@interstellarperformance replied to your post “idk if you've answered this question before, but why did you (or grace) decide to save kaidan on virmire instead of ashley”
By the way, when you finally played ME1, how did you manage to navigate around the romances? I found it really difficult not to engage in one and stay friendly and polite at the same time.
Uhhh. I didn't. Well, I tried? I took a lot of the neutral middle options, even when the Paragon option seemed innocent, because I know I know it's going to come out all wrong. (Shepard, Foot In Mouth Specialist, Extra Training in Awkwardness.) And the Renegade options are way too harsh, at least the way they're written on the dialogue wheel? Maybe they're not as bad if you choose them, but Grace recoils from them, 95% of the time.
But things still broke down to the point where Kaidan's got a line about picking up mixed signals (right after informing Grace I-Don't-Cut-Corners Shepard that she shouldn't cut corners--she was so offended), and... regardless of trying to avoid the romance while still being friendly, Kaidan's dialogue (at least all the dialogue I ever got) seems to indicate he's more or less certain there's something between them. (Even when she shuts him down, finally, he says something like, "I guess it was just a battlefield thing." And Grace, in my head, was like, "I GUESS IT WAS AN IN-YOUR-IMAGINATION THING, LT, OH MY GOD.")
Then this is followed (about five seconds later, in my playthrough, haha) by Liara asking outright if there's something going on with Kaidan. I can't remember the options exactly, but both the Paragon and neutral seem to indicate there IS something going on with Kaidan (and I want to say there's a left-side "No, I'm interested in you" option or something?), so Grace did snap out the, "It's none of your business" Renegade line, whatever it actually was. (I think I headcanon this as her still being so unsettled by the conversation with Kaidan that Liara's expressed interest completely throws her for a loop and she reacts more strongly than she would have otherwise. She's still not interested, but she would've been nicer about it if she'd been less blindsided.)
The way Grace interprets all of this ends up with her keeping both at arm's length, though I think she ends up a little friendlier with Liara overall. Liara's a civilian, after all, and a civilian with a crush isn't quite as much a trial as a junior officer getting entirely the wrong idea about his CO? At least in her mind. And since she believes she genuinely wasn't coming on to Kaidan in any way, I think she's warier of him in general.
The thing is, this is SO my-Shepard-centric. I can imagine other Shepards who don't see things the same way Grace does, so please, please if you (and your Shepards) did choose one of the ME1 romances, don't think I'm criticizing. I made a very deliberate choice to play a No Romance in ME1 Shepard and the fact that the romance possibilities are so near the surface (and so nearly impossible to avoid) just really ended up skewing my interpretation of what became my specific character's canon. I mean, I wanted it to make sense in the context of her characterization, but I don't apply all this headcanony stuff to anyone else's Shepard but my own.