#(though when I replay him idk if I'll pick a dwarf again)

[invinciblerodent]

Yeah, I didn't end up making much of an actual point in this (don't drink and post kids)- I was gonna say something about how reflective this is of the conditional, transactional nature of the affection he had received before now (from Mystra primarily, whom I'd like to beat to death with a steel chair), but I think I whizzed right by that.

Anyway, gifted kid experiences romantic love that's not tied to his power and performance for the first time; is genuinely shocked about it, I relate on a visceral level.

I love Gale's "With you, I forget my goddess" as much as the next person, but my favorite line in this whole scene is the one that breaks my heart into one million tiny little pieces, and that's "You would really prefer me as I am?"

The disbelief in his voice. That pained desperation to make you understand what he's trying to say. He can't believe that you'd really prefer him, the him that he is, with his... mortality, moral failings, jealousy, occasional arrogance, all his limitations and flaws? And you would. You DO. You'll say it as many times as it takes.

And yet, despite being explicitly told that you think him perfectly deserving of you and all that your relationship is, that he is enough and that you love the man he is rather than the power he commands, Gale... really just can't seem to believe it. Throughout the entire romance (so far, I honestly don't know), he' really can't seem to believe his luck. He's just so hung up on this feeling of being undeserving of happiness, of forgiveness, acceptance, and of love.

JUST LOOK AT HIM!!!!!!!!!

LOOK AT HIM!!!!!!!!

That fondness! Devotion! Doubt! Anxiety and relief all in one! He's been knocked speechless, he looks like he's exactly one second from crying, and all he's been told is literally just that you don't need him to be a god, he can just be himself, because you, his lover (of several weeks, maybe even months at this point) already loves him! As he has been told already!!!!!!

God, I can't get over just how much this man cares about this... weird, arbitrary notion he has in his pretty skull that a person is capable of being somehow more, or less deserving of being loved, rather than simply having inherent value.

Or, actually, I just can't get over this man, period.

I may not be entirely sober tonight, but I'm feeling all of the feelings about this goddamn handsome bunch of emotional issues pixels.