Fire the fields, the weed is sown

All we wanna do is eat your brains...

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:21:58 GMT

VALENTINE'S DAY RP.

Shepard and Harry are on their way to a very nice restaurant. They're all dressed up and everything; Shepard's wearing the same dress she wore for the Christmas ball, a dark red dress with a transluscet black toule overlay, which is studded with tiny crystals. Harry is wearing a nice suit, but has opted to leave off his spelled duster.

They opted to leave a bit earlier than necessary and cut through Grant Park on the way to the restaurant. This, however, might not have been the best idea... after all, there tend to be unstable Rift openings there. Seems Shepard forgot about that...

[OOC] Colourgenics Profile!

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:31:38 GMT

http://www.goldinuniverse.com

Bolded statements are those that truly resonated with her ;)

You are a very emotional and sensitive individual. Your life and love of life is dominated by your emotions - you have great feeling towards your fellow man and you are always full of enthusiasm but be careful, you tend to let your heart rule your head and this being so, you could be easily hurt - as perhaps you may have indeed been hurt in the past.

Your situation is such that at this time it is essential that you resolve your inherent problems immediately. You are not listening nor taking heed from your many friends and advisers, all of which believe it or not, 'wish you well'. Most of your colleagues feel that your attitude is out of context - an attitude of recklessness and desperation. It is imperative that some solution be found, but whatever you do, think before you act.

You feel truly deprived - not getting your fair share, but you have accepted the fact that that is the way things are at this time and that it is prudent to let matters slide and not hit your head against the wall -so conform and agree for a while. Accept the situation - nothing can last forever.

All of your stress arises from lack of mutual understanding. The existing situation is unsatisfactory and you feel that you are unable to improve it without the help and co-operation of others. The need for understanding and for affectionate 'give and take' remains unsatisfied. You are experiencing the feeling of being 'handcuffed' - 'tied down' - 'hindered' - 'restrained' and this untenable situation is giving rise to impatience, irritability and the desire to escape from it all.

You wish to safeguard yourself against criticism or conflict and to embed yourself in a protected situation. You are a difficult person to relate to and very difficult to please.

FYI, I'll be back later this evening. :D Looking forward to it~

[OOC] Mass Effect Orientation, and your guide to dealing with Cmdr Shepard

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:17:09 GMT

It has occurred to me that most of y'all probably know very little about Mass Effect, the fandom Shepard is from. It would be useful, I think, to give you guys a brief rundown of her capabilities and a little bit about the universe and time period it takes place in. This is going to be a long entry, but it's information that's somewhat necessary.

It would be wise for anyone wishing to RP with Shepard to read through this entry if you have any plans to deal with her. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment on this entry and I will answer it to the best of my ability. :)

Let's start simple. Mass Effect was released in Fall 2007 for the X-Box 360 and came out for the PC in April 2008. It was developed by BioWare Corp., who are based in Austin, TX and Edmonton, Canada. (I live in Austin, by the way. BioWare is the only thing that's keeping me here, because I dislike Texas on principle.) They specialize in RPG's and Action-RPG's, the latter of which Mass Effect is described as.

Shepard is the player character from that game. Players have a wide variety of choices when creating him/her, except in the last name, which is always "Shepard" for story purposes. The first name is completely customizable, though. For this particular character I chose "Amarantha", which, as I understand it, means "Undying" in Greek. You can play as either a male or female Shepard. Appearance is customizable as well, much like in The Sims 2 though with slightly fewer morphology options. There are six character classes, three specialists and three hybrid classes.

Soldiers are combat specialists. They have no technological prowess and no Biotic powers. Engineers are tech specialists, specializing in taking out machines and overloading them as well. Adepts are biotic specialists with a wide variety of telekinetic abilities.

Infiltrators are soldier/engineer hybrids, receiving both proficiency with technology and combat abilities. Sentinels are engineer/adept hybrids. And Vanguards are adept/soldier hybrids.

This version of Shepard is a Vanguard, meaning she has both Biotic abilities and skill in fighting. Luckily her training is only in ranged combat; hand-to-hand and melee appear to be considered archaic in her time period.

Which brings me to the setting... ME takes place in 2183 CE (which is the politcially correct version of "AD"). Everything is super-advanced. Armour is form-fitting and generates a shield around the wearer that will block bullets. Guns fold up into compact rectangular shapes when not in use. Grenades are disk-shaped and will literally cling to objects.

