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

[dianxias]

closes eyes, puts hands together. exhales. bOI.

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