Kaidan Alenko-Space Husband Extraordinaire

Well it was there.

Sorry.

Always nice to see you posting here.  

Kaidan fans are the best fans.

Same re: Liara. I feel bad about how critical I approach her, how I resent so much of her screentime when, context aside, she gets some good moments. Just... they bury anything that I could like about her under a lot of sketchy behavior that makes me want to keep her at arm's length at closest, while pointing a spotlight at her and pulling anyone else away from it. Like, I think there's an interesting character buried under all that favoritism - I could honestly enjoy a character arc of a romanceable character who is obsessed with the PC and needs to have the pedestal broken, see them work past those feelings and accept and move on with their lives. But the game tilts in her favor, treats her obsessive behavior towards Shepard as what makes her love "true."

Like, I really can't see her romance as anything more than the level of a twelve year old doodling "Liara + Shepard 4eva!" in a heart in a notebook or something, that Shepard's the celebrity whose picture she keeps in her locker (do teenage girls still do this? Did teenage girls ever do this?), this person she's enshrined on a pedestal as someone who can do no wrong and is the perfect exemplar of everything they aspire to be.

I've remarked on this a few times, I find it hilarious that, at the end of Inquisition's Jaws of Hakkon DLC, Scout Harding, who's voice by Liara's VA, remarks that "sometimes when you’re more than a person to someone, you’re also less of a person," because I feel that describes Liara's relationship with Shepard in a nutshell. Liara doesn't love Shepard as a person, but as an icon, an ideal, something to live up to, an example to follow, not as a partner.

That's why Kaidan (and Ashley, but this is his thread, and I've spent three paragraphs talking about not-him as it stands) having questions of Shepard, why Shepard having to prove they're worthy of his trust again works so much better. Kaidan questions. For all the talk of Shepard as a legend, he still treats them as mortal, as a fallible human being who can be wrong. He approaches the relationship on equal footing with Shepard. That makes their relationship come across as more mature, more grown up than Liara's, because he's not coming at this by seeing only the best in Shepard and ignoring the worst. Shepard worked with Cerberus? Shepard needs to help him make sense of that. They had a fight and said things in the heat of the moment? They both need to step back, think, and then talk and discuss it, come to an agreement, not simply assign or accept blame.

It pisses me off that the game and the fans seem to believe that, blanket and outright, the one wrong on Horizon is Kaidan/Ashley. Like... They were THERE when Shepard dealt with Cerberus in the first game. They know that Cerberus's ideas of science give mad science a bad name. There's a long list of reasons why they wouldn't trust Shepard's deal with the devil, reasons that Shepard themselves should have during ME2. But the game treats them rightly being suspect of Shepard after having seen them DIE in the prologue of ME2 as them somehow not being loyal to Shepard, and thus, not worthy of being part of Shepard's team or narrative. And so many people playing buy into this concept.

I wish I could post more often, but I get distracted with other stuff too easily. But I'll always come back. My adoration for Kaidan is permanent, and since I'm the only person in my circle of friends that has played Mass Effect and likes Kaidan (some of them go as far as to mock me for liking him), I need places like this where I can be around people who get why I love him so much.

Thought you guys would appreciate these comics (don't want to post all panels here). The person did a series of them with different crew learning of the Kaidan/Shepard relationship.

Link.

Man, I hate proboards for deleting threads from my participated ones. Seems like I'll have to spam all of the threads with pictures.



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Also, I know everyone's about MShenko, but consider Cortenko? They fit my canon better, and also they'd probably be really sweet and affectionate together.

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Kaidan the Canadian


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