Humans and the other races of the galaxy (Asari, Salarians, Turians, Batarians, Krogan, Quarians, Elcor, Volus, Hanar, Keepers, Geth, and Reapers) travel between the stars using Mass Relays, giant constructions anchored to a particular star system that propel ships almost instantly to a certain destination. Where you end up depends on which Mass Relay you're using and if it's linked to only one other, or to several different destination points. The larger Mass Relays are linked to only one other system that can be thousands of lightyears apart. Smaller Mass Relays link to several different systems but can't propel ships very far—a few hundred lightyears at most.

At the centre of the Mass Relay network is the Citadel, a giant space station housing the embassies of most of the other alien races in the galaxy as well as the human embassy. The races without an embassy are the Geth (who are xenophobic and don't like organics), the Reapers (who likewise don't like organics and, in fact, "harvest" them every, oh, 50,000 years), the Keepers (though they are the Citadel's caretakers, they do not interact with other people and thus have no need of an embassy), the Quarians (who cannot spare the resources to maintain one), the Krogans (who aren't the kind of race who engage in politics) and the Batarians (who refuse to acknowledge the Council's authority). The Citadel and most of the races of the galaxy answer to the Citadel Council, comprised of the three strongest races in the galaxy: the Asari, the Turians, and the Salarians. The Council has ultimate authority to make laws governing the territory of the races who acknowledge that authority. Humans are among those races. The Citadel embassies enable races who hold one to have a say in legislation and the council's decisions.

The Council has a group of agents who operate outside the laws of the galaxy. They're both a last resort and a first line of defense. They are called Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Individual agents are called SPECTRES, as is the group as a whole. Shepard was inducted into the Spectres once it was discovered that one of the other agents had gone rogue. She was the first human to earn the position. She was assigned to track down and take out the rogue agent, Saren Arterius, whose Spectre status was revoked when it was discovered that he had orchestrated an attack on a human colony by the Geth. She chased him all over the galaxy, eventually discovering that his final destination was a world called Ilos. The Council refused to let her go and locked down the controls of her ship, the Normandy. As a result Shepard effectively stole her and left for Ilos anyway. Saren attempted to open the Citadel mass relay to allow the Reapers to initiate their attack on the galaxy. Shepard stopped him and, in the process, left the Citadel Council to die. The Systems Alliance took charge and occupied the power vacuum, forming the Human Systems Empire. Shepard knew that destroying Sovereign, the Reaper's vanguard, would not stop the Reapers themselves and set off to find a way to stop them for good. During that mission she ran through the Rift in the middle of a battle with the Geth.

Let's face it, you guys might have trouble dealing with Shepard if you don't know what she's capable of. It occurs to me that I probably should have gone over this earlier, but better late than never, right?

One important thing to keep in mind... she's strong and capable, but that does not mean she's invincible. Far from it. She still has human limits, and she has weaknesses. I'll detail them next, along with her abilities and equipment:

Shepard is 5'9", 110 lbs, with pale skin, violet eyes, and long, black hair which she keeps pinned up in a complex bun at the back of her head. Her civilian clothing is rather loose to allow for movement with her armour underneath it. A lot of it is black, but she also wears some white or red from time to time. She avoids jewellry, partially because she's sort-of a tomboy and partially because it gets in the way. She does, however, wear gothic-esque black lipstick and eyeshadow/eyeliner.

She invariably wears her armour, a type called "Predator L X" in her own time, underneath her civvies. "L" stands for "Light" and "X" stands for the level of advancement, in this case, 10, the most advanced the armour can possibly be. The armour has a kinetic barrier generator (which can stop bullets but will not interfere with melee attacks or knock down a chair when she sits down) and an onboard computer that can give readouts on the environment, liaise with terminals to download data, and other similar tasks.

She carries on her person four different kinds of guns that can fold up into small, compact, and innocuous forms: one shotgun (HMWSG X), one sniper rifle (HMWSR X), one assault rifle (HMWA X), and one pistol (HMWP X). Each weapon is made of black metal and carries incindiary amunition (meaning it gets very hot, very fast). She also carries high explosive grenades.

She has strong Biotic abilities that were greatly increased in power when she passed through the Rift, but she has subsequently lost a lot of the control she has over them. Because she is a Biotic, she has to wear an amp (Savant X) at the base of her skull in order to use her powers.

