tl;cr meme

[marriagebroker]

post your character, people reply, give them the deets. you know how this goes.

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[irreversal]

gimme commentary for a thread U want to commentate my sweet jae... ♥

[poans]

Their first meeting began with parallel stares at mother nature. Yi Sang actually prefers watching the sky and used to lie on the ground in order to stargaze at night, because he has always dreamed of flying freely; however, at this point in time he was obsessive over his reflection, which seemed to confront him with the likelihood of a fruitless journey. He saw in his fleeting image on the pond's surface an unchanging void, which led to a discussion on futility with Shoko.

She offered the picturesque cherry blossoms in springtime, but his thoughts took him back to the yellow camellias that colored his hometown. Before immolating the League, Dongbaek had told him that a fire from a distance could resemble a flower, so the imagery of a grave in bloom was strong in his mind. Shoko's take on futility was different from his own, though; like Wei Wuxian, she ascribed meaning where Yi Sang failed to see it. Having said that, he was desperate to grasp onto any thread of hope he could find and, in his own way, eagerly asked where she mustered the strength to hold onto that which was fleeting, only for the answer to thoroughly discourage him.

She spoke of how those who scattered would leave memories behind. Rather than think of his erstwhile fellows from the League, he fixated on the resultant insignificance of his existence, because he had nobody. Contrary to her words, he existed in isolation, which then begged the question of whether there was hope for him after all—and his belief in the moment was that there wasn't, at least not in the path of which Shoko spoke.

Upon expressing his doubts about the capacity of an empty world to be filled, she argued that it was a choice to stay isolated, yet it was his very choice that had left him in isolation in the first place by leaving Gubo behind in order to fill that void. Clear though her spoken path was, he thought himself to be already part of the ground and perhaps even buried beneath the camellias as he pardoned himself. This was in part a reference to Dongbaek's lasting impression on him, as well as in another part to the lyrics of his canto's defining song, wherein the words from his perspective say that he was staked to the ground and given warmth by the soil (a grave) as a nod to his deadened state. To her own words about not hiding away too much, he said that he would remember; generally, if he replied in this way it meant that he didn't necessarily agree and was going with the flow out of the belief that his thoughts didn't matter much in the long run.

For all that, he certainly interrupted Shoko and Aventurine over a shot at wordplay with little to no hesitation! He was a bit embarrassed by the lukewarm reception, however, and tried to leave, feeling down on himself for being unable to convey even this much without blunder. Shoko still stopped him for an explanation and requested that he chat her up again sometime, and this marked a trend in how she would reach out to him every so often, which he noticed most of all after the first ceremony. There was some shame when she looked at him for pulling the joke again later, but that she didn't seem to take it as poorly as Aventurine had prior was a small relief.

As for the truth booth, it wasn't bad at all that Luke and Yingying were, by his reckoning, luminous. They burned brightly in each other's company. To Yi Sang, heat is a source of warmth and therefore comfort. It didn't mean anything to him when he could scarcely feel it, but it was a sight to behold between these two players. On his part, the world was colorless in the way the scattered remains of his wings are pale while Sang Yi's were resplendent in their vibrancy and color, reflecting all of their possibilities within glasslike plumes.

While he was initially a little concerned for Shoko at the thought of her needing protection, his curiosity was instantly piqued when she brought up a potential commonality. In general, it was a sign of considerable movement on his end if he expressed interest. Shoko confessed that she didn't really believe what she'd told him, and that she instead thought that it was all right if her beliefs changed. More than their protracted conversation at the gardens, it was this that got through to him, because Yi Sang desperately wants change. Change was the reason he abandoned the familiarity of staying with Gubo despite his unideal circumstances. This was familiar and a point of connection, such that Shoko shot up to his top three candidates for the ceremony. His prospects were few and far between, but that merely stressed how much of an impact she had on him here. From this point onward, he was invested in seeing where Shoko went out of solidarity and of hope that change might fall within his reach if he were to watch her.

That hope promptly went down the drain in the aftermath of the first ceremony, where Yi Sang found himself unable to argue his stance with respect to Yingying, struck so critically by Odile's precise words as he was. Shoko immediately came in to stage an intervention, and, while he saw the potential wisdom in what she had to say, the gulf between this and that seemed only to grow for him. His beliefs weren't going to stop the flow of time. All things would pass, and that included companions. In the end, he was fated for isolation once the game concluded, hence his response that he would continue to walk—instead of flying, resigned to an excruciating cycle of loss and nothingness without end. Someone like Shoko could change, but not him.

Although he beat a sharp retreat into himself after that, he still crawled out from behind the white wall he didn't know was there for Shoko. Isolated though he felt, it was still a fact that he was around more, kinder people than he had been in a while, and their collective company had the effect of coaxing him out of his stupor here and there. The night he cooked, a part of him wanted Shoko to have the decent meal she deserved, except she fed him his own atrocity instead. Yi Sang has a warped sense of taste! And he argues in canon that the notion of burnt is little more than a human construct aimed at stripping the essence of something when it actually remains (he was talking about the potato), so he has a sentimental relationship with certain foods that others might reject.

Chronologically speaking, I would say that the date took place before this meeting in the night. He was much more solemn there, though she gave him a surplus of food for thought. His opinion of Shoko was at its peak from this point, which led to his handling her ghosts later in the week with more care.

