will of a single man - storage v218

— garrus // no nicknames to note

— male && he/him // heterosexual demiromantic (?)

— 11 moons old // younger years were prone to timeskips, but now ages +1 month every 1st of month

— the sanguine ruins && prince (deputy) // master of strategy, scaredy cat (choice awards), most quiet (choice awards), most depressed (choice awards), best tease ship with elizabeth (choice awards) [all choice awards are from the sanguine ruins]

— faceclaim: garrus vakarian/cilian murphy (human aus) && voiceclaim: garrus, with less 'flanging' to make it more realistic

[ birth: 'siamese' / current: 'siamese' / main: 'siamese' ] DOMESTIC CAT | health (currently) 80%

always being tall for his age, garrus stands much taller than most of his feline counterparts, even more so now that he is having the last of his growth spurts. what he makes up for in height, he lacks in weight or general muscle for he is lanky and has especially long limbs, which is common in those who are siameses. unlike others who are classed as siamese, his fur's dual-tones are far less prominent and are almost non existent, with his mocha limbs, face and tail seemingly fading into his unusually silver tinted main coat. as well as this, the length of his fur is much shorter than the regular siamese as it is the length of a short-coated domestic cat. so, to conclude, it's arguable that he is not a siamese but it is far easier to class him as one because, well, that’s what he viewed himself as. the hard truth was that he is a seal point. another feature to support his claims are his blue eyes, which are by far the most expressional part of him body part wise. eyes truly are the windows to the soul in garrus's case. they are unique, for even though they are a pale blue in colour, they appear to sparkle due to all of his emotions flooding there and therefore they are quite striking. his orbs are not only a contrast to his fur, but also to the peculiar markings that his face bears. once upon a time, during one of a few difficult patches in his life, he found cobalt paint on the ruins territory and proceeded to mark himself with it. the biggest part of these markings are the ones that appear like 'bags' under his eyes, with other features being the two dashes on his nose ridge an an upside down 't' with a prolonged cross and a shortened stem on each cheek. it is actually a mystery how he made the paint permanent, although it was probably with help off a tar-like substance. as well as these markings, he has two scars; one begins by the inner edge of his distinctive brow plates and ends not far from his upper lip after travelling down across the top of his muzzle and intercepting the cobalt paint and the other starts on the outer edge of his eye (starting a little above the top most corner by about 45 degrees) and it travels almost directly downwards to the marking on his jaw. both are on the right side of his face.

he takes exceptional care of himself and regards hygiene as highly important. the reason why his health was so low at 60% is because he got tortured by breakout and suffered a rather serious concussion. his scarred scars had been reopened and he suffered a great degree of overall torture to his most important body parts (his shoulders, chest, ribs/sides and limbs) as well as his head. in addition to this, his face paint was somehow removed despite it being pretty much permenant. furthermore, he didn't help himself when after his mother traded his place for his freedom (long story), he went back on the same day to help take breakout down thanks to the wonders of poppy seeds. this understandably has also taken a toll on his mental health.

— hard physically && easy-medium mentally // will most definitely engage in combat if provoked && will show mercy depending on the backstory of individual/severity of actions beforehand etc // will antagonise others as often as possible, but do so in a joking kind of way. will stop as soon as he realises if the other person is getting hurt etc

— powers include telepathy and project and manipulate emotions && both are almost embarrassingly weak. would not be able to use them offensively. recently manipulated his own emotions after undergoing a heavy amount of emotional distress. unaware he has even done it. this has made him less angrier, less anxious and less stressed - as well as consequently less vengeful.

