#and like astarion is plucked out of his personal hell knowing if he plays his cards right

[bhaalsdeepbat]

Astarion and Karlach are perfect foils showing how trauma from having autonomy ripped from you, your body forcibly changed, and then used as a pawn serving a master can present wildly different, but still with that same under layer of RAGE.

[hey-doobnnoob]

i just saw your post about your tiefling and i love him, for starters. he's pretty. but since no one else has said it: i wanna hear about him and gale.

oh no you've opened floodgates you're gonna regret opening

I'm just as bad about these two as I am about Michael and Astarion, but that's for another day if anyone opens the floodgates on my Mike playthrough of BG3 (or if anyone wants to look at his admittedly still incomplete page on his TH profile for my BG3 stuff on him)

also yes, thank you. Verrik IS very pretty, he needs to be told that more often

more about Verrik and Gale under the cut tho. this isn't all of my ramblings.. but I'll stop myself here before I have a novel's worth of it

fun fact: Tiefling tails are described as being cat-like. so more just for balance and not prehensile or anything

why is that relevant? well just like cats, when Verrik feels as if he's not getting enough attention, he will absolutely "accidentally" start to knock Gale's cup of tea over with his tail

unlike a cat, Verrik's tail wags furiously at the smallest amount of praise Gale gives him. he never knew his tail could do that before

Verrik is actually super mild-mannered and level headed. he's normally extremely quiet and more likely to try and talk things out before he resorts to any sort of violence. that being said, Lorroakan was the first person to ever make Verrik unleash the fury of the Hells all in one Tiefling after how he spoke about Gale to his face

Verrik and Gale have this mutual feeling of gods I don't deserve you. Gale because of his history of having to constantly prove himself to everyone around him in order to earn their love and because of how patient Verrik is with him working through all of his trauma, and Verrik because he genuinely doesn't know why a guy like Gale would give some regular dime-a-dozen Tiefling like him the time of day. they deserve each other

Verrik is constantly impressed with everything magic related Gale does, no matter how small. he's always in awe over how well he can just control the Weave so effortlessly, as if he can't just turn into a massive fucking Owlbear on command as a Druid and also can perform spells on a whim

everyone who loves Gale (which should just be everyone but for whatever reason there's a lot of people out there who just insist on being wrong) always complains about his asking for a kiss animation when romancing him. which fair. but also I play into the headcanon that both Gale and Verrik are just the exact opposite of Michael and Astarion (bc I bounce back and forth between combining their playthroughs) and are just so flustered at the idea of PDA. alone, they'd happily be all over each other. if there's even one other living thing nearby, it's small touches bc public affection just ain't their thing. like hand holding or leaning on each other or whatever

upon first meeting Tara, Verrik panicked to Gale after she flew off because he wanted to know if Gale thought she liked him. did she approve? does she hate me?? GALE PLEASE I DON'T WANT HER TO HATE ME WHAT DO I DO?!?! Gale had to spend the next several minutes patting his back and reassuring him Tara doesn't hate him

Gale's favorite thing to do after they move into his tower together and get married is to conjure up a little red dot and watch Verrik and Tara chase it around the room. Verrik is essentially a cat in a Tiefling's body, it's no wonder Gale fell in love with him

Verrik has a hard time reading after he allowed Volo to pluck out his eye and give him a false one. so instead he just cuddles up to Gale and has him read to him. neither of them mind, Gale likes talking and Verrik could listen to him all day

Gale teaches Verrik how to cook so after he becomes a professor, he doesn't have to worry about his husband starving at home without him. Verrik uses this as an excuse to bring Gale a freshly made, home cooked lunch every day and join his classes for a bit