Canadian Delicacy - The Kaidan Alenko Thread

I got my first grey hairs when I was twenty-five. Considering the stress of Kaidan's life, gray hair at thirty-five doesn't need a special explanation.

I'm closing to 30 this year... I have occasional white hair or two from stress but in my family we don't start greying until after 50s. But we Asians age weirdly... 

Fact is, without Kaidan I almost certainly never would have played Mass Effect. Heard about the romance early in 2016, suffered through 1&2 just so I could have him in 3. That was all before mods. (Well, gender swap existed, and I used it a couple times, but really I hated it. Probably why I've played ME3 the most of any ME games. Oh, and I used the Gibbed Save Game Editor to edit the romance into existence for ME2 so Kaidan appeared at the beginning and gave that hug on Horizon.) Unfortunately, I fell so hard for Kaidan that I was never able to romance Steve Cortez. I've heard it's sweet but...he's just not Kaidan.

I was with the series from the beginning when my brother decided to see what the big deal was. I liked Kaidan immediately, but I resigned myself to keeping things to headcanon like I usually did; Kaidan at least made things easier than normal. So it ended up meaning much more to me when he turned out to be bisexual. In fact, Kaidan is the very first male character that I truly become invested in that was revealed to be same-sex attracted.

I got mass effect 2 after coming off a Dragon Age Origins Ultimate edition and Drgaon age 2 marathon. (i was late getting into BioWare games). I got 2 since it was the only one on ps3 at the time, and I heard 3 was going to have gay romance options like Dragon age-it came out like 2 weeks from that time I believe-so I played 2 and enjoyed it enough that I went ahead and preordered 3. I don't regret it by any means! But that ending of 3 still haunts me!

I'm not gonna lie. I was into garrus romance when I first saw a playthrough of mass effect trilogy, but then I got bored as well. I started to see romances with Kaidan and I was hooked since. Such a hottie and a romantic biotic.

OkenKrow is my favorite human right now. I love it.

Kaidan was obviously written as the strong, silent type. So, it's meant to imply that rather than wasting time talking about things, he goes out and does things. That's generally a compliment. People often see being quiet as a negative but talking too much is damn annoying. It's like a person is so uncomfortable with their own thoughts that they have to fill it with meaningless chatter. (This is a generalization.)

Also, his reaction to Shepard being with Cerberus in ME2 makes sense (or as much sense as anything can make given that Shepard wasn't allowed to explain anything). He's sensitive, yes, but also has high standards. That means he'll reject someone who falls short of that standard (particularly in a big way by joining the "enemy") and won't fully accept that person until he sees that they do live up to that standard (either again or when proven to have assessed incorrectly). Side note: This work somewhat for Ash, as well. Though many call her racist, and she's got some issues, she also makes it clear she would never be part of a pro-human group like Terra Firma. We all know that Cerberus is even worse so she would, quite naturally, reject Shepard until learning the truth. Again, the game prevents Shepard from explaining anything, and also doesn't allow Shepard to respond to the email A/K sends, meaning that A/K are left with the assumption that Shepard really is a traitor. I'll just call this bad writing and not use it as a case against them.

I think Kaidan getting more attention/content then Ashley makes a lot of sense if you consider what an important role he has to play as the only male romance option that appeared in the first game and one of only 2 male romances in the third game for either gender. He's like a corner piece, whereas Ashley is one of many female romances that Straight male Shepard has...it's pretty uneven just how many options there are for straight males compared to everyone else.

I would like to have the mShepard/Kaidan romance since the first game. They are my canon (about a male Shepard) so I would really enjoy a bisexual Alenko in ME1.
But after a lot of playgrounds and exploring romances, after a fShepard/Kaidan trilogy played, too, maybe I like more this romance starting in ME3.
I love thinking about a strong relationship between them growing slowly. Maybe Horizon and eventual others romances in ME2 would ruin their love story, or put too much weight on it. It's a situation easier to solve by friends then by lovers? Maybe yes. And when the romance is available, in ME3, Kaidan and Shepard seem "ready" to do another step in their relationship and it grows strong. I find it romantic, sweet, true and full of feels.
I liked play Kaidan's romance with fShepard, but in ME1 it seems a little too "fast". I really love the mShepard/Kaidan path.
I don't know. Maybe I'd play both of choices.

I was gonna test the same sex romance mod out but its incompatible with BackOff which I really wanna try out. I'm on my new first build pc that I built which I'm am very proud of. I had a few help from my friends in discord but I did most of the work. Right now I'm having issues with installing Origin right now which sucks. I was trying to install Origin on my ssd which is my OS and then Origin Games on my sshd which is where I install my games. Origin is a B to work with unlike Steam. I will have to reinstall it later. I do however wanna play ME Trilogy so bad. I love that game so much. I also have MEA as well so yea. I just need to buy a few dlcs for the trilogy series.