ENTJ; CHAOTIC GOOD; SLYTHERDOR

garrus has been described as a hothead with an itchy trigger finger. he chafes under restriction, preferring to do things his own way, rather than "by the book". he has a strong sense of right and wrong, however, and most of his "outside the book" efforts go towards bringing the criminals to justice any way he can. when he is unable to do this, it eats at him, and is not lightly shaken off - failure does not agree with garrus - if anything, it only gets worse the longer he is unable to do anything about the situation. he highly respects individuals whose efforts are geared in this same vein. overall, he is a highly dedicated, loyal man, who would take action over sitting around talking in a crisis. if you have his respect, and therefore, his loyalty, he will follow you to the ends of the earth. he cares for his clan, whether they are on equal footing, or have a superior-subordinate relationship, very deeply. his mission goals are of the utmost importance in his mind, above all else, even the needs of others. duty is important to him, and he is easily frustrated when he can't do what he has deemed to be his. he is quick to sketch plans even in high-stress situations, and they are based purely on logic, in determining the most efficient way to accomplish his larger goal with whatever resources he has. it is easy for him to detach emotionally from a situation, though he still wonders about the moral implications afterwards, they have little toll on the process of decision making. he has no qualms going over, under or around regulations (the cause of his everlasting disdain for “red tape”), to the point of risking sacrificing hostages because they “are going to die anyway”. he can lead, but has no problem leaving that to others - namely, always dead or yuu or petra. his soldier like upbringing dictates that he places the good of the many over his personal goals. he sees things in, as he says, “black and white”. either someone is innocent, or they're a criminal. good people will be protected and bad people will be punished. “gray is… difficult” he will tell anyone who questions his morals, indicating that when the facts point in different directions, he starts to lose sight of what it is that needs to be done. he has a good sense in detecting when others are lying or deceitful, which makes him a good ‘policeman’. he is quick to adapt to new situations, he takes abrupt changes in stride – which it helps with his quick decision making - and he is a good fighter, despite not having strong powers like most in agrelos. emotional expression is not garrus’ strong suit: when caught unaware he either struggles for words of comfort or to express his feelings, or he hides behind a comfortable appearance of nonchalance and witty banter.

[ from here and here ]

— no children / gunshowers (always dead) xx mischief / step dad is yuu (yuuki) / siblings = piratepaw, elian, billie jean

— no current relationships, no past relationships // single

— not many close friends && trusts always dead, yuuki, interstellar, petra && protective of kodiak // extremely dislikes breakout && does not trust most people, particularly untrusting to strangers // no character bond

— feel free to powerplay peaceful actions

— attack in #aed6f1 and/or bold, italic underlined

— all opinions are ic

TROPES W/ CANON CONTEXT

AESOP AMNESIA - a dark and somewhat justified example. in the first game, you can encourage him to become more law-abiding and less reckless. after the first game something happens which causes him to lose respect for the law and then he falls right back into his ruthless ways, arguably even more so than before. things get worse after he is betrayed. as a vigilante, he at least tries to follow some of paragon shepard's advice, since he goes out of his way to avoid hurting innocents (something he wasn't as picky about before he met shep).

BADASS NORMAL - the most notable example in mass effect. while every soldier in the game receives some type of genetic enhancements, garrus doesn't. he holds out well against these beings thanks to talent alone. it's not an exaggeration, it's genuinely true.

BYRONIC HERO - depending on player's actions, garrus can fall further into the trope or out of it. [ will do both in that order in rp ]

COWBOY COP (MAIN TROPE) - deconstructed in that he has to leave the police in order to indulge his cowboy cop urges; just like in real life, actual police forces would not tolerate cowboy cops. paragon shepard's influence can inspire him to rejoin the police with a new appreciation for playing by the rules. renegade shepard's influence, conversely, will encourage his tendencies to the extent that he envies shepard's lack of problems with red tape. deconstruction is taken further in the second game, where he is now a vigilante bordering on KNIGHT TEMPLAR whose actions have resulted in multiple mercenary gangs teaming up to kill him. and even still, he notices that his work still hasn't changed very much at all.

DEADPAN SNARKER - probably the most sarcastic character in the game.

DORK KNIGHT (MAIN TROPE) - garrus is of the number two/friendly sniper variety. he is a highly trained sniper who (1) aided in stopping a full scale assault on the galactic seat of government, (2) led a group of vigilantes on a space station that would put mos eisley spaceport to shame, and (3) became the leader of a task force designated to prepare for the inevitable genocidal alien invasion. during the course of all of this, he has a bad habit of saying INNOCENTLY INSENSITIVE things, and turns into a shy, stuttering confused mess when either making or receiving romantic/sexual advances.

