Abolish Tesla.

People are so weird about Halsin and other characters, I hate fandom sometimes.

Actually I am curious now!

Personally I am sex repulsed ace but I love video game romances because I enjoy seeing what makes those little pixel fellas tick. Plus to me, it's just as much a part of the fantastical adventure story as all the bandit/goblin/demon murders committed by my character.

(Also sorry for not exploring the entire attraction spectrum, I ran out of poll options! Demi folks, consider yourselves part of the ace umbrella)

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:

Also, another flaming hot take, but it kind of irritates me when people put Halsin confessing his feelings to you on the same level as Mizora literally trying to use you to mess with your companions, I see so many comics with people using that as a joke and like...no??? Mizora is literally a manipulative monster and an abuser who is trying to use you to mess with your friends and feed her ego. Her coming on to you has everything to do with wanting to hurt Wyll (because sleeping with his abuser is absolutely betraying him whether you are romancing him or not) and sow dissention in your group (because your love interest will generally be upset). Halsin is literally pouring his heart out to you because he trusts you and he accepts rejection gracefully, sorry you're not attracted to men, that's 100% okay but it doesn't mean your bad faith freak out is canonically accurate. Sorry if you're attracted to men but just not Halsin, that's also valid, but it doesn't make him a creep for expressing his feelings and gracefully accepting your rejection. Believe it or not, it is 100% okay to not be attracted to someone and just move on when they politely accept that an apologize. Stop being weird.

Me after clicking on Halsin: WHAT THE-oh right. Patch 6. Hoo, that was unexpected.

Me 6 minutes later, selecting Halsin: YOU CAN TAL-Right. Right. He can now talk.

Me: ........

Me: *click* *click* *click* *click*

You have been lied-- THIS is Snow White

As usual, prints are avaible here <3

I really do like headcanoning that a shakarian romance would have a great impact on turian-human relations throughout the galaxy (especially if we pretend that SPOILER Shepard somehow doesn't die).

Because Shepard definitely is a public figure, especially by the time ME3 rolls around and Garrus is calling Shepard his girlfriend left and right. But the first contact war only happened 26 years before ME1 so tensions are obviously still fresh between their two species. But also, as media has always shown us, a romance is always more sexy and compelling than a peace treaty.

So maybe Shepard and Garrus accidentally actually make relations between their two species really really good. Like repairing decades old wounds good. The two militaries start doing more joint trainings together because of the proof of how good Shepard's team is. More ships like the Normandy are built. Turian-human romantic relationships gradually become less and less of a taboo with them being the poster children for it.

And maybe they never say anything officially but various sources have overheard Garrus Vakarian refer to himself as Shepard's boyfriend and in both political and casual settings Commander Shepard is rarely seen without her right hand turian attached to her hip.

And as much as they both claim to want to retire post-war, the workaholics in them keep them active in their military and politics. So the cameras are still on them constantly, but since they're respected war heroes, the major news networks feel like speaking on their personal lives and asking questions would be inappropriate. And yet, the talking points Garrus and Shepard choose are often about how they are campaigning for more inter-species adoption and how cross-species colonies are vital to the galaxy's rebuilding efforts right now. And Garrus is often seen taking calls from Earth and Shepard from Palaven. So their legacy and mystery continues, and both turians and humans seen their friendship or romance as a pillar in their diplomacy efforts.

"Do you know how hard it's been for me to contain myself?"

A little comic about Halsin.

There are a couple more Garrus-Vakarian-related hills I'm willing to die on.

Maybe this particular bit of fanon has faded over the years, but there used to be a lot of insistence that Garrus is young and somehow inexperienced when he meets Shepard. Canon doesn't really support this. Turians start their mandatory service at 15. Garrus has at least a decade of experience. Even if he's 2-4 of years younger than Shepard (according to Patrick Weekes), he's got at least as much field experience as she does by dint of the difference in turian and human "enlistment" ages.

Garrus is really damn good at his job at C-Sec. You don't give the Case of Investigating the Rogue Spectre to a greenhorn. You give it to your best, most tenacious agent. Pallin may not always approve of Garrus's actions, but that doesn't actually stop him from putting Garrus on the tough case. Also, we don't know much about how C-Sec works but we do know a bit about how the turian hierarchy works, and we know C-Sec was essentially a turian initiative. That means it's a meritocracy where failure reflects on the superior, not the one who failed. So, in roughly a decade (Shepard's 29 in ME1; I always think of Garrus as about 27), Garrus has not only done shipboard military service, but he's also risen to be one of C-Sec's top investigators; Pallin wouldn't risk having Garrus's "failure" reflect poorly on HIM otherwise. I'd say that actually makes Garrus as remarkable in civilian law enforcement terms as Shepard is considered to be within the ranks of the Alliance military.

Of course Garrus was scouted by the Spectre program. And honestly, if his dad hadn't stepped in, I think Garrus would have become a Spectre, no problem. Especially for a turian, he's cut from precisely the cloth the Spectres would be looking for: extremely skilled, extremely capable, and--most importantly--he's a turian not just able but willing to work outside the chains of command that turians are taught from birth to revere and be loyal to above all else. This is the reason Pallin is leery about Spectres: he's a good turian. Good turians follow straight lines; they don't carve out their own paths.

Garrus's dad's not dumb, and he's not cruel, and he, too, rose to the top of the C-Sec hierarchy. He took one look at his kid, I think, and said, "I love my child, but I'd say it's a 50-50 chance he ends up a shooting-first-asking-questions-later Spectre like Saren Arterius, and I don't want to see that happen." Yeah, he uses his parental influence to try and jam square-peg-Garrus into round-hole-C-Sec and Garrus resents him for it, but there's no way he did it just to stop his son from getting his way or because he doesn't like Spectres. I expect Vakarian Sr. had to clean up more post-Spectre-interference messes than we can possibly imagine. But we also know he and Alec Ryder were pals later.

So the importance of what Garrus learns from a Paragon Spectre Shepard is this: You can't just do what you want and claim the ends always justify the means. That's what Saren does. Over and over again. Garrus's code and his idealism and his sense of justice and his ability to work alone should make him a great Spectre, actually, but he needs Paragon Spectre Shepard's actions to show him the lesson he tells her he's learned during ME1: "If the people I'm sworn to protect can't trust me... well, then I don't deserve to be the one protecting them." (And the seed of Archangel was planted.) I think for the first time he realizes that even though he believes his sense of justice to be correct, it doesn't matter for shit if he can't show others why that's so. And that's where the trust comes in. (Also, ow, the extra level of importance this gives their exchange where she tells him she trusts him and he tells her she's about the only friend he has left is... a lot. Cool, cool. I'm totally fine. Nothing to see here.)

When Shepard asks him what happened on Omega, he replies, "My feelings got in the way of my better judgement." Something tells me that this never happens to "good" turians, which just makes the line so much more devastating. And although the lesson some might take away from this is "feelings bad; no feelings ever," the "grey" that Garrus has to learn to deal with is precisely the grey of recognizing feelings, validating them even, but not acting on them until they've been examined. (Which is why my Shepard stands between him and Sidonis; she doesn't give a shit about Sidonis. But Garrus has refused to process his own feelings of failure and self-loathing, so they have to take the therapy session to the Citadel and deal with it there.)

Ahh yes. The mountain range of character analysis.

Norm previu o futuro:)