The title of this installment says "I" want, and "I" earned, but I'm speaking for everybody who played the game, as well as the character of Shepard and everybody who served aboard the Normandy.
This is the first time that a work of fiction has made me feel so shitty that I have actually self-medicated in order to cope with it. I'm not under the influence of anything now.
But I'm sad, and I'm angry. Is it silly to let a story affect you this much, because none of it really happened? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but all I know is that I am affected this much. It's not a choice on my part.
Why the fuck couldn't the Crucible have just killed Reapers and only Reapers, the way everybody thought? Or allowed us to control or start the Synthesis without having to kill ourselves? After all that we've been through, don't we deserve a happy ending? Not downer, not bittersweet, fucking HAPPY.
Having to make a sacrifice at the end is overkill. We've seen enough people die or get condemned to fates worse than death already. We lost Kaidan/Ashley. We lost Mordin. We lost Legion. We lost Thane, which hurt even though it was inevitable he'd die sooner or later. We lost Anderson. We saw Earth, Palaven, Thessia, and so many other worlds fall to the Reapers. We saw the tortures and slaughter at Sanctuary.
Near the very end, Shepard has opened the Citadel's arms, he's sat down next to Anderson, he's been through hell, he thinks he can finally rest, and then he hears Hackett on the comm saying that the damn Crucible isn't working, that I need to do something else. And I got this sense from Shepard like he was thinking "You've got to be kidding me...I feel like I could die at any moment, I'm bleeding all over the floor, I've fought through hell, I just had to watch my mentor die from a wound that I was forced to inflict on him, I did everything everybody asked of me...and now I need to do more? Why can't it be enough?"
And he loses consciousness before he can get to the controls. He has nothing left. He's been completely used up.
He's been through so much. He's fought for so long. He was running down the darkest of dark tunnels hoping that there would be a light at the end, and when he finally reaches the end, there is no light, not really.
You put all the effort you have into fighting for what you care for, fighting for the chance to live happily ever after, only to learn that it's not possible.
It's like the Catalyst gave me a gun and told me that I had two choices: shoot myself in the head, or shoot a lot of other people in the head. And if I refuse to shoot anybody, then everybody gets shot.
Imagine how broken up Joker would be over the loss of EDI. We don't see it, but you can imagine it. He deserved better.
In my romance with Jack, when she talked about the possibility that we'd never see one another again she was fighting back tears. She deserved better.
What if you romance Steve? If so, then he would have seen his husband die, finally gotten over it, fell in love with you, and then had to deal with you dying. He deserves better.
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