HONOR BEFORE REASON (MAIN TROPE) - he often obsesses with seeing villains get their just deserts, regardless of whether pursuing them is the wisest course of action. he wrestles with himself over whether it's because of his pride, or because of his values in justice. if you take him down the paragon path, he admits it was his pride that wanted him to hunt down the guy that slipped through the justice cracks when he was working as a cop, rather than his want for justice.

KNIGHT IN SOUR ARMOR - in the second game, he's become like this. he's frighteningly devoted to his ideals, but expresses a lot of disappointment about how little he's changed things for most of omega's residents.

THE MCCOY (MAIN TROPE) - garrus is usually the most emotional person on a given team, and when faced with injustice his first instinct is to seek revenge for the harmed party rather than justice. he starts seeing things more logically in the third game after his time attached to the turian (the alien species hen belongs to) command structure (his position would be similar to that of a high hp,!possibly deputy), seen in his discussion with shepard about the 'ruthless calculus' of savings lives on a galactic scale. still doesn't stop him from wanting to carve the names of the turian war victims into the main antagonist's skull, though.

PAY EVIL INTO EVIL - [too spoiler-y for canon context but basically it means that some of his opinions in game were harsh and arguably morally wrong for some players, yet still were logical and sensible. other point is way too spoiler filled cx]

SCREW THE RULES, I'M DOING WHAT'S RIGHT - after he leaves the police, he starts to like taking the law into his own hands.

TEETH-CLENCHED TEAMWORK - downplayed in his relationship with paragon shepard in the first game. shepard's steadfast refusal to bend or break the laws in place for ruthless efficiency as opposed to absolute necessity (even if s/he can) is certainly not what he expected or was hoping for when he joined him/her. he still follows but makes his disagreement known. completely dissipated by the second game, where he becomes one of the most loyal friends that shepard has.

GARRUS' HISTORY

context: he is 12 moons old right now

once upon a time, garrus was born to gunshowers and mischief in riverclan. his mother, gunshowers, was the daughter of thunderclan leader gunstar and windclanner/riverclanner rushpaw, whilst mischief was formerly of the exiles(?) and also used to be a hp of phantomclan. his littermates included piratepaw and kohen. when he was very young, his mother died rather suddenly (unbeknown to him, she had actually betrayed riverclan and ran to windclan, but was presumed dead by everyone in her ex clan all the same) so he was left to be raised by his dad, mischief.

they had a... love-hate relationship, to say the least. the pair were actually rather similar and that was they clashed, however they made it out as though they were completely different people. gunshowers had died when he was barely 2 months old, but garrus understood what had happened all the same and even at that young age, he reacted negatively. it was kind of common knowledge in riverclan that he was a hot head. so much so, that he had apparently hit one of his brothers during his birthing thread, when his sibling had tried to push him away from feeding so they could have a feed. but after his mother's dead... he grew more openly angry. minor stuff like his inability to communicate and maintain healthy relationships and his unwillingness to swim due to a phobia of water and lack of natural talent for swimming did not help his temper.

then his dad died. and this hit him hard. harder than he would have ever predicted.

he wasn't even four moons old and an orphan - and he had no relationship at all with his two other litter mates. the fact that his father had been murdered in a war against the exiles when mischief was a pacifist, as well as the fact that he had argued with him before this happened, resulted in him completely and utterly kicking off. after creating a scene in the camp, he stormed out.

and he never returned. to this day, he had never set foot in riverclan - or the rift as it's known nowadays - again. ever.

when one was alone and angry - and barely four months old - it was surprising how much energy someone could have. but eventually, he had to stop to rest. which was when the commander found him.

this male, the commander, was a war veteran of an unnamed clan who had left the clan life to set up an army of similar minded soldiers who would be available as a war asset if called upon. he approached garrus, with his usual calm demeanor, but garrus flipped out. he lashed out verbally and told him to 'fuck off' before literally lashing out at him. he didn't stop swinging at the older male until he completely ran out of energy and collapsed onto the floor. he was just a kitten, of course, but he was as tall as an apprentice closer to a warrior age than kitten and this still made him decently strong, despite being lanky.

