halesshepardn7:the-fallen-blue:thefingerfuckingfemalefury:octerminal:Romanced Squadmates + Priority:
Romanced Squadmates + Priority: Cerberus Headquarters
I’m still me. I doubt I’d have been able to turn against Cerberus otherwise. I don’t remember anything. Maybe they really just fixed me, or…maybe…I’m just a high-tech VI that thinks it’s Commander Shepard. But I don’t know. I…
<3 Soft purrs <3
I love how telling all of these are about the characters.
Ashley, passionate and direct, whose first solution to any problem, physical or emotional, is “attack the source,” denigrating Cerberus and the trauma they inflicted, not only “you’re real” but also “the people who made you feel otherwise are bullshit, you don’t need to listen to them”;
Garrus, wry and reserved, who manages humor far better than sincerity and has thus made humor perhaps the main form of intimacy between himself and Shep, layering his reassurance under a joking insult so Shep know he means it;
Liara, the touch-telepath scientist, who sees it as a simple matter of evidence-based fact, and presents that fact to Shep as an obvious, incontrovertible resolution;
Tali, for whom philosophical and moral questions are easily answered by “what feels right,” whose culture and whose personal trauma are both entirely centered on belonging, asserting to Shep that not only is the realness not even in question, but more importantly, Shepard belongs, has a place, a family;
Kaidan, for whom philosophical and moral questions are complex and very serious, who himself has suffered with isolation and dissociation, avoiding the kind of firm unprovable declaration that would feel to him in the same situation like empty platitudes, and instead offering assurance that the question of realness doesn’t have to be answered, that even if it remains ambiguous forever, Kaidan will still be there so Shepard at least has that much.
I swear I could burst into tears every time I hear “you’re real enough for me.”
Wed, 25 May 2022 13:01:34
