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come back alive…please.

Petition Restoring Same-Sex Romances in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition

A petition for BioWare and EA to restore same-sex romances in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition.

If you’re a fan of the Mass Effect series, please consider signing this petition and sharing this post on your pages!

We the authors - myself, @estalfaed-archived, and others - believe that BioWare, EA, and Mac Walters have squandered an opportunity with the Legendary Edition to fix the lack of same-sex romance options in ME1 and ME2. Fans have been calling for the studio to restore the existing material for Kaidan Alenko’s same-sex romance in the first two games for years. Then news broke in January that Jack and Jacob’s same-sex options were cut during development.

Responses and reasons from the studio for these exclusions have been lacking and contradictory at best.

In short, we are asking for:

A full, detailed explanation of the reasons why these characters’ same-sex dialogues and romances were originally planned on some level and had dialogue written and/or recorded, but were ultimately excluded from the games;

A formal apology from the studios for the deliberately exclusionary decisions made regarding all three characters, both in the original version and Legendary Edition;

A Legendary Edition post-release patch for an MShep-Kaidan romance using and filling in existing material so we can have one trilogy-spanning male same-sex romance;***

A frank and open assessment of the possibility of finishing the same-sex romances for Jack and Jacob and the potential for Legendary Edition patches;***

A detailed, public plan of concrete steps the studios and creative directors will take to ensure diverse, accurate, and comparable LGBTQIA+ representation in future ME projects.

***Yes, we’re specifically asking for post-release patches because this studio has a well-documented history of grinding down its employees and developers to meet their deadlines. We want to be both realistic with what can conceivably be accomplished and respectful of the pressure these developers are facing with a looming deadline during the pandemic.

Angel with a Shotgun by The Cab is my Shenko theme.

I am literally (internally) screaming at work right now!!!! Kaidan's so beautiful in the LE!!!! Now I've gotta wait hours till I can even download it on my PS4.

They get a happy ever after in my head at least

They didn’t change me, Kaidan. Or how I feel about you

When does Anderson realise what's going on between Sam and Kaidan?

After the Normandy goes down he glimpses into Kaidan's grief. When Kaidan starts fighting his way back after that he gets to know him better. When does the other shoe drop? He knows Sam so well, shouldn't be taking him forever ..?

This is a FANTASTIC question, and one I have given a fair amount of thought. I'd claim "spoilers!" and keep the answer close to the chest, but it'll be a hot minute before I get to it, and who knows if anyone will still be reading by that point. XD

Still, I'll put it under a spoiler for anyone who doesn't want to know.

I initially asked myself the same question: why hasn't Anderson figured this out yet?

And here's the answer I came to: Anderson is not just grieving a soldier, he's grieving a son, and I imagine he feels very alone in that grief. Plenty of people knew Commander Shepard. Not many people knew Sam. In Kaidan, Anderson has found a rare person who understands his grief. That's a powerful thing. My guess is that he wouldn't take the time to ask why or examine it very deeply - all his emotional and mental energy is going towards burying and moving on for someone he loved like his own child.

When Sam comes back, I don't think it occurs to him to ask, "why do you care so much?" when "thank god you care as much as I do," is all that really matters.

So with that said, when does he figure it out?

Originally, my answer was: he doesn't. I was going to leave it at, "he never figures it out on his own, and Sam doesn't get the chance to tell him." It was going to be a huge regret for Sam that his father figure never knew he'd found someone.

But as I've gotten deeper into Opus and deeper into Mezzo, I'm no longer happy with that. It feels like pain for the sake of pain, rather than pain that's meaningful to the narrative or to the characters.

So toss that one in the garbage. So what does happen, then? Sam and Anderson don't have a whole lot of opportunity to interact before the reapers come. When Sam is in lockup, he's not exactly going to be chatty about his fraternization history. We've already walked through that he doesn't really clock it from Kaidan, because the role Kaidan plays in Anderson's own complicated feelings for Sam's death and resurrection give him a pretty big blind spot.

My working premise, then, is that Anderson does find out, but not because he figures it out.

It's because when Kaidan gets injured on the final push, Sam pulls his helmet off and lays one on him right in front of Anderson before they say goodbye, and Anderson has a bigger "oh" moment than either Sam or Kaidan ever had, lol.

I've written a snippet of the conversation Sam and Anderson might have about it in Anderson's final moments. It's less a snippet and more of some passing dialogue in my head that I scribbled down so I wouldn't forget it:

~

"Tell me about him. About...you and him."

"What about it?"

Anderson gestures with a weak hand. "Any of it. All of it. I...missed everything, and it was right under my nose."

"No," Shepard says softly. "You didn't. It just sort of...grew up around us. Like it never started and just always...was."

"Tell me."

At first Shepard is silent. Fear strikes Anderson's heart, but then he shifts, exhale coming out like a rattle. "Ever just...meet someone, and then turn around one day and realize there is nothing you wouldn't do, no bridge you wouldn't cross, no sin you wouldn't commit...for them."

A faltering smile touches Anderson's lips as he remembers the lost boy playing in the fountain, the kid who was determined to bend physics to his will, the man who laid in a hospital bed after turning the N7 test on its head and asked if he'd done enough.

"Yes. I have."

I would've followed you anywhere, Commander. Thinking you were gone... it was like losing a limb.

Battle Couple.

CLERIC'S MODEL SWAPS WHAT IF: Kaidan Alenko was the Biotic Specialist?

After approximately 100 years, I'm finally releasing this thing into the wild:

Dragon Effect

Only Cullen is available for now. This is basically an ongoing project moving at a snail's pace, but I do plan to add more characters.

Don't forget to thoroughly read the mod description page.

Have fun!

You and me.

Zhu's Hope

lost focus and had a consensual workplace relationship

how ME1 should have been by criz

Shepard twins!

Ryder twins ftw, but have you ever considered Shepard twins?

get to know me – [1/5] relationships → John Shepard & Kaidan Alenko

“You’re real enough for me.”