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

[reconnective]

you better still be asleep by the time i finish this or i'll kill you

anyway, so this isn't going to be as long and as detailed as yours because i'm not remotely organized and also we've spent this whole game screaming about them but here we go.

so the thing about clementine is that sora liked her immediately. in rereading some of their earliest threads, i think clem being kind of prickly and not quite immediately agreeing with sora's sentiments while also being someone who would at least listen and go along with it was enough that she caught his attention. i cannot stress enough that this was really just a case of sora looking at her, listening to her cynical world view and pointing at her before going "that one. i want to be friends with that one."

for as different as their world situations are and how they tackle problems, sora always felt that clem was more complementary to his views than a hinderance. it's only a part of the reason that he continually went back to her and actually told her a lot of what he was thinking. it's really funny because while sora is an optimist at his core, clementine got to see a lot of his less secure thinking and the "negative" parts of his personality and how he thinks. as they got closer to each other, he felt more comfortable actually letting her in on how he felt about stuff even though it wasn't like he was necessarily hiding his feelings? it's more like he never had to second-guess about what to say to her because he knew that she would prefer to hear the truth from him than just what he thought she wanted to hear.

which shaped a lot of their friendship and relationship too, actually. i think their earliest conversation about sora believing in happy endings and clementine not believing in them really solidified how he treated her, too. like with izumo, she reminded him that not everyone subscribed to his brand of optimism and it sort of knocked him down a few pegs and made him step back to assess how to respond to someone else's reality. on the other hand, it made him even more stubborn to make sure they got a good end. i hate this. i hate that even from the very beginning one of his biggest priorities was to make sure they ended on a high note solely for clementine and to fulfill his "promise" of having a happy ending for both of them.

clementine was easy to talk to in the same way riku and kairi are easy to talk to. i think i've told you this before, but he ended up kind of friendzoning her really early that way except he's also VERY STRONG EMOTIONS for his friends and ended up falling into that trap the same way for clementine. it was easy to joke around with her and explore their new settings each week, and even moreso it helped to have someone his age to bond with because most of sora's journey canonically revolves around his two friends who are his age and then a bunch of adults, princesses, and anthropomorphic animals of varying ages. so having that friendship also felt very normalizing to him and helped him focus on the task at hand and even learn how to share the burden of being a hero. sort of.

it's also funny because as mentioned in my meta during the thread itself, when clem confronted him about his role it was a surprise because he was determined and likely would have kept his role a secret until he died because he was worried about swan. as soon as he got confirmation from rabbit that there wouldn't be any repercussions for him or clem, he immediately changed directions and decided that teamwork makes the dream work. 90% of the information he got about literally anything went directly back to clem because they were in the same unique situation and she had proven herself to be very trustworthy. he also realized that she's a lot smarter than he is. it took him a little while to figure out that she's actually sort of shy and doesn't do great with being as social in large crowds, but she's observant and knows how groups work and also has a lot of experience with things he's never had to deal with. it was never a really big deal for him to do the legwork of information gathering because sora's ultimately a giant, stupid puppy. he'll go out and get information and bring it back like a dog bringing an impressive stick back to its owner. any time clementine was happy with information he brought her or laughed at one of his jokes or told him a little more about herself, he took it as a personal victory.

eventually, he started taking a lot of things more personally because he cared about her. a lot. the problem with clem being rikai-zoned is that it also meant he was starting to get hyperdefensive and protective of her, even to the point he would get mad at her for suggesting she was expendable or wanting to sacrifice herself (joking or not.) sora, ultimately, is someone who feels a lot of emotions in very strong waves and doesn't always know how to process them. he usually lets said-emotions guide him and just kind of rule him (heart being the guiding key, etc) and it shaped a lot of how he treated clementine in the later weeks because he understood that he really cared about her but didn't quite cross the line of realizing it was because he had romantic feelings about her. DESPITE THE FACT HE KEPT FLIRTING WITH HER, AND THEY KEPT HOLDING HANDS, AND HE PRINCESS-CARRIED HER AND COMPLIMENTED HER, for a long while it was all very platonic to him but in the sense of "we're friends but she's a Special friend."

sora's a fucking moron.

sora's a fucking moron so much, in fact, that he went to lup and said he didn't think the feelings were mutual and almost decided not to tell clem at all. it was a combination of being cursed by emet-selch to resolve issues and lup telling him it's mutual and he's an idiot that finally led him to actually bringing up the topic even though the idea terrified him. like clem, he was under no illusion that anything would last but maybe not quite to the extent she felt it. for sora, things don't last but it doesn't mean it's an end. it's a temporary pause until things can be resumed again. it's why he always felt very strongly about being able to see her again, about making sure she had a wish in mind, and constant reassurances.

at the end of the day, the combo of clem and lup was almost enough to make him rethink the decision to go back to his actual canonpoint. the idea of leaving her was actually pretty upsetting and he did not like it! at all! but he also firmly believes it's not the end, especially now that there's interdimensional texting and also he keeps giving her promise rocks for reasons i don't even understand god i hate him.

also i have to say if they had gotten together any sooner he would have actually worked his way up to being even more romantic so im glad they only figured it out in the last week of the game ok thank you goodbye