There Are A Couple More Garrus-Vakarian-related Hills I'm Willing To Die On.

Bear: *licking paws* Halsin, you have odd companions. This one came over and wouldn't stop talking to me, but the honey he gave me is very good.

Gale: *Verrrrry carefully trying to slide away from the bear*

Concept: one of the companions chilling with Halsin in bear form just chatting about nonsense

then Halsin walks over

I know a lot of people think Halsin whittles a duck for the player simply because he likes them or for the metaphor of 'coming home', but I honestly think he's a sentimental creature and it goes deeper than that.

your very first conversation as friends, you have to push quite hard to learn what he likes. I think a century of being Archdruid meant people didn't actually care about who he was as a person, only that he could fix their problems.

So when the player makes an effort to get to know him - a genuine effort and not allowing halsin to give a polite dismissal- it's novel for him! And you've endeared yourself to him greatly with that one conversation.

So when he has the chance to make a gift for you, he chooses something out of the most romanticized memory in his mind.

The simple conversation where you got him to speak of whittling and ducks

A simple conversation for you, but one that meant the world to him

"You are the red of the sunrise, the yellow of high noon and the orange of sundown."

I did a double take when Wyll said that to Hemera as it suited her color palette really well.

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:

To add to this, Garrus can die in the suicide mission in ME2. ME3 is designed to go on without him in that scenario. You can flat out refuse to let him on the team in ME1. I have literally done a Shepard run who kept him off the team as much as possible (and discovered that his romance hinges on being on the team in ME1).

Meanwhile, I'm finding out that Liara had intentionally stayed quiet in ME1 about Tali's crush to increase her chances of getting with Shepard. That in of itself isn't a bad thing, but it does bring up questions as to whether she refused to update Ashley/Kaidan (to whom Shepard could even be romantically involved with) for the same reasons. She somehow can remember details on Tali's masturbation habits from 6 months ago to spite her in front of Shepard, but she couldn't remember to update Shepard's potential girlfriend/boyfriend about them being in Cerberus hands?! We should not be wondering whether Horizon is the result of Liara trying to sabotage Shepard's potential romantic relationship at Shepard's expense.

This is one of the many reasons why Liara creeps out people.

if u haven't read it a lot of liara's more action-oriented shift was told in the comics. the shadow broker DLC didn't quite capture how much effort she went thru to secure shep's body and how big feron's role. i personally welcome the change and while i like archeologist liara i think her ME1 characterization is so superficial. she's mostly just a fan girl. the shift is abrupt but it's nice that in ME2 she has her own thing going on outside shepard cos i believe the writers wrote her as the canon love interest in mind so her character often suffers from the fangirl disease. i think a lot of people in the fandom dislike how the game shove her to us so much. which is funny since another famous shepard ship is garrus, who's equally as pushed as liara and is just as much of a shep fan. it's just that he's a guy so he doesn't suffer sexist hate.

I haven't read/seen anything outside the games, no! I've been thinking of getting into that, but first I'd like to sort out all of my feelings wrt the main event - the games. I feel like if I got into the "peripheric" media, it could maybe influence how I view the games and i want to analyze those by themselves (i'm thinking i'll finish this playthrough + another one in which i might or might not play as mshep) and then see about everything else. Thank you for the rec, though! I knew there was extra stuff about tali and garrus but this is the first i'm hearing about liara <3

And well... let's be real, most of the squad is part of the Shepard fan club, even those that can't be romanced, like Grunt and Wrex. The fact that Shepard gets a breeding request in Tuchanka after completing grunt's loyalty mission is like the most Mary Sue thing ever (and I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way). The asari, sex symbols of the galaxy, are throwing themselves at them left and right (Liara, Shiala, arguably Sha'ira, Morinth...). Shepard is the main character, everyone wants a piece of them. It's one of the entertaining parts of the games (or at least I have a lot of fun with it, if maybe a little bit ironically).

I suppose people might single out Liara because she's the one whose actions are the most extreme, and thus it crosses the line from "cute" to "creepy", but she's not the only one. Legion literally wears the armor off their dead body. As I said in my post, maybe her actions and/or attitude aren't 100% justifiable, but they are understandable.

I'm not sure about the game pushing Garrus as a love interest (I think the game itself is skeptical of the player making this choice, like when Shepard says she "can't believe she finds comfort in the arms of a turian" or something like that), but I do think he's definitely meant to be one of the characters that's most influenced by Shepard, regardless of gender.

Personally, I think him being so popular a choice (at least on Tumblr, which has a mostly female userbase compared to other social media) is due to him being a man, yes, but not necessarily because of sexism (or not always), but because het ships are farrrr more popular than femslash. Also, it's very clear how much he respects Shepard in basically every aspect, and it's incredibly fucking rare to see a het relationship in such equal ground, especially with a """bad guy""" lmao. (though ME in general does quite good in that regard I think, the romances in general are not toxic™️ or unequal) (mostly... ignoring that Shepard is basically everyone's boss... lol).

I completely agree that there's a double standard in how female characters are expected to behave vs male ones, and from what i've seen Liara is 100% a victim of this (I had the very bad idea of reading some threads on reddit...yikes). I don't know the fandom enough to know how it compares in relation to Garrus in particular, though, or if there's a correlation between Shakarian fans and Liara haters.

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

Are y’all telling me you looked at Lucanis and expect him to have the understanding of himself that he’s demisexual?

The man doesn’t even realize he can buy his own wyvern tooth dagger with his own money. He’s not doing that kind of reflection.

You have been lied-- THIS is Snow White

As usual, prints are avaible here <3

Halsin strikes me as one of those workaholics who get antsy after about an hour of sitting down even if he had been doing hard labor since early morning.

Tav: Halsin. Halsin! Don't you dare.

Halsin: It will be just a moment, my heart.

Tav: Last time you said that, you were there for over an hour!

Halsin: But the scavengers will go after the dried meats if I don't take them down.

Tav: I swear, I will sit on you to get you to relax.

Halsin: Do what you must, my love.

*Halsin stands up and casually walks off with Tav clinging to his back like it's nothing*

Tav: 😐 *Clings for dear life*

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