Shepard is trained in the use of all four of the guns she carries and is very good at dealing with ranged combat. However, she has no training or experience with melee combat or hand-to-hand, which is considered too archaic by the Systems Empire (formed out of the Systems Alliance when the Citadel Council was killed). Her armour has limits too, and after absorbing force from a certain amount of bullets, the kinetic barrier will fall down and be rendered useless until she can find a safe place to let it recharge. After that a few careful shots could be made at her head, or a barrage of bullets would eventually break through the armour itself and penetrate her skin. She has human limits when it comes to her stamina and strength, and if a fight is drawn out for a long time, she will become exhausted which will make it harder for her to concentrate on keeping the fight going.

She has psychological weaknesses as well, though they aren't as numerous as her physical weaknesses. Primarily, she hates feeling helpless. This stems from something that happened when she was chasing after a rogue Spectre agent, Saren, and the Council ordered the Normandy grounded and disabled all of its systems, preventing them from going to Ilos, where she knew Saren was headed. She overcame the helpless feeling by working in concert with her former CO, Captain Anderson, to reactivate the Normandy's systems, effectively stealing the ship and going to Ilos against orders. But ever since then it's a feeling she's despised and thus could be exploited.

She is under the rather misguided impression that all doctors are pacifists and thus can never be warriors. She also believes that civilians will never have the skill and prowess of a soldier. In either of these instances her enemies would gain the advantage of being able to surprise her with their own abilities and skills.

Shepard has no emotional attachments, as she considers all of the lives around her to be utterly expendable. She also doesn't experience much in the way of guilt or remorse. She is, however, growing frustrated that she cannot find a way back to her own time to complete her mission to stop the Reapers. This could be used against her as well, though it will likely make her angry. However, when she is angry, she tends to become a bit careless as well.

Anyway, I think that's about everything of relevance. Hope this was helpful in some way. ^^;;;

[OOC] Shepard's Playlist

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:24:29 GMT

Here's the bunch of songs I gathered together for Shepard :D

Instructions: To download, click each link and change hxxp to http.

1. "M4, Part II" by Faunts // LYRICS
2. "A Dangerous Mind" by Within Temptation // LYRICS
3. "The Kinslayer" by Nightwish // LYRICS
4. "Lose Control" by Evanescence // LYRICS
5. "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand // LYRICS
6. "Destroyed" by Within Temptation // LYRICS
7. "The Little Things Give You Away" by Linkin Park // LYRICS
8. "Planet Hell" by Nightwish // LYRICS
9. "What Have You Done?!" by Within Temptation, featuring Keith Caputo // LYRICS
10. "Lies" by Evanescence // LYRICS
11. "Only Ashes" by Something Corporate // LYRICS
12. "The Only One" by Ra // LYRICS
13. "Angels Fall First" by Nightwish // LYRICS
14. "The Howling" by Within Temptation // LYRICS
15. "Mass Effect Theme" by Jack Wall and Sam Hulick // INSTRUMENTAL

Download the whole thing here! (.zip, all files .mp3)

Please leave me a comment and tell me if you enjoyed the music... I like knowing these things ;)

[Narrative] The Torture of Eloi Laurent

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:16:33 GMT

((OOC: Continued from here. Now I know how Rizzy felt. ._.))

ETA: While I have left the Rift and have deleted most of the Rift-related entries on my RP journals, I have kept this one in place because it is referenced in the Plot Summary on the Rift Wiki. In case you were wondering. ^_^;;

Eloi wakes up inside a metal cage and instantly begins to castastrophize. Everything's going totally wrong, he was here to rescue Martha, dammit—

Before the train of thought can continue, though, a searing pain erupts from one of his wings and he screams, falling back against the bars of the cage. Stealing a glance at the injured wing, he sees a bullet hole in one of the joints oozing white blood.

He hears an unfamiliar laugh and his attention turns back to the doorway. The woman standing there is a total stranger. She's tall, athletic, with jet-black hair pinned back into a bun, dressed in form-fitting, black, futuristic-looking armour. There's a smoking pistol in her right hand, unlike any he's seen before.

"So. You're Miss Jones's Guardian Angel. Eloi Laurent is it?" She smirks. "I'm Commander Shepard." She lifts a hand, and it glows blue, and more pain erupts from Eloi's wings. He feels the second joint in each of his wings snap and screams in pain.

"This should be fun," she states. "I believe an old friend of your Ward's is upstairs with Martha as we speak. One Lucy Saxon? Bet you can feel everything she's doing to her." She approaches the cage and leans into to whisper into Eloi's ear. "Every... single... thing..." She presses the pistol to his shoulder and fires it, at the same time as more pain erupts in his thighs. Like more there are more bullet wounds there too. He knows Martha has been shot there and whimpers in pain. Totally helpless. He doesn't like feeling helpless.

