Series Overview: Donovan/Theo

Last Series Overview for @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing. Day 9 is coming on the 13th but I’m still plugging along!

Donovan/Theo (series unnamed)

It is no exaggeration to say these two have pretty well taken over my fandom/fanfic brain. My Donovan Shepard (originally a branch off Donovan Lír, now his very own character) with @cdrkateshepard‘s Theo Walker in an Alpha-omega AU with a slightly modified timeline. The series starts with a one-night stand around the time of Akuze and follows their relationship up to and through the game events. This pairing has me writing A/O smut and Kate enjoying domestic fluff so they must have something going for them.

Quick Stats:

Shepard: Donovan Michael Shepard (he has a million other names/alias)

Love Interest: @cdrkateshepard‘s Theo Walker (OC)

Other Important Relationships: mShep & OCs (family). Subject to change: mShep & Ashley Williams, mShep & James Vega, OC (Theo) & Mordin Solus, OC (Theo) & Miranda Lawson

Favorite Completed Fic: There are none. Yet.

WIP I’m Most Excited For: Collab-wise, I’m really excited for this whole thing. The first installment is the only thing we’ve started on so, I guess that for the moment? I am currently working on a Donovan-only piece in the same universe called “A Butcher’s Homecoming,” which takes place when he goes home to Killorglin for the first time after Torfan.

Series Overview: Friends Don’t

Still trying to catch up for @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing. I have gone from “very behind” to “somewhat behind” then to “VERY behind.” (See the upper case? That means things are worse...)

Friends Don’t

Have you ever had an idle thought/random curiosity that somehow ends up spiraling out of control and the next thing you know you’ve got a new ship that you actually find quite compelling? That’s this universe for me. It is a  femShep/femShep universe with @cdrkateshepard‘s Kate “Red” Shepard and my Veerla Shepard. As a side note, I’ve forgotten whether Kate is Shepard and Veerla is Sterling or if Veerla is Shepard and Kate is Shepherd... shame on me, I know.

Quick Stats:

Shepard: Kate “Red” Shepard

Shepard: Veerla Reneé Shepard

Love Interest: Veerla Shepard/Kate Shepard

Other Important Relationships: femShep (Kate)/OC

Favorite Completed Fic: There are none…

WIP I’m Most Excited For: At the moment, there’s only one main fic for this universe as far as I know (one-shots and ficlettes perhaps) so we’re going with that. Episodic chapters showing the development of Kate and Veerla’s relationship from “they were roommates” to “and they lived happily ever after with a dozen kids.” (No, literally a dozen. There are 12 of them.)

Series Overview: Besame

Day 7 of @the-wip-project’s 100 Days of Writing on the 10th but who’s counting? (Me, I’m counting.) The series overview’s continue but we are on to my collabs. The next three are with @cdrkateshepard. Here we go!

Besame

Way, WAY, WAY back, when I first got into the fandom I had this idea to do a fic based on one of my favorite movies, A Walk In The Clouds. (I didn’t say it was “good” I said “I liked it.”) But I could never figure out how to do it because there’s a very specific dynamic between the characters and I couldn’t find a pairing within the game that would work for it. I would think about it, run through potential ships, realize none of them worked then put it on the back burner until, through a conversation with Kate, I got to mShep/sisRyder, which fit perfectly. (Though I did age the Ryder twins up a few years because of the age gap and timing.) This series is pretty much on hiatus for the moment but I still think about it (and Jack and Ale) often.

Quick Stats:

Ryder: Alejandra “Ale” (“AH-leh”) Jacinta Ryder Ramirez

Love Interest: (@cdrkateshepard’s) Jack Shepard

Other Important Relationships: sisRyder & broRyder, sisRyder & Alec Ryder, sisRyder & Ellen Ryder,

Favorite Completed Fic: There aren’t any

WIP I’m Most Excited For: Besame Mucho, the titular installment that starts it all. A fake marriage AU where Jack pretends to be married to Ale to help her break the news that she is pregnant to her strict, traditional, and overbearing father, whom she is terrified of disappointing. And of course they fall madly in love and eventually (after the whole hunt for Saren, Collector attacks, Reaper War, etc.) live happily ever after.

Series Overview: Layla & Veerla

Oh my goodness... I’m so behind. This is Day 6 on the 10th. GAH! I’m going to try it catch up, so please excuse the spam. (These are all tagged with “100 days of bardic writing” and “100daysofwriting” if you don’t want to see them.)

