"Do You Know How Hard It's Been For Me To Contain Myself?"

Same here. It wasn't enough that she intentionally got pregnant, abandoned the Nexus and the people who needed her expertise, stole dwindling resources from a group who were facing hostile forces, she had also doomed her kid to a future that had no pleasant end in sight until Ryder started making major steps in turning the odds around.

And she had the. Gall. To be patronizingly smug with no remorse for what she did.

The game even acknowledged she's prone towards selfish actions but instead of giving the player and Ryder a chance to be furious with her for it, we're forced into a position and dialogue where we're supposed to admire her for it when she gives birth.

And the game does not let you refuse this quest. You will see it every time you go to the map or your journal.

This mission makes me so mad I've never finished it. I cannot stand talking to Zoe or Addison about it and there are no consequences to make me want to save this selfish woman from her actions despite me having a completionist streak for even the most innocuous side missions.

On a side note, has anyone else noticed that every single pregnant character in Mass Effect is written to be as obnoxious as possible?! Rebekah being willing to take a larger risk with her baby, Brynn rubbing the fact that she went after Jacob in Shepard's face if Shepard romanced him and that he's better off with her WHILE SHEPARD IS RESCUING THEM, what is up with Bioware doing that?! It's as weird as their tendency to write every one of Femshep's male LIs needing to talk about their exes before she can romance them.

CONFESSION:

For the most part, I enjoyed Andromeda despite the problems/flaws but there was a couple of quests that infuriated me, with one being "The Little Things that Matter". I thought Dr Kennedy was freaking selfish. I wanted to call her out and Addision out for kissing her friend's ass. If I ever do another playthrough, that will be quest I won't do.

I have an assignment due this week, so naturally I’ve spent all day thinking about a relatively minor aspect of Halsin’s characterisation: his sense of humour.

I haven’t often seen Halsin being funny in fanfic, and while there are probably good reasons for that (writers, including me, love to put him in angsty situations – or just PWP – where humour doesn’t necessarily fit) it makes me a little sad, because his sense of humour is something I really love about him. So I thought I’d do a little bit of analysis of his sense of humour as it appears in a few moments in canon.

First up, this comment he makes to Karlach, saying that being in the Underdark ‘dampens one’s sense of fun’ because ‘noises such as laughter tend to attract predators’:

He’s ostensibly talking about the Society having a dampened sense of fun, but of course it’s also an allusion to his own time in the Underdark, and so I think it’s reasonable to read the 'dampened sense of fun' line as referring to himself as well. I have Thoughts about what this quote says in terms of his time with his drow captors and what a formative experience it was for him, but keeping on topic, it points to something that’s backed up by the rest of canon: his sense of humour is dry, it's not performative or showy, and while I think he’s quite often joking he’s not often telling jokes.

Secondly, we have a moment from one of the conversations you can have with him in act 3 about his dislike for the city. He talks about his dream to find a better way where everyone can be cared for, and then he chuckles and says ‘Listen to me, preaching like an initiate in his cups.’

To me, this is quintessential Halsin sense of humour. He’s not telling a joke, he’s not even really trying to make the PC laugh; he’s just poking fun at himself in a wry sort of way. He’s also using humour as a defence mechanism here, I think; he’s minimising the impact of a potential dismissive response from the PC by undercutting his own speech before the PC gets a chance to do it.

Thirdly, we have his interaction with Lae’zel about the chimera:

I know some people seem to take this quote as him seriously admitting he’s fucked a chimera, but I will die on the hill of ‘he was joking’ (a chimera is functionally an animal! it has an INT score of 3! Halsin is canonically on record as uninterested in having sex with actual animals and has the scars to prove it!)

So this is one of the few instances I can remember of Halsin making an outright joke. Note though that it’s still in keeping with his particular sense of humour: it’s dry (to the point where it’s easy to miss that he’s joking at all) and it’s also self-deprecating, in a way: he’s playing with the conception of him as someone who’ll fuck anything that moves, leaning into that characterisation and by doing so, making fun of both it and of himself.

And finally, the other instance I can recall of him outright joking: when the PC tells him he’s quite large for an elf and his response is ‘I am?!’ I really love this one, both because it’s such an obvious example of him deliberately being funny and also because for once, the person he’s poking fun at is the PC (for stating the obvious) rather than himself.

Looking back at these examples, what strikes me is how much his sense of humour shows itself in relation to other people’s assumptions about him. It’s clearly an important way he copes with people misunderstanding him or being dismissive or seeing him as a caricature. Much of the time he seems to be joking to himself rather than anyone else, which makes sense given the interpretation that it’s a defence mechanism rather than a means of connecting with whoever he’s talking to. (I also have a theory that humour is one of the main ways in which he feels safe expressing anger – c.f. the interaction where he tells Shadowheart that she bleats too much – but this post is long enough as it is.)

