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

[infreefall]

Oh, Xie Lian… Sisi, their CR had me on the floor for like every thread they did.

So, to start, obviously they didn’t really know each other well in week zero. They didn’t talk much that week, so her impression of him was about the same as most people: nice, potentially a friend, but still a stranger. Even so, she did respect him for stepping up to help in the trial after the mess with Virid. Not everyone would’ve been able to? That, to Ochako, is one of the first signs of a hero - someone who steps up without hesitation to try to help and protect others.

Fast forward to Thursday of week one, and they were thrown together into the CYOA without any warning! And then Soo-won and Xie Lian just vanished as soon as they’d taken a few steps! Obviously, Ochako was very worried about them, and determined to find them, but first she and Chiron had to get through their side of things. And when they finally did find the other two… they were dead, with their bodies sporting the same injuries she and Chiron had inflicted on those monsters! Wow! That was horrifying! She’d connected the dots pretty quickly, and while it made her feel more guilty than anything she’d ever done in her life, it honestly still made Ochako want to help people even more. She’s seen death before, you know? Deaths that she tired to help prevent but in the end, couldn’t change their fate - and she really hated that Xie Lian and Soo-won’s deaths would be that way, too.

That said, even she thought the life-saving serum was questionable? But the off-chance that it would really help was too great not to take, so. She gave them the serum, accidentally turned them both into bloodthirsty monsters, and it was just a really bad time. Still, they were alive - and Ochako desperately wanted to keep them that way, so she resolved to try. Of course we know that failed, and Soo-won and Xie Lian both had to die again, but. Her canonpoint is after the school festival, so the battle at Hassaikai and the injuries and deaths that Ochako couldn’t prevent were all still fresh in her mind, not to mention the stuff with Virid.

As a hero, Ochako’s main goal is to support her family, because heroes make good money if they’re popular enough. But after Hassaikai, her goals have shifted a little to actively wanting to save people, so having that turned around on her so soon after… Actually, I don’t know where you are in MHA canon so I won’t spoil who, but after a very significant death!! After that, and her decision to try to save people, being forced to kill someone was… pretty traumatic! Even though it was technically self-defense! Even more so because they asked to be killed! Even more so because it was Ochako’s own actions that led to this outcome!

It was a bad time all around, basically. She was so relieved when they were revived on the way back that she could have collapsed - and afterward, Ochako kind of wanted to avoid Soo-won and Xie Lian, to be honest. She did kind of manage that with Soo-won, but Xie Lian… she was a little afraid to approach him, too, but Ochako felt like she owed him an apology for what happened, because it never would have gotten that bad if she hadn’t used that serum. And honestly, she didn’t expect him to forgive her for it. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he didn’t!

The last thing she expected was for Xie Lian to turn it around and try to reassure her. But he did, by using her own motivations as a hero, and reminding her that taking risks to save people is something that heroes do. And when she argued that she should have thought it through a little better, that heroes aren’t supposed to hurt (or kill) people, he did it again: “Sometimes, for the good of the whole, good people have to do things they would never do.” Those words stuck with her for the rest of the game. To be honest, I think the Realm would have been a lot harder for her to adjust to without hearing them. It was something that she really needed to hear, even if it didn’t make what happened any easier to bear at the time, and I think she’ll carry them with her into her career as a hero. She wanted to be the type of hero that he was describing, someone who would try their hardest to save at least one person, because that would be one less loss. And it was the first step to her viewing Xie Lian as her favorite hero, albeit one that nobody will know in her own world!

At the same time… It made her wonder just how, exactly, Xie Lian had learned these lessons. It sounded like he spoke from experience, which honestly scared her. She had no idea what kinds of things he’d been through, and judging from how easily he’d downplayed his own injuries and experience in the CYOA, she… honestly didn’t believe he was handling it well at all, but really just hiding it as he continued to move forward. The thing is, she wasn’t how to ask about any of that, and Xie Lian was so deft at redirecting the conversation that he easily steered her away before they could even get into it. But yeah - it was Xie Lian’s words that convinced her to keep going, so after this week, she sort of just refused to show that it bothered her anymore? Which. Isn’t exactly healthy, but when you’re taking cues for Xie Lian… well, you know.

Anyway! It was because of that conversation that she felt safe enough to swap team information with Xie Lian! Ochako may be inclined to trust people by default, but she also follows the rules as closely as she can - so without their CYOA experience and subsequent talk, I’m not so sure she would have agreed to it. But they did have that talk, and he didn’t seem like the type who would use that against her, though, so it was fine, probably.

