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TL;CR MEME
1. Comment with your character.
2. Receive comments from others.
3. Reply to their comments with long ballads and explanations of your characters' relationship throughout the game.
4. Suffer as we have suffered over your CR.
1. Comment with your character.
2. Receive comments from others.
3. Reply to their comments with long ballads and explanations of your characters' relationship throughout the game.
4. Suffer as we have suffered over your CR.
xie lian
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first of all, i can always count on teej to come through for me with really, really interesting cr and this was definitely no different, but this one really... this was really something in the best ways KFL;SKH okay
so right off the bat xl actually.... did not like emet very much LOL. you know how he is, "disliking" someone for xie lian usually comes in shades. it wasn't like a qi rong sort of "i actually can't stand you" it was more like... "i want to prove you wrong" which became so important KL;AHSKH. BUT!!! Emet at first really reminded xl of the white no face! Which is horrible!! But looking back at our pcs, the line
"Broken, flawed creatures, ever fumbling their way onward, without the foresight to truly see. Little wonder, then, that they lose their way so quickly, incapable of seeing aught but what is placed before them. I have seen this repeated for eons, and not once have they truly changed for the better."
really just set something off in xl because the white no face told him once that "the common people don't deserve to be saved by you" and "humans just need a push to reveal their true nature" SO THAT REALLY JUST GOT RIGHT DEEP TO HIM, IMMEDIATELY. and it was in that exact moment that xl was like. i can't do anything to change the way this guy thinks but i am going to ignore it and try anyway!! fuck you!!!
so yeah, that fundamental difference in thought process didn't make him ignore emet at all but he definitely knew he was never going to see eye to eye with him. they built up their little alliance because of both being immortals, which was fine, but xl wasn't really expecting that at all when it came up - it surprised him so much! like how you gonna say "your opinion sucks" and then ask to be allies, but also... it tickled him a little, and kind of showed him that emet wasn't that much like the white no face after all? so! that was good. :')
and then, after these ideological differences, after all the things and little conversations xl never really forgot that emet felt that way... SO THEN
HE GOT TO SAVE HIM
WHEW
saving emet i think was an absolute character highlight for xl - it was a high point. he figured out that emet probably did it fairly quickly, especially once the bracelets got involved, and enlisted soowoo in saving him. he never held it against emet that he killed shiro (who he cares about so much) and held to that conviction that he committed a killing in self defense, so to be able to save him was something!!! listening to him give his speeches on morality that night and the day of were even something!!! there was a little tiny part of him that was a bit vindictive but mostly he was just happy.
i think xl would've been really happy if emet never found out that he was the one who saved him, tbqh - he would've preferred him to keep thinking that it was someone random - but he didn't really mind being found out that much, either. it meant a lot to him to be able to show emet some kindness and to show him that the world doesn't always have to be so wicked, because it's not! at all! and people can be good!!! so being able to make the self defense save was really, really important to him. this was like the most loving (smashes betray) anyone could ever give.
(please never tell him you cursed shiro.)
it was kind of a turning point, after that. even if emet annoyed him a little sometimes, because those differing viewpoints definitely reared their heads (see: w7 trial, especially), xl liked working with him. the week that he saved jeanne was only because of emet-selch!!! and that gave him a lot of hope, too. xl always clings to acts of kindness like that (emet can call it whatever BUT IT WAS A KINDNESS, it meant a lot to him!!!!) so he was really grateful for it... and working with him as a role ended up working out really well, too. they had a cute back and forth every now and then, that i especially was a fan of... when emet picked on him for being a "marital god" was really funny. LOL.
i'm really, really glad that we got to do memshare, also. it explained a lot of context about emet-selch to xl, and he reminded him a lot of a story he learned about right before he came to the realm, which... laughs in tgcf spoilers, it was the backstory of the white no face, BUT!! i think that context added a depth to their relationship and kind of solidified the differing viewpoints that they have... it also helped to solidify xie lian's respect for him, too.
and then when emet told him the story in their last pc, too, GOSH, that just gave even more depth to it!!!! i don't think he ever really saw emet as heartless, but... knowing why he feels the way that he does about humanity was good to learn, and i think it really meant a lot to him that he was able to get that from emet. and that emet was willing to tell him, too! they came so far. ;w;
ultimately xl grew to really, really respect emet's perspective, even if they were completely ideologically opposite. he was glad to have him as an ally, and glad to have him as a friend (?) by the end of it (?) maybe. even though he's still wrong. and also he's still an old geezer who could stand to learn something from the younger generation :P
writing this makes me want to scream knowing the extra context that xl will never know!!! HE'LL NEVER KNOW!! YELLS INTO VOID AHHHH
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TEAM "WE CAN'T LET THE MAGICAL GIRLS DO A MURDER" HERE TO REPRESENT
it's crazy how soowon and xl actually ended up having a lot of similarities. oh my god there are two of them. I KNOW WE JOKE ABOUT IT, BUT JESUS, it's what made them so interesting, i think!!! because at their cores they are wildly similar and wildly different at the same time. the biggest thing is that love of people! xie lian was just immediately endeared to soo-won when they had their deep philosophical talk in week 0 (i hate you) and especially when they talked about being a merchant vs being a king.
