"sex should be less stigmatized and talked about more" and "you should always make sure people who dont want to consume sexual media that you present dont have to see it" are two statements that can and should coexist. by the way.
turning twenty-two next month. Last summer i was seventeen. It turns out you were seventeen last summer forever. When i turned seventeen, the summer before that i was twelve.
Something that just occurred to me is a post-ME3 Kaidan seeing Shepard actually start aging.
Like, the "we're old soldiers" line is so important to me, but it's also specifically about them being old soldiers. In ME3, my math is that Shepard's 32 and Kaidan's 35 (going by birth year, not considering the Shepard-died bit,) so they're not even old by today's standards, and if I remember right, there's even something about the life expectancy for humans having gone up by the time Mass Effect happens. They're not the youthful student soldiers getting excited about the chance to kick back at the Reapers, but they're still young as people.
So Kaidan, who lost Shepard and thought he'd go the rest of his life grieving someone who died before even getting to 30, who got them back only to nearly lose them again to the Reapers a few years later, getting to see them live? He'd fall in love all over again
I wanna think about the first time he sees one of Shepard's gray hairs. Of him realizing Shepard has more crinkles beside their eyes when they smile. Of him seeing the actual physical proof that Shepard made it and feeling it smooth over the edges of something in his chest that broke with the Normandy SR-1.
Not to reblog your reblog but this tag about never taking it for granted, EXACTLY, and also it reminds me of the line Kaidan has on the Observation Deck where he's talking about the mine workers who lost ten years to Leviathan
"Let's make sure that we never let time just slip by us, okay?"
He'd cherish every single second of extra time with Shepard so much, it makes me emotional
Something that just occurred to me is a post-ME3 Kaidan seeing Shepard actually start aging.
Like, the "we're old soldiers" line is so important to me, but it's also specifically about them being old soldiers. In ME3, my math is that Shepard's 32 and Kaidan's 35 (going by birth year, not considering the Shepard-died bit,) so they're not even old by today's standards, and if I remember right, there's even something about the life expectancy for humans having gone up by the time Mass Effect happens. They're not the youthful student soldiers getting excited about the chance to kick back at the Reapers, but they're still young as people.
So Kaidan, who lost Shepard and thought he'd go the rest of his life grieving someone who died before even getting to 30, who got them back only to nearly lose them again to the Reapers a few years later, getting to see them live? He'd fall in love all over again
I wanna think about the first time he sees one of Shepard's gray hairs. Of him realizing Shepard has more crinkles beside their eyes when they smile. Of him seeing the actual physical proof that Shepard made it and feeling it smooth over the edges of something in his chest that broke with the Normandy SR-1.
Sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter, Shepard. Later, when you have to live with yourself. Knowing that you acted with integrityâthen it matters.
I saw a post Once about Kaidan struggling with Banshees in ME3 because of how shrill their screeches can be + his migraines from his implant, and now every single time I go to the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery I spend half my time thinking about Kaidan. Not just because I spend the entire game thinking about Kaidan anyway, but also because in my head it would be so miserable for him considering what he says about hating loud noises and bright lights
Continuing to think about this because I'm writing something about Kaidan at the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery. Not only is it such a bad place for someone who struggles with loud noises and bright lights, but then you add onto it the fact that they're trekking through a place where a highly skilled team of operatives had been sent to handle a situation, only for it to end up being too far outside their abilities, leading to the Normandy being sent as back-up. A place where they discover that the only way to fix the problem and stop their enemy is to set off a bomb. Where they end up leaving, him and Shepard, while the bomb goes up with a young woman still in the blast radius because they couldn't save both her and the person she cared about.
If you take Kaidan to deal with the Turian/Cerberus bomb and Garrus isn't present, he says the bomb and losing Tarquin made him think of Ashley, so we know that sort of situation reminds him of her. It's probably not as raw as it used to be, but it still hurts.
And with the monastery, it isn't even a soldier. Ashley and Tarquin were where they were because of choices they made themselves, which ended in tragedy like any other Alliance or Turian soldier's story could. Rila, though, was just a young woman who got put in a bad situation by powers she never wanted, something completely outside of her control, and suffered for it.