after this, still as calm as ever, the commander asked if he wanted to return to the base with him and join their ranks.

garrus accepted. he was an impulsive idiot, but he was not completely idiotic.

he thoroughly enjoyed his time at the camp. they taught him tactical warfare and also pushed him physically. it helped with his anger quite a fair bit. having said this, he was easily the most sarcastic one there and was most definitely the class clown. but unlike others who got punished fittingly, he got away with having a sharp tongue due to the fact that the commander took him under his wing immediately. the switch to the agrelos happened when he was a part of this group and they did lose comrades during the switch, yet the group was still a considerable force.

there were two major events that happened during his time there. the first was about an individual called saren. saren had tried to do a coup against the commander and the other higher officials, yet his attempt failed. the commander eventually agreed that he would remain a prisoner in their camp, as death was far too easy for a man who had killed a third of their group. garrus was a nobody in terms of rank, however that did not stop him from saying his mind. he, surprise surprise, exploded into his own argument (ranging from "an eye for an eye; a life for a life" to "you will not avenge amadeus? lorik? lestrade? do they not deserve justice, sir?"). he was not the only one who held this opinion. but they were soldiers and they had to abide to moral law. so the commander rejected his claims. this turned out to be irrelevant, as one of garrus's comrades attacked saren and manged to permanently render him mute. the said soldier was exiled. garrus however, made sure to grant him good luck.

the other event was his departure. one day, a messenger arrived at the camp asking for the son of gunshowers. it had been sent by an unnamed individual and the only information he knew about the person was that were not a member of the ruins, the clan ‘gunshowers’ lead. he didn’t need to be told twice and his naïveté and curiosity was overwhelming. so he said goodbye to the group that practically saved him a mere two months previously.

he had just turned six months old when he arrived at the border of the harrow desert. he was nervous at first, until gunshowers arrived.

and announced her name as always dead.

he actually laughed; bitter as hell. he had become gradually more and more pissed off, a ticking bomb, as more ruiners arrived. this was because before always dead arrived, he learnt that he had two siblings present: billie jean and elian. he wasn’t angry at them necessarily, he just felt... replaced. it wasn’t as irrational as one might think, for he was only young and these siblings he learnt of - and met - were already 3 months old. and 3 months before he arrived at the border, his dad had died. and his mother never looked for him after that. yes, of course, she actually did die and had been reincarnated, but he was in denial. for the joining ritual, he chose the spar instead of betraying a former alliance or doing an obstacle course and he fought his long lost littermate, piratepaw. he also met yuu, his step dad, and at first he refused to accept him as a father - not in a nasty way, more of a childlike denial - but nowadays he views him as a dad.

below are some important events:

• attacking minigan w/ siblings [due to wanting to bring justice to murdered kids]
• arriving home from minigan battle, lost & elian captured [conflicted due to 'fight/die for the cause' and unwillingness to think in grey (his pride didn't allow him to view it as a loss so he viewed it as a win thanks to denial; refused to see the in between). obtained the scars he currently has now, reference here.
• piratepaw goes missing [natural anger/frustration reaches boiling point here in first development arc]
• briefly departs the ruins* [becomes too angry to remain at sr for the time being. leaves to make a difference]
• 8 moons to 11 moons time gap oneshot
• captured by breakout, a criminal** [a vital moment because he had trusted breakout and did not manage to realize he was the one behind the murders in the sanguine ruins. was a huge blow on his self-esteem (due to his cop-like presence in the ruins) and the subsequent torture has broken him.]

* when he leaves, in short, he discovers that the soldier group he used to be apart to has been hit by another coup by, you guessed it, saren. in the return thread where this is explained, his reaction is extremely out of character and he ends up killing saren and one of his guards. as of now, i'm roleplaying that he only rendered the both unconscious. this guilt of not killing them in the name of justice and still hurting them when he tried to act like a cop would be a more interesting dynamic. the thread is here but please keep this notice in mind.

