It was good. Author doesn't really know how to portray being 3rd dimensional without coming off as extremely beta male but it was still good and I enjoyed it. It had some of the best writing I've seen in FanFic for certain parts. But in others, Tairis seems to drop the ball for split seconds. I'm aware he wanted to make Shepard have emotional depth but turning him into a massive major simp just wasn't the way to do it. You can write love and affection without making the man into a fool that treads on eggshells around his girlfriend.

If not for that, I would give it a 9.8/10. -0.2 for the amount of grammatical errors littered throughout the series. Nothing major but it still tends to pull one out of their suspension of disbelief. It still tells a compelling story that details and novelises the best parts of Mass Effect 2 into a compelling and believable story. It was a huge undertaking but well worth it in my books. Many things that the players of the games wanted to see, many things added that should have made sense were changed and mismatched. Certain missions that could have overlapped, did and a lot of dialogue was added where none existed. Essentially, this Fanfic serves to bridge every story beat in the game, fluidly and it succeeded. That's why I would give it a literal 10/10 score if not for the small errors I mentioned that bring it down, if not for the Suicide Mission by itself. Really, well done for that part.

The overall score I'd give it however would be a 8.8/10. -1 for the simpering mess that Shepard devolved to at times. It was also jarring how Tali was portrayed as being strong enough to hurt Shepard. Sometimes it felt like OC was projecting a femdom kink between all the times Tali took over Shepard's role as a leader etc. It's bittersweet too because these moments also build depth and weight to moments shared between them, ultimately serving to build up the good moments. That's why I'm giving it a -1, and not a -2 (it really did get that annoying).

That being said, I would still read it again. Annoying parts and all. Maybe when I'm a little bit older, a little bit less observant. A little bit dumber, I won't see the cracks in the psyche of the author. Until then, 8.8/10.

Now he just lost to Garrus in a fist fight XD mane this Shepard is a god damn LOSER! This was supposed to be a good fanfic for Talimancers and it just turned out to be a fking humiliation ritual for Shepard.
"Oh Tali, I'm sorry"
"Oh Tali, forgive me"
"I'm just a man, Tali"
"I'm weak Tali"
"Tali, make these decisions for me?"
"Tali, can you hold my purse?"
"Tali, I need a FRESH INJECTION OF ESTROGEN!"
"You know what Garrus, you're better man than me. Here, I lose the fight and here's my woman to boot!"

What in duh hell? Where did all these positive reviews come from? Who the fk is reading all this and not seeing even an inkling of a pattern? The funny part is that the Author subverts the reader by making Shepard all macho chad ultra male for like a few moments, then fking blasts his ass once again. Is this some sissification ritual or something? What the hell is this novel supposed to be? Can anyone tell me if Shepard grows a pair of fking nuts in the next two sequels? Does it get better from here or does someone die and Shepard's all like "Oh I'm a failure, I'm a loser, I'm a pussy!" again for a second bender to Illium so that we see Tali pick up the pieces like a knight in shining armour. Fk sake.

No. If there is anyone else in the galaxy that is qualified to make this call, it's someone that knows more than I ever will

"You can. You have to, I asked you to come because you know more about the geth than anyone alive. What they've done, what they can do, how this might change them... despite everything I've done I'm still a soldier, Tali."

"I'm sorry about putting you on the stop back there," he said."

"No, I understand. And you were right, who knows more about the geth than I do? I think I was a little angry to start with but I think I should thank you for trusting me with that kind of judgment. Especially after everything that's happened"

Bro ️ Might as well just give Shepard a whole fking cuckold arc at this point. Goofy chapter

Shepard treading on eggshells to avoid displeasing Tali just feels cringe to read. Which is a shame because any other time, this Shepard is written less like a pussy than most other Fanfics but when it comes to Tali he turns into a fumbling simp. Hopefully this shit eases up because I don't know how much longer I can take the meat and potatotes being ruined by Shepard stammering and begging for forgiveness.

