Hear me out.

So I’ve been playing through the second game on my first run through the trilogy and after getting to the Shadowbroker’s base I read through Tali’s suit process log. I had a bit of a laugh at her constant uninstalling and reinstalling of “Nerve-stim Pro,” which based on what she says in an optional dialogue tree and what another quarian says on Illium, is implied to be a way quarians can engage in sexual stimulation without removing their suits.

Haha, funny, right? I mean, anyone who’s romanced Tali knows she’s both a horny virgin and an adorably hopeless romantic. This is just a fun little gag like Miranda’s underwear subscription.

Only… it’s not.

See, I’ve been trying to work on my writing lately and for practice I decided to conduct an analysis of Tali’s character and today it hit me like a ton of bricks that this *little lewd joke* is actually a deeper glimpse into Tali’s personality and psychology that I ever would’ve thought.

See, Tali has only two major character flaws I’ve been able to pin down:

1. She overthinks EVERYTHING (relatable)
2. She puts her crew, the flotilla, and her friends before herself to an extreme extent.

Tali, having grown up in the cramped corners of a crowded ship, saddled with the high expectations of her father, and raised in a culture that HEAVILY values societal contribution (to the point where they send people out on dangerous pilgrimages) has a habit of looking at everything as it pertains to the greater good.

When not deployed with you, she spends all her time working on the ship. She remarks in the first game how uncomfortable having a quiet space to sleep makes her feel because she’s not used to it. Hell, the conversation that leads into romancing her opens with her admitting she’s fighting a cold but doesn’t want to stop working. She is selfless by her very nature.

So, back to her masturbation habits. How does this relate to anything I’m talking about? Well, think about it. Why would someone uninstall a sexual stimulation program repeatedly only to reinstall it? It’s not like the functions of her suit are public knowledge nor is she clearing space for anything else.

Her behavior is consistent with feelings of shame.

Now, here’s where things get interesting. Tali is far from having a sex-negative mindset. She is a sassy, confident dork who gets flustered whenever her commander walks by. Tali is down bad for male shep (in a really wholesome way) so WHY is she repeatedly deleting her suit’s stimulation function?

Because she isn’t used to doing things solely for herself. She’s a selfless soul and an overthinker. Notice how on the romance path she rejects the idea of using the software and instead wants to put her health and life at risk just to have physical mutual contact with Shepard. She says it’s what she wants, but when she comes into Shepard’s room later she’s stressing out over not picking music *he’d* like and what *he* thinks and *he* wants. My theory is a part of her wanted to take the risk purely because she needs everything to be mutually beneficial. The pleasure can’t be one-sided.

Tali isn’t used to having selfish desires. “Self-care” isn’t a term she would understand. She’s got people to take care of, her body’s needs be damned.

And I think that’s why her first kiss is such a beautiful moment. Once Shepard takes off her mask (literally as she’s babbling about what she worries he’d think) she just lets it all go and kisses him before he can say anything. For the first time she does something without worrying about “the big picture” and instead purely because she wants to. She finally has a moment of sexual agency without shame or anxiety.

Tali’s sexual journey of self-acceptance is honestly really realistic and well-written.

That or I’m totally overthinking it, which is appropriate given who we’re talking about.

EDIT: Thank you all for taking the time to read my fan theory! I honestly wasn’t expecting this much of positive reception, though I did expect to be called a neckbeard a lot and- listen, I don’t own the [official Bioware licensed Tali bodypillow](https://gear.bioware.com/products/tali-zorah-body-pillow-case) yet so there’s still hope for me.

I would just like to add a few lines of dialogue from ME2 that add some more legitimacy to my analysis.

She apologizes to Shepard for confessing her attraction to him, saying “I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was being stupid. And *selfish*.”

Shepard then says “You’ve never been selfish. If anything, you’ve spent too much time thinking of the Fleet and not enough thinking of yourself.”

She then says “That might be true for humans, but quarians are different. We can’t just… We have to think of other people. Always.”