"After reading [an] email [from a player who is a stutterer, see below], however, I can say with some certainty that if Karima ever shows up again, she will have her stutter back - permanently - and we will continue to write her exactly as we did before. The knowledge that something we did (however unintentionally) touched someone in this kind of personal way is, to say the least, pretty damned great. This email showed me the power of inclusivity in all of its forms."

Player's e-mail:

I was playing Borderlands 2 today when I came across the NPC Karima in the medicine man mission. At first I was a bit angry she had a stutter - I was hit in the head with shrapnel from an IED in al-anbar Iraq and have problems talking - because the stereotypes surrounding stutterers are not kind. Communication is one of the defining pieces of humanity and when you cannot communicate to those around you, they tend to view you as lesser. I can't tell my daughter I love her without struggling through those 3 little words. I quickly realized the mission was written such and clearly illustrated just how evil Hyperion is. She was a very sympathetic character. Whoever wrote this went 180 degrees away from what I thought was going to happen in this case. Thank you. In a game where bat s### craziness is the norm - the writers injected a very subtle bit of humanity. For whatever reason, this really struck me. Thank you for taking the high road here. You skipped over cheap laughs here and in so doing made a big impact. Thank you.