I Know A Lot Of People Think Halsin Whittles A Duck For The Player Simply Because He Likes Them Or For

Garrus and Shepard on their honeymoon. Reports of her death have been greatly exaggerated.

Reach

Female Tav x Halsin

(Just a personal headcanon for one of my Tavs)

The Imp patagium laid on the highest shelf, just a few inches out of her reach if she went on tiptoe. Normally, not a terrible inconvenience if she floated a bit, but with the lambent flames cooking the suspensions and the steam of the sublimates, she was reluctant to risk an accidental brush with her robes. She tried approaching from the side, but the distance just felt longer. She tried placing a knee on the edge of the stone slab used as an alchemical workspace, but the shelf was behind the arrangement of vials and flames and stinging steam.

"Let me, my heart." One long, broad arm reached above her head to pluck the small vial. Looking upwards, she could see the smile on his face.

"I could have gotten that."

"Indeed you could." Wrapping one arm around her waist, Halsin laid a gentle kiss on her head. "But I figured this was easier for you."

Luth could feel herself relaxing into his embrace, swaying with him as they often did during their moments alone.

"Thank you. Really." She turned around, smiling as she reached up to take the patagium from him.

He kept it out of her grasp.

Puzzled, she extended her arm, all the while looking at his broadly grinning face that never changed. He inched it further from her hand. Dawning comprehension revealed the mischievousness in his smile as he leaned a bit further back.

"You're almost there," One step, then two before he had already led her away from the alchemy bench and had sat down on a nearby slab. Every time her fingertips grazed the glass, he'd swap hands with it.

"How-" She let out a huff of laughter. "-how are you so tall?!"

Frustration had her gripping his forearm with both hands, hands that still could not encircle his arm completely, pulling herself further up until she finally snatched the elusive ingredient with a triumphant cry.

"Aha!"

"Very well done, my heart."

His grin had never faded and she had now realized, that he had maneuvered her so that she'd be draped all over him. Only the clothing they wore separated them from fully feeling the length of each other's bodies. From his vantage, he had the satisfaction of watching his beloved's face flush redder and redder, mere inches from his.

"You planned this."

"Mm-hmm." Thick fingers had already slid under her embroidered robes, rubbing circles on bare skin. "Whatever should be done about that now?"

"You-" Luth could not even pretend to be mad, not with growing evidence of his interest beneath where her legs were straddling him. "This is why we're behind on our potion stock."

"By all means, don't let me stop you, my love."

Luth had to laugh. "You are dangerous."

His chuckle joined hers as the vial of patagium fell to the ground.

In light of the latest Discourse, I wanted to point out this as-yet unimplemented dialogue I datamined.

"Friendship is no consolation trophy."

That is the one thing you will never hear an incel, nice guy, etc say. It is the attitude of someone with a healthy sense of boundaries and respect for others.

enough silliness what’s y’all’s favorite fruit

Smaugust 2024 by Katy Lipscomb

A kiss in Bloomington Park

I don’t know if this means anything, but I’m glad you’re coming back. I really enjoyed reading your analysis and was looking forward to more.

I came back to check up on my account and whatnot, so I guess you could say I’m tentatively back. I might soon start visiting this account more often and typing up some bits on the meta posts I want to post.

I’ll probably make them non-rebloggable and turn off replies, and just accept asks. At least with asks, if there’s something inflammatory, I can just delete it and move on.

It might be a while, but I’ve got quite a few characters in the docket and I don’t want to just go away forever without trying to address them.

listen ima say it too many of y’all write Halsin like a big serious daddy dom with no humor and not nearly enough of you are writing him as a silly willy nilly ol’ bear

please he is canonically a big fan of nature puns and dancing like a dad at a barbecue and being a big goof

let that man laugh and be goofy I beg you he loves ducks and bedtime stories and playing games and being silly and he deserves to smile more

I've come to describing it as: What we need to find out if we'd want sex with someone is what others complain of as "friendzoning" (aka You must be this friend zoned to have a chance to go on this demisexual ride). Which is NOT an endorsement of being friends in hopes of getting sex. No one owes anyone sex. No one should be friends with an ulterior motive. But it's hard to describe demisexuality without finding an anchor point to something we live with in society. And all too frequently, I've experienced how swiftly friends stop being friends when sex is confirmed to be off the table. Friendly greetings turn cold, plans become empty promises, and laughter becomes silence when you're not interested in sex. How do people find anyone willing to do that attractive enough to fuck?

Sex without attachment is far more prevalent I think than society is willing to acknowledge. Otherwise, we wouldn't have jokes about sex on the third date, the shame of friendzoning, the "expiration date" theme as we age, or the dreaded "frigid" label. There'd never be emphasis of "If you liked it, ya shoulda put a ring on it", "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" And all sorts of "fun" colloquialisms that imply that the temptation of sex is present without the urge to commit to a relationship. Because, why caution others in acquiring commitment first if it's in our nature to only want sex when there are emotional bonds?

Ironically, I think we ought to be de-stigmatizing casual sex and instead be emphasizing consent, safety for health and generally not being a douche to your partners. I get the sense that this sex shaming causes a kind of sociopathic treatment of each other if we're not doing it for the "right" reasons (insert disclaimer about appropriate age being needed to discuss this topic), because it doesn't take long before I'm hearing a tone of disrespect towards anyone who likes casual sex as though they're unworthy of marriage material.

demisexuality can be so hard to explain because it’s misconstrued as you just wanting to trust the other person before you have sex with them. and I get why the misconception happens. But demisexuality differs in that there isn’t sexual attraction at all before that bond forms.

I think what people have difficulty with is the idea that there are people out there who aren’t experiencing sexual attraction at all until a certain point, if ever, because we’re taught that sex, libido, and sexual attraction are all the same, both in and out of queer spaces.

And when you’re learning about asexuality and demisexuality, you may learn that people have romantic and aesthetic attraction separately from sexual attraction, and that sexual and romantic attraction aren’t necessarily intertwined, and that may challenge your worldview on sex.

But “I trust you enough to have sex with you” isn’t the same as “I’m not sexually attracted to anyone but you, and the reason I’m sexually attracted to you now after we’ve established this close bond is literally because of the bond of trust we’ve been able to form”.

It’s easy to see how those can get conflated. On the surface, if you’re unfamiliar with asexuality, they may sound the same. But it’s important to acknowledge the difference between “no sex until I trust you” and “no sexual attraction unless I trust you and maybe not even then”.

Demisexuality is housed under the asexuality spectrum. It’s part of the gray area between being allosexual and asexual. It’s part of why the definition for asexuality includes “little to no sexual attraction”. It’s a mostly asexual experience with an asterisk.

While being demisexual may have impacts on a persons sexual activity, even demisexuals have a varied relationship to the act of participating in sex. Libido and sexual attraction are not always intertwined either, which can make telling the difference tricky.

I think of sexual attraction as libido that has a compass. Since I rarely ever experience sexual attraction, but do have libido, it’s noticeable for me when that libido actually has a direction to go, rather than being a floating, nebulous, independent thing.

Remember, not everyone is demisexual. There’s a difference between waiting to have sex and not having sexual attraction at all until a certain point. This also inherently ties demisexuality to romantic attraction and relationships, and not all demisexuals are alloromantic.

But if you read what demisexuality is and think “everyone is like that” or “that’s just being a woman”, you either 1) are demisexual 2) don’t understand what it is or 3) both. And it’s okay to not know. Just as long as you’re willing to try to learn.