Layla & Veerla (series unnamed)

I am very fortunate to have met some amazing people through this fandom and @rock-paperback-scissors is one of them. I am doubly fortunate that our Shepards, her Layla and my Veerla, are best friends. We’ve done one collab so far (her art, my writing) and have at least two others in the works. I have always considered Layla to be Commander Shepard in their shared universe and use Veerla’s not-Shepard last name, Sterling, for it. (Veerla’s canon is so not-canon it makes sense to let Layla have the responsibility honor.)

Quick Stats:

Shepard: Layla (???) Shepard 

Shepard: Veerla Reneé Sterling (Shepard)

Love Interest: Thane Krios (Layla), Donovan Lír (Veerla)

Other Important Relationships: femShep & femShep is main relationship for this series but also femShep (Layla) & Hannah Shepard, femShep (Layla) & Commander Shepard’s (Layla) Father, femShep (Veerla) & Commander Shepard’s (Layla) Father, femShep (Layla) & Miranda Lawson

Favorite Completed Fic: Weapon of Choice. Done for OC Kiss Week (not sure which year), with art by @rock-paperback-scissors and writing by me! Layla tries, with limited success, to teach Veerla to cook.

WIP I’m Most Excited For: Not The First Time, Nor The Last (working title). This also started out as a Kiss Week collab but it got a little out of hand in my brain and I missed the deadline and now it’s hanging out in my WIP. Veerla, trapped on Earth during the events of ME3, teams up with Jon Shepard, Layla’s father, to foil a Cerberus plot. I love Jon so much and I can’t wait to get back to this idea.

Series Overview: Tresvir

Day 5 of @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing challenge and the overviews continue! (So does the late-ness...)

Tresvir

My love of mShenga (mShep/Kaidan/James) is no secret to anyone who has looked at my AO3 page. I’ve written one-shots for them as well but this is my "canon" for them.

Quick Stats:

Shepard: John Shepard (default)

Love Interest: Kaidan Alenko and James Vega (poly triad)

Other Important Relationships: N/A (one Kaidan & Rahna fic but that’s the only time she shows up)

Favorite Completed Fic: Recovering. This was actually the first fic I wrote for these three and it remains my favorite. Set post-ME3, it gives insight into John, James, and Kaidan’s recovery after the Crucible fired.

WIP I’m Most Excited For: I don’t have an exact plan for it but I’m really excited to write how their poly relationship develops during ME3. John and Kaidan were together in ME1, John and James were together through Shepard’s lock-up, but it’s not until ME3 that the THREE of them get together and I’m really excited to share it.

Series Overview: Secret Agent Vee

Catching up on @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing challenge (or trying). What was supposed to be Day 4 is now Day 5 pt 2 but it is progress! So I tell myself. Before we begin, let me say that the title of this series is REQUIRED to be sung to the tune of 🎶Secret Agent Man.🎶

Secret Agent Vee

I wasn’t sure if I should include this as a separate series, since it’s technically part of Rise. But it’s a different folder in my Drive, so it gets its own post. This series focuses specifically on Veerla’s work as an agent (super secret biotic spy) for the Clandestine Operations and Defense Agency, CODA. Most of them happen pre-Mass Effect Games and help lay the groundwork for events in her ME stories but some of them are set during the series and later as well.

Quick Stats:

Shepard: Veerla Reneé Shepard

Love Interest: Donovan Lír and Kaidan Alenko (poly triad)

Other Important Relationships: Mostly femShep & OC, OC / OC, and OC & OC relationships

Favorite Completed Fic: There are none...

WIP I’m Most Excited For: The Auction (working title). Veerla and Kaidan go undercover together as one of her clones and Kai Leng respectively, to attend a black market auction on Cerberus’s behalf. Fun fact: Kai Leng is the only canon character that dies in Veerla’s universe, as best as I can recall.

Series Overview: Rise

This was supposed to be Day 3 of @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing but Real Life is a thing so now it’s going up on the 5th and we’ll worry about catching up later. Continuing the Series Overviews with Veerla’s “canon” story.

Rise

I’m not sure if you’re supposed to have a favorite child project but this is definitely mine. This universe is a Reaper-less, Everybody Lives AU with a Shepard who’s a super secret biotic spy (more on that later) instead of an N7 and Cerberus as the Big Bad. For me, this universe hits the sweet spot of different enough to be mine but the same enough to be recognizable and I love it.

