TL;CR MEME

[retellers]

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.

Comments

[chanteuser]

[ makes a sound like a slowly deflating balloon ]

geez marie i thought hansa's was going to be the long and complicated one to write.

OKAY. So. Alex and Chiron.

I liked that they got along from the beginning? I've talked in other tl;crs about how she benefitted greatly from the amount of support she got from people early on, helping her with the fact she was getting a double memory loss hit and talking her through the situations that were going on around them, and Chiron was someone she just found easy to talk to? She enjoyed spending time with him, and hearing about him and his thoughts on things.

He was someone she could go to to talk about things that had happened and share ideas, so it just sort of made sense eventually that she was going to tell him what her team was. AND THIS PART IS JUST... genuinely one of my favourite parts about their entire relationship - the fact that Alex Benedetto looked at the 7 foot centaur who was politely yet menacingly threatening her and went "LET'S GO, I'LL THROW HANDS IF I HAVE TO". She is, at her core, such a big sister. She'll protect kids wherever she can and whenever she's available and she adores Rabbit. Like by this point she'd seen under Rabbit's mask and knew she was younger that Alex's actual little brother and she really, really would've thrown hands with him if she had to. And that's why she was willing to accept his terms and conditions for protecting his team leader in exchange for the same conditions on protecting hers---

-- and then they were on the same team. And it was so fuckin' funny. I just remember us screaming at each other on discord and it was like 2am for me and it was so funny.

But that changed things as well. He went from being someone she was comfortable turning to for advice and to talk to, to being like a confidant. They both had the same team so she had this anchor to what was going on, and someone to talk to about things that were happening that weren't so obvious. Regaining memories, items, things like that. She could check with him and find out if it was something unique to her, and trust he'd keep it quiet if it was, or if it was something all of the Bunnies were experiencing. Also, y'know. Being willing to throw hands with a centaur bonds people. Apparently.

AND THEN WEEK 3 HAPPENED. And like. Genuinely, if you asked me leading up to that point "hey becks, do you think you and marie are gonna ship this game?" I would've 100% said "nope, not at all" and then week 3 got us. And I need to read all the stuff that was going down between Chiron and Emet-Selch around this time, and there was a lot going on with Hansa and Alex annnd there's a whole cyoa to digest as well -- but from the perspective of Chiron and Alex, it was really that point in the trial where Alex realised there was something going on and Chiron tried to claim he was the guilty party which was where things just started to shift slightly. Like, Alex did what she was able to to try and move things on and get people to focus on Sumire, and she refused to vote for Emet because she knew it would hurt Hansa deeply -- and, apparently, Chiron. Annnd then everything went to heck, none of them could change anything, and she felt so small and helpless in that moment -- and did you know that Chiron has managed to make her cry twice now? Bitch ass ho horse. I'm writing this before the end of the game so the jury is out on if she'll cry because of him AGAIN.

It was kind of a combination of everything? What happened with Emet-Selch, how it was going to hurt Hansa, seeing Chiron try to throw himself onto a sword in Emet's place that made her realise "oh, no, that's something I really don't want to happen" -- she was really all over the place when she slapped him. But she was speaking very truthfully, that she didn't want him to throw himself into danger because he felt like he should, or because he thought he was a lesser loss than someone else? So like... things probably shifted around then, and like. She already adored Chiron? But this really re-enforced it. And then they got to share that relief and happiness when suddenly everything went right against all odds. That little moment where everything was okay, and they both had all this happiness and hopefulness for things that were to come now that neither of them had lost anything that was important to them, or seen someone who mattered to them hurt in ways they didn't know how they could heal.

...

And then they became a fruple. ( CANNED LAUGHTER IN THE BACKGROUND ) Which... I made so many "the horse is a surprise" jokes but Chiron wasn't someone difficult to her to get used to. It was more... she loves Hansa, and Hansa and Emet had a connection that was older than anything else they had here and had experienced things she couldn't understand, so she'd assumed if she was brave enough to tell Hansa she loved him, Emet-Selch would be a part of whatever happened, if anything. It was more... a pleasant surprise that it included Chiron because he and Emet-Selch had worked things out to a point they were comfortable with. After their talks at the weekend she was genuinely so glad to hear that Chiron was getting something good out of all this, and would be getting some answers as well to all the emotionally vulnerable things he'd laid at Emet-Selch's feet.