** this has made him have a genuine 'midlife crisis'. that is the reason why (even although he is coming up to his mass effect 1 days fairly soon) his 'canon' personality is a little off. this will hopefully be fixed in less than a month irl.

let the cowards run and hide — tags

he had no idea what he was doing. he was completely and utterly lost, and that wasn't an exaggeration. not one bit. events that had he thought he was over - or had he had not allowed himself to feel - had hit am all at once. two prominent memories were bothering him the most. one was the elephant in the room and that was the entire breakout fiasco. the other, though, was a little more surprising. and that was time, not so long ago, he let someone live who caused him harm.

ever since he was a little boy, the colour grey had caused him great discomfort. why think in grey when one can live in a noir police thriller of the 1950s? he’d never be able to rationalise why he did or why he did not do some things. why was his first instinct was to create a scene in camp before leaving riverclan for good? instead of believing he could have someone to trust in his birth clan, he only saw one fact. the only person he had an actual relationship with at that time was his father and now he was gone. black. everyone else were basically strangers, including his siblings, so trusting them were not an option; 'clan mates' be damned. white. black and white. having said this, many a time did he find himself making decisions because of the in between morality of right and wrong or good and bad - opposites, essentially. these memories were, usually, the ones he did go on to regret, though. the reason why he hadn't killed saren, the guy who took lives from his old friends, was because of conflicting thoughts. why were these a thing? how easier would it have been if he could just do it? an eye for an eye; a life for a life.

still, it was his mentality and forever will be - unless, perhaps, someone found a way to control his peculiar way of thinking; rewrite the programming in his brain to allow such a thing. even now, when he was questioning it, he knew deep down that he would revert to that thinking down the line.

it was literally deteriorating his mental state, though. so much so, that one night, something happened. something weird.

he tossed and turned in his fitful sleep for a short while, before suddenly, he was awake. this in itself was not unusual - and the fact that he had awoke with a strangled scream wasn't strange either. but as he laid there; shaking and uncharacteristically vulnerable, he began to feel... odd. ice began to flood his bloodstream and he could feel the coldness travel throughout his body - and as well as this, his heartbeat slowed and his head felt fuzzy. at the same time, garrus felt peacefulness and pure panic. he staggered to his paws, his mind screaming at him in alarm, but his body felt detached. eventually, the feeling of being at ease for the first time in his life - and if we are being dramatic, then one of the the first times in his life - overwhelmed his hysteria. then, he laid back down onto the floor and curled himself into a ball, yet he did not fall asleep for the rest of the night. and he stayed like that for hours. in fact, he had 'slept' in, as it was past dawn, when he finally stretched and emerged from his den.

on his way from his den to the main pyramid, he offered each clan mate he passed a dip of his head in a greeting, not too dissimilar to what he used to do. but these times, he also would offer a wink or a smirk, or pause to say hello or say their names. he just seemed... a little different.

[ tl;dr so garrus's emotion manipulation has actually worked against himself. basically, his said power was weak offensively before but unknown to him, it had been developing over time to the point where it worked against himself. he will now be played the way i had intended him to end up like! (hopefully anyway hahahaha) & as of now, he will be considerably less angry as he has taken that away?? if that makes sense?? also, a note: before i had rped that he had killed others. now though, i'm going to rp that he didn't do such a thing and instead allowed them to escape/just beat them up :) ]

miscellaneous

image ref by zyc<3:

a cute boi imo

MYERS BRIGGS - ENTJ entjs are strategic leaders, motivated to organize change. they are quick to see inefficiency and conceptualize new solutions, and enjoy developing long-range plans to accomplish their vision. they excel at logical reasoning and are usually articulate and quick-witted. entjs are analytical and objective, and like bringing order to the world around them. when there are flaws in a system, the entj sees them, and enjoys the process of discovering and implementing a better way. entjs are assertive and enjoy taking charge; they see their role as that of leader and manager, organizing people and processes to achieve their goals.

