I do wish there was more to this story! It’s so good!

Aaaaaaaaand following again

This was a particularly endearing adventure I followed, from the very beginning (of the first story) to this point in time. In this regard, whatever criticisms I deliver in this review should only be considered in the form of rhetoric achievements, and should not be taken to heart as an attack on the elements of the story or of the writers themselves.

For all purposes, this review is limited to this story only, as the completed story was of a time too long ago.

Since the beginning, I have noticed a rather forward tendency to let your readers assume, although this was mostly in the form of things on a smaller scale, such as jokes and momentary revelations. However, these assumption seemed meant to be made without any hints and guidances, thus leaving a reader potentially confused or in the wrong. I would personally suggest adding more subtle clarifications as opposed to a blatant statement about your meaning, although the solution, should you choose to address this issue, is up to you.

In other regards, I found your portrayal of other, "nonessential" characters weak, in the sense that they are very much marginalized to the central plot and interactions. However, I do not claim to fully understand the position at which you are writing the story from, and so will not press heavily on this issue in its severity.

Thirdly, speaking of the plot, it is very strait. Following the game with a blind scent, everything flows with a rigid forcefulness no matter how much you try to smooth it out. Compared to your previous story, this one is a lot more constricted in that sense, although the other wasn't noteworthy for its uniqueness in all capacity. My only suggestion to this is to take an hour to two before your next chapter, and sit down and plan the story out, the general plot in the least. I'm not sure many people are particularly happy about reading the same story so many times in a row. It is most helpful to add deviations to bring attention to your story to its fullest.

And, finally, there is a lacking in meaning. On this I won't emphasize too much, since it is an advanced topic for even experienced writers. But adding shades of meaning (that's NOT your sexual innuendos) can indeed give readers a different experience on each read, depending on how quickly they can grasp the concepts. However, once again, this is hardly required, or even looked for, in a fanfiction, and so it is completely up to you to do whatever you will with it.

I will follow along with this story, and review when I have something substantial to say. And, again, don't get me wrong; this is really incredible.

Wow - been a while. Don't know if I missed any chapters before this one, I may have done, since I feel like I've just been dropped into a meat grinder out of nowhere reading this latest one, lol! It was good though. Can’t remember if I’ve ever written this to you before but I think you are doing and doing well, what I'm trying to do with my own writing: imparting wisdom, trying to help other people handle things that quite frankly we *all* could do with learning more about. Too much suffering in this world. Too many people enduring all kinds of trauma, and hardly anyone knows how to handle it - not in other people, let alone in themselves.

I really find what you’ve written insightful. I wouldn’t want to presume it comes from the voice of experience, but... I hope what you’ve written helps some people. Could help some people. Damn we should be marketing fanfiction as ‘self-help/help-a-friend-or-partner’. LoL.

I've seen some of the things you describe in women in real life - things they've gone through change them, and not for the better, thanks to nobody being there to help them at the time (or like my dearest mother, simply saying “Don’t tell anyone you’ll forget about it in time” instead of taking me to counselling). Also, I think reading things like this is basic life-lesson stuff. Rape happens. Sexual assault happens. Hell even being trained to kill or steal aren’t things that *don’t* happen – soldiers go through a lot, but so do kids just growing up in deprived circumstances or just with bad families.

Everyone always assumes it’s just what happens to other people by other people somewhere else. If they knew that someone who has committed rape sat at their dinner table last Christmas, or works just down the hall from them, or got on the bus with them this morning, they’d be scared and angry enough to do something about it, right? So they don’t want to know. That’s why they don’t want to know victims are right under their noses either, because that’d mean admitting that in so great a number, there’s obviously so many people doing bad things in close proximity to us that frankly we can’t afford not to be vigilant and actively dealing with the problem, every waking minute of the day. A lot of people don’t care, until it actually happens to *them* and someone *they* care about enough to pay attention when it happens.

I reckon that genetics can lay the grounds for a rapist or a murderer... but the chances of someone being irrevocably and unavoidably *born* a villain are exceptionally small. Shall we say... 5 in a billion perhaps, at most? Oh but there’s a lot more people who do harm than that, isn’t there? Which means rapists and thieves and murderers aren’t generally *born*: they are *made*. Nobody wants to admit that, because that would mean that almost anyone – including themselves – could be just such a ‘monster’... All you need is exposure to a few of the right [wrong] experiences and circumstances enough to make you that way. Scary thought: having to check you and yours for demons. Must be someone else’s problem, not *mine*, right? LoL.

When I look back on it, I realise that like Teandra, S & D was the prescription to help me get past something I’d endured as a child of 8 – a family friend’s son stayed with us to polish up his English, and after a week of increasingly odd and scary behaviour, the night his parents came to collect him and sat chatting with mine in another room, he backed me into a corner and tried to ram his hands down my trousers demanding access to my body as he did it. First boyfriend I had, backed me up against a wall one day and kissed me (fine – nobody had kissed me before) and slid his hand between my legs (not fine at all – I froze). I’d honestly meant to warn him – too tell him what I’d been through and what might trigger – I just forgot because I was so happy he was a kind person I was devoting all my time to getting to know him. His face told me I hadn’t told him though, and after I got past the rocking and shaking, I managed to explain and apologise –he’d done nothing wrong.