There were so many points in this game that something could've gone wrong, and ironically the ... creation of this OT4 SHOULD have been one of them but all four of them just... did everything that they had to do to ease the concept in without snagging on something and breaking in the process. When you've said that Chiron felt a bit superfluous at the beginning, Alex could've felt the same. Like she was intruding on something the other three all had, but they were so chill about the idea and the fact they came up with it but didn't force it on her was probably the biggest thing that made it work. It wasn't a case of "hey Alex, we're dating now, you want in?" it was "here's an idea, no one's going to pressure you into anything, it's just whatever you're comfortable with and know there's a place for you" -- and their willingness to communicate and be open with her that made it a much smoother start than it could've been.

And then they all just fitted together comfortably? Like they had those couple of weeks to just get used to each other and how they all fit and it was nice. Having a place that she did really belong, and being shown that she was supposed to be there was a really big thing. Canon is very much about the fact Alex doesn't really have a place, and even if the people around her care for her, they're trying to get her to leave for what they deem as her own good, without really explaining to her why. So Hansa, Emet and Chiron basically doing... the entire opposite of that was so good.

But there was also... Chiron just losing his everything in week 5, and that was so scary. Alex genuinely thought he was splintering and there was just this moment of fear and loss like, she'd just been handed something precious and told she could keep it and then pieces of it were being torn out of her hands again without warning. And maybe it was naive of her to think "everything's okay now" because it really, really wasn't: they were still trapped in the Realm and time was still ticking on to the next death, but it was so frustrating that all she could do was try and keep him calm. She couldn't fix anything, or improve it, only try and keep him deflecting the worst parts of it and it was both something that was positive, because she was able to help him out, but frustrating because she couldn't do everything she wanted to help him fully.

It was scary as well because this was the week all the bunnies found each other -- or rather the first full week after they did, and there was this feeling like she had to hold things together? Chiron didn't know who he was, and suddenly they had five kids that she just instantly felt responsible for -- even if, y'know, most of them were fine and didn't need her fussing over them, she has an over-protective streak when it comes to kids. She was still grappling with the fact she couldn't do anything all the way to the end of the game, really -- Mob dying, losing Chiron and Ochako the week after, everything Clem had to do without their direct support... all she could really do was react to things after the fact and feel helpless.

And, right. Let's talk about Chiron dying! :| Even if it was sort of an inevitable thing, after they spoke with Emet and Hansa about the fact it could still happen, it still hit her hard when it did. Like, up until this point SOMEHOW most of her closest CR had scraped by. She'd lost a couple of people she cared for a lot, but Chiron was the first really big, heavy hit and it got coupled by an equally heavy one with Ochako dying at the same time. And it was also maybe a little reality kick for her? She's used to being pushed aside for what people "have" to do -- Twilights work on contracts and she's been ignored by Nicholas and Worick in favour of them doing what they have to do, so she understood to a point what Chiron meant about duty, even if she didn't understand the sheer weight of it. But he'd seemed happier and a little more willing to entertain the idea of not shuffling off the mortal coil at the first chance he got -- they'd even talked about his contract with the realm and agreed Emet-Selch could take it over and then! He just! Yeeted himself in front of a Dorothy-controlled rollercoaster after leaving them some really rude flowers.

As funny as I make it sound, that is probably something he'll have to deal with now. She's never going to quite believe he's not going to do something he deems is right and just, at the cost of all their feelings. Maybe she'll believe him in the future if he says he's happy and doesn't want to go anywhere, but... not for a little bit. At the very least. SHE'S VERY TIRED. AND VERY TICKED WITH HER FAVOURITE HORSE, OKAY?


One thing I also wanted to kinda talk about as a parting shot is... like... the weird mix of whatever they are?

Mostly because I sort of use Hansa and Emet as opposite ends of the scale - one she's incredibly close to the other she's getting to know, and Chiron is obviously up at the Hansa end of the scale. She knows and trusts and loves him -- of course she does, she wouldn't have been so upset when he died if he was someone she didn't care about. She might've been a little more against the whole OT4 thing if he hadn't been the fourth part of it and it'd be someone else she didn't know all that well?

She loves him a lot okay. He's very important to her. Her emotional support pony. Even if Marie bullies me constantly.