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writtenobsession · 28 days

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The Blind Man’s Folly

Gale x Tav?

Summary: Fem Tav, who has been chasing after Gale, finally decided to move on after being hurt one to many times. Modern AU

A/N: I literally wrote this in a sleepless night. I just want this off my chest. I have to listen to music to try to sleep, but got inspired instead. I’m not sure about this, but take it as it is. I don’t think I’ll back to this. Wrote this in my notes app.

Words: Unknown, I wasn’t keeping track

Tav was excited for the evening. It was supposed to be a monthly movie night with Gale and Tara, but he got a call halfway through the movie. Tav heart dropped a bit. She sighed and told him to answer it. He got off the couch and walked into the hallway. He was gone for just a few moments and came back with his cheeks flushed.

“I’m sorry Tav, but I have to step out for a moment.” She glanced at the movie then back to him.

“Will you be long? It was getting good.”

“I shouldn’t be more than an hour?” He slowly inched his way towards the door before she waved him off.

“I promise to make it up to you.” He said as he quickly dipped out the door and locking it behind him. His apartment fell silent. Tav turned towards Tara sleeping in her armchair.

“It’s just you and me again, huh?”

Tara’s ear twitched in acknowledgment. Tav pulled her notebook from her bag and jotted down her thoughts of the day and her crushed feelings. This wasn’t the first the she’s felt her heart break from Gale. He’s been doing it for a little over two years, but she couldn’t bring herself to move on. She loved the spark in his eyes when he could talk about his favorite subjects or it was smile he gives her when she eats his cooking that she loved, but it was getting harder.

She set her notebook on the coffee table glanced at her phone. An hour had passed, but not a word from him. She hesitated for a moment before settling on calling him. It rang for a moment before it was sent to voicemail. Hearing his voice hurt a bit, but she wasn’t surprised. She set her phone down and curled up before pulling the blanket off the back of the couch, trying to feel some comfort. Her mind feeling a bit cruel, she reminded herself of a song she’s heard plenty of times. Breaking the silence of the apartment, she began to softly sing out the sad lyrics, “Feeling kind of sick tonight.” She was lost in the lyrics, feeling the sting of every verse that described her love life to a T. Reaching the end of the song, she felt her voice start to strain. “Let you break my heart again.” Instead of silence taking over once more, her soft crying was the last thing she heard before drifting off to sleep.

The next moment, a gentle shake wake Tav. Through blurry eyes, she sees Gale. He looks down at her with such sad eyes and apologizes. He looks disheveled, like he didn’t get any sleep. “Tav, I didn’t realize,” he thought about his next words, but couldn’t come up with anything, “I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean?” Sleepy and confused, she raises herself and tilts her head to the side. The blanket she used slide off her shoulders. She rubbed her eyes and looked him over. Her heart stopped.

Whatever words said after didn’t matter to her, all she could hear or see is the evidence from last. It was written all over him, from the wrinkled clothes to his swollen lips. He still loves her. Mystra won again.

There will never be room in his heart for her. She picks up her phone and sees it’s almost 7am. He left her around 11:30 and promised he’d be right back. Another lie she happily accepted.

“I heard your voicemail.” Dread filled her. She didn’t even realize she never hung up after she called him. Mentally kicking herself, she gripped the blanket she wrapped herself trying hide herself and to regain any sense of comfort. She couldn’t look at him right now, it hurt too much. He carefully sat on the couch next to her. “Tav, please look at me.” He pleaded. She just shook her head. “Will you at least listen to me?” She stayed silent and listened.

“I’m so sorry for everything. I never realized you felt that way.” He hunched over and looked at his feet. “I wish you would’ve told me sooner, I wou-“

Tav’s soft voice interrupted him, “Five.”

“Excuse me?” He raised his head to look at her, just to see her tear filled eyes looking back.

“I’ve told you how I’ve felt five times since I’ve known you.” Her feelings were everywhere. She wanted to feel hurt and angry, but sadness took over. “But every time it was over shadowed.”

“What do-“ Again, he was interrupted.

“Gale, are you truly that blind?” A tear rolled down her cheek. “She’s still the only person you talk about, probably only one you think about too. You’re not over her, far from it. You always jump at the chance to see her.” Her voice started to waver.

“Tav, I’m sorry. Please let me make this up to you.”

