retellers | TL;CR MEME

gets ready to fucking mcdie

HERE I AM

OH ANGE!!

so obviously lup thinks the world of her. the cutesey persona was a definite buy-in from lup, like, she immediately wanted to protect ange. but lup's sort of protection is more like encouragement, and that's mostly what she did over the course of the game. there was a sense that ange had some feral energy in her, especially after their conversation outside the castle about capitalism and the rich and the poor, and lup's goal was basically to coax that feral energy out and weaponize it. lup's a very confident person and her goal with other girls is to make them just as confident. so that's what she wanted to do, especially with every trial, where she'd be like "yeah, we can do this!" and be super encouraging but in... lup's way, which is more like "we're going to do this the way I do things" more than "doing things the right way".

which means that ange was pretty much never going to get ratted out by lup because lup loves her and would've covered for her LMAO. she was suspicious after sumire's trial because ange had that arrow wound and dorothy covered for her, plus she knew a wolf did the kill and ange was the most suspicious after all of that (her working theory was that ange wasn't strong enough to cut sumire's head off but like that was just because it was difficult to do it with a rapier), but like, she wouldn't have ever said anything about it and probably would've argued with people and been like what? no! ange is too precious for that! so good job on making lup totally be an ange stan.

but then ange showed her hand, and it was - well! it was surprising, for sure, but she had a feeling there was more to ange than just the uwu persona. like obviously not to that extent, because lup's not the most insightful person, like she said.

I mean, you got me. I expected there to be something more to you, but uh - not to this extent, you know? A cutie with the ability to fuck shit up. she basically said it herself, she figured that ange had some badassery hidden away but not that she was all badass, none uguu. so she wasn't angry when ange came to her to tell her that was what she meant to reveal to lup and blanca. she was mostly amused, and kind of embarrassed, because she had spent so much time thinking ange was a baby, and it turns out ange could've stabbed her and she wouldn't have been able to do anything to fight back! still, though, like. ange was just doing what she had to, and honestly, if lup had forgotten taako earlier in the game, she would've done a murder to get his memory back. so she gets it.

and her favorite people in the world are tsunderes (gestures at cloud) so there was no way she wasn't going to bully ange into being friends with her even after everything!! SO BASICALLY just like, lup loves ange, and she loves ange even MORE after she revealed herself to be who she actually is.

kill me in one shot

okay well first off you continuously give me some of the funniest fucking threads and i love you for that, like lup shocking hansa after the mini event or their conversation about fantasy star trek had me giggling for like hours, wtf

but like - lup LIKES hansa. we joked about this (and gestures at psl) but they have that easy sort of back and forth joking that really easily turns into flirting thing. they both have a weird flippant sort of humor, and i think if lup hadn't immediately been taken up by blanca she would've been reluctant to let hansa out of her sight. she thinks he's a good person, and she thinks that maybe he is the type of dude that sets himself up to get knocked down a lot. but she admires the fact that he doesn't really seem to have a problem with being open and free with people. like, he's pretty honest in a way she typically isn't, if only because she doesn't trust other people to not fuck her over.

hansa is one of the first people she told about her home world! she was already in the process of forgetting pieces of it when they did the whole VR thing, but it was a relief for her to be able to just sit down and tell him everything she remembered about it. she trusted him enough to let her memories have a home in him, so to speak.

she also really was relieved to not be the only person who knew about soo-won's first murder, too. between him and blanca she felt less alone in it. in fact, i'm looking back at these threads and kind of laughing about how much she trusted him with random shit she didn't trust other people with. like, her home on the Starblaster but also the fact that the Wolves got a prize the first week and like, basically all but telling him her team right then.

so like - idk how much you're familiar with the adventure zone but liches in the adventure zone are extremely memory based? basically the process to become a lich can make you go feral, and the best way to not lose your entire mind is to have very strong, very positive memories to keep yourself stable.