In any case, I’d be interested to know if anyone else has thoughts on this, or if there are any canon moments I've missed that might contradict these theories.

What particularly frustrated me the first time I played was that Shepard can literally tell them that it wasn’t their choice, that Cerberus rebuilt them while they were in some sort of coma. But that line comes right before being accused of betraying the Alliance and them. So I ended up feeling like I had been talked over and ignored. It’s realistic but damn, it’s still frustrating every time it happens. 

you know whats hilarious about the games and the fandom giving ashley and kaidan such a hard time about criticising shepard’s decision to work with cerberus. is that they end up being right. cerberus was lying to shepard. the illusive man hand-picked kelly, gabby, ken and joker in order to give the impression of a friendly cerberus. hell, kelly was feeding reports back to TIM on shepard’s mental state throughout the entire game behind their back. and then at the end of me2, when push comes to shove? it turns out that the whole time the illusive man’s motives were getting his hands on the technology in the collector base in order to support cerberus in its pro-human agenda. and even then its made quite clear throughout the game that he doesnt really give that much of a shit about the colonies, considering he used horizon as bait. so like. idk man

collection of useful things tumblr has taught me:

even if you can't fall asleep, laying down with your eyes closed will still rest your body

you don't have to brush your teeth standing up

you don't have to do any chore standing up, from dishes to showering

you don't have to shower with the lights on

if you can't brush your teeth, flossing and a tongue scraper gets rid of plaque and bad breath

if you can't do that, mouthwash kills a lot of bacteria

eating "unhealthy" food is better than eating no food

you can make the same meal everyday for however long you still want it

some pills come in syrups or chewables if you can't swallow them

kids nutritional shakes can be a quick way to get fuel if you can't eat/don't have time

if walking hurts/exhausts you on a regular basis, canes and rollers are for you, no matter how young you are

we have free will—if doing something "out of the ordinary" makes life easier for you, do it

It's one thing to dislike Halsin, but don't flipping try to justify a rape threat from Minthara while accusing Halsin of something he NEVER does.

Halsin: I understand, and I still cherish our relationship

Minthara: I already know your mind. I will know your body, one way or another.

Fans wouldn't like it if people kept lying and misrepresenting their favorite. Why do Halsin fans have to listen to these lies?!

I'm not ok with anyone saying this sort of thing regardless of gender. And Minthara may be a drow, but she's on the surface, where, you know, consent matters?!

Halsin is many times creepier than Minthara. Minthara atleast has the courtesy to let you know you have no choice. It's an act of domination not sexuality. Halsin instead pretends like he would be alright with not taking his violent sexual urges on you

.

Surviving this mission for Halsin fans is our Trial by Fire for him.

*Hoards every smokepowder and firewine barrel for this very fight.*

My exact reaction when this happened

Lrb, I would also argue that Larian expected us to romance Halsin as a joke, what with how late in the game the romance occurs and how much emphasis the marketing put on the bear scene.

During a fight with Lorroakan, an allied Deva got shoved over the railing. To my surprise, he didn't die but landed on a level below....which I did not know existed as an actual accessible level. It was there I discovered that there was another level below it that can only be accessed by a Weave button according to the placards in front of them. Getting there revealed a unique robe that resembles a beige copy of Elminster's robes and a Legendary Draconic staff:

Don't know how many times it's already been covered, but I had been recently listening to Minsc talk about himself and I had realized something that makes me unable to ever laugh or be mean to him (not that I ever was inclined to in the first place).

Minsc wasn't born a himbo. He's brain damaged.

His mention about how he used to be a serious berserker, absorbed in the "gazing of his navel" before he met Boo and having his head split open was the start of when he was able to understand that hamster is heartwarming and all, but maybe it's having witnessed over a decade of my mother struggle with concussions and the headaches, the deafening tinnitus, and the memory issues that came from the injury that makes me feel horror. Minsc has even admitted that the headache was the price of justice not always being gentle.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. He's clearly happy and has friends and Boo to look out for him, but he always brings up reminders of old neuropsychology case studies I've listened to about people like Phineas Gage who was a railroad worker who was using a tamping rod until the gunpowder punched the tamping rod through his frontal lobe and changed his personality from a quiet, serious, reliable worker to an impulsive one that frequently got into fights.

The upside at least in BG3 is that Minsc doesn't seem to be still suffering headaches and since he seems happy with his lot in life and he's functional enough with Boo, there's not much else to do about it nor do I think Minsc would ever want pity for where he is in life.

Just a bit of fridge logic I hope is just overthinking.