Being of a gentle and sentimental nature, Yi Sang felt it would be wrong to simply crash through the apparitions, so he sidestepped them instead. Nanami's tendency to park himself in the periphery and witness the ensuing shenanigans reminded Yi Sang of himself, and how he'd observe the League's interactions within itself fondly. Back then, the air had been clear, because it had felt as if he were flying; those had been the happiest days of his life, which was what he meant to ask Shoko, who mistook his question for whether she'd smoked since her youth. Because it was too troublesome to relay his overlapping thoughts—a lifelong difficulty that had stopped him from fully expressing himself—he abstained from explaining and chose to listen in lieu of talking.

He couldn't fathom the depths of Shoko's pain and numbness. They were beyond his ability to imagine, but he could understand how wearying the things she had to do must have been. A part of him stirred in sorrow over this. In his awkward reluctance to make eye contact, he had chosen to seep instead in his fellows' warm company, so he suggested that they do the same here with the apparitions of Shoko's friends for her sake. Although Yi Sang was lukewarm toward the apparition of his reflection for reasons pertaining to the nature of the illusions, through Shoko and Yingying he could see how beneficial the presences of ghosts could be.

Then they watched Up and he was at first inwardly aghast that she would consider this a happy film. He didn't know how to explain the myriad feelings simmering somewhere in him and, too, lacked the willpower to even start finding the words for them. He let Shoko rest, as she seemed in need of it, while becoming more and more engrossed in Carl's story. Yi Sang is pretty dry when it comes to emotional displays like crying, but he was, in fact, deeply moved by Carl's journey with grief. At the same time, he appreciated Ellie's bright personality and Russell's youthful energy, because he has a soft spot for children, to say nothing of Dug's companionship and the technology associated with the latter's speech. Hearing Shoko's thoughts on it, he realized that this was an appropriate feature for her, too, as someone who'd spent time on the other side of the walls her friends had stood behind.

As an aside, he did have fun with the rapid-fire wordplay. It was, all things considered, a peaceful night.

The balloon rabbit was also all kinds of wrong in terms of proportion and make, but Yi Sang suffered for it. Inflating it wiped almost all of his lung capacity. He hopes now that she liked it.

By their final date, Yi Sang was much more motivated to embody the change he so wanted. He was genuinely relieved that the poodle liked him enough for them to enter the park, else he would've been terribly disappointed to be denied a new experience with Shoko over a failed vibe check. Using the dog's name as his chance to strike, he asked after Shoko and Poppy in his attempt to actively check up on the former after many a week wasted on inaction. Her answer gladdened him, and, in response to her line of questioning, thought his understanding with Yingying could be considered romantic if it meant that he could fly where the air was clear (blue skies) and Yingying could be present to roam as she pleased (all-encompassing fragrance of violet blossoms). As he had no prior frame of reference for romance, this was the best he could riddle out for himself.

Coming from the City, Yi Sang is no stranger to the cruelties exacted by human hands. Thus, he could understand why people might other curse users, even if he didn't want such a thing for Shoko, whose gaze was trained on the things that mattered more. She was inspiring in her straightforward ways, and he opined his concession in that overthinking could do more harm than good. As such, he was immensely grateful for Shoko's attempts at steering him from doing just that by trading words and challenging his narrow horizons until now. Shoko, for all her hurts and exhaustion, was remarkably strong.

As someone who abhors unethical practices, he tried to see where she'd come from in light of the reveal about her stitching a friend's corpse back together to be weaponized. He couldn't imagine that she would have done something so heinous without reason. Putting together the pieces she gave him, he arrived at the understanding that everyone had entered the proverbial ring with full awareness of the stakes involved. Shoko had done what she had to do for the world. She'd been dealt a hand most cruel, and it was not to say that he felt it was a good thing, but he at least sought to acknowledge the wills of those involved, as well as Gojo's humanity, so he bade her to lower those clinical lenses that were blurring her view of such a precious essence. While Yi Sang can't say how he would've fared with Gojo, he would have considered it a privilege to know a friend of Shoko's.

Speaking of friend, Yi Sang's inner thoughts frequently circled around Dongrang throughout the game. Dongrang was a childhood friend with a bleeding heart who'd essentially bled out to his breaking point, and it was necessary for Yi Sang to acknowledge where he himself had erred to grow past his grief. With Shoko, he was constantly reminded of Dongbaek. Dongbaek had been fond of fireworks in her homesickness; the sparkler Shoko lit for him reminded him of those warmer days—of the sweet dream he'd had of Dongrang and Dongbaek through Yingying's lullaby—and it was all the more beautiful for that. For all his ruminating, however, he seldom spoke of them aloud. In fact, this was the second time he spoke of Dongbaek at length, and the first he was doing it completely of his own volition, because he'd been influenced by the food on the first week during his talk with Odile. It was his way of baring himself to Shoko, of sharing something that took much effort to express out of desire to connect with her.

All in all, Yi Sang deeply respects Shoko as a person and a professional. He wants for her happiness and peace, as her heart also deserves the rest after fighting tirelessly for everyone else. He's very pleased that Shoko wants to keep in touch and will definitely be messaging her routinely to see how she's faring. She was, perhaps more than anyone else, a comforting presence in the game, and he hopes one day to return that priceless favor.