Rila is if you took Ashley and Rahna and made them one person.
So basically, I think Kaidan has a really, really bad time with the monastery and that he deserves a hug or something
You talk about writing some on here, but donât have a link to anything I can find. I love the way you talk about Mshenko and would love to read your stuff if you have anything posted anywhere. I find it hard to find people who take their relationship seriously, so itâs nice to find someone who thinks about them in the glorious hurt/comfort way that you do because they really are heart breaking deep. lol.
Oh, thank you so much!! I'm still pretty new to the ship (only found them and Mass Effect a couple months ago) so I'm glad to hear my understanding of them resonates!
The hurt/comfort thing is so real, I love that aspect of their relationship and the depth they have considering everything about Horizon and Mars and all that. I could write essays on all the overanalysis I've done on their relationship and on Kaidanđ
As my writing, I haven't posted anything yet because I haven't finished anything stand-alone (I've got uhâŠ170k+ words written for my Mshenko and not a single properly finished scene) and because it's a custom Shepard + I'm so late to the party fandom-wise, but I keep meaning to wrap something up and just post it anyway. Even if I'm my only reader, I'll like having it somewhere I can find more easily than buried in my endless wip pile lol
Though, I am actually almost done with an Ardat-Yakshi monastery based ME3 fic that involves Kaidan migraine angst because of the Banshees and a follow-up with the Apollo cafe scene, and I might post that! If I do, I can definitely post a link here!
can't stop thinking about that meme making fun of people who tell u to take a break when ur getting frustrated with a game. I saw some silksong streamer on youtube reference it being like "taking a break isn't gonna make the game design any better!!! it isn't gonna make the benches any closer together!!!!" and like....yeah dude! you're so close to getting it right now! you would like to be less frustrated, but there's nothing you can do about the game. what do you have control over? yourself. and how can you use that control to decrease your frustration.....???? come on you're ALMOST there
the most essential part of a fandom are those people who immediately tell you to write it, draw it, make it when you share your ideas, you have no idea how many fanworks are born just because someone encouraged it
I'm thinking about Mshenko again but it's just Shepard's voice. ME2 Kaidan thinking Shepard's gone and that the last conversation they ever had was hurried and rushed with their ship crumbling around them, Shepard sending him away, then going two years either not hearing Shepard's voice at all or only in recordings. Then Horizon happens, and Kaidan comes out of the Collector's paralysis and heads towards the commotion, and it's Shepard, and Shepard's voice, the one he's been playing on repeat in his mind for 2 years, and he sounds the same (or close enough, maybe a little different, reconstructing vocal cords probably isn't perfect.) But it's also Cerberus' Shepard, so Kaidan chooses integrity and what he thinks is the right thing, while Shepard does the same on the opposite side, and then Shepard's gone again, his voice still ringing in Kaidan's ears even though this time, Kaidan was the one who chose to go.
And then Vancouver, where Kaidan stands there for a second, watching Shepard before calling him, and Shepard turns around so quickly like maybe he's missed Kaidan's voice too, and they're talking, but it's strained, even though he smiles and Shepard smiles back, and Kaidan doesn't really know that man anymore, but he used to. And then it's Mars, where it's not just Shepard's voice, but the Commander's, and Kaidan feels like he's where he belongs again for the first time in years and it's confusing because he's still hurt and wary but it's Commander Shepard, so he can't help but be glad to hear him giving orders like it's 2183 again. And this time, when they find their target, he puts himself between it and Shepard and the others instead of arriving too late to help, and the last thing he hears before his head gets bashed in is Shepard shouting for him.
And then the hospital, where we don't know how much Kaidan heard subconsciously. Maybe he dreamed about Shepard, hearing his voice the first time Shepard checked on him. Maybe he didn't hear a thing and woke up to a quiet hospital room on the peaceful Citadel and had to convince himself it'd all really happened. Then he sends an email, Shepard shows up, and it's real, and they talk, and maybe it goes well or maybe it doesn't, but at least it's a conversation without them standing on opposite sides of an invisible line. Sure, Shepard leaves after, but Kaidan doesn't feel like all the air in the room went with him, so that's something. And he comes back, and they talk, and Kaidan's a Spectre, and he's being discharged, and everything's fine until it isn't, until something's wrong, the Citadel is in a panic, Cerberus is there, the Council is in danger, Kaidan has to do whatever he can, so he goes. Then, just when he thinks he's about to fight for his life and the lives of the Council with everything he has, it's Shepard again, standing between him and the elevator, but is it really?