Quick Stats:

Shepard: Veerla Reneé Shepard

Love Interest: Donovan Lír and Kaidan Alenko (poly triad)

Other Important Relationships: femShep & David Anderson, femShep & Nihlus Kryik, Kaidan Alenko/Citadel Doctor, plus lots of OC / OC and OC & OC relationships

Favorite Completed Fic: What We Pulled From The Ashes. Veerla’s relationship with Anderson is one of the most influential in her life and this story shows the roots of that relationship. It takes place immediately after the Mindoir raid and gives a peek into Vee’s experience through Anderson’s eyes as he tries to help her recover.

WIP I’m Most Excited For: All of it. Sorry. I tried to pick just one but this universe covers so much time that I couldn’t. Soldier(s) Fallen (working title) is up there, which is a pre-canon, post-BAaT story focusing on Donovan and Kaidan’s friendship. The ME2 rewrite (unnamed) is another one I’m excited for, because it’s the most different from canon of the “game” stories. And, of course, Veerla’s recruitment and training as a spy (essentially her version of N School, since she didn’t go to N School).

Series Overview: Without You

Late for Day 2 of @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing but it’s still the second somewhere. Today’s series is my angst-fest, Without You.

Without You

This series is actually started as a spin-off of A Good Ride, a collection of stories that were AUs of Ariella’s canon universe. But the more I wrote for them the more developed the universes became until it eventually reached critical mass and I ended up splitting the two entirely. Each story starts with a “divergent point” a point in games where Shepard or Kaidan could have died and looks at what would have happened (in Mara’s universe) if they had. I love this series because I am a Tear Drinker and an Angst Monster I love looking at the ripple effect of changing a single choice. How does Shepard dying change Kaidan and how is it different when it happens at the Battle of the Citadel versus Cerberus never bringing her back after the Normandy is destroyed. (And also I’m an Angst Monster and Tear Drinker.)

Quick Stats:

Shepard: Mara Elizabeth Shepard

Love Interest: Kaidan Alenko

Other Important Relationships: femShep & Garrus Vakarian, Kaidan Alenko/Citadel Doctor, Kaidan Alenko/OC, Kaidan Alenko & Garrus Vakarian, femShep & David Anderson (not all of them in every story)

Favorite Completed Fic: Without You: Battle of the Citadel. (Mara is killed when Sovereign explodes in the Battle of the Citadel.) It was a tough call between this one and the next in the series but this won out in the end because it shows more of the differences in the universe as a whole, versus just Kaidan. It also includes cameos by Gina Ewing (Shepard) and Chris Ramsey (Shepard) which I really enjoy!

WIP I’m Most Excited For: Without You: Collector Base. I actually started posting this at one point, but my pantster made an error my plotter couldn’t deal with and ended up taking it down to do a major overhaul. In this installment, Mara dies during the attack on the Collector Base and (basically) Kaidan takes Shepard’s place during the events of ME3. Also, the main relationship in it is Kaidan Alenko & Garrus Vakarian, which is one of my favorite brOTPs.

Series Overview: A Good Ride

Down to the wire but not overdue for Day 1 of @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing! I’m going to start with a small overview of each of my projects both as a reference for readers and a way to get myself talking about them. It seems fitting to start with the first series I posted, including the first fic I posted. Here we go!

A Good Ride

This is Ariella’s series and the only one of my series that is canon complaint (at least as far as canon complies with itself). I started it because I wanted to explore canon itself and give myself the challenge of telling a story I wanted to tell within the Mass Effect universe as it stands. At the moment, it starts with ME2 and mainly focuses on Ariella’s relationship with Kaidan but I have plans for pre-ME1 stories and continuing through to post-ME3.

Quick Stats:

Shepard: Ariella Jean Shepard

Love Interest: Kaidan Alenko

Other Important Relationships: Kaidan Alenko & Garrus Vakarian

Favorite Completed Fic: Three and Nine. Is it weird that my favorite fic in an fShenko series doesn’t do more than mention Ariella? Probably but it doesn’t make it any less true. This fic features Kaidan and Garrus coming to an understanding after the stand-off during the Cerberus coup. 

WIP I’m Most Excited For: 12 Angry Geth (working title). Set post ME3 with a canon Destroy ending. Ariella is charged with genocide against the geth when they were killed as well as the Reapers. There is a quite a bit of world-building I’m excited to share with this fic, as well as a bunch of OCs I’m excited to introduce.

You Have Been Warned

Tomorrow is the beginning of @the-wip-project‘s 100 Days of Writing event! Which means for the next 100 days I will be posting something about my Mass Effect fics. Along with the official tag, 100daysofwriting, I will be using “100 days of bardic writing” if anyone wants to block or blacklist or whatever the fancy title for making it so you don’t see it is.