“There’s nothing to make up, Gale. You still love her and I’m not her.” Tears start to roll down her cheeks faster. “I can’t keep doing this.” She removes the blanket off her shoulders and stands up. She takes a deep breath and looks him in the eyes. “Does knowing my feels change anything for you?” Silence fills the room. Gale couldn’t manage to say a word. He looked helplessly into her eyes. She gave him a weary smile, “There’s my answer.” She gathered her stuff in a hurry and headed towards the front door. Gale realizing what’s about to happen, he scrabbles to catch her. “Please wait!”

She turned to him and frowned. “I’m done waiting.” The door closed behind her.

Gale stood there for a moment just staring at the door. He was arguing back and forth with himself. He heard a meow coming from the living room to see Tara sitting on the coffee table.

“I’ve really gone and done it, haven’t I?” He turned to couch and sat down with his head in his hands. He sat like that for a moment before Tara meowed once more. Looking up at her, he noticed a notebook next to her. He grabbed it and something fell from its pages. A small Polaroid picture of them. He remembered when Tav bought the camera and wanted to show it off. Flipping over the photo, he noticed she wrote, “One day,” with a small heart and the date. It was over two years ago. She had been chasing after him for so long, but he was too blind. He shot up from the couch and rushed out the door. Running down the early morning streets, Gale searched for any sign of her. A hallow pit grew in his chest, as if he just lost something.

“Tav!” He shouted, looking around in hopes for her head to turn his direction, but only got strange looks from people walking by. If desperation hadn’t taken over, he would’ve felt some form of embarrassment. “Tav!”

He stood there for a moment before moving on to the next street. He continued his search for her, yet it was the same result. Defeated, he made himself return back home.

Walking through the front door, Gale was was greeted by ghosts of the past. Memories of them sitting on the couch goofing around, Tav at the table gushing over food he just made, and her asleep on the couch with Tara sleeping on her chest. He never realized how empty his apartment was really until she left. He looked at his phone and dialed her number. He listened to each rang before going to voicemail. “Tav, it’s me…I’m probably the last person you want to hear from, I’m sorry for everything. When you’re ready, call me back…bye.”

Days turned into weeks, yet Gale hadn’t heard a word from Tav. It’s as if she disappeared off the face of the Toril. Astarion and Shadowheart won’t tell him anything and Karlach only gives him a , “She’s fine,” answers, but nothing more. Guilt and worry has been gnawing away at his soul and it’s been showing in his appearance. His beard looked unkempt, dark circles started to become more evident on his face, and his clothes seem to be just thrown together, no care put into his outfit. Astarion had enough of the sorry state and invited him to grab a drink at the Elfsong.

Later in the evening, Astarion, with little details as possible, told Gale what was going on with Tav. That she needed time to mend her broken heart for the last time and that seeing him was too much right now. Hearing that, it hurt him.

“Astarion, was I…,” He thought his next words for a moment.

“An idiot? Definitely.” Astarion took a sip of his wine.

“I was going to ask if I was that blind about everything.” Gale sighs.

“Well wisdom was never your strong suit.” Astarion set his glass down and looked him in the eye. “But I didn’t call you out here just to point out all of your obvious flaws. Gale, what’s going on in that pretty little head? I’d say you look like the dead, but I even have standards when it comes to my appearance.”

“I’m not sure honestly. Since the whole Tav situation, I feel like I’ve lost a spark and I just feel like my chest feels empty. Just like when Mystra left me.”

“By the Gods, Gale! You’re a damned idiot! All it took was for her leave for you to realize that you had fucking “feelings” for her?!” Astarion glared down at the man. “We’ve tried so hard to get you to realize that for the past year, but now her heart is good and damaged you suddenly-?”

Astarion cut himself off, realizing he raised his voice loud enough that other people’s eyes were on them before the pain in Gale’s eyes, Astarion pinched the bridge of his nose and tries to calm down before continuing. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. Gale, we’re just worried about you.”

Gale faces towards the door of the bar, trying to hide his deception. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m truly fine. I just need to -“ Gale stops mid sentence, watching the couple walk through the door. Astarion follows his gaze just to see Tav with Wyll, laughing at whatever was just said.

“Shit.” He whispered under his breath, but Gale didn’t acknowledge it. He just stared at them. She looked so happy. The sight was like a knife to the heart.

“Gale, are you okay?” Concern started to fill Astarion’s voice.

“I love her,” he finally admitted, “and I have to let her go, for her sake.” Looking down at his drink, let out a soft sniffle. This wasn’t going to be easy, but he knew if he wanted her to happy it had to be done. For now, he’ll use this night as a starting point to move on.