Except it is, because that's Shepard's voice. And it's not just his voice in a way someone could replicate, like the actual sound of it, but in how it softens in a way nobody would know to mimic when he trusts Kaidan to trust him. So he turns on Udina, Udina draws a gun, someone shoots, it's over, but it's not, because Cerberus got away and the Council was nearly killed and the divide between Kaidan and Shepard is still there, a yawning chasm that makes Kaidan really, really wants to make a leap. So he does, and he goes to the Normandy, but he doesn't go aboard because it's not his ship or his home anymore, and this one technically never was anyway. Instead, he waits outside, standing there watching ships go by and bracing himself for a talk he doesn't know if he thinks he deserves to be given the chance to have.
It feels like an eternity, but then Shepard's there, telling him to let him have it, and Kaidan values honesty and communication and Shepard's orders so he does, and they talk about how it felt to point guns at each other and not know if the other was going to pull the trigger. They talk about Udina and what matters, and Kaidan thinks about how this matters too, him and Shepard, the Normandy, helping to stop the Reapers. He admits he'd come home in a second if he could, and he's not sure if there's a better thing in the galaxy than Shepard's voice saying, "welcome aboard, Major," except maybe how easily their hands fit together and the warm proof of Shepard being alive.
And suddenly, for the first time in three years, Shepard's voice is all around him again. He walks through the ship, maybe dodging some frosty looks here and there, maybe looking at everything with a bittersweet feeling in his chest because it's the same but it's so different, and he hears Shepard distantly chatting with this or that crewmate. He sits in the mess and Shepard comes out of the med-bay from meeting with Chakwas and it could be the SR-1 again with how familiar it is. They prep for a new mission and Shepard tells Kaidan to grab his gear and Kaidan grins in a way he never did when he got the same order from anyone else he worked with in the time Shepard was gone.
Not everything's perfect, though, and Kaidan can't get it all out of his mind, but this time, when he's sitting in the crew's cabin staring at the walls, Shepard shows up. He sits down and they banter like they did before the Collectors shredded their words apart, but this time the word "flirting" is said and it feels different, too, except that when Kaidan admits he's been thinking, Shepard listens, just like he always did. They talk, have a real conversation about the Illusive Man and Cerberus and everything that Kaidan hasn't been able to stop turning around and around in his head. It doesn't fix it, but it helps, and Shepard helps, and Kaidan knew he would, but knowing it hypothetically and actually feeling his chest begin to untangle as he listens to Shepard speak are two very different things.
Maybe that's what tips Kaidan over the edge to end up sitting in the Apollo cafe, jiggling his leg under the table and watching artificial clouds to distract himself from his nerves while he waits for Shepard, or maybe it isn't. Either way, he hears Shepard's footsteps and immediately knows them from anyone else's even with his back turned, and he knows Shepard's voice the second he inhales before going to speak, and it's easy to start chatting, making jokes about the menu and a sanity check. It's less easy to get himself to open up about the rest of it, about being restless or about what he really wants to talk about, but it's Shepard asking, all quiet and Shepard about it like the entire galaxy has shrunk down to just their table, so he does. Watching Shepard look away is like the moment the Mako would drive out of the ship in midair and gravity would catch her, pitching them down towards a planet, his stomach in his throat, but having Shepard smile and hearing him say the word love, it's like after a fight when the adrenaline's still pumping but all the emotions have been replaced with relief to still be alive.
And at some point throughout the next few weeks, Kaidan winds up laying in Shepard's arms, one of their heads on the other's chest, feeling Shepard's half-asleep murmurs reverberate through him, and there's a war on, people are dying, the Reapers have turned their home into hell, but for a second, tucked away from it all with Shepard right there, Kaidan can close his eyes and listen, and it feels like peace.
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