so i haven’t been in the kaidan tag for a while and surprise surprise (or it be, lack of surprise because who is surprised at tagged kaidan hate these days) there is tagged kaidan hate

okay, i get that some people don’t like kaidan and that’s fine, i myself don’t like other characters within the mass effect universe but to actively go and say and then tag something along the lines of ‘i hate kaidan, how can anyone like him??’ is something that is beyond me

so let me tell you a story

why does anyone like a fictional character?

sure you’ve got looks
sure you’ve got personality

but what if it goes beyond that? what if say, you like a fictional character based on looks and personality but it goes beyond, they’re something more to people and this ‘something more’ isn’t physical and it’s quite hard to name

kaidan to me will always hold a special place in my heart because he, as a character, helped me come to terms with my own sexuality and i’ve said it before here, so i won’t go into too much detail

and being a kaidan fan has also introduced me to some really cool people

to me, personally, that is the ‘something more’ that kaidan represents and my love for kaidan, flaws and all, will never change

this ‘something more’ might mean something different to different fans; some fans might connect more with kaidan’s struggle with morality and doing the right thing, other fans might connect with how kaidan builds relationships (both romantic and non-romantic) and others might connect with kaidan’s humanity and flaws… do you see where i’m going with this?

kaidan, like many other fictional characters, means a great deal of different things to different people so this might be why many people, fans in particular, see kaidan as something more than just another fictional character and get particularly defensive and angry when unnecessary hate is tagged

i might have gone out on a limb here because who knew that fictional characters could be important and mean a lot to people? who knew? not me, nope