We've been through hell together

thelostgirl21:

Garrus: Shepard.  Hell of a day.  Udina loses his mind, the Citadel almost falls… and now Kaidan’s with Ashley.  I hope they’re both in a better place than this.

Shepard: So do I.

—-

Garrus: If it had come down to it, could you have pulled the trigger?

Shepard: I don’t see how. We start killing our friends, and war turns to murder.

Garrus: But it doesn’t always give us the easy way out, does it? At least Kaidan didn’t have to join Ash.

Shepard: Let’s hope she’s looking out for us. This was her fight, too.

—-

Garrus: If it had come down to it, could you have pulled the trigger?

Shepard: If they hadn’t backed down… yes.  This war is bigger than any one person.

Garrus: I’ll remember that the next time we have an argument.  Still, I’m glad Kaidan didn’t have to join Ash.  Losing one was enough.

—-

Alright, I’ve been watching the conversation that you can have with Garrus after the Citadel Coup…

And am I the only one being assaulted by some serious FEELS whenever Garrus mentions Kaidan (almost) joining Ash?

I know that, out of everyone that they have lost so far (Jenkins, Pressly, Mordin, Thane, etc.), Ashley (and perhaps Jenkins, though Garrus never got the chance to know him) was probably the one closest to Kaidan…

But still, I find it deeply touching that the first thing that Garrus mentions about Kaidan’s death (if Shepard was the one to pull the trigger) is his belief that Ashley and Kaidan are reunited now; and that the tries to find comfort in the hope that they are together in a better place.

And that, if Kaidan is alive, he will instead express his relief that he didn’t have to join Ashley yet, even adding “losing one was enough” if Shepard admits that he/she would have done whatever was necessary in order to stop Udina.

Garrus could easily have said “we’ve lost enough friends lately”…  But no, he instinctively went for “losing one was enough”, specifically referring to Kaidan and Ashley.

It’s as if, after Virmire, Kaidan became forever connected to Ashley, somehow – as if those who knew them both can no longer think of one without thinking about the other.

In a way, it’s like Ashley never entirely left them…  Like they feel that, as long as Kaidan is still with them, so is she.  And that, while Kaidan now gets to carry on the fight and live for them both, they trust that Ashley is going to keep on watching over them all, too.

No matter what, they are still a team, and it’s still Ashley’s fight.  Before they split up on Virmire, Kaidan and Ashley made a promise to see each other again on the other side, after all.  ;  b  And Garrus knows that Ashley would never let anyone from her team down.  So when the time comes, now or later, he trusts that she is going to be there…

Source

Note: Of course this also works the other way around, if Kaidan was the one who sacrificed his life on Virmire.

musanocturnis:

It’s been staring me in the face all along, but I didn’t realise the significance until now. Know the first conversation you have with Kaidan in ME3? If it’s an import without romance, it goes like this:

Shepard: Major?
Anderson: You hadn’t heard?
Shepard: No, I’m a bit out of the loop these days.
Kaidan: Sorry ma’am, didn’t mean to keep you out of the loop.

Note the bolded word. Ma’am. Sir for ManSheps.

So Kaidan just referred to Shepard as a superior officer, after we were just informed by the exchange with Vega that Shepard doesn’t have the rights of the rank, and he did it in front of who-knows how many members of the admiralty’s staff.

Doubts in private? Sure. In public though, that’s taking Shepard’s side.

petitavocat:

can we just talk about the citadel dlc and how amazing it was for fleshing out shep’s relationship?  especially from the perspective of someone who romanced kaidan.

i mean.  shep is usually the one who comes swooping in to save the day - they’ve saved the asses of almost everyone on their squad at least once, and here they are, under siege, no armor and one gun that they grabbed off one of their enemies.  yeah, shep is pretty badass, and can handle themselves, but can you just imagine their relief when kaidan’s voice comes in over their comm?  i’m here, shepard, you’re not alone.  so instead of having to rely on brooks, this unknown, rather incompetent paper-pusher, shep suddenly has the one person they trust more than anyone else, there, telling them it’s under control.

and kaidan knows shep doesn’t need rescuing, at least not in the way most people would, but damn, he has grown so much as a person over the course of the games, and we hardly ever see it until now.  and here’s shepard, running from a veritable army of mercs who are trying to kill them, out of breath, almost out of ammo, bursting into the skycar lot to see kaidan ripping through mercs with his biotics.

not his gun.  his biotics.

he’s still so controlled, you can see how much he’s holding back in the tension of his body, but he is not afraid of his biotics - or of himself - anymore.  and what’s even better is that shepard doesn’t tell him, “i can handle it,” doesn’t tell him to go rally the others, or to evacuate the ship, or to stay in the transport, or to wait here while shepard dives to the bottom of an alien sea in a rusty old mech.  shepard accepts his help, is grateful for it, genuinely recognizes how badass he is and essentially admits that it would’ve been harder alone (all without actually coming out and saying it, of course, because that would be too straightforward).

it just seems like such a gorgeous moment of equality and mutual respect and love.  and it’s just a bonus that shepard voices what we were all thinking later on - because damn, kaidan, that was… pretty hot.