She also just. Really appreciated Xie Lian not dismissing her ideas of trying to use more positive feelings to generate nova! Honestly, with how many folks who had already tried to shut her down when it came to trying to work together here, she might have expected the idea to be dismissed as childish or something - but he didn’t. They just agreed that “strong emotions” didn’t have to be something negative, and that was just… really good for Ochako, to have someone encouraging her in a positive way instead of all the doomsday-type chatter about being prepared for the worst to come to pass. It was like seeing a little ray of sunlight peeking through the clouds of an overcast sky, and that made it easier for her to hold onto hope while everything else seemed to be going wrong. It made Ochako want to be a better hero, too - one like Xie Lian, who had the sort of inner strength that let him keep facing forward, no matter what, and one who never gave up on hope, even when the odds were looking worse and worse by the day.

And after the trial that week, Xie Lian told her about what happened between Hua Cheng and Claude, and it put the seeds of suspicion in her mind, which she super didn’t like!! I mean, okay. To be fair, there was nothing telling them that they really could trust their leaders except for the leaders themselves. None of them really had any reason to believe the leaders, but Ochako wanted to trust hers, because… if they couldn’t trust their leaders, then what did they have that they could trust? Each other would be the obvious answer, and it’s true that Ochako did trust a few of the other participants by that point. But the leaders were their only real source of information here, and if they were giving out disruptive abilities like that, it made her wonder if they were even supposed to resolve the situation at all, and if they weren’t… what then?

That said, the fact that calm, level-headed Xie Lian just wanted to go and fight a monster made her like him more. Wanting something tangible to just punch and call it a day? BIG mood. She felt the same! If only we could just punch all our problems, life would be so much easier!

Then… she forgot about being a hero! Haha! And the conversation where Xie Lian realized that… it honestly made her wonder if she’d done something wrong? She didn’t ask him about it outright because 1. the thread didn’t get that far, and 2. somehow it didn’t feel right for her to pry that much into the thoughts and emotions of someone she looked up to so much, but Ochako did see how his expression changed during their talk and felt awful about it. But because she did look up to him, and because she could tell that Xie Lian was very stubbornly trying not to let her (or anyone, really) worry about him, she didn’t press. Instead, she leaned into the encouragement he gave her for trying to learn about first aid. Better to focus on the positives, right? Right.

So. It was between that conversation and… laughs, ALL OF WEEK FOUR (yells in memshares) that Ochako realized just how much she’d come to rely on Xie Lian for support. He was always there when she needed someone, you know? And he always understood, and never brushed off anything that concerned her, no matter how small. He always took her seriously and treated her with respect, instead of like a naive child. She’d come to cherish that more than she realized, especially with her most important memories falling apart enough that the only people she remembered caring so much about were the people there in the Realm with them, Xie Lian foremost among them.

Thing is… Ochako always had this air about her that made people think she was fragile, and after the first few weeks, it was really on her mind how weak she really felt. All she really wanted after all that was to learn to be strong, but that wasn’t all for her own sake! I mean, of course there’s the heroic aspect to it, because even if she didn’t remember wanting to be a hero, she did still want to help people. But! There was a more specific goal in her mind, and that was wanting to get stronger so that she could help Xie Lian. Because, again, she’d noticed the wisdom in the things he’d said to her and to others. She’d noticed the way that he bottled up his emotions so no one else would see. And, of course, she’d seen that memory of the human face plague (which I never replied to because wow endgame but still). All of that made her wonder… if Hua Cheng wasn’t there - because she recognized, too, how important Hua Cheng was to Xie Lian, how much they trusted each other - but if Hua Cheng wasn’t there to support Xie Lian, who would be there for him? Who would help Xie Lian pick up the pieces if something happened to Hua Cheng, and he needed a moment to fall apart before putting himself back together? Though she honestly didn’t think for a second that Xie Lian would actually allow it, Ochako wanted to be strong enough to be that person, if it came down to it. She wanted to be able to help him, like he’d helped her. She wanted to help make his life take a turn for the better… but she didn’t know how to get there.

Also I just want to say - curfew that week was so funny. She wants to arm wrestle Xie Lian again someday? Stupid jocks. AND ALSO THE GHOST STORIES… they were very fun and she appreciated it even knowing that it was murder night and, uh, seeing such a weird memory of Ghost City. It’s fine. They can pretend that last part didn’t happen and just keep teasing Mr. Crimson Rain Sought Flower for his temper. It was a fun night! Not so fun for the rest of that weekend, but you know. Things happen, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to help Xie Lian (or Hua Cheng, really) just yet, so. She let him be for now.