#while the object of his affections is... just a short hairy little dwarfy priest-man

[invinciblerodent]

Now that I'm thinking about it the next morning (with a groggy but still kind of fresher, less emotional mind), I honestly feel like... this one scene recolored Gale's character entirely in my mind, including all the scenes I didn't/won't personally see, but have seen recordings of (because I knew they weren't gonna happen in my own game lol).

Like breaking up with him, inviting Halsin in as a third, and cheating on him... yeah, knowing that Gale, if you only allow him, will all but give you his entire self in a kind of devotion that borders on zealotry, those scenes *definitely* hit a different tone. And yes, the player character's actions can definitely be understandable (from a point of view of a more realistic intensity), but... Gale IS that intense, and YOU not being that absurdly devoted to him still shows sort of an irreconcilable incompatibility in the ways the characters view their relationship.

What I mean is....

Of COURSE Gale's the monogamous sort. That's not to say other loves would be lesser, it's just that... you're his only thought. The mortal words and hands are a vehicle so imperfect that using them to express his feelings for you is like squeezing a tidal wave into a mason jar, and when you said "I'm in love with you too" and accepted him, he dared to believe you feel the same kind of sweeping, staunch, *overwhelming, singular* love he does. He says "I'm in love with you", because he can't say "Every molecule, every atom and vibration of my being, both earthly and celestial, mundane and divine, body and soul, belong to you, if you'll have it- in exchange, please let me too have all of you, let our souls intermingle, and let half of our scrambled, united beings make a home in my body, and half in yours". Because that sounds too weird, even for him, and he's... really just thinking "of course, this is what love is, everyone knows this is what love feels like, you're SUPPOSED to feel like your heart is about to fall out of your body through your mouth and asshole at the same time. You're SUPPOSED to feel like you're painfully constricted by your own mortal flesh, and like you want to melt into the other person to reconstitute the Platonic ideal of a singular human, prior to when the heavens split us all in half and condemned us to forever be searching for the rest of our complete selves in others. That's, like, totally NORMAL relationship-stuff.". (I think that's part of why afterwards he states, very clearly, that none of his feelings about Mystra are love. Because I think he DOES have a kind of love her still, that's why he says it's difficult to let it go, but it's just not what HE considers love. He'd never choose her over you, but any other person would probably still say his feelings for her are so complicated because they are still tinged with love. He understood inexclusivity with her because, um, duh, it was a toxic relationship and she was all wrong in so many ways for him, but tasting being an equal again for the first time in so long....! Definitely feels so much different! And finally feeling like an equal has him feeling almost selfish about his love!)

And of COURSE sleeping with another immediately shatters that illusion for him- in that moment he knows you didn't fall the same way he did (even though/if your love is genuine too, it's still very different from his), and he... feels foolish, like he fundamentally misunderstood the nature of your relationship, or worse- like YOU misunderstood HIM, even when he felt the most understood. (And that's also got to be frustrating, because he KNOWS that mind-melding, essence-mingling astral sex, while the best possible way to convey his feelings, wasn't a way that's immediately understandable by everyone- and there just ISN'T A BETTER ONE.)

And of course breaking up with him, or saying that this was actually just a bit of fun for you (not an earth-shattering, heaven-rending, *fundamentally self-alreting* experience of finally being seen, known, and still loved by an equal) has him retreating into humor (with that "oh, would you look at that, there's dust in my eye" line) and excusing himself to collect the mask he so carelessly tossed off and shattered in that moment of perceived understanding.

Just...... goddamn.

I'm feeling a lot of things.

So, uh.... my boy has finally got a boyfriend, I finally got Gale's second romance scene, and... man. I have a LOT of thoughts and feelings, and woefully few words to describe them. (But I'll try to keep it vague, lol.)

I honestly love how the writers didn't shy away from writing this to be something so earnestly, unapologetically STRANGE, but so heartfelt and romantic. That Weave scene, while it sounds weird on paper, I honestly don't think I've seen a romance scene that was more representative of a character before. I already felt like I related to Gale quite a bit, but now, I feel like I see him on almost a whole new level. Now, he showed just how deeply INTENSE a man he is.

Yeah, there is a bit of showboating in him (though I've always kinda seen that as less of a "look how awesome I am" and more a "look how useful I can be, please like me"), and overall he presented a pretty restrained image- but now, with that recolored by this, I feel like it all goes to show how he really just YEARNS for someone to know him. It most shows in how after telling him that you love him too, he immediately throws all his doors open, invites you in, whisks you away to the part of the world that feels most meaningful to him, shows you all that he feels important- the Weave included.

He wants to show you everything, to share all that he feels is himself with you, be DEEPLY, INTIMATELY KNOWN by you... and he just wants to GIVE you so much, show you so much love, so much pleasure, so much OF HIMSELF, that just one set of limbs, just one of him isn't even enough! He wants to melt into you, hold you with more limbs than a human could ever possess, become one with you and give you all that he is while taking in all that you are...!!!!

And all he wants in return is that you accept him, with a his... unusual, eager, awkward, kind, smart-mouthed, somewhat melodramatic, loving, silly, deeply DEVOTED self, and his love that feels so vast, he wouldn't be able to fully express it even if there were three of him. This man is so full of love for you, he's all but bursting at the seams.

I feel... emotional. I don't think I've ever been THIS moved by a video game love scene (I can't even bring myself to call it a sex scene, these mfs didn't just have sex, they made love), like I know that feeling!!!! I've FELT that before!!!!! And I, as myself, a person, not as someone roleplaying a character, felt weirdly SEEN just now!!!!

I'm just overall very impressed.

.... Oh, and the way he drops on one knee to kiss his new, dwarfy boyfriend? Just adorable. I know all companions do that when they touch a shorter player character (I still love the way Karlach crumpled into my boy's arms in the hug scene), but it still feels kinda special.

(You just know these two assholes are going to be so deeply OBNOXIOUS about being in love. Like yes, they already were, but now that they know their feelings are mutual, they'll be like... fkin holding hands while traveling, and cuddling by the fire, and all that cutesy shit. God, I'm so endeared.)