TL;CR MEME

[probe]

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

[toyska]

ara how do you expect me to do a tl;cr when I don't even know what their cr IS!!!!

god. okay. this is going to be a hot mess because I'm tired and idk what even happened here BUT I WILL TRY.

so, one of the very first things childe found out about medb was that she was a liar and also clever. LMFKJDH because his first real exposure was the fact that she claimed to be douman's master when she wasn't, and she knew that they both ought to know she'd been lying. that was enough to pique his interest, along with the fact that she's royalty tbh bc he just kind of naturally sets his sights above his own station no matter what.

ANYWAY one of the first things she said to him was "We all want something, and I intend to want a lot." which he obviously super vibed with!! even though she kept her villainy under wraps, she made it pretty clear very early on what sort of person she is, which automatically set her apart. once he figured out that no, they were NOT all here for an epic battle royale, he sort of mentally sorted people into "worth his time" and "not interested" lmfkjhg and she was in the former group from the start. he never really lowers his guard, but it made it easier to relax around her, because he didn't have to worry that she'd freak out if he let his own ambitions and ruthlessness show.

CLOSES EYES it also honestly helped a lot that she was very blunt about being into him, because he really is just sooo "/shrugs vaguely" about sex and probably would have taken a lot longer to initiate if she hadn't done it first, plus it also would've been very businesslike and unsexy because banging in this game was literally just work to him... but he definitely enjoyed it the most with her bc she was willing to let him have fun in his own way, so that combined with her forwardness also made things more comfortable for him. he really had no problems just saying "yes" to basically whatever she wanted LMKGJDHG he's just very much the spoiling type to begin with and he had no reason to say no to her whims!! it also got him to a place where he would willingly reach out to her and initiate first which was--idk if I'd say important but it meant more, insomuch as anything in a fuckgame with emotional morons can "mean more" lmfkjdhg

ANYWAY

memshare happened!!! medb's one of the few people who got one of his most villainous memories, and like--once he found out it was memshare week he was like "ah shit" and braced himself to get outed as a villain. so he was, obviously, expecting a much bigger and much worse reaction from her than what he got, which threw him off-kilter a little! but it made him think "hunh, maybe my reputation isn't destroyed?!" so he tried to be careful in the way he talked about it because it was still too early for him to come around to the idea that she might actually like him as he was. and then he got her memory in return, which he could recognize showed a side of her that she didn't often show other people--and that not only prompted him to, again, feel more comfortable being himself around her, but also to open up to her and talk about the tsaritsa! by doing that, he was trying to show that he understood that a person can be multifaceted, that he could recognize and acknowledge the different aspects of her and continue to respect her strength. he was also trying to give her a part of himself that he hadn't shared with other people, kind of as an exchange, since she didn't have a choice in showing him that memory and he wanted them to stay equal. that memshare thread is one of my favorites, they had a good talk.

AND THEN WEEK 3 HAPPENED closes eyes... we already talked about this on plurk but!!! when she confessed(?) to him his first reaction was just oh no because HE'D REALLY!! BEEN HOPING!!! THAT SHE WASN'T SOFT!!!! it was driving him crazy that people were getting attached to each other TO THE POINT OF KILLING EACH OTHER FOR GAY DRAMA INSTEAD OF FOR AMBITION he was really just like "omfg y'all are forgetting why we are here!!!" even before the trial his warning signal was blaring because he told her not to get attached to him and she was like IT'S TOO LATE lmfksdhg childe just internally closing his eyes like "not you too". at this point he was still very firmly trying to maintain his own boundaries and trying to hold onto not seriously caring about anybody else in the game because "Trust No One" + "they could be dead tomorrow so what's the point".

so of course his first reaction was rejection!! because he did like her a lot, and he isn't really a cruel man--he didn't want to lead her on, he didn't want to do anything to make her think he would ever be willing to give up his goal for anybody in the game, he tried very hard to make that clear. and if he'd known at the time that she was also really into takeru he definitely would've doubled down on the rejection because he would've seen no point in letting things progress between the two of them lmfkjhg WE COULD'VE HAD MURDER but alas. but like I said before, she managed to hit the perfect combination of phrasing things in a way that made it clear she didn't expect him to put her at the front of his priorities (because he wouldn't), and that she wanted him just as he was and didn't expect him to change (because he couldn't). he still had some concerns because he knew for a fact she was, in a sense, softer than he was (since she still had a no-kill list, even if she acknowledged the drawbacks in having one), but she seemed firm enough in her resolve that it was worth giving in and saying yes to her.

