talldarkbishoujo:

brashblacknonbeliever brought up a real good point in her analysis and I just want to talk about that for a sec

cause lest I be accused of letting my xeno preferences color my judgment

can I just give a shoutout to Lt. James Vega?

I mean okay jesus, the flirting and the constant commenting on Shep’s body is really inappropriate as fuck and I wish there was a way to tell him to stop if your Shep isn’t cool with that

but serious, Vega didn’t even know Shepard and he was straight up getting into fights defending her from people talking shit (one of the comics, I forget which one). and even after he did meet her and the first thing he saw was basically frogmarching her it didn’t matter that she was incarcerated, she was Commander motherfucking Shepard and she deserved respect.

meanwhile Kaidan slept with this broad and went through hell and back with her and was still being irrationally shitty to her even after he got receipts

and James was defending her to him

again, he barely even really knew her personally

but he knew that shit wasn’t right

See, y’all finna make me rant on my baby Lt. James Vega.

Let me preface this with this is my headcanon intermixed with actual canon. Now that we have that out the way, let’s get this show on the road.

I honestly believe that James is is funny and super flirtatious guy as a front. (That said, I do think that if there was an option for you to ask him to stop he would. He’s made it known that he holds Shepard in high esteem and is very respectful. I just don’t think that he’s so much of a dick that he’d keep flirting even after you told him to stop.)

From the Mass Effect Homeworld’s comic, you know that Vega’s dad is not the nicest guy. I think that his childhood and teenage years were not the best. I also think that after his mother’s death he learned to bottle things up and keep them to himself. He’s not the type of person to open up to just anyone so whenever someone tries to talk about his feelings or past he’ll deflect them with a joke or by flirting.

Shepard played a big part in him deciding to join the Alliance. My Shep was the Hero of Elysium. Naturally, holding off a group of batarian slavers single-handedly garnered a lot of media attention. I think that Vega saw this on the news one day and said to himself “she’s not too much older than me. if she can do great things in her life, why can’t I?” Afterwards he went to talk to his Uncle Emilio and that solidified his decision to join.

If you pay attention to the dialogue in ME3, he tells Shep that he remembers watching her become the first human Spectre. That leads me to believe that while he was training and in the Alliance, he followed her career at a distance. This woman was the catalyst for him joining so he looked up to her in a way.

Fehl Prime was something that hurt Vega a hell of a lot more than he dares to let on. You can tell it really hurt him because sometime later (I’m not sure how much later) he ends up on Omega doing a whole bunch of nothing. I believe he reacted so violently to the news reports about Shepard in part because of the immense amount of respect he had for her. I also think that the guilt he felt over choosing intel that ended up being useless because of Shep’s trip through the Omega 4 relay over people played a big part into why he got into that bar fight. I think that Anderson found him at a time where he really didn’t give a damn if he lived or died. The guilt and anger over Fehl Prime, and some unresolved issues from his past were slowly eating away at him.

In my headcanon, the six months that Vega spent guarding Shepard were a learning experience for him and a bonding experience for them both. You can’t spend every single day together for six months without forming some type of bond. I think that Shepard knew that there was something he was hiding, and at times she’d try to find out what it was. For the first few weeks he’d try his usual deflect with a joke or flirting, but that didn’t work on her. She was the first person to see straight through that facade. That was due in part to the fact that she is so used to putting up the “Commander Shepard” mask for people that she knows a front when she sees one.

Little by little he opened up to her a bit and let her know little tidbits about his past and his life. What she didn’t realize is that she had started to do the same thing. Over time, both of them had developed a trust where they felt comfortable telling each other things that they hadn’t told others.

The day that Shepard lost her title was a big day for them both. She completely let her guard down that day in front of him. The pressure became too much for her that day and she reached a limit. (I know people are gonna hate me for that because they love their “superwoman shepard” but that’s just not realistic to me.) James was smacked in the face with the fact that the woman he had looked up to for so long, the woman who served as the catalyst for him joining the Alliance was indeed human. Instead of losing respect for her, he gained more respect for her. (Also, in my headcanon where he is romanceable, this is the point where he started to fall for her.) That day he made it his mission to cheer her up. He accomplished that with some smuggled in alcohol, a poker game, and some of her favorite super old music vids. (He even got her to teach him how to Diddy bop.)

By the time the Reapers hit, I honestly think those two had a really good rapport going. All of that backstory is how I justify the fact that James shamelessly flirts with Shepard all throughout ME3 and Shepard happily flirts back. I also think that’s why James steps in during the whole Mars fiasco with Kaidan. The sexual tension between those two is so damn thick you can cut that shit with a knife. It is glaringly obvious to me that if any new character should’ve been a damn romance option, it should’ve been Lt. James Vega. That would’ve truly been a funny, interesting, and sexy as fuck relationship. BioWare dropped a big fucking ball with this one.

Now I’m gonna stop here before I write two more motherfucking pages on this topic.