#anyway this is mae she's a sword bard and a semi-secret noble and her dream guardian looks like her dad which is just me being mean to her

[achantersayswhat]

This post is a formal apology to Gale Dekarios of Waterdeep, who I spent my first couple of runs aggressively friendzoning because I was worried I'd trigger his romance path accidentally because I thought he had that vibe*. I am now doing a Gale romance run and have a better appreciation for how much work you actually have to put in to get this man to try and fuck you. Mae has been trying to hit since the tiefling party** and wishes it did not take the threat of imminent orb explosion to get them across the finish line but what are you gonna do.

*I attribute this fear at least partially to the fact that even if you're not romancing Gale you get some cutscenes with him that are CLEARLY potential romance setups so like on my first run I had Saffria who is just trying to a) get her vampire boyfriend to admit he has feelings for her and/or b) get her druid crush to stop eyefucking her and start actually fucking her and instead of making progress towards either of those goals she is currently sitting on a blanket under a starry sky with Gale while he says things like "the timelessness of lovers" and Saffria is like "look I want to be gentle because I know you're dealing with a lot right now but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh buddy where is this going".

**Mae DID end up sleeping with Astarion in the meantime because what is she gonna do, NOT sleep with the hot vampire who propositions her at a party, and I was a little worried about that because I've never broken up with anyone in this game before, but fortunately I got the post-Araj version of the feelings talk before Gale's romance scene and Astarion's reaction to being told "maybe what you need is a friend" is actually lovely so that worked out fine.