HUNGER GAMES - DISTRICT 2 you are really intrigued by the armed forces and law enforcement. other people constantly underestimate how essential these jobs are to the well-being of our country/clan, but you know better. you've watched nearly every member of your immediate family wear a uniform/be a high position and having learned your way around weapons, you're really excited to follow in their footsteps. like the citizens of district 2, you take pride in your strength and loyalty is extremely important to you.

ENNEAGRAM TYPE - 6 sixes are known for their loyalty and for being excellent trouble-shooters. they use their analytical ability to discern what could be threatening to their well-being, or that of the group or family. they then begin exploring alternatives to head off hazards. no matter how well things are going, part of their attention is always on what could go wrong. this comes from a belief that the world is an unsafe place and cannot be trusted. in order to feel safe and secure you have to be vigilant. the driving energy behind this cautious outlook is fear of worst possible outcomes. many sixes say they do not initially identify this energy as fear, but they concur that the mental habit of doubt is virtually always present. sixes report having a hard time making decisions as they search for certainty, and are often procrastinators. they say they do everything to avoid dependency in a world that cannot be trusted. the focus of attention is on what could go wrong, and on figuring out if others are trustworthy. when discomfort is present, sixes automatically use the defense mechanism of projection in which they put their worst fears onto others. ironically, this continual vigilance and quest for certainty interferes with ever experiencing a basic sense of trust in the world. they hate being controlled, betrayal and criticism.

FOUR TEMPERAMENTS - CHOLERIC your temperament is choleric. the choleric temperament is fundamentally ambitious and leader-like. they have a lot of aggression, energy and/or passion, and try to install it in others. they can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. many great charismatic military and political figures were choleric. they like to be in charge of everything. however, choleric types tend to be either highly organized or highly disorganized. they do not have in-between setups, only one extreme to another. as well as being leader-like and assertive, they also fall into deep and sudden depression. essentially, they are very much prone to mood swings.

GLOBAL 5 - SLOEI demanding, controlling, aggressive, retaliatory, does not forgive easily, opinionated, domineering, does not accept what others say, believes that appearances are important, likes to be the center of attention, not patient with people who annoy them, easily annoyed, quick to judge others, preoccupied with self, show off, feels you have to be tough on people to get things done, prone to addiction, not good at sports, frequently pursues impressive achievements, takes charge, competitive, frustrated and angry when people don't live up to expectations, not on good terms with everyone, second place rarely feels good enough to them, antagonistic, able to stand up for self, acts superior to others, hard to satisfy, bothered by disorder, impatient, becomes aggressive when they feel hurt, decisive, abrupt, impulsive, more dominant than submissive, finishes most things they start, desires some level of fame in their community, unable to control cravings, acts out frustrations on others, easily frustrated, can become overwhelmed by events, does not readily admit mistakes, moody, not very religious.

DIVERGENT FRACTION - DAUNTLESS you belong to dauntless. you're a thrill-seeker, and aren’t scared of many of the things that send most people running. you are likely physically fit, and adept at sports or martial arts. you believe that problems should be faced head-on, and that many issues can be solved by force, but you need to be aware that's not always the case.

HARRY POTTER HOUSE - SLYTHERDOR gryffindors want fame, slytherins want power: both of those require that people acknowledge you as being important for something. a slytherdor is willing to take risks, to do things that might have serious consequences; a gryff-leaning slytherdor might not pause to think things through, while a slyth-leaning slytherdor will probably think about it and decide it’s worth it. a slytherdor is willing to do things that would make a puff or a claw hesitate. slytherdors are definitely people of action: they want to do things, and are impatient with sitting around doing nothing. they seek accomplishment, and want to be active most of the time; they have problems when they’re bored (and are probably more likely to get into trouble when bored). they’ll explore something mysterious, whether that’s a darkened alley or a twisting forest path. a slytherdor is willing to play the odds, and to deal with darkness.

> abandoned the sanguine ruins

> conflicted due to a sense of duty but a want of something better for him

> currently tracking down a murderer/murder group who are killing people then adding extra organs to the dead body (with the scent of alive individuals)

> will hunt down breakout due to an almost want of him being behind this

> will meet shepard + get sidetracked again because of an even bigger threat than this

(some of this will be ooc, some will be ic)