I did use S & D in a slightly different way though to how it is usually used by victims of similar and worse experiences. I used it with a view towards memory re-association and a view towards making it unnecessary in future.

I asked my boyfriend to repeat what he’d done, but to maintain the innocence with which he’d acted that first time, and to keep doing that from time to time. Just... back me up against something, and/or slide his hands between my legs in a loving/passionate way as if I’d never endured what I’d endured. I warned him the first times he’d do it, I’d probably panic, but that I trusted him to ask if I was alright if he spotted that, and that I’d also do my best to find the courage to ask him to stop, too. I wasn’t trying to enjoy the fear though, or accept it in any way, I was working to re-write it.

The trigger brought on memories of someone else, doing something similar but for very different motives – motives that are told not just by the way a person behaves but also by what you know about them. I knew that if I repeated these scenarios enough times and consciously reminded myself that I was with someone who *wasn’t* that person, who had zero intent to hurt or take from me anything I didn’t consent to, I *could* make the trigger rewire so as to remember *those* similar experiences. Gather up enough of them, and I could do that. It worked. Now, if my husband were to do that same thing again, I wouldn’t freeze, I wouldn’t even remember without conscious recollection what it was that used to trigger.

Every time a bad image sprung forth and I panicked, I’d take a good hard look at my partner with an open mind and read what I was seeing in context of what I knew about him from the way he was as a person day to day. The triggers were strong, but I would say to myself “No, I DON’T want to think about that right now, this *actually* reminds me of...” and pulled out a nicer friendly and loving memory of the person I was *with*.

This guy, who did eventually (after a few break-ups, and a few different partners) become my husband, helped me re-wire my own associative memories. I don’t know if it helped that I also made a point of telling people about what I’d gone through all my life, whenever the opportunity arose, to *practice* telling it, and being able to access the archived experience without actively re-living it without my own permission. It might have helped because it mirrored what I was doing in the practical sense. Synergy is a powerful association-builder.

I hope your Shepard finds a way to consolidate herself and what she's been through to the extent that S&D one day is more just play than re-playing out what she's endured in a safe environment. Familiarity might be comforting... but true comfort comes from choosing carefully what to find familiar. Familiarity is shaped not just by former experience, but also by the values we hold key to who we are. Doesn't mean the two match, and it's a headache when they don't, but they absolutely can override one another. The luxury is choosing which. Unfortunately most people don't get taught they have that power at their disposal, let alone how to access it within themselves or how to use it.

Either way though, I think your story offers some really helpful tips for understanding practically a third of all women I've ever known [Depressing thought] and their behaviour, and the frightening implications that holds. Without stories like yours, nothing relatable pops up to prompt us to think through what we've been through, much less talk about it openly. And how can be learn if there are better ways of coping with something we've been through, or how do we attain the comfort of knowing we're not alone in what we've endured, if nobody talks about it? Stories like yours are important because they offer insight, and they offer hope.

S&D absolutely is medicinal, or it can be, as you point out, if done properly. No, it's not medication you should necessarily be taking if you don't need it. Odd folks might get high on it here and there and yes leisure drug use often causes problems down the line in other ways... However it *is* balancer for a great deal of things a lot of people go through, that can help them live healthier happier lives whether it's a permanent prescription or just a crutch they can do without, in time.

Thank you for providing that depth of insight, to explain how it isn't this evil, or simply 'kinky fun thing' that the world at large seems to portray it as. Thank you also, for giving a voice for some of the people who've endured similar things to Teandra. I really do honestly believe you're helping people with your writing.

WELCOME BACK! This was a welcome new years surprise. I hope the story continues! :)

HOLY SHIT! WELCOME BACK!

bruh...I can't believe this was updated.

I found the first part of this story after you had already stopped updating this one...and was heartbroken that it would remain incomplete. So pleased to see that the story goes on. Your Shepard is one of my favorites I've seen from fanfiction, and I was so obsessed with her pretty name that I ended up naming one of my Dragon Age characters after her in her honor :)

Great chapter, hope to see another one soon.

HOLY HELL A NEW CHAPTER! It's been so long I'd lost hope. I'll have to start reading this from the beginning again. Good to see this up, hope to see more!

So, its been a few years since I actually came back to check if this story has been updated. It has not, and its a shame. It is incredibly well written and well thought out. I wonder what happened to the author. We should at least know if she's not planning to finish this.

As much as I hate to be insensitive, or urge something that is impossible, could we please have more of this one? At least if it's dead to let us know? This is the worst kind of cliffhanger. Tried to leave this on the next chapter, but ffnet won't let me.

I just found your amazing story today. Will you be continuing Teandra and Garruss story? It ends at such a cliff hanger.

What a shame this was never finished.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a guy and still love the story, and while I fully realize how much RL can get in the way of writing, please could you come back and at least let us down off of the cliff?
I'm seeing myself in Garrus, and you've got me on tenterhooks.

MORE MORE MORE MORE!

Wow, it's been almost two years since you updated this. I remember when I first found this series during my senior year of high school, and just reread the series over the past couple of days. I understand how life can just appear out of nowhere and prevent you from writing. I know its stopped me from working on my fantasy series that I've been working on for the past year and a half. I only hope that when the time comes, you can come back and finish the story that you began. I wish you and Luna the best of luck in your lives.