Opuspace

In case anyone wants to hear it in game or keep his approval level low so that he never brings up romantic feelings, casting charm or friendship scrolls or spells on him will artificially lower it for you every time it's cast. Just make sure to stop once he hits Low Approval and you'll get to hear the disapproving snark in all its glory without him leaving the party.

Or just keep going if you want him to leave.

low approval/annoyed Halsin is so funny he's just

"I can NOT be assed to help you useless twats but FINE... I will anyway for FUCK'S sake"

Thinking about Halsin coping with the stress of the city through sex with Tav, trying to soothe his ravaged nerves by burying his nose into their neck until their scent drives out the unwelcome reminders of death in the streets, of unwashed bodies and pollution toxins in the air. Thinking about him seeking comfort in their warmth, of wanting them clasped around his arousal until he and they are mindlessly driving each through another orgasm, his hands splintering and cracking the edges of the wooden table holding Tav's weight because nothing of this artificial world can withstand his strength. How the patches of greenery and trees make his longing worse because it reminds him of the world he wants to share with Tav, to hold them close so they can hear the birdsong that's not here in this crowded hell and feel the moonlight he would have summoned to bathe them both in at night. Halsin holding Tav a bit more tightly, a bit longer than they usually would have, deciding that one more dive, one more taste of his dazed lover's body will give him the peace he needs to endure another day until their mission is done. And all the while, Tav is unaware of the comfort he's taking into their presence, seeing them as an unspoken dream he has no right to ask for, his selfish need for them manifesting as desperate passion each night.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Larian doesn't abandon BG3 and continue making new patches and adding new content. Hovewer, I find it very exhausting: I played the game when it came out. I saw how unfinished it was. I played the prologue when they released it. But I still have either the same or similar issues with the game since the day they released it?

Halsin's trauma (and his personality somehow) is still being taken as a joke. He still isn't an origin companion and doesn't really have much lore behind him.

Astarion, as great as his story is written, still has the most interactions with the character you're playing as, the most quests. They poured a lot of resources into him at the cost of forgetting everyone else (especially Halsin and Wyll).

Lastly, what about people that can't bring themselves to replay the entire game for the second, third, fourth, fifth (etc) time? Why do I get to experience the "finished" game at the release and then a year, two years later I learn that there's tons of new content I'm missing on because it became clear that the devs actually didn't finish the game when it came out of Early Access?

Technically, I can replay the game. But I find it way too boring, exhausting, and overwhelming to do all the quests for the second, third time. I can't even push myself thought the main quests, knowing I'm missing on so many missions, and interactions, and leveling up, and romance. So I just... don't?

I just want to experience the game the way it's supposed to be. Like wiyh red Dead Redemption 2—what a masterpiece. Rockstar took their time and created exactly what they wanted people to experience. How is it too much to ask for BG3, too?

Yeah, patch 7 is live. That's great. They couldn't made it into the finished game, though? Upon release? The game should've been in early access for another year or two. And have much more closed beta testers of every kind. They wouldn't get such a huge feedback as they got after "full" releasing the game, but they could've still improved it tremendously.

I don't know, man. I'm sad and exhausted. I want to experience all those new interactions, but I don't have the energy and motivation to do so. It's way too repetitive and, as I already said, overwhelming.

Which one of the companions makes you feel the SAFEST? (You, not your OC! For the sake of this question, you and this companion don't know each other well and are trapped alone together for a week. You don't get into any battles but you must share space, sleeping quarters, and food)

Safe being defined as Physically, mentally, AND emotionally

Please share this for a larger sample size!

seeing straight men be disgusted by booktok smut recommenders has actually radicalized me to the side of booktok smut recommenders. girls your taste may be atrocious but i will never disparage you for exposing mainstream discourse to the concept of soaking through your underwear. spent my whole life listening to men talk about penises it’s about time they get jumpscared by women talking about pussy in crude detail on social media. go forth and goon my warriors

"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."

"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."

One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.

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.

Look, can we please, NOT hate on Maximus to ship Ghoulcy? I like Ghoulcy, but I also like Max.

Got tired of the fandom shipping wars and the frequent harassment from some of the fans who hated Ghoulcy.

I don't need to hate on a character to like a ship. I don't want the ghoulcy fandom to be like the haters.

I see this confusion time and time again, despite explanations that personality matters a great deal to many players and not just looks. Garrus was written as a character first, not tailored to what people think women want. And this isn't a knock on the other romances either. People loved them because of their personality just as much too. The point being is that our reasons, despite the tendency for "critics" cheapening our love for this character as some shallow freak fetish, are just as based on the bonds developed over time.

It's funny; Garrus' romance is a pretty good summation of what demisexuality is. He wasn't physically attracted to Shepard by his own admission, but his respect and admiration makes him able and willing to explore a romantic side of it with her until he does develop a physical attraction to her in ME3. In fact, you literally can't romance him if you deliberately kept him off the team in ME1. No history, no bond, no romance.

He's brash, but respectful. He's reckless but wants to do good. He's stubborn but listens if Shepard disagrees. He has strong opinions and isn't afraid to voice them, but that's never harmed the friendship he can have with Shepard.

He's one of the first teammates there for Shepard she can trust when she had woken up alone and struggling in an organization she does not trust.

It's a little disappointing that we have to repeatedly say, the personality matters in our attraction to a character. Especially if we're particularly struggling to feel sexual attraction at a glance.

Do you think Mass Effect's character writers deserves more recognition for how they managed to turn an entire generation of people sexually and/or romantically and/or aesthetically attracted to someone who is essentially a featherless spacebird?

No because they did it entirely by accident, tried to placate the confusing requests by female fans to make him romanceable but because that was not something they planned for they were still writing him primarily removed from being a romance partner and were more focused on writing him as the "best friend" character to MShep (not realising this is EXACTLY why the female players (as well as gay players) liked him) and by Mass Effect 3 they just threw up their hands and went "WELL HELL! YOU GUYS LIKE HIM SO MUCH YOU GET ALL THE ROMANCE THEN!!!"

Garrus' writing as a romance was a perfect storm of factors, many completely out of the writers' control that even they themselves completely missed until their players POINTED IT OUT TO THEM. Garrus is lightning in a bottle of unplanned factors, incredible voice performance, the writers willing to comply to player feedback, and the symbiotic relationship Bioware had with their fans and players.

Garrus is an incredibly well written character in his own right, that's WHY he's such a good romance option and the best one Bioware has ever had. But a part of this was luck, chance, and willingness to adapt his character to what a subsection of fans wanted.

Proof further by every single romance Bioware has since written with the INTENT of making them exactly what their female players want, never hit the same way Garrus did. And speaking personally, none of their other romance characters in any of their games scratches the same itch.

Also "Featherless Spacebird" means nothing to me because my "sexual attraction" level is lower than 0. It's not DESPITE him looking like that. It's BECAUSE he looks like that. Not because I find him physically attractive, but because he does not resemble something I am supposed to be physically attracted to in any way shape or form.

I like the way Garrus looks because he's Garrus. And because I like Garrus it means I like the way the turians look.

The caveat of "essentially being a featherless space bird" implies that "haha isn't it CRAZY gamers would be attracted to THAT???"

no.

His personality, voice, performance, and writing is wonderful. Why WOULDN'T players be attracted to that?

Smaugust 2024 by Katy Lipscomb