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

[papasha]

im still going to kick your ass

[evocationary]

ok look i made so many "gonna fuck blanca" jokes before the game but i had no idea how much i was gonna ship it at the end?? what the fuck

most of the characters i play in general have that thing about Trust, and lup is no different? in the podcast the mcelroys make a point to say that their scrappy childhood wasn't because of their sexualities which is true, but it was still scrappy nonetheless. they got passed around from family member to family member and then they decided to strike out on their own, and basically i just assume they were on the road a lot and could only really trust each other for years. i imagine the starblaster crew also got the brunt of them really not trusting anybody but each other for years and years.

so having blanca as someone who established that he was reliable from the very start was good for her. like, by week one she knew him as sturdy, reliable and calm, and it was comforting.

at the very start of the game lup's last memory before she got to the realm was that she had been trapped in an umbrella for a decade and some change, and hadn't been able to touch anybody or feel anything for that long? so she was immediately ready to just touch everybody AND it was physical affection week, so like, she was doomed. blanca is a big dork and very much her type, where he lets her get away with just enough bullshit and plays along, but also gives her those like flat "i know what you're doing" looks, too. she likes dangerous nerds, either in the way that they don't look like much but could hand your ass to you, or they look like fucking hulks and also read love poetry on their breaks. so like, they flirt for .2 seconds and he doesn't resist touching her and they just, sleep together, AND I REALLY WASN'T EXPECTING IT TO HAPPEN THAT FAST BUT all the circumstances were perfect for it, it's so fuckin funny.

(also he was like "do you want a bed, i'll get you a bed" and she really appreciated that? it's such a small thing but it was sweet and courteous and she's got a weakness)

so like, it started off very flirty and casual with her, because that was the mindset she was in. she was trying to figure out the realm itself so she wasn't sure she had time to go for anything else, but then they got connected for that one week and she felt Bad not being right up in his space, and he TOOK HER ON A DATE? and that was where she was like ... okay, so maybe there's something a little more than just stress relief here. especially once he came out of the cyoa all fucked up, like way to give her a goddamn heart attack!! but she had a crush on him as early as that week. yes, i know it's dumb to be like "she had a crush on him" after they'd slept together like three times, but it's true.

but it was still all flirty and not a lot of her letting him see her squishy sad parts until like, week two, when they sat on the pirate ship and talked. they talked about memories, and what was important, and what they thought they needed to keep, and of course they were on the same page with all that. and he basically just said he'd cover for her if she did a murder? WITH HIS DAMN "I think more of you than a woman to simply have sex with, Lup," like - i'll talk more about this later but she definitely had a lot of times this game where she was like i think i like him more than he likes me and i will NOT be the lame one with this, i swear, this is supposed to be him chasing ME not the other way around. but she was emotionally open with him that time, and he didn't make fun of her for it or change the subject, he just talked her through it. building trust, bit by bit.

the whole no-touch week sucked for multiple reasons but the loss of being able to touch anybody was honestly a recipe for bad brains for lup. obviously she was missing being able to hug her brother, and also to koala cling to sora, but she really sorely missed the fact that blanca couldn't just be casually affectionate with her. she'd gotten used to him tucking her hair behind her ear and holding her hand and even just letting her lean on him, and not being able to really put in perspective how much she'd relied on it keeping her sane.

AND THEN HE FUCKIN JUST TELLS HER HE HAS A ROLE and that thread is one of my faves because i think that was where she drunkenly realized she was in deep, because she thought he'd done a murder and was like well, time to cover all of this up. her immediate like, i will go to bat for this dude i haven't known very long - that was a wake up call.

sidenote there were a lot of times where blanca was a big part of her decision making process? she was trying her best to not get injured in places because she knew it'd upset him, and the whole. thing with cloud, like - she really was not going to pursue that at all. she likes him but she didn't even think about it seriously until blanca was like it's fine to flirt with him. and i've told you this before but she 100% would have told cloud she couldn't kiss him or w/e if blanca had been like :\ don't

anyway then he breaks up with her because he thought he was married and she was GUTTED about this, i don't know if she ever got to talk to anybody about it fully because she felt weird about it. it should've been fine, he's just a random guy and she wasn't about to make him cheat on his wife like he thought he was, but after not being able to touch him for a week, it was awful. she also forgot her name that week and it was just a clusterfuck of sad. he was so nice to her about it too, she was a rude fuck to him that thread but he was sweet and apologetic and that just made her feel worse. but at the same time she felt like she shouldn't have been sad, because who gets that attached after four weeks, right? (it was lup, she got attached)

even so, he got her to talk about what she was so fucked up with over emet-selch. because i think that's the first time she actually panicked and lost her cool? and it was in front of a LOT of people. she wasn't particularly besties with emet, but they had this understanding of being the only people who remembered their homelands, and plus, she knew he was a role, so she hated not being able to have figured out who killed kasumi instead. on top of that, hansa looked like he was going to yeet himself to the stampede too, so she panicked, and was thoroughly embarrassed afterwards. i think if maybe blanca hadn't been like dude, nobody even thought twice about you being afraid - she might have retreated a lot. she was already on her way to doing it, because like i said, she was embarrassed about showing that much emotion in public. she would've pulled away from everybody if blanca hadn't told her she was being dumb.

so week four comes along, and taako forgets her in this spectacular display, and this thread is important because this is the point that she knew she loved blanca, like - she says as much to sora in this thread. I'm proud of you, he says, I'm here if you need me, Ru. Even if you're angry, or scared, I'm here, and she just went ah, fuck. she made a big joke out of it as she always does, but that was the point she really got slapped by a doki 2x4.

(she felt a lot bad about not bringing his wife up to him, but she knew it wouldn't do any good, he wasn't going to remember; still felt selfish, though)

him taking care of her after her cyoa was the point that she started coming up with her plan to suss out if he loved her too, also. i mentioned this earlier but she was very stubborn about not embarrassing herself. she desperately wanted to tell him how she felt but it'd be utterly humiliating to tell him and have him gently decline. she gets awkward and jittery about really genuine emotions like that with everybody but taako, and she thought that if she told him she loved him and he didn't, it was like - with emet? like she's not tough or confident, she's just this damsel, and she doesn't want to be like that at all. but he said it first, and i think that's one of those things that really shows how much they understand each other? he knew that she was having a tough time with it, and so he said it first, and she trusted him so, so much, enough to not make a joke out of it. she just said it back, sincerely. like it was easy. and he didn't make fun of her or be like "was that so hard?" it was just easy. he never fucked with her when it came to the important stuff, and it was simple to let him in.

you know it's funny that they never really fought until like week six, too, the conversation about his emotional control. the second he let go of her it was alarm bells, red flags, her screaming internally that she'd crossed a line. but she went in and decided she was going to fix it, because taako had talked to her about just going for what she wants and not really worrying about the what ifs, and that's what she intended to do.

BUT YEAH BASICALLY blanca was someone i knew lup was going to be fond of immediately but i did not expect him to end up AS important? wow, she loves him, and she was ready to claw her way out of the grave to come find him again. still is, but the magic of her canon is that she doesn't have to actually be dead, hooray.