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]

BEEGUNS BACK

honestly I feel like we kind of tl;cr'd at each other over the entire course of the game so between that and cr chart this is really just gonna be a rehash of what you already know and probably?? won't be that long??? I don't know anything don't look at me

ANYWAY

so, childe came into the game expecting a trap. but he was perfectly fine with the idea of walking into a trap, because what he really wanted out of the experience was just the opportunity to fight a bunch of really strong opponents he'd never met before! his wish was genuinely something he wanted, but he wasn't going to be heartbroken if he didn't get it. but on top of that he was fresh from dealing with the whole mess in liyue, having to scheme and plot and play nice only to find out he'd been tricked by a friend AND he didn't even get to fight god about it. TERRIBLE!! he was really looking forward to something much more simple and straightforward, because even if it was a trap it was probably just going to be "haha we lured you here to kill you all!" and then he'd get to fight even more people about it and it would be great.

like recognizes like, and it was immediately obvious to him that gu yun was a fighter--he was surprised that they kinda-sorta shared a language, but then they were both like "this is sus? this is sus", and gu yun proved he was intelligent as well. so right off the bat childe liked him, it was a very "oh heck yeah this is what I was looking forward to!" sort of attitude. the fatui isn't exactly the same as a typical military, but it's close enough that childe could recognize the Authority Vibe that automatically made him want to give gy a hard time HFJKSDHGJK this is how they are, we knew it would be like this and it was not at all surprising. he intentionally only gave gy one name as a start for their info network, partly because he just doesn't do anything for free until he really knows and likes you and partly because he wasn't about to give gy the satisfaction of him easily following orders.

but at first it was just vibing, getting along, waiting for the inevitable announcement that SURPRISE YOU'RE ALL HERE TO KILL EACH OTHER or whatever. and childe is a careful guy who'd been nerfed to a level he hadn't experienced since he was a kid, so he immediately started hoarding advantages wherever he could. whenever they became opponents (which was inevitable, he figured), gu yun was going to give him a run for his money, which was great!! he was looking forward to it, but he plays to win, so from the very beginning he only shared info that was mutually beneficial. lust told him it was possible to get his powers back, and also gave him non-sexy examples of ways to indulge in lust, and he didn't share either of those things. not necessarily because he didn't want gu yun to find them out (bc gy could just as easily go talk to lust or the other npcs himself and learn what he wanted) but again, because he wasn't going to hand over anything for free.

I do find it funny that they had such an unspoken agreement to keep their alliance quiet--like, I don't think they ever explicitly said "hey let's not tell people we get along and we're working together"?? they just sort of naturally did that. THEY REALLY WORK TOGETHER SO WELL and once their posturing settled into something more even (and once they started helping each other out with indulgences, god) it became easier for childe to share his plot info more freely. even so, he kept an eye on gu yun's relationships and the way he interacted with people, because he's used to having All The Info and he always wanted to stay a few steps ahead. if he was gonna get tossed into another plot full of schemes and deception, then he was going to be extra vigilant!!! gy didn't seem like the type who would plot around him, but childe wasn't taking any chances.

anyway, I mentioned this already, but it was the hk-47 execution that made it starkly clear to childe that for all their similarities, they were extremely different people at their cores. gy was angry that sqx was in the execution ring, and he was angry at hk-47, whereas childe was apathetic about both of those things. so seeing gu yun's reactions and speaking with him afterwards was like "oh god you're soft like the rest of them, you're just better at hiding it." he wasn't... disappointed, exactly? but there was a line drawn between them then, the start of a gap that only widened as time went on. he could see that gu yun was getting attached to people (and getting attached to wrath in particular, which he thought was EXTRAORDINARILY stupid), and that he had certain morals/values that childe thought were unsuitable for their situation. HE COULD SENSE THE HIDDEN PROTAG ENERGY and that automatically lowered childe's ability to trust him/trust that gy would understand his level of ambition.

he did try to feel him out after week 2's trial, just to be sure--gu yun gave him the perfect opening for it by mentioning that he thought people might come after him, and childe took the opportunity to suggest striking first, just to see what he'd say. but when gu yun said he'd rather kill in self-defense, childe believed him, and (incorrectly) assumed that meant he wasn't going to kill someone first, or kill just for ambition. he never really had any reason to doxx endorsi and mahito to gu yun in the first place, but after that it kind of solidified his resolve to keep quiet about any murders he was involved in rather than including gu yun as he otherwise might have.

instead, from w3 onward, gu yun kind of became his touchstone for getting information on what molly and harrow were up to without actually having to interact with them himself, which was very convenient!! childe's attitude shifted around this point, from the sort of baseline partnership they had going on to that + starting to use gu yun in more of a selfish way. when gy came to him to check his hands was really when he sort of established himself to be on the side of the people who wanted to catch murderers, so even if childe hadn't been covering for law that week, that would've once again widened the gap between them and made childe even more adamant about not telling him of any murders he was involved in. but because of their relationship + gy's particular relationships with molly and harrow, childe was able to question him about the trap without making himself look too suspicious. childe was also convinced from that point onward that gy would totally doxx him as a killer to harrow if he found out childe was one, no matter what he said about being willing to cover for him. he did kind of drop a hint, w3--when he said "I can't help but feel like we're getting distracted by all of this" what he meant was "I feel like we're getting too caught up in trying to catch murderers for literally no reason because 1. we're all here to win so why the fck do we care about this and 2. there is clearly a bigger picture to think about guys hello". but by that point he didn't really expect gy to pick up on the fact that he was thinking more about how the trial system was a huge, pointless waste of time.

uhhhh not much to say about w4 I don't think?? I already told you this but when he refused to disclose his power during the trial he was 50% giving gy a hard time because they had JUST talked about how it's sus to expect other people to share their powers and not share your own, which is what gu yun did, and 50% just genuinely wanting to keep it quiet because it was the item duplication power, which he figured would be useful if he got targeted. mostly because he was truly convinced he was going to be targeted sooner rather than later. gy telling him he was under suspicion for killing eleanor early w5 made that paranoia worse, because sometimes people just want to kill you a lot and that's how you live.

I NEED TO GO TO BED NOW I'LL FINISH THIS LATER