Canadian Delicacy - The Kaidan Alenko Thread

Yup, they feel like bros fo sho. Okay I'll stop now. 

Prior to ME3 I always let Kaidan die on Virmir. Didn't care for his character in ME1 or the brief appearance in ME2. His character in ME3 though is far superior to Ashley's character. He has become more than he was while Ash is pretty much the same just with bigger boobs. I do like the conflict between Liara and Ashley, but the over all story of Kaidan Alenko is just better than that of Ashley Williams. ME3 saved Kaidan's life on Virmir.

Ashley definitely deserved better. I always wished Ashley replaced Vega's place as Shepard's Lieutenant in ME3... and you just 2-man until you find Liara on Mars and she stays on your ship the whole time. She could reconnect with the ship and the crew, explore herself better, the whole N7 training thing and even you get better romance scenes... But according to Bioware's trailers and promotions (and majority of this fandom), Ashley seems to be a default survivor on Virmire but she never seem to be written for the Spectre role in ME3. And because of this, majority who never let Kaidan alive simply assumed he shared identical scene by scene to Ashley.... when its really not...

Kaidan on the other hand doesn't need much to explain his presence in ME3. Vancouver was his home with his parents. He was already an experienced military officer through the trilogy and he and Shepard was with Anderson since the beginning and being a Spectre seems like a natural path for both of them. And unlike Ashley, he and Vega were both from Earth and have family left behind and very deeply invested in reclaiming their home back. I like that things like this was shown to you rather than told...

Though BioWare did not set it up well at all and clearly didn't think things through with that breath scene, it seems like their intention was to imply that Shepard could be alive. After months and months of struggling with the ending in my head, I finally got to a place where I can just accept it for what it is. I believe Shepard lives because I just cannot accept the alternatives. It would have been nice if Shepard's survival was unambiguous if you had high enough EMS and chose the Destroy ending, and those who actually like the ambiguity could just have middle EMS while low EMS would result in Shepard dying.

My Shepard definitely takes a long time to recover, but once he does, he and Kaidan get married and continue serving the Alliance and the Counsel. They request that the Counsel only send them on Spectre missions together, and the counsel honors that request. They acknowledge that the two of them are most effective when working together anyway, and I mean, how could they refuse the saviors of the galaxy? In return, Shepard doesn't rub it in their faces that he warned them about the reapers for years and they ignored him.

It's nice to see everyone's head canon. It is kind of amazing how a video game can do that. I'm really hoping that BW gives us another game that makes me care (at least for me) which would mean they stick with a protagonist again, like Shep. Andromeda might have that potential, but they certainly didn't start off on the right foot. Dragon Age is notorious for their changing Heroes, so I don't see it coming from there. Anthem? That'll just be a game I play with friends here and there.

But even if they decide to continue with Shep and find a good explanation why everything happened. He/She isn't getting younger. How old is Shep in ME3? 30 something? And what else could they do in the Milky Way other than clean up from the Reapers, that doesn't really sound like something I want to play through, heh.

Yeah, I'm fine with Shep's story being over. I think I get nostalgic when I replay the ME Trilogy, because it's the only one where you play your character through 3 games and I got very attached to those games and it always stings a bit when it's over.

Shepard's role was to take care of the Reapers and with them gone, her/his work is done.

68.media.tumblr.com/501cd19e1e45ea7f64f5762af65d2428/tumblr_p1cd0qUYln1uli6fmo1_1280.png

Oh man, these are my favorite kinds of images. They deserve this time together.

That's exactly why I can't accept an ending where Shepard dies. It crushes me to think of Kaidan having to live his life without him. The best part is that human life expectancy in the Mass Effect Universe is about 150 years, and they are only in their 30's. They get to spend over a century together, and thinking about that makes me so happy.

Thanks for the link! It's always good to have my headcanon supported by the game instead of having to rewrite or ignore actual canon to make it work.

Try going to archiveofourown.org and doing a search.  Start with Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, then m/m, then Male Shepard/Kaidan Alenko.  You're sure to come up with plenty and new fics continue to be written.

You could also go to Tumblr and type "mshenko" into a search engine.

Yes, this sounds like Kaidan in any language.  Even just before they almost kiss when the Normandy is locked down, Kaidan says "I always leave a way out."  I think this is because he's talking to his commanding officer.  He might not be so cautious outside of the chain of command.

I finally saw the Kaidan Citadel scene with femshep as a friend. I'm sorry, but that scene fits male Shepard way more. The voice acting is the main culprit. Femshep's VA sounds awful here. She's trying way too hard and overacts. Just feels more natural with broshep to me.