What the hell does "Kun sada'an, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. Kun pasi na iztul'neddas, sun'an lenas iztul" mean?

I get that it's some ancient way of asking to go on a date, but what do the words mean?

Bro was simping in this chapter but it was still sweet.

Yeah I don't buy Tali having a strong enough grip to hurt cybernetically enhanced Commander Shepard. It literally doesn't make sense that A: 3 fingered creatures would have more grip strength than 5 fingered creatures, B: that Tali specifically would be strong among her race given her lack of physical training, lack of cybernetics and being a female as grip strength is tied very closely to the male hormone testosterone D: That Cerberus wouldn't patch that old injury up or it would have healed up on its own after 2 years and E: That even if he did have that unpatched injury, even if she did have hyper strong hands and forearms for no reason and even if 3 fingers would literally make your grip strength weaker, that Shepard has been cybernetically enhanced with Skeletal Lattice which literally reads as having a synthetic weave in the bones which makes them "almost unbreakable". Not only that, but this upgrade makes it so that in the event of bone trauma "medi-gel conduits allow for bone regenerations in a matter of days", meaning that old injury of his should have been entirely healed by now.

You're making a good fanfic with lots of cool details which makes me want to come back and read, but please respect the fking lore.

Not sure how I feel about his choice on Purgatory. Was that really needed?

Absolutely loved your story here. It's an excellent retelling of ME2 and made my 3rd playthrough alongside it feel unique. Great writing and lots of lovely wholesome moments between Shepard and Tali. Their relationship in this feels very natural in how it progresses, all around it's just really satisfying to read. Couldn't ask for anything more but I see there are 2 sequel(?) stories so I'm off to read those now :).

Read this ages ago and never realized there were 2 sequels?!. Def gonna re read this one the get into the other 2

Absolutely amazing read! I can’t wait to read the other two volumes and I have to say this was awesome. Some parts were very similar to Calinstels work and it would of been great if his work was finished like yours is. Thanks for your time to write a great story!

"But is that what he would want? Your life trickling away reliving past memories instead of making new ones?" Shepard grimaced, realizing his own hypocrisy.

This is easily one of the worst parts of this fanfiction series. But I guess to be fair it's handled badly in the game too and this is also one of the worst parts of real life. If you love someone this much you're going to always be thinking of them and wishing they were still here, essentially always living in the past to an extent. For some reason people are so insistent on replacing their partners in romance in the same way you're replaced at some corporate job. It's somehow not possible to just have friends for companionship and make new memories with them or in other ways. This is just accepted for some reason. I'm remembering now that you have Kasumi hook up with Garrus eventually and I didn't think much of it when I was younger but this same logic easily applies to anyone else including Shepard and Tali the main romance. So being in their line of work making this very likely to happen, if either one died they would be replaced within a few years if that because it's just the "healthy" thing to do. Everything they did together up until that point doesn't actually matter anymore or by that admission in how you treat it it never really mattered as much as it seemed to or you said it did. I've always liked romance and fiction because I thought it was special but for some reason many authors treat romance in this limited and ugly way. I once wasted my time reading through a Zelda story with about eight hundred thousand words building up a certain romance only for the author to have them split and end up with different people. It's like people can acknowledge that romance means so much and have all this build up that's supposed to make you care or see it as special but then you also treat it like it's your last bowel movement. "Omg that relationship is like SO last year you need something new". It's disgusting. If romance at the end of the day isn't actually any more meaningful than another nice new food that will be digested and shit out I can't help but see all these moments and build up as pretentious.

Adams didn't die but I'm guessing you don't know that at the time of writing this?

I'm seriously loving this story man, great job. Seriously.

Dear Tairis Dreamhan,

I've left a longer "letter to the author" on Razor's Edge Requiem but because I more or less binge read all three stories in less than a week I didn't stop to think about reivews or feedback until the very end.

Also just wanted to increase the review count by one so that more people might give your stories a chance.

Thank you for an amazing story
-MayContainHyjinks