SO AFTER THE ADVENTURE with the kraken and the swamp, like - she had a similar moment with xie lian in that sometimes, she just needs something absolutely fucking stupid to pull her out of a slump and give her the strength to keep going. she needed that memory. she was flagging just a little by that point. but the whole accidentally shocking him and the jar of dirt thing cracked her up so much that she had that memory to pull up when she felt unstable - like, among others, but definitely the experience of bonding and laughing with hansa over that was something that stuck with her.

and then his cyoa came, and boy, did she empathize with him then. like - ten years. being tucked away somewhere for ten years, going through emotional stress? yeah, that was her whole experience in the umbrella she was stuck in. so like, he tells her about this and she just immediately connects, and feels so horribly awful for him. she gets a little touchier here, a little less guarded, because his experience put her so feet first into being trapped that she just reverted to doing what made her feel better. and then on TOP of that, emet gets voted for, and so she just immediately kicked in hansa's door and was like look, whatever you need. you don't need to talk about shit (because she would hate to have people badger her) but she's HERE, if he needs someone who is a little distanced from everything.

then he scared her at emet's execution and she about threw herself off the cliff WITH emet. stupid dumb eyepatch priest making her show all of her squishy emotions in public >8T

actually cutting in here in the middle of this and LAUGHING ABOUT LIKE how much hansa ships blanca and lup, it's really cute. i think this thread just about sums up how much she trusted him at this point, like she's just incredibly candid about everything. she frames it in a jokey way, but she wasn't about to let hansa walk out of that conversation without him knowing how much she actually worried that he was going to die. him offering to get a drink with her after she mentioned breaking up with blanca was really sweet, and she held onto that, too.

i think lup thinks of hansa as like... someone reliable. she felt good knowing that he was there to look out for the people she couldn't reach out to as much. she liked knowing that he was there for emet-selch, for alex, for chiron - for blanca, too, at times. and she rooted for him every time he needed it, whether she told him or not - just like. he's a good, solid friend, and someone she cares for. i can only imagine the chaos they caused in previous cycles. god.

dabs

oh xie lian I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

and so does lup, because he really is just a wonderful presence, like. i think this tends to be a trend with your characters and mine is that yours are the calming presence to the burning personalities i tend to play? burning in a lot of ways. in lup's case, xie lian tended to be a person that she was immediately comfortable with.

mostly because he's easy to tease! and he doesn't get super angry or uncomfortable with her when she DOES tease him. the very first time they met he just like, immediately accepted that her name was queen taako and he was chill with her bossing him around. and like - i think she kind of pack bonded immediately because he was digging in the trash? the mcelroys specify that the twins had a scrappy childhood and i imagine there were times where they may have needed to find food in the trash because they didn't have the money to get ingredients to make their own? so she sees xie lian digging around and without really realizing it she just was like nope, can't have that, we're feeding this boy forever now. she did it with clementine too. it strikes a chord in her to see people hungry, especially when she can fix it. and of course she has to do it in a way that makes it look like she doesn't care, so she yells at him and boinks him with a piece of bread, but like. she cares.

so then they establish their buddy system like, immediately, and she knows that she has someone on her side, which just really comes into play over and over again. he comes in when the VR shit with her umbrella prison got bad and turned the simulation off, and didn't judge. didn't press too hard. let her explain it on her own terms, and like - even showed her some of his stuff, to get her mind off of it. she genuinely liked xie lian from the start, because he kept giving her reason to.

and then he comes out of his cyoa and she about develops an ulcer because his dumb ass can't manage to stay out of trouble for more than a few seconds!! but like - i think it was here that lup realized how much xie lian like... has to him, past the ditzy blonde thing. she didn't remember it at the time, but it was easy enough to slip into the way she comforts magnus. like, i can't stop you from feeling horrible about this because it's the type of person you are, but i can encourage you to direct it elsewhere. i think lup is decently good at pulling people out of their spirals and that's really what she was trying to do during that thread was like... just make sure he didn't wallow in it.