rosenkovmaterials:

reyairia:

rosenkovmaterials:

reyairia:

rosenkovmaterials:

“i know where my loyalties lie. i’m an alliance soldier. it’s in my blood.”

well that stings for a spacer shepard. :(

ashley sounds so much more worried about shepard than kaidan does though. like kaidan is just unleashing his two years of repressed emotion about shepard’s death and all that but ashley’s more…i don’t know like she’s more willing to believe that shepard did actually die and is wary of what cerberus did to make him not dead whereas kaidan is stuck on how shepard could have let him think she was dead.

i think i like ash better on horizon though. kaidan makes up for it with his apology letter, but he’s pretty harsh man.

and meer’s “i’ve had enough of this colony” DX

I always found it kind of strange how Kaidan was harsher than Ashley about it considering how much more dedicated to the military I felt Ashley was given her family background at all.

she does make mention of betraying anderson while kaidan doesn’t.

they each have loyalty to the alliance for different reasons though. ashley grew up with it and probably couldn’t ever imagine herself doing anything else. the alliance probably wasn’t kaidan’s first choice though. with his biotics it ended up being his best option. the alliance values and appreciates his abilities and he managed to do quite well with them which he probably wouldn’t be able to in any other occupation. but i also get the sense he’s not a hundred percent okay with having a job that requires him to take lives on a regular basis.

crap i’m rambling what was my point. i think ashley focuses more on the professional betrayal of shepard choosing to work with extremists instead of the alliance, while kaidan is hung up the thought that shepard might have put him through two years of grief and guilt in addition to the whole betraying the alliance thing. ashley’s not as stuck on that because she focuses on being relieved that shepard is alive. kaidan doesn’t deal with emotions very well lol. it comes across much harsher.

Speaking of emotions though, I also found it odd that he would allow himself to lose his temper given his previous bad experiences with Rana on that.

But considering how Ashley’s relationship with the Alliance was more personal given her family, and Kaidan’s more professional, and yet their behavior on Horizon would make me think it was the opposite if I didn’t know any better. Especially since Kaidan always seemed so mellow and Ashley was the one more quick to get fired up and be mistrustful. I mean she was very wary of the aliens on the Normandy, so it strikes me as odd she wouldn’t react more negatively to Shepard working for Cerberus.

like twistedsinews said ash believes in miracles, kaidan in principles. the principle of the thing is what upsets him most and he’s stubborn so nothing shepard says can derail him. he hates cerberus on principle, whereas ashley just doesn’t trust how extreme they are and they’re not the alliance.

i think ashley’s more willing to focus on beng happy shepard’s not dead, whereas kaidan doesn’t want to trust it fully lest he get burned again. and he really hates cerberus. rustles all his boy scout idealist jimmies.

rosenkovmaterials:

reyairia:

ice-fire-and-souffles:

I don’t see how anyone who romanced Kaidan or Ashley in ME1 could continue that romance in ME3. I mean, they call you a traitor and abandon you, then spend the first half of ME3 doubting and questioning you. That’s how I justify romancing someone else for the last two games when I romance the Virmire survivor in ME1.

Is the mass effect tag full of fucking stupid today or what

weeeell. i always continue their romances for a couple reasons.

1) i actually fucking like them. and i think shepard does too, particularly if they were romanced in ME1

2) on horizon they’re angry for good reason, though they might be lashing out at the wrong person. shepard died and they had to spend two years trying (and failing) to get over that. to see shepard alive again is confusing as shit. they hear rumors and think it can’t be possible, but there’s shepard right in front of them. so then they don’t understand how it took seeing shepard for themselves to confirm what someone sould have already told them. shepard never contacts them, anderson doesn’t tell them anything, hell even liara (and by extension, possibly hackett) knew shepard might not be dead, but none of them tell them shit. so they’re angry. shep explains that they really were dead and couldn’t have contacted them, which has them back off, but then we get to

3) the fact that shepard is working with terrorists. i assume you’ve played ME1 if you say you’ve romanced the VS before, so i know you have to know about akuze and admiral kahoku and toombs and how they turned a whole colony into husks and let rachni loose on a whole supply line and whole bunch of other shady shit. they’re human supremacists. all they do is for the sake of “trying to give humanity an edge.” they’re mad scientists who do weird ass shit just to see what it does and then it frequently gets out of their hands. so why the fuck would shep want to work with them. another thing you gotta remember about the VS is they’re both hella loyal to the alliance. kaidan went through a lot of shit coming to terms with his biotics, but the alliance is a place where he’s valued and not treated like a freak and he can use his abilities to help people and save lives. ashley’s family, going back what four or five generations enlisted in the alliance. she is proud as fuck to carry on the tradition and she’s a damn good soldier.

so here we have someone they used to care about, i think they both even say they loved shepard, who they’re trying to come to terms with the fact that they’re not dead anymore, but also they’re doing things and working with people they can’t fathom why they could be working with. that’s what’s happening on horizon. if shep asks them to join the SR-2 then, there’s no way they’d say yes, because they can’t trust cerberus, and certainly not at the expense of abandoning the alliance, no matter how much they still care about shepard.

NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT SHEPARD. i never saw horizon as a personal betrayal. the VS has their reasons and if shepard doesn’t understand that, the VS is better off without them.

4) now mars. you have to remember after the VS sends their post-horizon apology letter, shep and the VS don’t talk for six months. the entire time shep is under house arrest, they’re not allowed to see each other. so mars is the first real chance they have to talk. but what have we here, cerebus attacking an alliance base (executing alliance soldiers and unarmed civilians) for intel they shouldn’t even know exists. and shepard, who used to work with them is standing right there. again this is an issue of personal vs professional. i don’t know if the VS really think shep has anything to do with the cerberus raid, but it’s the fucking job to ask anyway. and then they see the reaper-ized cerberus trooper. it is a prime example of why the VS was so adamant that cerberus wasn’t to be trusted. they’re afraid that when cerberus rebuilt shepard, they could have altered them or put a control chip in or indoctrinated them or whatever else cerberus could have thought of. that’s not mistrust of shepard, that’s scared as fuck for shepard. they’re terrified that someone they care about, someone they were in love with could have been so altered. their memory abused in such a way. again, if shepard doesn’t get that, the VS should move on anyway. but shepard does understand. they see that the VS just needs time to be around them again and see that they’re still the same person.

5) then the VS gets injured on mars. i think this is the biggest wake up call to them. the vs and shep need to stop being angry at each other and try to patch things up because they could die at any time in a war like that. so you see them slowly rebuild that trust. they get back to being who they were in ME1. when you get to cronos station, the VS finally gets it and shep sees how manipulated they were by TIM and how the VS was right to not trust them. they have a fantastic relationship arc and i enjoy playing the games that much more for that reason.

6) but most of all, i stick with the VS because again I ACTUALLY FUCKING LIKE THEM. seriously if you romance someone else out of spite at horizon in ME2, that’s kinda shitty i think.

rosenkovmaterials:

i say it bugs me when people “miss the point” of the vs character arcs and i think this might be why.

you’re creating a character in a universe that doesn’t exist. with politics and history that is completely new. ashley and kaidan are there to help you out in ME1. rather than just playing your shepard as a nice diplomatic hero or total dickbag badass, they give you actual canonical reasons to base your characterization on.

kaidan’s the paragon argument. “aliens are jerks and saints just like the rest of us” “the council’s not bad, just slow to change”

ashley’s clearly more of the renegade argument. “humanity needs to look out for themselves” “when their backs are against the wall, the council will abandon us” (not racism mind you. she never says humanity shouldn’t work with other races simply because ew aliens.)

like right there gives you legitimate characterization for your shepard’s alignment. their conversations explore the in universe intricacies of galactic politics while telling you about the characters themselves. and they’re both right in a sense. they both have—at least in the context of the mass effect universe—completely reasonable perspectives.

idk it just makes me so irrationally upset to see people be dismissive of either of them.

(via queerinserenity)

ocheeva:

actual issues with how some ME fans word their thoughts

because if you say “I usually kill X on Virmire” you make it a conscious choice rather than an unfortunate one and I feel like you kind of miss the point of Shepard and having a team that you work with and have to nurture and take care of because they are YOUR TEAM and lean on you and count on you to take them through this and oh my god did you even look at Shepard’s body language when they had to choose who to prioritise? Did you listen to their voice when they said goodbye? Like okay not everyone likes the same character types but HOW CAN YOU NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT VIRMIRE WHEN YOU LOOK AT HOW YOUR PROTAGONIST REACTS??

ladybattletits:

The next time you decide to bash one of the Virmire survivors by picking at their most minor character flaws, just remember that both of them plead Shepard to let them die so that the other can be saved. Then remember that you’re an idiot who’s writing two great characters off simply because they make a throwaway complaint about having headaches or express wariness over the ship’s heavily armed and dangerous alien passengers. 

thelostgirl21:

Okay guys, since it’s Virmire Survivor appreciation week, I feel that I’ve got to get this off my chest.

I used to hate Ashley.  With a passion.  Until something wonderful and unexpected happened.

You see, Ash and I really started on the wrong foot.  As soon as I heard her comment on the Citadel about “not being able to make the difference between the aliens and the animals”, as well as other comments that I interpreted back then as highly xenophobic, I heavily disliked her.  Then, I learned that she could go as far as killing Wrex, and it was the end of our “relationship”, so to speak.  Any hope of us ever relating to each other as human beings and becoming “friends” was gone (though I did choose the paragon options with her most of the time, for the game’s sake and because I didn’t want to go as far as being a cruel bitch just because I didn’t get along with her).

So, as soon as I could (i.e. pretty much that first time you come across Wrex), I immediately stopped taking her on missions.  Not a single time would I select her to be in my party.

The obvious result?  No party banter between her and any other members of my squad.  No teasing Kaidan at Chora’s Den.  No emotional connection.  Simply put, I unwittingly cut her off from anything that just might have helped me relate to her.

Then, to add insult to injury, I began noticing that my very favorite companion, Kaidan, appeared to be systematically ignored in official promotional material in favor of Ashley.

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