OF COURSE despite how hard he dug his heels in about Caring™, even he acknowledged that he wasn't immune to forming connections, and he was coming around to accepting that. not smoothly or easily, because he can be stubborn, but it was at a point of like. "I admit that I care but I also think I'm an idiot for it." AND OF COURSE THE WEEK HE KILLED HAPPENED TO BE HER CYOA WEEK!!! honestly icly he probably would have chosen not to because he would've wanted to stick with her but /waves hand in murdergame deadlines. alas. BUT STILL, he was genuinely worried about her, because once he decides to care about you he's a very doting person. that was really the point where he shifted from being annoyed that he cared about her to accepting that he did, because he did want her safe and he didn't like that she'd been zapped away to somewhere he couldn't reach.

but then he didn't have much time to actually deal with it because THE FRIDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS HAPPENED and. yeah. he hadn't told her he was working with mahito because it didn't really matter, to him? since the two of them were doing separate kills in separate places and just working together to cover up. but then mahito DIED and after they talked early on friday gu yun came to him and was like "yeah I killed mahito with your knife and molly and harrow are covering for me" childe basically. knew that he was dead. LMFKJH because he knew molly still had that one item (which would rule out any chance of him claiming it was self-defense) and he knew that mahito had killed aoi (which meant it was down to him and gu yun or a scapegoat for some reason) so he was pretty sure he was gonna get caught.

...BUT HE ALSO KNEW HE HAD THE REVIVAL POWER. Ahaha. touches the ground

I TOLD YOU BEFORE but he didn't tell her that he had it for a few reasons. partly it was because he didn't know for sure it was going to work--there was no point in getting her hopes up if there was a chance it was gonna fail. partly because the knowledge that you could have three abilities at once hadn't been made public yet, and he didn't want to risk someone using an ability on her or someone boxing her into a lie or whatever. and partly because (and this is really the thing that ended up fucking the two of them over in the long run) he'd also grown to care about lust and view her as something like a sibling, and in his own way he was trying to protect her from dealing with the backlash of giving him a revival power.

but since he knew there was a chance he would survive the execution, he was a little softer than he might've been; he had the freedom to be a little more concerned about her survival too, and him tossing her the knife was 50/50 intentionally supporting her + the stupid thing wasn't fully working for him so eh. but he wasn't at all surprised that she used it on him, and he was actually very pleased that she did, because it was proof that she wouldn't let him get in the way of her survival and her goals, which he could respect and appreciate.

I will say that he didn't really expect people to find out that he'd more or less saved himself, but he also made a GRAVE MISCALCULATION in that he genuinely didn't think she'd be that upset with him for lying about it. HE'S REALLY JUST not suited to schemes and manipulation--he said a hundred times in various places that he doesn't like them, and this was no different!!! so between that and his utter inability to relationship normally, it's no wonder that he fucked up so badly lmfkjhg GOD. A DUMBASS.

anyway, after he died and after that conversation with douman, he was braced for her to be mad at him?? but he still didn't... really understand why until after they met again and talked it over. and it was really only when they were face to face again that he could see that he'd hurt her, which he hadn't meant to do--and that, more than anything, was really what prompted him to tell her the truth. he could've tried to make it up to her, or just apologized and left it at that, or whatever, but in that conversation he really felt that, because he cared about her, he thought she deserved to see the full him, even though it was ugly and he knew it would mean she wouldn't forgive him. for him, at that point, honesty was the only thing he had left that was worth anything at all, and that was the best way he could show her that he did actually care about her and her feelings despite everything.

but he's not really a pushy guy, and he's capable of admitting and acknowledging when he's wrong, so at this point he just kind of assumes she never wants to see him again. he believed her when she said she didn't hate him, but he also knows that that makes things so much more complicated than they would be if she did just plainly hate his guts. he just feels like any reminders of him would probably hurt her, so even now that they're removed from the context of the game and he doesn't need to lie to her anymore or anything, he figures that the kindest thing he can do for her is just to give her space and let her go be happier with people who actually know how to have relationships without blowing them up. he wouldn't turn her away if she reached out to him, but the chances of him reaching out to her are pretty low unless he has some good reason for it. :( RIP.