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TL;CR
TL;CR MEME
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. Endure everyone else reading your comment like the vultures they are.
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So even in the beginning of the game, she started to get along with him pretty quickly! They don't have the same sense of humor, but it was similar enough that she enjoyed all their conversations and the easy banter that started happening. In the first few weeks they knew each other, it helped her more than he might guess - the kind of back and forth they kept defaulting to is something pretty familiar to her when she gets fond of someone, and it helped her feel a lot more normal and more like herself after everything that had happened back in her world. That was kind of a trend, but I'm going to dive into that later!! The more time went on, though, the more she could tell he was a genuinely caring and kind person, as sarcastic and easily flustered as he could be.
That's probably why, on the week that everyone who voted for themselves or refused to vote had the nightmares about their important people dying, her first dream was about him. The other reason for this is because all of her friends from back home are dead so she wasn't as scared about seeing them die because it's already real,,, but the reason it was him as opposed to Naminé or Shess was that she was already kind of starting to rely on him a little, even by that point. When I say she was starting to rely on him, at that point it was specifically the way he could make her smile or laugh despite how awful everything around them was; even at that point, he made her happy when there wasn't a lot to be happy about.
From there came the flirting he didn't realize was flirting, and by the time he told her she was cute, there was definitely some dokis there. I mentioned on plurk near the start of the game that I didn't think she would get into a ship because of what happened with the last person she had those kinds of feelings for (press f for Paul), but I think what helped her move past any hesitance she might have had was how... easy and natural it felt? They discussed how they aren't really good at opening up to people, but before that, she also felt like she didn't really have to filter herself around him. She doesn't have a hard time expressing anger around other people, but sadness or fear is another matter, and I think he started getting that earlier than most people. He didn't ever push enough that she felt uncomfortable, but the vibe she got from him was that he was openly concerned and caring about her emotions and her experiences without really acting like she should be opening up to him just because of that if she ever didn't want to.
Anddddd then came the week she lost her hand! And that, obviously, marked a pretty drastic shift for them. While he was carrying her out of the maze after it got cut off and they were having to book it because there were other fighters heading their way, she absolutely, 100% thought that either they were both going to die or at least one of them was, but when A. they didn't and B. she woke up in her house later and realized he hadn't left (because of the magic of rp) even though other people were hurt badly as well... The thing about Emma is that she doesn't take anybody's shit, but she also requires a fairly low level of kindness and attention in order to warm up to someone, especially if she already likes them - and she definitely already liked him by that point. So the end result of her being happy they were both alive and really touched that he didn't leave was makeouts, because the best time to kiss someone is right after losing a limb.
Even when they kind of floated in that nebulous 'what are we doing' stage for a while afterwards, she definitely cared about him a lot! And that's part of why she kind of danced around the question when he asked her what she wanted him to be, both because she didn't want to pressure him into anything after being the one to make the first advance, and also because even if she did want to be with him, it felt a little strange to her to come out and say that considering both the situation they were in. When he did figure out how he wanted to move forward with her and mentioned that one of his concerns was that they're both kind of bad at sharing things - that was a concern she shared, because she knows that she has a lot of baggage and was pretty aware at that point that he did as well based on a few of their conversations. Still, it didn't really stop her from wanting to try, especially since he was one of the people she was most comfortable sharing with at that point (as far as Emotions go).
Moving on from that point, the same feelings kept coming up but, like, more. She was still continually worried about his safety, especially after he kept getting stabbed!! I think a big thing as the weeks went on was that... After the trial where they voted for Xion, and especially after Four's execution, she definitely knew that his heart was in the right place! And while when she voiced it, she framed it as being concerned about whether other people were going to trust him after this (which wasn't a lie), she was also a little bit worried about it herself. It never got to the point that she thought he was Bad or that she didn't understand why he was doing it or where he was coming from, and it's not like she didn't make Poor Choices along the way here (glances pointedly at Kara and Julius), but there was definitely a part of her that was like "mmmm hope nothing worse happens!!". She didn't really want to say that to him, though, because as upfront and outspoken about her frustrations as she usually is... It was a mixture of her fondness for him and her realizing that, like, he is probably beating himself up about this way more than she could, lmfao.
I think a big thing that offset that frustration, too, was not just how happy and normal he made her feel - but how hopeful he made her feel, too. Her experiences back home meant that she was absolutely going to try her best, but she was basically used to things going wrong to the largest extent possible. It's not that nothing here went wrong, but the fact that they kept finding corrupted or other people who had killed made her feel a lot more secure as time went on, and she definitely tied that feeling to him. He's the one who she was the most open about her doubts with, which also meant that he was the most open about telling her that it was going to be okay and they'd find a solution. The more it kept coming true, the more she associated that sense of optimism and hopefulness to him. She definitely realized that was a front to some extent, because the more time went on, the more she realized that he had a lot of Issues. That wasn't really a deterrent, but it's worth noting because the more she noticed the problems he had with blaming himself for things, with his own sense of self worth, and the guilt he had over the things he'd done in the past, the more she wanted to help him move past that. That was at least a part of why she didn't want him to help her and North with Julius, even though the bigger thing there was that she knew North would not be down with it - but she also didn't want to put him in a situation that would cause him pain, even if she was fairly set on the idea that it had to be done by someone. So instead she just decided not to tell him until she absolutely had to which definitely made it betterrrrrr anyways!! That hopefulness kind of extended even into the endgame log, with her seeing her home safe and repaired, because it cemented even further that he was right, and that despite all the very awful things they went through... It turned out okay in the end, like he kept telling her that it would.
That being said!! He was definitely one of the people she was like "NO???" about the most when they found out the last man standing requirement. Like, he's obviously died multiple times before, but that doesn't really mean she was any less distraught about it!! While there were definitely extenuating circumstances on her telling him she loved him (she wasn't really expecting that to be her healing task, but he was one of two people she thought would feasibly say yes, and then she was like WELL NOW IT'S GOING TO BE REAL AWKWARD IF I DON'T RECIPROCATE), but it is definitely not inaccurate to say that by that point she honestly adored him and the thought of anything happening to him made her incredibly terrified. By the time their numbers kept lowering, though, she kind of resigned herself to the fact that it was going to happen, since she knew almost as soon as she found out about the requirement that Shess was the favorite. But as she got more resigned to it, she kept thinking about the memory she received of his death, and how lonely and in pain he was? Which is most of the reason she volunteered to do it herself, because she at least didn't want it to feel that way again for him this time around.
there's like 928374234 other things i could add but this is already long enough please let me rest now