. Garrus is also essentially a merc at this point. Tali is a "kid on her pilgrimage". Who would punish any of them and risk a potential diplomatic issue?

So who can they blame? Someone has to be held responsible. What's that, a Williams was on board? A name blacklisted for "cowardice" and ruining the Alliance's reputation? Someone who, regardless of being the best of the best constantly, is overlooked, disrespected and belittled by every superior officer she met before Shepard? Yep, that'll do.

Ashley finally has an opportunity to serve and make a difference; she's finally getting the chance to prove what she can do; she's finally getting recognition and support from someone who sees her as a person and not a curse...

Currently living with our grandmother but idk that that's a stable household overall and she kind of seems like she's been waiting to get rid of the kid. Idk if they're going to college somehow since they don't have household money for that or if having to find a rental and job full time at 18.