lup is a decently hard person to phase, but i was especially mean because memory loss is the ONE thing that she can't handle, because it's tied up so much in the adventure zone's whole... plot. she was doing pretty okay for a few weeks there (she really never got to a point of absolute despair like beau did at least) but like even so, it's disheartening to constantly be faced with death you can do nothing about. so the bumbo thread was really, really good i think for both of them. a really genuine giggle session was something she needed, and i think something he needed too, and that was the point that she decided xie lian was just her friend now, instead of some dude that she got along with.

so then week three comes along and lup... forgets her name. and xie lian handles it really well. this is what i mean by the mem loss being a fucking terrible thing for her, because forgetting her own name is actually the second worst thing i did to her this game. identity is obviously important to everybody, but her name is like - i mentioned it in tags and things, lup's name is connected to her brother. lup and taako, it's always been just them. and then he forgot her, and he didn't even recognize her name, so it's tied up in her trauma of the one person she loves more than anything in her entire life not knowing who she is. so she forgets this, and she realizes that she's forgotten it with xie lian, and his immediate response is to reach out and hug her. which was a+, the best move, because after reliving a loss of name trauma and the reminder that she'd spent a decade being unable to touch people - like, pulling her in for a hug was the best thing he could've done.

the fact that he'd only JUST figured out what her actual name was too, lsmdfks, god.

but he basically just kept on being a good, solid, not judgemental support for her. after taako, bringing her tea and vodka, like - he knew what she needed and she appreciated that. AND HE HEALED TAAKO FOR HER TOO i don't think she thought about it too closely at the time but xie lian saving her brother from death was another little expression of trust. she trusted him to do it, and she thanked him, genuinely, enough to tell him just about everything about her? she didn't tell everybody she's a lich, especially not early on, but he'd proven himself to be enough of a solid force for her to be able to just... say it, without thinking twice. he wouldn't use it against her. he saved her brother, and by extension, he saved her. and that was why she told hua cheng that she'd do anything to make sure xie lian was taken care of, past her respect for hua cheng in general. it was no skin off her back to make sure that he was okay in the same way he'd gone out of his way to make sure SHE was okay.

so then shiro dies, and she thinks okay, okay lup, it's time to give back. so she's sincere. she tells him she's sorry, and she gives him a hug, and she listens, and she tells him that he is not to blame, because she cannot stand to see him take all that on his shoulders. no spiraling. i think they did this a lot, actually, there was a lot of like - that's how lup comforts people? it's more "stop doing this to yourself" than "oh bb it's okay" with her, because she's incapable of being direct sometimes. all the protags in her life get too bogged down with taking all the guilt on themselves and she takes it upon herself to be like look, be angry, be upset, but don't hold onto it. that's important.

she also braided his hair, which - is a thing leftover from taako, from when they were little. and when they were grown up, too, just like. hair braiding was intimate in the family way, a sign of trust. for someone like lup, who has a hard time just handing over pieces of herself... idk, xie lian just has a very interesting way of putting her at ease. she never felt like he was asking anything of her, or that he was holding onto things to use them later, like chess pieces. he just... is. comforting.

(also i just remembered and have no place to really put it but xie lian picking up her lingo and using it was her FAVORITE thing. calling the white no face a ding dong with bad vibes was fantastic and also I GOT XIE LIAN TO DAB)

SO THEN WE GET TO week four, and hua cheng does a murder, and lup KNEW he did a murder, like a little bit into the trial, because blanca had let her know that hua cheng was awake. but she'd made a pact with him, and putting suspicion on hua cheng would've hurt xie lian, so. no way she was going to do it. but that was the same conversation that she tried to pretend she had blanca's power and THAT WAS SO FUNNY bc xie lian just like, let her do it. he let her have her moment, lmfsdks

but she really just collected him even further into her little circle, like Chess Team was all important to her in various ways but she never did really lose that trust in him. she had issues with other people in the game here and there with thinking that maybe if she told them something, they'd use it against her or for their own gain, but - never with him. and she really does love him for making her feel comfortable like that. it's nice to just have another adult to lean on in general, someone that she can look after the Chess team with. like yeah emet and blanca were there but lup wants to noogie emet half the time, and she liked having another responsible person past blanca to deal with stuff.

anyway long story short i think like... xie lian is someone she really relied on, and someone she hoped that relied on her, too? it made her feel a little better to have someone she knew was going to do the right thing. good god, would be buddies with again.