#I just want to point out that I was up for 24hrs when I wrote this #whatever inspiration I had left just like Tav #I didn’t think I was gonna write for Gale first but here I am #Please don’t look into this too hard #gale bg3 #gale fanfic #baulders gate 3 #gale of waterdeep #Spotify

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ghl-osty · 5 months

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fanfiction

i’d like to talk about fanfiction real quick because there are some issues really frequently that can make or break a story. and they’re avoidable!! and it makes me so sad when i’m trying to read a good fanfic and there’s so many errors that i have to stop.

NAMES

so this is one i see surprisingly often… please make sure you know how to spell a character’s name when writing a fanfiction. it’s usually something small like damian vs. damien or lucas vs. lukas but to me it’s so distracting and disappointing when there’s a beautifully written story with a character’s name spelled wrong.

SPELLING

this is a big one, too. when writing, some people don’t always have a spell check or an editor built in to their platform. if that’s you, please triple check your work! and here are a few frequent ones i see-

-shook vs. shock

i shook his hand

i was in shock that she did such a horrible thing

-peaked vs. piqued

-he looked like he peaked in high school

-they piqued my interest

blonde vs blond

-she had blonde hair

-he had blond hair

blonde is a gendered word. i’m not actually sure how it’s used with nonbinary people, let me know!

their, there, and they’re

-it was theirs

-she’s over there

-they were scared, and now they’re not

remember that they’re is a contraction of they are!

quite vs. quiet

she tried to be quiet, not making any noise.

they were quite bored with this whole event.

(thank you to @nathaaaan for the suggestion)

SERIES VS. SERIE

i watched a really good series yesterday

serie isn’t actually a word…

BILINGUAL CHARACTERS

please, please, please do some research if you write a character who speaks another language. even if it’s reading other fanfictions to figure out how your character’s language fits in with the language you’re writing with.

-having a character to say that it’s ’hard to switch back’ is… unrealistic at best. i wouldn’t recommend using it.

-please gender the words correctly! in most of the romance languages, words are gendered. make sure to add that in!

REPETITION

unless you’re going for a gimmick, i’d be careful with repetition. having a character say something more than once, especially in the same sentence, can be annoying and makes the dialogue sound forced.

especially the word antics…. i literally had to put a fic down because ‘antics’ was in every other sentence.

ex: “Lily sighed, annoyed. She was so annoyed!”

(yes this is a real actual example with the character name changed. don’t let this be you.)

FORMATTING

i think this can be overlooked a lot but format is important!!!

-paragraph breaks!! seeing a huge chunk of words with absolutely no breaks is overwhelming. add some space!

-“the punctuation goes inside the quotations.” he said

-i know i’m being a bit of a hypocrite, but capitalization! names, beginning of sentences, and places!! if you don’t capitalize, at least be consistent with it!

“This is how fanfiction, or really any writing, should be formatted.” Eli said with a smile

“And every new sentence should be a paragraph break,” interjected Alex, “Unless you’re going for a certain style. In which case, you do you.”

Eli sighed. “That’s true, Alex. What OP didn’t know was that tumblr has a formatting issue, so that when she posts this, the paragraph breaks won’t show! She hopes she fixed it. But it might not work!”

“We can always imagine the bullet points as paragraph breaks.”

-friendly neighborhood reminder that paragraph breaks happen when introducing a new idea as well!

-bolds and italics are important.

“I told him not to go,” acceptable, a bit dry.

“I told him not to go,” exquisite, flavorful.

and as always. please make sure they’re talking like people. not disney sitcom characters.

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE TENSE

you would not believe how much i see this messed up. and it’s easy to get wrong. remember, you can always look something up if you aren’t sure. but stay consistent with your tenses!

past tense

She walked up to the drab, grey building, trembling. As she pulled the door open, a bell rang, signaling her arrival.

this one’s probably the most used. notice that it’s almost like we’re retelling the story, after it’s already happened (hence past tense)

present tense

She walks up to the drab, grey building, trembling. She pulls the door open, and a bell rings to signal her arrival.

we have to change quite a few words for the same sentence to make sense in present tense.

future tense

She’ll walk up to the drab, grey building, trembling. She’ll pull the door open, and a bell will ring to signal her arrival.

i honestly don’t think i’ve ever seen future tense used in a novel unless it’s used in dialogue. but it’s almost as if you’re speaking hypothetically about an event.

but please make sure you’re consistent with these! don’t use one and then switch to another!!

now of COURSE writing is a form of creation, and you can ultimately do whatever you want! if you want to write something, write it. this is just a little guide for some of the mistakes i see most often!

but all in all just double check your writing, always!!! there are so many good works out there that could be great.,… if you don’t have someone to beta read you can always send it to me or put it in word <3

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