#and gale is charming in an entirely different way but deeply deeply awkward

[sith-shenanigans]

Benen’s wildly different dynamic with their partners is so funny to me. With Gale they’re trying to flirt but because they’re an Autistic Wizard Of All Time and so is he this amounts to talking about magic with him a lot and and being slightly competitive about it and expecting this to register as flirting (it does not), and then when this doesn’t work they just. Telepathically beam him an image of them kissing him. And look, he’s into this, but there is a reason he is convinced that this came out of godsdamned nowhere.

Meanwhile, they keep saying the most flirtatious things possible to Astarion and they are still entirely in denial that they have intentions other than academic interest. Their dynamic started as “local necromancer attempts to plot how to improve vampire spawn’s unlife as the first proper test of their capabilities since they graduated,” and as far as Benen’s concerned, that’s still exactly what this is. Nevermind that every time he goes on his amazing villainous-dork rambles it’s absolutely awakening something in them. Nevermind that he broke his mirror and they responded by staring wordlessly at him until he said something, volunteering to be his mirror, and then immediately complimenting him on something not-conventionally-attractive.

It’s 100% “me and the bad bitches I pulled by being autistic” except for Astarion who’s just so weird and traumatized that he somehow started throwing off whatever metaphysical pheromones attract interpersonally inept wizards. Not one of these people knows how to have a normal social interaction. Somehow out of all three of them, Benen is the one with the highest charisma.