/DROPS THE FUCK IN HERE

i want you to know how much chiron and lup's cr took me by surprise

because like, she really did not go into this game expecting to be daughter'd! she didn't even expect to find any people she'd like past taako, but like. the very first conversation they had was a really good impression of chiron for her. people who put up with her bullshit and her jokes are good in her book. he kind of just laughed and went with it, and even joked back? and she immediately decided she liked him.

she also learned pretty early on that he was a sacrificial dude! one of the first conversations they had was about how he'd prefer to take on the burden of having to execute kano, and she was like well, fuck that, i wouldn't volunteer - which is a lie, she would. but she's not the kind to just put that out there on the table, she doesn't insist on it, she sees an injustice and she tries to fix it, but quietly. but yeah like - i think about 95% of their conversations were a lot of chiron being like i'm dead, i can die again and lup just very firmly being like, no? no. you won't.

she also told him pretty early on that she was dead! and then he like, reverse uno carded her, and was like actually i'm a summon so i'll die once i'm gone, and she basically rejected that? chiron didn't deserve to die, or vanish, and she's a really powerful wizard, so like... no. no, he doesn't die, she'll fix it. and at that point her team was winning, so she was basically like yeah, my team's wish thing will go to fixing all of this. she got it in her head that she was going to save him. (spoilers: she was a little angry that emet got to like, summon horse dad or whatever he did. wow maybe she wanted to be important, emet!!)

but then after the execution she basically was... on board? with chiron completely. because he was ready to do what needed to be done, and she agreed with him on it, like. if he had to shoot kano to make it so that one person died instead of two, she wouldn't have blamed him. she's still vaguely upset that kano got scapegoated, but it happened, he was suspicious, that was just... what happened, and they weren't going to change it. the realm was in charge of that decision. AND THEN LIKE, he did his "i'll be the sacrifice" thing again and she started her constant slapping of his hand like STOP TRYING TO DIE YOU DUMB HORSE right there in that thread. and -

she entrusted him with taako's wellbeing. she knew chiron would take her up on it and look out for him, and what's more is she already trusted him to do it? he already was like "taako was my first roommate, i suppose i just worry" and that was enough, because sometimes, people meet taako and they decide he's not worth their time past the first meeting. and so like - she knew chiron wasn't going to hurt him intentionally. which led to her trusting him to take care of her, too.

because she forgets the first big thing, week two - she forgets that she died, and taako reminds her, and for the first time since she got there, she was freaked out? and so she goes to ask chiron... how he deals with it. and he was like "i'm sorry that i can't help you more" but i think even just hearing how he was dealing with it was enough.

I WANNA BRING UP THE LIKE - so after their investigation, when she had the drunk curfew effect, she called him dad? and it was mostly teasing, but i think like... that was really a thing she thought about later. lup and taako didn't really have any family besides themselves when they were little. they had their aunt, but mostly they got passed around until they decided to strike out on their own. so they've never really had a parental figure before, and like - stepping away from taako, lup really was starting to value chiron's advice and his presence in general. idk when the switch from friend to dad came in? i think maybe after he got attacked by leopards? like the idea of losing him really got her, i think. especially to something so easy, which is WHY after the execution that same week, when he pretended like he was the one who killed shiro, she threw such a shitfit at him.

he did it for a REASON, but she didn't care. because she thought no, not that one, just let me have this one family figure that i don't have to give up, and he's out here at every possible turn trying to die.

also, he called her one of his favorites, and there was no getting rid of her after that. she was doomed. ALSO HE LET HER RIDE HIM THROUGH THE FOREST she - felt special, because of that. it was nice. it was really, really something that he treated her like someone special. she had this thing that she told wolf for a bit where she was concerned about being everybody's favorite because it meant nobody would pick her to die, and like, that was mostly bullshit, but also a little true. it's not that she's been hated her whole life or anything, because she hasn't, but - both her and taako have lived lives where they were really just pawns or like, functions, if that makes sense. they're powerful wizards and also chefs, and people just want things from both of them. so to have chiron, who didn't ever want anything but for her to be happy and warm, that was special. to be someone's favorite, not just a background tool - that was special.

