Another Halsimp here, putting in my quick 2 cents. I came after a while of being inactive and Im surprised/unsurprised this is still a hot topic. I was pretty active in the other Halsin thread and once everyone okayed the epilogue I saw no reason to check back but I did now just to see whats going on. I choose to be mono so thats the perspective Im comming from. I would use the quote feature for some of this but Im on mobile and the things I wanted to respond to are across multiple pages. Gonna use memechan arrows for the quotes.

As much as I love Halsin, his act 3 personality and writing is really REALLY bad.

First of all:

>On top of that, he tells SH during the threesome while he's having sex with her, that seeing a woman flush with pleasure is a one of the most beautiful things for him to witness. He doesn't say things like this to Tav outside that very brief dialogue when Tav finally gets to sleep with him.

Holy crapola I nearly exploded reading this WHY COULDNT HE HAVE SAID THIS TO ME ;-;

>Also, Halsin is the definition of contradictory. He only wants you, but wants your partner to participate with the two of you in sexual activities. He doesn't want a relationship and tells you that you are free to roam as you please, yet you can define it as being a relationship by telling him your relationship with him is over, multiple times, to which he gets upset and says that loving you is difficult. He wants to join in on the threesome or orgy with the drow twins, even though you are all that he wants. And perhaps the most contradictory of all is the very fact that he is traumatized by what Ketheric Thorm and his dark justiciars did to him and the Harpers, causing him chronic PTSD and an obsession with ending them, yet, he lusts after SH almost more than Tav. Wtf!? He's an absolute mess.

It really feels like they diddnt take people who wanted Halsin added seriously. Even in all the fanart hes just a sex toy. In the game even if you go poly the others dont seem to consider him a real member of the relationship, just a side piece and nothing more. Theres one piece of fanart that is a short comic and Halsin refers to Astarion as the Tav's "bonded lover" and it really bothered me for some reason. Like he is clearly being used for just sex. In fact a lot of the sexual fan stuff is starting to feel gross. Its like all of the characters are just seen as sex objects by a lot of fans and it shouldnt bother me really but it does a little bit. Like when people put the dog collar on Astarion.

His contradictory behaviour deeply hurts us Halsin solomancers, which weve well established in the Halsin thread. It really feels like hes playing games. I dont care about wood elf "lore" as A) cultural norms arent hard fast rules, just look at Drizzt And B) him being poly isnt the same as throwing himself at anything and everything with a hole just because. Its like hes chasing some sort of high.

>The character seems to exist only to entertain polyamorous players and provide some practical benefit to the rest of us. Of course, there are Halsin fans out there, and they obviously hate this treatment of their favorite (Halsin fans, if anything, I'm sorry, I honestly don't want to hurt anyone's feelings).

This is true tho, and doesnt hurt my feelings as much because I understand the reality of the writing. Im sure the original intent was to allow people to romance him while not having to give up on the romance they spent the last 2 acts building, which will most likely be SH and Astarion. It just so happens to also fill in a niche for the poly people and the people who are all "teehee isnt this hawt I has two boyfrens!" But in the end hes written as a sexual novelty and convinient Orin bait. It only hurts my feelings because I love the character (act 1 and 2 mainly, there are afew bits in act 3 but theyre overshadowed) but I cant deny his bad writing and understand where the haters are comming from.

One more critisism that I have thought of since I left the old Halsin thread a while ago is:

I kind of dont like how he hates on the city, but I also kind of get it because he worships Silvvanus and I dont have to 100% agree with someone I love (Im in the process of writing some fanfiction about this) But some of his reasonings are...strange and I dont think his writer understands how nature works, which is why he comes off as a very delusional nature idealist druid. Its like the writer just thinks druids are holier than thou hippies.

I still love him though, its easy enough for me to see when its just bad writing and retcon it in my headcannon, which Im doing via fanfiction.