i think that their mindsets are really similar in a lot of ways, though xl is less pragmatic than soo-won is. at their cores though they're both two smarter-than-they-seem royal boys (crown prince matchies) who just fucking LOVE the people and want to do the best they can for them, whatever that might mean. he really was absolutely ready to go accomplice with him on a stab. like really. Really ready. because ultimately, xl is a person who understands what needs to be done when things are bad for the good of the whole, even if he doesn't always seem that way. u___u
i keep coming back to this thread we did at the very beginning. learning that spoiler about the other king - wow that knocked me on my ass today!!! i was so delighted!!! because like, comparing the lore you gave in that plurk to this story xl told about the gods in heaven... THEY REALLY ARE THE SAME, LIKE, WOW. its so frustrating to him that the gods just sit back on their laurels and wait around or leave up decisions to chance and consider themselves so lofty - people who just sit around while others are suffering are the worst!!!!
and it also made me double glad that i shared the mem i did with soowon?! i picked that one specifically because i wanted to like, highlight his ability to make the right decision when push came to shove when it comes to violence but it tickles me now knowing some deep lore... wow.... bad kings are bad, huh
ANYWAY!!! AHH okay in terms of actual like, cr stuff, xl was really glad to learn soowoo was on his team from the beginning... he really vibed with him a lot, because of (gestures at aforementioned reasoning) and liked picking his brain. he also just really felt that sense of camaraderie with soowon over the love of people, too, because that's exactly how xl feels :sob: it was nice to be understood that way. funny when you consider the whole, god thing,
anyway.
he came to trust soo-won's decision making the most and saw him as a worthy leader - but, also as a teammate, too. it's funny because xie lian realized really fast when he was young that he was not cut out for politics... politics actually really irritated him because it felt like it was a limit on helping people? he really came to dislike his father (who was the king of xian le) because of his decision making, and it took his mom pointing out that his dad's hands were tied for him to cool off on that a little bit. even now, he'd rather help people on the ground than be up in the heavens delegating shit so!!! working with soo-won and being the one to sort of support him/help him as he gathered info/provide things (like his protect power) while soowoo had more information/did more of the heavy decision making, both for himself and for lessa, was the ideal position. it was nice how it worked out - how xl ended up kind of taking care of the internal/team gathering while soo-woo was more external? like. it just really suits them. we did so good.
also their mutual fondness for goat really helped too LOL. being able to sit there and just be like "wow goat is so nice and cute and great" together was very funny.
he does see soo-won as a very worthy leader (and by that regard, a good king), because he does certainly put his own country (or in this case, the good of the whole) first... though it comes at a detriment!
xl also thinks he's waaay too stubborn sometimes. xl is also stubborn about not sharing his own burdens with anyone but soo-won somehow manages to be even worse??? HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO BE WORSE THAN HIM, SOO-WON? IT'S A MIRACLE. when they had their "i'm really sad and i'm allowed to feel sad but i'm not going to let anyone comfort me" moments i think it showed a difference in their character, because xl definitely did let soowoo in a bit, comparatively. HE LIKE. really gets the way soo-won's head works - it makes sense to him - but i think his heart will always be too big for him to be the same. THOSE LITTLE DIFFERENCES. chef's fucking kiss.
part of that was why he wanted to talk to him just as friends the day before he died. because ultimately, he did know everything (and there's a Layer TM here about a god being omnipotent) but he chose not to tell soo-won, because he didn't want to be the one to keep him on the line of business when he was like hours from his own death. he watched the way he like compartmentalized yona's kill live and in person, and that stuck with him!! really bad! like damn he also compartmentalizes but also jesus christ soowon
i think that showed a pretty major difference in their hearts/minds also. not telling him he was splintering was definitely a bleeding heart decision on xl's end... but one he only regrets because soowon asked him not to after. HAHA.
HIS DEATH SUCKED, 0/10, ALSO. xl knew it was coming! he had literally told lessa like TWO DAYS EARLIER how it seemed like all of the goats left would make it. i apologize. xie lian really hated it... he'd come to rely on soo-won so much, and he really hated it that soowon splintered. tripping at the finish line!! but, he also knew he was going to come back really soon, so that helped. he took soo-won's note to heart about protecting goat, too. 8(
in terms of like godhood and being a god, too, i think he really appreciated that soo-won knew from the beginning that xl was a god and also just totally ignored it. he really does not want to be seen as a god as all, and so it never really bothered him that soo-won figured it out so quickly? because it was like "if he sees people as people no matter what, then i hope he will be able to apply that same logic to me" because ultimately, his godhood doesn't really matter that much. T__T
anyway i'm really happy and i understand why you came running at me with this cr. it ended up being really deep and complex and fascinating and i REALLY loved playing it out with you.
the answer to that first question "what's a god to a non-believer" turned out to be "a friend" and if that just ain't the sweetest thing. i LOVE IT. thank you for being team goat with me dana!!!!
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