so - it gets to the point where chiron has forgotten so much of himself, and she was losing it internally every time that she talked to him. she nearly died in her cyoa and i think that other than taako, chiron was the only person she was needy with? she wanted comfort, and she just - needed him to promise her that he wasn't going to die, because so many things were falling apart. even though like, she knew he was going to. it fuckin' broke her to know that he'd finally been like i think i'd like to live and then he just. got chosen to die. like she'd said, it didn't make his death any easier, knowing that he was going to be one of the bodies. her sitting on the beach with him after they dragged his body out was 100% real, she just bluescreened for a bit.

FINDING HIS BODY WAS AWFUL THE END i think - she was upset about soo-won too, but i think chiron is the one that really fucking gutted her. her cr chart that week basically is what she felt, that she was angry that for the greater good she had to lose him. it sucked. she was angry. and she was angry enough to take the goddamn endgame by storm because she promised him a happy ending. which he got! he got it in the end.

so YEAH. chiron ended up dadshaped? it kicked me in the gut multiple times. i love wholly unexpected cr, wtf.

DO WE HAVE ENOUGH CR FOR THIS. flurry ilu and i'm running at your npc in spring

WE DIDN'T HAVE A LOT BUT!! it's fine kick my ass in spring

i think lup really respects alex. alex is the type of girl that lup thinks she'd like to be, sometimes - bright and firm and kind, without taking a whole lot of shit. lup is a little too abrasive to be that all the time, but that's why she likes people like alex so much. they didn't interact a whole lot, but what she heard about alex tended to be very positive, and when they DID talk, she tended to like alex's way of looking at things. realistic, but like - hopeful, maybe? lup also felt like, this bond because of the sibling thing - alex forgot her sibling? taako forgot HIS sibling, so there was a sort of solidarity there that she kept in mind a lot.

this is a sidenote that i just thought of: of all the girls in redacted, alex is one, the girl lup most likely would've dated if things were different, and two, the girl lup was the MOST afraid of stealing blanca. alex is the only girl lup thought had a chance of homewrecking her. >8T

anyway to end this, lup got the impression that alex kept the boys in line a lot. look, hansa and chiron REALLY need people to kick their asses? so like. good for her on that count. she really, absolutely ships the fuck out of hansa and alex in particular, too. hansa is someone that lup really likes, so any girl that's there for him is worth something in her book.

(no subject)

chanteuser - 2020-11-29 20:31 (UTC) - Expand

me. . .

MOB IS SUCH A COMPLICATED BOY

like obviously, right off the bat, she wanted to bully the shit out of him. it was really easy to do, and she stumbled immediately into the ghost banishing thing, which was really funny. she is proud of her bullying skills in that she managed to give this little dude a near existential crisis the like, first time she met him. but it kind of like backfired on her a bit, because he was so... mob, that she had a hard time being mean to him after that. she's not as rude as taako - she tries to be dismissive or whatever but mob was like "oh, people take advantage of me all the time!" and that actually sort of upset her a bit. so her bullying just got real halfhearted after that.

i think lup didn't know what the fuck to DO with mob half time time? she'd go in expecting one thing and he'd turn around and say something completely different and leave her stupid, like. he's a kid, but he never needed reassurance like the other kids? but at the same time she didn't want to just let him go without... guidance, either. there were a lot of times where she said something to try and be encouraging, and mob kind of just looked at her like she'd said some absolute gibberish, so she just. never had any idea what to say LMAO

oh - and this is just a random little thing, but her pretending like she didn't know his name and then getting that TURNED BACK on her. wow. wow, she hated that? she really did not like someone being like "I don't know what your name is," even if it was a joke, and mob actually made her stop being a dickhead about that pretty much immediately. i think after that point she more consistently used people's names to their faces.

another random thing: she really appreciated him banging on the barrier with her. it was very sweet.