Shepard tilts her head and fingers the wound, making Eloi suck in his breath in pain. "White blood. Interesting. Haven't seen that since the Geth. And that wasn't even blood, it was conducting fluid." She grins. "It's rather pretty, actually."

"Only someone who's sick would think blood is pretty," Eloi manages to snap.

Shepard makes a "Tsk" sort of noise. "Now now, no insults. As I understand it you don't have much room to talk. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is it? Resulting in Paranoia and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Oh yes, Calisto's told me all about you."

As Shepard finishes talking and pulls away, Eloi's heart wrenches as he feels Martha die.

"NO!"

Shepard smirks. "She's dead, isn't she? And there was nothing you could do. Don't you hate feeling helpless? It's an ache inside, like someone's taking your heart and squeezing it."

She knows the feeling all too well. She knows it from when the Council grounded the Normandy to stop her from chasing Saren to Ilos. But she got over it. She did something about it. She knows Eloi won't do anything. He's too timid. Weak.

"If you had any spine to you," she continues, "you'd do something about it. Strike at me. Break free from this cage. DO SOMETHING DAMNIT!" She screams.

Eloi flinches away, too numb, hurting too much to move.

"But you won't," she growls. "You haven't got any spine to you. No gumption." She biotically lifts a nearby knife and presses it against the nape of his neck. With a wicked grin, she says, "And for that, you'll suffer."

Eloi's screams echo through the warehouse as she slices his torso open with the knife.

[OOC] And Shepard's Profile, for now.

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 05:34:12 GMT

Name: *deepbreath* Commander Amarantha Shepard, Systems Empire Military (fightyourfoes)
Age: 29, birthdate: 20 December 2154 (Hey, Mass Effect takes place in the future. So her birthday's technically in the future too.)
Canon: Mass Effect
Species: Human, through and through
Played-By: Leigh Lezark
Appearance: Shepard is 5'9", 110 lbs, with pale skin, violet eyes, and long, black hair which she keeps pinned up in a complex bun at the back of her head. She invariably wears her armour, a type called "Predator L X" in her own time, underneath her civvies. The armour is dark green with a faint camoflage pattern. The "L" stands for "Light" and "X" stands for the level of advancement, in this case, 10, the most advanced the armour can possibly be. The armour is dark, olive green with a camoflage pattern, form-fitting, and has a kinetic barrier generator (which can stop bullets but will not interfere with melee attacks or knock down a chair when she sits down) and an onboard computer that can give readouts on the environment, liaise with terminals to download data, and other similar tasks. She carries on her person four different kinds of guns that can fold up into small, compact, and innocuous forms: one shotgun (HMWSG X), one sniper rifle (HMWSR X), one assault rifle (HMWA X), and one pistol (HMWP X). Each weapon is made of black metal and carries incendiary amunition (meaning it gets very hot, very fast). She also carries high explosive grenades. She has strong Biotic abilities that were greatly increased in strength when she passed through the Rift, but she has subsequently lost a lot of the control she has over them. Because she is a Biotic, she has to wear an amp (Savant X) at the base of her skull in order to use her powers. Her civilian clothing is rather loose to allow for movement with her armour underneath it. A lot of it is black, but she also wears some white or red from time to time. She avoids jewellry, partially because she's sort-of a tomboy and parially because it gets in the way. She does, however, wear gothic-esque black lipstick and eyeshadow/eyeliner.
Personality: Takes no shit from anyone. She's a marine first and foremost. Her obligation is to the human race. Or it was. Before the Rift. Now she feels that working for Calisto is the more exciting route to take. ANYWAY. She's completely ruthless. She'll do whatever it takes to get the job done, regardless of whether it's 'despicable' or not. She's been called the "Butcher of Torfan" because of her actions there: she sacrificed a bunch of her troops to take out a ring of slavers. She takes an inordinate glee in violence.
History: Earthborn. Orphan. Or at least her parents are out of the picture. Grew up in New York City, on the streets. Joined the Alliance Military at eighteen. Decidedly one of the most talented individuals they've got. Unfortunately she's also one of their most ruthless, as demonstrated by her actions on Torfan. And by her actions in her mission against the Rogue Spectre Saren, which resulted in the Systems Alliance morphing into the Systems Empire.

[Placeholder]

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:38:07 GMT

*You see the business end of an assault rifle before everything goes black...*