so then memshare comes along, and i think that thread really showcased how they see things differently, or at least, how they handle things differently, because mob was like "i have to be considerate of other people, i can't use my powers to hurt people even if they hurt me first, and also i shouldn't expect my brother to be responsible for me" and that is SO the opposite of how lup thinks. for her, she is considerate unless someone is hurting taako. and then they die, no questions asked. she's... like, considerate on large scale, i think. like obviously she doesn't want to sacrifice people to the hunger, she feels a lot of guilt about her relic killing people, but that i think is easier to conceptualize on a large scale like that. she wants to do the right thing for large amounts of people, but the one on one is harder. it's harder to choose the greater good over her brother, or the people she cares about. and if there's no third option, like... she straight up murders edward when he gets sucked into the umbrella because he indirectly hurt taako. i think lup does what she thinks is right in the moment and doesn't think about it past that, and mob made her actually think and try to figure out what her morality... was. especially in the wake of losing all her fucking memories.

which led her to basically be like, It's okay to not be super considerate all the time, you know. Keep making room for other people's feelings and eventually you won't have any room for your own. on that one CR chart, because she looked at mob and his insistence at being considerate about other people's feelings always, and she just made a face at it. i think that's a good sum of how she felt about a lot of their conversations, just a whole lot of "do something for yourself, first."

i think lup left the game basically liking mob a lot, despite her best efforts to like... not. with the exception of i think maybe sora, lup thinks that mob is the most likely to be a hero back home. he's got a good head on his shoulders for someone so young, and she hopes that he keeps growing, and learns how to not be taken advantage of.

and that he finds a girl who likes him >:T

Oh Boy

FLYING KICKS

lup LOVES hua cheng. they kind of immediately clicked, i think, because he's such an asshole and she just very intensely vibes with that, but also like... almost right off the bat she could see how much capacity for love he's got? like it just started with xie lian, obviously, but lup knows what it's like to love someone with your whole entire soul. how it is to have someone you would do anything for, including die, over and over, if it meant that person was safe. so like, part of it was that he immediately indulged her bullshit by wearing the stupid sunglasses she gave him OVER his eyepatch, but the other part was that he would fall on a sword for xie lian and she knows how that is, re: taako.

so like, they got along ALREADY, but then she and hc made their pact, and like. they didn't explicitly ever say it, but i think they both assumed that if either xie lian or taako died, the other would do whatever it took to murder the killer, no matter what happened. i think they both understood the level of devotion the other had to their respective Important Person and respected the shit out of that.

the lord and lady of the manor thing was also a stupid joke that she kept as a serious little thing in the back of her head to cheer her up. she really like... appreciated the willingness to just bullshit around like that. and that he didn't write it off, either, like they had their little in-joke and that means something to her, as someone who exists almost solely on jokes. idk how to put it, like. i think hua cheng is just a person she VIBES with; his sense of humor is similar, he's a sassy little shit, he is very dangerous, and he has a lot of big emotions that he keeps very close to his chest. they're similar people, in all of those ways. they're both also old, and kind of dead. you bond over this sort of thing.

so like, of course, when she found out he killed someone, she sort of shrugged it off. she'd kill someone too, if she had to do it for the realm. for a purpose. and it wouldn't bother her. she was a little pissed that it was alyssa, because she liked alyssa, but that wasn't hua cheng's fault. she was basically like look, the second i figured out you did a murder i was like cool, time to cover for hua cheng, because xie lian was a very important person to her at that point, and hua cheng was too. there was no way she was going to let him take the fall for anything. like, actually, she might have tried to scapegoat herself instead if there had been suspicion at him. part of the pact, you know? especially since that was the week taako had forgotten her, haha.

oh also hua cheng giving her a hug after chiron's death is the cutest thing in the entire world goodbye

BUT YEAH LIKE lup is very, very fond of hua cheng, and i've said this multiple times but in another life, she would've fallen for him, probably. wheezes. fortunately she saw how xie lian centered he is right off the bat and just wrote him off, but god. what a good spooky work husband to have? yea.